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That's according to a government survey published last week, claiming that 42% of men and 44.2% of women -- almost half of Japan's millennial singles aged between 18 to 34 -- are virgins. While some prefer it that way, others would like their fortunes to change, with 85.7% of men and 89.3% of women harboring hopes of marriage in the future. The survey did not look at same-sex partners. Japan's lack of interest in sex is blamed on everything from a stagnant economy to Japanese manga fans favoring fantasy over reality. Changing social norms The latest government survey found that 42 % of men aged between 18 to 34 were still virgins. Japan has one of the world's lowest birthrates and is home to a severely aging population, with a recent survey finding 34.6 million Japanese aged over 65. But despite, the government's attempts to boost the number of marriages and children, this year's survey results from the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research, don't reveal a swerve in the right direction. Nancy Snow, a professor of public diplomacy from the Kyoto University of Foreign Studies, told CNN that changing social and economic norms contributed to the decrease in relationships between men and women. "Men are making about a third to half of what they used to make during Japan's economic boom years in the 1980s. Some men's sense of self is tied to their salary and they feel threatened by women who are empowering themselves," said Snow. She explained that the income decrease made men in Japan feel less confident in attracting Japan's increasingly successful class of women, who have become used to earning their own money and putting themselves first. "While men are going from a cradle to grave trajectory, there are a lot of professional women with disposable incomes, who think that marriage might not just be worth it," said Snow. 'Solving the virgin problem' Photos: Inspiring Japan's middle-aged virgins A nude sketching class in Tokyo aims to help Japan's middle-aged virgins by allowing them to spend time with a real female body. Hide Caption 1 of 6 Photos: Inspiring Japan's middle-aged virgins A Japanese government survey in 2010 found that one in four Japanese men in their thirties who've never been married are virgins. The figures were only slightly less for women. Hide Caption 2 of 6 Photos: Inspiring Japan's middle-aged virgins A flyer for the nude art class. Hide Caption 3 of 6 Photos: Inspiring Japan's middle-aged virgins The classes are offered bimonthly in Tokyo by the non-profit White Hands. Hide Caption 4 of 6 Photos: Inspiring Japan's middle-aged virgins White Hands offers a course and textbook on how to graduate from virginity. Hide Caption 5 of 6 Photos: Inspiring Japan's middle-aged virgins Sexual apathy is extremely troubling for Japan, which has the world's most rapidly aging population and is where citizens are not producing enough children to sustain a healthy economy in the coming years. Hide Caption 6 of 6 There are support groups for men who want to overcome their anxiety of approaching women. White Hands, a Tokyo-based non-profit offers regular nude art classes, where mostly middle-aged men sketch naked female models. The classes, complete with textbooks, also try to help people feel more comfortable with their sexuality. Class organizer Shingo Sakatsume, who calls himself a "sex helper," understands how growing interest in the fantasy world of anime is leading single men to choose entertainment over real love and sex. "By solving the virgin problem, I think we can solve many other problems related to sex," Sakatsume, told CNN in 2015. JUST WATCHED Japan's virtual high school Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Japan's virtual high school 02:43 Snow asserted that such nude art classes could potentially be more helpful if there were also women on hand to draw naked male models. "Here's an opportunity to bring men and women together -- they could have wine to break the ice and communicate more," said Snow. "To just make it men looking at a female model perpetuates the problem." Is 35 the new 25? Though the Japanese population is aging at a breakneck speed, Snow said that the latest survey only looked at young people as data sets and didn't take into account their specific stories or circumstances. "If you're living until you're 90, then putting off having a dating partner till your thirties until you've found yourself might seem rational -- there's a lot more self-exploration going on," said Snow. ||||| Talk about a shrinking population. A survey of Japanese people aged 18 to 34 found that almost 70 percent of unmarried men and 60 percent of unmarried women are not in a relationship. Moreover, many of them have never got close and cuddly. Around 42 percent of the men and 44.2 percent of the women admitted they were virgins. The government won’t be pleased that sexlessness is becoming as Japanese as sumo and sake. The administration of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has talked up boosting the birthrate through support for child care, but until the nation bones up on bedroom gymnastics there’ll be no medals to hand out. Far from getting together and getting it on, the sexes are growing apart. There are now many more virgins than in 2010, when the last study was conducted and when only 36.2 percent of men and 38.7 percent of women said they had never had sex. The study, released Thursday, was conducted by the National Institute of Population and Social Security Research. The institute has conducted the same survey every five years since 1987, when the proportion of unmarried men and women who said they had no partner stood at 48.6 percent and 39.5 percent, respectively. There was no accounting for the discrepancy between the genders, except perhaps for the age-old problem of men and women having different understandings of the word “commitment.” The surveys did not ask about same-sex partners. The institute said the increase in singles was particularly sharp for people in their late 20s, the age at which science tells us women are most fertile. Asked about their hopes for the future, there seemed to be recognition that families are what humans are destined for. Nearly 90 percent of the respondents said they want to get married “sometime in the future.” But 30 percent of the 2,706 men sampled and 26 percent of the 2,570 female respondents said they were not currently looking for a relationship. “They want to tie the knot eventually. But they tend to put it off as they have gaps between their ideals and the reality,” said Futoshi Ishii, head of the NIPSSR’s population dynamics research department. “That’s why people marry later or stay single for life, contributing to the nation’s low birthrate.” Boosting the birthrate is one of the coveted goals of the Abe administration, which has declared it will raise the fertility rate from the current 1.4 to 1.8 by 2025 or so. The government hopes to achieve this by making it easier for families to raise children, such as by increasing the places available at nursery schools. The survey suggests it may also have to find a way to play cupid. Meanwhile, the same study found that the number of children among couples who have been married for between 15 and 19 years averaged a record-low 1.94. But in a plus for female empowerment, it also showed the ratio of women who returned to work after having their first child exceeded 50 percent for the first time. The study, conducted in June last year, covered 8,754 single people and 6,598 married couples across the country. ||||| Around the world this Valentine’s Day, couples will be cracking open Champagne, exchanging gifts, and having a little evening “alone time.” But probably not in Japan: A new study has found that almost half of all Japanese couples have a sex-free marriage—which is wreaking havoc on population growth, the Guardian reported. The survey interviewed 3,000 people aged between 16 and 49, and received 1,200 responses, according to the Guardian. Nearly half—47.2 percent—of married men and women said they didn’t have sex in their marriages, which is an increase of 2.6 per cent after the last 2014 survey. The first survey in 2004 recorded that just 31.9 per cent of married couples were sex-free, which means that 15 per cent more couples don’t have sex just 13 years later. Japan has one of the world’s oldest populations: more than a quarter of people are over 65, and for the last six years, sales of adult diapers have outpaced the number of baby diapers sold in Japan. And not enough Japanese babies are being born: a Doomsday Clock has even been created that shows when Japan’s population will disappear. It’s considered to be such a big problem in Japan that even the government has intervened by hosting speed-dating events for women and fatherhood workshops where men play with dolls and learn how to care for a baby. Analysts have identified various reasons for the cultural shift. Working hours in Japan are tough, and employees are encouraged to put in long hours. Karoshi, or death by overwork, is not uncommon in Japan, leaving few time for home-pleasures. More than 30 per cent of male respondents said they were “too tired” to have sex. Japan is now trying to solve the issue by reducing the working week to a maximum of 60 hours, and companies have been encouraged to give their workers more time for family life after a recent suicide of a 24-year-old worker. Many in Japan have turned to substitutes for real relationships: Virtual manga boyfriends, for instance, are a popular choice for women. Ikemen , which means handsome man in Japanese, is one such game that has been downloaded 15 million times in five years. The game has a story, and a plotline, but according to one user in the Japan Times, you “start to have feelings for them.” The increase in sexlessness is not a recent problem. In a 2005 Guardian article, a Japanese psychologist gave one reason why marriages struggle so much in Japan: “ Many men think of their wives as substitute mothers, not as women with emotional and sexual needs." Keep up with this story and more by subscribing now In a society where 42 per cent of men and 44 per cent of women are virgins, it seems like there’s a long way to go until Japan’s population issues are resolved.

– While America might more typically worry about what its youth are doing, Japan spends a lot of time worrying about what they're not doing, and what they're not doing is having sex—at all, apparently. A new government survey suggests that the country's millennials are not only in no hurry to marry, but apparently aren't in any rush to do the deed. To wit, a whopping 44% of women and 42% of men, amounting to nearly half of the country's millennial singles ages 18 to 34, say they are still virgins, reports the Washington Post. But the percentage of these singles who say they hope to marry in the future is up close to 90%. "People marry later or stay single for life, contributing to the nation’s low birthrate," the head researcher tells the Japan Times. "They want to tie the knot eventually, but they tend to put it off as they have gaps between their ideals and the reality." With an aging generation of baby boomers weighing down what is already the world's oldest population, Japan has for years been trying to encourage its dwindling number of young people to marry and have children. But complicating this quandary, CNN reports that the apparent lack of interest in engaging in actual sex could result in part from the country's many manga fans choosing fantasy over reality. Plus more women are making more money and choosing to marry later or not at all, while many men report feeling intimidated by them. "They feel threatened by women who are empowering themselves," one expert says. (A quarter of young men and almost half of young women in Japan go so far as to say they despise sexual contact.)

Archaeologists have discovered the earliest settlement at Stonehenge - but the Mesolithic camp could be destroyed if government plans for a new tunnel go ahead. Charcoal dug up from the ‘Blick Mead’ encampment, a mile and a half from Stonehenge, dates from around 4,000BC. It is thought the site was originally occupied by hunter gatherers returning to Britain after the Ice Age, when the country was still connected to the continent. Experts say the discovery could re-write history in prehistoric Britain. There is also evidence of feasting - burnt flints and remains of giant bulls – aurochs – as well as flint tools. The dig has also unearthed evidence of possible structures, but the site could be destroyed if plans for a 1.8 mile tunnel go ahead. Earlier this month David Cameron, the prime minister, visited Stonehenge, in Amesbury, Wiltshire and announced plans to dual the A303 and build a new tunnel to take traffic away from the world heritage site. But archaeologists want more time to assess the importance of the site and record new findings. "The PM is interested in re-election in 140 days - we are interested in discovering how our ancestors lived six thousand years ago,” said archaeologist David Jacques, who made the discovery on a dig for the University of Buckingham. “British pre-History may have to be rewritten. This is the latest dated Mesolithic encampment ever found in the UK. A shard of bone found at the site “Blick Mead site connects the early hunter gatherer groups returning to Britain after the Ice Age to the Stonehenge area all the way through to the Neolithic in the late 5th Millennium BC. “Britain is beginning across this time period. Blick Mead connects a time when the country was still joined to the mainland to it becoming the British Isles for the first time.” The experts believe that the site could show the Stonehenge was built as a monument to the ancestors of Neolithic Britons. “Our only chance to find out about the earliest chapter of Britain’s history could be wrecked if the tunnel goes ahead,” added Mr Jacques. A previous dig at the site, led by the University of Buckingham, revealed Amesbury is the longest continually-occupied place in the country. They discovered that frogs’ legs from 7,000 years ago were a delicacy here long before the French took a liking to them. Archaeologists believe that early Britons were drawn to the site because of a natural spring. A The combination of a water of a constant temperature and a rare alga also produced the only colour-changing stones, which change from brown to pink, found at any archaeological site in the country. Professor Tim Darvill, of Bournemouth University has described this as “This is the most important discovery at Stonehenge in over 60 years.” Experts are calling on the government to rethink plans to build on the critically important landscape. Andy Rhind-Tutt, of Amesbury and chairman of the Amesbury Museum and Heritage Trust, added: “Traffic congestion to one of the country’s most visited attractions will not be solved by a tunnel with one exit lane – the current tailback can extend five miles and can take two hours to get through. “Any tunnel would need to be motorway standard, and even with four lanes there would still be tailbacks. “A much more practical solution would be to reroute the A303 supporting South Wiltshire as well as the West Country.” ||||| The earliest Mesolithic encampment at Stonehenge has been discovered and it will reveal how Britain’s oldest ancestors lived – but it could be damaged if Government plans for a tunnel at Stonehenge go ahead. A 1.8 mile tunnel is part of a £2bn plan to make the nearby A303 a dual carriageway. Charcoal dug up from the encampment, a mile and a half from Stonehenge, has been scientifically tested and reveals that it dates from around 4,000BC. The dig has also unearthed evidence of possible structures, but further investigation is needed to see in more detail what these features in the only untouched Mesolithic landscape in the Stonehenge World Heritage Site contain. There is also evidence of feasting – burnt flints and remains of giant bulls – aurochs – eaten by early hunter gatherers, as well as tools. A previous dig at the site, led by the University of Buckingham, revealed Amesbury is the longest continually-occupied place in the country and that burnt frogs’ legs from 7,000 years ago were a delicacy here long before the French took a liking to them. The highest density of Mesolithic burnt flints and tools anywhere in the UK was found in one small area at the site in a previous dig. A natural spring at Blick Mead would have been the attraction for both people and animals. The combination of a water of a constant temperature and a rare algae also produced the only colour-changing stones, which change from brown to pink, found at any archaeological site in the country. Archaeologist David Jacques, who made the discovery on a dig which launched the University of Buckingham’s MA in Archaeology in October, said: “The PM is interested in re-election in 140 days – we are interested in discovering how our ancestors lived six thousand years ago. British pre-History may have to be rewritten. This is the latest dated Mesolithic encampment ever found in the UK. Blick Mead site connects the early hunter gatherer groups returning to Britain after the Ice Age to the Stonehenge area all the way through to the Neolithic in the late 5th Millennium BC. Britain is beginning across this time period. Blick Mead connects a time when the country was still joined to the mainland to it becoming the British Isles for the first time. “Was Stonehenge built in part as a monument to the ancestors from the deepest part of Britain’s past? Blick Mead could explain what archaeologists have been searching for for centuries – an answer to the story of Stonehenge’s past. But our only chance to find out about the earliest chapter of Britain’s history could be wrecked if the tunnel goes ahead.” Professor Tim Darvill, of Bournemouth University has described this as “This is the most important discovery at Stonehenge in over 60 years.” Andy Rhind-Tutt, of Amesbury and chairman of the Amesbury Museum and Heritage Trust, added: “Traffic congestion to one of the country’s most visited attractions will not be solved by a tunnel with one exit lane – the current tailback can extend five miles and can take two hours to get through. Any tunnel would need to be motorway standard, and even with four lanes there would still be tailbacks. “Concerns have been raised about the water table. Due to the chalkland landscape the tunnel would effectively become a dam, which would change the water course, causing problems. Kilometers of chalk would have to be extracted. Air conditioning, water pumps, lighting and maintenance costs would be colossal. A much more practical solution would be to reroute the A303 supporting South Wiltshire as well as the West Country.” What we already know about how and when Stonehenge came to be built is examined in a new Stonehenge MOOC, launched today(Friday) and run by the University of Buckingham. For more details: https://iversity.org/en/courses/stonehenge University of Buckingham ||||| Mesolithic encampment at Blick Mead offers chance to find out about earliest chapter of Britain’s history, say archaeologists Experts have hit out at plans for a road tunnel under Stonehenge, warning it could damage the oldest encampment discovered near the stones. Charcoal dug up from the Mesolithic encampment at Blick Mead in the world heritage site, around one and a half miles from the stones, has been tested and dated to around 4,000 BC, archaeologists said. A dig by the University of Buckingham has also unearthed evidence of possible structures, but more investigation is needed to see what the site contains. There is also evidence of feasting, including flints and giant bulls known as aurochs, the experts said. They warn that the chance to find out about the earliest chapter of Britain’s history could be damaged by the plans for the 1.8-mile tunnel as part of efforts to relieve the A303 bottleneck at Stonehenge. The £2bn scheme would see the road put into a dual carriageway tunnel past Stonehenge, reducing congestion and improving the setting of the stones - giving the public greater access to the wider prehistoric landscape and benefiting wildlife, supporters say. But archaeologist David Jaques, who made the discovery of the encampment, said: “The prime minister is interested in re-election in 140 days – we are interested in discovering how our ancestors lived six thousand years ago.” He added: “Blick Mead could explain what archaeologists have been searching for for centuries – an answer to the story of Stonehenge’s past. “But our chance to find out about the earliest chapter of Britain’s history could be wrecked if the tunnel goes ahead.”

– Researchers are exploring a settlement near Stonehenge dating to about 4000 BC, making it the area's oldest, the Telegraph reports. The Blick Mead encampment, as it's known, is from the Mesolithic period and was likely home to hunter-gatherers who headed to the spot before Britain became an island. It's the "latest dated Mesolithic encampment ever found in the UK," says archaeologist David Jacques, and findings, including apparent structures and evidence of feasting, mean that "British pre-history may have to be rewritten." Another expert calls the encampment Stonehenge's greatest revelation in 60 years. "Was Stonehenge built in part as a monument to the ancestors from the deepest part of Britain’s past?" Jacques wonders, per Heritage Daily. "Blick Mead could explain what archaeologists have been searching for for centuries": the real story behind the site. But the encampment is already in trouble—from plans for a highway that's actually intended to make Stonehenge a nicer place to visit. A nearly two-mile tunnel aims to reduce a traffic bottleneck in the area, the Guardian reports. But it could also obscure history. Prime minister David Cameron, who announced the plans, "is interested in re-election in 140 days; we are interested in discovering how our ancestors lived 6,000 years ago," says Jacques. The site "connects the early hunter-gatherer groups returning to Britain after the Ice Age to the Stonehenge area all the way through to the Neolithic in the late fifth millennium BC," he notes, and "our only chance to find out about the earliest chapter of Britain’s history could be wrecked if the tunnel goes ahead." Recent reports also pointed to a "super henge" underneath the stones.

STONE MOUNTAIN, Ga. (MEREDITH/CBS46) -- Georgia middle school students screamed in science class as a teacher and a staff member got into a fist fight right in front of their desks. “Everyone was screaming like stop, stop, stop,” A student said. The brawl happened on May 19 at Stone Mountain Middle School, which is northeast of downtown Atlanta. A student recorded most of the fight on her cell phone. The women are throwing punches and pulling hair, and another adult had to get in the middle to break it up. “From what I think I know the teachers were arguing about a teacher, a male teacher, and they started arguing and it went on for about three to five minutes,” A student said. CBS46 asked if any of the students were concerned for their safety. “I would say about two students who were really close to them. One of them was pushed up against the wall because they were so close to hitting her,” A student said. Julia Berry's daughter was inside the classroom and watched the fight unfold. Berry wants these women fired, saying that they set a horrible example for students. After the fight was finally broken up, students say school officials came into the classroom, went through their cell phones and made them delete any evidence of it. “Nobody apologized they just came in and were like who videotaped this and stuff like that,” A student said. “I think they were trying to push it under the rug so nobody would know about it and the school’s reputation wouldn’t be messed up." The DeKalb County School District says it's not aware of staff going through the student's phones. The communications director did say he would send CBS46 a statement, but only after we sent him a copy of the video so he could review it. The statement says, in part, for those involved in the fight, "Those staff members that participated in the conduct have been removed from the learning environment. Following our process, DCSD will act swiftly and decisively to hold those employees accountable for their actions." The school district confirmed that the two employees involved in the incident had been disciplined, but would give details. After CBS46 kept pressing the school for answers, Berry says Stone Mountain Middle School sent out a letter saying, "Safety and security procedures are in place to help maintain a safe campus. Anyone who creates an unsafe learning environment for our students receive swift disciplinary actions." “I couldn’t believe it because they’re supposed to be role models, they’re supposed to set an example for us and they always tell us violence is never the answer,” A student said. CBS46 contacted the chairman of the DeKalb County School Board Melvin Johnson for a statement and he did not respond. We also reached out to the Organization of DeKalb Educators who represent thousands of school system employees and they did not want to comment. Copyright 2017 WGCL-TV (Meredith Corporation). All rights reserved. Read more: http://www.cbs46.com/story/35492172/fight-between-teacher-staff-member-caught-on-video#ixzz4hwgeHeBD ||||| STONE MOUNTAIN, Ga. -- A middle school is under fire for its reaction to a violent brawl between a teacher and a staff member inside a classroom that was caught on video by a student. CBS affiliate WGCL-TV reports the fight broke out on May 19 at Stone Mountain Middle School, northeast of downtown Atlanta. WGCL obtained video of the dramatic incident, which shows two women punching each other and pulling each other's hair while students scream for them to stop. WGCL reports one woman is a teacher and the other is a teaching assistant. "From what I think I know the teachers were arguing about a teacher, a male teacher, and they started arguing and it went on for about three to five minutes," one student told WGCL. Close WGCL-TV The fight was eventually broken up by another adult. Students told WGCL that officials came into the classroom after the incident and forced them to delete any evidence of the brawl on their cell phones. "Nobody apologized. They just came in and were like, 'Who videotaped this?' and stuff like that," one student said. "I think they were trying to push it under the rug so nobody would know about it and the school's reputation wouldn't be messed up." The DeKalb County School District (DCSD) told WGCL it was not aware of school officials examining students' phones. After WGCL sent the video to DCSD's communications director, the district issued a statement saying the staff members involved in the fight would be disciplined. "Those staff members that participated in the conduct have been removed from the learning environment," the statement read. "Following our process, DCSD will act swiftly and decisively to hold those employees accountable for their actions." Dr. Vincent Hinton, principal of Stone Mountain Middle School, eventually sent a letter home to parents about the confrontation. "Safety and security procedures are in place to help maintain a safe campus," Hinton wrote. "Anyone who creates an unsafe learning environment for our students receive swift disciplinary actions." Julia Berry, whose daughter was in the classroom at the time of the fight, told WGCL she wants the teacher and the assistant fired. Berry said failure to fire those responsible would send a message that "it's OK to fight if you can't deal with a problem. This is how you deal with it -- you punch the teacher in the face."

– A brawl broke out in a middle school classroom in Georgia last week—not between students, but between a teacher and a staff member. Students say the two women were arguing about a male teacher for a few minutes before things got physical. "Everyone was screaming like stop, stop, stop," one Stone Mountain Middle School student tells CBS 46, which obtained video of the fight from a student's cell phone; the women—one of whom was reportedly a teacher's assistant, per CBS News—are seen punching and pulling hair. Parents are now speaking out about the May 19 incident, calling for the employees to be fired and criticizing the school for how it handled the aftermath. Students say another adult ultimately broke up the fight, and then school officials entered the classrooms and went through students' cell phones, forcing them to delete any recordings of the fight. "Nobody apologized," one student says. "I think they were trying to push it under the rug so nobody would know about it." Parents say no letter was sent home about the incident until CBS 46 started questioning the school district. The district says it isn't aware of staff going through student phones and that the employees involved "have been removed from the learning environment." The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that they have also been charged with disorderly conduct.

ONTARIO (KTLA) -- A college student who overstepped a safety railing fell into Niagara Falls over the weekend and searchers looking for her body on Monday found an unidentified male body instead.The 19-year-old international student from Japan was presumed drowned after she plunged into the fast-flowing waters near the brink of Horseshoe Falls on the Canadian side of the falls at about 8:30 p.m. on Sunday, according to Canadian park police.She had climbed over a railing and straddled it while enjoying the view with a friend, police said."The young woman stood up in what appeared to be an attempt to climb back over when she lost her balance and fell," reads a statement from Canadian park police.The incident was reportedly captured on surveillance video.No foul play is suspected in the incident, police said.Officials say the swift current swept her over the falls.The woman's identity was withheld pending notification of her family in Japan.With a helicopter hovering above, an international search party scoured Niagara Falls Gorge for her body. On Monday, she remained missing but searchers instead spotted an unidentified male body at the base of the falls in an area known as the whirlpool, police said.Authorities were working with the coroner's office to identify the body, which was not thought to be connected to Sunday's accident. ||||| Donna Radlicz keeps both hands on son Vincent, 3, as he peers over Niagara Falls Monday afternoon. Radlicz and her husband Mike and well as their other sons Zach, 12, Max, 9 and Alexander, 9, are visiting from Chicago. A 19-year-old international student is presumed dead after being swept over Niagara Falls Sunday evening. Niagara Falls 2.jpg Galit Rodan/TORONTO STAR Donna Radlicz keeps both hands on son Vincent, 3, as he peers over Niagara Falls Monday afternoon. Radlicz and her husband Mike and well as their other sons Zach, 12, Max, 9 and Alexander, 9, are visiting from Chicago. A 19-year-old international student is presumed dead after being swept over Niagara Falls Sunday evening. Jayme Poisson Staff Reporter NIAGARA FALLS—Michael Conner saw her just before she fell. Dressed in a bright red hoodie and wearing big sunglasses, the woman was talking and taking pictures with a friend. She had climbed up on one of several rock posts, straddling the metal railing that ran between them. Below, water rushed over the brink of Horseshoe Falls. In that fleeting moment, Conner thought about telling the woman to climb down. The Maryland teen, who’s been coming to Niagara Falls with his family since he was a toddler, had told people to get off the railing before. But this time, he didn’t. He was with his little brother. The girls seemed to speak no English. And so, he kept walking. “I knew I should have said something when I saw her over there doing the same thing,” Conner, 19, said late Monday afternoon, pointing to one of several rock posts. “It’s just a tragedy.” A 19-year-old international student who was attending school in Toronto is still missing and presumed dead after being swept over the falls on Sunday evening. On Monday, police said they were working with the Japanese consulate to notify her family. No names have been released. Police said surveillance footage from the nearby visitors centre showed a woman straddling the safety rail while looking out over the falls. The woman, holding an umbrella, was apparently having her picture taken, said Niagara Parks Police Chief Doug Kane. When she stood up, seemingly to climb back over the rail, she slipped, falling about 25 metres into the current below. Conner said he realized something was wrong when he heard sirens and saw a group of people peering into the water. The girl’s shell-shocked friend, who had called 911, ran from the visitors centre with a police officer. Within about 20 minutes, he said, rescue crews were searching the lower Niagara River with flashlights. Five police and fire departments on both sides of the border spent Sunday evening and Monday morning looking. Later Monday, police said they were scaling back their search. The incident, which took place during the height of tourist season, was one of three over the course of about 24 hours that reminded visitors how dangerous the falls can be. During the search Monday, the remains of an unidentified male were found in the lower Niagara River. And early Sunday morning, a 27-year-old London, Ont., man climbed over the safety wall just north of the Rainbow Bridge and fell into the Niagara River gorge, fracturing his leg. The injured man and a friend who went in after him were pulled out by the fire department. Kane said climbing over the wall is prohibited by the Niagara Parks Act. “Millions of visitors have viewed the scenic Niagara Falls and the Niagara River gorge while respecting the safety wall without incident,” he said, adding charges under the act are pending in the incident. Along the falls Monday, thousands of visitors snapped photos from a safe distance. Many climbed up on the stone base of the 1.2 metre high barrier and a few perched on the rock posts with their backs to the falls. Officers on bicycles patrolled the walkway. Danger signs are placed intermittently along the railing. Many visitors, like Pamela Aqui, 55, from Mississauga, expressed shock that such a terrible thing could happen at such a beautiful natural wonder. “That’s all we thought about when we were coming here,” she said. Questions of whether the barrier and signage were adequate drifted into a conversation about balancing the need for safety with allowing visitors an unobstructed view. “No matter what structure we put up people will still try to get over it,” said Kane, who believes the barrier is adequate. Ron Miller, 46, from Harrisburg, Pa., echoed the sentiment. “Do you put cars on rails because people die in car accidents?” he asked. Alf Kozak, 57, of Toronto said there should be a double row of fence where there are no natural rock ledges. Kinjal Merai, 22, visiting from the U.S., said the wall should simply be higher, so people can’t climb it. Conner spent Monday telling people sitting or leaning over the railing to think twice. They obliged once he explained a person had fallen over. “People are just not thinking about it,” he said of the risks. “They’re having a good time, not a care in the world.” With files from Zoe McKnight and Amanda Kwan Deadly Niagara Falls • Since 1903, only seven deaths involving people going over the Falls have been determined to be accidents. The only person to ever survive an accidental plunge was Roger Woodward, in 1960. • 16 people have gone over the Falls as daredevils. Eleven of them survived. Most years, between 20 and 25 cases of suicide happen at the Falls. • The Falls’ height is 57 metres on the Canadian side and 34 metres on the American side. • The water speed at the Falls is estimated at 40 km/h. • 168,000 cubic metres (6 million cubic feet) of water go over the crestline of the falls every minute. Sources: Niagara Falls Reporter and Niagara Parks

– An odd footnote to the sad tale of the 19-year-old student swept over Niagara Falls on Sunday. An international search team dispatched in a helicopter to look for her body in Niagara Falls Gorge instead turned up the body of an unknown male. Authorities are working to identify him, reports KTLA. Meanwhile, more details are emerging about the tragic weekend incident: The woman, presumed drowned, was an international student from Japan. The Toronto Star talks to a witness who saw her posing on the railing for a photo moments before she fell, wearing a bright red sweatshirt and holding an umbrella. The paper notes that earlier the same day, a 27-year-old man scaled a safety wall and tumbled into Niagara River Gorge; he and a friend who went in to save him were rescued, though the man fractured his leg.

Please enable Javascript to watch this video PAYSON, Utah - A mother unexpectedly gave birth in Walmart while shopping with her family Sunday morning. “In about 15 minutes we went from having a little bit of stomach problem to delivering a baby,” said Dustin Haight, store manager at Payson Walmart. Employees at Walmart say register 11 will never be the same. “I think we’ve renamed it register baby - so whenever we call for help on register 11 it will be now register baby,” Haight said. Employees say a woman was shopping with her husband and family on Sunday morning, when she told a manager she wasn't feeling well. She went to register 11 to pay for her items while that manager called 911 and told the woman not to worry about paying. They could tell she was in labor. “The funny thing is that the customer was down on her knees and she insisted on paying for her merchandise and we’re like you know that’s just not important. You know, we were going to take care of her on it,” Haight said. “…Literally right after she paid for her merchandise, they rolled her over and she began to give birth,” Haight said. Walmart employees and customers helped. They grabbed towels and blankets. Some also held up sheets as the woman delivered a baby boy. “By the time the EMTs got here she had paid for her merchandise and had a baby,” Haight said. One of the responding EMTs said he’s never seen anything like it. After 20 years of working in the field, Terry Reilly, assistant chief with Payson Fire Rescue, said he’s never seen a baby born in such a public place. “She was very calm she did very well -- it was her third child so she had experienced childbirth before so I don’t think she was as nervous about it other than it was at Walmart,” Reilly said. He added everyone at the store did a good job. Mom and baby were taken to the hospital in good condition. “We’re happy for mom and for baby and the whole family… I’m sure they’ll have quite the story to tell someday,” Reilly said. Walmart has been in contact with the mother and they say they’re happy to report mom and baby are doing well. “So we’re gonna buy her a whole bunch of goods like diapers and formula, that type stuff when the mother comes in so, and this time we won’t make her pay,” Haight said. ||||| The woman on the surveillance video arrived at the Tucson International Airport as an expectant mother — and walked out without her newborn baby. This week, the Tucson Airport Authority released new information about a Jan. 14 incident, including a video, revealing chilling new details about a woman who authorities say abandoned a newborn in an airport bathroom around 9 p.m. A rental call employee found the boy and a note. “I just want what is best for him and it is not me. Please. Im sorry,” the note read. The baby was found with a torn umbilical cord and responding medics clamped it to prevent any harm, an airport police report said. Juana Quintana, a custodian, told police she encountered the woman and asked if she was okay after seeing pools of blood on a bathroom floor. The baby was naked with its eyes closed, Quintana said, but the woman said the baby was three months old and left in a hurried manner. Quintana said she found bloody clothes in the trash can with paper towels on top in an apparent effort to conceal them. The baby appeared healthy otherwise and was transported to a nearby hospital, airport spokeswoman Jessie Butler said in summary provided to The Washington Post. The baby is now in the custody of the Arizona Department of Child Safety, she said. The airport authority also released photos of the scene and the handwritten letter found with the child. “Please help me. My mom had no idea she was pregnant. She is unable and unfit to take care of me. Please get me to the authorities so they can find a good home,” the message said, scrawled on notebook paper in the voice of the newborn. A handwritten letter found at the scene. (Tucson Airport Authority) The note then switches to what appears to be a plea and apology from the mother. The woman may have acted under assumption she was protected by regulations designed for new mothers to leave newborns with authorities without penalty. The law, known as the safe-haven law or Baby Moses law, allows newborns to be left at designated areas like hospitals and firehouses to prevent the deadly practice of stranding unwanted babies. It applies in all 50 states, Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C., though states have differing regulations. In 1999, Texas became the first state to pass a safe-haven law following reports of 13 abandoned babies in the Houston area in the first 10 months of the year, which prompted public outcry and legislative action, according to a Nevada state government review of the legal framework. The concept has roots in a similar series of abandoned babies in Alabama in 1998. But the airports are not among facilities commonly designated as safe havens. Criminal charges have yet to be determined, the Arizona Daily Star reported, and the woman remains unidentified. “We would like to know who she is but we’ve exhausted our resources,” Butler told the paper. In a summary of the incident, Butler said the airport police are not actively looking for the woman but will pursue any leads they receive. In Arizona, babies must be under 72 hours old and unharmed to be legally abandoned, and has led to 40 rescues in the state and more than 3,300 nationwide, the Arizona Safe Baby Haven Foundation says. The group lists six hospitals in the state where “drawers” are used to discreetly leave babies behind, though none of them are in Tucson. At one of the hospitals, Banner Thunderbird Medical Center in Glendale, a drawer is connected to an internal alarm that alerts hospital staff of a dropped baby, according to a 2014 story by Raising Arizona Kids magazine. “We hear stories where a baby is abandoned, or a mother who has had a baby doesn’t know what to do, doesn’t know who to turn to. There are a lot of different things that are probably going through a mother’s mind. There is a lot of fear,” said Kimberly Marshall, a nurse practitioner and co-founder of the Arizona Safe Baby Haven Foundation. Read more: ‘He’s a hero’: 11-year-old boy dies after trying to save a friend trapped in an icy pond A Marine veteran tried to confront a tailgating driver and was shot in the head, officials say

– Paper, plastic, or diaper bag? A woman shopping Sunday morning at a Walmart in Payson, Utah, surprised workers and customers when she approached Register 11, dropped to her knees, clutched her stomach, and … pulled out her wallet. She was in labor, ABC News reports, but she insisted on paying for her items first before she took care of her next transaction: having the baby right there in the store. "We weren't really interested in taking her money at [that] point, but she insisted," says Walmart manager Dustin Haight, who KSTU notes called 911 and implored her not to worry about the tab. "It wasn't like she was like, 'OK, let's get this baby out and [then] I'll pay.' She paid and then had the baby." As soon as the woman, identified as Cecelia Rivas by the Daily Herald, had paid up, employees and customers sprang into action, with some hunting down towels and blankets while others held sheets up to give her privacy. "By the time the EMTs got here, she had … a baby [boy]," Haight tells KSTU. "She was very calm," an assistant chief from the local fire department adds. "It was her third child … so I don't think she was as nervous about it other than it was at Walmart." Rivas admits she actually was "really scared," though she tells the Herald as soon as she saw her new son, "I was so happy." A spokesman for the hospital where Rivas and baby Matias were taken says they're both "doing well," per ABC. And Haight is counting on a new repeat customer. "Hopefully we'll be part of his life forever," he tells ABC. (A text-messaging conversation about this Walmart shopping trip went viral.)

MIAMI -- Authorities searched in the Bahamas for a U.S. citizen who went overboard from a cruise ship before dawn Wednesday. The U.S. Coast Guard said the 32-year-old woman reportedly fell from the 11th deck of the Carnival Ecstasy around 2:30 a.m. as the ship passed near the island of Grand Bahama. Carnival Cruise Line reported that she apparently jumped overboard. The Coast Guard identified the woman as Rina Patel of Interlaken, New York. The agency said she was reportedly “wearing a white dress with pink floral.” A statement from the cruise company said emergency procedures were initiated immediately and the crew began to search for the woman. The Coast Guard dispatched aircraft and two ships to an area about 27 miles southwest of Freeport on Grand Bahama to look for her. The cruise ship had left Nassau, Bahamas, and was en route to Charleston, South Carolina, at the time. The cruise line said the Coast Guard released the ship to resume traveling to Charleston at 9 a.m. “The company’s CareTeam is providing assistance and support to the missing guest’s family on board and our thoughts and prayers are with her and family and loved ones during this difficult time,” the statement said. ||||| MIAMI - The Coast Guard is searching for a woman who reportedly went overboard Wednesday from the Carnival Ecstasy cruise ship approximately 27 miles southwest of Freeport, Bahamas. Missing is Rina Patel, 32, from Interlaken, New York. Watchstanders with the 7th Coast Guard District command center received notification from the Carnival Ecstasy crew that a 32-year-old woman was reportedly seen going overboard at approximately 2:30 a.m. Wednesday from the 11th deck wearing a white dress with pink floral. A Coast Guard Air Station Miami MH-65 Dolphin helicopter crew, an Air Station Miami HC-144 Ocean Sentry airplane crew and the Coast Guard Cutter Gannet crew are assisting in the search. The Carnival Ecstasy's last port of call was in Nassau, Bahamas on Tuesday. Their next port of call is scheduled to be in Charleston, South Carolina on Thursday. For breaking news follow us on Twitter @USCGSoutheast

– A 32-year-old woman "was witnessed jumping overboard" from the 11th deck of a Carnival cruise ship before dawn Wednesday, the cruise line says in a statement to CBS News. The Ecstasy was about 15 miles off the coast of the island of Grand Bahama at the time, and the US Coast Guard is now searching for the passenger in the Bahamas. The ship had left the Bahamas on its way to Charleston, South Carolina, when the woman jumped around 2:30am, and the Coast Guard allowed it to continue heading to Charleston at 9am. No other details about the woman were released, but she apparently has family aboard the ship.

Voters in Greece sent tremors across the eurozone on Sunday by recording a massive protest vote against EU-dictated austerity. Parties that had participated in an emergency government tasked with passing deeply unpopular belt-tightening measures in return for rescue loans to prop up the near-bankrupt Greek economy were routed at the ballot box. Instead, with the recession-hit country lurching deeper into poverty and despair, voters backed groups on the left and right that had virulently opposed the deficit-reduction policies demanded by international creditors. "This is a message of change, a message to Europe that a peaceful revolution has begun," said Alexis Tsipras, who heads Syriza, a coalition of radical left and green groups that took 16.6% of the vote – the second largest share. "German chancellor Angela Merkel has to know that the politics of austerity have suffered a humiliating defeat." The reaction from Brussels and the Washington-based International Monetary Fund, which have provided bailouts worth €240bn, was silence. With no single party winning enough support to form a government, a period of uncertainty lies ahead as political leaders attempt to form a coalition. Analysts did not rule out fresh elections in June if a new administration cannot be formed. The spectre of political unrest and market turmoil prompted many to ask why the elections had taken place at all. Voters went out of their way to "punish" mainstream parties widely blamed for years of fiscal mismanagement. "How can we vote for parties to be part of the solution when they got us in this mess in the first place?" asked Poppi Stathera, a mother of two, who said she had been out of work for the past year. "We've been completely destroyed. Our country is in ruins." Economic freefall and social disintegration also prompted Greeks to vote for the far right Chrysi Avgi (Golden Dawn), which campaigned on an anti-immigration ticket. The ultra-nationalists, who poured into the streets holding blazing torches, captured 7% of the vote – enough to place 19 deputies in the 300-seat house for the first time since the collapse of military rule in 1974. The conservative New Democracy party came in first but with 18.9% of the vote, according to figures released by Greece's interior ministry. Pasok, the socialist party led by Evangelos Venizelos, the former finance minister who had been the architect of many of the unpopular policies, won 13.4%, compared to 40% in the last national poll, in 2009. "Support for the two main parties literally nosedived in the provinces," said Dimitris Keridis, professor of political science at Athens' Panteion University. "We are talking about a complete collapse of the party system as we have known it, which opens up new concerns about Greece's ability to govern itself." In a sign of the political tumult that lies ahead, Antonis Samaras, New Democracy's leader, said he would seek to create a "government of national salvation" that would attempt to amend the loan agreement Greece had signed with its "troika" of creditors, the EU, European Central Bank and IMF. "We are ready to assume the responsibility of forming a government of national salvation with two goals," he said, "keeping [Greece] in the euro and amending the policies of the memorandum [outlining the terms of the country's rescue loans] so that there can be development and relief for society." Appealing to pro-European forces to consider his offer, he added: "I understand people's rage but our party cannot allow Greece to remain ungoverned." If the conservatives are unable to forge consensus, it will fall to Tsipras, as leader of the second biggest party, to try to do so. The leftist leader said he would act on his pre-election pledge to form a government of "the united left", citing his party's spectacular rise in the polls as proof that Greeks wanted such an administration to steer them out of the crisis. "With their vote the Greek people have given the mandate for a new day in our country without the cruel bailout measures," he said. "The loan agreement that was signed without their consent has been de-legitimised by popular vote." But the spectre of political unrest and market turmoil prompted many to question the snap poll. Athens has been told in no uncertain terms that failure to uphold the conditions of the financial rescue programs will result in a freezing of funds and default. "It was a grave mistake to hold this election in such an atmosphere and time of crisis and before the economy was stabilized," said Keridis. "This result couldn't come at a worse time for Greece." ||||| 1 of 9. Head of Greece's Left Coalition party Alexis Tsipras addresses reporters during a news conference in Athens May 6, 2012. (Reuters) - Greece sank deeper into crisis on Tuesday when the Leftist candidate for prime minister set conditions for a new coalition which the biggest party said would destroy the country. Antonis Samaras, leader of the conservative New Democracy party which finished first in Sunday's election, said Leftist Alexis Tsipras would drive Greece out of the euro with his demand that pledges made in exchange for an EU/IMF bailout be torn up. "Mr. Tsipras asked me to put my signature to the destruction of Greece. I will not do this," Samaras said. Tsipras, Greece's youngest leader at the head of the Left Coalition party, received a mandate to try and form a government from the president on Tuesday and immediately renounced the bailout and threatened to nationalize banks. Left Coalition took second place in the election in which voters abandoned New Democracy and the formerly dominant socialist PASOK party in droves, incensed by their acceptance of harsh austerity measures in exchange for a bailout that is saving Greece from bankruptcy. Samaras said he could support a minority government but not under Tsipras's conditions, indicating the leftwing leader had very little chance of forming an administration, and making repeat elections in a few weeks increasingly likely. CHANCES OF GOVERNMENT FADE PASOK leader Evangelos Venizelos, who negotiated the 130 billion euro bailout, is equally unlikely to renege on it. He called on Tuesday for a pro-Europe unity government. Venizelos said he would set only one condition for joining a coalition: "That Greece stays in the euro and in Europe. We want things to get better not worse for Greeks." Tsipras's told reporters: "The popular verdict clearly renders the bailout deal invalid." His statement was likely to further unsettle jittery investors worried that Greece will again destabilize the euro zone, as it first did in 2009 when the debt crisis began. A coalition alliance with PASOK and New Democracy had looked like the only way Tsipras could form a government, but his opening broadside seemed to rule that out. If he fails, Venizelos will get his turn. If he cannot form a government, President Karolos Papoulias will call the parties together to make one last attempt at a unity government before calling fresh elections in around three weeks. While the negotiations continue, outgoing technocrat Prime Minister Lucas Papademos is running the country. But when elections are called, Papoulias will appoint a short-term caretaker administration. Tsipras got the chance to form the first leftist government in Greece's modern history after New Democracy gave up the task as impossible after only a few hours on Monday. The uncertainty after Sunday's poll has caused widespread fear about the future. "I'm confused. I feel numb and confused. Only God can save us now," said Panagiota Makri, 80, crossing herself and launching into a long prayer on an Athens street. "The country is heading at high speed towards catastrophe," the Kathimerini daily said in an editorial. On paper, Tsipras simply does not have the numbers, with only 71 seats in the 300 seat parliament available to any potential leftwing alliance. The Communists have already refused to join. The only option with a slight chance of success would see PASOK join a coalition with Tsipras. If New Democracy stayed out of parliament for a confidence vote, rather than opposing it, Tsipras might win a majority. His opening salvo seems to have rendered these calculations academic. And even if such a government was formed, analysts say, it would be very fragile and last only a few months. EU officials have rejected any compromise on the terms of the bailout and without it, Greece would run out of money by the end of June, officials estimate. European Central Bank board member Joerg Asmussen became the latest European official to say the bailout could not be renegotiated and there were no alternatives if Greece wanted to stay in the euro zone. A senior official in Papademos's outgoing government said few of Tsipras's inexperienced aides seemed to understand that money would dry up to pay government salaries and pensions if the EU and IMF stopped the bailout. Like many other senior politicians, the official blamed Samaras for underestimating the huge anger of the population over economic hardship, mismanagement and corruption and insisting on calling Sunday's vote instead of allowing Papademos to continue. "HEADS IN SAND" Theodore Couloumbis, political analyst for Athens-based think-tank ELIAMEP said many Greeks were in denial about the risk of being pushed out of the euro. They thought "all we have to do is tell them we'll jump from the 10th floor and they will have a safety net for us. I say 'Beware, you may hit the ground and fall in many pieces'," he said. Chris Williamson, chief economist at London-based research firm Markit said the election had moved Greece deeper into crisis and uncertainty after the election. "There was some hope that the lack of conclusion would galvanize parties in reorganizing and shaking things up but this isn't happening which is disappointing," he said. "There's an element of sticking heads in sand and more thought needs to go into where Greece is going and its ability to deal with deficit," Williamson said. Out on the streets, Greeks already depressed by the economic crisis expressed apprehension about what would happen next. "I'm afraid about what will happen now. I'm afraid because I'm not sure parties will cooperate, they are so divided," said Vaia, 30, who works for a clothing shop.

– A long period of instability looms for Greece after voters furious about tough austerity measures gave the two governing parties a hammering at the polls and boosted extremists at both ends of the political spectrum. The Coalition of the Radical Left, which opposes the terms of Greece's bailout, surged to second place with around 17% of the vote while the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party, which ran on an anti-immigration platform, is poised to enter Parliament for the first time after taking around 7% of the vote, reports the BBC. New Democracy and Pasok, the center-right and center-left parties that had governed in a coalition since last November, saw their support collapse. New Democracy took 19%, down from 33.5% in 2009, and its leader says he aims to form a "government of national salvation." The parties have three days to form a governing coalition but analysts say that Parliament is now so fragmented that a deal may be impossible and new elections will be required. "We are talking about a complete collapse of the party system as we have known it, which opens up new concerns about Greece's ability to govern itself," a professor of political science in Athens tells the Guardian.

Hustler publisher Larry Flynt took out a full-page ad in Sunday's Washington Post. (Katy Winn/Associated Press) Larry Flynt’s ad in the Sunday edition of The Washington Post is hard to miss. For one, it takes up a full page. And there are no pictures — just bold, all-caps text dominating the top third of the page: “$10 MILLION FOR INFORMATION LEADING TO THE IMPEACHMENT AND REMOVAL FROM OFFICE OF DONALD J. TRUMP.” Flynt, best known as the publisher of the pornographic magazine Hustler, outlined numerous reasons he felt President Trump needed to be removed from office, charging him with everything from “compromising domestic and foreign policy with his massive conflicts-of-interest global business empire” to “telling hundreds of bald-faced lies” to “gross nepotism and appointment of unqualified persons to high office.” That was why, Flynt wrote, he was seeking information from anyone who could provide a “smoking gun” — perhaps buried in Trump's tax returns or in some other investment records — that would lead to his impeachment. “Did he make some financial quid pro quo with the Russians?” the ad states. “Has the business of the United States been compromised to protect the business of the Trump empire? We need to flush everything out into the open.” An advertisement Larry Flynt placed in the Sunday October 15, 2017 edition of The Washington Post. (click to enlarge) At the end of the ad, there is a toll-free number and an email address, along with a reassurance that Flynt fully intends to pay the full sum of $10 million for good information. “Impeachment would be a messy, contentious affair, but the alternative — three more years of destabilizing dysfunction — is worse,” Flynt wrote. “ . . . I feel it is my patriotic duty, and the duty of all Americans, to dump Trump before it’s too late.” Kris Coratti, a spokeswoman for The Post, declined to say how much a full-page ad costs or how far in advance one would have to notify the newspaper to run such an ad in a Sunday edition. “We give advertisers wide latitude to have their say,” Coratti said. “Generally, if the ads are not illegal or advocating illegal actions, we try not to place limits on speech or content.” On Saturday afternoon during a call to the hotline listed in the ad a man told The Post the number would be staffed on weekdays, between 8:30 a.m. and 6 p.m. PT, for the next two weeks. The man declined to give his name but said he was not Flynt. In a subsequent phone interview, Flynt told The Post that he expected to get information “within a few days” and said he would release any legitimate information right away. He also defended offering a cash reward for information. “Just because you pay for it does not mean it’s not any good,” Flynt said. “I don’t think you can live as recklessly as Trump has for 30 years and not leave some baggage along the way . . . I can't think of something more patriotic to do than to try to get to get this moron out of office.” It’s not the first time Flynt, who endorsed Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in last year’s presidential race, has offered a monetary reward with the aim of taking down a politician. In 2007, he offered $1 million, also through a full-page ad in The Post, seeking evidence from anyone who had had an illicit sexual encounter with a member of Congress or other government official. He had done the same in 1998, and the information that emerged reportedly influenced the resignation of Republican Congressman Bob Livingston, who was in line to be speaker of the House. In 2012, Flynt again dangled a $1 million reward in public, this time for then-Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s tax returns. Read more: Five reasons the GOP won’t dump Trump I’m one of the Central Park Five. Donald Trump won’t leave me alone. Angered by gun control, this lawmaker drafted a bill to require licenses for journalists Score one for Kellyanne Conway. The New York Times plans to toughen its Twitter policy.

– Pornography publisher Larry Flynt has apparently had it with the current administration and is offering "up to $10 million" to anyone who produces information that leads to President Trump's impeachment and removal from office, reports the AP. He lays out the offer in a full-page ad in the Sunday edition of the Washington Post. During last year's presidential campaign, Flynt dangled $1 million to anyone who could turn over video or audio capturing Trump behaving in an illegal or sexually demeaning manner. That followed the release of the 2005 Access Hollywood video in which Trump bragged of sexually assaulting women. The ad, notes the Post itself, is less than subtle and hard to miss, reading at the top third of the page: "$10 MILLION FOR INFORMATION LEADING TO THE IMPEACHMENT AND REMOVAL FROM OFFICE OF DONALD J. TRUMP." The fine print details Trump's alleged offenses as ranging from "compromising domestic and foreign policy with his massive conflicts-of-interest global business empire" to "telling hundreds of bald-faced lies" and "gross nepotism and appointment of unqualified persons to high office." The White House didn't comment.

"The Simpsons" may be going strong in its 25th season, but a major character from the long-running animated series will soon meet his or her maker. In a conference call with reporters last week, executive producer Al Jean revealed plans to kill off a character in the season ahead. "We’re actually working on a script where a character will pass away," Jean said. "I’ll give a clue that the actor playing the character won an Emmy for playing that character, but I won’t say who it is." FALL TV 2013: Watch the trailers "Simpsons" fanatics will know that this hint doesn't exactly narrow things down: Nearly every member of the core ensemble of voice-over performers has won an Emmy, including Dan Castellaneta (Homer, Barney, Krusty), Julie Kavner (Marge, Patty, Selma), Hank Azaria (Apu, practically everyone else on the show), Nancy Cartwright (Bart) and Yeardley Smith (Lisa). Even a few guest stars have picked up Emmys for "Simpsons" appearances, including Anne Hathaway for voicing Princess Penelope and Kelsey Grammer for Sideshow Bob. In other words, pretty much anyone could go. Death has come to Springfield in the past, most recently with the untimely passing of Maude Flanders, wife of the Simpsons' preternaturally cheerful next-door neighbor Ned, who bit the dust after falling off a grandstand at the racetrack. PHOTOS: Hollywood Backlot moments The 25th season of "The Simpsons" premiered Sunday night with a "Homeland" spoof guest starring Kristen Wiig. In the press call, Jean also teased some other highlights in the season ahead, including a "Futurama" crossover episode set to air sometime in May and a wedding, officiated by Stan Lee, for Comic Book Guy. ALSO: 'Homeland' secures premiere ratings record with Season 3 opener Guillermo Del Toro directs 'Simpsons' Halloween couch gag Jimmy Fallon, the Roots and Muppets perform 'Sesame Street' theme Twitter: @MeredithBlake ||||| Hi-diddly-d’oh! As you may have read by now, Harry Shearer tweeted last night that he plans to depart The Simpsons after 26 seasons of service. The Emmy-winning Shearer is one of six primary actors on the animated comedy, and his voice has echoed far and wide throughout Springfield, bringing life to such iconic characters as Ned Flanders, Mr. Burns, Smithers, Seymour Skinner, Otto, Dr. Hibbert, Lenny, Reverend Lovejoy, and a bunch more. Simpsons producers have said that the show—and Shearer’s characters—will continue regardless, as the show received a two-season renewal just last week. “Harry Shearer was offered the same deal the rest of the cast accepted, and passed,” Simpsons executive producer Al Jean said in a statement early this morning. “The show will go on and we wish him well. Maggie took it hard.” But when EW spoke with Jean later this morning, he was still at least hopeful that Shearer might have a change of heart and sign the same contract that his five other castmates have. What is the producers’ next step? How will Shearer’s exit impact the show? Who might replace him? Will Mr. Burns sound the same the next time we hear him? EW spoke with Simpsons executive producer Al Jean about these burning questions and more. (A rep for Shearer didn’t immediately respond to EW’s request for comment.) ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: So… what happened? AL JEAN: Well, we’re still hoping he might come back. Nothing’s done ‘til it’s done. He tweeted that it was over, but… There’s an offer that the rest of the cast accepted, and Harry has not accepted it. It’s not going to change, because the rest of the cast took it. So we’re hoping he does. If he doesn’t within a certain period of time, we would have to recast—but we haven’t started. What is that period of time? Weeks? Well, it’s pretty vague because we have seven holdover [episodes] that Harry did in the fall, so there’s a big period of time. Obviously, we just want to know what he wants. We’ve rededicated ourselves this season to making the show better and not just saying, ‘Okay, we’re just happy for the pickup.’ We really care about it, and everybody’s coming to more [table reads] and doing more on the show. So if he’d like to be a part of that, we’d love him. And if not, we’d like to know and then we’ll go another way. Would you describe yourself as very hopeful that this could be resolved? I have no idea. I didn’t know he was going to tweet last night. That was very surprising. And the tweets were confusing because he had an offer. It wasn’t like we didn’t offer him a substantial thing. No. 2, he mentioned that he wanted to do outside projects. Everybody on the show does lots of outside projects. He actually gets to record on the phone and do the [table] reads on the phone. So we’ve never kept him from doing that stuff. So that’s one confusion I had. For the last several years, he’s done reads on the phone. He doesn’t always participate. We’ve excused him for several and he records, as long as it’s done in time, when it’s convenient for him. So it’s not a scheduling thing. And he says it’s not a money thing. So I’m not sure what he’s thinking. When was your first sense that he might be leaning this way? The other cast signed May 1, and he didn’t—so that was the first time we felt, “Oh, there’s something different with him. He may not sign.” During the contentious contract negotiation of 2011, he was vocal about fair compensation for the voice actors and volunteered to take a 70-percent pay cut in exchange for some of the back end. Did you sense that factored in here at all? He said it wasn’t about money, and I don’t think it is either. People always talk about what our cast makes and I think it’s well-known they make a significant amount of money—and good for them. I don’t think anyone in the real world would say that they’re not well-compensated. I really don’t know what the issue is here. That’s what’s confusing. Are you planning to reach out to him personally? Yeah, we’re going to try once to say, “What’s going on? We’d like you back.” And if he says, “I don’t want to be back,” in that case, then we would say, “Okay, we’ve got to move on.” We are definitely doing the season. There was an erroneous report that this would affect the pickup. That’s not true. The pickup is a guarantee. The other five [actors] that are signed—we are in production with pay-or-play deals, so we’re going to do 625 episodes. [Note: That’s number of episodes that the show will have made by the end of the latest two-season renewal.] What was your reaction on an emotional level when you heard that he tweeted that he was leaving? My reaction is, “Oh, he’ll be back.” It’s not the first time that it’s been a possibility, but he always returns. Assuming he does leave, how big of a loss is this for the show? I’d be lying if I said it was no loss. He’s talented and he just won an Emmy for The Simpsons. But I also have to say that I’d be lying if I said he was irreplaceable. I think that he could be replaced, and if need be, will have to be. We’re not going to get rid of the characters. But you actively and definitely want him back, correct? Yeah, we’d like him back…. Obviously, if he’s really interested in doing the show and committing like the other five are, as well as Tress MacNeille and Pamela [Hayden], great. He’s really talented. What does Harry bring to the show that will be hard to replace? He’s got a great voice and he has a great way of saying things funny. Skinner’s really funny. He’s a terrific voiceover actor. When he won the Emmy, I thought it was long overdue and said so… My two favorite characters that he does are Burns—he’s such a terrific villain—and Flanders, because he’s such a wonderful, sweet counterpoint to Homer. Those are the ones I would certainly be the most careful in replacing. But I would very careful with all of them. We wouldn’t go, “Oh, let’s hire the first guy that walks in.” I’m sure if it’s the case—if he says, and he did—that he’s through, there’s a ton of people that want to do it. I’m not just saying everybody out on YouTube, I’m saying talented voiceover people… So we’re prepared either way. If he goes, no hard feelings. If he stays, great. Do you already know who would be replacing him? If not, what is the audition process? And given Harry’s versatility, are we to assume that several actors would fill his different roles? We’ve talked about it. There’s nobody that’s for sure. We’d probably have several. For example, if we recast Dr. Hibbert, it should be an African-American actor. There are a lot of great African-American voice actors. There’s no reason that all those characters need to be voiced by one person. Also, the person that does the voice could have other funny voices too, which could add to the show. Burns doesn’t have to be front and center in every episode. We’ve had three really good reads without Harry being on the show. It’s not like we’re sitting there going, “Oh, this a disaster.” We’re moving. We’re doing it. And you have your eyes on certain people already? There are certain people that suggest themselves immediately. But again, we’re not putting out a casting call this week. I mean, he just announced that he’s quitting. It’s not like we had no inkling, but again to show you that we weren’t just trying to get rid of him, we were waiting for the situation to settle before we even did something like put out [feelers] to recast. We asked him to come back, he didn’t say yes, we gave him a little grace period, and if he’s really not coming back and says so, then we have no choice. Are some of his characters in those episodes? Yeah, they are. So either we’ll get him or we’ll replace him with somebody. Do you think viewers would be able to tell a big difference in the voice of the characters? My true feeling is that we have seven holdover shows with Harry, and then there’s shows that don’t have Harry’s characters as much so that by the time, should he leave, that the changes were effective…I think it will be a great show, and I don’t think it will be a big issue. We always had problems when people said, “You’re going from ink and paint to digital coloring to high def.” And people said, “You can’t survive the loss of the characters that Phil Hartman did.” And that was very sad. So, yeah, I think it will be a challenge but not fatal…. We’re hoping for him to come back. It’s not over, but the show will continue regardless.

– The Simpsons began its 25th season on Sunday, and it will end said season one character light. Producer Al Jean revealed in a conference call with reporters that a well-known character will meet his or her demise this season, reports the Sun News. "I'll give you a clue that the actor playing the character won an Emmy for playing that character, but I won't say who it is," said Jean. That happens to be the world's worst clue, explains the LA Times, because just about everyone on the show has scored an Emmy at this point. That covers not only only the regulars—voice actors Dan Castellaneta, Julie Kavner, Hank Azaria, Nancy Cartwright, and Yeardley Smith—but also Anne Hathaway for Princess Penelope and Kelsey Grammer for Sideshow Bob. (Click to read about how the show's writers cram it full of obscure math jokes.)

AP/Patrick Semansky Liberals, conservatives, and almost everybody in between are hammering New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) after he defended parents' "choice" to not vaccinate their kids against the measles. "It's more important what you think as a parent than what you think as a public official," Christie said Monday when asked about recent measles outbreaks in the US, according to The New York Times. "I also understand that parents need to have some measure of choice in things as well. So that's the balance that the government has to decide." The comment drew immediate rebuke from observers who accused Christie of embracing anti-vaccination conspiracy theorists. Some parents say measles vaccines are linked to autism and choose not to vaccinate their kids; this idea has been widely debunked by the federal government and medical community, which say the anti-vaccine movement has contributed to a resurgence in measles cases. Former CNN anchor Campbell Brown was one of many who predicted Christie's comment would actually doom his potential 2016 presidential campaign. "Insane. Christie is done," Brown wrote on Twitter. Republican strategist Rick Wilson fired off several tweets declaring Christie just "disqualified" himself from the White House. "I'm as libertarian as it comes, but the social contract includes not letting your kids die of preventable diseases or spread them to others," Wilson said. "Not dinging Christie because I have another dog in the 2016 fight. It's because this statement is wildly irresponsible for a public figure." The media also joined in on the Christie criticism. "Wow, I'm getting really sick of politicians who deny basic science," Political Wire's Taegan Goddard wrote. Noah Rothman, of the right-leaning news site Hot Air, contrasted President Barack Obama's "correct" stance on vaccinations with Christie's. Obama said in a pre-Super Bowl interview Sunday that "the science is indisputable" and that parents should definitely vaccinate their kids. "This comment was a bizarre one," Rothman said of Christie. "It is an unforced error. It has hurt his political brand and made Barack Obama appear a model of guileless honesty in comparison. What was Christie thinking?" Business Insider asked Christie's office if it wanted to clarify or add additional context to the governor's remarks. A representative said Christie had nothing to add. According to The Daily Beast, this is not the first time Christie defended those who do not want to vaccinate their kids. Christie reportedly wrote a letter in 2009 allying himself with anti-vaccine advocates who opposed "New Jersey's highest-in-the nation vaccine mandates." "I have met with families affected by autism from across the state and have been struck by their incredible grace and courage," Christie reportedly said then. "I stand with them now, and will stand with them as their governor in their fight for greater parental involvement in vaccination decisions that affect their children." Update (10:25 a.m.):Christie's office subsequently sent a statement to reporters with the full transcript of his vaccination comments on Monday. Kevin Roberts, a Christie spokesman, added: "To be clear: The Governor believes vaccines are an important public health protection and with a disease like measles there is no question kids should be vaccinated. At the same time different states require different degrees of vaccination, which is why he was calling for balance in which ones government should mandate." Update (10:39 a.m.): With The Daily Beast report. NOW WATCH: Disneyland Measles Outbreak Shows Why We Should Ban Unvaccinated Kids From Schools ||||| Play Facebook Twitter Google Plus Embed Gov. Chris Christie Backs Measles Vaccination 0:33 autoplay autoplay Copy this code to your website or blog CAMBRIDGE, England -- New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie on Monday said the government needs to strike a "balance" between public health and parental choice in making decisions about vaccinating kids, even as an outbreak of measles is spreading among unvaccinated people in the United States. But hours later, his office sent out a clarification of those remarks. "We vaccinate ours [kids], and so, you know that's the best expression I can give you of my opinion," Christie first told reporters when asked if he would urge Americans to vaccinate their children. "You know it's much more important what you think as a parent than what you think as a public official. And that's what we do. But I also understand that parents need to have some measure of choice in things as well, so that's the balance that the government has to decide." The governor's office issued a statement later Monday morning to clarify his remarks, stating: "The Governor believes vaccines are an important public health protection and with a disease like measles there is no question kids should be vaccinated. At the same time different states require different degrees of vaccination, which is why he was calling for balance in which ones government should mandate." Christie is in the United Kingdom for a three-day trip that's officially billed as a trade mission for his state but largely viewed as a chance to build foreign policy credibility ahead of the 2016 presidential election. He made the comments standing outside MedImmune, a company with business ties to New Jersey that makes vaccines and biologic drugs. Pressed by reporters about whether he believes vaccines are dangerous, Christie responded: "I didn't say that - I said different disease types can be more lethal so that the concern would be measuring whatever the perceived danger is by a vaccine and we've had plenty of that over a period of time versus what the risk to public health is. And that's exactly what I mean by what I said." President Obama on Sunday told Americans, "get your kids vaccinated." He told NBC News' Savannah Guthrie, "The science is, you know, pretty indisputable." Democrats jumped on Christie's statement, saying his comments show his embrace of "junk science." "If his campaign is going to be about kissing up to the radical, conspiracy theory base that's wagging the dog of today's Republican Party, that's up to him and his cracker-jack team," said Democratic National Committee spokesman Mo Elleithee. "But if he wants to actually be a leader, then he should stop bowing to junk science and take a cue from President Obama by showing leadership that promotes facts and keeps our children and our nation safe." - MSNBC's Kasie Hunt ||||| Chris Christie is pro-choice again—at least when it comes to vaccines. The New Jersey governor said Monday that he believes that parents “need to have some measure of choice” over vaccinating their children against measles, despite a recent outbreak of the virus that was caused by parents not vaccinating their children. What a world! While visiting Cambridge, England, Christie was asked about vaccinations, according to The New York Times. He said that although he and his wife had vaccinated their children, “It’s more important what you think as a parent than what you think as a public official. I also understand that parents need to have some measure of choice in things as well. So that’s the balance that the government has to decide… Not every vaccine is created equal, and not every disease type is as great a public-health threat as others.” Statements like this have long kept Christie on the good side of the anti-vaccination crowd. While running for governor in 2009, Christie wrote a letter wherein he seemed to acknowledge a link between autism and vaccinations—a theory for which there is no scientific proof. “I have met with families affected by autism from across the state and have been struck by their incredible grace and courage. Many of these families have expressed their concern over New Jersey’s highest-in-the-nation vaccine mandates. I stand with them now, and will stand with them as their governor in their fight for greater parental involvement in vaccination decisions that affect their children.” Also in 2009, Christie told The Don Imus Show that he struggled with then-Gov. Jon Corzine’s flu-shot mandate and the problems some parents have with vaccines. Later Monday, a Christie spokeman issued a statement urging vaccinations for viruses like measles. “To be clear: The governor believes vaccines are an important public health protection and with a disease like measles there is no question kids should be vaccinated. At the same time different states require different degrees of vaccination, which is why he was calling for balance in which ones government should mandate.” Asked to confirm whether Christie believes it’s possible that vaccines cause autism, his office did not respond. (It surfaced Monday that then-candidate Barack Obama said in 2008: "We've seen just a skyrocketing autism rate. Some people are suspicious that it's connected to the vaccines. This person included. The science right now is inconclusive, but we have to research it.") It’s easy to forget, given Christie’s reputation as a no-nonsense pragmatist, but he often finds himself at odds with the medical establishment and basic common sense on issues of health. During the Ebola outbreak in October, Christie quarantined a nurse who had just returned from West Africa for three days. Everyone from the Centers for Disease Control to the Obama administration protested Christie’s decision to keep the woman in a tent, but Christie was unapologetic, saying it was his duty to protect the health of the people of New Jersey. Too bad she didn’t have the measles. ||||| New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and his wife Mary Pat Christie visited the One Nucleus life science company headquarters in Cambridge on Monday. REUTERS/Neil Hall CAMBRIDGE, England – New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie walked back comments he made here Monday morning calling for "balance" on the measles vaccine debate to allow for parental choice, asserting that "there is no question kids should be vaccinated." "The Governor believes vaccines are an important public health protection and with a disease like measles there is no question kids should be vaccinated," Christie's office said in a statement. "At the same time different states require different degrees of vaccination, which is why he was calling for balance in which ones government should mandate." With the latest measles outbreak spreading fast, you may be surprised by the state with the best child vaccination rate in the country. (Gillian Brockell/The Washington Post) Earlier Monday, Christie waded into the vaccination debate during his visit to the United Kingdom, telling reporters in Cambridge that he believes U.S. government must "balance" public health interests with parental choice. In a break with President Obama, Christie said parents should have "some measure of choice" about immunizing their children from measles and other viruses and diseases. The potential Republican presidential candidate's comments, which came amid a measles outbreak in the United States and a day after Obama urged all parents to get their kids vaccinated, quickly caused a stir. “Mary Pat and I have had our children vaccinated and we think that it’s an important part of being sure we protect their health and the public health,” Christie told reporters here Monday. But the likely Republican presidential candidate added: “I also understand that parents need to have some measure of choice in things as well, so that’s the balance that the government has to decide.” Christie’s initial comments came after a laboratory tour at MedImmune, a biologics company that makes vaccines in Cambridge. Christie is on a three-day tour of Britain designed to promote trade with New Jersey businesses and round out his foreign policy resume ahead of a likely 2016 run for the White House. [‘Get your kids vaccinated,’ Obama tells parents doubting ‘indisputable’ science] Christie was asked to weigh in on the debate in the United States over the measles outbreak. On Sunday, Obama told NBC News anchor Savannah Guthrie, “You should get your kids vaccinated.” “I understand that there are families that, in some cases, are concerned about the effect of vaccinations,” Obama said. “The science is, you know, pretty indisputable. We’ve looked at this again and again. There is every reason to get vaccinated, but there aren’t reasons to not.” Christie, however, said, “There has to be a balance and it depends on what the vaccine is, what the disease type is, and all the rest.” He added, “Not every vaccine is created equal and not every disease type is as great a public health threat as others.” [Amid growing vaccination debate, measles continues to spread and is now in New York state] Christie also took the unusual step of criticizing the president on foreign soil, saying Obama had been a poor negotiator, specifically regarding the TransAtlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. “You need an effective negotiator at the top, and, as I’ve said before, I think the president has shown over and over again that he’s not the most effective negotiator, whether you’re talking about the Iranian nuclear talks or whether you’re talking about his recent foray into Cuba,” Christie said. “The president has not proven himself to be the most adept negotiator, in my opinion, on behalf of American interests.” Later Monday, Christie was scheduled to be in London for a meeting with Prime Minister David Cameron at 10 Downing Street followed by a private dinner with members of Cameron’s cabinet. At the morning news conference, Christie was complimentary of Cameron, who is up for reelection this spring, and said some of the austerity measures he had taken in Britain were similar to ones Christie implemented in New Jersey. Christie and Cameron met in 2011, during Christie’s first term as governor. “We were comparing notes pretty feverishly back in 2011,” Christie said. “So I hope that part of what we’ll do today is compare notes on progress as well and I think that the prime minister has led some really great progress economically here, especially when you compare it to the rest of Europe.” While in Cambridge, Christie and his wife, Mary Pat, laid several wreaths at the Cambridge American Cemetery and Memorial, the burial site for several thousand U.S. service members in World War II. The couple knelt at the nave of the cemetery’s chapel for a moment of silent tribute to the fallen soldiers. RELATED: The Disneyland measles outbreak and the disgraced doctor who whipped up vaccination fear Anti-vaccine doctor revels in his notoriety Why this baby’s mom is so angry at the anti-vaxxers ||||| Remember Kaci Hickox, the nurse who was involuntarily quarantined when she landed at Newark Airport after treating Ebola patients in Sierra Leone last year? New Jersey governor and long-shot Republican presidential hopeful Chris Christie got a lot of flak — and quite a few pats on the back — for his insistence on keeping Hickox under quarantine even though she had tested negative for Ebola and showed no symptoms. The governor had instituted a policy requiring anyone traveling from affected countries who might have had contact with Ebola patients to undergo a 21-day quarantine upon arrival, whether or not they showed any signs of illness. But Hickox made such a stink about being kept in a tent in Newark’s University Hospital that Christie soon relented and let her go home to Maine to finish out her quarantine (Ebola panic and the attendant media circus soon followed her there). Well, now she’s back, and it seems she’s still pretty sore about the whole ordeal. Hickox revealed on Thursday that she is suing Christie, along with several current and former New Jersey health officials, for violating her constitutional rights. The lawsuit, backed by the ACLU of New Jersey, alleges that these officials violated her Fourth Amendment right to be free of unreasonable seizure as well as her Fourteenth Amendment right to due process, and that they subjected her to false imprisonment, invaded her privacy, and cast her in a false light, referring to Christie’s public statements at the time implying that she was sick with Ebola. Hickox is demanding a minimum of $250,000 in compensatory and punitive damages. In a statement released through the ACLU, the nurse accused Christie of holding her in a “private prison,” not for any legitimate public health reason, but rather “because some ambitious governors saw an opportunity to use an age-old political tactic: fear.” The other governor alluded to in that statement would be New York’s own Andrew Cuomo, who implemented a quarantine policy during the Ebola pandemic very similar to Christie’s take-no-chances approach. Cuomo, too, backed down on his order within a few days after widespread criticism.

– NJ Gov. Chris Christie is now pulling back on statements he made earlier today—in response to the recent measles outbreak—that parents should have a "choice" whether to get their kids vaccinated. "The Governor believes vaccines are an important public health protection, and with a disease like measles there is no question kids should be vaccinated," a statement from his office read this morning, as per the Washington Post. But the outrage from his call for "balance" had already been incited, as evidenced by the following reactions: At the Daily Beast, Olivia Nuzzi says statements like the ones Christie originally made today keep him "on the good side of the anti-vaccination crowd"—extra support that may come in handy if he runs for president next year—and reminds readers of a letter he wrote during his gubernatorial run in 2009 that seemed to acknowledge a link between autism and vaccines. As Sam Biddle writes on Gawker, Christie believed "public health [trumped] individual discomfort" in the case of Kaci Hickox, the nurse he involuntarily quarantined as a precaution against Ebola. "Except in the case of the Ebola nurse, it was unfounded and unscientific," Biddle notes. "If only Christie could take his 'I'm the boss, f---in' deal with it' stance against paranoid, negligent anti-vaxx parents, instead of a nurse with a fever." Some of the strongest criticism against Christie comes from Kelly Faircloth at Jezebel, who calls him an "IRRESPONSIBLE, PANDERING S---HEAD" (all-caps hers) and writes, "I guess he's only worried about scary African diseases, not good old-fashioned American diseases like measles." Faircloth adds, "Your average ancestor circa 1810 would probably rip every hair out of your head if she thought you were seriously considering turning your back on an invention that renders a great scourge powerless." Other heated responses, as per Business Insider, include GOP media guru's Rick Wilson's Twitter feed this morning (in which he calls Christie "wildly irresponsible," among other things), as well as that of Taegan Goddard of Political Wire, who posted, "Wow, I'm getting really sick of politicians who deny basic science." Former CNN news reporter Campbell Brown kept her tweet short and sweet: "Insane. Christie is done."

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — North Korea says the unprecedented deployment of three U.S. aircraft carrier groups "taking up a strike posture" around the Korean peninsula is making it impossible to predict when nuclear war will break out. North Korea's U.N. Ambassador Ja Song Nam said in a letter to Secretary-General Antonio Gutteres Monday that the joint military exercises are creating "the worst ever situation" around the peninsula. He also said the U.S. has reactivated round-the-clock sorties with nuclear-capable B-52 strategic bombers "which existed during the Cold War times." Ja said "the large-scale nuclear war exercises and blackmails, which the U.S. staged for a whole year without a break ... make one conclude that the option we have taken was the right one and we should go along the way to the last." ||||| UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - North Korea complained to the United Nations on Monday about joint military exercises by the United State and South Korea, describing it as “the worst ever situation” because U.S. nuclear war equipment had been deployed ready to strike. FILE PHOTO - A North Korean flag flutters at a guard post near the propaganda village of Gijungdong in North Korea, in this picture taken near the truce village of Panmunjom, South Korea, September 28, 2017. REUTERS/Kim Hong-Ji In a letter to U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, seen by Reuters, North Korean U.N. Ambassador Ja Song Nam said the United States was “running amok for war exercises by introducing nuclear war equipment in and around the Korean Peninsula.” Three U.S. aircraft carrier strike groups have been involved in the joint exercise in the Western Pacific in a rare show of force as President Donald Trump visits Asia. The last time three U.S. carrier strike groups exercised together in the Western Pacific was in 2007. South Korea has said the joint drill, due to finish on Tuesday, was in response to North Korean nuclear and missile provocations and to show any such developments by Pyongyang can be repelled with “overwhelming force.” FILE PHOTO - North Korea's Ambassador to the United Nations Ja Song Nam attends a ministerial meeting at the 72nd United Nations General Assembly at U.N. headquarters in New York City, U.S. September 22, 2017. REUTERS/Stephanie Keith However, Ja said Washington was to blame for escalating tensions and accused the U.N. Security Council of ignoring “the nuclear war exercises of the United States who is hell bent on bringing catastrophic disaster to humanity.” Ja asked Guterres to bring to the attention of the 15-member council - under the rarely used Article 99 of the U.N. Charter - “the danger being posed by the U.S. nuclear war exercises, which are clearly threats to international peace and security.” Tensions have soared between the United States and North Korea following a series of weapons tests by Pyongyang and a string of increasingly bellicose exchanges between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Trump said in a tweet on Sunday that Kim had insulted him by calling him “old” and said he would never call the North Korean leader “short and fat.” The United States has said that all options, including military, are on the table to deal with North Korea, although its preference is for a diplomatic solution. The U.N. Security Council has unanimously ratcheted up sanctions on North Korea over its nuclear and ballistic missile programs since 2006.

– North Korea says the unprecedented deployment of three US aircraft carrier groups "taking up a strike posture" around the Korean peninsula is making it impossible to predict when nuclear war will break out, the AP reports. North Korea's UN ambassador, Ja Song Nam, said in a letter to Secretary-General Antonio Gutteres Monday that the joint military exercises are creating "the worst ever situation" around the peninsula. He also said the US has reactivated round-the-clock sorties with nuclear-capable B-52 strategic bombers "which existed during the Cold War times." Ja said the "large-scale nuclear war exercises and blackmails, which the US staged for a whole year without a break ... make one conclude that the option we have taken was the right one and we should go along the way to the last." The three aircraft carrier groups have been taking part in a joint exercise with South Korea while Donald Trump visits Asia, Reuters reports. The last time so many carrier groups exercised together in the western Pacific was 2007. The North Korean letter came a day after Trump tweeted that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un had insulted the American president by calling him "old."

North Korea is building a missile that is even bigger than the long-range missile it is preparing to launch this month, sources claimed Monday. South Korean and U.S. officials believe the North will unveil the missile at a military parade on April 15, nation founder Kim Il-sung's centenary, or on April 25, which marks the founding day of the North's Army. A government source here said U.S. reconnaissance satellites recently spotted a 40-m missile at a research and development facility in Pyongyang that is larger than the existing Taepodong-2 missile. "It remains uncertain whether this missile is functional or is just a life-sized mock-up," the official added. The rocket North Korea is preparing to launch soon is apparently 32 m long, the same as the Taepodong-2 that was launched in April 2009 with a maximum range of 6,700 km. The new missile is believed to be larger and equipped with a bigger booster that gives it a maximum range of more than 10,000 km, making it capable of reaching the continental U.S. ||||| This article is over 1 year old Kim Jong-un, who oversaw rocket launch on Sunday, warns Washington that US mainland is in ‘sighting range for strike’ North Korea claims the US mainland is now within range of its missiles after it successfully test-fired a new rocket it says is capable of carrying a “large-scale, heavy nuclear warhead”. North Korea test-fires what could be new kind of longer-range missile Read more Sunday morning’s launch of a mid- to long-range ballistic missile was overseen by the country’s leader, Kim Jong-un, who accused the US of “browbeating” countries that “have no nukes”. He warned Washington not to misjudge the reality that the US mainland is in Pyongyang’s “sighting range for [a] strike”, the KCNA state news agency reported. KCNA said the missile was a new ground-to-ground Hwasong-12 capable of carrying a large-size heavy nuclear warhead. Kim reportedly “hugged officials in the field of rocket research, saying that they worked hard to achieve a great thing”, it added. The missile was launched on an unusually high trajectory to avoid threatening the security of nearby countries. KCNA said it flew to an altitude of 1,312 miles (2,111 km) and travelled 490 miles before landing in the Sea of Japan, near Russia. Most experts are sceptical of North Korean claims that it has missiles that can reach the US mainland, but analysts said the flight data suggested the rocket launched on Sunday could fly at least 2,800 miles if launched at a standard trajectory – putting the Pacific territory of Guam within range. “This is the longest-range missile North Korea has ever tested,” Jeffrey Lewis, a nuclear expert at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in the US, told Agence France-Presse. John Schilling, an aerospace engineering specialist, said on the website of 38 North, a Washington-based monitoring project, that the launch appeared to demonstrate an intermediate-range ballistic missile that could reliably strike the US base at Guam in the Pacific. “More importantly,” Schilling said, it “may represent a substantial advance to developing an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).” Schilling said the ability to hit Guam was not a game-changer, but the new missile could be the forerunner to an even more powerful missile. “What would change the strategic balance is an ICBM capable of reaching the US mainland,” he said. “This is not that missile but it might be a test bed, demonstrating technologies and systems to be used in future ICBMs.” Facebook Twitter Pinterest An unidentified missile that analysts believe could be the North Korean Hwasong-12 being paraded in Pyongyang last month. Photograph: Wong Maye-E/AP The Trump administration has warned that a first ICBM test, together with any further nuclear tests, would cross a line that could prompt military retaliation, although the president has also called for the proper application of multilateral sanctions against Pyongyang and even held out the possibility of a summit with Kim “if the conditions are set”. Sunday’s launch is also being interpreted as sending a message to South Korea, days after President Moon Jae-in took office, pledging to engage Pyongyang after declaring a decade of isolation and sanctions under his conservative predecessors a failure. 'We are a target': South Korean village wakes up on frontline with North Read more On Monday, South Korea’s unification ministry declined to speculate on its neighbour’s intentions, but warned it not to underestimate the strength of international opposition to its missile tests. “[The international community] has the shared view that North Korea’s nuclear and missile provocations pose a grave threat to peace and security in the region and beyond the peninsula,” Lee Duk-haeng, a ministry spokesman, said. The Australian prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, called on China – North Korea’s main ally and trading partner – to increase pressure on the regime to end its missile tests. He said the regime’s conduct was reckless, provocative and unlawful. “The greatest responsibility for bringing North Korea to its senses … lies with China,” he said. “They have the overwhelming dominant economic relationship with North Korea and because they have the greatest leverage, they have the greatest responsibility.” The US military’s Pacific command said the type of missile fired was “not consistent with an intercontinental ballistic missile”. KCNA said the launch was designed to verify “the tactical and technological specifications of the newly developed ballistic rocket capable of carrying a large-size heavy nuclear warhead”. The UN security council is scheduled to meet on Tuesday to discuss the missile launch, diplomats said. The US ambassador to the UN called the launch a message by Pyongyang to South Korea after the election of Moon. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Nikki Haley at a security council meeting at the UN headquarters in New York. Photograph: Stephanie Keith/Reuters Nikki Haley told ABC’s This Week programme: “You first have to get into Kim Jong-un’s head – which is, he’s in a state of paranoia, he’s incredibly concerned about anything and everything around him.” She said the missile test had quashed any immediate prospects of Trump holding talks with Kim : “Having a missile test is not the way to sit down with the president, because he’s absolutely not going to do it.” Haley added that Kim “can sit there and say all the conditions he wants. Until he meets our conditions, we’re not sitting down with him.” The KCNA report on the missile’s flight was largely consistent with South Korean and Japanese assessments that it flew 435 miles and reached an altitude of more than 1,243 miles, which is further and higher than an intermediate-range missile tested in February from the same region, north-west of Pyongyang. Reuters and Associated Press contributed to this report

– North Korea is working on a rocket so big that it makes the long-range Taepodong-2 missile it's preparing to test-launch look modest, South Korean government sources tell the Chosun Ilbo. Based on satellite images, they've determined that the North is working on a missile with a booster so large that it could fire more than 6,200 miles, meaning it would be capable of reaching the continental US. The officials aren't sure if the missile is functional, or "a life-sized mockup," but they suspect it will be unveiled either during a military parade on April 15, or during the army's April 25 centennial celebration. The North has around 10,000 missile experts with "considerable research skills," a source said in a separate report, and has spent some $3.1 billion on developing long-range ballistic missiles so far. For reference, South Korea has about 3,000 rocket experts total between the public and private sectors.

Barbara McPheron is seen in a photo released by the Ridgecrest Police Department. Fire crews rescued a woman who had been missing for almost a week when she was found Saturday evening trapped inside of an overturned SUV in Adelanto.Authorities had been searching for Barbara McPheron, 69, since she used the OnStar feature on her red 2007 Hummer to contact 911 on Oct. 23, according to the Ridgecrest Police Department in Kern County.Crews with the San Bernardino County Fire Department headed out to reports of a traffic crash near Torosa Road, west of Highway 395, around 6:11 p.m. Saturday. When crews arrived, they found the Hummer rolled over.Using rescue struts and a rope system, they were able to stabilize the vehicle. McPheron was extracted within an hour. Authorities said during the rescue operation, it was discovered that she had been reported missing days earlier.A medical helicopter transported the woman to Arrowhead Regional Medical Center. Her condition was reported as serious but not life-threatening. ||||| Officials have identified the woman found trapped in an overturned Hummer in near Adelanto as Ridgecrest resident Barbara McPheron. McPheron, 69, was rescued after an hourlong operation to extricate her from the vehicle after it apparently rolled down a hill on Torosa Road Saturday, according to the San Bernardino County Fire Department. She had been missing for five days from her home in Ridgecrest. McPheron is currently being treated at Arrowhead Regional Medical Center and is in serious condition but expected to recover from her injuries. It appears she had been trapped in the vehicle nearly a week. McPheron was reported missing under suspicious circumstances on Oct. 23 around 12:50 p.m. after she used the OnStar in her Hummer H3 to call 911, according to a press release from the Ridgecrest Police Department. The agency said it received a 911 call transferred from the Kern County Sheriff’s Department regarding McPheron stating “ditch on Highway 395, Stater Bros. and Kashmir Street.” The areas indicated were searched but McPherson was not found, police said. Sheriff’s deputies also conducted an air search on Highway 395 and the China Lake Police Department searched from Highway 178 to Trona. She was rescued around 6 p.m. Saturday after the San Bernardino County Fire Department received a call about an overturned vehicle. 34.582770 -117.409215

– A woman who'd been reported missing five days earlier was found alive Saturday, trapped inside a Hummer that had crashed in the Mojave Desert. San Bernadino County Fire reports on Facebook that search and rescue teams had to use off-road vehicles to reach the SUV, which had rolled down a slope in a desert area. They stabilized the Hummer to prevent it from rolling further and were able to free the woman, who was flown to a medical center with serious but non-life-threatening injuries. The woman is being identified as 69-year-old Barbara McPheron, reports KTLA. The circumstances under which she disappeared remain unclear. ABC 7 reports that the Ridgecrest Police Department in Kern County, roughly 80 miles north, say that McPheron was reported missing on Oct. 23, when she used the OnStar feature on her red 2007 Hummer to reach 911. A search at the time failed to turn up McPheron. (A rescuer ended up suing a woman he helped pull from a burning Hummer.)

CLOSE President Donald Trump is hammering California for its sanctuary policies in his latest push to resist the "resistance" to his presidency. (May 15) AP President Trump speaks during a meeting with California leaders and public officials who oppose California's sanctuary policies in the Cabinet Room of the White House Wednesday. (Photo: Olivier Douliery / POOL, EPA-EFE) WASHINGTON — President Trump used extraordinarily harsh rhetoric to renew his call for stronger immigration laws Wednesday, calling undocumented immigrants "animals" and venting frustration at Mexican officials who he said "do nothing" to help the United States. “We have people coming into the country or trying to come in, we're stopping a lot of them, but we're taking people out of the country. You wouldn't believe how bad these people are," Trump said. "These aren't people. These are animals." Trump's comments came in a freewheeling, hour-long White House meeting with local California leaders opposed to so-called "sanctuary city" policies. "California's law provides safe harbor to some of the most vicious and violent offenders on Earth, like MS-13 gang members putting innocent men, women, and children at the mercy of these sadistic criminals," he said. His comment about "animals" came after Fresno County Sheriff Margaret Mims complained that state law forbids her from telling U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement about undocumented immigrants in her jail — even if she suspects they're part of a gang. "There could be an MS-13 member I know about. If they don’t reach a certain threshold, I cannot tell ICE about it," she said. Trump's remarks were reminiscent of his first press conference as a presidential candidate in 2015, when he said the United States had become a "dumping ground" for people other countries didn't want. "When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending their best," he said then. "They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people." Trump has been particularly vocal in opposing so-called "sanctuary city" policies, in which some jurisdictions have refused to fully cooperate with federal immigration authorities. On Wednesday, he highlighted California cities who do cooperate, inviting mayors and sheriffs opposed to the state's predominant policy. "Each of you has bravely resisted California's deadly and unconstitutional sanctuary state law," Trump told them. In other comments, Trump: ► Called for Attorney General Jeff Sessions to investigate Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf for warning undocumented immigrants of an upcoming sweep by immigration agents. "You talk about obstruction of justice, I would recommend that you look at obstruction of justice for the mayor, Jeff," the president said. ► Expressed frustration at his southern neighbor for not doing more to stop the flow of refugees and immigrants into the United States. "Mexico does nothing for us, they do nothing for us. Mexico talks, but they do nothing for us, especially at the border," he said. "Certainly don’t help us much on trade." ► Blamed Democrats for a policy of separating children from their parents when undocumented families enter the United States. "I know what you're going through with families is very tough," he told Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen. "But those are the bad laws the Democrats gave us. We have to break up families. The Democrats gave us that law. It's a horrible thing we have to break up families." Alan Gomez reported from Miami. David Jackson contributed. Read or Share this story: https://usat.ly/2rNiDvb ||||| President Donald Trump speaks during a roundtable on immigration policy in California in the Cabinet Room of the White House, Wednesday, May 16, 2018, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) (Associated Press) WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Wednesday hammered California for its so-called sanctuary immigration policies, in what appeared to be his latest push to embolden his base leading into the midterm elections. As the debate over immigration heats up on Capitol Hill, Trump surrounded himself with mayors, sheriffs and other local leaders from California who oppose the state's immigration policies and who applauded his administration's hard-line efforts. "This is your Republican resistance right here against what they're doing in California," said California Assemblywoman Melissa Melendez, coopting a term used by Democrats opposed to Trump's presidency. She, like others, said the president and his policies were far more popular in the state than people realize. "It's a crisis," Melendez said of the situation. They were responding to legislation signed into law by Gov. Jerry Brown last year that bars police from asking people about their immigration status or helping federal agents with immigration enforcement. Jail officials can transfer inmates to federal immigration authorities if they have been convicted of one of about 800 crimes, mostly felonies, but not for minor offenses. Brown insists the legislation, which took effect Jan. 1, doesn't prevent federal immigration officials from doing their jobs. But the Trump administration has sued to reverse it, calling the policies unconstitutional and dangerous. Some counties, including San Diego and Orange, have voted to support the lawsuit or passed their own anti-sanctuary resolutions. Republicans see backlash to the law as a potentially galvanizing issue during the midterm elections, especially with Trump's anti-immigrant base. And Trump has held numerous events in recent months during which he's drawn attention to California's policies. During Wednesday's session, Trump thanked the officials, saying they had "bravely resisted California's deadly and unconstitutional sanctuary state laws." He claimed those laws are forcing "the release of illegal immigrant criminals, drug dealers, gang members and violent predators into your communities" and providing "safe harbor to some of the most vicious and violent offenders on earth." Trump also claimed opposition to the policies was growing, insisting, "There's a revolution going on in California." He referred to some who cross the border illegally as "animals," not people. Brown responded on Twitter, writing that Trump "is lying on immigration, lying about crime and lying about the laws of CA." The Democratic governor added: "Flying in a dozen Republican politicians to flatter him and praise his reckless policies changes nothing. We, the citizens of the fifth largest economy in the world, are not impressed." The event came as top House Republicans worked to head off an attempt by party moderates to force roll calls on four immigration bills. Republican leaders privately warned GOP lawmakers Wednesday that such a drive could damage the party's prospects in the fall's congressional elections by dispiriting conservative voters, according to people at the closed-door meeting. The House leaders fear the winning legislation would be a compromise bill backed solidly by Democrats but opposed by most Republicans, an outcome that could anger conservatives, according to Rep. Jeff Denham, R-Calif., a leader of the effort to force the immigration votes. House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., issued the warning, said a second person who was in the room and spoke on condition of anonymity to describe the private conversation. Asked about his remarks, McCarthy said his objection to the procedure was that it would in effect "turn the floor over" to Democrats. House Speaker Paul Ryan said the petition would be "a big mistake" that would "disunify our majority." He said the leaders were "working with the administration." The moderates said later Wednesday that House leaders were trying to end the immigration standoff and that they could soon see a specific proposal on how to do that. "We're willing to see what this looks like," said Rep. Carlos Curbelo, R-Fla., a leader of the lawmakers trying to force the House to address the issue. Conservatives had their own session with party leaders and also suggested there had been movement, but offered no specifics. Many of the legislators demanding action face potentially competitive re-election races in congressional districts with large numbers of Hispanic, suburban or agriculture-industry voters with pro-immigration views. Earlier this year, competing bills aimed at protecting young immigrants and toughening border security — including one backed by Trump — collapsed in the Senate. The measures never received House votes. The discussion also comes as the Trump administration is under fire for a new policy that is expected to increase the number of children separated from their parents when families cross the border illegally. Trump, in his remarks, wrongly blamed Democrats for forcing his administration's hand. "I know what you're going through right now with families is very tough," he told Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, "but those are the bad laws that the Democrats gave us. We have to break up families ... because of the Democrats. It's terrible." But no law "the Democrats gave us" mandates the separation of children from their parents at the border. The administration is using protocols described in a 2008 law designed to combat child trafficking that gave special protections to Central American children at the border. While the bill was authored by Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein, it unanimously passed both houses of Congress and was signed by Republican President George W. Bush as one of his last acts in office. Nielsen on Tuesday defended the practice, telling a Senate committee that removing children from parents facing criminal charges happens "in the United States every day." Trump also told Nielsen that she was "doing a good job," one week after berating her during a cabinet meeting for failing to halt border crossings. Feinstein issued a statement accusing the Trump administration of "once again attempting to divide Californians and all Americans with today's White House meeting." "Their decision to convene this meeting is about fueling fear of immigrants and scapegoating entire communities," she said. __ Associated Press writers Alan Fram in Washington, Kathleen Ronayne in Sacramento and Elliot Spagat in San Diego contributed to this report. ||||| San Francisco (CNN) James Schwab, a spokesman for the San Francisco Division of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, has resigned, citing what he says are falsehoods being spread by members of the Trump administration including Attorney General Jeff Sessions. "I just couldn't bear the burden -- continuing on as a representative of the agency and charged with upholding integrity, knowing that information was false," he told CNN on Monday. Schwab cited Acting Director Tom Homan and Attorney General Jeff Sessions as being the purveyors of misleading and inaccurate information, following Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf's controversial decision to warn the community of an upcoming ICE raid. ICE released a press release on February 27 about the operations in Northern California in which Homan stated that "864 criminal aliens and public safety threats remain at large in the community, and I have to believe that some of them were able to elude us thanks to the mayor's irresponsible decision." Sessions also repeated a similar estimate in his remarks while visiting Sacramento last week. "Those are 800 wanted criminals that are now at large in that community -- 800 wanted criminals that ICE will now have to pursue with more difficulty in more dangerous situations, all because of one mayor's irresponsible action," Sessions had said. Schwab said he took issue with their characterization. "Director Homan and the Attorney General said there were 800 people at large and free to roam because of the actions of the Oakland mayor," he told CNN. "Personally I think her actions were misguided and not responsible. I think she could have had other options. But to blame her for 800 dangerous people out there is just false." "It's a false statement because we never pick up 100% of our targets. And to say they're a type of dangerous criminal is also misleading." Schwab said he brought up his concerns to ICE leadership and was told to "deflect to previous statements. Even though those previous statements did not clarify the wrong information." "I've never been in this situation in 16 almost 17 years in government where someone asked me to deflect when we absolutely knew something was awry -- when the data was not correct" he said. Schaaf applauded Schwab for speaking out. "I commend Mr. Schwab for speaking the truth while under intense pressure to lie," the Oakland mayor said. "Our democracy depends on public servants who act with integrity and hold transparency in the highest regard." Schwab also said he is a registered Democrat, but has been a loyal federal servant, regardless of which party is in power. Responding to Schwab's remarks on Tuesday, ICE stood by its criticism of Schaaf. "Even one criminal alien on the street can put public safety at risk and, as Director Homan stated, while we can't put a number on how many targets avoided arrest due to the mayor's warning, it clearly had an impact," ICE spokeswoman Liz Johnson said. "While we disagree with Mr. Schwab on this issue, we appreciate his service and wish him well." CNN has also reached out to the Department of Justice for comment.

– "These aren't people. These are animals." It was a reference to some undocumented immigrants made Wednesday by President Trump during an hour-long meeting at the White House that USA Today characterized as studded with "extraordinarily harsh rhetoric" from the president. He was meeting with California leaders who are also against the state's so-called "sanctuary city" immigration policies, and that statement came after one of them made a reference to suspected gang members. The AP framed Trump's comments as his "latest push to embolden his base leading into the midterm elections." Trump described those present as having "bravely resisted California's deadly and unconstitutional sanctuary state laws," which are providing "safe harbor to some of the most vicious and violent offenders on Earth." The comments garnered a response from Gov. Jerry Brown, who tweeted Trump "is lying on immigration, lying about crime and lying about the laws of CA." USA Today notes Trump also called upon Jeff Sessions to investigate Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf for "obstruction of justice" over her February move and swung at Mexico for what he described as its inaction at stopping the entry of people into the US. "Mexico does nothing for us, they do nothing for us. Mexico talks, but they do nothing for us, especially at the border." (The Justice Department has sued California over laws that provide protection to undocumented immigrants.)

The German state of Bavaria said Tuesday that it is preparing for the expiration in 2015 of the copyright on Adolf Hitler's infamous memoir "Mein Kampf" by supporting the preparation of new editions with critical commentary _ including one for students. While "Mein Kampf" isn't actually banned in Germany, Bavaria has over the years used its ownership of the copyright to block publication. But it acknowledges it won't be able to once the copyright expires, 70 years after the author's death. Bavaria's finance minister, Markus Soeder, said the idea of a version aimed at students _ financed by the state government _ was a reaction to concerns that the book will then be freely available and could circulate without commentary among young people, German news agency dapd reported. "The book will contain commentary by experts that are clearly understandable for young people and interpret the dangerous body of thought," Soeder said. He added that the aim is to show "what a worldwide catastrophe" Hitler's thought led to. Hitler wrote "Mein Kampf" _ "My Struggle" in English _ after he was jailed in Bavaria in the aftermath of the failed Beer Hall Putsch of 1923 _ a rambling and anti-Semitic book outlining his ideology. After World War II, the Allies agreed to hand the rights to "Mein Kampf" over to the Bavarian state government. Bavaria also is supporting preparation of a more comprehensive version with academic commentary by the Institute of Contemporary History in Munich. The state's minister for science, Wolfgang Heubisch, said that without such editions "there is the danger that charlatans and neo-Nazis could take possession of this infamous work" after the copyright expires. Soeder said Bavaria would fund the overall project with some (EURO)500,000 ($658,000), dapd reported. The president of Germany's Central Council of Jews, Dieter Graumann, has noted that the book is already widely available on the Internet and has said he would prefer for German citizens to read annotated excerpts than access it from online sources. The book is also easy to purchase in other countries, where Bavaria has been unable to hinder its publication due to different copyright legislation. ||||| Berlin (AFP) - The copyright of Hitler's "Mein Kampf" expires Friday, with plans by several publishers for annotated reprints sparking fierce debate over how one of the world's most controversial books should be treated seven decades after the defeat of the Nazis. The southern German state of Bavaria was handed the copyright of the book in 1945, when the Allies gave it the control of the main Nazi publishing house. For 70 years, it refused to allow the anti-Semitic manifesto to be republished out of respect for victims of the Nazis and to prevent incitement of hatred. But "Mein Kampf" -- which means "My Struggle" -- falls into the public domain on January 1, meaning that the state of Bavaria can no longer challenge reproductions or translations of the inflammatory work. For several European countries that were under Nazi occupation, including Austria and the Netherlands, the expiration of copyright will have little impact as reprints and sales of Hitler's diatribe remain banned there. But in Germany, historians have readied an annotated version to hit the bookstores on January 8, while in neighbouring France, publisher Fayard will go ahead with a new French version, sparking chagrin in some quarters. View gallery A German edition of Adolf Hitler's "Mein Kampf" (My Struggle) is pictured at the Berli … Some scholars argue in favour of the reprints, saying they will serve to demystify the notorious 800-page document, particularly given that the tract is freely available in many parts of the world, and just a few clicks away on the Internet. In India and Brazil, the book is easily found, while in Japan even a manga version of the tract is available. In Turkey, more than 30,000 copies have been sold since 2004 and the book is not prohibited in the United States. Nevertheless, opinion is split, particularly among Jewish groups, some of which want a ban maintained while others see reason in a scholarly version being made available for educational purposes. - Deconstructing Hitler - No country is as torn over the book as Germany, where all reprints have been halted since 1945 although the sale and possession of the book is not banned. View gallery Andreas Wirsching (L) -- director of the Institute of Contemporary History of Munich, which will put … Partly autobiographical, "Mein Kampf" outlines Adolf Hitler's ideology that formed the basis for Nazism. He wrote it in 1924 while he was imprisoned in Bavaria for treason after his failed beer hall putsch. The book set out two ideas that he put into practice as Germany's leader going into World War II: annexing neighbouring countries to gain "lebensraum", or "living space", for Germans; and his hatred of Jews, which led to the Holocaust. Some 12.4 million copies were published in Germany until 1945, and copies can be found in academic libraries. Germany's Jewish community leader Josef Schuster said "the despicable propaganda pamphlet 'Mein Kampf' should remain banned" although he did not oppose a scholarly version with explanations for educational and research purposes. Such an annotated version is what historians at the Institute of Contemporary History of Munich (IFZ) have prepared. View gallery A man holds a French (L), a Finnish (C) and a Danish (R) edition of Adolf Hitler's "Mein Ka … The IFZ version, running to 2,000 pages in two volumes including the added commentary, has been in the works since 2009 and aims to "deconstruct and put into context Hitler's writing". The book, to retail at 59 euros ($65) from January 8, will look at key historical questions, the institute said, including: "How were his theses conceived? What objectives did he have? And most important: which counterarguments do we have, given our knowledge today of the countless claims, lies and assertions of Hitler?" Education Minister Johanna Wanka has argued that such a scholarly version should be introduced to all classrooms across Germany, saying it would serve to ensure that "Hitler's comments do not remain unchallenged". "Pupils will have questions and it is only right that these can be addressed in classes," she said. But Charlotte Knobloch, who is president of the Jewish community in Munich and Upper Bavaria, warned that even this version carries certain risks as it "contains the original text" and that it was also "in the interest of right wing militants and Islamists to spread these ideas." - 'Bedside reading?' - To these fears, Andreas Wirshing, the IFZ's director, argued that each passage of the original text is accompanied by a commentary, forcing readers "to notice the commentaries and take them into account". "Any Hitler sympathisers who might be interested in the book are better off looking elsewhere," he said in an interview with Deutsche Welle. In neighbouring France, the president of the council of Jewish institutions, Roger Cukierman, called the planned French reprints "a disaster". "Such horror can already be found on the Internet. What would happen if 'Mein Kampf' also becomes bedside reading?" he said. In Israel, where reprints have been banned, the expiration of copyright would not lift a deep-seated taboo against the anti-Semitic screed. Murray Greenfield, founder of Gefen Publishing, which focuses on books about Judaism and its history, said he wouldn't publish it "even if they paid me".

– Mein Kampf is coming back. The copyright on Hitler's "anti-Semitic manifesto" expires Friday, and with the book in the public domain, several publishers are planning new editions. The German state of Bavaria has held the copyright in Germany since 1945 and has forbidden the book from being republished. But there is much debate as to whether the new, annotated reprints are a good idea, AFP reports. A version will hit shelves in Germany on Jan. 8, and another is planned in France. And while some want a ban on the book's publication, others point out that it's already available in many places around the globe—and the Internet. (Bavaria, for example, never held the copyright for the book in the US, the AP explains.) Even a Jewish community leader who wants the book banned does not oppose a scholarly version of the book with annotations, and that's what will be out in Germany on Jan. 8. The aim of the $65, 2,000-page text is to "deconstruct and put into context Hitler's writing," and to provide counterarguments to his ideas. Germany's Education Minister thinks such a version should be studied in classrooms so that "Hitler's comments do not remain unchallenged" and students' questions are answered. But another Jewish community leader warns that, even though it is accompanied by commentary, the original text is contained in the annotated version, and "right wing militants" could attempt to spread Hitler's ideas. Others argue that it's the limits on publication up til now that have served to fuel the "mystique" surrounding the book.

Two women who were retrieved by the Navy after they were stranded in a damaged sailboat with their two dogs for five months have, at long last, stepped foot on land. Yet, as questions arise about their story, the two admitted Monday they had a functioning rescue beacon on board they did not use. Jennifer Appel and Tasha Fuiava were taken to the White Base Naval Facility in southern Japan on Monday after the two were picked up by the Navy on October 25, adrift some 900 miles off the coast of Japan. The friends left their homes in Hawaii on May 3 for what was supposed to be about a month-long sailing trip to Tahiti in Appel’s sailing boat, the Sea Nymph, but the two quickly ran into trouble from a storm that flooded their engine, damaged their mast and cut off their communication systems. “The crew of the USS Ashland saved our lives,” Appel, 48, told press during a briefing on Monday, according to ABC News. “Had they not been able to locate us we would have been dead within 24 hours.” Koji Ueda/AP Appel, who is an experienced sailor, stocked up on a year’s worth of food for the trip in case of an emergency, living off a supply of pasta and oatmeal that was about 90 percent depleted by the time they were rescued. The two-woman crew sent out distress signals for 98 days but did not receive a response, and endured two separate attacks from groups of tiger sharks that rammed their boat. Sarah Villegas/U.S. Navy “When I saw the gray ship on the horizon, I was just shaking,” Fuiava told PEOPLE and other reporters during a conference call on Friday. “I was ready to cry. I was so happy. I knew we were going to live.” Yet, a Coast Guard spokeswoman told the AP that the women had an EPIRB (Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon) on board, which could have been used to alert search and rescue services via satellite at any point during their five-month journey. During a conference call with the AP and PEOPLE on Friday, Appel did not include an EPIRB when asked what communication devices she had on board. “We asked why during this course of time did they not activate the EPIRB. She had stated they never felt like they were truly in distress, like in a 24-hour period they were going to die,” Coast Guard spokeswoman Petty Officer 2nd Class Tara Molle said. Jonathan Clay/U.S. Navy Appel and Fuiava’s account has garnered much criticism from the boating community from the start. “I think most cruising sailors found the story just really odd,” Linus Wilson—an associate professor of finance at the University of Louisiana, who took up sailing in 2010 and has since logged more than 10,000 nautical miles—tells PEOPLE. “My initial thought when I heard the story was that Jennifer was very irresponsible for not checking the weather reports.” Appel says a Force 11 storm slammed into their boat within days of leaving Hawaii, but Wilson’s suspicions led him to research if any Force 11 storms—which can cause exceptionally high 30- to 50-foot waves and can dramatically reduce visibility—formed around Hawaii at the start of May. The NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) told him they have no record of a storm occurring at that time. PEOPLE followed up with the NOAA and confirmed this information. Wilson says he is worried their story may scare away people who are interested in sailing. “To have people afraid they’re going to be lost at sea, or that they’re going to be attacked by sharks, I think it’s a terrible picture for the sailboat cruising community,” he says. “Sailors who have been out on the water and have cruised long distances, their comments about the story are negative—there are so many holes in it that it just doesn’t make any sense.” ||||| (CNN) Two women from Hawaii who were lost at sea for nearly five months have been rescued by the US Navy. Jennifer Appel, Tasha Fuiava and their two dogs were found Wednesday, drifting about 900 miles southeast of Japan, a Navy statement said. "It was incredibly emotional and it was so satisfying to know the men and women that serve our country would come and assist us," Appel said in a call with the media Thursday. "It was actually quite mind-blowing and incredibly humbling." Appel described the situation prior to the rescue as "very depressing" and "very hopeless." "When I saw the gray boat on the edge of the horizon, my heart leapt because I knew we were about to be saved," she told NBC News . "Because I honestly believed we were going to die within the next 24 hours." USS Ashland Command Master Chief Gary Wise welcomes aboard Jennifer Appel. The pair left Hawaii on May 3 on the Sea Nymph, bound for Tahiti, about 2,600 miles way. They ran into trouble on May 30 when bad weather flooded the engine with water, Appel said. The women decided to keep sailing, but strayed off course, according to the Navy. The ship's mast was also damaged, compromising the structural integrity, and limiting the Sea Nymph's capabilities to maneuver, Appel said in the call, obtained through CNN affiliate KHNL/KGMB. Then the ship lost its communications capabilities. After two months -- past the time they estimated they would arrive in Tahiti -- the Honolulu residents began sending out daily distress calls, the Navy said. But they were too far away from other boats and shore stations to be heard. "You can't get any help at all because you're in the middle of nowhere," Fuiava said. Appel and Fuiava survived on a year's worth of dry goods, including oatmeal, pasta and rice, the Navy said. They also had a water purifier. The pair, along with their dogs -- or the "boys," as they call them -- survived two separate shark attacks, they said. "And both of them -- we actually thought it was lights out," Appel said, "and they were horrific." The first occurred one night when the Sea Nymph drifted into a pack of tiger sharks, Appel said. The next night, another came and slammed itself against the ship's hull. "We were just incredibly lucky that our hull was strong enough to withstand the onslaught." "There is a true humility to wondering if today is your last day," Appel added. "If tonight is your last night. If the storm that's approaching is going to bring down the rig." 'Thank God we've been rescued' For 98 days, they sent distress signals, Appel and Fuiava said, hoping to be rescued. After nearly five months lost at sea, they were finally spotted by a Taiwanese fishing vessel. The fishermen attempted to tow the sailboat, but when they failed, contacted the US Coast Guard. The Navy discovered the boat Tuesday, about 900 miles southeast of Japan -- which is thousands of miles away from Tahiti. Tasha Fuiava climbs to board the Ashland. The USS Ashland, a ship based in Sasebo, Japan, was near the area on routine deployment and reached the damaged sailboat Wednesday morning. "The US Navy is postured to assist any distressed mariner of any nationality during any type of situation," said Cmdr. Steven Wasson, Ashland commanding officer. The Navy released video footage of the rescuers reaching the stricken sailboat. An ecstatic woman greeted them and blew kisses, while the two dogs, Zeus and Valentine, wearing bright, yellow life jackets, barked excitedly. 'Lucky to be alive' It was a good thing the fishermen located the sailboat when and where they did, said Curtis Ebbesmeyer, a flotsam expert who co-wrote a book on the subject The circular currents that carried the boat toward Japan could easily have sent it away from land, he said. "If they hadn't been found there (off Japan) there's a good chance they'd have gone back out to the Pacific," Ebbesmeyer said. "The North Pacific is a really rough ocean in the winter. ... They're lucky to be alive." He said flotsam and boats usually drift an average of 20 miles daily in the ocean. The distance and direction the women's sailboat covered was "a normal drift pattern," assuming it started drifting north of the equator, he said. The women were smart to pack the water purifier, he said. 'You're around for a reason' The sailboat was deemed unseaworthy and is currently drifting out at sea, a Navy spokesman said during the call from the Ashland. The women were given medical assessments and will remain aboard the USS Ashland until its next port of call, the Navy said. "I'm grateful for their service to our country," Appel said in a Navy statement. "They saved our lives. The pride and smiles we had when we saw [the US Navy] on the horizon was pure relief." Sailors help Zeus, one of two dogs who were on the sailboat, aboard the Ashland. Appel and Fuiava said they had no option but to carry on, so they tried to make the most of their time lost at sea. "There's different sunrises and sunsets every day," Fuiava said. "And you're around for a reason, but you may as well use the time to do something beneficial." Appel, Fuiava, Zeus and Valentine are safe with the US Navy. But The Sea Nymph is still out there, drifting.

– The story of two women from Hawaii rescued after being lost at sea for five months is beginning to seem incredible—as in difficult to believe. After they were picked up by the USS Ashland 900 miles southeast of Japan last week, Jennifer Appel and Tasha Fuiava said they faced storms and shark attacks and that there were times when they "absolutely" thought they would die. They didn't mention that they failed to use their Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon, which would have immediately alerted rescuers to their location. A Coast Guard spokeswoman says the women claim they never used the emergency beacon because they never felt "truly in distress, like in a 24-hour period they were going to die." Multiple other inconsistencies in the account have surfaced, including some that conflict with the "basic geography of the Pacific Ocean," the AP reports. The women say they departed Hawaii bound for Tahiti on May 3 and ran into a fearsome Force 11 storm the same day that "lasted for two nights and three days," but the National Weather Service says there were no storm systems near Hawaii around that time. The women have said their mast and motor failed, along with multiple methods of communication, though the Coast Guard says it made radio contact with their sailboat, the Sea Nymph, near Tahiti in June and they said they weren't in distress. One long-distance sailor tells People that many sailors find the women's story odd, because "there are so many holes in it that it just doesn't make any sense." (The two women are now back on land.)

This image released by Boneau/Bryan-Brown shows a performance of "Mean Girls," in New York. The Tony Awards race is dominated by big established brands, including Disney's “Frozen,” J.K. Rowling's “Harry... (Associated Press) This image released by Boneau/Bryan-Brown shows a performance of "Mean Girls," in New York. The Tony Awards race is dominated by big established brands, including Disney's “Frozen,” J.K. Rowling's “Harry Potter” franchise, Tina Fey's “Mean Girls” and Nickelodeon's “SpongeBob SquarePants.” The nominations... (Associated Press) NEW YORK (AP) — Tina Fey's musical "Mean Girls," which she adapted from her much-beloved and oft-quoted 2004 high school comedy movie, and the goofy undersea adaptation from the cartoon "SpongeBob SquarePants: The Musical" lead the Tony Award nominations with dozen nods each. A British revival of "Angels in America," Tony Kushner's monumental, two-part drama about AIDS, life and love during the 1980s, grabbed 11 nominations — the most for any play — 25 years after it first appeared on Broadway. The shimmering, grown-up musical "The Band's Visit" also earned 11 nods. J.K. Rowling's "Harry Potter" franchise extended its magical touch to Broadway, with a two-part stage play featuring the bespectacled wizard earning 10 nominations, as did a revival of "My Fair Lady." Best new musical category is filled by "The Band's Visit," ''Frozen," ''Mean Girls" and "SpongeBob SquarePants: The Musical." Those musicals that failed to make the cut were the Hal Prince revue "Prince of Broadway," the Jimmy Buffet musical "Escape to Margaritaville" and "Summer," about disco diva Donna Summer. The two-part "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child," which picks up 19 years from where Rowling's last novel left off and portrays Potter and his friends as grown-ups, won nine Olivier Awards in London before coming to America and bewitching critics and audiences alike. It now will face "The Children," ''Farinelli and The King," ''Junk" and "Latin History for Morons" for best new play. Best male acting nominations for a play include Denzel Washington, starring in a revival of Eugene O'Neill's epic "The Iceman Cometh." The 2010 Tony winner for "Fences" will have to face-off against Andrew Garfield in "Angels in America," Tom Hollander of "Travesties," Jamie Parker of "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child" and Mark Rylance in "Farinelli and The King." Amy Schumer, who made her Broadway debut in Steve Martin's comedy "Meteor Shower," won a nomination for best actress in a play. Others in the category include Glenda Jackson from "Edward Albee's Three Tall Women," Condola Rashad in "Saint Joan" and Lauren Ridloff in "Children of a Lesser God." "Carousel," ''My Fair Lady" and "Once on This Island" make up the best musical revival category, mostly because they're only eligible nominees. The best play revival category is filled by "Angels in America," ''Three Tall Women," ''Lobby Hero," ''Travesties" and "The Iceman Cometh." Bruce Springsteen, whose solo show mixes songs and stories from his best-selling memoir "Born to Run" and has been banking over $2 million each week he's onstage, will be granted a special, non-competitive Tony, along with John Leguizamo for "Latin History for Morons." Plenty of nominations don't necessarily lead to actual wins on Tony night. While "Hamilton" was nominated for 16 awards in 2016 and went on to win 11, just last year "Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812" earned a leading 12 nominations but got just two technical awards on the big night. ___ Mark Kennedy is at http://twitter.com/KennedyTwits ||||| This image released by Boneau/Bryan-Brown shows a performance of "Mean Girls," in New York. The Tony Awards race is dominated by big established brands, including Disney's “Frozen,” J.K. Rowling's “Harry... (Associated Press) This image released by Boneau/Bryan-Brown shows a performance of "Mean Girls," in New York. The Tony Awards race is dominated by big established brands, including Disney's “Frozen,” J.K. Rowling's “Harry Potter” franchise, Tina Fey's “Mean Girls” and Nickelodeon's “SpongeBob SquarePants.” The nominations... (Associated Press) NEW YORK (AP) — Select nominations for the 2018 Tony Awards, announced Tuesday. Best Musical: "The Band's Visit;" ''Frozen;" ''Mean Girls;" ''SpongeBob SquarePants: The Musical" Best Play: "The Children;" ''Farinelli and the King;" ''Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Parts One and Two;" ''Junk;" ''Latin History for Morons" Best Book of a Musical: "The Band's Visit;" ''Frozen;" ''Mean Girls"; "SpongeBob SquarePants: The Musical" Best Original Score (Music and/or Lyrics) Written for the Theater: "Angels in America"; "The Band's Visit;" ''Frozen"; "Mean Girls"; "SpongeBob SquarePants: The Musical" Best Revival of a Play: "Angels in America;" ''Three Tall Women;" ''The Iceman Cometh;" ''Lobby Hero"; "Travesties" Best Revival of a Musical: "Carousel;" ''My Fair Lady;" ''Once on This Island" Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Play: Andrew Garfield, "Angels in America"; Tom Hollander, "Travesties"; Jamie Parker, "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Parts One and Two"; Mark Rylance, "Farinelli and The King"; Denzel Washington, "The Iceman Cometh" Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Play: Glenda Jackson, "Three Tall Women"; Condola Rashad, "Saint Joan"; Lauren Ridloff, "Children of a Lesser God"; Amy Schumer, "Meteor Shower" Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical: Harry Hadden-Paton, "My Fair Lady"; Joshua Henry, "Carousel"; Tony Shalhoub, "The Band's Visit"; Ethan Slater, "SpongeBob SquarePants: The Musical." Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Musical: Lauren Ambrose, "My Fair Lady"; Hailey Kilgore, "Once On This Island"; LaChanze, "Summer: The Donna Summer Musical"; Katrina Lenk, "The Band's Visit"; Taylor Louderman, "Mean Girls"; Jessie Mueller, "Carousel" Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Play: Anthony Boyle, "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Parts One and Two"; Michael Cera, "Lobby Hero"; Brian Tyree Henry, "Lobby Hero"; Nathan Lane, "Angels in America"; David Morse, "The Iceman Cometh" Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Play: Susan Brown, "Angels in America"; Noma Dumezweni, "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Parts One and Two"; Deborah Findlay, "The Children"; Denise Gough, "Angels in America"; Laurie Metcalf, "Three Tall Women" Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Musical: Norbert Leo Butz, "My Fair Lady"; Alexander Gemignani, "Carousel"; Grey Henson, "Mean Girls"; Gavin Lee, "SpongeBob SquarePants: The Musical"; Ari'el Stachel, "The Band's Visit" Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Musical: Ariana DeBose, "Summer: The Donna Summer Musical"; Renee Fleming, "Carousel"; Lindsay Mendez, "Carousel"; Ashley Park, "Mean Girls"; Diana Rigg, "My Fair Lady" ___ Online: http://tonyawards.com

– Tina Fey's musical Mean Girls, which she adapted from her much-beloved and oft-quoted 2004 high school comedy movie, and the goofy undersea cartoon adaptation SpongeBob SquarePants: The Broadway Musical lead the Tony Award nominations with a dozen nods each. A British revival of Angels in America, Tony Kushner's monumental, two-part drama about AIDS, life, and love during the 1980s, grabbed 11 nominations—the most for any play—25 years after it first appeared on Broadway. The shimmering, grown-up musical The Band's Visit also earned 11 nods. JK Rowling's Harry Potter franchise extended its magical touch to Broadway, with a two-part stage play featuring the bespectacled wizard earning 10 nominations, as did a revival of My Fair Lady, per the AP. The best new musical category is filled by The Band's Visit, Frozen, Mean Girls, and SpongeBob SquarePants: The Broadway Musical. Amy Schumer, who made her Broadway debut in Steve Martin's comedy Meteor Shower, won a nomination for best actress in a play. Others in the category include Glenda Jackson from Edward Albee's Three Tall Women, Condola Rashad in Saint Joan, and Lauren Ridloff in Children of a Lesser God. Best male acting nominations for a play include Denzel Washington, starring in a revival of Eugene O'Neill's epic The Iceman Cometh. The 2010 Tony winner for Fences will have to face off against Andrew Garfield in Angels in America, Tom Hollander of Travesties, Jamie Parker of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, and Mark Rylance in Farinelli and The King. A fuller list is here.

