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If you are involuntarily committed to a mental health institute in Georgia, your name will be added to a list of people who are not allowed to buy firearms. For five years.
Five years from when a record of your commitment has been added to the database, your information will be removed and you should have no problem clearing background checks needed to buy a gun anywhere in the United States.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution explains:
This year, the state uploaded more than 2,000 new records of mentally ill Georgians to the database —people committed for inpatient treatment; found incompetent to handle their own affairs; or found guilty of a crime but mentally ill. But the state also took down almost 500 other records in 2015, making it possible for scores of mentally ill people to acquire guns legally anywhere in the country.
According to the AJC, Georgia law requires that the records of those who have been involuntarily committed be cleared from the National Instant Background Check System after five years.
Dr. Steven Hoge, who heads the American Psychiatric Association’s Council on Psychiatry and the Law, told the AJC that he thinks the five-year limitation makes sense. He explained that treatment generally takes just a few weeks or months, and that “the public has massively overestimated the dangerousness of the mentally disordered.”
Chairwoman of the Senate Health and Human Services Committee Renee Unterman, a Republican senator, agrees that it’s more harmful for the individuals in question to be branded as mentally ill for life. “It’s a tenuous position for someone to have had a mental illness,” she said, adding, “your mental health when you’re 25 years old is different from when you’re 55 years old. Why should you carry the baggage and stigma of mental illness?”
AJC’s report comes at the close of a year where Americans saw, by some estimates, hundreds of mass shootings. By now, we know that there will be two responses to these tragic events: Liberals will call for better gun control, and conservatives for better mental health services. The conflict in Georgia—between keeping guns away from people with a history of mental illness, and the dangerous implications of keeping records of those who’ve been involuntarily committed—illustrates how the second option is so complicated.
Strict gun laws, on the other hand, work. ||||| The records of thousands of people who were involuntarily committed for mental health treatment in Georgia have been removed from the national database that gun dealers use to run background checks of buyers.
Such people are not permitted under federal and state law to buy firearms. And this year, the state uploaded more than 2,000 new records of mentally ill Georgians to the database —people committed for inpatient treatment; found incompetent to handle their own affairs; or found guilty of a crime but mentally ill.
But the state also took down almost 500 other records in 2015, making it possible for scores of mentally ill people to acquire guns legally anywhere in the country.
Why?
Because in Georgia, it’s the law: once a record of a commitment in Georgia has been on the National Instant Background Check System for five years, state law requires that it be removed. So even as the state is adding hundreds of commitment records each year, it is also deleting hundreds more as they hit the five-year limit.
+ LAFAYETTE, LA - JULY 25: Mourners leave flowers at a makeshift memorial outside of a store owned by one of the ... read more ×
It is as if they were never prohibited from having guns.
“We’re pulling them back after five years,” said GBI Director Vernon Keenan, whose agency provides the commitment records to the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System. “That’s a legal dilemma (because) that person is still prohibited from possession or buying firearms.”
The names come off the national list without any review by a doctor or a court. Although these are federal records, participation in the program by each state is voluntary and subject to conditions the state may impose.
+ Asif Lakhani More than a decade ago, the Legislature authorized the GBI to provide the FBI the names of mentally ill people involuntarily ... read more Asif Lakhani ×
More than a decade ago, the Legislature authorized the GBI to provide the FBI the names of mentally ill people involuntarily committed to a public or private hospital, but with the condition that records be removed after five years.
In light of recent mass shootings, the public has joined in the concern increasingly expressed by politicians, law enforcement and judges.
Athens-Clarke County Probate Court Judge Susan Tate was moved to write an opinion piece for her local newspaper in October after Christopher Harper-Mercer, 26, fatally shot eight students and an assistant professor at Umpqua Community College before killing himself.
There are gaps in the law, deadly gaps, said Tate, chair of the Weapons Carry License Committee for the Council of Probate Court Judges of Georgia.
Only mentally ill people who are involuntarily committed for inpatient treatment are reported to the FBI for the purpose of gun background checks. People who are ordered to have an evaluation but then agree to admit themselves for treatment are not reported. Neither are mentally ill people treated as outpatients, whether the treatment is voluntary or involuntary.
“I’m always scared when I’ve ordered somebody to be evaluated,” said Tate, the Georgia contact for the National Criminal Background Check System. “Even if they haven’t been hospitalized, I wouldn’t want any of those people to have a gun.”
John Houser killed himself after fatally shooting two people and wounding nine in a Louisiana movie theater in July. He legally bought his gun even though in 2008 a Carroll County, Ga., probate judge ordered him to be evaluated. Judge Betty Cason told Channel 2 Action News she never received a petition to commit him from the doctors who evaluated him; consequently, his name never appeared on the FBI database. His mental illness was documented in other public records in Carroll County dating to the 1990s.
Georgia has about 9,000 records at this time on the national database, while many other states have tens of thousands.
Georgia is the only state that automatically removes records of involuntary commitments to inpatient treatment.
For most mental disorders and for most people, treatment is effective in a period of “weeks to months,” said Dr. Steven Hoge, chair of the American Psychiatric Association’s Council on Psychiatry and the Law, though there are people who are not completely responsive to treatment or who relapse.
In his opinion, the 5-year waiting period is “reasonable.” But given the range of reasons for civil commitments, a case-by-case analysis would be a better way to determine if someone who has been committed should be allowed to buy a gun, Hoge said.
Still, limitations on gun purchases for people who have been involuntarily committed is unlikely to dramatically reduce gun violence, he said.
“The public has massively overestimated the dangerousness of the mentally disordered,” Hoge said.
State Sen. Renee Unterman, R-Buford, chairwoman of the Senate Health and Human Services Committee, said the provision to remove names after five years was put into Georgia law to spare those with mental illness the stigma even after their illnesses are controlled.
“It’s a tenuous position for someone to have had a mental illness,” said Unterman. “Your mental health when you’re 25 years old is different from when you’re 55 years old. Why should you carry the baggage and stigma of mental illness? … If you stigmatize people, it makes people afraid to come out.”
It’s voluntary for states to send to the FBI names of those ordered hospitalized for treatment of their mental illnesses, though a grant program was created in 2007 to give them the incentive to participate.
The FBI said in an email it was not authorized to identify the states that contribute to the background check system. But Lindsay Nichols, senior attorney with the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, said every state takes part to some degree.
North Carolina, for example, had posted 120,000 records as of June 1, according to the Law Center. Pennsylvania has reported more than 737,000 records. Yet six states have sent fewer than 55 records. | – The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has an eyebrow-raising report on a little-known Georgia law that allows guns to be placed in the hands of people involuntarily committed for mental health treatment. Federal law prohibits those people from buying guns, and Georgia added more than 2,000 such names to the National Instant Background Check System this year. But a peculiar state law requires those names be removed after five years—with no further review or evaluation of the people whose names are being removed. That frees people with a mental illness, who were involuntarily committed only five years prior, to legally purchase a gun anywhere in the US. Georgia removed approximately 500 names from the list this year. It's the only state that automatically removes names from the national database. “The public has massively overestimated the dangerousness of the mentally disordered,” Dr. Steven Hoge, an American Psychiatric Association chair, tells the Journal-Constitution. Hoge says Georgia's law seems "reasonable," as most people with mental illness recover within "weeks to months" of treatment. A state senator who supports the law says it helps remove the stigma from mental illness. "By now, we know that there will be two responses to [mass shootings]: Liberals will call for better gun control, and conservatives for better mental health services," Fusion reports. "The conflict in Georgia—between keeping guns away from people with a history of mental illness, and the dangerous implications of keeping records of those who’ve been involuntarily committed—illustrates how the second option is so complicated." |
These crawls are part of an effort to archive pages as they are created and archive the pages that they refer to. That way, as the pages that are referenced are changed or taken from the web, a link to the version that was live when the page was written will be preserved.Then the Internet Archive hopes that references to these archived pages will be put in place of a link that would be otherwise be broken, or a companion link to allow people to see what was originally intended by a page's authors.The goal is to fix all broken links on the web . Crawls of supported "No More 404" sites. ||||| The Google engineer fired after posting a 10-page screed railing against the company's diversity initiatives tells WIRED he plans to sue. Legal experts say he might have a case.
"Yes he has a leg to stand on," says Eve Wagner, a partner at the Los Angeles law firm Sauer & Wagner who specializes in employment law. "I don't know if he'll keep standing, but he has a leg to get through the courtroom door."
Over the weekend, James Damore's memo, originally circulated internally at Google, was published by tech news site Gizmodo, fueling a controversy that culminated in his dismissal. Google confirmed Monday night that Damore had left the company after its CEO said he had violated its Code of Conduct "by advancing harmful gender stereotypes in our workplace.” Damore tells WIRED he was fired for "perpetuating gender stereotypes."
California is an "at-will" state, meaning Google can dismiss an employee for almost any reason. However, Damore says that before he was fired, he filed a complaint, formally known as a charge, with the National Labor Relations Board, which administers some aspects of federal labor law. Under the National Labor Relations Act, it's against federal law to fire someone in retaliation for filing a complaint to the board, lawyers say.
The labor-relations law usually applies to union organizing, says Wagner. But over the years the act has been more broadly interpreted to protect employees who discuss their working conditions with each other. That might include Damore's memo, Wagner says.
Damore says he also plans to invoke a California law that bars employers from retaliating against workers who complain about illegal working conditions. He doesn't have to prove that his working conditions were illegal, Wagner says. Instead, she says Damore's lawyer might argue that his memo was protected under California law, because it related to allegedly unequal treatment of employees.
Wagner says that under California law, the burden of proof may fall on Google to show that it didn't retaliate against Damore for posting the memo complaining about discrimination, rather than on Damore to prove that he was retaliated against. But Jennifer A. Reisch, a legal director at Equal Rights Advocates, says it's an open question whether Damore's memo will be protected under the law simply because it involved alleged discrimination.
A person at Google familiar with the matter said Damore's dismissal could not have been retaliation for his NLRB complaint because the company only learned of the complaint after Damore was fired.
Rishi Bhandari, a partner at New York law firm Mandel Bhandari who previously practiced in California, says Google's position will likely be that it fired Damore because his memo antagonized coworkers and contained factual inaccuracies, making it unprofessional. If Google had previously warned Damore about Code of Conduct or performance issues, that would bolster the company's defense, Bhandari says. He says the company could even cite reasons for dismissing Damore that it discovers after his firing; such evidence could limit any award to Damore if a court finds that Google did retaliate against him. ||||| In the course of just a few days, the Google engineer fired Monday over his 3,300-word memo on gender differences and the tech industry has become a rallying point for almost everyone: a pariah to some, a martyr to others.
James Damore was a software engineer at the search giant’s Mountain View headquarters until Monday afternoon, when he said he was fired for “perpetuating gender stereotypes” in his manifesto. It was published internally to Google employees late last week and argued that conservative viewpoints are suppressed at Google and that biological differences explain in part why more men work in software engineering than women.
Many in Silicon Valley denounced Damore’s arguments, including Google chief Sundar Pichai, who said Monday in a memo to employees that the engineer’s manifesto violated Google’s Code of Conduct and that suggesting “a group of our colleagues have traits that make them less biologically suited to that work is offensive and not OK.”
But others – mainly right-wing groups – agreed with his description of a “politically correct monoculture” and in particular, saw Google’s decision to fire him for voicing an unpopular opinion as proving exactly his point. Julian Assange tweeted that WikiLeaks would hire Damore, adding “Censorship is for losers.” Gab.ai, a far-right social network, also offered Damore a job, calling his writing “a beautiful work of art.” Other supporters raised more than $5,000 on a crowdfunding campaign to help Damore fight his firing.
Damore has said that he is currently exploring all legal remedies. He filed a complaint against the Alphabet Inc. subsidiary with the National Labor Relations Board on Monday, contending he was subject to ``coercive statements.’’
Damore explained in an online video that he wrote the memo because he thinks Google’s culture needs an overhaul.
“A lot of this came from me seeing some of the problems with our culture at Google, where a lot of people who weren’t in this group-think just felt totally isolated and alienated,” he told YouTube chat-show host Stefan Molyneux in an interview. “There were many people that came to me and said, ‘yeah I’m thinking of leaving Google because this is getting so bad.”’
In the video, the software engineer revealed he was inspired to create the document -- partly written during a 12-hour flight to China for work -- after attending a secretive diversity training that rubbed him the wrong way.
“There was a lot of just shaming: ‘no, you can’t say that. That’s sexist.’ There’s just so much hypocrisy in a lot of the things that they were saying,” he said on the video. “I decided to create the document to clarify my thoughts.”
Damore’s publicly available biographical details, mostly from his LinkedIn profile, are not all true: He says that he has a Ph.D. from Harvard University in Systems Biology, which his supporters frequently noted as a credential for him to talk about the biological differences between men and women. A Harvard spokeswoman said Damore only completed a master’s in systems biology, a field that uses quantitative methods to study biological systems such as cells and organisms. A spokesman for the University of Illinois confirmed he has a Bachelor of Science degree in molecular and cellular biology from 2010. An online resume says he was a competitive chess player and held research positions at Harvard, Princeton University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
An online CV and Facebook profile suggest Damore hails from suburban Chicago. His Facebook page only has a few snippets: an album of charcoal sketches, including portraits of actors Will Smith and Keira Knightley, and posts such as one from 2013 saying how excited he was to be starting a job at Google in Mountain View soon.
After getting his master’s in 2013, Damore joined Google as a summer intern, according to his LinkedIn profile. He was hired after the internship and worked at the company for about four years as a software engineer. At the time he was fired, Damore was a level-five employee on Google’s internal 10-level ranking system, according to two people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified because the issue is private.
The firestorm is likely to continue. Pichai, who was away on a family vacation, cut his trip short to return to the Bay Area Tuesday, he said in his memo. He is expected to address the topic at TGIF, a company all-hands meeting, on Thursday, according to a Google spokesperson.
Damore could face an uphill battle if he tries to pursue a wrongful termination suit, legal experts said. The right to free speech typically protects only some government employees; Google has the right to fire workers for things they say at work or at home. Damore would have to prove he was trying to organize collective action among his fellow employees and was fired in retaliation for that, said Wilma Liebman, who chaired the National Labor Relations Board under President Barack Obama.
In the interview with Molyneux, Damore wasn't asked about and didn't discuss his legal options.
"There’ve been a lot of negative reactions in the public, but very few of them send me messages,’’ he said in the video. ``They don’t want to have a debate on why I’m wrong. In contrast, I’ve gotten a ton of personal messages of support, which is nice.’’
--Mark Bergen contributed reporting.
For more on gender imbalances in Silicon Valley, check out our podcast Decrypted: ||||| Scandal over discrimination at the company deepens as dozens of current and former staff say they have earned less than men despite equal qualifications
More than 60 current and former Google employees are considering bringing a class-action lawsuit alleging sexism and pay disparities against women, as the technology giant wrestles with a deepening crisis over alleged discrimination.
James Finberg, the civil rights attorney working on the possible legal action on behalf of the female employees, told the Guardian they contend they have earned less than men at Google despite equal qualifications and comparable positions.
Others, he said, have struggled in other ways to advance their careers at Google due to a “culture that is hostile to women”.
The Silicon Valley company is reeling from the leak over the weekend of a male software engineer’s 10-page manifesto criticizing diversity initiatives and arguing that men may occupy more leadership roles than women in tech due to “biological” differences.
Accused of underpaying women, Google says it's too expensive to get wage data Read more
The document, which was widely condemned as misogynistic and scientifically inaccurate, prompted Google to eventually fire the author, James Damore, and reignited debate about discrimination and sexual harassment that critics say is rampant in the technology industry.
A class-action gender discrimination suit would build on a case brought by the US Department of Labor (DoL), which is arguing that Google systematically underpays women and recently convinced a judge to force the company to hand over a portion of the company’s salary records.
Google is vehemently denying that its salaries are discriminatory. However, Finberg, who said he had interviewed about half of the 60 women who may be part of his lawsuit, said their testimony indicated there were clear disparities and prejudices that hurt women at the Mountain View company.
“They are concerned that women are channeled to levels and positions that pay less than men with similar education and experience,” Finberg said. Despite similar positions and qualifications, he said, some women said they made less than male counterparts in salaries, bonuses and stock options.
Several women he interviewed have said they make about $40,000 less than male colleagues doing the same work, with one woman saying she makes two-thirds of a male peer’s salary.
Of the more than 60 women who have reached out to the attorney in the last three weeks, about half still work for Google, according to Finberg, who said that more than a dozen claimed that discrimination played a role in their decision to leave the company.
One former senior manager who recently left Google told the Guardian she repeatedly learned of men at the same level as her earning tens of thousands of dollars more than her, and in one case, she said she had a male employee join her team with a higher salary despite the fact that she was his superior.
“It’s demoralizing,” said the worker, who requested anonymity for fear of retribution. “There’s something subconsciously that happens where you do start to question the value that you’re adding to the company.”
Why are there so few women in tech? The truth behind the Google memo Read more
The manager said that dealing with frequent sexism in the workplace and helping other women navigate the discrimination they were facing took a toll on her and contributed to her decision to quit. “After a while, it just became exhausting,” she said. “It takes emotional energy that builds up over time.”
Finberg argued that when men get higher compensation in the form of base salary and stocks, “the big initial disparity turns into a larger and larger disparity every year”.
“I felt like I wasn’t playing the game in the ‘boys’ club’ environment,” said another woman who worked for two years as a user experience designer and recently left Google. She said she regularly dealt with sexist remarks, such as comments about her looks, and that she felt it was discriminatory when she was denied a promotion despite her achievements and large workload.
“I was watching male coworkers progress at a faster rate than myself. It was really disturbing,” said the designer, who also requested anonymity.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Google headquarters in Mountain View, California. Photograph: JasonDoiy/Getty Images
A Google spokesperson declined to comment on the pending class action. However, in reference to the women considering legal action, the spokesperson said: “Sixty people is a really small sample size.” He added: “There are always going to be differences in salary based on location, role and performance, but the process is blind to gender.”
The women’s stories bolster the claims of labor department officials, who have said that a preliminary analysis found that women face “extreme” pay discrimination across the company and have recently raised concerns that Google’s strict confidentiality agreements are discouraging employees from speaking up.
While the labor department has not released details of its analysis or the scale of the pay gap it claims to have uncovered, its regional solicitor recently said that the agency’s initial audit has founded six to seven standard deviations between pay rates for men and women across the company.
What that means is that there is a one in 100m chance that the observed disparity is occurring randomly or by chance, said Janice Madden, a University of Pennsylvania sociology professor who has served as an expert witness in class-action employment cases.
Segregated Valley: the ugly truth about Google and diversity in tech Read more
If there are two standard deviations, the labor department considers the disparity statistically significant.
The former Google manager said it was upsetting to hear about the disparity. “It just makes me feel a little sick,” she said. “That’s a lot of missed income for me personally and the people on my team.”
The Google spokesperson said the company could not comment on the standard deviations because it had not seen the labor department’s analysis.
Finberg said he hoped a class-action case could have a ripple effect in the industry.
“Google is not alone in Silicon Valley,” he said. “The goal of the case is to not only get Google to change its practices, but to encourage other Silicon Valley companies to change their pay practices as well.”
Email the author: sam.levin@theguardian.com ||||| FILE - This Thursday, Jan. 3, 2013, file photo shows Google's headquarters in Mountain View, Calif. Google’s new head of diversity has rejected an internal commentary from an employee who suggested women... (Associated Press)
FILE - This Thursday, Jan. 3, 2013, file photo shows Google's headquarters in Mountain View, Calif. Google’s new head of diversity has rejected an internal commentary from an employee who suggested women... (Associated Press)
MENLO PARK, Calif. (AP) — A 28-year-old former Google engineer who was fired over a memo he wrote about gender differences said Tuesday he's exploring all his legal options and has already filed a labor complaint over his treatment.
James Damore, whose memo over the weekend caused an uproar online, said in an email that he was terminated late Monday for "perpetuating gender stereotypes." He said that prior to being fired he had filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board and that "it's illegal to retaliate against a NLRB charge."
A filing by Damore with the board Monday alleged he was subjected to "coercive statements" while at Google.
A Google spokesperson said Tuesday that the company could not have retaliated because it was unaware of his labor complaint until reading about it in the media after his dismissal. As of Tuesday afternoon, the company said it had not been sent notice of the complaint by the board.
The board declined to comment.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai on Monday said in an email to employees that, while he supports free expression by company workers, Damore's memo crossed the line of the company's code of conduct "by advancing harmful gender stereotypes in our workplace." Pichai added that he was cutting short a family vacation overseas to address staff in a town hall Thursday.
"To suggest a group of our colleagues have traits that make them less biologically suited to that work is offensive and not OK," Pichai wrote.
The engineer's widely shared memo , titled "Google's Ideological Echo Chamber," criticized Google for pushing mentoring and diversity programs and for "alienating conservatives."
Google's just-hired head of diversity, Danielle Brown, responded earlier with her own memo, saying that Google is "unequivocal in our belief that diversity and inclusion are critical to our success." She said change is hard and "often uncomfortable."
Damore's memo, originally circulated on an internal Google discussion group, begins by saying that only honest discussion will address a lack of equity. But it also asserts that women "prefer jobs in social and artistic areas" while more men "may like coding because it requires systemizing."
The memo says biological differences between men and women may explain why women are not equally represented in the technology industry.
Damore's filing with the NLRB cites a part of the labor relations act that gives employees the right to engage in "protected concerted" activities. That includes being active on social media , though it's unclear if his memo, written on a Google Doc and submitted to an employee-only forum, qualifies for such protection. The first tweets about the post by other Google employees began Friday, though a company spokesperson said the document appeared to have been created weeks earlier.
The Twitter hashtag #JamesDamore was drawing a storm of opinions both attacking Damore for his memo and his qualifications as an engineer, and criticizing Google for his dismissal.
The battling messages come as Silicon Valley grapples with accusations of sexism and discrimination. Google is also in the midst of a Department of Labor investigation into whether it pays women less than men, while Uber's CEO recently lost his job amid accusations of widespread sexual harassment and discrimination.
Leading tech companies, including Google, Facebook and Uber, have said they are trying to improve hiring and working conditions for women. But diversity numbers are barely changing .
___
Associated Press writers Matt O'Brien in Providence, Rhode Island, and Barbara Ortutay in New York contributed to this report. | – A 28-year-old former Google engineer who was fired over a memo he wrote about gender differences said Tuesday he's exploring all his legal options and has already filed a labor complaint over his treatment. James Damore, whose memo over the weekend caused an uproar online, said that prior to being fired on Monday he had filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board alleging he was subjected to "Coercive Statements (Threats, Promises of Benefits, etc.)." Damore notes it's illegal to fire someone in retaliation for going to the NLRB, though as Bloomberg puts it, he'd "have to prove he was trying to organize collective action among his fellow employees and was fired in retaliation for that." A Google rep said Tuesday that the company could not have retaliated because it didn't learn about the complaint until after he was fired. Wired lays out the reasons why Damore may have a case, including California law related to protected activities when it comes to allegations of unequal employee treatment. The AP also notes Damore's filing with the NLRB cites a part of the labor relations act that gives employees the right to engage in "protected concerted" activities. That includes being active on social media, though it's unclear if his memo, written on a Google Doc and submitted to an employee-only forum, qualifies for such protection. Damore isn't the only one considering legal action. The Guardian reports more than 60 current and former female Google employees are weighing whether to file a class-action suit that zeroes in on alleged pay disparities, with some reportedly claiming they're paid about $40,000 less than their male counterparts. |
The Dow Jones Industrial Average on Thursday extended the previous session's gut-wrenching downturn, with the blue-chip index off by more than 540 points and all three major equity benchmarks ending at fresh technical lows. The Dow DJIA, +0.75% closed down 545 points, or 2.1%, at 25,052, while the S&P 500 index SPX, +0.85% ended off 2.1% at 2,728, closing below its 200-day moving average for the first time since April, a day after marking its worst day session since Feb. 8, while the Nasdaq Composite Index also slipped further, off 1.3% at 7,329, edging further beneath its 200-day MA, viewed by technical analysts as a key dividing line between bullish and bearish momentum in an asset. Since Oct. 9, the 122-year-old stock benchmark has lost about 1,376 points, or about, according to FactSet data.
Have breaking news sent to your inbox. Subscribe to MarketWatch's free Bulletin emails. Sign up here. ||||| As of Jan. 22, 2019
The Bloomberg Billionaires Index is a daily ranking of the world’s richest people. Details about the calculations are provided in the net worth analysis on each billionaire’s profile page. The figures are updated at the close of every trading day in New York. ||||| CLOSE The Dow plunged more than 800 points Wednesday, its worst drop in eight months. Rising bond yields have been drawing investors out of the stock market. The best-performing stocks over the past year took some of the biggest losses. (Oct. 10) AP
Jeff Bezos. (Photo: Amazon)
No billionaire was hit as hard by Wednesday's stock market plunge – which included an 832-point dive by the Dow – than Jeff Bezos.
During the Wednesday selloff, the Amazon founder and CEO lost more than $9 billion.
Then again, that's what happens when you are the richest person in the United States. Earlier this month, his net worth reached $160 billion, according to Forbes.
The Bloomberg Billionaires Index shows Bezos total net worth is $145 billion, comfortably ahead of Bill Gates, who sits second at $96.3 billion.
Gates didn't escape Wednesday's ugly trading day unscathed, though. He lost more than $2 billion, while Warren Buffett lost nearly $4.5 billion.
Last week, Amazon – criticized for not giving employees a fair wage – announced it would raise the minimum wage for all employees to $15 an hour.
Follow Brett Molina on Twitter: @brettmolina23.
Read or Share this story: https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/nation-now/2018/10/11/amazon-ceo-jeff-bezos-lost-9-billion-stock-market-drop/1599951002/ | – Wednesday's stock market plunge hit Jeff Bezos harder than any other billionaire, USA Today reports. The Amazon founder and CEO lost more than $9 billion during the selloff, which saw the Dow dive 832 points. Of course, Bezos is still doing pretty well for himself; he's still sitting atop the Bloomberg Billionaires Index with an estimated net worth of $145 billion. No. 2 on the list, Bill Gates, lost more than $2 billion during Wednesday's rough trading day, while No. 3 on the list, Warren Buffett, lost almost $4.5 billion. As for how the market is doing Thursday, the Dow was down as many as 342 points in the first half of the day, per MarketWatch. |
North Korea allowed the mother of Kenneth Bae to visit her ailing son almost a year after the American tour operator and missionary was detained and sentenced to 15 years hard labor for “hostile acts.”
Myunghee Bae saw her son at a hospital in Pyongang where he’s being treated for various ailments, Kyodo news service reported, citing comments by Bae. His health didn’t look “that bad,” she told Kyodo.
Kenneth Bae was arrested while on a tour in a northeastern North Korean city in November 2012, and sentenced after a trial on April 30, further straining relations between the U.S. and the Kim Jong Un regime. The North has periodically detained Americans, sometimes seeking to barter their release for concessions from the U.S.
In a video posted to the family’s website before she left her home in Seattle, Myunghee Bae said her heart was “broken into pieces” when she saw a prison interview with her son from July. “He looked so different and he lost so much weight,” she said in the video. “I could not believe that prisoner was my son.”
Bae first worked in the fields at a labor camp until two months ago, when he was hospitalized for health reasons, his mother said in the video.
Visit Canceled
The U.S. doesn’t have diplomatic relations with North Korea, complicating efforts to work for Bae’s release. In August, Robert King, the State Department’s special envoy on North Korean human rights, was due to travel to North Korea to seek Bae’s freedom in what would have been the first visit by a U.S. official in more than two years. North Korea withdrew the invitation at the last minute.
“We remain gravely concerned about Mr. Bae’s health and we continue to urge the DPRK authorities to grant Mr. Bae special amnesty and immediate release on humanitarian grounds,” Nolan Barkhouse, spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, said by phone.
North and South Korea remain divided along one of the world’s most fortified borders 60 years after the Korean War ended in a stalemate. Tensions on the peninsula have heightened since February, when North Korea tested its third nuclear device and then threatened first strikes against the U.S. and South Korea over United Nations sanctions imposed after the Feb. 12 blast.
The U.S. maintains more than 28,000 troops in South Korea to defend against possible attacks from the North.
To contact the reporter on this story: Andrew Davis in Hong Kong at abdavis@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Rosalind Mathieson at rmathieson3@bloomberg.net ||||| Story highlights Mother of Kenneth Bae arrives in North Korea to visit her son, says family friend
Bae has been sentenced to 15 years in North Korean labor camp
His mother says she was alarmed by her son's appearance in a July prison interview
The mother of Kenneth Bae, the American imprisoned in North Korea, has arrived in the country to visit her ailing son, according to a friend of the family.
Earlier this year, Bae, a Korean-American, was sentenced to 15 years in a North Korean labor camp for what the government called "hostile acts."
His family has not been able to see him for almost a year since his November 3 arrest in North Korea.
"As a mother, I worry endlessly about his health," said his mother, Myunghee Bae in a videotaped statement. "I want to see him, comfort and hold him in person. I miss him so much."
Bae, of Lynwood, Washington, said that she pleaded with the North Korean authorities to let her visit her son, and expressed gratitude for granting permission. She is expected to be in North Korea for five days with the goal of encouraging her son who has become ill, according to a website dedicated to Kenneth Bae's freedom.
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In a prison interview released in July, Kenneth Bae had spoken of health problems including diabetes, high blood pressure, fatty liver and a back problem. He looked noticeably thinner and wore a blue prison garment streaked with sweat and dirt.
His family say he has lost more than 50 pounds.
"My heart was broken into pieces when his prison interview was released on July 3," said his mother, in her statement. "His appearance was very shocking, he looked so different, and he lost so much weight. I could not believe that prisoner was my son."
In previous interviews, Chung has said that her brother suffers from health problems including severe back and leg pain, kidney stones, dizziness, blurred vision and loss of vision. He was already dealing with diabetes.
His family and friends have asked North Korea for mercy and the United States for help in securing his release.
U.S. officials have repeatedly called on North Korea to release Bae. In August, the two countries appeared close, but North Korea rescinded an invitation to a U.S. envoy. Ambassador Robert King, President Barack Obama's special envoy for North Korean human rights issues, had been expected to fly to Pyongyang to try to win his freedom.
In previous instances, North Korea has released Americans in its custody after a visit by some U.S. dignitary -- in recent cases, former Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton.
Bae was arrested last year after arriving as a tourist in Rason City, a port in the northeastern corner of North Korea. His sister says that Bae is the owner of a tour company and was in North Korea for work.
The North Korean government accuses Bae of setting up bases in China for the purpose of "toppling" the North Korean government, encouraging North Korean citizens to bring down the government and conducting a "malignant smear campaign."
The country's state media also says that Bae had planned what it called a "Jericho operation" to bring down North Korea through religious activities. They have suggested that Bae could have been sentenced to death, but avoided it through "candid confession of his crimes."
On the eve of her trip, his mother looked solemnly into the camera, expressing her anxiety.
"It's hard to describe the agony of the past year since my son has been imprisoned in the DPRK," she said in a released statement. "I spend every day thinking about him and praying for his homecoming." | – Nearly a year after his arrest and a month after talks to release an American prisoner in North Korea broke down, Myunghee Bae has finally seen her ailing son. North Korean authorities granted her a visit to Kenneth Bae in a Pyongang hospital, reports CNN. They reportedly met today for 90 minutes, and photographs showed the two embracing. He didn't look "that bad," Myunghee Bae told Japan's Kyodo News Agency, according to Bloomberg, but she said the family is still worried about his health. She will be in the country for five days and might get to see her 45-year-old son one more time before leaving. |
Women say flesh-eating drug scared them straight By Frank Vaisvilas Correspondent
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Updated:
JOLIET — The wounds on Amber Neitzel’s body aren’t going away easily. They were caused by unknowingly using the flesh-eating, knockoff heroin drug known on the street as Krokodil, and she says she’ll have to get a skin graft.
Neitzel, 26, and her sister Angela, 29, both of Lockport, said they were treated last week at Saint Joseph Medical Center in Joliet after injecting Krokodil. And their mother, Kim Neitzel, 48, thinks she inadvertently took the drug and she had to have dead skin removed in May.
The drug is thought to have surfaced in at least one patient in McHenry County, too. A doctor with Centegra Health System in Crystal Lake said in a news release Tuesday that doctors there are treating an IV drug user with large skin lesions that they think were caused by Krokodil.
Authorities are trying to find the source of the drug in the Chicago area but don’t yet have evidence of a larger problem.
The drug, which also is known as Crocodile, consists of codeine tablets mixed with gasoline, paint thinner, butane and other chemicals to create an injectable drug that destroys blood vessels, killing tissue near an injection point, said Dr. Abhin Singla, Saint Joseph’s director of addiction services. It causes gangrene, which results in scaly green skin from which the drug gets its name.
“You literally start rotting from the inside out. It’s a horrific way to get sick,” Singla said. “. . . Intensive treatment and skin grafts are required, but they are often not enough to save limbs or lives.”
He said the drug was first manufactured about a decade ago in Russia and is “about three times more potent than heroin, but the ‘high’ lasts only for a few hours.” A hit of Krokodil costs about $8 compared with $25 to $30 for heroin, he said.
Singla said three women and two men came to Saint Joseph last week after their wounds worsened. He declined to identify them, but the Neitzel sisters said they were among those patients.
Amber Neitzel thinks she first injected Krokodil in April 2011, but the resulting scar tissue was small — nowhere near the skin damage caused by recent doses. On her lower right leg, much of the skin is rotting and covered with blisters. She said she will have to go back to the hospital for a skin graft.
She said her experience with Krokodil has caused her to be clean for 21 days.
“I had $100 worth of heroin in my hand and threw it across the house,” Amber Neitzel said.
She thinks a lot more Krokodil has found its way into the Chicago area heroin supply in recent months. She said she knows about a dozen other people who have been affected recently by the drug.
Her sister, who’s also showing serious symptoms, and their mother began using heroin shortly after Amber did about 10 years ago. Now, the women are looking to stay clean and trying to spread the message about Krokodil to other heroin users.
Besides sharing their stories with local media, their experience has drawn interest from the international press.
“The one thing that I want to get across to the world is just because you don’t have a big sore on your leg like I do, just because you don’t have that does not mean that you’re not getting the drug. That means it’s rotting you from the inside out,” Amber Neitzel said.
“Please be aware of it. . . . Your life expectancy is two to three years if you continue to use,” she said. “If you’ve only been using this stuff for a year and a half, quit now and you can still save your life. You can. Don’t just give up because you think it’s too late. Cause it’s not. It’s your life.” ||||| Lockport woman says flesh-eating drug scared her straight BY FRANK VAISVILAS For Sun-Times Media
Article Extras
Updated:
JOLIET — The wounds on Amber Neitzel’s body aren’t going away easily. They were caused by unknowingly using the flesh-eating, knockoff heroin drug known on the street as Krokodil, and she says she’ll have to get a skin graft.
Neitzel, 26, and her sister Angela, 29, both of Lockport, said they were treated last week at Saint Joseph Medical Center in Joliet after injecting Krokodil. And their mother, Kim Neitzel, 48, thinks she inadvertently took the drug and she had to have dead skin removed in May.
The drug is thought to have surfaced in at least one patient in McHenry County, too. A doctor with Centegra Health System in Crystal Lake said in a news release Tuesday that doctors there are treating an IV drug user with large skin lesions that they think were caused by Krokodil.
Authorities are trying to find the source of the drug in the Chicago area but don’t yet have evidence of a larger problem.
The drug, which also is known as Crocodile, consists of codeine tablets mixed with gasoline, paint thinner, butane and other chemicals to create an injectable drug that destroys blood vessels, killing tissue near an injection point, said Dr. Abhin Singla, Saint Joseph’s director of addiction services. It causes gangrene, which results in scaly green skin from which the drug gets its name.
“You literally start rotting from the inside out. It’s a horrific way to get sick,” Singla said. “. . . Intensive treatment and skin grafts are required, but they are often not enough to save limbs or lives.”
He said the drug was first manufactured about a decade ago in Russia and is “about three times more potent than heroin, but the ‘high’ lasts only for a few hours.” A hit of Krokodil costs about $8 compared with $25 to $30 for heroin, he said.
Singla said three women and two men came to Saint Joseph last week after their wounds worsened. He declined to identify them, but the Neitzel sisters said they were among those patients.
Amber Neitzel thinks she first injected Krokodil in April 2011, but the resulting scar tissue was small — nowhere near the skin damage caused by recent doses. On her lower right leg, much of the skin is rotting and covered with blisters. She said she will have to go back to the hospital for a skin graft.
She said her experience with Krokodil has caused her to be clean for 21 days.
“I had $100 worth of heroin in my hand and threw it across the house,” Amber Neitzel said.
She claims a lot more Krokodil has found its way into the Chicago area heroin supply in recent months. She said she knows about a dozen other people who have been affected recently by the drug.
Her sister, who’s also showing serious symptoms, and their mother began using heroin shortly after Amber did about 10 years ago. Now, the women are looking to stay clean and trying to spread the message about Krokodil to other heroin users.
Besides sharing their stories with local media, their experience has drawn interest from the international press.
“The one thing that I want to get across to the world is just because you don’t have a big sore on your leg like I do, just because you don’t have that does not mean that you’re not getting the drug. That means it’s rotting you from the inside out,” Amber Neitzel said.
“Please be aware of it. . . . Your life expectancy is two to three years if you continue to use,” she said. “If you’ve only been using this stuff for a year and a half, quit now and you can still save your life. You can. Don’t just give up because you think it’s too late. Cause it’s not. It’s your life.” | – More American users of the flesh-rotting Russian street drug Krokodil have emerged. Two sisters from Joliet, Ill., are among five who were treated for the drug's nasty side effects at a Chicago-area hospital last week. Amber and Angie Neitzel, both heroin addicts, say they thought they'd been buying and injecting their drug of choice, WLS-TV reports. Then about 18 months ago wounds started appearing on Amber's skin. "It almost starts like a burn from a cigarette," she says. "It starts purple and then goes into a blister after five or six days." The rotting became so advanced that Angie had to undergo emergency surgery last week to save her legs. "You literally start rotting from the inside out," says a doctor at the hospital where the women were treated, per the Chicago Sun-Times. "Intensive treatment and skin grafts are required, but they are often not enough to save limbs or lives.” It was actually the Neitzels' mother—also a recovering heroin addict—who first suggested they might be shooting up the notorious drug instead of heroin, WLS-TV reports. Now the sisters say they're kicking their drug habit for good—doctors have told them they'll be dead within three years if they don't, and both have lost custody of their children. "I had $100 worth of heroin in my hand and threw it across the house," Amber tells the Herald-News. |
How Does Your SAT Score Compare?
The SAT will change back to a 1600-point scale in 2016 and the writing section that was added in 2005 will become optional. To see how your SAT score compares with your peers, enter the year you took the test and use the sliders to input your score for each section. SAT scoring has changed several times, so averages only apply for the year the test was taken. (See related article.) ||||| Plenty of employers, from consulting firms such as Bain & Co. and McKinsey & Co. and banks like Goldman Sachs, still care about a job candidate's SAT score. Melissa Korn explains why on the News Hub. Photo: Getty Images.
Stephen Robert Morse was a candidate for a communications job when the recruiter told him to be ready to discuss his SAT score in a coming interview.
Mr. Morse, 28 years old, said he was "shocked" that a potential boss would be interested in the results of a test he took more than a decade earlier. He passed on the opportunity.
Interactive: How Does Your SAT Score Compare?
Proving the adage that all of life is like high school, plenty of employers still care about a job candidate's SAT score. Consulting firms such as Bain & Co. and McKinsey & Co. and banks like Goldman Sachs Group Inc. ask new college recruits for their scores, while other companies request them even for senior sales and management hires, eliciting scores from job candidates in their 40s and 50s. (Input your SAT score and compare it with your peers in an interactive.)
The SAT, originally known as the Scholastic Aptitude Test and taken during junior or senior year of high school, is a common element of college applications. The exam is scored on a scale of 2400, with up to 800 points each for critical reading, math and writing sections. The average SAT score last year was a combined 1498. (Before March 2005, the test had just two sections and was scored on a 1600-point scale.)
James O'Brien
A low score doesn't necessarily kill a person's chances, hiring managers say; instead, they say they believe SATs and other college entrance exams like the ACT help when comparing candidates with differing backgrounds or figuring out whether someone has the raw brainpower required for the job.
But some companies do set targets, particularly on the math section. Mark Rich, managing director of consulting-industry recruiting firm Whitehouse Pimms, says clients often tell him to screen for candidates whose SAT scores placed them in or above the 95th percentile. Investment firm D.E. Shaw Group asks candidates to break out their math and verbal results.
Boston Consulting Group Inc. has long used SAT scores as a factor in its hiring process. The firm doesn't set a minimum score for applicants, said Jennifer Comparoni, head of Americas recruiting. But candidates with weak math results would need to demonstrate other strengths, such as subject-matter expertise or leadership ability, she added.
BCG managers won't say that SAT results predict job performance, but Ms. Comparoni said the company uses the test as a standard measure of "the basic building blocks of success," such as critical thinking, problem-solving skills and quantitative abilities.
How They Read Your Résumé Recruiters like to see candidates with the right mix of education, experience and skills, but certain companies put added weight on particular résumé lines for recent college grads: GPA: Accounting firms and other professional services companies often set minimum grade-point averages for college hires; at service organization Teach for America , the average undergraduate GPA for the 2013 corps was 3.55.
, the average undergraduate GPA for the 2013 corps was 3.55. INTERESTS: Law-school graduates generally have near-identical transcripts and little work experience. Quirky interests, such as 19th century French poetry or a stint as a sports team mascot, can differentiate candidates for law firms .
. WORK EXPERIENCE: Time at an early-stage startup excites recruiters at small tech firms. Sources: recruiters, companies, Teach for America
Cvent Inc., CVT -0.03% Cvent Inc. U.S.: NYSE $33.32 -0.01 -0.03% AFTER HOURS $33.32 0.00 0.00% P/E Ratio N/A Market Cap $1.37 Billion Dividend Yield N/A Rev. per Employee $76,645.5 03/20/14 Tableau Software Raising Cash ... 03/04/14 New Cloud-Software Firms Take ... 01/22/14 Splunk Adds To List Of 2014's ... More quote details and news » CVT in Your Value Your Change Short position a McLean, Va., event management software company, asks all job applicants to provide SAT or ACT scores, results from graduate-school entrance tests and grade-point averages along with their work history. Scores count most heavily for candidates in their first years out of college, though the company has received scores from applicants well into middle age, said Eric Eden, Cvent's vice president of marketing.
"When you're hiring people and they don't have a lot of work experience, you have to start with some set of data points," he said, adding that he likes to hear about recent graduates' extracurricular activities, too.
Cvent, which employs more than 1,400 people, hasn't tested whether its best employees are also its top SAT scorers. "Knowing it's a standardized test is really enough for us," Mr. Eden said.
SATs and other academic artifacts remain relevant in part because they are easy—if imperfect—metrics for hiring managers to understand. This despite the fact that increased use of personality tests, data analytics and behavioral interviews have given employers more information about a candidate than ever before. Academic research has proved that cognitive ability can predict job performance, but there is scant evidence linking high SAT scores with employee success.
The College Board, which administers the SAT, maintains that the exam is designed mainly to predict first-year college success. The group hasn't studied employers' use of scores, a College Board spokeswoman said.
"It is a little confounding how a test somebody took when they were 17 predicts success in a competitive workplace when they're 22," said Kevin Monahan, a career-services dean at Carnegie Mellon University.
Few companies request official score reports from the College Board in the same way they demand formal college transcripts, though they often require candidates to attest that they are providing truthful information. Employers also spot-check candidates' credentials after making offers. (The College Board keeps SAT scores indefinitely, though requests for scores older than one year take up to five weeks to fulfill and cost $30.50 to retrieve.)
Putting too much stock in standardized tests can put minority candidates at a disadvantage. In 2013, SAT test-takers in the "Black or African-American" category scored an average 431 on the exam's critical reading section, 429 on math and 418 on writing. White test-takers, meanwhile, scored nearly 100 points higher on average in every section. There is a racial divide for ACT score reports as well.
Still, many college students and recent graduates now list their scores voluntarily on résumés and LinkedIn.
Patricia Rose, director of career services at University of Pennsylvania, advises students to put forth any information on their profiles that might impress an employer, even test scores. She also recommends recent graduates who want to change industries to list their results as proof that they are up to new intellectual challenges.
Many college students and recent graduates now list their scores voluntarily on résumés and LinkedIn. Associated Press
But what impresses one hiring manager may annoy another, said In-Sue Oh, a professor of human resources and management at Temple University's Fox School of Business. Listing SAT scores on a résumé could make an applicant come across as narcissistic, overqualified or hung up on high-school successes, he added.
Asking for SAT scores may turn off candidates, too. Mr. Morse, now head of marketing and communications at freelance marketplace SkillBridge, said a firm's request for test scores "made me a little bit skeptical of wanting to work with them," despite scoring "in the 1450 range" on the 1600-point test. "I don't see why it's relevant," he said.
Google Inc. GOOG -3.67% Google Inc. Cl C U.S.: Nasdaq $536.10 -20.44 -3.67% AFTER HOURS $538.15 +2.05 +0.38% P/E Ratio N/A Market Cap $377.07 Billion Dividend Yield N/A Rev. per Employee $1,250,730 04/11/14 Heartbleed Bug's 'Voluntary' O... 04/08/14 Turkey Slightly Loosens Grip o... 04/03/14 Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich Steps... More quote details and news » GOOG in Your Value Your Change Short position famously fixated on job candidates' grade-point averages, test scores and alma mater, but the company changed tactics about two years ago, when data showed that traditionally pedigreed candidates didn't always make better hires.
Internal studies found "very little correlation between SAT scores and job performance," said Kyle Ewing, head of global staffing programs at Google. The company now relies on interview questions that probe how a potential hire has solved complex problems in the past.
Not everyone is glad when companies shift ever so slightly away from SATs.
One former McKinsey analyst who conducted recruiting for the firm was content to share his own scores. "For me, it was great," he said. "I test much better than I am intelligent."
Write to Melissa Korn at melissa.korn@wsj.com | – Even if you have gray hair and can't really remember taking the SATs, your scores could still come back to haunt you. The Wall Street Journal finds that companies are asking job candidates for their scores even into middle age. College entrance exam scores, says a recruitment head at Boston Consulting Group, provide insight on a candidate's "basic building blocks of success." "When you're hiring people and they don't have a lot of work experience, you have to start with some set of data points," notes a marketing VP in Virginia. But the Journal reports that it isn't just job-market newbies being asked: Some companies on the hunt for senior sales and management employees are requesting them, "eliciting scores from job candidates in their 40s and 50s." Some say that the tests are helpful when potential hires come from varied backgrounds—though the Journal notes racial inequality in both SAT and ACT scores. Bain & Co., McKinsey & Co., and Goldman Sachs are among employers who seek scores from those just out of college. Google used to look at test results, but internal studies revealed "very little correlation between SAT scores and job performance," says a spokesman; the company stopped using such metrics two years back. A dean at Carnegie Mellon University agrees. "It is a little confounding how a test somebody took when they were 17 predicts success in a competitive workplace when they're 22." If you want to see how your own score stacks up, the Journal has an interactive here. Meanwhile, a new study raises doubts as to whether the scores even predict college performance very well. |
A newly uncovered photograph of a college-aged Bernie Sanders getting arrested during a civil rights protest could bolster the Democratic presidential hopeful’s civil rights record as he battles with Hillary Clinton to win black voters, a key demographic in the upcoming South Carolina primary.
The photograph was discovered by the Chicago Tribune and confirmed as authentic by the candidate himself on Friday. “Bernie identified it himself,” senior campaign advisor Tad Devine told the Chicago Tribune. “He looked at it — he actually has his student ID from the University of Chicago in his wallet — and he said, ‘Yes, that indeed is (me).'”
The arrest occurred during a 1963 civil rights protest of segregation in Chicago schools, when Sanders was a student at the University of Chicago. He was charged with resisting arrest, found guilty, and fined $25.
The release of the photograph comes at a key time in the election, when Sanders and Hillary Clinton are battling for support among African Americans and other minorities in the Nevada Caucus Saturday and the South Carolina Primary next weekend. In South Carolina, Clinton is currently leading with black voters. According to an NBC/Wall Street Journal/Marist poll released Friday, 78% of black voters over 45 support Clinton (12% support Sanders) and black voters under 45 support Clinton 52-35. ||||| A Chicago Tribune archival photo of a young man being arrested in 1963 at a South Side protest shows Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders, his campaign has confirmed, bolstering the candidate's narrative about his civil rights activism.
The black-and-white photo shows a 21-year-old Sanders, then a University of Chicago student, being taken by Chicago police toward a police wagon. An acetate negative of the photo was found in the Tribune's archives, said Marianne Mather, a Chicago Tribune photo editor.
See more vintage photos from the Tribune's archives >>
"Bernie identified it himself," said Tad Devine, a senior adviser to the campaign, adding that Sanders looked at a digital image of the photo. "He looked at it — he actually has his student ID from the University of Chicago in his wallet — and he said, 'Yes, that indeed is (me).'" Sanders, a U.S. senator from Vermont, was traveling Friday near Reno, Nev., on the eve of the state's Democratic presidential caucuses.
Sanders' activism at the University of Chicago has been in the news recently, after questions arose about a different photo that appeared to show Sanders addressing students at a 1962 campus sit-in. At first, several alumni identified the speaker as another man, according to the University of Chicago Library's Special Research Center. The other man is no longer alive.
However, photographer Danny Lyon, who took that photo, contacted the research center and made available more photos from the same sequence, confirming Sanders' identity, the center said.
Devine called those questions about the sit-in photo "unfair and unfounded."
"His activism and when it occurred, as a young college student, set in motion the direction of his life," Devine said.
After the 1962 photos surfaced, Mather and photographer Brian Nguyen looked in the newspaper’s archival collection and found several negatives that appeared to be Sanders.
The subjects of the photographs were not listed on the negatives, but information filed with them indicated that the Tribune arrest photo was taken in August 1963 near South 73rd Street and Lowe Avenue, which is in the Englewood neighborhood.
A January 1964 Tribune story on the court cases of those who had been arrested in August identified a Bernard Sanders. The negatives were scanned and an image was shown to the Sanders campaign Friday. On Saturday, the campaign confirmed that a second photo also shows Sanders.
In the early 1960s, protests over segregation in the Englewood area raged over mobile classrooms dubbed "Willis Wagons," named for then-Chicago Schools Superintendent Benjamin Willis. Critics charged that the trailers kept black children in the area instead of sending them to white schools.
Sanders was arrested Aug. 12, 1963, and charged with resisting arrest. He was found guilty and fined $25, according to a Tribune story about the protests.
Is this Bernie Sanders being arrested? Is this Bernie Sanders being arrested? Published Feb. 16, 2016. ('63 Boycott and Kartemquin Films) Is this Bernie Sanders being arrested? Published Feb. 16, 2016. ('63 Boycott and Kartemquin Films) See more videos
Sanders enrolled at the University of Chicago on Oct. 3, 1960, and graduated in June 1964 with a bachelor of arts degree in political science, said Jeremy Manier, a university spokesman.
Sanders attended Brooklyn College before coming to the U. of C., Manier said.
At the University of Chicago, he was a leader of the Congress of Racial Equality, a major civil rights group. News accounts from the time had Sanders leading protests over racial inequality.
kskiba@tribpub.com
Twitter @Katherine Skiba | – Bernie Sanders was arrested. Well, he was arrested 53 years ago, anyway. The Chicago Tribune discovered photographic evidence of Sanders' involvement in the fight for racial equality this week in the form of a negative from its archives showing a bespectacled Sanders being hauled away by police during a 1963 protest in Chicago's South Side. The New York Times reports there's also video from the same incident that was released Monday by Kartemquin Films, which is making a documentary about the protests. "Bernie identified it himself," a senior Sanders advisor tells the Tribune regarding the photo. "He looked at it…and he said, 'Yes, that indeed is (me).'" He also specifically remembered the watch he was wearing in the video of the arrest. Sanders was 21 and a student at the University of Chicago, where he would graduate with a degree in political science, at the time. He was charged with resisting arrest and fined $25. The protest was part of many against Chicago's practice of sending black students to school in trailers rather than putting them into white schools. The Times states Sanders has faced attacks from Clinton's campaign over his civil rights bonafides. And the Tribune believes this new evidence "bolsters the candidate's narrative about his civil rights activism." The photo and video could end up helping Sanders in the upcoming South Carolina primary, where he needs more support among black voters, according to Time. Sanders was a leader with the Congress of Racial Equality while at the University of Chicago and led a number of protests against inequality. |
The dress on display at the Kaap Skil Museum in Holland. (Image: Kaap Skil Museum.)
Marine archaeologists working off the coast of Holland have recovered a remarkable trove of well-preserved artifacts from a ship that sank nearly 400 years ago. Among the items is a beautiful silken gown that likely belonged to royalty.
Back in August 2014, divers from the Texel Diving Club discovered an unassuming bundle at the site of a known wreck buried in the sands at the bottom of the Wadden Sea. It wasn’t until they brought the package to the surface that they realized what they had found: a trove of incredibly well-preserved antique textiles. This veritable time capsule had been locked in sand for nearly 400 years, immune from the damaging effects of oxygen and marine animals. According to one official, it’s one of the most significant maritime finds ever made.
Archaeologists from the Kaap Skil Museum in Holland have been analyzing the contents ever since. Museum officials only disclosed these findings to the public this week in order to protect the site from would-be interlopers.
The extraordinarily well-preserved gown, or frock, is made from silk damask. It features a bodice with loose-fitting sleeves and sleeve caps, and a full pleated skirt which is open at the front. Its style is reminiscent of those seen in paintings from the early 17th century.
The dress detail. (Image: Kaap Skil Museum.)
Because it doesn’t feature any fancy silver or gold embroidery, experts believe the flower-patterned gown was intended for every-day use. That said, the gown’s high quality suggests it likely belonged to a noblewoman, or even royalty. A leather-bound book was also found in the bundle carrying the coat of arms of the British king Charles I. This suggests that some of the cargo may have belonged to the Stuarts family of England.
Pomanders. (Image: Kaap Skil Museum.)
The bundle also contained a jacket, silk knee socks, and silk bodices woven with gold and silver thread (definitely not for every-day use). All the garments were the same size, which suggests they all belonged to one woman, who was apparently rather full-figured. Other items included a comb for lice, Italian pottery, pomanders (spheres with pleasant-smelling contents to offset foul odors), and a bunch of leather-bound books, some with locks.
Book cover with Stuart arms. (Image: Kaap Skil Museum.)
The dress and the other items are currently on display at a special one-month exhibit at the museum. After May 16th, the artifacts will be returned to the archaeologists for further study.
[The Kaap Skil Museum, The History Blog, Dutch News] ||||| Centuries ago, the islands of Texel and Eyerland (they merged in 1835 to become the island of Texel) were important waypoints for trade ships on their way to Holland. And divers have long known that the waters around present-day Texel Island hold a trove of sunken ships that were unable to survive Wadden Sea's storms and severe weather to make it safely to shore. But recently, a group of divers found something amazing buried under the Wadden Sea: a 17th-century chest containing a surprisingly well-preserved collection of clothing, books and other items that may have once belonged to an English noblewoman.
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The divers were swimming near Texel Island when they spotted the sunken remains of a 400-year-old shipwreck. When they took a closer look, they spotted a package buried in the sand. The divers dug it up and brought the parcel back to the surface. When they opened it, they discovered a collection of items that include a silk dress, a velvet purse, a lice comb and other underclothes, DutchNews reports. A leather-bound book found in the parcel was stamped with the coat-of-arms of King Charles I, which suggests the owner was a member of the nobility. The items are currently on display at the Kaap Skil Maritime and Beachcombers Museum on Texel.
“This is direct evidence that at least part of the cargo belonged to the English royal family, the Stuarts,” a Kaap Skill museum spokesperson tells DutchNews. “Given the richness of the rest of the cargo, this is not entirely impossible.”
Of all the items recovered from the wreck, perhaps one of the most fascinating is the silk dress, which was in remarkably good shape after centuries buried underwater. While the dress is made of fine textiles, conservators say it was likely made for a noblewoman’s everyday use because it lacks fancy embroidery and decorative beads, Sarah Laskow reports for Atlas Obscura.
While 17th-century paintings give historians a good idea of how nobles dressed when they wanted to look their best, evidence of their everyday lives is much rarer. Thanks to this discovery, historians have a better sense of how upper-class ladies dressed as they went about their days, as opposed to the embroidered, elaborate finery they would have donned to pose for a portrait, Annalee Newitz writes for Ars Technica.
The woman’s belongings weren’t the only things found in the wreck. Divers also recovered luxury items like fine wood, materials used for varnish and crates that may have once held expensive spices, Laskow reports. While their owner’s identity and her fate remain a mystery, her former belongings and undergarments provide a telling snapshot of how a well-heeled lady might have packed for a sea journey. ||||| The 17th century silk dress found buried under sand off the Wadden Sea island of Texel was probably worn by someone who belonged to the royal court of the English queen Henrietta Maria, according to experts at Leiden and Amsterdam universities.
The queen was travelling to the Netherlands on a secret mission in March 1642 when one of her baggage ships sank in the Wadden Sea.
The gown is still remarkably well preserved and went on show at the Texel maritime museum earlier this month. A book with the coat of arms of the British house of Stuart led archaeologists to suggest there was a royal connection.
Countess
According to cultural historians Helmer Helmers from the University of Amsterdam and Nadine Akkerman from Leiden University the dress probably belonged to Jean Kerr, Countess of Roxburghe (c. 1585-1643).
She was a confidant of the queen and one of two ladies-in-waiting whose clothes went down with the ship. The style and size of the gown indicates strongly that it belonged to Kerr, the elder of the two.
Their findings are based on a letter written by Elizabeth Stuart (1596-1662), the Stuart princess who found refuge in The Hague after being exiled from the Kingdom of Bohemia.
In a letter to the English diplomat Sir Thomas Roe, dated 17 March 1642, Elizabeth describes how her sister-in-law lost a baggage ship during the crossing. In addition to the clothing of two ladies-in-waiting and their maids, the queen herself lost the ‘vessels’ from her private chapel in the shipwreck.
A secret mission
The official story behind Henrietta Maria’s trip to the Dutch Republic was one of royal connections: she was delivering her 11-year old daughter Mary to the court of William II, Prince of Orange and future stadtholder, whom the girl had married the previous year.
This was only a ruse, however. Her real mission was to sell the crown jewels and use the proceeds to buy weapons. These were essential for King Charles I to take on Parliament in the English Civil War. According to Akkerman and Helmers, the find at Texel represents a tangible reminder of the strong Dutch involvement in this conflict.
The two were able to solve the mystery of the dress reasonably quickly. ‘Once Helmer alerted me to the find, it took us about five minutes to unearth the relevant letter, as I remembered transcribing and deciphering it in 2006. We continue to find more references,’ Akkerman said.
‘It is a pity we weren’t consulted earlier – the puzzle would have been solved much more quickly,’ Helmers said. ‘The archeological experts have primarily focused on the material side. Of course this is important, but the historical texts also tell a thrilling story.’ | – An amazingly well-preserved dress discovered by divers in Dutch waters likely belonged to a noblewoman on a "secret mission" in 1642 to sell the crown jewels, Dutch News reports. Marine archeologists found the silk gown and other items in August 2014, but officials at the Kaap Skil Museum kept the discovery a secret until this month to protect the discovery site from scavengers, Gizmodo reports. Part of the find was a book that bore the coat of arms of King Charles I, and based on that tip, historians were able to locate a letter that describes a baggage ship lost during the 1642 crossing. The king had sent his wife on a mission to raise money for war, and the dress is believed to have belonged to a member of her royal court, specifically Jean Kerr, the countess of Roxburghe. "While 17th-century paintings give historians a good idea of how nobles dressed when they wanted to look their best, evidence of their everyday lives is much rarer," notes the Smithsonian. "Thanks to this discovery, historians have a better sense of how upper-class ladies dressed as they went about their days." The big find came when divers inspecting a shipwreck noticed a chest buried in the sand off the coast of Holland. Inside were the dress, other clothing, books, a metal ball that would be filled with fragrant leaves and flowers to mask body odor, and a lice comb, among other things. A history professor at Southampton University calls the find "hugely, absolutely, amazing," per the Sun. (A shipwrecked vessel associated with Vasco da Gama was discovered off Oman.) |
WASHINGTON -- House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) urged the president on Sunday to drop his resistance to the idea and simply bypass the upcoming debate over raising the debt ceiling by deeming the entire cap unconstitutional.
