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Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption The conduct of the trial has been described as "unprecedented", the BBC's Orla Guerin reports The UN human rights commissioner has condemned an Egyptian court's decision to sentence to death 528 supporters of ousted President Mohammed Morsi. A spokesman for Navi Pillay said the "cursory mass trial" was "rife with procedural irregularities" and breached international human rights law. The defendants were found guilty on Monday of charges relating to an attack on a police station in Minya in August. Another 683 Morsi supporters went on trial at the same court on Tuesday. They include the Muslim Brotherhood's general guide, Mohammed Badie, and the chairman of its Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), Saad al-Katatni. Later, security forces clashed with hundreds of Minya University students protesting against the trials. Tear gas was fired at the students after they blocked a main road, threw stones and set an armoured police vehicle on fire. 'Unprecedented' There has been widespread condemnation of Monday's decision by the Minya Criminal Court to sentence 528 people to death for their alleged participation in an attack on a police station in the central city in mid-August, in which a police officer was killed. The incident took place in the immediate aftermath of an operation by security forces to break up two sit-ins in the capital Cairo that left almost 1,000 people dead. The sit-ins were set up by supporters of Mr Morsi's after he was overthrown by the military the previous month. The trial, at which more than three-quarters of the defendants were not present, is reported to have lasted less than an hour on Saturday. The prosecution did not put forward evidence implicating any individual defendant, even though it had compiled significant evidence, and the court prevented defence lawyers from presenting their case or calling witnesses, according to Human Right Watch. A second session was held on Monday solely to announce the verdict. Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption The 528 Morsi supporters sentenced to death on Monday were convicted of murder and damaging property, as Orla Guerin reports On Tuesday, a spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Rupert Colville, told a news conference in Geneva: "The astounding number of people sentenced to death in this case is unprecedented in recent history." "The mass imposition of the death penalty after a trial that was rife with procedural irregularities is in breach of international human rights law." Sixteen Egyptian rights groups voiced concern, saying the trial constituted a "dangerous, unprecedented shift in the Egyptian's judiciary's treatment of such cases" and represented "a grave violation of both the right to a fair trial and the right to life". But Egypt's interim government defended the court, insisting that the sentences had been handed down only "after careful study". The state-run al-Ahram newspaper said the court would issue its final verdict on 28 April after Egypt's grand mufti, who under the law must ratify each death sentence before it can be carried out, had passed judgement. The defendants may then appeal. Legal experts said a higher court would most probably order a retrial or reduce their sentences. Boycott Mr Colville also expressed concern about the 683 people who went on trial at the Minya Criminal Court on Tuesday on similar charges relating to an attack on another police station in which no-one died. The BBC's Orla Guerin, who is outside the courthouse, says that after an opening session lasting just a few hours the case was adjourned until 28 April, when the judge, Said Youssef, said a verdict would be given. Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Head of Appeals Court Ahmed Midhat El-Maraghy: "The court has the ultimate say in assessing the punishment and no one can interfere with that" Critics will ask how the fate of so many people could be decided after the briefest of trials, our correspondent says. And, she adds, there were two key elements missing - most of the defendants and any of their lawyers. Only 62 defendants reportedly appeared in court, with officials saying Mr Badie and Mr Katatni could not attend for security reasons, while the defence team staged a boycott in protest at the preceding trial. "As lawyers, we haven't seen anything like what happened here yesterday in our entire professional lives and we will not see anything like it until our deaths," Khaled Fouda of the Minya lawyers' syndicate said. Despite the boycott, the judge heard testimony from witnesses and questioning several of the defendants before adjourning the case. The wife of one of the accused in Tuesday's case told the BBC she feared the verdict had been decided in advance. She said her husband was an innocent man who had been arrested while picking up their daughter from hospital. The 1,200 defendants in the two cases in Minya are among more than 16,000 Egyptians arrested over the past eight months, according to figures recently provided by senior interior ministry officials. They include about 3,000 top or mid-level Brotherhood members. ||||| After a single session with no defence lawyers present, an Egyptian judge said Tuesday he will issue verdicts next month in a new mass trial of 683 suspected Islamists on charges of murder and attempted murder, a day after he sentenced hundreds to death in a similar trial that raised a storm of international criticism. The mass trials have raised deep concerns among human rights activists over the lack of due process as Egyptian authorities push swift and heavy prosecutions in their crackdown against Islamists and the Muslim Brotherhood. About 16,000 have been in arrested in the crackdown since the the military’s ouster of President Mohammed Morsi last summer. Defence lawyers boycotted the trial that began Tuesday in the court in the city of Minya, south of Cairo, to protest the verdicts issued the day before in a separate trial. Despite the lawyer boycott, presiding judge Said Youssef went ahead with the session, hearing testimony, in what the lawyers called a violation of the law. After the five-hour hearing, the judge announced that he would issue verdicts in the case at the next session, set for April 28, according to judicial and security officials who attended the sessions and Mohammed Tosson, a defence lawyer who boycotted the session but present in the court building to monitor the results. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the proceedings. The 683 defendants, all but 68 of whom are being tried in absentia, could also face the death penalty in the case. Among the defendants is the top leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, Mohammed Badie, as well several other senior members of the group. Badie is in custody in Cairo but was not brought to the hearing in Minya for security reasons. If sentenced to death, Badie would be the most senior figure in the Brotherhood to receive such a sentence since a leading ideologue of the group, Sayed Qutb, was executed in 1966 – though any verdict against Badie would certainly be appealed. The previous mass trial that Youssef presided over also held only one session to hear testimony before he held a second session Monday to pronounce the verdicts. Defence lawyers said they were not allowed to present their case during the single session, and they were barred from Monday’s hearing, when Youssef pronounced deaths sentenced for 528 of the defendants. The sentences are subject to appeal and even judicial officials involved in the case said they expect them to be overturned. But the verdicts stunned Egyptian human rights activists and brought international criticism on Egypt. On Tuesday, the United Nations human rights office called the mass death sentences “unprecedented in recent history” and “a breach of international human rights law.” The U.S. State Department said it “defies logic” that so many defendants could have gotten a fair trial in two sessions. German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier called the verdicts “very alarming” and said “further mass trials must be suspended.” The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, called on Egyptian officials to ensure “defendants’ rights to a fair and timely trial.” Sixteen Egyptian rights groups said they were “extremely concerned” about the court verdict, saying they constitute “a dangerous, unprecedented shift in the Egyptian judiciary’s treatment of such cases and represent a grave violation of both the right to a fair trial and the right to life.” The Justice Ministry on Tuesday issued a statement in reaction to the criticism, underlining that the defendants have a right to appeal the verdicts to the Court of Cassation, which can order a retrial. If the retrial reaches a similar verdict, the defendants can appeal to the higher court again, it said. The two trials in Minya are connected to a wave of rioting and mob attacks on police stations by Morsi supporters in August, sparked when security forces stormed two pro-Morsi protest camps in Cairo, killing more than 600 people. In the latest trial, the defendants are charged with murder over the death of two policemen in an attack on a police station in the town of el-Adawa. They are also charged with attempted murder of five people – including a Christian resident – as well as with membership in a terrorist group and with aiding, financing and providing weapons to carry out a terrorist attack. The government has branded the Brotherhood a terrorist group, a claim it denies. As a show of protest over the verdicts in the first trial, defence lawyers boycotted Tuesday’s tribunal. “As lawyers, we haven’t seen anything like what happened here yesterday in our entire professional lives and we will not see anything like it until our deaths,” Khaled Fouda, of the Minya lawyers’ syndicate, told a press conference announcing the boycott. One of the boycotting defence lawyers, Yasser Zidan, said the judge violated the law by not postponing Tuesday’s session until new lawyers could be appointed for the defendants. “This is just another disaster,” Zidan said. “This judge smashed the rock of justice with his own hands. He is inventing a new law.” According to the judicial and security officials, the judge questioned nearly 20 witnesses, including policemen and civilians who saw the police station attack. A collection of 70 video clips and 200 photos from the attack were also submitted into evidence. A few kilometres away from the court, clashes erupted between security forces firing tear gas and rubber bullets and Islamist students at Minya University who chanted slogans against the verdicts and the military. Roads around the Minya court building were blocked by cement blocks and metal barricades, manned by security forces and masked special forces. Armored vehicles patrolled the streets and shops in the vicinity of the court were shut down. Security forces kept small groups of protesters, including relatives of the defendants, and traffic away from the area. In a nearby coffee shop, relatives of the defendants sat to sip tea and have breakfast. One of them, 45-year-old al-Hawari, a farmer who spoke on condition he be identified only by his first name for fear of police harassment, said his cousins and neighbours are among the defendants. He insisted they were not involved in killings or violence. “These are all fabrications. Where is the evidence?” said al-Hawari, dressed in traditional robes. Still, he acknowledged that on the day of the mob attack in the el-Adwa police station, many people were involved in fighting, shooting and rioting near the police station to take revenge from “injustice inflicted by the police officers.” “We already know the verdict. God be with us,” he said with a sigh. Maggie Michael reported from Cairo.

– A day after sentencing 529 people to death, Egypt launched another mass trial today, this time accusing 683 Muslim Brotherhood members—including the Brotherhood's top spiritual leader, Mohammed Badie—of crimes including murder and inciting violence in connection with a riot at a police station in Minya. Only 68 defendants were actually in court, the AP reports. Most of the rest are being tried in absentia, though some jailed Brotherhood honchos, including Badie, were kept out of court for security reasons. Also absent: Many defense lawyers, who are boycotting the trial in protest of yesterday's sentencing; the judge who handed out those death sentences is presiding today. By law the lawyers' absence should have halted the trial, but the judge forged ahead. "This judge smashed the rock of justice with his own hands," one said. "He is inventing new law." The 683 are accused of killing two policemen, though according to the BBC no one was actually reported killed in the Minya attack—which followed police raids that killed almost 1,000 protesters in Cairo.

The African Union suspended the Central African Republic on Monday after rebels seized power in a rapid weekend assault on the capital, sending President Francois Bozize fleeing and triggering international appeals for calm. Rebel leader Michel Djotodia planned to declare himself president Monday after his Seleka coalition took control of Bangui in the wake of the collapse of a two-month-old peace deal with Bozize’s regime. But the African Union took swift action on Monday amid international concern about the deteriorating security situation in the deeply unstable former French colony. “The council has decided to suspend with immediate effect Central African Republic from all African Union activities and to impose sanctions, travel restrictions and an asset freeze on Seleka’s leaders,” said AU peace and Security chief Ramtane Lamamra. South Africa said 13 of its soldiers were killed and 27 wounded in the weekend fighting in Bangui and condemned the rebel offensive. “As a member of the African Union, South Africa rejects any efforts to seize power by force,” President Jacob Zuma told reporters, adding however that there were no immediate plans to withdraw troops helping the weak national army. Djotodia, a former civil servant turned rebel leader, said Sunday he would declare himself president but told Radio France Internationale the rebels would respect the terms of a January peace deal and would hold free and fair elections within three years. Opposition figure Nicolas Tiangaye, appointed prime minister of a national unity government formed as part of the accord that ended a previous Seleka offensive launched late last year, would remain in the post, he said. Bozize, who himself seized power in a coup in 2003, is said to have fled the Central African Republic but his whereabouts remain a mystery. One well-placed source told AFP that he had left the country in a helicopter, but did not disclose his destination. French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius confirmed only that he had fled Bangui. International appeals About 20 members of Bozize’s family were taken to the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo, government spokesman Lambert Mende told AFP, but said the ousted leader was not on its soil. Djotodia said he may keep some ministers from Bozize’s clan in his government, pledging: “We are not here to carry out a witch-hunt.” Bangui residents initially welcomed the rebels, waving palm leaves in celebration but the optimistic atmosphere quickly soured into anxiety as gangs of armed looters roamed the riverside city, pillaging shops and offices including the premises of the UN children’s agency UNICEF. And the international community has expressed concern over the situation in the country, which remains one of the poorest nations on earth although it has largely untapped mineral wealth including uranium, gold and diamonds. The US State Department said Sunday it was “very concerned by the worsening humanitarian situation in CAR and credible, widespread reports of human rights abuses by both national security forces and Seleka fighters”. It also called for rebels to restore electricity and water to the capital which had been interrupted over the weekend. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon also condemned the seizure of power by Seleka — a loose alliance of three rebel movements — calling for “the swift restoration of constitutional order”. French President Francois Hollande called on all parties to form a government in accordance with the January peace deal hammered out in the Gabonese capital Libreville, and asked “the armed groups to respect the population”, thousands of whom have already fled Bangui. Rebel fighters resumed hostilities last week after they accused Bozize of reneging on the terms of the January deal which aimed to put an end to a previous offensive launched by Seleka in December. The accord brought several prominent figures from Seleka into the government but it collapsed after the rebels said their demands, which included the release of people they described as political prisoners, had not been met. Seleka launched its first offensive on December 10, accusing Bozize of having failed to honour an earlier peace agreement. They seized a string of towns on their way south but stopped short of Bangui. ||||| (CNN) -- In just over a day, rebels seized the Central African Republic's capital, forced the president out of the country and declared the nation had "opened a new page in its history." But no one knows what the next page will say. Michel Djotodia, the leader of the rebel alliance, the Seleka, declared himself the new president, and the rebel group says their takeover opens a path for peace and democracy. Yet questions abound over the future of impoverished, landlocked country -- and what this uprising means for its 5.1 million residents. Where is the Central African Republic? The Central African Republic is a landlocked nation in the center of the continent, slightly smaller than Texas. It is bordered by Cameroon, Chad, Sudan, South Sudan, the Republic of Congo and the Democratic Republic of Congo. A former French colony, it gained independence in August 1960. Its 5.1 million residents include various ethnic groups who speak several languages. Even though French is the official language, Sango is the primary one. What has been its form of government? For the first 30 years, the country was ruled mostly by military governments. Civilian rule was established in 1993 but lasted only 10 years, according to the CIA World Factbook. In March 2003, then-president Ange-Felix Patasse was deposed in a coup led by Gen. Francois Bozize. Bozize is now in Cameroon, from which he is seeking to move to another country, the Cameroon government said in a communique dated Monday. The statement said that despite his presence, the country shall adhere to a policy of non-intervention. How long was Bozize in power? Two years after he took over in a coup, Bozize called elections in 2005 -- which he won. In 2011, he was re-elected, but activists said the polling was marred by fraud. When did the rebellion start? From the beginning, Bozize did not have full control of the nation. Rebel groups operated, particularly in rural areas. In December 2012, several of the rebel groups banded together, calling themselves the Seleka, or "coalition" in the Sango language. They accused Bozize of reneging on a peace deal and demanded that he step down. Slowly, the rebels began taking over parts of the country. Didn't the two sides strike a new peace deal? Yes, Bozize and the Seleka brokered a peace deal in January, agreeing to form a unity government led by Bozize. But that deal also fell apart. What do the rebels want? Some say the Seleka want a greater opposition presence in the country's government after Bozize's presidential election wins were met with fraud allegations. But others say greed is a factor. Only 3.1% of the land is arable, but the country has an array of natural resources, including diamonds, gold and timber. "Government officials from Bangui have accused Seleka of harboring 'foreign provocateurs' greedy for the country's vast mineral wealth, and there are suspicions that nationals from Chad, Nigeria, and Sudan also make up Seleka's ranks," African studies doctoral candidate Jason Warner wrote in a piece for CNN. How did the rebels take over the capital? For weeks, the Seleka rebel coalition pushed its way from its base in the north toward the capital city of Bangui, seizing towns along the way. Their efforts took a pivotal turn on March 24, when they infiltrated the capital. Witnesses reported hours of fierce gunfire in the city, and a government official said seven civilians were killed. Before he ended up in Cameroon, Bozize had crossed into the Democratic Republic of Congo by the end of the day, said Jules Gautier Ngbapo, a government spokesman. And the rebels issued a bold message: "The Central African Republic has just opened a new page in its history," said a written statement from Justin Kombo Moustapha, secretary general of the Seleka rebels. The statement described Bozize as the country's former president and urged residents to remain calm and prepare themselves to welcome rebel forces. Why were South African soldiers in the country? South Africa sent 200 troops to the country in January to work with the military there to quash the rebellion. During the rebel advance, 13 South African soldiers were killed and 27 wounded, the South African president's office said. One soldier was unaccounted for. What is likely to happen next? That's what world leaders are scrambling to figure out. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned the "unconstitutional seizure of power," echoing the African Union's dismay over the rebels' offensive. Ban's office said the United Nations will continue working with the African Union and the Economic Community of Central African States to find a solution. Rebel leader Djotodia declared himself the new president, and the rebel alliance said democratic elections will take place after three years. "A new page is opening for peace and democracy in the CAR," Francois Nelson N'Djadder, a rebel spokesman, wrote. "Bozize being gone, the Central Africans must gather around the table to talk and find a common path which will ... lead to the organization of democratic elections." What other challenges does the Central African Republic face? Despite its richness of natural resources, the country is stymied by a landlocked position, a poor transportation system, a largely unskilled work force and a legacy of misdirected macroeconomic policies, the CIA's World Factbook said. Its per-capita GDP -- the country's economic output divided by the population -- is just $800, putting the country in 222nd place out of 228 countries. And more than one in 25 adults are afflicted with HIV or AIDS. READ MORE: Central African Republic president flees capital amid violence, official says CNN's Elwyn Lopez, Nana Karikari-apau and Catherine E. Shoichet contributed to this report. ||||| BANGUI A rebel leader in Central African Republic pledged to name a power-sharing government after seizing the capital Bangui on Sunday and declaring himself president, a spokesman said, in a bid to defuse international outcry over the coup. The seizure of power by the Seleka rebel coalition - the latest in a series of coups and rebellions since the mineral-rich nation won independence from France in 1960 - was swiftly condemned by the United Nations and the African Union. The United States, France and regional powerbroker Chad called on Seleka leader Michel Djotodia to respect the terms of a January power-sharing agreement signed in the Gabonese capital Libreville. The agreement had created a government drawn from rebel leaders, the civilian opposition and loyalists of former president Francois Bozize. It was led by Prime Minister Nicolas Tiangaye, a former lawyer and member of the civilian opposition. "We will respect the Libreville accord: a political transition of 2 to 3 years before elections," Seleka spokesman Eric Massi said by telephone. "The current prime minister remains in place and the cabinet will be slightly reshuffled." Massi said the riverside capital Bangui was calm on Monday morning, though Seleka was still seeking to contain sporadic looting which broke out on Sunday after Bozize's fall. Seleka, a loose coalition of five rebel groups whose name means 'alliance' in the Songo language, had accused Bozize of breaking the January agreement by failing to integrate their fighters into the army. They launched hostilities on Thursday, quickly sweeping south to seize the capital, brushing aside a South African force of 400 troops which attempted to defend Bangui. A Reuters witness said at least nine South Africans were killed, in a setback to its efforts to project its influence on the region. FRENCH NATIONS SAFE Paris, which already had 250 soldiers in Central African Republic, has sent another 300 troops to ensure the security of its citizens and diplomatic installations. Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said there was no need to evacuate its 1,200 nationals, most of whom are in the capital. "Things are under control from our point of view regarding French nationals," Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said on Europe 1 radio. Fabius said President Francois Hollande had spoken to U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and Chadian President Idriss Deby to suggest that any solution to the crisis should be based on the January Libreville agreement. "For now, there is not legitimate authority there," he said, adding that it was not up to France to intervene in the internal affairs of the country. The U.S. State Department also called on Seleka to ensure the implementation of the Libreville agreement and provide full support to Tiangaye's government. Regional military power Chad said the same in a statement on Sunday. The whereabouts of Bozize was unclear, with unconfirmed reports that he was in Democratic Republic of Congo and Cameroon. Bozize rose to prominence in the military during the 1966-1979 rule of former dictator Jean-Bedel Bokassa, a self-styled emperor. He seized power in a 2003 coup backed by Chad but his failure to make good on promises of power sharing after winning disputed 2011 polls led to the Seleka offensive. (Additional reporting by Ange Aboa in Yaounde and Leigh Thomas in Paris; Writing by Daniel Flynn; Editing by David Lewis)

– The rebels who yesterday took over the Central African Republic say they're going to share power with the government they ostensibly ousted. In a statement today, the rebel Seleka coalition said it would "respect the Libreville accord," a agreement negotiated in January that would set up a joint government for two to three years prior to elections. "The current prime minister remains in place, and the Cabinet will be slightly reshuffled," a spokesman said, according to Reuters. The African Union today suspended the Central African Republic and imposed sanctions and travel restrictions on it, according to the AFP. Ousted president Francois Bozize has fled to neighboring Cameroon, but will ultimately seek refuge elsewhere, a presidential official announced today. If this whole story has you asking questions like, "What is this conflict about?" or "What do the rebels want?" or "What's the Central African Republic?", CNN has a useful recap.

Video of a Chicago Police officer firing 16 shots at 17-year-old Laquan McDonald touched off demonstrations across the city but the images were not enough for a Cook County judge to order the officer held without bail pending trial. Officer Jason Van Dyke had been in custody since turning himself in last Tuesday to face first-degree murder charges. Judge Donald Panarese Jr. said he would not set bail for the veteran officer until he had watched squad car video that prosecutors said showed Van Dyke firing 16 shots at the teen, most of them as McDonald lay slumped on the ground. Panarese sat silently at the front of the packed courtroom Monday, leaning his head on his fist as he watched a few minutes of silent, grainy dashcam video playing on a laptop computer. Panarese was apparently watching the video for the first time, and he asked Assistant State’s Attorney William Delaney if there was any sound on the recording. “There’s no audio, judge,” Delaney said. “The law gives a presumption of innocence,” Panarese said after setting Van Dyke’s bail at $1.5 million. Four hours later, the officer walked out of Cook County Jail and past a throng of reporters and protesters after posting $150,000 bond, the 10 percent of the bail amount required to secure his release. Van Dyke is scheduled to be back in court on Dec. 18. Van Dyke was led into the courtroom in wrist and ankle chains and surrounded by correctional officers. A handful of protesters seated in the glass-walled courtroom gallery rose to their feet as the officer stood before the judge. The group, apparently mishearing Panarese and thinking the judge had denied bail, cheered before being ordered by sheriff’s deputies to clear the room. “There’s good cops out there, but these crooked ones, they got to get locked up,” one woman shouted during a break as prosecutors cued up the video on Panarese’s laptop. Late Monday, the mayor’s office announced plans to create a “Task Force on Police Accountability.” “The task force will review the system of accountability, oversight and training that is currently in place for Chicago’s police officers,” according to a statement from the mayor’s office. The mayor’s panel — “actively engaging a range of community members” — is expected to present recommendations to the mayor and the City Council by March 31, 2016. More details were expected Tuesday. The dashcam video of the shooting on Oct. 20, 2014, was made public last week just a few hours after the officer was charged. In the days since, hundreds of demonstrators have rallied to mostly peaceful protests across the city, including demonstrations that blocked shoppers from stores on Michigan Avenue as holiday shopping season kicked off Friday. Ten people were arrested Monday at what police called a “small gathering” outside City Hall that took place around the time of Van Dyke’s hearing at the Leighton Criminal Court building. On Monday evening, about 150 people gathered for a largely peaceful demonstration outside Chicago Police headquarters at 35th and Michigan. Activists, pastors from across the city and other city residents called for Chicago Police Supt. Garry McCarthy to resign, among other things. They voiced the now familiar chant: “Sixteen shots!” and held up signs, one of which read, “Prosecute all criminal cops.” At one point, activist Jedidiah Brown, holding a heavy chain, made his way to the front doors of the building. He said he wanted to chain the doors shut. “That building is full of filth and corruption, and we want the building shut down,” Brown said. Police pulled Brown aside and persuaded him to back down. In the background, a woman who identified herself as Sister Shannon shouted repeatedly, “Forgive them, Lord, for they know not what they do!” Van Dyke had been on desk duty until the charges were announced last week and has since been placed on “no-pay status” by the police department. Fraternal Order of Police President Dean Angelo Sr., who attended the hearing Monday, said the union does not post bond for officers facing charges but had encouraged members to donate money toward Van Dyke’s bond. Angelo, whose union represents more than 8,000 Chicago Police officers, said he had watched the dashcam video and that McDonald “squared his shoulders” toward the officers before Van Dyke opened fire. Prosecutors have said McDonald was walking away from police on Pulaski Road near 41st Street and was 10 feet away from Van Dyke when the officer fired the first of 16 shots from his 9mm pistol. Van Dyke emptied his magazine in about 15 seconds, with most of the shots fired after McDonald had fallen to the pavement. Police had been following McDonald for several blocks after receiving a report that the teen was breaking into trucks parked on a lot at 41st Street and Kildare Avenue. The teen had PCP in his system, and officers said he had a “glazed look” as he jogged away from officers and ignored their commands. McDonald was holding a knife and had slashed the tire of a squad car that had tried to hem him in near the intersection of 41st Street and Pulaski Road. Van Dyke was only at the scene for 30 seconds, and he was outside his vehicle for about 6 seconds when he started shooting, prosecutors said. None of the other officers at the scene fired a shot. Police officials said at the time of the shooting that McDonald had been moving toward the officers when he was shot, a claim that appears not to jibe with video. Angelo said Monday it appeared McDonald “squared his shoulders” toward the officers when Van Dyke started shooting. “I think Officer Van Dyke stepped into training mode and takes action that he believed at that time was justified,” Angelo said. “We don’t get an Officer Van Dyke view of that incident. There is a moment when the individual with the knife squares his shoulder at the officer and I believe, without the sound, that is the moment when the shooting starts,” he said. Outside the courtroom, Van Dyke’s attorney, Daniel Herbert, told reporters the video appeared damning, but he said the dashboard camera did not capture the entire event. “When you see the video alone it does not seem like a justifiable shooting,” he said. But he added that “we’re not going to try this case in the media. . . . There’s certain things that I know that, quite frankly, no one else knows.” Contributing: Rummana Hussain, Stefano Esposito, Mitch Dudek, Fran Spielman ||||| CHICAGO (AP) — The latest on the aftermath of the shooting of a black teenager by a white Chicago police officer and the online threat that led the University of Chicago to cancel classes on Monday (all times local): (Click Prev or Next to continue viewing images.) ADVERTISEMENT (Click Prev or Next to continue viewing images.) FILE - This Nov. 24, 2015 file photo released by the Cook County Sheriff's Office shows Chicago police Officer Jason Van Dyke, who was charged with first degree murder after a squad car video caught him... (Associated Press) 5:20 p.m. The white Chicago police officer charged with murder after a squad car video caught him shooting a black teenager 16 times has posted bond. Local media outlets showed Officer Jason Van Dyke leaving Cook County Jail on Monday evening. His bond had been set at $1.5 million, meaning he needed to post $150,000 to get out. Van Dyke has been locked up since Nov. 24, when prosecutors charged him with first-degree murder in the shooting death of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald. Authorities also released the dashcam video Nov. 24. It shows McDonald — armed with a small knife and walking down a street on the city's southwest side — being shot repeatedly by the 37-year-old Van Dyke. A judge had ordered the video released the previous week. ___ 5:10 p.m. University of Chicago officials say classes will resume Tuesday, one day after a 21-year-old black student was arrested and charged for allegedly threatening to kill 16 white males on campus. University President Robert Zimmer wrote in an email Monday that in light of the arrest, classes and activities would resume Tuesday. The campus was almost desolate aside from police and campus security on Monday after university officials canceled classes due to an FBI tip of a threat of gun violence. Zimmer called Monday a "challenging day." He says the university will keep additional security presence in place through the quarter, which ends Dec. 12. Jabari R. Dean of Chicago, who's accused of making the threat, had his initial court appearance Monday. He's a University of Illinois at Chicago student. ___ 4:10 p.m. A 21-year-old black man has made an initial appearance in federal court on allegations that he threatened to kill 16 white male students or staff at the University of Chicago in response to the killing of a black teenager by a white city police officer. Prosecutors indicated at Monday's hearing that they'll agree to Jabari R. Dean being released before trial. The judge ordered Dean be held at least until a Tuesday bond hearing. A University of Illinois at Chicago spokeswoman confirmed that Dean is a freshman majoring in electrical engineering. A visibly ill-at-ease Jabari wore a red sweatshirt emblazoned with the words "The University of Illinois at Chicago." A prosecutor said Jabari cooperated after federal agents confronted him and that he didn't appear to pose a threat. Dean didn't enter a plea and his lawyer declined comment afterward. ___ 2:05 p.m. The lawyer for a white Chicago police officer charged with fatally shooting a black teenager says he's hopeful the officer can post bond in the "very near future." A judge on Monday set bond at $1.5 million for Jason Van Dyke. He was charged with first-degree murder last week for the shooting 17-year-old Laquan McDonald 16 times in October 2014. Van Dyke was charged the same day authorities released video of the shooting. Lawyer Dan Herbert says Van Dyke is pleased the judge set a bond amount after ordering him held without bond last week. Herbert says Van Dyke is "very scared about the consequences he is facing." He also says Van Dyke "absolutely" can defend his actions in court. Herbert says he has information that isn't yet public. ___ 1:05 p.m. A Cook County judge has set bond at $1.5 million for a white Chicago police officer charged with murder after a squad car video caught him shooting a black teenager 16 times. A judge set the bond Monday afternoon for Officer Jason Van Dyke. Van Dyke has been locked up since Nov. 24, when prosecutors charged him with first-degree murder in the shooting death of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald. The same day, authorities released the dashcam video that shows McDonald — armed with a small knife and walking down a street on the city's southwest side — being shot repeatedly by the 37-year-old Van Dyke. A judge had ordered the video released the previous week. The bond amount means Van Dyke will need $150,000 to be released. Van Dyke's attorney has said the officer isn't a flight risk.

– The Chicago police officer charged with killing 17-year-old Laquan McDonald has paid his $150,000 bond and walked out of jail, the Chicago Sun-Times reports. A judge set bail for officer Jason Van Dyke at $1.5 million earlier in the day. Meanwhile, authorities have released the dashcam video that shows Van Dyke repeatedly shooting McDonald on Nov. 24 on the southwest side of Chicago, the AP reports. And in related news, the University of Chicago will re-open tomorrow after police arrested 21-year-old Jabari Dean with allegedly threatening to murder 16 white male staff or students at the school. The school had shut down after an online threat was posted Sunday night. (A Burger King manager says 86 minutes of the "Laquan video" have gone missing.)

A paraplegic marine sent to a new planet, armed with a virtual body, to ingratiate himself with locals in order to gain their trust and subsequently destroy them? Sounds like the plot of a bad sci-film film. But as it turns out, it's the plot of a highly entertaining sci-fi film – that being, of course, Avatar, one of the most anticipated films of recent years. We know a lot about Avatar – that it's James Cameron first in fifteen years, that it's the first to use 3D in this way. But strip the hype aside and what anyone wants to know is – is it any good? And can you watch it without feeling ill? The first is easy. Avatar emerged at last night's premiere as rather good. Paraplegic marine Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) is a last-minute recruit on a mission to the alien planet, Pandora, which boasts incredible quantities of a mineral that is worth a lot of money to earthlings. The invading humans are led by two factions – the scientists, headed by Sigourney Weaver's Grace, who are seeking to learn and understand more about the alien species in a bid to relocate rather than obliterate the natives, and the warriors led by Colonel Quaritch (Stephen Lang), who are looking for all-out massacre. The factions have been brought together by Administrator Parker Selfridge (the ever wonderful Giovanni Ribisi), there for one reason only – to bring the brilliantly named, and insanely valuable unobtanium back to Earth. Sully and Norm (Joel Moore) are drivers of the eponymous avatars; bodies that have been constructed out of the more sturdy natives, spliced with humans. The logistics of how it all works takes some getting used to; but suffice to say the scene where Sully awakens in avatar form is a real delight. It would be easy to assume Cameron drew inspiration from other films of the same ilk but to generalise like that does Avatar, and Cameron a disservice. For starters, one assumes that he was developing Avatar while other seminal films of the past decade were still on the slate. There are shades of detail, and of background – the nuances of the language the native Na'vi speak; the realisation of the animal inhabitants; the history of the clan – which all reinforce the impression that you get from any film that you know has taken 15 years to make: it is a real labour of love. What's more, his decision to make Avatar in 3D was a risky one – and it's paid off in spades. As with most 3D films, less is more. Surprisingly, for a film this rich in action and this beautiful to watch, Cameron doesn't overegg the 3D-ness of it all, which makes those moments, when they come, even more of a joy to watch. However, that's not to say that 130 minutes in 3D isn't sometimes overwhelming. Glasses were being taken off, and eyes rubbed for brief intervals around the cinema. Whether this is simply a product of an audience unused to watching movies in this way, rather than a flaw in the production, will remain to be seen as 3D becomes more and more commonplace. What Avatar does mark is a new breed. A new breed of action film, a new hero in Sam Worthington (who delivers a much more believable, and compelling performance than previous outings) and a new cinematic experience. For every cliche – every colonel telling his troops that they're "not in Kansas anymore", every fight beginning with trash talk like "Let's dance", there are myriad moments of beauty and of poignancy. And the final battle is worth the price of your 3D glasses alone. ||||| It has been one of the most hyped movies of the decade: the return of James Cameron with a $230m-plus 3D inter-species action movie that will, some observers say, decide the future of the industry. Avatar Production year: 2009 Country: USA Cert (UK): 12A Runtime: 161 mins Directors: James Cameron Cast: CCH Pounder, Giovanni Ribisi, Michelle Rodriguez, Sam Worthington, Sigourney Weaver, Stephen Lang, Zoe Saldana More on this film Today it arrived with 20th Century Fox choosing London to launch Avatar, Cameron's sole movie in 12 years – the last being Titanic. Cameron said he was just relieved the movie was finally out there. "We can hold our heads high. We got the picture done by the skin of our teeth. It's been a four-and-a-half-year process and it's a relief to let people see it, to quit talking about it, to forget the rumours." And there have been a lot of rumours. Rumours that the budget was double the stated amount, more like $500m; that the 3D effects were making people nauseous; that the film, two hours and 40 minutes long, was a complete car crash. The Guardian can reveal that the last two are untrue. The film does not make you feel sick and it is not a disaster. All journalists watching the movie in Fox's Soho headquarters had to sign a form agreeing not to publish a review or even express a professional opinion online or in print before Monday. So by saying Avatar was really much, much better than expected, that it looked amazing and that the story was gripping – if cheesy in many places – the Guardian is in technical breach of the agreement. It is not a breach, however, to report that other journalists leaving the screening were also positive: the terrible film that some had been anticipating had not materialised. It was good. There is, though, a certain amount of suspension of disbelief needed when watching Avatar. Cynics might sneer at the plot. The film, set in 2154, revolves around a paraplegic marine assigned to a planet where brutish humans are forcing the natives from their homes to mine a precious mineral, unobtanium, which is the only thing that will keep Earth going. To get it, they need to blast away an agreeable species called the Na'vi, blue humanoids about 12ft tall, with tails and pixie eyes. Sam Worthington as the paraplegic marine pretends to be a Na'vi through avatar technology. At first, he is on the nasty human military side but he falls in love, gains a conscience and so on. Perhaps most surprising was the politics. At one stage the deranged general leading the attack, with echoes of George Bush, declares: "Our survival relies on pre-emptive action. We will fight terror with terror." Cameron agreed there was a connection to recent events, but there were also references to Vietnam and to the 16th- and 17th-century European colonisation of the Americas. "There is this long, wonderful history of the human race written in blood. We have this tendency to just take what we want." And that's how we treat the natural world as well." There's this sense of we're here, we're big, we've got the guns, we've got the technology, therefore we're entitled to every damn thing on this planet. That's not how it works and we're going to find out the hard way if we don't kind of wise up and start seeking a life that's in balance with the natural life on Earth." The film will open at cinemas next week and was given its world premiere in London tonight with Cameron joined by his the actors Sigourney Weaver, Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldano in Leicester Square. Audiences will be able to watch in normal 2D or in what Cameron called the "turbo-charged" version, 3D. Some industry observers are hoping that audiences will be so blown away by the effects that 3D - already being used - will start to become the norm, and a line will have been stepped over. "We need something that kick-starts public enthusiasm for cinema as an experience as people start watching on smaller and smaller devices like iPhones. We need something to reverse that trend so I've set as my goal bringing the movie theatre back to it being a sacred experience and 3D is part of that." If it does well – and there seems little doubt that it will – then can we expect more? "We'll see," said Cameron. "But yes, I have a story worked out for a second film and a third film." • Read Andrew Pulver's two star review ||||| London --- Just left the 'World Premiere' of "Avatar," and while the standing ovation the film received at its conclusion is probably just the requisite politeness; I can report that this is another rare example where the quality of the movie does indeed exceed the hype and "Avatar" will most certainly be among the 10 'Best Picture' nominees for the Oscars; and James Cameron will also be a Best Director nominee. I think it is also possible that actress Zoe Saldana, who has the most challenging of roles in the film, may rack up an additional acting nomination as well. The movie may owe more than a few plot points to the story of Pocahontas, and there may be some grousing at a fairly heavy-handed treatment of corporate greed and our lack of American energy independence; but the key question, is Cameron able to deliver a movie that packs the entertainment value and emotional punch of 'Titanic.' The clear answer is 'Yes.' The Oscars will not ignore this film. ||||| THE last time James Cameron directed a movie he broke all box office records. Now — 12 years after Titanic — he has sunk £300million into Avatar to produce the most dazzling film of the decade. See a trailer for the epic film, below... Click here to download the latest flash player. Video: Avatar - trailer Exclusive look at James Cameron's sci-fi fantasy It’s a 3D movie people will look back on in years to come to comment on how it transformed cinema. In recent 3D releases such as Beowulf, the effects were impressive but the computer-generated humans looked far from real. In Avatar, everything feels real — and it’s as if you are immersed in the action. And what action. Awestruck The final battle scene is 20 minutes long and absolutely mind-blowing. Alien nation ... Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldana as Na'vi aliens Avatar, out next Thursday, is truly an event movie. The Sneak still recalls sitting in a cinema 12 years ago watching awestruck as Titanic slipped beneath the Atlantic waves. And your critic is sure that, even when he is pushing a Zimmer, he will remember the moment the main spaceship of the baddie corporation goes down in Avatar. It is overwhelming, and that is because you are emotionally tied up in the characters and the story. The plot is set in the next century, with humans trying to take vital resources from a distant planet called Pandora. A paraplegic soldier called Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) gets the chance to walk again when he is transformed into the local species, the Na’vi. This 10ft-tall elegant blue creature is his “avatar”. Thrill ride ... film's all-action air battle Jake is supposed to spy on the Na’vi for his company, but his mission gets complicated when he falls for a local girl. The romance between Jake and Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) shows that Cameron has not lost his ability to evoke emotion. It will bring tears to your eyes. Aussie Sam is totally compelling as Jake. It is easy to see why he is now such an in-demand actor. James Cameron has described his new filming process as “emotion capture”. And it’s a boast he lives up to. Even when Jake is a strange blue creature, you can tell it is him by his mannerisms. A voiceover from Sam leads the audience through the alien world in a soothing, laid-back way. Star power ... Sigourney Weaver with Avatar cast One of the most amazing scenes comes when Jake and Neytiri are walking in the dark through a forest on Pandora. Suddenly, she puts out her torch and you see all the vivid, fluorescent plants. Some people — who have only seen the photos and not the film — have commented that it looks a bit cartoonish. It doesn’t. Everything feels real. It’s as if Cameron has happened upon this alien world and got his camera out. Zoe, who played Uhura in the recent Star Trek remake, also displays star quality. You don’t need A-list names to make a great movie but it does help having Sigourney Weaver in the cast. Brave She plays a scientist called Grace, who wants to prevent the plunder of Pandora. mpu Clearly, there is a message here about mankind’s destruction of beautiful places. And Cameron’s story is very black and white, an old-fashioned tale of good versus evil. It’s unashamedly populist. Just like Titanic. But don’t worry. This isn’t a preachy story. It’s big action. The only reason that Avatar won’t top Titanic at the box office is that there are not enough digital screens around the world to show it in all its 3D wonder. But you have to admire the film’s backers for being brave enough to take a risk on funding such ground-breaking technology. The Sneak’s advice is to make sure you can say you were there when the future of cinema began.

– James Cameron's Avatar had its world premiere in London last night, and audience members and critics are sworn to secrecy for now. Based on the inevitable leaks and pseudo-reviews, the 3-D epic is pretty good: Anna Keir, the Independent: It's "rather good. Surprisingly, for a film this rich in action and this beautiful to watch, Cameron doesn't overegg the 3D-ness of it all, which makes those moments, when they come, even more of a joy to watch." Sam Rubin, KTLA-TV: "This is another rare example where the quality of the movie does indeed exceed the hype." He predicts Oscar nominations for best picture and best director. The Sneak, the Sun: "Everything feels real—and it’s as if you are immersed in the action. ... The Sneak’s advice is to make sure you can say you were there when the future of cinema began.” Mark Brown, the Guardian: "The film does not make you sick and it is not a disaster. By saying Avatar was really much, much better than expected, that it looked amazing and that the story was gripping—if cheesy in many places—the Guardian is in technical breach of the agreement."

A method that gives mice a tan without using ultraviolet radiation now works in human skin samples. It’s an early step in developing a lotion or cream that might provide fair-skinned folk with protection against skin cancer. As reported June 13 in Cell Reports, a topical drug penetrated and tanned laboratory samples of live human skin, absent the sun. Unlike self-tanning lotions that essentially stain skin brown and provide minimal sun protection, the drug activates the production of the dark form of the skin pigment melanin, which absorbs UV radiation and diminishes damage to skin cells. The team behind this study had worked with a different drug, the plant extract forskolin, in a 2006 study. The researchers used mice with skin like that of red-haired, fair-skinned people, who don’t tan because of a nonfunctioning protein on the surface of the skin cells that make melanin. ||||| Image copyright Getty Images Scientists have developed a drug that mimics sunlight to make the skin tan, with no damaging UV radiation involved. The drug tricks the skin into producing the brown form of the pigment melanin in tests on skin samples and mice. Evidence suggests it will work even on redheads, who normally just burn in the sun. The team at Massachusetts General Hospital hope their discovery could prevent skin cancer and even slow the appearance of ageing. Potent tan UV light makes the skin tan by causing damage. This kicks off a chain of chemical reactions in the skin that ultimately leads to dark melanin - the body's natural sunblock - being made. The drug is rubbed into the skin to skip the damage and kick-start the process of making melanin. Dr David Fisher, one of the researchers, told the BBC News website: "It has a potent darkening effect. "Under the microscope it's the real melanin, it really is activating the production of pigment in a UV-independent fashion." Image copyright Nisma Mujahid and David Fisher Image caption The drug was tested on the skin sample on the right. It is a markedly different approach to fake tan, which "paints" the skin without the protection from melanin, sun beds, which expose the skin to UV light or pills that claim to boost melanin production but still need UV light. But the team is not motivated by making a new cosmetic. Dr Fisher said the lack of progress in skin cancer - the most common type of cancer - was a "very significant frustration". He added: "Our real goal is a novel strategy for protecting skin from UV radiation and cancer. "Dark pigment is associated with a lower risk of all forms of skin cancer - that would be really huge." Tests, detailed in the journal Cell Reports, have shown the melanin produced by the drug was able to block harmful UV rays. Eventually the scientists want to combine their drug with sun-cream to give maximum protection from solar radiation. Dr Fisher said everyone should "absolutely" use sun-cream but its weakness was it "keeps you pale". Image copyright Getty Images The way the drug works could also allow a ginger tan, as the genetic mutation that causes red hair and fair skin disrupts the normal process where UV light leads to dark melanin. It is not yet clear if the drug might have the unintended consequence of affecting the glorious hair colour, but it is thought the hair follicle is too deep in the skin for the drug to reach. But whether you are ginger, blonde or brunette, the drug is not yet ready for commercial use. The researchers want to do more safety testing, although so far there has been "no hint of problems". They will probably want to give it a better name than an SIK-inhibitor too. Matthew Gass, from the British Association of Dermatologists, said the study was a "novel approach" to preventing skin cancer. He added: "A lot more research has to be done before we see this sort of technology being used on humans, however, it's certainly an interesting proposition. "Skin cancer rates in the UK are going through the roof... any research into ways that we can prevent people from developing skin cancer in the first place is to be welcomed." Stopping UV damage could have an extra boon beyond cancer - slowing the appearance of ageing. Dr Fisher's final piece of promise for the research is: "Many people would say the obvious and most dramatic sign of ageing is what skin looks like and even casual UV damage over the years causes damage. "Medically it is very difficult to focus on, but if it is tremendously safe then it could keep skin healthier for longer." Follow James on Twitter. ||||| S cientists hoping to harness melanin’s protective power against skin cancer have created a class of small molecules that could help the skin produce more UV-absorbing pigments. They tested those treatments on human skin samples in the lab, and found they were able to seep in and boost pigment production. STAT chatted with study author and cancer researcher Dr. David Fisher about the work, published in Cell Reports. What did you set out to study? We know a lot about how pigmentation is made, so we looked for a way to find a small molecule chemical to stimulate pigmentation. We wanted to know whether it would be possible to activate real skin pigmentation without using radiation or the sun’s rays, which are damaging and dangerous. We discovered a class of compounds that have the ability to penetrate into the skin and trigger pigmentation. advertisement What do you see as the potential applications for those compounds? We think it could offer protection. Having dark skin is associated with a really dramatically lower risk of developing skin cancer. Even individuals with just modestly darker skin have a significantly lower skin cancer risk than fair-skinned people who don’t tan, but burn. We don’t anticipate that a huge degree of darkening would be required for the protection. I’m seeing this from a cancer prevention perspective as something that would be used together with sunscreen. I would not see it as a replacement for sunscreen, because sunscreens really do prevent skin cancer. A photograph of skin treated with a topical drug that induces pigmentation. Nisma Mujahid and David E. Fisher What’s the next step in the research? The safety would need to be established and tested. I think probably where it would be tested first would be in individuals who are at the highest risk for developing skin cancer.

– Good news for the fair-skinned among us: Scientists in Massachusetts have developed a drug that darkens and protects human skin without the damaging effects of ultraviolet (UV) light. Dr. David Fisher, a researcher at Massachusetts General Hospital, tells the BBC the drug initiates a series of chemical reactions that enables skin to produce sun-blocking dark melanin without exposure to dangerous UV light—which initiates the same chemical reactions, but only after damaging the skin. "Under the microscope it's the real melanin,” Fisher says. “It really is activating the production of pigment in a UV-independent fashion." The drug could be a good thing even for people who don't crave a tan: Dark pigment provides a protective barrier against UV radiation, reducing the risk of skin cancer. In an interview with STAT, Fisher says the next step will be to test the drug’s safety, with the first test subjects most likely being "individuals who are at the highest risk for developing skin cancer.” If further tests prove successful the new drug could prove to be a substitute for other self-tanning activities, like lotions, which essentially paint the skin but provide no melanin protection, and tanning beds, which expose the skin to harmful UV rays and can thus be risky. Still, according to Science News, the drug would not, on its own, be considered a substitute for sunscreen, which blocks UV rays but has the counteractive effect of leaving skin pale and vulnerable. Ideally, Dr. Fisher says, the drug would be combined with sunscreen in a single product.

The dogs looked like dogs. Then, after a lick of paint and a splash of dye, they looked like pandas. So much so that visitors to a travelling circus near the Italian town of Brescia had believed the Chow Chow dogs were a rare example of the Chinese bear. The white dogs, originally shipped from Hungary, were seized from the circus by authorities in Italy after a tip-off. News website The Local reported that the dogs had been put on display, with children posing next to them as their parents paid a fee for the privilege. The animals were said to be in good health, albeit with watery eyes, which could have been aggravated, police said, by “continuous exposure to camera flashes”. The circus has denied allegations of cruelty and trickery. Its secretary, Riccardo Gravina, said it should have been “obvious they are dogs”. He added: “No animal was mistreated. They are like children to us.” The animals have since been returned, but the circus is no longer permitted to use them in their shows. A pair of Chow Chow dogs at a pet market in Beijing (Getty) Hsin Ch’en, a pet shop owner in the southwest province of Sichuan claims he started the craze for these decorated dogs in China which sell for considerably more than the average Chow Chow. “Ten years ago the natural instinct of a Chinese person was to eat a dog. Now we are like westerners and want one as a companion.” ||||| One of the chow chow dogs seized by police. Photo: Corpo Forestale dello Stato Two painted chow chow dogs posing as pandas have been seized from a circus in northern Italy, after tricking children into handing over cash, police have said. The male and female dogs were seized by police after it became clear that they were not, in fact, pandas. To an unassuming child visiting the circus in Brescia, a small furry animal with white and black stripes may do the trick. But The Local readers may notice a distinct difference. Here is a real panda: Panda photo by Shutterstock. And here are the dogs-in-disguise: Cani truccati da panda: blitz della Forestale al circo Orfei http://t.co/BXYTkAS8k0 pic.twitter.com/VaFUaQPewB — Corriere della Sera (@Corriereit) December 22, 2014 The police were not fooled, who said the dogs were put on display ahead of the circus show. Children posed for photos with the animals, paying a fee for the “panda” privilege. The environmental police moved in to seize the animals, which they said were in general good health but had particularly watery eyes. This was “probably aggravated by the continuous exposure to camera flashes”, Italy’s environmental police said in a statement. Police moved in on animal cruelty grounds and the circus owner is facing charges over the animals’ false passports. The chow chows were imported from Hungary and were six months younger than documents stated, police said. The circus owner could also be caught for cheating his customers out of cash.

– With more paint and a couple of horses, they could have had zebras, too: A pair of chow chow puppies dyed black and white looked enough like pandas to fool visitors to a traveling circus near Milan, officials in Italy say. Forestry officials—who investigate many animal cases in Italy—uncovered the ruse after a tip-off and have charged the owner with having false documents for the dogs, which had been imported from Hungary with false pet passports, the Guardian reports. The circus may also be charged with fraud and cruelty to animals, though the dogs' owners were able to hold on to the animals, so long as the dogs never masquerade as pandas again. Circus-goers had been charged to have their photos taken with the "pandas"; the Local reports one dog was male and one was female. Investigators say that while the dogs were in generally good health, they had watery eyes that could have been caused by continuous exposure to camera flashes. A circus spokesman denies trying to trick the public, telling the Independent it was "obvious they are dogs." "No animal was mistreated," he says. "They are like children to us." (Meanwhile, this year saw a real panda with a fake pregnancy.)

Uganda adopts draconian anti-gay bill By Grace Matsiko (AFP) – Dec 20, 2013 Kampala — Uganda's parliament on Friday adopted an anti-homosexuality bill that will see repeat offenders jailed for life, with lawmakers hailing it as a victory against "evil". Deputies voted overwhelmingly in favour of the text, which has been widely condemned by rights activists and world leaders -- with US President Barack Obama describing it as "odious" and Nobel Peace laureate archbishop Desmond Tutu comparing it to apartheid. The lawmaker behind the bill, David Bahati, said a death penalty clause was dropped from the final version of the bill. The approved text must now be given the green light by President Yoweri Museveni, himself a devout evangelical Christian. "This is a victory for Uganda. I am glad the parliament has voted against evil," Bahati told AFP. "Because we are a God-fearing nation, we value life in a holistic way. It is because of those values that members of parliament passed this bill regardless of what the outside world thinks," he said. First proposed in 2009, the bill had been shelved following international condemnation, but parliamentary spokeswoman Hellen Kaweesa said the changes meant that it had secured "majority support" among MPs. "Now anybody found practising, recruiting for or publicising homosexuality commits a felony," said Simon Lokodo, Uganda's Minister of State for Ethics and Integrity. He added that the law provided for punishments of between two years and life behind bars. An early version of the bill would have introduced the death sentence for anyone caught engaging in homosexual acts for a second time, as well as for gay sex where one partner is a minor or has HIV. "We think this is an achievement for Uganda because the minors will be protected and the innocents will be saved from abuse and molestation," Lokodo said. "We will get hold of all those encouraging others to become homosexuals or lesbians. Anybody we find recruiting or using materials to promote homosexuality, we will arrest." Homophobia is widespread in Uganda, where American-style evangelical Christianity is on the rise. Gay men and women in the country face frequent harassment and threats of violence, and rights activists have also reported cases of lesbians being subjected to "corrective" rapes. In 2011, prominent Ugandan gay rights activist David Kato was bludgeoned to death at his home after a newspaper splashed photos, names and addresses of gays in Uganda on the front page along with a yellow banner reading "Hang Them". Anti-pornography bill While homosexuality was already illegal, the new bill stiffens penalties and also criminalises the public promotion of homosexuality -- including discussions by rights groups. After the vote, Ugandan gay activist Frank Mugisha declared himself "officially illegal" and also "outraged and disappointed". "This is a truly terrifying day for human rights in Uganda," he said. "It will open a new era of fear and persecution. If this law is signed by President Museveni, I'd be thrown in jail for life and in all likelihood killed. "We urgently need world leaders to call on President Museveni and demand he stops this bill of hate from becoming law." Leslie Lefkow of Human Rights Watch said the law was "abhorrent". "The bill?s provision on the criminalisation of 'promotion' is a direct attack on the legitimate work of national and international activists and organisations working to defend and promote human rights in Uganda," HRW added in a statement. Amnesty International said the "wildly discriminatory legislation" was "a grave assault on human rights". One Ugandan MP, Fox Odoi, was also critical. "Fundamentally there is the human rights issue. It's a bad law and it doesn't serve any useful purpose," he said. "If a man has sex with a woman and penetrates her anus, there's supposed to be nothing wrong with that. How can you apply two different standards to what is much the same thing? I can't quite understand that." The vote also comes a day after the Ugandan parliament passed an anti-pornography and dress-code law that bans anything that is deemed sexually suggestive. "Anybody that dresses in very short skirt or a very opened shirt that allows people to see the breast, anybody that dresses in a way that we can see the buttocks, is condemned by this law," Lokodo said. It also outlaws "any erotic behaviour intended to cause sexual excitement or any indecent act or behaviour tending to corrupt morals". In 2008, former ethics and integrity minister James Nsaba Buturo tried to pass similar legislation claiming a woman wearing provocative clothing risked causing traffic accidents by distracting drivers. President Museveni caused an uproar in 2012 when he told female school students to "keep a padlock on your private parts until the time comes to open them when you have a husband." In addition to outlawing "provocative" clothing, the anti-pornography bill will result in scantily dressed performers being banned from Ugandan television. It will also closely monitor what individuals watch on the Internet. A British man, Bernard Randall, is currently facing trial in Uganda and a possible two-year sentence if convicted for "trafficking obscene publications" after police found pictures of him having gay sex. Copyright © 2014 AFP. All rights reserved. More » ||||| Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Gay rights campaigner Claire Byarugaba: "We would rather stay and fight but we know that people in power are way too powerful" Uganda's parliament has passed a bill to toughen the punishment for homosexual acts to include life imprisonment in some cases. The anti-homosexuality bill also makes it a crime punishable by a prison sentence not to report gay people. The prime minister opposed the vote, saying not enough MPs were present. The bill has been condemned by world leaders since it was mooted in 2009 - US President Barack Obama called it "odious". I am glad the parliament has voted against evil David Bahati, MP The BBC's Catherine Byaruhanga in Kampala says the government knows there will be an international outcry, which could see some countries suspend aid to the country. She says that Prime Minister Amama Mbabazi might follow up on his complaints about a lack of quorum, while it remains to be seen whether President Yoweri Museveni will sign the bill into law. The private member's bill originally proposed the death penalty for some offences, such as if a minor was involved or the perpetrator was HIV-positive, but this has been replaced with life in prison. Miniskirt ban The MP behind the bill, David Bahati, told the AFP news agency: "This is victory for Uganda. I am glad the parliament has voted against evil." Analysis The introduction of this bill led Uganda to be called the worst place to be gay. As parliament debated it, gay activists met in a suburb of the capital Kampala to work out their own plan. They say their lives are often in threat here because of intolerance. First tabled in parliament back in 2009, the proposed law caused such an international backlash that it has languished in parliamentary bureaucracy up until now. It originally proposed a death sentence for certain homosexual acts but this was scrapped and punishment limited to life imprisonment. Speaker Rebecca Kadaga has been instrumental in giving the bill a new lease of life. Last year she promised it as a "Christmas gift" to the country. The challenge is enforcement. Authorities need to be able to gather evidence that shows someone has engaged in homosexuality. This is hard to prove and one of the reasons Uganda's current anti-gay legislation has been rarely enforced. But once enacted the bill might give law enforcers extra motivation to tackle "homosexual crimes". This could lead to more arrests and intrusive medical exams. "Because we are a God-fearing nation, we value life in a holistic way. It is because of those values that members of parliament passed this bill regardless of what the outside world thinks," he said. The bill also bans the promotion of homosexuality. "I am officially illegal," Ugandan gay activist Frank Mugisha said after the vote. The bill's supporters say it is needed to protect traditional family values, which they say are under attack from Western-inspired gay rights groups. Its critics say the bill has been pushed by some US evangelical Christians. Uganda is a socially conservative country and on Thursday passed an Anti-Pornography Bill, which bans miniskirts and sexually suggestive material such as some music videos. Human rights activists say the bill highlights the intolerance and discrimination the gay community faces in Uganda. One gay activist was killed in 2011, although the police denied he was targeted because of his sexuality. Meanwhile a local newspaper has been condemned for publishing the names and addresses of people it said were gay. Image caption Briton Bernard Randall is facing prosecution in Uganda Holidaymakers and visiting foreigners are not immune from prosecution under Uganda's existing anti-homosexuality laws. A retired British man is awaiting trial in Entebbe on charges of possessing a gay sex video after thieves found images on his laptop. Sixty-five-year-old Bernard Randall, from Kent, faces a possible two-year prison sentence if found guilty. His friend Albert Cheptoyek, a Ugandan national with whom he shares a house, has denied a more serious charge of carrying out "acts of gross indecency", which could see him jailed for up to seven years if found guilty.

– Ugandan lawmakers today overwhelmingly approved what would be one of the harshest anti-gay laws in the world. Homosexual acts were already illegal in Uganda, but now anyone caught committing this crime twice will be imprisoned for life, the AFP reports. The first draft of the law called for the death penalty in such cases, but it was shelved for years amidst international outrage. The bill also makes not reporting homosexuals a crime you could go to jail for, the BBC reports. It essentially outlaws gay rights groups as well, making it illegal to promote homosexuality. (Though many groups were already specifically banned.) The bill passed despite opposition from the prime minister, who said not enough lawmakers were present. "This is a victory for Uganda," the lawmaker behind the bill said. "I am glad the parliament has voted against evil." Activists are naturally despairing. "I am officially illegal," one said following the vote. The bill still needs to be signed by President Yoweri Museveni.

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Gov. John Kasich on Wednesday announced he has postponed Ronald Phillips' execution date until next summer in order to investigate whether the convicted killer's organs can be donated to family members. The governor's decision came one day before the 40-year-old Summit County man was scheduled to be put to death under a newly approved lethal-injection drug cocktail. Phillips, sentenced to death in 1993 for raping and killing the 3-year-old daughter of his girlfriend, sought the delay in order to see whether he would be a viable organ donor to his mother, who has kidney disease, and his sister, who has a heart condition, according to the Associated Press. Phillips is also willing to donate organs to other people if he couldn't help his relatives, his attorney, Lisa Lagos, told the AP. Lagos said the request wasn't a delaying tactic but an attempt by Phillips to make a final gesture for good. The Department of Rehabilitation and Correction had denied Phillips' request earlier this week, citing logistics and security concerns, according to the AP. The DRC isn't aware of any other time that an Ohio death-row inmate has made an organ donation, according to spokeswoman JoEllen Smith. However, Smith noted that it has happened in other states such as California. In a statement, Kasich said he realized the situation "is a bit of uncharted territory" for Ohio. "But if another life can be saved by his willingness to donate his organs and tissues, then we should allow for that to happen," he said. Under DRC policy, state prison officials will conduct the initial compatibility tests. If a transplant of any non-vital organs is feasible, Phillips would undergo an operation at Ohio State University Medical Center before returning to death row, the governor's office said in a release. His execution has been rescheduled for July 2, 2014 at Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville. Phillips' execution has drawn increased attention because he was scheduled to be the first person put to death in Ohio using a new and untried lethal-injection cocktail consisting of midazolam, a sedative, and hydromorphone, a morphine derivative. The new method was announced last month because of a shortage of pentobarbital caused by European manufacturers' reluctance to sell the drug for executions. With Phillips' execution postponed, Dennis McGuire may become the first inmate put to death using the new cocktail. McGuire, a Preble County man convicted of raping, choking and stabbing a pregnant woman in 1989, is scheduled to die Jan. 16, 2014. Under the DRC's new protocol, the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility warden must notify department Director Gary Mohr within 14 days of McGuire's execution date whether he has enough pentobarbital to carry out the execution or if the new cocktail must be employed instead. ||||| Convicted child-killer Ronald Phillips was in the Death House and had ordered his last meal when he got the word yesterday: Gov. John Kasich had postponed his execution set for today to determine whether his “nonvital” organs could be harvested as he requested. His execution now is scheduled for July 2. “His first words were, ‘God is good.’ He feels immense gratitude to the governor,” said Tim Sweeney, the condemned man’s Cleveland attorney. Kasich’s action is unprecedented in the nation in the case of an imminent execution, a death-penalty expert said. The Republican governor said he halted Phillips’ execution “so that medical experts can assess whether Phillips’ nonvital organs or tissues can be donated to his mother or possibly others.” “Ronald Phillips committed a heinous crime for which he will face the death penalty,” Kasich said in a statement less than 18 hours before the condemned man was to be lethally injected using two drugs never before used in combination. “I realize this is a bit of uncharted territory for Ohio, but if another life can be saved by his willingness to donate his organs and tissues, then we should allow for that to happen.” The governor said if Phillips “is found to be a viable donor to his mother or possibly others awaiting transplants of nonvital organs, such as kidneys, the procedures would be performed and then he would be returned to Death Row to await his new execution date.” There was no immediate comment from Akron Prosecutor Sherry Bevan Walsh, who handled the case. Phillips, 40, was to be executed at 10 a.m. today at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility near Lucasville for the 1993 beating, rape and murder of 3-year-old Sheila Marie Evans, the daughter of his girlfriend at the time. He had exhausted all legal appeals and was moved yesterday to the Lucasville prison, where executions take place. Last night, he was returned to Death Row at the Chillicothe Correctional Institution. Sweeney said his client was motivated “by love for his mom and for the desire to do something good. He’s been very remorseful for what he did, thoughtful and reflective over the past couple weeks.” He wants to donate a kidney to his mother, who is on dialysis treatment for kidney disease, but is willing to donate to others if that is not possible. Sweeney said he wasn’t sure what Phillips can donate, but he said it might include his kidneys, lungs, liver or bone marrow. Prisons policy requires that the cost of transplant surgery be paid by Phillips or the organ recipients, not by Ohio taxpayers, spokeswoman JoEllen Smith said. The policy also requires that Phillips’ surgery be performed at the Wexner Medical Center at Ohio State University. It is the first time in the United States that an execution was stopped to permit an inmate’s organs to be harvested, said Richard Dieter of the Death Penalty Information Center in Washington, D.C. He said a Delaware inmate, Steven Shelton, was allowed to donate his kidney in 2005, but he was not facing immediate execution. Phillips had ordered, but did not have time to eat, his “last meal,” which included pizza with mushrooms, onions and double cheese, spaghetti, corn chips, Dr Pepper, rocky road ice cream and Oreo cheese cake. ajohnson@dispatch.com @ohioaj

– A convicted child killer just got a last-minute reprieve from Ohio's governor, thanks to the inmate's unusual request to be an organ donor. Ronald Phillips, who raped and murdered the 3-year-old daughter of his girlfriend, was supposed to be put to death tomorrow morning. Instead, Gov. John Kasich has postponed the execution until July while the state considers Phillips' plea to donate organs to family members or anyone else who might need them, reports the Columbus Dispatch. "I realize this is a bit of uncharted territory for Ohio, but if another life can be saved by his willingness to donate his organs and tissues then we should allow for that to happen,” said Kasich. If doctors think Phillips' non-vital organs can be harvested, he would undergo surgery before his execution, reports the Cleveland Plain Dealer. This isn't the only reason Phillips' case is making headlines—prison officials plan to use an untested combination of drugs because of a shortage of the standard pentobarbital.

Will Smith came up with the story for M. Night Shyamalan’s postapocalyptic drama After Earth, which opens May 31, while watching his son Jaden, 14, film The Karate Kid in China. The premise: A father is a best-in-class soldier who crash-lands with his son on a hostile planet Earth a thousand years in the future. The father, wounded, must watch from the sidelines as the son navigates treacherous terrain and fights terrible creatures in order to escape. The parallels to their adventures in Hollywood, Will says, are obvious. I’ve read that you believe life can be understood through patterns. Will: I’m a student of patterns. At heart, I’m a physicist. I look at everything in my life as trying to find the single equation, the theory of everything. Do you think there is a single theory to everything? Jaden: There’s definitely a theory to everything. Will: When you find things that are tried and true for millennia, you can bet that it’s going to happen tomorrow. Jaden: The sun coming up? Will: The sun coming up, but even a little more. Like for Best Actor Oscars. Almost 90 percent of the time, it’s mental illness and historical figures, right? So, you can be pretty certain of that if you want to win—as a man; it’s very different for women. The patterns are all over the place, but for whatever reason, it’s really difficult to find the patterns in Best Actress. Do you see patterns too, Jaden? Jaden: I think that there is that special equation for everything, but I don’t think our mathematics have evolved enough for us to even—I think there’s, like, a whole new mathematics that we’d have to learn to get that equation. Will: I agree with that. Jaden: It’s beyond mathematical. It’s, like, multidimensional mathematical, if you can sort of understand what I’m saying. Are both of you religious? Will: No, we are students of world religion. Seems like everyone’s excited about the idea that you might be religious. Will: We respect all [religions]. Okay. Who would you say is the biggest star in your family? Will and Jaden: [in unison] Willow! (Willow is Jaden’s 12-year-old sister.) Jaden: She just knows who she is, so she just is. Will: She has a magic power in the family. She absolutely demands the most attention, and there’s ­something really incendiary about a 12-year-old girl who says and does what she wants. You and Jaden have acted in two movies together, including After Earth. Are you planning on a third? Will: If you were a student of the pattern, you’d have to say we’re going to do another one. Jaden: I definitely would do another one, absolutely. You know, how Johnny Depp and Tim Burton always do movies together, Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio? We’ll have a relationship like that. Do you think of that as a separate relationship from your father-son relationship? Jaden: It’s kind of like father and son, except that we’re both going to work together. [Points to his dad.] Like you worked in your family business with your dad. I’m just working in my family business with my dad. Patterns, boom. Jaden, how was working with your father this time around different from before? Jaden: Well, with the first movie [Pursuit of Happyness], he was teaching me along the way. This is how the camera works. You do several takes. Like, literally everything you need to know about movies. And then, in Karate Kid, he was kind of holding my hand and watching me distill those rules. And then on After Earth, he was like, All right, you’re an actor, I’m an actor, let’s make a movie together. So it was like a collaboration, you know what I’m saying? What is your dynamic when the whole family is on the set? Jaden: Willow basically does her thing. [They both laugh.] Dad kind of just is there. He has to feel his own vibe. And my mom is probably like, “Uh-uh. Tell Jaden he needs to do this.” Will: Yeah, Jada [Pinkett Smith] has really powerful insights and opinions about everything. You guys aren’t that way? Jaden: If we’re at a six, she’s like at an eight and a half. Like, when she comes on set and she sees something that’s not right, she says, “This needs to change, this needs to leave, this needs to happen.” Will: Yeah, I probably had a couple of poor parenting moments on this movie. Do you know what a fer-de-lance is? Jaden: It’s one of the most poisonous snakes in all of Costa Rica. Will: There were a couple of days where there was a high concentration of snakes [on the set]. Jaden: Fer-de-lances, not snakes! I was doing a scene, going through some tall grasses, and they said, “Hey, we caught some fer-de-lances around there, and there seems to be a lot more, and I think we should move the scene.” I was like, “How many fer-de-lances did you catch?” He’s like, “Eight.” Will: I said, “Well, you got them all, so it’s fine. Let’s just shoot it.” Yeah, if Mommy was there, that wouldn’t have gone down. As an actor, I felt like it was an authentic experience of actually being in Costa Rica. I learned it in Ali, man, when you actually have to go to the place and you take the flight and you are actually in the authentic space, it adds to your performance. Jaden, how does it feel to be famous? Jaden: I think it’s fun, except when people make up stuff about you. Then it’s not so much fun. But besides that, I enjoy it. It’s been reported that you might be dating Kylie Jenner. The Kardashians have treated their fame as the family business. Do you guys see yourselves as similar or different? [Will, laughing, holds up his hand for Jaden not to speak.] Jaden: I’m trying to understand. Will: Don’t. You know, he’s never had to, to deal with those kinds of questions. Well, forget the Kardashians … maybe you could just … Will: [Mimicking] “So how do you think your life is similar or un-similar to people’s names in Calabasas?” For our family, the entire structure of our life, our home, our business relationships—the entire purpose is for everyone to be able to create in a way that makes them happy. Fame is almost an inconsequential by-product of what we’re really trying to accomplish. We are trying to put great things into the world, we’re trying to have fun, and we’re trying to become the greatest versions of ourselves in the process of doing things we love. So the idea of fame or exploitation or orchestrating the media is sometimes even less than desirable for us. Do you think Jaden could have been a dentist? Will: It may seem like we have pushed our kids into the business, but that is absolutely insane. I would never, ever, push somebody to have their face on a poster that’s going be everywhere in the world. He is making a choice from the informed. It’s less scary to me than if he wanted to be a dentist in that I couldn’t help with what he’d chosen. I have relationships with some of the biggest filmmakers and actors and producers on Earth. So I can be a huge help. Willow chose singing and then un-chose it. She said, “Daddy, I want to go to school with my friends during the week, and I want to hang out with them on the weekends.” At the peak of “Whip My Hair,” she’s like, “Daddy, I’m done.” I was like, “Wow, wow, wow. No, baby, I got Annie [the upcoming movie remake, co-produced by Jay-Z], you know. It’ll be New York, you’ll be with Beyoncé. You can bring your friends.” And she said, “Daddy, I got a better idea. How about I just be 12?” At the end of the day, it has to be their choice. So maybe Jaden could have been a dentist, but he probably couldn’t sit in his room doing nothing all day. Jaden: Probably not. Will: I think it was in Edward ­Kennedy’s autobiography, he said that he hadn’t found his way in his life, and his father sat down with him and said, We are a family that are trying to have valuable lives. You are allowed to decide whether or not you want your life to be valuable to the world, and I respect that decision. I’m just not going to have a lot of time for you. Essentially that is my position with my children. You can choose anything that you want to do, anything you want to be, and you can decide you want to act crazy and run around. I respect your ability to choose a life for yourself that does not have value to the world. I respect that. I’m just not going have a lot of time for you. In the past, Jada has described the family as transparent. Do you think that’s true? Jaden: Definitely. Will: Let me see. Are we transparent? Jaden: You can argue that we’re extremely un-transparent. Everybody knows where we live, but nobody really knows what our house looks like. Will: That’s true. Jaden: We kind of live in a fortress. Will: I think for the most part we are transparent in the sense that there’s very few big family secrets. I think that if Jaden or Trey [Will’s son from his first marriage] or Willow were to write a book ten years from now, it will be very similar to what people think. And, the things about our family that are mysteries or seem strange, when they’re explained, it’ll be obvious. You know, the forum of media that we’re in can’t really handle the complexity of things that we say all the time. What would be an example? Will: I did an interview where the only quote that everybody ran was “Will Smith doesn’t believe in punishment.” Well, that’s actually ridiculous. That’s not what I said, but the sound bite can’t actually hold the complexity of what I’m trying to say, you know. That there is a destructive aspect to corporal punishment that I don’t agree with. There are concepts and ideas about punishment that I think run counter to healthy growth and psychological stability in this world. But they just take one blurb. Jaden: They’re always gonna do that. Will: Yeah. What’s the blurb gonna be from this one? [Laughs] But for the most part I think we are very transparent, or maybe not transparent, but boring. You think you’re boring? Will: I think that if you were to come to the house, people would really be ­surprised at how simple and basic it is. Our whole dream for our home was for it to be an artist’s haven. So there are paint supplies; there’s a piano with a microphone and a recorder right there to capture things right in the second. There’s editing equipment. There are cameras. I think the only thing in our house that people would be surprised by is the efficiency. Like staffing? Will: No, just how serious we are about how the microphone at the piano has to be on and the recorder has to be ready to go for when somebody gets an idea. The paint supplies have got to be kept up—you know, you cannot go to paint something and a color’s empty. Is it true that you alphabetized your laser discs? Will: Yeah, I’m very, very serious about systems supporting creative inspiration. In the movie, Jaden, your character calls his dad “Sir.” Is that the dynamic with you guys? Jaden: In real life, no. It’s like how it is right now. How is it right now? Jaden: It’s hard for me to explain because it’s so normal to me. It’s like ­asking, “So, Jaden, how do you breathe?” He’s, like, really just cool. He lets us have our freedom as long as we can control our freedom. In After Earth, the father is a general who is injured and has to watch his son fight for his life. Was this a metaphor for what it’s like sending your kid into Hollywood? Will: Absolutely. That’s what I wanted the metaphor of this movie to be. A father having to watch as his son makes mistakes in the world, and in an extreme place of life or death. It is the excruciating parental pain of having to let your kids go, and you just have to hope that the lessons you’ve instilled will kick in at the right time. Will, what kind of relationship did you have with your father? Will: You know, I grew up where you got the hospital corners on the beds. I grew up with old-school rules where you speak when you’re spoken to. There were hugely powerful ideas about discipline and spirituality. You were baptized. Will: Baptized. Went to a Catholic school. Lived in a Jewish neighborhood. My mother worked on the school board, so she was very serious about education, and my grandmother was in the church. So there was a huge amount of discipline, and I’m trying to maintain some of the old ideals, minus the ownership. We don’t own our children, you know. They own themselves. Not to go too far into that, talking about slavery concepts and how the black community is carrying those … Jaden: If we started going down that road, Mommy would, like, burst into this room. In terms of mistakes, Will, early on in your career you had a period of years where most of your wages were garnished for not paying taxes. Have you educated Jaden about all the money he’s making? Will: Yeah, you know, we met with ­Robert Kiyosaki, the author of Rich Dad, Poor Dad, and we’re trying to design a ­curriculum for children to understand even the basic connection between a bank and capitalism. I mean, I’m very serious with my kids about them comprehending the intricacies of global finance. Is it hard to educate your kids to be responsible about money when they grew up with wealth? Will: It’s funny. Willow and Trey went in completely the opposite direction. Like, Willow only shops at Target. Jaden is really the only one of my kids that has a little bit of a taste for, uh … Jaden: I like Cartier. Will: That’s a little new. Jaden: The Cartier is new, but before that it was Louis [Vuitton]. Will: Yes, he has a little bit of a taste. But he connects his responsibility to working and creating to the fun that he enjoys with the finer things. So, Jaden, you like spending the money you earn? Jaden: Well, when you say it like that, not really. There was a time in my life when I’d go to Cartier, like, every weekend for like a month. But, now I’m … What would you buy? Jaden: I have four rings I’m not wearing today. I haven’t bought anything that expensive in a really long time. The only thing I buy is, like, food and skateboards. Will: Once he started approving his own bank statements and credit cards and all, yeah, he changed. I heard that you and Jada were going to write a book together? Will: It feels like you can’t write books in progress. Jaden: Give them ten years. They’ll drop a book every year. You feel like they have a lot to say? Jaden: Yes, like 900 pages, both of them, so it’ll be like two books a year. He drops his book, she drops her book. Will: Our kids get an earful around the house just on every topic, every subject. Jaden: If I’m with my friends, and they’ll be like, “Oh, hey, where’s your dad? Let’s go say hi.” And I’ll be like, “Oh, no. He’s watching hours and hours of TED Talks just … Dude, don’t go in there.” Last time I went in there, he said, “Jaden, so the art of telling stories is an art that you really have to learn. I want you to read Aesop’s Fables.” “Dad, I’ve read Aesop’s Fables three times.” “Honestly, you can’t read it enough.” But when you’re on your way to see a 9:15 movie and it’s nine o’clock, he’s like, “Wait, wait, Jaden, I need to tell you something about life, man.” *This article originally appeared in the June 3, 2013 issue of New York Magazine. ||||| Everyone knows you rarely learn much by reading interviews with movie stars. It's a less commonplace experience, though, to feel yourself becoming actively less well-informed as you read, as if the celebrity's words were eliminating your brain-cells, one by one, like bubble-wrap being popped. Yet take a look, if you dare, at this Q&A, in the current edition of New York magazine, with Will Smith and his son Jaden, to promote their forthcoming film After Earth. It should definitely win some kind of award, though I'm not sure the relevant Pulitzer category has been created yet. Smith senior is, of course, one half of the uber-powerful Hollywood couple who insist they're not Scientologists but who do give money to groups affiliated with Scientology and who did set up a private elementary school that deploys teaching methods formulated by L Ron Hubbard. Here, he claims not to be religious (though a few years ago he described himself as a Christian) and explains that, anyway, his real worldview is all about "patterns": I'm a student of patterns. At heart, I'm a physicist. I look at everything in my life as trying to find the single equation, the theory of everything. It's just a tiny bit unclear what Smith means by a "pattern": the two examples he endorses in the interview are a) that the sun rises every morning and b) that the Best Actor Oscar tends to be awarded to people portraying historical figures or characters with mental illness. One can also use patterns, Smith informs the interviewer, Claire Hoffman, to predict whether he will make another movie alongside his son: If you were a student of the pattern, you'd have to say we were going to do another one. Wait: "the pattern"? Is there one pattern, or are there many? I'm confused, but that's probably because mainstream media like New York magazine can't fully accommodate the profundity of Smith's thought: You know, the forum of media that we're in can't really handle the complexity of things that we say all the time. One feels inclined to cut Jaden Smith some slack, since he's only 14 and has been raised by Will Smith. But it ought to be noted that his contributions to the emerging Smith theory of everything are in many ways more mindwarping than his father's: Jaden: I think that there is that special equation for everything, but I don't think our mathematics have evolved enough for us to even – I think there's, like, a whole new mathematics that we'd have to learn to get that equation. Will: I agree with that. Jaden: It's beyond mathematical. It's, like, multidimensional mathematical, if you can sort of understand what I'm saying. I sort of can't, actually! But never mind. As Jaden – who has reportedly announced his desire to become an emancipated minor, free of parental control, when he turns 15 – explains about his mother, Jada Pinkett Smith: If we're at a six, she's like at an eight and a half. …whereas I'm probably more like a one or a two, so my confusion is understandable. (On what scale, you ask? We never learn.) What to make of all this? It certainly demonstrates just how loopy your uncontrolled speculations can become when you're insulated, through fame and wealth, from people pointing out that they make no sense. Other than that, I'm fairly certain there are absolutely no conclusions to be drawn from it whatsoever. Sorry. Our mathematics just hasn't evolved sufficiently yet. If you wonder where Smith is getting all this from, by the way, Jaden gives a hint at the end: He's watching hours and hours of TED talks… Ah, well, there you go.

– Here's how Guardian writer Oliver Burkeman describes a recent interview given by Will and Jaden Smith: "the most bizarre interview in Hollywood history," and one that "will make your brain hurt." The Q&A in question appeared in New York a few days ago, as the father and son promoted their new movie After Earth. Here's a relevant excerpt: Will: "I’m a student of patterns. At heart, I’m a physicist. I look at everything in my life as trying to find the single equation, the theory of everything." Jaden: "There's definitely a theory to everything. ... I think that there is that special equation for everything, but I don’t think our mathematics have evolved enough for us to even—I think there’s, like, a whole new mathematics that we’d have to learn to get that equation." Will: "I agree with that." Jaden: "It’s beyond mathematical. It’s, like, multidimensional mathematical, if you can sort of understand what I’m saying." Will, later: "And, the things about our family that are mysteries or seem strange, when they’re explained, it’ll be obvious. You know, the forum of media that we’re in can’t really handle the complexity of things that we say all the time." If you're thinking, "Well, what do you expect, they're Scientologists," not so fast. In the same interview, the elder Smith says they're not religious, but are "students of world religion" and "respect all [religions]." He has flat-out denied being a Scientologist in the past. (As for After Earth ... it got hilariously terrible reviews.)

PHNOM PENH | PHNOM PENH (Reuters) - The French architect linked to China's biggest political scandal in two decades and detained in Cambodia will not be extradited to any country, a minister said, adding another twist to a high-profile case already shrouded in mystery. Cambodian Foreign Minister Hor Namhong gave no details on what grounds China had requested the arrest of Patrick Henri Devillers, whose whereabouts is unknown, but said he would remain in custody pending further investigation. Devillers, 52, has lived in Cambodia for at least five years, according to friends. He had close business ties with the family of deposed Chinese politician Bo Xilai, but China's reason for seeking his arrest has not been made public. "The Royal Government of Cambodia has already made decision to keep this French national in Cambodia, the decision was already made. Neither sending to France or China," Hor Namhong told reporters. Asked why Devillers was detained, he said: "We don't know the reason, we are waiting for further investigation." A spokeswoman for the French embassy in Phnom Penh declined to say whether France was seeking his extradition, or give any details on the status of Devillers. Cambodia has kept an unusually tight lid on all information about his detention in a case that has highlighted the tight diplomatic relationship with China. China is Cambodia's biggest political and economic ally and Beijing has boosted its influence in the impoverished country in recent years, pumping in hundreds of millions of dollars of aid, loans and investment. Devillers is known to have been close to Bo's glamorous wife, Gu Kailai, who has been named as a suspect in last November's murder of British businessman Neil Heywood. The police case against Gu has not been made public. Last week, the head of the discipline apparatus of China's Communist Party, He Guoqiang, visited Cambodia for three days. His position makes him one of the senior officials overseeing Bo's case. Apart from the foreign minister, Cambodian officials, police and a government spokesman have refused comment or provided no details on Devillers since his arrest was confirmed on Tuesday. Several have referred journalists to other ministries and agencies, which have each denied responsibility for the case. "HE LOOKED VERY SAD" Cambodia has an extradition treaty with China and police said on Wednesday that arrangement permitted the authorities to detain the Frenchman for up to 60 days while China gathered evidence to support its request for him to be handed over. The status of the Frenchman is shrouded in mystery. The French embassy and several friends of Devillers have given no comment in the past two days and Cambodian authorities have not said where Devillers was being held. Police had initially said he was being kept at an immigration detention facility, but officials there told Reuters no foreigners were being held. Reuters reporters also visited an Interior Ministry detention facility, where officials also denied holding him. The events leading up to his arrest are also unclear. A friend of Devillers, Pierre Yves Clais, told Reuters on Wednesday that he was told by a friend that the Frenchman had gone for lunch on June 13 with two Chinese-speaking Cambodians, which he described as a "set-up". However, Clais on Friday denied making the comment and said it was a misunderstanding. Two security guards working close to Devillers in Phnom Penh witnessed his arrest, which they said took place about two weeks ago. A police van and a private car carrying two European men pulled up outside his house before taking him away. "I saw five policemen arrest him. He was cooperative, but he looked very sad," Rith Makara, a security guard at the furniture store opposite the Frenchman's home, said on Thursday. He and a next-door neighbor said Devillers lived alone and had not been seen since. Sources familiar with Devillers when he lived in China last month said he entered Bo's inner circle while living in Dalian in the 1990s and the Frenchman received help from then-mayor Bo in chasing up an unpaid debt for architectural work. Devillers and Gu gave the same residential address when they set up a British company in 2000 in the resort town of Bournemouth and an investment firm registered by Devillers in 2006 in Luxembourg listed the Beijing address of the Ang Dao Law Firm - a firm affiliated with Gu. (Editing by Nick Macfie) ||||| Gu Kailai, who has not been seen in public since March, is “highly suspected” of the 41-year-old Mr Heywood’s murder, according to the Chinese state media. But according to the Asahi Shimbun, she has now admitted her guilt, telling investigators that Mr Heywood was poised to reveal that she was funnelling “billions of dollars” overseas. The newspaper suggested that Mrs Gu’s financial affairs were already under the subject of an investigation by last November, when Mr Heywood travelled to Chongqing, the central Chinese city she ruled over with her husband. The report allegedly states that Mrs Gu had killed Mr Heywood after feeling “driven into a corner” by the investigation. It also said that Mrs Gu had provided a precise confession as to how she had killed the British businessman, who had been a close friend of her family for several years. According to the Asahi, Communist party officials have now “decided to indict Gu following her confession”. They are also allegedly investigating whether Mr Bo, 62, was aware of his wife’s actions, have interviewed hundreds and detained “dozens of people” associated with him “including his chauffeurs, close aides and secretaries”. The investigators believe that Mrs Gu was receiving undeclared income from the early 1990s and may have transferred as much as $6 billion (£3.84 billion) overseas. Mr Heywood has been accused of helping her to move some of that money. “Gu has also begun admitting to allegations of bribe-taking and the cross-border remittances, according to the sources. They said she has told investigators she received cash from a number of companies on the back of her husband’s power,” reported the Asahi. Meanwhile, Cambodia said yesterday (FRI) it would not extradite Patrick Devillers, a French architect who had also been one of Mrs Gu’s inner circle. Mr Devillers is also suspected by the Chinese of involvement in moving Mrs Gu’s money overseas but the Cambodian government said it would investigate him in Phnom Penh.

– Two twists in the China scandal involving ousted political leader Bo Xilai and wife Gu Kailai: Confession? A Japanese newspaper reports that Gu has confessed to killing British businessman Neil Heywood, apparently because she was worried he knew too much about her illegal financial dealings. The report quotes anonymous Chinese sources as saying an indictment is near, notes the Telegraph. The sources also say that Gu smuggled somewhere around $6 billion overseas. Cambodia arrest: A Cambodian official says a French architect with strong business ties to Bo and Gu will not be extradited to China or anywhere else, at least for now, reports Reuters. Police in Phnom Penh arrested Patrick Devillers earlier this month at Beijing's request but haven't disclosed much else, including why he got detained in the first place. "We don't know the reason," said the minister. "We are waiting for further investigation."

BEIJING (AP) — China's government warned Wednesday it will retaliate if Washington imposes new trade penalties, following a report the Trump administration will propose increasing the tariff rate on an additional $200 billion of Chinese imports. A foreign ministry spokesman, Geng Shuang, said Beijing was ready for "dialogue and consultation" to defuse the escalating dispute. "If the United States takes further measures that escalate the situation, China will definitely fight back," said Geng. He gave no details of possible measures but said, "we are determined to safeguard our legitimate and lawful rights and interests." Washington imposed additional 25 percent tariffs on $34 billion of Chinese goods July 6 in response to complaints Beijing steals or pressures companies to hand over technology. Beijing responded by imposing the same penalties on the same amount of U.S. imports. Bloomberg News reported, citing three unidentified sources, the Trump administration would propose imposing 25 percent tariffs on a $200 billion list of Chinese goods targeted in a new round of penalties, up from the planned 10 percent. Geng gave no indication whether the two sides were preparing to resume negotiations. "I need to stress that dialogues must be conducted on the basis of mutual respect and equality," he said. "Unilateral threats and pressure will only be counterproductive." The Ministry of Commerce didn't respond to questions by phone and fax about the status of possible negotiations. ||||| (CNN) The Trump administration plans to raise pending tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese goods to 25% from 10%, a source familiar with discussions confirmed to CNN. The news was first reported by Bloomberg. The move, which is not finalized and could change, according to the source, comes as the United States and China remain locked in a trade war. Talks between US and Chinese officials have done little to ease tensions. The United States has already imposed 25% tariffs on Chinese goods worth $34 billion. China immediately responded with its own tariffs on US goods worth $34 billion. A second round of tariffs on products worth $16 billion could take effect as soon as this week. Read More ||||| LISTEN TO ARTICLE 4:34 SHARE THIS ARTICLE Share Tweet Post Email The U.S. and China are trying to restart talks aimed at averting a full-blown trade war between the world’s two largest economies, two people familiar with the effort said. Representatives of U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Chinese Vice Premier Liu He are having private conversations as they look for ways to reengage in negotiations, according to the people who spoke about the deliberations on condition of anonymity. They cautioned that a specific timetable, the issues to be discussed and the format for talks aren’t finalized, but added there was agreement among the principals that more discussions need to take place. Negotiations to resolve the dispute have been stalled for weeks, with both sides refusing to budge. High-level U.S. talks on the Trump administration’s trade posture toward China are taking place this week, according to a third person who also spoke on the condition of anonymity. U.S. stocks closed higher as the prospects for an easing in trade tensions lifted industrial shares, with Boeing Co., Caterpillar Inc. and 3M Co. all adding more than 1 percent. The next wave of U.S. tariffs is set to kick in as soon as Wednesday, with the possible imposition of duties on another $16 billion of Chinese imports. The implementation could be delayed for weeks as the administration works out the details of which products it will target. Officials in Beijing have vowed to respond with the same amount of tariffs on U.S. products. One person familiar with the internal deliberations said the U.S. is trying to secure certain concessions and if China agrees, it is possible the U.S. would back off additional tariffs. Complicating Mnuchin’s efforts is a harder line taken by U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, who has jurisdiction over the U.S.’s 301 investigation that sparked the tariffs. That case concluded China was stealing American technology and tariffs were needed to offset the damage. A U.S. Treasury spokesman didn’t respond to a request for comment. ‘Chronic Problem’ U.S. and Chinese officials have given little recent indication in public that a restart to negotiations might be in the offing. Lighthizer said last week that trade tensions with China are a “chronic problem,” while China’s representative at the World Trade Organization accused the U.S. of “extortion.” The two sides held three rounds of formal talks, beginning with a delegation to Beijing led by Mnuchin in May. After Liu visited Washington later that month, the nations released a joint statement pledging to reduce the U.S. trade deficit with China, among other things. But within days, President Donald Trump himself backed away from the deal, saying talks would “probably have to use a different structure.” Negotiations broke off after the Trump administration imposed tariffs on $34 billion in Chinese imports this month, a move the Chinese said would void any promises they’d made in negotiations. Beijing responded in kind with its own tariffs. Trump’s mission to reduce the U.S. trade deficit via the threat of tariffs has brought him into conflict with China as well as U.S. allies, roiling financial markets and raising fears of a global trade war the International Monetary Fund has warned may undermine the strongest economic upswing in years. ZTE Deal Chinese and U.S. officials have struggled to find a starting place for a new round of talks. After taking a hard line on Chinese telecom equipment maker ZTE Corp., the Trump administration this month finished a deal that allowed the company to stay in business. Trump said the pact was a personal favor to Chinese President Xi Jinping. In exchange for the U.S. letting ZTE survive, Chinese regulators were expected to approve a deal between San Diego-based Qualcomm Inc. and rival chipmaker NXP Semiconductors NV, based in Eindhoven, Netherlands. Mnuchin was among the Cabinet officials involved in a last-minute effort early last week to get the Qualcomm-NXP deal approved before the companies vowed to walk away from it on July 25, the people said. Mnuchin’s efforts were unsuccessful and Qualcomm scrapped its $44 billion bid for NXP. The people familiar with the U.S.-China dispute said the U.S. has privately expressed dismay to the highest levels of the Chinese government that the deal fell through. Politburo Shift In a sign the trade standoff is reverberating through Chinese politics, the Politburo signaled Tuesday that policy makers will focus more on supporting economic growth amid risks from a campaign to reduce debt and the dispute with Trump. The communique, which followed a meeting of the country’s 25 most senior leaders led by Xi, said the nation’s campaign to reduce leverage will continue at a measured pace while improving economic policies to make them more forward-looking, flexible and effective in the second half of 2018. — With assistance by Andrew Mayeda

– The US in early July hit $34 billion of Chinese goods with an extra 25% tariff; China responded in kind. CNN reports round two could see the US slap tariffs on another $16 billion in goods as soon as this week, but it's a much bigger figure that's attracting attention Wednesday. Bloomberg cites sources who say the White House is thinking about upping the ante and imposing not an additional 10% tariff on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods but an additional 25%. CNN echoes that news via its source. Bloomberg frames the move, which would be revealed in the next couple of weeks, as intended to "force officials back to the negotiating table through threats of even higher tariffs"; the last high-level negotiations took place nearly two months ago. A Chinese foreign ministry rep responded to the news thusly, per the AP: "If the United States takes further measures that escalate the situation, China will definitely fight back. We are determined to safeguard our legitimate and lawful rights and interests."

FILE - In this Jan. 23, 2018, file photo, Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, speaks during a TV news interview on Capitol Hill in Washington. Collins on Sunday, Jan. 28, said President Donald Trump would be... (Associated Press) FILE - In this Jan. 23, 2018, file photo, Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, speaks during a TV news interview on Capitol Hill in Washington. Collins on Sunday, Jan. 28, said President Donald Trump would be... (Associated Press) WASHINGTON (AP) — The Latest on the probe into contacts between the Trump campaign and Russia (all times local): 6:25 p.m. Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee have voted to release a classified memo they wrote that alleges that the FBI and the Justice Department improperly used government surveillance during the investigation into Russian election interference and contacts with President Donald Trump's campaign. That's according to Rep. Adam Schiff of California, the ranking Democrat on the committee. Schiff says Democrats on the committee voted against releasing the memo. The vote to release the memo comes after committee Republicans, led by chairman Rep. Devin Nunes, a California Republican, pushed for its disclosure. The memo addresses a dossier of allegations against Trump compiled by a former British spy, and questions over whether it was used to obtain surveillance warrants. __ 2:25 p.m. The White House says President Donald Trump has not decided whether he'd authorize the release of a classified House Intelligence Committee memo, but says he favors "full transparency." The House committee may vote as soon as Monday to release the memo that Republicans say alleges FBI misconduct. White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Monday that "no one" at the White House has seen the memo, so the president was not prepared to make a decision. A number of conservatives favor releasing the memo, which they believe could discredit the findings of the investigation into ties between the Trump campaign and Russian officials. White House aides have previously said Trump favored releasing the document, which is in contrast to the stance of the Justice Department. ___ 2:30 a.m. Two Republican senators say President Donald Trump would be wise to keep a public silence on an independent investigation into his 2016 campaign's contacts with Russia. That's in the wake of news reports that he sought to fire the special counsel. The senators, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Susan Collins of Maine, also urged special counsel Robert Mueller Sunday to review whether Trump tried to fire him last June, an accusation the president has labeled "fake news." Graham, co-sponsor of legislation that would protect Mueller from being fired without a legal basis, said he would be "glad to pass it tomorrow." But he insisted that Mueller's job appeared to be in no immediate danger, pointing to the political costs if Trump did remove him. ||||| Trey Gowdy had urged Devin Nunes (above) to share a classified memo that alleges misconduct by senior officials at the FBI with both Chris Wray and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. | Mark Wilson/Getty Images House panel votes to release secret memo Earlier, Trey Gowdy lobbied Devin Nunes to share the controversial memo with the FBI director. Republicans on the House intelligence committee voted Monday in favor of releasing a classified memo that alleges misconduct by senior FBI officials involved in the Russia probe, despite objections from the Department of Justice. The GOP-led panel voted along party lines to release the secret document — which was written by Republicans — and against making public a competing memo Democrats had crafted, said Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the committee. The group also rejected a proposal to give the Justice Department and FBI more time to vet the Republican document, he said. Story Continued Below The memo has been a source of escalating partisan tension in Congress. Republicans argue it shows wrongdoing by FBI officials involved in surveillance of a Trump campaign aide, while Democrats say it mischaracterizes intelligence and is an attempt to distract from special counsel Robert Mueller's probe into Russia's interference in the 2016 election. In a sign of the House GOP's growing suspicions toward the FBI — as well as the influence of Donald Trump's allies who wanted the memo made public — the panel voted to publish the document only a day after sharing it with the FBI director, who was appointed by the president. "We have crossed a deeply regrettable line on this committee," Schiff said. "We had votes today to politicize the intelligence process, to prohibit the FBI and the Department of Justice from expressing their concerns to our committee and to the House, and to selectively release to the public the majority’s distorted memo." House intelligence committee Chairman Devin Nunes showed FBI Director Christopher Wray the memo on Sunday after Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) pressured him to share its contents with the bureau, two people familiar with the meeting said Monday. Gowdy also wanted Nunes to let Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein see the memo too, but he did not join them Sunday. In their meeting, Nunes told Wray he could flag any factual errors, national security concerns or material that could put FBI sources at risk, according to the people familiar with the meeting. Schiff said Wray told him his concerns with the memo were not alleviated just because he reviewed it. "The review did not satisfy, I think, either the bureau or [DOJ's] concerns," Schiff said. "The director of the FBI asked for the opportunity to come before the committee and express those concerns." He said Republicans also formally confirmed on Monday that they are probing conduct by senior officials at the Department of Justice and FBI. Committee Republicans did agree to share Democrats' competing memo with the rest of the House, which they called a precursor to potentially releasing it publicly. Rep. Tom Rooney (R-Fla.) told reporters the Democratic memo "should be" released after House members have time to review it. Trump now has five days to either object to the committee's request or clear the way for the memo's release. The White House said earlier on Monday that no decision would be made until lawmakers voted. Sign up here for POLITICO Huddle A daily play-by-play of congressional news in your inbox. Email Sign Up By signing up you agree to receive email newsletters or alerts from POLITICO. You can unsubscribe at any time. "It will be subjected to appropriate and serious review before a decision is made. The President strongly favors transparency for the American people and has urged the Executive Branch to cooperate with Congress to the fullest extent appropriate," said White House lawyer Ty Cobb in a statement Monday. Three people who have seen the memo told POLITICO recently that it accuses senior FBI officials of abusing a classified surveillance program, known as FISA, to spy on a Trump campaign foreign policy adviser. Obtaining a warrant under FISA requires the FBI to present an application to a court with evidence that indicates the target is acting on behalf of a foreign power. The GOP has complained that the FBI included in its evidence material culled from a dossier compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele that described illicit connections between Trump and Russia. Steele compiled the dossier in 2016 on behalf of research firm Fusion GPS, which was being paid by Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee. The New York Times reported Monday that the memo also reveals that deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein approved an application to extend the surveillance of former Trump campaign aide Carter Page in early 2017. Though Gowdy, a former federal prosecutor, helped craft the memo and has championed its public release, he said on "Fox News Sunday" that he believed the FBI should see the memo before it comes out. He also said it shouldn't be used to interfere with Mueller's probe. "I told my Republican colleagues, ‘Leave him the hell alone,’ and that’s still my advice,” Gowdy said. Rep. Will Hurd (R-Texas), a member of the House intelligence committee and a former CIA officer, said he was not concerned about a Justice Department warning that releasing the memo without DOJ review could jeopardize national security. "I spent most of my adult life protecting sources and methods. I’m going to continue doing that," he said. Rachael Bade contributed to this report.

– It's all up to President Trump now. The House Intelligence Committee voted along party lines Monday to release a controversial memo that alleges wrongdoing on the part of the Justice Department and the FBI in regard to the Russia investigation, reports Politico. Democrats are fuming over the decision. Trump now has five days to decide whether to allow the memo to be released; his approval is necessary because it's a classified document. The memo alleges that the FBI and the Justice Department improperly used government surveillance during the investigation into Russian election interference and contacts with Trump's campaign, per the AP. The vote to release the memo comes after committee Republicans, led by chairman Rep. Devin Nunes, pushed for its disclosure. The memo addresses a dossier of allegations against Trump compiled by a former British spy, and questions over whether it was improperly used to obtain surveillance warrants. The panel's ranking Democrat, Rep. Adam Schiff, announced the vote results Monday while criticizing the Republicans' decision. Democrats generally say the memo cherry-picks facts and presents a distorted view of things.