Researchers say that 32-year-old Zac Vawter successfully controlled movements of a motorized artificial leg using only his own thoughts. Video: Rehab Institute of Chicago. In an advance that could eventually improve the mobility of thousands of people living with amputations, researchers said a 32-year-old man successfully controlled movements of a motorized artificial leg using only his own thoughts. Aided by sensors receiving impulses from nerves and muscles that once carried signals to his missing knee and ankle, the patient was able to climb and descend stairs and walk up and down inclines much as he could with a natural leg, based on directions that came from his brain. Importantly, he was able to flex the device's ankle, enabling a near-normal gait, something not possible with current prosthetics. Photos View Slideshow Andrew A. Nelles for The Wall Street Journal Zac Vawter walked down stairs with his bionic leg. "It's night and day" between the experimental bionic leg and the mechanical prosthetic limb he uses every day, said Zac Vawter, a software engineer from Yelm, Wash., who lost his right leg in a motorcycle accident four years ago. "Going upstairs with my normal prosthetic, my sound leg goes up first for every step," he added. "With this I go foot-over-foot up the stairs and down the stairs." Researchers said Mr. Vawter is the first person to have been able to control such a prosthetic by brain signals alone. Current state-of-the-art devices involving both the knee and the ankle require pressing a remote-control button at, say, the bottom of a flight of stairs to rock and kick the leg back to make the step up, said Levi J. Hargrove, a researcher at the Center for Bionic Medicine, Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago. For Mr. Vawter, Dr. Hargrove said, "it's all intuitive. He can walk up or descend stairs in stride." Dr. Hargrove is lead author of a report on the technology, published Wednesday by the New England Journal of Medicine. More than a million Americans are living with amputations, including some 1,600 soldiers who returned from wars in Iraq and Afghanistan during the past decade having lost at least one limb. The current project is supported by an $8 million grant from the U.S. Army as part of an effort to address life-limiting injuries in soldiers, said Col. John Scherer, head of clinical and rehabilitative medicine research at the army's Medical Research and Materiel Command in Fort Detrick, Md. A goal of the bionic-leg project is to enable young soldiers to "participate in life" and even return to active duty. Researchers call the device bionic because of its ability to interact intelligently with a human. Despite associations of "bionic" technology with superhuman strength, the prosthetics "don't necessarily need to be strong," Dr. Hargrove said. "They need to be smart." Dr. Hargrove and his colleagues developed the electronics for the device, including a software algorithm that receives signals from electrodes attached to skin on what remains of the amputated leg and converts those signals to knee and ankle movement on the prosthetic. The electrodes get the signals from muscles attached to nerves in the residual leg, including nerves that before the amputation carried brain signals to the ankle. Those nerves were implanted in Mr. Vawter's hamstring muscle shortly after the accident. "When Zac wants to try to move," Dr. Hargrove said, the brain sends signals down the spinal cord to muscle that hasn't been damaged. "We have electrodes that are listening to those signals. The algorithm decodes patterns "to figure out what he was thinking," translating the results into movement such as straightening the knee while sitting or flexing the ankle. In experiments typically involving 700 to 1,000 steps, Dr. Hargrove said, minor errors such as scuffing the foot occurred in about 2% of steps with the signals coming from the brain. Mr. Vawter didn't experience any more-serious errors that could have resulted in a fall, he said. The accomplishment "takes us closer to the point where we're going to have robust commercial products that use signals from a person's brain to let them walk," said Daniel Ferris, a professor in the school of kinesiology and department of biomedical engineering at the University of Michigan, who wasn't involved in the current research. Mr. Vawter said one drawback is that the device isn't fit for running, which he can do with his regular prosthetic. Other needed improvements, Dr. Hargrove said, are making the 10-pound device quieter and smaller. Write to Ron Winslow at ron.winslow@wsj.com A version of this article appeared September 26, 2013, on page A3 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Brain Power Enough to Control 'Bionic' Leg. ||||| Zac Vawter, a software engineer who lives in the Seattle area, already knew about advances in bionic technology when a motorcycle wreck led to the amputation of his right leg just above the knee in 2009. As doctors at Harbor View Medical Center in Seattle battled for three days to try to save his leg, Vawter asked about the method that uses the mind to move a prosthetic limb. The technology had previously been used only in arms. Four years and an $8 million grant from the U.S. Army’s Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Research Center later, Vawter is considered the “test pilot” of the bionic leg that can tackle slopes, stairs and in-chair movement markedly better than existing devices. A team of researchers led by Levi Hargrove from the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago’s Center for Bionic Medicine reported their results with the novel prosthetic in the New England Journal of Medicine. “In my mind, it’s still the same thing in terms of moving my ankle down or up, or extending my leg forward or back,” Vawter said in a telephone interview. “It’s just walk like I would normally walk. It’s not special training or buttons or tricks. That’s a big piece of what I think is groundbreaking and phenomenal about this work.” Additional refinements are needed to make the thought-controlled bionic leg commercially viable, Hargrove said in a telephone interview. Vawter is allowed to use the machine only a week at a time during visits every few months to the clinic in Chicago. Freedom Innovations LLC, a closely held company based in Irvine, California, is working on making the motorized machine smaller, quieter and more robust. Prosthetic Evolution It’s been an evolutionary process. Most prosthetic legs work like a walking stick with springs, giving the patient something on which to balance. The next step up, robotic prosthetics, are further advanced with remote controls and embedded sensors that measure how much weight they must bear, the knee position and the way a person is turning, like mobile phones determine orientation. The thought-controlled device goes further, harnessing nerves that formerly regulated the leg’s movement to maneuver the prosthetic leg. The new leg allows Vawter to seamlessly transition between walking and standing, with the biggest difference showing up when he is climbing stairs. With a standard prosthetic leg, Vawter always steps up first with his healthy left leg, then pulls the right leg along. With the thought-controlled leg, he is able to walk foot-over-foot, he said. Someone watching him climb wouldn’t know he had a prosthesis based on his gait, Hargrove said, though they may hear the motor whirring. ‘Dramatic Improvement’ “It’s still a prosthetic, but it’s in between the leg I wear every day and prior to amputation,” said Vawter, who can’t yet jump to the rim of a basketball net with the robotic leg, as he could before the amputation. “It’s a dramatic improvement over my current prosthetic, but there is still a long way to go.” The rate of errors, including the risk of falls, was shaved to just 1.8 percent with the new device, down from 12.9 percent with the standard robotic leg prosthesis. The new device may be available within three to five years for the 1 million Americans with leg amputations, Hargrove said. The approach may benefit the 1,200 soldiers injured while serving in the U.S. military, many of whom are young and want to continue active lives. It may also help older people who want to remain at home, particularly those who have trouble standing and caring for themselves because of amputations, he said. The researchers started with an advanced motorized knee and ankle prosthesis developed at Vanderbilt University. Their goal was to improve the “steering” of the device, using only the mind. Natural Signaling The first thing was to recreate the natural signaling process used to move, which was disconnected when the leg was severed. The signal in the brain that moves through the spinal cord, down the peripheral nerves and into the muscles remains intact until the spot of the amputation, Hargrove said. The researchers “rewired” Vawter, redirecting two of the critical severed nerves into his hamstring, the muscle at the back of the leg. When he thinks about moving his knee or ankle, those nerves still fire, releasing a tiny burst of electricity. Sensors taped on to the legs capture the signals. That data is added to a pattern-detection computer system that takes information from the robotic leg to predict the patient’s intended movement. While the researchers expected the additional information to make the leg operate more smoothly, the magnitude of the benefit was unexpected, they wrote in the New England Journal. Many errors weren’t even noticeable. The researchers measured nine muscles in the leg and analyzed the activities that were most important for regular function, Hargrove said. When Vawter performs any of those activities, the computer program predicts what he is doing. Reinnervation Expert Vawter became the test pilot of the device through his surgeon, Douglas Smith. A contributor on the paper, Smith is an expert on the use of targeted muscle reinnervation, when the nerves are repurposed to improve the control of a motorized arm prosthesis. He performed Vawter’s amputation, and identified him as a good candidate for helping develop the thought-controlled leg prosthesis. The researchers adjusted the leg and the computer systems based on Vawter’s feedback. It has gone through major revisions of the hardware and many little changes to the software, said Vawter, who works at Engineered Software Inc. in Lacey, Washington. Current prosthetic legs cost a few thousand dollars, with robotic devices as much as $100,000, Hargrove said. There is no price target yet for the thought-controlled bionic leg, he said. “The value it will provide to the people who use it will be enormous,” Hargrove said. “We feel we’ve been able to eliminate the vast majority of safety critical errors. You can never predict how they will use these devices in their own lives, but we are making fantastic progress.” To contact the reporter on this story: Michelle Fay Cortez in Minneapolis at mcortez@bloomberg.net To contact the editor responsible for this story: Reg Gale at rgale5@bloomberg.net ||||| The act of walking may not seem like a feat of agility, balance, strength and brainpower. But lose a leg, as Zac Vawter did after a motorcycle accident in 2009, and you will appreciate the myriad calculations that go into putting one foot in front of the other. Taking on the challenge, a team of software and biomedical engineers, neuroscientists, surgeons and prosthetists has designed a prosthetic limb that can reproduce a full repertoire of ambulatory tricks by communicating seamlessly with Vawter's brain. A report published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine describes how the team fit Vawter with a prosthetic leg that has learned — with the help of a computer and some electrodes — to read his intentions from a bundle of nerves that end above his missing knee. For the roughly 1 million Americans who have lost a leg or part of one due to injury or disease, Vawter and his robotic leg offer the hope that future prosthetics might return the feel of a natural gait, kicking a soccer ball or climbing into a car without hoisting an inert artificial limb into the vehicle. Vawter's prosthetic is a marvel of 21st century engineering. But it is Vawter's ability to control the prosthetic with his thoughts that makes the latest case remarkable. If he wants his artificial toes to curl toward him, or his artificial ankle to shift so he can walk down a ramp, all he has to do is imagine such movements. The work was done at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago under an $8-million grant from the Army. The armed forces hope to apply findings from such studies to the care of about 1,200 service personnel who have lost a lower limb in Iraq and Afghanistan. "We want to restore full capabilities" to people who've lost a lower limb, said Levi J. Hargrove, lead author of the new report. "While we're focused and committed to developing this system for our wounded warriors, we're very much thinking of this other, much larger population that could benefit as well." The report describes advances across a wide range of disciplines: in orthopedic and peripheral nerve surgery, neuroscience, and the application of pattern-recognition software to the field of prosthetics. Weighing just over 10 pounds, the leg has two independent engines powering movement in the ankle and knee. And it bristles with sensors, including an accelerometer and gyroscope, each capable of detecting and measuring movement in three dimensions. Most prosthetics in use today require the physical turn of a key to transition from one movement to another. But with the robotic leg, those transitions are effortless, Vawter said. "With this leg, it just flows," said the 32-year-old software engineer, who spends most of his days using a typical prosthetic but travels to Chicago several times a year from his home in Yelm, Wash. "The control system is very intuitive. There isn't anything special I have to do to make it work right." Before Vawter could strap on the bionic lower limb, engineers in Chicago had to "teach" the prosthetic how to read his motor intentions from tiny muscle contractions in his right thigh. At the institute's Center for Bionic Medicine, Vawter spent countless hours with his thigh wired up with electrodes, imagining making certain movements on command with his missing knee, ankle and foot. Using pattern-recognition software, engineers discerned, distilled and digitized those recorded electrical signals to catalog an entire repertoire of movements. The prosthetic could thus be programmed to recognize the subtlest contraction of a muscle in Vawter's thigh as a specific motor command. Given surgical practices still in wide use, the prospects for such a connection between a patient's prosthetic and his or her peripheral nerves are generally dim. In most amputations, the nerves in the thigh are left to languish or die. Dr. Todd Kuiken, a neurosurgeon at the rehabilitation institute, pioneered a practice called "reinervation" of nerves severed by amputation, and Vawter's orthopedic surgeon at the University of Washington Medical Center was trained to conduct the delicate operation. Dr. Douglas Smith rewired the severed nerves to control some of the muscles in Vawter's thigh that would be used less frequently in the absence of his lower leg. Within a few months of the amputation, those nerves had recovered from the shock of the injury and begun to regenerate and carry electrical impulses. When Vawter thought about flexing his right foot in a particular way, the rerouted nerve endings would consistently cause a distinctive contraction in his hamstring. When he pondered how he would position his foot on a stair step and ready it for the weight of his body, the muscle contraction would be elsewhere — but equally consistent. Compared with prosthetics that were not able to "read" the intent of their wearers, the robotic leg programmed to follow Vawter's commands reduced the kinds of errors that cause unnatural movements, discomfort and falls by as much as 44%, according to the New England Journal of Medicine report. Vawter said he had "fallen down a whole bunch of times" while wearing his everyday prosthetic, but not once while moving around on his bionic leg. He said he could move a lot faster too — which would be helpful for keeping up with his 5-year-old son and 3-year-old daughter. But first, Vawter added, he needs to persuade Hargrove's team to let him wear it home. melissa.healy@latimes.com ||||| Kent Stephenson does voluntary training while Katelyn Gurley tracks his level of muscle activity and force at the Human Locomotion Research Center laboratory, a part of the University of Louisville's Kentucky Spinal Cord Injury Research Center. (Photo: University of Louisville) Paralysis may not last forever anymore. In an experiment hailed as "staggering," a team of researchers at the University of Louisville and the University of California-Los Angeles restored some voluntary movement to four men who were told they would never move their legs again. The finding, published online today by the journal Brain, upends understanding of the spinal cord and is likely to transform the lives of more than 1.2 million Americans who lack control over their lower limbs. "The message here is that patients with spinal cord injury may no longer necessarily say it's a sentence of complete, permanent paralysis," said Roderic Pettigrew, director of the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, the federal agency that helped fund the research. "Spinal cord injury is devastating, but now there is hope." By coursing an electrical current through the four men's spines, the research team, which included scientists from the Pavlov Institute of Physiology in Russia, appears to have "dialed up" signals between the brain and legs that were believed to have been completely lost. All four men, after being paralyzed for two to four years, can lift their legs, flex their ankles and support their own weight while standing, though only when the device embedded under their skin is turned on. In a response that shocked researchers, all four have regained bladder and bowel control, sexual function and the ability to regulate their blood pressure and body temperature – even when the epidural stimulation device is not running. It's those seemingly simple improvements that Kent Stephenson says have given him his life back. "At the age of 22, my doctors were telling me, 'Here's a wheelchair, get used to it,' " said Stephenson of Mount Pleasant, Texas, who was paralyzed from the neck down in a motocross accident in 2009. "(Now) I feel like I'm better than I was. I don't feel like I'm going backwards anymore. ... I can pursue something in life." Stephenson was the second to receive epidural stimulation. The first patient, Rob Summers, received a lot of attention in 2011 when the record of his stunning recovery was published. Claudia Angeli, an assistant professor at the University of Louisville's Kentucky Spinal Cord Injury Research Center, said no one was sure whether it was a fluke. Angeli, a biomechanics expert, said she didn't expect Stephenson would respond nearly as well to the epidural stimulation, because he had no feeling at all below his midback injury, while Summers, injured at the neck, had a little. The day Stephenson was going to be asked to try moving his legs for the first time, they prepared for a long, boring series of tests like others he'd been through seemingly hundreds of times before. Angeli said she expected to ask him many times that day to lift his leg and nothing would happen. From left, Andrew Meas, Dustin Shillcox, Kent Stephenson and Rob Summers are the first to undergo task-specific training with epidural stimulation. (Photo: University of Louisville) Hooked up to the machine and given the command, Stephenson surprised everyone by voluntarily raising his left leg from the bed. "I felt a charge go up my leg," he said. "It was unreal. I'd always been told I'd never do that again. My mom busted into tears. I was kind of crying, too." Angeli admits that she and others spent some time "jumping around the lab" in joy. The full benefits of epidural stimulation aren't immediate. All four men had to move to Louisville for two years of costly treatment, rehabilitation and experiments. It's too soon to know whether everyone with a spinal cord injury will improve as much as they have, but, as Angeli notes, "with four out of four, it's a very good sign." The team has begun recruiting a second group of four from among 2,000 volunteers in its database. The mere fact that the treatment works at all will promote other research in the field, said John Donoghue, a neuroscientist and director of the Brown University Institute for Brain Science, who was not involved in the work. Scientists have always known that the spinal cord can take over action on its own without help from the brain: Think of how quickly you can right yourself when you trip and how a chicken can keep running around even without its head. Scientists weren't sure how much of a signal had to reach from the brain down the spinal cord to trigger the initial action. Now they know a very weak signal may be enough, said Donoghue, who works with Veterans Affairs. "This could open up a whole new set of ideas of how you could treat spinal cord injury," he said. There's no question that the success of epidural stimulation will benefit other people with paralysis, said Peter T. Wilderotter, president and CEO of the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation, which raises money for spinal cord research and helped fund the study. "The changes we see here are really staggering," he said. "It's truly a breakthrough. It means extraordinary hope and a change in their whole quality of life and what they can look forward to." Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1gGb5uR

– Zac Vawter imagines movements that his leg mimics just like everyone else. When going up an incline, he visualizes his ankle moving as needed, and it does. But there's something remarkable about that moment: It's actually "a marvel of 21st century engineering," reports the Los Angeles Times. Vawter, 32, is the "test pilot" for a new bionic leg—the first of its kind to communicate with the brain (though the technology has been used with arm prostheses). It uses sensors to harness "reinnervated" nerves; they're essentially nerves that, rather than being allowed to die, are surgically "rewired" to control his right thigh muscles; the bionic leg is then programmed to read the contractions of those muscles. The comparison to his other prosthesis is "night and day," Vawter tells the Wall Street Journal. The error rate (that includes things like the risk of falling) is shaved, from 12.9% with a robotic leg, down to just 1.8%, Bloomberg reports via a New England Journal of Medicine report. Weighing about 10 pounds, the bionic leg is the work of the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, which saw an $8 million boost from the US Army. The latter hopes the leg can one day benefit some 1,200 Iraq and Afghanistan vets who could use it. But there's much broader appeal: About 1 million Americans are without lower limbs and the device could be available to them in three to five years, Bloomberg reports. "The value it will provide to the people who use it will be enormous," the study's lead author said. "We are making fantastic progress."

Auf wiedersehen, indeed. Heidi Klum and Tim Gunn, the stars who turned “Project Runway” into one of the first and biggest cable reality-TV hits of the previous decade, are saying goodbye to that venerable series and making the leap to streaming. The duo has signed a deal to develop a new fashion-oriented reality show for Amazon Studios. Details of the new program are not yet known, and no producers are yet attached. Sources tell Variety that Amazon will open a competitive process for production companies to vie to oversee the new show. Klum and Gunn’s Amazon deal throws into question the future of “Project Runway,” whose season-16 finale aired last year on cable channel Lifetime. Bravo, the show’s original network home, made a surprise announcement in May that the series would return to the NBCUniversal-owned channel for its next season with longtime production company Magical Elves again on board. “After 16 incredible seasons, I am saying ‘Auf Wiedersehen’ to ‘Project Runway,’ a show that I was honored to host and help create,” said Klum. “I am incredibly proud of the show, and it will always have a special place in my heart. I am so appreciative of the dedicated fans, and most of all, I am grateful that we could shine a light on creativity and help launch so many talented designers’ careers. I’m most excited that my journey with my dear friend and colleague, Tim Gunn, is far from over. We will be partnering with Amazon for a new show, and we’re excited for everyone to see what we’re designing next!” Related 'Suspiria' Plans Big Expansion After Roaring Start Amazon's Jennifer Salke Teases Blake Lively Scripted Series Gunn added: “I am grateful to ‘Project Runway’ for putting me on a path I never, in my wildest dreams, thought my career would take me! I am so proud to have been a part of the groundbreaking process that showcased talented young designers as never before. Most importantly, I am indebted to our incredible fans, they are the heart and soul of what we do, and continue to inspire us to raise the bar in this arena. I’m excited for them to see what’s next, as I partner with Amazon and Heidi Klum on our next great ‘fashion’ adventure.” The deal with Klum and Gunn is the most recent with high-profile talent for Amazon under Jenifer Salke, the former NBC exec who became head of the tech giant’s entertainment division earlier this year. Amazon has in recent months set deals with Nicole Kidman, Jordan Peele, and Barry Jenkins. “Heidi Klum completely changed the television landscape by developing a competitive reality fashion series that was unproven and different from what was popular on-air,” Salke said. “The show became wildly successful, and in turn Klum and Tim Gunn have become an iconic pop culture duo. Their drive to deliver fashionably entertaining, engaging and trendsetting content speaks for itself, and we believe their next iteration in this space will find an even larger audience on our global Prime Video runway.” Gunn is represented by CAA and attorney Eric Weissler. Klum is represented by CAA, Harvey Markowitz, and attorneys Daniel Passman and Harold Brown. Designer Zac Posen, who has served as as a judge on the six most recent seasons of “Project Runway,” is also leaving the show. “Working alongside Heidi, Nina and Tim as a judge for six seasons of ‘Project Runway’ was one of the greatest experiences of my career. I will cherish the opportunity the show gave me to learn from and grow with my co-judges, the producers, crew and designers. Runway has led to incredible opportunities and I am currently at work on some new projects that I am very excited to share with you soon. I wish the show and everyone much success always.” Bravo and producer Magical Elves are in the process of recasting “Project Runway.” “Bravo is proud to bring ‘Project Runway’ back where it all began, and Heidi and Tim will always be a huge part of the legacy,” a Bravo spokesperson said in a statement. “The series will continue its iconic impact with Bravo’s reboot for the next generation of designers and fans. We are excited to announce our new host and mentor very soon.” ||||| "Project Runway" (Bravo to Lifetime to Bravo): The competitive reality show, hosted by Heidi Klum, spent five seasons on Bravo before a dramatic move to Lifetime in 2009, where the show aired for 10 seasons. However, in drama that is fitting for "Project Runway," the show will return to Bravo. (Photo: Barbara Nitke, Lifetime) Heidi Klum and Tim Gunn are saying "auf wiedersehen" to "Project Runway" after 16 seasons. They're developing a new fashion series for Amazon, which plans to sell clothes featured on the new reality project. Amazon provided few details except to say the series will be available globally, in 200 countries and territories, and promises a "fresh take" that will "continue the stars' commitment to making fashion accessible to a wide audience." "Runway," which has aired on Lifetime since 2009, is returning to its original network, NBC-owned Bravo next year – without two key stars – after its owner, The Weinstein Co., was sold. In a statement, Klum described "Runway" as a show she was "honored to host and help create. I am incredibly proud of the show, and it will always have a special place in my heart. I am so appreciative of the dedicated fans, and most of all, I am grateful that we could shine a light on creativity and help launch so many talented designers' careers," she said. "I’m most excited that my journey with my dear friend and colleague, Tim Gunn, is far from over.” Gunn also said he was "grateful" for the show's influence in his career. "I am so proud to have been a part of the groundbreaking process that showcased talented young designers as never before. Most importantly, I am indebted to our incredible fans, they are the heart and soul of what we do, and continue to inspire us to raise the bar in this arena," he said. "I’m excited for them to see what’s next as I partner with Amazon and Heidi Klum on our next great ‘fashion’ adventure.” More: 'Project Runway' designer and finalist Mychael Knight dies at 39 More: 'Project Runway' is breaking barriers in body inclusivity with new season, thanks to Tim Gunn Read or Share this story: https://usat.ly/2MX1z2X

– Project Runway may never look the same. Mainstays Heidi Klum and Tim Gunn are leaving the show after 16 seasons to start a new fashion series for Amazon, reports USA Today. The format of the new series is still unclear, but viewers will apparently be able to buy clothes featured on it. Project Runway, meanwhile, is set to move from Lifetime back to its original network, Bravo, next year. Variety notes that Amazon's entertainment division is making some aggressive moves under its new leader, former NBC exec Jennifer Salke. The division recently signed other deals with Nicole Kidman and Jordan Peele, among others.

Photo: Mireya Acierto Ashley Judd has made quite the commitment. Like, as in the years-long kind that will put her in the single-digit percentage of the educated population. We’re talking, of course, about some serious PhD-getting business here. The actress and humanitarian announced in a Facebook Live video on Monday that she will be getting her third degree at UC Berkeley starting this fall. Judd was accepted into a rigorous PhD program for public policy at the Northern California university, where she said she hopes to “do some good thinking, some rigorous research and fill it with my typical heart and soul and see how I can continue to do my little part to make the world a better place.” But she’s also experiencing some normal first day of school jitters. “Sometimes I’m really excited, sometimes I’m like ‘What have I gotten myself into?!’” she added. Judd’s desire to pursue a PhD places her in a minority among those in Hollywood and the population at large. It’s not unheard of for universities to sometimes bestow an honorary degree on a celebrity, but that tends to happen for musicians for their creative works over the years. Seeing a relatively well-known actress decide to dedicate years to a post-doc program is pretty darn rare. Still, Judd’s acceptance into the competitive program at Berkeley, which only accepts a handful of students every year, shouldn’t be that much of a surprise. Judd graduated from the University of Kentucky, and in 2009, she enrolled in an itty-bitty school by the grand old name of Harvard. Her master’s there was in public administration with a focus on gender equality, two issues that have been been dear to Judd’s heart for some time. Judd has often used her celebrity status to speak candidly about the tough choices women and girls face around the world when it comes to their sexuality. At the Democratic National Convention this year, Judd spoke openly about her choice to have an abortion after she was raped in a state where, had she carried to term, the rapist could have held parental rights. Judd has also used her fame and platform to speak about the importance of education worldwide. As an UNFPA Goodwill Ambassador for the Empowerment of Adolescent Girls, she focused on traveling to 150 countries to bring attention to women’s right’s violations and lack of educational opportunities, according to the United Nations Population Fund. Her studies at Berkeley will continue in the same vein of women’s rights with a focus on the role gender plays in human trafficking, according to People. Given that Judd was awarded also awarded the Dean’s Scholars Award at Harvard for a paper in a class titled “Gender Violence, Law and Society,” we have a feeling that she’ll fit right in among the academic crowd. ||||| Given that she's the daughter of Naomi Judd and sister to Wynonna- women known for being outspoken- it's not all that surprising that Ashley Judd couldn't keep quiet after being publicly lambasted by the media over her appearance. Reporters have speculated that the 43-year-old actress had fillers injected into her face after she made a recent appearance with puffier-than-normal cheeks. Others have laid into the actress recently for gaining ten or 15 pounds in the last year. Rather than ignoring the speculation, Ashley is fighting back with an op-ed piece for The Daily Beast. After explaining that her puffy face was a result of steroid treatment for a sinus infection and her larger frame the result of "a lazy six months of not exercising," Judd has this to say: I hope the sharing of my thoughts can generate a new conversation: Why was a puffy face cause for such a conversation in the first place? How, and why, did people participate? If not in the conversation about me, in parallel ones about women in your sphere? What is the gloating about? What is the condemnation about? What is the self-righteous alleged “all knowing” stance of the media about? How does this symbolize constraints on girls and women, and encroach on our right to be simply as we are, at any given moment? How can we as individuals in our private lives make adjustments that support us in shedding unconscious actions, internalized beliefs, and fears about our worthiness, that perpetuate such meanness? What can we do as families, as groups of friends? Is what girls and women can do different from what boys and men can do? What does this have to do with how women are treated in the workplace? It's certainly food for thought -- but while I see her points, I think that, given her profession, the lady doth protest too much. Ashley Judd is a Hollywood actress, one who has played the appearance game for years. She has turned up at many a red carpet event dressed to kill and looking fabulous, even by Hollywood's difficult-to-meet standards -- and she certainly didn't seem to mind the positive media attention then. Like it or not, Hollywood actresses are aspirational figures -- They are thinner than normal, less wrinkly than normal, more glamorous than normal, and they are paid more than normal to look that way. They also get a more-than-normal amount of criticism when they're not meeting Hollywood's standards for beauty. That doesn't mean I like mean-spirited criticisms of an actress's appearance, or that I would tolerate them if they were directed toward a woman who's a public figure in a more serious and less appearance-based line of work. But I think that any woman who chooses to be a movie star also chooses to take the media knocks that come with the job. If she can't take the criticism, she should probably, with all due respect, choose another line of work. I fully support a woman's "right to be simply as we are, at any given moment," as Ashley puts it, but doesn't the nature of her profession mean that she has knowingly traded that right in exchange for fame and fortune? That's my take on the situation -- What's yours? Image via Splash News

– Ashley Judd might soon be a doctor—and no, she won't be playing one on screen. The actress, 48, says she'll attend the University of California Berkeley this fall as one of a few candidates accepted into a PhD program in public policy, reports New York. Judd—who has a Master's in public administration with a focus on gender equality from Harvard—says she'll focus on "the injustices of gender inequality" in human trafficking, reports People, via a Facebook Live video. The actress, who spoke at the DNC this year about her decision to have an abortion after she was raped, says her goal is "to make the world a better place."

The White House said President Donald Trump is “refreshing” his list. | Win McNamee/Getty Images Trump releases updated short list of potential Supreme Court nominees President Donald Trump released a new list of potential Supreme Court justices on Friday, adding five new judges to his previous compilation of 20 jurists. The White House said Trump, who was “elected to restore the rule of law and to Make the Judiciary Great Again,” is “refreshing” his list. Story Continued Below “President Trump will choose a nominee for a future Supreme Court vacancy, should one arise, from this updated list of 25 individuals,” the White House said in a statement. “The president remains deeply committed to identifying and selecting outstanding jurists in the mold of Justice Gorsuch. These additions, like those on the original list released more than a year ago, were selected with input from respected conservative leaders.” As the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, Trump initially released a list of 11 potential justices in May 2016. He added 10 names during the general election in September, including Neil Gorsuch, the man Trump successfully tapped in January to replace the late Antonin Scalia on the high court. The most reliable politics newsletter. Sign up for POLITICO Playbook and get the latest news, every morning — in your inbox. Email Sign Up By signing up you agree to receive email newsletters or alerts from POLITICO. You can unsubscribe at any time. In the September announcement, the campaign said Trump had committed to picking any nominees for future vacancies from that final list. However, shortly before the Senate confirmed Gorsuch in April, administration officials said the president did not feel bound to pick a second Supreme Court justice from his campaign list. The updated roster omits Gorsuch and adds judges Amy Coney Barrett of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals; Britt Grant of the Georgia Supreme Court; Brett Kavanaugh of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit; Kevin Newsom of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals; and Patrick Wyrick of the Oklahoma Supreme Court. White House counsel Don McGahn announced the new additions in remarks to a lawyers convention hosted by the Federalist Society later Friday. McGahn said the jurists all “have a demonstrated commitment to originalism and textualism.” “They all have paper trails. They all are sitting judges,” McGahn said. “There’s nothing unknown about them. What you see is what you get.” The Federalist Society’s Leonard Leo played an outsize role in helping vet Trump’s original list of judges, as well as in selecting Gorsuch for the Supreme Court seat left vacant by Scalia’s death in 2016. “Our opponents of judicial nominees frequently claim the president has outsourced his selection of judges. That is completely false,” McGahn argued. “I’ve been a member of the Federalist Society since law school — still am. So, frankly, it seems like it’s been insourced.” “But seeking advice from Leonard Leo and many members of the Federalist Society is not outsourcing the judicial selection process,” he added. “The fact is we all share the same vision of the judicial role, and we welcome input from many sources.” ||||| The White House announced Friday that President Trump has added five judges to his running list of possible Supreme Court nominees, touting Trump's successful nomination of conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch to the bench. The updated list of 25 judges includes Judge Amy Coney Barrett from the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, a former clerk for the late Justice Antonin Scalia. Barrett, a vocal opponent of the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision who has referred to it as an "erroneous decision," was confirmed to her post by the Senate in October. Trump also added Judge Brett Kavanaugh of the appeals court for the District of Columbia, the nation's second most powerful court, who clerked for Justice Anthony Kennedy. Kavanaugh has been rumored before as a possible Republican nominee for the high court. ADVERTISEMENT The list includes two state Supreme Court justices: Britt Grant of Georgia and Patrick Wyrick of Oklahoma. Grant previously clerked for Kavanaugh at the D.C. Appeals Court. Former Alabama Solicitor General Kevin Newsom is another recently confirmed judge on the list. He currently serves as the judge for the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. Carrie Severino, chief counsel and policy director for the conservative Judicial Crisis Network, was quick to praise Trump for the additions, calling the candidates the "best and brightest judges in the nation." “These men and women have spent years in the trenches of state and federal government fighting for the Constitution and the rule of law," she said. "They represent a diverse range of backgrounds, including both state and federal judges, three who were former state solicitors general with first-hand experience protecting our constitutional balance of powers,” she said. The Judicial Crisis Network spent $10 million on an ad campaign to get Trump's first Supreme Court appointee, Gorsuch, confirmed to the bench. Trump's update of the list comes after Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey (R) said Friday that she would vote for Senate candidate and former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore (R) despite the sexual assault allegations against him, saying that he would help appoint Supreme Court justices. The Hill has reached out to the White House for comment. ||||| WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Presumptive Republican U.S. presidential nominee Donald Trump on Wednesday unveiled the names of 11 judges - eight men and three women, all white and all conservative - he would consider, if elected, to replace the late Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court. Six of them are judges who were appointed to federal appeals courts around the country by Republican former President George W. Bush. The other five serve on various state supreme courts. Scalia’s replacement could tip the ideological balance of the court, which now is evenly divided with four conservative justices and four liberals. Scalia, who died in February, was one of the court’s most conservative justices. “We’re going to choose from, most likely from this list,” Trump said in an interview with Fox News. But Trump said he could deviate from the list and added, “At a minimum we will keep people within this general realm.” All of Trump’s 11 judges are listed as affiliated with the Federalist Society on the influential conservative legal group’s website. The organization is known as a breeding ground for conservative legal thinkers. It is unusual for a presidential candidate to release names of potential Supreme Court or Cabinet nominees before winning an election. But Trump is working to assure conservatives in his own party that, if elected president on Nov. 8, he would not appoint a liberal or moderate to the court. Trump allies had encouraged him to announce the names of potential court nominees to allay fears among conservatives wary of a Trump presidency. Trump’s list includes: Steven Colloton of Iowa, a judge on the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals; Raymond Gruender of Missouri, also a judge on the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals; and Thomas Hardiman of Pennsylvania, a judge on the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals. It also includes: Raymond Kethledge of Michigan, a judge on the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals; William Pryor of Alabama, a judge on the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals; and Diane Sykes of Wisconsin, a judge on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals. The state supreme court jurists include: Allison Eid of Colorado; Joan Larsen of Michigan; Thomas Lee of Utah; David Stras of Minnesota; and Don Willett of Texas. Democratic President Barack Obama in March named centrist appellate court judge Merrick Garland to fill the vacancy. But the Republican-led Senate has refused to hold confirmation hearings or a vote, insisting that Obama’s successor should get to select Scalia’s replacement. People line up to visit the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington March 29, 2016. REUTERS/Gary Cameron Trump said in a statement that the 11 judges were “representative of the kind of constitutional principles I value” and said he would use the list as a guide for nominating a justice. Willett in the past year has posted several comments on Twitter mocking Trump, even referring to him as “Darth Trump,” a twist on the “Star Wars” villain Darth Vader. Willett last June posted about imagining Trump selecting a Supreme Court nominee. “The mind reels. *weeps—can’t finish tweet*,” Willett wrote, suggesting he was crying at the idea. Asked to comment on Willett’s Twitter remarks, Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks said, “Mr. Trump’s sole focus is considering the best potential individuals based on their constitutional principles.” SENATOR’S BROTHER Lee is the brother of Republican Senator Mike Lee of Utah, one of the most conservative members of the U.S. Senate. “I don’t know everyone on the list, but those I do know would all be great Supreme Court Justices. Of course, I do believe one name on that list stands head and shoulders above the rest,” said Mike Lee, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee that would consider any nomination. Sykes is the former wife of conservative Wisconsin radio host Charles Sykes, who posted on Twitter that she would make a great justice but added, “I simply don’t believe Trump.” Several of the judges have ruled against abortion and reproductive rights. Sykes, Colloton and Pryor have ruled against the Obama administration regarding religious objections to the contraception coverage requirement of the Obamacare healthcare law. White House spokesman Josh Earnest said at his daily briefing that he would be surprised if any Democrat would describe any of Trump’s picks “as a consensus nominee.” “But the individual President Obama has put forward is somebody that Republicans have described as a consensus nominee,” Earnest said of Garland, adding that it would be wise for the Senate to act on Obama’s nominee. Republican U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally in Eugene, Oregon, U.S. on May 6, 2016. REUTERS/Jim Urquhart Liberal advocacy group People for the American Way said Trump’s list included “conservative dream justices.” Most of the 11 judges did not respond to requests for comment. “Joan Larsen is working along with the rest of Michigan’s Supreme Court to provide common-sense, rule-of-law justice. That is her focus and will remain her focus,” her campaign spokesman Stu Sandler said. Larsen was appointed to the post and is running for election to a full term. ||||| CLOSE Footage of the Supreme Court group photo, featuring new addition Neil Gorsuch. The court sits for a new portrait shortly after swearing in a new member. Time President Trump added five new names to his list of potential Supreme Court nominees on Friday. (Photo: Eric Thayer, Getty Images) WASHINGTON – President Trump added five names Friday to his list of potential Supreme Court justices in a move that precedes the possible, but still unannounced, retirement of Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy. The biggest new name was that of Brett Kavanaugh, a judge on the powerful U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Many Supreme Court justices have come from that circuit, and Kavanaugh tops the list of judges most often named as Trump's next pick. Like Justice Neil Gorsuch of Colorado, who was confirmed to the high court in April, Kavanaugh is a conservative who once clerked for the more moderate Kennedy. When Trump selected Gorsuch for the late Justice Antonin Scalia's empty seat, it was viewed as a move that might entice Kennedy, 81, to step down. "The president remains deeply committed to identifying and selecting outstanding jurists in the mold of Justice Gorsuch," the White House said in a statement. "These additions, like those on the original list released more than a year ago, were selected with input from respected conservative leaders." The White House released the list on the second day of the conservative Federalist Society's annual meeting in the nation's capital, a confab that attracts many of the nation's leading conservative legal thinkers. It appeared to come out of the blue; no Supreme Court vacancies are known to be imminent. “There’s no inkling of any vacancy, but the fact of the matter is that you would be foolish to wait for one,” said Leonard Leo, executive vice president of the Federalist Society and a top adviser to the White House on judicial nominations. "You never know when there will be a vacancy.” The move also was a not-so-subtle signal to Trump’s core supporters that the president may still have the ability to deliver on his promise to nominate conservative justices. It comes amid ongoing confirmation battles over his lower court nominees. Trump has won confirmation of eight appellate judges in his first year, more than any president since Richard Nixon, despite nearly unanimous opposition from Democrats. Another possible motive: Democrats have increased their likelihood of picking up a Senate seat in Alabama, where Republican Roy Moore is embroiled in a sexual harassment controversy. Republicans now have 52 votes in the Senate and would need at least 50 to confirm a new justice, with the tie-breaking vote of Vice President Pence. The other new names on Trump's list are Amy Coney Barrett, a former Notre Dame law professor just confirmed last month to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit; Kevin Newsom, confirmed in August to a seat on the 11th Circuit court of appeals; Georgia Supreme Court Justice Britt Grant, a former state solicitor general; and Oklahoma Supreme Court Justice Patrick Wyrick, also a former state solicitor general. Aside from Kavanaugh, Barrett was the most notable addition to Trump's original list of 20 judges and one U.S. senator, Mike Lee. She drew sharp questions about her Catholic faith from Democrats during her confirmation hearings, prompting Republicans to complain about "Catholic bigotry." Kavanaugh was left off the original list of 21 in part because his jurisdiction is Washington, D.C., and Trump was elected as an outsider. When Trump's first two lists were released last year, totaling 21 names, they tilted heavily toward judges from "red" states, including many state Supreme Court judges with no federal court experience. One name that remained missing from the president's new list of 25 is former U.S. solicitor general Paul Clement, another favorite of legal conservatives who worked in George W. Bush's administration and has been mentioned for years as a logical Supreme Court nominee for a Republican president. Trump's choices won instant acclaim from conservatives. "These men and women have spent years in the trenches of state and federal government fighting for the Constitution and the rule of law," said Carrie Severino, general counsel at the Judicial Crisis Network. "They represent a diverse range of backgrounds, including both state and federal judges, three who were former state solicitors general with first-hand experience protecting our constitutional balance of powers.” Liberals were not impressed. "It’s obvious that any of these nominees, if they replaced Justice Kennedy on the Supreme Court, would demolish large portions of his legacy," said Marge Baker, executive vice president of People for the American Way. "Trump’s nominees all fit the same pattern: narrow-minded elitists who protect corporations and the wealthy over the rights of all Americans." Read or Share this story: https://usat.ly/2irFhVX

– President Trump's Supreme Court shortlist just got a little longer. Should another vacancy on the high court arise, Trump on Friday added five new judges to his existing list of 20 possible replacements, Politico reports. "These additions, like those on the original list released more than a year ago, were selected with input from respected conservative leaders," the White House said in a statement that also noted Trump was "elected to restore the rule of law and to Make the Judiciary Great Again." USA Today notes that Trump's move "precedes the possible, but still unannounced, retirement of Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy." Trump's initial list, released in May 2016, had 11 names on it; in September 2016 he added 10 more, and he ultimately chose Neil Gorsuch from that list to replace Antonin Scalia once he was elected president. The new judges added to the list are Amy Coney Barrett of the 7th US Circuit Court of Appeals, Britt Grant of the Georgia Supreme Court, Brett Kavanaugh of the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, Kevin Newsom of the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals, and Patrick Wyrick of the Oklahoma Supreme Court. A director at the conservative Judicial Crisis Network, which spent $10 million on a pro-Gorsuch ad campaign, calls the new additions the "best and brightest judges in the nation," the Hill reports. The full list is here.

CLEVELAND, Ohio – LeBron James is now trying to help Akron adults get their GEDs by using the same basic principles his charitable foundation designed to help children stay in school and graduate. Under a new partnership announced Thursday with Project Learn of Summit County, which exists to help adults get their GEDs, parents of the children enrolled in the LeBron James Family Foundation's scholastic mentorship program can get financial and emotional support to obtain high school equivalency credentials and learn other life skills. Since 2011, James' foundation has targeted poor, at-risk Akron school children and their families to help keep the students in school and the parents engaged in their children's education. That program, called Wheels for Education (for grades 3-5) and the Akron I PROMISE Network (sixth grade and up), now has more than 1,000 enrolled and free college scholarships to attend the University of Akron waiting for those who graduate from an Akron high school and fulfill some additional requirements beginning in 2021. James seeks to inspire the children by writing to them personally and engaging them on social media. Children and their families are also eligible for prizes, often in the form of gifts (from one of James' corporate sponsors, such as a Samsung tablet) or cash for groceries. The new program for adults is called "I PROMISE, Too" and so far counts nine adults – who will be taught by instructors from Project Learn. Again, only parents or guardians of children in James' mentorship program are eligible. In the new program, enrollees received an inspirational letter from the Cavaliers superstar basketball player, HP laptop computers that they can keep if they finish the classes, and free bus passes and parking to attend class. Participants will also have covered the $6 cost to take the GED practice test and $120 cost for taking the entire, official GED exam. The foundation will also provide prizes for good attendance, work progress, and other achievements. For instance, six adults who attended an informational meeting received music speakers from Beats by Dre. "We are so excited about the I PROMISE, Too program because a huge part of our foundation's work (with children) centers around parent involvement," Michele Campbell, executive director of the LeBron James Family Foundation, said in a news release. "This is an opportunity to help our parents make strides in their own academic careers so they are better equipped to help our students keep their educational promises. "We can't reach our students without their parents' support, so this program is monumental for our families and their futures." Alexia Harris, communications manager for Project Learn, said between 1,300 and 1,400 adults either take classes and/or the GED test through her organization each year. She said 110 GEDs were awarded out of Project Learn last school year, which was down slightly from previous years. "It takes a lot of courage to start classes to earn GED once you've been out of school for years, even decades," Harris said. "Definitely, things can get in the way of completing the process, things like work or family issues. With the LeBron foundation, we're working with these parents to be as accommodating as we can, and the incentives can help. The laptops, for instance, that's a cost to them that they won't have to bear." The James foundation spends at least $1 million per year on education. According to federal filing documents required of all non-profit organizations, the foundation spent $903,000 on its Wheels for Education program in 2013 – the last year for which data was available. At that time, James' program had roughly 600 students – compared with 1,000 now – and of course no adult literacy program. The James foundation will not cover the costs for those college scholarships in 2021 -- as erroneously reported by some other outlets. Instead, the University of Akron will pick up the tab. ||||| LeBron James, basketball star, movie star and philanthropist, announced last month that he would be helping up to 2,300 students get through school, but he's not stopping there — he's going to help their parents, too. James announced last week that he and his foundation, in partnership with Project Learn of Summit County, will help parents of children enrolled in the LeBron James Family Foundation's mentorship program who want to obtain their GEDs. The LeBron Foundation, which mentors poor, at-risk children in James's native Akron, Ohio, last month announced a partnership with the University of Akron to pay college tuition costs for students under its tutelage with the "I PROMISE" initiative. The new program, called "I PROMISE, too," will give the parents of those students "financial and emotional support to obtain high school equivalency credentials and learn other life skills," reports Cleveland.com. Under the program, those enrolled will have costs covered for their GED practice exams as well as for the exam itself, and will receive HP laptops (which they can keep if they finish the classes), free bus passes and parking to attend class, as well as prizes for progress and attendance — in fact, six of the nine adults currently enrolled got Beats by Dre speakers for attending an informational meeting. "It takes a lot of courage to start classes to earn GED once you've been out of school for years, even decades," Alexia Harris, communications manager for Project Learn, told Cleveland.com. "Definitely, things can get in the way of completing the process, things like work or family issues. With the LeBron foundation, we're working with these parents to be as accommodating as we can, and the incentives can help. The laptops, for instance, that's a cost to them that they won't have to bear." "We are so excited about the I PROMISE, Too program because a huge part of our foundation's work (with children) centers around parent involvement," Michele Campbell, executive director of the LeBron James Family Foundation, added in a press release to The Huffington Post. "This is an opportunity to help our parents make strides in their own academic careers so they are better equipped to help our students keep their educational promises." "We can't reach our students without their parents' support, so this program is monumental for our families and their futures."

– Through his foundation, LeBron James spends at least $1 million every year to educate the poor and at-risk children of his native Akron, Ohio, Cleveland.com reports. Now, he's doing something for their parents, too. Last week, the LeBron James Family Foundation announced a partnership with Project Learn of Summit County to help the parents of kids in the foundation's mentorship program get their GEDs, according to Mashable. James' foundation will pay for the GED exam and practice tests, as well as provide free bus passes, parking, and laptops the parents can keep if they finish classes. And participants will get prizes for progress and attendance. For example, six enrollees who attended an informational meeting received Beats by Dre speakers. "This is an opportunity to help our parents make strides in their own academic careers so they are better equipped to help our students keep their educational promises," the foundation's executive director says in a press release. Cleveland.com reports more than 1,000 children are enrolled in the foundation's mentorship program, and nine parents are already participating in the new GED program. It's been an education-focused summer for James, to say the least. Last month, the basketball superstar announced a partnership with the University of Akron to cover tuition for 2,300 students beginning in 2021.

Laura Dern I've Had It Divorce Back On Laura Dern -– I've Had It, Ben Harper Divorce Back On EXCLUSIVE has thrown in the towel in her marriage to– she has filed legal papers reactivating the dormant divorce ... TMZ has learned.Dern filed her formal legal response to Harper’s divorce petition Friday in LA County Superior Court. In the docs, filed by Disso Queen, Dern is asking for primary physical custody of the couple’s two kids and joint legal custody. She is also seeking spousal support, child support, and attorneys fees.As TMZ first reported,with divorce papers back in 2010 after 5 years of marriage and two children. But the divorce was never finalized and earlier this year they tried reconciling.Sources tell us that the reconciliation was “very rocky” and Dern now wants out.FYI – Dern is already the primary caregiver for the couple’s two kids. But we're told she also plays a significant role in raising Harper's two other children from a prior marriage. ||||| Laura Dern, 43, and Ben Harper, 40, are heading for divorce after nearly five years of marriage.The Oscar-nominated actress and the Grammy-winning musician have two children together, a 9-year-old son and a 5-year-old daughter.The divorce papers filed in court Friday afternoon by Harper cite irreconcilable differences, according to TMZ . Harper also asks that Dern be denied spousal support, and indicates in the document that he and his wife have been separated since January; sources tell TMZ, however, that the couple have lived and traveled together throughout 2010 "and were even intimate as recently as last week."

– The first time around, Ben Harper was the one to file for divorce from Laura Dern—but nearly two years later, it's Dern filing to reactivate the divorce. The divorce was never finalized, TMZ explains, and the couple attempted to reconcile earlier this year (click to see a photo of them together in February). Apparently, that didn't work out, based on Dern's Friday filing in LA. She wants primary physical custody of their two children, joint legal custody, spousal support, child support, and attorney fees. Click for more on the split.

"Letters to Juliet" is a by-the-numbers romantic comedy -- and I mean that in a good way. Sure, the story merely puts attractive, likable people in a pretty setting and lets love take its course. But lordy, that is a breathtakingly refreshing change from the spate of recent rom-coms hell-bent on delivering flinty females and douchebag dudes in situations that require lots of yelling. In contrast, "Letters" gives us the radiant Amanda Seyfried as Sophie, an aspiring writer who does not need to be taken down a peg. On vacation in Verona with her restaurateur fiancé Victor (Gael García Bernal), Sophie discovers a 50-year-old letter to Shakespeare's tragic heroine nestled in the city's famous romantic wailing wall -- and impulsively replies. What follows are two sweetly engaging romances -- the quest of British pensioner Claire (Vanessa Redgrave) to reunite with her long-lost soul mate, and her uptight grandson and chaperone Charlie's (Christopher Egan) blossoming affection for would-be cupid Sophie. "Bride Wars" director Gary Winick isn't exactly reinventing the form here -- "Letters" will hardly go down as the funniest or sharpest caper of the year. And I confess I had a hell of a time getting past the conceit that the sexy, exuberant, feeds-his-girlfriend-delicious-cheese Gael García Bernal is somehow supposed to not be the leading man here. (Note to Hollywood: If you made a movie just about Gael García Bernal and cheese, it'd do better than "Avatar.") Are we really supposed to believe Sophie would lose her heart to the relentlessly bland Egan, a performer my screening room companion noted "doesn't look like he has pubes"? ||||| Remember that diamond commercial with the young couple in the park looking longingly at the elderly couple walking past them holding hands? Someone’s gone and turned it into a feature film — splicing in a good chunk of “Under the Tuscan Sun’’ for insurance — and what was touching at 30 seconds is a groaner at 105 minutes. That’s not entirely fair. You don’t have to be 13 and a tapioca-brained romantic to enjoy “Letters to Juliet.’’ But it would help. The movie’s the second heart-tugger in three months to feature Amanda Seyfried (“Dear John’’), the latest ingenue to be anointed an up-and-coming star. Honestly, there’s nothing wrong with “Juliet’’ that a better, deeper actress wouldn’t fix. (And a script. A script would be nice.) With her platinum waterfall of hair and big tweety-bird eyes, Seyfried offers a vision of youthful loveliness that ceases the moment she opens her mouth to deliver lines in the broad, affectless tones of a weather girl. She plays Sophie, a fact-checker at a spurious Hollywood version of The New Yorker (Oliver Platt’s her harrumph-y boss) who heads to Verona on a pre-honeymoon with her fiancé and gets sidetracked on a story. Drawn to the lonelyhearts notes pinned to the courtyard wall at the Casa di Giulietta — supposedly the home of the real Juliet Capulet of “Romeo and Juliet’’ — Sophie discovers a 50-year-old letter hidden behind a brick and decides to answer it. The letter was written by a young Englishwoman named Claire, heartbroken over leaving her Italian one true love. On receiving Sophie’s reply, Claire descends upon Verona in the person of Vanessa Redgrave, who exudes so much grace, talent, and class that Seyfried is immediately reduced to an acting-school Munchkin. Really, the movie itself never quite recovers. Claire has brought along her skeptical grandson Charlie (Christopher Egan), and the threesome scour Tuscany by car for the lost love, one Lorenzo Bartolini. It turns out there are many, many Lorenzo Bartolinis in the area, and the best joke in the movie is that they’re all willing to pick up with Claire where they never left off. Sophie and Charlie hate each other, of course, which means that they love each other, of course. “Letters to Juliet’’ clanks along the tracks of romantic-comedy confusion with grim predictability: The moon is always full and the Italian locations are gorgeous, or would be if they weren’t overlit like a trattoria poster. But maybe it’s wrong to expect Continental nuance from a film that ends with a Taylor Swift song. The larger problem is that the central duo is just plain dull. Egan’s Charlie is a wooden Englishman and Sophie is a gauche, underwritten character that only an Anne Hathaway might (I say might) be able to flesh out. When Claire asks her grandson, “How many Sophies do you think there are on the planet?’’ it’s difficult not to think, About 6 million on the East Coast alone. That’s probably why the movie will be a hit. Adding to the general air of absurdity, the fiancé — an excitable, self-absorbed chef named Victor — is played by the Mexican actor-hunk Gael Garcia Bernal, and we’re asked to believe that any sane woman would throw this guy over for the stiff-backed Egan. Victor loves wine, cheese, truffles, life, and for that the movie punishes him. It punishes us with dialogue to make a Nicholas Sparks fan wince (“When we’re speaking of love, it’s never too late . . . ’’) and Gary Winick’s mechanical, uninspired direction. Late in the going we’re treated to a reunion of Redgrave with Franco Nero, the Lancelot to her Guenevere in 1967’s “Camelot,’’ and the ease with which these two portray mature passion is deeply touching. If only the movie were interested. “Letters to Juliet’’ makes the case that even boring young nincompoops deserve love. For the rest of us there’s always Tuscany. Ty Burr can be reached at tburr@globe.com. © Copyright 2010 Globe Newspaper Company.

– Critics aren't exactly head-over-heels for Letters to Juliet, a predictable romantic comedy about a young woman helping an older one reconnect with a lost love, but it has its charms. Here's what they're saying: “Letters will hardly go down as the funniest or sharpest caper of the year,” writes Mary Elizabeth Williams of Salon, but it's a “breathtakingly refreshing change” from the “flinty females and douche-bag dudes” that populate most recent rom-coms. “Letters to Juliet makes the case that even boring young nincompoops deserve love,” writes Ty Burr of the Boston Globe. Maybe, maybe , a better actress could have made it work, but Amanda Seyfried “delivers lines in the broad, affectless tones of a weather girl.” This movie is “an insult to common sense and the hacks over at Team Harlequin,” writes Kyle Smith of the New York Post . “Not to be left unsaid are lines like, 'Destiny wanted us to meet again,' 'An angel brought you to me,' and 'When we are speaking of love, is never too late.'” But that's fine, writs Kerry Lengel of the Arizona Republic. It's not date-night material, but “Letters to Juliet is a guilty pleasure for the ladies, perfect Blu-ray fodder when their significant others turn them into World of Warcraft widows for the evening."

Kat Tattoos Gaga Kat Von D puts some new ink on Mother Monster. MORE >> isn’t the only celebrity who got engaged this weekend. Kat Von D is also a bride-to-be, after accepting an online proposal from her Canadian beau DJ Deadmau5. “I can’t wait for Christmas so…. Katherine Von Drachenberg, will you marry me?” Deadmau5, whose real name is Joel Zimmerman, wrote on Twitter Saturday. Zimmerman also included a photo of the engagement ring, which had a caption explaining what the final project will look like: “Changing the diamond to a black diamond FYI . . . .theyll finish the actual ring soon i hope.” After a tweet of exclamation marks, Von D, 30, thanked her fans for their “lovely congratulations.” “Please excuse me while I go squeeze the hell out of my fiancé!” The tattoo artist’s engagement to her 31-year-old boyfriend comes some five weeks after the couple announced their split , also on Twitter. The pair, who cited that things “happened too fast,” got back together shortly after. Von D was previously engaged to Sandra Bullock’s ex Jesse James. What do you think of Kat Von D and DJ Deadmau5’s online engagement? Weigh in below. Celebuzz Single Player No Autoplay (CORE) No changes are to be made to this player ||||| Now that’s a diamond ring. Hours after announcing her engagement on Twitter Saturday night, Kelly Clarkson shared a personal snapshot of her giant sparkler (after the jump). “Everyone has been asking about my engagement ring, so here it is :)” she wrote on her WhoSay account. “It’s a yellow canary diamond with diamonds around it and Brandon designed it with Jonathan Arndt! They did an amazing job! I can’t wait to make Brandon’s ring with Jonathon as well!” Clarkson’s talent manager beau Brandon Blackstock got down on one knee on Friday night, after dating the American Idol winner for some 10 months. Kelly Clarkson on WhoSay On Saturday, Clarkson, 30, made sure her fans were one of the first to know about her big news. “I’M ENGAGED!!!!! I wanted y’all to know!! Happiest night of my life last night! I am so lucky and am with the greatest man ever:)” she wrote on Twitter. The “Stronger” singer and Blackstock have known each other for quite some time. The 35-year-old is the son of Clarkson’s longtime managerand the stepson of country legend On Sunday, Clarkson will join a slew of the music industry’s hottest female performers for the annual VH1 Divas show in Los Angeles. Kelly Rowland, Miley Cyrus, Demi Lovato are all set to make appearances, along with Pitbull, Metric andhost Adam Lambert. What do you think of Kelly Clarkson’s engagement ring? Weigh in below. Celebuzz Single Player No Autoplay (CORE) No changes are to be made to this player ||||| Jesse James & Kat Von D Are Engaged or leave a comment of your own See what other readers have to say about this story – Start your engines. Motorcycle king Jesse James and tattoo artist Kat Von D are going to be married."You know sometimes the public and press gets it wrong. This is one of those times. 2010 was actually the best year of my life because I fell in love with my best friend. An amazing woman who stood behind me when the world turned their backs," James tells PEOPLE exclusively. "I have never met anyone so kind and loving and committed to making the world a better place every day. My love for her is beyond description. So honored that she said 'yes.' Growing old with her is going to be a f----n' blast!"The pair have been dating since last summer , following the collapse of James's marriage to Oscar winner Sandra Bullock . Their divorce was finalized last June "There is no one else for me. He's the one," The LA Ink star tells PEOPLE.Asked if she will move from Los Angeles to Austin, Texas, to be with her fiancé, Von D replied, "If only it were that easy. Having two places we call home will be good for now. In the end, home is where the heart is, and my heart's with him."James, 41, and Von D, 28, have been engaged in Twitter PDA in recent weeks. On Jan. 13, James Tweeted : "They say True love will always shine through. The only reason I started Twitter again? so I could publicly profess my love for @thekatvond ."She responded: "Thank you always supporting me and believing in everything I do. But most of all, thanks for being my best friend." ||||| "Happiest Night of my life last night!" 's beau put a ring on it! The 30-year-old made the big announcement on Twitter Saturday. “I’M ENGAGED!!!!! I wanted y’all to know!! Happiest night of my life last night! I am so lucky and am with the greatest man ever:)” That greatest man ever is Brandon Blackstock, who has been dating the American Idol winner since February 2012. While the couple have been dating for less than a year, Clarkson and Blackstock have known each other for a long time. The 35-year-old is the son of the “Catch My Breath” singer’s longtime manager Narvel Blackstock and the stepson of Reba McEntire. kelly clarkson lists texas ranch for $1.5m The engagement comes just one month after Clarkson told Life & Style that there was “no rush” to get hitched to her talent manager boyfriend. “We will totally get married in the future.” The two currently live together in Nashville. What do you think of Kelly Clarkson’s big announcement? Share your well wishes below! Celebuzz Single Player No Autoplay (CORE) No changes are to be made to this player

– How romantic: Kat Von D and Deadmau5 are engaged, after the Canadian DJ proposed to his tattoo artist and reality star girlfriend ... over Twitter. "I can't wait for Christmas so.... Katherine Von Drachenberg, will you marry me?" tweeted Deadmau5, real name Joel Zimmerman, on Saturday. He also posted a picture of the engagement ring, which will be a black diamond buffeted by two skulls. Von D responded by tweeting simply, "!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" followed by a declaration that she needed to "go squeeze the hell out of my fiancé!" Celebuzz reports that the two also tweeted that they were splitting up ... just five weeks ago. (Priceless line, from Von D: "But at least he made it a no-brainer to break that off.") Perhaps Jesse James' engagement spurred Kat's change of heart? Von D wasn't the only celeb with something to celebrate this weekend: Kelly Clarkson and Brandon Blackstock got engaged, too, Celebuzz reports. Blackstock, son of Clarkson's longtime manager and stepson of Reba McEntire, has been dating the former American Idol since February. "I'M ENGAGED!!!!! I wanted y'all to know!! Happiest night of my life last night! I am so lucky and am with the greatest man ever :)," she tweeted. Click to see a picture of her ring, which is yellow.

Erin Storm, a contestant on season 12 of The Bachelor and a pilot, died in a plane crash in Los Angeles on Monday, March 21, multiple outlets are reporting. Storm competed on Matt Grant’s season of the hit ABC reality dating show in 2008. ABC According to the reports, Storm was flying an Airborne XT-912 light-sport, weight-shift control plane and crashed soon after taking off from the Hawthorne Municipal Airport. Byron Mayes, a Best Drilling and Pump, Inc. employee who was working on a tank near the airport, told NBC that he witnessed the crash. "All of a sudden, my partner started yelling, 'Watch out, there's a plane coming!' and it looked like the plane veered up, lost control and hit a couple feet away from the truck, a couple feet away from us," Mayes said. Mayes told NBC that he and his coworkers ran over to the burning plane and pulled Storm out of the aircraft. According to NBC, Storm’s legs were on fire, and she was in cardiac arrest when rescue crews arrived; after she was transported to a trauma center, she was pronounced dead. Storm worked as a pilot for Pacific Blue Air, an aircraft training facility based at Hawthorne Airport. According to witnesses, Storm was dressed in a blue Pacific Blue Air jumpsuit for her final flight. The Venice, California, resident was eliminated during week 3 of British Bachelor Grant’s season, in which reality star Shayne Lamas coveted the final rose. At the time, Storm’s occupation was listed as a “hot dog vendor.” Our thoughts go out to her friends and family. Sign up now for the Us Weekly newsletter to get breaking celebrity news, hot pics, and more delivered straight to your inbox! ||||| Erin Storm, a pilot who competed on Season 12 of ABC's "The Bachelor," has reportedly died in a plane crash. Several outlets reported Monday that a female pilot was killed in a fiery crash when her Airborne XT-912 ultralight plane crashed shortly after takeoff from Hawthorne Municipal Airport around noon. Us Weekly and TMZ identified the pilot as the 41-year-old "Bachelor" contestant on Tuesday. KTLA-TV Channel 5 The crash occurred about noon Monday after an Airborne XT-912 departed Hawthorne Municipal Airport, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. The crash occurred about noon Monday after an Airborne XT-912 departed Hawthorne Municipal Airport, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. (KTLA-TV Channel 5) (KTLA-TV Channel 5) Police and fire officials told The Los Angeles Times and the Daily Breeze that the motorized hang glider was fully engulfed in flames when officers arrived and that the woman aboard it was in "traumatic full arrest" when she was taken to Harbor-UCLA Medical Center. However, they did not identify the pilot. See the most-read stories in Entertainment this hour >> ---------- For the record, 6:40 a.m., March 23: An earlier version of the photo caption atop this post quoted officials as saying the pilot of the plane was injured in the crash. She died of her injuries. ---------- "As soon as the plane hit the curb, it blew up and it just kept getting bigger and bigger, but the engine was still running and eventually the engine blew and the fire got even bigger," Best Drilling and Pump Inc. employee Byron Mayes, who was working in a nearby area, told KNBC-TV Channel 4 and KTLA-TV Channel 5. "All of a sudden, my partner started yelling, 'Watch out, there's a plane coming!' and it looked like the plane veered up, lost control and hit a couple feet away from the truck, a couple feet away from us." Mayes said he and his fellow employees found the pilot unconscious with her legs on fire and pulled her out of the plane. Eyewitnesses told NBC that the pilot had been flying a Pacific Blue Air plane and was wearing the training facility's blue jumpsuit when she crashed. See more of Entertainment's top stories on Facebook >> Storm was among the slew of women who vied for British bachelor Matt Grant's affections on the ABC dating show in 2008. She was eliminated in the third week, and Grant ultimately gave his final rose to Shayne Lamas. Storm's occupation was listed as "hot dog vendor" at the time, according to Us Weekly. Grant told Entertainment Tonight that he was "massively shocked" and devastated for Storm's family and friends. "We were lucky to have Erin on Season 12. She was genuine, self-assured, beautiful and hilarious," he added. "Somehow you knew from the first minute of being with her that Erin could pretty much go and do anything." The 2008 bachelor also said that Storm was "a smart, entrepreneurial cookie." Reps for the ABC dating series also released a statement regarding her death. "Once a member of the 'Bachelor' family, always a member of the 'Bachelor' family. It is a tragedy that Erin is no longer with us, and we would like to extend our sincere condolences to her family and friends." Twitter: @NardineSaad ALSO Phife Dawg, hip-hop innovator with A Tribe Called Quest, dies at 45 Caila Quinn is apartment-hunting in New York, fueled by 'Bachelorette' buzz Celebrities react to Brussels terror attacks Kim, Kourtney and Khloe hit with Kardashian Beauty breach of contract lawsuit Kesha's contract with Sony, Dr. Luke likened to slavery, appeal argues ||||| Please enable Javascript to watch this video A female pilot who was pulled unconscious from her burning aircraft after the small plane crashed near Hawthorne airport Monday afternoon later died, according to police. The crash was reported shortly after noon in the 3600 block of 120th Street, just south of the 105 Freeway, according to Capt. Keith Mora of the Los Angeles County Fire Department. A crew working on a private well project nearby saw the plane coming toward where their truck was parked. "My partner just started yelling, 'There's a plane coming, a plane coming,'" said witness Byron Mayes. "It looked like the plane just veered up, lost control and hit a couple feet away from the truck, a couple feet away from us." Three workers rushed to the wreckage, finding the pilot unconscious, with her legs burning. Fire spread to their work truck and up hoses they were using, Mayes said. "Our first thought was getting her out, making sure she was OK," he said. Responding firefighters were able to halt the flames, and paramedics performed "life-saving measures" and took the pilot to Harbor-UCLA Medical Center. The unidentified pilot did not survive the crash, the Hawthorne Police Department posted on its Facebook page. The small aircraft -- a light-sport, weight-shift-control plane -- was departing Hawthorne Municipal Airport when it crashed, a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration said. The Airborne XT-912 had only the one person on board, the FAA spokesman said. Aerial video showed the wreckage was significant and the plane was in pieces. Meanwhile, a police vehicle crashed near 119th Street and Prairie Avenue, a few blocks west of the plane crash. The black-and-white police SUV appeared to have collided with another SUV. The officer was responding to the report of the plane down when he was involved in a crash, a Hawthorne Police Department official said. KTLA's Jennifer Thang contributed to this article. Please enable Javascript to watch this video

– Erin Storm, a former contestant on The Bachelor, was killed Monday when the small plane she was piloting crashed soon after takeoff in Los Angeles, US Magazine reports. Storm, a pilot working for an aircraft training facility at the Hawthorne Municipal Airport, appeared on the popular reality show's 12th season in 2008. She was piloting an Airborne XT-912 ultralight plane—the Los Angeles TImes describes it as a "motorized hang glider"—when she crashed. Three people working near the crash site pulled Storm—her legs on fire—from the wreckage, according to KTLA. Emergency responders transported her to the hospital, where she died from her injuries. When Storm appeared on The Bachelor, she listed her occupation as "hot dog vendor."

Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption A child describes his mother "falling to the floor", as James Robbins reports France's foreign minister has said a "reaction with force" could be needed if Syria is proved to have used chemical weapons against civilians. Laurent Fabius's comments come a day after Syrian activists said hundreds of people died in such attacks in the Ghouta area of the capital, Damascus. The UN has asked Syria to allow UN weapons inspectors already in the country to be allowed to investigate. But there is no sign as yet that Damascus will allow this. The UN team arrived in the city on Sunday and are staying about 15km (10 miles) from the site of the recent attacks. Analysis The chances of the UN chemical weapons inspectors in Syria accessing the true site of Wednesday's alleged chemical attack in time to make a clear judgement on responsibility are slim. It took months to negotiate permission for them to visit other sites around the country. The Syrian government, backed by Russia, is resisting calls to give them access to the eastern Damascus suburb of Ghouta where this apparent atrocity took place. Part of the reason is the area is contested between government forces and rebels and is therefore unsafe. If an agent such as sarin has been used, the UN team would need to get to the site within days before traces become so faint as to be inconclusive. And if, as the opposition claims, it was a government attack, then a delay of days or weeks would give it enough time for forensic evidence to become controversial and for evidence of munitions used to be removed. The Syrian government insists it was the rebels who carried out the attack. But they only have a mandate to visit three sites previously agreed between the UN and the Syrian government, including the northern town of Khan al-Assal, where some 26 people were killed in an alleged chemical attack in March. The Syrian government has described the latest allegations as "illogical and fabricated". The Syrian army said opposition forces had made up the claims to divert attention from their recent huge losses. Heavy shelling continued around Ghouta on Thursday, reports say. 'Red lines crossed' A spokesman for Ban Ki-moon, Eduardo del Buey, said on Thursday that the secretary general Ban Ki-moon believed the attacks "need to be investigated without delay". Mr Ban was sending his disarmament chief Angela Kane to Damascus to press for an investigation, he said. Earlier, Mr Fabius told the French BFM TV channel that if the use of chemical weapons was confirmed, "France's position is that there must be a reaction, a reaction that could take the form of a reaction with force". He did not elaborate on whether that meant backing military action, but did rule out the idea of deploying troops inside Syria. The US state department said it had yet to "conclusively determine" what had taken place in Damascus, but that it was urgently gathering information. Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption US state department spokeswoman Jen Psaki: ''The president, of course, has a range of options'' If President Bashar al-Assad's government was found to be behind a chemical weapons attack it would be "an outrageous and flagrant escalation", spokeswoman Jen Psaki said. President Barack Obama warned last year that the use of such weapons would cross a "red line". The British Foreign Office said earlier in a statement that the UK and 36 other countries had formally referred the latest allegations to Mr Ban, and called for inspectors "to be granted the necessary access to enable their investigation into these latest allegations as a matter of urgency". "We believe a political solution is the best way to end the bloodshed," said the statement, but added that the UK has "said many times we cannot rule out any option... that might save innocent lives in Syria". Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu also stressed the need for an urgent response, and criticised the lack of UN action. Image caption Video footage and photographs have been posted online appearing to show civilians, including children, suffering the effects of a chemical agent. In pictures: Damascus attacks How should the world respond? On Wednesday, the UN Security Council failed to agree on a statement condemning the attack at an emergency meeting. It was blocked by China and Russia, which have repeatedly backed the Syrian government since the crisis began. Russia is supporting calls for an investigation, however, because it believes the opposition might have carried out the attack itself, as "premeditated provocation" in an attempt to win the backing of the UN. Disturbing footage Opposition activists said that more than 1,000 people were killed after government forces launched rockets with toxic agents into the Damascus suburbs in the Ghouta region early on Wednesday. Chemical weapons claims Khan al-Assal, 19 March 2013 - Syrian state media accuse rebels of killing 31 people with rockets containing "chemical materials". Rebels blame the army for the attack. - Syrian state media accuse rebels of killing 31 people with rockets containing "chemical materials". Rebels blame the army for the attack. Al-Otaybeh, 19 March 2013 - Opposition activists allege an attack in which six people are reported dead, apparently in reprisal for gains made by rebel forces. - Opposition activists allege an attack in which six people are reported dead, apparently in reprisal for gains made by rebel forces. Adra, 24 March 2013 - The LCC activist network say two people are killed in an attack. - The LCC activist network say two people are killed in an attack. Sheikh Maqsoud, Aleppo, 13 April 2013 - At least three people are killed in an attack; internet footage of the victims shows symptoms consistent with exposure to nerve gas. - At least three people are killed in an attack; internet footage of the victims shows symptoms consistent with exposure to nerve gas. Saraqeb, 29 April 2013 - Eyewitnesses say canisters containing a poisonous gas are dropped from a helicopter above the town. Eight people are injured, one of whom later dies. - Eyewitnesses say canisters containing a poisonous gas are dropped from a helicopter above the town. Eight people are injured, one of whom later dies. Ghouta, 21 August 2013 - By far the most serious alleged incident, with hundreds reported dead in attacks on the outskirts of Damascus Q&A: Damascus 'toxic attacks' Syria chemical weapons allegations Syria's chemical weapons stockpile How to investigate chemical arms allegations The BBC has been unable to independently confirm the death toll. Activists said Wednesday's attack took place as part of heavy government bombardment in the region surrounding Damascus, with government forces trying to drive out rebel forces. The areas affected included Irbin, Duma and Muadhamiya. Video footage shows dozens of bodies with no visible signs of injuries, including small children, and survivors being treated in makeshift hospitals, with victims, including many children, having convulsions. Chemical weapons experts have told the BBC that footage appears genuine and that the injuries shown are consistent with nerve agents. While it is not clear how many died in the bombardment of the sites and how many deaths were due to any exposure to toxic substances, experts say it would be almost impossible to fake so many dead and injured including children and babies. Both the rebels and government forces have accused each other of using chemical weapons throughout the 28-month conflict. Syria is believed to have large undeclared stockpiles of mustard gas and sarin nerve agent. The government has implied it has chemical weapons, but said they would not be used against civilians. More than 100,000 people are believed to have been killed during the 28-months of conflict Syria. ||||| The foreign minister of France on Tuesday accused the Syrian government of attacking its people with chemical weapons at least 14 times since October, with the most recent instance just a few weeks ago. Laurent Fabius made his statement the same day as a Human Rights Watch (HRW) issued a report which said is there strong evidence the Syrian regime used chlorine gas on rebel-held neighborhoods last month, dropping the canisters in crude bombs on residential areas. Speaking to reporters in Washington, Fabius cited "credible witnesses" to the attacks, which he said included the use of chlorine gas. He said it has been difficult to acquire definitive proof because chlorine gas generally evaporates too quickly to collect samples. Fabius described the 14 attacks since last Oct. 25 as "small-scale" and not likely to spur a Western military response. His statement and the HRW report add to growing concerns that chemical weapons are still being used in Syria months after an international deal to remove the country’s chemical weapons was reached following a sarin gas attack that killed hundreds of civilians last August. Under the threat of U.S. airstrikes, Assad agreed to dismantle his chemical weapons program. Currently, a joint mission by the U.N. and the international chemical weapons watchdog says that 92 percent of Syria's stockpile has been shipped out of the country to be destroyed at sea. But Fabius said that Syrian facilities that produce chemical weapons have not been destroyed, and he accused Assad's government of not being fully forthcoming with the West about its continued ability to use toxic chemicals against opponents. HRW said forces loyal to Assad likely used chlorine gas on three towns in northern Syria in mid-April, according to interviews with 10 witnesses, video footage and photographs. "Evidence strongly suggests that Syrian government helicopters dropped barrel bombs embedded with cylinders of chlorine gas on three towns," the group said. "These attacks used an industrial chemical as a weapon, an act banned by the international treaty prohibiting chemical weapons that Syria joined in October 2013.” In late April, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), a United Nations watchdog that won the Nobel Peace Prize for taking the lead to remove Syria’s stockpile last year, said it would investigate the new chlorine claims, but it has not commented further on the issue. In one incident, the Syrian government blamed an Al-Qaeda-linked group, the Nusra Front, for using chlorine gas on civilians in the rebel-held town of Kfar Zeita. It has not commented on other attacks. An extensive Associated Press investigation in late April found consistent claims that chlorine gas had been used in Kfar Zeirta. HRW said testimony from eye-witnesses indicated that chlorine canisters were embedded into crude explosive-laden barrels, which military helicopters dropped at the time on rebel-held areas. In Syria, only the pro-government forces have military aircraft, not opposition fighters. And though chlorine gas canisters are widely available, HRW said their use as a weapon is prohibited under international law. The use of chlorine gas in bombs is not very effective as a weapon to kill people. However, HRW said it appeared the Syrian military was using the chlorine to terrorize residents into believing they had been gassed, even if many of the victims were not killed. ||||| Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption The BBC's Frank Gardner says the footage shows people gasping for breath and convulsing Chemical weapons attacks have killed hundreds on the outskirts of Damascus, Syrian opposition activists say. Rockets with toxic agents were launched at the suburbs of the Ghouta region early on Wednesday as part of a major bombardment on rebel forces, they say. The Syrian army says the accusations have been fabricated to cover up rebel losses. The main opposition alliance said that more than 1,000 people were killed by the attacks. The United Nations Security Council said it was necessary to clarify what happened in the alleged attack, but stopped short of demanding an investigation by a UN team currently in Damascus, following an emergency meeting on Wednesday evening. "There is a strong concern among council members about the allegations and a general sense that there must be clarity on what happened and the situation must be followed closely," Argentina's UN Ambassador Maria Cristina Perceval told reporters after a closed-door meeting. Meanwhile, the US, UK and France are among some 35 member states that have signed a letter calling for the UN inspectors that are already investigating three sites of alleged chemical weapons use in Syria to probe the latest incident as soon as possible. Activist networks reported death tolls from the incident in the hundreds, but these could not be independently confirmed. It is also not clear how many died in the bombardment of the sites and how many deaths were due to any exposure to toxic substances. Analysis Two things stand out immediately in this reported Syrian attack. Firstly, the timing is odd, bordering on suspicious. Why would the Assad government, which has recently been retaking ground from the rebels, carry out a chemical attack while UN weapons inspectors are in the country? But secondly, the scale of the apparent casualties is far worse than any of the previous alleged chemical attacks. Experts say it would be almost impossible to fake so many dead and injured, including children and babies. They bear no visible wounds from gunshots; instead, many display the classic symptoms of a nerve agent attack, with startled, frozen expressions that experts say are reminiscent of Saddam Hussein's 1988 attack on the Kurds at Halabja. Last year a senior Syrian defector, Nawaf Fares, told me in Qatar that the Assad government would not hesitate to use chemical weapons if it wanted to. However, today it denies any guilt and instead says this is a media campaign by its enemies. Video footage showed dozens of bodies with no visible signs of injuries, including small children, laid out on the floor of a clinic. Ghazwan Bwidany, a doctor treating the injured, told the BBC the main symptom, especially among children, was suffocation, as well as salivating and blurred vision. "We don't have the capability to treat all this number of people," he said. "We're putting them in mosques, in schools. We are lacking medical supplies now, especially atropine, which is the antidote for chemical weapons." In a statement, the army described the accusations of chemical weapons use as grave, and stressed the military's right to fight what it described as terrorism in Syria. It accused the opposition of fabricating the accusations to divert attention from the huge losses its forces had suffered recently. United Nations chemical weapons inspectors arrived in Syria on Sunday with a mandate to investigate three locations where chemical weapons were allegedly used, including the northern town of Khan al-Assal, where some 26 people were killed in March. Earlier, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said in a statement: "The United States is deeply concerned by reports that hundreds of Syrian civilians have been killed in an attack by Syrian government forces, including by the use of chemical weapons, near Damascus earlier today. "We are formally requesting that the United Nations urgently investigate this new allegation. The UN investigative team, which is currently in Syria, is prepared to do so, and that is consistent with its purpose and mandate." The alleged attack comes a year after US President Barack Obama warned the Syrian government that using chemical weapons would cross a "red line". UK Foreign Secretary William Hague said that if confirmed the attacks would mark a "shocking escalation in the use of chemical weapons in Syria". Image caption Video footage and images from the scene show dozens of bodies Image caption Injured people are shown being treated in hospital Image caption Children are among those clearly in distress previous slide next slide The Arab League and European Union have echoed the call for the inspectors to go to the site. "The EU reiterates that any use of chemical weapons, by any side in Syria, would be totally unacceptable," said a spokesperson for EU foreign affairs head Catherine Ashton. But the Russian foreign ministry noted that the reports had emerged just as the UN chemical weapons inspection team had arrived in Syria, saying that "this makes us think that we are once again dealing with a premeditated provocation". 'Convulsions' The attack took place as part of a heavy government bombardment of the region surrounding Damascus, where government forces have been trying to drive out rebel forces. Casualties were reported in the areas of Irbin, Duma and Muadhamiya among others, activists said. Footage uploaded to YouTube from the scene by activists shows many people being treated in makeshift hospitals. The videos show victims, including many children, having convulsions. Others are apparently immobile and have difficulty breathing. The number of casualties is much higher than in previous allegations of chemical weapons attacks. Chemical weapons claims Khan al-Assal, 19 March 2013 - Syrian state media accuse rebels of killing 31 people with rockets containing "chemical materials". Rebels blame the army for the attack. - Syrian state media accuse rebels of killing 31 people with rockets containing "chemical materials". Rebels blame the army for the attack. Al-Otaybeh, 19 March 2013 - Opposition activists allege an attack in which six people are reported dead, apparently in reprisal for gains made by rebel forces. - Opposition activists allege an attack in which six people are reported dead, apparently in reprisal for gains made by rebel forces. Adra, 24 March 2013 - The LCC activist network say two people are killed in an attack. - The LCC activist network say two people are killed in an attack. Sheikh Maqsoud, Aleppo, 13 April 2013 - At least three people are killed in an attack; internet footage of the victims shows symptoms consistent with exposure to nerve gas. - At least three people are killed in an attack; internet footage of the victims shows symptoms consistent with exposure to nerve gas. Saraqeb, 29 April 2013 - Eyewitnesses say canisters containing a poisonous gas are dropped from a helicopter above the town. Eight people are injured, one of whom later dies. Syria chemical weapons allegations Syria's chemical weapons stockpile How to investigate chemical weapons allegations The official Syrian Sana news agency said the reports of the attack were "baseless", quoting a "media source". The reports were "an attempt to divert the UN chemical weapons investigation commission away from carrying out its duties", Sana said. 'Horrific' footage The BBC's Middle East Editor Jeremy Bowen says many will ask why the government would want to use such weapons at a time when inspectors are in the country and the military has been doing well militarily in the area around Damascus. Some will suspect that the footage has been fabricated, but the videos that have been emerged would be difficult to fake, he adds. Prof Alexander Kekule, of the Institute for Medical Microbiology at Halle University in Germany, told the BBC that one of the videos - although of poor quality - was consistent with the aftermath of an attack with a chemical agent. But he added that none of the patients showed typical signs of sarin or other organophosphorous nerve agents, or signs of blistering agents. "It also cannot be totally excluded that the whole video is a political staging. In this case, however, it would be a very good one," he said. "Taken together, the best guess is that this is an authentic video of the aftermath of an attack with some incapacitating chemical agent." Both the rebels and government forces have accused each other of using chemical weapons during the conflict. It has not been possible to independently verify the claims. In July 2012, the Syrian government implicitly admitted what had long been suspected - that Syria had stocks of chemical weapons. Experts believe the country has large undeclared stockpiles of mustard gas and sarin nerve agent. Damascus said the weapons, stored and secured by the armed forces, would never be used "inside Syria", but could be used against an external attack.

– There's "clear and convincing evidence" that surface-to-air rockets loaded with sarin gas rained down on the Ghouta area of Damascus last month, UN weapons inspectors announced today. The panel concluded that chemical weapons have been used "against civilians, including children, on a relatively large scale." The inspectors were only tasked with determining whether chemical weapons had been fired, not who fired them, the AP explains; though CNN reports that the report will cover "signs of culpability." Earlier today, a separate UN commission said it was investigating reports of 14 chemical attacks, but that it had already determined that both sides had committed war crimes, with or without chemicals. The Assad regime has committed both war crimes and crimes against humanity, the commission determined. The rebels hadn't committed crimes against humanity only "because there is not a clear chain of command." The reports follow Syria's admission that it has chemical weapons, as part of a deal to disarm. Some recent fallout of that deal: The Assad government called the disarmament deal a "victory," and the rebels seem to agree, the New York Times reports. They expect Assad to break his word, and to step up his conventional weapons offensives. Indeed, the violence escalated appreciably last week, the Washington Post points out, with some towns facing their first airstrikes in weeks, and more than 1,000 killed. Now that the threat from the US has evaporated, "the regime has regrouped and is back on the offensive with a vengeance," one expert on the region says. Some rebels said arms shipments from foreign backers had increased, but complained that they were light weapons, and speculated that their backers only want to see the war drag on. "We won't get advanced weapons," a spokesman for a brigade in Aleppo says, "Because that would mean we would achieve victories."

Having a serious concussion could be a risk factor for developing Alzheimer's decades later – though not everyone with head trauma will lose their memory, a new study suggests. PET scan of a brain in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease. (Photo: Gary Small, UCLA School of Medicine) Story Highlights Study shows link among those who had head injuries and later had memory problems Scientists say more research needed to understand the relationship Brain scans measure buildup of protein called beta amyloid Having a serious concussion could be a risk factor for developing Alzheimer's decades later – though not everyone with head trauma will lose their memory, a new study suggests. A team from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester Minn., conducted brain scans on 448 older Minnesotans who had no signs of memory problems and 141 who did. Roughly 17% in both groups had had a brain injury earlier in life involving some loss of consciousness or memory. Those who had no signs of memory problems had normal brain scans, regardless of their history of brain injury. Scans of those with memory problems and a history of brain injury were five times more likely to show a buildup of a brain protein long associated with Alzheimer's Disease, says study author Michelle Mielke, an associate professor of epidemiology and neurology at the Mayo Clinic. The study, published online today in the journal Neurology, examined people in their 70s and 80s who reported having an earlier head trauma – in most cases 50 or 60 years earlier when they were adolescents. In those days, only the sickest people went to the doctor, so the head injuries were probably quite significant, Mielke says. This is one of the first studies to take advantage of new technology, allowing brain scans to measure the buildup of a protein called beta amyloid, long associated with Alzheimer's. Most previous studies of the connection between Alzheimer's and head injury had looked only at cadavers. "In my view, these findings are consistent with the idea that traumatic brain injury may lead to amyloid accumulation and Alzheimer's disease," says Richard Lipton, director of the Division of Cognitive Aging and Dementia and the Montefiore Headache Center at Albert Einstein College Of Medicine in New York City. More research is needed, he cautions, to help explain how one causes the other. "To more fully explore the causal links, we need not just brilliant snapshots but the movies which track brain changes and cognitive changes over time." For people worried about their own head injuries, the study provides some comfort, Lipton says. Both groups of older adults – impaired and normal – had the same rate of head injury. So, clearly, not every head injury leads to Alzheimer's disease, he says. Most head injuries are accidents and therefore unavoidable, though helmets and seat belts can make a difference in some cases. Lipton says he hopes that learning more about the connection between head injury and Alzheimer's will lead to interventions to protect injured brains from long-term damage. "Drugs that block the development of amyloid or increase its removal from the brain may help protect persons with traumatic brain injury from Alzheimer's disease, though that has not been demonstrated," he says. Until then, the best strategy is to minimize known risk factors for Alzheimer's – high blood pressure, diabetes and high cholesterol – by eating a healthy Mediterranean diet and exercising both mind and body, he says. ||||| Concussions Linked to Alzheimer's Risk in Study Brain scans found seniors with both poor memory and prior head injury have more plaque buildup WebMD News from HealthDay WebMD News Archive By Kathleen Doheny HealthDay Reporter THURSDAY, Dec. 26, 2013 (HealthDay News) -- Older adults with memory problems and a history of concussion have more buildup of Alzheimer's disease-associated plaques in the brain than those who also had concussions but don't have memory problems, according to a new study. ''What we think it suggests is, head trauma is associated with Alzheimer's-type dementia -- it's a risk factor," said study researcher Michelle Mielke, an associate professor of epidemiology and neurology at Mayo Clinic Rochester. "But it doesn't mean someone with head trauma is [automatically] going to develop Alzheimer's." Her study is published online Dec. 26 and in the Jan. 7 print issue of the journal Neurology. Previous studies looking at whether head trauma is a risk factor for Alzheimer's have come up with conflicting results, she noted. And Mielke stressed that she has found only a link or association, not a cause-and-effect relationship. In the study, Mielke and her team evaluated 448 residents of Olmsted County, Minn., who had no signs of memory problems. They also evaluated another 141 residents with memory and thinking problems known as mild cognitive impairment. More than 5 million Americans have Alzheimer's disease, according to the Alzheimer's Association. Plaques are deposits of a protein fragment known as beta-amyloid that can build up in between the brain's nerve cells. While most people develop some with age, those who develop Alzheimer's generally get many more, according to the Alzheimer's Association. They also tend to get them in a predictable pattern, starting in brain areas crucial for memory. In the Mayo study, all participants were aged 70 or older. The participants reported if they ever had a brain injury that involved loss of consciousness or memory. Of the 448 without any memory problems, 17 percent had reported a brain injury. Of the 141 with memory problems, 18 percent did. This suggests that the link between head trauma and the plaques is complex, Mielke said, as the proportion of people reporting concussion was the same in both groups. Brain scans were done on all the participants. Those who had both concussion history and cognitive [mental] impairment had levels of amyloid plaques that were 18 percent higher than those with cognitive impairment but no head trauma history, the investigators found.

– If you've ever suffered a concussion, a new study suggests you may have a higher risk of developing Alzheimer's disease—or not. Mayo Clinic researchers performed brain scans on 141 people in their 70s and 80s who had memory problems and 448 who didn't. Some 18% and 17%, respectively, reported at one time suffering a brain injury in which they lost consciousness or memory. The latter group's scans came back normal, head injury or not. But the group with memory issues and a previous concussion were five times more likely to have an Alzheimer's-associated plaque buildup in the brain, the study author explains, per HealthDay News. Since both groups had the same rate of injury and only some showed a buildup of the protein beta amyloid, the findings show the link between head trauma and the plaque is complex and not all brain injuries lead to the disease. "If you do hit your head, it doesn't mean you are going to develop Alzheimer's," the study author says, but "it may increase your risk." A medical director agrees, and tells USA Today, "In my view, these findings are consistent with the idea that traumatic brain injury may lead to amyloid accumulation and Alzheimer's disease."

A Spokane County Sheriff's helicopter searches for Anthony Garver, 28, near Forker Road in Spokane Valley, Wash., Thursday, April 7, 2016. Garver, 28, escaped from a Washington state psychiatric hospital Wednesday night with Mark Alexander Adams, 58, a patient who had been accused of domestic assault... (Associated Press) SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) — A man who escaped from a Washington state psychiatric hospital where he was held after being found too mentally ill to face charges that he tortured a woman to death was found hiding under a pile of debris in the woods and apprehended without incident. Anthony Garver, 28, was taken into custody Friday night by law enforcement in Spokane, Washington State Patrol spokesman Todd Bartolac said. Garver crawled out a window of a locked, lower-security unit on Wednesday with another patient, Mark Alexander Adams, 58, who was caught the next day. The escapes intensified federal scrutiny on Western State Hospital, Washington's largest psychiatric facility. Western State had already been under investigation for attacks on patients and staff and a failure to improve safety. Spokane County Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich said two police officers tracked Garver with the help of a police dog and found him about 8:15 p.m. in trees above the home of his parents. Garver was hungry and dehydrated and receiving medical treatment before being transferred to jail, the sheriff said. Garver was charged in 2013 with tying a 20-year-old woman to her bed with electrical cords, stabbing her 24 times in the chest and slashing her throat, prosecutors said. He had been moved to a lower-security unit of the hospital after a judge said mental health treatment to prepare him to face criminal charges was not working and ordered him held as a danger to himself or others. Garver has a history of running from law enforcement, and Knzeovich had strong works for state officials about the fact that he was able to make another run for it. "The state of Washington needs to get a clue," the sheriff said. "This cannot happen again." On Friday, the hospital revealed another patient was missing. That patient, who authorities did not consider an immediate danger to the public, has not been found since failing to return from a group outing the same day the other two men escaped. The hospital did not identify the patient. The incidents did not appear related. U.S. regulators already were investigating a recent violent attack on a hospital worker and a patient-on-patient sexual assault at Western State Hospital. A workplace inspection released this week found a series of missteps that posed safety risks, including unlocked rooms, unattended items that could be used as weapons and workers who abandoned their posts instead of watching patients. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has repeatedly cited the facility over safety concerns and threatened to cut millions in federal funding. An agency spokesman says the hospital is under additional scrutiny over the escapes and recent assaults. Garver, who bought a bus ticket from Seattle to Spokane after he escaped, had last been seen on Thursday in the Spokane area where his parents live after his father called authorities to report his son had stopped by briefly. Authorities used SWAT teams, dogs and helicopters to search for him. Mark Alexander Adams, who escaped with Garver, had been charged with domestic assault in 2014. Like Garver, he was found too mentally ill to stand trial and a judge ordered him held at the hospital. State officials would not explain why Garver, an ex-felon with a history of running from authorities, was kept in a lower-security area. Some high-security units require patient checks every 15 minutes, but Garver was not placed in one, staffers say. "He was in a locked area with locked windows and hourly checks," said Kathy Spears, a spokeswoman for the Department of Social and Health Services, which oversees the state's mental health care. The history of violence at the facility stretches back years. Hundreds of employees have suffered concussions, fractures and cuts in assaults by patients, resulting in $6 million in workers' compensation claims between 2013 and 2015. Patients also have attacked other patients, causing serious injuries. Most recently, a patient with a history of violent behavior choked and punched a mental health technician on March 26, according to an internal report. A March 23 report said a male patient slipped out of his monitors and was found in a bathroom with another male patient, who said he was sexually assaulted. The hospital faces new scrutiny after the two attacks and escapes, said Steven Chickering, associate regional administrator of a division of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. In addition, the hospital's safety and emergency management manager sent a memo to staff Thursday citing numerous violations observed during a recent review. Some of the problems involved how the hospital is laid out, "but they also observed actions by staff that could pose a safety and/or security risk," Pamela Rieta's memo said. Her team saw a patient wearing a long necklace, telephones with long cords, an unattended chair and other items that could be used as weapons left at the nurse's station, the memo said. Cabinets and lockers in activity rooms and kitchen areas were unlocked and unattended. Patients returning from ground privileges were not scanned for contraband. Several kitchen doors were propped open without staffers present, allowing patients to enter, the memo said. The team also saw staff leave their posts "to hang out and talk ... not observing the patients." ___ Associated Press writer Lisa Baumann contributed from Seattle. ||||| A violent mental patient who escaped from a psychiatric hospital in Western Washington boarded a Greyhound bus for Spokane, sparking a massive manhunt Thursday in the foothills of Mount Spokane Sheriff’s deputies and U.S. marshals called off the search for Anthony Garver at nightfall, but said they would keep extra patrols in the area and resume the search Friday. Deputies got a tip around 3:30 p.m. that Garver was at his parents’ house in the area of MacMahan Road and Offmy Lane. “We talked to them (the parents) and they said, yes, he was here,” Supervisory U.S. Marshal Bob Doty said. “He wasn’t there long.” Spokane County Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich called the search “a pretty intense situation,” involving both federal and local law enforcement, police dogs, SWAT teams and helicopters. Garver was last seen wearing a gray sweatshirt and blue jeans. He is believed to be on foot and officials do not know if he is armed, Doty said, adding, “It’s possible he’s still in the area.” Law enforcement has received information in the past that Garver may have a cache of weapons hidden in the East Valley area that haven’t been located, the sheriff said. Authorities are warning that he’s dangerous. Capt. Dave Ellis of the Spokane County Sheriff’s Office advised people in northeast Spokane County to call 911 if they see anything suspicious and not to confront Garver. “We are looking for him with everything we’ve got,” Knezovich said, adding that he’s frustrated the state of Washington continues to treat Garver as a “low-risk individual.” History of escaping custody Garver has a history of escaping custody. In 2009, he was the subject of a monthlong manhunt that ended when federal agents found him hiding in the woods near Mount Spokane. He escaped from a halfway house, and in 2013 failed to check in with his probation officer after being released from federal prison. Later that year, he was accused of killing a 20-year-old woman in Snohomish County who was found bound with electrical cords and stabbed to death. Garver was found incompetent to stand trial three times while undergoing treatment for schizophrenia. Garver, 28, and 58-year-old Mark Alexander Adams escaped from Western State Hospital in Pierce County, south of Tacoma, sometime Wednesday evening. Adams was recaptured Thursday morning in Des Moines, Washington, Lakewood police said. Lakewood police said Thursday afternoon that Garver purchased a Greyhound bus ticket bound for Spokane on Wednesday evening in Seattle. “At the facility he was at, he was allowed to have cash,” Doty said. Escape may have been months in the making Both Garver and Adams were housed in Western State Hospital’s locked civil ward, a news release from DSHS said. They were both seen around 6 p.m. Wednesday at dinner, then discovered missing during an hourly patient check at 6:45 p.m. It appears the men escaped through a locked window in their ward. The news release said it doesn’t appear the window or lock was defective, but that the bolts on the window may have been tampered with over several months. Court records detail Garver’s long history of both threatening behavior and mental illness, including paranoia and hallucinations. Garver, also known as Anthony Burke, has been called a “domestic terrorist” by Knezovich as recently as 2015. In 2006, he allegedly boasted in jail that he had ties to al-Qaida and planned to detonate a bomb at Pig Out in the Park in Riverfront Park as well as blow up a Department of Social and Health Services building. At the time, his mother told KHQ her son often got frustrated and said things he didn’t mean. As a teenager, Garver was twice arrested on investigation of assault and malicious mischief, both after getting into fights with his mother and stepfather. Both times, the cases were dismissed. In 2006, he pleaded guilty to domestic violence harassment in Spokane County Superior Court after his mother told police he threatened to kill her, other family members and himself. Deputies who responded found 100 rounds of Russian ammunition at his family’s Veradale home. Garver was prohibited from having the bullets, because he had been committed to a mental hospital as a teen and served three years in federal prison. Court records from that case show Garver was ordered to receive a mental health evaluation. He later spent a year in prison when he escaped from a halfway house and led Montana law enforcement on a dangerous chase. In 2009, Garver pleaded guilty to taking his mother’s car without permission and served two months in jail. Court records do not indicate he was evaluated for mental health problems at any point during proceedings. In a parallel world Following his arrest in the killing of Phillipa S. Evans-Lopez in 2013, Garver was evaluated at Western State Hospital. In June 2015, a psychologist reported Garver’s symptoms included hallucinations and delusions that were not responding to anti-psychotic medication. According to the report, Garver repeatedly said he was on trial for forgery and would not acknowledge people telling him he was charged with murder. Instead, he made claims about being in a parallel world and saying the charge was going to go away when he moved to a new dimension. A judge determined Garver was not competent to stand trial for a final time shortly after that report and dismissed the murder charge against him, ordering him to be civilly committed to the hospital for ongoing treatment, saying he was a danger to himself or others. Western State Hospital has been under scrutiny over assaults on staff and worker shortages and nearly lost federal funding last fall because of safety issues. After Wednesday’s escapes, DSHS said the agency plans to bring in outside experts to go through the hospital and do a complete safety review, the release said.

– A man who escaped from a Washington state psychiatric hospital where he was being held after being found too mentally ill to face charges that he tortured a woman to death is back in custody. Anthony Garver, 28, was apprehended without incident Friday night by law enforcement in Spokane after he was found hiding under a pile of debris in the woods, a Washington State Patrol spokesman tells the AP. Garver crawled out a window of a locked, lower-security unit on Wednesday with another patient, Mark Alexander Adams, 58, who was caught the next day. Spokane County Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich says two police officers tracked Garver with the help of a police dog and found him in woods less than a mile from the home of his parents, who called police after he visited them on Thursday. Garver was hungry and dehydrated and received medical treatment before being transferred to jail, the sheriff says. Garver has a history of running from law enforcement, and Knzeovich has strong words for state officials about the fact that he was able to make another run for it. "The state of Washington needs to get a clue," he says. "This cannot happen again." The sheriff tells the Spokesman-Review that despite the fact that Garver had headed toward Spokane after previous escapes, local law enforcement was not notified until at least 12 hours after the escape.

Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Flooding in the Marshall Islands in 2014 caused extensive damage and left hundreds homeless About 1,000 Bikini islanders have applied to relocate to the United States as rising seas threaten their adopted home. The residents were moved from their Pacific atoll as result of atomic bomb tests in the 1940s. But their new home, on another of the Marshall Islands, is struggling against huge tides and increasing storms. The islanders have now asked Washington to change the terms of a trust fund to allow them settle in the US. In 1946 several hundred islanders were moved from Bikini Atoll by the US government, which wanted to test atomic weapons on the remote atoll. The people of Bikini came back to us and asked us to take this proposal to the US Tony de Brum, Foreign Minister, Marshall Islands Some 23 nuclear tests were conducted including the huge Bravo hydrogen bomb, the largest weapon detonated at that time by the US. King tides The islanders moved to a nearby island in the Marshall chain called Kili in 1948. Under an agreement with the US, a resettlement trust fund was eventually established to help the Bikini residents. This would pay for construction of homes within the Marshall Islands. But now the islanders say that their homes are being swamped by the increased ingress of sea water during king tides. There was widespread flooding in 2011 and again this year. Salt is also creeping up from beneath Kili, threatening agriculture and water supplies. In the early part of this year the island's runway was entirely flooded, cutting off the residents. "The people of Bikini came back to us and asked us to take this proposal to the US, to request the resettlement trust fund be used to settle people in the US not just the Marshall Islands," said Tony de Brum, Foreign Minister of the Marshall Islands. "We have not seen the final text of the legislation but the request that went in was on the basis of Kili being uninhabitable because of climate change." Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Bikini Atoll was used for extensive atomic bomb tests by the US from 1946 The US Department of the Interior is supporting the islanders and is now proposing legislation in Congress that would change the terms of the resettlement trust. Under an agreement between the Marshalls and the US, islanders have the right to live, work and study in the US without restrictions on the duration of their stay. "This is an appropriate course of action for the United States to take regarding the welfare and livelihood of the Bikinian people, given the deteriorating conditions on Kili and Ejit Islands in the Marshall Islands - with crowding, diminishing resources, and increased frequency of flooding due to King Tides on their islands," said Assistant Secretary of the Interior Esther Kia'aina. The Marshall Islands government says the experience of the Bikini islanders shows the need for a new global agreement on climate change. They believe that a new deal can be agreed at a global conference in Paris that begins at the end of November. One key element for the island state is that the agreement stipulate that global temperature rises be kept under 1.5 degrees C from pre industrial levels. Minister de Brum said that from the point of view of small islands and atoll states, two degrees "cannot remain as the absolute cap for everything we are trying do in limiting global warming". Follow Matt on Twitter: @mattmcgrathbbc ||||| An atomic cloud forms July 25, 1946, from the underwater Baker Day Explosion over Bikini Lagoon. The United States relocated inhabitants of Bikini Atoll before exploding 23 nuclear weapons in Bikini between 1946 and 1958. (Photo: National Archives) HAGÅTÑA, Guam — Displaced residents of Bikini Atoll, relocated to the Republic of the Marshall Islands in the late 1940s because of U.S. nuclear weapons tests, are asking for the option of leaving the country without losing millions of dollars the U.S. paid them in relocation costs. Rising sea levels have destroyed crops in the Marshall Islands and raised concerns about residents' health and safety, according to the Department of the Interior, which has proposed making it easier for displaced Bikini Atoll residents to relocate to the United States or elsewhere. Federal treaties, called compacts of free association, already allow residents of the Marshall Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia and the Republic of Palau to live and work in the United States. The Interior Department's Office of Insular Affairs is asking Congress to write a bill to allow the people of Bikini to use existing federal resettlement and relocation money even if they leave the Marshall Islands, officials said Wednesday. Bikinians now are restricted from spending the money outside the Marshall Islands. As of the end of fiscal 2012, the Resettlement Trust Fund for the People of Bikini had a balance of $69 million, according to audited financial statements. The fund generates revenue from investments, and about $6 million a year is spent on wages, improvement projects on the islands of Kili and Ejit, scholarships, travel, and other costs, according to the financial statements. “This is an appropriate course of action for the United States to take regarding the welfare and livelihood of the Bikinian people given the deteriorating conditions on Kili and Ejit Islands in the Marshall Islands with crowding, diminishing resources, and increased frequency of flooding.” Esther Kia'aina, Interior Department "This is an appropriate course of action for the United States to take regarding the welfare and livelihood of the Bikinian people given the deteriorating conditions on Kili and Ejit Islands in the Marshall Islands with crowding, diminishing resources, and increased frequency of flooding due to King Tides on their islands," Esther Kia'aina, assistant secretary for insular affairs, said in a statement. In 1946, 167 Bikinians were relocated to the Marshall Islands, and the U.S. exploded 23 atomic and hydrogen bombs at the Bikini Atoll between 1946 and 1958. The Bikinians were returned to their home in 1969 but were evacuated again in 1978 because of high levels of radioactive elements found in their bodies. The proposed change to the spending rules would "provide the people of Bikini better options and the necessary resources for habitable and sustainable living to improve their quality of life and to plan for their future," Kia'aina said. The proposal comes at the request of the Kili/Bikini/Ejit Local Government Council, which passed a resolution in August. Most Bikinians live on Kili, an island about a third of a square mile in size without a lagoon, rendering their traditional skills useless. More than 5,300 Bikinians live in the Marshall Islands and throughout the United States, according to the resolution. The islands of Kili, almost 500 miles from Bikini, and Ejit, more than 500 miles away, have been covered by waves at least five times during the past four years, contaminating all wells on both islands, the resolution states. "Because of ongoing deterioration of conditions on Kili and Ejit islands, many of the people of Bikini living on these islands want to move out of the Marshall Islands, primarily to the United States," the resolution states. Guam, 1,400 miles east of Bikini Atoll, has been the top U.S. destination for migrants from the compact states, followed by Hawaii, 2,500 miles to the northeast. But a 2011 congressional report said Hawaii is the top destination for migrants specifically from the Marshall Islands. More than 3,500 went to Hawaii compared to 549 in Guam. Use the minus button on the map to see where Kili and Ejit islands, Guam and Hawaii are in relation to Bikini Island. Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1RZNURe

– Their first home was destroyed by nuclear testing. Their new home is being threatened by climate change. Now the former residents of Bikini Atoll want to use their million-dollar government trust fund to resettle in the US, USA Today reports. More than 150 residents of Bikini Atoll were moved 500 miles away to Kili and Ejit in the Marshall Islands in 1948 so the US could conduct nearly two-dozen atomic tests. They tried to move back in 1969 but had to be relocated again because of radiation. According to the BBC, the US set up a resettlement trust fund to help the displaced Bikini islanders rebuild their lives. However, that fund offers little protection from the life-threatening rising seas brought on by climate change. The BBC reports there was widespread flooding on Kili in 2011 and 2015, and encroaching salt water is killing crops and ruining fresh water supplies. Both Kili and Ejit were covered by waves at least five times in the past four years, according to USA Today. The islanders, who are already allowed to live and work in the US, passed a resolution in August asking the US government to let them take their resettlement trust fund—which has a balance of around $69 million—with them to the US, the BBC reports. The Department of Interior is supporting the islanders and taking their proposal to congress. "This is an appropriate course of action for the United States to take regarding the welfare and livelihood of the Bikinian people, given the deteriorating conditions on Kili and Ejit," the assistant secretary of the Interior says in a statement.

Newtown Report Monday’s report doesn’t conclusively name a reason for the shooting last December, but we know why Adam Lanza was at the elementary school: He wanted to shoot kids. So maybe 20-year-old Adam Lanza was a kind of pedophile whose idea of having sex with kids was to shoot them. A hint at that is in the report on the Sandy Hook Elementary School murders released on Monday by the Connecticut state attorney’s office in Danbury. Among the items the report says detectives found in Lanza’s room were “materials regarding the topic of pedophilia and advocating for rights for pedophiles.” The report adds, “Not child pornography.” But maybe Lanza’s equivalent of kiddie porn was a five-second dramatization of children being shot that was found among this things at home. He also had a POV video game called School Shooter that allows the player to gun down students with gruesome results. In the game, the shooter wears fingerless black gloves, just like Dylan Klebold did at the Columbine High School massacre that the report says Lanza was fixated on. Only Lanza went after much younger victims at Sandy Hook, a choice the report indicates cannot be easily explained by any particular unpleasant experience, real or imagined, that Lanza seems to have had when he was at student there. In preschool before he arrived at Sandy Hook, Lanza is said by the report to have exhibited such worrisome signs as “repetitive behaviors, temper tantrums, smelling things that were not there, excessive hand washing and eating idiosyncrasies.” But of his time at Sandy Hook, the report says: “The early school years have him portrayed as a nice kid, though sort of withdrawn. He loved music and played saxophone.” “He would attend play groups and parties,” the report says. The report—which calls Lanza “the shooter,” just like in his game—adds, “The shooter indicated that he loved the school and liked to go there.” Get The Beast In Your Inbox! Daily Digest Start and finish your day with the top stories from The Daily Beast. Cheat Sheet A speedy, smart summary of all the news you need to know (and nothing you don't). By clicking "Subscribe," you agree to have read the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Subscribe Thank You! You are now subscribed to the Daily Digest and Cheat Sheet. We will not share your email with anyone for any reason One thing that seems notable in retrospect is the book Lanza made as part of a class project in the fifth grade. He titled it Big Book of Granny. The hero has a cane that is really a gun and uses it to shoot numerous people, children among them. As he proceeded on to sixth grade and middle school, he was said by a teacher who was interviewed by the detectives to have gotten As and Bs, done his homework, and had at least some friends. He was never in any trouble of note. The big change seems to have come in the seventh grade. A teacher described him as “intelligent but not normal?” He was said to have had “antisocial issues,” withdrawing and refusing to participate in class. He appeared to have a violent nature. His writing assignments were filled with “a disturbing level” of mayhem, war, and death. During this same period, his mother, Nancy Lanza, noted that her son had given up sports and stopped riding his bike and climbing trees and playing the saxophone in the school band. He did join the tech club in high school and even had a LEN (pizza and computer games) party at his home. And while he continued to write about violence, the report notes that he also wrote about “human nature, perception, judgment, morality, lack of control, prejudice, empathy, suicide, mental illness, existential crisis, urban exploration of abandoned areas, hiking and cookies.” He turned unexpectedly lyrical when he was asked to write a poem. But school was becoming ever more a struggle, and he was becoming ever more withdrawn. The report waxes clinical as it says: “His school issues related to his identified emotional and/or Pervasive Developmental Disorder (PDD) spectrum behaviors. His high level of anxiety, Asperger’s characteristics, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) concerns and sensory issues all impacted his performance to a significant degree, limiting his participation in a general education curriculum. Tutoring, desensitization and medication were recommended.” The report goes on, “The shooter refused to take suggested medication and did not engage in suggested behavior therapies.” He was extremely picky about what he ate and insisted that foods be arranged in a particular order on his plate. He would only eat certain things with certain utensils. He washed his hands again and again, just as he had in preschool, and he repeatedly changed clothes, leaving his mother to do his laundry every day. Nobody was allowed in his room, where the windows were covered with black garbage bags secured with duct tape. Deliverymen were asked not to ring the doorbell lest the noise disturb him. He required others to open doors for him because he so abhorred touching the knobs or other metal objects. “Often going through a box of tissues a day to avoid contact,” the report says. He also did not like birthdays or holidays, and he refused to let his mother put up a Christmas tree, which she took as a sign that he lacked emotion. He did not like the family cat, so the mother gave it away. “When the shooter had his hair cut, he did not like to be touched and did not like the sound of clippers, so they were not used much,” the report says. “He would sit with his hands in his lap and always look down, giving one-word answers if the cutter tried to engage him in conversation.” The mother told people that because her son had Asperser’s he was unable to experience emotion. She asked him if he would feel badly if something happened to her. “No,” he said. He had a cell phone, but he neither made nor accepted calls, apparently using it only for emails and texts. He ceased speaking to his mother in person, communicating with her only by email even when they were both in the house. Oddly, what he did venture out to do, what he apparently loved even more than School Shooter, was a game called Dance Dance Revolution. From 2011 right up until his final month, he would play an arcade version in a local movie theater lobby on most Fridays and Saturdays, always wearing a specific outfit that featured a gray hoodie, staring at the video screen and moving his feet in time with the flashing lights for hours, showing no sign of fatigue until he was suddenly exhausted. He kept videos of himself playing Dance Dance Revolution along with the video clip of school kids being shot. He also had selfies that featured him holding a handgun to his head, holding a rifle to his head, and posing with a rifle and a shotgun, his pockets stuffed with 30-round magazines. His mother was of the unfortunate opinion that firearms would teach him responsibility and give him confidence. She long been taking him to shooting ranges, and together they had taken the NRA gun safety course. She apparently tried to impart a little holiday spirit in him when she wrote him a check dated “Christmas Day” of 2012 and bearing the notation “CZ83,” meaning for a CZ83 pistol. She remained an unshakably devoted mother and made sure to cook his favorite meals to get him through her absence as she embarked on December 10, 2012, for a three-day trip to see family in New Hampshire. He bumped his head before he left and it bled a bit, but she could not have taken it as a portent. He seemed fine when she departed. He had bought himself a GPS, and investigators say it shows he drove in the vicinity of Sandy Hook Elementary School on the afternoon of December 13. His mother returned home around 10 p.m. that night. She was in bed the next morning when Adam Lanza entered with the one kind of object he apparently had no trouble touching: a firearm. He placed a .22 caliber rifle to her head and curled his finger around the metal of the trigger four times. “Someone in the area reported hearing ‘two or three’ gunshots in the neighborhood between 8:00 a.m. and 9:00 a.m,” the report says. “That person thought them to be from hunters, though the person indicated the shots did ‘sound unusually close.”’ Lanza then set off with a Bushmaster assault rifle, two pistols, and hundreds of rounds of ammunition, all of it having been purchased by his mother. He does not seem to have been propelled by some monstrous psychosis as had apparently driven the Washington Navy Yard shooter. “It is important to note that it is unknown, what contribution, if any, the shooter’s mental health issues made to his attack,” the report says. “Those mental health professionals who saw him did not see anything that would have predicted his future behavior.” But there is a suggestion of a blindness on the part of the investigators along with the mental health folks when the report says, “He was undoubtedly afflicted with mental health problems; yet despite a fascination with mass shootings and firearms, he displayed no aggressive or threatening tendencies.” How can a fascination with mass shooting and firearms not be a predicator of somebody using a firearm to perpetrate a mass shooting? A fascination with guns almost has to be sexual on some displaced and pathetic level—Freud was only wrong about women. And Lanza proved his predilection by his actions in the same way as any pedophile, by targeting children. As the otherwise insightful report notes, he does not seem to have gone to the school seeking vengeance for some long-ago wrong. The report adds, “He was never assigned to the classrooms where the shootings occurred.” He was there because he wanted to shoot kids. He began by killing the 47-year-old principal, Dawn Hochsprung and the 56-year-old school psychologist, Mary Sherlach, because they came into the hallway after he shot his way in through the locked front doors with eight rounds. In Classroom 10, he began by shooting the teacher, Victoria Soto, to get her out of the way. Six-year-old Jesse Lewis was standing next to her and was apparently grazed in head by a bullet fragment, but he stayed on his feet, facing the gunman. Lanza was proceeding to do what he really wanted, to kill children, when the rifle jammed. Jesse could have used this moment to try to save himself, but he was the kind of kid who always imagined himself a peacekeeper and protector when he played soldier, sometimes patrolling his family’s yard in a plastic helmet, other times arranging his toy troopers in the bathtub to protect the rubber duckies. His mother, Scarlett Lewis, would later note in her fine book, Nurturing Healing Love: A Mother’s Journey of Hope & Forgiveness, that he had inscribed “I love you” along with several hearts in the frost on the car door when he left for school that morning. He now called to nine children who were on the other side of the classroom, holding hands. “Run!” he told them. The others dashed out of the room to safety just as Lanza got the gun cleared. Lanza then shot Jesse in the forehead. Lanza also killed behavioral therapist Anne Marie Murphy, firing through her to kill the child she was trying to protect with her body in her own display of remarkable courage. Lanza killed three more youngsters there. In Classroom 8, he killed the teacher, Lauren Rousseau, and her assistant, Rachel D’Avino, along with 15 youngsters, riddling them with bullets. Investigators recovered 80 spent shell casings from Classroom 8. The 49 expended rifle shell casings back in Classroom 10 were joined by a single shell casing from a Glock semi-automatic pistol as Lanza placed it to his head just like in the selfies and took his own life as the first police officers arrived at the school. He was found to have 253 live rounds on his person. The rifle was found nearby, one end of the sling having become detached from the butt. The safety was set to “fire.” As for the shooter, “He was wearing a pale green pocket vest over a black polo style short sleeve shirt over a black t-shirt. He had yellow colored earplugs in each ear. He was wearing black cargo pocket pants, black socks, black sneakers, a black canvas belt and black fingerless gloves on each hand.” The gloves were just like those Dylan Klebold had worn at Columbine High School. The difference was that this was at an elementary school. “The obvious question that remains is: ‘Why did the shooter murder twenty-seven people, including twenty children?’” the report says. “Unfortunately, that question may never be answered conclusively.” One thing is for sure. The motive must have had something to do with the age of most of the victims. ||||| Newtown An unearthed recording of the Sandy Hook shooter and his chatroom postings raise more troubling questions about the answer we don’t have: Why he targeted little kids. Among the thousands of documents generated by the police investigation into the Sandy Hook Massacre is one noting that Adam Lanza adopted the username Smiggles on an online forum favored by fans of mass-shooting videos. In one of his postings on ShockedBeyondBelief.com, Smiggles announced that he had called into a radio talk show in Oregon. He even posted a link to an archived recording of his on-air chat with radio host John Zerzan. Thanks to blogger Reed Coleman, who first tracked it down, and to the New York Daily News for confirming it was indeed Lanza, we can listen to the killer’s voice and get a measure of a madness that was all the more horrifying because he was remarkably articulate and seemingly logical. Babbling and raving would have been less disturbing than hearing Lanza calmly explain why Travis the chimp attacked his trainers not because of his feral nature, but because he was raised much in the way of a human child. “His attack can be seen entirely parallel to the attacks and random acts of violence that you bring up on your show every week, committed by humans, which the mainstream also has no explanation for,” Lanza said. “I just don’t think it would be such a stretch to say that he very well could have been a teenage mall shooter or something like that.” But Lanza himself was not just another mall shooter, or school shooter. What made Lanza different was that he targeted young kids. You can listen to that tape a hundred times and it will still not tell you why. But there are hints in some of the other Smiggles postings. A Dec. 20, 2011, exchange between Smiggles and two other posters, with the usernames Gluth and Ivan, jumped out at me. Smiggles: “Literature is simply another coping mechanism for children who’ve been mindfucked by culturapists. They’re carried to other worlds in the stream of semen.” Gluth: “Doesn’t anybody else notice that Smiggles sometimes sends huge ‘I AM A PEDOPHILE’ signals?” Gluth is implying that this is not the first time. He goes on. Gluth: “No offense buddy but children in a semen stream? What the hell did you smoke?” Smiggles responds with only a smiley face. Ivan approves. Ivan: “I like Smiggles, he talks about children in a sexual way and is a cool guy.” Get The Beast In Your Inbox! Daily Digest Start and finish your day with the smartest, sharpest takes from The Daily Beast Cheat Sheet A speedy, smart summary of news and must-reads from The Daily Beast and across the Web By clicking "Subscribe," you agree to have read the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Subscribe Thank You! You are now subscribed to the Daily Digest and Cheat Sheet. We will not share your email with anyone for any reason Ivan is also suggesting that this is not the first time. I have to wonder if there are other such exchanges among the many that Lanza deleted from the forum just prior to embarking on the massacre in which he would murder 20 children and six adults. The reason that I took note to this surviving exchange with Gluth and Ivan goes back to when the Connecticut State Police released their report. I had until then figured that Lanza was likely bullied at the school and that he might have felt it more keenly because he was a new kid whose family had just moved to Connecticut from New Hampshire. But the state police report suggested that he harbored no particular anger toward Sandy Hook Elementary or its students. “The shooter indicated that he loved the school and liked to go there,” the report said. The report further suggested that Lanza’s motive may remain a mystery. “Unfortunately, that question may never be answered conclusively, despite the collection of extensive background information on the shooter through a multitude of interviews and other sources,” the state police allowed. “The evidence clearly shows that the shooter planned his actions, including the taking of his own life, but there is no clear indication why he did so, or why he targeted Sandy Hook Elementary School.” I had been writing about gun violence for 30 years and I had covered literally hundreds of murders involving young victims. I had covered Columbine and Virginia Tech. But I had never encountered anything like the massacre at Sandy Hook and it seemed to me unacceptable not to try to at least understand how this could have possibly happened. I then saw in the state police report that among the items detectives found in Lanza’s room were “materials regarding the topic of pedophilia and advocating for rights for pedophiles.” There was also a “screenplay or script” titled Lovebound “describing a relationship between a 10-year-old boy and a 30-year-old man.” I had always felt there had to be a sexual component to the fascination with guns and I had noted that Lanza himself called it a “fetish.” I commenced to write a piece suggesting that the Sandy Hook killer may have been acting out of some kind of homicidal pedophilia. I sought to make clear from the first sentence that I was engaging in speculation. “So maybe 20-year-old Adam Lanza was a kind of pedophile whose idea of having sex with kids was to shoot them,” I wrote. I then settled back into reporting on the contents of the report. I described the remarkable courage of 6-year-old Jesse Lewis when Lanza’s gun jammed. Lewis used a moment when he could have saved himself to call to a group of classmates. “Run!” he said. Some time after the article was posted, I received a call from a woman who identified herself as a media liaison for the families of the murdered children, presumably including Jesse Lewis. She informed me that the families had been deeply offended and greatly distressed by what I had written. I assured the woman that, other than the families themselves, nobody could feel worse than I did that I had caused them any added pain. She asked why I had written such a thing. I could only think to say that I had gone from killing to killing to killing for year after year after year and I had I had felt compelled to address another why, that being the one the state police seemed to have taken pains to avoid. I told woman I would write the families a letter, but afterward I decided it would be better to offer a more public explanation. I did so in an article about the first anniversary of the shooting and what the Founding Fathers might think about the massacre of 20 school kids. The explanation did not make me feel any better about having distressed the families. I did not mind that even people at The Daily Beast had objected to my speculation as to Lanza’s motive. The Columbia Journalism Review, which did not even manage to spell my name correctly, charged that I had been unethical. As I said in an email to the CJR writer, “I am not saying I am always close to right. But I always make an entirely honest effort.” Even with Smiggles, I am not close to certain that Lanza was indeed a kind of homicidal pedophile. I do believe his postings confirm there are legitimate grounds for considering it. ||||| A Chilling Look Into Adam Lanza's World The young Lanza put those words in the mouth of Dora the Beserker (sic), one of the homicidal characters included in "The Big Book of Granny," which chronicles the evil adventures of gun-toting Granny and her son. The violent and chillingly prophetic story was a central part of the background investigation into Adam Lanza's life, traced up until he committed the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Lanza and another boy wrote the book as a class assignment but it was never handed in, investigators said. The book is included in the summary of the 11-month state police investigation released Monday by Danbury State's Attorney Stephen J. Sedensky III. The eight chapters of Lanza's book take Granny and her son through a litany of dark episodes as they tote a bag carrying a handgun, an M-16, and a shotgun, firearms eerily similar to those he would use years later at the Sandy Hook school. Granny robs a bank with a bullet-spewing cane. She guns down soldiers at a Marine boot camp and travels back in time and murders The Beatles. She threatens to shoot and kill children in a classroom. And often, the violence is between Granny and her son. Granny kicks the boy into a burning fireplace, punches him in the face and shoots at him. After the bank robbery, the son shoots Granny in the head with a shotgun. A decade later, 20-year-old Adam Lanza would shoot his mother in the head before driving to Sandy Hook Elementary where he would commit one of the worst school shootings in American history. In one chapter, Dora the Beserker enters a day-care center with Granny and her son as another character tries to distract the children. "Let's hurt children," Dora then suggests, according to a summary of the book written by a state police detective assigned to read the spiral-bound booklet. Although he never acted them out until Dec. 14, Lanza appeared to hold onto many of these violent themes throughout his life, Sedensky wrote in his report. Sedensky said Lanza had contributed posts to an Internet blog focused on mass shootings, including the murders at Columbine High School. The teenager exchanged emails with people who shared similar interests. The Courant reported in July, citing an investigative source, that Lanza meticulously edited online accounts of mass murders throughout the world, and participated in chats on firearms sites and violent, first-person video-gaming forums, posting as "Kaynbred.''

