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It's here!! Nicki Minaj and Meek Mill have finally blessed us with their sexy spread for GQ's October issue! And besides the two claiming they're not actually engaged, it seems this editorial is really what's going to convince people to take their relationship seriously. Related: Nicki Shows Off Her Killer Body In A Mesh Outfit! After all, the Anaconda rapper never did a shoot with her ex, Safaree Samuels! Anyway, we got a glimpse of the rappers' spread in their BTS video, but the actual pictures are way hotter!! Just take a peek at Nicki's Alexander Wang outfit and Giuseppe Zanotti heels! Need we say more?? So read on for the HIGHlights and get to know these two better. Oh, and to hear their thoughts on the MTV VMAs controversy, Drake, and MORE... [Image via Ellen von Unwerth/GQ.] ||||| Lindsay Lohan Lifetime Producers Worried Sick -- THEY DON'T GET IT! EXCLUSIVE Sources close to's Lifetime movie tell TMZ ... producers have been in hysterics these past few weeks over LiLo's latest hijinks, and we're left to wonder ... WHY?!?!?!According to our sources, producers were particularly upset over her car accident on PCH. We're told the producers have five big concerns:-- The company that insures the movie might bail-- Her probation could be violated for lying to the cops-- She could be prosecuted for lying to police-- She could crash her car again-- She's going to clubs where bad things happenBut here's the thing ... when has a Lifetime movie ever gotten this much press (besides the one where played a hooker )? And don't they know ... nothing bad ever REALLY happens to Lindsay.$10 says "Liz & Dick" is the most watched program in the network's history. ||||| Never a dull moment in the life of Lindsay Lohan and those she comes into contact with: Two Hollywood unions are investigating working conditions on the set of "Liz & Dick," the actress' Lifetime movie, after Lohan was found unresponsive and required medical attention and two crew members left the project. "Liz & Dick" tells the story of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. Filming the project has proven somewhat difficult for Lohan, who was not only the subject of hospitalization rumors (Lohan was later said to be asleep -- not unconscious -- and never went to the hospital) but also crashed her car while driving in Los Angeles. Two other crew members were actually sent to the hospital for exhaustion and dehydration. Lohan tweeted that she had been working 85 hours in four days. SAG-AFTRA confirmed to THR that they were looking into the matter and said they were not yet prepared to report their findings. Though IATSE declined comment to THR, sources said that union's agents were indeed looking into the matter. As for Lohan, reports of concerned family members continue to surface. One industry source told The Huffington Post that Lohan was viewed as a "ticking time bomb," a macabre reference the source explained by adding, "If Lindsay hadn’t been making a movie, who would have called for help? As soon as filming wraps, she will be all alone again." The 25-year-old actress is under a great deal of pressure to orchestrate a comeback before her star -- already tarnished by multiple run-ins with the legal system -- fades beyond repair. Earlier: Lohan's on-set wardrobe malfunction, the whole story of her medical scare and family and friends concerns. Also on HuffPost: ||||| The seed for this crawl was a list of every host in the Wayback Machine This crawl was run at a level 1 (URLs including their embeds, plus the URLs of all outbound links including their embeds) The WARC files associated with this crawl are not currently available to the general public.

– Though they should have known what they were in for the moment they hired her, the producers of Lindsay Lohan's upcoming Lifetime movie are reportedly "hysterical" over the actress' recent car crash and exhaustion incident. Sources tell TMZ the producers are particularly worried they may lose their insurance over the car crash, or that Lindsay could face legal issues for lying to police … or that she could simply get into yet more trouble of some other sort, whether car-related or nightclub-related. They're probably also not too happy that LiLo's explanation for her exhaustion ("working 85hours in 4days, and being up all night shooting," she tweeted) ended up getting the working conditions on the set investigated by two Hollywood unions. But Perez Hilton notes that some crew members say Lohan was exaggerating, and absolutely "did not work 85 hours in four days." TMZ points out that this is quite a bit of publicity, however, and that Lifetime could end up quite happy if it boosts the ratings for Liz & Dick. For more, click to listen to the 911 call made over Lohan's exhaustion.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn pleads not guilty in sexual assault of midtown Manhattan chambermaid Todd Maisel/News Dominique Strauss Kahn, center, enters Manhattan criminal court with his wife Anne Sinclair, second right, for his arraignment. French politician Dominique Strauss-Kahn had to push through a throng of angry hotel workers shouting "Shame on you" to enter a plea on charges he tried to rape a maid. "Not guilty," Strauss-Kahn said in a heavy French accent in a Manhattan courtroom Monday. Joined by his wife, lawyers and two security guards, Strauss-Kahn appeared pale in a charcoal suit, blue shirt and tie. The former head of the International Monetary Fund was greeted by jeers and catcalls from hotel maids as he walked into the courthouse. "He should be ashamed of what he did," said Aissata Bocum, 46, a housekeeper at the New Yorker Hotel. "Because we're room attendants doesn't mean we're a piece of trash." Strauss-Kahn is accused of violently attacking a maid at the Sofitel, pulling off her clothes and trying to force her to perform oral sex. He is under house arrest on $6 million bail and bond - and Judge Michael Obus warned him to abide by all restrictions set by the court. "I expect you to be here every time," Obus said, summoning him back to court July 18. A trial date has not yet been set. Defense lawyers filed motions demanding the evidence - including DNA - prosecutors intend to use. Strauss-Kahn grinned broadly as he walked arm in arm with his wife, Anne Sinclair, to a courthouse elevator after the five-minute hearing. Defense lawyer Ben Brafman, who is apparently planning to argue any contact was consensual, said the plea spoke for itself. "He pleaded not guilty. That is a very eloquent, powerful statement that he made that denies the charges," he said. "Once the evidence is reviewed, it will be clear that there was no element of forcible compulsion whatsoever." A lawyer for the victim scoffed at the strategy. "The suggestion by defense counsel that this was consensual is preposterous," Kenneth Thompson told reporters. "The victim wants you to know that all of Dominique Strauss-Kahn's power, money and influence throughout the world will not keep the truth about what he did to her in that hotel room from coming out." He said there was no chance his client would accept a settlement to drop the charges. "She's standing up for her dignity as a woman. She's standing up for all women and children around the world who have been sexually abused," Thompson said. Getting Strauss-Kahn through the media gauntlet into the courthouse required shutting down one of two entrances to the massive downtown building. More than 115 reporters from around the world - including author Jay McInerney reporting for Vanity Fair - crowded into the courtroom. State courts spokesman David Bookstaver said the appearance cost approximately $2,500 in overtime for court officers. With Lore Croghan mgrace@nydailynews.com ||||| 1 of 5. Former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn (C) appears with his lawyers Ben Brafman (R) and William Taylor, in New York Supreme Court during his arraignment hearing in New York, June 6, 2011. S NEW YORK (Reuters) - Former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn pleaded not guilty on Monday to charges he sexually assaulted a New York hotel maid in a case that cost him his job and a chance at the French presidency. Wearing a dark suit, Strauss-Kahn arrived at the courthouse with his wife, French television journalist Anne Sinclair, walking beside him, arm-in-arm. They were flanked by two private security guards hired to prevent him from skipping bail. The couple walked past a throng of media and a large group of hotel workers there in solidarity with the woman who said Strauss-Kahn attacked her. "Shame on you," they chanted. Strauss-Kahn, 62, faces up to 25 years in prison if convicted on charges including attempted rape, sex abuse, a criminal sex act, unlawful imprisonment and forcible touching. Asked to enter his plea, Strauss-Kahn told the court clerk, "Not guilty." The next date in the case at New York Supreme Court before Judge Michael Obus was set for July 18. "When the evidence is in, it will be clear there was no forcible compulsion," defense lawyer Benjamin Brafman told reporters after the hearing, confirming he will contend that any sex with the maid was consensual. But the maid's lawyer, Kenneth Thompson, said the notion that the 32-year-old "hard-working single mother" had consensual sex with Strauss-Kahn was "preposterous." "All of Dominique Strauss-Kahn's power, money and influence will not stop the truth of what he did to her in that hotel room from coming out," he said. "She is going to come into this courthouse, get into that witness stand and tell the world what (he) did to her." Strauss-Kahn left the court, holding his wife's hand. the pair looked stoic as they strode to a black Ford SUV as hotel workers shouted at him and news photographers took pictures. "SHE'S OUR SISTER" Praised for his role tackling the 2007-09 global financial crisis and attempts to keep Europe's debt crisis under control, Strauss-Kahn resigned as managing director of the International Monetary Fund a few days after his May 14 arrest in the first-class section of an Air France plane, minutes before it was to depart New York for Paris. He was accused of attacking the maid, an African immigrant, a few hours earlier when she came to clean his suite at the luxury Sofitel hotel in Midtown Manhattan, apparently believing it had been vacated. Monday's arraignment marks the start of what could be lengthy legal proceedings. A new IMF chief has not yet been appointed. French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde and Mexican central bank chief Agustin Carstens both want to replace Strauss-Kahn. Peter Ward, president of Local 6 of the New York Hotel Workers Union, was among those outside the court in solidarity with the maid. "She's our sister and we support her," he said. New York hotel worker Beverly Banton said she was once groped by a guest and that while the man was evicted from the hotel, security never called police. "Back then, they said to us, 'The guests come first,'" she said. "There's a lot of people this happened to who didn't say nothing." Until the New York arrest, Strauss-Kahn had been expected to quit his IMF post for a different reason -- a bid to become the Socialist candidate for president of France. He had been a strong favorite to beat conservative President Nicolas Sarkozy at the polls next year. Instead, Strauss-Kahn spent four days in New York's Rikers Island jail before he was released on $1 million cash bail and $5 million bond and placed under house arrest with 24-hour armed guards and electronic monitoring. The father of four daughters spent a few days in a Lower Manhattan apartment but is now living in a luxurious townhouse rented by his wife in Manhattan's TriBeCa district. The townhouse has a gym and home cinema and was last posted for sale for almost $14 million. A prosecutor estimated Strauss-Kahn would pay $200,000 a month for his security arrangements. Strauss-Kahn's lawyer has said that although his client has a net worth of roughly $2 million, his wife, an heiress, has deeper pockets. So far, Sinclair has shown no hesitation about using her personal wealth to help her husband. (Writing by Mark Egan, editing by Bill Trott)

– Dominique Strauss-Kahn pleaded not guilty to sexual assault charges today, reports the New York Daily News, which notes that he was joined by his wife and appeared "pale." Should he be convicted on charges of attempted rape, a criminal sex act, sex abuse, forcible touching, and unlawful imprisonment, he could be sentenced to as many as 25 years in prison. To enter Manhattan Supreme Court today, Strauss-Kahn had to push through a crowd of protesting hotel workers shouting, “Shame on you!” His arraignment today kickstarts what could be lengthy legal proceedings, notes Reuters. (In related news, a defense source says there were "irregularities" in Strauss-Kahn's arrest.)

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 ||||| Supporters of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program display a banner as they demonstrate on Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House on Sept. 3, 2017. | Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP Photo Obama to speak out if Trump ends DACA Former President Barack Obama plans to speak out if President Donald Trump declares his intention to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, according to a person close to Obama. Trump is expected to announce on Tuesday that in six months, he will terminate the Obama-era DACA initiative, which grants two-year work permits to undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as children and stayed out of trouble. POLITICO first reported the news. Story Continued Below Obama used executive actions to launch the program in June 2012, providing assurances before his re-election that he would protect the so-called "Dreamers." Trump had suggested in the past that he didn’t want to deport Dreamers, saying in April that they should “rest easy,” but the immigration hawks in his administration have argued that DACA is an illegal program. Obama’s current plan is to post a statement on Facebook and link to it on Twitter, where the former president has more than 94 million followers. In his final presidential press availability, he suggested that he would speak out if Trump went after the Dreamers — and that it was one of the few issues where he would feel morally compelled to do so. He said he would not remain silent in the face of “efforts to round up kids who have grown up here and for all practical purposes are American kids, and send them someplace else, when they love this country.” In fact, Obama has largely avoided direct criticism of his successor, even though some of his supporters have clamored for him to lead the resistance to Trump, even as Trump has repeatedly attacked him by name and tried to roll back his legacy. The thinking in Obama’s inner circle is that he must choose his spots to join the national debate, trying to remain above the fray, focus on his foundation, and let other Democrats take the lead. He wants to follow the traditions of other post-presidents, and he isn’t eager to engage in fights with a political brawler who’s always looking for a foil to rally the Republican base. The most reliable politics newsletter. Sign up for POLITICO Playbook and get the latest news, every morning — in your inbox. Email Sign Up By signing up you agree to receive email newsletters or alerts from POLITICO. You can unsubscribe at any time. “The single most important thing I can do,” Obama told an audience of students in April, is “help in any way I can to prepare the next generation of leadership to take up the baton and to take their own crack at changing the world.” One of a series of tweets Obama sent after the violence in Charlottesville became the most shared tweet of all time, but it was a quote from Nelson Mandela, not an explicit criticism of Trump. Obama also issued statements denouncing the Republican efforts to dismantle Obamacare, but even those did not mention Trump by name. But it’s Trump who’s taking aim at DACA, not Congress, even though just last Friday the president told a group of faith leaders that “we love the Dreamers … we think the Dreamers are terrific.” Trump could change his mind about the program between now and Tuesday, so the person close to Obama stressed that the statement he’s prepared in case of an attack on DACA could change. But the fate of the Dreamers is an issue the former president feels strongly about, those close to him say, and he warned in his last presidential news conference on Jan. 18 that he would not let the program end without a fight. “The notion that we would just arbitrarily or because of politics punish those kids, when they didn’t do anything wrong themselves, I think would be something that would merit me speaking out,” he said at the Jan. 18 news conference. As news spread of Trump’s apparent decision to stop protecting the Dreamers, Obama’s former aides were all over Twitter attacking it. “This is as cruel and capricious a public policy decision that any President has made in a very long time,” said his former communications director, Dan Pfeiffer. Last night, the source close to Obama said the president will not stand by quietly while immigrants whose parents brought them to this country are subjected to deportation. "Back to a country they don't know with a language they don't speak?" the person close to Obama said. "It's cruel." ||||| Important information about DACA requests: USCIS is not accepting requests from individuals who have never before been granted deferred action under DACA. Please read Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals: Response to January 2018 Preliminary Injunction before filing a request. This page provides information on requesting consideration of deferred action for childhood arrivals (DACA). You may request DACA for the first time or renew your existing period of DACA if it is expiring. Find on this Page: What Is DACA On June 15, 2012, the Secretary of Homeland Security announced that certain people who came to the United States as children and meet several guidelines may request consideration of deferred action for a period of two years, subject to renewal. They are also eligible for work authorization. Deferred action is a use of prosecutorial discretion to defer removal action against an individual for a certain period of time. Deferred action does not provide lawful status. Watch a Video on DACA Iframe not supported. Request DACA for the First Time Important information about DACA requests: USCIS is not accepting requests from individuals who have never before been granted deferred action under DACA. Please read Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals: Response to January 2018 Preliminary Injunction before filing a request. The following information explains the guidelines for requesting DACA for the first time. If you need further information, you can call our National Customer Service Center at 1-800-375-5283 or 1-800-767-1833 (TDD for the hearing-impaired). Customer service officers are available Monday-Friday from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. in each U.S. time zone. Guidelines You may request DACA if you: Were under the age of 31 as of June 15, 2012; Came to the United States before reaching your 16th birthday; Have continuously resided in the United States since June 15, 2007, up to the present time; Were physically present in the United States on June 15, 2012, and at the time of making your request for consideration of deferred action with USCIS; Had no lawful status on June 15, 2012; Are currently in school, have graduated or obtained a certificate of completion from high school, have obtained a general education development (GED) certificate, or are an honorably discharged veteran of the Coast Guard or Armed Forces of the United States; and Have not been convicted of a felony, significant misdemeanor,or three or more other misdemeanors, and do not otherwise pose a threat to national security or public safety. Age Guidelines Anyone requesting DACA must have been under the age of 31 as of June 15, 2012. You must also be at least 15 years or older to request DACA, unless you are currently in removal proceedings or have a final removal or voluntary departure order, as summarized in the table below: Your situation Age I have never been in removal proceedings, or my proceedings have been terminated before making my request. At least 15 years old at the time of submitting your request and under the age of 31 as of June 15, 2012. I am in removal proceedings, have a final removal order, or have a voluntary departure order, and I am not in immigration detention. Under the age of 31 as of June 15, 2012, but you may be younger than 15 years old at the time you submit your request. Timeframe for Meeting the Guidelines You must demonstrate That on June 15, 2012 you As of the date you file your request you Were under the age of 31 years Were physically present in the United States Had no lawful status Have resided continuously in the U.S. since June 15, 2007; Had come to the United States before your 16th birthday Were physically present in the United States; and Are in school, have graduated from high school in the United States, or have a GED; or Are an honorably discharged veteran of the Coast Guard or Armed Forces of the United States Education and Military Service Guidelines Your school or military status at the time of requesting DACA Meet education or military service guidelines for DACA I graduated from: Public or private high school; or Secondary school. Or Or I have obtained a GED. Yes I am currently enrolled in school. Yes I was in school but dropped out and did not graduate. I am not currently in school and am not an honorably discharged veteran of the Coast Guard or Armed Forces of the U.S. No I am an honorably discharged veteran of the Coast Guard or Armed Forces of the U.S. Yes Return to top Filing Process for DACA If you meet the guidelines for DACA, you will need to complete the following steps to make your request to USCIS. Collect documents as evidence you meet the guidelines. You will need to submit supporting documents with your request for DACA. You can submit legible copies of these documents unless the instructions specify you must submit an original document. Examples of Documents to Submit to Demonstrate you Meet the Guidelines Please see the instructions (PDF, 262 KB) to Form I-821D, Consideration of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, for further details on acceptable documentation. Proof of identity Passport or national identity document from your country of origin Birth certificate with photo identification School or military ID with photo Any U.S. government immigration or other document bearing your name and photo Proof you came to U.S. before your 16th birthday Passport with admission stamp Form I-94/I-95/I-94W School records from the U.S. schools you have attended Any Immigration and Naturalization Service or DHS document stating your date of entry (Form I-862, Notice to Appear) Travel records Hospital or medical records Employment records (pay stubs, W-2 Forms, etc.) Official records from a religious entity confirming participation in a religious ceremony Copies of money order receipts for money sent in or out of the country Birth certificates of children born in the U.S. Dated bank transactions Automobile license receipts or registration Deeds, mortgages, rental agreement contracts Tax receipts, insurance policies Proof of immigration status Form I-94/I-95/I-94W with authorized stay expiration date Final order of exclusion, deportation, or removal issued as of June 15, 2012 A charging document placing you into removal proceedings Proof of presence in U.S. on June 15, 2012 Rent receipts or utility bills Employment records (pay stubs, W-2 Forms, etc) School records (letters, report cards, etc) Military records (Form DD-214 or NGB Form 22) Official records from a religious entity confirming participation in a religious ceremony Copies of money order receipts for money sent in or out of the country Passport entries Birth certificates of children born in the U.S. Dated bank transactions Automobile license receipts or registration Deeds, mortgages, rental agreement contracts Tax receipts, insurance policies Proof you continuously resided in U.S. since June 15, 2007 Proof of your student status at the time of requesting DACA Official records (transcripts, report cards, etc) from the school that you are currently attending in the United States. U.S. high school diploma or certificate of completion U.S. GED certificate Proof you are an honorably discharged veteran of the Coast Guard or Armed Forces of the U.S. Form DD-214, Certificate of Release or Discharge from Active Duty NGB Form 22, National Guard Report of Separation and Record of Service Military personnel records Military health records Return to top Complete the required two forms and worksheet Form name Fee I-821D, Consideration of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Use the most recent version of the form linked on our website or USCIS will reject your form. Please review the Filing Fee section of the Forms I-821D and I-765 pages for detailed information. These fees cannot be waived. I-765, Application for Employment Authorization I-765WS, Worksheet (PDF, 235 KB) Completing You Forms You must file the most recent version of Form I-821D from our website. USCIS will reject older versions of the form if you submit them. Write your name, date of birth, and mailing address exactly the same way on each form. We prefer that you download the forms from our website, fill them out electronically, and then print your completed forms to mail. Make sure you are using the most current version of the forms. The correct, most current edition of every USCIS form is always available for free download on our website. If you complete the forms by hand, use black ink only. Do NOT use highlighters or red ink on your forms. These could make your materials unreadable when scanned. If you must make changes on a form, we recommend that you begin with a new form, rather than trying to white out information. This can lead to scanning errors. Ensure that you provide all required supporting documentation and evidence. Be sure to sign all of your forms. Filing Your Forms USCIS will reject your request if you fail to submit Forms I-821D, I-765, I-765WS, and the correct fees. Organize and label your evidence by the DACA guideline that it meets. Be sure that you mail all pages of the forms. Mail the forms to correct USCIS Lockbox. You cannot e-file your DACA request. If you have questions, call the Customer Service Center at 1-800-375-5283 ; do NOT visit a USCIS field office. Mail your forms to the appropriate USCIS Lockbox. See the mailing instructions for Form I-821D. Include the required forms, fees and supporting documentation with your filing. Remember to carefully follow instructions and fully complete your forms. USCIS will not accept incomplete forms or forms without proper fee. USCIS will mail you a receipt after accepting your request. You may also choose to receive an email and/or text message notifying you that your form has been accepted by completing a Form G-1145, E-Notification of Application/Petition Acceptance. UPDATE: Create a USCIS online account for DACA requests. Beginning February 1, 2016, anyone who submits a DACA request will be able to create a USCIS online account to track and manage his or her case online. If you submit a DACA request, you will receive a USCIS Account Acceptance Notice in the mail with instructions on how to create a USCIS online account. Having a USCIS online account allows you to: Check the status of your case; Receive notifications and case updates; and Manage your contact information, including updating your address. If you are an attorney or accredited representative, creating a USCIS online account will allow you to manage all of your clients’ DACA requests in one place. USCIS will continue processing your DACA request even if you choose not to access your USCIS online account. You will continue to receive notifications and updates about your case by mail through the U.S. Postal Service. Note for Attorneys and Accredited Representatives: You should have only one USCIS online representative account. When you receive an Account Acceptance Notice for a paper form filed at a USCIS Lockbox on behalf of your client, please ensure that you enter the same personal information that you provided on the Form G-28 submitted with your client’s original application, petition, or request. If the information you use to access your online representative account does not match the information you provided on the Form G-28, you may be unable to access your client’s case. Visit an Application Support Center (ASC) for biometric services. After USCIS receives your complete request with fees, we will send you a notice scheduling you to visit an ASC to for biometric services. If you fail to attend your ASC appointment, USCIS may deny your request DACA. Children under 14 in removal proceedings, with a final removal order, or with a voluntary departure order, and who are not in immigration detention, will appear at the ASC for photographs only. Check the status of your request online. The 90-day period for reviewing Form I-765 filed together with Form I-821D begins if and when USCIS decides to defer action in your case. You can check the status of your case on Case Status Online or by logging into your USCIS online account. Fee Exemptions There are very limited fee exemptions available. Your request for a fee exemption must be filed and favorably adjudicated before you file your DACA request without a fee. In order to be considered for a fee exemption, you must submit a letter and supporting documentation to USCIS demonstrating that you meet one of the following conditions: You are under 18 years of age, have an income that is less than 150 percent of the U.S. poverty level, and are in foster care or otherwise lacking any parental or other familial support; or, You are under 18 years of age and homeless; or, You cannot care for yourself because you suffer from a serious, chronic disability and your income is less than 150 percent of the U.S. poverty level; or, You have, at the time of the request, accumulated $10,000 or more in debt in the past 12 months as a result of unreimbursed medical expenses for yourself or an immediate family member, and your income is less than 150 percent of the U.S. poverty level. Submit the following types of evidence: Affidavits from community-based or religious organizations to establish a requestor’s homelessness or lack of parental or other familial financial support. Copies of tax returns, bank statement, pay stubs, or other reliable evidence of income level. An affidavit from the applicant or a responsible third party attesting that the applicant does not file tax returns, has no bank accounts, and/or has no income to prove income level. Copies of medical records, insurance records, bank statements, or other reliable evidence of unreimbursed medical expenses of at least $10,000. USCIS will send you a Request for Evidence (RFE) if it has questions on the evidence you submitted. You can find additional information on our Fee Exemption Guidance Web page. Note: There are no fee waivers available for employment authorization applications connected to DACA. If USCIS Grants DACA in Your Case If USCIS grants DACA and employment authorization in your case, you will receive a written notice of that decision. An Employment Authorization Document will arrive separately in the mail. If USCIS Does Not Grant DACA in Your Case If USCIS decides not to grant DACA in your case, you cannot appeal the decision or file a motion to reopen or reconsider. USCIS will not review its discretionary determinations. We will apply our policy guidance governing the referral of cases to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the issuance of notices to appear. If your case does not involve a criminal offense, fraud, or a threat to national security or public safety, we will not refer your case to ICE for purposes of removal proceedings except where DHS determines there are exceptional circumstances. For more information on notices to appear, visit www.uscis.gov/NTA. Administrative Errors You may request a review using the Service Request Management Tool process if you met all of the DACA guidelines and you believe USCIS denied your request because of an administrative error. Examples: USCIS believes you abandoned your case by not responding to a request for evidence (RFE), and you believe you did respond within the prescribed time; or USCIS mailed the RFE to the wrong address, even though you had submitted a Form AR-11, Change of Address, or changed your address online at www.uscis.gov before we issued the RFE. To make a service request, you must call the National Customer Service Center at 1-800-375-5283. A USCIS customer service representative will then forward your request to the proper USCIS office. Your service request will be reviewed for accuracy and USCIS will send you a letter informing you of its decision. The USCIS National Customer Service Center is now open Monday – Friday from 8 a.m. – 8 p.m. in each U.S. time zone. Return to top Travel Information Certain travel outside the United States may affect the continuous residence guideline. Traveling outside the U.S. before Aug. 15, 2012, will not interrupt your continuous residence if the travel was brief, casual, and innocent. If you travel outside the United States after Aug. 15, 2012, and before we decide your request for DACA, you will not be considered for DACA. The following chart explains whether your travel will affect your continuous residence. Travel Dates Type of Travel Does it Affect Continuous Residence On or after June 15, 2007, but before Aug. 15, 2012 brief casual innocent No For an extended time Because of an order of exclusion, deportation, or removal To participate in criminal activity Yes After Aug. 15, 2012, and before you have requested DACA Any Yes. You cannot apply for advance parole unless and until DHS has determined whether to defer action in your case and you cannot travel until you receive advance parole. After Aug. 15, 2012, and after you have requested DACA Any Yes. You cannot travel while your request is under review. You cannot apply for advance parole unless and until DHS has determined whether to defer action in your case. In addition, if you have previously been ordered deported and removed and you depart the United States without taking additional steps to address your removal proceedings, your departure will likely result in your being considered deported or removed, with potentially serious future immigration consequences. On or after Aug. 15, 2012, and receiving DACA Any It depends. If you travel after receiving advance parole, the travel will not interrupt your continuous residence. However, if you travel without receiving advance parole, the travel will interrupt your continuous residence. If you travel outside the United States without first receiving advance parole, USCIS will automatically terminate your DACA. Return to top National Security and Public Safety Guidelines You will not be considered for DACA if you have been convicted of: A felony offense; A significant misdemeanor offense; or Three or more other misdemeanor offenses not occurring on the same date and not arising out of the same act, omission, or scheme of misconduct. Or You are otherwise deemed to pose a threat to national security or public safety. What is the difference between “significant misdemeanor”, “non-significant misdemeanor”, and “felony”? Felony Significant Misdemeanor Non-significant Misdemeanor A felony is a federal, state or local criminal offense punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year. A significant misdemeanor is a misdemeanor as defined by federal law (specifically, one for which the maximum term of imprisonment authorized is one year or less but greater than five days) and: Regardless of the sentence imposed, is an offense of domestic violence; sexual abuse or exploitation; burglary; unlawful possession or use of a firearm; drug distribution or trafficking; or, driving under the influence; or, If not an offense listed above, is one for which the individual was sentenced to time in custody of more than 90 days. The sentence must involve time to be served in custody, and therefore does not include a suspended sentence. A crime is considered a non-significant misdemeanor (maximum term of imprisonment is one year or less but greater than five days) if it: Is not an offense of domestic violence; sexual abuse or exploitation; burglary; unlawful possession or use of a firearm; drug distribution or trafficking; or, driving under the influence; and Is one for which the individual was sentenced to time in custody of 90 days or less. A minor traffic offense will not be considered a misdemeanor for purposes of DACA, However, driving under the influence is a significant misdemeanor regardless of the sentence. Don’t Be a Victim of Immigration Scams Dishonest practitioners may promise to provide you with faster services if you pay them a fee. These people are trying to scam you and take your money. Visit our Avoid Scams page to learn how you can protect yourself from immigration scams. Make sure you seek information about DACA from official government sources such as USCIS or the Department of Homeland Security. If you are seeking legal advice, visit our Find Legal Services page to learn how to choose a licensed attorney or accredited representative. Remember you can download all USCIS forms for free at www.uscis.gov/forms. Combatting Fraud USCIS is committed to safeguarding the integrity of the immigration process. If you knowingly and willfully provide materially false information on Form I-821D, you will be committing a federal felony punishable by a fine, or imprisonment up to five years, or both, under 18 U.S.C. Section 1001. In addition, individuals may be placed into removal proceedings, face severe penalties provided by law, and be subject to criminal prosecution. Previous DACA Updates Sept. 13, 2016 Update: We are aware that some DACA requestors may have experienced delays receiving their Application Support Center biometrics appointment notices. We recently mailed biometrics appointment notices to those whose notices were delayed. Most of these appointments will be scheduled during the week of October 24, 2016, and we encourage you to appear at your appointment as scheduled. If you need to reschedule an appointment, please follow the instructions on your appointment notice. We will only reschedule a biometrics appointment if you have a compelling reason For more information, please refer to our guidance on rescheduling appointments due to reasons such as illness. For further information about your DACA request, you may contact the USCIS Customer Contact Center or send us an email from your online account inbox. September 12, 2016 Update: Due to a federal court order, USCIS will not begin accepting requests for the expansion of DACA on February 18 as originally planned. The court's temporary injunction, issued February 16, does not affect the existing DACA. Individuals may continue to come forward and request an initial grant of DACA or renewal of DACA under the guidelines established in 2012 and discussed below. August 10, 2016 Update: If you submitted a request for DACA renewal between February 14 and May 14, 2016, your renewal request may have taken longer than expected. You should receive a decision on your case within the next few weeks. USCIS is dedicated to restoring normal processing times as quickly as possible. June 27, 2016, Update: The Supreme Court’s 4-4 decision on June 23, 2016, in United States v. Texas does not affect existing policy regarding 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). Individuals who meet the 2012 DACA guidelines may continue to come forward and file an initial or renewal request for DACA under the 2012 guidelines. The Supreme Court decision does, however, mean that the injunction prohibiting implementation of Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents (DAPA) and expanded DACA remains in effect August 3, 2015, Update: Quick Facts for DACA Recipients Who Received 3-Year Work Authorization Post-Injunction February, 15, 2015, Update: Due to a federal court order, USCIS will not begin accepting requests for the expansion of DACA on February 18 as originally planned. The court's temporary injunction, issued February 16, does not affect the existing DACA. Individuals may continue to come forward and request an initial grant of DACA or renewal of DACA under the guidelines established in 2012 and discussed below. Please check back for updates. Return to top Find this page at www.uscis.gov/childhoodarrivals or www.uscis.gov/daca ||||| 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 his plans to formally kill DACA are announced as expected Tuesday, Trump will face direct criticism from someone who’s been notably silent since he took office: Barack Obama. According to Politico, a source close to the former president says Obama plans to post a statement to Facebook that he will then share on Twitter to his 94 million followers. The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program was launched in 2012 by Obama. During his final press conference as president, Obama said he would not stay silent if the program was threatened, and that he’d be morally compelled to speak out against “efforts to round up kids who have grown up here and for all practical purposes are American kids, and send them someplace else, when they love this country.”

Mitt Romney continues to resist pressure to turn over more tax returns. In an interview today he said he is “simply not enthusiastic about giving them hundreds or thousands of more pages to pick through, distort, and lie about.” The call for more information about Romney’s financial past, however, is bipartisan. A poll released today found fifty six percent of all voters, including sixty one percent of independents, think that Romney should release twelve years of returns. These fifteen prominent Republicans are calling on Romney to release more tax returns, now: 1. George Will. On ABC’s “This Week,” Will, a long-time conservative commentator and Washington Post columnist, said, “The costs of not releasing the returns are clear, therefore he must have calculated that there are higher costs in releasing them.” At one point, he even played devil’s advocate to Republican consultant Mary Matalin, who was defending Romney. 2. Bill Kristol. “Here’s what he should do,” said Kristol, another conservative commentator, on Fox News. “He should release the tax returns tomorrow. This is crazy… you’ve got to release 6, 8, 10 years of back tax returns. Take the hit for a day or two. Then give a serious speech on Thursday.” 3. Ron Paul. Unitl just days ago, Paul was the other Republican presidential candidate. He is also one of those calling for Romney to release the returns. Paul told Politico today, “Politically, I think that would help him. …In the scheme of things politically, you know, it looks like releasing tax returns is what the people want.” 4. Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley. The Alabama Governor actually went further than others in suggesting that perhaps Romney is hiding something by not releasing his tax returns. “If you have things to hide, then maybe you’re doing things wrong,” he told the AP. “I think you ought to be willing to release everything to the American people.“ 5. Michael Steele. The former chair of the Republican National Committee is pushing for release. He claims it will help voters trust Romney, especially since he claims there is nothing to see in the returns: “If there’s nothing there, there’s no ‘there’ there, don’t create a ‘there.’ Put out as much information as you can. Even if you don’t release 12 years worth of tax returns, at least three, four, five.” 6. Rep. Walter Jones. In an interview with CNN, the Republican Congressman from North Carolina said, “I think he should release his financial records and I think if he does it in July it would be a lot better than in October. …whenever you are asking for the vote of the American people you need to fully disclose what your holdings are, if you have any.” 7. Ana Navarro. “He should just release the stupid taxes and eliminate the Obama campaign tactic of insinuating he’s got something to hide,” the former adviser to John McCain said. “The Obama people are going to keep the issue alive and it has the potential of mushrooming into a bigger issue. …It’s time to just pull off the band-aid.” 8. Rep. Pete Sessions. Sessions (R-TX) leads the National Republican Congressional Committee, and even he called Romney’s tax returns “fair game” and a “legitimate question.” In an interview with CNN, Sessions said that “[Romney’s] personal finances, the way he does things, his record, are fair game.” 9. Gov. Haley Barbour. The Mississippi Governor has been outspoken about the need for Romney to hand over the documents. “The advice I would give Romney is: Who cares about your tax returns? Release ’em!” Barbour said in a phone interview. “We need for this campaign to be about Obama’s record.” Earlier this week, Barbour also called for Romney to release the returns on CNN. 10. Matthew Dowd. This conservative commentator called it “arrogance” that Romney was not releasing his returns. Joining forced with Bill Kristol, Dowd spoke candidly about his doubts around Romney’s tax returns: “There is obviously something because if there was nothing there he would say have it…But I think the bigger thing is, it’s arrogance. Many of these politicians think I can do this, I can get away with this.” 11. Rick Tyler. Republican strategist and former adviser to Newt Gingrich’s campaign had this to say about Romney’s returns: “Mitt Romney had an opportunity to answer these questions during the primary. …He did not answer these questions and now they’re coming up again. …Only [Romney] can provide that information. …Or we’ll just have drip, drip, drip to November.” 12. John Weaver. This Republican strategist had a straightforward message that got picked up as a quote-of-the day. In regard to Romney releasing his returns, he said, “There is no whining in politics. …Stop demanding an apology, release your tax returns.” 13. Brit Hume. The conservative Fox News commentator told fellow Fox man Bill O’Reilly, “Any time it’s disclosure versus non-disclosure, you always wonder whether it isn’t better to put it out there. And if it turns out that if people get to hear once again that Mitt Romney is a very very rich man. …I guess the Obama team would have some sport with that for a couple days.” 14. David Frum. The conservative journalist David Frum Tweeted his opinion on the tax release controversy. “Tax returns the next problem. Releasing returns under pressure: more weakness, more pain,” he wrote in one tweet. “Do promptly and cheerfully what you will eventually have to do anyway,” he added. 15. John Feehery. This Republican strategist joined the growing list of Republicans asking Romney to release the returns when speaking with Andrea Mitchell on MSNBC. “Might as well get it over with,” he told her, “Couple of years, get it over with.” 16. Gov. Rick Perry Texas Governor and former Republican Presidential candidate Rick Perry (R) has come out and urged Romney to release his returns. According to the AP, “Perry said that anyone running for office should give people what he called ‘backgrounds,’ including tax returns, if asked and if the requests are within reason.” When Perry was running for President, he released 10 years of returns. 17. Sen. Chuck Grassley The Iowa Republican joins the fray, The Hill reports: “”I don’t think he should be called on to do anything extraordinary other than what other presidential candidates have done.’ When asked if he thought Romney should do as much as prior presidential nominees have, meaning release more returns, Grassley said, ‘based upon my comment, I’d have to say yes.'” 18. Sen. Dick Lugar In an interview with CBS, Lugar, who himself ran for president in 1998, said it would be smart for Romney to release more returns. “‘It was quite a number which we released.’ …He added it would be “prudent” for Romney to release more years of his tax returns. ‘I have no idea on why he has restricted the number to this point,’ Lugar said.” 19. Wayne MacDonald The chair of the New Hampshire GOP came out and told the Washington Post in a phone interview that Romney should probably just release the returns. “Certainly, I don’t think Mitt Romney has anything to hide, and probably the best thing to do is to eliminate any chance for (the Democrats) to make this an issue,” he said. New Hampshire will be an important state in the election. 20. Mike Murphy The Daily Beast adds another person, long-time GOP consultant and former Romney employee, to the ever-growing list: “‘Why they didn’t release more of this material a year ago is confusing to me,’ says Mike Murphy, a veteran GOP consultant who has worked for Romney in the past.” ||||| Earlier today, Mitt Romney spoke with National Review Online about life on the trail, his meeting with Dick Cheney, and his upcoming trip to Europe. He called from western Pennsylvania, where he will later hold a rally at a wireless company. A few days ago, you visited Vice President Cheney. Did he have any advice for you? We did speak, at some length, about foreign-policy matters, in particular the circumstances surrounding some of the foreign-policy decisions of the Bush administration. I discussed with him the process of decision-making, and he described the individuals, the types of meetings that occurred, and the expression of views. Of course, I did not get him to tell me about individual personalities and their own perspectives, but rather the process by which the White House was able to take on important issues. Speaking of Cheney, what makes a good vice president? Well, I can’t speak for other people who’ve run for office and what they’ve looked for in a person who would be their vice president. In my own view, the people I’ve worked with over my career have been people who have the capacity to lead, who share my philosophy, and in some cases, people who provide perspectives and skills that I may not share. We’ve heard a lot about Bain this week. How would you rate the press coverage? I don’t see a lot of the press coverage because my travel schedule keeps me from seeing all of it. A long time ago, I got good advice from a friend who said, “Don’t read the papers, they’ll only throw you off of your message.” I don’t worry a lot about what’s being said from day to day. My own view is that people will recognize that I was instrumental in helping build a very successful business that employed a lot of people, and that our business was able to invest in other people’s dreams, many of which were successful. Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel says you should stop whining about the Bain attacks. What’s your response? I only call people out when they are being dishonest.#more# Looking back, how did your time at Bain prepare you for the presidency? Your life experiences can come together and prepare you for responsibilities later in life. In my own experience, my family life, learning from the example of my parents, my life in my church, my education, my years in consulting, my years in the investment world, my leadership at the Olympics, and finally my leadership in Massachusetts — this all contributed to the person I am today and the capability I have to lead. With regard to Bain in particular, I had about ten years in consulting and 14 or 15 years in the investment world. The 25 years I spent in business gave me an understanding of how business decisions are made, as well as an understanding of the actions that are destructive to job creation and the actions that encourage job creation. I’ve watched this president, and his policies have made it harder to create jobs. His economic philosophy, shockingly revealed in his comment a day or so ago, is the reason why he has been so unsuccessful in reigniting economic growth. Up in Boston, does your campaign have a similar corporate culture? Do you run it the Bain way, with horizontal leadership and vigorous debate? Bain Capital was a firm that I led for 14 or 15 years, and Bain Consulting was an enterprise I led for two years as CEO. Our campaign is not modeled after either group. For much of this week, you’ve been asked about your tax returns. What’s the downside to releasing your pre-2010 financial records? My tax returns that have already been released number into the hundreds of pages. And we will be releasing tax returns for the most current year as soon as those are prepared. They will also number in the hundreds of pages. In the political environment that exists today, the opposition research of the Obama campaign is looking for anything they can use to distract from the failure of the president to reignite our economy. And I’m simply not enthusiastic about giving them hundreds or thousands of more pages to pick through, distort, and lie about. From a political perspective, a lot of pundits wonder why you haven’t gotten rid of your offshore accounts. Can you explain why you have not done that? Well, first of all, all of my investments are managed in a blind trust. By virtue of that, the decisions made by the trustee are the decisions that determine where the investments are. Secondly, the so-called offshore account in the Cayman Islands, for instance, is an account established by a U.S. firm to allow foreign investors to invest in U.S. enterprises and not be subject to taxes outside of their own jurisdiction. So in many instances, the investments in something of that nature are brought back into the United States. The world of finance is not as simple as some would have you believe. Sometimes a foreign entity is formed to allow foreign investors to invest in the United States, which may well be the case with the entities that Democrats are describing as foreign accounts. Former president George W. Bush is coming out with a new book, The 4% Solution, about economic growth. Is 4 percent growth viable? He’s absolutely right that we’re not growing fast enough. The president’s policies have failed to create the kind of GDP growth that America could achieve. Job growth is well beneath the level we should be seeing, and that results from an economy that’s growing much less swiftly than it could. My policies are designed to achieve 4 percent per year growth of the GDP. I would also note that I would hope we could see a rate a good deal higher than that on a temporary basis after we come out of the economic doldrums of the Obama years. In late June, when the Supreme Court upheld the president’s health-care law, Chief Justice Roberts disappointed many conservatives. Did Roberts’s ruling change your perspective on how you, as president, would evaluate a Supreme Court nominee? I disagreed with the Roberts decision and I would be interested in an evaluation of a Supreme Court nominee that looked at his or her thinking on making difficult constitutional decisions. We don’t yet know the rationale fully behind Roberts’s change of opinion, but when we do, it will tell us more about the nature of someone we would nominate. I suspect that Justice Roberts shied away from making a big decision, despite his conviction that the Constitution, in reality, would have led to striking down Obamacare. You’re heading abroad next week. Why are you going to Europe? Foreign affairs and associations with foreign leaders are an important part of the presidency, a position I hope to achieve. Upon your return, you’ll have a small window before the national convention. What’s your core campaign message, your big theme, between now and Tampa? You’re going to have to wait to find out. If I told you that now, I wouldn’t have anything to spring on you guys after I get back. The Democratic National Convention is being held in early September. Do you plan on campaigning while the Democrats are hosting their convention in Charlotte? We haven’t got plans right now, but that’s a decision we’ll make down the road. You’ve written many of your own speeches. Are you already working on your convention speech? I am not yet working on my convention speech. With that, Romney was whisked away to his next event. He’ll be in Bowling Green, Ohio, on Wednesday, and he’ll head across the pond early next week. Inside the Beltway, the vice-presidential speculation continues, but for now, there is little news on the veep front. ||||| It's not clear if voters really care about the fact that Mitt Romney hasn't revealed more than one year of taxes, but the talk surrounding this issue is so loud that it's a "win" for Obama because it's a topic other than the economy and jobs. A growing number of Republicans think that obviously Romney should release his taxes. But only he knows what's in his returns, and he does not think it's so obvious. So everyone has their theories. One easy possibility is that it's just a matter of drawing more attention to the fact that he is really rich and his tax rate isn't all that high. But this doesn't make sense since this would only confirm what everyone really knows. Joshua Green at Bloomberg has what is the most logical theory so far... which is that thanks to the economic collapse of 2008, and the massive losses he probably suffered, Romney might not have paid any taxes in 2009, thanks to tax-loss carryforwards. As a member of the ultra-rich, Romney probably wasn’t spared major losses. And it’s possible that he suffered a large enough capital loss that, carried forward and coupled with his various offshore tax havens, he wound up paying no U.S. federal taxes at all in 2009. If true, this would be politically deadly for him. Even assuming that his return was thoroughly clean and legal — a safe assumption, it seems to me — the fallout would dwarf the controversy that attended the news that Romney had paid a tax rate of only 14 percent in 2010 and estimated he’d pay a similar rate in 2011. We're not sure whether Green is right that it would be politically "deadly" though we could certainly see why Romney wouldn't want this known, if it were true. Incidentally, another more exotic possibility that had come to mind is that somehow Mitt Romney made a windfall profit in 2008-2009, perhaps by being part of a fund that was short housing or bet on the bank bailouts. That's 100% speculation, but it would also be the kind of thing that would be deadly (probably more deadly than $0 taxes). It also would have been somewhat unplannable. A problem with the tax loss carryforwards argument is that if Romney knew he'd be running in 2009 (and he probably did) then you'd think he'd have gone out of his way not to do anything that might look bad, even if 100% by the book. Going back to the no tax issue, former political strategist and now media guy Peter Feld notes that the latest Obama TV ad specifically raises the possibility that Romney paid $0 in taxes. So in the absence of counter-evidence it seems likely that this is the theory that will become the most popular. ||||| 2012 campaign As George Will and many others have noted, there must be something truly damaging in Romney’s pre-2010 tax returns for him to willingly endure the criticism and scrutiny that has accompanied his refusal to release them—a refusal he reiterated on Friday, even as the issue, and the matter of his departure date from Bain Capital, has engulfed the campaign. “The cost of not releasing the returns are clear,” Will said on ABC’s This Week on Sunday. “Therefore, he must have calculated that there are higher costs in releasing them.” So what could it be that Romney is so determined not to disclose? Last night I had dinner with some (non-Bain) private equity executives, and I took the opportunity to quiz them on the topic and test my own theories about Romney’s tax returns. Let me emphasize that I have no idea what is in those returns, and neither did anyone I spoke with. What follows is unfounded, though not implausible, speculation. The most intriguing scenario that emerged about what could be lurking in those returns is as follows: When the stock market collapsed in 2008, the wealthiest investors fared worse than everyone else. (See, for instance, this Merrill Lynch study.) The “ultra-rich”—those with fortunes of more than $30 million—fared worst of all, losing on average about 25 percent of their net worth. “There was really nowhere to hide as an investor in 2008,” Merrill Lynch’s president of global wealth management pointed out in 2009. “No region ended the year unscathed.” As a member of the ultra-rich, Romney probably wasn’t spared major losses. And it’s possible he suffered a large enough capital loss that, carried forward and coupled with his various offshore tax havens, he wound up paying no U.S. federal taxes at all in 2009. If true, this would be politically deadly for him. Even assuming that his return was thoroughly clean and legal—a safe assumption, it seems to me—the fallout would dwarf the controversy that attended the news that Romney had paid a tax rate of just 14 percent in 2010 and that estimated he’d pay a similar rate in 2011. The “zero tax in 2009” theory—again, this is sheer speculation—gains further sustenance when you consider it’s the only year for which nobody knows anything about Romney’s taxes. He’s revealed what’s in his 2010 and 2011 returns, and he reportedly submitted 20-some years’ worth of returns to the McCain campaign when he was being vetted for vice president in 2008. Steve Schmidt, McCain’s chief strategist in that campaign, said on MSNBC last night that while he didn’t examine Romney’s returns himself, nothing that McCain’s vetters found in them disqualified Romney from consideration. That would indicate that 2009 is singularly important and, if there’s anything to this theory, incredibly vexing for Romney because there’s no way he could release additional returns without including that year. And the chaos that would ensue would be bad enough that it’s probably worth enduring significant damage to avoid. ||||| Mitt Romney is steadfastly resisting calls to release additional years of his personal tax returns, arguing — not without good reason — that this demand is part of a fishing expedition by the Obama campaign, which hopes to exploit Romney’s personal wealth and successful business career as part of a class-warfare election strategy. Romney argues that whatever he releases will not be enough to satisfy the Obama campaign and its factota in the media, who are, once again, proving their bias and double standards. Romney is right, but he should release the returns anyway. Let them go fish. We doubt that there is anything truly surprising in Romney’s additional personal tax returns (he’s already released 2010 and will release more from 2011). We already know that he has made vast amounts of money, that he gives generously to his church and to charities, that he has set up trusts for his family, that he maintains bank accounts and investments overseas, and that he takes advantages of such benefits as are available to him under our ridiculously complex tax code. If there is scandal to be had of that, it can be had from the information that already is available. But there is no scandal in that: Romney is a wealthy man — and he has complicated personal finances, something that is typical of wealthy men. In fact, Romney’s personal finances are a very good case study in what’s wrong with the American tax system and regulatory climate. The Romney campaign says he has released as many returns as candidate John Kerry did in 2004, and cites Teresa Heinz Kerry’s refusal to release any of her tax returns. Neither is an apt comparison. John Kerry actually released returns from 1999 through 2003, and also released tax returns during his Senate runs. As for Teresa Heinz, Romney isn’t the wealthy spouse of a candidate, but the candidate himself. In 2008, John McCain released two years of returns, but he had been filling out financial disclosure forms for decades as a senator. Romney protests that he is not legally obliged to release any tax returns. Of course not. He is no longer in the realm of the private sector, though, where he can comply with the letter of the law with the Securities and Exchange Commission and leave it at that. Perceptions matter. Romney may feel impatience with requirements that the political culture imposes on a presidential candidate that he feels are pointless (and inconvenient). But he’s a politician running for the highest office in the land, and his current posture is probably unsustainable. In all likelihood, he won’t be able to maintain a position that looks secretive and is a departure from campaign conventions. The only question is whether he releases more returns now, or later — after playing more defense on the issue and sustaining more hits. There will surely be a press feeding frenzy over new returns, but better to weather it in the middle of July. If he releases more returns, Romney will be in a better position to resist the inevitable demands for even more disclosures. More important, he will be in a better position to pivot his campaign to what should be its focus — telling a story, through a series of detailed, substantive speeches, about where he wants to take the country. It is to President Obama’s advantage to fight the election out over tactics and minutiae. By drawing out the argument over the returns, Romney is playing into the president’s hands. He should release them, respond to any attacks they bring, and move on.

– Scores of prominent Republicans are ratcheting up pressure on Mitt Romney to release his tax returns, notes ThinkProgress, but the candidate tells the National Review that he's not thrilled about giving the Obama camp "more pages to pick through, distort and lie about." (The editors at the conservative site sympathize, but called on him to release them anyway.) At Bloomberg/BusinessWeek, Joshua Green floats a theory that might explain Romney's reticence: Maybe he paid no federal taxes in 2009. How so? Like other uber-rich investors, Romney probably lost a lot of money in the 2008 market collapse. "It’s possible he suffered a large enough capital loss that, carried forward and coupled with his various offshore tax havens," he ended up paying nothing to Uncle Sam in '09. "If true, this would be politically deadly for him," writes Green. At Business Insider, Joe Weisenthal thinks the theory has much merit, though he disagrees that Romney would be "politically dead" if true. Another possibility: Romney made a nice profit in 2008-09, maybe through a fund that bet on the bailouts. That's "100% speculation," admits Weisenthal. But unless Romney releases the actual returns, he can surely expect more of it.

Before we fire up the grill and put out the potato salad, we decided to dig into some data and see how many people in the U.S. share names with some of our country’s most patriotic founders. Interestingly, John Adams (9,893 people), Robert Morris (7,367 people), and John Hancock (1,616 people), are the top three most common names of our Founding Fathers. Rounding out the Top 5 in the list of the 14 most popular Founding Fathers names are George Washington (1,513 people) and Samuel Adams (1,100 people). Guess which state has the most people who share names with the Founding Fathers And of note is where you’ll find most of these citizens: Florida was the 27th state to join Union, but it’s the number one state for patriotic names. And while Betsy Ross may not be a Founding Father, we included her on the list at number fourteen, with 163 people in the United States sharing the name. The state with the most Betsy Rosses? Again, it’s Florida! Popular Founding Fathers Names Shared with People in the U.S. ||||| Just in time for Independence Day, WhitePages, the leading provider of contact information for people and businesses in the U.S., reveals the most popular names in the United States that are shared with some of our country’s most patriotic founders. The data shows that John Adams (9,893 people), Robert Morris (7,367 people), and John Hancock (1,616 people), are the top three most common names of our Founding Fathers. Rounding out the top five in the list of the 14 most popular Founding Fathers names are George Washington (1,513 people) and Samuel Adams (1,100 people). “It’s interesting to note that the top two most common names, John Adams and Robert Morris, are most popular in Florida,” says Liz Powell, culture and trend expert from WhitePages. “While Florida may have been the 27th state to enter the Union, it is the number one state for patriotic names.” While Betsy Ross may not be a Founding Father, WhitePages included her on the list at number fourteen, with 163 people in the United States sharing the name. The state with the most Betsy Rosses? Again, it’s Florida. Popular Founding Fathers Names Shared with People in the U.S. 1. John Adams: 9,893; 789 in FL 2. Robert Morris - 7,367; 587 in FL 3. John Hancock - 1,616; 184 in TX 4. George Washington - 1,513; 133 in TX 5. Samuel Adams - 1,100; 75 in GA 6. Patrick Henry - 1,004; 100 in FL 7. James Madison - 753; 55 in CA 8. Thomas Jefferson - 522; 52 in TX 9. Benjamin Franklin - 401; 38 in CA 10. John Witherspoon - 309; 36 in NC 11. John Jay - 282; 38 in TX 12. Alexander Hamilton - 269; 25 in NY 13. Thomas Paine - 179; 20 in CA 14. Betsy Ross - 163; 17 in FL To learn more about name popularity in the United States, please visit: http://www.whitepages.com/. About WhitePages WhitePages is the leading provider of contact information for people and businesses in the U.S. With over 50 million unique monthly users and powering over 2 billion searches per year across sites that include WhitePages.com and 411.com, WhitePages offers consumers one-click access to more than 200 million adults and also provides them with the ability to edit and control their own listings. The company’s suite of mobile products includes a top-50 mobile website and popular Android and iPhone apps with over 18 million active monthly mobile users. ||||| Parents do still give their kids patriotic names, particularly those of the Founding Fathers, research has found. Credit: Kim Ruoff/Shutterstock.com View full size image You've seen the names in history books: Alexander Hamilton, Samuel Adams, Thomas Jefferson. But which Founding Father has the most namesakes alive today? That would be John Adams, the second president of the United States, according to a new analysis by contact information provider WhitePages. According to the company, there are 9,893 individuals with the name John Adams in the United States, and 789 in Florida alone. Florida is a hotspot for patriotic names: It's also home to 587 Robert Morrises, who share a name with the American merchant who served as the superintendent of finance from 1781 to 1784. There are 7,367 Americans nationwide who share this name, making it the second-most-popular Founding Father name on the list. [Sophia's Secret: 10 Most Popular Baby Names] Patriot names WhitePages draws its name data from its own listings, as well as the Social Security name database and the Oxford University Press, according to its website. The top Founding Father names (along with one Founding Mother), are as follows: 1. John Adams, second president of the United States: 9,893 2. Robert Morris, Revolutionary War financier: 7,367 3. John Hancock, president of the Second Continental Congress and famous signature-writer: 1,616 4. George Washington, first president of the United States: 1,513 5. Samuel Adams, fourth governor of Massachusetts: 1,100 6. Patrick Henry, first governor of Virginia and famed orator: 1,004 7. James Madison, fourth president of the United States: 753 8. Thomas Jefferson, third president of the United States: 522 9. Benjamin Franklin, inventor, politician and diplomat: 401 10. John Witherspoon, signatory of the Declaration of Independence: 309 11. John Jay, second governor of New York and first chief justice of the Supreme Court: 282 12. Alexander Hamilton, first U.S. Secretary of the Treasury: 269 13. Thomas Paine, political theorist: 179 14. Betsy Ross, seamstress credited in legend with sewing the first American flag: 163 It's likely that not every Mr. and Mrs. Morris who named their child Robert meant to honor a figure in the American Revolution, just as plenty of John Adamses, Witherspoons and Jays probably owe their name to coincidence, considering John was a top-10 name choice until 1986. Many other first names on the list are common choices. But few parents who chose the name George Washington or Benjamin Franklin likely did so without considering the namesake. State of patriotism Many of the Founding Father names are most prevalent in Southern states. There are 184 John Hancocks, 133 George Washingtons and 52 Thomas Jeffersons in Texas. Georgia has the most individuals named Samuel Adams, with 75, while 38 Benjamin Franklins and 55 James Madisons call California home. California is also home to the most Thomas Paines (20), while New York boasts 25 Alexander Hamiltons and North Carolina is home to 36 John Witherspoons. In addition to being home to the most John Adamses and Robert Morrises, Florida also has the most people named Patrick Henry (100) and Betsy Ross (17). For parents looking for naming inspiration for their July Fourth babies, some less-popular choices might be in order. According to U.S. Social Security Administration data, the girl's name "America" ranks 777th in popularity as of 2013. Liberty ranked 532nd, up from 754 in 2001. "Freedom" and "Independence" have never cracked the top 1,000. Follow Stephanie Pappas on Twitter and Google+. Follow us @livescience, Facebook& Google+. Original article on Live Science.

– George Washington, America's first president, can claim 1,513 namesakes alive in the US today, according to a new WhitePages analysis, but that actually ranks fourth on the list of most popular Founding Father names. Second president John Adams tops the list with 9,893, while Revolutionary War financier Robert Morris comes in second at 7,367 (perhaps both are a coincidence given John and Robert as well as Adams and Morris are common to begin with). Congressman and famous signature-writer John Hancock, meanwhile, claims a far more modest (but likely more intentional) 1,616 namesakes, ranking a distant third. "It's interesting to note that the top two most common names, John Adams and Robert Morris, are most popular in Florida," says Liz Powell, culture and trend expert from WhitePages, in a news release. "While Florida may have been the 27th state to enter the Union, it is the number one state for patriotic names." Only one name, meanwhile, belongs to a woman (WhitePages admits she wasn't a Founding Father but gave her a spot all the same), and that's seamstress Betsy Ross. She came in 14th on the list of 14 with 163 namesakes. And while several names are probably to be expected (Samuel Adams comes in 5th place, Thomas Jefferson in 8th, and Benjamin Franklin in 9th), Abraham Lincoln's name is rather mysteriously missing. In the realm of more general patriotic names, LiveScience points out that Liberty ranked 532nd as far as girls' baby names go last year; America took the 777th spot. (Click to read about a much more unusual first name.)

After Friday’s terrorist attacks in Paris, the three rivals showed their weaknesses along with their strengths. Against the somber backdrop of Friday’s terror attacks in Paris, the three contenders for the Democratic nomination gathered in Iowa on Saturday night. The first 30 minutes of the debate were devoted to foreign-policy issues, but not until the focus shifted to domestic questions did the candidates really come alive. And that may be a problem for whichever of these candidates becomes the Democratic nominee. CBS’s John Dickerson pressed the candidates for answers on ISIS, asking them to explain how they would tackle the group. Their answers, in aggregate, formed a striking contrast to the Republican field. They emphasized that the struggle is against violent radicals, and not with Islam. They stressed the need to enlist regional allies, and insisted that the United States cannot go it alone. And, notably, there were no direct calls for more vigorous action. If viewers may have hoped to hear clear answers on America’s role in the world, what they received instead were responses that stressed complexity, contingency, and the limits of American influence. Hillary Clinton offered the most detailed answers, showcasing her experience on the world stage. Several times, Bernie Sanders or Martin O’Malley challenged her record, which includes support for interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya, but neither seemed prepared to press home their attacks. It was Dickerson who most effectively pushed for answers, and underscored her vulnerability on some of these issues. Sanders, for his part, seemed decidedly uncomfortable discussing foreign policy. Instead of laying out a clear agenda for dealing with ISIS, he defended his attention to climate change, and at one point even tried to change the subject to veterans’ affairs, an issue on which he has substantially more experience. It wasn’t the debate that any of the candidates had anticipated earlier in the week. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton came to Des Moines riding high in the polls; Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders entered the debate trying to recapture momentum; and Martin O’Malley wanted to remind voters that he still exists. Once the focus turned to domestic policy, though, all three hit their stride. Sanders once more called for a political revolution, and declaring that “the business model of Wall Street is fraud.” He defended his call for higher tax rates on the wealthy, citing the top bracket of 90 percent during the Eisenhower administration, to incredulous guffaws. “I'm not that much of a socialist compared to Eisenhower,” he quipped. And he talked about breaking up banks with a directness and passion that was notably absent from his discussion of taking on ISIS. O’Malley was livelier than in recent debates, at one point seizing on a question on immigration to attack “that immigrant-bashing carnival barker Donald Trump.” He clearly benefited from the increased time, and attention, he received with Jim Webb and Lincoln Chafee exiting the race. But the stakes for O’Malley were higher than for the other two candidates, as his repeated entreaties for viewers to donate to his campaign suggested. If he needed a breakthrough to keep his struggling campaign alive, Saturday night’s performance seemed unlikely to provide it. Clinton did not let her rivals rattle her composure. She entered the debate as the frontrunner, and said nothing that seemed likely to change that. She has struggled to replicate the enthusiasm that Sanders summons on the stump, but seems more comfortable than Sanders in debates. It remains her race to lose. One of the evening’s livelier discussions focused on the minimum wage. The candidates were asked about the economist Alan Krueger's recent New York Times op-ed suggesting that a $15 minimum wage might be too much. Sanders jumped at the chance to make his case for ensuring that workers are fairly compensated for their labor. Clinton, though, sided with Krueger, worrying that a minimum wage above $12 lacked evidence to prove that its benefits would outweigh its potential costs. The whole discussion was markedly different from that of the Republican debate, in which many candidates tripped over themselves in their haste to disavow support for such measures. Sanders also lambasted Hillary for accepting millions in contributions from Wall Street. Clinton, in turn, cited the fact that most of her donors are women, and said that some Wall Street workers donate because they’re grateful for her post-9/11 advocacy for the area. It’s an answer that may come back to haunt Clinton, and which did little to dissipate the force of Sanders’s attack. Sanders delivered his case for addressing economic inequality more clearly and more forcefully on Saturday night than in the previous Democratic debate. It’s a message that has resonated with Democratic voters, and they may respond to it again. But the single-minded focus on economic issues that fueled Sanders’s rise was also exposed as a potential liability on a night when foreign-policy issues were foremost in the minds of many viewers. —Yoni Appelbaum 11:03 pm: Moderators always get jabbed for the questions they don't ask, but it was striking we didn't see any questions about reproductive rights only a day after the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear its first major abortion case in eight years. —Matt Ford 11:02 pm: As my colleague Russell Berman noted earlier today, Martin O’Malley needed to prove he was a legitimate threat to Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders tonight and while several of his lines were well-delivered, it didn’t seem to make a dent. Sanders and O’Malley ganged up on Clinton on a few issues, particularly the donations she’s received from Wall Street. But the focus on foreign policy at the start of the debate worked in Clinton’s favor and set the tone. It’s clear she’ll continue to face questions about her record moving forward, but she also may have solidified her standing as the frontrunner. —Priscilla Alvarez 11:00 pm: To build on what Conor said, I think Hillary's 9/11-Wall Street gaffe might have been the most important moment of the night—but not for the Democratic primaries. Sanders and O'Malley didn't seem eager to wield it against her, but if RNC chairman Reince Priebus is any indication, Republicans sure took notice: .@HillaryClinton, you reached a new low tonight by using 9/11 to defend your campaign donations. #DemDebate — Reince Priebus (@Reince) November 15, 2015 10:58 pm: On the one hand, this debate showcased Hillary's strength as the serious, experienced, commander-in-chief-seeming candidate. On the other, it laid bare how vulnerable she is on national-security issues—she repeatedly struggled with moderator John Dickerson's tough, excellent questions about her foreign-policy record. On the other question of the night, whether her rivals would lay a finger on Clinton, the answer is mixed. Sanders repeatedly declined to take the bait and go after her frontally or on character issues, but his hits on her Wall Street ties and her refusal to endorse a $15 minimum wage will bolster the left's distrust. Going into this debate I thought the headlines out of it would be one of three things: 1) Sanders goes after Clinton, 2) Sanders lets Clinton off the hook again, or 3) Clinton makes some kind of gaffe. I think it was mostly 2. —Molly Ball 10:56 pm: The wild card in this debate was its proximity to the Paris attacks. Many believed this would play to Hillary Clinton's strengths. But in the end I think that it hurt her because the effect was to have a long discussion about her Iraq War vote, which Democratic primary voters mostly dislike. Bernie Sanders, who seemed uninclined to press the point, got an assist from moderator John Dickerson, who forced the candidates to highlight their real differences. Dickerson did a good job on the whole, despite a rough patch where he hounded the candidates on a pointless distinction about how to refer to terrorists. Overall, Bernie Sanders had his best night I've seen, making the case for his brand of economic policy as well as he's able. Will it gain him ground? The major gaffe of the night: Hillary Clinton. Her overall performance was fine, but what was she thinking using 9/11 to defend all the money that she's taken from Wall Street? I expect it will be used to attack her in primaries and in the general if she gets there. One imagines that it was a prepared line, too. —Conor Friedersdorf 10:53 pm: Clinton: The president's job is "to do everything she can do to lift up the people of this country." She ends with a plea for caucus support, to loud cheers. —Molly Ball 10:53 pm: O'Malley's closing statement is yet another pitch for fresh leadership. It's remarkably stock, with no mention of the Paris attacks, which Dickerson cited in leading into the question. Some are saying he had a good night tonight, but I'm not seeing it. —Molly Ball 10:53 pm: As Dickerson notes, the evening wraps up with a question on crisis, which takes on a new meaning in light of the attacks in Paris.— Priscilla Alvares 10:51 pm: O’Malley’s second shameless plug for cash raises the interesting question of whether his campaign may be struggling to pay the bills. Few candidates give up; usually, they drop out when they run out of cash. —Yoni Appelbaum 10:50 pm: Martin O'Malley admirably admits he didn't face any challenges as governor or mayor that equal what a president faces and focuses instead on the skills he honed in those positions. —Matt Ford 10:48 pm: Sanders is asked to explain how he’d handle a crisis, in the shadow of Paris. He gives a lengthy answer about striking a legislative deal. It’s a somewhat bizarre answer for a man who’s actually held executive office—was there nothing in his time as Burlington’s mayor on which he could draw here? —Yoni Appelbaum 10:46 pm: Hillary Clinton says she told Barack Obama that he should order the strike on the Bin Laden compound—and that she didn’t ask her husband for counsel on what the right call might be. Interesting if true! —Conor Friedersdorf 10:41 pm: A fun trend in this year's election: Candidates livetweeting the other parties' primary debates. —Matt Ford Yes, we are at war with radical Islamic terrorism. #DemDebate — Jeb Bush (@JebBush) November 15, 2015 Why stop at a $15/hr minimum wage? Reach for the stars guys! How about $50, $100, $200+ an hour?! #DemDebate — Gov. Mike Huckabee (@GovMikeHuckabee) November 15, 2015 Hillary and Sanders are not doing well, but what is the failed former Mayor of Baltimore doing on that stage? O'Malley is a clown. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 15, 2015 10:40 pm: Again, asked if his plans are realistic, Bernie’s answer is basically, “If I’ve been elected, something weird will have already happened.” —Molly Ball 10:36 pm: Deray Mckesson, one of the most prominent Black Lives Matter activists, offers mixed praise for O'Malley's criminal-justice reform answer: O'Malley is engaging in deep revisionist history re: his time as Mayor of Baltimore. His platform is strong though. #DemDebate — deray mckesson (@deray) November 15, 2015 —Matt Ford 10:35 pm: The University of Missouri protests that reached a climax last week get their first mention of the night. Clinton, responding to the question, speaks about the deep sense of alienation felt by youth, particularly youth of color, across the country. —Matt Ford 10:32 pm: The claim that Martin O’Malley successfully navigated the tension between law enforcement and race relations as mayor of Baltimore, as he just suggested, is a strange one to make. Baltimore rivals Ferguson as a city in which the black population has utterly lost faith in the police. And crime in the city has rapidly increased over the past year. —Conor Friedersdorf 10:31 pm: “Well, John, I come from the 60s,” says Hillary. She’s trying to explain how she does “appreciate how young people are standing up and speaking out,” but in trying to prove her connection, she uses a formula that only underscores that she’s now 68. “I come from the 60s,” is probably not the tagline her campaign would prefer to have her using. —Yoni Appelbaum 10:29 pm: After the last debate, in which he said he was "sick and tired" of hearing about Clinton's email, Sanders made some slightly more critical comments in the press about the issue needing to be investigated completely. Given a chance to resolve those two things, he calls it "media fluff," and reiterates: “I was sick and tired of Hillary Clinton’s email. I am still sick and tired of Hillary Clinton’s email." It's a good answer for him, pivoting to the "real issues" that are important for the country, but it also symbolizes his refusal to go for the jugular to her face, which has caused some to question his seriousness as a candidate. After the last debate, both Sanders's and Clinton's people cited his line about the emails as their favorite moment of the night. Who did it really benefit?—Molly Ball 10:28 pm: Dickerson asks O’Malley about the supposed “Ferguson effect” that is said to be deterring police from enforcing the law. As our coverage has made clear, there’s not yet any firm evidence out there in support of this idea. —Yoni Appelbaum 10:28 pm: Dickerson asks Clinton if Democrats should worry about another shoe dropping on her emails. “After 11 hours that’s been pretty clear,” she said, alluding to her testimony ahead of House Benghazi committee. —Priscilla Alvarez 10:26 pm: Dickerson inquires how Sanders would work with a "revolution on the other side," namely, the anti-establishment Republicans who toppled John Boehner and catapulted Trump and Ben Carson to the top of the polls. Sanders cites his own supporters' revolution, which isn't really an answer to how Democrats will take back statehouses and Congress. But I’m not sure any Democratic candidate would fare better on this question, and it’s a crucial one for any Democratic presidential hopeful in the immediate future. —Matt Ford 10:26 pm: Did Sanders contradict himself when talking to the Wall Street Journal and suggesting there were real questions to be asked about Clinton’s emails? “I was sick and tired of Hillary Clinton’s emails, I’m still sick and tired of Hillary Clinton’s emails,” he quips. And then puts in a rousing plea to refocus on genuinely important issues. —Yoni Appelbaum 10:20 pm: By my count, we've had economists Alan Krueger, Paul Volcker, Robert Rubin, Larry Summers, and now Paul Krugman invoked by the candidates during this debate. —Matt Ford 10:19 pm: Martin O’Malley uses his airtime to put in a plug for donations on his website. And then the network cuts to its own commercials. —Yoni Appelbaum 10:18 pm: Zooming back, there can be no doubt that if elected president, Bernie Sanders would be much tougher on Wall Street than Hillary Clinton. Voters should act accordingly. And the debate should move on. —Conor Friedersdorf 10:18 pm: And to add to that, I don’t know if there’s been a Twitter question that’s a direct response from something that’s been said during the debate. —Priscilla Alvarez 10:17 pm: CBS uses a tweet to challenge Clinton on her implied connection between Wall Street campaign donations and 9/11. Never seen that kind of public interaction in a debate before. This is incredibly well-run by CBS, especially compared to the GOP ones. —Matt Ford 10:15 pm: Baltimore saw its 300th homicide of the year earlier tonight. —Matt Ford 10:15 pm: As they argue about guns, Sanders takes a shot at O’Malley. “I think it’s fair to say that Baltimore is not now one of the safest cities in America,” he tells the city’s former mayor. —Yoni Appelbaum 10:13 pm: Dickerson asks Clinton why criticize Sanders’s gun vote, if Sanders can’t criticize her vote on the Iraq War. She admits her vote was a mistake. When Sanders is asked if it’s a mistake, he stays mum and O’Malley interjects. —Priscilla Alvarez 10:11 pm: Clinton: "Since we last debated in Las Vegas, nearly 3,000 people have been killed by guns." —Matt Ford 10:10 pm: Sanders takes issue with Clinton's claim she'll go after Wall Street players who break the rules. "The business model of the financial industry is fraud." —Bernie Sanders 10:09 pm: I'm thunderstruck that Sanders didn't respond to Clinton's invocation of the 9/11 attacks in her defense of accepting campaign donations and support from Wall Street. Maybe he was as surprised by that argument as I was. —Matt Ford 10:07 pm: Hillary managed to invoke both gender and 9/11 in one answer there, noting that most of her donors are women and that she stood with "downtown Manhattan" after the attacks. —Molly Ball 10:06 pm: Hillary waited quite a while to put out a Wall Street regulation plan, but she did so recently, and she cites it now as proof she would rein in not just big banks but the “shadow banking system.” Bernie says her contention she could take donations from Wall Street and then be tough on them was “not good enough.” —Molly Ball 10:05 pm: Hillary Clinton points to a couple hedge fund managers campaigning against her as proof that she’ll take on Wall Street. So what’s her theory on the other Wall Street players who’ve funneled millions to her personally and politically. Are they dupes? Bernie Sanders makes this very point: “Maybe they’re dumb, but I don’t think so.” Many on Wall Street believe that they could get along perfectly well with Hillary Clinton. —Conor Friedersdorf 10:04 pm: Voters who complain that both parties are the same should look at the minimum-wage discussions. In tonight's debate, the three candidates argued about how much to raise it by. In Tuesday's debate, the Republican candidates roundly opposed any raise whatsoever. Regardless of which side you agree with, it's a sharp divide between them. —Matt Ford 10:03 pm: What does Bernie think of Hillary’s answer on Wall Street? “Not good enough!” he says. And after largely holding his fire on foreign policy, Bernie now turns to an issue over which he’s genuinely willing to fight. “I will break up these banks!” he thunders. And he all but suggests that Hillary has been bought and paid by moneyed interests. —Yoni Appelbaum 10:01 pm: Sanders and O'Malley subscribe to the theory Obama has called “middle-out economics"—a term coined by Eric Liu and Nick Hanauer—while Hillary cites the liberal economist Alan Krueger's recent New York Times op-ed worrying that $15 is too much too fast. It's a mark of how far the fight for $15 has come that it's now the standard Democratic position. Just a couple of years ago, Democrats were arguing over whether $10.10 was too much. —Molly Ball 9:59 pm: Dickerson: "We are going to talk about Wall Street. But now we're going to go do a commercial.” —Kathy Gilsinan 9:59 pm: Martin O’Malley seems to think economists who study the minimum wage live on Wall Street. They do not. —Conor Friedersdorf 9:59 pm: Quite the argument there over the $15 minimum wage, which has become a cause celebre for labor and most of the left even as liberal economists worry it would lead to an economic slowdown. —Molly Ball 9:57 pm: Bernie Sanders makes as strong a pitch for a “living wage” as you’ll hear: “It is not a radical idea to say that someone working 40 hours a week should not be living in poverty.” But many others who share that end believe that a different means to it, the Earned Income Tax Credit, helps workers without raising unemployment. —Conor Friedersdorf 9:57 pm: All three candidates defend the idea of a higher minimum wage, but only Hillary seems actually to have read the Alan Krueger piece in question, and she rushes to say it stipulates that raising it beyond $12 an hour is without precedent. She suggests that number as a floor. And here’s a real policy difference, after an hour of generalities. The other two candidates seem on board with $15 an hour. CBS cuts to commercials, and there’s a WalMart ad touting its efforts to raise the wages of workers, and making precisely the same points as the candidates. Even as they argue over specifics, this is an issue the Democrats are presently winning. —Yoni Appelbaum 9:53 pm: Very strong answer by O'Malley on whether to "compromise" on immigration by securing the border first. He makes a rousing call for a path to citizenship. —Molly Ball 9:52 pm: Clinton, a former lawyer, says her reading of the law and the Constitution supports Obama's executive actions on immigration. We'll find out over the next few months whether five justices on the Supreme Court agree. —Matt Ford 9:51 pm: “That immigrant-bashing carnival barker, Donald Trump,” a Martin O’Malley line, seems ripe for an Auto Tune the News treatment. —Conor Friedersdorf 9:50 pm: O’Malley uses an immigration question to take a whack at “that immigrant-bashing carnival barker Donald Trump.” Biggest applause line of the night so far. —Yoni Appelbaum 9:48 pm: Between Sanders' praise of the Eisenhower-era tax code tonight and Donald Trump's endorsement of Operation Wetback, a mass-deportation program targeting Hispanics in the 1950s, in the Tuesday GOP debate, it's been quite a week for the 34th president's policies. —Matt Ford 9:45 pm: Bernie Sanders declares that the pharmaceutical industry is ripping off America everyday. And this suggests a potential alliance: Sanders should choose a theme song from the catalogue of the late 90s/early aughts ska band The Pharmaceutical Bandits. I give you their hit, “I Don’t Care.” —Conor Friedersdorf 9:44 pm: Clinton says she would build on the Affordable Care Act and improve on it, including the "cost issues.” —Molly Ball 9:43 pm: Donald Trump has been invoking Ike recently too. If only someone would warn against the rise of the military industrial complex… —Conor Friedersdorf 9:42 pm: How high would Bernie’s top tax bracket go? “We haven’t come up with an exact number yet, but it won’t be as high as the top number under Dwight D. Eisenhower which was 90%.” Nancy Cordes abandons her composure and laughs out loud. Perhaps a reminder that few network newscasters share the economic interests of most of their viewers. Sanders, though, wins back the crowd by joking: “I'm not that much a socialist compared to Eisenhower.” —Yoni Appelbaum 9:39 pm: The first question, for Clinton, is who would pay for all the programs she's proposing. "Well, first of all, it isn't the middle class." Looks like someone went to politician school. —Molly Ball 9:38 pm: After a little more than a half hour of foreign policy questioning, the debate shifts to the economy and middle class.—Priscilla Alvarez 9:37 pm: As the debate shifts from foreign policy to economics, it seems clear that none of the candidates has really set themselves apart. All seem to agree the world is a dangerous place that will require care and skill to successfully navigate. But none has managed to articulate tonight a clear or coherent vision for just how they’d do that. Sanders kept trying to turn back to domestic issues; O’Malley struggled to offer specifics; and Clinton spent most of her time trying to impress the crowd with her mastery of specifics. It’s hard to believe many viewers tuning in after a day of coverage of the Paris attacks are going to find these answers compelling. —Yoni Appelbaum 9:32 pm: Hillary Clinton declares that the 2001 AUMF covers a war against ISIS, then also says that the fight must go through Congress. That suggests ambiguity in her position. In fact, there is no question that she would continue to wage war against ISIS without Congressional authorization if elected––wrongly in the view of someone like me who believes the 2001 AUMF does not apply, but that is doubtless the course she will take in the absence of Congressional permission. —Conor Friedersdorf 9:31 pm: Dickerson's focus on terminological questions might seem odd to a Democratic audience, but conservatives frequently criticize the Obama administration for not using terms like "radical Islam" or "terrorist attacks" when describing al-Qaeda or ISIS. They'll likely do the same after all three candidates' evasions tonight. —Matt Ford 9:31 pm: On the other hand, I can't help but applaud the efforts to pivot from "war with a concept" to "war with actual human combatants.” —Kathy Gilsinan 9:30 pm: O'Malley: "Radical jihadis, that's to call it what it is." Republicans are perhaps unduly preoccupied with the refusal to say "radical Islam," but the Democrats' contortions to avoid that phrase are notable. —Molly Ball 9:29 pm: Hillary Clinton is absolutely right that it is worse than useless for U.S. presidential candidates to talk about being at war with “radical Islam,” and it’s a shame that John Dickerson ripped a sensible quote about understanding one’s adversaries from context as if Clinton believes anything other than an attack like Paris is an abject horror. I subtract one of the good moderator points I assigned him earlier! —Conor Friedersdorf 9:27 pm: Clinton is asked whether she believes we're at war with "radical Islam." She dodges, says we're not at war with Islam—and is immediately called on it by Dickerson. "We are not at war with Islam or Muslims. We are at war with violent extremism." —Molly Ball 9:26 pm: John Dickerson, the CBS moderator, has politely but firmly pressed candidates for clear and specific answers. It’s a striking contrast to the moderation of recent GOP debates. —Yoni Appelbaum Dickerson is giving a clinic on how to press candidates without posturing and making yourself an easy target. — James Bennet (@JBennet) November 15, 2015 9:25 pm: Sanders is itching to get back to domestic issues, adding that the U.S. should not “turn our backs” on veterans in a line of responses on foreign policy. —Priscilla Alvarez 9:24 pm: O'Malley is asked if the stakes are too high to elevate a governor with no foreign-policy experience to the presidency. His answer is not particularly coherent—he says America has what it takes to tackle these challenges. —Molly Ball 9:22 pm: And a question relevant as politicians consider what to do about ISIS now: Do we have a plan for the day after? —Kathy Gilsinan 9:22 pm: This is rare: John Dickerson asks Clinton an important question about her role in championing the U.S.-led intervention in Libya in 2011 and links it to the Iraq War. Most discussions of Libya usually center on the Benghazi attacks, obfuscating any debate about the war there and the chaos that followed it. —Molly Ball 9:21 pm: “Libya is now a mess. Syria is a mess. Iraq is a mess. Afghanistan is a mess,” says O’Malley. It’s a remarkable litany for candidates vying to succeed a two-term incumbent who remains popular in his own party; a suggestion that the last eight years have not been a success. —Yoni Appelbaum 9:20 pm: Another excellent question from Dickerson: If you learned so much from Iraq, how did Libya go so wrong? —Molly Ball 9:18 pm: John Dickerson is pleading with Bernie Sanders to articule differences he has with Hillary Clinton that he earnestly holds but is awfully reticent to bring out himself. Good moderating. —Conor Friedersdorf 9:18 pm: Sanders says he believes invading other countries always has unintended consequences. "On this issue I am a little more conservative than the secretary. I am not a big fan of regime change." —Molly Ball 9:16 pm: Bernie Sanders points out that the Iraq War led to the rise of ISIS. He calls the Iraq War vote one of the most consequential blunders in the history of the United States. But unlike Barack Obama 8 years ago, he declines to directly criticize his opponent for favoring that war. Why? —Conor Friedersdorf 9:15 pm: Sanders jumps on Clinton’s support for the Iraq War, calling it the “worst foreign policy blunders in the modern history of the United States." —Priscilla Alvarez 9:13 pm: Sanders is asked whether his previous claim that climate change was the greatest global threat still holds. He says climate is related to the growth of terrorism. And he gets in a mention of his opposition to the war in Iraq—a clear point of contrast with Clinton. —Molly Ball 9:12 pm: Clinton calls for a strong American role, but Dickerson smartly follows up to note that she didn't answer his question: Did Obama underestimate this threat? —Molly Ball 9:11 pm: Good question from Dickerson about whether the Obama administration, including Clinton, failed to deal effectively with ISIS. —Molly Ball 9:11 pm: We abided by the agreement set by George W. Bush to leave Iraq, says Hillary, and then Nouri al-Maliki squandered our gains. That’s an odd way to frame the problem for a secretary of state who served under a president who placed enormous emphasis on rapid withdrawal. And not, of course, because he felt bound by agreements Bush had struck; it was something on which he campaigned. Is it, in effect, an effort to blame not just Bush, but also Obama? —Yoni Appelbaum 9:09 pm: Hillary Clinton’s first answer underscores the degree to which, like George W. Bush, she would likely be a foreign-policy president—that is to say, one who would compromise on the domestic agenda she would perhaps most like in order to have more of her way in the realm of foreign affairs. —Conor Friedersdorf 9:08 pm: O'Malley says this "new sort of threat" requires a new, fresh kind of leadership. But he's not particularly specific about what that might be. —Molly Ball 9:07 pm: “This is the new face of conflict and warfare,” says Martin O’Malley, adding this is the “new sort of challenge.” —Priscilla Alvarez 9:05 pm: Sanders begins with a short statement about ISIS, then segues clearly to his normal spiel about income inequality. —Molly Ball 9:04 pm: It sounds as if Sanders has hardly altered his opening statement, maintaining his focus on inequality, and promising to retake government for ordinary people. “What my campaign is about is a political revolution,” Sanders says. Clinton, by contrast, stresses that voters will be choosing a commander in chief, and talks almost exclusively about foreign policy. “All of the other issues you want to deal with depend on us being secure and strong.” There’s the contrast between the two, in a nutshell. —Yoni Appelbaum 8:59 pm: The conventional wisdom is that a debate in the shadow of a terrorist attack helps Hillary Clinton. Were Bernie Sanders inclined to counter aggressively, he has an opening. He could plausibly, and I think accurately, state: “The Iraq War gave rise to ISIS. The Libya War gave them more space to operate. Hillary Clinton supported both. And for that reason, I believe that my foreign-policy judgment has proved far better than hers. Past misjudgments on her part made the world less safe.” But Sanders is most comfortable attacking on domestic policy, and has not been inclined to attack the Democratic frontrunner in any pointed way. How he handles the Syria question tonight will tell us a lot about what he is willing to do––or not willing to do—to contest the nomination. —Conor Friedersdorf 8:58 pm: CBS wraps up its live coverage of the Paris attacks just before the debate. Whatever formal introduction the network has carefully pieced together, it’s this news which will ultimately serve as the backdrop. “The debate you’ve tuned into see tonight is a symbol of the freedom we all cherish,” John Dickerson says, introducing the debate. And he asks the audience to join him in observing a moment of silence. —Yoni Appelbaum 8:57 pm: There are at least two dozen American communities that take their name from the French capital, including Paris, Iowa—about 160 miles up the road from Des Moines, in Linn County. It’s a reminder of the close ties that have long bound the two republics together. —Yoni Appelbaum When Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, and Martin O’Malley take the debate stage in Des Moines, Iowa, on Saturday night, all thoughts will be 4,400 miles away in Paris. The cluster of horrifying attacks in the French capital on Friday night quickly moved to the center of the presidential race, even as the death toll climbed, and police raids spread beyond France to Belgium. Republican candidates seized on the attacks to criticize the Obama administration’s foreign policy, as my colleague Matt Ford reports, framing them as the latest episode in a clash of civilizations, and questioning plans to absorb Syrian refugees. The Democratic candidates have, so far, steered clear of these sorts of policy questions, choosing instead to stress their horror at the attacks and to express their solidarity with the victims. “Even in this darkest night, Paris remains the City of Light,” wrote Hillary Clinton. “We are all horrified by the cowardly attacks against innocent civilians in Paris,” said Bernie Sanders. “We stand with President Obama in condemning this assault on our common humanity,” said Martin O’Malley. “And we stand shoulder to shoulder with the people of France—liberté, égalité, and fraternité.” ||||| Hillary Clinton referenced 9/11 in her defense of Wall Street relationships during Saturday night's Democratic debate. Clinton under fire for linking her Wall Street donations to 9/11 Minutes after Hillary Clinton referenced 9/11 as part of the reason why she has received significant contributions from Wall Street, people on both sides of the aisle pounced or were, at the very least, left scratching their heads to account for it. "So, I represented New York, and I represented New York on 9/11 when we were attacked. Where were we attacked? We were attacked in downtown Manhattan where Wall Street is," Clinton said, in response to a comment from Bernie Sanders about her acceptance of campaign cash from Wall Street executives. "I did spend a whole lot of time and effort helping them rebuild. That was good for New York. It was good for the economy and it was a way to rebuke the terrorists who had attacked our country." Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus called it a "new low" for Clinton, saying in a statement that she "shamefully hid behind the 9/11 terrorist attacks in a bizarre attempt to deflect attention from her ties to her wealthy donors." Lis Smith, Martin O'Malley's deputy campaign manager, slammed Clinton for invoking the attacks in explaining her answer as well. My dad worked in WTC from the day it was built to the day it went down. @HillaryClinton, never invoke 9/11 to justify your Wall St positions — Lis Smith (@Lis_Smith) November 15, 2015 Meanwhile, David Axelrod pondered aloud on Twitter whether her equivalence of Wall Street support as a means of post-9/11 recovery would work. .@HillaryClinton vehemently offers support for Wall Street as post-911 recovery effort. Does that fly? — David Axelrod (@davidaxelrod) November 15, 2015 During the debate itself, panelist Nancy Cordes displayed a tweet from someone who appeared displeased with the remark. Have never seen a candidate invoke 9/11 to justify millions of Wall Street donations. Until now. @HillaryClinton #DemDebate — Andy Grewal (@AndyGrewal) November 15, 2015 "Well, I'm sorry that whoever tweeted that had that impression because I worked closely with New Yorkers after 9/11 for my entire first term to rebuild," Clinton responded. "So, yes, I did know people. I've had a lot of folks give me donations from all kinds of backgrounds say, I don't agree with you on everything, but I like what you do. I like how you stand up. I'm going to support you, and I think that is absolutely appropriate. The take against the backlash from one Clinton confidant: And? "There wasn’t any there there," Clinton confidant Paul Begala said on CNN after the debate. "In other words, Senator Sanders needs to close the loop. OK? He says you’ve got donations, he can’t—doesn’t even point to a vote. He doesn’t say, here’s something you did wrong." During the 2008 campaign, Begala noted, Barack Obama succeeded in pointing out Clinton's 2002 vote to authorize the Iraq War. "Senator Sanders doesn’t have the punch after the set-up. He’s like, ‘Well you took Wall Street money.’ She’s like, ‘Yeah, well, what did I do?'" Begala continued. "So he’s got to have something there from the left. He can’t just say, ‘Oh, Wall Street’s bad, and you represented New York, therefore,’ well, what?”

– The Democratic debate Saturday night opened with a moment of silence in the wake of the Paris terror attacks and remained on the theme for much of the early going. As a result, Hillary Clinton found herself on the defensive from both Bernie Sanders and Martin O'Malley on foreign policy. Sanders in particular criticized the decision to go to war against Iraq, a decision that Clinton supported as a senator. “I would argue that the disastrous invasion of Iraq, something that I strongly opposed, has unraveled the region completely” and has led to the rise of the Islamic State, Sanders said, per the New York Times. He labeled it “one of the worst foreign policy blunders in the modern history of the United States." Clinton, as she has in the past, called her vote in favor of the war a "mistake." In her opening statements on the attacks, Clinton said that ISIS "cannot be contained, it must be defeated," which Politico notes seems to be an attempt to distance herself from President Obama, who just days ago said ISIS was being "contained." She added later, "I don’t think the US has the bulk of the responsibility. I put that on Assad, the Iraqis." O'Malley responded, "This actually is America's fight," but then added, "It cannot be solely America's fight." At another point, O'Malley asserted, “Libya is now a mess. Syria is a mess. Iraq is a mess. Afghanistan is a mess," notes the Atlantic.

This undated photo provided by The Fayetteville Police Dept. shows 43-year-old Darold Wayne Bowden after his arrest on suspicion of rape. Police say they used online genealogical data to identify and... (Associated Press) This undated photo provided by The Fayetteville Police Dept. shows 43-year-old Darold Wayne Bowden after his arrest on suspicion of rape. Police say they used online genealogical data to identify and track down Bowden. a suspect in a series of unsolved rapes dating back a decade. The Fayetteville... (Associated Press) RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Investigators compared online family tree data with crime-scene DNA evidence to identify and track down a suspect in a series of North Carolina rapes from a decade ago, police said Wednesday. One of the lead detectives called the approach, similar to what was used in the "Golden State Killer" cold case in California, a "game-changer" for investigators who had few leads in the assaults that terrorized Fayetteville starting in 2006. Darold Wayne Bowden, 43, has been charged with multiple rape counts related to six assaults from 2006 to 2008, the Fayetteville Police Department said in a news release. Lt. John Somerindyke told The Associated Press that he has reached five of the six victims, all of whom have left Fayetteville. "To say they were ecstatic would be an understatement," he said. "They're all very pleased with the outcome." To crack the case, Somerindyke said police submitted crime-scene DNA evidence to a company that compared it with online genealogical data uploaded by relatives of the suspect to ancestry research websites. The company narrowed their search to Bowden as a person of interest, and investigators obtained a current sample of his DNA to confirm his link to the crimes, the detective said. He declined to say how they obtained the current sample, which was tested by the state crime lab, because they plan to use similar methods in other cases. Somerindyke said comparing DNA evidence with genealogical data — the same search method that helped lead investigators in California to alleged Golden State Killer Joseph James DeAngelo in April — is a "game-changer" for the department. "It's bringing all our cold cases to life," he said. DNA in one case is ready to be sent to the company called Parabon NanoLabs, while the department is requesting funding to send evidence from two other cases, he said. Police said they didn't know if Bowden has a lawyer, and the public defender's office didn't immediately respond to an email asking if they were representing him. A message left at a phone listing for Bowden, who was being held in jail, wasn't returned. District Attorney Billy West said at a news conference the arrest shows investigators' persistence, noting that fear over the rapes a decade ago represented a "very tough and difficult time for our community." "This individual has been in our community, walking around our streets, for the last 10 years, probably smirking thinking he got away with this. Well, he didn't," West said. On Wednesday, authorities also released a series of photos of the suspect dating back to 2003 in hopes that any other possible victims may recognize him and come forward. A photo taken during his arrest on the rape charges shows him shirtless, with a swastika tattooed on his chest. Somerindyke noted that while the suspect has been arrested before on unrelated charges, he appears to have avoided mandatory DNA collection by authorities because of the timing and nature of the offenses. ___ Follow Waggoner at www.twitter.com/mjwaggonernc and Drew at www.twitter.com/JonathanLDrew ||||| Fayetteville police released this photo of Bowden being arrested by US Marshals and officers with the department. (Fayetteville Police via CBS 17) FAYETTEVILLE, NC (WNCN) - Fayetteville police said an arrest has been made in the case of the "Ramsey Street Rapist.” Darold Bowden, 43, of Linden has been arrested in connection with six rapes. DNA evidence was used to connect Bowden to the rapes, police said. He's being held under a $18.8 million bond after being charged with: Three counts first-degree forcible rape Three counts first-degree forcible sex offense Four counts second-degree forcible rape 13 counts second-degree forcible sex offense First-degree statutory rape Indecent liberties with a child Six counts first-degree kidnapping Five counts first-degree burglary Two counts felony larceny Two counts felony possession of stolen goods "I'm just glad we got the guy finally," said Lt. John Somerindyke with Fayetteville police. "This is just the beginning." According to police, Bowden was wanted in connection with at least six rapes that date back to 2006. March 31, 2006 – Village at Carvers Falls Apartments August 23, 2006 – 4400 block of Ramsey Street February 12, 2007 – Apartments on Bubble Creek Court March 6, 2007 – Village at Carvers Falls Apartments September 18, 2007 – Heather Ridge Apartments January 26, 2008 – Apartments on Bubble Creek Court The rapes happened in the North Fayetteville/Ramsey Street area and had remained unsolved, police said. Chief Gina Hawkins said there were at least six victims from these rapes. DNA belonging to Bowden was recovered at three of the crime scenes and was uploaded to the Combined DNA Index System. Although the DNA did not match a particular person, police did receive a case-to-case match in connection with a March 2004 "peeping" incident in Harnett County, police said. ||||| Snapshot Genetic Genealogy Genetic Genealogy (GG) is the combination of genetic analysis with traditional historical and genealogical research to study family history. For forensic investigations, it can be used to identify remains by tying the DNA to a family with a missing person or to point to the likely identity of a perpetrator. By comparing a DNA sample to a database of DNA from volunteer participants, it is possible to determine whether there are any relatives of the DNA sample in the database and how closely related they are (see Snapshot Kinship Inference for more details). This information can then be cross-referenced with other data sources used in traditional genealogical research, such as census records, vital records, obituaries and newspaper archives. Why Use Genetic Genealogy? Genetic genealogy gives you a powerful new tool to generate leads on unknown subjects. When a genetic genealogy search yields useful related matches to an unknown DNA sample, it can narrow down a suspect list to a region, a family, or even an individual. Paired with Snapshot DNA Phenotyping to further reduce the list of possible matches, there is no more powerful identification method besides a direct DNA comparison. Identity can then be confirmed using traditional STR analysis. How Does This Technique Differ From Familial Searches in the CODIS Database? Our genetic genealogy service is somewhat like familial search, but it differs in three very important ways: (1) we only search public genetic genealogy databases, not government-owned criminal (STR profile) databases, such as CODIS; (2) because the DNA SNP profiles we generate contain vastly more information than traditional STR profiles, genetic relatedness can be detected at a far greater distance (see Snapshot Kinship Inference); and (3) because genetic genealogy matches can be cross-referenced by name with traditional genealogy sources, such as Ancestry.com, existing family trees can be used to expedite tree-building and case-solving. This technology and our innovative techniques combine to create a groundbreaking system for forensic human identification. How Genetic Genealogy Works Genetic genealogy uses autosomal DNA (aDNA) single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) to determine how closely related two individuals are. Unlike other genetic markers, such as mitochondrial DNA or Y chromosome DNA, aDNA is inherited from all ancestral lines and passed on by both males and females and thus can be used to compare any two individuals, regardless of how they are related. However, aDNA SNPs are more difficult to obtain from forensic samples, which is why Parabon has created an optimized laboratory protocol to ensure high-quality results even from small, degraded DNA samples. The standard aDNA metric used by genetic genealogists is the amount of DNA that two people are likely to have inherited from a recent common ancestor. This can be estimated by looking for long stretches of identical DNA. While alleles can easily be shared by chance at one or a few SNPs, it is highly unlikely for two unrelated people to share a long stretch of DNA. Therefore, only segments above a certain length are counted. The length of these shared segments is measured in centimorgans (cM), a measure of genetic distance, and the total number of cM shared across all chromosomes can be used to determine approximately how closely related two people are. The figure below shows how shared segments of DNA on a single chromosome are broken up with each generation, leading to shorter shared segments for more distant relatives. Using a public genetic genealogy database, DNA from an unknown person can be compared to roughly 1 million other people to see whether any of them are related. DNA database matches serve as clues on which traditional genealogy methods can build, starting with building the matches' family trees using a wide variety of information sources. During the tree building process, the genetic genealogist searched for common ancestors who appear across multiple family trees of the matches. Ideally, marriages between the descendants of the identified common ancestors are discovered. Then descendancy research is employed to search for descendants at the intersection of these common ancestors who were born at a time that is consistent with the subject's estimated age range. The goal of this search is to narrow down the possible individuals to a set of names, a family, or even an individual. The amount of information available can vary widely. In some cases, we have been able to produce names and contact information for distant and close relatives. In other cases, we have only been able to produce a small region in a US state from which the family of the person-of-interest originated. In some cases there will be no usable genetic genealogy data, rendering further analysis impossible, but continuous monitoring for future matches can be arranged. And, in some instances, we will be able to fully identify the person-of-interest. Genetic Genealogy Use Cases Genetic genealogy has traditionally been used to discover new relatives and build a full family tree. However, it can also be used to discover the identity of an unknown individual by using DNA to identify relatives and then using genealogy research to build family trees and deduce who the unknown individual could be. These techniques have primarily been used to discover the family history of adopted individuals, but they apply equally as well to forensic applications. Genetic genealogy has been used to identify victims' remains, as well as suspects, in a number of high-profile cases. Most recently, genetic genealogy was used to zero in on a suspect in the Golden State Killer case. Because genetic genealogy uses the same type of data generated for Snapshot DNA Phenotyping and Snapshot Kinship, the analysis can quickly be performed on existing cases, and new cases have a wide array of options for generating new leads from a single DNA sample. ||||| This is a developing story and will be updated throughout the day. A Linden man has been arrested in a series of rapes that took place along the Ramsey Street corridor between 2006 and 2008, the Fayetteville Police Department said during a news conference Wednesday. Darold Wayne Bowden, 43, is a suspect in six sexual assaults. He is being held at the Cumberland County Detention Center with bail set at $18.8 million. He is scheduled to have a court appearance on Thursday. During a news conference Wednesday morning, members of the Fayetteville Police Department and the District Attorney's Office outlined how Bowden came to be arrested. Law enforcement said DNA technology was key to identifying Bowden and making an arrest in the assaults. The Fayetteville Police Department investigated six assaults that occurred in the North Fayetteville/Ramsey Street area. These assaults were committed by a suspect who was dubbed the “Ramsey Street rapist.” No other information about the news conference was immediately available. The attacks took place in neighborhoods in north Fayetteville. The assaults and the dates they happened were: March 2006: A woman reports being raped at the Village at Carver Falls at Ramsey Street and Carvers Falls Road. Aug. 23, 2006: A 23-year-old woman was raped after a man grabbed her from behind while she was jogging in the area of Ramsey Street and Oates Drive. Feb. 12, 2007: A 45-year-old woman living in the King’s Grant Condominiums on Bubble Creek Court reported that she was raped by a man who broke into her residence. Sept. 18, 2007: A 21-year-old woman living in the Heather Ridge Apartments on Ramsey Street, between Kinlaw and Carvers Fall roads, reported being raped by a man who broke into her apartment. Jan. 26, 2008: A 29-year-old woman said she was raped by a man who broke into her residence in the King’s Grant condominiums. Feb. 5, 2008: A woman said a man tried to rape her, attacking her while she was walking on the Cape Fear River Trail, near Rivercliff Road. For months after the attacks, women in the area lived in fear and with a state of heightened awareness, especially those who frequently used the Cape Fear River Trail. Women began walking the trail in pairs or bringing their dogs along for protection. A group of women from the Korean Presbyterian Church invited other women to join them in walks. In the weeks and months afterward, police stepped up patrols in the neighborhoods of the attacks, along north Ramsey Street and posted additional officers on the river trail. [Fayetteville police closer to catching Ramsey Street rapist] Staff writer Nancy McCleary can be reached at nmccleary@fayobserver.com or 910-486-3568.

– Online genealogical data led authorities to the suspected Golden State Killer. Now it may have identified the "Ramsey Street Rapist" responsible for at least six rapes in Fayetteville, NC, from March 2006 to January 2008, most following apartment break-ins in the area of Ramsey Street. Arrested shirtless at his home in Lindon on Wednesday (a photo shows a swastika tattoo on his chest), Darold Bowden, 43, is due to appear in court at 2:30pm Thursday, reports WRAL. A long list of charges includes 23 counts of forcible rape or forcible sex offense, six counts of first-degree kidnapping, and one count of indecent liberties with a child, stemming from the 2007 rape of a 15-year-old, per WBTV and Fayetteville Observer. "I'm just glad we got the guy finally," says Lt. John Somerindyke. Held on $18.8 million bond, Bowden was identified through Parabon NanoLabs' genetic genealogy testing, which involved searching for relatives of the suspect by comparing crime scene DNA with genealogical data available online. Per the AP, Somerindyke says police then obtained a separate sample of Bowden's DNA, which proved they had the right person. "This individual has been in our community, walking on the streets for the last 10 years, smirking and thinking he got away with it. Well, he didn't," says District Attorney Billy West. Meanwhile, friends and family describe Bowden as a generous heating and air conditioning technician. Despite a lengthy criminal record, "he ain't the type of person to do that," his father tells the Observer. (A cold case rape was recently attributed to this serial rapist.)

Traducir la historia al Español Cargando la traducción... Google | Esta es una traducción automática. | Esta es una traducción automática. Hello friends and family! Thank you for taking the time to read our story. It all started in late September, 2013. Jeremy and I both were looking to find our Forever Love. By His Grace and Love, God had Jeremy and me on the same Christian dating site online. It didn't take more than a few emails, text messages, and phone calls before we were committed to each other. Jeremy has told me he knew he wanted to marry me in the first few months of dating. I knew he was a very special guy on our first date. Next thing we knew, Jeremy was asking my dad for his blessing to ask me to marry him. Fast forward to June 2015: Jeremy and I said yes to our forever love in front of our loved ones and God in a lovely wedding in Illinois. Jeremy is the answer to all those prayers I had started saying since I was fifteen. He is the blessing, the gift for which I had prayed for so long. We both had desired marriage and having a family since we could remember. Jeremy had said he was longing to have a Godly family. He told me that this was one of the reasons why he wanted to marry me. He longed to be able to have children, to teach them, love them, and be a family. For me, since I was a little girl I always envisioned having three children and having a house full of the music that only children could make. I so longed for the day I would be able to be pregnant and feel a baby move within me. I so look forward to the day that I will be able to snuggle with a baby and care for him. I look forward to teaching him and sharing the love of Jesus with him. I can't wait to share this wonderful world with him. I can't even tell you how many dreams I have had of Jeremy and me holding hands while pushing a baby stroller. Sometimes, things don't come easy, including our getting pregnant. For some people pregnancy just seemingly happens with no effort. But that hasn't been the case for Jeremy and me. Jeremy and I first tried to start a family just a few months into our marriage. We knew we were older, and we wanted to not wait long. But, with all our trying, nothing happened. Even month after month, still nothing happened. We prayed and asked the Lord for His Mercies, His Wisdom and His Grace. We even met with our pastor. I had hands laid on me in prayer, and even once I was anointed with oil. But through it all, we remembered that many times you have to wait for the best gifts. I did a lot of research on what I could do to be the healthiest I could be, how to measure my cycle, how to track my ovulation, and so on. We continue to try month after month. Each month there are so many prayers, so much disappointment, and so many tears. When those fears and doubts come, we remember what the Lord has promised. It is the promise that He hears our hearts' cries. He knows tomorrow and what the days ahead will hold. He is the Comforter. We remember that we have nothing to fear and that our God is the God of Hope and Life. After trying for over a year and a half, we decided we needed to be seen by a fertility doctor. We found a great one here in South Carolina. We did many many tests. The tests revealed that Jeremy was doing great, praise the Lord. But, for me, my hormone levels and egg quality aren't the best, due to my age. We found out that we would need help to become pregnant. It was very disheartening to hear these results. I felt like I had failed Jeremy. The idea of having us to go into debt to become pregnant made me so, so sad. It is hard to know your body doesn't do what it is supposed to do. But even through it all, we remember that God is faithful and true, and He has great plans for us. He knows the desires of our hearts to become parents. This is very difficult to ask but...with very humble and grateful hearts, we ask if you would find it in your hearts to give financial gifts to help us have a family. Infertility treatments are not covered by our insurance company, and the cost is high. We would love your prayers also. Please pray that God's Will would be done in our lives and in the lives of our future children. Please pray that we would have wisdom in decision making and that my body would respond to medications properly. Please pray that we would be able to have a family. To God be the glory! Much love, Karin for Jeremy and Karin Schulz ||||| On International Women's Day, Jessica Chastain gave back to a woman who asked for help. After Chastain had an exchange about feminism and abortion with Karin Schulz, one of her 1.6 million Instagram followers, on Thursday, a donation of $2,000 in the actress's name appeared in Schulz's GoFundMe account. On the GoFundMe page, Schulz detailed her struggle to conceive a child and asked for financial support to pay for her fertility treatment. "I read about your journey to become a mother and it broke my heart," Chastain wrote on Instagram. "I hope that your dream will come true in 2018! Much love to you." Chastain, 40, has been a vocal proponent for Planned Parenthood and the Time's Up movement for some time, and in January, her friend Octavia Spencer revealed that she's been working hard to close the wage gap in Hollywood. So, to mark International Women's Day, Chastain shared a photo of herself wearing a shirt that read "We should all be feminists," along with the caption, "FEMINISM: the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes." "Yes feminist [sic] that believe in God and stand up for The Unborn," Schulz commented on the post. "I would be for that kind of feminist." Chastain responded that while she is pro-choice, "everyone has the right to make their own decision." And though it is unclear when the donation was made, Schulz then thanked the actress for her "encouragement and loving wishes." "I too am a feminist!! It is OK if we don't see eye to eye on everything. We do agree on more than we disagree!!" Schulz wrote. "You are my sister, and together wonderful change and more awesome things will happen in this beautiful world we live in." Her words brought Chastain to tears. "I have such belief in your dream," she replied. "Don't give up my sister. It's in your destiny."

– Jessica Chastain celebrated International Women's Day by donating $2,000 to a woman who was apparently in need, reports ABC News. The Molly's Game actor had engaged in an Instagram exchange with Karin Schulz, who said she was short of money for a fertility treatment. The two didn't agree on everything—Shulz is pro-life and Chastain pro-choice—but Chastain said she was moved by her follower's struggle to fund fertility treatments that insurance didn't cover, Bustle reports. "I read about your journey to become a mother and it broke my heart," Chastain wrote on Instagram. Schulz, one of Chastain's 1.6 million Instagram followers, wrote back effusively: "You are my sister, and together wonderful change and more awesome things will happen in this beautiful world we live in."

Shonda Rhimes, Ryan Murphy…Barack and Michelle Obama? The former president and first lady are in “advanced negotiations” with Netflix to produce a series of shows exclusively for the streaming service, The New York Times reports. The Obamas would produce and star in shows that reflect inspirational stories and continue the work they advocated in the White House, said the report. One could see the former president “moderate conversations on topics that dominated his presidency—health care, voting rights, immigration, foreign policy, climate change.” A show featuring Michelle Obama could focus on nutrition, a topic she championed as first lady. JIM YOUNG/AFP/Getty “President and Mrs. Obama have always believed in the power of storytelling to inspire. Throughout their lives, they have lifted up stories of people whose efforts to make a difference are quietly changing the world for the better. As they consider their future personal plans, they continue to explore new ways to help others tell and share their stories,” said Eric Schultz, a senior adviser to the former president. Netflix has 118 million subscribers globally, giving the Obamas a sizable platform to continue engaging with the public. The deal also could be lucrative to the Obamas’ post-White House careers and supplement the reported $65 million publishing deal they signed with Penguin Random House in 2017. Michelle Obama will be first to release her memoir, Becoming, November 13. The Times report said it’s unclear how much money Netflix is willing to spend on the Obamas, but in the past year the streaming service has been on a big spending spree to lock down some of TV’s most powerful players. Grey’s Anatomy creator Shonda Rhimes jumped from ABC to Netflix in August 2017 in a deal estimated to be worth $100 million and spanning four years. Ryan Murphy, the über-producer behind Glee, American Horror Story, American Crime Story and Feud, joined Rhimes at Netflix in February. He is reported to have signed a $300 million, five-year pact. Mark Borkowski, a media analyst and PR strategist, tells Newsweek that the Obamas' deal could eclipse both of those. He says Netflix may offer the former first couple $500 million. "Competition between streamers is so intense. We see money being flown at [creators]," says Borkowski. "It depends what it is, what that program is, what it becomes...is it [related] to a foundation or charity work? It could make it a less [expensive] deal. But it'll still be a big deal." It’s unlikely the Obamas will be producing fictional series for Netflix like Rhimes and Murphy, but if you’re wondering what it might look like if they did, the former president is a noted fan of Game of Thrones and The Wire. Michelle, meanwhile, is a fan of Empire and Scandal. ||||| Netflix hit a record 117.6 million subscribers last quarter, thanks to an addition of 1.9 million domestic and 6.4 million international streaming subscribers. About 55 million of those are U.S. subscribers. For comparison, there are about 94 million pay TV subscribers in the U.S. International growth rates — up 11 percent in the fourth quarter compared to Q3 — continued to outpace domestic growth rates of under 4 percent. Netflix’s international subscriber numbers surpassed domestic for the first time last year. Another 3.4 million people still get Netflix DVDs in the mail. ||||| Barack Obama might appear on-camera as the moderator of a new series on Netflix. Or he might stay off-camera as a producer of a show about uplifting American stories. Or maybe he'll do both. Talks are underway between Obama and Netflix (NFLX), according to a source familiar with the discussions. The source characterized it as a "production partnership" and said the deal has not been finalized yet. If it happens, both the former president and his wife, Michelle, will be involved in a series of shows for Netflix. It would be a triumph for the streaming service, providing the kind of exclusive programming that sells subscriptions. And it would give the Obamas a platform to reach a huge audience around the world. Netflix says it has more than 117 million subscribers, 55 million of whom are in the United States. A Netflix spokesman declined to comment on Thursday. Related: Sorry, Hollywood. Netflix rules the world News of the talks was first reported by The New York Times. "The number of episodes and the formats for the shows have not been decided," The Times said. The newspaper described two potential shows. In one, "Mr. Obama could moderate conversations on topics that dominated his presidency." Another show "could feature Mrs. Obama on topics, like nutrition, that she championed in the White House." Eric Schultz, a senior adviser to Obama, said in a statement Thursday night that the Obamas "have always believed in the power of storytelling to inspire." While he did not comment directly on the Netflix talks, he said the Obamas "continue to explore new ways to help others tell and share their stories." In the final days of the Obama administration, it was reported that Obama was interested in pursuing digital media ventures after he left office. Jen Psaki, the White House communications director at the time, told CNN that "he is very interested in how people consume information and the changing trends," citing online and mobile news consumption.