Story highlights "I believe Hillary Clinton has the wisdom and experience to lead our country at this critical time," Scowcroft said Despite his long history as a Republican adviser, Scowcroft has shaped Democratic views as well (CNN) Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, received an endorsement Wednesday from a heavyweight foreign policy adviser to Republican presidents. Brent Scowcroft, who served as National Security Adviser to Presidents George H. W. Bush and Gerald Ford, and who worked in the White House of Presidents Richard Nixon and George W. Bush, said Clinton "brings truly unique experience and perspective to the White House." His endorsement was released hours after the Republican presumptive nominee Donald Trump launched a broad attack on Clinton's experience, honesty and foreign policy experience in a 40-minute speech. Scowcroft directly rebutted Trump's claim that Clinton does not have the temperament to lead, citing her experience working on high-pressure issues such as Iran and Israel. "She brings deep expertise in international affairs and a sophisticated understanding of the world, which I believe are essential for the commander-in-chief," Scowcroft said. His backing follows that of another prominent Republican in national security circles. Richard Armitage, who served in the State and Defense Departments under George W. Bush and President Ronald Reagan, announced last week that he will vote for Clinton over Trump. Read More ||||| These crawls are part of an effort to archive pages as they are created and archive the pages that they refer to. That way, as the pages that are referenced are changed or taken from the web, a link to the version that was live when the page was written will be preserved.Then the Internet Archive hopes that references to these archived pages will be put in place of a link that would be otherwise be broken, or a companion link to allow people to see what was originally intended by a page's authors.The goal is to fix all broken links on the web . Crawls of supported "No More 404" sites. ||||| The consequences of American non-intervention in Syria have, in some ways, been as bad as the consequences of American intervention in Iraq, though fewer American lives and dollars have been expended. Yet the realist in Obama has no regrets. Goldberg does future historians a valuable service by setting out in detail the president’s reasoning. The president dragged his feet on Syria for three reasons. First, having been elected partly on the strength of his opposition to the Iraq War, he was and remains in principle reluctant to deploy U.S. troops (though not U.S. drones). In 2009, he felt the Pentagon had “jammed” him into approving a troop surge in Afghanistan; four years later, he felt he was being jammed again. Second, he misread the Arab Spring, initially equating protesters in Tunisia and Tahrir Square with Rosa Parks and the “patriots of Boston.” Third, Obama regretted succumbing to pressure from his own advisers as well as from European allies to intervene in Libya in 2011. When similar pressures were brought to bear on him over the red line he himself had drawn regarding the use of chemical weapons in Syria, Obama revolted. On August 30, 2013—after consulting only Denis McDonough, his chief of staff—he decided to call off planned air strikes against the Syrian government, telling McDonough of his “long-standing resentment: He was tired of watching Washington unthinkingly drift toward war in Muslim countries.” The president’s rationalizations of his U-turn need not detain us (“Assad would place civilians as ‘human shields’ around obvious targets … U.S. missiles would not be fired at chemical-weapons depots, for fear of sending plumes of poison into the air,” and so forth). The point is that if those arguments had been any good, there would have been no need to circumvent his own cabinet and advisers. Susan Rice was “shocked.” When he found out that evening, Kerry told a friend: “I just got fucked over.” Even Vice President Joe Biden was on the other side of the argument (“big nations don’t bluff”). The usually loyal Gideon Rose, the editor of Foreign Affairs, thought it was a mistake. So did the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan. So did the king of Jordan. And so, of course, did Hillary Clinton. When she later made public her criticism of Obama’s handling of Syria, Obama became “rip-shit angry,” according to a senior adviser. It was at this time that the White House went demotic with the facile slogan: “Don’t do stupid shit.” According to Ben Rhodes, Obama’s deputy national-security adviser for strategic communication, “the questions we were asking in the White House were ‘Who exactly is in the stupid-shit caucus? Who is pro–stupid shit?’” This, then, was The Moment: Obama’s decision not to carry out his threat against Bashar al-Assad was, we are told, the defining moment of his presidency. “I’m very proud of this moment,” he tells Goldberg. “The overwhelming weight of conventional wisdom and the machinery of our national-security apparatus had gone fairly far. The perception was that my credibility was at stake, that America’s credibility was at stake. And so for me to press the pause button at that moment, I knew, would cost me politically. And the fact that I was able to pull back from the immediate pressures and think through in my own mind what was in America’s interest … was as tough a decision as I’ve made.” ||||| Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks in New York, Wednesday, June 22, 2016. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer) (Associated Press) Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks in New York, Wednesday, June 22, 2016. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer) (Associated Press) WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump's fierce denunciation of Hillary Clinton on Wednesday was rife with distortion. He accused Clinton of announcing a withdrawal from Iraq that wasn't on her watch, pulled numbers out of nowhere on her plan for refugees and went beyond the established facts behind the killing of the U.S. ambassador to Libya in stating starkly that she "left him there to die." In doing so, he assigned her far more influence in the world than she exercised as secretary of state. A look at some of his assertions and how they stack up with the facts: TRUMP: "In just four years, Secretary Clinton managed to almost single-handedly destabilize the entire Middle East." He blamed her for an invasion of Libya that "handed the country over to ISIS," for making Iran the dominant Islamic power in the region and for supporting regime change in Syria that led to a bloody civil war. He charged that her "disastrous strategy" of announcing a departure date from Iraq created another opening for ISIS there. THE FACTS: These statements make only passing acquaintance with reality. There was no U.S. invasion of Libya. Clinton initially opposed but then sought credit for the NATO-led air campaign to help rebels overthrow Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi in 2011. (Trump spoke in support of U.S. intervention at the time.) While the violence destabilized Libya, Islamic State inroads there have been more recent and are largely limited to a small coastal area of the country. Arguments about Iranian domination of the Middle East predate Clinton's tenure, going back a decade to the George W. Bush administration's deposing of Saddam Hussein in neighboring Iraq. While secretary of state, Clinton supported arming Syria's moderate rebels, but the Islamic State group only arrived later. It's unclear what effect such a policy would have had as President Barack Obama rejected the advice at the time. And she had nothing to do with the "disastrous strategy" of giving a departure date from Iraq. It was the George W. Bush administration that announced the planned withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq in 2008. ___ TRUMP: U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens and his staff "made hundreds and hundreds of requests for security. They were desperate. They needed help. Hillary Clinton's State Department refused them all. She started the war that put them in Libya, denied him the security he asked for, then left him there to die." THE FACTS: Trump greatly exaggerates the security requests, not all of which were denied, and gets the history of U.S.-Libyan relations wrong. The reference to security requests appears to reflect the Republican-led House Select Committee on Benghazi's tally of "requests/concerns" related to the diplomatic outpost in Benghazi. For many of those, there's no record of denials. And some security upgrades did occur before the Sept. 11, 2012, attack that killed Stevens and three other Americans. Clinton did not start the war in Libya. She supported a NATO intervention well after large-scale violence had broken out between Gadhafi's forces and rebels. Nor did the conflict put Stevens or any U.S. diplomat in Libya. The U.S. had maintained a full-fledged embassy there since President George W. Bush re-established diplomatic relations with Gadhafi's government in 2006. Several congressional investigations have shown that Clinton had no role in military decisions related to Benghazi, and that it would have been impossible for U.S. armed forces to intervene in time to save Stevens. ___ TRUMP: "Hillary also wants to spend hundreds of billions to resettle Middle Eastern refugees in the United States, on top of the current record level of immigration." THE FACTS: For a businessman, Trump is shaky on his numbers. The entire U.S. budget for refugee resettlement is less than $1.2 billion a year — and that includes refugees from Cuba, Bhutan and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Even including the value of all future public benefits they might receive — and excluding their contribution to the country through taxes — Trump's assertion about the cost of resettlement is still baffling. ___ TRUMP: "I started off in Brooklyn, New York, not so long ago, with a small loan and built a business that today is worth well over $10 billion." THE FACTS: Trump's $1 million loan from his father was just the beginning of his family subsidies, which included a far larger inheritance, loan guarantees and even occasional bailouts — one of which was found to be illegal by New Jersey casino regulators. As for the value of Trump's business, every independent appraisal has found his assets to be worth far less than he says; Forbes says Trump is worth less than half what he claims. ___ TRUMP: "Hillary Clinton accepted $58,000 in jewelry from the government of Brunei when she was secretary of state — plus millions more for her foundation. The sultan of Brunei has pushed oppressive Sharia law. THE FACTS: Clinton is not sporting Brunei bling. In September 2012, she accepted a $58,000 jewelry set with gold, sapphire and diamond earrings, a necklace and bracelet, given by the queen of Brunei when Clinton visited for meetings and to inaugurate an English-language training program, according to the Federal Register. The gift was not to her, but to the United States. Federal law prohibits officials from keeping such gifts unless they pay the estimated value to the U.S. government. According to the State Department's protocol office, Clinton chose not to buy the jewelry, and instead turned it over to the General Services Administration — the standard procedure for most gifts from foreign leaders. It's true that Brunei is an Islamic nation that observes Sharia law and has been widely criticized for its human rights record, particularly when it comes to gays and lesbians. But gift exchanges are standard practice. As with almost all gifts to all officials, the Federal Register notice says "non-acceptance would cause embarrassment to donor and U.S. government." ___ TRUMP: "Our trade deficit with China soared 40 percent during Clinton's time as secretary of state." THE FACTS: Trump's claim is more than double the actual increase. From late 2008 through 2012, a period coinciding with Clinton's tenure, the trade deficit with China rose 17.6 percent. Trump's campaign may be using data from the end of 2009 through 2013, when the deficit did rise 40 percent, but that does not match up with Clinton's time in office and leaves out a sharp, recession-induced drop in 2009. More broadly, the secretary of state is not typically held responsible for the trade deficit, which mostly reflects the health of the U.S. and global economies, the difference in how much the nation spends and saves, and trade policies implemented by the U.S. trade representative. ___ TRUMP: "We are the highest-taxed nation in the world." THE FACTS: Closer to the opposite is true. The U.S. tax burden is actually one of the lowest among the 34 developed and large emerging-market economies that make up the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Taxes made up 26 percent of the total U.S. economy in 2014, according to the OECD. That's far below Sweden's tax burden of 42.7 percent, Britain's 32.6 percent or Germany's 36.1 percent. Only three OECD members had a lower figure: Chile, South Korea and Mexico. ___ TRUMP: "Under her plan, we would admit hundreds of thousands of refugees from the most dangerous countries on Earth, with no way to screen who they are, what they are, what they believe, where they come from." THE FACTS: Clinton has called for the United States to continue to accept refugees, including as many as 65,000 from Syria. But Trump is wrong about Clinton's stance on refugee screening. She's never said she would scale back the current refugee processing system. Under that system, a person's beliefs are not generally a disqualifier for entrance into the U.S. Refugees are checked to make sure they don't have criminal records or have been identified by intelligence agencies as having ties to terrorist organizations. ___ TRUMP: "She has pledged to grant mass amnesty and in her first 100 days, end virtually all immigration enforcement, and thus create totally open borders in the United States." THE FACTS: It's not true that Clinton's plan would create open borders. Her plan does call for a pathway to citizenship that would allow people currently in the country illegally to stay, but only after going through a series of steps to become a citizen. On enforcement, Clinton has called for focusing on "detaining and deporting those individuals who pose a violent threat to public safety," but not ending enforcement outright. ___ TRUMP: "We will repeal and replace job-killing Obamacare. It is a total disaster." THE FACTS: Job growth has been solid by historical standards since Obama's health care overhaul was signed into law in March 2010. Since then, employers have added nearly 14 million jobs and businesses have been on the longest hiring streak in the post-World War II era. And 2014 and 2015 were the two best years of private-sector hiring since the late 1990s. The unemployment rate, meanwhile, has fallen to 4.7 percent, an 8 ½ year low, from 9.9 percent when the law was passed. ___ TRUMP: "We'll pass massive tax reform to create millions of new jobs and lower taxes for everyone." THE FACTS: Trump's proposed tax cuts are indeed massive, but most economists conclude they will create a huge amount of government debt. The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center estimates that Trump's tax plan would slash government revenue by $9.5 trillion over the next decade. Trump hasn't specified any offsetting spending cuts or other sources of revenue to make up the difference. That means the tax cuts would balloon the deficit. All that additional government borrowing could push up interest rates, the center concludes, and offset much of the economic benefit of lower taxes. ___ Associated Press writers Christopher S. Rugaber, Chad Day, Michael Biesecker, Eileen Sullivan, Alicia A. Caldwell, Jeff Horwitz, Nancy Benac, Matthew Lee, Jill Colvin and Cal Woodward contributed to this story.

– When you hear the name "Brent Scowcroft," certain things may come to mind, including "retired lieutenant general" and "heavyweight foreign policy adviser" to several GOP presidents, CNN notes. He served as national security adviser to Presidents Ford and George HW Bush, as well as in White House roles during the Nixon, Reagan, and Dubya years. But we can now also add "Hillary Clinton supporter" to his résumé: Just hours after Donald Trump ripped into Clinton during a speech in New York (see the AP's fact-check of it here), the 91-year-old Scowcroft offered his endorsement of the presumptive Democratic nominee, underscoring the trepidation that the GOP establishment has for Trump as its main shot at the White House. "The presidency requires the judgment and knowledge to make tough calls under pressure," Scowcroft said in a statement, per the Los Angeles Times. "[Clinton] has the wisdom and experience to lead our country at this critical time." What makes his venture into Dem territory not a 100% surprise: Scowcroft fell somewhat out of favor with the George W. Bush administration when he publicly expressed reservations about the war in Iraq. And as CNN notes, Scowcroft has had an impact on Democratic foreign policy. Even President Obama recently lauded Scowcroft, saying of the man who helped him put together his own security team, "I love that guy," per the Atlantic.

Family rejects suicide in Crane basketball player’s death; CPD says no cop fired Terinica Thomas, Steve Rosenthal's aunt, weeps as family and friends march in response to the death of Steve Rosenthal on August 19, 2018. | Colin Boyle/Sun-Times Chicago police say there is no evidence that any officer fired a weapon during the Friday night encounter that ended with the death of a 15-year-old Crane High School basketball player. But in the latest sign of distrust between the community and the Chicago Police Department, Steven Rosenthal’s family marched with activists through North Lawndale on Sunday, rejecting the conclusion that Rosenthal committed suicide. “My nephew would never commit suicide, ever,” Terinica Thomas, the boy’s aunt and legal guardian, declared Sunday. Thomas made her comment during a press conference outside Johnson School of Excellence, where her family’s lawyer, Andrew Stroth, called for an independent investigation into Rosenthal’s death. He insisted that eyewitnesses saw Rosenthal’s death play out differently, but he did not name them or say how many there are. “The family is demanding to see the evidence,” Stroth said. Stroth called on authorities to release footage of Rosenthal’s death. But CPD spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said no footage had been found Sunday that depicts the moment Rosenthal was shot. He said it’s unclear if state law would allow the public release of the existing footage, given how Rosenthal died. Rosenthal died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head — not in a use-of-force situation — according to official accounts. The Cook County medical examiner’s office ruled Rosenthal’s death a suicide following an autopsy Saturday. Chicago police said officers spotted Rosenthal with a gun and tried to stop him about 6:55 p.m. Friday near his home in the 1500 block of South Keeler. Rosenthal ran away, and then he “tragically used the weapon on himself,” Guglielmi tweeted. Rosenthal died a half-hour later at Mount Sinai Hospital, according to the medical examiner’s office. Alonzo Crowder, head coach of boys basketball at Crane Medical Prep High School, said Rosenthal’s mother died of an illness shortly after the season ended in March. Rosenthal’s father died when he was 6. Still, neighbors and friends say the authorities’ account of Rosenthal shooting himself while running from police was out of character. Guglielmi said there is no video or ballistic evidence that suggests an officer fired a gun during the encounter with Rosenthal. He also said no officer reported opening fire, as is required by law and department policy. Guglielmi called Rosenthal’s death “an absolute tragedy.” Asked about the disbelief in the community, he said “suicide is an immensely difficult and painful thing to deal with” and he said, “our deepest condolences go out to this family.” But Thomas, Stroth and others wanted answers Sunday instead, marching from the school at Douglas and Albany to Mount Sinai before walking to CPD’s 10th district headquarters on Ogden. Outside the police station, the group first formed a circle on Ogden but eventually converged as they directed their ire toward the few officers standing outside. They chanted “justice for Steve.” They promised to return every night for 30 days. And, they insisted, “We want the tape!” Contributing: Rachel Hinton, Michael O’Brien ||||| More than 120 people gathered to protest the death of 15-year-old Steven Rosenthal, who police say fatally shot himself on the back stairwell of his West Side home after he was briefly chased by officers who allegedly saw him holding a handgun. Shouting “No justice, no peace,�? or “Let us see Steve,�? the crowd gathered Sunday at Johnson School of Excellence at 1420 S. Albany Ave. and marched to Mount Sinai Hospital a few blocks away, shutting down both lanes of Ogden Avenue at times. A brief altercation ensued outside the hospital’s emergency room when a large group chanting “Let us see Steve�? tried to force their way into the building and scuffled briefly with security officers blocking the doorway. A few people in the crowd wondered why the protesters went to the hospital rather than the Cook County medical examiner’s office, where the teen’s body was taken for an autopsy. The protest later moved west down Ogden and continued along 16th Street as Chicago police officers in squad cars closed down streets to allow the marchers to pass unhindered by traffic. Rosenthal died Friday evening at his home in the 1500 block of South Keeler Avenue in the Lawndale neighborhood, and the medical examiner’s office ruled his death a suicide from a gunshot wound to the head. Police said the teen fled when officers tried to question him after spotting him with a weapon just before 7 p.m. Friday. A short time afterward, Rosenthal shot himself in the head, police said. READ MORE: Dozens gather at scene of 15-year-old's suicide following police chase: 'He had a promising future' » But Rosenthal’s family vehemently denies the teen would have ever shot himself and laid the blame on the officers, who they said they believe shot him based on what individuals who claim to have witnessed the incident have said. “Steven was on the stairwell of his grandmother’s house on the West Side of Chicago when police officers stormed up the stairwell chasing,�? the family’s attorney, Andrew Stroth, said at a news conference prior to the march Sunday. “Within moments, these officers, without cause or provocation, shot and killed 15-year old Steven. … Based on several eyewitness accounts, these officers ended the hopes and the dreams of a talented young man with a bright future.�? Rosenthal’s aunt, the teen’s legal guardian, sobbed as she made a public plea to Mayor Rahm Emanuel to order the release of any body camera recordings of the shooting. “My 15-year old nephew Steven was shot and killed by the Chicago Police Department,�? Terinica Thomas-Level, 28, said, weeping and shaking visibly as she stood before the news media. “I need the attention of Mayor Emanuel. I need to see evidence. Body cams. They need to release the video. My nephew would never commit suicide ever. … If he (Emanuel) even had the smallest compassion for our family, he’d get those videotapes released.�? On Sunday, police spokesman Michael Carroll said that the shooting remains under investigation and that the department “has not come to a point where the decision has been made to release the body cam video.�? Carroll said he was not aware of whether any formal complaint had been lodged by the family alleging police misconduct in the death of Rosenthal. Stroth said that he and the family are demanding a “full, independent and transparent�? investigation into Rosenthal’s death. So far, the family has not been able to view his remains, he said. “The medical examiner has not released Steven’s body,�? Stroth said at the news conference. “The family is demanding to see the body, the family is demanding to see the evidence, the family is demanding to see the supposed, alleged weapon that was on the scene. The family deserves justice, and that’s what the family is fighting for.�? mwalberg@chicagotribune.com Twitter @mattwalberg1

– A 15-year-old Chicago teen was shot to death last week, but the police and his family have very different accounts of what happened. Police say they spotted Steven Rosenthal with a gun Friday evening and gave chase on foot, reports the Chicago Tribune. During the chase, the teen used the gun to shoot himself in the head, police say. However, Rosenthal's family say he would never kill himself and accuse police of shooting him. "My nephew would never commit suicide, ever," says Terinica Thomas, his legal guardian, per the Chicago Sun-Times. The family is demanding that police turn over bodycam footage in the case, but a department spokesman says no decision has been made about that yet. "Steven was on the stairwell of his grandmother's house on the West Side of Chicago when police officers stormed up the stairwell chasing," family attorney Andrew Stroth said Sunday, prior to a march in the teen's name, per the Tribune. "Within moments, these officers, without cause or provocation, shot and killed 15-year old Steven," he said, citing eyewitness accounts. The Cook County medical examiner, however, has ruled the death a suicide, and police insist that no officers opened fire. Rosenthal played basketball at Crane Medical Prep High School. His coach there tells the Sun-Times the teen's mother died earlier this year and his father died when he was 6.

Story highlights Officials will review data to see if satellite information has been "accurately interpreted" More high-tech devices will be used over an expanded search area The search area will expand to deep water that has "never been mapped" Australia estimates the next phase will cost $60 million More than 300 flights. Over 3,000 hours in the air. A staggering 4.6 million square kilometers of ocean. The numbers speak to the breadth of the search for the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. The results speak to the fruitlessness of it. JUST WATCHED Skepticism About New MH370 Findings Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Skepticism About New MH370 Findings 04:00 JUST WATCHED Search for Flight 370 to expand Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Search for Flight 370 to expand 02:38 JUST WATCHED 2nd search for MH370 in Bay of Bengal Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH 2nd search for MH370 in Bay of Bengal 02:03 The plane, carrying 239 people, disappeared on March 8. And despite an expansive search involving 26 countries, officials have nothing to show for it. So authorities are moving on to the next phase of the search -- one that will be even more challenging. "We know very clearly the area of the follow-up search will be even broader, with more difficulties and tougher tasks," Chinese Transport Minister Yang Chuantang said Monday. What's next Australian, Malaysian and Chinese officials will meet in Canberra, Australia, on Wednesday to hash out plans for the next stage of the hunt. One group will analyze the data and information collected so far. Another will look at the resources needed. The data audit will look at information gathered since the beginning of the search. "It will also look again at the satellite information that's been accumulated so that we can make sure that it's been accurately interpreted," Australian Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss said. Authorities have relied on satellite information and pings believed to be from the plane's flight data recorders in picking their search area. Photos: The search for MH370 Photos: The search for MH370 Two years after Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 went missing, a relative of one of the passengers burns incense in Beijing on March 8, 2016. Flight 370 vanished on March 8, 2014, as it flew from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to Beijing. There were 239 people on board. Hide Caption 1 of 43 Photos: The search for MH370 On July 29, police carry a piece of debris on Reunion Island, a French territory in the Indian Ocean. A week later, authorities confirmed that the debris was from the missing flight. Hide Caption 2 of 43 Photos: The search for MH370 Staff members with the Australian Transport Safety Bureau examine a piece of aircraft debris at their laboratory in Canberra, Australia, on July 20. The flap was found in June by residents on Pemba Island off the coast of Tanzania, and officials had said it was highly likely to have come from Flight 370. Experts at the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, which is heading up the search for the plane, confirmed that the part was indeed from the missing aircraft. Hide Caption 3 of 43 Photos: The search for MH370 In late February, American tourist Blaine Gibson found a piece of plane debris off Mozambique, a discovery that renewed hope of solving the mystery of the missing flight. The piece measured 35 inches by 22 inches. A U.S. official said it was likely the wreckage came from a Boeing 777, which MH370 was. Hide Caption 4 of 43 Photos: The search for MH370 Relatives of the flight's passengers console each other outside the Malaysia Airlines office in Subang, Malaysia, on February 12, 2015. Protesters had demanded that the airline withdraw the statement that all 239 people aboard the plane were dead. Hide Caption 5 of 43 Photos: The search for MH370 A police officer watches a couple cry outside the airline's office building in Beijing after officials refused to meet with them on June 11, 2014. The couple's son was on the plane. Hide Caption 6 of 43 Photos: The search for MH370 Members of the media scramble to speak with Azharuddin Abdul Rahman, director general of Malaysia's Civil Aviation Department, at a hotel in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on May 27, 2014. Data from communications between satellites and the missing flight was released the day before, more than two months after relatives of passengers said they requested it be made public. Hide Caption 7 of 43 Photos: The search for MH370 Operators aboard the Australian ship Ocean Shield move Bluefin-21, the U.S. Navy's autonomous underwater vehicle, into position to search for the jet on April 14, 2014. Hide Caption 8 of 43 Photos: The search for MH370 A member of the Royal New Zealand Air Force looks out of a window while searching for debris off the coast of western Australia on April 13, 2014. Hide Caption 9 of 43 Photos: The search for MH370 The HMS Echo, a vessel with the British Roya; Navy, moves through the waters of the southern Indian Ocean on April 12, 2014. Hide Caption 10 of 43 Photos: The search for MH370 A Royal Australian Air Force AP-3C Orion, on a mission to drop sonar buoys to assist in the search, flies past the Australian vessel Ocean Shield on April 9, 2014. Hide Caption 11 of 43 Photos: The search for MH370 A relative of a missing passenger cries at a vigil in Beijing on April 8, 2014. Hide Caption 12 of 43 Photos: The search for MH370 Australian Defense Force divers scan the water for debris in the southern Indian Ocean on April 7, 2014. Hide Caption 13 of 43 Photos: The search for MH370 A towed pinger locator is readied to be deployed off the deck of the Australian vessel Ocean Shield on April 7, 2014. Hide Caption 14 of 43 Photos: The search for MH370 A member of the Royal New Zealand Air Force looks at a flare in the Indian Ocean during search operations on April 4, 2014. Hide Caption 15 of 43 Photos: The search for MH370 On March 30, 2014, a woman in Kuala Lumpur prepares for an event in honor of those aboard Flight 370. Hide Caption 16 of 43 Photos: The search for MH370 The sole representative for the families of Flight 370 passengers leaves a conference at a Beijing hotel on March 28, 2014, after other relatives left en masse to protest the Malaysian government's response to their questions. Hide Caption 17 of 43 Photos: The search for MH370 A member of the Royal Australian Air Force is silhouetted against the southern Indian Ocean during the search for the missing jet on March 27, 2014. Hide Caption 18 of 43 Photos: The search for MH370 Flight Lt. Jayson Nichols looks at a map aboard a Royal Australian Air Force aircraft during a search on March 27, 2014. Hide Caption 19 of 43 Photos: The search for MH370 People in Kuala Lumpur light candles during a ceremony held for the missing flight's passengers on March 27, 2014. Hide Caption 20 of 43 Photos: The search for MH370 Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, center, delivers a statement about the flight on March 24, 2014. Razak's announcement came after the airline sent a text message to relatives saying it "deeply regrets that we have to assume beyond any reasonable doubt that MH 370 has been lost and that none of those onboard survived." Hide Caption 21 of 43 Photos: The search for MH370 Grieving relatives of missing passengers leave a hotel in Beijing on March 24, 2014. Hide Caption 22 of 43 Photos: The search for MH370 A passenger views a weather map in the departures terminal of Kuala Lumpur International Airport on March 22, 2014. Hide Caption 23 of 43 Photos: The search for MH370 A Chinese satellite captured this image, released on March 22, 2014, of a floating object in the Indian Ocean, according to China's State Administration of Science. It was a possible lead in the search for the missing plane. Surveillance planes were looking for two objects spotted by satellite imagery in remote, treacherous waters more than 1,400 miles from the west coast of Australia. Hide Caption 24 of 43 Photos: The search for MH370 Satellite imagery provided by the Australian Maritime Safety Authority on March 20, 2014, showed debris in the southern Indian Ocean that could have been from Flight 370. The announcement by Australian officials raised hopes of a breakthrough in the frustrating search. Hide Caption 25 of 43 Photos: The search for MH370 Another satellite shot provided by the Australian Maritime Safety Authority shows possible debris from the flight. Hide Caption 26 of 43 Photos: The search for MH370 A distraught relative of a missing passenger breaks down while talking to reporters at Kuala Lumpur International Airport on March 19, 2014. Hide Caption 27 of 43 Photos: The search for MH370 On March 18, 2014, a relative of a missing passenger tells reporters in Beijing about a hunger strike to protest authorities' handling of information about the missing jet. Hide Caption 28 of 43 Photos: The search for MH370 U.S. Navy crew members assist in search-and-rescue operations in the Indian Ocean on March 16, 2014. Hide Caption 29 of 43 Photos: The search for MH370 Members of the Chinese navy continue search operations on March 13, 2014. After starting in the sea between Malaysia and Vietnam, the plane's last confirmed location, search efforts expanded west into the Indian Ocean. Hide Caption 30 of 43 Photos: The search for MH370 A Vietnamese military official looks out an aircraft window during search operations March 13, 2014. Hide Caption 31 of 43 Photos: The search for MH370 Malaysian air force members look for debris near Kuala Lumpur on March 13, 2014. Hide Caption 32 of 43 Photos: The search for MH370 Relatives of missing passengers wait for the latest news at a hotel in Beijing on March 12, 2014. Hide Caption 33 of 43 Photos: The search for MH370 A member of the Vietnamese air force checks a map while searching for the missing plane on March 11, 2014. Hide Caption 34 of 43 Photos: The search for MH370 A Vietnamese air force plane found traces of oil that authorities had suspected to be from the missing Malaysia Airlines plane, the Vietnamese government online newspaper reported on March 8, 2014. However, a sample from the slick showed it was bunker oil, typically used to power large cargo ships, Malaysia's state news agency, Bernama, reported on March 10, 2014. Hide Caption 35 of 43 Photos: The search for MH370 A U.S. Navy Seahawk helicopter lands aboard the USS Pinckney to change crews on March 9, 2014, before returning to search for the missing plane in the Gulf of Thailand. Hide Caption 36 of 43 Photos: The search for MH370 Buddhist monks at Kuala Lumpur International Airport offer a special prayer for the missing passengers on March 9, 2014. Hide Caption 37 of 43 Photos: The search for MH370 Members of a Chinese emergency response team board a rescue vessel at the port of Sanya in China's Hainan province on March 9, 2014. Hide Caption 38 of 43 Photos: The search for MH370 The rescue vessel sets out from Sanya in the South China Sea on March 9, 2014. Hide Caption 39 of 43 Photos: The search for MH370 Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, center, arrives to meet family members of missing passengers at the reception center at Kuala Lumpur International Airport on March 8, 2014. Hide Caption 40 of 43 Photos: The search for MH370 A relative of two missing passengers reacts at their home in Kuala Lumpur on March 8, 2014. Hide Caption 41 of 43 Photos: The search for MH370 Chinese police at the Beijing airport stand beside the arrival board showing delayed Flight 370 in red on March 8, 2014. Hide Caption 42 of 43 Photos: The search for MH370 Malaysia Airlines Group CEO Ahmad Juahari Yahya, front, speaks during a news conference at a hotel in Sepang on March 8, 2014. "We deeply regret that we have lost all contacts" with the jet, he said. Hide Caption 43 of 43 But with an expanded search area comes the most challenging task ahead: scouring uncharted territory. A key element of the new phase will be a detailed mapping of the ocean floor. "We know that the water is very deep," Truss said. "And for the next stage involving sonar and other autonomous vehicles, potentially at very great depths, we need to have an understanding of the ocean floor to be able to undertake that kind of search effectively and safely." Truss said he's not sure how deep the ocean is in the expanded search area because "it's never been mapped." The tools The next stage of the hunt will involved highly specialized technology, including towed side-scan sonar and more autonomous underwater vehicles, Truss said. "You can count on one hand the number of devices that can do this work, when you talk about towed sonar devices," said Angus Houston, chief coordinator of the joint search effort. Truss said he's optimistic that the new devices will be in the water within a month or two. In the meantime, he said, the Bluefin-21 drone will continue underwater missions. The Bluefin-21 has already scanned 400 square kilometers of the Indian Ocean floor, but with no luck. The United States has authorized the use of the drone for another month. The cost? About $40,000 a day. While the Bluefin-21 provides greater resolution than deep-towed sonar devices, the drone can only go about 4.5 kilometers deep. The cost Australia estimates the next phase of the search will cost about $60 million, Truss said. He said officials will consult with Malaysia, China and other parties on how that cost would be shared. Until now, all countries involved in the search have paid for their own costs. "Whenever we've asked, people have come forward," Truss said. But "I think we'll be looking at increasing involvement from the manufacturers and their host countries." Letting others in The new phase will allow more parties to join the search, acting Malaysian Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said. "This gives an opportunity to those not involved in the early phase of the search and rescue efforts to come on board," he said. Those could involve research institutions and more countries, he said. Truss said most of the new equipment will likely have to come from the private sector. Lessons learned It took two years to find the wreckage of Air France Flight 447 in the Atlantic Ocean. Truss said authorities can learn from that effort. "There were some quite long gaps in their search, and we don't want that to happen in this instance," he said. "That's why we're starting work this week on actually putting together the next stages of the search." But as officials from this search have already learned, hope can dash as quickly as it arises. "We've been confident on the basis of the information provided that the search area was the right one," Truss said. "But in practice, that confidence has not been converted into us discovering any trace of the aircraft." ||||| Chief coordinator of the Joint Agency Coordination Center, retired Chief Air Marshall Angus Houston gestures as he speaks during a press conference in Perth, Australia. (Photo: Rob Griffith, AP) BEIJING – After 53 days of fruitless, government-led efforts on sea and by air, the team searching for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 will identify and deploy more sophisticated underwater equipment from private companies, officials from Australia, Malaysia and China agreed Monday. Announcing a new phase in the multinational hunt, Australia's Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss said the search of the ocean floor will be intensified and expanded over a much larger area than has been covered to date. The plane disappeared March 8 with 239 passengers and crew en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. The majority of passengers were Chinese citizens. Using satellite data, investigators concluded the plane ended in the southern Indian Ocean, thousands of miles off route, but no wreckage has been found. The U.S. Navy's Bluefin-21, an unmanned submarine fitted with sonar, will continue to scan the target area, a thousand miles off Australia's west coast, Truss told a press conference Monday in Canberra. But tenders will soon be put out for specialist vehicles that can dive deeper than Bluefin-21 and recover debris, and also for towed sonar equipment to conduct more detailed underwater mapping of sea floor that "has never been mapped", he said. More hardware will be "in the water" in the next two months, said Truss, who promised there would be no long interruptions in the search as occurred during the two-year hunt for the black boxes of the 2009 Air France disaster. At a meeting Wednesday in Canberra, experts from the three countries will discuss what other assets are required for the search's new phase, he said.The extreme depths involved mean there are "only a handful of pieces of relevant machinery in the world," and few oceanographic vessels capable of mapping such depths, said Truss, who expects the private sector to provide most of the required equipment. Towed sonar will permit real-time sharing of information and quicker response times, unlike the Bluefin-21 which must be recovered for data download, he said. That meeting will also perform "something of an audit" of all the information gathered to date, including the satellite data, he said. Despite the failure to locate a single piece of MH370, search coordinator Angus Houston said he still believes searchers are correct to place most weight on the satellite analysis that led them to the current search area. But he welcomed the review of all the information that took them there. Australian navy vessel Ocean Shield is berthed near Perth on Monday as it replenishes its supplies and conducts maintenance on underwater vehicle Artemis Bluefin-21, which has been searching for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370. (Photo: Greg Wood, AFP/Getty Images) "It's very sensible to go back" to ensure "there are no flaws in that, the assumptions are right, the analysis is right, and the deductions and conclusions are right," Houston said in Canberra Monday. Compared to other plane crashes, "we've got very little to work on," admitted Malaysia's Acting Transport Minister Hishammuddin Hussein, who still insisted the searchers "are on the right track." All nations involved have borne their own costs to date, said Truss. Hussein doubted that private firms would need the lure of a reward to get involved. "The whole tragedy has caught the imagination of so many," he said Monday. "There's no reward big enough," said Hussein, adding that any company that found the plane would immediately become the most famous in the world. China's Transport Minister Yang Chuantang promised Monday that Beijing will continue uninterrupted and intensified efforts to search for MH370, he said after the trilateral meeting. Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1kN5VT7

– The search for Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 is growing, officials say, as searchers prepare to map a wide swath of the ocean floor in a new phase of the effort. "We know very clearly the area of the follow-up search will be even broader, with more difficulties and tougher tasks," says China's transport minister. "For the next stage involving sonar and other autonomous vehicles, potentially at very great depths, we need to have an understanding of the ocean floor," says Australia's deputy PM, per CNN. The new search area has "never been mapped." Officials will be looking for help from private companies; they doubt firms will need much financial incentive, USA Today reports. "There's no reward big enough," says Malaysia's acting transport minister, but if a company can find the plane, it will win instant worldwide fame, he notes. Search leaders are hoping a single firm will take on the task to avoid continued coordination problems, the Wall Street Journal notes. Officials also plan to go through all existing data once again. "It's very sensible to go back" to be certain "there are no flaws in that—the assumptions are right, the analysis is right, and the deductions and conclusions are right," says search coordinator Angus Houston.

Gerber has found their 2018 Spokesbaby — and he’s breaking the mold. After an exhaustive photo search that garnered more than 140,000 entries, 1-year-old Lucas Warren of Dalton, Georgia, has been named this year’s Gerber Baby, it was announced Wednesday on Today. And this year is extra noteworthy: Lucas is the first child with Down syndrome to win the title since the contest began in 2010. “We’re hoping this will impact everyone — that it will shed a little bit of light on the special needs community and help more individuals with special needs be accepted and not limited,” said dad Jason Warren. “They have the potential to change the world, just like everybody else.” Want all the latest pregnancy and birth announcements, plus celebrity mom blogs? Click here to get those and more in the PEOPLE Babies newsletter. RELATED VIDEO: Models with Down Syndrome Hit the Runway for a One-of-a-Kind Fashion Show Mom Cortney Warren shared that she entered the Gerber contest, which has been held online for the past eight years, without much thought, tagging an adorable photo of Lucas showing off his smile while donning a mint green shirt and bow tie. That happy face completely reflects Lucas’ personality. “He’s very outgoing and never meets a stranger,” Cortney told Today Parents. “He loves to play, loves to laugh and loves to make other people laugh.” CEO and president of Gerber Bill Partyka said Lucas’ contagious smile won over the team. “Every year, we choose the baby who best exemplifies Gerber’s longstanding heritage of recognizing that every baby is a Gerber baby,” he explained. “This year, Lucas is the perfect fit.” FROM PEOPLETV: Katherine Heigl Introduces Baby Joshua RELATED: Meet Riley: The 2017 Gerber Baby! Aside from scoring the coveted Gerber Baby title, the Warrens were awarded a $50,000 cash prize, which they say will go toward Lucas’ education, and the baby’s year will also be documented on Gerber’s social media platforms. “He may have Down syndrome, but he’s always Lucas first,” said Cortney. “He’s got an awesome personality and he goes through the milestones of every child … we’re hoping when he grows up and looks back on this, he’ll be proud of himself and not ashamed of his disability.” ||||| Get the latest from TODAY Sign up for our newsletter / Updated / Source: TODAY Contributor The 2018 Gerber baby is Lucas Warren, a 1-year-old from Dalton, Georgia who is the first child with Down syndrome to be named a Gerber baby since the contest's start in 2010. "He's very outgoing and never meets a stranger," Lucas's mom, Cortney, told TODAY Parents. "He loves to play, loves to laugh and loves to make other people laugh." The winning photo of Lucas, submitted by his mom, Cortney Warren, to the Gerber Spokesbaby contest. Gerber/Cortney Warren Cortney Warren said she entered the Gerber contest on a whim, after a relative pointed out an ad seeking submissions. After posting a photo of Lucas on Instagram using the contest's hashtag, Cortney and her husband, Jason, received the news that their son had been chosen from more than 140,000 entries to be the 2018 Gerber Spokesbaby. Bill Partyka, CEO and president of Gerber, says Lucas's smile and happy expression captured the hearts of the Gerber team. Never miss a parenting story with the TODAY Parenting newsletter! Sign up here. "Every year, we choose the baby who best exemplifies Gerber's longstanding heritage of recognizing that every baby is a Gerber baby," said Partyka. "This year, Lucas is the perfect fit." "We're hoping this will impact everyone — that it will shed a little bit of light on the special needs community and help more individuals with special needs be accepted and not limited," dad Jason Warren said. "They have the potential to change the world, just like everybody else." Lucas, 1, with his parents, Cortney and Jason Warren. Gerber/Cortney Warren Katie Driscoll is founder and president of Changing the Face of Beauty, a non-profit organization committed to advocating for equal representation of people with disabilities in adverting and media. Driscoll says brands like Gerber have the power to change the future of the disability community by valuing the minority as a consumer in their advertising. Follow TODAY Parents on Facebook "We believe if brands represent children with a disability, they are communicating their value to our society," said Driscoll. "Moves like this move us closer to a more inclusive world." "He may have Down syndrome," said Cortney Warren of her son, "but he's always Lucas first." Gerber/Cortney Warren Cortney says she hopes her son will be seen not only as a baby with Down syndrome, but also as a funny, energetic child who loves music and socializing. "He may have Down syndrome, but he's always Lucas first," said Cortney. "He's got an awesome personality and he goes through the milestones of every child... we're hoping when he grows up and looks back on this, he'll be proud of himself and not ashamed of his disability." This story was originally published in February 2018.

– The new face of Gerber represents a milestone. The company has picked 1-year-old Lucas Warren of Dalton, Georgia, as this year's Gerber Baby—and Lucas is the first child with Down Syndrome selected for the honor, reports People. "He never meets a stranger," says mom Cortney, who tells Today.com that she entered the contest without giving it too much thought. Gerber then chose Lucas out of about 140,000 submissions, calling him a "perfect fit." Dad Jason says he hopes the this "will shed a little bit of light on the special needs community and help more individuals with special needs be accepted and not limited."

The parent company of Joe’s Crab Shack is taking the controversy over federal minimum wage polices to a new level by testing a no-tipping policy at 18 of its 131 locations. The test by Houston-based Ignite Restaurant Group scraps tips in exchange for raising wages for its restaurant workers. “I personally believe tipping is an antiquated model,” Chief Executive Ray Blanchette told investors in a conference call last week. “We believe that the no-tipping service model gets us above the fray with regards to the increased minimum wage conversations that seem to be happening all over the country.” Joe’s operates two restaurants in Orange County – one in Newport Beach and the other in Garden Grove near Disneyland. Those restaurants are not part of the pilot. Test restaurants have raised the fixed hourly rate of workers based on factors that include employees’ historical compensation and their importance to the business, Blanchette said. Joe’s declined to discuss salary specifics. Restaurants testing the policy are in Utah, Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Michigan, Nebraska and Kansas. At these restaurants, Joe’s is not adding service charges to checks, though there have been small increases for menu items, the company said. Last week, Blanchette said he expects less employee turnover by eliminating tips because workers will enjoy a fixed rate, of “say, $14 an hour” compared with $2.25 an hour – a model seen in some states where employers are allowed to pay tipped workers below the federal minimum wage as long as their tips make up the difference. Joe’s test comes a month after famed New York restaurateur Danny Meyer announced plans to eliminate tipping at all of his New York City restaurants. The no-tipping policy will be phased in starting later this month at The Modern, he said. Diners will face menu price hikes to ensure all workers are paid fairly, he said. Meyer operates Union Square Hospitality Group, whose other restaurants include, Union Square Cafe, Gramercy Tavern and Blue Smoke. ||||| These crawls are part of an effort to archive pages as they are created and archive the pages that they refer to. That way, as the pages that are referenced are changed or taken from the web, a link to the version that was live when the page was written will be preserved.Then the Internet Archive hopes that references to these archived pages will be put in place of a link that would be otherwise be broken, or a companion link to allow people to see what was originally intended by a page's authors.The goal is to fix all broken links on the web . Crawls of supported "No More 404" sites.

– Put away the calculator and enjoy dessert: There's no more tipping at Joe's Crab Shack, the first national full-service chain restaurant to test a no-tipping policy, Consumerist reports. In a conference call last week, Ray Blanchette, CEO of parent company Ignite Restaurant Group, told investors that 18 of its 131 units are trying out the no-tipping policy that began in August, making up for lost tips by upping servers' starting minimum wage to $14 an hour from $2.13 (exact pay depends on work performance), Restaurant Business Online reports. The goal: to prevent staff turnover and improve service. "I personally believe tipping is an antiquated model," Blanchette said in the call, per the OC Register. "The no-tipping service model gets us above the fray with regards to the increased minimum wage conversations that seem to be happening all over the country." Blanchette explained that, in addition to servers being more likely to stick around for the long haul with a higher hourly wage, they'd also be guaranteed the same pay whether they worked a dead shift on a Monday afternoon or a busy Friday night, per National Restaurant News. And service would likely improve, too, he noted, especially when servers start sharing table duties for large parties (instead of getting territorial over a table for an anticipated big tip). The wage increase is paid for by raising menu prices 12% to 15%—which could still save customers money if they usually tip 18% or more. Results so far have been positive. "What makes us optimistic is the restaurant that has been in test the longest is gaining the most traction," Blanchette tells NRN. Consumerist notes that the parent company of 13 well-known NYC restaurants has been testing its own no-tipping policy since October, leveling wages between front-house and kitchen staff. (A NYT writer says tipping is "degrading" to women.)

Another day, another woman scolded for wearing clothes. A Grand Rapids, Michigan, woman says she was asked to leave a local mall on Saturday for wearing what any woman might wear on a sweltering summer day. Hannah Pewee shared a photo of her outfit and a rundown of her experience at Michigan's Woodland Mall. "Apparently some anonymous person reported me to MALL SECURITY for inappropriate dress and I was kicked out," she explains. "Never mind that within a one foot radius there were plenty of girls dressed just like me, since it's NINETY degrees outside. I am so angry right now I'm shaking. I felt so embarrassed I almost cried. All because a stranger didn't like how I dressed." She goes on: The Woodland Mall should be ashamed of themselves, as well as that anonymous complainer. It's my body, and it's hot outside! I'm not going to show up in jeans and a sweater, sorry. Don't like it? Look away! I was out having a fun time with my sister and next thing I know, I'm out on the street. Slut-shaming how girls are dressed is deplorable and outdated, and it needs to stop. More than 650 comments and 7,300 shares later, Pewee's post becomes the latest example of dress code policing that tends to disproportionally target women in warmer months. The Woodland Mall's code of conduct states only the following in regards to customer dress: Appropriate attire, including shirts and shoes, is required. Clothing with inappropriate words, phrases or graphics is not permitted and is subject to mall management approval. Excluding attire worn in accord with religious practice, tradition or significance, deliberately obscuring the face is prohibited. As Pewee noted in a second Facebook post shared later on Saturday, the code has no policy stating expectations for length of shorts. If there is such a strict policy, that needs to be *public information*, not something security officers spring on unsuspecting customers. Especially with summer coming around, there's going to be a lot of girls like me, going to the mall and not knowing their breaking some secret dress code. Pewee has since spoken with Woodland Mall management, and has received an apology for the way she was treated: The mall also issued a public apology to Michigan Live: We apologized to the shopper and the public for the way that this was handled. We've already spoken to her and are working to make things right. We work to create a fun and safe shopping and dining destination but failed to deliver on that message for this shopper. We're working internally to make sure we fully deliver on excellent experiences at our Mall immediately. Pewee tells Mashable that retailers should be aware that "times have changed." "Style has evolved and they need to be aware that people are going to dress how they want to dress," she said. "If public malls want to have a dress code, that's their choice, but consumers need to be made aware of this dress code so we can decide whether or not we want to shop there." ||||| We’re in the middle of the first heat wave of the season, which means your wardrobe probably consists mostly of lightweight, breathable clothing. But last weekend, one Michigan woman faced some serious backlash for what she wore to the mall on 90° day. Hannah Pewee, a college student at Grand State University, spent her Saturday shopping at the Woodland Mall in Grand Rapids, Michigan, wearing standard summer attire: denim cutoff shorts and a Finding Nemo tank top which read “Just Keep Swimming.” FROM PEN: Christie Brinkley’s Girls Alexa and Sailor Reveal How They’ve Conquered Bullies and Body Shamers Allegedly, an anonymous mall guest reported Pewee to mall security for “inappropriate dress,” and she was promptly kicked out of the shopping center. “As many of you know, it is NINETY degrees outside today in West Michigan. Aka, really hot. So, of course, I decided to dress for the weather: shorts and a tank top. But apparently, how I was dressed was too slutty for the public, as I was kicked out of the Woodland Mall today,” Pewee captioned a photo of her outfit on Facebook, which has since gone viral with more than 10,000 likes and 7,000 shares. RELATED PHOTOS: UPDATED! Bella Hadid, Kendall Jenner and More Sizzling Celeb Swimwear Pics! Hannah Pewee/Facebook Pewee went on to say when she was asked to leave the premises, she was surrounded by “plenty of girls” within a “one foot radius” dressed just like her. “I am so angry right now I’m shaking. I felt so embarrassed I almost cried,” she said. “All because a stranger didn’t like how I dressed.” Not long after her post, hundreds of people came to the woman’s defense on Facebook “The Woodland Mall should be ashamed of themselves, as well as that anonymous complainer. It’s my body, and it’s hot outside! I’m not going to show up in jeans and a sweater, sorry,” Pewee continued. “Don’t like it? Look away! I was out having a fun time with my sister and next thing I know, I’m out on the street. Slut-shaming how girls are dressed is deplorable and outdated, and it needs to stop.” According to a second Facebook message posted by Pewee, a representative from the Woodland Mall called her to apologize following the incident. “Alright, so I talked on the phone with the someone on the management team at Woodland and they apologized for what happened yesterday. Apparently they’re going to revise their clothing policy on their website so it is clearer what is and isn’t acceptable. In addition, security will be discussing how to properly handle situations like this,” she wrote, adding, “I want to thank everyone for the supporting messages, it really helped, especially when so many people were more than ready to tear me apart. Thank you all so much ❤️ Hopefully some good can come out of this all!” A representative for the mall also commented on her original Facebook note with the message above. How do you feel about this woman getting kicked out of a mall for wearing this outfit? Sound off in the comments below.

– A woman wearing nude-colored flats, a Finding Dory tank top, and cutoff jean shorts was kicked out of a mall in Michigan on Saturday for breaking dress code—even though it was 90 degrees outside. So Hannah Pewee took to Facebook to share her version of what happened at Woodland Mall in Grand Rapids, and her story got noticed, with thousands of shares and likes and hundreds of comments, mostly coming to her defense. "Apparently some anonymous person reported me to MALL SECURITY for inappropriate dress and I was kicked out," she writes. "Never mind that within a one foot radius there were plenty of girls dressed just like me, since it's NINETY degrees outside." She described herself as shaking and on the verge of tears. Mashable calls it "another day, another woman scolded for wearing clothes." Pewee, who People reports studies at Grand State University, says she was enjoying the afternoon at the mall with her sister when she was told to leave. In a Sunday Facebook post she wrote that mall management called her to apologize and will be revising Woodland's dress code, which at the time vaguely stated, "Appropriate attire, including shirts and shoes, is required." In a comment on her post, Woodland Mall apologized, writing, "We dropped the ball on this one," and adding that it never intend to shame or embarrass anyone. Indeed, "slut-shaming how girls are dressed is deplorable and outdated, and it needs to stop," wrote Pewee, who hopes "some good" can come out of her much-publicized experience. (These girls weren't allowed to board a plane because they were wearing leggings.)

NBC Chicago's Dick Johnson spoke with those involved in the crash and those who offered help. (Published Tuesday, June 2, 2015) One person was killed and eight others injured in a serious crash involving a Chicago Transit Authority bus during the Tuesday evening rush hour, officials said. The fatality was a 51-year-old woman who died at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. She was identified as Aimee Coath of Flossmoor, according to the Cook County Medical Examiner's office. Eight others, including the bus driver, were hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries. The Route 148 Clarendon/Michigan Express bus was eastbound on Lake Street just before 6 p.m. when it collided with several other vehicles at North Michigan Avenue and East Lake Street. Ambulances Called to Downtown Bus Crash NBC Chicgao's Dick Johnson reports from North Michigan Avenue and East Lake Street. (Published Tuesday, June 2, 2015) "[The bus] hit the curb and went up on the curb and slammed into a concrete wall," said witness Robert Kudd. "People were screaming and running towards the bus. The bus driver was hurt. The windshield of the bus was out." At least 10 ambulances were called to the scene. Kudd said one person who was pinned under the bus was removed with a white sheet covering them. "It was a bad scene. Several cars were smashed," he said. Evanston resident Julie Larkin works in the Michigan Plaza building near the site of the crash. She said she was in a first-floor CVS store when she heard a scream and then "horrible thuddy crash." She ran outside to see the bus driver with his eyes closed, apparently unconscious. No one except for the driver was on the CTA bus at the time of the crash, according to fire officials and the CTA. Several people boarded the bus to check on the driver while Larkin called 911. "I'll never forget that scream," she said. The articulated bus came to rest on the sidewalk adjacent to a plaza at 205 N. Michigan Ave. The bus was removed from the scene shortly before 8:30 p.m. Investigators were looking into what caused the crash, and were analyzing video footage from a camera on board that shows the interior of the bus, CTA spokesman Brian Steele said. Parts of Michigan Avenue and Lake Street were closed to traffic for several hours. The CTA rerouted several buses around the crash scene. ||||| The driver of a CTA bus that jumped a curb on Michigan Avenue during evening rush hour, killing a woman and injuring eight other people, has been cited for not stopping at a red light and for "failure to exercise due care," according to police. No criminal charges have been filed but police said they are continuing to investigate the accident, which happened around 5:50 p.m. Tuesday at Lake Street. The accordion-style bus had been headed east on Lake and stopped at a red light at Michigan Avenue, police said. The bus then proceeded through the light, striking two pedestrians and four cars before jumping the curb, police and CTA officials said. The bus came to rest on the sidewalk on the north side of Lake Street, near a plaza at 205 N. Michigan Ave. A pedestrian, Aimee Coath, 51, of south suburban Flossmoor, was trapped under the bus and had to be freed by paramedics. "They took her from under the bus and loaded her onto the gurney," said Charles Valiquette, 51. "Then they spread the sheet out on her." Valiquette, from Dayton, Ohio, said he was on Michigan Avenue just north of Lake when he heard the crash and turned around to see a bus on the sidewalk and a woman pinned underneath. He said he ran over to help. "I was talking to her. I told her to hang in there ... but it was just nothing," said Valiquette. "I don't think she saw the bus coming or heard it. There were other people in the crosswalk that saw the bus coming and made it." Witness describes scene of CTA bus crash Hector Vega describes the scene of a multivehicle crash involving a CTA bus at Michigan Avenue and Lake Street in Chicago on June 2, 2015. (Terrence Antonio James, Chicago Tribune) Hector Vega describes the scene of a multivehicle crash involving a CTA bus at Michigan Avenue and Lake Street in Chicago on June 2, 2015. (Terrence Antonio James, Chicago Tribune) See more videos Coath was taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital, where she was pronounced dead at 6:07 p.m., according to the Cook County medical examiner's office. “I only want to communicate how well loved she was,’’ Coath’s close friend, Elizabeth Oliver, said through tears. “She had so many friends. We will all miss her dearly.’’ Another pedestrian and six others were taken to hospitals for injuries that were not life-threatening, police said. The bus driver, 48, suffered minor injuries and was also taken to Northwestern. CTA officials said the driver was evaluated after the crash and showed no signs of impairment from drugs or alcohol but said final results from a drug test were not yet available. The driver had been hired by the CTA less than a year ago as a bus operator, according to CTA spokesman Brian Steele. He had driven the No. 148 route prior to Tuesday's crash, but Steele could not say for how long. CTA officials are reviewing footage from the bus at the time of the crash. Steele said early Wednesday it was too soon to know what disciplinary action, if any, would be taken against the bus driver. Police: Driver ran red light before bus crash killed 1, injured 8 A CTA bus driver was ticketed after police said he ran a red light Tuesday evening before striking two pedestrians and several cars downtown, killing a 51-year-old woman and injuring at least eight other people. (CBS Chicago) A CTA bus driver was ticketed after police said he ran a red light Tuesday evening before striking two pedestrians and several cars downtown, killing a 51-year-old woman and injuring at least eight other people. (CBS Chicago) See more videos "We don't know enough about the circumstances," Steele said. CTA officials could not say if the driver had ever been cited before Tuesday's crash. Jack Baldwin said he was driving the first car that was struck by the bus. He heard a loud honk from the bus before it rear-ended his Nissan Sentra and his car spun out. "It took me a while to realize what is going on here," he said. After gathering himself, he said, he got out of his car and saw that other cars had been hit and the bus was over a sidewalk. "I see the bus up on the hill, and there were a bunch of screams," Baldwin said. "I walked over, and I see that there's a woman pinned under the bus. It's not easy to see something like that. " Margaret Aprison, 26, was headed home from her job at the nearby Aon Center, 200 E. Randolph St., and was walking near Lake and Stetson Avenue when she “heard all this noise and all this screaming” and saw the bus drive up onto the sidewalk near the plaza. “I did end up seeing someone fly up in the air as the bus hit them,” then she saw the bus drive over where it appeared the person landed, Aprison said. Aprison saw a crowd gather around the bus, and noticed that a black car struck by the bus had not stopped moving and the driver was trying to use a cellphone. “The driver was trying to call 911 and he couldn’t get through,” Aprison said. A woman and a man in the car were able to get out, but the driver was trapped, she said. Aprison tried to tend to the two passengers as they waited for ambulances. The man was bleeding from the head, and Aprison persuaded him to sit down. “When the ambulance came, I was waving my hand, trying to get the attention of the ambulance,” Aprison said. “I stayed until I was literally asked to leave.” The injured man sat against the car as fire crews tried to get the driver out, rocking the car to try to free him, she said. “They were really shaking the car."

– A rush-hour collision between a Chicago Transit Authority bus and several other vehicles yesterday left one person dead and at least eight others injured, one of them critically, authorities say. The accident occurred around 6pm in the north Loop. Authorities say the articulated Route 148 Clarendon/Michigan Express bus collided with at least three other vehicles at Michigan Avenue and Lake Street. The bus went onto the sidewalk, and at one point a pedestrian was pinned underneath. She was taken away covered in a sheet, a witness who ran to help tells the Chicago Tribune. NBC Chicago describes the fatality as a 51-year-old woman. The driver, who was treated for non-life-threatening injuries, was the only person on the bus, and investigators are looking at video from a camera that records the interior of the bus.

The US rock band Bloodhound Gang has been banned from performing in Russia, beaten up by Cossacks, and could find itself facing criminal charges after one of the group jokingly desecrated a Russian flag during a concert in Ukraine. The incident suggests that as Russia-US relations plummet to a post-cold war low, unscripted moments like this, as well as the ongoing Edward Snowden saga, are increasingly shaping public perceptions on both sides. And the results can be unpredictable. The scandal erupted after a video surfaced on YouTube of the band's bassist, Jared Hasselhoff, shouting "don't tell Putin" before shoving a Russian flag into his pants during a July 31 concert in Odessa, Ukraine. He later apologized, suggesting the stunt was just part of his usual onstage schtick. Seconds after the act occurred, the band's leader, Jimmy Pop, told the audience that he "disagrees" with what Mr. Hasselhoff had just done because "unfortunately, Russia is better than America." None of those contradictory signals appear to have made it through to the Russian media or blogosphere, where a storm of outrage erupted over the footage of the flag being grossly disrespected. Bloodhound Gang was scheduled to perform Friday at the Kubana Festival, an annual event featuring about 50 international rock bands, held in Anapa, in the Kuban region of southern Russia. But as they arrived, local authorities were receiving instructions from Moscow to bar their performance. "I've had a conversation with the Krasnodar region authorities. Bloodhound Gang is packing their suitcases," Russian Minister of Culture Vladimir Medinsky tweeted Friday. "These idiots will not perform in Kuban," he said. As Bloodhound Gang headed for Anapa airport to leave the next day, their minivan was reportedly pelted with eggs and rotten tomatoes by demonstrators who wielded signs with slogans like "Go home, Pigs" and "Get out of Russia." Inside the airport they were attacked by a gang of self-described Cossacks who later posted a YouTube video showing them apparently trying to strangle Hasselhoff with an American flag – which they later placed on the floor and stomped on. The US ambassador to Moscow, Michael McFaul, issued a hand-wringing tweet Sunday, saying "I find the actions of Bloodhound Gang disgusting. I also condemn the act of violence against them." But on Monday the Kremlin's Investigative Committee, the country's highest law enforcement body, stepped in to announce that it was launching a criminal investigation into the affair. "Given the cynicism of the crime, expressing blatant disrespect to the Russian state [the Investigative Committee] is organizing a procedural probe into this matter," the statement said. It added that it might appeal to US legal authorities for assistance in the investigation. Some Russian lawmakers have suggested that Hasselhoff's act was not simply a bit of spontaneous buffoonery, but might have been a "planned provocation" by some anti-Russian forces. "The organizers of such arrivals should bear full responsibility for what happened and enraged Russian citizens," the State Duma's vice speaker Sergei Neverov told journalists Sunday. "There are questions to those who invited them to Russia, to those who organized their concerts, offered venues, paid for their activities. Whose orders did the group fulfill? Those who paid them money and they did what they did. Like Madonna did in her time… These are all parts of one chain,” Mr. Neverov is quoted as saying. Madonna infuriated Russian conservatives by publicly supporting the imprisoned Russian performance art group Pussy Riot during a visit to Moscow a year ago. She and Lady Gaga have become regular objects for abuse by right-wing Russian bloggers because of their outspoken support for gay rights, amid a growing crackdown on LGBT expression in Russia. So it's no surprise that over the weekend Russian authorities also announced that they are investigating Madonna and Lady Gaga for allegedly violating the terms of their visas when each visited Russia to hold performances last year. Amid the outpouring of righteous fury over Hasselhoff's act of flag-desecration, it's hard to find any Russian with an alternative opinion. But Natalia Zimyanina, music critic for the opposition weekly Novaya Gazeta, says she worries that public anger will be channeled by the powerful Russian Orthodox Church and other conservative forces to install a new "iron curtain" to once again shut Russia off from Western cultural influences. Get the Monitor Stories you care about delivered to your inbox. By signing up, you agree to our Privacy Policy "A national flag is to be respected, those are the rules of all humanity. And it's clear that this overgrown child [Hasselhoff] has caused a lot of damage with his stupid act," says Ms. Zimyanina. "But I worry that our authorities haven't a clue about the nature of punk art. Provocations are an integral part of it, and as we saw in the Pussy Riot case, it has a way of exposing raw nerves in our society," Zimyanina says. "That can be painful, but it's the reaction of the authorities that we should be most worried about.... I fear this incident will become a pretext to close the Kubana Festival itself. It's a wonderful festival, we don't have any others like it in Russia anymore. Our authorities are scared of rock festivals, and always terrified that rock musicians might say or do something odd," she says. ||||| 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 ||||| MOSCOW, August 5 (RIA Novosti) – Russia’s Interior Ministry said Monday that it had opened a criminal case regarding an American rock musician’s apparent desecration of a Russian flag at a recent concert in Ukraine. “After a check of actions … committed by a foreign musician at a rock concert in Odessa, Ukraine, a specialized investigative unit of Russia’s Interior Ministry in the Krasnodar Territory launched a criminal case regarding the desecration of the national flag,” the ministry said in a statement. During a performance by the band, Bloodhound Gang, in the Ukrainian port of Odessa on July 31, bassist Jared Hasselhoff crammed a Russian flag down his pants and literally wiped his butt with it, a YouTube video shows. Russian authorities subsequently canceled the band’s scheduled appearance at the Kubana rock festival, near the southern Russian Black Sea resort of Anapa. The band reportedly left Russia soon afterward. 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 is punishable by up to a year in prison, according to Article 329 of the Russian Criminal Code, in line with which the case was launched. US Ambassador Michael McFaul called the incident “disgusting” in a Twitter message but said the US Constitution’s First Amendment protects flag desecrators from punishment in the United States. Flag desecration is, however, illegal in many other countries. McFaul also condemned an act of violence against the band, apparently referring to a subsequent incident in Anapa Airport when band members were assaulted by local activists. The YouTube video of the apparent flag desecration 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. Ukraine’s Interior Ministry is also investigating Bloodhound Gang regarding a reported desecration of the Ukrainian flag at an earlier concert in Kiev. Criminal cases have been opened into desecration of both flags, a ministry spokesman said. Russian prosecutors in the Krasnodar Territory said they had begun an investigation into local music festivals, including Kubana, where Bloodhound Gang was scheduled to perform. Russian and Ukrainian lawmakers have also proposed permanently banning Bloodhound Gang members from entering their countries. Updated at 21:32 to say Ukraine opened a criminal case into the alleged desecrations.

– Edward Snowden hasn't done great things for US-Russia relations. Now meet the Bloodhound Gang. The American rock band was performing in Ukraine last week when bassist Jared Hasselhoff grabbed a Russian flag thrown from the audience, shoved it down the front of his pants, and pulled it out again from the rear. "Don't tell Putin," he joked before the stunt. Result: The video blew up in Russia, and the government has launched a criminal investigation into desecrating the flag, reports Ria Novosti. The band cut short its tour and returned to the US over the weekend, with conflicting reports on whether it was deported or left voluntarily, reports CNN. Their van got pelted with eggs on the way to airport, and once inside, Russian nationalists roughed up band members and stomped on a US flag. (That video also is making the rounds.) Hasselhoff later apologized and said he wasn't making a serious political statement, reports the Christian Science Monitor. The band might not get a ton of sympathy from Americans, given band leader Jimmy Pop's statement on stage after the flag gag. "Russia is better than America, so I disapproved of that," he said.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, right, walks from the scene of an explosion on West 23rd street in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood, in New York, Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016, after an incident that injured passers-by... (Associated Press) New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, right, walks from the scene of an explosion on West 23rd street in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood, in New York, Sunday, Sept. 18, 2016, after an incident that injured passers-by Saturday night. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle) (Associated Press) NEW YORK (AP) — The Latest on an explosion hitting a crowded Manhattan neighborhood (all times local): 10:35 a.m. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo says there's no evidence that an explosion that rocked a crowded Manhattan neighborhood, injuring 29 people, had any link to international terrorism. Cuomo spoke Sunday morning near the site of the Saturday night blast on West 23rd Street in the Chelsea neighborhood. He noted that the device in Manhattan appeared to be different than a pipe bomb explosion earlier Saturday in New Jersey and said he didn't believe the two were connected. Authorities found a second device in Manhattan a few blocks away from the one that exploded and removed it. Cuomo says the injured have been released from the hospital. Most of the injuries were minor. The Democratic governor also said that 1,000 additional law enforcement officers were being deployed as a precaution. ___ 3:45 a.m. An explosion rocked a crowded Manhattan neighborhood and injured 29 people, and a suspicious device discovered blocks away from the scene was safely removed. Mayor Bill de Blasio ruled out any terror connections, but called the blast an "intentional act." Early Sunday, police said an investigation into a third suspicious package turned up a bag of trash. An explosion rocked the block of West 23rd Street between Sixth and Seventh Avenues at about 8:30 p.m. Saturday. Officials said 29 people were injured. Most of the injuries were minor. The blast is under investigation. A law enforcement official tells The Associated Press that the second device discovered a few blocks from the scene appeared to be a pressure cooker attached to wiring and a cellphone. ||||| New York (CNN) A day after a bombing injured 29 people in a New York City neighborhood , surveillance videos show the same man near the site of the explosion and another location where a pressure-cooker device was found four blocks away, multiple local and federal law enforcement sources told CNN. Saturday's explosion shook New York City's Chelsea neighborhood, packed with restaurants, subway stations, shops, businesses and art galleries, and sent panicked people scrambling for cover. Police continued to scour the area on Sunday for clues about who was responsible for the explosion and a motive. A few blocks away from the blast site and shortly after the explosion occurred, investigators found one possible lead: a pressure cooker, with dark-colored wiring sticking out, connected by silver duct tape to what appears to be a cellphone, officials said. Surveillance videos from Saturday shows the same man near both sites, multiple sources told CNN. 3 attacks on US soil By Sunday morning, 26 people who had been admitted to hospitals were released as city officials appealed to the public for help in finding those responsible. Authorities cordoned off the street where the explosion occurred, south of Midtown in western Manhattan. The Department of Homeland Security is actively monitoring and participating in the investigations in New York and New Jersey. Investigators found similarities between the explosives used in both states, according to multiple law enforcement officials, but authorities said they have not concluded the incidents are linked. "We do not have any specific evidence of a connection, but that will continue to be considered," New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said. "We're not taking any options off the table." In New York, law enforcement officials and the mayor said that without knowing who's responsible or what the motive was, it's too soon to call the Saturday bombing a terror attack "We know it was a very serious incident, but we have a lot more work to do to be able to say what kind of motivation was behind this," de Blasio told reporters Sunday. "Was it a political motivation? Was it a personal motivation? We do not know that yet." Photos: Explosion in Manhattan New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, right, and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, second right, look over the mangled remains of a dumpster Sunday, September 18, in New York's Chelsea neighborhood. An explosion injured 29 people there the night before. Hide Caption 1 of 21 Photos: Explosion in Manhattan Authorities believe the blast was caused by an explosive device in or near this dumpster. All 29 victims have been released from hospitals, according to the governor. Hide Caption 2 of 21 Photos: Explosion in Manhattan FBI agents review the scene of the explosion on Sunday morning. Hide Caption 3 of 21 Photos: Explosion in Manhattan Police officers redirect passers-by as investigations continue early on Sunday morning. Hide Caption 4 of 21 Photos: Explosion in Manhattan A fire truck at the scene of the blast on Saturday. Hide Caption 5 of 21 Photos: Explosion in Manhattan The New York Police Department's Counterterrorism Bureau tweeted this image of the crumpled dumpster following the explosion in Chelsea. Hide Caption 6 of 21 Photos: Explosion in Manhattan Just blocks away from the explosion, a suspicious device was found. Officials said the device appeared to be a pressure cooker with dark-colored wiring protruding, connected by silver duct tape to what appeared to be a cell phone. Hide Caption 7 of 21 Photos: Explosion in Manhattan De Blasio, in the blue tie, speaks at a news conference near the scene on Saturday. He was joined by New York Police Commissioner James O'Neill. Hide Caption 8 of 21 Photos: Explosion in Manhattan Police block off a road near the site of the explosion. Hide Caption 9 of 21 Photos: Explosion in Manhattan Firefighters and emergency workers gather at the scene. Hide Caption 10 of 21 Photos: Explosion in Manhattan Police officers and firefighters respond to the scene. Hide Caption 11 of 21 Photos: Explosion in Manhattan A New York police officer and his dog check a garbage can close to the scene of the explosion. Hide Caption 12 of 21 Photos: Explosion in Manhattan Two heavily armed police officers survey the scene. Hide Caption 13 of 21 Photos: Explosion in Manhattan New York police at the scene of the explosion. Hide Caption 14 of 21 Photos: Explosion in Manhattan A bomb squad vehicle arrives at the scene. Hide Caption 15 of 21 Photos: Explosion in Manhattan Police arrive at the scene of the explosion. Hide Caption 16 of 21 Photos: Explosion in Manhattan A street is blocked off nearby. Hide Caption 17 of 21 Photos: Explosion in Manhattan Police and firefighters gather near the scene. Hide Caption 18 of 21 Photos: Explosion in Manhattan A crowd gathers near the site of the explosion. Hide Caption 19 of 21 Photos: Explosion in Manhattan A line of emergency vehicles near the scene of the explosion. Hide Caption 20 of 21 Photos: Explosion in Manhattan Onlookers gather on the street. Hide Caption 21 of 21 Suspicious device found nearby The blast occurred around 8:30 p.m. at 23rd Street between 6th and 7th Avenues. Investigators believe the blast was caused by an explosive device in or near a dumpster, a law enforcement source told CNN. Four blocks away on 27th Street, a pressure-cooker device was found with a piece of paper with writing on it close by, officials said. Surveillance video shows a man dragging what appears to be a duffel bag with wheels near the site of the West 23rd street explosion about 40 minutes before the blast, according to multiple local and federal law enforcement sources. A device at a second location in Chelsea appears to be a pressure cooker, according to multiple local and federal law enforcement officials. About 10 minutes later, surveillance video shows the same man with what appears to be the same duffel bag on West 27th street, multiple law enforcement sources said. In the video, the man leaves the duffel bag where police later found the unexploded pressure cooker. After he leaves, the video shows two men removing a white garbage bag believed to contain the pressure cooker from the duffel bag and leave it on the sidewalk, according to a senior law enforcement official and another source familiar with the video. Investigators have not determined if those two men are connected to the man with the duffel bag on both streets, the sources said. The device was transported to the NYPD Bomb Squad facility at Rodman's Neck Range in the Bronx. NYPD and FBI Bomb technicians rendered the device safe. A forensic examination of the device and its components will be conducted at the FBI Laboratory at Quantico, Virginia. 'I could feel it in my chest' As investigators combed through surveillance video for clues, police officers and federal agents searched the streets with flashlights, robots and dogs early Sunday to ensure there were no other devices in the area. Authorities cordoned off the street where the explosion occurred. A small crowd watched from behind police tape Sunday as investigators gathered at the blast site. Some onlookers said residents who live on the block still hadn't been allowed to return to their homes Danilo Gabrielli, 50, was watching TV at his 23rd Street apartment about a block away from the explosion site when he heard the blast. He rushed to see what had happened and found a chaotic scene. "We smelled something, like an intense sulfur smell, and saw smoke coming out of this building. I saw pieces of metal -- not large, but not small either. A few friends of mine saw glass there." Gabrielli said "the entire neighborhood is real scared." "It's a real quiet neighborhood -- not like the center of the city or the Wall Street area. It's tiny bars, where you go to grab a drink, grab a bite to eat, watch a film. We were worried." Nearby resident Sam Smith, 50, said he was closing the shades of his apartment when the blast hit. "All I saw was a big light, and then I heard the explosion," he told CNN as waited for word about whether he could return home Sunday morning. "I could feel it in my chest. It took me an hour and a half before I could hear again." Some social media users said the sound of the explosion was heard as far away as Hoboken, New Jersey, across the Hudson River. 'New York is up and running' Investigators are still searching the scene for evidence and transporting it to the FBI lab in Quantico, Virginia, for review, FBI Assistant Director in Charge William Sweeney Jr. said Sunday. Meanwhile, New Yorkers will see an increased police presence around the city, de Blasio said. Stepped-up security across the city is common as world leaders arrive for the United Nations General Assembly meeting, which is underway. But now it will be even more intense, de Blasio said. "You should know you will see a very substantial NYPD presence this week -- bigger than ever," he said. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo added that 1,000 additional New York State Police officers and National Guard troops will be deployed to patrol bus terminals, airports and subway stations. The increased policing, Cuomo said, is "just to err on the side of caution." "I want New Yorkers to be confident when they go back to work on Monday that New York is up and running and we're doing everything that we need to do," he said.

– "It depends on your definition of terrorism. A bomb exploding in New York is obviously an act of terrorism, but it's not linked to international terrorism," says Andrew Cuomo, via CNN. The New York governor says there's no evidence that an explosion that rocked a crowded Manhattan neighborhood, injuring 29 people, had any link to international terrorism, reports the AP. Cuomo spoke Sunday morning near the site of the Saturday night blast on West 23rd Street in the Chelsea neighborhood. Cuomo noted that the device in Manhattan appeared to be different than a pipe bomb explosion earlier Saturday in New Jersey and said he didn't believe the two were connected. Authorities found a second device in Manhattan a few blocks away from the one that exploded and removed it. Cuomo says the injured have been released from the hospital, and that given the scope of the damage "we were really lucky that there were no fatalities." Most of the injuries were minor. The Democratic governor also said that 1,000 additional National Guard troops were being deployed "just to err on the side of caution. I want New Yorkers to be confident when they go back to work on Monday that New York is up and running and we're doing everything that we need to do."

UPDATE: The mystery of Green Bay's 'creepy clown' is finally over. A local filmmaker has stepped forward, claiming responsibility for Gags the Clown on Facebook. Adam Krause, has revealed himself on the "Gags - The Green Bay Clown" Facebook page as the creator of the clown phenomenon. He said it was all part of a 10-day marketing plan to campaign for his upcoming short film that will be called "Gags." Krause explains in the post that all the photos used in the original viral post were photographed in May of 2016. Krause also explains that no one was ever in danger during these photo shoots and safety was everyone's number one priority. Here is the post by Adam Krause posted just after 8 p.m., Monday, August 8. Watch the original story: ------------------------------------------------------ Green Bay, WI -- Neighbors in Green Bay are on edge after seeing a person dressed like a clown by the intersection of Mason and Adams Street around 2 a.m. Tuesday. The pictures are going viral on Facebook. The original post has almost 8,000 shares. A Facebook page has also been created to post future sightings of the clown, called Gags - The Green Bay Clown. Police say they've received a few calls about the clown. "A person can walk down the sidewalk dressed however they want as long as they're in a place they legally can be, and they're not in a place that has a closing time, like a park," said Captain Kevin Warych with the Green Bay Police Department. Police say their options are limited in dealing with the situation. ||||| CLOSE Wisconsin residents are calling police, asking about a disheveled clown walking through Green Bay with four black balloons. Sara Snyder, USA TODAY People have spotted this clown walking around Green Bay. (Photo: Gags - The Green Bay Clown, Facebook) Wisconsin residents are calling police, asking about a disheveled clown walking through Green Bay with four black balloons. But, there's not much police can do. The clown doesn't appear armed or dangerous — just really creepy. "This person is not breaking the law," said Captain Kevin Warych of the Green Bay Police Department. "He can walk in a clown costume anywhere he wants." The clown, who is being referred to as Gags – The Green Bay Clown, was first spotted at 2 a.m. Aug. 1, according to a fan Facebook page that popped up the next day. Commenter Shannon Mueller said if she met Gags, she would "curl into the fetal position and die of heart exploding from pure terror." Photos of Gags show a figure with full face makeup – high eyebrows, hollow eyes and a black smile. The clown wears a soiled-looking jumpsuit with a ruffled collar. Some believe Gags is part of a horror film, but others say they haven’t seen a camera crew. Warych said he's surprised that Gags has gone viral. "At the end of the day, it’s just a person walking around in clown costume." Follow Ashley May on Twitter: @AshleyMayTweets Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/2aT1cmT

– Coulrophobes might want to steer clear of Wisconsin for a while. Some creeped-out people in Green Bay have been calling police about a clown wandering around with a bouquet of black balloons, reports USA Today. The clown was spotted at 2am Monday, though it's unclear whether he's surfaced since. Police tell NBC 26 there's nothing they can do since the clown doesn't appear to be doing anything illegal. Of course, a Facebook fan page has since sprung up, and Chicagoist rounds up some theories: viral marketing stunt, actor in a horror movie, or some kind of self-promotion, given that "the page launched a half hour after the first photo was supposedly taken."

This year's low-oxygen "dead zone" along Louisiana coast covers 5,052 square miles, an area the size of the state of Connecticut but about 800 square miles less than the 2013 dead zone, according to a week-long survey released Monday. The finding, by a team of scientists led by Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium Director Nancy Rabalais, is within the range estimated in late June by scientists who based their prediction on measurements of the amount of nutrients carried in May by the Mississippi and Atchafalaya rivers. The dead zone is mostly caused by excessive nitrogen, mainly from Midwest agricultural runoff. Based on the 2014 results, the five-year average size of the low-oxygen area is 5,543 square miles, which is almost three times larger than the target set by a federal/state Mississippi River Gulf of Mexico Watershed Nutrient Task Force in 2001 as part of a national effort to reduce the size of the dead zone. The task force goal of reducing the low oxygen zone to 1,991 square miles, or 5,000 square kilometers, was reconfirmed in 2008, but has never been met. "The Mississippi River discharge levels and associated nutrient data, supplied in May by the USGS, pointed to an average size hypoxia area based on the inputs which fuel mid-summer's dead zone algal growth," Rabalais said in a separate news release issued Monday by NOAA. "If the heavy rains in the Upper Midwest in June and the record high nitrate concentration in the Mississippi River at Baton Rouge on July 18 had coincided with a later survey, chances are that the area would have been larger," she said. "The high phytoplankton biomass and large area of fresher water would have eventually led to more bottom-water hypoxia." This is the 30th year that Rabalais' LUMCON team has measured the size of the Louisiana dead zone. Louisiana State University and Florida State University scientists participated in this year's cruise. The research was paid for by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency's Gulf of Mexico Program and the National Science Foundation. The size of the low-oxygen area drew an immediate response from several environmental groups that have sued the Environmental Protection Agency in an attempt to get the agency to adopt regulations that would reduce nutrients flowing into the Mississippi by adopting numeric standards for the amount of nitrogen flowing in the river. "We keep being told by both regulators and industry that a hands-off approach to dealing with the algae pollution fueling the Dead Zone is working just fine, but the Dead Zone is clearly not going away," said Ann Alexander, a senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council. "As we've seen this week with the drinking water problems in Toledo, we need to take the algae pollution problem more seriously and get tough about regulating it." Alexander was referring to a ban on the use of tap water that the city of Toledo instituted on Sunday after toxic algae was found in the city's water supply. The algae was tracked to blooms in Lake Erie that scientists believe have been fueled by similar nutrient runoff from agriculture operations and from sewage treatment plants. "Unfortunately, states and EPA have generally been ignoring or opposing efforts to get more stringent measures in place to deal with the nutrient problem in the Mississippi River basin and nationwide, most recently in their opposition to our lawsuit filed in Louisiana aimed at getting water quality standards in place as a first step to getting this mess cleaned up," Alexander said. Matt Rota, senior policy director with the New Orleans-based Gulf Restoration Network, which is one of the plaintiffs in the nutrient lawsuit against the EPA, criticized Louisiana officials, including Attorney General Buddy Caldwell, for actions they've taken to block some EPA nutrient regulation proposals. "While it is known that Louisiana is not one of the top contributors of Dead Zone-causing pollution, that is where the biggest impacts are felt," Rota said. "Despite this impact, Louisiana is simply not doing enough to make upriver polluters stop polluting the Gulf. "Louisiana and other Mississippi River states are years behind in developing numeric criteria for nitrogen and phosphorus pollution," he said. "We see most of the Mississippi River states dragging their feet, claiming that voluntary actions alone can clean up the Dead Zone. If the past decade of 'Action Plans' and 'reduction strategies' is any indication, this simply isn't working. "It is obvious that if the states don't want to address this issue, EPA must act, and regretfully we aren't seeing significant action from EPA either." Rota said. State Department of Environmental Quality officials overseeing nutrient pollution regulations were unavailable for comment on Monday. In a Monday news release, the scientists said this year's low-oxygen zone is located in two separate areas, with the largest one stretching across central and southeastern Louisiana between the Atchafalaya and Mississippi rivers. The smaller area is located off southwestern Louisiana. The low oxygen area contains less than 2 parts per million of oxygen in water at the Gulf's bottom, a condition scientists call hypoxia. The lack of oxygen kills organisms that live on or in the bottom sediment and can cause shrimp, fish and other organisms that live in the water column to avoid the low-oxygen areas. "The number of dead zones throughout the world has been increasing in the last several decades and currently totals over 550," Rabalais said in the LUMCON release. "The dead zone off the Louisiana coast is the second largest human-caused coastal hypoxic area in the global ocean." A combination of physical and chemical processes cause the low-oxygen conditions. Rainwater in the Midwest captures nitrogen fertilizer as it flows across farmland into small streams and rivers and eventually into the Mississippi and Atchafalaya. As it exits both rivers into the Gulf of Mexico, the fresh water tends to stay on top of the saltier Gulf water until mixed by storms or hurricanes. The nutrients act as food for huge blooms of algae along the shoreline. When the algae dies, it sinks to the bottom and decomposes, with the decomposition process turning oxygen into carbon dioxide, dropping the oxygen levels to near zero. "The amount of nutrient loading from the river increased considerably in the 1960s as a result of more intense agricultural activity in the watershed," the scientists' release said. While the amount of nitrogen in the river has stabilized in recent years, it's still increasing, and the amount of nitrate among the nutrients in the water also is increasing. The higher nitrate levels are consistent with higher levels of phytoplankton algae being measured in the Gulf waters where hypoxia is occurring, the news release said. "Reducing the size of the hypoxic area requires, therefore, changes in land use," the news release said. "Pilot projects and recent development have demonstrated that this can be done for crops with benefits for farm communities, soil health, erosion reduction, and without compromising yields or profit." Researchers warned that the continuous flow of nutrients, year after year, also results in some of the nitrogen being stored in sediments, where it can be released in later years, adding to the nutrients causing algae blooms. Rabalais' team found that the discharge of water from the Mississippi this year was near the long-term average since 1935, and that there was a slightly lower nitrate concentration measured this year at Baton Rouge. However, the amount of water flowing out of the river just before the three-week measurement period was slightly above average and the nitrate concentration had reached a near-record high. "The late burst of nutrient loading and freshwater discharge generated lush conditions for phytoplankton growth off the Mississippi and Atchafalaya rivers," the researchers said. They added that the effects of that growth were exacerbated by recent wind and current directions that pushed Atchafalaya River water to the east, where it joined with Mississippi River water between the two river mouths. ||||| ORLANDO, Fla. Aug 5 (Reuters) - Scientists say a man-made "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico is as big as the state of Connecticut. The zone, which at about 5,000 square miles (13,000 sq km) is the second largest in the world but still smaller than in previous years, is so named because it contains no oxygen, or too little, at the Gulf floor to support bottom-dwelling fish and shrimp. The primary cause of the annual phenomenon is excess nutrient runoff from farms along the Mississippi River, which empties into the Gulf, said Gene Turner, a researcher at Louisiana State University's Coastal Ecology Institute. The nutrients feed algae growth, which consumes oxygen when it works its way to the Gulf bottom, he said. "It's a poster child for how we are using and abusing our natural resources," Turner said. Turner said the zone has at least twice in recent years reached the size of Massachusetts, about 8,200 square miles (21,000 sq km). The Gulf dead zone, which fluctuates in size but measured 5,052 square miles this summer, is exceeded only by a similar zone in the Baltic Sea around Finland, Turner said. The number of dead zones worldwide currently totals more than 550 and has been increasing for decades, according to a report by Turner and Nancy Rabalais from the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium. The elongated Gulf zone typically hugs the Louisiana coastline from the Mississippi River Delta to the state's border with Texas, and some years extending offshore of Texas and Mississippi, Rabalais said. The scientists said a growth in farmed land along the Mississippi River in the 1960s began increasing pollution. In the 1970s, levels of oxygen in parts of the Gulf fell below the needs of bottom-dwelling fish. The zone has been generally growing ever since. Floods, droughts, storms and other factors affect the volume of nutrients flowing into the Gulf and account for year-over-year fluctuations, Turner said. "It seems to have leveled out in size, but it could get worse" depending on changes in pollution levels, Rabalais said. The report said federal farm policy impacts the amount of pollution in the river. Turner said corn fields, which lay bare most of the year and leach nutrients, are one of the biggest contributors to the problem. A federal task force organized with river states in 2001 to reduce nutrient runoff has had no substantial success, he said. (Editing by Karen Brooks and Sandra Maler) ||||| Researchers who annually measure the oxygen deprived "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico have recently found that this year it is nearly as large as the state of Connecticut. That's three times larger than an anticipated 2015 target size. (Photo : Pixabay) Researchers who annually measure the oxygen deprived "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico have recently found that this year it is nearly as large as the state of Connecticut. That's three times larger than an anticipated 2015 target size. Share This Story The Gulf Dead Zone is a huge swath of the Gulf of Mexico just west of the Mississippi River Delta that is nearly devoid of oxygen and proportionally saturated with nitrogen and phosphorus pollution. Containing barely any oxygen, these regions become absent of "commercial quantities" of shrimp and fish, according to the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium (LUMC). A LUMC assessment of the Dead Zone this year showed that it has grown to an average 5,500 square miles over the last five years. And while this growth falls into recent models based on current nitrogen measurements, it is still three times larger than the environmental target set by a federal task force in 2001, dedicated to keeping the zone controlled. So what exactly makes a dead zone? According to the LUMC and the NOAA, dead zones are created by hypoxia (oxygenic depletion) and occur naturally all over the world - including in the fjords, deep basins and near intense upwelling systems. However, research has found that their occurrence in shallow coastal regions has increased in the last few decades as the result of human activities. In fact, it is thought that the Gulf Dead Zone is the second largest unnatural (or unnaturally augmented) dead zone in the world, with pollution coming from the Mississippi Delta bullying oxygen out of this environment. "While it is known that Louisiana is not one of the top contributors of dead zone-causing pollution, that is where the biggest impacts are felt," Matt Rota, Senior Policy Director for the Gulf Restoration Network, said in a recent statement. "Currently we are seeing the impacts of nitrogen and phosphorous pollution, not only off the Louisiana coast, but throughout the country," he added. "From undrinkable water in Toledo to a 4,000 square mile toxic Red Tide looming off the coast of Florida, it is obvious that current efforts to reduce harmful nitrogen and phosphorous pollution are not adequate." Rota associates unnatural dead zones with the oxygen deprivation caused by some harmful algae blooms. However, despite initiatives launched by conservation groups and the Environmental Protection Agency, it is important to note that Louisiana legislation has recently tried to remove the state's Gulf Waters from their "impaired waters list," citing contradictory scientific work that claims that, at least in part, the Gulf Dead Zone may be a natural occurrence.

– A Connecticut-sized swath of oxygen-deprived waters off the Gulf Coast is a "poster child for how we are using and abusing our natural resources," says one researcher in Louisiana. In its 30th annual survey, the Louisiana Marine Consortium shows the dead zone has shrunk to about 5,000 square miles and may have stabilized, reports Reuters. (It previously measured as many as 8,200 square miles.) Still, the Gulf Coast dead zone remains second in size only to one off Finland; it extends along the Louisiana coastline from the Mississippi River Delta to the border with Texas. Since the 1960s, nitrogen fertilizer, mostly from Midwest cornfields, has been drawn into streams and rivers by rainwater and poured straight into the Gulf via the Mississippi and Atchafalaya rivers, the Times-Picayune explains. There it feeds algae blooms that turn oxygen into carbon dioxide when it decays—poor conditions for fish and shrimp. Nitrates and nitrogen levels continue to increase, the scientists say. The EPA has tried to shrink the dead zone to 1,991 square miles since 2001 and isn’t making progress. Environmental groups have sued the agency to force its hand in adopting needed regulations to reduce harmful runoff. "We keep being told by both regulators and industry that a hands-off approach … is working just fine, but the Dead Zone is clearly not going away," one attorney tells the Times-Picayune. Louisiana legislators claim the dead zone is natural and want to remove its Gulf waters from the "impaired waters list," reports Nature World News. Activists say similarly harmful algae blooms in both Ohio and Florida prove current efforts aren’t working. (In other bad news about algae blooms, toxic blooms are so common in Ohio that summertime swimming bans are "routine.")

poster="https://v.politico.com/images/1155968404/201705/3949/1155968404_5420376308001_5420366772001-vs.jpg?pubId=1155968404" true Upton, Long reverse themselves and back Obamacare repeal bill GOP leaders are tweaking the bill to lure resistant House members as the White House pushes for a vote as soon as Thursday. Two prominent Republican opponents of the House GOP’s Obamacare repeal bill reversed course and backed the measure Wednesday morning, after negotiating a last-minute amendment with President Donald Trump at the White House. Reps. Fred Upton of Michigan and Billy Long of Missouri, whose defections this week rattled rank-and-file Republicans, emerged from their session with the president and said an amendment to add $8 billion to help cover people with pre-existing conditions would return them to the "yes" column on the bill. Story Continued Below Though there were concerns the revised measure might repel conservatives already reluctant to back the GOP plan, early signals suggested most would remain on board. "I believe they will find broad support among [House Freedom Caucus] members for their amendment," said caucus Chairman Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) in a statement to POLITICO. Some White House officials want a vote on the bill quickly, and House Republican leaders are warning Democrats that the bill might come up for a vote as early as Thursday. Two senior White House officials said they feared members leaving for recess without voting could doom eventual passage, but many in Congress have grown frustrated with the White House's timetables. Upton, the former chairman of the House energy and commerce committee and author of several Obamacare repeal bills, had declared Tuesday that the House plan fell short of GOP promises to protect people with preexisting conditions. His opposition threatened to derail delicate last-minute negotiations to pass the legislation, known as the American Health Care Act. Long, a staunch Trump ally, also threatened to scramble the GOP whip count. After the White House meeting, Long told reporters at first he resisted pressure from Trump to support the bill. “We need you, we need you, we need you,” Long said Trump told him in phone calls on Tuesday. “I said, ‘I’m a no' and I stayed a no. I said, ‘Fred Upton and I have been working on some language, if we can get [it] in there, it can get us both in a position we need to be on pre-existing conditions and make sure those people are covered. Because they need to be covered. Period.’” Even as he switched his position, Upton expressed caution, noting that the measure will almost certainly not become law in its current form. “This bill will change from where it is today" once the Senate takes it up, Upton said. The last-minute talks appeared to pay dividends with some fence-sitting moderates in the House. Shortly after Upton and Long's White House visit, Rep. Mike Coffman (R-Colo.) said in a statement that if House leaders "work to tighten" protections for people with preexisting conditions, he would support the bill. A spokeswoman Rep. Carlos Curbelo (R-Fla.) said the congressman would "review" the amendment to see whether it addressed his concerns with earlier versions of the bill. The White House now feels as though they are on the precipice of passage, an administration official said after the announcement. A vote isn’t necessarily vital this week, the official said, but would be “preferable.” Early Wednesday, the White House began to lean on House leadership to call a vote on the measure — known as the American Health Care Act — this week. "If I were the speaker of the House, and I'm not — and by the way I'm thankful that I'm not, it's a miserable job — I’d probably go to the floor because it’s just that close," said Trump's budget director Mick Mulvaney, during an appearance on "Fox & Friends." Similar comments have irked House leaders in the past because they're conducting a delicate whip operation to try to corral hesitant colleagues. And despite Mulvaney's pronouncement, House Speaker Paul Ryan declined to commit to holding a vote when asked Wednesday morning. He said the House leaders were "extremely close" to securing enough support to pass the AHCA. But leaders seemed cautiously optimistic they had struck the right balance. "I think we have a solution that addresses some of their concerns, gives us the ability to bring more people into the yes column without losing any of our current yes votes," said Majority Whip Steve Scalise on Fox News on Wednesday morning. GOP leaders can only afford to lose 22 votes and still pass the bill. Already about 20 lawmakers, mostly moderates concerned about the bill's impact on constituents, have said publicly they will vote "no." Even more have said they're undecided and have yet to make up their minds. Trump is pouring a lot of political capital into the latest effort to pass the bill. The president made at least a dozen phone calls seeking support for the bill Tuesday. The White House is hoping changes to the bill will win over wary moderates, and they're crossing their fingers that Trump can secure an endorsement from those opponents after his meeting with lawmakers Wednesday. Jennifer Haberkorn, Burgess Everett and Matthew Nussbaum contributed to this report. ||||| Rep. Upton: Health bill 'likely now to pass' in the House 6:23 PM ET Wed, 3 May 2017 | 01:12 The Republican effort to replace Obamacare got a much-needed boost Wednesday when two congressmen agreed after meeting with President Donald Trump to drop their opposition to the GOP bill and vote for it. Reps. Billy Long and Fred Upton said they are now "yes" votes on the bill because of the addition of an amendment that will add $8 billion in federal funding to reduce insurance costs for people with pre-existing health conditions. "I think it [the bill] is likely now to pass in the House," Upton told reporters at the White House after meeting with Trump. Long, R-Mo., and Upton, R-Mich., earlier this week said they would oppose the bill because it could harm people with pre-existing conditions by allowing states to win waivers for insurers who wanted to charge such customers higher premiums under certain conditions. Bloomberg reported that a White House official said the GOP is still two or three votes away from being able to ensure the bill would pass the House. Republican leaders have said they won't call for a vote until they know it will pass. Leslie Dach, director of the Obamacare-supporting group Protect Our Care Campaign, said the amendment that swayed Upton and Long is "nothing more than a bailout for House Republicans as their latest desperate attempts to repeal health care continue to face strong public opposition." "This possible amendment doesn't change the underlying truth of the Republican health-care repeal — it guts protections for people with pre-existing conditions. The GOP plan requires people with pre-existing conditions to get special insurance that costs more and covers less," Dach said. "Now they think they can fix it by handing $62 per person to the estimated 129 million people with pre-existing conditions in this country? It isn't a solution, it's an insult," he said. "The health-care repeal will cut coverage from millions, raise your premiums and eliminate your protections, and nothing they are proposing changes those facts." A Politico/Morning Consult poll released Wednesday found that 50 percent of Americans oppose allowing states to opt out of requiring that insurers cover pre-existing conditions. Another 38 percent support the idea of that. And nearly 60 percent of poll respondents said that Congress should wait for the Congressional Budget Office to analyze the revised bill before voting on it. A CBO study of a past version of the bill found that it would lead to 24 million more people becoming uninsured over the next decade, and sharp premium hikes over the next two years for individual health plans. Watch: Health care breakout?

– Two Republican representatives who announced earlier this week they wouldn't support the GOP bill to repeal and replace ObamaCare have done a 180, giving new hope to the American Health Care Act, the Hill reports. Fred Upton of Michigan and Billy Long of Missouri switched to "yes" votes after meeting with President Trump on Wednesday and successfully adding an amendment to the AHCA. According to Politico, the amendment puts $8 billion in federal funding toward helping people with pre-existing conditions get insurance. "They need to be covered. Period," Long says he told Trump. Upton says he thinks the AHCA now has enough votes to pass the House. With the addition of Upton's amendment, at least two other Republican representatives say they'll consider voting for the bill. There was some concern Upton's amendment would scare off the more conservative members of the House, but that doesn't appear to have been the case. Upton says a House vote on the AHCA is possible as soon as Thursday. CNBC reports one ObamaCare advocate says Upton's amendment won't actually do anything to help people with pre-existing conditions afford the increased cost of insurance under the AHCA; it amounts to an extra $62 for each American with a pre-existing condition.