– Adam Lanza, pedophile? The 20-year-old who perpetrated the Sandy Hook massacre and killed himself on Dec. 14, 2012, kept documents on his hard drive showing an interest in pedophilia, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. Topping the list is a screenplay, Lovebound, that depicts a relationship between a 10-year-old boy and a 30-year-old man. There are also documents in support of "pedophiles' rights and the liberation of children." What's more, Lanza told a friend that pedophilia was "a disease that needed to be treated and not look at as evil," according to a police report on the shooting. Appearing as Smiggles in an online forum, Lanza posted that children are duped by "culturapists" and "carried to other worlds in the stream of semen," reports the Daily Beast. Someone responded: "Doesn’t anybody else notice that Smiggles sometimes sends huge 'I AM A PEDOPHILE' signals?" If Lanza was battling pedophilic urges, that's "still a long way from explaining what he did," said Fred Berlin, an expert in sexual behavior, but he doesn't rule it out. Michael Daly puts it more bluntly at the Daily Beast: "So maybe 20-year-old Adam Lanza was a kind of pedophile whose idea of having sex with kids was to shoot them." (A seven-minute call Lanza made to an Oregon radio station in 2011 grabbed headlines last week.)

Ian McCluskey/OPB A Portland woman says the young hikers suspected of starting a fire now consuming the Columbia River Gorge giggled as one threw a firecracker into Eagle Creek Canyon. One suspect has been identified as a 15-year-old male from Vancouver, Washington. Oregon State Police spokesman Bill Fugate said if charged, the suspect could face the same state charges as an adult. Fugate said OSP will release the suspect’s name if and when charges are filed. It is believed he and others may have been using fireworks which started the forest fire along the Eagle Creek Trail. The suspect was then contacted by law enforcement in the parking lot of the trailhead and was interviewed by law enforcement. Liz FitzGerald, who lives in Portland, was seeking relief from the heat Saturday afternoon by hiking to Punch Bowl Falls when she came upon a group of young people, including teenagers, stopped on the trail above a high drop off. “I saw this kid throw a smoke bomb — just lobbed it and dropped it down into the woods. … I saw him throw something that was on fire. Then we all looked over the edge and saw smoke,” she said. “I said, ‘Do you realize how dangerous this is?’” FitzGerald kept walking but then ran into an older couple. She told them what she’d seen, and they told her they’d also seen a group of teenagers lighting fireworks. That scared her and she turned around to head back to her car. On her way, she passed the spot where she’d seen the fireworks thrown. “It was billowing smoke. I could distinctly smell fire,” she said. “It smelled like the fire in my fireplace. It was very clear that this was not the smell of a firecracker.” She ran back to the parking lot, telling people she passed on the trail to turn around. She found a U.S. Forest Service officer and told him her story. She said she pointed out the group she’d seen throwing the firecracker. FitzGerald says she blames the entire group she encountered. “Even though that kid threw the firecracker, all of those kids he was with are complicit. All of them watched, all of them did nothing. They all were a part of it. One filmed it,” she said. “When I came upon them, and the guy threw the firecracker, I’m pretty sure I heard a couple of them giggle. The guy was filming it like it was another thing to film, no big deal. The whole complacency of that group, I find it so disturbing.” Oregon State Police spokesman Bill Fugate would not comment on whether other members of the group could face charges in addition to the main suspect. The Eagle Creek Fire is now burning more than 10,000 acres and has forced several towns along the Gorge to evacuate. More than 150 hikers were forced to shelter in place near Tunnel Falls Saturday night due to the wildfire. The hikers were successfully rescued Sunday morning. The fire also jumped the Columbia River early Tuesday morning, sparking the 25-acre Archer Mountain Fire. The Oregon State Police is seeking witnesses or those with information about the cause of the fire to come forward. Anyone who heard fireworks or other explosions in the area of the Eagle Creek Trail/Punch Bowl Falls on Saturday between 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. is urged to contact OSP at 503-375-3555. Amanda Peacher contributed to this report. ||||| A A Oregon State Police said investigators have identified a 15-year-old Vancouver boy as a suspect in the Eagle Creek Fire. The agency said Tuesday investigators think he and others were using fireworks in the woods along the Eagle Creek Trail on Saturday, sparking the fire. The boy was contacted by law enforcement in the parking lot of the trail head and interviewed. No arrests have been made and no formal charges have been filed in connection with the fire, according to the Oregon State Police, which did not identify the boy. Oregon State Police said investigators were looking for witnesses and anyone with helpful information about the fire’s cause. The agency asked anyone who heard fireworks or other explosions in the area of the Eagle Creek Trail and Punch Bowl Falls on Saturday between 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. to contact the Oregon State Police at 503-375-3555. The investigation surrounding the Eagle Creek Fire was ongoing. ||||| The police officer who detained suspects Thursday in connection with a fast-moving wildfire near Los Angeles said she “knew immediately” the men were involved. At least two homes have been destroyed in Glendora as the Colby fire burned through more than 1,700 acres in the Angeles National Forest northeast of Los Angeles. Glendora police Cpl. Nancy Miranda said she was helping with evacuations on North Palm Drive when a resident flagged her down and pointed to two men running down the hill, away from the fire. PHOTOS: Colby fire rages near Glendora Miranda said the men were running in the wash alongside the road. It seemed like they were trying not to be seen, she said. When she stopped the pair, they said they were running because they were scared of the fire, she said. “They said their friend was with them and they had lost him,” she said. When Miranda asked the men if they had anything to do with the blaze about three miles away, they denied it, she said. But the men were disheveled -- out of breath, covered in ash and smelled like smoke. “I knew immediately that something was off,” she said. Miranda quickly searched their backpacks, finding marijuana and cigarettes. She took them to the Glendora Police Department, she said, with no sign of their missing friend. That man, Glendora Police Chief Tim Staab said, was picked up by forest officials as he walked down Glendora Mountain Road. “A U.S. Forest Service truck offered him a ride because he was in a dangerous area,” he said. The man was taken farther down the hill away from the growing blaze and police began looking into his activity. “Anybody in that area at that time of morning is someone we want to talk to,” Staab said. Investigators later learned of his alleged involvement, and also booked him in the Glendora jail. The suspects -- identified as Clifford Eugene Henry, 22, of Glendora; Jonathan Carl Jarrell, 23, of Irwindale; and Steven Robert Aguirre, 21, a Los Angeles transient were arrested on suspicion of recklessly starting a fire. They are now being held in lieu of $20,000 bail. One person suffered some burns and was taken to a local hospital for treatment. “There’s absolutely no evidence that these three men started the fire on purpose,” Staab told The Times on Thursday afternoon. The trio had been sitting around a campfire “trying to stay warm,” Staab said, when a “gust of wind came up.” “That’s what started the fire,” the chief said. Staab said one of the suspects admitted starting the fire and was "apologetic." The area is not a designated camping spot and access to the area is restricted because of fire concerns. The Colby fire started at 5:55 a.m. and quickly grew, but fire officials said they were well staffed and ready to fight it because of red flag alerts issued in response to hot and dry weather and gusty winds. When firefighters arrived on the scene, they immediately called a second alarm. The fire was inaccessible by engines and burning away from the road, said Jim Tomaselli of the U.S. Forest Service. About 700 fire personnel battled the blaze as well as more than a dozen aircraft. L.A. County fire Chief Daryl Osby said his department was fully staffed because of the "dry vegetation and summerlike weather conditions we've had." That staffing allowed more resources to be deployed quickly as the fire grew. Glendora police Chief Tim Staab said one of the suspects admitted starting the fire and was "apologetic." The area is not a designated camping spot and access to the area is restricted because of fire concerns. The city of Glendora, meanwhile, declared a state of emergency and activated the city’s emergency operations center. Mayor Joseph Santoro thanked the firefighters and law enforcement involved in the effort. "This morning at about 6 a.m. it looked pretty terrible out there ... it was a very scary situation," he said. The Glendora Unified School District canceled classes at La Fetra, Cullen, Goddard, Sandburg and Sellers schools and urged parents to pick up students, according to the district's website. Citrus College in Glendora also canceled classes. Southern California Edison reported that dozens of people were without power due to the fire Thursday morning. Scott Sukup of the National Weather Service in Oxnard said conditions were ripe for fire because “obviously we still have the dry and windy conditions going on.” A red flag warning was extended for that area and other parts of Los Angeles County through 3 p.m. Friday, and Sukup said gusts in the mountains wre expected to be 40 to 50 miles per hour with single-digit humidity. Winds topping 20 mph were a concern earlier in the day, Miller said, but had died down. “We still have topography, which is a major factor, a critically dry fuel bed,” he said. “The moisture out here is extremely low, as it is throughout all of L.A. County. Those are our biggest challenges right now.” Residents from the San Gabriel Valley to the Pomona Valley were also warned to stay indoors as smoke from the fire spread over a large area. The smoke plume was visible from as far away as Orange County. Residents who can see or smell the smoke should stay indoors and avoid vigorous exercise, said South Coast Air Quality Management District spokesman Sam Atwood. One of the structures destroyed by the fire was a guest house at the historic Singer Mansion. Ron Galloway, 63, stood in front of the smoldering remains where he had lived for four years. Spanish-style arches were all that remained standing in front of piles of broken roof tiles and the smoldering rubble of the property. “I lost everything, how am I going to survive?” The historic landmark was built by the heirs of the Singer family, of the Singer sewing machine company, on a 5.7-acre estate, according to the mansion’s website. At least 11 people rent rooms in two adjacent guest houses. Galloway said that when he awoke Thursday at 6 a.m. as usual he noticed an orange glow coming from the hillside across from the estate. He quickly ran inside to wake his roommates. A second brush fire that started late Thursday morning near the area of Pyramid Lake and Hungry Valley -- sparked by a mobile home that was fully engulfed in y flames -- was held by fire crews to no more than two acres and was declared knocked down shortly after 12:30 p.m. No resources were used from the Colby fire. ALSO: Nightclub beating: Experts say secret taping may not fly in trial Amber Alert: Carjacked vehicle in Oakland now described as sedan New San Diego mayor on disgraced Filner: 'We were better than that' Staff writers Ari Bloomekatz, Jason Wells, Joseph Serna and Matt Stevens contributed to this report.

– A wildfire that started over the weekend in Oregon torched at least 10,000 acres, stranded more than 150 hikers, and forced the evacuation of multiple towns—and officials think a teen fooling around with firecrackers may be to blame. The Columbian reports that a 15-year-old boy from Vancouver, Wash., has been named a suspect but not arrested in the Eagle Creek fire that sparked on Saturday. A Portland woman witnessed the scene and sounded the alarm, she tells Oregon Public Broadcasting. Liz FitzGerald was hiking to Punch Bowl Falls on Saturday when she came across a group of young people and "saw this kid throw a smoke bomb" into a ravine. She admonished the kids but forged ahead, only to reconsider. "If I get stuck in a wildfire because I was so determined to get to this watering hole, I would feel like a total idiot," she tells Willamette Week. She doubled back, and as she passed the spot where she'd seen the group, she saw "billowing smoke" and "could distinctly smell fire." She says she then came upon the teens and told them they had started a forest fire. She says one shot back, "Well, what are we supposed to do about it now?" FitzGerald notified a US Forest Service official, who she says apprehended the teens' minivan. FitzGerald, though, doesn't think the one who tossed the firecracker should bear sole responsibility for the group's "complacency. ... All of them watched, all of them did nothing." Oregon State Police are looking for more witnesses to help them determine their next move. Late Tuesday night, the Multnomah County Sheriff's Office indicated on Twitter that the fire "has slowed way down for now."

KIEV Ukraine accused Russia on Thursday of allowing separatist rebels to bring three tanks and other military vehicles across the border into the east of the country to fight the Ukrainian army. Evidence that Russia is sending in weapons or assisting the rebels militarily would implicate Moscow in the uprising against Kiev's pro-Western leaders, making a mockery of its denials that it has played a role in weeks of fighting. Interior Minister Arseny Avakov stopped short of directly accusing Russia of sending the tanks but made clear he held President Vladimir Putin responsible for failing to carry out a promise to tighten controls at the border. In a sign of his concern, President Petro Poroshenko discussed the situation with his defence and security chiefs and then told Putin by phone that the situation was "unacceptable", his spokesman said. Reuters correspondents saw two tanks in the border town of Snizhnye in east Ukraine but said it was not clear where they had come from or whether they had previously been used by the Russian or Ukrainian army. They had no identifying markings to show whether they were Russian army tanks. "We have observed columns passing with armoured personnel carriers, other armoured vehicles and artillery pieces, and tanks which, according to our information, came across the border and this morning were in Snizhnye," Avakov told reporters in Kiev. He said the columns had come across the border at a checkpoint or checkpoints seized by rebels "despite the Russian Federation's statements that it welcomes the peace process and that the order has been given to strengthen border controls". One column, Avakov said, had entered Ukraine in the Dyakove area of the Luhansk region before moving into the neighbouring Donetsk region. Ukrainian forces had confronted the column. "There is fighting going on," he said. "Part of the column has been destroyed." HIGH STAKES Russia did not immediately respond to the accusations and it was not clear how Putin reacted to Poroshenko by phone. His country has already been hit by U.S. and European Union sanctions over events in Ukraine and could face more. Confirmation of direct Russian involvement in the rebels' uprising would raise the stakes in Moscow's worst standoff with the West since the Cold war ended more than two decades ago. The separatists, who rose up after Poroshenko's predecessor was toppled and fled to Russia in February, deny receiving anything but medical supplies, food and clothing from Russia. "Russia is helping, of course, with humanitarian aid, food, things, medicine, gear. We won't refuse that," a rebel said. Russia has repeatedly denied providing military support to the rebels who have taken control of several towns and cities in east Ukraine and hope that Russia will annexe the region, as it did the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea in March. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov had earlier on Thursday repeated Moscow's view that the onus for ending violence lay with Ukraine because it has launched a military operation against the rebels. But he backed Poroshenko's efforts to push through a peace plan the president has drawn up and discussed with Putin. "So far, hope remains that President Poroshenko's statements about the end of violence will be implemented and the talks start," Russia's Interfax news agency quoted Lavrov as saying. Few details of the phone call between Putin and Poroshenko were available but the latter's spokesman wrote on Facebook that the Ukrainian leader put a heavy emphasis on the tank movements. The presidents met for 15 minutes during World War Two anniversary events in France last week, but it was their first known conversation since Poroshenko was sworn in on Saturday. Poroshenko has also been having meetings with a Russian envoy in Kiev and his aides say progress has been made, but talks on a long-running gas-pricing dispute have stalled. Alexei Miller, the chief executive of Gazprom, made clear the state-run natural gas exporter would not extend a deadline for Kiev to pay its huge has debts for a third time to allow more time to reach a deal at talks. He said a Monday deadline would stand, and Gazprom would cut supplies to Ukraine if it did not to pay off $1.95 billion of its gas debts by then. Cutting supplies to Kiev could disrupt deliveries to the European Union, which gets about a third of its gas imports from Russia, half of them via Ukraine. (Additional reporting by Pavel Polityuk in Kiev, Thomas Grove in Snizhnye, and Vladimir Soldatkin in Moscow; Writing by Timothy Heritage; editing by Janet McBride) ||||| A pregnant journalist was recovering in hospital last night after a pro-Kremlin political leader in Russia told two male aides to ‘violently rape’ her. Nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky launched his extraordinary tirade after reporter Stella Dubovitskaya asked him an innocuous question about sanctions against Ukraine. The 67-year-old MP’s outburst came before a deadly gunfight at a Ukraine checkpoint controlled by pro-Russian separatists tore apart an Easter truce. Scroll do wn for video Vladimir Zhironovsky launched an extraordinary rant at journalist Stella Dubovitskaya (pictured right in a light-coloured shirt) at a press conference today - telling two male aides to 'violently' rape her Zhirinovsky turns to shout at the journalist, who is six months pregnant, after she asks him about sanctions against Ukraine The attack raised tensions and led separatists to call for Russian military intervention to protect civilians Moscow and local militia claimed five people were killed in the firefight at around 1am yesterday near Slavyansk, blaming a far-right group for the attack. ‘The Easter truce has been violated,’ the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement. ‘This provocation…testifies to the lack of will on the part of the Kiev authorities to rein in and disarm extremists.’ The politician approaches the female reporter - gesticulating at her wildly. He then told her: 'This is no place for you if you're pregnant' But Ukraine has accused Moscow of a ‘cynical provocation’ staged by outside forces. Yesterday Pope Francis prayed in his Easter message that God would ‘enlighten and inspire the initiatives that promote peace in Ukraine, so that all those involved…will make every effort to prevent violence’. The fatal assault was the first serious violence since last week’s signing of a proposed peace plan between Russia, Ukraine, the US and the European Union. The deal requires illegal military groups to disband and for gangs to leave seized buildings. Two of Zhirinovsky's aides then approach the woman, following his commands. One grabs the pregnant reporter while others jump to her defence It was rejected by separatist leaders, who still occupy police stations and government offices in at least ten cities. Ukraine’s interim prime minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk has accused Russian president Vladimir Putin of trying to ‘restore the Soviet Union.’ He said that if Putin succeeded it would be ‘the biggest disaster of this century’. In Moscow, Zhirinovsky’s conduct towards the pregnant reporter has been referred to the Russian parliament’s ethics commission and he faces legal action from Miss Dubovitskaya’s employer, news agency Russia Today. One of the man's aides turns to look at Zhirinovsky - who then calls one of the reporter's defenders an 'interfering lesbian.' Stella Dubovitskaya is now in hospital following her ordeal ‘Due to the disgusting incident in the state duma, after which our correspondent was hospitalised because of Vladimir Zhirinovsky’s discourtesy, we have decided to use all legal options to punish Mr Zhirinovsky as severely as possible under the law, including by suing him,’ said general director Margareta Simonyan. After Miss Dubovitskaya’s question, the founder of the far right Liberal Democratic Party began shouting before manhandling two young male aides towards the pregnant mother-of-one. He then shouted to them: ‘When I say, you run to her and violently rape her.’ Zhirinovsky apologised for his actions during a live interview on Russian television this evening The man said: 'When talking to the press in the Duma on Friday, answering questions at the end, I spoke a bit rudely when I replied to a young woman. I offer my apologies to her and to everyone, if I happened to offend someone' A male journalist told Zhirinovsky: ‘She is pregnant, why are you attacking her?’ Zhirinovsky then pushed two aides towards the journalist, who is six months pregnant, shouting: ‘Go and kiss her. Grab her.’ One physically touched Miss Dubovitskaya, to the shock of the watching press, with several female reporters recoiling. The gun battle was evidence that Ukraine is not reining in gun-wielding far right extremists, Russia claimed The attack shows that the Ukrainian authorities are failing to rein in armed extremists, Russia's foreign ministry said today At this point, another female reporter, Yulia Chuchalova from news agency Interfax, told Zhirinovsky: ‘This is derogatory, humiliating – what are you doing here?’ Zhirinovsky hit back: ‘What are you doing intervening here, you lesbian? Get out of here.’ He shouted: ‘This is no place for you if you’re pregnant. We need healthy people. Pregnant women should not show up at work. Sit at home and look after your child, got that?’ He then shouted ‘get out of here, you damned lesbians’. Armed men, wearing black and orange ribbons of St. George - a symbol widely associated with pro-Russian protests in Ukraine, drive an armoured personnel carrier in Slaviansk An armed pro-Russian militant stands guard at a check-point outside Slaviansk today. A photographer at the scene said there were two burned out jeeps at the barricaded makeshift checkpoint An armed pro-Russian militant looks for ammunition casings from the gun battle Pro-Russian gunmen at the check point which is under the control of pro-Russian activists in the village of Bulbasika near Slaviansk ||||| DONETSK, Ukraine/MOSCOW (Reuters) - Pro-Moscow separatists in eastern Ukraine ignored a public call by Russian President Vladimir Putin to postpone a referendum on self-rule, declaring they would go ahead on Sunday with a vote that could lead to war. The decision, which contradicted the conciliatory tone set by Putin just a day earlier, caused consternation in the West, which fears the referendum will tear Ukraine apart. U.S. Deputy Secretary of State William Burns said Russia was heading down a "dangerous and irresponsible path" and the situation in Ukraine was "extremely combustible". Denis Pushilin, a leader of the self-declared separatist Donetsk People's Republic, expressed gratitude to Putin but said the "People's Council" had voted unanimously on Thursday to hold the plebiscite as planned. "Civil war has already begun," he told reporters. "The referendum can put a stop to it and start a political process." A man holding a Kalashnikov stood behind him. Political analysts said Putin may have expected the rebels to go ahead with the referendum, showing that they were not under his orders. By distancing himself from a process that will not be recognized by the West, Putin may also hope to avoid further sanctions as earlier measures begin hitting the economy. His spokesman said the Kremlin needed more information about the rebels' decision. He also said the rebel statement came only after the Western-backed government in Kiev had declared it would press on with its military operation, implying that Ukraine was to blame for the rebels' refusal to heed Putin. Russian financial markets sank after surging on Wednesday when Putin unexpectedly called for the vote to be delayed and declared that troops were withdrawing from Ukraine's border. NO SIGN NATO and the United States both said they saw no sign of a Russian withdrawal from the frontier. When NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen tweeted as much, the Russian Foreign Ministry tweeted back that "those with a blind eye" should read Putin's statement. NATO has accused Moscow of using special forces in the separatist takeover of mainly Russian-speaking eastern Ukraine after annexing Crimea from Ukraine in March. Putin acknowledged his troops were active in Crimea after initially denying any role there but says they are not involved in eastern Ukraine, a densely populated steel and coal belt responsible for roughly a third of Ukraine's industrial output. About 40 armed men attacked a Ukrainian border post on the Russian frontier on Thursday and tried to seize it, but were beaten off by Ukrainian forces, the border guard in Kiev said. Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk said Putin's conciliatory remarks made him suspect Moscow was planning some form of "skirmish" to discredit Kiev when the country celebrates Victory Day on Friday. Ukraine had tightened security for the May 9 anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945, Yatseniuk said. Russian state TV has portrayed Ukraine'e pro-Western government as fascists, and Yatseniuk said he feared Moscow would stage an incident involving veterans who fought with the Soviet army in defeating the Nazis. "There is no doubt about this ... and Russian television will show footage of rampant nationalists beating up veterans. Russian propaganda," he told "Fifth Channel" television, quoted by Interfax-Ukraine. Putin's call to delay the referendum, followed so quickly by the rebel decision to go ahead with it, have complicated U.S. and European efforts to agree a common policy that might lead to tighter economic sanctions on Russia. The European Union said shortly before the referendum announcement that the plebiscite "would have no democratic legitimacy and could only further worsen the situation". The EU has laid the groundwork for possible sanctions against Russian companies, including energy giants, over Ukraine and diplomats said they could decide which on Monday, but that, if any, they would only be those linked to Crimea. Last month's U.S. and Canadian sanctions were tougher than the EU's and Moscow said on Thursday it had retaliated by expanding the list of U.S. and Canadian officials barred from Russia but would not give details. ROUND TABLE Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry discussed by phone on Thursday joint efforts to defuse the crisis, which also involve the EU and OSCE European security organization, the Foreign Ministry in Moscow said. In Washington, the State Department said Kerry had also spoken to Yatseniuk, who proposed with Ukraine's interim president the creation of a "Round Table" to resolve the conflict. This would draw in political forces and civil groups in all regions, with international mediators asked to help. The mediators took their peace proposals to Kiev on Thursday. The draft "road map", seen by Reuters, takes no direct view on the referendum but said national elections planned by the Kiev leadership for May 25 were vital to stabilizing the country. Ukraine's Foreign Ministry said the plan, drawn up by the Swiss chair of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe had "some common ground" with its own proposals. The referendum has become seen as a vital step by many in Ukraine's industrial east, fired up over what the rebels, and Moscow, call the "fascist" government in Kiev that took over after street protests ousted a pro-Moscow president in February. "You have no idea how many armed people there are in Donetsk right now," Roman Lyagin, the 33-year-old head of the self-proclaimed republic's election commission, told Reuters at his headquarters behind barricades of tyres and car bumpers in the occupied regional administration in Donetsk. "There is no man who can move this referendum," he said. Ballots, printed in Donetsk, have been distributed across the rebel zone, smuggled through Ukrainian army checkpoints. Lyagin says more than three million people are eligible to vote. Artyom, a rebel at a roadblock in the rebel-held eastern town of Slaviansk, said of the referendum decision: "This is great news. We need to have our say." GREATER AUTONOMY While many Russian speakers in Ukraine fear discrimination under the new leadership, the extent of support for the separatists - many of whom say their ultimate aim is to join Russia - is not so clear. Opinion polls say a majority wish to remain in Ukraine, but with a far greater degree of autonomy. Putin said his call for the vote's postponement would open the way to negotiations on cooling down a crisis that has led to dozens of deaths in clashes between troops and separatists in eastern Ukraine and rival groups in the southern port of Odessa. On Thursday he again blamed Kiev, saying its "irresponsible politics" had caused the crisis while in the Ukrainian capital, officials said the government would not talk to "terrorists" - their word for the separatists. Maria Lipman, an expert at the Carnegie Center think-tank in Moscow, said Putin would have known that his request for the referendum to be postponed would be rebuffed. "But this can be used to show that the people in Ukraine's east are not Russians, take no orders from Russia, that Russia exercises no control over them because they only do what they want to do," she said. "He has also distanced Russia from the referendum, which has a completely unclear status and will not be recognized by the West." Western leaders have threatened more sanctions if the presidential election on May 25 is disrupted. Putin said on Wednesday it was "a step in the right direction"; on Thursday, Lavrov said the election would be "senseless" if Kiev did not end its military operation against the separatists. (Additional reporting by Alessandra Prentice in Slaviansk, Ralph Boulton in Kiev, Steve Gutterman, Vladimir Soldatkin and Thomas Grove in Moscow, Fredrik Dahl in Vienna, Lionel Laurent in Paris, Adrian Croft in Brussels, David Brunnstrom in Washington; Writing by Philippa Fletcher; Editing by Giles Elgood and David Stamp)

– Moscow continues to insist it's got nothing to do with the Russian soldiers and tanks that have entered Ukraine to bolster pro-Russian separatists, but Vladimir Putin today made a point to praise the separatists' military moves. They have "achieved serious successes in stopping the armed operation by Kiev," said the Russian president in a message on the Kremlin website, reports Reuters. He also urged the rebels to let trapped Ukrainian soldiers retreat safely, reports the AP: "I call on the militia groups to open a humanitarian corridor for Ukrainian service members who have been surrounded, so as to avoid any needless loss of life, giving them the opportunity to leave the combat area unimpeded and reunite with their families, to return them to their mothers, wives, and children, and to quickly provide medical assistance to those who were injured in the course of the military operation." The rebels appear ready to comply with what the New York Times calls a "rare direct address" from Putin. "With all respect to Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, the president of the country, which has helped us very much with moral support, we are ready to grant humanitarian corridors to the Ukrainian divisions surrounded in these pockets," said one leader. NATO, meanwhile, accused Russia of a "blatant violation" of its neighbor's sovereignty, reports the BBC, much as President Obama did yesterday. Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen dismissed Moscow's "hollow denials" that it hadn't deliberately sent troops over the border. Further sanctions will be on the table at an EU summit this weekend.

Story highlights "Would I do it again? Absolutely," Edward Snowden says of leaking documents "We need a watchdog that watches Congress," the NSA leaker says from Russia "There's a political response that needs to occur," but also "a tech response" He speaks via teleconference to SXSW tech conference in Texas In a rare public talk via the Web, fugitive NSA leaker Edward Snowden urged a tech conference audience Monday to help "fix" the U.S. government's surveillance of its citizens. He spoke via teleconference from Russia to an audience of thousands at the South by Southwest Interactive Festival in Austin. The event marked the first time the former National Security Agency contractor has directly addressed people in the United States since he fled the country with thousands of secret documents last June. In response to a question, Snowden said he had no regrets about his decision to leak the NSA documents, which showed the intelligence agency has conducted secret monitoring of Americans' phone and Internet behavior in the name of national security. "Would I do it again? Absolutely. Regardless of what happens to me, this is something we had a right to," he said. "I took an oath to support and defend the Constitution. And I saw the Constitution was being violated on a massive scale," he added, to applause from the 3,000 people in the auditorium at the Austin Convention Center. JUST WATCHED The trick behind Snowden leaks revealed Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH The trick behind Snowden leaks revealed 01:59 JUST WATCHED Edward Snowden a no show at Sochi Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Edward Snowden a no show at Sochi 01:16 JUST WATCHED Boss: Snowden worst spy in U.S. history Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Boss: Snowden worst spy in U.S. history 00:31 "South by Southwest and the tech community, the people in the room in Austin, they're the folks who can fix this," Snowden said earlier. "There's a political response that needs to occur, but there's also a tech response that needs to occur." He appeared on video screens with a copy of the U.S. Constitution as a backdrop. The live stream was slow, repeatedly freezing Snowden's image onscreen. The pair of American Civil Liberties Union lawyers who hosted the discussion said Snowden's video, ultimately delivered via Google Hangouts, was streamed through several routers for security. Snowden also said Internet users need more awareness, and better tools, to help them secure their online information from prying eyes. While tech geeks may have no problem using encryption tools to scramble their messages or accessing the more-private "deep Web" via clients like Tor, Snowden said the average Web user should be able to access similar protections. "This is something that people have to be able to interact with, and the way we interact with it now is not that good," he said. Snowden took questions from two moderators -- the ACLU's Chris Sogohian and Ben Wizner, his legal counsel -- from the audience, and from Twitter. The first, fittingly, came from Tim Berners-Lee, who created the World Wide Web 25 years ago this week. Berners-Lee asked Snowden what he would change about the nation's surveillance system. "We need public oversight ... some way for trusted public figures to advocate for us. We need a watchdog that watches Congress, because if we're not informed, we can't consent to these (government) policies." Asked about the difference between government surveillance and snooping by private Internet companies, Snowden said he considers government surveillance more insidious because "the government has the ability to deprive you of rights. They can jail you." Snowden, a former CIA employee and NSA contractor who fled the United States after leaking details of the American government's spy programs, was granted temporary asylum in Russia last year. He faces felony charges of espionage and theft of government property in the United States, and he has said he won't return until the U.S. changes its whistleblower protection laws. Reaction among SXSW audience members to Snowden's comments appeared mixed. "I think it was right on," said Michael Chalcraft, a retired software entrepreneur from Seattle. "There's always a balance between what the government should know about us and what we would expect to be private. "If we're not constantly protecting that privacy, then we give it up." But Megan Betterman, a health-care marketer from Minneapolis, didn't hear everything she wanted from Snowden. "I wanted to hear about what his life is like there (in Russia), and whether he'll ever come back to the U.S.," she said. "It (his talk) was very encryption-heavy." More than 30,000 attendees are currently in Austin for the 10-day SXSW festival, which began Friday and wraps on March 16. The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit media organization, live streamed the session. Also scheduled to speak at the tech-themed conference Monday afternoon -- although in person -- was journalist and civil-liberties lawyer Glenn Greenwald, who broke the story about Snowden's leaks of classified NSA documents. Snowden's call for developers to create secure, private networks for their users is less of a no-brainer at South by Southwest than it may have once been. Having emerged from the counter-culture of the early Web, SXSW Interactive has exploded in recent years as more businesses have sought to tap into successful startups' millions of users. In the same Austin convention hall where Snowden called for new privacy tools, other sessions were helping entrepreneurs learn how to make money with the data they collect about the users of their products. ||||| America Edward Snowden Tells SXSW He'd Leak Those Secrets Again Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor who has leaked large amounts of classified information about the agency's electronic surveillance programs, spoke via video to a sympathetic audience at South By Southwest Interactive on Monday. Snowden, who is wanted for prosecution in the U.S., was in Russia, where he's been given temporary asylum. Repeating things he's said before, Snowden declared Monday that he would do what he did all over again because he had seen the Constitution being "violated on a massive scale." The Obama administration disagrees, though Snowden's revelations did begin a process that earlier this year led the president to say he wants the NSA to stop holding on to massive amounts of "metadata" about the phone calls and electronic communications of millions of people around the world. We posted some highlights from Snowden's comments. As you'll see, he faced no tough questions. Earlier today, All Tech Considered previewed his SXSW appearance. Update at 1:02 p.m. ET. Would He Do It Again? "Absolutely Yes": The last question to Snowden is about whether he would do what he's done again. "Absolutely yes," he says, adding that he "took an oath to support and defend the Constitution and I saw the Constitution ... being violated on a massive scale." The surveillance programs, he adds, take the Constitution's prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures and turn it into "any seizure is fine, just don't search it." Update at 12:59 p.m. ET. The Problem With Contractors: Snowden has worked both inside the government and for contractors outside it. The problem with contractors, he says, is that "they aren't accountable." Update at 12:50 p.m. ET. A Tor Endorsement: A Twitter query about what the average person can do to protect their online communications prompts Snowden to talk about Tor, the "mixed routing network" that can make it much harder to track online activity. Update at 12:45 p.m. ET. Another Question For Snowden From The Web. Who Are You To Decide? "On what basis do you get to be the person to unilaterally decide what material remains classified & what gets released?" (Tweeted here.) We'll watch to see if that's asked. Update at 12:40 p.m. ET. Question From The Web. What About Crimea? Questions for Snowden can be posted with the Twitter hashtag #asksnowden. Tom Risen, a tech and business reporter for U.S. News, poses this topical query: "What are you doing in Russia now that the Crimea situation is escalating?" We'll watch to see if that's asked. Update at 12:30 p.m. ET. Does Mass Surveillance Distract The Security Agencies? Snowden argues that "we've actually had tremendous intelligence failures because we're monitoring the Internet ... everybody's communications, instead of the suspects' communications." His example: Tips about the brothers' accused in the Boston Marathon bombings may not have been thoroughly pursued because the surveillance programs were given priority. Update at 12:25 p.m. ET. Says He's Not Weakening Nation's Security, NSA Is: It's pointed out to Snowden that the NSA believes his revelations have harmed national security. His response? The NSA has "elevated offensive operations — that is, attacking — over the defense of our communications." And that, in Snowden's view, has made the nation less secure. He makes the case that without a well-defended communications system, "our economy can't succeed." Update at 12:15 p.m. ET. The Constitution As A Backdrop: The background behind Snowden (presumably thanks to a "green screen" projection), is an image of the U.S. Constitution. Note: NPR is not a SXSW sponsor, but our friends on the Music Desk are webcasting music from there and some NPR staff are appearing on some SXSW panels.

– By leaking NSA data, Edward Snowden forced himself into exile—but he'd "absolutely" do it again, he said today during a video talk broadcast at SXSW. He spoke from Russia, saying that he "took an oath to support and defend the Constitution," NPR reports. "I saw the Constitution ... being violated on a massive scale," he continued. And for what? He argued that the US has "actually had tremendous intelligence failures because we're monitoring ... everybody's communications, instead of the suspects' communications." He pointed to the Boston Marathon bombings as an example, arguing that tips about the terrorists may have been overlooked while investigators focused on the surveillance programs. How to "fix" the system? "There's a political response that needs to occur, but there's also a tech response that needs to occur," Snowden said, according to CNN. "We need public oversight ... some way for trusted public figures to advocate for us. We need a watchdog that watches Congress, because if we're not informed, we can't consent to these (government) policies." He also suggested Internet users protect themselves, and suggested using a "mixed routing network" to make online activity more difficult to track. Today is the first time Snowden has directly addressed US citizens since fleeing the country.

An Italian expert in Hebrew manuscripts said Wednesday he has discovered the oldest known complete Torah scroll, a sheepskin document dating from 1155-1225. It was right under his nose, in the University of Bologna library, where it had been mistakenly catalogued a century ago as dating from the 17th century. In this undated photo provided by Alma mater Studiorum Universita' di Bologna, part of a document that an Italian expert says to be the oldest known complete Torah scroll. An Italian expert in Hebrew... (Associated Press) In this undated photo provided by Alma mater Studiorum Universita' di Bologna, a document that an Italian expert says to be the oldest known complete Torah scroll. An Italian expert in Hebrew manuscripts... (Associated Press) The find isn't the oldest Torah text in the world: the Leningrad and the Aleppo bibles _ both of them Hebrew codexes, or books _ pre-date the Bologna scroll by more than 200 years. But this is the oldest Torah scroll of the Pentateuch, the five books of Moses, according to Mauro Perani, a professor of Hebrew in the University of Bologna's cultural heritage department. Two separate carbon-dating tests _ performed by the University of Salento in Italy and the Radiocarbon Dating Laboratory at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign _ confirmed the revised dating, according to a statement from the University of Bologna. Such scrolls _ this one is 36 meters (40 yards) long and 64 centimeters (25 inches) high _ are brought out in synagogues on the Sabbath and holidays, and portions are read aloud in public. Few such scrolls have survived since old or damaged Torahs have to be buried or stored in a closed room in a synagogue. In a telephone interview Wednesday, Perani said he was updating the library's Hebrew manuscript catalogue when he stumbled upon the scroll in February. He said he immediately recognized the scroll had been wrongly dated by the last cataloguer in 1889, because he recognized that its script and other graphic notations were far older. Specifically, he said the scroll doesn't take into account the rabbinical rules that standardized how the Pentateuch should be copied that were established by Maimonides in the late 12th century. The scroll contains many features and markings that would be forbidden under those rules, he said. The 1889 cataloguer, a Jew named Leonello Modona, had described the letters in the scroll as "an Italian script, rather clumsy-looking, in which certain letters, as well as the usual crowns and strokes show uncommon and strange appendices," according to the University of Bologna release. Perani, however, saw in the document an elegant script whose square letters were of Babylonian tradition, the statement said. Perani told The Associated Press it was "completely normal" for a cataloguer to make such a mistake in the late 1800s, given the "science of manuscripts was not yet born." Outside experts said the finding was important, even though older Hebrew bibles do exist. "It is fairly big news," said James Aiken, a lecturer in Hebrew and Old Testament studies at Cambridge University. "Hebrew scholars get excited by very small things, but it certainly is important and clearly looks like a very beautiful scroll." However, Giovanni Garbini, a leading expert on ancient Semitic languages and retired professor at Rome's La Sapienza university, said the discovery doesn't change much about what the world knows about Hebrew manuscripts. "It's an example of an ancient scroll, but from the point of view of knowledge, it doesn't change anything," he said in a telephone interview. But Stephen Phann, acting president of the University of the Holy Land in Jerusalem and an expert in ancient Jewish manuscripts, said if accurately dated, the scroll is a rare and important find. "We don't have anything much from that period," Phann said. There are far older scraps of Torah scrolls that can be dated back to the 8th century, but Phann said it was rare to find a complete manuscript. The find was also emotionally important, he said because the scroll, as opposed to a bound book, is used for reading Torah portions throughout the year in synagogue. "It's almost a friendship _ that they have come to know the Torah scroll in their midst, and they draw their knowledge and focus on worship on how they live their daily life," Phann said. Perani said it remains a mystery how the scroll came to be part of the Bologna university library but that he anticipated further study would now begin. The scroll remains in the library and doesn't require any extra conservation precautions beyond what it already has, he said. ___ Diaa Hadid contributed from Jerusalem. ___ Follow Nicole Winfield at www.twitter.com/nwinfield ||||| Image caption This Torah scroll may be more than 850 years old The University of Bologna in Italy has found what it says may be the oldest complete scroll of Judaism's most important text, the Torah. The scroll was in the university library but had been mislabelled, a professor at the university says. It was previously thought the scroll was no more that a few hundred years old. However, after carbon dating tests, the university has said the text may have been written more than 850 years ago. The university's Professor of Hebrew Mauro Perani says this would make it the oldest complete text of the Torah known to exist, and an object of extraordinary worth. The university says that in 1889 one of its librarians, Leonello Modona, had examined the scroll and dated it to the 17th Century. However, when Prof Perani recently re-examined the scroll, he realised the script used was that of the oriental Babylonian tradition, meaning that the scroll must be extremely old. Another reason for the dating is that the text has many features forbidden in later copies under rules laid down by the scholar Maimonides in the 12th Century, the university says.

– An Italian researcher has found what is believed to be the oldest scroll from Judaism's most important text, and he didn't have far to look. The professor at the University of Bologna found the 850-year-old Torah scroll in the school library, where it had been mistakenly labeled a century ago, reports the BBC. That long-ago cataloguer thought the scroll dated back to the 17th century, but Hebrew professor Mauro Perani immediately recognized the error as he was doing some re-organizing of the library. Carbon-dating confirmed his hunch. "It is fairly big news," a Cambridge expert tells the AP. "Hebrew scholars get excited by very small things, but it certainly is important and clearly looks like a very beautiful scroll." The manuscript is 40 yards long and 25 inches high. Further study will be done to see whether it yields any new information from the period it was written, somewhere around 1155 to 1225.

President Barack Obama plans to visit Alabama on Friday to view the tornado destruction and meet with Gov. Robert Bentley, other state officials and victims of Wednesday's deadly tornadoes. Tuscaloosa Mayor Walt Maddox said he could not confirm if Obama would visit Tuscaloosa, one of the hardest hit areas. The White House Press Office did not release the president's itinerary other than to confirm he will be in the state. The press office said President Obama spoke Thursday morning with Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano and Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Craig Fugate about federal disaster relief efforts for areas affected by the devastating severe storms and tornadoes that have impacted Alabama, Mississippi and other states across the Southeast this week. The press office said in the early afternoon that Obama would view the damage in Alabama. Obama signed an emergency declaration Wednesday night authorizing FEMA to identify, mobilize, and provide at its discretion, equipment and resources necessary to alleviate the impacts of the emergency in all 67 Alabama counties. Fugate is in Alabama today, where he has joined Bentley on a fly-around to survey damage in the hardest hit counties. They are scheduled to be in Tuscaloosa at 3 p.m. U.S. Sen. Richard Shelby and Alabama EMA Director Art Faulkner are also on the fly-around. Shelby, who is from Tuscaloosa, said he asked Fugate to visit the state to assess the damage and expedite emergency response and recovery efforts. “I will continue to do everything in my power to see that the resources of the federal government are leveraged and coordinated to meet our state's needs,” Shelby said. Historic Districts hit hard Damage to the historic districts around 10th Avenue and Hargrove Road was extensive Thursday. Giant oaks that once shaded homes in The Downs neighborhood were toppled on top of the houses. Some homes received minor damage. Others were left roofless or had entire trees crash through the middle of the structures. Crews of volunteers worked with chainsaws and backhoes Thursday morning trying to remove debris while neighbors stood in the street in shock over the damage. On 10th Avenue, mobs of people stood in the street in front of Rosedale Courts, which is flattened. According to residents of The Downs neighborhood, the screams and cries of people in Rosedale Courts could be heard shortly after the tornado hit Wednesday evening. Looting has already started in the area, with reports of attempted looting starting shortly after dark Wednesday night. Alagasco sends reinforcements Alagasco crews from elsewhere in the state were being sent to Tuscaloosa this morning. “Tuscaloosa is our hardest hit area,” said Susan Delenne, Alagasco's director of corporate communication. “We are putting a lot of resources into Tuscaloosa.” Crews are assessing the damage today, turning off gas lines in tornado-damaged area and checking for gas leaks, she said. Company crews worked through the night and were receiving additional help today, she said. Some of the company's service trucks in Tuscaloosa were damaged in the storms, so trucks being dispatched from elsewhere in the state are coming to Tuscaloosa fully equipped, Delenne said. She urged anyone smelling natural gas to call the company's toll-free number at 1-800-292-4008. Belk shelter flooded with volunteers The Red Cross shelter at the Belk Activity Center took in over 480 people Wednesday night. More could be on the way as they're discharged from the hospital. “With the type of damage we have, we think it's going to be open a little longer than typically open,” said Oscar Barnes, director of the West Alabama chapter of the American Red Cross. The shelter has been flooded with volunteers offering help, food and clothing. The Alabama Baptist Disaster Relief group is providing meals, but Barnes said towels, washcloths and clothing are needed. “It's comforting to know we have a community like we have that responds in a disaster,” Barnes said. Volunteers who wish to help are being directed to St. Matthias Episcopal Church at 2310 Skyland Blvd. E. Hospital data of patients treated According to officials at the Alabama Hospital Association, the following information was collected from hospitals this morning regarding the patients treated at their facilities as a result of yesterday's storms. Related Links: Many hospitals in and around the affected areas have worked through the night with local emergency management agencies and other community responders to assist those injured by the storms. At this time, there are no reports of structural damage to hospitals that would affect their operations in treating patients, although several lost power temporarily, with a few still operating on generator power. · Individuals seen/treated at hospitals – 1500 · Treated and released – 442* · Number of individuals admitted – 266* · Treated and transferred – 32* · Fatalities – 13* *Please note, due to the continued fluid nature of the event, the numbers marked with an asterisk may be underreported. However, this was the best available information as of 10:30 a.m., April 28. A number of hospitals are still receiving patients, and we will provide an update later today. ||||| President Obama walked through a tornado-ravaged neighborhood in Tuscaloosa on Friday and promised “maximum federal help” to the survivors of a series of deadly twisters that carved paths of destruction and claimed about 300 lives in six Southern states. “I’ve never seen devastation like this,” Obama said as he toured the Alberta section of the city with first lady Michelle Obama and gazed at crumpled houses, uprooted trees and destroyed cars. “It is heartbreaking.” The powerful tornadoes left stunned residents literally picking up the pieces Friday, as they sought to salvage what they could in shattered homes from Mississippi to Virginia. It was the nation’s deadliest natural disaster since Hurricane Katrina — a “tornado outbreak” rarely seen on such a scale. Obama, who on Thursday called the damage “nothing short of catastrophic,” flew to Alabama with his wife Friday morning to view the devastation in hard-hit Tuscaloosa and meet with Gov. Robert Bentley (R) and affected families. The Obamas later took off for Cape Canaveral, Fla., where they had planned to witness the launch of the space shuttle Endeavour in the afternoon. The launch was scrubbed around midday because of mechanical problems, but Obama went ahead with his trip there. Obama signed a “major disaster” declaration for Alabama late Thursday, making federal aid available to supplement state and local recovery efforts. Speaking to reporters against a backdrop of splintered houses in the Tuscaloosa neighborhood, Obama said his administration would “make sure the maximum federal help comes here as quickly as possible.” Standing in shirtsleeves in bright sunshine and flanked by Bentley and Tuscaloosa Mayor Walter Maddox, Obama said: “We are going to do everything we can to help these communities rebuild. We can’t bring those who’ve been lost back — they’re alongside God at this point. . . . But the property damage, which is obviously extensive, that’s something that we can do something about.” He told Maddox, “We’re going to make sure you’re not forgotten.” Bentley said 210 Alabama residents were confirmed dead in the disaster, 1,700 were injured and “a number of people” were still missing. At least 34 people were killed in Mississippi, 34 in Tennessee, 15 in Georgia, five in Virginia and one in Kentucky, state officials reported. Many more were injured. In Alabama, emergency management officials said that with search and rescue operations ongoing, it was too early to conduct total damage assessments. “It’s hard to think on Friday that we’ll have a dollar amount that soon,” said Yasamie August, a spokeswoman with the Alabama Emergency Management Agency. Although several states have volunteered machinery and manpower if necessary, the state hasn’t accepted any assistance so far, she said. In neighboring states, officials hailed the federal government’s response — especially preparations conducted by FEMA in anticipation of formal requests for aid. “Anything that we’ve asked for, they’ve gotten us,” said David Maxwell, director of the Arkansas Department of Emergency Management. His state expected to issue a request for federal assistance as it recovers from the tornadoes and separate flooding incidents in northern portions of the state. Maxwell said FEMA Administrator W. Craig Fugate and his deputies “are proactive, and they’re communicating with us regularly.” Not since April 3, 1974, has the United States witnessed so much destruction from twisters, and tornado experts say Wednesday’s outbreak may go down in history as the most destructive in eight decades. Alabama took the most brutal pounding, the state scarred by a monster funnel cloud that crossed the state on a track that struck Tuscaloosa head-on and chewed through the Birmingham suburbs before exiting into Georgia. As many as 1 million homes and businesses in Alabama lost power, and Bentley activated 2,000 National Guard troops to help in the recovery effort. The National Weather Service on Friday upgraded the severity of a tornado that struck the small town of Smithville (population about 860) in northeastern Mississippi on Wednesday afternoon, killing 14 people and injuring 40. The half-mile-wide twister, which stayed on the ground for nearly three miles, packed peak winds of 205 mph, making it a rare category EF-5 tornado, the weather service said. The rating on the service’s Enhanced Fujita Scale is the highest indicator of wind speed and related damage. The Smithville tornado, the most powerful to hit Mississippi since 1966, destroyed or damaged dozens of homes and businesses, including the post office and police station, and wrecked the town’s water system. Most trees were snapped or twisted, and one 1965 Chevy pickup that was parked in front of a destroyed home has not been found, the weather service said. During a visit to Smithville, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour (R) expressed fears that the state’s death toll may rise. “We know there is a tremendous amount of debris” that could be covering additional bodies, he told reporters. He said there was also “some risk that the waterways that surround this area could possibly contain human remains.” Even as survivors combed the wreckage of their homes for recoverable belongings, search-and-rescue crews continued Friday morning to look for victims of the disaster. In Virginia, rescuers rushed a survivor to a hospital after pulling the person out of rubble Friday morning in Washington County in the southwestern part of the state, emergency officials said. The rescue came a day after an EF-3 tornado roared through the area with winds up to 165 mph. In Tuscaloosa, home to the University of Alabama, a team with a cadaver-sniffing dog searched the wreckage of an apartment complex reduced to rubble by the tornado. Maddox, the Tuscaloosa mayor, said entire neighborhoods were wiped off the map. The city of more than 80,000 lost its emergency management agency and one of its fire stations, Maddox said. In addition, most of its garbage and recycling trucks were damaged or destroyed, and two major water tanks were out of water, he said. “This place looks like a war zone,” Jackie Wuska Hurt, director of development for the honors college at the University of Alabama, wrote in an e-mail Thursday. “Folks looked like refugees walking single file with suitcases or grocery carts of their belongings down the sidewalks of University Boulevard.” “It’s almost total disbelief,” said Phyllis Little, director of emergency management for Cullman County, Ala., a largely rural area of 82,000 peppered with small towns. “The county courthouse lost its roof. The baptist church has a skeleton for a steeple. Old buildings that have been there for hundreds of years have just collapsed.” The entire county was without power, and emergency responders were operating on natural gas generators. Little has been turning away volunteers who have called her office, offering to come to Cullman to help. “Fuel is an issue for us,” Little said. “We’re struggling to provide that to the emergency response agencies. If you don’t live here or have business here, don’t come.” ‘Little middle ground’ Local TV stations in Alabama captured stunning footage of the squat, black maelstrom as it chewed a path through Tuscaloosa shortly before dusk Wednesday, riding along an interstate highway and coming within a mile of the football stadium that is home to the fabled Crimson Tide. The university has closed, canceling final exams and postponing graduation exercises until August. Power outages shut down most forms of communication, but students found they could still track the news through Twitter. “Somehow the Twitter feeds keep coming,” said Ian Sams, 22, a senior. “You’d see people tweeting from shelters saying. ‘We need blankets. We need diapers. If you can bring them, bring them.’ ” As with any tornado, the destruction could seem capricious, with obliterated areas bracketed by neighborhoods that were merely a little windblown. “There’s very little middle ground. Either you took a beating, like you really were just devastated by it, or I went to my parents’ house, and they have power, and it’s just another day,” said Brandi Freeman, 21, a senior. Alabama’s Emergency Management Agency said 31 of the state’s 67 counties have reported damage. Most are in the central and northern parts of the state. “This was the big one,” said James-Paul Dice, chief meteorologist at WBRC Fox 6 in Birmingham. “A monster of a storm.” Dice said the biggest tornado passed two miles from the station as most of his co-workers took shelter. He continued broadcasting, telling his viewers that this was unlike anything he’d seen in his 16 years in the business. That this would be a day of severe storms had been known many days in advance, thanks to computer models of the weather pattern, but Dice said he was shocked Wednesday morning at some of the numbers he was seeing. He said there is a measure of potential tornadic activity known as the “energy helicity index.” Anything in the range of 3 or 4 would suggest a possible tornado, and he was stunned to see, on Monday, a forecast of a 6 for Wednesday. Then, Wednesday morning, the index jumped to 14. “It was off the charts. This was almost like made-up numbers,” Dice said. Meteorologists are on the ground examining the damage in an attempt to get a precise handle on the number of distinct tornadoes and their intensity. What seems certain is that this was the worst day for twisters in America since Richard M. Nixon was in the White House. “The outbreak is the biggest in terms of tornadoes and in terms of impact since ’74, and it’s possible that it’s actually bigger than ’74,” said Harold Brooks, research meteorologist at the National Severe Storms Laboratory in Norman, Okla. The April 3, 1974, outbreak sparked twisters across the eastern United States, claiming 310 lives, Brooks said. Wednesday’s outbreak may be most similar to the tornado outbreak of March 21, 1932, when 332 people were killed, including 268 in Alabama, he said. Nothing, however, comes close to the destruction of March 18, 1925, when 747 people died, most of them along the path of a single twister, the so-called Tri-State Tornado that tore up Missouri, Illinois and Indiana. Brooks said the conditions have been ripe in recent weeks for just such a catastrophe. Cold, dry air aloft, powered by the jet stream, blows in from the west, meeting the low-level, warm, moist air moving northward from the Gulf of Mexico. If the cold fronts are strong enough, they’ll suppress tornado formation. But if they’re weak, the result can be a deadly compromise between the colliding air masses: The warm air at ground level will be moving in a different direction from the air higher up. That’s a recipe for the rotational energy that spawns a full-blown tornado. At the nuclear plant The storms shut down the three nuclear reactors at the Browns Ferry power plant 30 miles west of Huntsville, Ala., a plant of similar design to the severely damaged Fukushima Daiichi power plant in Japan. But unlike Fukushima Daiichi, when Browns Ferry lost primary power, the plant’s diesel generators kicked in as designed to keep the reactors cool, said Barbara Martocci, a spokeswoman for the Tennessee Valley Authority, which operates the 3,274-megawatt facility. “The plant is shut down safely,” she said, meaning that control rods dropped into the reactors when power went offline, stopping nuclear fission. The plant’s cooling systems can run indefinitely on diesel generators as crews work to restore external power, Martocci said. The facility will not begin producing electricity again until “we have a full damage assessment of our entire transmission system,” Martocci added. In Virginia, five people died — three in the small town of Glade Spring — in Washington and Halifax counties, when twisters roared through overnight, officials said. A truck stop on Interstate 81 and a new factory were destroyed, according to Christy Parker, assistant administrator in Washington County, in southwest Virginia. Tractor trailers “were flipped and thrown about the interstate like toys,” she said Thursday. Pokey Harris, Washington County’s director of emergency management, said late Thursday: “We have multiple injuries . . . broken bones, crush injuries. We have a tremendous amount of devastation. A lot of buildings are destroyed.” Most of the Virginia fatalities occurred when what appeared to be a tornado hit a mobile home park, the truck stop and an apartment complex, Virginia Department of Emergency Management officials said. Storms ripped through a subdivision in Shenandoah County, damaging several homes. Virginia Gov. Robert F. McDonnell (R) declared a state of emergency, authorizing state agencies to assist local governments in responding to the impact of the weather. Severe storms and possible tornadoes also struck Goochland County, officials said. Fifty people were injured statewide. Tornado warnings were issued across the D.C. suburbs early Thursday morning. Fast-moving bands of storms packed high winds and torrential rains. A funnel cloud formed over Point of Rocks in Frederick County shortly before 7 a.m., according to the National Weather Service. There were widespread reports of damaged trees, including one that fell across Route 109 in Barnesville and another that landed on an electric line in Middleburg, according to the weather service. Fauquier County schools were delayed by two hours, and Prince William County schools canceled outdoor activities. The storms caused flight delays of up to 90 minutes at Reagan National and Dulles International airports. O’Keefe and Branigin reported from Washington. Staff writers Joel Achenbach, Michael Bolden, Michael E. Ruane, Jason Samenow, Krissah Thompson, Brian Vastag and Erin Williams and researcher Madonna Lebling in Washington contributed to this report.

– A wave of tornado-spawning storms ripped through six states yesterday, killing at least 269 people and flattening buildings. Some 180 people died in Alabama alone, many of those in college-town Tuscaloosa, where a mile-wide tornado tore through the city's downtown, the AP reports. There were 33 casualties in Mississippi, 33 in Tennessee, 14 in Georgia, eight in Virginia, and one in Kentucky. President Obama has spoken with Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley and approved his request for federal emergency assistance, including search and rescue teams. Tuscaloosa's mayor estimates "hundreds of homes and businesses (were) destroyed and hundreds more damaged" around the University of Alabama campus, reports the BBC, and the city's infrastructure has been devastated. "What we faced today was massive damage on a scale we have not seen in Tuscaloosa in quite some time," he told reporters.

Gutsy "American Idol" contestant Jessica Sanchez took on Whitney Houston's biggest hit, delivering a performance that awed the show's judges. In this March 1, 2012 image released by Fox, the remaining 13 contestants from the singing competition series, "American Idol," are shown in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Fox, Michael Becker) (Associated Press) When host Ryan Seacrest asked the panel to name Wednesday night's top two singers among the 13 finalists, Steven Tyler was ready. "Jessica Sanchez and Jessica Sanchez," Tyler said. The 16-year-old San Diego high school student's assured version of "I Will Always Love You" was "just amazing. I don't even know what to say," Jennifer Lopez exclaimed during the performance show. "Jessica, you may be the one. You just made 40 million people cry," Tyler said (adding a dose of hyperbole by roughly doubling the show's biggest Wednesday night audience for the season so far). Randy Jackson didn't hold back either, calling Sanchez "one of the best talents in the whole country." On the Fox show's 400th episode, the men tackled Stevie Wonder's catalogue and the women choose from Houston's hits, a tribute to the singer who died Feb. 11, on the eve of the Grammy Awards, at age 48. "I Will Always Love You" was played at the conclusion of Houston's New Jersey church funeral last month. The "American Idol" finalists performed as the Fox show marked its 400th episode. In a twist, the male and female singers who rank lowest in the audience vote will be announced Thursday and the judges will decide which of the two will be bounced. Others who impressed the judges included Joshua Ledet, 19, of Westlake, La., with his version of "I Wish"; Hollie Cavanaugh, 18, of McKinney, Texas, with "All the Man I Need," Colton Dixon, 20, of Murfreesboro, Tenn., with "Lately," and Phillip Phillips, 21, of Leesburg, Ga., with "Superstition." Areosmith frontman Tyler offered Phillips an intriguingly enigmatic review. "You're a very interesting character, man. You got a lot of `fuhgeddaboutit' in your voice. There's no words for it. You just are. You know what I'm saying," Tyler said. Skylar Laine's version of "Where Do Broken Hearts Go" was another standout. "You're a country girl .... But what you just proved, you can sing any song," Jackson told the 18-year-old from Brandon, Miss. The judges were not uniformly kind. Elise Testone, 28, of Charleston, S.C., who performed "I'm Your Baby Tonight," fell short with the panel, which praised her talent but not what Lopez called her "unsure" performance. Shannon Magrane, 16, of Tampa, Fla., let her nerves get in the way on "I Have Nothing," Jackson said, and Tyler suggested she might be in trouble in the audience vote. ___ Fox is a unit of News Corp. ___ Online: http://www.americanidol.com ||||| Jennifer Hudson deserves all the praise the music industry can muster today as she prepares to pay tribute to Whitney Houston, the R&B superstar who was found dead in her hotel room on Saturday afternoon, hours before she was due to make an appearance at the annual Clive Davis pre-Grammy gala. PHOTOS: Iconic Singer Whitney Houston's Life and Career in Pictures Not surprisingly, Hudson is said to be "having a hard time" at rehearsal for the tribute number, which will air three-quarters of the way through the broadcast, as part of a broader "In Memoriam" segment. She is singing Houston's monster hit "I Will Always Love You." VIDEO: From 'American Idol' to 'X Factor': 5 of the Best Whitney Houston Reality TV Competition Covers A Grammy crew member tells The Hollywood Reporter that Hudson was "crying and had to keep pausing" to collect herself during the Sunday afternoon rehearsal (the show kicks off at 5 p.m. PST). "She was having a hard time getting through the song, especially on the second run-through." Chaka Khan has also been added to the tribute number with possibly more surprise guests to be announced. STORY: Simon Cowell Confirms He Was Considering Whitney Houston as 'X Factor' Judge While competing on season 3 of American Idol, Hudson sang Houston's "I Have Nothing" one week before being eliminated. Check back here all day for Grammy updates... Twitter: @shirleyhalperin

– Sixteen-year-old Jessica Sanchez "made 40 million people cry" last night when she performed Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You" on American Idol, judge Steven Tyler told her. The San Diego high school student enjoyed a standing ovation after her performance and reaped praise from all three judges; Randy Jackson called her "one of the best talents in the whole country." Last night's Idol featured Stevie Wonder songs for the male contestants and Houston songs for the females, the AP notes. In other Idol news, Vulture notes that first-season winner Kelly Clarkson has signed on to "ABC's version of Idol," a talent competition called Duets that involves famous singers searching the country for amateur musical partners.

Late-breaking news, and I’ll update as I find out more: While the government is shut down, with food-safety personnel and disease detectives sent home and forbidden to work, a major foodborne-illness outbreak has begun. This evening, the Food Safety and Inspection Service of the US Department of Agriculture announced that “an estimated 278 illnesses … reported in 18 states” have been caused by chicken contaminated with Salmonella Heidelberg and possibly produced by the firm Foster Farms. “FSIS is unable to link the illnesses to a specific product and a specific production period,” the agency said in an emailed alert. “The outbreak is continuing.” (Updates to this post are at the bottom.) This is the exact situation that CDC and other about-to-be-furloughed federal personnel warned about last week. As a reminder, a CDC staffer told me at the time: I know that we will not be conducting multi-state outbreak investigations. States may continue to find outbreaks, but we won’t be doing the cross-state consultation and laboratory work to link outbreaks that might cross state borders. That means that the lab work and molecular detection that can link far-apart cases and define the size and seriousness of outbreaks are not happening. At the CDC, which operates the national foodborne-detection services FoodNet and PulseNet, scientists couldn’t work on this if they wanted to; they have been locked out of their offices, lab and emails. (At a conference I attended last week, 10 percent of the speakers did not show up because they were CDC personnel and risked being fired if they traveled even voluntarily.) In case it seems like this is not a big deal (just 300 illnesses, just some raw chicken): foodborne illness can have lifelong consequences that range from arthritis to kidney trouble to heart disease. And: The number of illnesses that can be identified in any foodborne outbreak are almost always an under-estimate. In its statement, FSIS said: Raw products from the facilities in question bear one of the establishment numbers inside a USDA mark of inspection or elsewhere on the package: “P6137” “P6137A” “P7632” The products were mainly distributed to retail outlets in California, Oregon and Washington State. It is the second time this year that the firm at the center of this alert, Foster Farms, has been linked to a nationwide Salmonella outbreak. In July, according to the CDC, 134 people in 13 states were made ill by chicken linked to two Foster Farms slaughterhouses. More to come on this, I am sure. Updates, Oct. 8: Taylor Dobbs, an excellent reporter at Vermont Public Radio, has identified the 18 states where cases have been found: Arizona, Arkansas, Alaska, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Oregon, Texas, Utah, Washington, Wisconsin. Big thanks to him for sharing his results. There were many other overnight and early-morning stories on this; I liked JoNel Aleccia‘s at NBC News. Foster Farms, the company named yesterday by the USDA, has issued a press release. An interesting point, which I hope to follow up on: They refer in the first paragraph to the previous outbreak this summer as having affected their “Pacific Northwest operations earlier this year.” The alert yesterday referred to California operations. If that is not a miscommunication and there are in fact different plants involved, it raises the question of whether there is a common source for the various slaughterhouses/packing plants. Food-safety attorney Bill Marler reminds me that two of the salmonella strains in the earlier outbreak this summer were antibiotic-resistant. The CDC’s original outbreak report describes them as “resistant to amoxicillin/clavulanic acid, ampicillin, cefoxitin, ceftiofur, and ceftriaxone. The two patients with resistant isolates both were aged <12 months and required hospitalization… Resistance to third-generation cephalosporins (e.g., ceftriaxone) is clinically important because extended-spectrum cephalosporins are commonly used for treatment of severe salmonellosis in children.” If you’re curious why the CDC’s absence from this outbreak is so critical, this description of how the CDC works in multi-state outbreaks — by organizing the investigation and deploying lab resources that no other agency possesses — is helpful. Finally, a number of commenters have asked why this outbreak is even an issue, assuming that people are only at risk if they undercook their chicken. That assumes that people are only becoming sick from their own actions and not, for instance, eating the chicken in someone else’s home or in a restaurant. It also fails to account for salmonella’s nimbleness at spreading off raw meat to other niches in professional or home kitchens — a cutting board, a counter, a towel, a sponge, the cook’s hands — and then from there in an undetected manner to other foods. And, finally, it fails to acknowledge that some members of the population — toddlers, elderly, people with immune systems weakened by various medical treatments — are more vulnerable than others. There’s no question people should behave self-protectively. But in our regulatory system, food safety is a shared responsibility, federal, commercial and individual — and it only works when every party in that chain works to the highest standard they can. ||||| Health officials urged consumers to cook chicken thoroughly and take other precautions after an 18-state salmonella outbreak that has made hundreds sick in recent months. A public health alert was issued for raw chicken packaged at three Foster Farms facilities in California as some 278 people have fallen ill since strains of Salmonella Heidelberg were first detected in March, the United States Department of Agriculture said in a statement Monday. The strains were associated with chicken distributed to retail outlets in California, Oregon and Washington state, the USDA said. The illnesses have been predominantly in California but the salmonella has reached people from 18 states, the statement said. The outbreak appears to have begun in March and the USDA was notified of the illnesses in July, said Dan Engeljohn of the USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service. Investigators had a difficult time pinpointing the source of the illnesses, Englejohn said. A spokesman for Foster Farms said no recall was in effect and that the infections were caused by eating chicken that was undercooked or improperly handled. The three facilities that packaged the chicken were all in California's Central Valley _ one in Livingston and two in Fresno. The USDA has not directly linked the outbreak of illnesses to a specific product or production period. The USDA mark on suspect packages would read: P6137, P6137A and P7632. State health officials were not planning a recall, but said it is essential that chicken be cooked to 165 degrees. "This is the important public health issue," Anita Gore, spokeswoman for the California Department of Public Health. "Chicken can carry bacteria, and chicken needs to be fully cooked." Gore also said people need to thoroughly wash their hands after handling raw meat, and anyone who believes they were infected and is showing symptoms like diarrhea and abdominal cramps should contact doctors immediately. Salmonella is a pathogen that contaminates meat during slaughter and processing, and is especially common in undercooked chicken. The Centers for Disease Control, which monitors the microbes that signal multi-state outbreaks of food poisoning, was working with a barebones staff because of the federal government shutdown, with all but two of the 80 staffers that normally analyze foodborne pathogens furloughed. It was not immediately clear whether the shortage affected the response to the salmonella outbreak. ||||| The Agriculture Department says three California poultry processing facilities linked to a salmonella outbreak in raw chicken can stay open, for now. In a statement Thursday, the USDA said Foster Farms, which owns the facilities in Fresno and Livingston, Calif., has made "immediate substantive changes to their slaughter and processing to allow for continued operations." The department threatened earlier this week to shut down the plants if Foster Farms did not prove that it had made enough changes. Sampling by the USDA in September showed that raw chicken processed by those facilities included strains of salmonella that were linked to the outbreak that has sickened 278 people in 17 states. USDA said government inspectors will monitor the company's improvements and "continue intensified sampling" of Foster Farms meat for the next three months. In a Monday letter to Foster Farms, USDA said the positive samples coupled with the illnesses suggest that the sanitary conditions at the facility "could pose a serious ongoing threat to public health." The company had until Thursday to respond. The outbreak, which has been going on since March, has had a high rate of hospitalizations. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said 42 percent of victims were hospitalized, about double the normal rate, and it is resistant to many antibiotics, making it more dangerous. In a statement Thursday, Foster Farms President Ron Foster said the company has been working for two months to add increased food safety controls. "This officially validates our progress, but we are not stopping here," Foster said of the company's agreement with the USDA to keep the plants open. The CDC says the outbreak is ongoing and some illnesses began as recently as two weeks ago. The majority of illnesses have been in California but people in 17 states have been infected, from Texas to Michigan to North Carolina. Salmonella can contaminate meat during slaughter and processing and is especially common in raw chicken. The infections can be avoided by proper handling and cooking of raw poultry. The pathogen causes diarrhea, abdominal cramps and fever within a few days of eating a contaminated product and can be life-threatening to those with weakened immune systems. ___ Follow Mary Clare Jalonick on Twitter: http://twitter.com/mcjalonick

– A salmonella outbreak involving chicken has sickened about 300 people in 18 states, most of them in California, reports the AP. Authorities issued an alert for chicken packaged at one of three Foster Farms operations in California with a USDA mark of P6137, P6137A, or P7632. Here's the fun part: The CDC has a skeletal staff because of the government shutdown. "That means that the lab work and molecular detection that can link far-apart cases and define the size and seriousness of outbreaks are not happening," writes Maryn McKenna at Wired. The government alert is here.

In this photo taken by Alexey Avanesyan, Alexander Kuznetsov, Russian rapper also known as Husky waits for a court hearing in Krasnodar, Russia, Thursday, Nov. 22, 2018. The Russian rapper is facing two... (Associated Press) In this photo taken by Alexey Avanesyan, Alexander Kuznetsov, Russian rapper also known as Husky waits for a court hearing in Krasnodar, Russia, Thursday, Nov. 22, 2018. The Russian rapper is facing two weeks in jail for performing on a car after prosecutors banned his gig for going against the government.... (Associated Press) MOSCOW (AP) — A popular Russian rapper was sentenced Thursday to 12 days in jail for performing on a car after prosecutors banned his gig. Husky, who has a wide following among young Russians with his videos scoring up to 6 million views on YouTube, was arrested Wednesday. A court in the southern city of Krasnodar sentenced Husky on charges of hooliganism. The 25-year-old rapper, known for his songs mocking authorities and police brutality, was due to perform in Krasnodar when local prosecutors warned the venue that his act had elements of what they termed "extremism." Russian authorities have in recent years used the vaguely worded law on extremism to go after Kremlin critics and dissenters. Wednesday's gig was moved to another club, where the power was shut off and Husky's fans poured outside. Videos posted online showed the rapper, whose real name is Dmitry Kuznetsov, reading his verses on top of a car with the fans chanting in unison. Police officers let him finish the song and then detained him, but had trouble driving away as crowds of fans blocked the police vehicle, demanding his release. Police eventually persuaded them to disperse. Local police also said that the owner of the car on which Husky performed filed a complaint for property damage, a charge that may carry a longer prison term. It wasn't immediately clear if authorities were going to press those charges. The rapper told the court that he was forced to perform on the street because his concert had been canceled without explanation. He said he was willing to pay compensation for any damage to the vehicle. "I acted in such a way because I faced a situation when I felt an obligation to talk to the people who had bought tickets," he told the court. Husky's black-and-white videos mock a political regime that expects tacit compliance from its citizens. A new wave of Russian rap musicians is widely credited for channeling young Russians' frustration with the political system and lack of economic prospects. Authorities in other Russian regions have also moved to ban Husky's gigs. Husky said in a social media post last month that officials in several Russian cities are pressuring venues to shut down his shows because his songs allegedly offend Christian believers and promote promiscuity. ___ Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow contributed to this report. ||||| Story highlights A member of a U.S. rock band wipes the Russian flag between his legs State-run media report Russia's Interior Ministry has opened a criminal case The band left Russia Sunday, CNN has learned Russia has opened a criminal case on an American band after one of its members stuffed the Russian flag into his pants, pulled it out his backside and whipped it between his legs, state-run news agency RIA Novosti reported Monday. A musician told the audience "Don't tell Putin" and then tossed the flag into the audience at a concert Wednesday in Odessa, Ukraine. RIA Novosti reported that Russia's Interior Ministry has issued a statement saying that a "specialized investigative unit" within the ministry "launched a criminal case regarding desecration of the national flag." The band, Bloodhound Gang, left Russia Sunday, CNN learned. The musicians, known for making satirical and provocative songs, had a big hit in 1999 with "The Bad Touch." The stunt was caught on video and posted to YouTube. It went viral in the Ukraine and Russia, and was flooded with angry Russian-language comments. Journalists later quoted the band as saying that all items that the band throws into the crowd must first pass through the bassist's pants. The group was scheduled to appear at the Kubana rock festival this week, near the southern Russian Black Sea resort of Anapa, the news agency said, but the band was "deported." The band told CNN that it left Russia and was not deported. They said they canceled their concert at the festival. A member of the band's crew, who asked to not be named for security reasons, told CNN the band was attacked Saturday by Russian nationalists inside Anapa airport in Krasnodar Krai. The band members were "beaten up" by a crowd of men who punched and kicked them, the crew member said, adding that some of the attackers had whips. He said there were no serious injuries, and a Russian police guard was accompanying them as they waited to leave. RIA Novosti reported Monday that Russia's Criminal Code states that "foreign nationals ... who commit a crime beyond the boundaries of the Russian Federation are subject to criminal liability in line with this code if their crime is aimed against the interests of the Russian Federation or a Russian national." Desecration of the Russian flag can result in a one-year prison sentence, according to Russian criminal code, the news agency said. Russian prosecutors in the Krasnodar Region have said they had begun an investigation into local music festivals, including Kubana. Russian and Ukrainian lawmakers have also proposed permanently banning Bloodhound Gang members from entering the countries. Earlier U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul called the incident "disgusting" in a Twitter message but said the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment protects flag desecration. Snowden case: What's in it for Russia Opinion: Make Olympics in Russia the gayest ever

– A popular Russian rapper was sentenced Thursday to 12 days in jail for performing on a car after prosecutors banned his gig. Husky, who has a wide following among young Russians with his videos scoring up to 6 million views on YouTube, was arrested Wednesday. A court in the southern city of Krasnodar sentenced Husky on charges of hooliganism. The 25-year-old rapper, known for his songs mocking authorities and police brutality, was due to perform in Krasnodar when local prosecutors warned the venue that his act had elements of what they termed "extremism." Russian authorities have in recent years used the vaguely worded law on extremism to go after Kremlin critics and dissenters, reports the AP. Wednesday's gig was moved to another club, where the power was shut off and Husky's fans poured outside. Videos posted online showed the rapper, whose real name is Dmitry Kuznetsov, reading his verses on top of a car with the fans chanting in unison. Police officers let him finish the song and then detained him. Local police also said that the owner of the car on which Husky performed filed a complaint for property damage, a charge that may carry a longer prison term. It wasn't immediately clear if authorities were going to press those charges. The rapper told the court that he was forced to perform on the street because his concert had been canceled without explanation. He said he was willing to pay compensation for any damage to the vehicle. "I acted in such a way because I faced a situation when I felt an obligation to talk to the people who had bought tickets," he told the court.

Washington, DC (July 21, 2014) - It seems common practice. After a long day at work, sometimes you just want to turn on the TV or play a video game to relax, decompress. This is supposed to make you feel better. But, a recent study published in the Journal of Communication, by researchers at the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Germany, and VU University Amsterdam, found that people who had high stress levels after work and engaged in television viewing or video game play didn't feel relaxed or recovered, but had high levels of guilt and feelings of failure. Leonard Reinecke (Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz) and Tilo Hartmann and Allison Eden, (VU University Amsterdam) surveyed 471 participants to think about the preceding day and report how they had felt after work and what media they had used. The researchers found that people who were particularly fatigued after work or school showed a higher tendency to feel that their media use was a form of procrastination. They felt that they succumbed to their desire of using media instead of taking care of more important tasks. As a result, they had a higher risk of feeling guilty about their media use. These feelings of guilt diminished the positive effects of media use and reduced recovery and vitality after media use. The results also suggest a paradoxical pattern between depletion and media-induced recovery: Those depleted individuals who could have benefitted the most from recovery through media use, instead experienced lower levels of recovery because they took their media use as a sign of their own self-control failure. Prior research has shown that the use of entertaining media produces a "recovery experience", that helps us to psychologically detach from work stress and relax, but also provides mastery experience (e.g., when you beat a computer game or watch a thought-provoking movie) and a feeling of control during leisure time. As a result, people feel energized and more vital after media use and even show stronger cognitive performance thanks to media-induced recovery. "We are beginning to better understand that media use can have beneficial effects for people's well-being, through media-induced recovery. Our present study is an important step towards a deeper understanding of this. It demonstrates that in the real life, the relationship between media use and well-being is complicated and that the use of media may conflict with other, less pleasurable but more important duties and goals in everyday life," said Reinecke. "We are starting to look at media use as a cause of depletion. In times of smartphones and mobile Internet, the ubiquitous availability of content and communication often seems to be a burden and a stressor rather than a recovery resource." ### "The Guilty Couch Potato: The Role of Ego Depletion in Reducing Recovery Through Media Use," by Leonard Reinecke, Tilo Hartmann and Allison Eden; Journal of Communication Contact: To schedule an interview with the author or a copy of the research, please contact John Paul Gutierrez, jpgutierrez@icahdq.org. About ICA ||||| Irvine, Calif., Sept. 13, 2016 – Regularly snapping selfies with your smartphone and sharing photos with your friends can help make you a happier person, according to computer scientists at the University of California, Irvine. In a first-of-its-kind study published just before back-to-school season, the authors found that students can combat the blues with some simple, deliberate actions on their mobile devices. By conducting exercises via smartphone photo technology and gauging users’ psychological and emotional states, the researchers found that the daily taking and sharing of certain types of images can positively affect people. The results of the study out of UCI’s Donald Bren School of Information & Computer Sciences were published recently in the Psychology of Well-Being. “Our research showed that practicing exercises that can promote happiness via smartphone picture taking and sharing can lead to increased positive feelings for those who engage in it,” said lead author Yu Chen, a postdoctoral scholar in UCI’s Department of Informatics. “This is particularly useful information for returning college students to be aware of, since they face many sources of pressure.” These stressors – financial difficulties, being away from home for the first time, feelings of loneliness and isolation, and the rigors of coursework – can negatively impact students’ academic performance and lead to depression. “The good news is that despite their susceptibility to strain, most college students constantly carry around a mobile device, which can be used for stress relief,” Chen said. “Added to that are many applications and social media tools that make it easy to produce and send images.” The goal of the study, she said, was to help researchers understand the effects of photo taking on well-being in three areas: self-perception, in which people manipulated positive facial expressions; self-efficacy, in which they did things to make themselves happy; and pro-social, in which people did things to make others happy. Chen and her colleagues designed and conducted a four-week study involving 41 college students. The subjects – 28 female and 13 male – were instructed to continue their normal day-to-day activities (going to class, doing schoolwork, meeting with friends, etc.) while taking part in the research. But first each was invited to the informatics lab for an informal interview and to fill out a general questionnaire and consent form. The scientists helped students load a survey app onto their phones to document their moods during the first “control” week of the study. Participants used a different app to take photos and record their emotional states over the following three-week “intervention” phase. Subjects reported their moods three times a day using the smartphone apps. In evening surveys, they were asked to provide details of any significant events that may have affected their emotions during the course of the day. The project involved three types of photos to help the researchers determine how smiling, reflecting and giving to others might impact users’ moods. The first was a selfie, to be taken daily while smiling. The second was an image of something that made the photo taker happy. The third was a picture of something the photographer believed would bring happiness to another person (which was then sent to that person). Participants were randomly assigned to take photos of one type. Researchers collected nearly 2,900 mood measurements during the study and found that subjects in all three groups experienced increased positive moods. Some participants in the selfie group reported becoming more confident and comfortable with their smiling photos over time. The students taking photos of objects that made them happy became more reflective and appreciative. And those who took photos to make others happy became calmer and said that the connection to their friends and family helped relieve stress. “You see a lot of reports in the media about the negative impacts of technology use, and we look very carefully at these issues here at UCI,” said senior author Gloria Mark, a professor of informatics. “But there have been expanded efforts over the past decade to study what’s become known as �?positive computing,’ and I think this study shows that sometimes our gadgets can offer benefits to users.” About the University of California, Irvine: Founded in 1965, UCI is the youngest member of the prestigious Association of American Universities. The campus has produced three Nobel laureates and is known for its academic achievement, premier research, innovation and anteater mascot. Led by Chancellor Howard Gillman, UCI has more than 30,000 students and offers 192 degree programs. It’s located in one of the world’s safest and most economically vibrant communities and is Orange County’s second-largest employer, contributing $5 billion annually to the local economy. For more on UCI, visit www.uci.edu. Media access: Radio programs/stations may, for a fee, use an on-campus ISDN line to interview UCI faculty and experts, subject to availability and university approval. For more UCI news, visit news.uci.edu. Additional resources for journalists may be found at communications.uci.edu/for-journalists.

– It seems natural to reach for the remote to take a breather after a taxing day of conference calls and TPS reports, but a new study warns that especially work-weary folks who flick on the TV or play video games may feel incredibly guilty and like failures afterward, reports the Independent. Instead of letting the media do its ostensible job of mitigating any 9-to-5 stress, scientists found that certain “ego-depleted individuals” regard these activities as procrastination from more critical tasks and fault themselves for a lack of self-control. The German and Dutch researchers asked 471 subjects to talk about how they felt after their 9-to-5 toil the previous day, as well as what media they used to veg out, according to a post at Eureka Alert. Even though the study’s authors say that media has been shown in previous research to offer a “recovery experience” for stressed-out working stiffs, this survey seems to indicate the opposite: that worn-out workers who could probably use a decompression session of Orange Is the New Black the most end up feeling like the biggest losers because they think they should be reading Crime and Punishment or cleaning out the garage instead. “In times of smartphones and mobile Internet, the ubiquitous availability of content and communication often seems to be a burden and a stressor rather than a recovery resource,” says one of the co-authors. (Click to read how food can affect your stress level, too.)

China was once again the world's top executioner in 2016, according to a report by rights group Amnesty International. (AFP/Getty Images) The United States was among the world's 10 largest executioners in 2016, coming in at No. 7, according to a new report. The U.S. dropped out of the top five global executioners for the first time in a decade. The country executed 20 people in 2016, the lowest number since 1991. In its annual death penalty report, "Death Sentences and Executions 2016," rights group Amnesty International found at least 1,032 people were executed in 23 countries in 2016, not including figures from China. The total figure represents a 37 percent decease from 2015, when the group recorded 1,634 executions in 25 countries. Execution methods worldwide in 2016 involved beheading, shooting, lethal injection and hanging. China was once again the world's top executioner, according to the group. While the country doesn't publish any figures on the death penalty, "available information indicates that thousands of people are executed and sentenced to death in China every year," the report says. James Clark, senior death penalty campaigner for Amnesty International USA, says the group uses multiple sources, including news reports and accounts from family members, to produce its estimates. In descending order, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Pakistan followed China to complete the top five countries that recorded the greatest number of executions. If China is excluded, those four nations comprised about 90 percent of all executions worldwide, the report said. Iran alone accounted for 55 percent of all executions, though executions in the country dropped by 42 percent from the previous year. Countries that rounded out the top 10 executioners included Egypt (No. 6), the U.S. (No. 7), Somalia (No. 8), Bangladesh (No. 9) and Afghanistan (No. 10). Egypt and Bangladesh doubled the number of executions in 2016 and Iraq more than tripled its number of capital punishments. While the number of executions in the U.S. fell in 2016, the country was still the only nation to execute anyone in all of the Americas. The number of countries carrying out executions has decreased in recent decades. While 23 countries executed people in 2016, in 1997, 40 countries did so, according to the report. In total, 104 countries have abolished the death penalty in law for all crimes. In 1997, only 64 countries were fully abolitionist. "Countries all over the world are seeing that the death penalty doesn't work," Clark says. "It doesn't provide the safety or deterrent factors people claim that it does. It's a clear violation of human rights to execute anyone and that is being recognized more and more around the world." ||||| The number of death sentences handed down in the US, 32, was the lowest since 1973 and the number of executions, 20, meant the country is now no longer among the world's five biggest executioners US death penalty sentences fell to a historic low last year and executions also dropped sharply, contributing to a global slump of over a third from 2015, Amnesty International said Tuesday. The number of death sentences handed down in the US, 32, was the lowest since 1973 and the number of executions, 20, meant the country is now no longer among the world's five biggest executioners. Salil Shetty, secretary general of the London-based international human rights watchdog, said the US decline was "a sign of hope for activists who have long campaigned for an end to capital punishment". "The debate is clearly shifting," he said in the group's annual global review of the death penalty, which showed a 37 percent decline overall. Amnesty said it was "a clear sign that judges, prosecutors and juries are turning their back on the death penalty as a means of administering justice". The report also noted sharp drops in the number of executions in Iran -- down 42 percent to at least 567 -- and Pakistan -- down 73 percent to 87. There were also fewer executions in sub-Saharan Africa, although the number of death sentences handed down more than doubled to 1,086, largely due to a rise in Nigeria to 527 from 171. - China 'leading' in executions - Overall Amnesty recorded 1,032 executions worldwide last year -- a 37-percent decline from 2015. In 2015, Amnesty said worldwide executions had reached 1,634 -- the highest recorded since 1989. The statistics exclude China which Amnesty said executes more people than the rest of the world combined but keeps the precise numbers secret. "China wants to be a leader on the world stage, but when it comes to the death penalty it is leading in the worst possible way -- executing more people annually than any other country in the world. "It is high time for China to lift the veil on this deadly secret and finally come clean about its death penalty system," Shetty said. Amnesty found public news reports of at least 931 people executed between 2014 and 2016, which it said was a fraction of the total executions believed to have taken place in China. But it said only 85 of the executions were registered in a state database. The five biggest executioners in 2016 were China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Pakistan. Egypt came in sixth place with a doubling of executions to 44 in 2016 from 22 in 2015. "Under (President) Abdel Fattah al-Sisi's rule Egypt has witnessed an unprecedented increase in mass death sentences after unfair trials," Amnesty said. Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi announced a three-month state of emergency following twin church bombings by the Islamic State group that killed dozens of people on Palm Sunday, the deadliest attacks on the minority in recent memory.

– The US is no longer one of the top five executioners in the world, AFP reports. In 2016, both death sentences and executions dropped in the US; only 20 people were put to death, which dropped the US to the No. 7 spot globally, per US News & World Report. And just 32 people were sentenced to death, the lowest number since 1973. Amnesty International, which reported the news, is hailing the trend, with the secretary general of the human rights organization calling it "a sign of hope for activists who have long campaigned for an end to capital punishment." And it's not just the US—globally, there has been a 37% decline in the death penalty since 2015, the year that saw the highest recorded number of executions worldwide (1,634) since 1989. But China, which keeps its numbers secret, was not included in Amnesty's tally. "China wants to be a leader on the world stage, but when it comes to the death penalty it is leading in the worst possible way—executing more people annually than any other country in the world," the organization states, calling on the country to start publicizing its numbers. Amnesty says China is the biggest executioner in the world, followed by Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Pakistan. But two of those, Iran and Pakistan, saw significant drops in the number of executions (42% and 73% respectively) in 2016.

In a business collapse that disrupted wedding plans nationwide, dressmaker Alfred Angelo Bridal closed its doors and filed to liquidate its operations in bankruptcy court in West Palm Beach on Friday after failing to find a buyer for the company. The shutdown left brides-to-be across the country locked out and with little information about their time-sensitive wedding purchases. A lawyer for a Miami law firm retained to manage the case said she will work with a court-appointed trustee to release bridal dresses being held by the stores, which closed Thursday. Patricia Redmond of Stearns Weaver Miller, Weissler Alhadoff & Sitterson, said in a telephone interview she had received more than 3,500 emails from panicked brides. Alfred Angelo operated at least 60 locations in the U.S., and maintained stores in Canada, Europe and Japan. Its dresses were placed with 1,400 retailers worldwide. In South Florida, its stores in Boynton Beach, Sunrise and Coral Gables are all closed. The headquarters offices at 1625 S. Congress Ave. in Delray Beach are also shut. All of the stores posted “closed” signs, directing customers to contact Stearns, Weaver via email at predmond@stearnsweaver.com for more information. Misty-eyed Yadira Castro, 27, was one of the brides seeking answers. Standing outside Alfred Angelo’s Boynton Beach store on Friday, she was desperate to learn about her wedding dress. Her wedding is a week from Saturday. “I don’t have the money to buy a new dress. I have no time to buy a new dress,” said Castro, showing a picture of the Disney character Princess Jasmine-inspired dress she had purchased from Alfred Angelo for more than $800. With veil and accessories, she has nearly $1,250 invested in wedding attire at the store, she said. Castro is among countless brides and bridesmaids who are scrambling after the Delray Beach-based wedding dress company closed its doors. There were reports from multiple cities of brides appearing at stores to pick up their wedding gowns, only to find the locations closed. Redmond said she will ask a court-appointed trustee for the case to release dresses being held in the stores awaiting pickup by brides-to-be, and will do her best to persuade the trustee to release a $1.2 million shipment coming from China, so brides can receive the dresses they ordered. All told, the business filed voluntary Chapter 7 bankruptcy petitions for nearly 20 related companies in the U.S. and abroad. Top creditors of Alfred Angelo, the main company, are Czech Asset Management of Connecticut, a portfolio company, for $54 million; and CardConnect, a credit card processor for up to $5 million, Redmond said. After that, there will likely be dress manufacturers in China filing claims, she said. The cases are assigned to U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Paul Hyman in West Palm Beach. Alfred Angelo’s board of directors met July 10 by telephone to authorize the bankruptcy filings and to retain Stearns Weaver Miller, court documents show. The business started more than 80 years ago by Alfred Angelo Piccione and Edythe Vincent Piccione, according to the corporate history on the company’s website. Alfred Angelo’s current CEO is Richard Anders, named in 2016. He could not be reached for comment on Friday. Anders previously was president of retail at Nautica, a brand of VF Corp., and held positions before that at J. Crew and Old Navy, according a January 2016 story in the Sun Sentinel. He joined Alfred Angelo in 2014. In Coral Gables, bride-to-be Jessica Ringler whose Disney Belle dress, veil and belt were inside the store, stood outside the store Friday morning seeking any information. “It just sucks. I don’t even understand what happened,” said Ringler, 33, who ordered the $2,500 dress in March for her wedding next February. “It’s beautiful...It was supposed to be my dream dress,” she said. Ringler said “it would have been nice if they had given some kind of heads up. Now I can’t get my dress. This is somebody’s future.” Alfred Angelo’s store on Miracle Mile is a prime destination for brides-to-be, along with other bridal and wedding-related stores. Nora Ares, an employee at nearby Bijou Bridal & Special Occasion store, said she would often refer customers to Alfred Angelo. “You would never think that something so drastic would happen to a chain like that,” she said. “It’s going to be devastating for those brides.” Chris Phillips of Boynton Beach arrived at the local Alfred Angelo store to check on the news for his son, whose wedding party has bridesmaid dresses at the store. His son, 25, is scheduled to get married in September. Phillips was on his cellphone telling family members it was time to shop elsewhere. “It’s a done deal,” he said, adding that he is concerned about finding new dresses in time. David’s Bridal had told the family they were too late when they went shopping a few months ago. But the family may get a reprieve. On Friday, David’s Bridal tweeted that it was offering discounts to brides-to-be who have been impacted by the Alfredo Angelo closings. David’s Bridal said it will offer a 30 percent discounts on replacement wedding gowns to those with an Alfred Angelo receipt and 20 percent discounts for bridesmaid dresses. It also said it is waiving rush fees on alterations for those with wedding dates around the corner. In Sunrise, the David’s Bridal shop at 12605 Sunrise Blvd. took a higher than usual volume of calls, many from affected Alfred Angelo customers in search of replacement wedding or bridesmaid dresses, said store manager Heather Dadic. Bridal apparel and formal dress retailer Camille La Vie, which has South Florida outposts in Sunrise, Pembroke Pines and Doral is also offering discounts to help displaced Alfred Angelo customers. “We are happy to accommodate those brides/bridesmaids affected by the @AlfredAngelo closing with a discount. Visit stores for assistance!,” Camille La Vie said in a tweet around 2:30 p.m. Friday via Twitter. The news of Alfredo Angelo’s closing was upsetting to wedding planners as well. “Those poor brides,” said Carmen Mesa, a master wedding planner for the Association of Bridal Consultants in Cooper City. “You hear sometimes about venues closing, but I have not heard of a national bridal chain this huge closing and leaving people in the lurch. It breaks my heart that these people are not going to get their gowns in time.” Other bridal salons are trying to step in to help, she said. ||||| A private company based in Delray Beach, Fla., Alfred Angelo sold its dresses at 1,400 other retailers, in addition to operating its own stores, according to its website. Like other bridal companies, it has faced pressure from bridal fashion start-ups and traditional retailers pushing low prices. In its bankruptcy filing, the company said it had no more than $50,000 in assets, but more than $50 million in liabilities. Competitors were rushing to capitalize on the company’s demise. David’s Bridal offered discounts to Alfred Angelo customers if they can show a receipt from the store, as well as free rushed alterations. Alfred Angelo’s failure led Alex Pacifico and her co-workers at the company’s bridal store near Dayton, Ohio, to spend Thursday essentially running a guerrilla retail operation. They scrambled to get customers gowns they had ordered and told customers to take sample items they had on hand. “If we had what customers needed in the store, they were more than welcome to take it with them,” she said. But other brides-to-be and members of their wedding parties were not so lucky. Christine Danielle, who also lives in Houston, ordered a dress from the bridal retailer in May to wear to a wedding. As of Friday afternoon, she had been unable to figure out where the $195 dress was. “There’s no dress in sight, no refund in sight,” Ms. Danielle said. Along with the brides, employees at Alfred Angelo were also left in the lurch. Pacifico worried that she would not get paid for hours worked this week and will lose out on sales commissions. She said the closing left some customers angry, blaming the workers for the situation. The employees at the Dayton store worked for about 12 hours that day — for no pay — trying to help customers, Ms. Pacifico said. ||||| Attention Alfred Angelo Customers We know how much goes into planning a wedding, and we're happy to help those affected by Alfred Angelo's store closures. With dream wedding dresses for every style, size, and budget, plus bridesmaid dresses in sizes 0–30, David's Bridal can ensure that every bride has the wedding of her dreams. ||||| A Pittsburgh dad working three jobs knew he had to make his daughter’s dream come true for her eighth-grade dance, surprising her in a now viral video seen by tens of thousands. Nevaeha Smith, 14, a recent graduate of Ringgold Middle School in Monongahela, Pennsylvania, knew she found the perfect dress for her special occasion in June, but was uneasy about the nearly $200 price tag, so she asked her parents. "I said, 'Mom, dad, I want this dress,'" said Nevaeha. "Is it in our price range?" Her dad, Ricky Smith, 36, was torn. Providing for the family was hard and Ricky works three jobs to make ends meet, balancing shifts at McDonald’s, Popeye’s and the Circle K convenience store. "I looked at the price and I was like, 'Uh, not really sure, but I can see what I can do,'" said Ricky. No promises were made, but Ricky was determined to make sure his little girl’s special night was perfect. He already worked at least six days a week, and sometimes seven, but he pushed harder, working extra shifts until he had enough money to purchase the two-piece floral dress that his daughter wanted. Kelly Anne Flemming Ricky first broke the news to Nevaeha’s mom, Kelly Anne. "She said, 'Why don’t you surprise her?'" said Ricky, who then decided to take it a step further and asked his daughter to stop by his workplace. Mom tagged along, camera in tow, ready to capture the big reveal. "I was working at McDonald’s that day and I put the dress in the back," Ricky told ABC News. "She came and I brought it out and told her that her grandmother bought it for her and I told her, 'This ain’t the dress you wanted, but I hope you like it.'" Nevaeha’s heart sunk a bit. "I was thinking, 'This is going to be an old lady dress,'" said Nevaeha. She was wrong. The now-viral video showed Nevaeha patiently sitting at a table as her dad walked up to her with a purple garment bag. Ricky carefully opened the bag and pushed aside one flap, revealing his daughter’s dream dress. Kelly Anne Flemming Nevaeha briefly went into shock before she jolted up and jumped right into her dad’s arms, hugging him and sobbing in joy. "To see the look on her face it was priceless," said Ricky. "All I can really do was smile." Tears flowed from Neveaha’s face in the video as she tried her best to express her gratitude to her dad, burying her face in his chest and crying out -- between sobs -- the words, "It’s the dress!" "My heart felt like there was more love in it than there was before," said Neveaha, describing the big moment. "I love him and I’m really happy that’s he’s my father." The 14-year-old arrived at her dance dressed in love and confidence -- wearing not just any dress but one that she will keep forever in her closet and heart.

– Wedding dress retailer Alfred Angelo shuttered stores nationwide on Friday, sending brides-to-be into a panic. The Sun Sentinel reports the Florida-based company filed for bankruptcy protection after failing to find a buyer. The chain has at least 60 shops in the US, and its dresses are sold in more than 1,400 spots worldwide. Little information was available for angry brides who vented on social media after finding they were shut out of shops holding their gowns. "I'm glad orange is my wedding color because I'm gonna be married in jail if I can't get my dresses," one woman tweeted. Alfred Angelo hasn’t commented, but company lawyer Patricia Redmond tells the Sun Sentinel she has been bombed with more than 3,500 emails from worried brides. Redmond says the chain will work with a court-appointed trustee to release all the gowns in the shops. With her wedding a week away, Yadira Castro, 27, was no doubt hoping that was the case. "I don’t have the money to buy a new dress," she tells the newspaper, after paying $1,200 for an ensemble featuring a gown inspired by the Disney character Princess Jasmine. Some customers blamed Alfred Angelo workers for not being honest, but one mother tells the New York Times an employee in the Houston shop found her daughter’s dress and "gave us one hour" to pick it up Friday morning. "We have a happy ending," she says. Meanwhile, competitors liked David's Bridal rushed to offer discounts and alterations for betrayed brides and bridesmaids. (This wedding registry is not for everyone.)

NEWARK — In Newark Mayor Cory Booker’s career of glitzy photo shoots, this was by far the most humble. He stood in his kitchen Tuesday, glumly assessing the 17 cans of beans, seven yams, two bags of frozen vegetables and two apples that will constitute his diet for the next seven days as he embarked on a week-long effort to shed light on the plight of roughly 46 million Americans who rely on food stamps to survive. Tuesday was day one. And though the normally caffeinated mayor was trying to be upbeat, the look on his face suggested it’s going to be a long week without his two signature vices: Diet Pepsi and Ben and Jerry’s ice cream. He’s already learned a few lessons about shopping on a budget. "If I could go back and do it over again, I definitely would have gotten a dozen eggs and I would have clipped coupons," he said. Yet behind the publicity stunt, Booker says, there’s a bigger purpose at hand. "People have a real lack of understanding of the struggles that many families have to go through — hard working families that play by the rules," Booker said when he first set up the challenge last week. "One of my main goals will be to shine light on programs like this and dispel stereotypes that exist." Booker spent $29.78 on groceries Tuesday, the average weekly bill of a single person who receives food stamps as part of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. For the next seven days, and at a time when Congress is considering $16 billion in cuts to the federal program, Booker will put himself in the same position as 850,000 other New Jerseyans who receive food stamps each month. Since the Food Research and Action Center, a national advocacy group, began tracking SNAP challenges in 2006, hundreds of mayors, city councilors and advocates for the poor have spent a week living on the equivalent of what they would qualify for in food stamps. Though Booker is among the most high profile officials to take the challenge, he is not the first in New Jersey. Jennifer Velez, commissioner of the Department of Human Services, took the challenge last year. "It was a tough week. Not just because of the Food Stamp Challenge but because it was busy and stressful and nearing the holiday, which creates a whole different kind of chaos," Velez wrote in the daily diary of her week. "What I realized ... is that hunger affects everything: energy, patience, mood and sleep." While Booker has been chided by some for turning the challenge into a publicity stunt, Nicole Brossoie, a spokeswoman for the Department of Human Services, said that’s the point. "You cannot get the full experience of a person who is a SNAP recipient from a seven-day experience," she said. "What you do is raise awareness." That much Booker has done. Media outlets from CNN to the Christian Science Monitor have picked up on the challenge since one of Booker’s 1.3 million Twitter followers got a little mouthy with him in a debate over the government’s role in nutrition assistance. "Why is there a family today that is ‘too poor to afford breakfast? Are they not already receiving food stamps?" wrote the unnamed tweeter who goes by the handle "TwitWit." Booker told the North Carolina woman to put her money where her tweets are. "Let’s you and I try to live on food stamps in New Jersey (high cost of living) and feed a family for a week or month. U game?" Booker tweeted. STAY CONNECTED 24/7 Download our Download our free NJ.com mobile and tablet apps to keep up with the latest New Jersey news, sports and entertainment. This weekend, Booker took a shopping trip with Elizabeth Reynoso, Newark’s Food Policy Director, and bought just under the weekly limit for an individual on food stamps. The average monthly food stamp benefit was $133.26 per person in New Jersey in fiscal year 2011, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. That’s a little more than $33 per week, or $4 per day. Generally, a single person with a gross income of $1,723 a month would qualify. Each additional person in the household bumps up that requirement by about $600. But Brossoie said there are numerous caveats that affect that income level. As of August, there were 842,973 New Jerseyans on food stamps, up 7 percent from 2011. In the third-wealthiest state in the nation, more than a third of all households are unable to provide basic necessities, according to the United Way of New Jersey. And while the acronym says the assistance is "supplemental" many anti-hunger advocates say between bigger expenses, like housing and transportation, that’s a misnomer. "For many people, the food stamp allotment is your food budget," said Alexandra Ashbrook, Director of Washington D.C. Hunger Solutions, who has taken the challenge several times. "It’s insufficient, but it’s also critical to defend against hunger." Follow @starledger ||||| Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings. Benefit cuts to food stamp recipients kick in Friday, a move by Congress that will siphon $5 billion off a program that helps one in seven Americans put breakfast, lunch and dinner on the table. As president of the Food Bank for New York City, Margaret Purvis expects those cuts will draw even more people to organizations that already provide 400,000 meals a day to hungry city folks. "Our members are panicking," she said as time wound down before the benefit decreases go into effect. "We're telling everyone to make sure that you are prepared for longer lines." Needy Americans who receive food stamps through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program are expected to suffer an average loss of $36 a month from a $275.13 per household benefit. There are a near-record 47.6 million Americans, representing 23.1 million households, on the program. The cost of the program will hit $63.4 billion in 2013. SNAP allocations built into President Barack Obama’s 2009 stimulus bill are coming to an end, leading to the cuts. Over the past few years, a bipartisan group of Democrats and Republicans have voted in favor of the cuts in exchange for increased education funding and school nutrition programs. At a protest Tuesday on Capitol Hill, a group of Democratic lawmakers who opposed the cuts to food stamps demanded that the funding be reinstated. "It was a piece of legislation that said let's change nutrition standards, let's get junk foods out of our schools, and let's make sure that our kids can have those fruits and vegetables," Connecticut Rep. Rosa DeLauro told the Huffington Post regarding the nutrition bill. "There was no money for it (the nutrition bill). The price of it was $2.2 billion. That came from the food stamp program and all of us here complained," the congresswoman said. "And we were opposed to that but we knew that it was a good first step in getting the Hunger-Free Kids Act." There appears to be little organized effort to prevent the cuts from going into effect, however, despite the political protest and the worries of charity leaders like Purvis. Direct consequences For some SNAP families living in the neighborhoods of New York City, the cuts may have direct consequences. But the plight of the hungry extends well beyond the city’s five boroughs. Volunteers help food bank clients in the pantry of the West Side Campaign Against Hunger food bank in New York City. The food bank assists thousands of qualifying New York residents in providing a monthly allotment of food. Spencer Platt / Getty Images file Programs such as SNAP create economic waves across their communities. In the case of food stamps, those consist primarily of the grocers who benefit when food stamp users shop in their stores. "This isn't just a New York issue," Purvis said. "In the world of hunger relief, food stamps are supposed to be the first line of defense." Amira Watson, a working single mother of four from Brooklyn, recently had to sign up for food stamps after her marriage ended and she lost one of the two jobs she was working after having to take maternity leave. Though she applied a few months ago, her approval won't take effect until Nov. 1 — the same day the cuts are slated to kick in. A medical assistant working nights at an assisted living facility for the disabled, Watson worries that the SNAP benefits won't be enough to feed her four kids, who range in age from three months to 15. "The job is good with medical benefits but not with the paycheck," she said. "I'm always in the hole with bills. If I pay the rent I'm sacrificing the light, if I pay the light bill I'm sacrificing the gas bill. It's always something." Watson said she finds herself relying on food pantries and other stopgaps against hunger while struggling to provide for her family. "Thank God for the food pantry and the Campaign Against Hunger," she said. "While I'm waiting for all this processing — glitches here and glitches there — thank God I could go there and shop for some food. I got some baby milk for my newborn, got rice, got a nice amount of stuff that will sustain us until something comes up." People on food stamps have become punching bags for politicians and pundits who tell tales of stamp recipients who use their allocation on beer and junk food and pile their shopping carts high. And yet, while the stock market soars to new heights and income disparity widens to Great Depression-era levels, SNAP participation has doubled over the past 10 years and increased nearly 25 percent over the past four. "Something has changed about America since the financial crisis, and the still-widespread popularity of the SNAP program is emblematic of that shift," Nick Colas, chief market strategist at ConvergEx, a New York-based brokerage and investment research firm, said in a report. "The American economic record, based on the food stamp data, is still pretty lousy." Colas said the economic hit from the food stamp cuts will be roughly $10 billion, with the numbers probably not telling the full story. "It may not matter to the economic data on which Wall Street hangs its fedora, but it is certainly enough to spark a political response," he said. "How this plays out, I honestly have no idea. We are in uncharted waters here, as the historical record clearly shows." Related: ||||| The proposal was so out of left field that some anti-hunger advocates initially thought it was a joke. | Allen Breed/AP Photo Trump pitches plan to replace food stamps with food boxes The Trump administration is proposing to save billions in the coming years by giving low-income families a box of government-picked, nonperishable foods every month instead of food stamps. White House OMB Director Mick Mulvaney on Monday hailed the idea as one that kept up with the modern era, calling it a "Blue Apron-type program" — a nod to the high-end meal kit delivery company that had one of the worst stock debuts in 2017 and has struggled to hold onto customers. Mulvaney said the administration’s plan would not only save the government money, but also provide people with more nutritious food than they have now. Story Continued Below The proposal, buried in the White House’s fiscal 2019 budget, would replace about half of the money most families receive via the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as food stamps, with what the Department of Agriculture is calling “America’s Harvest Box.” That package would be made up of "100 percent U.S. grown and produced food" and would include items like shelf-stable milk, peanut butter, canned fruits and meats, and cereal. But America’s Harvest Box, which USDA contends would save over $129 billion over 10 years, is not very comparable to startup meal-delivery companies like Blue Apron. For one, the Trump administration’s proposal doesn’t include fresh items, like produce or meat, which are the core of Blue Apron and its competitors. Such products perish quickly and are incredibly expensive to ship. Asked about how delivery would work, USDA spokesman Tim Murtaugh clarified that states would “have flexibility” in how they choose to distribute the food to SNAP recipients. In other words, the federal government almost certainly would not be picking up the tab for any type of Amazon-style delivery system. “The projected savings does not include shipping door-to-door for all recipients,” Murtaugh said. Morning Agriculture A daily briefing on agriculture and food policy — in your inbox. Email Sign Up By signing up you agree to receive email newsletters or alerts from POLITICO. You can unsubscribe at any time. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue praised the harvest box plan as “a bold, innovative approach” that would give SNAP participants the same “level of food value” as the current system while saving taxpayers money. The idea that USDA would provide millions of low-income people packages of food on a national scale has not been floated by conservative think tanks, promoted by industry, or sought by previous administrations. Murtaugh said the concept was developed internally at USDA. Mulvaney on Monday credited Perdue for it during a briefing at the White House. "Secretary Perdue wanted to give it a chance," he said. "We thought it was a tremendous idea." Numerous questions remain, such as how these boxes would be customized for, say, a family that has a child with nut allergies — or for those who don't eat certain types of meat out of religious or personal reasons. The proposal was so out of left field that some anti-hunger advocates initially thought it was a joke. Kevin Concannon, who oversaw SNAP during the Obama administration, was aghast when he saw the proposal. “Holy mackerel," said Concannon, who said it reminded him of when poor people had to line up and wait for local officials to dole out food and other welfare benefits. "I don’t know where this came from, but I suspect that the folks when they were drawing it up were also watching silent movies.” Other anti-hunger advocates said the concept was reminiscent of wartime rations or soup lines during the Great Depression. The Food Research and Action Center, a prominent nonprofit group, called the harvest box idea “a Rube-Goldberg designed system” that would be “costly, inefficient, stigmatizing, and prone to failure.” In budget materials, USDA said it would be able to deliver this food at "approximately half the retail cost," a claim advocates found hard to believe. Food-stamp recipients would get their remaining monthly allotment on debit cards that they can use in grocery stores, as they do now. The proposal applies to households receiving at least $90 a month in benefits, which covers more than 80 percent of SNAP recipients. That’s more than 16 million households. “This proposal focuses on ensuring that all SNAP recipients receive the nutritious food they need at substantial savings by harnessing USDA’s purchasing power and America’s agricultural abundance,” Murtaugh told POLITICO. Grocery retailers also balked at the proposal, including the Food Marketing Institute — which represents major retailers like Walmart, Kroger and Albertsons, where tens of billions of dollars in SNAP benefits are spent each year. The industry argues that government-packed food boxes would simply be inefficient. Jennifer Hatcher, the trade group's chief public policy officer, said grocery retailers had worked with USDA and Congress over many years to “achieve a national system, utilizing existing commercial infrastructure and technology to achieve the greatest efficiency, availability and lowest cost." "As we understand the proposal in the president's budget to create a USDA commodity foods box of staples, each of these achievements would be lost,” Hatcher said. "Perhaps this proposal would save money in one account, but based on our decades of experience in the program, it would increase costs in other areas that would negate any savings.” Administration officials pointed out that USDA already distributes commodities. Currently, such food items are largely shipped to schools, food banks and other organizations — which in turn distribute the food to those who need it. The Commodity Supplemental Food Program, for example, sends boxes of food to some 600,000 low-income elderly with the help of food banks and other nonprofits. The fiscal 2019 budget seeks to eliminate that program and combine it with the harvest box program. However, a plan for SNAP recipients would be an exponentially larger undertaking, covering more than 16 million households. While grocery and meal-delivery companies are growing more common, their scale is still relatively small and largely confined to urban areas. Blue Apron, for example, has around 1 million customers. There are also questions about how the government would get harvest boxes to rural and remote households and whether cutting SNAP benefits spent in stores would hurt mom-and-pop stores in small communities. “This action would not only destabilize attempts to bring more healthy, fresh foods into the homes of America’s food insecure, but would keep dollars out of local grocery stores and farmers markets, which are critical assets to all communities,” said Jordan Rasmussen, a policy associate at the Center for Rural Affairs, a progressive rural advocacy group. Concannon, who retired from USDA at the end of the Obama administration, noted that it would ultimately be up to Congress on whether to fund such a proposal — something he said that lawmakers on Capitol Hill weren’t likely to be even remotely interested in creating. “Even the people who put this forward have to know that the chances of this happening is the same chance of me captaining the next spaceship launching from Florida,” he said. Catherine Boudreau and Sarah Ferris contributed to this report.

– Cory Booker began his food stamp challenge yesterday, showing off his decidedly modest grocery haul for the week to the New Jersey Star-Ledger. The vegetarian mayor spent $29.78 on an assortment that included 17 cans of beans, seven yams, two bags of frozen vegetables, and two apples. "If I could go back and do it over again, I definitely would have gotten a dozen eggs and I would have clipped coupons," he says. Booker says he's hoping to foster compassion for people living on SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) food stamps, even as Congress considers cutting the program. "People have a real lack of understanding of the struggles that many families have to go through," he says. In a blog post about the challenge he says he's "doubling down on my commitment to the Food Justice Movement." He promised to document the experience on social media, and indeed, this morning he tweeted an image of his chickpea-and-lettuce breakfast.