Appearing on CBS' "Face the Nation," Pelosi offered her strongest endorsement to-date of the 14th Amendment option, which holds that Congress doesn't have the power to use the debt ceiling as a hostage-taking device because the validity of the debt “shall not be questioned.”
Nancy Pelosi: Well, you ask the Republicans, because we always passed the debt ceiling. When President Bush was president, as he was incurring these massive debts, and the Republicans weren't saying 'boo' at the time. There should be, this is a conversation where there should be no doubt. In fact, if I were president, I'd use the 14th Amendment, which says that the debt of the United States will always be paid.
Bob Schieffer: You would just go ahead and do it, you wouldn't wait for the Congress?
Nancy Pelosi: I would just go do it. But the Congress has incurred much of this debt. And so what are you saying, we incurred it but we're not going to pay it? If you want to say, 'We are not going to do it so much in the future,' well that's another thing. But you can't say, 'I'm not paying my past debts.'
The 14th amendment option is gaining popularity among Democrats on the Hill. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) urged the president to deploy it when the two were contemplating the contours of the just-completed fiscal cliff debate.
The White House, however, has resisted the option, arguing that they don’t have the legal power to do so and that, even if they did, the fact that they had to resort to it would still send terrible economic signals.
"This administration does not believe that the 14th Amendment gives the president the power to ignore the debt ceiling -- period," White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said early in December. ||||| Photo by CHris Kleponis/AFP/Getty Images.
With the fiscal cliff behind us, we now must look forward to yet another budgetary battle—over the debt ceiling, in a repeat of summer 2011. Is there a way out of the endless stalemate between President Obama and Republicans in Congress? Yes, but it requires the president to assert himself more aggressively than he has so far.
The debt standoff is more ominous than the fiscal cliff because it doesn’t reflect a legitimate dispute over public policy. While reasonable people can disagree about the right level of taxation and spending, no one believes that the United States should default on its debt, not even the most ardent Tea Partiers. So holding the debt ceiling hostage is pure brinkmanship—akin to threatening to set off a nuclear bomb in Manhattan if the president fails to agree to spending cuts.
House Republicans would probably argue that the main effect of maintaining the debt ceiling would be to force President Obama to cut spending while using tax revenues to pay interest on the debt. But cutting government programs to the degree necessary would also create a crisis— most people and institutions won’t want to do business with the government, or work for it, because they won’t trust it to do what it promises. This is a mess and a bad way to run a country. So what can be done?
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One argument that has received some attention rests on an obscure provision in the 14th Amendment of the Constitution. It says that “The validity of the public debt of the United States … shall not be questioned.” Some commentators, like former President Clinton, argue that this clause authorizes the president to borrow money to meet existing obligations. But the provision does not mention the president or give him any authority. And in Article I, the Constitution gives the authority to borrow money to Congress. The 14th Amendment states an aspiration or goal, which would not normally trump a specific allocation of constitutional powers. The argument also fails on its own terms because the debt ceiling does not force the president to default on the public debt; he can avoid default by spending less.
Two law professors, Neil Buchanan and Michael Dorf, have argued that the president is actually constitutionally required to violate the debt ceiling rather than cut spending. To respect Congress’ will, he should follow its orders to spend rather than follow its orders not to borrow—the idea is that the spending power is somehow constitutionally fundamental to what Congress does, while the borrowing power is not. I say “somehow” because Buchanan and Dorf do not explain convincingly why that would be so.
President Obama can make a better argument. Congress has given him an impossible task: to implement a large number of costly public projects with less money than those projects cost. If he cuts spending, then he violates constitutional norms that give Congress the power to determine spending. If he raises revenues by borrowing or trying to tax people, then he violates constitutionals norms that give Congress the power to borrow or tax. In the face of contradictory instructions from Congress, the president can’t avoid choosing—by virtue of his administrative role as collector and disburser of revenues, the president must do something. Where Congress fails to provide him with consistent instructions, he has the discretion to do what he believes is in the public interest. If the economy were to be on the point of collapse, he could cite emergency powers sanctified by tradition as his authority for borrowing beyond the debt ceiling on his own. But a less drastic argument is that the power to resolve conflicting congressional orders is inherent in the president’s administrative role. Indeed, presidents frequently face conflicting statutes as they govern, and they have long enjoyed a great deal of discretion in resolving them.
So in the face of contradictory orders from Congress, President Obama should do what he believes is in the public interest. And if the House refuses to raise the debt ceiling, this surely means some combination of cutting spending, borrowing beyond the debt limit, and perhaps even searching out new sources of revenue. | – Think the whole debt-ceiling debate is silly? Paul Krugman does, too, and he's been pushing an admittedly "silly" way out of it. A legal loophole intended for making commemorative coins, he writes in the New York Times, could come in handy: Thanks to the rule, the US Treasury is legally allowed to mint coins of any denomination. And "by minting a $1 trillion coin, then depositing it at the Fed, the Treasury could acquire enough cash to sidestep the debt ceiling—while doing no economic harm at all." Sure, it's a "gimmick," but it makes as much sense as the debt ceiling, which lets Congress "tell the president to spend money, then tell him that he can’t raise the money he’s supposed to spend." Over at Slate, Eric Posner offers another option: President Obama can just raise the debt ceiling himself. After all, as Krugman notes, Congress is giving Obama two different instructions. It's the president's responsibility to choose which one to follow. Then there's the argument that the 14th Amendment "says that the debt of the United States will always be paid," an argument that the Huffington Post notes Nancy Pelosi likes. Obama should "just go do it," she told Bob Schieffer yesterday. |
In this still image provided by IntelCenter on December 7, 2010, Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl is shown as a prisoner of militants in Pakistan. AFP PHOTO / IntelCenter / FILES
A new congressional report details what Republicans call a deception surrounding a controversial 2014 prisoner swap, suggesting the release of five Taliban prisoners in exchange for American captive Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl had an ulterior motive: helping President Obama get closer to his goal of shutting down the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
After a year-and-a-half-long investigation, the House Armed Services Committee’s Republican majority also renewed assertions that the decision to send the senior Taliban figures to Qatar, a move that took place just hours after Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl was freed from Taliban captivity, without notifying Congress violated several laws. It also misled lawmakers in a way that “severely harmed” the administration’s ties with lawmakers, the report found.
The prisoner exchange, which was pulled off under tight secrecy, ignited a storm of criticism whose effects are visible today, as the White House struggles to build congressional support for resettling some Guantanamo prisoners overseas and bringing others to the United States. While administration officials hope to help Obama deliver on his promise to close Guantanamo Bay before he leaves office, lawmakers appear unlikely to drop long-standing their opposition.
[Disillusioned and self-deluded, Bowe Bergdahl vanished into brutal captivity]
The controversy over the transfer was compounded by revelations that Bergdahl walked off his small Army outpost in southeast Afghanistan in 2009. Bergdahl, who was held under difficult conditions in Pakistan for five years, is now facing desertion charges in a military court.
Cmdr. Gary Ross, a Pentagon spokesman, said the Obama administration only approves detainee transfers when officials conclude that security risks could be managed. “We determined that this standard has been satisfied here,” he said.
During the investigation, committee staff reviewed over 4,000 pages of documents, including numerous emails between administration officials; conducted interviews; and visited Qatar, where government officials made arrangements to monitor the Afghans after their release. The Washington Post and several other news organizations obtained a copy of the report prior to its release.
The report details internal communications regarding the transfer, focusing in part on what it depicts as administration efforts to conceal their plans from Congress and the press.
By February 2014, the report said, the administration had already solicited a proof-of-life video of Bergdahl as a step toward a potential swap, and officials were advancing their discussions with their Qatari counterparts. News reports had surfaced suggesting that a renewed push to secure Bergdahl’s release had begun.
Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, left, and defense lead counsel Eugene Fidell, center, look on as Maj. Gen. Kenneth Dahl is questioned during a preliminary hearing to determine if Sgt. Bergdahl will be court-martialed, Friday, Sept. 18, 2015, at Fort Sam Houston, Texas. Bergdahl, who left his post in Afghanistan and was held by the Taliban for five years, is charged with desertion and misbehavior before the enemy. (AP Photo/Brigitte Woosley)
“Yet, the Department did not convey any of the details to the Committee,” the report stated. “Indeed, [a Taliban statement to the Associated Press] contained more specifics about a prospective exchange than what was conveyed through official channels to the Committee and others in Congress at the time.”
Around the same time, then-Pentagon General Counsel Stephen Preston was helping prepare then-Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel for budget testimony. According to the report, Preston proposed the following response if Hagel was asked about the subject: “As for recent reports, let me just say this: ‘We have not been involved in active negotiations with the Taliban recently, but SGT Bergdahl’s return is an issue we would like to discuss with the Taliban if and when such talks are restarted.'”
Lt. Col. Joe Sowers, another Pentagon spokesman, said Preston’s suggested response for Hagel was “accurate and forthcoming.” He said the comments were appropriate for an unclassified setting and reflected the preliminary stage where the issue stood at that moment.
“The request for proof of life was preliminary to any negotiations, to ensure there was a reason for the U.S. government to pursue discussions,” he said.
Perhaps most problematic for the White House, committee Republicans contend that the transfer was at least partly motivated by a desire to clear out hardened detainees who could stand in the way of closing Guantanamo.
[Bergdahl will require lifetime of care for injuries suffered in captivity]
“This took … five very difficult and otherwise intractable cases off the table at a time when the administration is seeking to maximize the number of those that they transferred,” said one committee aide who, like others, spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the probe publicly.
There are 107 detainees remaining at Guantanamo, 48 of whom have been approved to be released overseas. While the administration is seeking to resettle detainees who aren’t seen as a security risk, others may eventually be tried or simply detained indefinitely without trial.
Committee officials acknowledged they did not uncover communication stating such an objective specifically.
“While we do not have an email saying, ‘Do this because this is going to help with the president’s campaign promise,’ something as explicit as that, we draw the conclusion on the basis of the totality of what we have in front of us,” another aide said.
A written dissent from the committee’s Democratic leaders called the report “an expression of shrill demagoguery, contrary to the interests of national security, and beneath the dignity of the House Armed Services Committee.”
Rep. Adam Smith, the committee’s top Democrat, and Rep. Jackie Speier, another senior committee member, said that investigators appeared to have “cherry-picked” information used in the report.
The prisoner exchange was originally envisioned as a confidence-building measures in hoped-for peace talks to end the war in Afghanistan. But when the possibility of peace talks receded, officials decided to proceed with the swap on its own.
The sole point in the report that secured bipartisan support was what the Democratic dissent called the “unfortunate” fact that the administation failed to comply with rules requiring a 30-day notification to Congress before a detainee transfer.
The report does not put to rest the debate about the legality of the transfer. After the transfer, the Government Accountability Office determined the administration violated the 2014 National Defense Authorization Act by failing to give 30-day notice and also the Anti-Deficiency Act because it used money for that purpose.
A senior administration official said that notifying Congress could have endangered Bergdahl’s life.
Since the Taliban swap took place, lawmakers have tightened rules governing those transfers, making it harder for the administration to empty out the prison.
1 of 33 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad × Taliban-held U.S. soldier released in exchange for Afghan detainees View Photos U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl was handed over May 31 by members of the Taliban. Caption U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl was handed over May 31 by members of the Taliban. U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl is seen in this undated photo. Courtesy of Kim Harrison Buy Photo Wait 1 second to continue.
Dan Lamothe contributed to this report.
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In sparse prose, Bergdahl details his captivity for the first time
Bowe Bergdahl vs. Donald Trump: Soldier’s lawyer says attacks have gone too far ||||| Washington (CNN) A House Armed Services Committee report set to be released Thursday accuses the Obama administration of misleading Congress and violating federal law during a controversial prisoner exchange.
The report compiled by the GOP majority charges that the administration did so when it bypassed Congress in negotiating the exchange of five Taliban prisoners for U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who was being held in Afghanistan. They suggested that the White House had put politics and expediency ahead of proper procedure in making the deal.
The White House welcomed Bergdahl home to much fanfare 19 months ago, but has since been faced with recriminations over the way the exchange process was handled and for hailing the sergeant as a hero when many have accused him of desertion. Earlier this year he was charged with desertion, though the Army officer investigating the charges recommended against prison time in October.
A dissent by Democrats on the committee blasts the Republicaan-authored report and calls it "a weighted and politically motivated document that makes no serious effort to fairly assess the Administration's perspective."
The Obama administration has claimed that it side-stepped a mandated 30-day congressional notification period out of fear for Bergdahl's life, and that it had constitutional authority to do so. But the report finds the argument wanting.
The committee slams the the White House's disregard for congressional oversight as "deeply disturbing" and rejected the administration's argument that the release of Guantanamo prisoners to secure the release of a captive American soldier was an "extraordinary situation" that justified keeping Congress out of the loop.
The report further suggests that the administration quietly reached a deal to free the Guantanamo prisoners in exchange for Bergdahl in part to help fulfill President Barack Obama's pledge to close the Guantanamo detention facility by the end of his time in office.
The Democratic dissent slams the report's link between shutting Guantanamo and the prisoner release as "conjectural and unsubstantiated," but did not argue with the contention that the Pentagon failed to keep Congress informed.
Report claims political motives behind deal
The freed detainees were part of a group of 48 prisoners that a panel commissioned by the Obama administration determined should not leave U.S. custody. The House report maintains that releasing them in order to free a U.S. prisoner of war was one of the best chances the Obama administration could have to release those detainees.
"The effort to transfer the Taliban Five was not merely a mechanism to recover a captive U.S. servicemen," reads the report. "Doing so allowed the Administration to rid itself of five of the most dangerous and problematic detainees."
The House Armed Services Committee, led by Texas Republican Mac Thornberry, reached that conclusion after an 18-month-long inquiry into the Department of Defense's role in the prisoner exchange, which revealed that the department's top officials charged with assessing the release of Guantanamo prisoners were not included in discussions about the Taliban militants' release until just a few weeks before the exchange.
"This greatly increased the chance that the transfer would have dangerous consequences," the committee writes in one of its findings about the omission.
Committee staff members said Wednesday thattn they were "confident" the political consideration of closing the Guantanamo facility was at play in the prisoner exchange, despite lacking a paper trail leading to the White House to confirm the assertion.
"We were unable to find another explanation for why the experts who would have normally overseen and managed a transfer process were excluded from that transfer process, especially given that there had been an earlier determination that these five should not have been transferred," said one staffer, pointing to the administration's exclusion of the Defense Department's Office for Detainee Policy until three weeks before the prisoner exchange took place.
For its part, Congress was not notified of the Taliban prisoners' release until two hours before it took place -- dramatically short of the 30-day requirement for notification of any Guantanamo detainee release laid out under the National Defense Authorization Act, which Obama signed in December 2013.
The Taliban Five, the report notes, got two days' notice that they would be set free.
JUST WATCHED Former Navy SEAL describes mission to save Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Former Navy SEAL describes mission to save Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl 06:16
Reached for comment on Wednesday, a senior administration official told CNN that the Obama administration acted to release the five Taliban detainees without a 30-day congressional notification because of the U.S.'s "unwavering commitment and patriotic duty to leave no man or woman in uniform behind on the battlefield."
"We had a near-term opportunity to save Sgt. Bergdahl's life, and we were committed to using every tool at our disposal to secure his safe return," the official said. "Our policy is clear: We will not transfer any detainee from Guantanamo unless the threat the detainee may pose to the United States or U.S. persons or interests will be substantially mitigated. We determined that this standard has been satisfied here."
The detainees, mid- to high-level officials in the Taliban regime, were released in Qatar in coordination with the Qatari government, which pledged to enforce a temporary travel ban and provided assurances the men would not pose a threat to the U.S. One of those five was later suspected of trying to return to militant activity, U.S. officials told CNN in January.
Debate over press leaks
Obama administration officials have cited the fear of leaks to the press about the sensitive exchange negotiations as part of the reason Congress didn't receive its due notification.
But the report swatted away that argument, noting that the committee and its staff members regularly handle classified information of the most sensitive nature and insisted that the administration had a constitutional and legal duty to notify Congress of its plans.
Beyond being kept in the dark, the committee wrote that administration officials misled the committee over the course of inquiries into the status and existence of negotiations to free Bergdahl, particularly when press reports emerged about ongoing negotiations.
In one case, the deputy special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan jetted off to Qatar for negotiations over Bergdahl's fate one day after testifying before Congress that the Taliban had broken off "direct contact" with the U.S. when asked about Bergdahl.
"The Committee staff's conversation with Department representatives, coupled with the White House's public demurral, left the Committee with the impression that recent news stories were wrong and no recent or relevant activities had taken place in connection with a potential swap," the committee wrote in its findings.
Privately, Pentagon officials fretted about the press reports, leaving a trail of emails demonstrating that details about the talks were making their way to the public.
Brig. Gen. Robert White, the director of Joint Staff's Pakistan-Afghanistan Coordination Cell, wrote in an email to a colleague involved in the prisoner exchange negotiations: "Who's leaking this very accurate info?"
Other email exchanges the committee obtained reveal similar concerns about keeping the talks about the swap secret -- a worry shared by the Qataris serving as intermediaries.
Asked whether the administration lied to the committee, a majority staff member gave a cautious response.
"It was definitely intended to leave a specific impression that was not an accurate impression," the staff member said. | – The Obama administration broke the law and deceived Congress when it traded five Guantanamo detainees for Taliban captive Bowe Bergdahl last year, according to a House Armed Services Committee report seen by the New York Times and the Washington Post. The report from the committee's GOP majority, which will be released Thursday, slams the administration for violating a statute that says lawmakers must be informed of detainee transfers 30 days in advance, and accuses the White House of including the high-level detainees in the deal as part of its effort to fulfill Obama's promise to close Guantanamo Bay. The detainees were released to Qatar, which committee staff visited as part of the investigation. The 98-page report, which reveals new details about the Qatar-brokered negotiations, accuses the administration of acting recklessly and claims House members learned more from a Taliban statement on the exchange than from the Department of Defense, the Post reports. Dissenting Democrats on the committee called the report a "weighted and politically motivated document," CNN reports. In a statement, a Pentagon spokesman said the 30-day rule was sidestepped out of "unwavering commitment and patriotic duty to leave no man or woman in uniform behind on the battlefield." "We had a near-term opportunity to save Sgt. Bergdahl's life, and we were committed to using every tool at our disposal to secure his safe return," the spokesman said. (Donald Trump thinks Bergdahl should have been executed.) |
The new screen display helps vision impaired people see clearly without glasses.
Credit: Christine Daniloff/MIT View full size image
Say goodbye to glasses. A new high-tech smartphone accessory can bring images on your device's screen into focus without a trip to the eye doctor.
This "vision-correcting display" is a thin, transparent material that fits on top of the screen of a smartphone or other device. It works in conjunction with a software program to correct the viewer's focal distance — the range at which the eye can bring objects into focus.
People with visual impairments, such as nearsightedness and farsightedness, have trouble with focal distance, said Gordon Wetzstein, a research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab who helped develop the new display technology. [10 Technologies That Will Transform Your Life]
Individuals with these types of impairments find it difficult to focus their eyes on physical objects that are outside their focal ranges, which means images or text on their device's screens can appear blurry to them.
To fix this problem, Wetztein and his colleagues created a display that acts similarly to a lens that fits over the smartphone screen, effectively adjusting images to fit within the viewer's focal range. ||||| Researchers at the MIT Media Laboratory and the University of California at Berkeley have developed a new display technology that automatically corrects for vision defects — no glasses (or contact lenses) required.
The technique could lead to dashboard-mounted GPS displays that farsighted drivers can consult without putting their glasses on, or electronic readers that eliminate the need for reading glasses, among other applications.
“The first spectacles were invented in the 13th century,” says Gordon Wetzstein, a research scientist at the Media Lab and one of the display’s co-creators. “Today, of course, we have contact lenses and surgery, but it’s all invasive in the sense that you either have to put something in your eye, wear something on your head, or undergo surgery. We have a different solution that basically puts the glasses on the display, rather than on your head. It will not be able to help you see the rest of the world more sharply, but today, we spend a huge portion of our time interacting with the digital world.”
Wetzstein and his colleagues describe their display in a paper they’re presenting in August at Siggraph, the premier graphics conference. Joining him on the paper are Ramesh Raskar, the NEC Career Development Professor of Media Arts and Sciences and director of the Media Lab’s Camera Culture group, and Berkeley’s Fu-Chung Huang and Brian Barsky.
Knowing the angles
The display is a variation on a glasses-free 3-D technology also developed by the Camera Culture group. But where the 3-D display projects slightly different images to the viewer’s left and right eyes, the vision-correcting display projects slightly different images to different parts of the viewer’s pupil.
A vision defect is a mismatch between the eye’s focal distance — the range at which it can actually bring objects into focus — and the distance of the object it’s trying to focus on. Essentially, the new display simulates an image at the correct focal distance — somewhere between the display and the viewer’s eye.
The difficulty with this approach is that simulating a single pixel in the virtual image requires multiple pixels of the physical display. The angle at which light should seem to arrive from the simulated image is sharper than the angle at which light would arrive from the same image displayed on the screen. So the physical pixels projecting light to the right side of the pupil have to be offset to the left, and the pixels projecting light to the left side of the pupil have to be offset to the right.
The use of multiple on-screen pixels to simulate a single virtual pixel would drastically reduce the image resolution. But this problem turns out to be very similar to a problem that Wetzstein, Raskar, and colleagues solved in their 3-D displays, which also had to project different images at different angles.
The researchers discovered that there is, in fact, a great deal of redundancy between the images required to simulate different viewing angles. The algorithm that computes the image to be displayed onscreen can exploit that redundancy, allowing individual screen pixels to participate simultaneously in the projection of different viewing angles. The MIT and Berkeley researchers were able to adapt that algorithm to the problem of vision correction, so the new display incurs only a modest loss in resolution.
In the researchers’ prototype, however, display pixels do have to be masked from the parts of the pupil for which they’re not intended. That requires that a transparency patterned with an array of pinholes be laid over the screen, blocking more than half the light it emits.
Multitasking
But early versions of the 3-D display faced the same problem, and the MIT researchers solved it by instead using two liquid-crystal displays (LCDs) in parallel. Carefully tailoring the images displayed on the LCDs to each other allows the system to mask perspectives while letting much more light pass through. Wetzstein envisions that commercial versions of a vision-correcting screen would use the same technique.
Indeed, he says, the same screens could both display 3-D content and correct for vision defects, all glasses-free. They could also reproduce another Camera Culture project, which diagnoses vision defects. So the same device could, in effect, determine the user’s prescription and automatically correct for it.
“Most people in mainstream optics would have said, ‘Oh, this is impossible,’” says Chris Dainty, a professor at the University College London Institute of Ophthalmology and Moorfields Eye Hospital. “But Ramesh’s group has the art of making the apparently impossible possible.”
“The key thing is they seem to have cracked the contrast problem,” Dainty adds. “In image-processing schemes with incoherent light — normal light that we have around us, nonlaser light — you’re always dealing with intensities. And intensity is always positive (or zero). Because of that, you’re always adding positive things, so the background just gets bigger and bigger and bigger. And the signal-to-background, which is contrast, therefore gets smaller as you do more processing. It’s a fundamental problem.”
Dainty believes that the most intriguing application of the technology is in dashboard displays. “Most people over 50, 55, quite probably see in the distance fine, but can’t read a book,” Dainty says. “In the car, you can wear varifocals, but varifocals distort the geometry of the outside world, so if you don’t wear them all the time, you have a bit of a problem. There, [the MIT and Berkeley researchers] have a great solution.” | – If you're blind as a bat with Coke-bottle glasses, there may be hope for you—new research out of MIT could make it easier to read your tablet, smartphone, or eReader, LiveScience reports. Scientists there have developed a transparent "vision-correcting display" that goes on the screen of an electronic device and combines with a software program to correct for bad eyesight. The display makes a copy of the screen's image, but projects it at a distance at which the viewer can easily bring it into focus, MIT explains. Right now, adjustments are based on information about the viewer's specific vision problem that is entered by researchers; in the future, an optometrist's prescription could be plugged in directly, says MIT scientist Gordon Wetzstein. The technology is aimed at people with nearsightedness, farsightedness, astigmatism, or those who have trouble with night vision or double vision. "Today, of course, we have contact lenses and surgery, but it’s all invasive in the sense that you either have to put something in your eye, wear something on your head, or undergo surgery. We have a different solution that basically puts the glasses on the display, rather than on your head," Wetzstein says. Someday, MIT's display could be used on odometers or GPS devices in cars. However, researchers caution, the new technology won't bring everything in your blurry world into focus—just the device in question. (Contact lens wearer? Be careful amoebas don't eat your eyeballs...) |
FILE - In this March 10, 2015, file photo, Dennis Nebus, right, of Boca Raton, sits in court with his lawyers May Cain and William Snihur, Jr., in a continuing legal battle with Heather Hironimus, the... (Associated Press)
FILE - In this March 10, 2015, file photo, Dennis Nebus, right, of Boca Raton, sits in court with his lawyers May Cain and William Snihur, Jr., in a continuing legal battle with Heather Hironimus, the... (Associated Press)
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — A Florida woman who fled to avoid the circumcision of her son was arrested Thursday for contempt of court, her attorney said.
Heather Hironimus went missing with her 4-year-old child nearly three months ago, going into hiding as her long court battle against the surgery reached its climax. Though her defenders said she was simply doing what she could to protect a child portrayed as "scared to death" of the procedure, a judge issued a scalding rebuke for her refusal to appear in court, charging her with contempt and issuing an arrest warrant.
She was taken into custody Thursday, her attorney Thomas Hunker said, declining to release further details. Her name did not yet appear in inmate databases and calls to jail officials went unanswered.
Both sides are under a gag order in the case and Hunker did not disclose the whereabouts of the child.
Hironimus and the boy's father, Dennis Nebus, have been warring since her pregnancy. They were never married but share custody of their child, and in a parenting agreement filed in court, the two agreed to the boy's circumcision. The mother later changed her mind, though, giving way to a long legal battle. Circuit and appellate judges have sided with the father, but potential surgeons have backed out after failing to get the mother's consent and being targeted by anti-circumcision protesters.
Last month, out of options in state courts, Hunker filed a federal civil rights complaint on behalf of the child. No hearings have been held in that case yet.
Circumcision rates have fallen in the U.S., but a majority of boys still undergo the removal of their foreskin. Even so, a bubbling movement of so-called "intactivists" has made the case a rallying cry against a surgery they view as barbaric.
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Follow Matt Sedensky on Twitter at http://twitter.com/sedensky ||||| This site will be unavailable until further notice due to a request from Hironimus and her lawyers. Please contact us if you have any questions. ||||| Janine Stanwood: RIGHT NOW ON NEWS10 AT 5:30, THE SOUTH FLORIDA MOTHER WHO IS BATTLING HER FORMER PARTNER OVER CIRCUMCISING THEIR SON HAS BEEN ARRESTED IN BROWARD COUNTY. THIS IS A CASE OUT OF PALM BEACH COUNTY. AN ARREST WARRANT HAS BEEN ORBED FOR HEATHER HIRONIMUS AFTER SHE FAILED TO SHOW P IN COURT WITH HAD FOUR-YEAR-OLD SON. Calvin Hughes: THE MOTHER DOESN'T WANT HER SON TO BE CIRCUMCISED BUT FATHER DOES. NOW IT'S UP TO A COURT TO DECIDE. TODD TONGEN HAS MORE ON THIS VERY INTERESTING CASE. Reporter: THIS PROCEDURE IS NORMALLY DONE WHEN THE CHILD IS AN INFANT. THIS CASE HAS BEEN GOING ON SINCE 2012. NOW THIS BOY IS FOUR AND A HALF YEARS OLD. HIS MOTHER SAYS THAT SHE DOESN'T WANT WHAT SHE CALLS AN UNNECESSARY MEDICAL PROCEDURE DONE ON HER CHILD THAT SHE SAYS IS RISKY. HE ABSOLUTELY DOESN'T WANT IT DONE, LIKE ANY FOUR-YEAR-OLD BOY, HE KNOWS WHAT'S NORMAL FOR HIS BODY, HE'S VERY ATTACHED TO IT, AND HE'S TERRIFIED OF THE PROCEDURE. Reporter: THE FIGHT TO KEEP HEATHER HIRONIMUS' FOUR-YEAR-OLD SON FROM GETTING CIRCUMCISED HAS LANDED HER IN JAIL. SHE WAS ARRESTED YESTERDAY IN DEERFIELD BEACH AND IS EXPECTED TO BE EXTRADITED TO PALM BEACH COUNTY WHERE THIS CASE IS GETTING NATIONAL ATTENTION. THIS IS VIDEO FROM A COURT HEARING HIRONIMUS AND HER SON FAILED TO SHOW P FOR IN MARCH. APPARENTLY HIRONIMUS AND THE BUYS FATHER DENNIS NEBUS AGREED TO A CIRCUMCISION IN A 2012 LEGAL DOCUMENT BUT IT WAS NEVER PERFORMED ABUSE HIRONIMUS CHANGED HER MIND. CIRCUIT AND APPELLATE JUDGES HAVE SIDE WITH THE FATHER. NOW THE MOTHER HAS FILED FOR AN INJUNCTION IN FEDERAL COURT TO STOP THE CIRCUMCISION. UNTIL HE'S OLD ENOUGH TO ASSENT OR CONSENT TO THE PROCEDURE, IT EYE TEALY IT WOULD BE DROPPED AND A RULING THAT SAYS THIS CHILD CAN'T BE CIRCUMCISED UNLESS BOTH PARENTS AGREE. Reporter: AFTER THE WARRANT WAS ISSUED, HIRONIMUS CHECKED HERSELF INTO A DOMESTIC VIOLENCE CRISIS SHELTER WITH HER SON. SOME SAY TO AVOID ARREST. THEY LOOKED AT HER HISTORY. THEY LOOKED AT THE PARENTING AGREEMENT. THEY LOOKED AT SOME OF THE DENNIS' PREVIOUS CRIMINAL HISTORY. AND THEY DECIDE SHE WAS A GOOD CANDIDATE FOR THE PROGRAM. Reporter: NOW THAT THE BUYS MOTHER IS IN JAIL, WE WENT TO THE HOME WE BELIEVE HE IS BEING CARED FOR. NO ANSWER OR SIGN OF THE CHILD BUT HIS FATHER QUICKLY LEFT WITHOUT COMMENT A SHORT TIME LATER. MEANWHILE, HIRONIMUS REMAINS IN THE BROWARD COUNTY JAIL BUT NOT FOR LONG. SHE WILL PROBABLY BE IN A FEDERAL COURTROOM IN WEST PALM BEACH ON MONDAY, AND THAT'S BECAUSE SHE HAS FILED A SUIT FOR THAT INJUNCTION, AND IT WILL BE HEARD AT 1:00 IN AFTERNOON ON
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -
A South Florida woman who fled with her son while fighting to prevent his circumcision has been arrested.
Heather Hironimus was arrested Thursday in Deerfield Beach, Broward County jail records show.
In March, Palm Beach County Judge Jeffrey Gillen issued a warrant for her arrest after she failed to appear in court with her 4-year-old son.
Hironimus' attorney, Thomas Hunker, told Local 10 News that his client had checked into a domestic violence shelter with the boy.
"They sought refuge in a domestic violence crisis shelter and they're receiving help there," Hunker said after the warrant was issued.
Court documents show that Hironimus and the boy's father, Dennis Nebus, had a son together on Oct. 31, 2010. Although they never married, the couple is considered the legal and biological parents of the boy.
Hironimus and Nebus agreed to a circumcision in a 2012 legal document, but Hironimus later changed her mind and fought to prevent the boy's circumcision. Circuit and appellate judges have sided with the father.
Prior to her arrest, Hironimus' attorney filed an injunction in federal court to prevent the circumcision.
"He absolutely doesn't want it done," Tara Shipley, with the group South Florida Inactivists Unite, said. "Like any 4-year-old boy, he knows what is normal for his body, he's very attached to it and he's terrified of the procedure."
It wasn't immediately known how Hironimus was found or where she was staying, but Shipley defended the shelter's decision to take her in.
"They looked at her history," Shipley said. "They looked at the parenting agreement. They looked at some of Dennis' previous criminal history and they decided that she was a good candidate for the program."
With his mother in jail, the boy is believed to be in his father's care. Local 10 News reporter Todd Tongen knocked on Nebus' door, but nobody answered. A short time later, Nebus left the home without commenting.
Hironimus was being held in the main Broward County jail. She will likely be brought to Palm Beach County to face a charge of custody interference.
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Close | – A Florida mom whose refusal to permit her son to be circumcised led her to go into hiding for nearly 3 months was arrested for contempt of court yesterday. Heather Hironimus has been battling with Dennis Nebus, the father of her 4-year-old son Chase, because Nebus wants Chase circumcised and she does not. Hironimus initially agreed the procedure could be done but later changed her mind, arguing it was not medically necessary. After a long legal battle, a judge in February ordered Hironimus to bring Chase to court and turn him over to his father to have the procedure done, but Hironimus didn't show up; her attorney said she had "sought refuge" Feb. 23 at a domestic violence shelter. In March, the same judge issued a warrant for her arrest. Broward County authorities took her into custody yesterday; she's now at the Broward County jail, the Palm Beach Post reports. Chase's location is not clear; the boy hasn't seen his father since Feb. 19, Local 10 reports. In March, Hironimus' lawyer asked the judge to consider giving Chase a mental health exam before moving forward, claiming the boy "is scared to death of the procedure and doesn't want it," the Sun Sentinel reported at the time. The judge refused and ordered Hironimus' arrest; he also specifically took issue with the fact that she had partnered with anti-circumcision "intactivists" that "plastered" Chase's name and picture "all over the Internet." While she was in hiding, Hironimus filed a federal lawsuit through her lawyer claiming circumcision would violate Chase's constitutional rights, the Sun Sentinel reported last month. (Potential surgeons in the case have backed out.) |
Sen. Ted Cruz speaks during a primary night campaign event, in Indianapolis on May 3. (Darron Cummings/AP)
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) gave his first media interview since the Indiana primary to Glenn Beck, the multiplatform conservative host who endorsed him and spent months campaigning with him. It was more than friendly — at one point, Beck’s co-host Pat Gray tried to urge Cruz back into the presidential race.
“Are you leaving the door open, if Nebraska were to somehow, miraculously choose you tonight — if that happened, would you consider getting back in the race?” Gray asked.
“Pat's going for the hail Mary!” Beck laughed.
“Well, I am not holding my breath,” Cruz said. “My assumption is that that will not happen. But listen, let’s be very clear — if there is a path to victory, we launched this campaign intending to win. The reason we suspended the race last week was with the Indiana loss, I didn’t see a path to victory. If that changes, we will certainly respond accordingly.”
“I don’t know about you, Nebraska, but I take that as a yes!” Gray said.
“I want you to know: The minute you un-suspend your campaign, John Kasich would, too,” Beck said.
[Ted Cruz drops out of the Republican presidential race]
It was a moment of levity in an interview otherwise marked by Cruz’s irritation at the news media. He repeatedly blamed the mainstream media for skewing the election and foisting Trump on voters, suggesting that his victory was not the end of the conservative movement. And he repeatedly declined to endorse Trump, though he did not rule it out.
“This election will be studied for the role of the media, and in particular network executives,” Cruz said. “They had chosen the candidate they wanted to win.”
If Cruz wins Nebraska’s primary, he would not be the first defeated candidate to take a victory in a friendly state. In 2004, former Vermont governor Howard Dean ended his campaign in mid-February, but watched his home state deliver him a 22-point victory over eventual nominee John Kerry.
Cruz, like Dean, had already put his campaign into limbo. The deadline to submit a delegate slate for California’s primary, which Cruz once said could decide the race, came and went with no action by the defunct Cruz campaign. ||||| Ted Cruz on Tuesday left the door slightly open to resuming his presidential candidacy if he suddenly finds a narrow path to winning the nomination.
In an interview on Glenn Beck's radio program hosted by The Blaze, the Texas senator was asked if he would consider restarting his campaign if Nebraska's Republican voters miraculously chose him on Tuesday as their preferred GOP nominee.
"Well, I am not holding my breath. My assumption is that will not happen," he said on his way to the airport to head back to Washington. "But listen, let's be very clear -- if there is a path to victory, we launched this campaign intending to win. The reason we suspended the race last week is with Indiana's loss, I didn't see a viable path to victory. If that changes, we will certainly respond accordingly."
Cruz, of course, dropped out of the 2016 presidential race a week after after losing in Indiana. John Kasich dropped out a day later and Trump became the presumptive GOP nominee.
GOP voters in West Virginia and Nebraska head to the polls Tuesday to cast ballots in their state primaries. In the Republican race, 34 delegates are up for grabs in West Virginia, and 36 will be available in Nebraska. Delegates in West Virginia may specify their intention to be committed to a candidate and delegates in Virginia are distributed through a winner-take-all system.
While Trump is considered the presumptive nominee, he hasn't reached the required threshold of 1,237 delegates yet to win the nomination. He has 1,065 delegates and Cruz had picked up 561, according to CBS News' latest count.
Asked if he could support Trump in the general election, Cruz dodged the question.
"Well listen this is a choice every voter is going to have to make. I would note it's not a choice we the voters have to make today. The Republican convention isn't for another two and a half months. The election isn't for another six months. You and I both want to support a conservative," he said.
"You and I both want to see a president we can trust with power who demonstrates the temperament not to abuse that power, that's what elections are about. The voters in the primary seem to have made a choice, and we'll see what happens as the months go forward, but I think we need to watch and see what the candidates say and do."
Cruz is expected to arrive in Washington, D.C. Tuesday afternoon.
CBS News' Alan He contributed to this report. | – The good voters of Nebraska may pull a Melisandre and resurrect the lifeless corpse of Ted Cruz's presidential campaign on Tuesday. Cruz, who dropped out of the race after losing the Indiana primary last week, tells Glenn Beck he might jump back into the race if he somehow wins the Nebraska primary. "The reason we suspended our campaign was that with the Indiana loss, I felt there was no path to victory," the Hill quotes Cruz as saying on Beck's radio show. "If that changes, we will certainly respond accordingly." Though even Cruz thinks that's a long shot. "I am not holding my breath," CBS News quotes the ex-candidate as saying. "My assumption is that will not happen." But it wouldn't be a first. The Washington Post notes Howard Dean managed to win a contest in 2004 despite having already dropped out of the race. However, the Post also points out Cruz was likely joking during a "moment of levity" in the interview, his first since suspending his campaign. Twitter's resident Ted Cruz expert, Cruz's former college roommate Craig Mazin, also doesn't think the return of the Cruz campaign is imminent. "He simply gave a Cruzzy answer," Mazin tweets. "He learned to speak human by reading legal depositions." There are 36 delegates up for grabs in Nebraska. Cruz currently trails Trump by 500 delegates or so. |
Summary: Anonymous appears to have published login and private information from over 4000 American bank executive credentials its Operation Last Resort, demanding US computer crime law reform.
Following attacks on U.S. government websites last weekend, Anonymous seems to have made a new "Operation Last Resort" .gov website strike Sunday night.
Anonymous appears to have published login and private information from over 4,000 American bank executive accounts in the name of its new Operation Last Resort campaign, demanding U.S. computer crime law reform.
A spreadsheet has been published on a .gov website allegedly containing login information and credentials, IP addresses, and contact information of American bank executives.
If true, it could be that Anonymous has released banker information that could be connected to Federal Reserve computers, including contact information and cell phone numbers for U.S. bank Presidents, Vice Presidents, COO's Branch Managers, VP's and more.
The website used in this attack belongs to the Alabama Criminal Justice Information Center (ACJIC). The page extension URL is titled, "oops-we-did-it-again."
Now we have your attention America: Anonymous's Superbowl Commercial 4k banker d0x via the FED acjic.alabama.gov/documents/oops… #opLastResort #Anonymous — OpLastResort (@OpLastResort) February 4, 2013
The spreadsheet document contains usernames, names of individuals and their titles at banks across the U.S., hashed passwords (not passwords in plain text). It was placed on a .gov website and on Pastebin, and publicized via various Anonymous accounts on Twitter and Facebook.
A Reddit member called the numbers and commented,
OK, I called a few of them. What must be so problematic for the Federal Reserve is not the information so much as this file was stolen from their computers at all. The ramifications of that kind of loss of control is severe.
Banks listed on the document claim credentials from management at community banks, community credit unions, and more, across the United States.
A visit to the bank websites on the document shows that these are current employees at each of the banks.
Anonymous stated in its first Operation Last Resort defacement last friday (ussc.gov) it had infiltrated multiple federal websites over a period of time. The hacktivist entity dropped enough technical details to make it clear that its tracks were covered and that Anonymous still had access to .gov websites.
Significance of Monday, February 4?
While today in the United States it is the day of a major American sporting event (the Superbowl), this Sunday night's timing of Anon's document release coincides with another event more important to the new Anonymous campaign Operation Last Resort - a campaign anchored on the Swartz tragedy.
After the Anonymous OpLastResort hacks last weekend, last Monday a House panel issued a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder (.pdf link) with seven specific questions, and demanding answers regarding the Swartz prosecution.
Tomorrow, Monday February 4, is the deadline for Attorney General Eric Holder to answer specific questions regarding the Aaron Swartz prosecution.
Anonymous may be focusing on that deadline, as well.
Previously on the defaced ussc.gov website Anonymous cited the recent suicide of hacktivist Aaron Swartz as a "line that has been crossed."
The statement suggested retaliation for Swartz's tragic suicide, which many - including the family - believe was a result of overzealous prosecution by the Department of Justice and what the family deemed a "bullying" use of outdated computer crime laws.
With the letter to Holder, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee requests a briefing with the Justice Department. CNET writes,
"Many questions have been raised about the appropriate level of punishment sought by prosecutors for Mr. Swartz's alleged offenses, and how the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, cited in 11 of 13 counts against Mr. Swartz, should apply under similar circumstances," [Reps. Issa and Cummings] say in the letter, which requests a briefing no later than February 4.
The letter is another voice from the Federal side of the discussion, joining a chorus led by Democratic congresswoman Rep. Zoe Lofgren who has authored a bill called "Aaron's Law" that aims to change the 1984 Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (with which Swartz was being prosecuted).
Last friday February 1, Lofgren submitted a draft of the bill to be reviewed on Reddit. Ars Technica reported that after its online critique, a revised version of the bill was published today, with more far-reaching reforms.
Last weekend Anonymous commandeered the US Sentencing website to launch Operation Last Resort "warheads" (encrypted files suggested by Anonymous to be sensitive US government documents).
The defacement demanded reform on US computer crime laws, citing the January 11 tragic suicide of young hacker and digital rights activist Aaron Swartz.
Anonymous spent last weekend playing cat-and-mouse with the Department of Justice after taking over the ussc.gov website (still decimated and now "under construction" over a week later).
After the US government regained control of the .gov website used in the hacks and defacements, Anonymous regained control of two .gov sites and turned the sites into a mocking video game of Asteroids.
Public interest in Sunday's Asteroids game created a crowdsourced DDoS, downing the websites for days.
It is possible that banks and user information on tonight's new "oops we did it again" document may be connected to accounts at The Fed (The Federal Reserve Bank).
The Fed has a collection of services called Fedline, which operates at highly critical junctures across the U.S. banking system.
For instance, one of the services offered by Fedline is money and funding transfers via the U.S. Federal Reserve.
It enables financial institutions to transfer funds between member participants. These participants are estimated to be around more than 9,000 financial entities (such as banks).
Fedline is the primary U.S. network for high value, time-critical and international payments.
In 2007 the estimated average daily value of funds transferred via Fedline products was 2.7 trillion (an estimated 537,000 payments daily, the average was over $5 million per transaction).
At this point, the information on the document is unverified and exactly what banking systems the information may affect is not known. ZDNet will update this article with new information as it becomes known.
The Operation Last Resort video, posted Friday on the U.S. Sentencing Commission website now has 1,183,000 views.
It is interesting to note that this second "official" #OpLastResort salvo does not cite AntiSec, as seen in the Asteroids game.
Anonymous appears intent to influence federal action - one way or another. ||||| A view shows the Federal Reserve building on the day it is scheduled to release minutes of the Federal Open Market Committee from August 1, 2012, in Washington August 22, 2012.
WASHINGTON/BOSTON (Reuters) - The Federal Reserve said on Tuesday that one of its internal websites had been briefly breached by hackers, though no critical functions of the U.S. central bank were affected by the intrusion.
The admission, which raises questions about cyber security at the Fed, follows a claim that hackers linked to the activist group Anonymous had struck the Fed on Sunday, accessing personal information of more than 4,000 U.S. bank executives, which it published on the Web.
"The Federal Reserve system is aware that information was obtained by exploiting a temporary vulnerability in a website vendor product," a Fed spokeswoman said.
"Exposure was fixed shortly after discovery and is no longer an issue. This incident did not affect critical operations of the Federal Reserve system," the spokeswoman said, adding that all individuals effected by the breach had been contacted.
Technology news site ZDNet separately reported that Anonymous appeared to have published information allegedly containing the login information, credentials, internet protocol addresses and contact information of more than 4,000 U.S. bankers on Sunday night.
The claim was made via Twitter over an account registered to OpLastResort, which is linked to Anonymous, a loosely organized group of hacker activists who have claimed responsibility for scores of attacks on government and corporate sites over the past several years.
OpLastResort is a campaign that some hackers linked to Anonymous have started to protest government prosecution of computer prodigy Aaron Swartz, who committed suicide on January 11.
The Fed declined to identify which website had been hacked. But information that it provided to bankers indicated that the site, which was not public, was a contact database for banks to use during a natural disaster.
A copy of the message sent by the Fed to members of its Emergency Communication System (ECS), which was obtained by Reuters, warned that mailing address, business phone, mobile phone, business email, and fax numbers had been published.
"Some registrants also included optional information consisting of home phone and personal email. Despite claims to the contrary, passwords were not compromised," the Fed said.
The central bank separately confirmed the authenticity of the message to ECS members.
The website's purpose is to allow bank executives to update the Fed if their operations have been flooded or otherwise damaged in a storm or other disaster. That helps the Fed to assess the overall impact of the event on the banking system.
Hackers identifying themselves as Anonymous infiltrated the U.S. Sentencing Commission website late last month to protest the government's treatment of the Swartz case.
Swartz was charged with using the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's computer networks to steal more than 4 million articles from JSTOR, an online archive and journal distribution service. He faced a maximum sentence of 31 years if convicted.
Cyber-security specialists said that any organization's computer systems could be breached, and that it was up to an organization like the Fed to prioritize its security needs, in order to protect its most sensitive information from attack.
"Every system is going to have some vulnerability to it. You cannot set up a system that will survive all possible attacks," said Mark Rasch, director of Privacy and security consulting at CSC and a former federal cyber crimes prosecutor.
"You have to defend against every possible vulnerability and the attackers only have to find one way in," he said.
(Additional reporting by Jim Finkle in Boston; Editing by Lisa Shumaker) ||||| The Federal Reserve confirmed on Tuesday that hackers stole information from an internal website on Sunday, but it didn’t say how the attack succeeded and it certainly didn’t confirm who carried it out — although the smart money is on Anonymous. That loose-knit group of hackers tweeted on Sunday that it had posted the personal information of 4,000 bankers as part of what it’s calling Operation Last Resort, which it’s carrying out in response to the death of Reddit co-founder Aaron Swartz. The information it posted, and the information the Fed lost, sound very similar.
Anonymous’s original document has been taken down (a mirror is still available), but the information it contained basically consisted of the names, phone numbers, addresses, e-mail addresses, and other contact information for some 4,000 bank executives. Per Reuters, that’s just what the Fed described in a memo alerting bankers of the breach:
The Fed declined to identify which website had been hacked. But information that it provided to bankers indicated that the site, which was not public, was a contact database for banks to use during a natural disaster. A copy of the message sent by the Fed to members of its Emergency Communication System (ECS), which was obtained by Reuters, warned that mailing address, business phone, mobile phone, business email, and fax numbers had been published.
The Fed spokeswoman who confirmed the breach to Reuters downplayed its seriousness: “The Federal Reserve system is aware that information was obtained by exploiting a temporary vulnerability in a website vendor product,” she said. “Exposure was fixed shortly after discovery and is no longer an issue. This incident did not affect critical operations of the Federal Reserve system.”
But even if the hackers only took non-crucial information, and even though the section of the bank’s site that was breached was not the same as the one that handles trillions of dollars worth of transactions every day, the goal is to send a message that the most secure institutions aren’t infallible. Remember when they took down the website for the CIA? It’s a good show, but it’s still just a show — and with things like economic stability on the line, that’s probably for the best. | – The Federal Reserve says it was hacked this weekend, and while the culprit hasn't been named, Anonymous is looking likely. The hacker group posted the credentials and contact information of some 4,000 banking executives, ZDNet reported Sunday night. That sounds a lot like the hacked material, the Daily Intelligencer notes: The Fed told bankers that hackers had targeted a contact database for use in the event of a natural disaster, Reuters reports. "Exposure was fixed shortly after discovery and is no longer an issue. This incident did not affect critical operations of the Federal Reserve system," said a spokeswoman, noting that the data "was obtained by exploiting a temporary vulnerability in a website vendor product." According to the Fed, "despite claims to the contrary, passwords were not compromised." Regardless, the intrusion prompts fresh concerns about the government's cybersecurity, both Reuters and the Daily Intelligencer note. |
CHICAGO – Conagra Brands is collaborating with health officials in connection with a positive finding of Salmonella in a retail sample of Duncan Hines Classic White cake mix that may be linked to a Salmonella outbreak that is currently being investigated by CDC and FDA. While it has not been definitively concluded that this product is linked to the outbreak and the investigation is still ongoing, Conagra has decided to voluntarily recall the specific Duncan Hines variety identified (Classic White) and three other varieties (Classic Butter Golden, Signature Confetti and Classic Yellow) made during the same time period out of an abundance of caution.
Five occurrences of illnesses due to Salmonella are being researched by CDC and FDA as part of this investigation. Salmonella is an organism which can cause serious and sometimes fatal infections in young children, frail or elderly people, and others with weakened immune systems. Healthy persons infected with Salmonella often experience fever, diarrhea (which may be bloody), nausea, vomiting and abdominal pain. In rare circumstances, infection with Salmonella can result in the organism getting into the bloodstream and producing more severe illnesses such as arterial infections (i.e., infected aneurysms), endocarditis and arthritis.
Several of the individuals reported consuming a cake mix at some point prior to becoming ill, and some may have also consumed these products raw and not baked. Consumers are reminded not to consume any raw batter. Cake mixes and batter can be made with ingredients such as eggs or flour which can carry risks of bacteria that are rendered harmless by baking, frying or boiling. Consumers are reminded to wash their hands, work surfaces, and utensils thoroughly after contact with raw batter products, to follow baking instructions, and to never eat raw batter.
The products covered by this recall were distributed for retail sale in the U.S. and limited international exports; the specific product information is listed below. No other Duncan Hines products or Conagra Brands’ products are impacted by this recall.
Product Description & Brand Product UPC Best If Used By Date
(located on top of box) Duncan Hines Classic White Cake 15.25oz. 644209307500 MAR 7 2019
MAR 8 2019
MAR 9 2019
MAR 10 2019
MAR 12 2019
MAR 13 2019 Duncan Hines Classic Yellow Cake 15.25oz. 644209307494 MAR 9 2019
MAR 10 2019
MAR 12 2019
MAR 13 2019 Duncan Hines Classic Butter Golden Cake 15.25oz. 644209307593 MAR 7 2019
MAR 8 2019
MAR 9 2019 Duncan Hines Signature Confetti Cake 15.25oz. 644209414550 MAR 12 2019
MAR 13 2019
Consumers who have purchased these items are advised not to consume them and to return them to the store where originally purchased. Conagra Brands is cooperating with the FDA on this recall and is working with customers to ensure the packages are removed from store shelves and are no longer distributed. Consumers with questions should call our Consumer Care team at 1-888-299-7646, open 9 am through 5 pm EST, Monday through Friday or visit www.duncanhines.com.
Outbreak Investigation
### ||||| CLOSE Check your pantry. Duncan Hines is voluntarily recalling four flavors of cake mixes over possible Salmonella concerns. USA TODAY
Conagra Brands, parent company of Duncan Hines, is recalling some of its cake mixes after a retail sample of Duncan Hines Classic White cake mix was potentially linked to a Salmonella outbreak that is currently being investigated by CDC and FDA. Conagra has also decided to voluntarily recall three other varieties (Classic Butter Golden, Signature Confetti and Classic Yellow) made during the same time period out of an abundance of caution. (Photo: Food & Drug Administration)
Time to check your pantry: Four types of Duncan Hines cake mixes have been voluntarily recalled by parent company Conagra Brands over the potential risk of salmonella contamination.
During an investigation into a salmonella outbreak, the Food & Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found salmonella in a sample of Duncan Hines Classic White cake mix.
As a result, Conagra says it has voluntarily recalled about 2.4 million boxes of cake mix, including Classic White and three other varieties (Classic Butter Golden, Signature Confetti and Classic Yellow) made during the same time period out of an abundance of caution.
"We are recalling these products out of an abundance of caution and always encourage consumers to follow baking instructions provided," the company said in a statement to USA TODAY.
Five cases of salmonella are being investigated, and multiple individuals involved reported consuming a cake mix at some point prior to becoming ill. Some may have consumed these products raw and not baked, the FDA says.
The cake mixes were primarily distributed for retail sale in the U.S. No other Duncan Hines products or Conagra Brands’ products are impacted by the recall.
All of the cake mixes, sold in 15.25-ounce packages, had Best If Used by Dates on the top box of March 7-13, 2019.
Each had a different UPC code:
• Duncan Hines Classic White Cake (644209307500)
• Duncan Hines Classic Yellow Cake (644209307494
• Duncan Hines Classic Butter Golden Cake (644209307593
• Duncan Hines Signature Confetti Cake (644209414550)
Consumers who have bought the mixes are advised not to consume them and to return them to the place of purchase. Consumers with questions can call Conagra Brands at 1-888-299-7646, between 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. EST, Monday through Friday or visit www.duncanhines.com.
The FDA is warning consumers not to consume raw cake mix batter because mixes can be made with ingredients such as eggs or flour that can carry risks of bacteria that are rendered harmless by baking, frying or boiling. After cooking, consumers should wash their hands, work surfaces and utensils thoroughly after contact with raw batter products, the agency says.
Salmonella causes about 1.2 million illnesses, 23,000 hospitalizations and 450 deaths in the U.S. each year, the CDC estimates. Most people infected develop diarrhea, fever and abdominal cramps within 12 to 72 hours after contact with the bacteria.
Follow USA TODAY reporter Mike Snider on Twitter: @MikeSnider.
Read or Share this story: https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/nation-now/2018/11/06/duncan-hines-recall-cake-mix-salmonella-contamination-risk/1900406002/ | – You might want to think twice before licking the bowl where you mixed your cake batter. Some 2.4 million boxes of Duncan Hines cake mix have been recalled due to a risk of salmonella poisoning, USA Today reports. The FDA and the CDC are investigating a salmonella outbreak in which multiple people involved reported consuming cake mix before getting sick; some of those people may have consumed it raw, per the FDA. The agencies found salmonella in one sample from Duncan Hines and as a result parent company Conagra Brands issued a voluntary recall. The mixes affected are 15.25-ounce boxes of Classic White, Classic Butter Golden, Signature Confetti, and Classic Yellow with Best If Used By dates of March 7-13, 2019. Full information, including UPC codes, can be found at the FDA's website. Conagra notes it "encourage[s] consumers to follow baking instructions provided." (Cake from a ... spray can?) |
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You must log in to continue. ||||| So not long ago now, the cosmetics manufacturer M·A·C and fashion label Rodarte teamed up to… no, really. Sell cosmetics, I was going to say. And then I was going to add their own phrase, “inspired by.” But then I just had to stop for a second, because it ain’t easy to complete this sentence, because what the sisters Mulleavy of Rodarte were allegedly “inspired by” is the border city of Juárez, Mexico. As Style.com’s Nicole Phelps explained back in February about the Rodarte Fall/Winter 2010 collection, “[T]hey became interested in the troubled border town of Ciudad Juárez; the hazy, dreamlike quality of the landscape there; and the maquiladora workers going to the factory in the middle of the night.” For serious.
And:
The show ended with a quartet of ethereal, unraveling, rather beautiful white dresses that alternately called to mind quinceañera parties, corpse brides, and, if you wanted to look at it through a really dark prism, the ghosts of the victims of Juárez’s drug wars.
The names of the M·A·C Rodarte cosmetics that were to go on sale this fall-blush, lip gloss, eyeshadows and nail polish, and so on-included “factory,” “Juárez,” “Ghost town,” “del Norte” and “quinceañera.”
Maybe it was overreacting, to be appalled by this news? Maybe the Mulleavys and their colleagues were not really really intending to glamorize the violence and bloodshed and horror of life in that sad and dangerous town. Oh yes, well then, take a gander at the models-and the makeup.
All hell started breaking loose, a lot of bloggers wrote about it and then, around the 16th of June, M·A·C and Rodarte issued these statements! That are crazy!
Just thinking about the number of people who have to have been involved in this product development, who have to have known about it, is disturbing. Did any of them speak up, as this product was being designed, packaged, prepared for market? Did anyone figure out to say, this stuff we are making here, that you put on your FACE, you know, it looks like blood. It suggests carnage, blood, in the desert, blood of abducted, raped, strangled women? Does it suggest that to you, a little bit?
Apparently, no.
M·A·C Cosmetics Statement:
We understand that product names in the M·A·C Rodarte collection have offended some of our consumers and fans. This was never our intent and we are very sorry. We are listening carefully to the comments posted and are grateful to those of you who have brought your concerns to the forefront of our attention. M·A·C will give a portion of the proceeds from the M·A·C Rodarte collection to help those in need in Juarez. We are diligently investigating the best way to do this. Please be assured that we will keep you posted on the details regarding our efforts.
Rodarte Company Statement:
Our makeup collaboration with M·A·C developed from inspirations on a road trip that we took in Texas last year, from El Paso to Marfa. The ethereal nature of this landscape influenced the creative development and desert palette of the collection. We are truly saddened about injustice in Juarez and it is a very important issue to us. The M·A·C collaboration was intended as a celebration of the beauty of the landscape and people in the areas that we traveled.
Okay, yes! Fine. We made our makeup look like blood because it is a celebration of the beauty. So, now that’s cleared up, right?
No! OMG, people were still mad!! So on or about July 19th, M·A·C announced that they were going to change the names of this stuff, that you put on your face, and also “donate $100,000 to an organization that helps women in Juarez.”
And then everyone calmed down-oh wait! No sorry, still no! Fury still raging unabated for entitled materialist horrorshow! Finally, on Friday, M·A·C issued another a press release explaining that now, all profits from the M·A·C Rodarte collection will go to “a newly created initiative to raise awareness and provide on-the-ground support to the women and girls in Juarez.”
Evidently they went clear to Mexico in order to try to recover a shred or two of dignity; even the tone of this press release grows humbler:
…M·A·C and Rodarte are deeply sorry that this makeup collection was so offensive to the people of Mexico and concerned global citizens.
This announcement follows a meeting last evening in Mexico City with M·A·C executives and Mexican government officials, including CONAVIM (Comisión Nacional Para Prevenir y Erradicar la Violencia Contra las Mujeres/National Commission to Prevent and Eradicate Violence Against Women.)
During the meeting, held at the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs, this collective group committed to working together on the overall direction of the new initiative to help the women and girls of Juarez and to raise global awareness of their plight. M·A·C executives reiterated their deep regret and reinforced that it was never M·A·C’s or Rodarte’s intent to minimize the suffering of the women and girls of Ciudad Juarez.
So, if the strategy of giving 100% of their profits to charity also fails to repair their shattered image, one is forced to wonder whether M·A·C and Rodarte are planning to step in and do something about Mexican police corruption, next. After that, if necessary, maybe they can turn their attention to the crooked elections, and finally the drug cartels.