Still celebrating their March 26 wedding , newlyweds Reese Witherspoon and Jim Toth have been spotted this weekend arriving in Belize for a relaxing vacation.But they weren't alone! Ava, 11, and Deacon, 8, Witherspoon's daughter and son with ex-husband Ryan Phillippe , accompanied Mom and her new husband on the family getaway.A witness told Us , "They definitely looked like a happy family. The kids seemed like they had no problem with him around."Witherspoon, 35, and Toth, 40, are said to be staying with the kids in the tiny Central American country for six days. Upon arriving, the Oscar winner reportedly blended in by dressing inconspicuously in jeans and a T-shirt, topping her look with a brown hat."They didn't ask for any VIP treatment," said the observer who saw the newlyweds moments after their landing. "[They] walked off the plane like regular tourists, waited in the immigration line and waited to get their bags from the baggage carousel." ||||| Reese Witherspoon: Pretty in Pink on Wedding Day Email This Reese Witherspoon's fairy tale The nuptials, which took place on March 26 at Libby Ranch, Witherspoon's Ojai, Calif., estate, were a "There was so much joy in the room and a lot of laughter. ... There was a real family feel," says a guest. Witherspoon was every bit the blushing bride in a rose-hued dress fit for a princess. The bride's Monique Lhuillier gown came featured a tulle skirt, Chantilly lace bodice and rows of silk flowers descending along a satin silk ribbon. "She took your breath away," a guest tells Reese Witherspoon's fairy tale wedding to agent Jim Toth was fit for Hollywood royalty, from the picturesque setting to the bride's dream dress.The nuptials, which took place on March 26 at Libby Ranch, Witherspoon's Ojai, Calif., estate, were a modest affair that included friends, family and Witherspoon's two children, Ava and Deacon, from her previous marriage to Ryan Phillippe "There was so much joy in the room and a lot of laughter. ... There was a real family feel," says a guest.Witherspoon was every bit the blushing bride in a rose-hued dress fit for a princess. The bride's Monique Lhuillier gown came featured a tulle skirt, Chantilly lace bodice and rows of silk flowers descending along a satin silk ribbon."She took your breath away," a guest tells PEOPLE Witherspoon's daughter, who also served as her maid of honor, wore a matching custom-designed Lhuiller dress.After the ceremony, Witherspoon traded in her gown for a white silk Lhuiller minidress, which she wore for the remainder of the evening.The actress's most recent nuptials were a far cry from her 1999 wedding to Phillippe. The couple married in 1999 at the Charleston, S.C., Old Wide Awake Plantation in a field of wildflowers. The bride, who was seven months pregnant with daughter Ava at the time, wore a dress designed by Judianna Makovsky , who created the retro looks for 1998's 'Pleasantville.' ||||| » SEE THE SLIDESHOW « On March 26, Reese Witherspoon was married to talent manager Jim Toth in a simple, elegant affair at her ranch in Ojai, California. Vogue’s Jonathan Van Meter spoke to the actress a few months before her wedding and discovered that, although the actress learned to ride an elephant for her role in the film, that’s nothing compared to balancing fame, love, and family. Here she comes, waving like Miss America but looking like a blonde Audrey Hepburn. She is dressed in all black—leggings, cardigan, Wayfarers, and a kitten heel. The wave is hilariously exuberant, and even from a block away, as she strides purposefully toward me, I can see that the smile is comic: forced and way too big. And with that one winning gesture—a perfectly timed little burst of goofball—Reese Witherspoon signals that she is not only painfully aware that the sidewalk has suddenly become a runway lined with paparazzi yelling her name on an otherwise quiet Thursday afternoon in Santa Monica, but also that she is OK with it. Look at my weird life! she shouts without saying a word. It’s a beautiful sunny day in early February, and we are meeting at the Blue Plate Oysterette, a hip little seafood joint not far from the Santa Monica Pier. Witherspoon, still at the curb, stares at the outside tables for a moment and then looks back at the photographers in the street still snapping away. She glances at the hostess, then at me, and finally says, with an ironic exclamation point, “How about inside!” See a slideshow of Reese Witherspoon throughout the years in Vogue. One of the things about being a polite Southern girl saddled with a cumbersome fame is that you are in constant negotiation with your surroundings. You know, more often than not, that your presence will tilt the delicate balance of the workaday world in your direction. And one thing that every good Southern girl knows is: Don’t make a scene. But that is exactly what happens everywhere Witherspoon goes. Indeed, just moments ago, people on this oceanside block were going about their noonday business: lunch, errands, sightseeing. And then—bam!—chaos. As we take our seats, she shakes her head in weary bemusement and says, “Every dog has her fleas.” (Witherspoon’s essential Southernness frequently comes through in her language.) She takes a deep breath. “I wasn’t planning on drinking,” she says, “but now I am.” Is that commotion an everyday occurrence? I ask. “Lately,” she says. All the wedding talk? (In case you haven’t heard, Witherspoon is engaged.) “Yeah,” she says. “It usually heats up during, like, pregnancies or babies or marriage. It’s the drama of real life. . . . It’s interesting to people. Readers want to know! I was talking to an actress the other day who is pregnant right now, and she was like, ‘What is it? What’s the deal?’ She said, ‘Oh, maybe once I have the baby no one will pay any attention,’ and I was like, ‘Bwah-ha-ha-ha!!!!’ ” She exaggeratedly tosses her head back. “ ‘Oh, yeah. They will leave you alone after you have the baby. Suuure. That’s exactly how it works.’ ” See a slideshow of brides who wore unconventional wedding dresses here. But then, perhaps not wanting to sound ungracious, she puts a different spin on it. “I get hugged a lot,” she says. “Which is fun. Mostly it’s all good, positive energy that comes to me. I like people. And at the end of the day, we’re all just people, you know? We’re all just going through it. Nobody’s life experience is all that much different than anyone else’s. We’ve all had our share of heartbreak. It’s the universal language of life.” I can’t help looking down at the four-carat rock sitting high on her hand, a ring proffered a few months earlier by the handsome 40-year-old CAA agent Jim Toth, whom she’s been dating for a little over a year. What’s he like? I ask. “He’s wonderful,” she says, beaming. “He’s just a really great guy, and I feel really lucky. It’s so cute: Over the holidays I was at a department store in L.A. with my friends, and these three women from Oklahoma came up to me, and they said”—she lays on a thick Southern drawl—“ ‘Reese. We are so happy for yeeew. We liiike this guy for yeeew.’ And I said, ‘You do?!’ ‘Yes, ma’am. We think he is a niiice man. We think he is going to treat you well and be good to yeeew.’ I was like, ‘Really?’ So sweet! And I told them my mother likes him very much, too.” I had been hearing from people who work with Witherspoon that she is in, as they say, “a good place.” When I mention these reports, she looks at me with one of those faces she is famous for, a look that telegraphs surprise tinged with irritation. “I mean . . . it sort of indicates that at other times I was not in a good place.” She laughs. “Which is true. I have had my share of heartbreak. But I think your friends really know when you are at your happiest. Even though I am nervous and excited and all those things people feel when they are about to get married, I think I am mostly very calm right now. Usually, I’m a little bit of a squirrel. I have a squirrelly energy.” Squirrelly? “Yeah,” she says. “Like, you don’t know where your next nut is gonna come from?” She stares at me with those unblinking blue eyes. “At the moment I am not buzzing around all squirrelly and nervous. I just feel really lucky to be with someone who cares so much and is so kind and loving. You know? It’s a really nice thing to finally have that.” Click here for a slideshow of Reese Witherspoon's best red carpet moments. Witherspoon may be settling down in her personal life, but she’s taking more risks than ever in the roles she chooses. Despite having recently said, “There’s not a part for a 34-year-old woman in a robot movie” (implying she would never want or be able to carry an action flick), she will later this year star in This Means War, one of those new era–Hollywood hybrids (action-adventure/romantic comedy, anyone?). The director, McG, describes it as both “my answer to Mr. & Mrs. Smith and Ocean’s Eleven” and “my ode to Billy Wilder.” Witherspoon plays a busy working girl who is unlucky in love but suddenly finds herself with a glamorous problem: Two spies—one American, one British (played by new era–Hollywood hotties Chris Pine and Tom Hardy)—start using every weapon in their arsenals to woo her. “It was new for her to be suspended in a rig hanging upside down in a Jeep from a building,” says McG. “But it’s just mind-scrambling to work with her in terms of her comedic timing, her sense of what matters, her inherent ability to be lit from within.” McG also hopes to show audiences a different side of her. “I think you are going to see a sexy Reese Witherspoon the likes of which you have never seen. That was a challenge that I set out for her at the beginning of the process. I said, ‘Men like you, but men don’t covet you the way that I think they can.’ ” It’s anybody’s guess whether this film will be watchable or whether Witherspoon will work in it or not. It wasn’t that long ago when it seemed Witherspoon could do no wrong. As the nineties came to an end, she began delivering in one smart comedy after another: Cruel Intentions, Election, and the two Legally Blonde films, the Elle Woods franchise that put her newly formed production company, Type A Films, on the map and also gave her some real power in Hollywood. By the time she won the Oscar for Best Actress in Walk the Line, in 2005, she had taken on an air of invincibility. Was there anything this girl couldn’t do? Turns out the answer is yes. She has lately been miscast a few times, most egregiously as a pro softball player past her prime in James L. Brooks’s How Do You Know. (As one big Hollywood producer said to me, “What woman identifies with a person who has no interest in falling in love? Who is that supposed to be?”) It’s far less of a stretch to imagine Witherspoon as the scrappy ingenue who will do whatever it takes to survive in the Depression-era circus world of her latest film, Water for Elephants, based on the best-selling novel and directed by Francis Lawrence. That role is the reason, a couple of days before our lunch, I find myself inside a giant circus tent pitched in a dusty lot near the train tracks in Riverside, California. Witherspoon appears in front of me and asks, “Wanna see something?” She leads me over to one of her costars, Tai, the 42-year-old elephant she spent six months with last summer, and coos, “Hiiii, laaaady,” and then runs a hand down her trunk. “I love that her trunk is both her nose and her hand,” says Witherspoon as the 9,000-pound creature begins sniffing around to see what sort of treat is in the offing. “She has this incredible dexterity; she can pick up a log, but she can also pick up something this tiny.” Witherspoon holds up one blue peanut M&M and then flattens out her palm, and Tai gently plucks it from her hand and puts it in her mouth. Set in the early thirties, the story follows a young Ivy League veterinary student played by Robert Pattinson, who, left with nothing after his parents die in a car accident, joins the circus, where he falls in love with Witherspoon’s character, Marlena. Marlena is not only the star of the circus, whose act with four horses and then an elephant is the show’s big attraction; she is also married to the charismatic, controlling ringmaster, played with sinister menace by Christoph Waltz. Witherspoon has made more than a few films where she has had to train for months to learn an entirely new skill set before a single frame was shot: most famously learning to sing like June Carter Cash in Walk the Line. Now the circus. “About three months before the movie started, I went to circus school,” she says, “doing trapeze and acrobatics with Cirque du Soleil performers. A lot of it is flexibility and learning to bend your body backward. I had been a gymnast when I was little, so getting that flexibility back was really fun.” Then she went to a ranch to train with Tai; she was slightly nervous the first day. “She could crush you with her jaw, but she knows the exact right amount of pressure with which to pick you up but not hurt you. It’s really incredible. I trust her more than any other animal I have ever been around.” Interestingly, the elephant in the room turned out to be the least of anyone’s troubles. (As Pattinson puts it, “She was the most consistently professional creature I have ever worked with.”) It was the horses—two white Andalusians and two black Friesians—that turned out to be high-strung and unpredictable. “Reese grew up around horses,” says Lawrence, “and she owns a couple that she rides now, and even she was scared of them.” Says Witherspoon: “I’ve always been a little bit of a tomboy that way, so I just always enjoy the thrill of doing something dangerous.” She got more than she wished for. Not only did she get thrown from a horse one day, Pattinson tells a story about shooting a scene in which one of the horses is lying down in a train car with Witherspoon curled up on the ground next to it when suddenly the horse jumped to its feet and stepped on her leg. “I could see in Reese’s face that it must have hurt more than anything, and she played it off like it was absolutely nothing,” says Pattinson. “And then the next day she had this enormous bruise. It could have quite easily broken her leg, but she didn’t mention it to anybody. She is just incredibly brave that way.” Witherspoon’s toughness was one of the main reasons Lawrence cast her in the film. “What I liked is that there’s that determination, but there’s also a sense of humor and a sense of vulnerability. It must come from her family and upbringing. You sort of feel like if she sets her mind to something, it’s going to happen—nothing is going to get in her way. And that’s part of what keeps her interesting—and oddly a little dangerous.” Pattinson, too, thinks there’s more to Witherspoon than meets the eye. “In terms of public perception, she’s thought of as America’s Sweetheart. And she kind of is in a lot of ways. But I think that she’s a lot bawdier than that, a lot more raucous. It did actually shock me to see that. She’s tough. You wouldn’t want to get into an argument with her at all.” He laughs. “You can always tell that she will be incredibly nice to anyone who’s not an idiot, but it’s always very clear that there’s a line you really shouldn’t cross.” (When I tell Witherspoon that Pattinson said this, her response is classic Reese: “Oh, yeah. I’m a little junkyard dog.”) If only she had brought some of that edgy danger to her performance. Although her scenes in the ring with the horses and the elephant are breathtaking, not least of all because you know that she is doing all of the stunts herself, and she looks fantastic in 1930s cut-on-the-bias evening gowns (and even committed to dyeing her hair platinum for the movie), it unfortunately feels like she’s holding back in some way. Perhaps it was hard to compete with the director’s overheated take on an already melodramatic story, in which terrible things happen to everyone, animals and humans alike. A feel-good movie this is not. But whatever the critical response will be, Witherspoon seems grateful for the experience: “I spent six months of my life last year with an elephant. Every day! Are you kidding me? And in leotards with sparkles all over them. I mean, come on! That’s like a little girl’s fantasy.” Two weeks after our lunch in Santa Monica, the day after the Oscars, Witherspoon calls me on the phone. She has just picked up her kids—Ava, eleven, and Deacon, seven—from some after-school activity, and she sounds a bit harried. “What is that?” she says to her dog, annoyed. “Don’t eat that.” Now that the Oscars are over, she has a couple months off—or “in town,” as she puts it. “You know, it can be a crazy life. Sometimes you feel like you are on a speeding train and you just don’t know where it’s going. You can start to lose your identity and what it is that you are really working for.” Like a lot of working women, she’s constantly looking for the right balance. “I don’t wake up to make movies. I wake up to have a wonderful family and to cultivate the best life for all of us, and it’s great to now have a partner in that. We have a lot of family meetings. ‘Mom’s going to be away and coming home on the weekends. How does everybody feel about that?’ It’s always military operations around here. Lots of different moving parts. I have my moments when I feel like I’m just going to collapse and I can’t do it anymore and I’m failing at everything. Like, you’re kind of good at a bunch of stuff but not really good at anything.” Witherspoon, who turned 35 in March, seems acutely aware that she is on the cusp of an entirely new stage in her life. “I am really going through that right now. I’ve had some really kind of sad moments lately. You don’t go backward! And I think 35 for a woman is a big thing. I remember when I was a little girl looking up at my mother at 35 doing her hair in the mirror, and I thought, my mother has never been more beautiful. She had years of wisdom you can’t erase. And now I feel the same way when I look in the mirror. You can’t pretend you are an ingenue. You can’t pretend you are wide-eyed and innocent. It’s on your face! It’s in your body. It’s in your voice. It’s in your reactions to things when people say, ‘I just did the most morally corrupt thing I’ve done in my life’ and you literally don’t blink.” She laughs. “You’ve either done it yourself or you know someone who has.” Having a preteen daughter has also made her see herself in a new light. “There’s a shift in your womanhood. That’s the little girl, and I am the woman. There’s a big difference. She’s on the precipice of having her love affairs and her life.” I ask her what Ava is like. “She is curious and artistic and very smart,” she says. “She really surprises me. I know it’s corny, but being a parent to me is such a great privilege; that I get to chaperone these beautiful little souls through life. They astound me with their knowledge and their humor. Parenthood is not at all what I expected it to be. I thought you make little people in your image. But they are just nothing like me or their father [her ex-husband, Ryan Phillippe]. They are their own individuals.” Because I first met Witherspoon eight years ago, when I interviewed her for this magazine, I ask her, What does 34 know that 26 didn’t? “I definitely know now that I know nothing,” she says. “When I was 26 I would have told you a lot of things that I thought I knew really, really well,” she says. “I was a little more shut down in my 20s. I was really scared of a lot of things and a lot of people. I have gone through so many changes since then. Obviously, being divorced and having a couple of relationships. I’m much more open than I was. I think with life experience you go: I have no idea what’s next. The unexpected doesn’t surprise me anymore. It really shocked me then.” Would you say you were blindsided by things? “Yeah,” she says. “Really blindsided. I was always shocked about finding out things or behavior or people’s attitudes toward things. You just realize that you don’t know anything about love or relationships.” It is different interviewing Witherspoon now. For one thing, we are comfortably hanging out for a couple of hours in a restaurant shooting the breeze and drinking wine; eight years ago we sat in facing chairs with a coffee table between us at her production-company office, and she was all business—I felt as if I were in a job interview. Today she is sweet, relaxed, and full of thoughtful questions; but she is also a very sharp and funny lunch companion, and some of her retorts have real teeth. For example, if you don’t talk as rat-a-tat fast as she does, she has a habit of finishing your sentences for you, but with her own particular take on things. At one point we were talking about fashion, and I said, “People who love fashion often . . .” “ . . . Lack perspective?” she said with a comically judgmental look on her face. But one thing that hasn’t changed is that she is as private as ever. Indeed, she seems almost constitutionally unsuited for the level of fame she has to live with. At one point, I ask her what is the worst thing about being Reese Witherspoon, and she pauses for a very long time. Finally she says, “I mean, I feel like an ingrate for even thinking anything isn’t good. I’m very, very, very lucky. But . . . umm . . . probably that I parted with my privacy a long time ago. We went different ways. And sometimes I mourn it. Sometimes I will sit in the car and cry. Because I can’t get out. That’s the only thing: I mourn the loss of my privacy.” More than most people in her position during this era of constant self-revelation, Witherspoon has nonetheless managed to maintain a modicum of privacy. “I have to say, I have been through a few life experiences that have just made me feel really good about my friends because the truth never came out about certain things. And that made me feel like I have confidantes in them. I mean, look: I don’t have that many friends. I have a few really amazing friends whom I consider family. But it means a lot to me that I have that, because so much of my life belongs to other people. Everyone always laughs about it and goes, ‘Boy, they got that wrong!’ It makes me feel like, Wow, maybe there’s something that’s still my own.” This is one of the strange conundrums of being Reese, the polite Southern girl with the cumbersome fame. She did not know she was parting with her privacy until the train had already left the station. “I just think you never think you are ever going to get to any level where it’s going to happen to you. I mean, that would be extreme hubris.” Do you ever regret becoming an actor? “Noooo!” she says, as if I had just asked her if she wishes she had married her high school sweetheart and stayed in Nashville. “With whatever I’ve lost, I’ve gained tenfold in life experience. I have an interesting life.” At our lunch a few weeks earlier, Witherspoon mentions that she and Nora Ephron are developing a film together about the singer Peggy Lee. (This explains why Witherspoon was humming standards under her breath to Tai at the photo shoot.) Lee, who grew up in North Dakota and who’s best known for her inimitable cover of the Little Willie John hit “Fever,” was one of the most influential jazz vocalists of all time, with a career that lasted six decades (she died in 2002). Ephron is writing and directing; Witherspoon will star. When I ask her how she feels about making another biopic about another American singer-songwriter from the heartland, she says, “When Nora and I began talking about Peggy Lee, it was really exciting because Nora has this unbridled enthusiasm for that era and that music. She knows every lyric to every song. So yeah, I am excited to revisit that.” Has she herself ever considered singing as a career? “I am not going to cut an album,” she says. “I’m not going to suddenly have a pop record on the charts.” She laughs. “But if I was going to do it, it would be country, because I like country music a lot.” I tell her that Ephron once sat me down when I was going through a difficult time and gave me some very frank advice that I have been following ever since. “I had a moment like that with Nora, too,” she says. “She really helped me through a hard time. It was like having the best girlfriend ever. She makes you laugh and she makes you think. I feel very lucky for her friendship.” When I call Ephron to talk about Witherspoon she says, “She’s a really smart, really charming, dear, dear person. Everyone loves her. And lovely on the set, and she basically kills herself. I mean, you know, she took softball lessons for a year!” She laughs. “And she went through that divorce in a kind of . . . you would call it a textbook way, if anyone had written a textbook about how to do it. I have never seen anybody handle a breakup as brilliantly as she did. She didn’t pretend to the people who knew her that it was anything but difficult and painful, but she was completely private. She made herself the winner of a situation that had been very difficult without suddenly appearing with a completely new look or dating someone wildly inappropriate in order to prove that she was fine. She lived her life in some dignified way, and it worked! I am just an enormous admirer of the way she handled that experience.” What made you think of her for Peggy Lee? “Just for fun, just to make myself feel really bad, I watched Walk the Line again, and it’s such an amazing movie. And she is so brilliant in it. She just disappeared inside that character without losing her Reese-iness, which we love. But she is June Carter Cash forevermore. It’s an astonishing performance. So that’s one of the things that I’m excited about; she is going to do the same thing with Peggy Lee. What I really believe about her is that her great gift is for character acting. She can really transform herself. That performance in Election is just spectacular.” Tracy Flick, the character from Election who will stop at nothing to win, is one of the great gifts of modern cinema. Indeed, it is now a noun, a type of person, like saying “She is an Eve Harrington.” When I ask Witherspoon about it, she says, “I think what’s flattering about it is that I created a character that never existed within the Zeitgeist before. She became a point of reference to people that seems very individual and very singular. It’s like one of those characters, like Chauncy Gardiner, whom you don’t know how to describe any other way. They are just very . . . Tracy Flick! I don’t think people think I am Tracy Flick. Not at all.” Hmm. Not so fast. Tracy Flick is nothing if not a determined little junkyard dog, a squirrelly Type A trying to figure out where her next nut is going to come from. As our phone call winds down, I ask Witherspoon about her own politics. “Well, I don’t really get into that stuff,” she says. “Everybody has their own choice, their political opinions. I don’t think it’s my place when talking to Vogue about movies that I’m making to use that opportunity to promote my political ideas. Not my cup of tea. It’s sort of private. I was raised Southern, you know? It wasn’t like you were told to talk about religion and politics at a dinner party. And don’t get me wrong: I definitely have a lot of opinions. I am not opinion-free. But there’s a time and a place for everything. But maybe I will change my mind! Look, if I wanted to run for office, I would. If I want to espouse my political opinions, I will run for office.” She laughs. “And that’s a possibility!”

– Reese Witherspoon never regrets becoming an actress, but she does miss one thing: her privacy. "I parted with my privacy a long time ago," she tells Vogue in a new profile. "We went different ways. And sometimes I mourn it. Sometimes I will sit in the car and cry. Because I can’t get out." More from the interview, given a few months before Witherspoon's March 26 wedding: On the increased amount of attention she's been getting from the paparazzi: "It usually heats up during, like, pregnancies or babies or marriage. It’s the drama of real life. ... Readers want to know!" One good thing about all the attention: "I get hugged a lot. Which is fun." On her then-fiance, CAA agent Jim Toth: "He’s wonderful. He’s just a really great guy ... I just feel really lucky to be with someone who cares so much and is so kind and loving. You know? It’s a really nice thing to finally have that." On her current emotional state: "Even though I am nervous and excited and all those things people feel when they are about to get married, I think I am mostly very calm right now. Usually, I’m a little bit of a squirrel. I have a squirrelly energy." On turning 35: "I’ve had some really kind of sad moments lately. You don’t go backward! And I think 35 for a woman is a big thing. ... You can’t pretend you are an ingenue. You can’t pretend you are wide-eyed and innocent. It’s on your face! It’s in your body. It’s in your voice." Click for the full piece, or check out a picture from Reese's wedding or gossip about her honeymoon.

Mariah Carey & Nick Cannon Divorce 'A Done Deal' Separated for Months Mariah Carey & Nick Cannon: Divorce 'A Done Deal' -- Separated For Months EXCLUSIVE Mariah Carey and Nick Cannon separated back in May -- and are living apart ... and we're told divorce lawyers have been negotiating a property settlement and custody agreement for months and the divorce is "a done deal." Sources connected with the couple tell TMZ ... Mariah and Nick have been living in separate houses in NYC since May. He sees the kids but that's the extent of their contact.Our sources say ... Nick's appearance on Big Boy's radio show in March was the beginning of the end. Nick played Big Boy's game -- name the 5 celebs you've slept with. Nick named 5, but our sources say the one that made Mariah insane wasWe're told Mariah tore into Nick for weeks ... feeling humiliated and the relationship never recovered.We're told it went from bad to worse when Nick went onand talked about Mariah not giving it up before they got hitched. She went nuclear.Our sources say Mariah feels Nick has abandoned her by taking every gig that's on the table ... when they don't need the money. She's especially angry because it keeps him away from their kids.For Nick's part ... we're told he feels Mariah has become impossible because she surrounds herself with "yes men." He says she can't handle it when he dares to disagree with her.We're also told Nick is incredulous Mariah is bitching about his work ethic ... he says he's generated $75 million since 2011 for the family. ||||| Jersey Shore's Ronnie Magro and Sammi Giancola Break Up for Good Want more stories like this? Sign up for our newsletter and other special offers: sign me up Thank you for signing up! Chris Christie: What You Don't Know About the Jersey Shore After a tumultuous five-year romance , which played out on MTV's smash hit reality show Jersey Shore, Ronnie Ortiz-Magro, 28, and Sammi "Sweetheart" Giancola, 27, have called it quits for good , he tells PEOPLE."We were drifting apart and not really spending any time together," Magro told PEOPLE at the premiere of former costar Jenni "JWoww" Farley's new film, Jersey Shore Massacre, out Aug. 22.After splitting and rekindling their romance several times on the show, the couple finally parted ways two months ago, he says."I still care about her," he said, adding that he's not ready to date again. "She's a great girl, but we were growing distant. It was for the best."For now, Magro says, he's getting practice for his own future family playing uncle to JWoww's 5-week-old daughter Meilani , with her fiancé Roger Mathews.Adds Magro: "She's really squirmy and looks just like Roger!" ||||| Meg Ryan and John Mellencamp Split Want more stories like this? Sign up for our newsletter and other special offers: sign me up Thank you for signing up! Meg Ryan and John Mellencamp have ended their relationship as quietly as they began it The actress, 52, and the rocker, 62, split recently after dating for more than three years , PEOPLE has confirmed."It was the distance," a source tells PEOPLE. "She lives in New York and he resides in Indiana. It was the long distance that ultimately was the cause."The pair – who were last spotted together in May – became an item in late 2010, shortly after Mellencamp's split from wife Elaine after 18 years of marriage.They kept a low profile during the past three years, stepping out together for the occasional industry event and being spotted now and again on the streets of New York. But Indiana native Mellencamp had expressed his unhappiness at calling New York City home."I'm too sensitive to live there," he told Rolling Stone in December. "I can't see poor people. I can't see the suffering. I can't see the trash on the streets." When it comes to paparazzi attention, he added, "I don't like it for [Ryan]. "I'm not leaving Indiana. I'm going to die here."Both stars have big projects coming up: Mellencamp, a father of five, is poised to release his 22nd album, Plain Spoken, in November. Meanwhile, Ryan, who has son Jack, 22, with ex-husband Dennis Quaid, and daughter Daisy, 9, has been busy working on her directorial debut, Ithaca, a WWII coming-of-age drama that's being executive-produced by Ryan's Sleepless in Seattle costar Tom Hanks.The film marks a major return to Hollywood for the very private actress, who has deliberately avoided the spotlight since making her last major film, 2008's The Women. The onetime soap star had been poised to make her small-screen return this fall with a new pilot and the role of the narrator in the planned How I Met Your Mother spin-off, but neither show was picked up.Reps for the pair have not yet commented. Closer Weekly first broke news of the split.

– Is there something in the water? Hollywood has been hit with a rash of break-ups: After more than three years together, Meg Ryan and John Mellencamp are over, People reports. "It was the long distance that ultimately was the cause," says one source; Ryan, 52, lives in New York while Mellencamp, 62, lives in Indiana. Michelle Rodriguez and Zac Efron weren't together nearly so long, but they, too, are finished after almost two months of dating, Us reports. "Michelle is going to do her own thing. Zac knew this about her when he got with her," one source says. "He's very into her though, and perhaps more than she's into him." Rodriguez, 36, and Efron, 26, reportedly had a big fight in Ibiza that prompted the split. In slightly more D-list news, Jersey Shore couple Ronnie Magro and Sammi "Sweetheart" Giancola are done for good after an on-again, off-again five-year relationship, Magro tells People. "We were drifting apart and not really spending any time together," he says. "She's a great girl, but we were growing distant." And, though there's no official word on this yet, multiple outlets are reporting that Mariah Carey and Nick Cannon are all but divorced. Lawyers have been negotiating property and custody agreements for months, according to TMZ, and the couple has been living separately since May. According to Page Six's sources, Carey, 45, thinks Cannon, 33, might have cheated.

Police secure an area during a police raid in the Molenbeek neighbourhood of Brussels, Belgium on Friday, March 18, 2016. Two French police officials have told The Associated Press that Salah Abdeslam,... (Associated Press) BRUSSELS (AP) — The main fugitive from Islamic extremist attacks in Paris in November, Salah Abdeslam, has been arrested in Belgium's capital after four months at large, French police officials said Friday. The officials told The Associated Press that he was arrested Friday in a major police operation in the Brussels neighborhood of Molenbeek. Both officials are in contact with people involved in the operation and spoke only on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about an ongoing operation. Abdeslam, 26, was among the attackers who killed 130 people at a rock concert, the national stadium and cafes on Nov. 13 in Paris. In addition to Abdeslam, the whereabouts of two Paris attack suspects remains unknown, including fellow Molenbeek resident Mohamed Abrini and a man known under the alias of Soufiane Kayal. Friday's caputure of Abdeslam comes after Belgian authorities say they found his fingerprints in an apartment raided earlier this week in another Brussels neighborhood. In that raid, a man believed to have been an accomplice of Abdeslam — Mohamed Belkaid — was shot dead, Belgian prosecutors say. But two men escaped from the apartment, one of whom appears to have been Abdeslam. Federal prosecutor Eric Van der Sypt said it was possible Abdeslam had spent "days, weeks or months," in the apartment. Abdeslam fled Paris after the Nov. 13 attacks. Most of the Paris attackers died that night, including Abdeslam's brother Brahim, who blew himself up. Brahim Abdeslam was buried in the area Thursday. Brussels-born Salah Abdeslam, a childhood friend of suspected ringleader Abdelhamid Abaaoud, is believed to have driven a group of gunmen who took part. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attacks, in which Belgian nationals played key roles. On Tuesday, a joint team of Belgian and French police showed up to search a residence in the Forest area of Brussels in connection with the Paris investigation, and were unexpectedly fired upon by at least two people inside. Four officers were slightly wounded. An occupant of the residence was shot dead by a police sniper as he prepared to open fire on police from a window. Police identified him as Belkaid, 35, an Algerian national living illegally in Belgium. A Kalashnikov assault rifle was found by his body, as well as a book on Salafism, an ultraconservative strain of Islam. Elsewhere in the apartment, police found an Islamic State banner as well as 11 Kalashnikov loaders and a large quantity of ammunition, the prosecutor said. Belgian authorities initially said Belkaid had no known background in radical Islamic activities. But Friday afternoon, prosecutors issued a statement saying he was "most probably" an accomplice of Abdeslam who had been using a fake Belgian ID card in the name of Samir Bouzid. A man using that ID card was one of the two men seen with Abdeslam in a rental car on the Hungarian-Austrian border in September. Four days after the Nov. 13 Paris attacks, the same false ID card was used to transfer 750 euros ($847) to Hasna Ait Boulahcen, Abaaoud's niece. Both Ait Boulahcen and Abaaoud died afterward in a police siege. Abdeslam slipped through a police dragnet to return to Brussels after the bloodbath in Paris, and though the target of an international manhunt, has not been found since. In January, Belgian authorities said one of his fingerprints was found alongside homemade suicide bomb belts at an apartment in another area of Brussels. Belgian prosecutors said it wasn't known whether he had been at the address in the Schaerbeek district before or after the Paris attacks, or how long he had spent there. ___ Raf Casert in Brussels and Raphael Satter and Angela Charlton in Paris contributed to this report. ||||| The most wanted fugitive from November's Paris attacks has been "caught alive" after being wounded in a Brussels shootout, say police. The Belgian asylum minister Theo Francken declared, "We got him", referring to 26-year-old Salah Abdeslam, Europe's most wanted man. Abdeslam suffered leg injuries before being arrested, during a major police operation in the Molenbeek suburb. Television footage showed armed security forces dragging a man wearing a hooded top out of a building and to a car. At least 10 shots were heard, grenades launched and police helicopters hovered overhead, while fire engines waited in the street. A suspect is dragged into a car after a raid in Molenbeek Footage showed masked, black-clad security forces training their weapons towards upper windows of an apartment block. White smoke could be seen rising above the building, as police with snarling dogs drove crowds in the streets back away from the scene. Play video "Suspect Held Outside Brussels Flat" Video: Suspect Held Outside Brussels Flat Events As They Unfold: Live Blog About three hours after Abdeslam's arrest, two blasts were heard, before a further suspect - who was still holed up - was detained. In all, Abdeslam was one of five people arrested in the series of raids, which came after a tip-off to police. Two of the suspects, including Abdeslam, were injured. Three of those arrested are being held on suspicion of sheltering Abdeslam and an accomplice. Play video "Watch: Explosions At Terror Raid" Video: Watch: Explosions At Terror Raid French president Francois Hollande and Belgian PM Charles Michel left a meeting of EU leaders in Brussels on migration amid news of the raid. Later, the pair held a joint news conference in Brussels where Mr Hollande said France would ask for Abdeslam's extradition. The French leader said it was clear that the Paris attackers had links to Syria and Islamic State and the terror threat remained high. The shootout comes after Belgian authorities said that fingerprints in a Brussels apartment raided earlier this week belonged to Abdeslam. A man shot dead in that raid is believed to have been an accomplice of Abdeslam, Belgian prosecutors said on Friday. Play video "Terror Standoff In Brussels" Video: Terror Standoff In Brussels Sky's foreign affairs editor Sam Kiley said that Abdeslam could prove to be "a goldmine of intelligence". Survivors of the attack at the Bataclan venue in Paris reacted to news of the arrest this evening. Lydia Berkennou said: "I don’t know why, but deep down in my heart, I knew one of them was him. "I knew because I didn’t think he would’ve managed to go back to Syria … I knew he was hiding somewhere." Back in November it was reported that Abdeslam had reportedly returned to Brussels with a suicide vest. Play video "Ambulances Leave Scene In Brussels" Video: Ambulances Leave Scene In Brussels A police source had told The Sunday Times of fears "there is a walking bomb" in the Belgian capital. The source said Abdeslam may have become "trapped and desperate" since fleeing the bloodshed which killed 130 people. After the Paris attacks, reports emerged of a row between Abdeslam and his brother Brahim, on the night before the massacre. One of their friends told a French documentary he heard one of the brothers telling the other that he was "not going" without money. "The other one said: 'No, you’re going!' 1 / 8 Gallery: Gallery: Paris Attacks Fugitive Captured Alive In Belgium The most wanted fugitive from November's Paris attacks has been captured "He said to him: 'If I don't have any dosh, I’m not budging. Without dosh I’m not going'," the friend told the documentary. It is unclear whether they were fighting about going to Paris. Brahim, 31, eventually blew himself up outside a cafe, injuring 15 people, during the co-ordinated attacks. Abdeslam was also filmed outside a cafe on the night of the massacre, pointing his gun at two women hiding under outside tables. The women can be seen running for safety after Abdeslam's gun does not go off. Play video "How Paris Attacks Unfolded" Video: How Paris Attacks Unfolded Terror expert Dr David Lowe told Sky News: "These people are not working on their own - we are looking at terror cells in operations "You have to be very very careful before you make the move … you want to gather as much evidence as possible. "We’re talking about people who are quite willing to use firearms or explosive devices so … it’s a dangerous situation to have." ||||| (CNN) After a four-month search for Europe's most-wanted fugitive, Paris terror attacks suspect Salah Abdeslam was captured Friday, Belgian officials said. Abdeslam was wounded in a gunbattle with authorities in an anti-terror raid in the Brussels' suburb of Molenbeek. Four other people were arrested. A man named Monir Ahmed Alaaj -- also known as Amine Choukri -- also was wounded and hospitalized, prosecutors said. Belgian federal prosecutor's office spokesman Eric Van der Sypt said the others detained included three members of a family who helped hide Abdeslam. Earlier, Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel told reporters that Abdeslam, a Belgian-born French citizen, and another person were wounded in the raid. Abdeslam had a minor leg wound, Van der Sypt announced. French President Francois Hollande said Paris prosecutors will urgently request the extradition of Abdeslam. Hollande told reporters he is confident Abdeslam will be sent to France for trial. "I know the Belgian authorities will respond quickly and favorably to our request for extradition," Hollande said. Officials said as of Friday night no more suspects were in the building where the raid took place. After the news broke, many others joined in with laudatory messages, including Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris, where Abdeslam allegedly took part in the carnage that left 130 dead "Congratulations to the police on the arrest of Salah Abdeslam," Hidalgo tweeted. Lieve Reynebeau, who works on the street where Abdeslam was captured, said she heard loud noises and then looked out to see police all around the scene. She managed to leave the area like others -- "all of us safe" -- by foot. A photo posted by @lievetxu on Mar 18, 2016 at 9:06am PDT Armed and heavily protected police, with helmets and shields, converged on the area. Three explosions were heard there later Friday, CNN French affiliate BFMTV reported, though it wasn't clear if those were controlled blasts or part of a continuing operation. And gunshots rang out shortly after 7 p.m. in the same area. Police continued to conduct operations in Molenbeek into Saturday morning. Molenbeek focus of 'foreign fighter problem' Molenbeek, an impoverished Brussels suburb, has a reputation as a hotbed for jihadism . Several members of its large, predominantly Muslim population -- many of whom are first-, second- and third-generation immigrants from North Africa -- have been linked to terror plots and attacks. Last fall, Belgian Justice Minister Koen Geens cited Molenbeek as a place where more needs to be done to address what he called Belgium's "foreign fighter problem." And in the immediate aftermath of the Paris attacks, authorities conducted raids there and detained numerous individuals. One was Mohammed Abdeslam, the brother of the wanted man captured Friday, who was taken into custody and later released. JUST WATCHED Brother of Salah Abdeslam: We are shocked Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Brother of Salah Abdeslam: We are shocked 02:16 Mohammed Abdeslam told Belgian state broadcaster RTBF that he thinks Salah at the "last minute ... decided to reconsider" carrying out an attack himself November 13 -- ones that ended, in the other cases, with the assailants dead. One of those who did follow through was another brother, Ibrahim Abdeslam, the suicide bomber who detonated explosives outside a cafe on Paris' Boulevard Voltaire. 1 killed in Tuesday raid Earlier Friday, the Belgian federal prosecutor's office revealed that the 26-year-old Salah Abdeslam's fingerprints and DNA were found in a Brussels apartment raided three days earlier. One person was killed and two people escaped that operation, according to authorities. The man killed by a special forces sniper was Mohamed Belkaid, an Algerian who used the name Samir Bouzid , and who is believed to have directed the Paris attackers via calls from Belgium, according to the prosecutor's office. Belkaid is believed to have helped Abdeslam travel prior to the attacks and transferred money to a female cousin of Paris ringleader Abdelhamid Abaaoud following the attack, the Belgian senior counter-terrorism official told CNN in January. Photos: Paris attack suspects: What we know Hide Caption 1 of 10 Photos: Paris attack suspects: What we know Hide Caption 2 of 10 Photos: Paris attack suspects: What we know Hide Caption 3 of 10 Photos: Paris attack suspects: What we know Hide Caption 4 of 10 Photos: Paris attack suspects: What we know Hide Caption 5 of 10 Photos: Paris attack suspects: What we know Hide Caption 6 of 10 Photos: Paris attack suspects: What we know Hide Caption 7 of 10 Photos: Paris attack suspects: What we know Hide Caption 8 of 10 Photos: Paris attack suspects: What we know Hide Caption 9 of 10 Photos: Paris attack suspects: What we know Hide Caption 10 of 10 Authorities believe Abdeslam was using the apartment as a hideout following the Paris attacks, according to the Belgian counter-terrorism official. His possible escape spurred an intense manhunt in a country already on guard after last fall's attacks in the French capital. Van der Sypt noted earlier this week -- prior to Friday's raid -- that authorities had searched more than 100 houses and arrested 58 people as part of the post-Paris probe. Another 23 people have been arrested "in linked investigations," he said then. Suspect thought to have dropped off Paris bomber Investigators think Salah Abdeslam may have been the driver of a black Renault Clio that dropped off three suicide bombers near the Stade de France, one of the attack sites near Paris. They also believe he had worn a suicide belt found on a Paris street after the attacks. JUST WATCHED A father explains Paris tragedy to his son Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH A father explains Paris tragedy to his son 03:16 He is believed to have called friends to take him to Belgium after the attacks. They passed through police checkpoints, but Abdeslam had not yet been identified as a suspect and they were allowed to continue on their way. Surveillance video emerged of him and another man at a gas station near the Belgian border the day after the attacks. He has eluded authorities ever since. In January, authorities found traces of explosives and Abdeslam's fingerprints in another Brussels apartment.

– Salah Abdeslam, a suspect in the Paris terror attacks and Europe's most wanted man, was captured alive Friday during a raid in Brussels, Belgian counterterrorism sources tell CNN and the AP. The 26-year-old was believed to be hiding out in a Brussels apartment since the Nov. 13 attacks, and a raid on that apartment earlier this week turned up Abdeslam's fingerprints and DNA. But two people escaped that raid, apparently including Abdeslam. (One person, an Algerian also believed to have been involved in the Paris attacks via calls from Belgium, was killed in that raid.) Friday's raid reportedly involved a shootout that ended with Abdeslam being brought into custody. Abdeslam is a brother of one of the suicide attackers in Paris, and he is believed to have driven three suicide bombers to one of the attack sites. "We got him," Belgium's asylum minister said about Abdeslam Friday, per Sky News.

WEYMOUTH (CBS/AP) — A man accused of fatally shooting a Weymouth police officer with the officer’s own gun and an innocent bystander could be arraigned Tuesday on murder charges. Emanuel Lopes, 20, will either be arraigned in his hospital bed or in court for the deaths of Weymouth officer Michael Chesna, a six-year veteran of the force, and 77-year-old Vera Adams, who was shot after the suspect spotted her through a sliding glass door. He was not “medically available” to be arraigned on Monday, as previously suggested, said the Norfolk District Attorney’s Office. Police officers and others lined a procession route Monday afternoon as Chesna’s body was taken from the medical examiner’s office in Boston to a funeral home in Weymouth. On the sixth anniversary of Chesna becoming a police officer, he was posthumously promoted to sergeant. Hundreds attended a vigil for Chesna and Adams at Weymouth High School Monday night. His mother thanked the community for its support, saying, “Michael would be so proud.” Weymouth police were responding to a report of a person driving erratically Sunday morning when they discovered a crashed BMW, said Norfolk District Attorney Michael Morrissey. Chesna was trying to locate the driver of the vehicle, Morrissey said, when he spotted Lopes allegedly vandalizing a home. That’s when Lopes hit Chesna in the head with a rock. Chesna fell to the ground, and Lopes took the officer’s gun and repeatedly shot him in the head and chest, Morrissey said. Another officer who had arrived at the scene shot Lopes in the leg. Lopes then ran off and shot Adams after he spotted her through her glass door. Police initially reported Adams was struck by crossfire, but Monday night, the Norfolk DA’s office said Lopes intentionally shot her. Weymouth Police Chief Richard Grimes described Chesna as a 42-year-old Iraq and Afghanistan war veteran who leaves behind a wife and two young children, ages 4 and 9. Chesna was from Weymouth and graduated in 1994 from Weymouth High School. Monday was the sixth anniversary of the day he was hired to join the Weymouth force. Grimes said he had spoken to Chesna’s mother and she told him that her son joined the military “to open the doors to get in this job.” The department set up a fund for Chesna’s family on Monday, after receiving reports of possible scam phone calls collecting money for the family. Lopes was out of jail on pre-trial probation on a drug charge, according to WBZ’s I-Team. Weymouth Police said he was selling cocaine to a minor and resisted arrest when he was charged in 2017. A judge released Lopes on the condition that he submit to random drug testing. He was due back in court on July 30. Last year, Lopes’ mother took out a restraining order against him, citing severe mental health issues. The I-Team has learned that Lopes is Facebook friends with the daughter of the woman who owns the BMW Lopes crashed on Sunday. The district attorney’s office did not say that the car was stolen. Sources say Lopes uses a different name on Facebook and told officers at the time of his October arrest that he was homeless. (© Copyright 2018 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. The Associated Press contributed to this report.) ||||| The 20-year-old Brockton native accused of executing Weymouth police Officer Michael Chesna with Chesna's service weapon and then killing an innocent woman in the sanctity of her home yesterday had battled with department members and used a rock as a weapon before, according to court documents. The 6-foot, 3-inch Emanuel A. Lopes, 20, has been free on $500 bail since November. Lopes was arrested in Weymouth Oct. 3 on charges of dealing cocaine at a beach party for minors and resisting arrest. He was due to return to Quincy District Court July 30 for a discovery hearing. Lopes was listed in court papers as homeless at the time. Police noted Lopes' size in their report, adding, "We have fought with him before." Lopes attempted to evade arrest for the drug offenses by running, police said. After posting bail, Lopes entered the High Point addiction treatment center in Plymouth on Nov. 25 for what court papers state were "clinical stabilization services." The papers do not disclose when he left. The conditions of Lopes' release included remaining drug- and alcohol-free, but court records indicate he failed to appear for a random drug screening on Feb. 7. Following a pretrial probation violation hearing on April 25, Lopes was permitted to remain free on the same conditions. Lopes had also been arrested by Weymouth police Sept. 4 for allegedly throwing a rock through the bedroom window of a home where he'd been asked to leave earlier. Lopes was charged with property damage and released on pretrial probation. He is accused of picking up a large rock yesterday to disable Chesna, who was pursuing him on foot following a crash, and then murdering the 42-year-old father of two with his department-issued gun. Lopes remains hospitalized this morning with a gunshot wound to his leg he sustained when he allegedly exchanged gunfire with responding officers at Torrey Street and Burton Terrace. The woman killed during the incident was identified earlier today as Vera Adams, 77. Prior to entering High Point last year, he had also sought treatment at the Massachusetts Alcohol and Substance Abuse Center in Bridgewater, court records state. Lopes, who has not yet been arraigned. is charged with two counts of first-degree murder, possessing a firearm without a license, destruction of property, negligent operation of a motor vehicle and leaving the scene of an accident. At the time of yesterday's events he was the subject of an active restraining order taken out by a woman last year with the same name as his own mother. Partially redacted court papers do not specify their relationship; however, the woman testified she had Lopes' name taken off a prior lease at a home they shared with her daughter because she feared him, but that he kept showing up at new apartment. The woman, whose abuse prevention order was issued Oct. 3, 2017, and is set to expire Sept. 28, testified, "I told him several times he couldn't stay there or visit because of his mental health/drug issues. "Emanuel has severe mental health issues and I am afraid of what he is capable of," she wrote in an affidavit, explaining it's why she tried to move away from him.

– A police officer near Boston was killed with his own service weapon Sunday morning, CBS Boston reports. Weymouth Police Department officers were responding to a call about an erratic driver around 7:30am and found a crashed BMW. While searching for the driver, officer Michael Chesna, a married Iraq and Afghanistan veteran with two kids ages 4 and 9, found Emanuel Lopes, 20, allegedly vandalizing a home. Chesna drew his gun and ordered Lopes to stop, but, police say, Lopes threw a rock at Chesna, hitting him in the head and knocking him to the ground. Lopes then allegedly took Chesna's gun and shot him multiple times in the head and chest. Officers fired on Lopes and gave chase as he allegedly continued to shoot, CNN reports. One of Lopes' alleged shots killed Vera Adams, 77, who was sitting inside her home nearby. Lopes had been arrested in September for allegedly throwing a rock through the bedroom window of a home he'd been asked to leave; he was charged with property damage and released on pre-trial probation. He was arrested again in October on charges of dealing cocaine and resisting arrest, the Boston Herald reports; he was freed on bail in November and was due in court July 30 for those charges. He had entered an addiction treatment center sometime after posting bail in November, court papers show, but it's not clear when he left. As a condition of his probation he was required to remain free of drugs and alcohol, but he allegedly failed to appear for a random drug screening in February; at a pre-trial probation violation hearing in April, he was allowed to remain free with the same conditions. He is currently hospitalized for a non-life-threatening gunshot wound to his leg.

Anna Lushchinskaya, from a video showing her attacking, spitting and shouting at fellow subway passengers. What is it with New York lawyers spouting racist rants in public places this year? Another New York lawyer has been caught on video making racially charged comments, as well as assaulting a fellow subway passenger. That video, which has gone viral, comes just a few months after a New York City lawyer named Aaron Schlossberg was caught making a racially charged, anti-immigrant rant. That video, which also went viral, prompted intense blowback and a referral to attorney disciplinary authorities, forcing a public apology from Schlossberg. In the latest incident, multiple videos posted online Wednesday depict a woman on a New York City subway car in Brooklyn shouting expletives, spitting at fellow passengers and specifically attacking another woman on the train by kicking and hitting her with an umbrella and keychain. At one point in the video of the incident, the aggressor—identified in news reports as Anna Lushchinskaya, who uses the last name Lushchinsky professionally—lets out a racial slur typically used to denigrate Asians. Later, Lushchinsky makes another comment that seemed to be racially charged, referring to a male passenger, who has dark skin and describes himself on camera as Dominican, as “Muhammad.” After footage of the subway incident was publicized, news reports emerged that in addition to her behavior during the morning rush hour, Lushchinsky is a law school graduate who was registered as an attorney in New York. According to state bar records, she graduated from New York Law School and was admitted to practice in New York in 2004. It’s unclear from the bar records whether Lushchinsky is actively practicing—her profile on the state bar’s attorney directory lists her registration status as, “due to re-register within 30 days of birthday.” Lushchinsky could not be reached for comment Friday. In the wake of the subway confrontation, Lushchinsky, 40, was arrested and the New York City Police Department’s transit bureau announced on Twitter that she could have faced felony assault charges. However, according to criminal court records in New York, the subway incident resulted in five misdemeanor charges, including menacing with a weapon other than a gun and attempted assault. The video of Lushchinsky called to mind the controversy that swirled around Schlossberg earlier in 2018. In May, a video posted online showed a white man who appeared to be Schlossberg berating the manager at a Fresh Kitchen restaurant in Manhattan. The tirade apparently came after Schlossberg overheard a conversation in Spanish between other Fresh Kitchen employees. Schlossberg accused them of all being “undocumented” and threatened to call U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The viral video of Schlossberg prompted U.S. Rep. Adriano Espaillat, D-New York, to refer the matter to bar disciplinary authorities. Ethics experts said at the time that it wasn’t likely Schlossberg would ultimately face discipline from the bar, and even if he were disciplined, it probably wouldn’t become public. But a different analysis may apply to Lushchinsky—particularly if she is convicted of any of the criminal charges she faces in light of the subway incident. “Whether the lawyer is disciplined will depend on whether he has prior discipline and his defense (‘the meds made me do it,’ for example),” Stephen Gillers, a professor at New York University School of Law, said in May after the Schlossberg incident. “If the conduct leads to a conviction, even a minor one, discipline will be much more likely.” ||||| Footage of a jarring, racially charged attack on an Asian passenger riding the subway in New York has gone viral. The New York Police Department said Anna Lushchinskaya, 40, has been charged with two counts of felony assault after the incident, which occurred during the morning rush hour on Tuesday aboard the D train in Brooklyn. A 24-year-old woman was left bleeding with cuts to her face, the police said. Warning: video contains strong language In the video shared by Juan Ayala on his Twitter account PlatanoMan, Lushchinskaya is seen screaming “f**k off” several times before apparently preparing for her attack by putting her sunglasses in her handbag and tying back her hair. She then lashes out with her umbrella and key chain. After an Asian man intervenes, Lushchinskaya, who is white, screams “f**king chink”, which prompts surrounding passengers to shout the attacker down. The dispute began after the suspect bumped into the complainant, according to the police report. The man who intervened, 30, also sustained scratches, it said. “I'm lucky that she didn't have anything like weapons on her – like knife, gun – because it could have got a lot worse,” the victim, who wishes to remain anonymous, said after the attack, according to New York’s Channel 7 Eyewitness News. “I'm lucky that people were on the train who were helping me, especially the first Asian guy who stood in front of me right away because he wasn't recording,” the report quoted the victim as saying. “He just stood in front of me to help me, because I know other people were recording, but their recording didn't do anything until later on when it escalated.” The video had attracted 4.5 million views on Facebook as of Friday. Some of the more than 1,700 comments included complaints that more people surrounding the attacker did not try to stop the assault. Then she tried me so I had to detain her until the cops showed up ‍♂️ pic.twitter.com/C3UybusAxa — PL∆T∆NO M∆N™ (@PlatanoMan) December 12, 2018 ||||| EMBED More News Videos The victim of a racist and violent subway attack, who did not want to show her face, speaks out about the terrifying incident. Then she tried me so I had to detain her until the cops showed up 🤦🏾‍♂️ pic.twitter.com/C3UybusAxa — PL∆T∆NO M∆N™ (@PlatanoMan) December 12, 2018 A Brooklyn woman is under arrest after allegedly unleashing a violent, racist tirade on another straphanger onboard a D train.It happened Tuesday around 8:30 a.m. on a northbound D train near 9th Avenue in Borough Park, Brooklyn.Police said 40-year-old Anna Lushchinskaya, of Sheepshead Bay, faces felony assault charges after she yelled profanities at a 24-year-old Asian woman and struck her with an umbrella handle and keys.Videos on social media from the incident show what appears to be Lushchinskaya making racist slurs at both the victim and a good Samaritan who intervened, but police have not charged the suspect for bias crimes."Everybody was just looking at each other like, 'Are you sure you just heard that? Did you just hear that?'", said the man who stepped in to help, Juan Ayala, speaking exclusively with Eyewitness News."I'm lucky that she didn't have anything like weapons on her -- like knife, gun -- because it could have got a lot worse," the victim, who wishes to remain anonymous, told Eyewitness News exclusively. "I'm lucky that people were on the train who were helping me, especially the first Asian guy who stood in front of me right away because he wasn't recording. He just stood in front of me to help me, because I know other people were recording, but their recording didn't do anything until later on when it escalated."The dispute began after the suspect bumped into the victim, police said.Juan Ayala held Luschchinskaya for police, but was worried about the victim."It's something that can almost be traumatizing, honestly," said Ayala. "It's not a situation that anybody should be involved in, especially a little girl."The victim suffered lacerations to her face. The good Samaritan also suffered scratches.Lushchinskaya was apprehended at 36th Street and placed under arrest."Coming home, I couldn't breathe," said the victim. "Every time I have to get a train, I'm really careful where I'm watching."A criminal complaint from June shows that Lushchinskaya was charged in June in connection with another D train scuffle. According to the complaint, Lushchinskaya allegedly pepper-sprayed a man on the train at the 36th Street station.---------- ||||| New York (CNN) A Brooklyn woman whose racist, profanity-laced tirade on the New York subway was captured on video this week has been charged with felony assault after she struck a fellow passenger, authorities said. The dispute between Anna Lushchinskaya, a 40-year-old white woman, and the 24-year-old passenger, a woman of Asian descent, began after Lushchinskaya bumped into the woman early Tuesday, the New York Police Department told CNN. Lushchinskaya yelled profanities at the victim on the northbound D train, hitting her with an umbrella and keys, the NYPD said. On video captured by witnesses, Lushchinskaya can be heard calling the woman a racial slur. Lushchinskaya was apprehended at the 36th Street Station and arrested, the NYPD said. CNN could not reach Lushchinskaya or her attorneys for comment Friday. Lushchinskaya was arraigned in Kings County Criminal Court following the incident, according to Brooklyn District Attorney spokesperson Oren Yaniv. She pleaded not guilty and posted $1,000 cash bond, according to court records. She is due back in court January 22. The victim suffered cuts to her face, the NYPD said. She told CNN affiliate WABC, which said she wanted to remain anonymous, that she was grateful people intervened. A 30-year old good Samaritan suffered scratches when he intervened, the NYPD said. Several subway riders captured the tirade on video. The incident has since been viewed by millions of people on social media. The video shows the woman yelling profanities at the victim and calling another rider "retarded." "F*** off," Lushchinskaya allegedly said several times before striking the victim with her hand. She then took off her sunglasses and gloves, pulled her hair back and took her umbrella and keys from her bag, according to the video. Then, she began kicking the woman, who defended herself. Passengers intervened, trying to restrain Lushchinskaya, and told her to stop. One person threatened to call the police. The video shows Lushchinskaya striking the woman several times with her umbrella and her keys and again kicking her. "She's not even fighting you back," one person is heard saying. At least two subway riders tried to wrestle the umbrella away. Lushchinskaya is seen spitting in the direction of the victim before yelling more profanity and a racial slur. Juan Ayala, who was filming the incident, said he decided to intervene, but Lushchinskaya lashed out at him. A video posted by another user shows Ayala talking to Lushchinskaya. "Do not spit at me," Ayala says in the video, to which Lushchinskaya replies, "What are you, her attorney? F***ing Mohammed." The subway car erupts in a gasp and Ayala gives his reply: "What? B****, I'm Dominican!" Fellow subway riders protested. "Your white privilege ain't working over here," one man is heard saying. The victim told WABC she felt lucky the woman didn't have a weapon like a gun or a knife "because it could have got a lot worse." "I'm lucky that people were on the train who were helping me, especially the first Asian guy who stood in front of me right away because he wasn't recording. He just stood in front of me to help me, because I know other people were recording, but their recording didn't do anything until later on when it escalated," she said. This is Lushchinskaya's second arrest this year for a subway altercation -- both took place at the 36th Street Station in Brooklyn. In June, she was arrested for allegedly pepper spraying a man and woman, according to DCPI detective Sophia Mason. Both were Hispanic. She was charged with harassment, menacing with a weapon and attempted assault.

– What's up with New York lawyers? Months after one was caught on video spewing anti-immigrant rhetoric in a restaurant, another flung racist insults on the subway and apparently assaulted a woman of Asian descent. Anna Lushchinskaya, 40, shouted profanities at a 24-year-old Tuesday after bumping into her on the northbound D train—then is seen assaulting her with keys and an umbrella, CNN reports. Lushchinskaya unleashed an obscenity meant to denigrate Asians, per the South China Morning Post, then fired off an anti-Middle Eastern insult at a man who intervened. "What?" he responds. "...I'm Dominican!" A good Samaritan who intervened got scratched up, while the female victim walked away with facial lacerations: "I'm lucky that she didn't have anything like weapons on her—like knife, gun—because it could have got a lot worse," she tells WABC-TV. "I'm lucky that people were on the train who were helping me, especially the first Asian guy who stood in front of me right away because he wasn't recording." As for Lushchinskaya, she was arrested and charged with five misdemeanors, including attempted assault and menacing with a weapon other than a gun, Law.com reports. See videos of the incident here and here, but be warned, it's ugly. (See how New Yorkers dealt with the first ranting lawyer.)

Now that reason has finally been hurled out of American politics, we can get down to the real business of getting more reality TV stars into the White House. And what better place to start than last weekend’s gathering of alt-right luminaries in Washington DC? A delightful Saturday night out, where the keynote speaker, in the words of the New York Times, “railed against Jews and, with a smile, quoted Nazi propaganda in the original German.” And who better to represent them than early noughties MTV darling and flat-earth truther, Tila Tequila? She’s a perfect figure to bang the alt-right‘s drum – just hear what she said about Jews six months ago: “There are only two things in this world, for which I would gladly sacrifice my own life; the destruction of all Jews and preservation of the white race.” So it made perfect sense that the star of Tila Tequila’s A Shot of Love and Tila Tequila’s A Shot at Love II would be in attendance at the alt-right’s coming out conference, and tweeting a photo of herself giving a Nazi salute with the words: “Seig [sic] heil!” Classic Tila! Luckily, we got hold of her as she was arriving at the airport to ask her a bit more. Tila Tequila, how’s it going? That picture of you doing the Nazi salute – what’s that all about? Well, obviously, we were doing the Roman salute. We were just trolling around. Everyone was making such a big deal about this event, and all these people were Nazis or whatever. I’m obviously not white and I think it’s so funny to get a rise out of people who are so easily triggered by things like that. I like to be a bit more fun. And a lot of people are missing out on that point. We’re actually preserving the freedom to be able to speak online and do these things, that’s important. Just as protesters have the right to protest, we have the right to things like that. It’s important to preserve these rights. Is that the reasoning behind your cover photo on Twitter? That was a long time ago, 2013. I honestly think it’s not even big deal. People take it way too seriously. It makes my job so much more fun and easier, haha! The more people give me crap for it the more I’m going to keep doing stuff like this. There wouldn’t be a movement like this without them. You’ve said a lot about Jews in the past – what’s the deal? Well, half and half is trolling. But why do we focus on Israel? You know, it’s kind of weird. Why is the entire entertainment industry owned by them, you know? It’s biased, in a sense. It’s not healthy for a society to have a lot… If anything, if I feel like they are more like the Nazis! They’re running everything – propaganda, news, all kinds of stuff. Anyone who speak outs against them, you get laughed at, you get banned and blocked. It’s not cool at all. It’s very toxic for a society. You don’t really believe that though – you sound like a nice person on the phone. Me? Yeah – why the hate? Because I’ve seen the inside of that world. It’s all run by one group of people. It’s like they’re the ones bullying everyone else while claiming to be victims. It’s psychological warfare, I believe. It’s not healthy. It’s very toxic for a society. It needs to be broken down a little bit. Who’s on your “celebrity sacrifice list?” All the people who at first were kind of anti-Trump. Now a lot of them are trying to come back on the Trump Train. They want to be back in. They’re very fake. I don’t respect them. They are very few of them that I respect, if that. They’re very brainwashed, they’re not original, they walk around in this false reality bubble of theirs, I know how it is – I used to live there. They think everything they say goes. They were so cocky, just because Hillary had a lot of media supporters. I was very happy to see them all crying when Hillary didn’t win. What would you like to see happen to America’s Jews? I don’t have a problem with people, I have friends who are Jewish. I have friends of all kinds of races, whatever, I have them all. I just mean when they become a corporation, like a machine, things like that, they need to be broken down. They need to be replaced. It needs to bring on a more enlightened period. Tell me about the alt-right, how long have you been involved in it? It was a natural progress leading towards that direction. I’ve been in Hollywood my whole life, I’ve lived through that machine. At the end of it, I realized it wasn’t something I enjoyed anymore. I woke up and it lead me straight into this. You must be so excited about Trump winning the election. When he first announced he was running for President, everyone was laughing at him. I was one of the first public people to come out and support him. I got so much shit for it, oh my gosh. Especially last summer when all that happened. But I never wavered in that belief. We really helped lead him into presidency, it really worked. What are you excited to see him get started on? There needs to be balance in everything in life. For a very long time, it’s been open borders. People are freaking out about it, but it’s alright to have a little break. We need to balance it, it’s not forever. But a moment in time to pause it a little bit is fine. Let us recuperate a little bit over a year. A lot of people are saying registering Muslims under Trump’s plan is a lot like Nazi Germany registering Jews – what do you think? I don’t think so. People are making it more extreme than it is. This is America first, and it remains so. There’s a time and a place for everything, and I think it’s fine to want to preserve cultures and stuff. You like Hitler – what could Trump learn from him? It’s important right now to focus on nationalizing agriculture and having people start growing their own fruits and veggies and start up the communities again. That would really help rebuild the local communities back up. That would help a lot. To focus on here. What about these hate crimes that have seen a surge following the election? Honestly, because I know the guys in the alt-right, we personally wouldn’t do stuff like that. If anything it might be the other people pretending to be them, to start problems. We’re the ones being chased down the streets. We left the event on Saturday and there were people protesting outside. We’re not the ones doing that, harassing people. I personally feel like they’re acting more like fascists than we are? Is the alt-right anti-Semitic? There are factions, I think that it depends on who it is. For the most part, people don’t have an issue with that. It’s similar to what I’m saying – it’s more of a problem with the dogma thing and how it needs to be taken down. It’s not a people kind of thing, you know? Umm. Change is good, change is good! I have to ask – you think the earth is flat. Are there other flat planets, or is it just ours that special? There could be others. But for now, this is just like the earth’s snow globe. I think it’s like the mirror world, where it’s not really the real world, but the people don’t really know that. I left the fake world in like 2014, and yeah, changed over to this one. It’s kind of like a little sandbox to play in. That’s why things can get a little quirky, weird out here. It’s like the alternate universe, haha! Excellent. Tila Tequila, let’s do some quick fire questions. Jews or juice? Juice. Do you miss MySpace? I don’t miss it, because it’s still my space, this is all my space, I’m still living in it. It’s true. Would you serve in a Trump administration? Absolutely. If Trump asked you to perform at his inauguration, what would you sing? I Love You. Are Beyonce and Jay Z in the Illuminati? No, I’d say they’re more like puppets. Of who? Yeah. Yeah? They’re…yeah, whatever. What’s the best color of shirt, blackshirt or brownshirt? Brownshirt! Thanks, Tila Tequila. @hshukman ||||| This screenshot was taken Monday from a Twitter account that has since been suspended. A restaurant in Northwest Washington issued an apology Monday after hosting an alt-right, white nationalist event whose participants offered praise of Adolf Hitler. [Protesters try to confront white nationalists in D.C. for conference] The dinner, held Friday at Maggiano’s Little Italy in Friendship Heights, was sponsored by the National Policy Institute, a white nationalist organization that supported President-elect Donald Trump in the election and held a conference in the District to celebrate his victory. Protesters tried to confront those attending the dinner Friday, but were forced out by police. Maggiano's Little Italy in Friendship Height issued an apology after the white nationalist group, National Policy Institute, hosted a dinner there on Nov. 18. Maggiano's said "the reservation was made under a different name" and they didn't know anything about the patrons. (WUSA) On Monday, Maggiano’s apologized, saying that it was “the inadvertent site” of the protest and that it closed the restaurant for the safety of its staff and guests. “This was a last minute booking made Friday afternoon, and the reservation was made under a different name, therefore we were not aware that NPI was dining with us or what the group represents,” Steve Provost, the president of the 51-restaurant chain, said in a statement posted to Facebook. The statement also referred to a tweet sent by “an attendee . . . in which she made a ‘Sieg Heil salute’ in support of Hitler and white supremacy.” “This expression of support of Hitler is extremely offensive to us, as our restaurant is home to Teammates and Guests of every race, religion and cultural background,” the statement said. [What is the alt-right?] Brinker International, the Texas-based company that owns the Maggiano’s chain, referred questions about the incident to Provost. Hundreds rallied in Washington Saturday, Nov. 20, to protest gathering of white nationalists celebrating President-elect Donald Trump's victory, according to media reports. (Reuters) The statement said Maggiano’s would donate $10,000, the profit from its Friday restaurant sales, to the D.C. office of the Anti-Defamation League, “which for decades has been working to bring people together in peace and understanding.” Read more: Donald Trump first swept into the nation’s capital 40 years ago. It didn’t go well. Fake news writers need to meet the real reporters who die trying to do their jobs ||||| Updated 4:15 p.m. If someone told you that reality star Tila Tequila would give the Heil Hitler salute at a Friendship Heights station Maggiano's Little Italy restaurant, would you believe them? Or would you think such a scene could only happen in some kind of sick fever dream. Well, see below. It happened Friday night. Maybe you remember Tequila from her show A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila. Maybe you don't. Let us catch you up. Tequila has since authored an article titled, "Why I Sympathize with Hitler: Part I." She's also unapologetically tweeted: "Women who complain about Trump saying, "Grab her by the pussy!" Are retards because I love getting grabbed by the pussy! Lmao! I just recruited some Hitler Youth people for the #AltRight "I noticed all the protestors tonight were really ugly. No wonder they're so angry! So glad I'm beautiful!" The protestors Tequila mentions were related to her visit to D.C. this weekend where she participated in a National Policy Institute conference, as reported by The Daily Beast. Members of the group are known to be white-nationalists. Before Saturday's conference held at the Ronald Reagan Building, some attendees headed to Maggiano's, which hosted a private banquet dinner for the group Friday night. Protesters showed up in droves the next day, even causing the restaurant to close. Maggiano's, a family-style Italian restaurant with three local locations, issued an apology today on Facebook. It reads: On Friday night, Maggiano’s in Friendship Heights was the inadvertent site of a protest that caused us to close our restaurant to protect the safety of our Teammates and Guests. The protesters were upset because of a banquet we were hosting for a group called the National Policy Institute (NPI). This was a last minute booking made Friday afternoon, and the reservation was made under a different name, therefore we were not aware that NPI was dining with us or what the group represents. After the event, an attendee sent a tweet in which she made a “Sieg Heil salute” in support of Hitler and white supremacy. This expression of support of Hitler is extremely offensive to us, as our restaurant is home to Teammates and Guests of every race, religion and cultural background. We want to sincerely apologize to the community of Friendship Heights for inadvertently hosting this meeting, which resulted in hateful sentiment. We want you to know that at the suggestion of one of our Guests, we are donating the profits from our restaurant sales on Friday, $10,000, to the DC office of the Anti-Defamation League, which for decades has been working to bring people together in peace and understanding. The above was the second apology attempt for Maggiano's Little Italy. Its initial post, which has since been deleted, said "we were the inadvertent site of a protest that disrupted our restaurant." Later in the post, it cited other events the restaurant has hosted. "We hosted Malia Obama's high school graduation party, a community breakfast meeting for Donald Trump in Chicago, and a private dinner for Bernie Sanders in Philadelphia." As if neo-Nazis are somehow as benign as Bernie bros. The post, authored by a managing parter named Jennifer concludes: "We are open to the public and serve delicious food to guests who come from all walks of life. The only party we favor is the one which serves lasagna with marinara sauce and a good red wine." Thanks to tipster "Lexie_Gruber" for screen-grabbing the initial post.

– A private banquet dinner, a reality-TV star, and a tweet showing a Nazi salute have placed a DC Italian restaurant in the center of controversy. Maggiano's Little Italy hosted a dinner Friday for a group that had a conference in DC the next day, apparently without knowing the group was the National Policy Institute, known for its white nationalist members, Washington City Paper and the Washington Post report. How the restaurant became clued in: a protest against NPI that formed at the eatery, followed by dinner attendee Tila Tequila sending out a tweet showing herself and two men performing the Nazi salute along with the caption "Seig [sic] heil!" Tequila's Twitter account was suspended Monday, Twitter confirmed to BuzzFeed, though it didn't elaborate. Maggiano's posted on Facebook Monday the dinner had been a "last minute booking" and that NPI had used a different name on the reservation. The restaurant also railed against Tequila's tweet, saying, "This expression of support of Hitler is extremely offensive to us, as our restaurant is home to Teammates and Guests of every race, religion, and cultural background." It says it's donating all profits from Friday's sales—$10,000—to DC's Anti-Defamation League. The Tab caught up to Tequila at the airport, where she claimed she and her photo mates were "just trolling everyone," adding, "I think it's so funny to get a rise out of people who are so easily triggered by things like that."

Mayor Dario Nardella announced the initiative on Wednesday morning, and at lunchtime the first cleanings took place. "From today, we'll be experimenting with a very simple measure: pouring water over the church steps to clean the spaces, and hopefully discourage people from eating, drinking and making a mess there," Nardella told reporters. "If tourists want to sit there, they'll get wet," he said. "Florence is full of cafes with outdoor seating, tables, and benches. The churches aren't restaurants; they are religious and cultural sites." The first places to get the treatment were the areas by the Basilica of Santa Croce and Santo Spirito church. Nardella said that after the initial "experiment", city authorities would evaluate whether the project should be extended to other areas, such as pavements. Tourists outside the Santa Croce basilica. Photo: Alberto Pizzoli/AFP Some locals took to social media to criticize the move, with some complaining that it would deter tourists from the city or that it could be seen as elitist, in targeting those who choose to eat takeaway food rather than at pricey restaurants. Others pointed out that in the current 30C heat, picnickers might not mind being showered with water. #Nardella vuol bagnare i gradini delle chiese per impedire ai turisti di sedersi a mangiare. Orrore, la plebaglia che non va al ristorante. — FrauFrau (@Stefy_1987) May 31, 2017 "Nardella wants to soak the steps of churches to stop tourists from sitting down to eat. What horror, the rabble that doesn't go to restaurants." In the afternoon, Nardella clarified the nature of the project, saying that the city would not be using "water cannons" on tourists, but simply cleaning church steps and pavements during lunchtime. He further emphasized that the city was "in no way against tourists, but against those who do not respect Florence". Nardella ruled out the possibility of introducing fines against those who eat in historic areas - as is the case in Rome's recently restored Spanish Steps, for example, where those who flout the ban on picnicking have found themselves hit with hefty fines. "We are using a kinder measure, but one we believe is just as effective," he said. The battle to protect Italy's ancient heritage from problems caused by mass tourism has become a hot topic over recent years. READ MORE: In Florence, food has been a key issue, and the city has passed regulations ordering new restaurants in the historic centre to sell only food which is at least 70 percent locally sourced. Nardella also blocked an application from McDonald's to open a restaurant in the main square after a social media campaign by locals, a move which prompted the fast food chain to threaten legal action against the city. The lagoon city of Venice in April introduced a slew of radical measures aimed at tackling overcrowding, from live people-counters to limits on tourist accommodation and promotion of lesser-explored areas. Two weeks later, the council also banned any new takeaway food shops from opening in the historic centre, in a bid at cutting down on littering. Only artisanal gelaterias were exempt from the ban. ||||| Dario Nardella to discourage people from ‘camping out’ by hosing down steps of Basilica of Santa Croce and other sites The mayor of Florence has told tourists they will “get wet” if they settle down for lunch on the steps of some of the city’s prized churches as he is turning to hosepipes to restore “decorum” among visitors to the Renaissance city. The steps of the Basilica of Santa Croce, the burial place of Michelangelo, will be the first to be hosed down, taking place at about lunchtime, in order to stop visitors from eating on them, followed by the Chiesa di Santo Spirito. McDonald's claims $20m from Florence over piazza restaurant rebuff Read more “We have nothing against tourists. We know that they are a great resource for our city,” the mayor, Dario Nardella, told The Guardian. “But there is a problem with respecting decorum. The majority of visitors are respectful and elegant. But there has been an increase among those who don’t respect our cultural heritage, who sit down on church steps, eat their food and leave rubbish strewn on them.” The streets of the city’s historic centre, a Unesco world heritage site, will also be hosed down as part of what will initially be an experiment to see if tourists can be discouraged from eating lunch on the steps. Nardella directed the blame mostly at day-trippers, such as those on cruise itineraries, who “come for just a few hours”. He said: “It’s not that eating a sandwich while walking along the street is banned or that people can’t sit down at other times. “We want to put people off from camping out. If they sit down, they’ll get wet. Instead of imposing fines, we thought this measure was more elegant.” The measure is one of several implemented by Nardella in a city that attracts about 12 million tourists a year since he became mayor in 2014. Concerned about the spread of fast-food outlets catering to backpackers, he introduced regulations in January last year stipulating that restaurants in the centre use products that were typical of the city and the Tuscany region. He also blocked an application by McDonald’s to open an outlet in the historic Piazza del Duomo, prompting the US chain to seek €17.8m (£15.5m) in damages. ||||| Fed up with hordes of tourists snacking on the steps of Renaissance churches and lounging in the streets, the mayor of Florence has come up with a radical approach — hose down the surfaces so they are too wet to sit on. With few public benches in the city centre, visitors sprawl wherever they can find space, munching panini and licking ice creams on street kerbs and the steps of imposing basilicas such as Santo Spirito and Santa Croce. The problem will only get worse as the peak tourist season of summer approaches. Dario Nardella, the mayor, has had enough and has decided from today to deploy council workers armed with high-pressure hoses around the city centre.

– The mayor of Florence says some tourists have no "decorum" these days—something he hopes to fix with a water hose. Mayor Dario Nardella says a small number of the Italian city's 12 million annual tourists—particularly day-trippers from cruise ships—have taken to "camping out" on church steps at lunchtime. They "sit down on church steps, eat their food, and leave rubbish strewn on them," with no respect for "our cultural heritage," Nardella tells the Guardian. He says city officials thought about handing out fines to such tourists, but they decided instead to get creative. The plan: Use water hoses to soak church steps. That way, if tourists sit down, "they'll get wet," Nardella said in announcing the strategy Wednesday. Shortly after the announcement, the steps of both the Basilica of Santa Croce and the Chiesa di Santo Spirito were doused. In the future, this will be a daily occurrence, reports the Telegraph. "Instead of imposing fines, we thought this measure was more elegant," Nardella tells the Guardian, adding other areas might eventually get a wash as well. While some social media users joked that a free shower might be nice in the heat of summer, others have accused city officials of being "elitist" in targeting tourists who choose not to eat in Florence's restaurants, per the Local. Nardella counters that the city has plenty of outdoor seating for tourists. Churches, however, are no place for a picnic, he says. (Barcelona has an issue with its tourists, too.)

Edvard Munch/Sotheby’s Auction House, via Associated Press A version of Edvard Munch’s “The Scream,” one of the most recognizable images in art history, sold at Sotheby’s on Wednesday night for just under $120 million, the most ever paid for an artwork at auction. Five bidders competed for the work, which sold to a telephone bidder. Munch made four versions of “The Scream,” three of which are now in Norwegian museums; the one that sold on Wednesday, a pastel on board from 1895, was the only one still in private hands. It was sold by Petter Olsen, a Norwegian businessman and shipping heir whose father was a friend, neighbor and patron of the artist. “The Scream” has been reproduced endlessly in popular culture in recent decades, making it nearly as famous as the Mona Lisa. ||||| One of the art world's most recognizable images _ Edvard Munch's "The Scream" _ sold Wednesday for a record $119,922,500 at auction in New York City. FILE - This undated photo provided by Sotheby's shows "The Scream" by Norwegian painter Edvard Munch. The work, which dates from 1895 and is one of four versions of the composition, will lead Sotheby's... (Associated Press) The 1895 artwork _ a modern symbol of human anxiety _ was sold at Sotheby's. The price includes the buyer's premium. The image of a man holding his head and screaming under a streaked, blood-red sky is one of four versions by the Norwegian expressionist painter. The auctioned piece at Sotheby's is the only one left in private hands. The previous record for an artwork sold at auction was $106.5 million for Picasso's "Nude, Green Leaves, and Bust," sold by Christie's in 2010. The image has become part of pop culture, "used by everyone from Warhol to Hollywood to cartoons to teacups and T-shirts," said Michael Frahm of the London-based art advisory service firm Frahm Ltd. "Together with the Mona Lisa, it's the most famous and recognized image in art history," he added. Sotheby's said its pastel-on-board version of "The Scream" is the most colorful and vibrant of the four and the only version whose frame was hand-painted by the artist to include his poem, detailing the work's inspiration. In the poem, Munch described himself "shivering with anxiety" and said he felt "the great scream in nature." Norwegian businessman Petter Olsen, whose father was a friend and patron of the artist, said he sold the piece because he felt "the moment has come to offer the rest of the world the chance to own and appreciate this remarkable work." Proceeds from the sale will go toward the establishment of a new museum, art center and hotel in Hvitsten, Norway, where Olsen's father and Munch were neighbors. The director of the National Museum in Oslo, Audun Eckhoff, says Norwegian authorities approved the Munch sale since the other versions of the composition are in Norwegian museums. One version is owned by the National Museum and two others by the Munch Museum, also in Oslo. Sotheby's said a total of eight works have sold for $80 million or more at auction. Only two other works besides Picasso's "Nude, Green Leaves, and Bust" have sold for more than $100 million at auction. Those are Picasso's "Boy With a Pipe (The Young Apprentice)" for $104.1 million in 2004 and Alberto Giacometti's "Walking Man I" for $104.3 million in 2010. ___ Online: http://www.sothebys.com

– The experts thought Edvard Munch's The Scream would bring in a princely sum, but not this much: $119.9 million. That's the most ever paid for a painting at auction, reports the New York Times. (The previous record was $106.5 million for a Picasso, notes AP.) No word yet on who bought the 1895 painting at Sotheby's. Five bidders were in contention, and the winning bid came via the telephone.

Katie Couric could announce as early as Monday a move to ABC that would include a syndicated daytime talk show and contributions to ABC News, a person familiar with the negotiations tells TheWrap. Though the deal is not complete, it is close, and should be announced at some point next week if not Monday, the person told TheWrap. The deal is expected to bring Couric to daytime in fall 2012, at a time when daytime programming is in flux. Also Read: Scott Pelley Replacing Couric at CBS 'Evening News' Couric is wasting no time: Her current, 5-year contract with CBS ends this weekend. Scott Pelley will take her place as the anchor of "CBS Evening News" on Monday, and an announcement then could upstage his debut. Couric had narrowed her choices to remaining with CBS or going to ABC after talking to both networks, as well as CNN and NBC. She formerly hosted NBC's "Today," with Matt Lauer, who recently said the two were not destined to reunite on a new show. Also Read: Matt Lauer: Katie Couric Pairing 'Not Going to Happen' Oprah Winfrey's exit from the airwaves likely leaves an opening for new daytime personalities, including Anderson Cooper, whose show will debut in fall, and now Couric. The daytime shake-up also includes the cancellations of two beloved ABC soaps, "One Life to Live" and "All My Children," which ABC will replace with self-improvement-themed reality shows. Soap fans have expressed concerns that Couric's show could force the cancellation of "General Hospital," another much-loved soap. The expected announcement was first reported by The Wall Street Journal. ||||| Article Excerpt ABC is placing a big bet on Katie Couric to fill Oprah Winfrey's shoes. The Walt Disney Co. network is putting the finishing touches on a deal with the former "Today" co-anchor for a syndicated talk show that draws on the template popularized by Ms. Winfrey, and is likely to announce the new program as early as Monday, according to people familiar with the negotiations. Ms. Couric's new job would bring one of TV's most recognized faces to daytime-TV as big turnover—notably Ms. Winfrey's exit—is throwing audience loyalties up for grabs. It caps months of talks with multiple media companies, ...

– Katie Couric will have a syndicated daytime show on ABC sometime around the fall of 2012, the Wall Street Journal reports. The two sides are expected to announce the deal as early as Monday. A source tells the newspaper it will be "Oprah-esque," though the exact format is still under discussion. One sign of Couric's clout: She will reportedly own the show and thus reap bigger profits. The Wrap also has the deal close, noting that Couric's contract with CBS officially ends this weekend. Check out her CBS Evening News sign-off here.

NEW PORT RICHEY, Fla. (AP) — A Florida woman trying to get pregnant via artificial insemination called police because she feared the thermos she was using to store sperm and dry ice might explode. Felicia Nevins sought the Pasco County Sheriff's Office help after she forgot to remove a rubber O-ring from the container. The next thing Nevins knew, the incident was all over social media. That's because the sheriff's office posted details on Facebook. Nevins told the Tampa Bay Times (https://tinyurl.com/n39d942 ) she was upset because the post was not removed Friday. Nevins was not identified by name but she said she was mortified that enough information was posted for her to be identified. The sheriff's office defended its action, saying it was important to provide the type of safety information contained in the post. ||||| NEW PORT RICHEY — Felicia Nevins and her husband have been trying to conceive a child for three years now. They decided to try artificial insemination — something she had yet to tell her own family about. But now, she said, everyone knows — thanks to the Pasco County Sheriff's Office. "I didn't want any of this," she said. The Sheriff's Office wrote on its official Facebook about a recent mishap she had while trying to store sperm in a thermos with dry ice. By forgetting to remove a rubber O-ring, the container could have exploded. Nevins said she called the Sheriff's Office non-emergency line for help at 6 p.m. Wednesday. A deputy and firefighters arrived, she said, took the thermos away and safely opened it. They were kind, she said, and left without telling her nosy neighbors what happened. "The officer told them it was a private matter," Nevins said, "and he treated it as a private matter." The Sheriff's Office, she complained, did not. The agency on Thursday posted a short explanation of what happened on its Facebook page using a stock photo of a woman with a disgusted expression. The post didn't use Nevins' name, but she said there were enough details — her age, location and time of the incident — for reporters and curious citizens to figure out who she was by searching public records. That night, a TV news crew appeared on her doorstep with a camera. She spoke to them, but declined to identify herself. She said she spoke to the Tampa Bay Times on the record Friday because her name is "already out there." The sheriff's Facebook post was shared more than 200 times by Friday. The Pasco County Sheriff's Office has said it's all part of its social media strategy. "We attempt to show every day what our officers see in calls and we are a very open agency about the types of calls we see each day," Pasco Sheriff Chris Nocco said in a statement. "This was a very unique call faced by our officers as well as Pasco fire fighters ... make no mistake, this was a potentially dangerous situation ... we are grateful that no damage was done." The Sheriff's Office later released this statement: "As unusual as this situation was, it was important to provide this type of safety information contained in the post. We always encourage everyone to contact us if they find themselves in a position where they need help. "In these types of situations, we never publicly release names or identifying information. Unfortunately, this information was obtained through a public records request of our reports and was published by the media." Nevins, 26, said she was upset the post was not removed Friday. A sheriff's spokeswoman said the agency doesn't delete comments on social media. The comments on this Facebook post were, as usual, unkind. Some wrote that if Nevins can't follow directions, she shouldn't have a baby. Others made fun of what happened and accused her of wanting money from the county. Others were demeaning. Many also sided with her, and wrote that the post should be removed. "All I'm trying to do is become a mother and I'm being berated for it," Nevins said. Social media has become another tool for law enforcement to announce news and seek information about crimes. The Pasco County Sheriff's Office is the most prolific bay area law enforcement agency on social media, often posting body camera footage of deputies arresting people and even nightly warning for folks to lock their doors after 9 p.m. The Pasco agency has just over 87,000 followers on Facebook — more than the followers of the Pinellas and Hillsborough Sheriff's Offices combined. But Pasco's social media presence has come with controversy. In November, some accused the agency of crossing the line when it posted a photo to Facebook and Twitter of a man in handcuffs, weeping, as deputies held his head back by grabbing his dreadlocks. The post was entitled: "SAD CRIMINAL OF THE DAY." READ MORE: As its social media grows, Pasco Sheriff's Office posts photo of man crying after his arrest The Pasco County Sheriff's Office has gained 10,000 followers since then. Nevins said the agency could have used social media to warn people about the dangers of dry ice without including details of her personal life — which also resulted in medical information being disclosed. Now she said she feels ashamed and embarrassed. "I don't see the comedy in it," she said. All she can do about is unfollow the Pasco County Sheriff's Office on Facebook: "I'm not going to support a Sheriff's Office that thinks it's okay to belittle their community." Contact Sara DiNatale at [email protected] Follow @sara_dinatale.

– A Florida woman trying to get pregnant via artificial insemination called police because she feared the thermos she was using to store sperm and dry ice might explode. Felicia Nevins sought the Pasco County Sheriff's Office's help after she forgot to remove a rubber O-ring from the container, the AP reports—and the next thing Nevins knew, the incident was all over social media. That's because the sheriff's office posted details on Facebook. Per the Tampa Bay Times, the 26-year-old called the cops Wednesday evening, and a deputy and firefighters showed up. They took the thermos and managed to get it open without incident, and Nevins said she appreciated that they didn't reveal the purpose of their visit to her curious neighbors. However, the sheriff's office posted a description of the house call on Facebook, along with a stock photo of a woman looking repulsed. Nevins says that even though she wasn't identified by name, there was enough information about her, including her age and location, for people to put two and two together after sifting through public records. Nevins, who has been trying to conceive a child with her husband for three years, told the Times she was upset because the post had not been removed as of Friday (it's still up as of Monday morning). "I didn't want any of this," she notes. The sheriff's office defended its decision, saying it was important to provide the type of safety information in the post. "Make no mistake, this was a potentially dangerous situation," a statement by Pasco Sheriff Chris Nocco noted.

A reliable predictor for the Oscars gives two top awards to Ben Affleck's Iran hostage crisis film. Ben Affleck accepts the Best Director Award for 'Argo' at the 18th Annual Critics' Choice Movie Awards, held at Barker Hangar in Santa Monica, Calif. (Photo: Kevin Winter, Getty Images) Story Highlights Ben Affleck starts off with a joke and thanks 'academy' Jennifer Lawrence wins in two actress categories Daniel Day-Lewis is best actor winner SANTA MONICA, Calif. -- Ben Affleck may have been snubbed by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on Thursday morning when Oscar nominations were announced, but things were looking up Thursday night when he took home the Critics' Choice award for best director for Argo. "I would like to thank the academy... I'm kidding, I'm kidding. This is the one that counts," said a grinning Affleck upon accepting the award. Making his night even better: Argo -- which did receive a best picture Oscar nomination -- took home the Critics' Choice award for best picture. The Critics' Choice Awards, always a reliable predictor for the Academy Awards, collided right into them on Thursday, with an especially early round of Oscar nominations taking place at the crack of dawn. The result? A host of extra-happy stars walking the Critics' Choice red carpet with an Oscar glow, like Jessica Chastain, Daniel Day-Lewis, Anne Hathaway, Sally Field, Tommy Lee Jones and Jennifer Lawrence. "Talk to me in a month, but right now I'm raring to go," said Lawrence, who nabbed a best actress Oscar nomination, in high spirits on the red carpet. Lawrence went on to win the Critics' Choice award for both best actress in an action movie (The Hunger Games) and later best comedic actress (Silver Linings Playbook). "Seriously, I love critics," said Lawrence upon accepting her second award of the evening. She was one of a few stars who had such a successful year, they were double-teaming it. New dad Matthew McConaughey was nominated for best supporting actor for Magic Mike, but was also there to support his indie comedy, Bernie. McConaughey says there's something to be learned from the critics. "A couple of years ago I went through and had some help with my assistants. I said, 'Let's gather up every bad review that's ever been written about me.' And it was a thick book!" said McConaughey. "But it turned out to be at first hard to read, but then all of a sudden it became really funny. And I started to find some very constructive criticism in there." WINNERS: The full list from the Critics' Choice Awards This year, the 18th annual Critics' Choice Awards was hosted by Sam Rubin, and found a new physical home, at the Barker Hangar in chilly Santa Monica, as well as a new televised one, with a switch from VH1 to the CW. The awards, chosen by the Broadcast Film Critics Association, did raise the question: Does this crop of stars cop to reading their own reviews? "I wish I could say I didn't," said Les Miserables actor Eddie Remayne. But when it comes to theater reviews, "they do tend to affect how I keep performing...but on film you're more distanced from it, it's out of your hands." "I do read my reviews," said director and Zero Dark Thirty actor Mark Duplass on the red carpet before the show. "I would love to be a big man and not need the validation, but I do. If it's good, I keep reading, and if it's bad, I stop." The reviews, however, don't influence his choices. "People tell me to stop using my shaky cameras, and I've been doing it for years." Best actress nominee Marion Cotillard stays away from reading her reviews. "I'm much harder with myself than any critic," she said. "Trust me." Naomi Watts, who said she was "wearing lots of good makeup" to keep her from looking tired after the early morning, tries to avoid reviews -- but sometimes it's inevitable. "Your agent or manager or publicist usually sends you some reviews, but they're usually the good ones," she said. The Avengers writer Joss Whedon said he's selective when it comes to checking out what the critics have to say. "I don't read them all. Some of my friends call and say, 'Don't read this review or that review,' but I do think they're useful. Usually I can tell when they're just being mean or they're just pissing on the genre." A genre that might one day include a movie based on the Black Widow, played in Avengers by Scarlett Johansson. "I'm for it. I want her to get a movie. I pitch it (all the time)." He said it's timely, especially after female protagonists have begun to dominate the box office, a la Hunger Games. "I think conversations are very different than they were last April. Prior to that the only references were Elektra and Catwoman." Speaking of strong females, Hathaway took home one of the night's first awards: best supporting actress for her turn as Fantine in Les Miserables -- but did the people behind the statuettes make a mistake? "Thank you," said Hathaway upon accepting her award. "This is a bittersweet moment for me. I have this award but you spelled my name wrong. It is with an "e." ... Sorry. Don't mean to be gauche." A name spelling or not, it was the perfect cap to a day that began with an Oscar nomination for the 30-year-old actress. Co-star Redmayne said he had been in touch with his Les Mis co-stars Hathaway and Hugh Jackman, who snagged an Oscar nom for best actor. "I've been e-mailing with Annie and Hugh (Jackman) all day. We're on cloud nine. Their nominations were well-deserved. Hugh was such a great leader." Judd Apatow, whose latest film, This is 40, was up for three awards, including best comedy. He took home the humbly named Louis XIII Genius Award, presented by Rebel Wilson. During his acceptance speech, Apatow thanked his wife, Leslie Mann, and said he's "a genius only if for figuring out how to get such a beautiful, brilliant woman to marry me." Chastain won the Critics Choice for best actress for her role in Zero Dark Thirty. "Wow," said Chastain. "This is the first time I've ever talked to one of these things, and it's awesome." Chastain, who also received an Oscar nomination for the role, said on the red carpet that she was "really disappointed" that her Zero Dark Thirty director Kathryn Bigelow didn't receive a nomination for best director. "It's bittersweet for me, because I'm so excited to be nominated," said Chastain, who found out about her nomination on a flight from New York with Bigelow. "But this actually goes to show what an amazing person she is, because she's the one who came over and told me (I'd been nominated) and congratulated me. And when I found out, I said, 'Oh my gosh, you didn't get nominated.' I was shocked. And she kept bringing it back to me, 'No, no, no...let's celebrate you.' She's amazing." Daniel Day-Lewis won best actor for his starring role in Lincoln, which received 12 Oscar nominations on Thursday. "It means a lot to me," said Day-Lewis. "This has been one of the greatest unforeseen privileges of my life, doing this work." The serious tone of his acceptance speech switched gears when he commented on all of the tuxedos in the porta-potties. "Maybe you could do the final category, if there is one, in there," joked Day-Lewis. "Because it really would be wonderful television." Lawrence's Silver Linings Playbook co-star Bradley Cooper took home the award for best actor in a comedy. It was a role in which he also received an Oscar nomination. "It feels very fresh," Cooper told reporters on the red carpet. He was watching when the nominations were announced. "I thought I was going to get up and take my dog to the beach and go for a run and come back. And whatever happens, happens. And leave my phone in the truck. But that's not how it went down," he said, chuckling. "I got up, and waited and then watched the television. Woke my mom up, and my dog, and waited to watch it." Capping off the evening for Cooper and Lawrence was Silver Linings Playbook taking home the award for best comedy movie. But even earlier in the night, before the movie had even won, Lawrence was grateful: "Having the entire movie, just having everyone recognized, and everyone here, it makes it so much better." Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/10k4vIK ||||| Molly Sims arrives at the 18th Annual Critics' Choice Movie Awards at the Barker Hangar on Thursday, Jan. 10, 2013, in Santa Monica, Calif. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP) (Associated Press) Judd Apatow poses backstage with the Critics' Choice Louis XIII Genius Award at the 18th Annual Critics' Choice Movie Awards at the Barker Hangar on Thursday, Jan. 10, 2013, in Santa Monica, Calif. (Photo... (Associated Press) Stefan Arndt accepts the award for best foreign language film for "Amour" at the 18th Annual Critics' Choice Movie Awards at the Barker Hangar on Thursday, Jan. 10, 2013, in Santa Monica, Calif. (Photo... (Associated Press) Jacki Weaver poses backstage with the award for best comedy movie for "Silver Linings Playbook" at the 18th Annual Critics' Choice Movie Awards at the Barker Hangar on Thursday, Jan. 10, 2013, in Santa... (Associated Press) Daniel Day-Lewis accepts the award for best actor for "Lincoln" at the 18th Annual Critics' Choice Movie Awards at the Barker Hangar on Thursday, Jan. 10, 2013, in Santa Monica, Calif. (Photo by Matt... (Associated Press) Daniel Day-Lewis accepts the award for best actor for "Lincoln" at the 18th Annual Critics' Choice Movie Awards at the Barker Hangar on Thursday, Jan. 10, 2013, in Santa Monica, Calif. (Photo by Matt... (Associated Press) Jessica Chastain accepts the award for best actress for "Zero Dark Thirty" at the 18th Annual Critics' Choice Movie Awards at the Barker Hangar on Thursday, Jan. 10, 2013, in Santa Monica, Calif. (Photo... (Associated Press) Jessica Chastain poses backstage with the award for best actress for "Zero Dark Thirty" at the 18th Annual Critics' Choice Movie Awards at the Barker Hangar on Thursday, Jan. 10, 2013, in Santa Monica,... (Associated Press) Jessica Chastain accepts the award for best actress for "Zero Dark Thirty" at the 18th Annual Critics' Choice Movie Awards at the Barker Hangar on Thursday, Jan. 10, 2013, in Santa Monica, Calif. (Photo... (Associated Press) Stefan Arndt accepts the award for best foreign language film for "Amour" at the 18th Annual Critics' Choice Movie Awards at the Barker Hangar on Thursday, Jan. 10, 2013, in Santa Monica, Calif. (Photo... (Associated Press) Rich Moore accepts the award for best animated feature for "Wreck-It Ralph" at the 18th Annual Critics' Choice Movie Awards at the Barker Hangar on Thursday, Jan. 10, 2013, in Santa Monica, Calif. (Photo... (Associated Press) Jessica Chastain poses backstage with the award for best actress for "Zero Dark Thirty" at the 18th Annual Critics' Choice Movie Awards at the Barker Hangar on Thursday, Jan. 10, 2013, in Santa Monica,... (Associated Press) Grant Heslov accepts the award for best picture for "Argo" at the 18th Annual Critics' Choice Movie Awards at the Barker Hangar on Thursday, Jan. 10, 2013, in Santa Monica, Calif. (Photo by Matt Sayles/Invision/AP) (Associated Press) David O. Russell accepts the award for best comedy movie for "Silver Linings Playbook" at the 18th Annual Critics' Choice Movie Awards at the Barker Hangar on Thursday, Jan. 10, 2013, in Santa Monica,... (Associated Press) Anne Hathaway is seen backstage after accepting the award for best supporting actress for "Les Miserables" at the 18th Annual Critics' Choice Movie Awards at the Barker Hangar on Thursday, Jan. 10, 2013,... (Associated Press) Melissa Leo, right, presents the award for best actor to Daniel Day-Lewis at the 18th Annual Critics' Choice Movie Awards at the Barker Hangar on Thursday, Jan. 10, 2013, in Santa Monica, Calif. (Photo... (Associated Press) Joseph Gordon-Levitt presents the award for best actress at the 18th Annual Critics' Choice Movie Awards at the Barker Hangar on Thursday, Jan. 10, 2013, in Santa Monica, Calif. (Photo by Matt Sayles/Invision/AP) (Associated Press) Joseph Gordon-Levitt presents the award for best actress at the 18th Annual Critics' Choice Movie Awards at the Barker Hangar on Thursday, Jan. 10, 2013, in Santa Monica, Calif. (Photo by Matt Sayles/Invision/AP) (Associated Press) Jacki Weaver poses backstage with the award for best comedy movie for "Silver Linings Playbook" at the 18th Annual Critics' Choice Movie Awards at the Barker Hangar on Thursday, Jan. 10, 2013, in Santa... (Associated Press) Molly Sims arrives at the 18th Annual Critics' Choice Movie Awards at the Barker Hangar on Thursday, Jan. 10, 2013, in Santa Monica, Calif. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP) (Associated Press) Molly Sims arrives at the 18th Annual Critics' Choice Movie Awards at the Barker Hangar on Thursday, Jan. 10, 2013, in Santa Monica, Calif. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP) (Associated Press)

– The Critics' Choice Awards are generally a good barometer for the Oscars, which makes Ben Affleck's night a bittersweet one. He took home honors for best director and best film last night for Argo, hours after failing to even get nominated in the directors' category for an Academy Award. "I would like to thank the academy," he said upon winning. "I'm kidding, I'm kidding. This is the one that counts." Winners in the big categories, from USA Today and AP: Best film: Argo Best director: Ben Affleck (Argo) Best actor: Daniel Day-Lewis (Lincoln) Best actress: Jessica Chastain (Zero Dark Thirty) Supporting actor: Philip Seymour Hoffman (The Master) Supporting actress: Anne Hathaway (Les Misérables) Original screenplay: Quentin Tarantino (Django Unchained) Click for the full list of winners.

UPDATES Who Will Be Captain America? EXCLUSIVE: Marvel Studios and director Joe Johnston want to be really sure they’ve found the right actor to star in The First Avenger: Captain America. Marvel has slightly expanded its search — adding actors that I’m told include Chris Evans, who already logged Marvel Comics superhero time as Johnny Storm/Human Torch in two Fantastic Four films. Of the original contenders, two are still in serious contention: Mike Vogel (Cloverfield) and Garrett Hedlund (Tron: Legacy). Hedlund was on Marvel’s original wish list but didn’t test at first. Scheduling was th reason, but I also heard his reps balked when Marvel informed them that the job would include options for 9 future films and a salary of only around $300,000. It’s not going to work out for the other actors who tested: Chace Crawford (CW’s Gossip Girl), John Krasinski (NBC’s The Office), Scott Porter (NBC’s Friday Night Lights), Michael Cassidy (CW’s Privileged) or Patrick Flueger (Brothers). Paramount Pictures will release the film July 22, 2011. Hedlund can be seen in Disney’s new trailer for Tron Legacy, which you can watch here.

– Robert De Niro is set to play NFL coach Vince Lombardi, but—in more casting news from a different film—the role of Captain America is still up for grabs. Though a Marvel insider told Fox, "We are bracing ourselves for 'that guy from The Office' to land Captain America," Deadline reports John Krasinski is out of the running, and only two original contenders—Mike Vogel from Cloverfield and Garrett Hedlund from Tron: Legacy—are still under consideration for the superhero role. Meanwhile, ESPN announced De Niro will play the title role in Lombardi, tentatively scheduled for 2012, the AP reports. The film will focus on the Hall of Fame coach transforming the NFL's worst team, the Green Bay Packers, into league champions.