– Trump as president and Obama on TV? It's a role reversal probably no one could have predicted, but it may be one step closer to reality. Per CNN, Obama is in negotiations regarding a "production partnership" with Netflix, in which the former president and Michelle Obama would be involved in creating exclusive content for the streaming service. What that content would be, and how much of it, is still up in the air, though ideas floated include everything from inspirational narratives, Michelle-hosted shows on topics like nutrition, or Barack moderating episodes on hot-button subjects such as health care and immigration. Also unclear is how much the Obamas would earn, though one analyst estimates it could be as much as $500 million, per Newsweek. The move could be an Obama attempt to push back against the misinformation and "manipulation of news" he has complained about in recent months, giving him "an unfiltered method of communication with the public similar to the audiences he already reaches through social media," per the New York Times, which describes the negotiations as "advanced." (Netflix has 118 million subscribers.) What the shows won't be doing, sources say: getting directly combative with either President Trump or conservatives who've been critical of Obama. Netflix would get new original content out of the deal to keep it competitive against HBO, Amazon, Apple, and the broadcast networks, as well as another big name to boast of in its portfolio—not bad for a company that "began by distributing DVDs," the Times notes.

This image released by Warner Bros. shows, from foreground left, Sandra Bullock Sarah Paulson, Rihanna, Cate Blanchett and Awkwafina in a scene from "Ocean's 8." (Barry Wetcher/Warner Bros. via AP) (Associated Press) This image released by Warner Bros. shows, from foreground left, Sandra Bullock Sarah Paulson, Rihanna, Cate Blanchett and Awkwafina in a scene from "Ocean's 8." (Barry Wetcher/Warner Bros. via AP) (Associated Press) NEW YORK (AP) — "Ocean's 8," the female-fronted overhaul of the starry "Ocean's" heist franchise, opened with an estimated $41.5 million at the box office, taking the weekend's top spot from the fast-falling "Solo: A Star Wars Story." At a lower price point and in less fanboy-guarded franchise, "Ocean's 8" — despite ho-hum reviews — found nothing like the stormy reception than the female-led "Ghostbusters" reboot did on the same weekend two years ago. Made for approximately $70 million, "Ocean's 8" and its cast featuring Sandra Bullock, Cate Blanchett and Anne Hathaway, set an opening-weekend best for the franchise, not accounting for inflation. The three previous "Ocean's" films — starring Brad Pitt, George Clooney and Matt Damon, and based on the 1960 original "Ocean's 11," with Frank Sinatra — all debuted with between $36-39 million in the last decade. "Ocean's 8," also starring Mindy Kaling, Sarah Paulson, Awkwafina, Rihanna and Helena Bonham Carter, drew a largely female audience — 69 percent female — for a result that slightly surpassed expectations. "We thought we'd come in in the $35-40 (million) range," said Warner Bros. distribution chief Jeff Goldstein. "Number one, it's fun. Number two, it hits an underserved audience. Unfortunately, there is just a lack of stories that are aimed right at women." Yet the weekend's three new wide releases were all female fronted. The horror thriller "Hereditary," starring Toni Collette, debuted with $13 million, setting a new company record for A24, the indie distributor behind releases like "The Witch" and "Moonlight." The feature-film directing debut of Ari Aster, "Hereditary" has received rave reviews and been hailed as the year's scariest movie since its debut at the Sundance Film Festival. Either from disappointment or simply because they were stunned from fear, audiences gave "Hereditary" — about a family cursed after the death of its matriarch — a D-plus CinemaScore. Less successful was "Hotel Artemis," starring Jodie Foster. The Global Road release, also starring Sterling K. Brown, Dave Bautista and Charlie Day, flopped with $3.2 million in 2,407 theaters. Set in a near-future Los Angeles, "Hotel Artemis" is about a members-only hospital for criminals. Coming between more massive blockbusters like the recent "Solo" and the upcoming "Incredibles 2" and "Jurassic World," the weekend was down about 20 percent from last year, according to comScore, when "Wonder Woman" was setting box-office records. But some of the story was still the same. "There's a lot of women-powered revenue at the box office in the heat of the summer season," said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst for comScore. "Films featuring female leads are killing it at the box office, but that's been going on for quite a while." One of the early summer's more breakout hits has been the Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg documentary "RBG," which has made $9.1 million in six weeks of release through Sunday. Opening this weekend was another documentary that may prove a similar sensation: the Fred Rogers documentary "Won't You Be My Neighbor." The Focus Features release grossed $470,000 in 29 theaters for a per-theater average of about $16,000. The film, 99 percent fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, has been acclaimed for its portrait of the man behind "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood." Focus said two thirds of the documentary's audience was under the age of 45. Meanwhile, the troubled "Solo" slid to second place with $15.2 million on its third weekend. It has now grossed $176.1 million, well off its expected pace. "Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom" began its international rollout in 48 overseas markets with an estimated $151.1 million, said Universal Pictures. That's a predictably strong start for a film expected to be one of the biggest of the summer. It opens Friday in China, and on June 22 in North America. Initial reviews, which came out this week, were mixed for J.A. Bayona's sequel. But critics were also less thrilled with 2015's "Jurassic World," which grossed more than $1.6 billion worldwide. Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to comScore. Where available, the latest international numbers for Friday through Sunday are also included. Final domestic figures will be released Monday. 1. "Ocean's 8," $41.5 million. 2. "Solo: A Star Wars Story," $15.2 million. 3. "Deadpool 2," $13.7 million. 4. "Hereditary," $13 million. 5. "Avengers: Infinity War," $6.8 million. 6. "Adrift," $5.1 million. 7. "Book Club," $4.2 million. 8. "Hotel Artemis," $3.2 million. 9. "Upgrade," $2.2 million. 10. "Life of the Party," $2.1 million. ___ Follow AP Film Writer Jake Coyle on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/jakecoyleAP ||||| The ladies of “Ocean’s 8” pulled off a solid debut at the North American box office, swiping the crown from a recent string of tentpoles. The gender-bending heist film opened to $41.5 million from 4,145 locations — a series best for the “Ocean’s” franchise. Overseas, it launched with $12.2 million for a global start of $53.7 million. Warner Bros. and Village Roadshow Pictures co-financed the spin-off, which cost $70 million. Jeff Goldstein, head of domestic distribution at Warner Bros., says the strong bow is thanks to counter-programming against “Solo: A Star Wars Story” and “Deadpool 2.” “We exceeded our expectations,” Goldstein said. “There’s always been a lack of movies [female-led projects]. I’m glad audiences enjoyed it as much as we did.” Women and older moviegoers bolstered numbers. Females accounted for 69% of audiences, while 69% were over the age of 25. “Ocean’s 8” currently has a B+ CinemaScore and 68% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. The spin-off marks over a decade since Steven Soderbergh’s “Ocean’s” trilogy with George Clooney, Brad Pitt, and Matt Damon graced the big screen. “Ocean’s Eleven,” “Ocean’s Twelve,” and “Ocean’s Thirteen,” which released between 2001 and 2007, each bowed between $36 million and $39 million, not adjusted for inflation. Adjusted for inflation, that range climbs to $48 million and $61 million. Related Sandra Bullock Plots a Heist in First 'Ocean's 8' Trailer 'Crazy Rich Asians' Breakout Awkwafina on Stealing Scenes and Why Representation Matters “Ocean’s 8” represents a solid return for its star, Sandra Bullock. Her latest on-screen role was in 2015 with “Our Brand Is Crisis,” which bombed with a $3 million opening and grossed only $7 million worldwide. Prior to that, Bullock starred in the critically acclaimed sci-fi thriller “Gravity,” which landed her an Oscar nom. The film opened to $55.7 million and went on to make $274 domestically and $723 million worldwide. Bullock has long been a box office draw. As of March 2017, the animated global hit “Minions” is her highest grossing film. She voiced the supervillain in the franchise-starter, which earned over $1.1 billion worldwide. “Gravity” is the highest grosser of her live action films, followed by 2009’s “The Blind Side” — which won Bullock the best actress Academy Award — and “The Proposal” in the same year. Cate Blanchett, Anne Hathaway, Mindy Kaling, Sarah Paulson, Rihanna, Helena Bonham Carter, and Awkwafina round out “Ocean’s 8’s” star-studded cast. “Hunger Games” helmer Gary Ross directed the film. Meanwhile, Toni Collette’s “Hereditary” also got a box office boost. A24’s R-rated thriller didn’t scare audiences away — it exceeded estimates to open in fourth place with $13 million from 2,964 locations. “Hereditary” marks A24’s best opening weekend in history, outpacing 2015’s “The Witch’s” $8.8 million bow. Ari Aster’s directorial debut has been critically lauded since its debut in the Midnight section at Sundance Film Festival. Audiences appear to disagree — the horror film currently has a D+ CinemaScore and 64% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, while its critical rating is 94% Fresh. Not all weekend openers were as fortunate as “Ocean’s 8” and “Hereditary,” however. “Hotel Artemis” checked in with a dismal $3.1 million on 2,407 screens. Jodie Foster and Sterling K. Brown star in the action thriller set in the near future. “Hotel Artemis” represents Foster’s first big screen role since 2013’s “Elysium,” which opened with $29.8 million. The sci-fi drama went on to earn $93 million in North America and $286 worldwide. With “Ocean’s 8” easily nabbing the box office crown, “Solo: A Star Wars Story” secured second place with $15.2 million in its third weekend, bringing its domestic total $176.4 million. Internationally, the Han Solo origin story brought in an additional $11.3 million. The Disney and Lucasfilm movie continues to struggle with a global tally of $312.2 million. In third is “Deadpool 2” with $13.8 million in its fourth frame. Ryan Reynold’s antihero film has pocketed $278.9 million in North America and $376 million internationally, including an $18 million overseas haul this weekend. Rounding out the top five is the seventh weekend of “Avengers: Infinity War” with $6.9 million. The Marvel adventure picked up another $10.9 million overseas, bringing its global total to $1.998 billion. In limited release, Focus Features’ “Won’t You Be My Neighbor” launched with $470,000 on 29 screens. The documentary on the life and legacy of “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” host Fred Rogers stirred up positive social media buzz, with audiences sharing how the film spurred them to tears. It has a 99% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Overall, the year to date box office is ahead 4.3%, according to comScore. RELATED VIDEO:

– Ocean's 8, the female-fronted overhaul of the starry "Ocean's" heist franchise, opened with an estimated $41.5 million at the box office, taking the weekend's top spot from the fast-falling Solo: A Star Wars Story, the AP reports. At a lower price point and in a less fanboy-guarded franchise, Ocean's 8—despite ho-hum reviews—found nothing like the stormy reception than the female-led Ghostbusters reboot did on the same weekend two years ago. Made for approximately $70 million, Ocean's 8 and its cast featuring Sandra Bullock, Cate Blanchett, and Anne Hathaway, set an opening-weekend best for the franchise, not accounting for inflation. The three previous "Ocean's" films—starring Brad Pitt, George Clooney, and Matt Damon, and based on the 1960 original Ocean's 11 with Frank Sinatra—all debuted with between $36-39 million in the last decade. In fact, the weekend's three new wide releases were all female fronted. The horror thriller Hereditary, starring Toni Collette, debuted with $13 million, setting a new company record for A24, the indie distributor behind releases like The Witch and Moonlight. Less successful was Hotel Artemis, starring Jodie Foster. The Global Road release flopped with $3.2 million in 2,407 theaters. The weekend's top five after Ocean's 8 are Solo ($15.2 million), Deadpool 2 ($13.8 million), Hereditary ($13 million), and Avengers: Infinity War ($6.9 million), Variety reports.

7 Navy SEALs disciplined for role with video game (CBS News) The U.S. Navy SEALs are part of an elite force that operates in the shadows, best known for killing Osama bin Laden. However, CBS News has learned a group of SEALs has been disciplined for revealing secrets. The seven members of SEAL Team Six are all still on active duty. One of them was on the raid which killed Osama bin Laden and made SEAL Team Six a household name. For two days this spring and summer, they worked as paid consultants on a recently released video game, "Medal of Honor: Warfighter." Four other members of the team who have since transferred out of the unit but are still on active duty are under investigation. The game does not recreate the bin Laden raid, but it does portray realistic missions, such as an attack on a pirates' den in Somalia. It was produced by Electronic Arts, which boasts that real commandos, both active duty and retired, help make its games as realistic as possible. Film on bin Laden raid to air just before election SEAL describes Bin Laden's final moments It is unclear what secrets members of SEAL Team Six gave away, but while serving as consultants for the game, they used classified material which had been given to them by the Navy. They also violated the unwritten code that SEALs are silent warriors who shun the spotlight. In fact, the SEALs have been buried in an avalanche of publicity, some of it approved by Adm. William McRaven, the commander of the bin Laden raid and now the head of the Special Operations Command, for instance, the movie "Act of Valor." "Yes, there are SEALs, I think eight of them, active duty Navy SEALs, that are in it," said McRaven. "It started as a recruiting film." SEAL Team Six will be featured in two upcoming movies: One about the rescue of the captain of a container ship kidnapped by Somali pirates, the other about the bin Laden raid. The SEALs have gone Hollywood, but it could cost those who worked on the video game their careers. The seven who have been punished so far all received letters of reprimand which would kill their chances for promotion. They also had half their pay taken away for two months. ||||| Seven members of the secretive Navy SEAL Team 6, including one involved in the mission to get Osama bin Laden, have been punished for disclosing classified information, senior Navy officials said Thursday. This product image released by Electronic Arts shows action from the video game "Medal of Honor: Warfighter." Seven members of the secretive Navy SEAL Team 6, including one involved in the mission to... (Associated Press) Four other SEALs are under investigation for similar alleged violations, one official said. The SEALs are alleged to have divulged classified information to the maker of a video game called "Medal of Honor: Warfighter." Each of the seven received a punitive letter of reprimand and a partial forfeiture of pay for two months. Those actions generally hinder a military member's career. The deputy commander of Naval Special Warfare Command, Rear Adm. Garry Bonelli, issued a statement acknowledging that nonjudicial punishments had been handed out for misconduct, but he did not offer any details. "We do not tolerate deviations from the policies that govern who we are and what we do as sailors in the United States Navy," Bonelli said. He alluded to the importance of honoring nondisclosure agreements that SEALs sign. He said the punishments this week "send a clear message throughout our force that we are and will be held to a high standard of accountability." The two main complaints against the SEALs were that they did not seek the permission of their command to take part in the video project and that they showed the video designers some of their specially designed combat equipment unique to their unit, said a senior military official. The official was briefed about the case but was not authorized to speak publicly about it. SEALs, including some of those involved in the bin Laden raid of May 2011, have been uncharacteristically prominent in the news this year. Matt Bissonnette, who participated in the raid in Abbottabad, Pakistan, but later retired from the SEALs, wrote a firsthand account under the pseudonym Mark Owen, but he landed in hot water with the Pentagon even before it was published in September. The Pentagon accused him of disclosing classified information in violation of the nondisclosure agreements he had signed as a SEAL. He disputes the charge. The SEAL mission to capture or kill Laden, while stunningly successful, encountered a number of unexpected obstacles, including the loss of a stealthy helicopter that was partially blown up by the SEALs after making a hard landing inside bin Laden's compound. The head of Naval Special Warfare Command, Rear Adm. Sean Pybus, responded to the Bissonnette book by telling his force that "hawking details about a mission" and selling other information about SEAL training and operations puts the force and their families at risk. SEALs, both active duty and retired, possess highly sensitive information about tactics and techniques that are central to the success of their secret and often dangerous missions overseas. That is why they are obliged to sign nondisclosure agreements when they enter service and when they leave, and it is why the Pentagon seeks to enforce such written agreements. The punishments were first reported by CBS News. ___ AP Intelligence Writer Kimberly Dozier contributed to this report.

– Seven members of SEAL Team Six—one of whom took part in the Osama bin Laden raid—are in trouble because of a video game. The elite troops were paid consultants on Electronic Arts' "Medal of Honor: Warfighter," whose missions include a raid on Somali pirates; the game touts its realism by citing the fact that commandos worked on the project, CBS News reports. The SEALs—who are supposed to avoid publicity—reportedly revealed classified material in the process, and the AP reports that they apparently gave video designers a look at some of the combat equipment specifically designed for their unit. The seven SEALs in question have been sent "letters of reprimand" that kill their chance of promotion, and half of their pay has been cut for two months. (Another four who are no longer on SEAL Team Six are under investigation.) But they're not the only ones in the public eye these days: The commander of the bin Laden raid, Adm. William McRaven, has approved some publicity for the team, including Act of Valor, a film starring actual SEALs.

A U.N. envoy was in a standoff with armed men who blocked his car. From left, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, French President Francois Hollande, Italian Foreign Minister Federica Mogherini and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry talk during a break at the Elysee Palace in Paris on March 5. (Photo: Alain Jocard, AP) Story Highlights Top diplomats converge on Paris Putin has signaled he is not ready for war NATO meeting with Russia in Brussels KIEV, Ukraine — Negotiations to end the crisis in Crimea foundered Wednesday over Russia's refusal to recognize Ukraine's new leaders much less sit down with its ambassador. "I wish I could give you some good news," said Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski outside the talks in Paris. "But unfortunately it hasn't been possible to bring together the foreign ministers of Ukraine and Russia." Wednesday's gathering of diplomats in Paris came a day after Russian President Vladimir Putin appeared to calm fears of further military incursion by saying he has no intention to "fight the Ukrainian people." Russian troops took over key points of Crimea after the parliament in Kiev ousted Ukraine's pro-Moscow president, Viktor Yanukovych. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and several European diplomats met Wednesday to discuss whether there are peaceful ways to end Russia's occupation of Crimea, a peninsula where many Russian-speaking people say they want more autonomy from Kiev. But Lavrov refused to meet with the Ukraine ambassador, saying he represents an "illegitimate" government. "I don't think any of us had an anticipation that we were coming here at this moment, in this atmosphere of heightened tension and confrontation, that we were suddenly going to resolve that here, this afternoon," Kerry said after talks ended for the day. To induce Crimea to lean toward Europe rather than Russia, the European Union on Wednesday matched a $15 billion aid offer that Putin had made to help with Ukraine's financial woes. The United States offered an additional $1 billion in loan guarantees to help Ukraine reduce its energy reliance on Russia, which supplies the majority of Ukraine's natural gas. WATCH: Pro-Russian crowds chant as envoy departs In Ukraine, Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk blamed Putin for causing one of the sharpest international crises in Europe since the end of the Cold War. Despite a denial from Lavrov, Russian troops have fanned into Crimea and are controlling border crossings and bases, as well as encouraging Ukrainians to rise up against the government, he said. "Mr. President (Putin), stop this mess," Yatsenyuk said. "Let me remind Mr. Putin that this government was supported by the constitutional majority of Ukrainian members of parliament. We are legitimate." Ukrainians who helped oust Yanukovych say Putin had planned all along to invade and was just waiting for an excuse. "It is all about the Russians' ambitions," said Roman Yaruchik, 40, of Kiev. "It's obvious that Russian troops entered Crimea even before their parliament ratified sending the troops to invade Crimea." Putin claims that Yanukovych, whom he has given sanctuary in Russia, remains the true president. The Ukraine government has issued a warrant for his arrest on charges of murder for the shooting of more than 80 protesters in Kiev. U.N. special envoy to Ukraine Robert Serry took refuge March 4 in a coffee shop from an armed group in Crimea who also blocked him from leaving. He later agreed to end his mission and leave the country. (Photo: ATR TV) In Crimea, Russian troops held onto positions outside Crimean cities and pro-Russian militia members blocked Ukraine military bases to prevent soldiers from getting out. A special U.N. envoy cut short his mission in Crimea on Wednesday after being threatened by 10 to 15 armed men and ordered to leave the region, U.N. officials said. ITV News' Europe Editor James Mates reported that envoy Robert Serry left his car, which had been blocked by the armed men shouting, "Putin! Putin!," and took refuge in a nearby coffee shop. AID PACKAGE: U.S. pledges $1 billion aid to Ukraine The United States and European Union have threatened Russia with economic sanctions if it does not back down. A Russian politician told the RIA Novosti news agency that the Russian Senate was preparing a bill that would allow for the confiscation of American and European corporate assets located in Russia were sanctions to be introduced. CRISIS IN CRIMEA: Russia's Putin appears to blink in Ukraine Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1c7R7O4 ||||| 1 of 2 United Nations envoy Robert Serry has agreed to end his mission in Crimea and leave the region after a group of armed men hijacked his car and took him hostage in a coffee shop. Serry is believed to be on his way to the airport after agreeing to the demands of the 15 or so men that he drop his diplomatic mission and leave. As he drove off to the airport, a crowd jeered "Putin! Putin!" and "Russia! Russia!" at him. He had been threatened at gunpoint by the men in Sevastopol, according to the UN deputy secretary general Jan Eliasson. "This action should be seriously condemned," said Eliasson. The diplomat's car was surrounded by unidentified militiamen as he was leaving a Ukrainian naval base after talks with a commander. He had no security detail with him, according to reports. "He was met outside the main [naval] headquarters by a number of unidentified men who were saying that he should leave Crimea and go to the airport," the UN deputy secretary said. Serry was forced into a coffee shop and was prevented from leaving until he accepted the militamen's demands. "On his way to the hotel he stopped by a cafe to call me," Eliasson said. "Some [militiamen] were armed [but] not with heavy arms." Some of the men were wearing combat fatigues and the black and gold star of Russia. The language they were speaking, or where they were from, has not been confirmed. Interfax, the Russian news agency, had earlier reported that Serry had been kidnapped by armed men but the claims were refuted by the United Nations. James Mates, Europe editor for ITV News, was with Serry when he was taken captive. According to Mates's Twitter account, Serry asked the reporter and his film crew to remain with him and continue filming. The envoy said that he was very happy to leave Crimea and end his mission if it helped de-escalate the situation, according to Mates.

– UN special envoy Robert Serry suddenly aborted his stay in Crimea today after a run-in with a group of armed men. Gunmen, some in combat fatigues, reportedly surrounded Serry's car after he left a meeting at a Ukrainian naval base unaccompanied by a security detail, USA Today and the International Business Times report. They said they had orders to bring him to the airport. "I refused, I sat in the car. There was kind of a standoff," Serry said. Serry managed to get out of the car and walk to a nearby cafe, where he holed up with ITV News reporter James Mates, as a local militia blocked the entrance. Eventually, Serry agreed to leave the country; according to Mates, he said he was "happy to leave Crimea if it helped deescalate the situation." He got into his car and drove off, as a crowd of protesters chanted, "Putin!" and "Russia!" A UN spokesperson says Serry will "shortly return to Kiev to continue his mission." Ukrainian officials originally characterized the incident to Reuters as a kidnapping. A UN deputy secretary-general soon set the record straight, saying, "He was not kidnapped, but he was seriously threatened. This action should be seriously condemned."

Humpback whales sing increasingly complex songs, but University of Queensland researchers have discovered they may suddenly switch to something simpler, in a ‘cultural revolution’. The study examined the structure and complexity of songs sung by the eastern Australian humpback whale population over 13 consecutive years. Dr Jenny Allen from UQ’s Cetacean Ecology and Acoustics Laboratory said members of humpback whale populations were known to sing the same song at any one time. “Typically, these songs changed gradually, possibly through embellishments by individual singers,” Dr Allen said. “We suspect the embellishments allow bulls to stand out from their peers, much like teenage boys trying to stand out from the crowd. “But every few years the songs are replaced – always by something simpler - suggesting there is a limit to the whales’ capacity to learn new material.” Dr Allen said humpback whales provided a good model for cultural learning in animals, as they learned and spread their songs quickly over entire populations and even ocean basins. “This is cultural transmission on a scale comparable to what we find in people,” she said. “By learning more about culture and social learning in animal species such as humpback whales, we can gain a better understanding of what led to its development, and what evolutionary value it holds. “By answering these questions in animals, we might be able to clarify why cultural and social development has occurred to such a unique degree in humans.” The study is published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. Media: Dr Jenny Allen, j.allen3@uq.edu.au, +61 424 773 994; Dominic Jarvis, dominic.jarvis@uq.edu.au, +61 413 334 924. ||||| Humpback whale songs undergo a ‘cultural revolution’ every few years Like any fad, the songs of humpback whales don’t stick around for long. Every few years, males swap their chorus of squeaks and groans for a brand new one. Now, scientists have figured out how these “cultural revolutions” take place. All male humpbacks in a population sing the same song, and they appear to learn new ones somewhat like people do. Males in the eastern Australian population of humpbacks, for example, pick up a new song every few years from the western Australian population at shared feeding grounds or while migrating. Over the next few years, the songs spread to all South Pacific populations. To understand how the whales learn the novel ballads, scientists analyzed eastern Australian whale songs over 13 consecutive years. Using spectrograms of 412 song cycles from 95 singers, the scientists scored each tune’s complexity for the number of sounds and themes, and studied the subtle variations individual males can add to stand out. Complexity increased as the songs evolved (as heard in the video below), the team reports today in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B . But after a song revolution, the ballads became shorter with fewer sounds and themes. The revolutionary songs may be less complex than the old ones because the whales can only learn a certain amount of new material at a time, the scientists conclude. That could mean that although humpback whales are still the crooners of the sea, their learning skills are a bit limited.

– Researchers studying the songs of humpback whales have discovered a quirk of the undersea music: The whales sing the same song for a few years, adding individual embellishments and making it increasingly complex all the while. And then, poof, they switch to a simpler tune and start the cycle over again. In fact, lead researcher Jenny Allen of the University of Queensland refers to this switch as a "cultural revolution" in a UQ news release. So why the abrupt change to a new tune? One theory is that the songs become so complex that the whales reach their limit of being able to learn new material, according to the study in Proceedings of the Royal Society B. The researchers studied 412 song cycles from 95 singing whales over 13 years, per Science. While the whales generally sing the same song, the researchers found that individuals add their own touches, perhaps to help them stand out. (Only the males sing.) Another part of the pattern: Whale populations sometimes pick up a new tune from a different population—such as when eastern Australian humpbacks meet their western counterparts at a common feeding ground. Smithsonian likens this to a game of whale "telephone." But the same pattern follows: The songs begin simple and grow more complex until they're ditched altogether for a new one. (A beached whale provided unfortunate proof of plastic pollution in the sea.)

At first blush, it looked like the inauguration photo comparison all over again. Two images appearing to compare the number of New England Patriots players and staff at recent White House ceremonies rocketed around the Internet Wednesday night, appearing to show a much larger turnout for the event hosted by President Barack Obama in 2015 than President Donald Trump in 2017. It was picked up and reported on by many news organizations, including The New York Times, The Boston Globe, and CNN. A Times tweet of the photos had nearly 35,000 retweets and 48,000 “likes” as of Wednesday night. Patriots' turnout for President Obama in 2015 vs. Patriots' turnout for President Trump today: https://t.co/OxMEOqZonI pic.twitter.com/pLmJWhOw1j — NYT Sports (@NYTSports) April 19, 2017 Advertisement But the devil is in the details. Patriots spokesman Stacey James pointed out shortly after the stories were published that the two photos were not an equal comparison, noting that the 2015 photo included administrative staff, while the 2017 photo didn’t. And there was a valid reason for that, James said. In 2015, the whole Patriots entourage met with the president in a room pictured above the lawn stairs, and then proceeded to file down the stairs for the photo to be taken, James said. “Two years ago, the process was the players and coaches went down, and then the football staff filled in on the stairs,” James said. Advertisement But this year, all the football and administrative staff were seated on the South Lawn: “That’s just what the White House chose to do,” he said. One reason for the smaller group on the risers was likely because the Trump administration wanted to take the players on a tour of the living quarters, but wanted to take a smaller group — just the players and core coaching staff — instead of the whole entourage. In 2015, as soon as the event was over, “we left — that was it,” James said. “This time, there was a tour given to a smaller group.” James said a photo of everyone at the White House associated with the Patriots was taken at around noon Wednesday during a rehearsal for the event. That image was forwarded to the Globe by the Patriots organization: Photo courtesy of the Patriots organization James also said that trying to compare the attendance of 2017 to 2015 was “wrong.” Advertisement “When you win two [Super Bowls] in three years, fewer people go than one in 10 years,” he said, noting that player turnout for the White House ceremonies between 2002 and 2005 decreased steadily. “It’s just the way it goes,” James said. “It’s a long day. It’s a cool thing you do once — maybe you do it twice — but it’s just not necessarily something you choose to do every time. We had people today who were attending funerals, who were sick — it wasn’t political; it’s just life.” This year, several Patriots players said they would not be attending, some specifically citing Trump’s behavior and policies as the reason why. Tom Brady was notably absent from the event, saying earlier in the day he had to attend to “personal family matters.” Danny Amendola received a shoutout from the president during the event, but he was also absent, and later tweeted at the president in a post that has since been deleted: “Thanks for the shout out @realDonaldTrump! in the GYM! Funeral service for my boy Jaimie Carrillo tonight! RIP-JC.” The Patriots photo comparison also comes after widely circulated photos appeared to show smaller crowd sizes for Donald Trump’s inauguration than Barack Obama’s in 2009. The photos prompted White House press secretary Sean Spicer to lash out at news organizations and accuse them of false reporting. Get Ground Game in your inbox: Daily updates and analysis on national politics from James Pindell. Sign Up Thank you for signing up! Sign up for more newsletters here Brian J. White of the Globe staff contributed to this report. ||||| 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

– It's another Trump-related brouhaha over crowd size. The New York Times set this one off with a tweet of two photos, one showing the New England Patriots visiting Trump at the White House on Wednesday and another showing them visiting President Obama in 2015. The Obama crowd was much bigger. A few hours later, the Patriots took public exception to the tweet with one of their own complaining that the images "lack context." And they have a point: The 2015 photo included players, coaches, and administrative staff. The 2017 photo included players and coaches only—those same staffers were seated in the audience. All of which caught the attention of Trump himself, who tweeted Thursday: "Failing @nytimes, which has been calling me wrong for two years, just got caught in a big lie concerning New England Patriots visit to W.H." It's true that fewer players attended this year's event than in 2015—34 vs. about 50. But a team spokesman says even that comparison is unfair given that it's the team's second Super Bowl win in three years, reports the Boston Globe. It's just human nature that fewer would come this time, he suggested, not politics. However, at least one player skipped because of the president's politics, notes the Washington Post: free safety Devin McCourty. QB Tom Brady also skipped this year, though he cited family reasons, and he skipped in 2015, too. Meanwhile, the Huffington Post notes that his wife, Gisele Bundchen, issued a tweet Wednesday perceived as anti-Trump. It's since been deleted, but it supported an April 29 march in DC against new White House environmental policies. "March for climate, jobs, and justice," it read.

FRANKFURT Adidas AG has suspended its contract with Tyson Gay after the former double world sprint champion failed an out-of-competition dope test, the German sportswear company said on Monday. "We are shocked by these recent allegations, and even if we presume his innocence until proven otherwise, our contract with Tyson is currently suspended," an Adidas spokesman said. Adidas' agreements with athletes give it the right to terminate the contract "if the athlete is found guilty of the possession or use of drugs or any other prohibited substance by the relevant governing sports body having jurisdiction over the athlete." Gay, who has been on Adidas' books since 2005, had said on Sunday he had tested positive for a substance he could not identify and that he was pulling out of next month's world championships in Moscow. "I don't have a sabotage story. I don't have lies ... I basically put my trust in someone and I was let down," the American said, adding that he had never knowingly taken a performance-enhancing drug. Also on Sunday, former world 100 meters record holder Asafa Powell and Olympic 4x100 meters relay silver medalist Sherone Simpson said they had both tested positive for the stimulant oxilophrine at last month's Jamaican championships. Powell and Simpson, both from Jamaica, have denied knowingly taking a banned substance. The doping cases are a blow to the image of athletics a month ahead of the world championships in Moscow. The sport often struggles to maintain a high profile outside Olympic years. German company Puma SE, which sponsors Jamaican athletics through a contract with the national association there, declined to comment because it does not have individual contracts with any of the athletes involved. Puma does sponsor Olympic sprint champion Usain Bolt, whose manager said he was not involved in the latest doping scandal. Chinese sporting goods company Li Ning, which sponsors Powell, was not immediately available for comment. (Reporting by Joern Poltz; Additional reporting by Keith Weir in London; Writing by Victoria Bryan; Editing by David Holmes) ||||| Tyson Gay, left, wins the 200-meter semifinal in 20.07 in the 2013 USA Championships at Drake Stadium in June. (Photo: Kirby Lee, USA TODAY Sports) Story Highlights Since when did track and field become cycling, where almost everyone has to cheat? 25 years ago, Ben Johnson started the Steroids Era in sports 15 years ago, Marion Jones reaffirmed that cheating was still rampant in track & field Mark it down: July 14, 2013, the day that the once-revered sport of track and field took another step closer to not being worthy of our trust, or our time. The steppingstones to oblivion are filling in for the sport: Ben Johnson in 1988 to Marion Jones in 2003 to Mr. Clean this past weekend. Since when did track and field become cycling, where almost everyone seems to be cheating? And how many more drug scandals will it take to finally kill off an Olympic sport? TRACK: Tyson Gay explains positive test MORE: Tyson Gay's coach speaks out against doping Twenty five years ago, Johnson kicked off the Steroids Era in sports in earnest when he won the men's 100 meters at the Seoul Olympics, then tested positive and was stripped of his gold medal three days later. There had been plenty of steroid use by the Eastern Bloc and other nations prior to 1988, but when the marquee event of the Games brings the most sensational drug bust in Olympic history, that does turn more than a few heads. Fifteen years later, almost exactly a decade ago now, Jones and her BALCO buddies reaffirmed that cheating was still rampant in track and field – and that it didn't take a positive drug test to prove it. On Sunday, word came that two-time Olympian and U.S. 100-meter recordholder Tyson Gay – a man who joined 10 other athletes in declaring he "competed clean" for a U.S. Anti-Doping Agency program – has admitted to testing positive for a banned substance and has pulled out of the track and field world championships next month in Moscow. The 30-year-old Gay has been part of USADA's "My Victory. ... I compete clean." program, where his statement on the USADA website read: "I compete clean because I really believe in fairness, and besides that, my Mom would kill me! Just being honest. My mother and my sister have been great role models for me." Mom cannot be very happy today. "I don't have a sabotage story," Gay told reporters as he fought back tears. "I don't have any lies. I don't have anything to say to make this seem like it was a mistake or it was on USADA's hands, someone playing games. I don't have any of those stories. I basically put my trust in someone and I was let down." Asked who that person was, Gay replied: "I can't really say it. Sometimes a human being naturally, generally trusts somebody. That's what people do." No matter who gave him what, Gay is responsible for what he puts into his body, as he well knows. It's inexcusable for any athlete, much less someone as savvy as Gay, to take any questionable substance from anyone. The news that Gay has tested positive is a devastating blow for track and field domestically and internationally. His admission occurred on the same day that Jamaica's Asafa Powell, an Olympic gold medalist and former world recordholder in the 100 meters, confirmed that he, too, had tested positive for a banned substance. News reports said that Powell was among five Olympic gold medalists from Jamaica (none of them reportedly named Usain Bolt) who tested positive for stimulants at their national championships in June. Now that's teamwork. What's more, Jamaica's Veronica Campbell-Brown, the reigning 200-meter world champion and three-time Olympic gold medalist, was suspended last month pending an investigation into a positive drug test for a banned diuretic in May. There's also quite a doping scandal under way in Turkey, ensnaring perhaps dozens of athletes, including the 2012 women's Olympic 1,500-meter champion and a two-time European hurdles champion. And on and on it goes. There was a time when track and field athletes were some of the most famous sports figures in the country. They graced the cover of Sports Illustrated several times a year, as hard as that is to believe now. Mary Decker, for instance, was named Sportsman of the Year in 1983. Picture it: a middle-distance runner honored by SI in a non-Olympic year. But performance-enhancing drugs have decimated the sport in the public's eye. And why not? If you can't trust a simple foot race going on before your eyes, why would you even bother to look? ||||| Until Sunday, it was almost possible to believe Tyson Gay. He’s a sprinter, and a damn good one—which means that a rational fan should know that he might be using performance-enhancing drugs. But Gay, the second-fastest man in history, doesn’t have the Popeye physique and crazy eyes of notorious dopers of the past; he’s calm, not manic; his head is of a normal size, in both the literal and clichéd sense of that phrase; his improvements over the years have come steadily, not wildly. Now, though, he’s a drug cheat. Rumors on letsrun.com, a Web site known for accurate ones, started on Saturday. On Sunday, Gay revealed that he had tested positive for a banned stimulant. To his credit, he admitted what had happened. “I don’t have a sabotage story,” he said, “I don’t have any lies. I don’t have anything to say to make this seem like it was a mistake or it was on USADA ’s hands, someone playing games. I don’t have any of those stories.” Contrast that with Asafa Powell, a Jamaican and the fourth-fastest man in history, who also was busted on Sunday. He, as athletes typically do, proclaimed that he had no idea what on earth had just gone on. “My team has launched an internal investigation and we are cooperating with the relevant agencies and law enforcement authorities to discover how the substance got in my system,” he declared. “I assure you we will find out how this substance passed our rigorous internal checks and balances and design systems to make sure it never happens again.” He must have eaten a bad steak, drunk too much Jack Daniel’s, or had someone drop a tablet in his beer. There is much that we don’t know about these positive tests. Apparently, other announcements about other Jamaican athletes are coming soon. The accused will mount their defenses, and those defenses may be convincing. Nonetheless, it’s clear that the sport’s problem is endemic and appalling. With Gay’s bust, men implicated in doping scandals now own the twenty fastest hundred-metre times ever run by Americans. Every American gold or silver medalist in the race since 1988 was eventually busted for doping. And Carl Lewis, the winner that year—after a positive test ejected Canada’s Ben Johnson—didn’t just leave a trail of wheat germ in his wake. He tested positive for stimulants three times in 1988, though the results were thrown out. Where does this leave Usain Bolt, the one man faster than Tyson Gay? He’s never failed a drug test. But now many of his countrymen have: Powell; Steve Mullings, one of the ten fastest men in history; triple gold-medalist Veronica Campbell-Brown; gold-medalist Sherone Simpson. Bolt is in something of the same position that Lance Armstrong was in about 2003: a man dominating a dirty sport as his rivals and teammates fall. It wouldn’t be a surprise if one day this summer Bolt starts talking about misreading the label on an herbal supplement—or if, a decade from now, he ends up talking to Oprah. The problem in sprinting has long been like the problem in cycling. People think they have to dope in order to be competitive. Athletes test positive every year and get suspended. But that doesn’t break the cycle: it may just accelerate it. What high-school sprinter is going to think he or she can be the best in the country without using drugs now? Here is the argument that Ben Johnson’s coach made when persuading him, as a young runner, to get with the program: “You only cheat if you’re the only one doing it. This means if the other guys are doing it, and you start doing the same thing, it’s not cheating.” How can sprinting change? Cycling has cracked down and cleaned up. Times in the Tour de France this year are far slower than in years past. (Though some riders are still going suspiciously fast.) Major League Baseball, after investigations and bloodletting, seems far less juiced than it was a decade ago. So here’s one idea for track and field: change the incentive structure. When a baseball player or a cyclist is busted, the penalty hurts his team. If your third basemen tests positive for drugs, the whole team has to suffer through the search for a new one. Runners don’t really have teams, but they do have countries. So what if, to borrow an idea from Daniel Yi, countries were punished when their athletes test positive? Tyson Gay was scheduled to represent the United States at the World Championships next month. He’s not going to go and so the U.S. will replace him. But what if the U.S. wasn’t allowed to send someone else? His lapse would be his nation’s loss. Countries can send three athletes to the Olympics in each Track and Field event. What if, after a positive test of a medal winner, they only got to send two the next time? National drug-testing organizations would have further incentives to crack down. Peer pressure against drug use would pick up. That might not be enough. The culture of the sport is broken, and it needs repairing. The hundred-metre dash is one of the purest sporting events there is: this is how fast human beings can move. That’s why we take such pleasure in Usain Bolt’s beautiful loping stride or Tyson Gay’s amazing upright posture and the strain in his neck. And it’s why it so disappointing when, with the regularity of hot days in the summer, news comes that yet another sprinter has tested positive. Photograph by Andy Lyons/Getty. ||||| Doping issues killing track and field again Tyson Gay, Jamaican Olympic gold medalists test positive Sunday, leading U.S. sprinter Tyson Gay and Jamaica's Asafa Powell, Olympic gold medalist and former world record-holder in the 100 meters, confirmed they have tested positive for banned substances. There were news reports saying Powell was among five Olympic gold medalists from Jamaica who tested positive for stimulants at their national championships last month. Almost exactly a decade after the BALCO scandal all but destroyed track’s credibility, the sport is facing another legitimacy crisis. Hey, pro cycling: move over on that trash heap, so there is some room for track and field. Tyson Gay (L, orange shirt) besting Jamaica's Asafa Powell (red) in the 100 meters at the Diamond League meet July 4 in Lausanne, Switzerland. Both confirmed Sunday they have tested positive for banned substances. (Fabrice Coffrini/ AFP/ Getty Images) Add that to the doping mess in Turkish track and field, with doping charges brought against the 2012 women’s Olympic 1,500-meter champion and a two-time European hurdles champion, and the only thing worse for the sport would be if Usain Bolt tested positive. Bolt’s agent, Ricky Simms, told the Tribune in an email that none of the athletes Simms represents had tested positive. It would be easy to say the Gay story was shocking, but it also might be disingenuous. The use of performance-enhancing drugs in the sport has been so widespread over the last 50 years that having another great champion test positive is about as shocking as the gambling in the movie, “Casablanca.” All the facts of the Gay situation –including the confirming test of his “B” sample – are not in. But the reigning U.S. 100- and 200-meter champion will withdraw from next month’s World Championships, where his races against Bolt were expected to be among the highlights of the meet. The surprising part of the Gay case is his willingness to take full responsibility for having the banned substance turn up in a May 16 out-of-competition drug test, even though he told reporters on a Sunday conference call there is an explanation that seemingly would suggest it was not his intention to dope. The surprise there isn’t so great, either, since Gay always has been a stand-up guy “I don’t have a sabotage story. I don’t have any lies,” Gay was quoted as saying. “I don’t have any of those stories. I basically put my trust in someone, and I was let down.” Gay, the 2007 world champion in the 100 and 200 and U.S. record-holder in the 100, would not identify the person in question. He indicated he would take any punishment “like a man.” Defenders of track and field and cycling will be quick to say their sports catch people because their anti-doping efforts are serious, while pro sports like football, baseball, hockey and tennis have a wink, wink attitude toward use of PEDs. No matter that such an argument is valid, it hardly absolves runners and cyclists of guilt for doping positives. The anti-doping system has strict liability for anyone whose test comes back positive. Ignorance of what is in health supplements athletes use or what is in a substance recommended by a member of an athlete’s entourage is an explanation but not an exculpatory excuse. The BALCO scandal – named for the California lab that helped design doping programs for athletes – began the undoing of several track athletes, including sprint superstar Marion Jones and another top U.S. sprinter, Kelli White, who had won the 100 and 200 at the 2003 world championships. Three years later, U.S. sprinter Justin Gatlin tested positive for a steroid. Gatlin, then reigning Olympic 100 champion and reigning word 100 and 200 champion, vainly argued sabotage, served a four-year suspension and returned to win a bronze medal in the 100 at the 2012 Olympics. Sunday, Powell's agent, Paul Doyle, confirmed in an email to the Tribune that Powell and Sherone Simpson had tested positive. The London Daily Telegraph identified Nesta Carter as another Jamaican positive. All had run on gold-medal Olympic relays. In a statement, Powell said he tested positive for methylsynephrine but had never "knowingly or willingly taken any supplements or substances that break any rules. I am not now - nor have I ever been - a cheat." Last month, two-time Olympic 200-meter champion Veronica Campbell-Brown of Jamaica was suspended for a positive test that international track federation spokesman Nick Davies characterized as a “minor violation.” At a certain point, minor and major just run together. The sport again is running off the rails, just as cycling did, with Lance Armstrong at the throttle of a train wreck. Tyson Gay is no Machiavellian liar like Lance. Gay’s doping violation may have been as inadvertent as it seems. Yet that does not change how suspicious Gay’s stunning comeback this season suddenly feels, no matter how likable a person he is. In track and field as in cycling, it is sadly no longer possible to give the benefit of the doubt to anyone. Only the doubt remains. It will never go away. For track and field, that can only hasten the death of a sport that already is on life support in the United States.

– News that two of the world's top runners—American Tyson Gay and Jamaica's Asafa Powell—have tested positive for banned substances isn't just bad news for the sport. It might be fatal news for the sport, at least in the US, writes Philip Hersh at the Chicago Tribune. Years of positive doping tests going back to the Ben Johnson era had pretty much made track and field a joke before the latest revelations, and this just cements things. How can spectators trust anyone at this point? The benefit of the doubt is gone, and "for track and field, that can only hasten the death of a sport that already is on life support in the United States." Christine Brennan at USA Today has a similar theme, warning that "the steppingstones to oblivion are filling in for the sport." We're nearly at the point where it's a waste of time for spectators. "If you can't trust a simple foot race going on before your eyes, why would you even bother to look?" A little less fatalistic is Nicholson Thompson at the New Yorker, who offers a suggestion to help clean things up. It's time to start punishing not just individual runners but their nations. "Countries can send three athletes to the Olympics in each track and field event," he writes. "What if, after a positive test of a medal winner, they only got to send two the next time?" Drug-testing agencies might add muscle, and peer pressure within the sport might begin to shift against doping. Still, he writes, "that might not be enough." (Meanwhile, Adidas already has suspended ties with Tyson, reports Reuters.)

A veteran of Operation Desert Storm in the Persian Gulf recently committed suicide by setting himself on fire in front of a Veterans Affairs health clinic in New Jersey. The 51-year-old had been treated there in the past. Charles Richard Ingram III, a seven-year veteran of the US Navy, committed suicide by self-immolation on March 19 in front of the VA Community Based Outpatient Clinic in Northfield, New Jersey. A bystander attempted to extinguish the fire with blankets as firefighters arrived on the scene. Ingram ultimately died at Temple University Burn Center in Philadelphia later that night, according to the Daily Beast. “I’ve seen people die before with complications associated with minor burns, but he was 100 percent burned,” Northfield assistant fire chief Lauren William Crooks told the Beast. “Gasoline burns extremely hot, so how he survived the short time that he did was in my opinion a little unbelievable, but people react in unpredictable ways to trauma.” Ruck up for Life: US veterans march in Minnesota for comrades that take own lives daily https://t.co/fSbVVdkBNtpic.twitter.com/Z7TGri856m — RT (@RT_com) October 26, 2015 Ingram, a resident of nearby Egg Harbor Township, was survived by a wife and two young children. He served in the Navy from 1985 to 1992, according to his obituary in the Press of Atlantic City. He was at sea throughout Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm, serving as chief on the command ship USS La Salle when it became the first American war vessel to arrive at a liberated Ash Shuaybah, Kuwait, in March 1991. VA hospital threw patient files in trash, kept quiet about it http://t.co/qfcVyGBNYApic.twitter.com/BBQ32h7CWD — RT America (@RT_America) August 4, 2015 The Northfield clinic is a branch of the VA Medical Center in Wilmington, Delaware. Such clinics are set up to serve veterans in locations away from hub hospitals. While they lack the medical or psychiatric specialists on staff, they offer in-depth "telehealth" or teleconference appointments to veterans, according to the Beast. Self-immolation is a very uncommon means of suicide, usually associated with protest. The reason why Ingram may have decided to take his own life in such a manner remains unknown. The suicide rate among recent US military veterans is about 50 percent higher than the non-military US population, or 29.5 per 100,000 vets, according to a study released in early 2015. Obama promises veterans he’s ‘still not satisfied’ with VA health & jobs programs https://t.co/qcHqKU7HOrpic.twitter.com/s0WKNNYsW3 — RT (@RT_com) November 12, 2015 The Department of Veterans Affairs has endured a series of scandals and scathing criticism from lawmakers, veterans and whistleblowers over the lack of timeliness and the level of care it provides for veterans. Government inspectors found in September that the department had a massive backlog of nearly 900,000 healthcare applications waiting to be approved and that more than 300,000 veterans had died waiting for approval. According to the agency’s own figures, from 2008, of the 24.3 million total military veterans, only 8.5 million, or 36 percent, were receiving benefits and services. ||||| NORTHFIELD, New Jersey — The last evidence of the life of Charles Richard Ingram III is a circle of scorched earth next to a Veterans Affairs clinic. Ingram, a seven-year veteran of the U.S. Navy, arrived at the VA Community Based Outpatient Clinic around 1 p.m. on Saturday, March 19. He had been there before for treatment, but this would be his last visit. The 51-year-old walked nine miles from his home in Egg Harbor, past an American Legion park and a memorial dedicated to military veterans, before finally stopping a few yards short of the clinic parking lot curb. Once there, he doused himself in gasoline and set himself on fire. A motorist called 911, according to Capt. Paul Newman of the Northfield Police Department, and firefighters arrived three minutes later. A bystander was already at Ingram’s side, trying to extinguish the fire with blankets. Twenty minutes later, Ingram was airlifted to Temple University Burn Center in Philadelphia, where he died that evening. “I’ve seen people die before with complications associated with minor burns, but he was 100 percent burned,” Northfield Assistant Fire Chief Lauren William Crooks told The Daily Beast. “Gasoline burns extremely hot, so how he survived the short time that he did was in my opinion a little unbelievable, but people react in unpredictable ways to trauma.” Self-immolation accounted for 0.04 percent of all suicides in the United States in the past 15 years on record. (By comparison, firearms were used in approximately 50 percent of suicides.) The act is most commonly associated with protest, as in the iconic images of Buddhist monks in Tibet and South Vietnam. Capt. Newman said he was supposed to have the afternoon off but was called in and arrived before Ingram was evacuated. “Regardless of where you work, that’s a significant thing, one you hope to never have to see in your career,” he said. On a recent day, a halo of black char crowned an arc of the oblong plot of black dirt in the otherwise verdant field outside the clinic. An oak tree’s trunk was ashen gray at the base and charcoal black above, the sole witness to Ingram’s suicide. The dirt had been raked and the mound dressed in flowers and flags. Three floral bouquets were laid at the burnt edge next to a stylized cross; a crystal butterfly atop a thin wrought iron pedestal was flanked by two spotless American flags; a pinwheel with metallic red, white, and blue spokes stood beside another bouquet. Someone had placed a single empty bottle of pale ale in front of one of the flags. Altogether it would have resembled a solemn grave had it not been so strikingly scarred by the recent moment of violence there. “Rich,” as he was known to family and friends, served in the Navy from 1985 to 1992, attaining the rank of chief petty officer. He left behind a wife, Billie, and two children, ages 3 and 5. The day before he killed himself, a local newspaper photographed the kids playing with other locals at nearby John F. Kennedy Park. Two days prior was his wife’s birthday; his daughter’s fourth birthday was two weeks away. No one answered the door at the Ingram home in Egg Harbor Township on the Saturday afternoon one week after his death. The house number was short its last digit, which was peeling away from the mailbox, the front yard and porch were bare, and a pickup truck, bright white and freshly washed, was parked on the gravel drive beside the house. The blinds of the front window were unevenly gapped in half a dozen places as if habitually peeked through but never properly opened. (Family members said they were not ready to speak when reached by The Daily Beast via telephone.) Get The Beast In Your Inbox! Daily Digest Start and finish your day with the top stories from The Daily Beast. Cheat Sheet A speedy, smart summary of all the news you need to know (and nothing you don't). By clicking “Subscribe,” you agree to have read the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Subscribe Thank You! You are now subscribed to the Daily Digest and Cheat Sheet. We will not share your email with anyone for any reason. Ingram’s last years in the Navy were aboard the amphibious command ship the USS La Salle, one of five vessels in the Persian Gulf when Iraq invaded Kuwait in August 1990. Ingram stayed at sea throughout Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. He was chief on deck when the La Salle cruised into Ash Shuaybay, Kuwait, on March 12, 1991, the first American warship to enter the newly liberated port. After retiring from the service, Ingram married Billie Bessler; the two lived briefly in Pennsylvania before settling in the house she still owns in Egg Harbor. The clinic in Northfield is a community-based outpatient clinic of the VA Medical Center in Wilmington, Delaware. The VA’s Community Based Outpatient Clinics (CBOCs) serve patients in rural or remote locations who may not be able to travel to main hubs as a result of physical disabilities or psychiatric illnesses. Since most of the specialists, including psychiatrists, only see patients at the hub medical centers, CBOCs schedule “telehealth” appointments: closed-circuit “office visit” teleconferences. (Telehealth was first pioneered in combat medicine to provide troops in places like Afghanistan access to mental health services.) The approach is not intended to work like “phoning it in,” though: The VA’s guidelines for telehealth prescribe an intensive outpatient regimen of weekly sessions taking about five hours each. If Ingram received psychiatric services at the Northfield clinic, as Capt. Newman said, then it is likely he availed himself of telehealth or was waiting to do so. A memorial service for Ingram is scheduled for April 2 at the United Methodist Church of Mantua. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to Operation Smile.

– A veteran of the US Navy walked nine miles to a Veterans Affairs clinic in New Jersey earlier this month, poured gasoline on himself, and set himself ablaze. Charles Richard Ingram III, 51, died later on March 19 at a burn center in Philadelphia. "Gasoline burns extremely hot, so how he survived the short time that he did was in my opinion a little unbelievable," says a local fire chief. Self-immolation is often linked to protest, the Daily Beast notes, but attempts to learn more about Ingram's psychological state haven't led to much. Known as "Rich," he's a seven-year veteran who served on the USS La Salle, and was chief on deck when it went to the newly liberated Kuwait on March 12, 1991. After his service, he married Billie Bessler and settled with her in Egg Harbor, NJ, but knocks at their door went unanswered. The Northfield, NJ, clinic where Ingram killed himself is designed to help people in remote or rural areas who live far from population hubs. Because most specialists (psychiatrists included) are in cities, they assist people via teleconference—something Ingram likely did or was planning to do if he was getting psychiatric help, says Police Capt. Paul Newman. Ingram also leaves behind two kids, ages 3 and 5, who were photographed in a local newspaper the day before Ingram's death. A 2015 study says the suicide rate among recent veterans of the US military is roughly 50% more than the civilian rate (29.5 per 100,000 veterans), RT.com reports. Whistleblowers, lawmakers, and veterans have harshly criticized the Department of Veterans Affairs over the degree of care it provides veterans.

Our officers have had some good finds this year at our checkpoints and we wanted to share our top 10 good catches with you. Some are dangerous, some simply look dangerous and can cause major delays, and others are just plain weird. Click on the links to read more about each good catch. Top 10: 10) Snakes, turtles, and birds were found at Miami (MIA) and Los Angeles (LAX). I’m just happy there weren’t any lions, tigers, and bears… were found at Miami (MIA) and Los Angeles (LAX). I’m just happy there weren’t any lions, tigers, and bears… 9) A science project shut down a checkpoint at Omaha (OMA). I wonder if mentioning the shutting down of the checkpoint added enough flare to his presentation to score him some bonus points? shut down a checkpoint at Omaha (OMA). I wonder if mentioning the shutting down of the checkpoint added enough flare to his presentation to score him some bonus points? 8) An artfully concealed non-metallic martial arts weapon called a “Tactical Spike” was found in the sock of a passenger at Pensacola (PNS) after being screened by a body scanner. The only thing I keep in my sock is my foot. was found in the sock of a passenger at Pensacola (PNS) after being screened by a body scanner. The only thing I keep in my sock is my foot. 7) Inert landmines were found at Salt Lake City (SLC). I always travel with mine, don’t you??? were found at Salt Lake City (SLC). I always travel with mine, don’t you??? 6) A stun gun disguised as a smart phone was found at Los Angeles (LAX). Not very smart to travel with this stunning device. was found at Los Angeles (LAX). Not very smart to travel with this stunning device. 5) A flare gun with seven flares was found in a passenger’s carry-on bag at Norfolk (ORF). Hmmm… pressurized cabin + 7 live flares = no good can come from this. was found in a passenger’s carry-on bag at Norfolk (ORF). Hmmm… pressurized cabin + 7 live flares = no good can come from this. 4) Two throwing knives concealed in hollowed out book were found at Washington National (DCA). Killer book… concealed in hollowed out bookwere found at Washington National (DCA). Killer book… 3) Over 1,200 firearms were discovered at TSA checkpoints across the nation in 2011. Many guns are found loaded with rounds in the chamber. Most passengers simply state they forgot they had a gun in their bag. 2) A loaded .380 pistol was found strapped to passenger’s ankle with the body scanner at Detroit (DTW). You guessed it, he forgot it was there… was found strapped to passenger’s ankle with the body scanner at Detroit (DTW). You guessed it, he forgot it was there… 1) Small chunks of C4 explosives were found in passenger’s checked luggage in Yuma (YUM). Believe it or not, he was brining it home to show his family. were found in passenger’s checked luggage in Yuma (YUM). Believe it or not, he was brining it home to show his family. If you’re interested in reading about more finds such as these, be sure to read our weekly “TSA Week In Review” blog posts, posted every Friday. Honorable mentions: 13) Invisible Space Aliens were detected at numerous checkpoints nationwide. were detected at numerous checkpoints nationwide. 12) Five inert grenades were found in passenger’s bag at Newark (EWR). were found in passenger’s bag at Newark (EWR). 11) 240 live fish were found swimming in 4 checked bags at Los Angeles (LAX). were found swimming in 4 checked bags at Los Angeles (LAX). Blogger Bob Burns TSA Blog Team ||||| I've noticed that our friends at the TSA haven't announced their New Year's resolutions yet -- at least not publicly -- so as I thought I'd help the federal agency charged with the challenging task of protecting our transportation systems. You know, as a public service. Here are 12 things the TSA should stop doing in 2012. No more body scans. The TSA's pricey and controversial body scanners, which are being deployed across the country, are an invasion of privacy and an unacceptable health risk. Many American oppose their use. Isn't it time for the TSA to admit they're a failure and try something else? Stay off our streets. The TSA is here for one reason, and one reason alone: To stop another 9/11 from happening. Its expansion to subway stations and other public areas is a costly and unnecessary step that no one asked for. This is the year to end the ill-conceived VIPR program once and for all. Quit pocketing money. Harassed air travelers left a lot of loose change at checkpoints -- an estimated $376,480 in 2010. And guess who kept it? That's right, the TSA. But it isn't the agency's money (one Congressman wants to funnel it to the USO, which isn't a bad idea). It's your money. The TSA has no business taking it. Stop calling screeners officers. It's a little known fact that TSA employees have zero law enforcement authority and technically shouldn't be called officers. One Congresswoman wants to fix that. What a great idea. Stop harassing grandma. It isn't just Lenore Zimmerman, the 4-foot-11, 110-pound, grandmother who alleges she was strip-searched at JFK in late 2011. It's a whole stack of similar cases that have stirred public outrage. Stop frisking the grannies, TSA. You're better than that. No more special lines. TSA's new Pre-Check program, which selectively pre-screens certain passengers and lets them move through the security line faster, seems like a move in the right direction. But it isn't. The elite-level frequent fliers join a growing list of others, including members of the military and airport employees, who get special screening privileges. Shouldn't TSA be trying to find the bad guys instead of determining who the bad guys aren't? This process-of-elimination screening is not only expensive, but puts ordinary, law-abiding air travelers at a disadvantage. End the liquid and gel restrictions. There's no convincing evidence that our Starbucks lattes are going to blow up our early morning commuter flight. Let's stop this nonsense, which has been going on for way too long and hasn't prevented a single act of airborne terrorism. Let air travelers bring their harmless liquids on board. Stop the shoe removals. The TSA now allows kids 12 and under to leave their shoes on. Why not the rest of us? When's the last time the agency caught a terrorist with explosives in his insoles? How about never? Don't prevent passengers from taking pictures. Even though the TSA insists that taking snapshots of its screening areas is allowed, its "officers" apparently never got the memo. Here's what happened to Carlos Miller last week when he tried to tape his screening. Puh-leeze! Stop hiring criminals. TSA's hiring practices leave a lot to be desired. Its employees have gotten themselves into a whole lotta trouble in 2011, including some very disturbing crimes that leave you wondering: Where did they find these people? Come on. Don't ignore the public you're trying to protect. A recent White House website petition comes to mind. It only took about 30,000 verified signatures requesting the Obama administration eliminate the TSA, for Administrator John Pistole to offer a clueless rebuttal that suggests he has virtually no contact with real air travelers. How 'bout spending a little more time at the airport, John? No more lies. Time and again in 2011, the TSA has been caught telling lies and half-truths. They're exhaustively documented by Bill Fisher on the TSA News Blog. The scope of the TSA's misinformation is absolutely staggering. It's really amazing that we believe anything the agency tells us anymore, given its record of bending facts to suit its agenda. That needs to end. As we look ahead to 2012, the TSA is poised to become a part of how we travel, whether we fly, drive, cruise or take the train. But the agency will not make any of these common-sense reforms unless it hears from you. So if you think this federal agency needs to make a few changes, this is a good time to let your elected representative know about it. And if your congressional representative doesn't do anything, well, you're in luck -- it's an election year. Follow Christopher Elliott on Twitter: www.twitter.com/elliottdotorg

– Americans love griping about the TSA, and with good reason. The TSA, for instance, pocketed an estimated $376,480 of your loose change in 2010, notes the Huffington Post. But before your blood pressure shoots too high, consider this: TSA officers stopped some crazy and dangerous things from boarding flights this year. On its blog (yes, the TSA has a blog), the much-maligned agency relates the top 10 "good catches" of 2011. Among the notables: A half-ounce of C4 explosives: a passenger flying out of Yuma said he just wanted to show it to his family A .380 pistol: strapped to the ankle of a 76-year-old trying to depart from Detroit; he claims to have forgotten it was there A pink smartphone: it was actually a stun gun, and it didn't make it through LAX A college student's science project: his device, made out of a mints tin and resembling an IED, was harmless, but shut down Omaha's airport all the same Snakes: seven, to be exact, in the pants of a man at the Miami airport Click for the complete list, or click to read about more things about the TSA that annoy.

Blackbeard, the world's most famous pirate, lost his flagship in 1718 when the ship ran aground on a sandbar in North Carolina. But in 1996, the wreck of the Queen Anne's Revenge was rediscovered, and archaeologists began excaviting the ship. Since then, the excavation project has revealed that the ship contained many medical instruments of the day, hinting that Blackbeard put great effort into keeping his crew healthy. [Full story: Blackbeard's Booty: Pirate Ship Yields Medical Supplies] Here is a look at the instruments found aboard the ship. This image shows a mortar and pestle, made of cast brass, which would have been used to prepare medicine. Photo credit: North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources These nesting weights go one inside the other allowing them to be carried compactly. They also would have been used to help prepare medicine. Two sets like this one were found on Blackbeard's ship. Photo credit: North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources This urethral syringe was used to treat syphilis, a sexually transmitted disease that can be fatal. Chemical analysis shows that it contained mercury, which was commonly used to treat people with syphilis during the early 18th century. Although mercury may alleviate some of the symptoms taking too much of it can be fatal. Photo credit: North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources This image shows the remains of a clyster pump that was found on Blackbeard's ship. The remains of two pumps were found on the wreck. These devices would have been used to pump fluid into the rectum, allowing the body to quickly absorb it. Photo credit: North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources A fragment of a small jar or basin that would have held medicinal material. Photo credit: North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources This silver needle may have been used for surgery. Photo credit: North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources This image shows an x-ray of a pair of scissors that were found attached to part of the wreck site. These scissors could also have been used in surgery. Photo credit: North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources The excavation and study of the Queen Anne's Revenge is an ongoing project. This image shows work being carried out on the artifacts. Photo credit: North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. ||||| This urethral syringe was used to treat syphilis, a sexually transmitted disease that can be fatal. Chemical analysis shows that it contained mercury, which was commonly used to treat people with syphilis during the early 18th century. Although mercury may alleviate some of the symptoms taking too much of it can be fatal. Archaeologists are excavating the vessel that served as the flagship of the pirate Blackbeard, and the medical equipment they have recovered from the shipwreck suggests the notorious buccaneer had to toil to keep his crew healthy. Blackbeard is the most famous pirate who ever lived. His real name was Edward Teach (or possibly Thatch), and his flagship, the Queen Anne's Revenge, was formerly a French slave vessel named La Concorde de Nantesthat Blackbeard captured in November 1717. Blackbeard was able to capture this ship easily because much of its crew was either sick or dead due to disease. A few months into 1718, the Queen Anne's Revenge ran aground on a sandbar at Topsail Inlet in North Carolina. Blackbeard abandoned much of his crew at that point, leaving the site with a select group of men and most of the plunder. He was killed in battle later that year. The wreck of the Queen Anne's Revenge was rediscovered in 1996 and has been under excavation by the Queen Anne's Revenge Project. Archaeologists have recovered many artifacts, including a number of medical instruments. These artifacts, combined with historical records, paint a picture of a pirate captain who tried to keep his crew in fighting shape. "Treating the sick and injured of a sea-bound community on shipboard was challenging in the best of times," Linda Carnes-McNaughton, an archaeologist and curator with the Department of Defense who volunteers her time on the excavation project, wrote in a paper she presented recently at the Society for Historical Archaeology annual meeting. [Photos: The Medical Instruments Found on Blackbeard's Ship] The people on a ship like Blackbeard's would have had to contend with many conditions, including "chronic and periodic illnesses, wounds, amputations, toothaches, burns and other indescribable maladies," Carnes-McNaughton said. Blackbeard's surgeons In fact, maintaining the crew's health was so important that when Blackbeard turned the Queen Anne's Revenge into his flagship, he released most of the French crew members he had captured, but he forced the ship's three surgeons to stay, along with a few other specialized workers like carpenters and the cook, Carnes-McNaughton said. She noted, however, that "The Sea-Man's Vade Mecum" of 1707,which contained the rules that seafarers were supposed to follow, had a provision stating that surgeons could not leave their ship until its voyage was complete. Carnes-McNaughton investigated both the La Concorde de Nantes'crew muster, which is the document that lists crew members' names and salaries, as well as court records to learn more about the surgeons Blackbeard captured. The ship's muster indicates that La Concorde de Nantes'surgeon major was a man named Jean Dubou (or Dubois), from St. Etienne. Before he was captured by Blackbeard, Dubou was being paid 50 livres for his work on the ship's voyage. The second surgeon was Marc Bourgneuf of La Rochelle, who was paid 30 livres for the voyage. The third surgeon was Claude Deshayes, who was listed as a gunsmith on the muster and paid 22 livres for his work. The muster also names a surgeon's aide, Nicholas Gautrain, who was paid 12 livres. Although he is named on the muster, Gautrain is not mentioned in court records. Medical equipment When archaeologists excavated the Queen Anne's Revenge they found a number of medical instruments, some with marks that indicate they were manufactured in France. Carnes-McNaughton said that Dubou and his aides were required to supply their own medical equipment, and Blackbeard likely captured this equipment when he captured the surgeons. [The 7 Most Mysterious Archaeological Finds on Earth] Among the finds was a urethral syringe that chemical analysis indicates originally contained mercury. Carnes-McNaughton told Live Science that this would have been used to treat syphilis, a sexually transmitted disease. "Eventually the mercury kills you," she said, explaining that the patient could suffer mercury poisoning. Archaeologists also found the remains of two pump clysters. These would have been used to pump fluid into the rectum, allowing it to be absorbed quickly, Carnes-McNaughton said. It's not clear exactly why this would have been done, but there are plans to analyze the clysters to find out what material they contained before the ship was wrecked. An instrument called a porringer was also found, which may have been used in bloodletting treatments, Carnes-McNaughton said. People in the early 18th century believed that bloodletting could cure some conditions and a modern-day form of the treatment is still used for a few conditions. Archaeologists also found a cast brass mortar and pestle and two sets of nesting weights, devices that would have been used in preparing medicine. The remains of galley pots were also found that would have been used to store balms, salves and other potions. Some items were found that could have been used medically or non-medically, Carnes-McNaughton said, including a silver needle and the remains of scissors, which could have been handy during surgeries. Two pairs of brass set screws were also found that may have been used in a tourniquet, a device that limits bleeding during amputations. Carnes-McNaughton said she is going to compare the medical equipment from Queen Anne's Revenge to those found on other wrecks. Getting medicine But although the captured surgeons had medical equipment, Blackbeard would have still needed a supply of medicine to treat his crew. He got somein 1718, after he spent a week blockading the port of Charleston, South Carolina. Blackbeard captured ships that tried to get past him, holding their crew and passengers hostage. When it came time to parley with the governor of South Carolina, a chest of medicine was demanded. Blackbeard threatened that he "would murder all their prisoners, send up their heads to the governor, and set the ships they had taken on fire," if the governor didn't deliver the medicine chest, writes Capt. Charles Johnson, who published an account of Blackbeard in 1724. The governor promptly complied and the prisoners were released. In the end, Blackbeard's efforts to keep up his crew's health didn't change the pirate's own fate when he was hunted down in November 1718 by the Royal Navy. Blackbeard was in good enough shape that he is said to have put up a terrific final fight while trying to board an enemy ship. "He stood his ground and fought with great fury, till he received five and 20 wounds, and five of them by shot," Johnson wrote. "At length, as he was cocking another pistol, having fired several before, [when] he fell down dead." Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Originally published on Live Science. ||||| BEAUFORT | Two of the cannons recovered from the Queen Anne’s Revenge shipwreck site near Beaufort Inlet are front and center at the newly expanded exhibit of artifacts, but even the smallest of discoveries is being showcased with a new flair. The Queen Anne’s Revenge exhibit at the North Carolina Maritime Museum in Beaufort has been expanded to include new features and artifacts not previously shown. The new exhibit opened to the public Saturday with an 11 a.m. ribbon-cutting kicking off the opening day activities. One noticeable change for those who have visited the exhibit in the past is the relocation of several cannons that had been on display toward the rear of the exhibit area. “People were missing them so we wanted them to be up front and present,” said Lynn Anderson, collections manager for the museum. The move meant relocating a 1,700-pound, 6-pounder cannon, which now sits in a display at the entrance to the exhibit. The display also includes a smaller 1-pounder cannon and swivel cannon along with cannonballs, lead shot and other related artifacts. Museum educator Christine Brin stops to point out a new artifact: a vial of gunpowder recovered from a 4-pounder cannon that has been raised from the site. “That’s one of the most exciting pieces to me; that’s 300-year-old gunpowder. We have a lot of new artifacts on display,” she said. The maritime museum is the official repository for artifacts recovered from the QAR shipwreck, which has been confirmed to be the flagship of the infamous pirate Blackbeard, which sank off the coast of Beaufort after running aground nearly 300 years ago. Artifacts raised from the site are put on public display after going through a conservation process. One of the highlights of the new exhibit is a demonstration lab that will help to educate visitors about the conservation process by giving them a window-view into work going on inside. Anderson said that she’ll be able to do work such as cleaning collection artifacts. On Wednesdays, conservators from the QAR lab in Greenville, where all artifacts are taken after being raised from the wreck site, will be on hand at the museum to show some conservation techniques and answer questions from visitors. “The primary purpose will be interpretive and to help explain the process,” Anderson said. Nearby is another new feature, which allows visitors to get a closer look at some of the smallest of artifacts. With the help of a magnifying glass that slides over each artifact, visitors can view the details of small items such as coins and jewelry fragments. Brin is drawn to a small square game piece, one of the smallest artifacts on display, that was likely used in a game like checkers. “I like artifacts that, when visitors come in, they can really relate to them. We’ve all played a game like checkers,” she said. In an exhibit case just across from one displaying the weapons used by pirates, Brin notes a number of artifacts more relevant to the daily lives of those who were aboard the Queen Anne’s Revenge, such as plates, cookware and other items. Among the newest artifacts are large fragments of a cast-iron, three-legged, two-handled pot or cauldron, likely used for cooking or heating tar or pitch for waterproofing hull structure and rigging. “This case helps visitors understand that pirates were not always fighting; they were also sailors,” Brin said. As visitors stroll through the exhibit they’ll also get a look at a diorama of the wreck site as it looks on sea floor and a display of items used by underwater archaeologists as they dive at the site. The North Carolina Maritime Museum has been the official repository for QAR artifacts and offered a small exhibit of artifacts since 1997. A permanent exhibit opened at the museum in June 2011 and continues with the latest updates. The newly expanded exhibit was made possible by donations of $31,000 from the Beaufort Wine & Food event and $10,000 from the Friends of the North Carolina Maritime Museum. Jannette Pippin is a reporter for the Jacksonville Daily News.

– The wreckage of the pirate Blackbeard's ship has yielded some fascinating finds, from swords to cannons. Some of the "treasure," however, offers a look at a very different side of his crew's life. Researchers have discovered an array of medical artifacts on the ship, called the Queen Anne's Revenge, which ran aground off North Carolina in 1718, LiveScience reports. Among them is a urethral syringe that once contained mercury, which was used as a syphilis treatment, researcher Linda Carnes-McNaughton says. That might have caused more problems than it solved. "Eventually, the mercury kills you" if you take too much, Carnes-McNaughton notes. Also discovered were what's left of two devices, known as pump clysters, intended for sending fluid into one's rectum. Researchers plan further investigation to figure out just why the crew needed them. The ship also contained equipment likely used for bloodletting. Sure, Blackbeard might have been vicious, but he did seem to care about health, Carnes-McNaughton explains. When he captured the ship, he let most of its crew go—but not the surgeons. And in a blockade of Charleston, Blackbeard's primary demand was for a medicine chest, the Smithsonian reports. LiveScience has images of the equipment that's been discovered; if you'd like to see Blackbeard's gear up close, some of it is on display in a newly updated exhibit in North Carolina, the Sun Journal reports. (Also found in the wreckage: proof of terror.)

Roll it, flip it, fold it and even mold it into a squiggle. Your tongue can be an acrobat, regardless of whether your parents are capable of the same tricks. Every semester, John McDonald, a evolutionary biologist at the University of Delaware, asks his undergraduate students the following question: How many of you were taught in biology class that rolling the tongue is a genetic trait? Most of the students raise their hands. They’re wrong. In 1940, the prominent geneticist Alfred Sturtevant published a paper saying the ability to roll one’s tongue is based on a dominant gene. In 1952, Philip Matlock disproved Sturtevant’s findings, demonstrating that seven out of 33 identical twins didn’t share their sibling’s gift. If rolling the tongue was genetic, then identical twins would share the trait. Sturtevant later acknowledged his mistake. “I am embarrassed to see it listed in some current works as an established Mendelian case,” he wrote in 1965 in his book, “A History of Genetics.” Yet, McDonald says, the myth is still taught in science textbooks and classrooms. See this and this, for example. Don’t be discouraged if you aren’t a member of the tongue-rolling elite — some can train their tongues to obey. In fact, one of McDonald’s undergraduate students conducted a small study asking 10 non-tongue-rolling participants to try rolling their tongue each day. After a week of practice, one participant achieved a successful tongue roll. This doesn’t mean tongue rolling has no genetic “influence,” McDonald says. More than one gene could contribute to tongue-rolling abilities. Perhaps the same genes that determine the tongue’s length or muscle tone are involved. But there isn’t a single dominant gene that’s responsible. While you may think this myth is harmless, McDonald says he’s received emails from kids who don’t share the tongue-rolling status of their parents. Are my parents really my parents, they want to know? He quickly puts their fears to rest. If mom and dad can’t roll their tongues, but you can, don’t worry — chances are you’re still their kid. Editor’s note: An earlier version of this piece misidentified the number of study subjects in the small undergraduate study on tongue rolling. It involved 10 students practicing a few minutes a day for a week. ||||| Tongue-rolling: The myth Some people can roll their tongue into a tube, and some people can't. This is one of the most common traits that biology teachers use to demonstrate basic genetic principles. Alfred Sturtevant (one of the pioneers of Drosophila genetics) described tongue rolling as a simple two-allele character, with the allele for rolling (usually given the symbol T or R) being dominant over the allele for non-rolling (t or r) (Sturtevant 1940). Many studies have shown that the myth is incorrect, but tongue rolling remains a popular subject in genetics classes. The reality Tongue rolling as a character Rolled tongue; non-rolled tongue. Most people, when first asked, either can easily roll their tongue (here called "R"), or cannot roll it at all ("NR"). The proportion of people who can roll their tongue ranges from 65 to 81 percent, with a slightly higher proportion of tongue-rollers in females than in males (Sturtevant 1940, Urbanowski and Wilson 1947, Liu and Hsu 1949, Komai 1951, Lee 1955). However, some people, especially children, cannot roll their tongue when first asked but later learn to do so (Sturtevant 1940). Komai (1951) found that the proportion of tongue-rollers among Japanese schoolchildren increased from 54 percent at ages 6-7 to 76 percent at age 12, suggesting that over 20 percent of the population learns to tongue-roll during that age range. That some people learn to roll their tongues after first being unable to is the first evidence that this is not a simple genetic character. There are also some people who can only slightly roll the edges of their tongue and cannot easily be classified as rollers or non-rollers (Reedy et al. 1971). Family studies Sturtevant (1940) compared parents and offspring, with the following results: Parents R offspring NR offspring R x R 28 5 R x NR 33 22 NR x NR 4 9 He concluded that tongue rolling was at least partially genetic, with rolling dominant to non-rolling, despite the four R offspring of NR x NR parents. Komai (1951) performed a similar study with much larger sample sizes, and found similar results: Parents R offspring NR offspring Percent R R x R 928 104 90% R x NR 468 217 68% NR x NR 48 92 34% In both family studies, individuals with tongue-rolling parents are much more likely to be tongue-rollers than individuals with non-rolling parents. It is difficult to imagine how the common family environment could influence tongue-rolling, so this resemblance between relatives suggests that there is a large genetic influence on tongue-rolling. However, if this trait were a simple one-gene, two-allele genetic character, with rolling completely dominant to non-rolling, then two non-rolling parents could not have a rolling child. Both studies found rolling offspring of non-rolling parents, so the trait must be more complicated than the myth says. The discrepancy could be due to more complicated genetics, involving multiple alleles or multiple genes, or some kind of environmental influence. Twin studies Matlock (1952) found that out of 33 pairs of monozygotic (identical) twins, 7 pairs consisted of one R and one NR twin. This clearly establishes that there are important non-genetic influences on tongue rolling, and it convinced Sturtevant (1965) that tongue rolling was not determined solely by genetics. Reedy et al. (1971) and Martin (1975) also found numerous pairs of monozygotic twins who differed in tongue rolling. Dizygotic twins were twice as likely to differ in tongue-rolling ability as monozygotic twins (Reedy et al. 1971), which is additional evidence that there is some genetic influence on this trait. Matlock (1952) Reedy et al. (1971) Martin (1975) Reedy et al. (1971) DZ twins Both R 18 43 15 81 Both NR 8 11 5 21 R + NR 7 7 8 30 Conclusion Family studies clearly demonstrate that tongue rolling is not a simple genetic character, and twin studies demonstrate that it is influenced by both genetics and the environment. Despite this, tongue rolling is probably the most commonly used classroom example of a simple genetic trait in humans. Sturtevant (1965) said he was "embarrassed to see it listed in some current works as an established Mendelian case." You should not use tongue rolling to demonstrate basic genetics. References Komai, T. 1951. Notes on lingual gymnastics. Frequency of tongue rollers and pedigrees of tied tongues in Japan. Journal of Heredity 42: 293-297. Lee, J. W. 1955. Tongue-folding and tongue-rolling in an American Negro population sample. Journal of Heredity 46: 289-291. Liu, T. T., T. C. Hsu. 1949. Tongue-folding and tongue-rolling in a sample of the Chinese population. Journal of Heredity 40: 19-21. Martin, N. G. 1975. No evidence for a genetic basis of tongue rolling or hand clasping. Journal of Heredity 66: 179-180. Matlock, P. 1952. Identical twins discordant in tongue-rolling. Journal of Heredity 43: 24. Sturtevant, A. H. 1940. A new inherited character in man. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 26: 100-102. Sturtevant, A. H. 1965. A History of Genetics. Harper and Row, New York, NY. OMIM entry Return to John McDonald's home page

– For anyone who can still proudly recall one factoid learned in high school biology—that the ability to roll one's tongue is genetic—bad news: You learned it wrong. John McDonald, an evolutionary biologist, is out to debunk what he calls a myth about the genetic roots of tongue-rolling, PBS News reports. He says many of his undergrad students walk into class at the University of Delaware believing the skill is passed down through generations, and you can see why in textbooks like Biology for CXC: "Try rolling your tongue longways into a U-shape," the book reads. "Some people can do this, others can't. Tongue-rolling is caused by a dominant gene which we can call T." Pretty specific, yet untrue, says McDonald. The misinformation began in 1940, when geneticist Alfred Sturtevant wrote that tongue rolling was a genetic trait that relies on one dominant gene. His theory was debunked 12 years later by researcher Philip Matlock, who noted that in seven of 33 pairs of identical twins, one twin could roll his tongue while the other couldn't. (His 1952 paper also noted 65% of the population has a tongue-rolling ability.) That ruled out the dominant gene theory, and Sturtevant later backed down. Yet the belief remains so dominant that McDonald says kids have written him fearing they were adopted because they can't tongue-roll like their parents. Genetics may play some role, however. McDonald points to a 1971 study that found non-identical twins were twice as likely to not share tongue-rolling ability as identical ones, "which is additional evidence that there is some genetic influence." Still, "tongue rolling is not a simple genetic character," he writes at the University of Delaware. "Despite this, tongue rolling is probably the most commonly used classroom example of a simple genetic trait in humans." (Speaking of genetics, you and your spouse may have similar DNA.)

U.S. Catholics Welcome a Papal Change: In a New York Times/CBS poll, the majority of Catholics said Pope Benedict XVI made the right decision to step down and hope for a more liberally focused leadership. Roman Catholics in the United States say that their church and bishops are out of touch, and that the next pope should lead the church in a more modern direction on issues like birth control and ordaining women and married men as priests, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll. Seven out of 10 say Pope Benedict XVI and the Vatican have done a poor job of handling sexual abuse, a significant rise from three years ago. A majority said that the issue had led them to question the Vatican’s authority. The sexual abuse of children by priests is the largest problem facing the church, Catholics in the poll said. Three-fourths of those polled said they thought it was a good idea for Benedict to resign. Most wanted the next pope to be “someone younger, with new ideas.” A majority said they wanted the next pope to make the church’s teachings more liberal. With cardinals now in Rome preparing to elect Benedict’s successor, the poll indicated that the church’s hierarchy had lost the confidence and allegiance of many American Catholics, an intensification of a long-term trend. They like their priests and nuns, but many feel that the bishops and cardinals do not understand their lives. “I don’t think they are in the trenches with people,” said Therese Spender, 51, a homemaker in Fort Wayne, Ind., who said she attended Mass once a week and agreed to answer further questions after the poll. “They go to a lot of meetings, but they are not out in the street.” Even Catholics who frequently attend Mass said they were not following the bishops’ lead on issues that the church had recently invested much energy, money and credibility in fighting — artificial birth control and same-sex marriage. Eric O’Leary, 38, a funeral director in Des Moines who attends Mass weekly, said: “I would like them not to be so quick to condemn people because of their sexual preference or because of abortion, or to refuse priests the right to get married or women to be priests. I don’t think the church should get involved in whether or not people use birth control.” The nationwide telephone poll was conducted on landlines and cellphones from Feb. 23 to 27, when many Catholics were still absorbing news of the first resignation of a pope in 600 years. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus four percentage points for the 580 Catholics, who were oversampled for purposes of analysis in the survey of 1,585 adults. Benedict, a soft-spoken scholar and a church traditionalist, had apparently made little impression on American Catholics in his eight years as pope. Half of those in the poll said they either had no opinion of him or had not heard enough about him. Nevertheless, 4 in 10 had a favorable opinion, and only one in 10 unfavorable. “He’s written three or four books, and his writings are incredible,” said Leonard Lefebvre, 70, a retired economist in Tequesta, Fla. “He’s continued on course, and he’s held the religion to where it’s supposed to be at.” The poll suggested that the papacy no longer occupies the exalted position it once did. Asked whether the pope is infallible when he teaches on matters of morality and faith, 40 percent said yes, 46 percent said no, and 14 percent said they did not know. Nearly 8 in 10 Catholics polled said they would be more likely to follow their conscience on “difficult moral questions” than to follow the pope’s teachings. When asked which “one thing” they would “most like to see the next pope accomplish,” the most common responses that respondents volunteered were, in order: bring people back to church, modernize the church, unify the church, and do something about sexual abuse. A spate of new information about prelates hiding the misdeeds of pedophile priests appeared to have taken a toll. A higher percentage of Catholics said the pope and the Vatican had done a poor job of handling reports of past sexual abuse recently (69 percent) compared with 2010 (55 percent), when the abuse scandal flared in many European countries. This is despite the church’s many reforms in the last 10 years and reports of abuse by priests in the United States declining drastically. Majorities said they wanted to see the next pope maintain the church’s opposition to abortion and the death penalty, even though they themselves were not opposed to them. Three-quarters of Catholics supported abortion under at least some circumstances, and three-fifths favored the death penalty. “I can understand how the Catholic Church stands against it,” said Geri Toni, 57, of abortion. “We are not supposed to kill. That is one of our Ten Commandments.” ||||| Pope Benedict XVI, in failing health, became the first pope in six centuries to retire. Allen Pizzey reports from the Vatican on the pope's final day. Analysis by the CBS News Polling Unit: Sarah Dutton, Jennifer De Pinto, Anthony Salvanto and Fred Backus. As the College of Cardinals descends on Rome this week to select the world's next pope, most U.S. Catholics want the new pope to be younger, to have new ideas, and to liberalize the church's teachings on issues like birth control, ordaining women, and permitting priests to marry, according to a new poll by CBS News/New York Times. When former Pope Benedict XVI ascended to the Papacy after his 78th birthday in 2005, he was known for defending traditional Catholic teachings and values. As he becomes the first pope to retire since the Middle Ages, most Catholics - 66 percent - say they would prefer the next Pope to be younger with new ideas, rather than older with more experience. The poll, conducted among a random sample of 580 Catholic adults from Feb. 23-27, showed a groundswell of support among U.S. Catholics for a more modern church in general: A majority said the Catholic Church is out of touch with the needs of its members. More specifically, over half of Catholics - 54 percent - would like the next pope to espouse more liberal teachings going forward. Only 19 percent hoped for a continuation of Benedict's teachings, and 18 percent cited a desire for someone with more conservative ideas. Foremost among those subjects where most Catholics see room for change is on the question of contraception: 91 percent said the next Pope should favor the use of condoms to help stop HIV, and 71 percent said he should favor artificial methods of birth control. Sixty-nine percent of Catholics said, too, that priests should be able to get married, and the same number said women should be able to become priests. A majority of Catholics (56 percent) think the pope should continue to support the Catholic Church's opposition to the death penalty and legalized abortion, however. Regardless, Catholics don't think it is necessary to agree with the pope on issues like abortion and birth control in order to be a faithful member of the church. Eighty-three percent of Catholics said they think it's possible to disagree with the pope on issues like these and still be a good Catholic, and 78 percent of American Catholics are more likely to follow their own consciences rather than the pope's teachings (13 percent) on difficult moral issues. One challenge for the next pope will be to convince Catholics that the church understands them. Just 39 percent of Catholics say the church is in touch with the needs of Catholics today. Far more - 53 percent -- say it is out of touch. Fewer people now (29 percent) than in 2005 (38 percent) have a great deal of confidence that the next pope will be in touch with their needs. Even so, 74 percent of Catholics say they have at least some confidence that the College of Cardinals will select a Pope who fits this description. Asked what they most want the next pope to accomplish, Catholics cited a desire to see him bring people back to the church (12 percent). Nine percent said they want him to modernize it, eight percent want him to unify it, and another eight percent want to see something done about the sex abuse scandals. Seven percent said they want the new pope to allow priests to marry, and the same number wants him to change the rules on birth control and homosexuality. Nearly half of Catholics say it doesn't matter to them where in the world the next Pope comes from. Fourteen percent think the next pope should come from Latin America, 13 percent think he should come from Europe, four percent think he should come from Africa, and 17 percent say someplace else. Hispanic Catholics (23 percent) are much more likely than Catholics overall (14 percent) to want the next Pope to come from Latin America. no previous page next

– The last pope was installed as a 78-year-old spring chicken who wasn't cool with birth control. This time around, a majority of US Catholics think that should change. A CBS News/New York Times poll finds that 66% of American Catholics want a pope who is "younger with new ideas," compared to 26% who want to stick with someone "older with more experience." And 54% want the new pope to "change to more liberal teachings," compared to 19% who want Benedict's more traditional teachings to be continued and 18% who want someone even more conservative. The poll found that a majority of US Catholics think the church and its bishops and cardinals are out of touch with the modern world and disconnected from modern Catholics. Exactly which issues should the new pope liberalize? A huge number say birth control: 71% think he should OK artificial birth control, and a massive 91% say he should approve of condom use to stop the spread of HIV. Another big number, 69%, say he should allow priests to get married; the same percentage favors allowing women priests; and 62% think gay marriage should be legal. But a majority of respondents still hold traditional views on some matters: 56% think the pope should continue to oppose the death penalty and abortion.

CLOSE Skip in Skip x Embed x Share Former House Speaker John Boehner is speaking out about the repeal and replace message Republicans have about Obamacare. Veuer's Nick Cardona (@nickcardona93) has the story. Buzz60 Pattye McAbee, of Carney, Okla., asks a question of U.S. Rep. Frank Lucas, R-Oklahoma, during a town hall meeting in Chandler, Okla., Wednesday, Feb. 22, 2017. McAbee said that she had voted for Hillary Clinton and wanted Congress to leave Obamacare alone. (Photo: Sue Ogrocki, AP) Publicity surrounding the Affordable Care Act's benefits may be meeting supporters' goals. More people view the health law favorably than at any point in nearly seven years. That's the main finding of a Kaiser Family Foundation survey out Friday of 1,160 people last week that shows the Affordable Care Act is as popular as it's been since the summer of 2010. The percent of people with favorable views of the law increased from 43% in December to 48% now. People are still split on whether to repeal the law or not — though far fewer want repeal without details of a replacement plan. "It’s not surprising that as Democrats have gone on the offense about the benefits of the law for people, support for the law has gone up," says Paul Howard, director of health policy at the free market Manhattan Institute. More than 1,160 adults were polled Feb. 13-19 for the survey,which has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. A lack of clarity over what the law would be replaced with if repealed strengthens attachment to the ACA, says Howard. Republican infighting weakens support for the repeal effort and supporters of the law have made "effective use of town halls" in congressional districts, he added. "The devil you know is more popular than the devil you don't," says Howard. Liz Hamel is director of public opinion and survey research at the Kaiser Family Foundation. (Photo: Kaiser Family Foundation) While Democrats and Republicans' opinions of the law haven't changed much, independents seem to have grown more positive about the ACA, says Liz Hamel, Kaiser Family Foundation's director of public opinion and survey research. "They're most likely reacting to what they’re hearing in the news and the fact that more of the public discussion of late is about what people stand to lose if it is repealed," says Hamel. The new findings come as insurers and consumers are trying to figure out what to make of Internal Revenue Service guidance on how it would treat tax returns that that appeared to suggest taxpayers without health insurance won’t face penalties at tax time. In recent years, returns that didn't indicate whether the taxpayer had insurance or an exemption were processed, but that was set to change this year. Based on one of President Trump's executive orders, the IRS now plans to continue processing these returns and may follow up at a future date. Read more: "Legislative provisions of the ACA law are still in force until changed by the Congress, and taxpayers remain required to follow the law and pay what they may owe‎," the IRS said. The insurance industry trade group, America's Health Insurance Plans, is urging Congress to approve other incentives to keep people enrolled in insurance if the tax penalties are eliminated. If people aren't required to buy insurance, healthy people are more likely to wait to buy it when they are sick or injured and their premiums couldn't offset the costs of insuring those who need more health care. Other findings: • Nearly half of the public worry someone in their family will lose coverage if the ACA is repealed and replaced. • Substantial majorities say it is important that any ACA replacement plan continue to provide federal funds to states that expanded Medicaid under the law. This was true no matter where people lived or what political party they belong to. • About two thirds of people prefers status quo over such changes that would limit federal spending while giving states more flexibility to decide who and what to cover. Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/2meTvNc ||||| House Speaker Paul Ryan promised that Republicans would begin marking up a repeal bill next week. | Getty Exclusive: Leaked GOP Obamacare replacement shrinks subsidies, Medicaid expansion The replacement would be paid for by limiting tax breaks on generous health plans people get at work. A draft House Republican repeal bill would dismantle the Obamacare subsidies and scrap its Medicaid expansion, according to a copy of the proposal obtained by POLITICO. The legislation would take down the foundation of Obamacare, including the unpopular individual mandate, subsidies based on people’s income, and all of the law’s taxes. It would significantly roll back Medicaid spending and give states money to create high risk pools for some people with pre-existing conditions. Some elements would be effective right away; others not until 2020. Story Continued Below The replacement would be paid for by limiting tax breaks on generous health plans people get at work — an idea that is similar to the Obamacare “Cadillac tax” that Republicans have fought to repeal. Speaker Paul Ryan said last week that Republicans would introduce repeal legislation after recess. But the GOP has been deeply divided about how much of the law to scrap, and how much to “repair,” and the heated town halls back home during the weeklong recess aren’t making it any easier for them. The key House committees declined to comment on specifics of a draft that will change as the bill moves through the committees. The speaker's office deferred to the House committees. In place of the Obamacare subsidies, the House bill starting in 2020 would give tax credits — based on age instead of income. For a person under age 30, the credit would be $2,000. That amount would double for beneficiaries over the age of 60, according to the proposal. A related document notes that HHS Secretary Tom Price wants the subsidies to be slightly less generous for most age groups. The Republican plan would also eliminate Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion in 2020. States could still cover those people if they chose but they’d get a lot less federal money to do so. And instead of the current open-ended federal entitlement, states would get capped payments to states based on the number of Medicaid enrollees. Another key piece of the Republican proposal: $100 billion in “state innovation grants” to help subsidize extremely expensive enrollees. That aims to address at least a portion of the “pre-existing condition” population, though without the same broad protections as in the Affordable Care Act. It also would eliminate Planned Parenthood funding, which could be an obstacle if the bill gets to the Senate. And it leaves decisions about mandatory or essential benefits to the states. According to the document, there’s only one single revenue generator to pay for the new tax credits and grants. Republicans are proposing to cap the tax exemption for employer sponsored insurance at the 90th percentile of current premiums. That means benefits above that level would be taxed. And while health care economists on both sides of the aisle favor tax-limits along those lines, politically it’s a hard sell. Both businesses and unions fought the Obamacare counterpart, dubbed the Cadillac tax. The document is more detailed than the general powerpoint House leaders circulated before the recess. Lawmakers are still in disagreement about several key issues, including Medicaid and the size and form of subsidies. Discussions within the House, and between House leaders and the White House about the final proposal are ongoing. President Donald Trump, who gives a major speech to Congress on Tuesday night, has said he expects a plan will emerge in early to mid March. The exact details of any legislation will also be shaped by findings from the CBO about how much it will cost and what it will do to the federal deficit. But the draft shows that Republicans are sticking closely to previous plans floated by Ryan and Price in crafting their Obamacare repeal package. “Obamacare has failed," said HHS spokesperson Caitlin Oakley. "We welcome any and all efforts to repeal and replace it with real solutions that put patients first and back in charge of their health care rather than government bureaucrats in Washington, D.C.” Other changes proposed by Republicans align with previous ideas for strengthening the individual insurance market, which has been unstable under Obamacare with rising premiums and dwindling competition. For example, the legislation would allow insurers to charge older customers up to five times as much as their younger counterparts. Currently, they can only charge them three times as much in premiums. The insurers have been pushing for that change. The proposal also includes penalties for individuals who fail to maintain coverage continuously. If their coverage lapses and they decide to re-enroll, they would have to pay a 30 percent boost in premiums for a year. Like the unpopular individual mandate, that penalty is designed to discourage individuals from waiting until they get sick to get coverage. Republicans have vowed to dismantle Obamacare ever since it passed with only Democratic votes in 2010. But reaching agreement on what should come next has proven difficult since they gained full control of Congress and the White House. Recent polling has shown that Obamacare is increasingly popular. Supporters of the health care law have been turning out by the hundreds at town hall meetings across the country to demand that Republicans answer questions about what’s going to happen to the 20 million individual who have gained coverage under Obamacare. According to the latest Kaiser Family Foundation tracking poll, released Friday morning, the public now views the Affordable Care Act more favorably than it has since the summer of its enactment. Some 48 percent view the law favorably — up from 43 percent in December. About 42 percent have an unfavorable view of the ACA — down from 46 percent in December. The pollsters say Independents are mostly responsible for the shift. A separate poll by the Pew Research Center found 54 percent approve of the health care law — the highest scores for Obamacare in the poll's history. Meanwhile, 43 percent said they disapprove. CLARIFICATION: This story has been updated with the timing of the House GOP's plans for releasing a health care bill. ||||| Politico has obtained a leaked draft of a Republican replacement plan for Obamacare. The plan may be somewhat outdated already — it is two weeks old, per its time stamp, and Republicans have been working hard on their proposal in the meantime — but it almost certainly reveals an important shift from earlier GOP plans. In broad strokes, the draft bill hews closely to ideas outlined by House Speaker Paul Ryan and Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price. Compared with the Affordable Care Act, this proposal would generally be worse for people who are poorer and sicker — but better for those who are higher-income and healthy. Democrats will near certainly blast this proposal as bad for the 21 million Americans who rely on Obamacare for coverage. But buried in the details of the 106-page document is actually a bit of an evolution on the part of the Republican Party. I’ve spent a lot of time reading Republican replacement plans for Obamacare, and this is definitely a more consumer-friendly version of their ideas than those introduced in the past. This bill — and we don’t know right now which committee it came from or which legislators back it — has more generous financial support for those who buy their own plans, for example, and lower penalties for Americans who do not maintain continuous insurance coverage. Republicans seem pretty wedded to the reform concepts they outlined years ago. This includes things like age-based tax credits, a continuous coverage provision instead of an individual mandate, and a significant scaling back of the Medicaid expansion. But Republicans seem open to changing the details of how those provisions are implemented. What this means for patients will, in a lot of ways, come down to the smaller decisions: how big those age-based tax credits are, for example, or how much an individual who doesn’t maintain continuous coverage could be penalized. On that front, there really is a notable shift on the part of Republicans toward a plan that would be more financially generous. The leaked Republican plan restricts — but doesn’t ban — discriminating against people with preexisting conditions The leaked Republican draft, like Obamacare, requires insurance plans to offer coverage to all patients regardless of how sick they are. But the leaked plan, unlike Obamacare, would let insurers charge sick people more if they did not maintain “continuous coverage.” This continuous coverage policy has shown up a lot in Republican replacement plans. It was part of Speaker Ryan’s A Better Way proposal and Rep. Price’s Empowering Patients First Act. Here’s how it works: If a cancer patient goes straight from insurance at work to her own policy, her insurer has to charge her a standard rate — it can’t take the cost of her condition into account. But if she had a lapse in coverage — perhaps she couldn’t afford a new plan between jobs — and went to the individual market later, insurers could charge her up to 130 percent of the standard rate for her first year of coverage. She would have to pay that higher rate for a full year before getting access to the normal rate. This is a notably less harsh penalty than the one that Price suggested in his 2015 Empowering Patients First Act. In that bill, he would have allowed insurers to charge people like this 150 percent of the standard premium for 18 months. The leaked draft does have a safety net for people who can’t afford to buy this more expensive coverage. It would invest $100 billion over 10 years into funding state efforts to cover “high-risk individuals” or to “help stabilize premiums for health insurance coverage in the individual market.” States could presumably put this money toward high-risk pools, an idea that shows up in many other conservative proposals, although in the leaked draft they wouldn’t necessary have to. This is significantly more generous than other Republican proposals for how much to spend on the especially high-cost patients. Ryan’s plan, for example, would put $25 billion toward the high-risk pools over a decade ($2.5 billion per year) and keep them running indefinitely. The Price plan envisions only $3 billion for high risk pools over three years. The leaked bill would generally be worse for people who are poorer and sicker, but better for attracting enrollees who are young and healthy. Perhaps most notably, however, the bill is generally more generous and consumer-friendly to all enrollees than previous policy proposals. Still, it’s unclear whether this would actually meet the needs of Americans with especially costly conditions. I’ve had some conservative health policy experts suggest to me that it would take about $25 billion per year to make high-risk pools function properly. And again, the funds in this leaked bill are not earmarked just for high-risk pools, and could be spent in other ways — meaning the funding could be much lower than the numbers outlined here. The leaked draft makes insurance better for people who are young and healthy. It makes insurance worse for people who are old and sick. One constant Obamacare gripe from Republicans is that the health care law mandates too big of a benefit package. This drives up premiums, they argue, and scares off some healthy and young enrollees who want to buy a skimpier plan. There is some truth to this argument. Obamacare’s marketplaces have struggled to attract young adults at the level the White House had initially hoped. (The Obama administration originally said it wanted one-third of the marketplace to be people between the ages of 18 and 34, but right now it’s only about a quarter.) The leaked draft makes the individual market more advantageous for healthier people. It eliminates the essential health benefits package, which mandated that all insurers cover a set of 10 different types of care, including maternity services and pediatric care. The leaked draft would allow states to decide which benefits are “essential.” Some states might choose skimpier benefit packages that would allow insurers to cut certain benefits they no longer want to cover — they could stop covering maternity benefits, for example, to make their plans less attractive to women who plan to become pregnant. This would likely benefit healthy people, who generally want less robust coverage at a cheaper price. But it’ll send the cost of more comprehensive plans — the plans sicker people need — skyrocketing. And it could leave someone who wants, say, health insurance to cover her maternity costs completely out of luck. There are other ways the leaked draft makes insurance better for young people too: by letting insurance plans charge them lower rates. It does this by allowing insurers to charge their oldest enrollees as much as they want. Right now insurers can only charge the oldest enrollees three times as much as the youngest — that constrains prices for patients in their 50s and 60s. Eliminating this regulation “increases the overall number of people with coverage, but older people end up falling out of the market as premiums rise,” says Christine Eibner, an economist with the RAND Corporation who has modeled similar changes to Obamacare’s age-rating provisions. And while young people might have cheaper premiums and an easier ability to enroll, older Americans could struggle to purchase coverage in this market, where their costs would rise. These are people who tend to have more urgent health care needs and could be in a worse position without health care than a young adult might be. This worries some Obamacare supporters, who say the goal of insurance reform isn’t just to expand coverage — it’s to expand coverage for people who really need health care. “If you replace a 60-year-old with a 20-year-old, that doesn’t change the number of people covered, but it changes the value of the coverage and of the program,” says Jonathan Gruber, the MIT economist who helped the White House model the economic effects of Obamacare. The leaked draft would provide tax credits, but they would help older (and likely richer) people more The leaked draft, like Obamacare, envisions that Americans will use tax credits to purchase individual health insurance, but the structure of the tax credits is very different. Obamacare’s tax credits are based on income, with those who earn less getting more help. The leaked draft’s tax credits would only be based on age, giving more help to those who are older (and who will presumably be charged higher premiums). The tax credits outlined in the bill are as follows: $2,000 for those under 30 $2,500 for those between 30 and 40 $3,000 for those between 40 and 50 $3,500 for those between 50 and 60 $4,000 for those over 60 This means that Bill Gates would qualify for the largest tax credit simply because he is 61 years old. Under the Empowering Patients bill, Gates’s net worth of $83 billion — presumably enough to purchase health coverage — would do nothing to disqualify him. Under Obamacare, he gets no help. Conversely, a 23-year-old with little income who has health problems gets minimal help under Price’s plan — despite the fact that she needs support much more than Gates does. But what was especially notable to me about these credits is that they’re significantly more generous than the ones that Price proposed in his 2015 Empowering Patients First Act. He suggested the following tax credits: $900 for children under 18 $1,200 for those between 18 and 35 $2,100 for those between 36 and 50 $3,000 for those 51 and older The plans under the leaked proposal would almost certainly be cheaper because they wouldn’t have to cover so many benefits. A 55-year-old under this health care system, for example, might find lower premiums for plans that cover fewer benefits. But it’s also true that the plans that do offer comprehensive benefits would likely prove financially out of reach for many. The leaked draft repeals Medicaid expansion without any replacement Under this proposal, states could continue to cover the Medicaid expansion population — but they would get significantly less federal funding, which could push some states to drop out of the program entirely. Separate from the Affordable Care Act, the leaked draft suggests dramatically cutting funding for the Medicaid program entirely. Right now states and the federal government split Medicare patients’ bills. Each pays a certain percentage of the costs. The commitment to paying those medical bills is essentially unlimited: The two governments will pay whatever bills rack up. The leaked draft, however, would change that entirely. It suggests a “per capita cap” model, where each state would get a set amount for the number of people it was expected to enroll. If states were able to keep costs low, they might even be able to keep some of that money. But states could get into trouble if they found that they were spending more per person than their federal funding expected. They might need to cut back on the benefits the program offers, for example, or cover fewer people to make the numbers work. You can read more about how a proposal like this works in a longer explainer here. It’s very easy to see the ideas in this draft changing a lot in the coming weeks and months. Republican governors like Ohio’s John Kasich and Michigan’s Rick Snyder have begun to advocate for keeping Medicaid expansion, which covers thousands in their home states. Kasich is meeting with President Trump today and will certainly press the issue, and dozens of governors will be in Washington this weekend for the National Governors Association conference. You can bet this is a section they care about a lot — and will try to change significantly. The leaked draft has a new tax on high-cost health insurance plans that employers offer Most of the changes in the leaked draft have to do with people who get insurance through Medicaid or on the marketplaces. But there is one important change the plan would make to employer-sponsored insurance: It would cap the tax exclusion for employer-sponsored coverage. The health insurance tax break is the biggest in the federal budget; the government loses out on $260 billion annually by not taxing health benefits. And economists across the political spectrum agree that we should eliminate or at least reduce this tax break, which currently gives those with jobs a huge discount on their coverage — and an incentive to buy more coverage than they actually need. The leaked draft proposes taxing any employer-sponsored coverage above the 90th percentile of current premiums. If this sounds familiar, it’s because Obamacare had something awfully similar: the “Cadillac tax,” which was a 40 percent excise tax on especially high-cost health care plans. As popular as this provision will be with economists, you can bet that the public will hate it, as it would make some health plans significantly more expensive. There is already a lobbying campaign to kill this provision — even before Republicans have officially proposed the idea. “During meetings on Capitol Hill last week, there were acknowledgements of the role of the group market and a commitment to not disrupting that,” says Ed Fensholt, a senior vice president at the health brokerage firm Lockton. “I think there was, however, a lack of understanding that certain things they do might have a disruptive effect.” Watch: Obamacare in Trump country ||||| A doctor discusses medical treatment with a patient. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images) The public perception of President Barack Obama's health care law is becoming more positive as the Affordable Care Act faces threats of repeal, according to a new poll. The favorability ratings are at their highest recorded levels since the summer of 2010. The poll, by the Kaiser Family Foundation, has been conducted more than 60 times. To assemble the data researchers surveyed 1,160 adults by phone in mid-February about their opinions regarding different portions of the law, sometimes called Obamacare. They found that 48 percent of those surveyed now have favorable views of the Affordable Care Act – up from 43 percent in December. In comparison, 42 percent of those surveyed had an unfavorable view of Obamacare, down from 46 percent in the December poll. The shift was driven largely by people who identified as being politically independent, and the unfavorability rates did not fall below their lowest levels, recorded in July 2010, when they were at 35 percent. Prior to the most recent poll, the public's views on the law were more unfavorable than favorable, even as its major provisions became enacted and about 21 million people gained coverage or more robust health insurance. Republicans in Congress and President Donald Trump have long vowed to undo the Affordable Care Act, though they haven't said what they would replace it with. Democrats have seized on this lack of unity, holding events across the country to tell people about the dangers of repealing the law. During the past week activists and constituents have been protesting repeal at Republican town halls. In watching lawmakers talk about repealing the law, Americans reported mixed emotions: 56 percent are worried, 53 percent are hopeful, 45 percent are confused, 38 percent are angry and 33 percent are enthusiastic. Nearly half of those surveyed said that they feared someone in their family would lose coverage if the law is repealed and replaced. Despite the change in overall attitudes, the survey reveals people remain split on what should happen to the law next. Most of those who favor repeal, however, would like to see a replacement plan first. The survey also examined people’s views on Medicaid expansion, which was a provision of the law that allowed states to provide no- or low-cost coverage to low-income residents. Republicans in Congress have been discussing what to do about this portion of the law, though GOP governors have cautioned that repealing expansion would be damaging to their constituents. The majority of respondents, regardless of political leanings, said it was important that a replacement plan continues to provide federal funds to the 31 states and District of Columbia that expanded the program under the Affordable Care Act. Republicans have offered other solutions for Medicaid, including a proposal that would allow funds to be distributed through block grants – which may limit funding but gives states more flexibility about what programs to prioritize and which people to cover – or change it to a per-capita allotment system. Most respondents surveyed – 65 percent – reported that they would rather Medicaid continue as it is today than either of the offered alternatives to the current federal funding structure. Under the current structure, the federal government matches state spending but sets specific standards and benefits for states. Corrected on Feb. 24, 2017 : A previous version of this story misstated the law's past popularity.