The cliché view of fashion insiders as shallow and uninformed remains completely undisturbed by this fiasco. The disconnect between the actual facts on the ground in Juárez and these surreal press releases and the reactions from the fashion press they spawned could not be more eye-crossing.
Nobody at Rodarte seems to have objected to anything about the Style.com review of their show back in February, which directly referenced Juárez; there was no outcry from the fashion press at that time, that I could find. It’s only when M·A·C started passing out the press releases to a larger public that a multitude of hackles went up. Indeed, the objections of quite a number of “concerned global citizens” have been met with outright mockery on the New York magazine fashion blog The Cut and elsewhere.
This is a pity. In times past there have been very cultivated, well-informed men and women in charge of the schmattas. I’d go so far as to say that the ideal of the fashion world used to represent a union of taste and intelligence; and really, is is possible to have one without the other? Where is the Cecil Beaton of today? The Christian Dior, the Diana Vreeland?
And is it remotely possible that the Mulleavy sisters were trying to make a Guernica-like statement with their art? It is possible. Except… they’ve responded to the criticism by backpedaling furiously, which says something about the authenticity or seriousness of the original statement. So maybe it’s as simple as it looks: for Rodarte to exploit the catastrophe in Juárez in order to sell dresses and makeup demonstrates the dehumanizing effects of a debased, pathologically materialist society that has evidently gone clean off the rails. It would be easy to make that observation and dismiss the whole affair.
It’s worth asking, though: what is really going on when violence and horror are appropriated in order to create a consumer product? Because quite often the makers of newpapers, books and films are involved in creating consumer products based on real horror, just as these raggers tried (and failed) to do.
To take this comparison to an extreme, let’s consider the novel 2666, by the late Roberto Bolaño. This book, like the M·A·C Rodarte makeup, is both a comment on the Juárez femicides and a consumer product.
The Part About the Crimes, the fourth section of 2666, is something like a catalogue of the femicides, deliberately dry, without poetry. It’s more or less a list of bodies, with details of their height, their hair color, their clothes, written with a police-procedural air. It is punishing to read, the longest part of a long book, written in deliberately ugly, dull prose; this, from a man capable of the utmost inventiveness, wit and penetration. So what’s the difference between selling eyeshadow “inspired by” these terrible events, and writing a novel about them?
I submit that the difference is one of vanity. Rodarte was posing alongside the victims of Juárez, in a way, asking you to be shocked and titillated by the real live goth corpses, the disturbing juxtaposition of horror and beauty. But nothing was meant to change in Juárez or anywhere else as the result of this aestheticized rubbernecking. Bolaño, on the other hand, wasn’t asking anything at all (aside from asking that you read his book.)
2666 isn’t a call to arms. It offers nothing in the way of judgments, let alone solutions. There’s no self-aggrandizement, no style; the author of 2666 has erased himself right out of the picture, leaving just a mirror of the human condition for you to look in. This is a matter of telling the truth, a deliberate avoidance of the “sensational.” Where Rodarte attemped to steal the terrible emotions evoked by the fact that hundreds, maybe thousands of girls have been abducted, raped and murdered in Juárez, and trivialize (and then, “monetize”) those emotions by turning them into eyeshadow, Bolaño asks that you stop being horrified, and just look at the truth; nothing more. What happens afterward is left for us to determine.
Maria Bustillos is the author of Dorkismo: The Macho of the Dork and
Act Like a Gentleman, Think Like a Woman. | – First it apologized. Then it said it wouldn't sell its "Juarez" line in Mexico. Now, more than a month after MAC created quite a stir by partnering with Rodarte on products with names like "Factory" and "Ghost Town," some of which basically looked like blood, it's decided to cancel the line entirely. On its Facebook page, the company says the entire collection will be canned “out of respect for the people of Mexico, the women and girls of Juarez and their families.” Juarez, let us remind you, is a poor Mexican factory town sadly known for the more than 100 young women (some say thousands of women) who were raped, murdered, and dumped there during a 10-year span beginning in 1993. MAC notes that it will still donate “all of its projected global profits from this collection to local and international groups that work to improve the lives of the women and girls of Juarez.” |
MIAMI (AP) — A former Maryland resident imprisoned at Guantanamo was subjected to mistreatment while in CIA custody far in excess of what has previously been disclosed, including being hung from a wooden beam for three days and kept in total darkness for nearly a year, a legal organization that represents him said Wednesday.
This Sept. 2009 photo, courtesy of the Center for Constitutional Rights, shows Majid Khan while imprisoned at the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. Khan, a former Maryland resident, was subjected... (Associated Press)
Some details about the treatment of Majid Khan in the clandestine CIA detention center emerged in December when the Senate intelligence committee released a summary of a classified report critical of the agency's treatment of prisoners suspected of involvement with al-Qaida following the Sept. 11 terrorist attack.
But the Center for Constitutional Rights, a New York-based organization representing Khan and others held at Guantanamo, said that the mistreatment was far more extensive and that it can be publicly released now for the first time because the government has determined some details are no longer considered classified.
Khan, 35, is awaiting sentencing at the U.S. base in Cuba on charges that include conspiracy, murder and attempted murder for aiding al-Qaida. He pleaded guilty before a military commission in a deal that calls for a sentence of between 19 and 25 years, instead of life in prison, in exchange for cooperating in the prosecution of other cases.
Wells Dixon, his attorney, said Pentagon officials should reduce his sentence because of the mistreatment, which they would be permitted to do under the military commission legal system.
"He was tortured in ways that exceed even what was disclosed in the Senate report and that needs to be taken into account when he's sentenced," Dixon said.
The allegations of mistreatment, contained in years of previously classified notes taken by his lawyers, include being submerged in icy water during interrogations twice, in May and July 2003. A CIA spokesman said Tuesday that Khan was not one of the three prisoners subjected to the simulated drowning technique known as waterboarding.
Khan also told his lawyers that he was sexually assaulted, including with forced enemas, and hung on a wooden beam for days on end. He said he was also kept in total darkness, with only a bucket for a toilet, for nearly a year in 2003, beaten and held in a cell with bugs that bit him.
Records indicate Khan had already agreed to answer questions before the treatment, Dixon said. "The torture in addition to being inherently unlawful was gratuitous."
The CIA declined to comment in depth on the new allegations, referring to a previous critique of the Senate report in which the agency acknowledged some flaws with its detention and interrogation program but disputed the broader claim that it failed to produce significant intelligence or to disrupt plots.
Khan moved with his family from Pakistan to the U.S. in 1996 and graduated from a high school in suburban Baltimore. He returned to his native country in 2002, and authorities say he began plotting attacks with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who has been charged with four other Guantanamo prisoners with developing and providing logistical support to the Sept. 11 attack.
The Pentagon said Khan is due to be sentenced by February 2016 under the terms of his plea deal but a date has not been set. ||||| Published December 30, 2005
The Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 is part of the Department of Defense Appropriations Act of 2006 (House Resolution 2863; Public Law 109-148 of December 30, 2007, Title X; 119 STAT. 2739). It prohibits the “cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment” of detainees and provides for “uniform standards” for interrogation. The Act also removed the federal courts’ jurisdiction over detainees wishing to challenge the legality of their detention, stating that “no court, justice or judge shall have jurisdiction to hear or consider” applications on behalf of Guantanamo detainees.
TITLE X—MATTERS RELATING TO DETAINEES
Short Title
Section. 1001.
This title may be cited as the “Detainee Treatment Act of 2005”.
Uniform Standards for the Interrogation of Persons under the Detention of the Department of Defense
Sec. 1002.
(a) In General.—No person in the custody or under the effective control of the Department of Defense or under detention in a Department of Defense facility shall be subject to any treatment or technique of interrogation not authorized by and listed in the United States Army Field Manual on Intelligence Interrogation.
(b) Applicability.—Subsection (a) shall not apply with respect to any person in the custody or under the effective control of the Department of Defense pursuant to a criminal law or immigration law of the United States.
(c) Construction.—Nothing in this section shall be construed to affect the rights under the United States Constitution of any person in the custody or under the physical jurisdiction of the United States.
Prohibition on Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment of Persons under Custody or Control of the United States Government
Sec. 1003.
(a) In General.—No individual in the custody or under the physical control of the United States Government, regardless of nationality or physical location, shall be subject to cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment.
(b) Construction.—Nothing in this section shall be construed to impose any geographical limitation on the applicability of the prohibition against cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment under this section.
(c) Limitation on Supersedure.—The provisions of this section shall not be superseded, except by a provision of law enacted after the date of the enactment of this Act which specifically repeals, modifies, or supersedes the provisions of this section.
(d) Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment Defined.—In this section, the term “cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment” means the cruel, unusual, and inhumane treatment or punishment prohibited by the Fifth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States, as defined in the United States Reservations, Declarations and Understandings to the United Nations Convention Against Torture and Other Forms of Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment done at New York, December 10, 1984.
Protection of United States Government Personnel Engaged in Authorized Interrogations [2]
Sec. 1004.
(a) Protection of United States Government Personnel.—In any civil action or criminal prosecution against an officer, employee, member of the Armed Forces, or other agent of the United States Government who is a United States person, arising out of the officer, employee, member of the Armed Forces, or other agent’s engaging in specific operational practices, that involve detention and interrogation of aliens who the President or his designees have determined are believed to be engaged in or associated with international terrorist activity that poses a serious, continuing threat to the United States, its interests, or its allies, and that were officially authorized and determined to be lawful at the time that they were conducted, it shall be a defense that such officer, employee, member of the Armed Forces, or other agent did not know that the practices were unlawful and a person of ordinary sense and understanding would not know the practices were unlawful. Good faith reliance on advice of counsel should be an important factor, among others, to consider in assessing whether a person of ordinary sense and understanding would have known the practices to be unlawful. Nothing in this section shall be construed to limit or extinguish any defense or protection otherwise available to any person or entity from suit, civil or criminal liability, or damages, or to provide immunity from prosecution for any criminal offense by the proper authorities.
(b) Counsel.—The United States Government shall provide or employ counsel, and pay counsel fees, court costs, bail, and other expenses incident to the representation of an officer, employee, member of the Armed Forces, or other agent described in subsection (a), with respect to any civil action or criminal prosecution or investigation arising out of practices described in that subsection whether before United States courts or agencies, foreign courts or agencies, or international courts or agencies, under the same conditions, and to the same extent, to which such services and payments are authorized under section 1037 of title 10, United States Code.
Procedures for Status Review of Detainees Outside of the United States
Sec. 1005.
(a) Submittal of Procedures for Status Review of Detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and in Afghanistan and Iraq.—
(1) In General.—Not later than 180 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Defense shall submit to the Committee on Armed Services and the Committee on the Judiciary of the Senate and the Committee on Armed Services and the Committee on the Judiciary of the House of Representatives a report setting forth—
(A) the procedures of the Combatant Status Review Tribunals and the Administrative Review Boards established by direction of the Secretary of Defense that are in operation at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for determining the status of the detainees held at Guantanamo Bay or to provide an annual review to determine the need to continue to detain an alien who is a detainee; and
(B) the procedures in operation in Afghanistan and Iraq for a determination of the status of aliens detained in the custody or under the physical control of the Department of Defense in those countries.
(2) Designated Civilian Official.—The procedures submitted to Congress pursuant to paragraph (1)(A) shall ensure that the official of the Department of Defense who is designated by the President or Secretary of Defense to be the final review authority within the Department of Defense with respect to decisions of any such tribunal or board (referred to as the “Designated Civilian Official”) shall be a civilian officer of the Department of Defense holding an office to which appointments are required by law to be made by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate.
(3) Consideration of New Evidence.—The procedures submitted under paragraph (1)(A) shall provide for periodic review of any new evidence that may become available relating to the enemy combatant status of a detainee.
(b) Consideration of Statements Derived with Coercion.—
(1) Assessment.—The procedures submitted to Congress pursuant to subsection (a)(1)(A) shall ensure that a Combatant Status Review Tribunal or Administrative Review Board, or any similar or successor administrative tribunal or board, in making a determination of status or disposition of any detainee under such procedures, shall, to the extent practicable, assess—
(A) whether any statement derived from or relating to such detainee was obtained as a result of coercion; and
(B) the probative value (if any) of any such statement.
(2) Applicability.—Paragraph (1) applies with respect to any proceeding beginning on or after the date of the enactment of this Act.
(c) Report on Modification of Procedures.—The Secretary of Defense shall submit to the committees specified in subsection (a)(1) a report on any modification of the procedures submitted under subsection (a). Any such report shall be submitted not later than 60 days before the date on which such modification goes into effect.
(d) Annual Report.—
(1) Report Required.—The Secretary of Defense shall submit to Congress an annual report on the annual review process for aliens in the custody of the Department of Defense outside the United States. Each such report shall be submitted in unclassified form, with a classified annex, if necessary. The report shall be submitted not later than December 31 each year.
(2) Elements of Report.—Each such report shall include the following with respect to the year covered by the report:
(A) The number of detainees whose status was reviewed.
(B) The procedures used at each location.
(e) Judicial Review of Detention of Enemy Combatants.—
(1) In General.—Section 2241 of title 28, United States Code, is amended by adding at the end the following:
“(e) Except as provided in section 1005 of the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005, no court, justice, or judge shall have jurisdiction to hear or consider—
“(1) an application for a writ of habeas corpus filed by or on behalf of an alien detained by the Department of Defense at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; or
“(2) any other action against the United States or its agents relating to any aspect of the detention by the Department of Defense of an alien at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, who—
“(A) is currently in military custody; or
“(B) has been determined by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in accordance with the procedures set forth in section 1005(e) of the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 to have been properly detained as an enemy combatant.”.
(2) Review of Decision of Combatant Status Review Tribunals of Propriety of Detention.—
(A) In General.—Subject to subparagraphs (B), (C), and (D), the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit shall have exclusive jurisdiction to determine the validity of any final decision of a Combatant Status Review Tribunal that an alien is properly detained as an enemy combatant.
(B) Limitation on Claims.—The jurisdiction of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit under this paragraph shall be limited to claims brought by or on behalf of an alien—
(i) who is, at the time a request for review by such court is filed, detained by the United States; and
(ii) for whom a Combatant Status Review Tribunal has been conducted, pursuant to applicable procedures specified by the Secretary of Defense.
(C) Scope of Review.—The jurisdiction of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on any claims with respect to an alien under this paragraph shall be limited to the consideration of—
(i) whether the status determination of the Combatant Status Review Tribunal with regard to such alien was consistent with the standards and procedures specified by the Secretary of Defense for Combatant Status Review Tribunals (including the requirement that the conclusion of the Tribunal be supported by a preponderance of the evidence and allowing a rebuttable presumption in favor of the Government’s evidence); and
(ii) to the extent the Constitution and laws of the United States are applicable, whether the use of such standards and procedures to make the determination is consistent with the Constitution and laws of the United States.
(D) Termination or Release from Custody.—The jurisdiction of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit with respect to the claims of an alien under this paragraph shall cease upon the release of such alien from the custody of the Department of Defense.
(3) Respondent.—The Secretary of Defense shall be the named respondent in any appeal to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit under this subsection.[3]
(f) Construction.—Nothing in this section shall be construed to confer any constitutional right on an alien detained as an enemy combatant outside the United States.
(g) United States Defined.—For purposes of this section, the term “United States”, when used in a geographic sense, is as defined in section 101(a)(38) of the Immigration and Nationality Act and, in particular, does not include the United States Naval Station, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
(h) Effective Date.—
(1) In General.—This section shall take effect on the date of the enactment of this Act.
(2) Review of Combatant Status Tribunal and Military Commission Decisions.—Paragraphs (2) and (3) of subsection (e) shall apply with respect to any claim whose review is governed by one of such paragraphs and that is pending on or after the date of the enactment of this Act.
Training of Iraqi Forces Regarding Treatment of Detainees
Sec. 1006.
(a) Required Policies.—
(1) In General.—The Secretary of Defense shall ensure that policies are prescribed regarding procedures for military and civilian personnel of the Department of Defense and contractor personnel of the Department of Defense in Iraq that are intended to ensure that members of the Armed Forces, and all persons acting on behalf of the Armed Forces or within facilities of the Armed Forces, ensure that all personnel of Iraqi military forces who are trained by Department of Defense personnel and contractor personnel of the Department of Defense receive training regarding the international obligations and laws applicable to the humane detention of detainees, including protections afforded under the Geneva Conventions and the Convention Against Torture.
(2) Acknowledgement of Training.—The Secretary shall ensure that, for all personnel of the Iraqi Security Forces who are provided training referred to in paragraph (1), there is documented acknowledgment of such training having been provided.
(3) Deadline for Policies to be Prescribed.—The policies required by paragraph (1) shall be prescribed not later than 180 days after the date of the enactment of this Act.
(b) Army Field Manual.—
(1) Translation.—The Secretary of Defense shall provide for the United States Army Field Manual on Intelligence Interrogation to be translated into Arabic and any other language the Secretary determines appropriate for use by members of the Iraqi military forces.
(2) Distribution.—The Secretary of Defense shall provide for such manual, as translated, to be provided to each unit of the Iraqi military forces trained by Department of Defense personnel or contractor personnel of the Department of Defense.
(c) Transmittal of Regulations.—Not less than 30 days after the date on which regulations, policies, and orders are first prescribed under subsection (a), the Secretary of Defense shall submit to the Committee on Armed Services of the Senate and the Committee on Armed Services of the House of Representatives copies of such regulations, policies, or orders, together with a report on steps taken to the date of the report to implement this section.
(d) Annual Report.—Not less than one year after the date of the enactment of this Act, and annually thereafter, the Secretary of Defense shall submit to the Committee on Armed Services of the Senate and the Committee on Armed Services of the House of Representatives a report on the implementation of this section. This division may be cited as the “Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2006”.
[1] Congress passed an identical version of the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 as title XIV of the National Defense Authorization Act of 2006, Pub. L. 109-163. ||||| NEW YORK The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency used a wider array of sexual abuse and other forms of torture than was disclosed in a Senate report last year, according to a Guantanamo Bay detainee turned government cooperating witness.
Majid Khan said interrogators poured ice water on his genitals, twice videotaped him naked and repeatedly touched his "private parts" – none of which was described in the Senate report. Interrogators, some of whom smelled of alcohol, also threatened to beat him with a hammer, baseball bats, sticks and leather belts, Khan said.
Khan's is the first publicly released account from a high-value al Qaeda detainee who experienced the "enhanced interrogation techniques" of President George W. Bush's administration after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the U.S.
Khan's account is contained in 27 pages of interview notes his lawyers compiled over the past seven years. The U.S. government cleared the notes for release last month through a formal review process.
Before the Senate report detailed the agency's interrogation methods last December, CIA officials prohibited detainees and their lawyers from publicly describing interrogation sessions, deeming detainee's memories of the experience classified.
Khan's detailed allegations of torture could not be independently confirmed. CIA officials have said they believed Khan repeatedly lied to them during interrogations.
The 35-year-old Khan, a Pakistani citizen who attended high school in Maryland, is awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty in 2012 to conspiracy, material support, murder and spying charges. In exchange for serving as a government witness, Khan will be sentenced to up to 19 years in prison, with the term beginning on the date of his guilty plea.
Khan confessed to delivering $50,000 to al Qaeda operatives in Indonesia. That money was later used to carry out the 2003 truck bombing of a Marriott hotel in Jakarta that killed 11 people and wounded at least 80 others. Khan also confessed to plotting with 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to poison water supplies, blow up gas stations and serve as a "sleeper agent" for al Qaeda in the United States.
Khan was captured in Pakistan and held at an unidentified CIA "black site" from 2003 to 2006, according to the Senate report. Khan's lawyers declined to comment on where he was captured or held, which they said remained classified.
DEATH WISH
In the interviews with his lawyers, Khan described a carnival-like atmosphere of abuse when he arrived at the CIA detention facility.
"I wished they had killed me," Khan told his lawyers. He said that he experienced excruciating pain when hung naked from poles and that guards repeatedly held his head under ice water.
" 'Son, we are going to take care of you,' " Khan said his interrogators told him. " 'We are going to send you to a place you cannot imagine.' "
Current and former CIA officials declined to comment on Khan's account.
Khan's description of his experience matches some of the most disturbing findings of the U.S. Senate report, the product of a five-year review by Democratic staffers of 6.3 million internal CIA documents. CIA officials and many Republicans dismissed the report's findings as exaggerated.
Years before the report was released, Khan complained to his lawyers that he had been subjected to forced rectal feedings. Senate investigators found internal CIA documents confirming that Khan had received involuntary rectal feeding and rectal hydration. In an incident widely reported in news media after the release of the Senate investigation, CIA cables showed that "Khan's 'lunch tray,' consisting of hummus, pasta with sauce, nuts, and raisins, was 'pureed' and rectally infused."
The CIA maintains that rectal feedings were necessary after Khan went on a hunger strike and pulled out a feeding tube that had been inserted through his nose. Senate investigators said Khan was cooperative and did not remove the feeding tube.
Most medical experts say rectal feeding is of no therapeutic value. His lawyers call it rape.
Khan told his lawyers that some of the worst torture occurred in a May 2003 interrogation session, when guards stripped him naked, hung him from a wooden beam for three days and provided him with water but no food. The only time he was removed from the beam was on the afternoon of the first day, when interrogators shackled him, placed a hood over his head and lowered him into a tub of ice water.
An interrogator then forced Khan's head underwater until he feared he would drown. The questioner pulled Khan's head out of the water, demanded answers to questions and again dunked his head underwater, the detainee said. Guards also poured water and ice from a bucket onto Khan's mouth and nose.
Khan was again hung on the pole hooded and naked. Every two to three hours, interrogators hurled ice water on his body and set up a fan to blow air on him, depriving him of sleep, he said. Once, after hanging on the pole for two days, Khan began hallucinating, thinking he was seeing a cow and a giant lizard.
"I lived in anxiety every moment of every single day about the fear and anticipation of the unknown," Khan said, describing his panic attacks and nightmares at the black site. "Sometimes, I was struggling and drowning under water, or driving a car and I could not stop."
In a July 2003 session, Khan said, CIA guards hooded and hung him from a metal pole for several days and repeatedly poured ice water on his mouth, nose and genitals. At one point, he said, they forced him to sit naked on a wooden box during a 15-minute videotaped interrogation. After that, Khan said, he was shackled to a wall, which prevented him from sleeping.
When a doctor arrived to check his condition, Khan begged for help, he said. Instead, Khan said, the doctor instructed the guards to again hang him from the metal bar. After hanging from the pole for 24 hours, Khan was forced to write a "confession" while being videotaped naked.
METAL CUFFS
Khan's account also includes previously undisclosed forms of alleged CIA abuse, according to experts. Khan said his feet and lower legs were placed in tall boot-like metal cuffs that dug into his flesh and immobilized his legs. He said he felt that his legs would break if he fell forward while restrained by the cuffs.
Khan is not one of the three people whom current and former CIA officials say interrogators were authorized to “waterboard,” whereby water is poured over a cloth covering a detainee's face to create the sensation of drowning. Nor is he the fourth detainee whose waterboarding was documented by Human Rights Watch in 2012.
His descriptions, however, match those of other detainees who have alleged that they were subjected to unauthorized interrogation techniques using water. Human-rights groups say the use of ice water in dousing and forced submersions is torture.
Khan's account also includes details that match those of lower-level detainees who have described their own interrogations. Like other prisoners, Khan said he was held in complete darkness and isolated from other prisoners for long periods. To deprive him of sleep, his captors kept the lights on in his cell and blared loud music from KISS and other American rock and rap groups.
He said that he was given unclean food and water that gave him diarrhea and that he was held in an outdoor cell and in cells with biting insects. Other prisoners later told him they were held in coffin-shaped boxes.
Conditions improved significantly in 2005, after the U.S. Congress passed the Detainee Treatment Act. That measure includes anti-torture provisions sponsored by Senator John McCain, who was tortured as a prisoner in Vietnam.
Khan is scheduled to be sentenced by a military judge in Guantanamo Bay by February. His lawyers, however, want his case moved to the U.S. federal courts because, they said, federal law allows for fairer sentences for cooperating witnesses.
"He has made a decision to trust the U.S. government and cooperate with the U.S. government in order to try to atone for what he did," said J. Wells Dixon of the Center for Constitutional Rights. "But it is incumbent on the United States to treat him fairly."
Katya Jestin, a former federal prosecutor who also represents Khan, said Khan remains committed to cooperating in the military commission system. But, she said, "from a broader criminal justice policy perspective, I would like to see him sentenced in U.S. federal court. Federal judges have more experience in assessing the value of cooperation and incentivizing cooperation from others."
The Department of Justice and military prosecutors declined to comment.
(Editing by John Blanton) | – "I wished they had killed me," detainee Majid Khan told lawyers of abuse he suffered at the hands of the CIA at Guantanamo Bay, per Reuters. The mistreatment that the former Maryland resident says he endured went beyond the methods described in the Senate's December report: According to the Center for Constitutional Rights, a nonprofit representing Khan, brutal techniques included dumping ice water on his genitals, sexually assaulting him with enemas, hanging him from a wooden beam for three days, and keeping him in a completely dark, bug-infested cell for nearly a year, with only a bucket for a toilet, the AP reports. Khan's accounts were compiled by his lawyers over seven years into a 27-page document and declassified by the US government last month. Khan is to be sentenced in February on charges of conspiracy, murder, and attempted murder for assisting al-Qaeda. He has taken a plea deal with the government, with a possible sentence of 19 to 25 years instead of life in prison, but his attorney wants a more lenient sentence based on his torture allegations—especially since Khan had agreed to cooperate before what Dixon calls "gratuitous" torture. "I lived in anxiety every moment of every single day about the fear and anticipation of the unknown," Khan says, adding that he suffered panic attacks, nightmares, and hallucinations, Reuters notes. The most brutal abuse reportedly only let up once the Detainee Treatment Act passed in 2005. CIA officials have not yet commented on Khan's allegations. |
CLOSE Defendant Adam Satterly apologizes to Jefferson Circuit Judge Olu Stevens for yelling a racial epithet in his courtroom Monday.
Buy Photo Jefferson Circuit Judge Olu Stevens, shown in court, was accused of discussing the pending case on Facebook. (Photo: The Courier-Journal)Buy Photo
A day after Jefferson Circuit Judge Olu Stevens sentenced a defendant to 60 days in jail for contempt for shouting a racial slur as he was being taken into custody, Stevens reduced the sentence to one day when the defendant apologized.
Adam Satterly, whose bond Stevens had just revoked on several methamphetamine charges, shouted “punk a-- n---er,” as he was being removed from the courtroom Monday, a video shows.
Satterly is white and the judge is black.
The defendant claimed Monday he was talking to his brother, not the judge. “No, no, no, I didn’t mean it like that," he said.
"...you don’t speak those words in here. And that word particularly," Stevens said. "You don’t use that word."
On Tuesday, Stevens offered to reduce the contempt sentence to one day if Satterly would apologize.
“Yes, sir,” Satterly said. “I apologize. It wasn’t intended for you. I was mad at my brother is all it was.”
Stevens again told the defendant his remarks were disrespectful.
“What you said was a racial epithet that I don’t how it could be directed at your brother, but at any rate, I accept your apology,” he told Satterly.
He then set bond at 10 percent of $5,000.
Satterly's attorney, Christopher Thurman, did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday. He was not present in the courtroom when Stevens issued the contempt of court order Monday but stood beside Satterly Tuesday morning.
The Kentucky Court of Appeals in 2003 ruled that contempt committed in the presence of a judge may be punished summarily and requires no fact-finding hearing because all of the elements of the offense are matters within the personal knowledge of the court.
The ruling stemmed from a Kenton County case in which the subject of an emergency protective order used a sexual slur when talking about the woman seeking the protective order. The judge held a hearing, although the Court of Appeals said she didn’t have to. The man was sentenced to six months for contempt but all but seven days was probated.
DePaul University law professor Jeffrey Shaman, a nationally recognized expert on judicial ethics, said that while Satterly's slur was “obviously reprehensible and odious,” the 60-day jail term for it “does seem a bit harsh.”
Shaman, a former fellow at the American Judicature Society, said the length of the punishment could be appealed.
Stevens has been at the center of recent controversies involving race.
Early last year, he drew national attention after he criticized the victims of an armed robbery for "fostering" the views of their 5-year-old daughter, whom they said was still scared of black men after two African Americans had held the family at gunpoint.
Monday was Stevens' first full day back in court hearing cases since last month, when Kentucky Chief Justice John D. Minton Jr. referred to the state Judicial Conduct Commission allegations that Stevens may have violated the Code of Judicial Conduct.
Those allegations stem from Stevens’ Facebook posts that suggested Commonwealth’s Attorney Tom Wine was a racist for questioning the judge’s decision to strike a jury in which the one potential black juror was removed at random.
Some criminal defense lawyers and civil rights leaders applauded Stevens for trying to expand the representation of minorities on juries; Wine said he wanted the state Supreme Court to clarify a judge’s powers. The issue is still before the court.
Reporter Matthew Glowicki can be reached at 502-582-4989 or mglowicki@courier-journal.com. Reporter Andy Wolfson can be reached at 502-582-7189 or awolfson@courier-journal.com.
CLOSE Judge Olu Stevens sentenced Adam Satterly to 60 days for contempt after Satterly voiced a racial epithet in Stevens' courtroom. Jefferson Circuit Court Clerk
Read or Share this story: http://cjky.it/1R9NLNL ||||| "Oh, you didn't mean it like that?" the judge responded tersely, telling Satterly he was holding him in contempt of court. "You don't speak those words in here. And that word particularly, you don't use that word. I'm going to give you 60 days for having used that word. I'm going to hold you in contempt right now for having used it in this courtroom. It's disrespectful; don't ever do it again." | – A white man in Louisville, Ky., will spent time in jail for using a racial slur in a courtroom hallway, seconds after an interaction with a black judge. Adam Satterly could be heard yelling "punk ass n*****" immediately after Judge Olu Stevens revoked his bond on drug charges Monday. Stevens promptly held Satterly in contempt of court "for having used that word," and handed him 60 days in jail, per WDRB. Stevens later reduced the sentence to one day after Satterly apologized, reports the Courier-Journal. The incident occurred on Stevens' first day back on the bench after he was chided for complaining on social media that a prosecutor wanted "all-white juries." |
(CNN) In the debate over whether Democrats should go low against President Donald Trump and Republican lawmakers or rise above partisan attacks, count former Attorney General Eric Holder as an advocate of getting into the gutter.
Holder, while campaigning in Georgia on Sunday, told an audience that he disagreed with former first lady Michelle Obama's much touted mantra, "When they go low, we go high."
"It is time for us as Democrats to be as tough as they are, to be as dedicated as they are, to be as committed as they are," Holder said. "Michelle always says, Michelle Obama, I love her. She and my wife are really tight. Which always scares me and Barack. Michelle always says, 'When they go low, we go high.' No. No. When they go low, we kick them."
The potential 2020 candidate added: "That's what this new Democratic Party is about. We are proud as hell to be Democrats. We are willing to fight for the ideals of the Democratic Party. We are proud of our history, we are proud of our present and we are proud of the future that we can create for this country."
"When I say we kick them, I don't mean we do anything inappropriate, we don't do anything illegal, but we have to be tough and we have to fight," he said later.
Read More ||||| White House counselor Kellyanne Conway Kellyanne Elizabeth ConwayKellyanne Conway goes after Hillary Clinton on 'dangerous' civility comments Conway attacks idea of �?Medicare for all’ in swipe at Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Hirono: Roe v. Wade won't be overturned, but will be nullified MORE went after Hillary Clinton Hillary Diane Rodham ClintonFive takeaways from the final Tennessee Senate debate Live coverage: Blackburn, Bredesen clash in Tennessee Senate debate Poll: Cordray leads DeWine by 6 points in Ohio governor race MORE early Wednesday for saying that Democrats can't be civil with Republicans.
"Usually, when she opens her mouth, respectfully, she offends at least one half of the country, and she did it again," Conway said of Clinton on "Fox & Friends." "But I think her discourse sounds a little bit dangerous. I don't like the implications there."
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"It's one thing to call us deplorable, irredeemable, laugh at people who don't have all the privileges that she has had with her Ivy League law degree and through her marriage to a much more popular man who actually was a two-term president that she'll never be."
"I don't like that kind of talk and I avoid it," she said. "My boss has called for civility. He's said that he represents all Americans."
Clinton said in an interview with CNN on Tuesday that civility could only be restored in the U.S. if the Democrats take back the House or the Senate in the November midterms.
"You cannot be civil with a political party that wants to destroy what you stand for, for what you care about," the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee and former secretary of State said.
"That's why I believe, if we are fortunate enough to win back the House and or the Senate, that's when civility can start again," she said. "But until then, the only thing that the Republicans seem to recognize and respect is strength."
Conway criticized Clinton personally for the statements.
"I don't see all these Democratic candidates banging down Hillary Clinton's door, asking her to lock arms," Conway said.
"She has to go with her husband to do this 13-city tour, $100 million that I assume they're not going to donate to some center on women and girls. I don't see her doing that," she said.
"So I think it's ... unfortunate and graceless but a little bit dangerous and I would ask her to check that." ||||| I guess a memo went out. How else to explain that leading figures in the Democratic Party are embracing incivility this week? A clip of Eric Holder is circulating today in which he endorses Democrats taking the low road.
“It is time for us as Democrats to be as tough as they are, to be as dedicated as they are, to be as committed as they are,” Holder said. “Michelle [Obama] says ‘when they go low, we go high.’ No. When they go low we kick them,” he said.
The crowd responded with laughter and applause. “That’s what this new Democratic Party is about,” Holder added.
He may be right about that.
Holder also added that Democrats had to win to prevent people “less imbued” with good values from running the country. “We’re in this to win. And the reality is if we don’t win, people who are less committed, less idealistic, less imbued with the values that make this nation really great will run this country,” he said.
So to sum this message up: Democrats good, GOP bad. Win by any means necessary. That’s remarkably similar to what Hillary Clinton said, in an interview with CNN which aired yesterday. “You cannot be civil with a political party that wants to destroy what you stand for,” she said. She added that civility could only return if Democrats win the election next month.
I find it hard to believe this remarkably consistent messaging is a coincidence. It seems like the sort of thing some Democrats discussed privately as a midterm messaging strategy. But whatever the case, the bottom line is that high profile members of the party are now openly ditching Michelle Obama’s best-known line suggesting Democrats take the high road and embracing the low road. As I pointed out yesterday, Democrats are delusional if they think they ever abandoned the low road. They did not.
But getting back to this current moment in politics, I doubt it has escaped the notice of either Hillary Clinton or Eric Holder that grassroots Democrats are now embracing a new confrontational approach to their opponents. As Rep. Maxine Waters said, if you see Trump officials in a restaurant or a gas station, “you tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere.” This is a blunt, anti-civility message and some on the left have denounced it. But it appears party leaders are now giving their activists approval to go all in with only a month left before the election.
Of course, I think we all know what will happen the moment someone does this to Hillary or Eric Holder. Suddenly they’ll be shocked and appalled and claim they never had this in mind. They were only speaking metaphorically, etc., etc. Don’t believe it for a minute. They see what is happening out there. They know what kind of behavior they are encouraging. Here’s the clip of Holder already queued up:
Update: Sen. Cory Gardner weighs in offering another example of left-wing incivility.
Just before I voted to confirm Justice Kavanaugh, my wife received a text message of a graphic beheading. We now have public officials saying you should be uncivil to each other – a call for incivility. — Cory Gardner (@SenCoryGardner) October 10, 2018
We have our political disagreements and we should cherish the rights to express our disagreements. But when it comes to calls for violence and attempted murder and assassinations this country has gone too far and it’s time we step back from that brink. — Cory Gardner (@SenCoryGardner) October 10, 2018
Update: I missed this when I scanned through the clip the first time. Six minutes after his “kick” remark (about 16:50 in the clip above) Holder said, “When I say we kick them, I don’t mean we do anything inappropriate, we don’t do anything illegal, but we’ve got to be tough…”
People on the left are pointing to this as evidence that Holder wasn’t endorsing violence or illegal behavior. Fair enough but if you read the post above you may have noticed I never said or even suggested he was recommending violence. I said his remarks were very similar to what Hillary said yesterday about civility and to what Maxine Waters has previously advocated.
Bottom line: By definition, taking the low road is going to involve things that someone else thinks are “inappropriate,” Michelle Obama for one. You can’t counsel people to abandon the high road and then claim you don’t want them to do anything anyone would object to. That’s just not the nature of the low road and I think Holder knows that. | – Michelle Obama gave her fellow Democrats a piece of famous advice during her speech at the 2016 Democratic National Convention: "When they go low, we go high." The mantra, delivered during a particularly nasty campaign, is now back in the news for an unusual reason: Some high-profile Democrats say it's time to do precisely the opposite. Details and developments: Eric Holder: At a speech in Georgia on Sunday, the former attorney general said Democrats have to get tougher, reports CNN. "Michelle always says, 'When they go low, we go high.' No. No. When they go low, we kick them." He later clarified: "When I say we kick them, I don't mean we do anything inappropriate, we don't do anything illegal, but we have to be tough and we have to fight." Watch the clip here. Hillary Clinton: She didn't go quite as far as Holder, but in a CNN interview Tuesday she said: "You cannot be civil with a political party that wants to destroy what you stand for, what you care about." She said Republicans understand only "strength," not civility, adding that the latter will return only if Democrats take back the House and Senate. White House adviser Kellyanne Conway called out Clinton's comments as "graceless" and "a little bit dangerous," per the Hill. New strategy? "I find it hard to believe this remarkably consistent messaging is a coincidence," writes John Sexton at Hot Air. "It seems like the sort of thing some Democrats discussed privately as a midterm messaging strategy." He draws a parallel to Democrat Maxine Water's advice to confront members of the Trump administration in public. |
There are plenty of nice reasons to get married, but increasingly the basic experience of being married doesn't seem all that different from simply living together without ever making it legal—or living in sin, as our grandmothers like to call it. Now there's some new research that proves that the line between marriage and cohabitation has been blurred to such an extent that it's barely visible.
The study, which appears in the Journal of Marriage and Family, found that being married doesn't really have any long term advantage over living together—at least in terms of happiness, health, and one's social life. Previous research compared being married only to being single or studied marriage versus cohabitation at fixed points in time. What's interesting about this new research is that it looks at people who started out single but married or began cohabitating during a six year period, which allows us to more clearly see what changed when couples paired up and what the lasting effects were. The study focused primarily on well-being, which encompasses "happiness, levels of depression, health, and social ties."
What researchers discovered was that there's an initial bump in well-being right after a person marries or moves in with someone, as compared to staying single. But this advantage was short lived—in other words, the honeymoon came to an end and people fell back down to reality, which can be a miserable place whether you're married or single. Interestingly, one significant difference between those who coupled up and those who stayed single was that marriage and cohabitation led to people having less contact with their parents and friends, and this effect appeared to last.
When you compare the effects of marriage against those of cohabitation, the differences tended to be small and faded after that initial honeymoon period. Dr. Kelly Musick of Cornell University, who conducted the study, outlines the disparities that were seen between the two:
[W]hile married couples experienced health gains—likely linked to the formal benefits of marriage such as shared healthcare plans—cohabiting couples experienced greater gains in happiness and self-esteem. For some, cohabitation may come with fewer unwanted obligations than marriage and allow for more flexibility, autonomy, and personal growth.
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I guess the trade-off is that marriage tends to come with more dishes and fancy towels? But seriously in the end, the difference between the two are minimal, says Dr. Musick:
[O]ur research shows that marriage is by no means unique in promoting well-being and that other forms of romantic relationships can provide many of the same benefits.
That's a useful little nugget to remember should you ever find yourself confronted by that particular kind of aggressively happy married person who, if given the chance, will corner you and try to convince you that marriage is the most wonderful thing ever, that something magical happens inside of you the moment you say "I do," and that you would be foolish not to experience it yourself. Now if they annoy you, you can tell them to shove it because you have science on your side.
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Does Marriage Really Make People Happier? Study Finds Few Well-Being Advantages to Marriage Over Cohabitation [ScienceDaily] ||||| A new study, published in the Journal of Marriage and Family reveals that married couples experience few advantages for psychological well-being, health, or social ties compared to unmarried couples who live together. While both marriage and cohabitation provide benefits over being single, these reduce over time following a honeymoon period.
"Marriage has long been an important social institution, but in recent decades western societies have experienced increases in cohabitation, before or instead of marriage, and increases in children born outside of marriage," said Dr Kelly Musick, Associate Professor of policy analysis and management at Cornell University's College of Human Ecology. "These changes have blurred the boundaries of marriage, leading to questions about what difference marriage makes in comparison to alternatives."
Previous research has sought to prove a link between marriage and well-being, but many studies compared marriage to being single, or compared marriages and cohabitations at a single point in time. This study compares marriage to cohabitation while using a fixed-effects approach that focuses on what changes when single men and women move into marriage or cohabitation and the extent to which any effects of marriage and cohabitation persist over time.
Dr Musick drew a study sample from the National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH) of 2,737 single men and women, 896 of whom married or moved in with a partner over the course of 6 years. The study focused on key areas of well-being, considering questions on happiness, levels of depression, health, and social ties.
The results showed a spike in well-being immediately following both marriage and cohabitation as couples experienced a honeymoon period with higher levels of happiness and fewer depressive symptoms compared to singles. However, these advantages were short lived.
Marriage and cohabitation both resulted in less contact with parents and friends compared to remaining single, and these effects appeared to persist over time.
"We found that differences between marriage and cohabitation tend to be small and dissipate after a honeymoon period. Also while married couples experienced health gains -- likely linked to the formal benefits of marriage such as shared healthcare plans -- cohabiting couples experienced greater gains in happiness and self-esteem. For some, cohabitation may come with fewer unwanted obligations than marriage and allow for more flexibility, autonomy, and personal growth" said Musick.
"Compared to most industrial countries America continues to value marriage above other family forms," concluded Musick. "However our research shows that marriage is by no means unique in promoting well-being and that other forms of romantic relationships can provide many of the same benefits." | – If you're living with your significant other, don't worry too much about tying the knot, because it won't make you any happier, according to a new study. The study followed 2,737 single men and women for six years, watching as 896 of them either got married or moved in with a lover, Science Daily reports. The results? Both married couples and cohabitators exhibited higher levels of happiness and fewer depression symptoms than single people—but married couples didn't have an advantage over those just cohabitating. "While married couples experienced health gains—likely linked to the formal benefits of marriage such as shared health care plans—cohabiting couples experienced greater gains in happiness and self-esteem," the study's lead author said. "America continues to value marriage above other family forms. However, our research shows that marriage is by no means unique in promoting well-being." Jezebel's take-away? "Go ahead and live in sin! Science says it's okay." |
Melania Trump raked in six figures in royalties from photos that some news organizations used in coverage of the first lady. The photos came with a requirement that they only be used in “positive coverage.”
NBC News’s Andrew W. Lehren, Emily R. Siegel, and Merritt Enright report that President Donald Trump’s 2017 financial disclosure forms revealed that Melania Trump had earned between $100,000 and $1,000,000 from Getty Images, a photo agency that many news outlets (including Vox) use to illustrate stories.
The royalties came from a series of more than 180 posed photographs, which were shot by Belgian photographer Regine Mahaux between 2010 and 2016. The photographs are posed shots and portraits of Melania, often with her husband and their son Barron. They’ve also been featured on a few magazine covers. The photographer, Mahaux, also took Melania Trump’s official White House portrait.
The big caveat about this arrangement, according to NBC News: Agencies were only allowed to use the photos for positive coverage. According to NBC News, Getty included that requirement in its catalog. But it doesn’t seem as if it were made obvious to the news organizations that Melania Trump would be getting a cut of the photo revenue herself.
A lot of news organizations apparently used these photos at some point, including NBC News itself. Yahoo News, the Daily Mail, and the Houston Chronicle are among the publications that used these photos while the Trumps were in office. Some of the photos were also used prior to 2017, but how much the Trumps earned from them isn’t clear as it wasn’t itemized on the financial disclosure form. (According to NBC News, some news organizations have now removed the images.)
The whole story is strange for two reasons. First, it’s odd for news organizations would use photographs that came with any strings attached to its coverage — though it’s not clear how closely that rule was followed.
Second, most subjects of photographs don’t get to take a share of the profits — at least not if they’re politicians or public figures. (Other celebrities sometimes receive royalties for their images, according to NBC.)
Getty Images told NBC News that confidential agreements dictate the terms of the deal. The White House said in a statement that Trump’s financial disclosures — which included this detail about the photo royalties — was certified by the White House Ethics Counsel and Office of Government Ethics.
This photo deal adds to the list of ethics concerns about the Trump administration, and whether the president and those in his orbit are profiting from his presidency. Trump is currently being sued over whether he’s in violation of the Constitution because his businesses, including his DC hotel, accepted payments from foreign governments. Other transactions have raised eyebrows, including the approval of Trump trademarks in China, and Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner’s combined $82 million in outside income in 2017 — and raised questions about potential conflicts of interest. ||||| Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings.
/ Updated By Andrew W. Lehren, Emily R. Siegel and Merritt Enright
Since her husband took office Melania Trump has earned six figures from an unusual deal with a photo agency in which major media organizations have indirectly paid the Trump family despite a requirement that the photos be used only in positive coverage.
President Donald Trump's most recent financial disclosure reveals that in 2017 the first lady earned at least $100,000 from Getty Images for the use of any of a series of 187 photos of the first family shot between 2010 and 2016 by Belgian photographer Regine Mahaux.
It's not unheard of for celebrities to earn royalties from photos of themselves, but it's very unusual for the wife of a currently serving elected official. More problematic for the many news organizations that have published or broadcast the images, however, is that Getty's licensing agreement stipulates the pictures can be used in "positive stories only."
According to the revenue statement in President Trump's May financial disclosure, Melania Trump earned between $100,000 and $1,000,000 in photo royalties in 2017 from the Getty deal.
A photo of Barron and Melania Trump taken by Regine Mahaux and licensed via Getty Images was used in a 2016 NBC Nightly News segment.
Federal officials are only required to give an income range in their filings, and both Getty and the White House declined requests to provide more precise figures or list the places the images had appeared.
But NBC News found at least a dozen organizations that had paid to use Mahaux's restricted images of the Trumps in 2017, resulting in indirect payment to the first family.
Yahoo News, NBC News, Marie Claire, the Daily Mail, My San Antonio, Houston Chronicle, House Beautiful, and SF Gate, the website for The San Francisco Chronicle, are among those that have featured Mahaux's highly stylized family portraits since Trump took office.
The February 2017 issue of the Russian edition of the fashion magazine Elle included a gilded Mahaux portrait of the first family.
A Mahaux group portrait of Donald, Melania and son Barron Trump was featured on the May page of the White House 2017 calendar that was on sale in the White House gift shop for $14. Bent Publishing, which publishes the calendars, confirmed that it licensed the Mahaux photo for the 2017 calendar. The 2018 calendar now on sale at the gift shop does not include any Mahaux images.
NBC News also found that numerous entities had used the images before President Trump took office, though no income from the Getty deal was itemized in any financial disclosure prior to 2017.
In August 2016, Mahaux's portrait of then-candidate Trump and his wife was featured in the official Republican National Convention guide book that was given to each delegate. Campaign finance records show the money to pay for the guide came from political donations to the Republican National Committee.
The program was produced by Great Lakes Publishing, which said it got the image from a committee involved in arranging the convention. Jeff Larson, a political consultant who ran that committee, said, "We didn't pay any royalties that I know of for that photo."
NBC's Nightly News included the images in a Nightly News segment on Melania Trump that aired July 18, 2016, during the Republican National Convention.
The French edition of Vanity Fair put one of the pictures on the cover of its August 2016 issue.
Fox News used the photos in a variety of news segments in 2016. Greta Van Susteren's show "On the Record" included two portraits of Melania Trump during an interview Van Susteren did with the future first lady. In November 2016, after Trump's upset election win, the first episode of the Fox News show "OBJECTified," hosted by TMZ founder Harvey Levin, depicted the life and rise of Donald Trump. The episode included two of the images taken by Mahaux.
A Fox News Channel spokesperson said in a statement that the Mahaux photos used by Fox "were provided by the Trump campaign and Melania Trump's office, who told us they had full ownership and rights to the photos."
A screenshot of a My San Antonio/San Antonio Express article featuring a Regine Mahaux image of Melania Trump. My San Antonio took the story down after an inquiry from NBC News.
An NBC News spokesperson said NBC News did not agree or sign a statement that the image would be used for positive coverage, and was never informed that a portion of the royalties would go to the Trump family.
Several news organizations removed the images from their websites after inquiries by NBC News.
Yahoo took them down and said in a statement: "We were not aware of this specific arrangement with Getty nor was our editorial influenced by it. We have removed the image from Yahoo Lifestyle."
The San Francisco Chronicle deleted the images from its website as well, and said it was looking into how they came to be used.
The photographs were also pulled from the websites for The Houston Chronicle and The San Antonio Express-News following inquiries by NBC News. Hearst Communications Inc. owns the three newspapers and their websites. The images remained on other Hearst websites like those for the magazines House Beautiful and Marie Claire. Representatives for those publications did not return repeated calls and emails.
French Vanity Fair, Russian Elle, and the Daily Mail and Paris Match, which also used the photographs, did not respond to requests for comment.
A 2017 calendar featuring Donald, Melania and Barron Trump was offered for sale at the White House gift shop, and included a Regine Mahaux photo. A portion of the gift shop's revenues is donated to rural police departments.
In a standard photo contract, the photographer gets royalties and the photo agency receives fees for each use of an image. Models are not paid royalties.
Paying royalties to the Trumps and limiting the use to only positive stories is unusual for news organizations, according to Akili Ramsess, executive director of the National Press Photographers Association. She said that celebrity wedding or baby photographs are sometimes licensed so part of the fees flows back to the celebrity. Keith Major, another Getty photographer who has also photographed Melania Trump, said he does not share royalties with her.
Getty's licensing agreement does not offer any hint that money is also paid to the Trumps, and the arrangement did not appear to have become public until the income was listed in the president's May financial filing.
However, Getty does make clear in its catalog that the images can only be licensed with permission by Getty or, in some cases, Mahaux, and that the images may be used for "positive stories only."
News organizations likely would not have known about the payments to Melania Trump, but could have been aware of the published stipulation about positive coverage in the catalog.
Indira Lakshmanan, a media ethicist at the Poynter Institute, said, "If I'm a news editor, I would use photos that don't have any restriction attached to them. There's a lesson for editors, for public figures. There are plenty of photos out there that you can use that don't have these restrictions."
Getty Images told NBC News that the details and amounts of payments to the Trumps are covered by confidential agreements. The agency declined to say whether there are separate royalty arrangements with other members of the Trump families, and declined all comment on the deal other than to say that once a photo has been licensed, Getty pays "contracted royalties back to the photographer and/or individual(s) as covered by their confidential agreement."
In a statement, a White House spokesperson said: "President Trump's recent Public Disclosure Report, which included information regarding Mrs. Trump's income and assets, was filed after being certified by the White House Ethics Counsel and the Office of Government Ethics. The report speaks for itself."
When NBC News reached photographer Regine Mahaux by phone, she said "everything is legal" and then asked that any questions be submitted to her by email. NBC repeatedly emailed her questions but did not get a reply.
Mahaux took the photos during sessions in 2010, 2011 and 2016. Most feature some combination of Trump, Melania and son Barron. At least one of the photos, depicting the future first lady floating inside a swan boat on a still lake, and her swinging from a chandelier, combines images into a composite. Getty noted in its online catalog that many of the images of the Trumps have been "retouched," including those that later appeared in various news publications.
Mahaux has worked closely with the Trumps since 2010. Several albums on the Getty website feature her intimate photoshoots with the family in Trump Tower. "I like working with the family's image – it speaks to me. It inspires me," Mahaux told a French news outlet in 2017. Mahaux also took Melania Trump's official White House portrait, which is public and not subject to the licensing arrangement.
Melania's 2017 income from the Mahaux photos is an increase from previous years, based on the president's financial filings. Royalties from Getty Images do not appear in any of the financial statements submitted by Trump in the three prior years. Melania Trump likely earned some money during those years, but the income was below the federal government's threshold required for declaring the income.
Most modern first ladies have launched books and other commercial products during their stints in the White House — and then donated the entire proceeds to charity. Laura Bush donated a book advance to education charities, and Michelle Obama gave the proceeds from her book American Grown to the National Park Foundation.
Among Trump administration spouses, Vice President Mike Pence's wife, Karen, announced that revenues from her children's book would be donated to a children's hospital in Indiana and an anti-sex-trafficking nonprofit. In 2017, Ivanka Trump, the president's daughter and wife of senior adviser Jared Kushner, said she would give most of the advance and any future royalties from her book "Women Who Work" to charity.
The White House declined to comment on whether the Trumps have steered any of the proceeds from the Getty deal, which was consummated before Melania Trump became first lady, to a charity. Absent a public announcement, their annual tax returns might provide a hint — but unlike all other modern first families, the Trumps have not released them.
However, some of the proceeds from at least one of Mahaux's pictures of the first lady seem to have made their way to charity through another means. The White House gift shop, which sold the 2017 White House calendar, donates part of its earnings to help rural police departments. | – NBC News spotted an oddity in the latest financial disclosure report from President Trump: It shows that first lady Melania Trump earned at least $100,000 in 2017 from certain photos used in mainstream news outlets. The story breaks it down: Melania Trump has posed for nearly 200 photos by Belgian photographer Regine Mahaux since 2010, often with her husband and son Barron. Those photos are available for a fee at Getty Images, and at least a dozen media outlets have used them over the years—including NBC News, Fox News, Yahoo News, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Houston Chronicle, and the Daily Mail. The kicker: Getty stipulates that the photos can be used only for positive coverage. When NBC reporters contacted reps at the various news organizations, including their own, they generally found that the outlets were unaware of the fine print stipulating positive coverage and had no idea royalties were going to the Trumps. Yahoo, for example, took down a photo in question. "We were not aware of this specific arrangement with Getty nor was our editorial influenced by it," it says in a statement. "We have removed the image from Yahoo Lifestyle." The whole thing is odd on two fronts, notes Vox: First, that "news organizations would use photographs that came with any strings attached to its coverage—though it's not clear how closely that rule was followed." And second, that someone other than a celebrity would be receiving royalties from photos of them, particularly a first lady. |
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — A Twin Cities great-grandfather is getting a lot of attention for a video showing him shoveling his neighbor’s sidewalk.
“I’ve always been active, always doing something,” St. Paul resident Richard Mann said.
The 101-year-old has learned a thing or two about work ethic over his long life. After his father died when he was four, he took care of work around the house to help his single mom. Snow shoveling was one of his duties.
“I was the only boy, and it was an automatic thing for me to more or less do ‘a man’s job,'” Mann said.
The job never got him much attention until now, nearly a century later. A video showing Mann shoveling his neighbor’s snow has gone viral. His neighbor is overheard in the video summing the situation up perfectly.
“This is an inspiration to a lot of people to get up, get out and get something,” Mann’s neighbor said.
The video had more than 343,000 views on Facebook as of Wednesday evening.
Mann says he was just doing his neighbor a favor and not expecting anything in return, just as he was taught growing up.
“That’s why I think people appreciated seeing the video of him because there are so many things going on that are not, you know, people are not being kind to each other,” Margo Mann, Richard Mann’s daughter, said. “And kindness is the key to having a successful and good life.”
Mann is a father, grandfather and great-grandfather. He lost his first wife to cancer, and his second wife to Alzheimer’s disease.
When asked the key to a long life, it appeared that his sense of humor is also still going strong.
“Clean living, and wine, women and money [laughs],” Richard said. “I’ve had quite a life.”
Mann says he still plays golf whenever he gets the chance, and swears by bacon and eggs for breakfast every day. ||||| Nothing all that unusual for a Minnesotan to clear the walk of a neighbor who is out of town. But then again, how many of those lifting the shovel are 101 years old?
Richard Mann, born March 8, 1914, looked out last week and saw what a light snowfall had left, then did what had to be done for his traveling next-door neighbor in the 1500 block of Western Avenue N. in St. Paul
Another neighbor across the street made a visual record of Mann’s gesture, put it online and the rest is viral history: more than 575,000 views in less than a week.
“Mr. Mann, I was looking out my window and I’m filming you right there at this time Mr. Mann,” said Keven O’Bannon as he tromped across the street toward the stocking-capped centenarian with the posture of a man decades younger and a strong, clear voice. “You’re 101 years old, and you’re out here shoveling the neighbor’s snow?”
Mann, a great-grandfather, chuckled as he leaned on the upright shovel and replied, “Well, he’s out of town, and I’m not exerting myself. I’m not going to overdo it. I can use the exercise. … I know what my limitations are.”
O’Bannon said neighbors usually get to Mann’s walk first, right after a snowfall, but he was out there ahead of them this time.
“We usually try to come out here and catch your snow,” O’Bannon told Mann. “It was such a light snow … that we didn’t really get out here.”
My neighbour is 101 years old... Check out Mr. Mann Posted by Keven Lifecoach O'Bannon on Friday, January 8, 2016
Paul Walsh • 612-673-4482 ||||| See more of Keven O'Bannon on Facebook | – Done your neighbor a good turn this year? You might take a hint from Richard Mann, a 101-year-old resident of St. Paul, Minn., who was seen shoveling his neighbor's walk the other day after a fresh snowfall, the Star Tribune reports. Neighbor Keven O’Bannon caught it on video and posted the friendly encounter on Facebook, where it's been seen more than 1.7 million times as of this writing. "You’re 101 years old, and you’re out here shoveling the neighbor’s snow?" O'Bannon is heard asking. Mann responds, "I'm not going to overdo it. I can use the exercise. … I know what my limitations are." Mann says he was helping a neighbor away on a trip, and tells CBS Minnesota he's been doing such duties for a long time. Mann was just four years old when his father died and he had to help his single mom around the house. "I was the only boy, and it was an automatic thing for me to more or less do 'a man’s job,'" he says. That included helping neighbors and expecting nothing in return, he adds. "That’s why I think people appreciated seeing the video of him because there are so many things going on that are not, you know, people are not being kind to each other," says his daughter, Margo Mann. "And kindness is the key to having a successful and good life." But Richard has his own explanation: "Clean living, and wine, women and money," he says with a laugh. And he swears by the same breakfast every day: bacon and eggs. |
Pope Francis delivers his speech during his weekly general audience in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican , Wednesday, Sept. 12, 2018. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino) (Associated Press)
Pope Francis delivers his speech during his weekly general audience in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican , Wednesday, Sept. 12, 2018. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino) (Associated Press)
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis accepted the resignation of a U.S. bishop Thursday and authorized an investigation into allegations he sexually harassed adults, adding awkward drama to an audience with U.S. church leaders over the abuse and cover-up scandal roiling the Catholic Church.
The resignation of West Virginia Bishop Michael Bransfield was announced just as the four-member U.S. delegation was sitting down with Francis in his private study in the Apostolic Palace. Among the four was Bransfield's cousin, Monsignor Brian Bransfield, secretary-general of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
Bishop Bransfield had been investigated for an alleged groping incident in 2007 and was implicated in court testimony in 2012 in an infamous Philadelphia priestly sex abuse case. He strongly denied ever abusing anyone and the diocese said it had disproved the claims. He continued with his ministry until he offered to retire, as required, when he turned 75 last week.
The Vatican said Francis accepted his resignation Thursday and appointed Baltimore Archbishop William Lori to take over Bransfield's Wheeling-Charleston diocese temporarily. Lori said in a statement that Francis had also instructed him to "conduct an investigation into allegations of sexual harassment of adults against Bishop Bransfield."
No details of the allegations were revealed and his diocese said it had "no idea" where Bransfield was after the Vatican ordered him to live outside the diocese.
Lori set up a hotline for potential victims to call, said the Vatican had instructed him to make the investigation public, and vowed to conduct a thorough study into what he said were "troubling" claims against Bransfield, who was a major fundraiser for the Vatican via the Pennsylvania-based Papal Foundation.
The revelation was the latest twist in an incredible turn of events in the U.S. church that began with the June 20 announcement that one of the most prestigious U.S. cardinals, Theodore McCarrick, had been accused of groping a teenage altar boy in the 1970s.
Francis removed McCarrick as a cardinal in July after a U.S. church investigation found the allegation credible. After news broke of the investigation, several former seminarians and priests came forward to report that they, too, had been abused or harassed by McCarrick as adults.