The group had paid a €900 deposit at the El Carmen restaurant in Bembibre, in El Bierzo region in Castilla y Leon near the border with Galicia, but promised to settle the bill at the end of the meal. Instead, they all jumped up en masse and fled without paying the €2,000 balance. Or rather, they snaked out of the restaurant dancing a conga and then jumped in their cars and sped away. "It happened in the space of a minute," restaurant owner Antonio Rodriguez told El Pais. "It was something they’d planned." It has now emerged that the same group, described by the restaurant owner as Roma from Romania, have a history of not paying their bill. The same group of family and friends, dubbed the ‘kings of simpa’ – a diminutive of ‘sin pagar’ meaning without paying, are thought to be responsible for “doing a runner” earlier this year after celebrating a wedding banquet for a young couple at another restaurant in the region. The owners of El Rincón de Pepín, a restaurant in nearby Ponferrada believes they fell victim to the same fraudsters in February when a group of 200 wedding guests “stampeded” out of the dining room just before the coffees were served. “They had made a reservation for 100 but there was close to 200 people present,” one of the workers there told El Confidencial. “Just after eating their desserts when I was on my way to make coffee, they all upped and left.” They left an outstanding bill of more than €10,000. The restaurant claims to have tracked some of the culprits down after finding photographs of the occasion posted on Facebook and have lodged a complaint with the Guardia Civil who are investigating the incident. ||||| Image copyright El Rincon de Pepin Image caption The owner of El Rincon de Pepin said the mystery guests owed €10,000 Police are investigating whether a gang who ate thousands of euros of food in a restaurant in Spain before fleeing had targeted another eatery. Last week, about 120 diners, who had consumed about 2,000 euros of food and drink, left a restaurant in northern Spain as dessert was due to be served. It has now emerged a second restaurant only 10km (six miles) away was previously targeted in the same way. The owners said they believed they were the victims of the same group. In the first case, the group, purporting to be celebrating a baptism, paid a deposit of €900 ($950; £770) to eat at the El Carmen restaurant in Bembibre, in the north-western Castile and Leon region. "It happened in the space of a minute," owner Antonio Rodriguez said. "It was something they had planned and they left in a stampede." El Carmen's case felt more than a little familiar to Laura Arias, the owner of El Rincon de Pepin, a restaurant in nearby Ponferrada. The group told her they were celebrating a wedding, she said, and ordered a fairly basic menu. They paid €1,000 as a deposit, but consumed €10,000 ($10,600; £8,600) worth of food and drink. "There were 160 of them and they all disappeared. Suddenly. Within five minutes," Laura told the BBC. "That was the unusual thing. "Usually people leave over time, and you expect someone to come to talk to you and say they will settle the bill the next morning or something. But they didn't say anything, they just disappeared." The unusual crime has been reported to police, but Ms Arias is in no doubt who is responsible. "It's the same people. We can tell from the photos." Reports in northern Spain quoted witnesses as saying the group was from eastern Europe. On Monday, the Diario del Leon newspaper reported (in Spanish) that two ringleaders had been identified and that police were working to establish firm links between the two cases. ||||| MADRID (AP) — They booked banquets for hundreds of guests. They ate, drank, danced and even set off fireworks. But when desserts arrived, they drove away in the blink of an eye, leaving behind unpaid bills amounting to thousands of euros. A trail of similar recent incidents in various restaurants in northwestern Spain is being investigated by police, who have detained one man from Romania whose identity matches some of the bookings, authorities said on Tuesday. "We had just served the cake and they left just like that, without insults, without being rude to us. They got in their cars and sped out," said Antonio Rodriguez, who was the first restaurateur to alert authorities after staff in his Carmen Hotel found themselves with an unpaid bill of 2,200 euros ($2,300). The reservation for Feb. 27 in Bembibre, a town in northwestern Castile and Leon region, was to celebrate the christening of two boys with appetizers, pork chops, dessert and alcohol for 120 guests, said Rodriguez. The cake was on its way when the guests left "in a stampede," he said. A few days later, another establishment in Ponferrada, only 20 kilometers (12.5 miles) away, served food and alcohol in a wedding banquet for a value of around 10,000 euros ($10,600) — with the same outcome. Rodriguez says that at least one other similar incident has emerged in the northern region of Galicia since he told his story to local media. When the banquet was almost finished, guests came out of the dining hall to set off fireworks but never returned. The owner of Carmen, who says he has never seen anything similar in almost four decades in the business, had been paid a deposit of 900 euros, but he expresses little hope of recovering the remaining debt. "What's really worse is that it feels like they are pouring cold water onto you, seeing them leaving and knowing that there's nothing that you can do because these were huge men with muscles," Rodriguez told The Associated Press. A spokesman with the Interior Ministry in Leon, the province where the first two cases were reported, confirmed the arrest on Monday of a first suspect. A second man who is on the run could have left the country already, according to a spokesman with the Civil Guard, and more suspects have been identified. But no further details would be released to avoid tipping the fraudsters off. Both officials spoke anonymously in line with internal policy.

– All hail the new kings of the dine and dash. Authorities and restaurateurs in northwest Spain are on the lookout after a huge group of hungry people is suspected of skating out on massive bills around the region. One such incident happened Feb. 27 at the Carmen Hotel in Bembibre, where 120 diners were celebrating the christening of two boys, the AP reports. Owner Antonio Rodriguez says the diners racked up a $2,300 bill then left "in a stampede" before the cake showed up. According to the Local, the diners actually danced the conga out the door and to their cars. Rodriguez says it was like "something they'd planned," but there wasn't anything he could do "because these were huge men with muscles." Within days and a few miles of the Carmen Hotel incident, a wedding party of between 160 and 200 guests skipped out on a $10,600 bill at El Rincon de Pepin in Ponferrado. The guests reportedly went outside to set off celebratory fireworks after the meal but before coffee and never returned. "They didn't say anything," El Rincon de Pepin owner Laura Arias tells the BBC. "They just disappeared." It's believed the same group is responsible for both incidents, as well as a potential third. Authorities started investigating after restaurateurs claimed to have identified some of the dine-and-dashers through photos posted on Facebook. A man from Romania believed to be a ringleader has been arrested. (These dine-and-dashers allegedly hit their waitress with a car, too.)

A review of euthanasia or assisted suicide (EAS) cases among patients with psychiatric disorders in the Netherlands found that most had chronic, severe conditions, with histories of attempted suicides and hospitalizations, and were described as socially isolated or lonely, according to an article published online by JAMA Psychiatry. The practice of EAS has been around for decades in the Netherlands, although formal legislation was not unacted until 2002. Scott Y.H. Kim, M.D., Ph.D., of the National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Md., and coauthors describe the characteristics of patients receiving EAS for psychiatric conditions and how the practice is regulated in the Netherlands. Summaries of cases of EAS for psychiatric conditions were made available online by Dutch regional euthanasia review committees. The study authors reviewed 66 cases for 2011 to 2014. Of the 66 cases, 46 of them were women (70 percent); 32 percent of patients (n=21) were 70 or older; 44 percent (n=29) were 50 to 70 years old; and 24 percent (n=16) were 30 to 50 years old. Among the patients, 52 percent (n=34) had attempted suicide and 80 percent (n=53) had been hospitalized for psychiatric reasons. Most patients had more than one psychiatric condition and depressive disorders were the primary psychiatric issue in 55 percent (n=36) of cases. Some patients had undergone electroconvulsive therapy for difficult-to-treat depression. However, in the case of one woman in her 70s with no health problems, she and her husband had decided years earlier that they would not live without each other. After he died, she described her life as a "living hell" and "meaningless," although the women reportedly "did not feel depressed at all" and ate, drank, and slept well, according to the study. About 52 percent (34 of 66) of patients had personality-related problems, although sometimes without a formal diagnosis and more than a majority of patients had at least one coexisting illness, including cancer, cardiac disease, diabetes, stroke and others. Reports on 37 patients (56 percent) mentioned social isolation and loneliness, including one patient who "indicated that she had a life without love and therefore had no right to exist" and another described as "an utterly lonely man whose life had been a failure." Some of the patients had a history of EAS refusal. Among them, 21 patients (32 percent) had been refused EAS at some point but physicians later changed their mind about three of them and performed EAS, while the remaining 18 patients had physicians who were new to them perform the EAS. In 14 cases, the new physician was affiliated with a mobile euthanasia practice End-of-Life Clinic. In 27 cases (41 percent), the physician performing EAS was a psychiatrist but in the rest of the cases it was usually general practitioners. Consultation with other physicians was extensive but in 11 percent (n=7) of cases there was no independent psychiatric input and 24 percent (n=16) of cases involved disagreements among physicians. Euthanasia review committees found only one case failed to meet the criteria for legal due care among all 110 reported psychiatric EAS cases during 2011 to 2014, the study reports. "The retrospective oversight system in the Netherlands generally defers to the judgments of the physicians who perform and report EAS. Whether the system provides sufficient regulatory oversight remains an open question that will require further study," the study concludes. (JAMA Psychiatry. Published online February 10, 2016. doi:10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2015.2887. Available pre-embargo to the media at http://media. jamanetwork. com .) Editor's Note: The research costs of this study were supplied by the Intramural research Program, Department of Bioethics, National Institutes of Health. Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, financial disclosures, funding and support, etc. Editorial: Physician-Assisted Deaths for Patients with Mental Disorders "Although the data by Kim and colleagues can serve as indicators of problems with the Dutch system, it would be good to keep their data limitations in mind. Based as they are on reports filed by the physicians most directly involved in these cases, the accuracy of the information reported is unknown. For many variables, data had to be abstracted from narrative summaries translated from another language. The available sample did not reflect all cases involving psychiatric disorders. It is unclear why some reports were either not filed or not made publicly available or how the data might have differed if they were. Finally, because these cases are exclusively drawn from instances in which assisted death took place, we cannot conclude anything about the effectiveness of the screening process in excluding inappropriate cases. At the least, however, these data suggest the desirability of a more thorough examination of the Dutch process where patients with psychiatric disorders are concerned," writes Paul S. Applebaum, M.D., of the New York State Psychiatric Institute, New York. (JAMA Psychiatry. Published online February 10, 2016. doi:10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2015.2890. Available pre-embargo to the media at http://media. jamanetwork. com .) Editor's Note: Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, financial disclosures, funding and support, etc. ### To contact study corresponding author Scott Y.H. Kim, M.D., Ph.D., call Molly Freimuth at 301-594-5789 or email molly.freimuth@nih.gov. To contact editorial author Paul S. Applebaum, M.D., call Rachel Yarmolinsky at 646-774-5353 or email yarmoli@nyspi.columbia.edu. ||||| By Andrew M. Seaman (Reuters Health) - Laws permitting assisted suicide may justify the right of even psychiatric patients to end their lives in theory, but the reality of implementing such programs is messy, a study of the Netherlands finds. Complex medical histories and disagreements among doctors were common elements among the Dutch cases of psychiatric patients who chose legalized assisted suicide or euthanasia, say the researchers who analyzed them. “When you actually try to implement it even in a setting where there is excellent healthcare, there are a lot of red flags that need to be investigated further,” said lead study author Dr. Scott Kim, a psychiatrist and bioethicist at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. In some form, assisted death is legalized in Belgium, The Netherlands, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Canada and a few U.S. states, Kim and his colleagues write in JAMA Psychiatry. “In Belgium and The Netherlands they have a much more expansive law that doesn’t regard diagnosis as important,” Kim told Reuters Health. The ambiguity allows the law to also apply to patients with psychiatric illnesses. People with treatment-resistant depression tend to be the focus of debate over assisted suicide for psychiatric illnesses, the researchers note. But little is known about who actually uses the 2002 law that formalized euthanasia practices in the Netherlands. For the new study, the researchers examined case summaries from Dutch regional euthanasia review committees posted online by June 2015. The committees are charged with ensuring that “due care” was given by the doctors involved in each case. There were 66 summaries of psychiatric assisted suicide cases that took place between 2011 and 2014, representing the majority of assisted suicides involving psychiatric patients known to have occurred during that period. Overall, about a third of the people helped to end their lives were age 70 years or older, 44 percent were between ages 50 and 70 and about a quarter were 30 to 50 years old. Seventy percent were women. While fully 55 percent of patients were diagnosed with depression, the others had a number of different conditions, including psychosis, posttraumatic stress disorder or anxiety, neurocognitive issues, pain without any physical cause, eating disorders, prolonged grief and autism. About a quarter of patients’ suicides were assisted by psychiatrists, and about one in five patients were treated by unfamiliar doctors - the majority from a mobile assisted suicide clinic funded by a Dutch right to die organization. The researchers also found that about one in 10 patients receive no outside input from psychiatrists, and about a quarter of cases involved disagreement between the doctors treating the patient. Dr. Paul Applebaum writes in an accompanying editorial that the findings “raise serious concerns about the implementation of physician-assisted dying for psychiatric patients.” For example, over half of the cases also had personality disorders, which raises questions about “the stability of the expressed desires to die,” writes Applebaum, of the New York State Psychiatric Institute and Columbia University’s Department of Psychiatry in New York City. When one considers the subjective criteria used to determine a person’s eligibility for assisted suicide or euthanasia in The Netherlands, Dr. Aaron Kheriaty said, it’s no surprise to see such a wide range of ages and psychiatric diagnoses among the patients who choose to end their lives this way. “To me that’s very concerning,” said Kheriaty, a psychiatrist and director of the Medical Ethics Program at the University of California, Irvine. Some of the conditions listed in the cases are potentially treatable, he said. “I think when we open the door to assisted suicide for psychiatric patients, we risk abandoning patients when there may be hope,” said Kheriaty, who was not involved with the new study. Kim said there is currently no standardized system for reporting these cases, and the availability of data varies by country. “I think there needs to be a lot more transparency of what actually happens when assisted suicide or euthanasia is provided,” he said. “Right now the Dutch system is the most transparent.” SOURCE: bit.ly/1SgP7Xs and bit.ly/1SgPaTp JAMA Psychiatry, online February 10, 2016. ||||| Importance Euthanasia or assisted suicide (EAS) of psychiatric patients is increasing in some jurisdictions such as Belgium and the Netherlands. However, little is known about the practice, and it remains controversial. Objectives To describe the characteristics of patients receiving EAS for psychiatric conditions and how the practice is regulated in the Netherlands. Design, Setting, and Participants This investigation reviewed psychiatric EAS case summaries made available online by the Dutch regional euthanasia review committees as of June 1, 2015. Two senior psychiatrists used directed content analysis to review and code the reports. In total, 66 cases from 2011 to 2014 were reviewed. Main Outcomes and Measures Clinical and social characteristics of patients, physician review process of the patients’ requests, and the euthanasia review committees’ assessments of the physicians’ actions. Results Of the 66 cases reviewed, 70% (n = 46) were women. In total, 32% (n = 21) were 70 years or older, 44% (n = 29) were 50 to 70 years old, and 24% (n = 16) were 30 to 50 years old. Most had chronic, severe conditions, with histories of attempted suicides and psychiatric hospitalizations. Most had personality disorders and were described as socially isolated or lonely. Depressive disorders were the primary psychiatric issue in 55% (n = 36) of cases. Other conditions represented were psychotic, posttraumatic stress or anxiety, somatoform, neurocognitive, and eating disorders, as well as prolonged grief and autism. Comorbidities with functional impairments were common. Forty-one percent (n = 27) of physicians performing EAS were psychiatrists. Twenty-seven percent (n = 18) of patients received the procedure from physicians new to them, 14 of whom were physicians from the End-of-Life Clinic, a mobile euthanasia clinic. Consultation with other physicians was extensive, but 11% (n = 7) of cases had no independent psychiatric input, and 24% (n = 16) of cases involved disagreement among consultants. The euthanasia review committees found that one case failed to meet legal due care criteria. Conclusions and Relevance Persons receiving EAS for psychiatric disorders in the Netherlands are mostly women and of diverse ages, with complex and chronic psychiatric, medical, and psychosocial histories. The granting of their EAS requests appears to involve considerable physician judgment, usually involving multiple physicians who do not always agree (sometimes without independent psychiatric input), but the euthanasia review committees generally defer to the judgments of the physicians performing the EAS. ||||| The study, led by Dr. Scott Y. H. Kim, a psychiatrist and bioethicist at the National Institutes of Health, looked at records of most of the cases of doctor-assisted death for psychiatric distress from 2011 to mid-2014. In 37 of those 66 cases, people had refused a recommended treatment that could have helped. The study did not evaluate cases of people who had been denied assistance. Depression was the most common diagnosis, but loneliness was also a frequent theme. “The patient was an utterly lonely man whose life had been a failure,” read one account. In another, a woman in her 70s said she and her husband had decided years earlier that they would not live without each other. She had no health problems, but after her husband died, she described her life as “a living hell.” Five states in this country have laws allowing doctors to prescribe life-ending drugs to mentally competent, terminally ill adults: Oregon, Vermont, Montana, Washington, and California. The California law is expected to take effect this year. By contrast, laws in several European countries allow such assistance for any competent person with “unbearable suffering” — regardless of the cause. Newsletter Sign Up Continue reading the main story Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up You agree to receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times's products and services. Thank you for subscribing. An error has occurred. Please try again later. View all New York Times newsletters. Last year, a team of doctors in Belgium, where laws are similar to those in the Netherlands, reported that most people who sought doctor-assisted death for psychiatric problems had depression, personality disorders or both. The new study of the Netherlands fills out that picture considerably, detailing the agonizing decisions by both doctors and patients in cases that went forward, ending in voluntary death. The researchers, who included Dr. John Peteet of Harvard Medical School and Raymond De Vries of the University of Michigan and Maastricht University in the Netherlands, found that 46 of the patients had been women, most 60 or older. The depression was often mixed with other problems, like substance abuse, mild dementia or physical pain. More than half had received a diagnosis of a personality disorder, like avoidant or dependent personality, which are typically bound up with relationship problems. The group also included people with diagnoses of eating disorders and autism spectrum conditions. Many reported being intensely lonely. “The Dutch system is really the idealized setting in which to try something like this,” said Dr. Kim, in an interview. “But still, you can see that there are many cases that make us question whether this is the right practice.” In the Dutch system, consulting doctors review petitions for assistance in dying. In one quarter of the cases, the study found, the doctors disagreed. Barbara Coombs Lee, president of Compassion and Choices, which advocates compassionate end-of-life care, said the debate over people with psychiatric conditions was not relevant to laws in the United States, which have been modeled on Oregon’s 1997 Death With Dignity Act. Advertisement Continue reading the main story “I have seen no parallel movement or discussion at any level in this country,” Ms. Coombs Lee said. “I don’t know of anyone ever proposing this here, or of any poll supporting anything but self-administration by mentally competent, terminally ill adults.” ||||| GHENT, Belgium (AP) — After struggling with mental illness for years, Cornelia Geerts was so desperate to die that she asked her psychiatrist to kill her. Her sister worried that her judgment was compromised. The 59-year-old was taking more than 20 pills every day, including antidepressants, an opioid, a tranquilizer, and two medicines often used to treat bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. About a year later, on October 7, 2014, her doctor administered a lethal dose of drugs. It was all legal procedure in Belgium, which has among the world’s most permissive euthanasia laws. “I know it was Cornelia’s wish, but I said to the psychiatrist that it was a shame that someone in treatment for years could just be brought to the other side with a simple injection,” said her sister, Adriana Geerts. Belgium is one of five countries that allow doctors to kill patients at their request, and one of two, along with the Netherlands, that grant the procedure for people with mental illness. The idea is that those with a psychiatric illness should be afforded the same rights as those suffering from a physical one. “I always regret that we couldn’t do something else,” said Dr. Lieve Thienpont, one of the doctors who signed off on Geerts’ death. “At the same time, I’m part of the relief for the patient.” Like many in Belgium and elsewhere, Thienpont, a respected psychiatrist and prominent euthanasia advocate, believes that when medicine can’t relieve suffering, euthanasia — when doctors actively kill patients — should be an option. And because psychological suffering can be harder to detect, doctors must take patients at their word. “You can’t see it on a scan,” she said. “But we have to listen to the patient. We have to believe them because we can’t see (the suffering) always.” Cases like Geerts and others have shown, though, how difficult it can be to strike a balance between respecting personal freedom and ensuring that people requesting euthanasia have the mental capacity to make that decision. Many, including Geerts’ sister Adriana, think society should try harder to help struggling people with issues they face in jobs and relationships. Thienpont’s approach to managing euthanasia requests has raised concerns even among doctors who support the procedure for psychological suffering. According to copies of letters obtained by The Associated Press, those worries have led to a clash between Thienpont and Dr. Wim Distelmans, chairman of Belgium’s euthanasia review commission, that has not been publicly disclosed. The documents do not include accusations that patients were killed who shouldn’t have been, but they suggest doctors may have failed to meet certain legal requirements in some cases. And they highlight how difficult it can be to judge whose pain should end in death. Distelmans did not respond to requests by email and telephone for an interview. Thienpont described receiving Distelmans’ letter in February as “a very difficult moment” and said that she and members of Distelmans’ team were still working out how to resolve what she called “internal issues.” In the countries where euthanasia is legal — Belgium, Canada, Colombia, Luxembourg and the Netherlands — the vast majority of cases are people with a fatal illness such as cancer who have only weeks or months to live. To qualify for euthanasia in Belgium, people must meet a number of criteria, including proving they have “unbearable and untreatable” suffering. Among adults whose lives are ended for psychiatric reasons, the most common conditions are depression, personality disorder and Asperger’s syndrome, a mild form of autism. People diagnosed with early-stage dementia can also request euthanasia, including for the future. Euthanasia is not permitted in the U.S., but six states and Washington D.C. allow assisted suicide, where doctors provide people with the means to kill themselves, such as a deadly dose of medication. Patients must be terminally ill and the procedure is forbidden for psychiatric patients. As these procedures are slowly becoming more accepted, and in some places where they are already allowed, boundaries are being stretched even further. In 2014, Belgium became the first country in the world to expand its original euthanasia law by explicitly allowing it for children, although this cannot be for psychological suffering. The Netherlands, the first country to legalize euthanasia, has proposed extending euthanasia to old, healthy people who feel they have “completed” their lives. Canada, which passed its euthanasia law last year, is facing legal challenges designed to expand access to the procedure. The number of people killed for psychological suffering is small — about 40 cases among Belgium’s 2,000 yearly euthanasia deaths. But that’s more than some experts predicted. In 2008, when euthanasia for psychiatric disorders was first broken out, four people were euthanized for psychiatric disorders. By 2015, the latest year for which data are available, that figure was 43. ____ “WHAT COULD HELP ME TO DIE?” As more countries grapple with whether to legalize assisted dying, Thienpont argues they needn’t worry about setting limits on who should be eligible for euthanasia, because only the truly desperate will ask to die. “You don’t have to be afraid,” she said. One of Thienpont’s patients, Amy De Schutter, says approving euthanasia for psychiatric patients can save lives. “We want to live,” said De Schutter, whose request for euthanasia was granted last year, though she didn’t set an immediate date to die. De Schutter says she endured years of failed treatment at psychiatric institutions and spent months deliberating how to kill herself. A trained physicist, she calculated the time it would take for an overdose to kick in, considered which bridge she might jump from and listed ways to kill herself in PowerPoint presentations. De Schutter had already picked the day of her suicide, but one month before her intended death last year, her euthanasia request was accepted. Once she had been given clearance to legally die at home, she was relieved she wouldn’t have to kill herself. That was comforting enough to her that she didn’t set an immediate date for her euthanasia and has even drawn up a list of things she’d like to do in the meantime. “It felt like 10,000 kilos was just (lifted),” De Schutter said. She says if she hadn’t been in a country where euthanasia was legal, she would have resorted to suicide by now. Pierre Pol Vincke wishes his daughter Edith could have gotten that same relief — and perhaps continued to live. “She said, ‘Dad, you understand science, what could help me to die?” said Vincke, a biologist and amateur beekeeper in his garden in Ramillies, Belgium. “I said, as a father, I can’t do that.” Doctors refused her euthanasia request, despite years of psychiatric illness. On November 3, 2011, Edith slashed her throat. Jean-Jacques De Gucht, a Belgian lawmaker who co-sponsored the amendment that made the procedure available to children, says the law enhances personal freedom and that criticism of the country’s euthanasia policies are misguided. “I think one of the greatest gifts you can give to society is to give people the possibility to choose for themselves if they’re in a situation where they’re suffering every day, to choose for themselves how to cope with that pain,” he said. _____ “WE MUST TRY TO STOP THESE PEOPLE” Sophie Nys believes her sister’s euthanasia was granted far too easily. She acknowledges that her sister Tine had long struggled with mental health problems, but said it was unthinkable that those problems warranted her death. Tine’s longtime psychiatrist rejected her request to die, but Tine soon found Thienpont. Sophie Nys says that Thienpont diagnosed Tine with Asperger’s and approved her euthanasia request after two or three sessions with Thienpont. Because Asperger’s is “incurable and chronic,” it meets one of the legal requirements for euthanasia. Sophie said her sister was so intent on being euthanized she might have manipulated the test. “She knew that if she wasn’t diagnosed with autism or Asperger’s that she would not have a chance (of being euthanized),” she said. Two months after her diagnosis with Asperger’s, Nys was killed, at age 38. After Nys’ death, her sister Sophie filed a criminal complaint, alleging irregularities in her sister’s euthanasia procedure, including fumbling efforts to administer drugs and asking her family to confirm that Tine’s heart had stopped. Nys later obtained access to her sister’s medical file and found emails between her sister’s doctors attempting to block the investigation into Tine’s death. “We must try to stop these people,” Thienpont wrote in one email to her colleagues that was provided to the AP. “It is a seriously dysfunctional, wounded, traumatized family with very little empathy and respect for others,” the message read. “I am starting to better understand Tine’s suffering.” The criminal complaint against Thienpont and the other doctors involved in Tine Nys’ death was dismissed last year. The Nys family is appealing the decision. Others who knew Tine Nys have suggested the family’s account is not reliable because they were estranged, and that she was convinced only death would alleviate her misery. Thienpont declined to comment on the Nys case, citing medical confidentiality. ____ “YOUR EUTHANASIA CASES WILL NOT BE TREATED ANYMORE” Thienpont’s readiness to grant euthanasia to mental health patients has made some of her own colleagues uncomfortable. In 2015, Thienpont was the lead author of a paper published in the medical journal BMJ Open, tracking 100 of her patients who requested euthanasia between 2007 and 2011. Of those, 48 were granted. Some doctors were stunned by the high number of requests Thienpont fielded and how many were approved. At some other major psychiatric centers in Belgium, doctors receive only a handful of such requests every year, of which perhaps about 10 to 30 percent are accepted, according to several psychiatrists who deal with such requests. “That one single psychiatrist in Belgium has had such a major impact on the practice of euthanasia in psychiatric patients is very alarming,” said Dr. Stephan Claes, a psychiatrist at the University of Leuven. Thienpont disputed that characterization, adding that she was not the only psychiatrist signing off on patients’ requests and that her numbers were not unusual. But some colleagues, including some of the most prominent euthanasia practitioners in Belgium, have refused to accept her patients. Distelmans, a cancer doctor who chairs the euthanasia commission and helped found the clinics known as “End of Life Information Forum,” known by their Flemish acronym, LEIF, has administered the fatal injection to some of Belgium’s most high-profile cases, including a man who had a bungled sex change and deaf twins, aged 45, who were going blind. He and Thienpont had a long history of collaboration, with Thienpont’s Ghent-based organization, Vonkel, referring patients to his LEIF clinics. But earlier this year, Distelmans and colleagues sent Thienpont a letter that raised concern that some patients may have been killed without meeting a legal requirement that an independent consultation be performed first. “Your euthanasia cases will not be treated anymore within our operation,” Distelmans and colleagues wrote in a February 13 letter. “The reason is a difference of opinion on how a request for euthanasia must be approved. We have already communicated this several times orally, but to no avail.” Thienpont said the letter raised problems only about how patients were referred, not how she and colleagues were practicing euthanasia, and that Distelmans told her after the letter was sent that he has no concerns about her euthanasia process. She says she has never once received a request from the euthanasia commission to provide more details about her cases. Thienpont also blamed the patients for not describing events accurately. “These patients are very desperate, stressed,” she said. “They say things that are not always correct.” Belgium requires that people seeking euthanasia for psychiatric reasons receive an independent consultation from at least two other doctors in addition to the one who approved the procedure. The doctors don’t have to agree; the law requires only that the objective assessments be sought. Despite that latitude, Distelmans complained that Thienpont’s patients were arriving at his clinic with “unrealistic expectations,” presuming that their euthanasia request would automatically be approved. That, he said, made conducting an independent assessment — a statutory requirement — unworkable. “We found several times that you had already made promises to patients that were referred to us,” they wrote, and that such “promises” undermined their own attempts to engage with patients and figure out if euthanasia was justifiable. “We want to distance ourselves from this way of working.” Penney Lewis, co-director of the Centre of Medical Law and Ethics at King’s College London, said that Distelmans’ objections to Thienpont’s practice, given his role as chair of the national euthanasia commission, were particularly serious. “He is someone who is well-versed in reviewing cases to make decisions,” she said. “If he’s saying, ‘I think there’s a concern about one of the legal criteria in your practice,’ that carries much greater weight than if it were just another consultant doctor saying that.” _____ “A NEED TO BE STRICTER” Support for euthanasia, including for psychiatric patients, remains high in Belgium. And the country’s public health minister, Maggie De Block, is a euthanasia advocate who once helped raise money for Distelmans’ clinics. But the Nys case and others like it have led some critics to a push for more exacting oversight and tougher approval procedures. An increasing number of psychiatrists say the vague provisions of the law give individual doctors too much discretion and believe more rigorous oversight is needed to protect patients. Other experts are troubled by the lack of transparency in Belgium. There is one review commission in Belgium and they release little information about cases. In the Netherlands, there are five committees and they release detailed accounts of controversial cases. Since 2002, only one case in Belgium has been referred to prosecutors for further investigation. Fernand Keuleneer, who sat on the Belgian national euthanasia commission, said the system is not designed to protect patients in part because cases are only reviewed after their deaths. The Flemish Psychiatric Association is now drafting new guidelines, including a requirement that all proven treatments be tried before considering euthanasia. “There’s a need to be stricter because now we see that sometimes euthanasia is granted too quickly, too easily, without enough checks and balances,” said Dr. Joris Vandenberghe, a psychiatrist at the University of Leuven, who is working on the guidance. They resemble those already being used in the Netherlands, and are set to be presented in December. “I’m convinced that in Belgium, people have died where there were still treatment options and where there was still a chance for years and even decades of (quality) life,” Vandenberghe said. _____ “I WISH THERE HAD BEEN ANOTHER WAY” Doctors say that balancing the finality of euthanasia with the often treatable and sometimes fleeting nature of many psychiatric illnesses is extraordinarily difficult. “These are patients who are easily misunderstood because of the disorders they have,” said Dr. Scott Kim, a bioethics expert at the U.S. National Institutes of Health. He said psychiatric patients will often express a wish to die that is transient or a symptom of their condition. “Any patient with a serious psychiatric diagnosis will be in a lot of distress and could technically meet the Belgian requirement of ‘unbearable suffering’ for euthanasia.” Psychiatrist Claes said he is convinced treatment options remain for many of the patients with psychological suffering being euthanized. He recalled consulting on the euthanasia request of a woman who was about 25, with issues including borderline personality disorder, self-harming behavior and mood instability. “She told me that she already had the permission for euthanasia given by Dr. Thienpont,” he said. “What was really shocking about this patient specifically was that she was very young and a number of therapeutic options had clearly not been tried out sufficiently.” But to desperate patients like De Schutter, further restricting euthanasia for psychiatric patients is a form of discrimination that infringes on her autonomy. “I can get a loan, I can buy a car, I can (have) kids, I can buy a house (and) do everything that I want to,” she said. “But if I want to end my life, all of a sudden, I can’t think straight anymore? That’s something strange.” For some bereaved relatives whose loved ones have been euthanized for psychological reasons, the loss is compounded by a belief that doctors should have instead done what they could to keep their patients alive. Although Geerts disagreed with her sister’s request for euthanasia, she accompanied Cornelia to the clinic that morning, in the hopes that she would change her mind. “I think if the doctors had tried to help her more or proposed other things, she might have felt there was another solution,” she said. “I wish there had been another way.” ____ Associated Press writer Jamey Keaten in Zurich contributed to this report.

– Euthanasia is itself not without controversy; the euthanasia or assisted suicide (EAS) of the mentally ill even more so. It's an infrequent practice but one on the rise in the Netherlands, which is thought to have seen no more than five such cases in 1997 but 42 in 2013. Still, "little is known" about these cases, write researchers in a report published Wednesday in JAMA Psychiatry. And so they reviewed the particulars of 66 patients who opted for EAS in the country from 2011 to 2014. Depression was the most common psychiatric disorder, but there was also psychosis, PTSD, and anxiety and long-term eating disorders (most had more than one condition). About half had attempted suicide; almost all had a comorbidity (ranging from cancer to arthritis), though the study calls out one healthy 70-year-old woman who simply found her life a "living hell" in the year after her husband's death. As for how they came to end their lives, "the reality of implementing such programs is messy," Reuters notes. In 32% of the cases, the patient had been refused EAS. The physicians for three of those 21 patients ultimately reversed their decisions; the other 18 got approval from a new physician. In 24% of the cases, there was physician disagreement, per a press release, and the New York Times points out that while most patients had long treatment histories, 56% had turned down at least some treatment. In an accompanying editorial, Dr. Paul S. Applebaum sees further "red flags," among them the 20% who had never been hospitalized for psychiatric reasons, the "ratio of women to men (2.3 to 1), and the 56% of cases in which social isolation or loneliness was important enough to be mentioned," raising "the concern that physician-assisted death served as a substitute for effective psychosocial intervention." (Belgium granted a depressed 24-year-old the right to die.)

With the impact of the horrific attack on a Connecticut elementary school still fresh, a grieving nation turns to an equally grief-stricken media in the hopes of making sense of this nightmare. What they find, though, is a lamentable parade of falsehoods and half-truths. With the true villain in this story having robbed the nation of its desire for revenge, media figures and politicians alike are casting about for an antagonist. Since Sunday, a target has emerged in violent video games, and an emotional media is venting their powerless anger on the entertainment industry. But to indict entertainment, and video games in particular, is a self-serving instinct and irresponsible broadcasting. A disturbing number of public figures have lashed out at video games since the atrocity committed at Sandy Hook Elementary on Friday. A bipartisan group of legislators embraced this scapegoating on the Sunday news programs; from Democrats like Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and Gov. John Hickenlooper (D-CO) to Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) and former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge. They were joined by members of the media – sadly, too many to count. On MSNBC on Monday, Chris Jansing asked her guests what connection Adam Lanza’s interest in video games had to his murderous shooting spree. She quoted senior White House advisor David Axelrod who tweeted “shouldn’t we also quit marketing murder as a game?” Liberal contributor Goldie Taylor revealed that she refused to let her child play games until he was 14-years-old. “Exposure to that kind of content is just simply not good for children,” Taylor said. “I think that it’s important to guard our children and keep them safe from some of these messages that are simply destructive.” She noted that music, movies, games, and even cartoons, are responsible for… something. On Fox & Friends on Monday, legal analyst Peter Johnson Jr. delivered an offensively sermonizing renunciation of entertainment producers and videogame makers who are “clinging to guns economically.” “They are glamorizing guns in this country. They are the scourge in terms of these guns,” Johnson Jr. said of game and filmmakers. “Guns can kill if people have evil intentions, but don’t tell our children that it’s acceptable to mow down people in malls, in churches, in schools, on the street – they don’t know better. They know what they’re taught. And we’re teaching them wrong.” “Death should not be the byproduct of our entertainment,” Johnson Jr. concluded. Johnson Jr. cites a study which purports to show prolonged exposure to violent video games over the course of three straight days made the subjects show “increases in aggressive behavior and hostile expectations.” But Johnson Jr. is guilty of cherry-picking data to support his conclusion. A 2009 study showed that video games which focus on driving make the subjects more aggressive than violent games in where the player is primarily shooting at targets. Another study showed that just thinking about violent video games can make males more aggressive. Given the ever-expanding target demographic for games, gun violence should be on the rise. In fact, the opposite is occurring. Violent crime, and gun crime in particular, has decreased as videogame playing has increased. Are the two conditions related – that is unlikely. Myriad factors are responsible for the decrease in violent crime; videogame proliferation is probably not among them. Likewise, there is no causal link between being a videogame player and exhibiting violent tendencies. The Economist tackled this subject in 2005, and the wisdom they committed to print still pertains: It’s the classic struggle of the old versus the new that has video games in policymakers’ crosshairs: “The opposition to gaming springs largely from the neophobia that has pitted the old against the entertainments of the young for centuries. Most gamers are under 40, and most critics are non-games-playing over-40s.” The horror that unfolded in Connecticut on Friday was an unspeakable atrocity. It was not, as some have said, a tragedy. Tragedies are so often beyond control, but gun violence is not an inevitable consequence of living in a free society. Politicians feel the need to do something — anything — in the wake of such a disaster to assuage the inevitable public cries for action. Media figures, however, have a different responsibility. Theirs mission is not to advocate but to inform – unfortunately, that kind of responsible broadcasting is fast becoming an anachronism on cable news. It is unlikely that any reasonable law would have prevented this attack without negatively impacting millions of law-abiding citizens. No amount of reverence for an almighty God would have made this killer think twice about his actions. No movie or videogame drove Lanza to murder 20 first graders in cold blood. Broadcasters used to feel it was their mission to speak these cold truths to their audiences when disaster struck, lest the electorate reach for emotionally-driven and overreaching remedies to jarring events. Today, broadcasters pull on emotional triggers and further aggravate their viewers with baseless scapegoating. I do not know if there is an immediate solution to that condition. Now that is a tragedy. > >Follow Noah Rothman (@Noah_C_Rothman) on Twitter Have a tip we should know? tips@mediaite.com ||||| Tarantino film ‘Django Unchained’ latest to be pulled after school massacre By Agence France-Presse Tuesday, December 18, 2012 1:26 EST A Hollywood premiere of notoriously violent director Quentin Tarantino’s latest film “Django Unchained” was canceled Monday, the latest such response to the Connecticut school massacre. A string of movies and TV shows have been pulled or postponed since Friday’s shootings, while sporting events have held moments of silence and players have worn black armbands to honor the victims, 20 of whom were young children. The Weinstein Company said that a premiere scheduled Tuesday in Los Angeles of “Django Unchained” – which is due to open on Christmas Day in US theaters – had been called off. “Our thoughts and prayers go out to the families of the tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut, and in this time of national mourning we have decided to forgo our scheduled event,” said a Weinstein Company spokesperson. The studio will still hold a screening for cast and crew and their friends and families, industry daily “Variety” reported. Tarantino is known for screen violence, in movies from 1992′s “Reservoir Dogs” to 2009′s “Inglorious Basterds.” In his new film, a slave-turned-bounty hunter sets out to rescue his wife from a brutal plantation owner. The move came after the weekend premiere of Tom Cruise’s latest movie, “Jack Reacher” – about a homicide investigator probing a trained military sniper who shot five random victims – was postponed. “Our hearts go out to all those who lost loved ones,” said studio Paramount, adding that it took the action “out of honor and respect for the families of the victims whose lives were senselessly taken.” Fox canceled a weekend red carpet event and after-party for “Parental Guidance” starring Bette Midler and Billy Crystal “in light of the horrific tragedy.” The studio also replaced planned broadcasts Sunday of episodes of “Family Guy” and “American Dad” to avoid any insensitivities to the massacre. A moment of silence was observed at National Football League (NFL) games across the country Sunday to remember those killed in the normally peaceful town of Newtown, Connecticut. While some events were canceled because of content, others did not appear to be. PG-rated “Parental Guidance” got its parental warning for some rude humor, not for violence, according to the IMDb industry website. Veteran crooner Barry Manilow postponed a planned Friday night show in Palm Desert, California until Sunday, saying on his website: “Perhaps this small gesture of solidarity will help support these families on this terrible day.” Celebrities were quick to join online expressions of shock and sympathy. Pop star Justin Bieber tweeted: “My prayers go out to all those suffering in this tragedy. it’s just wrong. Everyone please pray for them.” “God have mercy!!!! No one deserves this! Praying for the families of the victims of the Connecticut shooting!! What a Christmas it will be,” added singer Rihanna on the micro-blogging site.

– Everyone's talking about the need for gun control and mental health treatment in the wake of the Newtown school shooting, and Peggy Noonan is on board with reform in both areas. But there's a third area she thinks sorely needs to be addressed: "our national culture ... of death." Violent movies, TV shows, and video games have "a bad impact on the young and unstable who aren’t sturdy enough to withstand and resist sick messages and imagery," Noonan writes in the Wall Street Journal. Republicans can't get anything changed, because Hollywood doesn't respect them—but if President Obama "tells Hollywood it has made America sicker, Hollywood will be forced to listen." () But while Noonan isn't the only one blaming Hollywood, others aren't buying it: On Mediaite, Noah Rothman rounds up the "lamentable parade of falsehoods and half-truths" currently winding through the media. "To indict entertainment, and video games in particular, is a self-serving instinct and irresponsible broadcasting," he writes. In fact, violent crime—particularly gun crime—has gone down as video game playing has gone up. "No movie or video game drove Lanza to murder 20 first graders in cold blood," Rothman writes, and to blame the entertainment industry is "baseless scapegoating." () Quentin Tarantino feels similarly. He's apparently tired of having to defend his violent films: At a press conference for Django Unchained Saturday, he said, “I just think you know there's violence in the world, tragedies happen, blame the playmakers. It's a western. Give me a break." He added that only the perpetrators should be blamed, the Independent reports. Django saw its premiere tonight canceled in light of the shooting.

Indiana University mourns the passing of grad student and former rower Karlijn Keijzer July 18, 2014 EDITOR'S NOTE, 3 p.m. Friday, July 18, 2014: This release has been updated throughout. Please note: An earlier version mistakenly reported that Keijzer had received her master's degree from IU. FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Karlijn Keijzer, a Dutch citizen who was a doctoral student in the Department of Chemistry in the College of Arts and Sciences at Indiana University Bloomington, was among the passengers on Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, which was shot down Thursday, July 17, over Ukraine, leaving no survivors. Keijzer, 25, also had been a member of the women’s rowing team during the 2011 season. “On behalf of the entire Indiana University community, I want to express my deepest sympathies to Karlijn’s family and friends over her tragic death,” Indiana University President Michael A. McRobbie said. “Karlijn was an outstanding student and a talented athlete, and her passing is a loss to the campus and the university. Our hearts also go out to the families of all the victims of this senseless act.” "We are heartbroken by the tragic death of our student, Karlijn Keijzer," said Larry Singell, executive dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. "Karlijn was, by all accounts, a bright star in the IU constellation, a gifted student and athlete, and a talented researcher with a passion for making the world better through science. This is a profoundly sad day in the College. We offer our deepest condolences to her family, colleagues and friends." In the chemistry department, Keijzer was part of a research team that uses large-scale computer simulations to study small-molecule reactions involving certain metals. She was co-author of a research article published this year in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. "Karlijn was a bright, talented doctoral student, a diligent researcher and a dear friend to all of us who worked with her in our research group," said her doctoral advisor, Mu-Hyun Baik, associate professor of chemistry and informatics. "She was a kind, happy young woman full of ideas about the future. She inspired us all with her optimism about how science will make Earth a better place." She also served as an associate instructor in the chemistry department, teaching introductory organic chemistry as well as 400-level courses in biochemistry and biosynthesis. "She worked on several research projects, all related to improving human health," Baik said. "The last piece of research work she completed before heading out to catch her flight to her short summer vacation was preparing a computer simulation on bryostatin, an anti-cancer drug and a promising drug candidate for treating Alzheimer's disease. "We are devastated and mourn the loss of a brilliant, beloved member of IU's chemistry family." "It's a very sad day for the department," added David Giedroc, professor and chair of the Department of Chemistry. "She had a lot of friends in the community, and they'll take this news very hard." Giedroc said he met Keijzer when she arrived at IU in 2010 and, over the years, watched her become part of an increasingly cohesive group of students. About 200 graduate students are in the department, and Keijzer was registered to take classes this fall. "She struck me right then as a very smart, very confident young woman who had a passion for science and for sports that we don't often see," he said. "She was always just a delightful individual." The "stroke" of Varsity 8 boat Keijzer was a member of IU’s Varsity 8 boat during the 2011 season, helping them to a 14-5 record. A talented rower in the Netherlands, she was recruited to row at IU even though she had only one year of eligibility. She earned Collegiate Rowing Coaches Association Scholar-Athlete honors as well as Academic All-Big Ten accolades following the 2011 season. A decorated junior rower, Keijzer participated in the European Rowing Junior Championships in 2006 and the World Rowing Junior Championships in 2007. “The Indiana Rowing family is deeply saddened by the news of Karlijn’s sudden passing,” Indiana head rowing coach Steve Peterson said. “She came to us for one year as a graduate student and truly wanted to pursue rowing. Our condolences go out to her family and friends in this very tough time.” Her impact was impressive. “Karlijn was the ‘stroke’ of the Varsity 8 boat for us," Peterson said. "That is the person who sets the rhythm for the boat and everyone follows her. She was unquestionably the leader of the best boat we had that year. It was the first boat that got us into the national rankings and had a great season. It also helped propel our program towards the success that we had this past season, and we all know that we can trace it back to that boat that was led by Karlijn. “Academically, she was straight A student, so she was outstanding there. But her biggest strength was her personality on the team. Any picture she you see of her, she was always smiling or happy or joking around with someone. She was extremely supportive of her teammates and had a tremendous enthusiasm. She was exactly the type of student-athlete any coach would want on their team. Peterson said that when he met with Keijzer after she finished her eligibility, all she wanted to talk about was the future of the rowing program. “She knew that we were headed in the right direction, and she was genuinely excited about it. Then this past year, we saw that come to fruition and she contacted me and said ‘I told you so.’ So she was as excited as anyone else for us as a program and the success we had.” ||||| “I’m not an overly emotional person,” says Steve Peterson, the head women’s rowing coach at Indiana University. But late Friday afternoon, while talking about Karlijn Keijzer (pronounced Kar-line Kite-ser)–a former Indiana University rower who was killed on Malaysia Airlines Fight 17 on Thursday–Peterson reached his breaking point. She was 25. “One of my favorite memories that keeps popping into my head, and it makes me so sad to say this,” Peterson says, unable to continue his words. Between several pauses to let the tears pass, he explains why he can no longer hide his grief. It was such a small thing, really, but it meant so much. After every season, Peterson conducts exit interviews with his athletes. Keijzer was from the Netherlands, and under NCAA rules was eligible to row only one year while she pursued her graduate studies in chemistry. Keijzer was a key recruit for Peterson, who was looking to draw more international athletes, with more experience, to help keep Indiana competitive in the Big Ten. Keijzer was a terrific fit. She had competed in prestigious events, like the European Rowing Junior Championships and the World Rowing Junior Championships. She had Olympic aspirations. During that 2011 season, she helped transform the Indiana program, leading the Hoosiers to a 14-5 record. She rowed with the Varsity 8 – “the big cheese,” says Peterson – and sat in the “stroke” position. In rowing, the stroke sits closest to the coxswain, and is not unlike the boat’s quarterback. “The stroke sets the rhythm, the pace,” says Peterson. “The best rower sits in the stroke seat.” Peterson calls Keijzer one of the best rowers he’s ever coached, and he’s been at it for 30 years. But during that exit interview that Peterson can’t bear to describe, Keijzer didn’t want to talk about her own performance. “She was just encouraging me, telling me, “Your on the right path, keep doing what you're doing,” says Peterson. Smitten with Bloomington, Keijzer wound up staying on the IU campus, ditching a potential rowing career for the school’s PhD program in chemistry. So this season, she saw Peterson’s team make it all the way to the NCAA championships for the first time in school history. Peterson traces this success directly back to Keijzer’s boat, which made IU nationally relevant and helped bolster recruiting. “After we finally made it, she says ‘I told you you can do it,'” says Peterson. “She was just so ridiculously supportive.” The Malaysia Flight 17 tragedy has already cost so much. In Keijzer, a senseless act cost of group of rowers a beloved teammate, her fellow chemistry students a popular colleague, and the world a scientist intent on fighting cancer and other diseases. David Giedroc, professor and chair of Indiana’s chemistry department, remembers Keijzer walking into his office as soon as she got on campus. She asked if he would advise him. “Here was this confident young lady, passionate about science and sports,” says Giedroc. “High level science and high level NCAA sports – that’s a fairly exotic combination for a graduate student.” During her first year at IU, when she was both rowing and studying, Keijzer would sometimes fall asleep in her lab chair. Still, she somehow managed to make the 6:00 am practices. “We’d be in the locker room at 5:30, it would be windy, rainy," says Jaclyn Riedel, one of Keijzer’s teammates. "But she was kind of leading the charge, cheering everyone on. She was just infectious.”The Amsterdam girl took to Indiana, calling herself a “Dutch Hoosier.” To fit in, she came to one party dressed as an ear of corn. “She wore black spandex, a long yellow shirt with frayed edges, and her hair was green,” says Riedel. Her teammates would ask her for informal Dutch lessons, and when they found out the word for garden gnome – kabouter – a select few, including Keijzer and Riedel, started calling themselves “the kabouters.” They headed to Home Depot to pick up a few statuettes. The gnomes became good luck charms. Riedel would carry one in her backpack, “though it never went into the boat,” she says. After wrapping up her rowing career, Keijzer kept pursuing her doctorate. “As a computational chemist, she had enormous potential,” says Giedroc. This summer, Keijzer was working in the Netherlands, collaborating with researchers at VU University Amsterdam on simulations of anti-tumor drugs. At IU, she was working on developing a computer program that calculates how anti-cancer molecules interacted with partner proteins that might play a role in cancer or Alzheimer's disease. “She was so passionate pharmacological chemistry, and helping people that way,” says Meghan McCormick, Keijzer's lab mate for four years. “Cancer was just one obstacle she was tackling. She also took on a project seeking better HPV vaccines.” Keijzer and McCormick were co-authors on a study just published in the Journal of the American Chemistry Society , titled: “Understanding Intrinsically Irreversible, Non-Nernstian, Two-Electron Redox Processes: A Combined Experimental and Computational Study of the Electrochemical Activation of Platinum(IV) Antitumor Prodrugs.” McCormick offers the lay explanation: “Many second and third generation cancer drugs aren’t working as well as they could be. We think we can make better ones, based on the methodology and tools that we used.” “She was just a strong woman,” says McCormick. “As a woman in science, a woman in chemistry, she was a big inspiration. We always felt like we had to prove ourselves a little bit more, to fight through the biases. We fed off each other’s strengths.” McCormick starts tearing up. “It’s certainly going to take a very long time to walk into that lab, and not see her sitting next to me,” says McCormick. “I’m so used to seeing her smiling at me, drinking coffee, giving me encouragement.” Keijzer was on the Malaysia Airways flight with her boyfriend, bound for a summer vacation in Indonesia before she returned to Indiana. Kuala Lumpur was a layover. When Peterson, her old coach, got word from a former rower on Thursday that Keijzer was most likely on the plane, he was in a car with his family, on his way to visiting a friend in northern Ohio. He didn’t want to believe it. When he saw the confirmation on Keijzer’s Facebook page, the devastation set in. “She was such an optimist,” says Peterson. “Not just for herself, but for her team, and for everybody around her. She was always there, smiling, a best friend. That's now all cut way too short. That’s what really makes me sad.”

– Just one American was among the 298 killed on Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, but also among the victims was an Indiana University doctoral student. Karlijn Keijzer, a 25-year-old Dutch citizen, was a chemistry researcher and, in 2011, a member of the women's rowing team. "Karlijn was, by all accounts, a bright star in the IU constellation, a gifted student and athlete, and a talented researcher with a passion for making the world better through science," says the executive dean of the College of Arts and Sciences in a press release. "This is a profoundly sad day in the College." She came to IU in 2010, and was currently a member of a chemistry research team and an associate instructor in the chemistry department. Under NCAA rules, Keijzer was only eligible to row for one year, but that was enough to make an impact on the head women's rowing coach. He tells Time she was one of the best he's coached in three decades, and she helped propel the school on the path that took it to the NCAA championships for the first time this season. She was registered for classes this fall, but was en route for a summer vacation in Indonesia with her boyfriend when she was killed. The American killed on the flight, 19-year-old Quinn Schansman, was born in the US but spent most of his life in the Netherlands while keeping his dual citizenship, the New York Times reports. A business student and soccer player, he was on his way to meet his family for a vacation in Indonesia, where his grandfather was born.

“Ultimately they want to get Suri indoctrinated to lose her affection for her mother and go out of communication with her.... They might also try messing with Katie's career behind the scenes with lies and false propaganda.“ Miscavige Hill is still scarred from the Scientology upbringing.“I was allowed to see my parents only once a week at best — sometimes not for years,” she said. Holmes filed for divorce in a surprise move last week and is making a bold play for sole legal custody in a reported attempt to block Suri’s indoctrination. She also moved into a luxury building in Chelsea — part of her escape plan — while Cruise, a devout Scientologist, was filming a movie in Iceland. The dark-haired beauty has also hired a new security team. Holmes, 33, put on a brave face Wednesday, beginning her Fourth of July festivities a few blocks from her new home with a mother-daughter trip to buy fixings for a feast. “I’m all right — thank you,” the actress graciously told The News in her first public words since dumping the “Mission: Impossible” star. She spoke to The News while pushing a shopping cart carrying Suri through Whole Foods in Chelsea. Holmes casually strolled the aisles and tossed ground beef, hamburger rolls, strawberries and bananas in her basket. “She’s not going to hide,” a source close to Holmes told The News. “She’s going to live her life.” Bill Bramhall/New York Daily News Hours later, her father Martin Holmes, popped up at the same store to buy paper plates and plastic cups. “She’s doing all right,” he said of his daughter. “We are doing okay.” While Katie Holmes appeared upbeat, Cruise remained downcast. Her stealth divorce filing in New York last week left the Oscar-nominated actor “deeply saddened,” his rep said in a statement. Cruise flew home to Beverly Hills on Tuesday and marked the milestone of his 50th birthday with a “somber” gathering attended by his teenage kids Connor and Isabella. Suri spoke to her dad by phone, a source told People. The heartbroken Hollywood hunk has reportedly begged Holmes for a reconciliation meeting. “She was talking to Tom on the phone up until last week saying, ‘I love you,’ ” a source told People — even as she was finalizing details of the bombshell breakup.With Edgar Sandoval mlysiak@nydailynews.com ||||| By Radar Staff Katie Holmes orchestrated her escape from Tom Cruise and Scientology with surgical precision, and RadarOnline.com has all the details on the bold move that has dropped Hollywood’s collective jaw. “Frankly Katie escaped,” a source told Us magazine, who reported the Dawson’s Creek star put her name on a New York apartment in mid-June with the split in mind. “She felt she had to get out to save her daughter.” Katie’s slow-moving severance from all things TomKat was likely brewing much sooner, as she had stopped going to three-times-a-week Scientology classes more than 18 months ago; distanced herself from Cruise’s sister Lee Anne DeVette; and RadarOnline.com confirmed she fired her team of (mostly-Scientologist) employees — “so she wouldn’t be spied on,” a source told the magazine — in recent weeks. PHOTOS: Tom Cruise & Suri Enjoy The Day At Disney One sticking point of the doomed marriage, Us reported, was that Katie didn’t get along with Tom’s daughter Isabella; and believed thought Tom should make his 17-year-old son Connor “focus on school, and not allow him to pursue a DJ career.” Another source told RadarOnline.com parenting differences regarding Suri fueled Katie’s motives to break loose from the star of Top Gun. “Katie and Tom also have very different parenting views,” the source said. “Katie wants Suri to go to school with other children and have a grounded routine whereas Tom doesn’t, he wants her schooled in the same manner as Connor and Isabella were. Tom is nowhere near as strict as Katie is and doesn’t believe in disciplining Suri, whereas Katie believes that is important. “Tom basically treats Suri as a little adult, however Katie treats her like a 6-year-old child, and that causes some major clashes over parenting style.” Holmes filed for divorce last Thursday in New York, citing “irreconcilable differences.” She’s seeking sole custody of Suri. Cruise — who’s currently shooting a movie in Iceland — has yet to file a response. RELATED STORIES: Eating Their Words: What Tom Cruise & Katie Holmes Said About Their Marriage Holmes & Cruise Divorce: Katie Dumped Tom, Wanted To Step Out of His Shadow Tom Cruise & Katie Holmes Divorce: She Will Have Primary Custody Of Suri The Calm Before The Storm: Tom Cruise & Katie Holmes Kept Low Profile Prior To Split ||||| By Radar Staff Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes were together one last time in Iceland before Katie’s bombshell announcement that she was divorcing her husband of five years, and RadarOnline.com has exclusive details about their very tense time together, including the extreme measures his security team took to make sure no one knew about the cracks in their relationship. On June 15, Tom, Katie, and their 6-year-old daughter Suri flew into Iceland’s capital city of Reykjavik on their private jet. Tom was shooting the movie Oblivion, and Katie and Suri had joined him for Father’s Day weekend. Upon their arrival, they immediately checked into the $1,000-a-night Presidential Suite of the Hilton Nordica hotel. PHOTOS: Tom Cruise Through The Years “The suite has a sweeping view of the bay,” a hotel insider told the National Enquirer. “It’s the best hotel room in all of Iceland.” The insider exclusively revealed that Tom’s security team put black duct tape over all of the security cameras located in the ceilings on the 9th floor corridor where their suite, room 926, was. A National Enquirer reporter who visited the suite in the days following the divorce announcement found the duct tape still attached to a video camera outside the room. PHOTOS: Katie Holmes Carries Suri’s Blankie Out In NYC Although the hotel insider says the cameras were covered because Tom didn’t want any videos of him and Katie leaked, a friend believes that the actor may have been trying to cover up their sleeping arrangements. “Neither Tom nor Katie let on that they were having problems. It would have been a red flag if Katie had requested her own room,” said the friend. PHOTOS: Tom Cruise Pictured In Iceland After Katie Holmes’ Divorce Filing “So no one knows for sure whether they spent their final night together as husband and wife sleeping in the same bed, or if Tom had to sleep in another part of the suite. But they certainly kept up appearances.” For the full story pick up this week’s issue of the National Enquirer — on newsstands Friday. RELATED STORIES: Holmes & Cruise Divorce: Katie Dumped Tom, Wanted To Step Out of His Shadow Tom Cruise & Katie Holmes Divorce: She Will Have Primary Custody Of Suri The Calm Before The Storm: Tom Cruise & Katie Holmes Kept Low Profile Prior To Split Katie Takes Suri To See Box Office Winner ‘Brave’ ||||| By Radar Staff Could Scientology’s most famous ambassador be parting ways with the church? A shocking report in the new issue of Star magazine, which hits newsstands Friday, details recent twists in Tom Cruise‘s life that’s spurred speculation the Days of Thunder star might be inching away from the controversial institution he’s become synonymous with. “Tom hasn’t admitted that he’s definitely leaving Scientology for good,” an insider says of the new developments. “But he’s distanced himself from those in the church and has been hanging out with good friends who aren’t part of the religion.” PHOTOS: Katie Holmes Steps Out Without Wedding Ring Sources say an introspective Tom, 50, is weighing the damage his affiliation with the controversial church has done in his relationships with ex-wives Katie Holmes and Nicole Kidman, as well as ex-girlfriend Penélope Cruz. “Tom’s been leaning on friends who have different perspectives, getting advice on moving on from Katie as well as on everything he’s been going through with Scientology,” the insider said. “He’s finally seeing that being such an advocate for Scientology hasn’t served him as well as he’d hoped — he’s gone through three divorces, and his public perception has sunk to an all-time low.” PHOTOS: The Many Homes Of Tom Cruise And Katie Holmes And if that didn’t provide enough food for thought, the Mission: Impossible star is pondering what impact his devotion to the cause might have in his relationship with his only biological child, Suri, who Katie holds primary custody of. Tom has shown to be a very devoted father to Suri in the past, setting up some difficult decisions to make if the church drives a wedge between he and his daughter in the future. For more on these shocking developments, check out the new issue of Star magazine, on newsstands Friday. RELATED STORIES: Ex-Scientologist: Tom Cruise Chose Religion Over His Daughter With Katie Holmes Katie Holmes Appears Relieved As News Breaks Of Divorce Settlement Katie Holmes Fired Tom’s Daughter Bella From Her Clothing Company Katie Holmes Is Making ‘All The Right Moves To Escape Scientology,’ Says Former Celebrity Recruiter ||||| Katie Holmes filed for divorce from Tom Cruise in an attempt to prevent her six-year-old daughter being educated at schools with links to the Church of Scientology, multiple sources claimed yesterday, adding to evidence that the controversial faith lies at the centre of the couple's split. The blockbuster legal battle, which became public on Friday, has highlighted disagreements between Holmes and Cruise over their child Suri's relationship with the New Village Leadership Academy in Calabasas. The school educates children using "study technology", a technique created by Scientology's founder, L Ron Hubbard. Holmes, 33, was raised a Catholic and is said to have concerns about Suri's religious upbringing. The Academy – which Suri was seen at in 2009, and again late last year – is officially secular, and employs "study technology" as just one of a range of educational methods. But several members of its teaching staff are Scientologists. The school is also considered a feeder to the Delphian School in Oregon, a $42,000-a-year boarding school which counts Tom Cruise and his ex-wife Nicole Kidman's adopted children Connor and Isabella, 17 and 19, among alumni. Up to half of its pupils are members of the church. "[Suri] is coming to an age where she gets educated enough to get locked into the faith," Marty Rathbun, a former senior executive in Scientology told The Independent yesterday. "That's why there's almost certainly truth in the consideration that schools have started coming into play in all this." Since news of the divorce broke, Holmes is said to have enrolled her daughter at a Catholic elementary school in Manhattan. Cruise is Scientology's most celebrated member. He and Holmes were married in 2006, at a ceremony presided over by the church's leader, David Miscavige. But they are said to have had growing disagreements over how the faith should be applied to rearing their child. "Scientologists believe in reincarnation, that infants are essentially ancient adults being in children's bodies," a source familiar with the dispute said. "Tom treats Suri as a little adult. Katie takes the opposite view: that she deserves a childhood." Importantly, Suri has reached the age at which church members begin being "audited", a form of counselling at the centre of Scientology. A "security check" devised by Hubbard for use on six to 12-year-olds requires them to be asked personal questions while attached to an "e-meter", measuring electrical charges carried by their body. The list of questions includes: "have you ever gotten yourself dirty on purpose?" And: "have you ever told bad stories about someone?" Holmes is apparently anxious to prevent her child from being subjected to any such "check". She is therefore reported to be seeking sole custody of Suri, a move that would give her the right to determine her religious upbringing and where she is educated. The actress filed for divorce in New York, while Cruise, 49, has counter-filed in Los Angeles. Both jurisdictions will take a similar view regarding the distribution of the couple's $275m fortune, but New York courts tend to grant sole custody, while joint custody arrangements are more common in California. Holmes is perhaps also anxious to prevent history from repeating itself. When Cruise divorced Kidman, he secured a joint-custody agreement. The couple's children grew up as members of the church and today have a relatively distant relationship with their mother, who is not a Scientologist. Mr Rathbun says he "audited" Cruise at Scientology's headquarters in Los Angeles between 2001 and 2003, when the actor was divorcing Kidman, and claims to have witnessed this process. He said he saw Connor and Isabella, who were six and eight-years-old at the time, being introduced to auditing. "Everyone was thrilled to see Connor playing on an e-meter," he said. The church did not respond to queries about that affair yesterday. But in the past, it has attacked Mr Rathbun's credibility, describing him as a "liar", a "criminal" and an "apostate". Elsewhere, it was reported that Holmes was anxious to stave off an imminent effort to enrol Suri in the Sea Org, the church's clergy, which requires recruits to sign a billion-year contract. But expert sources poured cold water on those particular claims, pointing out that the Sea Org does not typically welcome new members until their teenage years. Mr Rathbun said, however, that schools which employ "study technology" – an educational technique that revolves around rigid study programmes, repeated use of dictionaries and a strong emphasis on building clay models – can provide a long-term path to membership in the organisation. "In the old days these schools would use study tech as a small part of a traditional curriculum," he said. "Now things have evolved, to the point where you hear of pupils are being assigned 'lower ethics conditions' and told to do auditing and getting an education which revolves around how to be 'good' Scientologists. Many of them are becoming a recruiting ground for the Sea Org." The church has yet to comment on its role in the divorce, except to deny extravagant reports carried by the British tabloids that yesterday suggested that it had hired private investigators to follow Holmes around New York. Behind the scenes, a damage-limitation exercise is afoot. But it is hampered by the unfortunate absence of Jessica Davis, a church employee who has been its leading point of contact with Holmes for many years. The wife of Tommy Davis, Scientology's spokesman, she has been ill for some time. As a result, a church source said, "David Miscavige lost his lines of communication with Holmes some time ago".

– By all accounts, Katie Holmes "won" when it came to her divorce settlement with Tom Cruise—but that doesn't mean Tom can't get a little satisfaction of his own. Cruise's plan is to totally spoil 6-year-old daughter Suri, thus thoroughly annoying Holmes. "While she’s trying to instill a routine and introduce more discipline, Tom could swoop in with a fun-only policy," a source tells Look magazine in an article picked up by Australia's News Network. Cruise recently took Suri on a helicopter ride and, reportedly, bought her a bunch of designer clothes and shoes. He may even move to New York City to be closer to his daughter, a source tells Grazia. "Until now, Scientology has been a very LA-centric movement, but another reason Tom will be keen to relocate … is to focus on developing the church in Manhattan." Speaking of the church, fellow Scientologist John Travolta is disgusted by Cruise's "weak" behavior, believing he "rolled over" in the aforementioned divorce settlement and failed to "man up," thus making "a laughingstock" of Scientology, a source tells the National Enquirer. And what is Holmes up to? Well, she canceled her first public appearance since the split, a red carpet walk at an event for a foundation that promotes dance education, which Holmes co-founded. "Her security team had concerns about the situation, especially the daytime event given it was being held in a public park," a source tells Celebuzz. Meanwhile, TMZ is very, very excited that not just one but both halves of the former couple actually spoke to its photographers. Click to see what Katie said or what Tom said.

Colleagues pay tribute to Muslim officer who was shot at point blank range during raid on Paris magazine It was a Muslim policeman from a local police station who was “slaughtered like a dog” after heroically trying to stop two heavily armed killers from fleeing the Charlie Hebdo offices following the massacre. Tributes to Ahmed Merabet poured in on Thursday after images of his murder at point blank range by a Kalashnikov-wielding masked terrorist circulated around the world. Charlie Hebdo attack: Dammartin-en-Goele sealed off in major police operation – live updates Read more Merabet, who according to officials was 40, was called to the scene while on patrol with a female colleague in the neighbourhood, just in time to see the black Citroën used by the two killers heading towards the boulevard from Charlie Hebdo. “He was on foot, and came nose to nose with the terrorists. He pulled out his weapon. It was his job, it was his duty,” said Rocco Contento, a colleague who was a union representative at the central police station for Paris’s 11th arrondissement. Video footage, which has now been pulled from the internet, showed the two gunmen get out of the car before one shot the policeman in the groin. As he falls to the pavement groaning in pain and holding up an arm as though to protect himself, the second gunman moves forward and asks the policeman: “Do you want to kill us?” Merabet replies: “Non, ç’est bon, chef” (“No, it’s OK mate”). The terrorist then shoots him in the head. After the rise in online support for the satirical magazine, with the catchphrase “Je Suis Charlie,” many decided to honour Merabet, tweeting “Je Suis Ahmed”. One, @Aboujahjah, posted: “I am not Charlie, I am Ahmed the dead cop. Charlie ridiculed my faith and culture and I died defending his right to do so.” Another policeman, 48-year-old Franck Brinsolaro, was killed moments earlier in the assault on Charlie Hebdo where he was responsible for the protection of its editor, Stéphane Charbonnier, one of the 11 killed in the building. A colleague said he “never had time” to pull his weapon. Brinsolaro’s twin brother, Philippe – a senior police officer in the Marseille region – said on Thursday that all French people should unite to condemn the massacre. “The whole of France must mobilise against the horror that struck our country yesterday. You can’t attack freedom of expression, attack the authority of the state in this way,” he was quoted as telling reporters. “Sometimes you get the feeling that the police are misunderstood by [French] people but it must not be forgotten that yesterday’s gesture shows that a policeman is ready to intervene at any time when he has to protect the nation.” Franck Brinsolaro, also from Marseille, had recently married a journalist, Ingrid, who ran a weekly newspaper in Normandy. Her newspaper chain issued a statement saying that editors “will never yield to threats and intimidation of the untouchable principles of freedom of expression”. But it was the image of Merabet’s killing on a Paris pavement that most shocked French police and the wider public. French police unions, which carried the now-universal message of solidarity in support of Charlie Hebdo #jesuischarlie, posted on their websites and on Twitter black banners proclaiming #jesuispolicier in memory of their two dead colleagues. Nicolas Comte, the deputy secretary general of Merabet’s union, Unité SGP Police, said colleagues had been “deeply affected by the video” and the assassination of the policeman “who was slaughtered like a dog”. Flowers and messages of condolence were piled outside Merabet’s police station, in a side street which was blocked off by metal barriers on Thursday morning. Armed police stood guard on the street and there were further barricades outside the police station entrance. Its telephone line played sombre music all day – an official day of mourning in France – and a policewoman said that Merabet’s colleagues were “very sad” at his passing. Merabet had been a policeman for eight years and had just qualified to become a detective. Rocco Contento, who as Paris regional secretary of the union knew Merabet personally, spent time with him at a course at the end of the year. He described him as quiet and conscientious. His family came originally from Tunisia, he said. Officials at the Bobigny business registry office said a person with the same name and age as Merabet ran a cleaning company between 2003 and 2006 in Livry-Gargan, a north-east Paris suburb where he went to school. The headteacher at the local lycée, Marie-Pierre Pillet, confirmed he had been a pupil from 1989 to 1995, but nobody remembered him because of the 20-year time lapse. Merabet was officially described as single, although he had a girlfriend, according to Contento. “Now we’re on a war footing,” said the head of the union France Police, Michel Thooris. “They’re out there with AK47s, the weapons of war.” On Thursday, a 25-year-old police officer, Clarissa Jean-Philippe, was killed in an attack in the south Paris suburb of Montrouge. The tragedy was not linked by her colleagues to the Charlie Hebdo atrocity. Thooris said that once the dust had settled and those responsible for both armed attacks were brought to justice, the police would be demanding action from the government. “Now isn’t the time to criticise, but for decades there have been no-go zones in the council estates where there are arms caches and drug running,” he said. “We must terrorise the terrorists.” ||||| The funeral for a French policeman shot dead outside the offices of Charlie Hebdo has been held in Paris, hours before a massive march in memory of the victims. Ahmed Merabet, 42, was the first officer on the scene of Wednesday's attack, carried out by al Qaeda brothers Said and Cherif Kouachi. The brothers shot Mr Merabet as he approached, and then fired at him point blank as he lay on the pavement. He was on foot, and came nose-to-nose with the terrorists," said Rocco Contento, a colleague who was a union representative at the central police station for Paris's 11th arrondissement, where Mr Merabet was based. "He pulled out his weapon. It was his job, it was his duty." He described Mr Merabet as a quiet, conscientious officer who was always smiling and was widely liked. On Sunday morning thousands of people gathered in the suburb of Livry-Gargan to the north east of Paris, standing in front of the town hall. They held aloft a series of signs saying "Je suis Ahmed". Heads were bowed in quiet reflection. Mr Merabet grew up in the suburb, attending the Andre-Boulloche lycee, as one of five children of Algerian immigrant parents. He ran a cleaning company before joining the police force eight years ago, and worked hard for a promotion. "Through his determination, he had just got his judicial police officer (detective) diploma, and was shortly due to leave fieldwork," said his brother Malek, at a press conference in Livry-Gargan on the eve of the funeral. "His colleagues described him as a man of action who was passionate about his job." And Mr Merabet's brother used the press conference to call for calm, and speak out against Islamaphobia and anti-Semitism. "Islam is a religion of peace, love and sharing. It's not about terrorism, it's not about madness – we have nothing to do with that," he said. "My brother was a Muslim and he was killed by people pretending to be Muslims. They are terrorists – that's it." He added: "I speak now to all the racists, Islamaphobes and anti-Semites who confuse extremists and Muslims. Madness has neither colour nor religion. "I want to make another point; don't tar everyone with the same brush, don't burn mosques – or synagogues. You are attacking people. It won't bring our dead back and it won't appease the families." At the time of his murder, Mr Merabet was making plans to move in with his partner, Morgane Ahmad. "What the family and I want is for everyone to be united, we want everyone to be able to demonstrate in peace," she said. "We want to show respect for all the victims and that demonstrations should be peaceful." But she also criticised the media for showing video footage of Mr Merabet's death. She was in a restaurant at the time of the shooting, and heard that a policeman could be injured. Worried, she rang Mr Merabet's phone. Then she saw the footage of him being murdered. "How dare you take that video and broadcast it?" Mr Merabet's brother Malek asked journalists on Saturday. "I heard his voice. I recognised him. I saw him get slaughtered and I hear him get slaughtered every day." On Sunday the man who took the footage, filming on his mobile phone from across the road of the Charlie Hebdo offices, said he deeply regretted posting it. Jordi Mir, an engineer, told The Associated Press he posted the video out of fear and a "stupid reflex" fostered by years on social media. "I was completely panicked," he said "I had to speak to someone. I was alone in my flat. I put the video on Facebook. That was my error." Mr Mir said he left the video on Facebook for as little as 15 minutes before thinking the better of it and taking it down. But the footage had already been shared across the site and someone uploaded it to YouTube. Less than an hour after Mr Mir removed the video from his page, he was startled to find it playing across his television screen. Mr Mir didn't even know what he was filming at first. Drawn to his window when the sound of gunshots interrupted his emailing, he initially thought there was a bank robbery in progress. When he spotted the rifle-wielding men in black walking down the street, he assumed they were police going to help a stricken comrade. "And — horror — they're not," said Mr Mir. He apologised for causing distress to Mr Merabet's family. "On Facebook, there's no confidentiality," he said. "It's a lesson for me." ||||| PARIS (AP) — The man whose amateur video of a Paris police officer's cold-blooded murder shocked the world now regrets sharing the footage online, saying he never expected it to be broadcast so widely. In this image made from amateur video recorded on Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2015 by Jordi Mir, masked gunman get into a car moments after shooting a police officer outside the offices of French satirical newspaper... (Associated Press) Engineer Jordi Mir told The Associated Press he posted the video out of fear and a "stupid reflex" fostered by years on social media. "I was completely panicked," he said in an exclusive interview across from the Parisian boulevard where the officer was shot to death by terrorists Wednesday morning. The short film immediately became the most arresting image of France's three-day-long drama, which began with a mass killing at the headquarters of satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo and ended Friday with the death of four hostages and the three terrorists in two separate shootouts. "I had to speak to someone," Mir said. "I was alone in my flat. I put the video on Facebook. That was my error." Mir said he left the video on Facebook for as little as 15 minutes before thinking the better of it and taking it down. It was too late. The footage had already been shared across the site and someone uploaded it to YouTube. Less than an hour after Mir removed the video from his page, he was startled to find it playing across his television screen. In its unedited form, the 42-second film shows two masked gunmen — brothers Cherif and Said Kouachi — as they walk toward a prone police officer, later identified as 42-year-old Ahmed Merabet. "You want to kill us?" one of the brothers says as he strides toward the wounded officer. "No, it's OK, boss," Merabet says, raising his hand in an apparent plea for mercy. Then he's shot in the head. The video unleashed a worldwide wave of revulsion. British tabloids described it as "shocking" and "sickening." France's Le Figaro ran a still from the footage on its front page over a caption which read "War." CNN's Randi Kaye called it "an unforgettable image forever associated with this horrible attack." The iconic nature of the imagery — rebroadcast again and again — has anguished Merabet's family. His brother Malek told journalists Saturday: "How dare you take that video and broadcast it? I heard his voice. I recognized him. I saw him get slaughtered and I hear him get slaughtered every day." Some argue that the video plays a useful role by exposing terrorists' heartlessness. Mir said that one official told him the video helped galvanize French public opinion. "For me, the policeman killed, it's like a war photo," Mir said at one point, comparing it to famed photographer Robert Capa's controversial picture of a soldier being shot dead during the Spanish Civil War. The video did help cause an outpouring of support for Merabet and his family, with many adopting the tag "Je Suis Ahmed" — I am Ahmed — as a spin on the solidarity slogan "Je Suis Charlie." As Mir spoke to AP on Saturday, members of the public were still gathering at the site of Merabet's death to lay flowers and pay respect. Mir didn't even know what he was filming at first. Drawn to his window when the sound of gunshots interrupted his emailing, he initially thought there was a bank robbery in progress. When he spotted the rifle-wielding men in black walking down the street, he assumed they were SWAT police going to help a stricken comrade. "And — horror — they're not," Mir said. As police rushed to the scene, Mir downloaded the video to his computer and then to a removable disk, which he handed to officers. Then, he uploaded the footage to Facebook — and to the world. Mir, a slight man in his 50s whose parents were refugees from fascist Spain, is still at a loss to explain exactly what pushed him to share the chilling video with his 2,500 Facebook friends. "There's no answer," he said. Perhaps a decade of social networking had trained him to share whatever he saw. "I take a photo — a cat — and I put it on Facebook. It was the same stupid reflex," he said. Mir wanted Merabet's family to know he was "very sorry," saying that he had turned down offers to buy the footage and that he wanted media organizations to blur Merabet's image before running it. But many, he said, just broadcast the unedited footage without permission. The AP received Mir's authorization to run the video on condition that it cut the scene of the officer's death, which is standard AP practice. Mir said that, if he could do it all again, he would have kept the video off Facebook. "On Facebook, there's no confidentiality," he said. "It's a lesson for me." ___ Online: Raphael Satter can be reached at: http://raphae.li

– Ahmed Merabet was "slaughtered like a dog" in the street by the Charlie Hebdo gunmen, the police union says—but the slain officer is being mourned as a hero. The 40-year-old, who is believed to have been a Muslim, pulled out his weapon when he encountered the gunmen outside the newspaper's offices and was shot in the groin when they emerged from their car, the Guardian reports. In video footage that shocked France, one gunman approached him as he lay on the sidewalk and shot him in the head. Merabet's parents are Muslim immigrants from Tunisia, although it's not clear whether he practiced the religion himself, and police say his family doesn't want media attention, reports the Wall Street Journal. Merabet, an eight-year veteran of the force, "was killed in a cowardly way by people who had misinterpreted their sacred text," a police union spokesman says. "Yet he himself was from an immigrant background." The #JeSuisAhmed hashtag has sprung up on social media alongside #JeSuisCharlie, and some are praising the officer as a symbol of the fight for free speech, reports the New York Times. Franck Brinsolaro, the officer assigned to protect Charlie Hebdo's editor, was also killed in the attack, and colleagues say he never had a chance to pull his weapon. A policewoman in south Paris was shot dead yesterday in what authorities believe was an unrelated attack, although the gunman is still at large.

This image illustrates how the study participants learned about the habitat and the diet of eight animals, such as the cytar (not its real zoological name). The set of habitat brain regions (A-green) and diet (B-red and blue) regions where the new knowledge was stored. (L refers to left hemisphere of the brain.) Courtesy of Carnegie Mellon University Cutting-edge brain imaging technology has offered the first glimpse into how new concepts develop in the human brain. The research, carried out at Carnegie Mellon University and published in Human Brain Mapping, involved teaching people a new concept and observing how it was coded in the same areas of the brain through neural representations. The "olinguito" -- a largely fruit-eating carnivore species that lives in rainforest treetops, newly discovered in 2013 -- was initially used as a concept. Marcel Just, a professor of cognitive neuroscience in the Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences, commented: "When people learned that the olinguito eats mainly fruit instead of meat, a region of their left inferior frontal gyrus -- as well as several other areas -- stored the new information according to its own code." The findings revealed that this new knowledge of the olinguito was encoded in exactly the same parts of the brain by everyone who learned it, indicating that the brain may operate its own kind of universal filing system. In the latest research, 16 study participants were taught information about the diet and dwelling habits of eight extinct animals, in order to study the growth of the neural representations of these concepts in their brains. Drawing on the previous findings, the team predicted where this new knowledge would be stored. Just and Andrew Bauer, lead author of the study, then used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to monitor these concepts emerging in the brain, and found that each new concept developed its own "unique activation signature". This allowed a computer program to effectively work out which of the eight animals a participant was thinking about at any given time -- essentially allowing the scientists to read their minds. Don't miss Interestingly, the animals with close similarities (such as habitat) had closely matched activation signatures, and once a property of an animal had been learned, it stayed intact in the brain even after new ones had been taught -- providing a new insight into the neural durability of the things we learn. Bauer commented: "Each time we learn something, we permanently change our brains in a systematic way. It was exciting to see our study successfully implant the information about extinct animals into the expected locations in the brain's filing system." It's hoped that the research may be able to help shape future teaching methods in schools, and also give a clearer picture of how knowledge is "lost" as a result of serious brain injuries and conditions such as dementia and Alzheimer's disease. ||||| Thanks to Carnegie Mellon University advances in brain imaging technology, we now know how specific concrete objects are coded in the brain, to the point where we can identify which object, such as a house or a banana, someone is thinking about from its brain activation signature. Now, CMU scientists are applying this knowledge about the neural representations of familiar concepts by teaching people new concepts and watching the new neural representations develop. Published in Human Brain Mapping, the scientists have - for the first time - documented the formation of a newly learned concept inside the brain and show that it occurs in the same brain areas for everyone.This image illustrates how the study participants learned about the habitat and the diet of eight animals, such as the cytar (not its real zoological name). The set of habitat brain regions (A-green) and diet (B-red and blue) regions where the new knowledge was stored. (L refers to left hemisphere of the brain.) Credit: Carnegie Mellon University Thanks to Carnegie Mellon University advances in brain imaging technology, we now know how specific concrete objects are coded in the brain, to the point where we can identify which object, such as a house or a banana, someone is thinking about from its brain activation signature. Now, CMU scientists are applying this knowledge about the neural representations of familiar concepts by teaching people new concepts and watching the new neural representations develop. Published in Human Brain Mapping, the scientists have—for the first time—documented the formation of a newly learned concept inside the brain and show that it occurs in the same brain areas for everyone. This novel research merges brain science and instructional innovation, two of Carnegie Mellon's university-wide initiatives—BrainHub, which focuses on how the structure and activity of the brain give rise to complex behaviors, and the Simon Initiative, which aims to measurably improve student learning outcomes by harnessing decades of learning science research. Marcel Just, a leading neuroscientist, pointed to the Smithsonian Institute's 2013 announcement about the olinguito, a newly identified carnivore species that mainly eats fruits and lives by itself in the treetops of rainforests, as an example of the type of new concept that people learn. 'Millions of people read the information about the olinguito and in doing so permanently changed their own brains,' said Just, the D.O. Hebb University Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience in CMU's Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences. 'Our research happened to be examining this process precisely at that time in a laboratory setting. When people learned that the olinguito eats mainly fruit instead of meat, a region of their left inferior frontal gyrus—as well as several other areas—stored the new information according to its own code.' Just added, 'The new knowledge gained from the Smithsonian's announcement became encoded in the same brain areas in every person that learned the new information, because all brains appear to use the same filing system.' For the study, Andrew Bauer, a Ph.D. student in psychology, and Just taught 16 study participants diet and dwelling information about extinct animals to monitor the growth of the neural representations of eight new animal concepts in the participants' brains. Drawing on previous findings, the research team knew 'where' to expect the new knowledge to emerge in the brains of their participants. Information about dwellings and information about eating have each been shown to reside in their own set of brain regions, regions that are common across people. Over the course of an hour, the study participants were given a zoology mini-tutorial on the diets and habitats of the animals, while the scientists used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to monitor the emergence of the concepts in the participants' brains. As the new properties were taught, the activation levels in the eating regions and the dwelling regions changed. One important result was that after the zoology tutorial, each one of the eight animal concepts developed its own unique activation signature. This made it possible for a computer program to determine which of the eight animals a participant was thinking about at a given time. In effect, the program was reading their minds as they contemplated a brand-new thought. But even though the animals had unique activation signatures, the animals that shared similar properties (such as a similar habitat) had similar activation signatures. That is, a resemblance between the properties of two animals resulted in a resemblance between their activation signatures. This finding shows that the activation signatures are not just arbitrary patterns, but are meaningful and interpretable. 'The activation signature of a concept is a composite of the different types of knowledge of the concept that a person has stored, and each type of knowledge is stored in its own characteristic set of regions,' Just said. Another important result was that once a property of an animal was learned, it remained intact in the brain, even after other properties of the animal had been learned. This finding indicates the relative neural durability of what we learn. 'Each time we learn something, we permanently change our brains in a systematic way,' said Bauer, the study's lead author. 'It was exciting to see our study successfully implant the information about extinct animals into the expected locations in the brain's filing system.' Just believes that the study provides a foundation for brain researchers to trace how a new concept makes its way into the brain from the words and graphics used to teach it, foreshadowing a capability to assess the progress in learning a complicated concept like those in a high-school physics lesson. fMRI pattern analyses could diagnose which aspects of a concept students misunderstand (or lack), in a way that could guide the next iteration of instruction. The results from this study also indicate that it may be possible to use a similar approach to understand the 'loss' of knowledge in various brain disorders, such as dementia or Alzheimer's disease, or due to brain injuries. The loss of a concept in the brain may be the reverse of the process that the study observed. Explore further: Teaching science to the brain: How the brain learns the way things work

– Scientists using cutting-edge brain imaging technology finally know how that new idea pops into your head and may even be able to read the thought by looking at your brain. Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University observed 16 participants' brains as they learned about the habitat and eating habits of eight extinct animals, Wired reports. As participants underwent a one-hour, mini-tutorial on the animals, functional magnetic resonance imaging showed changes in specific parts of the brain, along with a "unique activation signature" for each animal. Incredibly, a computer program was then able to determine which animal a participant was thinking about just from observing their brain. In other words, scientists could read the participants' minds. "Each time we learn something, we permanently change our brains in a systematic way," says the lead author, whose research is published in Human Brain Mapping. For example, anyone who read about the discovery of the olinguito "permanently changed their own brains," a researcher explains in a press release. "When people learned that the olinguito eats mainly fruit instead of meat, a region of their left inferior frontal gyrus—as well as several other areas—stored the new information according to its own code." Animals with similar diets or habitats elicited similar activation signatures, and a property of an animal stayed in the brain once it was learned, even after several new animals were introduced, suggesting a neural durability of the subjects we learn. Researchers say the study could help develop new teaching methods and give insights into how knowledge is supposedly erased due to conditions like dementia. (Check out the gruesome way a tribe became immune to brain disease.)

Reaction to Harriet Tubman, a Civil War-era abolitionist, replacing Andrew Jackson on the front of the $20 was widely positive. Tubman replacing Jackson on the $20, Hamilton spared Treasury Secretary Jack Lew reverses a plan to bump Hamilton after receiving fierce blowback. Harriet Tubman will bump Andrew Jackson from the front of the $20 bill while Alexander Hamilton will stay put on the $10 — a historic move that gives a woman prime placement on U.S. currency and quells a controversy kicked up by Hamilton super-fans. “Today, I’m excited to announce that for the first time in more than a century, the front of our currency will feature the portrait of a woman, Harriet Tubman, on the $20 note,” Treasury Secretary Jack Lew told reporters during a conference call Wednesday afternoon. “Her incredible story of courage and commitment to equality embody the ideals of democracy that our nation celebrates, and we’ll continue to value her legacy by honoring her on our currency.” Story Continued Below Lew rolled out sweeping changes that will put a new cast of historic figures onto various bills that have remained largely static for decades. Leaders of the women’s suffrage movement will make their way onto the back of the $10 bill, while civil rights era leaders and other important moments in American history will be incorporated into the $5 bill. Jackson will be kicked to the back of the $20 bill. The plan is a major reversal for Lew, who appeared taken aback by the swift rebukes Treasury received last summer when he announced that he was considering replacing Hamilton on the $10 bill with a woman. While he explained that Hamilton was on the chopping block as a matter of practicality – the $10 bill was the next one up for a redesign – Lew still got an earful from fans of Hamilton, who helped create the Treasury Department and the modern American financial system. Critics immediately called for Lew to take Jackson off the $20 bill instead, given the former president's role in moving Native Americans off their land. Lew told POLITICO last July that Treasury was exploring ways to respond to critics. “There are a number of options of how we can resolve this,” Lew said. “We’re not taking Alexander Hamilton off our currency.” But supporters of putting a woman on the $10 bill have complained that it will take too long for the $20 bill to come up for a redesign. Lew has predicted that the new bills will be unveiled in 2020 to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, which granted women the right to vote. On the call on Wednesday, Lew said he would try and make the changes quickly. “The two things most important are the security of our money and getting this process to move as quickly as possible,” he said. “Due to security needs, the redesigned $10 note is scheduled to go into circulation next,” Lew said. “I’ve directed the Bureau of Engraving and Printing to work closely with the Federal Reserve to accelerate work on the new $20 and $5 notes. Our goal is to have all three new notes go into circulation as quickly as possible, while ensuring that we protect against counterfeiting through effective and sophisticated production.” The movement to keep Hamilton on the $10 bill was fueled by academics but gathered strength after the Broadway musical named after the former Treasury secretary and founding father became a smash hit. “Hamilton” creator Lin-Manuel Miranda even directly lobbied Lew last month on Hamilton’s behalf, after which Miranda said Lew told him “you’re going to be very happy” with the redesign plan. Reaction to Tubman, a Civil War-era abolitionist, replacing Jackson on the front of the $20 was widely positive, with Democratic presidential candidates quickly hailing Treasury’s decision. “A woman, a leader, and a freedom fighter,” Hillary Clinton tweeted. “I can’t think of a better choice for the $20 bill than Harriet Tubman.” Bernie Sanders concurred, tweeting roughly 30 minutes later that he “cannot think of an American hero more deserving of this honor than Harriet Tubman.” Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) tweeted that it was “great news!” “Tubman on $20 is the right call,” she added. “The redesign needs to happen as soon as possible. Women have waited long enough.” Rep. Luis Gutiérrez (D-Ill.), who introduced the “Put a Woman on the Twenty Act in Congress” last year in the House (Shaheen introduced a similar bill in the Senate), also commended the decision Wednesday. “There has been a lot of talk about putting a woman’s portrait on our money, but finally it sounds like Secretary Lew is putting our money where his mouth is,” Gutiérrez said in a prepared statement. “It is crazy that women have been mostly absent from our money up until now, with only a few exceptions.” Conservatives also supported the selection of Tubman for the $20 bill. National Review writer Charles C.W. Cooke tweeted: “Given the sheer number of blows that Tubman struck for liberty, she belongs on the currency more than most. Good choice.” Former Republican presidential candidate and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, however, expressed his love for Tubman and what she accomplished but suggested that placing her on the $2 bill would be a more appropriate honor. Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander on Wednesday expressed dissatisfaction with the decision to move Jackson, arguing that history shouldn't pit the former president against the anti-slavery activist. “United States history is not Andrew Jackson versus Harriet Tubman,” he said in a statement. “It is Andrew Jackson and Harriet Tubman, both heroes of a nation’s work in progress toward great goals. It is unnecessary to diminish Jackson in order to honor Tubman.” Historians and policy wonks weighed in as well, sharing praise for the compromise. “[Hamilton] is fully appropriate to be on American currency, whereas Jackson was a scoundrel, a slave holder and a white supremacist who was involved in the removal of Indians and was completely opposed to paper money and was horrible to women,” said Kari Winter, director of the gender institute at the University at Buffalo. Former Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, a fellow at the Brookings Institute, last year railed against the initial plan, saying he was “appalled” Hamilton would be yanked. On Wednesday, he called the new plan “a good one,” noting that it fell in line with what he recommended. “Tubman is an excellent and deserving choice, and no one has a better claim to be represented on the currency than Hamilton, who did so much to help establish the American economic system we know today,” he wrote in a blog post. Bernanke also advised that Treasury, similar to the U.S. Postal Service, should redesign bills more frequently. “Occasional changes to bill design would give us more space and flexibility to honor the past; and, if done at reasonable intervals, could coincide with necessary security improvements as well,” he said. Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen also commended the move. "Throughout American history, women have made important contributions to the free and democratic society we enjoy today," Yellen said in a statement. "I welcome the decision by the Treasury Department to honor these achievements. The Federal Reserve will work with Treasury on a design that also incorporates strong security features to protect worldwide users of U.S. currency." White House deputy press secretary Jennifer Friedman said President Barack Obama was both pleased with Americans' enthusiasm around the whole process and the end result. "The President welcomes Secretary Lew's important announcement that our next currency will honor the contributions that women and civil rights leaders have made to our country, celebrate our democracy and reflect the rich history of the United States and the struggles for freedom and equal rights," Friedman said. And it’s not just the faces that are changing on the bills. U.S. Treasurer Rosie Rios told reporters on the call that the new currency will include additional security features. “For the first time in our history, our currency will also include a new tech-help feature intended to aid the blind and the visually impaired,” Rios said. “This is a new, complex and critical, important element in the production of modern U.S. currency.” ||||| The bill design proposed by the Women on $20s campaign. (Photo: Women on $20s) WASHINGTON — Women's rights groups, Internet activists and members of Congress wanted a woman to replace Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill — preferably by Harriet Tubman. What they got was not quite what they wanted, but no less historic: A yet-to-be-named woman will appear on the $10 bill — not in place of Alexander Hamilton but perhaps beside him. That's progress, said the Women on 20s campaign, an online activist group that sprung up last year. But it's "not perfect." "We would love to see a woman not have to share her glory, and her opportunity to be recognized and honored," said Susan Ades Stone, the executive director of the campaign. "And Alexander Hamilton is not someone that people have a problem with." President Andrew Jackson, whose portrait is on the $20 bill, is another matter. While Hamilton, the first secretary of the Treasury, built the national banking system, Jackson tried to tear it down. And his record on slavery and treatment of American Indians offends some modern sensibilities. And then there's this: the $20 bill is more visible than the $10 bill. As of 2014, there were more than 8.1 billion $20 bills in circulation, compared to 1.9 $10 bills. Of the denominations under $500, only the $50 and the $2 bills circulate less. In a speech at the National Archives on Thursday, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew explained that the $10 bill was next in line to be upgraded. "With the new $10 note, we are kicking off a whole new generation of currency," he said. The decision to put a woman on the $10 bill is up to Lew, and even President Obama will defer to him. "This will ultimately be Secretary Lew's decision, but we do expect a lot of public engagement on this over the next while," said Eric Schultz, White House deputy press secretary. In the first 24 hours since the news broke, more than 130,000 people have weighed in using the #thenew10 hashtag on Twitter, according to the social media platform. The Treasury Department will get input about the new design this summer and hopes to have it completed by 2020. Even after that, it could take years to put the new bills into circulation. Lew's plan does not need congressional approval. The coinage clause of the constitution gives Congress exclusive power over the design of coins, but Congress has delegated design decisions regarding paper currency to the treasury secretary, with two limits: George Washington must appear on the $1 bill, and no bill can feature a living person. Rep. Joyce Beatty, D-Ohio, sponsored the Woman on the Twenty Act in April to require the Treasury Department to convene an advisory panel to suggest suitable women. "Whether it is a $20 dollar bill or a $10 dollar bill, I am glad that the administration and Congress are working to bring gender equality to all areas of American life," Beatty said. Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said he looked forward to hearing more about Lew's plan but also used the opportunity to make a broader point. "By running up the national debt to more than $18 trillion, the administration's spending policies put these dollars at risk of being worth less, no matter whose face is on them," he said. Follow Gregory Korte on Twitter @gregorykorte. Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1LidxvW

– Earlier rumors had it that Treasury Secretary Jack Lew was soon to announce a major change to the new $10 bill—specifically, that a woman would replace Alexander Hamilton as the main mug. Instead, sources tell Politico, Lew is expected to announce Wednesday that abolitionist Harriet Tubman is going on the $20 bill, kicking President Andrew Jackson to the back of the bill. Hamilton is staying put, and that leaders of the women's suffrage movement will be put on the back of the sawbuck. Prominent figures from the civil rights movement will also get a spot on the $5 bill. Initial discussion to kick Hamilton to the currency curb was met with resistance, including from ex-Federal Reserve chief Ben Bernanke, who said he was "appalled" at dishonoring the "best and most foresighted economic policymaker in US history." And a women's advocacy group pointed out last year that a) people are more likely to have a $20 bill in their wallet than a $10 bill, and b) Jackson had a terrible rep for his brutal role in removing Native Americans from their land. If confirmed, Tubman would be the first African-American and the second woman to appear on US paper currency, per the Palm Beach Post. That other woman? Martha Washington, who appeared on a $1 silver note in the 1880s and '90s, per the Atlantic. (Maybe Hamilton's Pulitzer held some sway?)

Phillip Savopoulos (Photo: Facebook) LATEST UPDATE: Suspect identified in NW DC quadruple homicide WASHINGTON (WUSA9) -- Law enforcement sources tell WUSA9 that an assistant dropped a package filled with $40,000 in cash before four people were killed inside a D.C. mansion that was then set on fire. A source also says detectives believe the killers tortured Phillip Savopoulos, 10, as they tried to force his father to come up with the cash. On May 14, Phillip Savopoulos was found dead, along with his parents, 46-year-old Savvas and 47-year-old Amy Savopoulos, and housekeeper Veralicia Figuaroa, 57, at a mansion on Woodland Drive near the National Cathedral. Savvas and Amy Savopoulos (Photo: Anonymous) Detectives believe the killers held the four victims captive for about 10 hours, and that they successfully forced the Savopoulos family to get them the money. NEW: Killers in DC mansion murders took $40,000 cash. @wusa9 — Bruce Leshan (@BruceLeshan) May 20, 2015 Metropolitan Police Department Chief Cathy Lanier has confirmed that three of the four victims were beaten or stabbed before the killers set fire to the almost $5 million mansion. At one point, the killers may have ordered pizza. Two clerks at a Domino's Pizza tell WUSA9 that a delivery person came to the house. Figuaroa's husband, Bernado Alfaro, reportedly went to the mansion on Thursday morning to look for his wife. He said he thought someone was home, but no one answered the door. A short time later, Savvas Savopoulos contacted Alfaro saying he needed Figuaroa to stay at the house because Amy Savopoulos was sick and might need to go to the hospital. Alfaro told CBS News that that made little sense to him because his wife cannot drive nor speak English well. Hours later, Alfaro heard that the family had been murdered, WUSA9's Bruce Leshan reported. There were a lot of video cameras around the house, but the only video police have been able to release is a shadowy tape of a figure running, apparently near the scene where a suspect torched the Savopoulos' Porsche on Annapolis Road in Prince George's County. Funeral services for the Savopoulos family are scheduled for May 25 at noon at the Greek Orthodox Cathedral. The viewing will be the night before. The Savopoulos' also have two daughters, but both were away at boarding school during the murders. WANTED: Police released surveillance video of a person of interest PREVIOUS: DC police continue investigation into quadruple murder Read or Share this story: http://on.wusa9.com/1Sd4rCN ||||| D.C. police and D.C. Fire officials comb the scene at the 3200 block of Woodland Drive NW, where four people were found dead at a house fire. (Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post) When Debra Masser spoke to her brother Savvas Savopoulos by phone Thursday morning, the chief executive and father of a prominent local family seemed to be untroubled and in good spirits. But hours later, Savopoulos, his wife and two others authorities believe are the couple’s young son and their housekeeper were found dead by firefighters who battled a blaze at their Northwest Washington home. Police on Friday continued to try to piece together what happened to the well-liked family, even as the mystery around the case deepened. D.C. Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier said that the fire at the stately home on Woodland Drive NW was intentionally set, that three of the victims inside had wounds, and that the family’s Porsche 911 was found torched in a church parking lot in Hyattsville, Md. The deaths shocked family, friends and neighbors, who said they had seen nothing amiss with the five-member clan in the days and weeks before the fire. Some gathered to mourn at Washington National Cathedral, while investigators continued to pore over the charred red brick home. “I can’t even express my sorrow,” Masser said. “I can’t even say anything.” Savvas Savopoulos and Amy Savopoulos at the Starlight Children’s Foundation MidAtlantic’s Wine Dinner in 2008. (Tony Powell/Washington Life Magazine) Lanier said police had positively identified two of the dead as Savvas Savopoulos, 46, and his wife, Amy, 47. They have tentatively identified the other victims as the couple’s 10-year-old son, Philip, and a 57-year-old housekeeper, Veralicia Figueroa, of Silver Spring, Md. Lanier said that three victims suffered blunt-force or sharp-object wounds and that all four deaths in the upscale neighborhood near the vice president’s residence were being investigated as homicides. “Evidence collection will go on for several days,” Lanier said. “There’s still a lot more we don’t know.” Lanier renewed a call she originally made Thursday for information about the family’s blue 2008 Porsche 911, which disappeared from the home Thursday morning. She asked the public to contact authorities if anyone had seen it between Wednesday and Thursday at 5 p.m. — a longer time frame than authorities had initially requested. Lanier declined to explain why investigators now wanted to know about the car’s whereabouts a day earlier. The Porsche was found burning in Prince George’s County on Thursday evening, Lanier said. Prince George’s County Fire spokesman Mark Brady said firefighters extinguished the fire about 5:30 p.m. behind a church at 8201 Annapolis Rd. in Lanham, Md. Lanier said it was unclear who had been driving the vehicle. Lanier said there was no evidence to suggest random or forced entry into the Savopouloses’ home but asked anyone who had seen anything suspicious in the area to call police. Asked whether the house had been ransacked, Lanier said it was “difficult to make that determination” because of the fire. Authorities have been going through the home to try to determine whether anything was stolen, according to two officials with knowledge of the case. Police say three of the four victims found in a burning Northwest D.C. home on Thursday suffered blunt force or sharp object wounds. Their deaths are being investigated as homicides. (WUSA9) The Savopouloses are survived by two teenage daughters, who friends said were at their boarding schools Thursday. Abigail Savopoulos is a senior at Mercersburg Academy, an elite private school in Pennsylvania, and is scheduled to graduate next week. Her younger sister, Katerina, is a junior at Peddie School near Princeton, N.J. Philip was a student at St. Albans School in the District. Neighbors said the family had lived on the block for more than a decade. They described the community as tightknit and said the Savopouloses were an integral part of it. They regularly held gatherings at their home for neighbors and friends. They attended church at the nearby St. Sophia Greek Orthodox Cathedral for about 10 years. Coco Palomeque, a friend who lives in the neighborhood, said the Savopouloses were “a beautiful family.” “The community where they lived really loved them,” she said. Savvas Savopoulos was the president and chief executive of Hyattsville-based American Iron Works, which played a role in building Verizon Center and ­CityCenterDC. His Facebook page says he also worked for Sigma Investment Strategies in Puerto Rico. American Iron Works officials declined to comment. Amy Savopoulos was widely known as a deeply involved mother who spent much of her time volunteering at her children’s schools or raising funds for them. On her Facebook page, her daughter Abigail posted a tribute on Mother’s Day: “I am so grateful for everything you do. Thank you for always believing in me and supporting me. Thank you for the early morning crafts, upside down clowns on my birthday, gingerbread decorating parties, and for always showing up. . . . Thank you for the past 19 years and I look forward to the many more to come. I love you so much.” About 180 people gathered to mourn the family Friday afternoon in a lower-level chapel at Washington National Cathedral. The 30-minute service included prayer, singing and periods of silence. Many who had come were struggling not only with what happened, but also with how to discuss it with their children, said the Rev. Mariann Budde, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, who helped lead the service. “When people grieve, they want to be with other people,” Budde said. “Everyone is really sad, and really shocked.” Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), who has known the family for more than 20 years, said in a statement that he was saddened. Savvas Savopoulos raised money for Van Hollen’s campaigns. “My heart goes out to the Savopoulos family at this time of unspeakable tragedy,” the statement read. “They were an important part of the community and will be deeply missed.” As friends and relatives grieved, investigators wearing yellow hard hats walked in and out of the gutted Savopoulos home. Yellow police tape still blocked off sections of Woodland Drive and 32nd Street NW, and a large ATF explosives and fire investigation vehicle was parked out front. Joe Carregal, a neighbor, said he saw the fire unfold Thursday. About 1:15 p.m., he said he saw smoke pouring from the upper-story windows of the home and a man knocking on the front door in an attempt to get the family out. Soon after, fire trucks came roaring down the street. Firefighters broke windows on the house, deployed ladders and clambered onto the roof to extinguish flames. Carregal said he watched them pull three victims from the house. Chris Vorobek, who lives in the neighborhood, said he would see Amy Savopoulos, walking her dog in the neighborhood, and her son racing around on his bicycle. “He was a great kid,” Vorobek said. Keith L. Alexander, Lynh Bui, Alice Crites, Abigail Hauslohner, Peter Hermann, Roxanne Roberts, Valerie Strauss, Julie Tate and Clarence Williams contributed to this report.

– Whoever killed four people in a DC mansion appears to have gotten away with at least $40,000 in cash. The Washington Post reports that an assistant to businessman Savvas Savopoulos dropped off a package with that amount at his home last Thursday while the family and a housekeeper were being held captive. It's not clear whether the assistant knew the package contained money, why he dropped it off, or whether he had any inkling that anything was amiss. Hours later, the mansion was in flames, and firefighters found the bodies of Savopoulos, wife Amy, their 10-year-old son Philip, and housekeeper Veralicia Figueroa. Investigators think the four had been held for about 10 hours. In fact, WUSA9 reports that two Domino's clerks say a delivery person brought a pizza to the house at some point during that stretch. The station is floating the theory, based on an anonymous source, that the killers coerced Savopoulos into coming up with money. Authorities haven't said much about how the victims died, only that three had wounds. DC police chief Cathy Lanier says detectives are "passionate" about the case, particularly because Philip was only 10. One of the few public clues is an image of a hooded figure running.

'American Idol' Alum Ayla Brown Benefits From Father's Senate Win The season five semi-finalist is back in the spotlight after father Scott Brown's victory in Massachusetts. Ayla Brown didn't win "American Idol" back in season five, but she could have another shot at stardom following her father's victory Tuesday night. Scott Brown became senator-elect of Massachusetts in a special election to fill the late Senator Ted Kennedy's seat for the remainder of his term. In a shocking upset, the Republican candidate defeated Democrat Martha Coakley in the staunchly blue state of Massachusetts. Ayla, 21, campaigned at her father's side for the duration of the election season, and some speculated that having her familiar face in public appearances and TV commercials was the state senator's equivalent of a celebrity endorsement. But judging by the number of people searching for on Ayla's name Wednesday morning (January 20), the aspiring musician is now benefitting from her dad's big win. Brown made her way up to the top 16 in the 2006 season of "Idol" (which was eventually won by Taylor Hicks). After she failed to make it to the top 12, Ayla spoke to MTV News about how the "All-American" label she was saddled with hurt her in the end. "I didn't think people got the chance to see who I was and my personality," she said. "It was hard to overcome that, but I gave it my all and I'm just disappointed America didn't vote for me." Months later, she spoke to MTV again, giving advice to future auditioners. "My advice to people who are trying out for 'American Idol' is to know who you are as a person and it will get you further than you ever think it will," Brown told us in 2006. "If you go in there thinking you are someone else or trying to be another person, you won't get to the place where you really want to be." According to her Web site, on her final "Idol" appearance she delivered a cover of Natasha Bedingfield's "Unwritten," but she continues to release music. With one album under her belt, the singer plans on releasing her follow-up titled Circles (her site does not list a release date). Ayla declared that she would donate portions of her election-night album sales to the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund. Will Ayla Brown now join the ranks of other "Idol" alums who went on to see illustrious careers? After all, season five spawned the career of Chris Daughtry — so it's certainly possible. We've certainly seen less conventional methods of obtaining a record contract. Get your "Idol" fix on MTV News' "American Idol" page, where you'll find all the latest news, interviews and opinions. ||||| A tipster who is friends with Scott Brown’s daughter Ayla was nice enough to send us this photo of her and her sister Arianna posing with their now-Senator Dad while clad in sexy bikinis. In lieu of Brown, who conservatives are already hoping with run for president in 2012, pimping out his “available” daughters during his victory speech last night, isn’t this just a little, oh, I don’t know, FUCKING CREEPY? Also, you must visit Ayla’s Myspace page and her HOT purple website. It’s like taking a web time machine back to the internet stone age.

– That daughter Senator-elect Scott Brown embarrassed the heck out of last night was more famous than her dad until recently. Ayla Brown is also a former American Idol contestant, as well as a Boston College basketball standout. Watch clips of her time on the show, ("Up until I was 10 years old, I was truly convinced that my dad was the Elvis Presley") as well as her performance—and her dad’s now-notorious pimping—at last night’s victory party, in the gallery. And, notes MTV, dad's victory and her constant presence on his campaign isn't hurting Ayla's career, either. Her name was lighting up the search engines this morning, leading Gawker to declare, "The campaign for Ted Kennedy's senate seat may have ended in disaster, but the race for Ayla Brown's heart has just begun."

Rumor no more: Blake Shelton and Gwen Stefani are officially a thing. Like, officially officially: Stefani's rep confirmed "The Voice" costars' brand-new couplehood to a number of outlets Wednesday, a day after the No Doubt singer flew to Nashville to join Shelton for some CMA Awards festivities. Seriously, even the by-the-books Associated Press is reporting that they're dating. Stunning photos, celebrity homes: Get the free weekly Hot Property newsletter >> Shelton and Stefani were, of course, photographed all over the place last weekend as they both hit three separate Halloween parties over two nights and were spotted holding hands as she led him out of the one thrown by actor Jared Leto. The 46-year-old mother of three was, however, still playing it close to the vest on Tuesday when she talked with Ryan Seacrest on his radio show. "I think that NBC did that," she said of the weekend's rumors, referencing the network that airs "The Voice." "Two divorced people at the same time. But to be super honest, it is kind of crazy we both went through the same thing at the same time. There's been so many people that I've gotten comfort from." A People source echoed that notion later on in confirming that the two had "begun" dating. "They've been supporting each other through a difficult time and they're really happy together." Both performers went back on the romance market this year, with Shelton and Miranda Lambert announcing their finalized divorce in July after four years as man and wife, and Stefani and Gavin Rossdale revealing in August that they were ending their nearly 13-year marriage. A source said to be close to Lambert told E! News early Wednesday that the country gal "was not surprised to hear of the romance" between her ex and his coworker. "They were always pretty flirty," the source said. "Miranda and Blake were on the rocks on and off and knew that this could always be a possibility." The dating news doesn't mean the 39-year-old "Doin' What She Likes" singer will have a new lady on his arm at the CMA Awards on Wednesday for the first time since 2007, when he started attending with Lambert. TMZ says Stefani will accompany him only to the after-parties, but not because she's concerned about running into that other blond on the red carpet. "She just didn't have the right clothes for the award ceremony because it was so last minute," a source told the website. So, it ain't about Miranda -- it's all about the outfit. Wonder if this will affect Blake's office bromance with Adam Levine... Twitter: @NardineSaad Twitter: @theCDZ ALSO: G.I. Joe no more: Gigi Hadid, Joe Jonas have split Robin Williams' widow says she was 'forced' into estate battle with his children Rebel Wilson sounds off on Kardashians: 'Superficial,' careers 'not really based on talent' ||||| It was a very unhappy ending for Gwen Stefani and Gavin Rossdale. In the new issue of Us Weekly, insiders exclusively reveal that the music super couple’s 13-year marriage ended because of adultery: Rossdale’s three-year relationship with the family’s longtime nanny, Mindy Mann. (Stefani’s rep could not be reached, and Rossdale’s rep declined to comment.) PHOTOS: Gwen and Gavin, the way they were Back in February, Stefani, 46, uncovered Rossdale’s long-term affair with Mann, who cared for the couple’s three sons, Kingston, 9, Zuma, 7, and Apollo, 20 months. At the time, the No Doubt frontwoman discovered explicit texts between Rossdale and the nanny — including nude photos of Mann and their plans to meet up for sex — on the family’s iPad. PHOTOS: Biggest celeb cheating scandals ever “The iPad was linked to Gavin’s phone,” a family source tells Us. “One of the other nannies discovered the exchange and told Gwen.” Mann was soon fired, but the Bush rocker, 50, insisted to Stefani that the exchange was simply “flirtation,” one source explains. When he finally confessed to the affair months later, the “Used to Love You” singer made the decision to end their marriage. The couple announced their plans to divorce in August. PHOTOS: Recent celeb splits The admission “completely devastated her,” a source tells Us. “She was mortified, livid, and embarrassed.” The sexual relationship lasted for more than three years — including the time period when Stefani was pregnant with Apollo. PHOTOS: Blake and Miranda, the way they were “This was done right under Gwen’s nose,” a source tells Us. For all of the details on Rossdale’s shocking affair, Stefani’s heartbreak, and how she has moved on with her Voice costar Blake Shelton blossomed, picked up the new issue of Us Weekly, on stands now! Sign up now for the Us Weekly newsletter to get breaking celebrity news, hot pics and more delivered straight to your inbox! Want stories like these delivered straight to your phone? Download the Us Weekly iPhone app now!

– Cue the Kleenex boxes, folks: Jennifer Westfeldt and Jon Hamm are pulling the cord following months of breakup rumors, People reports. The 44-year-old Mad Men star and 45-year-old actress, last seen canoodling at a New York party on July 22, have issued a statement: "With great sadness, we have decided to separate, after 18 years of love and shared history," the couple says. "We will continue to be supportive of each other in every way possible moving forward." That fits, since Hamm credits his now-ex for helping him through alcohol-abuse treatment earlier this year. This adds to a slew of celebrity breakups this summer, including Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner, Blake Shelton and Miranda Lambert, and Gwen Stefani and Gavin Rossdale, the Daily News reports.

A Palm Coast man rigged the front door of his home with wiring attached to a car battery charger in an attempt to electrocute his pregnant wife, Flagler County Sheriff's investigators said. Michael Wilson, 32, is accused of trying to kill his wife after he attached electrical devices to the inside of the deadbolt lock and the door handle of their Palm Coast home, according to a charging affidavit. The ploy, which could have easily led to her death, was to have her insert the house key and then grab the handle, completing the circuit and sending a jolt of electricity through her arm, chest and heart. Fortunately for Wilson's wife, who was in Knoxville, Tennessee with family at the time, she never took a hold of that door knob. Her stepfather, Jon Flositz, became suspicious after she told him Wilson had warned her not to let a child touch it. Flositz went to examine the house with his wife, Alissa, and they found the word "Hi" and a drawing of two eyes in what appeared to be lipstick on the back sliding door, according to the deputy's report. He contacted authorities, and when they responded to 110 White Hall Drive on Tuesday, they found the front door was barricaded and locked. Burn marks were seen near the door's handle. A kick to the door sent off a large spark. On the other side was an elaborate rigging consisting of two chairs, a child's high chair, blue tape, a shower-type rod, electrical cords, wiring — some of which was cut from a bedroom salt rock lamp — and a car battery charger with clamps. Steven Bray, a journeyman lineman from from Florida Power & Light, was shown several photographs of what deputies described as the "booby trap" and he said that a person who touched the door lock and handle at the same time would receive a jolt of some 120 volts and 1 amp, enough power that the person had an 80 to 100 percent chance of "suffering death or great bodily harm," according to the affidavit. Wilson is charged with two counts of attempted aggravated battery on a pregnant person and one count of grand theft of a firearm. "This is one of the most bizarre domestic violence cases I have seen in my career,” Sheriff Rick Staley said in a statement. "Not only did this man try to electrocute his wife, but he could have injured a deputy or any person attempting to enter this residence. Thankfully this man was found and taken into custody before he could cause the harm he intended." In addition to the electric rigging, deputies found a series of strange items within the house: pictures of a sonogram on the kitchen table, sticky-note love letters in the bedroom with a photo album showing Wilson and his wife together, and the wife's recently-installed smart cameras dumped in the toilet. An interview with Wilson's wife, whose name is redacted throughout the report, shed light on the scene. She said that a few months ago her husband fell but he refused to seek medical treatment. "Up until that point, (Wilson) seemed to be a normal person," she told the detective. He was later hospitalized under Florida's Baker Act — which allows for someone to be involuntarily taken into custody for mental evaluation — in late November. While he was absent she obtained a revolver from her stepfather, which she hid in a kitchen cabinet, and installed two smart cameras that sent video feeds to her phone. Wilson eventually apologized for his behavior and she asked him to join her in Knoxville where she was spending the holiday with her family and her children. He arrived there on Dec. 21. The next evening, however, he suddenly got up while they were watching television around midnight and left. In the morning she began to receive text messages from Wilson, who insisted that she was cheating on him. She said Wilson didn't return until about 4:30 p.m. Dec. 24, some 40 hours later. In that time, she received an alert on her phone that the smart cameras in the Palm Coast home were disconnected. Wilson also made comments that made her believe that he had visited the home during his absence, including inquiring about the location of the firearm and cameras. He also advised her "to use the front door of the home because the garage door isn't going to open." She told her stepfather about the comments and he checked the home before she returned to Florida. Wilson was arrested on a warrant at 12:30 p.m. Thursday in Knoxville. He was being held Friday on $150,000 bail and will be extradited to the Flagler County Detention Facility. A Facebook page belonging to Wilson shows him gripping two handguns, and he boasts that he "is the guy that your father warned you about." It also lists him as "widowed." ||||| FLAGLER COUNTY, Fla. - A Flagler County man is behind bars after he was accused of having rigged the door to his home in Palm Coast with electrical devices in an attempt to electrocute his pregnant estranged wife. Deputies were called to the home on White Hall Drive on Dec. 26 to do a security check of the home after the father-in-law of the homeowner called to report suspicious statements from 32-year-old Michael Scott Wilson. Deputies observed that the front door to the home was barricaded, with burn marks near the handle. When a deputy attempted to kick the door, they witnessed a "booby trap," which possibly caused a large spark to appear, according to the report. According to deputies, the door was rigged with electrical devices on the top door lock and lower door handle. If anyone was to attempt to unlock the door, officials said the devices could cause severe injury or even death. Wilson is accused of rigging the door to kill his pregnant estranged wife and stealing a firearm from his father-in-law's home. Wilson was found in Knoxville, Tennessee, on Thursday and was arrested. He is charged with two counts of attempted aggravated battery on a pregnant person and one count of grand theft of a firearm. “This is one of the most bizarre domestic violence cases I have seen in my career,” Sheriff Rick Staly said. “Not only did this man plan to electrocute his wife, but he could have injured a deputy, or any person attempting to enter this residence. Thankfully, this man was found and taken into custody before he could cause the harm he intended.” Wilson is being held on $150,000 bail and will be extradited back to Florida. Copyright 2017 by WKMG ClickOrlando - All rights reserved. ||||| (Reuters) - In the Christmas week, there were reports of a man accused of murdering his girlfriend with a samurai sword in Texas, an Ohio woman indicted for killing her husband and hiding his body parts in their house, and a Florida man arrested for trying to electrocute his wife by rigging a booby trap to a door. Kenneth Wayne Lockings, charged with murder, appears in this photo obtained by Reuters December 29, 2017, after he turned himself in to officers at the Houston, Texas, U.S. police on December 28, 2017. City of Houston/Handout via REUTERS The sword that Kenneth Lockings Jr. used to kill his girlfriend was a gift received at Thanksgiving, the Houston Chronicle reported. Lockings, 35, faces a murder charge and was jailed without bond on Friday, public records showed. He nearly decapitated his girlfriend with a samurai-style sword, the Chronicle reported. State prosecutors could not immediately be reached and court records did not indicate whether he had an attorney. In Florida, a husband’s warning to his pregnant wife not to let their daughter near the front door to their home in Palm Coast may have saved mom and daughter from harm, authorities said. Michael Scott Wilson is seen in this booking photo from the Knox County, Tennessee, U.S., December 29, 2017. Knox County Sheriff's Office/Handout via REUTERS Michael Wilson, 32, had disappeared for a few days during Christmas while on a family trip in Tennessee, raising his wife’s suspicions, according to an arrest warrant filed in Florida. A law enforcement officer found the door had been rigged with an electrical booby-trap, causing a large spark when he kicked it in. An electrician told investigators with the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office the electrical circuit would have likely killed anyone touching the door knob and lock. Marcia Eubank is seen in this booking photo obtained by Reuters December 29, 2017, following her arrest in Summit County, Ohio, U.S. on December 10, 2017. Summit County Sheriff's Office/Handout via REUTERS Wilson was arrested in Tennessee and remained at a local detention center on Friday. He faces charges in both states including attempted aggravated battery on a pregnant person. There was no record of attorney representation for Wilson on arrest documents in Florida or jail records in Tennessee. A grand jury in Ohio, meanwhile, met the week after Christmas to indict a woman accused of killing her husband and cutting him up with hand tools. Marcia Eubank, 49, was indicted on charges including murder and corpse abuse in the June killing of her husband of 25 years. One of the couple’s sons discovered a container holding his body in his parents’ home, the Akron Beacon Journal reported. Her attorney, Brian Pierce, said she had been abused by her husband and would plead not guilty. She was jailed on Friday with bond set at $1 million.

– A Florida sheriff calls it "one of the most bizarre domestic violence cases I have seen in my career." The Daytona Beach News-Journal reports a Florida man allegedly rigged a "booby trap" capable of electrocuting his pregnant wife if she unlocked the front door of their home over the Christmas holiday. Authorities say 32-year-old Michael Wilson aroused the suspicions of his unnamed wife's stepfather when he told her to make sure she used the front door and to not let a child touch the doorknob. (Reuters reports Wilson and his wife have a young daughter together.) During this time, Wilson had disappeared from his in-law's home in Tennessee without explanation and accused his wife of cheating on him via text. Authorities went to Wilson's home in Florida on Tuesday and found burn marks on the front door, which let off a large spark when kicked open. Inside they found the doorknob and deadbolt attached to a car battery charger. An electrician who looked at a picture of the booby trap determined there was an 80% to 100% chance of "suffering death or great bodily harm." They also found Wilson's wife's new smart cameras in the toilet and other odd items. Wilson was arrested Thursday in Tennessee and charged with attempted aggravated battery on a pregnant person. He's also been charged with stealing a firearm from his father-in-law's home, WKMG reports. Wilson's wife says he "seemed to be a normal person" until falling a few months ago and refusing to get medical treatment. Wilson's Facebook page lists him as "widowed."