– House Republicans want to get rid of the Affordable Care Act's subsidies, Medicaid expansion, and individual mandate, according to a leaked draft of a bill to repeal ObamaCare. The bill, which was obtained by Politico, would give money to states to cover some people with pre-existing conditions and replace subsidies with tax credits based on age rather than income. As it stands, people under 30 would get a $2,000 tax credit, while people over 60 would get $4,000. Vox, which has an in-depth explanation of the bill, reports that sets up the possibility that tax credits would mostly benefit richer Americans, who are typically older. But insurance, as laid out in the bill, would overall be better for younger, healthier people than older people. And it would still be possible to refuse coverage to people with pre-existing conditions. House Republicans plan to pay for their healthcare plan by restricting tax breaks on employer health plans. This is a version of ObamaCare's "Cadillac tax," which was opposed by businesses, unions—and Republicans. The draft bill is likely to change as it passes through various committees. Meanwhile, ObamaCare is more popular than it's been in seven years. A survey released Friday shows 48% have a favorable view of the ACA compared to 42% with a negative view, US News reports. That's a sizable turn around from December, when only 43% viewed it favorably and 46% viewed it negatively. According to USA Today, nearly 50% of people polled were worried a family member would lose coverage if the ACA is repealed.

French newspaper Le Monde is reporting Aomar Ait Khedache, one of the robbers arrested in relation to Kim Kardashian’s Paris Fashion Week heist, told police he had thoroughly stalked Kim K’s social media presence in order to prepare for the October robbery. This news comes after Le Monde reportedly obtained a French police report containing statements from Khedache about the robbery. According to the report, Kim was targeted by the gang because of all the jewelry pictures she posted to her social media accounts. He went on to say Kim was also easy to keep track of because of her social media presence. He reportedly told police, The jewels were shown on the internet, and [she said] that she didn’t wear fakes… the time she would arrive in France, you just had to look at the internet and you knew everything, absolutely everything. What makes this case even weirder is Khedache apparently claimed the whole robbery was an inside job. He allegedly told police that someone “very close” to Kim gave the criminals “precise information” on where the Kardashians would be during their time in Paris. (I’ve been very vocal in the past about the person I think set this whole thing up, so I’m not surprised. *cough* KRIS! IT WAS KRIS! *cough*) Without getting tooooo conspiracy theory-esque, this could explain how the robbers knew to attack Kim while the one security guard they had on staff was away with Kendall and Kourtney at a different club in the area. Kim Kardashian was held at gunpoint during a heist that took place during Paris Fashion Week. According to reports, robbers broke into Kim’s hotel room before tying Kim up and gagging her. They then locked her in the bathroom and proceeded to steal between $6 million and $11 million in jewelry, including her wedding ring. After the assault, Kim took a break from all social media before returning back to the internet in January. When You See Kim K Is Finally Back On Instagram To view this video please enable JavaScript, and considerupgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Subscribe to Elite Daily's official newsletter, The Edge, for more stories you don't want to miss. ||||| Kim Kardashian is a complicated woman. With a Twitter history mostly consisting of emojis to her fans and selfies from around the world, it would be easy to dismiss her social-media posts as somewhat shallow. But amid cookie-cutter approbation from celebrities all over America, it was 36-year-old Kim’s tweet of a table of statistics to her 50 million followers highlighting the statistical fallacy of President Trump’s immigration ban, two days after its imposition, that stood head and shoulders above the rest. During the Kardashian clan’s recent well-publicized holiday to Costa Rica, younger sister Khloe also alluded to the situation back in the U.S., tweeting her 23 million followers that “All this news breaks my heart” the day after the ban was introduced. She followed up with a retweeted ACLU poster announcing the organization was working to “block the unconstitutional ban.” With just the title “Statistics,” Kardashian let the numbers speak for themselves. And speak they did: The post was retweeted almost 200,000 times and the story was picked up by a flood of news outlets, including BuzzFeed, Fox News, and the London Telegraph. Kim has occasionally touched on politically sensitive subjects in the past, she has been vocal in her support of the campaign for recognition that the massacre of Armenians between 1915 and 1923 by Turkey (then the Ottoman Empire) should be classified as genocide. Her father, Robert Kardashian, was a third-generation descendant of Armenian immigrants. How did Trump’s America welcome the Kardashians back home from Costa Rica? With a raid of their private jet by immigration officials dressed in body armor, according to reports early Wednesday morning. They had just landed at Los Angeles International when the family—including Kim, Khloe, Kourtney, Kylie, Tyga, Kris, and their children—were forced to stay inside the plane while it was “scoured” by customs and immigration officers, The Sun reports. Photos show officials in what appears to be body armor boarding the plane; some of the family’s children were on board at the time. It has been reported that the family spoke to Customs and Border Protection officials before leaving. A video shows a number of figures exiting the plane, with Kourtney clearly holding 2-year-old Reign in her arms, and Khloe helping Penelope, 4, down the stairs with Mason, 7, following behind. While there’s no proof that the search is connected to Kim’s Muslim ban remarks, many are already questioning the timing. Get The Beast In Your Inbox! Daily Digest Start and finish your day with the top stories from The Daily Beast. Cheat Sheet A speedy, smart summary of all the news you need to know (and nothing you don't). By clicking “Subscribe,” you agree to have read the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Subscribe Thank You! You are now subscribed to the Daily Digest and Cheat Sheet. We will not share your email with anyone for any reason. Kim, notably, declared herself a Hillary Clinton supporter back in 2015, posting a selfie with the candidate. Last year, she posted a statement on her website that said that she was supporting Hillary because she had “thought about the things that are so important to me… such as gun control and protecting women’s rights to safe and legal abortion.” The Kardashians are yet to mention the incident or make a formal statement. But if the family conclude it was retaliation for her social media remarks then one imagines it will bring a swift reunification to the Kardashian West household’s political divisions. ||||| KIM Kardashian’s private jet has been searched by immigration officials at Los Angeles Airport — days after Donald Trump’s ‘Muslim travel ban’ came into force. The reality star was forced to stay on board the flash plane, which had taken her and her family home from a trip to Costa Rica, as officers scoured it. Splash News 15 A Customs and Border Protection Officer goes aboard Kim Kardashian’s private plane Splash News 15 Kim and her sisters were seen disembarking after being spoken to by border patrol Splash News 15 Kourtney Jenner was seen leaving the plane after it was searched by Customs Footage taken from near the runway at LAX Airport shows immigration and customs officials marching up the stairs leading to the jet’s door. It comes after Kim waded into the debate over President Trump’s controversial ban, which prevents travellers and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries entering the US for three months. A Syrian refugee programme launched under President Obama has also been halted indefinitely. On Sunday the selfie queen tweeted a table of stats to her 50 million followers comparing Americans killed by terrorists to those shot by fellow citizens. The post, seen as a dig at the new President, was retweeted nearly 400,000 times. After being spoken to by Customs and Border Protection officers, Kim and her family were snapped leaving the plane. Earlier the 36-year-old mum-of-two was seen getting ready for the six-hour flight home. Related stories ‘HIS AGE DOESN’T MATTER’ Lad, 5, 'detained for five hours on his birthday’ after US airport security deemed him a 'security threat' MAY SHE HAVE KNOWN? PM under growing pressure to reveal when she first found out about Trump's 'Muslim travel ban' LET HIM COME Donald Trump sparks petition war as thousands urge the President to come on a state visit DOMINO EFFECT France may enforce Trump-style ‘Muslim travel ban’ if far-right leader Marine Le Pen wins election PERSIAN SPAT Iran launches missile as 'warning shot to the US' just days after Trump announces 'Muslim ban' TRUMP TRAVEL BAN What is Donald Trump's Muslim travel ban, which countries are affected and what is the petition to prevent his visit to Britain? YOU'RE FIRED Furious Trump fires acting Attorney General who branded so-called 'Muslim ban' as 'unlawful' INSTAR Images 15 Kim Kardashian carried children North and Saint to the Costa Rica airport Fame Flynet 15 The Kardashian family had been holidaying in the Central American country Dressing simple, the star played the doting mum as she carried both three-year-old daughter North and one-year-old Saint to the departure gate. Kim was joined by her older sister Kourtney, 37, and her younger sister Khloe as they ended their trip to tropical climes. Kourtney was also spotted holding her own child — her son, Reign — as she carried a mini rucksack. The dark-haired pair’s youngest half-sister, 19-year-old Kylie Jenner, was also in attendance with her boyfriend Tyga and his four-year-old son King Cairo. INSTAR Images 15 Kim dressed in a simple top and joggers as she prepared for the six hour flight INSTAR Images 15 Selfie queen Kim was wearing mostly white as she prepared to board her flight INSTAR Images 15 North is Kim’s daughter with husband Kanye West Fame Flynet 15 Kanye did not join the Kardashians as they holidayed INSTAR Images 15 Kim’s sister Kourtney carried her son Reign The Kardashian family originally hail from Armenia, and have been vocal in their pride at being fourth-generation immigrants. Neither Armenia nor Costa Rica are on Trump’s travel ban list, which includes Syria, Lybia, Sudan, Somalia, Iraq, Iran and Yemen. Customs and Border Protection officers have the right to search all items being brought into the country. LAX is one of several airports that have seen massive protests against the ‘Muslim ban’, leading to days of travel chaos. INSTAR Images 15 Khloe Kardashian was on holiday with her siblings Fame Flynet 15 The reality star wore the opposite of sister Kim by dressing in black Fame Flynet 15 Kourtney currently has her own show called Revenge Body which airs in America on the E! Network INSTAR Images 15 Kylie Jenner was joined by boyfriend Tyga and his son King Cairo INSTAR Images 15 Kylie carried King through the airport Do you have a story for The Sun Online news team? Email us at tips@the-sun.co.uk or call 0207 782 4368

– Coincidence or no? Three days after Kim Kardashian tweeted apparent criticism of President Trump's "Muslim ban," immigration officials decided to keep up with the Kardashians in the form of searching her family's jet when it landed at LAX, the Daily Beast reports. Kardashian, who had also retweeted others critical of the ban, tweeted a chart Sunday showing the number of Americans killed annually by such things as falling out of bed (737), armed toddlers (21), and being shot by another American (11,737) compared to the number killed annually by Islamic jihadist immigrants (2). Her family was in Costa Rica at the time, and upon their return to Los Angeles early Wednesday, immigration officials "scoured" the plane, per the Sun, which has photos. Later Wednesday, Kardashian was back in New York, testifying before a judge who flew in from France about her robbery case, TMZ reports. (One of the robbers explains how Kim was targeted.)

National Library of MedicineArchive-It Partner Since: Mar, 2009Organization Type: National InstitutionsOrganization URL: http://www.nlm.nih.gov The National Library of Medicine (NLM), the world's largest medical library and a component of the National Institutes of Health, collects, preserves, and makes available to the public information about health, medicine, and the biomedical sciences. To continue fulfilling this mission, NLM is collecting and archiving related Web content, which also serves to document the histories of health and medicine. ||||| Abstract Massively parallel collaboration and emergent knowledge generation is described through a large scale survey for archaeological anomalies within ultra-high resolution earth-sensing satellite imagery. Over 10K online volunteers contributed 30K hours (3.4 years), examined 6,000 km2, and generated 2.3 million feature categorizations. Motivated by the search for Genghis Khan's tomb, participants were tasked with finding an archaeological enigma that lacks any historical description of its potential visual appearance. Without a pre-existing reference for validation we turn towards consensus, defined by kernel density estimation, to pool human perception for “out of the ordinary” features across a vast landscape. This consensus served as the training mechanism within a self-evolving feedback loop between a participant and the crowd, essential driving a collective reasoning engine for anomaly detection. The resulting map led a National Geographic expedition to confirm 55 archaeological sites across a vast landscape. A increased ground-truthed accuracy was observed in those participants exposed to the peer feedback loop over those whom worked in isolation, suggesting collective reasoning can emerge within networked groups to outperform the aggregate independent ability of individuals to define the unknown. Citation: Lin AY-M, Huynh A, Lanckriet G, Barrington L (2014) Crowdsourcing the Unknown: The Satellite Search for Genghis Khan. PLoS ONE 9(12): e114046. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0114046 Editor: Michael D. Petraglia, University of Oxford, United Kingdom Received: April 22, 2014; Accepted: September 16, 2014; Published: December 30, 2014 Copyright: © 2014 Lin et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Data Availability: The authors confirm that all data underlying the findings are fully available without restriction. All relevant data have been uploaded to the Harvard Dataverse and can be accessed at https://thedata.harvard.edu/dvn/dv/votk. Funding: This work was funded by National Science Foundation (EAGER ISS-1145291 and HCC IIS-1219138). The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. Introduction Ultra-high resolution satellite imaging enables a new paradigm in global exploration. This study surveys sub-meter resolution satellite imagery of the Mongolian steppe to identify largely undocumented cultural heritage sites across a sparsely populated and undeveloped landscape. With continued advances in sensor technologies, the capabilities and limitations of remote sensing is being determined less by data resolution and more by the methods that analyze the increasingly massive datasets. Overwhelming data volumes have often led to automated analytical approaches. However, in visual analytics automated approaches lack the flexibility and sensitivity of human perception when seeking singular, undefined anomalies. This study therefore utilizes scalable, loosely guided, online volunteer participation to generate human identifications of unknown anomalies within massive volumes of geospatial remote sensing data. The emergence of statistical trends from a large sample of independent inputs highlights the collective human perception of the images' content. Similar to volunteer geographic information networks such as OpenStreetMaps [1], inputs from multiple contributors generate a collective map of local knowledge [2], only in this case the term “local” represents the global base of human visual perception. Turning to the crowd as the “partner of choice” for scalable problem solving is becoming increasingly attractive across broad domains both in science and industry [3], [4]. While many crowdsourcing approaches rely upon gameplay dynamics [5], [6], monetary incentives (e.g., Amazon's Mechanical Turk [7], [8] or [9]) to motivate participation in individual tasks, others utilize the social recognition of charismatic challenges such as space exploration [10] to encourage participation. It has been shown in several of these cases that complex problems, if strategically structured, can be solved by pools of volunteer participants with little to no pre-existing domain knowledge of their analytical challenge [11]. Here we leverage the charismatic challenge of directing a field expedition in search for the tomb of Genghis Khan (Chinggis Khaan) to engage tens of thousands of public volunteers and generate millions of micro-contributions towards an archaeological satellite imagery survey. These contributions aggregate into a collective geospatial map of analytical cross-verifications. In this particular case, since there exists no historical or archaeological record describing the physical appearance of this tomb, we turn towards the crowd not only to tackle the data size challenge of large scale satellite remote sensing, but more importantly to pool human perception and intuition when sifting through the data for anything that looks “out of the ordinary”. This loosely defined search criterium presents a challenge, where a participant's desire for validation or guidance cannot be met with an administrative answer. Thus, we introduce a framework to enable a crowd directed evolution of feature search criteria that mimics crowd reasoning processes in nature. The collective behavior of flocking animals, for example, is enabled through simple decision making and feedback criteria adhered to by the independent agents of that collective [12]. Similar to the vector and spatial referencing data required by individual birds within a flock, our study constructs multi-directional channels of visual reasoning feedback between the individual participant and the crowd. We hope that in this scheme, the collective will guide itself towards an agreement regarding what to look for, essentially facilitating a “collective intelligence” beyond that of individuals whom comprise the collective [13], [14]. We explore this in the case of perceptual reasoning. Discussion We have described a crowd based solution to a satellite imagery remote sensing challenge of both data volume and search target ambiguity. Specifically, we charged an online crowd of volunteer participants with the challenge of finding the tomb of Genghis Khan, an archaeological enigma of unknown characteristics widely believed to be hidden somewhere within the range of our satellite imagery. This is a needle in a haystack problem where the appearance of the needle is unknown. To address this constraint we designed a system where participants actively evolve the collective training base of user feedback with their own inputs. Furthermore, the framework of the system created a resilient and self-validating data source through massively paralleled and constrained user inputs. Thus, we rely upon the emergence of agreement regions from independent tags to guide both the online volunteer community as well as the field archaeological expedition that surveyed anomalies on the ground. The entire data set is distributed in randomly chosen image tile subsets to participants, thus a “global” kernel density estimation approach is introduced to normalize saliency across all image tiles and to create an overall agreement region ranking. This concept could be applied as a distributed voting framework, where overlapping subsets allow for large data sets to be subdivided and parsed among many voters and then recombined into a single collective vote. Of the top 100 accessible locations identified by the crowd, 55 potential archaeological anomalies were verified by the field team, ranging from bronze age to Mongol period in origin. Yet, the question remains: could these results have been obtained just as effectively or more effectively without crowdsourcing? Or more specifically, could a small team of trained archaeologist have found the anomalies quickly by visually scanning the images on their own? After all we did expend 30K hours (3.4 years) of collective human survey effort. Looking first at the data size challenge, we have surveyed a historically significant area of roughly 6,000 km2. This is twice the size of Yosemite National Park, with equally diverse geologies and significantly greater in-accessibility. A ground survey of this detail for the entire range would have been prohibitive. Yet, at 0.5 meter/pixel resolution, a satellite imagery survey of the same area is in itself exhausting. A single archaeologist would have had to scroll through nearly 20,000 screens (assuming 1280×1024 screen resolution) before covering the whole area. But putting the data size challenge aside for a moment, we can observe the crowd's ability to be sensitive yet flexible. We continue to emphasize that very little is known about the likely visual appearance of the search target. Thus, we cannot limit our search criteria to what is traditionally “expected” from the known literature. Here is where the authors believe the power of crowdsourcing lies not only in harnessing parallel networks for scalable analytics, but in forming the collaborative frameworks necessary to cultivate collective reasoning. We depend on the crowd to process and identify the unexpected. Within our framework we observed that when participants were not provided the incremental peer based feedback loop they were statistically less likely to positively identify these anomalies, suggesting a form of collective reasoning has emerged within our participant pool that is variant and potentially more effective than the accumulated independent reasoning of individuals within that pool. Furthermore, while we acknowledge that there may be anomalies that remain undetected, this statistical variance suggests that largely parallel analytics (crowdsourcing) can provide better outcomes than an individual survey. While this study focused on an archaeological survey, there exists a broad range of challenges where scalable human perception networks could be effectively applied. These concepts have been further explored in applications ranging from humanitarian response to search & rescue [28]–[30]. The activities have not only tapped into our connectivity to scale human analytics, but also for the social mobilization of human attention [31], [32]. A recent direct derivative of the effort described here can be seen in Digital Globe Inc.'s “Tomnod” (Mongolian word meaning “big eye”) survey for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, where over 8 million participants surveyed over 1 million km2 of ultra-high resolution satellite imagery for anomalies. The shear mass of participation in this example provides a glimpse of the potential of our networked society. These crowdsourcing activities help us dive into the unknown and extract the unexpected. However, beyond that they present a fundamentally new construct for how we, as a digitally connected society, interact with information. The ability to focus and route networks of human attention at such massive scales, coupled with the functional ability for meaningful micro-contributions at individual scales, presents yet another evolutionary step in our collective ability to reason. Acknowledgments We thank N. Ricklin, S. Har-Noy, K. Stamatiou, and the entire Valley of the Khans (VOTK) project team; S. Bira, and T. Ishdorj of the International Association for Mongol Studies and F. Hiebert of the National Geographic Society for co-leadership in field expeditions; D. Vanoni, K. Ponto, D. Lomas, J. Lewis, V. deSa, F. Kuester, S. Belongie, R. Rao, and E.A. Spencer for critical discussions and contributions; S. Poulton and A. Bucci with National Geographic Digital Media; and the entire Digitaria team. We sincerely thank the National Geographic Society, the Waitt Institute for Discovery, the Digital Globe Foundation (formerly the GeoEye Foundation), and the National Science Foundation.

– If we ultimately uncover Genghis Khan's tomb, we may have outer space and about 10,000 volunteers to thank. As Smithsonian recounts, legend has it that the location of the Mongolian warrior's tomb was safeguarded by soldiers who murdered the tomb builders and were then killed themselves. University of California-San Diego scientist Albert Yu-Min Lin has been on the hunt for this "needle in a haystack," and since 2010, he's had some help: Under his Valley of the Khans Project, volunteers were able to visit a National Geographic website, sift through high-res images of Mongolia taken by orbital satellites, and flag any features they spotted. Except no similar burials have been uncovered in Mongolia, so "the appearance of the needle is undefined." In a paper published Dec. 30 in PLOS One, Lin reports on what was accomplished in the first six months. Some 10,000 volunteers spent 30,000 hours (that's 3.4 years) examining roughly 2,300 square miles (two times Yosemite's size) that had been tiled into 84,183 images. They were asked to tag any feature they spotted as a road, river, modern structure, ancient structure, or other. Participants tagged 2.3 million sites, and the researchers used "consensus, defined by kernel density estimation, to pool human perception" for features with potentially ancient origins. The field team explored 100 of those and positively identified 55 sites with archaeological significance (no Genghis Khan tomb, sadly), including Bronze Age burial mounds. The researchers ask: Could archaeologists have found these themselves? Their answer: A ground search would have been "prohibitive," and a scan of the images would have required an archaeologist to scan through 20,000 screens. (A remarkable tomb was found in Egypt recently.)

He arrived with a warning for his friends. In a series of notes several weeks ago, he told them he planned to do “something stupid.” Just after 10 a.m. Wednesday, his promise was kept and a community was left with a dead son, daughters in the care of trauma surgeons and scores of others grappling with the tough questions that inevitably follow school shootings. Before the violence was over, one student, Sam Strahan, was dead. Three others – Emma Nees, Jordyn Goldsmith and Gracie Jensen – also were shot. By early afternoon all were with their families and listed in satisfactory condition at Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center. The accused boy with the deadly promise was Caleb Sharpe, a sophomore with a shoddily shaved head who brought a semi-automatic rifle and handgun to Freeman High School south of Spokane. The carnage was cut short by a jammed gun and a school custodian who tackled and disarmed him. By the time law enforcement officers arrived at the school, Sharpe was immobile. And by the time most of Spokane had heard about the events at Freeman, he was in the back seat of a patrol car. The violence was swift, and brought to a rapid conclusion. “These are senseless and tragic events that really don’t need to happen,” Spokane County Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich said at a news conference Wednesday afternoon. “And I don’t understand them. We need to figure out what’s going on in society that children think they need to take weapons to deal with the issues they’re facing.” It began and ended in the hallway outside of the biology room on the school’s second floor just before first period. It was a “late start” day and students were heading to class, putting backpacks in lockers and readying for class. Liam Marshall, 15, had just arrived to English class. On the bus with Sharpe, he’d noticed the duffel bag Sharpe carried. When Marshall heard the first shot, he didn’t immediately think back to that morning’s bus ride. “Me and my friends were just laughing, thinking that someone was being crazy,” Marshall said. “We had no clue what was going on.” But the shots kept coming, first stoking confusion, then driving chaos. Even without seeing the boy with a firearm, the students heard the growing chorus of gunshots and screams, and the noises that at first baffled the teenagers came into nightmarish focus: One of their own had a gun and was shooting their classmates. Students scrambled, classrooms were locked down. Sharpe first lifted an AR-15 rifle from his duffel, but it jammed. He quickly moved to his next weapon, a handgun, and found Strahan. Accounts differ, but Sharpe may have shot into the ceiling, and Strahan may have tried to intervene. In the end, Sharpe shot Strahan in the head. Sharpe didn’t kill anyone else, but not for lack of intent. As he moved down the hallway, gun in hand, he continued to fire. Elliette Clark, 16, was in her math classroom when she heard gunshots in the hall. She peeked out and saw Sharpe firing the gun in a side grip position, as if he were a gangster, she said, and this was a movie, each of the four or five shots punctuated by the flash of the muzzle. She slammed the door. “You could hear them screaming and crying in the hallway,” she said. Once the door closed, she said the screams grew louder because the girls were left in the hall. Elisa Vigil, 14, was near Sharpe as he brandished his guns. “His face was completely passive,” Vigil said. “He shot someone in the head. I crouched down in the hall. I looked up and a girl screamed, ‘Help me, help me, help me.’ The hall was empty. She was shot in the back. I looked to my right, and there was a boy and he was shot in the head.” Ian Moser, 14, was at his locker when he heard three shots. “Everyone was yelling, ‘Gun, gun, gun,’” Moser said. A girl, just 15 feet away from him, was shot, he said. Moser ran, fleeing to the bus barn across Jackson Road, and hid with others. The students fled so quickly, the path remained strewnwith their notebooks hours later. Barratt Moland, 15, had just stepped into math class when the shots began. He dropped to the floor and ducked beneath a desk. Students rushed into the classroom, including Emma Nees. Nees was bleeding. She told everyone in the room that she had only been grazed, but a teacher, Marty Jessett, saw two wounds on the freshman’s lower abdomen, where the bullet had entered and left her body. He grabbed some athletic tape and marked both with an X. “He said, ‘Barratt, put on these gloves,’” Moland said. “I applied pressure to her wound. She actually handled it surprisingly well. I was at a loss for words. I didn’t even know if I was applying pressure correctly.” Moland said he’s known Strahan and Sharpe for several years, and he believed the two were friends. “I thought they hung out like every weekend,” Moland said. But other students suggested the Sharpe and Strahan had a falling-out recently. Knezovich made just one comment on Sharpe’s possible motives: “It sounds like a case of a bullying type of situation.” In the hallway, the scene remained chaotic. Then abruptly, Sharpe’s path was cut short. The school custodian, Joe Bowen, tackled Sharpe and stripped him of his weapon. With the shooter immobilized, a teacher, John Hays, rushed out and applied pressure to Strahan’s head wound. Emergency responders were dispatched at 10:11 a.m., and sheriff’s deputies, along with medical personnel and other local, state and federal law enforcement officers, rushed to the school. At 10:57 a.m., the first ambulance arrived at Sacred Heart, which had begun preparing for the worst less than an hour before. Eight surgery suites and several trauma rooms were reserved and the hospital’s trauma unit was set into motion. By 11:10 a.m., two of the injured girls had arrived at the hospital, and the third was on her way. The hospital was “all hands on deck,” said Dr. Jeff Collins, the hospital’s chief physician. Friends and family of the girls began arriving at the emergency room, stricken and allowed to park where, normally, no cars go. Hospital security and local police began directing traffic. Just before noon, the girls were listed in stable, satisfactory condition. At the school, students called their parents or sent out dispatches on social media as soon as the shooting started. Distraught parents raced to the cluster of buildings that are Freeman’s elementary, middle and high schools when reports of the shooting first surfaced. Among them were Rondielle and Chris Frye. “My daughter actually called me because she was out at her car and she heard gunshots,” said Rondielle Frye. She told her daughter: “Run!” Chris Frye drove to the scene as quickly as he could. “I was about ready to have a panic attack,” he said. “I was following the cops damn fast.” At the school, parents clustered, waiting for a word. A child was dead, but no one knew whose child it was. Knezovich came over and told them what he could, that at some point they’d let kids go 10 at a time and the ones who witnessed the shooting would go last. Within 30 minutes of the shooting, students began evacuating from the building. School officials and sheriff’s deputies called their names, counted their heads and led them, single file, to the football field. They sat there for some time, some in the bleachers, some waiting to rejoin their parents across the street. And some, on the way out, were led past Strahan’s body, which was covered with a blanket, lying in the hallway. This story based on reporting by Eli Francovich, Jonathan Glover, Thomas Clouse, Rachel Alexander, Chad Sokol and Nina Culver. ||||| Sam Strahan died mere weeks after losing his father in a tragic accident on Father’s Day. A sophomore at Freeman High School, Strahan was fatally shot after he confronted a fellow sophomore who’d come to school armed Wednesday morning. Sam Strahan was a “true hero�? and an “incredible soul,�? who was close to his father, said Jennifer Guenther, a long-time friend of Strahan’s sister. “Seeing him grow up to be such a positive and happy spirit to others around him was inspiring,�? Guenther said. “Sam was a brother who loved and cared for his older sister and always watched out for his mother.�? A friend and classmate described Strahan as a fun-loving person who’d been deeply affected by the death of his father. “He was really funny, and he likes to make lots of jokes,�? Liam Marshall said. “He just lost his father this past summer. I thought he was a lot wiser (after his father died). He didn’t do stuff like he used to do. But, he was still funny.�? Another classmate, Bailey Coumont, a 15-year-old sophomore, remembered Strahan during a Wednesday night vigil at River Park Square. “He was funny,�? she said. “He was very blunt. He could get on my nerves sometimes, but it was kind of just Sam. He was just kind of the class clown.�? Sam’s father, Scott Strahan, died unexpectedly on June 18 when he was crushed beneath a motor home he was working on. Scott Strahan was 49, and he and his wife, Ami, had two children: Sam and Emily. Emily is a sophomore at the University of Washington, according to a fundraising account set up for the children after their father’s death. In his father’s obituary, Sam was described as “a wonderful young man with his father’s unending patience and commitment.�? His parents met and married in California, where they started a family before moving to Spokane in 2004, when Sam was a young child, according to Scott Strahan’s obituary. ||||| A sophomore boy brought a rifle and a handgun to Freeman High School just as classes were starting Wednesday morning, killing one student and seriously injuring three others, according to witnesses and investigators. Numerous students, including several who witnessed the shooting, identified the shooter as Caleb Sharpe. They said he rode a bus to school Wednesday with the guns stashed in a duffel bag. Witnesses described a bloody, chaotic scene in a second-floor hallway just outside a biology classroom. “I was putting my backpack away and I heard a loud pop, and I turned around. He was walking around,” said Elisa Vigil, a 14-year-old freshman. “He had his pistol. His face was completely passive. He shot someone in the head. I crouched down in the hall. I looked up and a girl screamed, ‘Help me, help me, help me.’ The hall was empty. She was shot in the back. I looked to my right, and there was a boy and he was shot in the head.” The shooting killed one teenage boy, Sam Strahan, and sent three teenage girls to the emergency room at Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center. They are Emma Nees, Jordyn Goldsmith and Gracie Jensen. Hospital officials said all three patients were in stable condition and one was expected to undergo surgery on Wednesday. In the immediate aftermath of the shooting, there had been conflicting reports about the number of people injured. Freeman High School serves more than 300 students southeast of Spokane. The shooting began shortly after 10 a.m. and lasted only about a minute, prompting lockdowns at dozens of schools in neighboring districts, as well as a massive response by local, state and federal agencies. Authorities did not name the shooter, but Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich said at an afternoon news conference that the sole suspect was being held in the county’s juvenile detention center. Numerous students identified the shooter as Sharpe. After law enforcement officials interviewed more than 100 people, a motive for the shooting started to come into focus. “It sounds like a case of a bullying type of situation,” Knezovich said, without elaborating. The shooter’s first gun jammed before he pulled out the second one, and another student approached him to try to intervene. That student is believed to be Strahan; authorities did not identify the victims by name. “That student was shot, and that student did not survive,” Knezovich said. Witnesses said a school custodian approached and tackled Sharpe. Knezovich said “the individual was already disabled” by the time a school resource deputy, who had been at the neighboring middle school, arrived at the scene. Deputies made the arrest without firing a shot, he said. “We send our prayers out to the mother whose student is not coming home today,” he said. Teacher led first aid Barratt Moland, 15, of Valleyford said he was at his lockers before the first period. He had just stepped into his math class when he heard what he thought was a balloon popping. “Then more shots followed so I hit the deck,” Moland said. “I dove underneath the desk.” Students rushed into the room as teacher Marty Jessett tried to close the door and blinds. “When people came in, I noticed one of them had blood on them,” Moland said. “That was Emma Nees. She was hit in the lower abdomen. She didn’t even notice it for a second. She said it only grazed her.” But Moland said the teacher noticed that Nees, a freshman, had both entrance and exit wounds. He grabbed some athletic tape and marked both with an X. “He said, ‘Barratt, put on these gloves,’” Moland said. “I applied pressure to her wound. She actually handled it surprisingly well. I was at a loss for words. I didn’t even know if I was applying pressure correctly.” When emergency crews arrived for Nees, the students were led out the hallway and then into the biology room. Outside the room lay a body. Moland believed it was Strahan. “I see things happen on national news. Then it just happened a couple hours ago,” Moland said. “That’s insane.” Moland said he’s known Strahan and Sharpe for several years, and he believed the two were friends. “I was not that close with (Strahan),” Moland said. “But I thought they hung out like every weekend.” Suspect planned to do ‘something stupid’ Liam Marshall, 15, said he rode the bus Wednesday with Caleb Sharpe, who was listening to music on headphones. Sharpe carried a duffel bag that apparently contained an AR-15 rifle and a handgun. Marshall had just arrived at his first-period English class when he heard a bang in the hallway, about two rooms away. “I heard one gunshot,” Marshall said. “Me and my friends were just laughing, thinking that someone was being crazy. That’s when I heard two others. We had no clue what was going on.” Chaos ensued as Marshall and other students were locked down in place. “Someone poked out the window and screamed to get out and lock the doors,” he said. “We saw three people sprinting.” Some 30 minutes later, school officials and sheriff’s deputies evacuated Marshall and his fellow students. “They called all our names and asked if anybody was unsafe. They did a head count and we were led out single file to the football field,” Marshall said. “When we came out of the classroom, someone told us the shooter was Caleb and everybody was saying (the victim) was Sam.” Marshall said teacher John Hays rushed into the hallway and applied pressure to Strahan’s head wound but was unable to save him. Marshall and Strahan were friends in both math and science classes this past year. “He was really funny, and he likes to make lots of jokes,” Marshall said. “He just lost his father this past summer. I thought he was a lot wiser (after his father died). He didn’t do stuff like he used to do. But, he was still funny.” Marshall said he remembers talking to Sharpe only once, even though they shared a second-period class, which they didn’t make it to on Wednesday. “He’s really quiet,” Marshall said. Michael Harper, 15, said he was a close friend of Sharpe’s. “He was weird,” Harper said. “And he loved the show ‘Breaking Bad.’ He never really seemed like that person who had issues. He was always nice and funny and weird.” But there were warning signs. Harper said Sharpe recently had become obsessed with school shooting documentaries, and his YouTube account shows Sharpe and his friends acting out violent scenarios with replica BB guns. And weeks earlier, around the time classes started, Sharpe had written notes to some of his friends indicating he planned to do “something stupid,” Harper said. They weren’t sure if the notes should be taken seriously, but one friend passed one of the notes to a counselor, Harper said. ‘Mom, there are gunshots’ As the first reports of the shooting began to surface, distraught parents raced to the cluster of buildings that are Freeman’s elementary, middle and high schools. Among those parents were Rondielle and Chris Frye, who immediately left their jobs to get to the school. “My daughter actually called me because she was out at her car and she heard gunshots,” said Rondielle Frye. She told her daughter: “Run!” Chris Frye drove as quickly as he could to get to the scene. “I was about ready to have a panic attack,” he said. “I was following the cops damn fast.” Cheryl Moser said her son, a freshman, called her from a classroom on the second floor after hearing shots fired. “He called me and said, ‘Mom, there are gunshots.’ He sounded so scared. I’ve never heard him like that,” Moser said. “You never think about something happening like this at a small school.” Nate Johnson said his son, also a freshman, called him clearly in tears. Johnson soon talked to his daughter, a senior, who told him that the shooting occurred at least partly in the hallway. Just after the shooting, Amie Baxter described what she saw and heard while being held in a multipurpose room in the elementary school with about 30 other people. Police and other first responders walked around outside, some carrying gurneys and shouting information at one another, she said. Baxter, whose two daughters attend the middle school, said in a phone call that children were running into buildings and an alarm was sounding when she drove into the school area at about 10:15 a.m. Classes were supposed to start soon because it was a “late start” day, Baxter said. “They did a modified lockdown drill yesterday,” she said. “I thought it was weird because they wouldn’t do (a drill) two days in a row.” The shooting also took a personal toll on some first responders, including Trooper Jeff Sevigney, the Washington State Patrol’s public information officer for Eastern Washington. Sevigney tweeted Wednesday evening: “Worst day in my LE career. To respond to your own kids school for active shooter. Prayers for everyone involved.” ‘It’s going to be someone we know’ Rockford Mayor Carrie Roecks said the community is devastated by the shooting. She said she had never imagined something like it happening at a small school like Freeman, where practically everyone knows one another. “What has happened here is going to affect every child in the district in one form or another,” said Roecks, whose grandchildren attend Freeman Elementary School. “I hope everyone stays as positive as we can be and the community just surrounds itself with a lot of love because we’re going to need it.” All classes in the Freeman School District are canceled Thursday. Before the victims’ identities were known, Roecks said, “Not knowing who is affected is hard. It doesn’t matter who it is because it’s going to be someone we know.” This story reported and written by S-R reporters Chad Sokol, Jonathan Glover, Eli Francovich, Thomas Clouse, Nina Culver and Nick Deshais. ||||| In the video, Caleb Sharpe advances toward the camera, firing rounds from an Airsoft pistol. The four-minute clip, called “The Second Round,” shows Sharpe and a friend on a quest to take out a fictitious drug dealer in their neighborhood. The pair brandish several guns over the course of their mission, at least one of which appears to be a real rifle. Numerous classmates and witnesses identified Sharpe as the Freeman High School shooter who killed one student and wounded three more Wednesday morning. Sharpe, a sophomore, rode the bus to school with two guns stashed in his duffel bag, witnesses said. He allegedly shot sophomore Sam Strahan in the head and wounded three girls before the school custodian stopped him. Sharpe had written notes to some of his friends weeks earlier indicating he planned to do “something stupid,” said Michael Harper, who described himself as a close friend. One of the friends passed the notes to a counselor. Friends and classmates described Sharpe as quiet and sometimes quirky, but said they were surprised to see him turn violent. His YouTube antics, however, were well-known to some of his classmates. “We knew he had an assault rifle, because he uses it in his YouTube videos,” said Paul Fricke, a junior. Many of the videos on Sharpe’s channel, where he goes by Mongo Walker, are unremarkable. In one, he pretends to be Bear Grylls, the British outdoor adventurer and reality TV star, as he explores his yard and comments on exotic creatures like a white dog in the background. Others involve Pokemon GO and a challenge to eat a raw hot pepper. But a number of Sharpe’s videos, especially more recent ones, show him playing with guns. In a video from last Halloween, Sharpe and a friend set out to destroy a pumpkin that’s grown in the fence. At one point, he aims the airsoft gun at his friend holding the camera and shoots as the friend exclaims, “Ow!” The clip replays in slow motion before the pair go on destroying the pumpkin with an ax and stick. As rumors of Sharpe’s role as the shooter spread across social media Wednesday, commenters took to his channel, calling the videos disturbing. “This video is so eerie it makes me sick,” one wrote about “The Second Round.” Investigators still were interviewing witnesses Wednesday, and Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich said little about Sharpe’s motives. Spokane County Sheriff’s Office deputies arrested Sharpe following the shooting. He’s being held in the county’s juvenile detention center. Eli Francovich contributed to this report.

– Ami Strahan lost her husband on Father's Day when a motor home he was working on fell atop him. Less than three months later, she'd also lose her son. Sam Strahan was shot in the head shortly after 10am Wednesday by a schoolmate at Freeman High School in Spokane County, Wash., possibly as the sophomore tried to stop the shooter, reports the Spokesman-Review. Caleb Sharpe, whom a friend says had recently become interested in school shooting documentaries, had been seen carrying a duffel bag on the bus to school, per the Review. Once inside the building, he allegedly pulled an AR-15 rifle from within, the Review reports. When it jammed, he withdrew a handgun, witnesses say. According to one account, Sharpe shot into the ceiling, then killed Strahan as he tried to intervene. "His face was completely passive," a student says of Sharpe, who reportedly fired shots down a hallway. Three females were hit—including one in the back and one in the abdomen—before a custodian tackled Sharpe, witnesses say. Those injured are in stable condition, while Sharpe is now in a juvenile detention center. The teen—who showed off guns on his YouTube channel, archived here—had warned friends in a series of notes, passed to a counselor, that he planned to do "something stupid," per the Review. Spokane County Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich describes the motive for the shooting as "a bullying type of situation." As for Strahan, "he gave everything to protect those who are in harm's way" and "that's how he'll be remembered," Knezovich tells the Washington Post.

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) said Tuesday that his committee plans to investigate government loan programs to private corporations in light of allegations of improper dealings between the White House and failed energy company Solyndra and wireless start-up LightSquared. "I want to see when the president and his cronies are picking winners and losers… it wasn't because there were large contributions given to them," the chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee said Tuesday morning on C-SPAN. ADVERTISEMENT Issa said the committee was looking at whether it was improper for members of Congress or White House staff to select companies eligible for subsidized government loans when those companies could give campaign donations. Loan programs have been a popular tool to provide funding for popular industries — like tech, green energy, and American auto companies — at more favorable terms than could be secured privately. The Obama administration has been defending itself against criticism by Republicans that it exerted improper influence to the aid of both companies. Solyndra abruptly filed for bankruptcy earlier this month, surprising both employees and the administration, which had secured $535 million in low-interest loans for the company. More from The Hill: ♦ Gibson Guitar is playing a Tea Party tune ♦ Environmental, green groups push back against Gibson ♦ White House doubles down on green energy loans ♦ Rep. Stearns: Fire top Energy Dept. official over Solyndra ♦ LightSquared investor: Influence peddling claims 'disgusting' ♦ Sen. Brown still waiting to play basketball with Obama Republicans in Congress quickly mocked the bankruptcy as emblematic of the president's green technology initiatives under the stimulus bill — and noted that a key Solyndra investor had been a bundler for the Obama campaign. House Republicans say they have emails showing the White House pressuring Department of Energy bureaucrats to expedite the loan approvals, although the White House has argued that nothing improper occurred. Republicans have also charged that the White House pressured an Air Force general to revise testimony before a closed congressional hearing to aid LightSquared, a wireless start-up company. Emails between the company and the White House make mention of the fact that the company's CEO would be attending Democratic fundraisers in Washington, and administration officials met with executives from the company on the same day that CEO Sanjiv Ahuja wrote a $30,400 check to the Democratic National Committee. The company is facing a tough regulatory road after initial tests showed LightSquared's technology had been found to interfere with military and aviation GPS. But both the company and White House have denied any influence-peddling. Although Issa did not specifically accuse the White House of wrongdoing, he suggested that government loan programs tempted corruption. "This is another reason that crony capitalism … is dangerous, because they're going to pick winners that they ideologically, or in some cases because they support their candidacy, want to see win," Issa said. The congressman said he also wanted to expand the investigation to see whether congressmen were also exerting influence on the bureaucracy, which is commonly tasked with approving low-interest government loans. "We see that as a backdoor, easy way to end up with corruption in government," Issa said. ||||| Share this: "Defending Decision Not To Investigate News Corp., Issa Contradicts Own Claim That He Knows Rupert Murdoch" Share: House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) has refused repeated calls to investigate News Corporation over alleged violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act tied to the British phone hacking scandal and allegations that the company hacked the phones of 9/11 victims’ families immediately after the tragedy. The investigations, Issa complains, would amount to “picking on [the] media.” This morning, the host of C-SPAN’s Washington Journal asked Issa about the investigations and if his refusal to probe the company had anything to do with his personal trust in News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch — an issue first raised by ThinkProgress’ Lee Fang. When the host asked Issa if his relationship with Murdoch had anything to do with his refusal to investigate, Issa denied even knowing Murdoch: HOST: I know you’ve been criticial of ThinkProgress.org that this is coming from, a liberal blog. But they do assert that this has something to do with you saying you trust News Corp. last year because you know Rupert Murdoch. Just want to have you respond to that part. ISSA: Well, first of all, I don’t believe I said that. I don’t know Rupert Murdoch. I believe I’ve met him on one occasion. … I don’t know Rupert Murdoch. I do not trust anybody. My job is not trust. In February 2010, Fang interviewed Issa about a potential probe into a Saudi Arabian prince’s large ownership stake in News Corp. When Issa said he was concerned about companies with foreign owners that may have “a different agenda,” Fang asked if that applied to the Saudi prince. Issa suggested that he trusted Fox because “I know Rupert Murdoch“: FANG: Well what do you think about Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, he’s one of the owners of Fox News. He owns the largest stake in News Corp. outside the Murdoch family. ISSA: Well, I know Rupert Murdoch so I would certainly say he signs onto Rupert’s agenda, not the other way around. Watch today’s C-SPAN interview followed by the relevant portion of Fang’s 2010 interview with Issa: News Corp.’s alleged violations of American law, including the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, are within the investigative jurisdiction of the House Oversight Committee, which is charged with investigating matters in the interest of the American people. But Issa said he isn’t going investigate the company because the Justice Department has already launched its own probe. ||||| House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) told C-SPAN's Washington Journal today that his committee is investigating the Obama administration over its ties to Solyndra, LightSquared, and other companies. "I want to see when the president and his cronies are picking winners and losers… that it wasn't because there were large contributions given to them," he said. The White House has drawn scrutiny for allegedly speeding up the review process for a $535 loan to Solyndra, which went bankrupt last month. LightSquared's wireless broadband technology has been found to interfere with military GPS and communications signals, claims, and some have accused the White House of pressuring an Air Force general not to testify to that effect. Both companies have strong ties to Obama donors. "This is another reason that crony capitalism … is dangerous, because they're going to pick winners that they ideologically, or in some cases because they support their candidacy, want to see win," Issa said. Issa's investigation was inevitable, as the head of the watchdog committee pledged to vigorously pursue inquiries into the Obama White House. Watch Issa on C-SPAN below:

– Darrell Issa has long promised to use his House oversight panel to investigate the Obama administration, and the White House has served up two hanging fastballs for him: Solyndra and LightSquared. The chair of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee told C-SPAN today that he intends to investigate the administration's ties to both, reports the Hill. "I want to see when the president and his cronies are picking winners and losers ... it wasn't because there were large contributions given to them." The White House is accused of speeding up loans to Solyndra, a green-tech company that went bankrupt last month. LightSquared is a wireless startup whose technology apparently interferes with military GPS, and an Air Force general says the White House pressured him to downplay that in testimony. The two companies have "strong ties" to Democratic donors, notes Business Insider. "This is another reason that crony capitalism … is dangerous, because they're going to pick winners that they ideologically, or in some cases because they support their candidacy, want to see win," said Issa. (On the crony front, ThinkProgress still wants to know why Issa won't go after Rupert Murdoch.)

The Dow Jones Industrial Average hit its latest milestone on Wednesday: 22,000. Photo: Getty Images The Dow Jones Industrial Average has been shattering record after record lately. Barely six months after it crossed the 20,000 mark, the Dow hit 22,000 on Wednesday morning, before pulling back slightly. It’s another milestone that might not mean much for your portfolio, but it is symbolic of the enormous bull run the market has enjoyed since 2009. Here’s some background on the Dow and what’s driven it to such soaring heights: What is the Dow Jones Industrial Average anyway? The Dow is the oldest and most-widely followed U.S. stock market index, composed of 30 large public companies. Meant to represent a broad cross section of the market, the index is composed of a diverse group of blue chip companies such as Pfizer, Boeing, Coca-Cola, Goldman Sachs, Walmart, and Disney. Get the best of Barron's Next every weekday. By signing up, I agree to the Privacy Policy and Cookie Policy I'd like to receive updates and special offers from Dow Jones and affiliates. Email address is not valid. Agree to the policies to sign up. Subscribe Congratulations! You have been subscribed to our daily Barron’s Next newsletter Newsletters will start being sent to you within 48 hours. Review our Privacy Policy and Cookie Policy How is it calculated? The DJIA is a “price-weighted” index, which means that it is calculated by adding up the 30 companies’ stock prices and then dividing them by a magic number called the Dow Divisor. The divisor is adjusted to account for stock splits, dividends, or spinoffs, which affect the share prices of Dow components. Because it is price-weighted, stocks with a higher price carry a greater weight in the index. For example, A 10% change in 3M’s $204 stock will add more points to the Dow than a 10% change in Cisco’s $31 stock. The S&P 500, another widely-followed index, is market-cap weighted, meaning that an equal percentage change in any of its components will have the same effect on the index’s value, regardless of stock price. Which specific companies powered the Dow to 22,000? In the 107 trading days since the Dow reached 21,000 on March 1, Boeing led the pack, rising 54% and adding 370 points to the index. McDonald’s and UnitedHealth Group followed, adding 189 and 172 points, respectively. IBM was the main drag on the Dow, declining 37.5% since March and costing the index 257 points. Why did the Dow just smash through another record? Promise of regulatory and tax reform: President Trump and the Republican party have campaigned on business-friendly policies such as a lower corporate tax rate and softer regulations. If successfully implemented, investors believe that corporate earnings will increase. Strong economic fundamentals: Low unemployment, slow but steady GDP growth, and other economic indicators point to a still improving economic climate, encouraging optimism which leads to more investment and spending. Low interest rates: The Federal Reserve has increased interest rates three times since December, another reason to be optimistic about the economy. Nevertheless, rates are still near historical lows, meaning that investors looking to earn a reasonable return have few options besides the stock market, driving share prices higher. Strong corporate earnings: Companies have been earning higher profits and expect to earn more in the future as the economy improves and business and consumer spending increase. Weakening dollar: Many of the Dow’s components have large international operations. The U.S. dollar has fallen 10% since the start of the year relative to other currencies, meaning that foreign profits are worth more in dollars and making U.S.-produced goods cheaper and more competitive abroad. What does Dow 22k mean for me? On the surface, not much. The number 22,000 itself is a relatively meaningless milestone and isn’t technically any different than the DJIA hitting 21,756 or 22,011. What’s relevant is the trend, and this year it’s been practically nothing but up. ||||| The latest on developments in financial markets (All times local): 4:00 p.m. The Dow Jones industrial average closed above 22,000 points for the first time, driven by a big gain in Apple on an otherwise mixed day for the market. Health care and household goods companies fell Wednesday. Prescription drug distributor Cardinal Health dropped 8.2 percent. Movie theater companies plunged after AMC Entertainment gave a weak profit forecast amid a sluggish summer at the box office. AMC slumped 27 percent. The Dow Jones industrials rose 52 points, or 0.2 percent, to 22,016. The move was almost entirely due to the jump in Apple's stock. The broader Standard & Poor's 500 index edged up 1 point, less than 0.1 percent, to 2,477. The Nasdaq edged down less than a point to 6,362. More stocks fell than rose on the New York Stock Exchange. ___ 11:45 a.m. A big earnings gain from Apple is sending the Dow Jones industrial average above 22,000 points for the first time, but otherwise stocks are mostly lower. Apple soared 5 percent in midday trading Wednesday, accounting for all of the Dow's gain. Apple reported another solid quarter and released a strong forecast late Tuesday. Other industries mostly fell, led by drops in health care and household goods companies. Prescription drug distributor Cardinal Health plunged 9.6 percent. Movie theater companies fell sharply after AMC Entertainment gave a weak forecast. AMC's stock sank 24 percent. The Dow Jones industrials rose 45 points, or 0.2 percent, to 22,010. The broader Standard & Poor's 500 index fell 4 points, or 0.2 percent, to 2,472. The Nasdaq composite lost 24 points, or 0.4 percent, to 6,338. ___ 9:35 a.m. A big earnings gain from Apple is sending the Dow Jones industrial average above 22,000 points for the first time. Apple soared 6 percent in the first few minutes of trading Wednesday, accounting for all of the Dow's gain. Apple reported another strong quarter and released a strong forecast late Tuesday. Drugmaker Illumina jumped 12 percent after beating its earnings forecasts and issuing a strong outlook. The Dow was up 68 points, or 0.3 percent, to 22,031. The Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 2 points, or 0.2 percent, to 2,478. The Nasdaq composite increased 25 points, or 0.4 percent, to 6,388. ||||| Yet those concerns have yet to halt the stock market’s seemingly unstoppable advance. Mr. Trump has repeatedly pointed to record highs in the Dow as a validation of his administration, posting on Twitter on Tuesday morning: “Stock Market could hit all-time high (again) 22,000 today. Was 18,000 only 6 months ago on Election Day. Mainstream media seldom mentions!” And while it is true that there has been little in terms of legislative action to back up his boast, investment experts say that the president’s promise to slash regulations and cut taxes — even if unfulfilled — has stoked long-dormant animal spirits among investors. That corporate earnings are excelling and the global economy is growing faster than many expected has only added to the bullish vibe. “Whether you like the administration, the people, the rhetoric or not, there is no overstating just how powerful the animal spirits have been,” said Atul Lele, chief investment officer for Deltec International Group, an investment firm based in Nassau, Bahamas. “You are seeing it in the data and it is evident in the financial markets as well.” While there is no doubt that the animal spirits have done their work, just as important to the market’s recent rally has been the significant fall in the dollar — not just against the euro and the yen, but against more volatile currencies like the Mexican peso and the Brazilian real. Even the Chinese renminbi, once criticized by Mr. Trump as artificially low, has gained value against the dollar, climbing more than 3 percent for the year. ||||| U.S. large-cap stocks in the Dow Jones Industrials index stretched to another record high on Tuesday, the sixth consecutive gain, despite disappointing auto sales and tepid economic data. The real highlight came after the close, however, with Apple (AAPL) climbing more than 6 percent in post-market trading after reporting better-than-expected revenues and earnings. The stock market's performance, and the Dow's approach of the 22,000 level, has attracted the attention of regular investors who are aggressively chasing this market higher. But the risks to this uptrend are also growing more numerous as memories of the last significant sell-off fade (the last 5 percent pullback was more than a year ago) and sentiment glows white hot. I can't shake the feeling of foreboding. Because everywhere I look, sharp contrasts are in play. For example, the split between the Dow's melt-up and the rollover in U.S. "hard" economic data (chart below), which will eventually affect corporate earnings growth. When that happens, the bulls won't be able to ignore the reality on the ground any longer. President Trump is touting the stock market gains since Election Day on Twitter, a sharp reversal of his pre-election warnings of an ugly bubble. Apple's after-hours rise on Tuesday stands in opposition to the weakness other big-cap tech stocks are showing, including Amazon (AMZN) and Google parent Alphabet (GOOGL) -- both of which have slipped below the $1,000-a-share level. Right now, with analyst earnings expectations still lofty, Wall Street is comfortably insulated from the disappointments on the ground. That's a sharp contrast to the midyear decline in earnings expectations seen over the past five years, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch (chart above). The difference this time has been the energy price rebound. While oil prices have indeed recovered from their early 2016 lows, the rest of the economy seems to have hit a wall in recent months as expected pro-growth legislation from the Republicans in Congress and the Trump White House has failed to materialize amid intra-party rancor, turmoil and gridlock. Personal income growth has stalled, pushing real disposable income down on a monthly basis for the first time since December as the post-election ebullience fades. Manufacturing activity is coming off boil. U.S. auto sales have returned to lows not seen since 2014. And consumer sentiment is in steady decline. Perhaps this explains the sharp drop underway in the Dow Jones Transportation index, which is down more than 6 percent from the high set a few weeks ago. Or in key blue-chip stocks like General Electric (GE), which has entered a bear market down nearly 21 percent from its December high (chart below). Or IBM (IBM), Starbucks (SBUX) and Exxon Mobil (XOM). In fact, with the S&P 500 flirting with record highs, exactly 100 of its issues are in downtrends and trading below both their 50-day and 200-day moving averages. The percentage trading above their 150-day moving average has fallen to just 71 percent, down from a high of 83.4 percent in March. According to SentimenTrader's Jason Goepfert, since 1928 when the Dow Transports and the Dow Industrials diverged to such an extent as now, the Industrials were down 3.2 percent on average six months later, with a maximum risk of a 10.1 percent drop and a maximum upside gain of 5.8 percent. There's more. According to the latest American Association of Individual Investors survey, folks are holding their lowest cash allocation since 2000 at a time when stocks are near historic levels of overvaluation. The current cyclically adjusted price-earnings ratio is eclipsing the level it held heading into the 1929 market crash. And finally, August through September is historically the worst two-month period of the year for stocks. Since 1980, the S&P 500 has fallen 0.1 percent and 0.7 percent, respectively, on average during this time -- the only two months to show an average negative return. If the Dow scratches up and over the 22,000 mark, enjoy it while it lasts. ||||| 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. ||||| CLOSE It took years for the Dow to climb to 19K, but in just months it has soared to 22K and isn't slowing down. USA TODAY This file photo taken on December 8, 2016 shows the Wall Street Bull sculpture in the Financial District in New York. (AFP PHOTO / Bryan R. Smith/AFP/Getty Images) (Photo: BRYAN R. SMITH, AFP/Getty Images) The Dow hit a fresh milestone Wednesday, cracking the 22,000 barrier for the first time in its 121-year history. So-called "Dow 22K" is the latest sign that the stock market's long climb that began in March 2009 and that has gained momentum this year amid a global economic recovery continues to charge ahead. The Dow topped 22,000 minutes into the trading session, climbed as high as 22,036.10 before closing up 52 points, or 0.24%, at 22,016.24. The Dow's first-ever close above 22,000 was fueled by a 4.7% advance and record high finish for iPhone maker Apple, which reported strong earnings late Tuesday. The latest milestone for the blue-chip stock gauge, which includes iconic U.S. companies such as Boeing, Coca-Cola, McDonald's and Johnson & Johnson, ignited a fresh debate on Wall Street as to whether the stock price run-up has more room to go or if a market peak is nearing. The Dow Jones industrial average has gained 11.4% this year. It is up 236% since its bear market low of 6547.05, which means a $10,000 investment would be worth $33,600 now. Joe Quinlan, chief market strategist at New York-based U.S. Trust, downplayed the significance of the Dow's latest 1,000-point climb. The reason? It represents just a 4.3% gain since it topped 21,000 on March 1. What would worry Quinlan, however, would be if investors on Wall Street and Main Street get overly excited and start to pile into the market and quickly push the Dow up another 3,000 points. "Chatter about Dow 25,000 would worry me," he says, calling it "a sign of a market top" and "too much exuberance." Related: It took the Dow 154 calendar days to climb from 21,000 to 22,000, according to S&P Dow Jones Indices. In contrast, it took the Dow 2,119 days -- or nearly six years -- to jump from 14,000 to 15,000 due to the Dow's more than 50% plunge during the 2007 to 2009 bear market. The Dow's advance is being powered by better business conditions, recovering economies and improving corporate profits in the U.S. and overseas. Stock market optimists say the Dow's current rally is based on improving sales and revenues for U.S. companies and not irrational exuberance like the dot-com stock hysteria back in 2000. "Don't let the milestones cause you to miss the simple underlying story: corporate earnings are at all-time highs. So stocks are at all-time highs," says Donald Luskin, chief investment officer at TrendMacro in Chicago. That's how it is supposed to work, he adds. CLOSE Following an announcement about legislation to overhaul the U.S. immigration system, President Donald Trump touted the record high of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, saying "we picked up four trillion dollars in net worth." (Aug. 2) AP A weakening dollar against a basket of foreign currencies is also helping boost profits at big U.S. companies like McDonald's and Boeing that do a lot of business abroad. That's because it makes their products more affordable when purchased with stronger currencies. The Federal Reserve's patient approach to raising interest rates -- which are still near historic lows -- is also providing support for stocks. Stocks "can work their way higher, maybe much higher" if interest rates stay very low and central banks around the world continue to provide stimulus to markets, adds David Kotok, chief investment officer at Cumberland Advisors, an investment firm based in Sarasota, Fla. Milestones are fun to celebrate, but they don't necessarily tell you where the market is headed next, says Lindsey Bell, an investment strategist at CFRA, a market research firm in New York. "I don't think it foretells the next leg of the market," says Bell. Risks still remain. The Dow, in addition to getting pricey relative to the earnings streams of its 30 components, also faces potential risk from the inability of Washington lawmakers to work together and get things done, Bell says. The delay in getting many of President Trump's economic agenda items passed through Congress could also weigh on stocks, as a lack of tax cuts and infrastructure spending could curtail growth, Bell adds. Potential budgetary gridlock in coming months could also spook investors. Critics of the Dow's recent assault of 22,000 note that it is a "price-weighted" index -- which means its up and down moves are driven largely by its most expensive stocks -- which distorts the true health of the index and the broader market. For example, Boeing, which is now the Dow's highest-priced name at $237.95 per share, soared nearly 25% in July and had surged more than 14% in the four trading days after its strong earnings report on July 26 -- accounting for a big chunk of the Dow's gains in its final run to 22,000. The shares slipped less than 1% Wednesday. "The Dow is a flawed index where price matters and nothing else," says Mark Arbeter, president of Arbeter Investments, a Holland, Pa., firm that analyzes the health of the market by stock chart patterns, trading volume and trendlines. In the past six trading days, the Dow has risen 403 points. Boeing accounted for 43% of that gain. "When should an index be dominated by one stock? Never," says Arbeter. Investors should also never get overly confident, no matter how strong the stock market is acting, warns U.S. Trust's Quinlan. "Investors tend to forget about risk levels as markets hit new highs every session," says Quinlan. Read or Share this story: https://usat.ly/2wlFU8a ||||| The Dow Jones industrial average broke above 22,000 on Wednesday, just 107 trading days after hitting 21,000 for the first time. The 30-stock index has gained nearly 1,000 points since March 1, when it hit 21,000 on an intraday and closing basis, thanks in large part to a handful of stocks. Boeing shares have had the biggest points impact on the price-weighted Dow, contributing 380.29 points since March 1, followed by McDonald's and UnitedHealth Group with 171.14 and 166.35 points, respectively. Caterpillar and 3M rounded out the top five points contributors, adding 99.44 and 91.22 points, respectively, to the Dow since March 1. But the Dow could have reached the elusive 22,000 mark well before had it not been for IBM, Goldman Sachs, General Electric, Chevron and ExxonMobil shares. Since March 1, these stocks have contributed the biggest amount of losses to the Dow. Below is a chart showing the biggest contributors of point gains, and losses, to the Dow since it first reached 21,000.

– The Dow eclipsed 22,000 for the first time in its 121-year history on Wednesday, helped to the mark soon after the opening bell by a strong earnings report from Apple. The index fell below the mark at points during the day but closed in milestone territory at 22,016, per the AP. (The S&P 500 ticked up incrementally to 2,477 and the Nasdaq ticked down a smidge to 6,362.) The Dow's record has prompted a flood of commentary and factoids. Examples: Biggest gainer: Since March 1, shares of Boeing had contributed 380 points to the Dow as of Wednesday morning, more than any other company and ahead of McDonald's (171), UnitedHealth (166), Caterpillar (99), and 3M (91), per CNBC. The biggest detractor? IBM had the largest loss over the same span, 251 points. Dollar's role: As the Dow has risen, the US dollar has declined, losing about 10% of its value against major world currencies. The New York Times explores how the two are related, as does USA Today, which notes that a weak dollar helps big companies that do business abroad because their products are more affordable in foreign currencies. Trump's start: The Dow's close above 22,000 means that it has risen 20% in the 183 trading days since Election Day, per the Wall Street Journal. For a new president, that's second only to George HW Bush (171 days) and ahead of Barack Obama (537), George W. Bush (1,626), and Bill Clinton (308). Hold the applause: At MarketWatch, Rex Nutting argues that the cheerleading over the Dow's rise is overblown, given that most Americans don't own very many shares. The rise helps the richest Americans, while the young in particular are out of luck. "I bought my first shares for my retirement account back in the 1970s, so I've benefited from the incredible gains since then," he writes. "But my children are buying high, not low." Warning signs: At MoneyWatch, Anthony Mirhaydari is worried about weak economic fundamentals in regard to personal income growth, manufacturing, US auto sales, consumer sentiment, and more. As for this current surge: "Enjoy it while it lasts." Why the rise? President Trump has been touting the surging Dow for a while now, and a post at Barron's suggests he's due some of the credit. He and the GOP "have campaigned on business-friendly policies such as a lower corporate tax rate and softer regulations," writes Nicholas Jasinski. "If successfully implemented, investors believe that corporate earnings will increase." Also at play: low unemployment, low interest rates, and the aforementioned weak dollar.

President branded a misogynist and macho-fascist after saying mutilating women fighters would make them “useless” President Rodrigo Duterte has been branded a misogynist and “macho-fascist” after he ordered soldiers to shoot female communist rebels in the vagina. In a speech to over 200 former communist soldiers in Malacañang last week, the Philippines president gave a directive of what to do with female guerrilla fighters. Thousands dead: the Philippine president, the death squad allegations and a brutal drugs war Read more “‘There’s a new order coming from the mayor, ‘We will not kill you. We will just shoot you in the vagina,’ ” said Duterte. He went on to say that without their vaginas, women would be “useless”. Duterte mentioned the Visayan word “bisong”, meaning vagina, repeatedly throughout the speech, although it was later censored from an official Palace transcript, replaced simply with a dash. However, the remarks were recorded as having drawn laughter from the audience. The crude orders drew anger from human rights organisations and women’s groups in the region. “It is just the latest in a series of misogynist, derogatory and demeaning statements he has made about women,” said Carlos H Conde, the Philippines researcher for Human Rights Watch. “It encourages state forces to commit sexual violence during armed conflict, which is a violation of international humanitarian law.” Congresswoman Emmi de Jesus, speaking on behalf of the Gabriela Women’s Party, denounced President Rodrigo Duterte as a “macho-fascist,” and said his “anti-women” remark “takes state terrorism against women and the people to a whole new level”. She described the president as the “most dangerous macho-fascist in the government right now,” adding: “He has further presented himself as the epitome of misogyny and fascism rolled in one.” Duterte has a chequered history of making menacing and misogynistic remarks towards women. During his election campaign in 2016, speaking about the 1989 prison riot in which an Australian missionary was killed, and inmates had lined up to rape her, Duterte joked he wished he had the opportunity to rape her himself. “Was I mad because of the rape? Yes, that’s one. But, she was so beautiful, the mayor should have been first. What a waste,” he said. In May last year, he also told soldiers in Mindanao – apparently as a joke – that while martial law was imposed, he would protect them from prosecution if they raped three women. Last week it was announced that the International Criminal Court were looking into complaints that Duterte had committed crimes against humanity in his brutal and bloody war against drugs, which has seen a deat toll of over 4000. But the President said he did not mind being indicted and imprisoned by the International Criminal Court as long as it allows conjugal visits by more than one woman. His spokesperson Harry Roque subsequently dismissed the allegations that Duterte was sexist and misogynist. “You know, sometimes, these feminists are really a bit OA (overacting),” said Roque. “I mean, that’s funny. Come on. Just laugh.” ||||| MANILA — President Rodrigo Duterte, the Philippine strongman who has earned a reputation for dirty tactics and language, was criticized on Monday for having boasted that he had ordered soldiers to shoot female communist guerrillas in the genitals. “Tell the soldiers, ‘There’s a new order coming from the mayor,’ ” the president said in a speech, recalling a directive he said he had given when he was mayor of Davao City. “ ‘We will not kill you. We will just shoot you in the vagina.’ ” Mr. Duterte made the remarks in a speech to former rebels last week, but the comments went largely unreported because he was speaking in his native Visayan language. He expressed exasperation that some women preferred joining the New People’s Army, a communist rebel force that has been waging an insurgency since 1969, to raising children. Since Mr. Duterte’s remarks began circulating more widely, the criticism of his choice of words has been fierce.

– In addition to saying he "should have been first" to assault a "beautiful" rape victim, Rodrigo Duterte once told soldiers he'd protect them if they raped women. His misogynistic rhetoric only continued with comments last week, drawing outrage even as a spokesman claims the Philippine president shouldn't be taken literally, per Reuters. In a Feb. 7 speech now gaining attention, Duterte said he'd ordered soldiers to shoot female Maoist rebels while mayor of Davao City—only the order was a bit more specific than that, reports the New York Times. "Tell the soldiers, 'There's a new order … We will not kill you. We will just shoot you in the vagina,'" Duterte said. The women would be "useless" without vaginas, he added, though "vagina" was erased from the official transcript of the speech delivered to 200 former communist soldiers, per the Guardian. Calling Duterte "the epitome of misogyny and fascism," Emmi de Jesus of the Gabriela Women's Party says the comment "takes state terrorism against women and the people to a whole new level." Carlos H. Conde of Human Rights Watch adds it "encourages state forces to commit sexual violence during armed conflict." But spokesman Harry Roque suggests Duterte was only joking and says he views women's welfare as a priority. "Sometimes, these feminists are really a bit [overreacting]. I mean, that's funny. Come on. Just laugh," he said, per the Guardian. The outlet notes Duterte also discussed women after the International Criminal Court began investigating him for crimes against humanity last week, noting he didn't mind being imprisoned if it meant conjugal visits by more than one woman. (More on the investigation here.)

Regardless of the financial condition of their state, voters in Tuesday’s Republican primaries considered the economy the top issue influencing their choice. And even though the debate in the last few weeks has often involved other issues — like contraception, or women in combat, there was very little evidence of a gender gap among the leading candidates in several of the major states in play on Tuesday, and very few voters mentioned abortion as a deciding factor. In Ohio, Mitt Romney was favored by better-educated, more affluent and older voters. Very conservative voters and those who strongly support the Tea Party backed Rick Santorum. Roman Catholics preferred Mr. Romney and evangelical Christians chose Mr. Santorum, who is Catholic, according to the exit poll. In Tennessee, Mr. Santorum secured the support of those with lower incomes, as well as very conservative voters and evangelical Christians, while those in higher income brackets favored Mr. Romney. Mr. Romney handily captured Massachusetts, winning a majority of voters in every group, including conservative groups that have been gravitating more often to Mr. Santorum. Although about half of the voters said the state’s 2006 health insurance law — which was put in place when Mr. Romney was governor — went too far, they gave about 70 percent of their vote to him. Those who were better off financially tended to be the ones who expressed more dismay at the law’s reach. Newt Gingrich prevailed in his native state, Georgia, doing best with older and less educated voters and those who live in small towns and rural areas. Men and women backed Mr. Gingrich about equally. “I’m a Georgia girl, and I just love Newt,” said Patches Mongeon, 38, a wholesale accounts manager voting in Atlanta. In Ohio, unemployment is at 7.7 percent, lower than the national rate of 8.3 percent. Still, more than half of voters in Ohio considered the economy the most important issue; about a quarter pointed to the federal budget deficit. About three-quarters said they were very worried about the direction of the nation’s economy. Among voters in Georgia, where the unemployment rate is above the national average and the foreclosure rate is one of the highest in the country, nearly 6 in 10 selected the economy as the top issue. It also mattered most for nearly 6 in 10 voters in Massachusetts, which has one of the highest median incomes and low unemployment. In Oklahoma, Vermont and Virginia, voters for whom the economy was the top issue also backed Mr. Romney. More than 7 in 10 voters said the price of gas was an important factor in their vote. Less affluent voters were more likely to say that gas prices affected their vote choice, particularly in Georgia. Although Mr. Romney had trouble in Georgia and Tennessee with very conservative voters, he did win a majority of the primarygoers in Georgia with an advanced degree and of the voters whose family income was over $200,000. Both of these groups also favored Mr. Romney in Tennessee, as did, moderates, Tea Party opponents, those favoring abortion rights and those looking for a candidate who can beat Obama. In the earlier contests, Ron Paul did very well with younger voters — getting a sizable portion of those under 30 in some states, where he received a smaller percentage of the overall vote than other candidates. Tuesday was no exception. About 3 in 10 under 30 in Ohio and Tennessee voted for Mr. Paul. In Virginia, where he and Mr. Romney were the only candidates on the ballot, Mr. Paul received more than 60 percent of the votes of those under 30 (in fact about 60 percent of those under 45). The “younger” vote, however, does not have much of an impact in the Republican primaries — about 10 percent or less in the contests on Tuesday were under 30. “He’s the only candidate talking about limiting the size of government, reducing the debt and maintaining personal liberties,” said Matt Martin, 29, a youth minister in Smyrna, Ga., who voted with his toddler and infant in tow. “All the other choices are votes for more government and more big government.” Although Mr. Romney was regarded as the conservative alternative to John McCain when he ran for the nomination four years ago, many voters on Tuesday saw Mr. Romney as not conservative enough. At the same time, Mr. Santorum and Mr. Paul were seen as too conservative. Mr. Gingrich was the only candidate whose positions were selected as “about right” by most primary voters. Fred Russo, 70, and his wife, Estelle, 65, also came to the polls to vote for Mr. Romney at St. Mary Magdalene Catholic Church in Willowick, Ohio, a small suburb about 20 miles east of Cleveland. “I would prefer someone more conservative, but it’s important to beat Obama,” he said. In earlier primaries, with the exception of South Carolina, Mr. Romney did best with voters who were looking for a candidate who can defeat President Obama. On Tuesday, 4 in 10 of those voters backed Mr. Romney in Tennessee, while a third voted for Mr. Gingrich. Almost half of these voters backed Mr. Gingrich in Georgia, but almost as many supported Mr. Romney in Oklahoma. In the rest of the states on Tuesday, Mr. Romney received a majority. The exit polls were conducted by Edison Research for a consortium of the television networks and The Associated Press and included in-person interviews with voters as they were leaving polling places across the state and telephone interviews with early and absentee voters. ||||| Voters in Cobb County, one of the largest precincts in the state, participate in the Georgia GOP primary on Tuesday, March 6, 2012, at Noonday Baptist Church in Marietta, Ga. (Credit: AP Photo/Atlanta Journal & Constitution, Bob Andres) Updated at 6 p.m. ET Gas prices were an important factor for a significant majority of voters in primary states today, according to CBS News early exit polling. And as in other states that have voted in the Republican presidential nominating contests, the economy is the top issue for primary voters today, and electability remains the most important candidate quality. At least seven out of 10 voters in all seven primary states today said gas prices were an "important" factor in their decision, the early exit polling shows. The issue matters most to voters in Georgia, where 81 percent said it was important. The issue was significant in other Southern states as well: 79 percent of Oklahoma primary voters called it important, as did 77 percent of Tennessee voters. That may be good news for former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who has campaigned in recent days on a promise to bring gas prices down to $2.50. Gingrich, who has only won one nominating contest so far, is hoping strong performances in Southern states will revive his campaign. Gingrich makes a play for Tennessee Obama says he wants lower gas prices Super Tuesday represents the biggest day in the race for the Republican nomination so far. All told, 419 total delegates at stake in 10 states -- more delegates than have been awarded in all of the previous nominating contests combined. CBS News is conducting exit polls in the states holding primaries, interviewing voters in person as they leave polling places. The three states holding caucuses this evening do not have entrance or exit polls. In spite of today's significance, no one will be able to formally clinch the nomination Tuesday. It takes 1,144 delegates for a candidate to formally take the nomination, leaving the contenders with a long way to do. Furthermore, none of Tuesday's contests is winner-take-all. Instead, all 10 states are awarding delegates proportionally, either based on the outcome in congressional districts, a candidate's percentage of the statewide vote, or a combination of the two. As in previous contests, early exit polling shows that the economy is the most important issue for voters Tuesday. The issue dominates in Massachusetts and Georgia, where 58 percent of voters in both states called it the most important issue. In Oklahoma, by comparison, just 47 percent called the economy the top issue. Additionally, voters in Tuesday's primary states say that beating President Obama in November is the candidate quality that matters the most. Electability matters the most in Georgia, where 46 percent said it was the most important quality; the next most important quality in Georgia was having the right experience, which 20 percent called the most important. Another 18 percent of Georgia voters were most interested in a "true conservative." Full Republican delegate scorecard Nationwide primary results so far Electability matters the least in Vermont tonight -- though it was still the most important candidate quality -- at 33 percent. Another 25 percent of Vermont voters said they were most interested in a candidate with strong character, while 21 percent were looking for a candidate with the right experience. The seven states holding primaries today are: Georgia, Massachusetts, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Vermont and Virginia. An additional three states are holding caucuses: Alaska, Idaho and North Dakota. The states voting today are largely Republican-leaning, which may be fitting, since the GOP electorate has yet to coalesce around a nominee. CBS News estimates that so far, Mitt Romney has picked up 187 delegates, Rick Santorum has collected 65, Newt Gingrich has 30, and Ron Paul has collected 20. In four of the most closely watched states -- Georgia, Ohio, Tennessee and Oklahoma -- at least a quarter of voters made up their minds in the last few days, according to the early exit polling. Most decided on their candidate before that. In Ohio, 42 percent of Romney's supporters say they strongly favor him, but a similar percentage, 44 percent, have reservations about him. Another 12 percent said they simply disliked the other candidates. Similarly, 38 percent of Santorum's Ohio supporters strongly favor him, but more (46 percent) have reservations about him. Fourteen percent said they voted for him because they disliked the other candidates. Three in four Romney supporters in Ohio say they will definitely support the Republican nominee in the fall. But slightly fewer Santorum supporters (six in 10) say they will definitely back the GOP nominee in November.

– Super Tuesday voters handed victories to three different candidates, but Republicans in all 10 states shared similar concerns, exit polls found. The economy was the number one issue in every state. Despite the recent focus on social issues, few voters names abortion as their chief concern, and there was little evidence of a gender gap in what issue voters considered important, the New York Times finds. As in earlier primaries, Mitt Romney enjoyed the support of wealthier voters, while evangelicals and voters who consider themselves very conservative leaned toward Rick Santorum. Ron Paul did well among voters under 30. Gas prices were an important factor for a majority of voters, especially in the South, where 81% called it a major issue, according to CBS. Newt Gingrich—who labeled Romney the candidate of high-priced gas—won the state by a big margin.

Arkansas News Bureau LITTLE ROCK — The Little Rock Municipal Airport Commission voted unanimously today to rename Little Rock National Airport in honor of former President Bill Clinton and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The name change to Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport will need approval from the Federal Aviation Administration. Bill Clinton said in a statement today, “Hillary and I are humbled by the Little Rock Airport Commission’s decision this morning. We are grateful for this honor and for all that the people of Arkansas have done for us. And we look forward to many happy landings at the airport in the years ahead.” The seven-member commission said it would not rename the airport’s runways and aeronautical operations, which will continue to be known as Adams Field. The name honors Arkansas National Guard Capt. George Geyer Adams, who served on the Little Rock City Council and was killed in the line of duty in 1937. The airport’s official designator will remain LIT. Hillary Clinton formerly served as legal counsel for the airport and the commission as a Little Rock lawyer. “The Clintons continue to have a major impact on our state and our local economy, and we believe renaming our airport in their honor is a fitting way to recognize their service and their position in Arkansas and our nation’s history,” Commission Chairman Jim Dailey said in a news release. Gretchen Hall, president and CEO of the Little Rock Convention and Visitors Bureau, said renaming the airport for the Clintons “gives the facility an identity that will be instantly recognized nationally and internationally.” The renaming coincides with the airport’s 2020 Vision Plan, a reconstruction project aimed at preparing the airport to become an international airport. The initial phase of the project began in early 2011 and is expected to be completed in February 2013 at a cost of $67 million, with a second phase occurring over the next several years. Bill Clinton will not be the only living ex-president with airport named for him. George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston is named for the elder former President Bush. ||||| Travelers flying into Little Rock will now be reminded of Arkansas' most famous political couple after officials voted Tuesday to rename the city's airport after Bill and Hillary Clinton. The Little Rock Municipal Airport Commission unanimously agreed to change the name of the Little Rock National Airport to honor former President Bill Clinton and his wife, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The former president, an Arkansas native and the state's former governor, said they were humbled. "We are grateful for this honor and for all that the people of Arkansas have done for us. And we look forward to many happy landings at the airport in the years ahead," he said in a statement. Just minutes after the commission meeting, which attracted an overflow crowd of supporters and opponents of the name change, airport receptionists began welcoming callers to the Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport. The airport serves about 2.2 million passengers annually and is undergoing a $67 million renovation project that began last year. "I'm pleased with the action today," Commission Chairman Jim Dailey said. There was almost no discussion from commission members regarding the name change Tuesday. Dailey said the renaming process had been thoroughly vetted and that public feedback "heated up" in the last few days. Among the opponents was Jimmy Jones, a Baptist minister from nearby Cleveland, Ark., who said he thought it "unreal" that a man whose marital discretions as president embarrassed the U.S. would be given the honor. Other detractors made similar comments. But several local leaders, including Arkansas House Speaker-designate Darrin Williams, a Democrat from Little Rock, and Charles Stewart, chairman of the Arkansas Black Hall of Fame, lobbied for the renaming. The former president is a member of the hall of fame. "The Clintons that I know are not perfect, but none of us in here are," said Jane Gray-Todd, who spoke in support of the renaming. "They have made accomplishments that none others have in this state." Founded in 1917, the airport was purchased by Little Rock residents in 1930. A Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman said the name change would be checked for conflicts and added to the national directory. In addition to the airport, other buildings named for Bill Clinton in Arkansas include his presidential library, the University of Arkansas' school of public service and two public schools. His name also appears on a Little Rock street. The only former presidents since 1960 without airports bearing their names are Richard Nixon, George W. Bush and Lyndon B. Johnson.

– Little Rock is paying tribute to the Clintons by renaming the city airport in their honor, reports the Arkansas News. Once the FAA signs off on the switch, the Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport will be in business. Airport receptionists already have begun using the new name, notes the AP. The official airport designation will remain LIT. "We are grateful for this honor and for all that the people of Arkansas have done for us," said the Clintons in a statement. "And we look forward to many happy landings at the airport in the years ahead."

Research News home Producers: Ohio State has a broadcast studio with Vyvx and ISDN technology. To schedule an expert, contact Joe Camoriano, (614) 378-6478. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter. Breast-feeding Benefits Appear to be Overstated, According to Study of Siblings Advantages of women who choose breast-feeding likely bias findings in previous research COLUMBUS, Ohio – A new study comparing siblings who were fed differently during infancy suggests that breast-feeding might be no more beneficial than bottle-feeding for 10 of 11 long-term health and well-being outcomes in children age 4 to 14. The outlier was asthma, which was associated more with breast-feeding than with bottle-feeding. The study also included an analysis of outcomes across families of different races and socioeconomic circumstances for comparison purposes, and those results matched other studies suggesting that breast-feeding’s benefits to children outweigh bottle-feeding. The lead researcher noted that there is a clear reason for that. “Many previous studies suffer from selection bias. They either do not or cannot statistically control for factors such as race, age, family income, mother’s employment – things we know that can affect both breast-feeding and health outcomes,” said Cynthia Colen, assistant professor of sociology at The Ohio State University and lead author of the study. “Moms with more resources, with higher levels of education and higher levels of income, and more flexibility in their daily schedules are more likely to breast-feed their children and do so for longer periods of time.” Cynthia Colen Previous research has identified clear patterns of racial and socioeconomic disparities between women who breast-feed and those who don’t, complicating an already demanding choice for women who work outside the home at jobs with little flexibility and limited maternity leave. Colen’s study is also rare for its look at health and education benefits of infant feeding practices for children age 4 to 14 years, beyond the more typical investigation of breast-feeding’s effects on infants and toddlers. Federal health officials have declared breast-feeding for at least six months a national priority, which could end up stigmatizing women who can’t opt to nurse their babies, Colen said. “I’m not saying breast-feeding is not beneficial, especially for boosting nutrition and immunity in newborns,” Colen said. “But if we really want to improve maternal and child health in this country, let’s also focus on things that can really do that in the long term – like subsidized day care, better maternity leave policies and more employment opportunities for low-income mothers that pay a living wage, for example.” The study is published in the journal Social Science & Medicine. Demographic differences across families that can bias studies in favor of breast-feeding include parental race, age, marital status, family income, insurance coverage, the mother’s education and employment, and whether a woman smokes or drinks during pregnancy. “When we get more advantaged moms selecting into breast-feeding and we know those traits also will affect the health outcomes, it’s not clear what’s affecting an outcome like obesity – is it breast-feeding itself or those other background characteristics?” Colen said. Colen used data from the 1979 cohort of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY), a nationally representative sample of young men and women who were between ages 14 and 22 in 1979, as well as results from NLSY surveys between 1986 and 2010 of children born to women in the 1979 cohort. The children were between ages 4 and 14 during the time period studied. The NLSY79 is conducted by Ohio State’s Center for Human Resource Research for the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Colen analyzed three samples: 8,237 children, 7,319 siblings and 1,773 “discordant” sibling pairs, or children from 665 surveyed families in which at least one child was breast-fed and at least one other child was bottle-fed. The children who were differently fed in the same family represented about 25 percent of the siblings in the data. For each sample, the researchers sought answers to two basic questions: Was at least one child breast-fed and, if so, what was the duration of breast-feeding? The study measured 11 outcomes that are common to other studies of breast-feeding’s effects: body mass index (BMI), obesity, asthma, hyperactivity, parental attachment (secure emotional relationships between parents and child) and behavior compliance, as well as scores predicting academic achievement in vocabulary, reading recognition, math ability, intelligence and scholastic competence. Colen constructed statistical models for the analysis. As expected, the analyses of the samples of adults and their children across families suggested that breast-feeding resulted in better outcomes than bottle-feeding in a number of measures: BMI, hyperactivity, math skills, reading recognition, vocabulary word identification, digit recollection, scholastic competence and obesity. When the sample was restricted to siblings who were differently fed within the same families, however, scores reflecting breast-feeding’s positive effects on 10 of the 11 indicators of child health and well-being were closer to zero and not statistically significant – meaning any differences could have occurred by chance alone. Email this to a friend “If breast-feeding doesn’t have the impact that we think it will have on long-term childhood outcomes, then even though it is very important in the short-term we really need to focus on other things.” The outlying outcome in this study was asthma; in all samples, children who were breast-fed were at higher risk for asthma, which could relate to data generated by self-reports instead of actual diagnoses. Some examples of differing benefits: Breast-feeding’s beneficial influence on BMI decreased by 66 percent between siblings across families and siblings within families. The magnitude of the beneficial effects of breast-feeding for math, reading, vocabulary and intelligence declined by between 69 and 29 percent, respectively, when comparing data across families to data from within families. “Instead of comparing across families we are comparing within families, completely taking into account all of those characteristics – both measured and unmeasured – that differ by family, such as parental education, household income and race/ethnicity,” Colen explained. These same differences between samples were found in the analysis of the effects of the duration of breastfeeding. These findings have implications for health policy, she noted. “If breast-feeding doesn’t have the impact that we think it will have on long-term childhood outcomes, then even though it is very important in the short-term we really need to focus on other things,” she said. “We need to look at school quality, adequate housing and the type of employment parents have when their kids are growing up. “We need to take a much more careful look at what happens past that first year of life and understand that breast-feeding might be very difficult, even untenable, for certain groups of women. Rather than placing the blame at their feet, let’s be more realistic about what breast-feeding does and doesn’t do.” Colen co-authored the study with David Ramey, a Ph.D. candidate in sociology at Ohio State. This work is supported by a grant from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development awarded to the Ohio State University Institute for Population Research. # Contact: Cynthia Colen, (614) 247-8135; Colen.3@osu.edu (Email is the best way to reach Colen.) Written by Emily Caldwell, (614) 292-8310; Caldwell.151@osu.edu ||||| Read more: Click here to read a revised version of this story Breast is still best, but the long-term benefits of breastfeeding might have been inflated, say researchers who have compared the effects of breastfeeding and bottle-feeding on siblings. Short-term benefits, such as protection against chest and gut infections, have been clearly demonstrated in previous research and are not being questioned. But claims that breastfeeding boosts children's IQ and protects against a range of health conditions in later life could have been based on flawed research, suggest Cynthia Colen and David Ramey of Ohio State University in Columbus, who have studied almost 700 US families. Unsurprisingly, their work has been criticised by those who support the promotion of breastfeeding. Breast milk is more than just food; it contains antibodies and enzymes that fight germs and help babies grow. Research has shown that breastfed babies get fewer chest and gut infections in their first few months of life. Some studies have also indicated that there are longer-term benefits on intelligence and conditions such as obesity, asthma and eczema. Selection bias But these studies relied on comparisons between babies born to different families, leading some people to suspect that other factors – such as income level – could be affecting the result. "Many studies suffer from selection bias," says Colen. To address this, Colen and Ramey looked at 665 families in the US where one child was breastfed and another bottle-fed. They found that breastfeeding gave no benefits for obesity, asthma, hyperactivity, academic achievement or a child's bond with its parents. Advice leaflets given to parents often claim the long-term benefits. On the basis of past research, many healthcare staff also heavily promote breastfeeding to new mothers. In many Western countries, adverts for formula milk are regulated and some hospital maternity wards have policies that discourage bottle feeding. Some argue that such schemes make women feel guilty if they are unable to breastfeed – or simply choose not to. Fair test? Colen and Ramey did not examine the short-term protection against chest and gut infections, because these have been most clearly demonstrated by previous research. Breast is still best, says Colen, but the findings suggest that health systems should put less effort into promoting breastfeeding and more into other ways to help poorer households, she says. However, Mary Renfrew, who studies mother and infant health at the University of Dundee, says the study was designed too crudely to observe any effects. For instance, babies fed with a mixture of breast and formula milk would still have been classed as breastfed. "It's not a fair test," she says. Renfrew is investigating whether new mothers can be encouraged to breastfeed by paying them with shopping vouchers. Alison Tedstone, director of diet and obesity for Public Health England, says there is good-quality evidence that "breastfeeding is associated with reduced risk of asthma during early feeding years, although the evidence for later years is not as clear". Journal ref: Social Science & Medicine, DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2014.01.027 If you would like to reuse any content from New Scientist, either in print or online, please contact the syndication department first for permission. New Scientist does not own rights to photos, but there are a variety of licensing options available for use of articles and graphics we own the copyright to.

– Breastfeeding doesn't produce the long-term benefits it's purported to, a new Ohio State University study has concluded, calling into question loads of previous research. Most older studies suffer from selection bias, lead author Cynthia Colen argues, because wealthier, better educated moms are more likely to breastfeed. Colen's research avoided that by focusing on sibling pairs in which one child was breastfed and another wasn't. The result? Breastfeeding had no effect on 10 out of 11 long-term health and well-being outcomes, and for the 11th—asthma—it actually increased risk. "I'm not saying breast-feeding is not beneficial," Colen says. But if it doesn't improve long-term outcomes, "we really need to focus on other things" that do, like maternity leave policies and subsidized day care. Colen's study doesn't examine, or attempt to contradict, previous work showing short-term immunity boosts against chest and gut infections for infants, the New Scientist explains. One breastfeeding advocate argued that the study is flawed, complaining for instance that babies fed with a mix of breast milk and formula were counted as breastfed.

The Rolling Stones will perform a groundbreaking concert in Havana, Cuba on Friday March 25, 2016. The free concert will take place at the Ciudad Deportiva de la Habana and will be the first open air concert in the country by a British Rock Band. Always exploring new horizons and true pioneers of rock, the Stones, who have toured every corner of the globe, will bring their high octane performance and incredible music catalogue to the Caribbean for the first time ever. This once-in-a-lifetime concert event follows the band’s America Latina Ole tour, which is currently receiving rave reviews, playing to huge audiences in stadiums in Santiago, Buenos Aires, Montevideo, Rio De Janeiro, São Paulo and Porto Alegre with Lima, Bogotá and Mexico City following next week. The band are also leading a musician to musician initiative in which much needed musical instruments and equipment are being donated by major suppliers for the benefit of Cuban musicians of all genres. Donors include The Gibson Foundation, Vic Firth, RS Berkeley, Pearl, Zildjian, Gretsch, Latin Percussion, Roland and BOSS with additional assistance from the Latin GRAMMY Cultural Foundation. The Rolling Stones said: “We have performed in many special places during our long career but this show in Havana is going to be a landmark event for us, and, we hope, for all our friends in Cuba too.” This historical concert will no doubt have Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts and Ronnie Wood mesmerizing a new audience of fans with a set packed full of classic Stones hits as well as special gems from their million selling albums. The Rolling Stones concert, which has been in the planning stages for several months comes only days after President Barack Obama’s recently announced visit to Cuba. This entire event is being made possible by the benefaction of Fundashon Bon Intenshon on behalf of the island of Curaçao. Fundashon Bon Intenshon initiates and supports international charitable projects in the fields of education, athletics, cultural literacy, healthcare and tourism as well as other attempts to mitigate the impact of general poverty. It is being promoted by AEG’s Concerts West and Musica Punto Zero who extend their gratitude for the support provided by the Institute of Cuban Music in bringing this event to the people of Cuba. The Rolling Stones “Concert for Amity” will be filmed and produced by award winning production company JA Digital with Paul Dugdale directing and Simon Fisher and Sam Bridger as producers. Julie Jakobek of JA Digital said: “It’s a great honour to be working with the Rolling Stones again on this hugely exciting and historic event”. ||||| The Rolling Stones Rolling Stones confirm they will play Cuba at Easter ‘Historic’ concert will open door for other bands to perform in the country, according to communist party newspaper Granma The Rolling Stones perform in Sao Paulo, Brazil, in February. Photograph: Paulo Whitaker/Reuters The Rolling Stones are set to play Cuba this Easter, the band have confirmed. The Stones will perform in Havana at Ciudad Deportiva, a sports complex built in 1957. The news was announced in the country’s official newspaper Granma, which said the concert would be “a historic moment that will open the doors for other great bands to arrive in Havana”. It will be the first open air concert in the country by a British rock band. In a statement, the group said: “We have performed in many special places during our long career but this show in Havana is going to be a landmark event for us, and, we hope, for all our friends in Cuba too.” Rumours that the band might play have been growing ever since Mick Jagger visited the city in October 2015. He was believed to be scouting out venues, as well as treating himself to a tour of the local nightclubs. The Stones are currently touring Latin America on their Olé tour, which is currently due to end in Mexico City on 17 March. The Cuba dates will now follow that.

– Cuba could soon become a concert destination. The Rolling Stones will play a free show there on Friday, March 25 (Easter weekend), the band announced. The performance at Havana's Ciudad Deportiva de la Habana sports complex will be the country's first open-air concert by a British rock band—and the Guardian reports that Cuba's official newspaper, Granma, called the show "historic" and said it would "open the doors for other great bands to arrive in Havana." The news comes on the heels of President Obama announcing he'll visit Cuba this month.

Court of Appeal judges in London have stuck two fingers up to Nestle's attempts to trademark the shape of its famous four-fingered KitKat bar. The ruling is the latest twist in a decade-long UK chocolate wars saga between Nestle and Cadbury. The Dairy Milk maker failed in its own attempt to trademark the shade of purple it uses after Nestle complained. But on Wednesday, it was the Cadbury bosses celebrating the latest attempt to foil KitKat's plans. Nestle claimed that the shape of the bar was so unique, it should be protected by law. But time after time, judges have thrown out the attempt. Its case was not helped by the existence of a similar Norwegian bar, called Kvikk Lunsj, which means "quick lunch" and has been around since 1937. Image caption Norway's "Kvikk Lunsj" looks similar to the KitKat and is available in some parts of the UK A spokesperson for Nestle said the company is weighing up its options. "Nestle is disappointed by the Court of Appeal judgment and is considering next steps. "KitKat is much loved around the world and its four-finger shape is well known by consumers. "Nestlé's four-finger shape has been granted trademark registration in many countries of the world, for instance Germany, France, Australia, South Africa and Canada, further protecting it from imitations." Copycat versions Cadbury's owner, Mondelez, which fought the attempt, said: "We are pleased with the Court of Appeal's decision today and welcome their conclusion. "As we have previously stated, we do not believe the shape of the KitKat bar should be protected as a trademark in the UK." The ruling could lead to copycat versions of the bars hitting shelves, a practice some discounter supermarkets have popularised. Aldi and Lidl have both been accused of selling own-brand versions that are remarkably similar to famous brands. KitKats were first snapped up by the public in 1935 by Rowntree, when it was called the Chocolate Crisp. Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Cadbury failed to trademark its famous purple colour In September 2015, Nestle failed to persuade European judges of its arguments. The European Court of Justice said that the company had to demonstrate the public relied on the shape alone to identify the snack. They concluded this was difficult to prove if goods also showed a brand name, such as KitKat. Nestle has experience of trying to register difficult trade marks. It took more than 40 years for it to register the slogan "Have a Break" as a trade mark, finally succeeding in 2006. Chocolate wars Nestle first tried to trademark the shape of the four-fingered chocolate bar in 2010, but its attempts were opposed by Cadbury. The two have also battled over other trademarks. In 2013, Nestle blocked Cadbury's attempts to register the shade of purple used in the packaging of Dairy Milk. Nestle has not sought to trademark the two-fingered bar. Shapes can be trademarked for certain distinctive products - such as the familiar Coca-Cola bottle - but others can struggle. Get news from the BBC in your inbox, each weekday morning ||||| Court of appeal rules against Nestlé in its protracted battle with Cadbury over whether format should be protected by law It’s enough to make anyone need a sit-down with a cup of tea and a four-fingered chocolate wafer biscuit. The confectionery multinational Nestlé has lost the latest round of its long-running battle with rivals Cadbury to trademark the shape of the KitKat bar in the UK. The court of appeal ruled that the four-finger design had “no inherent distinctiveness”. After deliberating for months, the three appeals judges delivered their judgment on Wednesday in a 16,000-word ruling that found the KitKat shape was not a “badge of origin”. “We are concerned here with ... the three-dimensional shape of a chocolate product, that has no inherent distinctiveness,” said Lord Justice Kitchin. The ruling marks the latest stage in a bitter-tasting battle between Nestlé and Mondelēz, the US owner of Cadbury, that have been battling over the KitKat trademark for seven years. Nestle’s appeal followed a UK high court ruling in January last year that blocked the trademark attempt. The European court of justice had previously found that the four-fingered shape, breaking apart with a snap, was not distinctive enough to merit a trademark and that such a designation would not comply with European law. The ruling clears the way for competitors, including the major supermarkets as well as other confectioners, to produce their own copycat KitKats without fear of legal consequences. But a Nestlé spokesperson indicated the Swiss firm was not necessarily prepared to give up, saying it was considering its next move. The company could potentially try to take the case to the UK supreme court. “Nestlé is disappointed by the court of appeal judgment and is considering its next steps,” said the spokesperson. “KitKat is much loved around the world and its four-finger shape is well known by consumers. Nestlé’s four-finger shape has been granted trademark registration in many countries of the world, for instance Germany, France, Australia, South Africa and Canada, further protecting it from imitations.” Following the appeal ruling, a Mondelēz spokesperson said: “As we have previously stated, we do not believe the shape of the KitKat bar should be protected as a trademark in the UK.” The case turned on whether a the product’s shapewas sufficiently distinctive to the brand to prevent any other manufacturer using a similar format. Protected “shape marks” are not without precedent — Toblerone, which is owned by Mondelēz, has successfully trademarked its “zigzag prism” shape. But the appeal judges found that while the four-finger shape might be “very well known” in association with KitKat, “that does not necessarily mean that the public have come to perceive the shape as a badge of origin such that they would rely upon it alone to identify the product as coming from a particular source. “They might simply regard the shape as a characteristic of products of that kind or they might find it brings to mind the product and brand name with which they have become familiar. “These kinds of recognition and association do not amount to distinctiveness for trademark purposes.” The judges also noted that the chocolate bar’s shape had not been central to its marketing in recent years: “It has nothing, therefore, to do with the informed choices that consumers make between similar products.” The judges heard that Nestlé had spent between £3m and £11m a year advertising and promoting KitKats between 1996 and 2007. More than 40m were sold in Britain in 2010. “The appeal court’s ruling indicates that shape marks are going to be increasingly difficult to obtain,” said Guy Wilmot, partner who specialises in intellectual property law at Russell-Cooke. “The court were ... concerned that if they granted the trade mark, Nestlé would have a potentially permanent monopoly on the four-finger shape, which they felt would be unfair given that KitKat had never used the shape alone to promote KitKats.” Clare Jackman, an intellectual property lawyer at Norton Rose Fulbright, said the fact the two multinationals were prepared to battle through the courts for so long showed the value of what was at stake. “Trademarks are very important and valuable business assets. They confer monopoly rights, so I can see entirely why Nestlé thought, ‘our four-finger bar KitKat has been around for ages, let’s register it, because we can stop anyone from producing a bar in four fingers’”, she said. “It is typically brand owners in this space that will spend the money and push the boundaries, in trying to get as much protection as possible, because at the end of the day trademarks can potentially last forever, so it really is a signficant monopoly right.” Asked if she could foresee a challenge in supreme court, Jackman said: “I’m not going to rule it out, because I think these are two brand owners who are prepared to push this as far as it can go.” The four-fingered battle is not the only protracted legal disputes between the two confectioners. In 2004, Cadbury attempted to trademark the shade of purple it uses for its Dairy Milk bars, registering Pantone 2685C in a move that was initially successful before the court of appeal backed Nestlé challenge in 2013. An attempt last year by Cadbury to resurrect an earlier trademark on the colour was rejected by the high court. The first KitKat-type bar was sold in Britain by Rowntree in 1935, when it was called Chocolate Crisp, and the shape has changed little since then. Nestlé acquired Rowntree in 1998. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Freia’s rival Kvikk Lunsj bar is available in the UK as well as its native Norway. Photograph: Freia A lookalike called Kvikk Lunsj, translated as “quick lunch”, launched in Norway in 1937 and is available in some UK shops. • This article was amended on 18 May 2017. The judge’s ruling was not a “badge of origin”, a previous version said the judge’s ruling was not a “badge or origin”.

– Nestle may find itself muttering "give me a break," but perhaps with an expletive tossed in at the end. The company on Wednesday lost its latest attempt to trademark its four-finger chocolate bar shape in the UK, in what has been a 7-year battle. The Guardian reports that after months of deliberation, a three-judge appeals panel explained in 16,000 words that the KitKat shape is not a "badge of origin" and has "no inherent distinctiveness." Ouch. The global confectionery has been fighting its rival Mondelez, the US owner of Cadbury, on the issue since 2010. The BBC reports that the two have gone at it over other would-be trademarks, calling out Cadbury's failed attempt in 2013 to register the shade of purple used in its Dairy Milk packaging (Pantone 2685C, for the curious). Shapes can in fact be trademarked if proven distinctive enough (think Coca-Cola's bottle, or, on the candy front, Toblerone's "zigzag prism" bar), but it's often a slog, and a long one at that. An intellectual property lawyer explains what's at stake in cases like these: Trademarks "confer monopoly rights, so I can see entirely why Nestle thought ... let’s register it, because we can stop anyone from producing a bar in four fingers." And they aren't the only ones to produce such a bar; the similarly-shaped Norwegian bar Kvikk Lunsj, which means "quick lunch," has been around since 1937—nearly as long as KitKat. Nestle could try to get its case in front of the UK supreme court. (In other food news, a new Pepsi flavor isn't wowing soda fans.)