The McCarrick affair — coupled with revelations in the Pennsylvania grand jury report detailing decades of abuse and cover-up in six dioceses — has fueled outrage among the rank-and-file faithful who had trusted church leaders to reform themselves after the abuse scandal first erupted in Boston in 2002.
Outrage has also been directed at Francis and the Vatican and has fueled conservative criticism of Francis' pontificate.
The head of the U.S. bishops conference, Houston Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, had requested the papal audience last month following revelations that McCarrick had risen through church ranks even though the allegations of sexual misconduct were known in U.S. and Vatican circles.
DiNardo requested a full-fledged Vatican investigation into the McCarrick affair, and said he also wanted answers to allegations that a string of Vatican officials knew of McCarrick's misdeeds since 2000, but turned a blind eye.
A statement issued by DiNardo after the papal audience made no mention of his request for a Vatican investigation. It said that the Americans briefed the pope on the "laceration" that abuse has caused and that "we look forward to actively continuing our discernment together identifying the most effective next steps."
The statement also made no mention of the Bransfield investigation. McCarrick was a co-consecrator when Bishop Bransfield was ordained a bishop in 2005 and the two were active in the Papal Foundation, the big U.S. fundraising organization that McCarrick co-founded and which has funneled millions of dollars to the Vatican over the years.
Bransfield was president when the foundation was thrown into disarray last year over a revolt by its lay donors. They were incensed that the cardinals who run the foundation had agreed to a $25 million request from the Vatican to bail out a troubled Rome hospital. Under pressure, the cardinals pulled the plug on the funding mid-way through.
Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston spokesman Tim Bishop said Thursday he couldn't answer questions about Bransfield's whereabouts or whether he has an attorney.
"The Holy See has instructed him to live outside the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston," Bishop said. "I have no idea of his whereabouts."
The Vatican hasn't responded to allegations by its former ambassador to the U.S., Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, that Francis effectively rehabilitated McCarrick from sanctions imposed by Pope Benedict XVI over allegations McCarrick would routinely invite seminarians to his beach house and into his bed.
Francis has, however, responded to the overall scandal with a series of initiatives aimed at trying to convince the faithful that he "gets it" and is prepared to take measures to put an end to what he has called the "culture of cover-up" in the church.
On the eve of the U.S. audience, Francis announced he was summoning the presidents of bishops conferences around the world to a February summit to discuss prevention measures and protection of minors and vulnerable adults.
The surprise announcement was largely dismissed as a belated damage control effort by victims' advocates. Church historians questioned why such an urgent problem was being scheduled for discussion six months from now with the very bishops who are blamed for much of the scandal.
"Where are the laity and others who might provide both new and uncomplicit voices and insights into the process?" asked Margaret Susan Thompson, associate professor of history at Syracuse University.
Even DiNardo's own record on protecting children has now come into question. On the eve of his audience with Francis, The Associated Press reported that two victims in Houston had accused him of not doing enough to stop a priest who was arrested this week on sexual abuse charges.
The archdiocese issued a statement Wednesday confirming that both alleged victims had come forward to report abuse by the priest, the Rev. Manuel LaRosa-Lopez, one of them in 2001.
The delegation of U.S. bishops announced no plans to speak to the media after their audience.
___
AP writers Claudia Lauer in Philadelphia and John Raby in Charleston contributed to this report.
___
This story has been corrected to say that Lori is Archbishop of Baltimore, not bishop. ||||| FILE - In this April 8, 2010 file photo a cross sits on top of a church in Berlin, Germany. A leading German magazine says a report on sexual abuse inside the Catholic Church in Germany details 3,677... (Associated Press)
FILE - In this April 8, 2010 file photo a cross sits on top of a church in Berlin, Germany. A leading German magazine says a report on sexual abuse inside the Catholic Church in Germany details 3,677 abuses cases by Catholic clergy between 1946 and 2014. Spiegel Online wrote Wednesday, Sept. 12, 2018... (Associated Press)
FILE - In this April 8, 2010 file photo a cross sits on top of a church in Berlin, Germany. A leading German magazine says a report on sexual abuse inside the Catholic Church in Germany details 3,677 abuses cases by Catholic clergy between 1946 and 2014. Spiegel Online wrote Wednesday, Sept. 12, 2018... (Associated Press) FILE - In this April 8, 2010 file photo a cross sits on top of a church in Berlin, Germany. A leading German magazine says a report on sexual abuse inside the Catholic Church in Germany details 3,677... (Associated Press)
BERLIN (AP) — A report on sexual abuse inside the Catholic Church in Germany says 3,677 people were abused by clergy between 1946 and 2014, two leading German media outlets said Wednesday.
Spiegel Online and Die Zeit said the report they obtained — commissioned by the German Bishops Conference and researched by three universities — concludes that more than half of the victims were 13 or younger and most were boys. Every sixth case involved rape and at least 1,670 clergy were involved, both weeklies reported. Die Zeit wrote that 969 abuse victims were altar boys.
The report also says that the actual number of victims was likely much higher, according to the research by experts from the Universities of Giessen, Heidelberg and Mannheim.
The German Bishops Conference said in a written response a few hours later that it regretted the leaking of the report, but that the study confirms "the extent of the sexual abuse" that took place.
"It is depressing and shameful for us," Bishop Stephan Ackermann said. He didn't further elaborate on the findings of the report, but said the Catholic group would present the study as initially planned on Sept. 25 together with the authors.
Die Zeit wrote that researchers weren't allowed to look at the original church files but had to provide questionnaires to the dioceses, which then provided the information.
In their conclusions, the researchers write that there was evidence that some files were manipulated or destroyed, many cases were not brought to justice, and that sometimes abuse suspects — primarily priests — were simply moved to other dioceses without the congregations being informed about their past.
The Catholic Church has been struggling with sex abuse by its clergy for a long time.
In 2010, the German church was roiled by a sex abuse scandal triggered by the head of a Jesuit school in Berlin who went public about decades-long sexual abuse of high school students by clergy. Following that, a whole wave of victims who were sexually abused by clergy spoke out across the country.
An investigation in the United States last month found rampant sexual abuse of more than 1,000 children by about 300 Catholic priests in Pennsylvania.
Earlier this week, the Vatican said it is preparing the "necessary clarifications" about accusations that top Vatican officials including Pope Francis covered up the sexual misconduct of a now-disgraced American ex-cardinal.
Also on Wednesday, the Vatican said it's summoning the presidents of every bishops conference around the world for a February summit to discuss preventing clergy sex abuse and protecting children. | – Pope Francis accepted the resignation of West Virginia Bishop Michael Bransfield on Thursday and authorized an investigation into allegations he sexually harassed adults, adding awkward drama to an audience with US church leaders over the abuse and cover-up scandal roiling the Catholic Church, the AP reports. Bishop Bransfield—a major fundraiser for the Vatican—had been investigated for an alleged groping incident in 2007 and was implicated in court testimony in 2012 in an infamous Philadelphia priestly sex abuse case. He strongly denied ever abusing anyone and the diocese said it had disproved the claims. He continued with his ministry until he offered to retire, as required, when he turned 75 last week. Baltimore Archbishop William Lori will take over Bransfield's Wheeling-Charleston diocese temporarily and investigate accusations against him. The revelation was the latest twist in an incredible turn of events in the US church that began with the June 20 announcement that one of the most prestigious US cardinals, Theodore McCarrick, had been accused of groping a teenage altar boy in the 1970s. Francis removed McCarrick as a cardinal in July. The McCarrick affair—coupled with revelations in the Pennsylvania grand jury report detailing decades of abuse and cover-up in six dioceses—has fueled outrage among the rank-and-file faithful who had trusted church leaders to reform themselves after the abuse scandal first erupted in Boston in 2002. In Germany, a new report on sexual abuse inside the church says clergy members in that country abused 3,677 people between 1946 and 2014. |
2015/03/02 08:37
By Oh Seok-min
SEOUL, March 2 (Yonhap) -- North Korea fired two short-range missiles into the East Sea on Monday in an apparent saber-rattling against annual military drills between South Korea and the United States, the Joint Chiefs of Staff said.
Seoul and Washington kicked off their joint annual Key Resolve and Foal Eagle military exercises earlier in the day as part of efforts to improve the combined forces' operation and combat capabilities to deter threats from the communist country.
"North Korea fired two short-range missiles with a range of some 490 kilometers into the East Sea from its western port city of Nampo between 6:32 a.m. and 6:41 a.m. today," the JCS said in a short release.
Factoring in its range, the missiles are presumed to be Scud-C or Scud-D type ones, according to JCS officers, adding they appear to have landed in the East Sea after flying across its inland areas.
Monday's firing is the North's third missile launch this year. Last month, the bellicose regime fired five short-range missiles into the East Sea from its eastern border town of Wonsan just two days after the launch of anti-ship missiles under the guidance of leader Kim Jong-un, according to the JCS.
Noting that the firing "appears to be the North's provocations in opposition to the Key Resolve and Foal Eagle exercises," the JCS said it "remains vigilant against any additional launches while strengthening the readiness posture."
North Korea's tactical rocket firing in July 10, 2014. (Yonhap file photo)
North Korea has long called on the two countries to stop the military exercises and vowed to retaliate, claiming that the drills are "a dress rehearsal for a northward invasion."
Earlier in the day, an unidentified spokesman for the General Staff of the (North) Korean People's Army issued a statement and vowed "merciless strikes."
"Key Resolve and Foal Eagle are an undisguised encroachment upon the sovereignty and dignity of the DPRK and an unpardonable war hysteria of dishonest hostile forces," said the statement carried by the North's state media Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) monitored in Seoul.
"The only means to cope with the aggression and war ... is neither dialogue nor peace. They should be dealt with only by merciless strikes," the North said, warning that the U.S. and South Korea "will have to bitterly regret the irretrievable consequences to be entailed by Key Resolve and Foal Eagle."
The two-week war game Key Resolve mobilizes about 10,000 South Korean and 8,600 American troops to test various scenarios in which South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff plays a leading role in conducting operations, while the field training exercise Foal Eagle involves a set of land, sea and air maneuvers, from March 2 to April 24 by 200,000 Korean and 3,700 American troops.
The large-scale annual drills are expected to further heighten tensions on the Korean Peninsula, with Pyongyang issuing near-daily threats of harsh retaliation of "hostile" forces.
Despite Pyongyang's demand, South Korea and the U.S. have said they will go ahead with the plan, as the regular exercises are defensive in nature and aim solely to bolster readiness against a possible invasion by the communist North.
Shown is a photo of the USS Fort Worth, a 3,450-ton Freedom-class littoral combat ship (LCS), which will take part in the annual South Korea-U.S. joint Foal Eagle military drills. (Yonhap file photo)
graceoh@yna.co.kr
(END) ||||| SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea on Monday fired two short-range ballistic missiles into the sea and warned of "merciless strikes" against its enemies as allies Seoul and Washington launched annual military drills Pyongyang claims are preparation for a northward invasion.
Protesters hold signs to denounce the annual joint military exercises, dubbed Key Resolve and Foal Eagle, between South Korea and the United States, during a rally near U.S. Embassy in Seoul, South Korea,... (Associated Press)
Protesters hold signs to denounce the annual joint military exercises, dubbed Key Resolve and Foal Eagle, between South Korea and the United States, during a rally near U.S. Embassy in Seoul, South Korea,... (Associated Press)
A protester holds a sign to denounce the annual joint military exercises, dubbed Key Resolve and Foal Eagle, between South Korea and the United States, during a rally near U.S. Embassy in Seoul, South... (Associated Press)
Protesters shout slogans to denounce the annual joint military exercises, dubbed Key Resolve and Foal Eagle, between South Korea and the United States, during a rally near U.S. Embassy in Seoul, South... (Associated Press)
Protesters hold signs as they denounce the annual joint military exercises, dubbed Key Resolve and Foal Eagle, between South Korea and the United States, during a rally in front of the government complex... (Associated Press)
North Korea regularly conducts such test firings of missiles, rockets and artillery, and they are often timed to express the country's dissatisfaction with actions by Washington and Seoul. Monday was the start of military drills that will run until the end of April.
Early Monday morning, two missiles launched from North Korea's west coast flew about 500 kilometers (310miles) before landing in waters off the east coast, according to South Korea's Defense Ministry. Spokesman Kim Min-seok called the launches an "armed protest" against the South Korea-U.S. drills and a challenge to peace on the Korean Peninsula.
The annual U.S.-South Korean military drills inevitably lead to angry North Korean rhetoric, although the allies say they are purely defensive. The North's rhetoric is meant to show its people that a tough leadership is confronting what its propaganda portrays as outside hostility, but analysts also believe the drills infuriate because they cost Pyongyang precious resources by forcing the country to respond with its own drills and launches.
"The only means to cope with the aggression and war by the U.S. imperialists and their followers is neither dialogue nor peace. They should be dealt with only by merciless strikes," an unidentified spokesman for the North Korean military's general staff said in a statement carried by state media.
He said the U.S.-South Korean drills are aimed at conquering the North's capital, Pyongyang, and removing its leadership.
During the 2013 drills, tension rose amid North Korean rhetoric that included vows of nuclear strikes on Washington and Seoul.
The rival Koreas earlier this year floated the possibility of holding what would be the third summit between their leaders since the countries were divided 70 years ago. But they have been at odds in recent weeks over terms, and prospects seem dim.
North Korea separately told the U.S. that it was willing to impose a temporary moratorium on its nuclear tests if Washington cancels the joint military drills with South Korea. But the U.S. rejected the overture, calling it an "implicit threat."
North Korea last year conducted an unusually large number of missile and other weapons tests, drawing protests from South Korea. The North still proposed a set of measures that it said would lower tensions, but South Korea rebuffed them, saying the North must first take steps toward nuclear disarmament.
The Korean Peninsula remains in a technical state of war because the 1950-53 Korean War ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty. About 28,500 American soldiers are deployed in South Korea as deterrence against potential aggression from North Korea. ||||| Image caption The annual exercises always lead to a spike in tensions on the Korean peninsula
North Korea fired two short-range missiles into the sea as annual US-South Korea military exercises got under way, officials in Seoul say.
The two missiles, with a range of 490km (305 miles), were fired from the western city of Nampo into the sea east of the Korean peninsula, the South Korean military said.
The drills, involving tens of thousands of troops, always anger Pyongyang.
It traditionally shows its displeasure with missile tests and louder rhetoric.
Seoul and Washington describe the military exercises as defensive in nature. North Korea calls them a rehearsal for invasion.
Key Resolve, a largely computer-simulated exercise, lasts 12 days and Foal Eagle, which has ground, air and sea components, lasts eight weeks.
'Merciless strikes'
In a statement, South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said the missiles, fired early on Monday, were probably Scud Cs or Scud Ds.
The military remained "vigilant against any additional launches", it said.
Defence Minister Kim Min-seok vowed a stern response to any provocation.
"If North Korea takes provocative actions, our military will react firmly and strongly so North Korea will regret it in its bones," he was quoted as saying by Reuters.
Image caption North Korea, seen here test-firing an "anti-ship rocket" in a picture released on 8 February, traditionally shows its displeasure with missile tests
Earlier in the day the North Korean military condemned the joint exercises as "undisguised encroachment" on national sovereignty.
Aggression should be dealt with by "merciless strikes", it said in a statement carried by KCNA news agency.
In 2013 the joint exercises led to a prolonged surge in tensions, with North Korea threatening pre-emptive nuclear strikes and cutting a military hotline with the South.
Drills in 2014 passed off relatively quietly, however.
In January North Korea said it would offer a moratorium on nuclear testing if the joint exercises were cancelled. The US rejected this suggestion as an "implicit threat".
North Korea has conducted three nuclear tests, in 2006, 2009 and 2013. Six-nation talks aimed at ending its nuclear programme have been stalled since early 2009. | – The US and South Korea launched their annual joint military exercises early today—and North Korea delivered its annual response of missile launches and dire threats. According to Yonhap News, Pyongyang fired two short-range missiles into the East Sea from the western city of Nampo as the drills began. South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff say the missiles were probably Scud-C or Scud-D types and that the military is "vigilant against any additional launches while strengthening the readiness posture." North Korea calls the drills, which involve tens of thousands of troops, a provocation and claims they're a rehearsal for the invasion of the country and the overthrow of its leadership, the BBC reports. In a statement carried by state media, a North Korean military spokesman said, "The only means to cope with the aggression and war by the US imperialists and their followers is neither dialogue nor peace" and "they should be dealt with only by merciless strikes," the AP reports. As in previous years, the US and South Korea have refused to halt the "Foal Eagle" and "Key Resolve" drills, which will continue until the end of April, saying they're purely defensive in nature, reports Yonhap. Last month, talk of a rare Seoul-Pyongyang summit cooled after North Korea test-fired five missiles into the sea. |
Amanda Gordon/Bloomberg
Lady Gaga arrived at the Watermill Center benefit Saturday night toward the end of the cocktail hour, which meant that whatever she saw of the performance art in the woods around the property, investment bankers and hedge fund managers had seen it before her.
Robert Jain, head of Credit Suisse (CSGN) alternative investments, had observed a naked woman lying in a coffin covered in syrup. Lady Gaga tasted the syrup from a spoon.
The founder of the Perry Partners hedge fund, Richard Perry, toured a miniature house filled with paintings by Clementine Hunter.
“Richard, let me take you to heaven,” Watermill’s founder, Robert Wilson, had said, in part an allusion to the evening’s theme, “Devil’s Heaven.”
When Wilson showed the room to Lady Gaga and performance artist Marina Abramovic, the three of them rolled around a bit on the hay-covered floor.
Glenn Fuhrman of MSD Capital LP and Jay Sugarman of iStar Financial Inc. had tried out “Stargazer Beds,” offering guests the chance to lean back on a platform and be tilted toward the sky, with a volunteer pulling the rope.
Once Lady Gaga was present, the entire party seemed to tilt toward her.
New Single
Next to Abramovic, the pop star who is set to release a new single in August -- the first from an album called “ArtPop,” fittingly enough -- looked slight. She wore a nose ring and minimal makeup. Her hair was long and dark, and not particularly styled. She wore a black lace bra, exposed under a black leather flap of a top, paired with a long, straight black skirt with a leather panel.
When the cameras first assembled around them, Lady Gaga and Abramovic kissed. As the event progressed, they did just as every other guest: eating dinner, laughing.
When Lady Gaga spoke during the auction, with Simon de Pury at her side to goose up bids, she sounded self-deprecating, sweet.
“I worked since I was very young to hope that everyone here tonight would want to have dinner with me,” she said.
In the end, the event, in its 20th year, wasn’t much different from in past years, even with Lady Gaga. This one raised $1.85 million and drew other boldfaces including graduate student Alexander Soros, son of George Soros, actors Winona Ryder and Alan Cumming and fashion consultant Fern Mallis.
Contemporary Scene
“It’s the one event that’s truly focused on the contemporary art scene and how it translates to other mediums,” art dealer Eric Firestone said before the party had even started, waiting on a line that had formed to get in, along the road outside the compound.
“It takes you out of the world, which is nice,” said Teresa Hurcik, a Switzerland-based life coach, wearing a Burberry dress with bamboo trim on the sleeves. Her favorite installation: “The Asian guys over there with the bubbles -- I don’t know how else to describe it.”
“The Hamptons is pretty linear. This road is winding,” said Jain, standing in the woods near a woman covered in gray body paint, leaning against a tree.
(Amanda Gordon is a writer and photographer for Muse, the arts and leisure section of Bloomberg News. Any opinions expressed are her own.)
Muse highlights include Richard Vines on food, Amanda Gordon’s Scene Last Night, Elin McCoy on wine, James Clash on adventure and Jeremy Gerard on U.S. theater.
To contact the writer on this story: Amanda Gordon in New York at agordon01@bloomberg.net or on Twitter at @amandagordon.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Manuela Hoelterhoff at mhoelterhoff@bloomberg.net. ||||| Sonia Moskowitz/Getty Images Lady Gaga attended The 20th Annual Watermill Center Summer Benefit at The Watermill Center on July 27.
Lady Gaga continued promoting her new "ARTPOP" inspired image over the weekend, ahead of her new single release and subsequent MTV Video Music Awards debut performance in August.
The fresh-faced singer embraced the upscale avant-garde scene by attending an event at the Watermill Center in the Hamptons on Saturday, alongside celebrated performance artist Marina Abramovic.
Sonia Moskowitz/Getty Images Gaga donned a black cutout ensemble, also sporting long, dark hair.
Wearing a black cut-out dress and sporting dark long locks, the 27-year-old "Born This Way" singer was barely recognizable. Her new nose ring — which she had pierced last week and recorded in a YouTube video, was also on display.
Steve Sands/Getty Images Gaga’s new single ‘Applause’ will be released on August 19, ahead of her MTV VMA performance on August 25.
Gaga has steadily been unveiling artwork for the new single and album. On Saturday the singer also released a photo showing her wearing nothing but a pair of goggles and black boots, while sitting on a chair made of circuit boards.
Sonia Moskowitz/Getty Images The toned-down image for Gaga comes ahead of her new album ‘ARTPOP.’ The singer is said to be drawing inspiration from her former self, or real name, Stefani Germanotta.
The more natural look is said to be a rediscovery of her former self, the singer once known by her real name Stefani Germanotta.
Steve Sands/Getty Images Gaga attended the event with celebrated performance artist Marina Abramovic, who performed with Jay Z earlier this month as he rapped his song ‘Picasso Baby’ for six hours at the Pace Gallery in Manhattan.
Abramovic also recently joined rapper Jay Z at the Pace Gallery in Chelsea when he performed his song "Picasso Baby" for six hours straight on July 10. ||||| “I want to know. What do you see?” asks Lady Gaga, her voice carrying a combination of genuine curiosity, press-savvy flirtation and inherent provocation. The image in question, debuted to WWD, is the cover of Gaga’s new single “Applause,” the first from her forthcoming third studio album ARTPOP, to be released Nov. 11 through Interscope records. Shot by Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin, the photograph is colorful, emotional and theatrical, capturing Gaga with a Pierrot-esque face, her rainbow of makeup artfully smeared and her hair covered under a head wrap. Asked to explain the image at the outset of a phone interview last Friday, Gaga immediately turned the question around: “I need to get your reading first,” she says. “Otherwise it’s not art.”
She’s back.
“Applause” drops Aug. 19 — also the album’s presale date — six days before Gaga headlines the MTV Video Music Awards at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn. The VMAs will mark her return to the public domain after a rough six months spent mostly under the radar. ARTPOP was announced in August of last year when Gaga was in the midst of her ambitious Born This Way Ball world tour, which kicked off in April 2012 in Seoul and came to an abrupt halt in February in Montreal when a severe hip injury forced Gaga to cancel the rest of her shows. “My injury was actually a lot worse than just a labral tear,” she says. “I had broken my hip. Nobody knew, and I haven’t even told the fans yet. But when we got all the MRIs finished before I went to surgery there were giant craters, a hole in my hip the size of a quarter, and the cartilage was just hanging out the other side of my hip. I had a tear on the inside of my joint and a huge breakage. The surgeon told me that if I had done another show I might have needed a full hip replacement. I would have been out at least a year, maybe longer.”
The mandatory retreat from the spotlight was almost as painful as the injury itself for someone who hasn’t gone without performing for more than two weeks since she was 14 years old. Gaga used the down time not only for an aggressive rehabilitation program but also to hang out with her crew, known as the Haus of Gaga, including van Lamsweerde and Matadin, Brandon Maxwell, the Haus fashion director, her hair and makeup artists and other artistically inclined friends. They read books, listened to music and exchanged “creative gifts that we have to offer each other,” says Gaga. “I had six months to beef up my brain and my body. I got to put a giant white or black sheet of paint over my whole canvas and I got to review ARTPOP again. I was given the time to really be creative because it’s a gazing process, it really is. I have to gaze into the work for long periods of time for it to be good. I have that feeling, that wonderful feeling, when me, Inez and Brandon look at each other and we go, ‘It’s so good. That’s the one.’”
Van Lamsweerde and Matadin shot the “Applause” video about a week ago in Los Angeles. The photographers, who were introduced to Gaga when they shot her first V cover in 2009, have since worked on several fashion films for her. This is the first time they’ve shot a music video for her. Gaga chose the cover image from the video shoot because she thought it showed a different side of her performance, a vulnerable part that the public doesn’t often see. “It’s the end of the night after the show,” she says. “When I look at it I see that there is a longing for the applause. I see that there is a void that is leaking onstage, that the performer is leaking, that the art is sort of becoming something else in front of your eyes. Something more human, something more honest.” Gaga recalls being moved to tears during this particular performance for the cameras.
As for the music, details are at a premium, but despite the tears and pantomime face, “I’ll tell you that it is very fun,” she says. “And that it’s full of happiness, because what I’m saying in the song essentially is that I live for the applause. I live for the way you cheer and scream for me. Give me that thing that I love. Put your hands up, make them touch.” At this point, it sounds like she’s quoting lyrics, but again, we won’t know until Aug. 19, barring a leak.
Gaga wrote “Applause” with DJ White Shadow, with whom she’s collaborated for five years. “In my heart of hearts as I was writing, I knew that if I asked [the fans] to cheer for me before I sang or if I alluded to the fact that they would cheer for me before I sang....They do that all the time for me; before I even open my mouth, the fans start cheering for me. And so this exclamation, ‘Give me that thing that I love. Give it to me. I’m ready, start the music.’ I’m from New York. I’ve worked since I was a five-year-old to be a performer. All my life. I deserve to be here. I’m ready.” Again, could these be lyrics?
Since the beginning, ARTPOP has been billed as not just an album but a “project,” a multimedia experience that will include an app. As the title suggests, “the point [of ARTPOP] is that art and pop can have an exchange,” says Gaga. Van Lamsweerde said she and Matadin have an image bank of 300 photos that they will try to edit down with Gaga and “put it out there, whether in a museum, on the Internet, for a single cover or for the press — it all will have its moment.”
A directional fashion component seems like a given from an artist who has embraced and been embraced by fashion, both haute and experimental. She mentions that the white cloth that surrounds her in the “Applause” cover image is a coat by Gareth Pugh. But when asked if he had a larger influence in the ARTPOP look, she responds with part deflection, part abstraction, turning the question back at the reporter: “It’s interesting how you view things, and you look at it like, I’m a pop icon, and [you wonder] ‘Is this the image of the album? Is this the direction? Who came up with it?’ I think that’s so interesting because it’s exactly the kind of thing we’re trying to destroy. This is one jacket. This is one image. This is one moment. This is one statement.
“When you watch each image and you watch each thing come out, they might not look exactly the same,” says Gaga. “[I’m not] defined by the same designer or defined by the same hair cut or defined by the same icon. The statement is that I’m not one icon. I’m every icon. I’m an icon that is made out of all the colors on the palette at every time. I have no restrictions. No restrictions.” Well, maybe one restriction: Gaga alluded to artistic collaborations with Robert Wilson for the VMAs, but declined to give specifics other than two more were forthcoming with Marina Abramovic and Jeff Koons.
If Gaga seeks to avoid labeling the fashion and visual component of ARTPOP, it has been deeply considered and strategic, beginning with already-in-circulation images from her September cover shoot for V, again shot by van Lamsweerde and Matadin, showing the star completely naked. “There is a sense of stripping bare and then putting things back on. That’s the process she’s going through,” says van Lamsweerde. “I always say to her, ‘Look at you. You are incredibly beautiful, accept it. Don’t try to hide your face, just shine through.’ For her, it’s a part of that not hiding behind wigs and glasses and all kinds of stuff.” Her stylist and fashion director Maxwell also engages in some philosophical musings about the direction: “I think that this time it is about letting some of it go and the focus being on the music because now she’s comfortable being naked and being who she is. The world has seen everything.” But he also acknowledges that there will be clothes, most of them custom. Alexander Wang for Balenciaga created some custom pieces. Maxwell also said Versace, Armani and Hedi Slimane for Saint Laurent are still in the mix, as is the label Mila Schön, which created a few catsuits for “Applause.” “It’s more toned down and pulled back and chic,” says Maxwell. “But it’s also that we’re making suits out of things that they would not normally be made out of, like plastic, but they’re super well-tailored and clean. Maybe she’s just wearing a simple catsuit and a head wrap like she’s wearing here, but we sort of do the craziness on the face.”
So, there are clues to Gaga’s new look, but what about ARTPOP’s sound, will it also be stripped down and minimal? Not necessarily. “It’s true Gaga,” says van Lamsweerde. “You can’t get it out of your head.”
That’s it for details. Little Monsters will have to wait for the VMAs to see what's in store from the woman who famously arrived at the 2011 Grammys in an egg. "I'm sending a doppelgänger,” she says. “I’m going this year as a fried egg instead of hard-boiled." | – If you passed Lady Gaga on a Hamptons street on Saturday, there's a good chance you wouldn't have recognized her. The New York Daily News has photos of the now "fresh-faced" singer, who showed up at an avant-garde benefit at the Watermill Center wearing a nostril-piercing nose ring (it's not fake; she did indeed get pierced), super dark hair with blonde eyebrows, and not much in the way of makeup. See the Daily News' photos of her more natural look here. The fashion shift is apparently tied to new album ARTPOP, which is out Nov. 11 (first single, "Applause," drops Aug. 19) and is said to be inspired by her former self, aka Stefani Germanotta. WWD notes that Gaga is also set to headline MTV's Video Music Awards, which it calls her "return to the public domain" after she was sidelined by a hip injury for six months—an injury she says was much worse than reported. "I had broken my hip. ... The surgeon told me that if I had done another show I might have needed a full hip replacement." Amusingly, Bloomberg covered Saturday's event, which was attended by big-name financiers. A great line from the Bloomberg piece: "Robert Jain, head of Credit Suisse alternative investments, had observed a naked woman lying in a coffin covered in syrup. Lady Gaga tasted the syrup from a spoon." |
UPPER WEST SIDE — A nanny working for a prominent television executive stabbed two of his young children to death in their luxury West 75th Street apartment Thursday evening and then turned the knife on herself in a nightmare scene that left neighbors stunned, officials said.
Marina Krim, the doting mom of little Lucia Krim, 6, and Leo Krim, 2, made the horrifying discovery just after 5:30 p.m. in the second floor apartment at 57 W. 75th St., just off Central Park West, after returning home from a swim lesson with her daughter, Nessie Krim, 3.
Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly told reporters Marina Krim, who is married to CNBC digital media senior vice president Kevin Krim, found her apartment dark and seemingly empty and went to ask the doorman if her two other children and the nanny, identified as Yoselyn Ortega, 50, had left, Kelly said.
When she returned to the apartment, she found her young children in the bathtub with multiple stab wounds and ran out of the apartment screaming, said Lucianne Minihan, whose husband, Michael, is the superintendent at 57 W. 75th St.
"The whole building heard it," Lucianne Minihan said. "She was screaming at the top of her lungs. She was screaming, 'Help me! Help me!'"
Hearing the screams, the superintendent raced upstairs, went into the apartment and saw blood everywhere, Minihan said.
He heard a strange grunting noise, looked through a bedroom doorway, and saw the nanny stabbing herself, according to Minihan.
The super ran out of the apartment, closed the front door and yelled at his neighbors to call the police. He held the door closed until police came, Minihan said.
Ortega was taken to New York Presbyterian-Weill Cornell Medical Center in critical but stable condition with self-inflicted wounds to her throat, police said. Charges have not yet been filed.
The horrific crime sent shockwaves through a neighborhood where many parents rely on nannies to help raise their children.
"It brings to the surface the fears every parent has when leaving their children with anyone but family," wrote an Upper West Side mom on her blog. "We can do all the background checks in the world, and we know that most caregivers are amazing and loving, but it's the random, horrific incidents like this that stay in our heads as we walk out the door and leave our children."
The children were pronounced dead at St. Luke's Hospital and their mother was taken there for trauma, according to NYPD spokesman Paul Browne.
Cops found a kitchen knife on the bathroom floor, police said.
Marina Krim's love for her young children was detailed in an online diary, which was loaded with smiling photos of a thriving, happy-looking family.
Pictures show the Krim children, who moved to New York about two and a half years ago from San Francisco, embracing their lives in New York, with Lulu munching on a hotdog and Nessie stopping at pay phones on Broadway to make pretend phone calls.
Lulu Krim attended the dual-language Spanish program at the highly-regarded neighborhood school P.S. 87, according to the diary.
"One of the best parts of my day is after I drop both girls off at school and have 3 precious hours with little Lito all to myself," Marina Krim wrote. "Ok, I'm near getting cheesy I adore this boy so much!!!"
Leo had just celebrated his second birthday last month.
Marina Krim's latest entry was made just hours before her grisly discovery.
"Leo speaks in the most adorable way possible," Krim wrote. "Firstly, he speaks super clearly, so you can understand every word is he is saying."
The family had employed Ortega, nicknamed "Josie," for two and a half years, family member said.
Earlier this year, the Krims visited Josie's "amazing familia" in the Dominican Republic, where the nanny's relatives nicknamed Nessie “Rapida y Furiosa" (Fast and Furious) and several posts show the childrens' hair styled by Ortega.
Neighbors at Ortega's Harlem apartment building were shocked by her alleged crime. Ortega has lived in the neighborhood for at least 20 years, neighbors said, and has a son in his 20s. Four sisters of Ortega's also live in the building, neighbors said.
"She's a nice polite woman, calm, never aggressive, a good person, never violent behavior, nothing ever extreme," said neighbor Andre Valdez, 39. "I'm surprised, it's absurd. I don't even believe she would do something like this."
Detectives left the apartment building about 11 p.m. Thursday with several of Ortega's family members, who covered their faces with jackets. ||||| “It’s family-oriented, this neighborhood,” said Pauline Sklar, a real estate investor who lives a block from the building where the children were stabbed. “Parents are working. They have to depend on people. My niece hires people. She researches them.”
Ms. Sklar paused, then added, “Or tries to.”
Nannies are there for meal times, for bedtime, for birthdays and holidays, and go on vacations. Indeed, on her blog, Ms. Krim described how she and her family had spent several days visiting Ms. Ortega’s family in the Dominican Republic, speaking to just how close her relationship had been with the family.
“We spent the past 9 days in the Dominican Republic. We spent half the time at our nanny, Josie’s sisters home in Santiago,” she wrote. “We met Josie’s amazing familia!!! And the Dominican Republic is a wonderful country!! More pics to come!!”
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Commissioner Kelly said that given the horror Ms. Krim had just witnessed, it was difficult for her to communicate. Mr. Krim was told of the situation hours later, when he landed after a flight back to the city. He was met at the airport by the police, who told him what happened and took him to see his wife at St. Luke’s Hospital, where the couple remained on Thursday night, along with Ms. Krim’s sister.
There were no immediate explanations for what drove the nanny’s actions. Paul J. Browne, the Police Department’s chief spokesman, said he did not know if she left a note behind, and he could not immediately say how long she had worked for the family. The Krims moved to New York from California in recent years, neighbors said.
A Harvard graduate, according to his LinkedIn profile, Mr. Krim is an executive at CNBC and had previously worked at Bloomberg and Yahoo.
Ms. Krim had worked in California for a wholesaler of powders made from exotic fruits, like acai berries and pomegranates, according to her LinkedIn profile.
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A neighbor said that in New York, Ms. Krim largely devoted her time to her children. This past year she taught a weekly early-childhood art class at the Hippo Playground Parkhouse on 91st Street.
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“Marina likes strolls in Central Park, doing art projects with the kids and delicious food,” according to a Web site set up for the wedding of one of Ms. Krim’s siblings.
In one post on her blog, Ms. Krim talked about how she cherished her time with her youngest, Leo, nicknamed Lito.
“One of the best parts of my day is after I drop both girls off at school and have 3 precious hours with little Lito all to myself. Ok, I’m near getting cheesy I adore this boy so much!!! He’s obsessed with collecting acorns he finds ‘on the floor,’ he loves riding ‘the school bus’ and he happily plays by himself for long periods of time. Here he has set up his kitchen in the living room and is ‘making bacon’ (not sure where he learned the word ‘bacon’).”
Ms. Ortega lives a few miles away, on Riverside Drive in Harlem. Marcelina Lovera, a neighbor of Ms. Ortega, said she had moved to New York from the Dominican Republic. She had not been officially charged as of Thursday night.
“I’m still shocked,” Ms. Lovera said. “She seems like a normal person. I wouldn’t expect that from her.”
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Outside Ms. Ortega’s apartment, a woman could be heard through the closed door wailing, “Por qué dios mio, por qué?”
Neighbors said she lived with her three sisters and had an adolescent son. They described her as industrious and unremarkable. All expressed disbelief that she could commit a crime so heinous.
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On the Upper West Side, neighbors described seeing Ms. Krim, a towel over her head, clinging to her one surviving child, being escorted by the police to a waiting ambulance.
Ms. Starr said that when she saw Ms. Krim in the building’s lobby, she was in a state of shock. “She was screaming in a psychotic state,” she said. “She was not lucid.”
Ms. Starr said she did not know her neighbor well but described a young, loving couple, often seen on neighborhood streets with a big, friendly greyhound named Babar.
She had seen Ms. Ortega in the building, she said, but never got the sense of anything being out of the ordinary.
“I rode in the elevator with the nanny just the day before yesterday,” Ms. Starr said. “I was making small talk. She was sort of unfriendly, didn’t want to interact. But I didn’t notice anything strange or weird.” ||||| Hordes of cops stormed the building after the mother's neighbor heard her screams and dialed 911. Marina Krim, who neighbors said may have worked as a pediatrician, was seen afterward being escorted into an ambulance, tightly clutching her surviving daughter Nessie.
"She was mumbling words, incoherent," said Stephanie Herman, 58. "I can't imagine experiencing something like this.
"This is a very family-oriented area. You see moms and their strollers a lot. Many people hire nannies here. This is everyone's worst nightmare."
Sources said blood was found in the kitchen, suggesting that's where the attack may have started or where Ortega might have first tried to take her own life.
It was unclear how long Ortega had worked for the family or what might have set her off, cops said. The police would not say how many times the children had been stabbed.
The prewar, 81-unit La Rochelle — boasting white-gloved doormen and a lobby bathed in marble — is less than a block from Central Park. Three-bedroom apartments rent for nearly $11,000 a month.
The barbaric crime in one of the city's wealthiest neighborhoods left neighbors horrified.
"It's awful. It makes me sick to my stomach," said Jill Pace, 27, who lives in the area. "I can't even look at the building. You have to wonder what goes through someone's mind to do such a horrible thing."
Segundo Mores, 48, said the murders will likely make parents more vigilant when screening nannies.
"Obviously, parents need to do criminal and even psychological background checks," Mores said. "These are your kids. Your most precious possession. Oftentimes, people hire nannies from word of mouth. That is not going to be enough anymore."
With Joe Kemp, Denis Slattery and Rocco Parascandola
| – New York City cops are trying to piece together a horrific double-murder today: Police say a mother returned to her Upper West Side apartment to discover that two of her young children had been fatally stabbed in the bathtub by their nanny, report DNA Info and the Daily News. Most reports have the victims as a 2-year-old boy and a 6-year-old girl. When the mother discovered the scene and ran screaming from the apartment, the nanny then apparently turned the knife on herself and is not expected to survive, reports the New York Times. "She was screaming at the top of her lungs," a resident says of the mother. "She was screaming, 'Help me! Help me!'" |
Birds of a feather may flock together, but United Airlines recently shot down one traveler’s request to bring her emotional support peacock on a flight departing Newark Liberty International Airport.
Live and Let Fly reported earlier this week that even though the unidentified woman claimed that she had a second ticket for the peacock, the airline denied her request.
A spokesperson for United further tells Fox News that the traveler(s) with the peacock were told they would not be able to bring it on board.
"This animal did not meet guidelines for a number of reasons, including its weight and size. We explained this to the customers on three separate occasions before they arrived at the airport," said United in a statement.
Photos of the unusual scene were shared to Facebook by travel talk show The Jet Set, sparking online commenters to both condemn and champion United’s decision.
TOURISTS 'SCARED OUT OF THEIR BRAINS' AFTER ARREST FOR PORNOGRAPHIC IMAGES
“Unbelievable, this has to stop now!!” one user wrote.
“I'll take the majestic peacock over the 5+ dogs that have attacked my coworkers just this past holiday season,” another supposed airline staffer fired back.
The news comes on heels of Delta’s controversial crackdown of emotional support and service animals. On Jan. 19, the airline announced forthcoming restrictions in hopes of curbing an abuse of policy and an 84 percent increase in ill animal behavior such as urinating, defecating, biting and attacks on flights.
WOMAN DOING YOGA ON PLANE SPARKS DEBATE: 'THIS ISN'T UR LIVING ROOM'
Effective March 1, Delta’s new rules require those flying with emotional support or psychiatric service animals to submit a veterinarian health form and immunization record to Delta with 48-hours’ notice, Fox News reports. A doctor’s note, signed veterinarian health form and proof of animal training will additionally now have to be presented before boarding.
Further, as of March, Delta will not allow exotic emotional support animals including ferrets, insects, spiders, goats or animals with tusks or hooves to fly.
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United has recently confirmed to Fox News that they are reevaluating their current support animal policies.
"United is dedicated to providing convenient and comfortable service to all of our customers. We know that some customers require an emotional support animal to assist them through their journey. In order to ensure we provide the best service to everyone onboard our flights, consistent with government rules we currently require these customers to provide documentation from a medical professional and at least 48 hours advance notice," they said via email.
"In our effort to better balance protecting our employees and customers while accommodating passengers with disabilities, we are reviewing our existing policy and plan to share more soon." ||||| Recently, I argued that airlines must crack down on the abuse of emotional support animals. Passengers continue to twist federal law to bypass pet cargo fees and bring animals onboard who do not belong onboard.
> Debate: The Abuse of “Emotional Support” Animals
Case in point: a woman tried to bring a peacock onboard a recent United Airlines flight at Newark Liberty International Airport. She did offer to pay for a second seat for this oversized bird, but claimed she had a right to bring it onboard as her emotional support animal.
United, thankfully, said sorry…but no.
This would be funny if it wasn’t so ridiculous. And it’s not like this was the first time.
Remember that Southwest flight I wrote about many years ago?
> Read More: Birds of a Feather Get Two Seats Together
The thing with peacocks is that they are MEAN birds. There is an arboretum not too far from my house that has beautiful gardens…and peacocks running wild. They’ve been known to chase after visitors…and bite. And that horrible screech they make…
CONCLUSION
Delta recently introduced additional reasonable restrictions on emotional support animals. I believe these restrictions will withstand any legal scrutiny. Now United and others must do the same thing and finally put to rest the abuse of a well-intentioned federal policy.
> Read More: Bravo! Delta Restricts Emotional Support Animals ||||| Delta Air Lines recently introduced regulations to prevent passengers from bringing untrained animals onto flights. Rick Silva / AP
United Airlines denied a woman's efforts to bring a peacock onto a flight departing from Newark Liberty International Airport, according to the travel blog Live and Let's Fly.
The Jet Set, a travel talk show, posted photos of the peacock to Facebook.
According to Live and Let's Fly, the woman said the peacock was an emotional-support animal, allowed to fly for free. While the woman also offered to pay for the peacock's ticket, the blog said, United would not let the animal onto the flight.
United said in a statement to Business Insider: "This animal did not meet guidelines for a number of reasons, including its weight and size. We explained this to the customer on three separate occasions before she arrived at the airport."
The airline also said it requires passengers to "provide documentation from a medical professional and at least 48 hours' advance notice" before bringing an emotional-support animal onto a flight.
Earlier this month, Delta Air Lines' announced it would impose tighter regulations for passengers traveling with qualifying service or emotional-support animals. The airline said it had seen an 84% increase since 2016 in incidents involving improperly trained animals, including urination, defecation, and attacks on passengers and crew members.
The regulations will require passengers to show Delta documentation of an animal's health 48 hours before a flight. Passengers traveling with an emotional-support animal will also need to present a signed letter from a doctor or mental-health professional, as well as a signed document saying the animal can behave properly during a flight.
Delta has faced backlash over the regulations, but other airlines are likely to follow suit as they try to prevent passengers from using support-animal provisions to travel with their untrained pets for free.
Some Twitter users expressed support for the United passenger's attempt to bring the peacock onto her flight. Others were outraged. | – If you need emotional support from a peacock, don't count on flying United. The airline turned away a woman who tried to bring a peacock on a recent flight from Newark Liberty International as her emotional support animal, reports Business Insider. The woman initially argued that she was entitled to bring the enormous bird on board for free, but her request was denied even after she said she was willing to buy a ticket for it, according to the Live and Let's Fly travel blog. "This animal did not meet guidelines for a number of reasons, including its weight and size," the airline said in a statement. "We explained this to the customer on three separate occasions before she arrived at the airport." The Jet Set travel show posted photos of the bird on Facebook. United says its policy on emotional support animals requires "these customers to provide documentation from a medical professional and at least 48 hours advance notice." The peacock incident follows controversy over Delta's new policy on support animals, Fox reports. The airline says it tightened the policy after a steep increase in incidents including animal defecation and attacks on crew members. The new policy, which takes effect March 1, bans exotic support animals including insects, spiders, goats, ferrets, and anything with tusks. (A badly behaved emotional support pig was kicked off a US Airways flight.) |
The White House began rolling out its election-year budget Friday evening, even as top Senate and House negotiators mounted a new push to get some resolution of President Barack Obama’s signature payroll tax holiday next week.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), after meeting Thursday with senior White House aides including Obama’s chief of staff Jack Lew, was pressing hard for Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus to come back with a deal by Monday. Senior Republican and Democratic staff expected to work through the weekend and House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.) was described as taking the lead with Baucus.
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Monday is also the formal release of the budget, but early documents admit to larger-than-expected deficits on the horizon — $1.33 trillion in 2012 and $901 billion in 2013. At the same time, Obama has clearly opted to plow hundreds of billions in war savings back into new domestic investments, including a nearly 50 percent increase in transportation spending over six years.
Gasoline tax revenues will cover more than half of the total $476 billion six-year commitment. But as much as $231 billion would be financed through savings attributed to reduced military spending as a result of the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq and Obama’s plan to bring home American forces in Afghanistan.
Farm subsidies would be cut deeper than the House and Senate Agriculture Committees have proposed thus far. Education spending is up including $850 million for Obama’s Race to the Top initiative — $300 million more than Congress approved for this year. And given his greater emphasis on manufacturing, $2.2 billion is allocated for advanced manufacturing R&D, a 19 percent increase over this year.
Among individual agencies, the impact of the new spending caps is evident. Biomedical research at the National Institutes of Health is frozen at $30.7 billion; much the same is true of the Food and Drug Administration’s discretionary appropriations. And the end result is that agencies like the FDA are more and more dependent on user fees raised by some of the same industries they oversee.
In fiscal 2013, it’s estimated that the FDA will have a total budget of $4.48 billion, for example, and about $1.97 billion of this—about 44 percent—will come from various fees.
The full array of budget documents still won’t be formally released until Monday morning, but senior administration officials discussed the outlines in a phone call with reporters Friday evening even as agencies began briefing Congress in greater detail.
Republicans were quick to pounce on the higher deficit numbers, reported earlier in the day by the Wall Street Journal. And looking back at Obama’s first budget in May 2009, he almost appears to be Alice’s Red Queen, running hard just to stay in place.
The $1.33 trillion deficit for this fiscal year, ending Sept. 30, is almost identical to the $1.25 trillion deficit Obama predicted then for fiscal 2010. And while administration officials emphasized that the $901 billion deficit now projected for 2013 is just 5.5 percent of GDP, Obama in 2009 predicted that he would have come down to 2.9 percent of GDP by this point. ||||| President Obama will send Congress a 2013 spending plan that would raise taxes on the rich and pump nearly $500 billion into new transportation projects over the next decade, launching an election-year debate over the budget that promises starkly different visions for managing government debt and the sluggish economy.
As they prepare to face voters in November, neither the president nor congressional Republicans are expected to roll out many new or potentially painful prescriptions for slowing the rise of the $15 trillion national debt. After failing repeatedly last year to forge a bipartisan consensus, few in either party see much point in trying again now.
Instead, Obama will on Monday reprise recommendations he unveiled last fall that seek to reduce borrowing by more than $3 trillion over the next decade while spending more in the short term to bring down persistently high unemployment.
The president’s blueprint calls for reductions in spending on federal health programs and the military, a small raise for federal workers and more than $1.5 trillion in new taxes on corporations, hedge-fund managers and the wealthy, in part through the expiration of the George W. Bush-era tax cuts on annual incomes of more than $250,000.
Obama also has called for changes to the tax code that would require households earning more than $1 million a year to pay at least 30 percent of their income in federal taxes, but senior administration officials said Friday that the blueprint will provide no additional details on how such a levy would be structured.
To achieve his debt-reduction goal, Obama would rely on an accounting maneuver that permits him to claim about $850 billion in savings over the next decade by ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, a move Republicans have rejected as a gimmick. Obama would use a portion of those savings to finance new road and rail projects, rather than dedicating the full sum to lower deficits.
Obama’s budget also calls for new investments in education, manufacturing and federal research and development, and it would devote an additional $350 billion to boosting economic growth. That sum includes extending a temporary payroll tax holiday and emergency unemployment benefits through the end of the year. Both are scheduled to expire at the end of this month and are currently the focus of intense debate in Congress.
The president’s plan would push this year’s deficit above current projections, with the budget gap growing to $1.33 trillion — slightly higher than last year’s $1.3 trillion deficit and $200 billion more than congressional budget analysts recently projected for the fiscal year that ends in September.
The deficit would fall to $900 billion in 2013, and government borrowing would continue to slow through 2022, leaving the debt elevated by historic standards but no longer growing faster than the overall economy.
Senior administration officials said the blueprint offers a balanced approach that would protect the middle class while asking for greater sacrifice from the most fortunate. Every dollar in tax increases would be matched with $2.50 in spending cuts, they said, counting $1 trillion in previously adopted cuts to agency budgets.
Republicans immediately attacked the higher deficit figures, noting that Obama had failed to achieve his 2009 goal of cutting the deficit in half by the end of his first term.
“This unserious budget is a recipe for debt, doubt, and decline,” Michael Steel, a spokesman for House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), said in an e-mail. “It would make our economy worse by imposing massive tax increases on small business and still pile up enormous debt that stirs greater economic uncertainty.”
Next month, House Republicans plan to offer a more austere fiscal blueprint that rejects tax increases, preferring to stabilize borrowing by making deep cuts to government services, including Medicaid, the federal health program for the poor. Like last year’s GOP budget, it will call for repealing Obama’s initiative to expand health coverage for the uninsured while ignoring calls for short-term economic stimulus.
Aides say they expect House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) to make one significant adjustment: replacing his plan to wholly privatize Medicare for new retirees in 2021 with a new privatization strategy that would preserve the 47-year-old federal health program — making the budget less vulnerable to partisan attack.
The GOP presidential candidates have largely embraced Ryan’s cuts-only vision, often tacking on more dramatic reductions. Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney said Friday that he would raise the eligibility age for Social Security, which is currently on track to hit 67. And former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum has called for immediate cuts in Social Security benefits, rejecting the more common approach of protecting current retirees and people older than 55.
Meanwhile, Romney, Santorum and former House speaker Newt Gingrich are calling for massive tax cuts that even some Republicans worry could make it tough to reduce borrowing.
“I’ve become very concerned about deficits,” said Sen. Jeff Sessions (Ala.), the senior Republican on the Senate Budget Committee. “Clearly tax reform should help us create economic growth. But I don’t know that we can, at this point in time, expect to have any significant tax cuts that adversely impact the deficit.”
Both Obama and Ryan will map strategies for saving at least $1.2 trillion over the next decade that would eliminate the threat of across-the-board cuts scheduled to hit next January. But nobody is counting on either plan to be adopted.
House appropriators say they will use the president’s request as a starting point for agency spending bills. But Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.), who is battling to maintain control of the Senate, announced earlier this month that he would not stage a vote on a full budget plan this year.
In addition to being messy, divisive and pocked with political land mines for vulnerable incumbents, a budget vote is unnecessary, Reid said, because legislation adopted during last summer’s showdown over the federal debt limit set spending levels for 2013 agency budgets.
“We do not need to bring a budget to the floor this year,” Reid told reporters. “We already did that.”
Republicans blasted Reid’s decision as irresponsible and politically driven, noting that a full-blown budget debate would require Senate Democrats to decide whether to accept or reject Obama’s tax increases and perhaps outline a vision for reining in spending on Social Security and Medicare, popular but expensive programs that are projected to drive future borrowing. Obama and congressional Democrats have said they would be willing to revamp the programs, but only if Republicans drop their objection to higher taxes on the rich.
Despite the ideological impasse, Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) said he will take another stab at drafting a long-term plan that could tame the debt and garner bipartisan support.
“What are the odds? The odds aren’t good. But we have to try,” Conrad said, noting that many senators are eager for a “break-the-glass” blueprint that could be implemented quickly if a political consensus — or a new economic crisis — were suddenly to emerge.
“It’s absolutely imperative that we have plans on standby,” he said, “in case, God forbid, something were to happen.” ||||| Advertisement Continue reading the main story
WASHINGTON — President Obama will lay out a budget blueprint on Monday that amounts to an election-year bet that a plan for higher taxes on the rich and more spending on popular programs like infrastructure and manufacturing will trump concerns over the deficit.
The new budget proposal contrasts with the deficit-cutting promises that attended the budget rollout last year and the debates that followed. Figures released on Friday indicate that the White House foresees a slightly higher deficit in the current fiscal year than the $1.3 trillion deficit of the 2011 fiscal year, even after the budget battles that dominated Washington last year.
The deficit is projected to fall to $901 billion in the fiscal year that starts in October, the first time since 2008 that the red ink would be below the $1 trillion mark. But last year, the White House had projected the 2013 deficit dropping further, to $768 billion.
Under White House projections, the deficit would reach $575 billion in 2018, or 2.7 percent of the economy, before rising again to $704 billion in 2022, or 2.8 percent.
The highlights of the plan for the 2013 fiscal year may not be those bottom-line figures but the spending inside.
A senior administration official on Friday evening framed the budget as the third act in a three-act play, which started with the fiery populism of Mr. Obama’s December speech in Osawatomie, Kan., continued with his State of the Union address and ends with a politically freighted budget rollout on Monday at a community college in the electoral battleground of Northern Virginia. Budget unveilings are usually handled in Washington by White House staff and cabinet members, with a brief message from the president.
The budget document distributed on Friday on Capitol Hill was permeated by the language of Mr. Obama’s State of the Union address and his call “to construct an economy that is built to last.” But the words and the policies hark back to the first year of Mr. Obama’s presidency and his call for a “New Foundation.”
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In essence, Mr. Obama will campaign on a vow to stay the course.
“We must transform our economy from one focused on speculating, spending and borrowing to one constructed on the solid foundation of educating, innovating, and building,” the document states.
As Democrats promote the revival of manufacturing, the president will call for an additional $2.2 billion for advanced manufacturing research and development, a 19 percent leap over the current year. In all, Mr. Obama will seek a 5 percent increase in nonmilitary research spending.
For more immediate job programs, the White House will urge $350 billion in short-term job spending, as well as a six-year transportation and infrastructure program that would cost $476 billion. He will ask for $60 billion to refurbish at least 35,000 schools and help state and local governments hire and retain teachers, firefighters and police officers.
Tens of billions of dollars have already been spent on such efforts through the stimulus program passed in 2009, and Republicans in Congress — intent on calling the first effort a failure — are not about to embark on a new round.
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But the latest budget document can be seen as more a platform for the president’s re-election campaign than a legislative proposal for budget debates that will begin next week. The budget will call for a 10-year, $61 billion “financial crisis responsibility fee” to hit the largest financial companies and a tax overhaul referred to as “everyone pays their fair share.”
Congressional leaders of both parties have vowed to pursue an overhaul of the tax code to make it simpler and fairer. But Mr. Obama’s version includes proposals that have been partisan flashpoints. His version pushes for the elimination of “unfair tax breaks for millionaires.” The current alternative minimum tax — which hits some middle-class families — would be scrapped in favor of the president’s “Buffett rule,” named after the billionaire investor Warren E. Buffett and devised to ensure that households earning more than $1 million a year pay no less than 30 percent of their income in taxes.
The budget document calls for a simpler tax code with lower rates, but the president also wants a tax overhaul to cut the deficit by $1.5 trillion through 2022 and allow President George W. Bush’s tax cuts to expire for families earning more than $250,000 a year.
New spending and targeted tax increases seem far more gaudy than the $638 billion in spending cuts the White House is claiming over 10 years from health programs like Medicare and Medicaid, agriculture subsidies, federal worker retirement funds and other programs.
In all, the White House is boasting of more than $4 trillion in “balanced deficit reduction” in the package over 10 years, a figure that includes $1 trillion in spending cuts agreed to last year after a series of confrontations with Congressional Republicans.
But the document’s numbers will show Mr. Obama has failed to meet his pledge to cut the deficit in half by the end of his term, and for Republicans, that will be the bottom line.
“President Obama pledged to cut the deficit in half by the end of his term,” said Stephen Miller, spokesman for the Republicans on the Senate Budget Committee. “Their optimistic projection is that next year’s deficit will be almost a trillion dollars — after four straight trillion-dollar deficits. So the White House is bragging about a broken promise?”
But deficit reduction may be beside the point. Mr. Obama appears to be laying out a campaign document that pits jobs programs paid for with tax increases on the rich against the deep spending cuts that will be the heart of the Republican Party’s economic program, rebuilding versus austerity.
House Republican leaders have already promised to follow the president’s plan with a budget document of their own that is largely based on last year’s blueprint drafted by Representative Paul D. Ryan, Republican of Wisconsin and the chairman of the House Budget Committee.
The new Ryan plan may temper his proposal to replace guaranteed, government-paid Medicare with vouchers that would be used to purchase private health insurance plans. Instead, Mr. Ryan is likely to propose a new version that offers traditional Medicare as an alternative to vouchers, mirroring the Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s plan as well as the one Mr. Ryan drafted with Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon.
As Republicans drive toward deeper spending cuts without tax increases, the president’s budget plan appears to have been drafted to maximize the contrast between the two parties, and to raise the stakes of the November election. ||||| WASHINGTON—President Barack Obama on Monday will propose a multi-trillion-dollar U.S. government budget that seeks to spur job creation and impose higher taxes on the rich to help reduce the deficit, laying down a clear election-year marker of his priorities.
The budget's broad themes, according to a draft outline viewed by The Wall Street Journal, contrast sharply with Republican proposals for smaller government and lower tax revenue.
Mr. Obama repeats many of his previous budget prescriptions, resists sweeping cuts to government programs, preserves the structure of Medicare and Medicaid, and calls for close to $1.5 trillion in tax increases on higher-income ... | – The major news outlets are getting details of the budget plan President Obama will unveil on Monday, and it sounds like it's designed to set up election-year comparisons with Republicans. Two big themes: It calls for higher taxes on the rich and big spending on roads and manufacturing projects. It also projects the 2012 deficit will rise slightly to $1.33 trillion before dropping to $901 billion in fiscal 2013. Other details: Obama will call for $350 billion in "short-term job spending," $60 billion "to refurbish at least 35,000 schools and help state and local governments hire and retain teachers," and $2.2 billion for manufacturing R&D. Overall, he wants a 5% hike in research spending unrelated to the military. New York Times Obama's plan would "pump nearly $500 billion into new transportation projects over the next decade." Washington Post It "resists sweeping cuts to government programs, preserves the structure of Medicare and Medicaid, and calls for close to $1.5 trillion in tax increases on higher-income Americans over 10 years." Wall Street Journal The president will use about $230 billion in war savings to pay for domestic investments, "including a nearly 50% increase in transportation spending over six years." Politico |
Tavish Smith cannot be stopped. After Florida Highway Patrol officers pulled her over for drunk driving and found weed in her car, she slipped out of her handcuffs, got her pot back, and ate it — all while sitting in back of the police cruiser.
The cops didn't notice at first, but caught wind when Smith accidentally showed her un-cuffed hand. Florida's WPLG has video:
The circumstances surrounding Smith's arrest were equally impressive — albeit incredibly dangerous. While driving the wrong way on U.S. 1, she crashed her truck, and, undeterred, continued driving. It was only when she crashed a second time that cops caught up with her.
When the officers noticed the weed was missing, they turned around and saw Smith with "pot on her hands and face" and "crumbs everywhere," WPLG reports. Somehow, she was only looking at misdemeanors until that point, but was then charged with destroying evidence, a felony. She was released on bail and is currently awaiting trial.