SHARE COPY LINK Historian and author Col. French MacLean talks about Wichitan Master Sgt. John Woods, who was the soldier responsible for hanging the top Nazi war criminals after the Nuremberg Trials. (Video by Fernando Salazar/The Wichita Eagle) McClatchy fsalazar@wichitaeagle.com Historian and author Col. French MacLean talks about Wichitan Master Sgt. John Woods, who was the soldier responsible for hanging the top Nazi war criminals after the Nuremberg Trials. (Video by Fernando Salazar/The Wichita Eagle) McClatchy fsalazar@wichitaeagle.com ||||| Andrew Nagorski’s The Nazi Hunters comes at a significant point, at the juncture between living memory and the historical record. Death, rather than the courts, now claims the last Nazi criminals — as well as those who labored for decades to bring them to justice. Nagorski has had long experience as a Newsweek reporter and bureau chief in Bonn, Berlin, Warsaw and Moscow, and he covered many of the prosecutions he details in this book. He interviewed dozens of key figures, and dozens more who were close to figures now dead. What Nagorski gives here is a full history of the postwar hunt and prosecution of Nazi criminals, now completing its seventh decade. Nagorski writes in the best Newsweek style: literate, factual, highly readable. His account is highly objective and balanced, qualities especially important in a story where you would think the lines would be clearly drawn but very often prove not to be. It’s a narrative that will hold you, even if you’ve followed this story over the decades. It began for the author, then 13, in 1960 with the news that a Mossad team had kidnapped Adolf Eichmann in Argentina and flown him to Israel for trial. Eichmann, Hannah Arendt, Simon Wiesenthal, Klaus Barbie, John Demjanjuk — their names and roles may be unfamiliar to readers today, still puzzling out what the Cold War was all about, and why it was so easy for Germany’s postwar allies to forget its Nazi crimes. “Nothing belongs to the past,” Nagorski quotes German prosecutor and judge Fritz Bauer, explaining why he continued to pursue Nazi criminals into the 1960s, against rising criticism in Germany. “Everything is still part of the present and could become part of the future again.” Variations of George Santayana’s “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” reverberate through this book, and it’s significant to note that this is a book about prosecutions, not about assassinations. From the first the Nazi hunters focused on “legal proceedings against their prey—demonstrating that even the most obviously guilty should have their day in court.” Nagorski begins his story with the hanging of 10 top Nazis on Oct. 16, 1946, in the Nuremberg prison gym, “where American security guards had played a basketball game only three days earlier.” (Hermann Goering committed suicide in his cell the night before his execution.) He focuses on the hangman, Sgt. John C. Woods, a colorful and controversial figure who prolonged, possibly deliberately, two of the hangings. Woods’ assistant, Herman Obermayer, describes Woods as slovenly, unshaven, with crooked yellow teeth and dirty, unpressed pants and an insubordinate attitude. Nagorski doesn’t press the point, but the reader can’t overlook the irony and poetic justice of such a figure confronting the Nazi elite in their final moments, most of them already indignant over being denied a soldier’s death by firing squad. This is a history with many anomalies, questions that you wouldn’t think needed answers, and controversies you couldn’t imagine would arise. The hunters often were “at odds with each other, prone to recriminations, jealousies and outright rivalries, even as they pursued roughly the same goal.” These controversies occupy a significant role in Nagorski’s story, yet already seem distant and immaterial. As his book shows, the scale of Nazi atrocities and the complexities of postwar politics put to the test the meaning of words like revenge, retribution and justice. Historical forgetting — the desire to forget — is the true antagonist in this story, and those who dedicated themselves to the hunt for Nazi criminals labored not for revenge or even justice, but for a future where such crimes would never occur again. David Walton writes and teaches in Pittsburgh. The Nazi Hunters Andrew Nagorski (Simon and Schuster, $30) Available May 10

– The name John C. Woods may not be familiar to most Americans, but it turns out the Wichita native played a unique role in history in the aftermath of World War II. As the Wichita Eagle explains, Woods was a US Army executioner who hanged 10 prominent Nazi war criminals after the Nuremberg trials. His story, one that includes allegations that he deliberately prolonged those hangings and ends with his own suspicious death in 1950, may become better known with the release of the book American Hangman later this year. The Eagle talks to the author, retired US Army Col. French MacLean, for the broad strokes. One of the first disturbing bits is that Woods was dishonorably discharged from the Navy prior to joining the Army and diagnosed with "psychopathic inferiority without psychosis," a term associated with violent criminals. He managed to join the Army anyway amid WWII and eventually volunteered for his executioner duties. Woods executed an estimated 90 men, says MacLean, but he became internationally known for his killing of the Nazis. "I'm proud of it," he would say. Eyewitnesses say some of the hangings appear to have been botched, either out of incompetence or malice. One man reportedly took 28 minutes to die. An earlier book, The Nazi Hunters, also chronicled Woods' role, and the Dallas Morning News points out that the "Nazi elite" dispatched by Woods probably were affronted by an executioner who was "slovenly, unshaven, with crooked yellow teeth and dirty, unpressed pants and an insubordinate attitude." Woods was fatally electrocuted in 1950 while standing in a pool of water and changing light bulbs, but MacLean asserts that the Army investigation into his death was wrong, suggesting foul play.

Officials are rushing to evacuate tens of thousands of people from their homes in western Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria inflicted structural damage on a dam and unleashed “extremely dangerous” flash floods. Some 70,000 residents in the municipalities of Isabela and Quebradillas were being evacuated by bus after a crack appeared in the nearly 90-year old Guajataca dam. “It’s a structural failure. I don’t have any more details,” Governor Ricardo Rossello said from the capital, San Juan. “We’re trying to evacuate as many people as possible.” “This is an EXTREMELY DANGEROUS SITUATION. Buses are currently evacuating people from the area as quickly as they can,” the US National Weather Service tweeted on Friday . NWS San Juan (@NWSSanJuan) 215PM FLASH FLOOD EMERGENCY for A Dam Failure in Isabela Municipality y Quebradillas Municipality in Puerto Rico... #prwx pic.twitter.com/L3utOjxspR In a later message, the NWS tweeted: “All Areas surrounding the Guajataca River should evacuate NOW. Their lives are in DANGER! Please SHARE!” NWS San Juan (@NWSSanJuan) Todas las areas alrededor del Rio Guajataca deben desalojar AHORA. Sus vidas corren PELIGRO. Favor de COMPARTIR. #prwx More than 15in (nearly 40cm) of rain has fallen on the mountains surrounding the Guajataca dam, swelling the reservoir behind the nearly 90-year-old dam, which holds back a manmade lake covering about two square miles (five square kilometres). An engineer inspecting the dam reported a “contained breach” that officials quickly realized was a crack and could be the first sign of total failure of the dam, said Anthony Reynes, a meteorologist with the US National Weather Service. “There’s no clue as to how long or how this can evolve. That is why the authorities are moving so fast, because they also have the challenges of all the debris. It is a really, really dire situation,” Reynes said. “They are trying to mobilize all the resources they can, but it’s not easy. We really don’t know how long it would take for this failure to become a full break of the dam.” The scale of the damage inflicted by Hurricane Maria is only just beginning to emerge, partly because communications to outlying areas of the island were severely hampered by the storm. A government spokesman, Carlos Bermudez, said officials had no communication with 40 of the 78 municipalities on the island more than two days after the category 5 storm crossed the island, toppling power lines and cell phone towers and sending floodwaters cascading through city streets. Maj Gen Derek P Rydholm, deputy to the chief of the air force reserve, said at the Pentagon that it was impossible to say when communication and power would be restored. He said mobile communications systems were being flown in but acknowledged “it’s going to take a while” before people in Puerto Rico will be able to communicate with their families outside the island. Until Friday, he said, “there was no real understanding at all of the gravity of the situation”. Maria was the second major hurricane to hit the Caribbean this month and the strongest storm to hit the US territory in nearly 90 years. It completely knocked out the island’s power, and several rivers hit record flood levels. Officials on the island said on Friday that six people had been confirmed killed by the storm: three died in landslides in Utuadno, in the island’s mountainous center; two drowned in flooding in Toa Baja, west of San Juan; and one died in Bayamón, also near San Juan, after being struck by a panel. Earlier news media reports had the death toll on the island as high as 15. “At the moment, these are fatalities we know of. We know of other potential fatalities through unofficial channels that we haven’t been able to confirm,” said Héctor Pesquera, the government’s secretary of public safety. ||||| Puerto Rico Dam Fails As Hurricane Maria Continues To Plague Residents Updated 10:10 p.m. ET Fri Though the brunt of Hurricane Maria has left Puerto Rico, the island's water worries continue. On Friday afternoon, the National Weather Service reported that the Guajataca Dam in the northwest is "failing," causing flash flooding. Buses were trying to evacuate people from the area "as quickly as they can," the service said. Officials say between 50,000 and 70,000 residents may have to be evacuated, according to the Associated Press, which also notes that authorities sent "frantic warnings on Twitter that went unseen by many in the blacked-out coastal area." The dam failure is causing flooding downstream on the Guajataca River. A flash flood watch is also in effect for much of the island through Friday evening with continued rainfall. At least seven rivers in Puerto Rico are still running above "flood stage" (the point at which overflow begins to cause damage from flooding): As Hurricane Maria passed, the entire main island saw persistent and intense rain that accumulated quickly. Caguas, about an hour inland from San Juan, saw 37.9 inches of rainfall, and most of the island got around 20 inches. Los Angeles Times reporter Molly Hennessy-Fiske described the rain in San Juan as "white sheets of rain almost like a snowstorm. It's that intense and can get sort of whiteout effects." Occasionally heavy rain is expected to continue until Tuesday, according to the NWS. Over the past 100-plus years, Puerto Rico has averaged 10 inches of rain for all of September.

– Tens of thousands of people are being evacuated in Puerto Rico after reports of a dam failing Friday, CBS News reports. According to NPR, the National Weather Service announced the Guajataca Dam was failing, causing flash flooding on the Guajataca River. Buses are trying to evacuate the cities of Isabela and Quebradillas—home to about 70,000 people. But details on the damage to the dam and evacuation were sparse as communication is still difficult following Hurricane Maria's battering of the island. “It’s a structural failure. I don’t have any more details,” the Guardian quotes Gov. Ricardo Rossello as saying. “We’re trying to evacuate as many people as possible.” The Guajataca Dam was built decades ago and holds back a man-made lake of about 2 square miles. The National Weather Service is warning of a "life-threatening" situation and advising people to "move to higher ground now." At least seven rivers in Puerto Rico are currently above "flood stage" and much of the island is under a flash-flood warning through Friday. Puerto Rico averages about 10 inches of rain for the entire month of September; some areas of the island have received nearly 40 in the wake of Hurricane Maria. Up to 6 inches of rain is expected through Saturday, and heavy rain is expected on and off until Tuesday.

The wife of James Hodgkinson, who authorities say shot a congressman and injured others at a ballfield in Virginia, had no idea her husband would do it, and was sorry it happened. Suzanne Hodgkinson told reporters gathered outside her Belleville home Thursday afternoon that she "couldn't believe it" when she heard about the shooting. "I'm sorry that he did this, but there's nothing I can do about it," she said, according to interviews posted on St. Louis television stations' websites. Four people — including Rep. Steve Scalise, the House majority whip from Louisiana, who was shot in the hip — were wounded in the shooting. A Capitol Police officer was also injured in the incident. James Hodgkinson, who was 66, died of gunshot wounds suffered in a shootout with police. Suzanne Hodgkinson said she thought her husband had traveled to Washington to focus on tax issues but had not known much of what he was doing. She works for a tax firm, she said, and was busy in recent months. The couple had been married for 30 years, she said, and he'd sold almost everything from his business before moving out to D.C. in March. She said she thought he was going to return to Illinois because he'd run out of money. Suzanne Hodgkinson asked reporters to leave the area, saying that she and her family had been through enough. Richard Wagner, chief deputy of the St. Clair County sheriff's office, said afterward that Hodgkinson was told about the shooting by a journalist and has been with the FBI since the shooting. "She had no idea he would do this. She had no idea he felt as strong as he did," Wagner said. "She's just devastated." In Belleville, residents continued to grapple with the news that one of their own, a man many knew could be quick to anger, but who many said didn't show outward signs of violence, could have committed the mass shooting. Tom Reis has owned the popular T.R.'s Place about a mile from Hodgkinson's home since 1997. On Wednesday, June 14, 2017, James T. Hodgkinson of Belleville, Ill. opened fire on Republican congressmen practicing baseball in suburban D.C. "It makes you feel real bad that something like this is connected to here," Reis said. "We had policemen and even the FBI in here asking questions, but we just don't know him." A half-dozen patrons gathered at the tavern Thursday afternoon for the $1 taco special and to shoot pool said Hodgkinson didn't hang out there and wasn't known to them. "What makes a guy do something like that? I think it's terrible," Reis said. "It doesn't matter whether you're Republican, Democrat, black or white, Muslim or whatever. You just don't go out and shoot someone." Jack McClenahan, a retired Belleville business owner, said he had several unpleasant run-ins with Hodgkinson over the years while Hodgkinson protested a favored Democratic political cause outside the local post office. "He would get politically aggressive. I go down to the post office quite often, and he would be there collecting signatures on things he was for, and if you weren't of his opinion, he'd be very agitated," McClenahan said. "It was super shocking for our town because you don't want bad press, and this is about as bad as press you can get," he said. cmgutowski@chicagotribune.com Chicago Tribune Graphics Chicago Tribune Graphics Twitter @ChristyGutowsk1 ||||| House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, who was wounded by a gunman in Alexandria last month, was readmitted to ­MedStar Washington’s Intensive Care Unit on Wednesday, said officials from the hospital and his congressional office. The hospital tweeted a brief statement late Wednesday explaining that the Louisiana Republican was listed in serious condition as doctors feared new dangers of infection after he underwent several surgeries after being shot in the hip on June 14. “Congressman Steve Scalise has been readmitted to the Intensive Care Unit at MedStar Washington Hospital Center due to new concerns for infection,’’ the tweet said. “His condition is listed as serious.” A hospital spokesman said Thursday morning there was no further information available on Scalise’s condition. The congressman’s condition had steadily improved under cautious care, and nine days after the shooting, he had been released from intensive care and upgraded to fair condition. (Monica Akhtar,Jenny Starrs,Lee Powell,McKenna Ewen,Bastien Inzaurralde/The Washington Post) The hospital did not elaborate on the infection concerns. Scalise was one of five people taken to hospitals in the immediate aftermath of a shooting at a congressional Republican baseball practice by 66-year-old gunman James T. Hodgkinson. He shot 60 rounds at the GOP team before he was fatally shot by ­police. [ Lawmaker Steve Scalise is critically injured in GOP baseball shooting; gunman James T. Hodgkinson is killed by police ] Doctors predicted a long recovery after the rifle shot to the congressman’s left hip “traveled across his pelvis, fracturing bones, injuring internal organs, and causing severe bleeding,” hospital officials said on June 15, one day after the shooting. Within hours, Scalise went into shock and needed many units of blood before he underwent two immediate ­operations. The next day, the hospital reported an additional surgery related to his internal injuries and a broken bone in his leg. A statement said further surgery would be required and that Scalise would “be in the hospital for some time.” Still, his earlier release from intensive care gave signs of hope to those close to him. This week, Scalise colleague and friend Rep. Phil Roe (R-Tenn.) told Johnson City, Tenn., television station WJHL that Scalise’s condition seemed to improve, and he hoped Scalise would improve enough to attend the University of Tennessee and Louisiana State University football game this fall. “He’s just out of bed. He’s not able to eat yet. But he is getting better,” Roe told the station. Late Wednesday night, Twitter feeds filled with supportive statements from fellow members, Democrats and Republicans. “My prayers are with ­@SteveScalise and his family tonight after being readmitted to the intensive care unit. #scalisestrong” tweeted Rep. Steve Womack (R-Ark). Rep. Jason Lewis (R-Minn.) offered: “Thoughts are with @SteveScalise family tonight as my friend Steve is readmitted to ICU. Steve, we are all praying for you. Get well soon.” Victoria St. Martin contributed to this report. ||||| Washington (CNN) As his colleagues played baseball in his honor Thursday evening, MedStar Washington Hospital Center medical gave an update on Rep. Steve Scalise, who remains in critical condition but has improved. Scalise, the third ranking member of House Republican leadership, was among six people who were injured after a gunman opened fire Wednesday in Alexandria, Virginia, during a Republicans' early-morning practice ahead of a charity baseball game. The gunman, identified by officials as James Hodgkinson, died after the shootout. "Earlier today, Congressman Steve Scalise underwent a second surgery related to his internal injuries and a broken bone in his leg," MedStar said in a statement Thursday. "He remains in critical condition, but has improved in the last 24 hours. The congressman will require additional operations, and will be in the hospital for some time." The Congressional Baseball Game , an annual tradition, went on as planned Thursday. Though the game pegs Republicans against Democrats, attendees and participating lawmakers showed unity in wake of the shooting. More than $1 million has been raised for Congressional Sports for Charity so far, the game's organizers announced. Instead of wearing hats representing their home teams, as is the normal tradition, this year players on both teams wore Louisiana State University hats in honor of Scalise, a Louisiana Republican, for part of the game. House Speaker Paul Ryan and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi told CNN's Jake Tapper on "Erin Burnett OutFront" that despite party affiliation they were both on "Team Scalise" on Thursday. President Donald Trump, who visited Scalise in the hospital on Wednesday, sent a video message that played at the start of the game. "By playing tonight, you are showing the world that we will not be intimidated by threats, acts of violence, or assaults on our democracy," Trump said. "The game will go on."

– The wife of Alexandria shooter James Hodgkinson says he told her he was going to Washington to work on "changing the tax brackets" and she had no idea he was going to hurt anybody. The Belleville News-Democrat reports that Suzanne Hodgkinson trembled and held a deputy's arm as she spoke to reporters in the southern Illinois town. She said they had been married 30 years, but hadn't been on the best of terms before he sold most of his possessions and departed early this year. "I had no idea this was going to happen, and I don't know what to say about it. I can’t wrap my head around it," she said. "I'm sorry that he did this but there’s nothing I can do about it." Belleville residents say the outspoken liberal could be "politically aggressive." He would collect signatures for causes, and "if you weren't of his opinion, he'd be very agitated," business owner Jack McClenahan tells the Chicago Tribune. Rep. Steve Scalise was one of six people injured when Hodgkinson opened fire on a congressional baseball practice before being fatally injured by police. CNN reports that the hospital where Scalise is being treated says he is still in critical condition after a second operation. The hospital says he has improved in the last 24 hours, but will remain hospitalized "for some time." (Democrats gave the trophy to Scalise's office after winning the congressional baseball game.)

Lexington police detain a man as Kentucky fans gathered near the University of Kentucky campus, Saturday, April 4, 2015, in Lexington, Ky., after Wisconsin defeated Kentucky 71-64 in the semifinals of... (Associated Press) LEXINGTON, Ky. (AP) — Lexington Police say 31 people have been arrested near the University of Kentucky campus following the Wildcats' 71-64 Final Four loss to the Wisconsin Badgers. Police spokeswoman Sherelle Roberts says following the game Saturday night about 1,500 fans spilled into a State Street neighborhood adjacent to the university's Lexington campus. She said police dressed in tactical gear allowed fans to mingle but removed anyone who became disobedient. Roberts said pepper balls were used to break up one fight. Roberts says those arrested will face charges including public intoxication and disorderly conduct, and will be arraigned as early as Monday. Street sweepers were used to disperse the crowd about 2:15 a.m. Roberts says police are "thankful no one was seriously injured and that there was no major destruction of property." ||||| 5 UNH students arrested, bottles thrown at police after Red Sox win DURHAM — A riot following Wednesday night's Red Sox win in the World Series brought police from five agencies to the downtown area, where about 3,000 people gathered — some throwing bottles at police officers, damaging vehicles and setting off fireworks, said Town Administrator Todd Selig. UNH reported the following five students were arrested: Michael J. McGillicuddy, 20, of Rockport, Mass.; Marisa A. Hardy, 21, of Nashua; Evan R. Orlando, 22, of Mansfield, Mass.; Justin Pimentel, 18, of Pelham; and Robert Lougee, 18, of Bow. Each is charged with a Class A misdemeanor count of disorderly conduct and scheduled to be arraigned Dec. 5 in Dover's Circuit Court. Selig said the crowd of thousands "came rushing into downtown Durham," from the University of New Hampshire campus and surrounding neighborhoods, then "overtook Main Street." View a gallery of photos from the incident. "After giving the young people time to disperse and making three announcements to disperse, the crowd did not disperse," Selig said. "Bottles were thrown from the crowd toward police. Fireworks were set off by the crowd and young people jumped on vehicles and dented hoods of cars chanting, 'Red Sox' and 'UNH.'" Police in riot gear from Durham, UNH, State Police, and the Strafford County Sheriff's Department used pepper-spray to break up the crowd, while some "continued to throw bottles at police and shoot off fireworks," Selig said. According to the town administrator, Main Street was "littered with glass." A UNH statement said that students were warned prior to the game that any student arrested during a time where there was a crowd gathered would be suspended on an interim basis and be subject to the court and UNH conduct systems. Officers from the state Liquor Commission also responded, UNH said. At about 7 a.m. Thursday, Selig said, "All is quiet once again on Main Street," while reporting no injuries during the melee. "Our officers did a terrific job managing a large crowd that became very hard to move," he said. In an open letter to town officials, Selig said he takes "full responsibility" for a decision to encourage the police department "not be over zealous with a ramp up" of staff Wednesday night, "believing the students would behave better than they in fact did." "Police showed real restraint and I was pleased with our department's professional and practiced efforts," he said. Portsmouth police Sgt. Jon Aubin said his department had no incidents or arrests following the Sox win. ||||| AMHERST (CBS/AP) – Dozen of University of Massachusetts-Amherst students were arrested after state, Amherst and UMass police were called in Saturday to deal with a massive off-campus party called the Blarney Blowout that got out of control. Four police officers were hurt as they worked to disperse students who were throwing beer cans and bottles at police as large crowds gathered at an off-campus apartment complex, according to Amherst police. The officers did not require serious medical attention. Police from the city, university and state troopers in riot gear converged on the crowds around noon. The Republican in Springfield reported that police marched toward the crowd firing paintball-style guns loaded with pepper spray after students began setting off fireworks. “They warned them first and said ‘OK, everybody please disperse, this is a direct order.’ And they didn’t, so they moved into the crowd and that’s when things started to happen,” Larry Kelley, a witness, told WBZ-TV’s Paul Burton. Kelley said thousands of students began drinking early Saturday morning as part of a traditional all-day party before they leave for spring break. “This is something that was created by the downtown bars in Amherst to grab ahold of the kids before they all left the campus. So it’s supposedly a St. Patrick’s Day celebration,” said Kelley, a UMass graduate. Most of the people 43 people arrested have been charged with failing to disperse, police said. “It is extremely disturbing and unsafe. Perhaps one of the worst scenes we have ever had with drunkenness and unruliness,” Amherst Police Capt. Jennifer Gundersen told The Republican. “It is extremely upsetting. It is very dangerous.” Gundersen said that numerous partygoers suffered injuries. Umass put out a statement Saturday evening regarding the blowout, stating: “The University of Massachusetts Amherst today denounced the unruly behavior of participants in the unsanctioned ‘BlarneyBlowout.'” UMass spokesman Ed Blaguszewski said that the situation had calmed down by early Saturday night. He said that UMass students who were arrested will have their behavior reviewed under the school’s code of conduct and that sanctions could include suspension or expulsion. The school did send out an email earlier this week warning students about the consequences for any disruptive behavior and the dangers of underage drinking. WBZ-TV’s Paul Burton contributed to this report. (TM and © Copyright 2014 CBS Radio Inc. and its relevant subsidiaries. CBS RADIO and EYE Logo TM and Copyright 2014 CBS Broadcasting Inc. Used under license. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.) MORE LOCAL NEWS FROM CBS BOSTON

– Wisconsin handed the University of Arizona a narrow overtime loss last night, and the student body cheering on the latter didn't exactly take it well, clogging a main thoroughfare in Tucson and chucking beer bottles and firecrackers at pepper spray-wielding police officers. Police eventually managed to clear the streets, but arrested 15 people along the way; of those, 14 were released, reports the AP. A police spokesman says that crowds emptied out of bars and restaurants along University Boulevard after the game, and refused to leave in spite of warnings via a PA system and social media. A witness says everything was going swimmingly until "people got in cops' faces" and cans started flying. Deadspin notes that things quickly deteriorated to the point that students were shot with bean bags; the Daily Wildcat chronicled events via its Twitter feed. Meanwhile, the Florida Gators became the first team to advance to the Final Four last night.

One lucky Redditor received a travel book, a stuffed cow, and a donation in her name to a charity, though the Microsoft chairman decided against the iPad on her wishlist. Microsoft Chairman and Secret Santa Bill Gates. (Credit: CBS) Bill Gates as Santa Claus? That's the role he played to one girl on Reddit. Excited and shocked when she learned the source behind her generous gift giving, Redditor Rachel detailed the exchange in a Redditgifts post Wednesday night. Served up by the folks at Reddit, Redditgifts is an online gift exchange where people become Secret Santas by exchanging presents with friends and strangers around the world. Rachel unwrapped the gifts from her Secret Santa to discover a stuffed animal that she added to her teddy bear collection and a National Geographic coffee table book entitled "Journeys of a Lifetime." Also in the package was a donation to Heifer International made on Rachel's behalf, a gift that she said nailed it since the organization tries to offer an education and other benefits to people in need. The true identity of Rachel's Secret Santa was finally revealed when she found a photo of Gates holding the stuffed animal and the signed donation sent to Heifer International. An inscription in the book with a "really nice message" and note from Gates wishing Rachel a Merry Christmas and a Happy Birthday was the topper. "My God. Never in my entire life did I imagine, ever, ever, ever that Bill would get me," Rachel wrote in her post. "I am SO SO thankful for the time, thought ,and energy he put into my gift, and especially thankful for him over-nighting it :)" One item on Rachel's wishlist wasn't part of the package -- an Apple iPad. But who needs an iPad when you manage to get Bill Gates as your Secret Santa? ||||| He may not have gifted her the iPad she wanted, but Bill Gates proved a very generous Secret Santa to a Reddit user. NY1227 wrote a post last night to reveal that the RedditGifts' elf-matching service had paired her with the Microsoft founder. Not that she worked it out immediately—well, would you, if your package was addressed to you like this? It wasn't until the recipient discovered a photo in the package of the software creator turned philanthropist cuddling a cow that she realized who it was from. As well as gifting a cuddly cow and a travel book, Gates donated a cow, via Heifer International, to a family in the developing world, in her name. The post is a joy to read. For example: "My santa had not messaged me, but I knew I was super thorough and have a pretty good posting history so I wasn't too worried that my santa would stiff me. Finally, I received a shipped notification to my email on Monday- I was SO SO SO excited but even more excited when I realized A) my gift was being OVERNIGHTED and B) it was 7 pounds- OMG!" Let us reiterate, it is a joy. "Thank you so much Bill for a fantastic and thoughtful gift. I'd really love to send a thank you card to you, but if not, I hope this post and message suffices. Thank you so much!!!!!! I will think of you every time I read my book, which will find a nice home on my coffee table once I'm done reading it. 10/10, I would receive a gift from Bill Gates again. " And finally, she added a postscript: "Sorry for the apple ipad on my wishlist, that was really awkward." ||||| Share. "It looks like you're writing a list..." "It looks like you're writing a list..." UPDATE: A representative for Bill Gates confirmed to us that the package is authentic and that Mr. Gates has participated in Reddit’s Secret Santa program for the last few years. Each year, members of Reddit sign up to be part of the largest Secret Santa gift exchange on the planet. This year, one redditor's Santa also happened to be the world's richest person. According to a post on Reddit, a mysterious package was delivered via FedEx to Reddit user Aerrix's residence this morning while she was out. After tearing into the larger-than-expected box and clearing away some of the bubble wrap, Aerrix said she uncovered a photo and her "jaw. Just. Drops." The photo was jolly ol' Bill Gates, Microsoft founder, noted philanthropist, and awesome Secret Santa. Aerrix then called her husband at work, something she said she doesn't normally do without texting him first. Speaking quietly so as not to alarm him, she broke the news. "I said 'Bill Gates is my freaking Secret Santa!'" she wrote. "It took a second for it to sink in but oh MAN I was excited and flipping out!" Gates delivered a package filled with awesome gear, including an Xbox One S Minecraft edition, three custom Xbox One controllers, an NES Classic, and matching Legend of Zelda mittens for Aerrix and her dog Claire. If you want to see the entire unboxing, Aerrix took photos of the whole process, from mysterious box, to everything inside. We've reached out to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to see if this Reddit Secret Santa is the real Bill Gates, but even if it turns out to be someone gifting in his name, there's no denying this is a really awesome score. Seth Macy is IGN's weekend web producer and just wants to be your friend. Follow him on Twitter @sethmacy, or subscribe to Seth Macy's YouTube channel. ||||| I want to start by giving a HUGE THANK YOU to Mr. Bill Gates for an amazing gift and secret santa experience. Bill- you ROCK (can I call you Bill?! I feel like we're friends now!). I am so very, very grateful for the amazing and thoughtful gift you have picked for me! Not only is the gift PERFECT from anyone, but I am sincerely very appreciative that you took the time to find something so fitting for me. I asked for a return address to send a thank you card to whomever my "Santa" was. I see that you did not provide one so I hope this serves as a proper thank you. Regardless, I'd still love to send a personal thank you if you want to give me your mailing address!! I did not realize my santa was Mr. Bill Gates himself until very far into this. Here's my "journey" of discovery, sorry for the length but I thought many might be interested. My information got pulled about 3 days after elf matching was done. My santa had not messaged me, but I knew I was super thorough and have a pretty good posting history so I wasn't too worried that my santa would stiff me. Finally, I received a shipped notification to my email on Monday- I was SO SO SO excited but even more excited when I realized A) my gift was being OVERNIGHTED and B) it was 7 pounds- OMG! Of course life is life and I wasn't able to get to the gift until this evening (Wednesday night). I decided to document my journey, starting with the box. The first thing I noticed was a stuffed animal. I didn't know I gave off the stuffed animal vibe, but I excitedly added him to my collection of teddy bears and other delightful friendly creatures. Next, I found the card. Next, I found the card. To me, from Bill. This still had not clicked, by the way, that it was Bill Gates. I thought Bill sounded like a friendly fellow. In fact, I had this whole image of this poor guy named Bill trying to navigate my wishlist full of makeup, nailpolish, glittery things to buy me. Quite frankly I felt bad for this "Bill" since I'm a self identified pain in the ass to shop for. I finally opened the card and realized that "Bill" (I use quotes, because like I said, I still didn't realize that this was THE Bill) had donated to a charity on my behalf. The charity was/is Heifner International. I took a break from my present to research the charity a bit, and now the stuffed animal cow made sense. I was so excited, the cause seemed really worthy and amazing, and it is the season of giving. By the way, the charity "gives families in need the right tools- such as animals, seeds, clean water, safe stoves or a chance for girls to go to school." The last part was/is my favorite, since my master's degree is in education and I am SO into educational benefits for all. It makes me so happy that he was able to donate to a charity on my behalf that helped people with both needs and educational benefits. Nailed it, Bill! By the way, in case anyone was being nosy it does not say how much he donated to my behalf, but I can only imagine it was QUITE a bit. But I digress, back to the gift. Still not realizing who was gifting me, I quickly opened the bulk and weight of the gift, which was an amazing and beautiful travel book, "Journeys of a lifetime." I went on and on in my likes and dislikes for my love of travel and seeing the world, and I cannot WAIT to read this. Not only that, but I love pictures and reading up on new places. This gift was perfect! I quickly flipped through it, missing the inscription, message and signature from Bill on the first page, and headed to the final part of my gift. Once again, To me, From Bill. I opened this and it's a man holding a sign. Oh.... wait. holy shit. time out. and then it finally hit me. All the presents I just tore open, the charity, then everything-- was from Bill GATES. I quickly went back to the book to see a really nice message and note from Bill wishing me a Merry Christmas and a Happy Birthday (not pictured, because I really want to keep one part of this gift to myself) my jaw hit the EVER LOVING FLOOR. I went back to all the other gifts completely shocked. Then I paused for a minute and thought, what if this is someone screwing with me. Well of course Mr. Bill Gates already thought of this and took a picture of himself with my stuffed animal and a sign and then sent me the stuffed animal and sign. My god. Never in my entire life did I imagine, ever, ever, ever that Bill would get me. I am SO SO thankful for the time, thought and energy he put into my gift, and especially thankful for him over nighting it :) I feel SO shocked and excited that not only did I receive a gift from Bill, but it was perfectly and EXACTLY tuned into my interests. My gosh, what a rush!! I cannot express how much I really loved reading about a new charity. By the way everyone, you should go donate too! http://www.heifer.org/ Thank you so much Bill for a fantastic and thoughtful gift. I'd really love to send a thank you card to you, but if not, I hope this post and message suffices. Thank you so much!!!!!! I will think of you every time I read my book, which will find a nice home on my coffee table once I'm done reading it. 10/10 would receive gift from Bill Gates again ps: Sorry for the apple ipad on my wishlist, that was really awkward. EDIT: I just got home to see this exploded on the news. To everyone requesting interviews with me, I appreciate the thought but I'm not really looking to exploit this into publicity. I've described my gift, my reactions, and my feelings as best as I can through my post and comments. There is really nothing left for me to say, except privately to Bill (I really hope I can call him that), which I have attempted to do. Merry Christmas!

– You might end up with a great Secret Santa this year, but Reddit user Rachel will probably have you beat. Hers ended up being none other than Bill Gates in Reddit's online gift exchange program, reports Fast Company. She posted the news yesterday under her NY1227 handle, thanking Gates for the "amazing and thoughtful gift." He donated a cow on her behalf to a needy family via the Heifer International program, gave her a stuffed-animal cow as a symbol of that, and added a travel book. In her post, Rachel writes how she didn't realize it was Bill Gates himself until she found a photo inside her package of him holding the stuffed animal, notes CNET. "My God. Never in my entire life did I imagine, ever, ever, ever that Bill would get me," Rachel wrote. "I am SO SO thankful for the time, thought ,and energy he put into my gift, and especially thankful for him over-nighting it :)" She also apologized for putting an Apple iPad on her wish list.

A police officer checks his phone inside the forensic department at Kuala Lumpur Hospital in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Friday, Feb. 24, 2017. The banned chemical weapon VX nerve agent was used in the murder... (Associated Press) A police officer checks his phone inside the forensic department at Kuala Lumpur Hospital in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Friday, Feb. 24, 2017. The banned chemical weapon VX nerve agent was used in the murder of Kim Jong Nam, the North Korean ruler's outcast half brother who was poisoned last week at the... (Associated Press) The banned chemical weapon VX is considered by some experts to be the nastiest of the nasty nerve agents known to exist. With a consistency similar to motor oil, it lingers for long periods in the environment and even a tiny amount causes victims' bodies to flood with fluids, producing a feeling of drowning before death. So when Malaysian authorities announced Friday that VX was to blame for the Feb. 13 death of the North Korean leader's exiled half brother inside a busy Kuala Lumpur airport, it raised nearly as many questions as answers. First, with a substance so potent, how is it possible that the two women who allegedly attacked Kim Jong Nam with it could have survived? Second, given that particles can remain in the environment for possibly weeks after being released, why didn't the airport undertake specialized decontamination measures to ensure the public's safety? "The other chemical agents like sarin, tabun, those kinds of things, they're way below this. They're toxic, yes, but this is the king," said John Trestrail, a U.S. forensic toxicologist who has examined more than 1,000 poisoning crimes. He said an amount of VX weighing two pennies could kill 500 people through skin exposure. It's also hard to acquire and would likely have come from a chemical weapons laboratory, making it more likely that the attack was executed by a government. Police are seeking the second secretary of North Korea's embassy in Malaysia, but embassy officials have vehemently denied any involvement. He and other experts stressed the importance of having the results confirmed by an independent reference laboratory, especially given the nerve agent's rarity. VX is an amber-colored, tasteless, odorless chemical weapon first produced in the 1950s. When inhaled or absorbed through the skin, it disrupts the nervous system and causes constriction and increased secretions in the throat, leading to difficulty breathing. Fluids pour from the body, including sweat, spontaneous urination and defecation, often followed by convulsions, paralysis and death. Kim Jong Nam sought help at the airport clinic and died en route to a hospital within two hours of being attacked, police said. An antidote, atropine, can be injected after exposure and is carried by medics in war zones where weapons of mass destruction are suspected. But Bruce Goldberger, a leading toxicologist who heads the forensic medicine division at the University of Florida, questions how no one else fell violently ill in the attack on Kim Jong Nam, who had been living abroad for years after falling out of favor with his family, including North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. The two women — one Vietnamese, one Indonesian — recorded on surveillance cameras thrusting a substance into Kim Jong Nam's face as he was about to check in for a flight home to Macau, apparently did not suffer serious health problems. Malaysian police have said they were not wearing gloves or protective gear and that they washed their hands afterward as they were trained to do. However, authorities said Friday that one of them vomited afterward. Both have been arrested along with another man. Authorities are also seeking several others, including an employee of North Korea's state-owned airline, Air Koryo. "If they used their bare hands, there's just no possible way that they would have exposed him to VX unless they took some sort of precaution," Goldberger said. "The only precaution I know of would be administration of the antidote before this went down." No passengers, airport workers or medical personnel who tended to Kim Jong Nam at the clinic or hospital have been identified as having been sickened. Tens of thousands of passengers have passed through the terminal at Kuala Lumpur's airport, used by budget carriers such as AirAsia, since the apparent assassination was carried out a week and a half ago. No areas were cordoned off and protective measures were not taken. When asked about it a day after the attack, airport spokesman Shah Rahim said there was no risk to travelers and the airport was regularly and properly cleaned. But officials announced Friday that the facility would be decontaminated. "It's as persistent as motor oil. It's going to stay there for a long time. A long time, which means anyone coming in contact with this could be intoxicated from it," Trestrail said. "If this truly is VX, they ought to be calling in a hazmat team and looking at any place these women or the victim traveled after the exposure." VX, which is banned under the Chemical Weapons Convention, has been used before. The Japanese religious cult Aum Shinrikyo used the nerve agent in the 1990s, killing one victim they believed was a police informant. ___ Follow Margie Mason on Twitter: @margiemasonap ||||| Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Rupert Wingfield-Hayes: Three reasons why the use of VX is so extraordinary Kim Jong-nam, the half-brother of North Korea's leader, was killed by a highly toxic nerve agent, says Malaysia. Mr Kim died last week after two women accosted him briefly in a check-in hall at a Kuala Lumpur airport. Malaysian toxicology reports indicate he was attacked using VX nerve agent, which is classified as a weapon of mass destruction by the United Nations. There is widespread suspicion that North Korea was responsible for the attack, which it fiercely denies. It responded furiously to Malaysia's insistence on conducting a post-mortem examination and has accused Malaysia of having "sinister" purposes. What does the toxicology report say? Malaysia's police chief Khalid Abu Bakar said on Friday that the presence of the nerve agent had been detected in swabs taken from Mr Kim's eyes and face. One of the women Mr Kim interacted with at the airport on 13 February had also fallen ill with vomiting afterwards, he added. Mr Khalid said other exhibits were still under analysis and that police were investigating how the banned substance might have entered Malaysia. "If the amount of the chemical brought in was small, it would be difficult for us to detect," he said. What is the deadly VX nerve agent? Image copyright Science Photo Library Image caption Molecular model of VX nerve agent shows atoms represented as spheres The most potent of the known chemical warfare agents, it is a clear, amber-coloured, oily liquid which is tasteless and odourless Works by penetrating the skin and disrupting the transmission of nerve impulses - a drop on the skin can kill in minutes. Lower doses can cause eye pain, blurred vision, drowsiness and vomiting It can be disseminated in a spray or vapour when used as a chemical weapon, or used to contaminate water, food, and agricultural products VX can be absorbed into the body by inhalation, ingestion, skin contact, or eye contact Clothing can carry VX for about 30 minutes after contact with the vapour, which can expose other people Banned by the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention Read more about VX Who could be behind the attack? How could it have killed Mr Kim? Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption CCTV footage appears to show the moment Kim Jong-nam is attacked Bruce Bennett, a weapons expert at the research institute the Rand Corporation, told the BBC it would have taken only a tiny amount of the substance to kill Mr Kim. He suggests a small quantity of VX - just a drop - was likely to have been put on cloths used by the attackers to touch his face. A separate spray may have been used as a diversion. Mr Khalid has previously said the fact the woman who accosted Mr Kim immediately went to wash her hands showed she was "very aware" that she had been handling a toxin. It would have begun affecting his nervous system immediately, causing first shaking and then death within minutes. More from expert Bruce Bennett Is Kuala Lumpur airport safe? The authorities say they intend to decontaminate the airport and areas the suspects are known to have visited. VX is a v-type nerve agent, which means the substance can remain lethal for a long period of time. "It's as persistent as motor oil. It's going to stay there for a long time... which means anyone coming in contact with this could be intoxicated from it," forensic toxicologist John Trestrail told the Associated Press news agency. No passengers, airport workers or medical staff who treated Mr Kim were reported to have become ill in the aftermath of the incident, the news agency adds. Tens of thousands of passengers are believed to have passed through the airport since the attack more than 10 days ago. Who was Kim Jong-nam? Image copyright AP Image caption North Korea has not identified the man who died as Kim Jong-nam, only as a North Korean citizen The well-travelled and multilingual oldest son of late North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, he was once considered a potential future leader. He has lived abroad for years and was bypassed in favour of his half-brother, Kim Jong-un. He had been travelling on a passport under the name Kim Chol. North Korea has yet to confirm that the deceased was actually Kim Jong-nam. For many years, it was believed Kim Jong-nam was being groomed to succeed his father as the next leader. But that appears to have come to an end in 2001 when Kim was caught sneaking into Japan on a fake passport. He later became one of the regime's most high-profile critics, openly questioning the Stalinist policies and dynastic succession his grandfather Kim Il-sung began crafting in 1948. Kim Jong-nam: North Korea's critic in exile How did he die? A woman was seen in CCTV footage approaching Mr Kim and wiping something across his face. He sought medical help at the airport, saying someone had splashed or sprayed him with liquid. He had a seizure and died on the way to hospital. His body remains in the hospital's mortuary, amid a diplomatic dispute over who should claim it. Main players in mysterious killing Who did it? Malaysia says it was clearly an attack by North Korean agents. Four people are in custody, including one North Korean and the two women he interacted with at the airport. Seven North Koreans are being sought, including a diplomat. There are a number of North Korean organisations capable of directing such an attack, including the exclusive Guard Command. The North hit back at Malaysia on Thursday, saying it was responsible for the death of one of its citizens. In response, Malaysian Foreign Minister Anifah Aman warned North Korean envoy Kang Chol on Friday that he would be expelled unless he stopped "spewing lies" about the attack. Who in North Korea could organise a VX murder? North Korea's history of foreign assassinations Does North Korea have VX? North Korea is one of just six countries not to have signed the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) arms control treaty banning the production, stockpiling and use of chemical weapons. According to the Nuclear Threat Initiative project, however, North Korea is thought to have the third largest stockpile of chemical weapons, after the US and Russia. South Korea's defence ministry estimated in 2014 that the North has somewhere between 2,500 and 5,000 tonnes of nerve agents in stock, with VX identified as among them.

– The banned chemical weapon VX is considered by some experts to be the nastiest of the nasty nerve agents known to exist. With a consistency similar to motor oil, it lingers for long periods in the environment and even a tiny amount causes victims' bodies to flood with fluids, producing a feeling of drowning before death, reports the AP. So when Malaysian authorities announced Friday that VX was to blame for the Feb. 13 death of the North Korean leader's exiled half-brother inside a busy Kuala Lumpur airport, it raised nearly as many questions as answers, including how the two women who allegedly attacked Kim Jong Nam with it could have survived. A toxicologist says the woman shouldn't have escaped unscathed—one reportedly vomited—as police have said they did not wear gloves or protective gear and only washed their hands after the attack. One theory is that they took an antidote in advance. And the New York Times points out VX becomes lethal when two chemicals are mixed, something that can be done "at the last moment." Police have said the two suspects rubbed something on Kim's face in quick succession. Another toxicologist notes that VX—a small amount of which could kill 500 people through skin exposure—would likely have come from a chemical weapons laboratory, making it more likely that the attack was executed by a government. But he wants an independent lab to verify that VX was used, given that no one else at the airport was sickened. On Friday officials announced the facility would be decontaminated.

(CNN) The winter storm sweeping across the southern United States revealed its power Saturday by dropping 10 inches of snow on Lubbock, Texas -- 2 inches more than the city usually gets in a whole year. "They crushed their yearly average in 24 hours," CNN meteorologist Ivan Cabrera said. The Lubbock Police Department tweeted late Saturday that black ice and freezing fog were beginning to form on areas Interstate 27. Police said they were "working about 20 wrecks due to these dangerous conditions." Right now we are asking citizens to stay off of MSF, I-27 & Loop 289 until further notice! This is because of the black ice and freezing fog. Right now first responders are working about 20 wrecks due to these dangerous conditions. Having done its work in Texas, the storm will move east and is expected to pound the Carolinas with heavy snow Sunday, followed by rain, Cabrera said. Sleet and flooding are also possible across the South. As much as 6 inches of snow might fall in Charlotte, North Carolina, and ice accumulations of a quarter of an inch to half an inch are possible. "Six inches will shut that city down," CNN meteorologist Allison Chinchar said. "It's very much like any other Southern city ... where they don't have the resources that a lot of other cities have. They have few salt trucks, few snowplows. It takes them longer to clean something like that up." A #NCwx look at the expected snowfall and ice accumulations from the upcoming #WinterStorm from the seven @NWS offices that serve the state. Get your local forecast: https://t.co/kiwel57HQs pic.twitter.com/MgBUl622Je — NWS Raleigh (@NWSRaleigh) December 8, 2018 Power outages are likely and air travel will be restricted. More than 1,000 Sunday flights have already been canceled at Charlotte Douglas International Airport, according to FlightAware, a flight tracking service. American Airlines and its regional partners canceled 225 flights Saturday, 1,100 for Sunday and 300 for Monday, American said in a news release. Many churches in the Charlotte area have preemptively canceled Sunday services, CNN affiliate WSOC reported , and the city of Charlotte is prepping emergency shelters. Grocery store shelves have been cleared of bread, milk and other staples. North Carolina authorities declared a statewide emergency. "Snow may be beautiful but it can also be treacherous and I urge North Carolinians to take this storm seriously and get ready for it now," Gov. Roy Cooper said in a statement. Very heavy snow is forecast for the Appalachian Mountains, CNN meteorologist Haley Brink said, with Asheville, North Carolina, and Roanoke, Virginia, predicted to get 12-18 inches. Social media showed snow falling Saturday night in Asheville. At lower elevations, Raleigh, North Carolina, and Richmond, Virginia, are expected to see 4-6 inches of snow. Atlanta will probably see rain but not snow, Cabrera said, though northeast Georgia might. The weather could slow air traffic at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. More than 25 million people are under winter weather alerts from Oklahoma through Virginia, and more than 10 million are under a flood threat from the Gulf coast to South Carolina. Eastern Tennessee, Georgia and the Carolinas The culprit is a moisture-heavy storm that brought downpours and flash flooding along the southern edge of Texas and snow and ice in the north. As that moisture moves eastward, it is colliding with a high pressure system over the Ohio Valley that is funneling cold air into the region. "It's kind of a big deal," Chinchar said. "It's December. This is not the time of year that they would typically get this stuff." Parts of North Carolina could see record snowfall, described by the National Weather Service as a "once-in-a-generation event." "This storm comes at a time of year when North Carolinians are usually hearing carols about snow, not actually seeing it. But this time, the real thing is headed our way and North Carolina is getting prepared," Cooper, the North Carolina governor, said, according to WSOC in Charlotte. "A winter storm's not a Christmas carol snow. It's serious, and you need to take steps now to get your family ready." The flooding and winter precipitation may also affect Georgia. Heavy rain with 1 to 3 inches is projected Saturday, with "rates expected to be high at times, increasing the threat of flooding," the weather service said. About 1 to 2 inches of snow could fall in the higher elevations of North Georgia, with up to 5 inches on the highest ridges Sunday night into Monday. Possible freezing rain and dusting snow could also reach the I-85 corridor. Arkansas and western Tennessee Half an inch of ice may coat trees and power lines from Little Rock, Arkansas, to Nashville, Cabrera said. The National Weather Service predicted 1-3 inches of snow in north and central Arkansas with isolated areas exceeding 4 inches in the northeast. The southern half of Arkansas faced up 4 to 5 inches of rain, with flash flooding possible. The higher elevations of the Ozark Mountains were expected to see 2 to 6 inches of snow on top of a glaze of ice up to a quarter of an inch. Snow totals will be lower in northeastern Arkansas and northwestern Tennessee, where a trace to 1 inch of snow is possible. Texas After the heavy rain in Lubbock, many community activities were disrupted. The city holiday parade was postponed and Texas Tech rescheduled all Saturday final exams until Sunday, CNN affiliate KCBD reported Morning more snow 12/08/18 Here and Lubbock Texas 🙏🙏🙏 pic.twitter.com/H7vgefj7t0 — Eric Lopez (@EricLop51065391) December 8, 2018 ||||| (CNN) One weather-related death has been reported in North Carolina as a result of this weekend's snowstorm. Police in Matthews, about 12 miles south of Charlotte, said a tree fell on a vehicle. This led the vehicle to drive through the front lawn of a church until it hit the front of the building. The driver died and the passenger was taken to a hospital with minor injuries, police said. A nasty mix of snow and ice gripped the Southeast this weekend, leading to treacherous driving conditions, canceled flights and thousands of people stranded at home. "Over 20 million people are under winter weather alerts, over 8 million people are under a flash flood threat, and over 9 million people are under wind advisories," CNN meteorologist Haley Brink said Sunday. More than 12 inches of snow fell Sunday in the southern and central Appalachians, the National Weather Service said. The area with the highest snowfall total was Whitetop, Virginia, at the border of North Carolina, which had 2 feet of snow, according to CNN meteorologist Gene Norman. Raleigh-Durham International Airport received about 7 inches of snow Sunday, according to CNN affiliate WTVD , which was the most snow at the airport since 2002. Charlotte also saw record-setting snowfall totals. With 2.7 inches, the city had its snowiest December since 1997, according to CNN affiliate WSOC-TV Snowfall could total 12 to 20 inches over the Appalachians and into the Carolinas by Monday, when the storm is expected to move off the coast, the NWS said. "Snowfall amounts in some locations will likely exceed a foot and result in several days of difficult or impossible travel, extended power outages, and downed trees," the agency said. The storm already has knocked out power for more than 546,000 customers in the Southeast. The bulk of the outages are in North Carolina, where 244,807 customers are in the dark. In South Carolina, more than 225,600 customers have lost power. And Alabama, Tennessee and Georgia each had about 20,000 and 30,000 customers without electricity. A snow-covered car sits outside a home Sunday in Greensboro, North Carolina. Those hoping to escape the storm may be out of luck. More than 1,100 Sunday flights into and out of North Carolina's Charlotte Douglas International Airport were canceled, according to flight tracking website FlightAware More than half the Sunday flights at Raleigh-Durham International Airport and Piedmont Triad International Airport were also called off. Virginia extends winter storm warning A winter storm warning is in effect for most of Virginia until to 2 p.m. Monday, Norman said. Virginia's western and central areas were also hit with snow. The city of Richmond and surrounding areas received about 9 inches of snow, according to the National Weather Service in Wakefield, Virginia. Areas south of Richmond got 6 to 8 inches of snow, Norman said. Like it's neighboring states to the south, Virginia also saw power outages for thousands, and dozens of vehicle crashes. As of Sunday, there were more than 15,000 customers without power in the western part of the state, according to Appalachian Power. In the Richmond area, Dominion Energy said there were more than 13,000 without power. A snowplow is followed closely by cars as it clears US 301 in Hanover County, Virginia, on Sunday. Virginia State Police reported nearly 60 crashes in Virginia because of the snow, with most crashes in the agency's Richmond division. "The majority of the crashes involve only damage to vehicles. No traffic fatalities have been reported at this time," Virginia State Police spokesperson Corinne Geller told CNN affiliate WTVR Virginia Department of Transportation officials told WTVR Sunday that road crews were working 12-hour shifts until all roads were passable. Richmond International Airport reported Sunday that nearly 100 flights had been canceled, WTVR reported . One of those flights, a United Airlines flight to Denver, had passengers on the runway for hours. WTVR reported that the flight was supposed to leave at 8 a.m. Sunday, but passengers were stuck on the runway until 11 a.m. after officials said the weather worsened. After deboarding and reboarding the plane, passengers sat on the runway again for four more hours until they returned to the gate at 5 p.m. when the flight was officially canceled, WTVR reports. United officials apologized for the inconvenience. North Carolina has 500 car wrecks in 11 hours In Durham County, residents typically get about 6 inches of snow over an entire year . But on Sunday morning, they woke up to see 6 inches of snow on the ground. "The roads in Durham are treacherous and not safe for driving," the Durham County Sheriff's Office tweeted. All that heavy wet #snow is starting to weigh #powerlines and tree branches down. Here on the 2800 block of Beck Rd a power pole has broken. Remember when the power goes out to safely use alternative heating and lighting sources. #NCWx #DurhamWeather #WinterStorm #WinterSafety pic.twitter.com/aikCgH3htM — Durham Sheriff (@DurhamSheriff) December 9, 2018 Authorities responded to more than 500 car crashes between midnight and 11 a.m. Sunday, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper said. One tractor-trailer ran off the road and into a river. "We've seen too many collisions," Cooper said. "From Charlotte across central North Carolina, the biggest concern now is ice making roads even more dangerous." A man tries to walk through blowing snow Sunday in Wake Forest, North Carolina. Even before the storm hit, Cooper declared a statewide emergency. Grocery store shelves were cleared of bread, milk and other staples. Cooper asked residents to check on vulnerable loved ones and the elderly, if possible. He said 11 emergency shelters have opened across the state. North Carolina Highway Patrol said anyone who must drive should leave twice as much following space as normal behind the next car, in case that vehicle loses control. Driving conditions remain hazardous. If you do not have to leave your home, please do not. If you must leave, be sure to slow down, increase following distances, have emergency supplies on hand and expect delays. #wintersafety #winterstorm pic.twitter.com/QYKZbJQU46 — NC Highway Patrol (@NCSHP) December 9, 2018 'Ice is becoming a big problem' in South Carolina In South Carolina, a state known for palmettos rather than freezing rain, ice-covered roads were making driving conditions perilous. It's never a good idea to be out on the roadways in winter weather, but when snow switches to nothing but ice, even a 4x4 will struggle. pic.twitter.com/MDwCpEz3Z7 — Trooper Bill SCHP (@SCHP_Troop3) December 9, 2018 The Greenville-Spartanburg area received between 2 inches and more than a foot of snow, NWS reported Sunday. "Ice is becoming a big problem. Please stay off the roads," Greenville County Emergency Management pleaded. The local National Weather Service office had to adjust its forecast map Sunday after it became clear more ice was expected near Interstate 85. "We have increased our ice (accumulation) forecast quite a bit along the I-85 corridor," the NWS Greenville-Spartanburg office said. The storm left a trail of misery in Texas Before striking the Southeast, the moisture-heavy storm walloped Texas, causing flash flooding along the southern edge of the state and snow and ice in the north. As the moisture moved east, it collided with a high-pressure system over the Ohio Valley that was funneling cold air into the region. snow making my univ even more beautiful pic.twitter.com/WOLJU5vSNC — Kinsey Priesmeyer (@kpriesmeyer_) December 8, 2018 Parts of Lubbock were buried under 10 inches of snow, 2 inches more than the city usually gets in a whole year. "They crushed their yearly average in 24 hours," CNN meteorologist Ivan Cabrera said. More flight cancellations to come Grounded airline passengers might remain stuck Monday as more flights get canceled. The Charlotte airport said it expects cancellations through Monday morning, mostly involving small, regional planes. American Airlines, whose second-largest hub is in Charlotte, has canceled 1,100 flights for Sunday. It's not clear when those passengers will be able to get on board, since another 320 flights scheduled for Monday already have been nixed. ||||| The New York City area may receive 6 to 12 inches of snow from a storm that has crippled air traffic in Atlanta and prompted officials across the South to urge people to stay off the roads. Delta Air Lines Inc. and AirTran Holdings Inc. canceled most of their flights to and from Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International, the world’s busiest airport, after 6 inches (15 centimeters) of snow blanketed the area overnight. That system will combine with another by tomorrow and move up the East Coast with heavy snow that will disrupt travel, said Allan Huffman, a meteorologist for AirDat LLC in North Carolina, which installs weather-gathering sensors on commercial aircraft. “I would expect travel to be difficult up and down the East Coast for the next two or three days,” said Meredith Croke, also a meteorologist for AirDat. “Atlanta is a mess right now because they are not used to handling snow.” Delta scrubbed 1,450 flights today, or about 25 percent of its regular schedule, with the “overwhelming bulk” into and out of Atlanta, said Anthony Black, a spokesman for the Atlanta- based carrier. Delta and its regional partners account for about two-thirds of passengers in Atlanta, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. Hartsfield-Jackson handles about 88 million passengers a year. Georgia Emergencies Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue, South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford and Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed declared states of emergency and urged people to stay indoors and avoid driving. Hundreds of schools, government offices and businesses were closed, and thousands were without power. Sanford ordered 120 National Guard troops to help clear roads and respond to accidents. Some roads in northern Alabama also have been closed, according to the state’s Department of Transportation. Huntsville, Alabama, recorded its third-largest snowfall, with 8.9 inches, according to the National Weather Service. The record was 17.1 inches set Dec. 31, 1963, into Jan. 1, 1964, the agency said. As of 1:30 p.m. East Coast time, 12.5 inches of snow had fallen in western North Carolina, according to the weather service. Pickens County, in South Carolina, reported 9 inches as of 12:27 p.m. Alerts Posted Winter weather advisories and storm warnings stretch from New Mexico to Virginia and cover all or part of 21 states, according to the weather service. A winter storm watch for tomorrow’s system stretches from Virginia to New Hampshire and includes New York City, Baltimore, Philadelphia and Boston. “We’re looking at another significant snowfall with 6 or more inches of snow,” said Brian Ciemnecki, a weather service meteorologist in Upton, New York. “There’s a pretty strong storm system moving through the southeastern portion of the U.S. and that low is expected to move off the southeast coast and take a track northeast.” As much as 12 inches may fall in New York and its suburbs in New Jersey, Long Island and Connecticut, according to the weather service. “The key accumulating period is tomorrow night into Wednesday morning,” said Matt Rogers, president of Commodity Weather Group LLC, a commercial forecaster in Bethesda, Maryland. “I don’t think it will be as bad as the Christmas storm, but it will definitely be worse than last week’s little guy.” Last Big Storm A winter storm struck New York and the Northeast the day after Christmas, dropping at least 20 inches of snow on Central Park and forcing the cancellation of more than 8,000 flights. The Dec. 26-27 storm left some New York City streets unplowed for days and garbage pickups backlogged. It cost New York at least $20 million of its $38.8 million snow-removal budget, according to the city’s Sanitation Department. The storm currently bringing snow and ice across the South will merge with one making its way across the Ohio Valley, Huffman said. That combined system will move up the East Coast, said Travis Hartman, a meteorologist with MDA Federal Inc.’s EarthSat Energy Weather in Rockville, Maryland. ‘Impressive-Looking System’ “As the low approaches the Jersey coast, rapid intensification is seen to commence which will help bring heavier snow falls to New York City, Connecticut, Rhode Island and into Massachusetts,” Hartman said. “Models have begun to converge on a pretty impressive-looking system.” In Philadelphia, the forecast calls for 4 or more inches of snow to start falling tomorrow. Boston can expect to receive from 7 to 12 inches of snow, according to the weather service. Snow will probably start in Boston tomorrow before midnight and then continue through the next day, said Alan Dunham, a weather service meteorologist in Taunton, Massachusetts. “The Wednesday morning commute is going to be pretty much a nightmare all over,” Dunham said of Boston and Providence, Rhode Island. After the snow leaves, southern New England will be clear and cold, with maybe a snow shower, through the weekend, when the National Football League’s New England Patriots will host the New York Jets in the second round of the American Football Conference playoffs. To contact the reporters on this story: Brian K. Sullivan in Boston at bsullivan10@bloomberg.net; Mary Jane Credeur in Atlanta at mcredeur@bloomberg.net. To contact the editor responsible for this story: Dan Stets at dstets@bloomberg.net

– The warnings haven't minced words, and the potentially "catastrophic" weather set to hit the South has begun, with Atlanta already feeling the effects: Some 39,000 and counting have lost power there, with that number climbing by the thousands within spans as short as 10 minutes. In terms of thousands, 2,200 flights have been axed out of the city's airport, the world's busiest, with just 300 expected to depart today. Ice began to descend on major roads around 4am, and "all of the interstates, all of the secondary routes, all of the surface streets, are all iced over," said a local radio host, per the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "Where you are right now is where you’re going to be tomorrow morning, there's no doubt about it." Of particular concern are the many tree limbs over power lines; weighed-down icy limbs can snap, causing extensive outages, Fox News notes. Experts are warning that power could be out for a week in some areas, CNN reports. Indeed, ice is "our biggest enemy," says Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal. But much of the South is bracing for snow and ice: Three to five inches of snow could hit Atlanta; southwestern Virginia could see 14 inches, while Charlotte, NC, could get a foot. South Carolina hasn't logged a significant ice storm in a decade, but it could see as much as three-quarters of an inch of ice ... plus up to 8 inches of snow.

An Iraq war veteran has a fractured skull and brain swelling after allegedly being hit by a police projectile. Scott Olsen is in a "critical condition" in Highland hospital in Oakland, a hospital spokesman confirmed. Olsen, 24, suffered the head injury during protests in Oakland on Tuesday evening. More than 15 people were arrested after a crowd gathered to demonstrate against the police operation to clear two Occupy Oakland camps in the early hours of Tuesday morning. Jay Finneburgh, a photographer who was covering the protest, published pictures of Olsen lying on the ground. "This poor guy was right behind me when he was hit in the head with a police projectile. He went down hard and did not get up," Finneburgh wrote. Olsen was taken to Highland by fellow protesters. The Guardian spoke to people with Olsen at the hospital. Adele Carpenter, who knows Olsen through his involvement with anti-war groups, said she arrived at the hospital at 11pm on Tuesday night. Carpenter said she was told by a doctor at the hospital that Olsen had a skull fracture and was in a "serious but stable" condition. She said he had been sedated and was unconscious. "I'm just absolutely devastated that someone who did two tours of Iraq and came home safely is now lying in a US hospital because of the domestic police force," Carpenter said. Olsen had only moved to Oakland in July, Carpenter said. He is a member of Veterans for Peace and Iraq Veterans Against the War, and met Carpenter through her work with the civilian soldier alliance. Keith Shannon, who served with Olsen in Iraq, arrived at the hospital after protesters contacted him through Facebook. He confirmed Olsen had a fractured skull, and said he had been told by a doctor Olsen also had brain swelling. A neurosurgeon was due to assess Olsen to determine if he needed surgery, Shannon said. "It's really hard," Shannon said. "I really wish I had gone out with him instead of staying home last night." Shannon, who is also 24, said he had seen the video footage showing Olsen lying on the floor as a police officer throws an explosive device near him. "It's terrible to go over to Iraq twice and come back injured, and then get injured by the police that are supposed to be protecting us," he said. He said Olsen had served two tours of Iraq, in 2006 and 2007. Olsen was in 3rd Battalion, 4th Marines with Shannon before leaving the military in 2010. He moved to the San Francisco area in July and works for Opswat, a software company, living with Shannon in Daly City, just south of San Francisco. Shannon said Olsen was hit in the head by a tear gas canister or smoke canister shot by a police officer. He said Olsen had a curved scar on his forehead consistent with a canister. Protesters who had accompanied Olsen to Highland hospital got in touch with Shannon through Facebook, after Olsen said he lived with someone called "Keith". Shannon said he was told Olsen was unable to say his surname. Olsen is originally from Wisconsin and some of his family were planning to fly out to California to be with him, Shannon said. Video footage published to YouTube shows Olsen lying prone in front of a line of police. Around 10 people gather around him in an apparent attempt to provide aid, before a police officer throws an explosive device into their midst, scattering the group. Footage captured after the explosion, which appears to be from a flash bang grenade, shows Olsen being carried away by a group of people. Oakland police confirmed at a press conference that they used tear gas and baton rounds, but said they did not use flash bang grenades. Police could not be immediately reached for comment. ||||| OAKLAND -- Scott Olsen, a 24-year-old Marine who served two tours of duty in Iraq, stood calmly in front of a police line as tear gas canisters that officers shot into the Occupy Oakland protest Tuesday night whizzed past his head. "He was standing perfectly still, provoking no one," said Raleigh Latham, an Oakland filmmaker shooting footage of the confrontation between police and hundreds of protesters at 14th Street and Broadway. "If something didn't hit him directly in the face, then it went off close to his head and knocked him down." The something was a projectile that apparently came from police lines, fractured Olsen's skull and put him in Highland General Hospital. Doctors upgraded his condition Thursday from critical to fair, and said they expect him to make a full recovery. His parents flew in from Wisconsin and spent Thursday at his bedside. When they arrived, Olsen "just blossomed," said Highland's chief of surgery, Dr. Alden Harken. Olsen's injury added to the national attention focused on Occupy Oakland in the aftermath of the repeated police tear-gassing of protesters Tuesday. In Las Vegas, protesters projected a photo of the Marine in uniform onto the corrugated-metal side of a building at their camp, the Associated Press reported. Vigils for Olsen were planned at Occupy sites in other cities. Mayor's visit Mayor Jean Quan visited Olsen in the hospital, told him she was sorry for what happened and promised an investigation, said Highland spokesman Vintage Foster. Olsen, a Daly City resident and member of Iraq Veterans Against the War, fell to the ground after police lobbed or fired an object - possibly a tear gas canister - at a group of protesters. While Olsen lay wounded in the street, other protesters rushed to his aid. Video footage appears to show an officer tossing another canister toward the group helping him. One protester can be heard screaming "What the f-" at police as the device emits a loud bang, while a demonstrator angrily pounds his sign on the street. The group eventually carried Olsen away. Interim Police Chief Howard Jordan called the incident "unfortunate." "I wish that it didn't happen," Jordan said. "Our goal, obviously, is not to cause injury to anyone. ... We regret that this injury happened." Officers from 18 law enforcement agencies were on the streets of Oakland Tuesday night, and authorities said they are trying to determine which officers were involved in Olsen's injury. Quan said officers from outside agencies had been told they had to abide by Oakland police procedures. Olsen joined the Marines in 2006, served two tours in Iraq and was discharged in 2010, according to Iraq Veterans Against the War. Now a systems administrator at San Francisco software firm OPSWAT Inc., he had spent most nights during the last few weeks at the Occupy SF camp, said his roommate, Keith Shannon. "He'd leave work, head there, sleep there and go to work the next day," Shannon said. "We were really against the fact that the banks and corporations were not held accountable for what they did." BART to Oakland When Olsen heard that protesters at Occupy Oakland were asking for support, he took BART to Oakland and joined in the protest, Shannon said. Olsen knew he might be arrested, but didn't have any idea the demonstration would get as violent as it did, Shannon said. Harken said Olsen had suffered a 2- to 3-inch fracture on the left side of his skull. He is able to write and move, but is having trouble speaking, Harken said. Olsen has a bruise on his brain that is causing swelling, but he should recover fully without needing surgery, Harken said. Olsen was dropped off at the hospital by people in a private car and was unconscious for 12 hours, Harken said. He is unaware of the global interest in his condition. "He wouldn't be able to comprehend it," the doctor said. This article appeared on page A - 15 of the San Francisco Chronicle ||||| Former U.S. Marine Scott Olsen, shown in this undated photograph, who was injured during clashes between police and anti-Wall Street protesters in Oakland, has been released from the hospital, two friends said on November 11, 2011. LOS ANGELES | LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Former U.S. Marine Scott Olsen, whose injury during clashes between Oakland police and protesters last month galvanized the Anti-Wall Street movement, has been released from the hospital, friends said on Friday. "He is out of the hospital as of yesterday or today, thank goodness," Adele Carpenter, 29, told Reuters. Iraq Veterans Against the War spokeswoman Dottie Guy also confirmed Olsen's release to Reuters. Olsen is focused on healing right now, Carpenter told Reuters, but she added that "he is following the Occupy protests closely, as well as the vets march against police brutality today." "He sent words of affirmation to friends during the Oakland General Strike and has been excited to hear stories from people who could attend," she said. Occupy Oakland organizers say Olsen, 24, was hit in the head by a tear gas canister fired by police during a downtown Oakland confrontation on October 25. He was admitted to a local hospital in critical condition. Acting Oakland Police Chief Howard Jordan has opened an investigation into the circumstances surrounding Olsen's injury but police and city have not said how they believe the Iraq veteran was injured. More than two weeks later, Olsen was released from inpatient care in time to celebrate Veteran's Day, Carpenter wrote in a blog post on a website for the group Veterans for Peace. The Iraq veteran was "still struggling with speech, but is attempting conversations without having the writing instrument out," on which he had been relying to communicate, Carpenter said in the blog post. Word of Olsen's injury reinvigorated the Occupy Wall Street movement across the country, shifted its focus away from New York to Oakland and broadened its aims to include opposing police brutality. Activists in Oakland and elsewhere took to the streets en masse following his hospitalization, holding candlelight vigils and marches in his honor. Olsen served two tours in Iraq, working as a technician and earning a handful of service medals. Friends say he soured on military life after leaving the service started a now-defunct website called "I hate the Marine Corps" that served as a forum for disgruntled servicemen. Olsen received an "administrative discharge" from the service in late 2009, his uncle George Nygaard has said, though the precise reasons for it have not been confirmed. Such a discharge can result from any number of behavioral or disciplinary issues. (Reporting by Mary Slosson; Editing by Greg McCune and Tim Gaynor)

– Scott Olsen, the 24-year-old Iraq war veteran who suffered a fractured skull when police raided the Occupy Oakland camp on Tuesday, is awake and lucid, and doctors have upgraded his condition from critical to fair, Reuters reports. “He’s able to understand what’s going on,” a hospital spokesman said. “He’s able to write and hear, but has a little difficulty with his speech.” Olsen’s parents flew in from Wisconsin yesterday to see him, and he “responded with a very large smile” when he saw them. Olsen has a large bruise on his brain, but chief of surgery Alden Harken tells the San Francisco Chronicle that he should recover without surgery. As "We are all Scott Olsen" becomes a rallying cry, candlelight vigils were held for him in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, and, of course, Oakland last night, the New York Times reports. Oakland’s mayor has also visited him, promising an investigation. But Olsen is unaware of his newfound fame. “He wouldn’t be able to comprehend it,” Harken says.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) will propose a jobs guarantee program for every American worker “who wants or needs one.” (Alex Wong/Getty Images) Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) will announce a plan for the federal government to guarantee a job paying $15 an hour and health-care benefits to every American worker “who wants or needs one,” embracing the kind of large-scale government works project that Democrats have shied away from in recent decades. Sanders's jobs guarantee would fund hundreds of projects throughout the United States aimed at addressing priorities such as infrastructure, care giving, the environment, education and other goals. Under the job guarantee, every American would be entitled to a job under one of these projects or receive job training to be able to do so, according to an early draft of the proposal. A representative from Sanders's office said they had not yet done a cost estimate for the plan or decided how it would be funded, saying they were still crafting the proposal. Sanders joins two other rumored 2020 Democratic presidential contenders who have expressed support for the idea of a jobs guarantee. The push reflects a leftward move in the party's economic policy, away from President Barack Obama's use of public-private partnerships or government incentives to reshape private markets and toward an unambiguous embrace of direct government intervention. Job guarantee advocates say their plan would drive up wages by significantly increasing competition for workers, ensuring that corporations have to offer more generous salaries and benefits if they want to keep their employees from working for the government. Supporters say it also would reduce racial inequality, because black workers face unemployment at about twice the rates of white workers, as well as gender inequality, because many iterations of the plan call for the expansion of federal child-care work. “The goal is to eliminate working poverty and involuntary unemployment altogether,” said Darrick Hamilton, an economist at the New School who has advocated for a jobs guarantee program along with Stony Brook University's Stephanie Kelton and a group of left-leaning economists at the Levy Economics Institute at Bard College. “This is an opportunity for something transformative, beyond the tinkering we've been doing for the last 40 years, where all the productivity gains have gone to the elite of society.” Others, including some Democrats, are not convinced. The idea is also dead on arrival with Republicans in control of Congress, and conservatives have trashed the idea of a jobs guarantee as impractical, impossibly expensive and dangerous to the private sector. “It completely undercuts a lot of industries and companies,” said Brian Riedl, of the conservative-leaning Manhattan Institute, a think tank. “There will be pressure to introduce a higher wage or certain benefits that the private sector doesn't offer.” Ernie Tedeschi, an economist who served in Obama's Treasury Department, said there would be large logistical and practical challenges in ensuring millions of new federal jobs serve productive ends. “It would be extremely expensive, and I wonder if this is the best, most targeted use of the amount of money it would cost,” he said. Critics point to potential unintended consequences in the plan. Although it would probably boost wages for workers, those higher wages could bump up costs for private businesses, leading some to hire fewer workers or take other steps — such as reducing benefits or looking to replace workers with machines. These effects would be more pronounced if the plan were to pull away workers who hold private-sector jobs, rather than pulling in workers without jobs who wanted them. The unemployment rate currently sits at 4.1 percent, a historically low figure. But that figure does not include people who've given up looking for work, and the labor force participation rate — a broader measure of those not working — suggests there may be people not counted among the unemployed who would join the labor force. The new government spending could also lead to inflation, decreasing the real value of workers' wages. Obama's economic initiatives, generally, focused on using the government to influence private markets and industries in pursuit of policy goals. His economic stimulus plan — in which he and Democrats tried to pull the United States out of a deep recession — channeled money through private enterprises to boost hiring and investment, and offered tax cuts and rebates in the hope of getting people to spend more. But in a new political climate, ideas such as a jobs guarantee plan is gaining traction among prominent Democrats. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (N.Y.) backed the idea on Twitter earlier this month. As first reported by Vox, Sen. Cory Booker (N.J.) last week also announced his intention to introduce a separate bill that would create a pilot program for a job guarantee in 15 rural and urban areas. Under the early draft of Sanders's job guarantee, local, state and American Indian tribe governments in every section of the country would send proposals for public works projects for their areas to 12 regional offices that encompass the country. These 12 regional offices would act as a clearinghouse for these projects, tasked with sending recommended projects to a new national office within the Labor Department office for final approval. Once approved, the projects would hire workers at a minimum salary of $15 an hour with paid family and medical leave, and offer the same retirement, health, and sick and annual leave benefits as other federal employees. About 2,500 job training center and employment offices already exist around the country, and the plan imagines tasking them with connecting workers to these local projects. When the programs are up and running, anyone can wander into a job center and — at least, in theory — find either job training or a job on one of these projects. The plan's authors envision millions of Americans being hired under the proposal, with the number going up during economic recessions in the private sector and down during economic booms. They also say it would significantly increase the government's involvement in the American economy to a level not seen since World War II, if ever in the country's history. Beyond how to pay for the plan, many other aspects of the jobs guarantee have not been specified. It's not clear what would happen to a worker who violated the terms of employment. The plan suggests creating a Division of Progress Investigation to “take disciplinary action if needed,” leaving authority to the head of the Labor Department. Aides to Sanders stress that the policy details remain in their initial stages. Proponents trace the idea to the New Deal era, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt pitched a “Second Bill of Rights” to Congress in 1944. First on the list: the “right to a useful and remunerative job.” “This is not a radical idea,” Hamilton said. “It was well-couched in the Democratic platform that existed during its heyday. I'm glad Democrats are trending back to their roots.” ||||| WASHINGTON ― It might be the next big idea among liberal policy experts, but Senate Democratic leaders are not yet ready to embrace a government jobs guarantee. Several members of the Senate Democratic caucus, including Cory Booker (N.J.), Kirsten Gillibrand (N.Y.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) have endorsed the goal of eliminating unemployment and poverty through direct government hiring. HuffPost asked Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) if he could support legislation Sanders is drafting that would guarantee a job paying at least $15 an hour to everyone in the United States who wants one. “I’d like to look at his proposal,” Schumer said. “I think we should do everything we can to get people jobs and I’d look at his proposal. I haven’t studied it yet.” Democratic Sens. Patty Murray (Wash.) and Dick Durbin (Ill.), who are members of Schumer’s leadership team, also said they hadn’t seen the legislation. Sanders is looking forward “to starting a conversation with the American people” about the benefits of a jobs guarantee, spokesman Josh Miller-Lewis said in an email. “A federal jobs guarantee is an already popular idea that has the potential to be the next transformative progressive policy,” he said. Sanders’ proposal, which hasn’t been formally introduced yet, would likely involve substantial government spending and radically reshape the U.S. labor market. It’s the kind of idea Democrats might have scoffed at in the past; President Barack Obama, for instance, tended to agree with Republicans that it was important to reduce budget deficits. “A federal jobs guarantee is an already popular idea that has the potential to be the next transformative progressive policy." Sen. Bernie Sanders spokesman Josh Miller-Lewis But Republicans abandoned the pretense of fiscal responsibility when they passed a tax reform bill last year that will add more than $1 trillion to the national debt. “If Republicans could give $1.5 trillion in tax cuts to corporations and the wealthiest among us,” Gillibrand said in a tweet earlier this month, “why can’t we invest a similar amount in a guaranteed jobs plan for regular Americans who are unemployed and willing to work to better their local community?” Booker last week announced a separate proposal that would test the jobs guarantee idea in 15 local areas, saying the idea ought to be taken seriously. “Creating an employment guarantee would give all Americans a shot at a day’s work and, by introducing competition into the labor market, raise wages and improve benefits for all worker,” Booker said in a press release. For years, Democrats in the House of Representatives, led by former Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), have introduced “full employment” bills that had similar policy goals, but with little hope of success and almost no news coverage. The Donald Trump era has seemingly created space for ideas that may have once seemed politically impossible. A Sanders proposal to give more Americans government health insurance, for instance, garnered far more support among Democratic senators than similar proposals have in previous years. An effective full employment program would cost more than half a trillion dollars annually, making it almost as large as Medicaid, according to a lengthy paper published in March by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, an influential liberal think tank. (Theoretically, the cost of direct spending on jobs could be largely offset by reduced spending on Medicaid and other safety net programs, since people would have too much income to qualify). The jobs guarantee proposals offers a stark contrast to Republican “workforce development” proposals, which are designed to make workers more willing to take low-paying jobs by reducing access to benefits such as food stamps. Both the Democratic jobs guarantee and a Republican food stamps plan under consideration in the House would ramp up existing government workforce offices situated around the country. Democrats in the House have said the GOP plan to shift some food stamp spending from benefits to training programs would create too much of an administrative headache. ||||| Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) has a big idea: give 15 local areas federal money so they can guarantee all their residents a job. The Federal Jobs Guarantee Development Act, announced by Booker on Friday, would establish a three-year pilot program in which the Department of Labor would select up to 15 local areas (defined in the bill as any political subdivision of a state, like a city or a county, or a group of cities and counties) and offer that area funding so that every adult living there is guaranteed a job paying at least $15 an hour (or the prevailing wage for the job in question, whichever’s higher) and offering paid family/sick leave and health benefits. The idea of a government job guarantee ensuring all adults who want employment get it has a long history in American politics, but it has gained popularity as the Democratic Party has sought to embrace bigger and more ambitious economic policies in the wake of the 2016 election. Booker’s plan is essentially a pilot version of a proposal from Duke’s Mark Paul and William Darity, Jr. and the New School’s Darrick Hamilton, economists who have, together and individually, advocated a job guarantee for years, well before the current surge in enthusiasm. Most recently, Paul, Darity, and Hamilton wrote up their proposal for the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a highly influential left-of-center think tank, in a clear sign the idea was gaining traction. Booker’s bill is an even bigger step forward. “The federal jobs guarantee is an idea that demands to be taken seriously,” Booker said in a statement. “Creating an employment guarantee would give all Americans a shot at a day’s work and, by introducing competition into the labor market, raise wages and improve benefits for all workers.” The policy case for a job guarantee The idea of a job guarantee serves both a policy and a political purpose. On the policy side, a job guarantee would, in theory, effectively end recessions in America. Right now, the US government’s strategy when the economy stops growing is to use a combination of monetary stimulus (in which the Federal Reserve cuts interest rates or buys up billions of dollars of long-term bonds) and fiscal stimulus (as in the 2009 stimulus package, which blended a boost in spending with temporary tax cuts). For a variety of political and institutional factors, the Fed and Congress weren’t able to do enough in 2008 to 2010 to prevent unemployment from breaking 10 percent, and they certainly weren’t able to effect a full recovery within a couple years. Returning to normal unemployment rates took nearly a decade, resulting in years of human misery and lost wage gains that a healthier and faster recovery could’ve delivered. Job guarantee advocates argue that their plan effectively creates a permanent form of fiscal stimulus that politicians wouldn’t need to scramble to pass whenever disaster hits. Instead, if the economy took a turn for the worse and companies started shedding jobs, the government would automatically soak up anyone who’s laid off and give them work. That, in turn, would put more money in consumers’ pockets, boosting demand and improving business’ prospects. Before you know it, the economy’s back to normal. Advocates argue the policy could prove beneficial during economic booms as well. The fruits of economic recoveries and booms aren’t evenly shared, demographically. As of March 2018, 60.7 percent of white people in America were employed, but only 58.4 percent of black people were. Once black men’s disproportionate representation in prisons and jails is accounted for, the gap grows still larger. In 2016, the most recent year for which we have data, a mere 27.7 percent of people with disabilities age 16 to 64 were employed, compared to 72.8 percent of nondisabled people. Nor do booms affect all geographic areas equally. There are still 337 counties or county-equivalents with a combined labor force of over 6.7 million people that have unemployment rates of 7 percent or higher as of February 2018. Seventy-eight counties, like Yuma, Arizona, still have unemployment rates in excess of 10 percent. A job guarantee would, in principle, lessen those inequalities. People in struggling regions would be guaranteed work without having to move. Black Americans and disabled Americans wouldn’t be expected to wait until employers have run out of white and nondisabled people to hire until they get their chance. Finally, advocates argue that the policy would lead to an increase in wages for everyone. That’s a big benefit at a time when unemployment is low but wage growth is still sluggish. Think of it this way: Walmart pays its employees a minimum of $10 per hour; part-time employees aren’t guaranteed benefits like health insurance or a 401(k) match. If you’re a part-time employee at Walmart, and all of a sudden you can get $15 an hour, work full time, and earn full benefits by working for the federal government — wouldn’t you? And, knowing that, wouldn’t Walmart try to increase wages to keep you? Advocates say Walmart would. And they have some empirical evidence on their side from India, where a type of job guarantee known as the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme functions largely as an insurance system, offering a source of income for rural farmers during the dry season. A group of economists — UC San Diego’s Karthik Muralidharan and Paul Niehaus and the University of Virginia’s Sandip Sukhtankar — found that the job guarantee, they estimate, increased earnings for low-income households by 13.3 percent. Ninety percent of that increase is due to higher wages and increased work in the private sector, not the job guarantee program itself. Just as job guarantee advocates would predict, the program bid up wages everywhere. Perhaps the most surprising result was that the program not only increased wages, but increased employment in the private sector. The political case for a job guarantee — and the challenges it faces The fact that Cory Booker, a rising star in the Democratic Party and a likely 2020 contender who faces considerable skepticism from the left due to his stances on education and Wall Street, has endorsed experimenting with a job guarantee is a clear indication that some in the party think it could be a political winner as well as a policy advance. In the wake of the 2016 election, liberal commentators have latched onto the job guarantee as a way to forge a cross-racial working-class coalition. They need a plan that appeals to both to the white Wisconsin and Michigan voters who switched from Obama to Trump and to black and Latino workers left behind by deindustrialization. The ideal plan would both improve conditions for lower-income Americans while supporting Americans’ strong intuition that people should work to earn their crust. “A federal job guarantee is both universal—it benefits all Americans—and specifically ameliorative to entrenched racial inequality,” Slate’s Jamelle Bouie noted. “The job guarantee asserts that, if individuals bear a moral duty to work, then society and employers bear a reciprocal moral duty to provide good, dignified work for all,” Jeff Spross added in the influential center-left journal Democracy. “If Democrats want to win elections, they should imbue Trump’s empty rhetoric with a real promise: a good job for every American who wants one,” wrote Bryce Covert in the New Republic. “It’s time to make a federal jobs guarantee the central tenet of the party’s platform.” As with any sufficiently big idea, however, a job guarantee comes with risks. It would be expensive, for one thing. Paul, Darity, and Hamilton’s plan, as outlined for the CBPP, would cost $543 billion per year, they estimate. For context, that rivals the size of Medicare, which will cost $707 billion this year, and the size of the defense budget, which totals $622 billion. The Center for American Progress has proposed a more modest $158 billion per year government jobs plan, but it wouldn’t actually guarantee a job to all who sought one, as Paul, Darity, and Hamilton have proposed. Booker’s bill doesn’t have an estimated cost yet. Second, it’s not clear what exactly participants in a job guarantee scheme would do. Most proposals are somewhat vague on this point, mentioning everything from child care to infrastructure. The Booker bill leaves most of this up to localities to figure out. Cities, counties, and other areas would get a chance to apply for the program, and the Department of Labor would be required to pick a mix of urban and rural areas to try the idea out in. Once the program was up and running, the vast majority of jobs offered would be in the public sector, and participants who need more skills development would be offered up to eight weeks of training. Positions meeting “a list of national job priorities … that shall include child care, care for seniors and individuals with disabilities, [and] infrastructure activities” would be encouraged, and private sector employers would benefit from the Work Opportunity Tax Credit, a benefit which currently gives employers a few thousand dollars toward wages when they hire veterans, welfare or food stamp recipients, ex-felons, and other people with barriers to employment. But beyond that, the bill doesn’t give many specifics. A job guarantee would ideally provide for jobs that are nice to have but could be nixed when the economy improves and the program shrinks in size. Those are pretty hard to identify. If a job guarantee were enacted in a recession, and many of the enrollees became child care providers, what happens when the economy improves and workers find jobs in the private sector? It wouldn’t be tenable to eliminate a universal child care program because the economy improved. Nor, if the program employed bus drivers, would it make much sense to cut bus routes. The Booker bill requires that the program be subject to an ongoing rigorous evaluation, which would help determine how well-equipped local governments are to make those kinds of distinctions. That would be a welcome addition to the research literature, as there’s some past evidence suggesting programs like this struggle to succeed. Berkeley economist David Card recently conducted a meta-analysis of more than 200 evaluations of programs meant to boost labor markets, along with fellow economists Jochen Kluve and Andrea Weber. While they found a variety of impacts of different programs, one constant was that public employment programs that simply hired people directly performed worst. “Public sector employment subsidies tend to have negligible or even negative impacts at all horizons,” the study concludes. “This pattern suggests that private employers place little value on the experiences gained in a public sector program.” One reason, they suggested, was that the programs did nothing to help build skills that would make participants more employable. A job guarantee, though, would be on an entirely different scale, and the Booker bill would enable an evaluation that could determine if its effects are more like the successful Indian program or the failed efforts that Card, Kluve, and Weber studied. With Donald Trump in the White House and Republicans in charge of both houses of Congress, it’s doubtful Booker’s bill will become law anytime soon. But that’s not really the point. Until his proposal, the closest thing there was to a job guarantee bill in Congress was Rep. John Conyers’s (D-MI) Humphrey-Hawkins 21st Century Full Employment and Training Act, named after a largely failed 1970s bill pushed by civil rights activists and unions to enact a job guarantee. But the bill fell short of establishing a formal guarantee, and Conyers has since resigned from Congress in a sexual harassment scandal. Booker has put the idea back on the Democratic agenda, and in a form that could be readily passed at relatively minimal cost (given the pilot program nature) when Democrats are next in power. That’s an important step, and one that significantly improves the odds that the idea will be part of the next Democratic president’s to-do list.

– Bernie Sanders is working on a plan that would allow the federal government to guarantee a $15-per-hour job, plus healthcare benefits, to every worker in the US "who wants or needs one," per an early draft of the proposal obtained by the Washington Post. The jobs guarantee would encompass projects involving infrastructure, education, the environment, and care giving. It's not clear when Sanders will formally present the plan; a representative says Sanders' office has not done a cost estimate for the plan or determined where its funding would come from. Sanders' announcement comes after two other Democrats, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and Sen. Cory Booker, recently backed the idea of a jobs guarantee plan. Booker is aiming to create a three-year pilot program to test such a guarantee in 15 areas, Vox reports. Supporters of such a plan say it would increase competition for workers, thus forcing corporations to increase their wages and benefits in order to compete with government jobs. But Republicans, who currently control Congress, say the idea is impractical, and even some Democrats agree with that. "It would be extremely expensive, and I wonder if this is the best, most targeted use of the amount of money it would cost," says one economist who served in Obama's Treasury Department, noting that it would be tricky to make sure millions of new jobs—the authors of the Sanders plan do envision it would hire millions of Americans—are all actually productive. The Huffington Post spoke to Democratic Senate leaders and reports that they don't seem quite ready to "embrace" the idea; all Chuck Schumer would say is that he wants to look at Sanders' proposal.

4 years ago Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is expected to be grilled Wednesday when she becomes the highest-ranking official to testify about the problems plaguing the HealthCare.gov website as well as questions surrounding the implementation of the Affordable Care Act. Here are four of the questions she is likely to have to answer. 1. When did she find out about the problems with the website? Last Friday in Austin, Texas, Sebelius was asked at what point did she realize the system wasn’t going to operate the way it was envisioned. “Well actually I didn’t realize it wouldn’t be operating optimally before the launch. I think we knew that if we had had another six months we would probably test further, but I don’t think that anyone fully realized that both volume caused problems, but volume also exposed some problems.” Andrew Slavitt from the contractor QSSI testified last week before a congressional committee the company noted software problems before the launch. Cheryl Campbell, an executive of a different contractor CGI, told the same hearing top officials at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), the part of the Department of Health and Human Services responsible for setting up the site and implementing the law, were continually briefed. CMS Administrator Marilyn Tavenner told the House Ways and Means Committee Tuesday “We had tested the website, and we were comfortable with its performance.” So what did HHS officials know about any problems and were White House officials notified of any problems? In an interview with CNN’s Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta last week, Sebelius was asked when President Obama first knew of the problems. “I think it became clear fairly early on, the first couple of days...” Gupta then asked: not before that? She answered “no sir.” 2. Why wasn’t more testing done? Contractors working on the website say they warned CMS officials about some of the problems they were seeing and that only two weeks was allotted for full testing before the Oct. 1 launch. QSSI's Slavitt said during his testimony last week the company had informed CMS more testing was necessary and added "months would have been nice." However, none of these red flags were raised by contractors or the government in a congressional hearing in September. Some of the most comprehensive system testing came just weeks before the Oct. 1 launch, and the Washington Post has reported at that time problems were detected. Officials from several contractors said it was CMS’ decision to go ahead and go live with the site. Sebelius and other administration officials have blamed the initial volume as a major reason for the inability of people to set up accounts and use the site, although other problems have been reported as ongoing, such as bad enrollment information being sent to insurance companies. “We tested to a level that was five times the level that Medicare.gov, a well-known operating website, had ever had. We thought if you increase that volume five times that’s probably the maximum hit you would get at one time particularly with a brand new site,” Sebelius said last week. “We were just wildly incorrect. Numbers so far exceeded that now there are very specific diagnostics in place.” She told CNN’s Gupta that if “we had an ideal situation and could have built the product in, you know, a five-year period of time, we probably would have taken five years. But we didn't have five years. And certainly Americans who rely on health coverage didn't have five years for us to wait. We wanted to make sure we made good on this final implementation of the law.” Rep. Fred Upton, R-Michigan, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which is holding Wednesday's hearing, said "The testing was so poor ... in essence, it's like contractors building a house, but the guy building the first level, the first story didn't know that the basement is on the next lot. I mean, there was just no connectivity. We heard those complaints from a number of different private sides. But at the end of the day, this was not ready. It's been a disaster in the making," he told CNN's Wolf Blitzer on the Situation Room. 3. How much will the fixes cost? HHS officials have not said how much the fixes to HealthCare.gov may cost. When CMS announced on Friday QSSI was being brought on as the general contractor overseeing the changes, officials said the company's original contract was being expanded but would not say how much more it may be paid. Also CMS officials have repeatedly refused to divulge information about who is doing the "tech surge" which is bolstering the existing staff working on the site to improve the technical capabilities and operations. "We are bringing in people from both inside and outside the government to scrub in with the team and help improve HealthCare.gov," Sebelius says in her prepared testimony. Upton said she will also be pressed on how much this will cost. "We know it's in the hundreds of millions of dollars what they've spent so far. We don't know if there are penalties that are going to be imposed because they didn't get this thing done right. We have no clue what the additional cost will be to try and get it right as the secretary said by the end of next month. We'll try to get an answer to that," he told CNN. 4. What will she say to those whose policies are being cancelled? Upton claims millions of people are receiving notices their current insurance policies are being cancelled because they don't comply with minimum standards set by the Affordable Care Act. These are people who have individual policies - not ones under their employer which is the vast majority of Americans or have Medicaid or Medicare. The Obama Administration estimates about 5% of the nation have individual policies which often have less generous coverage, such as not including hospital or mental coverage, as well as higher deductibles making them much cheaper. The White House was criticized Tuesday by Republicans because President Obama had often said that people who like their insurance policies and want to keep them will be able to. White House Press Secretary Jay Carney fought back against that criticism saying if people had their plans before the Affordable Care Act was passed they are "grandfathered in" - meaning by law they can keep them. For others who have obtained this insurance after Obamacare became law, those are the plans that are subject to possible cancellation. Sebelius is likely to get a question similar to one posed by Upton on CNN on Tuesday saying those facing cancellation should be given more time to enroll in an alternative plan. "Why not allow them to have that choice for the next year knowing that this roll out has been so poorly designed?" Her response could mirror what Carney said on Tuesday: these people deserve better coverage as soon as possible. "Those are the Americans who have been most subject to the wild vagaries of the system as it existed before the Affordable Care Act, who at the drop of a hat could have lost coverage or been told that their premiums were doubling, or that they would have no longer been able to get coverage for a specific condition because it was preexisting. All that changes come January 1st. " CNN's Adam Aigner-Treworgy contributed to this story ||||| 4 days ago Washington (CNN) - They want her fired and the health care reforms she champions dismantled, Wednesday Republicans got their chance to question Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius over the rocky rollout of the Obamacare website, as she testified before a House Energy and Commerce Committee. 12:36 p.m. ET: The hearing ends Hearing length: 3 hours 33 minutes. Members of Congress who asked questions: 51. When Sebelius apologized for the HealthCare.gov problems: a few minutes into the hearing, during her opening statement. Number of members who referenced the Wizard of Oz: Three. (Sebelius is from Kansas.) Most frequent topics: - – The President’s past assertion that “if you like your plan, you can keep your plan” and news that after 2010 some plans have been cancelled. - – Whether the individual mandate should be delayed given the website problems and the delay in the employer mandate. - – Who is to blame for: a) the lack of adequate testing (Answer: no one specific was named), b) the decision to make individuals register before they could browse plans (Answer: Michelle Snyder of CMS) c) the decision to launch the website when it wasn’t ready (Answer: Sebelius said she told the president the site was ready, based on staff guidance. She stressed that no one predicted the avalanche of problems that happened) 12:35 p.m. ET After a sharp exchange with a Republican Congressman, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said Wednesday she would "gladly join" the new health insurance exchange under Obamacare if she didn't have affordable coverage under the federal program for government officials. 12:32 p.m. ET Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said on Wednesday the decision to require people to sign up on the Obamacare website before they could shop for rates was "wrong." Outside contractors have said a change in plans shortly before the botched October 1 launch of the website prevented people from "window-shopping" without signing up, increasing the initial volume that officials cite as the main cause of the online problems. Sebelius said the decision to make the change came from Marilyn Tavenner, who heads the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in her department. 12:31 p.m. ET To the best of your knowledge, has a man ever given birth to a baby? As the hearing moved toward its end, Rep. Renee Ellmers, R-North Carolina, asked Secretary Sebelius that question, aiming to highlight that some men may be forced to buy maternity coverage as part of an insurance package under Obamacare. Sebelius responded that some men do need maternity coverage for their spouse and family, who could be covered under their policy. Ellmers insisted this is an example of why health care costs are going up, insurance coverage that may not be necessary for everyone. 12:18 p.m. ET By the way: While Sebelius was still getting grilled at the hearing, Roger Daltrey, lead singer of the legendary band “The Who,” was performing at an unveiling of a Winston Churchill bust in the Capitol Rotunda singing “Stand by Me” and “Won’t Get Fooled Again.” 12:04 p.m. ET A member of Congress has sparked some applause. Rep. Cory Gardner, R-Colorado, blasted HHS Secretary Sebelius for not getting her own health care through the exchanges set up by Obamacare. Sebelius explained that by law she receives the Federal Health Employee Benefits plan, which includes most federal workers. Gardner held up a letter that he said was a cancellation notice for his family's police and as he continued to ask Sebelius why she herself wasn't in the exchange, some scattered but noticeable claps came from the crowded hearing room. 12:03 p.m. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said Wednesday that she told President Barack Obama the website for his signature health care reforms was "ready to go" for its October 1 launch, adding: "Clearly, I was wrong. We were wrong." 11:57 a.m. ET An internal government memo obtained by CNN and written just days before the Obamacare open enrollment warned of a "high" security risk due to a lack of testing of the healthcare.gov website. "Due to system readiness issues, the (Security Control Assessment) SCA was only partly completed," according to the memo from the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services. "This constitutes a risk that must be accepted and mitigated to support the Marketplace Day 1 operations." 11:56 a.m. ET Rep. John Barrow, D-Georgia, is highly critical of and has repeatedly voted to limit Obamacare. He's a Blue Dog Democrat. 11:43 a.m. ET Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius urged members of Congress on Wednesday to help inform their constituents about Obamacare, calling on them to raise awareness of available federal subsidies and make clear that people don't have to stay with the same company because they now have choice. 11:37 a.m. ET Bad luck for the junior Congressmen on the committee. In an attempt to end the hearing on time, Committee Chair Fred Upton just announced that members will be now limited to two minutes of questioning each. 11:31 a.m. ET A question about President Barack Obama sparked a seeming verbal exasperation from Secretary Sebelius. Rep. Greg Harper, R-Mississippi, repeatedly asked if Obama, as the chief executive, is responsible for the problems with HealthCare.gov. Sebelius demurred, insisting the website rollout was her responsibility. But on one final try, Harper stipulated, "it is the President's ultimate responsibility, is it not." She searched for words, saying, "you clearly ..." then added a rare "whatever." She concluded, "He is the President of the United States." 11:26 a.m. ET Time check. A spokesman for the House Energy and Commerce Committee tells CNN that about 15 more members are waiting to ask questions of Secretary Sebelius. At five minutes each, that would take well over an hour. The spokesman says initially the Secretary had asked to leave by noon, but the committee may ask her to stay longer. 11:19 a.m. ET Who's the man with the mustache and red tie behind Sebelius? That's Mike Hash, who leads the HHS office of Health Reform. He is a key coordinator of policy between the White House and HHS and is a go-to briefer when Congress wants Obamacare answers. Off camera, Hash has passed a few notes to Sebelius during the hearing. He also has a resume line that may be a bonus today: he used to work as a staff member for this committee. 11:03 a.m. ET House Speaker John Boehner's office just sent out an e-mail questioning and making hay out of Sebelius' comment (at about 10:05 a ET) that "the website has never crashed". The e-mail includes a screen shot of the HealthCare.gov error message this morning. 11:00 a.m. ET Because of the flawed launch of the Obamacare website, the administration expects the figure for initial enrollment "will be a very small number," Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told a House committee hearing Wednesday. 10:55 a.m. ET Rep. Michael Burgess, R-Texas, just mentioned a CNN.com story about the HealthCare.gov website being vulnerable to hackers. Since we are CNN.com, here's a handy link. 10:47 a.m. ET About an hour and a half into the hearing, Rep. G.K. Butterfield, D-North Carolina, became the 20th committee member, out of a possible 54 members who can participate, to ask questions of Sebelius. 10:46 a.m. ET The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee accused Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius of putting private information of Americans at risk by failing to properly test security measures in the troubled Obamacare website."This is a completely unacceptable level of security," said Republican Rep. Mike Rogers of Michigan at a hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, adding that if the website is not functioning, "you know it's not secure." Sebelius said testing occurs regularly, but told Rogers she would get back to him on whether any end-to-end security test of the entire system has ever occurred. Rogers responded that he knows there have been no such comprehensive security tests. Sebelius dishonesty in testimony this morning exceeds anything president Nixon was accused of. The Obama team cant tell truth and survive— Newt Gingrich (@newtgingrich) October 30, 2013 10:37 a.m. ET States running their own Obamacare health insurance exchanges instead of turning them over to the federal government are "doing well," Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told a congressional committee Wednesday."Everything we hear is that they see the same demand, they are eager to enroll folks, and that is going smoothly." 10:29 a.m. ET Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said Wednesday that no "reliable, confirmed" information exists on how many people have signed up for Obamacare health coverage, rejecting a request from a Republican congressman that she allow insurance companies to release their figures. Sebelius reiterated earlier statements that figures on initial enrollment will be made public in mid-November. 10:26 a.m. ET The outside contractors that built the troubled Obamacare website never recommended delaying the October 1 launch, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told a House committee Wednesday. Her comments came in response to questions about an August report by one of the companies that cited problems. 10:21 a.m. ET Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told a House committee Wednesday that "we did not adequately do end-to-end testing" of the troubled Obamacare website before its botched launch on October 1, adding that the various components "were not locked and loaded into the system" until mid-September. 10:10 a.m. ET Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said Wednesday that contracts with the private companies working on the Obamacare website do not have any "built-in penalties" allowing her department to charge them for disappointing or faulty work. However, she said the agency will not pay for work that is incomplete. 10:09 a.m. ET The exchange a few minutes ago between Rep. Joe Pitts, R-Pennsylvania and Secretary Sebelius hit on perhaps the widest number of issues with HealthCare.gov yet. In his five-minute questioning period, Pitts asked: - Had Sebelius herself tried to signup on HealthCare.gov herself? Answer: she had an initial sort of dummy account. (It was not clear from her answer if she had tried to go through the process after the website was launched.) - Who at the agency initially decided to require users to register before they could browse, a decision that may have caused some of the biggest problems in the first weeks? Answer: Marilyn Tavener, head of the Medicare & Medicaid Services. - Did Sebelius think two weeks of testing before launching the site was enough? Answer: clearly not. - When was Sebelius made aware of the problem? Answer: in August, contractor CGI Federal listed some problems and she understood they were fixing them. - Did she know that in September some insurers recommended a delay? Answer: I wasn't in that meeting and I don't think anyone estimated the degree to which we have had problems. 10:06 a.m. ET In a sharp exchange with a Republican congressman, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said Wednesday she believed she could provide legislators with a list of insurers in federal exchanges set up under Obamacare that do not offer coverage for abortion services. 9:56 a.m. ET Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said Wednesday she was confident the troubled Obamacare website would be running smoothly by November 30, adding "I have confidence, but it isn't fair to ask the American public to take our word for it." 9:51 a.m. ET At 90 years old, Rep. Ralph Hall, R-Texas, questioning Sebelius now, is the oldest member of Congress and was a teenager when Social Security was created. He has adamantly opposed Obamacare. 9:45 a.m. ET A waiver of privacy rights on the Obamacare website was included in error and "will be taken down," Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said Wednesday, telling GOP Rep. Joe Barton of Texas that "we have asked them to remove that statement." 5 things we learned from Tuesday's hearing with Tavenner 9:44 a.m. ET HHS Secretary Sebelius just said that someone named Michelle Snyder was responsible for coordinating HealthCare.gov prior to this week (when contractor CGI Federal took over). Who is that? Snyder is the top day-to-day manager for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). Here's her bio. Snyder's boss did not directly defend her but when Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tennessee, asked, "So is Michelle Snyder responsible for this debacle?", Sebelius responded "no". That's when the HHS secretary said that Congress should hold her (Sebelius) responsible. 9:35 a.m. ET Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said Wednesday before a congressional committee that Republicans should "hold me responsible" for the problem-plagued Obamacare website. 9:33 a.m. ET So far, the Sebelius hearing is going according to a classic Congressional script. The chairman from the opposing party opens with a question about one of the hottest issues, in this case Chairman Fred Upton, R-Michigan, asked about the fact that some Americans will not be able to keep their health care plans. Then the ranking member from the president's party, Rep. Henry Waxman, D-California, asks friendly questions to defend their position. Now, we watch to see if there will be any news, anything goes off script. Will Republican questions elicit any new information and will any Democrats become especially critical of the HealthCare.gov roll-out. Three states tell insurers to cancel plans that don't comply with Obamacare 9:32 a.m. ET Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said Wednesday that people who bought their own health coverage before Obamacare was signed into law in 2010 can keep those policies if they choose under a "grandfather" clause included in the legislation. Her response to a question about people getting their policies canceled now defended promises by President Barack Obama that anyone who likes their health care plan can keep it, relying on the technicality that the coverage must pre-date the law. Asked if Obama was keeping his promise, Sebelius responded: "Yes, he is." 9:20 a.m. ET What did the HHS Secretary just say? Here's a link to the eight pages of written testimony she submitted earlier this week. Her spoken words to the committee were a shorter version. Administration warned about site's trouble before launch 9:19 a.m. ET Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told a House committee Wednesday that the "vast majority" of consumers will be able to shop online for health insurance under Obamacare by the end of November without the problems being experienced now. 9:17 a.m. ET Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius apologized Wednesday to Americans for the "miserably frustrating experience" caused by problems with the Obamacare website. 9:15 a.m. ET As Sebelius starts her testimony, HealthCare.gov is not working. The familiar error screen, "The system is down at the moment" appears. 9:13 a.m. ET The top Democrat on a House committee examining Obamacare told a hearing Wednesday that the President's signature health care reforms mean that "the worst abuses of the insurance industry will be halted." Rep. Henry Waxman of California said the reforms mean better plans are available at lower premiums, and he urged Republican colleagues to "stop hyperventilating" about problems with the system's website. Keep your plan? Maybe not 9:12 a.m. ET Sebelius is taking the oath before the House Energy & Commerce Committee as many are watching to see if the House Oversight & Government Reform Committee will issue a subpoena for documents related to HealthCare.gov. 9:08 a.m. ET Republican Rep. Fred Upton of Michigan opened Wednesday's hearing on Obamacare by the House Energy and Commerce Committee he chairs by saying news about the President's signature health care reforms "seems to get worse by the day," adding that "Americans are scared" and "may be losing their faith in the government." 9:04 a.m. ET A congressional committee hearing Wednesday with Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius facing questions about Obamacare has started. ||||| HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius will read almost exactly the same testimony to Congress Wednesday about the fumbled HealthCare.gov launch as another top Obama administration official offered Tuesday. Sebelius’s eight pages of prepared testimony for the House Energy and Commerce Committee matches nearly word-for-word testimony delivered by CMS Administrator Marilyn Tavenner to Ways and Means on Tuesday. Text Size - + reset Sebelius defends herself against calls for resignation Tavenner apologizes for glitches In both written statements, the officials acknowledge that the website hasn’t met expectations but say the administration is taking major steps to improve it. Neither testimony includes an apology for the bungled launch—but Tavenner verbally apologized at the hearing Tuesday morning. “I want to apologize to you that the website is not working as well as it should,” she said, offering the most direct apology yet from such a high level administration official. “I want to assure you that HealthCare.gov can be fixed, and we are working around the clock to give you the experience that you deserve.” Neither offers new insight into way the website’s glitches have blocked millions of Americans from being able to enroll in insurance plans on the new exchanges. “Today, more individuals are successfully creating accounts, logging in and moving on to apply for coverage and shop for plans,” both statements say. “We are pleased with these quick improvements, but we know there is still significant, additional work to be done. We continue to conduct regular maintenance nearly every night to improve the consumer experience.” More than half of both testimonies praise other components of the Affordable Care Act like insurance benefits and premium subsidies. “While we are working around the clock to address problems with HealthCare.gov, it is important to remember that the Affordable Care Act is much more than purchasing insurance through HealthCare.gov,” the statements say. ||||| Obamacare How did Obamacare site go so wrong? 5 questions Sebelius must answer Oct. 30, 2013 at 3:33 AM ET Evan Vucci / AP Two down and one to go. House Republicans have battered the Obama administration with a series of hearings digging into how the health-insurance website, an online marketplace where people were supposed to be able to shop, got off to such a bad start. The balkiness of the site, its inability to handle the crush of users and its breakdowns at key points, all have critics asking whether it plays straight into Republican accusations that the government cannot be trusted to handle health care. Marilyn Tavenner, administrator of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, apologized outright on Tuesday at a hearing before the House Ways and Means Committee. Last week, officers of four of the main government contractors that built and are running different parts of the site, said the final testing had been too rushed — and a CMS spokesperson agreed. Now, it’s time for Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to take her turn at hearing today. These questions remain unanswered: How could the administration not have tested the site until the last two weeks? Officials have said repeatedly that they didn’t have time, and that the final tests didn’t indicate any particular trouble. “We had tested the website and we were comfortable with it,” Tavenner said in testimony Tuesday. “We were working in a compressed time frame, for sure.” Republicans aren’t buying it. “I want to know why sufficient systems integrated testing was not conducted, and you made the decision to move forward with the website,” said Tennessee Republican Diane Black who, like Tavenner, started her career as a registered nurse. Sebelius will certainly be asked that question again and again — and in many different ways. Why wasn’t the launch delayed when the problems became clear? The site slowed to a standstill almost as soon as it opened just after midnight on Oct. 1. The White House and HHS have said there was a mass onslaught of people signing on — five times as many as anticipated. Millions evidently did try to get on that first day, not just people trying to sign up for insurance, but those who were merely curious as well. Tavenner has admitted that CMS wasn’t aware of the depth of the problems in the first day or two. But Sebelius will have to answer for why not. Will people still have time to sign up? The White House and HHS have both pledged that the site will be working smoothly for “the vast majority” of users by the end of November. Jeff Zients, a management expert who’s been appointed to fix the website while he’s waiting to take over as the chief White House economic adviser next year, says little fixes are being made day by day. "We are bringing in people from both inside and outside government to scrub in with the team and help improve HealthCare.gov," Sebelius says in her prepared testimony. But Republicans and Democrats alike say they’re skeptical. “You have to acknowledge this initial experience has done some damage to Americans’ confidence,” said Pennsylvanian Democrat Allyson Schwartz, a Ways and Means committee member who’s a solid supporter of the Affordable Care Act. HHS keeps repeating that there’s a six-month open enrollment period with plenty of time to get people signed up even if the site is glitchy. But if CMS and HHS missed all the problems that have marred the site so far, Sebelius will be hard-pressed to persuade her critics that the new team of experts brought in to fix the problem will do a better job. How can we trust that other aspects of the site are working, like the subsidy calculator? The health-insurance marketplace website is extremely complicated — one of the most complex projects ever undertaken, according to Cheryl Campbell, senior vice president at CGI Federal Inc., a chief contractor. Users have to create an account and provide large amounts of personal information, including date of birth and social security number, so that the program can check this against databases at the Internal Revenue Service, Social Security Administration and other government departments and agencies. Given the complexity, supporters and critics alike are worried that people may not know a mistake has been made in calculating a government subsidy, for instance, or even whether all family members are covered by an insurance policy, until it’s too late. Why haven’t you been more open about the problems? HHS has refused from the beginning to publicly name all the contractors involved on the site, and will not name the “A-team” of experts brought in to fix the problem. Members of Congress have been so frustrated by this that they’ve subpoenaed tech companies and even sent letters randomly to large companies, such as Microsoft, asking if they were involved. Microsoft answered one such letter last week. “To the best of our knowledge, no Microsoft employee has provided technical services or technical advice to the federal government or federal contractors concerning the challenges associated with the launch of the Healthcare.gov website,” one company lawyer, Robert Kelner of Covington and Burling, LLP, wrote the Ways and Means Committee last week. Only after three weeks of criticism and an editorial in the New York Times by former White House health adviser Ezekiel Emanuel did CMS start daily briefings on the problems and what is being done to fix them. “Given the disappointing rollout of the Web site, Americans are justifiably suspicious,” Emanuel wrote. “Starting now, the administration needs to initiate a concerted effort to win back the public’s trust. CMS officials have said they don’t want contractors distracted from their job. But Congress will certainly want Sebelius to explain why this doesn’t look like a cover-up. 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– Kathleen Sebelius is testifying before Congress this morning in eagerly anticipated remarks about problem-plagued HealthCare.gov, but you may not hear anything new. Politico reports that her eight pages of prepared testimony are, almost verbatim, the same as the testimony offered to Congress yesterday by head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Marilyn Tavenner. Of course, that's not stopping anyone from hoping Sebelius will address some questions that remain unanswered. NBC and CNN round up a few: Why wasn't the site tested earlier? Officials have said they were running out of time and tests indicated everything was fine. But Republicans want a much better explanation, and contractors have said they warned CMS that more testing was needed. Why wasn't the launch delayed? Tavenner said yesterday that CMS wasn't aware how bad the problems were at first. The questions for Sebelius: Why not? And when, exactly, did she learn of the problems and how bad they were? Why so secretive? Specifically, why hasn't HHS named the contractors or experts involved with the site? How do we know everything on the site will work correctly? For example, how do we know the subsidy calculator (which uses a complex formula) will accurately calculate an individual's government subsidy? How much is this going to cost to fix? So far, HHS hasn't offered an estimate. Can she explain the millions of people whose current policies will be canceled? Those people will need to switch to a plan that complies with ObamaCare's minimum standards. It's probably not going to be a fun day for Sebelius, but in a profile this week, USA Today points out that she's used to this type of political fight. "She has been successful because she is level-headed," says a colleague from Sebelius' days as governor of Kansas. "She's unflappable."

CTVNews.ca Staff The odds of getting struck by lightning in Canada are less than one in a million. The odds of winning the Atlantic Lotto 6/49 are even worse -- one in 13,983,816. And the odds that both of these extraordinary events should happen to the same person in Nova Scotia are nearly impossible. But lightning strike survivor Peter McCathie beat all those odds when he and his co-worker, Diana Miller, collected their million-dollar prize at the Atlantic Lottery offices in Moncton on Monday. McCathie’s brush with death occurred during a boat trip when he was 14. The lottery winner said he was wading through shallow waters near the shore of a lake when he was struck by lightning. "I was trying to lock the boat up, it was a very sunny day, there was one big, white cloud in the sky and the lightning bolt came through the trees and hit me," McCathie told CTV Atlantic. Incredibly, McCathie's daughter was also struck by lightning a few years ago in an eerily similar scenario while working as wilderness guide in Manitoba. "They had pulled off the lake due to storms, so she was locking all the canoes, making sure they weren't going to get blown away, and she got hit by lightning," said McCathie. McCathie and Miller have been buying tickets together for about a year, but they never expected to beat the odds. "I honestly expected to get hit by lightning again first," said McCathie. So how unusual is his story? A mathematics professor at the University of Moncton believes the odds may be in the trillions. "By assuming that these events happened independently … so probability of lotto … times another probability of lightning – since there are two people that got hit by lightning – we get approximately 1 in 2.6 trillion," said Sophie Leger. Diana Miller is planning a trip to Cancun, Mexico with her share of the winnings, while McCathie says that after 30 years of marriage, it's time for him and his wife to take a second honeymoon. McCathie also owns the store where he bought the ticket so gets an addition $10,000 from the Atlantic Lottery Corporation. With a report from CTV Atlantic's Jonathan MacInnis ||||| ADVERTISEMENT It's been said that you're less likely to win the lottery than you are to be struck by lightning. If that's the case, the odds are even slimmer for Peter McCathie. The owner of the Amherst Shore Country Store in Amherst Shore, N.S. was once hit by a bolt from the sky. And now he's sharing a $1 million prize with co-worker Diana Miller. Congrats to Peter McCathie & Diana Miller! The 2 co-workers from Cumberland Co. #NS won $1M on #lotto649! pic.twitter.com/zjLJKjMVCV — Atlantic Lottery (@AL_Lottery) July 20, 2015 The pair had been buying tickets for approximately one year, and had bought the latest one from the very store that McCathie owns. They purchased it through what's known as a "Retailer Play" button, which allows store owners or employees to buy tickets and avoid disputes later, The Amherst Daily News reported. "I honestly expected to get hit by lightning again first," McCathie told CTV News. The Nova Scotia man was struck by a bolt while on a boating trip when he was 14, the network said. "I was trying to lock the boat up, it was a very sunny day, there was one big, white cloud in the sky and the lightning bolt came through the trees and hit me," McCathie said. He now plans to spend the winnings paying off debt and taking a second honeymoon with his wife. Miller, meanwhile, wants to take a trip to Cancun. University of Moncton mathematician Sophie Leger calculated the odds of winning the lottery AND being struck by lightning at about 1 in 2.6 trillion, CTV News reported. In other words, if McCathie were a U.S. resident, he'd have had a better chance of being a movie star (1 in 1,505,000) or being attacked by a shark (1 in 11.5 million), according to NBC News. Thank goodness the odds have finally turned in his favour. Like Us On Facebook Follow Us On Twitter ||||| MONCTON – Cumberland County is home to the second million-dollar lottery winners in a month. Diana Miller and Peter McCathie are Cumberland County’s latest million-dollar lottery winners. Their number was drawn during the guaranteed $1 million Lotto 6/49 draw on July 15. Submitted HL: Peter McCathie of Amherst Shore and Diana Miller of Amherst are co-workers who purchased a Lott 6/49 Combo 4 lottery ticket together every week. They recently found they had won a guaranteed $1 million prize from the July 15 draw. McCathie owns the store where he purchased the ticket and where he and Miller both work, Miller as a baker. When asked how she reacted when McCathie told her they had won big, Miller said, “Maybe I won’t ask him for a raise this year.” McCathie said he’ll use his winnings to pay off some debt, and maybe take a few days off now and then, which will let him pursue his passions of cooking and fishing. Next year, he and his wife will celebrate their 30th anniversary, so they may go on a second honeymoon, possibly to Ecuador. Miller’s plans are not set, though she has decided on one thing. “As soon as I get cold, I’m going to Cancun for a holiday,” she said. She’ll continue to work though, as she loves her job, and spend time on her farm. They purchased their ticket at the store where they work using the retailer play button. That indicates the ticket purchase has been made by a lottery retailer or a retail employee. “When purchasing draw-based tickets, our lottery retailers and retail employees are encouraged to stamp their tickets using the Retailer Play button on the lottery terminal,” said Jay Merritt, manager of risk management and investigations at Atlantic Lottery. The stamp helps protect players and retailers from any disputes regarding ownership. “We are pleased that these winners used the button; in the absence of using the retailer play stamp, any related party wins are subject to a minimum 30 day review,” he said. The winning ticket was sold at the Amherst Shore Country Store in Amherst Shore. The retailer will receive a one per cent seller’s prize. Their win is the second recent millionaire win in Cumberland County. Helen Fortune of Oxford Junction won $1 million on the June 17 Lotto 6/49 draw, exactly four weeks earlier.