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she takes responsibility for security at the American diplomatic outpost in Benghazi, Libya, where Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans died in an attack last month. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she takes responsibility for security at the American diplomatic outpost in Benghazi, Libya, where Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans died in an attack last month. Monica Langley has details on The News Hub. Photo: Reuters. "I take responsibility," Mrs. Clinton said in a recent interview in her office. "I'm the Secretary of State with 60,000-plus employees around the world. This is like a big family…It's painful, absolutely painful." Enlarge Image Close AP Secretary of State Clinton said she took responsibility for security in Benghazi. Above, in Lima, Peru, on Monday. On Monday, in Lima, Peru, she also told television interviewers that she accepts the blame, adding that security at America's diplomatic missions overseas is her job, not that of the White House. Her comments come as Republicans, including presidential candidate Mitt Romney, criticize the Obama administration for its handling of the security before the attack by extremists and its explanations afterward. She also spoke in advance of the second presidential debate, which will occur Tuesday night. Both security arrangements in Benghazi and the administration's differing explanations of whether the attack was the result of mob violence caused by an anti-Muslim video or a calculated terrorist strike were the subject of disagreement in last week's debate between Vice President Joe Biden and Rep. Paul Ryan, the Republican vice presidential nominee. U.S. Government Reaction to the Benghazi Attack Follow some of the administration statements on the Libya attack. View Interactive More photos and interactive graphics At the debate, Mr. Biden said the White House wasn't aware of requests for additional security at diplomatic installations in Libya, an account that Mrs. Clinton's remarks appear to confirm. In her comments to CNN in Peru, Mrs. Clinton said President Barack Obama and Mr. Biden weren't involved in security decisions at the consulate in Benghazi. "I want to avoid some kind of political gotcha," she said. The State Department scaled back U.S. security staff in Libya in the months before the attack, despite requests for additional personnel, former U.S. security officials told Congress last week. In the interview with The Wall Street Journal, Mrs. Clinton said she is working hard "to run an effective investigation to get to the bottom of what happened" in order to prevent such security lapses in the future. Yet, she added, "We will do our very best to think through the best security possible, but we can't keep people behind 20-foot walls and expect them to do their jobs…Americans need to realize our civilians serving our country are putting their lives on the line…in this inherently risky and dangerous world." After the Sept. 11 attack, Mrs. Clinton grieved with the family members of the four Americans killed in Libya, as well as their colleagues at the State Department. She has also in some instances prodded other countries to step up their defense of other U.S. posts abroad, particularly those subjected to demonstrations around that time. Mrs. Clinton said Ambassador Stevens's death has been especially hard on her because she handpicked him for the job. "I sent Chris Stevens to Benghazi at the height of the Libyan conflict [during the Arab Spring]," she said. "He was eager to go and was very effective. I recommended him as ambassador." Mr. Stevens's father has recently said his son's death shouldn't become part of the political debate during the presidential campaign. The political fallout from the attacks and deaths has extended beyond the presidential campaign to Capitol Hill as well. At a contentious congressional hearing last week, House Republicans skewered the White House and the rest of the administration but went light on Mrs. Clinton and actually praised her for her attempts to clarify what happened in Benghazi. In the days before the hearing, Mrs. Clinton made personal calls to the lawmakers to show that she was taking responsibility, an administration official said, which seems to have deflected criticism from her. Despite the tragedy, Mrs. Clinton insisted that the Obama administration's support of the Arab Spring had been appropriate as countries experienced a "burst of revolutionary energy" recently. "It would be a contortion of who we are not to support freedom," she said. "Democracy is hard. It's a never-completed journey." At the same time, Mrs. Clinton said she was encouraged when Libyans a few days after the attack in Benghazi protested in support of "our four colleagues" and against the violence directed at the U.S. consulate. If there is going to be political damage for the Libyan tragedy, Mrs. Clinton may well be the most capable within the administration to withstand it. With an approval rating at about 70%, she has already said she will leave as secretary of state at the end of the president's first term. Write to Monica Langley at monica.langley@wsj.com A version of this article appeared October 16, 2012, on page A1 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Clinton Accepts Blame for Benghazi. ||||| Story highlights "What I want to avoid is some kind of political gotcha or blame game," Clinton says "I take this very personally," she says Diplomats need security but "can't hang out behind walls," she adds Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Monday tried to douse a political firestorm over the deadly assault on a U.S. diplomatic mission in Libya, saying she's responsible for the security of American diplomatic outposts. "I take responsibility," Clinton told CNN in an interview while on a visit to Peru. "I'm in charge of the State Department's 60,000-plus people all over the world, 275 posts. The president and the vice president wouldn't be knowledgeable about specific decisions that are made by security professionals. They're the ones who weigh all of the threats and the risks and the needs and make a considered decision." But she said an investigation now under way will ultimately determine what happened at the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, where Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans were killed on September 11. "I take this very personally," Clinton said. "So we're going to get to the bottom of it, and then we're going to do everything we can to work to prevent it from happening again, and then we're going to work to bring whoever did this to us to justice." The attack took place in the eastern Libyan city that was the cradle of that country's 2011 revolution. Obama administration officials initially blamed a mob inflamed by a U.S.-produced movie that mocked Islam and its Prophet Mohammed, but later said the storming of the consulate appears to have been a terrorist attack. Photos: Photos: Attack on U.S. mission in Benghazi Photos: Photos: Attack on U.S. mission in Benghazi Attack on U.S. mission in Benghazi – Attackers set the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya, on fire on September 11, 2012. The U.S. ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens, and three other U.S. nationals were killed during the attack. The Obama administration initially thought the attack was carried out by an angry mob responding to a video, made in the United States, that mocked Islam and the Prophet Mohammed. But the storming of the mission was later determined to have been a terrorist attack. Hide Caption 1 of 22 Photos: Photos: Attack on U.S. mission in Benghazi Attack on U.S. mission in Benghazi – Obama and Clinton stand at Andrews Air Force Base as the bodies of the four Americans killed are returned on September 14. Hide Caption 2 of 22 Photos: Photos: Attack on U.S. mission in Benghazi Attack on U.S. mission in Benghazi – A desk sits inside the burnt U.S. mission on September 13, two days after the attack. Hide Caption 3 of 22 Photos: Photos: Attack on U.S. mission in Benghazi Attack on U.S. mission in Benghazi – Damage is seen inside the U.S. mission on September 13. Hide Caption 4 of 22 Photos: Photos: Attack on U.S. mission in Benghazi Attack on U.S. mission in Benghazi – A lounge chair and umbrella float in the swimming pool of the U.S. mission on September 13. Hide Caption 5 of 22 Photos: Photos: Attack on U.S. mission in Benghazi Attack on U.S. mission in Benghazi – Demonstrators gather in Libya on September 12 to condemn the killers and voice support for the victims. Hide Caption 6 of 22 Photos: Photos: Attack on U.S. mission in Benghazi Attack on U.S. mission in Benghazi – U.S. President Barack Obama, with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on September 12, makes a statement at the White House about Stevens' death. Hide Caption 7 of 22 Photos: Photos: Attack on U.S. mission in Benghazi Attack on U.S. mission in Benghazi – A burnt vehicle is seen at the U.S. mission in Benghazi on September 12. Hide Caption 8 of 22 Photos: Photos: Attack on U.S. mission in Benghazi Attack on U.S. mission in Benghazi – People inspect the damage on September 12. Hide Caption 9 of 22 Photos: Photos: Attack on U.S. mission in Benghazi Attack on U.S. mission in Benghazi – A small American flag is seen in the rubble on September 12. Hide Caption 10 of 22 Photos: Photos: Attack on U.S. mission in Benghazi Attack on U.S. mission in Benghazi – A man stands in part of a burned-out building of the U.S. mission on September 12. Hide Caption 11 of 22 Photos: Photos: Attack on U.S. mission in Benghazi Attack on U.S. mission in Benghazi – Smoke and fire damage is evident inside a building on September 12. Hide Caption 12 of 22 Photos: Photos: Attack on U.S. mission in Benghazi Attack on U.S. mission in Benghazi – Half-burnt debris and ash cover the floor of one of the U.S. mission buildings on September 12. Hide Caption 13 of 22 Photos: Photos: Attack on U.S. mission in Benghazi Attack on U.S. mission in Benghazi – The U.S. mission is seen in flames on September 11, the day of the attack. Hide Caption 14 of 22 Photos: Photos: Attack on U.S. mission in Benghazi Attack on U.S. mission in Benghazi – A protester reacts as the U.S. mission burns on September 11. Hide Caption 15 of 22 Photos: Photos: Attack on U.S. mission in Benghazi Attack on U.S. mission in Benghazi – A vehicle and the surrounding area are engulfed in flames on September 11. Hide Caption 16 of 22 Photos: Photos: Attack on U.S. mission in Benghazi Attack on U.S. mission in Benghazi – Flames erupt outside of a building on September 11. Hide Caption 17 of 22 Photos: Photos: Attack on U.S. mission in Benghazi Attack on U.S. mission in Benghazi – A vehicle burns during the attack on the U.S. mission on September 11. Hide Caption 18 of 22 Photos: Photos: Attack on U.S. mission in Benghazi Attack on U.S. mission in Benghazi – Onlookers record the damage from the attack on September 11. Hide Caption 19 of 22 Photos: Photos: Attack on U.S. mission in Benghazi Attack on U.S. mission in Benghazi – Onlookers walk past a burning truck and building on September 11. Hide Caption 20 of 22 Photos: Photos: Attack on U.S. mission in Benghazi Attack on U.S. mission in Benghazi – A vehicle sits smoldering in flames on September 11. Hide Caption 21 of 22 Photos: Photos: Attack on U.S. mission in Benghazi Attack on U.S. mission in Benghazi – People duck flames outside a building on September 11. Hide Caption 22 of 22 JUST WATCHED Biden, Ryan debate Benghazi attack Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Biden, Ryan debate Benghazi attack 04:57 JUST WATCHED Romney: Benghazi was a terrorist attack Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Romney: Benghazi was a terrorist attack 01:55 With criticism growing, Vice President Joe Biden said during last week's vice presidential debate that the White House did not know of requests to enhance security at Benghazi, contradicting testimony by State Department employees that requests had been made and rejected. After the debate, the White House said the vice president did not know of the requests because they were handled, as is the practice, by the State Department. "In the wake of an attack like this, in the fog of war, there's always going to be confusion," Clinton said. "And I think it is absolutely fair to say that everyone had the same intelligence. Everyone who spoke tried to give the information that they had. As time has gone on, that information has changed. We've gotten more detail, but that's not surprising. That always happens." She added, "What I want to avoid is some kind of political gotcha or blame game." "I know that we're very close to an election," Clinton said. "I want to just take a step back here and say from my own experience, we are at our best as Americans when we pull together. I've done that with Democratic presidents and Republican presidents." Her remarks drew a quick response from three Republicans on the Senate Armed Services Committee, including ranking member John McCain. Clinton's statement of responsibility was "a laudable gesture, especially when the White House is trying to avoid any responsibility whatsoever," the Arizona senator said in a joint broadside with Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire. However, they added, "The security of Americans serving our nation everywhere in the world is ultimately the job of the commander-in-chief. The buck stops there." Stevens, State Department computer expert Sean Smith and security contractors Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods died in the Benghazi assault, which State Department officials now say was the work of dozens of armed men. Clinton also described a desperate scene in the State Department during the hours of the attack, as staff tried to find out what had happened. "This was a many-hour ordeal that we were all involved in, and I was deeply concerned as you would obviously assume, to hear about an attack," she said. Not only was the picture coming out of Libya murky, but also, "Then we couldn't find Ambassador Stevens, and we were trying desperately to figure out what happened to him and to Sean Smith and to the others who were there." Clinton said her mission now is to make sure such an attack will never happen again, and also to ensure the work of American diplomats won't be stopped even in dangerous areas like Benghazi. "We can't retreat. We have to continue to lead. We have to be engaged," she said. "We can't hang out behind walls." She said Stevens, who came to Benghazi on a cargo ship to start building ties with rebel leaders during last year's revolt, "knew that more than anybody." ||||| NEW YORK -– Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made big news Monday night by telling CNN that she accepts responsibility for security at the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, at the time of the deadly Sept. 11 attack. For weeks, the Obama administration has been dogged by questions over its initial explanation for the attack -- that it was prompted by anger over an anti-Islam video on YouTube -- and over security at the compound prior to the assault which killed U.S. Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens and three other Americans. "I take responsibility," Clinton said Monday during a trip in Peru. "I'm in charge of the State Department's 60,000-plus people all over the world, 275 posts. The president and the vice president wouldn't be knowledgeable about specific decisions that are made by security professionals. They're the ones who weigh all of the threats and the risks and the needs and make a considered decision." While Clinton's statement was news to most of the world, it apparently wasn't to the Wall Street Journal. On Monday night, the Journal's Monica Langley reported that Clinton made a similar comment to her in a recent interview. That comment had not previously been published. "I take responsibility," Clinton told the Journal. "I'm the Secretary of State with 60,000-plus employees around the world. This is like a big family … It's painful, absolutely painful." Clinton sat for an interview with the Journal last Wednesday and there was no embargo preventing the paper from publishing any part of it, a State Department spokesman told The Huffington Post While the interview may have been conducted as part of an upcoming profile of Clinton, it's common for news organizations to extract timely material for a news story. Given that Clinton gave this interview on the same day as a congressional hearing on security at the consulate -- and as criticism over the administration's response gets amplified on the campaign trail -- it clearly had news value. Indeed, the Journal led Tuesday's print edition with the comment. A Wall Street Journal spokeswoman declined to comment on the paper's newsgathering. Coincidentally, the Journal decided to publish a portion of last week's Clinton interview Monday, the same evening the Journal's editorial board decided to criticize the secretary of state in an editorial in Tuesday's print edition for ducking questions on Benghazi. Traditionally, the editorial board does not collaborate with news reporting, but the timing is ironic nonetheless. The Washington Post's Erik Wemple caught the Journal editorial shortly after it was posted and noted that it was tweaked after the CNN interview was published. ||||| Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Monday embarked on her first overseas trip since last month's deadly attack on the U.S. Consulate in Libya, traveling to Peru for a conference on women's empowerment amid the lingering political drama in Washington over the Obama administration's handling of the incident. FILE - In this Oct. 2, 2012 file photo, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton speaks at the State Department in Washington. Clinton headed to Peru Monday, where she will talk about women's empowerment.... (Associated Press) Clinton arrived for the long-planned women's event in Lima after another weekend of criticism from Republicans over the Obama administration's initial explanation of the Sept. 11 attack and security at the consulate in Benghazi, where the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans died. Her arrival coincided with a call from the chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., for Clinton to answer more questions about what was known about the security situation in Libya in the period leading up to the attack as well as the State Department's priorities on paying for and protecting diplomatic missions abroad. Ros-Lehtinen took issue with State Department officials who called the assault on the Benghazi consulate by many dozens of heavily armed militants "unprecedented." She argued that the threat of such an attack, particularly on the anniversary of Sept. 11, 2001, "cannot be news to anyone" after strikes on other U.S. diplomatic missions over the past two decades. "How can anyone consider such an attack to be unprecedented?" Ros-Lehtinen asked Clinton in a letter released by the congresswoman's office in Washington. Her questions came after numerous Republicans took to the Sunday talk shows to criticize the administration for its changing explanations of the attack and response to it. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a long-time point man for the GOP on national security issues, accused President Barack Obama's aides of deliberately covering up the details of the attack so that voters couldn't question Obama's handling of the war on terror. Graham said he believes the administration knew within 24 hours of the assault that it was a coordinated militia attack and was not tied to other anti-U.S. protests across the Middle East. According to Graham, the administration suggested otherwise so voters wouldn't think al-Qaida remained a threat. "They're trying to sell a narrative, quite frankly, that (the) wars are receding and that al-Qaida has been dismantled," said Graham, a member of the Senate Armed Services emerging threats and capabilities subcommittee, in an interview on CBS "Face the Nation." "And to admit that our embassy was attacked by al-Qaida operatives ... I think undercuts that narrative," he added. Clinton has vowed a full and open investigation on the incident. The administration initially described the attack as a more violent version of the protests that broke out across North Africa and the Middle East over a California-produced film that ridiculed the Prophet Muhammad. Administration officials amended those statements days later to call it a terror attack, likely by al-Qaida-linked militants, because they said intelligence became clearer in the aftermath. In Peru, Clinton is meeting with President Ollanta Humala and attending a conference on "Women as the Drivers of Social Growth and Inclusion." She returns to Washington on Tuesday.

– With the White House facing pressure over security before the 9/11 Benghazi attack, Hillary Clinton has taken the blame. "I take responsibility," she said in a CNN interview last night in addressing the consulate strike that killed US Ambassador Chris Stevens. "I want to avoid some kind of political gotcha," she added. President Obama has been under fire since Joe Biden said in the VP debate that the administration knew nothing of requests to boost security at the Benghazi mission. State Department employees contradicted Biden, and the White House explained that the vice president didn't know about the requests because they were handled by the State Department. Clinton made her remarks yesterday on a diplomatic trip to Peru, her first since the Libya attack, the AP reports. But Clinton had actually taken responsibility for the security problems in an interview with the Wall Street Journal last Wednesday—but the Journal didn't publish her comments until last night, despite the fact that there was no embargo keeping it from doing so, the Huffington Post reports. "I take responsibility," Clinton said in that interview. "I'm the Secretary of State with 60,000-plus employees around the world." It's odd that the Journal held the comments, writes Michael Calderone for HuffPo, especially considering Clinton made them on the day of a congressional hearing on Benghazi security.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Hundreds of New York City bodegas, grocery stores and restaurants owned by Yemeni Americans closed for hours on Thursday in protest against U.S. President Donald Trump’s immigration policies, organizers said. A sign saying "My family is detained at JFK" hangs in the window of a closed bodega during a Yemeni protest against President Donald Trump's travel ban, in the Brooklyn borough of New York City, U.S. February 2, 2017. REUTERS/Stephanie Keith Loyal patrons who rely on the stores for staples of daily life had to look elsewhere for lunch after more than 1,000 locations shut their doors from noon to 8 p.m. in a move coordinated by groups including the Muslim Community Network and the Yemeni American Community. Bodega, a Spanish word meaning wine shop, is New York City slang for small stores selling everything from deli foods to newspapers and cat litter. “We want to send the message that we’re here,” said Sulaiman Alaodyi, a 24-year-old cashier at the Best and Tasty deli in the borough of the Bronx, a bodega that is normally open around the clock. This was the first time it closed its doors since it started business nine months ago. The protests followed the decision by Trump’s administration to put a four-month hold on letting refugees into the United States and to temporarily bar travelers from Yemen, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Sudan and Somalia. The order, which is being challenged in U.S. courts, left some travelers stranded and others held at airports on arrival. It provoked an outpouring of anger and dismay from immigrants, refugees and supporters. Many store owners and workers who shut up shop were going to rally and hold public sundown prayers outside Brooklyn Borough Hall. “We’re going to go out and support all our brothers and sisters who are detained in airports and in other countries that can’t get back,” Alaodyi said. “This is just not fair.” New York City is home to many immigrants from Yemen, a country of about 24 million in the Arabian Peninsula. Many live in Brooklyn, but some are in Manhattan, Queens and the Bronx. Golden Deli, a Yemeni-owned bodega in Manhattan, was swelling with customers who picked up early lunches before it closed. Nermin Radoncic, 22, walked up shortly after workers pulled down the shutters at noon. Radoncic, who lives nearby but is moving to Queens, was disappointed he could not buy a pastrami and Swiss sandwich on his last day in the neighborhood. But he said he supported the protest. “They make the bomb sandwiches,” Radoncic said of Golden Deli. “This is like the best deli out here. Trump is a jerk.” ||||| A sign posted on the closed doors of a deli owned by Haron Zokari, a Yemeni immigrant, alert customers that the store will close because of a protest against President Donald Trump's travel ban, Thursday,... (Associated Press) A sign posted on the closed doors of a deli owned by Haron Zokari, a Yemeni immigrant, alert customers that the store will close because of a protest against President Donald Trump's travel ban, Thursday, Feb. 2, 2017, in New York. Yemeni business owners who operate corner bodegas and neighborhood delis... (Associated Press) NEW YORK (AP) — Hundreds of ethnic Yemeni business owners who operate New York City corner bodegas and neighborhood delis closed shop Thursday in protest of President Donald Trump's travel ban on people from seven Muslim-majority countries. The shops were locked at noon and were to remain shuttered until 8 p.m., according to organizers of a late afternoon rally in downtown Brooklyn. At least 1,000 Yemeni-run small businesses are a part of many New Yorkers' daily lives, said Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, who planned to attend the rally. Haron Zokari closed his Manhattan deli at noon, as well. He said his wife and baby are stuck in Yemen after almost completing a four-year, green-card process. "We are trying to stay strong," he said. "There's people there who are refugees and who are starving and running for their lives, so thank God we don't have it as bad as they do." Trump's executive order barred people from Yemen, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Syria from entering the U.S. for 90 days. Under the order, travelers have been detained, sent back from the United States or stranded in other countries. Zaid Nagi, who owns three delis in the Bronx, said the ban disrupted plans to bring his mother to the United States, where he has lived for more than 20 years. The 36-year-old married father of four said the point of the protest was to say, "We are part of this community. We are not who this order is trying to say we are." He said most of his customers had expressed solidarity with the shutdown. "They know who we are. They know we are human beings just like them," he said. "I believe in the good people of America." As night fell, a raucous but orderly crowd of at least 1,000 people including many of the shopkeepers filled a plaza in Brooklyn to protest the travel ban. Many waved the flag of Yemen. Their cheers echoed between tall buildings to the federal courthouse a few blocks away where lawyers for the government and civil liberties groups appeared earlier before a judge hearing a legal challenge to Trump's travel restrictions. ___ Follow Deepti Hajela at www.twitter.com/dhajela. Her work can be found at http://bigstory.ap.org/content/deepti-hajela. Follow Verena Dobnik at www.twitter.com/verenachirps and read more of her work at http://bigstory.ap.org/content/verena-dobnik.

– Ethnic Yemeni business owners who operate New York City corner bodegas and neighborhood delis closed shop in more than 1,000 locations Thursday in protest of President Donald Trump's travel ban on people from Yemen and six other Muslim-majority countries. The shops were locked at noon and remained shuttered until 8pm, the AP reports. The Yemeni-run small businesses are a part of many New Yorkers' daily lives, said Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams. As night fell, a raucous but orderly crowd of at least 1,000 people, including many of the shopkeepers, filled a plaza in Brooklyn to protest the travel ban that has caused travelers to be detained, sent back from the US, or stranded in other countries. Haron Zokari closed his Manhattan deli at noon. He said his wife and baby are stuck in Yemen after almost completing a four-year green-card process. "We are trying to stay strong," he told the AP. "There's people there who are refugees and who are starving and running for their lives, so thank God we don't have it as bad as they do." At the Golden Deli in Manhattan, a customer told Reuters he was disappointed he couldn't get his usual pastrami and Swiss sandwich, but that he supports the protest. "This is like the best deli out here," he said. "Trump is a jerk." (More than 1,000 State Department officials have signed a memo protesting the travel ban.)

Kelsey Osborne and her kids, Madyson and Ryker (Photo: Kelsey Osborne) GOODING - It's a topic that has sparked debate across the nation over the last few years - legalizing marijuana. In Idaho, recreational and medical marijuana is still illegal. Last month, Kelsey Osborne, a Gooding mother of two, had her children taken from her after she gave her daughter a smoothie with marijuana in it as an attempt to stop her seizures. A month later, the two children - Madyson and Ryker - are still living with their father and Osborne is still trying to get them back. "I didn't ever think it would come down to this, but it did," Osborne told KTVB. "It tore me apart." She says her 3-year-old daughter has a history of seizures, but one morning early October, it was worse than ever before. "They would stop and come back, stop and come back with the hallucinations and everything else," Osborne said. At the time of her seizure, Madyson was withdrawing from a medication called Risperdal, which is used to treat schizophrenia and bi-polar disorder. Osborne says when she couldn't calm her daughter down, she gave Madyson a smoothie with a tablespoon of marijuana-infused butter. "Everything stopped 30 minutes later," said Osborne. A couple of hours later, Osborne took Madyson to the doctor. That's where she tested positive for marijuana and the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare was called. She was charged with misdemeanor injury to a child, and has pleaded not guilty. "To me I felt like it was my last resort," said Osborne, who maintains that she did the right thing. "I've seen it for my own eyes with people out of state who have used it and it's helped them or their children." Tom Shanahan with the Department of Health and Welfare says in any case dealing with marijuana, there is one bottom line. "Marijuana is illegal, period," said Shanahan. States that border Idaho, including Montana, Oregon, and Washington have legalized medical or recreational marijuana, and in some cases both. But Idaho isn't one of them and Shanahan says the two drugs aren't interchangeable. "Even in states that have legalized it it's not legal to give to children," said Shanahan. "The cannabis that is used for children with epilepsy is called cannabidiol oil and it has had THC removed from it." Without THC, there aren't any psychoactive properties found in the drug. "It can cause brain development issues with a child, so we view that as unsafe or illegal," said Shanahan. "We want children to be in a safe place." Meanwhile Osborne says she will continue trying to get her children back, who are currently with staying with their father. "I'm not going to stop," she said. While cannabidiol oil (CBD) is still illegal in Idaho, Shanahan says there is a program in Boise through the FDA that uses CBD as an experimental treatment for 34 children with severe epilepsy. According to Shanahan, there are strict guidelines for those who qualify, one being that the child has to have tried several other treatments that have failed to work. "It's a totally different substance and I think people confuse that," he said. Copyright 2016 KTVB ||||| A mother from Gooding is fighting to regain custody of her children and facing criminal charges after giving her 3-year-old daughter marijuana. Kelsey Osborne and the Idaho Mom’s for Marijuana group rallied outside of the department of Health and Welfare in Boise Thursday afternoon, calling for medical marijuana reform. (KBOI photo) Kelsey Osborne and the Idaho Mom’s for Marijuana group rallied outside of the Department of Health and Welfare in Boise Thursday afternoon, calling for medical marijuana reform. "Hopefully it'll open everybody's eyes on cannabis,” Osborne said. The Department of Health and Welfare placed Osborne’s two children – Madyson, 3, and Ryker, 2, with her ex-husband in Jerome, leaving her with only supervised visitation rights. "It tore me apart,” Osborne said, choking back tears. “I didn't ever think that it would come down to this but it did." It all started in early October when her daughter, Madyson, was suffering from seizures and hallucinations after coming off a prescription anti-psychotic medication. Osborne said she did what she thought was right as a mother; she made Madyson a smoothie with marijuana butter. She has since been charged with a misdemeanor count of injury to a child. But says she will continue to protest Child Protection Services until she regains custody. "It's something that I'm going to fight for and I'm not going to give up until I have them back home where they have been begging me to be," Osborne said. "I'm not going to stop. I won't stop. If it takes me two years, then it's going to take me two years." Tom Shanahan, spokesman for the Department of Health and Welfare, responded to the protesters, saying CPS simply follows the laws currently in place. At the end of the day, the department’s main concern is the safety of the children involved. “Marijuana is illegal. Even in states that have legalized it, it is not legal to use on children," Shanahan said. In Idaho, medicinal marijuana is only legal for a small group of children with epilepsy. The 34 children enrolled have to go through a series of tests before getting approved, and even then it is a different form of cannabis than that of recreational marijuana, according to Shanahan. “There’s two different kinds of substances. The one they use for epilepsy doesn’t have THC, it doesn’t appear to have any kind of brain development issues. Recreational marijuana does cause that so it’s not safe for these children.”

– A 3-year-old Gooding, Idaho, girl tested positive for pot at her pediatrician's office on Oct. 5, and mom Kelsey Osborne was the reason why. The 23-year-old lost custody of her two kids because of it. Now, she's fighting back. Osborne describes the smoothie she made for daughter Madyson—a drink that contained a tablespoon of marijuana-infused butter—as a "last resort," reports KTVB. She says Madyson suffers from seizures, and that the October ones were particularly bad: "They would stop and come back, stop and come back," with hallucinations and vomiting. The girl was also in the midst of withdrawing from Risperdal, which is used to treat schizophrenia and bi-polar disorder (it's unclear why Madyson was prescribed the medication), and Osborne says the pot stopped it all within 30 minutes. Problem is, "marijuana is illegal, period," says a rep with the state's Department of Health and Welfare. Indeed, Osborne was charged with misdemeanor injury to a child; she has pleaded not guilty. Medical marijuana isn't legal in the state, and in those places where children with epilepsy are permitted to partake in pot, they use cannabidiol oil, which is free of THC. The Twin Falls Times-News says Osborne couldn't get the oil, and so resorted to using butter that she prepared herself. KBOI reports Madyson and brother Ryker, 2, are currently with Osborne's ex-husband; she is allowed supervised visitation. On Thursday, she teamed up with Idaho Moms for Marijuana outside the Department of Health and Welfare in protest. "I won't stop [fighting to get them back]," she says. "If it takes me two years, then it's going to take me two years." (This mom's pot tea was problematic.)

EPA Oscar Pistorius attends a court hearing at the Pretoria magistrates court, South Africa, Feb. 15, 2013. Updated: Feb. 15, 2013 at 8:00 a.m. EST South African prosecutors on Friday formally charged “Blade Runner” Oscar Pistorius with shooting and killing his model girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, in the early hours of Valentine’s Day. At Pretoria Magistrates Court, prosecutors told chief magistrate Desmond Nair they would argue that Pistorius committed “premeditated murder” on Feb. 14 at his home in the South African capital. In the dock, Pistorius, dressed in a dark gray suit and blue shirt, cried silently, bent over and buried his head in his hands when he was formally charged with one count of murder. From behind, his father Henke, brother Carl and sister Aimee leaned forward to try to comfort him. Pistorius was, in the words of his defense lawyer, in an “extremely traumatized state of mind.” Nair postponed the defense’s application for bail until Tuesday. Pistorius will be held in police custody until then. (PHOTOS: Oscar Pistorius On and Off the Track) Police have said that Steenkamp was shot in the head and the hand. Local media reports suggested Friday that the police had been called to Pistorius’ home at the Silver Woods secure housing estate in Pretoria just past midnight after neighbors reported hearing a loud argument. They were then called back a second time two hours later, around 3:00 a.m., after the shooting. The Afrikaans newspaper Die Beeld reported Steenkamp had been shot four times through a bathroom door and had been hit in the hand, the pelvis, the chest and the head. On Thursday a police spokeswoman discounted initial media reports that Pistorius shot Steenkamp accidentally, thinking she was an intruder, and added that officers were investigating “previous allegations of a domestic nature” at Pistorius’ home. (MORE: What to Know About Oscar Pistorius’ Girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp) Pistorius’ family and his management released a statement Friday calling into question the charge that he murdered Steenkamp. Issued from London, the statement read, “The alleged murder is disputed in the strongest terms,” and noted that Pistorius “would like to send his deepest sympathies to the family of Reeva.” The case has stunned South Africa and the wider world. Steenkamp, 29, was a rising star in South Africa as a strikingly beautiful magazine cover girl and reality-TV star. But it is the sudden and tragic turn in Pistorius’ story that has drawn bewilderment and disbelief. Pistorius, 26, was born with no fibula in either of his legs, and both were amputated below the knee before he was 1. Encouraged by a mother who refused to treat him as anything but equal, he used prosthetic limbs to excel at able-bodied sports during high school. Then, as he ran to recover from a rugby injury using carbon-fiber “blades” that mimicked the action of a cheetah, his father realized he was posting world-record Paralympian times. Pistorius quickly established himself as a world-class Paralympian sprinter but, accustomed to competing in able-bodied sports, fought a long battle against those who claimed his prosthetics gave him an unfair advantage to also take part in the Olympics. Last year, at the Games in London, he emerged as one of the stars, collecting two Paralympic gold medals and two silvers, breaking two world records and one Paralympic record. He also competed in an Olympic final and semi-final. (MORE: Athletes Who Have Competed in Both the Olympics and Paralympics) At the time, his sour and ungracious outburst after losing the T44 200m final to Brazilian Alan Fonteles Cardoso Oliveira, complaining that Oliveira’s blades gave him an unfair advantage because they were too long, raised some eyebrows in the athletics world. But it was not enough to dent the almost universal adulation Pistorius drew for his remarkable story of triumph over adversity and the manner in which he was single-handedly overturning the global image of disability. His picture graced billboards and magazine covers across the world. In South Africa, a country that was still living with the white-supremacist apartheid regime where futures were determined by the accident of birth, the story of a boy born disadvantaged who overcame all obstacles to conquer the very world from which his disadvantage should have barred him, made the impossible seem possible. Like few other figures since Nelson Mandela, Pistorius’ inspirational example was able to unite his divided country. Today, as a sobbing Pistorius began to face up to his stunning fall, South Africa — and much of the wider world — finds itself in need of a new hero. PHOTOS: Oscar Pistorius’s Historic Race ||||| Prosecutors say they will pursue a premeditated murder charge against Oscar Pistorius as the Paralympic superstar openly wept in court Friday after being charged with shooting his girlfriend to death. In this photo taken Thursday Feb. 14, 2013 a police officer holds a gun that was allegedly used in the shooting of Reeva Steenkamp, the girlfriend of Olympian athlete Oscar Pistorius, at the Boschkop... (Associated Press) Oscar Pistorius, centre, is led from the Boschkop police station east of Pretoria, en route to court, Friday Feb. 15, 2012. Oscar Pistorius arrived at a courthouse Friday, for his bail hearing in the... (Associated Press) Pistorius was formally charged at Pretoria Magistrate's Court with one count of murder. Reeva Steenkamp, a model and budding reality TV show participant, was shot and killed at Pistorius' upmarket home in an eastern suburb of the South African capital in the predawn hours of Thursday, sending the country reeling. Pistorius stood with his face in his hands as he broke down in tears on his first court appearance. The magistrate delayed Pistorius' bail hearing until next Tuesday and Wednesday and ruled that the 26-year-old Pistorius would be held at a Pretoria police station until then.

– Covering his face, South African runner Oscar Pistorius arrived at a Pretoria court today via police car, the BBC reports. After being charged with one count of murder, he was in tears; prosecutors are making a case that the crime was premeditated, the AP notes. The court pushed Pistorius' bail hearing to next week in the case that found his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, dead in his home. In the meantime, Pistorius will stay in the police station. Pistorius is doing "very well, obviously emotional, but fine," his lawyer says. Meanwhile, a forensic team is set to continue an investigation of his house as more details emerge in the case. After reports yesterday suggested Pistorious mistook Steenkamp for an intruder, local media is now suggesting he shot her four times through the bathroom door, Sky News reports. Time cites local reports suggesting that police were first called to the Pistorius home shortly after midnight by neighbors who heard a loud argument. Then they were called back after the shooting, just two hours later.

Academy Award®-winning filmmaker Robert Zemeckis and two-time Oscar winner Tom Hanks reunite to explore the blessings and heartache of fate and the survival of the human spirit. Tom Hanks gives one of the towering screen performances of all time as Chuck Noland, a FedEx systems engineer whose ruled-by-the-clock existence abruptly ends when a harrowing plane crash leaves him isolated on a remote island. As Chuck struggles to survive, he finds that his own personal journey has only just begun... Actors: Tom Hanks, Helen Hunt Director: Robert Zemeckis ||||| I was at a rodeo last weekend, and when one of the bulls got stubborn and refused to head back through the gate, the rodeo announcer joked over the microphone, "He's just like Justin Bieber, folks -- don't wanna go to the pen." He then announced that the gate was Canada and we weren't going to let Bieber back in, no sir. I'm thinking that when a crowd of rodeo fans is laughing at you (even the older people who were like, Oh, that Justin Beaver, he's no good), you've got a pretty major public opinion problem -- but Bieber just may have redeemed himself ever so slightly on Monday. He didn't cure a fatal disease or even offer a heartfelt apology for being such a waste of food in recent years, but Bieber did post a delightful video of Tom Hanks wearing a yarmulke and dancing to "This Is How We Do It." It's so strangely cheering, I can almost forgive Justin Bieber for being ... well, you know: Justin Bieber. If you're wondering how this magical moment came to be, apparently Scott Samuel "Scooter" Braun -- Justin's manager -- got hitched to the startlingly lovely (and awesome) Yael Cohen in Whistler this past weekend. It was a star-studded affair with attendees like Tom Hanks and his wife Rita Wilson, Ed Sheeran, Carly Rae Jepsen, and Sophia Bush, and Bieber serenaded the just-married couple with a rendition of "All You Need Is Love." TMZ reports that during the reception, Carly Rae and Justin both sang "Call Me Maybe," which sounds extremely bleeeaaaaaaaarrrgh, but here's the important thing: at some point Tom Hanks donned a yarmulke and tallit and got down to the '90s Montell Jordan hit. Check it out: Now, here's the funny thing about perceptions -- if it was Justin Bieber wearing the traditional garb and dancing around, I bet we'd find it obnoxious as hell. (Frankly, even Bieber's description of the religious clothing as being "dressed like a rabbi" like it was a Halloween costume sounds ignorant.) But since it's Tom Hanks, it's impossible to believe he meant any offense. Instead, it's just a few seconds of pure awesome. That smile! Those raised arms! T.Hanks for this moment, Tom Hanks. Do you find it hopeful that even a squeaky wet fart like Justin Bieber knows when he's in the presence of greatness? Image via Tom Hanks/Twitter

– The gossip media is abuzz with a nice story for once, thanks to Humans of New York. The website offered a story yesterday from a New York taxi driver, who recalled a time he initially declined to take a passenger because he needed to go too far and the driver's shift had just ended. But he changed his mind and called the guy back; when he got in, he was "all animated, and he's talking about all these things. But he's got his cap pulled down way over his eyes, so I can't see who it is. But pretty soon I start to recognize his voice." It was Tom Hanks, and at a red light, the driver turned to him and yelled, "WILSON!" Cast Away-style. Hanks liked that, the driver says, and started calling the cabbie "Mr. Ferrari" because he was wearing a Ferrari hat and shirt. They took a photo together, and over the next few weeks, the driver happened to pick up other passengers who knew Hanks. He told each of them, "Tell Mr. Hanks that Mr. Ferrari says 'hello,'" the cabbie says. One of the passengers eventually texted the driver to let him know Hanks had invited him to see him in Lucky Guy on Broadway. The driver and his date even got to go backstage, and when Hanks walked into his dressing room to see them there, he screamed, "Mr. Ferrari!" (For more fun, click to watch Tom Hanks dancing to "This Is How We Do It.")

"We share the challenge though our timetables are not the same," the defense minister says at a pre-Rosh Hashana political even. Ehud Barak with US Adm. James A. Winnefeld Photo: Alon Bason/Defense Ministry Defense Minister Ehud Barak appeared to hint on Thursday night that he believed the United States would join Israel in a strike on Iran to prevent the Islamic Republic from obtaining nuclear weapons. Speaking at a pre-Rosh Hashana toast for activists of his Independence Party at the Tel Aviv Fairgrounds, Barak noted the meeting that he had earlier in the day with Adm. James Winnefeld, vice chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, and said they dealt with all the developments in the region, but especially Iran. “The State of Israel will make its decision about its future and its security alone, but the United States is our most important partner,” Barak said at the toast. “[America’s] cooperation, intelligence-sharing and military support for Israel is extraordinary in its depth and its comprehensiveness, and I’m convinced that it will continue to be that way in every future test,” he said. Barak, who received an update from Winnefeld on America’s preparedness for dealing with the issues in the region, praised the steps that America had taken to deal with a possible confrontation with Iran. “We share the challenge, though our timetables are not the same and we have our differences,” the defense minister said. “Israel maintains for itself the right to make decisions about its sovereignty and the United States respects that, but we cannot mistake the impressive depth of American preparedness to handle the threat [of Iran] from every standpoint,” he said. Barak said that thanks to American generosity, Israel had been able to improve its situation defensively, noting advances in the Iron Dome, Magic Wand and Arrow antimissile systems. He said the systems increased Israel’s flexibility and freedom to act. Winnefeld smiled broadly, exchanging pleasantries with Barak in his office at the Kirya military headquarters in Tel Aviv in a brief video released by the Defense Ministry. The visit comes after Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, dismayed Israeli officials by saying that Washington did not want to be “complicit” in an Israeli strike on Iran. Dempsey’s comments were seen as a rebuke to Israel’s stepping up threats of carrying out a unilateral strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities before the US presidential election on November 6. Washington has urged Israel to hold off in order to give economic sanctions and diplomacy more time to curb Iran’s uranium enrichment. US Ambassador Shapiro said that the visit "was part of the regular coordination between the US and Israeli militaries on the common challenges we face in the region," in a post on his Facebook page Thursday. He added that the visit aimed at strengthening defense cooperation. Army Radio reported that the visit began several days ago and included an inspection of Israel’s Iron Dome rocket-defense system, which is jointly funded with the United States. In its press release, the Defense Ministry also included photographs of Winnefeld and Barak appearing to measure, with their thumbs and index fingers, the size of Israel on a map of the Middle East on a wall in Barak’s office. Since Dempsey’s comments, Israeli officials have been careful to be complimentary of the United States and its support for Israel. Before Barak’s comments on Thursday, Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman praised US President Barack Obama’s foreign policies, saying that “to the credit of the United States, it is the only country that stood by our side in our struggles at the United Nations, the Security Council and UNESCO.” “The US increased funding for the Iron Dome. Even if we disagree sometimes and even if there is commentary that suggests otherwise, we must say that we have no better friend than the US,” the foreign minister continued. Liberman hinted at support for a possible Israeli strike on Iran when he said that Yisrael Beytenu’s presence in the coalition made the government “more serious and determined to defend the interests of Israel.” Reuters contributed to this report. ||||| Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the U.S. ambassador to Israel argued heatedly during a meeting about U.S. and Israeli strategy in confronting Iran, according to a U.S. lawmaker who was present. In the account of the meeting provided by Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), chairman of the House intelligence committee, Netanyahu was “at wit’s end” with what the Israeli leader sees as a lack of U.S. resolve and clarity about the Iranian nuclear threat. The exchange occurred at an Aug. 24 intelligence cooperation session in Israel and it was “very tense,” with sharp, “elevated” exchanges between Netanyahu and U.S. Ambassador Dan Shapiro, Rogers told Detroit radio station WJR. “It was very, very clear that the Israelis had lost their patience with the administration,” Rogers said during the Tuesday radio appearance. That account contradicted U.S. assertions that the United States and Israel see eye to eye on Iran and appears to confirm accounts in the Israeli media that the meeting turned into a shouting match. “It didn’t happen,” Shapiro had said Sunday in an interview with Israel’s Channel 2 when asked about the exchange. Rogers said that Netanyahu does not believe President Obama would attack to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, and that the Israeli leader was frustrated that the United States has not set out clear “red lines” that would trigger a U.S. attack. State Department spokesman Edgar Vasquez declined to comment on the Rogers remarks Thursday, but said the U.S. relationship with Israel remains extremely strong. On Monday, Netanyahu said military action against Iran’s nuclear program could be averted if the world set such a clear boundary that it would not permit Iran to cross. Rogers, a frequent critic of Obama on Iran and other issues, said he thinks Israel will launch its own preemptive attack on Iran soon, when Israeli military capability has the best chance of damaging the Iranian program. That likelihood could change if the White House can convince Israeli leaders that the United States would really do the job later, Rogers said. “We’ve had sharp exchanges with other heads of state and other things, in intelligence services and other things, but nothing at that level that I’ve seen in all my time where people were clearly that agitated, clearly that worked up about a particular issue, where there was a very sharp exchange.” Israeli and U.S. leaders have said repeatedly that “all options are on the table” to contain Iran’s nuclear ambitions, including a military strike. Netanyahu told Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta on Aug. 1 that time “is running out” for a peaceful solution to Iran’s atomic program.

– Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu clashed angrily with the American ambassador to Israel over US policy on Iran, according to a lawmaker who was present at the late August meeting. "It was very, very clear that the Israelis had lost their patience with the administration" over its failure to clarify what state the Iranian nuclear program would need to reach to trigger a US attack, says Mike Rogers, the Republican chair of the House Intelligence Committee. Rogers describes the meeting as "very tense," with "elevated" exchanges between Netanyahu and US Ambassador Dan Shapiro, the Washington Post reports. "Right now the Israelis don't believe that this administration is serious when they say all options are on the table, and more importantly neither do the Iranians," Rogers says. "That's why [Iran's] program is progressing." Shapiro, however, describes that depiction of the meeting as "silly" and says the talk was "friendly and professional," reports Reuters. Israel's Defense Minister Ehud Barak, meanwhile, hinted yesterday that he believes the US would join an attack on Iran, reports the Jerusalem Post. America's "intelligence-sharing and military support for Israel is extraordinary in its depth and its comprehensiveness, and I’m convinced that it will continue to be that way in every future test," he said after a meeting with US military officials.

Dinosaurs live and walk among us. Not the big biters in “Jurassic World”—they’re digital, in case you were wondering—but the filmmakers and studio executives who perpetrated this lumbering edition of the franchise that Steven Spielberg launched more than two decades ago. The production was directed, clumsily, by Colin Trevorrow, from a remarkably incoherent script credited to Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver, Derek Connolly and Mr. Trevorrow. (The blame in that department may well start from the bottom of the list rather than the top.) “Jurassic World” is obviously critic-proof, though not invulnerable to word of mouth, which may prove to be less than ecstatic. Nothing said here will have the slightest bearing on its performance at the box office. All the same, something should be said about the film’s cheesiness—it doesn’t even look good, though it sounds grand—and the shoddiness of its workmanship. Yes, the dinos fill the screen as advertised, and their conniption fits can be exciting from time to time, and from chase to incessant chase. But the sole source of buoyancy in the turgid spectacle is, predictably, Chris Pratt —predictably because his easy charm was what made “Guardians Of the Galaxy” a resounding hit. Now, as a raffish, good-hearted trainer named Owen, he’s a dino whisperer who has forged a special bond with several raptors in the park. Yet Mr. Pratt’s charm is no match for the crude filmmaking or the stupid plot that keeps him running around in a constant state of artificial animation. Nick Robinson and Ty Simpkins roam among the dinosaurs in ‘Jurassic World.’ Photo: Universal Pictures The story starts with a park that has grown into a vast and familiar tourist attraction since its earliest days. To draw more tourists in, Jurassic World’s geneticists have created a new wow factor, a spectacular albino hybrid, Indominus Rex, that the movie’s marketers describe, succinctly enough, with the tag line “Bigger. Louder. More Teeth.” The plot pits shifting factions against each other. On one side is Owen, devoted to his animals. On the same side, though with emotional and professional reservations, is Claire ( Bryce Dallas Howard ), a martinet in high heels who runs the park with an iron hand, at least for a while. (She is also Aunt Claire to a couple of kids who spend most of the film in jeopardy, and throughout the frantic action she runs on her heels, persistently and amusingly, like a heroine from an old Irwin Allen adventure.) Arrayed against them are quasi-military contractors led by Hoskins ( Vincent D’Onofrio ), a nut job who wants to weaponize Owen’s raptors and use them in America’s foreign wars. The Indominus Rex in ‘Jurassic World’ Photo: Universal Pictures Are we clear about the terms of the conflict? We may think so for a while, but the script works itself into such a bewildering dither that Owen briefly joins forces with the bad guys when chaos threatens, and the raptors themselves seem at several points to change whatever passes for their minds. On top of that a lead character from the earlier films is resurrected, absurdly if thunderously, though by that time logic is in tatters along with the park and its home island of Isla Nublar. The film is being shown in both 2-D and 3-D flavors. I saw the 2-D version, so I may have missed something, but I’d say the ideal number of dimensions in which to see “Jurassic World” is none. ||||| When I saw the original "Jurassic Park" for the first time, it was a magical screening, held exclusively for the Universal tour guides. It was several weeks before the release of the movie, and they wanted to give us a chance to see it early and then spread the word on the trams about what it was they were about to release. I will always remember and revere the experience of seeing it in the Alfred Hitchcock Theater, in the room where the sound was actually mixed. When the T-rex attack began, everyone in the room stopped breathing. That may sound like an exaggeration, but the temperature went up so much during that one scene that people began sweating. In that one moment, Spielberg and his production team reached deep into our collective memory of being small furry things afraid of being eaten and tapped that fear in a very real and immediate way. It remains one of the single most effective sequences of terror ever captured on film, no matter what the rating. The rest of "Jurassic Park"? Eh. That's the sad truth about this series of films as a whole. They depend entirely on how you react to the set pieces in each film because as actual movies, they don't really work. I think the first film has that one great set piece, and I think the stuff with the raptors is fine, but not particularly amazing. I think the second film has about three great sequences. Both of those movies benefit enormously from the work by Jeff Goldblum, who should have been given an MVP Oscar for both of them. "Jurassic Park III" comes closer to working as a whole film, although I still think there's one set piece that leaves the entire rest of the film in the dust. So when I say that "Jurassic World" may be the best entire movie in the series, I offer that with the caveat that there's no single moment in the film that is as great as the T-rex attack from the first film. But then again… not many films feature scenes that great, so it's a hard bar to use to judge what "Jurassic World" does well. First and foremost, I enjoyed the film as a reaction to "Jurassic Park." It feels in some ways like this film has been bubbling around inside co-writer/director Colin Trevorrow ever since the 16-year-old him saw the first film in the theater. If they'd never made the other sequels, this one would make perfectly logical sense as a way to pick the series up now. There is no single human lead here; instead, they've created just enough of an excuse to get Gray (Ty Simpkins) and Zach (Nick Robinson) into the park while Owen (Chris Pratt) and Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard) try to head off a crisis situation created in equal parts by Hoskins (Vincent D'Onofrio) and the twisted work of Masrani (Irrfan Khan) and Dr. Henry Wu (B.D. Wong, the only returning cast member from the original). That's it. That's all the human stuff that matters. I've already seen and heard a fair amount of fury and snark aimed at this film from some other critics, and while I would never say that I feel like this is a piercingly well-observed human story, everything's handled with a fairly light touch. The two kids are at the park to visit their aunt Claire because their parents are in the middle of negotiating a divorce, and I'll be honest… I hate the frequency with which divorce is used to simply drive plot in films. I am well aware that I am overly attuned to it right now, but it still drives me crazy. Thankfully, they don't dwell on it, and most of what happens between the brothers is just observational performance stuff, with the older brother constantly annoyed/embarrassed by his little brother, especially in front of girls. The same thing's true in the relationship between Owen and Claire. Pratt and Howard are given just enough character definition at the beginning of the film to give them things to do as they run and jump and scream for the rest of the film. Lately, I've taken some heat from some of you for the letter grades on these reviews, and I think it's interesting to see how many years we've been having this conversation and how much some of you still believe in film criticism as a binary thing. There is no "right" or "wrong." There are certain technical crafts that I think are very important to the overall effectiveness of filmmaking, and there are certainly plenty of examples of ways you can hamhand things, but there is such a wide range of reactions that we all have to movies that you can't possibly look at my letter grade (something I'm not crazy about) as any sort of definitive statement on the film. All that grade indicates is how well I think the filmmakers accomplished their own goals with the film. Whether I enjoyed that or not is something that is far more complicated, and that's why I write a full review. If the letter grade was the whole story, then I'd feel like everything else I do is a waste of time, and that's certainly not the case. When I gave "San Andreas" a better grade than I gave "Tomorrowland," that's not because I think "San Andreas" is a better film. I don't. I think Brad Bird's technical craftsmanship is top-notch, as good as anyone in this industry, and I think there are plenty of grace notes in "Tomorrowland" that prove that very skilled people were responsible for it. But "San Andreas" is better at delivering what it promises than "Tomorrowland" was, and the things that I think don't work at all about "Tomorrowland" hobble it in some pretty important ways for me. So while I can acknowledge that there are things about "Jurassic World" that feel perfunctory, the things I enjoyed about it far outweigh my complaints. There is something ridiculous about the entire conception of Pratt's character, but he sells it through performance, and the way it actually plays in the film makes sure to keep the raptors dangerous, even as it has fun with the idea of them running as a pack with a human in the lead. The film's big new invention, the Indominus Rex, is a fun movie monster because of how impossibly smart and suited to its environment it is, and because it is just a nasty killing machine, no mere animal. The film pretty much spells out what it wants to say thematically right up front, and while I like the target, I'm not sure they make the case for this being anything but part of the larger problem. The idea in the movie is that people got bored with the remarkable and have demanded an escalation in the years since, and that is very much the case in terms of blockbuster movies. The thing is, what ultimately breaks that formula is when someone remembers to include the human element given the same attention that the spectacle is given. The reason "Guardians Of The Galaxy" flattened people was because the film made us believe in the most outrageous characters on a deeply human level. The reason "Mad Max: Fury Road" turned out to be such a surprise is because of the way George Miller made everyone a character this time, allowing us to see ourselves in the characters. If you can combine the human with the fantastic and do both of them equally well, there's no limit to how much audiences will reward you. And if you can't do that, well, then make sure the spectacle works, because that's all you've got. Having said that, one of the things that results from the choice to use almost all CG instead of animatronics this time is a mobility that allows Trevorrow to be aggressive with his staging, and I really like how free the animals are here. Whether it's the big new one or some familiar faces who show up late in the game, these animals are anything but limited in terms of what they can do. There is one scene where they are clearly using an animatronic, and there's no coincidence that it's the scene where they put the greatest emotional demand on the actors involved. They need an actor to suddenly see these things as living beings, and so they gave her something real to play off of, with the results speaking for themselves. The second half of this movie is where Trevorrow cuts loose, and there are some big kicks to be had. There are all sorts of great gags and beats as the dinosaurs rip hell out of this park. Even at the start of the film, though, things are kept brisk, and the Indominus Rex breaks out of its environment fairly early. Once it does, the film just keeps moving, and I think this has a fairly satisfying ending. Preposterous, yes, but satisfying in the world the movie has created. This actually feels like the first of the films where there are enough threads left unresolved to pick this story up without remaking the first film again. One noteworthy villain manages to skate completely, and there's no way a disaster of this size goes unpunished. Beyond that, there is no more control over these things, and the larger world outside the park may finally have to grapple with this disruption in the natural order. Chris Pratt deserves to be the guy every studio is chasing right now, and he works hard to sell even the most insane things he's asked to do here. Bryce Dallas Howard has the more thankless role up front, but once the running and the terror start, she loosens up and starts to have more fun in the role. There are a few nice moments for Irrfan Khan and Jake Johnson and Lauren Lapkus as well, and B.D. Wong seems to be extra-happy with everything they've given him to do here. I think D'Onofrio's character is by far the weakest link, the most pedestrian in terms of how he's imagined. What works best about the script by Trevorrow and Derek Connolly (along with Rick Jaffa & Amanda Silver) is the way it keeps things rolling forward. They have some fun with the idea of what the actual park would look like and what attractions would be there, and I thought the use of Jimmy Fallon in the video that plays during the rides was a perfect touch. But when a film is corporate product to the degree that this one is, it's hard to criticize the machine too effectively. In many ways, this is the Indominus Rex. It is bigger and meaner and louder than its precursors, and it does exactly what it was bred to do. Like the "Terminator" series, though, I think the more times you return to the well, the more you reveal just how little narrative reason there is to tell further stories. At least Trevorrow seems to be genuinely enjoying what he's doing, and it's that sense of someone having fun behind the camera that ultimately won me over. If you're okay with a monster movie that is simply a well-made monster movie, then book your tickets for "Jurassic World" this weekend. I'll be taking my own boys to the drive-in, and I suspect it's going to be huge fun for them. "Jurassic World" opens in theaters everywhere on Friday. ||||| 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. ||||| Welcome to Outrage Watch, HitFix's (almost) daily rundown of entertainment-related kerfuffles. Not anxious enough already? Get your fix of righteous indignation below, and stay posted for outrage updates throughout the week. Joss Whedon famously called a pre-release clip of "Jurassic World" "'70s era sexist" on Twitter. Hey, even "Jurassic World" director Colin Trevorrow agreed! While Whedon later apologized for voicing the sentiment (without actually backpedaling), his criticism is now being echoed by Daily Beast reviewer Marlow Stern, who calls the film a "Big, Dumb, Sexist Mess" in his headline before going on to write: "'Jurassic World' is not about corporate greed, anti-militarization, crass commerciality, disrupting the food chain, or dinos eating the shit out of people. No. It’s about a woman’s 'evolution' from an icy-cold, selfish corporate shill into a considerate wife and mother." Stern is referring here to Bryce Dallas "Not Jessica Chastain" Howard's character Claire Dearing, who over the course of the film develops warm maternal feelings for her two young nephews (Ty Simpkins and Nick Robinson) despite starting out the film as a seemingly unfeeling operations manager. Continues Stern: "As Claire and [Chris Pratt's character] Owen travel through the dino-infested rainforests in search of the missing children, he begins to loosen her up through good ol’ fashioned sweet-talkin’. For God knows what reason, Claire is still sporting her work blouse and heels and is very much the distressed damsel, but what do you know, after a few witty barbs he convinces her to roll up her sleeves and tie her shirt in a bow. More sweaty forest shenanigans, and she loses the shirt. And then the heels. Once they’ve emerged from woods, and after avoiding certain death several times, she’s born again: a sweaty, humorous, maternal woman who’s severed her ties to her job and is only concerned with saving her two boys. Oh, and she’s got a man, too. "There is even more evidence of this strange narrative, although revealing more would ruin the ending, so we’ll spare the spoilers. Suffice it to say the climax and conclusion of the film really hammers home the unsettling 'path to motherhood' journey." Over at the Guardian, meanwhile, Claire has scored a not-great 5/10 on the site's "Sexismometer" -- markedly higher than murderous super-dino Indominus Rex (scoring a 1/10) but lower, at least, than Judy Greer's character Karen (8/10), who apparently spends the majority of the film sobbing over a phone. Here's Guardian contributor Catherine Shoard to explain: "...as the film progresses and crisis worsens, Claire sheds her inhibitions as well as her clothes. She softens towards Owen as species survival becomes more critical, and towards her nephews as her own inadequacy as an aunt (as well as a potential mother) is exposed. Although she largely cowers behind a man when in danger, on a couple of key occasions she takes the lead, to impressive effect. She also wears six-inch stilettos throughout." If the arguments against the film feel like a stretch, you're not alone. Here's a sampling of contrary responses on Twitter (though to be fair, none of these folks have seen the actual movie yet): And the 'Jurassic World is Sexist!' think pieces begin. It's a movie about angry dinosaurs. Either go to have fun or don't go at all. — John Squires (@FreddyInSpace) June 10, 2015 Sonofa....can't you just enjoy a movie anymore without looking for a message? Sheesh. http://t.co/ApibfeL1gI — Big Head Sports (@BigHeadSports) June 10, 2015 If you were wondering who would be the first beta douche to write a "Jurassic World is sexist" think piece, the answer is @MarlowNYC. — neontaster (@neontaster) June 10, 2015 Stop your watches. We have our first ‘Why Jurassic World is sexist’ thinkpiece http://t.co/HE5dJcN6CP — Stuart Heritage (@stuheritage) June 10, 2015 So if I have this correct, Jurassic World is sexist because the female lead has a character arc? — John Ekdahl (@JohnEkdahl) June 10, 2015 ???????? Liberals Are Calling "Jurassic World" Sexist. Which Means I Need To Buy Tickets, Like, Yesterday http://t.co/rGtRg90RRr #WIUNION — All American Girl (@AIIAmericanGirI) June 10, 2015 Just in case you were wondering where her political affiliations lie, @AllAmericanGirl's profile image is a bikini holster. You can check out our own Drew McWeeny's review of the film here.

– The latest, long-awaited installment in the Jurassic Park saga is here. This time, characters played by Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard watch as the genetically-modified dinosaur Indominus rex is unleashed on the park; destruction, of course, is inevitable. Here's what critics are saying: "You can't experience first love twice," writes Kenneth Turan at the Los Angeles Times. "Despite the best efforts of director Colin Trevorrow, Jurassic World's story of Indominus rex on the loose, while certainly acceptable, doesn't have the same impact as the initial film." That being said, the moviemakers "have done as well as they could," Turan writes, and Pratt's "combination of physicality, charisma, and attitude prove hard to resist." Brian Truitt is awed by the "zoo of phenomenal creations that rivals the original's impressive array of ancient animals." While he says Jurassic World is "a monster step up from the two disappointing previous sequels," it’s "sorely missing the heart and inherent wonder of the classic first film," he writes at USA Today. Still, it holds "enough dino-mite action to stave off excitement extinction." Audiences will flock to the film regardless of what he writes, but Joe Morgenstern writes it anyway: "Something should be said about the film's cheesiness—it doesn't even look good, though it sounds grand—and the shoddiness of its workmanship." Pratt offers an easy charm, but he's "no match for the crude filmmaking or the stupid plot that keeps him running around in a constant state of artificial animation," he writes at the Wall Street Journal. His vote: Don't waste your money. Writing for the New York Post, Kyle Smith's opinion couldn't be more different: "Motorcycle, Chris Pratt, sprinting dinosaurs: If you require more than that out of a movie, you're being unreasonable." He says Pratt, combined with the film's "brilliant special effects … make the first Jurassic movie since 2001 nearly as much fun as the stellar first two." There are strong, quiet moments and great action scenes. "The worst you can say about the movie is that it sticks to a highly potent formula." Click for more reviews or find out why some accuse the film of sexism.

Please enable Javascript to watch this video KENT, Ohio - Kent State University has become the first university in the country to sign a student with autism to play division one sports. Kalin Bennett, a 6' 10" Little Rock Arkansas native, has signed a letter of intent to play with the Golden Flashes after playing high school basketball for Little Rock Christian Academy and, most recently, for Link Year Prep in Branson, Missouri. Bennett's high school coach, Clarence Finley, said that Bennett was special in many ways. He believes he was successful, in part, because he was not treated differently than any of the other students in his school. "If someone has autism they will let them get away with the little bitty things, no. We held him accountable on the court, we held him accountable in the classroom and I think that's what made him so super," said Finley. His high school coach also credited Bennett's mother for making sure he was given the opportunity to succeed. "By the time he left, it was no doubt that he was going to be very special, that he was going to be able to compete at any level he wanted to compete in, both academically and athletically," said Finley. Kent State would not talk about Bennett specifically, citing NCAA rules, because he is still considered a recruit. Gina Campana, the Assistant Director of Assessment and Research for the University's Division of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion did talk directly with Bennett and his mother during their selection process. "I've talked to a lot of students that choose Kent State because of the initiatives that we have here for students who are on the spectrum," said Campana. These efforts include providing a quiet space for students to study and a student group that pairs students with autism up with other students in an environment where they are equals. As a mother of a Kent student with autism herself, Campana said she can communicate with parents of other students who have autism in a way that only they can completely understand. She said she does not like to see autism as a disability but as a "super power" and said there is no doubt that students who are on the autistic spectrum can succeed at anything, including basketball. "If they want to be in video design, computer science or art, or whatever they want to do. absolutely anybody who is on an autism spectrum can get a college degree. And, they can come and get that done here, at Kent State, and we will support them," said Campana. Bennett is currently enrolled at Link Year Prep in Branson, Missouri. He was playing basketball on the road in Arkansas and could not be reached on Wednesday. In online videos he said he would like to use his opportunity to inspire others. He is expected to be enrolled at Kent in the summer of 2019. More on Kent State University, here. ||||| Dribbling during warm ups, Kalin Bennett flashes a smile before a game Nov. 10, 2018, against Labette Community College at Kansas City Kansas Community College. Bennett plays at Link Year Prep and has committed to playing next season at Kent State. (Ryan Weaver, Special to The Plain Dealer) KENT, Ohio - Kalin Bennett may not be a game-changer at Kent State University. But Kent State could be a life-changer for Kalin Bennett. And if he has his way, he’ll change the lives of others, too. Bennett is a 6-10, 300-pound basketball recruit from Little Rock, Arkansas, and he has autism. Once labeled a child who might never speak or walk, he is readying himself to break new ground. Earlier this month, Bennett became the first student-athlete with autism to sign a national letter of intent to play a team sport at the NCAA Division I level, according to the NCAA. He’ll enroll at Kent State next summer. He is coming with more than basketball on his mind. “I want to make an impact not just on the court, but with kids that are struggling with the same things I am,’’ Bennett said. “I want to use this platform to inspire other kids with autism and non-autism. I want to let them know, hey, if I can do this, you can do it, too. A lot of times they feel alone and by themselves, and I felt that same way growing up.’’ Recruited by several other colleges, he chose Kent State in large part because of its growing initiative with autism support on its campus. “Going there and seeing that (support) opened some doors I haven’t really thought about in a while,’’ Bennett said of a recruiting visit in September during which he wowed Kent coaches and officials as much as they impressed him. “He is really a phenomenal human being,’’ said Gina Campana, Kent State’s assistant director of the Autism Initiative for Research, Education and Outreach. “A light emanates from this young man. We’re going to be lucky to get him at Kent State.’’ Bennett has been supported closely for all of his life by an encouraging mother, Sonja Bennett, while attending Little Rock Christian, a small, close-knit school in his hometown. Moving 900 miles to live among 23,000 students in Kent is a collective leap of faith for Bennett, Kent State and the KSU basketball program. Yet there is no trepidation from any of them for the journey ahead.

– Kalin Bennett is 6-foot-10, weighs 300 pounds, and has proven to be a force on the basketball court throughout his high school playing days in Little Rock, Ark. No surprise, then, that he's signed a letter of intent to play Division I basketball with Kent State. But as Cleveland.com reports, Bennett stands out for one more reason: He has autism. In fact, Bennett is the first autistic student-athlete to sign on for a team sport of any kind on the Division I level, according to the NCAA. The 18-year-old, who didn't start talking until age 7, says he hopes to be a role model. "I want to make an impact not just on the court, but with kids that are struggling with the same things I am," he tells the newspaper. "I want to let them know, hey, if I can do this, you can do it, too." (See an interview with him here.) Bennett will live in a dorm, though his mother is moving to Kent, Ohio, to be closer to him and help with the transition. The university is known for its support of autistic students, including an initiative to pair each one with a non-autistic student, notes Fox 8 Cleveland. (Brain scans might help with earlier diagnoses.)

PARMA, Ohio -- It was about 78 degrees on Saturday afternoon when Richard Hill was leaving the Walmart in Parma. When he saw two dogs locked in a car, he did what he thought was right -- and what might be protected by Ohio law. Hill, a home improvement contractor, grabbed a hammer from his work van and broke a car window in an attempt to save the dogs inside. Moments later, police arrived in response to a 911 call about the dogs in the car. Police cited Hill for criminal damages. Surveillance video showed dogs were left in the car for about six minutes. Security camera footage shows the dog owner pull into the Ridgewood Drive parking lot at 4:05 p.m. and enter the Walmart one minute later. Bystanders called 911 at 4:08 p.m. to report the dogs in a hot car and were told that officers are on the way. Hill smashed the car window at 4:12 p.m. as Parma police were pulling up. Police say the dogs' owner, Carly Hartman, returned to her car after about 14 minutes. She was not cited. "The big dog was moving around in the backseat, but the small puppy was not even moving, sitting up or anything," Hill said. "I didn't know if he was passed out, just exhausted or what." Senate Bill 215, also known as Ohio's "Hot Car" legislation, protects Good Samaritans who find a child or pet in a hot vehicle. The law allows people to intervene by forcibly entering the vehicle prior to emergency personnel responding without the fear of litigation. Sergeant Dan Ciryak said he wasn't sure this incident was "a matter of life and death," especially since the dog owner's sunroof was open and the rear windows were cracked open. Hill disagrees, saying the sunroof was only cracked open and all the windows were closed. Ciryak added that it only took four minutes for police to arrive after they received a call. "We believe his heart may have been in the right place, but he should have waited a little more," Ciryak said. "He knew the police were coming. I don't know what his sense of urgency was." However, Ohio's "Hot Car" law says nothing about a Samaritan waiting until police arrive. It only specifies that the person must call 911, check to see if the door is unlocked and if they feel it is an emergency. Hill says he thinks he did all the necessary actions before breaking the window. "I didn't know how long it was going to be for [police] to get here, and I truly felt that the puppy needed out," Hill said. "I've had to wait for police before and know that it can take 15, 20 minutes, or more than half an hour." He plans to fight the charges. His court date is set for Aug. 15. To comment on this story, visit Tuesday's crime and courts comments page. ||||| An Ohio man received a citation for criminal damaging after he smashed a car window to rescue two dogs. Richard Hill thought he was being a good Samaritan on July 28, when he broke car window to rescue two dogs, which he claimed appeared to be in hot car without the owner over the weekend. Instead, he was handed a citation for criminal damage, he told ABC News in a phone interview. Hill saw a small dog that appeared to be two or three months old and a larger dog that was about 2 years old inside the locked car. A passerby who also saw what was going on went into the Walmart nearby to find the owner of the car, and another man called Parma police to inform them of the situation, Hill reported. After the others went to get help, Hill took a hammer from his truck and smashed the window to let the two dogs out, he said. Police soon arrived on scene as a witness helped give the dogs some water, Hill said. "I explained the whole thing to him [the officer] as far as what was going on, and I felt that the dog needed to be out right then and there. [The office] told me that I did not have that rights and I had to wait on him," he recalled. "I thought that I covered all of my basis based on the law stating that as long as I call 911; as long as I attempt to locate the owner of the vehicle and make sure that that is the only way of getting into the vehicle." Richard Hill The most upsetting part to Hill is that the owner of the vehicle did not received a ticket, he claimed. "I’ve got the ticket right then and there," he said, adding the citation was handed to him before he left the scene. Though he’s worried about cost to hire attorney and the fine that he might have to pay, Hill said he would still help the dogs having known what he would face. "I would have done everything the same," he said. "The only difference thing I know I would end up doing is, I would actually take picture or video to fully cover all my basis, if something like this was to arrive I have all the evidence myself because now they are stating that the sun roof was wide open." "I just wanted to help that dogs. That’s it," Hill said. The Parma Police Department told ABC News that they have evidence that shows that justification of the citation. "He broke the window knowing the police were coming and it’s only been six minutes," Parma police Sergeant Daniel Ciryak told ABC news over phone interview. "He was not physically arrested. He’s only cited and given a court case." "He can explain to the judge as why he took the action he did," Ciryak said. ||||| An Ohio man thought he was doing the right thing earlier this week when he broke into a woman’s car on a warm day to rescue her two dogs — but the police didn’t see it the same way. After breaking into a woman’s car with a hammer in a Walmart parking lot on Saturday, Richard Hill was cited for criminal damaging, according to multiple reports. In a Facebook post shared on Saturday, Hill wrote that the incident occurred after he “noticed 2 dogs,” one of which appeared to be “maybe 2-3 months old,” that were “locked in a car with it being 79° at that time.” While he went on to claim that the older dog was “jumping around” and setting off a car alarm, the younger dog was “just laying there not moving.” “One of the bystanders called [the Parma, Ohio] police,” he continued, adding that while the bystander said that the authorities were “in [sic] route,” he decided to break into the car anyway because “I felt they needed out right then and there.” He also claimed that the dogs had been inside the car for “at least” 30 minutes. Stock photo of a dog in a car Getty Images However, according to surveillance video, the dogs were only left alone in the car for four minutes before bystanders called the police at 4:08 p.m., reported Cleveland.com. Two minutes later, Hill was seen smashing the windows, while the authorities arrived at 4:12 p.m. Additionally, authorities told the outlet that the owner of the pets — who was not cited — returned to the car after spending about 14 minutes inside the store. Sergeant Dan Ciryak went on to tell that outlet that while “we believe his heart may have been in the right place, he should have waited a little more.” “He knew the police were coming. I don’t know what his sense of urgency was,” he added. The Parma Police did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment. RELATED: What You Need to Know About the New California Law that Makes it Legal to Smash a Car’s Window to Save an Animal Trapped Inside Ohio passed legislation in 2016 protecting Good Samaritans rescuing pets or minors from hot cars. The legislation, Senate Bill 215, grants legal protection to individuals, provided they contacted the police first and are able to prove that the pet or child was actually in danger and could not wait for the authorities to arrive. “You absolutely do have to call the police department in order to be able to move forward,” Elysse Rathbone, Humane Agent for the Capital Area Humane Society, told NBC4I shortly after the bill was passed. “You have to be able to prove that this is an emergency or life threatening incident.” RELATED VIDEO: Don’t Ever Leave Your Dog in the Car on a Hot Day Carly Hartman, the owner of the dogs, told FOX 8 that she loves her dogs and “would never put them in danger,” adding that she can no longer drive her car because of the broken window. Despite the citation, Hill told the outlet that he had no regrets about his actions. “I even told the officer I would do it again in a heartbeat,” he added. Hill has a court date schedule for Aug. 15, where he plans on fighting the citation, according to the Associated Press.

– An Ohio man who smashed a window to save two dogs left in a hot car received a citation for criminal damage from police officers who turned up minutes later. Richard Hill says he saw the dogs in a car in the parking lot of the Parma, Ohio, Walmart on Saturday, People reports. He says that after noticing the younger of the two dogs, a puppy, wasn't moving, he smashed the window with a hammer he retrieved from his truck, even though another witness alerted by the older dog jumping around had already called police. "I felt they needed out right then and there," Hill says. In a Facebook post, he says it was around 79 degrees at the time and he believed the dogs had been in the car for around 30 minutes. Police, however, say the dogs had only been left in the car for around six minutes when Hill broke the window. "We believe his heart may have been in the right place, but he should have waited a little more," Sgt. Dan Ciryak tells Cleveland.com. "He knew the police were coming. I don't know what his sense of urgency was." The vehicle's owner emerged from the store after around 14 minutes and did not receive a citation. Hill, who says he thought he was protected under the state's "Hot Car" law, plans to fight his citation in court. He says he would do the same thing again in a similar situation, though he would take video to protect himself and prove that the vehicle's sunroof wasn't open, as police are claiming. "I just wanted to help [the] dogs. That’s all," he tells ABC.

President Donald Trump is considering scaling back White House press secretary Sean Spicer’s public role, according to several officials familiar with the president’s thinking, as Trump also weighs a broader shakeup of his communications shop in the wake of several scandals. The press secretary, who has turned into a household name over the past five months and garnered sky-high television ratings for his daily press briefings, has also drawn the ire of the president. He is no longer expected to do a daily, on-camera briefing after Trump’s foreign trip, which begins Friday, the officials said. Story Continued Below The briefings have become one of the most dreaded parts of the president’s day, and Trump has told allies and aides he doesn't want Spicer, who has developed a belligerent persona from behind the lectern, publicly defending and explaining the message anymore, officials added. Plagued by crises that are engulfing his administration, Trump, in recent weeks, has been increasingly pointing his finger at the communications department to explain the administration’s failings. But that frustration isn’t new — in February, during an interview with “Fox & Friends,” Trump gave himself an A-plus for effort and a low grade for communicating. The most reliable politics newsletter. Sign up for POLITICO Playbook and get the latest news, every morning — in your inbox. Email Sign Up By signing up you agree to receive email newsletters or alerts from POLITICO. You can unsubscribe at any time. "In terms of messaging, I would give myself a 'C' or a 'C-plus,'" he said. "My messaging isn't good.” The communications team often serves as a convenient scapegoat for a president, not just Trump. But Spicer has sometimes added to a White House steeped in controversy. In April, he suggested that Syrian President Bashar Assad had committed crimes worse than those of Adolf Hitler because, as Spicer told reporters, Hitler had never used chemical weapons on his own people. He later apologized for the comment. One senior White House official said deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders will likely appear at the podium more often going forward, while Spicer will keep a senior role in the administration. Another official said to expect fewer on-camera briefings in general — something that the administration has been toying with since Trump entered office. For his part, Spicer said publicly in December that he would like to spend less time behind the lectern and instead have a rotating cast of characters available to conduct the daily briefing. And traditionally, administrations work a deputy press secretary into the rotation more quickly than Trump’s White House has done. Spicer, the former Republican National Committee strategist who is a close ally of chief of staff Reince Priebus, has defended the president through multiple scandals, only to have Trump contradict him, as the president did in the wake of FBI Director James Comey’s ouster. Last week, Spicer was notably absent for two of the most consequential briefings of Trump’s early presidency, while he served his Naval Reserve duty. Instead, Sanders was given the opportunity for a trial run, as she fielded questions for two days about Trump’s decision to fire Comey. Spicer is not the only target of Trump’s frustrations with the White House press operation. The president has generally grumbled about his communications team’s response to a recent flurry of self-inflicted scandals, which include not only Comey’s ouster, but also Trump’s alleged leak of classified information to Russian officials and reports that Trump pressured Comey to shut down a probe into former national security adviser Michael Flynn. A White House official and an outside adviser said Trump on Monday also blasted communications director Mike Dubke because of the stream of negative headlines about his presidency. But others caution that Trump has not yet made up his mind about Spicer and other changes to the press operation. Since taking office, the president has considered multiple staff changes that have yet to materialize. Still, "the status quo won't continue," one official said. And conversations about how to revamp Spicer’s role, as well as the rest of the communications shop, have intensified in the past week. Two officials said Trump doesn't want to throw Spicer overboard and has also told advisers he thinks the press secretary is treated unfairly. Officials said Spicer is expected to stay in the White House "but have less exposure," in the words of one official. These officials also said rumors that Kim Guilfoyle, a Fox News anchor, would join the administration and take over Spicer’s spot at the lectern were overblown and "not real.” Spicer declined to comment. ||||| 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.

– Expect to see a lot less of Sean Spicer. Sources tell Politico the White House press secretary will see his public role scaled way back after President Trump returns from his first foreign trip as president. They say Trump has come to "dread" Spicer's daily press briefings, which often get combative, and has told aides he no longer wants Spicer to be the one "publicly defending and explaining" his message, as Politico notes. No formal plan is yet in place, and sources say Trump's mind is not yet made up, but that he's considering downsizing Spicer's role in the public eye and may also undertake a shakeup of the entire communications team. The New York Daily News points out that Trump suggested last week on Fox he should do the press briefings himself every other week. Spicer will likely no longer do the daily on-camera press briefing, and sources say the administration is looking to do fewer on-camera briefings overall. A senior White House official tells Politico that deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders will likely be seen behind the podium more often, but Spicer will hold onto a senior administration role. Spicer himself has said that he'd prefer not to be behind the podium as much, but Politico points out that amid a growing number of scandals plaguing the Trump administration, the president is increasingly using the communications department as a scapegoat, complaining about how the team has responded to the scandals. As for the idea of Fox News anchor Kim Guilfoyle taking over for Spicer, though, Politico's sources shoot down those rumors.

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. ||||| Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich's announcement that he is taking his campaign to the Republican convention in Tampa is being dismissed as typical election season bluster. How else to describe a candidate without much money, dwindling momentum, and a truly narrowing path to the GOP nomination who is pledging to stick it out for the long haul? But what if Gingrich isn't bluffing? The Republican primary process is, at its heart, a race for delegates: the first candidate to net 1,144 wins. By the time Floridians finish voting on Tuesday, just five percent of the total delegate pool will have been awarded. The upcoming states include a number of caucuses and southern primaries, the former of which play to Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas)'s strengths and the latter of which work to Gingrich's advantage. The more delegates a candidate accrues, the larger his influence becomes over the party platform. As one top Republican Party official said of Gingrich's proclamation: "Why would he quit?" "We are already active in Nevada," Gregg Phillips, a top official with the Gingrich-allied super PAC Winning our Future, told The Huffington Post, of a state that will caucus on Feb. 4. "Our team has been competing in Nevada for about a month." If, indeed, Gingrich refuses to dislodge himself from the process, the question then becomes just how many delegates he will be able to gain. The process of unraveling that mystery begins precisely where he and the rest of the GOP candidates currently reside: in the Sunshine State. Just how Florida will award its delegates is currently the subject of intense debate, with a section of the Republican Party adamant that the current structure -- which dictates that the winner of Tuesday's primary gets all the delegates -- is in violation of party rules. In a letter to Florida GOP State Chairman Lenny Curry on December 21, 2011, RNC Chairman Reince Priebus noted that under committee rules, states other than Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina could not be "winner-take-all" if they held their primaries or caucuses prior to April 1, 2012. Florida violated that bylaw by moving its primary up to January 31. Instead of forcing Florida to award its delegates proportionately, however, the RNC punished the state by cutting its number of delegates in half, from 99 to 50. This was, as Priebus noted, the punishment under the rules (emphasis ours): Rule No. 16 imposes penalties upon any state that chooses to elect, select, allocate or bind delegates to the 2012 Republican National Convention earlier than the first day of the month in which that state is authorized to do so under Rule No. 15(b). Those penalties include a fifty percent (50%) reduction in the number of delegates that such a state is authorized to send to the 2012 Republican National Convention, as well as a prohibition on the three Republican National Committee members from the state serving as delegates or alternate delegates. That seemed like it would put an end to the debate. But a number of GOP officials continued to argue that voters who don't back former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, the likely winner of the Florida primary, were being disenfranchised by the way delegates were being awarded. They also said that other states chose not to jump ahead like Florida did out of a belief that their primaries would no longer be winner-take-all if they did so. "I just want to know when the RNC members agree to a further rule change that would allow only Florida to jump the line and not have its delegates allocated proportionally," former RNC Chairman Michael Steele told The Huffington Post. "I'm almost certain California, Michigan and Ohio didn't agree to such a change cause I know if they could be in the mix right now they would be." For those, like Steele, who believe that Florida's 50 delegates shouldn't go squarely to Romney, planning has turned toward ways to remedy the wrong. All it would take to get a hearing on the matter is for one registered Florida Republican voter to file a protest with the RNC. The party's contest committee would have to issue a decision at the convention. It seems probable, at this juncture, that someone will file such a protest. Mark Cross, an Osceola County committeeman and executive board member of the state Republican Party, wrote Priebus a letter in November 2011, making the case that it would be simple for the committee to change Florida's delegation from a winner-take-all to proportional. RNC Rules supersede any state rules or state statutes and should be enforced as to the application of delegate allocation. The rules as to the allocation and recording of delegates at the convention are completely and solely within the authority of the RNC. The rules must be applied equally to each and every state or they become meaningless without any reasonable expectation of application to any other state. Certified results of elections are easily available from the Secretary of State for each state. The RNC can calculate, report and record the proportional vote and easily enforce this rule. The proper counting and allocation is simply a matter of mathematical enforcement of the rules and should not be confused with any penalty because a state and its voters will not be losing their voice in any way. Even Priebus seemed to acknowledge that a challenge to the contest committee was likely. "In addition," he wrote Curry, "it has come to my attention that one or more Florida voters may file a contest seeking proportional allocation of Florida's delegation based on the primary taking place prior to April 1." Asked for comment on the matter, Kirsten Kukowski, Press Secretary at the Republican National Committee, emailed over the following statement: "Florida lost half of its delegates and received additional discretionary penalties for breaking the party rules. The contest committee is designed to look at any delegate concerns that may arise." But while the RNC itself is publicly deferring ultimate say on the issue for the time being, others in the party aren't acting so ambivalent. "Michael Steele can say all he wants, but he's not the chairman anymore," Brian Hughes, a spokesman for the Florida GOP, told the Tampa Bay Times. "The RNC accepted our rule and that's it. We are winner-take-all." Even if a challenge is made to the contest committee, there is no telling whether it will be successful. Different states have different models for proportionality, meaning that despite what Cross wrote, breaking up Florida's delegates would be a controversial move. Meanwhile, the odds are still likely that by the time the convention rolls around, the party will have firmly united behind one nominee with little reason to, or appetite for, refiguring the delegate count of one state. "That's usually an indication that you think you're gonna lose," Romney said, when informed of Gingrich's proclamation that he would remain in the contest until the convention. "When you say 'I'm gonna go on no matter what happens,' that's usually not a good sign." Even if the convention isn't ultimately brokered, the number of delegates each candidate earns and the way in which they are allotted are still significant. With the right number, candidates can force votes on certain issues, and they can make a motion on the convention floor to amend the party agenda or change the rules. They could also make a play for a key speaking role. It's why Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) has pledged to keep campaigning until Tampa and why Gingrich is now offering the same posture. Asked on Monday whether there was a chance he would drop out if he loses the Florida primary, Gingrich declared, "None... We’ll be in every state." ||||| 4 years ago (CNN) - Days before the Republican National Convention kicks off in Tampa next week, former presidential candidate Newt Gingrich released his delegates in a symbolic gesture and urged them to vote for Mitt Romney. "I hereby release all delegates bound or pledged to me under any and all state laws or party rules," Gingrich wrote in a letter to delegates, which was posted on his website Tuesday night. "At the same time, I call upon them and all Americans committed to a safer and more prosperous American future to join Callista and me in strongly supporting the Romney-Ryan ticket." - Follow the Ticker on Twitter: @PoliticalTicker - Check out the CNN Electoral Map and Calculator and game out your own strategy for November. During his own White House bid earlier this year, Gingrich repeatedly vowed to continue his campaign all the way to the convention. Faced with mounting debt and Romney's all-but-certain lock-up of the Republican nomination, Gingrich ended his campaign in early May. He has since endorsed Romney, though he's been known to offer less-than-enthusiastic praise for the former Massachusetts governor. Instead, Gingrich largely focuses on a need to defeat President Barack Obama, a message he reiterated in his letter Tuesday. "With the Republican National Convention beginning in Tampa within the next few days, it is time now for all Republicans to come together in common purpose to defeat President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden," Gingrich wrote. "Everyone must do their part and Callista and I are committed to doing everything that we can." Romney passed the 1,144 delegate threshold needed to clinch the nomination on May 30. According to CNN estimates, Gingrich had collected 142 delegates by the time he ended his presidential bid. READ MORE: Ron Paul delegates set to strike deal with RNC While the former House speaker won't be delivering an address at the GOP convention next week, he's slated to host "a series of public policy workshops for delegates." Earlier this month, Gingrich said on CNN's "The Situation Room" that his role at the convention will make him more than visible in Tampa. "Trust me, anybody who wants to see me will have more than enough opportunity during the convention. I'll probably have more total time than anybody thought possible," Gingrich said.

– Newt Gingrich exited the race for the GOP nomination on May 2, but it took him another three and a half months to let go of his 142 delegates. The former GOP candidate released his delegates last night via a letter posted to his website, reports the AP. And though CNN notes that he had, on more than one occasion, vowed to hang in there right up until the convention began, he is now urging those delegates to back the Romney-Ryan ticket. "It is time now for all Republicans to come together in common purpose to defeat President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden," he wrote, going on to release all delegates "bound or pledged" to him. "At the same time, I call upon them and all Americans committed to a safer and more prosperous American future to join Callista and me in strongly supporting the Romney-Ryan ticket. Together, we can and will defeat Barack Obama in November."

Heavy sea ice conditions have thwarted a science mission from reaching the Larsen C Ice Shelf in Antarctica from which a large iceberg broke off in July 2017. A team of scientists, led by British Antarctic Survey (BAS), are travelling on board the RRS James Clark Ross. Sea ice, up to 4-5 metres thick, has made progress for the ship very slow. On Wednesday (28 February) the ship’s captain made the difficult decision not to continue. Marine biologist and Principal Investigator, Dr Katrin Linse, from British Antarctic Survey is leading the team. She says: “We knew that getting through the sea ice to reach Larsen C would be difficult. Naturally, we are disappointed not to get there but safety must come first. The captain and crew have been fantastic and pulled out all the stops to get us to the ice shelf, but our progress became too slow, with just 8kms travelled in 24 hours and we still had over 400kms to travel. Mother Nature has not been kind to us on our mission! “But we have a ‘Plan B’, we will head north to areas which have never been sampled for benthic biodiversity. The Prince Gustav Channel Ice Shelf and neighbouring Larsen A Ice Shelf collapsed in 1995. We’ll be sampling deeper than we planned at Larsen C – down to 1000 metres – so we’re excited about what deep sea creatures we might find.” The international team, from nine research institutes, will spend the remainder of their mission collecting seafloor animals, microbes, plankton, sediments and water samples using a range of equipment, including video cameras and a special sledge pulled along the seafloor to collect tiny animals. Their findings will provide a benchmark of the seafloor biodiversity in this area and provide a more accurate timeframe for retreat of ice sheets from the eastern side of the Antarctic Peninsula. Researchers are already planning more missions to access the Larsen C ice shelf. Dr Katrin Linse and colleagues have teamed up with the Alfred Wegener Institute in Germany to visit in 2019 on their research vessel the RV Polarstern. The research expedition to the Larsen C Ice Shelf is funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC). The giant iceberg known as A68, which is four times the size of London, calved off from the Larsen Ice Shelf in July 2017. The scientists planned to collect samples from the newly exposed seabed, which covers an area of around 5,818 km2. The Larsen C research expedition is led by British Antarctic Survey and involves scientists from the following research institutes: University of Aberdeen, University of Newcastle, Natural History Museum, University of Ghent, University of Southampton, Alfred Wegener Institute in Germany, Senckenberg Research Institute and Museum in Germany, University of Gothenburg in Sweden and Museums Victoria in Australia. ||||| When on 21st November 1915 the polar explorer ship Endurance finally yielded to the Antarctic pack ice, Ernest Shackleton and his crew began one of the most gruelling survival attempts in history. Their five-month ordeal on the ice floes followed by the all-or-nothing 720-nautical-mile dash to South Georgia has since become the stuff of legend, pored over by scholars and adventurers for more than a century. But of the ship itself, no trace has been detected since the day it went down. On Monday, a British-led team announced it was setting out to find the wreck of Endurance, thought to be at rest nearly two miles beneath the Larsen C Ice Shelf in the Weddell Sea. Operating from the research vessel SA Agulhas II, the expedition will use the most advanced unmanned submarines in the world to scour the sea bed. ||||| Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Prof Julian Dowdeswell: "Sea-ice conditions mean we cannot guarantee to get where we want to" A scientific expedition will next year try to find the Endurance, the ill-fated ship of Antarctic explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton. The vessel sank in 1915, crushed by sea-ice in the Weddell Sea and lost in 3,000m of water. Shackleton and his crew were forced into lifeboats to make an extraordinary and heroic escape across the Southern Ocean. UK researcher Prof Julian Dowdeswell will lead the international effort. He expects to have the cruise on station in January/February. Locating the shipwreck is not the primary goal of the expedition; the major objective is to visit and study the Larsen C Ice Shelf, which last July calved one of the biggest icebergs ever recorded in Antarctica. But because Larsen is so close to the last known position of the Endurance, it makes sense to also have a go at finding the famous ship. "It would be a shame not to," said Prof Dowdeswell, the director of the Scott Polar Research Institute (SPRI) in Cambridge. "In our study of Larsen, we will be operating autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs). But if we can get them in range of where Endurance is thought to be, we will send them under the ice to do a survey. "They are fitted with downward-looking multi-beam echosounders, which can map out on a grid the shape of the seafloor. You look at that for any signs of the ship and then focus in with cameras if you find something interesting." Image copyright RGS Image caption Endurance just before it sank: Crushed at the stern, it went down bow first It is a very tough challenge. The sea-ice in the Weddell Sea is notoriously thick and uncooperative, as Shackleton found to his cost. Even today's technology struggles in the region. An expedition led by the British Antarctic Survey tried to get close to Larsen C earlier this year and was thwarted by the marine floes. Prof Dowdeswell is hoping for better luck and believes the range and capabilities of the AUVs, provided by the American company Ocean Infinity, give the expedition the best possible chance of success. The venture is formally called the Weddell Sea Expedition 2019. It is funded by The Flotilla Foundation, a charitable trust in the Netherlands. Prof Dowdeswell's team brings together a wealth of expertise from the SPRI, the Nekton Foundation, the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, as well as the University of Cape Town and the Nelson Mandela University in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. Image copyright OCEAN INFINITY Image caption Ocean Infinity's technology is currently looking for missing airliner MH370 The 45-day expedition will operate from the SA Agulhas II, a modern polar research vessel. Larsen C is one of the largest ice shelves in Antarctica. It is the floating extension of glaciers that have flowed off the eastern side of the Antarctic Peninsula and joined together to form one giant buoyant platform. Its northern neighbours, Larsen A and Larsen B, suffered catastrophic break-ups in 1995 and 2002, respectively. These failures unbound the feeding glaciers behind, allowing them to move faster and dump yet more of their ice in the ocean, raising global sea-levels. The production of a near-6,000km² berg last year now has experts wondering whether Larsen C is also being set up for a collapse. Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Dr Christine Batchelor is interested in the past positions of glacier grounding lines The Weddell Sea Expedition will try to answer this question by getting in close and making a series of geophysical measurements. The AUVs will be sent into the cavity under the shelf to map the seafloor and the overhanging ice canopy. Drill cores will also be taken from just in front of the shelf. The aim is to establish the past history of ice advance and retreat, to look for old grounding lines - the locations where Larsen's feeding glaciers have previously rested on the seafloor. Have these lines moved back and forward on a fairly regular basis, or have they only ever retreated and at what rate? "We want to try to put the recent changes that we've seen at the peninsula into their longer-term context," said Dr Christine Batchelor, a SPRI fellow who will be an expedition team-member. "We only have satellite observations for the last few decades. We want to see how those changes fit in when we look over much longer timescales - over hundreds and thousands of years. "Is what we've been seeing typical behaviour, or something more unusual," she told BBC News. Dr Batchelor was speaking here at the European Geosciences Union (EGU) General Assembly in Vienna, Austria. However, the Weddell Sea expedition will be formally announced in London at the Royal Geographical Society. Image copyright RGS Image caption Endurance is acknowledged to be one of the great undiscovered shipwrecks For the SPRI to be connected with the discovery of the Endurance would be fitting. The institute is, in many ways, the keeper of records for Britain's "heroic era" of polar exploration. In its archives are documents related to Endurance skipper, Frank Worsley. It is he, with sextant and chronometer, who calculated the vessel's sinking position on 21 November 1915 as 68°39'30.0" South and 52°26'30.0" West. This is roughly 100-150 nautical miles east of Larsen C. If sea-ice conditions are favourable, the SA Agulhas II is likely to have company on its voyage. The German research ship Polarstern also plans to visit the region of the newly calved iceberg. Its cruise will be led by the Alfred Wegener Institute in Bremerhaven. Jonathan.Amos-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk and follow me on Twitter: @BBCAmos

– Sir Ernest Shackleton's doomed ship slumbers beneath nearly 10,000 feet of water—and a group of scientists now hopes to find it. The BBC reports on the planned January 2019 mission, whose true intention is to study the Antarctic's Larsen C Ice Shelf. But its position near the Endurance's final recorded location in the Weddell Sea proves too tempting to ignore. The plan, says lead researcher Julian Dowdeswell, is to take the autonomous underwater vehicles that will be used in their examination of Larsen C and send them under the ice in the area where the Endurance was thought to have gone down in 1915. The AUVs' echo sounders will map the seafloor, searching for anything anomalous—assuming things don't go south. The BBC notes that a February 2018 mission to the Larsen C failed. The British Antarctic Survey behind it explains the sea ice its ship encountered was up to 16 feet thick, and in 24 hours they made it just 5 miles, with more than 250 to go. The Times of London reports Dowdeswell and his team will sail on the SA Agulhas II, a Polar Class 5 ship that can break ice roughly 3 feet thick. That's not good enough, says American shipwreck hunter David Mearns, who also covets the Endurance and thinks a Polar Class 3 ship is needed. "Whatever ship you have, it's possible it won't get there," Dowdeswell allows. "It could be a better or worse sea ice year." Shackleton's survival story is legendary: After abandoning ship, he and his crew survived on ice floes for five months; five days at sea in lifeboats brought them to Elephant Island, and Shackleton and a few others then set off on a 720-nautical-mile voyage to South Georgia, per the Telegraph. (This Antarctic explorer turned back—too late.)

Alex Trebek has hinted that he may be ready to step away from “Jeopardy!” the game show he’s hosted since 1984. He even went as far as to suggest potential replacements. Speaking to Harvey Levin on the latest episode of “OBJECTified,” Trebek revealed there’s more than a 50/50 chance he’ll step away from his hosting duties in 2020, once his contract is up. “Sure,” he responded, when asked if he can see life beyond “Jeopardy!” Trebek, 78, even got candid about finding a potential replacement for him should the time come when someone else has to read the answers to some tough trivia questions. The star was ready with both a male and female suggestion when prompted by Levin for more information about his potential exit. “I mentioned to our producer not so long ago that the fellow that does play-by-play for the Los Angeles Kings – they should consider him,” Trebek said referring to Alex Faust. When asked if a woman could fill his shoes, Trebek wasted no time in making his selection. “There is an attorney, Laura Coates,” he said. “She’s African-American and she appears some of the cable news shows from time to time.” As Page Six notes, Coates was very excited about her name being in the mix for a chance to fill in for the iconic host. “Incredibly honored & humbled @Jeopardy Alex Trebek 1) knows who I am 2) thinks I'd be a great host of my fave game show ever that I grew up watching w/ my family & still watch w/ my own kids (who saw him say this & now think I'm a genius) #Dying,” Coates wrote on Twitter. Right now it has not been confirmed that Trebek plans to leave the show in 2020. However, based on his latest interview, it seems he’s giving serious thought to not renewing his contract. Earlier this year, production of the show was put on hiatus after the host revealed he underwent brain surgery. Fortunately, he was able to recover in a hurry and things went back on track. ||||| Incredibly honored & humbled @ Jeopardy Alex Trebek 1) knows who I am 2) thinks I'd be a great host of my fave game show ever that I grew up watching w/ my family & still watch w/ my own kids (who saw him say this & now think I'm a genius) # Dying http://www.tmz.com/2018/07/30/alex-trebek-jeopardy-replacement-alex-faust-kings-hockey/ … via @ TMZ ||||| Alex Trebek, the host of “Jeopardy!” since 1984, stoked speculation on Monday that he could retire when his contract expires in 2020, telling a TMZ host that his chances of staying longer were “50-50, and a little less.” The absence of Mr. Trebek, 78, would fundamentally alter the lightning-fast trivia show, which relies on his steady delivery to keep the pace humming. His comments, made on a Fox News program hosted by Harvey Levin of TMZ, were far from conclusive, and fans have long guessed who his replacement might be only to see him renew his contract again. But this time he suggested two people he saw fit to replace him — neither of whom had been on the radar of most fans. He first mentioned Alex Faust, the play-by-play announcer for the N.H.L.’s Los Angeles Kings. On Twitter, Mr. Faust appeared to be surprised but grateful for the plug.

– Who is a beloved host of a long-running game show considering retirement? The answer is Alex Trebek, host of Jeopardy! since 1984. The Canadian-born host's latest contract expires in 2020, when he will be 80. He told TMZ's Harvey Levin on Fox's OBJECTified on Monday that the chances of him sticking around after 2020 are "50/50, and a little less," the New York Times reports. Trebek also named two possible replacements, both of whom were surprised but thrilled to hear that the famously unflappable host considered them to be worthy successors, Fox News reports. "i mentioned to our producer not so long ago that the fellow that does play-by-play for the Los Angeles Kings—they should consider him," Trebek said, referring to Alex Faust, who tweeted that he was "flattered by Mr. Trebek's kind words," and thrilled to learn the host is a Kings fan. Trebek also said: "There is an attorney, Laura Coates. She's African-American and she appears on some of the cable news shows from time to time." Coates tweeted that she was "incredibly honored and humbled" that Trebek not only knows who she is, but thinks she'd be a "great host of my fave game show ever." Andy Saunders, who runs a Jeopardy! fan site, tells the Times that while it will be hard for anyone to replace Trebek, his choice would be Anderson Cooper. (Trebek took time off early this year to recuperate from brain surgery.)

How do other people deal with the torrent of information that pours down on us all? Do they have some secret? Perhaps. We are asking various people who seem well-informed to describe their media diets. This is from a conversation with Google CEO Eric Schmidt who transitions to executive chairman of Google next month. What I read varies widely based on what kind of information I’m looking for at the time. I check Google News a lot, and I have Google alerts set up for topics I’m especially interested in—like tech generally, or obviously Google. I have several magazine subscriptions and read The Economist, The New Yorker, The Atlantic and Vanity Fair on a regular basis. In terms of books, I mostly read non-fiction. I don’t use an e-reader—I stick to paper and ink. The most recent non-fiction book I read is Man’s Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl. I do sometimes read fiction; like many people out there, I recently read the Millennium series—The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and so forth—by Stieg Larsson. TechCrunch is a good place to get breaking tech news or Silicon Valley rumors, so I check that frequently to see what they’re up to. I also read a variety of more specialized websites and blogs, which I usually find through Google search. I believe in the power of information—the world is a better place when more information is available to more and more people; it’s crucial to a functioning democracy. For me, there’s no better place to get accurate, fresh information—well-reported information—than a newspaper. I read the New York Times and Wall Street Journal every day, both the paper edition and the web edition (depending on where I am and how much time I have) because there’s no better way to learn what you need to know for your day. People ask me a lot about the crisis in the newspaper industry. The truth is I see now as a moment of tremendous opportunity in this industry—there are so many possible places where we can unite technology with the great reporting and experience that already exist out there to come out of this better than ever. I don’t have all the answers but I have some ideas: you could get news that is more personalized to you, so you can find stories that you’re interested in—in less time and without having to filter through the information you don’t want. So that when you turn to get your news you find that the news source “knows” what you like and you don’t have to start over each day. You can customize for where and how you’re getting the information—on your phone or your tablet, or desktop, or however you choose to get it. You could use machine translation to translate news from a paper on the other side of the world so you can get a different perspective on an issue. Of course I think that part of the way to pay for all of this great content is with advertising—both text ads like those that Google started with and display ads, so you can add in that other piece to the puzzle. But when you put all these things together—personalized news, wherever you want it, in whatever language you want it, with your friends’ recommendations or what have you—you find that this is all something that is really worth paying for. So you might have a subscription or something like a “freemium” model where you get some of it for free or pay small amounts for the rest. With some combination of paid content and ads, you can move towards a thriving business model. In fact, to help publishers who choose to charge for their digital content, we introduced a new service called Google One Pass in February. With it, publishers can set up different payment models and experiment with what works for them. They can also authenticate existing print subscribers and give them access to free digital content on their websites or through their mobile apps. Experimentation is really important and we’re hoping this helps publishers discover new ways of making money for the valuable content they’re producing. We’ve been thinking about all this at Google for a long time, of course, because this is something that is really important to me and to the whole company: making sure that newspapers and quality journalism can take advantage of the Internet and other technology and thrive, because they really are the fourth estate and are so crucial to modern democracy. Want to add to this story? Let us know in comments or send an email to the author at jhudson at theatlantic dot com. You can share ideas for stories on the Open Wire. John Hudson ||||| How do other people deal with the torrent of information that pours down on us all? What sources can't they live without? To find out, we regularly reach out to well-informed people to learn more about their media diets. This is taken from a conversation with author and political commentator Ann Coulter, whose new book, Demonic: How the Liberal Mob Is Endangering America, hit bookstores this week. When I first wake up, I don't open my eyes right away so I can read the backs of my eyelids, which say on the right one: "God is Republican" and the left: "Christie 2012." Second, I turn on MSNBC because there's nothing like a good belly laugh to start your day, then Fox News, to make sure Obama hasn't issued an executive order banning it yet. I only go to CNN if MSNBC, Fox, TV Land, WGN, TBS, USA, Bravo, HGTV and BBC America are in commercials. It doesn't happen very often, but when it does, boy, do I appreciate having CNN. All my TVs are on MSNBC all day so that I can listen while I'm cooking, dusting, cleaning my guns, polishing my Reagan busts, marinating veal chops, autographing copies of my new book Demonic, correcting errors in Maureen Dowd's columns, etc., etc. After scrolling through some my favorite Internet sites (Drudge Report, Human Events, Sweetness & Light, KausFiles, The Daily Caller, Garden & Gun), I usually read some of the NYT in hardcopy. I like to let the Times pile up during the week and read an entire stack of 'em over the weekend. I find it's much more pleasant to read the Treason Times a few days out of date because then I know that, no matter what they've written, they haven't destroyed the world yet. In addition to my beloved Treason Times, I subscribe to Human Events and Newsmax. I also get hundreds of pictures of Rep. Anthony Weiner's penis every day. I don't even remember subscribing to it. I'm on Twitter. It's the only way to follow me and not get your ass beat by my bodyguard. I tried to get on Facebook, but they said I couldn't have the name "Ann Coulter." Facebook won't let me have my own name. They told me it's like when college basketball had to ban dunking because of Lew Alcindor. I'm that good. My homepage is AnnCoulter.com--which really should be mandatory, don't you think, in this day and age? Where else can you get the important news of the day, witty comments, and unadulterated Ann Coulter? My standard TV line up is: the "Brit Hume Show"--as we still call it--Hardball, O'Reilly, Rachel, Ed Schultz, O'Donnell, Hannity and, if I'm still up, Red Eye at 3 am (or midnight in LA!). I'm currently having Ed Schultz withdrawal. Weekends, I mostly watch Fox Business and C-SPAN and sometimes the Chris Wallace Show during one of their helpful evening replays. Before I go to bed I usually watch one of various true crime shows like Forensic Files, Dominick Dunne's Power Privilege. and Justice, or Snapped. I pick up tips to avoid getting murdered, such as: don't be a stripper, don't marry a gambler, don't cheat on your spouse, don't marry a gay guy who wants to steal all your money and run off with a man, don't raise ungrateful layabouts and leave them a lot of money in your will, and never, EVER get in a car with a Kennedy behind the wheel. In fact, I think I'll be leaving everything in my will to National Right to Life. As for what I read for "fun," everything I've just mentioned is purely for fun. Most fun: Chris Christie press conferences and anytime anyone asks Joe Biden anything. Want to add to this story? Let us know in comments or send an email to the author at ufriedman at theatlantic dot com. You can share ideas for stories on the Open Wire. Uri Friedman

– That Atlantic's "What I Read" feature is typically a straight-forward literary affair, with big names rattling off the newspapers, websites, magazines, and TV shows that keep them informed (with a little Girl With the Dragon Tattoo thrown in). Ann Coulter's recitation of her media diet, however, is downright hilarious. Highlights: On television: "All my TVs are on MSNBC all day so that I can listen while I'm cooking, dusting, cleaning my guns, polishing my Reagan busts, marinating veal chops, autographing copies of my new book Demonic, correcting errors in Maureen Dowd's columns, etc., etc." Where CNN fits in: "I only go to CNN if MSNBC, Fox, TV Land, WGN, TBS, USA, Bravo, HGTV and BBC America are in commercials. It doesn't happen very often, but when it does, boy, do I appreciate having CNN." On her subscriptions: "In addition to my beloved Treason Times," aka, the New York Times, "I subscribe to Human Events and Newsmax. I also get hundreds of pictures of Rep. Anthony Weiner's penis every day. I don't even remember subscribing to it." On social media: "I'm on Twitter. It's the only way to follow me and not get your ass beat by my bodyguard." Click for the entire piece, which include an explanation of the valuable safety tips she's picked up by watching true-crime shows.

Photo Related Links Burger King in Talks to Buy Tim Hortons and Move to Canada When Daniel Schwartz took over as chief executive of Burger King last year, he set about pinching pennies. Mr. Schwartz, 34, had little affinity for traditional corporate luxuries. So he sold the company jet, ended an annual $1 million party held at an Italian villa and moved executives at the company’s Miami headquarters from posh offices employees called Mahogany Row to an open floor plan full of cubicles. Mr. Schwartz further reduced expenses by selling more restaurants to franchise owners, reducing the amount of money and employees needed to run the business. This continued a strategy Mr. Schwartz began in 2010, when he led the buyout of Burger King by 3G Capital, a Brazilian investment firm. And it seemed to work. Since Burger King went public in 2012, the company’s value has more than doubled. But after years of cutting costs at Burger King, Mr. Schwartz and 3G are now prepared to spend big money on the brand. Burger King is in advanced talks to buy Tim Hortons, a Canadian chain of coffee-and-doughnut shops, for more than $8 billion, in what would be the largest-ever acquisition of a restaurant chain. According to a person briefed on the matter, the billionaire Warren E. Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway will provide a little less than 25 percent of the deal financing by taking preferred shares. If completed, the deal would provide several clear benefits for Burger King and 3G Capital, which would remain the majority owner. But the deal would also steer the company into perilous territory for fast-food restaurants by bringing together multiple brands under one roof. Previous attempts at consolidation in the restaurant industry have sputtered. Wendy’s and Arby’s combined in 2008 but split just three years later. Wendy’s also once owned Tim Hortons, but sold it in 2006. Darden Restaurants, which owns brands such as Olive Garden and LongHorn Steakhouse, has come under pressure from activist investors, and it sold the Red Lobster chain to a private equity firm this year. In each case, extracting cost savings from a disparate group of brands was easier said than done. “The portfolio approach has not worked well in casual dining,” said Lynne Collier, an analyst at Sterne Agee, referring to midprice chain restaurants like those owned by Darden. But, Ms. Collier said, portfolios of diverse fast-food brands might be more promising. And instead of simply combining one burger company with another, Burger King appears to be willing to diversify its offerings beyond standard fast-food fare. In doing so, Burger King would be aiming to emulate the success of Yum Brands, the company that owns KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell. Yum is among the best-performing restaurant companies in the world, benefiting from strong international sales. Photo Dunkin’ Brands, owner of Dunkin’ Donuts and the Baskin-Robbins ice cream chain, has also demonstrated that a fast-food company can thrive with more than one brand under the same roof. In both cases, Yum and Dunkin’ Brands have taken to positioning their restaurants next to each other in some places. “You can line them up side by side in the same building,” Ms. Collier said. It is a strategy that would not work with multiple burger chains but might work for Burger King and Tim Hortons. And for Burger King, whose investors are eager for continued growth, a big takeover may be the best choice on the menu. “At a certain size, you have to look at acquisitions if you want more growth,” Ms. Collier said. And Burger King is well positioned to spend now, with its stock riding high after 3G Capital’s operational changes paid off. “Since taking over in late 2010, the new management team has focused intensely on improving the brand image through several initiatives, including restaurant remodels, more attractive menu items, approachable marketing and improved operations,” Alvin Concepcion, a Citigroup analyst, said in a note before news of the potential Tim Hortons deal surfaced. By betting on a big deal to expand, Mr. Schwartz and 3G Capital appear to be intent on creating a large international fast-food empire. Acquiring Tim Hortons would give Burger King access to a lucrative new revenue stream. Tim Hortons reported almost $3 billion in sales in 2013 and has shown steady growth in recent years. Tim Hortons would also give Burger King more exposure to the fast-growing coffee and breakfast food market, which is led by companies like Starbucks and Dunkin’ Brands. In addition to giving Burger King exposure to popular new categories, it would help the company withstand pressure it faces from a range of competitors. So-called fast casual restaurants like Chipotle are appealing to a new generation of health-conscious consumers. And regional burger chains, like In-N-Out Burgers, Five Guys and Shake Shack, which is preparing to go public, are taking market share from traditional fast-food chains. Finally, buying Tim Hortons would allow Burger King to reincorporate in Canada, which has a lower corporate tax rate. While such a move, called an inversion, may not substantially reduce its overall tax bill, it would give the enlarged company easier access in the future to cash it earned overseas. For Tim Hortons, the deal would provide a way forward. Having largely eliminated or marginalized most of its domestic competitors, Tim Hortons now saturates the Canadian market to such an extent that the potential for substantial growth there through new stores is all but gone. Instead, the company is trying to find ways to increase what customers spend. “This is a very profitable company,” said Will Mitchell, a professor of strategic management at the University of Toronto Rotman School of Management. “It’s not struggling in terms of profits; it’s struggling in terms of profitable growth.” Like many successful Canadian companies, Tim Hortons has long looked to the United States as a place to expand. The result has been mixed, at best. The company is still subsidizing some American franchises and has closed some stores, which are concentrated in the Northeast. Niraj Dawar, a professor of marketing at the Ivey Business School at the University of Western Ontario, said that the best prospects for expanding Tim Hortons internationally most likely rested in markets outside the United States, where Burger King is already active. “The U.S. market is saturated,” he said. “But there are many other markets where Burger King plays where there isn’t this saturation of coffee outlets.” Photo In a statement, Tim Hortons said that its talks with Burger King were being driven by “the potential to leverage Burger King’s worldwide footprint and experience in global development to accelerate Tim Hortons growth in international markets.” That sounds remarkably similar to what Tim Hortons hoped for when it was taken over by Wendy’s International in 1996. In his autobiography, “Always Fresh,” Ron Joyce, a co-founder of Tim Hortons, said it rapidly became apparent that his company was being dragged down by its new American owner. “Wendy’s simply did not perform, leaving Tim Hortons as the company’s only means of growth,” Mr. Joyce wrote. Yet Mr. Schwartz and 3G Capital apparently believe they have a strategy that will work where Wendy’s was unable to succeed. Another potential stumbling point is Tim Hortons’ prominence in Canada — the elimination of several doughnuts, including the Dutchie, was widely covered this year — meaning that a deal would receive close political and public scrutiny. On Tuesday, Peggy Nash, a member of the New Democratic Party, which is the official opposition in Parliament, told reporters that her party would push for a thorough review of any transaction under foreign ownership laws. “It seems pretty clear why Burger King would want to move its headquarters to Canada,” she said, referring to potential tax benefits as well as the strong profitability of Tim Hortons. “What’s less clear is what Canadians get out of the deal.” Michael J. de la Merced contributed reporting. ||||| With the news that Burger King is in talks to merge with Tim Hortons, customers at a downtown Toronto Timmies were mostly unconcerned about what it would mean for Canada’s most famous coffee shop. “As long as the quality doesn’t change, I don’t see a problem,” said Grant McDonald, holding a double-double at the corner of Sherbourne St. and Richmond St. “I don’t like to see successful Canadian companies get bought up, but it’s good if it brings more head office jobs here.” The proposed new company would be based in Canada, reportedly to save taxes for Burger King, but Tim Hortons would be the minor partner in the merger. Burger King has more than 13,000 outlets worldwide, while Tim Horton’s has fewer than 5,000, most of which are in Canada. “Burger King’s not all that big here, so if they bring in that approach it could hurt Tim’s,” said Shawn Basra, who said he grabs a coffee there about twice a week. He said it likely wouldn’t change his view of the company’s Canadian appeal, and regardless, he tends to stop in just because it’s convenient. “It’s brilliant marketing, that’s all it is. Just marketing. If they keep the same number of locations, I’m sure it’ll be fine.” Justin Aguiar also said he stops by a Timmies about three times a week simply because the stores are in the right places. “I’m indifferent about the merger,” he said. “I mean, the coffee’s not even all that great here, let’s be honest.” Miriam, who comes in every day (and preferred not to give a last name), wasn’t happy about the prospect of Tim Horton’s becoming a global giant. “I don’t like it. I guess it’s for tax purposes, I don’t always understand that economic side of it,” she said. “But it would become like Starbucks, I think. I’d probably go more often to Second Cup.” Marketing experts say there may be some risk for the brand if Tim Hortons forms a large new company (it would be the third-largest fast food company in the world), but they note it prospered between 1995 and 2006, when it was owned by U.S.-based burger chain Wendy’s. “Canadians are getting used to having foreign owners,” said Ken Wong, a business professor at Queen’s University. “What would bother them is if they lost in those brands the distinctively Canadian flavour.” Wong said that because this isn’t a case of one restaurant simply buying the other – it would instead be a third-party equity group that controls a new company – he thinks Tim Hortons’ operations in Canada will be largely unaffected. The only big change might come in the U.S., he said, if the company pushes large-scale expansion there. A poll on the Star’s website showed there are still many readers worried about new owners, however. As of press time, more than half of 5,000 voters said the merger was a bad idea because “it dilutes Tim Hortons’ Canadian-ness.” Carolyn Ray, the managing director of Interbrand Canada, said Tim Hortons is remarkable for how high it scores in the “authenticity” category among Canadians. Interbrand releases a “Best Canadian Brands” ranking each year, and in 2014 Tim Hortons was ranked fifth overall, and first in the retail category. “It’s hard to name another brand that’s more Canadian and built more into the fabric of our culture,” Ray said. “So I think there is a risk here, but Tim Hortons is extremely savvy about the way they manage their brand, and I think consumers trust it...and it’s an exciting day for Tim Hortons, this really gives them the platform to be a global brand.” The overall sentiment from most patrons the Star talked to in Toronto was that they might prefer Tim Horton’s to stay as a smaller, Canadian-focused chain, but the Burger King merger isn’t likely to affect their coffee-shopping habit. ||||| In what could be a whopper of a deal for Tim Hortons, Burger King is in talks to buy the iconic Canadian company. A joint statement by the companies says they hope to form a new corporation that would be based in Canada — although they would continue to operate as standalone brands. Brazilian investment fund 3G Capital owns a little over two-thirds of Burger King and is effectively proposing to build a Canadian holding company that would own both chains but operate them independently. Right now, Burger King is based in Miami; Tim Hortons headquarters are in Oakville, Ont. But the coffee chain only recently returned to its origins as a purely Canadian company. For years, it was owned by U.S. burger chain Wendy's before being spun out in an IPO in 2006. This means Tim Hortons is going to go full bore with a huge expansion into the U.S. - Investment manager Barry Schwartz of Baskin Financial If a merger is completed, the new company would become the world's third-largest quick-service restaurant chain, with more than 18,000 locations and sales of about $22 billion. The markets reacted positively Monday to the possibility. Tim Hortons (TSX:THI) was up 20.97 per cent to close at $83.20 on the Toronto Stock Exchange, while Burger King climbed 20.80 per cent to $32.75 US in New York. The companies aren't saying much, but it's clear there's a lot of potential benefits up for grabs. Degroote School of Business professor Marvin Ryder says the two companies could be very well suited to help each other. Burger King currently operates in 98 countries around the world, experience the donut chain could certainly lean on. "To have a big brother helping you to open locations, helping to tell you where to locate, what are the good markets... this could be a good partner for them," Ryder said. Investment manager Barry Schwartz at Baskin Financial in Toronto likes the deal a lot for both companies. "With 3G's backing and smarts, this means Tim Hortons is going to go full bore with a huge expansion into the U.S.," Baskin said, adding that he sees no possible reason for Canadian regulators to kibosh the deal. "This would create a large, world-class company based in Canada, and paying taxes in Canada," Schwartz said. "It would also increase the exposure of Canada and the TSX and potentially lead to more [deals] of U.S. and foreign companies coming to Canada." Tax savings Business commentator Michael Hlinka said on CBC Toronto's Metro Morning on Monday that Burger King may be making a "tax inversion" play with this move. The basic U.S. corporate tax rate is about 35 per cent, while Canada's, depending on the province, is around 26 per cent. By merging with a Canadian company and setting up a head office in Canada, U.S. companies can sometimes achieve significant tax savings, Hlinka said. "You've got to merge with a company one-quarter your size ... then you can technically set up your headquarters in Canada, even though you still keep everybody in the United States. It's almost like a mailing address more than anything else," Hlinka said. A number of U.S. pharmaceutical companies have tried similar moves in recent years, most notably Valeant, which bought up Mississauga, Ont.-based generic drugmaker Biovail in 2010. Valeant was U.S.-based at the time, but is now headquartered in Laval, Que., after buying what was then Canada's largest drug company. Pfizer also recently tried to buy AstraZeneca in order to move itself to England, which has a much more favourable tax regime. Two other U.S. drug firms, Medtronic and AbbVie, are also in the process of trying to buy two Irish drug companies, again, largely for tax reasons. But it's not just a tax move That's not to suggest that taxes are the only factor at play here — Burger King is, after all, trying to get its hands on a successful business in its own right. Tim's released earnings on Aug. 6 that beat expectations, and the stock has been rising ever since. Share in Tim Hortons on the TSX had gained almost 15 per cent in the last two weeks even before the Burger King news broke over the weekend. Burger King shares have also been doing well, so the deal won't be cheap for 3G — shares in both Tim Hortons and Burger King have never been more expensive. Canada's federal corporate tax rate is 15 per cent, and Ontario currently tacks on another 11.5 per cent, putting the total tax bill for a company residing in Ontario at 26.5 per cent. Burger King's latest annual report reveals that thanks to some generous tax breaks on overseas profits, the company's effective tax rate last year was 27.5 per cent. Contrast that with the 26.8 per cent tax that Tim Hortons says it paid last year. Indeed, beyond any marginal tax savings, Burger King may also be trying to keep pace with a key competitor, Hlinka said. "McDonald's has become very serious about making a good cup of coffee in the past several years and Burger King hasn't really stepped up, so maybe this is how they're going to compete with McDonald's globally," he said. So what's the upside for Tims? "If Tim Hortons gets its coffee into all those Burger King stores worldwide, that would be absolutely huge for it, and I think that might be part of this strategy as well," Hlinka said. The company also says any transaction will be structured to deepen the connections each brand has with its customers, franchisees, employees and communities. For its part, the federal government cautiously welcomed the news, with a spokesman for Industry Minister James Moore telling CBC News that Canada's recently lowered corporate taxes have made Canada "one of the best country’s in the world to do business." NDP Industry critic Peggy Nash said Monday the opposition would seek more details about any possible deal and called for greater transparency under the Investment Canada Act, which covers large foreign takeovers in Canada. ||||| MIAMI (AP) — Burger King is buying Canadian coffee-and-doughnut chain Tim Hortons Inc. for about $11 billion, creating the world's third-largest fast-food company. A Burger King sign and a Tim Hortons sign are displayed in Lower Sackville, Nova Scotia, Monday, Aug. 25, 2014. Burger King is in talks to buy Tim Hortons in hopes of creating a new, publicly traded company... (Associated Press) The corporate headquarters of the new company will be in Canada, a move that may help Burger King lower its taxes. Burger King will still run its business out of Miami. Burger King Worldwide Inc. will pay $65.50 Canadian ($59.74) in cash and 0.8025 common shares of the new company for each Tim Hortons share. This represents total value per Tim Hortons share of $94.05 Canadian (US$85.79), based on Burger King's Monday closing stock price. Alternatively, Tim Hortons shareholders may choose either all-cash or all stock in the new company. Tim Hortons stock rose more than 10 percent in Tuesday premarket trading. Burger King's shares fell slightly.