Tavish Smith is a flawed, complex character, bringing to mind the antiheroes currently dominating popular drama. Driving drunk — like selling meth or presiding over a violent criminal empire — is always wrong, but her unflinching tenacity says something deep and meaningful about the American capacity to overcome. We could all learn something from her.
[Image via WPLG, h/t Hypervocal] ||||| DRIVER OF THE CAR GOT A TICKET FOR THE IMPROPER LEFT TURN AND SUSPENDED LICENSE. A BIZARRE STORY. WIGHT UNTIL YOU HEAR THIS. A WOMAN PULLED OAF FOR BEING DRUNK WHEN SHE GRABS MARIJUANA IN HER CAR AND FIGURED. WHY TO THE EAT IT. HAPPYIEST AND FRIENDLIEST ARRESTEE THIS . NIGHT WAS NO LAUGHING MATTER AFTER CRASHING HER TRUCK DRIVING DOWN THE KRONNING WRONG WAY AND CRASHES AGAIN SHE GIGGLES. AND WIG WILLS OUST HER HANDCUFF REACHING IN THE FRONT SEAT AND STEELS THE SANDWICH BAG THE TROOPER FINDS IN HER CAR. MARIJUANA THERE -- NIBBLES AND MUNCHES ON MORE. STUFF YOU HAD IN YOUR SEAT. WHEN HE GETS IT BACK THAT'S WHEN SHE IS BUSTED. YES. YOU SLIP OUT. NO. I COULD HAVE SWORE I SAW YOU SCRATCH YOUR NOSE. STAY IN YOUR HANDCUFF. I'M SORRY I'M STAYING IN THEM. THIS TIME SHE SNOT LAUGHING WEED DON'T GO MISSING. HER CHARGES FOR MINOR HIT AND RUN BUMPED UP TO A FELONY FOR EATING THE EVIDENCE. I GOT IT ALL ON VIDEO. INCREDIBLE. TROOPERS DID NOT CATCH HER IN THE ACT SHE HAD POT ALL OAF HER FACE AND LEFT ENOUGH FOR IT TO BE TESTED AND MOST LIKELY WILL FACE ADDITIONAL CHARGES INCLUDING DRUGS. AND KWAM RAS IN THE CAR.
BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. -
Tavish Smith might be the happiest and friendliest arrestee we've seen in a while -- that is until a trooper caught her trying to eat a bag full of evidence.
Her last-ditch effort to get rid of evidence was all caught on a Florida Highway Patrol squad car camera after she was pulled over for suspicion of DUI along U.S. 1 in Cocoa. She crashed her truck, drove the wrong way on U.S. 1, then crashed again, said the arrest report.By this time, the woman's not laughing.
Brevard County woman who ate pot mugshot At the moment she eats the evidence, her misdemeanor charges for minor hit-and-run, DUI and marijuana possession bump up to a felony.
"Bags of weed just don't go missing inside a police car," said the trooper. "And I've got it all on video."
Smith denied everything and tried to hide what she was doing, but troopers said she had pot on her hands and face, and left crumbs everywhere. Troopers said there was enough evidence left in the bag to test it and prove it was marijuana.
Smith posted bond and was released from jail. She has been suspended from her job as an employee for a Brevard County judge.
The video shows officers searching her truck. Inside the truck, officers reportedly found a sandwich bag full of marijuana. She's asked about the bag, denies it's hers and then laughs repeatedly, even calling one of the officers "handsome." She giggles and then wiggles out of her handcuffs. She then reaches into the front seat, grabs the sandwich bag the trooper found in her car and eats what's in it.
"My car's smelling like the stuff you had in your seat," says the arresting trooper, who does not become suspicious until he sees her freely move her hand. "I hope that's not why this marijuana bag was open over here."
By this time, the woman's not laughing.
At the moment she eats the evidence, her misdemeanor charges for minor hit-and-run, DUI and marijuana possession bump up to a felony.
"Bags of weed just don't go missing inside a police car," said the trooper. "And I've got it all on video."
Smith denied everything and tried to hide what she was doing, but troopers said she had pot on her hands and face, and left crumbs everywhere. Troopers said there was enough evidence left in the bag to test it and prove it was marijuana.
Smith posted bond and was released from jail. She has been suspended from her job as an employee for a Brevard County judge. | – Tavish Smith was having quite the night by the time she landed in the back of the cop car: Florida police say she was driving her truck the wrong way down a highway, crashed it, continued on, then crashed again—all while allegedly more than a little tipsy. But as Gawker notes, what happened next was truly inspired: Sitting in the back of the car, Smith slipped out of her handcuffs, and swiped a sandwich bag full of pot that police had confiscated from her vehicle. She then proceeds to eat its contents, thus destroying the evidence, right? She forgot about the backseat camera filming her little snack, and something even more basic: Wiping her mouth. Cops finally noticed the missing weed when they saw "pot on her hands and face" and "crumbs everywhere," reports WPLG. Unfortunately for Tavish, the charge of destroying evidence means that she's now facing a felony. Turns out, she also works for a Brevard County judge; she's currently been suspended from those duties. |
Kelly Sadler, the White House communications aide who mocked Sen. John McCain John Sidney McCainSchmidt: Trump's 'only affinity for reading anything were the Adolf Hitler speeches he kept on his nightstand' Trump's 'zero tolerance' policy can be a political winner for Republicans Harley stunner spikes tension with Trump over trade policy MORE's (R-Ariz.) brain cancer, is no longer working at the White House, a person familiar with the situation told The Hill on Tuesday.
White House spokesman Raj Shah confirmed in a statement that "Kelly Sadler is no longer employed within the Executive Office of the President."
The White House faced major backlash over Sadler's comments last month, which were first reported by The Hill. In an internal meeting, Sadler said that McCain's opposition to President Trump Donald John TrumpCrowley stunner tops huge night for left Trump congratulates Romney on primary win Judge orders Trump admin to begin reuniting immigrant families MORE's CIA director nominee, Gina Haspel, didn't matter because he's "dying anyway."
The 81-year-old senator has undergone surgery and treatment for an aggressive form of brain cancer and has been at home in Arizona for months.
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CNN was first to report Tuesday that Sadler was no longer working in the Trump administration.
President Trump declined to comment on the report during a bill signing ceremony when asked by a reporter about Sadler's job status.
The aide was active in the White House press office with her name on press releases as recently as Monday.
Sadler's reported exit comes after accusations from McCain's daughter, Meghan McCain, that Sadler apologized for the comments privately and promised to do so publicly, before reneging on that promise.
The younger McCain said on ABC's "The View," where she is a co-host, that Sadler's reversal showed the Trump administration to be "incapable" of apologies.
"I was promised an apology, Kelly Sadler, publicly to my family. I did not receive that," McCain said. "This is not an administration that's capable of apologizing."
"When I had a conversation with Kelly, I asked her to publicly apologize and she said she would," she added. "I have not spoken to her since and I assume that it will never come."
The aide's comments sparked an effort inside the West Wing to identify people who leak information to the press, a phenomenon that staff members said made it difficult to do their jobs.
That reportedly led to a contentious exchange in the Oval Office when Sadler allegedly told Trump that senior White House communications aide Mercedes Schlapp was behind several of the leaks, while Schlapp was in the room.
Sadler made her initial comments after John McCain, a top GOP critic of the Trump administration, wrote a letter to his Senate colleagues urging them to reject Haspel's nomination to the CIA over her past work on the agency's "enhanced interrogation" program, which many consider torture.
"Ms. Haspel’s role in overseeing the use of torture by Americans is disturbing. Her refusal to acknowledge torture’s immorality is disqualifying,” wrote McCain, who was tortured during his time in captivity in Vietnam. “I believe the Senate should exercise its duty of advice and consent and reject this nomination."
Haspel was eventually confirmed to serve as the director of the CIA, with most Republicans and several Democrats backing her nomination.
Sadler has not released any public statements since the incident, and White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders has refused to address the issue at her daily press briefings.
“I'm not going to validate a leak, one way or another, out of an internal staff meeting," Sanders said during an early May press briefing at the White House.
John Bowden contributed to this report, which was updated at 7 p.m. ||||| (CNN) Kelly Sadler, the White House communications aide who made an imprudent comment about Republican Sen. John McCain's health, was quietly let go Tuesday nearly a month after making the insensitive remark.
"Kelly Sadler is no longer employed within the Executive Office of the President," wrote Raj Shah, the principal deputy press secretary, in an emailed statement.
The White House had been strategizing an exit for Sadler for the last two weeks, a senior administration official said. There had been a discussion about relocating her to another agency or department outside of the White House, and it remains unclear if she is going somewhere else or leaving the administration entirely.
In the aftermath of the comment -- in which Sadler told a meeting that McCain's opposition to CIA director nominee Gina Haspel didn't matter because he's "dying" -- the White House refused to condemn her remark, and she did not apologize publicly. She remained on the staff for nearly a month before departing.
Privately, Sadler did apologize to McCain's daughter Meghan in a phone call. But afterward, Ms. McCain publicly questioned why Sadler still had a job at the White House.
Read More ||||| Kelly Sadler joked last month that Sen. John McCain’s opposition to Gina Haspel’s nomination to lead the CIA didn’t matter because he’s “dying anyway.” | Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP Photo Kelly Sadler, who joked about McCain’s health, has left White House
Kelly Sadler, the Trump administration communications aide who came under fire for a flippant comment about Sen. John McCain’s health, no longer works in the White House, according to two administration officials.
Sadler joked last month during a closed-door meeting at the White House that McCain’s opposition to Gina Haspel’s nomination to lead the CIA didn’t matter because he’s “dying anyway.” McCain, who has an aggressive form of brain cancer, has been receiving treatment in Arizona and has not appeared in the Senate this year.
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Sadler’s leaked comments set off a firestorm in Washington, but neither President Donald Trump nor his staff publicly rebuked her. Instead, the president viewed the widespread reporting about her comments as a sign that leaking in the White House had gotten out of control. During an Oval Office meeting shortly after the episode, Trump pressed Sadler to identify the leakers in the administration.
Trump has ordered a wide-ranging housecleaning of his communications shop, and additional aides are expected to be fired or reassigned in the coming days.
A White House spokesman declined to comment on Tuesday. CNN first reported the news of Sadler’s departure. | – The White House communications aide who made a flippant remark about Sen. John McCain's terminal illness is no longer part of the administration. Spokesman Raj Shah confirmed Tuesday that Kelly Sadler—who allegedly said McCain's rejection of CIA nominee Gina Haspel didn't matter because "he's dying anyway"—is "no longer employed within the executive office of the president," the Hill reports. The White House declined to apologize for Sadler's remark last month. Sources tell Politico that Sadler's departure is part of a wider "housecleaning" of the White House communications team that will see people leaving in ones and twos instead of in a "mass exodus." Meghan McCain, who described people making light of her father's illness as "nothing burgers," says she never received the apology Sadler promised in a phone call last month. "I was promised an apology, Kelly Sadler, publicly to my family. I did not receive that," McCain says. "This is not an administration that's capable of apologizing." Former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci tells CNN that while Sadler's remark was "unforgivable," the fact that it was reported after a closed-door meeting shows somebody had it in for her. "When you're sitting inside the inner sanctum and somebody says something like that, to run outside the sanctum and rat on that person—I think that's a terrible thing to do to the person," Scaramucci says. |
I in no way intend to diminish the burdens of holding the most powerful position in the world, because clearly time takes its toll on the inhabitants of the office, but take a look at a picture of yourself from four or more years ago. You're not exactly going gracefully, are you? ||||| Why presidents age quickly
Presidents face unabated, unfathomable stress. “You see it over a term,” said Ronan Factora, a physician specializing in geriatric medicine at the Cleveland Clinic. “It’s a good study of chronic stress on a person’s overall health.”
Obama and his national security team monitor the hit on Osama bin Laden. (Pete Souza/White House; Photo altered to obscure a classified document.)
Changes in skin or hair are gradual, he said. “If you do have a stressful event, nothing is going to happen right away.” Nothing visible anyway. Inside the body, the pituitary gland jolts the adrenal gland, just above the kidneys. Hormones start coursing. Adrenaline cranks up heart rates and blood pressure. Cortisol, another hormone from the same gland, causes inflammation and preps the body for converting sugars into energy.
“It’s not intended that people would be chronically exposed to these levels,” said Sherita Golden, a physician at the Johns Hopkins Medical Bloomberg School of Public Health. Cortisol strains the circulatory system, battering artery walls. The hormone also thins the skin, makes muscles waste and bones lose mass. The immune system weakens, and viruses that cause colds and cold sores take hold. Sleep turns fitful.
“Your cognition slows, you may feel more depressed, your ability to concentrate goes down,” Factora said. “And it just builds on itself — a real cascade.”
The only known cure
There is one known treatment: exercise. “It is the best benefit a physician can recommend,” Factora said. “There is no drug that can present as many benefits as exercise can.”
Obama plays basketball during his 2008 campaign. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
Obama is a fiend for exercise. In hour-long workouts, he has been known to hit treadmills hard, weight train with arms and legs, build quickness through “plyos” or plyometrics — exercises that involve explosive movements. He also throws footballs, shoots basketballs and thwacks at golf balls.
His predecessors exercised, too, some of them fiercely. George W. Bush ran till his aging knees made cycling a better option. Presidents Carter and Bill Clinton jogged, while Ronald Reagan rode horses and split logs with such vigor, he once cut his thigh. President Gerald Ford performed a daily exercise regimen while still in his robe and PJs.
Good exercise leads to better thinking, brain-mapping has shown. “Exercise actually brings more blood flow,” explained Linda Fried, an epidemiologist and geriatrician at Columbia University. “Parts of the brain are activated and they’re associated with complex thinking and problem-solving.” Workouts also force a president to — truly, finally, deeply — rest. Only then can the relaxed brain start to make creative associations.
Infirmity and vice
The job has compounded certain human frailties. Most famous perhaps is the lethal case of pneumonia that 68-year-old William Henry Harrison caught at his inauguration. Woodrow Wilson’s stroke certainly limited his leadership of the country, and Franklin D. Roosevelt worked around the problems related to his polio more ably than might have been expected.
But daily habits also affect presidential well-being in lesser-known ways. Dwight D. Eisenhower was so dedicated to his form of exercise that he played 800 rounds of 18 holes over eight years as president, according to Evan Thomas, the author of “Ike’s Bluff: President Eisenhower’s Secret Battle to Save the World.” Then, in 1955, Eisenhower had a heart attack, and two years later, a stroke. Intestinal surgery came in between, all as he was staving off nuclear war and realigning Southeast Asia.
“Toward the end,” Thomas said, “he was taking an extra sleeping pill at night” — the powerful, old-school kind, with barbiturates. And that was on top of a nightly scotch, never more than five ounces, except when it was, Thomas said. “A couple of times he says to his doctor, ‘Let’s get drunk.’ ”
To the best of the public’s knowledge, recent presidents have not exacerbated their stress through bad behaviors such as drinking. Obama, however, confirmed that he had to kick a cigarette habit of unknown intensity at some midpoint in his first term.
The side effects of smoking might show up as those lines in his face, the doctors said. While sun exposure can also make a face look withered, Obama’s darker skin has melanin to alleviate UV ray damage. That same coloring, however, can make his white hair look more pronounced.
A special lot
Obama had a fitness test on Jan. 12, and the White House said the results would be released by February. His previous physical was in October 2011; it showed that he had added one pound since his February 2010 physical (his 2011 weight: 181, very good for a man who was then 50 and 6-foot-1).
Like all presidents since 1992, Obama has been under constant medical watch: a military physician is on hand wherever a president goes. Burton Lee,whom the first President Bush brought to the White House to monitor his health, agreed with Mariano that presidents are a special lot. They push their bodies and minds, and thus they develop a greater capacity to fight off infection. They shake enough hands to fell a lesser creature, he said.
But the mental intrusions — the sense that someone needs something from the president every moment of every day — are as insidious as the germs. “It’s just a phenomenally demanding job,” he said. “You never get one minute off.”
Despite the extraordinary stress levels, many recent presidents have lived well beyond normal life expectancy. Ronald Reagan and Gerald Ford died at 93; Jimmy Carter and the George H.W. Bush are 88. Doctors are coming to understand that stress may have an upside. “Human beings need some degree of stress to keep their systems tuned,” Fried said. “Some people enjoy the stimulation of it and the excitement and couldn’t live without it.”
Plus, human minds literally seek reasons to live. “Many people, as they get older, deeply care about future generations and the world’s survival,” Fried said. “If they have a chance to make a difference, that keeps people healthy.” ||||| New term, new official portrait.
Just before President Barack Obama's second inauguration, the White House Friday released a new official portrait of the president for his second term. The portrait, taken Dec. 6 by White House photographer Pete Souza, shows a smiling Obama standing with his arms crossed in front of his desk in the Oval Office.
The new portrait replaces this one, taken in 2009. It was the first presidential portrait to be taken with a digital camera:
Presidential portraits hang in the lobbies of federal buildings across the country.
Obama's second term begins at noon EST on Sunday. | – The White House today released President Obama's new official portrait ahead of his inauguration, reports the Huffington Post. Contrast it with his 2009 portrait (it's in the gallery) and you will see that, gasp, that the 51-year-old has noticeably grayer hair. Two schools of thought here: The presidency takes a toll because of the "unabated, unfathomable stress" of the job, says the Washington Post, which offers a look at before-and-after photos of presidents throughout history. OK, fine, it's a stressful job, writes Alex Balk at the Awl. "But take a look at a picture of yourself from four or more years ago," he writes. "You're not exactly going gracefully, are you?" Meanwhile, Michelle Obama debuted a "bangtastic" new look, click to check it out. |
Can't or won't? Gary Johnson ducks North Korea query
Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson speaks with the USA TODAY editorial board on Sept. 21, 2016, in McLean, Va. (Photo: Andrew P. Scott, USA TODAY)
Gary Johnson says he knows who the leader of North Korea is — he just doesn’t want to say.
In an interview with The New York Times Wednesday Johnson was asked if he knew the name of North Korea’s leader — Kim Jong Un — he responded “I do.”
“You want me to name [the leader],” he said before adding “really.” But he never did name the leader.
Johnson drew plenty of notoriety for two recent foreign policy missteps. In early September Johnson fumbled when asked about Aleppo, Syria — one of the hardest hit areas of the country’s civil war — he asked “What is Aleppo?”
In late September Johnson failed to name any world leader he admired.
In The Times interview, Johnson expressed frustration that people were emphasizing Clinton’s knowledge on the logistics of foreign policy people but were ignoring her hawkish nature. Johnson is known for his non-interventionist stance.
“Because Hillary Clinton can dot the i’s and cross the t’s on geographic leaders, of the names of foreign leaders,” he said, “the underlying fact that hundreds of thousands of people have died in Syria goes by the wayside.”
Johnson said that Clinton “bears responsibility for what’s happened, shared responsibility for what’s happened in Syria. I would not have put us in that situation from the get-go.”
The comments came the same day Johnson's running mate William Weld was asked on CNN about Johnson's first two foreign policy flubs. “We’d like to have those two sentences back no question," he said.
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/2e5dEkQ ||||| Image via AP Photo/David Zalubowski.
Libertarian presidential candidate and former Governor of New Mexico Gary Johnson is currently polling at 24% in his home state of New Mexico, despite the fact that he doesn’t know a lot of facts about the world—fun or otherwise. Luckily for him, it is 2016, and we no longer care about those.
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Johnson has struggled to identify world leaders he admires, the city of Aleppo, and the civilian impact of recent bomb and knife attacks in New York and Minnesota. He also thinks we don’t need to worry about climate change, because the sun will eat our planet in a few billion years, anyway. This latest incident occurred when he was asked by the New York Times if he knew the name of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
Uh, yeah, he does.
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Asked if he knew the name of North Korea’s leader, Mr. Johnson replied, “I do.” “You want me to name” the person, he said, then paused, before adding dryly, “Really.” But he declined to supply the name.
How dare they? Everyone knows that if you say the name “Kim Jong Un,” a large drone will come snatch you away and you’ll wake up strapped into a hot tub in the Supreme Leader’s basement.
Will the media ever get it right? | – Gary Johnson's had his "Aleppo moment." He's had his "forgetting world leaders" moment. And now the Libertarian candidate for president has completed the foot-in-mouth trifecta with his "Are you seriously asking me for the name of North Korea's leader?" moment. USA Today reports that that latter event happened during a Wednesday interview with the New York Times, in which Johnson was asked if he knew the name of that particular person who happens to run Pyongyang and its environs. "I do," he replied, before adding, "You want me to name [that person]. … Really." Yes, Gary, really—which is why you were asked. But he didn't ever give the Times that name. (It's Kim Jong Un, by the way), and the Times speculates he was "conspicuously [seeking] to avoid another misstep" with his non-answer, noting that he spoke "dryly" when he asked if the reporter was serious. Jezebel has the most reasonable speculation on why Johnson may have demurred from speaking the Supreme Leader's name: He perhaps confused him with Voldemort. (Still, Gary Johnson says don't forget about Gary Johnson on Election Day.) |
Story highlights Plane carrying men is scheduled to land at Washington base
Kenneth Bae family has "been waiting for and praying for this day for two years"
Director of National Intelligence James Clapper traveled to Pyongyang
North Korea claims it received apology from President Barack Obama
After months in detention, two Americans who had been held prisoner in North Korea soon will be back in the United States following a rare visit by a top U.S. official to the reclusive nation and a letter from President Barack Obama.
Kenneth Bae and Matthew Todd Miller, the last two Americans detained in North Korea, were due to arrive at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state about midnight ET (9 p.m. PT).
The pair were released after Director of National Intelligence James Clapper went to Pyongyang as an envoy of President Barack Obama, a senior State Department official told CNN.
Clapper delivered a letter from Obama, addressed to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, describing Clapper as "his personal envoy" to bring the Americans home, a senior administration official told CNN on Saturday.
The letter was "short and to the point," the official said. Clapper did not meet with Kim.
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Clapper had no guarantee he would bring the Americans home, a senior State Department official told CNN.
The North Korean government issued a statement about the release, saying it received an "earnest apology" from Obama for the men's actions. It also said the two were "sincerely repentant of their crimes and (were) behaving themselves while serving their terms."
Photos: Photos: Americans freed by North Korea Photos: Photos: Americans freed by North Korea Americans freed by North Korea – Kenneth Bae, who had been held in North Korea since 2012, greets his mother Myunghee Bae after arriving, Saturday, Nov. 8, 2014, at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington, after Bae and Matthew Todd Miller, who was held in North Korea since April, 2014, were freed during a top-secret mission by James Clapper, U.S. director of national intelligence. Hide Caption 1 of 9 Photos: Photos: Americans freed by North Korea Americans freed by North Korea – Matthew Miller, top, walks off the plane after arriving back in the United States. Hide Caption 2 of 9 Photos: Photos: Americans freed by North Korea Americans freed by North Korea – The plane carrying Kenneth Bae, Matthew Miller and James Clapper, U.S. director of national intelligence, lands at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington. Hide Caption 3 of 9 Photos: Photos: Americans freed by North Korea Americans released by North Korea – American Kenneth Bae is seen just before his release in Pyongyang, North Korea, on Saturday, November 8. Bae's sister, Terri Chung, told CNN that her family shed happy tears and spread the good news among relatives and friends. Relatives describe Bae as a devout Christian who arranged tours of North Korea. Hide Caption 4 of 9 Photos: Photos: Americans freed by North Korea Americans released by North Korea – Matthew Todd Miller, shown here shortly before his release, had been detained since April. He was convicted in September of committing "acts hostile" to North Korea. Hide Caption 5 of 9 Photos: Photos: Americans freed by North Korea Americans released by North Korea – U.S. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper is greeted by North Korean officials after arriving in Pyongyang on Friday, November 7. Hide Caption 6 of 9 Photos: Photos: Americans freed by North Korea Americans released by North Korea – James Clapper meets with North Korean officials on November 8, prior to the release of two Americans. Clapper delivered a letter from President Barack Obama, addressed to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Hide Caption 7 of 9 Photos: Photos: Americans freed by North Korea Americans released by North Korea – Bae and Miller on November 8 board the plane that will take them back to the United States. They were flown to a military base in Washington state. Hide Caption 8 of 9 Photos: Photos: Americans freed by North Korea Americans released by North Korea – The plane prepares to depart North Korea on November 8. Hide Caption 9 of 9
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According to the statement, the first chairman of North Korea's National Defense Commission ordered the release. The title is one of several top positions that Kim holds in the North Koran hierarchy.
China assisted in the monthslong process of arranging the release, the official said.
Clapper's visit came after North Korea contacted the U.S. government unexpectedly and urged the administration to send a Cabinet-level official to North Korea's capital to discuss the detained Americans, according to two sources close to the matter.
A U.S. official told CNN that Washington believes Pyongyang reached out to show it had the clout to get a Cabinet-level official to come and doing so would help solidify Kim's power. The request came about two weeks ago, the official said.
Clapper ended up canceling an event in New York on Wednesday as the trip was being arranged, an Obama administration official said. He went to Pyongyang "prepared to listen" on other issues, but that his sole focus was to bring Bae and Miller home, according to the same official.
In fact, an official in Clapper's office said the talks didn't even touch on North Korea's controversial nuclear program. And other U.S. officials said there was no "quid pro quo" for the men's release.
'We are filled with joy'
Clapper's office said the U.S. government is facilitating the two men's return home. Bae's family is to meet the plane but will not grant media interviews.
Clapper and a U.S. delegation also are on the flight.
Bae's sister, Terri Chung, told CNN that her family spent Saturday morning shedding happy tears and spreading the good news among relatives and friends.
"Words cannot adequately express our relief and gratitude that Kenneth is finally coming home!" the family added later in a full statement. "We have been waiting for and praying for this day for two years. This ordeal has been excruciating for the family, but we are filled with joy right now."
There was no immediate reaction from Miller's family.
Photos: The photos N. Korea banned Photos: The photos N. Korea banned Photos North Korea didn't want you to see – A stern looking North Korean guard by the Chinese border customs office. This image was deleted by North Korean officials. Hide Caption 1 of 17 Photos: The photos N. Korea banned Deleting the offensive photos – Writer Johan Nylander and his guide, Ko Chang Ho, watch as a North Korean guard deletes 90 photos deemed unacceptable. Nylander was able to recover the photos with the help of an IT specialist -- the images that follow are an edited selection. Hide Caption 2 of 17 Photos: The photos N. Korea banned Hello, Dear Leader – This propaganda monument of "Dear Leader" Kim Jong-Il by a countryside road, not far from the border to China, was deleted by authorities. North Korea required images of leaders be full body shots. Hide Caption 3 of 17 Photos: The photos N. Korea banned Waiting for a train – People standing by the train track, while a guard is monitoring the bike race. Hide Caption 4 of 17 Photos: The photos N. Korea banned Watching the race – In the city of Rason, people are leaning out of windows to get a glimpse of the Western cyclists. Hide Caption 5 of 17 Photos: The photos N. Korea banned Pedestrian peasants – A woman and a man walking by the side of the road lined with cornfields. Hide Caption 6 of 17 Photos: The photos N. Korea banned Village life – Villagers waving by the race path. Hide Caption 7 of 17 Photos: The photos N. Korea banned Heavy security – Guards and custom officials by the border to China. Hide Caption 8 of 17 Photos: The photos N. Korea banned Secret volleyball court? – By the border checkpoint next to the Tumen River, North Korean customs officials can play volleyball. Officials prohibited any photos of North Korean military bases. Hide Caption 9 of 17 Photos: The photos N. Korea banned Photos North Korea didn't want you to see – Peasants and villagers standing by the road to look at the Western cyclists Hide Caption 10 of 17 Photos: The photos N. Korea banned Keeping watch – Guard keeping an eye on the bikers next to a small village. Hide Caption 11 of 17 Photos: The photos N. Korea banned Photos North Korea didn't want you to see – Kids playing outside village houses. Hide Caption 12 of 17 Photos: The photos N. Korea banned Waiting for the cyclists – Spectators waiting for the bikers to reach the finish line. In the background the "Great" and "Dear Leaders" Kim Il Sung and his son, Kim Jong-Il. Hide Caption 13 of 17 Photos: The photos N. Korea banned Standing on bikes to see cyclists – Huge crowds -- some of whom standing on their own bikes -- as they await cyclists by the race finish line in Rason. Hide Caption 14 of 17 Photos: The photos N. Korea banned Document check – Custom official and tourist bureau guide checking foreigners' passports. Hide Caption 15 of 17 Photos: The photos N. Korea banned Water checkpoint – Guides from the local tourist bureau handing out water bottles to bikers, monitored by a guard in the background. Hide Caption 16 of 17 Photos: The photos N. Korea banned Writer and his minder – Journalist Johan Nylander and his North Korean guide, Ko Chang Ho. EDITOR'S NOTE: This image was not among those deleted by North Korean officials. Hide Caption 17 of 17
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Obama expressed appreciation for Clapper's efforts "on what was obviously a challenging mission" and happiness Bae and Miller will soon be home.
"It's a wonderful day for them and their families," the President said.
Another American let go weeks earlier
The Americans' departure from North Korea comes less than a month after North Korea released Jeffrey Fowle, an Ohio man who spent five months in detention. North Korean authorities took Fowle into custody after he left a Bible at a club in the northern part of the country.
Bae had been held since late 2012, and in April 2013 was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor for "hostile acts" against the North Korean government. North Korea claimed that Bae was part of a Christian plot to overthrow the regime.
The Lynwood, Washington, resident operated a China-based company specializing in tours of North Korea, according to family members, who have described him as a devout Christian.
Earlier this year, Bae -- who was transferred to a hospital last year -- told a Swedish diplomat that he was worried about his health.
Miller had been detained since April. According to the state-run Korean Central News Agency, he was convicted in September of committing "acts hostile" to North Korea and sentenced to six years of hard labor. He's been accused of tearing up his tourist visa and seeking asylum upon entry into North Korea.
In September, all three Americans then detained in North Korea -- Bae, Fowle and Miller -- talked with CNN in Pyongyang for about five minutes apiece.
All said they'd signed statements admitting their guilt, did not complain about their living conditions and asked for U.S. help.
The interviews -- which CNN learned about only after being shuttled on a van to a secret location -- were monitored and recorded by North Korean officials.
Talking Saturday, Fowle said that he'd been "upset" when he learned his fellow American detainees weren't going home with him last month.
"Kenneth Bae and Matthew Miller should have been released before I was," Fowle told CNN. "But I'm glad to hear that they're on their way home now."
In a statement, South Korea's Foreign Ministry welcomed the release of the two Americans and urged North Korea to release missionary Kim Jung-wook , who has been detained in the north on spying charges. It also asked North Korea to work with the south on humanitarian issues, such as family reunification.
Ex-diplomat: North Korea may want to thaw U.S. relations
CNN could not independently confirm details of the three Americans' detention or other facts about their cases, in part because of the secrecy that defines much of North Korea's dealings with the world.
That includes the Communist nation's much-maligned quest to develop nuclear weapons, something that has put it at odds with the United States, South Korea and many other countries around the world. North Korea has been subject to stringent international sanctions aimed at curbing its nuclear aspirations.
The State Department official said that Bae and Miller's release is "unrelated" to other U.S. issues involving North Korea.
The United States welcomes the move, but if North Korea wants a better relationship with the world it needs to "show it is serious and prepared to abide by its commitments, particularly concerning denuclearization," the official said. "And they must take significant steps to improve their human rights record."
Gordon Chang, the author of "Nuclear Showdown: North Korea Takes On the World," opines something must have changed in Pyongyang's philosophy to justify releasing three American detainees in less than a month.
"I think right now there is a charm offensive," Chang told CNN.
Bill Richardson, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations who tried to win Bae's release during a 2013 visit to North Korea, echoed that view, saying, "They are sending a message to the United States that 'we're ready to talk.'"
He added that no decision this big would have been made without the approval of Kim, who took over as North Korea's absolute leader following the death of his father, Kim Jong Il, in 2011.
"It appears that it is a good move by the North Koreans to restart the North Korean-American relationship, which has been in a really deep freeze," said Richardson.
Former basketball star Dennis Rodman, who has been criticized for his chumminess with North Korea's leader, said in statement Saturday that his trips to the country influenced Bae's release. ||||| U.S. President Barack Obama answers a reporter's question about North Korea after naming U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York Loretta Lynch as his pick to replace retiring Attorney General Eric Holder, in the Roosevelt Room at the White House in Washington...
U.S. citizen Matthew Todd Miller (2nd R) sits in a witness box during his trial at the North Korean Supreme Court in Pyongyang September 14, 2014, in this photo released by Kyodo.
Kenneth Bae, a Korean-American Christian missionary who has been detained in North Korea for more than a year, appears before a limited number of media outlets in Pyongyang in this undated photo released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on January 20, 2014....
U.S. citizen Matthew Todd Miller sits in a witness box during his trial at the North Korean Supreme Court in this undated photo released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) in Pyongyang September 14, 2014.
WASHINGTON North Korea freed two Americans from prison and they were returning to the United States on Saturday after the surprise involvement of the top-ranking U.S. intelligence official in their release.
Kenneth Bae and Matthew Todd Miller, who had been doing hard labor for months in the reclusive country, were being accompanied home by Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, his office said. Their release comes less than three weeks after another American was freed by Pyongyang.
Bae, a missionary from Washington state, was arrested in North Korea in November 2012 and sentenced to 15 years hard labor for crimes against the state. Miller, who reportedly was tried on an espionage charge, had been in custody since April this year and was serving a six-year hard labor sentence.
The United States had frequently called for the men to be freed for humanitarian reasons, especially since Bae was said to have health problems.
North Korea has been on a diplomatic campaign to counter charges by a U.N. body that highlighted widespread human rights abuses and a move by some U.N. members to refer the state to an international tribunal. But it was not clear what prompted Pyongyang to free the two men at this time.
Their release did not constitute an opening in relations with North Korea, said a senior State Department official, who declined to be identified. The official said for that to happen, Pyongyang must fulfill its commitments on denuclearization and human rights.
"He (Clapper) was not there to negotiate. And our position hasn't changed."
The men were released just hours before President Barack Obama was to start a trip to Asia that will include talks with Chinese leaders about how Beijing can use its influence with North Korea to rein in its nuclear weapons program, U.S. officials have said.
"It's a wonderful day for them and their families," Obama said at the White House. "Obviously we are very grateful for their safe return and I appreciate Director Clapper doing a great job on what was obviously a challenging mission."
A senior U.S. official said: "The DNI (Clapper) did carry a brief message from the President indicating that Director Clapper was his personal envoy to bring the two Americans home."
Myung Hee Bae, Kenneth Bae's mother, said she was told that her son would arrive soon at a U.S. Air Force base in Tacoma, Washington. She said she did not know when he was scheduled to arrive.
Bae's delighted son, Jonathan, told Reuters from Arizona that he received a call Friday night and spoke to his father. "The brief time on the phone, he sounded good," Jonathan said. "I'm sure he will be back to his old self in no time."
"It came out of the blue. One minute he was doing farm labor and the next minute they are saying, 'You are going home.' Just like everyone else, he was surprised," he said.
CLAPPER'S ROLE
As director of national intelligence, a job created after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, Clapper oversees the CIA and some 15 other intelligence agencies, making his involvement in the release surprising. U.S. officials said it was the first time a national intelligence director had been involved such a high-profile diplomatic matter.
An Obama administration official, who declined to be identified, said there was no connection between Clapper's trip and the issue of North Korean nuclear weapons but that he acted as a presidential envoy with a broader mandate to listen to what North Korea had to say.
Arrangements for the release had come together in the past several days and North Korea had asked for a high-ranking envoy to be involved, the official said.
Clapper went to Pyongyang but there was no indication that he met personally with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
The men's release came just a few weeks after North Korea freed another American, Jeffrey Fowle, 56 - a street repair worker from Miamisburg, Ohio, who had been arrested in May for leaving a Bible in a sailor's club in the North Korean city of Chongjin, where he was traveling as a tourist.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said in a statement: "We're pleased that this humanitarian gesture has taken place and that Kenneth Bae and Matthew Miller will soon be reunited with their families."
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon also welcomed the release, his office said in a statement, adding, "The Secretary-General hopes that this positive momentum for improving relations among the concerned parties for peace and security on the Korean Peninsula and beyond will be built on."
INTERNATIONAL PRESSURE
Victor Cha of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the release could indicate North Korea wants to press Obama on the eve of his Asian trip and that Pyongyang is feeling international heat from the U.N. resolution.
"This is worrying to them," Cha said. "They have never seen anything like this before. Moreover, it is not coming from the U.S. but from the entire international community. They are trying to blunt criticism and perhaps water down the resolution with these actions."
Miller, of Bakersfield, California, and said to be in his mid-20s, had gone to North Korea on a tourist visa, which state media said he tore up while demanding Pyongyang grant him asylum.
The Associated Press reported Miller was tried on an espionage charge and prosecutors at his trial said he had falsely claimed to have secret information about the U.S. military stationed in South Korea.
Bae's family said on its website that Bae had been operating out of China since 2006 and had led more than a dozen tours of North Korea. They said his health problems included diabetes, an enlarged heart, deteriorating vision and back and leg pains.
(Writing by Bill Trott; Additional reporting by Brendan O'Brien in Milwaukee, David Brunnstrom in Washington and James Pearson in Seoul and Hyungwon Kang in Toronto; Editing by Frances Kerry, Stephen Powell, Sandra Maler and Bernard Orr) | – No more Americans are being held in North Korea: Pyongyang today released Kenneth Bae and Matthew Miller, both of whom had been sentenced to years of hard labor, reports CNN. As with the recent release of Jeffrey Fowle, it wasn't clear what prompted the move, though the State Department made a point to single out Sweden. "We want to thank our international partners, especially ... the government of Sweden, for their tireless efforts to help secure their release." Bae is a missionary who was convicted of crimes against the state in 2012 and sentenced to 15 years, while Miller is a 25-year-old Californian accused of espionage. He had recently begun serving a six-year sentence. Both men were reportedly on their way back to the US in the company of national intelligence director James Clapper, reports Reuters. |
Lola Ogunyemi is on Facebook.
To connect with Lola, sign up for Facebook today. ||||| From a very young age, I’ve been told, “You’re so pretty … for a dark-skinned girl.” I am a Nigerian woman, born in London and raised in Atlanta. I’ve grown up very aware of society’s opinion that dark-skinned people, especially women, would look better if our skin were lighter.
I know that the beauty industry has fueled this opinion with its long history of presenting lighter, mixed-race or white models as the beauty standard. Historically, and in many countries still today, darker models are even used to demonstrate a product’s skin-lightening qualities to help women reach this standard.
This repressive narrative is one I have seen affect women from many different communities I’ve been a part of. And this is why, when Dove offered me the chance to be the face of a new body wash campaign, I jumped.
Dark is beautiful: the battle to end the world's obsession with lighter skin Read more
Having the opportunity to represent my dark-skinned sisters in a global beauty brand felt like the perfect way for me to remind the world that we are here, we are beautiful, and more importantly, we are valued.
Then one morning, I woke up to a message from a friend asking if the woman in a post he’d seen was really me. I went online and discovered I had become the unwitting poster child for racist advertising. No lie.
If you Google “racist ad” right now, a picture of my face is the first result. I had been excited to be a part of the commercial and promote the strength and beauty of my race, so for it to be met with widespread outrage was upsetting.
Calls were being made to boycott Dove products, and friends from all over the world were checking on me to see if I was OK. I was overwhelmed by just how controversial the ad had become.
If I had even the slightest inclination that I would be portrayed as inferior, or as the “before” in a before and after shot, I would have been the first to say an emphatic “no”. I would have (un)happily walked right off set and out of the door. That is something that goes against everything I stand for.
However, the experience I had with the Dove team was positive. I had an amazing time on set. All of the women in the shoot understood the concept and overarching objective – to use our differences to highlight the fact that all skin deserves gentleness.
I remember all of us being excited at the idea of wearing nude T-shirts and turning into one another. We weren’t sure how the final edit was going to look, nor which of us would actually be featured in it, but everyone seemed to be in great spirits during filming, including me.
Then the first Facebook ad was released: a 13-second video clip featuring me, a white woman, and an Asian woman removing our nude tops and changing into each other. I loved it. My friends and family loved it. People congratulated me for being the first to appear, for looking fabulous, and for representing Black Girl Magic. I was proud.
Then, the full, 30-second TV commercial was released in the US, and I was over the moon again. There were seven of us in the full version, different races and ages, each of us answering the same question: “If your skin were a wash label, what would it say?”
Again, I was the first model to appear in the ad, describing my skin as “20% dry, 80% glowing”, and appearing again at the end. I loved it, and everyone around me seemed to as well. I think the full TV edit does a much better job of making the campaign’s message loud and clear.
There is definitely something to be said here about how advertisers need to look beyond the surface and consider the impact their images may have, specifically when it comes to marginalized groups of women. It is important to examine whether your content shows that your consumer’s voice is not only heard, but also valued.
I can see how the snapshots that are circulating the web have been misinterpreted, considering the fact that Dove has faced a backlash in the past for the exact same issue. There is a lack of trust here, and I feel the public was justified in their initial outrage. Having said that, I can also see that a lot has been left out. The narrative has been written without giving consumers context on which to base an informed opinion.
While I agree with Dove’s response to unequivocally apologise for any offense caused, they could have also defended their creative vision, and their choice to include me, an unequivocally dark-skinned black woman, as a face of their campaign. I am not just some silent victim of a mistaken beauty campaign. I am strong, I am beautiful, and I will not be erased. | – Lola Ogunyemi grew up being told she was pretty ... "for a dark-skinned girl." So when Dove offered her the chance to model in one of its body wash campaigns, she jumped at it. "Having the opportunity to represent my dark-skinned sisters in a global beauty brand felt like the perfect way for me to remind the world that we are here, we are beautiful, and more importantly, we are valued," she writes in the Guardian. Unfortunately, soon after the ad debuted, Ogunyemi discovered she "had become the unwitting poster child for racist advertising." In the ad, which Dove pulled after it was posted online to massive backlash, Ogunyemi is shown removing a brown shirt ... to reveal another model in the next clip, this one white and wearing a lighter shirt. "If I had even the slightest inclination that I would be portrayed as inferior, or as the 'before' in a before and after shot, I would have been the first to say an emphatic 'no,'" she writes. But her time at the shoot was positive, with the Dove team portraying the ad's objective as using "our differences to highlight the fact that all skin deserves gentleness." The Facebook ad that ended up sparking so much backlash, "a 13-second video clip featuring me, a white woman, and an Asian woman removing our nude tops and changing into each other," was something Ogunyemi was proud of and that her friends and family loved. But she acknowledges the full ad, a 30-second TV commercial, "does a much better job of making the campaign’s message loud and clear." She says she understands the outrage, but she thinks "the snapshots that are circulating the web" are missing a lot of context. Dove would have been within its rights to defend "their creative vision, and their choice to include me, an unequivocally dark-skinned black woman, as a face of their campaign," she writes, emphasizing that she is not a victim. Click for her full column. |
Four high school wrestlers in Oklahoma were charged Monday with raping two other wrestlers — including a 12-year-old boy — on a school bus after a tournament last month.
One of the alleged assailants, Tanner Shipman, 18, was charged as an adult, according to documents filed by prosecutors in Garvin County, south of Oklahoma City. He faces three counts of rape by instrumentation.
The other three, who NBC News is not naming, are 17 and 16, and were charged as youthful offenders. Two are accused of the same crimes as Shipman; one has been charged with a single count.
The second victim was 16, the documents say.
According to prosecutors, the junior varsity wrestlers were on a school bus returning to Norman after Jan. 9 tournament in Pauls Valley, approximately 40 miles away, when Shipman "restrained" the 16-year-old under a bus seat while two friends sexually assaulted him.
Later, Shipman and others assaulted a 12-year-old — identified in the documents as "Victim B" — at the back of the bus and again in a "secluded area" near Norman North High School after the bus had returned, the documents say.
"When Victim B escapes, Tanner and his friends attempt to do all of this again as Tanner tackles Victim B and forces him between two parked vehicles," the documents state. "The incident finally ends when Victim B's parent arrives in the parking lot."
It is unclear if Shipman and the others have lawyers; attempts to reach addresses listed in the charging documents were unsuccessful.
In a statement Monday, Norman Public Schools superintendent Joseph Siano said that "we are well-prepared to handle situations like this and have programs in place to support students who experience trauma. And, while we believe the district's policies regarding student supervision are strong, we continuously evaluate our procedures to ensure they are followed."
Siano said the "vast majority" of the student athletes "demonstrate positive behavior and strong character traits."
After the incident was initially reported, several students were suspended, an adjunct coach who was supervising the students was "immediately" dismissed, and a second coach was suspended, the school said in a statement. ||||| Four high school wrestlers from Norman North are facing rape charges following what was initially described as a “disturbing incident” on a junior varsity wresting team bus in January.
Three of the four wrestlers, who police have identified as 18-year-old Tanner Shane Shipman, 17-year-old Sage Griffen Gandenberger, and 16-year-old Chase Denton Smith, were charged with three counts of rape by instrumentation against two male victims, ages 16 and 12.
1/14/2016 Related Story: Norman North Investigating 'Disturbing' Report Regarding JV Wrestling Team
A fourth wrestler, identified as 17-year-old Hunter Oren Matthews, was charged with one count of rape by instrumentation of the 12-year-old.
The alleged incident occurred on Jan. 9, as the junior varsity wrestling team was returning to Norman from a tournament in Pauls Valley. According to the court documents, Shipman, Gandenberger and Smith each assaulted the 16-year-old at the back of the bus by restraining him and using their fingers to sexually assault the boy over his clothing.
Later, all four suspects attempted to lure a 12-year-old middle school wrestler to the back of the bus as well, before pulling the boy to the back. All four suspects then assault the boy in the same manner as before. This time, however, the suspects placed a condom over their fingers before the assault, the report states.
When the bus arrived back at Norman North, the 12-year-old was assaulted again; once in a secluded area on the side of the building and again between two vehicle in the parking lot when the victim briefly escaped. According to the report, the assault only ended when the 12-year-old boy’s parent arrived at the school.
Shipman was charged with one count of Rape By Instrumentation with Force and one count of Rape By Instrumentation Upon a Person Under 14.
Gandenberger was charged with one count of Rape By Instrumentation with Force and two counts of Rape By Instrumentation Upon a Person Under 14.
Smith was charged with one count of Rape By Instrumentation with Force and two counts of Rape By Instrumentation Upon a Person Under 14.
Matthews was charged with one count of Rape By Instrumentation Upon a Person Under 14.
All of the suspects have been suspended and are no longer in school. One adjunct coach was fired and another coach was placed on suspension when the incident was first reported. News 9 has learned that the second coach has now resigned.
Norman Schools Superintendent Dr. Joseph Siano released the following statement on this situation:
“Student safety is a top priority and we followed procedures we have in place that allow us to effectively investigate and take swift action in these situations. We appreciate the individuals who came forward to provide information, the Norman Police Department’s thorough investigation and the quick action by the District Attorney on this incident. We are well-prepared to handle situations like this and have programs in place to support students who experience trauma. And, while we believe the district’s policies regarding student supervision are strong, we continuously evaluate our procedures to ensure they are followed. As we address the inappropriate behavior displayed by several students, we remain committed to supporting the vast majority of our student athletes, who are quality individuals that demonstrate positive behavior and strong character traits.”
Keep checking with News 9 and News9.com for more information. | – Four high school wrestlers in Oklahoma have been charged with rape over what prosecutors describe as a very disturbing incident on a team bus after a tournament in January. According to prosecutors, the students—18-year-old Tanner Shipman and three others under 18—restrained and assaulted a 16-year-old student at the back of the bus before attacking a 12-year-old boy on the bus and again in a secluded area at Norman North High School, reports NBC News. Shipman has been charged as an adult with offenses including "Rape by Instrumentation Upon a Person Under 14." The other three have been charged as juveniles. Prosecutors say the wrestlers restrained the 16-year-old boy before assaulting him over his clothing with their fingers and later did the same to the 12-year-old, this time with condoms over their fingers, News 9 reports. According to court documents, the assault on the younger boy only ended when a parent arrived to pick him up. All four students have been suspended. One coach who was supposed to be supervising the students has been fired and another resigned after being suspended. |
Story highlights A woman has been charged with kidnapping in case
Baby found safe and in "excellent health," police say
She is in an Iowa jail on an unrelated charge
Kayden was just 5 days old when he disappeared early Thursday
A 6-day-old Wisconsin baby who vanished from a home early Thursday has been found safe at an Iowa gas station, authorities said Friday.
The U.S. attorney in Madison, Wisconsin, has filed charges of kidnapping against Kristen R. Smith, in the case of 6-day-old Kayden Powell, who was found at an Iowa gas station Friday after going missing from the child's Wisconsin home early Thursday.
Smith took Kayden Powellt from a home in Wisconsin and transported the the infant across state lines to Iowa, the federal complaint against her claims.
An officer found Kayden Powell Friday morning. The child was swaddled in blankets inside a tote bag at a West Branch, Iowa, gas station, according to Town of Beloit, Wisconsin, police Chief Steven Kopp.
"Despite frigid temperatures, Kayden was found alive, and appears to be doing very well," Kopp said. "In the words of EMS officials, he is in excellent health."
Kristen R. Smith faces kidnapping charges after baby clothes were found in her car.
JUST WATCHED 'Resilient' newborn found in frigid temps Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH 'Resilient' newborn found in frigid temps 01:04
The baby was found outside the building, according to G.B. Jones, acting special agent in charge of the Milwaukee office of the FBI.
"We're all very, very fortunate that this baby is alive," Jones said.
Smith was jailed Thursday in Iowa on an unrelated fraud warrant out of Texas after police investigating Kayden's disappearance contacted her on her cell phone and asked her to report to a nearby police station, authorities said.
When police searched her car, they found baby clothes, but no sign of the infant, Kopp said Thursday.
Kayden's mother is 18-year-old Brianna Marshall.
Smith reportedly said at the home that she was Marshall's half-sister and that she, Marshall and the baby's father would be moving to Colorado, according to CNN affiliate WKOW
Authorities searched feverishly along the travel route back to Colorado after discovering the baby was missing, Jones said.
"We did have troopers, deputy sheriffs and police officers out all night checking every conceivable place along that route," Jones said. ||||| BELOIT, Wis. (AP) — A missing newborn from southern Wisconsin was found alive in a bag Friday outside a gas station in eastern Iowa, law enforcement officers said.
FILE - In this undated file photo released by Town of Beloit Police Department is of Kayden Powell. Wisconsin police said Friday, Feb. 7, 2014 the missing newborn from a southern Wisconsin home has been... (Associated Press)
Kayden Powell, who's nearly a week old, was discovered about 10:15 a.m. Friday by the police chief in West Branch, Iowa, said Town of Beloit Police Chief Steven Kopp at a news conference Friday less than an hour after the infant was found.
There have been no arrests in the case but police have identified a woman as a person of interest.
The chief heard the newborn crying and found the child swaddled in blankets inside a tote bag outside the gas station off Interstate 80, Milwaukee FBI Acting Special Agent-in-Charge G.B. Jones said at the news conference.
"Our efforts are clearly focused on reuniting mother and child and the rest of the family members with the child. That's the immediate focus," Jones said.
It's unclear how long the newborn was outside in the cold, Jones said. Kopp said the baby was in excellent health.
Federal, state and local law enforcement officers had been looking for the baby since early Thursday when his mother discovered him missing from a bassinette at a home in the Town of Beloit, a town of 7,500 people. West Branch, Iowa, is about 180 miles southwest of the town.
A woman who had been staying in the same home as Kayden and his mother left the residence early Thursday morning. The mother reported the baby missing later that morning.
The woman was arrested in Iowa on Thursday on an outstanding warrant from Texas. West Branch Police Chief Mike Horihan said she was taken into custody at another gas station less than a half-mile from where the newborn was found.
Investigators traced the woman's likely route of travel that led through Beloit, Illinois and Iowa, Spoden said. Authorities sent out alerts and asked police to search areas along the route.
The West Branch police chief and other officers had been checking areas along Interstate 80 for the child, Kopp said. Jones said the child's discovery was not part of a "directed" search, meaning they weren't told where to look.
"We're celebrating (the chief) as a hero today," Jones said.
Rock County and federal prosecutors are conferring on what charges to file, if any.
"This investigation," Jones said, "is far from over."
In West Branch, Horihan spoke to reporters at the BP gas station, where yellow police tape kept people away from an area on the side of the business.
"It's unique, let's just say that," Horihan said. "I have been in law enforcement for a while and nothing ever surprises me. But it's very unique and very special and I'm just glad everything seems to be fine.
"The baby seems to be doing just fine," he said.
___
Associated Press writer Ryan J. Foley in West Branch, Iowa, contributed to this report. | – Little Kayden Powell is alive and seemingly well. Incredibly, police found the missing 5-day-old infant swaddled in a tote bag outside a gas station in Iowa this morning, reports CNN. Despite the cold weather, he appears to be fine, say authorities. Kayden's mom reported him missing yesterday morning when she discovered his empty bassinette about 4:30am in their home in Beloit, Wis., about 200 miles away from where he was found. The boy's aunt is in custody, reports WLS-TV. Police say Kristen Smith had been staying at the house in Beloit but left overnight Wednesday. Police spoke to her by cell phone, and she agreed to pull off I-80 in Iowa, where she was arrested on an unrelated warrant. Police found baby clothes in her car, but the infant wasn't inside. The baby was found more than 24 hours later at a gas station about a half-mile away from where she was taken into custody, reports AP. Details of the case are still being fleshed out. |
Cody Williams was arrested in late August, charged with the sexual battery of someone younger than 12.
The 18-year-old Clay High School student spent 35 days in jail.
One problem: He was the wrong Cody Williams.
Three officers have received formal counseling for their role in the wrongful arrest and another officer faces a 10-day unpaid suspension and a transfer from investigations to patrol.
Deputy Sheriff Johnny Hawkins of the Clay County Sheriff’s Office will learn Tuesday if he will receive that punishment.
“As a result of your incompetence, an innocent man was arrested for an offense that he did not commit,” Sheriff Rick Beseler told Hawkins in a February disciplinary letter.
Hawkins’ phone number was not listed or available Monday evening to seek comment.
A girl younger than 12 told Clay Sheriff’s officers in 2013 that on or around Halloween 2012 she had sex with an older boy she identified as Cody Williams. The girl’s exact age at the time wasn’t released by authorities.
The girl told police investigators what the boy looked like and where he attended school. Without showing her any photos of possible suspects, the sheriff’s office sought the arrest of Cody Lee Williams.
Cody Lee Williams, of Green Cove Springs, was arrested two months later on a sexual battery charge.
He was 17 at the time of the reported crime and was promptly charged as an adult by State Attorney Angela Corey’s office.
Williams, who has had legal trouble in the past with marijuana, said he was aghast by the charge when he was arrested at his home.
“I can’t even tell you the horror of hearing those words,” said Williams. “My heart just started beating really fast and all my insides just kind of dropped.”
Sheriff Rick Beseler said his department has policies in place intended to prevent these types of wrongful arrests.
“If those policies had been followed then this wouldn’t have happened,” he said. “This is not a routine problem. That’s why the supervisors are even being held accountable. We take this stuff very seriously.”
Beseler noted such an occurrence is rare, considering that the office arrests between 7,000 and 8,000 people a year. Jim Pimentel, department general counsel, said in the past 10 years there was only one other allegation of wrongful arrest.
In December, the sheriff’s office requested Cody Lee Williams’ arrest in the case be expunged.
When Hawkins, who interviewed the victim, thought Cody Lee Williams was the suspect, he failed to show her his photo to confirm he had the right person, according to an internal report on Hawkins’ investigation.
“He stressed that he usually will show a photo lineup but could not explain why he did not in this incident,” according to the report.
It wasn’t until Williams went to court in early October and was given documents with the details of the charges against him that he put the pieces together. He called his mother from jail and told her he believed police were actually seeking someone else named Cody Williams.
Both teens attended the same schools since seventh grade and were born the same year, Cody Lee Williams said. He said he knew Cody Raymond Williams, but didn’t run in the same social group.
“We were just two guys with the same name at the same school,” he said.
The two students shared the same teacher, though in different classes, and that teacher called them by their middle names to avoid confusion.
After Cody Lee Williams called his mother from jail, she reached out to Hawkins, who immediately began looking into the matter and conducted a photo lineup with the victim.
Hawkins included Cody Lee Williams’ photo in the lineup and asked the victim if she saw the person she had sex with in the lineup.
“She stated he was not there and then pointed at Cody Lee Williams and stated, �?I do know this Cody Williams but this is not the one,’ ” according to an October report by Hawkins.
Hawkins said he asked the girl why she didn’t mention that there was another Cody Williams during earlier conversations and “she had no answer,” according to the report.
The internal investigation found that Hawkins failed to properly identify a suspect, failed to properly document information obtained in the investigation, made inaccurate statements in reports and failed to properly document actions taken in an investigation.
Attorney Kristopher Nowicki, who is representing Williams in his potential civil action, said a photo lineup could have prevented Williams’ arrest.
“It seems that there was no investigation done other than my client’s name,” he said. “It is not Cody Williams’ obligation to investigate crimes on behalf of the state of Florida.”
Deputy Sheriff Jason Wright, Sgt. Daniel Moreland and Sgt. Eric Twisdale will all receive formal counseling for their roles in the Williams case that will permanently be placed in their files.
Cody Raymond Williams, the one police were looking for from the beginning, is due to appear in court on the sexual assault charge on March 3.
Topher Sanders: (904) 359-4169 ||||| They arrested the wrong Cody Williams, and then kept him in jail for more than a month.
The Clay County, Fla., Sheriff's Office punished a deputy Tuesday for the wrongful arrest of 18-year-old Cody Lee Williams, who didn't even share the same middle name as a man accused of having sex with a young girl.
“Other than the name, there’s no other similarities," Kris Nowicki, Cody Lee Williams' attorney, told the Los Angeles Times on Tuesday. “Cody Williams had never met this girl and didn’t know anything about her."
According to the Florida Times-Union, which first reported on the story, a girl younger than 12 told investigators that she had sex with an older boy named Cody Williams on Halloween in 2012.
Williams was arrested on Aug. 30 and languished in jail until Oct. 4, the day his mother pleaded with the Clay County Sheriff's Office to release her son, according to investigators' records, which the Sheriff's Office provided to The Times.
“Not only did they not do a photo lineup, but further … they put him directly into adult court, filing an affidavit that not only is it this guy, but he did something" so serious that he should be charged as an adult, Nowicki said. (Williams, the wrongly arrested, would have been 17 at the time of the crime.)
State Attorney Angela Corey's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.
After the mixup was discovered, three deputies received counseling for their role in the arrest, the Times-Union reported.
On Tuesday, a fourth official, Deputy Sheriff Johnny Hawkins, was suspended without pay for 10 days and transferred out of the investigative division, according to the Sheriff's Office.
“As a result of your incompetence, an innocent man was arrested for an offense that he did not commit,” the sheriff, Beseler, told Hawkins in a February disciplinary letter obtained by the Times-Union.
In a statement made after the punishment was announced Tuesday, Beseler said: “In fairness, let me say Deputy Hawkins has a good record with our agency. He has no prior discipline and many commendations in his file.
"In this case, however, he took short cuts and didn’t do a thorough investigation. The result was an innocent man was accused of a terrible crime he didn’t commit. Arresting an innocent person is something we fear far more than letting a guilty person get away. I extend to Cody Lee Williams my apology for this error and we will seek to make things right for him."
Officials later tracked down Cody Raymond Williams, 18, and arrested him on suspicion of sexually assaulting a girl younger than 12.
According to the Clay County clerk's office, he was charged on Jan. 23 and was scheduled for a pretrial hearing on March 4.
“They have protocol put in place that prevents this kind of stuff, threshold requirements that you would expect an officer to accomplish to arrest someone for this serious of a crime,” said Nowicki, the attorney for Cody Lee Williams. “I would support any kind of action that would support this kind of harm from happening in the future."
Part of the confusion over why Cody Lee Williams remained in jail for so long may have come from his past criminal record, according to records from the Sheriff's Office, which said Williams would have likely faced charges for an unrelated probation violation.
Cody Lee Williams had been on probation for a drug possession conviction and had failed a drug test shortly before his wrongful arrest on the sex-assault charge, the records stated. He was charged with the probation violation after his arrest on the sex-assault charge.