– Peter McCathie's first grand stroke of good luck happened when he got hit by lightning at age 14 and lived to tell the tale. His second came this month when he won a $1 million lottery in Canada with a co-worker, reports Huffington Post Canada. If you're scratching your head wondering, "What are the odds," CTV has your answer, courtesy of a math professor at the University of Moncton: one in 2.6 trillion. Those are the odds of one lotto win and two lightning strikes, the professor explains. It turns out McCathie's daughter has also been struck by lightning. "I honestly expected to get hit by lightning again first," says McCathie of winning the lottery; he plans to use the money to pay off debt and take a second honeymoon with his wife of 30 years. He still recalls the lightning strike, which happened as he was wading in a lake's shallow waters. "I was trying to lock the boat up, it was a very sunny day, there was one big, white cloud in the sky and the lightning bolt came through the trees and hit me." McCathie actually owns the store in Amherst Shore, Nova Scotia, where he and employee Diana Miller bought the winning ticket, and if that sounds fishy, cumberlandnewsnow.com can dispel any suspicions. They used something called a "retailer play button" designed to ensure any such purchases are legit. As for Miller, a baker at the store: "Maybe I won't ask him for a raise this year." (This man just survived a lightning strike to the head.)

Justin Bieber Baptized in NYC Bathtub Justin Bieber -- Baptized in NYC Bathtub EXCLUSIVE turned to the Lord while being shaken down over his racist videos -- and TMZ has learned he washed away his sins with a baptism performed in a bathroom.-- who works with Bieber in NYC -- tells us he spent a week doing intense Bible study with Justin last month ... in the wake of being extorted over the videos.As we previously reported -- JB's team was contacted 2 months ago by a man in possession of the videos and wanted a million dollar payday or else he'd go public.We're told Bieber's religious resurgence focused on studying Bible passages and attending services ... culminating in an actual baptism performed in the bathtub of one of the singer's friends.Why a bathtub, you ask? We're told JB previously checked out a bunch of churches for the dip -- but his cover was blown every time and he wanted to keep the whole thing private.Justin's now got a clean slate with God -- but the public is a harder nut to crack.Amen. ||||| Update, 2:02 a.m. ET: In another Hillsong-related incident, Justin Bieber was involved in a car accident in front of a church event in Beverly Hills, California. The singer was reportedly driving a black truck when he struck at least one photographer, who was taken to a local hospital with “non-life-threatening injuries.” Original article continues below: Canada’s prodigal son has always taken his Christianity seriously. Justin Bieber may have peed in a few buckets and lost his virginity along the way, but his road to redemption is apparently back on track. This week, the pop star announced that he would be canceling the remainder of his Purpose world tour. According to a statement on the cherubic crooner’s Facebook page, Bieber would be bowing out “due to unforeseen circumstances.” “Justin loves his fans and hates to disappoint them,” the statement continued. “He thanks his fans for the incredible experience of the Purpose World Tour over [the] last 18 months." The star, who was recently banned from performing in Beijing due to his “series of misbehaviors while living abroad and during his performances in China,” seems to be reorienting himself toward only the most wholesome activities. He told TMZ that his post-tour plans are “just resting, getting some relaxation. We’re gonna ride some bikes.” So a 23-year-old multimillionaire would rather be dirt-biking, unwinding, and quietly waiting for more celebrity offspring to turn 18 than subjecting himself to a punishing tour and travel schedule. Nothing unusual going on here, right? But what you see isn’t always what you get with Justin Bieber. One moment he’s dating Sofia Richie, the next he’s stepping out with Bronte Blampied. First you think he’s canceling his tour to catch up on some R&R, then you realize that his preacher/BFF may have inspired him to sabotage his career for Jesus. At least, that’s what TMZ is claiming. On Tuesday, Hollywood’s least-holy gossip site ran a story explaining that, according to sources connected to Hillsong, Bieber’s church, the singer is taking a professional step back because he has “rededicated his life to Christ.” The update continues, “Bieber’s decision seemed to come out of the blue, but our sources say it was squarely based on what Bieber believes is religious enlightenment.” Attending more Sunday services is one thing, but opening your own franchise for the Lord is quite another. According to TMZ’s “inside source,” Bieber “may be even planning to start his own church,” which sounds like a magical place where DUIs are automatically stricken from your record and Selena Gomez is always willing to give you a second chance. Unfortunately—shockingly!—the entertainment blogosphere may be getting ahead of itself. Bieber has emphatically denied that his tour cancellation had anything to do with Jesus. According to TMZ, the pop star “seemed perplexed” when a paparazzi asked him if religion played a role in the decision, responding “no” repeatedly. Of course, the premature ending of the Purpose tour is a bit of a “fuck you” to Bieber’s fans, many of whom have already taken the star into their hearts as their personal lord and savior. Bieber’s relatively mysterious decision becomes even stranger in light of another recent TMZ disclosure. On Wednesday, the website reported that NBA player Kyrie Irving’s controversial trade request from the Cleveland Cavaliers was influenced by Hillsong leader Carl Lentz—Bieber’s very own rock ’n’ roll pastor. According to TMZ, “Church sources tell us Kyrie, who’s been an active member for a long time, met with Lentz earlier this month about his desires to step out of LeBron James’ shadow. We’re told Lentz didn’t tell Kyrie to ‘leave Cleveland’—instead he listened to Kyrie’s concerns, and encouraged him to make the decision he felt was best.” Just over a week ago, Lentz, Bieber, and Irving all hung out together at Dave & Buster’s; now, suddenly, two-thirds of that spiritual squad are making drastic career moves. So is this celebrity church as cult-y as it sounds? For Bieber, Hillsong, which started as an Australian Pentecostal megachurch in Sydney, and its NYC leader Carl Lentz have constituted his longest continuously running relationship. A 2015 GQ article by Taffy Brodesser-Akner tells the story of Bieber’s first brush with the trendy megachurch. According to the piece, 2014 Justin Bieber—that’s height-of-infamy, egging-his-neighbors Justin Bieber—moved in with Lentz and his family for a month and a half. “One day, according to Carl, Justin looked in the mirror and he was ravaged by feelings of loss. He got on his knees and he cried. ‘I want to know Jesus,’ Justin Bieber sobbed to Pastor Carl. And so together they prayed. Suddenly, Justin was overcome by the Gospel, and he said, ‘Baptize me.’ And Pastor Carl said, ‘Yes, buckaroo’—he really does call Bieber buckaroo, and now you should, too— ‘let’s do this. Let’s schedule a time.’ But Justin Bieber couldn’t be Justin Bieber for one minute longer. ‘No, I want to do it now.’” The almost too-touching-to-be-true story leads to Bieber and Lentz wandering around potential baptism spots, only to find hordes of paparazzi blocking their way at each location. Like a modern-day Mary, J.B., desperate and out of options, finally found his manger: NBA player (and friend of the church) Tyson Chandler’s huge Upper West Side bathtub. It’s a story Lentz has pulled out of his leather pockets on more than one occasion. In 2016, he recounted it again during an Oprah Winfrey interview, in which he praised Bieber’s faith in spite of his (frequent, well-documented) failings. But while Lentz and his church’s publicity push may seem a touch too secular, Bieber is clearly getting something out of his close relationship with the pastor, and has reportedly broken down at more than one church service. In addition to an emphasis on God and Jesus in his social media, sources reported that, prior to its cancellation, the Purpose tour had become quite spiritual. One source claimed, “Backstage on his Purpose tour, Justin has been sitting down with his opening acts and encouraging them to put Christ before everything. His aim is to convert the people he loves and warn other stars against the evils of the industry.” In other words, anyone expecting to hotbox a dressing room with Biebs would be more likely to stumble on a Bible study class. It’s one thing to incorporate your spirituality into your tour, and quite another to streamline your traditional Christian values and your star-studded personal life. Bieber, who has said that his ideal match “has to push me spiritually,” has even managed to bring Hillsong into the bedroom, enjoying church services with a number of his exes. Hillsong was allegedly “the special place” Bieber would take Selena Gomez when they were together—so much so that when the famous exes were both spotted at church services in 2015, they immediately sparked reunion rumors. Also in 2015, Bieber and rumored then-girlfriend Hailey Baldwin traveled to Sydney for Hillsong’s annual church conference (the two showed up separately, with Bieber taking a private jet and Baldwin flying commercial). Bieber attended another Hillsong conference this year, just days before his cancellation announcement. In a video from this most recent conference, Bieber commented on his triumphant return to Sydney, explaining, “My faith grows every day, so my faith is stronger than two years ago. I’m better, stronger, wiser... kinda.” Despite being the church of Kendall Jenner, Kevin Durant, and all of Justin Bieber’s exes, Hillsong boasts a surprisingly old-school set of ideological strictures. Beneath the veneer of young people music and hipster haircuts, Hillsong is like any other traditional Pentecostal church. It opposes embryonic stem-cell research and abortion, support the theories of creationism and “intelligent design,” and hold that homosexuality is at odds with biblical teachings. As The Daily Beast’s Brandy Zadrozny reported last year, Hillsong “has a long history of rejecting and even self-admittedly damaging its gay and lesbian members.” Of course, these sentiments are more or less in keeping with Bieber’s faith, since the pop star has always been a far more “traditional” Christian than his large crucifix chest tattoo would suggest. Biebs famously came under fire early in his career when he told Rolling Stone, “I really don’t believe in abortion.” When pressed on whether his opinion would shift in the case of a sexual assault, the 16-year-old responded, “Well, I think that’s really sad, but everything happens for a reason.” Get The Beast In Your Inbox! Daily Digest Start and finish your day with the top stories from The Daily Beast. Cheat Sheet A speedy, smart summary of all the news you need to know (and nothing you don't). By clicking “Subscribe,” you agree to have read the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Subscribe Thank You! You are now subscribed to the Daily Digest and Cheat Sheet. We will not share your email with anyone for any reason. Doctrine aside, Hillsong has also been haunted by its fair share of scandals. As The Daily Beast reported, “Hillsong made nearly $100 million in total revenue in 2014, according to their annual report—up 10 percent from the previous year—more than half of which came from donations. And all of this money—from albums and Bible college tuition and books and DVDs for preschoolers and T-shirts and conferences—it’s all tax-free, of course. Exactly where this money goes, including how much is given to pastors’ salaries, as well as how much the Houstons make in ‘love offerings’ for speaking engagements at other venues, is somewhat opaque, which makes it another point of contention for Hillsong critics who argue that Hillsong is essentially a family business that doesn’t have to tithe.” As Justin Bieber was getting more and more involved in the church, Hillsong was weathering its greatest scandal yet. In October 2015, a royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse in Australia released a report regarding allegations against Frank Houston, the religious leader whose son Brian is currently Hillsong’s senior pastor. The investigation found that despite allegations that Houston had sexually abused as many as nine children in the 1960s and 1970s, the cases were never referred to the police. Additionally, Brian Houston “had a serious conflict of interest in assuming responsibility for dealing with the allegations; and the Assemblies of God in Australia departed from their policies and procedures set out in the Administration Manual when it came to disciplining Frank Houston.” The report also noted that after the abuse allegations surfaced, Frank Houston was still allowed to resign with a retirement package and “without damage to his reputation or the reputation of Hillsong Church.” In a statement, Brian Houston admitted that the extent of his father’s abuse was still unknown. “We probably don’t know how many. We may never know how far it went,” he said. ||||| The singer is shown weaving the N-word into "One Less Lonely Girl" and was reportedly asked to pay $1 million to keep the first video from the media. A second video of Justin Bieber allegedly making racist jokes has reportedly surfaced. British tabloid newspaper The Sun reports that the new footage features the singer using the N-word in "One Less Lonely Girl" (altering the hook to be "One Less Lonely N-----"), joking about killing black people and entertaining the idea of joining the Ku Klux Klan. Though the undated video is not included in the online report, The Sun claims that that it shows Bieber seated and wearing a dog tag and a dark blue shirt, and he sings unaccompanied, repeatedly weaving the racial slur into the lyrics of his 2009 hit. The footage emerges just as Bieber issued an apology on Sunday for a five-year-old clip -- originally recorded when the singer was 15 but recently posted by The Sun -- that shows the pop star telling a joke with a racist punchline. The earlier video has since been posted on TMZ. In that clip, Bieber is heard asking, "Why are black people afraid of chain saws?" He then answers his own questiony with a reference to the N-word. "Five years ago I made a reckless and immature mistake, and I'm grateful to those close to me who helped me learn those lessons as a young man," he apologized. "Once again … I'm sorry." PHOTOS: Stars Behaving Badly — From Justin Bieber to Reese Witherspoon, Hollywood's Recent Mugshots That first video could've been kept away from the public, TMZ reports. Two months ago, Bieber's team was reportedly contacted by the lawyer of the footage's owner, who was working on one of the singer's video projects and saw the video on his personal hard drive. The lawyer allegedly attempted to persuade Bieber's team to pay as much as $1 million to stop him from selling the footage to the media. The videos follow Bieber's attempted robbery investigation in May, detainment at the Los Angeles International Airport in April, DUI arrest in March and alleged egging incident in January. His Miami trial for driving under the influence and other charges will begin on July 7, after his lawyers asked for it to be delayed to examine evidence and discuss whether to accept a possible plea deal.

– Looks like Justin Bieber finally got that baptism he so desperately wanted. Biebs had been trying to find a church in New York City with a pool in which to get baptized since February, after a string of unfortunate choices got him quite a bit of bad press. Well, last week, he settled for a bathtub baptism, TMZ reports. Pastor Carl Lentz of Justin's fave Hillsong Church NYC performed the ritual in the home of one of Bieber's friends, sources say. Before the baptism, Lentz says he and Bieber did a week of "intense Bible study" involving reading and studying Bible passages and attending church services. The religious rebirth comes after Bieber's latest controversy—two videos of him using the n-word when he was younger were just recently released, two months after an alleged extortion attempt. A man demanded $1 million from Bieber or else he would release the videos, TMZ notes. If you were wondering how Bieber mentor Usher might react to that whole brouhaha, TMZ reported over the weekend that Usher insists Bieber "hasn't always chosen the path of his greatest potential, but he is unequivocally not a racist."

In a burst of holiday spirit, the Senate moved up its vote on final passage of the healthcare bill by 11 hours to allow lawmakers and staff a chance to enjoy Christmas. The Senate scheduled the vote for about 8 a.m. EST Thursday. Originally the vote had been expected to occur at about 7 p.m. Christmas Eve. Speaking on the Senate floor this afternoon, Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada announced the agreement with Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky to move up the vote. RELATED: With healthcare battle about over, Senate Republicans consider holiday exit Obama pushes back vacation to help Senate on healthcare -- Michael Muskal Twitter.com/LATimesmuskal ||||| On Friday, the House passed a measure that would keep the government running through mid-December. But it came with what Democrats consider a poison pill: It defunds President Obama’s signature health-care law, known as Obamacare. There is no way whatsoever — think pigs flying — that the Senate will agree to the House plan. Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said the House bill was “dead,” then for emphasis added: “Dead.” ¶ That sets up eight days of brinkmanship between the Republican House and the Democratic Senate and White House, leading to midnight Sept. 30, when much of the government will shut down if there’s no deal. ¶ Leaders on Capitol Hill expect the face-off to go right up to the deadline, if not beyond. Below is a day-by-day look at how it’s all likely to play out — with the caveat that events can change quickly. Monday: The Senate will convene briefly, with just a few members on hand. Reid is expected to call up the House bill, known as a continuing resolution, and file a motion that sets up initial votes on the measure. Under Senate rules, there will be two votes just to determine whether the chamber gets to a vote on final passage of the bill. These are the “cloture” votes, which require 60 ayes to choke off a filibuster; Reid will file a motion one day, then there must be an intervening day of debate, then the filibuster-busting vote comes. Reid will file the first of these Monday, setting up a vote Wednesday. The House is not in session. Tuesday: The full Senate will return just before noon. After approving some noncontroversial judicial nominees, Republicans and Democrats will go to their separate weekly lunches to hash out strategy. At about 2 p.m., Reid and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) will hold back-to-back news conferences where they will probably call each other names. The Senate will continue debating whether to cut off debate on the continuing resolution. Deadlines and showdowns won't make Capitol Hill a fun place to be this fall. (The Washington Post) The House is still not in session. Wednesday: The Senate’s first filibuster vote will probably take place in the late morning, and the chamber is almost certain to vote to proceed. The rules then call for 30 more hours of debate on the motion to proceed before senators can start debating the actual bill. (It’s possible, though not expected, that Republicans could waive the 30 hours.) The House will return. Around 4:30 p.m., Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) will probably huddle with his leadership team to plot strategy. At 6:30 p.m., the full House will convene for some noncontroversial votes. Thursday: At 9 a.m., House Republicans will gather in the Capitol basement for their weekly policy huddle. Boehner’s leadership team usually holds a news conference afterward, around 10 a.m. The big issue for House leaders will be determining whether they have enough support for a bill to raise the nation’s debt limit. That deadline will come in mid-October, but it is relevant to the shutdown debate because it provides another chance to try to defund Obamacare. (More on that later.) Reid’s Senate leadership team usually hosts its weekly news conference at noon. If tradition holds, Reid will call Boehner a bunch of names. At some point Thursday afternoon or evening, the 30 hours of debate in the Senate will expire, and senators are likely to pass the motion that formally begins debate on the bill. Simultaneously, Reid will file a second motion setting up the next vote to try to stop the last filibuster attempt by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) and other Obamacare opponents. They will then have until Saturday to make their final stand to persuade enough GOP colleagues to filibuster the legislation. Friday: The House could pass a bill to raise the debt ceiling. An initial draft of the legislation contains something for everyone in the Republican Conference: It increases the debt limit until the end of 2014, delays Obamacare for a year and includes a grab bag of conservative goals, such as offshore drilling, Medicare means testing, a tax code overhaul and approval of the Keystone pipeline. The bill is designed to gain the necessary bare majority with GOP votes alone. But there’s no guarantee of that, because a significant number of House Republicans don’t believe in raising the debt limit under any circumstances. In the Senate, this is the intervening day of debate on the last filibuster vote. Cruz and Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), his conservative ally in this fight, have vowed to use any means necessary to try to hold up the continuing resolution. They may even launch into an old-fashioned talking filibuster, taking to the floor for hours at a time. These are rare in the modern Senate, since new rules have allowed the minority to block legislation with 41 votes, if it can hold together. A talking filibuster would be largely theatrical; Cruz and Lee won’t be able to stop the bill, because parliamentary procedures will have locked in the votes that are set to occur. Saturday: The final filibuster-vote day in the Senate. One hour after senators convene, they will hold a vote that, if it receives 60 ayes, will end any filibuster attempt and lock in a time for a final vote on the bill. This is the point when things will get weird. At this time, the continuing resolution will still have the exact language conservatives love — they begged Boehner to pass it, in fact — but Cruz and Lee will be opposing the bill for strategic reasons. That’s because once the measure clears this last 60-vote hurdle, Reid will call up his amendment to strip out the portion that defunds Obamacare. Having already avoided a filibuster, he’ll just need a simple majority to pass his amendment, then a simple majority to approve the new bill and send it back to the House. So the only recourse for conservatives is to try to preemptively filibuster their own bill, stopping it from coming to a vote. A vote to do that is, in effect, a vote to shut down the government, because the bill is the only vehicle to fund it. For that reason, it’s not likely that many Senate Republicans will go along with Cruz. Sunday: By Sunday morning, Reid will have brought up his amendment to remove the health-care language from the bill. Final passage could come around dinnertime. The bill will then go across the Capitol to the House, with a countdown clock of roughly 30 hours until government funding expires. Monday, Sept. 30: Boehner faces a momentous decision: He can either call a vote on the Senate bill that includes funding for the health-care law, or he can try to attach something else to it that gains a majority so he can send the bill back to the Senate as the deadline looms. At this point, it’s unclear what would be attached to the legislation and whether 218 Republicans would support it. Boehner could try a poison pill other than defunding Obamacare, but many Republicans may oppose it because a vote for it would be a vote for funding the health-care law. If Boehner does go this route, and if he gets the votes, there will almost certainly be a shutdown. If not, the question will be whether House leaders can get enough Republicans to join Democrats to pass the Senate bill and keep the government running. This is where the debt-ceiling bill comes into play. House GOP leaders could argue to their caucus that they could use the October debt-limit deadline to take up the effort to defund the health-care law and avoid a painful shutdown in the meantime. Again, it’s entirely unclear whether enough Republicans would go along. If not, the government would shut down.

– It looks like senators and their staffs will be home for Christmas Eve after all. The final vote on health care legislation has been moved up to 8am Thursday, reports the LA Times. Harry Reid and GOP leader Mitch McConnell announced the move today after a set of procedural votes cleared the Senate with the necessary 60 votes. Republicans could have delayed Thursday's action until 9pm, but McConnell chose not to do so, notes the Post.

A Pakistani-American man whose Pakistan-born wife was gunned down while they and their son walked along a quiet suburban street plotted the killing with another woman and told police his family had been attacked by a group of men who called them terrorists, authorities said Friday. In this photo released by the Morris County Prosecutor's office, Kashif Parvaiz is seen in this police booking photo Friday, Aug. 19, 2011. Parvaiz and Antoinette Stephen are charged with connection of... (Associated Press) Morris County Prosecutor Robert Bianchi holds the police booking photos of Kashif Parvaiz, left, and Antoinette Stephen, who were charged in the murder of 27-year-old Nazish Noorani, during a news conference,... (Associated Press) In this photo released by the Morris County Prosecutor's office, Antoinette Stephen is seen in this police booking photo, Friday, Aug. 19, 2011. Stephen, 26, and Kashif Parvaiz are charged with connection... (Associated Press) Morris County Prosecutor Robert Bianchi announces the arrest of Kashif Parvaiz and Antoinette Stephen, charged in the murder of 27-year-old Nazish Noorani, during a news conference, Friday, Aug. 19,... (Associated Press) Kashif Parvaiz, 26, suffered non-life-threatening wounds in the shooting that killed his 27-year-old wife, Nazish Noorani. They were walking with their 3-year-old son, who was in a stroller, to a relative's house in Boonton when shots rang out Tuesday night. The boy was unharmed. The couple's 5-year-old son was with Noorani's family inside the house. Parvaiz and 26-year-old Antionette Stephen of Massachusetts both face charges of murder, conspiracy and weapons offenses. He also faces child-endangerment charges. Stephen and Parvaiz exchanged text messages in the days leading up to the shooting, according to an arrest affidavit released by the Morris County Prosecutor's Office. "You hang in there. Freedom is just around ur corner," read one text sent from a phone listed to Stephen's father to Parvaiz, according to the affidavit. Subsequent texts from Stephen's number describe driving around the neighborhood to see how far away the nearest police station was, according to the affidavit. The exchange of texts continued up until 2 p.m. on the day of the shooting, authorities said. Parvaiz, who has been in the hospital, was arrested several days ago, authorities said. He was being held on $1 million bail. Authorities said they did not know whether he had a lawyer. Stephen was arrested Thursday night in Massachusetts. She was arraigned Friday on a fugitive-from-justice charge and was being held without bail at a women's prison in Massachusetts. It's not clear when she might be returned to New Jersey. Meghan Spring, the attorney who represented her at her arraignment, did not immediately return a call seeking comment. Parvaiz, his wife and their son were walking from Noorani's sister's house to her father's house a few blocks away when the shooting occurred. According to Morris County Prosecutor Robert Bianchi, Parvaiz's accounts of the attack were inconsistent and immediately raised suspicions. Parvaiz told investigators the couple was attacked by a combination of black and white males who shouted ethnic slurs, authorities said. In his initial story, the group shouted something about the family being "terrorists," authorities said. Bianchi said investigators were deeply concerned when Parvaiz suggested it was a bias crime, but within hours "it was obvious to investigators that this was sadly the alleged handy work of the victim's husband who allegedly did the unthinkable and plotted to murder his wife." Bianchi didn't say whether Stephen and Parvaiz were romantically involved, but investigators wrote in the arrest affidavit that Parvaiz and Noorani had a turbulent relationship. Authorities said Parvaiz met Stephen in Brooklyn, New York City, and the two discussed murdering Noorani. Bianchi wouldn't say who pulled the trigger or whether the same person shot both Parvaiz and Noorani. Noorani was buried Friday after services at an Islamic center in Boonton, a small town west of New York with a solid Pakistani population. Friends and family had set up a website, www.nazishmemorialfund.org, to help the couple's two children. The affidavit quotes a text message from Noorani to her brother in which she wrote: "Someday u will find me dead but its cuz of kashi ... He wants to kill me." Noorani was a native of Karachi, Pakistan, while Parvaiz was originally from Brooklyn, relatives have said. The couple was wed six years ago after meeting at a music festival in Brooklyn, family members said. They were in Boonton to visit relatives. Parvaiz told family he was attending graduate school at Harvard, but the school has no record of him studying there. He told investigators that he had had extramarital affairs, according to the affidavit. Stephen, a native of India, was arrested Thursday at her home in Massachusetts, where she lives with her parents and a sister. Neighbors said the family moved into the neighborhood about five years ago, renovating an abandoned Colonial house on a quiet residential street. Debbie Stillings said the family was Americanized and did not speak with much of an accent. She said Stephen was sometimes visited by a male friend on a motorcycle. "They were very friendly and quiet," Stillings said. "My husband teased (Antionette) about the guy on the motorcycle, saying, `Is that your boyfriend?' and she said, `No, he's just a friend.'" ___ Contributing to this report were AP reporters Russell Contreras in Massachusetts, Denise Lavoie in Boston and AP News Researcher Barbara Sambriski in New York. ||||| Mr. Parvaiz, according to prosecutors, initially described a trio of attackers: one white, one black and one whose race he said he could not determine. He later changed his story, describing all three as black, before finally admitting to setting up the shooting, according to his arrest affidavit. Photo Investigators soon concluded that there was no trio. And on Friday, several people who attended Ms. Noorani’s funeral at the Jam-e-Masjid Islamic Center in Boonton said the news that Mr. Parvaiz had been charged was less surprising than his cover story, since there has been little racial or ethnic tension in Boonton. “We were talking to each other and we were like, ‘Who else?’ ” Moheet Durrani, 62, a family friend, said. The Morris County prosecutor, Robert Bianchi, said that “for a significant period of time,” Mr. Parvaiz had plotted the killing with a Boston woman whom Mr. Bianchi identified as Antoinette Stephen, 26. Both were charged with first-degree murder; the arrest affidavits did not specify who was alleged to have shot Ms. Noorani. Bail for Ms. Stephen was set at $5 million. She was being held in Boston, awaiting extradition to New Jersey. Mr. Parvaiz’s father said Friday outside his home in the Midwood section of Brooklyn , “I have no idea what’s going on.” Photo Mr. Bianchi, at his news conference, said that “there is obviously a relationship” between Ms. Stephen and Mr. Parvaiz. “I am not saying it is a physical relationship,” he said. “I am not saying it is a girlfriend-boyfriend relationship.” He said investigators were working to pin down the details. According to the arrest affidavit, Mr. Parvaiz had told investigators “that there were issues in his marriage and that he was angry at his wife, the victim, for allegedly speaking negatively about his family.” He also seemed to regret her killing, saying “that he did not want to be the person to look at his children and tell them that he took their mother away,” the affidavit said. According to the affidavit, Mr. Parvaiz told Ms. Stephen about the turbulence in his six-year marriage and Ms. Stephen promised to “think of something.” The document detailed text messages between them. In one on Aug. 12, four days before the killing, she was said to have written: “You hang in there. Freedom is just around ur corner.” On Aug. 14, Mr. Parvaiz is alleged to have sent her a text message: “Well I need to speak to you and explain to you how to approach the situation. I’ll be depositing money tomorrow morning and I’ll see you tomorrow evening night.” Photo Later Ms. Stephen told him she was going on radio silence: “Call me when u can. delete all messages from phone. I wont message from here on.” Advertisement Continue reading the main story The plan, according to the affidavit, was that Mr. Parvaiz “would go out for a walk with the victim” and that Ms. Stephen “would kill the victim and wound the suspect.” The walk took Mr. Parvaiz and Ms. Noorani from her sister’s house — where Ms. Noorani had broken her daytime Ramadan fast — toward her father’s house a short distance away, where Mr. Parvaiz had parked his car. They left their 5-year-old son with Ms. Noorani’s sister Lubna Choudhry. They took their 3-year-old son with them in a stroller. Photo Ms. Choudhry said she heard noises in the street a few minutes later, noises she assumed were fireworks. But when she went outside, her sister was dead and Mr. Parvaiz was across the street, wounded and bleeding. The child was unhurt. By Thursday, conflicting stories had emerged about Mr. Parvaiz, who grew up in Brooklyn, where his father, Shafiq Hassan, owns several properties and a grocery store on Coney Island Avenue. Mr. Parvaiz ran a small contracting business in Brooklyn but told relatives that he had moved to Boston for a doctoral program at Harvard University . Harvard said it had no record that he had been a student. The Boston police said he had been arrested in February on charges of assaulting a 20-year-old woman after an argument at his apartment. He was described in the police report as her boyfriend, and it said the dispute had to do with “the fact that she has been unfaithful to him.” The woman, who is from Brooklyn, told the police that Mr. Parvaiz had slapped her in the face and pushed her. But when she declined to cooperate with prosecutors, they dropped the charges. The police were called back to the apartment four days later. They found Mr. Parvaiz outside, saying that he had been taking out the trash when three men accosted him and one hit him in the head with a hammer. The police said they searched the neighborhood but found no suspects. The affidavit did not spell out the connection between Mr. Parvaiz and Ms. Stephen. But Ms. Stephen’s name appears below Mr. Parvaiz’s on a printed label on the mailbox of his apartment in Boston. Ms. Noorani’s name is also on the mailbox.

– A Pakistani-American admitted to police that he set up his wife's murder and made up a cover story about getting jumped by three black men shouting "terrorists!" Kashif Parvaiz of New Jersey and a woman the New York Post describes as his lover, Antoinette Stephen, are under arrest for plotting the shooting of Nazish Noorani. It took place as she walked down a neighborhood street accompanied by her 3-year-old son, who was unharmed, and by Parvaiz, who was wounded in the attack as planned, but not seriously. Afterward, he couldn't keep his story straight, and both police and Noorani's family got suspicious, notes the New York Times. "Someday U will find me dead, but it’s cuz of Kashi ... he wants to kill me," she recently texted her brother. Police say they also have text records from the suspects laying out intricate details of the plot. "You hang in there," Stephen texted him before the shooting, according to AP. "Freedom is just around ur corner."

Talk about savage irony: on the heels of his separation from wife Heidi Klum, Seal released his new album, "Soul 2," in the U.S. on Tuesday -- one that he says has a particularly romantic feel. And so when the Grammy Award winner appeared at several studios on Monday to promote his latest album, the question of his split from his supermodel wife of seven years naturally came up. Here's what Seal said: On how he's dealing with post-split life, at the "Tavis Smiley" show on PBS, airing Friday: We have a tremendous amount of love and respect for each other. Of course our children are our first priority. We've pretty much said everything we needed to say about it in the release. How does one stay focused? Just because you decide to separate, I don't think you all of a sudden stop loving each other. I don't think you all of a sudden stop becoming friends, especially when there are other things to take into consideration like family. To be honest, it's not really that difficult. It's not really that much of an issue. What one has to do in this situation is to remain civil and to retain one's dignity and to be professional and to understand we are not the only people on this planet that go through this. It is just, unfortunately, a chapter of life. On being "shocked" and still wearing his wedding ring, at "The Ellen DeGeneres Show," airing Tuesday: You just grow apart after a while, and you try, and you work through it, and the thing you quickly realize when you're married and when you become a parent is that you do the best you can. It makes you actually appreciate your parents a lot more. The thing that I'm most proud about this great woman who I married -- and I really do mean that from the bottom of my heart -- is that together she has given me four incredible gifts, four beautiful children. She is still, in my opinion, the most wonderful woman in the world. It's just pretty much a token of how I feel about this woman... Right now it feels really comfortable on my hand so I have no intentions of taking it off anytime soon. Seal and Klum started dating in 2003; the couple have four children, Leni, Henry, Johan and Lou. Check out photos of the couple from happier times below: ||||| Heidi Klum breaks her silence about split from husband Seal: 'I want to go forward' Seal has gone on CNN and other channels to talk about his breakup with the model Newly-single supermodel Heidi Klum is breaking her silence on her split from Seal, saying her private life is nobody’s business and suggesting he keep his trap shut, too. “He’s going to be 50 next year,” she said of Seal, whose name is tattooed on her arm. “He’s a grown man. I can’t tell him what to do and what not to do. It’s hard.” PHOTOS: CELEBRITY BREAKUPS - THE EX FILES She sounded peeved about Seal going on CNN and other TV shows to tell the world about how they broke the news of their break up to their four young children. “I feel like already so many things being said about us — about him, about me,” the 38-year-old former Victoria’s Secret model told Elle magazine in an April cover story in which she models a $795 Marc Jacobs skirt and a Bulgari diamond ring. The “Project Runway” creator says she feels she’s been in the “eye of a tornado” since she and Seal separated in January. "It's emotions inside of your body that are a tornado. And then the outside world doing all this craziness -- with you wanting it or not wanting it -- is another tornado," she said. "But as hard as it is, so is life. And sometimes I think a curveball just comes at you. Instead of something straight that you catch, it hits you in the head from the side that you didn't expect." Klum acknowledged there were problems in her marriage, however choose to keep the details private. "To the outside world, you don't really share all the things that happen. You kind of share just the most amazing sides," she said. "But I don't really want to get into any of that stuff. With my life, my family, my business -- I want to go forward." “I’m not going to comment. Otherwise it makes you angry,” she said. “People don’t need to know who did what. But I’m a lioness. I have four cubs. I’m a mom. I want to take care of my kids and protect them. I don’t want to talk about them, or him, or me.”

– Despite his very recent, very public split with wife Heidi Klum, Seal visited Ellen DeGeneres' show yesterday and had only nice things to say about his soon-to-be-ex. He's still wearing his ring because it's "a token of how I feel about this woman," he says in a clip obtained by the Huffington Post. "We have eight years, eight wonderful years together. And just because we have decided to separate doesn't necessarily mean that you take off your ring and you're no longer connected to that person. We will be connected in many ways for the rest of our lives." He has "no intention of taking it off any time soon," he adds. If you were shocked by news of the split, you're not alone: Even their friends were surprised, People reports. The couple renewed their wedding vows every year, and multiple sources recall their infamous PDAs: Says one fashion source, "They were always all over each other, practically groping." Another friend says that "something major" must have caused the split. Whatever it was, it caused Seal to start looking for a new place to live weeks ago, sources tell the New York Post. Click to watch more from Seal's Ellen appearance, which airs today.

Image copyright Reuters Donald Trump's state visit to the UK is in fresh doubt after there was no mention of it in the Queen's Speech. The US president accepted the Queen's invitation for him to travel to Britain when Prime Minister Theresa May visited Washington in January. There have been reports that Mr Trump has changed his mind and does not want to visit while there is potential for protests against him. But a Trump official told the BBC: "The two governments are discussing dates." Number 10 said the Queen had not mentioned the visit because no date had been set. Wednesday's Queen's Speech at the State Opening of Parliament saw the monarch announce the government's legislative programme for the next two years. The Queen also uses the speech to set out her official plans for the year. She said she looked forward to welcoming King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia of Spain for their state visit in July, and hosting the Commonwealth summit in April next year. But there was no word about Mr Trump's state visit. October had been suggested as a possible date. Brexit bills at heart of Queen's Speech Bill-by-bill guide: Queen's Speech Queen's Speech reflects weaker May A Downing Street spokesman said: "An invitation has been extended and accepted. "The visit wasn't mentioned in the Queen's Speech because a date hasn't been fixed yet." In his last statement on the issue, White House spokesman Sean Spicer had said: "Her Majesty extended an invitation to the president. He's accepted that invitation. And we look forward to scheduling that trip. "There is nothing that was scheduled and we look forward to working out a mutually acceptable date with the United Kingdom, and look forward to sharing that date." Analysis Image copyright PA By James Landale, diplomatic correspondent There is a very good reason for that date not being set. That is because there are concerns within the White House that if Donald Trump came to the UK, there would be some substantial protests. There is also a concern within the British government that it would not help US-UK relations if the US president was embarrassed. It is very unlikely he will be coming this year. This government has only so much bandwidth, that trying to work out precisely when they are going to have a visit from the US president, particularly if he is having cold feet, is something I imagine they will say to put on the back burner for a bit. When the invitation was first made by Theresa May on behalf of the Queen, there was a lot of concern that she had jumped the gun and gone too fast on this - to give a new US president the offer of a full state visit was a little premature. Normally that kind of offer does not come until well into the presidency. It quite often happens in a president's second term - if re-elected - and not all US presidents get full state visits. So the fact that it is going to be delayed will not come as a huge disappointment to many people who thought it was a little bit too much, too early. ||||| London (CNN) What -- or in this case, who -- was conspicuously absent from the Queen's Speech to Parliament? US President Donald Trump. Trump's planned state visit to the UK -- announced by British Prime Minister Theresa May earlier this year -- was not mentioned by Queen Elizabeth II in her speech at the opening of Parliament on Wednesday, prompting further speculation over whether the trip will happen at all. May offered up the state visit during a bilateral meeting with the US President shortly after his inauguration. State visits are typically characterized by pomp and ceremony, and generally include a banquet with the Queen. The invitation has proved to be incredibly controversial in Britain, where over 1.8 million people signed a petition seeking to block Trump's trip over fears that it would "cause embarrassment to Her Majesty the Queen." Earlier this month, UK media reports suggested the US President had told Prime Minister May that he would not visit due to a lack of public support in Britain. Those reports were later denied by the White House British newspaper the Guardian reported that Trump had revealed his unease about the visit during a conversation with May, citing a Downing Street adviser who was in the room. A senior Trump administration source denied that the subject came up when Trump and May spoke in the aftermath of the British general election. Following the omission on Wednesday, a senior Trump administration official told CNN: "She didn't mention (the visit) because the date is not yet set." A Downing Street spokesperson told CNN there was "no change" in their position on the state visit. "The invitation for the state visit has been extended and it wasn't mentioned in the speech as no date has been decided upon yet," the Number 10 spokesperson said. The Queen did mention one forthcoming state visit -- that of King Felipe of Spain in July. While Wednesday's speech is being used by some as an indication that a Trump state visit is off the cards, recent history could indicate otherwise. ||||| Address covering state visits for next two years refers to welcoming Spanish king and queen in July, but not US president The Queen’s speech has given a further indication that Donald Trump’s planned state visit to the UK has been put on hold, after the monarch did not mention it in her address. The speech usually mentions any state visits planned for the duration of the parliament. Speaking on Wednesday, the Queen said she and Prince Philip “look forward to welcoming their majesties King Felipe and Queen Letizia of Spain on a state visit in July”. However, it did not mention the visit of Trump, initially planned for this summer after Theresa May invited him on behalf of the Queen when she visited the US president in Washington DC in January, shortly after he took office. This Queen’s speech is intended to herald a parliament lasting two years, rather than the usual one, indicating that no date for Trump’s visit has been scheduled for the near future. The visit would be controversial, given Trump’s policies and provocative use of social media, such as when he misquoted and berated the London mayor, Sadiq Khan, after the London Bridge attack. A number of groups have promised to protest if the visit goes ahead. The Guardian reported earlier this month that Trump had told May he did not want to go ahead with the state visit until the British public supported it. The comments, made in a phone call, would seem to put the visit on hold indefinitely. At the time, the White House said the subject “never came up on the call”. Downing Street has refused to comment, saying only that the invitation remained unchanged. And Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the deputy White House press secretary, denied that the Queen’s speech indicated that the state visit had been cancelled. “That is not what she said. She only talked about visits with confirmed dates and we do not yet have a confirmed date,” Sanders said. After the London Bridge attack, Trump tweeted: “At least 7 dead and 48 wounded in terror attack, and Mayor of London says there is ‘no reason to be alarmed!’” He was referring to Khan saying there was no reason to be alarmed by an increased police presence in the city the following day. A spokesman for Khan said the mayor had “more important things to do than respond to Donald Trump’s ill-informed tweet that deliberately takes out of context his remarks”. ||||| U.S. President Donald Trump’s proposed visit to the U.K. later this year was conspicuous by its absence from Queen Elizabeth II’s speech setting out the program for Prime Minister Theresa May’s government. Despite Trump accepting an invitation for a state visit during the premier’s visit to Washington in January, the queen only said she and her husband Prince Philip “look forward to welcoming” the king and queen of Spain in July. State visits have traditionally been announced by the monarch in her speeches to Parliament. Get the latest on global politics in your inbox, every day. Get our newsletter daily. There were protests after Trump was invited so soon after his inauguration, and May said on June 6 that the president was “wrong” to criticize London Mayor Sadiq Khan over his response to the London Bridge terrorist attack that killed eight people. Trump used Twitter to accuse Khan of being “pathetic,” in contrast to May saying that the mayor, a member of the opposition Labour Party, was “doing a good job.” Britain is trying to persuade Trump to sign a post-Brexit trade deal. While his predecessor Barack Obama said Britain would be “at the back of the queue” if it voted to leave the European Union, Trump initially promised a quick deal with the U.K. before appearing to prioritize an agreement with the bloc it is leaving. Police Planning Former Metropolitan Police Commissioner Bernard Hogan-Howe said in February that the visit would take place in June and the force was preparing for “lots of protests.” That was before May called the June 8 election that cost her Conservative Party its parliamentary majority and a fire in a London apartment block that killed dozens and led to anti-government protests on the streets. The prospect of Trump being greeted with demonstrations was only one aspect of planning for the proposed visit by the head of state of a crucial ally to Britain. The speaker of the House of Commons also made it clear that he would not be allowed to address Parliament. “I feel very strongly our opposition to racism and to sexism and our support for equality before the law and an independent judiciary are hugely important considerations in the House of Commons,” John Bercow said when explaining his decision in February. Asked about the state visit earlier this month, the London mayor said: “I don’t think we should be rolling out the red carpet to the president of the USA in the circumstances where his policies go against everything we stand for.” Khan said Britain’s relationship with the U.S. should be like a close friendship: “You stand with them in times of adversity and call them out when they’re wrong and there are many things about which Donald Trump is wrong.” The absence of Trump’s visit from the speech is a far cry from the way the invitation was announced in the early days of his presidency. “I have today been able to convey Her Majesty the Queen’s hope that President Trump and the First Lady would pay a state visit to the United Kingdom later this year and I’m delighted that the president has accepted that invitation,” May said in a press conference in the White House in January. James Slack, May’s spokesman, told reporters after the speech on Wednesday that the lack of a reference to Trump’s visit doesn’t mean it won’t go ahead. “The reason it’s not included today is because a firm date hasn’t been fixed,” he said. “But the invitation has been extended and accepted.” ||||| Prime minister says ‘UK takes a different approach’ but defends invitation despite growing outrage over US travel ban Theresa May defended the decision to invite Donald Trump on a state visit as thousands of protesters took to the streets across the UK and more than 1.5 million people signed a petition to try to stop the trip from going ahead. The prime minister made the briefest of responses to the domestic uproar over the US president’s attempt to ban travellers from seven Muslim-majority countries, insisting that the “UK takes a different approach”. Thousands protest across UK in wake of US travel ban – politics live Read more Addressing the issue during a joint press conference with the Irish taoiseach, Enda Kenny, May stood by the red carpet invitation she had made during her meeting with Trump in the White House on Friday. “The United States is a close ally of the United Kingdom. We work together across many areas of mutual interest and we have that special relationship between us,” she said. “I have issued that invitation for a state visit for President Trump to the United Kingdom and that invitation stands.” However, she refused to go further and criticise her American counterpart despite mass condemnation of his decision to bar nationals from Iraq, Syria, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen for 90 days. At the same press conference, Kenny voiced disagreement with the executive order announced by Trump. The comments came as Downing street advisers did not deny claims that May had been informed about Trump’s plans to impose the travel ban when she met the president. Thousands took to the streets in cities across the UK, including Manchester, Cardiff, Glasgow, Edinburgh and in London. Crowds gathered just metres from the gates of Downing Street, chanting: “Shame on May.” The Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, wrote to the prime minister to urge her to listen to more than a million Britons who had called on her to cancel the state visit, in which Trump could address both houses of parliament. “This world defeated segregation, we defeated apartheid and we will defeat this nasty policy created to sow division and hatred,” he said. “His invite should be withdrawn until the executive orders are gone and every element of them repealed.” Some shadow cabinet members joined protestors, including Diane Abbott, the shadow home secretary. Earlier, Boris Johnson, the foreign secretary, warned MPs not to demonise Trump or compare him to Adolf Hitler in a statement on the escalating row. Johnson told parliament that British passport holders with dual nationalities would now not be affected by the US travel ban after further conversations with senior figures within the White House. Following confusion caused by a US embassy notice telling UK dual nationals from the affected countries not to travel to the US, he said: “I’m able to provide the following clarification: the general principle is that all British passport holders remain welcome to travel to the US. “We have received assurances that this executive order will make no difference to any British passport holder irrespective of their country of birth or if they hold another passport.” Johnson said he believed that the US decision to implement the so-called extreme vetting for nationals from the seven countries was “divisive, discriminatory and wrong”. But he argued that Trump was right to say that it did not amount to a ban on Muslims. Johnson repeatedly defended the new American leader and suggested his “bark is considerably worse than his bite”. He accused Labour of “pointlessly demonising” him. The foreign secretary said it was right that a close and important ally was welcomed to a state visit, pointing out that such an invitation was even extended to Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe and Romania’s Nicolae Ceaușescu. A number of Conservative backbenchers urged the British government not to interfere in American domestic policy, with Julian Lewis MP saying the Atlantic alliance was critical to security in the UK. MPs from all parties took to their feet to express alarm at Trump’s executive order, with many offering repeated references to the the politics of the 1930s. Dennis Skinner, the veteran Labour MP known for his combative outbursts on the floor of the Commons chamber, used the debate to brand Trump a fascist. “Will the foreign secretary just for a moment try to recall how I hid under the stairs as two fascist dictators – Hitler and Mussolini – rained bombs on towns and cities in Britain?” he asked. “Now this government is hand in hand with another fascist: Trump. Do the decent thing and ban the visit. This man is not fit to walk in the footsteps of Nelson Mandela.” Theresa May was right to see Donald Trump. But she must condemn him too | Jack Straw Read more Mike Gapes, a Labour MP, called the prime minister “Theresa the appeaser”, sparking an angry reaction from some MPs. Ben Howlett, a Conservative backbencher, quoted a speech by Winston Churchill about countries remaining neutral in the war, saying: “Each ones hopes that if he feeds the crocodile enough the crocodile will eat him last.” He said: “This dangerous trend towards nationalism which we have not seen since the 1930s inflicting itself on the western world has wrongly been defined as populism. It is clear this executive order needs to be condemned.” Johnson hit back at the comparisons, arguing that they were inappropriate. “I completely agree we must stand up against bigotry and nationalism. But I do draw the line at the comparison made relentlessly this afternoon between the elected government of our closest and most important ally, a great democracy, and the anti-democratic cruel and barbaric tyrannies of the 1930s,” he said. “Continually to use the language of appeasement demeans the horror of the 1930s and trivialises our conversation.” The warnings about rising nationalism came amid a string of other interventions from Conservatives angry about the US policy, including a plea from the Iraqi-born MP Nadhim Zawahi, who urged Trump to reconsider as a compassionate Christian. Emily Thornberry, the shadow foreign secretary, led Labour’s response, demanding more action from the government to protect UK residents from the seven countries affected by the ban, citing examples of people stranded and held at airports. Facebook Twitter Pinterest The Labour MP Yvette Cooper was shaking as she made an emotional intervention. Photograph: PA She also pressed Johnson on Downing Street’s slow response to the order, with the government only promising to intervene on behalf of UK nationals 27 hours after it came into force. “In their discussions about terrorism and security, was this imminent order mentioned? I don’t know what’s worse, that the president would have such little respect for the prime minister that he wouldn’t think of telling her, or that he did and she didn’t think it sounded wrong,” she said. Yvette Cooper, who chairs parliament’s home affairs select committee, was shaking as she made an emotional intervention, saying: “One of our closest allies has chosen to ban refugees and target Muslims and all [Johnson] can say is that it wouldn’t be our policy. That is not good enough.” She responded to reports that May was told about the travel ban during her meeting with Trump, asking why she did not condemn the policy during a later press conference in Turkey. Johnson argued that May’s trip to the US was a success, stressing the importance of the relationship between the two countries, and saying that the government was not afraid of criticising its friend. After many had called on the government to take a firmer line, the Speaker of the House, John Bercow, gave the green light to an emergency, three-hour debate on Trump’s executive order. That debate culminated in the Commons unanimously passing an emergency motion from former Labour leader Ed Miliband that condemned “Trump’s discriminatory, divisive & counterproductive ban”. A former head of the Foreign Office has said that May’s invitation to Trump had put the Queen in a “very difficult position”. Lord Ricketts, who was permanent secretary at the Foreign Office from 2006-10 before becoming David Cameron’s national security adviser, said in a letter to the Times that the offer was “premature” and it was unprecedented for a US president to be given a state visit in their first year in the White House. ||||| Image copyright Getty Images Image caption A state visit could include President Trump staying at Buckingham Palace as a guest of the Queen Theresa May's decision to invite Donald Trump to a state visit has put the Queen in a "very difficult position", a former head of the Foreign Office says. Lord Ricketts told the BBC the speed of the invitation had "surprised" him. A petition calling for the state visit to be cancelled has gathered more than 1.6 million signatures. A rival pro-visit petition has more than 90,000. On Monday, thousands of people joined UK protests against Mr Trump's travel ban on seven mainly Muslim countries. The controversial immigration measures prompted an emergency debate in Parliament. Lord Ricketts, who was permanent secretary at the Foreign Office from 2006 to 2010, said it was unprecedented for a US president to be invited for a state visit in their first year in the White House. In a letter to the Times, he questioned whether Mr Trump was "specially deserving of this exceptional honour" and described the invitation as "premature". "It would have been far wiser to wait to see what sort of president he would turn out to be before advising the Queen to invite him. "Now the Queen is put in a very difficult position," he said. UK visits by US presidents Richard Nixon: 1969 Visited one month after inauguration; no state visit Barack Obama: 2009 Visited two months after inauguration; state visit after 28 months George Bush: 1989 Visited four months after inauguration; no state visit John F Kennedy: 1961 Visited five months after inauguration; no state visit George W Bush: 2001 Visited six months after inauguration; state visit after 32 months Getty Images Lord Ricketts told BBC Radio Four's Today programme the state visit should be delayed until later in the presidency, and Mr Trump should instead be invited for an official visit this year, "centred mainly on political talks with the prime minister". He said the Queen would want to receive the president in a "celebratory, warm, friendly visit", but a state visit at the moment would seem "quite controversial". It got the Queen directly involved with "this early turbulent period of the Trump presidency, when these controversial policies are being announced and so on," he said. Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Trump travel ban: Protesters speak out No date has yet been announced for the state visit. Such events often include a stay at Buckingham Palace hosted by the Queen. But Conservative MP Andrew Bridgen said that at a time when MPs were beginning debates over the government's bill to start the Brexit process, "we certainly need that special relationship with the US even more acutely than normal". "The offer of a free trade deal with the US quickly will be a huge benefit to our negotiations over the next two years as we negotiate our exit from the EU and access to the single market," he said. Mr Bridgen added that he thought it unlikely that Mr Trump would visit the UK in the next 90 days, by which point "his issues around the travel ban will be resolved one way or another". Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Lord Ricketts tells Today State invitation to President Trump puts Queen in a very "difficult position" Former Foreign Secretary William Hague said the Queen would take a state visit "in her stride", saying she had in the past hosted "tyrants" such as Romania's former leader, Nicolae Ceausescu, and would cope "effortlessly" with a "brash billionaire from New York". Writing in the Daily Telegraph, Lord Hague added: "Most of us do not warm to Donald Trump or agree with the policies of his first 10 days. "We can still, however, believe that our government should be the one he is most likely to listen to, and that Americans of all persuasions are among our closest friends. "That means that when we ask the president to visit, we don't rescind the invitation." Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption What is a state visit? Frankie McCamley explains Mrs May's office said on Monday she was "very happy" to extend the invitation to Mr Trump on behalf of the Queen. BBC diplomatic correspondent James Landale said Downing Street was still "standing very firm" on the invitation but there could be flexibility about when Mr Trump visited the UK. The prime minister has been under growing pressure to say whether or not she was briefed on the US travel restrictions when she met President Trump in Washington last week. The ban affects citizens from Iraq, Syria, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. Critics have called it a "Muslim ban" although the Trump administration denies this. Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson told MPs on Monday he would not comment on "confidential conversations" between the two leaders. Mrs May faced heavy criticism when she refused several times to condemn the restrictions when asked during a visit to Turkey. Downing Street later issued a statement saying she "does not agree" with Mr Trump's travel ban but that US immigration was a matter for the US government. Image copyright PA Image caption Theresa May's critics want to know if she was briefed on the travel bans while in Washington But during demonstrations in London on Monday, the crowd chanted slogans including "Shame on May". Protesters packed Whitehall, causing the closure of Parliament Square. They held banners accusing Mr Trump of Islamophobia and Mrs May of appeasing him. Demonstrations also took place in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Cardiff, Manchester, Newcastle, Sheffield, Oxford, Cambridge, Brighton, Gloucester, Leeds, York, Liverpool, Leicester and several other towns and cities. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has said Mr Trump should not be welcomed to Britain "while he abuses our shared values with his shameful Muslim ban and attacks on refugees' and women's rights". Have you or your family been affected by the entry restrictions? Have you been detained at an airport following the travel ban? Share your stories by emailing haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk. Please include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also contact us in the following ways: ||||| British Prime Minister Theresa May speaks during a news conference with President Donald Trump in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Friday, Jan. 27, 2017. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) (Associated Press) British Prime Minister Theresa May speaks during a news conference with President Donald Trump in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Friday, Jan. 27, 2017. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) (Associated Press) British Prime Minister Theresa May speaks during a news conference with President Donald Trump in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Friday, Jan. 27, 2017. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) (Associated Press) British Prime Minister Theresa May speaks during a news conference with President Donald Trump in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Friday, Jan. 27, 2017. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci) (Associated Press) LONDON (AP) — A state visit to Britain by President Donald Trump later this year will go ahead, the prime minister's office said Monday, despite increasing calls for it to be canceled over his temporary ban on residents of seven majority-Muslim countries entering the U.S. Furor over the travel ban has tarnished what British officials had considered a highly successful trip to Washington by Prime Minister Theresa May. She met Trump at the White House on Friday and announced that he had been invited to come to Britain later this year as the guest of Queen Elizabeth II. May's Downing St. office said Monday that "an invitation has been extended and accepted," and the visit is still on. No date has been announced for the state visit, which involves lavish pomp and ceremony, generally with a stay at Buckingham Palace. The visit was hailed by government officials as a sign of the close trans-Atlantic relationship, which was also reflected in May's invitation to meet Trump just a week after his inauguration. But criticism of May's wooing of Trump erupted when — only hours after the prime minister had left the White House — the president signed an executive order suspending all travel to the U.S. of citizens of Iran, Iraq, Sudan, Somalia, Syria, Yemen and Libya for 90 days. The order also bars all refugees entering the country for 120 days. Britain's three biggest opposition parties have all called for Trump's state visit to be canceled and an online petition opposing the trip has more than 1 million signatures. Protests against the travel ban are planned Monday in London and other British cities. Any petition with more than 100,000 signatures must be considered for a debate in Parliament, though not a binding vote. Last year, Parliament debated whether to ban Trump, then a presidential candidate, from visiting Britain after a similar online petition was filed. Trump's travel ban sparked protests at airports across the U.S., along with expressions of condemnation and concern from around the world. There was widespread confusion about whether the ban applied to dual nationals. Somali-born British Olympic champion runner Mo Farah said he feared it would prevent him returning to the U.S., where he lives. Late Sunday, Britain's Foreign Office said U.S. authorities had clarified that the ban didn't apply to British citizens who are also nationals of one of the seven countries. Canada's foreign minister said he had been told the same about Canadian dual nationals. However, the website of the U.S. Embassy in London advised nationals of the seven countries — "including dual nationals" — not to book visa appointments, saying their applications would not be processed. The U.S. Embassy did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The British exemption didn't end the storm of opposition, with prominent members of May's Conservative Party joining in calls for Trump's visit to be scrapped. Sayeeda Warsi, a former government minister and Conservative member of the House of Lords, said it was "sending out a wrong signal" to invite Trump, a leaders whose values "are not the same as British values." Conservative lawmaker Sarah Wollaston said Trump should not be invited to address both houses of Parliament, an honor given to many visiting foreign leaders. She said that "those who wish to fawn over him" should do so elsewhere. Former U.K. Independence Party leader Nigel Farage, a Trump ally, said "British politicians are sheer hypocrites" to oppose the travel ban as they had not objected when President Barack Obama imposed what Farage called a six-month ban on Iraqis. In 2011 the U.S. imposed stringent checks on Iraqi refugees after two Iraqis were charged with terrorism offenses in Kentucky. It did not ban all travelers from Iraq, however. ||||| Donald Trump's state visit is "months away", Downing Street has insisted, after concerns the trip could leave the Queen mired in "political controversy". Theresa May was urged to act quickly to delay Mr Trump's state visit so she didn't put the monarch in a "difficult position". Former head of the Foreign Office Lord Ricketts said Mrs May should "move fast" to save the Queen from controversy by pushing back the President's state visit because of the "level of public opposition and anxiety". Lord Ricketts said the Prime Minister's invitation was premature and unprecedented, as no president has ever been given a state visit during their first year in the White House. He said it was the "wrong climate" for Mr Trump to come on a state visit and that as no date had been given for the trip, it should be delayed until further into his presidency and a political visit arranged instead. Image: The PM has been warned the state visit has put the Queen in a 'difficult position' He told Sky News' All Out Politics: "I think it could put the Queen in a difficult position if the current level of controversy is still going on because, remember a state visit is a very personal thing with a level of involvement by the Queen herself. "She makes this invitation on the Government's advice - but I think she looks to the Government to make sure that she is not involved in political controversy through a visit." A Downing Street statement on Monday made clear the Prime Minister looked forward to welcoming Mr Trump "this year". However, a spokesman for Mrs May said on Tuesday that a state visit was "months away". :: Trump fires attorney general over travel ban Lord Ricketts, who also made his views clear in a letter to The Times newspaper, questioned whether Mr Trump was "specially deserving of this exceptional honour". Image: Barack and Michelle Obama with the Queen during his state visit to the UK Although Barack Obama first visited the UK two months into his presidency, it took 28 months before he made a state visit. Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan - both two-term presidents - made no state visit at all during their eight years in power. He said he could not recall a president who has been so reluctant to accept America's role as it has been in the last 70 years and he expected there would be further controversial policy announcements in the coming months. :: Third of Britons would back Trump-style ban The Queen has welcomed a number of controversial leaders for state visits in the past, including the Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2015 and the dictator Nicolae Ceausescu in 1978. Thousands of people across the UK took part in protests against Mr Trump's divisive travel ban and his state visit on Monday night. A petition calling for the billionaire to be allowed to come to the UK as head of the US government - but for the invitation for a state visit to be rescinded - has topped 1.6 million signatures. 1:10 Video: Why UK protesters are taking to streets over Trump A spokesman for Mrs May said yesterday that the recommendation to invite leaders for a state visit was made by the Royal Visits Committee. However, both Number 10 and the Royal household have representatives sitting on the committee. Despite the backlash, a Number 10 statement said: "To be clear, the Prime Minister extended an invitation on behalf of the Queen - and she was very happy to do so. The USA is one of this country's closest allies, and we look forward to hosting the President later this year." It comes as Downing Street refused to disclose whether the Prime Minister had been briefed of the President's plan to introduce the travel ban during her trip to the US last week. A spokesman said: "You will have heard the Prime Minister and the President's comments following their discussions and we are not going to go into details of a private meeting." Image: Tens of thousands of people have filled the streets across the UK to show their opposition to Donald Trump's travel ban Image: There were protests in cities including London, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Cardiff, Manchester and Birmingham. The protest in Leeds is pictured here Image: The protests in central London were held close to the gates of Downing Street. Continue through for more pictures Image: Glasgow Image: London Image: London Image: Edinburgh Image: Bristol / Reports emerged on Monday night on Channel 4 that Mrs May had been told of the impending ban. Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron said: "I can only assume the Prime Minister is so desperate for a Brexit deal that she looked the other way and didn't want to rock the boat. "This is utterly shameful. Parliament needs to know what she knew and when." Read more: :: Trump travel ban: Thousands protest across UK :: Why Queen will welcome Trump despite protests :: Eight controversial state visits to the UK :: Third of Britons would back Trump-style travel ban :: Executive powers: What Trump can and can't do :: Who is affected by Donald Trump's immigration order? ||||| FILE PHOTO - U.S. President Donald Trump (L) and Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May walk at the start of the NATO summit at their new headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, May 25, 2017. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst LONDON (Reuters) - Prime Minister Theresa May’s office said on Sunday there had been no change to plans for U.S. President Donald Trump’s to come to Britain on a state visit, after the Guardian newspaper reported the trip had been postponed. The paper, citing an unidentified adviser at May’s Downing Street office who was in the room at the time, reported Trump had told May by telephone in recent weeks that he did not want to come if there were likely to be large-scale protests. “We aren’t going to comment on speculation about the contents of private phone conversations,” a spokeswoman for May’s office said. “The queen extended an invitation to President Trump to visit the UK and there is no change to those plans.” The White House also denied the Guardian report, with an administration official telling Reuters, “The subject never came up on the call.” No date has been set for the visit, which was agreed during May’s visit to Washington in January, but British media had reported it was planned for October. May’s hold on power has been significantly weakened since the results of a snap election last week cost her Conservative Party a parliamentary majority. In a bid to save her position, May has been trying to form a government with Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party, a small faction of social conservatives. British politics is going through an upheaval just a week before talks begin on Britain’s exit from the European Union, set for 2019. Trump’s public criticism this month of London Mayor Sadiq Khan’s response to an attack by Islamist militants in London was condemned in Britain. May found herself forced to defend Khan, who is from the opposition Labour party. At that time, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said there was no reason to cancel the visit, while White House spokesman Sean Spicer said that Trump intended to go and that “he appreciates Her Majesty’s gracious invitation”.

– While Prince Philip was in the hospital Wednesday, his wife, Queen Elizabeth II, delivered the Queen's Speech at the opening of parliament in the UK. The speech, which outlines the government's agenda and is actually written by ministers, centered on Brexit, reports Reuters. But what's drawing the most attention is what was apparently left out: any mention of Donald Trump's state visit to the country, previously announced by Prime Minister Theresa May. Details: The Guardian reports the Queen usually mentions state visits "planned for the duration of the parliament," which in this case is two years. Trump's visit was rumored to be planned for October, per the BBC. While she mentioned an upcoming visit from King Felipe and Queen Letizia of Spain, the Queen might've simply wanted to avoid a hullabaloo. After all, May's invitation to Trump resulted in protests and more than 1.8 million people signing a petition seeking to prevent the trip, per Bloomberg. But a Trump administration official offers a simple explanation to CNN: "She didn't mention [the visit] because the date is not yet set." A Downing Street rep affirmed that account. The BBC's James Landale isn't convinced. Citing fears within the British government that the public response would embarrass Trump, he concludes the visit has been put off and is "very unlikely" to occur this year. The Guardian previously reported Trump had decided to put off the visit until he could gain public support in the UK. The White House denied the report. Meanwhile, the Guardian and the Telegraph are now wondering whether the queen was sending a pro-EU message with her hat during the speech.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The co-founders of Ben & Jerry's have been arrested at the U.S. Capitol as part of ongoing protests in Washington about the role of money in politics. Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield were among approximately 300 people who were arrested Monday as part of protests by a group called Democracy Awakening. The Vermont-based ice cream company's website says the purpose of the protests is to make sure everyone's voice is heard "and that power in this country is returned to the people." U.S. Capitol Police say those arrested were charged with crowding, obstructing or incommoding, which is unlawful demonstration activity. They were processed on the scene and released. Police say they've arrested more than 1,200 people since the protests began April 11. ||||| (CNN) The co-founders of Ben & Jerry's ice cream were arrested at the U.S. Capitol on Monday. Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield were among approximately 300 people arrested as part of the "Democracy Awakening" protests that converged on the nation's capital this weekend. They are protesting for action on climate change, racial justice, workers' rights and fair pay, safe food and water, health care, peace, immigration reform and improvements in education, according to the website. They believe that voters aren't included in the political process and that Congress has failed to act. Ben & Jerry's co-founder Ben Cohen was among approximately 300 people arrested as part of the Democracy Awakening protests that converged on the nation's capital Monday, April 18, 2016. Neither "Democracy Spring" nor "Democracy Awakening" is affiliated with a particular party or candidate. A statement from the U.S. Capitol Police said the protestors were arrested for unlawful demonstration activities. They were processed on the scene and released, the statement said. CNN has reached out to Ben & Jerry's for comment, but it has been tweeting photos about the arrest and created a page that explains its side why the co-founders were arrested. Both Ben & Jerry's co-founders have been active about political issues -- particularly Cohen, who has been vocal about his support for Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders in the 2016 election. Their ice cream company is based in Vermont, and Cohen personally endorsed Sanders and participated in the launch of his presidential bid in Burlington. Cohen also created 40 pints of the ice cream in his own kitchen in honor of Sanders. JUST WATCHED Would you eat this Bernie Sanders ice cream flavor? Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Would you eat this Bernie Sanders ice cream flavor? 00:52 He told CNN's Carol Costello last October that Sanders' ice cream would be mint flavored and topped with a giant chocolate chip that "represents all the wealth that's gone to the top 1% of the population over the past 10 years." "And the way you eat it is that you whack it with your spoon, then you mix it around. That's the 'Bernie's Yearning,'" Cohen said. ||||| Actress Rosario Dawson takes part in a "Democracy Spring" demonstration on Capitol Hill in Washington, Friday, April 15, 2016. (Photo: Pablo Martinez Monsivais, AP) Police have calmly arrested hundreds of people in Washington, D,.C. protesting the influence of money in politics during the last week, in what several participants described as a striking display of restrained law enforcement. More arrests are expected Monday, the final day of protests when the focus of the non-violent protests turn to voting rights and timely consideration of the Merrick Garland's nomination to the Supreme Court. U.S. Capitol Police have arrested more than 900 protesters through Saturday. Mass demonstrations by a group called "Democracy Spring" began last Monday. A related group, "Democracy Awakening," joined the efforts on Saturday and are holding often integrated sit ins and other demonstrations to protest laws it considers discriminatory, such as Voter ID laws. "Here what you have is a very professional, carefully calibrated and wonderfully orchestrated means of dealing with law enforcement in Washington," said Cornell Brooks, national president and CEO of NAACP. Cornell Brooks, president and CEO of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), speaks during an annual African American History Month Observance Program February 23, 2016 at the Justice Department in Washington, DC. (Photo: Alex Wong, Getty Images) More often, "it's very different the way young activists who are black and brown are described" and treated, said Brooks, who led the Democracy Awakenings march on Sunday. "Sometimes they are roughed up and assumptions are made that can be very dangerous." Those arrested were charged with violating a D.C. statute prohibiting "crowding, obstructing, or incommoding," which are misdemeanors, said police spokeswoman Eva Malecki. All of those arrested were Democracy Spring-related participants. Most were processed and then released on the scene. On Sunday, Malecki said demonstrators remained "orderly and respectful," just as they had through the previous week. . Democracy Awakening urged their protesters to wear their "Sunday best" and to bring $50 in cash in anticipation of the planned arrests Monday. Actress Rosario Dawson said in a video posted on YouTube Friday that the organizers hope to surpass all previous Capitol protest records for number arrested, topping 1,000 by the time the week-long demonstration wraps up. The Democracy Spring effort started in Philadelphia, where thousands began a 140-mile walk to the U.S. Capitol to "demand Congress take immediate action to end the corruption of big money in our politics and ensure free and fair elections in which every American has an equal voice." "This week, we're taking back our democracy," Dawson said. Money in politics has "distorted our politics and our issues." Police arrested the actress Friday on Capitol Hill for crowding and obstruction. She was briefly detained and will be required to pay a $50 fine like the others arrested, Malecki said. Harvard Law School professor and former Democratic presidential candidate Larry Lessig was arrested Friday — for the first time ever. "I'm a law professor," he said Saturday. "I don't get arrested." But he made an exception for the issue that he based his short-lived campaign on: Campaign finance reform. Harvard Law School professor and former 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Lawrence Lessig discusses campaign finance reform at the American Enterprise Institute November 13, 2015 in Washington, DC. (Photo: Chip Somodevilla, Getty Images) "I’m so incredibly excited with the kind of passion and the mix of people that were there," said Lessig, noting it's spread beyond the usual "law geeks and intellectuals" who rally around campaign finance reform. There was even some bi-partisan support for the demonstrations outside a Capitol building that doesn't see much of it inside lately. John Pudner, executive director of the group Take Back Our Republic, says many conservatives and small business owners also don't feel represented by the big money influencing politics. He joined one day of the 140-mile walk from Philadelphia and another colleague of the group participated in the demonstrations. Facebook Twitter Google+ LinkedIn Photos: Democracy Awakening draws crowd of 5,000 Fullscreen Post to Facebook Posted! A link has been posted to your Facebook feed. Interested in this topic? You may also want to view these photo galleries: Replay Autoplay Show Thumbnails Show Captions Last SlideNext Slide "We want to see small donors become the focus," said Pudner, who spent 20 years running campaigns, including the one that unseated former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., in 2014. Many protesters held up signs protesting the Supreme Court's 2010 ruling in the Citizens United case. The case opened the door for the rise of newer super PACs — political action committees that can raise unlimited amounts from virtually any source — and contributed to corporate influence in campaigns, critics say. Supporters of the activist group 'Democracy Spring,' which have been staging protests for a week at the U.S. Capitol to 'end the corruption of big money in our politics and ensure free and fair elections,' gather for a rally on the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol in Washington DC, USA, 15 April 2016. (Photo: JIM LO SCALZO, EPA) Still, it's unlikely Democracy Spring can achieve the kind of attention it desires — it aims to change the course of the 2016 presidential election. But some say the campaign season itself is giving much-needed attention to money in politics. "We're seeing it with the surprising support for Senator Sanders, who has made it a central part of his campaign, and when Trump says he can't be bought. That resonates with people who realize the system is rigged against them." said Wendell Potter, co-author of the new book Nation on the Take: How Big Money Corrupts Our Democracy and What We Can Do About It. Democracy Spring's protests in Washington could obscure the fact that people across the country are starting to fight the effects of corporate interests in local elections, Potter said. His cites changes made in Tallahassee, Fla., Seattle and in South Carolina, where lobbyists are now banned from making campaign donations. Democracy Spring protesters tend to be left-learning, but Potter said groups including Take Back Our Republic, share the "common concern about what's happened to our democracy." Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1SiF5TB ||||| To Those Who Occupy: We Stand with You. We, the Ben & Jerry’s Board of Directors, compelled by our personal convictions and our Company’s mission and values, wish to express our deepest admiration to all of you who have initiated the non-violent Occupy Wall Street Movement and to those around the country who have joined in solidarity. The issues raised are of fundamental importance to all of us. These include: The inequity that exists between classes in our country is simply immoral. We are in an unemployment crisis. Almost 14 million people are unemployed. Nearly 20% of African American men are unemployed. Over 25% of our nation’s youth are unemployed. Many workers who have jobs have to work 2 or 3 of them just to scrape by. Higher education is almost impossible to obtain without going deeply in debt. Corporations are permitted to spend unlimited resources to influence elections while stockpiling a trillion dollars rather than hiring people. We know the media will either ignore you or frame the issue as to who may be getting pepper sprayed rather than addressing the despair and hardships borne by so many, or accurately conveying what this movement is about. All this goes on while corporate profits continue to soar and millionaires whine about paying a bit more in taxes. And we have not even mentioned the environment. We know that words are relatively easy but we wanted to act quickly to demonstrate our support. As a board and as a company we have actively been involved with these issues for years but your efforts have put them out front in a way we have not been able to do. We have provided support to citizens’ efforts to rein in corporate money in politics, we pay a livable wage to our employees, we directly support family farms and we are working to source fairly traded ingredients for all our products. But we realize that Occupy Wall Street is calling for systemic change. We support this call to action and are honored to join you in this call to take back our nation and democracy. — Ben & Jerry’s Board of Directors Who’s on our Board? What’s our position on the issues that matter? Does Ben & Jerry’s spend money on lobbying in the United States? Ben & Jerry’s has launched numerous activist campaigns over the years that are considered lobbying activities according to federal and state laws. In the past four years, the positions we have taken in these activist campaigns are: Support for a Constitutional amendment that would limit corporate spending in elections. Support for stronger social and environmental protections in the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement. Support for the Youth PROMISE Act, which funds proven youth violence prevention programs. Support for continued funding for the United States Institute of Peace. Support for continued funding for the Complex Crises Fund which supports State Department emergency efforts to defuse volatile conflicts around the globe. Support for aggressive federal legislation to limit and reduce carbon emissions to respond to the challenge of climate change. Opposition to FDA approval of foods from cloned animals. Support for a USDA program to require mandatory tracking of cloned animals in the food supply to support consumer choice. Opposition to FDA approval of genetically engineered animals in the food supply. Support for the right of dairy companies to label their products as being ‘rBGH-free.’ Support for the United Nations Millennium Development goals to eradicate extreme poverty and inequality. Ben & Jerry’s has reported all expenditures on these grassroots campaign activities as required by federal and Vermont state law.

– The Ben and Jerry of Ben & Jerry's were among hundreds of people arrested Monday in a protest at the US Capitol over what they perceive to be a corrupt political system. Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield were taking part in a demonstration by a group called Democracy Awakening, and they were two of about 300 arrested on Monday, reports CNN. Like most of the others, the ice cream moguls were processed at the scene and released by Capitol Police on misdemeanor charges of "crowding, obstructing or incommoding," reports the AP. The Democracy Awakening movement is related to the larger Democracy Spring movement that has been staging protests in DC over issues such as voter ID laws, campaign financing, and the lack of progress on President Obama's Supreme Court nominee, reports USA Today. Ben & Jerry's is trumpeting the arrests, with the company website saying that the purpose of the protests is "to ensure that every citizen's voice is heard and that power in this country is returned to the people." In all, police have arrested about 1,200 since the demonstrations began on April 11. As for Cohen and Greenfield, they'll be distributing free ice cream at a Bernie Sanders rally in Delaware on Tuesday.

In this image made from a video provided by WSB-TV authorities respond after reports of a shooting at the West Lake station Thursday, April 13, 2017, in Atlanta. Authorities say several people were shot... (Associated Press) In this image made from a video provided by WSB-TV authorities respond after reports of a shooting at the West Lake station Thursday, April 13, 2017, in Atlanta. Authorities say several people were shot at the Atlanta public transit station. (WSB-TV via AP) (Associated Press) In this image made from a video provided by WSB-TV authorities respond after reports of a shooting at the West Lake station Thursday, April 13, 2017, in Atlanta. Authorities say several people were shot at the Atlanta public transit station. (WSB-TV via AP) (Associated Press) In this image made from a video provided by WSB-TV authorities respond after reports of a shooting at the West Lake station Thursday, April 13, 2017, in Atlanta. Authorities say several people were shot... (Associated Press) ATLANTA (AP) — The shooting that killed a man and wounded three other riders Thursday on an Atlanta public transit train appears to be a "targeted, isolated incident," officials said. Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority police Chief Wanda Dunham said in a statement late Thursday that officers arrested a suspect in the death of Zachariah Hunnicutt at the West Lake station. She did not release the suspect's name or details about what led to the shooting. The shooting happened about 4:30 p.m. Thursday near the station, which was closed for several hours afterward. Cedric Peterson told WGCL-TV (http://bit.ly/2pf1Tea) that he regularly rides the train after work and the ride started off normally. "Everybody's sitting down. It's quiet," he recalled. "After we pulled off, we heard a sound like a crash, like we ran into maybe a tree limb that was on the track. Then like three seconds later, I'm hearing pop, pop, pop. I look back and see a guy's back and see his outstretched arm. I'm like 'Yo, man, this is a shooter.' Then I'm running for the door." Peterson said a woman and her child were in front of him when they got to the door connecting cars and ran through, but the next door was jammed. "When we finally get it open, there's a whole crowd of people who came up behind us and we fall. We're laying there trapped, but I don't hear anymore shooting, so I'm feeling a little better," he said. He said people started moving as the train pulled into the station. The shooter got on the train just like anyone else, he said: "He was wearing headphones and just bobbing his head. There was no argument or anything. Then I heard the first pop." MARTA spokesman Burton said one man died at the scene. Two men and a woman who were wounded by gunfire were taken to Grady Memorial Hospital. Grady spokeswoman Denise Simpson said the victims there were in stable condition with wounds that were not life threatening. In addition to the three shot, one person injured in the panic was brought to the hospital, she said. Beginning Friday, MARTA will increase the number of officers throughout the system, Dunham said. "We want to reassure all of our riders that the security of our passengers remains our number one priority," MARTA CEO Keith Parker said in a statement. ||||| Chauncey Daniels is suspected in a shooting that left one man dead and three other people shot on a MARTA train on April 13, 2017. (SOURCE: Police) A man was killed and four additional people were injured after a shooting at a MARTA station in Atlanta Thursday. The shooting occurred at the West Lake MARTA station around 4:30 p.m. MARTA Police Chief Wanda Dunham says "in what we believe was a targeted, isolated incident, Zachariah Hunnicutt was shot fatally." MORE: MARTA to increase patrols in wake of deadly shooting Dunham says the suspect, identified as Chauncey Lee Daniels, was captured at the train station and the weapon was recovered. Daniels waived an early court appearance on Friday. He was charged with murder; possession of a firearm by a convicted felon; aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and three counts of aggravated assault. Three additional people were shot and another person sustained an injury in a panic. They were all taken to Grady Memorial Hospital with non-life threatening injuries. WATCH: MARTA police update on shooting Click here to watch a press conference after the shooting. Copyright 2017 WGCL-TV (Meredith Corporation). All rights reserved.

– A shooting that killed a man and wounded three other riders Thursday on an Atlanta public transit train appears to be a "targeted, isolated incident," officials say. Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority Police Chief Wanda Dunham said in a statement late Thursday that officers arrested a suspect in the death of Zachariah Hunnicutt at the West Lake station, the AP reports. Dunham didn't release the suspect's name or details about what led to the shooting at around 4:30pm. A MARTA spokesman says one man died at the scene. Two men and a woman who were wounded by gunfire were taken to Grady Memorial Hospital. Cedric Peterson tells WGCL he regularly rides the train after work and that the ride started off normally. "Everybody's sitting down. It's quiet," he says. "After we pulled off, we heard a sound like a crash, like we ran into maybe a tree limb that was on the track. Then like three seconds later, I'm hearing pop, pop, pop. I look back and see a guy's back and see his outstretched arm. I'm like, 'Yo, man, this is a shooter.' Then I'm running for the door." The shooter got on the train just like anyone else, Peterson says: "He was wearing headphones and just bobbing his head. There was no argument or anything. Then I heard the first pop."

Elon Musk has plans — or maybe it's just an idea — for a brand new form of transportation. He calls it the "Hyperloop," and it's a way to travel long distances quickly. At the D11 conference Musk danced around the topic a bit. He didn't want to talk about the Hyperloop because he wanted the focus of his interview to be Tesla. The most he would say is that the Hyperloop is a "cross between a Concorde, a railgun and an air hockey table." In the past, Musk has been slightly more forthcoming with Hyperloop details. "This system I have in mind, how would you like something that can never crash, is immune to weather, it goes 3 or 4 times faster than the bullet train," said Musk last July. "It goes an average speed of twice what an aircraft would do. You would go from downtown LA to downtown San Francisco in under 30 minutes. It would cost you much less than an air ticket than any other mode of transport. I think we could actually make it self-powering if you put solar panels on it, you generate more power than you would consume in the system. There's a way to store the power so it would run 24/7 without using batteries. Yes, this is possible, absolutely." It sounds like a magical, impossible mode of transportation. But, Musk seems to be fairly serious about it. He's interested in a Hyperloop because he thinks the high-speed train in California is going to be a waste. He says it will be the slowest bullet train in the world, and one of the most expensive. Instead of going the bullet train route, California should test his Hyperloop, which he says he's planning to talk about in more detail at the end of June. This isn't the only far-out idea from Musk. He thinks we need to leave Earth, or else we'll go extinct, and said that he did not join Tesla Motors to get a return on his investment. Wednesday night, he announced plans for the dramatic growth of the Tesla's network of Superchargers, where owners can charge their car batteries halfway in 30 minutes. By the end of this year, Musk said, it will be possible to drive from New York to Los Angeles by refueling a car only at the stations. Update: We think we figured out how it can work. ||||| Transportation Almost a year after Elon Musk, chief executive of Tesla Motors (TSLA) and SpaceX, first floated the idea of a superfast mode of transportation, he has finally revealed the details: a solar-powered, city-to-city elevated transit system that could take passengers and cars from Los Angeles to San Francisco in 30 minutes. In typical Musk fashion, the Hyperloop, as he calls it, immediately poses a challenge to the status quo—in this case, California’s $70 billion high-speed train that has been knocked by Musk and others as too expensive, too slow, and too impractical. In Musk’s vision, the Hyperloop would transport people via aluminum pods enclosed inside of steel tubes. He describes the design as looking like a shotgun with the tubes running side by side for most of the journey and closing the loop at either end. These tubes would be mounted on columns 50 to 100 yards apart, and the pods inside would travel up to 800 miles per hour. Some of this Musk has hinted at before; he now adds that pods could ferry cars as well as people. “You just drive on, and the pod departs,” Musk told Bloomberg Businessweek in his first interview about the Hyperloop. Courtesy Elon MuskAn artist's impression of the Hyperloop pod Musk published a blog post detailing the Hyperloop on Monday. He also held a press call to go over the details. Musk has built his entrepreneurial career attacking businesses he deems inefficient or uninspiring. He co-founded PayPal in a bid to shake up the banking industry, then used the fortune he made selling the startup to eBay (EBAY) to fund equally ambitious efforts in transportation. Tesla Motors, for example, has created the highest-performing, highest-rated all-electric car and a complementary network of charging stations scattered around North America. Meanwhile, SpaceX competes against entire nations in the market to send up satellites and resupply the International Space Station. In the case of the Hyperloop, Musk started focusing on public transportation after he grew disenchanted with the plans for California’s high-speed rail system. Construction on the highly political, $70 billion project is meant to begin in earnest this year, with plans to link cities from San Diego to Sacramento by 2029. “You have to look at what they say it will cost vs. the actual final costs, and I think it’s safe to say you’re talking about a $100 billion-plus train,” Musk says, adding that the train is too slow and a horrendous land rights mess. Musk thinks the Hyperloop would avoid many of the land issues because it’s elevated. The tubes would, for the most part, follow I-5, the dreary but direct freeway between L.A. and San Francisco. Farmers would not have swaths of their land blocked by train tracks but could instead access their land between the columns. Musk figures the Hyperloop could be built for $6 billion with people-only pods, or $10 billion for the larger pods capable of holding people and cars. All together, his alternative would be four times as fast as California’s proposed train, at one-10th the cost. Tickets, Musk says, would be “much cheaper” than a plane ride. As for safety? Musk has heard of it. “There’s an emergency brake,” he says. “Generally, though, the safe distance between the pods would be about 5 miles, so you could have about 70 pods between Los Angeles and San Francisco that leave every 30 seconds. It’s like getting a ride on Space Mountain at Disneyland.” Musk imagines that riding on the Hyperloop would be quite pleasant. “It would have less lateral acceleration—which is what tends to make people feel motion sick—than a subway ride, as the pod banks against the tube like an airplane,” he says. “Unlike an airplane, it is not subject to turbulence, so there are no sudden movements. It would feel supersmooth.” The Hyperloop was designed to link cities less than 1,000 miles apart that have high amounts of traffic between them, Musk says. Under 1,000 miles, the Hyperloop could have a nice edge over planes, which need a lot of time to take off and land. “It makes sense for things like L.A. to San Francisco, New York to D.C., New York to Boston,” Musk says. “Over 1,000 miles, the tube cost starts to become prohibitive, and you don’t want tubes every which way. You don’t want to live in Tube Land.” Right? In the months since Musk first mentioned the Hyperloop, there has been plenty of speculation. Critics, dealing with limited information, have contended that the specifications laid out by Musk would be nearly impossible to achieve. Such a long, pressurized tube would require an immense amount of energy while also producing tons of air friction and heat. Now Musk argues that the Hyperloop represents a type of middle ground that other people have yet to consider. Instead of being a complete vacuum or running at normal conditions, the Hyperloop tubes would be under low pressure. “I think a lot of people tended to gravitate to one idea or the other as opposed to thinking about lower pressure,” Musk says. “I have never seen that idea anywhere.” Inside the tubes, the pods would be mounted on thin skis made out of inconel, a trusted alloy of SpaceX that can withstand high pressure and heat. Air gets pumped through little holes in the skis to make an air cushion, Musk says. The front of the pod would have a pair of air jet inlets—sort of like the Concorde. An electric turbo compressor would compress the air from the nose and route it to the skis and to the cabin. Magnets on the skis, plus an electromagnetic pulse, would give the pod its initial thrust; reboosting motors along the route would keep the pod moving. And: no sonic boom. With warm air inside the tubes and high tailwinds, the pods could travel at high speeds without crossing the sound barrier. “The pod can go just below the speed of sound relative to the air,” Musk says. So, science, or science fiction? About a dozen people at Tesla and SpaceX have helped Musk with the design and checked the physics behind the Hyperloop. I briefed Martin Simon, a professor of physics at UCLA, on some of the Hyperloop details, and he declared it feasible from a technological standpoint: “It does sound like it’s all done with known technology. It’s not like he’s counting on something brand new to be invented.” Simon points out that the acceleration methods proposed by Musk are used at amusement parks to get a roller coaster going. Other companies have looked at these techniques for passenger and freight vehicles. What sets the Hyperloop apart, though, is the use of the air cushion to levitate the pods. “He has separated the air cushion and the linear induction drive, and that seems new,” Simon says, adding, “It would be cool if they had transparent tubes.” The critics of California’s high-speed rail may be dismayed to learn that Musk does not plan to commercialize the Hyperloop technology for the time being. He’s posting the plans and asking for feedback and contemplating building a prototype. “I’m just putting this out there as an open source design,” he says. “There are sure to be suggestions out there for making this better, correcting any mistakes, and refining the design.” Musk maintains that he has too much on his plate to deal with bringing the Hyperloop to fruition. “I wish I had not mentioned it,” he says. “I still have to run SpaceX and Tesla, and it’s fucking hard.” Musk says he would support another person or organization that wanted to make the Hyperloop a reality. “It is a question of finding the right person and team to get behind it,” Musk says. “Creating a prototype is not that expensive.” But if no one advances or acts on Musk’s ideas, he may come back to the Hyperloop in a few years’ time and pursue it as part of Tesla. “Down the road, I might fund or advise on a Hyperloop project, but right now I can’t take my eye off the ball at either SpaceX or Tesla.”

– Elon Musk is up to something that he thinks could revolutionize transportation. At this week's D11 conference, the Tesla Motors and SpaceX founder was asked about something called "hyperloop," but said he couldn't talk much about it because "if I do, that will be the news tomorrow" and he needed to talk Tesla. But he did say that it was an alternative to California's proposed high-speed rail project, and he dropped this tantalizing description: "It's a cross between a Concorde, a railgun and an air hockey table." But Musk has said more in the past. Last year, Business Insider recalls, Musk said the system was a bit like a Jetsons tube. It "can never crash, is immune to weather" and could move twice as fast as a plane while costing less and being potentially completely solar powered. "This is possible, absolutely," he said. At the time, Musk's plans seemed vague—he said he was "considering just open-sourcing" the idea. But now he says he might be ready to talk about it at the end of June.

Trolley Man: Michael Rogers has been the silent hero since the Melbourne attack. The homeless man who decided to arm himself with a trolley and stand with police against a terrorist (7News) Trolly man : Michael Rogers has been the silent hero since the Melbourne attack (7News) 2:04 A bystander dubbed “the trolley man” for taking on an armed terrorist with a shopping cart during the deadly terror attack in Melbourne says he is “no hero” as his story comes to light. Michael Rogers, 46, attempted to help police officers stop Hassan Khalif Shire Ali during Friday’s Bourke Street terror attack. One person had already been stabbed to death and another two were injured. Mr Rogers, who is homeless with few possessions, began ramming a shopping trolley into the terrorist in a bid to help. “I threw the trolley straight at him, and I got him. I didn’t quite get him down, though. I’m no hero,” Mr Rogers told Seven News’ Robert Ovadia from the scene of the attack. Mr Ovadia later told the program, “people think he deserves some sort of award for being a hero. He doesn’t see himself necessarily as a hero but believes he did help save lives and defend his city as well.” Subscribe to news.com.au’s From The Newsroom podcast A GoFundMe has since been set up for Mr Rogers, raising $105,130 at time of publication. The fundraiser was created by Melbourne Homeless Collective, a registered charity that supports people experiencing homelessness. “All funds donated to this campaign will go directly to Mr Rogers to help get him back on his feet,” the page reads. “He’s a hero in our eyes and he can do what he feels best with any funds he receives. He risked his own life that day for nothing in return and you can’t put a price on that.” The charity had originally set a goal of $5000 but has since said it will no longer set a target due to the overwhelming amount of support. “We’re absolutely blown away by everyone’s generosity and spirit in helping our hero ‘Trolleyman’ get back on his feet,” the charity said. “We don’t actually have a set target to reach but due to the incredible generosity we’ve seen so far we’ll keep increasing the total accordingly. “We’ve far surpassed our original goal. Let’s aim for the sky. Our hero absolutely deserves it.” The Sunday Herald Sun tracked down Mr Rogers on a park bench, amid a nationwide bid to find the humble hero, just 24 hours after he risked his life to save others. The newspaper reported that Mr Rogers is homeless, but wasn’t concerned when his phone was smashed during the fight, despite not having the means to replace it. Mr Rogers was one of two bystanders who stepped in as the killer tried to claim more victims in the city. Witness footage of the incident uploaded to social media showed Mr Rogers running to one side of the street to get the trolley before pushing it towards Ali who was wielding a knife and lunging at police. A man with a shopping trolley twice tried to ram the man to stop him. Another was wielding a chair. Incredible bravery @theheraldsun pic.twitter.com/w473DKA4wr — Josh Fagan (@faganjosh) November 9, 2018 The trolley appeared to startle Ali before the man who pushed it tripped and fell to the ground. The terrorist then ran across the road, followed by police, as Mr Rogers got up and gave chase, pushing his cart towards the attacker a second time. His actions gained him widespread praise on social media by users who dubbed him “trolley man” and called for him to receive a medal or be made Prime Minister of Australia. Mr Rogers was reportedly unaware of the attention being heaped on him for his actions. One witness said she spoke to Mr Rogers at the scene and he told her his actions were “just instinctive to help the police protect the safety of others”, the Herald Sun reports. Mr Rogers told 7 News that he believes he did help save lives. “I’ve seen the trolley to the side so I’ve picked it up and I ran, threw the trolley straight at him, got him, but didn’t get him down,” he said. “I did that motion quite a number of times but it just wasn’t getting him down.” ⚡️ Melbourne: “I threw the trolley straight at him, and I got him. I didn't quite get him down, though. I’m no hero” - Michael Rogers. 7 News has spoken exclusively to “trolley man”, a bystander being hailed a hero following Friday’s terror attack. #TrolleyMan #7News pic.twitter.com/K0v3OXAwe0 — 7 News Sydney (@7NewsSydney) November 10, 2018 Moments later, Ali was shot in the chest by police, before he died in hospital last night. Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the Somali-born attacker, from Melbourne’s northwestern suburbs, had violated the nation’s trust. “The greatest threat of religious extremism in this country is the radical and dangerous ideology of extremist Islam,” he said. Mr Morrison said Ali was one of about 400 people on a national ASIO terror watch list. “Here in Australia we would be kidding ourselves if we did not call out the fact that the greatest threat of religious extremism in this country is the radical and dangerous ideology of extremist Islam,” Mr Morrison said. “There is a special responsibility on religious leaders to protect their religious communities and to ensure dangerous teachings and ideologies do not take root here.” In a press conference on Saturday, Victoria Police confirmed Ali had been known to intelligence agencies for years, but he was not being actively monitored prior to the attack. They said his passport was cancelled in 2015 after ASIO determined he was planning to travel to Syria. ||||| Uodate 17/11/2018 We’ve reached our goal! Thank you so much to everyone who has donated and supported the fundraiser. Michael is extremely grateful for your support and would like to extend his thanks and gratitude to everyone. We’ll be continuing to support Michael through National Homeless Collective for as long as he needs us. We’ll be closing the campaign shortly as we have reached the target and we intended to have it running for a week which is now up. What an incredible effort. This will be life changing for Michael. Thank you all once again. Update 13/11/18. We met with Michael yesterday. And can we tell you, he’s just the lovelies person. So humble and doesn’t believe the Hero status we know he truly deserves. We bought him a new phone to replace the one that was smashed in the incident. He is so grapple the support he has received and is quite overwhelmed by it all. As promised, 100% of the funds raised for Michael will go to him. They will be held in a trust account with our accountants at One Ledger who have very generously offered to oversee the handling of the funds and make sure Michael is well taken care of and guided financially as he moves forward. We will keep this campaign open until Sunday 18 November to give everyone who would like a chance to donate. Thanks again eveyone. Please see our Facebook page ‘National Homeless Collective for future updates. “UPDATE: We’ve found him! What an absolutely incredible human. We had a long chat on the phone today and we’re even more proud of him. Our hero is humble as can be and had no idea about this fundraiser. We’ll be catching up tomorrow to hand over his donations. He is amazing” On November 9 2018 an incredible man named Michael Rogers from Melbourne, now known as ‘Trolleyman’, put his own life at risk to stop a terrorist who was on a rampage. Mr Rogers bravely shoved a shopping trolley at the terrorist in an attempt to assist police in his capture. We’ve since learned that our hero ‘Trolleyman’ homeless and that his phone was destroyed in the incident. We believe his efforts deserve a reward that can really help him out. We’re a registered charity, (National Homeless Collective) supporting people experiencing homelessness, and all funds donated to this campaign will go directly to Mr Rogers to help get him back on his feet. He’s a hero in our eyes and he can do what he feels best with any funds he receives. He risked his own life that day for nothing in return and you can’t put a price on that. *Update: we apologise that we’re updating by editing but unfortunately due to some glitch I can’t get the actual update button to work. We’re absolutely blown away by everyone’s generosity and spirit in helping our hero ‘Trolleyman’, get back on his feet. We don’t actually have a set target to reach but due to the incredible generosity we’ve seen so far we’ll keep increasing the total accordingly. We’ve far surpassed our original goal. Let’s aim for the sky. Our hero absolutely deserves it. Thank hou you so much everyone! #Trolleyman Share Tweet 18k shares on Facebook shares on Facebook

– Michael Rogers, a hero? It's hard for him to believe. But many Australians are celebrating the man who helped police fight a knife-wielding terrorist in Melbourne, Australia's News Network reports. In fact, a crowdfunding campaign has raised nearly $110,000 as of this writing for the so-called "Trolleyman." On Friday, Rogers grabbed a shopping cart (or "trolley" in British English) when terrorist Hassan Khalif Shire Ali was facing cops on a busy commercial street. Ali had just fatally stabbed two people and wounded two others. "I threw the trolley straight at him, and I got him," says Rogers. "I didn’t quite get him down, though. I'm no hero." Yet after falling, Rogers chased Ali across the street and pushed the cart at him again. Police eventually shot and killed the attacker. (See a video here, but be warned it's violent.) Now the media is lionizing Rogers and strangers are approaching him for selfies, the Age reports. But Rogers still seems himself, talking about his early years with a drug-addicted mom and his history of drug use and jail time. Raised partly by his grandma, the "dearest lady," he often disappointed her and was behind bars for aggravated burglary when she died in 2013. "She would have been exceptionally proud" of his actions, he says. "God bless her, she lived to 92." So how will he spend his newfound riches? Rogers, who has public housing but chooses to live on the streets, says he has no idea. "I'm 46, mate. I've got to get my act together." But he admits Friday was special: "I just wanted to help and do something right for the first time in me life." (In California, a sergeant at a mass shooting "died a hero.")

Skip Ad Ad Loading... x Embed x Share Residents in predominantly black neighborhoods in Milwaukee were far less likely to call 911 for months after the Frank Jude Jr. beating, a new study has found. Harvard study finds 911 calls dropped by 20% after beating, much of it in black neighborhoods Frank Jude Jr. is shown in the hospital after he was beaten by off-duty Milwaukee police officers in October 2004. After the story of this beating and this photo became public, there was a sharp drop in 911 calls placed from predominantly black neighborhoods, a new study found. (Photo: Family photo) Story Highlights Frank Jude Jr. was beaten by off-duty Milwaukee police officers; three received long prison terms. A new study finds calls to 911 from black neighborhoods dropped sharply after the beating became public. Homicides jumped up during the time 911 calls were done and study suggests a connection. 911 calls dropped again after a different police beating two years after the Jude incident. The beating of Frank Jude Jr. 12 years ago by off-duty Milwaukee police officers rocked the city, leading to the largest number of firings in department history, federal convictions of seven officers and a series of reforms. A new study reveals another unseen but far-reaching impact: Residents in predominantly black neighborhoods in Milwaukee were far less likely to call 911 for months after the beating. That dropoff in 911 calls suggests the incident eroded trust and sharply damaged the relationship between the police and neighborhoods that often count on them the most, according to the study. Controlling for crime and other factors, researchers found that 911 calls dropped by approximately 22,000 citywide over the following year, with the effect much higher in black neighborhoods, according to a first-of-its-kind study done by faculty from Harvard, Yale and Oxford universities. It was published Thursday in the American Sociological Review. As 911 calls dropped, the city experienced a surge in homicides later in 2005, leading the authors to suggest the lack of reporting of crimes by citizens may have contributed to the spike in killings. The researchers found another drop in 911 calls in predominantly black neighborhoods after the beating of Danyall Simpson by a Milwaukee police officer. And they also found evidence that an incident of police violence in another city might have contributed to a drop in 911 calls in Milwaukee. The findings come at a time when high-profile cases of police-involved shootings contribute to unrest across the nation. Meanwhile, homicide figures have spiked in some cities, including Milwaukee. The Jude beating was first reported in a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel investigation that described the extent of Jude's injuries and spotlighted the failure by police and state prosecutors to thoroughly investigate what would later be described as the torture of Jude by the officers outside an off-duty police party in Bay View in October 2004. ORIGINAL COVERAGE: Police suspected in Frank Jude's beating | Prosecutors haven’t queried key witness in Frank Jude case | 100 protest progress of police beating case | Wall of silence not breaking in Jude case The study's lead author, Matthew Desmond, associate social sciences professor at Harvard University, said the research shows that 911 calls started dropping right after the Journal Sentinel investigation was published and stayed down over the following year. "Something like the Frank Jude case tears the fabric apart so deeply and de-legitimizes the criminal justice system in the eyes of the African-American community that they stop relying on it in significant numbers," Desmond told the Journal Sentinel in an interview. Desmond, who recently published a book that examined the unseen effects of evictions on families and communities, did the study with Andrew Papachristos, associate professor of sociology at Yale University whose research focuses on gun violence, street gangs, social networks and neighborhoods; and David Kirk, associate sociology professor at the University of Oxford in England. The study examined more than 1 million 911 calls in Milwaukee between 2004 and 2010. To do the statistical analysis, the authors controlled for crime rates in different neighborhoods, weather and other factors. They also removed calls unrelated to crime including traffic, fires and medical emergencies. The study found 911 calls fell by 20% in the city over that year and the drop was markedly larger in black neighborhoods. Over half of the drop in calls — 56% — happened in predominantly black neighborhoods, which account for 31% of all neighborhoods. Desmond said he was shocked when he first saw the size of the drop. "That is a huge effect and it symbolizes that these are not isolated incidents because they don’t have isolated effects, they have community-wide effects and those effects can actually make the city less safe by driving down crime reporting and thwarting public safety efforts," he said. Skip Ad Ad Loading... x Embed x Share Columnist Dan Bice and Opinion Columnist James Causey discuss a new study about a decrease in 911 calls after the beating of Frank Jude Jr. 12 years ago. The new findings run counter to a theory that has been advanced to explain the recent spike in homicides in some cities — that the increase is fueled by police becoming timid which emboldens criminals. Coined the "Ferguson Effect" in reference to unrest after the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., the theory holds officers have become passive out of fear they will be investigated for uses of force. In the Jude study, researchers found data suggesting people withdraw from the system after an incident of police violence. Papachristos said the study shows that police violence and other misconduct hurts officers' ability to work with communities and may result in a deepening of so-called "legal cynicism" — the idea that police are either unable or unwilling to help — within communities. That dynamic can perpetuate crime and distrust. "Our contribution is putting this into cause and effect. Here's what happened and there's a very clear change in behavior. That's what we showed," Papachristos told the Journal Sentinel. "I really think the big takeaway is the effect that cynicism has on black communities. "Not only does it impede sort of their view of the law, it actually further impedes their own safety." 'Blue wall of silence' In October 2004, Jude, another black man and two women went to a late-night off-duty police party in Bay View. They stayed a short time, felt unwelcome and left. But before the four could leave, off-duty officers surrounded their truck and pulled the men out, accusing them of stealing officer Andrew Spengler's badge. The other man, Lovell Harris, broke free and ran. Jude was surrounded by off-duty officers and beaten savagely as he was down and handcuffed on the street. The officers kicked Jude in the head and body, cut off his pants, yanked back his fingers, jammed pens deep into both of his ears and put a gun to his head as they yelled racial slurs, according to court testimony. An on-duty officer arrived but rather than stop it, he joined in the beating. Jude was arrested, put in a police wagon and taken to the hospital where he remained for several days. No badge was found; no charges were filed. After the beating, none of the off-duty police officers at the scene would talk to internal department investigators, forming what officials would later call a "blue wall of silence." Three months after the beating, in February 2005, the Journal Sentinel investigation publicly showed Jude's battered face and reported that no officers had been arrested or charged in the incident. Three officers were later charged in state court but were acquitted. A subsequent FBI investigation resulted in charges against those three plus five other officers. Seven were convicted and one acquitted. The three main culprits received prison terms between 15 and 17 years. Jude sued the city, eventually settling for $2 million. Jude, 38, of Wauwatosa, has been arrested and charged several times since the beating and is currently in jail, awaiting trial on charges of obstruction of a police officer in Milwaukee County. Police calls fall Immediately after the Journal Sentinel investigation into the Jude beating, there were calls for accountability by the public and elected officials, and protest marches. In the days after the story, state prosecutors said they were noticing the Jude beating being mentioned during questioning in jury selection, especially by black jurors who expressed distrust in the system. The prosecutors called it "the Jude effect." There was another effect unfolding at the same time, the study found. Calls to police were falling in black neighborhoods. There was no drop off in 911 calls right after Jude was beaten, in October 2004, but that changed when Jude's picture was published in the Journal Sentinel in February 2005. To test if all calls went down for an unforeseen reason, the authors examined traffic-related 911 calls under the theory that they would not be affected by the Jude beating because people report crashes for practical reasons like insurance coverage. The authors found the traffic calls did not drop. In the six months after 911 calls began to drop, there was an increase in homicides, the study noted. The researchers looked at homicides because unlike other crimes, the numbers would not be affected by the lack of crime reporting. There were 87 homicides in the six months after Jude's beating became public, which was the highest in the seven-year period studied, from 2004 to 2010. The authors did not list the increase in homicides under the study's findings, but they examined it as a possible effect of the drop in 911 calls. Desmond said they could not, in this study, definitely say the drop in calls is the reason homicides spiked, but added, "I think the pattern of homicide data does suggest the drop in crime reporting in the immediate aftermath of Frank Jude might have contributed to that spike in a major way." The study found that the calls to 911 from black neighborhoods did not rebound when officers were charged or fired. Rather, the calls simply came back slowly on their own, Desmond said. The authors think that's because residents realized they had no alternative but to use the system. Second case, similar pattern Researchers found another drop in 911 calls, this time after publication of a separate Journal Sentinel investigation that examined injuries suffered by 19-year-old Simpson in May 2006. Milwaukee police officer James Langer hit Simpson in the face with a flashlight, breaking Simpson’s eye socket and cheekbone while responding to a complaint of public urination. Soon after the department began an internal investigation, Langer quit. Prosecutors declined to prosecute him. The Journal Sentinel found Langer used force far more often than fellow officers and hit people with a flashlight at least three times during his three years on the job. The Journal Sentinel investigation first reported on Simpson's injuries and published a picture of his bloodied face in February 2007. Shortly after that story was published, 911 calls again began to drop in black Milwaukee neighborhoods, the study found. The authors did not examine effects on the homicide numbers after Simpson's injuries became public. Figures show that homicides in 2007 were down compared with the months after the Jude beating. The researchers also tested to see if police violence in other cities had an effect on 911 calls in Milwaukee. The results were mixed. In the case of Sean Bell who was fatally shot in late 2006 in New York, they found calls here dropped. However, 911 calls in Milwaukee did not appear to be affected by the fatal police shooting of Oscar Grant in the subway in Oakland in early 2009. There have been many more incidents of high-profile in-custody deaths in recent years. In the light of the new study, there are natural questions: Are 911 calls dropping in black neighborhoods in Tulsa or will they in San Diego? Is this a possible explanation for why Milwaukee, St. Louis and Baltimore saw large spikes in homicides last year? Based on what they found in Milwaukee, Desmond and his fellow researchers say those are areas ripe for more study. Read or Share this story: http://on.jsonl.in/2dET8HL ||||| The first study of its kind found 911 calls in black Milwaukee neighborhoods dropped significantly following the beating of Frank Jude, an unarmed black man. And then crime rates rose. A man raises his fist during a protest Wednesday, Sept. 28, 2016, in El Cajon, Calif. A new study offers numerical evidence high-profile police violence leads black communities to call 911 to report crimes less. In 2004, Frank Jude Jr., an unarmed black man, was viciously beaten by at least 10 white, off-duty police officers outside a housewarming party in Milwaukee because they said he stole one of their badges. When the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel broke the news more than three months later, not one of the police officers had been charged or arrested, even though the city knew who they were. In the six months that followed, 911 calls from black neighborhoods to report crimes plummeted as the city’s murder rate jumped. The decline in 911 calls is symptomatic of a loss of confidence in law enforcement, according to the study and criminal justice experts. And that trust deficit then leads to rising violent crime rates. “An important implication of this finding is that publicized cases of police violence not only threaten the legitimacy and reputation of law enforcement; they also – by driving down 911 calls – thwart the suppression of law breaking, obstruct the application of justice, and ultimately make cities as a whole, and the black community in particular less safe,” reads the study, “Police Violence and Citizen Crime Reporting in the Black Community,” that will appear in the October edition of the American Sociological Review. These are the results of a study of the effect high-profile excessive force by police against unarmed black men have on an entire community, which Matthew Desmond, the lead author and a sociologist at Harvard University, said is the first empirical study of its kind. The mistrust and, perhaps, discontent the study shows in Milwaukee has been mirrored in similar cases across the country in the decade since, with flashpoints in Ferguson, Mo., Baltimore, Chicago, and now Charlotte, N.C. At the same time, the number of people murdered in the country in 2015 experienced the first substantial increase in a quarter-century, leading many to ask why. Some observers have argued that police, in the face of public scrutiny, have pulled back from their duties, the so-called “Ferguson Effect.” But the soon-to-be published study offers empirical evidence to the contrary. Police have not stopped doing their job. Nor has gang violence turned city blocks into war zones. Rather, the deaths of young black men at the hands of law enforcement can lead whole communities, distrustful of police, to withdraw from the country’s criminal justice system. “What this paper does is add something very important to the understanding of what those mechanisms are,” says David Kennedy, director of the National Network for Safe Communities, a project at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City. "Breaches in the confidence that communities have in the police, themselves, lead to disengagement in the criminal justice system, which leads to increased violence and crime." “It makes absolutely perfect sense that when communities have experience in what they regard as an egregious instance of police behavior, they are less interested and less willing to cooperate with the police,” continues Mr. Kennedy, who was not involved in the study. “Now the study says that. It’s not just conjecture. It’s as close as we get in social science to fact. And that’s connected to very substantial increases in violence.” The study was conducted by Dr. Desmond and two other sociologists, Andrew Papachristos at Yale University, and David Kirk at the University of Oxford. They looked at every crime-related 911 call in Milwaukee from March 2004 to December 2010. They calculated that in the six months after the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel broke the news that Mr. Jude was left bloody and half-naked in the street, the number of crime-related 911 calls in the city decreased by about 22,000, to about 110,000. Fifty-six percent of this decline occurred in predominantly black neighborhoods. The number of crime-related 911 calls would return to normal after about a year, the authors found. However, the six-month decrease from March through August 2005 led to the most violent stretch in the seven years the authors looked at. During those six months, there were 87 murders in Milwaukee, a 32-percent increase compared to the same six-month periods in 2004 and 2006. The number of 911 calls in all Milwaukee neighborhoods also declined significantly following the high-profile killing of Sean Bell by police in Queens, N.Y. in 2006, suggesting the fallout of police violence is not an “isolated incident,” as the authors write “police departments and city politicians often frame [it].” African Americans’ lack of confidence in police has been well documented through surveys and testimonies. Just this week, 9-year-old Zianna Oliphant was filmed telling the Charlotte City Council about being black. “I don’t like being treated differently,” she said through tears at the City Council’s first meeting since Keith Lamont Scott was killed in an officer-involved shooting six days earlier. The Pew Research Center has consistently found African Americans don’t trust police will treat them equally to whites. Following the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., in 2014, 46 percent of black respondents told Pew they had “very little” confidence in police to treat them equally. But observers have debated over whether a lack of confidence in police has led African Americans to not report crime. It doesn’t, according to a 2006 study by Lawrence Bobo and Victor Thompson. A vast of majority of both whites and black respondents said they would call 911 if their house was burglarized, even if an overwhelmingly majority of blacks didn’t expect to be taken seriously when police arrived. This changes in the wake of high-profile police violence in the news, according to the soon-to-be published study. It is perceived by some as a “severe breach in the social contract that exists between citizens and the criminal justice system.” “That breach is so sudden and violent when unarmed black men are beaten or killed that virtually no institutional response, from public apologies to sanctioning offending officers, can swiftly repair it,” the study says. In an interview with the Monitor, Tony Brown, a sociologist at Rice University who studies how racism works, was skeptical of the implications of the study. He praised its analysis, but said the personal motivations that led whole neighborhoods to call 911 less frequently must be studied further. He also stressed the conclusions should be considered within a larger context, namely how the country and its race relations have changed since 2005, and speculated about the so-called “Ferguson Effect,” which FBI Director James Comey referred to in May, but many criminologists and President Obama have rejected. Whatever those motivations, Dr. Kirk at Oxford said in a statement that police should take seriously the President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing, in particular its recommendations for procedural justice, transparency, and accountability. Mr. Kennedy at John Jay says many departments are. “For the longest time, police never criticized police. That’s a real problem for communities that already don’t think highly of you,” he says. “Across the country, we’re just beginning to see police are willing to say to their community, ‘I think that’s wrong too.’ That’s an important development.” ||||| The study makes for a grim chronicle. On October 23, 2004, Jude and a black male friend arrived at a private party in a white middle-class neighborhood as guests of two white women college students. Shortly after arriving, the four headed to their vehicle, but it was soon surrounded by at least 10 men. The men accused Jude and his friend of stealing Andrew Spengler’s police badge, and all four were pulled from their truck. Jude’s male friend had “his face slit with a knife” and escaped, according to the authors. Jude suffered blows to his face and torso; his arms were pinned behind his back; he was kicked in the head; an officer stomped on his face “until he heard bones breaking;” he was picked up and kicked in the groin so hard “his feet left the ground;” he had a pen inserted deep into his ear canals; his fingers were “bent back” until “they snapped;” before finally being left naked from the waist down on the sidewalk in a pool of his own blood. Jude’s story would not become public until months later when the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel published a report on the incident on February 6, 2005, and recounted the police cover-up that had followed. Black residents protested almost immediately, demanding action from the district attorney. A month later, nine officers were dismissed. Spengler and two others were tried and acquitted by an all-white jury. Protests ensued again. A federal investigation led to the conviction of seven of the officers involved. “Once the story of Frank Jude’s beating appeared in the press, Milwaukee residents, especially people in black neighborhoods, were less likely to call the police, including to report violent crime,” David Kirk, one of the authors of the report, said in a statement. “This means that publicized cases of police violence can have a communitywide impact on crime reporting that transcends individual encounters.” A total of 22,200 fewer calls were made to 911 during the year following Jude’s beating, according to the researchers, with over half of that loss (56 percent) happening in black neighborhoods. The authors of the study see the significant decline as worrisome given how heavily police work depends on resident-initiated interactions, such as calling the emergency line. “Police work of every kind relies on citizen participation, especially reports of law breaking … If police misconduct lowers crime reporting throughout black communities, it directly threatens public safety within those communities, many of which already have high levels of crime,” the authors concluded in the article. To test their theory that police brutality makes black Americans less likely to contact police, the authors also analyzed the impact of other highly publicized incidents of violence against black men by law enforcement, including two that happened outside of Milwaukee. They looked at the killing of Sean Bell in Queens, New York in 2006, the assault of Danyall Simpson in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 2007, and the killing of Oscar Grant in Oakland, California in 2009. Of these three, only the latter did not trigger a drop in calls to 911. The data again led to the conclusion that “other local and national cases of police violence against unarmed black men also had an impact on crime reporting in Milwaukee.” ||||| Milwaukee Police Disciplined For Using Stun Gun On, Arresting NBA Player MilwaukeePolice YouTube Milwaukee police have released bodycam footage showing officers using a stun gun on Milwaukee Bucks rookie Sterling Brown in a Walgreens parking lot in January. The officers arrested Brown, who is black, after challenging him over a parking violation. Brown was not charged with a crime. toggle caption Nam Y. Huh/AP Shortly after the Jan. 26 arrest, a "law enforcement source" told radio station News/TAlk 1130 WISN that Brown had been "combative." But in a statement on Wednesday, Milwaukee Police Chief Alfonso Morales said the department had "conducted an investigation into the incident which revealed members acted inappropriately and those members were recently disciplined." "I am sorry this incident escalated to this level," Morales wrote. Brown, a 6-foot-6 guard who graduated from Southern Methodist University last year, released a response to the video that was posted on local TV station WTMJ: "The common denominator in all of these situations has been racism towards the minority community, the abuse of power, and the lack of accountability for officers involved. The lack of repercussions for the police officers involved in so many of these cases is offensive. This is a slap in the face to the victims' families and communities." National Milwaukee Basketball Player Expected To Sue Police After Being Hit With Stun Gun Milwaukee Basketball Player Expected To Sue Police After Being Hit With Stun Gun Listen · 2:04 2:04 The Bucks released a statement calling for more accountability: "Incidents like this remind us of the injustices that persist. As an organization, we will support Sterling and build on our work with local leaders and organizations to foster safe neighborhoods and better our community." Maayan Silver of member station WUWM reports that Brown plans to file a lawsuit against the city. High-profile incidents of police violence against unarmed black Americans repeatedly have prompted mourning, protests and attempts at reform. Meanwhile the underlying pattern continues: Black people, particularly young black men, are significantly more likely to be shot or killed by police than are white people, a difference that cannot be explained by crime rates or threat levels. That's a national phenomenon. But as NPR's Code Switch team has reported, "there is no state where that disparity is larger than in Wisconsin." The state "incarcerates a higher percentage of its black male population than any other in the country — and it's not even particularly close," NPR's Gene Demby writes. Wisconsin — Milwaukee in particular — is one of the worst places in the country for African-Americans to live, as measured by a number of factors, including education gaps, incarceration and segregation. Police in Milwaukee are being sued for what the ACLU calls a pattern of baseless, unconstitutional police stops targeting black and Latino men — more than 350,00o stops in total, the organization alleges. And the police department previously has been challenged over its practice of keeping investigations of fatal police shootings within the officers' own departments, a practice that was changed several years ago. In short, the police department in Milwaukee was already under community scrutiny for its treatment of black residents, long before officers approached Brown in that Walgreens parking lot. Before the video was released on Wednesday, local officials were bracing for a backlash. On Monday, Mayor Tom Barrett told reporters he had seen the video and found it troubling. "I have the same concerns that I have heard the chief mention about the actions of some of the people involved in that," he told reporters. "I'm going to let the release of that speak for itself, but yes, I definitely have concerns after watching that video."

– The so-called "Ferguson Effect" says homicides go up after high-profile police-on-citizen violence because police become too worried about being investigated for use of force. But the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports a new study published Thursday has another explanation. Researchers found that 911 calls related to crime dropped 20% in Milwaukee following the horrific beating of unarmed black man Frank Jude by off-duty cops in 2004. The effect lasted for more than a year, totaling more than 22,000 fewer crime-related 911 calls, according to the Atlantic. And 56% of the decrease occurred in black neighborhoods, despite black neighborhoods making up only 31% of Milwaukee. Researchers are calling it the "Jude effect." Researchers found similar declines after police killed Sean Bell in 2006 in New York City and assaulted Danyall Simpson in 2007 in Milwaukee. Police violence "de-legitimizes the criminal justice system in the eyes of the African-American community," researcher Matthew Desmond tells the Journal Sentinel. The study concludes that incidents of police violence "make the city as a whole...less safe," the Christian Science Monitor reports. Jude's beating was followed by a 32% increase in murders in Milwaukee. The spike in homicides can potentially be attributed to the drop in 911 calls, which are used by police for all sorts of crime fighting. "No act of police violence is an isolated incident, in both cause and consequence." the Atlantic quotes researcher Andrew Papachristos as saying. (Man dies three days after calling police for help.)

The California ranch once known as Neverland and owned by late pop star Michael Jackson is going on the market for $100 million. The Los Olivos property, about 40 miles from Santa Barbara, is now called “Sycamore Valley Ranch,” said Suzanne Perkins of Sotheby’s International Realty, who shares the listing with Harry Kolb of Sotheby’s and Jeffrey Hyland of Hilton & Hyland. The amusement park rides are gone, the agents said, as are the orangutans and elephant, though there is currently a llama on the property. The iconic... ||||| Got $100,000,000? Michael Jackson’s gorgeous — and gigantic — estate, Neverland Ranch, is now on the market. In an exclusive video posted by Sotheby’s real estate, you can tour the scenic 2,700-acre estate located in Los Olivos in California’s Santa Ynez Valley. Sotheby’s perfectly set the video tour to the tune of Jackson’s “Man In the Mirror.” Jim Bartsch/Sotheby’s International Realty The late King of Pop’s iconic mountainside home, renamed Sycamore Valley Ranch, boasts at its center a 12,000-square-foot house which was “fashioned after the majestic manors that line the coast of Normandy,” Sotheby’s listing reads. The main house, designed by Robert Altevers for William Bone in 1982, is located between two lakes and is accessed via a stone bridge. Jim Bartsch/Sotheby’s International Realty The property also features three guesthouses, as well as a European-style hunting lodge featuring a subterranean wine cellar near the estate’s tennis court. Located by the main residence is a 50-seat movie theater and Jackson-approved dance studio. Jim Bartsch/Sotheby’s International Realty Neverland Ranch also boasts multipurpose barns, a petting zoo, staff housing, an administration building — not to be confused with the office! — and a paved helipad. There’s also an expansive covered outdoor barbecue area adjacent to the pool. Jim Bartsch/Sotheby’s International Realty The property is being sold by real estate investment firm Colony Capital, which owns equity in Neverland Ranch after forming an agreement with Jackson in 2008 prior to Jackson’s June 2009 death. Survived by his kids Prince, 18, Paris, 17, Blanket, 13, and his famous family, the superstar died of acute propofol and benzodiazepine intoxication at age 50. Jim Bartsch/Sotheby’s International Realty Watch the video above to tour the seriously impressive listing! Sign up now for the Us Weekly newsletter to get breaking celebrity news, hot pics, and more delivered straight to your inbox!