– Burger King is confirming an $11 billion buy of Canada's iconic Tim Hortons coffee chain that will create Earth's third-biggest fast-food company and settle its headquarters in Canada—where corporate tax rates are conveniently around 26%, compared to a basic rate of 35% in the US. The merger looks like a "tax inversion" play, an analyst tells the CBC, explaining that when an American firm merges with a Canadian one, it can sometimes "technically set up [its] headquarters in Canada, even though you still keep everybody in the United States. It's almost like a mailing address more than anything else." Burger King will still run its business from Miami, notes the AP. But there could be a lot more than tax savings to the deal, the New York Times reports. The merger would give Tim Hortons huge opportunities for overseas expansion and would boost Burger King's coffee and breakfast offerings; the combined chain would have 18,000 locations. Tim Hortons was owned by Wendy's for years, until 2006, but some Canadians worry that the new deal will end up diluting the chain's Canadian-ness. "You know, Tim's is already pretty corporate," a customer at a Toronto outlet tells the Toronto Star. "But it still does have that nice Canadian vibe."

"A lot of people think I'm insane but I'm so comfortable with bees so it was never something I had anxiety about," Mueller told SWNS. SWNS Mueller fed the bees sugar so they wouldn't get hangry on her, then got them to settle on her swollen stomach by holding the queen bee in her hand. SWNS Beekeeper Emily Mueller, 33, struck a pose with the swarm of honey bees for her maternity photo shoot. SWNS Mueller, who runs a bee removal service with her husband, got called to take care of a hive nearby the same day she had scheduled the maternity shoot. SWNS Emily Mueller is a full-time beekeeper in her South Akron town. SWNS Emily Mueller says she's happy that her photo shoot can raise awareness about how gentle bees are. SWNS Ad Up Next Baby boomers are way messier than millennials You won’t be able to scrub this from your memory.... 6 View Slideshow Back Continue Share this: Facebook Twitter Google Facebook Messenger WhatsApp Email Copy Advertisement The image of 20,000 bees latched onto a pregnant woman doesn’t exactly suggest maternal bliss. But for one Ohio woman, the swarm was picture-perfect. Beekeeper Emily Mueller, 33, recently struck a pose with a swarm of honeybees, braving stings and internet scorn for the buzzy pics. “Bees have been a huge part of our lives for the past few years so I wanted to incorporate them into something important to me — like my maternity photos,” the south Akron mother of three told South West News Service. “Bees represent life and death and they are very spiritual creatures.” Mueller, who runs a bee-removal service with her husband, got called to take care of a hive nearby the same day she had scheduled the maternity shoot. Instead of rescheduling, she decided to incorporate the bees into the photos. She fed them sugar so they wouldn’t get hangry on her, then got them to settle on her stomach by holding the queen bee in a cage in her hand. The photos have been making the rounds online, with many alarmed responses about her unborn child’s safety. But Mueller wasn’t too worried. “A lot of people think I’m insane but I’m so comfortable with bees, so it was never something I had anxiety about,” the professional beekeeper told SWNS. The actual sensation, Mueller said, felt pretty good: “Having them all on me was this clinging sensation. They all stick to you and they are very warm, so it’s almost like when a kitten is walking on you.” She did get stung three times during the shoot, but says it was worth it for those photos, and the chance to give bees a better rep. “I just want to raise awareness about how gentle they are.” ||||| CLOSE Emily Mueller is a honey bee activist and says taking her maternity photos with a swarm of bees covering her is everything she ever wanted. Photographer Kendrah Damis snapped pictures of Emily Mueller covered in bees. (Photo: Screenshot) When Emily Mueller posed with a swarm of honeybees in an August maternity shoot, it took no time before everyone around the world was buzzing about the photos. Months later, the Akron honeybee rescuer and chair of the master beekeeping program for the Ohio State Beekeeper's Association has revealed a heartbreaking update. On Sunday, Mueller shared on Facebook that her baby, a boy, was "born an angel." In a separate Facebook post on Monday, Mueller detailed the story of her stillbirth so others that have experienced it could "go through grieving of their own." "Yesterday evening we had to hand over our precious child and say goodbye to his physical body forever," Mueller wrote in the post about about Emersyn Jacob, the name given by her and her husband Ryan upon learning of his passing. Mueller, who has three other children, said in the post she was preparing for an upcoming event and was so busy she hadn't paid attention to fetal movement. "Who truly does when you've been this far along 3 times before and everything has been completely normal," she wrote. "By evening I began to realize I had not felt baby move much and had contractions that felt different than any I have had before." When Mueller began to become more unsettled about the movement, she and her husband went to her midwife's office to check for a heartbeat. It was there that the couple, along with their youngest son and daughter, learned six days before the due date their Emersyn had died. "Every detail of that moment is forever sketched into my mind and I cannot stop replaying it," Mueller wrote. "Dr. Sutter sat on my right side looking at the screen and turned to me and said, 'Your baby has passed.' "Our baby has died. Our baby will never come home with us," Mueller wrote. "This wonderful rainbow baby we were blessed with has now become a storm in our lives." The Muellers found out Emersyn was a boy after they had returned from the hospital because the family, who had previously been waiting to find out his gender until he was born, "wanted to know who we were mourning." The next day, the family met and let go of Emersyn, who Mueller believes died from a blood clotting issue that has caused several of her family members to suffer miscarriages. Thanks to Sufficient Grace Ministries, an organization based in Deshler, Ohio, the family not only was able to get Emersyn's footprints on keepsake items and receive newborn photos, but they received an outpouring of support "at the cost of absolutely nothing." "It felt like we had Emersyn for a day; for one day we got to give him all of us and to do important things that mattered." Read or Share this story: http://cin.ci/2ALfaQt

– An Ohio mom whose photos from her maternity shoot went viral over the summer shared sad news online this weekend: The baby she'd been carrying, a little boy she and her husband named Emersyn Jacob, died in utero, reports the Cincinnati Enquirer. Emily Mueller, who runs a honeybee rescue service and has three kids ages 1 to 10, had posed with 20,000 bees swarming around her pregnant belly, prompting alarmed reactions from viewers. But Mueller tells the Times Reporter the bees had nothing to do with her fourth child's death, which she announced on Facebook on Sunday. "It is with the most deepening sadness I share that our sweet Emersyn Jacob was born an angel yesterday," she wrote. In a separate post, Mueller documents how she and her husband, Ryan, had found out about the stillbirth, which she believes may have been caused by a hereditary blood-clotting issue. She explains that after being distracted by preparations for the baby's arrival, she suddenly realized last week—just days before her due date—she hadn't felt much movement lately. She couldn't find the baby's heartbeat with her home fetal heart monitor, so she went to the doctor the next day, where her worst fears were confirmed. "Your baby has passed," the attending doctor told her. She talks about the "unfathomable" pain of that news, as well as having to give birth to her deceased son. But she also thanks the staff who helped her family, and a local nonprofit that assists bereaved parents. The group arranged for keepsake items and a photo session with the baby. "For one day we got to give [Emersyn] all of us and to do important things that mattered," Mueller writes. She posted a photo of her husband holding Emersyn's hand, as well as one showing the baby in a bee-adorned outfit, with the simple caption: "Our little beekeeper." (A stillbirth story that led to help for others.)

Paige Wiser was the TV critic at the Chicago Sun-Times. She was fired yesterday for fabricating part of a review. But she might still have a job if it wasn't for her damn kids. You see, Paige Wiser was tasked with writing a review of "Glee! Live," a sort of singing show, which exists. Paige decided to take her children to the performance with her. That's when things went awry. According to the Chicago Tribune: Wiser, 40, said she brought her two young children to the show Friday at Rosemont's Allstate Arena with the approval of an editor who told her "cute kids' reaction would be more than welcome" in the story. Her son fell off a chair during the show. Her daughter vomited into a cotton-candy bag. They left three songs later, only 13 numbers into the concert, but her report included commentary on the encore based on information from previous "Glee Live!" shows. Yes, her god damn kids were falling off chairs and vomiting and she'd just had enough of it so she left the god damn "Glee! Live" show but she still had to turn in a review to put food on the table for these kids to vomit up later, so she just wrote up a "review" of the songs she thought they were going to sing, which turned out not to be the songs they actually sang, and ughhhhhhhh, now Paige Wiser has totally lost her fucking job, over this bullshit. To her eternal credit, she's completely remorseful and accepting of her punishment. That vomiting kid will never live this down. Do you really need a "review" of "Glee! Live" in your newspaper, Chicago? [Photo via wdecora/Flickr] ||||| Who knows? At another time or another place, maybe a talented writer like Paige Wiser (pictured above) might have gotten off with a reprimand or a suspension. But not anymore. And not at the Chicago Sun-Times. When confronted this week with an unquestionable lapse in the “accuracy and honesty” of her reporting, Wiser knew right away that it was all over for her after 17 years of otherwise unblemished work at the paper. “They’re laying off people left and right — good, good people,” she said after her firing Thursday. “So to go easy on somebody like me, I just don’t think they could do it.” Wiser, 40, who most recently had been the Sun-Times’ TV critic, was busted after a reader alerted editors to her review of a pop music concert — last Friday’s performance of Glee Live! at the Allstate Arena. In it, Wiser referenced one song that wasn’t performed at the show and another that she wasn’t around to see or hear. “Accuracy and honesty in reporting are essential parts of the promise we make to our readers,” editor-in-chief Don Hayner wrote in an online announcement of her dismissal. “We regret the incident and apologize.” Wiser doesn’t dispute the facts or take issue with her punishment, saying: “I’m just mortified. I’m embarrassed. I’m ashamed. I fully understand how wrong it was what I did. And how stupid.” So how did it happen? Wiser said she’d been under intense pressure, citing chronic headaches, a car accident in which she’d broken a finger, and an experience with vertigo while covering Oprah Winfrey’s May 17 Farewell Spectacular from a skybox at the United Center. As a result of that experience, she felt she’d disappointed her colleagues by failing to carry out her assignment properly that night. She reluctantly agreed to cover Glee Live! only after her editor said she could bring her 7-year-old daughter and 6-year-old son to the show. When her daughter became ill and began throwing up into a cotton-candy bag, Wiser said she decided to leave halfway through the concert and take her children home. “If I were smart, I would have written only about the part of the concert that I saw,” she said. “But after my complete failure of covering the Oprah spectacular, I just felt like that would call attention to me in a bad way. So I went home and I looked at set lists online and added those to my review. The one holdover from the last tour was Don’t Rain on My Parade, but apparently they did not play that song. They’d changed the set list the show before. “Of course I was in the wrong. I made a horrible decision at 1am when I was tired, but I know it was not worth throwing away a career. After the Oprah incident, I felt this one had to be solid. But I have no excuse. I know the rules.” Until recently, the Sun-Times had made special accommodations for Wiser by allowing her to work from her far northwest suburban home to avoid what she called a “three-hour commute.” But after a recent round of layoffs left her department more short-handed than ever, she was told she had to come in to the office each day. “Trying to do this with the kids and a three-hour commute, and when every editor wants something different, let’s just say it’s become a very strange place. And because there’s not a lot of people with kids at the paper, I’m a little sensitive about coming across like I can’t do it because of my kids.” Veteran Sun-Times staffers recalled an incident in 1986 involving reporter Patricia Smith, who was disciplined but not fired after writing an inaccurate story about an Elton John concert she falsely claimed to have attended. Years later Smith was fired from her job as a columnist for the Boston Globe for fabricating interviews and information. Others were reminded of former NBC 5 reporter Amy Jacobson, who was criticized for bringing her two young children with her to go swimming while she interviewed a man whose wife was missing and presumed murdered. Jacobson was fired in 2007 after a rival station aired videotape of her in poolside attire at the man’s house. Before she was named TV critic in 2009, Wiser held a variety of jobs in the features department, including as writer of Planet Paige, a Sunday column that looked at the quirkier side of the news. A lifelong Chicagoan, she holds a master’s degree in journalism from Northwestern University and a bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Notre Dame. Her husband, Jim Wiser, is producer of Greg Jarrett’s morning show on Tribune Co.-owned WGN-AM (720). If there is a silver lining in all this, Wiser hopes she’ll find it: “It might not be the worst thing in the world to take a breath and look around. And think what you want your life to be. But how do you walk away from the job of your dreams? You never would. I never looked for another job because I knew nothing else would be as fun.”

– Paige Wiser lost the job she’d held for 17 years at the Chicago Sun-Times … and all because of a vomiting child. Wiser was fired as the paper’s TV critic because her "Glee Live!" concert review, published Sunday but since pulled from the website, described a song that wasn’t performed and another Wiser didn’t see. She explains, and apologizes, as recounted by the Chicago Tribune and Time Out Chicago: She brought her two young kids with her to Friday’s show, but left after her son fell off a chair and her daughter started throwing up into a cotton-candy bag—just 13 songs into the concert. She got commentary on the encore, which she didn’t see, from information on previous shows. "I'd like to think it wouldn't have been part of my thought process if it hadn't been 1am and I was just trying to get the story done," said Wiser. "Trying to do this with the kids and a three-hour commute, and when every editor wants something different, let’s just say it’s become a very strange place. And because there’s not a lot of people with kids at the paper, I’m a little sensitive about coming across like I can’t do it because of my kids.” Gawker is having fun with it.

Published on Jun 11, 2014 Meghan Trainor's official music video for 'All About That Bass'. Click to listen to Meghan Trainor on Spotify: http://smarturl.it/MegTSpotify?IQid=M... As featured on Title. Click to buy the track or album via iTunes: http://smarturl.it/MTTitleiTunes?IQid... Google Play: http://smarturl.it/MTThatBassPlay?IQi... Amazon: http://smarturl.it/MTTitleAz?IQid=MTr... More from Meghan Trainor Dear Future Husband: https://youtu.be/ShlW5plD_40 Like I'm Gonna Lose You: https://youtu.be/2-MBfn8XjIU Lips Are Movin: https://youtu.be/qDc_5zpBj7s More great global hits videos here: http://smarturl.it/GlobalHits?IQid=MT... Follow Meghan Trainor Website: http://www.meghan-trainor.com/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/meghantraino... Twitter: https://twitter.com/meghan_trainor Instagram: https://instagram.com/meghan_trainor Subscribe to Meghan Trainor on YouTube: http://smarturl.it/MeghanTSub?IQid=MT... Choreographed by: Charm La’ Donna #MeghanTrainor #AllAboutThatBass #Vevo #Pop #OfficialMusicVideo --------- Lyrics: Because you know I'm all about that bass 'Bout that bass, no treble I'm all about that bass 'Bout that bass, no treble I'm all about that bass 'Bout that bass, no treble I'm all about that bass 'Bout that bass... bass... bass... bass Yeah, it's pretty clear, I ain't no size two But I can shake it, shake it, like I'm supposed to do 'Cause I got that boom boom that all the boys chase And all the right junk in all the right places I see the magazine workin' that Photoshop We know that shit ain't real, come on now, make it stop If you got beauty, beauty, just raise 'em up 'Cause every inch of you is perfect from the bottom to the top Yeah, my mama she told me don't worry about your size (Shoo wop wop, sha-ooh wop wop) She says, Boys like a little more booty to hold at night (That booty, uh, that booty booty) You know I won't be no stick figure silicone Barbie doll So if that what you're into, then go 'head and move along" ||||| A In 2008 Amy Winehouse didn’t make it to the Grammy Awards because she was a denied a U.S. Visa to enter the country. The troubled singer – who died of alcohol poisoning three years later – was in the midst of her drug addiction and had just left rehab. Despite the setback she performed for the show from London via satellite and that night walked away with three Grammy Awards for Record of the Year, Song of the Year and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for her single, “Rehab.”

– The Grammys are off and running, with AC/DC opening the show with a performance and host LL Cool J skipping the full monologue to instead hand the stage over to Taylor Swift, who presented the first award. Best New Artist went to Sam Smith, who kept his acceptance speech blissfully short. Check back—we'll keep you updated throughout the night. Another performance, of course, by Ariana Grande, followed by Jessie J and Tom Jones dueting on "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'." The duo then presented Best Pop Solo Performance to Pharrell Williams for "Happy." The producers are apparently not messing around—Williams got played off the stage after, by one Twitter user's estimation, 15 seconds. After Dierks Bentley introduced Miranda Lambert for a performance, Best Pop Vocal Album went to In the Lonely Hour by Sam Smith. He again managed to keep things short and sweet enough to avoid getting played off. Kanye West performed, singing (with Auto-Tune) the entire time with not a rap in sight. Then a bunch of dancers dressed as, apparently, bulls took the stage for a Madonna performance, which would explain her red carpet outfit. Best Rock Album was presented to Beck for Morning Phase. He got played off. Best R&B Performance went to Beyonce for "Drunk in Love," featuring hubby Jay Z. She was, of course, not played off, though she did keep things pretty short. After an Ed Sheeran-John Mayer performance, Jeff Lynne's ELO performed (and got Paul McCartney up dancing and singing along in the audience). And then it was time for the unholy union of Adam Levine and Gwen Stefani performing a Maroon 5 song. Oh, you thought there might be another award right about now? No. Instead, Hozier performed "Take Me to Church," joined by Annie Lennox. Then a Jonas brother and the "All About That Bass" lady presented Best Country Album to Platinum by Miranda Lambert. And then, yes, another performance: Pharrell Williams' "Happy," with a strangely ominous intro. Then it was time for a prerecorded message from President Obama, calling for an end to violence against women and girls, followed by an impassioned speech by domestic violence survivor and activist Brooke Axtell and a performance of "By the Grace of God" from Katy Perry. Thanks to what was apparently a very, very long Target commercial, the world then watched Imagine Dragons perform from somewhere in Las Vegas (i.e., not the Grammy stage). Back at the Grammys, Lady Gaga and Tony Bennett performed a duet. Hey, look, it's LL Cool J! The host made a triumphant return to the stage to introduce Usher's performance of a Stevie Wonder tribute. Then, yes, another performance (Eric Church, "Give Me Back My Hometown"). It had been approximately 44 minutes since the last award was handed out. But instead of handing out another one, Brandy Clark performed, followed by a collaboration: Rihanna, Kanye West (still singing instead of rapping, but this time apparently sans Auto-Tune), and Paul McCartney. Closing in on an hour with no actual awards being given out, Taylor Swift presented Sam Smith performing with Mary J. Blige, which was followed by yet another performance (Latin rock star Juanes singing "Juntos"). Finally, an hour and seven minutes later, another award: Prince presented Album of the Year to Beck for Morning Phase. Beck got played off again. (And apparently almost got Kanyed by Kanye.) Shia LaBeouf, for some reason, took the stage to introduce a very confusing performance of Sia's "Chandelier," apparently featuring Kristen Wiig and interpretive dance. Song of the Year then went to—surprise, surprise—Sam Smith for "Stay With Me." Chris Martin and Beck teamed up for a performance, then Record of the Year went to, yes, Sam Smith again for "Stay With Me." He thanked his ex for breaking his heart "because you got me four Grammys." It's worth mentioning that pretty much every other commercial is Matthew McConaughey hawking Lincoln cars. After the "In Memoriam" segment, as the official end time of 11:30pm neared and it became increasingly unclear whether there were actual awards remaining to be handed out or whether viewers were just waiting for more Grammy officials to talk about copyright law, Twitter began to wonder if the show will actually go until midnight. No, there were no more awards to be handed out. Gwyneth Paltrow introduced her "beautiful friend" Beyonce singing a hymn, John Legend and Common performed "Glory," and the Grammys ended, with absolutely no farewell words from LL Cool J, nine minutes past schedule. Click for the best moments from the Grammys or scandals that have rocked the Grammys.

A new study from Harvard implicates two neonicotinoid pesticides, imidacloprid and clothianidin, in the ongoing plague of honeybee Colony Collapse Disorder. Imidacloprid is the most widely used pesticide in the world, and both are approved by the EPA. A team of Harvard biologists has come closer to cracking the mystery of honeybee Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), eight years after its appearance. CCD persists in transforming bee colonies around the world into ghost towns: by the end of each winter, some colonies wind up littered with dead bees and emptied of many more, with no signs of renewal. "One of the defining symptomatic observations of CCD colonies is the emptiness of hives in which the amount of dead bees found inside the hives do not account for the total numbers of bees present prior to winter when they were alive," states the report, published May 9 in the Bulletin of Insectology. The exact mechanism behind these collapses remains dauntingly unclear, but they have been linked with pathogen infestation, malnutrition, and pesticide exposure. This week's report strongly indicates that two neonicotinoid insecticides that are widely used on crops can decimate honeybee colonies' winter survival rates, whether or not mites or parasites are present. The two chemicals, imidacloprid and clothianidin, both block insects' central nervous systems, killing them by paralysis. Imidacloprid is the world's most widely-used insecticide, and has been registered for use in the US since the 1994; clothianidin was registered in 2003 by the US Environmental Protection Agency, which found that it had passed honeybee-specific toxicity tests. These scientists studied the health of 18 bee colonies in central Massachusetts over a six-month period spanning the winter of 2012-2013. Six of the colonies were fed sugar spiked with sub-lethal doses of imidacloprid, six had theirs laced with clothianidin, and six less-unfortunate control colonies ate clean sugar, starting in October. All of the colonies went about their apian routines in good form throughout the fall. But by late January, six of the 12 poisoned colonies experienced collapses with CCD-like symptoms, like en-masse disappearance and the presence of un-hatched young. Of the six control hives, only one failed to survive the winter, seemingly due to an infestation by Nosema Ceranae parasites. "The honey bee clusters in the six surviving neonicotinoid treated colonies were very small, and were either without queen bees or had no brood," reports the study, suggesting the poisons harm the animals' abilities to raise and train new young. In contrast, the five surviving control hives replenished their populations quickly, as the winter gave way to spring. According to the report, these results "reinforce the conclusion that sublethal exposure to neonicotinoids is likely the main culprit for the occurrence of CCD." The finding raises a large question for further study: Why do honeybees, who don't normally abandon their hives during winter, do so when poisoned by neonicotinoids? The finding may point to "the impairment of honey bee neurological functions, specifically memory, cognition, or behavior, as the results from the chronic sublethal neonicotinoid exposure," suggest the authors. "Although the failure to initiate brood rearing and the vanishing of the worker caste in the neonicotinoid-treated colonies might be governed by completely different mechanisms, they suggest the possible involvement of cascading events prior to the occurrence of CCD." The study comes amid a busy spring season for honey bee research. Last month a team of Kenyan biologists found that African honey bees seem be impervious to the pests, Varroa and Nosema, which plague honey bee populations in Europe, Asia, and the United States. And earlier this week Brazilian scientists identified two substances in honeybees' brains, that appear to vary as the insects move through space and time, guiding their age-related division of labor. ||||| Two widely used neonicotinoids — a class of insecticide — appear to significantly harm honeybee colonies over the winter, particularly colder winters, according to a new study from Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH). The study replicated a 2012 finding from the same research group that found a link between low doses of imidacloprid and Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), in which bees abandon their hives over the winter and eventually die. The new study also found that low doses of a second neonicotinoid, clothianidin, had the same negative effect. Further, although other studies have suggested that CCD-related mortality in honeybee colonies may come from bees’ reduced resistance to mites or parasites as a result of exposure to pesticides, the new study found that bees in the hives exhibiting CCD had almost identical levels of pathogen infestation as a group of control hives, most of which survived the winter. This finding suggests that the neonicotinoids are causing some other kind of biological mechanism in bees that in turn leads to CCD. The study appears online May 9 in the Bulletin of Insectology. “We demonstrated again in this study that neonicotinoids are highly likely to be responsible for triggering CCD in honeybee hives that were healthy prior to the arrival of winter,” said lead author Chensheng (Alex) Lu, associate professor of environmental exposure biology at HSPH. Since 2006, CCD has caused significant losses of honeybees. Pinpointing the cause is crucial to mitigating this problem since bees are prime pollinators of roughly one-third of all crops worldwide. Experts have considered a number of possible causes, including pathogen infestation, beekeeping practices, and pesticide exposure. Recent findings, including a 2012 study by Lu and colleagues, suggest that CCD is related specifically to neonicotinoids, which may impair bees’ neurological functions. Imidacloprid and clothianidin both belong to this group. Lu and his co-authors from the Worcester County Beekeepers Association studied the health of 18 bee colonies in three locations in central Massachusetts from October 2012 through April 2013. At each location, the researchers separated six colonies into three groups — one treated with imidacloprid, one with clothianidin, and one untreated. There was a steady decline in the size of all the bee colonies through the beginning of winter — typical among hives during the colder months in New England. Beginning in January 2013, bee populations in the control colonies began to increase as expected, but populations in the neonicotinoid-treated hives continued to decline. By April 2013, six out of 12 of the neonicotinoid-treated colonies were lost, with abandoned hives that are typical of CCD. Only one of the control colonies was lost — thousands of dead bees were found inside the hive — with what appeared to be symptoms of a common intestinal parasite called Nosema ceranae. While the 12 pesticide-treated hives in the current study experienced a 50 percent CCD mortality rate, the authors noted that in their 2012 study, bees in pesticide-treated hives had a much higher CCD mortality rate — 94 percent. That earlier bee die-off occurred during the particularly cold and prolonged winter of 2010-11 in central Massachusetts, leading the authors to speculate that colder temperatures, in combination with neonicotinoids, may play a role in the severity of CCD. “Although we have demonstrated the validity of the association between neonicotinoids and CCD in this study, future research could help elucidate the biological mechanism that is responsible for linking sub-lethal neonicotinoid exposures to CCD,” said Lu. “Hopefully we can reverse the continuing trend of honeybee loss.” Funding for the study came from the Wells Fargo Foundation and the Breck Fund at the Harvard University Center for the Environment.

– A new Harvard study adds more evidence to the theory that insecticides are the main culprit in the disappearance of honeybees, reports the Christian Science Monitor. Researchers found that bees in Massachusetts exposed to a common class of insecticides known as neonicotinoids suffered significant drops in numbers over the winter compared with bees who had no such exposure. In the study, only six of 12 colonies exposed to the chemicals imidacloprid and clothianidin survived the winter. Of six non-exposed colonies, all but one made it. Imidacloprid is the world's No. 1 pesticide and has been registered in the US since 1994, says the Monitor. "We demonstrated that neonicotinoids are highly likely to be responsible for triggering 'colony collapse disorder' in honeybee hives that were healthy prior to the arrival of winter," says one of the Harvard researchers, as quoted in the Guardian. The scientists speculate that the chemicals impair the bees' neurological functions, causing them to first abandon their colonies and then die. Based on comparisons with a previous study, the researchers also think that particularly harsh winters can worsen the effects of CCD, reports the Harvard Gazette.

Contents 1 The story, in a nutshell 2 Why the question of access to insider data is a critical one 2.1 The threat of “insider trading” 2.2 Do employees of DFS sites play at other DFS sites? 2.3 How much does it happen? 3 Where the story intersects with the issue of regulation 3.1 The role of the Fantasy Sports Trade Association 4 Official statements from key stakeholders 4.1 DraftKings, FanDuel, and the Fantasy Sports Trade Association 4.2 The NBA 4.3 Major League Baseball 4.4 Policymakers 5 How does access to ownership data provide an edge? 6 Did Haskell have access to data that facilitated his win at FanDuel? The leaking of player lineup data at daily fantasy sports site DraftKings has sparked a nationwide conversation spanning employee access to sensitive player data, game integrity, and the effectiveness of operators self-policing in the DFS industry. DFS Report was first to report on the issue, which was originally noted in a Rotogrinders thread. The employee in question was cleared of any wrongdoing in a third-party review that was released on October 19. The story, in a nutshell Here are the broad strokes of #DKLeak: Why the question of access to insider data is a critical one Haskell’s apparent ability to readily access valuable data raises questions about DraftKings’ internal controls. As DFS Report put it: If this sort of information is stored in advance like this who is to say that the data isn’t available to someone 5 minutes before kickoff of games or 10 minutes before the kickoff or even an hour before the initial kickoff. My point is if the data can be accessed in advance then it is not hard to see it could easily be accessed at other points in advance even before the tournament is live. If the data is made available, the questions looming over DraftKings – and all operators – include: Which staff members , and how many, are seeing data like this or have access to it? , and how many, are seeing data like this or have access to it? What other data could these employees access that would be of use in setting lineups? could these employees access that would be of use in setting lineups? What precautions are being taken to keep the data from leaking? The threat of “insider trading” Even if a DFS site employee is not playing DFS (at his or her site, or elsewhere) lineup data and other internal operator data would be extremely valuable to DFS players. Combine that significant value with an environment where internal controls on data access are lax and you risk the functional equivalent of insider trading on the stock market, argued sports and gaming attorney Daniel Wallach: With too many employees presumably having access to this inside information, it raises the specter of insiders using this non-public information to gain an edge when they play similar contests for big money on other sites. At a minimum, DFS employees and insiders should be restricted from playing on any site (not just their own), and access to this type of information should be limited only to the most essential of personnel. If it’s too easily accessible to most employees, the risk and suspicion of insider profiteering will not go away anytime soon. Do employees of DFS sites play at other DFS sites? Absolutely. We are not aware of any DFS company that had a blanket policy prohibiting employees from playing on other DFS sites at the time of the incident. Following the incident, FanDuel and DraftKings announced they were restricting the ability of their employees to play DFS at other sites, and that employees of other DFS sites would be prohibited from playing on DraftKings and FanDuel. Several other operators have followed with similar policies. How much does it happen? Anecdotally, the amount of cross-site play by operator employees is substantial. DraftKings founder Paul Liberman commented in September that the company employs “some people who make significantly more money off of our competitors’ sites than they do working for DraftKings.” One industry insider who wished to remain anonymous told LSR that “a significant number of the whales at the top DFS sites are employees – often executives – of other sites.” (From a DFS operator’s point of view, a “whale” is simply a high-volume player that generates significant revenue, not necessarily a winning or losing player.) Where the story intersects with the issue of regulation Daily fantasy sports currently occupies a legal space in the U.S. that has allowed the industry to exist outside of the regulatory umbrella that covers conceptually similar products like parimutuel horse wagering, poker, and sports betting. Operators of DFS sites do not submit to oversight by state gaming regulators, a situation that has generated numerous objections from within the commercial casino industry. As a result of that status quo: There are no formal, industry-wide rules governing this particular situation. this particular situation. There is no transparency surrounding the critical questions related to the incident. surrounding the critical questions related to the incident. There is no guarantee of accountability – DraftKings is effectively conducting its own investigation. – DraftKings is effectively conducting its own investigation. There is no body actively working to craft enforceable policy that would prevent future conflicts from arising. As Seth Young, COO of daily fantasy sports site Star Fantasy Leagues, noted to LSR, “brick and mortar groups in a regulated environment have tight controls on who can access what data. We always talk about how we have been built to address things like this, and other concerns of gaming regulators, etc. There’s a reason this stuff doesn’t come out of our camp, and it’s not because of player numbers.” “This is, however, another case in point why we license and control our technology,” Young added. “Knowing what I know, I’m not sure how this sort of thing happens by accident, or how deep this integrity issue goes.” In the absence of an external oversight function, here are some critical questions stemming from the data leak issue that we’ll never have complete certainty regarding: How have sites enforced policies that prohibit employees from playing at their home site, using internal data to gain an advantage at other sites, or transferring internal data to individuals outside of the company? that prohibit employees from playing at their home site, using internal data to gain an advantage at other sites, or transferring internal data to individuals outside of the company? How many instances have there been where those policies were violated? How many accusations or investigations? have there been where those policies were violated? How many accusations or investigations? What was the investigative process for determining whether a policy violation took place? for determining whether a policy violation took place? How many people have access to competitively sensitive data? How many times has that level of data been accessed by employees? Could employees access data anonymously or through proxy accounts? How difficult would it have been for an employee to share data? to competitively sensitive data? How many times has that level of data been accessed by employees? Could employees access data anonymously or through proxy accounts? How difficult would it have been for an employee to share data? What percentage of employees / executives from one site have active accounts at other sites? from one site have active accounts at other sites? When a player hits a big score at a DFS site, does the site investigate him or her for links to employees at the site where the win took place? at a DFS site, does the site investigate him or her for links to employees at the site where the win took place? What systems, if any, do DFS operators have for cooperating in order to advance fraud investigations? In contrast, the regulated NJ online casino industry exists in an environment where state regulators have on-demand access to any and all data related to game play, comprehensive transaction history, and employees. DraftKings was required to apply for the same type of licensure in the United Kingdom as sports betting operators bet365 and betfair, as daily fantasy sports falls under the purview of the UK Gambling Commission. The role of the Fantasy Sports Trade Association The FSTA – the primary trade group for the DFS industry – does have a “Paid Entry Contest Operator Charter” that serves as the only external guidelines for DFS operators. FSTA board members include the CEOs of DraftKings and FanDuel; FanDuel CEO Nigel Eccles was an author of the charter. The charter includes a section dedicated to game integrity: Player Protection The signatory company will ensure employees or other persons connected to the company with access to confidential player information (such as line-ups) will not: Play on their own games (apart from for testing purposes or in private leagues) Use confidential player information to gain an advantage playing against players on a different site Share confidential player information (such as win rate) to anyone outside of the company Note that the FSTA considers lineups to be “confidential player information” and that the leak appears to be a clear violation of the FSTA charter. But what’s actually behind the policy? The FSTA itself makes it clear that the body isn’t meant to serve as an enforcement apparatus. From the charter: Conforming with the above should not be viewed as compliance with the law, and the FSTA is in no way certifying such compliance of member companies. Companies should procure and adhere to legal advice regarding their games from skilled, experienced counsel of their choice The FSTA is not undertaking to audit or regulate member companies. Rather, this code is designed to foster proper behavior and allow the FSTA to exercise discretion and take action if it so chooses should it learn that a member company is not adhering to the principles set forth above. Also, if you violate the charter, the only penalty would be no longer having membership in the FSTA, which is nowhere near what the penalty would be for an infraction regarding game integrity that would result under regulation. Official statements from key stakeholders DraftKings, FanDuel, and the Fantasy Sports Trade Association Here is a complete timeline of responses from DraftKings, FanDuel, and the FSTA. The NBA NBA on DFS: "We have been advised all appropriate actions are being taken to maintain the highest level of integrity for fantasy players." — David Payne Purdum (@DavidPurdum) October 6, 2015 Major League Baseball Via ESPN: “Major League Baseball has a policy that prohibits players and employees from participating in fantasy baseball games in which prize money or other things of value are available to participants,” MLB said in its statement. “We were surprised to learn that DraftKings allowed its employees to participate in daily fantasy games. We have reached out and discussed this matter with them.” Policymakers How does access to ownership data provide an edge? Ed Miller, an independent games consultant who has written frequently about DFS, says that it’s difficult to overstate the value of lineup data. “If you knew beforehand which players would be most used, in the major sports you can build +EV (positive expected value) cash game and GPP lineups based almost solely on that knowledge,” Miller told Legal Sports Report. Ownership percentage is one piece of the puzzle that can be useful in skillfully setting DFS lineups, especially in guaranteed prize pool contests. Top players try to predict ownership percentages, and data about past ownership percentages can be dissected for information. Because of the massive number of entries in the biggest contests at DraftKings and FanDuel — hundreds of thousands — it’s usually difficult to win a contest with a lot of players that are commonly owned. Additional resources on this question: Did Haskell have access to data that facilitated his win at FanDuel? We have seen no compelling evidence or credible accusations that Haskell’s FanDuel win was in any way connected to the data leak in question. DraftKings has categorically denied that Haskell had access at a time that would have impacted his entry in the FanDuel contest in question: DraftKings has put out a new statement insisting its employee locked in his FanDuel lineup before seeing the data. pic.twitter.com/rLuFzJLzVG — Daniel Roberts (@readDanwrite) October 6, 2015 RotoGrinders founder Cal Spears reported that Haskell did not have access to the data before setting his lineup at FanDuel. Here is his post from the RG thread, which included an update from Saturday: There is a narrative running on Twitter that Ethan had access to this data before lineups locked and used it to play on Fanduel. From what I’m told he received the ownership report well after lineups locked on Fanduel. There is plenty of merit in a debate about site employees playing on different sites, but we need to base that debate in reality. Ethan was not using this data to pick his week 3 teams on Fanduel, he was writing about this data for DK Playbook after his week 3 teams on Fanduel had already locked. Spears said he also confirmed with DraftKings co-founder Matt Kalish that the data that Haskell had access to was issued too late to be of use at FanDuel. Photo by Eric Norris used under license CC BY 2.0. ||||| In the continued debate on whether the daily fantasy sports industry would benefit from some form of regulation the two major players in DFS (FanDuel and DraftKings) both had issues this week showing why regulation may be beneficial for DFS players. ***Disclaimer: I have no direct affiliation with either FanDuel or DraftKings so I can say what I think and will do so below. Although this has hurt my own bottom line in the past certain things need to be said that are going to or are currently negatively affecting DFS players. I have not shied away from this in the past and will continue to say what needs to be said in the future. If you would like to chime in with your thoughts please use our comments section below.*** DraftKings ****Update: Investigation performed by an outside law firm for DraftKings concluded that this information was not used to help Ethans lineup on FanDuel.**** We will start with the issue that happened at DraftKings last weekend. According to a Rotogrinders forum thread, RG member colinwdrew pointed out that an article was posted on the DraftKings playbook at 2:30 PM which showed player percentage owned for the DraftKings Millionaire Maker for week 3 NFL. This wouldn’t be a big deal on FanDuel or sites that are not late swap, but for DraftKings when that information is (supposedly) locked for everyone in case late swaps do occur. It is extremely unsettling and worrisome that not only can a mistake like this happen but that some people even have access to this information in the first place. If this sort of information is stored in advance like this who is to say that the data isn’t available to someone 5 minutes before kickoff of games or 10 minutes before the kickoff or even an hour before the initial kickoff. My point is if the data can be accessed in advance then it is possible it could be accessed at other points in advance even before the tournament is live. In the Rotogrinders thread we were given an explanation from Ethan himself. If we take his response at face value we can safely assume Ethan was the only employee with access to this information. Should we rest easy knowing that he cannot play on DraftKings site? Hardly, especially if you played at FanDuel last weekend. Because Ethan does play DFS at FanDuel and actually had a pretty good week. In fact he took 2nd place in the biggest GPP on FanDuel for $350,000. That is a life changing score. I am not questioning Ethans skill at DFS, but if we argue that DFS is a game of skill then that skill really is about gathering the most relevant and useful data and information and using that to construct our lineups. If Ethan is the only one with access to this data at DraftKings how valuable is it for him to be able to use it on a site like FanDuel? It is extremely valuable if he has the information before lineups lock on FanDuel. In fact it could be the most valuable data available which is why it is kept so under wraps and why this is such a big deal. The edge that can be created by having access to this data is 2nd to none. No other data comes close to being as valuable as having a complete understanding of exactly what way the DFS crowd is leaning in any given week. That is why our FanDuel Thursday ownership piece is so popular. It is because it gives a small glimpse into the key ownership levels for that week. I am not saying outright that Ethan used this data to build his FanDuel lineup. Early reports from others indicate that he was sent the file after roster lock of lineups on FanDuel. But with no transparency for the industry in place, similar situations like this could easily occur. And with no regulatory board or anything in place to police this sort of activity, we as players are left in the dark. Now before it can be argued that DraftKings data isn’t relevant to FanDuel data I took a look at the team that Ethan constructed to finish 2nd and put in the FanDuel ownership and then the DraftKings milly maker ownership and the percentages are incredibly close. Player FanDuel % DraftKings % Andy Dalton 2.3 2.5 Adrian Peterson 18.6 22.4 Devonta Freeman 6.7 8 Randall Cobb 8.2 12.3 A.J. Green 4.4 6 Allen Hurns 2 2.1 Greg Olsen 10.5 8.3 Stephen Gostkowski 10.8 N/A Seattle D 22.6 30.7 Incredibly similar numbers. Now even before this situation was brought to light that DraftKings employees had access to pre locked percentage owned for players, it could be argued that employees of one site who participate in DFS on another site have valuable data and information available to them that the general public does not have. Even having an understanding of the pricing algorithm implored by one site would be beneficial when playing at another. Now is it possible to simply state that all DFS Site employees should not be able to participate in DFS contests at other sites with the general public? No, probably not, but this is again where a regulator would be beneficial to the general DFS Player. Right now we are playing in the wild west for DFS. Anything goes and nothing is in place to protect players. The DFS sites already are having issues supposedly policing themselves. Can we continue to trust that they are doing everything in their power to protect us players? That question is scary to answer and is one of the reasons I am in favor of seeing some kind of regulation or governing body policing the activities of DFS sites. The fact of the matter is any DFS employee with the capabilities to access this type of data at any time really shouldn’t be playing on any DFS site. We have millions of dollars changing hands on a weekly basis and anytime that kind of money can be won, people will do anything they can to get their hands on it. Thank you to everyone. So grateful for all the ways #dfs and the amazing people within it have changed my life. — Ethan Haskell (@EthanHaskellDFS) September 29, 2015 ****Editors Note: A previous version of this story sited the rotogrinders thread as being locked. That is not the case. If you would like to leave comments or discussions in that thread as well please feel free to do so. I apologize for any confusion this created.**** FanDuel Yesterday, FanDuel had a $100 entry fee 6K guaranteed tournament advertised as a single entry event start. Shortly after roster lock some DFS players who entered this tournament noticed that others somehow had multiple entries into this tournament. Ok @FanDuel, you guys are getting sketchier by the day. How do people have multi entries in a single entry app? pic.twitter.com/l8N96vGYZS — Prince Of Darkness (@TheEndIsNir) October 2, 2015 This has happened on a much smaller scale in the past but has not drawn the publicity that this instance has. This is mainly due to the players that were involved and the initial discovery on twitter. The response FanDuel has given on twitter is below. @IamLegendDFS This was titled wrong. Apologies. All users in the contest have been emailed and given the option to join a free $100 contest. — FanDuel (@FanDuel) October 2, 2015 I also reached out to FanDuel to get some further information from them. Below is their response. Although titled as a Single Entry contest FanDuel is stating that this was incorrectly labeled which is why users who attempted to were able to add additional entries into this contest. Frustrating for users? Yes, but it has happened before but hopefully will not continue to happen in the future. The response from FanDuel to simply throw free tickets at the players affected is the real issue. At some point DFS players need reassurances that issues will not continue to happen. I maybe in the minority and I maybe delusional but hopefully some form of regulation would actually benefit players in this way. Standards would need to be met in order to offer DFS contests and penalties would be enforced if issues like this happened. We would also have standards in place for how situations like this are handled. ||||| Much has been said about the initial piece that I wrote discussing DraftKings and FanDuel mishaps from the past week. A lot of discussion has been focused on DFS employee’s playing on other sites. To be 100% transparent this was my entire goal with the piece written about DraftKings. For a long time I have stood on the sidelines and wondered what info and data was available and to whom behind closed doors. The situation with Ethan Haskell releasing data early and also winning big on FanDuel was the scenario to get the ball rolling with this discussion. I may have focused too much on Ethan’s win and not enough on the discussion of all site employees having access to valuable information. Off the top of my head I can list four pieces of data that would be extremely valuable to all DFS players that only site employees currently have access to: -Understanding of Player pricing algorithms and all data points that go into determining salaries – Win/Loss records and how individual DFS players are actually performing – Info regarding what is really winning each type of contest and the lineup construction that goes into it – Player ownership information The original story could have just as easily been about Matt Boccio who works in Product Operations at FanDuel. By day Matt works at FanDuel where he does any number of activities on the product operations side. From those in the know it sounds like Matt is involved with the day to day pricing of players and the inputs that are used to determine salaries on FanDuel. Some have said he is the player pricing expert at FanDuel. By night, Matt uses his vast DFS knowledge to clean up on DraftKings under the screen name PetrGibbons. In fact, he is currently a top 50 overall DFS player by Rotogrinders rankings while only being able to play on one site. He has also amassed this ranking in the short time frame of June 16th to October 3rd. Giving almost all other grinders a 6 month headstart before beginning his winning ways on DraftKings for the year. Impressive to say the least. The connection from Matt Boccio to PetrGibbons is easy to make but for those who are curious how the connection can be made… Matt Boccio does not have access to player percentage data on FanDuel. I have been assured of that by FanDuel representatives. Matt also has done nothing wrong to cause any sort of red flags with regards to his day to day activities at FanDuel. In fact, from all reports Matt is a model employee at FanDuel who works very hard at his job. The issue that I am raising is if his knowledge and access of player pricing gives him a distinct edge when he plays at DraftKings. That is up for debate as to the extent of an edge this could provide to him. The major difference between Matt Boccio and Ethan Haskell is that there was no data breach Matt was at fault for. No admission of guilt or info given to the public which would have highlighted the data and information that is available to him. But the winnings that both employees have amassed over the beginning of the NFL football season are very comparable. Now I bring up Matt Boccio only to show that this isn’t just a DraftKings issue. This is a DFS industry wide issue. Gone are the days where there was very little incentive for any employee to step outside of his own boundaries. The scary thing is that nothing appears to be in place to stop any employee from obtaining data that is not available to the every day player. That is what has to change. Something needs to be in place to police the data that DFS employees have access to or they simply should not be allowed to play DFS at other sites. Now I do not want to turn this into a witch hunt but it is incredibly hard to have anyone care or get the discussion on employee data rolling without showing real world examples of this possibly occurring. Getting back to Ethan at DraftKings, my intent was never to call into question his win. I did make one assumption in the initial article. That assumption was that if Ethan had access to this sort of data before players locked he could easily have it before roster lock occurred on FanDuel. The whole problem and reason I wanted to bring this to light in the first place is because we have no way of proving one way or the other when Ethan had this data or even when he was capable of getting this data. And the scary part is we can never really know. We are left to take the word of DraftKings and Ethan and just believe it and move on with our lives. Again this is the case because we have absolutely no policing, absolutely no way of verifying any of the information that can be accessed by employees. Right now we are waiting on an official statement from DraftKings. So all we have to base our questions off of are the two statements that we have received so far. One of those was from Ethan initially in the Rotogrinders forum. The other was from Cal Spears (Co Founder and CEO of Rotogrinders) as a comment on our initial post when he said he did speak to Ethan directly. Its scary to look at Ethans initial response in the RotoGrinders forum saying that he is the only person with this data. But Cals comment on our previous article says that Ethan cannot access the database himself but he has to put in a request for a query. This would mean that at least one other DraftKings employee had to access the data and then give it to Ethan. Obviously, this would call into question Ethans original claim that he was the only person to access the data. With the story changing, red flags are already being raised as far as who has access to the data and at what point in time. And with the story changing already without an official announcement from DraftKings even taking place yet, how can we possibly believe that what we are being told is the truth? The small statements we have already been given don’t align. Three major questions need to be answered in all of this and not just at DraftKings but at FanDuel as well. What data do employees have access to? When can they access this data? Who has access to it? Before all three of those questions can be answered and verified by some sort of governing board no DFS employee should be playing at any site. ||||| Main content is all webpages of www.oxy.edu which includes course catalog, athletics, academic and library depts., libguides and OxyScholar.

– Two big fantasy sports companies are in damage-control mode after an employee leaked vital data and won big bucks in the same week—stirring fears of corruption in a multibillion-dollar industry, the New York Times reports. Ethan Haskell, who works at DraftKings, admits he mistakenly released information about player lineups that could be used to gain the upper hand in fantasy sports games. He then managed to win $350,000 playing at the site FanDuel. Many employees at such companies also play the games, so if they have crucial data ahead of time, well, you get the idea. "The scary thing is that nothing appears to be in place to stop any employee from obtaining data that is not available to the [everyday] player," writes Ben Brown at DFS Report. "That is what has to change." (Brown also broke the story at DFS Report.) Now industry analysts and lawmakers are talking about regulating fantasy sports. "If the industry is unwilling to undertake these reforms voluntarily, it will be imposed on them involuntarily," says a sports and gambling lawyer. The companies are allowed to operate under a 2006 federal law that bans online gambling but considers fantasy games contests of skill rather than chance. Yet "if they had to justify themselves at a hearing they wouldn't be able to," says Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. of New Jersey. DraftKings and FanDuel, which told workers to stop playing games for now, say that "nothing is more important ... than the integrity of the games." There's no evidence of abuse, they add, but they still "plan to work with the entire fantasy sports industry on this specific issue." (See a breakdown of the facts at Legal Sports Report.)

Police in New Zealand revealed on Sunday they had found a body which they believe to be missing British backpacker, Grace Millane in woodland on the outskirts of Auckland. The 22-year-old girl was last seen at a hotel in central Auckland more than a week ago before she was reported missing. A 26-year-old man has been charged with murder and will appear at Auckland District Court on Monday. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has made an emotional apology to the family of Grace Millane, saying her nation feels a collective shame over her death. Ms Ardern held back tears on Monday as she opened a press conference with an apology. “From the Kiwis I have spoken to there is this overwhelming sense of hurt and shame that this has happened in our country, a place that prides itself on our hospitality ... especially to those who are visiting our shores,” she said. “On behalf of New Zealand, I want to apologise to Grace’s family. Your daughter should have been safe here and she wasn’t and I’m sorry for that.” The government had offered its support to the Millane family, Ms Ardern said. “I cannot imagine the grief of her family and what they will be experiencing.” Her sentiment echoed widespread shock among much of the public in New Zealand. Candlelight vigils were on Monday being planned around the country during the weekend the operators of the Sky Tower - the most distinctive building in Auckland’s skyline - said it would be lit in white until Thursday night as a tribute. The Millane family were grateful and gave their blessing for the planned events, but would not be attending, police said in a statement. ADVENTURE CUT SHORT Grace Millane had just finished soaking in the gorgeous scenery of Peru on the trip of a lifetime when she scooted halfway around the world for her next adventure. The British backpacker and talented artist, who shared her vibrant paintings on Instagram, decided she would trade the peaks of the Andes for New Zealand. It was the second leg of a year-long trip around the world after she finished her studies at the University of Lincoln in the UK’s East Midlands. However, it would tragically end up being the final chapter in her life after she mysteriously vanished — having landed, alone, in Auckland just under three weeks ago. In her last tweet, the 22-year-old, originally from Essex, southeast England, seemed on a high from the life-affirming round-the-world trip and joked about its impact on her. “I think travelling has changed me; I just brought some blue jeans,” she joked on November 30 — 10 days after she landed. However, family members have now spoken of their devastation as New Zealand police confirmed yesterday they have found a body believed to be Ms Millane’s. She mysteriously vanished having been seen for the last time at a CityLife Hotel in Auckland with a “male companion” — who is understood to have been on a Tinder date, although this has not been confirmed by police. On the day of her disappearance she told her mates at the hostel, “I’m going to see a friend” and she messaged others saying she was meeting a guy. It came after a major hunt for answers which brought her father David to New Zealand to help with the search. I think travelling has changed me I just brought some blue jeans — MillaneGrace (@MillaneGrace) November 30, 2018 Of course it’s raining when I arrive to New Zealand — MillaneGrace (@MillaneGrace) November 19, 2018 On Friday, he made an emotional public appeal for help in finding his daughter, who he described as a “lovely, outgoing, fun-loving, family-orientated daughter”. Alarm bells started ringing when she stopped contacting family and friends — who she had been in touch with nearly daily until her disappearance. Officers were combing an area of bush near a road in the western outskirts of Auckland — about 25km from where the backpacker was last spotted entering a central city hotel with a man on December 1. Remains found at the scene had not been formally identified but were believed to be those of Ms Millane, Detective Inspector Scott Beard told media yesterday afternoon. “Obviously, this brings the search for Grace to an end. It is an unbearable time for the Millane family and our hearts go out to them,” he told reporters near the scene. A post-mortem is expected to be carried out today. Police said a 26-year-old man seen with Ms Millane on the night of her disappearance has been charged with murder. Appearing in Auckland District Court this morning, the man was called a “scumbag” from the public gallery as he appeared in court a wearing a blue boiler suit. According to the New Zealand Herald, Judge Evangelos Thomas started the hearing by addressing the family. “All of us hope that justice for Grace is fair and swift and ultimately brings you some peace,” he said at the outset of the hearing,” Judge Thomas said. “That will not be happening today. There will be no judgment today.” Responding to the tragic news, her heartbroken brother Declan Millane wrote out the lyrics to You Are My Sunshine, along with a series of pictures of them both. “You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. You make me happy when skies are grey,” he wrote. “You’ll never know, dear, how much I love you. Please don’t take my sunshine away.” The accused had a bid to keep his name secret rejected but an immediate appeal by his lawyer means he still cannot be publicly identified. Such restrictions are not uncommon in early court hearings in New Zealand. During the appearance, Judge Evangelos Thomas addressed members of Millane’s family, saying: “All of us hope that justice for Grace is fair, swift and ultimately brings you some peace.” “I don’t know what we can say to you at this time — your grief must be desperate,” he said. Court documents say the accused is a resident at the CityLife on Queen Street and is charged with killing the tourist between December 1 and 2 Detectives have made an appeal for sightings of a red Toyota hatchback they say was rented in Auckland over the weekend. A week-long search for the missing backpacker turned into a homicide probe this weekend, with officers earlier saying a scene examination at the CityLife Hotel and video footage had concluded she was no longer alive. HOW GRACE’S TRIP TURNED INTO TRAGEDY November 20: The British traveller arrives in New Zealand, having visited Peru on the first leg of her travels. November 30: Posts her last tweet, quipping: “I think travelling has changed me; I just brought some blue jeans.” December 1, around 7pm: Seen on Victoria St, central Auckland. December 1, 7.15pm: Seen on CCTV at Sky City, an entertainment complex and casino on Victoria St. December 1, 9.41pm: Seen at the CityLife Hotel. Queen St, around 250m from Sky City, with a “male companion”. December 2: Millane’s 22nd birthday. December 2, just before noon: A red Toyota Corolla hatchback is hired from a central Auckland rental firm. December 3, between 6.30am and 9.30am: The car is thought to have been driven in western Auckland. December 5: Millane is reported missing to City of Auckland Police. December 6: Police appeal for the public’s help finding the backpacker. December 7: After arriving in Auckland her father, David Millane, makes an emotional plea for help finding his daughter. Police reveal they have spoken to the male companion and he is a person of interest. The man is not taken into custody and police say there was no evidence of foul play. December 8, 3pm: A 26-year-old man is taken into custody at a central Auckland address by police. December 8, 5pm: Police announce that they have obtained evidence that suggests Ms Millane has been killed and they have seized a “vehicle of interest” in Taupo, around 270km from Auckland. December 8, evening: Detectives charge the suspect with Ms Millane’s murder. December 8, evening: Police identify a “place of interest” on Scenic Drive, a road in the wooded Waitakere Ranges. December 9: Police announce they are searching an area on Scenic Drive, near the Waitakere Reservoir. December 9, shortly after 4pm: Police find a body they believe to be Grace Millane’s in vegetation around 10m from the road. — with AAP ||||| New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern apologises to family of murdered British tourist Grace Millane Updated New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has apologised to the family of murdered British tourist Grace Millane on behalf of the country. key points: Jacinda Ardern tells Millane family "your daughter was supposed to be safe" A 26-year-old man accused of the killing appeared in court on Monday The accused man's name cannot be published because of suppression orders During a post-cabinet address in Wellington, Ms Ardern said: "I cannot imagine the grief of her family and what they will be experiencing and feeling right now. "My thoughts and prayers are with her father, David who is in the country, her mother who cannot be here and her wider family, friends and loved ones. "From the Kiwis I have spoken to, there is this overwhelming sense of hurt and shame that this has happened in our country, a place that prides itself on our hospitality on our manakitanga [kindness, generosity, support and respect], especially to those who are visiting our shores. "On behalf of New Zealand, I want to apologise to Grace's family. Your daughter was supposed to be safe here and she wasn't and I apologise for that," Ms Ardern concluded, holding back tears. The man accused of killing the 22-year-old woman has made his first appearance in a New Zealand court. The 26-year-old stared at the ground while a judge addressed him during the brief appearance at the Auckland District Court. The man has not yet entered a plea on murder charges and the court has temporarily blocked his name from being published. Ms Millane's father, David Millane, travelled to New Zealand last week after his daughter vanished, and Judge Evangelos Thomas addressed him and other family members. "I don't know what to say to you at this time, but your grief must be desperate," he said, according to television station Three. "We all hope justice will be fair and swift and ultimately bring you some peace." Described by her father as fun-loving and family-oriented, Ms Millane had been traveling in New Zealand as part of a planned yearlong trip abroad that began in Peru. She went missing on December 1 and failed to get in touch with her family on her birthday the next day, or on the days that followed, which alarmed them. Before she vanished, Ms Millane had been staying at a backpacker hostel in Auckland and left some of her belongings there. Detective Inspector Scott Beard said she met a man for a couple of hours in the evening before surveillance cameras showed them entering the CityLife hotel about 9:40pm. A week after Ms Millane disappeared, police detained a man for questioning and later charged him with murder. On Sunday, police found a body they believe is that of Ms Millane in a forested area about 10 metres from the side of the road in the Waitakere Ranges near Auckland. Police believe Ms Millane's body was taken to the area in a rental car that was later left in the town of Taupo. The suspect's lawyer, Ian Brookie, applied for name suppression on the basis his client needed it for a fair trial, an argument Judge Thomas rejected on the basis of open justice. Mr Brookie appealed, triggering the man's name to be temporarily suppressed. The man is scheduled to make his next court appearance on January 23. AP/ABC Topics: death, law-crime-and-justice, new-zealand, united-kingdom First posted

– New Zealand's prime minister made an emotional apology Monday to the family of a British tourist who was murdered in New Zealand. Grace Millane, 22, graduated from college and then started in Peru what was supposed to be a yearlong trip around the world. She traveled from there to New Zealand on Nov. 20, but she disappeared on Dec. 1; her family became concerned when they didn't hear from her on her birthday the following day. A week after she was last seen, police detained a 26-year-old man believed to have been seen with Millane on Dec. 1; he has since been charged with murder. On Sunday, authorities found a body they believe to be Millane. "Your daughter was supposed to be safe here," Jacinda Ardern said during a post-Cabinet address, per ABC.net. "From the Kiwis I have spoken to, there is this overwhelming sense of hurt and shame that this has happened in our country, a place that prides itself on our hospitality, on our manakitanga," she continued, using a word referring to kindness, generosity, support, and respect, "especially to those who are visiting our shores." Millane's father traveled to New Zealand last week to assist with the search. News.com.au has a detailed timeline of Grace Millane's time in New Zealand; she was last seen on surveillance footage on Dec. 1 spending time with a man and ultimately entering a hotel with him around 9:40pm. She had told friends at her hostel that she was meeting up with a friend. Police believe a car that was rented on the morning of Dec. 2. was used to transport her body to a forested area. (A security guard is suspected in the murder of a US tourist in Costa Rica.)

Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Transport Secretary Philip Hammond warns of disruption ahead Flights in and out of Scotland have been cancelled as a volcanic ash cloud from Iceland heads towards the UK. BA, KLM, Easyjet, Flybe, Aer Lingus, Loganair and Eastern Airways have cancelled services on Tuesday, and some flights over the Atlantic were delayed. The threat of further disruption led US President Barack Obama to fly out of the Republic of Ireland a day early to get to London for a state visit. Ash from another Icelandic volcano led to huge disruption in Europe last year. Air Force One Mr Obama had been due to fly to the UK on Tuesday morning, but White House deputy press secretary Josh Earnest said the decision to bring his arrival forward had been taken "due to a recent change in the trajectory in the plume of volcanic ash". The Met Office forecasts the ash cloud will reach northern and western Scotland overnight, and will clip northern parts of Northern Ireland early on Tuesday. None of England is likely to be affected. A Met Office spokesman said it was difficult to forecast the cloud's direction beyond that because weather systems were changing so rapidly. A number of airlines are choosing not to fly through Scottish airspace on Tuesday: British Airways is not operating any flights between London and Scotland until 1400 BST KLM cancelled flights to and from Aberdeen, Glasgow and Edinburgh, as well as some to Newcastle EasyJet cancelled flights to and from Edinburgh, Glasgow, Inverness and Aberdeen scheduled for between 0500 and 0900 BST Flybe cancelled flights to and from Aberdeen and Inverness Aer Lingus cancelled a number of its flights between the Republic of Ireland and Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen Glasgow-based Loganair has cancelled 36 flights. Only inter-island routes in Orkney are unaffected Eastern Airways will not be operating any services in or out of Scottish airspace Transport Secretary Philip Hammond told BBC Two's Newsnight that "most, if not all, flights into and out of Glasgow and Edinburgh and airports to the north will be stopped" on Tuesday morning. But he said services should resume from Glasgow and Edinburgh by about lunchtime, and in other airports by Wednesday morning. Any disruption later in the week should be "limited", he added. Earlier, Mr Hammond said there had already been "modest delays" to flights, particularly those crossing the Atlantic. "Clearly, this is a natural phenomenon which we cannot control, but the UK is now much better prepared to deal with an ash eruption than last year." A spokesman for Edinburgh Airport said it was anticipating disruption to many services on Tuesday. In a statement on Monday evening, he said: "Only Ryanair is intending to operate a full service from Edinburgh Airport. Passengers should not travel to the airport without checking with their airline first regarding the status of their flight." Andrew Haines, chief executive of the Civil Aviation Authority, said he hoped to avoid a repeat of last year's travel chaos, but he admitted it was still unclear how badly flights would be affected. "We know so much more about the volcanoes. We have an improved model. "We have better measuring equipment and we have better relationships with airlines so it should be much better but we're still at the hands of both the weather and the volcano; those are the two uncertainties." Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Andrew Haines, of the CAA, said UK aviation had "learned a great deal" Champions League finalists Barcelona are already considering bringing forward their flight to London ahead of Saturday's final at Wembley against Manchester United. The Catalan club had originally planned to travel on Thursday. "Let's see what they [the experts] tell us and if they say we shouldn't risk it we'll travel tomorrow or the day after," said Barcelona coach Pep Guardiola. During last April's six-day shutdown only a handful of flights took off or landed in the UK. Thousands of Britons found themselves stranded overseas forcing many to make long and expensive journeys home by land. Airlines estimated the shutdown cost them $1.7bn (£1.1bn). The CAA said ash levels would now be graded as low, medium or high, and airlines would be notified if levels reached medium or high. Airlines would then consider whether to fly, according to risk assessments already carried out, the CAA added. The Foreign Office is advising passengers to remain in regular contact with their travel agent or airline for the latest news on the status of flights and bookings. The Grimsvotn volcano in Vatnajokull National Park began erupting on Saturday with ash rising to 20km (12 miles) but, although still active, is now not as powerful with a plume of 13km (8 miles). Iceland's airspace has been closed for a period as a result. Ash from the volcano, which is 60 miles (97km) from the nearest human settlements, has settled over farmland and livestock, causing difficulties for some farmers and tourists have been evacuated from the country's main national parks. The Grimsvotn volcano lies beneath the ice of the uninhabited Vatnajokull glacier in south-east Iceland. The latest eruption is its most powerful eruption in 100 years. Experts say this eruption is on a different scale to the one last year and ash particles are larger and, as a result, fall to the ground more quickly. ||||| The spread of dense ash from the erupting Iceland volcano could force the cancellation of up to 500 commercial flights in Northern Ireland, Scotland and parts of Scandinavia, the European air traffic agency said Tuesday. Passengers rest on the floor as their flights have been canceled at Edinburgh Airport in Edinburgh, Scotland Tuesday, May 24, 2011. A dense ash cloud from an Icelandic volcano blew toward Scotland, causing... (Associated Press) A departures board shows canceled flights as the airport remains open with limited flights at Edinburgh Airport in Edinburgh, Scotland Tuesday, May 24, 2011. A dense ash cloud from an Icelandic volcano... (Associated Press) Passengers rest on the floor as their flights have been canceled at Edinburgh Airport in Edinburgh, Scotland Tuesday, May 24, 2011. A dense ash cloud from an Icelandic volcano blew toward Scotland, causing... (Associated Press) Passengers rest as their flights have been canceled at Edinburgh Airport in Edinburgh, Scotland Tuesday, May 24, 2011. A dense ash cloud from an Icelandic volcano blew toward Scotland, causing airlines... (Associated Press) Passengers rest on the floor as their flights have been canceled at Edinburgh Airport in Edinburgh, Scotland Tuesday, May 24, 2011. A dense ash cloud from an Icelandic volcano blew toward Scotland, causing... (Associated Press) Between 200 and 250 flights had already been canceled, said Brian Flynn, head of network operations at Eurocontrol. There are just over 30,000 flights within Europe on average every day at this time of the year. Ash from the Grimsvotn volcano already forced President Barack Obama to shorten a visit to Ireland, and has raised fears of a repeat of huge travel disruptions in Europe last year when ash from the Eyjafjalljokull volcano stranded millions of passengers. Flynn said he did not expect Obama's European tour to be further affected and authorities have said they don't expect the kind of massive grounding of flights that followed last year's eruption. They say procedures have been improved since then and the cloud is currently not expected to move over continental Europe. The British Civil Aviation Authority said strong winds over Scotland was making it hard to predict the direction in which the ash would move, but air traffic controllers said it would reach airports in Scotland, northern England and Northern Ireland on Tuesday afternoon. British Airways suspended all its flights for Tuesday morning between London and Scotland, while Dutch carrier KLM and Easyjet canceled flights to and from Scotland and northern England at the same time. Three domestic airlines also announced flight disruptions. National Air Traffic Services, the agency that controls air traffic over Britain and the eastern Atlantic, said airports will remain open but flights will be affected between 1:00 p.m. (1200GMT) and 7 p.m. (1800GMT) local time. NATS said in a statement that the ash will affect airports in Londonderry in Northern Ireland, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Prestwick in Scotland, and Newcastle, Carlisle, Durham Tees Valley and Cumbernauld in northern England. It advised passengers to check with their airlines before travelling. Budget airline Ryanair said it did not believe there was a need to cancel all flights between Ireland and Scotland, and said it would meet with regulators Tuesday morning to discuss the issue. Norwegian airport operator Avinor said the ash cloud that swept over southwestern Norway earlier Tuesday has now moved away from the coast and no longer affects the airports in Stavanger and Karmoey. However, it said the ash is expected to return to southern Norway in the afternoon.

– The volcanic ash cloud drifting from Iceland toward Europe has already caused more than 250 flights to be canceled, and that number could rise to 500, according to the European air traffic agency. Clouds have already affected Iceland and Scotland and could reach northern Europe within 48 hours, the Wall Street Journal reports. Northern Ireland, northern England, Scotland, and parts of Scandinavia could be affected. Even so, the groundings are not expected to reach the level they did after last year’s Eyjafjalljokull eruption. Although President Obama was forced to shorten his visit to Ireland due to the ash cloud, the AP reports that an official does not expect the rest of his European tour to be affected. Meanwhile, crazy airline Ryanair (remember this?) called on air traffic controllers today to reopen airspace over Scotland, since the company did a verification flight and believes it is safe. The BBC has a list of airlines that have canceled flights, and notes that service is expected to be mostly back to normal by tomorrow.

• Chinese capital becomes first to host summer and winter Games • Country pledges to use Games to tackle ‘toxic air pollution’ Beijing has won the battle to host the 2022 Winter Olympics after the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, made a last-minute vow to lay on a “fantastic, extraordinary and excellent” event. Beijing defeated its rival Almaty in Kazakhstan by 44 votes to 40, with one IOC member abstaining. International Olympic Committee delegates handed the 2022 Olympic and Paralympic events to Beijing on Friday afternoon following a secret ballot in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. “We are honoured and humbled by the International Olympic Committee’s decision to award Beijing the 2022 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games,” Beijing’s bid committee said in a statement. “It is with an incredible sense of excitement that we express our thanks to the IOC and the wider Olympic movement. Just as with the Beijing 2008 Summer Games, the Olympic family has put its faith in Beijing again to deliver the athlete-centred, sustainable and economical Games we have promised. “This will be a memorable event at the foot of the Great Wall for the whole Olympic family, the athletes and the spectators that will further enhance the tremendous potential to grow winter sports in our country, in Asia and around the world. We would like to congratulate Almaty 2022 for their campaign. We wish to thank once again all the Chinese people and people around the world who have supported Beijing 2022 in this extraordinary bid journey.” Earlier, the president Xi threw his weight behind China’s bid, promising the “strongest support” for the Beijing Games in a one-minute video address to the IOC delegates. Winter Olympics 2022 decision: Beijing beats Almaty to host Games – live! Read more A Beijing Olympics would “boost exchanges and mutual understanding between the Chinese and other civilisations of the world,” Xi said. “The Chinese people are looking forward to this opportunity. Let me assure you that if you choose Beijing the Chinese people will present to the world a fantastic, extraordinary and excellent Olympic Winter Games in Beijing.” Beijing’s mayor, Wang Anshun, vowed to deliver “Games that are joyful and harmonious, Games that are safe and reliable”. The 2022 Beijing Winter Games will in fact be split between three Olympic sites: one in the city of Zhangjiakou, 125 miles from Beijing in the Hebei province, another in Yanqing, a mountainous region to Beijing’s north-west, and a third in China’s sprawling capital itself. A key component of Beijing’s winning bid was its pledge to tackle the toxic air pollution that often enshrouds the city. Beijing’s mayor told IOC delegates huge steps had been taken since his city hosted the 2008 Summer Olympics, with one million high-emissions vehicles forced from its roads. “All our efforts are moving Beijing towards a clean energy future,” Wang said. Chinese officials have also dismissed concerns over a dearth of natural snowfall in the region around Beijing. Almaty’s campaign slogan – “Keeping it real” – was a not-so-subtle swipe at China’s promise to compensate with artificial snow. “Real snow, real winter ambience, real winter Games,” boasted a promotional video for Almaty 2022. But Liu Peng, the president of the Chinese Olympic Committee, batted away Kazakhstan’s provocations. “Ski resorts have been operating in Zhangjiakou for decades,” he said on Friday. “Beijing 2022 will build on its existing snow-making capability to supplement natural snow fall.” Nor was the lack of a winter sports culture in China an issue. Chinese officials have said they hope the Beijing Winter Olympics will ignite “a winter sports passion” that will help create a £535m industry in China by 2025. “Winter sports fever is sweeping our nation,” claimed Liu, adding that more than one million Chinese teenagers were now ice skating regularly. “Twenty years ago China had less than 10 ski resorts. We now have more than 500.” In 2001, Beijing’s selection as the host city for the 2008 Summer Olympics sparked an international outcry amid criticism of China’s human rights record. In the runup to Friday’s vote activists had again called on the IOC to reject Beijing’s bid in response to a “human rights crisis” they believe is under way in China. Amnesty International says at least 231 people have been detained or questioned in recent weeks as part of what campaigners, diplomats and observers describe as an unprecedented crackdown on human rights lawyers. But Jin Shan, a sports commentator, said the victory would give “a huge boost” to China’s attempts to build a 5 trillion yuan (£516bn) sports industry and would create millions of jobs. Beijing’s triumph would also prove a tonic for ambitious plans to create “Jing-jin-ji”, a 130 million-population megacity around the Chinese capital, Jin added. There was no risk Olympic facilities would be become “white elephants” after the event was over. “I live close to the Bird’s Nest stadium and the Water Cube and see many people visiting both venues every day,” he said. “We have a huge population and there will be great demand for these sports venues after the Games.” Beijing’s mayor claimed 92% of the country supported the 2022 Olympic campaign. Yet many Chinese have reacted with indifference. “Don’t waste taxpayers’ money,” one user of Weibo, China’s Twitter, wrote on Friday. “Is the country’s reputation more important than improving people’s lives?” Additional reporting by Luna Lin. ||||| Beijing will host the 2022 Winter Olympics, becoming the first city to hold a Summer Games and a Winter Games, after beating Almaty, Kazakhstan, in an International Olympic Committee members vote Friday in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Beijing received 44 votes to Almaty’s 40. “Just as with the Beijing 2008 Summer Games, the Olympic family has put its faith in Beijing again to deliver the athlete-centred, sustainable and economical Games we have promised,” the Beijing bid committee said in a statement. “This will be a memorable event at the foot of the Great Wall for the whole Olympic family, the athletes and the spectators that will further enhance the tremendous potential to grow winter sports in our country, in Asia and around the world.” Beijing, site of the 2008 Olympics, plans to spread 2022 Olympic events across three clusters over 100 miles and use the Bird’s Nest stadium for Opening and Closing Ceremonies, as it did seven years ago. One of the lowest-latitude Winter Olympic hosts will supplement natural snow with man-made snow. The Water Cube, where Michael Phelps won eight gold medals in 2008, will become the Ice Cube, used for curling. It will mark the third straight Olympics in East Asia, following the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, and the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo. Almaty hoped to bring the Olympics to Kazakhstan for the first time and to the smallest nation by population since Athens 2004 (and Lillehammer 1994 for the Winter Games). Also Friday, the 2020 Winter Youth Olympics were awarded to Lausanne, Switzerland, over Brasov, Romania, in an IOC members vote. Watch Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic promo video Both 2022 Winter Olympic bids made presentations to IOC members earlier Friday, starting with Almaty. The Kazakh bid team, which included Sochi Olympic bronze medalist figure skater Denis Ten, emphasized its bid’s advantages over Beijing — lots and lots of natural snow and a compact venue plan. “Real snow,” “a winter wonderland” and “frostbite” were uttered. All proposed venues were within a 30km radius of the Olympic Village, a statistic repeated in the presentation. “No bus, train or car rides for hours,” Almaty bid vice chairman Andrey Kryukov said. “No one endures many hours just to enjoy snow and ice events in a single day.” Almaty pointed out that it would become the first Central Asian nation to host an Olympics. “Historic moment as a finalist,” Ten said. “A tremendous victory just by being here.” Kazakhstan prime minister Karim Massimov delivered Almaty’s final speech, asking IOC members to “have faith in us.” “Perhaps because we are unknown to most of you, some might consider us a risky choice,” he said, adding that all bid cities have a level of risk before concluding with, “Almaty is not a risky choice. We are a golden opportunity. We are a golden opportunity to prove that smaller, advancing nations can successfully host the Winter Games.” Beijing came next, armed with a delegation including 7-foot, 6-inch retired basketball star Yao Ming, who also played an ice hockey goalie in a recorded promotional video. Its message often reminded IOC members of the city’s successful 2008 Olympic Games. “China is a longtime friend and partner of the Olympic movement,” said China Olympic Committee vice president Yu Zaiqing, also an IOC vice president. “You trusted us then [in 2008], and we delivered on every expectation. We hope you will trust us now.” The Beijing team said hosting the Winter Games would encourage 300 million Chinese to participate in ice and snow sports, building a foundation for the future of the world’s most populous nation. It also addressed concerns. Beijing mayor Wang Anshun said there’s a $130 billion plan to enhance air quality for a “clean energy future.” The bid’s venue plan spreads across some 100 miles, but Wang said a not-yet-finished high-speed train would take riders from venue to venue in as little as 20 minutes (and as much as 50 minutes, a promo video said last year). Beijing’s bid would require man-made snow, but speakers said more than half of the country has below-freezing temperatures, the whole country has more than 500 ski resorts and Beijing has 17 ice rinks. “Beijing 2022 is a Games about the future of winter sport,” Yu said. “We hope it will have a future of millions of new fans, a future of new sponsors, partners, a future of new athletes, opportunities.” The 2024 Olympic host will be voted on in 2017. Budapest, Hamburg, Paris, Rome and a U.S. city are stated bidders so far. Jim Craig wants to sell ‘Miracle on Ice’ memorabilia, gold medal Follow @nzaccardi

– It's almost like pollution-free countries don't have a shot anymore: The choice for the 2022 Winter Olympics came down to China vs. Kazakhstan, and China was today awarded the games, which Xi Jinping vowed would be "fantastic, extraordinary, and excellent," reports the Guardian. The Beijing Games would "boost exchanges and mutual understanding between the Chinese and other civilizations of the world," Xi noted before the win, presumably in a way not seen since it hosted the Summer Games in 2008. Left out in the cold by today's IOC announcement in Kuala Lumpur was Almaty, Kazakhstan. It was a tight race, notes NBC News, with Beijing receiving 44 votes to Almaty's 40 in the secret vote, making Beijing the only city to have been handed summer and winter games. The jockeying appeared to take on a hint of third grade, with Almaty noting that Beijing isn't exactly known for scads of what might be considered a key component of a winter Games: snow, which China pledged to manufacture if need be. "Keeping it real" was Almaty's slogan, with a promo video promising "Real snow, real winter ambiance, real winter games." Meanwhile, the victor says it will split the 2022 Games between the cities of Zhangjiakou, Yanqing, and Beijing itself, which NBC News describes as "three clusters over 100 miles." And again partying like it was 2008, the Chinese capital literally promised to clean up its pollution problem. One element of recycling: China says it will again use Bird's Nest Stadium, from its 2008 Games, for opening and closing ceremonies.

Hours after police and demonstrators clashed in central Athens, Greek lawmakers on Thursday approved austerity measures that were overwhelmingly rejected by their citizens just days ago. The vote represented a stark turnabout for the government, and it was the price Greece’s lenders demanded for saving the country from a whirlwind of economic turmoil. It was a stunning defeat for populist forces that have pushed for a break from years of grinding cuts that powerhouse economies led by Germany have enforced as the key to growth. In the new topsy-turvy reality, leftist Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras was tasked with advocating a stricter version of the austerity he has long opposed. In a sign of his new weakness, 40 of the 149 lawmakers from his Syriza party abandoned him, saying their nation was taking more of the same toxic medicine that had forced it into five years of penury. The defections threatened the stability of his rule, raising the specter of fresh elections and even more economic turmoil. In the short term, the adoption of the new measures was a milestone on the road toward European approval of an up to $96 billion bailout, sparing Greece from surefire bankruptcy and its ouster from the shared euro currency. Already, banks have been closed for more than two weeks. With a dearth of cash to fuel basic transactions, Greece’s economy is slowly suffocating under the pressure. Greek leaders were stuck Wednesday urging the approval of measures to which they could offer only tepid support, acknowledging that they may send their country into deeper recession. 1 of 31 Full Screen Autoplay Close July 13, 2015 Skip Ad × Police and demonstrators clash in Central Athens View Photos Hours after police and demonstrators clashed in central Athens, Greek lawmakers early Thursday morning approved austerity measures that were overwhelmingly rejected by their citizens just days ago Caption Hours after police and demonstrators clashed in central Athens, Greek lawmakers early Thursday morning approved austerity measures that were overwhelmingly rejected by their citizens just days ago. July 16, 2015 A bank employee distributes tags with queue positions to pensioners as they wait to withdraw a maximum of 120 euros ($134) in central Athens from the bank. Emilio Morenatti/AP Buy Photo Wait 1 second to continue. Greeks “can understand the difference between those who fight with their soul in battle and resist, and those who hand in their weapons and give up with no resistance,” Tsipras told lawmakers in a speech capping the contentious late-night debate. “The outcome of these negotiations is of course not what we wanted.” The defectors included several members of Tsipras’s cabinet. Among the outcomes from the split could be the fall of Tsipras’s government and possible new elections — with all the fresh complications they could bring if anti-bailout forces gain ground. At a minimum, Tsipras will be tasked with implementing unpopular measures with a greatly weakened base of support. In the end, 229 of the 300 members of the Parliament supported the bailout laws, but much of the support came from opposition parties. As lawmakers hurled insults at one another ahead of the vote, anti-austerity protesters and riot police traded molotov cocktails and tear gas outside Greece’s neoclassical Parliament building, the worst such confrontation in years. Such clashes were a regular feature of anti-austerity demonstrations during the early years of Greece’s debt crisis. But recently they have been rare, and this was the first of any significance since Syriza came to power in January. There was powerful symbolism in the half-hour burst of violence, with Tsipras and his partners — who not long ago were manning the barricades against the authorities — now overseeing the crackdown on their anti-austerity base. Thursday’s vote capped weeks of turmoil that started when Tsipras walked away from bailout negotiations late last month and called a snap referendum that handed the choice of austerity to the Greek people. The decision sparked a bank run, shuttered banks and ushered in a new cash-poor reality after limits of 60 euros, about $67, were imposed on daily ATM withdrawals. Greeks rejected the austerity demands by a landslide, but Europe refused to budge. Tsipras had to capitulate or be kicked off the euro. His surrender was the culmination of a 17-hour slugfest that ended early Monday morning. Yanis Varoufakis, who stepped down as finance minister last week, threw his lot with the dissenters. “How can I possibly vote ‘yes’ to monsters and the new Versailles Treaty?” he said in reference to the peace accord that ended World War I and imposed harsh terms on the losers. Even Greece’s creditors have split over the best path for the struggling Mediterranean nation. A scathing International Monetary Fund report released Tuesday concluded that Greece’s debts are unsustainable even with its third rescue package in five years — which will require further spending cuts for the country’s battered economy. The report suggests a 30-year grace period for repayment. “No matter what form it takes . . . one way has to be found in order to release the burden and allow the country to demonstrate that it can be back on a sustainable path,” IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde told CNN on Wednesday. Greece’s European lenders have opposed significant debt relief. Germany has held the hardest line of all, although a Finance Ministry spokesman on Wednesday cracked the door to a limited delay to when Greece must repay what it owes to its lenders. The bailout package approved by parliamentarians early Thursday includes many of the measures repudiated by voters less than two weeks ago in the referendum. They include tax hikes on businesses and individuals, pension cuts and aggressive budget surplus targets that will keep government spending lean for years to come. Even with the approval, however, Greece’s economic future remains in limbo. Germany’s Parliament must give its own endorsement of the agreement in a Friday vote, even as opposition to another Greek bailout rises in Berlin. Several other euro-zone countries will hold parliamentary votes. European finance ministers, meanwhile, need to figure out a mechanism to provide Greece with enough emergency funding to cover its debts for the next several weeks while details of the bailout agreement are being negotiated. Most pressing is a Monday deadline for a 3.5 billion euro payment due to the European Central Bank. Demonstrators in Athens on Wednesday expressed disappointment that the government had not used the leverage gained from the referendum on Europe’s bailout proposals to win more favorable terms. “We voted ‘no’ in the referendum. But now it’s like we said ‘yes,’ ” said Vassilis, a 33-year-old engineer and anarchist who declined to give his last name for fear of attracting attention from the authorities. Read more: Germany doesn’t want to save Greece. It seems to want to humiliate Greece. In Greece, Chanel becomes more valuable than cash With Greek banks still shuttered, unsold eggs point to deeper woes Ylan Q. Mui in Washington contributed to this report. ||||| ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Greek lawmakers voted overwhelmingly early Thursday to approve a harsh austerity bill demanded by bailout creditors, despite significant dissent from members of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras' left-wing party. Greece's Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras delivers a speech during a parliament meeting in Athens, Thursday, July 16, 2015. Greece's Parliament has approved an austerity bill demanded by bailout creditors,... (Associated Press) Greece's Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras delivers a speech during a parliament meeting in Athens, Thursday, July 16, 2015. Greece's Parliament has approved an austerity bill demanded by bailout creditors,... (Associated Press) Anti-austerity protesters clash with riot police during a rally in Athens, Wednesday, July 15, 2015. Greece has a tentative rescue deal, but relief that it is not falling out of the euro is unlikely... (Associated Press) Members of the Communist-affiliated PAME labor union march during an anti-austerity rally in Athens, Wednesday, July 15, 2015. Greece has a tentative rescue deal, but relief that it is not falling out... (Associated Press) Members of the Communist-affiliated PAME labor union shout slogans during an anti-austerity rally in Athens, Wednesday, July 15, 2015. Greece has a tentative rescue deal, but relief that it is not falling... (Associated Press) Members of the Communist-affiliated PAME labor union hold a banner reading ''Memorandum'' during an anti-austerity rally at Omonia square in Athens, Wednesday, July 15, 2015. Greece has a tentative rescue... (Associated Press) Members of the Communist-affiliated PAME labor union gather during an anti-austerity rally at Omonia square in Athens, Wednesday, July 15, 2015. Greece has a tentative rescue deal, but relief that it... (Associated Press) Greece's Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, arrives for a meeting with lawmakers of Syriza governing party as Parliament speaker Zoi Konstantopoulou applauds him in Athens, Wednesday, July 15, 2015. Tsipras... (Associated Press) Riot police try to avoid petrol bombs during clashes in Athens, Wednesday, July 15, 2015. Greece has a tentative rescue deal, but relief that it is not falling out of the euro is unlikely to last long:... (Associated Press) Greece's Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras votes during a parliament meeting in Athens, Thursday, July 16, 2015. Greece's Parliament has approved an austerity bill demanded by bailout creditors, despite a... (Associated Press) Greece's Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras attends a meeting with lawmakers of Syriza governing party at the Greek Parliament in Athens, Wednesday, July 15, 2015. Tsipras faced a rising wave of hostility... (Associated Press) Riot police is on fire try as anti-austerity protesters throw petrol bombs during clashes in Athens, Wednesday, July 15, 2015. Greece has a tentative rescue deal, but relief that it is not falling out... (Associated Press) Greece's Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras reacts during a parliament meeting in Athens, Thursday, July 16, 2015. Greece's Parliament has approved an austerity bill demanded by bailout creditors, despite... (Associated Press) Riot police is on fire as anti-austerity protesters throw petrol bombs during clashes in Athens, Wednesday, July 15, 2015. Greece has a tentative rescue deal, but relief that it is not falling out of... (Associated Press) Riot police try to avoid petrol bombs thrown by anti-austerity protesters during clashes in Athens, Wednesday, July 15, 2015. Greece has a tentative rescue deal, but relief that it is not falling out... (Associated Press) Greece's Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, right, and Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos react as they attend a parliament meeting in Athens, Thursday, July 16, 2015. Greece's Parliament has approved an... (Associated Press) The bill has fueled anger in the governing Syriza party and led to a revolt by party members against the prime minister, who has insisted the deal forged after a marathon weekend eurozone summit was the best he could do to prevent Greece from catastrophically crashing out of Europe's joint currency. The bill, which imposes sweeping tax hikes and spending cuts, was approved with 229 votes in favor, 64 against and six abstentions — and with the support of three pro-European opposition parties. Prominent Syriza party members were among the 38 dissenters, including Energy Minister Panagiotis Lafazanis and former finance minister Yanis Varoufakis, who many blame for exacerbating tensions with Greece's creditors with his abrasive style during five months of tortured negotiations. The vote came after an anti-austerity demonstration by about 12,000 protesters outside parliament degenerated into violence as the debate was getting underway Wednesday night. Riot police battled youths who hurled petrol bombs for about an hour before the clashes died down. The bill was the first step Greece must take in order to begin negotiations with creditors on a new bailout — its third in five years — of about 85 billion euros ($93 billion) in loans over three years. Dissenters argued that Greeks could not face any further cuts after six years of recession that saw poverty and unemployment skyrocket and wiped out a quarter of the country's economy. Tsipras has been battling all week to persuade party hard-liners to back the deal. He has acknowledged the agreement reached with creditors was far from what he wanted and trampled on his pre-election promises of repealing austerity, but insisted the alternative would have been far worse for the country. "We had a very specific choice: A deal we largely disagreed with, or a chaotic default," he told parliament ahead of the vote. Tsipras had urged Syriza members to back the bill despite having urged voters to reject earlier, milder creditor demands in a July 5 referendum. Greeks voted overwhelmingly to reject those proposals. Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos, who took over from Varoufakis the day after the referendum, said the deal Greece reached with its creditors on Monday was the only possible choice. "I must tell you, that Monday morning at 9:30, it was the most difficult day of my life. It was a decision that will weigh on me for the rest of my life," Tsakalotos said. "I don't know if we did the right thing. But I know we did something with the sense that we had no choice. Nothing was certain and nothing is," he told parliament. High-ranking dissenters included Alternate Finance Minister Nadia Valavani, who resigned from her post earlier Wednesday, saying she could not vote in favor of the bill. In a letter sent to Tsipras on Monday and released by the finance ministry Wednesday, Valavani said she believed "dominant circles in Germany" were intent on "the full humiliation of the government and the country." The economy ministry's secretary general, Manos Manousakis, also resigned over the measures. Parliament speaker Zoe Konstantopoulou, a prominent Syriza member, slammed the deal as a product of blackmail, calling it a "crime against humanity" and "social genocide." Thursday's vote came after more than two weeks of capital controls, with Greek banks and the stock exchange shut since June 29 and ATM cash withdrawals limited to 60 euros per day. With its banks dangerously low on liquidity and the state practically out of cash, Greece desperately needs funds. It faces a Monday deadline to repay 4.2 billion euros ($4.6 billion) to the European Central Bank, and is also in arrears on 2 billion euros to the IMF. Negotiations on the new bailout will take an estimated four weeks, leaving European finance ministers scrambling to find ways to get Athens some money sooner. The European Commission has proposed giving Greece 7 billion euros in loans from a special fund overseen by all 28 EU nations so it can meet its upcoming debts. The loan would be made pending the start of a full bailout program, but faces resistance from Britain, a non-euro member of the EU. Germany argued one way for Greece to meet its financing obligations was for it to issue IOUs for domestic needs. ____ Raf Casert in Brussels and Frank Jordans in Berlin contributed to this report. ||||| A tourist stands under a Greek national flag at the Monastiraki area in Athens, Greece July 14, 2015. The Greek Parliament is seen through a banner held by a protester during an anti-austerity rally organized by the country's biggest public sector union ADEDY in Athens, Greece July 15, 2015. Greek Presidential guards conduct their ceremonial march past a banner held by protesters during an anti-austerity rally organized by the country's biggest public sector union ADEDY in Athens, Greece July 15, 2015. Anti-Euro protesters march through the streets during an anti-austerity rally in Athens, Greece July 15, 2015. Riot police stand amongst the flames from exploded petrol bombs thrown by a small group of anti-establishment demonstrators in front of parliament in Athens, Greece July 15, 2015. Riot police stand amongst the flames from exploded petrol bombs thrown by a small group of anti-establishment demonstrators in front of parliament in Athens, Greece July 15, 2015. A protester bleeds as he is arrested by riot police following clashes in Athens, Greece July 15, 2015. Riot police stand amongst the flames from exploded petrol bombs thrown by a small group of anti-austerity demonstrators in front of parliament in Athens, Greece July 15, 2015. Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras (R) sits next to Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos (L) as he attends a parliamentary session in Athens, Greece July 15, 2015. ATHENS The Greek parliament passed a sweeping package of austerity measures demanded by European partners as the price for opening talks on a multi-billion euro bailout package needed to keep the near-bankrupt country in the euro zone. The vote followed a stormy debate in which dozens of lawmakers on the left of the ruling Syriza party rebelled against Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and opposed the package, which passed with the support of opposition parties. The package passed with 229 votes in favor in the 300-seat chamber but 38 Syriza lawmakers abstained or voted against the government, including former Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis and the current Energy Minister Panagiotis Lafazanis, Deputy Labour Minister Dimitris Stratoulis and speaker of parliament Zoe Constantopoulou. The result opens the way for talks on a third bailout to begin with European partners, but leaves the future of the leftist Tsipras government unclear following the split in his party ranks. (Reporting by Renee Maltezou and Angeliki Koutantou; writing by James Mackenzie)

– Greece keeps inching toward its convoluted bailout: Lawmakers have approved an austerity package demanded by European creditors, reports Reuters. This time, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras endorsed them, despite having championed a referendum that shot down a similar package less than two weeks ago. He had to face down a revolt in his own party, and his former finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, was among the 38 dissenters, reports AP. One major hurdle remains, reports the New York Times. The International Monetary Fund said yesterday that it makes little sense to give Greece yet another loan without substantial debt relief—perhaps even a 30-year grace period, notes the Washington Post. Germany and other nations strenuously object to that, but the IMF position is increasing pressure on them to bend, "providing some hope to Greeks that they will have a new ally in debt talks," says the Times.

Donald Trump has been coming under fire for refusing to distance himself from the "birther" movement he helped fuel, which claims President Barack Obama wasn't born in the United States. On Tuesday night's "Late Show," host Stephen Colbert offered the GOP frontrunner a chance to put the question behind him once and for all. "I'm going to throw you a big fat meatball for you to hit out of the park right now," Colbert said. "This is the last time you'll ever have to address this question if you hit the ball." "I want to hear this one," Trump said. "Barack Obama, born in the United States?" Colbert asked. When Trump hesitated, Colbert tempted him with the "meatball." "It's a meatball, it's hanging out there," Colbert said, mimicking a batter's home-run swing. "Right there -- c'mon." But for Trump, it was a swing and a miss. "I don't talk about that anymore," he said. "You don't talk about it?" Colbert asked. Trump said he would rather talk about jobs and veterans, but Colbert cut him off. "The meatball is now being dragged down subway steps by a rat," Colbert said, referring to the now-famous pizza-stealing rat. "You missed the meatball." The response is in line with what Trump offered on Sunday to a similar question on "Meet the Press." "I just don't want to discuss it," Trump told host Chuck Todd, calling it a "long, complex issue." After taping his Colbert appearance, Trump tweeted that the birther movement began with Hillary Clinton: ||||| In the wake of Donald Trump's announcement that he would not participate in the Jan. 28 GOP debate because Megyn Kelly is moderating, Kelly has been subjected to a barrage of misogynistic abuse online. It's disgusting and depressing, but not at all surprising, for two reasons: Because many people (read: trolls) feel empowered to talk to women online in a degrading, abusive way, and because Trump's campaign is built on misogyny. Trump has trolled Kelly since August, and now his supporters are following his lead. @megynkelly Trump isn't afraid of you, he's DISGUSTED by you. There's a difference, you unprofessional cunt. — mike micliz (@MMicliz) January 28, 2016 A Vocativ analysis of 80,000 tweets directed at Kelly's Twitter handle over 24 hours found that the insults thrown her way were completely gendered. She was called a "bitch," a "dumb blonde," a "whore," a "bimbo," a "skank," a "hooker" and a "cunt." It's hard to imagine a man receiving such personal, sexually charged ire. These words are reserved only for women. Amazing reporting by @vocativ on nature of insults levelled against @megynkelly in last 24h https://t.co/JBLHVAPXS1 pic.twitter.com/1hGDXNUrz9 — Elizabeth Plank (@feministabulous) January 27, 2016 On the morning of Jan. 28, Trump tweeted the below image of Kelly, quoting another Twitter user who called Kelly a bimbo. If Trump is going to call Kelly a bimbo -- and imply much worse -- why shouldn't his supporters? The Internet, and Twitter specifically, is known for being a particularly unsupportive place for women to express their opinions. Abuse is frequent, and women who are in the public eye -- especially those who speak about women's issues or politics in general -- come to expect misogynist insults, death threats and rape threats. To make matters worse, companies and law enforcement institutions are ill-equipped to prevent or prosecute online abuse. We see these realities playing out in Kelly's Twitter mentions, propped up by Trump's explicit attacks against her. Despite Kelly's very-much conservative views, she has become a target of Trump's misogyny. (Perhaps for Trump, she represents the portion of the GOP base that has turned against him.) During a post-debate CNN interview in August that Kelly hosted, Trump surmised Kelly had "blood coming out of her wherever." (He later claimed he was referring to her nose.) He has also questioned her professional credibility, calling her a "lightweight" and "third-rate reporter," and has said explicitly that he does not respect her. @SusanMondie @luvinlife1967 @megynkelly @DanScavino Yes damn dyed in the wool Feminist bitch. I use to watch her until she attacked Trump. — Liberty Patriot (@speedingisfun) January 28, 2016 If our next president can't respect a woman enough to let her do her job without behaving like a petulant child, how can we expect him to fight for the issues and policies that would improve the lives of women in this country at large? The 2016 election has huge implications for American women. Calling Kelly a "bimbo" is just a symptom of a much larger -- and scarier -- problem. Because when misogyny is amplified at the highest levels of our political system, that misogyny is legitimized. ||||| Donald Trump approves of the way his supporters responded to a Black Lives Matter protester, reportedly beating him during a Saturday rally in Birmingham, Alabama. "Maybe he should have been roughed up," Trump said during a Sunday morning call-in appearance on "Fox & Friends." "It was absolutely disgusting what he was doing." A CNN reporter captured video of the Saturday incident in which a protester was reportedly punched and kicked after he was tackled to the ground by attendees or security at Trump's rally. At least one onlooker yelled, "Don't choke him! Don't choke him!" according to The Washington Post. Trump is heard in the video yelling, "Get him the hell out of here!"

– Two weeks ago, the Huffington Post announced it would append an editor's note to the end of its stories about Donald Trump that defines him as "a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist, birther and bully," among other things. With Trump's Tuesday night win in New Hampshire, it turned the end note into a blazing red homepage headline: "NH Goes Racist Sexist Xenophobic." The story page elaborates: "A Racist, Sexist Demagogue Just Won The New Hampshire Primary" reads its headline. The lengthy article recounts the events of the evening, framing them as a "stunning turn of events for a party that vowed just four years ago to be more inclusive to minorities after failing to unseat President Barack Obama in the bitter 2012 election. What the GOP got instead is a xenophobic demagogue who's insulted pretty much everyone and even earned the endorsement of white supremacists." What Arianna Huffington had to say, via Twitter: "Our @ huffingtonpost splash says it all # NewHampshirePrimary."