I’ve generally been of the view that the earlier that the Republican primaries and caucuses begin, the better off Mitt Romney’s campaign will be. This is a pretty straightforward case: Mr. Romney is a well-prepared candidate and leads the field right now according to most polling and non-polling indicators. It isn’t a very large lead, and as Chuck Todd notes, I’d be a little bit careful in anointing any candidate with the “inevitability” label when he’s still polling at just 20 or 25 percent. But it’s a lead nevertheless, and the sooner the voting begins, the less chance there will be for another candidate like Gov. Rick Perry to gain a firmer footing as his campaign gains experience. (Earlier voting dates have also made it much harder for additional candidates like New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie to enter the race.) Mr. Romney’s campaign evidently agrees with this thinking: it pushed for an earlier date for the Nevada caucuses, according to reporting by the Las Vegas Review-Journal and the Des Moines Register, which were recently moved to Jan. 14 from Feb. 18. But there is one potential wrench the works — which could cause the plan to blow up on Mr. Romney and harm his chances of winning the nomination. That is if New Hampshire were to move its primary date all the way up to December, as New Hampshire secretary of state Bill Gardner has threatened to do in response to the moves made by Nevada and other states. New Hampshire’s laws require that the state’s primary be held on a Tuesday, that it occur before any other primary (but not necessarily any other caucus), and that there is a full week’s buffer between it and the next nomination contest. The latest date that would meet these rules is Dec. 27, 2011. But that date, as well as Dec. 20, would come too close to the Christmas holiday, so Mr. Gardner has instead suggested dates of Dec. 6 or Dec. 13. This would leave New Hampshire as something of an orphan on the schedule. Holding its primary on Dec. 6, for instance, would leave a four-week gap between it and the Iowa caucuses on Jan. 3, during which time much egg nog would be consumed and much of the momentum from the contest might be lost. Some research suggests that the “bounce” from winning an early primary, while it can be significant, tends to evaporate relatively quickly. Meanwhile, although the first four or five states have moved up their dates, the primary calendar is still fairly back-loaded overall. Based on the dates listed at Josh Putnam’s excellent Web site, Frontloading HQ, the bulk of primaries and caucus are not taking place until March or later, with some important contests like California and New Jersey not scheduled until June. So chances are that a December date would diminish the importance of New Hampshire from an electoral perspective, both because it is so disconnected from the rest of the calendar and because Mr. Romney’s rivals might have more of an excuse for a poor performance there. Candidates like Mr. Perry and Herman Cain could cite the difficulty of competing in New Hampshire on a compressed schedule, and against a candidate in Mr. Romney who has a residence in the state and is something of a native son. The news media, annoyed that the earlier date would require them to revisit their own plans for the campaign, might be happy to play along. It’s hard to know exactly how the spin war would unfold, but it’s possible that New Hampshire could come to be regarded as something of a curiosity or even a beauty contest. Now consider how these scenarios might play out given the rest of the calendar. First, imagine that we had a schedule like in 2008, with Iowa voting in the first week of January and New Hampshire about a week later. A loss in Iowa would not be good news for Mr. Romney — particularly given that in the past, New Hampshire has shown something of a penchant for underdog, up-and-coming candidates. Still, New Hampshire would represent a hedge or buffer for Mr. Romney, and a win there would allow his campaign to recover from any loss in momentum. If New Hampshire were already to have voted in December, however, the sting of a poor performance from Mr. Romney in Iowa could linger. While the next voting contest — Nevada on Jan. 14 — would still be a relatively good one for Mr. Romney because of the high number of Mormons there, he’d be more likely to enter the contest with unfavorable rater than favorable momentum. By the time Nevada voted, and South Carolina voted the following week, any gains Mr. Romney might have made by winning New Hampshire in December would long have been forgotten about. Fortunately for Mr. Romney, there is a relatively elegant solution to this problem. Although Mr. Gardner has threatened the “nuclear option” of moving his state’s primary to December, he ultimately isn’t asking for all that much. If Nevada moved its caucus date to Tuesday, Jan. 17 from Saturday, Jan. 14 — just a 72-hour shift — New Hampshire’s statutory requirements would allow it to slot in on Jan. 10, giving us a January calendar that very much resembled the one we had in 2008. If Mr. Romney’s campaign had significant enough influence on Nevada to compel it to move its caucus to January in the first place, it might now benefit from encouraging the state to comply with Mr. Gardner’s demands and move its caucus back a few days. ||||| Bill Gardner just flipped the Republicans the bird. Again. In a three-page statement released Wednesday afternoon, the New Hampshire secretary of state reiterated his independence and said he’ll move the primary up as far as necessary to maintain first-in-the-nation status and comply with state law. Text Size - + reset POLITICO 44 “If Nevada does not adjust its caucus date to a later time, I cannot rule out the possibility of a December primary,” Gardner wrote. “If Nevada does not accept a date of Tuesday, January 17th or later for its caucus, it leaves New Hampshire no choice but to consider December of this year. The dates of Tuesday, December 13th and Tuesday, December 6th are realistic options, and we have logistics in place to make either date happen if needed.” But Gardner didn’t make that point directly to Nevada GOP Chairwoman Amy Tarkanian, who learned of the statement from POLITICO. She replied, via text message: “WHAT??!!!” Complete control over setting the nation’s first primary date has made Gardner a quirky fixture of presidential politics for four decades. But with this year’s suddenly upended calendar, Gardner’s disinterested approach is infuriating other early state chairs and the Republican National Committee, who can’t even get him on the phone. “It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense,” said former Ohio GOP chairman Robert Bennett, a member of the RNC’s delegate selection committee. “What are you going to do, have a suspension over the holidays of presidential campaigning? Every operative that I’ve talked to said it’s the worst thing that could have happened.” A lot hinges on Gardner’s decision, which took on new importance after Florida moved its primary to Jan. 31 and South Carolina and Nevada moved up their dates in response. If he schedules the primary in December, ahead of Iowa’s caucus, he could unilaterally alter the the entire nature of the campaign, giving an advantage to Mitt Romney, the former governor of neighboring Massachusetts, who’s remained far ahead in local polls. But Gardner, who’s so set in his ways that he doesn’t use a cell phone or e-mail, has shown no interest in negotiating. Nor was he involved in the regular conference calls held by those responsible for setting the primary calendar for the other early-nominating states. Tarkanian said that after her party’s initial efforts to speak with Gardner were unsuccessful, she reached out through an intermediary. That person told her Gardner had no plans to set his date until the New Hampshire filing period for candidates to get on the ballot begins Oct. 17. Ultimately, Nevada last week announced its caucus would be Jan. 14, eliminating Jan. 10 from Gardner’s potential options because New Hampshire law requires the primary be held at least seven days before any “similar election.” “We were hoping to get a specific date out of them but that didn’t happen,” Tarkanian said. “We decided, ‘This is crazy, we can’t sit around and wait any longer.’”

– New Hampshire may be forced to hold its GOP primary as early as Dec. 6, and it will be all Nevada's fault for moving up its caucus date, the Granite State's top election official warns. Secretary of State William Gardner says New Hampshire has no intention of surrendering its tradition of being the second state to choose a nominee, and the combination of state laws and the Christmas holiday make Dec. 6 or 13 the only realistic dates for a primary if Nevada refuses to move its date back by at least three days, Politico reports. Iowa's caucus is set for Jan. 3, and Nevada's is schedule for Jan. 14. The parties "can discourage other states from trying to leapfrog onto our tradition," Gardner said in a statement. "Right now, the problem is the date of Nevada. We cannot allow the political process to squeeze us into a date that wedges us by just a few days between two major caucus states." Mitt Romney is expected to win in both New Hampshire and Nevada, but an early December win in New England will leave a long time, and probably a big loss in Iowa, between victories, notes Nate Silver at the New York Times.

It is often suggested that Facebook, Google, and the other major tech companies violate the privacy of their users, and of course the companies are criticized on those grounds. Yet I never see those critics go after other sources of privacy violations, such as say the friends and acquaintances who gossip behind our backs. If privacy were so important, you might expect the overall campaign to be “pro-privacy” rather than just “anti-corporate” or “anti-tech.” One possibility is that service users don’t see much of a chance that the “Zip files” assembled on them by the algorithms stand much chance of harming their fortunes or even being released in decipherable form. Still, people are made vaguely uncomfortable by some of what is going on. Could it be a “control” issue rather than a privacy issue? That is, people do not like “feeling out of control” when it comes to their lives, including their personal data. They used to “feel in control” and now they do not, in part because of the very media critics who view themselves as solving the privacy problem. If it is a control problem, the chance that placebos will improve matters is higher, because I do not see our privacy losses as being reversible, or people even caring all that much. What is the cheapest placebo that can help us address the control problem? Passing some meaningless piece of legislation? Self-reforms from the media? The right kinds of proclamations from the tech companies? All of the above? I believe public discourse would be improved if we realized “privacy problems aren’t always about privacy,” to paraphrase Robin Hanson. ||||| Professor teaching class on vigilante justice is pepper-sprayed by vigilante seeking justice By Scott Kaufman Thursday, March 27, 2014 8:52 EDT Yesterday, George Mason economist and popular blogger Tyler Cowen was pepper-sprayed and placed under citizen’s arrest by an unknown white male while teaching a class on the literature of vigilante justice. According to police, around 3 p.m. on Wednesday a man entered the classroom and attempted to place Cowen under citizen’s arrest. The unidentified suspect entered the seminar room, jumped on the table, declared he was making a citizen’s arrest, and pepper-sprayed the professor. Cowen ran into the hallway, and the suspect followed him. Two students in the hallway immediately detained the intruder until police arrived. Students in the class itself were slow to react, because the course in session was on law and literature, and they were in the middle of a unit about vigilante justice, so the students assumed that the arrest was part of the class. Cowen refused medical treatment, and tweeted the following shortly after the attack: Back to work! (as usual)… — tylercowen (@tylercowen) March 26, 2014 Police are not sure why the Cowen was targeted, but commenters on the first story to report on the incident suggest that it could be because of the libertarian beliefs he advocates online. Watch a report on the incident from WJLA below. [Image via Cowen's faculty profile at George Mason University]

– Imagine you're in the middle of law class lecture on vigilantes, when a man bursts in, jumps on a desk, announces that he's making a "citizen's arrest," and then pepper sprays the professor. Because that's exactly what happened at George Mason University yesterday, and no, it wasn't a planned part of the lecture. The professor, popular libertarian economics blogger and occasional New York Times columnist Tyler Cowen, ran into the hall, and the intruder chased him, ABC 7 reports. Luckily, a student in the class was an off-duty police officer, and chased down the pepper sprayer, catching him at a building exit. Multiple charges are now pending against the sprayer. Twelve to 15 people, including Cowen, were treated for breathing issues, but Cowen was soon well enough to tweet that he was back to work, Raw Story points out.

An experimental performance unveils the "wizard behind the curtain" in tribute Lady Gaga will be honoring the work, influence and legend of David Bowie at this year’s Grammys with a performance powered by Intel. Both Gaga and Bowie have used the medium of the stage — and often their own bodies — to express themselves and the many messages throughout their music. To further propel her Grammy performance to honor one of her greatest heroes, Gaga will have the support of Intel to bring her performance to life. The collaboration between Intel and Lady Gaga is part of the Experience Amazing campaign. Intel aims to show how its technology facilitates unique experiences throughout the world. Intel’s involvement with Lady Gaga’s Bowie tribute is part of the company’s multiyear partnership with The Recording Academy for its ‘Next Generation of GRAMMY Moments’ initiative that will launch next during Grammys week. Intel has resealed a teaser video for the project, which features Lady Gaga’s vision and her involvement: In the video Gaga explains, “With the arsenal of the world’s leading technology at my fingertips, I now have the ability to invent the un-inventable.” She says that the collaboration between herself and Intel will “culminate in a performance that inspires to remind the world of the seed of innovation, the wizard behind the curtain, the mind behind the machine.” You can check out Gaga’s Grammy performance on Monday, February 15th. Experience Amazing ||||| Lady Gaga's tribute to David Bowie started on the 2016 Grammys red carpet. The 29-year-old pop star channeled the late singer by wearing an orange wig, a leotard, a bedazzled Marc Jacobs blazer and platform heels, a nod to Bowie's Ziggy Stardust era. Prior to her arrival at L.A.'s Staples Center, Gaga shared two Snapchat videos of herself crying in the makeup chair while listening to Bowie's "Backstar" and "Church." On Saturday, Gaga commissioned celebrity tattoo artist Mark Mahoney to ink Bowie's likeness (from his Aladdin Sane album cover) on the left side of her torso. She Snapchatted the inking, captioning one shot, "This was the image that changed my life," and in another, "Hail Mary full of grace Saint Bowie." Gaga will sing some of Bowie's biggest hits later tonight. At the Recording Academy and Clive Davis' Pre-Grammy Gala Sunday night, E! News' Marc Malkin got intel on Gaga's performance from Neil Portnoy, president of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. "She will take us through quite a bit of history of David Bowie's repertoire. It's one of the longest, larger segments of the night," Portnoy said. "There's some very exciting brand new technology that's never been seen on television that will be a part of the segment." As if Gaga would settle for anything less. ||||| Lady Gaga paid tribute to David Bowie with a transformative performance at the 2016 Grammy Awards ceremony. Bowie died last month from a long battle with cancer, with his death coming days after his 69th birthday and release of his final album Blackstar. Related Grammys 2016: The Complete Winners List The full rundown of who won what on Music's Biggest Night Filled with special effects, costume changes and an appearance from Let's Dance and Black Tie White Noise producer Nile Rodgers, Gaga gave a tribute to Bowie as eclectic as his career. Beginning with "Space Oddity," Gaga first appeared on-screen with just her head mutating with space-y colors. From there, she moved to a piano featuring hydraulics before performing full choreography to songs like "Fashion," "Let's Dance" and "Rebel Rebel." Rodgers, who also directed the performance, joined in on guitar for the second half of the tribute, which ended with "Heroes." Watch the full performance below: In 2008, Gaga thanked Bowie "for inspiration" in the liner notes of her debut The Fame. The following year, she listed his single "Rebel Rebel" as one of her favorite pop songs of all time in her first Rolling Stone cover story. "All of the things I went through were on my own quest for an artistic journey to fuck myself up like Warhol and Bowie and Mick, and just go for it," she explained to RS in 2010 when discussing her approach to mixing trauma with art. "I like to, within moderation, respect that I'm not Mick Jagger or David Bowie, and I don't just have fans that are a certain age. There are nine-year-olds listening to my music, so I guess I try to be respectful of them if at all possible." Last week, Gaga sang the National Anthem at Super Bowl 50. She recently won a Golden Globe for her role on American Horror Story: Hotel and is nominated alongside Diane Warren for Best Original Song at the Oscars. Lady Gaga David Bowie Tribute "Space Oddity" "Changes" "Ziggy Stardust" "Suffragette City" "Rebel Rebel" "Fashion" "Fame" "Under Pressure" "Let's Dance" "Heroes" The Grammys also posted a behind-the-scenes video on Lady Gaga and Rodgers' performance. ||||| "He is a true, true artist and I don't know if I ever went, 'Oh, I'm going to be that way like this,' or if I arrived upon it slowly, realizing it was my calling and that's what drew me to him," she added.

– Lady Gaga showed up on the Grammys red carpet all Ziggy Stardusted-up in her Marc Jacobs getup and platform heels, ostensibly to get her pumped for her much-talked-about tribute to David Bowie (she even got a giant tattoo of Bowie on her torso over the weekend, per the New York Daily News). And like all things Bowie, her set was replete with costume changes and vibrantly colorful lights in an Intel-sponsored performance that was described by PSFK.com before the show as being "experimental" with a "wizard behind the curtain" feel." Gaga ran through some of Bowie's best-loved hits, including "Space Oddity," "Changes," "Ziggy Stardust" (which she accompanied on the keyboard), "Suffragette City," "Rebel Rebel," "Fashion," "Fame," "Let's Dance," and "Heroes." The performance was called a "burst of rock 'n' roll energy on a sleepy night" by the Verge, while Rolling Stone deemed it an "astonishing" and "transformative performance."

Meet "Joe" "Joe" is a baby dinosaur, measuring under 6 feet long and a year old when it died. Careful study reveals that "Joe" was a young Parasaurolophus--the iconic tube-crested dinosaur that lived in southern Utah over 75 million years ago. This website is a virtual museum exhibit, highlighting the story of "Joe" and what this fossil tells us about our planet's history. "Joe" is named in honor of Joe Augustyn, a long-time supporter of the museum whose family sponsored the preparation of the fossil skeleton. ||||| Kevin Terris discovered the skeleton of a baby dinosaur named Joe in 2009, when he was a high-school student. It's amazing enough that a 17-year-old high-school student was behind the discovery of the youngest fossil skeleton from a weird-looking breed of boneheaded dinosaur. But it's even more amazing that two professional paleontologists walked right past the bones before the kid spotted them. "It's a little embarrassing to walk by something like that," admitted Andrew Farke, curator of the Raymond M. Alf Museum of Paleontology at The Webb Schools, "but he was just in the right place at the right time, looking in the right direction." Farke and the California museum's director, Don Lofgren, had checked out the territory at the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in southern Utah, and passed within several feet of the exposed fossil. A couple of days later, they brought their Webb students through the place for a field trip — and it was 17-year-old Kevin Terris who spotted the first bone. "At first, I was interested in seeing what the initial piece of bone sticking out of the rock was," Terris recalled in a news release. Then he called Farke over to investigate. Together, they picked away at the overlying rock to see what lay beneath. "When we exposed the skull, I was ecstatic," Terris said. An artist's conception shows the baby dinosaur in its environment. That was back in 2009. Today, Terris is an aspiring paleontologist at Montana State University, and his discovery is the subject of a research paper published Tuesday by the journal PeerJ. In that paper, Farke and his colleagues report that the fossil is the "youngest and most complete specimen" representing Parasaurolophus, one of the strangest creatures in the dinosaur menagerie. Crazy crest Parasaurolophus was a plant-eating dinosaur that lived throughout western North America about 75 million years ago. Its most notable feature was a long hollow crest that stuck up from its head. Paleontologists believe the crest served not only as a kind of visual display, like the cockscomb on a rooster, but also as a resonator for deep, booming calls. (Check out this archived news release and audio file to sample the dinosaur's sound.) During the four years that followed the find, researchers carefully excavated Terris' discovery, had it airlifted to the lab, analyzed the fossilized bones and put the skeleton on display at the Alf Museum. It's been nicknamed "Joe" — in honor of the late Joseph Augustyn, a contributor to the museum. The skeleton of the baby Parasauropholus is on display at the Alf Museum. Little Joe would have been about 8 feet (2.5 meters) long in life, compared with a typical length of 33 feet (10 meters) for an adult Parasaurolophus. A sample taken from the fossil's leg bone indicated that Joe was less than a year old when it died. "Dinosaurs have yearly growth rings in their bone tissue, like trees. But we didn't see even one ring," one of the PeerJ study's co-authors, Sarah Werning of Stony Brook University, explained. "That means it grew to a quarter of adult size in less than a year." Woofers and tweeters Joe also had made a good start on its crest — which came as a surprise, because previous studies suggested that related types of dinosaurs didn't start sprouting their ornamentation until they were at least half of their adult size. The researchers suggest that Parasaurolophus youngsters had to start early in order to develop the ornate crest that the grownups had. "If adult Parasaurolophus had 'woofers,' the babies had 'tweeters,'" Farke said in the news release. "The short and small crest of baby 'Joe' shows that it may have had a much higher pitch to its call than did adults. Along with the visual differences, this might have helped animals living in the same area figure out who was the big boss." Webb Schools student Brandon Scolieri looks in on the bones of the baby Parasaurolophus as they're being prepared for a CT scan. Scolieri is one of the authors of a newly published paper on the fossil. The research team had Joe's bones scanned to produce a virtual 3-D representation of the skeleton, which is being made available via the DinosaurJoe website. That way, scientists and the public will get access to Terris' find even if they can't see Joe in person at the Alf Museum in Claremont, Calif. Dinosaur skeletons are bought and sold for millions of dollars, but Farke declined to say how much Joe would be worth on the fossil market. It can't be sold, because it was found on federal property. "We can't actually place a value on it," Farke told NBC News. "Its primary value is scientific." Meanwhile, Terris isn't resting on his dino-finding laurels. The Houston native, who attended The Webb Schools because of its paleontology curriculum, told NBC News he's already working on his next publication. "Paleo is something I've been interested in since I was a kid," he said. More about dinosaurs: In addition to Farke and Werning, the authors of "Ontogeny in the Tube-Crested Dinosaur Parasaurolophus (Hadrosauridae) and Heterochrony in Hadrosaurids" include high-school students Derek Chok, Annisa Herrero and Brandon Scolieri. The fossil was collected under a permit from Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument and the Bureau of Land Management. Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the NBC News Science Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding +Alan Boyle to your Google+ circles. To keep up with NBCNews.com's stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds. ||||| The skeleton of "Joe" is the smallest, most complete and youngest Parasaurolophus ever found. A dinosaur skeleton discovered by an eagle-eyed high-school student turns out to be the smallest, youngest and most complete duck-billed dinosaur of its kind ever found. This Cretaceous-era herbivore, Parasaurolophus, walked the Earth some 75 million years ago. The dinosaurs in this genus are best known for their impressive tube-shaped head crests, which may have been used for display or perhaps to amplify the animals' calls. The little specimen, dubbed "Joe," was so young that its crest was a mere bump on its head. "We now understand a lot more about how Parasaurolophus grew its crest," said Andrew Farke, a paleontologist and curator at Raymond M. Alf Museum of Paleontology in Claremont, Calif. [See Photos of the Baby Dinosaur Discovery] Lucky find The museum is affiliated with The Webb Schools, a private high-school campus outside of Los Angeles. The students at the schools participate in paleontology fieldwork as part of their coursework, which is how student Kevin Terris came to discover "Joe" in 2009. Farke and a group of students were prospecting for fossils in Utah's Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, surveying ground Farke had already covered. Terris spotted a little sliver of bone sticking out from under a boulder and alerted Farke, who thought it looked like a piece of dinosaur rib — nice, but not really worth the trouble of excavating. "We were going to try to see if we could get something better," Farke told LiveScience. He walked around the other side of the boulder and picked up what looked like a large cobblestone, turning it over in his hands. A dinosaur skull stared back at him. In light of the skull, Farke thought it wise to go re-check Terris' discovery. A closer look revealed it to be a string of toe bones. "We have the skull on one side of this boulder and the toes on the other side. That means the whole dinosaur skeleton has to be in between," Farke said. "So we got pretty excited." Growing baby The team had to line up permits to excavate on the public land; they returned in 2010 to dig the bones from the ground. Surrounded by an 800-pound (363 kilograms) armor of rock, the bones had to be airlifted out of the rugged backcountry by helicopter. [Video: Airlifting a Baby Dino] The skull of baby "Joe" sports a small bump that would have grown into an impressive tube-liked crest. Credit: Copyright Raymond M. Alf Museum of Paleontology. After 1,300 painstaking hours of cleaning, chiseling and picking, technicians revealed the fossil buried in all that stone. The completeness of the skeleton turned out to be "pretty spectacular," Farke said. The paleontologists realized they had an amazing example of a baby Parasaurolophus on their hands. Even better, they were able to sample the baby's leg bone. As dinosaur bones grow, they develop ring patterns, much like trees. "It didn't have any rings at all," Farke said of "Joe." "So what that shows is that this animal was under a year old when it died." The infant dinosaur was already 6 feet (1.8 meters) long, however, an impressive feat when you consider that duck-billed dinos hatched at about the same size as a human infant. The fact that "Joe" was already sprouting a crest bump so young suggests that Parasaurolophus started growing its crest earlier than other duck-billed dinosaurs. "It finally lets us understand how Parasaurolophus evolved that big crest, just by shifting around events in its development," Farke said. "Joe" will go on display at the Alf museum beginning today (Oct. 22) to coincide with a publication about the discovery in the journal PeerJ. A digital exploration of the skeleton will also be available at dinosaurjoe.com. As for Terris, the student who found the little duck-bill, he's now in college, studying geology, Farke said. Follow Stephanie Pappas on Twitter and Google+. Follow us @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on LiveScience.

– A California high school student made a find LiveScience calls "amazing": While doing paleontology fieldwork for school in Utah in 2009, Kevin Terris helped to discover an almost complete baby Parasaurolophus skeleton—in fact, the most complete one ever found. Nicknamed "Joe," it also turned out to be the smallest and youngest Parasaurolophus fossil ever found at under a year old and 6 feet long. The herbivore is known for its tube-shaped head crest, and this one was so young the crest is just a bump. "We now understand a lot more about how Parasaurolophus grew its crest," says a paleontologist. Specifically, the fact that the crest was already in existence on such a young dinosaur suggests that Parasaurolophus crests started growing earlier than those of other duck-billed dinosaurs. "It finally lets us understand how Parasaurolophus evolved that big crest, just by shifting around events in its development," the paleontologist says. Why so much time between the discovery and its reporting? The team couldn't even dig up the bones until 2010, because of the need for permits, and it took 1,300 hours of cleaning and chiseling to unearth the fossil—the completeness of which is "pretty spectacular," according to the paleontologist. Fun side note: Terris spotted the first bone after two professional paleontologists walked right by it, which one of them tells NBC News is "a little embarrassing."

Candidates for Indiana's U.S. Senate seat Democrat Joe Donnelly, left, Libertarian Andrew Horning, center, and Republican Richard Mourdock participate in a debate in New Albany, Ind., Tuesday, Oct. 23,... (Associated Press) Candidates for Indiana's U.S. Senate seat Democrat Joe Donnelly, left, Libertarian Andrew Horning, center, and Republican Richard Mourdock participate in a debate in New Albany, Ind., Tuesday, Oct. 23,... (Associated Press) Candidates for Indiana's U.S. Senate seat Democrat Joe Donnelly, left, Libertarian Andrew Horning, center, and Republican Richard Mourdock participate in a debate in New Albany, Ind., Tuesday, Oct. 23,... (Associated Press) Supporters for Democrat Joe Donnelly, candidate for Indiana's U.S. Senate seat, cheer outside the site of a debate between Donnelly, Republican Richard Mourdock and Libertarian Andrew Horning in New Albany,... (Associated Press) Supporters of Republican Richard Mourdock, candidate for Indiana's U.S. Senate seat, cheer outside the site of a debate between Mourdock, Democrat Joe Donnelly and Libertarian Andrew Horning in New Albany,... (Associated Press) Candidates for Indiana's U.S. Senate seat Libertarian Andrew Horning, left, Democrat Joe Donnelly, center, and Republican Richard Mourdock greet one and other following a debate in New Albany, Ind., Tuesday,... (Associated Press) Mourdock, who's been locked in one of the country's most watched Senate races, was asked during the final minutes of a debate with Democratic challenger Rep. Joe Donnelly whether abortion should be allowed in cases of rape or incest. "I struggled with it myself for a long time, but I came to realize that life is that gift from God. And, I think, even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen," Mourdock said. Mourdock became the second GOP Senate candidate to find himself on the defensive over comments about rape and pregnancy. Missouri Senate candidate Rep. Todd Akin said during a television interview in August that women's bodies have ways of preventing pregnancy in cases of what he called "legitimate rape." Since his comment, Akin has repeatedly apologized but has refused to leave his race despite calls to do so by leaders of his own party, from GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney on down. It was not immediately clear what effect Mourdock's comments might have during the final two weeks before the Nov. 6 election. But they could prove problematic. Romney distanced himself from Mourdock on Tuesday night _ a day after a television ad featuring the former Massachusetts governor supporting the GOP Senate candidate began airing in Indiana. "Gov. Romney disagrees with Richard Mourdock's comments, and they do not reflect his views," Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul said in an email to The Associated Press. Romney aides would not say whether the ad would be pulled and if the Republican presidential nominee would continue to support Mourdock's Senate bid. Other Republicans did not immediately weigh in. Indiana Republican Party spokesman Pete Seat referred comment to the Mourdock campaign. A spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee and a spokeswoman for Romney did not immediately return a request for comment Tuesday night. National Democrats quickly picked up on Mourdock's statement and used it as an opportunity to paint him as an extreme candidate, calling him a tea party "zealot." DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz described Mourdock's comments as "outrageous and demeaning to woman" and called on Romney to take his pro-Mourdock ad off the air. Later Tuesday after the debate, Mourdock further explained he did not believe God intended the rape, but that God is the only one who can create life. "Are you trying to suggest somehow that God preordained rape, no I don't think that," said Mourdock. "Anyone who would suggest that is just sick and twisted. No, that's not even close to what I said." In response, Donnelly said after the debate in southern Indiana that he doesn't believe "my God, or any God, would intend that to happen." Along with Romney's ad, top Republicans have been flocking to Indiana as part of an effort to break open the high-stakes race for the Senate seat, currently held by veteran GOP Sen. Richard Lugar who was defeated by Mourdock in the May primary. Republicans need to gain three seats, or four if President Barack Obama wins re-election, and seats that were predicted to remain or turn Republican have grown uncertain. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell came to Indianapolis for a fundraiser Monday, and Arizona Sen. John McCain and South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham campaigned for Mourdock last week. New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte is due in the state Wednesday. Romney's coattails carry special significance in deeply conservative Indiana, where Mourdock has underperformed Romney by 12 points in most public polls. Karl Rove's Crossroads GPS also has bought another $1 million of airtime in Indiana, making his group the biggest player in Indiana's Senate race. A message left for Crossroads GPS spokesman Nate Hodson was not immediately returned. ||||| In a Tuesday night debate with his Democratic rival and a Libertarian candidate for one of Indiana's U.S. Senate seats, Republican candidate Richard Mourdock suggested that pregnancies resulting from rape are "something that God intended to happen," despite the "horrible situation" from which they derived. Mourdock, a Tea Party-backed candidate who beat longtime moderate Senator Richard Lugar in the state's Republican nominating contest earlier this year, expressed his view that "life begins at conception" and that he would only allow abortions in circumstances in which the mother's life was in danger. "I struggled with it myself for a long time, but I came to realize life is that gift from God," Mourdock said. "And I think even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen." Democrats immediately pounced on his comments, and Donnelly -- who is also pro-life but who supports exceptions for rape and incest -- released a statement questioning the notion that God would "intend for rape to happen." "The God I believe in and the God I know most Hoosiers believe in, does not intend for rape to happen -- ever," Donnelly said. "What Mr. Mourdock said is shocking, and it is stunning that he would be so disrespectful to survivors of rape." Mourdock, seeking to clarify his comments in a press conference following the debate, said he had intended to say that "God creates life," and that any interpretation of his comments to mean God "pre-ordained rape" were "sick" and "twisted." "What I said was, in answering the question form my position of faith, I said I believe that God creates life. I believe that as wholly and as fully as I can believe it. That God creates life," Mourdock said. "Are you trying to suggest that somehow I think that God pre-ordained rape? No, I don't think that. That's sick. Twisted. That's not even close to what I said. What I said is that God creates life." While to the right on Lugar with regard to issues relating both to reproductive rights and others, Mourdock's stance on abortion is hardly an anomaly in the Republican party. His comments echo similar remarks made by former Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum, a staunch pro-life social conservative, while he was still in the midst of a bid for the White House. "I think the right approach is to accept this horribly created -- in the sense of rape -- but nevertheless a gift in a very broken way, the gift of human life, and accept what God has given to you," Santorum told CNN's Piers Morgan in January. "We have to make the best of a bad situation." At the GOP convention in Tampa this year, the party approved a platform with language calling for a constitutional amendment banning abortion. The language, which is the same as in the party's 2004 and 2008 platform, did not provide exceptions for victims of rape or incest, or to save the life of the mother. Mourdock isn't the first Republican Senate candidate this cycle to inspire headlines about comments relating to rape and abortion. Todd Akin, Missouri's embattled Republican Senate candidate, was rebuked even by his own party when he suggested that pregnancies resulting from what he called "legitimate rape" were "really rare." Akin's comments were roundly decried by Democrats and Republicans alike, and a spokesperson for the Romney campaign said that Romney and Ryan "disagree" with Akin's statement. Romney, who has endorsed Mourdock, recently appeared in a campaign video on behalf of Mourdock, and campaigned with him in Evansville, Indiana, on Aug. 4. Paul Ryan, who, like Mourdock, opposes all abortions except to save the life of the mother, appeared at an open press funder with him on Sept. 17. Romney opposes abortion with exceptions for the victims of rape and incest and if the life of the mother is at risk. In a statement released Tuesday night, Romney spokesperson Andrea Saul said Mourdock's remarks were not in line with Romney's views. "Gov. Romney disagrees with Richard Mourdock's comments, and they do not reflect his views," Saul said.

– The GOP is on damage control duty after controversial comments on rape from another one of its candidates. Senate candidate Richard Mourdock said that pregnancies resulting from rape are "something that God intended to happen," when answering a question on abortion in a debate in Indiana last night, CBS reports. Democrats quickly attacked the remarks from the Tea Party-backed candidate, labeling him a "zealot." MItt Romney distanced himself from Mourdock after his remarks, the AP reports. Romney "disagrees with Richard Mourdock's comments, and they do not reflect his views," a spokesman said, but aides wouldn't say whether Romney would drop his support for Mourdock's Senate bid. After the debate, the candidate tried to clarify his remarks, saying that he meant "God creates life." Any suggestion that he believes that "God preordained rape" is "sick and twisted," Mourdock told reporters.

In this courtroom drawing, Clare Bronfman, right, is arraigned at federal court in New York, Tuesday, July 24, 2018. Bronfman, a daughter of the late billionaire philanthropist and former Seagram chairman... (Associated Press) In this courtroom drawing, Clare Bronfman, right, is arraigned at federal court in New York, Tuesday, July 24, 2018. Bronfman, a daughter of the late billionaire philanthropist and former Seagram chairman Edgar Bronfman Sr., and three other people associated with the NXIVM organization were taken into... (Associated Press) NEW YORK (AP) — An heiress to the Seagram's liquor fortune and three other people were arrested on Tuesday in connection with the investigation of a self-improvement organization accused of branding some of its female followers and forcing them into unwanted sex. Clare Bronfman, 39, a daughter of the late billionaire philanthropist and former Seagram chairman Edgar Bronfman Sr., surrendered to the FBI and pleaded not guilty to racketeering charges. She was freed from custody following a late-afternoon court appearance where she pledged to post a $100 million bond to ensure her return to court. U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis set the high amount after hearing prosecutors label her a flight risk and learning she has a net worth of roughly $200 million, including a stake in an island resort in Fiji. Bronfman, who appeared in court wearing flip-flops and a T-shirt, didn't comment as she left a federal courthouse in Brooklyn. She was to remain under house arrest following her release. A former competitor in international equestrian show jumping competitions, Bronfman is accused in an indictment of taking a number of steps to help NXIVM's founder and leader, Keith Raniere, exercise control over members of the upstate New York group, including identity theft, interception of electronic communications and money laundering. She was part of an "inner circle" of loyalists who "committed a broad range of serious crimes from identity theft and obstruction of justice to sex trafficking, all to promote and protect Raniere and NXIVM," U.S. Attorney Richard Donoghue said in a statement. Raniere was arrested in Mexico this year and was brought to the U.S. to face charges that he, along with an adherent, the TV actress Allison Mack, coerced followers into becoming slaves to senior members. In a statement, a lawyer for Bronfman, Susan Necheles, called the charges "the result of government overreaching and charging an individual with crimes just because the government disagrees with some beliefs taught by NXIVM and held by Clare." "We are confident that Clare will be exonerated," she said. Also arrested Tuesday were Nancy Salzman, who was the organization's longtime president; her daughter, Lauren Salzman; and a former bookkeeper for the group, Kathy Russell. All three were released on bail without entering pleas. Despite criticism for years by ex-followers who called NXIVM a cult and a pyramid scheme, the organization's intense self-improvement classes had, at one point, earned it thousands of adherents, including some with Hollywood ties. They included Nicki Clyne, an actress who appeared on "Battlestar Galactica"; Bronfman's sister Sara Bronfman; a son of former Mexican president Carlos Salinas de Gortari; and India Oxenberg, a daughter of "Dynasty" actress Catherine Oxenberg. In an indictment, prosecutors say Mack, who played a teenage friend of Superman in the CW network's "Smallville," helped Raniere recruit women to a secret sub-society within NXIVM whose members were branded by way of a surgical tool with a symbol that resembled his initials. Women were expected to be subservient to "masters," prosecutors said, including giving in to demands for sex. The arrest of Bronfman, who has long been affiliated with NXIVM, wasn't a surprise. At a court hearing in June, a judge rejected an attempt to get Raniere released on $10 million bail paid for by Bronfman after prosecutors labeled her a co-conspirator. In earlier court filings, the government detailed how Bronfman gave away tens of millions of dollars of her fortune to support Raniere and his group, including paying for private air travel at a cost of $65,000 a flight. It also said Bronfman has "paid for numerous lawyers to bring suits against Nxivm critics." In a website post last year, Bronfman called the secret society a "sorority" that "has truly benefited the lives of its members, and does so freely." She added, "I find no fault in a group of women (or men for that matter) freely taking a vow of loyalty and friendship with one another to feel safe while pushing back against the fears that have stifled their personal and professional growth." Raniere and Mack have also denied the allegations. In their court papers, the defense lawyers have said the supposed victims of the group were never abused and were in fact "independent, smart, curious adults" searching for "happiness, fulfillment and meaning." Raniere, Mack and some of the other defendants were expected to appear together at a pretrial hearing on Wednesday in Brooklyn. ___ Associated Press Writer Mary Esch contributed to this report from Albany, New York. ||||| Image copyright Reuters Image caption Clare Bronfman is the daughter of the late billionaire philanthropist Edgar Bronfman A liquor heiress is facing charges of funding a suspected US sex cult whose recruits were allegedly branded with the initials of its founder. Seagram scion Clare Bronfman, 39, is accused of using her fortune to help finance Nxivm's operations. Investigators say the organisation is a sex-trafficking operation disguised as a mentoring group. Six people have now been charged as part of the inquiry, including 35-year-old Smallville actress Allison Mack. Ms Bronfman's lawyer said her client "did nothing wrong". She was formally charged on Tuesday before being released on a $100m (£75m) bail bond. What is Nxivm? On its website Nxivm (pronounced nexium) describes itself as a "community guided by humanitarian principles that seek to empower people and answer important questions about what it means to be human". Based in Albany in upstate New York, the group was founded as Executive Success Programs in 1998 and says it has worked with more than 16,000 people. Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Smallville actress Allison Mack was charged earlier this year with sex trafficking Members of the group are reported to include the son of a former Mexican president and Hollywood actresses. Federal prosecutors allege Nxivm's leader Keith Raniere, 57, oversaw a "slave and master" system within the group. Female members were expected to have sex with him and were branded with his initials, say former members. According to the group's website, it has suspended enrolment and events because of the "extraordinary circumstances facing the company at this time". What is Clare Bronfman accused of? Ms Bronfman, the daughter of late billionaire philanthropist and Seagram head Edgar Bronfman, was arrested on Tuesday along with three others on charges of racketeering conspiracy, US prosecutors say. Court documents allege Ms Bronfman, a member of Nxivm's executive board, was involved in the identity theft of at least two women - including a deceased sexual partner of Mr Raniere. She is also accused of encouraging and assisting in an alleged Nxivm victim's illegal entry into the US. Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Ms Bronfman had been a competitive equestrian, but reportedly sold her horses in recent years In a note published on her website last December, Ms Bronfman said she still supported Nxivm after seeing "so much good come from both our programmes and from Keith himself". Her lawyer Susan Necheles said in a statement that Nxivm was "not a criminal enterprise" but "an organisation that helped thousands of people," according to US media. "The charges against Clare are the result of government overreaching and charging an individual with crimes just because the government disagrees with some beliefs taught by Nxivm and held by Clare," Ms Necheles said. Who else has been charged? Keith Raniere himself was arrested by the FBI in Mexico in March. He and actress Allison Mack were charged with sex trafficking and forced labour conspiracy the following month. Image copyright Keith Raniere Conversations/YouTube Image caption Keith Raniere was detained in Mexico, where he has reportedly been living for several months Both face mandatory minimum sentences of 15 years and a maximum of life imprisonment for the sex-trafficking charges. Mr Raniere, whose trial is scheduled for 1 October, has been denied bail because of fears that Ms Bronfman might use her financial clout to help him escape. Nxivm co-founder Nancy Salzman, 64, her daughter, Lauren Salzman, 42, and the group's 60-year-old bookkeeper, Kathy Russell, were all arrested alongside Ms Brofman on Tuesday. All six are accused of racketeering conspiracy, or attempting to illegally obtain or extort money, and could face up to 20 years in jail, plus an additional maximum 15 years for identity theft conspiracy. The US Department of Justice says the group committed "an array of crimes, including identity theft, extortion, forced labour, sex trafficking, money laundering, wire fraud and obstruction of justice". FBI Assistant Director-in-Charge William Sweeney said on Tuesday that "the details of these alleged crimes become more and more grim as we continue to dig deeper into the conduct of this organisation and its intended mission".

– Liquor heiress Clare Bronfman was among four people arrested Tuesday as part of an investigation into what prosecutors say was a sex trafficking organization masquerading as a self-help group. Bronfman, the 39-year-old daughter of late billionaire philanthropist and former Seagram chairman Edgar Bronfman Sr., pleaded not guilty to racketeering charges and was freed after agreeing to pay $100 million, which is half of her estimated $200 million fortune, the AP reports. She is accused of using her fortune to assist and protect the NXIVM group and leader Keith Raniere, the BBC reports. Prosecutors say female recruits were expected to have sex with Raniere and were branded with his initials. Bronfman and other members of the group's inner circle "committed a broad range of serious crimes from identity theft and obstruction of justice to sex trafficking, all to promote and protect Raniere and NXIVM," US Attorney Richard Donoghue said Tuesday. Bronfman has described the group as a "sorority" that truly benefits its members. Her lawyer, Susan Nechele, described the charges as "overreach" from a government that disagrees with the group's teachings. Organization co-founder Nancy Salzman, her daughter Lauren, and bookkeeper Kathy Russell were also arrested on racketeering charges and released on bail Tuesday. Raniere and Smallville actress Allison Mack were indicted on sex trafficking charges in April.

Tearful radio hosts say sorry to nurse's family in UK SYDNEY — The Australian radio hosts who made a prank call to a London hospital treating Prince William's wife Kate tearfully told of their heartbreak Monday at hearing that a nurse had been found dead. Mel Greig and Michael Christian from Sydney station 2Day FM have been in hiding and undergoing counselling since their hoax sparked global outrage following the apparent suicide of Jacintha Saldanha. In interviews on Australian television, the pair broke their silence following Saldanha's death last week in London, as 2Day FM's owner said it was cancelling their show and stopping all hoax calls by its broadcasters. An emotional Greig said she was devastated on hearing the Indian-born nurse had died. "Unfortunately I remember that moment very well because I haven't stopped thinking about it since it happened," she told Australia's Seven Network. "And I remember my first question was, was she a mother?" In a separate interview with the Nine Network, Greig added: "It came into my head that I just wanted to reach out to them (the family), give them a big hug and say sorry. I hope they're okay, I really do." The call, with Greig and Christian posing as Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Charles, was taken by mother-of-two Saldanha, 46, at London's King Edward VII Hospital. With no receptionist on duty in the early morning, she put them through to a colleague who divulged details of the pregnant Kate's recovery from severe morning sickness. Saldanha was subsequently found dead, although British police have refused to confirm whether it was suicide pending an inquest. Christian said he too was devastated. "Shattered, gutted, heartbroken and obviously you know... our deepest sympathies are with the family and the friends," he told Nine. He added that it was supposed to be "just a simple, harmless, fun call". "Prank calls are made every day... no one could have imagined this to happen," he said. "We just hope that her family and friends are as good as they can be and that they are getting the love and support they deserve." The death sparked an outpouring of fury against the radio station and the presenters, although the broadcaster Monday said no one could have foreseen the tragic consequences of what the hospital says was an "appalling" stunt. Rhys Holleran, chief executive of Southern Cross Austereo, which owns 2Day FM, said the station called the hospital five times to discuss what it had recorded before going to air. He said he was satisfied that the appropriate checks were conducted before the pre-recorded segment was broadcast. "We attempted to contact them on no less than five occasions," Holleran told Fairfax radio. "We wanted to speak to them about it." Holleran did not say whether the broadcaster received any response. The stunt was vetted by lawyers before being aired in Sydney last week, according to the station. But a hospital spokesman said: "Following the hoax call, the station did not talk to anyone in hospital senior management or anyone at the company that handles our media inquiries." In a statement to the stock exchange, Southern Cross, which has media interests throughout Australia, said that it had decided to halt all prank calls by its broadcasters. It also axed the show Greig and Christian presented, Hot 30, and suspended all 2Day FM advertising until further notice. The case has triggered demands for tougher regulation of the electronic media although Australia's press regulator, the Australian Communications and Media Authority, has not commented on whether the station broke any rules. Communications Minister Stephen Conroy said the ACMA was considering whether to initiate an inquiry beyond its usual process of giving broadcasters 60 days to respond to complaints. Copyright © 2012 AFP. All rights reserved. More » ||||| The two DJs at the centre of a prank call to the hospital where the Duchess of Cambridge was staying have spoken for the first time since the death of nurse Jacintha Saldanha. Mel Greig and Michael Christian told of their distress upon hearing about Saldanha's death. "[It was] the worst phone call I've ever had in my life," Greig told the Nine network's A Current Affair programme. "There's not a minute that goes by that I don't think about what that family [of nurse Jacintha Saldanha] is going through and the thought that we may have contributed to it is gut-wrenching," she said. Asked if she had a message for Saldanha's family, Greig said she'd thought about it "a million times in my head and have wanted to reach out to them and just give them a big hug. I hope they're OK, I really do". "Our deepest sympathies go out to the family," said Michael Christian. "We just hope that her family and friends are being as good as they can be and are giving [them] the love and support they need. We are shattered." The two DJs were speaking for the first time since they went into hiding on Saturday when news broke of the the death. They gave interviews to both Channel Nine and Channel Seven's main evening current affairs programmes. Asked by Channel 9 whose idea the prank call was, the DJs said it had come up at a team meeting before the show, but did not say who suggested it. "We had the idea for a simple harmless call. A call that would go for 30 seconds that we thought we would be hung up on," said Christian. Neither expected their call to be put through to the Duchess of Cambridge's room. Christian and Greig said they thought the joke was on them and their poor accents rather than on the nurses. "Every other media outlet wanted to touch on it. Our angle was having those silly accents," said Grieg. They reiterated that no one could have expected or foreseen what happened after the call. "At every single point it was innocent on our behalf. It was something that was funny and lighthearted and a tragic turn of events that I don't think could have predicted," said Christian. Both DJs said they had not participated in the vetting of the interview. They said it was standard practice for them to record an item then hand it over to be assessed by others. Both said they did not know what the vetting process included. The segment was subject to an internal review, including with 2Day FM's lawyers, before it went to air. The DJs pulled out of a third interview they were scheduled to do for The Project, on the Ten network, because they were unwell, according to a spokesman for the TV channel. The host of the Nine programme, Tracey Grimshaw, earlier tweeted that the interview had not been paid for. It was "neither asked nor offered", she said. Grimshaw told Fairfax Media the prerecorded interview was "very intense" with a lot of people in the room including radio station staff and supporters. She said she felt sympathy for the DJs. "They're at a certain point on the food chain. There are other people who made the decision to put it to air. It wasn't live to air. There was a decision made after that prank call was recorded to put it to air, and virtually all the focus has been on them," Grimshaw said. Rhys Holleran, CEO of Southern Cross Austereo, which owns 2Day FM, said the station attempted to contact King Edward VII hospital "no less than five times" before broadcasting the pre-recorded material. "It is absolutely true to say that we actually did attempt to contact those people on multiple occasions," Holleran told Fairfax Media. "We rang them to discuss what we had recorded," he said, adding that this was done before the recorded prank went to air. "Absolutely. We attempted to contact them on no less than five occasions. We wanted to speak to them about it." Holleran reiterated that he was "deeply saddened" by the tragic events that had unfolded since the call but again said no one could have reasonably foreseen the circumstances. He said the station was happy to co-operate with any investigation into the incident. In a statement, the radio station's owner, Southern Cross Austero Media, said it had suspended advertising on 2Day FM until further notice, ended Greig and Christian's Hot 30 show and suspended prank calls across the company. "The company does not consider that the broadcast of the segment has breached any relevant law, regulation or code. The company will fully co-operate with any investigations," the statement said. The industry-drawn-up Commercial Radio Codes of Practice and Guidelines state that a station must not broadcast the words of an identifiable person unless they have been informed in advance that the recording may go to air. If someone is unaware they are being recorded, the interviewee must grant consent for it to be played, prior to anything being broadcast. This is not the first time the radio station 2Day FM has been in trouble. It has had two licence conditions imposed on it in the past three years by the statutory regulator, the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA). The first followed an on-air incident in 2009 in which a 14-year-old girl was strapped to a lie detector, and was questioned by her mother about whether she was sexually active. The mother volunteered to quiz her daughter despite apparently already knowing she had been sexually assaulted. When she said that she had been raped at age 12, 2Day FM's 'shock jock', Kyle Sandilands, who presented the show with DJ Jackie O'Neil, then asked: "Right, and is that the only sexual experience you've had?" The interview ended after O'Neil stepped in and she and Sandilands apologised. ACMA found that the station had breached standards of decency and ordered the it to implement staff training programmes. In 2012 another licence condition was imposed after Sandilands insulted a female journalist for reporting the low ratings of a TV show that he and O'Neil had presented. "Some fat slag on [the media website] news.com.au has already branded it a disaster," he said. "You can tell by reading the article that she just hates us and has always hated us. What a fat, bitter thing you are. You're deputy editor of an online thing. You've got a nothing job anyway. You're a piece of shit." ACMA made the Code's decency requirement (which says "programme content must not offend generally accepted standards of decency") a condition of the 2Day FM's licence for a period of five years Shares in Southern Cross Austereo fell 7.7% in early trading on the Australian stock market before recovering slightly. • For confidential support call the Samaritans on 08457 90 90 90 ||||| Story highlights The Australian radio network suspends all prank calls A review of relevant policies and processes is being conducted, the company says Nurse Jacintha Saldanha was found dead after taking the prank call on Catherine An Australian radio network at the heart of a hoax targeting Prince William's pregnant wife canceled the show responsible for the prank on Monday, expressing deep regret for the death of a nurse who took a call from the DJs involved. The two DJs "will not return to the airwaves until further notice," the statement from the network, Southern Cross Austereo, said. The company also suspended all prank calls, pulled advertising and ordered a comprehensive review of relevant policies and processes. The DJs, Mel Greig and Michael Christian, who were impersonating Queen Elizabeth and Prince Charles, called the hospital Tuesday and gained some information about the condition of Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge -- which they subsequently played on air. On Friday, the nurse who transferred the call through to the ward, Jacintha Saldanha, was found dead after apparently committing suicide. JUST WATCHED UK media attacks Australian DJs Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH UK media attacks Australian DJs 07:26 JUST WATCHED Radio station faces criticism Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Radio station faces criticism 02:38 JUST WATCHED Nurse found dead in Kate hoax Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Nurse found dead in Kate hoax 02:48 "First and foremost we would like to express our deep and sincere condolences to the family ... for their loss. We are very sorry for what has happened," Rhys Holleran, the network's chief executive officer, said in Monday's statement. "We don't claim to be perfect and we always strive to do better. We have initiated a detailed and rigorous review of our policies and procedures to inform any improvements we can make." Greig and Christian also apologized in interviews with the Australian TV shows "A Current Affair" and "Today Tonight" on Monday. "There is nothing that can make me feel worse than what I feel right now," Greig said on "Today Tonight." Christian told "A Current Affair" the prank had become "a tragic turn of events that I don't think anyone could have predicted or expected." "I'm still trying to make sense of it all," he said, offering "our deepest sympathies" to Saldanha's family. Opinion: Why airing the prank call was wrong London's Metropolitan Police have contacted Australian authorities in relation to the call, but "are not discussing about what or with who" they're talking, a spokesman told CNN. A spokeswoman for New South Wales Police in Australia told CNN: "As the investigation into the death of London nurse Jacintha Saldhana continues, New South Wales Police will be providing London's Metropolitan Police with whatever assistance they require." Ben Barboza, Saldanha's husband, expressed grief over his wife's death in a post on Facebook: "I am devastated with the tragic loss of my beloved wife Jacintha in tragic circumstances, She will be laid to rest in Shirva, India." Saldanha's daughter posted a photo of herself with her mother and wrote: "I miss you, I loveeee you. Jacintha saldanha." The chairman of the hospital where the pregnant Duchess of Cambridge was a patient slammed the Australian radio station's decision to broadcast the recorded prank call as "truly appalling" on Saturday, "King Edward VII's Hospital cares for sick people, and it was extremely foolish of your presenters even to consider trying to lie their way through to one of our patients, let alone actually make the call," wrote the chairman, Simon Glenarthur. "The immediate consequence of these premeditated and ill-considered actions was the humiliation of two dedicated and caring nurses who were simply doing their job tending to their patients. "The longer term consequence has been reported around the world and is, frankly, tragic beyond words." Glenarthur called on the radio station to take steps "to ensure that such an incident could never be repeated." Read more: Nurse's death casts glare on 'shock jocks' The Australian Communications and Media Authority, the country's media regulator, has not yet commented on the case. However, it will be "engaging with the licensee, Today FM Sydney, around the facts and issues surrounding the prank call," said the regulator's chairman, Chris Chapman. News of Saldanha's death broke Friday, with the hospital saying she "was recently the victim of a hoax call." London's Metropolitan Police said that Saldanha, 46, had living quarters in central London provided by her workplace. Police said they were notified Friday morning that a woman was found unconscious at the address. She was pronounced dead at the scene. Police are treating the death as "unexplained." A postmortem examination will take place on Tuesday, police said Monday. A spokesman for Prime Minister David Cameron said Saturday that he "thinks this is a very sad case and his thoughts are with her family and colleagues." Throughout the controversy surrounding the hoax, authorities did not identify the nurse. Her identity was released after her death. Audio of the call posted online suggests a woman spoke briefly to the DJs before she put the call through early Tuesday morning to the ward where the Duchess of Cambridge was being treated for acute morning sickness. "They were the world's worst accents ever," Greig told listeners Thursday. "We were sure 100 people at least before us would've tried the same thing. ... We were expecting to be hung up on. We didn't even know what to say when we got through." A tweet from 2Day FM last week after the incident described it as a "hilarious prank." Read more: Radio pair apologizes for duchess prank call Off the air, Greig and Christian tweeted about the practical joke on Thursday and earlier Friday, promising "more on the #royalprank." The pair's Twitter accounts were taken down late Friday. Some listeners applauded the prank, like one who identified himself as Guido on the station's Facebook page and wrote, "It is only a joke people! it was great i love it!!!" Others were outraged, with negative comments outnumbering positive ones on 2DayFM's Facebook page even before the nurse's death. "Your stunt was done at a time in this country where there is paranoia about the intrusion of the media into people's lives," Gary Slenders wrote. "I know you will say it is harmless fun, the management of 2DayFM will say that it won't happen again, but this is exactly where the phone hacking scandal started." The outcry grew exponentially after the hospital confirmed Saldanha's death, leading the Coles supermarket chain to remove all its advertising from 2DayFM. "This death is on your conscience," reads one Facebook post. Several accused the two DJs of having "blood on your hands." Saldanha's family released a statement asking for privacy and directing questions to police. She is survived by her husband and two children. "We as a family are deeply saddened by the loss of our beloved Jacintha," said the statement, released by police. Saldanha worked at King Edward VII's Hospital for more than four years, and she was described as an "excellent nurse," well-respected by co-workers, the hospital statement said. The hospital "had been supporting her throughout this difficult time," it said. A St. James's Palace spokesman said: "The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are deeply saddened to learn of the death. "Their Royal Highnesses were looked after so wonderfully well at all times by everybody at King Edward VII Hospital, and their thoughts and prayers are with Jacintha Saldanha's family, friends and colleagues at this very sad time." Separately, a palace spokesman told CNN: "At no point did the palace complain to the hospital about the incident. On the contrary, we offered our full and heartfelt support to the nurses involved and hospital staff at all times."

– Australian DJs Michael Christian and Mel Greig have broken their silence on their royal prank call gone horribly wrong, reports the Guardian, tearfully telling an interviewer that they're "shattered, gutted, heartbroken" over the death of nurse Jacintha Saldanha. "No one could've imagined this to happen," Christian said. "Naturally, we're shattered. We're people, too." "There's not a minute that goes by that I don't think about what (Saldanha's) family is going through, and the thought that we may have contributed to it is gut-wrenching," says Greig. The DJs meant no harm, adds Christian: "At every single point it was innocent on our behalf." Innocent or not, Greig and Christian "will not return to the airwaves until further notice," says parent company Southern Cross Austereo, which has also axed their show, halted all prank calls, and nixed ads amid an internal review, CNN reports. But the station is doubling down on its decision to air the prank, saying that it had tried to contact King Edward VII's Hospital no fewer than five times to talk about the recording before airing it. "It is absolutely true to say that we actually did attempt to contact those people on multiple occasions," says Southern Cross' CEO. It's not clear if the hospital responded, notes the AFP, but it has mounted a withering assault against the station in the aftermath of Saldanha's death.

Web series have famously become an outlet for creators for whom it affords opportunities and freedom of expression that they can’t get in traditional media—Joss Whedon, Felicia Day, Issa Rae of Awkward Black Girl. But now the Web has also attracted the attention of stars who have all the freedom and attention they need. Tom Hanks went online this week to launch Electric City, his so-far pulpy and enigmatic dystopian animation series. And Thursday night, Jerry Seinfeld premiered his series of webisodes, Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, about, well, that. Let us be clear: Jerry Seinfeld does not need the Web. Seinfeld could walk into any major broadcast network today, say he wanted to make a new show about, say, vacuum cleaner repair, and executives, after fainting, would rush to get the checkbook lest he change his mind. Jerry Seinfeld, let me remind you, got NBC to make The Marriage Ref. Seinfeld does not need the Web, but that doesn’t mean that the Web might not, in many ways, be better suited to what he wants to do now: drive around, have some coffee and talk to his comedian buddies about comedy, while you watch. (MORE: Online Blockbuster?: Tom Hanks’ Electric City Debuts on Yahoo) That’s pretty much what there is to Comedians in Cars—available at Crackle and the series’ own website—in which Seinfeld’s first guest is Larry David, co-creator of the Seinfeld sitcom. Well, no: his first guest is his antique 1952 VW Beetle, a gorgeous collectors’ item that Seinfeld described lovingly but with a dry observation about its meekness: “If, like me, you feel that true humility is always in short supply, this is the car for you.” It’s a curious statement to introduce the series with, since there is something arguably… un-humble about making a show, the premise of which is showing off your fantastic car collection en route to picking up your old collaborator and reminding us of one of the greatest triumphs in TV history. But it’s never not interesting to get the Beatles back together, and when David slides into the car, the observations start flying: about David’s fussy dietary habits, about the car’s peculiar (and awesome!) “semaphore” style turn flags, about the etiquette of ordering tea when your companion is having coffee. There’s something appealing about the idea of Seinfeld, a guy who could command the legions of Hollywood at the slightest command, deciding instead that he already has a pretty good life, opting to do low-stakes comedy and schmooze with his pals in a state of semi-retirement. It’s fun, and it can be intriguing, especially when David and he get not just to making jokes, but to discussing, in a sidelong way, how and why jokes work. Toward the end, they talk about why David would opt to smoke a cigar rather than a cigarette when working on Seinfeld and ruminating on the show. Trying to get at the difference, David pantomimes the act of smoking both: a cigarette is fast and nervous (he mimes sucking at his fingers tetchily), while a cigar is contemplative (he takes a slow, thoughtful fake drag). “A cigar takes time!” Jerry pipes in, in what could either be a documentary conversation moment or a scripted exchange from the show Seinfeld. (MORE: Issa Rae of Awkward Black Girl on the Future of the Web Series) The show feels it’s meant to be casual and spur-of-the-moment, but it sure doesn’t look that way. The video is crisp, rich looking and edited within an inch of its life. It cuts quickly, every second or few, to a different perspective on the comedians, to a luxurious-looking crema on a cup of coffee, to a detail on the car or a plate of pancake. Seinfeld has put as much meticulous energy into making a casual conversation look highly produced as David, with Curb Your Enthusiasm, puts into making a highly planned operation look utterly casual. The whole aesthetic is a little distancing, and it gives the show a feel of watching a 13 1/2-minute long commercial. But for what? Just for how good a time these guys are having, being themselves, being with each other, having coffee and breakfast at God knows what hour in the day. “You continue to have one of the finest minds I’ve ever met,” Seinfeld tells David, earnestly, after the cigar analysis. “You know I take that as a great compliment,” returns David warmly. Adds Seinfeld: “Here’s an analysis of something by two idiots that no one else is doing.” Aren’t they? Or maybe they are, in diners and on YouTube channels, and simply not issuing highly produced and promoted video of their doing it. Regardless, talent is talent, and I can’t blame Seinfeld and David for knowing and acknowledging how much they have. But by the end of that exchange, it feels like we’ve receded away as viewers rather than having been brought into their intimate circle; I feel like I should ask if anyone needs me to freshen up their coffee or if I should just clear the table. None of which is to argue that they’re not right: these guys really are the Lennon-McCartney of comedy, and still it’s intriguing and fun in any format to watch them get together and jam. If you’re not interested—well, no harm, no foul is the attitude of this webisode. Jerry Seinfeld doesn’t need the Web, he doesn’t need TV either, and if you find other ways to spend your time than with him, his coffee and his cars, he’ll do just fine. ||||| Hollywood types and TV observers are fond of bemoaning that there’s no such thing anymore as a Seinfeld-style megahit — the culture has become far too fractured for 35 million people to agree to tune into anything on network television at the same time (save events like the Oscars and the Super Bowl). But watching the first episode of Jerry Seinfeld’s new web series on Crackle Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, I began to spin a highly speculative What If in my head: Had Seinfeld wanted to make Seinfeld in 2012 instead of 1990, would he have made 22-minute episodes for TV? Or 13-minute episodes for the Web? Given how much fun he seems to be having here, and how much fun I had watching it, I suspect it would’ve been the latter. CICGC‘s first episode features Seinfeld picking up his Seinfeld co-conspirator Larry David in a 1952 azure blue Volkswagen Bug, and taking him out for coffee and breakfast at the Los Angeles diner John O’Groats. To a light, jazzy underscore, the two old friends proceed to dither and debate over day-to-day minutiae like the contemplative power of cigars over cigarettes, the freeing quality of boxer briefs over standard briefs, and David’s fastidious dietary philosophy. They occasionally graze past weightier topics — David reveals that his decision to stop drinking coffee helped lead to his divorce — but for the most part, the episode feels like Seinfeld boiled down to its essential spirit: Highly entertaining talk about the trivialities of life, with no silly “plot” to get in the way. David pretty much says as much to Seinfeld at the end of their meal: “You’ve finally made a show about nothing.” Check out the full episode below: There’s a real pleasure in watching good friends enjoy each other’s company so deeply, but it will be interesting to see how this web series develops when Seinfeld is hanging out with someone he’s known for far less time, like Ricky Gervais. What did you make of this first episode? What was your favorite line? (Mine: “You cannot parade in briefs.”) Will you check out the show next week? Follow @adambvary Read more: Watch new trailer for Jerry Seinfeld’s web series ‘Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee’ Tom Hanks’ dystopian web series debuts on Yahoo ‘Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee': Seinfeld taking Monk’s Cafe on the road? ||||| Starting in 1996, Alexa Internet has been donating their crawl data to the Internet Archive. Flowing in every day, these data are added to the Wayback Machine after an embargo period. ||||| "You have finally done the show about nothing." So proclaims Larry David during the first episode of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, Jerry Seinfeld's return to the comedy treadmill after an absence spanning a little over a decade. The show, which launched on Thursday, follows a basic format: each episode will see Seinfeld pick up a chum in a vintage car, then drive to a restaurant for a hot drink and perhaps a snack. Cameras follow them, fly-on-the-wall style. They talk. Hilarity ensues. Next week, the show will co-star Ricky Gervais; later in the season, Alec Baldwin. If you're a fan of Seinfeld, or its awkward stepchild Curb Your Enthusiasm, you'll be charmed. If not, you may find things meander. For better, or worse, the 15-minute show seems to be unscripted. There is, of course, a ring of familiarity about this. In fact, judging by the first episode (all others are top secret for now), Seinfeld might almost be accused of stealing the format of his "show about nothing". How so? Well the car journey portion, filmed with Go-Pro dashboard cameras, is essentially a rip-off of Robert Llewellyn's series Carpool. The restaurant scenes recall Rob Brydon and Steve Coogan's semi-improvised gastronomic travel documentary The Trip. At times, the resemblance is positively eerie. For all that, there's at least a whiff of innovation about Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee. It's nothing to do with the format, or punch lines, but revolves around the way people are supposed to view it. Put simply: it's a TV show you can't see on TV; it can only be watched over the internet. Seinfeld's decision to forgo television – in favour of Crackle.com, a Sony-owned site – comes at a watershed moment for television's relationship with the internet. For years pigeon-holed as an experimental medium, used mostly for discovering fresh talent, online TV projects are now attracting blue-chip Hollywood stars. Tom Hanks launched his new project – a dystopian science-fiction animation called Electric City that he created and voices – via Yahoo. And the veteran TV anchor Larry King announced he was coming out of retirement to launch a weekly chat-show on Hulu. Netflix is venturing into TV production, with shows such as Lillehammer and Arrested Development, while Will Ferrell these days seems to spend most of his time online in Funny or Die sketches. The online trend is partly driven by money, since the web accounts for a growing portion of overall ad spending, and partly by changing viewer habits, since the growing ubiquity of smartphones and tablet computers helps draw eyeballs to digital programming from traditional media. But the Hankses and Seinfelds of this world, who have enough money for this lifetime, appear to also be drawn to the internet for artistic reasons. It allows them to experiment creatively without having to worry about interfering network executives, clunky TV timeslots, spiralling budgets and the other Hollywood blights. "When I work with established TV stars, they're often interested by the freedom the internet provides," says Justin Gayner, the founder of ChannelFlip, a British online TV network that has made shows with Harry Hill, David Mitchell, and Richard Hammond. "The bigger the star, the more confident they are to experiment online. If they have conquered the Everest of TV then the internet is a new mountain. And the spontaneity of it all seems to remind them of their roots in stand-up comedy." Seinfeld, then, is returning to comedy so he can play around. Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee is primarily a show about wasting time. (As David observes, early in the debut episode, "nobody can waste time like you and me".) And what is the internet, if not the perfect medium for wasting time?

– Looks like Jerry Seinfeld has trumped himself in his quest to make a show about "nothing." His new Web series, Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, has Seinfeld chatting with comedy buddies (like Larry David and Ricky Gervais) while driving, snacking, and—you guessed it—having coffee. Reviews are mixed after the first episode: "If you're a fan of Seinfeld, or its awkward stepchild Curb Your Enthusiasm, you'll be charmed," writes Guy Adams at the Independent. "If not, you may find things meander." Still, "there's at least a whiff of innovation" because the show "can only be watched over the Internet." "The whole aesthetic is a little distancing, and it gives the show a feel of watching a 13 1/2-minute long commercial," writes James Poniewozik at TIME. "But for what? Just for how good a time these guys are having, being themselves, being with each other, having coffee and breakfast at God knows what hour in the day." Seinfeld and David "occasionally graze past weightier topics—David reveals that his decision to stop drinking coffee helped lead to his divorce—but for the most part, the episode feels like Seinfeld boiled down to its essential spirit: Highly entertaining talk about the trivialities of life, with no silly 'plot' to get in the way," writes Adam Vary at Entertainment Weekly's PopWatch blog. "The first episode has enough for car and comedy fans alike to come back for next week," writes Travis Okulski at Jalopnik. "However, will Seinfeld have the same rapport with comics he isn't as close to he does with David? And will the cars be as interesting? I hope." See the show's first episode on Crackle. (Or see what happened to "Seinfeld the chicken.")

These crawls are part of an effort to archive pages as they are created and archive the pages that they refer to. That way, as the pages that are referenced are changed or taken from the web, a link to the version that was live when the page was written will be preserved.Then the Internet Archive hopes that references to these archived pages will be put in place of a link that would be otherwise be broken, or a companion link to allow people to see what was originally intended by a page's authors.The goal is to fix all broken links on the web . Crawls of supported "No More 404" sites. ||||| Republican U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore talks to the media as he arrives to vote, Tuesday, Dec. 12, 2017, in Gallant, Ala. Alabama voters are deciding between Moore, former chief justice of the Alabama... (Associated Press) Republican U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore talks to the media as he arrives to vote, Tuesday, Dec. 12, 2017, in Gallant, Ala. Alabama voters are deciding between Moore, former chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court and Democrat Doug Jones. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson) (Associated Press) BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — The Latest on Alabama's U.S. Senate election (all times local): 9:24 p.m. CST Democrat Doug Jones has won election to the U.S. Senate from Alabama, dealing a political blow to President Donald Trump. Jones has defeated Republican Roy Moore, a one-time GOP pariah who was embraced by the Republican Party and the president even after facing allegations of sexual impropriety. An attorney and former prosecutor, Jones rallied voters on a message of moving past the Moore controversies. He was buoyed by an influx of national Democratic cash and endorsements. Jones' victory is set to narrow the slim Republican majority over Democrats in the Senate to 51-49. His win in the Republican stronghold energizes the Democratic Party as it looks to build on anti-Trump sentiment to mount a challenge next year to Republican control of Congress. ___ 8:40 p.m. Republican Roy Moore has briefly greeted an optimistic crowd at his election night party in Montgomery, Alabama. Moore shook hands with supporters after they chanted, "Judge Roy Moore." He then left to watch returns in another room. His campaign manager told the crowd that Moore would soon have the new title of senator. With about half the vote counted, the Alabama Senate race between Moore and Democrat Doug Jones is too close to call. Moore is looking for support in rural areas and party loyalty from Republicans to carry him to victory. Jones is attempting to become the first Alabama Democrat elected to the U.S. Senate in 25 years. __ 7:10 p.m. Republican Roy Moore's supporters are expressing optimism as polls close in Alabama. Supporters filed into Moore's election night party in Montgomery shortly before polls closed at 7 p.m. "Watch party? It's a victory party," Moore campaign manager Rich Hobson told the crowd. Becky Gerritson, the leader of a nearby tea party group, says sexual misconduct allegations against Moore have caused his supporters to rally around him harder. "We're seeing his supporters digging in and they're pumped up," Gerritson said. Reporters at Moore's election night party were kept behind a barricade in the back of the ballroom. __ 7 p.m. Polls are closed in Alabama in the race to fill the Senate seat vacated by Attorney General Jeff Sessions. At time of national reckoning over long-suppressed misconduct by powerful men, the choice between Republican Roy Moore and Democrat Doug Jones has taken on outsized significance. Moore has faced allegations of sexual misconduct with teenagers, dividing the GOP and giving Democrats hope of picking up a seat in a reliably red state. President Donald Trump and the Republican National Committee broke with top congressional leaders in standing by Moore despite the accusations, wagering that maintaining the seat in the Republican stronghold was of paramount importance. Democrats are hoping to break their 0-5 streak in special elections for Republican-held seats in 2017, and looking for momentum heading into the 2018 midterm elections. __ 4:30 p.m. Alabama Republican Roy Moore's campaign says The Washington Post is not being let into his election night gathering in Montgomery. The Post first reported the allegations of sexual misconduct against Moore. Moore campaign spokeswoman Hannah Ford confirmed the newspaper is not being granted press credentials. The campaign told the newspaper it had reviewed its request and was denying them. Moore faces Democrat Doug Jones in Tuesday's election for a U.S. Senate seat. __ 3:45 p.m. There are signs of heightened security at Republican Roy Moore's election night gathering in the Alabama race for U.S. Senate. Men in SWAT uniforms videoed the exterior of the building where Moore's party is being held in Montgomery. Campaign spokeswoman Hannah Ford said the campaign had previously received threats. Earlier Tuesday, a Department of Homeland Security official said the agency is keeping an eye on the election. The agency's top infrastructure and cybersecurity official said a federal protective security adviser and a cybersecurity adviser are in Montgomery and working "side by side" with state government officials in case issues arise. ___ 2 p.m. The Department of Homeland Security is keeping its eye on Alabama's special U.S. Senate election. The agency's top infrastructure and cybersecurity official says a federal protective security adviser and a cybersecurity adviser are in the capital city of Montgomery and working "side by side" with state government officials in case issues arise. Christopher Krebs says he's not aware of any specific threats. But he says DHS has been working with the state "for quite some time" to prepare for any issues. It's part of a larger effort to better share threat information and provide technical support after DHS concluded Russian government hackers targeted election systems in 21 states last year. Krebs says: "We learned our lessons last year." ___ 1:55 p.m. Voter turnout appears heavier than expected in one of Alabama's most reliably Republican counties in the U.S. Senate election, and officials say they're not just seeing the usual GOP crowd. Shelby County Probate Judge Jim Fuhrmeister says turnout appears higher than normal among young people and black voters in Tuesday's balloting. That could help Democrat Doug Jones against Republican Roy Moore. Democrats have a table outside one of the county's largest voting precincts in Helena, and volunteers from the Jones campaign are canvassing neighborhoods in normally Republican areas. Fuhrmeister says he isn't predicting a Democratic win, but he expects the party to see some results for its efforts. Shelby County, just south of Birmingham, is one of Alabama's most affluent counties. ___ 11:50 a.m. Republican candidate Roy Moore rode his horse to the polls as he's done in past elections to cast his ballot in the U.S. Senate race. Moore was accompanied by his wife Kayla Moore, also on horseback, as he voted at a rural fire station in the northeast Alabama community of Gallant on Tuesday. Dozens of members of the media surrounded the couple, making it difficult for them to get through on their horses. Moore spoke briefly to reporters, talking in generalities and not discussing allegations that he sexually molested teenage girls decades ago. Moore expressed confidence that he will win. He also said that after the election will be the time to discuss whether he's allowed to take a seat in the Senate. ___ 11:15 a.m. U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions said he cast an absentee ballot in Tuesday's special Senate election in Alabama but declined to specify his choice, saying he "valued the sanctity of the ballot." At a Tuesday news conference in Baltimore on gang violence and immigration, Sessions said Alabama residents are "good and decent and wonderful" people. He said he's confident they will make the right decision. Alabama voters are deciding between Republican Roy Moore, former chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, and Democrat Doug Jones, a lawyer who prosecuted two Ku Klux Klansmen who killed four black girls in a 1963 church bombing. Multiple women have accused Moore of sexual misconduct with teen girls when he was in his 30s. Moore denies the accusations. The winner of Tuesday's election will take the seat previously held by Sessions. ___ 8:55 a.m. Democratic nominee Doug Jones was met by cheering supporters as he cast his ballot in Alabama's U.S. Senate race. Jones smiled and waved as he arrived at his voting precinct in the wealthy Birmingham suburb of Mountain Brook on Tuesday. Poll workers at the church where he voted complained that so many news reporters were on hand that voters were having a hard time parking. Jones says he feels good about the campaign he's run and he doesn't think Republican Roy Moore is going to win. Jones said, "This is an important time in Alabama's history, and we feel very confident where we are and how this is going to turn out." ___ 8:25 a.m. Alabama's top election official estimates that turnout for the hotly contested U.S. Senate election now underway will likely be around 18 to 20 percent of registered voters. Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill tells The Associated Press there's also a chance that turnout for the special election could be as high as 25 percent. Voting places opened at 7 a.m. Tuesday and will remain open until 7 p.m. Cool temperatures were common across Alabama when voting began and the state is expected to see dry weather all day during voting. Republican Roy Moore faces Democrat Doug Jones in Tuesday's election. Multiple women have accused Moore of sexual misconduct with teenage girls when he was in his 30s. Moore is now 70 and denies the charges. ___ 7:45 a.m. More than two dozen people stood in line in the chilly morning air at Legion Field, a predominantly black precinct in Birmingham, after polls opened at 7 a.m. Republican Roy Moore and Democrat Doug Jones have both reached out to minority voters during their contentious campaign for a U.S. Senate seat. Political observers believe that Jones needs heavy turnout among African-American voters in order to win on Tuesday. The Legion Field precinct is in a stadium office, where blue-tinted posters of local college football players and cheerleaders lined one of the walls. About 20 Doug Jones campaign signs were planted in the ground near the parking lot where voters were driving in to vote. There were no Roy Moore signs. ___ 7 a.m. Polls have opened across Alabama in the state's closely watched U.S. Senate election, which has drawn national attention. Voting places opened at 7 a.m. Tuesday and will remain open until 7 p.m. Cool temperatures were common across Alabama shortly before voting began and the state is expected to see dry weather all day during Tuesday's voting. Republican Roy Moore faces Democrat Doug Jones in Tuesday's election. Multiple women have accused Moore of sexual misconduct with teen girls when he was in his 30s. Moore is now 70 and denies the charges. ___ 2:45 a.m. An internationally watched Senate election is down to Alabama voters. The controversies surrounding Republican Roy Moore give Democrat Doug Jones an opening in the GOP-dominated state. Polls open Tuesday morning. Multiple women have accused Moore of sexual misconduct with teen girls when he was in his 30s. Moore is now 70 and denies the charges. He's telling voters they know his character already. Jones is saying decency must prevail. He's urging Alabama voters to see the race as a crossroads with an opportunity to avoid repeating past mistakes that harm the state's image. No Democrat has won an Alabama Senate seat since 1992. That was Sen. Richard Shelby. He's now a Republican who says he didn't vote for Moore.

– It's Doug Jones. The Democrat won election to the Senate from Alabama on Tuesday, dealing a political blow to President Trump, reports the AP. Jones narrowly defeated Republican Roy Moore, a one-time GOP pariah who was embraced by the Republican Party and the president even after facing allegations of sexual impropriety. An attorney and former prosecutor, Jones rallied voters on a message of moving past the Moore controversies. He was buoyed by an influx of national Democratic cash and endorsements. Jones' victory is set to narrow the slim Republican majority over Democrats in the Senate to 51-49. His win in the Republican stronghold energizes the Democratic Party as it looks to build on anti-Trump sentiment to mount a challenge next year to Republican control of Congress. With 92% of votes counted, Jones had 49.5% of the vote to Moore's 48.8%, per CNN, which also called the race for Jones.

Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings. SUBSCRIBE Two men were in custody Sunday after a day-long manhunt in Wyoming in connection with the alleged kidnapping and assault of a Utah woman and her four daughters. Dereck James "D.J." Harrison, 22, was found and arrested without incident Saturday night after the manhunt in the Half Moon Lake area northeast of Pinedale, Wyoming, police said Sunday. His father, Flint Wayne Harrison, 51, had turned himself in to authorities in Sublette County early Saturday. At that point, he "immediately started working with local investigators to locate his son Dereck," county police said in a release. Flint and Dereck Harrison in arrest photos in Wyoming on Saturday Sublette County, Wyoming, Sheriff's Office via Centerville, Utah, police The Harrisons had been wanted for allegedly luring the mother and her daughters, ages 13 to 18, to a Utah home Tuesday for a barbecue. There, the men allegedly tied them up with wire and duct tape, according to police in Centerville, north of Salt Lake City. The woman and some of the young girls were assaulted with a baseball bat as they tried to break free, Centerville police said. But the girls managed to break free and run from the house screaming for help, and one of them called 911 on her cell phone. But by the time police arrived, the suspects had already fled. Centerville police said Dereck Harrison was believed to have extensively used methamphetamine and may have believed — falsely, it turns out — that the woman had turned him in. "The motive appears to be retaliation on the mother," police said Sunday. The manhunt centered on Half Moon Lake Lodge in Pinedale, where authorities found a makeshift campsite. Authorities, who said Flint Harrison owns a home in Pinedale, evacuated the campground Saturday and urged the town's 2,000 residents to shelter in place. Flint Wayne Harrison, left, and Dereck James Harrison. Centerville, Utah, police / AP The Sublette County Sheriff's Office said the younger Harrison was believed to have been armed with two knives, a 300 Winchester Magnum rifle, a .22-caliber Remington rifle and several high-capacity magazines. Authorities said he had made several threats against law enforcement officials. Deputies found him walking a little more than a mile from a roadblock. "This is an incredible end to a very stressful day,” Sheriff Stephen Haskell said in a statement. Both father and son will be extradited to Utah to face charges, according to the Sublette County Sheriff's Office. It is unclear whether they will face additional charges in Wyoming, where the elder Harrison is registered as a sex offender for attempted forcible sexual abuse in 2001, according to the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation. ||||| Starting in 1996, Alexa Internet has been donating their crawl data to the Internet Archive. Flowing in every day, these data are added to the Wayback Machine after an embargo period.

– A 22-year-old man and his parents have been arrested after the alleged abduction of a woman in Utah and her four teen daughters. The latter five managed to escape and alert authorities, reports NBC News. Police say Dereck Harrison, 22, and his father, Flint Harrison, 51, knew the Utah mother and suspected her of telling authorities about their drug use. They lured her and her daughters, ages 13 to 18, to a home on the pretext of a barbecue, then tied all five up with zip ties, say police. The elder Harrison hit the mother with a baseball bat, at which point the daughters began breaking free from their ties, say the charging documents, per the Casper Tribune. One of the girls knocked away a shotgun pointed at her throat and another seized the bat and hit the younger Harrison with it, say police. The victims fled, as did the Harrisons, but both suspects eventually surrendered separately in Wyoming and now face charges of aggravated kidnapping and possession of a controlled substance. While Dereck Harrison was still on the loose, his mother, Maryann Dalrymple Harrison, went to police in Wyoming to obtain information about her son, but she, too, ended up under arrest. It seems she violated her probation by leaving Utah without permission. (No more details were provided on her case.) Police say that the victims are recovering but that the Harrisons aren't cooperating with the investigation.

GREAT FALLS – Democratic U.S. Sen. Jon Tester, who won a hard-fought, close contest Tuesday over Republican challenger U.S. Rep. Denny Rehberg, said Wednesday it’s time for Congress to put aside partisanship and tackle the nation’s pressing problems. Tester, speaking in Great Falls shortly after he was declared the winner, said those problems include the federal deficit, taxes, the economy – and the tidal wave of “relentless, secretive political spending” seen in his race and many others across the nation. “This is larger than me,” he said in an interview. “The outside money that’s coming in (to politics) is bad for democracy. “We’ve got to get some transparency in this process, at a minimum ... so we know who’s footing the bill. It shouldn’t be about someone who has a ton of money, trying to buy an election.” Tester, 56, a farmer from Big Sandy, led by 16,000 votes over Rehberg late Wednesday, with some votes yet to be counted in Yellowstone, Silver Bow, Ravalli and Flathead counties. Tester had 48.5 percent of the vote, while Rehberg had nearly 45 percent. Libertarian Dan Cox of Hamilton carried a significant 6.5 percent, one of the highest showings by a Libertarian in a statewide race. Rehberg, 57, Montana’s sole congressman since 2001, conceded the race Wednesday morning, issuing a statement that said it had been “an honor to serve the people of Montana.” “The voters of our state have spoken and I respect their decision,” he said. “Senator Tester and I share an abiding love for Montana and America, a value which transcends political party or disagreements on matters of policy.” Tester also complimented Rehberg on a “well-fought race,” and said he knew Rehberg would agree that the nation faces big challenges that need to be addressed. “Despite our differences, we belong to the greatest state and the greatest nation in the world,” Tester said. “We owe thanks to Congressman Rehberg. He has spent a career in public service.” Rehberg, a rancher from Billings, has been a key figure in Montana politics for more than 30 years, also holding office as state representative and lieutenant governor. Tester said he’s hopeful Congress will start acting on plans to reduce the nation’s debt and federal deficit and reform the tax code, to make it simpler and more fair. “I think there is a nucleus of people back in (Washington) D.C. who are willing to do it,” he said. “The bottom line is ... when we deal with that in a common-sense way, I think it will help the economy.” Tester also said he’d like his wilderness/jobs bill to pass Congress, either as part of an Interior spending package this year or as a stand-alone bill next year. The measure, stalled in Congress since 2009, would create new wilderness in western Montana forests while identifying new acreage for logging. Yet Tester spoke most forcefully Wednesday about shining a light on the river of money spent on his contest and many others by so-called outside and “dark” money – groups that often don’t have to disclose or detail their donors or expenditures. Observers estimated that outside groups spent $30 million or more on the Tester-Rehberg matchup, including at least half that amount by nonprofit groups that can keep their donors secret. The contest was the most expensive in Montana history, as Rehberg and Tester spent about $20 million of their own campaign money, in addition to the outside cash by party and interest groups. Tester said groups should fully disclose their spending to influence federal elections – including the nonprofits that now keep their donors secret. On Tuesday, Tester sprinted to a solid lead of about 20,000 votes in early returns and never relinquished it. Cox also started out strongly, polling 5 percent to 6 percent in the first returns – a level he held throughout the vote-counting. While the Associated Press called the race at about 9 a.m. Wednesday, elections officials in Billings, Kalispell, Butte and Hamilton were still counting some ballots late Wednesday afternoon. The biggest lag occurred in Billings, where officials said the final count wouldn’t be finished until Wednesday evening. Problems with vote-counting machines and late voting by Election Day registrants delayed the count in Yellowstone County. Missoulian State Bureau reporter Mike Dennison can be reached at 1-800-525-4920 or at mike.dennison@lee.net. ||||| Democratic candidate Heidi Heitkamp has won the U.S. Senate race in North Dakota, defeating favored Republican congressman Rick Berg. Democrat Elizabeth Warren, center, waves to the crowd with her husband Bruce Mann, left, during an election night rally at the Fairmont Copley Plaza hotel in Boston after Warren defeated incumbent GOP... (Associated Press) Flanked by family members, Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., looks up as she talks about her mother, Betty Anne McCaskill, who recently passed away, while declaring victory over challenger Rep. Todd Akin,... (Associated Press) U.S. Rep. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., waves to supporters after making her a victory speech in Wisconsin's U.S. Senate race, Tuesday, Nov. 6, 2012, in Madison, Wis. Baldwin defeated former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy... (Associated Press) Berg had been expected to win the race, and Republicans had counted on his victory in their failed attempt to take control of the Senate. Heitkamp won the race by fewer than 3,000 votes, and Berg could have asked for a recount. He conceded the race Wednesday with a qualifier: He was stepping aside barring any unforeseen circumstances with the state canvasing board that certifies the race results. That canvasing process is to begin Friday. It will account for late-arriving absentee ballots that were postmarked in time to be counted in the election.

– The fat lady may have sung on the presidential race last night, but results are still trickling in from some of the country's closest races. So far, everything's coming up blue; Democrats have extended their Senate majority to 53, not counting the two independents expected to poll with them, after winning a pair of nail biters. In North Dakota, former Attorney General Heidi Heitkamp has scored what Politico terms an "upset" win over Rep. Rick Berg to claim the last unsettled Senate seat of the election. Heitkamp won with fewer than 3,000 votes, the AP reports, a margin so small that Berg could have demanded a recount, but he instead conceded late this afternoon. Earlier, Democrat Sen. Jon Tester won an excruciatingly close re-election battle over Rep. Denny Rehberg, after a bitter campaign that dominated Montana politics for two years, the Missoulian reports. Tester likely benefited from a strong performance by Libertarian Dan Cox, who managed 6% of the vote—most of it likely at Rehberg's expense.

Pilot Felix Baumgartner of Austria seen before his jump at the first manned test flight for Red Bull Stratos in Roswell, New Mexico on March 15, 2012. Weather concerns have pushed back an Austrian daredevil's attempt to break the world record for highest-ever skydive by one day, to Tuesday (Oct. 9). Felix Baumgartner was slated to leap from a balloon nearly 23 miles (37 kilometers) above southeastern New Mexico on Monday (Oct. 8), breaking the sound barrier as he plummeted to Earth in a harrowing freefall. But an incoming cold front is expected to bring cooler temperatures, strong winds and a bit of rain to the launch site on Monday, said officials with Baumgartner's mission, which is known as Red Bull Stratos. The team expects conditions to clear up considerably by Tuesday. If so, around dawn on that day a huge helium-filled balloon will lift off from Roswell, N.M., carrying Baumgartner and his custom-built 2,900-pound (1,315 kilograms) capsule to an altitude of 120,000 feet (36,576 meters). The 43-year-old daredevil will then step into the void, shattering a skydiving record that has stood for more than 50 years. The current mark of 102,800 feet (31,333 m) was set in 1960 by Air Force Capt. Joe Kittinger, who now serves as a Red Bull Stratos adviser. If all goes according to plan, Baumgartner will also become the first skydiver ever to break the sound barrier. And he should also set records for the longest-duration freefall and highest manned balloon flight, Red Bull Stratos mission officials say. Baumgartner's leap requires calm conditions, because his 55-story-tall balloon is fragile — the material is 10 times thinner than a plastic sandwich bag — and could be damaged by high winds. The daredevil's team has said they won't lift off if winds at the launch site exceed 2 mph (3.2 kph). Red Bull Stratos officials have described Baumgartner's record-breaking attempt as a jump from the edge of space. However, space is generally considered to begin at an altitude of 62 miles (100 km), or 327,000 feet. Follow SPACE.com on Twitter @Spacedotcom. We're also on Facebook & Google+. ||||| The man who's going to jump 23 miles to Earth this week: Dubbed Fearless Felix, this extreme skydiver will try to break the sound barrier free-falling from space One tiny error could result in his blood boiling and his brain exploding Austrian Felix Baumgartner has spent five years planning the daredevil feat He will be attempting to break the sound barrier on Tuesday leaping from an aircraft on the edge of space in a pressurised suit with a parachute Should anyone else be planning the feat Felix Baumgartner will undertake on Tuesday morning, this weekend would be a time of sleepless nights and dread-filled days. For 23 miles up on the edge of space, and wearing only a pressurised suit and a parachute, he will pause at the hatch of his tiny capsule as it ascends into the heavens beneath one of the biggest balloons ever made. Red Bull Stratos announced Friday that the jump by extreme athlete Felix Baumgartner have been moved from Monday to Tuesday thanks to a cold front with gusty winds. The jump can only be made if winds on the ground are under 2 mph for the initial launch a balloon carrying Baumgartner. Fearless: Felix, pictured here on a previous dive in July, plans to jump from the edge of the earth's atmosphere on Tuesday No more than 20 minutes later, the world will know whether this audacious Austrian has become the first skydiver to break the sound barrier in the highest, fastest freefall descent in history. If anything goes wrong — and despite five years of planning and training, there is plenty that could — it might get very, very messy. The nightmare scenario that Felix’s project director likens to a ‘horror film’ would involve his blood boiling, brain bursting and eyeballs popping out — all of it watched live via the internet around the globe. This may sound like the sort of lunatic feat that no one but a man who has spent 20 years at the more extreme end of extreme sports would want anything to do with. But a team of engineers, doctors and pilots have spent five years working alongside Baumgartner, 43, to ensure he gets down alive and in one piece. For one of them, Dr Jonathan Clark, the operation’s medical director, there is an intensely personal reason for being involved. Since his astronaut wife Laurel was killed in 2003 when the space shuttle Columbia disintegrated over Texas, the former Nasa flight surgeon has devoted his career to working to improve astronauts’ chances of surviving a similar high-altitude disaster. Austrian Felix Baumgartner, pictured at a news conference in New York, will leap from an aircraft 23 miles above New Mexico, in an attempt to jump higher and faster in a free fall than anyone ever before ‘I have every expectation he’ll come through this successfully,’ says Dr Clark. ‘But, you know, it is still an unknown.’ As for Baumgartner, quite the Hollywood action man with his rugged good looks and Born To Fly tattooed on his arm, he and his backers are sufficiently confident that they are filming the descent and streaming it on YouTube. Banishing talk of nerves, he says he would never jump if the odds were against him. And he insists he hasn’t got a death wish. Of the sceptics who will be holding their hands in front of their eyes as he hurtles towards Earth at nearly 700mph, he says simply: ‘I think they underestimate the skills of a skydiver.’ Fearless Felix has been flinging himself out of planes and off skyscrapers for years. He has clocked up 2,500 skydiving jumps, including one in which he became the first person to ‘fly’ across the English Channel, with carbon-fibre wings strapped to his back. He has performed various horrifying ‘base jumps’, freefalling off the Christ statue in Rio and leaping head-first into a pitch black, 620ft-deep cave in Croatia. Baumgartner says his supersonic plunge will be the end of his ‘journey’ as a daredevil. He intends to retire with his girlfriend and settle down to a quiet life — which in his case means becoming a rescue helicopter pilot. Ahead of his grand finale, he has completed a couple of high-altitude dress rehearsals. In July, he leapt from 96,640ft — just 6,000ft shy of a world record set in 1960 by Joe Kittinger, a U.S. air force test pilot. The grandfather of stratosphere skydiving, 84-year-old Colonel Kittinger has become Baumgartner’s mentor and will be the voice he hears in his headset as he communicates with mission control before and during the jump. Fearless Felix, pictured saluting as he prepared in March to board a capsule carried by a balloon during the first manned test flight for Red Bull Stratos in Roswell, New Mexico But a disembodied voice will not protect him against some of the most extreme forces in nature. ‘You can feel in your stomach and every part of your body that it does not want to be there,’ says the Austrian, a former military parachutist, laconically. The body in question will be encased in a specially designed £125,000 spacesuit. It has an insulating exterior that can withstand extreme temperatures, and an airtight inner layer filled with pressurised oxygen. It also has one crucial difference to the spacesuits worn by astronauts, which is that it remains highly flexible when it is fully pressurised. Baumgartner’s visor is fitted with an intensely powerful heat regulator that should keep his view free of fog and frost. The suit’s 12lb chest pack contains monitoring and tracking equipment together with a voice transmitter so he can talk to mission control on the way down. The pack is connected to a device on his wrist that allows him to monitor his speed and altitude. The capsule in which he’ll make his ascent is 11ft high and 8ft in diameter, made from fibreglass strengthened by an internal metal frame, and weighs as much as a Volkswagen Beetle. The Red Bull Stratos science team has confirmed that the capsule delivering Austrian sportsman Felix Baumgartner to the edge of space for his record-breaking free-fall attempt is mission ready It was designed by some of the scientists who created the U.S. stealth bomber and is based on the famous Nasa Apollo rocket, but with a few key design differences. The exit hatch is bigger for a start, designed to prevent the sort of catastrophe that befell Soviet high-altitude sky diver Pyotr Dolgov in 1962. Struggling to leave his capsule in his cumbersome spacesuit, Dolgov cracked his visor slightly on the door. He was dead by the time he landed, a victim of ebullism, the terrifying condition in which the drastically lower air pressure above 62,000ft makes liquids in the body start to bubble and vaporise, inflating the body and bringing unconsciousness within 15 seconds. Unfortunately for Baumgartner’s sponsor, Red Bull, he won’t be able to consume any of the fizzy energy drink on the way up. The air pressure inside the capsule will still be significantly lower than at sea level, and any kind of gas inside his body could prove extremely uncomfortable. The Austrian company won’t say how much it has sunk into the project, but it must surely run into millions. Pilot Felix Baumgartner did his first test jump from the Red Bull Stratos capsule in March, in which he reached an altitude 21,800 meters (71500 ft) and landed safely near Roswell, New Mexico Weather permitting (the balloon material is so flimsy the ground level wind cannot be stronger than 2mph), the launch is scheduled for dawn on Tuesday, on a runway in the New Mexico desert. A ten-strong team wearing cotton gloves and protective suits to prevent them ripping the fabric will pump helium from two large lorries into a £150,000 balloon that has been hailed as the biggest ever to lift a passenger. When inflated, it is as high as a 55-storey building with a volume of 30 million cubic feet. Made from strengthened plastic, it is a tenth of the thickness of a sandwich bag. Baumgartner has limited space to move around in the capsule and the balloon will be largely steered remotely from mission control down on the ground. If all goes well, the journey will take just under three hours. The biggest danger he faces on the way up is the risk of the balloon rupturing soon after take-off. If that happens, Fearless Felix won’t have time to open the hatch and get out, and will come crashing down inside the capsule. When it reaches the jumping height of 120,000ft — three times the altitude at which airliners fly — he will look out on a black rather than blue daytime sky while he waits for the final ‘clear to jump’ message from mission control. Pictured in the capsule that he will launch himself from on Monday, Felix looks more like an astronaut than a sky-diver, fully equipped with a space suit and high-tech equipment At that point, he will depressurise the capsule, pressurise his suit and open the exit door (the capsule will later automatically detach from the balloon and parachute back to Earth). It’s a virtually oxygen-free vacuum up there, with just one per cent of the air pressure on Earth, so the consequences of an accident now — a ripped suit (the biggest fear) or hairline helmet crack — would be disastrous, bringing on the dreaded ebullism in seconds. If that isn’t bad enough, a spacesuit failure could also bring on the bends (gas seeping into body tissues due to sudden low pressure), barotrauma (trapped gas in body cavities that can collapse the lungs), and severe oxygen deprivation, known as anoxia. And let’s not forget the discomfort of falling through air with a temperature as low as minus 70f. Even leaving the capsule is fraught with danger. Baumgartner, who will basically fall forwards off the capsule platform, needs to start plunging straight down and head first as quickly as possible to reach maximum speed. But there is always a risk that, with virtually no wind at those altitudes, he could end up in an uncontrolled flat spin. At such high altitude, Fearless Felix will be able to see the curvature of the Earth and will free-fall for 20 minutes before landing In his test jump in March, Felix plunged 25,000 feet. Tomorrow he hopes to jump higher and faster in a free fall than anyone ever before And if he spins too fast, the force will make him lose consciousness, cause brain damage, turn his eyeballs into reddish-purple orbs and — very possibly — kill him. As a safety precaution of sorts, his clever spacesuit will release a drogue parachute — a miniaturised version of the type used to slow fast-landing jets — to reduce his speed if its monitoring system senses he has lost consciousness. It will take him just 40 seconds to go from zero to 700mph and break the sound barrier at an altitude of around 100,000ft. No one can be sure what happens when a body breaks the sound barrier at that height, and the possibility of his suit being damaged by supersonic shock waves is another unpleasant ‘what if’ that Baumgartner’s scientific experts have had to consider. Felix, left, will be guided by U.S. Air Force Col. (Ret.) Joe Kittinger, right, who holds the current stratospheric jump record, from 1960 of 102,800 feet But once he has gone supersonic, travelling at the speed of a bullet, the air resistance will start to pick up as the atmosphere becomes more dense and he can move himself into the more stable ‘delta’ position — arms and legs spread out, body parallel to the ground — that you normally see being used by skydivers. Assuming he makes it through intact, Baumgartner, his spacesuit fitted with cameras recording his stomach-churning descent, will freefall for some five-and-a-half minutes before pulling his main parachute at 5,000ft. Some ten to 15 minutes later, with luck he will touch down battered but unbowed near Roswell. The remote New Mexican town is, of course, famous for a rumoured UFO crash landing in 1947. How wonderfully apt. Where else can claim to have had stranger things drop out of the sky than Fearless Felix?

– Felix Baumgartner has already sky-dived from 13 miles up and 18 miles up—so what's a leap of 23 miles that shatters the sound barrier? Well, it at least requires good weather, so the record-breaking dive has been bumped from Monday to Tuesday to avoid strong winds and rain, Space.com reports. Then the 43-year-old Austrian will ride a specially designed capsule into the stratosphere and take a leap over southeastern New Mexico. The key for Baumgartner is to jump head-first and reach maximum speed so as to avoid an uncontrolled flat spin—which could cause brain damage and possibly kill him, the Daily Mail reports. Within 40 seconds he hopes to reach 700mph, and hit the speed of sound at around 100,000 feet. Ultimately he intends to land near Roswell. His plan after completing the feat: retire and enjoy a quiet life, which for him means working as a rescue helicopter pilot.

New York (CNN) Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said she hopes to stay on the Supreme Court until the age of 90. "I'm now 85," Ginsburg said on Sunday. "My senior colleague, Justice John Paul Stevens, he stepped down when he was 90, so think I have about at least five more years." She has already hired law clerks for at least two more terms. Ginsburg spoke in New York following a production of "The Originalist," a play about the late Justice Antonin Scalia, at the 59E59 Theater. "If I had my choice of dissenters when I was writing for the court, it would be Justice Scalia," Ginsburg said, saying that the back and forth would help her form her arguments. "Sometimes it was like a ping-pong game." Read More ||||| The supreme court justice, a hero to liberals as Trump’s second nominee threatens a right turn, spoke in New York on Sunday 'Flaming feminist' Ruth Bader Ginsburg wants five more years – at least Supreme court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg called herself a “flaming feminist” on Sunday, and said she plans to spend “at least another five years” on the bench. Her comments followed a performance in New York of The Originalist, a play about her former colleague and friend Antonin Scalia, who died in 2016. Scalia’s seat on the nine-member panel is now filled by Neil Gorsuch, another conservative who was nominated by Donald Trump. Ginsburg, 85, was speaking a little more than a month after the announcement of the retirement of another conservative justice, Anthony Kennedy. Trump has nominated Brett Kavanaugh to replace him, aiming to push the court right for decades. Sign up to receive the top US stories every morning “My dear spouse used to say the true symbol of the US is not a bald eagle,” Ginsburg said on Sunday. “It is the pendulum.” She was responding to a question about how Americans have questioned the country’s institutions this summer. “And when it goes very far in one direction,” she continued, “you can count on it coming back”. With Congress mired in partisanship and dominated by money, the justices of the supreme court have gained a kind of celebrity. Ginsburg especially has gained notoriety for vehement dissenting opinions in which she criticizes bigotry or unfairness as she sees it. She is the subject of a new documentary, RBG, and has even had her daily fitness routine scrutinized. Twice weekly, according to The RBG Workout, she conditions with planks, push-ups, chest presses and and leg curls. When Ginsburg entered the 59E59 Theater, New Yorkers outside applauded. Even her accessories betrayed her celebrity. She carried a black canvas tote printed with a message: “I Dissent: Ruth Bader Ginsburg makes her mark”. That is the title of a picture book published after the success of “Notorious RBG”, a biography. Ginsburg is a seasoned theatergoer and opera lover, interests she shared with Scalia, a Catholic arch-conservative. When Ginsburg sat down in the theater, a woman behind her remarked: “Ginsburg is sitting two rows in front of us. See her little head?” She was escorted by at least three secret service agents. After the play, Ginsburg said: “One change in my life is I am now recognized.” When people approach her, she said, to pile on praise – “Justice Ginsburg, you’re my idol!” – she often responds: “Yes, so many people have told me I look just like her.” The audience was polite throughout the play, which explores a fictionalized relationship between Scalia and a liberal clerk. During Ginsburg’s talk, it was rapt. People clapped, laughed or, with an occasional outburst, affirmed her stories. “Yes!” shouted one audience member, when Ginsburg described roadblocks she had faced as a Jewish woman. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Edward Gero plays Antonin Scalia in The Originalist. Photograph: Joan Marcus The Originalist, by John Strand, was first produced in 2015 but it seemed apt in 2018. An early line sees Scalia say Roe v Wade, the 1973 decision which guaranteed the right to abortion, is “on its deathbed”. That elicited groans. Kavanaugh’s nomination is seen as a direct threat to Roe. Giuliani: 180 tapes seized from Cohen but Trump only speaks on one Read more In the discussion that followed the play, most questions focused on Ginburg’s relationship with Scalia, her “sparring partner”. Others asked what she thought was the most important case of the last 20 years: it is Obergefell v Hodges, the 2015 ruling that legalized same-sex marriage. The audience’s favorite question may have been about Dean Dixon, a conductor who introduced Ginsburg to opera in 1944, when she was 11. Dixon, who was African American, said he was never called “maestro” until he went to Europe, a history chronicled in the book “Negro at Home, Maestro Abroad”. Ginsburg said she looked at Dixon’s story as one example of America’s 20th-century fight with discrimination, from a time when when segregated troops fought “odious racism” in Europe during the second world war. For the court, that fight culminated in Brown v Board of Education, the 1954 ruling that stopped segregation in schools. “Having been a woman and being a Jew, I know what it’s like to be the object of unfair discrimination,” she said. America’s demons, in Ginsburg’s estimation, reared their heads again in 2013. She dissented a decision that gutted the Voting Rights Act, one of the most enduring achievements of the civil rights era. It turned Ginsburg into a liberal icon. “The genius of the constitution is it has become more and more inclusive,” she said on Sunday. “Now, ‘we the people’, embraces all the people.” She added: “Courts never lead a social change. They only catch up to a change.”