– A 2,700-acre piece of pop-culture history is now up for sale. The Wall Street Journal reports that Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch near Santa Barbara is on the market for $100 million. Except it's now called Sycamore Valley Ranch, and while it no longer has amusement park rides or an elephant, it still has the train station and tracks Jackson had installed. Curbed LA, which notes that Beyonce and Jay Z were once rumored to be interested, links to this video tour. And sorry Jackson fans, the listing agents are going to thoroughly vet any prospective buyers—"we're not going to be giving tours," one tells the Journal. (Also for sale: the Mean Girls mansion.)

Cruz was tough and canny—no surprise there. He went the full-Gingrich in his assault on CNBC’s ridiculous moderators. He did a better job explaining Social Security reform than Chris Christie, even (which is no mean feat). And managed to look downright personable compared with John Harwood, whose incompetence was matched only by his unpleasantness. If you’re a conservative voter looking for someone who is going to fight for your values, Cruz must have looked awfully attractive. Rubio ended Jeb Bush’s campaign with the kind of body shot that buckles your knees. That’s on Bush, who never should have come after Rubio in that spot for a host of strategic and tactical reasons. But what should scare Hillary Clinton is how effortless Rubio is even with throwaway lines, like “I’m against anything that’s bad for my mother.�? Most people have no idea how fearsome raw political talent can be. Clinton does know because she’s seen it up close. She sleeps next to it for a contractually-obligated 18 nights per year. Tonight’s debate showed that the GOP field is smaller than it looks. Technically, there are still fourteen people running, but the winnowing is far along. We probably have a final six and possibly a final four. Then there was Trump. Over the last few weeks, Trump has gotten better on the stump. Well, don’t look now, but he’s getting better at debates, too. Trump was reasonably disciplined. He kept his agro to a medium-high level. And his situational awareness is getting keener, too. Note how he backed John Kasich into such a bad corner on Lehman Brothers that he protested, “I was a banker, and I was proud of it!�? When that’s your answer, you’ve lost the exchange. Even at a Republican debate. And Trump had a hammer close: “Our country doesn’t win anymore. We used to win. We don’t anymore.�? I remain convinced that this line (along with his hardliner on immigration) is the core of Trump’s appeal. But he didn’t just restate this theme in his closing argument. He used it to: (1) beat up CNBC; and (2) argue that his man-handling of these media twits is an example of what he’ll do as president. It was brilliant political theater. Those were your winners. You also saw tonight several campaigns which are over, even if the candidates don’t know it yet. Kasich was less likable than Rand Paul. Rand Paul was mostly invisible, and petulant when he was visible. Mike Huckabee wasn’t visible enough, except when he was doing his populist defense of Medicare and Social Security. But the effectiveness of this spot was diminished by Cruz’s excellent response, which is what people are apt to remember. There just isn’t enough space for him to make an impact by dint of personality in a field with a bunch of other strong and attractive personalities. And as for Bush? Jeb’s dead, baby. Jeb’s dead. That leaves us with Chris Christie, Carly Fiorina, and Ben Carson, who, by the way, is actually leading the field in some polls. Christie was as impressive tonight as he could be, given his position. He had a great opening. His interjection on regulating fantasy football was tremendous. The “Even in New Jersey what you’re doing is called rude�? line to Harwood just killed. If the establishment had jumped on Christie early, instead of being scared off by the GW bridge scandal and going for Bush . . . well, this race would probably be different. But they didn’t. That said, we’ll keep Christie in our final grouping because he’s so talented that he’s always going to have a puncher’s chance. Fiorina had a solid debate, but wasn’t the run-away winner she’d been in the first two debates. If her numbers couldn’t hold when she was the class of the field, I doubt they’ll move much when she’s merely on the high-side of the average. It looks more and more like Fiorina isn’t running to win the nomination. And what to do about Carson? Gentle Ben was fine—great in some moments; pedestrian in others. I don’t think many people in the media fully grasp the passion for Carson, but that doesn’t make it any less real. And if you look at the history of Iowa, and Carson’s numbers now, it’s not hard to imagine him doing very well there. So there’s your final six: Trump, Carson, Rubio, Cruz, and maybe—just maybe—Fiorina and Christie. ||||| Republican presidential candidates Marco Rubio, Donald Trump, John Kasich and Ted Cruz feuded over rhetoric, elections and immigration at the March 3 debate in Detroit. Here are the key moments. (Sarah Parnass/The Washington Post) The four remaining Republican presidential candidates gathered in Detroit on Thursday night for the 11th debate of the GOP nomination fight. I tweeted it. The Fix team annotated it. And, below, I picked some of the best — and worst — of the night that was. Winners * Ted Cruz: The senator from Texas picked a nice moment to have his best debate of the primary season. He flashed his prosecutorial chops when making the case that Donald Trump was neither a real conservative nor someone who could win the White House for Republicans this fall. His persistent calls for Trump to release the audiotape of an off-the-record interview with the New York Times were effective and put the real estate mogul off his game a bit. Cruz also benefited from the fact that Trump and Marco Rubio went after each other hammer and tongs for the first hour of the debate, a brawl that allowed him to look like he was above the fray and magnanimous. * John Kasich: The narrowing of the presidential field quite clearly helped the Ohio governor on Thursday night. Sure, it often felt as if he was participating in an entirely different debate than the other three candidates. But, when he got a chance to talk, Kasich’s uplifting and positive message made for a welcome relief from the name-calling, interrupting and general rudeness that dominated most of the conversation on stage in Detroit. Kasich effectively made the case for why being an insider was a good thing — a very hard one to make in an election like this one — and probably won himself some votes from voters fed up with all the fighting. Did he do enough to boost him into the top tier? No. But that simply isn’t possible for Kasich, given the delegate math. Still, he deserves credit for putting his best foot forward. * Fox News moderators: Bret Baier, Megyn Kelly and Chris Wallace are a really good trio. They asked well-thought-out questions that anticipated — and avoided — the talking points of the candidates. I l-o-v-e-d when Wallace called up a series of fact checks aimed at rebutting Trump's talking points on how he would handle the debt and deficit issues. Ditto the video triptych that Kelly introduced showing Trump contradicting himself over and over. That's what moderators should do; force candidates off their regular shtick, make them think on their feet a bit and, in the process, show viewers who they really are. * Teenagers: A penis size reference within the first 10 minutes of the debate? The 12-year-old version of me would have laughed like crazy at Trump's "guarantee" about the size of his genitals. (Okay, fine. The 40-year-old version of me laughed, too.) Losers * Donald Trump: Trump totally dominated the debate in terms of speaking time and the broader conversation. There were times where it felt more like an interview with Trump than a debate with three candidates not named Trump on stage. As is usually the case with Trump in a debate setting, the more he talks, the less positive the outcome is for him. He repeatedly came across as juvenile — calling Rubio "Little Marco" and Cruz "Lyin' Ted." Hell, within the first 10 minutes of the debate Trump was insisting that questions about his endowment — not the financial kind — were way off. From a more substantive perspective, Trump took real body blows — especially from Cruz — regarding Trump University and the comments he made in an off-the-record session with the New York Times. Trump, as he has in nearly every debate, showed a wafer-thin understanding of policy and, when pressed about that lack of knowledge, reverted to name-calling. Does any of the above matter? It hasn't yet. * Marco Rubio: The senator from Florida seemed to have resigned himself to a kamikaze mission against Trump during this debate. He jabbed at and with Trump over and over again in the debate's first 60 minutes, turning every question — and answer — into an attack on Trump. It hurt Trump but hurt Rubio, too, as he struggled to get back to his more positive “new American century” message. Rubio improved in the second half of the debate, but Cruz was better throughout. It’s hard to see how this debate changes the dynamic set in place on Tuesday night: Trump as the favorite, Cruz with the next-best chance of being the nominee, Rubio as Trump spoiler. *Debate audience: From the mugging for the cameras — act like you’ve been there! — to the constant cheering and jeering for every word the candidates uttered, the audience was annoying at best and distracting at worst. I am not a big fan of debates held without a live audience, but this is getting bad. * The Republican Party: The first hour of the debate was an absolute disaster for Republicans hoping to rebrand their party heading into the 2016 general election. It looked more like a high school cafeteria food fight than an even semi-serious conversation about issues. My party is committing suicide on national television. #GOPDebate — Jamie Johnson (@JamieJohnsonUSA) March 4, 2016 Assuming Trump is the nominee — and he has the most obvious path — then this debate will provide Democrats with roughly 100 minutes’ worth of raw footage of Rubio and Cruz savaging the real estate mogul that they can use in negative ads this fall. A lose-lose for the GOP. * The thing on Ted Cruz’s lip: Was it the piece of a mint? Spittle? A piece of tooth? I don’t know. But what I do know is that it will haunt my dreams. ||||| Jeb Bush, who entered Tuesday night’s GOP debate with the most on the line, rose to the occasion and turned in his strongest debate performance to date, but it was Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz who again outshined their rivals. While Bush's ability to find his footing on the primetime stage should reassure nervous donors, it’s unlikely to fundamentally change his position in the broader field—a B grade, after all, only brings an F up to a D. Story Continued Below Rubio and Cruz, now viewed as the two strongest candidates, ceded no ground, exploiting a much softer debate format in Milwaukee and again showcasing their mastery of the facts and ease under the bright lights. Donald Trump also roared back to his caustic, combative form. But Ben Carson turned in his shakiest performance yet, struggling with a debate that focused more on substantive policy questions and taking up the least amount of speaking time despite his position in the center of the stage. The two-hour debate, marked by a smattering of sharp exchanges but fewer fireworks than the three previous showdowns, is unlikely to dramatically alter the race as it now stands—and the status quo may hold through the end of the year, with the next GOP debate 35 days away and the month of December effectively a dead zone for campaign fundraising. Many of the spats that generated heat on stage Tuesday night were familiar ones—illustrative of the broader ideological divisions within the GOP. The first focused on immigration, with Trump and Cruz on one side opposite John Kasich and Bush, both desperate for air time given their standing behind the current front-runners and eagerly blasting Trump’s proposal to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and to deport 11 million undocumented immigrants. "It’s a silly argument. It’s not an adult argument. We all know you can’t pick them up and ship them back across the border,” said Kasich, paving a path for Bush to follow. Trump responded by taking a dig at the Ohio governor and his state's economic recovery. "You’re lucky in Ohio that you struck oil," he said. As the tussle escalated and Kasich started talking over him, Trump interjected, saying "I don't have to hear from this man." As Kasich looked to cut in again, Trump suggested he "let Jeb speak." Bush followed by mockingly thanking Trump for "allowing me to speak at the debate." He also chided Trump for the mass deportation proposal, calling it "impossible." “It’s not embracing American values, and it would tear communities apart,” Bush said about Trump’s plan. “And even having this conversation sends a powerful signal. They’re doing high-fives in the Clinton campaign when they hear this … the way you win the presidency is you have practical plans.” Cruz followed with a defense of Trump’s position, asserting “it’s not anti-immigrant,” and landing a repeat of his well-received attack on the media. “I understand when the mainstream media covers immigration, it often doesn’t see it as an economic issue, but I can tell you for millions of Americans at home watching this, it is a very personal economic issue,” Cruz said. “I would say the politics of it would be very, very, different if a bunch of lawyers or bankers were crossing the Rio Grande — or if a bunch of people with journalism degrees were coming over and driving down the wages in the press.” Rubio, the author of the failed comprehensive immigration reform package that passed the Senate in 2013 but failed in the House for lack of support from grassroots conservatives, stayed out of the fray. Rubio did land his own memorable moment when he tangled with Rand Paul, who criticized his proposals to increase military spending. “I know that Rand is a committed isolationist,” Rubio said, dismissively. “I know that the world is a safer and a better place when the United States is the strongest country in the world.” "Marco, Marco, how is it conservative to add a trillion-dollar expenditure to the federal government?” Paul shot back. “You cannot be a conservative if you’re going to keep promoting new programs that you’re not going to pay for. I want a strong national defense, but I don’t want us to be bankrupt.” “You think defending this nation is expensive," Cruz chimed in. "Try not defending it." Bush, desperate to improve on his disastrous performance in last month’s third GOP debate in Boulder, Colo., steadied himself with his response on immigration after showing some edginess early on. Bush entered Tuesday night’s fourth GOP debate vowing to stop following the moderators’ rules and dead set on making his voice heard. But in a major shift from the first three debates that quickly devolved into freewheeling slugfests, the five candidates who got questions before Bush did at the outset of the two-hour debate in Milwaukee were suddenly playing by the rules. When Kasich, despite ranking behind Bush in the national polling, offered a lengthy answer to his first question and then threatened to interject after Cruz’s opening statement, an antsy Bush jumped in. "I got about four minutes last debate, I'm gonna get my question,” Bush said. “I appreciate it, Jeb,” Kasich shot back. “I’m all for you.” Bush got his footing as the debate progressed, attacking Trump for his assertion that the U.S. cannot be the world's policemen. "Donald is wrong on this. He is absolutely wrong on this," Bush said. "We are not going to be the world’s policemen but we sure as hell better be the world’s leader." “That’s like a board game. That’s like playing Monopoly or something," said Bush, who seemingly meant to refer to the game Risk, not Monopoly. Twelve days after his rehearsed attack on Rubio backfired so spectacularly, Bush opted not to attack or engage Rubio at all. Carson, who now sits atop some national polls, struggled on a foreign policy question about how he would combat ISIS in the Middle East. “We have to say, how do we make them look like losers? And I think the way to make them look like losers, we have to destroy their caliphate,” Carson said, seemingly arguing for ground forces to remove ISIS from Iraq. “Take that from them, take that land from them, we could do that fairly easily,” he said. Carson also addressed the recent scrutiny of a number of his anecdotal biographical claims, again criticizing the media for portraying him unfairly. “The fact of the matter is, we should vet all candidates,” Carson said early in the debate. “What I do have a problem with is being lied about and putting that out there as truth. I don’t even mind that so much if they do that with everybody … when I look at somebody like Hillary Clinton who sits there and tells her daughter and a government official that no this was a terrorist attack and tells everybody else it was a video, where I come from, they call that a lie. “I think that’s very different from somebody misinterpreting when I said I was offered a scholarship to West Point,” he continued. “People who know me know that I’m a honest person.” ||||| Ten Republican candidates spent two-plus hours trading rhetorical jabs in the third GOP presidential debate in Boulder, Colo. Marco Rubio won; Jeb Bush lost. Also, some others. I separated the good from the bad below. Winners * Marco Rubio: The senator from Florida was good in the first two debates. He was outstanding in this one. The long-awaited showdown between Rubio and Bush wound up being a romp; Jeb tried to attack on Rubio's Senate attendance but got schooled by a very well-prepared Rubio. Rubio repeatedly took tough questions and turned them to his advantage, finding ways to tell his compelling personal story and steer the conversation toward what the GOP needs to do to beat Hillary Clinton. Rubio, as I've long noted, is the most naturally talented candidate in either party's field; he showed it tonight. * Ted Cruz: Cruz had the single most memorable moment of the debate when, early on, he took on the CNBC moderators for the alleged "gotcha" questions they were asking. It drew a huge response in the debate hall and outside of it — and set the stage for a litany of attacks against the media from Cruz's rivals as the night wore on. Cruz, as he did in the first two debates, used his time wisely — driving home the message that he's the only guy with the backbone to stand up not just to Democrats but to leaders in his own party. Had Rubio not been so good, Cruz would be the story of the night. * Chris Christie: For the second straight debate, Christie found ways to do more with less (time). His "Why the hell are we talking about fantasy sports" riff was outstanding and reinforced the idea of the New Jersey governor as a plain-spoken truth-teller. The question for Christie is whether it will make any difference; he continues to struggle to make up ground on the front-runners and is barely clinging to his spot on the debate stage. * Donald Trump: This was a most un-Trump performance. With the exception of a smack-down of John Kasich in the early going, Trump was largely content to stay out of the fray and stick to his talking points when he did get a question. And, somewhat amazingly to me, he skated by without any real attacks by any of his rivals for the nomination. Yes, Trump has lost some momentum of late but didn't anyone notice he is still in first or second place in every single state and national poll? Hard to see him slipping from that perch as a result of tonight's proceedings. * Lindsey Graham: For the second straight undercard debate, the senator from South Carolina was in a class of his own. He was funny and knowledgeable. But, it was in the undercard debate. Losers * Jeb Bush: Oh, Jeb. This was a really bad night for someone who needed a good-to-really-good night. Bush tried to drop the opposition research book on Rubio's head in the early going but got beat by someone who is just better at this stuff. After that swing and miss, Bush seemed totally cowed for much of the next hour. Sure, he made one good joke about his fantasy football team. But one good joke in a two-plus hour debate does not a victory make. And as for his campaign's chagrin at CNBC for his lack of speaking time, that feels to me like a smokescreen designed to distract people from his poor performance. Prediction: The buzz about whether Jeb is up to this race, which was at a relatively low level before tonight, is going to start getting a lot louder. * Ben Carson: The doctor's first three answers of the night were close to nonsensical. He repeatedly seemed surprised when called on and struggled to articulate his points or use facts to help bolster them. He seemed out of his depth. Now, Carson's appeal — and what has made him the race's front-runner of late — is that he sounds and acts nothing like a polished politician. So, I suppose, by that logic, Carson might have had a less-bad night than I think. During the third GOP debate, candidates got feisty with the CNBC moderators. They took aim at the questions asked, at the "mainstream media" and at the moderators interrupting their answers. (Victoria M. Walker/The Washington Post) * CNBC: Yes, some of the bashing of the network was simply politicians playing to the crowd. Republican voters think the media is biased, so when you as a candidate bash the media for being biased, you win. But, a lot of the questions the moderators asked seemed to be framed like this: "You said or did X controversial thing. Explain." I'm all for some of that — after all, politicians need to be accountable for their public statements — but it veered occasionally into "gotcha" territory. CNBC should be ashamed of how this debate was handled. #GOPDebate — Reince Priebus (@Reince) October 29, 2015 One other note: No one wants to hear talking heads, um, talk over the candidates being introduced on stage. (I say this as a sometime talking head myself.) The candidates and how they interact with one another is all anyone cares about. Show that and get out of the way. Period. Full stop. * Rand Paul: The senator from Kentucky seemed barely there. When he did get questions, which wasn't often, he recited stump-speech material without much vim or vigor. It's hard to see how Rand stays in the race all that much longer — particularly with the pressure he is getting from fellow Republicans to come back to Kentucky to defend his Senate seat next November. * John Kasich: I get what the Ohio governor was going for. He knew he needed to stand out and figured the "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it any more" schtick was the way to do it. It worked — the first time. But, after the first 15 minutes, I felt like Kasich was just shouting at me and that the actual message — to the extent there was one — got lost. ||||| Things got downright personal at the Feb. 25 GOP debate. Here are a few of the most stinging barbs thrown by Donald Trump, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio. (Peter Stevenson/The Washington Post) Things got downright personal at the Feb. 25 GOP debate. Here are a few of the most stinging barbs thrown by Donald Trump, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio. (Peter Stevenson/The Washington Post) Three weeks after being pummeled on a debate stage in New Hampshire, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida showed Thursday night that he had learned his lesson, launching repeated and aggressive attacks on front-runner Donald Trump in the hope of slowing the New York businessman’s march to the nomination. In New Hampshire, Rubio faltered under relentless attacks from New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. On Thursday, it was as if he were channeling Christie’s prosecutorial style. He unloaded a series of charges from Trump’s past against the billionaire reality TV star. He mocked his opponent as shallow on the issues. He needled him and interrupted him as Trump has interrupted others in past debates. It was the kind of performance his supporters had hoped he would deliver. Rubio wasn’t alone in challenging Trump at Thursday’s debate. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, hoping to boost his candidacy after a disappointing third-place finish in last week’s South Carolina primary, used his time to try to undermine Trump’s conservative credentials and his electability. Trump would be a high-risk nominee, Cruz charged, one whose inconsistencies on issues and past friendships with and contributions to Democrats would leave him vulnerable in the general election. 1 of 11 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad × Top quotes from the tenth Republican presidential debate View Photos The candidates shared these comments during the CNN/Telemundo debate in Houston. Caption The candidates shared these comments during the CNN/Telemundo debate in Houston. Buy Photo Wait 1 second to continue. The question is whether any of it will change the minds of Republican voters ahead of two critical weeks in March in the Republican race. Though he found himself attacked from the two candidates on either side of him on the stage, Trump remained typically aggressive. “Swing for the fences,” he taunted his rivals part way through the debate. It was that kind of night for the Republicans — a night that repeatedly descended into personal insults, with the candidates shouting over one another. Down to five candidates on the stage and with many seeing the race narrowing to Trump, Rubio and Cruz, rarely has there been a time when the stakes were as high. From here on, every Trump victory adds to his luster as the front-runner, and Thursday was the first moment for his rivals to change perceptions of where the race could be heading. Neither Rubio nor Cruz has relished going after Trump in the past, perhaps fearing the blowtorch counterattacks that were leveled at others who are now on the political sidelines. But by Thursday night, they had no choice. Amid a rising Republican chorus urging them to go after the front-runner, the two answered the calls. Rubio used his opening statement to issue an implicit attack on Trump. He argued that what Republicans need is a nominee who would carry both the conservatism and the optimism of former president Ronald Reagan into the general election, rather than “a party that preys on people’s angers and fears.” That was only the start. Within minutes, he had charged Trump with building Trump Tower with illegal immigrants, of running “a fake university” and of becoming wealthy by inheriting a fortune. “If he hadn’t inherited $200 million, you know where Donald Trump would be right now?” Rubio asked. “Selling watches.” “I took $1 million and I turned into $10 billion,” Trump replied. They tangled over health care. Again borrowing from Christie’s style, Rubio noted that as Trump described his plan for replacing the Affordable Care Act, the New Yorker was repeating his points over and over. Cruz questioned whether Trump would nominate true conservatives to the Supreme Court. He jumped on a question to Trump about releasing his taxes and pressed him to prove that there is nothing lurking in his finances that could blow up in the middle of the general election. He accused Trump of talking out of both sides of his mouth on the Middle East and Libya. Ohio Gov. John Kasich, as is his style, tried to stay above the fray, hoping that his promise to be practical and open to compromise with Democrats in order to solve problems will win him enough votes to keep his fragile hopes alive. Rubio’s performance Thursday will cheer those who have rallied to his side since South Carolina, despite the fact that he did not win any of the first four contests. But will that be enough to impress voters? Super Tuesday begins a critical two-week stretch in the Republican campaign that will determine whether any of the remaining candidates can disrupt Trump’s path toward the nomination. Super Tuesday is the biggest day on the 2016 primary and caucus calendar, with contests in 11 states and 595 delegates up for grabs. Texas, with 155 delegates, offers the single biggest prize, followed by Georgia with 76. On March 5, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana and Maine hold their contests, and the Puerto Rico primary is the day after that. Then on March 8, Michigan, Mississippi, Idaho and Hawaii hold their contests. From March 5 to March 8, more than 300 delegates will be awarded. To that point, delegates will be allocated on a proportional basis, meaning that candidates who finish relatively close to the winner will grab a share of the delegates. Beginning on March 15, however, the rules change. From there to the end of the primary season, states have the authority to award delegates on some version of a winner-take-all basis. That makes March 15 especially important in sorting out the future of the nomination. March 15 is the second-biggest day on the calendar. Florida, Illinois, Missouri, North Carolina and Ohio, with a combined total of more than 350 delegates, hold primaries that day. By the end of that night, it should be clear which of the candidates, if any, has the strength and support to go up against Trump. Those two weeks also pose individual tests for Cruz, Rubio and Kasich. Each must win his home state, at a minimum, to remain viable. Cruz will be first in the barrel on Tuesday. Without a victory in his home state, Cruz’s Southern and Super Tuesday strategy will collapse. He was damaged by his failure to win South Carolina last weekend, and a loss in Texas probably would finish him. But his advisers have expressed confidence about his ability to win in the Lone Star State. Rubio’s big test comes March 15 in Florida, where Trump has been leading the polls by a wide margin. But Rubio also must demonstrate his vote-getting appeal on Super Tuesday. Unlike Cruz, who was victorious in the Iowa caucuses, Rubio has not won a state, finishing third in Iowa, fifth in New Hampshire, and second in South Carolina and Nevada. His campaign has benefited financially and in endorsements from the withdrawal of former Florida governor Jeb Bush. But Rubio is under pressure to translate that into the kind of support from the voters that pushes him to victory somewhere. Kasich has set a big goal for himself ahead of his home state of Ohio. After his second-place finish in New Hampshire, his advisers said they would plant a flag in Michigan, making it something of a must-win. For those fearful of Trump as the party’s nominee, Thursday was supposed to be the night that the dynamic of the race began to change. Certainly Rubio and Cruz tried to make that happen, with some success. But Tuesday’s balloting will be the real first test of whether things actually are changing.

– The newly narrowed GOP field of Donald Trump, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, and John Kasich went at it again Thursday night. Here's a sampling of some of the post-debate analysis: Cruz had "his best debate of the primary season," writes Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post, showing "prosecutorial chops when making the case that Donald Trump was neither a real conservative nor someone who could win the White House." Kasich also did well, but Cillizza places Trump ("took real body blows" and showed "wafer-thin understanding of policy") and Rubio (on a "kamikaze mission against Trump") in the "losers" category. "Cruz the winner. Rubio solid & feisty at times, but role seemed reversed w/ Cruz from last debate," tweets Guy Benson of Town Hall. "Kasich hit his marks. Trump was Trump." Kasich won by staying above the fray and improving his position "in the grand Trump sabotage plan," which might involve a brokered convention, writes Dylan Matthews at Vox. Rubio, meanwhile, flailed at Trump so much he failed to make "an affirmative argument for his candidacy." He "was dead before tonight, and the debate mostly served to remind the public why." At the Atlantic, David A. Graham isn't very charitable to any of the candidates. "The funny thing about Trump's rough performance was that no one else did especially well, either," he writes. Cruz gave "a middling performance, with much of his emphasis on the fact that he'd beaten Trump in a few states," while Rubio "was hoarse and seemed shrunken, chastened, and at sea" as he tried to out-shout Trump. When Kasich surfaced, it was to spout "capsule history lessons." But this surely qualifies as good news for Trump: "In a striking moment, all of Mr. Trump's rivals on stage indicated that they would support him if he became the Republican nominee," notes the New York Times. "The consensus was especially unusual in the case of Mr. Rubio, who has been caustically attacking Mr. Trump as a 'con man.'" As does this from Eric Bradner at CNN: Yes, Trump struggled on substantive issues and came under heavy attack, but "what else is new?" he asks. "None of the debates so far have changed the trajectory of the race."

MINNEAPOLIS (CBSNewYork) — NBC’s broadcast of Super Bowl LII briefly went dark Sunday night. Just after LeGarrette Blount’s 21-yard touchdown run gave the Philadelphia Eagles a 15-3 lead with 8:48 to play in the second quarter, NBC pitched to commercial, but viewers were instead greeted by more than 30 seconds of a black screen. PHOTOS: Super Bowl LII The signal finally returned with coverage of the game resuming. A NBC spokesperson later said: “We had a brief equipment failure that we quickly resolved. No game action or commercial time were missed.” NBC’s statement suggests it did not lose out on any ad revenue — a 30-second Super Bowl spot cost about $5 million. Of course, the incident was a hot topic on social media, with many users poking fun at it. Some said the moment reminded them of Super Bowl XLVII in New Orleans when the game between the Baltimore Ravens and San Francisco 49ers had to halted for several minutes because of a power outage inside the Superdome. Wait, did the Super Bowl just end like “The Sopranos?” #SBLII — Chris Carlin (@ChrisCarlin) February 5, 2018 Most #SuperBowl commercials are funny but this one was just dark pic.twitter.com/yRwUHwRrAB — Adam LeBow (@LeBowAdam) February 5, 2018 I'm in editorial and not sales, but even I know you don't make money by running a dark screen during #SuperBowl breaks. — Val Dennis Craven (@valpass) February 5, 2018 Dark screen Super Bowl commercials didn’t happen when Obama was president. #thanksTrump — Justin Sparago (@Justin_Sparago_) February 5, 2018 Welp someone just got fired. 20 second ad was dark as their future at NBC. #SuperBowl pic.twitter.com/EyLewFqm2y — easilyigNORAble (@easilyigNORAble) February 5, 2018 Dark season 2 looked good. #SuperBowl — Doug Schoemer (@dbschoemer) February 5, 2018 Was there a Vegas prop on the Super Bowl going dark with dead air for a few seconds? — Coley Harvey (@ColeyHarvey) February 5, 2018 The Eagles beat the Patriots 41-33 to win their first Super Bowl in franchise history. ||||| CLOSE SportsPulse: The all-time great tight end breaks down why Brady will never be the GOAT and also has a surprise hot take. USA TODAY Sports An overhead view of Super Bowl LII. (Photo: James Lang-USA TODAY Sports) Super Bowl viewers were greeted by a blank screen for approximately 15 to 30 seconds during NBC's Super Bowl broadcast on Sunday night. The awkward lull came during a commercial break in the middle of the second quarter and caused a stir on social media, with some on Twitter jokingly referring to it as the best commercial of the broadcast. In a tweet, an NBC Sports spokesperson blamed the incident on a "brief equipment failure that we quickly resolved. No game action or commercial time were missed." From NBC Sports spokesperson: "We had a brief equipment failure that we quickly resolved. No game action or commercial time were missed." — NBC Sports PR (@NBCSportsPR) February 5, 2018 NBC told USA TODAY Sports on Friday that the network had sold out its advertising slots during the Super Bowl. A single 30-second advertisement costs more than $5 million, on average. MORE: Tom Brady says he'll be back to play in 2018 season MORE: Eagles QB Nick Foles makes Super Bowl history with TD catch Contributing: A.J. Perez Contact Tom Schad at tschad@usatoday.com or on Twitter @Tom_Schad. PHOTOS: Celebrities at Super Bowl LII

– One of the commercial breaks generating a lot of buzz during the Super Bowl wasn't actually a commercial at all. TV screens went black for about 30 seconds after NBC cut to a commercial in the second quarter following a Philadelphia touchdown, reports CBS. While some may have suspected some bizarro ad message, NBC later tweeted an explanation: "We had a brief equipment failure that we quickly resolved. No game action or commercial time were missed." As USA Today notes, a 30-second ad during the game costs about $5 million. Twitter had all kinds of fun, with lots of comments like this: "Best Super Bowl commercial so far has been 'empty black screen.'"

Story highlights A veterans group demands a criminal investigation of medical center practices 1,700 veterans will be contacted by the end of business Friday, a VA official says VA Secretary Eric Shinseki is on ''thin ice'' with Obama, a White House official says The scope widens, with 42 medical centers now under investigation At least 1,700 military veterans waiting to see a doctor were never scheduled for an appointment and were never placed on a wait list at the Veterans Affairs medical center in Phoenix, raising the question of just how many may have been "forgotten or lost" in the system, according to a preliminary report made public Wednesday. Describing a "systemic" practice of manipulating appointments and wait lists at the Phoenix Health Care System, the VA's Office of Inspector General called for a nationwide review to determine whether veterans at other locations were falling through the cracks. It also appears to indicate the scope of the inquiry is rapidly widening, with 42 VA medical centers across the country now under investigation for possible abuse of scheduling practices, according to the report. JUST WATCHED Scathing report released on VA scandal Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Scathing report released on VA scandal 02:57 Among the findings at the Phoenix VA, investigators determined one consequence of manipulating appointments for the veterans was understating patient wait times -- a factor considered for VA employee bonuses and raises, the report said. The preliminary report sparked outrage from all corners, with Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki calling the findings "reprehensible" and ordering the 1,700 veterans be immediately "triaged" for care, while some lawmakers called for the agency's chief to resign. Shinseki has been on "probation" since President Barack Obama vowed last week to hold accountable those responsible for the delays, and he remains on "thin ice" with the President pending the outcome of the internal investigations, a White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told CNN. The VA is under fire over allegations of alarming shortcomings at its medical facilities. The controversy, as CNN first reported, involves delayed care with potentially fatal consequences in possibly dozens of cases. CNN has reported that in Phoenix, the VA used fraudulent record-keeping -- including an alleged secret list -- that covered up excessive waiting periods for veterans, some of whom died in the process. JUST WATCHED McCain: Time for Shinseki to move on Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH McCain: Time for Shinseki to move on 04:32 JUST WATCHED Report: 1,700 vets left off VA wait list Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Report: 1,700 vets left off VA wait list 02:56 JUST WATCHED VA Whistleblower tells his story Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH VA Whistleblower tells his story 11:07 JUST WATCHED Jay Carney on CNN and VA scandal Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Jay Carney on CNN and VA scandal 00:49 'Numerous allegations' The big questions remain under investigation, according to the report: Did the facility's electronic wait list omit the names of veterans waiting for care and, if so, at who's direction? And were the deaths of any of these veterans related to delays in care? "To date our work has substantiated serious conditions at the Phoenix facility," said the report, which also found another 1,400 veterans were on the Phoenix VA's formal electronic wait list but did not have a doctor's appointment. The report also found "numerous allegations" of "daily of mismanagement, inappropriate hiring decisions, sexual harassment, and bullying behavior by mid- and senior-level managers." Calling the report's initial findings "damning," House Veterans' Affairs Committee Chairman Jeff Miller, R-Florida, said "you can only imagine" what might come out once a fuller investigation is completed. The investigation is expected to be completed later this summer, with a final report issued by the VA inspector general in August. The report's findings prompted the American Legion to call for a criminal investigation. "We want every VA employee who participated in these cover-ups to be investigated and prosecuted to the full extent of the law ..." the veterans group said in a written statement. The U.S. Department of Justice is reviewing the interim report, Peter Carr, a Justice Department spokesman, said. "We will continue to consult with the inspector general's office regarding their ongoing review," he said. Calls for Shinseki's resignation Sen. John McCain, an Arizona Republican, told CNN it was "about time" the Justice Department launched its own investigation. "I haven't said this before, but I think it's time for Gen. Shinseki to move on," McCain said. There have been calls from other members of Congress for him to step down over the scandal, but McCain's voice on military matters carries enormous weight considering his experience as a combat veteran, a Vietnam prisoner of war, and his work in the Senate on related issues. A number of Senate Democrats, all up for re-election this year, also called for Shinseki to leave his post. Among them was Sen. Mark Udall of Colorado who took to Twitter with his message: "In light of IG report & systemic issues at @DeptVetAffairs, Sec. Shinseki must step down." Sen. Al Franken of Minnesota said a change in leadership is needed. "I believe it would be in the best interest of veterans for Secretary Shinseki to step down," he said. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire said "fundamental problems plague the agency." "It's time for a forceful new leader to address the outrageous problems at the VA," she said. Deputy National Security Adviser Tony Blinken told CNN that President Barack Obama has been briefed on the report, and found it "deeply troubling." When pressed on whether Obama still supports Shinseki, Blinken said: "We're focused on making sure these veterans who've delivered for this country get the care they need." IG: 'Take immediate action' The VA has acknowledged 23 deaths nationwide due to delayed care. The VA's inspector general, Richard Griffin, told a Senate committee in recent weeks that his investigation so far had found a possible 17 deaths of veterans waiting for care in Phoenix, but he added that there was no evidence that excessive waiting was the reason. Griffin recommended that Shinseki "take immediate action" to "review and provide appropriate health care" to the 1,700 veterans identified in Phoenix as not being on a wait list. It also recommended that he initiate a nationwide review of waiting lists "to ensure that veterans are seen in an appropriate time, given their clinical condition." The report came just hours before the start of a combative House committee hearing on the Phoenix VA issues, where Republican and Democratic leaders said they were dissatisfied with the VA's response to their panel's subpoena for documents on shortcomings related at the agency's Phoenix medical center. "Veterans died. Give us the answers, please," Jeff Miller, a Florida Republican, told one of three senior VA officials called to testify. The committee's senior Democrat, Michael Michaud of Maine, was equally sharp with the witnesses, who initially sparred with lawmakers over the agency's response for documents before answering questions about Phoenix. "Let me be clear, I'm not happy. We do expect answers. We'll get to the bottom of this," Michaud said. Dr. Thomas Lynch, the VA's assistant deputy under secretary for clinical operations, told the committee there are plans in place to contact the 1,700 veterans in Phoenix by the close of business on Friday to assess their needs and get them care. Lynch, who said he agreed with the interim report's findings, believes that overarching agency goals for reducing wait times for care are flawed. "What's happened is unacceptable," he said. ||||| In the first confirmation that Department of Veterans Affairs administrators manipulated medical waiting lists at one and possibly more hospitals, the department’s inspector general reported on Wednesday that 1,700 patients at the veterans medical center in Phoenix were not placed on the official waiting list for doctors’ appointments and may never have received care. The scathing report by Richard J. Griffin, the acting inspector general, validates allegations raised by whistle-blowers and others that Veterans Affairs officials in Phoenix employed artifices to cloak long waiting times for veterans seeking medical care. Mr. Griffin said the average waiting time in Phoenix for initial primary care appointments, 115 days, was nearly five times as long as what the hospital’s administrators had reported. He suggested that the falsified data may have led to more favorable performance reviews for hospital personnel, and he indicated that some instances of potentially manipulated data had been turned over to the Justice Department. Mr. Griffin said that similar kinds of manipulation to hide long and possibly growing waiting times were “systemic throughout” the sprawling Veterans Affairs health care system, with its 150 medical centers serving eight million veterans each year. The inspector general’s office is reviewing practices at 42 Veterans Affairs medical facilities. Mr. Griffin’s report brought immediate political consequences. For the first time since the controversy erupted last month, several Senate Democrats, including Mark Udall of Colorado and John Walsh of Montana, demanded that the secretary of veterans affairs, Eric Shinseki, step down, joining Republican lawmakers who have been making that demand for weeks. Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, a former naval aviator who was a prisoner of war during the Vietnam War and is now an influential voice on veterans issues, also called on Wednesday for Mr. Shinseki to resign. Along with several other leading Republican lawmakers who had been withholding judgment, Mr. McCain asked the F.B.I. to investigate the Phoenix hospital. Mr. Griffin previously said that he was working with the Justice Department to examine whether criminal violations had occurred there. Mr. Shinseki, in a statement, called the findings “reprehensible to me” and ordered the department to “immediately triage each of the 1,700 veterans” and give them timely care. The department suspended two senior officials at the Phoenix medical center shortly after the allegations of falsified waiting lists became public this month. Jay Carney, the White House press secretary, said President Obama found the report “extremely troubling,” but he did not indicate whether Mr. Shinseki had lost the confidence of the White House. Mr. Griffin’s interim report — the final version is expected by August — did not address the most explosive allegations made about the Phoenix facility: that as many as 40 veterans who were never put on the official list for doctors’ appointments might have died while awaiting care. He said determinations could be made only after examining autopsy reports and other documents that were still being reviewed. He had previously said that after reviewing 17 of those cases, he had found no indication that any of those deaths were tied to delays. Advertisement Continue reading the main story Advertisement Continue reading the main story But the rest of his report was sweeping in its indictment of the Phoenix hospital, and contained sharp criticism of much of the rest of the veterans health care bureaucracy. “While our work is not complete, we have substantiated that significant delays in access to care negatively impacted the quality of care at this medical facility,” Mr. Griffin said. Irregularities in how the 1,700 veterans were handled, he added, mean that “these veterans may never obtain a requested or required clinical appointment.” Investigators from the inspector general’s office reviewed a sample of 226 patients and found that they waited an average of 115 days for their first primary care appointment at the Phoenix medical center, but their average waiting time was reported to the national Veterans Affairs office as being only 24 days. The interim report did not dwell on the motivations for falsely reporting waiting times, nor did it single out any employees or hospital administrators by name. But it stated that a “direct consequence” of the inappropriate waiting lists was that the medical center’s leadership “significantly understated the time new patients waited for their primary care appointment” in its performance appraisal accomplishments for the 2013 fiscal year, which was a factor considered for bonuses and salary increases. Mr. Griffin also suggested that his team may have already found some indication of criminal wrongdoing. “When sufficient credible evidence is identified supporting a potential violation of criminal and/or civil law, we have contacted and are coordinating our efforts with the Department of Justice,” he wrote. He said in his report that his investigators had identified several types of improper scheduling practices in Phoenix. They found multiple waiting lists aside from the official electronic waiting list, and said that “these additional lists may be the basis for allegations of creating ‘secret’ wait lists” that have been cited by whistle-blowers. The allegations identified by investigators were not limited to waiting lists. Mr. Griffin said his office had received “numerous allegations daily of mismanagement, inappropriate hiring decisions, sexual harassment, and bullying behavior by mid- and senior-level managers at this facility.” Mr. Shinseki, a soft-spoken former four-star Army general and chief of staff, has had support on Capitol Hill from some lawmakers partly because of his long military career. But the release of the inspector general’s report increased the pressure on him to step down, especially after some Senate Democrats broke with others in the party late in the day to demand his removal. Mr. Walsh, the Montana senator, said that the report “confirms the worst of the allegations against the V.A.,” and that “it’s time to put the partisanship aside and focus on what’s right for our veterans.” Representative Jeff Miller, the Florida Republican who is the chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, said the report “confirmed beyond a shadow of a doubt what was becoming more obvious by the day: wait time schemes and data manipulation are systemic throughout V.A. and are putting veterans at risk in Phoenix and across the country.” Mr. Miller had previously held off on calling for Mr. Shinseki’s resignation, but he did so on Wednesday, saying that the former general “appears completely oblivious to the severity of the health care challenges facing the department.” Mr. McCain said on CNN that he had intended to wait to comment on Mr. Shinseki’s future until further hearings were held on the issue. But after hearing about the report, he decided to speak out. “I think it’s reached that point,” he said. “This keeps piling up.”

– At least 1,700 veterans awaiting treatment from the Department of Veteran Affairs' now-infamous Phoenix medical center were kept off of any official waiting list, putting them "at risk of being forgotten or lost," according to a damning initial report from the department's inspector general. What's more, the patients the IG surveyed waited an average 115 days for a first primary care appointment—a far cry from the 24 days the center reported to the VA, the New York Times reports. The investigation also found "numerous allegations" of "mismanagement, inappropriate hiring decisions, sexual harassment, and bullying behavior by mid- and senior-level managers." The report doesn't touch on allegations that as many as 40 deaths were tied to waiting list shenanigans. On CNN, John McCain responded to the report by calling on the Justice Department to launch its own probe. "I haven't said this before, but I think it's time for General Shinseki to move on," he added. (The Army fired the head of the Womack medical facility after the deaths of two patients in their 20s.)

EYEBEAM ASSEMBLY | INTERNAL USE ONLY, Hosted by Dhruv Mehrotra & Brendan C. Byrne OCTOBER 25TH 6 – 9PM RSVP Watch the live stream The longest amount of time any area in the continental United States has gone without an update in Google Earth was between 2008 to 2016. The gap lied in a dry lake bed in Southwestern Nevada located in the Tonopah Test Range, a subsection of the Nellis Test and Training Range, which is jointly owned by the Department of Energy and Air Force. When Eyebeam Resident Dhruv Mehrotra and writer Brendan C. Byrne discovered this gap and realized they could purchase the rights to the satellite image themselves, they bought it in an attempt to push Google into completing its dataset. However, the purchase came with a set of its own restrictions within layers of legalese, which frustrated this initial intent while prompting an exploration into the most notable phrase that kept appearing: FOR INTERNAL USE ONLY. What possibilities exist between the fine print, and can creative approaches help to locate grey areas, or loopholes to work within? Can abstraction or poetry obfuscate an original to the point of no longer being confined by a legal document? Where is that line and in how many ways can we collectively push upon the boundaries defined by “internal use?” What are the implications of state secrets and corporate censorship on artistic interpretation? In an effort to interrogate these questions, Mehrotra and Byrne have commissioned a series of abstracted paintings of the satellite image by artist Sebastian Gladstone, and original poetry by Marvin Mayfield. During INTERNAL USE ONLY, these new works will be revealed and performed to an intimate audience of “internal users,” followed by conversations joined by Washington DC Bureau Chief of Yahoo News, Sharon Weinberger, and copyright lawyer Mark Bradford. Instructions to become an “internal user” to follow. Dhruv Mehrotra is an engineer whose work explores networks, conspiracy, politics and power. He is currently a resident at Eyebeam and a researcher at NYU. Brendan C. Byrne’s criticism has appeared in Rhizome, The Intercept, and The Baffler. His fiction has appeared in Terraform, Big Echo, Flapperhouse, and Dark Mountain. Sebastian Gladstone is an artist based in Los Angeles. Recent solo exhibitions include “Pictures From My Dream” at Marvin Gardens and “Fantasy Playground” at Club Pro Los Angeles. Marvin Mayfield is a native of Brooklyn, NY; a product of the racially and socially turbulent 70’s. As a person directly affected by the prison industrial complex, he has devoted his knowledge and experience to the cause of ending mass incarceration and establishing true Criminal Justice Reform. Today, Marvin is an activist, a writer, and a student at Columbia University where he is pursuing a degree in social work. Sharon Weinberger is the DC bureau chief for Yahoo News. Previously, she was an executive editor at Foreign Policy magazine, and before that, the national security editor at The Intercept. She has held fellowships at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, MIT’s Knight Science Journalism program, the International Reporting Program at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, and Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. She has written on military science and technology for the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Financial Times, Wired magazine, Nature, BBC, Discover, and Slate, among other publications. Mark Bradford has an A.B. from Brown University and a J.D. from Fordham Law School. In 2009, he started his own firm, Mark Bradford, P.C., which specializes in copyright, trademark, arts, music, and media law in addition to commercial litigation, representing start-ups and entrepreneurs. He is general counsel for Electronic Arts Intermedia, and has done legal work for the Merce Cunningham Trust and Anthology Film Archives, among others. He also serves on the boards for Culture Push and The Firehouse Space and is the executor of the estate of multi-media artist Stuart Sherman. Donate to Eyebeam ||||| 9 Awesome Experiences L.A. Has to Offer This Weekend A Celtic faire, Appalachian fiddle, late night hackers, and a Hindu celebration of life CONFABS: PaleyFest 2015 The annual television love-athon brings together the casts of hit shows and the fans who adore them at postscreening conversations. Among the programs on this year’s roster are Scandal, The Good Wife, Arrow, and The Flash. More information (March 6-15; Dolby Theatre) MOVIES: Thom Andersen: The Thoughts That Once We Had In his 2003 documentary, Los Angeles Plays Itself, the CalArts professor stitched together cinematic scenes of the city. For this deep dive into movie history, he’s influenced by the work of French philosopher Gilles Deleuze, who wrote two books on film. More information (March 6; REDCAT) MOVIES: Midnight Screening: Hackers Relive the campy splendor of 1990s cyberpunk cinema, complete with screeching modems, Rol­lerblade chases, thumping techno music, and a young Angelina Jolie and her first husband, Jonny Lee Miller. More information (March 6; Nuart Theatre) MUSIC: Joshua Radin Americana aficionados unite for a showcase headlined by Radin, whose folk-inflected tunes star on his latest album, Onward and Sideways. The affair kicks off with Virginian singer-songwriter Rachael Yamagata and Los Angeles-based acoustic troubadour Cary Brothers. More information (March 7; The Fonda Theatre) CONFABS: Holi Festival of Colors Los Angeles Think twice about wearing white at this Hindu celebration of life: Polychromatic powder will be liberally applied in traditional designs to the faces of attendees. Crowds are also invited to toss water balloons and fire squirt guns while musical groups perform in the background. More information (March 7; Excelsior High School) MUSIC: Enslaved Norway’s Enslaved have long represented the vanguard of Black Metal music—a genre that deals in buzz saw guitars and macabre imagery. The band is touring in support of their latest album, In Times. More information (March 6; El Rey Theatre) CONFABS: Celtic Faire You don’t need to look like a Game of Thrones extra to enjoy a gathering of all things Celtic. Flagons of Guinness, hearty Irish eats, and a sheep or two add color to this family-friendly homage to the land of plaid. More information (March 7-8; Fairplex in Pomona) MUSIC: Anonymous 4 The downtown landmark is the setting for a de facto commemoration of the April ceasefire that ended the Civil War 150 years ago. The choral quartet revives American songs from the period, accompanied by Bruce Molsky, “the Rembrandt of Appalachian fiddle.” More information (March 7; Bradbury Building) BOOKS: I Fought the Law: The Life and Strange Death of Bobby Fuller Miriam Linna and Randell Fuller will sign copies of their new book I Fought the Law: The Life and Strange Death of Bobby Fuller, which chronicles the life and death of Bobby Fuller who recorded his iconic version of the song “I Fought The Law” only a few months prior to his mysterious death. More information (March 7; La Luz de Jesus Gallery) ||||| The following 24 fellows will each receive $625,000 over the next five years from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation: _ Kyle Abraham, 36, New York City. Choreographer and dancer who explores the confluence of personal history and identity. _ Donald Antrim, 55, New York City. Teaches writing at Columbia University and is being recognized for his fiction and nonfiction. _ Phil Baran, 36, La Jolla, California. Organic chemist at Scripps Research Institute who invents ways to recreate natural products with potential pharmaceutical uses. _ C. Kevin Boyce, 39, Stanford, California. Paleobotanist at Stanford University who looks at links between ancient plants and today's ecosystems. _ Jeffrey Brenner, 44, Camden, New Jersey The physician founded a health care delivery model that finds, tracks and serves the city's poorest and sickest residents. _ Colin Camerer, 53, Pasadena, California. Behavioral economist at the California Institute of Technology whose pioneering research has challenged assumptions in traditional economic models. _ Jeremy Denk, 43, New York City. Writer and concert pianist who combines his skills to help readers and listeners to better appreciate classical music. _ Angela Duckworth, 43, Philadelphia. Research psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania helping to transform understanding of just what roles self-control and grit play in educational achievement. _ Craig Fennie, 40, Ithaca, New York. Materials scientist at Cornell University has designed new materials with electrical, optical and magnetic properties needed for electronics and communication technology. _ Robin Fleming, 57, Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. A medieval historian at Boston College who's written extensively on the lives of common people in Britain in the years after the fall of the Roman Empire. _ Carl Haber, 54, Berkeley, California. Taking insights from his work on imaging subatomic particle tracks, the experimental physicist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory developed new technologies to preserve rare, damaged and old sound recordings. _ Vijay Iyer, 41, New York City. Jazz pianist, composer and bandleader and writer reconceptualizing the genre through compositions for his ensembles, as well as cross-disciplinary collaborations and scholarly writing. _ Dina Katabi, 42, Cambridge, Massachusetts. A computer scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who has worked at interfacing computer science and electrical engineering to improve the speed and security of data exchange. _ Julie Livingston, 46, New Brunswick, New Jersey. Medical historian at Rutgers University interested in the care of chronically ill patients in Botswana who exposed the unlikelihood that technology will fix health issues in Africa or the rest of the world. _ David Lobell, 34, Stanford, California. Agricultural ecologist at Stanford University who has investigated the impact of climate change on crop production and food security around the world. _ Tarell McCraney, 32, Chicago. Playwright at Steppenwolf Theater Company who examines the diversity of African-American experiences. _ Susan Murphy, 55, Ann Arbor, Michigan. A statistician at the University of Michigan, she has translated statistical theory into tools that can be used to evaluate and customize treatment regimens for people with chronic or relapsing disorders. _ Sheila Nirenberg, New York City. Neuroscientist at Weill Cornell Medical College exploring the nervous system and creating new prosthetic devices and robots. _ Alexei Ratmansky, 45, New York City. Choreographer and artist-in-residence at the American Ballet Theatre revitalizing classical ballet with interpretations of traditional works and original pieces. _ Ana Maria Rey, 36, Boulder, Colorado. Theoretical physicist at the University of Colorado working on how to control states of matter through conceptual research on ultra-cold atoms. _ Karen Russell, 32, New York City. A fiction writer and author of the novel "Swamplandia!" whose work blends fantastical elements with psychological realism. _ Sara Seager, 42, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Astrophysicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology creating a theoretical framework for determining the characteristics of planets outside our solar system. _ Margaret Stock, 51, Anchorage, Alaska. Immigration attorney who founded a program that pairs volunteer attorneys around the country with military families in need of legal assistance with the deportation of loved ones and other immigration issues. _ Carrie Mae Weems, 60, Syracuse, New York. 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Murder Most Forgotten: A cold case the victim can't remember The Leading Man: A candid chat with Paul Gross How Vancouver police put a dent in property crimes How a pig farmer made billions in online gambling Rescue mission to save a persecuted family 'Free trial' offers that can end up costing hundreds Tammy Wynne's fight to prove she isn't a killer Investigating a prescription pill epidemic A nightmare when the taxman got it wrong To Hell and Back: Helping the world's most desperate Hockey HEROS from the troubled inner city W5: Searching for gold at the end of the Guatemalan rainbow Golden Gate Funds leaves a trail of lost investments Parkinson's drug sends patients on orgy of gambling, shopping and sex W5 Team Bios W5 Team Kevin Newman Lisa LaFlamme Lloyd Robertson Sandie Rinaldo Avery Haines Peter Akman Got a question? Need more information? Have a hot tip? Read our FAQ or send an email to w5@ctv.ca. ||||| Where in the world are people having sex right this minute? A new Web site—IJustMadeLove.com—uses GPS technology and Google maps to help people chart their love-making. One day last year, 26-year-old computer programmer Cyprian Ciećkiewicz was driving around his native Warsaw, allowing his mind to drift, when he found himself stuck on a familiar thought: "How many people," he wondered, "are making love right now, at this very moment?" That thought led to another thought—"How cool would it be to just look at the Earth and see little lights lighting up to see where people are making love?—which led to ijustmadelove.com, a site that uses GPS technology and Google Maps to allow anonymous users to chart the precise nature and location of their bedhopping. To date, more than 77,900 encounters have been recorded, everywhere from the throbbing heart of New York City to the farthest reaches of Outer Mongolia. "Moment for which you all waited... You can now upload photos when sharing your good news. Please enjoy this new feature responsibly;-)" In design and substance, I Just Made Love has a kind of boyish innocence, especially given its subject matter. Ciećkiewicz and his partners have strenuously avoided anything remotely pornographic, an outlook cemented with their choice of a name. "We didn't name the site I Just Had Sex or anything like that," he said. "We're trying to keep the site really nice." And yes, he records his own activity. A convenient options menu allows users to note whether the intercourse was homo—or heterosexual, whether it took places indoors or outdoors, on land, at sea, or in the back seat of a car. Did you use a condom? Was it your first time? Who did what to whom? An array of small cartoon figures, acting out various common positions, allows users so inclined to provide an additional level of specificity (or several). Ciećkiewicz has also consulted with his parents on the design of the site, with an eye toward making it friendlier for all potential users. "Because older people make love, too," he said. As a special Valentine's Day project, I Just Made Love wiped clean its regular sex map, which otherwise keeps a running tally of all entries logged on the site, to measure the volume and nature of all the V-Day love being made. The following day, in a move that reflects Ciećkiewicz's more academic inclinations, the site published a statistical breakdown of the data. Ninety-one percent of couplings recorded were heterosexual. Exactly 87.9 percent of activity occurred indoors. Americans had more sex than anyone else, but of all the nationalities represented, Turkish citizens were by far the most likely to use condoms. The site also lets users leave comments on their and others' performance. In November, administrators added a perilous new feature, announcing it on the I Just Made Love Twitter feed with characteristic sweetness: "Moment for which you all waited... You can now upload photos when sharing your good news. Please enjoy this new feature responsibly;-)" Ciećkiewicz took an unexpected path toward online sex king. At the age of 16, he left Poland to attend high school in Memphis, going on to study business and computer science at Christian Brothers University. He returned to Poland, and pursued a master's degree at the Polish-Japanese Institute of Computer Science. In 2008, he and a small band of entrepreneurs started SharQ.pl, a Web development company based in Warsaw. So far, their suite of sites includes Polish-language offerings Memoo, Gorila and Snag. I Just Made Love is their first English-language venture.

– If updates from the South by Southwest music/film/Internet/etc. extravaganza aren’t your thing, perhaps you’ll find some amusement among its top-Web-site honorees. A sampling: Waterlife: Activism winner keeps tabs on pollution in the Great Lakes. odosketch: Create animated sketches with drawing app. The Vile Plutocrat: “Keep track of those individuals whose implacable greed poisons the societies that made them wealthy,” with this blog. 1066: Educational site lets you pick sides in Middle Ages conflict among English, Normans and Vikings. Atlas Obscura: Let the “world’s wonders, curiosities and esoterica” amuse you. Smokescreen: Online life is the thrust of this gaming site. Cornify: Wins the People’s Choice Award as the “#1 unicorns and rainbow service worldwide, providing sparkles and happiness for all.” For more, click either link at right.

Public Health HIV Infections Rise Among Young Black Men In U.S. i itoggle caption CDC CDC The latest data on HIV rates in American teenagers and young adults offer a sobering message. While the number of new infections in the U.S. is relatively stable — at about 50,000 people each year — HIV is on the rise in young people under 25. Youths age 13 to 24 made up about a quarter of all new HIV infections in the U.S. during 2010, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported on Tuesday. And more than half of the youths living with HIV don't even realize they're infected The bottom line: 1,000 American teenagers and young adults become infected each month with HIV. "Given everything we know about HIV and how to prevent it after more than 30 years of fighting the disease, it's just unacceptable that young people are becoming infected at such high rates," CDC chief Dr. Thomas Frieden said Tuesday. The upswing is driven largely by infections among young black men, who accounted for about 45 percent of new diagnoses in this age group. Most infections occurred in men who have sex with men, the study finds. And, gay and bisexual high school kids were most likely to take part in risky behavior, such as having multiple sexual partners and injecting illegal drugs. What's does the CDC say is needed to reverse the trend? More testing for starters. Right now, only 13 percent of high school students get screened for HIV each year, despite the fact that both the CDC and the American Academy of Pediatrics recommend routine testing for adolescents. Frieden says it's also important that HIV-positive adolescents get antiretroviral drug treatment, which can lower their risk of spreading the virus to others. Finally, the CDC plans to beef up education for kids about ways to protect themselves and avoid risky behavior. "The AIDS epidemic seems very remote to young people," Dr. Kenneth Mayer, the Director of HIV Prevention at Boston's Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital, told USA Today. "There is no equivalent of a young Magic Johnson. If you are young, this seems like a disease of old people." ||||| The finding adds to the evidence that doctors need to routinely screen all patients for HIV. A health educator conducts an HIV test. (Photo: Chip Somodevilla, Getty Images) Story Highlights About 50,000 Americans are newly infected with HIV each year. Many medical groups now recommend routine HIV testing for everyone ages 15 to 65 One-third of people with HIV are tested late and develop full-blown AIDS within a year of diagnosis More than 30 years after the beginning of the AIDS epidemic, young people are again taking dangerous risks with their lives, according to a new report from the Centers for the Disease Control and Prevention. About 1,000 young people ages 13 to 24 are newly infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, each month, according to new data released for the first time. About 60% of HIV-positive young people have no idea that they're infected, according to the report released Tuesday. Young people ages 13 to 24 account for more than a quarter of the 50,000 new HIV infections each year, the CDC says. About 1.2 million Americans have HIV or AIDS. "This is our future generation," says CDC director Thomas Frieden. "That so many young people become infected with HIV each year is a preventable tragedy." Both the financial and human costs of these new infections are staggering, Frieden says. The lifetime cost of treating someone with HIV is about $400,000. That means these new infections add $4 million in new healthcare costs each month. And while new HIV infections have leveled off among most groups, they are rising among young people, says Kevin Fenton, who leads the CDC's office on AIDS. Most of that increase is being driven by new HIV infections in young black men who have sex with men, he says. The finding adds to the evidence that doctors need to routinely screen all patients for HIV, says Kenneth Mayer, medical research director of Boston's Fenway Health, a community health organization that provides AIDS services. Last week, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force endorsed routine HIV testing for everyone ages 15 to 65. The CDC and American Academy of Pediatrics also call for routine screening, beginning in the teen years. Yet only 13% of high school students have been tested for HIV, the report says. Frieden says doctors need to get the message that screening is essential. While the number of people who refuse an HIV test is very small, he says the number of doctors who fail to offer the test is great. "They key here is to make it routine screening, just like we have cholesterol screening," Frieden says. "If someone refuses, that is their right, but we should say this is what we do." Getting tested is the first step to treatment, which can dramatically improve patients' health and also prevent them from spreading the infection, Mayer says. People who know they're HIV-positive are less likely to engage in risky behaviors, such as sharing needles or having unprotected sex, studies show. And people whose virus is under control, reduced to undetectable levels, are virtually incapable of spreading the infection to others, a finding that has led doctors to talk of "treatment as prevention." Only 30% of those with HIV have their virus under control, however, due to a "cascade" of obstacles to care, including lack of insurance, poverty and other issues, Frieden says. By getting more patients on treatment, Frieden says, the nation can reduce the total amount of AIDS virus in circulation, which would dramatically reduce the number of new infections, even if people didn't change their behavior. He adds that the country needs to do a better job of educating young people about AIDS and the need to change their behavior. "It is astonishing the level of ignorance of basic physiology that many high school and middle school students have," Frieden says. "There is not going to be an easy, quick, simple solution." Overall, 20% of all patients with HIV are unaware of their status, according to the CDC, and about one-third are diagnosed late in their infection, after having had HIV for perhaps a decade. A number of socioeconomic factors keep people from getting tested, including the stigma of AIDS, poverty and lack of access to care. Young gay and bisexual men, along with African Americans, are disproportionately affected. About 72% of new HIV infections in this age group occur in men who have sex with men, and 57% occur among African Americans, the CDC says. Mayer notes that there are really two AIDS epidemics in the USA. The first wave of HIV patients is aging and in care, and many have their disease under control. A second wave of newly infected young people — who weren't even born when AIDS burst into the national consciousness three decades ago — now often acts as if they're unaware of the tremendous risks they're taking, Mayer says. According to the new CDC report, which interviewed high school students, young men who have sex with men are more likely than others to have had four or more sex partners and to have injected drugs. Among sexually active students, young gay or bisexual men were more likely to have used alcohol or drugs before their last sexual experience and were less likely to have used a condom. Young gay and bisexual men were less likely, however, to report being taught about AIDS or HIV in school, according to the CDC. "The AIDS epidemic seems very remote to young people," Mayer says. "There is no equivalent of a young Magic Johnson. If you are young, this seems like a disease of old people." Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/UZyjRW

– The number of new HIV cases in the US has leveled off at about 50,000 a year, but one important group is defying the trend: those ages 13 to 24. The CDC says about 1,000 new infections a month occur in the age group, and most of those infected (60%) have no idea, reports USA Today. Young black men are driving the increase, accounting for 45% of the new cases, reports NPR. Most infections occur in men having sex with other men. "This is our future generation," says CDC chief Thomas Frieden. "That so many young people become infected with HIV each year is a preventable tragedy." A government task force suggested last week that everybody be screened for HIV as part of routine physicals, and the new stats could bolster the argument.

Le snub! Moment Sarkozy dodges Cameron's handshake with a swift body swerve after PM says Non to treaty changes This is the moment that Nicolas Sarkozy demonstrates exactly what he really thinks of David Cameron's veto of the EU Treaty change. After a gruelling all-night sitting in Brussels, Mr Cameron approaches the French president with his hand outstretched, as if ready to shake and show there are no hard feelings. But not only does Mr Sarkozy refuse to acknowledge the PM, he actually does a swift swerve aside, waving pointedly to someone - anyone - on his right. Mr Cameron, roundly snubbed, uses the rejected hand to give Mr Sarkozy a seemingly affectionate - if awkward - pat on the shoulder, and moves on, head held high, with a pained smile fixed to his face. ||||| At a second gathering of European Union leaders today, Nicolas Sarkozy can be seen walking towards David Cameron with his hand out. The Prime Minister raises his hand as if in greeting but as the French President walks on by, pats him on the shoulder.

– Britain's Daily Mail is calling it "Le Snub!": Reading much (maybe too much?) into the body language of Nicolas Sarkozy and David Cameron, it says the French president dissed the UK prime minister by blowing off Cameron's handshake at today's high-stakes European Union summit. (Britain isn't going along with the French-backed pact.) The Telegraph isn't so sure about it being a snub, noting that the men had shaken hands a bit earlier—but it's still happy to play up the video posing the question. See for yourself.

Forecasters Predict Warmer-Than-Average Winter In Majority Of U.S. This winter is going to be a warm one for the majority of the United States, according to forecasters at NOAA's Climate Prediction Center. They say that the La Niña weather pattern is likely to develop. That means "greater-than-average snowfall around the Great Lakes and in the northern Rockies, with less-than-average snowfall throughout the Mid-Atlantic region," Mike Halpert of the Climate Prediction Center said in a forecast Thursday. Hawaii, western and northern Alaska and the lower two-thirds of the contiguous U.S. are likely to see warmer-than-average temperatures, Halpert says. A small portion of the Northwest U.S. and parts of Alaska are expected to see cooler-than-usual temperatures. Check expected conditions in your part of the country on this map: Forecasters are predicting less rainfall than usual across the Southern U.S., Halpert adds, while "wetter-than-average conditions are favored across Hawaii, northern and western Alaska and much of the northern part of the lower 48." This will be the third year in a row that the country will largely face a warmer winter. As The Washington Post notes, last year "ranked as the sixth-warmest winter on record." In fact, trees in most of the Southeast U.S. responded to the warm temperatures and came into bloom early, signaling an early spring. toggle caption NOAA Rising carbon dioxide levels due to climate change are a driving force here, Halpert told reporters, according to the Post. "It does, undoubtedly, play a role. ... The increase in CO 2 factors into our model forecast." He added that he does not expect it to be quite as warm as last year. Halpert stressed that these outlooks could change: "For every point on our outlook maps, there exists the possibility that there will be a below-, near-, or above-average outcome." ||||| (CNN) La Niña is expected to be back and it may wreck your winter. But that depends on where you live and if you do or don't like the cold. NOAA's Climate Prediction Center has released its winter outlook. This forecast is not a guide for deciding your detailed ski vacation or New Year's Eve plans, but it may give you an idea of which winter coat you should buy for the season and if you need to stock up on whiskey and coffee. "It would be quite surprising to see a third very warm winter in a row," said Mike Halpert, the deputy director of NOAA's Climate Prediction Center. He said the forecast shows conditions will be warmer, but he doesn't think we will see a top 10 record warm winter like we have the past two years. Temperature forecast You can probably leave the long underwear in storage if you live in the South. NOAA says two-thirds of the continental US will likely experience warmer-than-normal conditions. The East Coast has anywhere from a 33%-40% chance of having an above-average winter. This doesn't mean a cold snap or two won't happen, it's just less likely. The Northern Plains and Northwest are the only locations the CPC thinks the winter season will be below average. The rest of the continental US has equal chances of experiencing a normal winter -- meaning residents there will have equal chances of having above, near or below-normal temperatures. Precipitation forecast You may want to get a waterproof jacket this season if you live in the northern Rockies or Midwest. The CPC is forecasting above-average precipitation in these areas, while a stretch from Southern California to the Carolinas is expected to be drier. Northern Florida and south Georgia -- regions that have had drought conditions within the past year, but not now -- have the greatest probability of drier conditions. Drought could develop in some areas of the South due to the drier conditions -- especially in areas that missed the rainfall associated with the active 2017 hurricane season. The winter pattern that is setting up looks to favor storm tracks across the northern tier of the country. This pattern makes it less likely to have Mid-Atlantic and New England coastal storms that develop in the Gulf of Mexico and track up the East Coast. La Niña is to blame We are currently in a La Niña watch, according to the CPC's October discussion. Forecasters give about a 55%-65% chance during the fall and winter that La Niña will fully form. The effects of El Niño and La Niña are much more noticeable during the winter months across the US. If La Niña forms, this will have a direct impact on the weather this winter. JUST WATCHED The effects of La Nina Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH The effects of La Nina 01:00 "If La Nina conditions develop, we predict it will be weak and potentially short-lived, but it could still shape the character of the upcoming winter," said Halpert. During a typical La Niña winter, the Northwest and Midwest are typically colder and wetter, while the Southwest to Southeast remains drier than average. This all happens because the Pacific jet stream meanders higher into Alaska and Canada, helping to keep some of the dips in the jet stream farther north across the Eastern US. It doesn't mean that the Southeast will escape winter weather altogether -- the chances are just lower, and the average temperature is likely to be above average. If La Niña does not form as expected, the updated winter outlook issued in mid-November will look different. Just how accurate is this forecast? If we look at last year's winter outlook, most of the US would likely give forecasters a B+ rating on their 2016-2017 temperature outlook. A year ago, they predicted an outlook very similar to this year's forecast: warm across the South and cooler across the Northern Plains. They were right about above-average temperatures across the South. However, the jet stream set up a little bit differently than expected and the below-average temperatures expected in the Northern Plains occurred farther west into the Northwestern US. So, in the big picture, they were close, but if you live in Seattle, you might have had a few choice words to say about last year's snowy winter and the big fluffy jacket you didn't buy. Then there was the precipitation outlook last year. If we stay with the grade-school analogy, forecasters still passed, but their predictions were just slightly better than flipping a coin. We again turn our attention to the West, where the overall winter forecast was for drier weather, especially in the Southwest. But multiple atmospheric river events in December, January and February of last year wrecked that prediction. Again, overall a passing grade. Winter is coming So, look at the big picture: Winter is coming, and we have a bit of an idea as to where. But there are a lot of dynamics at play here -- thermodynamics in fact -- and this is not a pinpoint forecast showing you where it will or won't snow this season. Instead, this is a way to help you mentally prepare yourself for what lies ahead this winter. Now you know that you might want to buy a raincoat for every day of the week in the Northwest, while in the South you will likely get away with a lighter coat or vest most of the winter. The coffee and/or whiskey are just a given no matter where you are this winter. ||||| By giving us your feedback, you can help improve your www.NOAA.gov experience. This short, anonymous survey only takes just a few minutes to complete 11 questions. Thank you for your input! Strong El Niño sets the stage for 2015-2016 winter weather October 15, 2015 Temperature - U.S. Winter Outlook: 2015-2016 (Credit: NOAA) Forecasters at NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center issued the U.S. Winter Outlook today favoring cooler and wetter weather in Southern Tier states with above-average temperatures most likely in the West and across the Northern Tier. This year’s El Niño, among the strongest on record, is expected to influence weather and climate patterns this winter by impacting the position of the Pacific jet stream. “A strong El Niño is in place and should exert a strong influence over our weather this winter,” said Mike Halpert, deputy director, NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center. “While temperature and precipitation impacts associated with El Niño are favored, El Niño is not the only player. Cold-air outbreaks and snow storms will likely occur at times this winter. However, the frequency, number and intensity of these events cannot be predicted on a seasonal timescale.” Precipitation - U.S. Winter Outlook: 2015-2016 (Credit: NOAA) Other factors that often play a role in the winter weather include the Arctic Oscillation, which influences the number of arctic air masses that penetrate into the South and nor'easters on the East Coast, and the Madden-Julian Oscillation, which can impact the number of heavy rain storms in the Pacific Northwest. The 2015 U.S. Winter Outlook (December through February): Precipitation Outlook: Wetter-than-average conditions most likely in the Southern Tier of the United States, from central and southern California, across Texas, to Florida, and up the East Coast to southern New England. Above-average precipitation is also favored in southeastern Alaska. Drier-than-average conditions most likely for Hawaii, central and western Alaska, parts of the Pacific Northwest and northern Rockies, and for areas near the Great Lakes and Ohio Valley. Temperature Outlook: Above-average temperatures are favored across much of the West and the northern half of the contiguous United States. Temperatures are also favored to be above-average in Alaska and much of Hawaii. Below-average temperatures are most likely in the southern Plains and Southeast. Drought Outlook: The U.S. Drought Outlook shows some improvement is likely in central and southern California by the end of January, but not drought removal. Additional statewide relief is possible during February and March. Drought removal is likely across large parts of the Southwest, while improvement or removal is also likely in the southern Plains. However, drought is likely to persist in the Pacific Northwest and northern Rockies, with drought development likely in Hawaii, parts of the northern Plains and in the northern Great Lakes region. Video: Winter Outlook 2015-2016. (Credit: NOAA) While it is good news that drought improvement is predicted for California, one season of above-average rain and snow is unlikely to remove four years of drought,” said Halpert. “California would need close to twice its normal rainfall to get out of drought and that's unlikely.” This seasonal outlook does not project where and when snowstorms may hit or provide total seasonal snowfall accumulations. Snow forecasts are dependent upon the strength and track of winter storms, which are generally not predictable more than a week in advance. NOAA produces seasonal outlooks to help communities prepare for what's likely to come in the next few months and minimize weather's impacts on lives and livelihoods. Empowering people with actionable forecasts and winter weather tips is key to NOAA’s effort to build a Weather-Ready Nation. NOAA’s mission is to understand and predict changes in the Earth's environment, from the depths of the ocean to the surface of the sun, and to conserve and manage our coastal and marine resources. Join us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and our other social media channels.

– People in small parts of the Northwest, northern Plains, and parts of Alaska are going to have a colder winter than usual this year, while most other Americans can expect a milder-than-average winter, according to the NOAA's latest forecast. Mike Halpert of the Climate Prediction Center says there will likely be a La Nina weather pattern that will bring more snow than usual to the northern Rockies and the Great Lakes area, while there will be less shoveling than usual to do in the mid-Atlantic region, NPR reports. There probably will be less rainfall than usual in the South, Halpert says, but more than average in much of the northern part of the lower 48. The center says there's a 55% to 65% chance of La Nina developing. Halpert tells the Washington Post that climate change caused by carbon emissions is certainly among the reasons why most of the US will have a warmer-than-average winter, though he says that unlike the previous two winters, this one is unlikely to break records. Despite a higher-than-average precipitation forecast, drought could develop in parts of the South, the NOAA says. But is the forecast accurate? CNN looks at the accuracy of the NOAA's forecast for last year and gives it a passing grade, noting that it was right about above-average temperatures across the South, though people in the Northwest had a far colder winter than the NOAA predicted.

Joe Biden Joseph (Joe) Robinette BidenShould Mike Pompeo be confirmed? FBI raid on Trump’s attorney is so political, it would have made J. Edgar Hoover blush Why Smokin' Joe leads the pack of 2020 Democratic hopefuls MORE’s office has complained to the Senate press gallery about a confrontation the vice president had with a conservative journalist last week on Capitol Hill. Biden aides asked whether Senate rules were broken in the wake of the contentious exchange between the vice president and the reporter. ADVERTISEMENT Jason Mattera, who works for Human Events, a conservative magazine, used a pretext to catch Biden off guard in a Senate hallway and grill him on claims the vice president has made about jobs legislation. Biden’s office has also contacted the standing committee of correspondents, which oversees the gallery, regarding whether Mattera broke the rules by ambushing him. Heather Rothman, the chairwoman of the gallery’s standing committee, said the matter is under review. “We’re aware of the concerns,” said Rothman, a reporter for BNA. “It’s being discussed. “We’re aware this occurred and the vice president’s office [has made] contact,” she added, noting the standing committee itself hasn’t met to deliberate the issue. The video of Wednesday’s exchange went viral, as news outlets and the Drudge Report highlighted Biden’s comment to Mattera: “Don’t screw around with me.” CNN aired a segment — including footage of the incident — the same afternoon, and a YouTube clip of the interview has already attracted more than 380,000 views. Biden had just left a rousing rally where Democratic leaders said Republican opposition to federal funding for police and firefighters threatened public safety. But the cable news coverage focused on the dust-up between Biden and Mattera. More from The Hill ♦ Obama tells Hollywood: 2012 campaign won’t be as ‘sexy’ as 2008 ♦ Obama takes fight with Republicans to mortgage battleground ♦ Hillary Clinton Hillary Diane Rodham ClintonNew Jersey governor declares 'Bon Jovi Day' Clinton to fundraise alongside possible 2020 contenders Comey’s last stand for the deep state MORE in spotlight's glare ♦ Obama campaign brings on ex-lobbyist as senior adviser ♦ GOP mocks Obama's new 'can't wait' slogan, tells Senate to act ♦ Biden 'not closing any door' on 2016 run Biden’s visible irritation might be explained by how he was lured into the short interview. As the vice president left the Russell caucus room, Mattera weaved his way through the entourage, shook Biden’s hand and asked him to pose for a photo. While shaking Biden’s hand, Mattera asked him if he felt “regret using a rape reference to describe Republican opposition to the president’s bill.” ADVERTISEMENT Biden looked momentarily frozen as what he thought was a friendly gesture turned into a pointed line of tough questions from a conservative interlocutor. Biden had just signed an autograph for an admirer and still had the pen in his hand, according to a source familiar with the incident. “I didn’t use — no, no, no,” Biden said, furrowing his brow and shaking his finger at the reporter. “What I said — let’s get it straight, guy, don’t screw around with me. Let’s get it straight. “I said rape was up three times in Flint, [Mich.]. There are the numbers. Go look at the numbers. Murder’s up, rape is up and burglary’s up. That’s exactly what I said,” Biden added. After initially balking at the questions, Biden stood by his argument that if Republicans continue to block the Democratic jobs bill, “murder will continue to rise, rape will continue to rise, all crimes will continue to rise.” The Washington Post’s fact-checker ripped Biden’s claims over the weekend, giving the vice president “four Pinocchios” and writing that he “should know better than to spout off half-baked facts in service of a dubious argument.” The Senate periodical press gallery and a spokeswoman for Biden declined to comment for this article. Mattera admits to using a pretext to momentarily disarm Biden, but argues his methods were justified. “ABC and CBS have done undercover sting operations and have done them for decades. The fact that a conservative publication goes after a public official who was misrepresenting himself and a Senate bill to the public and tries to get an answer from him, that’s great,” he said in an interview Monday. “The media should take notice that this is how you ask a question. If I had said, ‘Hey, Mr. Vice President, a question regarding your rape comments,’ he would shrug it off. “He’s not going to take questions hostile to his agenda. I want to get him in that honest moment when he doesn’t have his talking points and isn’t prepared to spin,” Mattera added. Mattera said his technique is “premised on looking to get the most honest reaction from politicians used to conning the media daily — and even their constituents.” “You shouldn’t play patty-cake with politicians to gain access,” he said. He said his request for a photo wasn’t a fabrication because someone had volunteered to snap his picture with the vice president, and noted in a follow-up email that he was wearing his press credentials. This is not the first time Mattera has confronted a high-profile politician. Mattera approached Sen. Al Franken Alan (Al) Stuart FrankenWhy Smokin' Joe leads the pack of 2020 Democratic hopefuls Pawlenty to announce bid for Minnesota governor Al Franken: Sessions firing McCabe ‘is hypocrisy at its worst’ MORE (D-Minn.) in the Dirksen Senate Office Building last year after an event and told him, “I appreciate your remarks in there. You were awesome.” Then he started peppering Franken over $7 billion in the 2010 healthcare reform bill for creating healthier school environments and repeatedly cut off his replies with follow-up questions, even referring to him as “Senator Smalley,” a reference to a character Franken once played on “Saturday Night Live.” Franken snapped: “You have to shut up right now and listen to me instead of interrupting me every time I say something.” Jill Geisler, an expert in journalistic ethics at the Poynter Institute, said pretexts can be used to report stories, but only as a last resort. “Critics and ethicists who have criticized ambush interviews have said it should be a last resort done not for drama but because other means for obtaining information have been unsuccessful,” Geisler said. “The whole question of honesty is something journalists should take quite seriously, including how they represent themselves.” Geisler said a clear-cut case where using a pretext would be appropriate would be if a journalist had solid reason to believe patients at a mental hospital were being abused but had no way to gain access to the scene without dissembling. ||||| Vice President Joe Biden now says he didn’t make a reference to rape, and got testy with HUMAN EVENTS when we asked if he would like to retract his comments that the number of sexual assaults would increase if Republicans don’t sign on to Barack Obama’s latest “jobs” proposal. “I didn’t use, no no no…Let’s get it straight, guy. Don’t screw around with me,” Biden lashed out at HUMAN EVENTS. Then Biden confirmed that he indeed did talk about rape in terms of the President’s spending measure. “Murder will continue to rise, rape will continue to rise, all crimes will continue to rise,” if the Democrats agenda isn’t passed, he added. It was on Tuesday during a speech at the University of Pennsylvania where Biden argued that another round of government spending was needed to prevent sexual assaults. “It’s not temporary [administration’s proposed stimulus] when that 911 call comes in and a woman’s being raped, if a cop shows up in time to prevent the rape. It’s not temporary to that woman.” Then in the same speech he wished Republicans were themselves rape victims. “I wish they had some notion of what it was like to be on the other side of a gun, or [to have] a 200-pound man standing over you, telling you to submit.” Biden’s demagogic language aside, police budgets are the responsibility of each individual state, not federal bureaucrats. And as Ed Morrissey at HotAir notes, the President’s “jobs” bill doesn’t go directly to hire police officers anyway. Instead, “it allows states to paper-over budget gaps for another year rather than address their systemic budgetary issues, and protect unionized bureaucrats whose jobs should be on the chopping block.” The exchange between the vice president and HUMAN EVENTS was taken on Wednesday after Biden gave a speech calling for yet another government stimulus program. This one is union-backed, and aimed at getting teachers and public-sector employees back to work. ||||| The Obama administration announced Thursday its teaming up with the New York City district attorney on a $79 million effort to speed testing of sexual assault evidence kits. The federal government will kick in $41 million in grants while New York will provide $38 million to clear a backlog of untested kits in 27 states. “When we solve these cases, we get rapists off the streets,” Vice President Biden said in a statement. “The grants we’re announcing today to reduce the national rape kit backlog will bring that sense of closure and safety to victims while improving community safety.” Biden is announcing the new funding at an event at the New York City medical examiner’s office alongside Attorney General Loretta Lynch and Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance, Jr. Biden and other officials toured a New York crime lab with "Law and Order: Special Victims Unit" actress Mariska Hargitay before delivering speeches. Biden got chuckles from the audience during his remarks in New York when speaking of Hargitay, saying, "in the new season she's a lieutenant now." "There's so much more we should be doing beyond rape kits to protect women in America – don't give up hope," Biden told those in attendance after praising rape victims for speaking up. Biden also spoke of his late son former Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden's effort on reforming the statute of limitations for reporting rape in his state. Hundreds of thousands of evidence kits have gone untested by police departments across the country. Biden claimed 50 percent of previously unsolved rapes are solved when the kits are tested. The event was part of a busy day for Biden in New York City, where he is testing his message for a possible presidential run. He will also participate in rally with New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) calling for a $15 minimum wage for fast food workers in the Empire State, appear on the “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” and headline a fundraiser for Senate Democrats. The rape kit backlog is a major issue for law enforcement and women’s groups.

– Joe Biden is not happy about the ambush interview that landed him on cable TV—and he’s letting the press gallery’s standing committee of correspondents know about it. Jason Mattera of the conservative blog Human Events caught Biden off guard last week by asking to take a photo with him while Biden was signing autographs. Then Mattera hit him with questions about factually dubious statements he’d made recently connecting rape in Flint, Michigan, to rising unemployment. “Let’s get this straight guy, don’t screw around with me,” Biden told Mattera. “I said rape was up three times in Flint,” and if the jobs bill isn’t passed “all crimes will continue to rise.” (Of course, FactCheck.org found that crime rates are actually down in Flint.) Now, Biden’s asking the correspondents committee if Mattera broke any rules by springing the questions on him, the Hill reports. Mattera, however, is unapologetic. “You shouldn’t play patty-cake with politicians to gain access,” he says.

A rare white giraffe with a genetic condition which means many of her body surface cells are incapable of making pigment has been photographed at a national park in Tanzania. Ecologist Dr Derek Lee, founder of the Wild Nature Institute (WNI) , which conducts scientific research on at-risk wildlife species, took the amazing photographs in Tarangire National Park. “Omo is leucistic, meaning many of the skin cells are incapable of making a pigment. Some are, so she is pale but not pure white, with red or blue eyes, as a true albino would be,” he explained. “Omo is the only pale giraffe we are currently aware of, but we have also observed leucistic waterbuck, Cape buffalo and ostrich in Tarangire. “Omo appears to get along with the other giraffes, she has always been seen with a large group of normally coloured giraffe, they don't seem to mind her different colouring.” Photo: DEREK LEE/ CATERS NEWS However he warned that her unique colour could make her a target for poachers in the African park. He added: “Omo is now 15 months old. She survived her first year as a small calf, which is the most dangerous time for a young giraffe due to lion, leopard and hyena preying on them. “Her chances of surviving to adulthood are good but adult giraffes are regularly poached for bush meat, and her colouration might make her a target. “We and our partners are working on giraffe conservation and anti-poaching to help give Omo and her relatives a better chance of survival. “We hope that she lives a long life and that someday she has calves of her own.” The WNI blog adds: “We were lucky enough to see her again this January, almost exactly one year [after the first sighting]. “We are thrilled that she is still alive and well. A local lodge guide christened her Omo, after a popular brand of detergent here.” ||||| Researchers recently caught a glimpse of a white giraffe named Omo in the Tanzania’s Tarangire National Park. (Photo: Screenshot) Researchers recently caught a glimpse of a white giraffe named Omo in the Tanzania's Tarangire National Park. Wild Nature Institute researchers first spotted the unusual giraffe when she was a calf during a population survey in 2015, according to a statement from the organization. “A local lodge guide christened her Omo, after a popular brand of detergent here,” the organization, which conducts scientific research, said in a blog post. While Omo may appear to be an albino, she is actually leucistic, according to the organization. “One way to tell the difference between albino and leucistic animals is that albino individuals lack melanin everywhere, including in the eyes, so the resulting eye color is red from the underlying blood vessels,” the organization said. Facebook | @I-Love-Africa I-Love-Africa - Omo who is leucistic, is the only white... | Facebook While researchers were pleased to see that Omo survived her first year, she has a long road ahead, according to ecologist and Wild Nature Institute founder Derek Lee, the Telegraph reported. “She survived her first year as a small calf, which is the most dangerous time for a young giraffe due to lion, leopard and hyena preying on them,” Lee told the Telegraph. Facebook | @I-Love-Africa I-Love-Africa - Omo who is leucistic, is the only white... | Facebook Lee said Omo's chances for reaching adulthood are good, but she may be at heightened risk of poaching because of her unique coloring, the Telegraph reported. Follow @MaryBowerman on Twitter. Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1Vntxym ||||| Photos of a female hunter showing off her “dream kill” — a black giraffe — has stirred emotions among the animal rights and hunting communities. The images of Tess Thompson Talley of Texas standing proudly next to a dead giraffe bull in Africa have surfaced from a 2017 hunting trip, after the publication, Africland Post tweeted them. “White American savage who is partly a neanderthal comes to Africa and shoot down a very rare black giraffe courtesy of South Africa stupidity,” read the June 16th tweet. “Her name is Tess Thompson Talley. Please share.” White american savage who is partly a neanderthal comes to Africa and shoot down a very rare black giraffe coutrsey of South Africa stupidity. Her name is Tess Thompson Talley. Please share pic.twitter.com/hSK93DOOaz — AfricaDigest (@africlandpost) June 16, 2018 In a June 2017 Facebook post by Thompson Talley, she wrote, “Prayers for my once in a lifetime dream hunt came true today! Spotted this rare black giraffe bull and stalked him for quite awhile. I knew it was the one. He was over 18 years old, 4,000 lbs and was blessed to be able to get 2,000 lbs of meat from him.”’ Similar to how human hair grays over time, the coat of some dominant male giraffes darkens from a mustard-and-white color to black, according to Julian Fennessy, Ph.D., co-founder of the organization Giraffe Conservation Foundation, however, supporting research is needed. “The giraffe in the photo is of the South African species Giraffa giraffa, which are not rare— they’re increasing in the wild,” Fennessy tells Yahoo Lifestyle. “Legal hunting of giraffe is not a reason for their decline, despite the moral and ethical side of it which is a different story.” The photos shocked those opposed to hunting and thousands signed various petitions in protest of trophy hunting, a practice The Humane Society calls “unethical, cruel, harmful and unsustainable.” In South Africa, where animals such as buffalo, elephants, and lion are often targeted, trophy hunting is a $2 billion-per-year industry, reports the BBC. Some people maintain that money made from trophy hunting is funneled back into local communities and even conservation efforts, however, that claim is controversial. In May, President Trump reversed Obama-era protections for endangered animals, reports The Hill. Thompson Talley did not return Yahoo Lifestyle’s request for comment. Apologies if this tweet comes across as a bit intense but I’m sick with rage. This waste of life #TessThompsonTalley is hunting beautiful creatures for a laugh. Here’s her Facebook https://t.co/1qmQVYT81U. Lets share it and give her as much abuse as possible! pic.twitter.com/dyinkAQoy7 — Tom Kay (@tomkaymusic) June 20, 2018 What is wrong with people? 😒 . _ This is #TessThompsonTalley who has made headlines lately for bragging about killing ‘a rare black giraffe bull’ (pictured) _#Giraffes are facing a silent extinction. Their population has plummeted by 40% in recent… https://t.co/EG09bRn6SS pic.twitter.com/lAYivIm4gQ — TheAliQ! (@TheAliQ) June 26, 2018 There are no words for this disgusting excuse for a human being. #TessThompsonTalley https://t.co/iDS4m0eoT3 — julie graham (@realjuliegraham) June 27, 2018 #TessThompsonTalley an amoebe has more brains than you! Yuk! Shame on you to think your life is more worth than any other living creature and gives you the right to end its life! Who are you to place yourself above any other living creature. I hope nature takes revenge at you! pic.twitter.com/fdtJP4Ve9L — ArtbyAn (@ArtbyAn) June 28, 2018 What the hell is in it for “trophy” or as we real hunters call them- “ Spoiled wealthy brats with no conscience “My kids get only what they need, during deer season.Aid population in our Southern area, less traffic accidents, and antibiotics free protein! Scab #TessThompsonTalley — Dr.ThomasBradyHorton (@Rustytigerpoo1) June 22, 2018 Thompson Talley had a few defenders of trophy hunting. However, the overall reaction from social media was negative.

– A rare 15-month-old white giraffe has made another appearance in Tanzania, leaving conservationists to hope poachers don't decide to go all Ahab on it, the Telegraph reports. According to USA Today, the unique giraffe was spotted as a calf last year in Tarangire National Park. It was seen again this month, almost exactly a year later, the Wild Nature Institute writes in a blog post. "We are thrilled that she is still alive and well," the nonprofit states. A tour guide named the pale animal Omo after a local laundry detergent, but the institute is open to other suggestions. Omo is leucistic, meaning most of her surface cells produce no pigment, explains the Wild Nature Institute. But unlike an albino, some of her cells—such as those in her eyes—can still manufacture color. The institute's founder, Dr. Derek Lee, tells the Telegraph that Omo is the only such giraffe they are aware of. “Omo appears to get along with the other giraffes; she has always been seen with a large group of normally colored giraffe," he says. "They don't seem to mind her different coloring.” But her uniqueness could make her a target for poachers, Lee says. The institute is currently working on anti-poaching efforts for all giraffes. “We hope that she lives a long life and that someday she has calves of her own,” says Lee.

If you're an art lover, owning an original Pablo Picasso must rank right up there with owning a Bugatti Veyron if you're a gearhead or obtaining a piece of toast Niall Horan didn't finish if you're a One Direction fan. So imagine being an art lover of the most supreme order and hearing that one of your fellow art buyers plans to turn an original Picasso into a 150,000-piece jigsaw puzzle. You'd probably lose consciousness. That's just one possible outcome for Picasso's "Tete de Faune" (translation: Head of a Faun). Cards Against Humanity, the game company based out of Chicago, purchased an original of the 1962 Picasso linocut for an undisclosed amount and will let supporters of its most recent holiday promotion decide whether the artwork goes to a museum or faces the business end of a laser-cutting machine. Contacted by CNET, Max Temkin, co-creator of Cards Against Humanity, declined to comment on the Picasso print. Enlarge Image Photo by Danny Gallagher/CNET Cards Against Humanity, if you've never played the party game, has participants answer questions written on black cards with the funniest and often most offensive answers they can think of from a stash of white cards. Subscribers to the company's recent Eight Sensible Gifts for Hanukkah promotion recently received an envelope in their mailboxes. The envelope contained a handwritten letter from "David M.'s dad" on the importance of culture, a second "Jew Pack" of special Cards Against Humanity cards, and a smooth card bearing Picasso's artwork. The back of the card says in bold letters, "Today, you are all going to be part of a social experiment." Insert the "Saw" theme music here. The card goes on to say that the company used the money it raised from the 150,000 subscribers to the Hanukkah promotion to purchase Picasso's "Tete de Faune" for the express purpose of either donating it to the Art Institute of Chicago or cutting it up into 150,000 squares and sending a piece (clearly a teeny tiny one) to each subscriber. Those participating in the holiday promotion will be able to vote on the fate of the artwork by going to a website sometime between Saturday, December 28 and Thursday, December 31, and casting their votes using a code printed on the card. If enough fans vote "thumbs down," the linocut goes against a laser cutter. This easily surpasses the cool big gift subscribers received from last year's holiday promotion. CAH purchased an island located on St. George Lake in Liberty, Maine, that it dubbed "Hawaii 2," and it sent ownership paperwork for one square foot of land to each subscriber. I have to admit I'm really torn about this one. As a culture appreciator, I don't want to see a work of art by one of the world's greatest artists sliced up like a deep-dish pizza. However, as someone who paid for eight Hanukkah gifts from Cards Against Humanity, I also want to receive all eight gifts. And don't give me that crud about how knowing that you saved a priceless work of art is its own reward. You can't bring "peace of mind" to Best Buy for a refund, even if you still have the receipt. ||||| The makers of Cards Against Humanity, the mildly risque party game, have another publicity stunt up their sleeves: They're threatening to cut up an original Pablo Picasso artwork. "Tete de Faune," a 1962 linocut of a faun's head by Picasso, was purchased by the pranksters using cash from 150,000 customers who each gave $15 toward Cards Against Humanity's "Eight Sensible Gifts for Hanukkah" promotion. It says the 150,000 subscribers will be able to vote whether the artwork will be donated to the Art Institute of Chicago or cut up with a laser into 150,000 1.5-mm squares and shared among them. Asked Tuesday whether he had the guts to follow through on the gimmick, one of the company's founders, Max Temkin, declined to comment. Cards Against Humanity has not disclosed how much it paid for the artwork, which is one of an edition of 50. But in 2008, an identical linocut sold at auction for $22,000. The Art Institute did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Cards Against Humanity previously used part of the money it raised through the Hanukkah promotion to buy the Chinese factory workers who make its game a week off work. It declined to say whether it would repeat the gesture, or whether the paid vacation was simply a one-off. The company's philanthropy efforts have also included buying an island in Maine that it dubbed "Hawaii 2" and vowed to preserve as wilderness, and a $500,000 donation toward scholarships for women studying in the fields of science, technology, engineering and math. Founded with a small Kickstarter campaign in 2010, Cards Against Humanity is an adult fill-in-the-blanks game that has proved a big hit with consumers and critics. While the Picasso stunt is certain to infuriate some, it pales when compared to the art prank created by members of British 1990s pop group KLF, who burned a million pounds in cash — nearly their entire career earnings — in 1994. kjanssen@tribpub.com Twitter @kimjnews ||||| How would you like to own one-fifteen thousandth of a Picasso? That's what Cards Against Humanity (CAH) is asking the 150,000 customers who subscribed to its Eight Sensible Gifts For Hanukkah. Sort of. Each year, the irreverent, Kickstarter-funded card game offers a holiday special card pack of sorts. This year, it was the Hanukkah themed Eight Sensible Gifts consisting of eight individual presents mailed out over the course of the eight-night Jewish holiday. Last year the CAH team gave away one square foot of a private island in Maine to the 250,000 participants in the Ten Days or Whatever of Kwanzaa. Like we said, they're irreverent. For Hanukkah, CAH's first three "gifts" were all pairs of socks. Then came a membership to WBEZ, Chicago's NPR station, and a one-week paid vacation for workers at CAH's Chinese printing partner. But the seventh gift is when things get interesting. Donate it to a museum or cut it into 150,000 tiny squares The Cards Against Humanity crew used some of the $2.25 million in revenue it made from the Hanukkah product to buy Tête de Faune (Head of a Faun), an original 1962 Picasso. CAH is offering its customers a chance to vote on what should happen to the painting: donate it to the Art Institute of Chicago, or "laser-cut it into 150,000 tiny squares and send everyone their own scrap of a real Picasso." A little sleuthing shows that the Picasso in question may be this signed print, purchased for 14,000 Swiss francs (about $14,100) from Swiss auction house Koller this past June. The CAH website includes this video of what appears to be the Picasso print being laser scanned. Voting begins on the day after Christmas and runs through the end of the year, and you must have purchased the Eight Sensible Gifts to participate. Cards Against Humanity founder Max Temkin refused to share any additional information about the Picasso until "after the votes are in." We would say "we know you'll do the right thing, internet," but knowing the Cards Against Humanity target audience, we're not sure what to expect.

– Should Pablo Picasso's "Tete de Faune" be donated to a museum or cut up into tiny pieces? The decision rests with fans of Cards Against Humanity—the game that's managed to get people to spend their hard-earned cash on poop and, well, nothing at all. With some of the $2.25 million received from 150,000 subscribers who signed up for the company's "Eight Sensible Gifts for Hanukkah" promotion—which included the gift of a one-week paid vacation for workers at the Chinese factory where Cards Against Humanity is made—the company purchased the 1962 Picasso linocut known in English as "Head of a Faun" and decided to host a "social experiment," report CNET and the Verge. It asked the subscribers to vote on whether the work should be donated to the Art Institute of Chicago or cut into 150,000 pieces so each subscriber can have their "own scrap of a real Picasso." Should fans choose the latter option, each scrap of the linocut—one of an edition of 50, likely worth about $22,000, per the Chicago Tribune—will measure 1.5mm, the company says. Subscribers will vote from Dec. 26 until New Year's Eve. So far Cards Against Humanity founder Max Temkin has kept his lips sealed about whether he'll actually follow through with the stunt. But the company did something awfully similar last year, giving a square foot of an island to each of 250,000 fans who signed up for its "Ten Days or Whatever of Kwanzaa" campaign. While subscribers weigh their decisions, Temkin and partners are busy working on another game, Secret Hitler, which just wrapped up a $1.2 million Kickstarter campaign, per the Tribune. Players are assigned political identities and attempt to enact supporting policies while keeping their identities secret. It's expected to ship to 30,000 backers in April. (There's also this sex game.)

Beidaihe is a Chinese combination of the Jersey Shore and Martha’s Vineyard, with a pinch of red fervor: the hilly streets and public beaches are packed with shirtless Russians and Chinese families, while the party elites remain hidden in their villas and on their private patches of sand. A clock tower near Kiessling chimes “The East is Red,” a classic Mao anthem. Photo The security presence has surged in recent weeks. Police officers in light blue uniforms patrol on Suzuki motorcycles and stand on street corners watching for jaywalkers. They have set up a checkpoint on the main road leading into town. The informal talks are expected to start late this month and run into August, continuing a tradition that went into partial eclipse after China’s top leader, President Hu Jintao, took over from Jiang Zemin in 2002, and ordered party and government offices to stop more formal operations from the seaside during the summer palaver. But Mr. Jiang reportedly chafed at that and continued hobnobbing here with his allies. There was a notable conclave here in 2007 that Mr. Hu attended, to pave the way for the 17th Party Congress, according to scholars and a State Department cable disclosed by WikiLeaks. In any case, politicking is inevitable when party elders show up to escape the stifling heat and pollution of Beijing. Westerners began building up Beidaihe as a summer retreat in the late 19th century, as the Qing dynasty waned. When the People’s Liberation Army entered in 1948, the resort had 719 villas, according to China Daily, a state-run English-language newspaper. Communist leaders began vacationing here. Mao was an avid swimmer and dove eagerly into the waters of the Bohai Sea. He convened formal conclaves here. His successor, Deng Xiaoping, made the meetings into annual events (he also took swims, supposedly to counter rumors of his ailing health). The most infamous event at Beidaihe involved Lin Biao, a Communist marshal whom Mao accused of plotting a coup. On Sept. 13, 1971, after the coup attempt was supposedly discovered, Mr. Lin fled his villa here with his wife and a son and boarded a plane at the local airport. Their destination was the Soviet Union, but the plane crashed in Mongolia, killing everyone on board. Photo There are plots and counterplots this year, too. Negotiations here will be complicated by the continuing scandal over Bo Xilai, the deposed Politburo member who was most recently party chief of Chongqing. Some political observers had expected that by now the party would have concluded the investigation into Mr. Bo and his wife, who is suspected of killing a British businessman. Several people with high-level party ties say that Mr. Bo, who is being held in secret and without charges, is fighting back against interrogators, and that party leaders are having a difficult time deciding how to resolve his case. Advertisement Continue reading the main story During the negotiations, each current Standing Committee member should, at least in theory, have considerable say in determining the successor to his particular post. But party elders behind the scenes sometimes wield more authority. Mr. Jiang, though retired and ailing last year, may carry the greatest weight next to that of Mr. Hu. The heir apparent, Vice President Xi Jinping, also plays a role. “Consensus among these three — the former, current and incoming leaders — is extremely important,” said Zhang Xiaojin, a political scientist at Tsinghua University in Beijing. Newsletter Sign Up Continue reading the main story Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up You agree to receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times's products and services. Thank you for subscribing. An error has occurred. Please try again later. View all New York Times newsletters. A flurry of activity in recent months has laid the groundwork. In May, more than 300 senior cadres were asked at a meeting to list the officials they thought should make the Politburo Standing Committee, where all the seats are in play except for the top two. Those are expected to go to Mr. Xi and Li Keqiang, who is slated to take over as prime minister. Polling of senior party members was also done before the 2007 congress. Such surveys are intended as reference points only, though they have become increasingly important. Talk is swirling in Beijing over the results of the May polling. One member of the party elite said several people associated with Mr. Hu’s political base did not do well. Two insiders said one person who ranked high was Wang Qishan, a vice prime minister who oversees the financial sector. Party leaders are considering reducing the number of Standing Committee seats to seven from nine, as was the case as recently as 2002, many insiders say. Mr. Hu is believed to support the change, which is in part aimed at curbing the entrenchment of interest groups at the top. That could mean taking two portfolios — probably propaganda and one dubbed “politics and law” that encompasses domestic security — and either adding them to the duties of other leaders or downgrading them to the Politburo level. Photo “With fewer people, they can concentrate power and increase their efficiency,” said one official at a state news media organization. But there are other possible motives. The rapid expansion of security powers under Zhou Yongkang, the current Standing Committee member who heads the politics and law committee and supported Mr. Bo, has alarmed some party leaders, political analysts say. Since assuming the post in 2007, Mr. Zhou has capitalized on Mr. Hu’s focus on stability to build up the security apparatus, whose budget this year is officially $111 billion, $5 billion more than the military budget. “The politics and law apparatus has grown too powerful,” an intelligence official said. “A lot of us feel this way.” Advertisement Continue reading the main story A contraction of the Standing Committee could also hurt those vying for seats who are not among the very top candidates, most notably Wang Yang, the party chief of Guangdong Province, who cultivates a progressive image. The size and structure of the leadership have been a matter of continuing discussion. One analyst with ties to officials involved in party planning said that at the May meeting, cadres were also asked to submit their views on changing the composition of the party’s upper echelons, in a glimpse of what may be called intraparty democracy. Though few changes were expected anytime soon, “a lot of people had very different ideas,” he said. Those debates are remote from the lives of most people in Beidaihe. Yet talk of politics flows loosely here. At a beach reserved for local officials, next to an almost-deserted patch of sand blocked off for party leaders, a retired official in swim trunks pointed to the villas across the road. He said the children of party leaders had made off with too much money through corrupt practices in state industries. Emblematic of the distance between officials and those they rule, he said, is the fact that the party leaders vacationing here nowadays refuse to go into the sea, which is brown from runoff. Ordinary people swim in those waters, but the leaders take dips in swimming pools, including one built recently that is filled with filtered seawater. “What are they good for?” the retired official asked. “What did they inherit from their fathers? They should have inherited the solidarity of the revolution.” ||||| Disclosures show how havens such as British Virgin Islands hide links between big business and relatives of top politicians The eight members of China’s Communist party elite whose family members used offshore companies are revealed in the Panama Papers. The documents show the granddaughter of a powerful Chinese leader became the sole shareholder in two British Virgin Islands companies while still a teenager. Jasmine Li had just begun studying at Stanford University in the US when the companies were registered in her name in December 2010. Her grandfather Jia Qinglin was at that time the fourth-ranked politician in China. Other prominent figures who have taken advantage of offshore companies include the brother-in-law of the president, Xi Jinping, and the son-in-law of Zhang Gaoli, another member of China’s top political body, the politburo standing committee. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Jasmine Li (centre) at the Crillon debutante ball for Vanity Fair magazine in Paris, France. Photograph: Jonathan Becker/Contour by Getty Images They are part of the “red nobility”, whose influence extends well beyond politics. Others include the daughter of Li Peng, who oversaw the brutal retaliation against Tiananmen Square protesters; and Gu Kailai, wife of Bo Xilai, the ex-politburo member jailed for life for corruption and power abuses. The French villa at the heart of a Chinese scandal Read more The relatives had companies that were clients of the offshore law firm Mossack Fonseca. There is nothing in the documents to suggest that the politicians in question had any beneficial interest in the companies connected to their family members. Since Monday, China’s censors have been blocking access to the unfolding revelations about its most senior political families. There are now reports of censors deleting hundreds of posts on the social networks Sina Weibo and Wechat, and some media organisations including CNN say parts of their websites have been blocked. The disclosures come amid Xi Jinping’s crackdown on behaviour that could embarrass the Communist party. Two more well-connected figures – the brother of former vice-president Zeng Qinghong and the son of former politburo member Tian Jiyun – are directors of a single offshore company. They have previously been linked in a court case that highlighted how some Chinese “princelings” have used political connections for financial gain. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Jia Qinglin is Jasmine Li’s grandfather. Photograph: Scott Barbour/Getty Images They have emerged from the internal data of the offshore law firm Mossack Fonseca, obtained by the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung and shared by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) in Washington with the Guardian, the BBC and other media. China and Hong Kong were Mossack Fonseca’s biggest sources of business, with clients from these jurisdictions linked to a total of 40,000 companies past and present. About a quarter of these are thought to be live: in 2015, records show the firm was collecting fees for nearly 10,000 companies linked to Hong Kong and China. The Mossack Fonseca franchise now has offices in eight Chinese cities, according to its website. There are many legitimate reasons to use offshore companies. Individuals living in multiple jurisdictions find them convenient, and in China they are often used as a way to attract and safeguard investment from overseas. While there is no indication of any wrongdoing, the leaks draw unwelcome attention to the wealth of leaders’ families. In some cases, they show how secrecy havens are being used to create and hide potentially lucrative connections between big business and politics in the world’s second-largest economy. Even as officials advertise their zeal in targeting corruption by hunting assets overseas and checking on the relatives of officials, they remain highly sensitive to the disclosure of the business interests of top leaders’ families. In 2014, the websites of the Guardian and several other media outlets were blocked for several months after revealing such offshore holdings. Xi’s brother-in-law Deng Jiagui and Li’s daughter Li Xiaolin were named in those leaks, too. The new documents therefore indicate multiple offshore holdings. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Tian Jiyun is a former politburo member whose son is linked to an offshore company. Photograph: Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images Xi’s harsh anti-corruption drive has brought down a host of high-ranking figures. In December, he urged politburo members “to strictly educate and supervise their children and other family members as well as subordinates, and to rectify their problems in a timely manner”. He urged members of the 25-strong body to not only have integrity but “stay away from vulgar taste and set good examples for other cadres and the general public”. In other words, avoiding wrongdoing is not enough, impressions count, too. A world of hidden wealth: why we are shining a light offshore Read more Xi’s daughter, Xi Mingze, studied at Harvard but kept a low profile, living under an assumed name. In contrast, Jasmine Li came to public attention when Vogue featured her in a floor-length Carolina Herrera gown at the Hotel de Crillon’s annual debutante ball in Paris in 2009. She was presented alongside Lady Kitty Spencer, niece of Diana, Princess of Wales, and the daughter of Clint Eastwood. The following year, shortly after beginning a course in international relations at Stanford, she was recorded as the sole shareholder of two entities registered in the British Virgin Islands, Harvest Sun Trading Limited and Xin Sheng Investments Limited. These companies established at least two businesses in Beijing, with a combined registered capital of £200,000, described on the register as specialising in “investment and consulting”. The leaked data reveals Harvest Sun was incorporated in July 2009 and that its first shareholder was someone apparently unconnected to Li: a 57-year-old Hong Kong entrepreneur known as the King of Watches. Cheung Yu Ping’s firm, Hengdeli, is valued at $470m on the Hong Kong stock exchange and is one of the world’s biggest sellers of Swiss watches by volume. It supplies pieces by Cartier and TAG Heuer to China’s new rich. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Li Peng, the father of Li Xiaolin. Photograph: Sportsphoto/Allstar In December 2010, Cheung passed his shares in Harvest Sun to Li for just $1. A lawyer for Cheung said the company had contained no assets at the time of transfer. He explained: “Our client had no relationship with Ms Li, who was introduced to our client by some business partners for taking up the company without the need to set up another shell company herself. Our client considered the consideration of the transfer reasonable as the company was only a shell company with no assets inside.” Li did not respond to requests for comment. Politically exposed persons – or PEPs, public officials, their families and known associates – are considered high risk clients by those providing offshore services. Mossack Fonseca said: “We have duly established policies and procedures to identify and handle those cases where individuals either qualify as PEPs or are related to them … Enhanced due diligence procedures apply in these cases.” The president’s brother-in-law Facebook Twitter Pinterest Xi Jinping attends a meeting with foreign experts at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. Photograph: Ed Jones/AFP/Getty Images Xi Jinping’s brother-in-law Deng Jiagui was a shareholder in two BVI companies, Wealth Ming International and Best Effect Enterprises. Deng appeared on the shareholder registers of both companies in September 2009. They both existed for roughly 18 months before being closed in April 2011 and October 2010 respectively. The previous leak of offshore documents revealed Deng owned a 50% stake in the BVI-incorporated Excellence Effort Property Development. Ownership of the remainder of the company has been traced back to two Chinese property tycoons. Deng is married to Xi’s older sister, and together they built a fortune through investments in property and natural resources. In 2012, they were reported to hold stakes in companies with total assets of $376m, and an indirect 18% share in a minerals company worth $2bn. Since Xi became president, they have pulled out of many of their investments. Thanks to his close connection to the centre of Chinese power, Deng qualifies as a PEP. Banks, registered agents and professionals such as lawyers are obliged to carry out detailed checks on the source of funds when managing money for politicians, public officials, their families and close associates. Deng was the named shareholder and had given the firm his Hong Kong identity papers. But Mossack Fonseca’s files did not list him as a PEP, raising questions about whether detailed checks were made on what his offshore vehicles were used for. Deng did not respond to requests for comment. The power queen Facebook Twitter Pinterest Li Xiaolin in March 2011 in Beijing. Photograph: Feng Li/Getty Images Former premier Li Peng is known by his detractors as the “butcher of Beijing” for his part in the bloody crackdown on the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests. In 1994, a BVI company called Cofic Investments Limited, ultimately owned by his daughter Li Xiaolin, was incorporated. Her fortune has been estimated at $550m, and she has made a name as China’s “power queen” after a career spent running electricity-generating businesses. She is vice-president of state-owned power group China Datang Corporation. Li is noted in China for conspicuous consumption – her appearance in a pink Pucci trouser suit at the annual meeting of a top government advisory body prompted a widely shared social media post that suggested the 12,000 yuan (£1,300) price tag was equivalent to warm clothes for 200 poor children. All mention of Panama Papers banned from Chinese websites Read more Previous ICIJ investigations have linked her to two other BVI companies, and to Swiss bank accounts. Li and her husband, Liu Zhiyuan, were revealed as the beneficiaries of five bank accounts that together held as much as $2.48m in 2006-07. Li’s identity became known to Mossack Fonseca when BVI regulators asked for information about Cofic in 2015, and inquiries were made with the Geneva law firm that represented it. Cofic’s directors at this time were two partners in the firm, Charles-André Junod and Alain Bruno Lévy. Its shareholder, however, was a secretive Liechtenstein entity called Fondation Silo, whose beneficial owners were named by Junod as Li and her husband. When asked about his clients, Junod sent their passports to Mossack Fonseca with the following explanation: “Regarding the source of funds, it is business profits: my clients have provided, through Cofic, services to other clients of my office who were exporting heavy industrial equipment from Europe to China.” Cofic held a Swiss bank account at UBS and another with the asset manager Mirelis InvesTrust, the files show. Junod said: “In our activity, we have always been acting in full compliance with laws and regulations governing our profession.” Li did not respond to requests for comment. The Hong Kong lobbyists Facebook Twitter Pinterest Zeng Qinghong, whose younger brother has been linked to tax havens. Photograph: Reuters/CORBIS Zeng Qinghong was China’s vice-president until 2008. His younger brother, Zeng Qinghuai, is well known in Hong Kong, having worked there as an envoy for the ministry of culture. He was a consultant to Beginning of the Great Revival, a state-produced propaganda movie which, according to the New York Times, “exemplified the hand-in-glove relationship between business and politics”. Government offices and schools were ordered to buy tickets and any criticism was censored. State support ensured it was one of 2011’s top grossing films. The Panama Papers reveal that Zeng Qinghuai is a director of a company called Chinese Cultural Exchange Association Ltd, registered first in the tiny South Pacific island of Niue, then in Samoa. He sits on the board alongside another princeling, Tian Chenggang, son of the former vice-premier and politburo member Tian Jiyun. A 2012 court case, in which Tian Chenggang unsuccessfully sued a developer called Beijing Henderson Properties, shed new light on the business dealings of the red nobility. The court in Hong Kong heard that Tian and a company linked to Zeng had been separately engaged to lobby regulators on behalf of Henderson when it was under investigation for breaching foreign exchange regulations in 2006. An exchange of letters disclosed in court suggested Tian’s father had written to the regulators to plead leniency. In the event, the fine imposed was smaller than expected. Companies linked to Zeng received fees of $2.1m and $650,000. Henderson rejected Tian’s demand for $5.5m, so Tian sued for the money but lost. The judge’s summing up said of him: “He tried to project an air of superiority … His attitude was contemptuous and disrespectful.” Zeng and Tian did not respond to requests for comment. The others Facebook Twitter Pinterest Zhang Gaoli is one of China’s seven most powerful politicians. Photograph: How Hwee Young/EPA Also in the data are Hu Dehua, the businessman son of Hu Yaobang, the Communist party’s general secretary ousted in 1987 because he was seen as too liberal – and, some sympathisers say, for his attempts to root out corruption among leaders’ families. Hu has interests in technology and energy, and is registered as sole shareholder of a BVI entity called Fortalent International Holdings. Hu did not respond to requests for comment. The Hong Kong businessman Lee Shing Put is married to the adoptive daughter of Zhang Gaoli, who is China’s senior vice-premier. As a member of the politburo standing committee, he is one of the seven most powerful politicians in China. His son-in-law Lee worked for Xinyi, a glass, plastics and solar power manufacturer founded by Lee’s father, but resigned in 2008, according to the company. He is listed as a shareholder in Sino Reliance Networks Corporation, now closed, Glory Top Investments and Zennon Capital Management. At the time of his father-in-law’s elevation to the politburo, Lee, who did not respond to requests for comment, was a director of 17 Hong Kong companies, the South China Morning Post reported. Panama Papers reporting team: Juliette Garside, Luke Harding, Holly Watt, David Pegg, Helena Bengtsson, Simon Bowers, Owen Gibson and Nick Hopkins

– With China's once-a-decade leadership transition coming this fall, the country's powerbrokers are now in the thick of furious and extremely hush-hush negotiations over who will guide the world's most populous country for the next decade. And in the brutal heat and pollution of the Beijing summer, China's most important politicians head to the beach—specifically, the resort town of Beidaihe, "a Chinese combination of the Jersey Shore and Martha’s Vineyard" that lies 180 miles east of the capital, reports the New York Times. President Hu Jintao tried cracking down on the Beidaihe gatherings when he took power in 2002, but many in the party bucked hard and today the resort town is as important as ever. And in the face of a worsening economic slowdown and the fallout of the Bo Xilai scandal, the struggle for power is growing fiercer, notes the AP. But with expensive private villas and swimming spots for rich party leaders dominating this beach town, many party elders are unhappy with the rising generation of leaders. "What are they good for?" asked one retired official. "What did they inherit from their fathers? They should have inherited the solidarity of the revolution."

Police have arrested three men over the suspected rape and murder of a teenager who had protested against village elders' harassment of her father in India's east, an officer said Wednesday. The father of the 16-year-old said she went missing after trying to save him from being attacked by village elders as punishment for failing to repay a loan, according to the officer. Elders of the village council in West Bengal state instead turned on the girl on Monday night and demanded she lick spittle off the ground, the NDTV network quoted villagers as saying. The girl had begged the elders not to thrash her father, who had been brought before them over the loan to borrow a tractor, local media reported. Village elders still hold huge sway in deeply impoverished Indian villages and often act as a parallel legal system, settling disputes and handing down judgements. "Police arrested three people after the girl's father lodged a complaint that she was raped and murdered," additional superintendent of police James Kujur told AFP. "Her father named 13 persons in the complaint. We are investigating the case," said Kujur, who visited the crime scene in Jalpaiguri district. "The girl went missing after she protested at the village council, who had called her father asking him to settle his dues for hiring a power tiller from a villager." Police said the girl's body, discovered on Tuesday morning, has been sent for post mortem examination as police attempt to unravel yet another case of suspected sexual violence. India introduced tougher laws to deter rapists following public outrage over the 2012 fatal gang-rape of a student on a moving bus in New Delhi. But attacks against women have continued unabated in many parts of the country. Police found the girl's body on railway tracks near her home in Dhupguri village 680 kilometres (422 miles) north of Kolkata. They have arrested three members of the village council for questioning but no charges have been laid. Council elders told local media they were not involved in the girl's death and said they had not assaulted the father. str-tha/cc/sm ||||| NEW DELHI (AP) — A 14-year-old girl was dragged into a forest and raped on the orders of a village council in remote eastern India in retaliation for a sex assault blamed on her brother, her family and police said Friday. Jitendra Singh, a top local police official, said two men have been arrested in the rape case. They include the village headman and the main suspect, identified as the husband of the woman who was allegedly molested by the victim's brother. The victim's brother has also been arrested on charges of molestation. The girl's mother told CNN-IBN news channel that she pleaded with the council and other villagers when they ordered the rape but no one listened. "We kept begging them. We begged with folded hands but they would not listen. They dragged her away to the forest," she said. The attack took place after midnight on Sunday in a small village in Jharkhand state's Bokaro district. "They attacked her in retaliation and we are taking this case very seriously," Singh said, adding that police expect to complete the investigation and file charges in the next few days. Across much of rural India, deeply conservative local councils wield great power. They can pass decrees on any subject they choose — from how women should dress to whether young lovers deserve to live or die. They usually enforce strict social norms about marriage and gender roles. In January, a council of elders in West Bengal state had ordered the gang rape of a 20-year-old woman as punishment for falling in love with the man from a different community. The village councils are often the only practical means of delivering justice in areas where local governments are either too far away or too ineffective to settle disputes. Their power is often derived from the fact that they can order that villagers be ostracized for ignoring their decrees. In some of the most extreme cases, the councils have sanctioned so-called honor killings, usually against men and women suspected of out-of-wedlock sex or marrying outside the community.