Five days after being released from jail on the sex assault charge in October, he admitted to violating his probation to a judge, who credited him for time served and dropped the case, the records said.
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Report: New York man 'basically baked to death' in Rikers Island jail ||||| Clay County Sheriff Rick Beseler publicly apologized Tuesday to a Green Cove Springs teen who was wrongfully arrested and spent more than a month in jail on a sexual battery charge.
Cody Lee Williams, 19, spent 35 days in jail last year after Deputy Sheriff Johnny Hawkins failed to show the victim a photo of Williams to get a positive identification.
Williams was charged with having sex with someone younger than 12. After seeing court documents, Williams realized police were actually seeking a different Cody Williams.
Cody Lee Williams and Cody Raymond Williams were born the same year and went to the same high school. Cody Lee Williams told his mother from jail that he believed police were looking for someone else.
She relayed the information to Hawkins, who determined the department had arrested the wrong person.
Beseler said Hawkins has a good record with his department but took short-cuts in the Williams’ investigation.
“The result was an innocent man was accused of a terrible crime he didn’t commit,” he said. “Arresting an innocent person is something we fear far more than letting a guilty person get away. I extend to Cody Lee Williams my apology for this error and we will seek to make things right for him.”
Hawkins was suspended for 10 days Tuesday and transferred to patrol for his role in the wrongful arrest and jailing of the teen.
The punishment is the most serious disciplinary action he has handed out as Sheriff short of termination, said Beseler through his spokeswoman Mary Justino. Beseler’s letter to Hawkins on the discipline called Hawkins’ police work incompetent.
Three other officers received formal counselling for their parts in the Williams’ investigation.
After investigators realized they had arrested the wrong person, Cody Lee Williams was released from jail and the charges were dropped.
The sheriff’s department asked the Florida Department of Law Enforcement in December to expunge Williams’ record.
The teen has hired an attorney and has put the sheriff’s department on notice he intends to file a lawsuit.
Cody Raymond Williams, the one police were looking for from the beginning, is due to appear in court Monday on the sexual assault charge.
Topher Sanders: (904) 359-4169 | – A Florida teenager spent 35 days in jail on sex-assault charges because it apparently never occurred to his arresting officers that two people might have the same name, reports the Florida Times-Union. Cody Lee Williams, now 19, was arrested last August and charged as an adult after a young girl told police that a "Cody Williams" had sex with her in 2012. Turns out, police were looking for Cody Raymond Williams, who attended the same school. Clay County deputies never showed the girl a photo after the arrest. "Other than the name, there’s no other similarities," the attorney for the wrongly arrested teen tells the Los Angeles Times. Cody Lee Williams "had never met this girl and didn’t know anything about her." It was Williams himself who figured it out while looking over documents during a court appearance. Afterward, he called his mother, who helped set things straight. “We were just two guys with the same name at the same school,” he says. The other Cody Williams is due in court Monday. Three deputies had to attend counseling, and Deputy Sheriff Johnny Hawkins got suspended for 10 days without pay and transferred from the investigative unit. Hawkins apologized for the error yesterday, saying "arresting an innocent person is something we fear far more than letting a guilty person get away." The Times-Union reports that Williams plans to sue. |
Fossil pigments reveal dark coloration of extinct marine reptiles. The leatherback turtle (top) and mosasaur (bottom) have a dark back and light belly, a camouflage pattern, and the ichthyosaur (center) is uniformly dark.
Some of the largest beasts in the ancient seas had black skin or scales, new research finds.
Ancient leatherback turtles, toothy predators called mosasaurs and dolphinlike reptiles called ichthyosaurs all had black pigmentation, researchers report today (Jan. 8) in the journal Nature. The findings come from an analysis of preserved skin from each of these creatures.
The animals' blackness likely helped them in a variety of ways, said study researcher Johan Lindgren, a mosasaur expert at Lund University in Sweden. "We suggest … that they used it not only as camouflage and UV protection, but also to be able to regulate their body temperature," Lindgren told LiveScience. [Sea Monster Album: See Images of Extinct Mosasaurs]
Ancient colors
The study isn't the first to delve into the color of ancient creatures. Paleontologists have found that Microraptor, a small winged dinosaur from 130 million years ago, had black, crowlike feathers. The "dino-bird" Archaeopteryx had wing feathers with a black-and-white pattern, too, according to a 2012 study detailed in the journal Nature Communications. The color of ancient feathers is somewhat controversial, however, with some scientists suggesting the fossilization process might distort the pigment-containing organelles in the feathers.
Skin from a 55-Myr-old leatherback turtle, scales from an 85-Myr-old mosasaur and tail fin of a 196–190-Myr-old ichthyosaur. Credit: Bo Pagh Schultz, Johan Lindgren and Johan A. Gren, respectively
But marine animal color was uncharted territory. Some fossils of extinct sea monsters have been found with black "halos" around the bones, suggesting remnants of skin. Anatomical analysis suggested these remnants were, in fact, melanosomes, the tiny packets of pigments that give skin, feathers and hair their color. Melanosomes contain melanin, a dark brown or black pigment. In fact, the black pigment eumelanin is extremely persistent in the environment, Lindgren said, so the presence of melanosomes may be the reason these skin halos survived.
Lindgren and his colleagues conducted a microscopic analysis of the fossilized skin of a 55-million-year-old leatherback turtle, an 86-million-year-old mosasaur and a 190-million year-old ichthyosaur. Mosasaurs were reptilian, fishlike apex predators in the Cretaceous seas. Ichthyosaurs were also marine reptiles, but with their long snouts, they resembled modern dolphins.
Dark and dangerous
A microscopic look at the fossils showed oval bodies consistent with the look of melanosomes. To confirm that the oval bodies were melanosomes, the researchers used a technique called energy-dispersive X-ray microanalysis, which focuses X-rays on the sample. The reaction of the sample depends on its chemical makeup. This analysis showed that the tiny ovals were associated with the preserved skin film, but not with the sediment around it, suggesting they are really melanosomes and not microbial contamination.
The evolutionary relationship of leatherbacks, ichthyosaurs and mosasaurs. All three species descended from land-dwelling ancestors. Credit: Ryan M. Carney
To understand how ancient sea creatures benefited from black skin and scales, Lindgren and his colleagues turned to the only sea turtle that stays black into adulthood: the modern leatherback turtle (Dermochelys coriacea). These turtles have a broad range, all the way into the Arctic circle, and the color seems to help them trap heat from sunlight in the same way that black asphalt gets hot on a bright day, Lindgren said. Black pigments also protect the skin from damage from UV rays (also known as sunburn). Mosasaurs, ichthyosaurs and ancient may have gotten a similar advantage from their coloration.
Black skin and scales may also have helped these creatures stay stealthy in the dark seas. Living leatherback turtles are dark on top with light underbellies, so they blend in with the depths from above and with the sunlight at the surface from below. Many ocean-dwelling creatures show this coloration pattern, Lindgren said, but the fossil skin samples from the ancient turtle and mosasaur are too small to say for sure whether they shared countershading camouflage.
Ichthyosaurs are a different story. Some ichthyosaur fossils consist of skeletons surrounded completely by an "envelope" of dark material. If these envelopes prove to be entirely skin remains, Lindgren said, they would suggest that ichthyosaurs were completely black. That coloration would make them like modern sperm whales, which dive deep into murky waters — as ancient ichthyosaurs also may have done.
"Of course, that may be a coincidence, but it's an interesting similarity that they share," Lindgren said.
The techniques used in the study may also be able to resolve debate over the coloration of land animals, he said, differentiating whether suspected melanosomes come from the fossil or from microbes.
Follow Stephanie Pappas on Twitter and Google+. Follow us @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on LiveScience. ||||| A trick of chemistry has restored fossil turtles and other marine reptiles to their living color. But the result fell far short of the gaudy transformations wrought by Hollywood in its classic black-and-white movies.
Ancient leatherback turtles, ichthyosaurs and mosasaurs were a rather staid and formal black, maybe with some gray, according to a study published online Wednesday in the journal Nature.
The study offers the first direct chemical evidence of pigmentation in the three species, and illustrates an example of convergent evolution, when animals separately develop the same adaptive features.
Weird sea creatures and strange fish
Researchers blasted the fossil samples with a beam of ions that enabled them to analyze and image the microbodies embedded in dark film that had the appearance of dark skin. Analysis of those molecules, compounds and fragments showed they were identical to melanosomes, the cellular organelles that produce various types of melanin, which can produce colors from black to yellow.
The samples, however, were dominated by the black- and gray-producing eumelanin, according to the study.
“Every living animal out there has eumelanin, so that by itself is not surprising,” said the study’s lead author, Johan Lindgren, a vertebrate paleontologist at Lund University in Sweden. “What is surprising is the sheer concentration of these fossilized melanosomes.”
Lindgren and his colleagues examined fossils of a leatherback turtle dated to 55 million years ago, a lizard-like mosasaur from 86 million years ago, and an ichthyosaur that was 190-196 million years old. Each is a marine reptile that breathed on the sea surface, and all three once roamed on land, but returned to the sea.
The researchers used the modern leatherback as its frame of reference. That animal has some unique and unusual characteristics, not the least of which is its hard skin that forms its carapace. The largest sea turtle on Earth, the modern leatherback grows very fast, and can live in arctic and subarctic environments.
“In order to do so it has a number of adaptations for these conditions,” Lindgren said. “One of them, we presume, is the fact that it has a black skin. The black eumellanic skin enables it to absorb the solar heat more quickly during daylight hours, and these animals are known to bask at the surface during daylight hours in high-latitude areas.”
Researchers believe that black skin gave all three ancient marine reptiles a thermal advantage, but also provided protection against ultraviolet radiation and concealment against a dark background, a common dorsal feature of marine life.
A great many marine animals also are counter-shaded: lighter on their underside, to camouflage them better against a light background in shallow water.
Skin samples, however, were not large enough to offer evidence of any lighter shading, Lindgren said. He favors a more monochromatic explanation, particularly for the ichthyosaur, which was deep-diving, where more uniformly dark coloration such as that of the sperm whale is more advantageous.
Lindgren believes the complex techniques used to analyze the fossils, which came from museums in Denmark, Texas and Britain, can be used on many more samples that show imprints of skin material.
“This is a technique that can definitely be used in many, many samples, regardless of what they are made of,” he said.
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Prehistoric shark nursery found in Midwest: See fossil of baby shark | – Ancient sea reptiles are finally showing their true colors. Researchers investigated skin remnants from ancient leatherback turtles and ichthyosaurs and mosasaurs, which resembled fish. The researchers found that all three creatures were covered in black skin or scales, with reason: The coloration may have helped camouflage them and protect them from UV rays, and may also have acted as a method of temperature control, grabbing the sun's heat much like black asphalt does in the sunshine, lead author Johan Lindgren explains to LiveScience. The scientists probed the fossil samples using "complex techniques" including energy-dispersive X-ray microanalysis; they found the appearance of "oval bodies" that were verified as melanosomes. The Los Angeles Times explains that eumelanin was most heavily present in these pigment packets; it results in black and gray color. "Every living animal out there has eumelanin, so that by itself is not surprising," says Lindgren. "What is surprising is the sheer concentration of these fossilized melanosomes." In the future, similar techniques might be used to figure out the coloration of land animals, too, he noted. |
Some Trader Joe's pistachios, dated between 2016 OCT 27 and 2016 NOV 04, are being recalled over possible salmonella contamination.
At least 11 people have been sickened and two hospitalized resulting from a multi-state salmonella outbreak linked to pistachios.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that the California-based company Wonderful Pistachios issued the recall voluntarily due to concerns of contamination.
The pistachios were sold under the brand names Trader Joe's, Wonderful, and Paramount Farms and were distributed across the U.S. and in Canada.
"Wonderful Pistachios takes food safety matters very seriously and is working closely with health officials to identify the source of the problem," the company said in a statement.
The affected states include Alabama, Arizona, Connecticut, Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, Virginia, and Washington. The CDC says the investigation is ongoing.
Trader Joe's says the recall affects products it sold with "Best If Used By" dates between 2016 OCT 27 and 2016 NOV 04, along with the following code numbers:
Trader Joe's Dry Roasted & Unsalted Pistachios (UPC 0007 9990)
Trader Joe's Dry Roasted & Salted Pistachios (UPC 0007 9983)
Trader Joe's 50% Less Salt Roasted & Salted Pistachios (UPC 0011 1348)
Trader Joe's says it has not received any reports of illness related to these products.
Pistachios sold under the other brand names can be identified by a lot code number found on the lower back or bottom panel of the package. A complete list of the codes can be found on the FDA's website.
People began getting sick in December, the CDC reports, and those infected range in age from 9 to 69.
Officials say the products have a long shelf life and may still be in people's homes. Consumers are urged not to eat the pistachios and to either throw them away or return the nuts to the store at which they bought them for a refund.
Each year, salmonella is estimated to cause one million cases of foodborne illness in the United States, with 19,000 hospitalizations and 380 deaths.
Symptoms include diarrhea, fever, and abdominal cramps, which typically appear between 12 to 72 hours after the infection. Though the illness usually lasts four to seven days, sometimes the diarrhea may be so severe that patients need to be hospitalized, and it can lead to further complications and even death.
Children younger than five, the elderly, and people with weakened immune systems are more likely to have severe infections.
People who think they may be infected with salmonella should contact their health care provider. ||||| LOST HILLS, Calif. - Wonderful Pistachios announced that it is voluntarily recalling a limited number of flavors and sizes of in-shell and shelled pistachios due to a risk of Salmonella contamination. Salmonella is an organism which can cause serious and sometimes fatal infections in young children, frail or elderly people, and others with weakened immune systems. Healthy persons infected with Salmonella often experience fever, diarrhea (which may be bloody), nausea, vomiting and abdominal pain. In rare circumstances, infection with Salmonella can result in the organism getting into the bloodstream and producing more severe illnesses such as arterial infections (i.e., infected aneurysms), endocarditis and arthritis.
According to Center for Disease Control and Prevention, some of our products may be linked to an outbreak of Salmonellosis. The products, which were distributed through several retailers nationwide, and in Canada, Mexico, and Peru, can be identified by a 13-digit lot code number found on the lower back or bottom panel of the package. The specific products and lot codes are:
Product Description Brand UPC Unit WT Code Date / Lot Number Lot Code Location Roasted No Salt Inshell Pistachios Wonderful 014113910064 16oz 2016 OCT 26 -
1509123255601
1509123255701
1509123255901
2016 OCT 27 -
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1510123295301 Back of the bag - bottom right Roasted Salted Shelled Pistachios Wonderful 014113912044 225g 2016/10/27 -
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1510123332501 side box Roasted Salted Inshell Pistachios Paramount Farms NA 25 lbs 2016 OCT 27 -
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1510123332401 side box 50% Less Salt Dry Roasted & Salted Inshell Pistachios Trader Joe's 00111348 16 oz 2016 OCT 28 -
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Consumers may return these products to Wonderful Pistachios for a refund by sending the product back or bottom portion of the package that contains the lot code (see photo below) to Wonderful Pistachios, 13646 Hwy 33, Lost Hills, CA 93249. If consumers prefer, they may return the product to the store from which it was purchased for a refund. Consumers should discard the nuts prior to returning the entire package or lot code panel to their retail store.
Consumers with questions are encouraged to contact (844) 505-3844, 24 hours per day, 7 days per week.
### | – A big pistachio recall is underway after 11 people in several states were sickened by salmonella, reports CBS News. Trader Joe's is among those affected, recalling the following products: Trader Joe's Dry Roasted & Unsalted Pistachios (UPC 0007 9990) Trader Joe's Dry Roasted & Salted Pistachios (UPC 0007 9983) Trader Joe's 50% Less Salt Roasted & Salted Pistachios (UPC 0011 1348) The pistachios in question come from the California company Wonderful Pistachios and are also sold across the US under the names Wonderful and Paramount Farms. See the FDA website for the entire list of lot numbers. The company says it is working with authorities to identify the source of the problem, which has hit Alabama, Arizona, Connecticut, Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, Virginia, and Washington. |
BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - Human Rights Watch has asked Argentina to use a war crimes clause in its constitution to investigate the role of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in possible crimes against humanity in Yemen and the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Argentina’s constitution recognizes universal jurisdiction for war crimes and torture, meaning judicial authorities can investigate and prosecute those crimes no matter where they were committed.
Human Rights Watch said its submission was sent to federal judge Ariel Lijo. Neither Lijo’s office nor the office of Argentina’s public prosecutor responded to requests for comment.
HRW’s Middle East and North Africa director Sarah Leah Whitson said the international rights group took the case to Argentina because Prince Mohammed, also known as MbS, will attend the opening of the G20 summit this week in Buenos Aires.
“We submitted this info to Argentine prosecutors with the hopes they will investigate MbS’s complicity and responsibility for possible war crimes in Yemen, as well as the torture of civilians, including Jamal Khashoggi,” Whitson told Reuters.
Argentine media cited judicial sources as saying it was extremely unlikely that the authorities would take up the case against the crown prince, Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler.
Related Coverage Turkey says Saudi prince has asked to meet Erdogan at G20
The killing of Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist and a critic of the crown prince, at Riyadh’s consulate in Istanbul six weeks ago has strained Saudi Arabia’s ties with the West and battered Prince Mohammed’s image abroad.
Western nations are also calling for an end to the Saudi-led military campaign in neighboring Yemen, which was launched by Prince Mohammed, as a humanitarian crisis there worsens.
Cases taking advantage of universal jurisdiction have had success in the past, most notably in 1998 when Spanish Judge Baltasar Garzon was able to order the arrest in London of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet. ||||| Engaging in a vigorous debate over the definition of universal jurisdiction, as well as its scope and application when fighting impunity and achieving judicial justice, delegates cautioning that without clear limitations, the principle was open to misuse and abuse, as the Sixth Committee continued its consideration of the topic today. (For background, see Press Release GA/L/3569.)
The representative of Kenya emphasized that while the principle of universal jurisdiction is not new, its scope and application remain controversial and a source of concern. “Universal jurisdiction must not be allowed to become a wildfire, uncontrolled in its spread and destructive of orderly legal processes,” he warned. Without a carefully constructed definition, its application ran a risk of abuse by States.
The representative of India also flagged the potential misuse of the principle. While the crime of piracy is a classic example of universal jurisdiction and has been invoked for the prosecution of that crime, he also stressed that its application should be avoided when addressing acts that do not legally fall within its scope. Such misuse could be the result of the lack of conceptual and legal clarification of the term, he said.
Argentina’s delegate argued that the principle of universal jurisdiction is well-regulated by agreed norms as well as customary law. However, the danger lies in unlimited universal jurisdiction, which could create conflicts of jurisdiction between States. Individuals could become the subjects of politically motivated attacks. He applauded the approach of the Sixth Committee Working Group and its focus on clarifying the different aspects of the concept so that it could be better understood and defined.
The representative of Sierra Leone noted that since 2009, when the Sixth Committee took up the subject, delegates have sought to find a common understanding of the principle and to set it apart from the jurisdiction of international criminal tribunals. However, despite some progress, the Committee reached the point of inertia on the matter. The International Law Commission’s inclusion of universal jurisdiction in its long-term programme of work would enable that body to bring its known technical rigor to the question and offered new insight.
Nonetheless, Eswatini’s delegate highlighted the impossibility of a consensus definition regarding the principle. Emphasizing the concept of cultural relativism, she said it is a fallacy to believe that there is a set of global moral norms and that the courts of a country wishing to exercise its jurisdiction over an individual would know exactly what those norms were.
Still, Czechia’s delegate noted that a strict application of the principle of aut dedere aut judiciare (either extradite or prosecute) under relevant international treaties, working alongside the application of universal jurisdiction under customary international law, could contribute to deterring the most serious crimes. Furthermore, such efforts would enhance the fight against impunity, she said.
The representative of Mexico, highlighting the important differences between the principles of universal jurisdiction and the obligation to extradite, pointed out that 117 States have enacted legislation on universal jurisdiction with regards to war crimes. While many States differed in their position on universal jurisdiction when discussing the immunity of Heads of States and Governments, for Mexico, this immunity applies in foreign courts but not in the International Criminal Court.
The subject of immunities from criminal jurisdiction, South Africa’s delegate emphasized, should be approached with caution. Universal jurisdiction was a challenge to State sovereignty and should be addressed with political sensitivity. More so, cooperation and support were key in the application of the principle, particularly in cases of the most serious crimes. Because of this, her country is part of the international initiative to develop a convention based on mutual legal assistance and extradition for such crimes.
Also speaking today were representatives of Qatar, Peru, Liechtenstein, Paraguay, Singapore, Sudan, Gabon, Slovakia, Syria, Cuba, Egypt, Mauritius, Rwanda, China, El Salvador, Russian Federation, Libya, Morocco, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, United States and Uruguay.
The Sixth Committee will next meet at 10 a.m. on Thursday, 11 October, to continue consideration of the principle of universal jurisdiction and take up the subject of Administration of Justice.
Statements
FAISAL AL-THANI ( Qatar ) said that impunity is a cause behind the commitment of mass atrocities around the world and universal jurisdiction is an additional legal tool to prevent impunity. The legal gaps must be addressed in order to end impunity and protect the rights of victims. This is only possible through concerted international efforts to promote the rule of law and deter any person or party who thinks of committing such serious crimes. However, it is necessary to find the right balance to end impunity and not to abuse the principle of universal jurisdiction. On this basis, the gap should be narrowed on the divergent positions on the scope of the principle; it is an application of the four Geneva Conventions that obligate State parties to search for alleged perpetrators of violations against these Conventions.
ANGEL HORNA ( Peru ) said that universal jurisdiction allows the State in exceptional circumstances to exercise its jurisdiction against the most serious crimes. It should always be exercised in consistency with international law, he said, noting that atrocities continue to occur and frequently go unpunished. Universal jurisdiction could be an effective response to ensure accountability. This is particularly relevant considering that the victims of the crimes are usually members of the most vulnerable groups. Based on the Working Group’s unofficial document of 21 October 2011 and given the discussions undertaken, he said he would like progress to continue, specifically on the definition and scope and circumstances of application. As to the scope of the principle, the list of offences should not be exhaustive and there is no uniform criterion in relation to immunities of State officials.
SINA ALAVI ( Liechtenstein ), noting the existence of impunity gaps, said that the primary responsibility to prosecute perpetrators of the most serious international crimes rests with those States on whose territory the crimes were committed. Other jurisdictional links, such as the nationality of the perpetrator as well as the victims are also widely accepted. If those States are unwilling or unable to bring perpetrators to account, other States that have no direct connection should fill the gap based on universal jurisdiction. Taking note of the role played by the International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism for Syria, he added that while the path of the International Criminal Court remains obstructed by the use of veto, by invoking universal jurisdiction, a number of European courts have been able to prosecute perpetrators in a limited but meaningful way.
ENRIQUE J.M. CARRILLO GOMEZ ( Paraguay ), noting that his country accepts international law and a super-national order that guarantees the protection of human rights, said that Paraguay is a party to the Rome Statute. The criminal court of his country extends the scope of Paraguayan criminal jurisdiction to acts committed abroad against Paraguayan legal assets or where the perpetrator is of Paraguayan nationality. The principle of universal jurisdiction is also part of his country’s case law, he said, noting that judgement 195 of the Paraguay Supreme Court establishes the absence of a statute of limitations for crimes such as torture. Unfortunately, in Latin America and the Caribbean, dictatorial regimes persist, stealing hope from their populations, he said, emphasizing the validity of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
NATHANIEL KHNG ( Singapore ), stressing that universal jurisdiction does not apply to all crimes, said that that it is reserved for certain crimes whose abhorrent nature merits its application. The principle is not and should not be the primary basis for the exercise of criminal jurisdiction. “It is a last resort,” he emphasized, adding that it is intended to complement and not supplant other bases of jurisdiction under international law. Furthermore, universal jurisdiction is a principle of customary international law and should not be confused with the exercise of jurisdiction provided for in treaties or the exercise of jurisdiction by international tribunals.
MARTIN GARCIA MORITAN ( Argentina ), associating himself with the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), said that it is the duty of States to exercise their criminal jurisdiction against the perpetrators of the gravest crimes. That primary responsibility falls to the States where those crimes have been committed or States who have a connection, such as the nationality of the perpetrator or victims. When such States are unwilling, other States may fill the vacuum to ensure that impunity is not permitted. He underscored that the principle is regulated by agreed norms and customary law and is one of the essential components of the international criminal justice system. However, an unlimited universal jurisdiction can generate conflicts of jurisdiction between States, which means that individuals may be subjected to politically motivated prosecutions. He noted his approval with the approach of the Sixth Committee Working Group on the matter, which is working to clarify the different aspects of importance to better understand the concept.
OMER DAHAB FADL MOHAMED ( Sudan ), associating himself with the Non-Aligned Movement and the African Group, said that he took note of the report of the Secretary-General on the topic (document A/73/123) and that he looked forward to ongoing transparent and inclusive dialogue in the Sixth Committee; it is the most representative forum on the scope and application of universal jurisdiction. The aim of the Working Group is to reach consensus on an issue that is still a subject of consideration and discussion and a matter where opinions diverge greatly, particularly when addressing the scope and definition. The efforts of the General Assembly should focus on the scope of the principle, as well as on conditions to be satisfied to use it. This should be undertaken while respecting the sovereignty of States and their own jurisdictions, as well as their national systems that combat impunity.
ANNETTE ONANGA ( Gabon ), associating herself with the African Group and the Non-Aligned Movement, said that the Geneva Conventions contained detailed guarantees on human rights and prisoners of war. In addition, the Gabonese Constitution has established criminal accountability of senior State officials. The scope of universal jurisdiction should be limited and it must be complementary; it cannot run counter to the jurisdiction of national courts. Criminal accountability should be first upheld by the country in which the serious crimes were committed. This helps to bolster State sovereignty by enabling them to remain primary custodians of national and international rules. Universal jurisdiction can only be applied when a State does not intend to exercise its jurisdiction, she emphasized.
MICHAL MLYNAR ( Slovakia ), observing that universal jurisdiction has been a firm part of international law for centuries, noted that it has traditionally been applied over piracy, but recently gained relevance with respect to other crimes like war crimes, genocide and torture. The principle’s application does not cast any doubt on the traditional jurisdictional links based on territoriality or personality. However, in the absence of a truly universal framework for mutual legal assistance and the lack of universal acceptance of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, universal jurisdiction remains an important guarantee against impunity.
AMMAR AL ARSAN ( Syria ), associating himself with the Non-Aligned Movement and the African group, said that the existence of serious loopholes and irregular practices in international relations make it impossible to achieve the purposes behind the notion of universal jurisdiction. The current world order is unable to maintain rule of law in a fair and just manner because of selectivity and double standards. Expressing concern about the exploitation of universal jurisdiction, he reaffirmed the principal role of the International Court of Justice and rejected the suspicious tendencies of some Governments to broaden the scope of universal jurisdiction in ways that would impair the sovereignty of States. Some delegations continue to promote the “so-called IIIM [International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism]”, he said, adding that the non-consensual General Assembly resolution that established the Mechanism was not based on any legal grounds.
KRISTINA HORNACKOVA ( Czech Republic ) underscored that she recognized the primary jurisdiction of the territorial State to prosecute and punish grave crimes. However, when a State is unwilling or unable to prosecute, and neither the State of nationality of the perpetrator or the victim is prosecuting such crimes genuinely, every State is entitled to prosecute them without any territorial or personal connection to the crime committed. A strict application of the principle of aut dedere aut judiciare under relevant international treaties, as elucidated in the judgement of the International Court of Justice in the case of Belgium vs. Senegal, together with the application of universal jurisdiction under customary international law, can contribute to deterrence of commission of such crimes and enhance the fight against impunity, she said.
UMASANKAR YEDLA ( India ) said that those who commit the most serious crimes must be brought to justice and punished. Procedural technicalities, including the lack of jurisdiction, should not come in the way of a State to prosecute offences that all States have condemned. The crime of piracy is a classic example of universal jurisdiction. For centuries, the international community has treated the pirate as an enemy of humankind. The principle of universal jurisdiction, invoked for the prosecution of the crime of piracy, has formed part of customary international law. It is now codified in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. He underscored that the misuse of the principle of universal jurisdiction should be avoided in respect of acts that do not legally enjoy such jurisdiction; the conceptual and legal clarification of the principle’s meaning is yet to emerge.
ANET PINO RIVERO ( Cuba ) said that the scope and application of universal jurisdiction is broad ranging. To ensure the principle is not applied when not appropriate the topic should be debated by the General Assembly, the supreme representative body of Member States. The principle should not be used in the politically motivated application by courts in developed countries against persons from developing countries when there is no basis in international treaties. She also condemned politically motivated laws against other States that have harmful effects on international relations. International guidelines should be created to protect international peace and security. It is essential to respect sovereign equality, she said, noting that universal jurisdiction should not be used to the detriment of legal systems that exist throughout the world. Nor should it be used in a selective form for political purposes contrary to international law.
MOHAMED EL SHINAWY ( Egypt ), associating himself with the Non-Aligned Movement, underlined the importance of universal jurisdiction in combatting impunity. Ongoing discussions are taking place in Egypt to add serious crimes, including crimes against humanity and war crimes, into the national legislations. Universal jurisdiction is complementary to national jurisdiction, which is the primary instrument to prosecute crimes committed on national territory. Greater attention should be afforded to complete legislative reforms on the national and regional levels that respect the principle of national ownership. He stressed the importance of applying the principle independently and without politicization. The relevant rules of international law must be respected, as must the rulings of the International Court of Justice and the immunities enjoyed by presidents of States and high-level officials.
RISHY BUKOREE ( Mauritius ), associating himself with the Non-Aligned Movement and the African Group, said that universal jurisdiction is a well-established principle in international law. It is essential that the sovereign equality and territorial integrity of States is respected when the principle is applied. Also stressing the importance of abiding by the principle of immunity for Heads of States and Governments, he added that political activism by the judiciary to pick and choose leaders to be investigated and prosecuted creates a poor impression of equality before the law. Reminding delegates that universal jurisdiction is a final recourse for victims of grave international crimes, he highlighted Article 21 of the United Nations Charter and its emphasis on State sovereignty.
ROMI BRAMMER ( South Africa ), associating herself with the Non-Aligned Movement and the African Group, acknowledged that while universal jurisdiction is an important tool through which impunity can be curbed, there is a lack of uniformity in its application. Her Government has enacted legislation that provides for universal jurisdiction over certain crimes, providing the accused is present in the country to be prosecuted. However, it also allows for anticipatory investigations to be carried out without the accused’s presence. That, however, can place immense burden on criminal justice systems. In order to successfully prosecute the accused, cooperation and support must be provided, including evidence sharing. As such, South Africa is involved in the international initiative to develop a multilateral convention focused on mutual legal assistance and extradition for serious crimes. Universal jurisdiction presents a challenge to State sovereignty and territorial integrity and should be addressed with political sensitivity, she said, also noting that the heavily debated and sensitive topic of immunities from criminal jurisdiction should also be approached with caution.
NIMATULAI BAH-CHANG ( Sierra Leone ), associating herself with the Non-Aligned Movement and the African Group, said that her country’s domestic law recognizes universal jurisdiction for grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions and Additional Protocol I. Since the Committee took up the issue of universal jurisdiction in 2009, delegations have sought to forge a common understanding of the universality of the principle and to distinguish it from related concepts such as the jurisdiction of international criminal tribunals and the extraterritorial application of national laws. Although some progress had been made over the years, it seems the Committee has reached the point of inertia. She welcomed the decision of the International Law Commission to place this topic on its long-term programme of work. The Commission is positioned to bring its known technical rigor to the question of the “extent of application” of universal jurisdiction and their draft guidelines and draft conclusions on the principle could assist the Sixth Committee. In the same vein, the consideration of this topic in other forums should not negate discussions in the Committee.
PABLO ARROCHA ( Mexico ), recalling that previous debates had clarified the differences between the principles of universal jurisdiction, international criminal jurisdiction and the obligation to extradite, noted that 117 States have legislation on universal jurisdiction regarding war crimes. In 2017, at least 20 cases have been initiated in national courts based on this principle. However, States diverge in their position when addressing the relationship between universal jurisdiction and the immunity of Heads of States and Governments. For Mexico, he said, this immunity does apply in foreign courts that seek to apply universal jurisdiction but does not apply in the International Criminal Court. He also welcomed the inclusion of this topic on the International Law Commission’s long-term programme of work.
THOMAS AMOLO, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Kenya , associating with the Non-Aligned Movement and the African Group, reaffirmed his country’s commitment to the rule of law and fighting impunity. While the principle of universal jurisdiction is not new, the scope and application of the principle, on the basis of domestic legal rules and emerging judicial practices, is controversial and a source of legitimate concern. “Universal jurisdiction must not be allowed to become a wildfire, uncontrolled in its spread and destructive of orderly legal processes,” he said, adding that if not carefully defined and regulated within the acceptable norms of international law, the unilateral application of the principle can be abused by States.
ROBERT KAYINAMURA ( Rwanda ), associating himself with the African Group and the Non-Aligned Movement, said that while the principle of universal jurisdiction has been cited as vital to the fight against impunity, a large number of the key masterminds of the Rwanda 1994 genocide against the Tutsi remain free around the world, enjoying the impunity the principle was intended to end. He commended the countries in Europe, as well as the United States and Canada, which had brought to justice, prosecuted or extradited the most wanted genocide perpetrators and had not allowed their countries to be a safe haven for criminals. On the other hand, some countries have been victims of the abusive misuse of the principle, he said, adding that this trend continues. As a result, the international criminal justice system is in a credibility crisis. The international community must be alert to the motives of some political lawyers and judges that are behind politically motivated universal jurisdiction cases. Some lone judges have consistently disregarded normal international justice mechanisms and accorded themselves the right to extend national jurisdiction to weaker nations, holding them to ransom under the guise of international justice. None have been held accountable for their actions.
LI JIUYE ( China ) recalled that during past discussions of the Sixth Committee, Member States all acknowledged the importance of fighting impunity and achieving judicial justice. However, they diverged on the applicability of universal jurisdiction and on the conditions required for such application in circumstances other than piracy. So far, there are no widely recognized rules of customary international law on the subject. Universal jurisdiction is neither tantamount to the obligation of aut dedere aut judicare in treaties, nor to jurisdiction of current international judiciary organs expressly mandated by treaties or other legal instruments. Considering the tremendous differences among Member States on the topic, the dire prospects of reaching consensus in the near future and the 2018 decision by the International Law Commission to include the subject in its long-term work programme, he suggested that Member States seriously ponder the necessity of continuing deliberations on the item in the Committee.
RUBEN ESCALANTE ( El Salvador ), associating himself with CELAC, said that despite the current extent of universal jurisdiction’s scope, he noted the gap between the principle and its effective application. States incorporate it into their domestic legislation in different ways. It is important to focus on national means to implement the principle. That ensures that the national legal entities of States can exercise their jurisdiction when addressing grave crimes against humankind. His Government supports the establishment of clear rules on the reasonable exercise of universal jurisdiction and his country’s Constitution provides that international treaties also constitute domestic laws; they come into force through the provisions of the instrument in question. El Salvador has ratified the Geneva Convention of 1949 and its Protocols that provide for universal jurisdiction regarding grave crimes like torture or inhumane treatment. It has also ratified the Rome Statute, which is a landmark for the exercise of universal jurisdiction by the International Criminal Court for the most serious crimes.
MAXIM MUSIKHIN ( Russian Federation ) pointed out that the data in the report of the Secretary-General attests to the fundamental divergent approaches that exist on the concept of universal jurisdiction. The arbitrary exercise and abuse of the concept is likely to move the international community away from the ideals of national sovereignty and push it to interference in national affairs. He also noted that it is premature to include this topic in the International Law Commission’s current programme of work, voicing his agreement with the African Group that the forum for discussing the principle should be the Sixth Committee. The exercise of universal jurisdiction should be in line with the norms of customary international law, particularly regarding the immunity of State officials. There are other instruments to combat that issue, he said.
YOUSSEF SALEH IBRAHIM SALEH ( Libya ), associating himself with the Non-Aligned Movement and the African Group, reaffirmed that the aim of universal jurisdiction is noble. However, it is premature to accept it as international law since, among other reasons, there is a lack of agreement on the type of crime to be included. “Violating the principles of the United Nations Charter will not help the international community to achieve its goal of combating impunity,” he stressed, adding that such misuse would facilitate the politicization of the international judicial system. Libyan citizens are able to access all legal bodies and courts and the trials are fair, he said, adding that the implementation of national laws is proof of the country’s national sovereignty.
HASSAN LASRI ( Morocco ), noting that universal jurisdiction targets crimes considered the worst in international law, said that it should not deviate from the classic rules of international criminal law. Noting his country’s accession to the Optional Protocol of the Convention Against Torture, he said that the amended and consolidated version of the Moroccan criminal code defines and criminalizes torture and human trafficking. Further, the Government has established national prevention mechanisms to combat those crimes. While Moroccan law does not recognize the principle of universal jurisdiction, it also does not have provisions that hamper its application. Draft criminal code law 10, currently being considered in the Parliament, stipulates the criminalization of three main criminal categories: genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. Nevertheless, he emphasized, the exercise of the principle of universal jurisdiction should be rational and in line with international law.
MELUSI M. MASUKU ( Eswatini ), associating himself with the Non-Aligned Movement and the African Group, said that the principle of universal jurisdiction carries with it noble intent. However, it is not a principle that operates in isolation of, nor to the exclusion of, other international norms and principles. Voicing concern about the apparent selectiveness of its use, he noted that the current application of universal jurisdiction has been influenced heavily by a political slant. A greater interrogation of the uncertain scope and application of the principle and its abuse is needed as there are no agreed international moral standards. Highlighting cultural relativism, he added that it is a fallacy to believe that there is a set of global moral norms and that the courts of a country that wishes to exercise its jurisdiction over a particular individual would know with certainty what those norms might be.
GEORGI PANAYOTOV ( Bulgaria ) noted the importance of the shared responsibility of national jurisdictions and permanent or ad hoc international courts, despite their somewhat limited field of action. His Government continues to address the relevant issues and call attention to the need for international cooperation in dealing with impunity. On many occasions, European Union member States have pledged and undertaken measures to prevent Europe’s territory from becoming a safe haven for perpetrators of the gravest crimes. There is no doubt that the principle of universal jurisdiction has a role to play in the prosecution of the most heinous crimes of international concern. However, resorting to this principle is still considered a political act which can and does affect international relations. True international justice can only be achieved through dedicated and consistent policy lines focused on preserving common fundamental values.
MARIUS BONGO ( Burkina Faso ), associating himself with the African Group and the Non-Aligned Movement, underscored that universal jurisdiction is a necessity in combating impunity, adding that his Government is always in favour of initiatives seeking to improve national and international mechanisms to deter these most serious crimes. Such crimes that go unpunished are a threat to peace and security. It is a moral question and a moral duty to combat impunity and ensure justice by punishing the perpetrators of the most serious crimes wherever they are located, as well as to provide reparation to the victims of these crimes. Burkina Faso is a State party to the Statute of Rome. In 2009, it adopted a law determining the jurisdiction and procedures for the implementation of the Rome Statute in its courts. His country would not be a refuge for major criminals seeking a haven to ensure impunity. The application of the principle resides in national laws and the politicization of the principle. Its implementation must be done within a transparent international framework.
JULIAN SIMCOCK ( United States ) said that, despite the importance of the issue of universal jurisdiction and its long history as a part of international law relating to piracy, basic questions remain as to how jurisdiction should be exercised in relation to universal crimes, as well as States’ views and practices related to the topic. There have been lengthy, thoughtful discussions on a variety of important topics regarding universal jurisdiction since the Sixth Committee took up the issue. The submissions made by States, the work of the Working Group and the reports of the Secretary-General have been extremely useful in helping to identify differences of opinion among States as well as points of consensus. ||||| Argentinian prosecutors are considering charging Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, with war crimes and torture if he flies to Buenos Aires for the G20 summit this week.
The move comes after the advocacy group Human Rights Watch wrote to a federal prosecutor arguing that the Argentinian courts should invoke a universal jurisdiction statute in Argentinian law, to seek prosecution of the Prince Mohammed for mass civilian casualties caused by the Saudi-led coalition’s campaign in Yemen, and for the torture of Saudi citizens, including the Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, who was killed in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on 2 October.
The writ presented by Human Rights Watch was received at the court of the federal judge Ariel Lijo, who forwarded it to the federal prosecutor, Ramiro González.
The prosecutor must now decide if the principle of universal jurisdiction, enshrined in Argentina’s constitution, applies in the case of the crown prince.
Judicial sources were quoted as saying that the likelihood that this will happen “is very difficult”, the newspaper Clarín reported, adding that Khashoggi’s murder might not qualify as a “crime against human rights”. However, the HRW submission is based on a wider pattern of torture as well as military operations in Yemen.
Saudi prince's presence at G20 offers leaders a photo op to dread – will he go? Read more
Since March 2015, the Saudi-led “coalition has carried out scores of indiscriminate and disproportionate airstrikes on civilians and civilian objects in Yemen, hitting homes, schools, hospitals, markets and mosques”, a HRW statement said. “Many of these attacks – if carried out with criminal intent – indicate possible war crimes. The coalition has also imposed and maintained a naval and air blockade on Yemen that has severely restricted the flow of food, fuel, and medicine to civilians. Millions of civilians face hunger and disease.”
A source from President Mauricio Macri’s office on Monday declined to comment on the request for Prince Mohammed’s arrest should he land on Argentinian soil.
“We can make no comment on that. All we can say is that Mohammed bin Salman’s attendance remains confirmed, we have received no contrary information so far,” the source told the Guardian.
But a spokesperson for the foreign minister, Jorge Faurie, said that the attempt would be unlikely to succeed.
“We don’t believe the court presentation by Human Rights Watch will prosper. Mohammed bin Salman will be protected by diplomatic immunity and he is also travelling in his official status as representative of a foreign head of state.
“Besides, cases involving diplomatic immunity can only be decided by the supreme court and his visit will be too brief for it to reach the court. So for the time being his attendance will go ahead as scheduled. The case is in the hands of the court and the government will not interfere with it,” the spokesperson said.
Kenneth Roth, HRW’s executive director, said in a written statement: “Argentine prosecutorial authorities should scrutinise Mohammed bin Salman’s role in possible war crimes committed by the Saudi-led coalition since 2015 in Yemen.
“The crown prince’s attendance at the G20 Summit in Buenos Aires could make the Argentine courts an avenue of redress for victims of abuses unable to seek justice in Yemen or Saudi Arabia.”
The prince is on the guest list for the two-day summit which starts on Friday, and Donald Trump has said he is prepared to meet him, despite growing opposition in Congress to US military support for Saudi Arabia, and its campaign of aerial bombing and economic strangulation in Yemen. More than 50,000 people are estimated to have been killed in the war so far, and the Save the Children charity has said a further 85,000 children may have died from starvation. | – Mohammed bin Salman has a very good reason to skip the G20 summit in Buenos Aires this week. Should he arrive as planned on Friday, Argentine prosecutors are considering charging Saudi Arabia's crown prince with war crimes and torture related to mass civilian casualties in military operations in Yemen, as well as the Oct. 2 murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, reports the Guardian. Human Rights Watch has argued the universal jurisdiction statute in Argentine law should be used to prosecute the crown prince, in a request received by federal prosecutor Ramiro González. He must now decide if the constitutional definition of universal jurisdiction—which generally allows states to claim authority over crimes committed elsewhere—applies. It's not an easy question; the UN has been debating the definition of universal jurisdiction since 2009, with Argentina's delegate recently acknowledging the risk of politically motivated attacks. HRW notes "indiscriminate and disproportionate airstrikes on civilians and civilian objects" by the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen "indicate possible war crimes … if carried out with criminal intent." The group also mentions a blockade that's left the country of 28 million on the brink of famine. The crown prince's trip to Buenos Aires "could make the Argentine courts an avenue of redress for victims of abuses unable to seek justice in Yemen or Saudi Arabia," its executive director adds. Still, the crown prince remained confirmed to attend the G20 as of Monday, with local media describing a case against him as unlikely, per Reuters. (President Trump has defended him.) |
FILE - This Dec. 21, 2016, file photo shows the New York Stock Exchange. Stock indexes are mostly lower in early trading on Wall Street as investors weigh the latest batch of corporate quarterly earnings... (Associated Press)
FILE - This Dec. 21, 2016, file photo shows the New York Stock Exchange. Stock indexes are mostly lower in early trading on Wall Street as investors weigh the latest batch of corporate quarterly earnings reports. Losses in technology companies outweighed gains in banks and other sectors early Thursday,... (Associated Press)
FILE - This Dec. 21, 2016, file photo shows the New York Stock Exchange. Stock indexes are mostly lower in early trading on Wall Street as investors weigh the latest batch of corporate quarterly earnings reports. Losses in technology companies outweighed gains in banks and other sectors early Thursday,... (Associated Press) FILE - This Dec. 21, 2016, file photo shows the New York Stock Exchange. Stock indexes are mostly lower in early trading on Wall Street as investors weigh the latest batch of corporate quarterly earnings... (Associated Press)
NEW YORK (AP) — The latest on developments in financial markets (all times local):
4 p.m.
A steep drop in Facebook pulled technology stocks lower on Wall Street, even as other sectors climbed.
Facebook plummeted 19 percent Thursday after warning of slower growth ahead, erasing more than $100 billion in value.
Renewed optimism that the U.S. and Europe might make progress on easing trade tensions helped send several companies higher on Thursday. Caterpillar rose 1.5 percent.
Strong earnings reports also helped send stocks higher. Airlines, energy companies and consumer goods stocks rose.
Small-company stocks did better than the rest of the market.
The S&P 500 index slipped 8 points, or 0.3 percent, to 2,837.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 112 points, or 0.4 percent, to 25,527. The Nasdaq composite slid 80 points, or 1 percent, to 7,852.
___
11:45 a.m.
A steep drop in Facebook is pulling technology stocks lower, but other sectors are rising as investors hope for progress on trade talks.
Facebook plummeted 17.8 percent Thursday after warning of slower revenue growth. Ford fell 5 percent after announcing a big restructuring.
Qualcomm, Comcast and D.R. Horton rose after turning in solid results.
Gains in Boeing, 3M and Caterpillar helped lift the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Those companies would benefit if the U.S. and Europe make progress in defusing their trade fight.
The S&P 500 index slipped 1 point to 2,844.
The Dow gained 154 points, or 0.6 percent, to 25,569. The Nasdaq composite slid 54 points, or 0.7 percent, to 7,877.
Small-company stocks rose. More stocks rose than fell on the New York Stock Exchange.
___
9:35 a.m.
Stock indexes are mixed in early trading on Wall Street as investors weigh the latest batch of corporate quarterly earnings reports.
Losses in technology companies mostly outweighed gains in banks and other sectors early Thursday.
Facebook plunged 17.8 percent after the company reported that its user base and revenue grew more slowly than expected in the second quarter as the company grappled with privacy issues.
Homebuilder D.R. Horton jumped 6.9 percent after reporting solid quarterly results.
The S&P 500 index fell 5 points to 2,840.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 128 points, or 0.5 percent, to 25,543. The Nasdaq composite slid 75 points to 7,857.
Bond prices rose. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note fell to 2.96 percent. ||||| Facebook just had the biggest wipeout in stock market history.
Shares plunged 19% on Thursday after executives warned that revenue growth would slow as the company focuses on user privacy.
The sell-off vaporized about $119 billion in market value — the biggest single-day loss for any public company in history, according to Thomson Reuters.
For founder Mark Zuckerberg, the loss came to almost $16 billion, according to Forbes, which tracks billionaire wealth in real time. That dropped him from fourth to sixth on the list of richest people in the world.
Facebook (FB) Chief Financial Officer David Wehner said on a conference call with investors that Facebook is "putting privacy first" after the Cambridge Analytica scandal triggered a wave of horrible press, customer angst and regulatory scrutiny around the world.
Related: Facebook 'puts privacy first' and stock plunges
As an example of its new strategy, Wehner said Facebook will put more development muscle behind the company's Stories feature. That will put a drag on sales because Facebook makes more money on its core News Feed than its other products.
Facebook says it will spend a lot of money to accomplish its goals. Wehner said the company will invest billions of dollars per year improving safety and security after a bruising period of headlines about Facebook's role in enabling fake news and election meddling.
"We think that's the right thing to do for the business," he said.
Related: Facebook investors shouldn't panic
The company's previous worst single-day performance was July 27, 2012, when the stock fell 11.7%. The stock tanked that day after the company failed to convince investors that it could sell mobile advertising. Mobile now makes up 91% of the company's advertising revenue. | – A steep drop in Facebook pulled technology stocks lower on Wall Street, even as other sectors climbed, the AP reports. Facebook plummeted 19% Thursday after warning of slower growth ahead, erasing about $119 billion in value. It was the worst single-day loss for any public company in stock market history, CNN reports, and it cost founder Mark Zuckerberg nearly $16 billion, dropping him from fourth to sixth on Forbes' list of richest people in the world. Meanwhile, renewed optimism that the US and Europe might make progress on easing trade tensions helped send several companies higher on Thursday. Caterpillar rose 1.5%. Strong earnings reports also helped send stocks higher. Airlines, energy companies and consumer goods stocks rose. Small-company stocks did better than the rest of the market. The S&P 500 index slipped 8 points, or 0.3%, to 2,837. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 112 points, or 0.4%, to 25,527. The Nasdaq composite slid 80 points, or 1%, to 7,852. |
ROCKVILLE, MD, December 4, 2009-- Dr. Lisa Swinton McLaughlin, Senior Medical Officer for The American National Red Cross, has been recognized by Cambridge Who's Who for demonstrating dedication, leadership and excellence in healthcare administration.Initially a lawyer, Dr. McLaughlin specialized in child abuse and neglect cases. Her exposure to the medical issues of these children led her to apply to medical school. She brought her talents to the Red Cross in 2007 and has since been working on national policies governing blood collection and donor recruitment, particularly in minority communities, reviewing national safety projects, coordinating with various subcommittees, handling initiatives for clinical care services, and assisting in apheresis special projects. Dr. McLaughlin is proud to be associated with an organization that responds to people in crisis around the world. Dr. McLaughlin was selected for the Greater Baltimore Committee, The Leadership Class of 2009. She attributes her success to the lessons learned from her parents, her persistence, and the support of her husband Michael, her friends, family and mentors.Dr. McLaughlin completed her fellowship in transfusion medicine in 2007 at Barnes-Jewish Hospital at Washington University and her residency in anatomical and clinical pathology in 2006 at the University of Kansas Medical Center, from which institution she also obtained her MD in 2002. She is a licensed physician in the states of Maryland, Virginia, District of Columbia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky, West Virginia, North Carolina, Nebraska and New Jersey.In addition to her medical qualifications, Dr. McLaughlin received a JD and a Bachelor of Arts in United States and Modern European History and Secondary Education, both from Creighton University. Her professional affiliations include the Nebraska State Bar Association, The Missouri Bar, the American Association of Blood Banks, the American Society for Apheresis, and the American Society for Clinical Pathology. She also sits on the board of directors of REACH! Partnership. Dr. Laughlin looks forward to continued growth at the Red Cross.For more information, visit http://www.redcross.org Cambridge Who's Who is an exclusive membership organization that recognizes and empowers executives, professionals and entrepreneurs throughout the world. From healthcare to law, engineering to finance, manufacturing to education, every major industry is represented by its 400,000 active members. Cambridge Who's Who membership provides individuals with a valuable third party endorsement of their accomplishments and gives them the tools needed to brand themselves and their businesses effectively. In addition to publishing biographies in print and electronic form, Cambridge Who's Who offers an online networking platform where members can establish new business relationships and achieve career advancement within their company, industry or profession.For more information, please visit our site: Cambridge Who's Who ||||| Upgrade to full digital for only $3 extra per month. If you need assistance, call us at (844) 466-1452 or e-mail owhdigital@ggl.bhmginc.com .
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Learn more about Subscriber Plus. | – In her 56 years, Lisa Swinton McLaughlin racked up more accomplishments than most who live decades longer manage to do: A Creighton University law school grad, she worked for 13 years as a Nebraska special assistant attorney general—before heading to medical school and ultimately becoming executive medical officer with the American Red Cross in Baltimore. As a 2009 press release explained, McLaughlin "specialized in child abuse and neglect cases. Her exposure to the medical issues of these children led her to apply to medical school." But there remained one void: children of her own. McLaughlin married husband Mike in 1999, and spent a decade undergoing various fertility and in-vitro procedures. And then, last year, she became pregnant with twins. She gave birth to premature boys, both healthy, on Dec. 27, reports the Omaha World-Herald. Sons Jordan, 3 pounds and 3 ounces, and Dylan, 3 pounds, remained in the hospital when McLaughlin headed home four days later. Mike says she was in pain but attributed it to the cesarean section incision. Though she was able to hold the babies and "stroke them and love them," McLaughlin died of a bowel obstruction on Jan. 4. Death "wasn't even in her vocabulary," Mike tells the World-Herald. The 67-year-old plans to move back to his native Nebraska so that family members can help him raise the boys. (A Phoenix woman died before she could hold her newborn quadruplets.) |
Tsunami Debris On Alaska's Shores Like 'Standing In Landfill'
Enlarge this image toggle caption Annie Feidt for NPR Annie Feidt for NPR
Refrigerators, foam buoys and even ketchup bottles are piling up on Alaska's beaches. Almost two years after the devastating Japanese tsunami, its debris and rubbish are fouling the coastlines of many states — especially in Alaska.
At the state's Montague Island beach, the nearly 80 miles of rugged wilderness looks pristine from a helicopter a few thousand feet up. But when you descend, globs of foam come into view.
Chris Pallister, president of the nonprofit Gulf of Alaska Keeper, has been cleaning up debris that washes onto Alaska's shores for the past 11 years. Marine debris isn't a new issue for the state, but he says his job got a whole lot harder when the tsunami wreckage began arriving last spring.
"You're basically standing in landfill out here," he says, shaking his head in disgust.
He points to an area scattered with foam bits smaller than packing peanuts.
"This is what we're worried about. This Styrofoam is just going to get all ground up, and you can see there would just be billions and trillions of little bits of Styrofoam scattered all over everything," Pallister says.
Environmental Concerns
The trash isn't just an eyesore. Pallister says birds, rodents and even bears are eating the pieces of foam. Chemicals are also a worry. Among the debris, Pallister finds containers that held kerosene, gas and other petroleum products.
Enlarge this image toggle caption Annie Feidt for NPR Annie Feidt for NPR
Sifting through the mess, he picks up a small blue bottle and unscrews the cap.
"I have no idea what this was. It looks like dish soap maybe," Pallister says. "But there's thousands of bottles like this up and down the coast, from small household chemical items to big industrial-size drums."
Last summer, the state paid for an aerial survey to inspect 2,500 miles of Alaska's coastline. Elaine Busse Floyd, who's with the state's Department of Environmental Conservation, says there was tsunami debris on every beach photographed.
"They took over 8,000 pictures, and it was more widespread and in greater quantities than we even expected," Floyd says.
But, officially, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration recorded just five tsunami debris items in Alaska. The agency will only confirm an object if it has a unique identifier that can be traced back to Japan.
Limited Financial Support
Environmental activists and people like Pallister still maintain that the trash isn't being taken seriously enough.
So far, there has been little money for cleanup. Alaska's congressional delegation is working to get federal funds, but tsunami debris cleanup money was recently stripped from a bill for Hurricane Sandy relief.
Pallister admits that the tsunami debris doesn't have the visceral impact of the Exxon Valdez spill. There are no oiled otters or blackened coastlines. But the debris, he says, could be a big environmental disaster in the long run.
"In a lot of ways, it's a lot worse than the oil spill," Pallister says, "both in the geographic scope of it and the chemicals that are coming with it. And who knows what the impacts are going to be?"
If funding does comes through soon, Pallister hopes to be back on the beach this summer, slinging loads of debris and rubbish onto a barge and off the wild coastline. ||||| Researchers examine a buoy and refrigerator traced to the 2011 Japan tsunami. Debris like this is not normally seen in Hawaii, but the tsunami has sent a number of unusual items across the Pacific.
Oyster buoys and refrigerator parts set adrift by the 2011 Japan tsunami are now rolling in with the tide on Hawaii's beaches, a new field survey reveals.
Black oyster buoys and refrigerator parts — and even a full refrigerator — that trace back to Japan have shown up on the islands of Oahu and Kauai, said Nicholas Mallos, a conservation biologist and ocean debris specialist at the nonprofit Ocean Conservancy. Also on Oahu, researchers found a large 4-foot by 4-foot (1.2 by 1.2 meters) chunk of housing insulation framed in wood, a piece almost certainly sent into the sea by the devastating tsunami.
"These items have never before been seen on these beaches," Mallos told LiveScience.
The Japanese government has estimated the tsunami, which was triggered by an underwater earthquake in March 2011, swept about 5 million tons of wreckage out to sea. While 70 percent appears to have sunk offshore, the rest is floating in the Pacific Ocean. The first bit to show up in Hawaii, in September, was a barnacle-covered seafood storage bin.
Paradise of plastic
Exposed to ocean currents on every side, the Hawaiian Islands are a hotspot for Pacific junk. Some of this ocean litter originates from the fishing industry; most of the rest is consumer garbage from soda bottles, toys and other plastic goods, much broken down by the waves beyond recognition. [In Photos: Tsunami Debris & Ocean Trash in Hawaii]
At Kimalo Point on Hawaii's Big Island, tiny fragments of plastic penetrate as much as 3 feet (0.9 meters) below the beach surface.
"Many places on the beach, it's hard to differentiate the sand from the plastics on the surface," Mallos said.
Small plastic fragments are a huge problem on Hawaii's beaches. At Kamilo Point on the Big Island of Hawaii, where this photo was taken, such fragments may penetrate three feet down in the sand. Credit: Nicholas Mallos
The tsunami debris is different. For one thing, it tends to be larger, having only been in the ocean since March 2011, Mallos said. The debris also comes ashore in surprisingly homogenous waves. This summer, it was oyster buoys, Mallos said. Now, it's refrigerator parts.
The reason? Wind acts on similar objects in similar ways, according to research by Nikolai Maximenko of the University of Hawaii at Manoa's International Pacific Research Center. All of the tsunami debris went into the ocean at the same time, but some objects drift across the Pacific faster than others. That results in clusters of similar objects showing up in Hawaii and along the North American West Coast at the same time. [Tracking Tsunami Debris (Infographic)]
Debris hunt
Mallos and colleagues from the Japan Environmental Action Network, the Oceanic Wildlife Survey and the Japan Ministry of the Environment just completed a beach survey in Hawaii in search of this tsunami debris. They found about six or seven items, including the rusted Japanese refrigerator and buoys, which very likely came from the tsunami, Mallos said.
"We're not seeing a massive wave of debris wash onto the shore at one time, but right now, what it's been is a slow accumulation of debris here and there," he said.
The tsunami debris is a problem, but it's part of a much bigger issue, Mallos said. Hawaii is awash with plastic trash from all over the world; the islands also neighbor the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, an area of the North Pacific where currents push masses of plastics into a suspended gyre of trash. Long story short: The oceans are a mess.
The Hawaii survey turned up masses of this typical ocean garbage, including fishing nets and traps, Mallos said. One of the stranger items was an intact plastic trashcan from Los Angeles County with "Heal the Bay" stickers on it. Heal the Bay is a nonprofit group that works to clean up California's Santa Monica Bay. In an unfortunate irony, one of the group's trashcans got into the ocean and floated some 2,500 miles (4,023 kilometers) to end up on a beach in Hawaii.
"It really highlights the fact that trash travels very far," Mallos said.
The average person can do their part to reduce ocean trash, Mallos said. Because consumer plastics are a huge part of the problem, resolving to use reusable grocery bags, coffee mugs and water bottles can keep one-time use plastics out of the oceans. The Ocean Conservancy has developed a free app, called Rippl, designed to nudge users into a more ocean-friendly routine by reminding them to take those sorts of small actions.
The problem of typical ocean trash is inextricably linked to the issue of tsunami debris, Mallos said. Tsunamis aren't preventable, but regular ocean litter is, he said.
"To the extent we can keep regular forms of ocean trash out of the ocean, in the face of disasters, the ocean becomes more resilient and better equipped to deal with the debris," he said.