– If there's a third vacancy on the Supreme Court during President Trump's first term, it won't be the result of Ruth Bader Ginsburg stepping down. The 85-year-old justice said Sunday that her senior colleague, John Paul Stevens, stepped down when he was 90, so she thinks she has at least five more years, CNN reports. Ginsburg, speaking after a New York City production of The Originalist, a play about Antonin Scalia, said the dissenting opinions of her conservative colleague helped her form her own arguments. "Sometimes it was like a ping-pong game," she said. Ginsburg said there was no chance of term limits being introduced for Supreme Court justices because that would require amending the Constitution. "Article 3 says ... we hold our offices during good behavior," she said. "And most judges are very well behaved." Ginsburg, who was appointed to the court by Bill Clinton in 1993, described herself as a "flaming feminist" and said the most important case of the last 20 years was the ruling that legalized gay marriage in 2015, the Guardian reports. Asked what keeps her hopeful, Ginsburg spoke of her late husband. "My dear spouse would say that the true symbol of the United States is not the bald eagle—it is the pendulum," she said. "And when it goes very far in one direction you can count on its swinging back."

John Travolta has battled rumors about his sexuality for years, but the actor is now facing more serious allegations from an anonymous male masseur who is suing him for assault and sexual battery. As TMZ is reporting, the unnamed masseur is reportedly seeking $2 million plus punitive damages after Travolta is said to have "began rubbing the masseur's leg, touched his scrotum and the shaft of his penis" after having stripped naked during an appointment. Not only did Travolta allegedly try to have sex with the masseur, but he is also said to have told the plantiff -- identified only as "John Doe" -- that he "got where he is now due to sexual favors he had performed when he was in his 'Welcome Back, Kotter' days," and that "Hollywood is controlled by homosexual Jewish men who expect favors in return for sexual activity." UPDATE: RadarOnline reports that a second masseur has filed a $2 million sexual battery lawsuit against Travolta. The website quotes documents which indicate this masseur claims to have "substantial documentation and numerous witnesses regarding the substance of Travolta's actions." The second alleged victim is represented by the same lawyer as the first accuser, and in the amended complaint, both are now suing the actor for sexual harassment as well. The lawsuit spares few details of the alleged exchange: when the masseur says he reminded Travolta that sexual acts in exchange for money were illegal, the actor's rebuttal is stated as, "Come on dude, I’ll jerk you off!" The suit also describes Travolta's genitalia as "roughly 8 inches in length" with pubic hair that was "wirey and unkempt." Travolta, who is married to actress Kelly Preston, is said to have later apologized for his behavior. But the actor later suggested he and the masseur team up to have sex with "a Hollywood starlet in the building that wanted to have three-way sex and to be double penetrated," according to the lawsuit. Travolta's camp slammed the allegations in a statement to E! Online, calling the case "complete fiction and fabrication." The statement reads, "None of the events claimed in the suit ever occurred. The plaintiff, who refuses to give their name, knows that the suit is a baseless lie...On that date when plaintiff claims John met him, John was not in California and it can be proved that he was on the East Coast. Plaintiff's attorney has filed this suit to try and get his 15 minutes of fame. John intends to get this case thrown out and then he will sue the attorney and Plaintiff for malicious prosecution." In addition to punitive damages, the lawsuit cites emotional distress and requests a jury trial, according to MassLive. Take a look at other celebrities who've faced rumors about their sexuality below: Gay Rumors Gay Rumors 1 of 21 Jeremy Renner The hunky star of "The Avengers" blasted persistent rumors about his sexuality -- as well as probes into his personal life in general -- earlier this month. "I want my personal life to be personal, and it's not f***ing true," Renner, 41, is quoted as saying . "And I don't care if you're talking about things that are true, you're still talking about my personal life.. How about I go peek in your window, take what underwear you wore last night, whose husband you were f***ing, and shove that in the megaphone throughout your neighborhood? How does that feel?" Share this slide: AP ||||| John Travolta Sued By Masseur He Touched My Penis John Travolta Sued by Masseur for Sexual Assault Breaking News has been sued by a masseur, who claims the actor tried to have sex with him during a session.According to the lawsuit, Travolta saw the masseur's ad online, and scheduled an appointment for $200 an hour. The masseur did not know it was Travolta when the appointment was booked, but followed instructions and met up with a black Lexus SUV, which Travolta was driving.According to the suit, Travolta and the masseur, who says he saw Trojan condoms in the center console, drove to the Beverly Hills Hotel and went to Travolta's bungalow.The suit claims Travolta stripped naked, appearing semi-erect. The masseur says he told Travolta to lay down on the table and the first hour went without incident. Then, according to legal docs, Travolta began rubbing the masseur's leg, touched his scrotum and the shaft of his penis.The masseur claims he told Travolta he did not have sex with his clients, but Travolta was undeterred, offering to do a "reverse massage," adding, "Come on dude, I'll jerk you off!!!"The suit goes on to allege Travolta then masturbated and told the masseur he got to where he was "due to sexual favors he had performed when he was in his 'Welcome Back Kotter' days," adding "Hollywood is controlled by homosexual Jewish men who expect favors in return for sexual activity."The masseur -- who is only listed as John Doe -- claims Travolta called him a loser, but then doubled the hourly rate and sent him on his way.The suit seeks $2 million plus punitive damages.Travolta's reps could not be reached for comment. ||||| Jerod Harris/WireImage Is this merely a case of pulp pure fiction? John Travolta has been sued for assault and sexual battery in federal court by an anonymous masseur, who claims the actor tried to have sex with him after hiring him for a massage. MORE: John Travolta's Stolen Mercedes Case Cracked, Auto-Theft Ring Busted Up The plaintiff, identified only as John Doe in the lawsuit obtained by E! News, claims, among other things, that Travolta touched his scrotum and penis after having stripped in front of the masseur. The suit claims Travolta apologized for his behavior, but continued to pursue the idea of sex with the man and later suggested that they have sex with a "Hollywood starlet in the building that wanted to have three-way sex and to be double penetrated." What's more, the lawsuit claims that the star said he "got where he is now due to sexual favors he had performed when he was in his Welcome Back, Kotter days." MORE: View the lawsuit MORE: John Travolta's Mafia Movie Not Sleeping With the Fishes The court papers also claim the man asked to be taken back to where he was picked up and received double his fee or $800. The plaintiff is seeking $2 million in general damages, unspecified punitive damages and court costs. Meanwhile, Travolta's camp released the following statement to E! News about the matter. "This lawsuit is complete fiction and fabrication," it reads. "None of the events claimed in the suit ever occurred. The plaintiff, who refuses to give their name, knows that the suit is a baseless lie...On that date when plaintiff claims John met him, John was not in California and it can be proved that he was on the East Coast. Plaintiff's attorney has filed this suit to try and get his 15 minutes of fame. John intends to get this case thrown out and then he will sue the attorney and Plaintiff for malicious prosecution." PHOTOS: Court Appearances

– John Travolta is one randy (and rather rude) massage client, according to a new Hollywood lawsuit. A masseur hired by Travolta claims the movie star took him to a Beverly Hills Hotel bungalow, stripped to nothing, appeared semi-erect, and touched the masseur's scrotum and penis during the massage, TMZ reports. When the masseur declined to fool around, Travolta cried, "Come on dude, I'll jerk you off!" Travolta then completed that very deed, but on himself. Travolta allegedly said he had achieved fame "due to sexual favors he had performed when he was in his 'Welcome Back Kotter' days," adding, "Hollywood is controlled by homosexual Jewish men who expect favors in return for sexual activity." He even invited the masseur to have sex with a starlet who wanted to be "double-penetrated," reports Rumorfix. But Travolta's lawyers deny the entire incident, notes E! Online, calling it "complete fiction and fabrication." Hat tip to Huffington Post for the roundup. (Now check out Carrie Fisher's call for Travolta to come out of the closet.)

WASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve took no new steps to support the economy Wednesday, but it said in a statement that it was ready to act if job growth did not improve. The statement, released after a meeting of the Fed’s policy-making committee, said that the rate of economic growth had slowed in recent months and was likely to remain “moderate over coming quarters.” As a result, the Fed said it expected the unemployment rate to decline “only slowly.” But the central bank deferred any effort to improve the situation at least until the committee’s next scheduled meeting in mid-September. “The committee will closely monitor incoming information on economic and financial developments and will provide additional accommodation as needed to promote a stronger economic recovery and sustained improvement in labor market conditions in a context of price stability,” it said. That was stronger language than it used after its previous meeting in June, when it said that it was “prepared” to act. And the Fed’s chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, has said that the Fed is “committed to ensuring, or at least doing all we can to ensure” that unemployment continues to decline, suggesting officials may simply be waiting to see the government’s estimates of job growth in July and August, which will be released before the committee reconvenes Sept. 12 and 13. The absence of action appeared to disappoint some equity investors. The Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index fell 4 points, or 0.29 percent, Wednesday, to 1,375.32. The Dow Jones industrial average dropped sharply after the Fed’s announcement, and then traded erratically before closing near its session low. It fell 37.62 points, also 0.29 percent, to 12,971.06. But much of the market’s attention already has turned to the September meeting, when the Fed also will update its economic projections. “This statement will at least raise some new doubts about whether the Fed will be easing again this year,” Jim O’Sullivan, chief United States economist at High Frequency Economics, wrote in a note to clients Wednesday. “We still expect they will, assuming that growth remains fairly sluggish, but for now at least the statement keeps the debate open.” Mr. Bernanke will have an opportunity to clarify his views when he speaks at an annual monetary policy conference in Jackson Hole, Wyo., at the end of August. Some Fed officials suggested recently that the weak rate of growth required new action. They said that the unemployment rate had stagnated above 8 percent since January, and that the most recent economic forecasts by Fed officials, published in June, projected the rate would decline slightly, if at all, during the second half of the year. But there were no votes for action at the meeting that ended Wednesday. Among the 12 officials who vote on monetary policy, the only dissent from the decision to stand pat came from an official who has consistently pressed for the Fed to do less, Jeffrey M. Lacker, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond. The Fed already is engaged in a wide-ranging effort to spur growth by cutting interest rates, punishing savers and rewarding borrowers. The central bank has held its benchmark rate near zero since late 2008, and said that it planned to maintain that policy at least until late 2014. It has put further pressure on long-term rates by amassing a portfolio of almost $3 trillion in long-term Treasury securities and mortgage-backed securities. And it said in June that it would keep buying bonds through the end of the year. But those efforts have proved insufficient to set off a strong recovery. The economy has slogged along somewhere between crisis and prosperity for more than three years now. Unemployment remains pervasive; more than 23 million Americans cannot find full-time jobs. And the Fed, while insisting that it could do more, has so far declined to prove it. Some Fed officials remain uncertain that the economy needs help. Economic indicators are imprecise, particularly in times of turbulence. Some officials also doubt the Fed can help. Cheap loans are at best an indirect means of addressing problems like the decline in government spending, tight credit standards and high levels of household debt. Vincent Reinhart, chief United States economist at Morgan Stanley, said that the Fed appeared “resigned to subpar economic performance” because it lacked confidence in the available tools. “If it were more confident, it would have done more,” said Mr. Reinhart, who worked as the Fed’s chief monetary policy staff member under Mr. Bernanke. ||||| WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — A cautious Federal Reserve on Wednesday said that the economy was weaker but took no new action to help stimulate demand. The lack of any policy action was a surprise. Analysts had expected the Fed to at least push out its pledge to hold its benchmark federal funds rate exceptionally low. Instead, the Fed repeated that it would likely hold that rate steady until late 2014. Read text of FOMC decision. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke Many economists had thought that the Fed might announce a major new asset-purchase plan. U.S. stocks SPX, -1.13% dropped in the immediate aftermath of the Fed decision. Joe LaVorgna, chief economist at Deutsche Bank, welcomed the Fed’s inaction. “The training wheels need to come off the bike and the economy needs to be left alone,” he said. As expected, the Fed left unchanged the federal funds rate target at zero to 0.25%, the level it has been at since December 2008. The central bank downgraded its view on the economy, saying that economic activity had decelerated. Previously, the Fed had said that the economy had been expanding moderately. Since the recession officially ended in the summer of 2009, the economy has sputtered along with the unemployment rate stuck above 8%. The Fed did leave the door open for action. The FOMC promised to “closely monitor incoming information on economic and financial developments” and said it “will provide additional accommodation as needed.” This is a slightly stronger promise that in June, when it said that it was “prepared to take action as appropriate.” Ward McCarthy, chief financial economist at Jefferies, said the Fed is “ready to pull the trigger” if the bar of sustained improvement in the labor market is not met or if downside risks intensify. But Jim O’Sullivan, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics, said the statement raised doubt about whether the Fed will be easing again this year. “We still expect they will, assuming growth remains fairly sluggish, but for now at least the statement keeps the debate open,” he wrote in a note. Bernanke will discuss policy options in his annual speech at the Fed’s Jackson Hole retreat on Aug. 31. Many economists are convinced the Fed will launch a new asset-purchase program, including the buying of mortgage-backed securities, at its next policy meeting in September. But others are not so sure that more purchases, or quantitative easing, is inevitable. Expectations too high for Fed, ECB? (3:55) In the context of Mario Draghi's "whatever it takes" comment, are hopes set unattainably high for the Fed and ECB? Spencer Jakab discusses on Markets Hub. (Photo: Reuters) The Fed will have two more unemployment reports, including one on Friday, before its next meeting. Officials want to gauge whether growth will likely remain moderate and pick up gradually as forecast or if the recent soft patch is becoming something more severe. The FOMC vote on Wednesday was 11 to 1. The dissenter was Richmond Fed President Jeffrey Lacker, who has dissented at every meeting this year. Lacker wanted the Fed to omit any guidance on how long rates will stay exceptionally low. Last month, the Fed extended its Operation Twist program until the end of the year. The Fed is selling short-term government securities and buying longer-term Treasurys in a bid to lower long-term interest rates. John Lonski, chief economist at Moody’s Capital, said there was no reason for additional stimulus at the meeting as equity markets have firms and credit spreads have been relatively well behaved. “Financial markets are not in need of additional support right now,” he added. Lonski also said investors would be closely watching European Central Bank President Mario Draghi’s press conference following the central bank’s policy meeting Thursday. If Draghi follows though on his pledge to do whatever it takes to support the Europe, it will relieve pressure on the Fed to take additional action, he commented. Read ECB preview. More from MarketWatch ||||| Article Excerpt The Federal Reserve is heading toward launching a new round of stimulus to buck up the weak economy, but stopped short of doing so right away. The decision to make what amounted to a conditional promise of action came Wednesday at the end of the central bank's two-day policy meeting. In an uncharacteristically strong statement, the Fed said it will "closely monitor" the economy and "will provide additional accommodation as needed to promote a stronger economic recovery and sustained improvement in labor market conditions." Translation: The Fed will move if growth and employment don't pick up soon on their own.

– Wall Street has been waiting anxiously for a few days now to see what the Fed was going to do about the economy, and the answer arrived this afternoon: Nothing. For now. The Fed sees evidence that the economy has actually decelerated in recent months, reports MarketWatch, but it's not going to enter into new bond-buying or other such stimulus until the picture clarifies in the next month or two. Friday's jobs report might be the first indicator. In Fed-speak: “The committee will closely monitor incoming information on economic and financial developments and will provide additional accommodation as needed to promote stronger economic recovery and sustained improvement in labor market conditions," said its official statement. The Wall Street Journal parses the wording and thinks the Fed "signaled more strongly" that it will eventually take action. The New York Times, too, calls the language "somewhat stronger" than past statements.

LYNDONVILLE, Vt. (AP) — A missing statue of the Virgin Mary stolen from a Vermont nativity scene more than two years ago has been found unharmed and returned to its owner. The statue was stolen from Lyndonville in January 2016 and it was recently discovered in an apartment house storage area by Lyndonville Police Chief Jack Harris acting on a tip. It was returned to the Lyndon Ecumenical Council. The Caledonian Record reports Municipal Administrator Justin Smith recognized the missing statue in photos of the building's interior taken by the town health officer during an inspection. Police say mostly college students live in the building and it will be impossible to determine how it got there. A statue of the baby Jesus that was stolen at the same time remains missing. ___ Information from: The Caledonian-Record, http://www.caledonianrecord.com ||||| It's the 2017 Best of the Kingdom! View the different sections to read all about the best that The Northeast Kingdom has to offer!

– A missing statue of the Virgin Mary stolen from a Vermont nativity scene more than two years ago has been found unharmed and returned to its owner, the AP reports. The statue was stolen from Lyndonville in January 2016 and it was recently discovered in an apartment house storage area by Lyndonville Police Chief Jack Harris acting on a tip. It was returned to the Lyndon Ecumenical Council. The Caledonian Record reports Municipal Administrator Justin Smith recognized the missing statue in photos of the building's interior taken by the town health officer during an inspection. Police say mostly college students live in the building and it will be impossible to determine how it got there. A statue of the baby Jesus that was stolen at the same time remains missing.

McKinnah Sinclair, 18, and Charlie Daniels, 19 have been spotted in Beverly Hills, Calif., according to Las Cruces police (Photo: Courtesy) LAS CRUCES - The two New Mexico State University students reported missing earlier this week have been located in Idaho and are said to be in good condition, the Las Cruces Police Department reported in a news release McKinnah Sinclair, 18, and Charlie Daniels, 19, were located by police Thursday morning in Nampa, Idaho, just west of Boise. The release stated the LCPD detective in charge of the case learned that shortly after 11 a.m. Thursday, a Nampa police officer observed a red Ford Focus traveling 30 miles per hour below the posted speed limit on an interstate highway. The officer conducted a traffic stop on the vehicle driven by Daniels. Sinclair and Daniels were the only occupants of the vehicle. The Idaho officer discovered the vehicle had a fictitious, or fake, license plate. The Ford Focus the women were in belongs to the parents of Daniels, police said. However, the license plate at the time of the traffic stop in Idaho belongs to another vehicle. Police said investigators learned that the women intentionally switched plates before embarking on their interstate trip. The Nampa Police Department officer who carried out the traffic stop opted not to charge Daniels for the fake license plate, according to that department. Lt. Eric Skoglund of the Nampa Police Department said the vehicle in which the two were driving had been reported stolen. "My understanding is the car belonged to one of their parents and was reported stolen, but because of the nature of the relationship and the circumstances surrounding that, that was not determined to be the case, so there are no charges here based on that," Skoglund told the Sun-News on Thursday afternoon. After investigating the matter, the Nampa Police Department didn't detain the women further. Had they been minors — under the age of 18 — authorities could have detained them and notified parents to pick them up, but that wasn't the case, Skoglund said. "We checked on their welfare, talked with them, talked with family and talked with the agency that reported them missing to let them know the status," he said. "So, that was the extent of our contact with them." LCPD has learned that their families made arrangements to have the women returned to New Mexico. Sinclair and Daniels attended the Rare El Paso hip-hop concert on Friday, Feb. 3, at the El Paso County Coliseum. Missing person affidavits were filed with LCPD Tuesday morning after the women failed to return home or contact family. Sinclair and Daniels were captured on a surveillance camera Monday at an ATM in Beverly Hills, California. Police believe the women traveled to California and Idaho on their own, but failed to inform family or friends of their plans. Attempts to reach the women via cell phone or social media were ineffective and it appears the two were trying to keep their whereabouts unknown. The driving distance from El Paso to Beverly Hills to Nampa is about 1,600 miles. The Las Cruces Police Department received assistance on this case from various law enforcement agencies in New Mexico, Texas, Arizona, California, Nevada and Idaho. According to Minerva Baumann, the director of media relations at NMSU, Daniels enrolled at the university in the fall of 2015 and is studying in kinesiology. Sinclair enrolled at NMSU in the fall of 2016 and is majoring in pre-social work, Baumann said. Sinclair also is a member of the NMSU cheerleading squad. Sun-News reporter Diana Alba Soular contributed to this story. Read or Share this story: http://lcsun.co/2kTIobJ ||||| Copyright 2017 Nexstar Broadcasting, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. El Paso, TX (KTSM) - Las Cruces Police say that the two missing NMSU Students have been located and are in good condition in Idaho. McKinnah Sinclair, 18, and her roommate, Charlie Daniels, 19, were reported missing over the weekend after they came to a concert in El Paso on Friday night and were never heard from again. Monday, LCPD said that the the girls were seen on surveillance footage at a Beverly Hills ATM and appeared to be in good condition. On Thursday morning, a police officer in Nampa, Idaho - just west of Boise - pulled over a red Ford Focus that was driving 30 MPH under the speed limit. When they officer was investigating the stop, they learned that Daniels was the driver and Sinclair was the passenger in the car. According to the Nampa Police Department, the Focus had a fake license plate on it. Police learned that the teens allegedly switched plates before leaving on their multi-state trip. The Focus is registered to Daniels' parents and she is facing charges in Idaho for driving a vehicle with fictitious plates. The girls families have made arrangements to have the pair returned to New Mexico. It is still unclear why the girls left without telling their families or what their final destination may have been. Las Cruces Police would like to thank various law enforcement agencies in New Mexico, Texas, Arizona, California, Nevada and Idaho.

– A multi-state hunt for two missing New Mexico State University students ended in Idaho Thursday morning. The Las Cruces Sun-News reports that 18-year-old McKinnah Sinclair and 19-year-old Charlie Daniels, missing since they attended a hip-hop concert in Texas last Friday, were found driving in Nampa and said to be in good condition. A Facebook post from the Las Cruces Police Department notes a Nampa cop pulled over a red Ford Focus crawling along at 30mph below the highway speed limit and found Sinclair and Daniels inside, with Daniels behind the wheel. A lieutenant with the department tells the Sun-News the car, which apparently belonged to one of the teens' parents, had been reported stolen and was sporting license plates from another car. Investigators say the women purposely switched plates before they started traveling the country. Before they ended up in the Gem State, they had been caught on camera in Beverly Hills, Calif., Monday at an ATM. All told, they covered a driving distance of at least 1,600 miles before they were located, the Sun-News estimates. They hadn't been answering calls to their cellphones or contact on social media since they vanished after the concert. KTSM reports it's still vague what the teens' final destination was, or why they didn't tell anyone where they were going. The police in Nampa didn't detain the women after determining they were OK (both are technically adults), but the LCPD says their families have put things in place to get them back to New Mexico.

For those occasions when a simple cracker just won't do, there's the Martha Stewart Triscuit. Her flavor — toasted coconut with sea salt — hit grocery store shelves earlier this month, and she told The Huffington Post that she's certain it will become "habit forming." It was a "long and interesting process" creating a cracker, and Stewart said she tried several different combinations before selecting coconut and sea salt. Speaking of salt, she's a huge fan: "I like salt," she said. "My daughter likes salt. We all like salt." Stewart said she's not really a snacker — when she does grab a bite to eat between meals, it's fruit — but believes a well-stocked pantry must have a few different types of crackers. She wouldn't serve her Triscuits alone, but would add crab meat and lime or avocado and hot pepper, and also suggests turning them into an elevated s'more by topping a cracker with melted milk chocolate and a marshmallow. Of course, you have to present them on a gleaming silver tray alongside Waterford goblets and perfectly folded linen napkins, but you already knew that. Catherine Garcia ||||| Of course. Of course Martha Stewart -- model, housekeeping hero and comrade of Snoop Dogg -- has concocted the fanciest cracker flavor in the grocery store. Triscuits have been around since 1901, but Stewart's made them very on trend and so 2015. Her toasted coconut and sea salt-flavored Triscuit hit shelves in early May and will stay there for a limited time. Though Stewart has countless cracker recipes of her own, she told The Huffington Post her partnership with Triscuit was her first experience working with a mass marketed cracker manufacturer. "It was a long and interesting process," she said, and after a lot of trial and error, she settled on coconut and sea salt, a flavor combination she thought would be "habit forming." The 73-year-old lifestyle mogul describes the inventing process pretty plainly: "It was my idea. I like salt and I like coconut. ... I thought that was a flavor of cracker that would be savory and sweet." It certainly is. The cracker tastes like it was cooked in coconut oil and then salted; the sweet flavor isn't overpowering, nor does it have that "hint of sunscreen" taste that many coconut-flavored foods can't seem to shake. Stewart said she likes to watch people try the cracker for the first time because, she said, they almost always go back for seconds. But she herself can defeat the crispy, salty addiction: She says she's not much of a snacker, and when she does feel a hunger pang she eats fruit. Still, she always keeps crackers in the house -- Triscuits, Ritz and Saltines are the three that stock her pantry -- because of the salt factor. "I like salt. My daughter likes salt. We all like salt," she said. Salt it is. While it's totally acceptable to eat Triscuits straight from the box, Stewart has some cracker combos that take the snack up a notch. She said if she were serving the crackers at a party, she'd top them with crab meat and lime or avocado with hot peppers. For a hot hors d'oeuvres, these salty-sweet crunchers pair well with melted cheese, or for the true bourgeoisie, a crab and truffle topping. For dessert, Stewart suggests melting milk chocolate on each square and adding a marshmallow. Now you have Martha Stewart-approved s'mores. What could be more honorable than that? Also on HuffPost: Martha Stewart's Modeling Career Martha Stewart's Modeling Career 1 of 13 Share this slide: MySpace ||||| Photo: Getty Images If anyone puts together a food time capsule for the year 2015, make sure to include the new limited edition summer offering from Triscuit — the Toasted Coconut & Sea Salt flavor created by the one and only Martha Stewart. The project and surrounding P.R. campaign manage to squeeze everything that’s hot right now on, into, and around the 9-oz. box of crackers. Here’s the evidence: 1. Martha. At 73, she’s still the beloved icon that owns the domestic arts category. 2. Toasted coconut and sea salt. Totally on trend in terms of ingredients. Not on trend if you’re a fan of all things local. This only counts as a local treat if you live in one of the top coconut-producing regions, like Indonesia or Sri Lanka. 3. Avocado. The Pharrell of food. It’s everywhere, but we don’t mind. And it collaborates so well with other foods — toast, tomato, crabmeat, eggs. The Triscuit box features a picture of the crackers with some avocado on top as a serving suggestion. Happy, indeed. 4. S’mores. Yahoo Food has predicted that s’mores might be the flavor of the year, given how many s’mores-related edibles we’ve seen to date. The back of the box shows another serving suggestion — a toasted marshmallow with chocolate atop one of the Martha Triscuits. Call it S’mores Deluxe, no campfire required. 5. Pinterest. The Triscuit folks managed to get a link to its Pinterest page on the back of the box, too. If you’re a dedicated Pinhead, you already know Triscuit recipes, from Triscuit pizza to Triscuit Parmesan crusted chicken tenders, are popular on the site. 6. Artisanal food. We’re not talking about the Triscuits, which everyone acknowledges is a mass-produced packaged food. To celebrate the launch of the Martha Triscuits, the company commissioned five “artisanal food producers” to create a special product to be sold on each artisan’s website. The products include: McClure’s Olive Tapenade; The Jam Stand’s Cherry Ginger Jam; Wondermade Marshmallow’s Blackberry Mallow; Olympia Provisions’ Summer Sausage; and Savannah Bee Company’s Winter White Honey with Passion Fruit. 7. Entrepreneurs. Everyone is fascinated by entrepreneurs today. The press release for new flavor notes that Triscuit was originally founded in 1901 by an “enterprising small business owner.” The release neglects to mention the founder, but it could be referring to Henry Perky, the founder of shredded wheat biscuits. All teasing aside, most serious foodies, chefs included, love Triscuits. The reason? The original version has three ingredients — whole grain wheat, vegetable oil, and sea salt — making it one of the more straightforward packaged snack foods around. Even the much-lauded Gabrielle Hamilton of New York’s Prune restaurant famously featured Triscuits as a bar snack, albeit paired with sardines and mustard. She told T Magazine it’s something she could eat “till the end of time.” So how do the Martha Triscuits taste? The Yahoo Food team nibbled on some straight out of the box and was pleasantly surprised. There's a slight tang when the cracker hits your tongue, and the salty/sweet combo plays well with the wheat texture. Now all we need is some avocado. Or marshmallows. Or Martha. We love Martha Stewart here at Yahoo Food. Here’s some coverage you might have missed.

– Weird: Martha Stewart has her own limited-edition flavor of Triscuit crackers out this month. Not so weird: That flavor is "toasted coconut and sea salt." The Huffington Post calls it "the bougiest thing in the cracker aisle," which is about what you'd probably expect from Stewart, but notes that it actually tastes pretty good. Yahoo notes that the ingredients are "totally on trend," and the Week jokes that you're probably required to serve the crackers "on a gleaming silver tray alongside Waterford goblets and perfectly folded linen napkins."

A generic standardized test form. (Photo: AP) ASHBURN, Va.(WUSA9) -- Nearly a month after some SAT tests disappeared, Loudoun County school officials say they were discovered in a cart at the same school where students took the test. PREVIOUS STORY: Loudoun Schools prove missing SATs were collected When the tests did not make it to the College Board on time, officials had they had video showing the tests were picked up by UPS. Monday, a spokesperson for Loudoun County Public Schools says the SAT Tests that went missing on May 2 were found at Broad Run High School in Ashburn, the school where students took the test. The tests were at the bottom of a cart in the same package they were supposed to be delivered to UPS, according to the spokesperson. The tests were hand-carried Monday to the College Board in Princeton, New Jersey, says the spokesperson, and it looks like they are going to be validated. Read or Share this story: http://on.wusa9.com/1I2kFf4 ||||| Over 200 students in Loudoun County are breathing a sigh of relief after their missing SAT tests were found Monday morning. Schools officials say a sealed box containing 236 answer sheets was found on the bottom shelf of a cart in the shipping area of Broad Run High School. The school has been searching for the tests for about a month. Wayde Byard, a spokesman for Loudoun County Public Schools, says that after the May 2 exam, the sealed box was locked in the Guidance Office at Broad Run. At 9:07 a.m., the box and four other boxes were moved to the shipping area, where they were going to be shipped to Educational Testing Services (ETS). School officials are not sure what happened to the tests next, but they are looking into how the box ended up on the cart. An ETS representative was at the school when the tests were found and will take the box to an ETS facility in Princeton, New Jersey. The school says the tests will be validated, and the affected students will not have to retake the exam. ||||| WASHINGTON — The SATs that went missing from a Loudoun County high school were located at the school Monday after administrators initially said UPS carried the tests out of the building. On May 2, about 300 students at Broad Run High School in Ashburn, Virginia, took the SAT at the school, and the test takers learned last week that the completed exams never arrived to the College Board. Loudoun County Public Schools says the tests were sent off via UPS, but for some reason, the exams apparently never arrived at their destination. UPS made clear to WTOP that the shipment never entered its system. Last week, the school said video surveillance showed a UPS employee carrying the box — tracking number in view — containing the exams out of the building. That turned out not to be the case when all of the tests were located in the school’s shipping area Monday at about 11:30 a.m., says Loudoun County Public School Spokesman Wayde Byard. “UPS did not lose this, and we apologize profoundly to UPS,” Byard said. Byard says a mix up occurred when the boxes were moved from the school’s guidance office to the shipping area May 4. “A box that looked like the one containing the tests, went out the door at 3 p.m. that day. Some time between 9 and 3, the box with the answers some how got on another cart,” Byard says. Administrators though the box that left the building at 3 p.m. with UPS contained the answers, however, it stayed in the shipping area until it was located during a sweep Monday. The tests have been secured and will now be shipped off to the College Board. The students were given the option to retake the test in June, but now can avoid retaking it. Byard says the school system will conduct an investigation into the loss of the tests and will review how it handles the delivery of tests. WTOP’s Andrew Mollenbeck and Mike Murillo contributed to this report. Follow @WTOP on Twitter and WTOP on Facebook. © 2015 WTOP. All Rights Reserved.

– A month after 236 SATs went missing, school officials in Loudoun County, Va., found the tests yesterday—and they weren't exactly in the hands of UPS as the school had initially claimed, reports NBC Washington. Rather, they were neatly boxed up sitting in a cart in Broad Run High School's shipping area—presumably a place where one would have thought to look before telling students they might face a retake. "UPS did not lose this, and we apologize profoundly to UPS," says a school rep, per WTOP. The rep says some mix-up happened when the exams were moved from the guidance office; the school had claimed it had video of a UPS employee carrying the box, but it was actually "a box that looked like the one containing the tests [that] went out the door at 3pm that day," the rep says. The tests were being hand-delivered to the College Board in Princeton, NJ, notes WUSA, and it appears they'll be validated.

Taylor Swift just posted a very cryptic post on her social media accounts, indicating that she may be returning with new music very soon, and one of her collaborators, Joseph Kahn, has seemingly confirmed the news. After Taylor returned to social media with a video of some sort of serpent, Joseph replied with a smiley face. Then, Joseph went a step further and wrote, “In 30 minutes, as a show of power, @taylorswift13 will blot out the sun,” obviously referring to Taylor‘s massive star power in comparison with the upcoming 2017 Solar Eclipse. If you didn’t know, Joseph is a music video director and has directed some of Taylor‘s 1989 videos including “Bad Blood,” “Wildest Dreams” and more. ||||| Christopher Polk/Getty Images No longer a blank space. Taylor Swift returned to social media on Monday, August 21, just three days after wiping her Instagram and Tumblr posts, deleting her post-2011 Tweets and changing her official website to a black screen. Shortly after the drastic disappearances from Swift’s social media platforms on Friday, fans were quick to notice that the blackout occurred exactly three years after the announcement of 1989, the Grammy-winner’s most recent album. A post shared by Taylor Swift (@taylorswift) on Aug 21, 2017 at 8:00am PDT Swift shared a video to her Instagram and Twitter accounts on Monday, however the return is just as mysterious as the disappearance of posts. In the 10-second clip, a snake-like figure slithers as the lights flicker. Director Joseph Kahn, who worked with the singer on her “Bad Blood” video, quoted Swift’s tweet with the clip and added a smiley face. Shortly after, he wrote on Twitter: "In 30 minutes, as a show of power, @taylorswift13 will blot out the sun.” Us Weekly exclusively revealed in May that the singer has been quietly recording a new album during her time off, despite keeping a very low profile in recent months. "She's aiming to release an album this fall,” a source told Us at the time. "She's continuing down the pop route because 1989 was a huge success and fans really gravitated toward that album. She knows there's a demand for a new album and has really started focusing on making that happen for fans. She's just excited to get back out there.” See the best reactions to Swift’s video teaser below: #SolarEclipse2017: A complete eclipse only happens once every 30 years, everyone will tweet about this- Taylor Swift: pic.twitter.com/R5Jv2w0dFY — summer (@slaylorstan) August 21, 2017 Haters: Taylor Swift is a snake Taylor: *Embraces it* Hater: pic.twitter.com/ToX7gdGgOp — Dayton / 7 (@hesotall_) August 21, 2017 eclipse: "finally, 38 years later it's my time to shi—" taylor swift: pic.twitter.com/5Q9Y1DsanD — Maxwell Dunn (@maxwdunn) August 21, 2017 RT IF YOU’RE PROUD TO SAY THAT YOU STAN A LEGENDARY SNAKE NAMED TAYLOR SWIFT 🐍🐍🐍🐍 — ‏َ (@idwlfdeluxe) August 21, 2017 Taylor Swift deleted all of her social medias because after a snake sheds it's skin, it comes back better than before. #TS6ISCOMIMG pic.twitter.com/IK83bPghqt — Demisus🌙 (@ArianaFenties) August 21, 2017 Y'all can have the eclipse I'm just gonna be watching @taylorswift13 social media all day. 🔮👀 Bye. — Justin Mikita (@JustinMikita) August 21, 2017 Taylor swift announces game of thrones cameo pic.twitter.com/drnWuJaaSA — Shitty Watercolour (@SWatercolour) August 21, 2017 Want stories like these delivered straight to your phone? Download the Us Weekly iPhone app now! For the latest celebrity entertainment, news and lifestyle videos, subscribe to Us Weekly's YouTube Page. ||||| Is Taylor Swift releasing new music? Her mysterious snake videos hint yes CLOSE Taylor Swift shared a cryptic video snippet Monday across her social media accounts of a snake. USA TODAY Yep, it's a snake. Taylor Swift continues to tease fans with mysterious videos on social media, her first posts since wiping her accounts on Friday. Just after 11 a.m. ET on Monday, Swift posted a ten-second video of what appears to be a snake's tail on Instagram and Twitter. On Tuesday, around the same time, she posted a second clip of the snake. On Wednesday, the snake finally reared its head in an additional, heavily-CGI'd video. With the tail, middle and head of the snake all represented, fans were left guessing whether Thursday will actually bring new music. The posts are the first updates on Swift's social media sites since her official pages were blacked out (including Twitter, Instagram and her own website) prompting speculation of a new album announcement. Coincidentally, last Friday marked the three-year anniversary of Swift's Shake It Off release and 1989 album announcement, hinting that her much-anticipated sixth album may be around the corner. More: Taylor Swift erased from social media and fans can't shake it off Joseph Kahn, Swift's go-to music video director, quoted her tweet with a smiley-face and cracked a joke about Monday's solar eclipse, with many Internet commenters speculating that the two events were related. In 30 minutes, as a show of power, @taylorswift13 will blot out the sun. — Joseph Kahn (@JosephKahn) August 21, 2017 Tswift trying to eclipse the eclipse https://t.co/0fThmqPB6n — Sydney Esiason (@sydneyesiason) August 21, 2017 Only Taylor Swift could out hype a solar eclipse💁🏻 https://t.co/ZvGP8mlRxR — Brooklyn and Bailey (@BrookAndBailey) August 21, 2017 As fans have pointed out, Taylor has been associated with snake imagery since her drama with Kim Kardashian last year. Right around the time Kardashian "exposed" Swift on social media, she tweeted a string of snake emoji, which fans interpreted as her taking shots at Swift. And earlier this year, Swift fans commemorate the anniversary of the drama by celebrating "National Snake Day" on July 17 as a holiday in Swift's honor. Twitter had plenty of jokes about Taylor embracing the snake. Instead of being very much excluded from this narrative, I guess she's owning it https://t.co/WhxLTA4FUv — Phillip Picardi (@pfpicardi) August 23, 2017 No way...is Taylor Swift leaning totally into her supposed "snake" role people love giving her?! HERE FOR THAT!! Give it to em good, Taylor! https://t.co/azmocrQC7Y — Jeff Benjamin (@Jeff__Benjamin) August 21, 2017 Queen of taking the hate and turning it into art. 🐍 https://t.co/e6ZfI5Rcj4 — Alex Goldschmidt (@alexandergold) August 21, 2017 i see a snake? im guessing her album is self-titled https://t.co/tRzFVOs8M1 — san (@duarxgui) August 21, 2017 Oh yes, a smart business woman using self deprecation to her advantage https://t.co/CBlF5l5jNF — nick (@touchnick) August 21, 2017 "Snakes shed their skin to allow for further growth and to remove parasites that may have attached to their old skin." #TS6ISCOMIMGhttps://t.co/ymiMvoniFK — Katie Krause (@Katie_Krause) August 21, 2017 Viewers also thought the video's mysterious tail resembled a dragon, prompting a flurry of Game of Thrones references. Taylor Swift, the real Mother of Dragons. https://t.co/SYpIVkj4hq — Brandon Davis (@BrandonDavisBD) August 21, 2017 Is this like a Game of Thrones reference? TSwift's the new mother of dragons, y'all. https://t.co/OxVid1KPLE — Brian Truitt (@briantruitt) August 21, 2017 is this a dragon? did she just start watching game of thrones? so many questions I'm dying https://t.co/wc8bIGsOlE — sania (@jacobpercIta) August 21, 2017 the mother of dragons we deserve 😩😩😩 https://t.co/QJBYqH0D2T — Randolph (@rabdolph) August 21, 2017 One date that Swift fans should keep in mind: Sept. 30, the end of the eligibility period for next year's Grammy awards, which would give the singer a hard deadline if she wants any new music to qualify. Read or Share this story: https://usat.ly/2wqK0Qs ||||| Starting in 1996, Alexa Internet has been donating their crawl data to the Internet Archive. Flowing in every day, these data are added to the Wayback Machine after an embargo period. ||||| About "Taylor Swift Is a Snake" is a catchphrase used to smear the American pop singer-songwriter as a deceitful manipulator in the light of her post-breakup dispute with Calvin Harris, Scottish musician and her ex-boyfriend, as well as an unrelated controversy stemming from her reaction to the lyrics of Kanye West's 2016 rap single "Famous", both of which became high publicized in July 2016. The phrase is mainly used in the form of emoji and comment spamming on her Instagram account. Origin The rocky relationship between Taylor Swift and Kanye West began with the latter's infamous interruption of Swift’s acceptance speech at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards. A few years later, the two musicians seemed to have reconciled their differences at the 2015 MTV Video Music Awards, with Taylor Swift confirming that there were no hard feelings between them in an interview with MTV, while Kanye West publicly apologized for his previous stunt during his acceptance speech for the Michael Jackson Video Vanguard Award. Then in late June 2016, another feud arose between the two following the release of the music video for "Famous," the first single from Kanye West's seventh studio album The Life of Pablo. The music video quickly became a popular subject of gossips and media attention due to its inclusion of provocative imageries of celebrities and public figures, as well as lyrical references alluding to his I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex Why? I made that bitch famous (God damn) I made that bitch famous Spread Taylor Swift's Response In response, Taylor Swift claimed she was offended and never approved the lyrics. But Kanye West claimed she did approve the lyrics, with Swift and her supporters denying the claim. Kim Kardashian's Snapchat Video However, on July 18th, Kim Kardashian, Kanye West's wife, uploaded videos on SnapChat of Kanye West and Taylor Swift having the conversation (which she then uploaded to her Instagram account). Online Reaction Since then, there were various reactions to videos, with hashtags on twitter like #KimExposedTaylorParty and #TaylorIsASnake started being used. Various websites and media outlets like BuzzFeed and 4chan's /mu/ (music) have been discussing and reporting on the drama and creating various image macros on the subject. Justin Bieber's Instagram Post On August 2nd, Justin Bieber posted a mobile screenshot of himself video chatting with Kanye West via FaceTime to his Instagram account, along with the caption that simply read "Taylor swift what up." Within the first 12 hours, the post garnered over 1.5 million likes and 135,000 comments. Taylor swift what up. Bieber's dry greeting was largely interpreted as a subtle diss towards Swift in the light of her recent feud with West and it subsequently triggered a massive flood of spam comments on Taylor Swift's Instagram posts, in a very similar way to the raid that ensued on Miley Cyrus' Instagram account after Nicki Minaj confronted her by saying "Miley, What's Good?" during her acceptance speech for the Best Hip Hop Video Award at the 2015 MTV Video Music Awards. Snake Video On August 21st, 2017, Swift tweeted a short glitched video of what appeared to be a snake's tail on her Instagram and Twitter accounts (shown below). Since the video marked the artist's first social media since her accounts had been purged of all content, many speculated that it may have signaled a new album in the works. Meanwhile, others on Twitter made jokes about the video post coinciding with the 2017 solar eclipse. Examples Search Interest External References ||||| The new era of Taylor Swift is HERE, so please cancel all your plans and pray for Kim Kardashian and Kanye West. According to Genius, Swift's new song is called "Timeless"—and not only has it been registered under her name, but a website is "coming soon." FINALLY!!!!! According to Genius, Taylor Swift's new single is called "Timeless". A website with the name was created. #TS6 pic.twitter.com/rLdGFqnedG — Taylor Swift Updates (@TheReputation13) August 21, 2017 Swift first indicated that she was making her triumphant return by shutting down all forms of social media. She then dropped some cryptic code on the backend of her website, and has since emerged with what appears to be a snake (or perhaps dragon?) tail video—a clear reference to the fact that everyone spent the better part of 2016 spamming her with the snake emoji. In the words of this random Swift fan on Twitter: my names alyssia and i stan a shady ass qUEEN thats coming to slay everyone who dissed her in the past two years, watch out bitches. #TS6 — a loves taylor 🌊 (@newyearsdaytay) August 21, 2017 Stay tuned for more updates. Follow Marie Claire on Facebook for the latest celeb news, beauty tips, fascinating reads, livestream video, and more. ||||| When Taylor Swift deleted all of her social media posts and became a faceless (wo)man on Friday, you knew something was up. Three days later, speculation is only growing after the singer posted a nearly inscrutable video to Instagram and Twitter. Is new music on the way? What kind of music will it be? Or, seriously, is this just a cry for help? The Ringer staff launched into full conspiracy mode and put forth their most viable theories. A post shared by Taylor Swift (@taylorswift) on Aug 21, 2017 at 8:00am PDT Justin Charity: Taylor Swift tweeting tentacle porn and we just acting like it’s normal. Lindsay Zoladz: Look, it’s a snake. Do not tell me that someone as image-conscious as Taylor Swift didn’t Rorschach-test this on 50 of her closest besties to confirm that it does indeed look like a snake, which of course indicates that her new song will have something to do with the infamous Taylor-Kimye feud. I truly hope Taylor proves me wrong, though. This is already a precarious time for someone like Taylor Swift to be releasing new music—what with the foundation of American democracy crumbling and all—and it would be an especially petty time for her to microwave some year-old beef and pick a fight with another celebrity. Nobody needs “Bad Blood II” right now—the only person I’m interested in hearing a T-Swift dis track about is Donald Trump. Amanda Dobbins: My first thought, just like everybody else, was that it’s a snake. Fine; I don’t know how she’s gonna get through this press cycle without addressing the Kim/Kanye fiasco, and if she can have a sense of humor about it, all the better. Here’s my issue: Why are you releasing this in the literal middle of the internet’s Eclipse Insanity? I assume that this tease is related to the upcoming VMAs, and that Taylor is contractually obligated to promote her Single Release–Katy Perry Peace Summit (it’s happening, they both need the ratings) throughout the week. But there is no reason that can’t wait until Tuesday, when the press cycle is free and clear of eye-burning memes and Game of Thrones complaints. This is my problem with late-period Taylor—not the whining, which has always been part of her brand, but how incompetent the dissemination of said whining is. Get your messaging together. It’s 2017. Michael Baumann: Andrew Gruttadaro: In ancient Greece—likely around 585 B.C.—a solar eclipse occurred during a battle between the Medes and the Lydians, inspiring the factions to put down their weapons and declare peace. In the United States of America—in the year 2017 A.D.—musician Taylor Swift saw that a solar eclipse was coming and picked up her weapons and aimed them at the famed tribe of the Kardashians. People interpret omens differently. [Shrugs.] Kate Knibbs: Remember when people kept leaving snake emoji on Taylor Swift's (now-deleted) Instagram posts? I barely do, because last summer feels like it happened 5,000 years ago and on a different planet, so to refresh: Taylor Swift bashed Kanye West's lyrics about her in "Famous." Kim Kardashian West then posted a video on Snapchat showing Kanye on the phone with Taylor, who seemed to approve of the song. And thus Taylor was branded a snake, a disingenuous conniver. And now, after a low-profile 2017, Swift has deleted all her social media posts and uploaded a single, undulating reptile tail. It probably means that she's going to release new music, but I also hope it means that she's going to release new music and she's decided to set aside her gee-golly wallflower ingenue persona for good and embrace a public image that more accurately reflects her personality. Swift's a Slytherin. She muscled her way into songwriting fame by masterminding insanely catchy songs that simultaneously trashed the reputations of men who had wronged her. She got caught either flat-out lying or at least exaggerating for sympathy. Look what she did to Tom Hiddleston. Secretly Bad Taylor was no fun. It's time for Openly Bad Taylor. More feuds, more drama, absolutely no more hangouts with Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds. Instead of denying her snake side, I hope this weird video of a snake’s butt means that Taylor Swift has decided to lean into her true trickster nature. Jordan Coley: Those close to me have probably heard me saying this privately for months, but after Taylor Swift’s cryptic Instagram post Monday morning, I figured it was time I brought this theory forward. Prior to Monday morning’s post, Swift had not really posted anything on her Instagram in many months. She was noticeably absent during the election and was nowhere to be found at the Grammys this past February. This is, of course, because Taylor Swift is trapped in the Upside Down. Yes, the dark, lifeless parallel reality that Netflix’s Stranger Things famously brought to our attention. But didn’t she make that video for Russell Westbrook? Nope, we all know the NBA is rigged; that video was recorded before the season even started. But didn’t she promote Lorde and Haim’s new releases on Instagram? Pfft—automated PR content from her label. Listen, Taylor’s trapped down there, and whatever’s down there with her doesn’t look too friendly. Monday morning’s post was a cry for help. Now, we can either sit around and do nothing, or get off our butts and go buy some Christmas lights.

– First, Taylor Swift blacked out her entire online presence. Then, on Monday, she returned to social media—but all she shared was a mysterious video of a snake. The internet is going nuts trying to figure out what she's up to: CNN speculates the snake video could be some sort of reference to the "Taylor Swift is a snake" meme beloved by her haters. Of course, the most obvious possibility is that Swift is building up hype for a new music release, and one of her collaborators, Joseph Kahn, seemed to confirm that possibility by retweeting her snake video along with a smiley face, Just Jared reports. Kahn has directed music videos for Swift including "Bad Blood" and "Wildest Dreams." Us points out that Swift's social media blackout took place exactly three years after she announced her most recent album, 1989. The gossip magazine previously reported she's been working on an album to be released in the fall. Music lyrics site Genius posted lyrics for a new song supposedly from Swift called "Timeless," but the page has since been taken down. Still, that hasn't stopped multiple outlets including Marie Claire from reporting that must be the name of her upcoming single and/or album. (And this might be the website for it.) The Ringer overanalyzes the snake snippet and offers up ideas for what it could be teasing, including an upcoming "peace summit" with (former?) rival Katy Perry. A number of outlets including USA Today are rounding up fan reactions to the snake video.

Two police reports written the night that George Zimmerman shot Trayvon Martin said that Zimmerman had a bloody face and nose, according to police reports made public today. The reports also note that two witness accounts appear to back up Zimmerman's version of what happened when they describe a man on his back with another person wearing a hoodie straddling him and throwing punches. It has been such a contentious case that even the evidence is being disputed. The police report states that Trayvon Martin's father told an investigator after listening to 911 tapes that captured a man's voice frantically callling for help that it was not his son calling for help. But Tracy Martin, Trayvon's father, claims that is not true. The Martin family lawyer Ben Crump told ABC News that Tracy Martin initially listened to a distorted version of the 911 calls and said he could not identify the voice. But when he listened to a second tape that had been "cleaned," "He immediately broke down in tears because he knew it was his son calling for help," Crump said. The new information is part of a trove of documents released by the Florida State Attorney today in the case against Zimmerman, who is charged with second degree murder for the Feb. 26 killing of Martin, an unarmed 17-year-old African American male. Surveillance video of Martin in a store purchasing skittles right before the fatal incident was also released today. Zimmerman, 28, is a multi-racial Hispanic man who volunteered for the neighborhood watch committee who claimed that he shot Martin in self-defense after the 6-foot tall, 160 pound teenager knocked him to the ground, banged his head against the ground and went for Zimmerman's gun. The documents start with a criticism of Zimmerman's decision to follow the teenager, who Zimmerman said was looking suspicious. "The encounter between George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin was ultimately avoidable by Zimmerman, if Zimmerman had remained in his vehicle and awaited the arrival of law enforcement," an investigating officer wrote. Zimmerman claims he got out of his vehicle to find a house number to let police know where he saw the allegedly suspicious person, and while returning to his car was knocked down by a punch in the nose and attacked by Martin. Two police officers reported that when they arrived at the scene of the shooting, Zimmerman seemed to have a battered nose and bloodied face. One wrote that his "facial area was bloodied," and the back of his clothing was soiled with wet grass. "Zimmerman was also bleeding from the nose and the back of his head," Officer Ricardo Ayala wrote. Another officer wrote, "I saw that Zimmerman's face was bloodied and it appeared to me that his nose was broken." Witnesses, whose names were redacted from the report, also lent support to Zimmerman's version of what happened. "He witnesses a black male, wearing a dark colored 'hoodie' on top of a white or Hispanic male and throwing punches 'MMA (mixed martial arts) style,'" the police report of the witness said. "He then heard a pop. He stated that after hearing the pop, he observed the person he had previously observed on top of the other person (the male wearing the hoodie) laid out on the grass." A second witness described a person on the ground with another straddling him and throwing punches. The man on the bottom was yelling for help, the witness told police. The documents state that Zimmerman can be heard yelling for help 14 times on a 911 call recorded during the fight. Yet another witness described the confrontation in emotional terms. The witness heard "someone yelling, almost crying. Then I heard a gunshot." The witness wrote that he or she "saw a man on top of a guy laying on the ground. He was putting his hands on his neck or chest." The man asked the witness to call 911. "He stood up and took a couple steps away and put his hands on his head and then walked back over to the guy on the ground. He looked at him for a minute, then started to walk away toward the road. That is when the police walked up," the witness wrote. The lead investigator on the case, Officer Christopher Serino, wrote that Zimmerman could be heard "yelling for help as he was being battered by Trayvon Martin." Martin's death sparked public outrage after police released Zimmerman without any criminal charges for the killing. Zimmerman was later charged with second-degree murder, and the killing provoked widespread debate about racial profiling. The autopsy also shows that Zimmerman shot Martin from a distance of between 1 inch and 18 inches away, bolstering Zimmerman's claim that he shot Martin during a close struggle. Martin's autopsy report also revealed that there was a quarter-inch by half-inch abrasion on the left fourth finger of Martin, another indication of a possible struggle. The teen, who lived in Miami, was in Sanford while serving a suspension for an empty marijuana bag discovered in his possession. Martin had THC, the drug found in marijuana, in his blood on the night of his death, according to the autopsy. His family told ABC News that it was "trace amounts" of THC. ||||| Starting in 1996, Alexa Internet has been donating their crawl data to the Internet Archive. Flowing in every day, these data are added to the Wayback Machine after an embargo period. ||||| Story highlights Martin would be alive if Zimmerman stayed in his vehicle, police said Trayvon Martin was pronounced dead 3 minutes after firefighters and EMS arrived Evidence of THC, an ingredient in marijuana, was found in Martin's blood, tests show Firefighters find forehead "abrasions" and "bleeding" from Zimmerman's nose Just over two weeks after the fatal shooting, and less than a month before an arrest was made, police in Sanford, Florida, urged prosecutors to take George Zimmerman into custody after arguing his killing of Trayvon Martin was "ultimately avoidable." This disclosure came out Thursday, part of a wealth of information released that is related to the case, including the medical's examiner's finding that the 17-year-old Martin had traces of drugs in his system in an autopsy conducted hours after his death. Overall, the newly released material paints the most complete picture yet of how investigators built the case, as well as its complexity. The police perspective was most succinctly stated in a March 13 "capias request" -- a request that someone be taken into custody -- sent to the state's attorney. It speaks to the fact that Zimmerman ignored a police dispatcher's advice not to chase Martin, as well as his communications with Martin prior to the shooting. "The encounter between George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin was ultimately avoidable by Zimmerman, if Zimmerman had remained in his vehicle and awaited the arrival of law enforcement, or conversely if he had identified himself to Martin as a concerned citizen and initiated dialog (sic) in an effort to dispel each party's concern" the request said. "There is no indication that Trayvon Martin was involved in any criminal activity." In his 911 call just before the shooting, Zimmerman had speculated that the teen looked like he was "up to no good or he's on drugs or something." But Martin's defenders have portrayed Zimmerman as the aggressor, accusing him of profiling the African-American teen. Plus, one expert notes the traces of the marijuana-related substance found in the teen's system, as measured hours after his death, don't necessarily speak to any level of intoxication, while another adds that marijuana use typically doesn't make people prone to aggression. JUST WATCHED Does new evidence change Trayvon case? Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Does new evidence change Trayvon case? 03:29 JUST WATCHED 'Still a strong case against Zimmerman' Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH 'Still a strong case against Zimmerman' 02:46 JUST WATCHED Video of Martin before he died Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Video of Martin before he died 00:52 JUST WATCHED Mark O'Mara on new evidence Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Mark O'Mara on new evidence 01:54 Martin's blood contained THC, which is the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana, according to autopsy results released Thursday. The autopsy was conducted February 27, the day after the teenager was shot dead. Toxicology tests found elements of the drug in the teenager's chest blood -- 1.5 nanograms per milliliter of one type (THC), as well as 7.3 nanograms of another type (THC-COOH) -- according to the medical examiner's report. There also was a presumed positive test of cannabinoids in Martin's urine, according to the medical examiner's report. It was not immediately clear how significant these amounts were. No precise levels on the urine were released. Dr. Michael Policastro, a toxicologist, cautioned against reading too much into the blood THC levels, adding that one cannot make a direct correlation between those findings and a level of intoxication. He also noted levels of THC, which can linger in a person's system for days, can spike after death in certain areas of the body because of redistribution. And Dr. Drew Pinsky, an addiction specialist who hosts a show on CNN's sister network HLN, added that marijuana typically does not make users more aggressive. Concentrations of THC routinely rise to 100 to 200 ng/ml after marijuana use, though it typically falls to below 5 ng/ml within three hours of it being smoked, according to information on the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's website. While some states have zero-tolerance policies for any drug traces for driving while impaired, others set certain benchmarks, the website of California's Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs notes. In Nevada, that equates to 2 ng/ml for THC and 5 ng/ml for THC-COOH, also known as marijuana metabolite. The cutoff level in Ohio is 2 ng/ml for THC and 50 ng/ml for THC-COOH. According to the medical examiner's report, which was one of several documents on the case released Thursday by the office of special prosecutor Angela Corey, Martin died from a gunshot wound to chest fired from "intermediate range," within 36 inches. The autopsy report lists the manner of death as a homicide. JUST WATCHED Medical report lists Zimmerman injuries Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Medical report lists Zimmerman injuries 02:10 JUST WATCHED Report details Zimmerman's injuries Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Report details Zimmerman's injuries 01:25 JUST WATCHED New medical report may help Zimmerman Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH New medical report may help Zimmerman 01:17 JUST WATCHED Firm cashing in with hoodie target Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Firm cashing in with hoodie target 01:43 Zimmerman, 28, is charged with second-degree murder for killing Martin in the Sanford neighborhood where the African-American teen was staying. Martin's father, Tracy, had taken his son with him to Sanford, about four hours away from the boy's home and where the father's fiance lived, after the teen was suspended for 10 days from Michael M. Krop High School in Miami. According to records obtained by the Miami Herald, Martin had been suspended from school three times: once for writing graffiti on a door, another time for school truancy and the last time due to drug residue being found in his backpack. Speaking of her son's suspension to CNN's Anderson Cooper, Sybrina Fulton said, "Whatever he had dealings with the school, it was not criminal, it was not violent, he's never been arrested." Just before the shooting, Zimmerman called 911 to complain about a suspicious person in his neighborhood. In the call Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch volunteer, said he was following Martin after the teen started to run, prompting the dispatcher to tell him, "We don't need you to do that." Zimmerman apparently disregarded that advice. Much has been made about whether Zimmerman during that call used a racial epithet in referring to Martin. But an FBI analysis, released Thursday, determined that the word could not be definitively identified "due to weak signal level and poor recording quality." A screaming voice could be heard on other 911 calls placed by neighbors, with some speculating those screams came from Martin and others that they belonged to Zimmerman. The FBI did not make a final determination either way, citing several reasons including the fact they came during "an extreme emotional state," there weren't enough words to make a good comparison and the sound quality was low and distant. Zimmerman claimed, according a police report released earlier, that he'd been "assaulted (by Martin) and his head was struck on the pavement." According a report from the Sanford Fire Department , released Thursday, Zimmerman had "abrasions to his forehead," "bleeding/tenderness to his nose," and a "small laceration to the back of his head" when emergency personnel arrived at the scene at 7:27 p.m., six minutes after they were first called. By that time, Martin had no apparent pulse, according to the fire and EMS report. Emergency personnel attempted mouth-to-mask resuscitation and chest compressions, to no avail. He was pronounced dead at 7:30 p.m. Prosecutors have said Zimmerman, who is a white Hispanic, killed the unarmed teenager unjustly after profiling him. Zimmerman, who has pleaded not guilty, has said that he shot Martin in self-defense. The start of the trial hasn't been set. The case put a spotlight on race relations, spurring protests nationwide and drawing prominent civil rights leaders to central Florida denouncing the actions of Sanford police and calling for Zimmerman's arrest. Special prosecutor Angela Corey announced he'd been charged on April 11, weeks after Sanford police initially declined to do so. It also raised questions about gun laws, as well as the merits of the "Stand Your Ground" law in Florida, and similar laws in other states that allow people to use deadly force anywhere they feel a reasonable threat of serious injury or death.

– Get ready for a deluge of information in the Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman case, as prosecutors today released a cache of related documents. Some early samples: Pro-Zimmerman: His lawyers surely hope lots of attention will be paid to the fact that Trayvon apparently smoked pot at some point before the altercation. (It's not clear when or how much.) The autopsy found traces of the drug THC in his system, the active ingredient in marijuana, reports CNN. Also, ABC News notes that two witness accounts given to police "appear to back up Zimmerman's version" of events. Pro-Trayvon: Prosecutors will no doubt point to the police conclusion that the shooting was "ultimately avoidable," had Zimmerman "remained in his vehicle and awaited the arrival of law enforcement." The Orlando Sentinel leads its story with it. Zimmerman photo: The documents include a grainy copy of a photo police took of Zimmerman after the shooting in which he appears to have a bloody nose, notes AP. See the photo here. Trayvon's belongings: He had $40.15 on him, along with a packet of Skittles, a red lighter, headphones, and a photo pin in his pocket. See for yourself: MSNBC has the documents here in PDF form, and the Sentinel has crime-scene photos here. Click to read about a damning assessment of the Sanford police by the New York Times here.

... for years and the food is great. Can't wait to try the Sunday roast that so many people have recommended! Simple down to earth good English food. They might not have a business degree but they ve been there ||||| ... ngs Only (Sold out) Boxing Day - Closed 27th December - Closed 28th December - Closed 29th December - Closed 30th December - Closed New Years Eve - Closed New Years Day - Closed 2nd Jan - Open as normal (7:00am-2:30pm) Merry Christmas Everyone & Happy New Year! Xmas opening hours: Christmas Eve - 9am-1pm Christmas Day - Booki

– There's waking up hungry and there's, well, this. A British cafe has introduced the queen of all breakfasts, a 59-item spread that packs in 7,778 calories. The Corner Cafe's Monster Mega Breakfast comes across as slightly redundant: It contains eggs and omelets, fried potatoes (four portions) and hash browns, and both toast and fried bread. Plus bacon, sausages, mushrooms, chips, onion rings, black pudding, tomatoes, and beans. The meal costs about $22.50 and has a time limit attached: Those attempting to polish it off have an hour to do so if they want to win a place on the wall of champions, a breakfast coupon, and a key ring. They'll be helped (or hindered?) along the way with one of two drinks: their choice of a milkshake or energy drink, reports the Bristol Post. A manager of the Portishead cafe tells the Post that since being launched earlier this month, five people have ordered it and none have finished. Quirky side note: No one under 18 is allowed to order it. The cafe's Facebook page has photos of those who have made the attempt, along with a message to those who have accused it of being wasteful. Its post begins, "We are just a little family run business who can't save the entire world from famine and starvation!" Could the 8,000-calorie breakfast be the start of a trend? The Bear Grills cafe in Congleton, England, made a splash a few months ago with the launch of its own 8,000-calorie meal, the 7-pound "Hibernator." Sweet tooths may prefer its version, which includes four waffles. More on it here.

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — The NYPD is looking for a woman in connection to the theft of a pair of high-priced photo prints from MoMA PS1 Annex in Long Island City, Queens last month. Police said an employee at the art center discovered two print photographs, with an estimated value of a combined $105,000, missing from the museum the morning of Monday, Oct. 30. That Friday, employees reported to police that the stolen snapshots had been mailed back to the museum. A police investigation uncovered surveillance video showing a woman mailing the photos in a large box from a shipping store on Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg, Brooklyn the previous afternoon. “It’s crazy, right?” said museum patron Frank Heatley. As CBS2’s Brian Conybeare reported, the stolen works included a female nude. They are part of an exhibit featuring feminist performance artist Carolee Schneemann. Museumgoers were puzzled by the theft and who might be behind it “Maybe they were really just in love with her artwork that they wanted it for herself, and that maybe they had a change of heart and decided to mail back,” said museum patron Kelvi Diaz. “I don’t see how you could steal from the museum and then feel guilty about it, because it’s such a dramatic thing to do,” said museum patron Natalie Bade. Investigators said it is not clear if the mystery woman actually stole the photos. No one from MoMA or its PS1 branch would comment on the caper. Meanwhile, sources confirm the museum security alarm was set that night, but it never went off. Sources said it is possible somebody was hiding inside waiting for the museum to close and then pulled off the heist. The museum does not have surveillance cameras. “I’m shocked that they don’t, because the fact that somebody got in here to steal prints says enough that their security clearly should be a step up,” Bade said. One artist, Jenny Morgan, said maybe the thief never intended to keep the photos. “I would guess that it’s someone else’s own artistic reaction, if I want to go with the creative answer,” she said. Morgan suggested that it could all be some kind of performance art – “a reaction to the performance art that she’s seeing.” The woman seen in the surveillance video is described as white, in her twenties who was last seen wearing a dark cap, glasses, a black overcoat, tan pants, and tan shoes. Anyone with information in regards to this incident is asked to call the NYPD’s Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74682). The public can also submit their tips by logging onto the Crime stoppers website at WWW.NYPDCRIMESTOPPERS.COM or by texting their tips to 274637 (CRIMES) then enter TIP577. ||||| Rating is available when the video has been rented. This feature is not available right now. Please try again later. ||||| The theft was resolved in less than a week, but the mystery remains: Who stole two Carolee Schneemann photographs from MoMA PS1, only to mail them back a mere four days later? The artworks, worth $55,000 and $50,000 each, according to the New York Post, were discovered missing from the exhibition “Carolee Schneemann: Kinetic Painting” (on view through March 11) by a facilities manager around 11 a.m. on Monday, October 30. That Friday, the museum received a oversize package. Inside were the missing gelatin-silver prints, taken by Alex V. Sobolewski to document Schneemann’s nude performance art. There was no note, and it remains unclear whether the thief had a change of heart or the works were returned by a third party. Police investigated the shipment and uncovered surveillance footage from the previous evening at Office 11211, a shipping store in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The video, a 20-second clip released by the police, shows a woman in a dark knit hat, glasses, tan pants, and a black coat arranging to send the package to the museum. Anyone who might have insight into her identity are being asked to contact the police, who are investigating the matter. If connected to the theft, the suspect could face charges of criminal possession of stolen property and grand larceny, according to authorities. The two works are titled CS in the broken mirrors on the back of Four Fur Cutting Boards (1965) and CS With Gloves (Radiator), 1965, on loan from the artist and New York galleries P.P.O.W. Gallery and Galerie Lelong. A press representative for MoMA PS1 declined to comment on the ongoing investigation. There was no sign of forced entry, and the security alarm, while activated, never went off. UPDATE: This story originally cited a CBS report that incorrectly claimed that PS1 does not have security cameras. The museum is, in fact, under video surveillance. Follow artnet News on Facebook: ||||| The New York City Police Department wants to question a woman whom they say mailed stolen art back to MoMA PS1 just days after it vanished. Two photographs — estimated to be worth more than $105,000 dollars — were part of the exhibit Carolee Schneemann: Kinetic Painting. The photos were first discovered missing on Oct. 30. There were no signs of forced entry into the museum, in Queens, and authorities had no leads. The theft was not caught on video, and there appeared to be no witnesses. But despite scant evidence, the photos have since been recovered. According to the NYPD, the pictures were anonymously mailed back to the museum on Nov. 3. There was no damage to the photos, and police recovered no note of explanation. Authorities traced the package back to a Brooklyn shipping store. Surveillance video appears to show a young woman wearing a dark cap, glasses and black overcoat entering the shipping store. She was carrying a large FedEx box. Authorities allege that the photographs were inside. On Sunday, the NYPD released the surveillance video and asked for the public’s assistance in identifying the woman. The burglary’s motive was unclear. An NYPD spokesperson tells PEOPLE that no arrest has been made, but that the case is still under investigation. An after-hours call to the museum was not immediately returned.

– The Museum of Modern Art has an odd mystery on its hands. First, somebody stole two photos of performance artist Carolee Schneemann worth $105,000 from a museum annex in Queens. Then somebody mailed them back, good as new. Now the NYPD has released surveillance video of the young woman believed to have done the mailing and is trying to track her down, reports People. Police traced the package with the photos back to a shipping store in Brooklyn, and the video shows a woman with a dark cap and glasses carrying the package into the store. Police say they don't know whether the woman was involved in the theft itself, what prompted the change of heart, or how the theft happened in the first place, reports CBS New York. The prints were discovered to be missing on the morning of Oct. 30, though the site's alarm had been set the previous night. Police also say there were no signs of forced entry, and the photos were returned less than a week later. The gelatin-silver prints were made by Alex V. Sobolewski to document Schneemann’s nude performance art and are part of the exhibit “Carolee Schneemann: Kinetic Painting," per artnet.

Published on Apr 12, 2015 Hillary's running for president because everyday Americans need a champion—and she wants to be that champion. Watch her announcement video to kick off the campaign. http://hillaryclinton.com/join/ ABOUT HILLARY CLINTON Hillary Clinton has served as Secretary of State, Senator from New York, First Lady of the United States, First Lady of Arkansas, a practicing lawyer and law professor, activist, and volunteer, but the first things her friends and family will tell you is that she’s never forgotten where she came from or who she’s been fighting for throughout her life. Hillary was raised in a suburb of Illinois where she attended public school and was raised a Methodist by her parents. She attended Wellesley College, and went on to study law at Yale. After attending Yale Law School, she went to work for the Children’s Defense Fund, going door to door in New Bedford, Massachusetts. After serving as a lawyer for the Congressional Committee investigating President Nixon, she moved to Arkansas where she taught law and ran legal clinics representing poor people. She co-founded Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families, one of the state’s first child advocacy groups. As First Lady under President Bill Clinton, Hillary tenaciously led the fight to reform our health care system so that all our families have access to the care they need at affordable prices. Hillary led the U.S. delegation to Beijing to attend the UN Fourth World Conference on Women and gave a groundbreaking speech, declaring that “human rights are women's rights and women's rights are human rights once and for all”—inspiring women worldwide and helping to galvanize a global movement for women’s rights and opportunities. Hillary was then elected to the U.S. Senate, becoming the first woman senator from New York. She repeatedly worked across the aisle to get things done, including working alongside Republicans after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. When Congress wouldn't do enough for rural areas and small towns, Hillary didn’t back down. She launched innovative partnerships with the tech industry and provided support to local colleges and small businesses. When President Obama asked Hillary to serve as his secretary of state, she answered the call to public service once again. She was a forceful champion for human rights, internet freedom, and rights and opportunities for women and girls, LGBT people and young people all around the globe. Now she’s running for President because everyday Americans need a champion and she want to be that champion. ABOUT THE HILLARY CLINTON YOUTUBE CHANNEL Welcome to Hillary Clinton’s YouTube Channel. This channel is the official hub for videos related to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential run, and where you’ll find small glimpses into the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign. Learn all about Hillary’s platform, and where she stands on the issues facing America today. Connect with Hillary on the problems that matter to you: climate change, immigration, healthcare, inequality, education, and the economy. See the pivotal moment that began it all, with the Getting Started video announcing her candidacy. Watch important speeches and event highlights, such as Hillary’s official campaign launch speech on Roosevelt Island, New York. Stay up to date with the campaign ads and video everyone will be talking about on social media. Follow Hillary Clinton on the campaign trail leading up to the democratic primaries and caucuses in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Nevada, and many more states. Explore Hillary’s background and bio, and learn how she has always been a forceful champion for human rights, internet freedom, and rights and opportunities for women and girls, the LGBT community, and young people all around the globe. Get inspired and fired up about becoming a volunteer, and donating to the campaign. Hillary is running for President because everyday Americans need a champion and she want to be that champion. This account is run by Hillary for America. Get updates from the campaign by going to our website: http://www.hillaryclinton.com/join ||||| Hillary Clinton is expected to announce her presidential bid on Sunday, but odds are the event won’t be remotely as entertaining as SNL’s latest cold open, in which Kate McKinnon gave her own take on how Clinton should declare her candidacy. McKinnon’s raucous impression is as monomaniacal as ever (“Citizens! You will elect me, I will be your leader!”) but the sketch gets even better when Darrell Hammond shows up as “First Dude” Bill Clinton. ||||| Mr. Podesta said that Mrs. Clinton would meet soon with voters in Iowa and host a formal kickoff event some time next month. The announcement effectively began what could be one of the least contested races, without an incumbent, for the Democratic presidential nomination in recent history — a stark contrast to the 2008 primaries, when Mrs. Clinton, the early front-runner, ended up in a long and expensive battle won by Barack Obama. It could also be the first time a woman captures a major party’s nomination. Regardless of the outcome, Mrs. Clinton’s 2016 campaign will open a new chapter in the extraordinary life of a public figure who has captivated and polarized the country since her husband, former President Bill Clinton, declared his intention to run for president in 1991. Mrs. Clinton was the co-star of the Clinton administration, the only first lady ever elected to the United States Senate and a globe-trotting diplomat who surprised her party by serving dutifully under the president who defeated her. She will embark on her latest — and perhaps last — bid for the White House with nearly universal name recognition and a strong base of support, particularly among women. But in a campaign that will inevitably be about the future, Mrs. Clinton, 67, enters as a quintessential baby boomer, associated with the 1990s and with the drama of the Bill Clinton years.

– Hillary Clinton is now, officially, at long last, Ready for Hillary. She jumped back into presidential politics today as a top adviser announced her much-awaited second campaign for the White House. The adviser, John Podesta, told alumni of her first presidential campaign in an email: "It's official: Hillary's running for president." Clinton followed with a video released on YouTube that depicts people going through life challenges like moving, job-hunting, and starting a family, the New York Times reports. "I'm getting ready to do something too," Clinton says, appearing a minute-and-a-half in. "I'm running for president. ... Everyday Americans need a champion. And I want to be that champion." Clinton is expected to face pressure from progressives to adopt a more populist economic message focused on income inequality. The GOP, meanwhile, has already started attacking her, jumping on Clinton's use of a personal email account and server while secretary of state. Clinton is the first Democrat to get into the race and is not expected to be seriously challenged, the Times notes, but there are some lower-profile Democrats who may toss a hat in the ring, including former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley, former Virginia Sen. Jim Webb, and former Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chafee. If elected, Clinton would become the first woman to serve in the Oval Office. (Meanwhile, Kate McKinnon's version of Hillary Clinton made her announcement last night on Saturday Night Live.)

share tweet pin email A North Carolina couple is trying to pull back the curtains on a popular home renovation reality show. Deena Murphy and Timothy Sullivan are suing the production company for HGTV’s “Love It or List It,” claiming the hit show turned their dream home into a nightmare. The lawsuit against Big Coat TV and one of its contractors alleges the couple were “victims of shoddy work and unfair trade practices” that left their floors, windows and other parts of their home damaged. RELATED: 'Fixer Upper': What it's actually like to be on the home show The show’s premise is to renovate a family’s home while the owners contemplate moving into a new home. But the couple's lawsuit may provide too much of a peek behind the reality television curtain. TODAY The program's hosts, David Visentin and Hilary Farr “One of the things they're doing in this lawsuit is kind of blowing the secrecy off of reality TV,” said TODAY legal analyst Lisa Bloom. In their lawsuit, Murphy and Sullivan describe Big Coat’s business model as “skewed.” They said they gave the production company $140,000 for renovations, but only about $85,000 went to the contractor. They claim the production company used the remaining funds “for the production of its series.” TODAY North Carolina couple Deena Murphy and Timothy Sullivan are suing the show's production company. In a statement to TODAY, the couple’s attorney said the company’s incentive was “to make decisions that favor the television show but not the homeowners.” RELATED: 'Fixer Upper' Joanna Gaines shares her spring cleaning checklist The “Love It or List It” production company disputes the allegation. “We believe that this claim is in no way supported by any of the facts of the case, and we will be defending ourselves vigorously in this matter,” it told TODAY in a statement. TODAY sought comment from the contractor listed as one of the lawsuit defendants but did not hear back. ||||| 1:11 See Billy Graham's visit to South Carolina, including USC football stadium and Ft. Jackson Pause 1:58 Victim's father tries to attack Nassar in court 1:46 Humans, bats and rabies: What you should know 5:33 Moira Donegan’s spreadsheet was an ‘act of real solidarity’ 2:43 Sessions highlights MS-13 atrocities in violence crime speech 1:40 Tips to safeguard your home from burglars 4:34 The history of sexual harassment in America: five things to know 1:01 Video shows woman attacked by police dog while taking out the trash 2:23 How to report Social Security fraud ||||| A North Carolina couple is suing the producers of Love It Or List It, saying the show left them with a house that was shoddily constructed. The Raleigh News & Observer says that Deena Murphy and Timothy Sullivan agreed to participate in the hit HGTV series under the guise that they were considering a move to a rental property with their teenage foster children. The problem, according to the suit against Big Coat TV and Aaron Fitz Construction, was that the show’s principals—designer Hilary Farr, real estate agent David Visentin, and contractor Eric Eremita—are “actors or television personalities playing a role for the camera,” not people who “played more than a casual role in the actual renovation process.” While this shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who’s ever suffered through Farr and Visentin’s bullshit “no, you are” banter, it’s still mildly disheartening to hear. For the episode, which aired in April 2015, Murphy and Sullivan were asked to deposit $140,000 into a fund with the production company, who would later use that money to pay Fitz and other subcontractors. According to the suit, the couple voiced its concerns about Fitz, saying it had below-average reviews on Angie’s List, but they were ignored. Over the course of the renovations, only $85,780.50 was disbursed to Fitz, leaving the couple wondering where the rest of their money went. The suit also questions how Big Coat can operate as a general contractor, a role it’s not licensed for. Murphy and Sullivan are also claiming that Love It Or List It is even more of a scam than it generally seems, with the couple saying the show never used a licensed architect to develop plans for their house, and that they were never shown houses that were actually for sale in North Carolina—or for sale by any licensed North Carolina real estate broker. They also say any work done on the show was work that they’d previously made plans for with another company, Werx-Design Build. According to the suit, the actual work done on the house was “disastrous,” leaving the home “irreparably damaged.” Duct work was left open, leading to vermin entering the house, and the couple complains of “low-grade industrial carpeting, unpainted surfaces, and windows painted shut.” As the News & Observer summarizes, “Big Coat’s purported agreement,” the lawsuit contends, ‘admits that it is in the business of television production, not construction. ... The homeowners’ funds essentially pay the cost of creating a stage set for this television series.’” Maria Armstrong, Big Coat’s CEO and the show’s executive producer, says that the company intends to “vigorously defend what [it] consider[s] false allegations.” Submit your Newswire tips here.

– When Deena Murphy and Timothy Sullivan wanted to renovate their Raleigh, NC, rental property, they didn't want a DIY project, so they did what they thought was the next best thing: signed up to have an HGTV show do it for them. But per a lawsuit the couple has now filed against Big Coat, the production company behind Love It or List It, as well as the local contractor who overhauled the home, they were left with "disastrous work," including holes in the floor and windows painted shut, the Charlotte Observer reports. The suit also alleges the "reality-TV" program is "scripted, with 'roles' and reactions assigned to the various performers and participants, including the homeowners." And the show's hosts, designer Hilary Farr and real estate agent David Visentin, and its resident general contractor? "Actors or television personalities … [who don't play] more than a casual role in the actual renovation process." Per their contract with Big Coat, the couple deposited $140,000 that would be used to pay Aaron Fitz Construction and its subcontractors. About $85,000 was distributed to Aaron Fitz during the overhaul, even though Murphy and Sullivan say they expressed concerns about mediocre reviews seen on Angie's List. The rest of the money got pumped into producing the show, the couple claims, reports Today.com. They say the show is "even more of a scam than it generally seems," as the AV Club frames it. "The homeowners' funds essentially pay the cost of creating a stage set for this television series," the suit says. A statement from Big Coat's CEO says the company will "vigorously defend what we consider to be false allegations." (This DIY project took six months to make and much less time to eat.)

The corpse found in cement overshoes in the waters off Brooklyn over the weekend has been identified as a member of a notorious local mob family, police said Tuesday. The body of Carmine Carini, 35, was found Saturday near East 58th Street and Avenue U near his residence in Mill Basin — with a cinder block bound to his legs with an electrical cord and his body wrapped in a blue tarp sealed with duct tape. “It was right out of ‘GoodFellas,’ ” a law enforcement source said. NYPD Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce said at a press conference Tuesday, “The victim was a reputed mobster’s son. His father had the OC [organized crime] ties, not him. Right now, we’re in an active investigation to see who was in his life at the time.” Carini died from blunt-force trauma to the head but had also been stabbed, police sources said. He was identified through fingerprints. Carini’s dad — also named Carmine — is an associate of the Colombo crime family, a police source said. Carmine Sr. spent nearly a quarter-century behind bars for the 1983 killing of a Bay Ridge record shop owner. He was later freed in a plea deal after two mob turncoats revealed his cousin Vinnie was the actual killer — only to wind up back behind bars a year later after he was busted posing as a cop to commit home-invasion robberies. Vinnie and another cousin, Enrico, later famously botched a hit on a former Mafia prosecutor and ended up paying the ultimate price. They were recruited by Colombo boss Carmine Persico to assassinate William Aronwald, a former prosecutor on the Justice Department’s Organized Crime Strike Force — but inadvertently offed the prosecutor’s elderly dad instead. The bungling wiseguys were found dead in Sheepshead Bay a few months later. The younger Carmine Carini had his own rap sheet. He was arrested for robbery in 2003, 2004 and in June last year and also had a drug-possession charge in 2010, according to police records. He spent five years in the slammer for the 2003 robberies, in which he committed 10 muggings in an hour by driving around Bergen Beach, Sheepshead Bay and Gravesend in a van and threatening strangers for money with a machete or a bat, according to a report at the time. He was released in 2009 but was back behind bars again in 2011 and 2014. He was most recently released in 2015, and his dad was freed from federal prison in July this year. Additional reporting by Ruth Brown ||||| A man whose body was found tied to a cinder block and floating near a dock over the weekend in Brooklyn was the son of a Mafia associate, the police said Tuesday. The body of Carmine Carini, 35, was discovered in an inlet near his home in Mill Basin on Saturday, three days after he was last heard from, the police chief of detectives, Robert K. Boyce, said at a monthly news conference. Mr. Carini was identified through fingerprints, and investigators say they think he had been in the water since Friday night because witnesses said they had seen the tarp he was wrapped in, Chief Boyce said. The cause of death was blunt force trauma to the head, the medical examiner’s office said. The police were still trying to figure out why he was killed and his body dumped using a Mafia-style technique. A five-pound bag of drywall compound was also tied to his body, Chief Boyce said. ||||| These crawls are part of an effort to archive pages as they are created and archive the pages that they refer to. That way, as the pages that are referenced are changed or taken from the web, a link to the version that was live when the page was written will be preserved.Then the Internet Archive hopes that references to these archived pages will be put in place of a link that would be otherwise be broken, or a companion link to allow people to see what was originally intended by a page's authors.The goal is to fix all broken links on the web . Crawls of supported "No More 404" sites.

– The case of a body dumped in waters off Brooklyn using a "Mafia-style technique," as the New York Times puts it, seems to indeed have Mafia elements. The body found attached to both a cinder block and 5-pound bag of drywall compound on Saturday has been identified as Carmine Carini, 35. "It was right out of GoodFellas," a police source tells the New York Post, which says the cinder block was secured to Carini's legs via an electrical cord; a blue tarp was duct-taped around his body. "The victim was a reputed mobster's son," said Police Chief of Detectives Robert K. Boyce on Tuesday, specifying, "His father had the OC [organized crime] ties, not him." The Post says those ties were to the Colombo crime family, while the New York Daily News says he's a Gambino family associate. The younger Carini did have his own troubles with the law, including five years spent in prison in connection with at least 10 muggings he committed in 2003 in the span of an hour. The Daily News reports Carini was last seen on Aug. 30, with Boyce saying police "believe he was in the water Friday night." He reportedly suffered a skull fracture and had been stabbed in the arm and leg; a fingerprint identification was made.

"Ending the sale of cigarettes and tobacco products at CVS/pharmacy is the right thing for us to do for our customers and our company to help people on their path to better health," said Larry J. Merlo, President and CEO, CVS Caremark. "Put simply, the sale of tobacco products is inconsistent with our purpose." Merlo continued, "As the delivery of health care evolves with an emphasis on better health outcomes, reducing chronic disease and controlling costs, CVS Caremark is playing an expanded role in providing care through our pharmacists and nurse practitioners. The significant action we're taking today by removing tobacco products from our retail shelves further distinguishes us in how we are serving our patients, clients and health care providers and better positions us for continued growth in the evolving health care marketplace." Smoking is the leading cause of premature disease and death in the United States with more than 480,000 deaths annually. While the prevalence of cigarette smoking has decreased from approximately 42 percent of adults in 1965 to 18 percent today, the rate of reduction in smoking prevalence has stalled in the past decade. More interventions, such as reducing the availability of cigarettes, are needed. "CVS Caremark is continually looking for ways to promote health and reduce the burden of disease," said CVS Caremark Chief Medical Officer Troyen A. Brennan, M.D., M.P.H. "Stopping the sale of cigarettes and tobacco will make a significant difference in reducing the chronic illnesses associated with tobacco use." In a Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Viewpoint published online this morning, Brennan and co-author Steven A. Schroeder, Director, Smoking Cessation Leadership Center, University of California, San Francisco, wrote, "The paradox of cigarette sales in pharmacies has become even more relevant recently, in large part because of changes in the pharmacy industry…Most pharmacy chains are retooling themselves as an integral part of the health care system. They are offering more counseling by pharmacists, an array of wellness products and outreach to clinicians and health care centers….Perhaps more important, pharmacies are moving into the treatment arena, with the advent of retail health clinics. These retail clinics, originally designed to address common acute infections, are gearing up to work with primary care clinicians to assist in treating hypertension, hyperlipidemia and diabetes – all conditions exacerbated by smoking." CVS Caremark's decision to stop selling tobacco products is consistent with the positions taken by the American Medical Association, American Heart Association, American Cancer Society, American Lung Association and American Pharmacists Association that have all publicly opposed tobacco sales in retail outlets with pharmacies. "As a leader of the health care community focused on improving health outcomes, we are pledging to help millions of Americans quit smoking," said Merlo. "In addition to removing cigarettes and tobacco products for sale, we will undertake a robust national smoking cessation program." The program, to be launched this Spring, is expected to include information and treatment on smoking cessation at CVS/pharmacy and MinuteClinic along with online resources. The program will be available broadly across all CVS/pharmacy and MinuteClinic locations and will offer additional comprehensive programs for CVS Caremark pharmacy benefit management plan members to help them to quit smoking. Approximately seven in ten smokers say they want to quit and about half attempt to quit each year. "Every day, all across the country, customers and patients place their trust in our 26,000 pharmacists and nurse practitioners to serve their health care needs," commented Helena B. Foulkes, President, CVS/pharmacy. "Removing tobacco products from our stores is an important step in helping Americans to quit smoking and get healthy." The decision to exit the tobacco category does not affect the company's 2014 segment operating profit guidance, 2014 EPS guidance, or the company's five-year financial projections provided at its December 18th Analyst Day. The company estimates that it will lose approximately $2 billion in revenues on an annual basis from the tobacco shopper, equating to approximately 17 cents per share. Given the anticipated timing for implementation of this change, the impact to 2014 earnings per share is expected to be in the range of 6 to 9 cents per share. The company has identified incremental opportunities that are expected to offset the profitability impact. This decision more closely aligns the company with its patients, clients and health care providers to improve health outcomes while controlling costs and positions the company for continued growth. About CVS Caremark CVS Caremark is dedicated to helping people on their path to better health as the largest integrated pharmacy company in the United States. Through the company's more than 7,600 CVS/pharmacy stores; its leading pharmacy benefit manager serving more than 60 million plan members; and its retail health clinic system, the largest in the nation with more than 800 MinuteClinic locations, it is a market leader in mail order, retail and specialty pharmacy, retail clinics, and Medicare Part D Prescription Drug Plans. As a pharmacy innovation company with an unmatched breadth of capabilities, CVS Caremark continually strives to improve health and lower costs by developing new approaches such as its unique Pharmacy Advisor program that helps people with chronic diseases such as diabetes obtain and stay on their medications. Find more information about how CVS Caremark is reinventing pharmacy for better health at info.cvscaremark.com. Forward-Looking Statements This press release contains certain forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially. For these statements, the Company claims the protection of the safe harbor for forward-looking statements contained in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The Company strongly recommends that you become familiar with the specific risks and uncertainties outlined in our Securities and Exchange Commission filings, including those in the Risk Factors section in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2012 and under the section entitled "Cautionary Statement Concerning Forward-Looking Statements" in our most recently filed Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q. SOURCE CVS Caremark ||||| CVS, the largest pharmacy chain in the United States, will stop selling cigarettes and other tobacco products in all of its 7,600 stores by October 1, its parent company CVS Caremark announced this morning. It is the first time any drugstore has ever dropped this deadly cash cow, and it is part of a major shift in direction for the drugstore giant. “We’ve got 26,000 pharmacists and nurse practitioners who are helping millions of patients each and every day,” said Larry Merlo, the chief executive of CVS Caremark. “They manage conditions like high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and diabetes -- all conditions that are worsened by smoking. We’ve come to the decision that cigarettes have no place in an environment where healthcare is being delivered.” The decision gained immediate praise from the American Medical Association, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the American Cancer Society . “Over time, we think lives will be saved by this,” says Cancer Society President John Seffrin. But the public-health-mindedness will cost CVS billions – literally. The company says $2 billion in sales will be shaved off its $125 billion top line. That will pressure earnings, too, though Merlo swears incremental cost cuts will keep those pressures from showing up in its profit statements. Merlo says that continuing to sell cigarettes, which the Surgeon General blames for 480,000 deaths every year from heart disease, lung cancer, and stroke, was anathema to CVS’ long-term plan to become a central player in the U.S. health care system that interacts ever more closely with patients, giving flu shots, reminding them when they are not filling prescriptions, and, through its 800 Minute Clinic in-store nurse practitioner stations, prescribing medicines. “I see my role as insuring that the company is positioned for growth,” says Merlo. “And that is what this decision is about.” CVS, like rivals Walgreen and Rite-Aid Corporation, is seeing a dramatic change to its business as it focuses less on taking marginal revenue out of drug sales and more on larger agreements with hospitals and insurance companies. In fact, CVS is in the midst of an even bigger shift than its competitors. Because of its 2007 merger with Caremark, the company is not only a drug store chain but also a pharmacy benefit manager, meaning it works with insurance companies and employers to control drug costs. The assumption is that by being a rival to both Rite-Aid and benefits manager Express Scripts , CVS can extract better savings and offer better care to patients, saving employers money both by cutting costs and by making people healthier. Among CVS’ newer offerings: a deal with insurers through which patients who have not filled a needed prescription, like a hypertension drug, are given counseling from a pharmacist if they show up wanting something else, like an antibiotic. This is possible because CVS has records of both in-store and mail-order prescriptions; unfilled prescriptions cost the medical system $300 billion annually, CVS says. Another new product will help patients sign up for expensive drugs for cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, and other “specialty” conditions, help them figure out how to pay for them, and allow them to either get them in the mail or pick them up at a CVS story. These new efforts have led CVS to work more closely with hospitals, doctors’ networks, and what are called Accountable Care Organizations, new types of organizations encouraged by Obamacare in which doctors agree to be paid not for every stitch, prescription, or procedure but based on how well patients do after treatment. If CVS can help save money or keep patients healthier, it might get a piece of the action. But these efforts were leading to cognitive dissonance, says Troyen Brennan, a former professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School who is now CVS’ chief medical officer. “We would always get the question: why do you continue to sell cigarettes?” says Brennan. “Because from the physicians’ and nurses’ point of view, you’re either all in for healthcare or you’re not.” He says he thinks that having been the first pharmacy to drop cigarettes will be a “competitive advantage” against other retail pharmacies because of the credibility it will give CVS when talking to physicians. It’s certainly getting good buzz from organizations pre-briefed on the announcement. Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, MD, the CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, called CVS’ cig ban “a huge and important step forward for moving us as a nation to a place where we can be healthier.” And Robin Koval, the chief executive of Legacy, the foundation formed to stop teen smoking formed when 46 states’ attorneys general settled with tobacco makers, literally said “Wow.” “For the number one retail pharmacy chain to take a very bold step like this and put people and their health in front of profits sends a signal that if you want to talk the talk about being there to serve your customers and their healthcare needs, then you have to walk the walk,” says Koval. In the shorter term, the cigarette ban may help with one new business: CVS is offering patients’ smoking cessation therapy, which will usually be paid for by insurance but which some patients will need to pay for out of pocket. Patients will be offered several counseling sessions with a nurse practitioner and perhaps, if they need them, nicotine replacement gums, lozenges, or patches or medicines like Chantix and Zyban that can help patients quit. CVS does not sell so-called e-cigarettes, which vaporize nicotine so it can be inhaled. Will the halo from the public health praise be enough to make up for the hit to earnings? Maybe. The $2 billion in annual sales lost is only 1.6% of total revenue. In turn, CVS says that this will pressure earnings by 17 cents per share, or 40%, on an annual basis. But because the removal won’t have fully happened until October, that will only hit this year’s earnings by 6 to 9 cents per share. And CVS says it can make up those costs, maintaining its guidance, although that earnings coverage has to come from somewhere. The company is making a bold bet on rebranding itself as being not just a store, but a healthcare company. Arguably, it’s not there yet. But Merlo has established a clear sense of direction, and when it comes to a big, often slow-moving company, that is a good thing. Also on Forbes: ||||| President Obama, an ex-smoker, released this statement applauding CVs for stopping the sale of cigarettes and tobacco products: "I applaud this morning’s news that CVS Caremark has decided to stop selling cigarettes and other tobacco products in its stores, and begin a national campaign to help millions of Americans quit smoking instead. As one of the largest retailers and pharmacies in America, CVS Caremark sets a powerful example, and today’s decision will help advance my Administration’s efforts to reduce tobacco-related deaths, cancer, and heart disease, as well as bring down health care costs – ultimately saving lives and protecting untold numbers of families from pain and heartbreak for years to come. I congratulate – and thank – the CEO of CVS Caremark, Larry Merlo, the board of directors, and all who helped make a choice that will have a profoundly positive impact on the health of our country." The Washington Post reports on the big move by CVS:

– A sea change in CVS policy: By October 1, America's biggest pharmacy chain will no longer sell any tobacco products, parent company CVS Caremark announced today in what CEO Larry Merlo calls the "right thing for us to do." "We’ve got 26,000 pharmacists and nurse practitioners who are helping millions of patients each and every day," explains Merlo. "They manage conditions like high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and diabetes—all conditions that are worsened by smoking. We’ve come to the decision that cigarettes have no place in an environment where healthcare is being delivered." CVS is the first retailer ever to drop tobacco, Forbes reports—a move that will cost the company $2 billion in annual sales. CVS, as well as other pharmacies, is looking to get more involved with healthcare; it already offers flu shots and Minute Clinics, where nurse practitioners can prescribe medications. Selling cigarettes just doesn't fit with that plan for growth, Merlo says. And CVS' chief medical officer thinks that dropping tobacco will give CVS an advantage over rival pharmacies when making deals with healthcare providers. Ex-smoker President Obama wasted no time in supporting the move, the Weekly Standard reports: He "applauds" the news and calls it "a powerful example."

We've told you what celebrities' majors were in college, where they went to school, and celebs that are actually really smart cookies. Now we're tracking which celebrities will be on a college campus for school this fall. As usual, James Franco will be taking classes. In addition, Emma Watson is coming back from a year at Oxford in the United Kingdom to study stateside again. Also, remember the kid from Home Alone 3? He's currently studying at the University of California, Berkeley, alongside an Olympic gold medalist. To find out more, you've got to check out the slideshow below! Check out which celebs will be on a college campus this fall, and let us know if we missed any: Celebrities Who Will Be In College In Fall 2012 Celebrities Who Will Be In College In Fall 2012 1 of 10 Alex Linz - UC Berkeley Remember him from Home Alone 3? Share this slide: Correction: An early version of this story said the 'Jersey Shore's' Vinny Guadagnino will attend Cornell next year. He isn't. ||||| We've told you what celebrities' majors were in college, where they went to school, and celebs that are actually really smart cookies. Now we're tracking which celebrities will be on a college campus for school this fall. As usual, James Franco will be taking classes. In addition, Emma Watson is coming back from a year at Oxford in the United Kingdom to study stateside again. Also, remember the kid from Home Alone 3? He's currently studying at the University of California, Berkeley, alongside an Olympic gold medalist. To find out more, you've got to check out the slideshow below! Check out which celebs will be on a college campus this fall, and let us know if we missed any: Loading Slideshow Alex Linz - UC Berkeley Remember him from <em>Home Alone 3</em>? Nathan Adrian - UC Berkeley Olympic gold medalist in 2008, planning to return to the Olympics this summer. Miranda Cosgrove - University of Southern California Of Nickelodeon fame Chet Hanks - Northwestern University Also known as "Chet Haze," the rapper. Son of Tom Hanks, has had a couple small roles in films. James Franco James Franco was most recently enrolled at Yale University and teaching a class at New York University. In the past few years, he has also studied at the University of California-Los Angeles, Warren Wilson College, Brooklyn College and Columbia University. So really, it's just safe to assume these days that Franco is taking a class somewhere. Connor Paolo - Lee Strasberg Theater Institute Of <em>Gossip Girl </em>fame Justin Combs - UCLA Son of Sean Combs AKA P. Diddy AKA Puffy AKA Puff Daddy AKA Diddy Christy Turlington - Columbia University Best known as a former Calvin Klein model turned activist Hannah Dakota Fanning - New York University Recently seen in the<em> The Twilight Saga: Eclipse </em>and heard as the voice of "Coraline Jones" in <em>Coraline</em>. Emma Watson - Brown University Of <em>Harry Potter</em> fame Correction: An early version of this story said the 'Jersey Shore's' Vinny Guadagnino will attend Cornell next year. He isn't.

– Celebrities may like guns and have weird addictions, but they enjoy speaking in full sentences too. So let's salute those who are heading to college this fall (and not include James Franco, for once, if possible). From the Huffington Post: Hannah Dakota Fanning: The actor seen in The Twilight Saga: Eclipse and heard in Coraline will attend New York University. Connor Paolo: The Gossip Girl actor will develop his method techniques at the Lee Strasberg Theater Institute. Christy Turlington: The activist and former Calvin-Klein-ad hotty will attend Columbia University. Alex Linz: Remember the Home Alone 3 guy? He'll be at UC Berkeley. Emma Watson: The Harry Potter star will be at Brown University. OK ... James Franco: Recently enrolled at Yale, the actor-writer-artist-Oscar host also taught a class at New York University—so we figure he'll study again somewhere. But professors beware: Don't give him a 'D'. Click for the full list.