It was all too easy to confuse Andy Griffith the actor with Sheriff Andy Taylor, his most famous character from "The Andy Griffith Show." FILE - This Jan. 31, 1983 file photo shows actor Andy Griffith posing in Los Angeles to promote his upcoming CBS-TV film, "Murder in Coweta County". Griffith, whose homespun mix of humor and wisdom made... (Associated Press) FILE - This Feb. 23, 1979 file photo shows actor Andy Griffith on the set of TV's "Salvage-1" near Los Angeles. Griffith, whose homespun mix of humor and wisdom made "The Andy Griffith Show" an enduring... (Associated Press) FILE - This Jan. 1983 file photo shows actor Andy Griffith posing in Los Angeles to promote his upcoming CBS-TV film, "Murder in Coweta County". Griffith, whose homespun mix of humor and wisdom made "The... (Associated Press) FILE - This Nov. 9, 2005 file photo shows President Bush presenting the Presidential Medal of Freedom to actor Andy Griffith in the East Room of the White House. Griffith, whose homespun mix of humor... (Associated Press) FILE - This undated file photo provided by Fox Searchlight Pictures shows actor Andy Griffith on the set of "Waitress." Griffith, whose homespun mix of humor and wisdom made "The Andy Griffith Show" an... (Associated Press) FILE- This undated file image originally released by Viacom shows cast members from "The Andy Griffith Show," from left, Don Knotts as Deputy Barney Fife, Ron Howard as Opie Taylor and Andy Griffith as... (Associated Press) FILE - This March 6, 1987 file photo shows actor Andy Griffith in Toluca Lake, Calif. Griffith, whose homespun mix of humor and wisdom made "The Andy Griffith Show" an enduring TV favorite, died Tuesday,... (Associated Press) FILE - This Oct. 28, 2003 file photo shows actor Andy Griffith sitting in front of a bronze statue of Andy and Opie from the "Andy Griffith Show," after the unveiling ceremony in Raleigh, N.C. Griffith,... (Associated Press) FILE - This Jan. 31, 1983 file photo shows actor Andy Griffith posing in Los Angeles to promote his upcoming CBS-TV film, "Murder in Coweta County". Griffith, whose homespun mix of humor and wisdom made... (Associated Press) After all, Griffith set his namesake show in a make-believe town based on his hometown of Mount Airy, N.C., and played his "aw, shucks" persona to such perfection that viewers easily believed the character and the man were one. Griffith, 86, died Tuesday at his coastal home, Dare County Sheriff Doug Doughtie said in a statement. "Mr. Griffith passed away this morning at his home peacefully and has been laid to rest on his beloved Roanoke Island," Doughtie told The Associated Press, reading from a family statement. Although he acknowledged some similarities between himself and the wise sheriff who oversaw a town of eccentrics, they weren't the same. Griffith was more complicated than the role he played _ witnessed by his three marriages if nothing else. But that perception led people to believe Griffith was all that was good about North Carolina and put pressure on him to live up to an impossible Hollywood standard. He protected his privacy in the coastal town of Manteo, by building a circle of friends who revealed little to nothing about him. Strangers who asked where Griffith lived would receive circular directions that took them to the beach, said William Ivey Long, the Tony Award-winning costume designer whose parents were friends with Griffith and his first wife, Barbara. Craig Fincannon, who runs a casting agency in Wilmington, met Griffith in 1974. He described his friend as the symbol of North Carolina. That role "put heavy pressure on him because everyone felt like he was their best friend. With great grace, he handled the constant barrage of people wanting to talk to Andy Taylor," Fincannon said. In a 2007 interview with The Associated Press, Griffith said he wasn't as wise as the sheriff, nor as nice. He described himself as having the qualities of one of his last roles, that of the cranky diner owner in "Waitress," and also of his most manipulative character, from the 1957 movie "A Face in the Crowd." "But I guess you could say I created Andy Taylor," he said. "Andy Taylor's the best part of my mind. The best part of me." Griffith had a career that spanned more than a half-century and included Broadway, notably "No Time for Sergeants;" movies such as Elia Kazan's "A Face in the Crowd"; and records. "No Time for Sergeants," released as a film in 1958, cast Griffith as Will Stockdale, an over-eager young hillbilly who, as a draftee in the Air Force, overwhelms the military with his rosy attitude. Establishing Griffith's skill at playing a lovable rube, this hit film paved the way for his sitcom. He was inducted into the Academy of Television Arts Hall of Fame in 1992 and in 2005, he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, one of the country's highest civilian honors. His television series resumed in 1986 with "Matlock," which aired through 1995. On this light-hearted legal drama, Griffith played a cagey Harvard-educated attorney who was Southern-bred and -mannered with a leisurely law practice in Atlanta. Decked out in his seersucker suit in a steamy courtroom (air conditioning would have spoiled the mood), Matlock could toy with a witness and tease out a confession like a folksy Perry Mason. This character _ law-abiding, fatherly and lovable _ was like a latter-day homage to Sheriff Andy Taylor, updated with silver hair and a shingle. In short, Griffith would always be best known as Sheriff Taylor from the television show set in a North Carolina town not too different from Griffith's own hometown of Mount Airy. In 2007, Griffith said "The Andy Griffith Show," which initially aired from 1960 to 1968, had never really left and was seen somewhere in the world every day. A reunion movie, "Return to Mayberry," was the top-rated TV movie of the 1985-86 season. Griffith set the show in the fictional town of Mayberry, N.C., where Sheriff Taylor was the dutiful nephew who ate pickles that tasted like kerosene because they were made by his loving Aunt Bee, played by the late Frances Bavier. His character was a widowed father who offered gentle guidance to son Opie, played by little Ron Howard, who grew up to become the Oscar-winning director of "A Beautiful Mind." "His love of creating, the joy he took in it whether it was drama or comedy or his music, was inspiring to grow up around," Howard said in a statement. "The spirit he created on the set of `The Andy Griffith Show' was joyful and professional all at once. It was an amazing environment." Don Knotts was the goofy Deputy Barney Fife, while Jim Nabors joined the show as Gomer Pyle, the cornpone gas pumper. George Lindsey, who played the beanie-wearing Goober, died in May. Griffith and Knotts had become friends while performing in "No Time for Sergeants," and remained so until Knotts' death in 2006 at 81. Knotts' widow, Francey Yarborough Knotts, said in a statement Griffith was in good spirits when she spoke with him June 1, his birthday. "Don and I loved Andy very much," she said. "Andy and Don had a great friendship and a great creative partnership. Throughout their lives, they continued to have fun together and discuss the art of comedy and acting." "The Andy Griffith Show" was a loving portrait of the town where few grew up but many wished they did _ a place where all foibles are forgiven and friendships are forever. Villains came through town and moved on, usually changed by their stay in Mayberry. That was all a credit to Griffith, said casting director Craig Fincannon of Wilmington, who met Griffith in 1974. "I see so many TV shows about the South where the creative powers behind it have no life experience in the South," Fincannon said. "All too often, they have a stereotypical perspective. What made `The Andy Griffith Show' work was Andy Griffith himself _ the fact that he was of this dirt and had such deep respect for the people and places of his childhood. A character might be broadly eccentric, but the character had an ethical and moral base that allowed us to laugh with them and not at them. "And Andy Griffith's the reason for that." The show became one of only three series in TV history to bow out at the top of the ratings (The others were "I Love Lucy" and "Seinfeld."). Griffith said he decided to end it "because I thought it was slipping, and I didn't want it to go down further." His quiet public life didn't prevent Griffith from exhibiting a fine sense of humor. Both Long and Fincannon recalled Griffith's sneaky tendency to show up unexpectedly. In 1974, Fincannon was an actor in the outdoor drama, "The Lost Colony," where Griffith had gotten his start in acting decades earlier. "He would sneak into the choir and stand and sing as a choir member in the show, and people in the audience had no idea," Fincannon said. When Long and his two siblings were grand marshals in the Manteo Christmas parade, Griffith showed up in his 1932 roadster convertible to drive them. No one recognized Griffith, wearing glasses and a knit cap, until he said "Merry Christmas" to the crowd, Long said. When asked in 2007 to name his favorite episodes, the ones atop Griffith's list were the shows that emphasized Knotts' character. "The second episode that we shot I knew Don should be funny and I should play straight for him," Griffith said. "That opened up the whole series because I could play straight for everybody else. And I didn't have to be funny. I just let them be funny." Griffith's generosity toward his castmates paid off richly for those fellow actors, particularly Knotts. Sheriff Taylor was ever-indulgent with the twitchy, bug-eyed Deputy Fife, and loved joshing with him just for good sport. The result was five supporting-actor Emmys for Knotts. "What are the state police gonna think when they get here and find we got an empty jail?" rants Barney in one episode, as always worried about appearances. "They're gonna think this is just a hick town where nothing ever happens!" "Well, now," Taylor says calmly, "you got to admit: That's about the size of it. Letting others get the laughs was something of a role reversal for Griffith, whose career took off after he recorded the comedic monologue "What It Was, Was Football." That led to his first national television exposure on "The Ed Sullivan Show" in 1954, and the stage and screen versions as the bumbling draftee in "No Time for Sergeants." In the drama "A Face in the Crowd," he starred as Larry "Lonesome" Rhodes, a local jailbird and amateur singer who becomes a homespun philosopher on national television. As his influence rises, his drinking, womanizing and lust for power are hidden by his handlers. "Mr. Griffith plays him with thunderous vigor," The New York Times wrote. The Washington Post said, "He seems to have one of those personalities that sets film blazing." Griffith said Kazan led him through his role, and it was all a bit overwhelming for someone with, as he put it, just "one little acting course in college." "He would call me in the morning into his little office there, and he'd tell me all the colors that he wanted to see from my character that day," he recalled in 2007. "Lonesome Rhodes had wild mood swings. He'd be very happy, he'd be very sad, he'd be very angry, very depressed," he said. "And I had to pull all of these emotions out of myself. And it wasn't easy." His role as Sheriff Taylor seemingly obliterated Hollywood's memory of Griffith as a bad guy. But then, after that show ended, he found roles scarce until he landed a bad-guy role in "Pray for the Wildcats." Hollywood's memory bank dried up again, he said. "I couldn't get anything but heavies. It's funny how that town is out there. They see you one way." More recently, Griffith won a Grammy in 1997 for his album of gospel music "I Love to Tell the Story _ 25 Timeless Hymns." In 2007, he appeared in a critically acclaimed independent film, "Waitress," playing Joe, the boss at the diner. The next year, he appeared in Brad Paisley's awarding-winning music video "Waitin' on a Woman." Griffith stepped back into his Sheriff Taylor role in 2008 when he appeared in a pro-Barack Obama campaign video directed by Howard and featuring the former child star chatting with Griffith and other former TV colleagues. Griffith was born June 1, 1926, and as a child sang and played slide trombone in the band at Grace Moravian Church. He studied at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and for a time contemplated a career in the ministry. But he eventually got a job teaching high school music in Goldsboro. His acting career began with the role of Sir Walter Raleigh in Paul Green's outdoor pageant, "The Lost Colony," in Manteo. The pageant was about Raleigh's failed attempt to establish an English colony on Roanoke Island, where Manteo is located. Griffith helped Long's father build the house where the family lived in a community of bohemian artists with little money, sharing quart jars of homemade vegetable soup with each other. He and his first wife, Barbara Edwards, had two children, Sam, who died in 1996, and Dixie. His second wife was Solica Cassuto. Both marriages ended in divorce. He married his third wife, Cindi Knight Griffith, in 1983. "She and I are not only married, we're partners," Griffith said in 2007. "And she helps me very much with everything." Griffith also suffered over the years with Guillain-Barre syndrome, a rare neurological disorder that can cause sudden paralysis. In 1987, he told the Associated Press that he wore plastic leg braces during the making of "Return to Mayberry." "I've stopped wearing the braces," he said then. "They squeaked and the soundmen could hear them. I took them off and never put them back on. I have pain, but I'm 100 percent OK. But the pain's been with me so long I almost don't notice it." He had suffered a heart attack and underwent quadruple bypass surgery in 2000. ____ AP Television Writer Frazier Moore and Entertainment Writer Jake Coyle, both in New York, contributed to this report. ___ Martha Waggoner can be reached at _http://twitter.com/mjwaggonernc ||||| The death certificate for Andy Griffith says the actor's death earlier this week was caused by a heart attack. The certificate says the 86-year-old had suffered the attack 24 hours before he died at 7 a.m. Tuesday. It also says he had suffered for years from other illnesses, including coronary artery disease, hypertension and hyperlipidemia, which can be a form of high cholesterol or high triglycerides. Griffith's death certificate was filed Thursday with the vital records office in Dare County. It says he's buried in the Griffith Family Cemetery in Manteo. Dr. Johnny Farrow of Manteo signed the certificate. Griffith was best known for playing Sheriff Andy Taylor in "The Andy Griffith Show," which aired from 1960 to 1968. He was born in Mount Airy and lived in Manteo. Previous Story Andy Griffith's gift to the show that bore his name wasn't just the homespun wisdom of the plain-spoken sheriff he played. It was the place he created: a small town where all foibles are forgiven and friendships are forever, full of characters who felt like family. Mayberry, a fictional North Carolina village said to be modeled on Griffith's own hometown of Mount Airy, was so beloved that it practically became a synonym for any community that was too innocent and trusting for real life. After all, Griffith's Mayberry was a place where the sheriff didn't carry a gun, the local drunk locked himself in jail and even the villains who passed through were changed by their stay. On "The Andy Griffith Show," he created an endearing portrait of a place where few people grew up but many wished they did. Griffith, who died Tuesday at 86 at his North Carolina home, played a sage widower named Andy Taylor who offered gentle guidance to son Opie, played by little Ron Howard, who grew up to become an Oscar-winning director. Griffith inhabited the sheriff's "aw, shucks" persona so completely that viewers easily believed the character and the man were one. "What made `The Andy Griffith Show' work was Andy Griffith himself - the fact that he was of this dirt and had such deep respect for the people and places of his childhood," said Craig Fincannon, who runs a casting agency in Wilmington and met Griffith in 1974. A character on the show "might be broadly eccentric, but the character had an ethical and moral base that allowed us to laugh with them and not at them," he said. "And Andy Griffith's the reason for that." Don Knotts, who died in 2006, was the goofy Deputy Barney Fife, while Jim Nabors joined the show as Gomer Pyle, the cornpone gas pumper. George Lindsey, who died in May, was the beanie-wearing Goober. The sheriff's loving Aunt Bee was played by the late Frances Bavier. The show initially aired from 1960 to 1968 and never really left television, living on for decades in reruns. Almost 20 years later, a reunion movie titled "Return to Mayberry" was the top-rated TV movie of the 1985-86 season. The series became one of only three in TV history to bow out at the top of the ratings (The others were "I Love Lucy" and "Seinfeld."). Griffith said he decided to end it "because I thought it was slipping, and I didn't want it to go down further." In a 2007 interview with The Associated Press, Griffith said he wasn't as wise as the sheriff or as nice. He described himself as having the qualities of one of his last roles, that of the cranky diner owner in "Waitress," and also of his most manipulative character, from the 1957 movie "A Face in the Crowd." "But I guess you could say I created Andy Taylor," he said. "Andy Taylor's the best part of my mind. The best part of me." Griffith's skill at playing a lovable rube was first established on a comedic monologue titled "What It Was, Was Football," about a bumpkin attending a college football game. That led to his first national television exposure on "The Ed Sullivan Show" in 1954 and the stage and screen versions of "No Time for Sergeants," a production that cast Griffith as Will Stockdale, an over-eager young hillbilly who, as a draftee in the Air Force, overwhelms the military with his rosy attitude. His television career slowed down in the 1970s but resumed in 1986 with "Matlock," a light-hearted legal drama in which Griffith played a cagey Harvard-educated, Southern-bred attorney with a leisurely law practice in Atlanta. Decked out in his seersucker suit in a steamy courtroom (air conditioning would have spoiled the mood), Matlock could toy with a witness and tease out a confession like a folksy Perry Mason. This new character - law-abiding, fatherly and lovable - was like a latter-day homage to Sheriff Andy Taylor, updated with silver hair. The show aired though 1995. Griffith was inducted into the Academy of Television Arts Hall of Fame in 1992. In 2005, he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, one of the country's highest civilian honors. In a statement Tuesday, President Barack Obama said Griffith's characters "warmed the hearts of Americans everywhere." Griffith's signature role "put heavy pressure on him because everyone felt like he was their best friend," Fincannon said. "With great grace, he handled the constant barrage of people wanting to talk to Andy Taylor." In the coastal town of Manteo, Griffith protected his privacy with help from a circle of friends who revealed little to nothing about him. Strangers who asked where Griffith lived would receive circular directions that took them to the beach, said William Ivey Long, the Tony Award-winning costume designer whose parents were friends with Griffith and his first wife, Barbara. Griffith and Knotts had become friends while performing in "No Time for Sergeants" and remained so until Knotts' death at 81. Knotts' widow, Francey Yarborough Knotts, said Griffith was in good spirits when she spoke with him June 1, his birthday. "Don and I loved Andy very much," she said in a statement. "Andy and Don had a great friendship and a great creative partnership. Throughout their lives, they continued to have fun together and discuss the art of comedy and acting." Asked in 2007 to name his favorite episodes, Griffith cited those that emphasized Knotts' character. "The second episode that we shot I knew Don should be funny and I should play straight for him," Griffith said. "That opened up the whole series because I could play straight for everybody else. And I didn't have to be funny. I just let them be funny." Griffith's generosity toward his cast mates paid off richly for those fellow actors, particularly Knotts. Sheriff Taylor was ever-indulgent with the twitchy, bug-eyed Deputy Fife and loved joshing with him just for sport. The result was five supporting-actor Emmys for Knotts. "What are the state police gonna think when they get here and find we got an empty jail?" rants Barney in one episode, worried about appearances, as always. "They're gonna think this is just a hick town where nothing ever happens!" "Well, now," Taylor says calmly, "you got to admit that's about the size of it." In the 1957 drama "A Face in the Crowd," Griffith starred as Larry "Lonesome" Rhodes, a local jailbird and amateur singer who becomes a philosopher on national television. As his influence rises, his drinking, womanizing and lust for power are hidden by his handlers. "Mr. Griffith plays him with thunderous vigor," The New York Times wrote. The Washington Post said Griffith "seems to have one of those personalities that sets film blazing." Griffith said director Elia Kazan led him through his role, and it was all a bit overwhelming for someone with, as he put it, just "one little acting course in college." More recently, Griffith won a Grammy in 1997 for his album of gospel music "I Love to Tell the Story - 25 Timeless Hymns." In 2007, he appeared in a critically acclaimed independent film, "Waitress," playing Joe, the boss at the diner. The next year, he appeared in Brad Paisley's awarding-winning music video "Waitin' on a Woman." Paisley said Griffith was "an actor who never looked like he was acting, a moral compass who saved as many souls as most preachers and an entertainer who put smiles on more faces than almost anyone." Griffith also dappled in Democratic politics, appearing in 2008 in an Obama campaign video directed by Howard and featuring the former child star chatting with Griffith and other former TV colleagues. Two years later, he made a commercial praising the president's health care legislation. Griffith was born June 1, 1926, and as a child sang and played slide trombone in the band at Grace Moravian Church. He studied at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and for a time contemplated a career in the ministry. But he eventually got a job teaching high school music in Goldsboro. He and his first wife, Barbara Edwards, had two children: Sam, who died in 1996, and Dixie. His second wife was Solica Cassuto. Both marriages ended in divorce. He married third wife Cindi Knight Griffith in 1983. Griffith also suffered from Guillain-Barre syndrome, a rare neurological disorder that can cause sudden paralysis. He suffered a heart attack and underwent quadruple bypass surgery in 2000. North Carolina lost a legend today. Dare County Sheriff Doug Doughtie has confirmed Andy Griffith has died and also released a short statement from the family. Sheriff Doughtie tells WITN News the family stated that Andy died at seven this morning, peacefully, at his home and that Andy has been laid to rest on his beloved Roanoke Island. The funeral home confirms that happened on his family farm. The actor's death was first confirmed by former UNC President Bill Friday just before 10:00 a.m. and later by the sheriff. Friday and Griffith were close friends. Friday told us the 86-year-old actor died at his Roanoke Island home around 7:00 a.m. this morning. The sheriff had confirmed earlier that an ambulance was called to the home this morning. A family statement says the actor died with his wife Cindi at his side. "Andy was a person of incredibly strong Christian faith and was prepared for the day he would be called Home to his Lord," said his wife in a statement. "He is the love of my life, my constant companion, my partner, and my best friend. I cannot imagine life without Andy, but I take comfort and strength in God’s Grace and in the knowledge that Andy is at peace and with God.” Griffith was born in Mount Airy and attended UNC Chapel Hill where he earned a degree in Music. His first job out of college was an English teacher at Goldsboro High School. His legacy role, which earned him the title of "America's Favorite Sheriff"on "The Andy Griffith" show, set in fictional Mayberry, put North Carolina on the map in the entertainment industry. The show ran from 1960-1968, propelling a handful of spin-off programs. Griffith also produced and starred in the television series "Matlock." President Barack Obama says Griffith was a performer of extraordinary talent. "Andy was beloved by generations of fans and revered by entertainers who followed in his footsteps," Obama said in a statement. "He brought us characters from Sheriff Andy Taylor to Ben Matlock, and in the process, warmed the hearts of Americans everywhere. Our thoughts and prayers are with Andy’s family." Visiting Eastern Carolina this morning, U.S. Senator Kay Hagan says Griffith was an iconic figure in the state. "His show was known not only in our nation, but around the world," Hagan told WITN's Brittany Creamer. "My thoughts and prayers are with his family." Governor Beverly Perdue said the state has lost its favorite son. "Andy Griffith graciously stepped into the living rooms of generations of Americans, always with the playful charm that made him the standard by which entertainers would be measured for decades," said Perdue. "Throughout his career, he represented everything that was good about North Carolina: a small town boy and UNC graduate who took a light-hearted approach to some of the attributes he grew up with and turned them into a spectacularly successful career. And regardless of where that career took him, he always came back to North Carolina and spent his final years here." Griffith received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2005 from President George W. Bush. Previous Story Dare County Sheriff Doug Doughtie confirms to WITN News that an ambulance went to Andy Griffith's home at 7 a.m. this morning. The sheriff says he is checking to get more information on the condition of the person who the ambulance was called for. The 86-year-old Griffith lives on Roanoke Island, not far from the Lost Colony, a play he performed in right after high school. Griffith was born in Mount Airy, and is most known for his role as "Andy Taylor" from 1960 to 1968. Stay with WITN News and witn.com for more on this developing story.

– Television icon Andy Griffith has died at age 86. A local sheriff in North Carolina confirmed the news today via a family statement: "Mr. Griffith passed away this morning at his home peacefully and has been laid to rest on his beloved Roanoke Island," reports AP. It's not clear whether "laid to rest" meant his burial already had occurred, notes WITN. Griffith, of course, gained icon status as the sheriff of Mayberry in the Andy Griffith Show. In later years, he returned to TV in Matlock. "His love of creating, the joy he took in it whether it was drama or comedy or his music, was inspiring to grow up around," said Ron Howard, who got his start as Opie. "The spirit he created on the set of The Andy Griffith Show was joyful and professional all at once. It was an amazing environment."

Employees in one of the most overworked countries in Asia are about to get a break after South Korea passed a bill to reduce the typical work week in an effort to improve quality of life and boost employment. South Korea’s National Assembly overwhelmingly passed the law which cut the maximum weekly work hours to 52, down from 68. The law comes into force in July and will apply to large companies before being rolled out to smaller businesses. The cut was a campaign promise by President Moon Jae-in, who also secured a 16% increase in the minimum wage this year. The law faced opposition from businesses but was seen as necessary to improve living standards, create more jobs and boost productivity. It is also aimed at increasing the country’s birth rate, which hit record lows last year. As South Korea’s economy boomed in the 80s and 90s, a workaholic culture took hold and the birth rate plummeted. Chung Hyun-back, the gender equality and family minister, has called the country’s working hours “inhumanely long” and said they were a factor in the South’s rapidly ageing society. Top 10 books about South Korea Read more South Koreans workers have some of the longest weeks among members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, behind only Mexico. The group of mostly developed economies does not include countries such as China and India, and developing countries tend to work more. But South Koreans still work about 400 more hours a year compared with workers in the UK and Australia, about 10 additional standard work weeks, despite having relatively similar average incomes. The new South Korean work week will consist of 40 normal hours and an additional 12 hours of overtime. It could cost businesses an additional 12tn won ($11bn) a year to maintain the same levels of production, according to a study by the Korean Economic Research Institute. The new law reduced the number of exempted businesses from 26 to five, including transport and healthcare. People under 18 will also only be able to work 35 hours a week, down from 40, equivalent to a typical week in France. ||||| SMEs show concern over snowballing labor cost By Yoon Ja-young The bill to slash working hours was approved by the National Assembly Environment and Labor Committee, Tuesday, which while allowing workers to enjoy a better quality of life, could raise the costs for small- and medium-sized businesses. The bill cuts the maximum statutory working hours to 52 hours a week from the current 68 hours. It is expected to get approval at a plenary session as early as Wednesday since it passed the committee with the consensus of both the governing and opposition parties. Slashing working hours was among the main election pledges of President Moon Jae-in, which he said will improve quality of life as well as help create jobs. However, fewer working hours means higher labor costs for businesses. According to an estimate by the Korea Economic Research Institute, businesses will pay an additional 12.1 trillion won annually to maintain current production while cutting the working hours. This includes wages paid to additional workers hired to cover the hours lost, as well as their training costs. It is especially likely to hit the manufacturing and transportation industries as working overtime has been the norm there. Labor ministry data from 2012 showed that employees in manufacturing work on average 28.1 extra hours a month. SMEs will be damaged more than conglomerates. The institute explained that small businesses hiring fewer than 300 will pay 8.6 trillion won of the extra costs, or 70 percent of the total. To minimize the impact on industry, the committee agreed to apply different schedules for adoption of the new law depending on the size of the business. Large businesses hiring more than 300 workers will be subject to it beginning July, while implementation will be delayed to July 2021 for businesses with less than 50 workers. The labor ministry said the government will prepare support plans for small businesses. "Most large businesses have been preparing for shorter working hours since last year when discussions gained momentum. The government will prepare supportive measures for small businesses that might face difficulties due to the revision," a ministry official said.

– South Korea's maximum workweek, which had been called "inhumanely long" at 68 hours, has been cut to 52. President Moon Jae-in had vowed to cut the workweek during his campaign; also this year, he oversaw a 16% minimum-wage increase. South Korea's National Assembly passed the workweek law, which takes effect in July for large companies and will later be applied to smaller companies. Companies with fewer than 50 employees won't need to comply until July 2021. In addition to improving quality of life and creating more jobs, lawmakers hope the move will boost the country's birthrate. A "workaholic culture" became the norm in South Korea when the economy started booming in the 1980s, the Guardian reports, and the birthrate fell fast. Last year, it hit record lows. The country's gender equality and family minister has blamed the long work hours for the country's aging population. But businesses opposed the move to reduce work hours, which could cost them an additional $11 billion per year to maintain productivity levels, the Korea Times reports. South Koreans work around 400 hours more per year than those in the UK and Australia.

Ronnie James Dio, whose soaring vocals, poetic lyrics and mythic tales of a never-ending struggle between good and evil broke new ground in heavy metal, died Sunday, according to a statement from his wife and manager. He was 67. FILE - In this July 7, 2007 file photo, Ronnie James Dio performs with British heavy metal group "Heaven and Hell" during the 41th Montreux Jazz Festival in Montreux, Switzerland. Dio, the metal god who... (Associated Press) Dio revealed last summer that he was suffering from stomach cancer shortly after wrapping up a tour in Atlantic City, N.J., with the latest incarnation of Black Sabbath, under the name Heaven And Hell. "Today my heart is broken," Wendy Dio wrote on the singer's site, adding he died at 7:45 a.m. "Many, many friends and family were able to say their private goodbyes before he peacefully passed away. "Ronnie knew how much he was loved by all," Wendy Dio continued. "We so appreciate the love and support that you have all given us ... Please know he loved you all and his music will live on forever." The statement was confirmed by Los Angeles publicist Maureen O'Connor. Dio was being treated at a Houston hospital, according to his site. Though Dio had recently undergone his seventh chemotherapy treatment, he was hopeful to perform again. Earlier this month, Heaven And Hell canceled its summer tour, but Dio did not view being sidelined as a permanent thing. "Wendy, my doctors and I have worked so hard to make it happen for all of you, the ones we care so much about, that this setback could be devastating, but we will not let it be," he said in a statement. "With your continued love and support, we ... will carry on and thrive. There will be other tours, more music, more life and much more magic." Dio rose to fame in 1975 as the first lead singer of Rainbow, the heavy metal band put together by guitarist Ritchie Blackmore, who had just quit Deep Purple. Dio then replaced legendary vocalist Ozzy Osbourne in Black Sabbath in 1980 with the critically acclaimed album "Heaven And Hell," considered by many critics to be one of the finest heavy metal albums of all time. His on-again, off-again tenure with Black Sabbath touched off an intense debate among fans as to which singer was the true essence of the band _ a discussion that lasted until his death. He also enjoyed a successful solo career with his self-titled band, Dio, in between his three stints with Black Sabbath (1980-82; 1992; and 2007-2009, when the band toured as Heaven And Hell, to differentiate it from Osbourne-led versions of Sabbath). Many of his most memorable songs revolved around the struggle between good and evil, including his signature tune "Heaven And Hell." He also drew heavily on medieval imagery in songs like "Neon Knights," "Killing The Dragon" and "Stargazer." "He possessed one of the greatest voices in all of heavy metal, and had a heart to match it," said Twisted Sister guitarist Jay Jay French, whose band toured with Dio since 1983, and was to do so again this summer at European rock festivals. "He was the nicest, classiest person you would ever want to meet." Dio organized an all-star charity collaboration in 1986 called "Hear N' Aid" to raise money for famine relief in Africa, styled on the successful "We Are The World" campaign of a few years earlier. His solo hits included "Rainbow In The Dark," "The Last In Line" and "Holy Diver." ___ AP Music Writer Nekesa Mumbi Moody contributed to this story. ___ Online: http://www.ronniejamesdio.com/ ||||| Influential heavy metal singer Ronnie James Dio, best known for his iconic wailing for Black Sabbath and, before that, Rainbow , has died of stomach cancer. His death was announced via a statement on his website from wife Wendy Dio, which read: Today my heart is broken, Ronnie passed away at 7:45am 16th May. Many, many friends and family were able to say their private good-byes before he peacefully passed away. Ronnie knew how much he was loved by all. We so appreciate the love and support that you have all given us. Please give us a few days of privacy to deal with this terrible loss. Please know he loved you all and his music will live on forever. -- Wendy Dio [Updated at 2:45 p.m.: Dio's stomach cancer diagnosis became public in late 2009. Earlier this year, the artist announced that a planned European tour with his band Heaven & Hell would have to be canceled due to his declining health. Dio, however, was able to appear in Los Angeles at an early April metal event sponsored by hard rock magazine Revolver, where he spoke of the challenges of dealing with chemotherapy. "I never realized what a difficult thing it was to go through," he said in a video interview with Artisan News. "It's a real cumulative effect -- the more you have, the more it piles up on top and it takes longer and longer to get over it. I find it very difficult to eat. I don't like to eat, anyway, so I guess that's OK. But I know I have to. But this makes it very, very hard. But if you're determined to beat it, then you have to go with what you believe is going to beat it for you." Dio was born July 10, 1949, according to the Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll, yet there has long been dispute about his age. Fans have long put Dio's true birth date as the summer of 1942, and numerous reports of Dio's death have cited his age as 67. Dio replaced Ozzy Osbourne as the lead singer of Black Sabbath, who left the band in 1979 after increasingly reckless behavior. Dio's first album with the group, "Heaven & Hell," has been certified platinum by industry trade body the RIAA, putting its total shipments at more than 1 million copies. Soon after the release of 1981's "Mob Rules," Dio left Black Sabbath to start his own group, Dio . Dio continued to record with his namesake group into this decade, and more recently had formed Heaven & Hell. The latter was essentially a reunion of the Obsourne-less Black Sabbath, and released the studio effort "The Devil You Know" in 2009. The Rhino album entered the U.S. pop chart at No. 8 after selling 30,000 copies in its first week, according to Nielsen SoundScan.] The Times will continue to update this post with a more expansive look at one of the godfathers of heavy metal, but, for now, check out the above clip, eight minutes of Dio 101, which illustrates the breadth of Dio's powers. Every metal vocalist who's ever reached for an operatic note owes a debt to the master. -- Randall Roberts and Todd Martens

– Ronnie James Dio, the legendary heavy metal singer who replaced Ozzy Osbourne as Black Sabbath's frontman, died today. He was 61 or 67, according to the LA Times, and suffered from stomach cancer. "Many, many friends and family were able to say their private good-byes before he peacefully passed away," his wife, Wendy, said in a statement. "Ronnie knew how much he was loved by all." Dio recorded with Rainbow, Black Sabbath, Dio, and Heaven & Hell during a 35-plus year career that saw him become a revered figure in the heavy metal community. "He possessed one of the greatest voices in all of heavy metal, and had a heart to match it," Twisted Sister guitarist Jay Jay French told the AP. "He was the nicest, classiest person you would ever want to meet.""

Mystery solved! Jay-Z revealed why he and wife Beyoncé chose the names Rumi and Sir for their twins, who were born in June. "Rumi is our favorite poet, so it was for our daughter," the "Smile" rapper, 47, said during the second part of his interview with Rap Radar podcast hosts Elliot Wilson and Brian "B.Dot" Miller, which was released on Friday, August 25. "And then Sir was, like, man, come out the gate. He carries himself like that. He just came out, like, Sir." Kevin Mazur/Getty Images Jay-Z made sure to schedule his upcoming tour for after the birth of the twins. "I booked the tour for October so I could have at least four months ... to just really bond and see their fingers and s--t like that," he said. "They'll be with me [on tour] anyway, but I'm just saying, like, [I needed] a space where I'm not doing nothing, I'm just focused on them. I'm not thinking about a show at night or anything like that. That's why the tour is so far away from the release of the album." The Roc Nation founder also opened up about how the couple's firstborn, daughter Blue Ivy, ended up rapping a freestyle for one of the bonus tracks on his new album, 4:44. "I can't even listen to that song no more. I only listen to her freestyle, and then I'm like, 'I can't listen to this,'" he quipped. Blue, 5, was in the recording studio with her father while he was working on the record. At one point, he turned his back and started working on something else, so Blue took matters into her own hands. "She got the headphones and she climbed on the little stool, and then she just started rapping. … I was like, 'Oh, s--t,'" Jay-Z recalled. "I have [her full freestyle] on my phone. Five minutes! Five minutes of her doing that." One lyric in particular from Blue's freestyle went viral after the song was released in early July. "She kept doing that 'boom shakalaka, boom shakalaka' [part]. I was like, 'Oh, she understands the concept of a hook.' She's 5, and she understands the concept of a hook," the hip-hop star said. "I was like, 'What the f--k is going on in here?' One of the great memories." 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. ||||| The ecstatic poems of Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi, a Persian poet and Sufi master born 807 years ago in 1207, have sold millions of copies in recent years, making him the most popular poet in the US. Globally, his fans are legion. “He’s this compelling figure in all cultures,” says Brad Gooch, who is writing a biography of Rumi to follow his critically acclaimed books on Frank O’Hara and Flannery O’Connor. “The map of Rumi’s life covers 2,500 miles,” says Gooch, who has traveled from Rumi’s birthplace in Vakhsh, a small village in what is now Tajikistan, to Samarkand in Uzbekistan, to Iran and to Syria, where Rumi studied at Damascus and Aleppo in his twenties. His final stop was Konya, in Turkey, where Rumi spent the last 50 years of his life. Today Rumi’s tomb draws reverent followers and heads of state each year for a whirling dervish ceremony on 17 December, the anniversary of his death. The transformative moment in Rumi’s life came in 1244, when he met a wandering mystic known as Shams of Tabriz. “Rumi was 37, a traditional Muslim preacher and scholar, as his father and grandfather had been,” says Gooch. “The two of them have this electric friendship for three years – lover and beloved [or] disciple and sheikh, it’s never clear.” Rumi became a mystic. After three years Shams disappeared – “possibly murdered by a jealous son of Rumi, possibly teaching Rumi an important lesson in separation.” Rumi coped by writing poetry. “Most of the poetry we have comes from age 37 to 67. He wrote 3,000 [love songs] to Shams, the prophet Muhammad and God. He wrote 2,000 rubayat, four-line quatrains. He wrote in couplets a six-volume spiritual epic, The Masnavi.” During these years, Rumi incorporated poetry, music and dance into religious practice. “Rumi would whirl while he was meditating and while composing poetry, which he dictated,” said Gooch. “That was codified after his death into elegant meditative dance.” Or, as Rumi wrote, in Ghazal 2,351: “I used to recite prayers. Now I recite rhymes and poems and songs.” Centuries after his death, Rumi’s work is recited, chanted, set to music and used as inspiration for novels, poems, music, films, YouTube videos and tweets (Gooch tweets his translations @RumiSecrets). Why does Rumi’s work endure? The inward eye “He’s a poet of joy and of love,” says Gooch. “His work comes out of dealing with the separation from Shams and from love and the source of creation, and out of facing death. Rumi’s message cuts through and communicates. I saw a bumper sticker once, with a line from Rumi: “Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I'll meet you there.” “Rumi is a very mysterious and provocative poet and figure for our time, as we grapple with understanding the Sufi tradition [and] understanding the nature of ecstasy and devotion and the power of poetry,” says the poet Anne Waldman, co-founder with Allen Ginsberg of the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University, where she is a professor of poetics. “And the homoerotic tradition as well, consummated or not. He is in a long tradition of ecstatic seers from Sappho to Walt Whitman.” “Across time, place and culture, Rumi's poems articulate what it feels like to be alive,” says Lee Briccetti, executive director of Poets House, co-sponsor of a national library series in the US that features Rumi. (It’s currently in Detroit and Queens and heads to San Francisco, Houston, Atlanta and Columbus in 2015.) “And they help us understand our own search for love and the ecstatic in the coil of daily life.” She compares Rumi’s work to Shakespeare’s for its “resonance and beauty”. Coleman Barks, the translator whose work sparked an American Rumi renaissance and made Rumi the best-selling poet in the US, ticks off the reasons Rumi endures: “His startling imaginative freshness. The deep longing that we feel coming through. His sense of humour. There's always a playfulness [mixed] in with the wisdom.” In 1976 the poet Robert Bly handed Barks a copy of Cambridge don AJ Arberry’s translation of Rumi and said, “These poems need to be released from their cages.” Barks transformed them from stiff academic language into American-style free verse. Since then, Barks’ translations have yielded 22 volumes in 33 years, including The Essential Rumi, A Year with Rumi, Rumi: The Big Red Book and Rumi’s father’s spiritual diary, The Drowned Book, all published by HarperOne. They have sold more than 2m copies worldwide and have been translated into 23 languages. A new volume is due in autumn. Rumi: Soul-fury and Kindness, the Friendship of Rumi and Shams Tabriz features Barks’ new translations of Rumi’s short poems (rubai), and some work on the Notebooks of Shams Tabriz, sometimes called The Sayings of Shams Tabriz. “Like the Sayings of Jesus (The Gospel of Thomas), they have been hidden away for centuries,” Barks notes, “not in a red urn buried in Egypt, but in the dervish communities and libraries of Turkey and Iran. Over recent years scholars have begun to organise them and translate them into English.” 800 years ahead of the times “Just now,” Barks says, “I feel there is a strong global movement, an impulse that wants to dissolve the boundaries that religions have put up and end the sectarian violence. It is said that people of all religions came to Rumi's funeral in 1273. Because, they said, he deepens our faith wherever we are. This is a powerful element in his appeal now.” “Rumi was an experimental innovator among the Persian poets and he was a Sufi master,” says Jawid Mojaddedi, a scholar of early and medieval Sufism at Rutgers University and an award-winning Rumi translator. “This combination of mystical richness and bold adaptations of poetic forms is the key to his popularity today.” The first of Rumi’s four main innovations is his direct address to readers in the rare second person, says Mojaddedi. “I think contemporary readers respond well to this directness.” Second is his urge to teach: “Readers of ‘inspirational’ literature are drawn to Rumi’s poetry.” Third, “his use of everyday imagery.” And fourth, “his optimism of the attainment of union within his lyrical love ghazals. The convention in that form is to stress its unattainability and the cruel rebuffs of the beloved. Rumi celebrates union.” Mojaddedi has completed his translation of three of the six volumes of Rumi’s masterwork, The Masnavi. It is, he said, “the longest single-authored emphatically mystical poem ever written at 26,000 couplets, making it a significant work in its own right. It is also arguably the second most influential text in the Islamic world after the Qu'ran.” The original Persian text was so influential that in Ottoman times a network of institutions was devoted to its study. As new translations come into print, and his work continues to resonate, Rumi’s influence will continue. His inspiring words remind us how poetry can be a sustaining part of everyday life. If you would like to comment on this story or anything else you have seen on BBC Culture, head over to our Facebook page or message us on Twitter. ||||| 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.

– In a podcast with Rap Radar, JAY-Z opened up about how he and Beyonce settled on the names Rumi and Sir for their new twins. The first honors a poet and the second honors some baby attitude. “Rumi is our favorite poet, so it was for our daughter,” said JAY-Z, per US Weekly. He's referring to the 13th-century Persian poet Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi, and the uninitiated can dig into the this BBC story explaining why Rumi is perhaps the "most popular poet in the US." As for Sir, well, that's a little more subjective. “Sir was like, man, come out the gate," says JAY-Z. "He carries himself like that. He just came out, like, Sir.”

download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd Louisiana Survey Results Q1 Given the choices of Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, Ted Cruz, Bobby Jindal, Susana Martinez, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, Paul Ryan, and Rick Santorum, who would you most like to see as the GOP candidate for President in 2016? Jeb Bush .................17% Rand Paul ...............18% Chris Christie ..........10% Marco Rubio ........... 8% Ted Cruz ................. 8% Paul Ryan ...............11% Bobby Jindal ...........10% Rick Santorum ........ 5% Susana Martinez ..... 0% Someone else/Not 13% sure ......................... Q3 Would you describe yourself as very liberal, somewhat liberal, moderate, somewhat conservative, or very conservative? Very liberal ...................................................... 3% Somewhat liberal ............................................ 5% Moderate......................................................... 11% Somewhat conservative .................................. 38% Very conservative ........................................... 44% Q4 If you are a woman, press 1. If a man, press 2. Woman ........................................................... 51% Man ................................................................. 49% Q2 Who do you think was more responsible for the poor response to Hurricane Katrina: George W. Bush or Barack Obama? George W. Bush ............................................. 28% Barack Obama ................................................ 29% Not sure .......................................................... 44% Q5 If you are 18 to 45 years old, press 1. If 46 to 65, press 2. If you are older than 65, press 3. 18 to 45 ........................................................... 28% 46 to 65 ........................................................... 35% Older than 65 .................................................. 37% 3020 Highwoods Blvd. Raleigh, NC 27604 Survey of 274 Republican primary voters information@publicpolicypolling.com / 888 621-6988 August 16-19, 2013 Crosstabs Ideology Very Som ew hat Som ew hat Very liberal Moderate conservative conservative Base liberal 2016 GOP Pres Preference Jeb Bush 17% Chris Christie 10% Ted Cruz 8% 17% 17% 31% 17% 17% 24% 49% 17% 10% 6% 25% 10% 26% 10% 7% 14% 22% 8% 4% 8% 20% 8% 11% 3% 17% 14% 4% 14% 11% 1% 16% 7% 13% 7% 12% More Responsible for Katrina George W. Bush 28% Barack Obam a 29% Not sure 44% Ideology Very Som ew hat Som ew hat Very Base liberal liberal Moderate conservative conservative 66% 17% 17% 64% 36% 33% 24% 42% 33% 24% 43% 17% 36% 47% Bobby Jindal 10% Susana Martinez 0% Rand Paul 18% Marco Rubio 8% Paul Ryan 11% Rick Santorum 5% Som eone else/Not 13% sure Gender Base Wom an 2016 GOP Pres Preference Jeb Bush 17% Chris Christie 10% Ted Cruz 8% 18% 11% 6% 12% 1% 14% 7% 9% 5% 19% 15% 10% 10% 9% 22% 8% 14% 4% 8% Man More Responsible for Katrina George W. Bush 28% Barack Obam a 29% Not sure 44% Gender Base Wom an Man 23% 27% 50% 32% 30% 38% Bobby Jindal 10% Susana Martinez 0% Rand Paul 18% Marco Rubio 8% Paul Ryan 11% Rick Santorum 5% Som eone else/Not 13% sure August 16-19, 2013 survey of 274 Republican primary voters 3020 Highwoods Blvd. Raleigh, NC 27604 information@publicpolicypolling.com / 888 621-6988 Crosstabs Age Base 2016 GOP Pres Preference Jeb Bush 17% Chris Christie 10% Ted Cruz 8% 12% 9% 3% 15% 24% 6% 12% 9% 12% 17% 13% 8% 12% 1% 17% 6% 9% 4% 13% 20% 9% 12% 6% 14% 10% 13% 3% 14% 18 to 46 to Older 45 65 than 65 Age Base More Responsible for Katrina George W. Bush 28% Barack Obam a 29% Not sure 44% 33% 17% 50% 27% 24% 49% 24% 42% 33% 18 to 46 to Older 45 65 than 65 Bobby Jindal 10% Susana Martinez 0% Rand Paul 18% Marco Rubio 8% Paul Ryan 11% Rick Santorum 5% Som eone else/Not 13% sure August 16-19, 2013 survey of 274 Republican primary voters 3020 Highwoods Blvd. Raleigh, NC 27604 information@publicpolicypolling.com / 888 621-6988 ||||| A significant chunk of Louisiana Republicans evidently believe that President Barack Obama is to blame for the poor response to the hurricane that ravaged their state more than three years before he took office. The latest survey from Democratic-leaning Public Policy Polling, provided exclusively to TPM, showed an eye-popping divide among Republicans in the Bayou State when it comes to accountability for the government's post-Katrina blunders. Twenty-eight percent said they think former President George W. Bush, who was in office at the time, was more responsible for the poor federal response while 29 percent said Obama, who was still a freshman U.S. Senator when the storm battered the Gulf Coast in 2005, was more responsible. Nearly half of Louisiana Republicans — 44 percent — said they aren't sure who to blame. Bush was criticized heavily when he did not immediately return to Washington from his vacation in Texas after the storm had reached landfall. The government was also slow to provide relief aid and Michael Brown, then-director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), admitted in a televised interview that he learned that many of the storm's victims at the New Orleans Convention Center were without food and water well after the situation had been reported in the press. Brown's handling of the response ultimately led to his resignation, but Bush offered an infamous endorsement of the FEMA chief only days before he stepped down. "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job," Bush said. PPP Louisiana poll, August 2013 PPP Louisiana poll, August 2013

– Hurricane Katrina ravaged New Orleans more than three years before President Obama took office—but even so, 29% of Louisiana Republicans say in a new poll that they think Obama was more to blame than then-President George W. Bush for the poor federal response to the disaster. Another 44% say they aren't sure which president is more responsible. Just 28% said Bush was more to blame than Obama—who was, at the time, a freshman US senator in Illinois. The survey was taken by Public Policy Polling, which, Talking Points Memo points out, leans left.

Walter Allen (far right), the business partner to Mick Beatovic (middle) and Adam Allan, both former owners of the West Milwaukee gun store, are seen in court during the Badger Guns trial in a Milwaukee County Court. Credit: Mike De Sisti By of the A jury late Tuesday found Badger Guns and its owner liable in the wounding of two Milwaukee police officers in a first-of-its-kind verdict that was being watched nationwide. Jurors found Badger Guns broke four laws when a clerk sold a gun that was used to shoot Officer Bryan Norberg and former Officer Graham Kunisch in the head in 2009. After nine hours of deliberation, the jury announced a verdict that included nearly $6 million in compensatory and punitive damages to the two officers. There will be an appeal. This high-profile case was only the second of its kind nationwide to make it to a jury since Congress passed a law a decade ago holding gun dealers and manufacturers immune from such lawsuits. In the first, a jury found in favor of a gun store in Alaska. The officers' attorney, Patrick Dunphy, said Norberg was "overwhelmed with emotion" by the verdict, while Kunisch, who suffered from brain damage in the shooting, was stoic — as he was for all of the trial. Norberg and Kunisch left the courthouse without commenting. Dunphy said he knew the case would be tough because of the strong opinions around guns, but it was important to hold this business accountable for making a gun sale so riddled with red flags. "I didn't want to send a message, I wanted to represent my clients, these two police officers," Dunphy said. "Will it change the way things are done around the country? Time will tell." Shoddy practices cited Brett Heaton Juarez, the jury's foreperson, said the jurors all agreed the business practices of Badger Guns were shoddy. He recounted testimony from the owners that they didn't train workers, didn't have policies and procedures they regularly followed, had not read federal regulations and didn't even know everything that was required on federal gun-selling forms. "A responsible business owner would do more and everyone agreed on that from the start," he said. "Gun dealers have to do more than what we saw in this instance." Heaton Juarez, of Milwaukee, who works in the financial sector, said the jury figured out damages by averaging jurors' opinions. They ranged from no money for the officers to much more than what was awarded. The jury awarded Kunisch about $3.5 million, Norberg $1.5 million and $730,000 in punitive damages. The owners of Badger Guns, and its predecessor, Badger Outdoors, were not in court for the verdict. A statement from Badger Guns' attorney James Vogts said, "When this case was filed, we knew it was likely to end up in the appellate courts. Significant legal issues were decided in the case that impacted the evidence the jury was permitted to consider and the legal standards they were told to apply. We will appeal." Norberg and Kunisch were among six police officers wounded with guns sold by Badger Guns and Badger Outdoors. Two other officers have their own lawsuit set to go to trial next year, also in Milwaukee County courts. It's unclear if that trial will go ahead, Dunphy said. The federal law passed in 2005 guarantees broad immunity to gun dealers. It allows for lawsuits when there are violations of the law by a gun shop, and that is what the Milwaukee officers alleged in their 2010 lawsuit. In addition, Norberg and Kunisch contended that Badger Guns, Badger Outdoors, and their owners conspired to keep the gun-dealing operation going when federal regulators recommended revoking the license. The jury found that Badger Guns had broken four of the five laws proposed to them in selling the gun and that the store "negligently entrusted" the firearm used to shoot the officers. The jury did not find the owners of Badger Guns and Badger Outdoors conspired to sell guns unlawfully. On several questions, there were dissenting jurors. It required 10 of 12 jurors to find for the plaintiffs. The conspiracy allegation rose out of how the store went from being Badger Outdoors to Badger Guns in 2007. In 2006, regulators from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives recommended revoking Badger Outdoors' license. But there was no revocation. The players then took on new roles and a new license was issued to Adam Allan, the son of former owner Walter Allan, creating what one federal official called a "clean slate," a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel investigation found. The other owner of Badger Outdoors, Mick Beatovic, said he always planned to retire. The jury did not hear evidence about that recommended revocation because the owners said they didn't know about it until they read it in the Journal Sentinel. Heaton Juarez said the jury of eight women and four men wondered if Badger Outdoors was in jeopardy of losing its license when the store changed hands. He said had they known revocation was recommended, they may have found in favor of the officers on that question, too. Top crime gun sellers Badger Guns and Badger Outdoors were top sellers of crime guns recovered in Milwaukee for more than a decade. In 2005, Badger Outdoors was the top seller of crime guns in the nation with 537 such weapons recovered. Such gun trace data has not been released recently because of a secrecy measure passed by Congress. Badger Guns' license was revoked by ATF in 2011 but the Jacob Collins transaction was not cited as a violation, so the jury did not hear that the store's license was revoked. Michael Allan, Walter's other son, now runs a gun store in the same location. Much of the nearly three-week trial focused on the events on a Saturday in May 2009. Collins came to Badger Guns on that day to buy a gun for Julius Burton, who was too young to buy a handgun from a store. Dunphy laid out what he called telltale signs of a straw buy: Burton was in the store and pointed to the gun he wanted; Collins initially marked that he was not the buyer of the gun on the form, but was allowed to change that — and also change his address; Collins and Burton left the store to get more cash to pay for the gun; Collins didn't present an ID when he picked up the gun. After the verdict, Dunphy said he thought the most telling testimony came from Badger Outdoors co-owner Beatovic, who said there were red flags in the sale of the gun to Collins. Attorneys for the West Milwaukee gun dealer countered at closing that the evidence in the trial failed to show the clerk who sold the gun or the store owners had reason to believe the person was buying the gun for someone else. They said the blame falls on the man who shot the officers. Norberg and Kunisch were shot by Burton during a routine stop on Milwaukee's near south side a month after the gun was sold. Burton is serving 80 years while Collins already finished his two years in federal prison. At a news conference following the verdict, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett predicted the verdict would have national implications and called the actions of the owners a "clear cut case of negligence." "They recognized way too late that what they were doing was wrong," Barrett said. Jesse Garza of the Journal Sentinel staff contributed to this report. ||||| A Wisconsin jury was in its second day of deliberations on Tuesday, in a rare case in which a gun dealer was accused of the illegal sale of a weapon that was then used to shoot two police officers. Badger Guns, a seller on the outskirts of Milwaukee, “failed miserably” to protect the public when it allowed a 21-year-old to buy a gun on behalf of a friend who was underage and had accompanied him to the store, the jury heard in closing arguments on Monday. The common manoeuvre is known as a straw purchase. The outcome of the civil trial could influence future legal actions against gun dealers or manufacturers after shootings, whether street murders, attacks on police or the kind of school or college massacre that dominates headlines in the US all too regularly. A federal law passed in 2005 to protect the firearms industry against being sued by shooting victims, amid strong lobbying by the National Rifle Association, means lawsuits against gun companies usually struggle to get far. The lawsuit in Wisconsin is believed to be only the second such case to reach a jury in 10 years, following a case in Alaska in the summer which found in favour of the gun shop. In June 2009, Milwaukee police officers Bryan Norberg and Graham Kunisch were both shot in the face when they stopped 18-year-old Julius Burton for riding a bicycle on the sidewalk. The two officers survived, and were in court. Burton shot the officers with a handgun he had acquired from Badger Guns. He was recorded on surveillance video pointing to a semi-automatic pistol in a display case and saying, “That’s the one I want,” Milwaukee county circuit court heard during the three-week trial. He then helped Jacob Collins, whom he had paid $40 to make the straw purchase, to fill out paperwork. Burton corrected mistakes on the form, the court heard. The storekeeper helped. Both Collins and Burton were convicted. Collins ended up serving two years in prison for the illegal purchase. Burton is serving 80 years for the shootings. Norberg was shot through the mouth, and Kunisch lost an eye and suffered brain damage. Both officers still suffer from the physical and psychological effects of the incident, the court had heard. Their lawsuit against Badger Guns has taken since 2010 to come to trial and is claiming $10m for the shop’s alleged part in causing the officers’ injuries. Patrick Dunphy, the officers’ attorney, told the court in closing arguments on Monday that Badger Guns had “failed miserably” to protect the public and that store clerk Donald Flora and shop owner Adam Allan had made a sale that “frankly reeked with doubt”. “A gun dealer can’t wash his hands, walk away from his job and turn a blind eye. The risk to the public is too great,” Dunphy said. Allan’s lawyer, James Vogts, argued that the store was fully aware of what a straw purchase was and had no reason to believe Collins was illegally buying the gun for someone else. Burton testified from prison that “everyone” knew Badger Guns was the place to go if you wanted to buy a gun illegally. The shop had a long history of being involved in sales of guns that ended up being used in crimes, according to an investigation by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Such crimes included the shooting of several Milwaukee police officers, the newspaper reported, but secrecy laws protected the shop’s identity and a change of ownership within the same family and a tweak of its title to Badger Outdoors helped wipe out previous law violations. The subject of gun safety is almost certain to be raised in the first Democratic presidential debate in Las Vegas on Tuesday night, in the wake of the Oregon college shooting earlier in October.

– It could be the biggest blow to the gun industry in years, and it came not from the White House, but from a jury in Milwaukee. On Tuesday, Badger Guns was ordered to pay $6 million to two police officers who were shot in the face with a handgun bought at the store, NBC News reports. The badly injured officers sued the gun shop for negligence. The jury agreed that the store had been extremely negligent when it sold the firearm to a 21-year-old man who was buying it in a "straw purchase" for underage friend Julius Burton, who used it to shoot the officers, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports. The evidence included video of Burton pointing to the gun and saying, "That's the one I want," the Guardian reports. The ATF has described the Milwaukee store as one of America's top sellers of guns used in crimes, and 537 of its weapons were found at crime scenes in 2005 alone, NBC notes. The case is only the second one of its kind to go to trial since the passage of a 2005 law shielding gun dealers from such lawsuits, the Journal Sentinel reports; a gun store in Alaska won the previous case. The closely watched case could have major implications nationwide, but the officers' attorney tells the Journal Sentinel that he was out to represent his clients, not send a message. "Will it change the way things are done around the country? Time will tell," he says. (President Obama is looking into tightening a gun control rule.)

BOSTON (AP) — Former U.S. Sen. Edward W. Brooke, a liberal Republican who became the first black in U.S. history to win popular election to the Senate, died Saturday. He was 95. Brooke died of natural causes at his Coral Gables, Florida, home, said Ralph Neas, a former Brooke aide. Brooke was surrounded by his family. Brooke was elected to the Senate in 1966, becoming the first black to sit in that branch from any state since Reconstruction and one of nine blacks who have ever served there — including Barack Obama. Brooke told The Associated Press he was "thankful to God" that he lived to see Obama's election. And the president was on hand in October 2009 when Brooke was presented with the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest award Congress has to honor civilians. Obama hailed Brooke as "a man who's spent his life breaking barriers and bridging divides across this country." A Republican in a largely Democratic state, Brooke was one of Massachusetts' most popular political figures during most of his 12 years in the Senate. Brooke earned his reputation as a Senate liberal in part by becoming the first Republican senator to publicly urge President Richard Nixon to resign. He told ABC News that Nixon had "lost the confidence of the country and I don't know of anything he could do to turn it around." He helped lead the forces in favor of the Equal Rights Amendment and was a defender of school busing to achieve racial integration, a bitterly divisive issue in Boston. He also lent his name to the Brooke amendment to the federal housing act, passed in 1969, which limited to 25 percent the amount of income a family must pay for rent in public housing. However, late in his second term, Brooke divorced his wife of 31 years, Remigia, in a stormy proceeding that attracted national attention. Repercussions from the case spurred an investigation into his personal finances by the Senate Ethics Committee and a probe by the state welfare department and ultimately cost him the 1978 election. He was defeated by Democrat Rep. Paul E. Tsongas. In a Boston Globe interview in 2000, he recalled the pain of losing his bid for a third term. "It was just a divorce case. It was never about my work in the Senate. There was never a charge that I committed a crime, or even nearly committed a crime," Brooke said. "I would certainly not be truthful if I didn't say I was sorely hurt when the people of Massachusetts voted against me and didn't look beyond the allegations and didn't remember what I had tried to do for them." In 2008, Barbara Walters said she had an affair with the then-married Brooke in the 1970s, but it ended before he lost the 1978 election. She called him "exciting" and "brilliant." The first blacks served in the Senate in the 1870s, just after the Civil War, when senators were still selected by state legislatures rather than by popular election. Mississippi's postwar legislators sent two blacks to the Senate. Hiram R. Revels served about 14 months in 1870-71, and Blanche K. Bruce served a full six-year term from 1875 to 81. Not long before Obama was sworn in as president, Brooke told the AP that he had been frequently asked if he thought Obama could be elected. "And I'd say I'm the last person to say it couldn't happen. I've already shown that white voters are open to voting for black candidates, so it made sense to me," he said. "Though I was pleased, I'm not that surprised that he was able to pull it off. But I am thankful to God to live to see this happen." When Brooke received the congressional honor in Washington later in the year, he cited the issues facing Congress — health care, the economy and the wars overseas — and called on lawmakers to put their partisan differences aside. "We've got to get together," Brooke said, turning his eyes to Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. "We have no alternative. There's nothing left. It's time for politics to be put aside on the back burner." As Brooke sought the Senate seat in 1966, profiles in the national media reminded readers that he had won office handily in a state where blacks made up just 2 percent of the population — the state that had also given the nation its only Roman Catholic president, John F. Kennedy. Brooke had parlayed his probes of local corruption into a successful run for state attorney general in 1962 when he became the highest ranking black elected official in the nation. Brooke said at the time that his election proved "people will elect a man on the basis of his programs." But, he added, "I don't presume that the election of one man will solve the racial problem." He won re-election as attorney general in 1964 even though Democrats dominated other races, commenting later: "I won by 797,510 votes. I'll remember that figure as long as I live." Somewhat aloof from the civil rights movement of the 1960s, especially the militant wing, he said blacks had to win allies, not fight adversaries. But he also said of civil rights leaders: "Thank God we have them. But everyone has to do it in the best way he can." He had refused to endorse Sen. Barry Goldwater for president in 1964, commenting later, "You can't say the Negro left the Republican Party; the Negro feels he was evicted from the Republican Party." "I want to be elected on my own ability. Only then do you have progress. ... People should not use race as a basis for labeling me," he told The Washington Post in early 1966. He beat Democrat Endicott Peabody, a former governor who also supported civil rights, by a 3-to-2 margin despite predictions of a "white backlash" against him. Commenting on Brooke's election and other developments that day, Martin Luther King Jr. commented that "despite appeals to bigotry of an intensity and vulgarity never before witnessed in the North, millions of white voters remained unshaken in their commitment to decency." ___ Associated Press writer Mark Pratt in Boston contributed to this report. ||||| BOSTON (AP) — Former U.S. Sen. Edward W. Brooke, a liberal Republican who became the first black in U.S. history to win popular election to the Senate, died Saturday. He was 95. Brooke died of natural causes at his Coral Gables, Florida, home, said Ralph Neas, Brooke’s former chief counsel. Brooke was surrounded by his family. Advertisement - Continue Reading Below Brooke was elected to the Senate in 1966, becoming the first black to sit in that branch from any state since Reconstruction and one of nine blacks who have ever served there — including Barack Obama. After Obama’s presidential election in 2008, Brooke told The Associated Press he was ‘‘thankful to God’’ that he had lived to witness the historic accomplishment. But it was the president who remembered Brooke with praise Saturday. ‘‘Senator Brooke led an extraordinary life of public service,’’ Obama said in a statement. ‘‘As the first African-American elected as a state’s Attorney General and first African-American U.S. Senator elected after reconstruction, Ed Brooke stood at the forefront of the battle for civil rights and economic fairness.’’ A Republican in a largely Democratic state, Brooke was one of Massachusetts’ most popular political figures during most of his 12 years in the Senate. Brooke earned his reputation as a Senate liberal partly by becoming the first Republican senator to publicly urge President Richard Nixon to resign. He helped lead the forces in favor of the Equal Rights Amendment and was a defender of school busing to achieve racial integration, a bitterly divisive issue in Boston. He also lent his name to the Brooke amendment to the federal housing act, passed in 1969, which limited to 25 percent the amount of income a family must pay for rent in public housing. Incoming Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Saturday described Brooke as ‘‘a model of courage and honesty in office.’’ Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, the state’s first black governor, said: ‘‘I have lost a friend and mentor.’’ Secretary of State John Kerry, a former U.S. senator from Massachusetts, said Brooke showed ‘‘remarkable political courage.’’ Late in his second term, Brooke divorced his wife of 31 years, Remigia, in a stormy proceeding that attracted national attention. Repercussions from the case spurred an investigation into his personal finances by the Senate Ethics Committee and a probe by the state welfare department and ultimately cost him the 1978 election. He was defeated by Democrat Rep. Paul E. Tsongas. Tsongas’ widow, U.S. Rep. Nikki Tsongas, said Saturday that Brooke’s career was ‘‘as courageous as it was historic.’’ In a Boston Globe interview in 2000, Brooke recalled the pain of losing his bid for a third term. ‘‘It was just a divorce case. It was never about my work in the Senate. There was never a charge that I committed a crime, or even nearly committed a crime,’’ Brooke said. In 2008, pioneering newswoman Barbara Walters said she had an affair with the then-married Brooke in the 1970s, but it ended before he lost the 1978 election. She called him ‘‘exciting’’ and ‘‘brilliant.’’ Brooke received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in a White House ceremony in 2004. Five years later, Brooke received the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest award Congress has to honor civilians. He cited then the issues facing Congress — health care, the economy and the wars overseas — and called on lawmakers to put their partisan differences aside. ‘‘We've got to get together,’’ Brooke said, turning his eyes to Senate GOP Leader McConnell. ‘‘We have no alternative. There’s nothing left. It’s time for politics to be put aside on the back burner.’’ As Brooke sought the Senate seat in 1966, profiles in the national media reminded readers that he had won office handily in a state where blacks made up just 2 percent of the population — the state that had also given the nation its only Roman Catholic president, John F. Kennedy. He beat Democrat Endicott Peabody, a former governor who also supported civil rights, by a 3-to-2 margin despite predictions of a ‘‘white backlash’’ against him. Commenting on Brooke’s election and other developments that day, Martin Luther King Jr. said that ‘‘despite appeals to bigotry of an intensity and vulgarity never before witnessed in the North, millions of white voters remained unshaken in their commitment to decency.’’ Brooke had parlayed his probes of local corruption into a successful run for state attorney general in 1962 when he became the highest ranking black elected official in the nation. He won re-election as attorney general in 1964 even though Democrats dominated other races. Somewhat aloof from the civil rights movement of the 1960s, especially the militant wing, he said blacks had to win allies, not fight adversaries. But he also said of civil rights leaders: ‘‘Thank God we have them. But everyone has to do it in the best way he can.’’ He had refused to endorse Sen. Barry Goldwater for president in 1964, commenting later, ‘‘You can’t say the Negro left the Republican Party; the Negro feels he was evicted from the Republican Party.’’ The son of a Veterans Administration lawyer, Brooke was raised in a middle-class black section of Washington, attending segregated schools through his graduation from Howard University in 1941. He served in an all-black combat unit in World War II, and later settled in Boston after graduating from Boston University Law School. Brooke was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2002 and went public the following year, saying he wanted to encourage men to perform self-examinations and advocating that insurance companies cover male mammograms. Brooke is survived by his second wife, Anne Fleming Brooke; their son Edward Brooke IV; his daughters from his first marriage, Remi Goldstone and Edwina Petit; stepdaughter Melanie Laflamme, and four grandchildren.

– The first African American elected to the US Senate has died at age 95. Edward Brooke, a Massachusetts Republican, died of natural causes in Florida, the AP reports. He was elected in 1966 and served two terms as a highly popular politician. That came after he became the first African American attorney general of any state, the Boston Globe reports. As a senator, Brooke championed issues including the Equal Rights Amendment and a push for racial integration via busing in Boston, and he was the first GOP senator to call for Richard Nixon's resignation. In 2009, he received the Congressional Gold Medal and called for bipartisanship in Washington. When Brooke was elected, no African American had served in the Senate since Reconstruction, when senators were chosen by legislators—not elected by popular vote. His victory by nearly 500,000 votes came despite being a Republican in a Democratic state, the New York Times notes, describing him as a centrist. In a 1966 book, he wondered about Republicans: "Where are our plans for a New Deal or a Great Society?" His period in office was not without controversy, the AP notes; he faced a Senate Ethics Committee probe into his personal finances and lost the next election. More recently, describing President Obama's election victory, he said: "I'm not that surprised that he was able to pull it off. But I am thankful to God to live to see this happen."

A Malaysian firefighter whose skills at handling poisonous serpents won him the nickname "The Snake Whisperer" died on Friday after being bitten by a cobra. Abu Zarin Hussin, 33, was attacked by the venomous reptile during an operation in the western Malaysian municipality of Bentong. He served in the Temerloh Fire and Rescue Department for the past decade, giving training sessions on how to identify and handle snakes, Malay publication The Star Online reported, a common task for firefighters in the country. Hussin was bitten by snakes several times and previously survived a snake attack in 2015 after spending two days in a coma. But the near-death experience did not stop him from befriending reptiles—he even kept four cobras as pets to study their behavior, publishing pictures of their coexistence on his social media channels. His pictures once gathered the attention of international media, who claimed he had married a 10-foot cobra because it resembled his dead girlfriend. He vehemently denied the reports, which were published in Thai publications and British tabloids. "I just want to express my disappointment over the attitude of a handful of foreign journalists who acted in clear violation of journalistic ethics in publishing the news, especially since the pictures were clearly taken from my Facebook account," he told The Star Online in November 2016. Keep up with this story and more by subscribing now In that interview, the firefighter described how he first learnt to handle snakes. "I started training with snakes in 2007. My interest stems from my father, who was a snake charmer," he said. "Before I joined the Fire and Rescue Department, I was afraid of snakes and would avoid them. But perhaps I inherited my talent from my father and now practice with him," he added. His talent was displayed in several Youtube videos and even during an episode of Asia's Got Talent aired on October 12, in which he performed a daring act involving kissing a cobra on its head. ||||| Image copyright Abu Zarin Husin Image caption Abu Zarin Hussin takes a selfie with one of his snakes A Malaysian man who became famous for his snake-handling skills has died after being bitten by a cobra. Abu Zarin Hussin, a firefighter, first shot to fame after British tabloids published a story incorrectly identifying him as a Thai man who'd allegedly married his pet snake. Mr Hussin had trained other firefighters on how to handle snakes. But he was admitted to hospital on Monday after being bitten a cobra during a snake-catching operation. According to local news outlet The Star, the 33-year-old who lived in the state of Pahang, often taught other firemen how to identify different snake species and ways to capture them without having to kill. He had also participated in television programme Asia's Got Talent, where he pulled off the daring act of "kissing" a snake. Image copyright iStock Image caption File photo of a King Cobra, the world's longest venomous snake In 2016, a story was published in Thai media - and later in several UK tabloids - naming Mr Hussin as a Thai man who'd married a snake, believing it to be his "reincarnated girlfriend". The stories used pictures from Mr Hussin's social media which showed him playfully spending time with snakes. Mr Hussin, who kept four snakes at home to better understand their behaviour, told reporters: "They used my photos and started making up stories, saying that I married a snake." He later told the BBC he was "very disappointed" by the fake reports. ||||| PETALING JAYA (THE STAR/ASIA NEWS NETWORK) - Famous Malaysian "snake whisperer" firefighter Abu Zarin Hussin has died after being bitten by a cobra. Abu Zarin, 33, died at 12.40am on Friday (March 16) after he was attacked by a cobra during an operation in Bentong on Monday (March 12). When contacted, Selangor Fire and Rescue Department Assistant Director of Operation Mohd Sani Harul confirmed Abu Zarin's death. Mohd Sani said that he was bitten by a cobra at 7.54pm on Monday and was sent to Sultan Haji Ahmad Shah Hospital. Abu Zarin, who was attached to Temerloh fire station, became a viral sensation after he was featured on Internet portals from around the world as well as British tabloids The Daily Mirror and The Daily Mail. The articles mistakenly identified him as a Thai man who had married his pet snake as he believed it was his dead girlfriend due to its "striking resemblance" to her. Unfortunately, the images used were actually of Abu Zarin and his pet snake. And no, he was not married to it. Abu Zarin had conducted snake catching and training classes for firemen, who are often called up to capture the serpents by members of the public who find them in homes or public places. Related Story I did not marry snake that resembled dead girlfriend, says Malaysian firefighter During those sessions, he taught firemen how to identify the different snake species, especially the venomous ones and their bites, and ways to capture them without killing them. Abu Zarin's talent in handling snakes even found him a spot at the quarter finals of television program Asia's Got Talent. It is learnt that Abu Zarin has been at the receiving end of snake bites before. He was in a coma for two days due to a cobra bite in 2015. Abu Zarin's body has been transported to his hometown in Kampung Permatang Gading, Pasir Putih, Kelantan to be buried after Friday prayers. ||||| KUANTAN: When zookeeper Mohd Sabron Jamil Kamarudin was hospitalised after he was bitten by a king cobra in 2012, firemen Abu Zarin Hussin would visit him regularly to provide support. Sadly, Abu Zarin, who gained fame for his breathtaking snake-catching skills, himself succumbed to a cobra bite he sustained on March 13 at the Sultan Haji Ahmad Shah Hospital's (HOSHAS) Intensive Care Unit early today. Sabron, who spent more than a month at the Tengku Ampuan Afzan Hospital (HTAA) here and went under the knife seven times after the snake bite, said he was shocked with the news. The 31-year-old Kuantan Municipal Council staff said he became close friends with Abu Zarin when he was warded at HTAA after he was bitten by a king cobra on March 1, 2012. "I clearly remember our first meeting when he came to the ward in his fireman uniform....that marked the beginning of our friendship. Abu Zarin will regularly drop by to visit me and gave me the strength, and support I needed at the time. "We started sharing stories and experiences in handling the reptile, and despite being an expert in handling king cobras, Abu Zarin still consulted me on certain matters....he is well- respected by many people," he said when contacted today. Sabron, who works at Teruntum Zoo here, said upon learning about Abu Zarin's death about 2am today, he and a few friends rushed to HOSHAS in Temerloh to pay their last respects. "Upon reaching HOSHAS, we were informed that the hearse carrying his remains had just left the hospital premises to Pasir Puteh, Kelantan. “I managed to contact his family and we were allowed to pay our last respects when the hearse stopped at the Temerloh toll plaza. I have lost a daring and genuine friend, who is one of a kind," said Sabron, who only relies on his right arm now. In the March 1, 2012 incident, Sabron waited for four hours for the right anti-venom after being bitten by a king cobra on his left wrist while cleaning the snake's cage. Meanwhile, former Temerloh fire and rescue station volunteer fireman Mohd Ikhwan Hafizi Ali, 30, said he will not forget the times when Abu Zarin and him used to enter rubber estates to track down the cobras. "It will sometimes take hours but Abu Zarin will remain patient. Although he was off-duty, whenever a villager reports the presence of a reptile, the both of us will go and try to catch the snake. "There were times when we stepped on the snakes' nest when trying to catch the reptile at plantations and at times we were almost bitten by the highly poisonous cobras," he said. Temerloh forestry department officer Azqan Dalila Ahmad Tajudin, 32, said she became more confident in handling snakes including cobras after attending a course organised by Abu Zarin last year. "He showed the proper techniques and equipments to handle the snakes. All the knowledge that he shared with me has been helpful since I often enter the jungle to carry out my duties and risk crossing paths with the reptiles," she said. Abu Zarin, 33, who was in critical condition after being bitten by a cobra he was attempting to catch in Bentong, was later taken to HOSHAS. He died at 12.55am today. He led the Fire and Rescue Department's King Cobra Squad which was established in 2015 to help train firemen to catch venomous animals and often conducted training. Reporting By Raja Norain Hidayah Raja Abdul Aziz, Mohd Rafi Mamat and Nazirul Roselan ||||| PETALING JAYA - (THE STAR/ASIA NEWS NETWORK) Malaysian firefighter Abu Zarin Hussin received a rude shock last week when he found out that international news agencies claimed he had married his pet snake. Abu Zarin, 31, who is attached to the Temerloh fire station, was featured in Internet portals from around the world as well as British tabloids The Daily Mirror and The Daily Mail. The articles mistakenly identified him as a Thai man who had married his pet snake as he believed it was his dead girlfriend due to its "striking resemblance" to her. Unfortunately, the images used were actually of Abu Zarin and his pet snake. And no, he is not married to it. Abu Zarin working on his laptop while his pet snake watches television. PHOTO: THE STAR/ASIA NEWS NETWORK Instead, he keeps the snakes as part of his role in the Malaysian Fire and Rescue Department. Abu Zarin conducts snake catching and training classes for firemen, who are often called up to capture the serpents by members of the public who find them in homes or public places. "The pictures are of me. They used my photos and started making up stories, saying that I married a snake," he said. Abu Zarin giving his pet snakes a bath. PHOTO: THE STAR/ASIA NEWS NETWORK "I just want to express my disappointment over the attitude of a handful of foreign journalists who acted in clear violation of journalistic ethics in publishing the news, especially since the pictures were clearly taken from my Facebook account," he told The Star Online on Thursday. Abu Zarin explained that he kept snakes to better understand their nature and temperament. "The snakes are with me so that I can observe their behaviour. Catching snakes are part of a fireman's duty. I am training other firemen how to handle and manage snakes. So that after they are caught, we can release them back into their natural habitat," he said, adding that he wanted to improve the current snake-catching courses. Abu Zarin with his pet snake at the gym. PHOTO: THE STAR/ASIA NEWS NETWORK The main goals of the courses were for firemen to get familiar with the species of snakes, especially the venomous ones and their bites, and how to capture them without killing them. Abu Zarin said he did not keep the same snake all the time. When a new snake arrives, he releases the previous one back into the wild. He added that he never keeps a snake for more than a year and currently has four snakes under his care. "I started training with snakes in 2007. My interest stems from my father, who was a snake charmer. But my talent for it only surfaced when I joined the Fire and Rescue Department," he said. "Snakes are really not difficult to handle. There are many false claims out there about snakes - that they are vicious or attack people. "Before I joined the Fire and Rescue Department, I was afraid of snakes and would avoid them. But perhaps I inherited my talent from my father and now practice with him," he said. Judging from the images on his Facebook account, Abu Zarin looks very comfortable with snakes - and they in turn appear to trust and are obedient to him. Abu Zarin, who hails from Kelantan, documents his adventure with his pet snakes on the Facebook page Wira Penyelamat. ||||| Rating is available when the video has been rented. This feature is not available right now. Please try again later.

– Just a few days after being bitten by a cobra, Malaysia's famous "Snake Whisperer" has died. The Star and Free Malaysia Today report that 33-year-old firefighter Abu Zarin Hussin was attacked by the snake earlier this week in Betong while trying to catch it, and he was rushed to two different hospitals over the past several days, finally succumbing to his injuries in the ICU of the Sultan Haji Ahmad Shah Hospital on Friday. Hussin, who the BBC says kept four snakes at home, had become both a local and international celebrity for his snake-handling acumen, which he used to train fellow firefighters so that they could respond to calls about snake sightings. Under Hussin's tutelage, firefighters learned how to ID different types of snakes, with a particular eye for the poisonous ones, as well as the most humane ways to capture them. Newsweek explains how Hussin shot to international fame in 2016 when overseas tabloids mistakenly used his picture for a story on a man who reportedly married his pet snake. An interview in the Star noted Hussin, who began his hobby in 2007, got his inspiration from his snake-charmer dad. "Before I joined the [fire department], I was afraid of snakes and would avoid them," he said. "But ... now [I] practice with [my father]." Hussin had been bitten a few times before, with one incident in 2015 even sending him into a two-day coma. But he couldn't stay away from the slithery reptiles, and he even took his act to Asia's Got Talent. A zookeeper tells the New Straits Times how, after he was bit by a snake in 2012, he met Hussin and struck up an instant friendship. "I have lost a daring and genuine friend," he says. (This man posed with a rattler, then got bit.)

Seven of the 10 men arrested on Monday in connection with the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia, have been released on police bail. The men must present themselves at a police station until they are to be released from the ongoing inquiry into the murder. Those released include Adrian Agius, son of murdered car dealer Raymond Agius ‘tal-Maskar’, shot dead in 2008 in the Butterfly Bar of Birkirara. The other arrestees were Miguel Caruana, Sandro Cilia, Jamie Vella, Anton Cachia, Rudy Camilleri, and Robert Agius – the brother of Adrian Agius. MaltaToday understands that these men have not been formally charged and are not main suspects. It remains unclear how these people are linked to the assassination, if at all. MaltaToday could not establish whether these people were arrested while on site in the Menqa area during the police raid of Monday 4 December, or because they might have procured a service to the main suspects in preparation for the assassination. On Tuesday, main suspects Alfred and George Degiorgio, and Vincent Muscat, were charged in court with the murder of the journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia. It is understood that Caruana Galizia wrote just a few posts about Agius, at the time the More Supermarket chain went bust and main shareholder Ryan Schembri – cousin to the Prime Minister’s chief of staff Keith Schembri – fled the island. Adrian Agius was a co-director with More Supermarkets owner Ryan Schembri in the company Sant Andrija Developments, and stepped in to take charge of the business according to court documents related to the unpaid debts. Agius, of Zebbug, was originally arraigned in 2006 charged with falsifying importation documents for two shipping containers full of mobile phones, sent to Libya. He was acquitted of the charges. Agius was reported to have escaped from Malta following the unravelling of the €40 million fraud involving More Supermarkets. But Agius had denied escaping, claiming on social media that he had been abroad on business and planned to return by month’s end. ||||| The bomb that blew up Daphne Caruana Galizia was triggered by an SMS sent from a cabin cruiser out at sea, MaltaToday has learnt. George Degiorgio, known as Ic-Ciniz, is believed to have sent the fatal SMS after allegedly receiving the signal from his brother Alfred, known as il-Fulu, who acted as a spotter in Bidnija, sources close to the investigation said. The two men and Vincent Muscat, known as il-Kohhu, were yesterday charged with the murder of the journalist on October 16. The three are known criminals with a string of high profile crimes to their name. The sources said the bomb was placed inside the car below the driver seat in the early hours of October 16, possibly by Alfred Degiorgio. The car had been parked in the alleyway that leads to Caruana Galizia’s house in Bidnija. An electronic device that takes a sim card – not a mobile phone – was attached to the bomb and served as the trigger. Sources said that after placing the bomb, Alfred Degiorgio informed his accomplice of his actions. It is understood that at the same time the electronic device attached to the bomb and a mobile phone that would later be used to send the SMS were switched on. These electronic signals helped investigators piece together the actions of the criminals in the hours leading to the fatal bombing. Sources said Alfred Degiorgio acted as a spotter in the environs of Bidnija to monitor Caruana Galizia’s movements. At around 3pm on October 16, Alfred Degiorgio placed a call to his brother, who was out at sea on his cabin cruiser. George Degiorgio then sent the SMS from another mobile phone, triggering the bomb that killed Caruana Galizia and destroyed her car. All electronic devices used in the crime, disappeared from the mobile communications network after the crime. It is unclear whether mobile phones and electronic devices found under the sea in Marsa were the same ones used in the crime. The cabin cruiser, which belongs to George Degiorgio, was found berthed alongside the quay in Marsa when the police and army raided the ex-potato shed last Monday, arresting the brothers and Muscat. Sources said the bomb was made of TNT and not Semtex and could have possibly been manufactured in Malta. ||||| Police raided Lighters Wharf in Marsa on Monday. Police investigators have seized a boat which they believe was the site from which one of Daphne Caruana Galizia's murderers sent the SMS that triggered the car bomb that killed her. Sources told the Times of Malta that the car bomb that blew up Daphne Caruana Galizia was triggered by an SMS sent from a cabin cruiser out at sea. Investigators said George Degiorgio, known as Ic-Ciniz, is believed to have sent the fatal SMS after allegedly being given the go-ahead from his brother Alfred, known as il-Fulu, who was staking out the Caruana Galizia residence in Bidnija. WATCH: Murder accused in court as widower looks on The third man being charged with the murder – Vince Muscat known as il-Koħħu – is believed to have been a look out from another vantage point. “This was part of their tactic, which they planned out for some time, to throw any investigators off the scent. Luckily they did not manage and we are very confident in the case we have against them,” the sources said. The cabin cruiser has since been impounded by the police who hope to pull DNA and GPS evidence from it to help in their case. Eyewitnesses had reported seeing a cabin cruiser being transported under heavy police escort on Monday afternoon, the day police raided multiple locations across the island. ||||| Suspects, including two brothers, pleaded not guilty to charges at hearing following death of Daphne Caruana Galizia Three Maltese men have been charged for the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia, the investigative journalist who was killed by a car bomb last month. The three suspects include two brothers, George and Alfred Degiorgio, and Vincent Muscat. The suspects were also charged with criminal use of explosives, being involved in organised crime, and criminal conspiracy. All three pleaded not guilty to the charges at a hearing late on Tuesday. They were were among ten people who were arrested in dawn raids on Monday morning in connection to the police’s investigation into the killing. Joseph Muscat, Malta’s prime minister, promised in a press conference on Monday that he would not leave any stone unturned in finding who ordered the journalist to be killed and who carried out the attack. Muscat was a common subject for Caruana Galizia, who was a relentless campaigner against corruption in Malta. ‘The situation is desperate’: murdered Maltese journalist’s final written words Read more The journalist’s murder sent shockwaves across Europe and has focused a spotlight on allegations by lawmakers in the European parliament that the rule of law has deteriorated sharply in the small Mediterranean country. Caruana Galizia’s family has filed a legal claim against Malta’s police force and has alleged that the investigation has not been independent or impartial, because of connections between a senior police investigator and a government minister. Both were subjects of Caruana Galizia’s blog. The police said on Tuesday night that an unspecified number of other suspects who were arrested on Monday would be released on bail. Searches that were conducted during dawn raids had yielded a number of items that would help with ongoing investigations, the police said. The investigation was also aided by the FBI, Europol, and the National Investigations Bureau of Finland. There were no new details about how the three suspects might be connected to the crime or the evidence that has been collected against them. According to a report in the Times of Malta, Vince Muscat, one of the alleged killers, was known to police because of previous legal altercations. George Degiorgio was previously charged in court with possession of unlicensed firearms, drugs and tools that could be used to pick locks. The newspaper also reported that investigators had allegedly focused on the suspects because of telephone intercepts, including from a mobile phone that allegedly triggered the bomb. The most significant investigations by the murdered journalist stemmed from the Panama Papers, a leak of documents from the archives of the offshore law firm Mossack Fonseca.

– Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia's life ended via a bomb and a text message sent from sea, sources with knowledge of the investigation say. A man is suspected of placing the TNT bomb beneath the driver's seat of Galizia's car in the early hours of Oct. 16, per the sources, who share the alleged chain of events: Alfred Degiorgio, 53, then kept watch on Galizia's Bidnija home, finally calling his brother at 3pm, reports Malta Today. George Degiorgio, 55, who was reportedly at sea on his boat, then sent an SMS message to an electronic device with a SIM card that was attached to the bomb. It detonated, killing Galizia, whose son described finding her body parts scattered about the street. The brothers and a third man believed to have acted as a lookout have now been charged with murder, organized crime, and criminal use of explosives, report the Guardian and the Times of Malta. All three pleaded not guilty Tuesday. The men were among 10 suspects arrested on Monday. The seven others have since been released on bail, including Adrian Agius and his brother. Malta Today explains Galizia previously wrote about Agius, who was co-director of a supermarket chain that was caught up in a fraud scandal a few years ago.

When Desiree Linden crossed the finish line on Monday morning, there were tears of joy and celebration for the first American woman to win the Boston Marathon in more than three decades. Four minutes and 10 seconds later, when the second-place finisher, cold and soaking wet from the April rain, had completed the race, there were mostly questions. Who was Sarah Callister Sellers? How did a woman with a full-time job and no racing sponsorships manage to beat all but one of some of the best marathon runners in the world? “I didn’t even know it was a possibility,” she told the Boston Globe after the race. “I was trying to ask officials what place I was in. I had no idea when I crossed the finish line.” Weber State track coach Paul Pilkington had been watching the race on television when he heard the announcers say Sellers had just finished in second place — and he had some questions, too. “I kept hitting refresh on the race results,” he recalled. “Did they miss somebody? Did I miss somebody?” Then Pilkington let out a cheer for Sellers, the former Ogden High and Weber State track standout, who was suddenly no longer a mystery to the running world. “I think I’m going to wake up and this will be a dream,” Sellers said after the race. Sellers was a standout runner at Ogden High from 2005-09. But even retired Ogden track coach Don Hall, who watched the race on television Monday, was surprised to see his former star runner finish second in Boston. “I was stunned, shocked, amazed,” he said. “I was jumping up and down.” She went on to be a nine-time Big Sky champion during her career at Weber State from 2009-12. She won the 5,000 meters and 10,000-meter title three times each at the Big Sky outdoor championships and won the 5,000 meters twice and the 3,000 meters once at the indoor championships. But Sellers’ collegiate career was cut short when she broke her foot running a race during her junior season, Pilkington said. “I always felt like her career should have ended better,” the coach said. “It’s great to have her reach this level now.” Desiree Linden, of Washington, Mich., celebrates after winning the women's division of the 122nd Boston Marathon on Monday, April 16, 2018, in Boston. She is the first American woman to win the race since 1985. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa) Sellers ran her first marathon in September of last year in Huntsville — and she set a course record in the process. After that, she set her sights on Boston with hopes of a top-15 finish that would automatically earn her a spot at the Olympic trials in two years. Sellers now lives in Tucson, Ariz., with her husband, Blake Sellers, and works as a nurse anesthetist. But she still relies on Pilkington for coaching. She wakes up at runs each day at 4 a.m. before work. She runs about 85 miles each week, including a number of sustained runs — 20-milers at a 6-minute pace. Then on Mondays, she calls Pilkington to discuss her training and make adjustments. With rain and strong winds in the forecast for Monday, Pilkington and Sellers spoke over the weekend to dial in her strategy for the race. The coach instructed her to slow her pace slightly in the difficult conditions. “She has the right mentality. She’s very tenacious and tough mentally. In such bad conditions today, that played to her benefit,” Pilkington said. “… She ran a very smart race. You look at the field, a lot of them those conditions took too much of them.” Yuki Kawauchi passed defending champion Geoffrey Kirui in Kenmore Square to win the men’s race in an unofficial 2:15:58 and earn Japan’s first Boston Marathon title since 1987. Kirui slowed and stumbled across the Copley Square finish line 2:25 later, followed by Shadrack Biwott and three other U.S. men. Yuki Kawauchi, of Japan, wins the 122nd Boston Marathon on Monday, April 16, 2018, in Boston. He is the first Japanese man to win the race since 1987. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola) On the fifth anniversary of the finish line explosions that killed three and wounded hundreds more, Linden and Kawauchi led a field of 30,000 runners through a drenching rain, temperatures in the mid-30s and gusts of up to 32 mph on the 26.2-mile trek from Hopkinton. In Copley Square, crowds thinned and muffled by the weather greeted Linden, the California native who lives in Michigan, with chants of “U-S-A!” Linden — a two-time Olympian — finished the race in 2 hours, 39 minutes and 54 seconds. Sellers crossed the finish line in 2 hours, 44 minutes and 4 seconds. It was the first time two Americans have finished first and second in Boston since 1979. Her finish is the best ever by a native of Utah at the Boston Marathon. “I knew she was in very good shape,” Pilkington said. “But if you would have told me she was second at Boston, I would have said no way.” Sellers was in disbelief herself when she called her coach Monday, Pilkington said. “That’s the great thing about our sport,” he said. “It’s rare for something like this to happen. It’s a Cinderella story.” Sellers and her coach will now turn their attention to picking her next big race — possibly a marathon in Chicago, Berlin or New York next fall — as she continues her preparation for the Olympic trials. “She’s never going to be the unknown racer ever again,” Pilkington said. — The Associated Press contributed to this story ||||| Story highlights Monday's race was Sarah Sellers' second marathon Her second-place finish is tops by a Utah native (CNN) Desiree Linden made history at this year's Boston Marathon as the first American woman to win the storied race since 1985. What was more shocking, though, was the runner-up in the women's field Monday. In her second career marathon race, Sarah Sellers wasn't listed as one of the elite runners. According to The Wall Street Journal, she doesn't have any sponsors . Still, Sellers crossed the finish line in 2:44:04, a little more than 4 minutes behind Linden's time (2:39:54), qualifying for the US Olympic trials. The combination of the wind and rain made conditions difficult, and it was the coldest Boston Marathon in 30 years. But it was worth it: Sellers leaves Boston with $75,000 in prize money. "I think I'm going to wake up and this will be a dream," Sellers said. "It was a like a hurricane out there." Read More

– That an American female won the Boston Marathon for the first time since 1985 made headlines, but it's the woman who came in second who is grabbing them now. Eyes are shifting to Sarah Sellers, who finished 4 minutes and 10 seconds behind winner Desiree Linden with a time of 2 hours, 44 minutes, 4 seconds. But while Linden is a two-time Olympian, Sellers is a virtual unknown: A promising track career in college hit an early end due to a broken foot her junior year, reports the Salt Lake Tribune. She had only run one marathon prior, in Utah in September, in order to qualify for Boston. The 26-year-old has no sponsors, and did much of her training starting at 4am, before heading to her full-time job as a nurse anesthetist in Tucson, Arizona. CNN picks up this tweet from Kit Fox of Runners World as a sign of just how unexpected her win was: The first question she was asked in a post-race news conference was "Please introduce yourself. Tell us who you are." Sellers logs about 85 miles a week, and still relies on Weber State track coach Paul Pilkington for advice. She now walks away with $75,000 in prize money, which she says she and her husband will put toward their student debt. As for that first marathon in Huntsville, Utah, she didn't just win it: She set a course record.

Elijah Wood as Hobbit Frodo in a scene from ''The Lord of The Rings: The Fellowship of The Ring''. WELLINGTON | WELLINGTON (Reuters) - Thousands of New Zealanders took to the country's streets on Monday to protest against possible plans to move production of Peter Jackson's "Hobbit" movies overseas. With some dressed as hobbits or other characters from Middle Earth, they carried banners saying "New Zealand is Middle Earth" and "We Love Hobbits," aiming to reassure nervous Hollywood studio executives rattled by a short-lived union boycott. The rallies were held a day before representatives from Warner Bros. Pictures were due to arrive in New Zealand to decide where to shoot the lucrative $500 million adaptation of the J.R.R. Tolkien fantasy. Jackson made Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings" trilogy in his native New Zealand, boosting the local film industry and enhancing the tiny country's international image. He had planned to shoot a two-part adaptation of "The Hobbit" locally as well, but union protests about working conditions infuriated Jackson and unnerved the studio. The Time Warner division said last week it would seek film locations outside New Zealand, a move that economists said could cost the country up to $1.5 billion. The unions have backed down, and industry analysts believe Warner Bros. will use the Hobbit crisis to extract financial incentives when executives meet a high-powered delegation led by Prime Minister John Key on Tuesday. Key told reporters on Monday that he thought there is a 50-50 chance of the movies being filmed in New Zealand. "I'd love to tell you it's a done deal, but we're a long way away from being a done deal. There are a number of issues that we'd need to resolve," he was quoted by the New Zealand Herald as saying. Key added that he'd already had discussions with one senior Warner executive, without giving details. But he said the tone of the discussions had been respectful. Just to be safe, a reported 2,000 to 3,000 people gathered in the capital of Wellington, while other cities such as Auckland and earthquake-ravaged Christchurch hosted similar rallies. Oscar-winning technician Richard Taylor, whose Weta Workshop handled many of the special effects for "Lord of the Rings," told Wellington protesters he hoped "The Hobbit" would still be made in New Zealand. "The alternative is just too bleak to consider," he said. TRROUBLED PROJECT Reports have suggested that Warner Bros. is considering locations in England, Scotland, Ireland, Canada, Australia and eastern Europe. Taylor also read a letter from Jackson, thanking people for their support. "This is where Middle Earth was born and this is where it will stay," Jackson said in the letter. ||||| New Zealanders rally behind Hobbit shoot Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play. Continue reading the main story Related Stories Thousands of New Zealanders have taken to their streets to protest against possible plans to move production of Peter Jackson's Hobbit films elsewhere. The demonstrators hoped to reassure Hollywood studio executives as they decide whether the Lord of the Rings prequels should be shot in the country. Last month, acting unions threatened to boycott the films in a row over wages. Though that threat has now been lifted, Warner Bros said the unions' actions had caused "substantial damage". Their actions, a studio statement issued last week continued, had "forced us to consider other filming locations for the first time." According to organisers, the nationwide action was timed to coincide with the arrival of Warner Bros executives for meetings to determine the movies' fate. The three Lord of the Rings movies, which were all filmed in New Zealand, earned billions of dollars at the box office. Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch were among the New Zealand cities to host rallies on Monday. Richard Taylor, the Oscar-winning technician behind many of the Lord of the Rings trilogy's special effects, told protestors in Wellington he hoped The Hobbit would stay in New Zealand. "The alternative is just too bleak to consider," he said. Taylor also read a letter from Peter Jackson thanking people for their support. "This is where Middle Earth was born and this is where it should stay," he continued. The New Zealand government has pledged to step in to try to keep the production in the homeland of its recently confirmed director. Prime Minister John Key will lead a delegation scheduled to meet Warner Bros executives on Tuesday. "The threat of industrial actions... have substantially undermined the confidence that Warner Bros has in New Zealand," Mr Key said last week. Filming on the two-part prequel is set to begin in February after it was finally given the go-ahead. British actor Martin Freeman was confirmed in the lead role of Bilbo Baggins.

– Thousands of protesters took to the streets across New Zealand today to protest Warner Bros.’ threats to move the filming of the Hobbit out of the country. Rallies were held in Wellington, Auckland, and Christchurch among others, according to the BBC, with protesters holding signs like, “New Zealand IS Middle Earth” and “We Love Hobbits.” The rallies coincide both with New Zealand’s Labor Day and a Warner Bros. meeting in the country to decide the film’s fate. The studio first raised the possibility of shooting elsewhere after a dispute with various acting unions last month. The unions have since dropped their demands, but executives say they might move anyway. “I'd love to tell you it's a done deal, but we're a long way away from being a done deal,” said New Zealand’s Prime Minister, according to Reuters. Were the Hobbit to shoot elsewhere, New Zealand's economy could lose as much as $1.5 billion.

Two hundred years after it was beaten at Waterloo, France has suffered a fresh defeat over how to commemorate the great battle’s bicentenary. The row began earlier this year when Belgium minted 175,000 €2 coins decorated with images of the battle that ended Napoleon’s hopes of supremacy in Europe. France objected, saying the coins appeared to run against the spirit of European unity, and effectively vetoed them as EU-wide tender. While grumbling that the eurozone had much more serious problems to worry about — such as a possible Greek exit — Brussels acquiesced and melted them down. But this week Belgium resorted to a cunning ruse de guerre to outflank the French: it minted €2.50 and €10 coins which can only be used on its own territory. “We had a little problem with our French neighbours, for whom the battle seems to still be very sensitive today. We judged that it wouldn’t be worth having a diplomatic incident over,” Johan Van Overtveldt, Belgium’s finance minister told RTL television, explaining the decision to produce the novel denominations. French sensitivities over a battle that changed the course of European history are also evident in the line-up of guests at events to mark the bicentenary, which will take place from June 18. While the Belgians, Dutch and British are sending members of their royal families, France has instead opted for a “high representative”. The Belgian coins are technically legal tender, but their high pricetag means they are essentially collectors’ items. The €2.5 coins cost €6 each, and the €10 one €42. While shops would be under no obligation to accept them, Belgium’s Royal Mint said that they could always be exchanged at face value at the central bank. The €2.5 coin shows the Lion’s Mound, the most distinctive landmark on the battlefield south of Brussels, with an illustration of battle formations below. We had a little problem with our French neighbours, for whom the battle seems to still be very sensitive today. - Johan Van Overtveldt, Belgian finance minister The €10 sports a silhouette of Napoleon and two key scenes from the battle: the Duke of Wellington receiving news that relief from the Prussian army was on its way, and William, Prince of Orange, being wounded in the shoulder. Apart from the historic significance, Belgium is using the interest in Waterloo to generate tourism in French-speaking Wallonia, which currently attracts only a third of the tourists as Dutch-speaking Flanders, famous for Bruges and for its first world war battlefields. ||||| For France, it's Waterloo all over again. Belgium is issuing a new euro coin to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo -- one of the most painful defeats in French military history. The French government does not like it at all. Paris objected when Belgium first unveiled its plan for a new 2 euro coin in February, arguing that it could "cause an adverse reaction in France" at a time when the eurozone needs to stand together. Eurozone countries need the agreement of their partners to issue new coins. So Belgium set about destroying 180,000 coins it had already minted. But France's much smaller neighbor has now used a little-known clause in European law that allows countries to issue commemorative coins in non-standard values. The result: A 2.50 euro coin commemorating the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. "The French protest led to the choice of a value that is not common in the eurozone," the Belgian finance ministry said in a statement. "This is the first Belgian coin with such a nominal value." France was reassured that the new coin will only be used in Belgium, but that did not stop French media calling the spat "a new Waterloo." Related: Napoleon's hat sells for $2.4 million Waterloo is a small town a few miles south of the Belgian capital Brussels and about 50 miles from the French border. The battle marked the final defeat of Napoleon, and the end of 23 years of wars between France and the rest of Europe. An estimated 12,000 people were killed and 35,000 wounded that day. It overturned Belgium's annexation by France -- ultimately leading to independence from the Netherlands in 1830 -- and brought an end to a period of unmatched French influence over the continent. The new 2.50 coin depicts the position of troops on the battlefield and is being sold online for 6 euros. A large 10 euro silver coin is also available for 42 euros. Related: This $2.50 coin just sold for $2.4 million

– History buffs—and tourists with money to spend—will be swarming on Waterloo, Belgium, next week to mark the 200th anniversary of Napoleon's famous last battle. The nearby town of Braine-l’Alleud isn't too thrilled about it, however. As the Wall Street Journal reports, the Battle of Waterloo didn't actually take place in Waterloo. A Belgian historian's research shows that three of the key fights were in Braine-l’Alleud and two more were in Plancenoit—but because a duke filed his dispatch from his headquarters in Waterloo, that name has gotten all the glory. “Nobody will ever call it the ‘Battle of Braine-l’Alleud.’ That would be completely ridiculous, and that’s not our goal at all,” says the town’s mayor. "But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to correct errors that were made.” Among other things, the town is suing Michelin over a tour guide that it says doesn't give Braine-l’Alleud its due. This isn't the only Waterloo-related disagreement related to the anniversary. Belgium has minted coins worth 2.50 euros to commemorate the defeat of the French emperor, and France is a little miffed. First, it blocked Belgium from issuing coins worth 2 euros that would be legal tender throughout the EU, a move that meant 180,000 coins had to be melted down, reports CNN. But then "Belgium resorted to a cunning ruse de guerre to outflank the French," reports the Financial Times. Taking advantage of an obscure clause, it minted the non-standard 2.50 coin, which can be used only in Belgium itself. (The first full skeleton from the Battle of Waterloo has been identified as that of a German hunchback.)

Don Emmert / AFP / Getty Images file A 1729 Stradivarius known as the Solomon, Ex-Lambert A 300-year-old Stradivarius worth millions of dollars was stolen from a concert violinist by thieves who shot the musician with an electric stun gun just after he had performed with the instrument in suburban Milwaukee, police said on Tuesday. "It appears the violin was the primary target of this robbery," Milwaukee Police Chief Edward Flynn told reporters, adding that the two thieves were seen fleeing the scene of the crime in a minivan. The so-called Lipinski Stradivarius, an instrument made in 1715 and distinguished by unique striations on its back, was stolen on Monday night at a college campus in Wauwatosa, immediately west of Milwaukee, Flynn said. The instrument was on loan to violinist Frank Almond of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra when it was taken from him following a performance, Flyn said. Police said Almond was subdued with a stun gun fired at him by one of the thieves, who then jumped into the waiting getaway vehicle driven by another suspect. Violins such as the one stolen can sell for $5 million to $10 million, Flynn said. He added that the FBI has entered the Lipinski into its international art theft database. "This violin is very valuable, but very valuable to a very small population," Flynn said in a news conference carried by ABC affiliate WISN on its website. "This is not something that can be easily sold for even a fraction of its monetary value." Milwaukee Orchestra president Mark Niehaus said rare instruments such as the stolen Stradivarius are in circulation because they "need to be played to live on." The missing instrument is one of roughly 600 violins, violas and cellos built by the famed Italian maker Antonio Stradivari that are still in existence. Korean-born classical musician Min-Jin Kym's 300-year-old Stradivarius violin was snatched in November 2010 when she stopped at a London restaurant to buy a sandwich. That instrument was found three years later and sold at auction for $2.3 million in December, according to the BBC. A rare Stradivarius violin that once belonged to the granddaughter of English poet Lord Byron sold for $15.9 million in 2011 at a charity auction for Japanese disaster relief. ||||| A 300-year-old Stradivarius violin on loan to Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra concertmaster Frank Almond was stolen during an armed robbery after a performance by Almond at Wisconsin Lutheran College, Milwaukee Police Chief Edward Flynn said Tuesday. Almond was attacked with a stun gun and robbed of the instrument — Flynn said it was valued in the "high seven figures" — shortly before 10:30 p.m. Monday in a parking lot in the rear of the school, 8815 W. Wisconsin Ave., the chief said at a news conference. As Almond lay on the pavement the robber fled to a nearby vehicle, described as a maroon or burgundy minivan driven by an accomplice, which then left the scene, Flynn said. Almond had played a concert Monday evening at Wisconsin Lutheran as part of his Frankly Music series. "The artistic heritage of Milwaukee was assaulted and robbed last night," Flynn told reporters during the conference at the Police Administration Building. Investigators believe the instrument, known in musical circles as the Lipinski Stradivarius, was the primary target of the robbery, Flynn said. In a 2008 feature on the violin, Chicago violin dealer Stefan Hersh said the Lipinski violin was comparable in value to another Strad that sold for more than $3.5 million in a 2006 auction. Flynn, who described the violin taken in the robbery as "priceless," said its value could only be appreciated by a very small population. "It can't be easily sold for even a fraction of its value," he said. "These are wildly valuable to a tiny slice of the art world." The violin was crafted in 1715 in Cremona, Italy, and has a unique pattern on its back. Though police have not ruled out that the robbery was a random street crime, they are working with investigators with the FBI's art crimes team based in Quantico, Va., which specializes in high-end art thefts, and have notified Interpol, the International Criminal Police Organization, Flynn said. "This is a potentially international crime," Flynn said, adding that investigators are searching everywhere from pawn shops to international databases. He described the vehicle used in the robbery as similar to a late 1980s or early 1990s maroon or burgundy Plymouth or Dodge Caravan. Mark Niehaus, MSO president and executive director, said Almond was recovering from the attack and would not be on stage this weekend. The instrument was on indefinite loan to Almond from its anonymous owners. Almond has characterized them as people with "strong ties to Milwaukee." It's a common practice in the music world for the owners of such exquisite instruments to lend them to virtuosos such as Almond. The violin's early owners included the virtuoso Giuseppe Tartini (1692-1770), known to listeners for his "Devil's Trill" Sonata. The instrument has also belonged to Polish violinist Karol Lipinski (1790-1861), whose name has stayed attached to it. Local music writer Elaine Schmidt, who held the instrument during a 2013 interview with Almond, described it as "light, far lighter than one would expect, and an absolutely gorgeous example of craftsmanship." During that 2013 interview, Almond explained that the Lipinski is "finicky" about temperature and humidity, responding differently some days than others. "One of the really mysterious things about these instruments is that they really maximize our strengths if we can figure out how to play them," he said. He added that the Lipinski, which he began playing in 2008, has a counterintuitive way of tightening and narrowing its sound as the player exerts more bow pressure. "It's like a high performance car," he said. "You have to learn to drive it." Almond said in a previous interview that he was told the violin had been stored in a vault at M&I Bank, now BMO Harris Bank, just a short distance from where Almond was playing with the MSO. He met the violin owners at the bank, and they asked him if he wanted to play it on loan. Of course, he said yes. Niehaus said that because the violin is made of wood, "it needs to be touched, it needs to be played." "The vibrations of the music keep it alive." Almond conducted a Kickstarter campaign to fund "A Violin's Life," a recording that memorialized the history of the violin. In 2013, British Transport Police recovered a stolen 300-year-old Stadivarius violin that had been missing for more than two years. To call in a tip Anyone with information on the vehicle or the robbery is asked to call Milwaukee police at (414) 935-7360. Those who wish to remain anonymous can call the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra at (414) 226-7838.

– One of the most valuable instruments in the world was stolen Monday by a robber who used a stun gun on the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra's concertmaster in a parking lot before making off his with his priceless Stradivarius violin. "The artistic heritage of Milwaukee was assaulted and robbed last night," the city's police chief told reporters, estimating the 300-year-old instrument's value in the "high seven figures," reports the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. The Lipinski Stradivarius, which was on indefinite loan from its anonymous owners, is wildly valuable only to a "tiny slice of the art world," the police chief says. "It can't be easily sold for even a fraction of its value." Police haven't ruled out the theft being a random street robbery, but they suspect it may have been stolen to order and are working with the FBI's art crimes unit. The orchestra's president says rare instruments like the Stradivarius, one of only around 600 in existence, are still in circulation because they "need to be played to live on," NBC reports.

BAGHDAD Iraqi forensic teams began on Monday excavating 12 suspected mass grave sites thought to hold the corpses of as many as 1,700 soldiers massacred last summer by Islamic State militants as they swept across northern Iraq. The mass killings last June of Shi'ite soldiers from Camp Speicher, a former U.S. base outside the Sunni city of Tikrit, has become a symbol of the brutality of Islamic State fighters and their hatred for Iraq's Shi'ite majority. The deaths showed Iraqis that the Islamic State fighters, who have also attacked ethnic and religious minorites as well as fellow Sunni Muslims opposing them, were a threatening new kind of foe. The images of Shi'ite soldiers being machine-gunned in their hundreds, posted online by the jihadists, could rank as the deadliest single act of bloodshed during a decade of periodic sectarian war in Iraq. The exhumation of burial sites on the late dictator Saddam Hussein's presidential compound came days after Islamic State militants were driven from the city by Iraqi forces and Shi'ite paramilitaries. "We dug up the first mass grave site today. Until now we found at least 20 bodies. Initial indications show indisputably that they were from the Speicher victims," said Khalid al-Atbi, an Iraqi health official working with the forensic team sent to Tikrit. "It was a heartbreaking scene. We couldn’t prevent ourselves from breaking down in tears. What savage barbarian could kill 1,700 persons in cold blood?" he asked. Survivors of Speicher have described to Reuters their ordeal last June as the Iraqi military chain of command unraveled and Islamic State's Sunni fighters descended on Tikrit, rounding up Shi'ite soldiers for slaughter. The victims' families, who often grow angry at Iraq's political class for failing to provide them proper answers, have wondered for months about the fate of their friends and loved ones. "The only positive thing is the victory in Tikrit," said, Ali Hamad, whose cousin Kamal went missing at Speicher. "We are happy. At least the families will soon know the fate of their sons and cousins," he said. (Reporting by Ned Parker; Editing by Tom Heneghan) ||||| Story highlights A total of 47 bodies have been exhumed from two mass graves Iraqis find mass graves inside presidential palace compound in Tikrit ISIS claimed to have executed 1,700 Iraqi soldiers captured outside Camp Speicher Tikrit, Iraq (CNN) Mass graves believed to hold Iraqi soldiers have been discovered in newly liberated Tikrit. Up to 1,700 bodies may be recovered. ISIS claimed to have executed that many soldiers captured in June outside Camp Speicher, a fortified Iraqi base near Tikrit. A total of 47 bodies have been exhumed from two of the 11 mass graves discovered in Tikrit, an Iraqi government official said Tuesday. Hundreds are believed to have been executed by ISIS in June 2014 Grieving Iraqis, apparently not related to the soldiers, gathered to pray over the bodies. When the first three bodies were found, 10 Iraqi soldiers saluted the dead by firing seven shots into the air. The national anthem was played while soldiers wept. All the bodies were decomposed. Some had their hands bound, Damon said. The remains will be sent back to Baghdad for DNA tests to establish identify, said Ali Tahir, a director in the Iraqi morgue who was supervising the digging and extraction.

– In June, ISIS did the barbaric: slaughtered scores of soldiers at a base on the outskirts of Tikrit. With the city newly liberated, Iraqi forensic teams have now begun the grim process of excavating suspected mass graves thought to contain some of the 1,700 soldiers ISIS claims to have killed at Camp Speicher. The AP cites an official with the country's Human Rights Ministry who says eight sites within the complex of presidential palaces are being worked on; Reuters puts the number of suspected mass graves at 12. Another official yesterday told Reuters that "initial indications show indisputably" that a handful of bodies recovered yesterday are those of Speicher victims, though DNA testing will be carried out to confirm this. The AP notes that one clip aired on Iraqi state TV showed unearthed skeletal remains still wearing combat boots. A CNN reporter on the scene describes decomposed bodies with their hands still tied together. In making its claim, ISIS released photos showing soldiers being led to trenches and then facedown in them before and after their execution. Other videos showed masked gunmen bringing the soldiers to a bloodstained concrete river waterfront, shooting them in the head, and tossing them into the Tigris. Previous reports have stated that if the number of dead is indeed 1,700, the massacre would rank as by far the largest atrocity in the country in more than a decade.

President Barack Obama’s senior campaign adviser, David Axelrod, slammed Republican presidential rival Newt Gingrich on Sunday for insisting that Obama was wrong to apologize for Koran burnings that led to the death of six U.S. troops in Afghanistan. “The thing about not having any responsibilities is that you can say irresponsible things,” Axelrod said on ABC’s “This Week.” “And the speaker avails himself of that opportunity all the time.” Axelrod said that the military commanders on the ground believed that an apology was appropriate and necessary given the circumstances. “The reality is that the president has in his hands the fate of all those service people over there and that’s foremost in his mind,” Axelrod said. “The commanders on the ground felt that a high level apology was warranted and necessary for the security of those troops and the president acted on their recommendation.” Read more about: Barack Obama, Afghanistan, David Axelrod, Newt Gingrich ||||| Ron Paul on Sunday dismissed Rick Santorum’s suggestion that he's staying in the Republican presidential race to help rival Mitt Romney. “It sounds like he’s trying to concoct a conspiracy,” Paul said on CBS’s "Face the Nation." Paul rejected the idea that Romney would ask his son, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, to serve as his running mate. “I think the media has fed on that because they keep saying ‘Is there a deal, is there a deal?’” Paul said. “Obviously not. He wouldn’t do it, I wouldn’t’ do it.” Paul suggested that Santorum’s comments were an attempt to attack his candidacy. “That’s just Santorum trying to be talking about something,” Paul said. “He didn’t have any issues to attack me on so he had to go after me on something as silly as that.” Read more about: Mitt Romney, Ron Paul, Rand Paul ||||| Republican presidential contender Newt Gingrich on Sunday called President Barack Obama's apologies for the burning of a Quran in Afghanistan "embarrassing." "When the president of the United States says I apologize, he is basically taking on blame," the former House speaker said on CNN's "State of the Union." Gingrich said he didn't think Obama's apology saved lives, and set a "terrible precedent" of a commander in chief failing to stand up for his troops. “He has apologized so many times around so many countries. It is frankly embarrassing to have a president who thinks that apologizing for the United States is a good policy," Gingrich said. "I don’t believe the president of the United States has an obligation to apologize. I think the commander in chief has an obligation to step up and say, ‘I am proud of our troops. I think our troops are doing the best they could to help Afghanistan.' ” Read more about: Barack Obama, Afghanistan, Foreign Policy, Quran, 2012 Presidential Campaign ; Newt Gingrich ||||| Newt Gingrich says Rush Limbaugh was right to apologize for calling Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke a "slut." "He made a mistake, and I think he did the right thing," the Republican presidential contender said Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union." The former House speaker had used the controversy to attack President Barack Obama, saying he acted "opportunistically" when he called to check in on Fluke amid the controversy. Limbaugh had called Fluke a "prostitute" and a "slut" after she testified on Capitol Hill, calling for expanded access to contraception. But while Gingrich said Limbaugh was right to apologize, he brushed off a question about whether the controversy will hurt the GOP. “The Republican Party has four people running for president, none of whom are Rush Limbaugh," he said. Read more about: Newt Gingrich ||||| Ron Paul said on Sunday that Rush Limbaugh offered an apology for his comments about Georgetown Law student Sandra Fluke to keep advertisers on his radio show who were threatening to leave as a result of the controversy. “I don’t think he’s very apologetic, I think he’s doing it because people were taking their advertisements off his program,” Paul said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” Still, Paul said that the underlying issue is important politically. “I, as an OB doctor, certainly endorse the whole idea of birth control,” Paul said. “But this is something different. This is philosophically and politically important.” “Does the government have a mandate to tell insurance companies what to give,” Paul continued. “So they’re saying that the insurance companies should give everybody free birth control pills.” “That strikes me as rather odd,” Paul added. Read more about: Rush Limbaugh, Ron Paul, Sandra Fluke ||||| The chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee isn't buying Rush Limbaugh's apology for calling a Georgetown law student a "slut." "I know he apologized, but forgive me if I doubt his sincerity, given that he lost at least six advertisers," Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) said Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press." Limbaugh apologized Saturday after criticizing Sandra Fluke on the air for her position on access to birth control. “Rush Limbaugh in that apology said he was trying to be humorous," said Wasserman Schultz. "I don’t know any woman in America … that thinks that being called a slut is funny.” The DNC chairwoman also took a shot at GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney for his response to the controversy. "The bottom line is that the leading candidate on the Republican side for president couldn’t even bring himself to call Rush Limbaugh’s comments outrageous and call him out and ask him to apologize," she said. Romney has come under attack from the left for his tepid response to what has become a political firestorm. Asked last week about Limbaugh's comments, Romney said, "I'll just say this, which is it's not the language I would have used." Read more about: DNC, Rush Limbaugh, Debbie Wasserman Schultz

– Today's talk show theme: Pile on Rush Limbaugh. The conservative talk show host took a bipartisan drubbing worthy of a gold-stuffed piñata, reports Politico, as both sides lambasted his slut comment and subsequent apology. A sampling: Debbie Wasserman Schultz: "I know he apologized, but forgive me if I doubt his sincerity, given that he lost at least six advertisers. Rush Limbaugh said he was trying to be humorous. I don’t know any woman in America … that thinks that being called a slut is funny.” Ron Paul: “I don’t think he’s very apologetic, I think he’s doing it because people were taking their advertisements off his program." Newt Gingrich: "He made a mistake, and I think he did the right thing," in apologizing. Eric Cantor: “I don’t condone that type of language in any arena, including the political arena. It was insulting, and Rush has said as much." Elsewhere on your Sunday dial, it was the parlor game of guess-the-vice-presidential nominee and the usual back-and-forth: Cantor on a Romney-Cantor ticket: "I am not open to that. This is about Mitt Romney and making sure that he is put into office." Paul on a Romney-Rand Paul ticket: "I think the media has fed on that because they keep saying ‘Is there a deal, is there a deal?’ Obviously not. He wouldn’t do it, I wouldn’t’ do it.” Gingrich on President Obama's apology over the Koran burnings: "He has apologized so many times around so many countries. It is frankly embarrassing to have a president who thinks that apologizing for the United States is a good policy. I think the commander in chief has an obligation to step up and say, ‘I am proud of our troops.' ” David Axelrod on Gingrich's criticism: “The thing about not having any responsibilities is that you can say irresponsible things. And the speaker avails himself of that opportunity all the time.”

Newly described snail Aegista diversifamilia. (Chih-Wei Huang) After over a century of being confused for another species of snail, Aegista diversifamilia finally gets its place in the limelight. In a recent paper in ZooKeys, Taiwanese researchers named it as a new species. While many researchers would use the opportunity to give a shout-out to their favorite celebrity, this team of scientists chose to highlight a human rights issue -- the fight for same-sex marriage legalization. This new classification separates A. diversifamilia from A. subchinensis, a similar land snail discovered in 1884. Subchinensis was thought to exist in two populations on either side of a mountain range and a river, but the snails on the eastern side were larger in shell size and flatter in shell shape. In investigating the genes of the two populations, the researchers found that they were actually distinct species. Co-author Yen-Chang Lee of Academia Sinica in Taipei said in a statement that he named the snail in honor of the diverse forms that a human family can take. "When we were preparing the manuscript, it was a period when Taiwan and many other countries and states were struggling for recognition of same-sex marriage rights," Lee said. He and his team thought it fitting to use the snail -- which is a hermaphrodite, possessing sex characteristics associated with both male and female animals -- to support the cause. "They represent the diversity of sex orientation in the animal kingdom," he said in his statement. ||||| Scientists from the Department of Life Science, National Taiwan Normal University and the Biodiversity Research Center, Academia Sinica described a new endemic land snail species. The new species Aegista diversifamilia was long confused for the widely distributed A. subchinensis. The study was published in the open access journal ZooKeys. Aegista subchinensis was first described in 1884 and was thought to be widely distributed in Taiwan. In 2003, one of the co-authors Dr. Yen-Chang Lee noticed that there was morphological divergence between the western and eastern populations of A. subchinensis separated by the Central Mountain Range, a major biogeographic barrier in Taiwan. Dr. Lee suggested that there might be cryptic species within the one identified as A. subchinensis at the time. To prove Dr. Lee's suggestion, Ph.D. candidate of Department of Life Science, National Taiwan Normal University, Chih-Wei Huang and his collaborators applied three molecular markers combined with morphological analysis to estimate the divergence and relationship among the closely related snails. "When we examined the phylogeny from each gene," Huang says, "it suggested that the eastern A. subchinensis was more closely related to A. vermis, a similar land snail species inhabited in Ishigaki Island, than the western A. subchinensis." They confirmed that what was thought to be A. subchinensis from eastern Taiwan was in fact a new species, which they named as A. diversifamilia. The name means the diverse forms of human families. "When we were preparing the manuscript," Dr. Lee explains, "it was a period when Taiwan and many other countries and states were struggling for the recognition of same-sex marriage rights. It reminded us that Pulmonata land snails are hermaphrodite animals, which means they have both male and female reproductive organs in single individual. They represent the diversity of sex orientation in the animal kingdom. We decided that maybe this is a good occasion to name the snail to remember the struggle for the recognition of same-sex marriage rights." The new species is larger in shell size and flatter in shell shape than A. subchinensis. The two species are also geographically separated by the Lanyang River, which makes this the first report suggesting that the Lanyang River is a biogeographic barrier for lowland terrestrial animals. ### Original source: Huang C-W, Lee Y-C, Lin S-M, Wu W-L (2014) Taxonomic revision of Aegista subchinensis (Möllendorff, 1884) (Stylommatophora, Bradybaenidae) and a description of a new species of Aegista from eastern Taiwan based on multilocus phylogeny and comparative morphology. ZooKeys 445: 31-55. doi: 10.3897/zookeys.445.7778 Additional Information: Funding: Center for Information Technology Innovation and Biodiversity Research Center, Academia Sinica.