The new survey was funded by the Environmental Restoration and Conservation Agency of Japan.
Follow Stephanie Pappas on Twitter @sipappas or LiveScience @livescience. We're also on Facebook & Google+. ||||| Debris from the tsunami that struck Japan two years ago is building up on West Coast beaches, with everything from soccer balls to floating docks drifting ashore from Alaska to California.
Peter Barratt, operations manager for West Coast Helicopters, has been looking down on British Columbia’s rugged Pacific coastline for much of the past 30 years – and he has never seen as much garbage as he did on a recent reconnaissance flight along northwest Vancouver Island with Will Soltau, of the Living Oceans Society.
In a flight that took them along the remote outer coast, the two men said they saw garbage scattered on almost every beach for more than 100 kilometres. Mr. Barratt, a pilot with decades of experience on the coast, said it is clear large amounts of debris from the tsunami, which hit Japan in March, 2011, are coming ashore. He said large blocks of white Styrofoam are easy to spot from the air, but there is a lot of other less visible debris down there, scattered in with the drift logs.
“I think there’s three to four times the amount of the high floating stuff, like big chunks of Styrofoam, and then five to 10 times the amount of smaller debris,” said Mr. Barratt, a co-founder of West Coast Helicopters, based in Port McNeill.
“Of course there’s always debris on the beaches,” he added. “But I dropped down … and, holy crap, all of a sudden you see all this stuff. You can tell the stuff that’s been there for awhile because it’s dull and faded. The new stuff is shiny, and there’s a lot of it.”
Mr. Barratt said much of the debris is probably too small to be cleaned up, but he thinks something should be done to get the big blocks of Styrofoam off the beaches. “That Styrofoam is disgusting,” he said. “I’m sure some of that … you could haul it out of there.”
The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration states on its website that the public should be cautious in handling any debris that might be contaminated by chemicals or other toxic compounds, but radioactivity (released when the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant was damaged) is not of concern.
“There is no reason to avoid beaches,” states NOAA. “Radiation experts believe it is highly unlikely any debris is radioactive, and the debris is not in a mass.”
Mr. Soltau, manager of Living Ocean’s Clear the Coast marine debris program, said flotsam from the tsunami will be drifting ashore in B.C. for several more months. “I expect the worst isn’t over yet,” he said. “Based on what the oceanographers say, the debris will continue to come ashore … through next summer.”
Mr. Soltau said the helicopter flight was an eye-opener for him in terms of how much debris has already come ashore.
“Once the weather starts to improve we hope to get some eyes on the ground and do a more detailed analysis,” he said. “When you start walking among the driftwood and see all the flip-flops, the running shoes, the bits of broken-down plastic … it strikes you, the impact humans have had .”
Mr. Soltau said on one rocky outcrop the helicopter flight located an overturned Japanese fishing skiff, heavily encrusted with gooseneck barnacles, and nearby were two life jackets with Japanese writing on them.
“When we landed to examine the skiff it left me with a different feeling,” he said. “I couldn’t stop thinking about all the lives that were lost.”
The Living Oceans Society is encouraging beachcombers and others on the waterfront to document the locations of tsunami debris and is organizing volunteer cleanup drives.
The B.C. government is tracking tsunami debris in a co-ordinated effort with the states of Alaska, Washington, Oregon and California. An estimated 1.5 million tonnes of debris is eventually expected to hit the West Coast. One of the largest pieces was a 185-ton, 20-metre floating dock, which came ashore near Forks, Wash.
Report Typo/Error ||||| The beach on the southeast side of Montague Island stretches for nearly 80 miles of pristine wilderness. At least it looks pristine from a few thousand feet up. As our helicopter descends towards the shore, big chunks of white polystyrene foam, similar to Styrofoam, come into view.
“See how you can see all the white Styrofoam floats on this point out here? Big globs of Styrofoam? That’s all tsunami debris… And there’s more Styrofoam out here. There’s no question,” Chris Pallister, president of the nonprofit Gulf of Alaska Keeper, said.
The group has been cleaning up marine debris that washes onto Alaska’s shores for 11 years. And when the tsunami debris began arriving last spring, their job got a whole lot harder. Pallister has visited Montague Island nearly a dozen times since then. And by the time we land and step onto the pebble beach, he’s shaking his head in disgust.
“You’re basically standing in a land fill out here,” Pallister said.
Pallister points to an area scattered with foam bits smaller than packing peanuts:
“See what’s happening here? with all the crushed up Styrofoam? This is what we’re worried about, this Styrofoam is just going to get all ground up and you can see there would just be billions and trillions of little bits of Styrofoam scattered all over everything. And extrapolate that all up and down this coastline. It’s kind of an impossible job,” he said.
The trash is not just an eyesore. Pallister says voles, birds and even bears are eating the foam. He’s also worried about chemicals. Among the debris he finds containers that held kerosene, gas and other petroleum products. Even the little containers worry him. Sifting through the trash he picks up a small blue bottle and unscrews the cap to inspect its contents:
“I have no idea what this was. It looks like dish soap, maybe laundry detergent, but it’s empty, which is maybe not a good sign. There’s thousands of bottles like this up and down the coast, from small household chemical items to drum’s full of chemicals. Big industrial size drums,” Pallister said.
Marine debris is not a new problem in Alaska. But the Japanese tsunami magnified the problem. Pallister says the tsunami debris doesn’t have the visceral impact of the Exxon Valdez spill, with oiled animals and blackened coastlines. But he thinks in the long run, it could be a bigger environmental disaster:
“In a lot of ways its a lot worse than the oil spill. Both in the geographic scope of it and the chemicals that are coming with it. And who knows what the impacts are going to be?,” Pallister said.
Officially, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has recorded just five tsunami debris items in Alaska. But the agency will only confirm an object if it has a unique identifier that can be traced back to Japan. The state of Alaska does not use the same strict standard. Last summer the state paid for an aerial survey to inspect 2,500 miles of Alaska’s coastline. Elaine Busse Floyd is acting director of the division of environmental health. She says the survey identified tsunami debris all along the flight path from southern Southeast, up to Prince William Sound and out the Alaska Peninsula:
“There was tsunami debris literally on every beach that was photographed. They took over 8,000 pictures and it was more widespread and in greater quantities than we even expected,” she said.
But so far there has been minimal funding for cleaning up the debris. Governor Sean Parnell didn’t included any tsunami debris funding in his budget. NOAA is figuring out how to distribute a $5 million gift from Japan for cleaning up the debris. And Alaska’s Congressional delegation is working to get federal funds. But tsunami debris clean up money was stripped from a bill for Hurricane Sandy relief that passed this week.
View Larger Map
Back on the beach, as the waves crash in, Chris Pallister says the debris could have serious impacts on fisheries and subsistence resources.
“I don’t know if it’s being taken seriously enough. I don’t think a lot of people who are going to be impacted by it know how bad it is right now. And until that gets out, maybe not much is going to happen,” he said.
Pallister guesses it will take tens, or even hundreds of millions of dollars to remove the tsunami debris in Alaska. On this day though, he has to leave all the trash on Montague Island behind. We take off in the helicopter and head north along the beach. Pallister looks out the window at all the debris below and says, “it just goes on and on and on.”
Listen to the full story
Download Audio | – We're about a month away from the two-year anniversary of the earthquake that spawned Japan's devastating tsunami. Saying its effects linger far from Japanese shores is an understatement, per some recent reports: In Alaska: "You're basically standing in landfill out here," says the head of a nonprofit that focuses on ridding the coast of marine debris. NPR reports on a scene replete with refrigerators, ketchup bottles, and the more concerning Styrofoam bits, which birds, rodents, and bears have been eating. The exec says the garbage, which was observed in every beach photographed in a 2,500-mile aerial survey completed last year, isn't getting the attention it needs. Indeed, Alaska Public Radio reports that there wasn't any funding for debris cleanup included in the governor's budget, and such funding was removed from the Sandy aid bill that passed last week. In Hawaii: A refrigerator has also made its way to these shores, reports LiveScience. "These items have never before been seen on these beaches," says a marine debris specialist, who explains that they're washing ashore in what the site terms "surprisingly homogenous waves"—first oyster buoys, then refrigerator parts—due to the wind's effect. In British Columbia: Its coasts have a Styrofoam problem, too, says a helicopter pilot who has been observing the shore for three decades. "Of course there's always debris on the beaches," he said. "But I dropped down ... and, holy crap, all of a sudden you see all this stuff." An expert on the subject expects the debris to wash ashore "through next summer. I expect the worst isn't over yet." The Globe and Mail reports that the West Coast anticipates it will see as much as 1.65 million tons of debris. |
Published on Oct 2, 2009
Leonard Cohen - Hallelujah (Live In London) (Official Video)
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Lyrics:
Now I've heard there was a secret chord
That David played, and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music, do you?
It goes like this, the fourth, the fifth
The minor fall, the major lift
The baffled king composing "Hallelujah"
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you
She tied you to a kitchen chair
She broke your throne and she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Baby I have been here before
I know this room, I've walked this floor
I used to live alone before I knew you
I've seen your flag on the marble arch
Love is not a victory march
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
There was a time you let me know
What's really going on below
But now you never show it to me, do you?
And remember when I moved in you
The holy dove was moving too
And every breath we drew was Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
You say I took the name in vain
I don't even know the name
But if I did, well really, what's it to you?
There's a blaze of light in every word
It doesn't matter which you heard
The holy or the broken Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Maybe there's a God above
But all I've ever learned from love
Was how to shoot at somebody who outdrew you
And it's not a cry that you hear at night
It's not somebody who's seen the light
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
I did my best, it wasn't much
I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch
I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you
And even though it all went wrong
I'll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah ||||| Leonard Cohen, the hugely influential singer and songwriter whose work spanned nearly 50 years, died Monday at the age of 82. Cohen's label, Sony Music Canada, confirmed his death on the singer's Facebook page Thursday evening.
"It is with profound sorrow we report that legendary poet, songwriter and artist, Leonard Cohen has passed away," the statement read. "We have lost one of music's most revered and prolific visionaries. A memorial will take place in Los Angeles at a later date. The family requests privacy during their time of grief."
Related Inside Leonard Cohen's Late-Career Triumph 'You Want It Darker' After an epic tour, the singer fell into poor health. But he dug deep and came up with a powerful new album
"Leonard Cohen died during his sleep following a fall in the middle of the night on November 7th," Cohen's manager Robert Kory said in a statement. "The death was sudden, unexpected and peaceful."
"My father passed away peacefully at his home in Los Angeles with the knowledge that he had completed what he felt was one of his greatest records," Cohen's son Adam wrote in a statement to Rolling Stone. "He was writing up until his last moments with his unique brand of humor."
Before his death, the songwriter requested that he be laid to rest "in a traditional Jewish rite beside his parents, grandparents and great-grandparents," his rabbi Adam Scheier wrote in a statement.
"Unmatched in his creativity, insight and crippling candor, Leonard Cohen was a true visionary whose voice will be sorely missed," Kory wrote in a separate statement. "I was blessed to call him a friend, and for me to serve that bold artistic spirit firsthand, was a privilege and great gift. He leaves behind a legacy of work that will bring insight, inspiration and healing for generations to come."
Cohen was the dark eminence among a small pantheon of extremely influential singer-songwriters to emerge in the Sixties and early Seventies. Only Bob Dylan exerted a more profound influence upon his generation, and perhaps only Paul Simon and fellow Canadian Joni Mitchell equaled him as a song poet.
Cohen's haunting bass voice, nylon-stringed guitar patterns and Greek-chorus backing vocals shaped evocative songs that dealt with love and hate, sex and spirituality, war and peace, ecstasy and depression. He was also the rare artist of his generation to enjoy artistic success into his Eighties, releasing his final album, You Want It Darker, earlier this year.
"I never had the sense that there was an end," he said in 1992. "That there was a retirement or that there was a jackpot."
"For many of us, Leonard Cohen was the greatest songwriter of them all," Nick Cave, who covered Cohen classics like "Avalanche," "I'm Your Man" and "Suzanne," said in a statement. "Utterly unique and impossible to imitate no matter how hard we tried. He will be deeply missed by so many."
Leonard Norman Cohen was born on September 21st, 1934, in Westmount, Quebec. He learned guitar as a teenager and formed a folk group called the Buckskin Boys. Early exposure to Spanish writer Federico Garcia Lorca turned him toward poetry – while a flamenco guitar teacher convinced him to trade steel strings for nylon. After graduating from McGill University, Cohen moved to the Greek island of Hydra, where he purchased a house for $1,500 with the help of a modest trust fund established by his father, who died when Leonard was nine. While living on Hydra, Cohen published the poetry collection Flowers for Hitler (1964) and the novels The Favourite Game (1963) and Beautiful Losers (1966).
Frustrated by poor book sales, and tired of working in Montreal's garment industry, Cohen visited New York in 1966 to investigate the city's robust folk-rock scene. He met folk singer Judy Collins, who later that year included two of his songs, including the early hit "Suzanne," on her album In My Life. His New York milieu included Andy Warhol, the Velvet Underground, and, most importantly, the haunting German singer Nico, whose despondent delivery he may have emulated on his exquisite 1967 album Songs of Leonard Cohen.
Cohen quickly became the songwriter's songwriter of choice for artists like Collins, James Taylor, Willie Nelson and many others. His black-and-white album photos offered an arresting image to go with his stark yet lovely songs. His next two albums, Songs From a Room (1969) and Songs of Love and Hate (1971), benefited from the spare production of Bob Johnston, along with a group of seasoned session musicians that included Charlie Daniels.
During the Seventies, Cohen set out on the first of the many long, intense tours he would reprise toward the end of his career. "One of the reasons I'm on tour is to meet people," he told Rolling Stone in 1971. "I consider it a reconnaissance. You know, I consider myself like in a military operation. I don't feel like a citizen." His time on tour inspired the live sound producer John Lissauer brought to his 1974 masterpiece, New Skin for the Old Ceremony. However, he risked a production catastrophe by hiring wall-of-sound maximalist Phil Spector to work on his next album, Death of a Ladies Man, whose adversarial creation resulted in a Rolling Stone review titled "Leonard Cohen's Doo-Wop Nightmare."
Cohen's relationship with Suzanne Elrod during most of the Seventies resulted in two children, the photographer Lorca Cohen and Adam Cohen, who leads the group Low Millions. Cohen was well known for his wandering ways, and his most stable relationships were with backing singers Laura Branigan, Sharon Robinson, Anjani Thomas, and, most notably, Jennifer Warnes, who he wrote with and produced (Warnes frequently performed Cohen’s music). After indulging in a variety of international styles on Recent Songs (1979), Cohen accorded Warnes full co-vocal credit on 1984's Various Positions.
Various Positions included "Hallelujah," a meditation on love, sex and music that would become Cohen's best-known composition thanks to Jeff Buckley's incandescent 1994 reinterpretation. Its greatness wasn't recognized by Cohen's label, however. By way of informing him that Columbia Records would not be releasing Various Positions, label head Walter Yetnikoff reportedly told Cohen, "Look, Leonard; we know you're great, but we don't know if you're any good." Cohen returned to the label in 1988 with I'm Your Man, an album of sly humor and social commentary that launched the synths-and-gravitas style he continued on The Future (1992).
In 1995, Cohen halted his career, entered the Mt. Baldy Zen Center outside of Los Angeles, became an ordained Buddhist monk and took on the Dharma name Jikan ("silence"). His duties included cooking for Kyozan Joshu Sasaki Roshi, the priest and longtime Cohen mentor who died in 2014 at the age of 104. Cohen broke his musical silence in 2001 with Ten New Songs, a collaboration with Sharon Robinson, and Dear Heather (2004), a relatively uplifting project with current girlfriend Anjani Thomas. While never abandoning Judaism, the Sabbath-observing songwriter attributed Buddhism to curbing the depressive episodes that had always plagued him.
Gijsbert Hanekroot/Redferns/Getty
The final act of Cohen's career began in 2005, when Lorca Cohen began to suspect her father's longtime manager, Kelley Lynch, of embezzling funds from his retirement account. In fact, Lynch had robbed Cohen of more than $5 million. To replenish the fund, Cohen undertook an epic world tour during which he would perform 387 shows from 2008 to 2013. He continued to record as well, releasing Old Ideas (2012) and Popular Problems, which hit U.S. shops a day after his eightieth birthday. "[Y]ou depend on a certain resilience that is not yours to command, but which is present," he told Rolling Stone upon its release. "And if you can sense this resilience or sense this capacity to continue, it means a lot more at this age than it did when I was 30, when I took it for granted."
When the Grand Tour ended in December 2013, Cohen largely vanished from the public eye. In October 2016, he released You Want It Darker, produced by his son Adam. Severe back issues made it difficult for Cohen to leave his home, so Adam placed a microphone on his dining room table and recorded him on a laptop. The album was met with rave reviews, though a New Yorker article timed to its release revealed that he was in very poor health. "I am ready to die," he said. "I hope it's not too uncomfortable. That's about it for me."
The singer-songwriter later clarified that he was "exaggerating." "I’ve always been into self-dramatization," Cohen said last month. "I intend to live forever.” | – Sad night in the music world: Leonard Cohen has died at age 82, according to an announcement on his Facebook page. "We have lost one of music’s most revered and prolific visionaries," it reads. A tribute at Rolling Stone agrees with that sentiment, saying that only Bob Dylan has had a greater influence among the classic songwriters to emerge from the 1960s and '70s: "Cohen's haunting bass voice, nylon-stringed guitar patterns, Greek-chorus backing vocals shaped evocative songs that dealt with love and hate, sex and spirituality, war and peace, ecstasy and depression." One of his most covered songs is "Hallelujah." No details about the cause of death were released. (In a recent New Yorker profile, Cohen said he was winding down and putting his house in order.) |
I went into today's Apple's Watch event ready to be convinced. I wanted Cook and Co to settle the nagging unease I had around the timepiece, to show me this is a smartwatch worth owning.
Instead, I'm wholly disappointed. You know that empty feeling you get when your favorite sports team blows an early lead? Yeah, that's about how I feel right now.
I'm still impressed with the Apple Watch's design, don't get me wrong. I think it's one of the sleeker if not the sleekest-looking smartwatches around. And the ability to customize the actual hardware of the timepiece is something other watches should envy.
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I also appreciated how Apple played up the Watch's health and fitness features today. As someone who is constantly looking for external motivation to get my butt out of my desk chair, Christy Turlington Burns running a half marathon with an Apple Watch strapped to her wrist resonated with me. MAYBE I CAN DO THAT, TOO.
But then things flatlined. Kevin Lynch, vice president of technology at Apple, took us on a too-long journey through the airport, drew a poor excuse for a flower, talked to his dog groomer and viewed a garage camera to see who was entering his house.
I get the real-world-application demonstration, but the entire time all I could think was a) I don't want to look down at my wrist that often during the day and b) I can already do all of that on my phone.
And then came the kill shot: the price.
The Apple Watch Sport starts at $349 (£299, AU$499), the smaller stainless steel Watch eases users in at $549 (£479, AU$799) and the 18-karat gold Apple Watch Edition has an entry price of $10,000 (£8,000, AU$14,000).
Yes. $10,000.
Apple has fallen into its usual trap: creating a product that has all the bells and whistles with a price to match. Mind you, I think that's a bad thing - I don't have $300+ to spend on a watch. I'll turn to Fitbit to reach my fitness goals and pull out my phone when I need to tell the time or, you know, answer a phone call. If I do decide I want a smartwatch, there are far more affordable ones I'll buy instead.
I know, I know. Apple isn't in the business of making cheap hardware, and that $10,000 Watch isn't for the everyday buyer. But as someone who wants access to Apple products yet doesn't have the bankroll to do so, I can't help but feel ignored and pretty put off by Apple's strategy, one that's continued right into its wearables. You aren't making this smartwatch for me, Apple. And I don't like that.
We'll see if over time there's a price drop, and whether enough buyers find the upfront cost worth the investment. As more apps come to the Apple Watch, it could become useful enough that - if the price falls, too - I'll seriously consider buying one.
It's just that today Apple had a chance to get me on-board the iWatch train. It whiffed, and I'm still here, standing on the platform. ||||| Over its nearly 40 years of existence, Apple has addressed itself to many audiences: nerds, teenagers, parents, students, writers, photographers. So it’s interesting in 2015 to consider “Think different,” nearly two decades out. This requires some delicacy, because “Think different” is an ad, and ads are just propaganda with a profit motive and rarely to be taken at their word.
And yet. With “Think different,” Apple was at the very least addressing itself to people who were not incumbent. (That status quo, unnamed in the ads, was of course Microsoft—which made serious machines preferred by people of business.) Apple made technology for people who wanted to change the world, not the people who ran it.
Which was always a little rich, because Apple devices weren’t cheap. The Apple pitch was one of exceptionalism: Apple alone combined pre-existing technology with incremental advances and holistic, humane design. Buy an Apple phone/laptop/music player, and you didn’t get an amalgam of specifications, software, and capacity. You got an experience.
And even as Apple has expanded, even as it has sold more than 700 million iPhones, this has remained to some degree its pitch. Apple products are expensive but they’re within reach of a middle-class American, and they were loved as quality machines. The Apple developer Alexei Baboulevitch makes this point well, I think:
We loved our iPods and iPhones for their sleek design and smooth [user interface], even when people dismissed them as “expensive toys.” We knew our $2000 laptops were incredible for the price, even while people mocked us for not buying cheap, creaky Windows machines. When Android and Windows users poked fun at our platforms for lacking in free tools, we lauded the benefits of carefully crafted, paid-up-front software. We let our Apple logos shine bright because we were proud to be affiliated with one of the few companies that seemed philosophically bent on setting a new standard for mass-market products.
High quality for the mass-market: This was Apple.
Today’s messaging was a little different.
The company announced new laptops: They will be available in gold. It showed us an example Apple Watch user: She was Christy Turlington Burns, a supermodel who Apple’s video shows taking time off from philanthropic work in Tanzania to run a half-marathon around Kilimanjaro.
And even the less-obviously luxe marketing seemed tailored to an aloof elite: You can call an Uber with your watch now! If you forget to stand up every so often (perhaps because your trans-Pacific first-class Emirates seat is just so comfortable), your watch will remind you to walk around a little!
But these are details. Most will correctly fixate on the price of the most expensive watch, the 18-karat-gold Apple Watch Edition. Apple hasn’t released an upper price window for these watches, but Tim Cook mentioned on-stage Monday they started at $10,000. | – Yesterday's Apple event included big revelations about the Apple Watch, not the least of which is that the most expensive model will start at $10,000. And that's a shame, writes Robinson Meyer at the Atlantic. Considering that Apple has catered to "misfits and rebels" for much of its almost 40-year history and was fighting off bankruptcy less than two decades ago, this latest move feels "a little different," Meyer writes. During yesterday's event, the Apple Watch was showcased on the wrist of supermodel Christy Turlington Burns, who runs half-marathons around Kilimanjaro when she can get away from her philanthropic work in Tanzania. That's just one example Meyer cites of yesterday's marketing, most of which was "tailored to an aloof elite." Apple products have never been cheap, but they stayed "within reach of a middle-class American," Meyer notes. But the 18-karat-gold Apple Watch Edition is clearly out of grasp for most. "The prices grate," Meyer writes. "And they grate not because they're so expensive, but because they're gratuitously expensive." As the Edition model will "have the same innards" as the $349 Apple Watch Sport, "the only difference is that Apple is manufacturing a status symbol with the Edition." At TechRadar.com, Michelle Fitzsimmons gets how Meyer is feeling. "As someone who wants access to Apple products yet doesn't have the bankroll to do so, I can't help but feel ignored and pretty put off by Apple's strategy," she writes. Click for Meyer's full piece or Fitzsimmons' column. |
As Billboard’s current cover star Miley Cyrus prepares her next musical phase with new single “Malibu” (out May 11), let’s revisit her already impressive history on the Billboard Hot 100.
Cyrus first jumped onto the chart on Aug. 5, 2006, when “Who Said,” a tune credited to her Disney Channel alter-ego Hannah Montana, arrived at No. 92. The Hannah Montana franchise – in which Cyrus played a character named Miley Stewart, who secretly led a double life as pop star Hannah Montana – eventually sparked 20 Hot 100 entries, including the top 10 hit “He Could Be the One,” which reached No. 10 in 2009.
Montana aside, Cyrus made her Hot 100 entrance under her own name in 2007, when “G.N.O. (Girls Night Out)” debuted (and peaked) at No. 91. She quickly followed with her maiden top 40 effort, “Ready, Set, Don’t Go,” a duet with her father, Billy Ray Cyrus. The collaboration darted to No. 37 in February 2008.
After her top 40 breakthrough, Cyrus vaulted to the top 10 three months later with the No. 10-peaking “See You Again.” The tune marked the first of her eight top 10 visits to date, including the No. 1 “Wrecking Ball,” which topped the chart for three weeks in 2013. The song lands at No. 1 among Cyrus’ 10 biggest Hot 100 hits.
Check out the full list of the 10 biggest Miley Cyrus songs to date:
See more: Britney Spears | Bruno Mars | BTS | Drake | Ed Sheeran | Ellie Goulding | Fifth Harmony | Hilary Duff | Justin Bieber | Kelly Clarkson | Lady Gaga | Lana Del Rey | Madonna | Mariah Carey | Michael Jackson | Pentatonix | Rihanna | Selena Gomez | Shakira | Spice Girls | Taylor Swift | The Weeknd
1. Miley Cyrus - "Wrecking Ball"
Peak Position: No. 1 (three weeks)
Peak Date: Sept. 28, 2013
2. Miley Cyrus - "Party in the U.S.A."
Peak Position: No. 2
Peak Date: Aug. 29, 2009
3. Miley Cyrus - "We Can't Stop"
Peak Position: No. 2
Peak Date: Aug. 3, 2013
4. Miley Cyrus - "The Climb"
Peak Position: No. 4
Peak Date: May 2, 2009
5. Miley Cyrus - "See You Again"
Peak Position: No. 10
Peak Date: Aug. 3, 2008
6. Miley Cyrus - "23" (Mike WiLL Made-It featuring Miley Cyrus, Wiz Khalifa & Juicy J)
Peak Position: No. 11
Peak Date: Oct. 12, 2003
7. Miley Cyrus - "7 Things"
Peak Position: No. 9
Peak Date: July 26, 2008
8. Miley Cyrus - "Can't Be Tamed"
Peak Position: No. 8
Peak Date: June 5, 2010
9. Miley Cyrus - "Adore You"
Peak Position: No. 21
Peak Date: March 1, 2014
10. Miley Cyrus - "Ready, Set, Don't Go" (Billy Ray Cyrus with Miley Cyrus)
Peak Position: No. 37
Peak Date: Feb. 16, 2008
Miley Cyrus’ Biggest Billboard Hot 100 hits chart is based on actual performance on the weekly Billboard Hot 100, through the May 13, 2017, ranking. Miley Cyrus' songs are ranked based on an inverse point system, with weeks at No. 1 earning the greatest value and weeks at No. 100 earning the least. Due to changes in chart methodology over the years, eras are weighted to account for different chart turnover rates over various periods. ||||| Published on Dec 30, 2010
flourgon - we run things - redman int. 7'' from 1988
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Malibu - Live Blanket Clive Lloyd Jr - Love Thy Neighbour The Hax - Gimme The Wuk Sugar Minott - Wrong Move Chris Wayne - Play Anancey Robert Ffrench - Heat In De Place Frankie Paul - Peel Off (Jammys )Give Me The Sensi Yami Bolo - Jah Made Them All Noel Ellis King Kong - Agony And Pain I-Roy - Musical Drifter Lilly Melody - Fool Fool Sound Blacka Devon - Careless Parents Desmond Scarlett - Love A Nuh Something Fe Ramp With. Echo Minott - Rip & Run Off Super Black - Hit & Run Driver Ringo Paul & Determination - Just Say No Wayne Smith - Driving Me Crazy ||||| Published on Jun 19, 2013
Miley Cyrus' official music video for 'We Can't Stop'. Click to listen to Miley Cyrus on Spotify: http://smarturl.it/MCSpot?IQid=MCWCS
As featured on Bangerz. Click to buy the track or album via iTunes: http://smarturl.it/MCBAiTunes?IQid=MCWCS
GooglePlay: http://smarturl.it/MCWCSPlay?IQid=MCWCS
Amazon: http://smarturl.it/MCBAm?IQid=MCWCS
More from Miley Cyrus
Wrecking Ball: https://youtu.be/My2FRPA3Gf8
Can't Be Tamed: https://youtu.be/sjSG6z_13-Q
Who Owns My Heart: https://youtu.be/iVbQxC2c3-8
Follow Miley Cyrus
Website: http://www.mileycyrus.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MileyCyrus
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MileyCyrus
Instagram: https://instagram.com/mileycyrus/
Subscribe to Miley Cyrus on YouTube: http://smarturl.it/MCSub?IQid=MCWCS
More great Ultimate Hits of the Noughties videos here: http://smarturl.it/UNPlaylist?IQid=MCWCS
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Lyrics:
So la da di da di
We like to party
Dancing with Molly
Doing whatever we want
This is our house
This is our rules
And we can't stop
And we won't stop
Can't you see it's we who own the night?
Can't you see it's we who 'bout that life?
And we can't stop
And we won't stop
We run things, things don't run we
Don't take nothing from nobody
Yeah, yeah" ||||| A Jamaican songwriter is taking Miley Cyrus to court in a $300 million war of words.
Michael May, who performs as Flourgon, claims that the pop artist's 2013 party anthem "We Can't Stop" features lyrics that infringe on his own musical work. He filed a copyright complaint in federal court in New York on Tuesday.
The seven offending words: "We run things. Things don't run we." They were featured heavily in the chorus of Cyrus's song.
May claims he created the phrase for use in music in 1988, when he wrote the reggae track "We Run Things." His lyrics were: "We run things. Things no run we."
The complaint says that the 2013 song owes its "chart-topping popularity and its highly-lucrative success" to May's work. Without May's influence, it adds, "the entire theme of 'We Can't Stop' would be hollow in sound and impact."
May is asking the court to prevent the song from being sold, distributed or performed. Although court documents do not specify an amount requested in damages, his attorney, Stephen Drummond, told CNNMoney on Wednesday that $300 million "would be a reasonable compensation."
He is also suing the song's other writers and producers, Theron and Timothy Thomas and Michael Len Williams II. The Thomas brothers make music as Rock City, while Williams is known under his stage name, Mike Will Made It. Sony Music and its label RCA Records are also named in the suit. May is also suing Larry Rudolph, Cyrus' manager.
RCA declined to comment Wednesday. Representatives for Cyrus, the Thomas brothers and Williams did not respond.
Cyrus, who found fame as the clean-cut Disney idol Hannah Montana, drastically altered her look when she released "We Can't Stop." The song features references to partying and drug use, and Cyrus played up her controversial new image while promoting the song and its album, "Bangerz."
Related: Miley Cyrus sings her Liam Hemsworth love story
May argues that Cyrus was influenced by Caribbean music as part of this career move, leading her to seek out songwriters familiar with the genre.
According to court documents, the phrase at the center of the case is rooted in the "unique phraseology and linguistic combinations" of Jamaican Patois. The complaint also cites an interview Theron Thomas gave to the music magazine Vibe in 2015, when he said that "we incorporate Caribbean culture because that's who we are and that's the base of our creativity."
Jeff Peretz, an assistant arts professor at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, said he was skeptical of the case against Cyrus because the phrase was not specific enough.
"I think they're just throwing a shot in the dark," he added. "If she's influenced by this and likes the way it sounds and wants to use any of these tropes in her music, they're all fair game."
Copyright lawsuits involving lyrics are not unheard of, though.
For example, a judge in 2015 threw out a case against Taylor Swift. She had been a accused of stealing lyrics from a song called "Haters Gone Hate" for her hit "Shake It Off."
Related: 'Blurred Lines' jury orders Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams to pay $7.4 million
But the landscape for music copyright has become complicated in recent years. Peretz pointed to the case made against "Blurred Lines," the hit song from Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams.
A jury found in 2015 that the song infringed on the copyright of the 1977 Marvin Gaye song "Got To Give It Up." Thicke and Williams were ordered to pay millions in copyright damages, and Gaye is now credited as a songwriter on the track.
Peretz said the case made it more difficult to separate homage from theft. He added that its outcome could discourage young artists who draw influence for new songs from those who came before them.
"The lines keep getting blurred," he said. "If you can't start by emulating your heroes, how do you begin?" ||||| On March 13, Miley Cyrus was hit with a $300 million lawsuit by Jamaican artist Michael May, known as Flourgon, alleging that her 2013 song “We Can’t Stop” infringes on May’s song “We Run Things.” May claims to have created the line “We run things / Things no run we” for the reggae track in 1988, which bears resemblance to the line from Cyrus’ chorus: “We run things / Things don’t run we.”
May is also suing writers and producers on the song, including Theron Thomas, Timothy Thomas, and Mike Williams, as well as Cyrus’ manager Larry Rudolph, Sony Music and RCA Records. The suit claims that Cyrus’ track would not have seen the same success without May’s allegedly stolen work and the language of Caribbean music, particularly Jamaican Patois. May points to a 2015 interview with Theron Thomas, in which Thomas cites the influence of Caribbean culture on his music, to support the suit’s claims that this was no coincidence.
May’s attorney named $300 million as a compensation figure for CNNMoney, and May is additionally seeking the prevention of the song’s further sale, distribution and performance. He claims to have attained copyright protection with the U.S. Copyright Office for all elements of “We Run Things” last November.
“We Run Things” topped charts as a No. 1 single in Jamaica in the 1980s, while “We Can’t Stop” peaked at No. 2 in 2013. The No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 that year was Robin Thicke’s “Blurred Lines,” which itself garnered considerable attention over a copyright infringement case involving the 1977 Marvin Gaye song “Got to Give It Up.” More recently, a suit was filed against Taylor Swift for alleged infringement of a line from Sean Hall and Nathan Butler. In 2015, Marvin Gaye’s family won $5.3 million and ongoing royalties from the Thicke case. However, in Swift’s case, a judge decided that the lyrics in question were “short phrases that lack the modicum of originality and creativity required for copyright protection” and dismissed the case earlier this year.
Generally, strong similarity between multiple musical elements of two songs is necessary for a convincing copyright infringement case. In the Swift case, the judge claimed that the plaintiffs could not provide more proof of similarity besides two brief lyrical phrases. However in May’s case, cultural and thematic content is also at stake. The suit was filed in the U.S. District Court in Manhattan and is currently pending. ||||| 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. | – "We Can't Stop" is Miley Cyrus' third biggest hit, according to Billboard. And Marie Claire considers it one of her five best songs. A new lawsuit, however, claims it's not exactly hers. Jamaican artist Flourgon (real name Michael May) is suing Cyrus, Sony Music, and RCA Records for $300 million, alleging a line in the 2013 song—"We run things, things don't run we"—rips off a prominent lyric from Flourgon's 1988 hit "We Run Things," per Forbes. That line goes, "We run things, things no run we." May—who is also suing songwriter Theron Thomas, among others—cites an interview in which Thomas describes the influence of Caribbean culture on his music as evidence that the alleged theft was deliberate. Without the influence of Flourgon's song, "the entire theme of 'We Can't Stop' would be hollow in sound and impact," states the lawsuit, filed Tuesday in New York, per CNN. |
poster="http://v.politico.com/images/1155968404/201606/1716/1155968404_4973228749001_4973168863001-vs.jpg?pubId=1155968404" true Trump, in speech, attacks Clinton as 'world-class liar' The billionaire also invites Bernie Sanders' supporters to join his effort against her.
Donald Trump ripped into Hillary Clinton on Wednesday, painting her as a corrupt career politician who he said would enrich her allies and cater to special interests at the expense of the American people.
In an address where he rarely strayed from his prepared remarks, Trump accused the former secretary of state and presumptive Democratic nominee of being a "world-class liar" who "may be the most corrupt person ever to seek the presidency."
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Pointing to her past debunked claims about landing under sniper fire in Bosnia in the 1990s and her "pathetic email and server statements," Trump accused Clinton of corrupting America's economy, foreign policy and national security.
"When I see the crumbling roads and bridges, or the dilapidated airports, or the factories moving overseas to Mexico, or to other countries, I know these problems can all be fixed, but not by Hillary Clinton — only by me," Trump said from his Trump SoHo development in New York City, according to his prepared remarks. (Mexico is connected by land to the United States.)
Trump also looked to grow his coalition, and cut into Clinton's, with messaging that echoes elements of Bernie Sanders' appeal to voters. Trump ripped his rival's support of trade deals — a frequent target of Sanders — while also promising to create jobs and boost wages for blue-collar workers. And, in a near-verbatim lifting of Sanders' message, Trump complained of a system that's "rigged" against the American people.
In contrast, Clinton "has perfected the politics of personal profit and even theft," Trump said.
"She ran the State Department like her own personal hedge fund — doing favors for oppressive regimes, and really, many, many others, in exchange for cash," Trump said — allegation Clinton's campaign has repeatedly denied. "Pure and simple, folks, Pure and simple. Then, when she left, she made $21.6 million giving speeches to Wall Street banks and other special interests — and in less than 2 years — secret speeches that she does not want to reveal under any circumstances to the public. I wonder why."
"Together, she and Bill made $153 million giving speeches to lobbyists, CEOs, and foreign governments in the years since 2001," Trump said. "They totally own her, and that will never change including if she ever became president, God help us."
Clinton does not have the temperament, "or, as Bernie Sanders said, the judgment, to be president. She believes she is entitled to the office," Trump said.
"Her campaign slogan is 'I’m with her.' You know what my response to that is? I’m with you: the American people," Trump said to applause. "She thinks it’s all about her. I know it’s all about you — I know it’s all about making America Great Again for All Americans."
Trump used details from "Clinton Cash," the 2015 book by conservative operative Peter Schweizer, to hammer home his points.
The Clinton campaign has trashed the book as "false, right-wing attacks" funded by the Koch brothers, and it continued to push back on Trump's attacks Wednesday afternoon.
“The only thing Donald Trump offered today was more hypocritical lies and nutty conspiracy theories. This is more distraction from a candidate that cannot answer or dispute any of yesterday’s criticism of his business record," Clinton spokesman Glen Caplin said in a statement. "Economists on the left, right and center all agree his dangerous economic policies would throw us back into recession and hurt working families costing nearly 3.5 million American jobs, that’s a fact. Donald Trump continues to prove that he is unqualified and unfit to be president. Just like he shouldn’t have his finger on the button, he shouldn’t have his hands on our economy.”
The AFL-CIO, which has endorsed Clinton, only went so far as to give Trump credit for having "recognized some of the challenges working people have known for decades," Josh Goldstein, deputy national media director said, "but the truth is he doesn’t have a clue how to fix our problems, he would only make them worse.
Hammering the Clinton Foundation's acceptance of donations from the governments of countries with hostile policies toward women and gays, as well as claiming that Clinton's immigration policy "wants to bring in people who believe women should be enslaved and gays put to death."
"To cover up her corrupt dealings, Hillary Clinton illegally stashed her State Department emails on a private server," Trump alleged — though the department has said only that the server setup violated its records-keeping policies, while the FBI has yet to determine if there was any crime involved.
"Her server was easily hacked by foreign governments — perhaps even by her financial backers in Communist China, I'm sure they have it — putting all of America in danger," Trump continued. "Then there are the 33,000 emails she deleted. While we may not know what is in those deleted emails, our enemies probably do. So they probably now have a blackmail file over someone who wants to be president of the United States. This fact alone disqualifies her from the presidency. We can’t hand over our government to someone whose deepest, darkest secrets may be in the hands of our enemies."
He continued, "National security is also immigration security — and Hillary wants neither."
"Hillary Clinton has put forward the most radical immigration platform in the history of the United States," Trump said. "She's pledged to grant mass amnesty and in her first 100 days end virtually all immigration enforcement and thus create totally open borders for the United States, totally open borders."
Trump also alleged that Clinton "managed to almost single-handedly destabilize the entire Middle East" as secretary of state claiming that the Islamic State " threatens us today because of the decisions Hillary Clinton has made along with President Obama."
Hitting Clinton for her 2002 vote to authorize the invasion of Iraq, Trump reiterated his claim that he "was among the earliest to criticize the rush to war, and yes, even before the war ever started."
However, Trump told Howard Stern on Sept. 11, 2002, "[y]eah, I guess so" and "I wish the first time it was done correctly" when asked his position, as BuzzFeed News surfaced in February.
"But Hillary Clinton learned nothing from Iraq, because when she got into power, she couldn’t wait to rush us off to war in Libya," Trump said, in reference to her advocacy for the 2011 intervention that knocked out Libyan dictator Muammar Qadhafi.
Trump aimed high with his concluding remarks, vowing to offer a bigger, better future for the country than Clinton.
"Hillary Clinton’s message is old and tired. Her message is that can’t change. My message is that things have to change – and this is our one chance do it," he said. " This is our last chance to do it. Americans are the people that tamed the West, that dug out the Panama Canal, that sent satellites across the solar system, that built the great dams, and so much more. Then we started thinking small. We stopped believing in what America could do, and became reliant on other countries, other people, and other institutions. We lost our sense of purpose, and daring. But that’s not who we are. "
Vowing to "build the greatest infrastructure on planet Earth" and ensure the military "will have the best technology and finest equipment," Trump promised "massive new factories" that will "come roaring into our country – breathing life and hope into our communities. Inner cities, which have been horribly abused by Hillary Clinton and the Democrat Party, will finally, finally, finally be rebuilt."
"Construction is what I know," he said. "I say, nobody knows it better." ||||| Donald Trump’s long-awaited Hillary Clinton slam-speech arrived Wednesday morning. The presumptive Republican nominee issued his full-frontal assault on Clinton, lambasting her for being the "most corrupt person to ever seek the presidency of the United States."
It was an uncharacteristically calculated speech from Trump, who is known for his off-the-cuff bombastic stage presence. The presidential candidate repeatedly highlighted Clinton’s insider politics, what he called her "old and tired" campaign message, and pieced together his best "America first" arguments on immigration and isolationist economic policy.
"We have to go back to putting our American people first," Trump said. "We got here because we switched from a policy of Americanism — focusing on what's good for America's middle class — to a policy of globalism, focusing on how to make money for large corporations who can move wealth and workers to foreign countries, all to the detriment of the American worker and the American economy itself."
On Tuesday, ahead of the speech, Trump gave a Trump-style preview on Twitter, questioning Clinton’s judgment: "Hillary says this election is about judgment. She's right. Her judgement has killed thousands, unleashed ISIS and wrecked the economy," he tweeted.
Trump reiterated the sentiment Wednesday, basing much of his argument on Peter Schweizer’s Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich, by claiming that Clinton has used her political stature as "her own personal hedge fund."
"The book Clinton Cash, by Peter Schweizer, documents how Bill and Hillary used the State Department to enrich their family at America’s expense," Trump said. "She gets rich making you poor."
The speech signals a substantial shift in Trump’s campaign strategy. Trump has only recently begun a shift toward a more "presidential" general election image, one that he resisted even after being named the presumptive Republican nominee.
This week, Trump’s team announced Corey Lewandowski, formerly the presumptive nominee’s campaign manager, was no longer with the campaign. Lewandowski was known for his "Let Trump be Trump" campaign style, a strategy that was reportedly met with some pushback within the campaign.
"Her campaign slogan is ‘I’m with her.’ You know what my response to that is — I’m with you, the American people," Trump said.
The map we see every presidential election is pretty much useless ||||| Donald Trump: Clinton May Be 'Most Corrupt Person Ever To Run For President'
Enlarge this image toggle caption Mary Altaffer/AP Mary Altaffer/AP
Donald J. Trump, the Republicans' presumptive nominee for the White House, attacked his primary rival Hillary Clinton on Wednesday as "a world-class liar" who allegedly used her government power to pad her bank account and reward special interests.
"Hillary Clinton may be the most corrupt person ever to seek the presidency," Trump declared in a speech from New York, as he sought to change the subject after a string of bad news about his campaign's fundraising prowess and personnel moves by pointing the finger at Clinton's long record.
"Hillary Clinton has perfected the politics of personal profit and even theft," Trump said. "She gets rich making you poor."
His remarks relied, in part, on negative books by a former Secret Service employee, who cast doubt on Clinton's temperament during her husband's tenure in the White House, and another account, Clinton Cash, that explored a link between decisions by her State Department and money that allegedly flowed back to the Clinton Foundation.
Trump lambasted Clinton for the ongoing controversy over her use of a personal email server as secretary of state, which is under investigation by the FBI, and her misstatements about coming under attack in Bosnia, which Trump said "turned out to be young girls handing her flowers."
He also blasted Clinton for her positions on trade and blamed her for helping unleash "the Pandora's box of radical Islam." Trump reminded the crowd, which at points gave him a standing ovation, of the tragedy at the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, where Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans died in September 2012.
"No secretary of state has been more wrong, more often, in more places, than Hillary Clinton," he said. "Her decisions spread death, destruction and terrorism everywhere she touched."
Clinton's campaign responded by drawing a contrast between the barrage from Trump and her own speeches on economic policy and national security in recent days.
"While Hillary Clinton lays out her vision for an America that is stronger together with an economy that works for everyone and not just those at the top, Donald Trump can't help himself from rehashing and recycling more tired and old nonsense from books that already have been debunked," Clinton spokesman Glen Caplin said. "Rather than coherently defend his record or his plans, Trump will instead resort to peddling yet more discredited attacks from his 'look over there' campaign playbook."
Correct the Record, a rapid-response group that defends Clinton, said Trump's speech contained "outright lies" and accused him of repeating "conspiracy theories instead of actual facts."
Trump book-ended his remarks about Clinton's shortcomings with a version of his own vision for the highest office in the land. He mentioned "crumbling" American infrastructure and the need for more and better-paying jobs, describing himself as the only candidate to mount a turnaround.
"Her campaign slogan is 'I'm with her,'" Trump said. "You know what my response to that is? I'm with you: the American people."
"We will never be able to fix a rigged system by counting on the same people who rigged it in the first place," he added. ||||| New York (CNN) Donald Trump sought to regain control of his campaign Wednesday, turning attention away from the turmoil roiling his operation with a blistering denunciation of the character, career and qualifications of Hillary Clinton.
After enduring weeks of self-inflicted wounds, the speech was Trump's most professional political address since he became the presumptive nominee in early May. It seemed to fuse his volatile, off-the-cuff political style with a more traditional brand of political discourse that puts reasoned arguments before voters as they make their choice for President.
Speaking from a teleprompter, with occasional asides, Trump appeared to be road testing a more scripted, subdued style ahead of next month's Republican National Convention -- even as he was unsparing in his rebuke of Clinton.
The presumptive Democratic nominee is "a world-class liar," Trump said during a 40 minute speech in New York in which he slammed Clinton for everything from using a private email server to backing free trade.
"Just look at her pathetic email and server statements ... or her phony landing in Bosnia, where she said she was under attack but the attack turned out to be young girls handing her flowers."
Painting Clinton as the candidate of inertia and the unsatisfactory status quo, he called her message "old and tired."
"Her message is that things can't change," Trump said. "My message is that things have to change -- and this is our one chance to do it and may be our only chance to do that change."
In delivering the fiery speech against Clinton, firing campaign manager Corey Lewandowski and actively working to rebut Clinton's remarks Tuesday in real time, Trump's campaign is working to reassure Republicans the billionaire is up to the job. Republicans have expressed concern about and distanced themselves from his controversial comments of late and some GOP delegates are actively exploring ways to block Trump at the convention in Cleveland next month.
Clinton, who spent Tuesday firing off her own assault on Trump, hit back at his counter-attack during a visit to North Carolina, interrupting a speech on her economic policy to accuse the presumptive Republican nominee of attacking her because he lacks substance.
"I guess my speech yesterday must have gotten under his skin because right away he lashed out on Twitter with outlandish lies and conspiracy theories and he did the same in his speech today," Clinton said.
Photos: Donald Trump's rise Photos: Donald Trump's rise President-elect Donald Trump has been in the spotlight for years. From developing real estate and producing and starring in TV shows, he became a celebrity long before winning the White House. Hide Caption 1 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise Trump at age 4. He was born in 1946 to Fred and Mary Trump in New York City. His father was a real estate developer. Hide Caption 2 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise Trump, left, in a family photo. He was the second-youngest of five children. Hide Caption 3 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise Trump, center, stands at attention during his senior year at the New York Military Academy in 1964. Hide Caption 4 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise Trump, center, wears a baseball uniform at the New York Military Academy in 1964. After he graduated from the boarding school, he went to college. He started at Fordham University before transferring and later graduating from the Wharton School, the University of Pennsylvania's business school. Hide Caption 5 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise Trump stands with Alfred Eisenpreis, New York's economic development administrator, in 1976 while they look at a sketch of a new 1,400-room renovation project of the Commodore Hotel. After graduating college in 1968, Trump worked with his father on developments in Queens and Brooklyn before purchasing or building multiple properties in New York and Atlantic City, New Jersey. Those properties included Trump Tower in New York and Trump Plaza and multiple casinos in Atlantic City. Hide Caption 6 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise Trump attends an event to mark the start of construction of the New York Convention Center in 1979. Hide Caption 7 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise Trump wears a hard hat at the Trump Tower construction site in New York in 1980. Hide Caption 8 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise Trump was married to Ivana Zelnicek Trump from 1977 to 1990, when they divorced. They had three children together: Donald Jr., Ivanka and Eric. Hide Caption 9 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise The Trump family, circa 1986. Hide Caption 10 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise Trump uses his personal helicopter to get around New York in 1987. Hide Caption 11 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise Trump stands in the atrium of the Trump Tower. Hide Caption 12 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise Trump attends the opening of his new Atlantic City casino, the Taj Mahal, in 1989. Hide Caption 13 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise Trump signs his second book, "Trump: Surviving at the Top," in 1990. Trump has published at least 16 other books, including "The Art of the Deal" and "The America We Deserve." Hide Caption 14 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise Trump and singer Michael Jackson pose for a photo before traveling to visit Ryan White, a young child with AIDS, in 1990. Hide Caption 15 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise Trump dips his second wife, Marla Maples, after the couple married in a private ceremony in New York in December 1993. The couple divorced in 1999 and had one daughter together, Tiffany. Hide Caption 16 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise Trump putts a golf ball in his New York office in 1998. Hide Caption 17 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise An advertisement for the television show "The Apprentice" hangs at Trump Tower in 2004. The show launched in January of that year. In January 2008, the show returned as "Celebrity Apprentice." Hide Caption 18 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise A 12-inch talking Trump doll is on display at a toy store in New York in September 2004. Hide Caption 19 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise Trump attends a news conference in 2005 that announced the establishment of Trump University. From 2005 until it closed in 2010, Trump University had about 10,000 people sign up for a program that promised success in real estate. Three separate lawsuits -- two class-action suits filed in California and one filed by New York's attorney general -- argued that the program was mired in fraud and deception. Trump's camp rejected the suits' claims as "baseless." And Trump has charged that the New York case against him is politically motivated. Hide Caption 20 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise Trump attends the U.S. Open tennis tournament with his third wife, Melania Knauss-Trump, and their son, Barron, in 2006. Trump and Knauss married in 2005. Hide Caption 21 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise Trump wrestles with "Stone Cold" Steve Austin at WrestleMania in 2007. Trump has close ties with the WWE and its CEO, Vince McMahon. Hide Caption 22 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise For "The Apprentice," Trump was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in January 2007. Hide Caption 23 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise Trump appears on the set of "The Celebrity Apprentice" with two of his children -- Donald Jr. and Ivanka -- in 2009. Hide Caption 24 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise Trump poses with Miss Universe contestants in 2011. Trump had been executive producer of the Miss Universe, Miss USA and Miss Teen USA pageants since 1996. Hide Caption 25 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise In 2012, Trump announces his endorsement of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. Hide Caption 26 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise Trump speaks in Sarasota, Florida, after accepting the Statesman of the Year Award at the Sarasota GOP dinner in August 2012. It was shortly before the Republican National Convention in nearby Tampa. Hide Caption 27 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise Trump appears on stage with singer Nick Jonas and television personality Giuliana Rancic during the 2013 Miss USA pageant. Hide Caption 28 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise In June 2015, during a speech from Trump Tower, Trump announced that he was running for President. He said he would give up "The Apprentice" to run. Hide Caption 29 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise Trump -- flanked by U.S. Sens. Marco Rubio, left, and Ted Cruz -- speaks during a CNN debate in Miami on March 10. Trump dominated the GOP primaries and emerged as the presumptive nominee in May. Hide Caption 30 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise The Trump family poses for a photo in New York in April. Hide Caption 31 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise Trump speaks during a campaign event in Evansville, Indiana, on April 28. After Trump won the Indiana primary, his last two competitors dropped out of the GOP race. Hide Caption 32 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise Trump delivers a speech at the Republican National Convention in July, accepting the party's nomination for President. "I have had a truly great life in business," he said. "But now, my sole and exclusive mission is to go to work for our country -- to go to work for you. It's time to deliver a victory for the American people." Hide Caption 33 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise Trump faces Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in the first presidential debate, which took place in Hempstead, New York, in September. Hide Caption 34 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise Trump apologizes in a video, posted to his Twitter account in October, for vulgar and sexually aggressive remarks he made a decade ago regarding women. "I said it, I was wrong and I apologize," Trump said, referring to lewd comments he made during a previously unaired taping of "Access Hollywood." Multiple Republican leaders rescinded their endorsements of Trump after the footage was released. Hide Caption 35 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise Trump walks on stage with his family after he was declared the election winner on November 9. "Ours was not a campaign, but rather, an incredible and great movement," he told his supporters in New York. Hide Caption 36 of 37 Photos: Donald Trump's rise Trump is joined by his family as he is sworn in as President on January 20. Hide Caption 37 of 37
Trump went further than he has before in laying the foundations of a governing agenda, promising in his first 100 days in office to appoint judges to uphold the Constitution, to change immigration rules to give good paying jobs to Americans and to stand up to countries that cheat on trade.
He said he would cancel regulations that send jobs overseas, lift restrictions on energy production and pass a "massive tax reform" to create millions of jobs.
"There is one common theme in all of these reforms," he said. "It's going to be America first."
Trump also attempted to frame the kind of wider vision of national purpose that presidential candidates often attempt to give a more lofty thematic foundation to their campaigns.
He said he would get America working again and parents dreaming big for their children again and to help people believe in their country once more.
"We are going to make America rich again. We are going to make America safe again. We are going to make America Great Again," he said.
Lambasting a "rigged" political system dominated by special interests, Trump also stressed his outsider credentials and urged Americans to approach the general election as jurors.
"Come November, the American people will have a chance to issue a verdict on the politicians that have sacrificed their security, betrayed their prosperity and sold out their country -- and I mean totally sold out their country," Trump said.
Trump's speech aimed to dissect Clinton's personality and positions on issues ranging from trade and foreign policy to paint the former secretary of state as someone who is out of touch with workers and has enriched herself "at America's expense."
Clinton, he said, "may be the most corrupt person ever to seek the presidency of the United States."
Trump accused Clinton of using the State Department as a "personal hedge fund" while she enriched herself and her husband former President Bill Clinton by in effect peddling influence for cash.
Without citing evidence, Trump accused Clinton for instance of giving "China millions of our best jobs and effectively let China completely rebuild itself. In return, Hillary Clinton got rich!"
He tied what he said was Clinton's malfeasance while in office to an argument over trade deals such as the North American Free Trade Agreement that were ratified during Bill Clinton's administration.
He lambasted Clinton for her previous support of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, a position she has since reversed, and and argued she would enact free trade policies as president that would upend the U.S. economy.
"We will lose jobs, we will lose employment, we will lose taxes," Trump said. "We will lose everything. We will lose our country."
"She has betrayed the American worker on trade at every single stage of her career," he said.
Trump's jeremiads over free trade deals were one of the most effective strategies that he adopted in his primary campaign and helped attract blue collar voters especially in rust belt states. Some Democrats are deeply concerned that he could damage the former secretary of state in Midwestern swing states if he is able to make equally successful use of the strategy in the general election.
Trump also lambasted Clinton on foreign policy, accusing her of "almost single-handedly destabilizing the entire Middle East" during her time as secretary of state. Clinton's campaign sees her record as the top U.S. diplomat as an asset, but Republicans are convinced they can undermine her case to be commander-in-chief by pointing to failures on her watch, including the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi and the ill-fated "reset" of relations with Russia.
"The Hillary Clinton foreign policy has cost America thousands of lives and trillions of dollars -- and unleashed ISIS across the world. No secretary of state has been more wrong, more often and in more places than Hillary Clinton," Trump said.
"Her decisions spread death, destruction, and terrorism everywhere she touched," Trump said, accusing Clinton of handing Libya to "ISIS barbarians" after a US-backed intervention and of helping Iran become the dominant power in the Middle East.
Once again, Trump falsely claimed to have argued against the war in Iraq before the U.S. invaded the country. Trump was publicly supportive of the war a month before Congress voted to authorize the use of military force and praised the war's direction in the early months of the campaign.
And he said Clinton may be disqualified from the presidency on the basis that the emails on her private email server may have been hacked by foreign enemies -- though there's no evidence of such a breach.
"While we may not know what is in those deleted emails, our enemies probably know every single one of them," Trump said of the emails Clinton deleted and did not hand over to the State Department.
After weeks of being on the receiving end of Clinton's rhetoric, Trump sought to turn her words against her. Clinton frequently tells audiences Trump lacks the "temperament" for the presidency -- a criticism Trump threw back at her.
"Hillary Clinton wants to be President," he said. "But she doesn't have the temperament, or, as Bernie Sanders' said, the judgment, to be president. She believes she is entitled to the office." | – With news outlets fixated on his staff shakeups, possibly broke campaign, and hiring of fictional characters, Donald Trump sought to regain control of the narrative by attacking Hillary Clinton in a speech Wednesday at his SoHo development in New York City. Vox calls it a "Hillary Clinton slam-speech" that was “uncharacteristically calculated" on Trump's part. Here are eight of Trump's biggest lines against his presumptive opponent, from Politico, CNN, and NPR: “She ran the State Department like her own personal hedge fund—doing favors for oppressive regimes, and really, many, many others, in exchange for cash." Clinton is "a world-class liar. Just look at her pathetic email and server statements ... or her phony landing in Bosnia, where she said she was under attack but the attack turned out to be young girls handing her flowers." “[Clinton] may be the most corrupt person ever to seek the presidency.” "Her message is that things can't change. My message is that things have to change." "Hillary Clinton has perfected the politics of personal profit and even theft. She gets rich making you poor." "No secretary of state has been more wrong, more often, in more places, than Hillary Clinton. Her decisions spread death, destruction, and terrorism everywhere she touched." "Hillary Clinton wants to be president, but she doesn't have the temperament, or, as Bernie Sanders said, the judgement, to be president. She believes she is entitled to the office." "We will never be able to fix a rigged system by counting on the same people who rigged it in the first place." |
A suspect in the Madeleine McCann case who may have sexually assaulted five British girls in the Algarve up to 10 years ago died in 2009, according to a source close to Portuguese investigators into the disappearance of the three year-old.
The source also said there had been another so far unpublicised incident in which another British girl on holiday with her parents was sexually abused, although he did not go into when this came to light nor where or when it took place.
The revelations came the day after the Metropolitan police in Britain appealed for information on a total of 12 incidents in which an intruder entered holiday accommodation in three resort areas including one where Madeleine, then three, went missing in May 2007. Four of these cases, between 2004 and 2006, involved assaults on girls aged seven to 10 and one involved two children, according to Scotland Yard, although police in both countries have looked at incidents up to 2010, three years after Madeleine vanished.
The Guardian's source was careful to say the police had come to "no definitive conclusions" about the Cape Verdean national Euclides Monteiro, who died, aged 40, in a tractor accident. His name previously emerged in Portugal as a possible suspect in November although the interest of Portuguese and UK authorities in any connection to sexual assaults had not been made public at that time.
The claim comes amid growing tensions between authorities in the two countries over the handling of the case. The Met would not comment on the reports. It reopened its inquiries into Madeleine's disappearance last summer and Portuguese authorities followed suit in October.
David Cameron said on Thursday that he was ready to help bring pressure to bear on Lisbon, after senior Met officers expressed frustration at the slow international legal process they believe is delaying their investigations and preventing them working on the ground in Portugal.