Police have released new surveillance video showing what may have been Karina Vetrano's final moments on Aug. 2 before she was found killed near her home in Queens. (Published Sunday, Feb. 5, 2017) Police Release New Video of Karina Vetrano on Day She Went Missing What to Know New surveillance video shows Karina Vetrano jogging in her possible last moments alive She was later found sexually assaulted and killed on Aug. 2 near her Howard Beach home Police say it remains "one of the unsolved, very high-profile murders" Police have released new surveillance video showing what may have been Karina Vetrano's final moments on Aug. 2 before she was found killed near her home in Queens. The video shows Vetrano jogging near her Howard Beach home. She was later found sexually assaulted and strangled in a marshy area just off the trail at Gateway National Recreation Area. NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton said Monday the release of the new video is an effort to keep the case fresh in the public's mind. "It remains one of the unsolved, very high-profile murders," he said. A reward of nearly $300,000 is being offered for information leading to an arrest. Late last month, police released a sketch of a man in a woven wool cap they want to talk to in connection with Vetrano's death. The man was seen in the area around the time Vetrano went missing. Police officials stressed at the time that the man wasn't a suspect or a person of interest in the case. The man was seen in the area around the path where Vetrano was last seen that day and was spotted by a utility worker. Police said that the man could have seen Vetrano or her assailant. Authorities have culled DNA from three different investigative points -- Vetrano's neck, her phone and her fingernails. Police say the fingernail DNA is the strongest, and all the samples point to the same person, though the state and local databases have yet to yield a possible match. Anyone with information on the Vetrano case should call Crime Stoppers at 1-800-577-TIPS. ||||| NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — New video has surfaced of a Queens jogger minutes before her murder. Karina Vetrano, 30, was murdered while running through Spring Creek Park in Howard Beach on Aug. 2. Police said she was strangled and possibly sexually assaulted. Her father along with authorities found her body hours after she didn’t return home from her jog. New video airing on Crime Watch Daily, a nationally syndicated show, shows Vetrano jogging carefree down a street bordering the park, with her long hair held back in a pony tail and wearing ear buds. The video is the freshest clue for the public to see in the now six week old murder mystery. “You never know in the sense of somebody in Arkansas, some place that may hear something about it and come forward with a piece of information,” Police Commissioner Bill Bratton said. The video was released with the approval of Vetrano’s family. New video shows slain jogger Karina Vetrano moments before her death. https://t.co/osv72euWpt via @PIX11News pic.twitter.com/FzbdjqTYmo — Crime Watch Daily (@CrimeWatchDaily) September 12, 2016 “It was provided as part of the continuing effort, along with the rewards, to try and find out what happened on that day,” Bratton said. “I think we have done all that we can to try and keep that story alive in the public mind and consciousness because it spread such fear through the city.” As CBS2’s Jessica Layton reported, Vetrano’s family hopes the video will inspire someone to come forward. “Think that it could be your child,” Phil Vetrano said. The video is one of the last images Vetrano has of his daughter. “Very disturbing to watch that, to see her like that,” he said. It’s what the video doesn’t show that has the NYPD and the Vetranos so puzzled. “It doesn’t show anybody following her. It doesn’t show anybody in a car behind her,” Phil said. Detectives have a DNA profile of Vetrano’s killer, but so far have no matches. “If we encounter a new entry into whether it’s our own system, state system or elsewhere in the country that might be the case breaker for us,” Bratton said. Standing on his front porch with a police patrol car still parked outside the family home, Vetrano said he’s hoping the video makes someone who knows something sympathetic enough to come forward. He believes the person in a sketch who is wanted for questioning could provide the best clue as to who killed Karina. “He’s not worth protecting,” Phil said. In the meantime, the family has struggled to heal. “Once this scum is caught, maybe we can begin to heal. But I doubt it,” Phil said. The reward for information leading to Vetrano’s killer has grown to more than $300,000. A GoFundMe account set up by Vetrano’s family has raised more than $270,000, while a $35,000 reward for information is being offered by the NYPD. On Sunday, Phil Vetrano said he’s considering hiring private investigators to aid in the search for his daughter’s killer. Anyone with information is asked to call the NYPD’s Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782), visit www.nypdcrimestoppers.com or text tips to 274637 (CRIMES) then enter TIP577. ||||| Police released a sketch of a man they'd like to talk to in connection with the death of a missing runner who was found strangled in an overgrown section of a Queens park earlier this month. Marc Santia reports. (Published Wednesday, Aug. 31, 2016) What to Know The sketch depicts a person the NYPD wants to talk to about the case Vetrano was sexually assaulted and killed earlier this month Her family is offering a reward of more than $250,000 for her killer Police released a sketch of a man they'd like to talk to in connection with the death of a missing runner who was found strangled in an overgrown section of a Queens park earlier this month. NYPD Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce held up a photo Wednesday of a man wearing a woven wool cap and asked anyone who recognized him to call police. The man was seen in the area around the time Karina Vetrano went missing at the Gateway National Recreation Area in Howard Beach on Aug. 2. Her body was found in a marshy area of off a trail several hours later. Boyce stressed that the man wasn't a suspect or a person of interest in the case. The man was seen in the area around the path where Vetrano was last seen that day and was spotted by a utility worker. Boyce said that the man could have seen Vetrano or her assailant. "We have to speak to this person," Boyce said. "That's the only reason we're putting this out." The man is described as being between 35 and 45 years old, standing 5 feet, 10 inches tall and has a medium build. Boyce said his wool cap stuck out on the hot summer day. "It's a little unusual he was walking around in August with a cap on," Boyce said. Earlier this week, Vetrano's father said he was seeking a runner who frequented the area before her death but hadn't been seen since. Police later said the man was not a suspect and had in fact been resting an injured knee. Authorities culled DNA from three different investigative points -- Vetrano's neck, her phone and her fingernails. Police say the fingernail DNA is the strongest, and all the samples point to the same person, though the state and local databases have yet to yield a possible match. Vetrano's family has raised more than $250,000 for a reward in the 30-year-old's death. Eighty-five tips have poured in to police about the case, Boyce said; nine remain to be investigated. Anyone with information on the Vetrano case should call Crime Stoppers at 1-800-577-TIPS. ||||| "Crime Watch Daily With Chris Hansen" has exclusive new video of Karina Vetrano captured moments before she was attacked at a Howard Beach, New York park. The 30-year-old woman vanished about 5 p.m. Aug. 2 while on a solo jog through a marshy area of Howard Beach called Spring Creek Park. Vetrano was beaten "quite severely," suggesting she put up a "ferocious fight," NYPD Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce said in an Aug. 4 news conference. The medical examiner determined strangulation to be the cause of death, and officials have said she was sexually assaulted, WPIX reports. Investigators said without witnesses their best chance of finding Vetrano's killer was to create a DNA profile using a sneaker, ear buds and a used condom found at the scene, as well as DNA discovered on Vetrano's body. That DNA profile has been created, but has yet to yield a match in the nationwide database, officials said. Vetrano's father typically accompanied his daughter during an afternoon run, but due to back pains had to skip the day she was ultimately killed. He, along with a search party, found her body about 15 feet off the jogging path hours after she went missing. There's no evidence she knew her attacker, officials said. If you have any information you can submit a tip anonymously at CrimeWatchDaily.com, or call NYPD Crime Stoppers hotline at (800) 577-TIPS.

– A new possible clue in the "extraordinary case of murder" of Queens jogger Karina Vetrano, CBS New York reports. A surveillance video showing the 30-year-old on her run shortly before she was killed last month. The video is being shown with her family's permission on Crime Watch Daily, although dad Phil Vetrano tells CBS it's "very disturbing" to watch his daughter's final moments. The video, which shows Vetrano casually jogging down a street at 5:46pm on Aug. 2 near Spring Creek Park in Howard Beach, doesn't appear to offer any explicit clues as to what happened afterward—"It doesn't show anybody following her," Phil Vetrano says—but police are hoping it opens doors in the case. "Somebody in Arkansas, someplace … may hear something about it and come forward with a piece of information," Police Commissioner Bill Bratton says. Last month, cops released a sketch of a man they want for questioning, per NBC News. A reward worth almost $300,000 is being offered for info leading to an arrest.

One book dealer thought to have lost £1 million in antique works in he heist said he has been left devastated by the raid. Alessandro Meda Riquier said 51 books, including by Galileo and rare editions of Dante's Divine Comedy, had been taken. He told Sky News: "I'm very upset because this is not something you can buy everywhere. "Behind these books there is a lot of work because we have to search to try to find out where the books are - auction houses, collectors, colleagues - and there's big research behind these books." He added: "They are not only taking money away from me but also a big part of my job." The books were being stored at the warehouse as they were due to be flown to the United States, reportedly for this weekend’s 50th California International Antiquarian Book Fair. The Metropolitan Police confirmed that a “number of valuable books” had been taken in the theft and appealed for information. A spokesman said: "Detectives are investigating a commercial burglary which occurred between January 29 to 30, 2017. A warehouse in Feltham was broken into and a number of valuable books were stolen." Anyone with information should contact police via 101, or contact Crimestoppers anonymously. ||||| Books of significant value were stolen from a West London warehouse on the night of 29th January while in transit for the California Book Fair. A full police investigation is underway! For a complete list of all stolen books, please view the PDF below! For more details of individual copies, please contact the dealers directly, contact details to be found in the list of stolen books. If anyone offers you any of these titles, please contact the Police SCD6-ArtandAntiquesUnit@met.police.uk and quote crime reference number 0502127/17 ABA Secretary Camilla Szymanowska on +44 (0) 20 7421 4681 secretary@aba.org.uk or ABA Security Chair Brian Lake on +44 (0) 20 7631 4220 brian@jarndyce.co.uk immediately! ||||| A gang of thieves has reportedly stolen over £2 million worth of rare books from a warehouse near Heathrow airport in a "Mission Impossible"-style heist, The Mail on Sunday reports. The newspaper reports that over 160 rare books were stolen, including works by Galileo, Isaac Newton, and Leonardo da Vinci. Thieves reportedly gained access to the warehouse in Feltham, Middlesex by climbing onto the roof, cutting holes through the reinforced skylights, and then abseiling down into the building. The heist, which took place on the evening of January 29, was captured on the warehouse's CCTV cameras, The Mail on Sunday reports. Thieves were observed ignoring all other items stored in the warehouse, instead targeting four containers that stored rare books. A source told The Mail on Sunday that the gang of criminals checked the contents of the containers against a list, "throwing the ones they didn't want away." The books were being stored in the warehouse temporarily as they made their way to the California Book Fair. The gang then placed the rare books into holdalls and pulled them onto the roof of the building using ropes. The bags were then placed into a van and driven away. The Mail on Sunday reports that the thieves likely stole the books to order, as it would be difficult to resell the titles. The newspaper says that scientific works, of the type stolen in the raid, "are particularly in demand." It speculates that a wealthy collector known as "the Astronomer" may have ordered gangs to steal books for him. The most valuable book stolen in the raid is a 1566 edition of "De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium" by Copernicus. The book, which can be translated as "On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres," set out Copernicus' theory that the Sun is at the centre of the universe, not the Earth. The owner of the rare Copernicus book stolen in the raid, identified only as a dealer from Padua in Italy, told The Mail on Sunday that "It was clearly a robbery done to order. It was a specialised gang. They took only books, nothing else." The International League of Antiquarian Booksellers has published two separate lists detailing every book believed to have been stolen in the heist. It lists two dealers who have had stock stolen from them: Librario Bado e Mart s.a.s. di Bado R. e C. from Padua, Italy, and Michael Kühn from Berlin, Germany. Another book that is believed to have been stolen is a 1656 Galileo book titled "Opere di Galileo Galilei," another early scientific work about the universe. A copy of "Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica" by Isaac Newton was also stolen in the raid. The book was a landmark work covering physics and mathematics. A 1506 edition of Dante's "Divine Comedy" was also stolen in the raid. ||||| Books Shortcuts Mission impossible: trying to flog a stolen 500-year-old Dante manuscript Tome raiders have stolen more than 160 rare books by abseiling into a warehouse, but they may struggle to cash in on their £2m crime The theft of rare books, manuscripts and maps is thought to be on the rise. Photograph: Alberto Pizzoli/AFP/Getty Images In a rare book heist described as “extraordinary” for its Mission: Impossible-style stealth, a gang of thieves has stolen more than £2m worth of antiquarian books from a London warehouse. The three tome-raiders evaded the security system by boring holes through reinforced glass skylights and abseiling 40ft on ropes into the repository. The haul of more than 160 books included a 1566 copy of De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium by Copernicus, worth an estimated £215,000, as well as works by Galileo, Isaac Newton, Leonardo da Vinci and a 1569 edition of Dante’s Divine Comedy. The question is, what happens to the books now? How might they be sold? And who would buy them? “Criminals first try to cash out on these crimes,” leading art lawyer Chris Marinello, CEO of London based Art Recovery International, tells me. “They are looking for buyers and the more publicity the crime gets, they more difficult it becomes to sell these items. Placing them on international databases, such as ARTIVE.org, which records stolen objects so they can not be sold knowingly in the marketplace, means reputable dealers and collectors will not touch them.” Marinello, who has been working to reduce the trade in illicit cultural heritage for three decades, explains that this, unfortunately, is when the “second crime” often takes places. “The books might then be broken up,” he says. “Some of the illuminated manuscripts and engravings contained therein might be traded in the art market, where many buyers don’t know they were cut out of rare books. It becomes a lot more difficult to trace.” The theft of rare books, manuscripts and maps from libraries and other repositories is thought to be on the rise. An alarmingly titled conference at the British Library in 2015, The Written Heritage of Mankind in Peril, was prompted by two major heists at European libraries, both of which turned out to be inside jobs. What continues to confound the international rare book market – estimated to be worth $500m (£380m) a year – is how easily stolen books are fenced and resold. So what’s the solution? “It’s urgent at this point that the victims come forward and record these losses,” Marinello says. “It’s really important to make these books unsellable by disseminating that information. That’s the key. In my experience the books will either turn up very shortly or when the criminals know they can’t sell them they’ll go underground and be traded or sold at 5%-10% of their true value. We might expect a ransom demand as well from someone looking to shake down an insurance company. The next few days and weeks are very important from an investigative point of view.” Does he believe, as some are saying, that the books might have been stolen to order by a specialist collector? “I would strongly refute that,” he replies. “I think this was more likely similar to the Lufthansa heist in Goodfellas, where somebody had inside information that they were being kept in a warehouse and were particularly valuable. Then someone allowed that information to leak out, and criminals took advantage.”

– It was a heist worthy of Hollywood: Thieves targeted a London warehouse temporarily holding some of the world's rarest books, cut through its skylights, rappelled down, and made off with more than $3 million in bounty, reports the Telegraph. In total, the trio nabbed more than 160 books, and Business Insider notes that CCTV cameras show the thieves ignoring everything in the warehouse but four containers, the contents of which they checked against a list. "This was a big job," Alessandro Meda Riquier, a dealer who lost about $1.6 million worth of books in the heist, tells the CBC. "Police said that it took more than three hours to complete." The International League of Antiquarian Booksellers has published the complete list of stolen publications, but the "jewel" is a 1566 edition of De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium by Copernicus, the book in which he theorized that the sun, not the Earth, is at the center of our solar system. Other notables include a 1506 edition of Dante's Divine Comedy, and a copy of Isaac Newton's Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica. It smacks of an inside job, an art attorney tells the Guardian, likening it to the Lufthansa heist in the movie Goodfellas. "Somebody had inside information that they were being kept in a warehouse and were particularly valuable," he says. "Then someone allowed that information to leak out, and criminals took advantage.” (One book dealer was murdered for his copy of a children's classic.)

US president says: ‘We’ve got a lot of killers’ when asked about Russian leader, sparking stern response from Florida senator Rubio Donald Trump has once again defended Vladimir Putin against accusations that he is a killer, telling Fox News: “We’ve got a lot of killers. What, do you think our country’s so innocent?” The US president appeared to place the US and Russia on the same moral plane in an interview broadcast before the Super Bowl kicked off in Houston, Texas. Asked by the host, Bill O’Reilly, if he respected Putin, Trump replied: “I do respect Putin. “Will I get along with him? I have no idea. It’s very possible I won’t.” O’Reilly said: “He’s a killer, though. Putin’s a killer.” “There are a lot of killers,” Trump replied. “We’ve got a lot of killers. What, do you think our country’s so innocent?” Travel ban: Trump casts 'blame' on judge and courts for hypothetical attack Read more Trump’s respect for and willingness to work with Putin was a familiar theme during an election that the US intelligence agencies believe their Russian counterparts sought to influence on Trump’s behalf. Such claims prompted a split between Trump and the intelligence community that has not yet healed. The two presidents spoke by phone last weekend, a conversation reportedly much smoother than calls with leaders of allies such as Australia. A summit meeting has been mooted by both governments. It has previously been suggested to Trump that Putin is a killer. In December 2015, the MSNBC host Joe Scarborough told Trump: “He kills journalists that don’t agree with him.” Trump replied: “Well, I think that our country does plenty of killing too, Joe.” The same week, Trump told ABC News: “In all fairness to Putin, you’re saying he killed people. I haven’t seen that. I don’t know that he has. “If he has killed reporters I think that’s terrible. But this isn’t like somebody that’s stood with a gun and he’s taken the blame or he’s admitted that he’s killed. He’s always denied it. “It’s never been proven that he’s killed anybody, so you know you’re supposed to be innocent until proven guilty, at least in our country. He has not been proven that he’s killed reporters.” After O’Reilly said he did not “know of any government leaders that are killers”, Trump turned to the Iraq war, seeming to equate George W Bush with Putin, though he did not name the former president. “Take a look at what we’ve done too. We’ve made a lot of mistakes,” he said, adding, falsely, that he had opposed invasion. “I’ve been against the war in Iraq from the beginning.” “A lot of mistakes,” Trump continued, “OK, but a lot of people were killed. So a lot of killers around, believe me.” On Monday the Kremlin said it wanted an apology from Fox News over O’Reilly’s “unacceptable” comments. “We consider such words from the Fox TV company to be unacceptable and insulting and, honestly speaking, we would prefer to get an apology from such a respected TV company,” the Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, told reporters on a conference call. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 36 journalists have been murdered in Russia since 1992, 23 since Putin first became president in 2000. Most famously, Anna Politkovskaya was shot dead in 2006 while investigating torture in Chechnya. Trump has said he accepts reports that Russia was behind hacks against his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, but rejected the notion that he could not have won the White House without Russian help. Investigations into links between Trump aides and Russian actors are ongoing. The Arizona senator, John McCain, a fierce opponent of lifting sanctions on Russia, a prospect with which Trump has flirted, has said the Russian president is “a murderer and a thug”. ‘I love Trump. He’s doing what he said.’ President’s supporters keep the faith Read more On Sunday the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, issued a mild rebuke to Trump. Asked what his response would have been if Barack Obama had compared the US to Russia under Putin, he said Putin was a “former KGB agent and a thug”. “I don’t think there’s any equivalency between the way Russians conduct themselves and the way the United States does,” he said. “I’m not going to critique the president’s every utterance, but I do think that America is exceptional, America is different, we don’t operate in any way the way the Russians do. There’s a clear distinction here that all Americans understand and I would not have characterised it that way.” Marco Rubio, senator for Florida and an opponent in the presidential primary, was harsher. “When has a Democratic political activist been poisoned by the GOP or vice versa?” he said in a tweet. “We are not the same as Putin.” Trump also answered a question from O’Reilly about his oft-stated but never evidenced belief that his defeat by a margin of nearly 3 million in the popular vote had been caused by massive voter fraud. Trump's courtiers bring chaotic and capricious style to White House Read more “When you see … people who are not citizens and they are [on] the registration rolls … it’s a really bad situation,” Fox quoted Trump as saying. Trump also said he was willing to work with Kiev and Moscow to resolve the separatist conflict in eastern Ukraine, after a telephone call with the Ukrainian president, Petro Poroshenko, on Saturday. The call was the first direct contact between the two leaders since the inauguration of Trump, whose aim to improve relations with the Kremlin has alarmed Kiev while the nearly three-year-old conflict remains unresolved. It followed fresh artillery attacks in the Donbass region of Ukraine, which broke a lull in shelling at a frontline hotspot that had raised hopes the conflict’s worst escalation in months was waning. “We will work with Ukraine, Russia and all other parties involved to help them restore peace along the border,” Trump said in a White House statement after talking to Poroshenko. ||||| This conversation will be deleted and this account cannot message you until you message them again. The conversation will be deleted and you will not be able to participate in this group. ||||| President Trump is sticking with his argument that millions of illegal immigrants voted in the 2016 presidential election, amid calls for him to provide proof and questions about whether he’ll indeed have an official probe into the issue. “Many people have come out and said I am right,” Trump said in an interview with Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly to be aired Sunday before the NFL Super Bowl. Watch the O'Reilly Super Bowl LI interview with Trump at 4 pm ET Sunday on Fox Sports. Tune in for more of the interview on "The O'Reilly Factor" Monday and Tuesday at 8 pm ET on Fox News Channel. Trump didn’t directly answer a question about whether he, in fact, has evidence -- but suggested that he has seen voter-registration records that suggest widespread voter fraud. “We can be babies, but you take a look at the registration,” Trump said. “You have illegals, you have dead people, you have this. It’s really a bad situation.” Trump became president by winning the Electoral College vote but did not win the popular vote. And losing that vote to Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton by an estimated 3 million ballots has been a continuing source of contention with him. Last month, Trump suggested he would ask for a “major investigation” through the Justice Department. And he purportedly was considering signing an executive order to start the process. But the administration has not taken any public action on the issue in roughly the past 10 days. Also on Sunday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R- Ky., told CNN’s “State of the Union” that he doesn’t want to spend federal money to investigate Trump’s allegation. Trump also said in the Fox interview that he has "respect" for Russian President Vladimir Putin, but that respect does not mean they'll get along. "I say it’s better to get along with Russia than not,” he said. “And if Russia helps us in the fight against ISIS, which is a major fight, and Islamic terrorism all over the world -- that’s a good thing. … Will I get along with him? I have no idea." Pressed about Putin's history of violence, Trump said: "There are a lot of killers. We’ve got a lot of killers. What do you think? Our country’s so innocent? ||||| CLOSE Skip in Skip x Embed x Share President Donald Trump went on record saying he respects Russian leader Vladimir Putin in a recent interview. Time President Donald Trump speaks in the State Dining Room of the White House in Washington, on Feb. 3, 2017. The Trump administration imposed sanctions on 13 people and a dozen companies in response to Iran’'s recent ballistic missile test. (Photo: Evan Vucci, AP) President Trump is reiterating his desire to improve relations with Russia and dismissing concerns that Vladimir Putin is a “killer,” in a Fox News interview set to air Sunday before the Super Bowl. Fox News released excerpts of the interview Saturday in which host Bill O’Reilly asks the president why he’s so respectful of Putin. "Putin’s is a killer," O'Reilly said in the interview. "There are a lot of killers," Trump responded. "Got a lot of killers. What, do you think our country's so innocent?" The president’s relationship with Russia and Putin have been under close scrutiny for months. Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election campaign dogged Trump throughout his election and transition, as intelligence agencies delivered increasingly urgent assessments of Russian efforts to hack emails belonging to the Democratic National Committee and advisers of Trump rival Hillary Clinton. The excerpts drew condemnation from some conservatives, including the Wall Street Journal’s deputy editorial page editor, who tweeted that “Trump puts US on moral par with Putin's Russia. Never in history has a President slandered his country like this.” Trump puts US on moral par with Putin's Russia. Never in history has a President slandered his country like this. https://t.co/LrP8ycG1Y9 — Bret Stephens (@StephensWSJ) February 5, 2017 The president also said he doesn't know if he'll get along with Putin, but believes Russian assistance in fighting radical Islamic terrorism would be valuable. The full interview airs at 4 p.m. ET on local Fox stations. Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/2k8UVo3

– President Trump tells Fox News that he does indeed respect Vladimir Putin, even though he agreed with Bill O'Reilly's assessment that the Russian leader is a "killer." Said Trump: "There are a lot of killers. We’ve got a lot of killers. What, do you think our country’s so innocent?" As he has in the past, Trump argued that it makes sense to get along with Moscow to help the fight against ISIS. And as for Putin, "Will I get along with him? I have no idea." Fox released an excerpt as part of a pre-Super Bowl interview that will air at 4pm Eastern. The "innocent" line has triggered a quick backlash, with USA Today picking up on this tweet from Wall Street Journal deputy editorial page editor Bret Stephens: "Trump puts US on moral par with Putin's Russia. Never in history has a President slandered his country like this." The Guardian notes that Trump has expressed the sentiment before: When MSNBC's Joe Scarborough told Trump that Putin kills journalists, he replied: “Well, I think that our country does plenty of killing, too, Joe.”

Rare photographs from Nirvana's first concert in March 1987 have been unearthed and shared by an unlikely source: Maggie Poukkula, the 19-year-old daughter of Tony Poukkula, a member of Seattle band Laytem who grew up with Kurt Cobain and hosted the fledging outfit's first show in his basement. Related PHOTOS: No Apologies: All 102 Nirvana Songs Ranked RS tackles the complete catalog of the band that defined the Nineties and made the world a lot noisier Last week, Poukkula tweeted a photo strip featuring three snapshots from the 1987 gig in Raymond, Washington, along with the caption, "Pictures of my dad and Kurt Cobain playing together back in the day." At the time, Nirvana's lineup consisted of Cobain, bassist Krist Novoselic and drummer Aaron Burckhard, though that night, Poukkula reportedly joined the outfit on guitar for, at least, two Led Zeppelin covers. "I had no idea that those were during Nirvana's first concert," Poukkula tells Rolling Stone. "My dad showed me them a while back, but he never mentioned that's what was going on in the photos. I found out because of all the articles. I didn't realize it was such a historical thing. I thought they were just cool pictures of my dad and Kurt jamming together." Poukkula said she found the photos tucked away inside her father's biographies of Cobain and Nirvana. Pictures of my dad and Kurt Cobain playing together back in the day pic.twitter.com/y7lXh6acVn — Maggs❂ (@mjpoukkula) July 16, 2015 According to an incomplete set list from the show, Nirvana jammed on covers of Led Zeppelin's "Heartbreaker" and "How Many More Times," but also performed nascent versions of "Aero Zeppelin," "Mexican Seafood," "Pen Cap Chew," "Hairspray Queen," "Spank Thru" and "If You Must." A recording of the band's "Heartbreaker" jam appeared on the 2004 box set, With the Lights Out, while a bootleg version of "If You Must" is available on YouTube. Poukkula's shots come on the heels of a deluge of rare Cobain and Nirvana artifacts, many of which were incorporated into Brett Morgen's acclaimed documentary, Montage of Heck. Morgen was given unprecedented access to Cobain's archives, comprising mountains of notebooks and hours of never-before-heard audio cassette tapes, which featured eerie Beatles covers and the noise collage that gave the film its title. After a successful stretch on the festival circuit, limited theatrical run and HBO premiere, Montage of Heck is set to return to movie theaters starting August 7th. ||||| These crawls are part of an effort to archive pages as they are created and archive the pages that they refer to. That way, as the pages that are referenced are changed or taken from the web, a link to the version that was live when the page was written will be preserved.Then the Internet Archive hopes that references to these archived pages will be put in place of a link that would be otherwise be broken, or a companion link to allow people to see what was originally intended by a page's authors.The goal is to fix all broken links on the web . Crawls of supported "No More 404" sites.

– Most teens don't find music history in their dad's stuff, but Maggie Poukkula's dad is Seattle musician Tony Poukkula, who was a friend of Kurt Cobain. Her find? Photos of Nirvana's first concert, performed by then 20-year-old Cobain and his new band in March 1987 in Tony Poukkula's basement. "My dad showed me them awhile back, but he never mentioned that's what was going on in the photos," Maggie Poukkula, 19, tells Rolling Stone. "I found out because of all the articles. I didn't realize it was such a historical thing. I thought they were just cool pictures of my dad and Kurt jamming together." She tweeted the photos last week, and the post quickly went viral. That first concert featured the early Nirvana lineup of Cobain, bassist Krist Novoselic, and drummer Aaron Burckhard playing original songs and Led Zeppelin covers. Similar early-days footage of Cobain and Co. featured in the recent documentary Montage of Heck has renewed interest in the grunge band. The Emmy-nominated project includes home movies, never-before-heard music, and intimate interviews with Cobain's family and friends, notes SPIN. After being critically acclaimed at festivals across the country, the film will return to theaters on Aug. 7, adds Rolling Stone. (Want a little more Cobain history? Here's the mix tape he made at 21.)

A collection of letters written by "To Kill a Mockingbird" author Harper Lee failed to sell at auction Friday at Christie's in New York. The six typewritten letters from Lee to her friend Harold Caufield, an architect, had been estimated to sell for as much as $250,000. The auction came about a month before the release of Harper Lee's much-anticipated second novel, "Go Set a Watchman." It's the first book from Lee, 89, since her classic "To Kill A Mockingbird" was published in 1960. The letters were written between 1956 and 1961, and some were signed with "comic pseudonyms" such as "The Prisoner of Zenda" and "R. Bouverie Pusey." The San Diego consignor, who wanted to remain anonymous until after the sale, said he paid considerably less than the $250,000 estimate, The San Diego Union-Tribune reported. The consignor collects rare books and manuscripts as a hobby, according to the Union-Tribune. The auction house described the lot as a "poignant and especially rare" collection written to "one of [Lee's] oldest and closest friends." Four of the letters were written before "To Kill a Mockingbird" was published in 1960, and one of those was written about her father, the inspiration for the character Atticus Finch. Another letter, written in December 1960, describes her reaction to the success of "To Kill a Mockingbird." "We were surprised, stunned & dazed by the Princeton review ... The procurator of Judea is breathing heavily down my neck -- all that lovely, lovely money is going straight to the Bureau of Internal Revenue tomorrow ... Must stop and take my rock-and-roll aunt Alice to the show. Elvis is on." The lot also includes an autographed copy of the 35th anniversary edition of "To Kill a Mockingbird," inscribed to Caufield with the note, "Hal: Can you believe it?? You've lived to see this, and still have all your teeth and gumption. You will always be my beloved friend, hairless though you are." In another letter, Lee complains of spending five months in small-town Monroeville, Ala., the Guardian reports, lamenting its "ecclesiastical gloom" as "really too much." In the end, Lee wound up back in Monroeville, where the 89-year-old now resides in an assisted living facility. Follow Ryan Parker on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. ||||| Photo Advertisement Continue reading the main story On Dec. 12, 1960, Harper Lee sat down at her typewriter and wrote an exuberant letter to her close friend, the New York architect Harold Caufield, expressing her shock and delight at a glowing review of her debut novel. “We were surprised, stunned & dazed by the Princeton Review,” she wrote. “I haven’t recovered my voice on the subject enough to say anything.” It was a striking contrast to another, more morose letter she had written to him, in which she complained of being unable to write. Despite her towering stature in the literary world for her blockbuster novel, “To Kill a Mockingbird,” little is known about Ms. Lee’s personal life, politics or writing habits. Few living authors are as shrouded in mystery. She gave her last formal interview in the 1960s, and though by all accounts she is a prolific letter writer, very little of her personal correspondence has trickled out, to the frustration of scholars. Now, as anticipation builds for Ms. Lee’s long-waited second book, “Go Set a Watchman,” a rare collection of six personal letters that Ms. Lee wrote to Mr. Caufield has surfaced, offering an oblique window into her creative struggles; her strained relationship with her hometown, Monroeville, Ala.; her views on religion and Southern politics; and her adoration for her father, A. C. Lee, a model for the crusading lawyer Atticus Finch. The letters, which will be auctioned off at Christie’s on Friday and are estimated to be worth as much as $250,000, were written between 1956 and 1961. (Some are undated.) During that period Ms. Lee wrote “Go Set a Watchman,” which she sold to J. B. Lippincott in October 1957. The novel, set in the fictional Alabama town of Maycomb, takes place 20 years after “To Kill a Mockingbird”; features an adult Scout, who has returned to Alabama from New York to visit an aging Atticus. The plot setup seems to closely parallel Ms. Lee’s own life at the time she was writing, making her correspondence all the more intriguing. But Ms. Lee’s editor, Tay Hohoff, told her to recast the novel, setting it in Scout’s childhood. The resulting story was “To Kill a Mockingbird.” The novel won the Pulitzer Prize and has sold more than 40 million copies. In the aftermath, Ms. Lee shrank from the public eye, and struggled to finish another book. Her correspondence with Mr. Caufield, who belonged to her coterie of New York friends, shows a complex, mercurial person who is fiercely loyal to her family and closest allies and witheringly condescending to those she feels aren’t worth her time. She can be by turns prickly and flirtatious. (“Will you marry me this instant?” she demands in one letter.) She confides that a “preacher” wants to date her, and shares her bleak views on Presbyterian theology, “about the gloomiest Protestant dogma I know of,” and airs her suspicions that she is being gossiped about for her stance on civil rights: “I don’t trust myself to keep my mouth shut if I feel moved to express myself, thereon it will get out all over Monroeville that I am a member of the NAACP, which, God forbid. They already suspect this to be a fact anyway.” Advertisement Continue reading the main story Advertisement Continue reading the main story In some letters she describes feeling alienated, creatively blocked and homesick for her Manhattan apartment, which she left to return to Monroeville to tend to her sick father: “I’ve been longing to get back for so many reasons, a major one being that as long as I have a roof over my head, a chair, a table and a typewriter, and no people, I can work. I simply can’t work here. Genius overcomes all obstacles, etc., and this is no excuse, but I think the record will show the extent of my output at 1539 York. Compare it with work I’ve done here — well, I feel like pulling a Mike and checking into a hotel. But it wouldn’t work in Monroeville. Monroeville would simply follow.” Though apparently Ms. Lee wrote to friends constantly, little of the correspondence has come up for auction, mainly because her friends are fiercely protective of her wish for privacy. The largest collection to sell was a cache of 13 letters that she wrote to a fan, Don Salter, who sold them through an online auction house in 2011. Few have been as intimate and revealing as the letters being auctioned at Christie’s. “What we have in this archive is a deep and unguarded correspondence,” said Tom Lecky, who heads Christie’s department of books and manuscripts. “She’s not putting on a persona.” Or if she is, it’s a teasing one — she occasionally uses silly pseudonyms like Francesca da Rimini and the Prisoner of Zenda. As more of her contemporaries die — Ms. Lee turned 89 in April — additional letters could surface. Her letters to Mr. Caufield were sold after his death by a member of Mr. Caufield’s family to Erik DuRon, a rare-books dealer, in 2011. The dealer contacted a California book collector, Paul Kennerson, a retired trial lawyer who had bought a first edition of “To Kill a Mockingbird.” Mr. Kennerson, 74, snapped up the collection, and about four years later he is auctioning the letters at Christie’s. He said that in 2012 he wrote to Harper Lee to inform her that he had her letters, addressing it to the postmaster in Monroeville. He never heard back. The biographer Charles J. Shields, author of “Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee,” said finding personal correspondence by Ms. Lee is “about as rare as a meteor hitting the earth.” “They’re precious, because she published so little,” Mr. Shields said. “The downside is that it may break the seal on a lot of questions she doesn’t want answered. It’s going to cheapen her legacy if personal letters keep popping up all the time.” Ms. Lee’s publisher, Michael Morrison, the president of HarperCollins, said that he expects she will be unhappy to hear that her private letters are being sold. Ms. Lee “is a deeply private person, and I’m sure she would be disappointed that letters she wrote to a friend are being sold as some sort of memorabilia,” Mr. Morrison said through a HarperCollins spokeswoman. In a month, the rest of the public will finally be able to read more of Ms. Lee’s writing. “Go Set a Watchman” comes out on July 14, with a first printing of two million copies. ||||| NEW YORK (AP) — Six letters by "To Kill a Mockingbird" author Harper Lee to one of her close friends failed to sell at auction Friday. FILE - In this Aug. 20, 2007, file photo, author Harper Lee, who wrote “To Kill a Mockingbird,” smiles during a ceremony honoring her at the Capitol in Montgomery, Ala. Six letters by Lee, to one of... (Associated Press) The archive had been expected to bring as much as $250,000 at Christie's, which said the bidding did not reach the reserve price. Four of the letters date from before "Mockingbird" while Lee was caring for her ailing father, Amasa Coleman Lee, the model for her protagonist Atticus Finch. The signed and typed letters were written to Lee's friend, New York architect Harold Caufield, between 1956 and 1961, according to Christie's, which is selling them on Friday. In one, she writes about her "stunned" reaction to the huge success of the book, published in 1960 and made into a movie starring Gregory Peck two years later. "We were surprised, stunned & dazed by the Princeton review," she wrote. "The procurator of Judea is breathing heavily down my neck — all that lovely, lovely money is going straight to the Bureau of Internal Revenue tomorrow." In another letter she tells Caufield: "Daddy is sitting beside me at the kitchen table. ... I found myself staring at his handsome old face, and a sudden wave of panic flashed through me, which I think was an echo of the fear and desolation that filled me when he was nearly dead. It has been years since I have lived with him on a day-to-day basis." The sale comes as Lee's second book, "Go Set a Watchman," is set to be released in July. It was written before the Pulitzer Prize-winning "Mockingbird" but takes place 20 years later. Lee's agreement to release the book stunned the literary world. "Watchman" has been ranked No. 1 in new releases of classic literature and fiction on Amazon.com for weeks. "She's arguably one of the most important American novelists of the post-war period who has not published a great deal," said Tom Lecky, Christie's head of books and manuscripts. "She's remained a private figure so the appearance of an archive like this is a very important moment in the marketplace. Only three other letters of hers have come up at auction within the last 35 years." Christie's said the seller, who wished to remain anonymous, acquired the letters on the open market. The auctioneer intentionally has blurred the contents in its catalog and online to protect the author's privacy. The 89-year-old Lee, who is in declining health and lives in an assisted-living home in Monroeville, Alabama, could not be reached for comment about the sale. Her attorney, Tonja Brooks Carter, did not return an email and phone request for comment. In a 1961 letter Lee wrote that Esquire magazine turned down her "pastiche" about "some white people who were segregationists & at the same time loathed & hated the K.K.K. This is an axiomatic impossibility, according to Esquire!" The letters, totaling eight pages, are signed as "Nelle," ''N.H." or with comic pseudonyms including "The prisoner of Zenda," a reference to an 1894 novel about a king who is drugged and kidnapped on the eve of his coronation. The letters present "an interesting bracket of before and after of a monumental moment in American letters where you have the time leading up to while she's writing her book and then you get a glimpse into her reaction to the reaction," said Lecky. "You see how the book was received and how she received those reviews."

– The reclusive Harper Lee reportedly wrote to friends a lot in her younger days, but few letters have "trickled out" because of her desire for privacy, as the New York Times puts it. That changed today when six she wrote to friend Harold Caufield between 1956 and 1961—before and after the publication of To Kill a Mockingbird—went up for auction at Christie's. It turned out that the letters, now in the possession of a book collector, failed to sell, reports AP. (The expected price was $250,000; the bidding didn't hit the reserve price.) But we still get to read snippets, from AP, the Times, and the Los Angeles Times: 'Mockingbird success: "We were surprised, stunned & dazed by the Princeton review. The procurator of Judea is breathing heavily down my neck—all that lovely, lovely money is going straight to the Bureau of Internal Revenue tomorrow." On her dad, the model for Atticus Finch: "Daddy is sitting beside me at the kitchen table. ... I found myself staring at his handsome old face, and a sudden wave of panic flashed through me, which I think was an echo of the fear and desolation that filled me when he was nearly dead. It has been years since I have lived with him on a day-to-day basis." Small-town life: “I don’t trust myself to keep my mouth shut if I feel moved to express myself, thereon it will get out all over Monroeville that I am a member of the NAACP, which, God forbid. They already suspect this to be a fact anyway.” She also complains of the town's "ecclesiastical gloom." The lot included an inscribed 35th anniversary copy of the book: "Hal: Can you believe it?? You've lived to see this, and still have all your teeth and gumption. You will always be my beloved friend, hairless though you are." Lee's controversial second novel, Go Set a Watchmen, is out next month.

(Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP Photo) NEW ORLEANS - Taking a detour from his campaign battleground tour, President Obama today surveyed a Louisiana neighborhood hit hard by the floods of Hurricane Isaac, reassuring victims of federal recovery aid and hailing the first responders who ensured no lives were lost. Obama got a first-hand look at the devastation in St. John the Baptist Parish, one of the hardest hit in the storm, situated roughly 30 miles west of downtown New Orleans. His motorcade passed streets lined with mounds of debris, uprooted trees, ruined furniture and appliances piled in yards and along the curb. The air smelled of trash and sewage as it baked in the 100-degree heat. He later went house to house in the Ridgewood neighborhood of La Place, shaking hands with residents and hearing their stories. "There is enormous faith here, enormous strength here," Obama said after his tour. "You can see it with these families - they were just devastated a few days ago and they are already smiling and laughing and feeling confident about the future and pulling together." Disaster response coordinators who briefed Obama on the recovery effort said that facilitating the return of more than 3,900 evacuees to St. John's Parish and providing them with temporary housing and transportation remains the most urgent challenge. Officials said they were also scrambling to reopen public facilities, like schools and fire stations. "Right now we're still in recovery mode. And that means that our biggest priority is helping to house people who have been displaced," Obama said. "We're also going to make sure at the federal level that we are getting on the case very quickly on figuring out what exactly happened here and making sure it doesn't happen again," he added, referring to the failure of a local levee meant to protect the area. Flooding caused by Isaac was unprecedented and unexpected for St. John's Parish, flowing in quickly from two directions at the height of the storm and cutting off access on Interstate 10. "Some of the folks we just walked by literally had to be saved by boat. They were in their homes trapped, the waters came in so quickly. And this is an area that hadn't been flooded in 17 years, so as a consequence folks just weren't anticipating and accustomed to the scale and scope of the destruction," Obama said. "But because of the great work of law enforcement, National Guard, Coast Guard, making sure that folks were out in rescue mode rapidly… no lives were lost." Obama flew to New Orleans after attending a Labor Day campaign rally in Toledo, Ohio, part of a tour leading to the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C., which begins Tuesday. He had planned to continue across the state for a second event in Cleveland, but cut the trip short to head south instead. The president denied political motivations behind his trip, telling first responders and members of the press that visits to disaster areas are "not just for photo-ops" - a point he later underscored in live, televised remarks. "When disasters like this happen, we set aside whatever petty disagreements we may have," Obama said. "Nobody's a Democrat or Republican. We're all just Americans looking out for one another." A bipartisan contingent of state and federal leaders accompanied Obama for the visit, including Louisiana Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal, a top surrogate for GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney, and FEMA administrator Craig Fugate. Democrats Sen. Mary Landrieu and Rep. Cedric Richmond and Republicans Sen. David Vitter and Rep. Jeff Landry also joined the presidential tour. ||||| 1 of 10. U.S. President Barack Obama (front L) is joined by Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal (R) as they tour Hurricane Isaac damage in the Ridgewood neighborhood of LaPlace, Saint John the Baptist Parish in Louisiana, September 3, 2012. LAPLACE, Louisiana (Reuters) - President Barack Obama toured hurricane-stricken Louisiana on Monday and promised federal recovery help as he sought to show his administration was on top of the disaster response on the eve of his Democrats' national convention in North Carolina. Obama was preceded by his Republican challenger, Mitt Romney, who diverted from the campaign trail to Louisiana on Friday to inspect the fallout from Hurricane Isaac a day after accepting his party's nomination for the November 6 election. Flying into New Orleans on a hot, sunny day, Obama traveled by motorcade to nearby St. John the Baptist Parish, one of the hardest-hit communities, where he met federal, state and local officials and then surveyed the area. He saw evidence of the storm's fury - twisted road signs, toppled trees, blown-down fences, debris piled high and pools of water beside the road. Stepping out of his limousine, he paused to comfort a few residents and hear their stories. "There has been enormous devastation in St. John's Parish," Obama told reporters. He cited similar destruction in other parts of Louisiana as well as neighboring Mississippi and praised emergency officials for limiting the loss of life. The White House has taken pains to depict Obama as deeply engaged in the government's handling of Isaac and its aftermath. His Republican predecessor, George W. Bush, was heavily criticized for the sluggish federal response to Hurricane Katrina, which devastated New Orleans in 2005. Being cast in the role of consoler-in-chief could have political benefits for Obama, who is locked in a tight race with Romney and will accept his party's nomination in a prime-time speech on Thursday night in Charlotte, North Carolina. The convention begins on Tuesday. "How y'all doin'?" Obama asked Trebor Smith, wearing shorts and high rubber boots, outside his storm-damaged house. "Better now," Smith said. One woman told Obama the water rose so fast that she and her family had to be rescued by boat. Isaac was the first hurricane to strike the United States this year, hitting New Orleans almost exactly seven years after Katrina hit, causing an estimated 1,800 deaths. But Isaac was a much weaker storm. It was blamed for six deaths in Louisiana and two in neighboring Mississippi, and both states suffered from widespread flooding. ABOUT 125,000 STILL WITHOUT POWER Even as the fading remnants of Isaac moved east, about 125,000 people remained without power in Louisiana, the governor's office said. With floodwaters not yet receded in some areas, about 2,600 people remained in emergency shelters. Obama has declared disasters in Louisiana and Mississippi. Isaac's passage through the Gulf of Mexico last week forced cancellation of one day of the Republican convention in Tampa, Florida, and took some attention away from it. Obama, staying away from the region while emergency officials were occupied with the height of the crisis, waited until Monday for his visit. He went ahead with a Labor Day rally with union workers in Ohio but freed up time in his campaign schedule by scrapping a second event in the battleground state. Romney, a wealthy former private equities executive who has struggled to show that he can connect with ordinary Americans, detoured to the disaster zone the day after his convention. Obama, overheard by news photographers allowed in for a few minutes while he was being briefed, said such presidential visits to disaster zones were "not just for photo-ops." The White House sought to play down any political implications of the two visits at the height of election season, and highlighted the fact that Louisiana's Republican governor, Bobby Jindal, accompanied both of the men. But White House spokesman Jay Carney, speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, echoed Democrats who have pointed out that Romney's running mate, congressional fiscal hawk Paul Ryan, had earlier proposed sharp cuts in disaster relief spending. "Our biggest priority is helping to house people who've been displaced ... to make sure they have the kind of support they need to get restarted," Obama said on the ground. Carney's comments did not sit well with the Ryan camp, which expressed outrage that the administration would raise the subject of political differences during a disaster area tour. "Apparently there's nothing the President's team won't politicize," said Ryan spokesman Brendan Buck. "Paul Ryan believes providing aid to victims of natural disasters is a critical obligation and should be treated as a high priority within a fiscally responsible budget." Obama made a point of praising the Federal Emergency Management Agency, saying "in the past we haven't seen the kind of coordination that is necessary." FEMA was a focus of criticism for what was seen as the botched response to Katrina in 2005. Obama also hailed the first successful test of New Orleans' new $14.5 billion flood defenses, a reinforced network of government-built levees. But he said flooding in St. John the Baptist Parish and elsewhere showed the need for further work and pledged federal efforts to find out what went wrong and expedite solutions. Meantime, oil operations that had been interrupted along the Gulf Coast were coming back on line. The Energy Department said the Exxon Mobil Corp's joint-venture 192,500 barrel per day (bpd) Chalmette, Louisiana, refinery was restarting on Monday. The department also said Exxon's 502,500 bpd Baton Rouge refinery has returned to normal production after reducing throughput because of Isaac. Only Phillips 66's 247,000 bpd refinery in Alliance, Louisiana, remained shut on Monday due to flooding and power loss from the storm, the agency said. (Additional reporting by Ian Simpson; Writing by Matt Spetalnick; Editing by Cynthia Osterman and Eric Walsh)

– Just a day before the start of the Democratic National Convention, President Obama toured a storm-ravaged Louisiana neighborhood, promising federal aid and hailing rescuers. He drove to St. John the Baptist Parish 30 miles west of New Orleans, and went house to house in one neighborhood, reports ABC News. “There is enormous faith here, enormous strength here,” Obama said after his tour of battered houses, twisted road signs, and toppled trees yesterday. “You can see it with these families. They were just devastated a few days ago, and they are already smiling and laughing and feeling confident about the future and pulling together.” Obama's visit was designed in part to highlight the president's concern for local suffering, and his deep engagement in the government's handling of Isaac's destruction, in contrast to George Bush, who was lashed for the sluggish federal response to Hurricane Katrina, which caused an estimated 1,800 deaths. Isaac was a much weaker storm with only six deaths. Mitt Romney visited Louisiana last week.

It was plane madness. Chaos erupted on JetBlue’s red-eye flight from Portland, Ore., to JFK yesterday when a drunk allegedly urinated on a sleeping 11-year-old girl. The youngster was traveling with her sister and dad, and had been left alone for a few minutes while the others used the lavatories. Robert Vietze, 18, of South Warren Vt., stumbled from his seat five rows behind her and emptied his bladder, a witness said. “I was drunk, and I did not realize I was pissing on her leg,” the 6-foot-4, 195-pound Vietze said, according to law-enforcement sources. He later claimed to have consumed eight alcoholic beverages. The girl’s father caught Vietze midstream. “I woke up to this man yelling and literally looking like he was about to punch this kid in the face,” said the witness, who asked not to be identified. “The father was screaming, ‘F – – k that kid! I don’t want him near my family!’ ” the passenger said. Flight attendants separated the pair and removed Vietze to the back of the plane. They attempted to clean up the mess with liquid soap from the bathrooms, and helped to comfort the traumatized girl. But the 5½-hour flight from hell was not over yet. Roughly an hour before the plane landed, another passenger began to complain of chest pains, then vomited. “Is anybody on this flight a nurse or a doctor?” the pilot said over the public-address system. “We have a medical emergency.” With no volunteers, the flight crew kept the man calm and tried to tidy him up, again raiding the liquid-soap container. “The pilots kept coming out of the cockpit to talk to the flight crew about what was going on,” the witness said. “When we landed, the pilot warned us that police were coming.” Six Port Authority cops met the plane at the gate at around 6:30 a.m. Two escorted the ill passenger off, and four took Vietze into custody. Vietze was issued a federal summons for indecent exposure and released. Additional reporting by Philip Messing don.kaplan@nypost.com ||||| NEW YORK - An 18-year-old accused of urinating on the leg of another passenger during an Oregon-to-New York City flight will not face charges, prosecutors said. Robert Vietze, of Warren, Vt., was detained by police and then given a federal summons charging him with indecent exposure on the red-eye flight. The JetBlue plane left Portland late Tuesday and arrived at John F. Kennedy International Airport on Wednesday morning. Vietze was intoxicated and got up from his seat during the flight and relieved himself in the cabin on another passenger, said Sara Beth Joren, a spokeswoman with the police department of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which manages the airport. As previously reported by The New York Post, Vietze said that he had drank eight alcoholic beverages, according to law enforcement sources. The person Vietze allegedly relieved himself on was an 11-year-old girl, whose father saw the incident and started yelling at Vietze, said a witness. Also during that same flight, a passenger complained of chest pains and then vomited, says the Post. Police officers met the plane at the gate. Vietze was questioned, given the summons and released. Federal prosecutors ultimately decided not to pursue the matter and dropped the case, Joren said. Robert Nardoza, spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office in Brooklyn, said he had no information about the case. The phone rang unanswered Thursday at the only listed phone number for a Vietze family in Warren. A spokeswoman for JetBlue Airways Corp., based in Forest Hills, N.Y., confirmed that an "incident" had taken place aboard the flight and that police had been called, but she declined to discuss it further. ||||| He probably just pissed away his Olympic dreams. The drunken JetBlue passenger who treated a sleeping 11-year-old girl like his personal potty is a member of the US Ski Team who refused to apologize yesterday for the high-altitude humiliation. Robert “Sandy” Vietze, 18, is among the 75 most elite skiers in the nation — but he may have blown his chance to compete in the 2014 Winter Games in Russia. His name was bumped from the team’s developmental roster yesterday afternoon, although officials refused to comment about his status. The leaky loser expressed no remorse outside his family’s palatial Vermont home, where he ignored questions about the incident and showed no interest in apologizing to his victim. UPDATE: VIETZE CUT FROM OLYMPIC SKI TEAM “We have no comment, nothing to say,” snapped Vietze’s mother, Abigail, as they hauled luggage and ski equipment from a gray BMW. Vietze had taken the red-eye flight from Portland, Ore., to JFK Wednesday on his way home from a weeklong training camp with the US Ski Team at Mount Hood in Oregon. It was lousy luck for his young victim, who was flying with her sister and cancer-stricken father on a trip to see her grandmother on eastern Long Island for the first time since his diagnosis. Soon after takeoff, Vietze stumbled from his seat five rows behind the child and emptied his bladder onto the girl, who was briefly left alone while her dad and sister were in restrooms. “I was drunk, and I did not realize I was pissing on her leg,” the 6-foot-4, 195-pound Vietze later told cops, according to law-enforcement sources. The girl’s father, a Stage 4 cancer patient, caught Vietze midstream and tried to wipe him out. “F- -k that kid. I don’t want him near my family!” he yelled. Vietze slurred that he had suffered “an accident,” according to another passenger. Flight attendants had to separate the men. Vietze admitted to cops that he had consumed eight alcoholic beverages before boarding JetBlue Flight 166. He was issued a federal summons for indecent exposure, but federal prosecutors later decided to drop the case, according to Port Authority cops. The father refused to allow his traumatized 11-year-old daughter to be interviewed by cops, likely sparing Vietze criminal charges. Yesterday, the girl’s family attempted to recover from the disgusting incident by attending the Yankee game. Last May, when Vietze was invited to join the ski team, he was the toast of the Green Mountain Valley School in Waitsfield, Vt., which describes itself as “a world-class ski academy.” “He’s a very nice boy, one of the nicest, most respectable young people I’ve ever met,” said a neighbor, Colin Seaman. “It would be very hard for me to believe that this even happened.” Additional reporting by Philip Messing and Jennifer Bain

– A drunk 18-year-old urinated on an 11-year-old girl's leg on a JetBlue flight Wednesday ... and it turns out that drunk 18-year-old is a member of the US Ski Team. Robert "Sandy" Vietze was removed from the team's developmental roster yesterday in the wake of the incident, and the New York Post speculates he may have lost his shot at the 2014 Winter Games. Vietze was on his way back to New York from an Oregon training camp when had had a bit too much to drink (eight alcoholic beverages, to be exact), stumbled a few rows forward from his seat, and mistook the girl's leg for the urinal. Flight attendants separated Vietze and the girl's furious father. "I woke up to this man yelling and literally looking like he was about to punch this kid in the face," a fellow passenger tells the Post. Police took the teen into custody after the plane landed in New York; he was issued a federal summons for indecent exposure and released. Federal prosecutors decided not to pursue the matter and dropped the case, CBS reports. "I was drunk, and I did not realize I was pissing on her leg," Vietze told police. The Post notes that he has not apologized to the girl.

(CNN) The dead submarine crew hadn't moved from their stations for nearly 150 years when the vessel was raised from the ocean in 2000. Whatever killed them happened so suddenly that they never made a run for the escape hatch. What's more, they had no obvious physical injuries. There was no major damage to the hull that could be definitively traced back to the day the H.L. Hunley, a 40-foot-long Confederate submarine, sank to the ocean floor off Charleston, South Carolina, on February 17, 1864. Researchers had unsealed the crew compartment of the submarine, but they have yet to find conclusive evidence of how the eight men aboard died. But in research published Wednesday in the journal Plos One one group of scientists thinks they've finally cracked the case of what killed the crew so swiftly. Shrinking down, blowing up The Hunley became the first sub to sink an enemy ship in battle: the USS Housatonic. But sometime after, it went down, too. It sank the enemy ship with a 135-pound torpedo, which was filled with black powder and attached to a pole 16 feet from the ship's hull. The study authors say the torpedo is the key -- but many have wondered how an explosion could've killed the entire crew without leaving a trace. Rachel Lance set off explosions near a miniature replica of a Civil War submarine. To answer this question, biomechanist Rachel Lance designed a model of the Hunley, one-sixth the length of the 40-foot-long submarine. The model, built by Durham-based sculptor Tripp Jarvis, was christened the CSS Tiny. Lance, then a graduate student at Duke University and an engineer with the Naval Surface Warfare Center , decided she would set off test explosions next to the model submarine. So she found an eight-acre pond on a family-run farm in St. Louis, North Carolina. Bert Pitt of Pitt Family Farms agreed to let Lance use the pond to conduct her experiments. "Initially, when she was talking about blasting, I was a little concerned," said Pitt, 65, a sixth-generation family farmer, whose grandchildren now make eight generations. Pitt recalled the wires snaking into the lake and the charges that detonated beneath the surface, splashing water into the air like a large firecracker, he said. One of his grandkids got to press the button. "It had a little geyser to it," he said. "It was neat to see." Pitt, a self-proclaimed history buff, had always been interested in the Civil War. He has ancestors who were in the North Carolina Regiments, and at least one of them is buried in their own family graveyard. The house he lives in was built in 1830, before the Hunley sank. He keenly eyed reports about the Hunley on the History Channel and the National Geographic Channel. "They were sitting perfectly still in that submarine," Pitt said. "I think people would like to know what did happen to the crew. Everything about the story is intriguing." Without a trace Suspended inside the CSS Tiny was a small pressure gauge, which revealed how the sub's own torpedo blast could have killed the Hunley crew without leaving a lasting mark: the shock wave created by the blast. The shock wave hit the Hunley's hull, which was less than an inch thick, said Lance, lead author of the new study. The metal bent ever so slightly but fast enough to transfer the blast wave to the inside of the cabin. That wave then traveled through the cabin, hitting each of the eight crewmembers, traveling through their bodies. But the real damage, Lance said, probably occurred when the pressure wave reached their lungs. "The issue is when it's passing through (the tissues) and it suddenly hits air," she said. Shock waves, like sound waves, travel quickly in water and solids but not air. The wave slows as it hits the lung, Lance said, and "that energy has to transmit somewhere." The end result: The blood vessels in the lungs can rupture, known as a pulmonary hemorrhage. "It was ... noted that men could be killed or disabled at considerable distance" from an explosive, Dr. Thomas Chiffelle, a pathologist from Albuquerque, New Mexico, wrote in a 1966 report for the US Department of Defense. "The man or animal may be killed outright, without external signs of injury, but often with blood-tinged froth or frank blood appearing in the nose and mouth." It is possible to survive a blast wave from far enough, according to Chiffelle's accounts. Witness accounts from the night of the Hunley's sinking claimed that there was a blue light coming from the ocean. Some speculated that it was the Hunley crew signaling that they'd accomplished their mission. Photos: Delving into mysteries of submarine H.L. Hunley Confederate submarine H. L. Hunley – Since 2000, scientists, historians and a genealogist have studied the first submarine to sink an enemy vessel. The H.L. Hunley did just that more than 150 years ago, on February 17, 1864, during the American Civil War. Hide Caption 1 of 16 Photos: Delving into mysteries of submarine H.L. Hunley Confederate submarine H. L. Hunley – The 40-foot submarine was brought up amid much fanfare off Charleston, South Carolina, in August 2000. Author Clive Cussler and a team discovered the Hunley five years earlier, buried in the sand more than 100 yards beyond its target, the USS Housatonic. Hide Caption 2 of 16 Photos: Delving into mysteries of submarine H.L. Hunley Confederate submarine H. L. Hunley – Conservators later began a new process -- filling the tank that holds the Hunley with chemicals that helped strip away what is called "concretion": organic material that has coated the hull and interior. Hide Caption 3 of 16 Photos: Delving into mysteries of submarine H.L. Hunley Confederate submarine H. L. Hunley – Visitors to a laboratory and exhibit hall in North Charleston, South Carolina, can gaze down on the Hunley on weekends. The large tank is empty when scientists in the Hunley Project are at work. Hide Caption 4 of 16 Photos: Delving into mysteries of submarine H.L. Hunley Confederate submarine H. L. Hunley – The hull is in pretty good shape, despite exposure to sea currents and elements for decades. The eight-member Confederate crew, sitting on the port side, turned a propeller by hand. Hide Caption 5 of 16 Photos: Delving into mysteries of submarine H.L. Hunley Confederate submarine H. L. Hunley – Several years ago, then-senior archaeologist Maria Jacobsen found a gold coin that belonged to submarine commander Lt. George Dixon. Hide Caption 6 of 16 Photos: Delving into mysteries of submarine H.L. Hunley Confederate submarine H. L. Hunley – Lt. George Dixon, according to legend, received this coin as a good-luck charm from his beloved, said to be from Mobile, Alabama. It was bent by a bullet when he was wounded at the Battle of Shiloh, two years before the Hunley made history. He had it engraved and carried it the rest of his life. It was found with his remains by Hunley Project scientists. Hide Caption 7 of 16 Photos: Delving into mysteries of submarine H.L. Hunley Confederate submarine H. L. Hunley – Paul Mardikian, left, senior conservator, and Philippe de Vivies remove material from a piece of the submarine. Hide Caption 8 of 16 Photos: Delving into mysteries of submarine H.L. Hunley Confederate submarine H. L. Hunley – One of the personal belongings found inside the Hunley, a watch belonging to Lt. George Dixon. Hide Caption 9 of 16 Photos: Delving into mysteries of submarine H.L. Hunley Confederate submarine H. L. Hunley – A wallet found in the shipwreck helps tells the story of ordinary life onshore. Hide Caption 10 of 16 Photos: Delving into mysteries of submarine H.L. Hunley Confederate submarine H. L. Hunley – Crew member James Wicks' bandana after conservation. Hide Caption 11 of 16 Photos: Delving into mysteries of submarine H.L. Hunley Confederate submarine H. L. Hunley – This burnt matchstick was found buried in the sediment-filled interior of the H.L. Hunley. Hide Caption 12 of 16 Photos: Delving into mysteries of submarine H.L. Hunley Confederate submarine H. L. Hunley – Experts believe this lantern was used as a flashlight by the submarine's commander. Hide Caption 13 of 16 Photos: Delving into mysteries of submarine H.L. Hunley Confederate submarine H. L. Hunley – This conserved oil can almost looks good as new. Hide Caption 14 of 16 Photos: Delving into mysteries of submarine H.L. Hunley Confederate submarine H. L. Hunley – The bowl of a pipe belonging to Confederate sailor Joseph Ridgaway, the only crew member positively identified through DNA. Hide Caption 15 of 16 Photos: Delving into mysteries of submarine H.L. Hunley Delving into mysteries of submarine H.L. Hunley – Experts examine a shoe found in the H.L. Hunley. Hide Caption 16 of 16 But Lance, who is working on a book about the Hunley, said that she has doubts about inconsistencies in these testimonies. It is virtually impossible to know how powerful the Hunley's torpedo blast was, even with the amount of black powder used. The blast can also change with how tightly the powder is packed and how fine the grains are, according to the Naval History and Heritage Command. Replicating the black powder explosion, Lance said, was the trickiest part of the experiment. So Lance lowballed it, testing several blasts in the process. She concluded that the shock wave would have instantly killed those aboard the Hunley, based on her calculations and a wealth of prior air blast experiments on large animals. "Any explosive we've seen in the field ... would definitely create a lethal wave," Lance said. "These types of injuries are not subtle," she added. "The damage is immediate." Tick tock There was another piece of evidence that stood in her favor: a gold pocket watch that belonged to the Hunley's captain, Lt. George Dixon. The watch had stopped at 8:23, about the time of the Hunley's attack, historians believe. "Most importantly, it appears it didn't wind down naturally," according to a 2007 update by a research partnership known as the Hunley Project. "Something traumatic -- perhaps water, a shock wave, or some other intervening force -- caused it to stop at that precise time." Friends of the Hunley -- part of the Hunley Project, which was not involved in the new research -- declined to comment on the research. The organization maintains and researches the original submarine. Prior naval research has concluded that "neither phase of the explosion was severe enough ... to have significantly impacted Hunley." Join the conversation See the latest news and share your comments with CNN Health on Facebook and Twitter. "We had a lot of submariners survive being depth-charged at very close quarters during WWII," said Paul Taylor, a spokesman at Naval History and Heritage Command. "You sort of wonder how they did OK, but supposedly the folks in the Hunley didn't." The Navy researchers who have been examining the Hunley for over a decade declined to comment on Lance's study while their own research on the crew deaths is ongoing. But Lance, for one, said she feels like this part of the mystery has been solved. "This project was originally intended to be a side project, and then it spiraled out of control when we realized we could do actually do it," she said. ||||| During the latter stages of the American Civil War, the H.L. Hunley made history by becoming the first combat submarine to sink an enemy ship. The Confederate crew never returned from its mission, sparking a mystery that’s lasted for over 130 years. An exhaustive new analysis suggests these pioneering submariners didn’t drown or suffocate as commonly believed, but instead died from the shockwave triggered by their very own weapon. The eight-man crew of the 40-foot Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley died instantly when its powerful barrel torpedo exploded into the hull of the 1,200-ton Union warship USS Housatonic, according to new research published today in PLoS One. Duke University biomechanist Rachel Lance’s exhaustive, three-year investigation suggests the explosion caused minimal damage to the sub, which was less than 20 feet away, but the ensuing shockwave caused catastrophic injuries to the crewmen’s soft tissues, especially to their brains and lungs. The finding subsequently fills in an important gap in US Civil War history, while offering fresh insights into human physiology and the physical forces we’re able—or unable—to endure. Advertisement On the evening of February 17, 1864, the H.L. Hunley, commanded by Charles Pickering, embarked on what would be its first and final combat mission. As part of the Confederate campaign to dismantle the stifling Unionist naval blockade, the sub’s crew managed to sink the USS Housatonic with a submersible barrel bomb. This “torpedo” wasn’t a self-propelled bomb in the conventional sense. Rather, it was a copper keg filled with 135 pounds of black powder that was positioned slightly ahead and below the sub’s bow at the tip of a 16-foot pole known as a spar. The crew plunged this bomb into the Housatonic’s hull just below the waterline, causing a tremendous explosion. The Union warship sunk in just five minutes, killing five of her crew. The ship came to rest upright in 30 feet of water, allowing the remaining seamen to be rescued. Advertisement The mission may have been a success, but the crew of H.L. Hunley was never heard from again. Its fate was finally revealed in 1995 when the sunken sub was found a mere 300 meters from the wreck of the Housatonic near Charleston Harbor in South Carolina. The sub was raised in 2000, and it has been under investigation by Clemson University scientists ever since. But while the sub’s fate was finally revealed, it still wasn’t clear what transpired during the military engagement, and what led to the death of its eight seamen. Historians have speculated that the Hunley crew drowned or suffocated, or that shear forces broke a valve causing the sub to sink—or even that the H.L. Hunley was shot by a seaman aboard the doomed Housatonic. Advertisement But none of these explanations fit the evidence. Confusingly, the crewmen’s skeletons were all found at their hand-crank stations, which were used to manually propel the craft. They exhibited no broken bones, the drain pumps were closed, as were the air hatches. The sub was startlingly intact, the only noticeable blemishes being a hole in one conning tower and an apparently broken window. The only satisfactory explanation, argues Lance, is that the crew was killed instantly by the shockwave generated from the barrel bomb explosion. To prove her case, Lance constructed a 6-1/2-foot scale model of the sub and subjected it to pressurized air blasts and black powder explosions while monitoring the effects with a series of onboard sensors. With the help of a Civil War reenactor and his fully functional, historically accurate rifle, she shot at period-accurate iron plating meant to mimic the sub’s hull. She analyzed the effects of energy blasts onto the human respiratory system, pored through documents at the National Archives in Washington, interviewed an ATF explosives expert, and even visited an original black powder mill. The whole endeavour took about three years, but the results are compelling. Advertisement Lance’s conclusion is that all crew members died instantly from the tremendous force of the explosion. The ensuing shockwave travelled through the soft tissues of seamen’s bodies, especially their lungs and brains. Normally, a shockwave of this strength would travel at a rate of 340 meters per second (m/s) through the open air, but underwater it accelerates to 1,500 m/s. By the time this shockwave hit the sub and penetrated the crewmen’s skin (the distance to the explosion varied for each crew member, ranging from 18 to 42 feet depending on where they were positioned in the sub), it slowed down to 30 m/s, which was still enough to cause catastrophic physical damage. Each seaman was subjected to about 60 milliseconds of shockwave trauma, as compared to about 10 milliseconds had the men been exposed above water. Lance assesses the probably of this happening to each crew member at about 85 percent. Advertisement “Injuries and fatalities from blasts occur instantaneously,” Lance told Gizmodo. “Since we calculated the blast exposure levels to be in the lethal range, the crew probably did not even have time to realize what occurred. They would have known they were approaching the Housatonic and preparing to attack, but once the torpedo exploded they would have suffered fatal pulmonary and brain traumas before they processed that their attack had been successful.” This cause of death would have left no mark on the skeletal remains. The soft tissues, which would have shown what happened, are long gone. But in addition to this shockwave analysis, other evidence exists to show that the men died instantly. Had they survived the blast, the crewmembers would’ve tried to release the keel ballast weights, start pumping water, or make an effort to escape the sub—but it appears none of these actions were taken. Lance says these findings hold dual significance. “As an injury biomechanist it is a fascinating example of a completely unprecedented injury mechanism,” she said. “The physiology of human beings has not really changed in the past 150 years with the exception of better nutrition, so humans in 2017 still have the same physical vulnerabilities as in 1864. Therefore the Hunley, even though it is a historical case, provides insight into our own physiology that is still applicable to us today. Historical case studies are incredibly important to injury biomechanists because they often present unique scenarios that are unlikely to occur in modern times.” Advertisement For Lance, the other important aspect of this work was finally being able to solve an enduring maritime mystery. “The mystery of the Hunley has been one of the big question marks of history since it disappeared in 1864,” she said. “While the archaeologists of Clemson did the majority of the heavy lifting with their conservation work, it has been a real honor to be able to contribute my expertise to help finally answer the question.” [PLoS One] ||||| The submarine H.L. Hunley was the first submarine to sink an enemy ship during combat; however, the cause of its sinking has been a mystery for over 150 years. The Hunley set off a 61.2 kg (135 lb) black powder torpedo at a distance less than 5 m (16 ft) off its bow. Scaled experiments were performed that measured black powder and shock tube explosions underwater and propagation of blasts through a model ship hull. This propagation data was used in combination with archival experimental data to evaluate the risk to the crew from their own torpedo. The blast produced likely caused flexion of the ship hull to transmit the blast wave; the secondary wave transmitted inside the crew compartment was of sufficient magnitude that the calculated chances of survival were less than 16% for each crew member. The submarine drifted to its resting place after the crew died of air blast trauma within the hull. Funding: We would like to gratefully acknowledge funding and support from the Josiah Charles Trent Memorial Foundation Endowment Fund at Duke University for directly funding this research. We would also like to acknowledge funding from the DoD SMART Scholarship Program for the research and education of Rachel M. Lance. We also gratefully acknowledge funding provided by the US Army MURI program (U Penn prime—W911NF-10-1-0526) partially supporting Cameron Bass. In addition, we would like to thank the Hagley Library’s Center for the History of Business, Technology and Society for funding via an Exploratory Research Grant that enabled the historical black powder research. This is an open access article, free of all copyright, and may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, modified, built upon, or otherwise used by anyone for any lawful purpose. The work is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication. Conventional explosions can injure through one of three generic mechanisms, one of which is primary injury from the blast pressure wave itself (see Ref [ 35 ] for information on other injury types). Primary injuries from blast predominantly affect the gas-filled organs, most often causing pulmonary trauma such as hemorrhaging, but can also present as traumatic brain injuries [ 36 , 37 ]. These injury types would not be evident from skeletal or highly decomposed remains. TNT is conventionally used as a yardstick to compare the strengths of different explosives, both low and high, which are typically described by stating their TNT relative equivalency (RE) [ 33 ]. RE is a fractional number that describes the strength of an explosive relative to the strength of TNT. Most explosives have RE values in the range 0.8–1.2 [ 33 , 34 ]. Black powder is a low explosive, a volatile blend of crushed charcoal, sulfur, and either sodium or potassium nitrate [ 28 ]. Unlike high explosives, which have burn rates faster than the speed of sound, black powder deflagrates rather than detonates. Variables such as grain size, powder density, and even the type of wood used to make the charcoal can potentially have noticeable effects on powder performance because of their impact on burn rate [ 29 – 31 ]. Tests of modern black powder have shown comparable performance in both burn rate and pressures produced to cannon-grade Union powder from the Civil War [ 29 ]. Black powder performance is also highly dependent upon the strength with which it is confined [ 30 ]. When it is spread on the ground and lit in an open, unconfined environment it burns with negligible pressure generation; however, when it is confined the charge casing allows the gradual generation of internal pressure until the point of casing failure [ 32 ]. While it is categorized as a low explosive, the data presented in this study show that it is capable of generating a sharp-rising pressure wave with certain confinement conditions. Momentum transfer into a structure produces motion of that structure, and rapid initiation of motion can create a shock wave off the structure’s back surface [ 22 , 25 , 26 ]. Transmitted blast waves have been observed computationally behind structures and experimentally measured behind armor [ 22 , 27 ]. Computational simulations confirm that backface pressure response is the product of rapid motion of the structure wall in response to the original external blast, and because the motion response of the structure increases for stronger blasts, so will the magnitude of the transmitted blast [ 22 , 25 ]. Such a backface wave means that, even if the original blast wave is largely reflected at the front material interface of the structure, it is possible that people behind the structure could still be injured or killed by transmitted shock from a sufficiently large charge at a sufficiently close range without overt damage to the structure. Blast interactions with structures can be prohibitively complex to test experimentally, so these tests are often performed both in air and in water by scaling down the size of the experiment according to the relevant dimensionless parameters [ 17 , 22 ]. G.I. Taylor first described the pi groups that dictate the behavior of an underwater blast wave hitting a solid structure with air behind that structure, primarily in an attempt to predict damage to ships from TNT depth charges [ 23 ]. Taylor’s dimensional analysis and subsequent studies by other groups concluded that the amount of momentum transferred into a structure by a blast wave can be scaled by size if the time-relevant parameters of the blast wave are also scaled [ 22 , 23 ]. Dimensionless parameters dictating the amount of momentum transferred are shown as Eqs ( 3 ) & ( 4 ). The increase in both the density and the speed of sound in water means that when explosions occur underwater, the resulting shock and pressure waves travel more efficiently and further than they do in air [ 17 , 18 ]. The most critical behaviors of underwater shock waves follow traditional scaling laws since peak overpressure, duration, and impulse scale with the overall length scale of the experiment [ 17 , 19 ]. However, it is more informative and convenient to describe the output of the charge via the equations provided by Hopkinson scaling, also referred to as the principle of similitude [ 20 ]. The Hopkinson scaling equations for peak pressure and time constant for underwater blast are shown as Eqs ( 1 ) & ( 2 ) [ 17 , 21 ]. Both of two previous primary theories of sinking, suffocation and damage to the hull from arms fire, have been found to be implausible in recent publications [ 15 , 16 ]. In addition, evaluation of the attack showed that the Hunley likely drifted before finally sinking [ 16 ]. The two large holes discovered in the bow and side of the hull were determined not to be the cause of sinking by analysis of the sediment layers within, which showed that both breaches occurred long after the sinking, and no additional damage was found to the hull that provided an explanation. The holes were determined to have occurred at a later date because analysis of the types and quantity of sedimentary materials, including marine macrofauna, showed strata of sediment deposition that permitted analysis of the general patterns of sediment accumulation over time within the hull [ 13 ]. These strata indicated that the holes were not present during the vessel’s initial time underwater. The pattern of damage of the holes was determined to have been caused by a combination of galvanic corrosion, stresses from riveted seams, and erosion from ocean currents [ 14 ]. The Hunley was raised from the ocean floor in 2000, and conservation efforts have been ongoing since [ 5 , 6 ]. The skeletal remains of the crewmembers were found seated at their respective stations, with no physical injuries or apparent attempts to escape [ 7 – 9 ]. The conning towers, which formed the only path of escape, were closed with the aft tower still securely locked [ 10 ]. The bilge pumps were not set to pump out water [ 11 ]. The keel ballast weights, which could be released from within the boat, remained firmly attached [ 1 , 12 ]. The vessel’s commander could see out the fore conning tower and was responsible for navigation, while the remaining crewmen powered the vessel’s propeller from the inside using a hand crank [ 2 , 3 ]. At the other end of a hinged 16-foot spar was firmly bolted the Hunley’s torpedo, a copper torpedo of the common Singer’s design type filled with 61.2 kg (135 lbs) of black powder and fitted with a pressure-sensitive trigger ( S1 Fig )[ 4 ]. The Hunley sank the Union ship Housatonic and killed 5 Union soldiers by setting off a black powder torpedo against the ship’s hull on the evening of February 17, 1864. The narrow, tapered submarine was 12 m (40 ft) long with a maximum width of only 1.2 m (4 ft) [ 1 ]. It was shaped out of the wrought iron boiler of a previous ship, and carried a crew of 8 men ( Fig 1 ). Methods Scale model construction A 1/6 length-scaled model of the HL Hunley was constructed out of 16-gauge mild steel, which is materially similar to the wrought iron of the submarine’s hull in many properties including those that dictate structural response to blast exposure (S1 Table) [14, 38, 39]. Key physical design properties of the Hunley were incorporated in the scale model construction, including ballast tanks that could be filled with water and ballast weighting by lining the keel with lead. Information about the methods used to obtain the measurements of the Hunley that formed the basis of the scale model can be found in Ref [15]. The finished model is shown in Fig 2. PPT PowerPoint slide PowerPoint slide PNG larger image larger image TIFF original image Download: Fig 2. Photograph of the scale Hunley model, nicknamed the CSS Tiny. [a] threaded attachment for spar [b] access port (2 total, one each at bow and stern) to fill and empty the ballast tanks, can be sealed with threaded insert [c] Rings (3 on model) for carrying the vessel and attaching lines [d] Gasket-sealed panel for interior access [e] Data ports (2 on model) for gauges [f] Bulkhead fittings (4 on model) for gauge wires. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0182244.g002 The Hunley model, nicknamed the Tiny, was exposed to underwater blasts via three primary experimental methods: shock tube exposures, black powder charges attached to the bow with a size-scaled, angled spar, and black powder charges directed at the side of the hull. For each exposure type, an omnidirectional incident pressure gauge was suspended in the center of the interior of the hull. An identical pressure gauge was also suspended in the water external to the boat, at the centerline along the length of the boat and at a distance of 6 cm horizontal standoff from the side of the hull. The gauges used were oil-filled tourmaline gauges validated for measurement of underwater and air blasts (Naval Surface Warfare Center Carderock Division, Bethesda, MD), amplified with a PCB Piezotronics 402A amplifier and powered with PCB Piezotronics model 482A10 and model 482 power supplies (PCB Piezotronics, Inc., Depew, NY). The gauge cables were foam-covered and insulated along the length of the cable between the boat and the pier. Data acquisition was performed at 1 MHz rate with 500 kHz antialiasing filters using a Hi-Techniques MeDAQ Win600e (Hi-Techniques Inc., Madison, WI). The experiment was scaled so that the degree of pressure transmission into the scaled model hull would be similar to the degree of pressure transmission into the full-sized Hunley [17, 19, 21, 40–42]. Some changes, such as the change in density from salt to fresh water, were experimentally unavoidable, but the effects are expected to be small (differences in density and bulk modulus increase the speed of sound in salt water 2–4% over that in freshwater). Shock tube blasts The shock tube exposures were performed in the Duke University Reclamation Pond. The shock tube was composed of a driver section only, made of size 3 high-pressure stainless steel pipe flanges, fitted with a variable number of Mylar membranes (S2 Fig). The shock tube driver was braced from behind with water-saturated wooden rails and pressurized with helium until the Mylar membranes ruptured, creating a shock wave. A live charge creates spherically expanding shock waves, so because the Hunley’s spar held the torpedo at a downward angle the Hunley would have been directly exposed from all sides along the entire length of its hull. Since shock tubes create highly directional shock waves rather than spherical shock waves like those produced by live charges, the shock tube was used to characterize which sections of the hull were responsible for transmitting the effects of blast. The characterization was performed by directing the shock tube at the bow of the vessel, at the side of the vessel, at the vessel’s keel, and at oblique angles relative to the axis of the hull. Once it was determined that the bow of the vessel transmitted negligible blast effects into the main cabin, and the perpendicular component of the blast was responsible for blast transmission into the cabin, the transmission tests were performed by directing the shock tube perpendicularly at the side of the hull. The external pressures were estimated to be the perpendicular component of a blast with the correct direction of propagation, and so were divided by sin(11°) to calculate the overall peak pressure values of the estimated blast [43]. Live charge blasts The test site for the live charges was a freshwater pond with a bottom depth slightly greater than the scaled value (9 m/6 = 1.3 m) of the bottom depth at the location of the Hunley attack on the Housatonic [44]. This depth would ensure that reflections of the blast waveform off the bottom would be equal to or less than those experienced by the Hunley, and so would either approximate the amount of bottom reflection or err on the low side since bottom reflections augment the strength of an underwater blast exposure [17]. All necessary permits and legal permissions were obtained prior to each round of testing. Charges were packed with 4Fg black powder (Goex Powder, Inc., Minden, LA) with casings constructed out of schedule 80 PVC pipe with threaded end caps. The historical drawing of the Hunley torpedo indicates that it was filled with grade FF cannon powder (S1 Fig). However, samples of powder from recently uncovered Union cannonballs from the Civil War indicate that the historic FF grain size more accurately matches the modern 4F grain size standard for musket powder [29]. The charges were triggered using NPb squibs (Martinez Specialties, Groton, NY). Isolated squibs were set off to evaluate their detonation signatures at the distances of interest, but were determined not to have a noticeable impact on the pressure waveforms. Several preliminary underwater tests were conducted with variations in charge size, casing construction, and range to the point of measurement to assess black powder’s performance with respect to the scaling of time constant for the non-dimensional groups. Charge size was varied, with sizes of 283 g, 455 g, 490 g, and 1 kg, and range between the charge and the point of measurement was varied between 80 cm and 1.8 m. The range values were selected to validate the scaling principles in the regions most relevant to the Hunley. Initial testing showed that orientation and position of the charge relative to the gauges had a measurable effect on the pressure waveforms. Therefore, test data were only used for the analysis of scaling if they had the same charge orientation and depth as the tests with the scale boat model, and gauge locations that would fall along the length of the submarine hull. Specifically, the tests evaluating the effects of confinement strength were eliminated from the scaling data set because the measurements were taken at the same depth as the charges. The initial time constant of decay (θ) was measured for all blasts. Theta was scaled using Hopkinson scaling by division by the cube root of charge weight (W1/3) (Eq (2)). This value was then plotted as a function of the scaled distance (W1/3/Range) at which the waveform was measured. A power law equation was fitted to the data in the scaling data set using least-squares regression. This method is the standard procedure for describing the time-scaling behavior of explosives and is referred to as the principle of shock wave similitude [17, 21]. The Tiny model was blasted with black powder charges of three sizes: 283 g and 455 g charges, corresponding to 1/6 and 1/5 size scale of the 61.4 kg (135 lb) Hunley torpedo, and 1 kg charges, which were the maximum size as requested by the ATF. While 283 g is the properly mass-scaled value for black powder, the larger charge sizes were constructed to evaluate the degree of propagation of higher pressures through the hull wall. Experimental limitations on scaling burn rate of the powder and methods of charge confinement meant that the PVC 283 g charges would severely underestimate the strength of the exposure compared to the original copper-cased torpedo; larger charges were therefore also tested to evaluate how the transmission properties changed with increases in external pressure. All charges except one were attached via a size-scaled spar to position them in the same manner as the Hunley’s torpedo. One 283 g charge was positioned beside the boat to further increase external pressure of exposure. The external pressure from this charge was divided by the sine of the angle between the direction of blast propagation and horizontal at the centerline of the keel (11°) to calculate the total external peak pressure from a spar-mounted charge that would have the same amount of propagation through the hull. This angular correction for direction of transmission is often used in structural shock testing for charges in different geometric orientations from their targets [43]. Shock tube blasting of metal plate Propagation of a sharp-rising shock wave through the full-sized Hunley structure was investigated using a mild steel plate with greater thickness (1.6 cm, 5/8”) than the original Hunley hull (1.0 cm, 3/8”). The purpose of this test was to ensure that the shock wave maintained the sharp rise time critical to cause injuries even when propagating through a material at least the thickness of the full-sized submarine hull. The steel plate was a square 61 cm (24”) on each side and was exposed to airblast using a helium-driven shock tube. The shock tube was 30.5 cm (12”) in diameter and was aimed at the center of the plate. A standoff distance of 4 cm was set between the plate and the end of the tube to allow lateral venting of the shock and provide reduced impulse on the plate relative to peak incident pressure. Incident pressure was measured at the end of the shock tube using 200 psia Endevco pressure gauges (Model 8530B-200, Meggitt Sensing Systems, Irvine, CA) that were flush with the internal wall of the tube body. Two additional Endevco pressure gauges were rigidly fixed behind the center of the steel plate, with 10 cm between the back of the plate and the center of the gauge faces. Both gauges were oriented to measure incident pressure. ||||| Around 6:30 p.m. on February 17, 1864, eight men crammed into the Confederate submarine H. L. Hunley, a self-propelled metal tube attached to a bomb, and slipped quietly into the freezing black water off the coast of Charleston, South Carolina. The crew hand-cranked the sub more than six kilometers toward its target—the Union blockader USS Housatonic—and surfaced like a leviathan for the charge. By 9:00 p.m., it was over: The Hunley had thrust its spar-mounted torpedo into the Housatonic’s hull and within seconds, 60 kilograms of black powder had caved in the ship. Just after the brief moment of glory, the Hunley, which had just become the world’s first successful combat submarine, mysteriously sank. Its demise has baffled scores of researchers and Civil War buffs for more than a century. Now, one maverick scientist is making the bold claim that she has cracked the case. After three years of sleuthing, Rachel Lance, a U.S. Navy biomedical engineer who holds a PhD from Duke University’s Pratt School of Engineering in North Carolina, concludes that the blast from the sub’s own torpedo sent blast waves through its iron hull and caused instant death for the eight men inside. If she’s right, the mystery of the Hunley may finally be put to rest. But how she made the discovery is almost as surprising as the discovery itself: She did it without access to the physical sub, which was excavated in 2000; without prior experience in archaeology or forensics; and without help from the Hunley Project, a team of researchers and scientists at Clemson University in South Carolina that has been on the case full time for the past 17 years. Without collaboration or key pieces of data, could Lance’s account of the final moments of the Hunley and its crew be right? ********** On a warm September Saturday, I’m standing outside the student center at Duke, a low-rise contemporary building accented with the university’s signature neo-Gothic stone, when Lance swings around the bend in a blue Pontiac Grand Prix straight out of Motor City where she grew up. As I open the passenger door to introduce myself, I’m hit by a wall of thumping workout music. Lance just came from the gym, and her brown, shoulder-length hair is thrown up in an elastic. A blue, stonewashed T-shirt that reads Detroit rides up her pale, lanky arms. As we make our way off campus, the music keeps pumping. “Where are we headed?” I yell. “I’m taking you to the campus pond to see where we ran some of our experiments,” she thunders back. “It’s quiet there so we can talk.” Lance was modeling an underwater explosion at a computer in Duke’s Injury Biomechanics Lab, where she studied blast injuries, when her adviser had the epiphany that set her Hunley obsession in motion. What if, biomechanical engineer Dale Bass suggested, the modeling software could virtually reconstruct the attack on the Housatonic and reveal insights into the fate of the Hunley? Lance, a history buff, was hooked: a historical mystery with a tantalizing lead to follow. Eventually she’d abandon the software for a more hands-on experimental approach, but Bass’s idea was the catalyst she needed. She began reading theories about why the Hunley went down. One prevailing idea was that the crew ran out of oxygen and suffocated. It was exactly the type of theory she was poised to tackle: she’s been a civil service engineer with the U.S. Navy since 2009 and has expertise in breathing system dynamics and, more specifically, rebreathers—the closed-circuit breathing systems divers use to recycle breathing gas underwater. As her investigation got underway, Lance noticed there was very little, if any, published research on the crew’s oxygen consumption during the mission. With the navy, she had researched the phenomenon of how much oxygen people used while operating hand-pedal ergometers requiring the same type of motion as the Hunley’s hand-cranked propulsion system. So, she dug up the data and used it to calculate how much oxygen the crew would have used while cranking their way toward the Housatonic. It wasn’t clear how much oxygen there was to begin with, though. After hauling up the sub, the Hunley Project conservators calculated how much air was likely available. Their data suggests the crew had enough air for little more than two hours. Lance, however, didn’t have access to the actual data. She had met with project members to discuss collaboration, but they wouldn’t share their calculations with her (and, later on, would ask Lance to sign a non-disclosure agreement, which she’d decline). She’d have to go her own way. ********** She mulled over the problem for days. Then, she remembered thumbing through a newsletter published by Friends of the Hunley, a nonprofit in Charleston that handles outreach, fundraising, and development for the Hunley Project and runs tours at Clemson’s Warren Lasch Conservation Center where the Hunley is being restored. It was filled with interior and exterior photos of the sub, most of which had measurement notations below them. That gave her an idea. For the next month, Lance sat hunched over her desk printing out photos of the sub, measuring each demarcated point with a ruler. After weeks of painstaking work, she finally had all the measurements necessary to calculate oxygen consumption versus supply. The results leapt off the page. Suffocation was not a plausible explanation for why the Hunley sank. “Even with conservative calculations, the crew would have been experiencing noticeable hyperventilation, gasping for breath, choking, symptoms of panic, and likely physical pain from high levels of CO2 in the blood,” she says. “But we also know from records that they were seated peacefully at their stations without any signs of struggle. So, from my perspective, this tossed the suffocation theory out the window.” The findings were published in the March 2016 issue of the journal Forensic Science International. Richard Moon, the medical director of the Duke Center for Hyperbaric Medicine and Environmental Physiology, agrees. He helped Lance run the calculations and says, “You have a bunch of submariners who were working moderately hard in an enclosed space. There’s no way they would be working away at the crank in a 10 percent oxygen environment with high levels of CO2 and say, ‘Oh well, things are fine; we’ll just keep on going.’” The folks at Clemson weren’t convinced. Kellen Correia, president and executive director of the Friends of the Hunley, stated in an email that, “It’s premature to draw any final conclusions about the causes of the loss of the submarine or death of the crew, especially when looking at only one aspect of the situation.” She didn’t, however, reference any specific issues with Lance’s findings. ********** Debunking the suffocation theory offered Lance some short-term satisfaction, but by this point, she was in deep. She began thinking about the Hunley around the clock, obsessing over it to the point where she’d zone out and stare into her plate of food during dinner with her fiancé. “There was something viscerally terrifying about the fact that eight people died that night, and we had no idea how or why,” she says. In the meantime, Hunley Project conservators at the Warren Lasch Conservation Center were chiseling—and continue to chisel—their way through the stubborn, concrete-like layer of sand and silt that formed around the Hunley as it sat on the seafloor for more than 100 years. “The de-concretion has the opportunity to give us more information,” says Clemson archeologist Michael Scafuri, “but we haven’t uncovered any definitive evidence to completely explain the loss of the Hunley. Nothing in and of itself explains what happened.” There hasn’t been any case-cracking evidence on the human remains side, either. Linda Abrams, a forensic genealogist who has been working on and off with the Hunley Project since 2006, says all of the crew member skeletons were in good shape when they were excavated from the Hunley’s interior. The sub was completely filled with sediment when it was salvaged, so layer upon layer of muck had to be carefully removed before the bones were exposed. “There were no bullet wounds in any of these guys,” she says. And no signs of desperation. While the scientists haven’t come up with a smoking gun, there is a small area of damage to the sub’s exterior that has stumped them. The forward conning tower has a softball-sized chunk of iron missing where a viewport had been. Through her research, Lance learned of the damage to the conning tower and the so-called lucky shot theory: a stray bullet fired by Housatonic sailors during the attack punctured the tower, causing the sub to fill with water and sink. From Scafuri’s perspective, it is a possibility. “The gunfire from the Housatonic may have played a role in this,” he says, “but we cannot confirm that at this point.” Lance tested the theory by shooting Civil War-era firearms at cast iron samples—the damage to the sub was inconsistent with damage from her rifle fire. Plus, she says, a bullet hole would have allowed water to rush into the sub quickly and caused it to sink much closer to the attack site than where it was found. Based on her results, Lance crossed the lucky shot theory off her list and documented the findings in a second paper in Forensic Science International. The Friends of the Hunley declined to comment on the specific findings, but Correia wrote, “Again, Ms. Lance doesn’t have any primary knowledge or data of the Hunley Project.” Lance pressed on. If the crew hadn’t suffocated, and a bullet hole didn’t sink the sub, what did happen? ********** When the Hunley took down the towering Housatonic, it was less than five meters away from the blast. And, it was still attached to the torpedo; inspired by Confederate steam-powered torpedo boats known as Davids during the Civil War, the Hunley’s crew had bolted the sub’s torpedo onto the end of its spar. This meant the same explosion that rocked the Housatonic could just as well have meant lights out for the Hunley crew. Lance had spent the better part of two years investigating the suffocation and lucky shot theories, published twice, and still hadn’t solved the mystery. For her, this explosion theory was the next obvious avenue to explore, and one that meshed well with her injury biomechanics focus at Duke. If a blast wave from the explosion propagated into the interior of the sub, she reasoned, it could have immediately killed the crew or at least injured them sufficiently that they would have been unable to pilot the boat to safety. “When blast waves hit an air space, they slow down like a car hitting a wall,” she explains. “Except in this case, the wall is the surface of the lungs.” The sailors’ lungs could have ruptured and filled with blood. To test the theory, Lance needed a physical model of the sub. Enter the CSS Tiny, a scale model a sixth the size of the tour bus-length Hunley. Made out of sheet metal, it was a Hunley mini-me right down to ballast tanks filled with water and a steel spar mounted to the bow. Engineering a miniature submarine wasn’t a stretch for Lance, who grew up working on old cars with her father, a now-retired GM autoworker. As a kid, she was small enough to slide under their 1966 Mustang to change the oil without jacking up the car. “Growing up around car culture makes it easy to fall in love with machinery and engineering,” she says. A few minutes after peeling away from campus in Lance’s Pontiac, we pull into a dusty lot at the Duke University reclamation pond. The thumping bass line cuts out abruptly and the soundtrack is replaced with the ratchet-like chorus of crickets. At the pond’s edge, she gestures to the water, thick with algae: this is where the Tiny took a test run. Lance and a few members from her lab used blast simulation devices known as shock tubes to test the Tiny’s pressure gauges and other equipment in advance of the live explosives phase of the experiment. As she stood in the water, raising and lowering the shock tubes, fish chomped at her legs. It was as if she was being repeatedly stabbed with tiny knives—but by the end of it, Lance and the Tiny were ready for the big event. ********** The campus pond was off limits to real explosives, so, two weeks later, Lance and her research team trekked out to a three-hectare pond on a rural North Carolina farm for the live ammo tests. They parked the Tiny in the middle of the pond, and with an explosives agent standing guard, the stage was set. Lance began the countdown: “Five! Four! Three! …” The culmination of months of hard work all came down to the next few seconds, and her nerves were frayed as she frantically clicked between sensor readout screens on her laptop. From a safe distance, farmer Bert Pitt and his grandchildren were ready for the show. Lance had sweet-talked him into volunteering his pond for the project. “When Rachel came out to the farm,” says Pitt in a thick southern drawl, “she tried to butter me up with red velvet cake and explained that it would only be a one-sixth-scale explosion.” “Two! One!” Pfffsssssttt! The black powder charge exploded on the Tiny’s spar, and a small geyser of pond water erupted. Pressure gauges hung inside and outside the vessel to measure the underwater blast waves. Below the surface, the explosion jetted a blast wave into the Tiny’s hull with so much force that it caused the metal to flex. That motion, in turn, generated a second blast wave that transmitted straight through the hull into the cabin. “The secondary blast wave from this would have easily caused pulmonary blast trauma that killed the whole crew instantly,” Lance says. “This is what sank the Hunley.” Moon supports the conclusion. He says most people would assume that the cabin walls would have protected the crew from the blast waves—but few people know much about underwater explosions. “Speculation up to this point has been fine,” he says, “but when you hold it up to hard science, I think the blast wave theory is the most plausible explanation.” While Lance believes the mystery of the Hunley can finally be put to rest, the Hunley Project scientists aren’t ready to jump to conclusions. They’ve acknowledged the explosion theory as a possibility in the past, but began to doubt it prior to Lance’s experiment based on results from a computer modeling study conducted by the US Navy in 2013. The study suggests the blast wave would not have harmed the crew, yet further studies continue to second-guess any previous study conclusions. “The problem is, it’s a complicated scenario,” says Scafuri. “It’s sort of like trying to reconstruct the causes of a car accident with limited information. Would you be able to find evidence of an accident that happened because a bee flew in through the window and distracted the driver, who happened to be texting, on a stretch of road that was slick?” ********** “Oh, I have something for you,” says Lance at Duke’s reclamation pond. She reaches into her backpack and hands me a cigar-sized, 3D-printed replica of the Hunley—a souvenir of sorts. It offers a micro, yet detailed, view of the sub’s interior that makes me realize how confining the crew compartment—which at full-scale was only one meter wide and 1.2 meters high—must have been for eight grown men. It was a death trap. The fact they crammed themselves into the tube anyway was a sacrifice Lance seems to have unwavering respect for. It’s part of what drove her to press on to the finish line, despite the odds being stacked against her. ********** But how could it be that Lance was able to unravel a century-old mystery in such a relatively short period of time, particularly given the Hunley Project’s 14-year head start? Was it beginner’s luck, or her ability to approach the problem from a different scientific vantage? Maybe it simply came down to old-fashioned determination. “You have to deal with a lot when doing this kind of research, especially when you’re doing things on your own, which can be difficult and lonely,” she says. “You need to have a lot of perseverance, because that’s where the good stuff is—past that limit where nobody’s been able to push through the problem before.” In the end, maybe it had more to do with the fact that the Hunley Project is intent on both carrying out the painstakingly slow process of conserving the sub and explaining its disappearance. Although, from a revenue perspective, the mystery in and of itself may be a real positive for the Hunley Project and Friends of the Hunley, considering the sales of T-shirts, shot glasses, and lab tours it helps generate. Regardless, when Lance’s findings from her blast wave experiment are published (a research paper will be released imminently), the Hunley Project team will be watching. This time, it will be their theory to disprove. Related Stories from Hakai Magazine:

– For more than 150 years, researchers have scratched their heads over a Civil War mystery—and now a Navy engineer says she's solved it. Rachel Lance has been diving deep into the 1864 sinking of the Confederate submarine HL Hunley, which mysteriously went down shortly after sinking the Union's USS Housatonic sloop with a torpedo, reports a Hakai Magazine article posted at Smithsonian.com. Over three years, Lance—a Duke grad student with no experience in forensics, no help from experts who'd long been on the case, and no access to the excavated sub itself—carried out what Gizmodo calls an "exhaustive … analysis" and finally arrived at a conclusion published in PLOS ONE: that the torpedo created blast waves that pierced the Hunley's hull and instantly killed the eight crew, whose skeletons were found intact during the sub's excavation near Charleston, SC, in 2000. Lance looked at other theories swirling around the Hunley's fate, including low oxygen or a bullet fired by the Housatonic that punctured the sub. She became obsessed, to the point she'd zone out during meals. "There was something viscerally terrifying about the fact that eight people died that night, and we had no idea how or why," she tells Hakai. Her injury biomechanics background finally led her to her shock wave theory. "When blast waves hit an air space, they slow down like a car hitting a wall," she says. "Except in this case, the wall is the surface of the lungs." A mini replica of the Hunley she dubbed the CSS Tiny and a series of test explosions in a rural pond helped her prove her theory, per CNN. Other researchers remain unconvinced, but Hakai says now Lance's theory is "their theory to disprove." More on her project here. (The Hunley looks a lot better these days.)