– A girl has been raped in northern India after a village council ordered the crime as payback for her brother's actions, according to police and her family. The Wall Street Journal reports the teen's brother stands accused of trying to sexually assault the wife of Birju Pasi, with the Jharkhand police chief telling the BBC the wife was "the victim of misbehavior on the part of the girl's brother." He says the girl, 14, was raped Monday by Pasi "out of retaliation" and that "the head of the village was instrumental in provoking this rape on the victim." Both men have been arrested, as has the girl's brother. The girl's mother tells the AP, "We begged with folded hands but [the village council] would not listen. They dragged her away to the forest." A police rep says that her father later took her to a police station, her clothes "smeared with blood." The Journal notes that unelected village councils, like the one in question, are common in India, though they are illegal. The case is just the latest in a string of disturbing rapes in India. Police announced this week they will exhume the bodies of two teenage girls who were gang-raped and hanged in May in order to perform autopsies.

The casting of white British actor Joseph Fiennes as Michael Jackson in an upcoming U.K. film has left fans of the late King of Pop in a state of bewilderment and shock, with many airing their grievances on social media. Fiennes will co-star as Jackson in a movie titled Elizabeth, Michael & Marlon set to premiere later this year. The film is a comedic retelling of a fabled story involving the King of Pop, Elizabeth Taylor, and Marlon Brando on a road trip from New York City to Los Angeles on Sept. 11, 2001. Acclaimed actors Stockard Channing and Brian Cox as Taylor and Brando, respectively, are so pitch-perfectly cast that neither requires much if any further explanation. But Fiennes as Jackson is a whole different story altogether. Fiennes spoke about the bizarre project and acknowledged that playing the megastar Jackson would be “a challenge.” The Shakespeare In Love actor also discussed the tone of this bizarre comedy based on a disputed Vanity Fair story about the trio of legends who, unable to secure a flight out of New York on the day of the 9/11 attacks, took their show on the road. “I got the script the other day,” Fiennes explained to WENN. “It’s a challenge. It’s a comedy. It doesn’t poke mean fun but it’s a story, possibly urban legend, whereby Michael, Marlon Brando, and Liz Taylor were all together the day before 9/11 doing a concert. Airspace was shut down and they couldn’t get out and Michael had the bright idea to go to hire a car and drive. “So the three of them got in a car and drove 500 miles to Los Angeles. It took them a while because they had to stop at a lot of Burger Kings for Marlon, but they got out!” Fiennes didn’t say much, however, to address the 500-pound elephant (no, not Brando) in the room: Why was a white actor cast to play an African American entertainer? Even with Jackson’s specific physical attributes at that point in his life—he suffered from vitiligo, which causes the skin to lose its pigment—it’s not beyond reason to consider that there are qualified black actors out there that could convincingly portray Michael Jackson. One has to wonder if there is all that much consideration given to getting this “right” at all, especially when considering these industries’ inherent preference for white faces to sell. Of course, this latest bit of questionable casting comes in the midst of a highly visible dialogue on race in mainstream cinema. The lack of diversity among this year’s Academy Award nominees has led to a revamp of the voting system and of the Academy itself, as well as a much larger conversation on opportunities in front of and behind the camera throughout the many tiers of Hollywood. While Brits Charlotte Rampling and Michael Caine shrugged off the #OscarsSoWhite campaign (Rampling even said it was “racist against whites”), U.K. star Idris Elba recently spoke to the Houses of Parliament regarding the lack of varied opportunities for non-white actors in British entertainment and how it affected him both as a black fan and as a black actor. “Because I never saw myself on TV, I stopped watching TV,” he said. “Instead I decided to just go out and become TV. “There wasn’t enough imagination in the industry for me to be seen as a lead,” Elba said. “When you don’t reflect the real world, too much talent gets trashed. Thrown on the scrapheap. Talent is everywhere, opportunity isn’t. And talent can’t reach opportunity.” Elba also shared his belief that Hollywood was far ahead of the U.K. regarding opportunities for people of color. “I went to America because I was running out of parts,” he said. “The USA has the most famous diversity policy of all: the American Dream. I want that British dream.” If Hollywood is the standard-bearer for opportunity, then we should all be deeply concerned about the state of diversity in the film industry. That isn’t intended to be glib, but to convey the gravity of the problem; how deeply we must go to uproot and rectify it. There is both a casual ambivalence and quiet hostility towards broadening the range of opportunities for non-white stars to truly thrive in the mainstream, and things like casting a white man to play Michael Jackson only serve as further proof that there are filmmakers who are deeply determined to tune out the cultural conversation. Get The Beast In Your Inbox! Daily Digest Start and finish your day with the top stories from The Daily Beast. Cheat Sheet A speedy, smart summary of all the news you need to know (and nothing you don't). By clicking “Subscribe,” you agree to have read the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Subscribe Thank You! You are now subscribed to the Daily Digest and Cheat Sheet. We will not share your email with anyone for any reason. British actor and Sons of Anarchy star Charlie Hunnam was announced as the lead in the upcoming American Drug Lord, the story of Mexican-American Edgar Valdez Villarreal, who went from Texas high school football star to brutal cartel leader known as “La Barbie.” Villareal’s nickname was attributed to the fact that he had blue eyes and a fair complexion, “like a Ken doll.” “It seems not well thought-through to be upset over casting an excellent actor to act as a character with whom he seems to share many physical resemblances,” argued producer Vincent Newman. “I suppose those offended by this would have disqualified Al Pacino from acting as Tony Montana or James Caan as Sonny Corleone. It’s acting after all, and the merit of the choice will be assessed as it is with all casting choices, on the quality and believability of his performance.” Pacino’s famously over-the-top faux Cubano Scarface shtick isn’t exactly the best performance to cite as far as white actors tackling “ethnic” characters, but when there is already evidence of clear racial bias in which actors are even considered for roles in the first place, it should be clear why casting Fiennes as the famously pale Jackson or Hunnam as La Barbie raises questions. How many actually black or Latino actors had the opportunity to land these roles? How many producers already know from the first reading of the script that they would prefer to cast white guys who look like non-white guys as opposed to proper black/Latino leads? These are questions that recognize how racial biases in casting, green-lighting, and marketing films are as detrimental as flagrant racist contempt. And long after awards season has passed, we’ll be left to answer these questions if we are committed to addressing the disparities that lead to white guys deciding who and what goes on screen. Joseph Fiennes as Michael Jackson is a symptom of a deeper sickness that moviemakers are only now beginning to treat. This movie won’t be the final say on this subject, but as it happens, it adds fuel to a very necessary conversation. Here’s hoping major film studios in both America and Britain pay closer attention to that conversation and do more than pay lip service to those initiating it. And here’s hoping we don’t get a Ralph Fiennes cameo as Jermaine. ||||| Tiziana Fabi/AFP/Getty Images If we’re to believe Elizabeth Taylor’s former assistant Sam Kashner, in the days immediately following the Sept. 11 attacks, Taylor, Michael Jackson, and Marlon Brando took a road trip together in an attempt to flee New York City. The story is of dubious nature even when you consider the bizarre tics and lifestyles of the three major players involved, but that doesn’t make it any less entertaining to imagine, as Zadie Smith did in a humorous short fiction story for the New Yorker last year. And so it’s only natural that someone would want to recreate this urban legend for the screen. Aisha Harris Aisha Harris is a Slate culture writer and host of the Slate podcast Represent. Enter Scottish journalist Neil Forsyth, who has written the untitled half-hour TV special adaptation, and which has now announced its main stars: Stockard Channing as Taylor, Brian Cox as Brando, and … Joseph Fiennes as the King of Pop???* Advertisement Ah, yes—Fiennes, a white English actor probably best known for playing Shakespeare, in love, is portraying the most iconic black American musician in the world. The announcement is certainly deserving of a double take, but if you think about it, this issue was bound to come up sooner or later: In any serious film involving a depiction of Jackson spanning several decades (or just covering his late-’80s period from Bad on), the question of whether you cast a black or white actor (or both) to play the part seems like a legitimate thing to ponder. After all, Jackson himself embraced his ever-morphing physical appearance both in life and in his music videos, and so taking creative liberties for a movie about him shouldn’t seem totally out of line, right? The answer to that question, dear casting director, should be obvious: Nope, you don’t cast a white actor to play Michael Jackson—you get a black guy to play him, because MJ was black even when he was “white.” Just because our relationship and understanding of him evolved as his persona became more feminine and his skin tone more pale, that doesn’t mean he was a fundamentally different person—he was still the same guy who donned a wildly amazing ’fro on the cover of Off the Wall, the same dynamic superstar who had to fight to get his music videos played on MTV in the early ’80s because they were reluctant to play black artists at the time. Even long after he had made his physical transformation and black people accused him of racial self-hatred, he was still a guy who spoke unabashedly about how poorly the music industry has treated black artists in comparison to white ones. And even more obviously, you don’t cast a white actor to play Michael Jackson, because you’ve learned from the years of Hollywood whitewashing leading all the way up to last year, when Emma Stone was cast as an Asian character in Aloha. YouTube Nope, it’s still a terrible idea. Find the right black actor who can perfectly capture all of Jackson’s complexities—his femininity, his weirdness, his naiveté, and yes, his black cultural upbringing—and invest in better makeup and prosthetics than whoever was in charge of that terrible Man in the Mirror movie. Or cast a light-skinned black actor in the role. But casting a white actor in the role is uninspired, an easy way to ignore just how complicated he really was. And if there’s anything Jackson taught us, it’s that nothing is so simple as black or white. ||||| Photo: Getty Images Michael Jackson may have been adamant about not wanting a white person to portray him, but Joseph Fiennes, a white actor who will play the black music icon in a 9/11 road-trip comedy airing on British TV, says his whitewashed depiction of the King of Pop is a case of artistic license. Fiennes tells the AP, “I deal in imagination, so I don’t think imagination should have rules stamped on them” — and insists the “colorblind” casting wasn’t meant to be offensive: “If it promotes stereotyping, then it’s wrong. I made a distinction that the Jackson project doesn’t do that.” Still, even Fiennes admits that he “wouldn’t be the guy for the job” if the project were anything more than a 20-minute “sweet comedy” sketch. (The project also stars Stockard Channing as Liz Taylor and Brian Cox as Marlon Brando.) “This is territory that is sensitive,” he says. “One must determine if this portrayal is one that is going to be positive entertainment, and one that will not bring about division and put anyone’s noses out of joint, so I went with the mind that this was a positive, lighthearted comedy.” He likens his role to a black actress he once saw play Marilyn Monroe at the National Theatre, and decries the “lack of imagination” that kept some critics from accepting the race-bent casting. ||||| Twitter Joseph Fiennes; Michael Jackson This news is not coming from The Onion. I repeat: This is really happening. A white man has been cast to play Michael Jackson in Elizabeth, Michael and Marlon, a British TV movie about three celebrities escaping from New York City during 9/11. The urban legend concerning Jackson, Elizabeth Taylor and Marlon Brando during 9/11 goes a little something this: Jackson was in town for his huge Madison Square Garden concert, but once chaos broke out, and since air travel was shut down after the twin towers collapsed, Brando, Jackson and Taylor got a rental car and drove west, but only got as far as Ohio. The story has been disputed by Taylor’s former assistant, but I guess it’ll make for an interesting story to tell. But who cares about the story, right? Why in the world is a white man playing Michael Jackson? Did they also cast a black man as Marlon Brando? Or an Asian woman as Elizabeth Taylor? Of course not. Brian Cox will play Brando and Stockard Channing will play Taylor, according to The Guardian. Fiennes said the script was “a challenge,” adding: “It’s a fun, lighthearted, tongue-in-cheek road trip of what celebrity of that kind is like. But also it’s rather beautiful and poignant about their relationships.” A challenge, you say? Yeah, I can see how difficult it would be as a white man to play the black King of Pop. And yes, let’s not be like fourth-graders and bring up Jackson’s skin color. If Joseph Fiennes is going to play Michael Jackson, it's only fair that Gwyneth Paltrow should play Macaulay Culkin — Richard Lawson (@rilaws) January 27, 2016 Twitter: "Joseph Fiennes to play Michael Jackson" Me: pic.twitter.com/o20MuCzvYX — Eric Haywood (@EricHaywood) January 27, 2016 wait is Joseph Fiennes really playing Michael Jackson or do I need to dial way back on the DayQuil — Pixie Casey (@pixie_casey) January 26, 2016 Like... this is so ridiculous that it's ALMOST funny. White people are now trolling us. Joseph Fiennes as Michael Jackson, dude. — Awesomely Luvvie (@Luvvie) January 26, 2016 ||||| UPDATE: The episode has been pulled indefinitely after outcry from Jackson's fans and daughter Paris. Joseph Fiennes (controversially) portrays Michael Jackson in the first trailer for a new comedy show that reimagines the urban legend about the King of Pop's post-9/11 road trip with Marlon Brando and Elizabeth Taylor. Related Joseph Fiennes Addresses 'Sensitive' Michael Jackson Casting "I deal in imagination, so I don't think imagination should have rules stamped on them," actor says of playing black singer Originally called Elizabeth, Michael & Marlon, the film has since been retitled and integrated into Urban Myths: A Brand New Collection of Comedies, an anthology that revolves around other "true…ish stories" that have circulated as urban legends. In the trailer, Fiennes' Jackson appears as a largely silent, wild-eyed passenger as Taylor (played by Stockard Channing) and Brando (Brian Cox) drive cross-country after the airports have been shut down in the aftermath of 9/11. At one point, the famous trio get pulled over by a highway patrolman who is shocked to encounter the three megastars in a rented red sedan. "This is territory that is sensitive," Fiennes previously said of the role after he was accused of "whitewashing" the singer. "One must determine if this portrayal is one that is going to be positive entertainment, and one that will not bring about division and put anyone's noses out of joint, so I went with the mind that this was a positive light-hearted comedy." Sky Arts, which will broadcast Urban Myths in the United Kingdom, told Rolling Stone in a statement, "Joseph Fiennes is cast as Michael Jackson. It is part of a series of comedies about unlikely stories from arts and cultural history. Sky Arts gives producers the creative freedom to cast roles as they wish, within the diversity framework which we have set." Other Urban Myths stories include Cary Grant's alleged love of LSD, a story about Adolf Hitler and "Hitler's friend" and another episode involving Samuel Beckett. Eddie Marsan plays Bob Dylan in an episode about the singer's search for someone named "Dave." Paris Jackson vehemently objected to Joseph Fiennes' portrayal of her late pop-icon father Michael Jackson in an 'Urban Myths' trailer. Watch here.

– In a new movie about Michael Jackson, the King of Pop will be played by ... a white British guy. Joseph Fiennes is set to play Jackson in Elizabeth, Michael & Marlon, a film that follows Jackson, Elizabeth Taylor (played by Stockard Channing), and Marlon Brando (played by Brian Cox) as they attempt a road trip from New York to California. The trip supposedly really happened, after Jackson invited Taylor and Brando to his concert at Madison Square Garden and then the 9/11 attacks kept them from being able to fly back home. Legend has it they made it to Ohio, although some insist the story isn't true, the Guardian reports. But, true or not, it will be immortalized on film with Fiennes playing a black man, a fact that has many shaking their heads: The Daily Beast calls the casting "a symptom of Hollywood's deep-seated race problem." Writes Stereo Williams, "Even ... with Jackson's specific physical attributes at that point in his life—he suffered from vitiligo, which causes the skin to lose its pigment—it's not beyond reason to consider that there are qualified black actors out there that could convincingly portray Michael Jackson." At Slate, Aisha Harris agrees—despite his shifting looks and persona, Jackson was still a black man. "Find the right black actor who can perfectly capture all of Jackson's complexities—his femininity, his weirdness, his naivete, and yes, his black cultural upbringing—and invest in better makeup and prosthetics than whoever was in charge of that terrible Man in the Mirror movie. Or cast a light-skinned black actor in the role." Fiennes recently called the script "a challenge," and at The Root, Yesha Callahan writes, "Yeah, I can see how difficult it would be as a white man to play the black King of Pop." BuzzFeed has rounded up a range of Twitter reactions to the news.

Get daily updates directly to your inbox + Subscribe Thank you for subscribing! Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email A man claims he was assaulted after a chef at an Indian restaurant threw chilli powder in his face during a family meal. David Evans was at the Prince of Bengal restaurant on Saturday night when the incident took place. The 46-year-old was out for dinner with his wife Michelle when they were asked by a waiter if they were enjoying their curry. The couple said they told the waiter their meal was “tough and rubbery” and he passed the complaint onto the head chef. Michelle said chilli powder was then thrown into her husband’s eyes and he was taken to hospital. But chef Kamrul Islam said he threw chilli into the customer’s face at the restaurant in in Tonypandy, Rhondda, because he feared he was going to be punched. Michelle, from Tonypandy, said: “We had our starter which wasn’t very good but we ate it and didn’t tell the waiter. “When our mains came and the meat was like what I can only describe as rubber we told the young waiter when he came and asked us ‘how is your food?’ that the meat was very tough and rubber.” She added: “The chef came to the door with a large bowl of chilli powder which he threw at David’s face. “He instantly thought he had been blinded and didn’t know what he’d thrown at him, he was shaking in shock, hanging on to the counter being sick thinking he was going to go blind. “It was horrific. He said he’s never had so much pain in his life and was extremely distressed.” Michelle said: “We were in the toilet splashing water on his eyes until the police and ambulance came he was treated straight away in A&E. “ She said her husband was taken to hospital for treatment. “David had numerous eye washes through a drip into his eyes in A&E as his eyes were extremely red and sore and the ph level was way off what it should have been and the doctor said if he wasn’t treated it was very dangerous for him,” Michelle added. “The chilli had even burnt the skin on David’s hands and chest where the chilli had fallen down his shirt.” Michelle said David is now having specialist check ups and is taking steroid eye drops. But Kamrul, who has been arrested on suspicion of assault, said it was an act of self-defence. He said: “I ran into the kitchen to get away from him (David Evans) but he followed me. He was being very aggressive and pushed past another member of staff. “I was frightened and grabbed a handful of chilli just in case I needed to defend myself. “I was frightened and threw it at him. Chilli will burn but it is not life threatening. “I’ve been running this restaurant here for 18 years and I’ve never had to do anything like this. I’m very upset by it all.” Kamrul - known as Kam to his regular customers - said one of his staff had told him the customer had complained about the food. He said: “They were shouting and swearing at me - I admit I swore back. But I said I would reduce the bill which came to £82. “But then the woman grabbed my arm and was hanging onto me as she was shouting. “I shouted back and I just wanted to get away. I went back into the kitchen where the husband followed me and began shouting and pointing at me. “It was self-defence and that is why I did what I did. “I’ve never had trouble like this. All the people around here are very nice and I get on with people. I feel I am respected here and have a lot of good customers and friends. “It was all seen on our CCTV and I’m happy for the police to see it. I was defending myself against aggression.” Kamrul said he was arrested at his restaurant but did not need to go to the police station. He said: “I’m happy to talk to the police about it. I believe in the justice system. I spoken to my barrister and given him all the information - he told me that I was acting in self-defence.” South Wales Police said it is investigating allegations of a substance being thrown into a man’s face. A spokeswoman added: “South Wales Police is investigating an incident which took place at the Prince of Bengal restaurant, Tonypandy, on the evening of Saturday, January 21. “A man has been arrested on suspicion of common assault and has been bailed until January 31, pending further inquiries. “Any witnesses who have not yet given their details to police are urged to do so via 101, or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111, quoting reference 1700026399.” ||||| It is the question that annoyed Marco Pierre White so much he banned it from his restaurants – a hovering waiter asking, "are enjoying your meal, sir?" And, after what happened at south Wales curry house, it is easy to see why. When David Evans, from south Wales, and his wife Michelle gave an honest opinion to that polite enquiry they had no idea what was to come next. "Tough and rubbery," they said. The next thing Mr Evans knew was a raging head chef had stormed out of his kitchen and thrown chilli powder in his eyes, leaving the 46-year-old pipe-fitter sick in pain. Mr Evans had to be rushed to hospital and have drips flush wash through his eyes. ||||| A YORKSHIRE curry restaurant owner with a “cavalier attitude” to safety was today beginning a six-year jail term for the manslaughter of a customer with a nut allergy, after he supplied him with a curry containing peanuts. Paul Wilson, 38, was meticulous about his condition and asked for “no nuts” when staff at the Indian Garden, Easingwold, North Yorkshire, cooked his chicken tikka masala takeaway. Bar manager Mr Wilson was found slumped in the toilet at his home in Helperby in January 2014 and had died from a severe anaphylactic shock. Restaurant owner Mohammed Zaman was convicted of gross negligence manslaughter following a trial at Teesside Crown Court at which the jury was told he swapped almond powder in recipes for cheaper groundnut mix, containing peanuts, despite warnings. The case is thought to be a legal first which sets a precedent for food suppliers. Previously: Peanut allergy diner died after Yorkshire Indian restaurant owner ‘ignored repeated warnings’ Keith and Margaret Wilson, whose son Paul Wilson died after eating a takeaway curry from the Indian Garden, Easingwold The curry that killed him: Video shows allergy sufferer Paul Wilson ordering meal from Yorkshire restaurant Judge Simon Bourne-Arton, the Recorder of Middlesbrough, said Zaman had made a success of himself since coming to this country more than 40 years ago, building up his businesses and gathering a property portfoilio worth more than £2 million. “You threw all that away,” the judge said. “You have done so in pursuit of profit. “You have done so in such a manner as to bring about the death of another individual. Restaurant owner Mohammed Zaman (right) leaving Teesside Crown Court “Paul Wilson was in the prime of his life. “He, like you, worked in the catering trade. He, unlike you, was a careful man.” The judge said Zaman ignored warnings from officials after 17-year-old Ruby Scott suffered a reaction to a curry, three weeks before Mr Wilson’s death. He could have destroyed the groundnut mix then, but decided to continue to use it at his restaurants. The judge said Zaman had told “many lies” to the jury, adding: “You remain in complete and utter denial for what you have done.” This was not a “transitory” case of gross negligence, but one lasting seven months - from his fateful decision to switch almond for groundnut in June 2013. The court heard that Zaman, who owned six restaurants in York and North Yorkshire, was almost £300,000 in debt and cut costs by using the cheaper ingredient and by employing untrained, illegal workers. Mr Wilson bought a takeaway from the Indian Garden in Easingwold, North Yorkshire, in January 2014. After eating very little of it, he was found slumped in the toilet at his home in Helperby by his housemate. He died from a severe anaphylactic shock. Zaman was convicted of gross negligence manslaughter after the jury was told he swapped almond powder in recipes for the cheaper groundnut mix, despite warnings that it could endanger customers with allergies. After the verdict, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said it showed that food suppliers had a duty of care towards their customers. Zaman, who owned six restaurants in York and North Yorkshire, cut costs by using the cheaper ingredient and by employing untrained, illegal workers. The prosecution said the owner had “put profit before safety” at the restaurants he owned. Zaman denied manslaughter by gross negligence, perverting the course of justice and six food safety offences. He was found guilty of all charges except perverting the course of justice. He claimed he left managers to run his restaurants and that included ordering stock and hiring staff. He was not on the premises when the curry was sold. Richard Wright QC, prosecuting, said: “Mohammed Zaman received numerous warnings that he was putting his customers’ health, and potentially their lives, at risk. “Tragically for Paul Wilson, Mohammed Zaman took none of those opportunities and ignored all of the warnings he was given. “His was a reckless and cavalier attitude to risk and one that we, the prosecution, would describe as grossly negligent.” Mr Wilson’s parents, Keith and Margaret, from Sheffield, said their son had carefully managed his condition since he was seven when he had a reaction to a Marathon chocolate bar. He loved curry but was always clear when ordering that his food must not contain nuts. They said: “Justice has been served, Paul can rest in peace. “We can’t go back and change the past, all we can do is focus on the present and the future and making things right. Don’t let this happen again.” Outside court, Detective Inspector Shaun Page said Mr Wilson’s death was “totally avoidable”. He added: “We have shown Zaman had a duty of care to serve safe food. “He has breached that duty to a criminal standard.” Martin Goldman, chief crown prosecutor with CPS Yorkshire and Humberside, said: “In this conviction, the CPS has sent a very clear message to the catering industry: there is a duty of care to your customers. “If you ignore your responsibilities and regulations and put lives at real risk then we will not hesitate to prosecute.” Alistair Webster QC, defending, said Zaman was a hard-working family man with no previous convictions.

– A diner who complained about his "tough and rubbery" food at a curry house in Wales ended up being hospitalized to have chili powder washed out of his eye. Michelle Evans says she was dining with husband David on Saturday night when their complaint about the food brought an angry head chef out of the kitchen, the Telegraph reports. The chef "was extremely rude and aggressive and accused us of not wanting to pay for our food," she says. Michelle says after the chef swore at her, David followed him back to the kitchen demanding an apology, and the chef "came to the door with a large bowl of chili powder which he threw at David's face." David "instantly thought he had been blinded" and was "extremely distressed," Michelle says. She says the 46-year-old was rushed to the hospital, where he received eye washes through a drip. She says he still has to take steroid eye drops. Wales Online reports that chef Kamrul Islam has a different take on the incident, which was captured on CCTV. He says the couple were shouting and swearing at him and David Evans chased him into the kitchen. "He was being very aggressive and pushed past another member of staff," the chef says. "I was frightened and grabbed a handful of chili just in case I needed to defend myself." Police say the chef was released on bail after being arrested for common assault.

The White House and congressional Democrats, with the backing of the AARP, will soon put forth a plan to automatically enroll new private-sector employees in investment retirement accounts (IRAs). The measure will apply to new workers at firms that don’t currently offer 401(k) retirement plans, according to AARP, the lobby group for seniors. Workers would have the choice of opting out of the accounts. ADVERTISEMENT The Obama administration sees the auto-enrollment system as a way to increase savings. “There’s this inertia that keeps people from taking advantage of saving opportunities,” said Cristina Martin Firvida, the director of economic security in AARP’s government relations department. “It’s all sort of foundationally related to that, how people choose to save.” Top officials in the administration, including White House Budget Director Peter Orszag, Treasury Department senior adviser Mark Iwry and Cass Sunstein, the administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, have long championed the opt-out provision. They point to studies that show the arrangement leads to big increases in savings by workers. Like other employer-based retirement accounts, the opt-out accounts proposed by Democrats would have tax benefits. It’s unclear whether they will be traditional tax-deferred accounts or Roth-style vehicles, in which account holders don’t pay taxes on withdrawals. Iwry, a retirement savings expert, has preferred Roth accounts in the past. Obama himself has publicly called for people to do more saving for retirement. “The fact is, even before this recession hit, the savings rate was essentially zero, while borrowing had risen and credit card debt had increased,” Obama said last September. “Half of America’s workforce doesn’t have access to a retirement plan at work. And fewer than 10 percent of those without workplace retirement plans have one of their own.” Rep. Richard Neal (D-Mass.) and Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) have introduced similar IRA proposals in the past. The auto-enrollment provision will get pushback from small-business groups. “It’s another burden placed on business that’s coming from Washington, keeping business owners from hiring and investing,” said Bill Rys, the tax counsel for the National Federation of Independent Business. “They’re being told, ‘Here’s how you run your business.’ ” ||||| Automatic IRAs would help retirement security, says Treasury's Iwry Says default provisions, simplified options make payroll-based plans viable for small employers The guru of federal retirement policy has high hopes for one of his yet-to-be-approved retirement creations: the automatic IRA. J. Mark Iwry, deputy assistant Treasury secretary for retirement and health policy, thinks that “millions” of Americans would take advantage of an automatic individual retirement account, which would work through payroll deductions. Speaking to a group of journalists in Washington last week, he said that auto IRAs would go a long way to help the approximately half of U.S. workers who don't have access to a workplace 401(k) plan. Congress is working on a draft of auto-IRA legislation, which was introduced in President Barack Obama's fiscal-2010 budget. Washington insiders don't expect it to be approved until next year at the earliest. Under the proposal, employers with at least 10 employees would be required to offer workers a retirement saving option through payroll deductions, and those who didn't sign up would be enrolled automatically. “The idea is to expand coverage and saving by building on the basic elements of our current system that work particularly well — payroll-based saving at the workplace, plus automatic enrollment, which has been very successful in raising takeup rates and encouraging saving,” Mr. Iwry told reporters at a National Press Foundation seminar on retirement. The auto-IRA proposal has strong support on Capitol Hill and from advocacy groups such as AARP, but some groups oppose it as being too burdensome for small employers. This year, The Spark Institute Inc., a group that represents retirement plan service providers, released an alternative proposal for a new Universal Small Employer Retirement Savings Program that would “simplify” investment option selection and fiduciary-liability concerns, as well as plan administration and documentation, according to the group. These are the types of issues being discussed and worked out in Washington, said Mr. Iwry, who was a fellow at The Brookings Institution. Some decisions have already been reached, he said. For example, automatic-IRA plans would likely include default provisions for participants who hesitated to choose, such as a default option for Roth IRAs and a “diversified life-cycle-type option” like a target date fund. Small employers also would be free to select a financial services firm to run the plan, or to use one offered as a default provider. “There are several ideas for how to set that up which are under discussion,” said Mr. Iwry, who developed the auto-IRA concept while at Brookings, a liberal think tank, with David C. John, a research fellow at The Heritage Foundation, a conservative policy research group. “The market would work; this would be a market-based approach,” Mr. Iwry said. “If the employer has a relationship with a financial institution that provides IRAs, why not build on that if they wish? But if they wanted to go elsewhere, they could,” Mr. Iwry said. When it comes to choosing default investments, the administration would “borrow a leaf from the book” of qualified default investment alternatives, he said. “We would build on what those regulations have done with respect to default investments for 401(k)s but keeping it simple, low-cost, and limiting the number of options, including a diversified life-cycle-type option and a safe principal-preservation-type option,” Mr. Iwry said. Some have said that the auto-IRA plan amounts to a lot of work for very little return, but even a small improvement in the savings rate is better than none at all, said Dallas L. Salisbury, president and chief executive of the Employee Benefit Research Institute. “The nature of the American system has always been incremental change,” he said. “Even an added 10 million who are building savings in a changed IRA system helps build economic security. Congress will evaluate whether that is enough positive change to justify enactment into law,” Mr. Salisbury said. E-mail Hilary Johnson at -hjohnson@investmentnews.com.

– Democrats plan to introduce legislation that would automatically enroll private-sector workers in retirement savings accounts, the Hill reports. The measure, being heavily pushed by the AARP, would apply to those whose employers don't offer 401k accounts. Workers would be able to opt out of the plan, whose backers don't expect it to be approved until next year at the earliest, notes Investment News. “There’s this inertia that keeps people from taking advantage of saving opportunities,” said an AARP official. “It’s all sort of foundationally related to that, how people choose to save.”?? The measure would require employers who have at least 10 employees to offer the savings option through payroll deductions, a provision likely to draw flak from small-business owners as another bureaucratic hassle, notes the Hill.

The Yumbo, which debuted in 1968 and was officially retired in 1974, will cost $3.69, the Miami-based company said today in a statement. It also will be part of Burger King’s two-for-$5 menu. The Yumbo, which debuted in 1968 and was officially retired in 1974, will cost $3.69,... Read More The Yumbo, which debuted in 1968 and was officially retired in 1974, will cost $3.69, the Miami-based company said today in a statement. It also will be part of Burger King’s two-for-$5 menu. Close Burger King Worldwide Inc. (BKW) is putting its Yumbo ham-and-cheese sandwich back on the menu after a 40-year hiatus, aiming to entice customers with a taste from its past. The Yumbo, which debuted in 1968 and was officially retired in 1974, will cost $3.69 and be available for a limited time, the Miami-based company said today in a statement. It also will be part of Burger King’s two-for-$5 menu. Burger King has had success with the reintroduction of chicken fries earlier this year and is trying to boost sales by adding simpler menu items that are easy for workers to prepare. Customers have been asking about the Yumbo for years, and Burger King decided it was time to bring the sandwich back, said Eric Hirschhorn, chief marketing officer for North America. “It got to the point where it’s one of those things we can no longer ignore,” he said. Burger King didn’t specify how long the Yumbo will be on the menu at its approximately 7,360 North American restaurants. The burger chain reported stronger-than-projected same-store sales last month, posting a third-quarter gain of 3.6 percent for the U.S. and Canada. Analysts had estimated a 2.5 percent increase. Burger King also is planning to acquire Canada’s Tim Hortons Inc. in a bid to become the world’s third-largest fast-food company. To contact the reporter on this story: Craig Giammona in New York at cgiammona@bloomberg.net To contact the editors responsible for this story: Nick Turner at nturner7@bloomberg.net Kevin Orland ||||| Just in time for Halloween, Burger King is releasing a special-edition sandwich that is not for the faint of heart. The “Nightmare King” features a green bun, a quarter-pound of beef, a crispy chicken fillet, melted American cheese, thick-cut bacon, mayonnaise and onions on a glazed green sesame seed bun. Get push notifications with news, features and more. In a new online advertisement for the sandwich (below), the fast food brand claims to have partnered with Paramount Trials and Florida Sleep & Neuro Diagnostic Services, Inc. to conduct a scientific study over ten nights with 100 participants. After eating the new burger, they allege, the incidence of nightmares increased by 3.5 times, according to the results. RELATED: Pasta Nachos! Churro Milkshakes! These Are Our Favorite New Menu Items at Chain Restaurants RELATED: This N.Y.C. Restaurant Has a Halloween Menu Where Everything Is Made with Pop-Tarts In the clip, people are asked to eat the burger before going to bed and then they’re hooked up to a sleep monitoring machine for the night. “I remember hearing voices and people walking around talking,” one test subject says. “When I would wake up I think I didn’t hear the voices.” RELATED VIDEO: This 100-lb. Mom of Four Just Set an Insane Burger Eating World Record Another person says: “Someone in my dream turned into the burger. The burger then transformed into the figure of a snake.” You, too, can enjoy the burger, with a side of nightmares, for $6.39 starting on Oct. 22. In celebration of the new menu item, Postmates will offer free delivery when you purchase it between Oct. 22 and Oct. 25.

– The people asked; Burger King listened. After becoming what BK marketing chief Eric Hirschhorn calls "one of those things we [could] no longer ignore," the Yumbo ham-and-cheese sandwich once more graces the eatery's menu, Bloomberg reports. You probably won't remember this fast-food delicacy if you're under the age of 45—it was only in circulation from 1968 to 1974—but apparently those who tasted its steaming goodness couldn't get it out of their minds. Customers kept asking about its return, notes Hirschhorn, and since the restaurant enjoyed success with this year's return of chicken fries and was seeking more easy-to-make items, it resurrected the Yumbo. The sandwich will only be available for a limited time for $3.69. (Wonder if it'll bring in more sales than the Black Burger?)

A meteorite crashed into an engineering college in Vellore district on Saturday, causing an explosion that killed one man and injured three others, the Tamil Nadu government said on Sunday.Scientists, however, said it wasn't clear how the government concluded that a meteorite strike caused the blast. There has been no established death due to a meteorite hit in recorded history, they said.If a meteorite indeed caused the death, bus driver Kamaraj will be the first person ever to have died in a meteorite strike. Saturday's blast also injured two gardeners and a student.“You have a better chance of getting hit by a tornado and a bolt of lightning and a hurricane all at the same time,“ is how astronomer and author of the book, Falling Stars: A Guide to Meteors & Meteorites Michael Reynolds describes the likelihood of such an event in a National Geographic report.Regardless of the scepticism of experts, chief minister J Jayalalithaa on Sunday said the government would pay compensation of Rs 1 lakh to Kamaraj's family .The three people injured in the explosion will receive Rs 25,000 each, she said.Witnesses said the blast left a crater 5ft deep and 2ft wide. Policemen recovered a black, pockmarked stone weighing 11g from the blast site.A police officer said the department would consult experts from the Indian Institute of Astrophysics in Bengaluru and ask them for a detailed analysis of the stone to ascertain whether it is debris from a meteorite. A team of experts from the institute will visit the site on February 8.A bomb squad from Chennai took debris samples on Sunday for analysis at Regional Forensic Science Laboratory in Mylapore. Police said preliminary investigation by police forensics experts ruled out the possibility that explosives caused the blast.“We did not find any trace of explosive substances, so we ruled out the possibility that explosives caused the blast,“ an investigating officer said. “We will wait for a final autopsy report on the body of driver Kamaraj and the report from the forensic lab to confirm what triggered the explosion.“The blast, which took place during class hours on Saturday when students, teachers and other staff were within the college's main building, shattered several windowpanes and damaged the windscreens of buses parked nearby . Police said Kamaraj went to wash his face at a tap near a water tank in the parking lot of the college when the explosion occurred around noon on Saturday . Thick smoke engulfed the area, witnesses said. A student, Santhosh, and two gardeners, Sasi and Murali, were injured. The blast deafened Santhosh, although doctors could not immediately say if the condition would be permanent.The first person in history that a meteorite is confirmed to have hit was American Ann Hodges, 'National Geographic' reported. A softball-size hunk of black rock broke through the ceiling of her house in Sylacauga, Alabama, in November 1954 and hit her in the thigh, leaving a pineapple-shaped bruise. Scientists closely watch space bodies that come to earth and predict in advance when a meteor large enough to stay intact after burning up in the atmosphere is going to hit the planet.“Organizations like International Meteor Organization have already put out the calendar for 2016 -for the days we can expect meteor showers and if there are any chances of them hitting earth. These occurrences are catalogued for the benefit of stargazers,“ said Isro Mars Orbiter Mission project director V Adimurthy.“They even predict the time of the meteor showers and are almost never wrong,“ he said. “The last meteor shower was on January 3 and the next one is between April 22 and 23. There is nothing for February." ||||| A man was killed and three others were injured Saturday in what authorities said was a meteorite strike at a college campus in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. An unidentified object left a four-feet deep crater after falling near a cafeteria inside the Bharathidasan Engineering College campus at about 12.30 p.m. on Saturday, G. Baskar, principal of the college in Tamil Nadu’s Vellore district, said. “There was a noise like a big explosion,” said Mr. Baskar. “It was an abnormal sound that could be heard till at least 3 kilometers [about 2 miles] away,” he added. It would be the first time in modern history that a person has been killed by a meteorite. The powerful explosion smashed the windows of classrooms and the windshields of vehicles parked in the vicinity. Students at the college were immediately sent home and classes were suspended until Wednesday. Mr. Baskar described the tiny rock fragments observed at the site of the explosion on Saturday as “blue-ish black” in color. V. Kamaraj, who operated a bus for the college, suffered severe injuries while he was walking close to the area where the object struck. He died Saturday. Three others, including two gardeners working inside the campus and a student at the college, were also injured during the incident. J. Jayalalithaa, Tamil Nadu’s chief minister, said in a statement Sunday that Mr. Kamaraj died after a meteorite fell inside the college campus. She didn’t elaborate on what led authorities to believe the crater was caused by a meteorite. A spokesman for Ms. Jayalalithaa’s office couldn’t immediately be reached to comment. A meteoroid is a small particle from an asteroid or comet that goes around the sun. When a meteoroid enters the Earth’s atmosphere it burns up, often seen as the light phenomenon known as a shooting star. A meteorite is a meteoroid that survives entry into the atmosphere and falls to Earth. Sujan Sengupta, an associate professor at the Indian Institute of Astrophysics, said there was “extremely little possibility of a small meteorite falling to the ground” and killing someone. “If a bigger asteroid enters the Earth’s atmosphere, it will disintegrate and travel in different directions and because most of the Earth’s surface is covered in water, it is most likely to fall into the ocean,” Mr. Sengupta said. According to the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration, there is no record “in modern times of any person being killed by a meteorite.” “An individual’s chance of being killed by a meteorite is small, but the risk increases with the size of the impacting comet or asteroid,” NASA says on its website. A meteoroid larger than half a mile in diameter could have worldwide effects. If something smaller than that hits the Earth, it is likely to cause local damage. The space agency’s “Near Earth Object Program” detects, tracks and characterizes potentially hazardous asteroids and comets that might approach Earth. As of Feb. 5, NASA says it has discovered 879 asteroids with a diameter of approximately a kilometer or larger. Experts say smaller asteroids and meteorites are harder, if not impossible, to track. In 2013, a meteor explosion over Russia’s Ural Mountains left around 1,000 people injured, mostly by flying glass. Around 3,000 buildings were damaged. Russia’s Academy of Sciences said at the time that the meteor was several yards in diameter and weighed around 10 metric tons. Ms. Jayalalithaa, the chief minister, announced compensation of 100,000 rupees ($1,473) for the family of the driver and 25,000 rupees to each of those injured. Correction: A previous version of this post, in one instance, incorrectly said the incident took place on Sunday. It occurred on Saturday. For breaking news, features and analysis from India, follow WSJ India on Facebook

– Whatever it was that killed a bus driver in India on Saturday probably didn't travel through untold millions of miles of space to get there, according to NASA scientists. The 11-gram rock recovered from a college campus in Tamil Nadu is still being analyzed, but NASA scientists say that from photos alone, the incident that killed one person and injured three others appears to have been "a land-based explosion" instead of the first recorded death from a meteorite strike in history, the New York Times reports. The BBC reports that police asked scientists to examine the small stone found in a crater at Bharathidasan Engineering College after Saturday's explosion. The dean of the Indian Institute of Astrophysics tells the Times that institute experts are looking at samples of the rock. "Considering that there was no prediction of a meteorite shower and there was no meteorite shower observed, this certainly is a rare phenomena if it is a meteorite," he says. It's not clear what else could have caused the explosion. A police spokesman tells the Times of India that they "did not find any trace of explosive substances" and are now awaiting the results of forensic tests and an autopsy of the bus driver.

Mott Green, who emerged from a hermitlike existence in a bamboo hut in the jungle of Grenada to produce a coveted Caribbean delicacy — rich, dark chocolate bars that he exported around the world with the help of sailboats, bicycles and solar-powered refrigeration — died on June 1 in Grenada. He was 47. He was electrocuted while working on solar-powered machinery for cooling chocolate during overseas transport, said his mother, Dr. Judith Friedman. Mr. Green was born David Friedman, and grew up on Staten Island. He became Mott over the course of many years of visiting and eventually living in Grenada, where residents had a distinctive way of pronouncing his nickname, Moth. He later took Green as his surname to reflect his environmental interests. Mr. Green tended to flit about as a child, but with focus: he built go-karts using lawn mower engines; he ran the New York City Marathon when he was 16; he dropped out of the University of Pennsylvania just months before graduation — accepting a degree, he felt, would be capitulating to a corrupt social structure — and he spent much of his 20s squatting with a community of anarchists in abandoned homes in west Philadelphia, where he “rescued” food that restaurants had planned to throw away and distributed it to homeless people. Photo He was eventually drawn permanently to Grenada. When Mr. Green was a boy, his father, Dr. Sandor Friedman, the director of medical services at Coney Island Hospital, taught there each winter, often bringing his family along. Mr. Green founded the Grenada Chocolate Company in 1999. Its slogan was “tree to bar,” but that did not capture the breadth of the endeavor. Working with small cocoa farmers in Grenada and as many as 50 factory employees during peak operations, all of whom earned the same salary — and probably more than he did — Mr. Green dried cocoa beans in the sun; built, maintained and powered the machinery to make chocolate; packaged the finished product; and cobbled together an international network of distributors, including volunteer cargo cyclists in the Netherlands. In 2011, the company received recognition from the State Department for its “contribution to the sustainable growth of rural economies by establishing Grenadian products in international markets; pioneering agrotourism; outstanding environmental conservation efforts; and promotion of organic farming.” In 2008, 2011 and 2013, the Academy of Chocolate in London awarded silver medals to Grenada’s dark chocolate bars. A documentary film about the company, “Nothing Like Chocolate,” directed by Kum-Kum Bhavnani, was released last year and has been shown at film festivals. Human rights advocates have long criticized the treatment of small cocoa farmers, and, particularly in Africa, the exploitation of child workers by buyers and exporters who sell cocoa to big chocolate companies. Despite international protections put in place in 2001, a 2009 survey by Tulane University found that nearly a fourth of all children ages 5 and 17 in cocoa-growing regions of Ivory Coast had worked on a cocoa farm in the previous year. Mr. Green set out to address such issues by dealing directly with small growers and by keeping the processing and packaging of chocolate within Grenada. In the process, he appears to have created the only chocolate-making company in a cocoa-producing country. “My progression,” he told D magazine in Dallas for a 2012 blog post, “was activist, love Grenada, love cocoa, love machines and tinkering, making chocolate, and doing it all without hurting the land.” David Lawrence Friedman was born on April 15, 1966, in Washington. His family moved to Staten Island shortly before he turned 2. He was the valedictorian of his class at Curtis High School. He was accepted at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, but chose Pennsylvania instead. He dropped out in the spring of 1988, his senior year. “He was repulsed by the prison of privilege,” Tim Dunn, a friend, said in an interview. “He was looking for real life. And he found it.” Mr. Green spent several years after college as a kind of master tinkerer, forager and activist among homeless anarchists in Philadelphia. He helped route electricity into abandoned houses for squatters, and he converted a Volkswagen bus to run on electricity. He helped develop a free lunch program that is still in place. He later moved to the East Village in Manhattan and made solar-powered hot-water showers for a group of squatters there. By the mid-1990s he had moved to Grenada, where he initially lived in a remote hut he had built himself. It, too, relied on solar energy, in part to power Mr. Green’s passion for music. “You’d hear Ella Fitzgerald coming out of this bamboo house in the rain forest,” his mother recalled. Mr. Green developed a taste for cocoa tea, a local favorite, and that helped draw him out of the jungle and into the concerns of cocoa farmers and workers. Joining with a friend from Eugene, Ore., Doug Brown, he studied chocolate production in San Francisco. Working in Eugene, the men restored old machines from Europe and built new ones themselves. By the late ’90s they had shipped everything to Grenada. Mr. Brown died of cancer several years ago. The company struggled for many years even as it won recognition. Mr. Green lived at the factory the whole time, sleeping in a workroom. It moved into profitability just a few months ago, thanks in part to its recent opening of a shop in Grenada that sells treats made from its chocolate. Grenada’s chocolate bars are also sold online and at stores in various countries. In the United States, they are sold at Whole Foods stores in Manhattan and other retailers scattered across several states. Last year the company delivered tens of thousands of chocolate bars to Europe on a sail-powered Dutch ship, the Brigantine Tres Hombres, operated by a company called Fairtransport. A team of volunteer cyclists in Amsterdam helped handle distribution on the ground. Mr. Green called it “the first carbon-neutral trans-Atlantic mass chocolate delivery.” In addition to his mother, a clinical psychologist in New York, Mr. Green is survived by a brother, Peter. Sandor Friedman died in 2004. Dr. Friedman said she and several other people involved with the company were meeting this month in Grenada to develop a plan for keeping it operating. “A lot of people now talk about paying for the actual cost of food or fair food and stuff like that,” said Alexis Buss, a friend from Mr. Green’s days as a squatter. “He wasn’t doing it to be trendy. He’s always been that way. He was just doing it because it made sense.” ||||| David Friedman (File Photo) ST. GEORGE’S, Grenada, Tuesday June 4, 2013 – The Grenada government says it is saddened at the death of David Friedman, the owner and founder of the Grenada Chocolate Factory who was electrocuted over the weekend. Friedman, who is also known as “Mott Green” was reportedly repairing equipment at his storehouse at the Belmont Estate when the incident occurred. Originally from the United States, he established the company in 1999. Tourism Minister Alexandra Otway-Noel described Friedman “as a friend of Grenada and entrepreneur who worked tirelessly to promote our cocoa and by extension our country,” adding “we feel a strong sense of sorrow for this loss to Grenada. Mott’s passing is also a blow to cocoa exports, in light of the campaign he has been leading”. The minister said that Friedman “passionately led the creation of a company that manufactures and exports this country’s cocoa and while increasing Grenada’s profile internationally. He also provided employment for our people. “We feel that as part of our tribute to our friend Mott and to his legacy that we all work together to ensure his company continues to grow from strength to strength. “We are confident that Mott’s chocolate factory has a vibrant role to play in a refreshing new economy that is unfolding in this new administration and we are certain he would have been happy to be a part of it,” she added. 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– He was kind of like Willy Wonka, if Wonka had combined his passion for chocolate with social justice. Or as the headline in Haaretz puts it: "Mott Green, Jewish anarchist chocolatier, dies aged 47." Green was born David Friedman and grew up in Staten Island, but he gave up the idea of a middle-class lifestyle in the US to live in the jungle of Grenada—and then went on to create a sustainable chocolate company with the unprecedented mission of benefiting the locals. Green died after being electrocuted repairing his (solar-powered) cooling equipment, reports Caribbean 360. Green attended the Ivy League's Penn but dropped out a few months before graduation because he thought a degree would prove corrupting. He "spent several years after college as a kind of master tinkerer, forager and activist among homeless anarchists in Philadelphia," writes William Yardley in the New York Times. He eventually made his way to the Caribbean and settled into a hermit's life in Grenada in a bamboo hut. But then he developed a taste for the local cocoa tea, which led to his exploration of chocolate ... and ultimately to the creation of the Grenada Chocolate Company in 1999. Along the way, "he rewrote the rules of the global chocolate industry by adding all the value at the source and bringing maximum benefit to the local economy, in this case to the people of Grenada whom he loved," writes Aviel Luz in Haaretz. If it sounds like the stuff of movies, it is, in a way. A well-received documentary about his company called Nothing Like Chocolate came out last year.

The St. Louis area's most powerful tornado in 44 years rips into an airport and through a densely populated suburban area, destroying up to 100 homes, shattering hundreds of panes of glass at the main terminal and blowing a shuttle bus on top of a roof. Yet no one is killed, or even seriously hurt, and the airport reopens less than 24 hours later. How? Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon speaks during a news conference inside Lambert-St. Louis International Airport Saturday, April 23, 2011, in St. Louis. The National Weather Service confirmed that a tornado that... (Associated Press) From left to right, Shaun Jones and Jacob Caldwell of BAM Contracting in St. Louis, work to repair damage to windows in the main terminal of St. Louis' Lambert International Airport, Saturday, April 23,... (Associated Press) Workers replace remove broken windows inside the main terminal at Lambert-St. Louis International Airport Saturday, April 23, 2011, in St. Louis. The National Weather Service confirms that it was a tornado... (Associated Press) In this aerial photograph, debris is strewn about a neighborhood Saturday, April 23, 2011, in Bridgeton, Mo., following a Friday-evening tornado in the area. A severe storm that struck the St. Louis area... (Associated Press) Early warnings, good timing and common sense all helped prevent a tragedy Friday night. But on Easter Sunday, many of those cleaning up the mess also thanked a higher power. "I don't know why God decided to spare our lives but I'm thankful for it," Joni Bellinger, children's minister at hard-hit Ferguson Christian Church, said Sunday. Lambert Airport reopened for arriving flights Saturday night, and departing flights began Sunday morning. Still, dozens of flights have been canceled, the airport's Concourse C is still closed and complete repairs could take up to two months. The tornado peaked at an EF-4 level, second-highest on the Enhanced Fujita scale, packing winds of up to 200 mph, National Weather Service meteorologist Wes Browning said. It was the most powerful twister in metropolitan St. Louis since 1967 _ and eerily, it followed a path similar to that of the earlier tornado. Entire subdivisions were destroyed. Cars were tossed about like toys, roofs tossed hundreds of yards and 100-year-old trees sucked out by the roots. County officials said during a news conference Sunday that 2,700 buildings were damaged. Gov. Jay Nixon said Saturday that up to 100 were uninhabitable. The damage clearly will cost millions of dollars to repair, but a more precise estimate was unavailable Sunday. The twister destroyed two of the homes John Stein owns on a street in the city of Berkeley, and damaged five others. "Everything you'd find in a war zone except the bodies," Stein said. Residents in nine communities and unincorporated parts of St. Louis County were still sorting through the rubble Sunday. Ameren Corp. had about 2,000 workers seeking to restore outages that affected 47,000 homes and businesses immediately after the storm. The utility said 18,300 were still without electricity on Sunday, and it could be several days before all power is restored. Yet the common refrain was: It could have been worse. Stuff was destroyed, not lives. The normally busy airport took a direct hit, with hundreds of panes of glass shattering from the force of the wind. The shuttle bus on the roof was among dozens of vehicles that were damaged. But the airport had been quiet Friday night. Few planes on the ground were filled with passengers, and those shook but didn't topple. Just a couple of hundred passengers and workers were in Concourse C, which took the brunt of the damage, airport director Rhonda Hamm-Niebruegge said. Five people suffered minor injuries. Residents praised the weather service for warning them about the tornado more than a half-hour before it hit. Warning sirens blared at the airport, where security officers and other workers herded people to stairwells and bathrooms. Residents also paid attention to the sirens, and local TV stations switched from network programming to radar of the pending disaster and stern warnings from meteorologists to seek refuge in basements. "The bottom line is the 34-minute warning and the heeding of that warning by the citizens has saved countless lives," Nixon said. Browning agreed. "The public did what we told them to do," the meteorologist said. "Many came out of the basement without a scratch, and there was nothing left" of their homes. Bridgeton Mayor Conrad Bowers believes divine intervention also was at work. His own home had moderate damage, but several houses in his neighborhood were obliterated. In many of them, mercifully, no one was home when the twister hit. One family was out for dinner. Another was away playing cards. Another was visiting relatives in Dallas. "The grace of God," Bowers said. "What else can I say?" At Ferguson Christian Church, nearly three dozen people were gathered on Good Friday to watch the movie "Passion of the Christ" when the sirens began to blare. Pastor Stacy Garner paused the movie and hurried everyone to the basement. They were out of harm's way as the tornado imploded the sanctuary above them. Like hundreds of residents in surrounding communities, church members have been back trying to salvage what they could. Their Easter Sunday services were at a college campus. They've had a lot of help from neighbors and friends. "It's not just our church, but people from all over the neighborhood have come to help and clean up the mess and pick up the pieces, and try to figure out what we're going to do from now on," said Bellinger, the children's minister. ___ Ed Donahue of the Associated Press in Washington contributed to this report. ||||| First the good news: A miracle zero deaths have been reporting following the tornado that tore through Bridgeton, a densely populated suburb of St. Louis, on Friday night, passing directly through the airport. Sadly, though, 750 homes were damaged, with 100 of those destroyed entirely. But still! No casualties, and only "minor injuries" to five people. Locals are praising the local weather service, which blared sirens 34 minutes before the tornado hit, as well as "the grace of God," as the mayor put it. And what does it look like when a tornado crashes through your airport concourse? The security footage above captured the entire, terrifying affair. [AP, KMOX]

– Miraculously, no one was killed by the Friday night tornado that ripped through the St. Louis airport. But that doesn't make the experience, captured by security cameras and reported by KMOX, any less terrifying. (Hat tip to Gawker for the find.) How is it that—even though 2,700 buildings were damaged and 100 homes destroyed—only minor injuries were reported in the St. Louis area, and only to five people? Locals credit early warnings from the weather service. The tornado, which packed winds of up to 200mph, was the most powerful in the St. Louis area in 44 years and peaked at the second-highest level on the Enhanced Fujita scale. But thanks to the weather service and local TV stations, residents were made aware of the impending disaster 34 minutes before it hit. Warning sirens at the airport allowed security officers to get people into stairwells and bathrooms for safety. The mayor has another theory. He tells the AP he credits "the grace of God."

FOR THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS, SEE: Calgary family, police 'devastated' as charges laid in deaths of Taliyah Marsman, mother The father of Taliyah Leigh Marsman has issued a statement to the media through a friend, pleading for anyone with information to come forward after the five-year-old disappeared and her mother was found dead in the Calgary home she shared with the child. An Alberta-wide Amber Alert has been in effect for Taliyah since early Tuesday, hours after she was discovered missing and Sara Baillie was found slain in their rented basement suite in Panorama Hills. Sara Baillie was found dead in the home she was renting in Panorama Hills in Calgary late Monday. (Facebook) Investigators are treating Baillie's killing as a homicide, but they have not revealed the cause of death. "With all my heart, I love her sooo much; she is my light! Please allow her to come home to her family," said Taliyah's father, Colin Marsman — who was Baillie's estranged common-law spouse — in the statement sent out by his friend Gabriel Goree. "Those who know me best, know the person and kind of father I am, and know more than anything, I just want my baby girl back," said Marsman, 36. A day earlier, Insp. Don Coleman of the Calgary Police Service major crimes section said there is a "limited" history of domestic violence between Baillie and Marsman, "both reported and unreported." He said Marsman has been co-operating. Goree told CBC News he and Marsman have been friends for more than 25 years and were very close growing up together in Halifax. Marsman is a hardworking construction worker who has another child — a teenaged boy — and is distraught and in shock about the disappearance of his little girl, said Goree. Race against the clock Mount Royal University criminologist Scharie Tavcer says that in the search for missing children, the clock can be a big obstacle. "This is not a science, right, we can't pinpoint anything. But police will tell you the same thing. The more time that passes, the chances are slimmer that we find her," she said. "And so it's a race against the clock and I know police, our police service is phenomenal and they're doing everything they can." Anyone with information is urged to contact the police or Crime Stoppers. The head of the Missing Children Society of Canada, which is helping with the search for Taliyah, says investigators are using all the resources they have to find the little girl. "These types of cases are infrequent in Canada," said Amanda Pick, chief executive officer of the Calgary-based organization. "When police have a missing child, they are immediately investigating every single opportunity, possible, lead, tip, so that they can bring that child home right away." Pick said tips from the public can be crucial, and that people should pay attention to what's happening around them and report any information, no matter how inconsequential it may seem. ||||| ADVERTISEMENT CALGARY — The father of a missing Calgary girl is begging anyone who might have information to "do the right thing.'' Colin Marsman said in a statement Wednesday that five-year-old Taliyah Leigh Marsman is his "light'' and loves her with all his heart. "I want to make a plea to anyone out there who knows anything about where my baby is,'' Marsman said in the statement released to the media through friend Gabriel Goree. "Please, it's never too late to do the right thing! If you even think you might have seen something that could be a clue, let your local law enforcement know immediately.'' Five-year-old Taliyah Marsman was last seen Sunday morning. (Photos: Calgary Police Service) Police issued an Amber Alert for the child early Tuesday after her mother, Sara Baillie, was found dead in a basement suite where the two lived. Officers say family members last saw the girl on Sunday morning and became concerned when Baillie failed to show up for her job at an airport restaurant. Police have said they're investigating the death as a homicide. "I just want my baby girl back." Marsman offered his condolences to Baillie's family. There have been reports that he was charged last year with unlawful confinement and intimidation by threats against Baillie. The charges were later withdrawn and a peace bond was issued. "Those who know me best, know the person and kind of father I am and know more than anything I just want my baby girl back,'' Marsman said. "Once again, I plead for anyone knowing anything about where Taliyah is to please come forward with anything that will help get her home and back to her family.'' Police have said Marsman is co-operating with their investigation. Goree described Marsman as a "great dad,'' who also has a son, and works in construction. Colin Marsman is pleading for the safe return of his five-year-old daughter Taliyah. (Photo: Facebook) Marsman's girlfriend, Jessica Mardinger, added on Facebook: "Colin is a great father. He is in so much pain right now. We need Taliyah back.'' Baillie's family appeared at a police news conference Tuesday, tearfully pleading in front of news cameras to whomever took Taliyah to drop her off at a police station, grocery store or gas station, no questions asked. They said Baillie was pretty much raising Taliyah on her own and the pair were inseparable. Police said they aren't ruling anything out in their search for the little girl, and have faith she will be found safe. Taliyah is described as a mixed-race child with a slim build, brown curly hair and blue eyes. Also on HuffPost: ||||| Taliyah Marsman: Missing Canada Girl Believed to Be Found Dead, Man Charged with Murder of Her and Mother Source: Facebook (2) Taliyah Marsman: Man Detained in Connection with Her Disappearance as Authorities Continue Search The days-long search for 5-year-old Taliyah Marsman has ended in tragedy, PEOPLE confirms.Police in Calgary say they found a body on Thursday they believe is Taliyah, the little girl who went missing earlier this week after her mother was found dead in their home, a Calgary Police Service spokesperson tells PEOPLE."Searchers located a body on a rural property east of Chestermere," police said in a statement obtained by PEOPLE. "The exact location of where the body was found will not be released to protect the integrity of the scene."Edward Downey, 46, has been charged with two counts of first-degree murder in the death of Taliyah and her mother, 34-year-old Sara Baillie. He was first detained at around 10:30 p.m. on Wednesday."It is believed the man is acquaintances with both victims Sara Baillie and Taliyah Marsman," police said in the statement.Another Calgary police spokesperson says Downey was connected to the crimes by a vehicle in which he was seen picking Taliyah up.The spokesperson says a motive for the murders is "the biggest question" authorities have right now.Downey has not yet entered a plea and is expected to appear in court on July 20. Information about his attorney was unknown.An Amber Alert for Taliyah was issued on Tuesday, one day after police were called to her home and found her mother dead. Baillie's death was ruled a homicide.On Wednesday, police announced that witnesses reported seeing a little girl matching Taliyah's description with a "stocky, black male."On the day police discovered the body, Taliyah's father, Colin Marsman, said in an interview that he was holding out hope that his daughter was still alive "I'm waiting for her to come back home and I'm praying," he told Canada's Global News . "I believe that I'm going to see her soon, and I just can't wait to see my daughter."

– Police are searching for a missing 5-year-old girl after her mother was found dead in their apartment Monday in Canada, the Calgary Herald reports. Investigators believe Sara Baillie was killed, though a cause of death hasn't been given, and an Amber Alert for her daughter Taliyah Marsman was issued early Tuesday. According to the Canadian Press, Taliyah was last seen by family on Sunday morning. The girl's aunt and uncle describe her as a "vivacious, wonderful child." “She’s always dancing and loving and caring,” a babysitter tells the Herald. “She likes to love people, and she’s really good at making friends.” Taliyah's father and Baillie's estranged common-law husband, Colin Marsman, asked for anyone with information regarding his daughter's whereabouts to come forward. "With all my heart, I love her sooo much; she is my light! Please allow her to come home to her family," CBC quotes a statement issued by Marsman Wednesday. "Those who know me best, know the person and kind of father I am, and know more than anything, I just want my baby girl back.” Authorities say there is some history of domestic violence between Marsman and Baillie. Marsman is cooperating with police, but they aren't ruling out anyone as a suspect.

"Survivor" contestant Zeke Smith was outed as transgender by fellow competitor Jeff Varner on Wednesday night's episode of the CBS reality competition. The move has prompted online criticism and condemnation by a major LGBT rights group. Varner made accusations of "a deception" before revealing that Smith is transgender on the episode . Varner was immediately criticized by other players. He repeatedly apologized, but was voted out of the competition. Smith explained that he didn't mention that he was transgendered because he didn't want to be known as "the trans 'Survivor' player." He writes in The Hollywood Reporter that by calling him deceptive, Varner invoked "one of the most odious stereotypes of transgender people." GLAAD also criticized the outing of Smith. It says it worked with CBS and Smith on how to properly respond. Varner calls his actions a "mistake" on Twitter and says he's "deeply saddened." ||||| Each week host Jeff Probst will answer a few questions about the most recent episode of Survivor: Game Changers. This week, he gives his on-the-scene and behind-the-scenes insight and reaction to Jeff Varner outing Zeke Smith as transgender. ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Okay, so clearly a lot to unpack here with Jeff Varner outing Zeke as trans on national television. Let’s start with your initial reaction when Jeff said that at Tribal Council. JEFF PROBST: I’m pretty sure my reaction was the same as viewers watching at home. I saw Jeff Varner turn to Zeke and make what was essentially a statement — vaguely disguised as a question: “Why haven’t you told anyone here you’re transgender?” On one hand, it was such a tiny moment… so simple and quiet… that I wasn’t certain I heard what I heard. My brain had to rewind and play it back. And if you watch the reaction at Tribal, Zeke’s tribemates seemed to go thru the same moment. They heard it… but had to process it… and then once it landed they responded quite vocally. And while they were sharing their feelings with Varner, I was still running it in my head. This… just… happened. It seems everyone on the tribe — Tai, Andrea, Ozzy, Debbie, Sarah — had their moment of telling Jeff in very strong language that what he did was completely unacceptable. What did you make of what I would describe as their unified disgust at what had happened? In 34 seasons of Survivor, I have rarely, if ever, personally commented on what is said or done in the game. But this is a unique situation that falls outside the normal boundaries. I cannot imagine anyone thinking what was done to Zeke was okay on any level, under any circumstances, and certainly not simply because there was a million dollars on the line. I think the response from the tribe, as it so often does, mirrors what the vast majority of society will feel. You just don’t do that to someone. Witnessing that moment was so powerful because from my seat at Tribal, I could see it all. Varner was in the middle being attacked by angry tribemates while Zeke sat in the corner, outside of the action in what appeared to be a mild state of shock. It was one of the most surreal moments I’ve ever encountered on the show. From the outside, it looked and sounded like a regular Tribal Council but in reality, it was one of the most raw and painful studies of human behavior that has ever happened on Survivor. Zeke was so composed in his response to what Jeff Varner did. How impressed were you with his reaction? We knew Zeke was a tremendous storyteller with an amazing ability to take a specific moment from the game or life and give it a universal perspective. That’s why we asked him back to play a second time. And yet I was still blown away by how he handled the entire situation. It was as if he had been preparing for this absolutely unpredictable, completely public, and incredibly vulnerable moment for his entire life. His composure was astounding. And when he connected the entire event to the word metamorphosis, I distinctly remember thinking — how in the world did you just do that? I was also very impressed with the compassion Zeke showed Varner. I wonder if some people will say he shouldn’t have hugged him or shouldn’t have forgiven him. But as a viewer to that moment, I found his ability to still find some level of humanity for someone who had just injured him so severely, maybe his crowning moment. And there is another moment that I hope was as inspiring for others as it was for me, and that was when Sarah told Zeke she was glad she got to know Zeke for who Zeke is and would never see him any other way. That moment — when a police officer from a conservative Midwest background without much exposure to the “gay and lesbian and transgender world” realized her own growth, her own metamorphosis, it completed the circle. This is how change and acceptance happens. Watch PEN Fan Forum: Survivor, on the new PEOPLE/Entertainment Weekly Network (PEN) here, or download the free app on your Smart TV, mobile and web devices. And check out an exclusive deleted scene at the top of this post. When you spoke with Zeke before his first season during the interview process, did the subject ever come up in terms of whether he planned to tell players he was trans and how he would handle it if someone brought it up? My story with Zeke goes like this. I met Zeke in casting and loved him. I still have my original notes from that meeting. He was very engaging, gifted in his ability to manipulate with his words, and he wore this crazy Hawaiian shirt and had poofy hair. We knew we were doing Millennials vs. Gen X as a theme and we wanted him on the Millennials tribe immediately. It wasn’t until after he left that I was told he was transgender. From that point forward we agreed that if his story was to be told, he would be the one to decide when, where, and how. As for someone else bringing it up, Zeke was fully aware someone might suspect it or bring it up and he said, “I will deal with it as it arises.” And I have to add it was never a question of Zeke being worried his story would come out. ,Zeke is a massive Survivor fan and his point with us was very clear — he wanted to be seen as a Survivor player. Not the first transgender Survivor player. I really respected that distinction and I understood it. The tribe was clearly all shaken by this incident. How were you after Tribal Council finished? I don’t really remember a lot about my own feelings in the moments after Tribal. I remember feeling that Zeke seemed very centered when he left Tribal, despite what he had gone through and I believed his tribemates would help him work through things back at camp. But we were in touch with the producer on the beach that night to just ensure everything was going okay. And then the other concern was Jeff Varner. Although I do not condone on any level what Varner did, I was still aware that he was without any of his support group of family and friends. He would be returning to Ponderosa, where voted out contestants go, after making one of the worst decisions of his life. Fortunately, we have a full-time psychologist on staff who knows all of the contestants and is there to help them through any of the many things that come up on Survivor. I think those sessions in the days after the event helped Varner as he tried to make sense of everything. Have you spoken to Jeff Varner at all since this incident and do you think he is genuinely mortified by what he did? I spoke with Varner the day after it happened and I think he was still in a bit of shock. It was clear he was upset and the realization of it all was still washing over him. I do believe he wishes he could take the entire event back. I hope Varner is able to take this moment and turn it into something positive. People make mistakes. Granted this happens to be a pretty severe one, but as you saw even with Zeke — there is hope that something good can come from this. That would be my wish… that Varner will seize this as an opportunity to be a catalyst for positive change by owning his mistake and moving forward in a new direction. Finally, we always take a sneak peek at what’s coming up. I know we have a merge on the horizon. And I have to imagine the Nuku tribe will still be decompressing from what just happened. I’m going to break tradition tonight and let the events of this very special episode breathe for a moment. But Survivor will be back next week… and someone will be voted out. The game continues. ||||| Story highlights Smith was outed on Wednesday night's episode Varner tweeted an apology This story contains spoilers for Wednesday's episode of "Survivor: Game Changers." (CNN) The outing of a "Survivor" cast member on television has sparked outrage. Zeke Smith, who appeared on back-to-back seasons of the reality series, was revealed to be a transgender man by fellow contestant Jeff Varner in an episode that aired Wednesday night. Varner, who is gay, shared the information during an emotional Tribal Council on "Survivor: Game Changers." "Why haven't you told anyone you're transgender?" Varner asked Smith. Other contestants reacted negatively, telling Varner that was personal and he shouldn't have said it. Varner insisted he did it to show that Smith was deceptive during the game. ||||| After Wednesday’s shocking and emotional episode of Survivor, fans of the hit show took social media by storm to react to Zeke Smith being outed as transgender by fellow contestant Jeff Varner. Fans were outraged by Varner’s decision, but praised Smith for the way he handled the situation, calling him a “shining star of a human being.” “Zeke is the strongest Survivor I’ve ever seen,” wrote one fan. “That tribal was horrifying & moving & beautiful all in one.” Another fan said the episode was “painful yet beautiful” and left them “speechless.” “Love is so important! Acceptance of everyone is important.” Zeke is the strongest Survivor I've ever seen. That tribal was horrifying & moving & beautiful all in one #SurvivorGameChangers — c b (@bobiakattack) April 13, 2017 Complete and utter shock. @zekerchief you responded so well. I don't know if I could have been that strong. #SurvivorGameChangers — Ashe King (@gamingurl42) April 13, 2017 #SurvivorGameChangers I'm speechless 😶 This episode was painful yet beautiful! Love is so important! Acceptance of everyone is important💖🌈 — 👯Danceypants⚡️ (@Pinkdiscoball77) April 13, 2017 The ugliest part of humanity followed by the most beautiful part. Well done Zeke #SurvivorGameChangers — Allison Thompson (@WayToGoMom) April 13, 2017 Of course, a large majority of tweets were aimed at Varner. Pepsi: Uh-oh. United: We're the worst. Sean Spicer: I got this. Jeff Varner: The week isn't over, y'all.#SurvivorGameChangers — K.A. Coleman (@KA_Coleman) April 13, 2017 Umm, the outing of Zeke on Survivor was rough to watch. That wasn't strategic, that was mean. #SurvivorGameChangers — Garrett (@GarrettzGotIt) April 13, 2017 That was the lowest thing I have seen on #survivor. Speechless. I knew this was coming but my heart still sunk. #SurvivorGameChangers — Nissy Dos (@Nisa911) April 13, 2017 RELATED VIDEO: PEN’s Survivor Fan Forum Reacts to Zeke Smith Being Outed as Transgender On Wednesday’s episode, Varner, 50, outed Smith, 29, during a tribal council in an attempt to paint the Brooklyn-based asset manager as “deceitful” and therefore worthy of being voted out. The move backfired entirely: Varner’s tribemates quickly admonished him for his actions, and he was ousted by the tribe. Smith told PEOPLE he was “shell-shocked” by Varner’s decision and struggles with forgiving him. Robert Voets/CBS via Getty; Monty Brinton/CBS via Getty “I think he hoped others would believe that trans people are dangerous and fraudulent,” he said. “That reasoning is infinitely worse than him outing me because it’s the same one used to discriminate against, attack and murder trans people. What’s great is that nobody bought it.” “It’s important people see he lost that fight,” he added. “The message should be clear that hate will always lose.” Varner took to Twitter on Wednesday evening to issue a lengthy apology. “I offer my deepest, most heart-felt apologies to Zeke Smith, his friends and life allies, his family and to all those who my mistake hurt and offended,” he wrote. “I recklessly revealed something I mistakenly believed everyone already knew. I was wrong and make no excuses for it. I own responsibility in what is the worst decision of my life.” Survivor airs Wednesdays (8 p.m. ET) on CBS. ||||| In the seventh episode of CBS' Survivor: Game Changers, castaway Zeke Smith — returning for his second appearance in two seasons — was outed by a fellow contestant as transgender. In the following exclusive column for The Hollywood Reporter, Zeke — one of very few players in show history to compete on back-to-back seasons — shares his side of the journey, his experience as a trans man, the reasons why he pursued Survivor, the thrill of that adventure, and what it was like on the night he was outed on national television — and how he powered through it. I'm not wild about you knowing that I'm trans. An odd sentiment, I realize, for someone who signed up for two seasons of the CBS reality giant, Survivor. See, when I got on a plane to Fiji last March, I expected to get voted out third. I'd return home, laugh at my misadventure, and go about my life, casually trans in the same way that Zac Efron is casually Jewish. But that's not what happened. I ended up being pretty good at Survivor. I was invited back immediately for an all-star season, during the course of which I was maliciously outed by a former local network news anchor. What a summer! After 34 seasons, Survivor is far from the cute little social experiment it began as in the summer of 2000. Yes, castaways still sleep in the dirt and eat only what can be scrounged around the island, primarily coconut. Coconut, by the way, is a natural laxative. Deep into the 39-day adventure, players reach a crossroads where they must decide between starving or eating a handful of coconut and enduring severe gastrointestinal distress. There's no bathroom. There's no toilet paper. If anything needs cleaning, it gets cleaned with sand and saltwater. But, the harsh elements merely play backdrop to a complex game of social politics dominated by secret alliances, hidden advantages and each cutthroat player's ability to befriend and betray any who stand in their way. The world possesses no greater test of wit and grit than Survivor … at least that's what I believe, but I'm a pretty ridiculous individual, which is why, when seeking to radically change my life and test the depths of my manhood, I picked a reality show instead of something actually noble, like joining the Peace Corps. And it is in that same spirit of ridiculousness that I honestly tell you I would not change a single element of the story I'm about to relay, for I loved my adventure and cannot wait to embark upon the next. Growing up, I set big lofty goals — Broadway, a high school debate championships, Harvard — and pursued them doggedly. While my peers in Oklahoma were content to follow the path set for them, I forged my own, leaping from boulder to boulder with no regard for what was expected of me. I leapt fueled solely by my belief in myself, because, well, nobody liked me very much. I leapt fearlessly, until ... I crashed. The double whammy of major depression and transitioning blasted away my confidence. The failure I experienced made me doubt everything I once believed to be true about myself. I stopped dreaming. I stopped leaping. I found it difficult enough to simply put one foot in front of the other. This happened to be the moment in my life when I began watching Survivor. So significant was the experience that I remember where I watched episode one of Survivor: Cook Islands; I remember the date, May 2, 2010; I remember distinctly Jeff Probst's opening line, "You are watching 20 Americans begin an adventure that will forever change their lives." I was hooked. Transitioning created the opportunity to remake myself — to really consider and construct the man I wanted to be. Whether I was conscious of it or not, "Survivor player" became part of the remodel blue prints. Suddenly, I found myself drawn to engage in challenging social situations, run obstacle races and backpack the Grand Canyon. None of which were ventures I'd have chosen earlier in my life. But there was this pesky little voice in the back of my mind persistently whispering, "Survivor," so I created these challenges — quizzes, I suppose, to acquire the fortitude necessary to play the game. I lost many from my life when I transitioned. Most were supportive in theory, but distanced themselves, unsure and a little weirded out by the process. On the whole, the world doesn't treat trans people with much kindness. Even those who aren't outwardly hateful crinkle their noses at you. When enough people crinkle their noses at you, you begin to think you stink. I began connecting with others in a meaningful way around the same time that my being trans stopped being a readily known fact about me. After graduating and moving to New York, no one knew me or saw me as anything other than Zeke, which was tremendously liberating — my whole life, I desired my manhood to be known without question or qualification. Many gay people consider coming out a moment of liberation, because sharing their sexual orientation with the world causes them to be seen more authentically. Often, the opposite is true for trans people. When we share our gender history, many see us less authentically — doubting, probing or denying our identities. As someone who is not readily perceived to be trans, I possess a great deal of privilege, both because I can control — well, used to control — who knows my gender history, and also because I don't experience the same type of discrimination, or even violence, that more visible trans people face — especially trans women of color. A person's gender history is private information and it is up to them, and only them, when, how and to whom they choose to disclose that information. Keeping your gender history private is not the same as a gay person being "in the closet." The only people who need to know are medical professionals and naked fun time friends. There's no playbook for being trans. You make it up as you go along, and I struggled with finding the right time to disclose my gender history to those close to me. What was appropriate? A week? A month? My gut would tell me to fill someone in, but then panic would wash over me. What if that person told other people? My biggest concern was that if people knew, their opinion of me would change. I feared if I let anyone too close, they'd smell my stench and not want to be my friend anymore. Better to have acquaintances than no one at all. So I held them at arm's length. Honestly, I held the world at arm's length. I came to fear discomfort and risk taking on the off chance that I might fail again. I never resumed leaping. I followed the path of least resistance, telling myself I would amount to something someday, just not today. Until one day I realized that if the somedays didn't start becoming todays, I'd run out of days. If the first chapter of the Zeke book of my life is about rebuilding from failure, I was well rebuilt. However, the structure's sturdiness needed to be tested, because until it was, I would never definitively know if I was the man I believed myself to be. On a hot night in the summer of 2015, I pondered what this test might be. The answer appeared instantly, for it had been the constant in this chapter: Survivor. I applied. I didn't discuss my trans status in my initial video because I wanted the show to desire me as a game player and an eccentric storyteller, not as "The First Trans Survivor Player." They did. Casting called back two hours later, and I began to panic. I'd chosen to test myself in a tremendously public way. The results of the test wouldn't be discreetly mailed back to me; they'd be broadcast to the entire world. I threw myself into preparation. There was no room for failure. I lifted weights in the morning, swam at night, and in between acclimated to the heat in the sauna while reading books on mental toughness techniques utilized by endurance athletes. I ordered a bundle of bamboo poles and practiced making fire on the roof of my apartment building. I gave up caffeine and booze. I solved puzzles and tied and untied knots. I listened to Hamilton. A lot. I was not throwing away my shot. The reality of playing Survivor terrified me, but I resolved that nothing would stand between me and the island. So I woke up every morning and told myself I would win. I faked confidence, hoping that when the day finally came to be dropped on a beach and meet the dashingly dimpled host and executive producer, Jeff Probst, I'd finally believe it. The moment I put that buff, the official Survivor player uniform, on my head, my confidence became real. I knew I'd conquer whatever the game might throw at me. I was free. Now I could just play. My rookie season, Survivor: Millennials vs. Gen X, instantly proved challenging. No one on my tribe of freewheeling Millennials had any idea how — or willingness to — build a shelter. The first night we huddled together in the mud as the Fijian skies dumped buckets of rain upon us. But I went to be challenged. I loved it. Not even Beyonce herself could've tempted me out of the rain and mud and back into my soft Brooklyn bed. All my preparation paid off: I made fire with bamboo — I made a fire by rubbing two damn sticks together. I excelled in challenges, proving myself adept in the water and a master at puzzles. Strategically, I initially found myself the low man on the totem pole. I very easily could've been voted out third, but I managed to form strong relationships, maneuver other players to my will and climb my way to the top of the pack. I impressed the hell out of myself. I couldn't believe how well I was doing. Put under Survivor's high stakes, I got out of my own way and allowed myself to be the man I always hoped I would be. Playing Survivor well means knowing when to play fast and when to play slow, but deep into the game I was having so much fun playing fast that I laid on the gas. My prowess became undeniable and, as is the fate of most who are considered the leading threat to win, I was voted out. Jeff Probst looked me square in the eyes and snuffed my torch, extinguishing my life in the game. Twenty minutes later, before I could scarf a cheeseburger or peel off my rotting boxers, Probst asked if I was up for doing it all over again ... in two weeks … alongside some of the game's best players. "I'm your guy," I told Probst. I was initially drawn to play in order to prove myself a cunning strategist worthy of a rare and highly coveted chance to one day return to the game. I'd made such a believer out of Probst that my second shot came immediately, which meant that I was every bit the player I'd dreamed I'd be. I cannot think of a time in my life when I was happier, more fulfilled and more at peace with myself. I was living, finally. Why stop now? Playing with rookies was one thing, but playing alongside my Survivor heroes in a season called Survivor: Game Changers was quite another. It was like waking up in Westeros, Lord Zeke of the Mustache Lands, fighting to claim the Iron Throne. But instead of flying dragons with Daenerys Targaryen, Mother of Dragons, I trailed Ozzy, Master of Spear Fishing, out to the reef, dove down and watched him catch fish. Tai, the Chicken Whisperer, and I killed three chickens together. Debbie, the Woman with an Infinite Number of Jobs, told me about all of her jobs. I'd been charmed by my castmates' quirks and touched by their stories. There's no one whose journey resonated with me more than former local network news anchor Jeff Varner. Walking into the season, his story was that he'd played twice and never made the jury, the Survivor equivalent of making the playoffs. This was Varner's third shot and likely his last. If he didn't make the jury, he'd forever be remembered as the only three-time player to never do so. To his credit, Varner received some bad breaks during his first two seasons, and in Game Changers, bad luck befell him once again. The numbers were not in his favor, but they were in mine, and I was excited to be on a tribe with him. I wanted the jury for him. I wanted to be the guy who made it happen. Varner and I connected quickly. Events in his life back home drew him to seek an understanding of gay people's place in Christianity. I studied religion in college, focusing specifically on LGBTQ people and the Bible. Though I'm not particularly religious, I feel passionately that people of faith should not be denied religious ritual or spiritual community because of their sexual orientation or gender identity, and shared what I'd learned with Varner over long conversations on the beach. I saw a pain, a brokenness in his eyes that felt all too familiar — a longing for the spotlight, but a desire to remain unseen. Though Varner has been openly gay for many years, he chose not to discuss his sexual orientation during his first two stints on the show. Beyond his charm and charisma, I thought I recognized a deep-seated insecurity and self-loathing, a glimpse at who I could become were I not careful. All Varner had to do was make it until tomorrow and he'd get his jury seat. But he wasn't going to. Our tribe proved unable to unscramble a word, metamorphosis, losing the Immunity Challenge and sending us to Tribal Council. Everyone's best move was unquestionably to get rid of Varner. My heart broke for him. I mulled over all the scenarios to save him, but each required me to significantly jeopardize my position. As much as I felt for the man, I wasn't giving up my dream for his. You never want a player to know they're going home, because they might get desperate and go nuclear, douse the fire or pour out the rice. But my heart overrode my head when I sat down with him that afternoon. I told him he was going home. I thought he deserved to know it would be his last day on the beach. Tribal Council throws the question of life and death into stark relief. One member of the tribe must be sacrificed each visit. Players ask each other: Which one of us do we kill tonight? Fire, the flame of your torch, represents your life. When Probst snuffs that flame, your life is over. You exit to the left, into the darkness, what I called The Abyss. The rest of the tribe exits to the right, back to camp with a renewed lease on life. Clearly, the stakes are not actually life and death. We're a group of adults playing a very expensive game of make believe. But, despite all its deprivations, your Survivor life can be superior to your regular life. I remember walking into Tribal Council that night. I remember the smell of the kerosene in our torches. I remember the smug smirk on his face and the gleam in his eye when he turned to me and snarled, "Why haven't you told anyone that you’re transgender?" The lights magnified in brightness. The cameras, though 30 feet away, suddenly felt inches from my face. All sound faded. Something primal deep inside me screamed: run. I lost control of my body, my legs bounced up and down uncontrollably, willing me to flee, but the rest of me sat dead as stone. To my left was The Abyss. I could've made a clean break for it, but I knew there was no running from what had happened. Cameras would follow me, if not that night, then eventually. Running was not an option. So I sat blank, almost in a trance, unaware of what happened around me, trying to form a plan. Survivor had spun out of control. That's the risk you take when you dance in the ethical borderlands, where you'll betray a friend, swear on your mother and lie to a priest, all before you eat whatever meager crumbs count as breakfast. In Survivor, much is permissible which is typically objectionable, but there are limits, as there should be on a family-friendly reality show on network television. It's one thing to lie about someone sneaking off at night to search for hidden advantages. It is quite another to incense bigotry toward a marginalized minority. Responsibility fell upon my shoulders to right the ship that had blown perilously far off course. I could let this be one of the worst moments of my life or one of the greatest. If I set the tone, everyone would follow. The power was in my hands. I told myself, "Dude, you resolved to never stop playing. Buck up and make this OK." I am forever grateful that Probst gave me time to collect myself. Were I in the hands of a lesser leader, I'm sure questions would've been peppered my way before I was ready to receive them. I could not have responded in the manner in which I did had he not held the wheel while I got my bearings. I tuned back in to the conversation and found chaos — tears, yelling, anger, but mostly confusion. I needed to calm everyone down. My chance to re-enter appeared — an opportunity to provide clarification. I spoke as calmly as I possibly could. Each word came slowly. Typically, my brain races far ahead of my ability to form words, but then it trudged, carefully selecting its path. My right leg settled down, but my left still jittered. I took solace in my tribemates. They defended me passionately. Even Probst, the most neutral of arbiters, had my back. My left leg settled and with it the group. Tears dried, voices lowered and the attention turned to me to make sense of what happened. I didn't know what to say. Months before, I plotted how I'd respond in case of such a disaster scenario, but those words were written a lifetime ago and nowhere in mind. I groped for direction, talking to kill time. Then, a single word appeared, the word I couldn't find earlier in the day, the word that encapsulated my 50-plus days on the island: metamorphosis. Everything clicked. I sat up straight. My mind revved back up to full speed. As I spoke, l locked eyes with Probst, and he nodded along with me, as if to say, "Yes, yes, you've got it." The ship was out of rough waters and back into placid seas. I knew that Varner's actions, though targeted at me, had nothing to do with me and everything to do with him. His terrible utterances were not an effect of my actions, but a reflection of his own personal maladies. But in calling me deceptive, Varner invoked one of the most odious stereotypes of transgender people, a stereotype that is often used as an excuse for violence and even murder. In proclaiming "Zeke is not the guy you think he is" and that "there is deception on levels y'all don't understand," Varner is saying that I'm not really a man and that simply living as my authentic self is a nefarious trick. In reality, by being Zeke the dude, I am being my most honest self — as is every other transgender person going about their daily lives. I don't believe Varner hates trans people, just as I don't believe conservative politicians who attack trans people actually care where we use the bathroom. For both, trans people make easy targets for those looking to invoke prejudice in order to win votes. Thankfully, my tribemates rebuffed his hateful tactics. After 18 days starving and competing with me, they knew exactly the man I am, and after that Tribal Council, we all knew exactly the man Varner is. I looked to Varner, now the one hunched and quivering, and contemplated the backlash he would face. When he said what he said, he changed both of our lives forever. When he pulled me in for a hug, I felt compelled to reciprocate, both as a sign that I was willing to forgive him and that the shots he had fired missed. But, if we're being perfectly honest with one another, I've struggled with that forgiveness in the months following. I can't foresee us sipping martinis together in Fire Island. While I can reconcile the personal slight of him outing me, I continue to be troubled by his willingness to deploy such a dangerous stereotype on a global platform. But forgiveness does not require friendship. Forgiveness does not require forgetting or excusing his actions. Forgiveness requires hope. Hope that he understands the injury he caused and does not inflict it upon others. Hope that whatever torments his soul will plague him no more. I have hope for Jeff Varner. I just choose to hope from afar, thank you very much. To adventure is to invite hazard into your life. The thrill of adventure comes from accepting this risk, and the reward from confronting whatever might be thrown at you. But you cannot control the hazards you face, be they repeated misfortune or the harmful actions of others. You can only control how you respond. It's up to you to decide whether the hazard will define you or you will define the hazard. At the conclusion of Tribal, Jeff Varner's torch was snuffed. He walked into the darkness, and the rest of us headed back to camp. There's no special dispensation for a traumatic Tribal. No chocolate chip cookies. No phone call home. Just the dirt and the hunger and the honor of another day playing the world's greatest game. Follow THR.com/Survivor for more coverage from the season, and let us know what you think of Zeke's story in the comments below.

– "I was maliciously outed by a former local network news anchor. What a summer!" That's how Zeke Smith sums up his adventure on Survivor: Game Changers, which turned out to be a bit more eventful than Smith's first appearance on the reality show last season. As Wednesday's episode revealed, fellow contestant Jeff Varner accused Smith of "a deception" before outing Smith as transgender, per the AP—a move that has drawn condemnation from an LGBT rights group, host Jeff Probst, and the public at large, per People. Though Varner apologized before he was voted off the show, Smith says he's struggled with forgiving him in the eight months since filming wrapped, in a piece for the Hollywood Reporter. "In calling me deceptive, Varner invoked one of the most odious stereotypes of transgender people," Smith writes. Varner, who is gay, implied "that I'm not really a man and that simply living as my authentic self is a nefarious trick." GLAAD has criticized Varner's move, while Probst tells Entertainment Weekly that the reaction of his teammates, who swiftly defended Smith, "mirrors what the vast majority of society will feel. You just don’t do that to someone." After Wednesday's episode aired, Varner offered his "deepest, most heartfelt apologies" in a statement on Twitter, per CNN. "I recklessly revealed something I mistakenly believed everyone already knew. I was wrong and make no excuses for it," he said.

Flames consume a Kentucky Fried Chicken as the Camp Fire tears through Paradise, Calif., on Thursday, Nov. 8, 2018. (AP Photo/Noah Berger, File) (Associated Press) Flames consume a Kentucky Fried Chicken as the Camp Fire tears through Paradise, Calif., on Thursday, Nov. 8, 2018. (AP Photo/Noah Berger, File) (Associated Press) WASHINGTON (AP) — Both nature and humans share blame for California's devastating wildfires, but forest management did not play a major role, despite President Donald Trump's claims, fire scientists say. Nature provides the dangerous winds that have whipped the fires, and human-caused climate change over the long haul is killing and drying the shrubs and trees that provide the fuel, experts say. "Natural factors and human-caused global warming effects fatally collude" in these fires, said wildfire expert Kristen Thornicke of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany. Multiple reasons explain the fires' severity, but "forest management wasn't one of them," University of Utah fire scientist Philip Dennison said. Trump tweeted on Saturday: "There is no reason for these massive, deadly and costly forest fires in California except that forest management is so poor. Billions of dollars are given each year, with so many lives lost, all because of gross mismanagement of the forests." The death toll from the wildfire that incinerated the town of Northern California town of Paradise and surrounding areas climbed to 29, matching the mark for the deadliest single blaze in California history. Statewide, the number of fire dead stood at 31, including two victims in Southern California. One reason that scientists know that management isn't to blame is that some areas now burning had fires in 2005 and 2008, so they aren't "fuel-choked closed-canopy forests," Dennison said. In those earlier fires, Paradise was threatened but escaped major damage, he said. In the current blazes, it was virtually destroyed. The other major fire, in Southern California, burned through shrub land, not forest, Dennison said. "It's not about forest management. These aren't forests," he said. The dean of the University of Michigan's environmental school, Jonathan Overpeck, said Western fires are getting bigger and more severe. He said it "is much less due to bad management and is instead the result of our baking of our forests, woodlands and grasslands with ever-worsening climate change." Wildfires have become more devastating because of the extreme weather swings from global warming, fire scientists said. The average number of U.S. acres burned by wildfires has doubled over the level from 30 years ago. As of Monday, more than 13,200 square miles (34,200 square kilometers) have burned. That's more than a third higher than the 10-year average. From 1983 to 1999, the United States didn't reach 10,000 square miles burned annually. Since then, 11 of 19 years have had more than 10,000 square miles burned, including this year. In 2006, 2015 and 2017, more than 15,000 square miles burned. The two fires now burning "aren't that far out of line with the fires we've seen in these areas in recent decades," Dennison said. "The biggest factor was wind," Dennison said in an email. "With wind speeds as high as they were, there was nothing firefighters could do to stop the advance of the fires." These winds, called Santa Ana winds, and the unique geography of high mountains and deep valleys act like chimneys, fortifying the fires, Thornicke said. The wind is so strong that fire breaks — areas where trees and brush have been cleared or intentionally burned to deprive the advancing flames of fuel — won't work. One of the fires jumped over eight lanes of freeway, about 140 feet (43 meters), Dennison said. Southern California had fires similar to the Woolsey fire in 1982, when winds were 60 mph, but "the difference between 1982 and today is a much higher population in these areas. Many more people were threatened and had to evacuated," Dennison said. California also has been in drought for all but a few years of the 21st century and is now experiencing its longest drought, which began on Dec. 27, 2011, and has lasted 358 weeks, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor . Nearly two-thirds of the state is abnormally dry. The first nine months of the year have been fourth-warmest on record for California, and this past summer was the second-hottest on record in the state. Because of that, there are 129 million dead trees, which provide fuel for fires, Thornicke said. And it's more than trees. Dead shrubs around the bottom of trees provide what is called "ladder fuel," offering a path for fire to climb from the ground to the treetops and intensifying the conflagration by a factor of 10 to 100, said Kevin Ryan, a fire consultant and former fire scientist at the U.S. Forest Service. While many conservatives advocate cutting down more trees to prevent fires, no one makes money by cutting dead shrubs, and that's a problem, he said. Local and state officials have cleared some Southern California shrub, enough for normal weather and winds. But that's not enough for this type of extreme drought, said Ryan, also a former firefighter. University of Alberta fire scientist Mike Flanigan earlier this year told The Associated Press that the hotter and drier the weather, the easier it is for fires to start, spread and burn more intensely. It's simple, he said: "The warmer it is, the more fire we see." For every 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit that the air warms, it needs 15 percent more rain to make up for the drying of the fuel, Flannigan said. Federal fire and weather data show the years with the most acres burned were generally a degree warmer than average. "Everyone who has gardened knows that you must water more on hotter days," Overpeck said. "But, thanks in part to climate change, California isn't getting enough snow and rain to compensate for the unrelenting warming caused by climate change. The result is a worsening wildfire problem. ___ Follow Seth Borenstein on Twitter: @borenbears . ___ The Associated Press Health & Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content. ||||| President Donald Trump woke up in Paris on Saturday in the mood to make threats toward California as it deals with deadly wildfires in Northern California and hundreds of smoldering homes in Southern California. In an angry tweet, the president threatened to pull federal funding for the state if nothing is done to "remedy" the situation. Interested in ? Add as an interest to stay up to date on the latest news, video, and analysis from ABC News. Add Interest There is no reason for these massive, deadly and costly forest fires in California except that forest management is so poor. Billions of dollars are given each year, with so many lives lost, all because of gross mismanagement of the forests. Remedy now, or no more Fed payments! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 10, 2018 Trump was in Paris to take part in a commemoration for the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I. But his mind was still on the disaster unfolding out west in the U.S. Josh Edelson/AFP/Getty Images On Sunday, California Gov. Jerry Brown's office fired back, calling the president's tweet "inane and uninformed." "Our focus is on the Californians impacted by these fires and the first responders and firefighters working around the clock to save lives and property — not on the president’s inane and uninformed tweets," Evan Westrup, the governor's press secretary, told ABC News. At least 25 people have been killed this week as flames from the wildfires engulfed their vehicles, homes and neighborhoods in Northern California, authorities said. There were more than 100 people missing in the region but by Saturday officials added that at least 70 people who were reported missing were located and are now safe. Brown requested a presidential major disaster declaration to "bolster the ongoing emergency response and help residents recover from devastating fires burning in Butte, Los Angeles and Ventura counties," his office announced on Sunday. The president approved an emergency declaration for the state on Friday — but warned he may not do the same in the future. Emergency declarations provide municipalities with air support, relief supplies and evacuation transport. Fire officials said Trump's statements, and remedies, were incorrect. One leading California fire official on Saturday called Trump's comments "a shameful attack on California." "The president’s assertion that California’s forest management policies are to blame for catastrophic wildfire is dangerously wrong," California Professional Firefighters President Brian K. Rice said in a statement on Saturday. "Wildfires are sparked and spread not only in forested areas but in populated areas and open fields fueled by parched vegetation, high winds, low humidity and geography," he continued in the statement. "Moreover, nearly 60 percent of California forests are under federal management, and another two-thirds under private control. It is the federal government that has chosen to divert resources away from forest management, not California." "Natural disasters are not “red” or “blue” – they destroy regardless of party," Rice concluded. "Right now, families are in mourning, thousands have lost homes, and a quarter-million Americans have been forced to flee. At this desperate time, we would encourage the president to offer support in word and deed, instead of recrimination and blame." On Saturday evening, Trump changed course, tweeting support for the firefighters, the homeowners and the tragic victims of the west coast wildfires. "God bless them all," the president tweeted. More than 4,000 are fighting the Camp and Woolsey Fires in California that have burned over 170,000 acres. Our hearts are with those fighting the fires, the 52,000 who have evacuated, and the families of the 11 who have died. The destruction is catastrophic. God Bless them all. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 10, 2018 These California fires are expanding very, very quickly (in some cases 80-100 acres a minute). If people don’t evacuate quickly, they risk being overtaken by the fire. Please listen to evacuation orders from State and local officials! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 10, 2018 But on Sunday he tweeted about mismanagement again, writing, "With proper Forest Management, we can stop the devastation constantly going on in California. Get Smart!" With proper Forest Management, we can stop the devastation constantly going on in California. Get Smart! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 11, 2018 Trump has made similar false claims about fire science and government resource allocation in the past, and fire officials have pushed back. In August he tweeted, "California wildfires are being magnified & made so much worse by the bad environmental laws which aren’t allowing massive amounts of readily available water to be properly utilized. It is being diverted into the Pacific Ocean. Must also tree clear to stop fire from spreading!" "We have plenty of water to fight these fires," Deputy Cal Fire Chief Scott McLean said in a statement in August. Nevertheless, the Trump administration announced it would override the Endangered Species Act to provide extra water -- not needed by the fire crews. He also criticized California's handling of forest fires at an Oct. 17 Cabinet meeting. During an exchange with Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue, Trump called California "a mess" and "disgraceful." "I say to the governor, or whoever is going to be the governor, of California: You better get your act together," Trump said. "Because California, we're just not going to continue to pay the kind of money that we're paying because of fires that should never be to the extent [they are]." NASA via AP Trump has long feuded with Brown, a Democrat, who is set to be replaced by fellow Trump antagonist Gavin Newsom. The Democrat was elected to the office last week. Newsom was previously married to former Fox News host Kimberly Guilfoyle, who now dates Donald Trump Jr. "It's costing our country hundreds of billions of dollars because of incompetence in California," Trump said in that Cabinet meeting. It's unclear where Trump was getting the figure of "hundreds of billions of dollars." Cal Fire's operating budget for 2018-19 is $2.3 billion. Fire Management Assistance Grants, authorized through the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), refund as much as 75 percent of firefighting costs for departments. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development also provided $212 million to the state of California in 2017. Trump's tweet ironically comes while he is in Paris, the namesake of the Paris Climate Agreement, under which nearly 200 countries agreed to curb greenhouse gas emissions in order to combat climate change. The agreement was signed by the U.S. during Barack Obama's administration, but Trump pulled the country out of the agreement in June 2017. Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images Michael Mann, an atmospheric science professor at Penn State University, told PBS' "NewsHour" in August that he believes climate change is contributing to the increased seriousness of wildfires. "We're not saying that climate change is literally causing the events to occur," he said. "What we can conclude with a great deal of confidence now is that climate change is making these events more extreme." ABC News' Stephanie Ebbs contributed to this report.

– President Trump on Saturday expressed his belief that the wildfires ravaging California can be blamed on "gross mismanagement of the forests." Neil Young, for one, isn't having it. Variety reports the musician lost his Malibu home in the fires, and on Sunday he offered a retort to Trump on his website in the form of a 300-word post (you'll need to register to read it in full). It reads in part: "California is vulnerable – not because of poor forest management as DT (our so-called president) would have us think. We are vulnerable because of climate change; the extreme weather events and our extended drought is part of it. ... We love California. We are not ill-prepared. We are up against something bigger than we have ever seen. It’s too big for some to see at all. Firefighters have never seen anything like this before in their lives." The AP backs up Young's assertion by way of an interview with University of Utah fire scientist Philip Dennison. He says there are a number of contributing factors, but "forest management wasn't one of them." He elaborates on why: Some of the areas that have been hit saw fires in 2005 and 2008, so they aren't "fuel-choked closed-canopy forests." And in the case of Southern California, what has burned isn't forest but shrub land. So of the other contributing factors, which was the big one? The Santa Ana winds, says Dennison. "With wind speeds as high as they were, there was nothing firefighters could do to stop the advance." Even fire breaks—areas where vegetation has been cleared or intentionally so as not to offer the oncoming flames fuel—has been no match. One of the fires straddled eight lanes of freeway, a distance of roughly 140 feet, he says.

ATLANTA, Feb. 25, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Arby's, the national sandwich brand devoted to Meatcraft™, has unveiled plans to extend an olive branch to vegetarians on Leap Day. On Feb. 29 only, Arby's will take a leap by offering the company's first ever vegetarian menu, highlighted by Arby's® signature sandwich lineup, minus the delicious meats that make them sandwiches. Carnivores need not worry – Arby's regular protein-packed menu is available as usual, including the permanent return of the Loaded Italian Sandwich piled high with thinly-sliced ham, salami and pepperoni. "At Arby's, we're proud of our meats, but we also understand that meat isn't for everyone," said Rob Lynch, Chief Marketing Officer and Brand President of Arby's Restaurant Group, Inc. "So we've decided to give vegetarians a reason to visit Arby's on Leap Day by offering a one-day menu designed specifically for them. If it goes well, we'll likely bring back the vegetarian menu on Feb. 29 each year." The Arby's Leap Day vegetarian menu includes: Loaded Italian Sandwich: Melted cheese, banana peppers, shredded lettuce, tomato and red onion, with red wine vinaigrette and garlic aioli on a toasted Italian style roll minus the thinly-sliced ham, succulent salami and delicious pepperoni that made this one of the most popular sandwich launches in Arby's history. Melted cheese, banana peppers, shredded lettuce, tomato and red onion, with red wine vinaigrette and garlic aioli on a toasted Italian style roll minus the thinly-sliced ham, succulent salami and delicious pepperoni that made this one of the most popular sandwich launches in Arby's history. Reuben Sandwich: Marbled rye bread filled with melty Swiss cheese, tangy sauerkraut and creamy Thousand Island dressing. Remove the freshly sliced, perfectly brined, cooked and tender enough to flake with a fork corned beef. Marbled rye bread filled with melty Swiss cheese, tangy sauerkraut and creamy Thousand Island dressing. Remove the freshly sliced, perfectly brined, cooked and tender enough to flake with a fork corned beef. Smokehouse Brisket Sandwich: Smoked Gouda cheese, crispy onions, mayonnaise and BBQ sauce on a star top bun minus the mouthwatering, tender brisket hickory-smoked at a family-owned smokehouse in Texas . Smoked Gouda cheese, crispy onions, mayonnaise and BBQ sauce on a star top bun minus the mouthwatering, tender brisket hickory-smoked at a family-owned smokehouse in . Roast Beef Sandwich: A toasted sesame seed bun minus Arby's famous thinly sliced roast beef, marinated and roasted in Arby's restaurants every single day. Available in Classic, Mid or Max sizes. A toasted sesame seed bun minus Arby's famous thinly sliced roast beef, marinated and roasted in Arby's restaurants every single day. Available in Classic, Mid or Max sizes. Crispy Fish Sandwich: Tartar sauce and shredded lettuce on a toasted sesame seed bun minus Arby's wild-caught Alaskan Pollock crispy-fried to golden-brown perfection. Tartar sauce and shredded lettuce on a toasted sesame seed bun minus Arby's wild-caught Alaskan Pollock crispy-fried to golden-brown perfection. King's Hawaiian Fish Deluxe Sandwich: Sweet, fluffy buns from Hawaii topped with Cheddar cheese, shredded lettuce, tomatoes and tartar sauce minus Arby's crispy, sustainably-sourced and wild-caught Alaskan Pollock. Sweet, fluffy buns from topped with Cheddar cheese, shredded lettuce, tomatoes and tartar sauce minus Arby's crispy, sustainably-sourced and wild-caught Alaskan Pollock. Crispy Fish Flatbread: Shredded lettuce and tartar sauce wrapped in a fluffy flatbread without Arby's wild-caught Alaskan Pollock, crispy-fried to golden-brown perfection. Shredded lettuce and tartar sauce wrapped in a fluffy flatbread without Arby's wild-caught Alaskan Pollock, crispy-fried to golden-brown perfection. French Dip & Swiss Sandwich: Swiss cheese. Italian roll. French au jus. It's half the countries in the world on one sandwich, minus Arby's famous thinly sliced roast beef, marinated and roasted in Arby's restaurants every single day. Swiss cheese. Italian roll. French au jus. It's half the countries in the world on one sandwich, minus Arby's famous thinly sliced roast beef, marinated and roasted in Arby's restaurants every single day. Beef 'n Cheddar Classic Sandwich: A toasted onion roll topped with Cheddar cheese sauce and zesty Red Ranch minus Arby's famous thinly sliced roast beef, marinated and roasted in Arby's restaurants every single day. A toasted onion roll topped with Cheddar cheese sauce and zesty minus Arby's famous thinly sliced roast beef, marinated and roasted in Arby's restaurants every single day. Angus Philly Sandwich: Fire-roasted onions and peppers, melted Swiss cheese and mayo on a toasted Philly roll minus the mouthwatering USDA Choice top round Angus steak Arby's is known for. Fire-roasted onions and peppers, melted Swiss cheese and mayo on a toasted Philly roll minus the mouthwatering USDA Choice top round Angus steak Arby's is known for. Angus Three Cheese & Bacon Sandwich: Swiss cheese, shredded Cheddar cheese and parmesan peppercorn ranch sauce without the succulent sliced Angus steak and thick cut pepper bacon. Swiss cheese, shredded Cheddar cheese and parmesan peppercorn ranch sauce without the succulent sliced Angus steak and thick cut pepper bacon. Grand Turkey Club Sandwich: Melted Swiss cheese, crisp green lettuce, fresh red tomato and creamy mayo without Arby's marinated and roasted until it's tender and juicy turkey breast. Melted Swiss cheese, crisp green lettuce, fresh red tomato and creamy mayo without Arby's marinated and roasted until it's tender and juicy turkey breast. Roast Turkey Ranch & Bacon Sandwich: Peppercorn ranch sauce and Cheddar cheese sandwiched between two slices of honey wheat bread with tomato, onion and leaf lettuce minus Arby's marinated and roasted until it's tender and juicy turkey breast and thick-cut pepper bacon. Peppercorn ranch sauce and Cheddar cheese sandwiched between two slices of honey wheat bread with tomato, onion and leaf lettuce minus Arby's marinated and roasted until it's tender and juicy turkey breast and thick-cut pepper bacon. Roast Turkey Ranch & Bacon Wrap : Peppercorn ranch sauce and Cheddar cheese wrapped in a soft hearty grain wrap served without Arby's marinated and roasted until it's tender and juicy turkey breast and thick-cut pepper bacon. : Peppercorn ranch sauce and Cheddar cheese wrapped in a soft hearty grain wrap served without Arby's marinated and roasted until it's tender and juicy turkey breast and thick-cut pepper bacon. Roast Turkey & Swiss Sandwich: Ripe tomatoes, lettuce, thinly sliced red onions, Swiss cheese, mayonnaise and spicy brown honey mustard minus Arby's marinated and roasted until it's tender and juicy turkey breast. Ripe tomatoes, lettuce, thinly sliced red onions, Swiss cheese, mayonnaise and spicy brown honey mustard minus Arby's marinated and roasted until it's tender and juicy turkey breast. Roast Turkey & Swiss Wrap: Ripe tomatoes, lettuce, thinly sliced red onions, Swiss cheese, mayonnaise and spicy brown honey mustard on a grain wrap without Arby's marinated and roasted until it's tender and juicy turkey breast. Ripe tomatoes, lettuce, thinly sliced red onions, Swiss cheese, mayonnaise and spicy brown honey mustard on a grain wrap without Arby's marinated and roasted until it's tender and juicy turkey breast. Crispy Chicken Sandwich: Lettuce, mayonnaise and tomato served on a star top bun without Arby's crispy, all-white-meat Prime-Cut™ chicken breast. Lettuce, mayonnaise and tomato served on a star top bun without Arby's crispy, all-white-meat Prime-Cut™ chicken breast. Chicken Bacon Swiss Sandwich: Swiss cheese, lettuce, tomato and honey mustard. Served on a toasted star top bun without Arby's fried to perfection chicken breast topped with thick cut pepper bacon. Swiss cheese, lettuce, tomato and honey mustard. Served on a toasted star top bun without Arby's fried to perfection chicken breast topped with thick cut pepper bacon. Chicken Cordon Bleu Sandwich: Swiss cheese and mayo on a star top bun minus Arby's crispy, tender, Prime-Cut delicious chicken cut from whole chicken breast, breaded, seasoned and fried daily and Arby's tasty and tender ham. Swiss cheese and mayo on a star top bun minus Arby's crispy, tender, Prime-Cut delicious chicken cut from whole chicken breast, breaded, seasoned and fried daily and Arby's tasty and tender ham. Corned Beef 'n Cheese Slider: Melted cheese on a soft, slider roll to enjoy as a side or on its own without the freshly sliced, perfectly brined, cooked and tender enough to flake with a fork corned beef. Melted cheese on a soft, slider roll to enjoy as a side or on its own without the freshly sliced, perfectly brined, cooked and tender enough to flake with a fork corned beef. Jalapeno Roast Beef Slider: Little sandwich, big kick. Diced fire-roasted jalapeños, topped with melted cheese on a slider-sized bun without Arby's famous thinly sliced roast beef, marinated and roasted in Arby's restaurants every single day. Little sandwich, big kick. Diced fire-roasted jalapeños, topped with melted cheese on a slider-sized bun without Arby's famous thinly sliced roast beef, marinated and roasted in Arby's restaurants every single day. Roast Beef 'n Cheese Slider: Melted cheese you love on a slider-sized bun, for when you want a mini-me of the classic without Arby's famous thinly sliced roast beef, marinated and roasted in Arby's restaurants every single day. Melted cheese you love on a slider-sized bun, for when you want a mini-me of the classic without Arby's famous thinly sliced roast beef, marinated and roasted in Arby's restaurants every single day. Chicken 'n Cheese Slider: Melted cheese on a bite-sized soft bun without Arby's fried to perfection chicken breast. Melted cheese on a bite-sized soft bun without Arby's fried to perfection chicken breast. Ham 'n Cheese Slider: Melted cheese on a soft slider roll without Arby's tasty and tender smokehouse cooked ham. Melted cheese on a soft slider roll without Arby's tasty and tender smokehouse cooked ham. Jr. Bacon Cheddar Melt: The Jr. Bacon Cheddar Melt has Arby's warm cheddar cheese sauce, on a slightly smaller sesame seed bun so as not to overwhelm you, all without Arby's signature roast beef topped with thick-cut pepper bacon. The Jr. Bacon Cheddar Melt has Arby's warm cheddar cheese sauce, on a slightly smaller sesame seed bun so as not to overwhelm you, all without Arby's signature roast beef topped with thick-cut pepper bacon. Jr. Roast Beef Sandwich: A soft bun that's just a little bit smaller than the Roast Beef Classic served without the classic roast beef. A soft bun that's just a little bit smaller than the Roast Beef Classic served without the classic roast beef. Jr. Ham & Cheddar Sandwich: Arby's sesame seed bun topped with warm cheddar cheese sauce minus Arby's tasty and tender oven-roasted ham piled on top. Arby's sesame seed bun topped with warm cheddar cheese sauce minus Arby's tasty and tender oven-roasted ham piled on top. Crispy Chicken Farmhouse Salad: The usual salad stuff like chopped fresh lettuce, diced tomatoes and shredded cheddar cheese without the piled high crispy, tender, delicious, chicken and layer of mouth-watering diced pepper bacon. The usual salad stuff like chopped fresh lettuce, diced tomatoes and shredded cheddar cheese without the piled high crispy, tender, delicious, chicken and layer of mouth-watering diced pepper bacon. Roast Turkey Farmhouse Salad: The usual salad stuff like chopped fresh lettuce, diced tomatoes and shredded cheddar cheese without the juicy roast turkey and mouth-watering diced pepper bacon. The usual salad stuff like chopped fresh lettuce, diced tomatoes and shredded cheddar cheese without the juicy roast turkey and mouth-watering diced pepper bacon. Chopped Side Salad: Lettuce showered with diced tomatoes and cheddar cheese. Lettuce showered with diced tomatoes and cheddar cheese. Loaded Curly Fries: Potatoes - the meats of the field. Sliced up curly and fried to perfection topped with cheddar sauce, shredded cheddar cheese, and ranch and served without the bacon. Potatoes - the meats of the field. Sliced up curly and fried to perfection topped with cheddar sauce, shredded cheddar cheese, and ranch and served without the bacon. Curly Fries: Potatoes. The meats of the field. Sliced up curly and fried to perfection. Potatoes. The meats of the field. Sliced up curly and fried to perfection. Mozzarella Sticks: Stretchy, cheesy, melty mozzarella that's battered and fried. Served with a marinara sauce for dipping. Stretchy, cheesy, melty mozzarella that's battered and fried. Served with a marinara sauce for dipping. Jalapeno Bites®: Spicy jalapeno halves filled with melted cream cheese with a side of Bronco Berry Sauce®. Spicy jalapeno halves filled with melted cream cheese with a side of Bronco Berry Sauce®. Steakhouse Onion Rings: Arby's Steakhouse Onion Rings are thick-cut, battered and fried until crispy. Arby's Steakhouse Onion Rings are thick-cut, battered and fried until crispy. Potato Cakes: Shredded potato fried to a crispy golden brown. It's a cake of potato. Shredded potato fried to a crispy golden brown. It's a cake of potato. Apple Turnover: A freshly baked pastry stuffed with apple filling. A freshly baked pastry stuffed with apple filling. Cherry Turnover: A freshly baked pastry stuffed with sweet cherry filling. A freshly baked pastry stuffed with sweet cherry filling. Chocolate Turnover: A freshly baked pastry filled with sweet, sweet chocolate. A freshly baked pastry filled with sweet, sweet chocolate. Chocolate Shake: A creamy and indulgent chocolate-y treat. A creamy and indulgent chocolate-y treat. Jamocha Shake: Arby's famous chocolate-y, coffee-y treat. Arby's famous chocolate-y, coffee-y treat. Vanilla Shake: A simple and satisfying vanilla treat. A simple and satisfying vanilla treat. Mint Chocolate Swirl Shake: A chocolate swirl shake with Andes® mint chocolate pieces. About Arby's Arby's, founded in 1964, is the first nationally franchised sandwich restaurant brand, with more than 3,300 restaurants worldwide. The Arby's brand purpose is "Inspiring Smiles Through Delicious Experiences™." Arby's® restaurants feature Fast Crafted™ service, a unique blend of quick-serve speed and value combined with the quality and made-for-you care of fast casual. Arby's Restaurant Group, Inc. is the parent company of the franchisor of the Arby's brand and is headquartered in Atlanta, Ga. Visit Arbys.com for more information. With the current growth and momentum of the Brand, Arby's is actively seeking new franchisees. To learn more about available markets and requirements, visit DiscoverArbys.com. Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160224/337127 Photo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160224/337476 Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20150521/217860LOGO SOURCE Arby’s ||||| Hold onto your roast beef —vegetarians get their due on Feb. 29 when Arby's introduces a one-day-only vegetarian menu to each of its 3,400 outlets nationwide. This comes from the restaurant behind the term "Meatcraft." Crispy onions, cheese and nary a slice of beef in sight. Image: arby's The menu, which is in honor of leap year, is comprised of items on the fast-food chain's standard menu, sans meat. The prices for the sandwiches will not change. And don't worry: Meat-filled sandwiches remain on the bill of fare. "We’re proud of our meats and haven’t been shy about promoting them, so we wanted to show vegetarians that with a little creativity, Arby’s can fit into their diet as well," Arby's told Mashable. Diners will be able to choose from options like the Reuben Sandwich, the Smokehouse Brisket Sandwich and the Beef 'n' Cheddar classic sandwich that are all lacking their eponymous ingredient. Vegetables, condiments and cheese reign supreme as the featured sandwich-stuffers. The (vegetarian) Loaded Italian Sandwich Image: Arby's In a press release, Chief Marketing Officer and Brand President Rob Lynch said, “If it goes well, we’ll likely bring back the vegetarian menu on Feb. 29 each year.” We know you're thinking: Wait, I can get those sandwiches sans meat any time of year just by ordering them that way. You can also drink eggnog any time of year. You can whip up a batch of matzo brei in the middle of the winter. You certainly don't have to wait for Oct. 31 to gorge yourself on your kids' candy stash while they sleep — you are an adult now, you can buy your own candy, remember? But you probably don't do those things. You savor those foods on their specific holidays because the hubbub and excitement surrounding the day and food is part of the joy. That's exactly why ordering a vegetarian sandwich from a roast beef emporium on a day that only comes around once every four years makes so much sense. That and the fact that you can finally take your carnivorous spouse on a lunch date that won't involve crying about how tofu is the devil. Have something to add to this story? Share it in the comments. ||||| Arby’s and Leap Day go together like … roast beef and melted cheese? Not this year! The fast food chain, which is known for its meat-heavy menu, is going to “take a leap” and offer a vegetarian menu for the first time on Monday. Arby’s isn’t offering a different menu, like a cheddar cheese-soaked tofurky sandwich, rather its selling regular sandwiches without any meat. So, what’s on it? Ordering a “Beef ‘n Cheddar Classic Sandwich” will get you just cheese sauce on a presumably soggy roll and the “Crispy Fish Flatbread” is cringe-inducing flatbread slopped with shredded lettuce and tartar sauce. Advertisement It’s not totally a gimmick. Arby’s is, after all, selling fulfilling items like its “Loaded Italian Sandwich,” which includes cheese, banana peppers, lettuce, tomato and onion, just without the meats. There’s also a crispy chicken salad without the crispy chicken. Curly fries, jalapeño poppers and milkshakes also remain a year-round vegetarian option, too. Prices remain the same, despite the less-meaty ingredients. “At Arby’s, we’re proud of our meats, but we also understand that meat isn’t for everyone,” Arby’s said in a release. “So we’ve decided to give vegetarians a reason to visit Arby’s on Leap Day by offering a one-day menu designed specifically for them.” Arby’s also joked that it would bring the menu back every year on Feb. 29.

– It's difficult for a vegetarian to eat at Arby's—there's a lot of meat on the menu. So, in order "to give vegetarians a reason to visit Arby’s on Leap Day," an exec says in a press release, the fast food chain will offer a vegetarian menu on Feb. 29 this year. The Consumerist, Digiday, and Mashable insist the stunt is not a joke, though it is pretty hilarious that one of the items on Arby's official promotional photo is ... just a bun. Indeed, the descriptions of the items available on Leap Day are all pretty funny: "Roast Beef Sandwich: A toasted sesame seed bun minus Arby's famous thinly sliced roast beef, marinated and roasted in Arby's restaurants every single day. Available in Classic, Mid or Max sizes." "Crispy Fish Sandwich: Tartar sauce and shredded lettuce on a toasted sesame seed bun minus Arby's wild-caught Alaskan Pollock crispy-fried to golden-brown perfection." "Beef 'n Cheddar Classic Sandwich: A toasted onion roll topped with Cheddar cheese sauce and zesty Red Ranch minus Arby's famous thinly sliced roast beef, marinated and roasted in Arby's restaurants every single day." Meat-lovers, rest assured you can also still order the normal menu. As Mashable points out, of course, vegetarians could also order the vegetarian menu any time, simply by asking Arby's to hold the meat ... but "you can also drink eggnog any time of year ... but you probably don't." And Digiday points out that some of the items still sound pretty "fulfilling," like the Loaded Italian Sandwich with cheese, banana peppers, lettuce, tomato, onion, red wine vinaigrette, and garlic aioli on a toasted bun. Prices for vegetarian items are not discounted.