– Scientists in Taiwan snuck in a nod to gay marriage when they named a snail that was newly identified on the island. The mollusks, which are hermaphrodites and thus possess both male and female reproductive organs, have for years been mistaken for A. subchinensis, a closely related land snail discovered in 1884. So when scientists had the opportunity to rename it recently, reports the BBC, they opted for Aegista diversifamilia—a term that means a "diversity of family types"—in a nod to "the diversity of sex orientation in the animal kingdom," one researcher said in a statement. "When we were preparing the manuscript, it was a period when Taiwan and many other countries and states were struggling for recognition of same-sex marriage rights," he added. It wasn't until scientists studied the genes of the snails found on both sides of Taiwan's Central Mountain Range that it was discovered they're not just distinct geographic populations with different features (the snails on the east side have larger, flatter shells and more closely resemble an altogether different species in Japan), but they are distinct species as well, reports the Washington Post. (Homo sapiens, meanwhile, have been roasting and feasting on snails for millennia.)

FILE- In this Nov. 5, 2017, file photo, former president George H.W. Bush arrives for an NFL football game between the Houston Texans and the Indianapolis Colts in Houston. A spokesman for the former... (Associated Press) FILE- In this Nov. 5, 2017, file photo, former president George H.W. Bush arrives for an NFL football game between the Houston Texans and the Indianapolis Colts in Houston. A spokesman for the former... (Associated Press) BIDDEFORD, Maine (AP) — Former President George H.W. Bush was hospitalized Sunday in Maine after he experienced low blood pressure and fatigue, a spokesman said. Just after 2 p.m., Jim McGrath, a spokesman for the 93-year-old Bush, said he was awake, alert and not in any discomfort. He said Bush would spend at least a few days in the hospital for observation. Bush was taken to Southern Maine Health Care in Biddeford. A spokeswoman said Sunday all information would be released by the Bush family. Bush arrived in Maine for the summer May 20. Coming about a month after the death of his wife, Barbara, of 73 years, the family said the 41st president was eager to return to the family compound on Walker's Point. He has visited every summer since childhood, the only exception being the years of his World War II service. On Saturday, Bush attended a pancake breakfast at an American Legion post in Kennebunkport. He had been scheduled to attend a Memorial Day parade in the town Monday. Bush, who has a form of Parkinson's disease and a history of pneumonia and other infections, was hospitalized in Houston on April 22, the day after his wife's funeral, for an infection. He remained hospitalized for 13 days. Bush uses a wheelchair and an electric scooter for mobility. He has been hospitalized several times in recent years for respiratory problems. ||||| CLOSE For the second time since the death of his wife, former President George H.W. Bush has been taken to the hospital. USA TODAY This photo provided by the office of former President George H.W. Bush, shows Bush posing with veterans during the monthly pancake breakfast at the American Legion Post 159 in Kennebunkport, Maine, on May 26, 2018. (Photo: AP) Former president George H.W. Bush was hospitalized in Maine on Sunday, according to his spokesman Jim McGrath. The former chief executive was taken to Southern Maine Health Care after experiencing low blood pressure and fatigue, McGrath tweeted just after 2 p.m. ET. Bush will likely remain in the hospital for a few days for observation. McGrath tweeted that Bush, the nation's 41st president, was "awake and alert, and not in any discomfort." Bush, 93, was hospitalized for an infection in Houston the day after the funeral for his wife of 73 years. Barbara Bush died April 17 at the age of 92 and was buried at the Bush presidential library at Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas. The former president recovered from his health problems enough to return to his family's vacation spot on the coast of Maine on May 20. Bush, also a former vice president and head of the CIA, has visited Walker's Point every summer since his childhood, except when he was serving as a Navy pilot in World War II. President @GeorgeHWBush was taken to Southern Maine Health Care (@SMHCHealth) today after experiencing low blood pressure and fatigue. He will likely remain there for a few days for observation. The former president is awake and alert, and not in any discomfort. — Jim McGrath (@jgm41) May 27, 2018 The cluster of stone and wooden buildings built on Walker's Point juts into the Atlantic Ocean in Kennebunkport. It's a regular spot for tourists on sightseeing boats and buses hoping to get a glimpse of the famous political family, which also includes former president George W. Bush and former Florida governor Jeb Bush. On Saturday, the elder Bush attended a pancake breakfast at an American Legion post in Kennebunkport. He had been scheduled to attend a Memorial Day parade in the town Monday. Bush, who has a form of Parkinson’s disease and a history of pneumonia and other infections, uses a wheelchair and an electric scooter for mobility. He has been hospitalized several times in recent years for respiratory problems. CLOSE Over 300 well-wishers lined the streets in Kennebunkport to greet George H.W. Bush. Time More: Former president George H.W. Bush returns to family compound in Kennebunkport, Maine More: George H.W. Bush released from hospital after fighting off infection Contributing: The Associated Press. Follow Carolyn McAtee Cerbin on Twitter: @carolyncerbin Read or Share this story: https://usat.ly/2sjWvbM

– George HW Bush has been hospitalized for the second time since the death of wife Barbara Bush last month. The 93-year-old former president was taken to a hospital in Maine after suffering low blood pressure and fatigue, reports USA Today. Spokesman Jim McGrath says Bush is not experiencing any discomfort but will probably remain in Southern Maine Health Care in Biddeford for a few days for observation. Bush, who was hospitalized in Texas the day after his wife's funeral and was treated for a blood infection for 13 days, arrived in Maine for the summer last week, the AP reports. He has spent every summer at the family compound apart from the years of his WWII service. On Saturday, he joined fellow veterans for a pancake breakfast at the American Legion in Kennebunkport.

OZARK, Mo. – A well-known Missouri restaurant, known for being the “Home of Throwed Rolls,” may be in some hot water for a guest who is saying he received a roll-related injury. Lambert’s Cafe, the Sikeston-based restaurant chain, which features dinner rolls being thrown across the room by servers to guests, is being sued. The suit was filed Tuesday by a man named Troy Tucker who claims he “sustained a lacerated cornea with a vitreous detachment and all head, neck, eyes and vision were severely damaged” after being hit by a dinner roll during a visit in September of 2014. Tucker is seeking at least $25,000 to cover for his medical bills and legal fees. The restaurant’s “carelessness and negligence” as the lawsuit alleges, has already caused expenses totaling $10,000. The law suit claims that the restaurant should’ve known about the dangers involved in their signature practice. Johnny Fugitt of the River Front Times points out in a blog entry that Tucker may not have much of a case, considering that back in June, Slugger and the Kansas City Royals were deemed to have not been at fault after a thrown hot dog hit a man in the face and tore his retina. Fugitt said in that case the “baseball rule” was referenced, and that by voluntarily entering a baseball stadium the victim assumed some responsibility for personal awareness. He points out that “Home of Throwed Rolls” is posted all over, which could mean Lambert’s diners assume they are putting themselves at risk of being hit by a flying roll, upon entering the establishment. ||||| Johnny Fugitt Missouri may soon have its own version of the infamous Liebeck v. McDonald's Restaurants hot-coffee lawsuit. Lambert's Cafe, the Sikeston-based restaurant chain proudly known as the "Home of Throwed Rolls," featuring servers who lob dinner rolls across the dining hall to guests, is being sued for a roll-related injury. The suit was filed yesterday against the Sikeston restaurant by University City-based attorney William Meehan on behalf of a guy gal named Troy Tucker. Tucker claims she "sustained a lacerated cornea with a vitreous detachment and all head, neck, eyes and vision were severely damaged" after being hit by a roll during a September 2014 visit. [See editor's note at the bottom of this post.] The practice of throwing rolls is deemed a "defective condition" of Lambert's, and the suit claims that the restaurant knew (or should have known) about the danger of this practice. Tucker now seeks an award of at least $25,000 to pay for her medical bills and legal fees. The restaurant's "carelessness and negligence" has already caused expenses totaling $10,000, the suit alleges, and who knows what future medical costs may emerge from the assault of the freshly baked bread. But we have to wonder how much of a case Tucker has. After all, in June, the Kansas City Royals and their mascot were deemed not to have been at fault after a thrown hot dog hit a man in the face and tore his retina. In that case the "baseball rule" was referenced, and the jury found that the man assumed some responsibility for personal awareness by entering a baseball stadium. Might the "throwed roll rule" become established legal precedent? After all, "Home of Throwed Rolls" is plastered on massive billboards all over the state. Shouldn't diners at Lambert's be responsible for some level of situational awareness when entering the restaurant? And if not, does that mean the end to throwed rolls in Missouri? What kind of country are we living in when a restaurant can't toss a freshly baked dinner roll at a man's head? Editor's note: Our story was picked up by Fox-4 in Kansas City. After talking to the plaintiff's lawyer, however, the television station reports that Troy Tucker is actually a woman. We have changed our story accordingly. We welcome tips and feedback. Email the writer at johnnyfugitt@gmail.com. Sponsor Content ||||| A popular restaurant and tourist attraction in the Heartland finds itself at the center of a lawsuit. A civil case was filed August 11 against Lambert's Cafe in Sikeston, Mo. The lawyer in this case said his client suffered permanent eye damage after being hit by a "throwed roll." The plaintiff, Troy Tucker, is seeking payment for medical expenses that have piled up after the incident. Her lawyer, William Meehan of St. Louis, told Heartland News Tucker was visiting Lambert's Cafe last September with a Bible group. Tucker claims she was hit in the eye by a "throwed roll" and suffered a detached cornea. Now she says she has impaired vision. But some are defending Lambert's saying you expect to have rolls lobbed at you. It's advertised in the restaurant's slogan and one reason it's such a large tourist attraction. "Oh I just think that this is a great place," said Emily Moore. "It's a fun place. I don't come here that often even though I'm a native of the area and I just think it's wonderful. And it's really shocking to think that someone would actually sue Lambert's for a throwed roll. 'Cause that's what they're known for." Lambert's general manager, Jerry Johnson, said servers never intend to hurt anyone when they throw those rolls. Johnson also said this isn't the first time someone has sought money after getting hit by an errant roll. He did say in some of those cases the restaurant's insurance paid for medical expenses. Download the KFVS News app: iPhone | Android Copyright 2015 KFVS. All rights reserved.

– How much liability does an establishment known as the "Home of Throwed Rolls" have when the bread starts flying and things allegedly go wrong? That may be for a jury to decide after a woman filed suit against Missouri-based restaurant chain Lambert's Cafe on Tuesday, claiming one of the restaurant's signature "throwed rolls" left her with permanent eye damage. According to FOX 4, Lambert's Cafe's gimmick is that its servers throw dinner rolls across the room to diners. A lawyer for Troy Tucker claims she was hit in the face with one of those rolls while visiting the restaurant with her Bible group in September 2014, KFVS reports. According to FOX 4, Tucker is seeking $25,000 to cover medical bills and legal fees. She claims the roll lacerated her cornea and left her with impaired vision. While the lawsuit states the restaurant should have known the roll-throwing exposed diners to danger, the River Front Times questions how solid Tucker's case is, and points to this: In June, the Kansas City Royals were found not at fault after a fan was hit in the face by a hot dog thrown by the team mascot. The jury found the man "assumed some personal responsibility" by entering the stadium. The GM of Lambert's Cafe tells KFVS this isn't the first time a customer has wanted a payout after being hit with one of the signature rolls, and the restaurant has paid medical expenses via its insurance in the past.

WASHINGTON | WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Expert Global Solutions, the world's largest debt collection agency, has agreed to pay a $3.2 million civil penalty and stop harassing and abusing debtors by engaging in practices such as calling them multiple times a day, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission said on Tuesday. The financial penalty levied on the company is the biggest ever obtained by the FTC against a third-party debt collector, the commission said. On its website, Expert Global Solutions says it is a holding company for a leading accounts receivable management company. Three subsidiaries were also involved in the settlement: NCO Financial Systems, Inc., ALW Sourcing, LLC, and Transworld Systems Inc. Company employees would continue to call people even after being told that they had reached the wrong person, that the consumer being contacted did not owe the debt or that the debtor did not live in that home, according to a complaint filed on Monday in federal court in Texas. "They called after being asked to stop; after they promised to stop; early in the morning; late at night; at people's workplaces - when they knew the employers prohibited the calls," Colleen Tressler, a consumer education specialist with the FTC, wrote in a blog post. Expert Global Solutions did not respond to a request for comment made through its website. A spokesman for one of the subsidiaries, NCO Financial Systems, said it had made changes to address problems identified by the FTC. "We ... have worked hard over the past several years to help ensure compliance and fair treatment of consumers on all of our points of contact," Tom Hoy, an NCO senior vice president, said in an emailed statement. In addition to paying $3.2 million, Expert Global must end abusive practices and suspend or end collection efforts if a debtor disputes what is owed. It can resume collection efforts after establishing that the debt is accurate, the FTC said. The company must also record at least 75 percent of all collection calls and keep them for 90 days, the agency said. According to the FTC, the Texas-based company and its subsidiaries have more than 32,000 employees and logged revenues of more than $1.2 billion in 2011. The companies operate in Canada, Barbados, India, the Philippines and Panama as well as the United States. (Clarifies reference to FTC in second paragraph) (Reporting by Diane Bartz; Editing by Ros Krasny and Xavier Briand) ||||| (Image credit: Getty Images) The world's largest debt collection operation will pay a $3.2 million civil penalty, the largest ever obtained by the Federal Trade Commission against a third-party debt collector, for illegally harassing debtors. Under the settlement, the FTC said Expert Global Solutions and its subsidiaries agreed to stop harassing consumers with illegal debt collection calls, including calling consumers multiple times a day and at workplaces, even after being told that employers prohibited these calls. In its complaint, the FTC charged that the companies violated the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act and the FTC Act by using other tactics such as calling early in the morning or late at night, and leaving phone messages that disclosed the debtor's name and the existence of the debt to third parties. Read More About What to Know Before, After a Balance Transfer Expert Global Solutions and its subsidiaries, based in Texas, has more than 32,000 employees and revenue in 2011 of more than $1.2 billion. The subsidiaries include ALW Sourcing, LLC; NCO Financial Systems, Inc.; and Transworld Systems, Inc., which also does business as North Shore Agency, Inc. They are collectively the largest debt collector in the world. The companies also operate in Canada, Barbados, India, the Philippines and Panama. A spokesman for EGS provided a statement to ABC News, saying, "We are pleased to have resolved this matter with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and to have this legacy issue, dating back to 2008, behind us. We cooperated fully with the FTC's 2010 investigation and have already implemented systems and procedures to help address their areas of concern." They added, "We believe that the quality of our consumer interaction is best-in-class in our industry today, and have worked hard over the past several years to help ensure compliance and fair treatment of consumers on all of our points of contact." In this proposed order with the FTC, "whenever a consumer disputes the validity or the amount of the debt, the defendants must either close the account and end collection efforts, or suspend collection until they have conducted a reasonable investigation and verified that their information about the debt is accurate and complete," the commission said. The defendants also are required to record at least 75 percent of their debt collection calls beginning one year after the date of the order, and retain the recordings for 90 days after they are made. Read More About 6 Steps to Consolidate Your Debt

– It's a little solace perhaps for people besieged by phone calls morning, noon, and night by debt-collection firm Expert Global Solutions: The company agreed to pay the FTC a $3.2 million fine and ease up on the harassment of debtors, reports Reuters. It's the biggest such fine ever levied on a third-party debt collector. "They called after being asked to stop; after they promised to stop; early in the morning; late at night; at people's workplaces—when they knew the employers prohibited the calls," writes an FTC official. Those types of tactics aren't just annoying, they're illegal under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act and the FTC Act, reports ABC News. Among the changes: The company and its subsidiaries will stop calling people if the debt is being disputed, at least until an investigation takes place. The company also has to record 75% of its calls and keep the recordings for at least three months. (Being a debt collector can be a lucrative job.)

In the final days leading up to the South Carolina primary, Newt Gingrich attacked Mitt Romney's tax rate revelation. NBC's Chuck Todd reports. With two days until South Carolina’s Republican presidential primary, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney holds a 10-point lead over former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, according to a new NBC News/Marist poll of the GOP contest in that state. But a day after Monday night’s Republican debate – where Gingrich’s performance was considered strong and Romney’s uneven – the poll also shows the former speaker gaining considerable ground on the GOP frontrunner. Overall in the two-day survey – conducted Monday and Tuesday – Romney gets the support of 34 percent of likely Republican primary voters in South Carolina, including those who are undecided but leaning toward a candidate. He’s followed by Gingrich at 24 percent, Texas Rep. Ron Paul at 16 percent, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum at 14 percent, and Texas Gov. Rick Perry at 4 percent. Iowa Republicans to call caucus result split decision Yet the numbers are strikingly different before and after the debate on Monday, when Romney stumbled over whether he would release his tax records (he later said he would do so in April). Also in that outing, Gingrich drew cheers – and even a standing ovation from some – in response to a question about whether his rhetoric about food stamps and janitorial work for poor children was racially insensitive. “The fact is that more people have been put on food stamps by Barack Obama than any president in American history,” Gingrich answered. “I know among the politically correct, you're not supposed to use facts that are uncomfortable.” Joe Raedle / Getty Images Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney visits Hudson's Smokehouse in Lexington, S.C., on Wednesday. He later added, “I believe every American of every background has been endowed by their creator with the right to pursue happiness. And if that makes liberals unhappy, I'm going to continue to find ways to help poor people learn how to get a job, learn how to get a better job and learn some day to own the job.” Another GOP debate takes place on Thursday evening. What a difference one debate makes On Monday before the debate, Romney led Gingrich in the poll by 15 points, 37 percent to 22 percent. But on Tuesday, that advantage narrowed to just five points, 31 percent to 26 percent. “The numbers on Tuesday were very different than the numbers on Monday,” says Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion, which conducted the survey. And they were especially different among the most conservative segments of the GOP electorate in South Carolina. On Monday, Gingrich held a five-point lead over Romney among those describing themselves as “very conservative,” 32 percent to 27 percent, with Santorum getting 24 percent. While on the trail in South Carolina, Mitt Romney said he will release further details about his taxes in April if he secures the Republican presidential nomination. NBC's Peter Alexander reports. But the next day, Gingrich’s percentage with this group jumped up to 35 percent, Santorum’s declined to 20 percent and Romney’s sunk to 19 percent. Among Tea Party supporters on Monday, Romney edged Gingrich, 35 percent to 27 percent. But on Tuesday, the numbers flipped – with Gingrich at 34 percent and Romney at 27 percent. And a similar change occurred among likely South Carolina primary voters who are evangelical Christians. On Monday, Romney led Gingrich here, 36 percent to 22 percent, with Santorum at 18 percent. On Tuesday, it was Gingrich at 27 percent, Romney at 22 percent, and Santorum at 19 percent. While Gingrich gained ground on Romney the day after the GOP debate, his poll position in South Carolina has declined markedly since December, when he led the former Massachusetts governor in the NBC News/Marist poll, 42 percent to 23 percent. The Bain dog doesn’t bite – at least for now Romney also can take comfort with this finding from the poll: His past work at Bain Capital doesn’t seem to bother South Carolina Republicans. Sixty-one percent of GOP primary voters – as well as 42 percent of all registered voters in the Palmetto State – agree with the statement that investment firms like Bain help the U.S. economy. And they agree that while some companies fail or are restructured, others succeed and that’s how the free market works. By comparison, just a quarter of likely GOP primary voters – plus a third of all registered voters – agree with the statement that investment firms like Bain hurt the U.S. economy when they take over a company; when they lay off workers and reduce their pay; and when they make money for the firm whether or not the company succeeds. What’s more, 48 percent of likely Republican primary voters believe the recent political attacks on Romney’s past experience at Bain are unfair, while just 22 percent think they’re fair. And a plurality of likely GOP primary voters – 23 percent – find Romney to be the Republican presidential candidate who best understands their problems. That’s compared with 22 percent for Gingrich, 18 percent for Paul and 16 percent for Santorum. Other notable numbers in the poll: • 39 percent of likely Republican voters in the state believe that the ability to beat President Barack Obama in November is the most important candidate quality, and that’s nearly double the percentage who said that in December’s NBC News/Marist poll of South Carolina; • a majority (56 percent) think Romney has the best chance of beating Obama; • a plurality (30 percent) say that Romney has been the candidate who has spent the most time talking about the issues, while another plurality (41 percent) say Gingrich has been the one who has spent the most time attacking his opponents; • another plurality (36 percent) say they like Paul the least; • and Obama’s job-approval rating in South Carolina – among registered voters – is 44 percent. The NBC News/Marist poll was conducted from Jan. 16-17 among 684 likely GOP primary voters (with a margin of error of plus-minus 3.8 percentage points). The pre-debate sample surveyed 349 likely voters (+/- 5.5), and the post-debate sample had 335 (+/- 5.5.). Among the 2,146 registered voters, the margin of error is plus-minus 2.1 percentage points. ||||| CHARLESTON, S.C. — Mitt Romney remains the clear front-runner in South Carolina, but the intensity of Newt Gingrich’s support places him within striking distance going into Saturday’s Republican primary. A POLITICO poll of likely voters shows the former Massachusetts governor atop the GOP field with 37 percent and the former House speaker at 30 percent. Text Size - + reset Newt surges in POLITICO Poll See Also Pollster analysis: S.C. likely to defy conventional wisdom Texas Congressman Ron Paul trails with 11 percent, followed by former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum at 10 percent and Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who barely registers at 4 percent. Just 8 percent remain undecided. “You really have a two-man race, with Paul and Santorum battling back and forth for No. 3 and 4 and Perry out of the mix,” said Ed Goeas, a Republican pollster whose firm, the Tarrance Group, conducted the survey on Tuesday and Wednesday. Gingrich has momentum: When voters are asked to volunteer the name of the candidate they plan to vote for without being prompted by a list of names to choose from, Romney’s lead over Gingrich slips to 31 percent to 29 percent. Among those who say they will “definitely” support their candidate of choice, the two are essentially tied, with Romney at 23 percent and Gingrich at 22 percent. Get the full results here and crosstabs here. One reason the former House speaker is pressing Romney: his consistently strong debate performances. Among those who claim they’ve watched all or almost all of the 16 debates so far, 48 percent support Gingrich compared with 22 percent who back Romney. Gingrich ranks fourth, at 9 percent, among Republicans who did not catch any of the debates. A debate here Thursday night offers him another chance to shine, just 36 hours before polls open. Romney, however, has a host of underlying strengths that continue to make him the clear favorite to win the first-in the-South primary, where he finished fourth in 2008. He holds significant leads with the blocs of voters most likely to show up. The more educated and older the voter, the more likely they are to back the former Massachusetts governor. Among voters aged 64 or older, Romney leads Gingrich 35 percent to 29 percent. With college-educated voters, it’s 35 percent to 28 percent. For those with only some college, Gingrich has a 6-percent-point edge, 32 to 26. Voters are most concerned about the issue on which Romney has staked his campaign — the economy. In a state where the unemployment rate is 9.9 percent — significantly higher than in Iowa and New Hampshire — 64 percent say they’re most interested in economic issues like taxes, jobs and the deficit. Just 10 percent name moral issues (abortion, gay marriage, family values) as their top concern. Among those who point to economic issues as their top concern, 40 percent back Romney. But among those who name moral issues, Santorum leads Romney 25 percent to 22 percent.

– Newt Gingrich is so close to Mitt Romney in South Carolina that an upset win is within the realm of possibility, according to a couple of new polls. Politico's numbers have Romney still leading the field with 37%, but Gingrich is close behind at 30%. Both are well ahead of their rivals; Ron Paul and Rick Santorum are battling for fourth with just 11% and 10% respectively, and Rick Perry barely registers with 4%. "You really have a two-man race," says the pollster who ran the survey. An NBC poll reveals a similar trend; it has Romney up by 10 points, with 34% to Gingrich's 24%, but that represents a whopping 5-point overnight jump for Gingrich following Monday's debate. Conservatives and evangelical Christians especially flocked to the former speaker after that performance. Both polls also reveal that Gingrich's attacks on Romney's Bain Capital tenure haven't hit home; 70% told Politico that Bain wouldn't influence their vote, and 48% told NBC the attacks were unfair.

The building in which Adolf Hitler was born will be turned into a museum memorializing the crimes and victims of the German dictator, under a plan currently being discussed by Austrian authorities. The former pub Gasthaus zur Pommer in the small town of Braunau-Am-Inn has been empty for three years, according to an article in the London-based Mail Online. The local municipality pays the owners 4,000 euros a month to prevent it from falling into the hands of neo-Nazis. When Adolf Hitler was born on April 20, 1889, the building was an inn. Alois and Klara Hitler moved out of the inn shortly after Adolf's birth, but the building has remained a place of pilgrimage for neo-Nazis from across Europe. Since the end of World War II, the building has been variously a bank, workshop, library, school and home for the disabled Now, the Austrian interior ministry is supporting a private initiative by historian Andreas Maislinger to renovate the former pub into a "House of Responsibility." Backing the Maislinger project is Oscar winning, Jewish-born Hollywood producer Branko Lustig, who has pledged big money from movie industry players for the museum. Other mooted plans for the building, which included demolition and turning it into luxury flats, have failed to gain traction. "This combines to make it increasingly difficult for opponents to raise further objections against the idea of a museum," wrote German magazine Bild. Supporters of the museum hope that it will slowly strip the house of its appeal for extremists who come every year on Hitler's birthday to worship outside the building. This year, a remembrance stone quarried from the site of the Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria, where thousands were killed, was defaced with paint. "The house will only lose its appeal for such people when it stands as a clear and just symbol against Nazism," said Maislinger. Mayor Johanne Waidbacher said: 'It is a difficult subject. But the idea in principle of a House of Responsibility is, in itself, not a bad one.' The building was bought by Nazi party secretary Martin Bormann after the 1938 Anschluss, in which Austria was absorbed into Greater Germany and converted into a Nazi cultural center. Hitler himself visited only once while in power. The only remaining Nazi-era relic is an iron gate outside the building bearing Bormann's initials. A final decision on what to do with the building is expected within weeks. ||||| The building, for the moment, is empty. Most recently, it was used as a workshop operated by a charitable organization for disabled people. But the group moved out a year ago and since then little has happened at Salzburger Vorstadt 15. This week, though, the site has found itself at the center of a heated debate over its future. The structure, after all, is located in the tiny town of Braunau am Inn on Austria's border with Germany. And it is the place where Adolf Hitler was born on April 20, 1889. The back-and-forth was triggered last week when the mayor of Braunau, Johannes Waidbacher, hinted in an interview with the Austrian daily Der Standard that he was in favor of using the property merely as a residential building. "It would certainly be easier to transform the site into apartments," he said. Waidbacher didn't stop there. Saying he was "open to many ideas," he added: "One should also ask the question in general as to whether a further Holocaust memorial makes sense when there are already so many in the area. We are stigmatized anyway. Hitler spent the first three years of his life here in our city. And it most certainly was not the most formative phase of his life. As such, we in Braunau are not prepared to take responsibility for the outbreak of World War II." Waidbacher's comments, perhaps unsurprisingly, were not universally well received. Local politicians have since demanded that the site be transformed into some kind of memorial and the reaction from overseas has also made it clear that simply ignoring the building's history would not go over well. 'A Difficult Topic' Indeed, the backlash has been such that Waidbacher has since backed away from his preference for transforming the building into an apartment complex. He told the German daily Frankfurther Allgemeine Zeitung this week that "there will ultimately be a proposal that everyone involved can accept," allowing that it was "a difficult topic." For years, it was an easy topic to ignore. The building, privately owned, is rented by the Austrian Interior Ministry and sublet to the town of Braunau. Given Hitler's systematic murder of handicapped people during the Third Reich, many felt it appropriate that his birthplace be devoted to helping the disabled. There seemed little need to launch a discussion about transforming the three-story structure into a museum. Now that the facility has moved out, however, many are turning to a proposal made several years ago by local historian Andreas Maislinger, who helped found the Braunau Society for Contemporary History in 1993. In 2000, he submitted a plan to establish what he calls a "House of Responsibility" at the site. He envisions a historical exhibition in combination with a social services facility and projects to promote intercultural understanding. "The mayor says he supports the idea, but he has been a bit hesitant," says Maislinger. "It's normal that people in Braunau don't want to think the entire time about Hitler. If you look at Berlin, people there don't always think about the fact that Hitler made his decisions there. It's a big city. But with smaller cities, like Dachau for example, it is more difficult. And Braunau is even smaller than that. One can understand it, but still, there are a lot of people that agree with my concept." 'Something Has to Happen' And the building, part of a collection of older structures which have enjoyed protected status since the early 20th century, isn't going anywhere, despite periodic proposals to simply tear it down and be done with it. At the time of Hitler's birth, it was a boarding house, and his father Alois and mother Klara didn't stay there for long, moving to Passau in 1892. Following the German annexation of Austria, however, the Nazi party took an interest in the building. In 1938, Hitler's private secretary Martin Bormann bought it in the hopes of eventually turning it into a monument on par with the birthplaces of Stalin and Mussolini. After the war, the US wanted to turn it into an exhibition on the horrors of the Holocaust. But in 1952, the building was bought back by the family that had sold it in 1938 -- and that remains the primary hurdle to any plans for its future today. The family, simply put, has shown no interest in selling the property. Indeed, as Maislinger admits, the current debate sparked by the mayor remains academic until the building changes hands. Maislinger, though, is optimistic that it ultimately will. "Something has to happen with the house. It can't just sit there empty for the next 10 years," he says. "Owning property is also a responsibility. And if there is a historical connection, no matter what kind of connection it might be, that responsibility is even larger." ||||| Austria's interior ministry is appealing to other ministries to take over Hitler's birthplace in Braunau, amid a years-long debate over what should become of the building. The interior ministry has rented the large pale yellow house where the future Nazi leader was born since 1972 and variously sublet it to a technical institute and an aid organisation. But it has stood empty since 2011 and the 4,600-euro ($5,820) monthly rent has been burning a hole in the ministry's pocket. The ministry is now contacting other Austrian ministries to see if they can use the 800-square-metre (8,610-square-foot) space and is hoping for a reply "by the end of the year", an official said Tuesday. The fate of the house has been a matter of debate for years amid fears that it could be used as a meeting point for Hitler sympathisers or fascist and neo-Nazi groups. To prevent this, the rental contract stipulates that it must be used for a social or educational purpose and not as a museum. The owner however continues to have a say in who occupies the building and recently quashed a proposal to install an adult learning centre or another aid organisation on the premises, for reasons unknown. Adolf Hitler was born at the address Vorstadt 15 in Braunau, near the German border, on April 20, 1889 but only lived there for a short while before he and his family moved away.

– A home's history can really make or break its marketability. Such is the case with what would otherwise be prime real estate in Austria's Braunau am Inn, a town near the German border. This house marks the spot where Adolf Hitler was born on April 20, 1889; it was an inn at the time, and though he only lived there briefly as a baby before his family relocated, the 8,610-square-foot building that rents for nearly $5,820 a month has gone unoccupied since 2011, much to the displeasure of the country's interior ministry. The ministry has rented it from the home's private owner (Haaretz reports it does so to keep it from being used by neo-Nazis) since 1972 and sublets it, reports AFP. Hitler's personal secretary, Martin Bormann, purchased the building in 1938 in the hopes of eventually fashioning it into a monument to the führer, der Spiegel reports. A gate marked with Bormann's initials is the final lingering Nazi-era item present at the location, which Hitler visited a single time during his reign. Neo-Nazis gather there much more frequently: each year on Hitler's birthday. The owners who sold the building in 1938 repurchased it in 1952, with the interior ministry stepping in two decades later. The Local reports that the owner has apparently been quite particular, quashing potential plans that would see a community college or migrant center occupy it. The owner has apparently also nixed a proposal by historian Andreas Maislinger that it be made into a "House of Responsibility." AFP reports the ministry is trying to hand off the location to another ministry and is hopeful it will get a response by year's end. (Meanwhile, a new report says Hitler took crystal meth.)

SNEED EXCLUSIVE: Pending Jesse Jackson Jr. plea deal includes ‘significant jail time,’ source says By MICHAEL SNEED msneed@suntimes.com FILE - In this Oct. 16, 2011 file photo, Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr., D-Ill., is seen during the dedication of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial in Washington. A spokesman at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota said Tuesday, Nov. 13, 2012, Jackson has left the clinic, where he was being treated for bipolar disorder for the second time since taking a leave of absence in June. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak, File) storyidforme: 44245676 tmspicid: 14794374 fileheaderid: 6740005 Updated: Sneed has learned a plea deal is now on the table between former Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. and federal authorities probing allegations of campaign fund misuse. Sneed is told the plea deal includes Jackson serving time in federal prison. “Significant jail time is now definitely a part of the deal,” said a top Sneed source close to the probe. “But I think [Jackson’s wife] Sandi, feels like she was thrown under the bus by her husband, ” now that a separate probe has begun on her, a second source added. Sandi Jackson claims she was stunned by campaign finance abuse disclosures against her husband, who has been treated for mental disorders and allegedly spent $40,000 on a Rolex watch purchased with campaign funds. This disclosure follows in the wake of an exclusive report Tuesday by Sneed and Sun-Times political reporter Natasha Korecki, revealing the feds’ financial probe of the once-politically powerful Jackson couple has evolved into two separate investigations, with federal authorities now taking an independent look at former Ald. Sandi Jackson. Though Sandi Jackson was encouraged to become a Chicago alderman by her husband, the two passed like ships in the night, shuttling between their homes in Washington, D.C., and Chicago in order to be with their two children. Sandi Jackson resigned from her 7th Ward aldermanic position last month. The federal scrutiny includes access to and use of her husband’s congressional campaign money, including credit card charges, as well as the movement of money from one account to another, sources say. In his resignation letter, Jesse Jackson Jr. acknowledged a federal probe and indicated his attorneys were working with federal authorities on it. Federal sources cautioned, however, authorities were still weighing whether charges are warranted in Sandi Jackson’s case. “They are trying to sort it out right now and trying to figure out exactly what to do with her,” said one source close to the former alderman. Sandi Jackson was advised to get a lawyer at least four months ago. For years, Sandi Jackson was paid nearly $5,000 a month from her husband’s campaign fund through her consulting firm, J. Donatella & Associates. The payments continued, even after Jesse Jackson Jr. checked into a mental health facility last year and — except for a robo-call — did not campaign for the Nov. 6 election, which he won. Sandi Jackson did not respond to calls for comment. The Ethan ending... Tying up loose ends: The little five-year-old boy named Ethan, who survived a kidnapping by conspiracy-driven wacko Jimmy Lee Dykes, spent much of the time in his assailant’s handmade bunker playing with Hot Wheels cars and eating crackers. When he turned six Wednesday, the day after his release, cars were reportedly a part of the celebration. ◆Postscript: In case you missed it, the bus where Ethan was snatched from seat number one, has been retired in homage to the brave bus driver killed saving the rest of the children. A do-over? Watch for the Commission on Chicago Landmarks to re-evaluate their ruling Thursday denying the former Prentice Women’s Hospital landmark status, which was hoped to save it from the wrecking ball. Last November, the commission recognized the building’s sculptural features and architect Bertrand Goldberg design, but decided Northwestern University’s proposal for a research center at the site — and the benefits to humanity that the center would bring — were more important. I spy... Two Chicago Cubs Hall of Famers stopped in to Harry Caray’s Italian Steakhouse on Kinzie Tuesday: Lunching was Ernie “Mr. Cub” Banks; dining later were Ryne “Ryno” Sandberg and his family. Sneedlings... Mayor Rahm Emanuel and former Mayor Rich Daley are honorary co-chairs of the Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center’s Humanitarian Awards Dinner on March 6, featuring Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Bob Woodward... Thursday’s birthdays: James Spader, 53; Garth Brooks, 51; and Ashton Kutcher, 35. ||||| Jesse Jackson Jr. was a once-rising political star. But he was sidelined by a medical condition and a federal investigation into his finances. Carol Marin reports. (Published Wednesday, Nov. 21, 2012) It’s been nearly three months since Jesse Jackson Jr. resigned from Congress, but now NBC News confirms that Jackson has signed papers in a plea deal within the past several days. Jackson’s case is being handled by the US Attorney’s office in Washington DC. While no public announcement is expected today, those with knowledge of the investigation believe the loose ends now deal with Jackson’s wife, former Alderman Sandi Jackson, and whether or not she is ultimately charged. Under the terms of the deal Jackson signed, he pleads guilty and his fate – as to jail time – would be in the hands of a federal judge, not yet assigned. He would repay the government hundreds of thousands of dollars – for items like the $40,000 Rolex watch, travel expenses for a woman he described as a “social acquaintance” and furniture purchased for his home. Former Prosecutor Describes Plea Process Former federal prosecutor Ron Safer describes the drama that likely played out in getting former Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. to plead guilty to campaign contribution violations. (Published Friday, Feb. 8, 2013) Converting campaign contributions for personal use is strictly prohibited by federal law. It opens Jackson up to “not more than 5 years” in prison. It’s clear Jackson’s move to resign from Congress works in his favor as his attorneys negotiate this plea deal. Former Prosecutor on Sandi Jackson Probe Former federal prosecutor Ron Safer explains that the government may not be interested in going after both Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. and his wife, former Ald. Sandi Jackson, "for the flip side of the same crime." (Published Friday, Feb. 8, 2013) Just last month his wife also resigned from her elected position as Chicago’s 7th Ward alderman, however her role in the alleged misuse of campaign funds still may land her in legal trouble. For years she received a $5,000 a month check from her husband as his political consultant. More Local News

– Jesse Jackson Jr. has struck a deal on federal charges that he used campaign contributions for personal expenses, reports NBC Chicago. He will have to repay hundreds of thousands of dollars, but the big question is whether Jackson is headed to jail. NBC says it's up to a federal judge, but the Chicago Sun-Times says the deal involves at least some time in a federal prison. Also unclear is whether Jackson's wife will face penalties. Jackson resigned from Congress a few months ago amid the inquiry and his battle with bipolar disorder.

His goal was simple, he told authorities. He was hoping to protect his pregnant fiancee from a violent ex-boyfriend. There was just one, rather formidable, obstacle in his way: the Canada-US border. The solution devised by the 25-year-old American – floating down a river that separates the two countries on an inflatable mattress to illegally enter Canada – was ingenious, but it led this week to a two-month jail sentence. The American, identified as John Bennett by a crown prosecutor, first tried to legally cross the border between Calais, Maine, and the Canadian province of New Brunswick on Wednesday. He told authorities he wanted to see his girlfriend who lived in Canada, in the small town of St Stephen. He was denied entry after a background check turned up pending mischief charges in the US. Hours later he headed to his local Walmart, a court in Canada heard on Thursday. He bought an air mattress, inflated it, fashioned a wooden board into a paddle and set sail on the St Croix river, a tidal river 500 yards wide that sits between Maine and New Brunswick. As he floated along the river, he was spotted by a local resident who called the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, said Peter Thorn, a lawyer representing the public prosecution service of Canada. The RCMP headed to the area and found him soon after. “He was wet and carrying his boots and matched the description that the witness had given,” said Thorn. The young man immediately admitted to police that, driven by concerns over his girlfriend’s safety, he had crossed the river after being denied legal entry to Canada. “He, in his mind, thought he needed to do what needed to be done to get over there to see her and ensure that she was OK,” said Thorn. “But there has not been any corroboration on the so-called fiancee’s side of the story, meaning we don’t know the accuracy of what he was saying.” He was arrested and held in police custody overnight. During a court appearance on Thursday, he pleaded guilty to failing to appear at a border crossing. Bennett, who has no fixed address but is believed to reside in Calais, Maine, was sentenced to two months in jail in Canada, after which he will be returned to the United States. While this was the first time he had heard of someone making the crossing by air mattress, Thorn had had other cases where people had crossed the border by swimming or crossing the railway bridge. Some were people who refused to recognise land borders, others suffered mental health problems. “And there are other people who are overcome with desire to come across even though they have been rebuffed at the border, for whatever reason,” he said. “I don’t think this is the only case of a so-called love interest that has caused a person to break the law to go over there.” Still, the reaction to the case has surprised him. Some swooned over the gallantry of the act, with Thorn overhearing one person remark that they wished someone would carry out such an act for them. “I sense that there’s this element of a Romeo-Juliet type of thing. I think that’s part of it.” Others delighted in the idea of floating along the tidal river, said Thorn, such as the judge who told the accused in court, “Pardon the pun, but it seems to me you wanted to get there, come hell or high water.” ||||| A young U.S. resident, driven by what he said was a desire to protect his Canadian girlfriend, used an air mattress to float across the St. Croix River in southeastern Maine and illegally enter New Brunswick late Wednesday, a Crown prosecutor says. Twenty-five-year-old John Bennett told police he had earlier tried to cross the border at Calais, Maine, but customs officers denied him entry because he was facing mischief charges in the U.S., lawyer Peter Thorn said Thursday. "He was told by the officer that until he got those cleared up, he wouldn't be admitted into Canada," the prosecutor said. Bennett was sentenced Thursday to two months in jail. Thorn said the provincial court in Saint John, N.B., was told Bennett purchased an air mattress at the local Walmart, inflated it and later used a wooden board to paddle across to an area near Ledge Road, southeast of St. Stephen, N.B. However, a local resident spotted the man, and he was later arrested by the RCMP and charged with failing to appear at the border crossing as required by the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. "He was wet and carrying his boots ... [and] walking towards the town," said Thorn, a lawyer representing the federal Public Prosecution Service of Canada. Before Bennett pleaded guilty to the charge Thursday, he told police he had to reach his pregnant girlfriend in Canada because he was worried for her safety, Thorn said. "He said she had an ex-boyfriend who was threatening her, but that hasn't been confirmed by the other party," he said. Bennett has no fixed address but is believed to live in Calais. The prosecutor said he had heard of people swimming across the river before, but he said the air mattress method was a novel approach. As for the judge hearing the case, Thorn said he told the accused: "Pardon the pun, but it seems to me you wanted to get there, come hell or high water."

– As the judge put it, “Pardon the pun, but it seems to me you wanted to get there, come hell or high water.” That was apparently the case for an American nabbed while crossing illegally into Canada on an air mattress, CBC reports. Officials say John Bennett, 25, was busted last week after he washed up on shore in New Brunswick and was spotted by a local resident. "He was wet and carrying his boots," said prosecutor Peter Thorn. Bennett told Royal Canadian Mounted Police that he had tried to cross the border at Calais, Maine, the normal way, but was denied entry after a background check turned up criminal mischief charges pending in the US, the Guardian reports. He said he had to get to the town of St. Stephen to protect his pregnant girlfriend from a violent ex-boyfriend. So he bought an inflatable mattress at a Walmart in Maine, used a wooden board as a paddle and headed out on the St. Croix River. “He, in his mind, thought he needed to do what needed to be done to get over there to see her and ensure that she was OK,” Thorn said, adding that there has been no word yet from the "so-called fiancee’s side." Bennett pleaded guilty on Thursday to illegally crossing the border, and a judge sentenced him to two months in jail—but not before noting the unusual nature of the case. Even the prosecutor said the "gallant" act has tugged on heartstrings. "I sense that there’s this element of a Romeo-Juliet type of thing," he said. (These distracted Canadians accidentally crossed the border while playing you-know-what.)

The Munich court handling the historic trial of neo-Nazi Beate Zschäpe on Monday adjourned proceedings until May 14 after her lawyers accused the presiding judge of being biased because he had ordered them to be frisked for weapons before entering the courtroom. Members of the prosecution weren't subjected to searches. The adjournment on the first day is a fresh indication that the trial, which is being closely watched in Germany and abroad, especially in Turkey where most of the victims came from, will be lengthy and complex. The prosecution didn't even get a chance to read out the charges. Zschäpe, 38, dubbed the "Nazi bride" in the German media, is believed to be the sole surviving member of the National Socialist Undergroundterrorist group that claimed responsibility in 2011 for murdering nine immigrants, eight of them of Turkish descent and one Greek man, as well as a German policewoman between 2000 and 2007. The other two members, Uwe Mundlos and Uwe Böhnhardt, committed suicide in November 2011 after a botched bank robbery. Only after that did their involvement in the killings come to light. Shortly after the trial started, Zschäpe's lawyers filed a motion claiming that judge Manfred Götzl was unfit to run proceedings because the weapons searches placed them under suspicion of "being involved in forbidden and criminal actions." The judge then ordered the adjournment to consider their motion, along with another motion brought by a co-defendant. The police never seriously considered that the motive may be racismand instead suspected that the victims, who included a flower seller, a grocer and a part-time tailor, themselves had links with criminal gangs. The case has alarmed the country's 3 million people of Turkish descent and has been a huge embarrassment to Germany because of the catalogue of errors made by the police and security authorities that exposed them to accusations of institutional racism and of having been blind to the threat of right-wing extremism. Last month, Germany apologized for those errors at the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, describing the murders as "without a doubt one of the worst human rights violations in Germany in the last decade." Chief Prosecutor Herbert Diemer warned on Monday against expecting too much of the trial. "The court proceedings are focused on the crimes and on the people charged with those crimes," he told a news conference. "It cannot be the aim of the trial to clear up possible mistakes made in past investigations and proceedings." Zschäpe Silent But Defiant Zschäpe walked into the courtroom smartly dressed in a white blouse and black blazer, with her arms crossed defiantly. She wasn't handcuffed and quickly turned her back on the photographers and film cameras, and on the relatives of the victims desperate finally to see justive done. She chatted quietly with her three lawyers and seemed relaxed. Four alleged accomplices, all of them committed neo-Nazis, are also in the dock in the mammoth trial in which over 600 witnesses will be called to testify. A total of 84 court days have been slated but that may not be enough. Some observers are saying the trial could last more than two years. One of the defendants, who can be named only as Andre E. due to German privacy laws, has the words, "Die Jew Die" tattooed on his stomach. "With its historical, social and political dimensions, the NSU trial is one of the most significant of postwar German history," lawyers for the family of the first victim, flower seller Enver Simsek, said in a statement. Some 500 police officers were deployed outside the courthouse -- where several hundred demonstrators, some waving the Turkish flag, demanded that justice finally be done, 13 years after the first victim, Simsek, was murdered in cold blood. Some held up photos of the victims. One banner read "Why were the authorities blind?" The chairman of the Turkish Community in Germany, Kenan Kolat, said the defendants should get life in prison. "This is a historic trial. It's not enough to convict the accused," Kolat told Mitteldeutsche Zeitung newspaper on Monday. "We hope that the maximum sentences will be imposed. And the maximum sentence is life." The trial start was delayed by almost three weeks because of controversy over the allocation of seats for the media. In the first round, no Turkish news organization obtained a press pass, which caused an uproar that threatened to further tarnish Germany's reputation. Every aspect of the case is proving to be sensitive, including the names of Zschäpe's defense lawyers. Both the German and British press have remarked on the fact that the the alleged NSU member is being defended by Wolfgang Stahl, Wolfgang Heer and Anja Sturm, surnames that evoke German Nazi history -- although none of the lawyers are of a far-right political persuasion. However, the lawyer representing the defendant Ralf Wohlleben, Nicole Schneiders, used to have a regional leadership post in the far-right National Democratic Party. Wohlleben, 38, stands accused of having provided the NSU with the murder weapon -- a Ceska Browning pistol used in all the killings. ||||| Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Ms Zschaepe's trial is part of a wider issue that has gripped Germany An alleged member of a German neo-Nazi cell has gone on trial in Munich in connection with a series of racially motivated murders. Beate Zschaepe, 38, is accused of being part of the National Socialist Underground (NSU), which killed 10 people, most of them of Turkish origin. She denies the murder charges. Critics say the police made serious errors. The judge later adjourned the trial for a week after the defence team accused the judge of bias. After entering court, Ms Zschaepe stood with folded arms and turned her back on the camera. Her lawyers lodged a legal complaint with the judge, accusing him of bias. They complained about being searched for possible weapons or other objects on arrival, while prosecutors and police were not. The judge ordered an adjournment until 14 May to consider the complaint. The NSU case sparked controversy as police wrongly blamed the Turkish mafia before discovering the far-right cell. The head of Germany's domestic intelligence service was eventually forced to resign over the scandal. It also emerged that intelligence files on far-right extremists were destroyed after the cell's activities came to light. Four male defendants are also on trial with Ms Zschaepe, facing lesser charges of having helped the NSU. She faces life in prison if convicted. Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption This police video shows alleged neo-Nazi Beate Zschaepe in an identity parade. Critics have accused authorities of turning a blind eye to the crimes of right-wing extremists, the BBC's Steve Evans reports from Munich. Officials deny this, saying mistakes occurred because the murders were spread across different regions, each with different police and security agencies. The killings took place over a seven-year period, and none of the victims or locations was high-profile. Execution-style killings Ethnic Turkish community groups and anti-racism campaigners demonstrated outside the courthouse on Monday, demanding justice. Some suspect the police of institutional racism which may have helped the neo-Nazis to act with impunity, our correspondent says. Before the trial got under way a large crowd of journalists had gathered outside, along with dozens of people hoping to get seats in the court. About 500 police officers were deployed and nearby streets were cordoned off. Ms Zschaepe, as a founding member of the NSU, is charged with complicity in the murders of eight ethnic Turks, a Greek immigrant and a German policewoman between 2000 and 2007. She is also accused of involvement in 15 armed robberies, of arson, and of attempted murder via two bomb attacks. Prosecutors say the aim of the execution-style killings was to spread fear among immigrants and prompt them to leave Germany. Her lawyers say she is refusing to speak in court. Only the trial opening was broadcast, in line with German legal restrictions. The four male defendants are: Ralf Wohlleben, 38, and Carsten Schultze, 33, accused of being accessories to murder in the killing of the nine men - they allegedly supplied weapons and silencers Andre Eminger, 33, accused of being an accessory in two of the bank robberies, in the 2004 nail bombing in Cologne's old town that injured 22 people, and two counts of supporting a terrorist organisation Holger Gerlach, 39, faces three counts of supporting a terrorist organisation. The NSU cell remained undetected until Ms Zschaepe gave herself up in November 2011, after police discovered the bodies of two of her alleged accomplices. Uwe Mundlos, 38, and Uwe Boenhardt, 34, appeared to have shot themselves after a botched bank robbery. After their deaths, the gun used in the murders of the 10 people was discovered. Ms Zschaepe shared a flat in Zwickau, in the old East Germany, with the two men who were found shot dead. The arson charge against her relates to a fire which she is alleged to have started in the flat before giving herself up. She told police she was the one they were looking for. In addition, a video emerged showing pictures of the corpses of the victims and identifying the "organisation" behind the murders as the NSU. The video had a cartoon Pink Panther totting up the number of dead. Image caption Uwe Mundlos, Beate Zschaepe and Uwe Boehnhardt were believed to be the cell's only members Only then did the authorities conclude that the killings were the work of neo-Nazis. They had previously treated some of the families of the victims as suspects in their murders. As a result, the trial has taken on a meaning beyond the charges in court, as it is also puts the spotlight on attitudes towards the murder of members of ethnic minority groups, our correspondent says. An earlier start date had been set for the trial, but it was delayed for weeks amid a dispute about the seat allocations, as Turkish media were not guaranteed places. Turkish media have now been given four seats, but several leading German newspapers missed out in the lottery, AFP news agency reports.

– Beate Zschaepe, the last surviving member of a Neo-Nazi trio accused of 10 murders between 2000 and 2007, goes on trial today in Munich, in a case that is riveting Germany. Zschaepe is charged in the killings of eight Turkish immigrants, a Greek immigrant, and a German police officer, but for years police believed the execution-style murders were connected to Turkish organized crime, the BBC reports. In reality, prosecutors say, Zschaepe and the other members of the National Socialist Underground were trying to instill fear in immigrants in an attempt to drive them out of Germany. The plot finally came to light in November 2011, when the other two alleged members of the NSU, Uwe Mundlos, 38, and Uwe Boenhardt, 34, apparently killed themselves after a bank robbery gone wrong; police then discovered the gun used in the 10 murders and Zschaepe surrendered. The 38-year-old now faces life in prison; she is also accused of involvement in armed robberies, arson, and two bomb attacks. Four men are also standing trial, accused of helping the NSU. Today's opening drew anti-racism protesters outside the courthouse; German authorities have been accused of institutional racism and of being "blind" to right-wing extremism, der Spiegel reports, and the case has sparked debate about Germany's attitude toward immigrants. The trial could go on for more than a year, the New York Times adds. Neo-Nazis including Zschaepe were just last month found to be communicating from prison via secret code.

President Obama promised Wednesday to lead a national discussion about gun control after the deadly mass shootings last week in Colorado, wading into the gun issue more extensively than at any other time in his presidency. Even this week, White House press secretary Jay Carney indicated that the president was unlikely to push for new gun legislation, citing persistent opposition in Congress. But Obama told the National Urban League here that he believes a lot of gun owners would agree that “AK-47s belong in the hands of soldiers,” not civilians on American streets. The president called the Aurora massacre an “extraordinarily heartbreaking tragedy.” But, he added, talk of reforming gun laws after similar mass shootings has too often been “defeated by politics and by lobbying and eventually by the pull of our collective attention elsewhere.” Obama’s speech seemed sure to intensify the debate on gun control. The president’s comments were striking because he has generally been cautious on the politically potent issue of firearms — to the point that some prominent politicians and advocates had criticized him, accusing him of barely addressing gun regulations in the immediate aftermath of the massacre in Aurora. Obama’s opponent in the presidential election, Mitt Romney, weighed in earlier Wednesday, saying that he saw no need for new gun restrictions after the Colorado rampage, allegedly carried out by a failed graduate student who used an assault rifle, a Glock semiautomatic handgun and a shotgun. “I don’t happen to believe that America needs new gun laws. A lot of what this young man did was clearly against the law, but the fact that it was against the law did not prevent it from happening,” Romney told “NBC Nightly News” anchor Brian Williams in an interview taped in London as he embarked on a week-long foreign trip. Romney acknowledged that as governor of Massachusetts he supported a bill that banned assault weapons, but he said he opposed a similar measure for the rest of the country. “We can sometimes hope that just changing a law will make all bad things go away. It won’t,” Romney said. “Changing the heart of the American people may well be what’s essential to improve the lots of the American people.” Obama gave few specifics Wednesday evening about what changes, if any, he might seek on guns, although his reference to AK-47s was sure to hearten advocates of an assault-weapons ban like the one passed during the Bill Clinton presidency, which expired in 2004. The current president, however, hasn’t advocated such a measure. In his speech, Obama declared gun violence a national tragedy that reaches beyond mass shootings such as those in Aurora and in Tucson — where six people were killed and 13 wounded, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, in a January 2011 attack — and into the lives of innocent people struck down by criminals every day. “For every Tucson or Aurora, there is daily heartbreak,” Obama said. “Violence plagues the biggest cities, but it also plagues the smallest towns.” Obama said that laws should be better enforced and that guns should be kept out of the hands of people with mental illness. Although he reiterated his commitment to uphold gun owners’ Second Amendment rights to responsibly bear arms, he blamed Congress for inaction on what he called common-sense restrictions to keep guns out of the hands of criminals. Well-funded gun-rights organizations such as the National Rifle Association exert great power in Congress, and public-opinion polls show that a declining number of Americans feel the need for stricter gun laws. ||||| NEW ORLEANS – President Obama touched the sensitive issue of guns here on Wednesday, pivoting off last week’s Colorado movie theater shootings to call for a “consensus around violence reduction" in the country. With the last public event of a four-day trip that started with a visit to the Aurora, Colo., hospital where almost two dozen victims were brought after the shootings, Obama said he supports measures to conduct background checks to keep guns out of the hands of criminals, fugitives and the mentally ill. “These steps shouldn’t be controversial, they should be common sense,” he told the National Urban League conference. Obama's remarks in the Big Easy about guns were the most extensive of his term, going farther than what he said after the 2011 shooting in Tucson, where six people were killed, and former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) and a dozen others survived gunshot wounds. White House aides have acknowledged new gun laws are still politically impossible in the current election-year climate, but Obama's comments suggest he's at least willing to talk about the issue. “I – like most Americans – believe that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual the right to bear arms,” Obama said. “I think we recognize the traditions of gun ownership passed on from generation to generation, that hunting and shooting are part of a cherished national heritage. “But I also believe that a lot of gun owners would agree that AK-47s belong in the hands of soldiers and not in the hands of crooks. They belong on the battlefield of war, not on the streets of our cities,” he added. Obama bemoaned the lack of political will to tackle gun issues, noting how congressional leaders have so far shown little interest in advancing new legislation following the Colorado shooting. “When there’s an extraordinarily heartbreaking tragedy like the one we saw, there’s always an outcry immediately after for action,” Obama said. “There’s talk of new reforms. There’s talk of legislation. And too often those efforts are defeated by politics and by lobbying and eventually by the pull of our collective attention elsewhere. But what I said in the wake of Tucson is we’re going to stay on this persistently.” Obama said he'd "continue to work with members of both parties and with religious groups and with civic organizations to arrive at a consensus around violence reduction." And Obama had a message to Americans that went beyond government. “As we convene these conversations, let’s be clear even as we debate government’s role, we have to understand that when a child opens fire on another child, there’s a hole in that child’s heart that government alone can’t fill," he said. "It’s got to be up to us as parents, as neighbors and as teachers and as mentors to make sure our young people don’t have that void inside them. It’s up to us to spend time with them. To pay more attention to them. To show them more love and they learn to love each other and they learn to love one another and they grow up knowing what it is to walk a mile in somebody else’s shoes and to view the world in somebody else’s eyes." CORRECTION: An earlier version of this post misstated a quote from the president about background checks for gun purchases. Obama said, "[W]e should check someone’s criminal record before they can check out a gun seller." Read more about: Guns, President Obama

– In the wake of the Aurora shootings, President Obama yesterday went further into the issue of gun control than he ever has, Politico reports. Speaking in New Orleans, Obama promised there would be a national conversation on the issue. Specifically, he declared support for background checks on gun buyers and better enforcement of gun laws, and said that "AK-47s belong in the hands of soldiers," not criminals—which could imply future support for an assault-weapons ban similar to one that expired in 2004, the Washington Post notes. The move is somewhat unexpected, since just this week White House press secretary Jay Carney implied Obama would not wade into the issue of new gun legislation, thanks in part to Congressional opposition. But yesterday, Obama said gun reform has too often been “defeated by politics and by lobbying and eventually by the pull of our collective attention elsewhere.” Also yesterday, Mitt Romney reiterated his position that stricter gun laws would not have made a difference in Aurora. “A lot of what this young man did was clearly against the law, but the fact that it was against the law did not prevent it from happening,” Romney told NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams.

Tech Community Grieves Over The Death Of White House Tech Advisor Jake Brewer Jake Brewer, an avid cyclist and a senior policy advisor to U.S. Chief Technology Officer Megan Smith, passed away during a charity bike ride this weekend. Brewer, 34, of Alexandria, died Saturday afternoon when his bicycle went out of control at a sharp curve while on a two-day, 150-mile bike ride to cure cancer, the Washington Post reported. Brewer worked on several tech initiatives and recently on the White House Demo Day. He led global policy, external affairs, and new product development for Change.org before joining the Obama administration. “We set out to recruit the best of the best to join their government and help us harness the power of technology and data to innovate new solutions for the 21st century. Simply put, Jake was one of the best,” wrote President Obama in a statement Sunday. Many in the tech community and those who worked closely with Brewer have tweeted their condolences. The impact of @jakebrewer on the government will be felt for the next century. https://t.co/21c4fz49Xr — DJ Patil (NARA) (@DJ44) September 20, 2015 From our first conversation years ago to our last a few days ago, every time I spoke to @jakebrewer, he focused on how to help people. — Anil Dash (@anildash) September 20, 2015 On hearing of @jakebrewer’s death, I take some comfort in Wallace Stevens Esthetique du Mal pic.twitter.com/VeUfoZ2fm7 — Tim O'Reilly (@timoreilly) September 20, 2015 Brewer’s wife Mary Katharine Ham also posted an emotional message about the tragedy on her Instagram: Brewer is survived by his wife and young daughter. Family and friends launched a GoFundMe memorial project to create an educational fund in his honor. ||||| A senior White House advisor was struck and killed by a car when he lost control of his bicycle while participating in a charity bike ride raising money to fight cancer. Jacob Thomas Brewer, 34, was entering a sharp bend in Mt. Airy, Md., when the married father and senior policy advisor crossed into an oncoming car's lane late Saturday afternoon, Howard County police said. Brewer, who has worked in the Office of the Chief Technology Officer since June and was expecting his second child, was pronounced dead at the scene. The driver of the 2008 Honda Pilot was not injured, police said. Among those expressing their profound sadness by his sudden and tragic loss was President Obama who released a statement Sunday. "Simply put, Jake was one of the best. Armed with a brilliant mind, a big heart, and an insatiable desire to give back, Jake devoted his life to empowering people and making government work better for them," he said. "Michelle and I are praying for all of Jake's family and his many friends, most of all his wife, Mary Katharine Ham, their daughter, Georgia, and their growing family. They'll always have a family here at the White House," he said. "Jake devoted his life to empowering people and making government work better for them." —@POTUS on Jake Brewer: pic.twitter.com/uX9Ewn3BXn — The White House (@WhiteHouse) September 20, 2015 His heartbroken, pregnant widow also expressed her anguish, saying "I will miss him forever, even more than I can know right now." "I lost part of my heart and the father of my sweet babies. I don't have to tell most of you how wonderful he was. It was self-evident," she said in a statement. "I will strive and pray not to feel I was cheated of many years with him, but cherish the gift of the years I had." Mary Katharine additionally shared a recent photo showing herself with her husband and their 2-year-old daughter. In it, she writes: "All four members of our little, growing family are in it. I can never be without him because these babies are half him." The Ride to Conquer Cancer — a two-day cycling trek raising money for cancer research programs — also released a statement while announcing the loss of one of their riders. Jacob Thomas Brewer, 34, was struck and killed on his bike by an oncoming car during a cancer treatment fundraiser in Maryland on Saturday. (Jake Brewer via Facebook) "All who are associated with the ride are deeply-saddened and our thoughts and prayers are with family and friends of the rider," they said in a statement posted to their website. Brewer's mother, reached by the Washington Post, said her son — who lived in Alexandria, Va. — joined the charity ride because of a close friend who's battling cancer. He "lived life large and tended to live life for other people," Lori Brewer Collins said. Before joining the White House, Brewer lists himself online as having worked for Change.org and having attended Vanderbilt University in his home state of Tennessee. A GoFundMe page has been created to help Brewer's family in their time of need. ||||| Add a location to your Tweets When you tweet with a location, Twitter stores that location. You can switch location on/off before each Tweet and always have the option to delete your location history. Learn more ||||| On Tuesday, August 4, the White House hosted a Demo Day where we showcased the wide-ranging talents of innovators from across the country. Unlike a private-sector Demo Day, where entrepreneurs “pitch” their ideas to funders, innovators from around the country joined President Obama to “demo” their individual success stories and show why we need to give every American the opportunity to pursue their bold, game-changing ideas. But we didn't want the day’s activity to be limited to events in Washington, DC. That’s why we encouraged entrepreneurs, innovation spaces, universities, and more to host their own Demo Day events and follow along live as we engage in a conversation about how we can ensure that everyone has access to the tools and resources they need to make their ideas a reality.

– President Obama has lost one of his top technology advisers—and Jake Brewer's colleagues say the world has lost a good man with great ideas. The 34-year-old senior policy adviser to the Office of the Chief Technology Officer was killed on Saturday when his bike went out of control during a cycling event in Maryland to raise money for a cancer charity, the Washington Post reports. In a statement tweeted by the White House, President Obama said he was "heartbroken" by the tragic loss. "Simply put, Jake was one of the best," he said. "Armed with a brilliant mind, a big heart, and an insatiable desire to give back, Jake devoted his life to empowering people and making government work better for them." Police say Brewer was pronounced dead at the scene after being hit by an oncoming vehicle during the Ride to Conquer Cancer, the New York Daily News reports. He worked in several key roles at Change.org before joining the Obama administration, where he worked on initiatives that included last month's White House Demo Day for tech entrepreneurs, reports TechCrunch. He had a 2-year-old daughter and his wife, Mary Katharine Ham, is pregnant with their second child, the Daily News reports. "I lost part of my heart and the father of my sweet babies. I don't have to tell most of you how wonderful he was. It was self-evident," she wrote in a moving Instagram post. "I will strive and pray not to feel I was cheated of many years with him, but cherish the gift of the years I had. ... Please pray that he can see us and we'll all make him proud. God, I love him."

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 ||||| Central American girls, who are traveling with a caravan of Central American migrants, play in the patio of the Viña de Cristo shelter while their parents organize accommodations for the night in Tijuana,... (Associated Press) Central American girls, who are traveling with a caravan of Central American migrants, play in the patio of the Viña de Cristo shelter while their parents organize accommodations for the night in Tijuana, Mexico, Wednesday, April 25, 2018. The caravan of mainly Central American migrants are planning... (Associated Press) TIJUANA, Mexico (AP) — About 130 Central Americans, mostly women and children, have arrived at the U.S. border with Mexico in a "caravan" of asylum-seeking immigrants that has drawn the fury of President Donald Trump. Two busloads arrived late Tuesday in the Mexican border city of Tijuana at two migrant shelters just steps from one of the most fortified stretches of border separating the U.S. from Mexico. They joined another 50 or so who arrived in Tijuana over the last week or two. Four more busloads of about 200 Central Americans — mostly women and children but including some men — were expected to arrive in Tijuana Wednesday, said Alex Mensing, project coordinator for Pueblos Sin Fronteras, which is organizing the effort. U.S. lawyers planned to lead clinics later this week on U.S. asylum law to tell the immigrants what to expect when they seek asylum. The first groups plan to try to enter the U.S. on Sunday at San Diego's border crossing. Trump and senior aides have portrayed the caravans and the asylum seekers as evidence of a dysfunctional border and a serious threat. The president tweeted this week that he has issued orders "not to let these large Caravans of people into our Country. It is a disgrace." The caravans have been a fairly common tactic for years among advocacy groups to bring attention to Central American citizens seeking asylum in the U.S. to escape political persecution or criminal threats from gangs. But the latest one drew more attention because Trump's attention from almost the moment it began March 25 in the Mexican city of Tapachula, near the Guatemalan border. And while it slowly traveled across Mexico. Trump used it as an example to try to win more support for his planned border wall — even though the asylum-seekers plan to turn themselves in to border inspectors. Taxi driver Jovanne Torres from El Salvador said Wednesday after arriving in Tijuana Tuesday that Trump's attacks on the caravan makes him doubt whether he'll succeed in getting asylum for himself, his wife and his daughters ages 4 and 10 months — but he still plans to try. Torres, 37, said he fled his hometown near the country's capital of San Salvador and joined the caravan days after a gang threatened to kill him and his wife when he refused to give a free ride to a gang member. He thinks he could be killed if he goes home and decided against seeking asylum in Mexico because he wants to join relatives in Houston. "Trump's words have made it difficult for us," he said. This caravan's numbers pale compared to the roughly 200,000 people who were arrested at the border in Texas' Rio Grande Valley during the spring of 2014 during the administration of President Barack Obama, many of them Central American women and children. Thousands of Haitians seeking to enter the U.S. turned themselves in to U.S. border inspectors at the Tijuana-San Diego border crossing, the nation's busiest. U.S. Customs and Border Protection has space to hold about 300 people at the crossing, said Pete Flores, director of the agency's San Diego field office. It turns them over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to determine if they should be held long-term of if they can be released while their cases are pending, often wearing ankle monitors that track their movements. The San Diego border crossing was so overwhelmed by Haitians in 2016 that U.S. officials worked with their Mexican counterparts to create a ticketing system that let the Haitians in over time. Some waited their turn in Tijuana more than five weeks. More recently, asylum seekers have had to wait at most only a few hours, never overnight, Flores said. If asylum-seekers make it through initial screenings with asylum officers by establishing "credible fear" of being returned to their homelands, they are allowed in and face what can be lengthy proceedings before U.S. immigration judges. Ginger Jacobs, a San Diego immigration attorney who helped Haitians seeking entry to the U.S. in 2016, said Trump's concerns about a rush of Central Americans seeking asylum were "completely overblown." "I don't see this caravan thing being a big deal," she said. "I see it as something the port will be able to handle competently and professionally." Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, in a message apparently aimed at asylum seekers, said Wednesday that anyone who makes false claims to immigration authorities is subject to criminal prosecution. The same goes for anyone who assists or coaches immigrants on making false claims. Nielsen's threat is consistent with the administration's narrative of widespread "asylum fraud" and claims that asylum-seekers are coached on what to tell U.S. authorities. The secretary also said asylum seekers in the caravan should seek protection in the first safe country they reach, including Mexico. U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions said he may assign additional immigration judges to handle caravan cases. The Juventud 2000 migrant shelter, on the edge of Tijuana's red-light district, is filled with dome-shaped tents to accommodate more than 200 arrivals. Its director, Jose Maria Garcia Luca, said two previous caravans in May and November of last year had about 100 people each. Those who sought asylum reported no significant delays entering the U.S. "This is nothing like the Haitians," Garcia Luca said. "That was chaos."

– About 130 Central Americans, mostly women and kids, have arrived at the US-Mexico border in a "caravan" of asylum-seeking immigrants that has drawn the fury of President Trump. Two busloads arrived late Tuesday in the Mexican border city of Tijuana at two migrant shelters just steps from one of the most fortified stretches of border, per the AP. They joined another 50 or so who arrived in Tijuana over the last week or two. Four more busloads of about 200 Central Americans—mostly women and children but including some men—also were expected to arrive in Tijuana, says a coordinator for Pueblo Sin Fronteras, which is organizing the effort. US lawyers planned to lead clinics later this week on US asylum law to tell the immigrants what to expect when they seek asylum. The first groups plan to try to enter the US on Sunday at San Diego's border crossing. US Customs and Border Protection has space to hold about 300 people at the crossing, says the director of the agency's San Diego field office. If asylum seekers make it through initial screenings with asylum officers by establishing "credible fear" of being returned to their homelands, they're allowed in and face what can be lengthy proceedings before US immigration judges, often wearing ankle monitors to track their movements. Trump and senior aides have portrayed the caravans and the asylum-seekers as evidence of a dysfunctional border and a serious threat. Taxi driver Jovanne Torres, who says he fled his hometown in El Salvador after a gang threatened to kill him and his wife, says Trump's attacks make him doubt whether he'll get asylum for himself, his wife, and his young daughters, but he still plans to try. "Trump's words have made it difficult for us," he says.

US officials have revealed that Osama bin Laden's diaries contain the rather startling conclusion that he didn't think Vice President Joe Biden was worth bumping off (hat tip: a tweet from my New York colleague Jon Swaine). According to ProPublica, the Obama administration is briefing that Barack Obama was bin Laden's the "top target" (no surprise there) while "military chiefs like the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the defense secretary" were also major scalps. But Joe Biden's scalp (hair plugs and all)? Apparently, not so much. A counterterrorism official said: "There is a note indicating that the vice president is not an important target because that position has less weight." To be fair, it seems that Uncle Joe was not mentioned by name and the al-Qaeda leader tied the comment to the constitutional weakness of the vice-presidency rather than the antics of the garrulous current occupant. But one does suspect that bin Laden might have rather liked to have got Dick Cheney. Given the manner in which the al-Qaeda chief was sent to his maker, taking out George W. Bush's veep might have been a prudent measure. As Jay Leno quipped: "Osama bin Laden was apparently shot twice in the face. It looks like Dick Cheney may have been involved." ||||| During his final years, Osama bin Laden expressed interest in everything from killing President Obama to his deputies' personalities to an article in an extremist magazine that he didn't like, according to two U.S. officials familiar with material seized during the raid that killed bin Laden. A trove of digital communications and hand-written notes show how bin Laden ran his weakened network from his solitary hideout in a garrison town in Pakistan. He was especially engaged in decisions about leadership posts and developing plots, the officials said. Bin Laden's writings discuss his strategic goal of carrying out attacks that would prevent President Obama from being re-elected, though he also wrote that "the alternative could be worse," a U.S. counterterror official said. "He talks about targeting priorities," the counterterror official said. "He says the president is of course the top target if you could get a shot at him. Also the military chiefs like the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the defense secretary, top military people. There is a note indicating that the vice president is not an important target because that position has less weight." The passage was less a discussion of concrete assassination plots than strategic musings, the counterterror official said. Another U.S official said it was part of a message intended for a deputy. It is not always clear if the messages were actually delivered. The material has been translated from Arabic and culled from computers, discs, thumb drives and bin Laden's handwritten notes, said the officials, who spoke to ProPublica on condition of anonymity. Bin Laden clearly played a role in al Qaeda's operational, tactical and strategic planning, the officials said. That contrasts with assertions by officials in Pakistan and the West over the years that he was dead, in another country or cut off from his network. "You could describe him as a micro-manager," a U.S. official said. "The cumbersome process he had to follow for security reasons did not prevent him from playing a role...He was down in the weeds as far as best operatives, best targets, best timing." Bin Laden was bent on inflicting mass-casualty attacks on the West, the U.S. official said. At the same time, however, he criticized an online propaganda magazine edited by a young American in Yemen, saying the bloodthirsty tone of an article could harm al Qaeda's image among Muslims, according to the U.S. counterterror official. The magazine, called Inspire, "apparently discussed using a tractor or farm vehicle in an attack outfitted with blades or swords as a fearsome killing machine," the official said. "Bin Laden said this is something he did not endorse. He seems taken aback. He complains that this tactical proposal promotes indiscriminate slaughter. He says he rejects this and it is not something that reflects what al Qaeda does." The sentiment apparently evokes bin Laden's concern -- previously expressed in al Qaeda letters intercepted in 2004 -- about backlash among Muslims who feel the network has gone to violent extremes, especially in Iraq, and killed many Muslims in the process. A clandestine courier system enabled bin Laden to send strategic directives to the network's core in Pakistan and its affiliates overseas, but he was hampered by the lack of phone and Internet access in his compound -- a measure to avoid detection. "In a sense what we have here is internal discussion," the counterterror official said. "And also you have a leader alone, writing down his thoughts... It's kind of like the old concept in the Navy when captains thought they might lose visual contact. They needed to know the commander's intent in the contingency of having to make decisions on their own. When bin Laden writes to his deputies, he is reinforcing their knowledge of the commander's intent." Bin Laden communicated with deputies such as Mustafa Abu-Yazid, a veteran Egyptian boss who was al Qaeda's operations chief until he was killed in a U.S. missile strike last year, according to the official. Yazid, based in the northwest tribal areas of Pakistan, sent outgoing orders to commanders in Pakistan or affiliates in other countries, and relayed their messages to bin Laden's hideout in Abbottabad near Pakistan's capital. The courier system also permitted bin Laden to communicate directly with other deputies, the U.S. official said. One exchange shows Ayman al Zawahiri, the Egyptian ideologue regarded as the number two chief of al Qaeda, communicating with bin Laden through Yazid, who most Western counterterror officials saw as number three in the hierarchy. The leaders discussed the personality of an up-and-coming Libyan leader named Atiyah Abd-al-Rehman, known widely as Atiyah, the officials said. "Bin laden tells Yazid that other leaders have told him that Atiyah is seen as a bit undiplomatic and heavy-handed in his dealings with others in the group," the counterterror official said. "Bin laden's language indicates that he likes Atiyah, but he is mentioning the discussions about Atiyah that he has heard from others in AQ." Despite his perceived charm deficiency, Atiyah's star has risen. After Yazid was killed, bin Laden appointed Atiyah as operations chief, according to Western counterterror officials. Last month, German police arrested three suspected Moroccan militants in Dusseldorf accused of preparing a bomb attack on a transportation target. The suspects were in contact with Atiyah and Younus the Mauritanian, a chief in Pakistan who has been leading operations against foreign targets, officials say. Bin Laden ordered Atiyah and Younus to concentrate on attacking Europe and the United States, the officials said. Evidence in a pending court trial in Chicago reveals that "the elders," whom court papers identify as the top al Qaeda leadership, were eager to execute a plot against a Danish newspaper that had published caricatures of the Prophet Mohamed. That plot was aborted in late 2009. The Associated Press reported tonight that some of bin Laden's writings show him musing over how many Americans he would have to kill to force the U.S. to withdraw from the Arab world and concluding that the body count would have to be in the thousands. Bin Laden also managed to retain authority over al Qaeda's affiliates in Yemen, North Africa and Iraq, the U.S. official said. "It was not the same degree of detailed involvement, but he played a huge role in leadership," the U.S. official said. The materials seized during the May 1 raid in Abbottabad indicate that Bin Laden communicated with the network's most active and dangerous wing, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, through his operations deputy in Pakistan, who forwarded directives through emails and couriers to the affiliate's leaders in Yemen, the counterterror official said. Intelligence gathered months before the raid revealed a tell-tale exchange with the al Qaeda leader in Yemen. The leader, a Yemeni, wrote to bin Laden with a surprising proposal: He suggested that he step down as chief of the affiliate in favor of Anwar al-Awlaki, a Yemeni-American ideologue. Awlaki's influence has been revealed in a string of recent plots against the U.S., including the attempted Christmas bombing on a Detroit-bound flight in 2009. The leader explained that naming Awlaki as his replacement would be a propaganda coup. It would take advantage of the cleric's popularity among Westerners, especially Americans, and have a strong impact on recruitment, according to the counterterror official. The leader in Pakistan rejected the proposal, however, according to the official. "Bin laden's message was essentially, I know you. I trust you. Let's keep things the way they are." Awlaki has eluded a number of U.S. missile strikes on his suspected refuge in Yemen. The U.S. task force that is poring over the intelligence haul from the raid has three priorities: detecting imminent plots, tracking other al Qaeda leaders and investigating bin Laden's support network in Pakistan. The last task confronts a delicate question: whether Pakistani security forces were involved in protecting bin Laden, who spent at least five years in the compound near a military academy. "There is no evidence that the Pakistani government knew he was there," the U.S. official said. "But the questions still have to be answered."

– Osama bin Laden wanted to assassinate President Obama—but Joe Biden? No point in bothering with him, the al-Qaeda leader told his followers. Amongst bin Laden’s records, “there is a note indicating that the vice president is not an important target because that position has less weight,” a US official told ProPublica. Who else was important? "Military chiefs like the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the defense secretary, top military people." Writing for the Telegraph, Toby Harnden notes that to be fair, "the al-Qaeda leader tied the comment to the constitutional weakness of the vice-presidency rather than the antics of the garrulous current occupant." But, he quips, "one does suspect that bin Laden might have rather liked to have got Dick Cheney."

LOS ANGELES — The most unpopular move the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences may have ever made was reversed on Thursday: The next Academy Awards will not add a category for achievement in “popular” films after all. But the concept may not be completely dead. “There has been a wide range of reactions to the introduction of a new award, and we recognize the need for further discussion with our members,” Dawn Hudson, the academy’s chief executive, said in a statement. Ms. Hudson emphasized in a subsequent telephone interview that the academy was not abandoning its effort to “honor excellence across a wider scope of films.” “We’ve had a lot of positive comments from members about that principle,” she added. The creation of the category, announced last month and rooted in an attempt to increase ratings for the Oscars telecast, prompted swift and severe blowback from the public and some members of the academy. In rushing out the news, the academy did not provide details about what would constitute a “popular” film, further inflaming the situation. ||||| Image copyright Getty Images Image caption The move was seen as a bid to improve dwindling television audiences The organisers of the Oscars have announced they have postponed plans to introduce a new popular film category at their annual awards ceremony. The award, which could have recognised films popular with audiences but not critics, was only announced last month. In a statement, the Academy's CEO said she had "recognised the need for further discussion" with its members about the proposal first. It was set to be introduced at the 91st Oscars in February 2019. "The Academy recognized that implementing any new award nine months into the year creates challenges for films that have already been released," it said in statement. It also added that its board of governors would continue to discuss the matter, and will "examine and seek additional input regarding this category". After its announcement, the category drew praise from the public on social media but received a backlash from some in Hollywood. It was widely suggested the move was a bid to improve dwindling television audiences for the event, rather than recognising artistic merit. Image copyright Marvel Studios Image caption It was hoped the category could recognise box office hits like Black Panther Viewing figures for the Academy Awards have been falling in recent years - with the 2018 viewing figures 39% down on 2014's. In previous years, films which have done well at the box office with audiences - including Mamma Mia, Avatar and the Mission Impossible franchise - have been snubbed by the Academy. The Oscars' organisers did not elaborate in their August announcement how eligibility for the new category would have been established. Some Hollywood critics suggested the new category's "popular" tag was confusing and could risk creating a two-tier system among films. It was feared films praised by critics and audiences alike, such as Dunkirk and Get Out, would risk being relegated to the new category rather than standing a chance in the prestigious Best Film award category. ||||| The award was to have been introduced at the 91st Oscars. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is postponing the introduction of the new “popular” Oscar category it had intended to introduce at its upcoming 91st Academy Awards on Feb. 24. The Academy announced Thursday, following a special meeting of the board of governors on Wednesday morning, that it is shelving the idea for the moment and will not launch the proposed new award at the next Oscar show, but it said it will continue to discuss the idea for the new award and "will examine and seek additional input regarding the new category." The announcement explained that implementing the new award nine months into the year "created challenges for films that have already been released." The Academy did not provide any timeline for when further details about the new award might be decided. “There has been a wide range of reactions to the introduction of a new award, and we recognize the need for further discussion with our members,” Academy CEO Dawn Hudson said Thursday. “We have made changes to the Oscars over the years — including this year — and we will continue to evolve while also respecting the incredible legacy of the last 90 years.” Last month, the Academy’s board of governors voted to create the new award, which it said would recognize “outstanding achievement in popular film.” But it did not lay out the criteria or voting process that would be used to determine which films would be eligible and how they would be selected. With awards season currently taking shape as dozens of Oscar hopefuls are introduced at festivals in Venice, Telluride and Toronto, which kicks off its fest Thursday, numerous questions were raised about the proposed award. With studios and distributors drawing up plans for the coming awards season, the Academy was under pressure to set up rules regarding the new category. While the Academy appeared to still be committed to the new award, even though it said it requires further study, the question will now become whether or not it quietly drops the idea altogether. Hoping to stem falling ratings for the Oscar broadcast, the Academy is looking for ways to attract the attention of mainstream moviegoers. The new award was seen as a way to guarantee that blockbuster movies, like the Marvel, Star Wars and DC Universe films, as well as surprise hits like A Quiet Place and Crazy Rich Asians, would be assured of air time on the broadcast. But the announcement of the new award was met with an immediate wave of criticism. "The film business passed away today with the announcement of the 'popular' film Oscar," Rob Lowe tweeted. "It had been in poor health for a number of years. It is survived by sequels, tent-poles, and vertical integration." Critics of the idea variously complained that creating a new Oscar was akin to asking popular films to sit at the kids' table, while others argued it would devalue the eventual winner of the best picture Oscar. This season, Black Panther was emerging as a possible test case for the new pop Oscar. Undeniably popular — the pic has grossed $1.3 billion worldwide — it has also been critically applauded, earning a 97 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Early handicapping has put it in the running for a best picture nomination, and while the Academy said a film could be eligible in both the best picture and best popular movie categories, some warned that a movie like Black Panther's best picture prospects could be impacted negatively if Academy members were suddenly offered the option of voting for it as best popular film. The pic's star Chadwick Boseman told THR, "There's no campaign [that we are mounting] for popular film; like, if there's a campaign, it's for best picture and that's all there is to it." Even those who supported the idea of the new Oscar — including those inside the Academy — were hard-pressed to describe the rules and voting process that should be used to decide the winner of the category. In announcing that it was setting the award aside for the moment, the Academy said that it would continue with other changes intended to keep the upcoming Oscar show from running over three hours. As previously announced, it said that not all of the 24 Oscar categories will be presented live — instead, six to eight categories will be presented at the Dolby Theatre during commercial breaks and then edited versions of the presentations will air later in the broadcast. It is expected that the crafts categories as well as the three short-film categories will be relegated to the non-live presentations, but the Academy said Thursday that the affected categories would rotate from year to year, presumably so that none of the crafts branches feel they are being permanently moved to the commercial-break status. Also as previously announced, the 2020 Oscars are moving to an earlier date on the calendar. Instead of taking place toward the end of February, as has been the recent tradition, the 92nd Oscars will be held on Feb. 9, 2020. To meet that earlier date, the Academy announced key dates for the 2019-2020 awards season. Its Governors Awards will be held Nov. 16, 2019. Nominations voting will open Jan. 2, 2020, and close Jan. 7, with the nominations to be announced Jan. 13. The Academy's annual nominees luncheon will be held Jan. 27, 2020. Final voting will begin Jan. 30 and conclude Feb. 4, 2020. Because of the new compressed schedule, beginning in 2020, the Academy will move its Scientific and Technical Awards ceremony to June. The Sci-Tech Awards, at which the Academy honors technological achievements, have traditionally been held two weeks ahead of the Academy Awards. But the Academy said that since the technologies involved do not represent achievements within a specific awards year, it is able to hold that ceremony later in the year. ||||| Days after the 90th Academy Awards telecast aired in March to record-low viewership, Disney-ABC Television Group executives met with leaders of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to convey a message: You are facing irrelevance. Just a year and a half earlier, Disney-ABC had set a long-term pact with the Academy to broadcast the Oscars through 2028 — long past the point where anyone can predict what linear-television consumption will look like. Then the ratings fell off a cliff. The 26.6 million viewers averaged by the 2018 Oscars, according to Nielsen live-plus-same day numbers, represented a 19% decline from 2017, and 39% drop from the show’s recent peak in 2014. Numbers for younger viewers were even worse. Ratings in the 18-49 demo fell 24% from 2017 and 47% from 2014. The 18-34 demo was down 29% from 2017 and 56% from 2014. Other awards shows, such as the Primetime Emmys and Grammys, have also faced recent ratings declines, but none nearly so steep. Disney-ABC executives had for years pressed the Academy to impose changes that would shorten the Oscar telecast and incorporate more widely recognized films. (The 2018 Oscars clocked in at an unwieldy 3 hours, 53 minutes; the nine best-picture nominees this year averaged $78.7 million at the U.S. box office.) But at the come-to-Jesus meeting after March’s show, the TV people walked through the lousy ratings at a granular level, identifying precise moments during the show that prompted viewers to stop watching. They made several recommendations about the ways that the telecast’s length could be reined in, and proposed a “best blockbuster” category that would reward films that had been seen by larger audiences. They also argued that viewers had become fatigued by the ever-increasing number of televised awards shows — including the Golden Globe Awards, whose viewership has been relatively stable in recent years — and that the Oscars should be moved to an early calendar period. Related Analysis: 'Roseanne' Without Roseanne Would've Been a Tough Sell 'NYPD Blue' Pilot at ABC Adds Rick Gomez in Series Regular Role Academy officials acknowledged that the ratings situation was dire. At a meeting several weeks ago, AMPAS board members discussed the changes proposed and pushed for by ABC. On Tuesday night, the board voted to move the Oscars up to Feb. 9, 2020; to cap the telecast length at three hours by moving several awards categories into commercial breaks; and to create a “popular film” category, the criteria for which has not yet been divulged. ABC has not commented on the changes. But sources at the network expressed relief Wednesday that the Academy had finally taken action. The Oscars telecast is the biggest piece of event programming for the Alphabet — the only one of the Big Four broadcasters without an NFL package, and thus lacking the boost that its competitors get from television’s most powerful driver of live viewing. Network insiders were also unmoved Wednesday by evident social-media backlash to the announcement, particularly to the addition of the popular film category, noting that changes to longstanding institutions such as the Oscars often yield complaints, and predicting that audiences would ultimately embrace the new format. The Oscar changes came just two days after the Big Four and the Television Academy announced a new deal for telecast rights to the annual Primetime Emmy Awards. The networks and the TV Academy had wrangled over similar issues, with broadcasters pushing to move several Emmy categories out of the telecast. Both sides agreed to effectively punt on proposed telecast changes, however, and revisit them in 2019. With a new format locked in, the Academy is expected to next turn to naming producers and a host for the 2019 Oscars. Sources told Variety on Wednesday that no conversations have taken place with Michael De Luca and Jennifer Todd, who produced the last two telecasts, or with Jimmy Kimmel, who hosted the last two years. RELATED VIDEO:

– And the winner is … not the new Oscars category. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced a slew of changes last month to its annual awards show, among them a new "outstanding achievement in popular film" category meant to reward films perhaps not critically acclaimed but still able to draw big crowds. Not many details on voting or eligibility came with the announcement, but it was enough to cause an outcry, and that outcry has made an impact. Per the Hollywood Reporter, the academy said Thursday the new category will be postponed and won't debut at the 91st awards show on Feb. 24 so it can "examine and seek additional input." The group said in a statement that "the Academy recognized that implementing any new award nine months into the year creates challenges for films that have already been released," the BBC reports. But it wasn't just the timing that rankled some. The announcement met resistance from detractors who said hit movies that are also critically acclaimed—chief among them Black Panther—could lose steam for a best picture award if they were also thrown into the "popular" film category. Advocates for the move say it would spur more of the general public to watch the awards show, which has seen a nearly 40% viewership decline over the past four years. The New York Times' sources say that at a Tuesday night meeting of the academy's 54-member board, Laura Dern was steadfast in her opposition to the new category; Steven Spielberg, who is described as a board member with "enormous influence," was reportedly "uncomfortable with plans to introduce [it] at the coming Oscars."

It has been 30 years since Germany's Stern magazine ran what it thought was the scoop of the century, stunning the world with the claim that it had found Adolf Hitler's diaries. Lots of them, in fact. The reporter who unearthed them, Gerd Heidemann, acquired 62 volumes for 9.3 million deutsche marks ($6.1 million) from Konrad Kujau, an antiques dealer and painter. What happened next is history. The diaries turned out to have been penned not by Hitler but by Kujau, Stern took years to recover from the embarrassment, Heidemann spent time in jail for embezzlement and Kujua was jailed for fraud. But now Heidemann wants the diaries back, citing a clause in his original contract with Stern's publisher, Gruner & Jahr, that states that the original manuscripts would be handed back to him 10 years after they had been published. "If I had the financial means, I would sue the publisher for their release. I can only hope that the publisher will honor the contract," Heidemann told Bild newspaper on Tuesday. Heidemann could not be reached for comment. An Amusing Read Gruner & Jahr said it still has most of the volumes, and that some are on display in a history museum in Bonn and will go on show at Hamburg's police museum, Bild reported. Heidemann said that if he got the diaries, he would make them available to Germany's national archive. It is unclear what price the forged diaries could fetch if they were sold. Some of them make for entertaining reading. Kujau's Hitler wrote this passage about his girlfriend Eva Braun, for example: "I've really got to have a serious talk with Eva. She thinks that a man who leads Germany can take as much time as he wants for private matters." An entry dated June 1935 reads: "Eva now has two dogs, so she won't get bored." One entry during the 1936 Berlin Olympics reads: "Eva wants to come to the Games in Berlin, have had tickets delivered to her and her girlfriends. Hope my stomach cramps don't return during the Games." ||||| DPA Better days: Heidemann at a news conference on April 25, 1983, holding up one of the diaries. It would have been the greatest scoop of 20th century, if only it had been true. In April 1983, German reporter Gerd Heidemann, smiling triumphantly and squinting at the flashguns of the world's press, declared that he had found Adolf Hitler's diaries. For a few weeks he lived every reporter's dream -- global attention, the respect and accolades of his peers, the promise of a prosperous life in the limelight. But the 60 volumes he had acquired for $5 million from Konrad Kujau, an antiques dealer and painter, on behalf of Stern magazine, soon turned out to be forgeries. The fakes were good enough to fool a number of experts, but scientific tests betrayed them two weeks after Stern had started publishing excerpts with the proud claim that history would have to be rewritten. Heidemann was convicted of embezzlement after being accused of billing the magazine for more than the diaries actually cost. He spent time in jail and today lives alone in a cramped Hamburg apartment on €350 a month with €700,000 of debts. Now 76, he is shunned by former colleagues who have not forgiven him for one of of the greatest media debacles of all time. "I was the big scapegoat for them. They all ganged up on me. There was a lot of envy and schadenfreude involved," he told the newspaper Bild in an interview published on Tuesday. "At last star reporter Heidemann had made a mistake." Contacted by SPIEGEL ONLINE on Tuesday, Heidemann declined to comment, saying he has an exclusive contract to talk only to Bild this week. The diaries had been written by Kujau, who said he'd acquired them from a contact in then-communist East Germany. Heidemann always maintained that he was fooled by Kujau, who spent three years in jail for his fraud and who thrived after his release, becoming a media celebrity with regular appearances on chat shows where he would display his signature-forging skills. Kujau died in 2000. While writing the diaries, Kujau drew on his own knowledge, on history books and his impressions of what it must have been like to be a dictator. The result was so banal in parts that it seems astonishing, in hindsight, that anyone could have believed they were genuine. For example, the diaries included passages on Hitler's relationship with girlfriend Eva Braun, who didn't understand how hard he had to work. "I've really got to have a serious talk with Eva. She thinks that a man who leads Germany can take as much time as he wants for private matters," wrote Kujau's Hitler. Most of the diaries remain in Stern's vaults and some choice passages were published five years ago, on the occasion of the fiasco's 20th anniversary. An entry dated June 1935 reads: "Eva now has two dogs, so she won't get bored." Here's one from December 1938: "Now a year is nearly over. Have I achieved my goals for the Reich? Save for a few small details, yes!" One entry during the 1936 Berlin Olympics reads: "Eva wants to come to the Games in Berlin, have had tickets delivered to her and her girlfriends. Hope my stomach cramps don't return during the Games." Heidemann, once an avid collector of Nazi memorabilia who even acquired Hermann Goering's yacht "Carin II," spends his days sorting files gathered over the years prior to 1983 when he travelled the world covering major stories for Stern. "Almost everyone who wanted to finish me is dead," he told Bild. "But I'm still alive." cro ||||| Thirty years after publishing what it believed were Hitler's diaries, German news magazine Stern said Tuesday it would hand over what it still owns of the forgeries to the country's state archive, making them accessible to the public. Stern unveiled on April 25th, 1983 excerpts from more than 60 notebooks purportedly written by the Nazi leader in a supposed world exclusive, but a few days later the diaries were found to be forgeries."The forged diaries are a part of the history of Stern. We don't want to get rid of them but deal with them appropriately and, above all, objectively," Stern chief editor Dominik Wichmann said in a written statement.It was the federal archive in Koblenz in western Germany as well as federal criminal police who had detected the forgery three decades ago, according to Stern.The incident became one of the biggest German post-war media scandals.Stern reporter Gerd Heidemann presented 62 notebooks supposedly written by Hitler between 1932 and 1945, for which the magazine had paid 9.3 million deutschmarks (around €4.7 million today).But they turned out to have been the work of forger Konrad Kujau, and he and Heidemann were prosecuted and sentenced to around four years in prison each for the fraud."We're rendering all the diaries that are still in the safekeeping of the publishing company," said Stern spokeswoman Franziska Kipper.Other parts of the forged diaries held by other institutions, such as the Cartier Foundation in Paris or the House of History in Bonn, will stay where they are and are unaffected by Stern's decision, she said.The magazine wants to respect a 30-year deadline after which state documents normally become accessible for public scrutiny, it said."The forged Hitler diaries are documents of contemporary history. They are safest in the federal archive," the archive's head Michael Hollmann was quoted as saying in the Stern statement.

– Botched exclusives are clearly not a 21st-century invention: Germany's Stern magazine stepped in it big time in 1983, when it published passages from Hitler's never-before-seen diaries. Except the 62 notebooks, which the magazine paid about $6 million for in today's dollars, were fakes. Konrad Kujau, the forger behind them, got a jail sentence; on Tuesday, some of the notebooks got a final home, reports the New York Times. Stern turned its volumes over to the country's Federal Archives, honoring the 30-year time frame in which state documents are to be made accessible to the public—even though these documents turned out to be more a part of media history than Nazi history. The Local notes that not all the diaries had been in Stern's possession; Paris' Cartier Foundation has some, for instance, and will retain them. Quirky side note No. 1: Experts from the Federal Archives were among those to ultimately determine that the notebooks were fakes. Among the giveaways: The ink, paper, and glue they were made with were dated to the postwar period. And No. 2: Earlier this month, the reporter who "found" the diaries requested he get them back, per a clause in his contract with the magazine. Der Speigel notes that Gerd Heidemann, who was convicted of embezzlement over the price he charged the magazine for the diaries, has always asserted Kujau fooled him.

Elan Gale later revealed on Twitter that this fight was a hoax. Click here for more. Thanksgiving - a time for sharing the love? Not so for these two flyers who engaged in a bitter war of words at 30,000-feet — before it ended with a slap and near police prosecution at the airport. LA TV producer Elan Gale enthralled his Twitter followers Thursday when he used the micro-blogging site to take-down an apparently nasty woman on board his flight to Phoenix. Gale sends a nasty note to the woman causing a disturbance on the flight. (theyearofelan via Tiwtter) The entire exchange was recorded in real-time by Buzzfeed. Gale, who claims to be a producer on ABC's The Bachelor, first tweeted at 11 a.m. after being told his plane would be taking off late. But he went into overdrive after finally boarding the craft — and on hearing a woman several rows behind consistently complaining about the delay. The war of words escalates. (theyearofelan via Tiwtter) Our flight is delayed. A woman on here is very upset because she has Thanksgiving plans. She is the only one obviously. Praying for her — elan gale (@theyearofelan) November 28, 2013 "She's telling the flight attendants that it is Thanksgiving. She wants them to know she wants to have dinner with her family," he added. Gale launches into a profanity-laced response to one of Diane’s nasty replies. (theyearofelan via Tiwtter) "The male flight attendant said 'I understand ma'am. I'm looking forward to seeing my family too.' She responded 'This isn't about you,'" Gale continued to tweet. She had to sit down because we took off. She has been muttering "about DAMN time" and I can hear her breathing from 5 rows back — elan gale (@theyearofelan) November 28, 2013 After several more posts, and by now up in the air, Gale decided to send the woman a glass of red wine along with a note. The 30-year-old Gale got his start as a producer on the reality shows ‘Cookin’ with Coolio’ and ‘Coolio’s Rules.’ (theyearofelan via Tiwtter) "Dear Lady in 7A, It has come to my attention that today is your 'Thanksgiving!' It must be hard to not be with your family. Please accept this glass of wine. It is a gift from me to you," he wrote. "Hopefully if you drink it, you won't be able to use your mouth to talk. Love Elan," he added. The male flight attendant refused to deliver the "gift," so Gale handed it over himself. Gale shows off the note that he received from his sparring partner. (theyearofelan via Tiwtter) "Oh my God I did it. I walked as if I was going to the bathroom and I leaned over and put them on her tray table and walked away Oh my God," he posted online. The woman, clearly incensed, struck back with her own message. "Dear 'Elan,' The wine wasn't funny. The vodka wasn't funny. You're an awful person with no compassion. I'm sorry for your family that they should have to deal with you. — Diane," she replied. Elan Gale, a producer on ABC's 'The Bachelor' got into a fight with a fellow passenger on a flight on Thanksgiving Day and detailed the argument on Twitter. (theyearofelan via Tiwtter) "This means war," Gale posted, before revealing "Diane" was "in her late 40s or early 50s" and was "wearing mom jeans and a studded belt." Another note was passed over to her, which read: "Dear Diane, Thank you for your lovely note. The person who lacks compassion is you." It added: "We all want to get home, particularly the nice men and women who fly your lazy ass around and serve you drinks (you're welcome!) Gale received a slap in the face at the gate from the woman identified only as Diane - but declined to press charges. (theyearofelan via Tiwtter) And he ended: "Next time you're in a bad mood, stay home. I hate you very much. Eat my d***. Love Elan." Diane fired back with another message, threatening to contact the cops on landing. Gale just couldn't let it go, however, and replied: "Dear Diane. When you speak to the authorities, please make sure they arrest you for cannibalism because you just ate my d***! Love Elan." Back on firm ground at Phoenix, she walked up and slapped Gale straight in the face. A gate agent detained Diane and asked Gale if he wanted her to be arrested. Gale said he didn't — but revealed he was "overjoyed" to learn she'd missed her connecting flight to Sacramento. He then had one last message, which read: "Diane, allow me to introduce myself. I am TheYearOfElan. Look me up online. read every tweet. "Read every response. And maybe next time you'll be nice to people who are just trying to help. PS Eat my d***. Love Elan." ||||| As some of you know, I had a bit of an altercation today with a woman named Diane on an airplane. I had a great time antagonizing her, reading your responses, and just generally trying to have fun with an irritating person. But I did have a point and I just want to put it out there. I know I can come across as abrasive. I know I can seem harsh. But what I’ve never done is be unkind to a person in a service position. My first job was in a video store. I rewinded tapes and put them back on the shelves. I was a caterer. I put ravioli into divided plates and cut bagels in half for hours at a time. The difference between someone being nice and someone being mean was the difference in how I felt when I went home that night. I don’t care what’s going on with you: Don’t be rude to people who are doing their job. Don’t do it. Don’t dismiss them. Don’t act like they are less than you. Don’t abuse them just because you’re the customer and “The Customer Is Always Right.” If you’re the customer, you’re only right if you’re kind, polite and positively thankful. If you’re not, you’re a jerk, and that’s the bottom line. A lot of people have been really nice to me and called me a hero today. It’s really fun to hear but it’s not true. Our troops are heroes. Fire fighters and policemen are heroes. Doctors and teachers are heroes. Flight attendants and pilots and waiters and baristas… These are the people that make things work in this crazy world. What I did today was just point out something we all know: Be nice. It’s Thanksgiving. Be nice. Be nice everyday, but if you see a man or a woman working on a holiday you better respect that they would like to be with their family too. So have some compassion and have some appreciation. Most people do. Most people are great. And then there are a bunch of Diane’s in the world. And it’s OUR job to tell every Diane to shut up. It’s OUR duty to put the Diane’s of the world in their place. We need to REMIND them about the way of things. We outnumber them. So, I’m really glad we had fun today, but I really hope you guys join me, look a jerk in the eye, and tell them to eat a piece of your body, because really, that’s what the holidays are all about. ||||| Let me just say this: What started off as an annoyance became a pleasure because of you people. Seriously. More than anything. I love you ||||| ABC's "Bachelor" and "Bachelorette" producer Elan Gale was on a flight yesterday live-tweeting his feud with a fellow passenger. According to Gale's tweets, which were picked up by Buzzfeed's Rachel Zarrell, a female passenger was complaining that she might not make it home for Thanksgiving dinner. She seemed to be oblivious to others on the flight, who also needed to get home to their families for Thanksgiving. The battle began before the flight boarded. Gale tweeted about the woman at 11:05 a.m. Our flight is delayed. A woman on here is very upset because she has Thanksgiving plans. She is the only one obviously. Praying for her — elan gale (@theyearofelan) November 28, 2013 A flight attendant tried to calm her down, which was apparently the wrong move. The male flight attendant said "I understand ma'am. I'm looking forward to seeing my family too." She responded "This isn't about you" — elan gale (@theyearofelan) November 28, 2013 "Today is Thanksgiving! I'm supposed to be with my family. NOT with you people I barely know!" — elan gale (@theyearofelan) November 28, 2013 Once the plane boarded, Gale said he could hear her breathing deeply and muttering from a few rows back. That's when the note-passing war began. He sent her a glass of wine and later two vodka nips with this note: I sent the lady a glass of wine and a note pic.twitter.com/GttnmQI25P — elan gale (@theyearofelan) November 28, 2013 This was not well received by the woman, Diane. She sent Gale this response, pitying the family who has to "deal" with him: Gale retaliated with yet another note and escalated the language: My response to "Diane" in 7A pic.twitter.com/cRN2togLdq — elan gale (@theyearofelan) November 28, 2013 Diane replied, noting its inappropriate nature: Gale responded again with a vulgar comment: My final (I think) note to Diane in 7A pic.twitter.com/SLrOug9U4d — elan gale (@theyearofelan) November 28, 2013 When the plane landed, Gale waited for Diane to get off the plane and held out a final note. When she saw him, Gale says she smacked him. She walked right up to me and slapped me immediately in the face — elan gale (@theyearofelan) November 28, 2013 Diane may have ended up missing her connecting flight because she smacked him, while Gale was able to board his. The gate agent for the next flight actually grabbed her and held her back. He asked me if I wanted to have the airport police come over — elan gale (@theyearofelan) November 28, 2013 The final note he handed her read: "Look me up online. Read every tweet. Read every response. And maybe next time you'll be nice to people who are just trying to help" — elan gale (@theyearofelan) November 28, 2013 Yesterday afternoon, Gale wrote a blog post explaining why he felt the need to pick a fight with Diane. "I don’t care what’s going on with you: Don’t be rude to people who are doing their job," he wrote on Tumblr. "If you’re the customer, you’re only right if you’re kind, polite and positively thankful. If you’re not, you’re a jerk, and that’s the bottom line ... Be nice everyday, but if you see a man or a woman working on a holiday you better respect that they would like to be with their family too."

– Ah, the spirit of the season: The producer of ABC's Bachelor and Bachelorette apparently engaged in a bitter note-passing war with a woman who complained about their flight being delayed, Business Insider reports via BuzzFeed. "Today is Thanksgiving!" she cried, according to producer Elan Gale's Twitter feed. "I'm supposed to be with my family. NOT with you people I barely know!" Miffed, Gale sent her a glass of wine (and later two vodkas) with a note saying, "Hopefully if you drink it, you won't be able to use your mouth to talk! Love, Elan." Well, the notes got worse from there. A few excerpts, courtesy of photos on Gale's feed: Diane to Elan: "The wine wasn't funny. The vodka wasn't funny; you're an awful person with no compassion. I'm sorry for your family that they should have to deal with you." Elan to Diane: "Thank you for your lovely note. The person who lacks compassion is you. ... Next time you're in a bad mood, stay home." (This note suggests that she eat something we'd rather not mention.) Diane to Elan: "This is inappropriate beyond belief. I will be speaking to the authorities when we land." Gale claims that after they landed he tried to give her yet another note, and she slapped his face. Gale declined to have her arrested but later said he was "overjoyed" to hear she'd missed her connecting flight, the Daily News reports. Gale later posted a blog admitting that he can seem abrasive or harsh, "but what I've never done is be unkind to a person in a service position. My first job was in a video store."