At least 20 people were killed when a gunfight broke out at a wedding party in northern Afghanistan, officials said on Monday, highlighting the fragile security situation in the war-torn country. The clashes erupted late Sunday in Deh Salah district in Baghlan, a once-tranquil province that has recently been plagued by growing insecurity as the Taliban insurgency spreads north from its southern and eastern strongholds. “As a result of the clashes, 20 people were killed and 10 others were wounded,” provincial police spokesman Jawed Basharat said. District police chief Gulistan Qusani said the armed men traded verbal barbs before the gunfight broke out. “A local security official fired in the air after the verbal exchange heated up ... and then both sides started trading fire,” Qusani said, giving a higher death toll of 21. He added that the victims were all male guests at the wedding aged between 14 and 60. Baghlan police spokesman Sultan Mohammad Ebadi said an official delegation had been sent to the area to investigate the matter. Fatal gun fights and celebratory gunfire are woefully common at Afghan weddings, which have boomed in recent years in a country battered by nearly 40 years of war. Afghan soldiers mistakenly fired mortars at a wedding party in late December in the southern province of Helmand, killing 17 women and children. Some witnesses said the army attack was triggered when wedding guests shot celebratory gunfire into the air as the bride was brought to the groom’s house. In July 2012, a suicide bomber killed a prominent Afghan lawmaker and 16 other people at his daughter’s wedding party in the north of the country. And in June 2011, gunmen stormed a wedding party in eastern Afghanistan, killing the groom and eight other people in an attack blamed on Taliban-linked insurgents. The Afghan government conducted its first face-to-face talks with Taliban cadres on 7 July in a Pakistani hill station, aimed at ending nearly 14 years of war. Afghan officials said Friday they will meet insurgents this week for a second round of talks, pledging to press for a ceasefire in negotiations likely to be held in China. But despite the willingness to engage in talks there has been no let-up in militant attacks, which are taking a heavy toll on civilians. A suicide bomber on Wednesday killed 19 people including women and children in a crowded market in the northern province of Faryab, as insurgents intensify their annual summer offensive launched in late April. ||||| Story highlights Two groups got into a dispute in Baghlan province, an Interior Ministry spokesman says He says the groups fired on each other, but bullets also killed guests not involved in the fight Two teen boys are among the 21 killed, and eight other people were wounded Kabul, Afghanistan (CNN) A wedding in Afghanistan turned deadly Sunday night when a gunfight broke out, killing 21 people, an Afghan official said. Two armed groups got into a dispute at the wedding in the northeastern province of Baghlan, Interior Ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqqi said. The dueling groups fired on each other, Sediqqi said. But the bullets also killed guests who were not involved in the fight. Two teenage boys were among the 21 killed, he said, and eight other people were wounded. The cause of the dispute wasn't immediately clear. Read More ||||| KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — A shootout at a wedding party in northern Afghanistan has left 21 people dead and eight wounded, an official said Monday. An Afghan wounded teenager lies on a bed at a hospital in Puli Khumri, capital city of Baghlan province, north of Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, July 27, 2015. A shootout at a wedding party in northern Afghanistan... (Associated Press) An Afghan wounded teenager lies on a bed at a hospital in Puli Khumri, capital city of Baghlan province, north of Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, July 27, 2015. A shootout at a wedding party in northern Afghanistan... (Associated Press) An Afghan wounded teenager lies on a bed in a hospital in Puli Khumri, capital city of Baghlan province, north of Kabul, Afghanistan, Monday, July 27, 2015. A shootout at a wedding party in northern Afghanistan... (Associated Press) Abdul Jabar Perdili, police chief of Baghlan province, said a gunfight broke out between two groups attending the wedding in Dih Salah district late Sunday. He said that most of the dead were wedding guests and at least two of the wounded were younger than 18 years old. Perdili's spokesman, Jaweed Basharat, had earlier said that 10 people were wounded. Conflicting accounts are common in the chaotic aftermath of violent incidents. Baghlan and other provinces of the north have been plagued by insurgent attacks since the U.S.-led invasion in 2001 that toppled the Taliban. However, the war is often used as a cover for criminal activity and personal feuds. The police chief of Dih Salah, Col. Gulistan Qasani, said hostility between the two groups involved in the gunfight had been simmering for many years. "The clash broke out after a relative of a provincial police official was assassinated during the wedding party," Qasani said. He said some 400 people had gathered at a private house for the wedding of a local mullah's son. "When we collected the bodies it was difficult to determine who were the shooters and who were not, because I could not find any weapons," Qasani said. Meanwhile in northern Sari Pul province, a local police commander and seven of his men surrendered to the Taliban in Kohistanat district, according to provincial police chief Gen. Mohammad Asef Jabarkhail. Jabarkhail said the surrender came after Taliban fighters attacked police checkpoints on Sunday. Reinforcements have reached the area to support police still fighting, he said. The Taliban, who often exaggerate battlefield gains, said in a statement that 100 police in Sari Pul had defected to their side, a claim Jabarkhail denied. ||||| Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings. SUBSCRIBE KABUL, Afghanistan — At least 21 people were shot dead at a wedding after an argument turned violent, a police chief in northern Afghanistan told NBC News on Monday. The shooters were guests at the event and believed to be members of illegal local militias, rather than militant groups such as the Taliban or al Qaeda, provincial chief Gen. Abdul Jabar Purdeli said. "They started firing indiscriminately" into the crowd after a dispute over local rivalries, Purdeli added. Related: Are Afghans Ready for the Taliban's Return? Most of the people killed at Sunday's event in the village of Charkara in northern Baghlan province were civilians, according to the police chief. The victims included two children. Eight other people were wounded, Purdeli said.

– What was supposed to be a joyous occasion turned into a bloodbath last night as two armed groups at an Afghan wedding got into a gunfight, killing 21 people—including two teen boys—and wounding at least eight others, an Afghan official says, per CNN. The shooters, most of whom were guests at the wedding in Baghlan province, were believed to be members of illegal local militias, not the Taliban or al-Qaeda, NBC News reports. Although CNN says the cause of the fight was "unclear," the police chief of the Dih Salah district of Baghlan tells the AP it appears the fight broke out after a relative of a provincial police officer was killed during the celebration for a local mullah's son, for which 400 or so people had gathered at a private house. Meanwhile, the police chief tells the Guardian that " a local security official fired in the air after the verbal exchange heated up … and then both sides started trading fire." The paper notes that "celebratory gunfire" and fatal shootouts are "woefully common" in the region. The paper cites a December wedding in which 17 women and children were killed after Afghan army soldiers heard such celebratory gunfire and blasted mortars at the wedding party by mistake. The AP notes that Baghlan and other northern Afghan provinces have been riddled with insurgent attacks since the 2001 US-led invasion overthrew the Taliban, but it adds that local feuds and other criminal activity still proliferate under the cover of war. (The Taliban attacked the Afghan Parliament just last month.)

The United Nations food agency is pressing for immediate access to Burma’s troubled northern Rakhine state amid accusations that it shelved a critical report revealing desperate hunger among the persecuted Muslim population. A July assessment by the World Food Programme (WFP) warning that more than 80,000 children under the age of five in majority-Muslim areas were “wasting” – a potentially fatal condition – was removed from public view at the request of the Burmese government, the Guardian reported. Instead, the six-page document has been replaced with a statement saying Burma and the WFP are “collaborating on a revised version” and that the report should not be cited in any way. Greg Barrow, WFP’s deputy director of communications told the Telegraph that the organisation “stood by” its findings. But he said a new assessment had to be made in light of dramatic changes on the ground since a military operation was launched against the Rohingya population after insurgents attacked security posts on August 25. However, the WFP, along with other humanitarian aid agencies has been denied access to the conflict zone, a restriction it is urging the Burmese authorities to lift. ||||| The United Nations food aid agency withdrew a critical report revealing desperate hunger among the persecuted Rohingya population after the Myanmar government demanded it be taken down, the Guardian has learned. The July assessment by the World Food Programme (WFP) warned that more than 80,000 children under the age of five living in majority-Muslim areas were “wasting” — a potentially fatal condition of rapid weight loss. Rohingya crisis: UN 'suppressed' report predicting its shortcomings in Myanmar Read more The six-page document, which was reported on at the time, was replaced with a statement saying Myanmar and WFP were “collaborating on a revised version”. That process would involve “representatives from various ministries, and will respond to the need for a common approach” that was in line with “WFP’s future cooperation with the government”. The report should not be cited in any way, the statement added. However, WFP’s executive director David Beasley said in an emailed statement to the Guardian later on Tuesday that the agency would republish the report. “The assessment should not have been removed and I have directed that it be republished immediately in its original form,” Beasley said. “Put simply, the World Food Programme stands firmly behind the findings of the report.” He said that the level of food needs in Rakhine state had likely since changed for the worse and called for authorities to allow free and unhindered access to aid deliveries. The revelation that the report was spiked will add to a series of recent criticisms that UN did not push the government hard enough for the rights of 1.1 million Rohingya in Myanmar or sound the alarm on their spiralling oppression. The issue exploded on 25 August when Rohingya insurgents attacked security forces, who responded with a severe counteroffensive. More than half a million Rohingya have since fled to neighbouring Bangladesh, many alleging the army conducted mass killings and rapes, claims the government denies. The UN’s most senior official in the country will leave at the end of the month amid allegations she suppressed another report, a damning consultation of the UN’s strategy, and also attempted to shut down public advocacy on Rohingya suffering. She leaves in the middle of the current crisis, the worst in decades, while a replacement has not been publicly announced. Asked why the July study on Rakhine state was removed, WFP said earlier that it was withdrawn from the website “following a request by the government to conduct a joint review”. The August violence, however, halted the joint review, it said. A consultant who has worked with the UN’s Myanmar office including WFP said the agency’s in-country team were already extremely nervous about the report getting too much attention. The assessment indicated that controversial WFP food aid cuts to internally displaced Rohingya over the previous two years had left people in dire need, said the consultant, who asked to remain anonymous in order to speak freely. “That was the discussion that was going on behind the scenes and at a senior level,” the source said. “They knew it was potentially damaging. It was all to do with the fact that internally, there was a belief that the decision made to stop feeding some of the [internally displaced people] was actually causing people serious harm, in terms of food security, hunger and even starvation. “There was a real sense that they had things to hide in their work in Myanmar. Things had not been going to plan there,” the source added. The WFP country office had also been prioritising its relationship with the government above humanitarian needs, the source added, in an attempt to attract millions in donor funding by showing it had government-approved access to work in other parts of the country. “It’s a funny thing in the UN. It’s all about how much money you can raise,” the source said. But the access came at the expense of Myanmar’s most hated minority, the Rohingya, a toxic topic to raise with the government, leading to it being side-lined. Meanwhile, WFP knew the “government wouldn’t have been happy”, the source said, about the report, which found that in one district, Maungdaw, one-third of all homes were experiencing extreme food deprivation. The report called for further humanitarian assistance for more than 225,000 people, a move the government, which has since blocked aid to Rakhine, would not want. And alarmingly, the assessment pointed to widespread accounts of security forces preventing Rohingya from reach markets and their crops. Documenting the Rohingya refugee crisis – in pictures Read more “Restriction of movement was one of the main constraints for the population for accessing food,” it said. “Residents still did not have full access to the forest, agricultural land and fishing grounds due to continuous military presence.” The Guardian has contacted the Myanmar government for comment. WFP did not respond directly to questions about whether food aid cuts had left vulnerable people in need or whether it the agency had prioritised good relations with the government over the immediate humanitarian needs of the Rohingya. “WFP’s purpose in Myanmar is and always has been to address the food and nutrition needs of vulnerable people,” it said. ||||| For Half A Million Rohingya Fleeing Myanmar, Bangladesh Is A Reluctant Host Enlarge this image toggle caption Michael Sullivan for NPR Michael Sullivan for NPR 537,000: That's the number of Rohingya who have fled Myanmar for Bangladesh in the past seven weeks, according to the U.N. It's the largest migration of people in Asia in decades. The Rohingya are fleeing a campaign of terror by the Myanmar military and Buddhist vigilantes, something the U.N. has called the world's "fastest developing refugee emergency" and a "textbook example of ethnic cleansing." It's not the first time this has happened. Members of Myanmar's mostly Muslim Rohingya minority have been fleeing military crackdowns for decades — as far back as 1978, and as recently as last October and November, when the military launched "clearance operations" after a series of attacks by Rohingya militants on security outposts in Rakhine State. Similar attacks in August prompted this latest wave of rape, murder and arson, entire villages torched by security forces and Buddhist vigilantes. Bangladesh reckons about 800,000 Rohingya are now living on its side of the border. Most are in overcrowded, spontaneously erected camps, staying in shelters that amount to little more than bamboo poles strapped together with a bit of plastic sheeting for a roof. Even before the latest wave of arrivals, Bangladesh was uneasy with the number of Rohingya in country. Now it's trying to do something about it. "We need to know for accountability how many Rohingyas come to our country," says Maj. Kazi Obaidur Reza, with Bangladesh's border guards. He supervises the registration effort at the Kutapalong camp, just a few miles from the border. Hundreds of Rohingya line up patiently in the hot sun, waiting for their temporary IDs. Inside, it's a flurry of activity. Enlarge this image toggle caption Michael Sullivan for NPR Michael Sullivan for NPR "We are taking photographs; they are giving biometrics of all fingers and they are getting this card where all documents are written — from where they come, date of entry into country, date of birth, mother's name — so we can easily identify all of them," Reza says. This procedure is not just for the new arrivals, he says, but for all the Rohingya who have come at one time or another from the other side. Many Rohingya are getting something they never had in Myanmar — an official document that acknowledges their identity. Rashid Ulla, a rail-thin 35-year-old from Myanmar's Maungdaw township, proudly shows me his. Under "Nationality," it says "Myanmar Rohingya." "I'm happy to have an ID that says I am Rohingya," he says. Back in Myanmar, the government doesn't use the word — it doesn't consider the Rohingya citizens. But the Bangladeshi IDs aren't permanent. And the Rohingya aren't recognized officially as refugees. Bangladesh is wary of getting stuck with them permanently. "And that matters," says Peter Bouckaert, emergencies director for Human Rights Watch. "They're being given a camp residency card, which basically gives them access to food rations. But Bangladesh is still very far away from recognizing them formally as refugees. And that matters, because if they're not registered refugees it means that they don't have access to education. They have very limited ability to move around." That ability is getting more limited every day. At a checkpoint just down the road from the Kutapalong camp, about a dozen Bangladeshi police, their rifles slung over their backs, are flagging down buses, cars and auto rickshaws, looking for Rohingya. Those they find get turned back to the informal camps where they came from on the Bangladeshi side of the border. Police official Hasanuzzaman Mollah says this is one of 11 checkpoints on the road from the border to the Bangladeshi city of Cox's Bazar. "Our purpose is to restrict their access into Cox's Bazar or beyond," he says, as one of his men boards a bus to check the passengers. "We cannot allow them to disperse throughout our country." It's a security issue — and a political one as well. Some of the Rohingya who have been in Bangladesh for a long time have been accused of involvement in the smuggling and drug trades. In this part of the country, it's an economic issue too. Though the Rohingya aren't allowed to work or go to school, some find jobs under the table — mostly in the construction or building trades, where their legally ambiguous status means employers can pay them less than they'd pay Bangladeshis. This has created resentment among residents, though overall, there is public support and Bangladeshis — rich and poor — have greeted the latest influx of refugees with generosity. Security officials and some independent analysts, however, do worry that Bangladesh's own Islamist extremists — some with ties to transnational terrorist groups — will try to exploit new arrivals. "One of my big fears now is that a lot of these groups with ties come in and pick off recruits from these [Rohingya] communities," says security analyst Elliot Brennan, an Australia-based independent researcher who specializes in Myanmar and Southeast Asia. "Maybe not taking them to Myanmar, but taking them back to different areas and as a result, we have a general recruitment body as the situation deteriorates in the camps and the people become more desperate." In the meantime, some religious hardliners in Muslim-majority Bangladesh are stirring the pot. Some are calling to arm the Rohingya. Others are even talking about war with the Buddhist majority neighbor. That is creating more political problems for a government already overwhelmed by the sheer number of new arrivals. Bangladesh's preferred option is for the Rohingya to be repatriated, to live safely back in Myanmar. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina told the U.N. General Assembly last month that the U.N. should set up and police "safe areas" inside Myanmar for that very purpose. Enlarge this image toggle caption Munir UZ Zaman/AFP/Getty Images Munir UZ Zaman/AFP/Getty Images That doesn't look likely. And it's highly unlikely the Rohingya will even be allowed — or want — to return after the horrors they've been subjected to. So for now, Bangladesh is hosting them. But there may be a limit to its patience. The government is setting up a new megacamp that will encompass many of the existing informal camps that have sprung up in the past several weeks and decades. All the Rohingya in Bangladesh will be required to live there, and only there. The U.N. resident coordinator in Bangladesh, Robert D. Watkins, told Agence France-Presse this will pose problems. "When you concentrate too many people into a very small area, particularly the people who are very vulnerable to diseases, it is dangerous," Watkins warned. "It is much easier to manage people, manage the health situation and security situation if there are a number of different camps rather than one concentrated camp." Bangladeshi officials are adamant, however, that the new camp is the best solution to ensure its own security and that of the Rohingya. Human Rights Watch's Bouckaert, like Watkins, is not convinced. "If Bangladesh wants to contain people in camps, first of all they need to respect their rights," he says. "But secondly, they also have to provide the humanitarian assistance, the education, the health assistance that people need to survive. And that is simply not the reality we see today." The reality today is more urgent for both Bangladesh and its humanitarian aid partners: simply finding enough food, water and adequate sanitation for the new arrivals. How they're treated once that's sorted out is another matter. And Bangladesh is the only country that has taken the Rohingya in. Nobody else has offered to share that burden.

– A July report describing near starvation in Myanmar's Rakhine state has been expunged from the UN website—at Myanmar's request. Myanmar was upset with the report's claim that military forces were blocking access to food for the Rohingya even before a government crackdown led 537,000 to flee to Bangladesh, per NPR. But the Guardian reports the UN's World Food Program might have its own reasons for wanting the report erased. According to one source, UN officials knew the report was "potentially damaging," as it suggested WFP food aid cuts to the Rohingya over a two-year period were causing harm, even starvation. "There was a real sense that they had things to hide," the source says. The WFP tells a very different story: The agency "stands by its original assessment" that 80,000 Rohingya children under the age of five were suffering from potentially fatal weight loss in Rakhine in July. However, the food situation will have changed since an "upsurge in violence" in August, "just months before the next harvest," a rep tells the Telegraph. "In a dynamic and evolving situation, it is important to coordinate closely with all partners, including the government," WFP adds, noting its decision to scrap the previous report came "following a request by the government to conduct a joint review." That review has stalled with Myanmar keeping agencies out of the conflict zone, however. The WFP says it's continuing to push for access.

Mischa Barton My Mother's a Financial Vampire ... She's Sucking Me Dry Mischa Barton -- My Mother's a Financial Vampire ... She's Sucking Me Dry Exclusive Details Mischa Barton's mother/manager pocketed a chunk of her daughter's salary from a movie -- and even kicked Mischa out of her own Beverly Hills mansion ... according to a new lawsuit. Mischa filed the suit against her mom, Nuala Barton ... claiming she's a "greedy stage mother posing as a talent manager" ... and says she lied to Mischa about her income on a film called "The Hoarder." In the docs, Mischa says Nuala told her she was being paid a certain amount ... but eventually found out from the production company her salary was higher than that number. She says Nuala took the difference for herself ... and also took a 10% management fee. She doesn't mention specific numbers in the lawsuit. Mischa says mommie dearest also used her name to pimp out a handbag line and to open a Mischa Barton fashion boutique in London -- all of which might have been great if Mischa got a dime from any of it. She says Nuala kept all the profits for herself. As for Mischa's home -- she says her mother rigged the paperwork to give herself co-ownership of the 8 bedroom, 11 bath mansion. According to the suit, Nuala even took out loans against the property -- and then kicked her out of her own home. She says her mom and dad are now "comfortably" entrenched in the mansion. The suit gets particularly nasty ... with Mischa stating her parents "sit back expecting their daughter's hard work and dedication to her craft to support their lifestyle." She adds neither of them has had a job, outside of Mischa Inc., in over a decade. Interestingly, Mischa didn't sue Dad, but that's probably only because he's not her manager. ||||| Mischa Barton filed suit Tuesday against her mother, Nuala Barton, claiming she's withheld her daughter's career earnings and otherwise exploited her fame. The complaint, filed in the Los Angeles Superior Court, reads like a soap opera: "This action arises from the tragic tale of a greedy stage mother posing as a talent manager who, instead of acting in the best interest of her daughter/client, schemed to defraud her unsuspecting victim." Barton is seeking unspecified damages, triple the amount the court finds her mother to have withheld. Her five-count complaint includes claims of breach of fiduciary duty, breach of oral contract and conversion. The Sixth Sense and The O.C. actress claims her mother "had absolutely no experience or training" in talent management when she took on her daughter's career. She claims Nuala set up a scheme in which she exclusively controlled Mischa's finances and only "doled out an ‘allowance’ to Barton at her sole discretion and on a sporadic basis." She alleges her mother induced her to buy a Beverly Hills home for $7.8 million in 2006 and "represented to Barton that the lavish home would be a vehicle for which Barton could invest her growing income for acting services," but she structured the purchase to assign herself half-ownership of the property. "Nuala and Barton’s father currently reside comfortably in the $7.8 million home. Barton is not welcome at the property," continues the complaint. Nuala allegedly lied about Mischa's compensation for acting in the horror film The Hoarder "so that she could pocket the difference — on top of her hefty management fee — all without Barton’s knowledge." She entered her daughter into endorsement contracts without telling her and launched enterprises like a Mischa Barton handbag line and Mischa Barton fashion boutique in London without compensating her daughter, claims the actress. "Nuala currently refuses to provide Barton with any of the funds she earned (and continues to earn in the form of residual payments) for her acting, modeling and endorsement services," reads the complaint. "These revelations of exploitation and fraud, coupled with ongoing instances of bullying and verbal abuse, eventually led to the breakdown of Barton and Nuala's personal and professional relationship,” claims Barton, who is now with APA and LINK — “a reputable talent manager." Alex Weingarten of Venable filed the complaint. Nuala's attorney Lawrence Ecoff of Ecoff Landsberg tells THR neither he nor Nuala have received the complaint. They declined to comment. ||||| Mischa Barton is suing her manager-mother, alleging that over the course of "The O.C." star's career Nuala Barton has messed with her daughter's money, property and image. A lawsuit filed Tuesday in Los Angeles County Superior Court casts Nuala as "a greedy stage mother posing as a talent manager who, instead of acting in the best interest of her daughter/client, schemed to defraud her unsuspecting victim." Mischa, now 29, entered into a verbal contract when she was 8, agreeing to pay her mother a management fee equal to 10% of her gross earnings but not more than that, the lawsuit says. The actress "placed her utmost trust" in her mother until recently, when Mischa's discovery of "exploitation and fraud, coupled with ongoing instances of bullying and verbal abuse" resulted in the breakdown of their personal and professional relationships, the suit says. According to the lawsuit, Nuala created various companies that gave her control over her daughter's money, gave herself half-ownership in the house Mischa bought in 2006 and then borrowed against that property, started her own side businesses making money off Mischa's image, entered Mischa into endorsement deals — one as recently as October — without explaining the obligations of those deals, and lied to her daughter about her salary to act in "The Hoarder" and pocketed the difference. Nuala also lied to Mischa about how much the actress had been paid to do the movie "The Hoarder," forged her daughter's signature on documents associated with the job and then pocketed the difference for herself, the suit says. "Neither Nuala nor Barton's father, Paul, has had a job independent of Barton in over a decade," the lawsuit says. "Instead, they sit back expecting their daughter's hard work and dedication to her craft to support their lifestyle. Both comfortably reside in the $7.8 million Beverly Hills home that was purchased with Barton's funds while Barton is not welcome at the property." Incidentally, that house has been a pain in Mischa Barton's butt for a while now: In February 2013 she was trying to lease it out for $35,000 a month, and by August 2014 she was reportedly behind on the mortgage. Mischa is seeking actual damages plus triple that in punitive damages as well as legal fees. While no dollar amount is specified, the document puts the sum in question at more than $25 million. The younger Barton had a rocky time after becoming a star via "The O.C.," which ran from 2003 to 2006. In 2007, she was arrested on suspicion of DUI and ordered by the court to go to rehab and employ a sobriety coach. In 2009, she found herself on a four-day involuntary psych hold. "It was a full-on breakdown," Barton told People in October 2013. "I was under enormous pressure." Back then, however, she was cutting her U.K.-born parents some slack. "They were thrust into this situation that was completely foreign to them," she told the magazine. "Nothing could prepare them to have their children jump into the overtly sexualized and crazy world of L.A." Still, she told the mag that when she was a teen she had lots of people depending on her. "I asked to get out of jobs all the time," she said, "and the response was, 'No, you have to.' There's an attitude that you can't say no." Mischa Barton is now represented professionally by agent Jonathan Perry of APA and manager Adam Griffin of LINK Entertainment. Lawyers Alex Weingarten and Leslie Eggers of Venable LLP are representing her in the suit against her mother. Follow Christie D'Zurilla on Twitter @theCDZ and Google+. Follow the Ministry of Gossip on Twitter @LATcelebs. ||||| The preeminent momager of the group, Kris Jenner, manages all of the Kardashian kin, including Kim, Khloe, Kourtney, Rob, Kylie and Kendall. (But who manages Bruce?) "My [mom] was never my manager but she was always with me on set. She would bring the pasta machine and make home-made pasta wherever we went!" Dunst told The Telegraph. Still, mom Inez was the one who took Kirsten to auditions, including one for a cereal commercial, when she was just 3. Kirsten's earliest modeling gig, however, was even before then, as a toddler on the cover of this "Babysitter's Club" book. Dina Lohan has been a stage mom her entire life, but Lindsay Lohan is reportedly considering firing her mother as her manager. The one-time soap star is also the manager to daughter Hayden Panettiere and son Jansen Panettiere. Former minister Joe Simpson may have managed his daughter's career successfully, but he made everyone feel weird when he told GQ in 2004, "Jessica never tries to be sexy. She just is sexy. If you put her in a t-shirt or you put her in a bustier, she’s sexy in both. She’s got double D’s! You can’t cover those suckers up!” After he oversaw her career for decades, Beyonce Knowles fired father Matthew Knowles in March 2011, releasing this statement: "I've only parted ways with my father on a business level. He is my father for life, and I love my dad dearly. I am grateful for everything he has taught me. I grew up watching both he and my mother [Tina Knowles] manage and own their own businesses. They were hard-working entrepreneurs and I will continue to follow in their footsteps." In a video for AOL music, Ashanti and her mom/manager sweetly interviewed each other for Mother's Day 2012. “You always taught me to be a leader, not a follower,” Ashanti told Douglas, a former dance teacher. “As simple as it is, it has always stuck with me and I’m very grateful for that advice.” The "Home Alone" star's relationship with his father-manager Kit Culkin soured in the late '90s when rumors of mismanagement surfaced. The two are now estranged. In 2000, a then 16-year-old LeAnn Rimes filed a lawsuit against her father-manager, claiming that he had stolen $7 million of her earnings. The pair have since reconciled.

– It sounds like something that might have happened on The OC: Mischa Barton is suing her mother, claiming the greedy "momager" withheld the actress's earnings, among other things. According to the Hollywood Reporter, Barton, 29, says mom Nuala Barton "had absolutely no experience or training" and simply "[posed] as a talent manager" in order to exploit and defraud her daughter. The lawsuit accuses Nuala of controlling Barton's earnings while only giving Barton an occasional "allowance," and even of lying about her earnings for one movie "so that she could pocket the difference—on top of her hefty management fee—all without Barton's knowledge." According to the Los Angeles Times, Barton's suit says she entered into a verbal contract with her mom when she was 8; her mom was to get 10% of her gross earnings. In 2006, when Barton was 20, she claims her mother convinced her to buy a $7.8 million home in Beverly Hills as an investment vehicle ... but that Nuala and Barton's dad now live in the home, where Barton is "not welcome." There are myriad additional accusations surrounding forged signatures, a handbag line, a fashion boutique, and endorsement contracts, along with allegations of "bullying and verbal abuse." As TMZ notes, the lawsuit gets decidedly personal: Barton says neither of her parents have had a job other than managing her for more than 10 years, and they both "sit back expecting their daughter's hard work and dedication to her craft to support their lifestyle." Nuala is, as you might expect, no longer Barton's talent manager. (Click to read about 10 more momagers and dadagers.)

It's too soon to determine whether the current flu season, which may last until May, will lead to more pediatric deaths than usual. As of Jan. 13, there had been 30 flu-associated fatalities in children, as reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The actual number of pediatric deaths may be higher, since it takes a few weeks for the CDC to gather the information, and not all states report flu deaths quickly or in the same way. The CDC will report new data on pediatric deaths on Jan. 26. "Our sweet Emily Grace passed away today on Jan. 19, 2018 from the flu," the family of 6-year-old Emily Muth posted on their GoFundMe page. gofundme The number is likely to go up as the flu season continues, said Dr. John Williams, a professor and division chief of pediatric infectious diseases at the Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. "Every year in the U.S., somewhere between 100 to 300 pediatric deaths form the flu are reported," Williams said. "And that's likely an underestimate. We might have more deaths than usual this year. We don't know what's going to happen with the rest of the season. We probably haven't peaked yet." The best way to protect children from catching the flu is to vaccinate them, Williams said. Even if the flu vaccine doesn't prevent you from getting sick, "some protection is a lot better than no protection," he said. Pediatric deaths for the current flu season ( up to week of Jan. 7-13, 2018) compared to recent years. CDC Although the vaccine this year isn't a perfect match — its effectiveness at completely preventing the flu from one particularly severe strain has been estimated to range from 10 to 30 percent — the shot can at least lessen symptoms in those who end up getting the flu. The vaccine, which is made from two proteins culled from the surface of killed virus particles, alerts the immune system that invaders might be on the way. If a person is vaccinated at least two weeks before coming in contact with the flu, then there will be antibodies already made and waiting to do battle. Some 80 to 85 percent of children who died from the flu in past years were not vaccinated, said CDC spokeswoman Kristen Nordlund. Plenty of vaccine available If a child's doctor is out of the vaccine, parents shouldn't worry: the CDC says there’s plenty of vaccine for the season. “Providers might not be able to get the specific brand or presentation they want and may need to select something else or may need to purchase vaccine from another source,” Nordlund said. So even if pediatricians can't get flu shots from their usual suppliers, they'll be able to get the vaccine through other companies. For some, there may be other options. ||||| Please enable Javascript to watch this video CLEVELAND, Ohio -- This flu season shows no signs of slowing down as this week alone the Cuyahoga County Board of Health announces six additional adult flu-related deaths. The Cleveland Clinic states around 930 people have been hospitalized so far this season for the flu including totals from Akron General Hospital. It's the largest amount they've seen since the worst flu season in recent memory in 2014-2015. So far nationwide the CDC reports at least 30 children have died from the flu. The number is expected to rise as many health experts cannot yet determine if we have seen the worst of flu season. "It's incredible to think about a normal, healthy child who can succumb to the flu and succumb very, very quickly; that is the nature of the illness," said Dr. Susan Rehm, Vice Chair of the Department of Infectious Disease at the Cleveland Clinic. The CDC is still recommending vaccination as the best option to keep the flu at bay, citing it can reduce chances of getting the virus by up to 60 percent. However, Dr. Rehm cautions it can take up to two weeks to become effective. In the meantime, she has advice on symptoms you may not realize you need to watch for in your children. "A fever that does not go away or one that goes away for a while and comes back; anybody that has difficulty breathing or trouble staying awake those are the types of things that should lead people to seek care," said Dr. Rehm. **Read more information from the CDC, right here** For now, the mystery remains about when the widespread and deadly flu season will end and if we have seen the worst of it yet. According to Dr. Rehm, several more weeks of information is needed to determine how long it will last. Read more stories on the flu, here.

– Sobering stats out of the CDC Friday show that 37 kids have perished from the respiratory illness as of last Saturday—and the flu season is on track to be one of the worst in 15 years, the Washington Post reports. Nearly 12,000 people have required hospitalization so far, and flu activity was said to be high or even "extreme" in 39 states, as well as New York City and Puerto Rico. Health officials say the final pediatric death toll might exceed the 148 deaths recorded in the 2014-15 season. More details and developments: NBC News reports the death toll may be even higher than what's been reported, and Dr. John Williams, head of pediatric infectious diseases at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh, notes "we probably haven't peaked yet." Although NBC adds that influenza usually isn't cause for too much alarm with prompt and proper treatment, it cites the cases of two children who died this month after experiencing "typical" cold or flu symptoms. The best way to keep your own kids safe, says Williams: Get them vaccinated. Fox 8 Cleveland lists child-specific symptoms parents should look for that might warrant a trip to the doctor, including labored breathing, finding it hard to keep from dozing off, and an unrelenting fever (or one that vanishes, only to reemerge). "It's incredible to think about a normal, healthy child who can succumb to the flu and succumb very, very quickly," a Cleveland Clinic doctor warns.

Stock Chart for Starbucks Corp (SBUX) Coming soon to a Starbucks near you: Greek yogurt. In a partnership with Danone SA (BN), the world’s largest coffee shop operator will start selling the dairy product in its cafes next year and in food retailers in 2015. The plan helps address two of Chief Executive Officer Howard Schultz’s key concerns: offering healthier fare and helping Starbucks Corp. colonize the grocery store. “Starbucks is venturing into becoming a house of brands,” similar to Procter & Gamble Co. (PG) and Unilever, Bill Chidley, senior vice president at Interbrand Design Forum in Dayton, Ohio, said in an interview. The move is risky, he said. “When you start to get too diverse with your portfolio, investors just have a hard time characterizing what you are,” Chidley said. “Are they a house of brands or are they about beverage experiences?” Starbucks has steadily been moving into the grocery business since 1995, when it began selling ice cream in such flavors as java chip frappuccino and caramel macchiato. It has since added packaged coffee, Tazo brand tea and Via instant packets. Since wresting control of Starbucks (SBUX)’ supermarket business from Kraft Foods Inc. in 2011, Schultz has accelerated his rollout of new items into grocery stores with Keurig K-Cup pods, Evolution Fresh juice and Refreshers energy drinks. Danone, the Paris-based maker of Oikos and Activia brand yogurts, will make the new products for Starbucks, which will be branded “Evolution Fresh, Inspired by Dannon.” The financial terms of the partnership weren’t disclosed. Starbucks bought juicemaker Evolution Fresh in 2011 for $30 million in cash before snapping up Teavana Holdings Inc., whose products it also plans to sell in grocery stores. Grocery Expansion Starbucks’s grocery business has been expanding faster than its cafe sales. In the year ended in September, revenue from selling items in supermarkets and other retailers jumped 50 percent to $1.29 billion, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Total revenue that same year increased 14 percent to $13.3 billion. The shares fell 1.2 percent to $68.19 at 12:02 p.m. in New York. They had gained 29 percent this year through yesterday, compared with a 19 percent increase for the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index. Starbucks will start selling Greek yogurt parfaits in its company-owned U.S. stores next year. The coffee-shop operator is considering selling the yogurt internationally and may create other foods with Danone, said Jim Olson, a Starbucks spokesman. Big Step “This is really the next big strategic step in our health and wellness evolution,” he said. Sales of yogurt are increasing -- even more so for the Greek variety. Greek-style yogurt sales in the U.S. surged 48 percent to $2.65 billion in the 52 weeks ended June 8, according to data from Nielsen. Sales of all yogurt increased 6.1 percent to $6.3 billion during the same time, the data show. Chobani Inc., General Mills Inc. (GIS)’s Yoplait and Fage Dairy Industry SA also sell Greek yogurt. “It’s certainly crowded,” Interbrand’s Chidley said. “A new entrant is going to have to have something compelling.” To contact the reporter on this story: Leslie Patton in Chicago at lpatton5@bloomberg.net To contact the editor responsible for this story: Robin Ajello at rajello@bloomberg.net ||||| Starbucks Corp. is making another move to get on more grocery shelves, this time partnering with Danone SA to sell Greek yogurt parfaits and other similar items. The yogurt products will be co-branded as "Evolution Fresh, Inspired by Dannon," referring to the European company's U.S. line of Dannon yogurt and Starbucks's juice line, Evolution Fresh. The items will first be sold in Starbucks cafes next spring, then in supermarkets in 2015, the companies said Tuesday. Sales overseas are a possibility, eventually. Starbucks says the yogurt segment in the U.S. is a $6 billion business, with room to grow significantly. U.S. consumers on average eat about half as much yogurt as Canadians consume annually, and a third as much as Europeans, according to Euromonitor. "With a fast-growing but still low penetration of the yogurt category, the U.S. remains a key growth opportunity for Danone," Danone Chief Executive Franck Riboud said in a statement. Competition will be tough. Chobani Inc.—the leading maker of Greek yogurt, with sales that topped $1 billion last year—recently came out with 14 new items, including flavors like coconut, key lime and orange vanilla. Chobani's founder, Hamdi Ulukaya, has said annual sales of yogurt could double over the next three to four years. The hope is that Americans will start eating yogurt more often during the day—as a dip with a meal, or as a dessert after dinner—rather than just at breakfast. Starbucks has been working to diversify its traditional coffee business by expanding into more packaged products and food. It acquired Evolution Fresh in November 2011 for $30 million. It also recently purchased a loose-leaf tea retailer, Teavana, for $620 million, and has taken on other new ventures, including a line of energy drinks, a San Francisco Bay-area bakery, and its own single-serve coffee espresso brewer. In addition to helping Starbucks get a piece of the action in the fast-growing yogurt market, the parfait plan could help build awareness of Evolution Fresh. Danone's Oikos brand Greek yogurt topped the list of best-selling food products launched in the U.S. last year, according to an annual poll by IRI published in April. Danone says its growth will be accelerated by having access to millions of consumers through Starbucks's cafes. Starbucks didn't disclose the financial terms of the deal, but said Danone will handle the distribution, so it doesn't expect to face additional capital expenses. The coffee giant is scheduled to report its quarterly earnings Thursday. Corrections & Amplifications Starbucks bought Evolution Fresh in November 2011. An earlier version of this article incorrectly said the acquisition was last November.

– If the booming sales weren't enough to convince you that Greek yogurt is a thing, try this: Starbucks wants in. The company plans to start selling the yogurt in its stores next spring, and then start stocking supermarket shelves around the country after that, reports the Wall Street Journal. It will be sold as as "Evolution Fresh, Inspired by Dannon," a reflection that Starbucks is teaming with Dannon parent company Danone. Evolution Fresh is the name of the Starbucks juice line already being sold. Why Greek yogurt? It probably has something to do with the fact that US sales jumped 48% to $2.65 billion in the year ending June 8, reports Bloomberg. But one analyst thinks the Starbucks move toward becoming a "house of brands" is a risky one. “When you start to get too diverse with your portfolio, investors just have a hard time characterizing what you are,” he says. “Are they a house of brands or are they about beverage experiences?” (Maybe Starbucks can help figure out what to do with the nasty byproduct that results from the making of Greek yogurt.)

With over 31,000 restaurants serving 58 million people throughout the world every day, McDonald's pretty much wrote the book on how a corporation can conquer the world. But despite its global domination as a cheap and easy burger joint, the fast-food monolith proved no match against the people of Bolivia and its cultural standards of culinary decency. For 14 years, McDonald's attempted to court Bolivians into making a habit out of eating their processed menu items -- only to experience an overwhelming, nation-wide rejection. And as a result, for the first time ever, the cogs of McDonald's international burger-slinging machine have ground to a halt, forcing the company to close its doors in Bolivia in 2002. Bolivians, its seems, are happy enough without the Happy Meal -- but why? As the Hispanically Speaking News reports, for well over a decade McDonald's, with eight locations in the South American nation of 10 million people, worked to win over the Bolivian public with its Big Macs and McNuggets, but consistently found itself losing money. So, in light of the loss of revenue, McDonald's Corporation made an unprecedented announcement: that it would close its restaurants in Bolivia -- making it the only country in the Americas without a McDonald's. But what makes Bolivia different from nearly every other country in its apparent distaste for McDonald's fare? A group of filmakers have attempted to answer that question in the documentary Why did McDonald’s Bolivia go Bankrupt? According to a review from Hispanically Speaking News, the McDonald's failure in Bolivia lies in the very marketing strategy that made it so popular elsewhere: The documentary includes interviews with cooks, sociologists, nutritionists and educators who all seem to agree, Bolivians are not against hamburgers per sé, just against ‘fast food,’ a concept widely unaccepted in the Bolivian community. Fast-food represents the complete opposite of what Bolivians consider a meal should be. To be a good meal, food has to have be prepared with love, dedication, certain hygiene standards and proper cook time. One might be hard-pressed to find consumers even outside of Bolivia who wouldn't agree with that definition of 'a good meal', yet none have expressed it so profoundly by simply choosing not to eat at McDonalds. There may be something a bit snarky about celebrating a corporate failure, even if it hardly dents the fast-food giant's bottom line, but it's difficult not to judge Bolivia better off for having rejected a restaurant so often associated with a menu of dubious nutritional value and less-than eco-friendly business practices. Perhaps if we all valued our meals as much as Bolivians, McDonald's corporate health would suffer at a rate inverse to improvements in our physical health and the health of our planet, which is already so full of people too removed from the food they put inside them.

– Those traveling in Bolivia can forget about a Big Mac. McDonald's has closed its eight restaurants there because of weak sales, making Bolivia the only nation in Latin America without the golden arches, reports the Hispanically Speaking News blog. The chain tried without success for 14 years to gain a foothold in the nation. The blog's take: "Fast-food represents the complete opposite of what Bolivians consider a meal should be. To be a good meal, food has to have be prepared with love, dedication, certain hygiene standards and proper cook time." Ouch. Treehugger loves the development and wished the rest of the world valued meals as much as Bolivians apparently do.

The House and Senate adjourned for the year on Wednesday evening, closing a two-year term that holds the odd distinction of being both historically busy and epically unpopular. A Congress that was dominated by Democrats passed more landmark legislation than any since the era of Lyndon B. Johnson's "Great Society." Congress approved an $814 billion economic stimulus, a massive health-care overhaul, and new regulations on Wall Street trading and consumer credit cards. The list grew longer during this month's frenetic lame-duck session: tax cuts, a nuclear arms treaty and a repeal of the "don't ask, don't tell" policy on gays in the military. But the 111th Congress will also be remembered for endless filibuster threats, volcanic town hall meetings, and the rise of the tea party. All were symbols of a dissatisfaction that peaked on Nov. 2, with a Republican rout in the midterm elections. "This is the most dysfunctional political environment that I have ever seen. But then you have to juxtapose that with [this Congress being] one of, at least, the three most productive Congresses" since 1900, said Norman Ornstein, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. "Making sense of all of that can make your head burst," he added. The key to understanding this period, scholars say, is that the two parties were using radically different strategies. Both thought they were playing the "long game" - the Republicans, by propelling themselves back into power; the Democrats, by writing their agenda into law. On Wednesday, President Obama added another piece of that agenda into law, signing the repeal of "don't ask, don't tell." A few blocks away, Congress was using its last hours to approve two others: the New START nuclear arms pact with Russia, and a bill to extend health benefits to workers who responded to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The day had the feel of a victory lap, with Democrats rejuvenated only a few weeks after a historic electoral beating. "This has been a season of progress for the American people," Obama said in a news conference. "This has been the most productive post-election period we've had in decades, and it comes on the heels of the most productive two years that we've had in generations." Sen. Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) was equally ebullient. "This was by far the most productive Congress in American history, and the lame-duck session we're finishing was the most productive of its kind," he said. ||||| However history judges the 535 men and women in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate the past two years, one thing is certain: The 111th Congress made more law affecting more Americans since the “Great Society” legislation of the 1960s. For the first time since President Theodore Roosevelt began the quest for a national health-care system more than 100 years ago, the Democrat-led House and Senate took the biggest step toward achieving that goal by giving 32 million Americans access to insurance. Congress rewrote the rules for Wall Street in the most comprehensive way since the Great Depression. It spent more than $1.67 trillion to revive an economy on the verge of a depression, including tax cuts for most Americans, jobs for more than 3 million, construction of roads and bridges and investment in alternative energy; ended an almost two-decade ban against openly gay men and women serving in the military, and today ratified a nuclear arms reduction treaty with Russia. Before adjournment today, Congress approved legislation to help rescuers and clean-up crews suffering from illnesses linked to the wreckage caused by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in New York City. The Senate approved it on a voice vote, the House by a vote of 206-60. New York Senators Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, in a statement, called it a “Christmas miracle.” For all of its ambitious achievement, the 111th Congress, which may adjourn this week, also witnessed a voter-backlash driven by a 9.6 percent unemployment rate that cost Democrats control of the House and diminished their Senate majority. “This is probably the most productive session of Congress since at least the ‘60s,” said Alan Brinkley, a historian at New York’s Columbia University. “It’s all the more impressive given how polarized the Congress has been.” Revenue Gains As lawmakers wrap up the session, Wall Street firms such as Goldman Sachs Group Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Citigroup Inc. are positioned to complete their best two years in revenue, General Motors Co. has emerged from bankruptcy with more than $23 billion repaid to the U.S. Treasury, and American International Group Inc. was able to sell $2 billion of bonds in its first offering since the company’s 2008 bailout. The S&P 500 Index has gained 38.9 percent since Congress convened in January 2009, the biggest increase for a two-year congressional session since 1997-1998, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The S&P 500 Index reached 1254.60 yesterday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average 11533.16. Stimulus Spending Stimulus money created and saved jobs across the country, helping strapped state governments retain their workforces, according to government analyses. President Barack Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers said that in Ohio, for instance, the legislation created 122,000 jobs for teachers, police officers and construction workers. “These policies carried the economy along during a period when the private sector was not engaged,’ said Ethan Harris, head of developed-markets economic research in New York at BofA Merrill Lynch Global Research. The careers of many lawmakers didn’t fare so well. Fiscally conservative Tea Party activists channeled their frustration with government spending and debt into political campaigns, most often to the benefit of Republicans challenging Democratic incumbents. In the Nov. 2 elections, Democrats lost 63 House seats, costing their party control of the chamber in next year’s Congress. In the Senate, the Democratic majority was shaved by six seats; the party will have 53 votes in next year’s session, Republicans 47. “What we did was work, and our reward was, ‘Get out of here,’” said Representative Louise Slaughter, a New York Democrat and outgoing chairwoman of the House Rules Committee. While Slaughter won re-election, five of her New York colleagues were among Democrats defeated. Partisan Divide Party-line votes on most of the major measures engendered ill will among Republicans and helped stall in the Senate initiatives requiring significant bipartisan support. Blocked legislation included limits on greenhouse-gas emissions that scientists blame for global warming, a bill the House passed in June 2009, a measure offering undocumented immigrants a path to citizenship and the administration’s attempts to curb growing income inequality with tax increases for higher earners. Those are unlikely to be tackled next year, when the House’s Republican majority will turn its attention to dismantling the health-care law and cutting domestic government spending by $100 billion. Congress this year was also unable to approve a single one of the 12 annual appropriations bills that fund the government. ‘Disaster’ “I think it was a disaster,” said Senator Jeff Sessions, an Alabama Republican, of the congressional session. Senator Richard Durbin of Illinois, the chamber’s No. 2 Democratic leader, saw it differently: “This whole two-year session has been dramatic in terms of its achievement and the changes that it’s brought about.” Outgoing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi praised the accomplishments of Congress in remarks to reporters today. “We’re very, very proud of the work that was done by this Congress,” the California Democrat said. “We came here to do a job and we got much of it done.” The policies embraced by the 111th Congress suggested the end of an era in Washington, as Democrats pushed to reverse three decades of deregulation that began under President Ronald Reagan, say economists. “We’ve been in a trend toward an attempt to deregulate the economy,” said Harris. “You’re turning back the clock to an earlier period.” The scope of regulations approved since Obama took office has made business hesitant to expand and hire new workers, he said. “Business is overwhelmed,” said Harris. 3.3 Million Jobs Congress scored its first big accomplishment weeks after Obama’s inauguration with passage in late February 2009 of a $814 billion stimulus bill. It has created or saved 3.3 million jobs, according to the Congressional Budget Office, while also steering more funds to road construction, broadband technologies and renewable energy ventures. The health-care legislation approved last March provided insurers including WellPoint Inc. of Indianapolis and drug- makers such as Pfizer Inc. of New York millions of new customers by requiring that all Americans have health insurance. These industries, as well as medical device-makers, will also face billions of dollars in new fees, and hospitals face a host of new standards designed to help curb soaring costs. The health-care law is facing legal challenges, with the insurance provision a key dispute. An overhaul of the rules governing the financial services industry, approved in July, aims to prevent a repeat of an economic collapse that led to the failures of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and Washington Mutual Inc. It included $4 billion in aid to help thousands of unemployed property owners avoid foreclosure, while the program has fallen short of its goals. Pay Equity Congress also passed laws to help ensure pay equity by enabling women to pursue lawsuits claiming they were underpaid, and to empower the federal Food and Drug Administration to regulate the tobacco industry, which includes restrictions on cigarette marketing. Additionally, lawmakers expanded state programs for health insurance for children, and they confirmed two Supreme Court justices, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. Sotomayor became the first Latino to serve on the court, and the pair increased to three the number of women among the nine justices. Following the November elections in which voters handed Democrats what Obama termed a “shellacking,” Congress in a lame-duck session made significant additions to its accomplishment list. Lawmakers approved an $858 billion measure that continues for two years Bush-era tax cuts for all income levels, extends aid for 13 months to the long-term unemployed, provides estate tax relief and cuts by two percentage points worker payroll taxes during 2011. Arms Treaty Congress in its last days also voted to repeal the “don’t ask, don’t tell” ban on military service by openly gay men and women. Yesterday it cleared the biggest food-safety overhaul in more than 70 years, giving the FDA more enforcement power. And the Senate ratification today, 71-26, of the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty gives Obama a key foreign-policy victory. “What we’ve been able to do in the lame duck has been not just bipartisan by a fingernail, but bipartisan on a broad basis,” said Senator Claire McCaskill, a Missouri Democrat. From a market perspective, Congress’s biggest accomplishment was probably the tax cuts, with the estate tax breaks the “whipped cream, fudge and cherry on top,” said Ethan Siegal, president of the Washington Exchange. ‘Gone Nuts’ Investors responded to the health-care and financial- services measures largely negatively, with health care viewed as “big government gone nuts,” he said. Democrats say it will take years before the public recognizes their achievements. Many of the measures that passed were designed to forestall a bleaker recession, an argument that’s little comfort to many Americans as the nation’s unemployment rate has remained at 9.5 percent or higher for more than a year. “It was hard to tell people that we accomplished anything important when their lives are so difficult,” said Representative Henry Waxman, a California Democrat and outgoing chairman of the House Energy and Commerce committee. The Tea Party movement, which worked to elect lawmakers advocating a new era of fiscal authority, has already begun to shift the direction of Congress. Shortly after the election, Senate and House Republicans announced a voluntary ban on earmarks, the funding for pet projects added to bills by lawmakers. The incoming House Republican leadership has promised to turn the focus of the Appropriations Committee from funding government to identifying spending cuts. Many of those efforts will likely fail in the Democrat- controlled Senate. And the party split between the two chambers is likely to bring the record of congressional productivity to an abrupt end in January. “There’s just nothing that’s going to be accomplished,” said Brinkley. “What really is disturbing is that this is a period in which there is a lot to be done.” To contact the reporters on this story: Lisa Lerer in Washington at llerer@bloomberg.net; Laura Litvan in Washington at llitvan@bloomberg.net; To contact the editors responsible for this story: Mark Silva at msilva34@bloomberg.net

– The 111th Congress adjourned last night, after passing more key legislation that affected more Americans than any since Lyndon Johnson’s 1960s “Great Society,” Bloomberg reports. That included $1.67 trillion spent to save the economy, health insurance for 32 million people, and new regulations on Wall Street; in the lame-duck session alone, there was the tax cut deal, “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal, START treaty ratification, and 9/11 health bill. Yet all this occurred in “most dysfunctional political environment that I have ever seen,” says an analyst. Republicans won sweeping victories in the midterm election, and a recent Gallup poll found an 83% disapproval rating for Congress, its highest since the poll began, the Washington Post notes. “What we did was work, and our reward was, ‘Get out of here,’” said a House Democrat. Not everybody's happy with the progress: "I think it was a disaster,” says a GOP senator.

poster="http://v.politico.com/images/1155968404/201703/1681/1155968404_5371823017001_5371796654001-vs.jpg?pubId=1155968404" true Congress Republicans yank Obamacare repeal bill It's a staggering setback for President Donald Trump and Speaker Paul Ryan. Facing a growing rebellion within his own ranks, Speaker Paul Ryan pulled the Republican Obamacare replacement plan from the House floor on Friday just before a scheduled vote. The decision is a staggering defeat for Ryan and President Donald Trump in their first attempt to partner on major legislation and fulfill a seven-year Republican promise to repeal Obamacare. And it comes a day after Trump issued an ultimatum to House Republicans to vote for the bill or live with Obamacare. Story Continued Below GOP lawmakers decided they can, in fact, live with Obamacare, at least for now. A Republican leadership aide said Trump and Ryan spoke by phone at 3 p.m. and that the president asked the speaker to pull the bill. Ryan told reporters that his advice to Trump was to cancel the vote. But the reality is that Ryan and his leadership team had been bleeding votes all day and were not close to passing the American Health Care Act. The speaker went to the White House and told Trump as much just an hour earlier. Republicans were begging Ryan and party leaders to pull the bill to save them from having to vote on an unpopular measure. But Trump badly wanted to move ahead so he would "know who my friends are," he said, according to a Republican lawmaker who met with him. Democrats were unwavering in their opposition, and conservative outside groups despised the bill from the start. And while GOP leaders had called Trump "the ulimate closer," he wasn't able to move many votes, especially among hard-line conservatives in the House Freedom Caucus. Trump admitted after the bill was pulled that he was "10 to 15 votes" shy of victory, a stunning margin considering how much effort he and Ryan had put into their lobbying campaign during the last week. Ryan also knew, though, that if the bill had come up for a vote, it would have failed by a much larger margin than the whip counts. Once rank-and-file members knew it would fail, they'd reverse course and vote "no" in order to protect themselves politically, which their leaders would bless. That much larger margin of defeat would be an even bigger setback for Trump. In a sense, Ryan protected Trump from his own combative instincts, said GOP insiders. "I will not sugarcoat this, this is a disappointing day for us," Ryan said at a press conference following the stunning announcement. "This is a setback, no two ways about it." Ryan admitted that the Affordable Care Act, enacted seven years earlier almost to the day, "remains the law of the land... We're going to be living with Obamacare for the foreseeable future." Ryan insisted Trump was not at fault for the failure. "The president gave his all in this effort," Ryan added. "He's been fantastic." The Freedom Caucus — the group that took down Speaker John Boehner — remained unwilling to compromise with Trump and Ryan, believing that their bill didn't do nearly enough to unwind Obamacare. "Some of the members of that caucus were voting with us, but not enough were," Ryan said. "I met with their chairman today, and he made it clear that the votes weren't going to be there from their team. And that was sufficient to provide the balance of votes to have this not pass." Democrats, for their part, were doing cartwheels in the Capitol. They've bloodied Trump, bashed Ryan, and showed that even in a GOP-run Washington, they still matter big time. “Today is a great day for our country," said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). "It's a victory. What happened on the floor is a victory for the American people — for our seniors, for people with disabilities, for our children, for our veterans." On the other side of the aisle, the internal GOP finger-pointing has already begun, showing the long-term damage inside the Republican Conference from this fight. Rep. Michael Burgess (R-Texas), who helped craft the Republican health care legislation, was livid after the decision to pull the bill. "The architects of Obamacare, they own this damn thing," the Texas Republican said. "There were people who were not interested in solving the problem. They win today." Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.), a member of the Freedom Caucus, said the bill's demise was a "good day for America." Despite Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows' central role in defeating the bill and thus leaving Obamacare as the law of the land, the North Carolina Republican insisted he still wanted to repeal the Democratic health care law. "I remain wholeheartedly committed to following through on this promise," Meadows said in a statement. "President Trump is committed to repealing Obamacare and replacing it with a system that works for American families, and I look forward to working with him to do just that." Trump has staked his early presidency on repealing and replacing Obamacare, embracing his image as a dealmaker and closer throughout the process. House leaders were happy to oblige as well, referring to Trump as “the ultimate closer” as he met with reluctant House members. “He’s left everything on the field when it comes to this bill,” White House spokesman Sean Spicer said Friday afternoon, describing Trump as working tirelessly to get the bill across the finish line. He added, “You can’t force someone to vote a certain way.” Breaking News Alerts Get breaking news when it happens — 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. As Ryan and his allies scrambled to convince wary colleagues to back their health care plan, they watched as conservative and moderates in their caucus began to declare their opposition. As defections mounted, Ryan traveled to the White House to reveal to Trump his faltering whip count – and to discuss whether to pull the bill. But the administration seemed intent on proceeding as planned. “We want the vote," a senior administration official said as Ryan made his way up Pennsylvania Avenue. "If they want to go against the president, they should do it on live TV." Ultimately, though, Ryan prevailed. Moderate Republicans such as Virginia Rep. Barbara Comstock and Ohio Rep. David Joyce disclosed their opposition even as Ryan was meeting with Trump. It became clear early Friday afternoon that the bill was poised for defeat, as members on the fence broke against it. The bill met sharp resistance from both ends of the Republican caucus, as hard-line conservatives in the House Freedom Caucus contended it failed to do away with Obamacare’s core components and moderates argued that its curbs on Medicaid could harm vulnerable constituents. Ultimately, those competing pressures proved irreconcilable. Rep. Charlie Dent (R-Pa.), a moderate who came out against the bill two days ago, insisted that Friday's debacle was actually not a big deal and said it’s time to “move on." "There are a lot of people in this building who talk and say everything is catastrophic and cataclysmic, well we know that’s not the case," Dent said. "If you want to do health care reform, do it on a bipartisan basis…. We have to sit down and regroup.” Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R-Ga.) warned it wasn’t the end of Republican efforts to repeal Obamacare. “The game is not over, so it’s not a win or loss," he said. ”We’re gonna get back together after we get a weekend’s rest, we’re going to assess where we are. The votes were razor thin, from what I understand, so we’re close to where we need to be." ||||| These crawls are part of an effort to archive pages as they are created and archive the pages that they refer to. That way, as the pages that are referenced are changed or taken from the web, a link to the version that was live when the page was written will be preserved.Then the Internet Archive hopes that references to these archived pages will be put in place of a link that would be otherwise be broken, or a companion link to allow people to see what was originally intended by a page's authors.The goal is to fix all broken links on the web . Crawls of supported "No More 404" sites.

– A House vote on the American Health Care Act was canceled just before it was scheduled to happen, avoiding what the AP says would have been a "humiliating defeat" for President Trump and GOP leaders while still being—according to Politico—a "staggering defeat" for Trump and Paul Ryan. On Thursday, Trump had demanded a vote on the Republican replacement for ObamaCare despite it appearing primed to fail. On Friday, CNN reports Trump called Ryan and asked him to pull the bill without a vote. Sean Spicer says Trump "left everything on the field" trying to make a deal to get the AHCA approved. Hospital and insurer stocks saw an immediate improvement with the news there would be no vote, according to Reuters.

FRANKFURT (MarketWatch) — Italian government bond yields rose Tuesday after Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services cut Italy’s credit rating one notch, putting further pressure on euro-zone leaders to stem the region’s ongoing sovereign-debt crisis. Late Monday, S&P; lowered Italy’s long-term credit rating to A from A-plus and cut its short-term rating to A-1 from A-1-plus, citing a weak economic outlook and ongoing political gridlock. S&P; also said the outlook for Italy’s ratings is negative, meaning a further cut is possible. The move by S&P; took markets somewhat by surprise. All eyes had been on rival ratings firm Moody’s Investors Service, which had announced last week it would take an additional month to decide whether to downgrade Italy’s ratings. “Just when everyone was waiting for Moody’s to downgrade Italy, S&P; gets in first with what is a much more damaging downgrade as its rating of Italy was already the lowest of the three agencies,” said Gary Jenkins, head of fixed income at Evolution Securities in London. Click to Play Scrutiny on Italy, Qantas and Japan Asian markets react to S&P's cut to Italy's sovereign-debt rating, while a strike at Australia's Qantas airline leads to flight cancellations for thousands and possible reforms in Japan may lure more foreign investment. The yield on 10-year Italian government bonds /quotes/zigman/4869096/delayed IT:10YR_ITA -0.07% jumped as many as 16 basis points, but trimmed the initial rise to trade at 5.59% in recent action, a rise of 7 basis points, according to FactSet Research. Yields move inversely to bond prices. Meanwhile, the premium demanded by investors to hold Italian 10-year bonds over German bunds /quotes/zigman/4869083/delayed DE:10YR_GER +0.02% widened by around 9 basis points to stand at 3.82 percentage points. Talk of further buying of Italian bonds by the European Central Bank helped pull down yields from initial highs, analysts said. The downgrade could increase Italy’s borrowing costs just as the country embarks on a large-scale refinancing program that entails nearly 30 billion euros ($41.3 billion) of gross bond issuance in October and November, said Boris Schlossberg, director of currency research at GFT. “These upcoming bond auctions could become the true test of the country’s credit strength and, if investors balk at rolling over its debt, the downward pressure on the euro could quickly accelerate,” he said. On Tuesday, the euro initially dropped against the dollar U.S. in the wake of the downgrade, then bounced. The euro /quotes/zigman/4867933/sampled EURUSD +0.1148% lately traded at $1.3666 in recent action, down from around $1.3685 in North American trade late Monday. Worries about the banks Rising borrowing costs highlight worries that the region’s sovereign-debt crisis could engulf Italy, outstripping the euro zone’s rescue resources and throwing the future of the euro into doubt. Italy’s economy is the third-largest in the euro zone and its bond market is the third-largest in the world. The European Central Bank began buying Italian and Spanish bonds in early August, pulling Italy’s yield down from more than 6% to less than 5%. But yields have crept back up in recent weeks. Italy’s downgrade highlights worries about Europe’s banking sector, particularly French banks. Fears over the potential impact of a Greek default on highly-exposed French banks and the rest of the region’s banking sector prompted the European Central Bank and other major central banks last week to pledge to provide increased dollar liquidity amid signs banks are becoming increasingly reluctant to lend to each other. ||||| LONDON — The Italian government reacted angrily Tuesday to the decision by the credit rating agency Standard & Poor’s to downgrade its debt, describing the move as out of touch with reality. Late Monday, S.&P.; cut the rating by one notch to A from A+, citing the country’s weakening economic growth prospects and higher-than-expected levels of government debt. The agency said Italy’s fragile governing coalition and policy differences in Parliament would continue to limit the government’s ability to respond decisively to economic head winds. It also cast doubt on whether the government’s projected €60 billion, or $82 billion, in fiscal savings would be realized because growth prospects are weakening, the budgetary savings rely on revenue increases, and market interest rates are anticipated to rise. Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s office issued a statement early Tuesday noting that his government had a solid majority in Parliament. It said the government was preparing steps to lift growth and recently passed measures to control public finances through tax increases and spending cuts. “The evaluations of Standard & Poor's seem dictated more by behind the scenes reports in newspapers than reality and seems influenced by political considerations,” the statement said. The yield on Italian 10-year bonds was up slightly by midday Tuesday, but at more than 5.6 percent Italy’s borrowing costs are more than three times what Germany, the euro-zone anchor, pays. Stock markets in Europe also brushed off the downgrade, as investors reacted to positive signals on discussions about aiding Greece, and Spain sold another offering of Treasury bills. Analysts said the mood was also helped by speculation that the United States Federal Reserve would approve a new program for monetary easing Wednesday to try to stimulate economic growth. The Euro Stoxx 50 index of euro zone blue chips was up almost 2 percent at midday. The FTSE 100 in London up about 1.5 percent, as was the main index in Milan. Futures contracts on the Standard & Poor’s 500 index suggested a firmer opening on Wall Street. S.&P.;’s A rating for Italy is still five steps above junk status, but it is three below that given by another agency Moody’s Investors Service, which is currently assessing Italy. “Moody’s announcement to extend its review of Italy’s rating by another month last Friday probably gave the market a false sense of relief, especially after persistent speculation of a Moody’s downgrade last week,” said Colin Tan, an analyst at Deutsche Bank. He added that although Italy had covered 77 percent of its 2011 debt funding needs, but there was still another €100 billion more to be raised before the end of the year. Italy is the euro zone’s third-largest economy behind Germany and France and is considered to be too big to save should it run into the same kind of trouble that beset Greece, Portugal and Ireland. Although its budget deficit is relatively low, the big concern among investors is that Italy, whose debts stand at 120 percent of its gross domestic product, will find it increasingly costly to borrow. As a result, the European Central Bank has been helping, buying around €5 billion to €10 billion in the riskier euro-area bonds over the last five weeks. But even that has failed to stop Italian bond yields from rising. “The E.C.B. will probably need to do more from here,” Mr. Tan said, referring to its bond buying program. Commerzbank said in a research note that the lengthy process of ratifying changes to the European Union’s main bailout vehicle was starting to impair the effectiveness of the central bank’s bond buying program. In Athens, meanwhile, talks between Greece and international lenders that began on Monday were due to resume Tuesday night, according to the Greek Finance Ministry. Greek officials described talks so far with the so-called troika — the International Monetary Fund, the E.C.B. and the European Commission — as productive, and they said that a deal may be close. If there is an accord, the troika would then release the latest tranche of loans — which the country needs by mid-October to avoid running out of cash to pay its bills. The Greek press published a list of 15 austerity measures that the troika was said to be demanding of the Socialist government. They included laying off another 20,000 state workers, cutting or freezing state salaries and pensions, increasing heating oil tax, shutting down loss-making state organizations, cutting health spending and speeding up privatizations. Governments across Spain also are struggling to rein in spending. Teachers in Madrid began a three-day strike Tuesday to protest against staff cuts and longer classroom hours, news agencies reported. Reflecting the country’s strained finances, Spain sold just under €4.5 billion in Treasury bills on Tuesday, but at a higher cost. The average yield on the 12-month bill rose to 3.591 percent, compared with 3.335 percent the last time, the securities were sold on Aug. 16, while the 18-month debt yielded 3.807 percent, compared with 3.592 percent last month. Amid the wreckage of a collapsed housing bubble and weak economy, the latest data from the Bank of Spain showed that the ratio of non-performing loans continued to rise in July, reaching 6.9 percent of all loans. Analysts noted that the level was comparable to that of the previous banking crisis in the early to mid-1990s. In an interview published Tuesday in the Spanish newspaper Expansion, the E.C.B. president Jean-Claude Trichet said that while Spain’s financial situation has improved considerably, policymakers must remain alert, Reuters reported. He also said the outlook for the economy had deteriorated and that there were downside risks to growth. “We conclude from these comments that Mr. Trichet is still envisaging that there could be a rate cut in the future, but for now he is keeping his powder dry,” said Julian Callow, chief European economist at Barclays Capital. Elisabetta Povoledo contributed reporting from Rome.

– Silvio Berlusconi’s office reacted angrily to Standard & Poor’s downgrade of Italy’s credit rating today, insisting that it had a solid majority in parliament and was taking the necessary steps to solve Italy’s debt crisis, the New York Times reports. “The evaluations of Standard & Poor's seem dictated more by behind the scenes reports in newspapers than reality,” the government said in a statement, “and seems influenced by political considerations.” The move actually didn’t much rattle stocks; the Euro Stoxx 50 index was actually up almost 2% by midday. But the yield on Italian bonds shot up to 5.59%, increasing the beleaguered country’s borrowing costs. “Just when everyone was waiting for Moody’s to downgrade Italy, S&P gets in first with what is a much more damaging downgrade,” one securities analyst tells MarketWatch. Moody’s has extended its review period for the country.

A service dog who attends school with her owner in Louisiana is getting plenty of attention online after the boy's school included the female golden doodle in its yearbook. Joseph "Seph" Ware, 14, of West Monroe, La., has Duchenne muscular dystrophy, a diagnosis he was given at the age of 3. The genetic condition causes progressive muscle weakness and muscle wasting, with most patients confined to wheelchairs by the time they are teens. Ware's service dog, Presley, has been with him for the past four years, including when Seph attends classes at Good Hope Middle School. When picture day came around, school officials decided to include Presley - who has a canine sibling named Elvis - in the yearbook with all the other students. Seph's mother, Lori Ware, told AL.com on Wednesday that her son's reaction was, "Why not," when school officials asked his permission to include Presley in the yearbook. "Seph says that it took about 10 minutes to get Presley to look at the camera - and who knows how many shots," Ware said. Ware said she thinks the administrators' gesture was a great one since, in the past, Presley has not been welcomed as openly at school. "We have had issues with his elementary school accepting Presley, so to come to Good Hope and her to be welcomed has been very refreshing," Ware said. "The kids adore her and she loves the attention." The administrators' gesture has also gained traction on social media. A recent story in the News-Star, Monroe's local newspaper, highlighted the work that Presley does for Ware. The 5-year-old Presley and her canine sibling, Elvis, reunited last month for a visit after years apart. Elvis lives and works as a service dog in Wisconsin, also for a young boy with muscular dystrophy. Both dogs help their young owners by doing things for them that their weakened muscles no longer allow, like picking up things they drop, hitting light switches and opening drawers, the news story reported. Duchenne muscular dystrophy, one of nine types of the disease, is caused by a missing protein that, in most people, helps keep muscle cells intact. According to the Muscular Dystrophy Association, it affects primarily boys. Besides the muscle deterioration leading to physical impairment, the disease also affects the heart and respiratory muscles. Advances in cardiac and respiratory care in recent years has expanded patients' life spans, making survival into their 30s more common. There are also cases of those affected living into their 40s and 50s, the MDA reports. ||||| Among all the headshots of smiling students in a Louisiana middle school’s new yearbook, one photo clearly sticks out. It shows Presley, a service dog, and the photo in West Monroe’s Good Hope Middle School yearbook has been drawing a lot of attention since it started bouncing around the internet last week. The 5-year-old golden doodle shows up in the yearbook next to her owner Joseph “Seph” Ware, a 14-year-old Good Hope seventh-grader diagnosed with Duchenne muscular dystrophy. The student relies on Presley to help him get around. “We’re kind of stunned at all the attention,” the boy’s mom, Lori Ware, told FoxNews.com Friday. “It’s humbling. I’m glad Presley is making the world happy.” Ware, 52, said her son has been drawing a paw print when classmates ask him to sign their yearbooks on behalf of Presley. “He’s loving it,” she said of her son. Presley has been at Seph’s side since she was a small puppy. When picture day came around, school officials wanted to include the dog in the yearbook with the other students, Al.com reported this week. Ware said her son's response was, “why not.” “Seph says that it took about 10 minutes to get Presley to look at the camera - and who knows how many shots,” she told Al.com. Duchenne muscular dystrophy is a genetic condition that causes progressive muscle weakness, AL.com reported. People diagnosed with the condition are usually confined to a wheelchair by the time they are teens. Good Hope students love having Presley around, Ware said. “They aren’t supposed to pet her, but they sneak pets in the hallways after classes,” she told FoxNews.com. “And if Presley hears someone say, ‘Oh, look at the pretty puppy,' she perks right up because she knows she’s pretty.”

– The cutest yearbook photo ever was just taken by Presley at Good Hope Middle School in Louisiana. In fairness to everyone else's not-quite-as-cute yearbook photos, Presley is a 5-year-old golden doodle. She's also a service dog for seventh-grader Joseph "Seph" Ware, who was diagnosed with Duchenne muscular dystrophy when he was 3 years old, Al.com reports. Presley has been attending class with Seph for a few years, so it only seemed right for the school to give the dog her own yearbook photo, right next to Seph's. "Seph says that it took about 10 minutes to get Presley to look at the camera—and who knows how many shots," his mother, Lori Watkins-Ware says. Presley's yearbook photo went viral, and Ware says Seph is his having his "15 minutes of fame," Good Morning America reports. Though she tells Fox News her family can't believe all the attention the photo is getting. “It’s humbling," Ware says. "I’m glad Presley is making the world happy.” Presley helps Seph with everything from turning on light switches to opening doors. Now Seph is returning the favor. Ware says other students have been asking Presley to sign their yearbooks, so Seph helpfully draws a paw print for her.

CLOSE Jayme Closs of Barron remains missing. Here is what we know. Trent Tetzlaff, USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin Jayme Closs (Photo: Courtesy of the Barron County Sheriff's Department) BARRON, Wis. — A 100-person search party and some 800 tips still have not led Barron County authorities to Jayme Closs, a 13-year-old girl missing since her parents were found shot to death in their home early Monday. Police from Wausau sent a school resource officer and therapy dog Thursday to help Barron students cope with the mysterious disappearance of a schoolmate and double murder in their community. The state justice department's Office of School Safety also plans to send a team of counselors by the end of the week. Barron residents James Closs, 56, and Denise Closs, 46, were found dead about 1 a.m. Monday after police responded to a cellphone call to 911 from inside the home. Their daughter Jayme was nowhere to be found. The incident, and the fact that authorities still don't know what transpired in the Closs home Sunday night, has rattled the quiet town of fewer than 3,500 people. “We don’t know anything and that’s hard,” said Cyndi Bragg, who owns InFocus Eyewear in Barron and has lived in the area for 25 years. Volunteers search a ditch near Barron, Wisconsin, on Thursday, Oct. 18, 2018, looking for any evidence related to missing 13-year-old Jayme Closs. The girl hasn't been seen since before her parents were discovered shot to death early Monday in the family home. (Photo: Haley BeMiller/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin) She said the whole community is on edge and “stuck in limbo” as they await more information. Meanwhile, she’s told her children to be aware of their surroundings, and her family is taking extra care to lock their door. On Thursday afternoon, Barron County Sheriff Chris Fitzgerald posted a plea on Facebook for 100 "able-bodied volunteers" to help in the search for evidence related to her disappearance. The volunteers then spread out to search specific areas near the community. The sheriff called it a "routine search for articles of evidentiary value." Two hours after the search began, he posted a Facebook update that said nothing had been found related to Jayme's disappearance. One of the volunteers out in the field was Ashley Vandenvrink, who lives roughly 30 minutes from Barron. Volunteers were looking for just about anything that might seem suspicious, she said. Vandenvrink is a mother of four, which inspired her to help with the search. “It’s heartbreaking,” she said. “That could’ve been my daughter. That could’ve been anybody’s kid.” Fitzgerald also wrote that the sheriff's office had received more than 800 tips since Monday morning and asked that people with information to call 855-744-3879. Badge, the Wausau Police Department's trained therapy dog, awaits her chance to help students in Barron cope with the disappearance of 13-year-old schoolmate Jayme Closs. (Photo: Haley BeMiller/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin) Wausau Police Chief Ben Bliven, whose department was affected by a mass shooting in March 2017 that drew national attention, said he was eager to help Barron — though the communities are more than two hours apart. "There comes a time in every community when help is needed; we have certainly experienced that need for help,” Bliven said in a statement. More: Missing Wisconsin girl: What we know about Jayme Closs' disappearance More: Missing Wisconsin girl's parents died from gunshots, sheriff says Wausau School Resource Officer Nick Stetzer visited the Barron schools with his therapy dog, Badge. Stetzer said students and staff enjoyed seeing the dog and one girl even asked if she could take Badge home with her. Trauma is difficult for everyone to handle, Stetzer said, but the therapy dog can provide love to anyone without judgment. “A couple seconds of relief of petting the dog and not thinking about stuff definitely helps when it comes to trauma,” he said. Wausau School Resource Officer Nick Stetzer works with his therapy dog, Badge, outside Barron schools on Thursday, Oct. 18. Stetzer and Badge visited with students and staff reeling from the disappearance of schoolmate Jayme Closs and the shooting deaths of her parents, James and Denise Closs. (Photo: Haley BeMiller/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin) Kristen Devitt, director of the state's Office of School Safety, said the additional counseling and therapy resources can help the community now and going forward. The office is working with Barron County Human Services on crisis response so the county can eventually take on that role full time. Trying to cope with the traumatic losses in Barron is frightening and anxiety-producing for local residents, Devitt said. “There isn’t anyone in this community that this hasn’t touched,” she said. The Wisconsin Safe and Healthy Schools Training & Technical Assistance Center will also provide training to school staff and counselors on trauma-informed practices and PREPaRE, which outlines how school professionals can provide mental health support in a crisis. All services will be funded through an emergency grant from the state justice department, according to Attorney General Brad Schimel. Investigators use a canine Tuesday to help search the grounds near the Closs home in Barron. (Photo: TZ Kha/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin) Read or Share this story: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2018/10/19/jayme-closs-wausau-police-department-send-aid-barron-schools/1693888002/ ||||| (CNN) Volunteers and law enforcement combed the side of a highway on Thursday looking for evidence in the disappearance of a missing Wisconsin teenager whose parents were found dead in their home this week. But the search along Highway 8 in Barron County, Wisconsin, didn't turn up anything of value, according to Barron County Sheriff Chris Fitzgerald. Hours earlier, Fitzgerald asked for 100 volunteers to help in the routine search for evidence that could be related to the case as the search for Jayme Closs entered its fourth day. The 13-year-old was likely at her family's Barron home, located on Highway 8, when her parents were shot dead, and she vanished moments later, investigators believe. Her whereabouts and safety are still in question. "We believe Jayme was in the home at the time of the homicides and we believe she's still in danger," Fitzgerald said this week. Thursday's search took place about 3 miles from the family's home, according to CNN affiliate WCCO Since authorities received a cryptic 911 call and discovered the bodies of Jayme's parents in their home near the town of Barron early Monday, investigators have received more than 800 tips and have not confirmed any credible sightings of the girl. But the sheriff said he has a "100% expectation that she's alive." #FBIMilwaukee needs your help, as the search continues to bring home 13 year old Jayme Closs, now missing & endangered after her parents were found dead in their home in Barron, WI early this week. Call the tip line 1-855-744-3879.#FindJayme pic.twitter.com/rNELlQKJb6 — FBI Milwaukee (@FBIMilwaukee) October 17, 2018 An Amber Alert was issued Monday for Jayme and several law enforcement agencies have joined the search. Motive in parents' death is unclear Deputies are also trying to solve the killings of Jayme's parents, James Closs, 56, and Denise Closs, 46, in the small city of Barron. During a 911 call shortly before 1 a.m. Monday, the dispatcher heard a disturbance in the background. But no one spoke directly to the dispatcher, Fitzgerald said. When deputes arrived to the home less than four minutes later, Fitzgerald said, no one was in sight and no vehicles were in the immediate area. Closs' parents were shot and their deaths have been ruled homicides, Fitzgerald said Wednesday. No gun was found at the scene, he said. It's not clear how long James and Denise Closs had been dead when their bodies were discovered Monday. On HLN's "Crime & Justice" Wednesday night, Fitzgerald told host Ashleigh Banfield that deputies had recovered the cell phone from which the 911 call was made. Fitzgerald said additional agencies, including the FBI, are involved. "They are the experts in breaking down 911 tapes, looking at our phones, and taking care of all evidence in that manner," he said. Authorities said they have determined whose cell phone the call came from, but declined to identify the owner. Investigators also believe Jayme was at home during the shooting based on details from the 911 call and evidence from the home. "Is it a random attack or a targeted attack? I don't know that answer," Fitzgerald told reporters. "That's why those leads are so important." Joan Smrekar, who lives next door to the Closs home, told Banfield she heard two shots a couple of seconds apart just after 12:30 a.m. Monday. "It was just, 'bang' and 'bang,'" Smrekar said. Relatives wait in agony Seara Closs said she wishes she were the one endangered, not her cousin Jayme. Seara wrote an open letter to Jayme on Facebook. "I'm going thru our family pictures, worrying sick about you :( wishing we could trade places just to get you home and out of harms way," Seara Closs posted In her post, Seara reminded her cousin that her family -- including her slain parents -- love her dearly. "Grandpa Jim (James) Closs, your Momma Bear, Denise Closs and your very own night [in] shinning armor, your Daddyo Jim JR Closs ... love all of you!" Seara Closs wrote. Authorities said they don't believe Jayme Closs ran away. Barron Area School District administrator Diane Tremblay said Jayme, a member of her school's cross-country team, is a "sweet girl who is a loyal friend and loves to dance." During a recent school assignment, Jayme was asked what she would do with $1 million, Tremblay said. Jayme wrote that she would "feed the hungry and give the rest to the poor." Both James and Denise Closs were long-time employees of the Jennie-O Turkey Store in Barron, Jennie-O's parent company Hormel said. "Our thoughts are with the Closs family and the entire Barron community," said a statement from Jennie-O Turkey Store officials. "This is a difficult time for our entire team and we are mourning this loss and are still processing this terrible tragedy. We are also hopeful for the safe return of their daughter, Jayme, and are keeping her and the Closs family in our thoughts." Jayme Closs is 5 feet tall, weighs 100 pounds and has green eyes and blond or strawberry blond hair, the sheriff's department said. Anyone with information can call the tip line at 1-855-744-3879. Correction: A prior version of this story incorrectly spelled the missing girl's last name. ||||| Tweet with a location You can add location information to your Tweets, such as your city or precise location, from the web and via third-party applications. You always have the option to delete your Tweet location history. Learn more ||||| If you have any information regarding the whereabouts of Jayme Closs, or if you have had contact with Closs, please contact the Barron County Sheriff's Office tip line at 1-855-744-3879. You may also contact your local FBI office , or the nearest American Embassy or Consulate ||||| The FBI says it's expanded its search nationwide for a 13-year-old Wisconsin girl missing since her parents were found shot to death in their home Monday morning. Authorities say Jayme Closs was in the house when her parents – 46-year-old Denise and 56-year-old James Closs – were killed. The girl, who was ruled out as a suspect on the first day, was gone when deputies arrived. Relatives of Jayme told CBS News the front door to the house was shot in. When officers responded minutes after a 911 call to the home in Barron, about 80 miles northeast of Minneapolis, they found no suspicious vehicles, says CBS Minnesota. The FBI said Thursday that, "out of an abundance of caution," it was sending a digital Missing Person poster to local media partners across the country for display. Jayme Closs, age 13, has been missing from Barron, Wisconsin, since Monday, October 15, 2018. Help the #FBI find her: https://t.co/s0fHKjY3hc pic.twitter.com/XRzoQzLxxH — FBI Most Wanted (@FBIMostWanted) October 18, 2018 More than 100 local and state FBI agents have been working on the case, and officials say hundreds of tips have come in from the community and people around the country, the station reports. One-hundred volunteers have joined the search for Jayme, authorities said Thursday, after Barron County Sheriff Chris Fitzgerald asked for people to pitch in. He said Wednesday investigators believe she's alive but in danger and he urged the public to continue calling in tips. The sheriff's office posted on Facebook Thursday afternoon that so far "nothing of evidentiary value has been recovered." She's described as standing 5-feet tall, weighing 100 pounds, with green eyes and blonde hair. ||||| A missing teenager has been added to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s top missing persons list. Jayme Closs, a 13-year-old from Barron County, Wisconsin, was reported missing on Monday, October 15, after both of her parents were found dead inside their home. The FBI announced on Thursday it was expanding its search for Jayme, who was described as 5 feet tall and 100 pounds, with blonde hair and green eyes. The FBI said it considered the girl “endangered.” Police officers located the bodies of James Closs, 56, and Denise Closs, 46, at their home in Barron County on Monday, dead of apparent gunshot wounds, after a 911 call was placed. Their daughter Jayme was not in the house. Authorities had not located any suspects and had not yet determined whether the adults were targeted or whether the killings were random. The motive in the killings remained unknown, and it was not immediately clear who made the 911 call. Authorities reportedly found out whose cellphone the 911 call was dialed from but did not share the information. Barron County Sheriff Chris Fitzgerald announced on Wednesday that autopsy results ruled the deaths homicides, and that both adults were killed by gunshot wounds. “We believe Jayme was in the home at the time of the homicides, and we believe she’s in danger,” said Fitzgerald, according to CNN. Hundreds of tips have poured in related to the case, but authorities still have not located Jayme. In a press release on Thursday, the Barron County Sheriff's Office said "nothing of evidentiary value has been recovered." An extensive search was underway for the girl, with authorities and volunteers scouring Barron County for traces of the teenager. Fitzgerald said he had a "100 percent expectation that she's alive," according to CNN. “At the end of the day, I want a 13-year-old here safe and sound,” said Fitzgerald. “That’s our goal. That’s our only goal right now.” Anyone with information was asked to contact the Barron County Sheriff’s Office at 1-855-744-9879, their local FBI office or the nearest American embassy or consulate. FBI

– "Every second counts" in the search for Jayme Closs, and authorities say they've so far received about 800 tips on the disappearance of the Wisconsin teen. The 5-foot-tall 13-year-old with strawberry-blond hair and green eyes was found to be missing early Monday when cops responded to a 911 call at her Barron home; her parents were found there shot to death. In addition to hundreds of tips being called in, USA Today notes that a team of 100 volunteers, recruited on Facebook by Barron County Sheriff Chris Fitzgerald, has been scouring the area in a "routine search for articles of evidentiary value." The hunt for Jayme—who Fitzgerald seems certain is still alive, per CNN—isn't just in Barron: CBS News and Newsweek report the FBI has expanded the search nationwide, with the agency placing Jayme on its top missing-persons list and blasting out a missing-persons poster "out of an abundance of caution" to media across the country. More than 100 local and state FBI agents are said to be helping to find her. "At the end of the day, I want a 13-year-old here safe and sound," Fitzgerald said Wednesday. "That's our goal. That's our only goal right now." (So far, not much has turned up.)

By midday Friday, hours before news of the president’s departure, demonstrators had gathered outside the Interior Ministry and were already celebrating their anticipated victory and debating its significance. “Thank you, Al Jazeera,” read one sign, commending the Arab news channel for its nightly coverage of the unrest in the past month — long before the Western news media took serious notice. Many here credit Al Jazeera’s broadcasts with forging the sense of solidarity and empowerment that moved Tunisians across the country to take to the streets simultaneously. The other side of that sign read “#sidibouzid,” a reference to a Twitter feed, named for the town where the self-immolation took place, that demonstrators used as a forum for their anger and their plans. After news of the president’s departure on Friday, other Twitter posts echoed the theme. “Every Arab leader is watching Tunisia in fear. Every Arab citizen is watching Tunisia in hope & solidarity,” a writer from Cairo wrote to the #sidibouzid feed. Others in the crowd, however, were eager to emphasize the education and relative affluence that they said distinguished them from other people in the region. “Please don’t say we are the same as Algeria,” said one woman, in fluent English. “We are the Bourguiba generation,” she said, referring to Habib Bourguiba, Tunisia’s first president and the father of its broad middle class. He poured resources into Tunisia’s educational system and made higher education effectively free. He also pushed a social agenda of secularization, women’s rights, birth control and family planning that, in contrast to most countries in the region, slowed population growth, keeping the job of public education and social welfare manageable. In his last days Mr. Ben Ali cycled through a series of attempts to placate the protesters, firing his interior minister, pledging a corruption investigation, promising new freedoms and a resignation at the end of his term in 2014, and finally dismissing his whole cabinet. But his promises did no more than the bullets or tear gas to dissuade the protesters from taking to the streets. After hearing Mr. Ben Ali promise in a televised address on Thursday night to stop shooting demonstrators, crowds began to gather outside the Interior Ministry along Bourguiba Boulevard early Friday morning. And when it became clear that the police were standing idle on sidelines, several thousands more joined them, a largely affluent crowd including doctors, lawyers, young professionals and others who said they had never protested before. For the first time in the month of protests, large numbers of young women joined the crowd, almost none wearing any form of Islamic veil. Many, accustomed to living under one of the region’s most repressive governments, were both excited and uneasy about their new sense of freedom. “We are too many now, we are too big, it is more difficult to silence us,” one woman said, grinning. “But for us it is new to talk. We are still a little bit scared,” she added, declining to give her name. As throughout the uprising, they aimed much of their ire at the president’s second wife, the former Leila Trabelsi, a hairdresser from a humble family whose relatives have amassed conspicuous fortunes since her 1992 marriage. “Policeman, open your eyes, the hairdresser is ruling you,” they chanted, addressing Mr. Ben Ali. “We are suffering from what the Trabelsis stole,” said one protester, a young executive who declined to give his name for fear of reprisals. “Every major sector in Tunisia has been taken. They own part of telecommunications, they own part of the car business, they own part of the supermarkets, everything.” ||||| Tunisia's state news agency says President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali has decided to dismiss his government following massive riots. Protestors hold a banner reading "Ben Ali get out", calling for the resignation of Tunisia's President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, in the capital, Tunis, Friday, Jan. 14,2011. Thousands of angry demonstrators... (Associated Press) Protesters chanted slogans against President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali during a demonstration in Tunis, Friday, Jan. 14, 2011. Thousands of angry demonstrators marched through Tunisia's capital Friday,... (Associated Press) Protesters chant slogans against President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in Tunis, Friday, Jan. 14, 2011. Demonstrators marched through the Tunisian capital Friday, demanding the resignation of the country's... (Associated Press) Demonstrators hold placards reading "Ben Ali get out" in Tunis, Friday, Jan. 14, 2011. Thousands of angry demonstrators marched through Tunisia's capital Friday, demanding the resignation of the country's... (Associated Press) Tunisian police officers guard the Interior Ministry as thousands of demonstrators are gathered in front of the building calling for the resignation of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in Tunis, Friday,... (Associated Press) Protesters chant slogans against President Zine El Abidine Ben Aliin during a demonstration in Tunis, Friday, Jan. 14, 2011. Thousands of angry demonstrators marched through Tunisia's capital Friday,... (Associated Press) Protesters chant slogans against President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali during a demonstration in Tunis, Friday, Jan. 14, 2011. Thousands of angry demonstrators marched through Tunisia's capital Friday, demanding... (Associated Press) A protester kisses the Tunisian flag as he demonstrates against President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in Tunis, Friday, Jan. 14, 2011. Thousands of angry demonstrators marched through Tunisia's capital Friday,... (Associated Press) A armored vehicle guards a street in Tunis next to a photo of Tunisia's President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, during a demonstration, Friday, Jan. 14, 2011. Thousands of angry demonstrators marched through... (Associated Press) A woman protester chants slogans against Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Aliin, in Tunis, Friday, Jan. 14, 2011. Thousands of angry demonstrators marched through Tunisia's capital Friday, demanding... (Associated Press) Protesters chant slogans against President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in Tunis, Friday, Jan. 14, 2011. Thousands of angry demonstrators marched through Tunisia's capital Friday, demanding the resignation... (Associated Press) A demonstrator holds a placard reading "Ben Ali get out" in Tunis, Friday, Jan. 14, 2011. Thousands of angry demonstrators marched through Tunisia's capital Friday, demanding the resignation of the country's... (Associated Press) Supporters of Tunisia's President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali demonstrate in Tunis, Thursday, Jan. 13, 2011. Tunisia's autocratic president, facing deadly riots that have rocked his nation, ordered prices... (Associated Press) Supporters of Tunisia's President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali demonstrate in Tunis, Thursday, Jan. 13, 2011. Tunisia's autocratic president, facing deadly riots that have rocked his nation, ordered prices... (Associated Press) Supporters of Tunisia's President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali demonstrate in Tunis, Thursday, Jan. 13, 2011. Tunisia's autocratic president, facing deadly riots that have rocked his nation, ordered prices... (Associated Press) Supporters of Tunisia's President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali demonstrate in Tunis, Thursday, Jan. 13, 2011. Tunisia's autocratic president, facing deadly riots that have rocked his nation, ordered prices... (Associated Press) Supporters of Tunisia's President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali demonstrate in Tunis, Thursday, Jan. 13, 2011. Tunisia's autocratic president, facing deadly riots that have rocked his nation, ordered prices... (Associated Press) Supporters of Tunisia's President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali demonstrate in Tunis, Thursday, Jan. 13, 2011. Tunisia's autocratic president, facing deadly riots that have rocked his nation, ordered prices... (Associated Press) A protester waves the Tunisian flag as he watches a demonstration against President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, in Tunis, Friday, Jan. 14, 2011. Thousands of angry demonstrators marched through Tunisia's... (Associated Press) Supporters of Tunisia's President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali demonstrate in Tunis, Thursday, Jan. 13, 2011. Tunisia's autocratic president, facing deadly riots that have rocked his nation, ordered prices... (Associated Press) Supporters of Tunisia's President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali demonstrate in Tunis, Thursday, Jan. 13, 2011. Tunisia's autocratic president, facing deadly riots that have rocked his nation, ordered prices... (Associated Press) Protesters shout slogans against President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali as they hold boards reading "Ben Ali get out" in Tunis, Friday, Jan. 14, 2011. Thousands of angry demonstrators marched through Tunisia's... (Associated Press) A protester with a Tunisian flag shouts slogans against President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in Tunis, Friday, Jan. 14, 2011. Thousands of angry demonstrators marched through Tunisia's capital Friday, demanding... (Associated Press) A protester holding a torn poster reading "Ben Ali get out" demonstrates in Tunis, Friday, Jan. 14, 2011. Thousands of angry demonstrators marched through Tunisia's capital Friday, demanding the resignation... (Associated Press) Demonstrators hold boardS reading "Ben Ali get out" in Tunis, Friday, Jan. 14, 2011. Thousands of angry demonstrators marched through Tunisia's capital Friday, demanding the resignation of the country's... (Associated Press) Supporters of Tunisia's President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali demonstrate in Tunis, Thursday, Jan. 13, 2011. Tunisia's autocratic president, facing deadly riots that have rocked his nation, ordered prices... (Associated Press) The TAP news agency report also says the president plans to call early legislative elections in six months. Friday's announcement comes as Tunisian police fired rounds of tear gas at thousands of protesters in the capital. Some demonstrators climbed atop the roof of the Interior Ministry, a symbol of the iron-fisted government they want to oust. The demonstrators were marching through Tunis to demand the resignation of the country's autocratic leader. Many shouted "Ben Ali, out!" and "Ben Ali, assassin!" THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below. TUNIS, Tunisia (AP) _ Tunisian police fired rounds of tear gas at thousands of protesters in the capital Friday after some climbed atop the roof of the Interior Ministry, a symbol of the iron-fisted government they want to oust. The demonstrators were marching through Tunis to demand the resignation of the country's autocratic leader, President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. Many shouted "Ben Ali, out!" and "Ben Ali, assassin!" Another poster read "We won't forget," a reference to the rioters killed, many by police bullets. Crowds sang the national anthem, fists in the air. "We want to end this dictatorship," said Wadia Amar, a university chemistry professor. "The Ben Ali clan should be brought to justice. They've taken everything." Hundreds of police with shields and riot gear blocked the avenue Friday in front of the Interior Ministry, where over the years there have been reports of torture. The march was organized by Tunisia's only legal trade union, which also went ahead with a symbolic two-hour strike. Plainclothes policemen were seen kicking unarmed protesters and beating them with batons. Thousands of tourists, meanwhile, were evacuated from the North African tourist haven amid growing unrest. Pent-up anger at high unemployment and at a leadership many see as controlling and corrupt has exploded into riots in the past few weeks. "A month ago, we didn't believe this uprising was possible," said Beya Mannai, a geology professor at the University of Tunis. "But the people rose up." Ben Ali, 74, has maintained an iron grip on Tunisia since grabbing power 23 years ago in a bloodless coup, repressing any challenges. He has locked up many opposition figures, clamped down on dissent and kept tight control over the media but has not been able to resolve the country's rising unemployment, officially at nearly 14 percent, but higher for educated youths. The riots began after an educated but jobless 26-year-old committed suicide when police confiscated the fruits and vegetables he was selling without a permit. The official death toll in the riots is 23, but opposition leaders put the figure at three times that, and medical workers on Friday reported another 13 new deaths and over 50 injuries from late Thursday alone. U.S. diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks have described the corruption in Tunisia, and social networks like Facebook have helped spread the comments. Many ordinary Tunisians who have complained of corruption for years felt vindicated to see the U.S. cables. The unrest was taking a heavy toll on the key tourism industry in Tunisia, which is known for its wide sandy beaches, desert landscape, ancient ruins and bustling bazaars. British tour operator Thomas Cook said it was asking its roughly 3,800 British, Irish, and German customers in Tunisia to leave the country, while some 200 Dutch tourists were repatriated Thursday night via a chartered flight. U.S. and European governments have issued a series of travel alerts warning citizens away from nonessential travel to Tunisia. The unrest was having diplomatic consequences as well. Tunisia's ambassador to the U.N. cultural and educational agency resigned amid the deadly riots. Mezri Haddad, ambassador to Paris-based UNESCO, said on France's BFM television Friday, "I am resigning today." He said he is resigning because he doesn't want to contribute to something that "is the opposite of my convictions and my conscience." An unusually contrite Ben Ali went on television Thursday, making sweeping pledges for political and media freedom. He also promised to leave the presidency when his term ends in 2014, and ordered prices on sugar, milk and bread slashed. After he spoke, thousands filled the main tree-lined Avenue Bourguiba, cheering "Long live Ben Ali!" honking horns and waving flags. Many people demonstrating Friday claimed the pro-Ben Ali rally on Thursday _ which broke a government-imposed curfew _ was staged by the powerful ruling RCD party, which paid jobless youths to participate. They claimed many of the cars that cruised the avenue, some with passengers standing on the car roofs, bore the blue license plates of rented vehicles. "That was all prepared in advance," said Haitem Ouerghemi, 30, a call center worker. "It was a Hollywood scene." In a country with a tightly controlled media, Friday's French-language daily Le Temps touted Ben Ali's speech as a "historic turning point." "After the blood and desolation, happiness and, once again, hope," the paper said in red on its front page.

– Amid huge riots over poverty, Tunisia’s president has decided to dismiss his government, the AP reports. President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali intends to call legislative elections in 6 months, earlier than planned. Meanwhile, thousands of protesters calling for Ben Ali’s resignation continued to demonstrate in the capital, prompting police to fire tear gas and lash out with clubs. Twelve were killed in riots last night, NPR reports. Thousands of tourists have been evacuated. Ben Ali has said he’ll quit, but not until 2014; and in a speech last night, he promised to stop using live ammunition against the demonstrators. But these pledges haven’t soothed protesters in the biggest riots since Ben Ali took power 23 years ago, notes the New York Times. Instead, they seemed invigorated by the pledge. Today’s demonstration was the first to include many women, very few of whom wore veils, the Times reports.

A member of the Abuja Bring Back Our Girls group speaks at a sit-in demonstration the group organized at the Unity Fountain in Abuja, Nigeria. June 23, 2014 A member of the Abuja Bring Back Our Girls group speaks at a sit-in demonstration the group organized at the Unity Fountain in Abuja, Nigeria. Afolabi Sotunde/Reuters The United States has deployed 80 troops to Chad to augment efforts to find the Nigerian schoolgirls recently taken hostage, the White House announced Wednesday, a significant escalation of Washington’s contribution to a crisis that has created global consternation. The force, made up largely of Air Force personnel, will conduct surveillance flights and operate drone aircraft but will not participate in ground searches, according to U.S. military officials. “These personnel will support the operation of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft for missions over northern Nigeria and the surrounding area,” the White House said in a statement formally notifying Congress of the deployment. The unit will remain in Chad “until its support resolving the kidnapping is no longer required.” This month, the Pentagon dispatched a team of eight experts to the Nigerian capital to help search for the more than 200 schoolgirls captured by Boko Haram, a radical Islamist group that holds sway over remote areas in northern Nigeria. They are working with roughly two dozen U.S. law enforcement and intelligence personnel advising the Nigerian government on the recovery effort. U.S. surveillance drones have been searching for the girls since May 11. Although officials have not said where those drones have been flying from, a Pentagon spokesman said Tuesday that having the new unit in Chad, which borders the northeastern tip of Nigeria, will enable longer surveillance flights. “Locating this force in Chad allows us to spend more time flying over the search area,” said the spokesman, Lt. Col. Myles B. Caggins III. U.S. military officials have emphasized the difficult nature of the mission. On Tuesday, Rear Adm. John Kirby, the Pentagon press secretary, called the search for the missing girls tantamount to finding “a needle in a jungle.” “We’re talking about an area roughly the size of West Virginia, and it’s dense forest jungle,” he told reporters. The Ni­ger­ian girls were abducted in mid-April from a boarding school in the town of Chibok. U.S. officials have said the kidnappers may have broken up the hostages into smaller groups and dispersed into a wider area. Some officials have speculated that the girls could have been smuggled into neighboring countries. “I don’t think anybody’s underestimating the level of difficulty in both finding them and then being able to launch some kind of recovery mission,” Kirby said Tuesday. “It’s very difficult in terms of the geography, the actual size, just square miles, of what we’re trying to search.” Officials at the Pentagon would not say precisely where the new unit is based, but the French military has an air base in the Chadian capital, N’Djamena, near the Ni­ger­ian border. Washington and Paris have coordinated closely on security matters in Africa as the threat posed by militant groups there has prompted the United States to significantly expand its military footprint across the continent. Paul Lubeck, a sociology professor at the University of California at Santa Cruz who has done extensive research in Nigeria, said the country’s security forces are up against a formidable group in Boko Haram. “These guys are better organized, more highly motivated and have better arms than the Niger­ian military,” he said. “The Nigerian military is decayed.” Additionally, because the Ni­ger­ian force has a history of brutality, U.S. military advisers face restrictions in the assistance they are able to provide. As part of an agreement reached this week, American military personnel are permitted to share some information — such as aerial imagery — but not all raw intelligence. As the United States steps up intelligence-gathering efforts there, Lubeck said, there’s the possibility that Nigerian forces could mishandle it. “Any time the Ni­ger­ian military attempts to intervene to release hostages, the hostages are killed,” he said. “You might get them the intel, but how to get them released safely is the real challenge.” U.S. Special Operations forces in Africa are engaged in a similarly challenging hunt for Ugandan warlord Joseph Kony, who leads a cult-like group in central Africa that has abducted children to use as sex slaves and soldiers. The abduction of the Ni­ger­ian girls went largely unnoticed outside Africa for weeks. But as Ni­ger­ians in the capital began protesting the deteriorating security in many parts of the country this month, the plight of the girls began making headlines in the United States and calls for their return gained significant traction on social media. Several U.S. lawmakers and first lady Michelle Obama have joined the cause, posting photos on Twitter using the hashtag #BringBackOurGirls. Rep. Edward R. Royce (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, issued a statement Wednesday calling the deployment a “step in the right direction.” He and others are urging the White House to do more. “U.S. security personnel should be in Nigeria advising and assisting those engaged in the rescue efforts,” Royce said. “Anything less would be insufficient in responding to the pressing threat that Boko Haram poses to the region and U.S. interests.” ||||| Story highlights A Pentagon official says a Predator drone is joining the search U.S. sending 80 members of its armed forces to Chad to help in search for the girls Pentagon spokesman: "These are not combat troops" Troops are going to Chad because it's "a great location" geographically, he says The United States deployed 80 members of its armed forces to Chad to help in the search for the kidnapped Nigerian schoolgirls, the White House said Wednesday. "These personnel will support the operation of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft for missions over northern Nigeria and the surrounding area," it said in a letter. "The force will remain in Chad until its support in resolving the kidnapping situation is no longer required." President Barack Obama informed the House speaker and the president of the Senate of the move. The forces will be involved in maintaining aircraft and analyzing data, but because they are armed, the President is required by law to inform the speaker of the House, Pentagon spokesman Rear Adm. John Kirby said. "These are not combat infantry troops that we put into Chad," Kirby told CNN's "The Lead with Jake Tapper" on Wednesday. "These are folks that are there to support the reconnaissance mission." JUST WATCHED No sign of Nigerian violence slowing Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH No sign of Nigerian violence slowing 02:51 JUST WATCHED Car bombs kill over 100 in Nigeria Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Car bombs kill over 100 in Nigeria 03:59 JUST WATCHED Boko Haram has Nigeria living in fear Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Boko Haram has Nigeria living in fear 01:44 JUST WATCHED Terror rules in northeastern Nigeria Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Terror rules in northeastern Nigeria 01:36 Boko Haram abducted more than 200 girls last month from a school in northern Nigeria. Officials have speculated that the militants may have transported them to neighboring Chad or Cameroon, but it's not clear where the girls are or whether they've left Nigeria. So why are troops deploying to Chad? "Just geographically, Chad's a great location to do this from," Kirby said, adding that the United States has a good relationship with its government. Reconnaissance flights will be searching an area roughly the size of West Virginia, he said, that includes parts of Nigeria and other countries. The deployment is not based on any new intelligence leads, a senior administration official said. "The truth is, we don't know exactly where they are," Kirby said. "We still believe that they've broken up into small groups and dispersed." A U.S. Predator drone will now be aiding in the search for the girls, a Pentagon official told CNN. Half of the new group of U.S. troops will be operating the launch and recovery of the unarmed drone on its missions, and half of them will be providing security on the ground in Chad. Nigeria asks U.N. to designate Boko Haram as terrorist group Also Wednesday, Nigeria asked the United Nations to designate Boko Haram as a terrorist organization as its escalating attacks spread alarm nationwide. If approved, it will enable countries to impose arms embargoes, travel bans and asset freezes. A United Nations al Qaeda committee is expected to decide when it meets Thursday. Nigeria's request lists the terror group as an affiliate of al Qaeda. This is a "significant step" in the fight against terror, said Joy Ogwu, the Nigerian ambassador to the United Nations. The United States branded Boko Haram a terrorist group last year, providing greater access to its finances and more ability to limit its movements. U.S. officials have said Boko Haram does not have financing in the United States. The insurgent group has escalated its attacks in Africa's most populous nation as its bloodletting extends far beyond its hotbed in the rural northeast. In attacks that appear to be getting more frequent, twin blasts killed at least 118 people Tuesday at a market in the central city of Jos. The explosions went off 20 to 30 minutes apart, sparking an inferno that sent crowds running and screaming, covered in blood. Nigerian authorities described the blasts as "terrorist activities" but declined to speculate on who might be responsible. In separate attacks in Borno state this week, at least 30 people were killed by members of the terror group, according to local residents. Boko Haram attackers swooped in on motorcycles Monday and killed 10 people in one village, residents said. A day later, gunmen stormed a nearby village and killed 20 others, residents said. During the attacks, Boko Haram set fire to homes and food stores, residents said, and fired machine guns. The group has not claimed responsibility for those attacks. Both villages are close to where the more than 200 schoolgirls were kidnapped. Boko Haram claimed responsibility in a chilling video and said he was willing to free the girls in exchange for imprisoned militants. "These vicious attacks on defenseless Nigerian civilians and Boko Haram's abduction last month of more than 200 girls in Chibok are unconscionable, terrorist acts demanding accountability and justice," the U.S. State Department said in a statement. Officials condemn attacks, vow to stamp out terrorism The sudden escalation of attacks, together with the failure to find the missing schoolgirls, has spread concern about the government's inability to quash the insurgency. Protesters have gathered daily nationwide to express frustration over the lack of progress in rescuing the schoolgirls. "Last weekend in Paris the international community and regional leaders made clear their collective determination to support Nigeria and defeat the scourge of terrorism," the UK Foreign Office said in a statement. "The Jos attack has only strengthened our resolve." Nigeria and four neighboring countries -- including Chad -- will share intelligence and border surveillance in the search for the missing girls while Western nations will provide technical expertise and training in a new effort against the extremists. The plan was announced over the weekend during a security summit hosted by French President Francois Hollande to address the growing threats from the group. Boko Haram translates to "Western education is a sin" in the Hausa language. It says its aim is to impose a stricter enforcement of Sharia law across Nigeria, which is split between a majority Muslim north and a mostly Christian south. Devastating Nigeria attacks show twisted ambition of Boko Haram

– The US is putting some muscle behind its promise to help find the kidnapped girls of Nigeria. The White House told Congress today that it has sent 80 troops to neighboring Chad to help track down the girls and their Boko Haram captors, reports the Washington Post. The statement didn't spell out specifics except to say that "these personnel will support the operation of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft for missions over northern Nigeria and the surrounding area." The White House letter adds that they will remain there until no longer needed. And that could be a while, as a Pentagon spokesman made clear yesterday. “We’re talking about an area roughly the size of West Virginia, and it’s dense forest jungle," he said of the search. Also today, Nigeria asked the UN to designate Boko Haram as a terrorist organization, a move that would give nations the power to freeze the group's assets and impose embargoes, reports CNN. Nigeria blames the group for yesterday's car bombings that killed more than 100.

These crawls are part of an effort to archive pages as they are created and archive the pages that they refer to. That way, as the pages that are referenced are changed or taken from the web, a link to the version that was live when the page was written will be preserved.Then the Internet Archive hopes that references to these archived pages will be put in place of a link that would be otherwise be broken, or a companion link to allow people to see what was originally intended by a page's authors.The goal is to fix all broken links on the web . Crawls of supported "No More 404" sites. ||||| On Saturday, the police tracked a signal from the cellphone belonging to Mr. Finocchiaro to the farm. Early Sunday morning, a 1996 Nissan Maxima belonging to another missing man, Tom Meo, 21, was found less than a mile from the farm, at another property owned by the DiNardo family, according to court records. A Nissan sedan owned by Mark Sturgis, 22, was also found Sunday morning, at an outdoor shopping center down the road from the farm. The fourth missing man, Jimi Taro Patrick, 19, was last seen on Wednesday. On Thursday, Mr. Patrick’s family released a statement about him, saying he lived with his grandparents in Newtown, Penn., and had just completed his freshman year studying business on a scholarship at Loyola University, Md. The police started to closely examine Mr. DiNardo’s possible role in their disappearance early on in the search, and Mr. Weintraub first identified him on Tuesday as a “person of interest” in the case. His home in Bensalem Township, about 30 miles from the farm, was searched on Monday, the same day he was arrested on a previously dismissed weapons charge. The farm in Solebury Township is owned by his parents, Anthony and Sandra DiNardo. Responding to reports that the parents were summoned to a grand jury hearing, Mr. Weintraub declined to discuss whether one was hearing the case. In addition to the cars’ locations at or near the DiNardo family’s properties, the police said, officers have also uncovered other clues, which came to light in court records on Wednesday. Shortly before 8 p.m. last Friday, a license plate reader on a Solebury Township police car captured the license plate of a silver Ford truck, which Mr. DiNardo later told the police he was driving that night. Two seconds later, the license plate reader registered Mr. Meo’s Nissan Maxima driving by. That location is about two miles from where Mr. Meo’s car was discovered on Sunday.

– The family of one of four missing young men in Pennsylvania got the news they were dreading Wednesday night when authorities announced that the body of 19-year-old Dean Finocchiaro had been found in a deep grave on a suburban Philadelphia farm. District Attorney Matthew Weintraub said the body was found in a "common grave" more than 12 feet deep, though he didn't say whether the other remains found belong to the three other men who vanished last week, the Washington Post reports. The farm belongs to the family of Cosmo DiNardo, a "person of interest" in the case who was arrested Wednesday for stealing a car belonging to one of the missing men, the New York Times reports. DiNardo, 20, was bailed out by his father late Tuesday after being arrested on a weapons charge from earlier this year. Bail on the new charges has been set at $5 million. "We bought ourselves a little bit of time" with the stolen car charge, Weintraub told reporters early Thursday, adding that homicide charges are being seriously looked at. Eric Beitz, a friend of one of the missing men, tells the Philadelphia Inquirer that DiNardo sold drugs and guns and once boasted about having somebody killed. "Cosmo has spoken about weird things like killing people and having people killed," Beitz says. "Everybody you talk to about this guy, you hear he’s mentally unstable."

Tweet with a location You can add location information to your Tweets, such as your city or precise location, from the web and via third-party applications. You always have the option to delete your Tweet location history. Learn more ||||| Tweet with a location You can add location information to your Tweets, such as your city or precise location, from the web and via third-party applications. You always have the option to delete your Tweet location history. Learn more ||||| Playboy Twins Move Back Into The Mansion Seems like Hef‘s broken heart is recovering rather quickly! Just days after his fiance Crystal Harris dumped him and moved out of the mansion, it seems that a couple of Hef’s favorite ladies have already moved in to take her place. Playboy twins, and Hef’s exes, Karissa and Kristina Shannon have moved back IN to the mansion a year and a half after moving out. In fact, it seems that Karissa has broken up with Sam Jones III so that she and her twin sis could go back to Hef. Hmm, well, that didn’t take too long. Guess Hef needs all the support he can get to mend that broken heart. [Image via WENN.] ||||| Hugh Hefner The Best Way to Get Over a Girl ... Hugh Hefner -- The Best Way to Get Over a Girl ...

– Crystal Harris and Hugh Hefner didn't tie the knot yesterday, and they didn't mope, either. Hef took to Twitter to share his chin-up attitude: "This was going to be my wedding day, but life is full of surprises," the 85-year-old wrote. "After all is said & done, staying single is probably for the best." Single, however, is not code for "alone." Perez Hilton reports that exes Karissa and Kristina Shannon (yep, twins) have already moved back into the mansion, which they left a year and a half ago. And TMZ reports that Hef has been cozying up to Miss January 2011. And how did the runaway bride spend her day? Hanging poolside in Las Vegas in a teeny bikini and high heels with a group of friends, one of which was Heidi Montag. But do we detect a hint of sadness in Hugh's voice? A series of tweets posted in rapid succession this afternoon sound a little down. An example: "The Sunday night Mansion movie is Elle Fanning, Amanda Michalka & Kyle Chandler in JJ Abrams' Super 8. Life goes on."

BALTIMORE (AP) — The U.S. Coast Guard says it's looking for a man who has cost the service about $500,000 after responding to nearly 30 of his fake distress calls. In a press release published Friday, the Coast Guard says the 28 calls have originated from around the area of Annapolis, Maryland. Each call involved the same male voice and used an emergency radio channel. He's been making the calls since July 2014. The two most recent calls were made on the night of July 21 and the early morning of July 22. The Coast Guard also says hoax calls distract rescuers from real emergencies, putting both the public and the responding crews at risk. ||||| A hoax caller in Maryland cost the Coast Guard about $500,000 in the past two years by making false distress alerts. The caller made 28 false distress alerts from Annapolis, Maryland, beginning in July 2014, according to the Coast Guard. The two most recent calls were received Thursday and Friday, the Coast Guard reported. They also said they determined the calls to have originated from Annapolis, between Loretta Heights and Admiral Drive. The estimated cost of the responses to these false alarms is $500,000. The Coast Guard provided an audio file of the caller, in which the caller repeats “mayday” -- a word used to indicate distress at sea. Making false distress calls is a felony, punishable by a maximum of six years in prison, a $10,000 civil fine, $250,000 criminal fine and a reimbursement to the Coast Guard for their efforts, the Coast Guard said. The Coast Guard also said such false distress alerts detract from their ability to respond to actual alerts. “A hoax call is a deadly and serious offense,” said Lt. Cmdr. Sara Wallace, who heads the response sector in Maryland. “Calls like these not only put our crews at risk, but they put the lives of the public at risk.” Anyone with information about the caller is asked to contact the Coast Guard's regional command center at 410-576-2525 or email investigators at CGIS-Baltimore@uscg.mil.

– The US Coast Guard says it's looking for a man who has cost the service about $500,000 after responding to nearly 30 of his fake distress calls, reports the AP. In a press release published Friday, the Coast Guard says the 28 calls have originated from around the area of Annapolis, Maryland. Each call involved the same male voice and used an emergency radio channel. He's been making the calls since July 2014. The two most recent calls were made on the night of July 21 and the early morning of July 22. “A hoax call is a deadly and serious offense,” a Coast Guard rep tells NBC4, which notes that such calls are a felony that carry six years in prison, $10,000 civil fine, $250,000 criminal fine, and reimbursement to the Coast Guard. "Calls like these not only put our crews at risk, but they put the lives of the public at risk.”

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan is set to unveil a new approach that would preserve the 46-year-old federal health program in its current form. (Joshua Roberts/BLOOMBERG) House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, who has been castigated by Democrats and hailed by Republicans for his plan to privatize Medicare, will on Thursday unveil a new approach that would preserve the 46-year-old federal health program. Working with Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden (Ore.), the Wisconsin Republican is developing a framework that would offer traditional, government-run Medicare as an option for future retirees along with a variety of private plans. Seniors would still receive a set amount of money from the government to buy insurance, as they would under the Medicare proposal Ryan included in the budget blueprint that passed the House last year. But the new approach would let that subsidy, known as premium support, rise or fall along with the actual cost of the policies — creating more protection for seniors and saving potentially far less in the budget. Wyden is the first elected Democrat to publicly endorse Ryan’s premium support plan, and their unusual alliance could complicate election-year politics for both parties on an explosive issue. In recent days, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has embraced the Ryan privatization plan, and GOP front-runner Newt Gingrich has offered qualified support. Democrats, meanwhile, have been gearing up to challenge the GOP across the board on the issue, accusing Republicans of pushing to “end the Medicare guarantee.” Ryan and Wyden said in an interview Tuesday that they joined forces in hopes of lifting the Medicare debate above the divisive political rhetoric and forging a genuine compromise that could save the program along with the government’s solvency. Since unveiling his premium support plan last spring, Ryan has been working with Democrats to modify the idea to build bipartisan support. “We want to demonstrate that there is an emerging consensus developing on how to preserve Medicare. We want to move that consensus forward,” Ryan said. “This program’s got to be reformed to be saved. The country’s at stake.” Wyden said that adding traditional Medicare to Ryan’s premium support plan combines the best ideas of both parties, creating “the opportunity for progressives and conservatives to come together and address the real challenges” of the federal entitlement program: rising health costs and an aging population. “There’s a lot to work with here in terms of trying to find common ground,” Wyden said. “This doesn’t end Medicare as we know it. People can go to bed knowing that traditional Medicare will be there for them for all time.” The pair said they would not draft legislation. With Congress at an impasse over more immediate deadline matters, such as the extension of a temporary payroll tax cut, Ryan said he does not expect action on major issues such as Medicare until a new Congress is seated in 2013. “There’s no point in drafting legislation if you know it’s not going to pass,” Ryan said. Ryan and Wyden, a longtime advocate for seniors, plan to release their proposal at a breakfast Thursday morning hosted by the Bipartisan Policy Center, one of many players in the year-long debate over the national debt. The center formed its own debt-reduction committee, chaired by former senator Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) and former Clinton budget director Alice Rivlin, who has also worked with Ryan on his premium support approach to Medicare. The avenue Ryan and Wyden have chosen, which would take effect for new retirees beginning in 2022, closely parallels that advocated by Rivlin. It would not only preserve Medicare but would add catastrophic coverage with a cap on out-of-pocket costs. And where Ryan’s initial plan would have tied the amount of the government subsidy to inflation — regardless of the cost of the policies — he and Wyden adopted Rivlin’s recommendation to let the subsidies grow slightly faster than the overall economy. That’s the same standard for Medicare spending set last year by President Obama’s health legislation. Ryan and Wyden acknowledged that their plan might not bring in more savings than under the current law. But they said that by forcing private insurers to bid to provide Medicare coverage and encouraging beneficiaries to choose the plan with the lowest costs, the measure could drive costs down lower than the price controls that the current law would impose on the private sector. If costs continued to rise nonetheless, beneficiaries would not have to bear the burden, the lawmakers said; Congress would be required to take further action. In a paper to be presented Thursday, the lawmakers stressed their commitment to providing government health coverage for people older than 65 — a stark contrast to the views of some in the GOP presidential field who have questioned the constitutionality of the federal entitlement. “As representatives of hard-working Americans in Oregon and Southern Wisconsin, we realize our absolute responsibility to preserve the Medicare guarantee of affordable, accessible health care for every one of the nation’s seniors for decades to come,” the lawmakers wrote. “We are two Members of Congress who firmly believe in the iron-clad guarantee of the Medicare program, and this belief has informed our understanding of the unacceptable risk to our seniors’ health and retirement security if we do not come together as a country and take action to save and strengthen Medicare,” they said. The plan also makes no mention of the Affordable Care Act, Obama’s signature health-care legislation, which Ryan and other Republicans have vowed to repeal. “We’re basically saying we’re not going to debate the ACA,” Wyden said. “That will drive everybody off into their corners.” ||||| Paul Ryan moves away from controversial Medicare reform plan By Sam Baker - Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) is moving away from his controversial plan to end traditional Medicare, putting forward a new proposal with Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) that would keep the federally funded program in place. The plan, which Ryan and Wyden plan to unveil Thursday morning, would give Medicare beneficiaries a choice between today's Medicare and private health plans. Ryan’s first Medicare plan would have converted the entire program into subsidies for seniors to buy private insurance. That proposal became a political lightning rod after it was released. Democrats argued that Republicans wanted to end Medicare and said they would use the issue as a weapon against the GOP in the 2012 elections. All of the Republican candidates running for the White House have had to stake out positions on Ryan's plan. Newt Gingrich, the front-runner for the GOP nomination, had to apologize to Ryan after calling his budget "right-wing social engineering." The new approach from Ryan and Wyden has been championed by former Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) and Alice Rivlin, who led the White House budget office under President Clinton. Although the change is a significant departure from Ryan’s earlier proposal, Wyden’s involvement could also muddy Democrats’ campaign message of preserving Medicare against the threat of privatization. “We want to demonstrate that there is an emerging consensus developing on how to preserve Medicare. We want to move that consensus forward,” Ryan told the Washington Post. Ryan and Wyden are scheduled to release their proposal Thursday morning at an event hosted by the Bipartisan Policy Center. —This post has been updated. ||||| Dow Jones Reprints: This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies for distribution to your colleagues, clients or customers, use the Order Reprints tool at the bottom of any article or visit www.djreprints.com Republican Rep. Paul Ryan unveiled a new Medicare proposal Thursday that would give future seniors the choice of purchasing private insurance coverage or staying in the traditional federal plan. The concept, which is backed by Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, steps back from the House budget chairman's previous plan to end the traditional fee-for-service Medicare program for future retirees and replace it with subsidies starting at $8,000 that seniors would use to purchase private health plans. That subsidy wasn't guaranteed to keep pace with the rate of ...

– Paul Ryan looks to be backing off his controversial plan to scrap Medicare entirely—the one Newt Gingrich famously derided as "right-wing social engineering," reports the Hill. Instead, the GOP congressman and Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden will unveil a new strategy tomorrow that would allow the program to remain but force it to compete against private plans. Seniors would have the choice of which route to take. But even if it manages to get through, the proposal would not take effect until 2022 or affect any seniors currently in the program, notes the Wall Street Journal. “We want to demonstrate that there is an emerging consensus developing on how to preserve Medicare," Ryan tells the Washington Post. "This program’s got to be reformed to be saved. The country's at stake." The shift will complicate Democratic plans to go after Republicans as Medicare-killers in the upcoming election, notes the Hill.

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — A bag carried to the moon aboard the Apollo 11 spacecraft and used for the first sample of lunar material is at the center a legal fight after the government mistakenly sold it during the criminal case against the former director of the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center. The white bag — which was flown to the moon on Apollo 11 in June 1969 and has lunar material embedded in its fabric — is "a rare artifact, if not a national treasure," the government said. The dispute is the latest legal twist in the case of Max Ary, the founder and longtime director of the Cosmosphere in Hutchinson who was convicted in November 2005 for stealing and selling museum artifacts. At issue in his prosecution were hundreds of missing space artifacts and memorabilia. Some were on loan from NASA to the Cosmosphere. The lunar bag was discovered in 2003 during the execution of a search warrant in a box located in Ary's garage. On Wednesday, the U.S. Attorney's Office asked a federal judge to set aside the final forfeiture order and rescind the bag's sale, saying that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration was not properly notified of its forfeiture because the bag was misidentified. The bag was sold at a government auction on Feb. 15, 2015 for $995 to Nancy Carlson in Inverness, Illinois. NASA learned the Apollo 11 bag had been sold without notice or permission when Carlson sent it to NASA at the Johnson Space Center in Houston for authentication. Carlson separately sued NASA in June in a federal court in Illinois, seeking the return of the bag. Federal prosecutors want the federal judge in Kansas who handled Ary's criminal case and subsequent forfeiture to rescind the sale and refund Carlson her money. Apparently, two lunar bags were confused as one and the same after inventory identification numbers of them were combined on spreadsheets, the government said. The other bag was an Apollo 17 lunar sample bag that was flown to the lunar surface aboard the Lunar Module Challenger. That bag was sold by Ary at a 2001 auction for $24,150, and it was later recovered by the government during its investigation. Ary, who was president and CEO of the Cosmosphere from 1976 to 2002, was sentenced to three years in prison and ordered to pay $132,274 in restitution. He has since been released from prison after serving about 70 percent of his sentence. He has always maintained his innocence, saying he accidentally mixed museum artifacts with ones he collected and sold privately from his home. ||||| The bag used by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to collect the first samples of lunar rock was accidentally sold at a government auction last year. Is the English language becoming less significant in Europe after Brexit? Why migrants, en route to the United States, are pausing in Mexico Why the new health-care bill may keep affordable care out of reach for some The Apollo 11 Lunar Module ascent stage, with astronauts Neil A. Armstrong and Edwin E. Aldrin Jr. aboard, is photographed from the Command and Service Modules in lunar orbit in this July, 1969 file photo. Nearly 50 years after the first lunar landing, an artifact from the Apollo 11 mission has become the center of a new legal dispute. Federal prosecutors are seeking to recover a white sample bag that had been used on the Apollo 11 lunar landing. The bag was collected in a criminal investigation against Max Ary, founder and former director of the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center, and mistakenly sold at a government auction in 2015. Government officials called the bag “a rare artifact, if not a national treasure,” the Associated Press reports. On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first people to walk on the moon. They used the bag in question to collect the first samples of lunar rock. In 2005, Mr. Ary was convicted of stealing and selling hundreds of space artifacts, many on loan from NASA to the Cosmosphere. Investigators discovered the lunar bag during a search of Ary’s garage in 2003. More than a decade later, the bag was sold at a government auction to Nancy Carlson, an Illinois resident. Carlson purchased the bag for $995 and later shipped it to NASA’s Johnson Space Center for authentication. NASA, who had apparently not been notified of the bag’s sale, withheld the artifact. In June, Carlson sued the agency in an Illinois federal court, seeking the bag’s return. Federal prosecutors have asked the federal judge who handled Ary’s case to rescind the sale and refund Carlson. Officials say the confusion stems from an internal clerical error, in which two separate lunar bags were given the same inventory identification number. The other was a sample bag from the most recent lunar mission, Apollo 17, launched in 1972. In 2001, Ary auctioned the second bag for over $20,000. It was later recovered by investigators. In 2006, Ary was sentenced to three years in prison and ordered to pay over $130,000 in restitution. In 2008, he made an unsuccessful bid to appeal his conviction. Ary was released on good behavior in 2010, having served about 70 percent of his sentence. He has consistently maintained innocence, claiming that he accidentally mixed museum artifacts with items from his private collection. This report contains material from the Associated Press.

– A priceless bag used during the first moon walk was accidentally sold at a government auction, and is now the center of a legal dispute, the AP reports. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin tucked moon rocks into the white sack they took with them during the Apollo 11 mission in July 1969. After discovering the bag was hawked last year, the government is now scrambling to reverse the sale. The bag is embedded with space material and is "a rare artifact, if not a national treasure," officials say. Although a clerical error was to blame for the sale, the bag caper dates back to the case brought against Max Ary, the ex-director of the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center, who was convicted in 2005 of stealing and selling museum artifacts. The Apollo 11 bag was among hundreds of items found during a search of his garage. Then the government accidentally sold the bag at auction in 2015. Nancy Carlson, the Illinois woman who bought it for $995, sent it to NASA to confirm it was the real deal. It was—and surprised NASA officials kept it instead of returning it, touching off a legal fight. It turns out the bag was given the same inventory identification number as a similar one used on the final Apollo 17 mission in 1972, the Christian Science Monitor reports. (Ary had sold that one in 2001 for $24,150. It was eventually recovered.) Carlson sued in June to have the bag returned to her, but federal prosecutors are asking a judge to rescind the sale. Astronauts called the lunar bags the “purse.” After Armstrong’s death in 2012, his widow found one of them, filled with space-related objects, in a closet.

Crawl of outlinks from wikipedia.org started March, 2016. These files are currently not publicly accessible. Properties of this collection. It has been several years since the last time we did this. For this collection, several things were done: 1. Turned off duplicate detection. This collection will be complete, as there is a good chance we will share the data, and sharing data with pointers to random other collections, is a complex problem. 2. For the first time, did all the different wikis. The original runs were just against the enwiki. This one, the seed list was built from all 865 collections. ||||| 6 years ago (CNN) - A new book, now number six on the New York Times' Best Sellers list, is putting the so-called "birther" issue back on the national stage. "Where's the Birth Certificate?" by Jerome Corsi, which debuted on the list out Sunday, argues President Obama is not a natural-born U.S. citizen and therefore cannot be president. "Corsi demonstrates conclusively that no legal authority has ever verified Obama's legal eligibility to be president," the book reads. Corsi also wrote "The Obama Nation" and "Unfit for Command," a 2004 book about Sen. John Kerry that focused on the "Swift Boat" television ads. The "birther" controversy was front-and-center earlier this year, as billionaire businessman and real estate mogul Donald Trump repeatedly discussed the issue while considering a run for the White House. President Obama ultimately released the long-form version of his birth certificate that shows he was born in Hawaii on August 4, 1961. Soon after, Trump announced he would not make a bid for the GOP presidential nomination. Despite the president's actions, 17 percent of Americans think the president was definitely or probably not born in the U.S., according to a recent CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll taken after the president's announcement. The survey showed a drop from the March poll numbers when 25 percent of those surveyed said the president was definitely or probably not born in America.

– We’ve seen the long form certificate, but the birther issue just won’t die. Author Jerome Corsi’s new book Where’s the Birth Certificate? debuts at number six on the New York Times’ Best Sellers list out Sunday, according to CNN. The book argues that President Obama’s citizenship has never been verified by a legal authority. Despite the White House release of the president's Certificate of Live Birth, 17% of Americans think he was definitely or probably not born in the US, according to a recent poll taken after Obama's birth certificate announcement.

When you think you've seen it all, you are always proven wrong. The inhumanity of human's is unbearable at times. A young (1-2 y/o) Golden was found as a stray and brought into the Lancaster Shelter with burns down his entire back. Our doctors believe that either lighter fluid or gasoline was poured down his entire back and he was purposely set on fire!! He is being treated at AMC now for severe burns and we are hoping to stave off infection which is what we are most concerned about at this point. The nerves are actually "killed" by such deep burns so thankfully he is not really in pain since he was in the shelter for several days in this condition before we were able to secure his release. We have named him Fergus - Irish for Powerful. And of course like all Golden's he is still loving and forgiving and just wanted to be held.. We are totally dependent upon you, our friends, for help with all of the vet bills. Any donations are always so very much appreciated so we can always be there when dogs like Fergus. Bless you Barry Jacobs for waiting in line today for three hours and driving for another two and saving this baby.... (WE LATER FOUND OUT IT WAS NOT CAUSED BY FIRE, BUT WORSE, BY ACID BEING POURED ON HIM - DOWN THE LENGTH OF HIS BODY!!) Help spread the word! Share Tweet 1.9k total shares total shares ||||| At least 7 dogs have been found, or brought to local shelters, with what appears to be chemical burns on their backs. The L.A. County Board of Supervisors is offering a $25,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and/or conviction of a suspect in connection with apparent chemical attacks involving domestic dogs in the Antelope Valley and surrounding communities. (Photo courtesy of Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department) Los Angeles County officials hope a $25,000 reward will help solve the mystery of who is chemically burning dogs in the Antelope Valley. The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved Tuesday Supervisor Michael Antonovich’s request to offer a $25,000 reward for information about the dogs that leads to the perpetrator. A golden retriever and at least six pit bulls were found in the past year in Lancaster, Palmdale and Rosamond in Kern County with chemical burns. A golden retriever, named Fergus, suffered from third-degree burns on its neck and back was brought to the Lancaster animal shelter Aug. 11 and subsequently turned over to the Animal Medical Center of Southern California in West Los Angeles. The Sheriff’s Department and the county Department of Animal Care and Control are investigating a number of incidents of suspected animal cruelty. Investigators are trying to determine if the injuries are accidental or are intentional crimes. The reward offer is contingent on providing information that leads to the arrest and conviction of the person or people responsible. “We hope that the reward will encourage someone that may have heard something to step forward with information that may lead us to the person who committed these really depraved acts of cruelty,” Antonovich spokesman Tony Bell said. Sheriff’s officials encouraged members of the public to report similar acts of animal cruelty. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has offered a $2,500 reward in this case. A GoFundMe page has also raised $25,000 as of Tuesday. Anyone with information is asked to call investigator Rachel Montez-Kemp at L.A. County Animal Care and Control at 661-974-8096 or Deputy Daniel Gore at the Lancaster Sheriff’s Station at 661-940-3851 or 661-948-8466. To provide information anonymously, call “Crime Stoppers” at 800-222-TIPS (8477), or text the letters TIPLA plus the tip to CRIMES (274637) or at http://lacrimestoppers.org. ||||| The Board of Supervisors on Tuesday approved Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich ’s motion for the reward in connection with at least seven attacks since July on dogs in both L.A. and Kern counties. Dogs have been found with long burns on their back. Authorities believe they may be caused by a caustic chemical. Two of the dogs were so severely injured that they were euthanized. ||||| Crissie was brought to Lancaster shelter. She had chemical burns down her neck and back. Doggy Smiles Rescue saved her from the shelter. We now need funds to pay for her medical care.The burns went deep into her flesh. They are gaping open and bleeding.It has been two weeks since she came to the shelter.Please help us raise funds to help this loving girl. Even in her obvious pain, she is so sweet and such a love bug!Crissie deserves a chance to receive the best medical care. ||||| People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals offered a $2,500 reward Thursday for information leading to the person or people who severely burned a golden retriever, possibly with battery acid, in the Lancaster area. “It takes a dangerous lack of empathy to pour acid on a dog and leave him for dead on the side of the road,” PETA Senior Director Colleen O’Brien said. “PETA is urging anyone with information about this case to come forward now before anyone else is hurt.” The dog, who has been named “Fergus,” was brought to a Lancaster animal shelter Aug. 11 and subsequently turned over to the Animal Medical Center of Southern California in West Los Angeles for treatment, with the help of the Southern California Golden Retriever Rescue Group. Fergus was apparently taken to the shelter by a good Samaritan who found the wounded animal suffering from severe burns on its head and back. Los Angeles County sheriff’s officials have begun an investigation in hopes of finding the person or people responsible. Three other dogs have been found with similar injuries in recent weeks, at least two of them also in the Antelope Valley, although investigators have not officially linked the cases. Two of the other dogs have died. Doctors at the Animal Medical Center said Fergus is making an almost miraculous recovery. NBC4 reported Wednesday that one of its viewers had offered a $2,000 reward for information leading to the suspect or suspects. Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich said he will ask his board colleagues on Sept. 1 to approve a $10,000 reward. “With this reward, we hope to encourage the public to come forth with any information that will help us identify, apprehend and prosecute whomever is responsible for these depraved acts of cruelty,” he said. A Gofundme page was set up by the Golden Retriever Rescue Group in hopes of raising $10,000 to cover the dog’s medical costs. As of midday Thursday, more than $19,000 had already been raised. Rescue Group officials said excess funds will be used to assist other dogs in the group’s care.

– Since July, at least seven dogs in and around Los Angeles County have been burned, likely with battery acid or another chemical—and now the county is offering a $25,000 reward for help finding the person or people behind the attacks. Two of the dogs (some of which have also been attacked in Kern County) were euthanized as a result of the attacks, the Los Angeles Times reports. Most of the injured animals have been pit bulls, but a golden retriever was also burned in the attacks, the Los Angeles Daily News reports. Authorities also released a photo of an injured cocker spaniel. "We hope that the reward will encourage someone that may have heard something to step forward with information that may lead us to the person who committed these really depraved acts of cruelty," says a spokesperson for LA County Supervisor Michael Antonovich. PETA is also offering a $2,500 reward, the Daily News reports. Money is being raised for at least two of the dogs online; their GoFundMe pages are here and here. (In happier news, these 100 dogs were saved from becoming dinner.)

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. moved forward on Wednesday with his latest attempt to garner attention for widely condemned anti-vaccine arguments — ones that have earned him a meeting with President Donald Trump — by announcing a $100,000 “challenge” to prove the safety of vaccines. “We need a debate,” Kennedy declared at the news conference, claiming he has also spoken with White House staff several times in the last month to discuss the creation of a Trump administration panel to examine vaccine safety. Kennedy, the son of the late US Attorney General, is a longtime environmental activist. He gained notoriety with a 2014 book arguing that a mercury-based preservative called thimerosal, used only in some flu vaccines since 1999, was linked to autism. His claims have been denounced repeatedly by medical organizations and physicians. “I’m a vaccine scientist. I’m also the father of an adult daughter with autism,” Peter Hotez, president of the Sabin Vaccine Institute, told BuzzFeed News. “Not only is there an abundance of evidence showing that vaccines are safe, there’s not even any plausibility of an association [with autism].” Last week, amidst growing attention to the issue, 350 medical organizations led by the American Academy of Pediatrics signed a 28-page letter to President Trump expressing "unequivocal support" for the safety of vaccines. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention clearly states that there is “no link between vaccines and autism.” It’s an issue that Trump has raised several times however, both on the campaign trail and as president. On Tuesday, in a conversation with educators and Betsy DeVos, Trump noted the rising autism rate, saying, “Well, maybe we can do something.” In January, Kennedy met with Trump at Trump Tower in New York and afterwards claimed they had discussed him leading a so-called vaccine safety commission. The Trump administration later walked back Kennedy’s claims to say that the discussions to have a so-called “committee on autism” were only tentative. On Wednesday, Kennedy said that he’s been contacted by the Trump administration three times since their original meeting in January. “They tell me that they’re still going forward with a commission,” Kennedy said, adding that he “can’t tell” whether it will happen. BuzzFeed News has asked the administration for comment on these claims. But in a panel discussion at the National Press Club in Washington D.C. on Wednesday that included the actor Robert De Niro, Kennedy argued that the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, in cahoots with journalists, have been denying the dangers of vaccines, fueled largely by money pumped in by a powerful pharmaceutical industry. He called the public health agency a “cesspool of corruption” and “a vaccine company,” that hid science from the public. To that end, Kennedy announced the "World Mercury Project Challenge,” offering $100,000 to anyone who could find a scientific study that demonstrated the safety of thimerosal-containing vaccines in children and pregnant women. “What we’ve been told is not science. It’s more akin to religion. It’s orthodoxy,” Kennedy told an audience of perhaps two dozen journalists, and several thousand people watching the livestream on his group’s Facebook page. “We need to break this impasse.” De Niro, who has a son with autism, came under fire last year before pulling an anti-vaccine documentary to be shown at the Tribeca Film Festival. “Trump I don’t care about,” he said during the Q&A following Wednesday's event. “If he does the right thing, he does the right thing. It’s about this, period.” Kennedy’s claims, as well as his motivations with the newly announced challenge, were immediately denounced by scientists as incorrect, and as a dangerous ploy. “Press conferences like this become a distraction from the really important and hard work that needs to be done,” Hotez said. ||||| Actor Robert De Niro talks to reporters and film professionals at the 22nd Sarajevo Film Festival in Sarajevo, Bosnia, last August. (Dado Ruvic/Reuters) Cause: Vaccine safety. Specifically the debunked link between mercury found in early childhood vaccines and autism, a claim the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has unequivocally refuted. Celeb: Legendary actor Robert De Niro, who’s got a Presidential Medal of Freedom and a Kennedy Center Honor medallion to add to his stack of Hollywood trophies. What’s he doing on the panel? The 73-year-old Oscar winner was maligned last March when he initially defended the inclusion of “Vaxxed,” a documentary about the alleged danger of vaccines, at the venerable Tribeca Film Festival. After an outcry from the scientific and cinematic communities, De Niro, a founder of the festival who also has a son on the autism spectrum, pulled the film. [7 things about vaccines and autism that the movie ‘Vaxxed’ won’t tell you] Scene: It was a fiery panel at the National Press Club on Wednesday morning. Led by Robert Kennedy Jr., chairman of the World Mercury Project, the stage was stuffed with men who believed journalists had dropped the ball. Kennedy spoke for 20 minutes, pointing to a leaning tower of 240 studies, three charts and several binders threatening to burst that all, according to him, proved that certain vaccines were unsafe to a certain population of children. So certain was he in the science that Kennedy announced a $100,000 reward for any journalist (or anybody) who could produce “a single study that says it’s safe to inject mothers with the levels of mercury we are currently injecting them with.” But here’s the kicker, “You’re not gonna be able to do it. The study doesn’t exist,” said Kennedy. Also don’t call him an “anti-vaxxer.” “That’s a dirty word used to shut down debate,” he added. Kennedy made clear that he wasn’t against vaccines, he was for safe vaccines. Which is probably why President Trump has been batting around the idea of having Kennedy chair a vaccine safety commission. Kennedy has been in contact with the Trump team about the commission since December, but nothing concrete has been announced. [Cleveland Clinic doc pens viral screed against vaccines, peers call it ‘post-truth medicine’] For his part, De Niro, dressed in a dark suit, sat quietly in the middle of the stage. When it was his turn to testify to the audience of reporters, the actor was blunt: “I’m glad I’m here. I thought what Bobby said was great. It was eloquent. I couldn’t have said it better myself. I agree with him 100 percent. Thank you.” The end. Sound bite: But before the morning was through, De Niro was asked point-blank whether he planned on working with Trump, a man the actor once said he’d like to punch in the face, on this issue. “I am only concerned about this. Trump I don’t care about,” De Niro said. “If he does the right thing, he does the right thing. I don’t have to be connected with him.” ||||| W ASHINGTON — Prominent vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Wednesday that he expects the Trump administration to move forward with a vaccine safety commission and that President Trump pledged that he was “not going to back down” if the drug industry objected to the commission. Kennedy said he had spoken with presidential aides three times since his January meeting with Trump. His understanding is that a commission is still being developed, he said. “Why would anybody not want a vaccine safety commission?” he said at an event with actor Robert De Niro at the National Press Club in Washington. advertisement De Niro, whose son is autistic, said he was “only concerned” about safety issues, not politics. “Trump I don’t care about. If he does the right thing, he does the right thing,” De Niro said. Newsletters Sign up for our Morning Rounds newsletter Please enter a valid email address. Privacy Policy Leave this field empty if you're human: Kennedy said Trump’s transition team first called him in December and he first spoke with the president-elect by phone in early January. According to Kennedy, Trump said he knew the pharmaceutical industry would combat any efforts to question vaccine safety. “I’m not going to back down,” Trump said, according to Kennedy. Trump, Kennedy recalled, said he had five friends whose children seemed to have changed after receiving vaccines. Kennedy’s meeting at Trump Tower sparked outrage from scientists and public health experts, who fear the administration could give legitimacy to skeptics of childhood immunizations despite scientific research demonstrating that vaccines are safe. Many of those skeptics believe vaccines are a cause of autism. After the meeting, Kennedy said, Trump’s staff told him to speak with reporters about his discussions with the president. Hours later, however, a spokeswoman for Trump said “no decisions have been made at this time” about a possible vaccine panel. On Wednesday, Kennedy told reporters that Trump aides called him after the meeting and said they had “got out over our skis” and the concept still needed to be vetted. He added that, although he expected the commission to be established, “I can’t tell you what’s going to happen.” He said that if the commission moved forward, he would want members without existing prejudices on the issue. He said he also expected the panel would make “mild recommendations,” particularly regarding alleged conflicts of interest at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

– Despite once expressing a desire to punch him, Robert De Niro now says he's open to working President Trump—at least indirectly—on exploring the debunked link between autism and vaccines, the Washington Post reports. "If he does the right thing, he does the right thing," the actor said following a panel Wednesday at the National Press Club. The panel was led by Robert Kennedy Jr., chairman of the World Mercury Project. According to BuzzFeed News, Kennedy believes journalists are working with the CDC to bury the truth about a vaccine ingredient called thimerosal causing autism in children, and he offered a $100,000 reward to anyone who can produce a study that finds vaccines with the ingredient are safe for kids and pregnant women. De Niro, who was mostly quiet during the panel, did speak up to say he agrees with Kennedy "100%." Science, on the other hand, does not. Doctors, medical organizations, and the CDC say Kennedy's beliefs are unequivocally false. The director of a vaccine education center says seven studies published between 2000 and 2007 alone show that. Furthermore, thimerosal hasn't been used in children's vaccines since 1999 and is barely used in flu vaccines anymore, but autism rates are rising anyway, notes BuzzFeed. Kennedy met with Trump in January about heading a commission on vaccine safety. He says he's spoken to aides three times about the commission since then and expects it to happen, Stat reports. With that on the horizon, 350 medical organizations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, sent a letter to Trump last week reasserting the safety of vaccines.

Close Get email notifications on Suzanne Carlson daily! Your notification has been saved. There was a problem saving your notification. Whenever Suzanne Carlson posts new content, you'll get an email delivered to your inbox with a link. Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. ||||| “Normally, we forget things in little pieces,” Dr. Speigel said. “These people forget things in large pieces that involve what they’ve done for the last year or two years.” During a lengthy interview with The New York Times five months after her ordeal, Ms. Upp recalled nothing of her travels throughout the city. “I went from going for a run to being in the ambulance,” she said. “It was like 10 minutes had passed. But it was almost three weeks.” With the help of the police and security camera footage, Ms. Upp was able to retrace some of her journey, which included stops at Starbucks, the Midtown Apple store and several New York Sports Clubs. But she was left with plenty of questions. “It’s weird,” she said at the time. “How do you feel guilty for something you didn’t even know you did? It’s not your fault, but it’s still somehow you. So it’s definitely made me reconsider everything. Who was I before? Who was I then — is that part of me? Who am I now?” Ms. Upp left New York in 2010 and worked at a Quaker study and retreat center outside of Philadelphia, according to a newsletter written by her father. She then became a teaching assistant in Montessori schools, including one in Maryland. There, in September 2013, Ms. Upp experienced another dissociative fugue episode, this time disappearing for two days. 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. She moved to St. Thomas the next year for a new job teaching 3- to 6-year-olds at the Virgin Islands Montessori School. “Whenever we do a tour for a new family, the first classroom we visit is Hannah Upp’s,” said Michael Bornn, the head of the school. “She’s one heck of an example; she’s not just a Montessori teacher, she’s a passionate Montessori teacher.” While Ms. Upp may be suffering another dissociative fugue episode, it is far from a foregone conclusion. She could be caught up in the chaos following the two storms. Members of her family, who declined to be interviewed, instead released a statement emphasizing the unknown nature of her present condition: “Our beloved Hannah has disappeared. We do not know what has happened and we are hopeful that she will be found alive and well. Our thoughts and prayers are with Hannah and all those who continue to search tirelessly for her. We know our fear and uncertainty is shared by many others, and our hearts go out to all who wait.” Advertisement Continue reading the main story With much of St. Thomas and the surrounding region heavily damaged and many people still missing throughout the Caribbean, Ms. Upp’s disappearance “couldn’t have happened at a more difficult time,” Mr. Bornn said. Federal searchers and the Coast Guard are preoccupied with hurricane recoveries, he added, and Ms. Upp may not be “on the top of their radar.” Some of Ms. Upp’s friends and colleagues have taken matters into their own hands: Jake Bradley, an emergency medical technician who has helped to lead the search for Ms. Upp, told The Virgin Islands Daily News that “we’ve done all the physical searching that I think we can do, other than having her posters put up everywhere.” The hope, he added, is that even if Ms. Upp is in a fugue state, she will see a poster and recognize that something is wrong. Mr. Bornn, who has been in frequent communication with Ms. Upp’s family while trying to raise money to keep his school’s doors open, stressed that even in a fugue state, Ms. Upp would still be fully functional — just not as herself. “That’s one of the frustrating things we haven’t been able to get across to the public,” Mr. Bornn said. “Just because she said ‘hi’ to you, don’t take her off your radar screen. “We’re still optimistic,” he added. “We still have hope.” ||||| A young schoolteacher with a rare form of amnesia disappeared in the U.S. Virgin Islands on September 14, and remained missing as Hurricane Maria struck the region. Hannah Upp was last seen leaving her apartment on St. Thomas about 8 a.m. last Thursday. Her car was later found in a parking lot at Sapphire Beach, where locals often go to swim, and her sandals, sarong and dress were found on the beach, her colleagues tell Newsweek. Upp has a rare form of amnesia called dissociative fugue—best known as the medical condition that affected the character Jason Bourne—which can cause people to forget who they are for days or months at a time. The 32-year-old went missing in similar circumstances twice before. Upp went for a run in Manhattan in 2008 and disappeared for almost three weeks before she was found floating in the water off the southern point of the island, with no memory of the preceding weeks. She disappeared again for about two days in 2013 in Maryland, again telling police after she was found that she had no memory of where she had been or what she had done while she was missing. Facebook, courtesy Maggie Guzman Her latest disappearance is especially troubling because it comes while St. Thomas rebuilds from Hurricane Irma and as residents sheltered from Hurricane Maria late Tuesday and early Wednesday. “Last night we had six hours of heavy, heavy rain and winds, so I’m worried that she was hiding out somewhere that wasn’t safe,” Maggie Guzman, a friend and fellow teacher, tells Newsweek. “There’s a lot of things to worry about. But my hope is that she found somewhere safe to hide.” The search for Upp has been complicated and slowed by the hurricane and by poor cellphone service on the island. Upp’s colleagues filed a police report and the U.S. Coast Guard searched the ocean, but the Coast Guard had to call off the search as Hurricane Maria approached the island, according to Michael Bornn, the head of school at Virgin Islands Montessori School. Keep up with this story and more by subscribing now “We’re ducking between Category 5 hurricanes,” says Bornn, who described Upp as an energetic and loving teacher who taught 3- to 5-year-old children in both English and Spanish. “It’s hard to find her in the best of situations, and it’s even harder now with the hurricane chaos.” REUTERS/Jonathan Drake Guzman first noticed Upp was missing on Friday, when she didn’t show up at school—where Guzman and other teachers were working to rebuild. Guzman called Upp’s roommates and friends but nobody had seen her, and Upp didn’t answer her phone. “She may be confused and disoriented or not know who she is. Remember her face and look out for her,” Guzman wrote in a post on the Facebook group “What’s Going on St. Thomas,” which storm survivors have used to exchange information and search for missing people. Guzman later posted a rumor that Upp was sighted at a bar called Rum Hut—wearing a dirty tank top and a bandage on her arm—in an attempt to find out whether anyone else had seen her there. (Another resident posted that the woman in the tank top was a friend and not Upp.) Upp called her mother Tuesday after a staff meeting at Virgin Islands Montessori School and said she was safe and planned to stay on the island. “According to her mother, she sounded coherent,” Bornn, the head of school, tells Newsweek, adding that Thursday morning she left a note for friends saying she was going for a swim at Sapphire Beach and would then go to school. Photo courtesy Beverly Millard “To me, that was the last conscious act that we know of,” says Bornn, adding that Upp’s colleagues and friends have hung paper fliers around the island and have checked the hospital and shelters. Hurricane Irma hit St. Thomas last week and devastated the U.S. territory of about 50,000 people, tearing the roof off the hospital, destroying many buildings and killing at least four people. Stressful situations can trigger the symptoms of dissociative amnesia, which include “difficulty remembering important information about one’s self,” and can last from minutes to years, according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness. Facebook, Courtesy Maggie Guzman When Upp was missing in 2008, police reports said she spent a lot of time in places like Riverside Drive, which overlooks the Hudson River, according to The New York Times. After she was found, she said her attraction to the area made sense—an answer that may also shed light on why she found her way to Sapphire Beach almost 10 years later. “Not only is it one of my favorite places, but there’s something soothing about the sound of water and just not feeling trapped in the concrete jungle,” she told the newspaper in 2009. Upp’s friends worry she drowned at Sapphire Beach, was the victim of a crime or was once again struck by amnesia and is now wandering around the island, confused and hiding. Guzman says: “We’re all hoping it’s the third thing, because that’s more likely that she’s OK.”

– "It's definitely made me reconsider everything. Who was I before? Who was I then—is that part of me? Who am I now?" The New York Times reports Hannah Upp, a 32-year-old teacher in St. Thomas, disappeared Sept. 14, a week after Hurricane Irma hit the Virgin Islands. Her clothes, car, keys, cellphone, passport, and wallet were found at a beach where she had gone for a swim. Upp was still missing five days later when Hurricane Maria battered the Caribbean. Upp is far from the only person missing in the wake of the storms, but her case is unique in that she may not even know she's missing. Upp has dissociative fugue, a very rare type of amnesia made famous by the fictional Jason Bourne. "Normally, we forget things in little pieces," Dr. David Spiegel says. "These people forget things in large pieces that involve what they've done for the last year or two years." In 2008, Upp was found floating face down in New York Harbor by a ferry captain. She had been missing for three weeks at that point and remembered nothing of that period. "I went from going for a run to being in the ambulance," Upp said after her rescue. Newsweek reports Upp disappeared again in 2013 in Maryland—this time for two days. Now friends and family are hoping Upp has once again entered a fugue state and didn't drown or fall victim to a crime. "My hope is that she found somewhere safe to hide," friend Maggie Guzman says. Official resources are stretched thin responding to the two hurricanes, so Upp's friends have been searching for her and putting up posters, hoping she sees one. "If she’s in her fugue state, it would at least get her to the point where she realizes something’s wrong," friend Jake Bradley tells the Virgin Islands Daily News.

Sales of Geiger counters and potassium iodide supplements that can block some radiation have surged nationwide since Friday, fueled by concerns among some Americans that radiation released from Japanese nuclear plants could spread to the United States.But as retailers scramble to restock, experts say the chances that North America will be harmed by radiation from Japanese nuclear reactors damaged in last week's earthquake and tsunami are negligible at best."I think it's exceedingly improbable — I'd say impossible — that this accident would deliver any detectable amount of radiation at ground level in the United States," said Elmer Lewis, a nuclear expert and professor emeritus of mechanical engineering at Northwestern University. "It would be barely detectable and have absolutely no health consequences."The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said Sunday that the country is "not expected to experience any harmful levels of radioactivity."Despite those statements, potassium iodide supplements — which can protect the thyroid gland if taken before or shortly after a person is exposed to radiation but do not protect other body parts or prevent damage from other radioactive substances — are either sold out or selling quickly at several Chicago-area stores."I've had probably upwards of 100 calls in the last few days concerning this product," said Brennan Cox, an assistant manager at The Vitamin Shoppe in Lincoln Park. He said the store's handful of 2-ounce bottles were gone by Saturday.True Nature Foods in Chicago's Edgewater neighborhood also was sold out of potassium iodide Tuesday. That store and Kramers Health Foods in the Loop, which still had some potassium iodide in stock, have been unable to place new orders, employees at both stores said.Deerfield-based Walgreen Co. reported that its stores on the West Coast have been receiving inquiries about potassium iodide, but the company does not stock the product, spokesman Jim Cohn said.Meanwhile, companies that sell Geiger counters have been overwhelmed with orders."The phone has been ringing off the hook," said Raphael Karunditu, president of California-based Gamma-Scout. "We have hundreds upon hundreds of orders, and our partner in Germany is talking about thousands of orders at his site." ||||| Japan's nuclear crisis is spiking demand in the U.S. and a few other places for a cheap drug that can protect against one type of radiation damage _ even though the risk is only in Japan. This Tuesday, March 15, 2011 photo shows bottles of potassium iodide on the shelf of the Texas Star Pharmacy on Tuesday, March 15, 2011 in Plano, Texas. The pharmacy has been receiving an unusually high... (Associated Press) This Tuesday, March 15, 2011 photo shows a bottle of potassium iodide at the Texas Star Pharmacy on Tuesday, March 15, 2011 in Plano, Texas. The pharmacy has been receiving an unusually high number of... (Associated Press) Pharmacist Donna Barsky measures potassium iodide for a prescription at the Texas Star Pharmacy on Monday, March 15, 2011 in Plano, Texas. The pharmacy has been receiving an unusually high number of... (Associated Press) Pharmacist Donna Barsky measures potassium iodide for a prescription at the Texas Star Pharmacy on Tuesday, March 15, 2011 in Plano, Texas. The pharmacy has been receiving an unusually high number of... (Associated Press) Health agencies in California and western Canada warned Tuesday that there's no reason for people an ocean away to suddenly stock up on potassium iodide. Some key suppliers say they're back-ordered and are getting panicked calls from potential customers. "Tell them, `Stop, don't do it,'" said Kathryn Higley, director of radiation health physics at Oregon State University. "There's a lot of mythology about the use of potassium iodide," added Dr. Irwin Redlener, a pediatrician and disaster preparedness specialist at Columbia University. "It's not a radiation antidote in general." The pill can help prevent radioactive iodine from causing thyroid cancer, for which children are most at risk in a nuclear disaster. Japan's Nuclear Safety Agency has stored potassium iodide to distribute in case of high radiation exposure, and the U.S. Navy is giving it to military crews exposed to radiation as they help with relief efforts in Japan. But government and independent experts say that Americans have little to fear from any radiation released by the damaged Japanese nuclear plant. "You just aren't going to have any radiological material that, by the time it traveled those large distances, could present any risk to the American public," said Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Greg Jazcko. Other governments echoed that warning. "We do not expect any health risk following the nuclear reactor releases in Japan, nor is the consumption of potassium iodide tablets a necessary precaution," British Columbia's health ministry told the public Tuesday. In Russia, where memory of the very different Chernobyl disaster 25 years ago is strong, media reports said pharmacies in Vladivostok, a major port just west of Japan, had run out of the pills. "The mass media tells us that the wind is blowing the other way, that radiation poses no threat. But people are a mess," Valentina Chupina, a nanny in Vladivostok, said in a comment posted on the website of the newspaper Delovoi Peterburg. She said people don't believe the government will warn them if something goes wrong so potassium iodide is being bought up in the pharmacies. In the U.S., whether people fear fallout from Japan or a nuclear accident here, potassium iodide seems to have become something of a hot commodity. "I feel strongly there is a high likelihood we will have radiation coming from Japan," said Tammy Lahutsky as she waited at the Texas Star Pharmacy in Plano, Texas on Tuesday. There's not, but she bought six bottles for herself and a friend, anyway. "I can't tell you how many women are calling up in tears," said Alan Morris, president of Anbex Inc., a leading supplier. His order line ringing in the background, Morris said the company had sold out of more than 10,000 14-pill packages and doesn't expect more supply until April. Internet seller NukePills.com donated 50,000 potassium iodide tablets to a physician-run disaster-relief team in Japan, pills not suitable for U.S. retail sale because of packaging issues and expiration dates. Regardless, "these pills really needed to go where people were in the most dire need," said company president Troy Jones. Meanwhile, he said he's taken over 6,000 orders since Friday and is selling a liquid version until more pills become available. What does this drug do? Potassium iodide, a salt also known as KI, has just one use: It shields the thyroid from radioactive iodine. It blocks no other type of radiation, and protects no other body part. The drug, either pill or liquid form, is sold over-the-counter and is considered safe, although some people may experience allergic reactions. Potassium iodide is most important for children and pregnant women, because a growing thyroid is much more active and more likely to absorb radioactive iodine, said Columbia's Redlener. It should be given within a few hours of radiation exposure _ but isn't considered that useful for people over age 40. At the same time, the crisis renews a question that the U.S. government has debated for years: Should people keep small supplies of potassium iodide on hand in case of a local radiation emergency? The federal government already stockpiles the drug, and offers enough for states also to keep on hand to treat every resident within 10 miles of a nuclear reactor. About 22 states have requested or received some of those doses, and localities periodically offer free supplies for nearby residents to store themselves. But radiation health specialists debate whether a 10-mile radius is big enough _ and whether people should store their own. Some are pushing the Obama administration to reconsider. Obama health officials wouldn't comment Tuesday. "My feeling is I would have every household within of a plant have it in their medicine cabinet," said Redlener, adding that the Japan crisis illustrates the difficulty of getting pills from a central warehouse to panicked people during an emergency. Even on the East Coast, some health departments reported increased interest from power-plant neighbors Tuesday: A Pennsylvania hotline that normally gets five to 10 calls a week about storing the pills has fielded 85 such inquiries in the past two days.

– An ocean away from the unfolding nuclear crisis in Japan, worried Americans are stocking up on Geiger counters and supplements that can block one effect of radiation exposure. Pharmacies around the country are rapidly running out of potassium iodide, which can protect the thyroid gland from radiation damage, the AP reports. Suppliers say they are receiving calls from panicked customers, but experts say Americans shouldn't worry about being exposed to radiation from Japan, and shouldn't bother buying potassium iodide unless they live near a nuclear plant. "I think it's exceedingly improbable—I'd say impossible—that this accident would deliver any detectable amount of radiation at ground level in the United States," a nuclear expert tells the Los Angeles Times. "It would be barely detectable and have absolutely no health consequences."

A battle of nerves between Essex Police and a suspected drug dealer has ended after he successfully refused to go to the toilet. Twitter users have been keeping track of Essex Police's #PooWatch, which offered updates on the case of a man suspected of swallowing a stash of Class A drugs. Lamarr Chambers was arrested in Harlow on 17 January and has spent 47 days in custody refusing to go to the toilet. The police, frustrated by the lack of movement in the case and in the suspect, were forced to release him on "medical and legal advice". Despite failing to deliver the goods, the 24-year-old was released from custody on 5 March. Chambers had daily visits from doctors, was under constant surveillance and was routinely given food and water. He denied medical treatment and opportunities to visit hospital. The Crown Prosecution Service have discontinued the charges against Mr Chambers in relation to possession with intent to supply a Class A drug and driving matters. However, Chambers was subsequently re-arrested by Essex Police on suspicion of being concerned in the supply of a Class A drug. He has been released on bail and was taken by police car, in the company of a medical professional, to hospital for treatment. Police had applied for custody extensions at seven court hearings as they waited for Chambers, from Brixton in south London, to go for a poo. ||||| Image copyright Essex Police Image caption Lamarr Chambers was arrested in Harlow in January Prosecutors have dropped their case against a suspected drug dealer who refused to use the toilet after allegedly swallowing substances. Lamarr Chambers, 24, of Villa Road in Brixton, had been arrested during a police chase in Essex, on 17 January. Essex Police said it had released him following 47 days in custody after getting medical and legal advice. The Crown Prosecution Service said it discontinued drug charges against him because of "insufficient evidence". It is understood it is the longest anyone has gone without going to the toilet while in custody. Charges Mr Chambers faced relating to driving matters, following his arrest in Harlow, were dropped "in the public interest", prosecutors said. How your body reacts to not pooing for 20 days However, police said he was subsequently rearrested on suspicion of being concerned in the supply of a Class A drug and has been released on bail. Following his release from custody on Monday, Mr Chambers was taken to hospital and is understood to have since been treated, Essex Police said. The force said that while he was being held, he was routinely supplied with food and water and received medical visits every day. Despite this, nothing was passed by Mr Chambers, who also routinely declined medical treatment and the opportunity to visit hospital, it said. Deputy Chief Constable BJ Harrington said: "Where detainees are suspected of ingesting or concealing drugs inside their body, we must balance overseeing their welfare and ensuring that all evidence is captured to ensure the best possible chance of prosecution. "We will... not shy away from talking about the unpleasant truths that go hand in hand with the drug dealing lifestyle, from the violence often perpetrated by those involved to the expectation on dealers to 'plug' drugs to avoid capture." Reporting restrictions placed on the case at an earlier hearing at Chelmsford Magistrates' Court were lifted.

– Lamarr Chambers fought the law, and the law came in No. 2—all over some No. 2. The BBC reports "poo watch" has officially ended in the UK, with the 24-year-old released on Monday after 47 days in custody in which he refused to have a bowel movement. Chambers was arrested in Essex on Jan. 17, and police suspected the alleged drug dealer had swallowed his stash—and decided to wait him out. It didn't work after what Sky News reports was seven court hearings in which police sought custody extensions, and even though Chambers ate and drank daily. Prosecutors decided to drop the charges—possession with intent to supply—against him due to "insufficient evidence," though he was then re-arrested by police on different drug charges—suspicion of being concerned in the supply. He was released on bail; Chambers was then taken to a hospital and treated. The BBC reports it's believed to be the longest anyone in custody has gone without pooping, though the human body can go longer. Newser previously reported that a 16-year-old British girl died in 2013 after she reportedly did not have a bowel movement for eight weeks. (This remains one classic story of a poop gone wrong.)

Hospitals should cremate or bury aborted foetuses rather than incinerating them, the medical director of the NHS in England says. The move by Prof Sir Bruce Keogh comes after it emerged that some hospitals have been burning foetuses as clinical waste. Channel 4 Dispatches programme says 10 NHS trusts have been burning remains alongside rubbish. It claims two more disposed of bodies in incinerators used to heat hospitals. Health minister Dr Dan Poulter said this practice was "totally unacceptable". "That is why I have asked Professor Sir Bruce Keogh, NHS medical director, to write to all NHS hospital trusts, to make it clear that it must stop now. I am disappointed trusts may not be informing or consulting women and their families Professor Mike Richards, Care Quality Commission "The chief medical officer has also written to the Human Tissue Authority to ask them to make sure that there is clear guidance on this issue. "While the vast majority of hospitals are acting in the appropriate way, that must be the case for all hospitals and the Human Tissue Authority has now been asked to ensure that it acts on this issue without delay." 'Disappointed' The HTA has a code of practice for the disposal of human tissue, which includes foetal remains, that hospitals should follow. It says women who have had an abortion or miscarriage should be informed that there are different options available - burial, cremation and incineration. It says disposal via incineration should be handled as "sensitive" and therefore should not be done alongside the burning of waste. In his letter, Prof Keogh says he believes it would be better not to use incineration at all. "While it is acknowledged that incineration is not illegal across the UK, existing professional guidance makes clear that the practice is inappropriate. "I share the view that incineration of fetal remains is inappropriate practice and that other methods offer more dignity in these sensitive situations." The Dispatches programme claims some women were not told that their aborted foetus would be incinerated as waste. Professor Sir Mike Richards, chief inspector of hospitals, from the Care Quality Commission, said: "I am disappointed trusts may not be informing or consulting women and their families. This breaches our standard on respecting and involving people who use services and I'm keen for Dispatches to share their evidence with us. "We scrutinise information of concern and can inspect unannounced, if required." Sands, the stillbirth and neonatal death charity, said the practice of incinerating pre-24 week foetuses is unacceptable and that whenever possible, cremation should be used instead. A spokesperson said: "Research has shown that the stage the pregnancy has reached when the baby dies is not an accurate predictor of the length and depth of the grief the parents will experience. "Foetus is not a term that parents use or that should be used with them. From the day the pregnancy is confirmed they are expecting a baby. "The death of a baby at any stage of pregnancy is a major bereavement with life long consequences. "The care that parents receive cannot lessen their pain, but poor and insensitive care can and does make matters worse both in the short and the long term." In 2011, 189,931 abortions were carried out in England and Wales, mostly on the NHS. ||||| Amanda Holden leads campaign to stop NHS hospitals secretly burning miscarried foetuses without parents’ knowledge Investigation finds thousands of miscarried babies have been incinerated Uncovered as part of Channel 4 Dispatches programme hosted by actress Britain's Got Talent host leads campaign after suffering miscarriage in 2010 Addenbrooke’s Hospital burned 797 foetuses at its 'waste to energy' plant Actress Amanda Holden, who suffered a miscarriage herself in 2010, and delivered a stillborn son in 2011, is hosting Channel 4's Ending Hospital Heartache Thousands of miscarried and aborted babies have been incinerated by NHS hospitals without their mothers’ knowledge, an investigation has found. The government was forced to ban the practice after it emerged that 15,500 foetal remains have been incinerated by 27 trusts over the last two years alone. The bodies are being burned as ‘clinical waste’, while at two trusts they were put into ‘waste-to-energy’ furnaces which generate power for hospitals. One devastated mother who suffered a miscarriage was told her child would be ‘incinerated with the rest of the day’s waste’. The scandal of how the NHS treats parents who lose a child in early pregnancy was uncovered as part of a Channel 4 Dispatches programme to be broadcast tonight. Last night health minister Dan Poulter stepped in to order an immediate ban on incinerating foetal remains. ‘This practice is totally unacceptable,’ he said. ‘That is why I have asked Professor Sir Bruce Keogh, NHS medical director, to write to all NHS hospital trusts, to make it clear that it must stop now. ‘The Chief Medical Officer has also written to the Human Tissue Authority to ask them to make sure that there is clear guidance on this issue. ‘While the vast majority of hospitals are acting in the appropriate way, that must be the case for all hospitals and the Human Tissue Authority has now been asked to ensure that it acts on this issue without delay.’ Cathryn Hurley, 35, found out during a 13-week pregnancy scan that her baby had died at eight weeks, and later underwent a medical procedure to remove the foetus. She said: ‘I was hysterical. I was crying. I asked one of the nurses what would happen to my baby; and she just said - well, it will be incinerated with the rest of the day’s waste. ‘That was really difficult to hear because to me it wasn’t waste, it was my baby.’ The trust involved cannot be named for legal reasons. The programme reveals that Addenbrooke’s in Cambridge incinerated 797 babies below 13 weeks’ gestation at their own ‘waste to energy’ plant. Channel 4 programme Dispatches: Ending Hospital Heartache reveals how Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge, pictured, incinerated 797 babies below 13 weeks' gestation at their own 'waste to energy' plant Forms handed to women at the hospitals say the remains are ‘cremated’ - making no mention of ‘incineration’. It goes against advice from Sands, the neonatal death charity, which states that incineration, under which the remains are burned along with the rest of the waste, ‘must not be called cremation’. Another ‘waste to energy’ facility at Ipswich Hospital has incinerated 1,101 foetal remains between 2011/12 and 2012/13. They were brought in from another hospital before being burned, generating energy for the hospital site. Ipswich hospital itself uses cremation, and the furnace facility is run by a private company. The programme is hosted by actress and Britain’s Got Talent star Amanda Holden, who suffered a miscarriage herself in 2010, and delivered a stillborn son in 2011. The bodies are being burned as 'clinical waste', while at two trusts - including Addenbrooke's in Cambridge - they were put into 'waste-to-energy' furnaces which generate power for hospitals She said: ‘I was shocked at some of the discoveries I made during filming. The mothers I spoke to said that despite the best intentions of individual nurses and doctors, they sometimes felt that hospitals weren’t as compassionate as they should be towards them. ‘I am absolutely delighted that the government has announced a ban on this practice. The change in policy means an end to the misery and prolonged anguish of many parents across England.’ The Care Quality Commission watchdog has also said it will investigate the programme’s findings. Professor Sir Mike Richards, chief inspector of hospitals, said: ‘I am disappointed trusts may not be informing or consulting women and their families. This breaches our standard on respecting and involving people who use services. ‘We scrutinise information of concern and can inspect unannounced, if required.’ A total of one in seven pregnancies ends in a miscarriage, while NHS figures show there are around 4,000 stillbirths each year in the UK - or 11 each day. A spokesman for the Cambridge University Hospitals trust, which runs Addenbrooke’s, said: ‘Trained health professionals discuss the options with the patients and families respectfully and sensitively, both verbally and in writing. ‘The parents are given exactly the same choice on the disposal of foetal remains as for a stillborn child, and their personal wishes are respected.’ Ipswich trust said it was concerned to discover that foetal remains from another hospital were incinerated on its site.

– British hospitals have incinerated more than 15,500 aborted and miscarried fetal remains over the years, at times to generate power for heat in "waste-to-energy" plants, the Telegraph reports. A UK television show revealed the practice tonight, but health officials beat them to the punch by banning the practice yesterday. In all, ten hospitals have admitted to incinerating fetal remains with other garbage, while two leading hospitals—Addenbrooke’s in Cambridge and Ipswich Hospital—said they burned about 1,900 of them at energy facilities. Until now, British law has required hospital staff to offer women who have a miscarriage or abortion three options: incineration, cremation, or burial, the BBC reports. But forms given to women mention "cremated" and make no mention of "incineration" with the daily trash, reports the Daily Mail. At times, hospital staff actually told the real story: "I was hysterical. I was crying," said a 35-year-old woman who learned at a 13-week scan that her baby had died at 8 weeks. "I asked one of the nurses what would happen to my baby, and she just said, 'Well, it will be incinerated with the rest of the day's waste.'"

Image copyright AP Nigeria's police have offered a $300,000 (£180,000) reward to anyone who can help locate and rescue more than 200 abducted schoolgirls. They were kidnapped more than three weeks ago by Islamist Boko Haram militants from their boarding school in the north-eastern state of Borno. The militants have been blamed for another attack on a town in the state on Monday, a busy market day. A senator from the remote area said some 300 people had died in the raid. Ahmed Zanna said the gunmen arrived in a convoy of vans in Gamboru Ngala, near the border with Cameroon. They stole food and motorbikes, burning hundreds of cars and buildings during their rampage, the politician told the BBC's Hausa service. Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Pakistani schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai: "If we remain silent this will spread" Mr Zanna and several residents said the gunmen had used a diversionary tactic to get the security forces out of Gamboru Ngala by spreading rumours that the abducted schoolgirls had been spotted somewhere else. The security forces then left, leaving residents at the mercy of the attackers, they said. Boko Haram's leader admitted earlier this week that his fighters had abducted the girls from their school in the town of Chibok on 14 April. Abubakar Shekau threatened to "sell" the students, saying they should not have been in school in the first place, but rather should get married. Image copyright AFP Image caption Boko Haram's leader has threatened to "sell" the students Image copyright AP Image caption For the past week there have been daily protests countrywide calling for more to be done to find the girls The group, whose name means "Western education is forbidden" in the local Hausa language, began its insurgency in 2009. Global campaign The man behind the hashtag #BringBackOurGirls echoes that sentiment. "What's important is that the hashtag is raising awareness," Abdullahi told BBC Trending. "The intention of all who tweeted it was to bring this barbaric act to the attention of the world and to rescue the girls, as the hashtag says #BringBackOurGirls." First of a million tweets An estimated 1,000 people have died in the violence and security crackdown this year alone. A statement from the police said the 50m naira reward would be given to anyone who "volunteers credible information that will lead to the location and rescue of the female students". Six telephone numbers are provided, calling on the general public to be "part of the solution to the present security challenge" and promising confidentiality. Another 11 girls were kidnapped on Sunday night after two villages were attacked near the militants' forest hideout. The abductions have prompted widespread criticism of the Nigerian government and demonstrations countrywide. Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Former UN chief Kofi Annan says security forces should be used to free the kidnapped girls The BBC's Mansur Liman in the capital, Abuja, says many are questioning why it has taken so long for such a reward to be offered. The girls are mostly aged between 16 and 18 and were taking their final year exams. The governments of Chad and Cameroon have denied suggestions that the abducted girls may have already been smuggled over Nigeria's porous borders into their territory. 'Mass burials' A resident of Gamboru Ngala told the BBC 310 people had been buried on Tuesday and Wednesday, following Monday's attack. "At the big cemetery of Gamboru Ngala, I recorded 165 buried. At the small graveyard, I recorded 145 graves. But we are still picking corpses from the main market. Many people locked themselves up in the market when the attacks started so they got burnt in their shops," he said. Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Boko Haram means "Western education is forbidden" in Hausa The militants had locked up whole families in their homes, and then would enter and spray them with bullets, another resident said. The gunmen were shouting "Allahu Akbar [God is great]", as they stormed the remote town in Borno state, the resident added. Correspondents say it often takes time for news of such attacks to spread as mobile phone networks can be affected by the security crackdown in the region. On Tuesday, US President Barack Obama said he hoped the kidnapping might galvanise the international community to take action against Boko Haram. The US has despatched a team of experts to Nigeria. On Thursday, the UK said it was also sending a small team to provide the government with planning and co-ordination advice. The team should be on the ground within days. Security has been tightened for the World Economic Forum for Africa, in Abuja, where two recent attacks have been blamed on Boko Haram. ||||| LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) — Islamic militants killed hundreds of people in an attack on a border town in Nigeria's remote northeast, a state government official said Thursday. Shops and homes were set ablaze and razed in the attack Monday night on Gamboru Ngala, on Nigeria's border with Cameroon, Borno state information commissioner Mohammed Bulama told The Associated Press by telephone. He said the fatality "figures are high — hundreds — but we are still awaiting details from the military authorities." As many as 300 people were killed in the attack, according to local newspapers. The militants sprayed gunfire into the crowds of people at a busy market that is open at night when temperatures cool in the semi-desert region, reported ThisDay newspaper. Nigerian federal Senator Ahmed Zannah said the attack lasted about 12 hours, according to the newspaper. The insurgents set homes on fire and gunned down residents who tried to escape from the flames, reported the paper. Zannah blamed fighters of Nigeria's homegrown Boko Haram terrorist network that has claimed responsibility for the kidnapping of 276 teenage girls and is threatening to sell them into slavery. Boko Haram's five-year-old Islamic uprising has claimed the lives of thousands of Muslims and Christians. More than 1,500 people have died in their attacks so far this year. The insurgents say Western influences are corrupting and they want to impose an Islamic state in Nigeria, a country of 170 million of whom half are Christian. ||||| Story highlights China offers satellite and intelligence assistance in the search for girls Boko Haram militants attacked Gamboru Ngala, killing at least 150 people United States and Britain are sending teams to help Nigerian forces Nigerian authorities offer a reward for information leading to the girls' rescue Boko Haram launched a grisly attack on a Nigerian village in an area that troops had been using as a base in the search for hundreds of schoolgirls abducted by the militant group, witnesses told CNN on Wednesday. The hourslong assault on Gamboru Ngala that left at least 150 people dead, some of whom were burned alive, is the latest in a series of brazen attacks and abductions by Boko Haram, raising concern about whether the Nigerian government can retake control of the region from the entrenched terror group. Word of the attack follows news that President Goodluck Jonathan, who has been under fire for his handling of the mass abduction, accepted U.S., British and Chinese offers of assistance to find the schoolgirls, officials with those governments said. It's unclear what impact the latest attack could have on the international response to Nigeria's fight with Boko Haram, which so far has concentrated on helping the government rescue 276 schoolgirls abducted on April 14. The assault on the village came after military troops deployed to the area were called to the border area near Chad, where reports -- later determined to be false -- surfaced that the schoolgirls had been found with Boko Haram militants, witnesses and local officials said. CNN cannot independently confirm the report, and attempts Wednesday to contact Nigeria's military for comment were unsuccessful. JUST WATCHED Malala: 'Girls in Nigeria are my sisters' Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Malala: 'Girls in Nigeria are my sisters' 01:37 JUST WATCHED Reporter: Uncle was kidnapped in Nigeria Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Reporter: Uncle was kidnapped in Nigeria 01:58 JUST WATCHED Anger grows over 200 missing girls Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Anger grows over 200 missing girls 02:01 JUST WATCHED Obama: 'This is a terrible situation' Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Obama: 'This is a terrible situation' 01:00 Indiscriminate killing Witnesses described a well-coordinated attack that began shortly after 1:30 p.m. local time Monday at a busy outdoor market in Gamboru Ngala. Wearing military uniforms, the militants arrived with three armored personnel carriers, they said. They shouted "Allahu Akbar" -- "God is great" -- and opened up on the market, firing rocket-propelled grenades and tossing improvised explosive devices, witnesses said. Some marketgoers tried to take shelter in shops only to be burned alive when the gunmen set fire to a number of the businesses, the witnesses said. A few Nigerian soldiers who had been left behind at the village could not hold off the assault and were forced to flee, they said. Many sought safe haven in nearby Cameroon, they said. The fighters also attacked the police station during the 12-hour assault, initially facing stiff resistance. They eventually used explosives to blow the roof off the building, witnesses said. Fourteen police officers were found dead inside, they said. The final death toll could be closer to 300, Nigerian Sen. Ahmed Zanna told CNN. Monday's bloody attack by Boko Haram militants, some of whom U.S. officials say have been trained by al Qaeda, follows a pattern of seeking revenge against anybody who is perceived to have provided aid to the Nigerian government. International aid taking shape News of the attack came as U.S. officials pressed ahead with plans to provide Nigeria with law enforcement assistance and military consultations, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said. "Obviously, this is in the interest of the Nigerian government to accept every aspect of our assistance," she told reporters during a briefing Wednesday. "They conveyed that they were willing to do that yesterday and it continues to be in their interest to be as cooperative as possible." U.S. officials will establish a joint coordination cell at the U.S. Embassy in Abuja where the goal will be to provide intelligence, investigations and hostage negotiation expertise, Psaki said. The cell will include U.S. military personnel, who are expected to arrive in Nigeria in the coming days, she said. The Pentagon has started planning for how it can help Nigeria, a senior U.S. military official told CNN. It's unlikely at this point that U.S. troops would be involved in operations, the officials said. Map: Where the girls were kidnapped Photos: Photos: Nigerians protest over kidnapped girls Photos: Photos: Nigerians protest over kidnapped girls Nigerians protest over kidnapped schoolgirls – Police in riot gear block a route in Abuja, Nigeria, on Tuesday, October 14, during a demonstration calling on the Nigerian government to rescue schoolgirls kidnapped by the Islamist militant group Boko Haram. In April, more than 200 girls were abducted from their boarding school in northeastern Nigeria, officials and witnesses said. Hide Caption 1 of 19 Photos: Photos: Nigerians protest over kidnapped girls Nigerians protest over kidnapped schoolgirls – Women in Abuja hold a candlelight vigil on Wednesday, May 14, one month after the schoolgirls were kidnapped. Hide Caption 2 of 19 Photos: Photos: Nigerians protest over kidnapped girls Nigerians protest over kidnapped schoolgirls – People march in Lagos, Nigeria, on Monday, May 12, to demand the release of the kidnapped schoolgirls. Hide Caption 3 of 19 Photos: Photos: Nigerians protest over kidnapped girls Nigerians protest over kidnapped schoolgirls – Catholic faithful in Abuja take Holy Communion and pray for the safety of the kidnapped schoolgirls on Sunday, May 11. Hide Caption 4 of 19 Photos: Photos: Nigerians protest over kidnapped girls Nigerians protest over kidnapped schoolgirls – Catholic faithful attend a morning Mass in honor of the kidnapped schoolgirls in Abuja on May 11. Hide Caption 5 of 19 Photos: Photos: Nigerians protest over kidnapped girls Nigerians protest over kidnapped schoolgirls – Catholics nuns pray in Abuja on May 11. Hide Caption 6 of 19 Photos: Photos: Nigerians protest over kidnapped girls Nigerians protest over kidnapped schoolgirls – A woman attends a demonstration Tuesday, May 6, that called for the Nigerian government to rescue the girls. Hide Caption 7 of 19 Photos: Photos: Nigerians protest over kidnapped girls Nigerians protest over kidnapped schoolgirls – Community leader Hosea Sambido speaks during a May 6 rally in Abuja. Hide Caption 8 of 19 Photos: Photos: Nigerians protest over kidnapped girls Nigerians protest over kidnapped schoolgirls – Brig. Gen. Chris Olukolade, Nigeria's top military spokesman, speaks to people at a demonstration May 6 in Abuja. Hide Caption 9 of 19 Photos: Photos: Nigerians protest over kidnapped girls Nigerians protest over kidnapped schoolgirls – Women march Monday, May 5, in Chibok, Nigeria. Hide Caption 10 of 19 Photos: Photos: Nigerians protest over kidnapped girls Nigerians protest over kidnapped schoolgirls – People rally in Lagos on Thursday, May 1. Hide Caption 11 of 19 Photos: Photos: Nigerians protest over kidnapped girls Nigerians protest over kidnapped schoolgirls – Police stand guard during a demonstration in Lagos on May 1. Hide Caption 12 of 19 Photos: Photos: Nigerians protest over kidnapped girls Nigerians protest over kidnapped schoolgirls – Protesters take part in a "million-woman march" Wednesday, April 30, in Abuja. Hide Caption 13 of 19 Photos: Photos: Nigerians protest over kidnapped girls Nigerians protest over kidnapped schoolgirls – Obiageli Ezekwesili, former Nigerian education minister and vice president of the World Bank's Africa division, leads a march of women in Abuja on April 30. Hide Caption 14 of 19 Photos: Photos: Nigerians protest over kidnapped girls Nigerians protest over kidnapped schoolgirls – A woman cries out during a demonstration in Abuja on Tuesday, April 29, along with other mothers whose daughters have been kidnapped. Hide Caption 15 of 19 Photos: Photos: Nigerians protest over kidnapped girls Nigerians protest over kidnapped schoolgirls – A man weeps as he joins parents of the kidnapped girls during a meeting with the Borno state governor in Chibok on Tuesday, April 22. Hide Caption 16 of 19 Photos: Photos: Nigerians protest over kidnapped girls Nigerians protest over kidnapped schoolgirls – Mothers weep April 22 during a meeting with the Borno state governor in Chibok. Hide Caption 17 of 19 Photos: Photos: Nigerians protest over kidnapped girls Nigerians protest over kidnapped schoolgirls – Four female students who were abducted by gunmen and reunited with their families walk in Chibok on Monday, April 21. Hide Caption 18 of 19 Photos: Photos: Nigerians protest over kidnapped girls Nigerians protest over kidnapped schoolgirls – Borno state Gov. Kashim Shettima, center, visits the girls' school in Chibok on April 21. Hide Caption 19 of 19 JUST WATCHED US offering help for kidnapped girls Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH US offering help for kidnapped girls 01:44 Britain is sending a small team of experts to complement the U.S. team, a spokesman for Prime Minister David Cameron said Wednesday. The spokesman didn't specify the nature of the team's expertise. On behalf of China, Premier Li Keqiang offered satellite and intelligence services to aid in the search. Meanwhile, Nigerian authorities offered a reward of about $310,000 on Wednesday for information leading to the rescue of the girls. "While calling on the general public to be part of the solution to the present security challenge, the Police High Command also reassures all citizens that any information given would be treated anonymously and with utmost confidentiality," the Nigeria Police Force said in a statement. According to accounts, armed members of Boko Haram overpowered security guards at an all-girls school in Chibok, yanked the girls out of bed and forced them into trucks. The convoy of trucks then disappeared into the dense forest bordering Cameroon. The reward offer comes amid international outcry over the mass kidnapping in mid-April. The #BringBackOurGirls campaign initially began on Twitter. It quickly spread, with demonstrators taking to the streets over the weekend in major cities around the world to demand action. Defending the response Nigeria's President has been under enormous international pressure to step up efforts to rescue the girls after come after waiting three weeks to publicly acknowledge the kidnappings. His administration, however, is defending its response -- even as details emerged this about a second mass kidnapping. At least eight girls between the ages of 12 and 15 were snatched Sunday night from the village of Warabe by Boko Haram, villagers said. "The President and the government (are) not taking this as easy as people all over the world think," presidential spokesman Doyin Okupe said, adding that helicopters and airplanes have searched for the girls in 250 locations. More troops, he said, are on the way. Despite the flurry of activity, the father of two of the schoolgirls taken by Boko Haram scoffed at the Nigerian government's response. "We have never seen any military man there," said the father, who is not being identified for fear of reprisals by the government or Boko Haram. "Had it been military men who went into the bush to rescue our daughters, we would have seen them." Members of the U.S. Congress called for action, former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan called the abductions "abominable" and Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani children's rights activist shot in the head by the Taliban, spoke out, too. "The girls in Nigeria are my sisters and it is my responsibility that I speak up for my sisters," Yousafzai told CNN's "Amanpour." The U.S. first lady, Michelle Obama, was among the latest high-profile figures to take to Twitter about the girls' plight, tweeting a photo of herself holding a sign that read: #BringBackOurGirls. "Our prayers are with the missing Nigerian girls and their families," she said in the post. 'I abducted your girls' Boko Haram translates to "Western education is sin" in the local Hausa language, and the group has said its aim is to impose a stricter enforcement of Sharia law across Africa's most populous nation, which is split between a majority Muslim north and a mostly Christian south. The United States has branded Boko Haram a terror organization and has put a $7 million bounty on the group's elusive leader, Abubakar Shekau. A man claiming to be Shekau appeared in a video announcing he would sell his victims. The video was first obtained Monday by Agence-France Presse. "I abducted your girls. I will sell them in the market, by Allah," he said. "There is a market for selling humans. Allah says I should sell. He commands me to sell. I will sell women. I sell women."

– Nigeria is apparently feeling the international pressure over its kidnapped girls, with the national police offering a $300,000 reward today for information that leads to their rescue, reports the BBC. (The move comes a day after President Obama promised that a US team would help the cause.) But Boko Haram, the group that kidnapped the girls and vows to sell them, remains as defiant and brutal as ever. A new attack in the town of Gamboru Ngala, near the border with Cameroon, massacred at least 150 villagers, reports CNN. Local media reports say militants opened fire on a crowd of people in a busy marketplace, set homes on fire, and shot residents trying to flee the flames over a span of 12 hours, reports the AP. A Nigerian senator says the death toll is "high—hundreds—but we are still awaiting details from the military authorities." (Click to read about one girl's description of how she escaped Boko Haram.)

A customer shows her purchased Powerball tickets for Wednesday's drawing, Tuesday, Aug. 22, 2017, in Hialeah, Fla. The winner could take the $700 million annuity option (paid out over 29 years) or the... (Associated Press) A customer shows her purchased Powerball tickets for Wednesday's drawing, Tuesday, Aug. 22, 2017, in Hialeah, Fla. The winner could take the $700 million annuity option (paid out over 29 years) or the $443.3 million cash prize, minus state and federal taxes. (AP Photo/Alan Diaz) (Associated Press) A customer shows her purchased Powerball tickets for Wednesday's drawing, Tuesday, Aug. 22, 2017, in Hialeah, Fla. The winner could take the $700 million annuity option (paid out over 29 years) or the $443.3 million cash prize, minus state and federal taxes. (AP Photo/Alan Diaz) (Associated Press) A customer shows her purchased Powerball tickets for Wednesday's drawing, Tuesday, Aug. 22, 2017, in Hialeah, Fla. The winner could take the $700 million annuity option (paid out over 29 years) or the... (Associated Press) CHICOPEE, Massachusetts (AP) — The Latest on the lone winning ticket for the $758.7 million Powerball drawing that was sold in Chicopee, Massachusetts (all times local): 8 a.m. Massachusetts State Lottery officials have corrected the site where the single winning ticket for the Powerball $758.7 million jackpot was sold to Chicopee, not Watertown. The Massachusetts State Lottery had announced around 2:30 a.m. Thursday that a convenience store in Watertown, near Boston, had sold the winning ticket. But shortly before 8 a.m., the lottery said it had made a mistake, and that the winning ticket was sold across the state at the Pride Station & Store in Chicopee, in Western Massachusetts. The lottery did not say how the error was made . It said the store in Watertown did sell a ticket that won a $1 million prize. ____ 7:30 a.m. The owner of the convenience story that sold the only winning ticket for the $758.7 million Powerball jackpot says she is happy and emotional after learning her store sold it. Kamaljeet Kaur, who owns Handy Variety in Watertown, Massachusetts, says she was getting ready to come to work Thursday morning when her husband told her. Reporters descended on the store hours before it opened around 6:30 a.m. The jackpot is the largest grand prize won by a single lottery ticket in U.S. history. ___ 7 a.m. The only winning ticket for the Powerball $758.7 million jackpot has been sold in Watertown, Massachusetts, a town familiar for its connection to the Boston Marathon bombing in April 2013. Watertown is the suburb to which the Boston Marathon bombers fled. Tamerlan Tsarnaev (TAM'-ehr-luhn tsahr-NEYE'-ehv) was killed in an ensuing gunbattle with police, and his brother Dzhokhar (joh-HAHR') was captured hiding in a boat in a Watertown man's backyard. The Powerball jackpot is the largest grand prize won by a single lottery ticket in U.S. history. ___ 12:45 a.m. Powerball Product Group Chair Charlie McIntyre says the $758.7 million jackpot claimed by a ticket sold in Massachusetts is the largest grand prize won by a single lottery ticket in U.S. history. In a statement early Thursday, McIntyre also says six other tickets won $2 million apiece, and 34 more are worth $1 million. The lucky numbers for the second largest lottery prize in U.S. history were 6, 7, 16, 23 and 26, and the Powerball number was 4. The Massachusetts State Lottery announced on Twitter that the winning ticket was sold at the Handy Variety convenience store in Watertown. ___ 12:05 a.m. A single winning Powerball ticket matching all six numbers has been sold in Massachusetts. The jackpot for Wednesday night's drawing reached $758.7 million. Powerball officials did not immediately disclose the location where the winning ticket was sold. The lucky numbers for the second largest lottery prize in U.S. history were 6, 7, 16, 23 and 26, and the Powerball number was 4. ___ 10:05 p.m. The numbers have been drawn for the second largest lottery prize in U.S. history. The winning numbers are 6, 7, 16, 23 and 26, and the Powerball number is 4. Before Wednesday night's drawing the jackpot was estimated at $700 million. Powerball is played in 44 states, as well as Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. ___ 8:55 a.m. Lottery players will have a shot at a $700 million Powerball jackpot that ranks as the second largest in U.S. history. Despite incredibly long odds, people throughout the country will hold their breath Wednesday night as five white balls and one red ball are drawn from drums. The jackpot is second only to a $1.6 billion prize won in January 2016. The $700 million prize reflects the annuity option, paid over 29 years. A winner who wants cash would receive $443.3 million, minus federal and state taxes that generally eat up more than 30 percent of winnings. Odds of winning the jackpot are one in 292.2 million. Powerball is played in 44 states, as well as Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. ||||| BOSTON (CBS) – The winner of the $758.7 million Powerball jackpot has been identified as Mavis Wanczyk of Chicopee. Wanczyk, 53, a mother of two adult children, came to lottery headquarters in Braintree late Thursday morning to claim her prize and was introduced a short time later at a news conference. Now, she said, she’s “going to go hide in my bed.” Wanczyk said she found out she had won as she was leaving work Wednesday night with a colleague. “He’s reading these numbers, and I pull mine out, and I go, ‘Hey, I have that number…and I have that…I have that!'” she told reporters. “And he goes, ‘Let me see that ticket–you just won!'” she said. “We have validated the ticket. It is indeed the winning ticket,” said Michael Sweeney, the Executive Director of the Lottery. “Last night, it was kind of like I didn’t realize I won,” Wanczyk said. “Today, as I’m driving here, I’m still like, ‘this isn’t true, this can’t be.’ And now it’s like, uh, I am the winner and I’m scared, but I’ll be okay.” “I want to be just me, and just be alone, and just be able to be me and figure out what I want to do,” she said. So what will she do first? “I just want to sit back and relax,” Wanczyk said. “I had a pipe dream, and my pipe dream has finally come true, I wanted to retire and it came early.” She has been working at Mercy Medical Center in Springfield for 32 years – until Thursday. “I have called and I have told them I will not be coming back.” Wanczyk has a 31-year-old daughter and a 26-year-old son. Lottery rules allow the winner up to a year to come forward, but Wanczyk couldn’t wait. “I just wanted to do this, I just wanted to get it over and done with and then everybody will just leave me alone,” she told reporters, who then asked her if she was already comfortable financially. “I’ve been okay. I’m not gonna say I’m the richest person in the world, I can’t say I’m the poorest person in the world. I make do with what I have,” she said. “I just bought a car, September of last year, and I just plan on paying it off.” The lone winning ticket in the nationwide lottery was sold at the Pride gas station and store on Montgomery Street in Chicopee. “I was just there to buy it, for just luck,” Wanczyk said. “Just go in, buy a scratch ticket, and say maybe it’s me, maybe it won’t be me. It’s just a chance, a chance I had to take.” “My numbers were kind of basically random, like maybe with our birthdays, one from here, one from there,” she said. “There’s a thing between me and my mom and my stepfather and I have a friend, we all go out to dinner on a Friday night and we play Keno, and our number is four. I just happened to choose, and it worked to my advantage.” The store will get $50,000 for selling the winning ticket, which was purchased at 2:30 p.m. Wednesday, according to Pride owner Bob Bolduc. “We’re going to give all the money to charity, that’s our pattern. We really believe in supporting local charities,” Bolduc told reporters. The lottery initially said the Chicopee store had only sold a $1 million winner, but issued a correction just before 8 a.m. Thursday, more than six hours after announcing the lone winning ticket had been sold at Handy Variety on Common Street in Watertown. There was a winning ticket sold at the Watertown shop, but it was for just $1 million. Related: Watertown Store Owners On Powerball Blunder: ‘Better Than Nothing’ “When manually recording the names of the retailers that sold the jackpot winning ticket and the $1 million winning tickets, the information was transcribed incorrectly,” Sweeney said in a statement. “I think we had a couple of excited people in a computer room at one in the morning being a little nervous about handling a $700 million winner,” he told WBZ NewsRadio 1030. Related: Mass. Lottery’s ‘Steve Harvey Moment’ So how does something like this happen? “Human error, plain and simple,” Sweeney said. “If anyone’s looking for anyone to blame, the buck stops here with me, the executive director.” Related: ‘Simple Mistake’ Caused Powerball Blunder The winning numbers were 6-7-16-23-26 with the Powerball 4. We are there for her. We will be keeping an extra eye on her. https://t.co/XNAamDBuJt — Chicopee Police (@ChicopeeMa_PD) August 24, 2017 Wanczyk returned to her home in Chicopee Thursday night. Chicopee Police said they would be keeping an extra eye on her. “I want to stay at my own house in my own peace and quiet,” she told reporters outside her home. According to the Massachusetts Lottery, this is the largest jackpot won by a single ticket in North American lottery history. Another $1 million ticket was sold at Sandy’s Variety on Washington Street in Dorchester. “What happens is, the $50,000 will go to the store that actually sold the winning ticket, which is Pride station and store out in Chicopee. The good news for the people out here is that, in Watertown, a $1 million winning prize ticket was sold, as well as an additional $1 million sold in Dorchester. There is a prize for those, up to $10,000 on the $1 million prize,” Sweeney said. This is the fourth time a Powerball jackpot winning ticket has been sold in Massachusetts. The others were in 2011, 2012 and 2013. WBZ NewsRadio 1030’s Lana Jones reports

– Somebody who bought a Powerball ticket in Massachusetts has scored the biggest solo jackpot in American history. But state lottery officials have a major correction: It turns out, the winning ticket for $759 million was sold at a store in Chicopee, not Watertown as originally announced, reports the AP. "Human error, plain and simple," says the state lottery's executive director, Michael Sweeney. The store in Watertown did sell a ticket worth $1 million, perhaps playing a role in the confusion, but the much bigger winner picked up the lucky ticket at the Pride Station & Store across the state. The numbers that won a jackpot were 6, 7, 16, 23, 26 and the Powerball was 4. The only bigger lottery jackpot in US history was 2016's $1.6 billion prize, but that was split three ways. The store owner in Chicopee will get $50,000 for selling the winning ticket, reports CBS Boston. The store owner in Watertown will have to settle for $10,000 for selling the $1 million ticket. Of note: The $758.7 million is the figure for the annuity option, which is paid over 29 years. If the winner wants it all now, he or she will receive $443.3 million, minus more than 30% to cover state and federal taxes.

Perez Hilton is now a father to a baby boy! The openly gay blogger, whose real name is Mario Lavandeira Jr., took to his eponymous blog Wednesday afternoon in a post titled "A Very Important Message from Perez" to share the news "directly from me, right here." "I am ready to announce that earlier this month I was blessed with the birth of my first child, a beautiful and healthy baby boy — with lots of hair on his tiny head. My family is overjoyed at this newest and most cherished addition," the 34-year-old wrote. PHOTOS: Hollywood baby boom There was no word of who the birth mother was or the tiny tot's name, or if the child came to be through adoption or surrogacy. But Hilton did share a photo of himself cradling and gazing down at the little guy in what we presume is a hospital room. In an August 2009 interview, the blogger told the Los Angeles Times' Robin Abcarian that he wanted to be a father by age 35 and that he had already investigated surrogates. Hilton was spotted shopping for baby clothes in West Hollywood in January, according to the Daily Mail. The blogger made a name for himself back in 2004 when he started posting snarky comments and doodling on tabloid photos of celebrities on his site. The first iteration of the gossip site was called PageSixSixSix.com. Since then, the Miami native has toned down the snark and become a household name, even hobnobbing with the celebs he teases, becoming a celebrity in his own right. The website reportedly gets 300 million page hits a month, and the birth of his son seems to have humbled the formerly sharp-tongued blogger, because he took a moment to show his appreciation for his fans in the baby announcement. PHOTOS: Gay celebrities: Who is out "Thank YOU for welcoming PerezHilton.com into your homes, offices, classrooms, cell phones and wherever else you may read my five websites. And thank you for welcoming ME into your lives! I am so humbled to welcome this little man into my life. And I am honored and ready for the challenge of guiding him through his. With love, Perez." Congrats! ALSO: Chris Brown admits: Rihanna assault was his 'biggest mistake' Miranda Kerr and Orlando Bloom plan to have more kids 'someday' Oscars: Lena Dunham supports Anne Hathaway, boos Seth MacFarlane Follow Nardine on Twitter @NardineSaad and Google +. Follow Ministry of Gossip @LATcelebs. ||||| "Dear Friends, I want you to hear this directly from me, right here. I am ready to announce that earlier this month I was blessed with the birth of my first child, a beautiful and healthy baby boy - with lots of hair on his tiny head! My family is overjoyed at this newest and most cherished addition. Thank YOU for welcoming PerezHilton.com into your homes, offices, classrooms, cell phones and wherever else you may read my five websites. And thank you for welcoming ME into your lives! I am so humbled to welcome this little man into my life. And I am honored and ready for the challenge of guiding him through his. With love, Perez" Tags: birth announcement, boy, dad, father, perez hilton, son

– Now that Perez Hilton's days of tweeting upskirt photos of underage celebs are apparently over, he's totally ready to be a dad. The acerbic gossip blogger posted a note to fans on his website yesterday announcing that his first child, "a beautiful and healthy baby boy," was born earlier this month. He also said he's looking forward to "guiding" his "little man" through life (and, we guess, reading him a children's book penned by none other than Perez Hilton). No word on how this all came about, although the LA Times notes that Hilton has discussed surrogacy in the past.