Photo Advertisement Continue reading the main story WARREN, Mich. — A sweeping internal investigation of General Motors released on Thursday condemned the company for its decade-long failure to fix a deadly safety defect, one that led to “devastating consequences,” including at least 13 deaths. The report, written by the former United States attorney Anton R. Valukas, set off the dismissal of 15 G.M. employees, including a vice president for regulatory affairs and a senior lawyer responsible for product liability cases, and forced broad changes in how the company handles vehicle safety. The report illustrates in unsparing detail how employees across departments neglected for years to repair a defect and issue a recall, despite a mountain of evidence that lives were at risk. “Although everyone had responsibility to fix the problem, nobody took responsibility,” Mr. Valukas wrote. A chastened Mary T. Barra, G.M.’s chief executive, described the report as “deeply troubling” in a meeting with more than 1,000 employees at the company’s sprawling technical center in the Detroit suburb of Warren. “For those of us who have dedicated our lives to this company, it is enormously painful to have our shortcomings laid out so vividly,” said Ms. Barra, who has worked at G.M. for more than 30 years. “I was deeply saddened and disturbed as I read the report.” Yet the report cleared Ms. Barra and her top lieutenants, like Michael Millikin, the general counsel, of any wrongdoing in the long-delayed recall. And there was no evidence of a deliberate cover-up of the switch problems, according to Mr. Valukas. “It seems like the best report money can buy,” said Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut, who had been highly critical of Ms. Barra at a hearing in April. “It absolves upper management, denies deliberate wrongdoing and dismisses corporate culpability.” Mr. Valukas’s three-month investigation included a review of millions of documents and interviews with at least 230 people, many of whom were employees directly involved in G.M.’s failure to fix a faulty ignition switch that could cause vehicles to lose power and deactivate air bags. Advertisement Continue reading the main story Since February, G.M. has recalled 2.6 million Chevrolet Cobalts and other small cars to fix the defect, which the company so far links to 13 deaths and 54 accidents. But Ms. Barra admitted that the tally of deaths, injuries and crashes could grow in the weeks ahead, as the compensation expert Kenneth R. Feinberg prepares a report on how G.M. will make restitution to accident victims and their families. Ms. Barra said the company had dismissed 15 employees as a result of the report, and disciplined five others — highly unusual in an industry where such purges have been rare. She declined to provide details about the actions, but said that more than half of those who left the company held senior-level positions. Among them were Michael J. Robinson, a vice president for global regulatory affairs, and William Kemp, a top lawyer who oversaw product-related litigation, according to a person briefed on the moves. Advertisement Continue reading the main story Those dismissed also included two safety executives, Gay Kent and Carmen Benavides, as well as two midlevel engineers, Raymond DeGiorgio and Gary Altman, both of whom had previously been suspended for neglecting to address the switch problem in its early stages. “I never want to put this behind us,” Ms. Barra told employees. “I want to keep this painful experience in our collective memories.” Continue reading the main story Video The report offered an extraordinary window into a company where employees avoided responsibility with a “G.M. salute” — arms crossed and pointing fingers at others — and the “G.M. nod,” which Ms. Barra described in the report as “the nod as an empty gesture.” The report also lays bare a bureaucracy that appeared to stun Mr. Valukas. “The Cobalt ignition switch passed through an astonishing number of committees,” he wrote. “But determining the identity of any actual decision-maker was impenetrable.” The investigation also documents how G.M. kept many internal discussions secret because of legal ramifications. “A number of G.M. employees reported they did not take notes at all at critical safety meetings because they believed G.M. lawyers did not want notes taken,” the report said. The defective switch — a tiny part hidden inside the steering column of the recalled vehicles — has already taken an immense toll on the company’s finances and reputation. Since the switch recall, G.M. has issued dozens of additional recalls to fix various problems on vehicles throughout its product lineup. The company has set aside $1.7 billion to pay for the repairs, appointed a new executive to supervise vehicle safety and begun a wide-ranging shake-up of its engineering department. Still, G.M.’s most delicate task lies ahead — arriving at the exact number of fatalities and injuries caused by the faulty switch, and compensating the victims. Those decisions, Ms. Barra and another senior executive, Daniel Ammann, told reporters, would be left up to Mr. Feinberg, as well as the amount of money that G.M. would pay for individual deaths and injuries. Mr. Feinberg said Thursday that he hoped to complete his recommendations for the compensation program within a few weeks, and to be prepared to receive claims from victims and their families in August. “I have already drafted some preliminary compensation ideas and plan to share them in confidence over the next few weeks with lawyers, public interest groups, G.M. and others interested in the compensation program,” he said. G.M. has not released the names of any accident victims, citing a desire to protect their privacy. But some family members of victims, as well as people injured in crashes, have spoken out. Candice Anderson was driving a Saturn Ion equipped with a defective switch in 2004 when it crashed in Texas, killing her boyfriend, Gene Erickson. Continue reading the main story The Fault in the Cobalt Ignition Switch At the heart of the G.M. recall of 2.6 million Chevy Cobalts and other models was a tiny metal pin called the detent plunger, which would normally serve to hold the ignition in the “run” position. Plastic DisC DETENTS How the Detent Plunger Works When the ignition key is turned, it rotates a plastic disc inside the ignition switch. A small metal part, called the detent plunger, slides into notches, or “detents,” in the plastic disc. This is what should hold the switch in either the “run” or the “accessory” position. Detent plunger Chevrolet Cobalt Ignition Switch SHAFT CIRCUIT BOARD IGNITION SWITCH SHAFT HOUSING KEY CYLINDER Problem 1 Early model detent plungers were slightly too short, so the plastic disc could slip out of “run” and back into the “accessory” position, causing the car to stall. Problem 2 The problem was made worse by a key that had a wide slot. A heavy key ring swaying in this slot, or jostled by a knee, could pull the key out of run, into the “accessory” position. The Result If the ignition were switched off while the car was in motion, as could happen in the faulty Chevy Cobalts, the main computer controlling the airbags would stop working after one or two seconds. If the car crashed after that period, then the airbags would not deploy. Detent plunger 5.9 mm. 2005 MODEL YEAR FORCE 7.0 mm. 2007 AND LATER MODELS Spring longer and tighter WEIGHT OF KEY RING Detent plunger longer Plastic DisC DETENTS How the Detent Plunger Works When the ignition key is turned, it rotates a plastic disc inside the ignition switch. A small metal part, called the detent plunger, slides into notches, or “detents,” in the plastic disc. This is what should hold the switch in either the “run” or the “accessory” position. Detent plunger Chevrolet Cobalt Ignition Switch SHAFT CIRCUIT BOARD IGNITION SWITCH SHAFT HOUSING KEY CYLINDER Problem 1 Early model detent plungers were slightly too short, so the plastic disc could slip out of “run” and back into the “accessory” position, causing the car to stall. Problem 2 The problem was made worse by a key that had a wide slot. A heavy key ring swaying in this slot, or jostled by a knee, could pull the key out of run, into the “accessory” position. The Result If the ignition were switched off while the car was in motion, as could happen in the faulty Chevy Cobalts, the main computer controlling the airbags would stop working after one or two seconds. If the car crashed after that period, then the airbags would not deploy. Detent plunger 5.9 mm. 2005 MODEL YEAR FORCE 7.0 mm. 2007 AND LATER MODELS Spring longer and tighter WEIGHT OF KEY RING Detent plunger longer How the Detent Plunger Works When the ignition key is turned, it rotates a plastic disc inside the ignition switch. A small metal part, called the detent plunger, slides into notches, or “detents,” in the plastic disc. This is what should hold the switch in either the “run” or the “accessory” position. DETENTS Plastic DisC Detent plunger Chevrolet Cobalt Ignition Switch SHAFT CIRCUIT BOARD IGNITION SWITCH SHAFT HOUSING KEY CYLINDER Problem 1 Early model detent plungers were slightly too short, so the plastic disc could slip out of “run” and back into the “accessory” position, causing the car to stall. Detent plunger 5.9 mm. 2005 MODEL YEAR 7.0 mm. 2007 AND LATER Spring longer and tighter Detent plunger longer Problem 2 The problem was made worse by a key that had a wide slot. A heavy key ring swaying in this slot, or jostled by a knee, could pull the key out of run, into the “accessory” position. FORCE WEIGHT OF KEY RING The Result If the ignition were switched off while the car was in motion, as could happen in the faulty Chevy Cobalts, the main computer controlling the airbags would stop working after one or two seconds. If the car crashed after that period, then the airbags would not deploy. Ms. Anderson took a day off work on Thursday to watch Ms. Barra’s remarks on television. “I’m glad they’re taking responsibility,” she said. “They’re saying it was their fault.” Advertisement Continue reading the main story Advertisement Continue reading the main story But despite the depth and breadth of Mr. Valukas’s critique of the company, some of G.M.’s critics were not satisfied with the report, or with Ms. Barra’s apologies. “I’m not sure I can trust G.M. to do a thorough internal investigation of itself,” said Laura Christian, birth mother of Amber Marie Rose, who died in a Cobalt in 2005. “I hope the Department of Justice is able to uncover the entire truth.” G.M. still faces investigations by the Justice Department, the Securities and Exchange Commission and a group of state attorneys general. Mr. Blumenthal and other lawmakers are expected to grill Ms. Barra and Mr. Valukas soon at another round of congressional hearings. At two contentious hearings in April, Ms. Barra declined to answer many questions because the internal investigation was still in progress. “Without question, she should be back in the witness chair,” Mr. Blumenthal said. Even after receiving the report, Ms. Barra was hard-pressed to explain why so many employees failed to resolve a safety issue for so many years. While she attributed the delay to a “pattern of incompetence and neglect,” Mr. Valukas went even further. “Throughout the entire 11-year odyssey, there was no demonstrated sense of urgency, right to the very end,” he wrote. The report is yet another humbling experience for G.M., which five years ago had to file for bankruptcy and receive a $49.5 billion government bailout. Now the carmaker, once the pride of industrial America, has admitted that it built unsafe cars that killed people — and did nothing for years to prevent it. “We failed these customers,” Ms. Barra said. “We must face up to it and learn from it.” ||||| WARREN, Mich. (AP) — GM CEO Mary Barra says 15 employees have been fired over the company's recent ignition switch recalls. (Click Prev or Next to continue viewing images.) ADVERTISEMENT (Click Prev or Next to continue viewing images.) FILE - This Friday, May 16 2014 file photo shows the General Motors logo at the company's world headquarters in Detroit. General Motors plans to release the results of an outside attorney's investigation... (Associated Press) Barra made the announcement Thursday as she released an internal investigation into the recall of 2.6 million older small cars for defective ignition switches. Barra called the internal investigation into its recent ignition switch recall is "brutally tough and deeply troubling." It took GM more than a decade to report the switch failures, which it blames for 13 deaths. In a town hall meeting at GM's suburban Detroit technical center, Barra says attorney Anton Valukas interviewed 230 employees and reviewed 41 million documents to produce the report, which makes recommendations to avoid future safety problems. THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below. ||||| General Motors CEO Mary Barra appears onstage during a launch event for new Chevrolet cars before the New York Auto Show in New York April 15, 2014. WARREN Mich. (Reuters) - General Motors Co on Thursday issued a report detailing how for 11 years it turned a blind eye to an ignition-switch problem linked to at least 13 deaths but largely pinned the blame on what the report described as incompetent lower-level employees, leaving top brass untouched. The report, which will be the subject of upcoming congressional hearings, describes shortcomings of GM engineers, including a failure to understand "how the car was built." Meanwhile, according to the 325-page report, the highest levels of the company were not made aware. Providing a rare peek into the operations of one of the world's biggest automotive companies, the internal investigation said GM had a long-running corporate culture in which nobody took responsibility for problems. The "GM nod" was how CEO Mary Barra described that culture, "when everyone nods in agreement to a proposed plan of action, but then leaves the room and does nothing," the document said. In February, GM finally began recalling vehicles for repairs. So far, 2.6 million vehicles have been identified. This recall, coupled with others announced by GM this year, has cost the company about $1.7 billion so far. By 2011, three years before the recalls began, outside lawyers were warning GM's in-house counsel that they needed to act, the report said. Barra said 15 employees found to have "acted inappropriately" have been fired. She did not name all the individuals, but said more than half of them had been in senior or executive roles. During April congressional hearings, Barra was unable to answer many questions, saying the internal investigation would find answers. But at Thursday's news conference, she still left some questions unanswered, including why GM redesigned the flawed ignition switch but failed to follow normal procedures of assigning a new part number. That has led some critics to believe someone was covering up the change. Barra, who has served as CEO for about five months, said disciplinary action was taken against five others. Democratic Senator Edward Markey of Massachusetts, who is pushing legislation to clamp down on automaker defects, said of the GM report: "We need more than an accounting of past mistakes" and "an internal investigation alone is not nearly enough to ensure that a decade-long tragedy like this never happens again." Since early this year, the Detroit automaker has been enveloped in a scandal over why it took more than a decade to begin recalling low-cost Chevrolet Cobalts, Saturn Ions and other cars with ignition-switch problems that were causing them to stall during operation. Because of the engine stalls, air bags failed to deploy during crashes - some of them fatal - and drivers had difficulty operating their vehicles because power steering and brake systems also malfunctioned. "As years passed and fatalities mounted, engineers investigating the non-deployments and attempting to understand their cause were neither diligent nor incisive," the GM report said. Also infused through the document is the notion that GM engineers misdiagnosed the safety problem by failing to connect dots that would have linked the cars' system failures. But at the same time, GM "heard over and over from various quarters, including customers, dealers, the press and their own employees that the car's ignition switch led to moving stalls" but employees "failed to take action or acted too slowly." RISING CRASH COUNT Some new details also emerged about fatalities related to GM's cars. The report said GM had identified 54 frontal-impact crashes, involving the deaths of more than a dozen people, in which air bags did not deploy as a possible result of the faulty ignition switch. Only last week, GM raised the count to 47, from 35, and has now raised it again, leading to questions about whether the 13 deaths linked to the defect will grow, as consumer advocates have predicted. As expected, Barra also confirmed that GM will soon set up a fund to compensate victims of crashes linked to the faulty ignition switches. GM officials told reporters that the number of fatalities related to the part defect may rise but added that Kenneth Feinberg, who is looking into victim compensation, will determine that number. Reuters reported on Monday that at least 74 people have died in crashes similar to those GM has linked to the faulty switches, based on an analysis of government data. Central to the GM investigation, as well as probes by the U.S. Congress, Department of Justice and other federal and state agencies, is why the automaker did not announce vehicle recalls to fix the problem until this past February. GM said its investigation, conducted over 70 days, reviewed 41 million documents and more than 230 people were interviewed. CONSUMERS NOT PUNISHING GM The move to spare the highest executives from blame drew some sharp criticism. “How do you truly fix a culture of carelessness and cover-up without cutting the head off the snake?” said Robert Hilliard, a lawyer for a plaintiff in a lawsuit against GM related to the ignition-switch defect. Barra previewed the report at the company's technical center in Warren, Michigan, where she received a standing ovation from an estimated crowd of more than 1,000 employees. She emphasized that GM already has taken steps to beef up its internal safety operations. Her remarks were broadcast to GM's 220,000 workers globally. Despite all the negative publicity in recent months, GM sales have been robust. The Detroit automaker reported this week that U.S. sales in May were up 13 percent compared with a year ago, making for the best total sales since August 2008. While Barra noted a pattern of "incompetence and neglect" that she blamed on individuals who failed to "disclose critical pieces of information," she added that there was "no conspiracy by the corporation to cover up facts." Furthermore, Barra said the internal investigation "found no evidence that any employee made a trade-off between safety and cost" in failing to deal with the safety problem. The full report was made public on Thursday. 'DEEPLY DISTURBING' REPORT With the submission of GM's internal investigation, Congress is expected to announce a new round of hearings soon. Further details on a compensation fund for victims and their families are expected by early August. U.S. Representative Fred Upton, who chairs the House of Representatives' Energy and Commerce Committee, said the findings of GM's investigation were "deeply disturbing." Upton, of Michigan, added that his committee will continue its investigation with an eye on "what legislative remedies may be necessary.” Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut said the GM report "seems like the best report money can buy. It absolves upper management, denies deliberate wrongdoing and dismisses corporate culpability." The internal report concluded that Barra, executives who reported directly to her, the board of directors and former CEO Dan Akerson did not know about the defective switches before December. It also found that GM's general counsel, Michael Millikin, was not responsible for the mishandling of defects and the recall delay. Millikin, who led the internal probe with former U.S. prosecutor Anton Valukas, is still employed by GM, Barra said. More than one lawyer in GM’s legal department was fired as part of the 15 employees let go, including senior safety lawyer William Kemp, according to a source familiar with the matter who asked not to be named. A company spokesman declined to identify anyone fired beyond former engineers Ray DeGiorgio, who in 2002 dubbed the flawed part "the switch from hell," and Gary Altman. GM's use of Valukas came under withering attack because his law firm, Jenner & Block, has had ties to the company since 2002. Blumenthal, a former prosecutor, said those ties "undermine the credibility of this report" and underscored the need for federal investigations to press ahead. On May 16, GM was slapped with a $35 million fine for its delayed response to the defect, which is the maximum that can be imposed by the U.S. Department of Transportation. Also, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has been leveling a $7,000-per-day fine on GM for missing an April 3 deadline for fully responding to the agency's request for information about the ignition switch problem. These fines could be dwarfed, however, by potential actions the Justice Department could take. Earlier this year, Toyota Motor Corp was fined $1.2 billion for concealing problems related to sudden acceleration of some of its vehicles. The NHTSA said GM's probe appeared to support the agency's findings that company practices "stood in the way of safety at a time when airbags were failing to work properly in millions of GM products." (Additional reporting by Paul Lienert in Detroit and Marilyn Thompson, Susan Heavey and Karey Van Hall in Washington; Writing by Richard Cowan; editing by Lisa Von Ahn and Matthew Lewis) ||||| General Motors Co. (GM) blamed bureaucratic delays and a culture of incompetence for the botched handling of auto-safety complaints, and Chief Executive Officer Mary Barra ousted 15 employees for their roles in mishandling the recall of millions of fatally flawed vehicles. Barra announced the dismissals after the company released the results of an internal investigation into why it took GM more than a decade to identify problems with a defective ignition switch linked to 13 deaths. The probe, led by lawyer Anton Valukas, blamed a lack of urgency in the engineering and legal departments but didn’t reveal any conspiracy to cover up facts. Barra herself was held blameless. “This should have never happened,” Barra told about 1,000 employees at GM’s technical center in suburban Detroit. “It is simply unacceptable.” The report marks a pivotal moment in Barra’s efforts to change the automaker’s culture after the biggest legal and public-relations challenge since its government-backed bankruptcy in 2009. Still, Congress and the Justice Department continue to investigate GM, and some critics asked whether the Valukas report -- commissioned and paid for by the company -- is sufficiently impartial because it spared the top leadership. Source: General Motors, Steve Fecht General Motors Co. Chief Executive Officer Mary Barra speaks during an employee town hall meeting to reveal the findings of the company’s internal investigation into delays around the recall of 2.59 million small cars linked to at least 13 deaths is being telecast to all of the company’s operations around the world, including factories. Close General Motors Co. Chief Executive Officer Mary Barra speaks during an employee town... Read More Close Open Source: General Motors, Steve Fecht General Motors Co. Chief Executive Officer Mary Barra speaks during an employee town hall meeting to reveal the findings of the company’s internal investigation into delays around the recall of 2.59 million small cars linked to at least 13 deaths is being telecast to all of the company’s operations around the world, including factories. “I won’t be letting GM leadership, or federal regulators, escape accountability for these tragedies,” said Senator Claire McCaskill, who presided over an April 2 hearing in which Barra declined to answer many specific questions about what happened because the Valukas report wasn’t complete. “The families of those affected deserve no less.” More Hearings A follow-up hearing will address unanswered questions later this summer, the Missouri Democrat said. “I’m going to reserve judgment until I can take a closer look at the report -- which I expect to find comprehensive and thorough -- and I’m looking forward to getting a full briefing from Mr. Valukas,” she said. Representative Fred Upton, a Michigan Republican, said he plans to hold another hearing, too. GM’s crisis erupted in February with the recall of some vehicles no longer sold, including the Chevrolet Cobalt, that have a defective ignition switch that could be jarred into the “accessory” position, disabling power steering and preventing air bags from deploying. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has already fined GM $35 million, the maximum allowed, after finding systemic problems throughout the organization dealing with the recall. GM has already agreed with NHTSA to wide-ranging changes to how it reviews safety issues and decides on recalls. Photographer: Mark Wilson/Getty Images General Motors Company CEO Mary Barra speaks to the media after testifying during a House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing on Capitol Hill, on April 1, 2014 in Washington, DC. Close General Motors Company CEO Mary Barra speaks to the media after testifying during a... Read More Close Open Photographer: Mark Wilson/Getty Images General Motors Company CEO Mary Barra speaks to the media after testifying during a House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing on Capitol Hill, on April 1, 2014 in Washington, DC. Barra Cleared GM’s investigation confirmed Barra’s previous claims that she was previously unaware of the flawed switch. It also cleared GM’s top lawyer, Michael Millikin. Ray DeGiorgio, the engineer in charge of the flawed part, and Gary Altman, a program engineering manager, were ousted, said a person familiar with the matter. Bill Kemp, GM’s top lawyer on recalls, was also dismissed, said another person. Barra also announced a compensation program for victims and their families to be administered by Kenneth Feinberg, who ran similar funds for victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the 2010 BP oil spill. GM expects the program to cover the almost 2.6 million vehicles recalled with a potentially defective ignition switch. The program will begin accepting claims on Aug. 1, the company said. A quick resolution will allow Barra and her team to capitalize on rebounding profits and the strongest industrywide sales since the collapse of Lehman Brothers. GM slipped 0.7 percent to $36.27 at the close in New York. The shares slid 11 percent this year. ‘Deeply Troubling’ Valukas’ team interviewed more than 230 witnesses and collected more than 41 million documents. The volume of data was estimated at 23 terabytes, the report said. The report found that GM selected a switch that was below the company’s specification and that subsequent engineers tasked with fixing the problem didn’t understand the most fundamental consequences of the failure. It also details numerous missed opportunities over the years to address the issue. “From beginning to end, the story of the Cobalt is one of numerous failures leading to tragic results for many,” the Valukas report said. “Throughout the entire 11-year odyssey, there was no demonstrated sense of urgency, right to the very end. The officials overseeing the potential fixes and investigations did not set timetables, and did not demand action.” December Delay The report even noted that in December last year, GM’s recall committee deferred a decision to recall vehicles for another six weeks in order to gather more information “in part because the presentation provided to them failed to alert them to fatalities.” Outside attorneys warned the automaker as early as 2011 that failing to recall Cobalts could become a large liability, the report said. Barra said it was “enormously painful to have our shortcomings laid out so vividly” in the Valukas report. Senator Richard Blumenthal, however, called Valukas’s findings “the best report money can buy” and said it “absolves upper management, denies deliberate wrongdoing and dismisses corporate culpability.” Lance Cooper, a lawyer for crash victims, said the report can help draw out more details in civil cases. “It was disappointing that the emphasis in the remarks was, this was a case of incompetence and neglect, this was negligence on the part of company employees, but then highlighting the fact that she says there was no evidence of a trade-off in safety and cost.” Unusual Moves The Valukas report couldn’t rule out the effect of the company’s cost-cutting in early 2000s as the automaker headed toward eventual bankruptcy. While the investigation found no evidence that any employee made an “explicit trade-off between safety and cost,” the investigators couldn’t conclude that the atmosphere of cost cutting didn’t play a role. “When belts are tightened, most functions are impacted in some way and we cannot assume that safety was immune,” the report said. DeGiorgio, for example, held a position that was given added responsibilities to decrease engineering headcount, the report said. “Witnesses stated that the reduction in force created a difficult environment in which people were overworked and the quality of work suffered.” Barra noted throughout the day that the report didn’t find evidence that employees made a trade-off between cost and safety. Crisis History In February, GM recalled 778,562 Chevrolet Cobalt and Pontiac G5 sedans in North America. GM subsequently expanded its recalls to the Saturn Ion and other models, covering 2.59 million small cars, including almost a million that were assembled with a better switch that could’ve been replaced with faulty ones. The company had linked 13 deaths and 47 crashes to the issue as recently as May 24. The Valukas report increased the crash total to 54. The recalls came less than a year after GM settled a wrongful death lawsuit with the family of 29-year-old Brooke Melton, who died in 2010 when her 2005 Chevy Cobalt lost power in a crash linked to the defective switch. The lawsuit revealed that the faulty part had been changed at some point without the part number being changed. Records released in April by the House panel investigating GM show that DeGiorgio signed off on changing the ignition switch in 2006 and didn’t change its part number, effectively hiding the change and making it harder for future engineers to pinpoint the problem. Defending Car The Valukas investigation found that GM lawyer Kemp had worked to blunt a report of an upcoming Cleveland Plain Dealer story in 2005 about the Chevrolet Cobalt stalling, suggesting they give the columnist a videotape demonstrating the remoteness of the risk of it occurring. Another lawyer responded that she wasn’t optimistic they could come up with something compelling. “We can’t stand hearing, after the article is published, that we didn’t do enough to defend a brand new launch,” Kemp wrote in an e-mail timed 5:18 a.m. on June 23, 2005. The investigation also found that former CEO Rick Wagoner may have viewed a presentation that included a description of stalling issues with the Cobalt about three weeks before he was ousted by President Barack Obama’s automotive task force. The slide Wagoner may have seen focused exclusively on warranty costs and didn’t characterize the matter as a safety issue, the report said. GM, which has already announced about $1.7 billion in charges this year tied to recalls, today said it may see further related costs this quarter. The charges, which could be material, will be “unknown until we have completed our work,” according to slides posted on the automaker’s website. Senator Jay Rockefeller, the West Virginia Democrat, expressed admiration that Barra fired 15 people. “Not just one or two people, but 15,” he said. “She had to reach down into it.” To contact the reporters on this story: Tim Higgins in Warren, Michigan, at thiggins21@bloomberg.net; Jeff Green in Southfield, Michigan, at jgreen16@bloomberg.net; Jeff Plungis in Washington at jplungis@bloomberg.net To contact the editors responsible for this story: Jamie Butters at jbutters@bloomberg.net Niamh Ring

– General Motors is firing 15 people in connection with its deadly ignition switch scandal, but none of the heads rolling are those of senior executives. CEO Mary Barra today unveiled the results of the company's internal probe, and said that it found no evidence of an intentional cover-up of the defect, or of wrongdoing by the company's senior executives, the New York Times reports. Instead, Barra blamed the failure to report the flaw on bureaucratic issues and individual lower-level employees; she called the report "brutally tough and deeply troubling," notes the AP. Among those being fired are engineer Ray DeGiorgio (more on him here), and program engineering manager Gary Altman, Bloomberg reports. "From start to finish, the Cobalt saga was riddled with tragedy," Barra said. The probe backed up her assertion that she personally was unaware of the flaw until January. Before Barra even spoke some were criticizing the probe for shielding senior executives. "How do you truly fix a culture of carelessness and cover-up without cutting the head off the snake?" one lawyer representing ignition switch victims asked, according to Reuters.

In the wake of Ashley Judd’s tell-all book admitting she was sexually abused as a child, her famous mother also reveals her own shocking past—that she too was the victim of molestation, RadarOnline.com has learned. While chatting with the ladies of The View on Thursday to promote their upcoming OWN Network reality series, The Judds, Naomi held back tears alongside her oldest daughter Wynonna as she recalled her painful childhood memories. PHOTOS: Stars Who Look Like Other Stars “I never told a single soul until about two years ago we were sitting at our kitchen table with our therapist…and he asked me what was your first memory?” the Judd matriarch remembered. “And I said ‘well, it was being sexually abused is my first memory.’ PHOTOS: The Name Game - Celebs Who've Changed Their Names “He said, ‘why didn’t you tell your mother?’ and then I fell apart because I realized I didn’t trust my mother.” The youngest of the Judd siblings, Ashley, released her controversial memoir this week, All That Is Bitter & Sweet, detailing a childhood filled with abandonment, sexual abuse and uncertainty. PHOTOS: Celebrity Break-Ups So why didn’t Naomi wait so long to tell her family?: “The reason I didn’t tell anybody is that I grew up in a family of secrets…I realize now and I give my mother a break, but I didn’t trust my mother…” Naomi actually told Wynonna two years ago: “She told me on the tour…and I was really was a little resentful that the cameras were on because it’s such a personal thing, but I think we’re willing to step out on faith and hope that it helps someone else to tell someone because there is a lot of shame and secrecy and it shows that everyone in our family that this is affecting us and to watch out for the next generation.” PHOTOS: Stars Who Have Battled Eating Disorders In fact, all three famous family members were victims of abuse – and Wynnona even talked about how she’s coping: “I discussed it in my book…I haven’t faced him yet and I’m a work in progress…we’re a work in progress." The Judds premieres on the OWN Network April 10 at 9 p.m. PHOTOS: Stars Who Have Tattoos Of Their Lover's Name “You’ll see us in a way you’ve never see us before,” Wynonna said. “You can see the two of us coming together, it didn’t disconnect us, we survived it and we’re stronger for it.” The singing duo also put on a united family front as they addressed the recent revelations and lent their support to Ashley. PHOTOS: Celebs Who Have Battled Drinking Problems "We are just like every other family but ours is microscopically looked at and people are trying to almost pit us again each other," said Wynonna when asked what she thinks of the shocking statements made in her sister's book. "I wanted to come out today and say, listen, we agree to disagree in our family. But we show up because we support each other for who we are." PHOTOS: Terrible Teens: Too Sexy, Too Soon? When asked by Barbara Walters if she thinks her daughter was neglected, Naomi said; "In a way I do. The thing I want to acknowledge is that I adore my daughter, these two girls, my husband Larry are the joy of my life and I support Ashley." But the pair skirted around whether or not they believed Ashley’s allegations. PHOTOS: Plastic Surgery Disasters "We all have three different realities of the same car ride to the nightmares we were in," said Wynonna, who admits she has not read the controversial book. "And it’s her turn to tell her side of the story." RELATED STORIES: AUDIO: Ashley Judd Says Family Not Upset Over Tell-All Memoir EXCLUSIVE: Ashley Judd Slams P Diddy & Snoop Dogg In New Memoir EXCLUSIVE DETAILS: Ashley Judd's Painful Past: Rape & Drug Ordeal Revealed In Shocking Memoir ||||| Just days after Ashley Judd's bombshell admission in her new book that she was sexually abused as a child, her mother Naomi Judd reveals she too was abused, RadarOnline.com reports.While on 'The View' to promote her upcoming reality series, 'The Judds,' the country singer recalled the day two years ago that she first voiced what happened."I never told a single soul until about two years ago we were sitting at our kitchen table with our therapist...and he asked me what was your first memory?" Judd said. "And I said 'well, it was being sexually abused is my first memory.'""He said, 'why didn't you tell your mother?' and then I fell apart because I realized I didn't trust my mother," she continued.Naomi's daughter Wynonna, who joined her on 'The View,' shared how her mother told her. "She told me on the tour... and I was really was a little resentful that the cameras were on because it's such a personal thing, but I think we're willing to step out on faith and hope that it helps someone else to tell someone because there is a lot of shame and secrecy and it shows that everyone in our family that this is affecting us and to watch out for the next generation."

– Ashley Judd recently revealed in her memoir that she was sexually abused as a child—and now mother Naomi says the same thing happened to her, Radar reports. Yesterday on The View, Naomi says that she first revealed the abuse to her therapist two years ago, when he asked about her first memory. "And I said 'well, it was being sexually abused.'" She didn't tell anyone because "I didn’t trust my mother ... I grew up in a family of secrets." Click for more, including Wynonna's response.

Strikes and protests aimed at disrupting the retail giant Walmart during next week's Black Friday sales events began on Thursday with walk-outs at a number of stores and the promise of more actions in the lead-up to what is traditionally the busiest shopping day of the year. The news comes amid controversy about plans by Walmart and other large chains to open on Thanksgiving evening, kicking off Black Friday a day early. It also comes as another strike has hit part of Walmart's warehouse supply chain in southern California. At least 30 workers from six different Seattle-area Walmarts have gone on strike, organisers and Walmart staff from the OUR Walmart group said. The group, which is not a union but has close ties with the labour movement, is seeking to protest what it says is low pay, too few hours and retaliation by managers against workers who speak out. Seattle Walmart worker Sara Gilbert said she had taken the decision to go on strike to protest the fact that she could only make around $14,000 dollars a year. Despite working as a customer service manager, she said, her family remained reliant on food stamps and other benefits. "I work full time at the richest company in the world," she said. The Seattle strike is aimed at kickstarting a series of protests in the run-up to Black Friday, when more than a thousand separate demonstrations ranging from walk-outs to leafleting to flash mobs are planned. So far they are set to hit Walmart stores in Illinois, Texas, Louisiana, Florida, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Mississippi, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Washington DC. But organisers say they expect it eventually to be country-wide. "You are going to see unprecedented activity starting now and going into the holiday season. This is going to continue this year and next year," said Dan Schlademan, director of the union-backed Making Change at Walmart group which is helping organise the effort. Members of OUR Walmart are demanding better wages, better access to benefits and an end to what they say is retaliating against their members who protest or organise. Last month the group helped organise one of the biggest sets of protests to ever hit the retailer when workers held strikes at more than 12 different stores, earning national headlines across the US. Walmart has said that the complaints of OUR Walmart members represent only a tiny fraction of its huge workforce of 1.3 million people. "There have been a very small number of associates raising concerns about their jobs," said Walmart spokesman Steve Restivo. "When our associates bring forward concerns, we listen. Associates have direct lines of communication with their management team and we work to understand their concerns," he added. But the Black Friday protests are only one of several areas of controversy to hit Walmart in recent months. The company has also been struck by a series of strikes and protests in its warehouse supply chain, some of which is outsourced to third party logistics firms and staffing agencies. Those outside companies have been accused by some campaigners of poor safety standards, meagre wages and also retaliating against workers who complain. A group of warehouse workers at a Walmart supply chain warehouse in southern California have also launched a strike action this week following a previous protest in September. Some 30 workers held a picket outside a huge warehouse in Mira Loma, California, saying that previous strikers had been sacked or had their hours reduced. Javier Rodriguez, a forklift driver at the facility, said managers had drastically cut his hours after the last protest. "This is the form of retaliation that they use for me. It makes it hard to earn enough to feed my family and run my car," he said. The strike on Thursday saw six supporters of the protest, including a pastor, arrested after sitting down in the middle of a road in front of the warehouse. "This isn't just for warehouse workers. Your efforts benefit all working people," Reverand Eugene Boutilier told a group of supporters before being handcufffed by local police. The warehouse is run by logistics giant NFI but supplies goods only to Walmart. An NFI spokeswoman did not respond to a request for comment but the firm has said previously that it adheres to all legal labour standards. Meanwhile in Illinois, workers at another Walmart supply chain warehouse near the small town of Elwood filed charges to a state labour relations board alleging unfair practises by four different firms involved in the running and staffing of the warehouse. They also relate to claims of retaliation against workers who had previously gone on strike to protest an alleged practise of "wage theft" where employees are not paid for all the time they work. ||||| A group of Wal-Mart workers are planning to stage a walkout next week on Black Friday, arguably the biggest holiday shopping day for the world's largest retail store. The walkout builds on an October strike that started at a Wal-Mart (WMT) in Los Angeles and spread to stores in 12 other cities. More than 100 workers joined in the October actions. One of the workers who plans to join next week's walkout is William Fletcher, who works at a Wal-Mart in Duarte, Calif. Fletcher, who also participated in the October strikes, claims Wal-Mart cut his hours after he asked to move from the receiving department to another division because of a knee injury. He has since switched departments. "I kept asking myself, 'when is the retaliation for speaking our mind and acting on our rights going to stop?' " he said. Wal-Mart did not have an immediate comment in response to Fletcher's claim. The union-backed groups OUR Walmart and Making Change at Wal-Mart, and a watchdog group Corporate Action Network, are calling on the nation's largest employer to end what they call retaliation against employees who speak out for better pay, fair schedules and affordable health care. Related: Wal-Mart's biggest blunders On Black Friday, the organizations expect 1,000 protests, both at stores and online. A Wal-Mart spokeswoman said the number of workers who are raising concerns is very small and don't represent the views of the vast majority of its workforce of 1.3 million. But labor experts say that even a small number of workers could make an impact. "Even if there aren't that many people, it could have an effect, because their campaign in front of stores could discourage shoppers," said Ken Margolies, senior associate at the Worker Institute a Cornell University. The strike could have an even greater impact if workers from its supply centers participate, according to Margolies. He said it could impede distribution of merchandise on what is usually the busiest day of the year. Organizers have planned a social medial blitz, mobilizing workers through Facebook pages, a YouTube video, Twitter and Tumblr. They're also using online platforms to collect donations to sponsor striking workers. So far, the campaign has raised more than $22,200. Wal-Mart workers have been battling with management over pay, benefits and their ability to speak up for years, experts say. According to Anthony Bianco, author of Wal-Mart: The Bully of Bentonville, butchers at a Wal-Mart supercenter in Jacksonville, Texas, voted to form a union in 2000 -- the first time employees had done so. But soon after that, Wal-Mart eliminated butcher departments in its stores across the country, he said. It has been reported that Wal-Mart said it got rid of its meat department as a cost cutting measure. A similar thing happened when workers at a Quebec store attempted to unionize in 2005, Bianco said. Wal-Mart closed that store a few months after that. The company said at the time that its decision was prompted by the union wanting to change how the store operated.

– Workers at a number of Walmart stores walked out yesterday, in the first salvo of a larger series of strikes planned in response to the retailing giant's plan to begin its Black Friday festivities on Thanksgiving. At least 30 workers at six Seattle-area stores went on strike yesterday, the Guardian reports. That may not sound like much, but organizers expect 1,000 separate protests to occur on Black Friday, they tell CNN Money. The Black-Friday protest comes on the heels of a string of strikes last month, and another strike remains ongoing at part of Walmart's warehouse supply chain in California. Workers are upset about a host of issues, including low pay, too few hours, and alleged retaliation against workers who speak their minds. Walmart says the strikers represent a tiny portion of its 1.3 million-strong workforce, but labor experts say the protest could still prove significant. "Their campaign in front of stores could discourage shoppers," one points out.

President Donald Trump, back center, meets, Secretary of Veterans Affairs David Shulkin, second from left, with his wife Merle Bari, left clockwise, Trump, Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross and his wife... (Associated Press) President Donald Trump, back center, meets, Secretary of Veterans Affairs David Shulkin, second from left, with his wife Merle Bari, left clockwise, Trump, Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross and his wife Hilary Geary, right, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and his fiancee Scottish actress Louise Linton,... (Associated Press) President Donald Trump, back center, meets, Secretary of Veterans Affairs David Shulkin, second from left, with his wife Merle Bari, left clockwise, Trump, Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross and his wife Hilary Geary, right, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and his fiancee Scottish actress Louise Linton,... (Associated Press) President Donald Trump, back center, meets, Secretary of Veterans Affairs David Shulkin, second from left, with his wife Merle Bari, left clockwise, Trump, Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross and his wife... (Associated Press) WASHINGTON (AP) — The House intelligence committee is asking the Trump administration for evidence that the phones at Trump Tower were tapped during the campaign as its namesake has charged, a request reinforced Sunday by an influential Republican senator who says the president must either come up with the evidence or retract his claim. "I think the president has one of two choices: either retract or to provide the information that the American people deserve, because, if his predecessor violated the law, President Obama violated the law, we have got a serious issue here, to say the least," Sen. John McCain said. President Donald Trump asserted in a tweet last week: "Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my 'wires tapped' in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!" He continued the allegation against former President Barack Obama in other tweets but offered no evidence. The request for evidence by Monday was made in a letter sent to the Justice Department by the House committee chairman, Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., and the panel's ranking Democrat, Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., a senior congressional aide said Saturday. The aide wasn't authorized to discuss the request by name and requested anonymity. Obama's director of national intelligence, James Clapper, has said that nothing matching Trump's claims had taken place, but that has not quelled speculation that Trump's communications were monitored by the Obama administration. Trump has asked Congress to investigate. Early this past week, Schiff said the committee would answer the president's call to investigate the claim. He also said he would ask FBI Director James Comey directly when he appears later this month before the full committee, which is investigating Russian activities during the election. On Sunday, Schiff said he doubted there was any evidence of wiretapping, but that Comey and others called to testify at the upcoming hearing "would be in a position to have to know." "I think on March 20 if not before we'll be able to put this to rest," Schiff told George Stephanopoulos on ABC's "This Week." ''I don't think anyone has any question about this, George. The only question is why the president would make up such a thing." McCain said Trump could "clear this up in a minute" if he were to call "the director of the CIA, director of national intelligence and say, 'OK, what happened?'" The president has an obligation to provide evidence that Obama broke the law or retract his claim, the Arizona Republican said. "I do believe on issues such as this, accusing a former president of the United States of something which is not only illegal, but just unheard of, that requires corroboration. I'll let the American people be the judge, but this is serious stuff," McCain said on CNN's "State of the Union." Kellyanne Conway, a counselor to the president, said Sunday on Fox News Channel's "MediaBuzz that the House and Senate intelligence committees have agreed to investigate and "we'll make a comment after those findings are complete." Nunes has said that so far he has not seen any evidence to back up Trump's claim and has suggested the news media were taking the president's weekend tweets too literally. "The president is a neophyte to politics — he's been doing this a little over a year," Nunes told reporters this past week. Other lawmakers also have asked for evidence. Declaring that Congress "must get to the bottom" of Trump's claim, Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., asked Comey and Acting Deputy Attorney General Dana Boente to produce the paper trail created when the Justice Department's criminal division secures warrants for wiretaps. ||||| Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my "wires tapped" in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!

– The House Intelligence Committee is asking the Trump administration for evidence that the phones at Trump Tower were tapped during the campaign as its namesake has charged. The request was reinforced Sunday by Sen. John McCain who says the president must either come up with the evidence or retract his claim. "I think the president has one of two choices: either retract or to provide the information that the American people deserve, because, if his predecessor violated the law, President Obama violated the law, we have got a serious issue here, to say the least," McCain said, per the AP. President Trump asserted in a tweet last week: "Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my 'wires tapped' in Trump Tower just before the victory." He continued the allegation against former President Obama in other tweets but offered no evidence. "If the allegation is left out there, it undermines the confidence the American people have in the entire way that the government does business," McCain said Sunday, per the Washington Post. The request for evidence by Monday was made in a letter sent to the Justice Department by the House committee chairman, Rep. Devin Nunes, and the panel's ranking Democrat, Rep. Adam Schiff, a senior congressional aide says,

The Gambia's ex-ruler, Yahya Jammeh, plundered the state coffers in his final weeks in power, stealing millions of dollars and shipping out luxury vehicles by cargo plane, according to an aide to new president Adama Barrow. Jammeh, who ruled the small West African country for 22 years, flew into exile late on Saturday to Equatorial Guinea. He had refused to concede defeat in a December 1 election but eventually relinquished power after a delegation of West African leaders convinced him to step down, even as troops from neighbouring countries entered The Gambia. OPINION: The Gambia - A lesson for African dictators On Sunday, hundreds of Banjul residents cheered a military force by ECOWAS, the West African regional bloc, as it entered the capital to provide security and allow Barrow, who has been in neighbouring Senegal for more than a week, to return and take power. But amid growing controversy over the assurances offered to Jammeh to guarantee his departure, Barrow adviser Mai Fatty said the new administration had discovered that millions of dollars had recently been stolen. "The coffers are largely empty," he told reporters in the Senegalese capital, Dakar. "Over two weeks, over 500m dalasi ($11 million) were withdrawn" by Jammeh, he said. "As we take over, the government of The Gambia is in financial distress." Fatty also said that a Chadian cargo plane had transported luxury goods out of the country on Jammeh's behalf, in his final hours in power, including an unknown number of vehicles. Barrow's aide said officials at the Banjul airport have been ordered not to allow any of Jammeh's belongings to leave. Fatty also said the president is eager to return to The Gambia "as soon as possible", warning, however, that "the state of security in The Gambia is still fragile." 'No legislative measures' The regional military operation was first launched late on Thursday after Barrow was sworn in as president at Gambia's embassy in Senegal, but it was halted hours later to give Jammeh one last chance to leave peacefully. His departure followed two days of negotiations led by Guinea President Alpha Conde and Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz of Mauritania, prompting speculation over what, if any, terms were agreed upon to convince him to step down. "He wanted to stay in Gambia," Barrow told radio station RFM in Senegal. "We said we couldn't guarantee his security and said that he should leave." Barrow, who says he plans to establish a commission to investigate alleged human rights abuses by Jammeh's regime, denied that the former ruler had been offered immunity from prosecution in exchange for leaving the country. Critics have raised concerns over the wording of a statement issued by the United Nations, ECOWAS and the African Union that seemed to offer Jammeh comfortable guarantees for his future. "No legislative measures" would be taken that would infringe the "dignity, security, safety and rights" of Jammeh or his family, it said, noting that property "lawfully" belonging to him would not be seized. Equatorial Guinea is not a signatory to the Rome Statute that established the International Criminal Court, meaning Jammeh would not be extradited in the event he was charged with crimes against humanity or other serious offences. The declaration also said Jammeh's exile was "temporary" and that he reserved the right to return to the Gambia at the time of his choosing. "The agreement essentially says there can be no prosecution against Jammeh, his family or his entourage; there will be no seizure of his assets, no witch-hunts, and he can be back to the country at any time, " Al Jazeera's Nicolas Haque, reporting from Dakar, said. "It might sound like a good deal for Jammeh, but we have to bear in mind that this is a political document, not a legally binding one, so it still brings hopes for those wanting to prosecute Jammeh or those in the security services over alleged human rights violations." In Banjul, hundreds of residents assembled outside the State House on Sunday, as ECOWAS soldiers moved in to secure the compound. Cheering and singing, some sought to capture the moment for posterity, posing for photos with the Senegalese troops. "We are free," food seller Isatou Toure, 35, told Reuters news agency. "Everyone is so happy that man is gone. We are happy to see (the soldiers). They protected us from Jammeh." READ MORE: Exiled Gambians ponder return to troubled homeland Senegalese army officials said the force, which also includes troops from Nigeria, Ghana and Mali, met no resistance as they advanced on Sunday. Defence chief Ousmane Badjie said the military welcomed the arrival of the regional force "wholeheartedly." With proper orders, he said, he would open the doors to the notorious prisons where rights groups say many who have disappeared over the years may be kept. "We are going to show Barrow, we are really armed forces with a difference, I swear to God," Badjie said. Some of the 45,000 people who had fled the tiny country during the crisis began to return. The nation of 1.9 million has been a major source of migrants heading towards Europe because of the situation at home. ||||| BANJUL/DAKAR (Reuters) - Gambians celebrated in the streets on Sunday after a West African regional military force entered the capital city of Banjul and took control of the presidential palace, the symbolic seat of ex-ruler Yahya Jammeh’s 22-year authoritarian regime. Jammeh, who refused to accept defeat to opposition challenger Adama Barrow in a December election, flew out of Banjul late on Saturday en route to Equatorial Guinea as the regional force was poised to remove him. Hundreds of Banjul residents assembled outside State House as darkness fell after soldiers, who deployed on Sunday to secure the country, moved in to secure the compound. Cheering and singing, some revelers sought to capture the moment for posterity, posing for photos with the Senegalese troops. “We are free,” said food seller Isatou Toure, 35. “Everyone is so happy that man is gone. We are happy to see (the soldiers). They protected us from Jammeh.” Senegalese army officials said the force, which also includes troops from Nigeria, Ghana and Mali, met no resistance as they advanced on Sunday. But even amid the celebrations, troubling details of Jammeh’s departure began to emerge. Speaking to radio station RFM in Senegal, where he is waiting to return to Gambia, Barrow said that, upon initial inspection, it appeared Jammeh had looted state resources. “According to information we received, there is no money in the coffers,” he said. “It’s what we have been told, but the day we actually take office, we will clarify all of it.” In a news conference later in the day, Barrow advisor Mai Ahmad Fatty said 500 million dalasis ($11.45 million) had been withdrawn by Jammeh in the past two weeks. The regional military operation was first launched late on Thursday after Barrow was sworn in as president at Gambia’s embassy in neighboring Senegal, but it was halted hours later to give Jammeh one last chance to leave peacefully. His departure followed two days of negotiations led by Guinea President Alpha Conde and Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz of Mauritania, prompting speculation over what, if any, terms were agreed upon to convince him to step down. “He wanted to stay in Gambia,” Barrow said. “We said we couldn’t guarantee his security and said that he should leave.” Barrow denied that Jammeh had been offered immunity from prosecution in exchange for leaving the country. A Gambia military truck from Barra is seen on arrival at Banjul Port a day after President Yahya Jammeh departed Banjul, Gambia for exile January 22, 2017. REUTERS/Afolabi Sotunde “EVERYONE IS FREE” Earlier in the day, the African Union and United Nations published a document on behalf of these two organizations and regional bloc ECOWAS. In it, they pledged, among other things, to protect Jammeh’s rights “as a citizen, a party leader and a former Head of State,” to prevent the seizure of property belonging to him and his allies, and to ensure he can eventually return to Gambia. Barrow said the document had not been signed and did not constitute a binding agreement. He also said he planned to return to Gambia soon but did not say when. Jammeh’s loss in the Dec. 1 poll and his initial acceptance of the result were celebrated across the tiny nation by Gambians grown weary of his increasingly authoritarian rule. He reversed his position a week later. In a video clip posted on social media that a United Nations official confirmed was filmed shortly before his departure from Gambia, Jammeh thanked Conde, seen standing beside him, as a “true friend.” “Allah has decided that this is the end my time,” he said. “When you are inflicted by something that you are not happy with, don’t move away from Allah, but thank Allah because he is testing you.” Rights groups accuse Jammeh of jailing, torturing and killing his political opponents while acquiring a vast fortune, including luxury cars and an estate in the United States, as most of his people remained impoverished. Slideshow (6 Images) Thousands of Gambians sought asylum abroad over the years. An additional 45,000 people fled to Senegal amid growing fears of unrest in the wake of last month’s election, according to the United Nations. Hundreds of Gambians carrying sacks, suitcases and cooking pots began returning by ferry from Senegal’s Casamance region on Sunday. Hawa Jagne, 22, a cloth trader, hugged her sister Fama as she stepped off the boat. “I’m so relieved to see her,” Jagne said. “Everyone is free. You can do whatever you want, because this is a democratic country. You can express yourself. No one can kill you.” ||||| Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Hundreds of people celebrated in Banjul as West African troops entered the presidential compound More than $11m (£8.8m) is missing from The Gambia's state coffers following the departure of long-time leader Yahya Jammeh, an adviser to President Adama Barrow has alleged. Mai Ahmad Fatty said financial experts were trying to evaluate the exact loss. Luxury cars and other items were reportedly loaded on to a Chadian cargo plane as Mr Jammeh left the country. But another adviser to President Barrow, Halifa Sallah, later cast doubt on the claims of theft. He said the police had been asked to investigate and they would determine if anything was missing. He said the central bank had "stated with clarity" that it was "functioning normally", as were other banks. Mr Jammeh, who flew into exile after 22 years in power, has not commented on the allegations. He had refused to accept the election results but finally left The Gambia after mediation by regional leaders and the threat of military intervention. Read more: President Barrow remains in neighbouring Senegal and it is not clear when he will return. However, West African troops entered the Gambian capital, Banjul, on Sunday to prepare for his arrival. Cheering crowds gathered outside the State House to watch soldiers secure the building. The Senegalese general leading the joint force from five African nations said they were controlling "strategic points to ensure the safety of the population and facilitate... Mr Barrow's assumption of his role". Image copyright Reuters Image caption Mr Jammeh flew out of The Gambia on Saturday after long talks with regional leaders Is $11m a lot for The Gambia? Mr Fatty told reporters in the Senegalese capital Dakar that The Gambia was in financial distress. "The coffers are virtually empty," he said. "It has been confirmed by technicians in the ministry of finance and the Central Bank of the Gambia." He said Mr Jammeh had made off with nearly 500 million dalasis ($11.3m) in the past two weeks alone. "That's a lot of money, considering that we spend about 200 million dalasis on required expenditure relating to payment of civil service and so forth," Mr Fatty told the BBC. Image copyright Reuters Image caption Adama Barrow, centre, says he intends to investigate allegations of human rights abuses during Mr Jammeh's time in office Mr Fatty said officials at The Gambia's main airport had been told not to let any of Mr Jammeh's belongings leave the country. However, two Rolls-Royces and a Bentley were flown out over the weekend, and 10 others were at the airport waiting to go, reports the BBC's Umaru Fofana from Banjul. Reports said some of the former leader's goods were in Guinea where Mr Jammeh had stopped on his journey into exile. Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Yahya Jammeh withdrew nearly 500m dalasis from the government in a two-week period, President Adama Barrow's adviser says Gambia 'missing $11m' after Jammeh exile So where is Mr Jammeh now? Mr Jammeh is reported to now be in Equatorial Guinea, although authorities there have not confirmed it. Image caption Mr Jammeh's name was engraved on the headrests of presidential vehicles He is suspected to have business interests in the oil-rich state, and is likely to be protected by President Teodoro Obiang Nguema. The president has ruled the central African country since 1979, and is seen to be authoritarian, like Mr Jammeh. Equatorial Guinea does not recognise the International Criminal Court (ICC) and has weak civil society and opposition groups, reducing the chances of the government coming under pressure to hand over Mr Jammeh to either the ICC or Mr Barrow's government for prosecution. But could he be pursued? The UN, African Union (AU) and Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) had issued a joint statement, promising to protect Mr Jammeh's rights "as a citizen, a party leader and a former Head of State". They also gave an assurance that his "lawful" assets would not be seized, and his exile was "temporary". However, Mr Fatty distanced Mr Barrow from such assurances. "As far as we're concerned, it doesn't exist,'' he was quoted by the Associated Press news agency as saying. Did Mr Jammeh commit human rights abuses? The Gambian security forces, especially intelligence agents known as the Jungulers, were repeatedly accused of torturing opponents, detaining them without trial or killing them. Image copyright Reuters Image caption The army chief says he is loyal to the new government Campaign group Human Rights Watch, in a 2015 report, said torture methods included rape, near-suffocation with plastic bags and electric shocks. One man was reportedly forced to drink cooking oil, while others had melted plastic bags dripped onto their skin, it said. Mr Jammeh had also implemented tough measures against gay people. He called them "vermin" and threatened to slit their throats. Mr Barrow has said he will establish a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to investigate abuses. Why is the president still in Senegal? Ecowas commission chairman Marcel Alain de Souza said that part of the security forces needed to be "immobilised" and Mr Jammeh had also hired mercenaries during the stand-off, AP reports. So, Mr Barrow is likely to return only when Ecowas thinks it is safe. While army chief Ousman Badjie has pledged his loyalty to Mr Barrow, it is unclear whether the elite presidential guards support Mr Barrow. Since Mr Jammeh's defeat, some members of the new governing coalition have feared the long-term leader would withdraw to his farm in his home village of Kanilai, near the border with southern Senegal, and launch a rebellion. A top Gambian army commander, who is with the regional force, told the BBC that no heavy weapons were found at the presidential mansion. There were concerns that weapons may have been hidden or taken to Kanilai for "future sinister use", the commander added.

– Defeated Gambian leader Yahya Jammeh flew into exile in Equatorial Guinea over the weekend, giving his country's political crisis a peaceful end but apparently taking much of the country's wealth with him. A spokesman for President Adama Barrow says it appears Jammeh, who ruled the West African nation for 22 years, looted the nation's coffers in his final weeks in power, leaving the country in "financial distress," the BBC reports. The Washington Post quotes a rep for new president Adama Barrow as alleging Jammeh stole $11.4 million over the last two weeks. Luxury cars and other items were seen being loaded onto a cargo plane the night Jammeh flew out of the country. Jammeh, who refused to accept the results of December's election until troops from other West African countries stepped in, left the country under what critics are calling an overly generous deal that promises "no seizure of his assets, no witch-hunts, and he can be back to the country at any time," Al Jazeera reports. Despite the apparent looting, people outside the State House in the capital, Banjul, celebrated and took selfies with Senegalese troops as they secured the area. "We are free," 35-year-old food seller Isatou Toure tells Reuters. "Everyone is so happy that man is gone."

Tuesday April 26, 2011--Barge traffic moves along the channel of the flooding Mississippi River just north of where the Ohio River joins the Mississippi near Cairo Illinois on Tuesday. The Army Corps of Engineers has delayed its plan to dynamite a hole in the Bird's Point levee on the Mississippi River and flood 132,000 acres of mostly farm land to relieve pressure from the rising river. The channel of the Mississippi is marked by the line of trees that show where the normal banks of the river are. David Carson dcarson@post-dispatch.com UPDATED 5:30 p.m. on evacuation in Mississippi County The Army Corps of Engineers has delayed its plan to blow a levee on the Mississippi River in southeast Missouri and flood 132,000 acres to relieve pressure from the rising river. A spokeswoman at the Corps office in Memphis, which covers the Mississippi below its confluence with the Ohio River at Cairo, Ill., said this afternoon, "They haven't made a decision. They are positioning people and moving up barges in case, but they will not do anything today." Corps leaders are to meet again Wednesday in Memphis. In Cape Girardeau, Mo., meanwhile, Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster asked the U.S. District Court to block the levee-blasting idea. Because the decision had been expected today, several hundred residents who live on the 34-mile-long New Madrid Floodway were evacuated Monday and today. Its path, which would be inundated by the levee break, is in Mississippi County, Mo. The Corps designated the floodway in 1928, one year after a major flood on the lower Mississippi. Even with the Corps decision in limbo, officials there still want people to stay out of the sparsely populated floodway. "It's a very frustrating situation," said Janice McCameron, of the county sheriff's office in Charleston, Mo. "It's still wise for peole to evacuate. Just because the Corps won't blow the levee yet doesnt mean there won't be flooding." The floodway has not been used since 1937, the record flood for that area below Cairo. Major floods on the Mississippi north of the Ohio, including the record one in 1993, were lesser events once the two rivers met. Bird's Point, where the dynamite would be set, is about 130 air miles south of St. Louis. The Ohio is expected to set a record at Cairo on Friday. It already is 17 feet above flood stage today at Cairo and is forecast to rise another four feet by Friday. That would be one foot higher than the record, set in 1937. At Cape Girardeau, the Mississippi is expected to crest Friday about four feet lower than its 1993 record. The Mississippi, running only about three feet over flood at St. Louis, reaches progressively higher levels on river gauges the closer it gets to the swollen Ohio. McCameron said the floodway area is from four to 12 miles inland from the river. Another line of levees protects the rest of the county. She said area churches are on standby to provide shelter and help for displaced people if necessary. On Monday, Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon announced his opposition to blowing the levee. In Cairo, residents of nursing homes have been evacuated, and there is a voluntary evacuation call for the rest of the city, said Rose Burris, city payroll clerk. Burris said the U.S. 51 bridge over the Ohio was closed Monday when the rising Ohio swamped the bridge approach on the Kentucky side. Burris said blowing the Bird's Point levee would be good for Cairo because it would make room for the Ohio's flow. Much of southern Missouri and the lower Ohio River valley eastward into Kentucky have received 10 or more inches of rain during the past week. Areas around Poplar Bluff, Mo., where the Black River breached a levee, received 16 inches over the past five days, according to the National Weather Service. In the past week, St. Louis received 4.5 inches. In Missouri's Stoddard and Scott counties, northwest of Mississippi County, swollen drainage channels have broken through levees in two places, one near Bell City and another near Perkins, said Dale Moreland, Stoddard County emergency spokesman. Moreland said water had risen into 25 to 30 homes near the channels. ||||| KANSAS CITY, Mo | KANSAS CITY, Mo (Reuters) - The Missouri attorney general filed a federal lawsuit on Tuesday asking a judge to stop the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' plans to detonate the levee at Birds Point on the Mississippi River. Attorney General Chris Koster said the Corps, which manages the river, is preparing to intentionally breach the levee in hopes of keeping Cairo, Illinois, from flooding. Koster said demolition of the levee will cause serious flooding across as much as 130,000 acres of Mississippi County, Missouri. A law enacted in the 1920s requires the Corps to blow up the levee if the gauge at Cairo reaches a certain water level. But Koster believes the law is "unclear" as to whether the Corps actually has the authority to make the decision to detonate. "There are no 'good' options at this juncture," said Koster in a statement. But he said given the long-term effects of the government's proposal on Missouri citizens, the state wants a review by the federal court. A spokesperson for the Corps was not immediately available for comment. Koster said the flooding would leave a layer of silt that could take a generation to clear, causing significant injury to the quality of the farmland. The flooding also would affect 100 homes. About 100 people have already agreed to voluntarily evacuate Cairo, which is at the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, according to Cairo Fire Department Captain Brandon Manker. One problem the area is experiencing is that the Ohio and Mississippi rivers are flooding at the same time, and the Ohio, which usually drains into the bigger river, can't do so, according to Buddy Rogers, spokesman for the Kentucky Division of Emergency Management. There has been flooding along the Ohio River from Cincinnati to the Mississippi, according to the National Weather Service. (Additional reporting by Kevin Murphy; Writing by Mary Wisniewski; Editing by Jerry Norton)

– The Midwest is keeping a nervous eye on its levees—and now on the courts as well. Missouri's attorney general today filed suit in federal court to prevent the Army Corps of Engineers from blowing up a levee on the Mississippi River, reports Reuters. The corps is preparing to detonate the levee in southern Missouri to relieve river pressure and prevent massive flooding in populated areas downstream, specifically Cairo, Illinois. The problem is that strategy would flood 130,000 acres of farmland in Missouri, and the state has questioned the corps' legal authority to go ahead with the plan. "I don't want one person in the corps to make decision ... without even seeing the area," AG Chris Koster tells Fox News. "We need to make sure flooding all these acres of farmland is the only option." The corps, meanwhile, postponed its final decision on the plan until tomorrow, notes the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Bonnie Liltz, who was due to report to prison Monday for killing her disabled daughter, has died, and police suspect she took her own life. Liltz, 57, was found dead in her apartment in Schaumburg on Saturday evening, according to authorities. It was the same home where in 2015 she administered a fatal dose of medication to her 28-year-old daughter, Courtney, later saying she feared for her daughter’s fate as she faced her own serious health problems. “It’s a tragic, tragic end,” her attorney, Tom Glasgow, said Sunday. “She just didn’t want to die in prison.” Schaumburg police said they were summoned to the apartment just after 6 p.m. by family members who were concerned that they hadn’t heard from Liltz since late Friday night. There is no evidence of foul play and suicide is suspected, though an investigation continues, said Schaumburg police Sgt. Christy Lindhurst. Liltz pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter in her daughter’s death and was sentenced to four years in prison by Cook County Judge Joel Greenblatt, despite prosecutors recommending probation. When he sentenced her, Greenblatt said she deserved prison time. “The choice you made that morning was not an act of love. It was a crime.” She served a few months but, in an unusual move, was granted bond by appellate court judges, allowing her to receive the medical care her lawyer argued was lacking in prison. But last week she was ordered to report to prison Monday after the Illinois Supreme Court declined to hear the appeal of her sentence. Her mother, Gladys Liltz, said she was stunned. “She couldn't do it. She could not go back to that place again,” said Gladys Liltz, 89, of Elk Grove Village. Liltz had adopted Courtney, who couldn’t walk or feed herself and needed constant care, and those who knew Liltz during Courtney’s upbringing praised her commitment to her daughter. But as her own health worsened — she had lingering and serious side effects from a long-ago bout with cancer — Liltz said she became desperate over concern for her daughter’s well-being under someone else’s care. Liltz had tried to take her own life after she fed an overdose to her daughter through Courtney’s feeding tube. Liltz then flushed down medication with wine. Glasgow said he talked to Liltz earlier Saturday and there was no indication of any plans to take her life. But he said he had documents from two doctors indicating she would die in prison if she was sent back. He said she left a note. “It’s very upsetting to me because it could have been avoided,” Glasgow said. A representative of the Cook County medical examiner’s office said Liltz’s autopsy was scheduled for Sunday. The cause and manner of her death could be made available as early as the afternoon, if the results are not pending toxicology results, he said. "She's at peace now, in heaven with her daughter," Gladys Liltz said. "That's all she ever wanted, was to be with Courtney." George Houde is a freelance reporter. Tribune reporters Katherine Rosenberg-Douglas and Angie Leventis Lourgos contributed. RELATED: Woman who killed disabled daughter: 'I would like to turn the clock back' » Woman accused in daughter's death devoted life to her, friends say » A tale of two mothers: What recent tragedies can teach us » ||||| A mother who appealed her prison sentence after being convicted of killing her disabled daughter has... A mother who appealed her prison sentence after being convicted of killing her disabled daughter has been found dead in an apparent suicide in Schaumburg. (Published Monday, Nov 27, 2017) A Schaumburg mother who appealed her prison sentence after being convicted of killing her disabled daughter has been found dead in an apparent suicide in Schaumburg. Bonnie Liltz, the Schaumburg mother who was convicted of killing her severely disabled daughter in 2015, has been found dead at her home, authorities said Sunday. Liltz, who was appealing her prison sentence and was scheduled to report to prison on Monday, was found dead after a well-being check by police on Saturday evening. Results of an autopsy are pending, but authorities believe that her death was a suicide. Liltz was diagnosed with ovarian cancer when she was 18, and she was left with severe intestinal problems. She adopted and raised her daughter despite those obstacles, but when her cancer worsened, she gave her daughter an overdose of pills through her feeding tube, killing her. She would later say that she did so because she didn't want her daughter to have to be placed in state care in the event of her death. A judge sentenced Liltz to four years in prison for the crime, but after serving three months of her sentence, she was released due to poor health. Prosecutors and her attorneys wanted her to remain free, but a Cook County judge disagreed, ruling that she be sent back to prison to fulfill the rest of her sentence. She appealed the ruling to the Illinois Supreme Court, who declined to take up the case. ||||| The suburban woman who caused her disabled daughter’s death when she fed her an overdose of medication must report to prison on Monday to finish her sentence. Bonnie Liltz of Schaumburg was given a four-year prison term last year after pleading guilty to involuntary manslaughter in the 2015 death of her 28-year-old daughter Courtney. But in a highly unusual move, Liltz was granted bond by appeals judges and released after spending about 70 days in a downstate prison. Her lawyer cited the fragility of her health, saying he feared she will die in prison and claiming her jailers weren’t meeting her medical needs. Those fears have been renewed now that Cook County Judge Joel Greenblatt, who imposed the original sentence, orderedLiltz to surrender Monday to Cook County Jail, from which she will be transferred to a state prison. Liltz adopted Courtney when she was 5 years old, and supporters say Liltz was a caring and conscientious single mother who provided 24-hour care to her daughter, who had cerebral palsy and was unable to walk or feed herself. But Liltz became increasingly desperate as her own condition declined — her ailments include severe intestinal damage from decadesold cancer treatment — and she has said she was motivated out of fear for what would happen to Courtney after her own death. Bonnie Liltz Facebook Bonnie Liltz and her daughter, Courtney, shown together at Christmastime in 2014. Bonnie Liltz and her daughter, Courtney, shown together at Christmastime in 2014. (Bonnie Liltz Facebook) (Bonnie Liltz Facebook) After administering medication to her daughter through her feeding tube, Liltz, now 57, took some of the pills herself, washing them down with wine in a suicide attempt. Some legal observers expected her to get probation given the circumstances, and even prosecutors recommended probation. But Greenblatt said she deserved prison time. "The choice you made that morning was not an act of love. It was a crime,” Greenblatt said when he sentenced her. Liltz exhausted the possibilities of getting relief through the courts when the Illinois Supreme Court in October declined to consider the appeal of her sentence. Her lawyer, Tom Glasgow, has requested that Gov. Bruce Rauner commute her sentence. Glasgow said a hearing on that has been set for January, but the judge declined to delay the remainder of her sentence any longer. Liltz, who again appeared gaunt and extremely thin, tearfully said after the hearing that she did not receive all of her medications during her previous stint at Logan Correctional Center. She said she believes the judge hates her. She has said she regrets the actions she took to end her daughter’s life. Glasgow asked Greenblatt on Tuesday to order the Illinois Department of Corrections to ensure that Liltz receive all the “unique medical attention” she needs. Greenblatt replied: “I’m not directing IDOC to do anything of the sort. I will ask them to assess her condition and provide care to her to the best of their ability.” The judge also said it’s up to IDOC to determine where Liltz serves her sentence. George Houde is a freelance reporter. RELATED Schaumburg woman to ask Rauner to void her sentence in death of disabled daughter » 4 years in prison for suburban woman who killed disabled daughter » ||||| × Bonnie Liltz, woman who killed disabled daughter, commits suicide SCHAUMBURG, Ill. — Bonnie Liltz, who was sentenced for four years in prison for giving her disabled daughter a fatal overdose of medication has committed suicide. Her attorney, Thomas Glascow, said Liltz committed suicide on Saturday by overdosing on pills because, according to a note she left behind, she didn’t want to die in jail. Glascow said he had been in contact with her on Friday and she seemed fine after spending the holiday with her mom and sister. He said that she was always in pain and had lost more weight. She was down from 98 pounds to 84 pounds and her BMI was only 15. Liltz was expected to report to prison on Monday. Liltz said when her health began to fail, she worried her 28-year-old daughter, Courtney, who had cerebral palsy, would end up in an institution, and not get the care she needed. So, she wanted to commit a murder-suicide with pills. Courtney died, but Liltz survived.

– The Chicago Tribune described it as a "highly unusual move": An Illinois woman was granted bond by appellate court judges last year after beginning a four-year prison term related to the death of her severely disabled adult daughter. Now, just days before Bonnie Liltz was to report back to prison, she apparently took her own life. Liltz pleaded guilty in May 2016 to involuntary manslaughter, claiming she was worried about what would happen to Courtney, 28, if Liltz's own health issues killed her; NBC Chicago reports she had ovarian cancer at age 18, and it caused serious and lingering intestinal issues. "I felt the only place she would be safe would be in heaven with me," she told the court. She spent 70 days in prison but was released after her lawyer argued she wasn't receiving the proper medical care. But Liltz, 57, was ordered to surrender Monday after the state Supreme Court decided not to take up her case; she was found dead Saturday. The Tribune reports police were called to the apartment—the same one where Liltz put powder from broken-up medicine capsules into Courtney's feeding tubes, then into her own wine in an apparent suicide attempt—by concerned family members. "It's a tragic, tragic end," says her attorney, Tom Glasgow, who adds that she did leave a note. "She just didn't want to die in prison." Police say there is no sign of foul play, but an investigation is ongoing. Though they haven't released details, Glasgow said she overdosed on pills, per WGN. Liltz's mother, Gladys, says her daughter got what she wanted: "She's at peace now, in heaven with her daughter." Read more on the case here.

Olympic gold medalist Simone Biles on Saturday criticized USA Gymnastics' appointment of Mary Bono as interim president and chief executive officer. Biles, USA Gymnastics' biggest star, quote-tweeted Bono's post from last month that was critical of Nike in the wake of the apparel company's advertising campaign featuring NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick. Bono, who was appointed to her new roles on Friday, posted a photo of herself blacking out a Nike logo on a golf shoe. In response, Biles tweeted: "*mouth drop* ... don't worry, it's not like we needed a smarter usa gymnastics president or any sponsors or anything." *mouth drop* don't worry, it's not like we needed a smarter usa gymnastics president or any sponsors or anything https://t.co/cYQizcjywn — Simone Biles (@Simone_Biles) October 13, 2018 Bono, a former Republican congresswoman, last month also retweeted a response to her tweet that said "#BoycottNike." Bono has since deleted the photo, and about five hours after Biles' post, Bono wrote that she regretted making the initial message. "I regret the post and respect everyone's views & fundamental right to express them," Bono tweeted. "This doesn't reflect how I will approach my position @USAGym I will do everything I can to help build, w/ the community, an open, safe & positive environment." USA Gymnastics has been without an apparel sponsor since Under Armour ended its deal with the organization in late 2017. Biles is personally sponsored by Nike. The discord is just the latest in a string of public dilemmas for USA Gymnastics, which is still struggling to emerge from the fallout of the sexual abuse scandal surrounding former team doctor Larry Nassar. More than 200 women, including Biles and current and former members of the organization's elite program, have come forward over the past two years saying that Nassar sexually abused them under the guise of treatment. Bono served as a principal at the law firm of Faegre Baker Daniels before her new appointment. USA Gymnastics previously used the same law firm when it first suspended Nassar in the summer of 2015 after hearing complaints about the methods he used to treat gymnasts. An attorney for Faegre Baker Daniels agreed to Nassar's suggestions to provide "false excuses" for his absence from major gymnastics events during the summer of 2015. The attorney said USA Gymnastics would explain his absence by saying he was missing for "personal reasons." Nassar asked whether they could instead say the former doctor was sick, and the attorney agreed to use that excuse. USA Gymnastics allowed Nassar to announce he was retiring from his work with the national team in September 2015 while he remained under federal investigation for claims of sexual assault. Bono's name does not appear in any documents or emails that detail the law firm's previous work with USA Gymnastics. Bono will hold her roles while USA Gymnastics searches for a permanent successor to Kerry Perry, who resigned under pressure from the United States Olympic Committee in September after spending nine months on the job. Nike's Kaepernick campaign has been met with some product boycotts by those who disagree with the former San Francisco 49ers quarterback's activism and decision to kneel during the national anthem before NFL games. Biles, who won four gold medals in Rio de Janeiro in 2016, was named to the 2018 world championship team on Friday, shortly before Bono's hiring was announced. Information from ESPN's Dan Murphy was used in this report. ||||| I regret the post and respect everyone’s views & fundamental right to express them. This doesn’t reflect how I will approach my position @ USAGym I will do everything I can to help build, w/ the community, an open, safe & positive environment. ||||| A day after U.S.A. Gymnastics appointed an interim leader to help move the sport beyond months of tumult and scandal, the organization again found itself embroiled in controversy on Saturday — and facing criticism from one of the sport’s biggest stars. The new leader, Mary Bono, came under fire for an anti-Nike tweet that she posted in September, days after the company announced an ad campaign featuring Colin Kaepernick, the former N.F.L. quarterback who knelt during the national anthem to protest racial inequality and police killings of black people. As critics pledged to boycott Nike products, Ms. Bono shared a photo of herself using a marker to black out the Nike logo on her golf cleats. Simone Biles, who won four gold medals and a bronze at the 2016 Olympics and who will compete for the United States in this year’s world championships, resurfaced the tweet with a critical post of her own on Saturday.

– USA Gymnastics is trying to get past months of scandal—but as of Saturday, their house is still rocking. The organization's appointment of Mary Bono as interim president and CEO landed with a shockwave when gold medalist Simone Biles reacted in disbelief: "*Mouth drop* ... don't worry, it's not like we needed a smarter usa gymnastics president or any sponsors or anything," she tweets. Her message links to a now-deleted tweet from Bono criticizing Nike's ad campaign with NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick, ESPN reports. A photo showed Bono, a former GOP congresswoman, blacking out the Nike logo on her golf cleats with a marker. Bono responded about five hours after Biles' criticism: "I regret the post and respect everyone's views & fundamental right to express them," Bono tweets. "This doesn't reflect how I will approach my position @USAGym I will do everything I can to help build, w/ the community, an open, safe & positive environment." Bono's appointment was designed to help USA Gymnastics get past the sexual-abuse scandal involving national team doctor Lawrence Nassar, and by extension, the leadership of past president Steve Penny. But now they've got a new problem: As a father of four children in USA Gymnastics tells the New York Times, "After everything that's happened, this is what they do?"

HAVANA Photographs of former Cuban leader Fidel Castro, 88, appeared in official media on Monday for the first time since August, showing him slightly hunched over while seated, but appearing animated as he spoke with a student leader. Speculation over Castro's health has intensified since the historic Dec. 17 announcement by his younger brother, and current president, Raul Castro, and U.S. President Barack Obama, that the two longtime adversaries would restore diplomatic ties. Castro, who periodically writes a column, went silent after the announcement until finally commenting a week ago, when he offered lukewarm support for the pact his brother reached with Obama. The pictures of Castro with student leader Randy Perdomo were taken on Jan. 23, according to Perdomo's account, which appeared with the photos on the website of the Communist Party newspaper Granma on Monday night. Granma published 21 pictures of the two men talking, with Castro in various poses of engaged conversation, viewing a video and flipping through a newspaper. A Brazilian theologian who met Castro last week said the former leader was in good health, appearing skinny but lucid. Castro stepped down from power due to poor health, handing over to his brother provisionally in 2006 and definitively in 2008. Though he receives visitors, he has not appeared in public for more than a year. (Reporting by Daniel Trotta; Editing by Clarence Fernandez) ||||| Castro reading a newspaper with Perdomo. (Photo: Estudios Revolucion via epa) Amid rumors Fidel Castro is in declining health or may have already died, Cuba's Communist Party newspaper Granma published the first photos in months of the aging former Cuban leader. The article, titled "Fidel is one of a kind" and published late Monday, includes a gallery of more than 20 pictures of the 88-year-old Castro speaking with Randy Perdomo García, the head of the Federation of University Students at the University of Havana. In several of the photographs, the former guerrilla leader is seen holding a newspaper reporting on the release of three Cuban spies from the United States, perhaps in an effort to verify the photographs were taken recently. The three intelligence agents were freed after the Dec. 17, 2014 declaration that the two countries would re-establish diplomatic relations. Perdomo says he met with Castro for more than three hours and that the "Commandante" was "full of life" during their discussion of issues ranging from sports and Castro's daily exercises, to astronomy and world affairs. "(Castro) continues a conversation about new ways of fighting some diseases, including diabetes, with the production of natural foods; about Cuba's relations with Africa, from its contribution to those countries' independence to the end of apartheid and the current contribution of Cuban doctors to the fight against Ebola," Perdomo wrote. The release of the pictures follows what has become a now-common routine where the Cuban government distributes proof of Castro's well-being to quash rumors of his death. "You wonder if its Photoshopped to make him look better, but he clearly seems to be alive and engaged," said Jorge Duany, director of the Cuban Research Institute at Florida International University in Miami. But Duany sees another motive. He says its no accident that Fidel Castro is seen with the head of the university's student union. "It's an attempt to revive the heroic student days of Fidel Castro, reminding everyone in Cuba and elsewhere of the revolutionary struggle and Fidel's lifelong commitment to changing the world," Duany said. "They're trying to make that connection between his youth and the now aging, retired leader." At least one critic of the Cuban government was skeptical of the claim Castro is still lucid and theorized he suffers from some form of dementia. "It's OK to say that he's gone, that he's not the same person that he once was," Ninoska Pérez, director of the Cuban Liberty Council told CNN. "But they want to keep this image alive of someone who is not only still there but is in control of everything." "If Fidel Castro was in any condition to be shown in a camera or to address the nation, they would have done so a long time ago," Pérez added. The photos were published just before midnight Monday. The last images of Castro released prior to these came out in August following a meeting with Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. An article published on Granma's website last month featured comments, but no photos, from the former revolutionary leader on the improving relations between Cuba and the United States. "I don't trust the policy of the United States, nor have I exchanged a word with them, but this does not mean I reject a pacific solution to the conflicts," the Jan. 26 article quoted Castro as saying in a letter directed to the Federation of University Students. "We will always defend cooperation and friendship with all the people of the world, including with our political adversaries." Contributing: Alan Gomez, USA TODAY; The Associated Press Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1CUDRqt ||||| Havana (AFP) - Cuban state media released the first photographs of former president Fidel Castro in nearly six months in a bid to quiet rumors that his health is failing. The images showed the 88-year-old Castro at his home along with his wife Dalia during a meeting with the leader of a students' union, and were published in the state-run newspaper Granma and other official media. Castro had remained quiet publicly after the United States and Cuba announced in December that they were going to restore diplomatic relations after a half century of enmity stemming from the Cold War. That silence prompted chatter on social media and in foreign media that Castro was sick or even had died. The article accompanying the new photos said the meeting took place January 23. The headline says, "Fidel is extraordinary." The photos show Castro wearing a blue sweat-suit with a blue-checked collared shirt. The images come after weeks of feverish speculation concerning the Cuban revolutionary leader's medical condition after he disappeared from the public eye. The last time he was seen in public was January 8, 2014, when he attended an art gallery opening near his home. Swirling rumours of Castro's demise have cropped up often since he stepped down from office during a health crisis in 2006. Raul Castro, the longtime armed forces chief, took his brother's place at Cuba's helm. The Granma article said that the meeting between Castro and the student leader came four days before Castro finally broke his silence on the diplomatic breakthrough with the US and said that, although he was wary of his old enemy Washington, he did not oppose it and viewed the historic change as a "positive step." Perdomo said his talks with Castro were as if he were talking to an old friend. He said he got a call the night before from Castro and was moved when he finally heard a voice he had often heard from afar. "How are you, Randy,?" said Castro, according to Perdomo. He said they talked about the articles that Castro has published in Granma, and about astronomy and the importance of science in human advancement. Last week the communist leader met with a Brazilian theologian, Frei Betto, who advocates liberation theology -- the idea that it is the Catholic Church's responsibility to help the poor. "The commander is in good health and in good spirits," Betto said the next day. But no photos of the meeting were published. Castro took notes on what Betto said, according to the Brazilian. Betto said he found the former Cuban leader "in good health, thin but lucid." In mid-January Castro sent a letter to Argentina football legend Diego Maradona -- a friend of his -- and this also eased fears that he was on his last legs. ||||| HAVANA (AP) — Cuba has published the first photos of Fidel Castro in more than five months, showing the 88-year-old former leader engaged in what appears to be a lively conversation with a university student. A screenshot of Cuba's website Cubadebate shows ten photos of Fidel Castro on their opening page in Havana, Cuba, Tuesday Feb. 3, 2015. Cuba has published the first photos of Fidel Castro in five months,... (Associated Press) A screenshot of Cuba's website Cubadebate shows a photo of Fidel Castro with the head of the main Cuban student union Randy Perdomo Garcia in Havana, Cuba, Tuesday Feb. 3, 2015. Cuba has published the... (Associated Press) Nearly two dozen images were published virtually simultaneously on the websites of Cuba's main state media outlets around midnight Monday. In them, Castro is seated and discussing current events with the head of the main Cuban student union. A first-person account by student leader Randy Perdomo Garcia says the meeting took place on Jan. 23. The photos are the first images of the revolutionary leader since a set of photos came out in August showing him talking with Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. Perdomo says in a lengthy article accompanying the photos that he and Castro met for more than three hours in the former leader's house after an event celebrating the 70th anniversary of Castro starting his studies at the University of Havana. The student leader says Castro said that he is keeping abreast of the news and performing daily exercises, and he engaged Perdomo in a wide-ranging discussion of topics including international politics, agriculture, astronomy, and even Namibia's donation of animals to Cuba's National Zoo. Perdomo says the two men discussed the release of three Cuban intelligence agents as part of the Dec. 17 declaration by Cuba and the United States that they would move to re-establish full diplomatic relations. The photos show Castro examining a newspaper report on their release. "I'm about to go but he continues a conversation about new ways of fighting some diseases, including diabetes, with the production of natural foods; about Cuba's relations with Africa, from its contribution to those countries' independence to the end of apartheid and the current contribution of Cuban doctors to the fight against Ebola," Perdomo wrote. Castro did not issue a public statement for nearly a month after the announcement that Cuba and the U.S. were moving to re-establish full diplomatic relations. Castro's public appearances and statements have become increasingly infrequent since he stepped down from duties as president after a serious illness in 2006 and handed over leadership to his younger brother Raul. His unusually lengthy silence after the Dec. 17 announcement sparked intense speculation about his health. ___ Follow Michael Weissenstein at www.twitter.com/mweissenstein.

– Fidel Castro is apparently spending his retirement convincing people he's alive: After his silence when the US and Cuba reopened relations spawned rumors about his failing health or even death, he belatedly penned a Jan. 26 letter, AFP reports. Now Cuban state media has released more than 20 photos that show the ex-leader meeting with university student Randy Perdomo Garcia, who wrote for the Communist Party newspaper Granma that Castro was "full of life" during the Jan. 23 visit, the AP reports. Perdomo says he met with the 88-year-old revolutionary for more than three hours at Castro's home, during which they chatted about astronomy, world issues, and Castro's exercise routine, USA Today reports. The photos, which show Castro hunched over but "animated," per Reuters, are the first official pictures of him since August.

Sept 4 (Reuters) - Scientists will fast-track tests on another Ebola vaccine, this time from Johnson & Johnson JNJ.N, in another sign that the world's worst outbreak of the virus is mobilizing research into the deadly disease. J&J; said on Thursday that clinical trials of its new vaccine, which includes technology from Danish biotech firm Bavarian Nordic BAVA.CO, would commence in early 2015. The move follows a decision to begin initial human testing of a GlaxoSmithKline GSK.L vaccine this month and plans to test one developed by Canadian government scientists, which has been licensed to NewLink Genetics NLNK.O, in the autumn. Human tests on the J&J; vaccine were previously not expected to start until late 2015 or early 2016. J&J;'s long-term goal is to develop a vaccine that can protect against both the Zaire and Sudan strains of Ebola, as well as a related condition called Marburg disease. But the program has been simplified in light of the current outbreak. “Because of the emergency we decided to focus on the Ebola Zaire strain, which is the one in the West Africa outbreak, and that’s why we can accelerate the program significantly,” Chief Scientific Officer Paul Stoffels told Reuters. As with the GSK and NewLink programs, J&J; is working on the clinical trials with the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of National Institutes of Health. “The crisis is so important here, and still expanding, that more than one approach is warranted, in case the epidemic doesn’t come under control in the coming months,” Stoffels said. All of the initial Phase I trials will enroll healthy volunteers with the goal of determining whether the experimental vaccines are safe and whether they provoke a protective immune response. Stoffels said it had not yet been decided where trials on the J&J; vaccine would be conducted or how many subjects would be involved. The race to develop new drugs and vaccines has been spurred by a World Health Organization ruling that it is ethical to use experimental products in the current epidemic, given the high death toll. Governments and aid organizations have scrambled to contain the disease, which according to the United Nations agency has killed more than 1,900 in West Africa since March. J&J; said its vaccine, which was developed by its Crucell unit in the Netherlands, provided complete protection against the Zaire strain of Ebola when tested on macaque monkeys. Like a number of other experimental vaccines against various diseases that are now in development, it uses a common cold virus, called an adenovirus, to carry its payload. Immunization with the J&J; vaccine consists of two injections one to prime the immune system and a second to boost the response. They were given two months apart in the monkey tests. By contrast, researchers are testing just a single shot of GSK's vaccine. How safe and effective J&J;'s product will be in humans remains to be seen, but more than 1,000 people have already received similar experimental vaccines from Crucell in clinical trials for other diseases with no apparent ill effects, offering some reassurance. Bavarian Nordic, meanwhile, has used a similar approach in producing a smallpox vaccine that has been stockpiled around the world and tested on more than 7,300 people. J&J; is also stepping up research into potential drugs for Ebola by undertaking an intensive review of known biological pathways used by the virus to see if previously tested medicines might help. ||||| LONDON (AP) — As West Africa struggles to contain the biggest ever outbreak of Ebola, some experts say an unusual but simple treatment might help: the blood of survivors. FILE - This handout file photo taken Sept. 2, 2014, provided by National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) shows A 39-year-old woman, the first participant enrolled in VRC 207, receiving... (Associated Press) The evidence is mixed for using infection-fighting antibodies from survivors' blood for Ebola, but without any licensed drugs or vaccines for the deadly disease, some say it's worth a shot. "This is something that's fairly simple to do," said Dr. Peter Piot, director of London's School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the co-discoverer of the Ebola virus. Using blood of survivors is one of the experimental Ebola treatments under discussion at a two-day meeting that began Thursday in Geneva. The more than 200 experts assembled by the World Health Organization are looking at issues of safety and effectiveness and considering which treatments should be prioritized for testing during the current outbreak. There are about a half dozen medicines and vaccines in development. None has been rigorously tested in humans but early testing of one vaccine began this week in the United States. Much attention has focused on the untested drug ZMapp, which was given to seven patients, two of whom died. But the limited supply is now exhausted and its developer says it will take months to make even a modest amount. In contrast, WHO's blood network, an international group of blood regulators, noted there are thousands of survivors from past Ebola outbreaks in Africa who could be tapped as a source of survivor blood. The group recently issued a paper on how the strategy might be used. It said blood from survivors should be considered experimental and it recommended studies be done during the outbreak. Some scientists think antibodies in the blood of Ebola survivors could help patients infected with the deadly disease. Antibodies are produced by the body's immune system to fight off harmful things like viruses; they remain in the blood ready to fight off any future infections by the same foreign substance. Piot said it is vital to find out if the blood treatment is effective. "I hope this is the last Ebola outbreak where all we have is isolation, quarantine and supportive care to treat patients," he said. Experts say blood from survivors could be collected and processed for multiple patients, or a survivor could donate blood to an individual patient. Both methods require screening the blood for diseases like HIV or malaria. While direct donation would be easier, the levels of Ebola-fighting antibodies produced by a survivor can vary. Ideally, experts said, the amount of antibodies should be measured. "With drugs, you can at least do some quality control," said Tom Geisbert, an Ebola expert at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston. "If you're just taking blood blindly from (survivors) without testing it for antibody levels, how can we predict what outcome they will have?" In West Africa, there have been no organized attempts to use the blood of survivors to treat patients. Blood from a 14-year-old boy who survived Ebola was given in July to American doctor Kent Brantly, who was infected in Liberia. Brantly also got some ZMapp and was released from an Atlanta hospital last month. It's unknown whether the drug or the boy's blood aided his recovery. Blood from survivors of diseases including Ebola, bird flu and anthrax has been used in the past when doctors ran out of options and seems to work best in diseases where there's a toxin, like anthrax and tetanus. For treating Ebola, "you would need to come up with how much you should give, how long, and what's a safe infusion rate," said Dr. Michael Kurilla, director of BioDefense at the U.S. National Institutes of Health. "If you know what the potency of the serum is, you could theoretically help the body clear Ebola out of their cells before it can do too much damage." Dr. Colin Brown, who recently worked in Ebola clinics in Sierra Leone for King's College London's partnership with the country, said local hospitals should be able to provide survivors' blood if doctors want to offer it. So far, more than 3,000 people have been infected. Last week, WHO estimated there could be another 20,000 cases before the Ebola outbreak is stopped, a figure Brown described as unfortunate but realistic. "It does give us the opportunity to try some new therapies," he said. "And as long as they are not harmful, why shouldn't we try to do something, hopefully help some patients and learn from this?" .

– As the Ebola outbreak reaches apocalyptic proportions, an experimental method to help fight the virus is emerging: injecting victims with the blood of survivors. American Dr. Kent Brantly underwent the procedure in July, though it isn't clear if it improved his condition. Yet with vaccines only just beginning human trials and untested supplies dwindling, thousands of survivors carrying antibodies could save lives. Their blood would first need to be tested for diseases, and the antibodies would need to be measured. Overall, however, "this is something that's fairly simple to do," a doctor who helped discover Ebola tells the AP. The technique is one of several being discussed at a World Health Organization meeting in Geneva, and blood regulators suggest the method be studied. "You would need to come up with how much you should give, how long, and what's a safe infusion rate," a director at the US National Institutes of Health says. "If you know what the potency of the serum is, you could theoretically help the body clear Ebola out of [the] cells before it can do too much damage." Meanwhile, as early testing of a vaccine began this week, Johnson & Johnson says it will fast-track a vaccine targeting the strain in West Africa and begin human clinical trials early next year, Reuters reports.

The atmosphere in the jury room in Bill Cosby's sexual assault trial was "tense -- very, very tense" during the 52 hours of deliberations before a hung jury was declared and the jurors had trouble coming to a consensus on the charges, a former juror told CBS News. CBS News' Nicole Sganga and Wendy Krantz spoke to a male juror on the condition of anonymity. A long-time resident of the Philadelphia area, the juror is married and a former Marine. He said prosecutors "really screwed it up when it came to the charges" against Cosby. Cosby was charged with three counts of aggravated indecent assault, each one punishable by up to 10 years behind bars. The juror said they were split on all three charges, but the vote count on each charge changed. "There were lots of tears. Lots of emotions," the juror said about the deliberations. The juror emphasized the jurors had a lot of problems with "the way [the charges] were written." The juror said they frequently debated the "meaning of words" in the charges. For example, he said Cosby "did it. He admits that. But was he reckless?" Additionally, the juror said that victim Andrea Constand was "impaired, but severely?" The juror said the words printed on the charges were "unreasonable doubt," which the jury debated "back and forth half a day on that." The jurors went back to the judge on Friday to clarify what "unreasonable doubt" meant, but the juror said he still doesn't know what it means. The jury was comprised of seven men and five women, and two jurors were African American. The juror told CBS News that they were not split down gender lines or age lines. He said the jurors' ages ranged from 21 to 86. AP Cosby was accused of drugging and sexually assaulting Constand in 2004 in his suburban Philadelphia home. Some 60 women have come forward to say Cosby sexually violated them, all but destroying his nice-guy image, but the statute of limitations for prosecution had run out in nearly every case. Constand's case is the only one in which Cosby has been charged. The juror noted that there were "40 to 60 women" who came forward with allegations against Cosby. "I don't think he ever actually went on to rape any of them." "I don't understand if you're assaulted why you wait one year or 40 years," he said. Constand sued Cosby after prosecutors in 2005 declined to press charges. Cosby testified over a decade ago as part of that lawsuit, eventually settling with her for an undisclosed sum. Cosby didn't testify at the six-day trial. But jurors still heard plenty from him as prosecutors read them excerpts from his 2005 police statement and civil deposition. The juror noted Cosby's deposition, saying he was surprised "how much [Cosby] admitted to." "He didn't deny anything," the juror said. "It happened. He admitted to it." Constand, 44, testified last week that Cosby gave her three blue pills and then penetrated her with his fingers against her will as she lay paralyzed and half-conscious. She denied they had a romantic relationship and said she had rebuffed previous advances from him. Defense lawyer Brian McMonagle, however, attacked what he said were inconsistencies in Constand's story, disputed that Constand was incapacitated, and made the case that she and Cosby, who was married, had a romantic relationship. McMonagle said Cosby gave her the cold and allergy medicine Benadryl only after she complained she couldn't sleep. The sole witness for the defense was the detective who led the 2005 investigation, Richard Schaffer, who previously took the stand during the prosecution's case. He was questioned for six minutes. The juror said it would be a "waste of money" to prosecute again, saying that Cosby "to go further would be a shame. This man -- this has already cost him his career ... He's paid." ||||| How a Delco man sought to use stolen U.S. military weapons to wage war in Liberia How a Delco man sought to use stolen U.S. military weapons to wage war in Liberia Jun 28 Gov. Murphy condemns Trenton arts festival shooting and vows to bring those responsible for 'the lawlessness' to justice Gov. Murphy condemns Trenton arts festival shooting and vows to bring those responsible for 'the lawlessness' to justice Jun 18 Laura McCrystal covers everything about taxes, government revenue, and how such policies impact people in Philadelphia and beyond. She previously covered news in Montgomery County, including Bill Cosby's trial. Gianna Constand, left, and her daughter Andrea Constand, right, walk toward the courtroom inside the Montgomery County Courthouse in Norristown, PA on June 12, 2017. Cosby is on trial for sexual assault. Both women testified in the trial. PITTSBURGH — A juror in Bill Cosby’s sex assault trial said Thursday that he did not believe the testimony of accuser Andrea Constand because she willingly went alone to the entertainer’s home and brought him gifts on more than one occasion. “She was well-coached,” he said of Constand’s two days on the witness stand. “Let’s face it: She went up to his house with a bare midriff and incense and bath salts. What the heck?” The juror, who spoke with the Inquirer and Daily News at his home on the condition of anonymity, would not say whether he wanted to convict or acquit Cosby. But he said the seven men and five women on the panel were nearly evenly split after 52 hours of deliberations, a deadlock that prompted Montgomery County Judge Steven T. O’Neill to declare a mistrial on Saturday. He also said Cosby had already “paid dearly” for the allegations and should not be retried. The juror was the second to offer a window into the deliberation room of the case, and his account appeared to contradict the first. That juror told ABC News on Monday that 10 of the 12 panel members were prepared to find Cosby guilty on two of the three counts against him. The juror who discussed the case Thursday said that at one point deep into deliberations, there had been a 10-2 vote to convict Cosby of drugging and sexually assaulting Constand, but that three panel members later changed their votes and wanted to acquit him. Votes were split “up the middle: young and old, black and white, men and women,” he said. He said he thought the jury failed to reach a unanimous verdict because the language describing the charges – three counts of aggravated indecent assault stemming from an incident in 2004 – was confusing and “too legal.” Jurors struggled over terms such as reckless and severely impaired while debating whether Cosby drugged and molested Constand without her consent, he said. Some of their requests to review testimony during deliberations, he said, were based on desire to find those words in the evidence. “We were trying to match the testimony up with the charges,” he said. “Everybody’s interpretation of those words was something different.” He spoke a day after O’Neill, acting on a petition from news outlets including the Inquirer and Daily News, released the names of the 12 jurors and six alternates who were chosen in Allegheny County and sequestered for the trial near Norristown. Most have since refused to comment on the case or their deliberations, following a directive the judge gave before discharging them Saturday and repeated in a ruling this week. Though the juror who spoke Thursday did not reveal his vote, he did make clear his skepticism about Constand, the 44-year-old accuser from Toronto who said she viewed Cosby only as a friend and mentor and never sought a romantic relationship. Specifically, the juror said, she should have gone to Cosby’s home only if she was “dressed properly and left the incense in the store,” referring to a gift that she brought him when the two formed a friendship before the alleged assault. In a deposition read to jurors, Cosby detailed a sexual liaison he had with Constand when she showed up at his home with her midriff exposed, some time before the night of the alleged assault. Constand denies that encounter ever occurred.​ Still, the juror’s impression seemed to echo the trial defense Cosby’s lawyers sought to present: that Constand, then a 31-year-old Temple University employee, was in or seeking a romantic relationship with the then-66-year-old entertainer and world-famous university trustee. He said he found Cosby’s own words in 2005, to police and in the deposition for a civil lawsuit filed by Constand, convincing. In that deposition and since, Cosby maintained any sexual contact was consensual. “He was extremely honest. He admitted to things,” the juror said. He also saw Constand’s mother as the driving force behind her decision to report the alleged assault to police a year after it occurred. “It was her mother who forced all this,” the panel member said. He also said the jury did not let the allegations of the more than 60 women who have come forward to accuse Cosby of sexual misconduct influence its decision. He said he believed many of those women fabricated their claims. “This is ridiculous, unbelievable,” he said. “I think more than half jumped on the bandwagon.” Nor did he feel that he or others were influenced by outside information or by Cosby’s celebrity. The juror, one of the older members on the panel, said he used to watch The Cosby Show occasionally but was never an avid fan. During the trial, he said, he saw not a superstar but a tired old man. “I think he was weathered,” he said. “I wondered if he was going to be able to make it through the whole trial the first couple of days, but he did.” Jurors did not yell or argue during deliberations, he said, but the room was tense, once draped in prolonged silence. “There may have been one 10-minute break of total silence, and then the question came up: Did the courthouse have a chapel?” he said. There was no chapel, and deliberations continued. But in the end, he said, “the jury was stalled on everything.” Cosby, 79, “has paid dearly” already for the allegations against him, the juror said, because his career has been destroyed. He said he did not think District Attorney Kevin R. Steele should pursue a retrial, as he has said he will do. “They should’ve left it closed. … There wasn’t enough evidence to move the case forward,” he said, echoing Cosby’s lawyer’s arguments about the 2005 decision by then-District Attorney Bruce L. Castor Jr. to close the case without charging Cosby. Now, he said, there was nothing to consider beyond decade-old evidence. “No stained garment, no smoking gun, nothing,” the juror said. The juror said most members of the jury exchanged contact information when it ended and voiced a desire to keep in touch. But he said he would not keep in contact with his peers. And he won’t pay attention if there is a second trial, he said. “It would be a waste of Montgomery [County] money with the money it cost,” he said. He said he and the other jurors were treated well during their stay in Norristown. Asked whether he enjoyed the experience, the juror said simply, “I’m glad I did my civic duty.” ||||| (CNN) The jury in Bill Cosby's assault trial agreed on many points in the case and accepted his accuser's testimony as true, but they remained at a hopeless deadlock because some were confused by how the charges were worded, a juror told CNN. Parts of testimony from key witness Andrea Constand against Cosby were "unbelievable," the juror said, but her contradicting memory of dates in the case didn't have a big impact on the jury split. "It didn't matter if it was January or March, or what the dates were, the fact that it happened, we accepted that. We accepted all that," said the juror, who spoke to CNN on condition of anonymity. "But we could not accept the way the charges were written." Still, the juror had questions about her version of events. "It's questionable that she asked for help from Mr. Cosby and she shows up wearing a bare midriff and she has incense with her and bath salts with her, and no matter who gave her the bath salts, that's questionable," he said. The juror's comments come less than a week after a judge declared a mistrial in the case . The comedian, 79, faced three charges of aggravated indecent assault, but jurors could not come to a unanimous verdict on any of the three counts. Prosecutors said Cosby drugged and assaulted Constand, the former director of operations for Temple University's women's basketball team, at his Pennsylvania home in January 2004. Defense attorneys argued that the sexual activity was part of a consensual relationship between the two. Judge Steven O'Neill released the names of jurors to the media earlier this week, but kept the jury deliberations confidential, according to a court document released Wednesday. The document states that a disclosure of anything said or done during deliberations "would have a chilling effect upon future jurors in this case and their ability to deliberate freely." Inside the jury room Amid over 52 hours of testimony, the jury remained deeply divided, with votes largely stuck at 5 to 7 or 7 to 5. At one point, they reached a 10-2 vote to convict , but three jurors then quickly changed their votes, he said. The jury was bused from Allegheny County, near Pittsburgh, to Montgomery County and sequestered in hotels for the duration of the trial . The panel consisted of four white women, six white men, one black woman and one black man. But the splits were across every demographic, the juror said. "From my point of view it was right up the middle: Young and old, black and white, men and women," the juror said. He suspected that the case against Cosby, which centered on events that allegedly occurred 13 years ago, was brought now because of "politics." "We had no real new evidence," he said. "There was no soiled clothing, no smoking gun, no new evidence." The sticking point, the juror said, was the language of the charges. "They were legally written with a lot of different words than what was said out in the courtroom, and it caused the jurors to keep going back to the judge looking where these words were like "reckless" and "unconscious" and "severely impaired" and "unreasonable doubt." Now we had out there reasonable doubt, but not unreasonable doubt. What is unreasonable doubt? We spent a lot of time trying to figure these words out that were in these charges, which made them so much more severe than what all the testimony, or I heard closing arguments was. We never heard those words, and that's where the problem was." "'Reckless' was one word that we spent a whole day on trying to figure out whether he was reckless going upstairs and getting pills," the juror said. "Just, you couldn't convict him on the wording of the charges. And that's where we argued back and forth. What meant one thing to one person and something to another, and after they slept on it they changed their minds." The case against Cosby Constand initially told police about the alleged assault in January 2005, but the district attorney at the time declined to press charges, citing insufficient evidence. A new district attorney, Kevin Steele, brought charges against Cosby in 2015, months after a judge unsealed Cosby's deposition in a civil lawsuit in which he admitted to procuring powerful drugs to give to women with whom he wanted to have sex. Prosecutors have said they plan to re-try Cosby again within the year. But the juror who spoke to CNN said that would just be a "waste of money" because he thought another jury would have the same problem coming to a conclusion as well. "If they handle the case the same way they did this, and there's no new evidence... and it'll probably be another year or two until they can get this thing up. It'd be a waste of money," he said. The juror also detailed the "royal" treatment they received while sequestered for the trial, including a two-week stay in hotel suites, private dinners at nice restaurants, and escorted trips everywhere they went. Still, the jury experience was exhausting and frustrating, and left multiple people in tears, he said. To illustrate that point, he said that on the first smoke break in jury deliberations, three jurors went out for a cigarette. By the final smoke break, after almost a week of tense deliberations, seven people ventured out, including one juror who had been off cigarettes for 21 years. "That's tense," he said. ||||| FILE - In this June 17, 2017 file photo, Bill Cosby arrives for his sexual assault trial at the Montgomery County Courthouse in Norristown, Pa. Cosby will organize a series of town hall meetings to help... (Associated Press) FILE - In this June 17, 2017 file photo, Bill Cosby arrives for his sexual assault trial at the Montgomery County Courthouse in Norristown, Pa. Cosby will organize a series of town hall meetings to help educate young people about problems their misbehavior could create, a spokesman for Cosby said Thursday,... (Associated Press) PITTSBURGH (AP) — A juror in Bill Cosby's sexual assault trial said Thursday that some jurors were concerned that prosecutors waited 10 years to charge him, expressing suspicion that politics had played a role in the case. The juror told The Associated Press that the panel was almost evenly split in its deliberations, with a similar number of jurors wanting to convict the 79-year-old entertainer as acquit him on charges he drugged and molested a woman at his Philadelphia-area home in 2004. He was the second juror to speak out after the jury deadlocked in the case. A mistrial was declared Saturday after 52 hours of deliberations. Prosecutors plan to put Cosby on trial again. The juror who spoke to the AP questioned the long delay in bringing charges against the TV star, suggesting that "no new evidence from '05 to now has showed up, no stained clothing, no smoking gun, nothing." In reality, prosecutors reopened the investigation in 2015 after the public release of a deposition that Cosby gave in 2005 and 2006 as part of accuser Andrea Constand's lawsuit against him — testimony that hadn't been offered when another district attorney passed on the case in early 2005. Prosecutors used Cosby's deposition as evidence at the criminal trial. The juror spoke to the AP on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive deliberations. Constand, a former Temple University employee, told jurors Cosby gave her pills that made her woozy and then penetrated her with his fingers as she lay paralyzed on a couch, unable to tell him to stop. Cosby has said his encounter with Constand was consensual. Constand, now 44, initially went to police about a year after she said Cosby assaulted her, but a prosecutor declared her case too weak to bring charges. A decade later, another district attorney revived the probe after excerpts from Cosby's lurid deposition about drugs and sex became public and dozens of women came forward also alleging sexual assault by him. Cosby was charged shortly before the statute of limitations was set to expire. The juror who spoke to the AP said other jurors expressed the view in the deliberating room that "politics was involved." "I think they created this whole thing, a case that was settled in '05, and we had to bring it up again in '17 with no new evidence," the juror said. The juror declined to reveal whether he wanted to convict or acquit Cosby but left little doubt about how he felt. He said he was suspicious of Constand's story, questioning why she waited to tell authorities and suggesting the clothing she wore to Cosby's house had influenced his view of their encounter. "When you ask for help on your resume, on your resignation letter, which she did, and he, Mr. Cosby, invites her to his home and she arrives in a bare midriff with incense and bath salts, that's a question," said the juror, appearing to lump several meetings between Cosby and Constand into one. Cosby, he said, seemed more truthful in his deposition, in which he acknowledged giving pills to Constand before their sexual encounter. The comedian also described how, in the 1970s, he obtained prescriptions for the powerful sedative quaaludes for the purpose of offering them to women with whom he wanted to have sex. "He openly admitted that what he gave 'em, he gave 'em pills," the juror said. "He almost incriminated himself. It was very, very honest from his side. You could believe from his testimony what he did, but not from her." The juror characterized the deliberations as tense. "Crying by men and by women and more than one," he said. "And the tears came towards the end, it was so tense." Another juror told ABC News on Wednesday that jurors had voted 10-2 to convict Cosby on two of three counts against him. The juror who spoke to the AP confirmed that vote but said three people then changed their minds. He said the panel was typically more "evenly split" and "up the middle." Cosby is eager to get back to work following the mistrial, a spokesman said. A series of town halls is planned to help educate young people about the problems their misbehavior could create, spokesman Andrew Wyatt told a Birmingham, Alabama, TV station. The issue "is bigger than Bill Cosby" and can affect any young person, especially young athletes, Wyatt said, without elaborating. The AP does not typically identify people who say they are victims of sexual assault unless they grant permission, which Constand has done. ___ Rubinkam reported from northeastern Pennsylvania. ___ For more on Cosby, including stories about the trial, historical photos, videos and an audio series exploring the case, visit http://www.apnews.com/tag/CosbyonTrial .

– Another Bill Cosby juror has spoken out anonymously, telling the Philadelphia Inquirer that votes were split "up the middle: young and old, black and white, men and women." He blamed that on the language to describe the charges being confusing and "too legal," saying jurors debated terms like "reckless" and "severely impaired." When they asked to review testimony during deliberations, "we were trying to match the testimony up with the charges," he said. "Everybody’s interpretation of those words was something different." As for his own vote, he wouldn't say what it was, but he did mention he did not find accuser Andrea Constand believable. "She was well-coached," he said of Constand’s testimony. "Let’s face it: She went up to his house with a bare midriff and incense and bath salts. What the heck?" He added that she should have gone to Cosby's home "dressed properly" and she should have "left the incense [a gift for Cosby] in the store." CNN, CBS, and the AP also have new interviews with an anonymous juror or jurors, and while it's not clear whether it's the same one, the sentiments expressed were similar. "When you ask for help on your resume, on your resignation letter, which she did, and he, Mr. Cosby, invites her to his home and she arrives in a bare midriff with incense and bath salts, that's a question," said the juror the AP spoke to. (Cosby plans to lecture on sex assault.)

Courtesy of TIGHAR (Dec 11) -- A tiny piece of bone could unlock the mystery of what happened to Amelia Earhart, the pilot who vanished somewhere over the Pacific Ocean 73 years ago.The fragment, believed to be from a human finger, was found on Nikumaroro, an uninhabited island in the southwest Pacific, Discovery News reported Researchers investigating Earhart's disappearance found the fragment of bone in June 2009 along with pieces of a pocketknife, prewar American bottles and makeup from a woman's compact.At first they thought the bone was from a turtle. Further investigation showed it could very well be human."After 22 years of rigorous research and 10 grueling expeditions, we can say that all of the evidence we have found on Nikumaroro is consistent with the hypothesis that Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, landed and eventually died there as castaways," Ric Gillespie, executive director of the International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery, told Discovery.Earhart was the first woman to fly across the Atlantic solo and became an icon of the active woman. In 1937, she embarked on an attempt to fly around the globe.After a stop in Lae, New Guinea, Earhart and Noonan took off July 2 bound for tiny Howland Island, a distance roughly the same as a trip across the continental United States.Neither Earhart nor Noonan was ever seen again, despite a massive search and rescue mission. ||||| A tiny bone fragment could provide crucial information about the fate of Amelia Earhart, the legendary pilot who disappeared 73 years ago while flying over the Pacific Ocean in a record attempt to fly around the world at the equator. Collected on Nikumaroro, an uninhabited tropical island in the southwestern Pacific republic of Kiribati, the bone has raised the interest of The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR), which has long been investigating the Earhart mystery, as it may be from a human finger. The phalax was found together with other artifacts during a month-long expedition last June to the tiny coral atoll believed to be Earhart's final resting place. "At first we assumed it was from the turtle whose remains we found nearby. Indeed, sea turtles have finger bones in their flippers. But further research suggests it could also be human," Ric Gillespie, executive director of TIGHAR, told Discovery News. SLIDE SHOW: Clues Point to Amelia Earhart as Castaway TIGHAR's investigations and theories challenge the assumption that Earhart's twin-engined Lockheed "Electra" crashed in the ocean when running out of fuel on July 2, 1937. Their findings, along with historical reconstructions of Earhart's disappearance and the futile massive search that followed, are detailed in "Finding Amelia," a Discovery Channel documentary that airs Saturday at 8 p.m. ET/PT on The Discovery Channel. "After 22 years of rigorous research and 10 grueling expeditions, we can say that all of the evidence we have found on Nikumaroro is consistent with the hypothesis that Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan landed and eventually died there as castaways," Gillespie said. Indeed, a number of artifacts unearthed on the uninhabited island provide strong circumstantial evidence for a castaway presence. Among the most interesting features are the remains of small fires with birds and fish bones, giant clams that had been opened like a New England oyster, empty shells laid out as if to collect rain water, pieces of a pocket knife, pieces of rouge and the broken mirror from a woman's compact, and pre-war American bottles with melted bottoms that had once stood in a fire as if to boil drinking water. Discovered near turtle remains on the island's remote southeast end, in an area called the Seven Site, where campsite and fire features were also found, the mysterious tiny finger bone is one of the most promising pieces. Initially, Gillespie and his team did not pay much attention to the tiny fragment, assuming it belonged to the turtle. It was only when archaeologist Tom King catalogued the turtle bones that questions began to arise. "We discovered that the turtle remains consisted only of parts of the carapace and plastron (the shell and underbelly). There were no limb bones. If whoever brought the turtle to the Seven Site didn't bring the legs, how did a phalanx get there?" said Gillespie. Densely vegetated in shrubs known as Scaevola frutescens, the Seven Site site is where the partial skeleton of a castaway was found in 1940. Recovered by British Colonial Service Officer Gerald Gallagher, human remains were described in a forensic report and attributed to an individual "more likely female than male," "more likely white than Polynesian or other Pacific Islander," "most likely between 5 feet 5 inches and 5 feet 9 inches in height." Unfortunately the bones have been lost. Gillespie believes that many of the bones might have been carried off by crabs, suggesting an unmerciful end for Earhart. However, parts of the skeleton not found in 1940 may still remain at the site. "We know that none of the hand bones of the castaway were found in 1940. Could that bone be a human finger?" Gillespie said. Forensic anthropologist Karen Ramey Burns, a specialist in the identification of human remains, examined the phalanx. She could not say with certainty that it was or was not human. "Human and turtle phalanges are easily distinguishable when they are whole and complete. The problem with that bone is the fragmentation and disintegration. Many key morphological details are not visible," Burns told Discovery News. The mystery will be soon solved when the finger bone is examined at the Molecular Science Laboratories at Oklahoma University in Norman, Okla. "Whether or not the phalanx bone yields human DNA, there is a sufficient preponderance of circumstantial evidence to continue our research with hope and determination," Gillespie said.

– After 22 years of investigations, researchers may have found one of Amelia Earhart’s bones. The tiny bone fragment, discovered on an uninhabited southwest Pacific island, was at first thought to be from a turtle. Researchers now believe it could be human, Discovery News reports. “All of the evidence we have found on Nikumaroro is consistent with the hypothesis that Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, landed and eventually died there as castaways," says the director of the recovery group. Click here for more, including what the bone was found with.