The Portuguese source said the police had been investigating Monteiro before Lisbon officialy reopened its McCann inquiries. "It was on based on the combination of leads that the Polícia Judiciária (PJ) decided to request permission to resume investigations into the case. The public prosecutor's office agreed with our evaluation and ordered the case to be reopened," the source said.
"The specific nature of these cases are not only unique to the Algarve, but the whole of Portugal, hence our particular interest. The name Euclides Monteiro did not fall from the sky and was convenient because he was deceased."
Scotland Yard officers and Madeleine's parents Kate and Gerry were given a presentation in Lisbon over the direction Portuguese authorities were taking in October, said the source. "Maps and satellite photographs were exhibited during this presentation. These images are similar to those which [the Metropolitan Police] uploaded on to their website following Wednesday's press conference," the source said.
Monteiro lived and often worked near holiday homes where the victims were staying at the time the crimes were perpetrated, he said. The source said the assailant was described by his victims as smelling of tobacco and speaking English but in a foreign accent. Some details are similar to those released by British authorities this week, but the sources said some of the victims described the man as being of African origin. None had discounted the possibility.
The description issued by Scotland Yard did not say the man they were seeking may have been of African origin, describing him the man as "having dark (as in tanned) skin".
Up until six months before the disappearance of Madeleine, Monteiro had been an employee at the Ocean Complex in Praia da Luz, the resort in which the McCann's stayed, and was a residentthere at the time of her disappearance, the source said.
"The inquiry remains open and so too does the investigation. We have not drawn any definitive conclusions as to whether or not Euclides is our man.
"It has come to light that there was a fifth case with striking similarities to the four cases made public on Wednesday and all follow a similar modus operandi, which leads us to believe that the same person perpetrated these five crimes and that he could also be responsible for the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.
"This is the line of inquiry Portuguese police have been following since the reopening of the case, which is that which the Metropolitan police made public on Wednesday.
"Portuguese police are dealing with a case which is seven years old and, coupled with the fact that the line of inquiry being followed involves a deceased person, further complicates the investigation. These cases are unique not only to the Algarve, but Portugal as a whole.
"Euclides is someone who we believe could have been involved in these five crimes – it is only a possibility – that he could have been responsible for the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.
"There are some other elements of interest to investigators which I cannot disclose as this moment, but I stress that these factors only make the sequence of events to which I refer a possibility."
Police in London have acknowledged differences between the potentially linked cases they have been investigating – including the time they took place and the fact there were no abductions. In six of the 12, the suspect either sat or lay on a child's bed, although sexual assaults occurred in just four cases. In nine cases, there was no forced entry or stolen property and where there was it was minimal.
The Lisbon source insisted the investigation was proceeding steadily "but with the discretion that has characterised it from the beginning".
The prime minister's official spokesman said Cameron would be prepared to "make further representations" to Lisbon if it could help Scotland Yard.
UK police said they had received more than 250 calls and emails in response to the latest appeal on Wednesday. "We are reviewing this information and following up lines of inquiry. This is still very early stages," said Scotland Yard. ||||| Portuguese police say they interviewed heroin addict linked to disappearance of Madeleine McCann over sex attacks on five British girls
Heroin addict Euclides Monteiro died in a freak tractor accident in 2009
He worked at Ocean Club Resort in Praia da Luz where Maddie disappeared
Arrested in connection with sex attacks on five young British girls
Source: 'No charges were brought due to lack of evidence'
Tanned, dark-haired man suspected of child sex assaults from 2004-2006
Madeleine McCann, aged three, was taken from Praia da Luz in May 2007
Lead has increased tensions between British and Portuguese police
Portuguese police investigating the disappearance of Madeleine McCann have revealed they questioned a heroin addict in connection with sex attacks on five young British girls in the Algarve.
Euclides Monteiro, 40, who died in a freak tractor accident in 2009, worked at the Ocean Club Resort in Praia da Luz, which Maddie disappeared from - he was sacked a year before she vanished.
Now it has been revealed that Portuguese investigators suspected Monteiro of being involved in the sexual abuse of five girls at holiday homes in the region between 2004 and 2006.
Portuguese police investigating the disappearance of Madeleine McCann (right) questioned Euclides Monteiro, (left) a heroin addict in connection with sex attacks on five young British girls
Resort: Madeleine went missing from this holiday apartment at the Ocean Club in Praia da Luz in May 2007. Monteiro worked at the Ocean Club Resort in Praia da Luz, Portugal, which Maddie disappeared from and was sacked a year before she vanished
A Portuguese police source told The Mirror: 'These cases were investigated by local police and Monteiro was arrested. No charges were brought due to lack of evidence.'
This week British detectives increased tension with their Portuguese counterparts, who claim they came up the link first in October, when they announced they are looking for a prolific paedophile who was suspected of breaking into holiday properties where British families were staying and sexually abusing five white British girls aged between seven and 10.
In six of the break-ins, the man sat on or got into bed with young girls. On one occasion, he abused two young girls in the same villa.
Questioned: Luisa Rodrigues said she could not remember the night of Madeleine's disappearance - but was sure he would have been at home watching television at the time
Two of the attacks were in the resort of Praia da Luz, where Madeleine was staying in a holiday apartment with her family when she was taken.
There were also four in Carvoeiro and six in the Vale da Parra, Praia da Gale district and most of the attacks took place in low season.
They had previously been discounted by Portuguese investigators because they are spread over a wide geographical area and there were no apparent attempts at abduction.
Nine of the 12 incidents were reported to Portuguese police at the time they happened, and details of three of those became known to British investigators only after they made televised appeals last autumn.
New clue: Detectives on the Madeleine case say the man they are looking for wore a distinctive burgundy top
Monteiro was sacked a year before the McCann family arrived at the holiday resort after he was caught stealing from the resort - one theory was that he may have abducted the British girl to get revenge on his former employers.
The Mail has learned, however, that Scotland Yard detectives do not consider Monteiro to be a strong suspect and as well trying to gather more clues on the sex attacks on British children, are investigating a gang of at least three burglars who had previously targeted the holiday resort where Maddie was abducted from.
Analysis of mobile phone data shows the men were close to the complex at the time she vanished, and were in ‘intense’ phone contact with each other in the following hours.
In Portugal, it is claimed that Monteiro’s phone was also near the Ocean Club Resort when Madeleine disappeared.
His widow said she is sure he was not responsible for her disappearance - and insisted he would have been at home watching TV at the time.
The suspect was wearing a distinctive burgundy long sleeve top, on one of those occasions it was described as having a white circle on the back.
But Ms Rodrigues, 40, said 'I can't remember ever seeing him wear anything like that.'
She told the Daily Mirror she met police officers in a cafe near her home in Lagos.
'They said they suspected him because he used to work at the Ocean Club complex where the McCanns were staying and because they had tracked the signal from his mobile phone to the area where Madeleine disappeared the night she vanished,' she said.
'I was speechless. I kept repeating Euclides was innocent but they said it was not for me to say.'
She lives a 15-minute drive away from the scene of the young girl's disappearance on May 3, 2007.
Ms Rodrigues said that she could not remember the night of Madeleine's disappearance - but insisted she would have turned him in if she thought he was responsible.
She added: 'It's a long time ago, but I'm sure he would have been at home watching TV. That's what he always did after work.'
Monteiro, who fathered Ms Rodrigues 11-year-old son, once served a five-year prison sentence for burglary.
However, his wife said that although he was 'no angel' he would not have been behind the suspected kidnapping.
This week Detective Chief Inspector Andy Redwood said: 'This is an offender who has got a very, very unhealthy interest in young, white, female children whom he is attacking whilst they are on holiday in their beds.'
Madeleine's parents, Kate and Gerry McCann posed two years ago with a picture of how she might now look
Witnesses describe the man as having dark, tanned skin with short dark unkempt hair. He spoke in English with a foreign accent, his voice was described as slow, or possibly slurred.
He was sometimes bare chested, some describe him as having a pot belly, and three victims said that he had a noticeable odour.
Police said the suspect may have been in the villa or looking round the villa for some time before committing the offences or being disturbed either by a parent, or the child waking up, and said he remained calm, even when disturbed.
On two occasions, they said, the noise of a bin collection lorry could be heard nearby.
DCI Redwood said that tracing the man is one of his priority lines of inquiry.
He said: 'We need to establish the identity of this man - these offences are very serious and no-one has been charged in connection with them.'
Mr Redwood's team currently have 38 people classed as 'persons of interest' to the inquiry, and are also sifting through details of 530 known sex offenders whose whereabouts they cannot account for.
Of those 59 are classed as high priority, and some of those are British.
British investigators have so far sent three international letters of request to Portuguese authorities over the investigation, covering 41 priority areas for the team, involving 287 separate requests.
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Martin Hewitt showed his anger at the slow pace of the legal process, saying: 'That's causing us frustration because we know what we want to do and we are ready to go with that. But the process is the process.'
Another 30 letters have been written to other European countries, but the force would not reveal where.
Madeleine, who was then nearly four, disappeared from her family's holiday apartment in Praia da Luz in the Algarve on May 3 2007 as her parents dined at a nearby restaurant with friends.
British detectives launched a fresh investigation into the youngster's disappearance in July last year - two years into a review of the case - and made renewed appeals on television in the UK, the Netherlands and Germany.
||||| Police investigating the disappearance of Madeleine McCann from a Portuguese holiday resort nearly seven years ago say a lone intruder sexually assaulted five girls aged between seven and 10 in the Algarve between 2004 and 2006.
The four incidents – one involving two girls – were among 12 over six years up to 2010 being examined by officers in which a man entered holiday accommodation, mainly villas occupied by British families.
In six of those incidents, the man, said to be dark-haired and tanned, sat on the victims' beds. In nine of the 12 incidents there was no evidence of forced entry or property taken. In three others there was "low-level" theft involving cash or phones. Police said he appeared to have "a very, very, unhealthy interest" in young white girls.
The man, said to be unshaven with unkempt hair, spoke English slowly, with a foreign accent, possibly with slurred speech. Some witnesses suggested he had a pot belly while three victims suggested he had a distinctive smell, one involving aftershave, another tobacco while a third just described "a funny smell".
However, no children were abducted.
Detectives said there had been an increase in criminality and burglary in Praia da Luz that peaked in April 2007, shortly before Madeleine's disappearance.
Scotland Yard also revealed it was looking at 38 "people of interest" in relation to her disappearance, having dismissed 22 others from that category. They were also trying to find out more about 530 known sex offenders – 59 regarded as of high interest – across Europe.
However Portugal's Polícia Judiciária (PJ) claimed that Wednesday's press conference simply confirmed a primary line of investigation which has been investigated by Portuguese police since last October. Suggestions that the information released by the Met had initially been discounted by Portuguese detectives were denied by a source at the PJ's headquarters in Lisbon.
He said that evidence of a string of crimes had been the driving force behind Portuguese officials re-opening the case. "It is all there in the police case files," said the source. "You will see when it is made public."
Madeleine's parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, have been informed of the latest developments.
Clarence Mitchell, spokesman for the McCann family, told the BBC: "Kate and Gerry still believe that Madeleine is alive and out there to be found, and that is why they are so pleased that the British police are doing such a good job on this."
Detective Chief Inspector Andy Redwood, in charge of the hunt for Madeleine, accepted there were differences between these cases and that of Madeleine's disappearance but added that there was a possibility that she had not left her family's holiday apartment alive when she disappeared in May 2007.
In most cases now being examined, the incidents happened between 2am and 5am – later than in the disappearance of Madeleine, then aged three, from a ground floor apartment at the Ocean Club complex in Praia da Luz while her parents had dinner with friends at a nearby restaurant.
Redwood said the assumption that Madeleine was abducted "may not follow with all our thinking" on the case.
"These offences are very serious and no one has been charged in connection with them. We also need to eliminate this man from our inquiries and ascertain whether these offences are linked to Madeleine's disappearance," he said.
"If you have been a victim of a similar crime please come forward even if you reported the incident to police in Portugal, or anywhere else, please do not assume we have been made aware of it."
There was also a "very close resonance" to some features of Madeleine's disappearance, said Redwood.
"We really need to identify the offender, to bring to a close the trauma and the tragedy that these families have suffered, and then seek to establish whether this is connected to Madeleine's disappearance."
He appealed for information and gave details of a distinctive burgundy long-sleeved top the attacker was said to have worn during two attacks – in the resort areas of Vale de Parra and Praia da Gale. On one occasion it was described as having a white circle on the back.
The appeal will also be made via BBC's Crimewatch on Wednesday night.
Redwood said if names were put forward for the most serious case of sexual assault, his team would be able to eliminate them from inquiries, suggesting the police may have DNA evidence.
Nine of the 12 incidents were reported to Portuguese police at the time but British investigators learned of three only when the victims came forward in response to televised appeals last autumn.
In the attacks, the suspect may have been in the villa or looking around the villa for some time before committing the offences or being disturbed either by a parent coming in, or the child waking up, say police. On two occasions the noise of a refuse collection lorry could be heard nearby.
Of the 12 offences being investigated, four took place in Carvoeiro, six in Vale da Parra, Praia da Gale district, and two in Praia da Luz. Detectives have previously suggested Madeleine may have been abducted in a planned operation that had included individuals exploring the resort beforehand.
Scotland Yard issued efit images in October last year of a possible suspect with dark hair reportedly seen carrying a child with blond hair and possibly wearing pyjamas. The publication of the pictures on Crimewatch led to a huge response by the public and this man has still not been excluded from the police inquiry.
Efits of two fair-haired men seen near the McCanns' apartment were also released and police in the UK and Portugal have also been investigating break-ins around the resort, one of which occurred the same week a year before Madeleine disappeared and involved a man who entered a flat where young children were sleeping.
Fresh appeals were also made in Ireland, the Netherlands and Germany.
Scotland Yard has indicated its irritation with the slowness of the formal legal process that would allow its officers to work on the ground in Portugal. The Crown Prosecution Service has three so-called letters of request being considered by the country's legal system, among 33 from Britain on the case now being sent or prepared to be dispatched across Europe.
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Martin Hewitt said: "I am frustrated the legal process is as slow as it is." But he maintained: "We are seeing an increase in the tempo of the investigation."
Scotland Yard says officers involved in the case have made 26 "strategic and tactical" visits to Portugal as well as travelling to Spain, Belgium, Jersey, Switzerland, Holland and Germany as well as working with colleagues across the UK. Police are asking members of the public with information to call them on 0800 0961011 within the UK. The number for non-UK residents is +44 207 1580 126. Callers can also contact Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.
• This article was amended on 21 March 2014. The earlier version stated that Detective Chief Inspector Andy Redwood had said the assumption that Madeleine had been alive when she left the apartment "may not follow with all our thinking" on the case. To clarify: those quoted words actually came after Redwood had referred to the assumption that Madeleine had been abducted. However, Redwood did say during the same press conference that police were considering the possibility that Madeleine was not alive when taken from the apartment as well as the possibility that she was. | – On Wednesday, British police asked the public for information on an unnamed suspect they were hunting in connection with Madeleine McCann's disappearance. Yesterday, a source close to Portuguese investigators revealed to the Guardian the supposed identity of that man: Euclides Monteiro—who died in a tractor accident in 2009. The Cape Verde man lived and worked near where several young girls were sexually assaulted, and specifically worked at the Praia da Luz resort where the McCann family stayed as recently as six months before Madeleine's 2007 disappearance. A source tells the Guardian police "have not drawn any definitive conclusions as to whether or not Euclides is our man"; but a Portuguese police source reportedly told the Mirror that while Monteiro was once arrested on suspicion of a series of child sex assaults, "no charges were brought due to lack of evidence." Indeed, when Scotland Yard on Wednesday requested information on the new suspect, police in Portugal said they had already been looking into this "primary line of investigation" since last October, and that evidence of a series of crimes was what drove Portuguese officials to reopen the McCann case, which they did after Scotland Yard reopened its own investigation last summer. The Guardian notes that there are "growing tensions between authorities in the two countries over the handling of the case." Meanwhile, the Daily Mail says Scotland Yard is also investigating three burglars who had previously hit the resort where the family stayed; cellphone data shows the men were near the resort when Madeleine went missing and were in "intense" contact with each other afterward. |
It wasn’t a great look: 11 white male senators, lined up to question the woman who’d come forward with sexual assault allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh — something that happened because there’s not a single female senator on the Republican side of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Committee Chair Chuck Grassley (R-IA) has an explanation for that lack of diversity: Supposedly, Republican women don’t want to be there because it’s too much work.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Grassley made the assertion while speaking with reporters on Friday — and later walked it back.
“It’s a lot of work — maybe they don’t want to do it,” Grassley said. “My chief of staff of 33 years tells me we’ve tried to recruit women and we couldn’t get the job done.”
According to WSJ, Grassley later came back to clarify that he didn’t mean to single out women.
“We have a hard time getting men on the committee. It’s just a lot of work whether you’re a man or a woman, it doesn’t matter,” he said.
“It’s a lot of work - maybe they don’t want to do it,” Grassley said, explaining why there aren't more women on the Senate Judiciary Committee. “My chief of staff of 33 years tells me we’ve tried to recruit women and we couldn’t get the job done.” https://t.co/UxFJMsOFV0 — Tim O'Brien (@TimOBrien) October 5, 2018
Further trying to clean up his comments, Grassley said that he hopes next year more women will join the judiciary panel and said he believes that “on average, any woman in the United States Senate, whether they’re on the Judiciary or any other committee, probably works harder than the average man.”
Grassley also said he thinks “probably five” would be the right number of women on the nine-member US Supreme Court. He voted to confirm Supreme Court Justices Sandra Day O’Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, nominated by Presidents Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton, respectively, and against the confirmation of Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, both nominated by President Barack Obama.
Judiciary Committee Republicans tweeted that reports of Grassley’s remarks were a “media mischaracterization” and said the senator “encourages but never determines” who joins the panel. They also tweeted a link to the audio of his remarks — the cleanup effort, not his original comments. In them, the Iowa Republican says the committee has had difficulties getting enough senators of either gender to join the panel.
Republican senators request & select committee assignments based on their preferences. Sen. Grassley encourages but never determines who becomes a member of the Judiciary Committee & does so regardless of gender. Audio without media mischaracterization: https://t.co/72tAJCfDZe — Senate Judiciary (@senjudiciary) October 6, 2018
The Senate Judiciary Committee is more than 200 years old. Republicans still haven’t had a woman serve on it.
The Senate Judiciary Committee was established on December 10, 1816, according to the panel’s website, as a “forum for the public discussion of social and constitutional issues.” In the nearly 202 years since, Republicans haven’t been able to find a single woman to sit on the panel.
And it’s not that women aren’t in the Senate, both Republicans and Democrats. A total of 52 women have served in the Senate, starting with Rebecca Latimer Felton, who served for just 24 hours after being appointed in Georgia in 1922. Eighteen Republican women have served in the US Senate in its history.
There are currently 23 women serving in the Senate, 17 of whom are Democrats and six of whom are Republicans: Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Joni Ernst of Iowa, Susan Collins of Maine, Cindy Hyde-Smith of Mississippi, Deb Fischer of Nebraska, and Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia.
Democrats have found women to fill out their Senate Judiciary Committee ranks. There are four women among its 10 members, including ranking member Sen. Dianne Feinstein from California.
That disparity didn’t do Republicans any favors during the Kavanaugh hearings: The optics of 11 white Republican men interviewing the nominee and Palo Alto University professor Christine Blasey Ford, who has accused him of sexual assault (allegations he denied), were bad. That’s why the GOP brought on a female prosecutor to do some of the interviewing. The all-white, all-male committee members advancing Kavanaugh’s nomination is a bad look, too.
The GOP appears aware of the optics, but instead of putting a woman on the committee, Grassley claimed they just can’t find one — despite at least five current members fitting the bill.
Update: Story updated with Senate Judiciary Committee tweet. ||||| Alex Wong via Getty Images Sen. Chuck Grassley, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, told reporters on Oct. 5 that it was difficult to recruit Republican women for the panel.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) suggested to reporters on Friday that it was difficult to recruit Republican women to his panel because it requires a lot of work.
“It’s a lot of work ― maybe they don’t want to do it,” Grassley said, according to The Wall Street Journal. “My chief of staff of 33 years tells me we’ve tried to recruit women and we couldn’t get the job done.”
Grassley later returned to the reporters to clarify his remarks, adding that it was also hard to recruit male senators.
“We have a hard time getting men on the committee,” he said. “It’s just a lot of work whether you’re a man or a woman, it doesn’t matter.”
He further walked back his comments on the workload, saying female senators generally work harder than men.
“On average, any woman in the United States Senate, whether they’re on Judiciary or any other committee, probably works harder than the average man.”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Saturday that the GOP was not avoiding having women on the Judiciary Committee, adding that he would commit to bringing more women on the panel going forward.
“We’ve encouraged several of our women senators to go on the committee, and I intend to do that again at the beginning of the next session,” he told reporters at a press conference.
“There’s been no effort to avoid it,” McConnell added. “I’ve tried to encourage them to do it, obviously without success, and we’d love to have one of our women senators on Judiciary. And hopefully, that will be the case next year.”
On Saturday, the Senate Judiciary Committee responded to the media attention by pointing out that the chairman does not determine who becomes a committee member. ||||| Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa) predicted that there would be more Republican women on his panel next year, after suggesting that the panel’s workload was a deterrent.
“It’s a lot of work - maybe they don’t want to do it,” Mr. Grassley told reporters. “My chief of staff of 33 years tells me we’ve tried to recruit women and we couldn’t get the job done.”
Mr. Grassley later returned to clarify that he did not mean to imply women could not handle the committee’s workload, but rather that it made it less appealing to senators of both genders.
“We have a hard time getting men on the committee,” he said. “It’s just a lot of work whether you’re a man or a woman, it doesn’t matter.”
When asked why it was difficult to attract senators to the panel, Mr. Grassley said he personally did not understand the sentiment.
“Well, I love it. I’ve been on it 38 years,” he said, predicting that the GOP female ranks would increase in January.
Mr. Grassley also said he did not believe women senators sought a lighter workload than men.
“On average, any woman in the United States Senate, whether they’re on Judiciary or any other committee, probably works harder than the average man.”
Mr. Grassley also said he thought more women should be on the Supreme Court.
“Probably five would be about right,” he said. | – "It's a lot of work—maybe they don't want to do it." So says Sen. Chuck Grassley on why the Senate Judiciary Committee that supported Brett Kavanaugh's Supreme Court nomination had no female Republicans, per the Wall Street Journal. "My chief of staff of 33 years tells me we've tried to recruit women and we couldn't get the job done," adds Grassley, the committee's chair. But the 85-year-old Republican later walked back his remarks, saying the committee's workload made it less enticing to male and female senators alike: "We have a hard time getting men on the committee. It's just a lot of work whether you're a man or a woman, it doesn’t matter." What exactly makes it so hard to get senators on board? "Well, I love it. I've been on it 38 years," the senator responded. "On average, any woman in the United States Senate, whether they’re on Judiciary or any other committee, probably works harder than the average man." Continuing his apparent change of heart, Grassley said the Supreme Court should have more women: "Probably five would be about right." All Republicans on the committee are male, while the Democrats have ranking member Sen. Dianne Feinstein and three other women, per the Huffington Post. In fact Republicans haven't had a single female member since the committee was established in 1816, Vox notes. |
A group of divers trying to take photos of a sperm whale were engulfed in a 30-metre wide bowel movement - otherwise known as a 'poonado'.
Keri Wik was one of the divers caught in the attack which took place just off the coast of Dominica in the Caribbean.
To make matters worse, Keri "didn't even have a snorkel". He says, "Anytime I would take my head out of the water and breath, some water would drip down in to my mouth."
The 'poonado' is thought to be a rarely seen defence mechanism.
This clip is originally from 5 live Breakfast on January 23rd 2015. ||||| Think you had a bad day at work?
A diver has told how he ended up being encased in whale feces while swimming off the coast of Dominica, reports the BBC.
Keri Wilk said he and three other divers were surrounded by the gigantic bowel movement when the whale answered a call of nature.
The crappy move by the whale is thought to be something of a defense mechanism. (Caters News Agency)
"At first it seemed like a regular bowel movement. But rather than continuing its dive down, it remained at the surface and continued to defecate for a startling length of time," said Wilk.
He said the "poonado" spread through the water for about 30 metres/100 feet.
Unfortunately for Wilk, he dives with just goggles and a snorkel as scuba equipment can disturb the whales, meaning some of the waste ended up in his mouth.
"I had poop in my eyes, mouth, wetsuit, everywhere and I was soaked in it from head to toe. But, after leaving the cloud, it quickly washed away, and didn't leave a smell on us.
"I did take an extra long shower once I returned to shore later that day, just in case," he admitted. ||||| When Keri Wilk dived into clear waters off the island of Dominica, swimming through a massive whale poo was not in the plan. But it's what happened.
"At first, it seemed like a regular bowel movement," Keri explained.
"But rather than continuing its dive down, it remained at the surface and continued to defecate for a startling length of time.
The "poonado" then spread through the water - ending up in Keri's mouth - as the whale flapped its tail.
"Four of us looked at each other with confusion, then back at the whale, expecting that any second its call from nature would come to an end.
"Instead, the whale bobbed up and down, spun in circles and waved the poo in every direction for several minutes while we just sat back and watched."
Keri said the poo ended up spreading about 30 metres around him and his three fellow divers.
'Like chocolate milk'
Scuba equipment can disturb whales, so Keri prefers to dive with just goggles and a snorkel.
"The water was crystal clear, initially, and was the most idyllic Caribbean blue water that you could imagine.
"After a few waves of faeces were released and stirred vigorously by the whale, the water was like chocolate milk, I couldn't see my hand when I held it in front of my face.
"I had poop in my eyes, mouth, wetsuit, everywhere and I was soaked in it from head to toe. But, after leaving the cloud, it quickly washed away, and didn't leave a smell on us.
"I did take an extra long shower once I returned to shore later that day, just in case.
"I've never heard of it happening before, and I don't know anyone that has had this happen, it very well could be the first time that it has been photographically documented.'
Follow @BBCNewsbeat on Twitter, BBCNewsbeat on Instagram and Radio1Newsbeat on YouTube | – As octopuses shoot out ink as a defense mechanism, so sperm whales blast threats with poop. At least that's the theory explained by a diver to the BBC. Keri Wilk and three fellow divers were engulfed in what he describes as a "poonado" let loose by one such whale off the coast of Dominica. Wilk wasn't using scuba gear, since that can bother whales, the New York Daily News reports. That means he had little protection: "I had poop in my eyes, mouth, wetsuit, everywhere," he tells the BBC. "I was soaked in it from head to toe." He described the cloud of feces as being some "30 or 40 meters in diameter," or about 100 feet. The whale was diving, and the animals often poop while diving, Wilk said. But this time, it stopped mid-dive. "And then it started to evacuate its bowels, and didn't stop for several minutes." It even seemed to try to wave the feces toward the divers with its tail. "But, after leaving the cloud, it quickly washed away and didn't leave a smell on us," he says. The group got some rather alarming photos of the whole thing. (Whales, it seems, aren't so into being watched.) |
PORT RICHEY, Fla. (WFLA) – The mysterious winner of last week’s $450 million Mega Millions jackpot has finally come forward.
Shane Missler, 20, who resided in Port Richey, was the single winner in the Jan. 5. Mega Millions drawing. He chose to take a one-time, lump-sum payment of $281,874,999.00.
Shane said he wasn’t really surprised that he had won. He said he just had “a feeling” that he might. After realizing he had won, the first call he made was to his brother. Then he shared the news with his father over coffee the next morning.
Given a recent Facebook post from what appears to be Shane’s page, he was likely aware of his winnings right after the drawing.
When asked what he plans to do with the money, Shane said, “I’m only 20, but I hope to use it to pursue a variety of passions, help my family and do some good for humanity.”
His Facebook page is being bombarded with comments from new friends.
And his Twitter followers are growing at record speed. He started with 90 at the time of the announcement.
The power of positive thinking should not be underestimated! — Shane Missler (@TheShaneMissler) January 11, 2018
The winning jackpot Quick Pick ticket was sold at a 7-Eleven on Ridge Road in Port Richey. Missler’s lawyers say he had purchased a winning scratch-off lottery ticket and converted it into five Mega Million quick pick tickets. The winning combination was on the fourth number.
News Channel 8 spoke to other lottery players at the 7-Eleven.
“I think it’s great it’s somebody from this county won it and it’s not somebody found another state. I think it’s awesome,” said Dana Brunelle.
Janet Fouche is hoping she and her husband will also have some lottery luck.
“We’re staying overnight tonight and he’s getting coffee, my husband, so I’m buying a ticket. Take a chance. Maybe it’s a lucky story.”
The ticket was claimed at lottery offices in Tallahassee.
“This gentleman has a whole life ahead of him and a lot of plans and he will be able to do whatever he wants in life,” said Randy Fox, with the Florida Lottery.
Missler’s lawyers say he recently retired from his job at a local background screening company and plans to spend his future taking care of his family and “educating himself to be a good steward of this fortune.”
“Although I’m young, I’ve had a crash course this week in financial management and I feel so fortunate to have this incredible wealth and team behind me. I intend to take care of my family have some fun along the way, and cement a path for financial success so that I can leave a legacy far into the future,” Missler said in a statement via his lawyers.
STORIES OTHERS ARE CLICKING ON- ||||| FILE - In this July 1, 2016, file photo, Mega Millions lottery tickets rest on a counter at a Pilot travel center near Burlington, N.C. The jackpot for the Mega Millions lottery game has climbed to over... (Associated Press)
FILE - In this July 1, 2016, file photo, Mega Millions lottery tickets rest on a counter at a Pilot travel center near Burlington, N.C. The jackpot for the Mega Millions lottery game has climbed to over... (Associated Press)
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — A 20-year-old Florida man claimed the $451 million Mega Millions jackpot on Friday, choosing to get $282 million at once instead of more in annual installments.
A Florida Lottery news release said Friday that 20-year-old Shane Missler, of Port Richey, had claimed the jackpot from the multistate game's Jan. 5 drawing. They say he chose to receive his winnings in a one-time, lump-sum payment of $281,874,999.
"I'm only 20, but I hope to use it to pursue a variety of passions, help my family and do some good for humanity," he said in a statement.
The winning numbers to claim the nation's 10th-largest jackpot were 28-30-39-59-70 with a Mega Ball of 10.
The winning ticket was bought at a 7-Eleven in Port Richey. The retailer will receive a $100,000 bonus.
The Tampa Bay Times reported that Missler was grinning widely and clutching a yellow envelope when he turned in his ticket Friday at Florida Lottery headquarters in Tallahassee. His father and his lawyer came with him. They released a statement on his behalf.
"If there is one thing I have learned thus far in my short time on this earth it is that those who maintain a positive mindset and stay true to themselves get rewarded," Missler said in the statement. "I look forward to the future."
Lottery officials said the money will be paid to a trust, set up with Missler as the managing member, called "Secret 007, LLC."
"Although I'm young, I've had a crash course this week in financial management and I feel so fortunate to have this incredible wealth and team behind me," said Missler, who also told the Times that he plans to move out of Port Richey. "I intend to take care of my family, have some fun along the way and cement a path for financial success so that I can leave a legacy far into the future." ||||| TALLAHASSEE — About 1 a.m. Thursday, 20-year-old Shane Missler wrote on Twitter: "The power of positive thinking should not be underestimated!"
By that time he already knew he had won the lottery.
And not just any jackpot, but $451 million.
Missler bought five quick-pick Mega Millions tickets last week at a 7-Eleven store in Port Richey, where his family lives. One was the sole winner of the fourth-largest Mega Millions jackpot of all time, lottery officials said. Missler, grinning widely and clutching a yellow envelope, turned it in Friday shortly after noon at the Florida Lottery headquarters in Tallahassee.
He was with his dad and a lawyer, who released a statement on his behalf:
"If there is one thing I have learned thus far in my short time on this earth it is that those who maintain a positive mindset and stay true to themselves get rewarded," Missler said. "I look forward to the future."
FROM THE ARCHIVE: What to do if you win a Mega Millions jackpot
Missler — not even old enough to celebrate his winnings with a drink — opted to take the lump-sum payment of $281,874,999. The Florida Lottery withholds federal income taxes at a rate of 25 percent, officials said, dropping the amount to $211,406,249.25.
The Lottery shared in a statement that Missler "wasn’t really surprised that he had won" because he had "a feeling" that he might.
About half an hour after the Jan. 5 drawing, he posted to Facebook: "Oh. My. God."
When he learned he had all the numbers right, he called his brother first, then told his father while they shared cups of coffee the next morning. Lottery officials said the money will be paid to a trust, set up with Missler as the managing member. It is called "Secret 007, LLC."
"Although I’m young, I’ve had a crash course this week in financial management and I feel so fortunate to have this incredible wealth and team behind me," Missler said in his statement to the Tampa Bay Times. "I intend to take care of my family, have some fun along the way and cement a path for financial success so that I can leave a legacy far into the future."
The winning ticket was purchased the same day as the drawing from the 7-Eleven. The store, at 7131 Ridge Rd. in Pasco County, will receive a $100,000 commission.
Missler used money he won from a scratch-off lottery game to buy the Mega Millions tickets. The winning combination, 28, 30, 39, 59, 70 and the Mega Ball, 10, came on the fourth set of numbers.
Missler quickly "retired" from his job at a local background screening company, his lawyer, Walt Blenner, said in the statement.
The 20-year-old, whose social media accounts are full of references to New England, the Boston Celtics and the Patriots football team, plans to move away from the Tampa Bay area. His online presence is overwhelmingly uplifting, with inspirational quotes dotting a Twitter feed and the bio section of a sparsely updated Instagram account reading: "I wake up everyday saying ‘Thank you’ " and "Chase your dreams."
Late Friday afternoon, Missler tweeted once again: "Thank you everyone for the positive thoughts. This is only the beginning. I am truly grateful and most appreciative."
His family is originally from Maine.
Larry Thornton, who said he coached Missler on the soccer team at Spruce Mountain High School in Jay, Maine, recalled that even several years ago, the teen seemed mature among his peers and was a leader who made underclassmen feel welcome.
"He’s going to find out what he needs to do and how he’s going to do it," Thornton said in an interview Friday. "I can’t see this going off the rails for somebody like him."
FROM THE ARCHIVE: Abraham Shakespeare won the lottery, then lost it all
Mega Millions is played in 44 states, Washington D.C. and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Last fall, administrators increased ticket prices and the starting jackpot, hoping to boost attention for the game around bigger winnings.
The largest Mega Millions jackpot of all time was $656 million in March 2012. Three winning tickets were sold, in Kansas, Illinois and Maryland. A Florida winner split a $414 million jackpot in 2014, previously the high mark for any ticket sold in the Sunshine State.
PREVIOUS COVERAGE: Winning $450 million lottery ticket sold at Pasco County 7-Eleven
JACKPOT: Zephyrhills woman claims largest single Powerball jackpot in U.S. history
Pasco County is no stranger to lottery fever. In 2013, an 84-year-old woman was the sole winner of a $590.5 million Powerball drawing — then the largest single jackpot in American lottery history. She bought her ticket at a local Publix and took the lump sum.
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Times staff writer Colleen Wright contributed to this report. Contact Zachary T. Sampson at [email protected] or (727) 893-8804. Follow @ZackSampson. | – America's newest multi-millionaire is just 20 years old and credits "the power of positive thinking." Florida's Shane Missler was announced Friday as the winner of last week's $450 million Mega Millions jackpot—the 10th largest lottery jackpot in US history, the AP reports. And while he didn't come forward until Friday, it's pretty clear he knew what had happened much earlier, according to WFLA. Just after the Jan. 5 drawing, Missler posted this message on Facebook: "Oh. My. God." The Florida Lottery reports Missler "wasn't really surprised" he won because he had "a feeling" that he would. "If there is one thing I have learned thus far in my short time on this earth it is that those who maintain a positive mindset and stay true to themselves get rewarded," the Tampa Bay Times quotes Missler as saying in a statement released by his lawyer. Missler has elected to take a $281,874,999 one-time payment instead of annual installments, which would have netted him more in the long run. "I'm only 20, but I hope to use it to pursue a variety of passions, help my family, and do some good for humanity," he says. He's started by putting his winnings into a trust called "Secret 007, LLC" and "retiring" from his job. Missler says he plans to move away from the Tampa Bay area. "I intend to take care of my family, have some fun along the way, and cement a path for financial success so that I can leave a legacy far into the future," he says. Missler bought the winning ticket at a 7-Eleven in Port Richey with the money he won from a scratch-off ticket. |
Well, seems like LulzSec has returned, and moved beyond the DDOS attack! Not content to merely shut down one of Rupert Murdoch's paper's websites, the hacking group has instead planted a bizarro-Onionesque account of the mogul's death-by-palladium on a Times redesign page masquerading as The Sun. Well played, #AntiSec.
The the hack was first announced by AnonymousIRC with a tweet, saying:
We have joy we have fun we will mess up Murdoch's Sun: http://t.co/JArvwg1 | Hi Rupert! Have fun tomorrow at the Parliament! #AntiSec
Murdoch's papers of course, and several of his lieutenants have been implicated in the massive hacking scandal that began to unfold earlier this month. Murdoch is scheduled to appear before the British parliament tomorrow.
As of the time of this post, the report was still up. Despite announcing the attack ten minutes after AnonymousIRC—and previous claims of retirement—LulzSec has taken credit for the hacking. They claimed in a tweet that visits to The Sun's homepage redirected to the Murdoch death notice page, though that no longer appears to be the case. And in case it gets taken down soon, here's the full text:
Media moguls [sic] body discovered Rupert Murdoch, the controversial media mogul, has reportedly been found dead in his garden, police announce.
Murdoch, aged 80, has said to have ingested a large quantity of palladium before stumbling into his famous topiary garden late last night, passing out in the early hours of the morning.
"We found the chemicals sitting beside a kitchen table, recently cooked," one officer states. "From what we can gather, Murdoch melted and consumed large quantities of it before exiting into his garden." Chemicals found in house Authorities would not comment on whether this was a planned suicide, though the general consensus among locals and unnamed sources is that this is the case.
One detective elaborates. "Officers on the scene report a broken glass, a box of vintage wine, and what seems to be a family album strewn across the floor, containing images from days gone by; some containing handpainted portraits of Murdoch in his early days, donning a top hat and monocle."
Another officer reveals that Murdoch was found slumped over a particularly large garden hedge fashioned into a galloping horse. "His favourite", a butler, Davidson, reports.
Butler Davidson has since been taken into custody for additional questioning.
As far as post-modern takes on "who will watch the watchmen" go, it ain't half bad. Here's the full page image:
Update: The Times dummy page has finally been taken down—and visiting TheSun.co.uk will redirect you to the LulzSec twitter page—but will stay up indefinitely here on Gizmodo.
Also, the email logins of major News of the World players—including former top News Corp exec Rebeka Brooks—have begun trickling out.
Apparently News International attempted to put out a statement regarding what had happened to The Sun, but LulzSec redirected the page to its Twitter feed before it could be widely circulated. [Times via Twitter] ||||| The fruits of today's Sun UK hack are starting to dangle down: LulzSec (out of retirement?) and Anon are tweeting logins of some serious British media brass. Foremost? Rebekah Brooks, the epicenter of England's voicemail hacking scandal. Update: phone numbers!
The tweet divulged the email and password info for one Rebekah Wade—Brooks' maiden name—along with many others from Murdoch's tabloid upper crust:
Harvey Shaw—Publishing Operations Team Manager, News International—Phone number Pete Picton—Sun Online Editor—Phone number Lee Wells—Editorial Support Manager at News International—Email and Password Bill Akass—Managing Editor, News of the World—Email and password Chris Hampartsoumian—Former Online Editor at timeonline.co.uk—Phone number Danny Rogers—Sun Online Editorial Manager—Email and password
This trickle is probably only the start. LulzSec appears to be hard at work squeezing more logins out of The Sun's servers:
We are battling with The Sun admins right now - I think they are losing. The boat has landed... >:]
In other words, expect more—though the only login fish bigger than Brooks would be Murdoch's.
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Update: AntiSec operators have tweeted phone numbers for The Sun's online editor, Pete Picton, along with two other (lesser) Sun editorial figures. | – So it turns out that the News of the World isn't the only gig in town that can hack: Notorious prankster-hackers LulzSec and Anonymous are wreaking havoc with Rupert Murdoch and his empire, reports Gizmodo. Lulzsec fired the first volley, publishing a cheeky account of Murdoch's death—via palladium—on a webpage masquerading as Murdoch's Sun. The post has since been taken down, but you can see a screenshot in the gallery. Not content to simply poke at Murdoch, LulzSec and Anonymous took the fight to Murdoch's newly-unemployed-and-arrested exec, Rebekah Brooks, tweeting her email login and password, notes Sam Biddle on Gizmodo. Other executives' information, including their phone numbers, followed, and it appears that the hackers are busily ferreting out more information. "We are battling with The Sun admins right now - I think they are losing," tweeted LulzSec. |
World Cup 2018 & 2022: More bidding process corruption claims
More allegations of corruption during the bidding process to stage the World Cups in 2018 and 2022 have been made.
The House of Commons Culture Media and Sport select committee has published previously unseen material submitted to it by the Sunday Times newspaper.
It draws on claims by senior sources that officials connected to England's bid for the 2018 World Cup ran an intelligence-gathering operation against rival nations.
Russia and Qatar won the bids.
BBC sports editor Dan Roan "Closure for Fifa seems a long, long way off. This tawdry saga shows no sign of abating, and it shames the game - and those that run it." Read more
This submission by the Sunday Times outlines how England 2018 executives compiled a database of rumours and intelligence - gathered by private companies and, significantly, British embassies.
There is, however, no clear evidence supplied by the paper.
Instead, its submission provides detailed accounts of how votes were allegedly bought and sold in the build-up to the December 2010 poll - and how Fifa's opaque rules for bidding nations were exploited.
The paper claims Russia's President Vladimir Putin played a major role in his country's winning bid, even, it says, enlisting Fifa's president Sepp Blatter to help lobby for votes.
Another claim suggests the Russia bid had lobbied for the support of Michel Platini - the Uefa president and voter - by giving him a painting believed to have been a Picasso.
There are also allegations about Qatar, and how its dominance in the natural gas industry helped it secure votes through bilateral trade deals.
Russia, the 2018 World Cup hosts, and Qatar, who will hold the 2022 tournament, have always denied any wrongdoing, and a recent, albeit disputed, summary of a Fifa inquiry cleared them.
The Football Association said in a statement: "The Fifa Ethics Committee made specific requests and responding to these requests involved searching in excess of 500,000 documents.
"The search parameters were established with Mr Garcia's office. The documents searched included intelligence gathered by the bid team. All documents within the search parameters were disclosed.
"In addition Andy Anson has confirmed that any intelligence that he believed could be substantiated was shared with Mr Garcia in his interview and that everything else was hearsay, gossip and rumour."
Culture Media and Sport select committee chairman John Whittingdale MP has told BBC Sport that, in light of the Sunday Times submission, he would like to hear from FA executives to ascertain if the 'database' exists and, if so, for them to outline its contents. ||||| Story highlights Further allegations published around award of 2018 and 2022 World Cups
UK parliamentary committee reveals details of a 'secret dossier' obtained by the Sunday Times
Dossier was allegedly commissioned by failed 2018 England bid
Claims made over using priceless art as inducement by Russia 2018 bid
Expensive works of art offered as inducements are at the center of the latest series of damaging allegations around the bidding process for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups, a published report claimed.
A painting, believed to be a Picasso, was allegedly gifted to Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) president and FIFA executive member Michel Platini in return for his support for the eventually successful Russian bid for the 2018 global showpiece.
Another FIFA voting member, Michel D'Hooghe, from Belgium, was also the recipient of a landscape painting, given to him in a package wrapped in brown paper by Viacheslav Koloskov, a former Russian executive committee member working for his nation's attempt to host the 2018 tournament, it is alleged in a report in The Sunday Times.
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"Allegations' in the Sunday Times relating to my actions in the 2018 and 2022 bidding processes are total fabrications," said former French international star Platini.
"The matter has now been passed to my legal advisers."
D'Hooghe told the Sunday Times that he believed the painting given to him, was "absolutely ugly" and he believed it had no value. He said he had not voted for the Russian bid.
The newspaper's latest revelations are based on evidence it supplied to a UK parliamentary committee, which itself has been investigating the circumstances around the award of the World Cup host countries, particularly in the light of England's failed bid for the 2018 competition.
The House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee (DCMS) has now published details of the investigations by the Sunday Times which claim the England bid commissioned "high-level intelligence gathering and and surveillance on the other countries bidding to host the 2018 and 2022 World Cups."
It also claims England's bid used private security companies and a former member of the UK government's intelligence service MI6 to gather information on its rivals.
The previously unreported material contains a series of claims around the role allegedly played by Russian President Vladimir Putin in making sure his country would host football's premier competition, hard on the heels of winning the rights to stage the Sochi Winter Olympics earlier this year.
It claims that Putin was initially skeptical about Russia's bid but had later thrown his full weight behind the process. "He (Putin) took a personal interest in the running of the bid in mid-2010," the committee report reveals.
Under the heading, "Intelligence relating to Russia 2018" a series of allegations are revealed about Putin's role in brokering a major bilateral trade deal for gas with Qatar, the winners of the 2022 bid, in exchange for each others votes and the votes of others of their supporters.
The allegations also detail the plundering of Russia's national art collection, either from the vaults of the State Hermitage Museum in St.Petersburg or the Kremlin archives, as alleged kickbacks to Platini and D'Hooghe.
In a statement given to CNN, officials behind the Russian bid have also strongly denied any wrongdoing.
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"Russia 2018 categorically rejects all of the allegations made in the Sunday Times today as entirely unfounded speculation," it said.
"These allegations are not new, but the evidence has only ever indicated that Russia 2018 behaved professionally and fairly throughout the bidding process.
"The Russia 2018 Bid Committee operated in full compliance with the spirit and letter of FIFA's Code of Ethics, and sought to abide by the FIFA bidding guidelines at all times.
"This kind of speculation will not affect Russia 2018's focus on doing what we have been doing for nearly four years already: making great progress towards our objective of hosting the best ever FIFA World Cup in 2018."
The alleged pivotal role of FIFA president Sepp Blatter in the bidding process is also highlighted in the published reports of the DCMS and the Sunday Times.
The claim is made that Blatter and Putin "jointly 'hit the phones' to drum up votes for Russia on the eve of the secret ballot in Zurich on December 2, 2010."
Blatter was "absolutely committed" to the Russian bid it was said.
Earlier this month, football's world governing body published a report that cleared Russia and Qatar of any wrongdoing in their winning of the hosting rights for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.
But within hours of the announcement, Michael Garcia, the U.S. attorney who had led the investigation, went public with his disappointment at the findings, labeling them "incomplete and erroneous" and claiming that his work had been misrepresented.
The saga took a further twist when FIFA later announced it had lodged a criminal complaint in the Swiss courts into the "possible misconduct of individual persons in connection with the awarding of the hosting rights of the 2018 and 2022 World Cup."
FIFA told CNN Sunday that it was unable to comment on the specific allegations in the DCMS and Sunday Times reports.
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"Matters related to the 2018/2022 inquiry are solely handled by the Investigatory Chamber of the independent FIFA Ethics Committee," it said.
"Therefore we are not in a position to comment on on-going proceedings nor on names and other information circulated in the media, particularly as we do not know against which individuals and for what reasons investigations are in process nor do we know the details of what is actually in the investigation reports."
It added: "The independent Chairman of the Audit and Compliance Committee Domenico Scala is currently evaluating the matter to decide on the next steps including the compiling of relevant information from the investigation which needs to be provided to the FIFA Executive Committee.
"In parallel, the entire reports have been provided to the Swiss General Attorney. As such, FIFA has no further comment for the time-being."
Meanwhile, the English Football Association also responded Sunday to the reports, claiming that the 2018 bid chairman Andy Anson and his team had fully co-operated with the original FIFA investigation.
"The Fifa Ethics Committee made specific requests and responding to these requests involved searching in excess of 500,000 documents," the Guardian newspaper reported.
"The search parameters were established with Mr Garcia's office. The documents searched included intelligence gathered by the bid team. All documents within the search parameters were disclosed."
It added that Anson had only shared with Garcia information that could be substantiated. "Everything else was hearsay, gossip and rumor," it added.
The UK Parliament is set to debate the findings of the DCMS report Monday. | – There's regular corruption, and then there's over-the-top Teapot Dome-style bribery. The latter is what took place ahead of the controversial decision to award the 2018 and 2022 soccer World Cups to Russia and Qatar, according to a report submitted to British lawmakers. The report compiled by the Sunday Times claims "high-level intelligence gathering and surveillances" conducted in part by British embassies revealed wrongdoing, including a vote-swapping conspiracy between Russia and Qatar and the bribing of committee members with fine paintings allegedly taken from the Kremlin archives or a St. Petersburg museum, CNN reports. The report says Vladimir Putin took an active role in supporting the Russian bid, which was moved forward with the help of a huge gas deal with Qatar. Key FIFA voting member Michel Platini was given a Picasso painting in return for supporting the Russian bid, according to the report, while another member admits being given a painting but says it was "absolutely ugly" and he believed it worthless. Russia and Qatar have both denied persistent reports of wrongdoing in relations to the bid, and they were recently cleared by a hotly contested FIFA probe, reports the BBC, which notes that while the latest reports of corruption may be brushed off, the "tawdry saga shows no sign of abating" for world soccer authorities. (As Qatar prepares for the 2022 Cup, Amnesty International warns that migrant workers building its infrastructure are being exploited and thousands could die in the race to complete construction projects.) |
SAN DIEGO -- The mediation over the sexual harassment lawsuit against San Diego Mayor Bob Filner has been completed, and the City Council will vote Friday on a proposal that could end the six-week saga, according to City Atty. Jan Goldsmith.
At issue in the mediation talks was the possibility of Filner’s resignation in exchange for the City Council agreeing to pay some of his legal fees and potential damages from a sexual harassment lawsuit filed against him by his former director of communications.
Late Wednesday night, an aide to a City Council member posted a video of Filner loading boxes into an SUV parked outside City Hall, reportedly after cleaning out his office and saying farewell to his staff.
The end of the mediation had come earlier Wednesday evening after three days of closed-door negotiations between Filner, his attorneys, Goldsmith and two City Council members, and overseen by retired federal judge J. Lawrence Irving, who donated his time.
All nine council members and numerous other officials have called for Filner's resignation, and a recall effort is underway. Goldsmith said last week that he was developing an "exit plan" for the mayor.
On Monday, Los Angeles attorney Gloria Allred and her client Irene McCormack Jackson also the first of the mediation sessions.
Details of the proposal were kept under wraps Wednesday night, even from council members who were not in attendance at the session. Friday's vote will be taken in a closed session.
More than a dozen women in recent weeks have accused Filner of sexual misconduct, including inappropriate touching. Another woman came forward earlier Wednesday.
Recall leader Michael Pallamary said Wednesday night that the recall will continue "until a resignation has been tendered by Filner."
Filner, 70, was elected in November, the city's first Democratic mayor in two decades. Almost immediately his confrontational, abrasive style resulted in friction with City Council members and business leaders.
Filner made a brief appearance at City Hall to talk to his staff Wednesday afternoon before returning to the last mediation session. He refused to answer questions from reporters.
"Nice to see you guys," he told reporters.
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tony.perry@latimes.com
Twitter: @LATsandiego ||||| City Attorney Jan Goldsmith said Wednesday night that a proposed resolution has been reached to a sexual harassment lawsuit filed against Mayor Bob Filner and the city.
Goldsmith said the City Council, which must approve any settlement, will review the proposal on Friday. He said no details would be released until after then.
The city attorney appeared after the third day of mediation being led by retired federal Judge J. Lawrence Irving that many presumed would end with Filner agreeing to resign. In exchange, the city would likely agree to limit Filner’s legal and financial exposure with regard to the lawsuit. A major sticking point had been the reluctance of city leaders to make taxpayers foot the bill for Filner’s alleged wrongdoing.
Joining other city officials and Filner's attorney outside a downtown office building, Goldsmith said Irving called on all parties not to disclose details until after the council session.
Filner's former communications director, Irene McCormack Jackson, filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against the and Filner and the city. She is being represented by high-profile attorney Gloria Allred.
The Democratic mayor has been under siege for the past five weeks since allegations of inappropriate sexual behavior toward women surfaced. More than a dozen women have come forward to accuse Filner of sexual misconduct and unwanted advances, such as kisses, groping and derogatory comments. Additional women have also described awkward encounters with Filner in which he inquired about their relationship status or asked them out. ||||| All nine members of San Diego City Council, California’s two senators and the Democratic National Committee want mayor Bob Filner to step down.
A recent poll of the city’s 1.3 million residents also found 81% think he should go.
But the 70-year-old serial groper is resisting their calls to resign, saying he’s taken an intensive course of behavioural therapy to sensitize himself to the issue and enable him to mend his ways. This is, after all, California.
Meanwhile, the government of the U.S.’s eight-largest city is in an uproar as a seemingly endless parade of women has come forward to claim the mayor made unwanted and improper sexual advances.
Among the accusers are his former communications director, a university dean, a retired Navy rear admiral and a great-grandmother. Some contend he cornered, groped and forcibly kissed them.
He’s not going to go on his own
The latest to go public is Dianne York, owner of a spa in nearby La Jolla. She told CNN Wednesday the 70-year-old fondled her buttocks during a photo shoot in front of several other people.
Mr. Filner already faces a sexual harassment lawsuit filed by his former communications director, Irene McCormack Jackson, the first woman to accuse him of failing to keep his hands to himself.
She says he made numerous lewd remarks and suggested her work performance would improve if she came to the office without wearing underwear.
Negotiations between the city and Ms. Jackson’s lawyer, Gloria Allred, are reportedly stalled over the amount of money to be paid to her in compensation and whether Mr. Filner should be forced to resign.
The DNC plans to vote on a resolution Friday urging him to step down immediately.
Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the DNC chairwoman, urged him to resign in July.
Negotiations on the Jackson lawsuit — she’s also suing the city — began Monday when Mr. Filner was spotted at City Hall, followed by Ms. Allred.
Why would he? He’s a psychopath. He’s a narcissist. He’s a predator. He’s a criminal menace
It was the first time the mayor had been seen in public since announcing about three weeks ago he would undergo therapy after acknowledging he has disrespected and intimidated women. He has denied committing sexual harassment.
But last month, after Ms. Jackson filed her lawsuit, he acknowledged having “failed to fully respect the women who work for me and with me,” and admitted he was “embarrassed” by his actions.
Mr. Filner has vowed to remain San Diego’s leader, saying his focus after therapy “will be on making sure that I am doing right by the city in terms of being the best mayor I can be.”
He may not have a choice. The campaign to recall him began in earnest last Sunday, as volunteers fanned out over the downtown Gaslamp nightlife district and the finish line of a half-marathon foot race to gather signatures.
“He’s not going to go on his own,” said Michael Pallamary, a land-use consultant and recall committee chairman, at a rally outside City Hall.
“Why would he? He’s a psychopath. He’s a narcissist. He’s a predator. He’s a criminal menace.”
Organizers have until Sept. 26 to collect 101,597 signatures of registered voters. If the petition has fewer than that, the recall campaign will have 30 more days to gather additional valid signatures.
CNN affiliate KFMB reported local radio hosts hired skywriters to spell out “Surrender Bob” over the city last week.
National Post, with files from The Associated Press and Bloomberg News ||||| Mayor Filner as he apologizes for disrespecting women (L) and the moment he announced he will undergo intense therapy in response to sexual harassment allegations.
San Diego Mayor Bob Filner has agreed to resign as part of a deal reached this week with city officials, NBC 7 News has learned.
Filner, spotted leaving City Hall with packing boxes Wednesday night, will formally vacate the office following a closed session of City Council Friday, according to several sources.
Filner's attorney has a letter of resignation drafted for his signature upon approval of the tentative settlement by councilmembers.
The mayor said goodbye to his staff Wednesday before he left his office at City Hall in his security detail’s SUV. Sources say the packing boxes in the backseat contained Filner's office effects.
San Diego Mayor Bob Filner Apppears in Public
NBC 7 San Diego cameras captured Mayor Bob Filner as he left the City Administration Building on Wednesday afternoon. (Published Wednesday, Aug. 21, 2013)
City officials announced just before 7 p.m. Wednesday a proposed solution had been reached in the scandal that has consumed the city of San Diego since it first broke July 10.
The firm Payne & Fears issued a statement on behalf of Filner Thursday afternoon: "Due to the confidential nature of mediation and settlement discussions, we are unable to comment or make statements about any of the terms." Read the full statement here
A public announcement will occur following the closed session according to Filner's attorneys but they don't identify who will make the statement.
Images: Mayor Under Fire
“I would encourage people to refer back to the City Attorney’s comments yesterday that much of the speculation cannot be confirmed until the Council is able to meet,” said City Council President Todd Gloria.
“This is a legal settlement we’re considering,” Gloria said.
In the last six weeks, more than a dozen women have come forward with tales of alleged sexual harassment and unwanted sexual advances.
Todd Gloria Reacts to City's Mayoral Deal
NBC 7 reporter Brandi Powell asks San Diego City Council President Todd Gloria about his thoughts on Mayor Bob Filner's pending resignation. (Published Thursday, Aug. 22, 2013)
Filner has admitted to disrespecting and at times intimidating women, saying that he needed help. He announced he would enter a treatment program for an undisclosed disorder or illness.
Under investigation for alleged “pay to play” schemes with developers, Filner disappeared from public view for three weeks and surfaced Monday in time for a mediation session with city officials.
Over three days of negotiations in the downtown San Diego high-rise located just blocks from City Hall, officials reached a deal.
Goldsmith: 'We've Reached a Proposed Solution'
After 3 days of mediation with embattled Mayor Bob Filner, San Diego city leaders have reached a "proposed solution" regarding Filner's possible ousting from office. San Diego City Attorney Jan Goldsmith speaks briefly about this latest development on August 21, 2013. (Published Wednesday, Aug. 21, 2013)
U.S. Rep. Scott Peters speculated the agreement involves picking up Filner's legal fees. “The hard thing for the City Council is going to be, he’s not going to leave for free,” Peters said Thursday.
Attorney Gloria Allred, who represents the mayor's former communication director Irene McCormack Jackson, described an agreement that would exchange payment of legal fees for Filner's resignation as “callous and unholy.”
“There should be no payoff for Mayor Filner,” Allred said.
"If the deal required that the city council pays him one dollar, then I for one think they should vote against it."
Councilmember Scott Sherman said he'll need to see the details of the deal before making a decision.
On the one hand, he'd like to see the voters voices be heard through the recall process but it's not guaranteed the recall effort will be successful, he said.
“If we’re looking at a small bit of attorney’s fees and maybe a payout to a couple of these victims and we’re absolved of everything else then yeah, I’d much rather have the mayor out that way,” Sherman told NBC 7 News.
As with any negotiations, until the agreement is approved and signed, it’s still tentative.
At several times during his time as mayor, Filner has come to terms with an opponent only to change his mind.
For example, Filner agreed to a deal with the Tourism Marketing District then refused to adhere to the terms.
He also pulled permits for a remodeling project by Jack-in-the-Box in North Park and meddled in the development of a multi-unit complex called CentrePointe.
Once the agreement is approved by Council and Filner resigns, San Diego city government will enter a period of interim leadership.
Council President Todd Gloria will take on the role of acting mayor under the city charter. According to the charter, Gloria would not give up his position on the Council during this time.
Read the city charter here
There could be at least one primary special election within 60 to 90 days.
Filner, a Democrat, was asked by his own party chairperson to resign amid allegations of inappropriate behavior with women. Earlier this week, The Democratic National Convention leadership announced its members would vote on a resolution regarding Filner Friday at their meeting in Scottsdale, Ariz.
On Friday evening San Diego Councilmember Kevin Faulconer released the following statement regarding Friday's closed meeting:
“Protecting taxpayers has always been my top priority. This case is no different. I joined these mediation discussions to ensure the City gets the best deal possible for taxpayers. We must put this civic dysfunction behind us and return to providing City services to San Diegans.”
Read Related Stories: | – It looks like San Diego Mayor Bob Filner will be out of a job as soon as tomorrow, reports the Union-Tribune. After three days of closed-door negotiations, Filner last night reached a tentative settlement over the many, many, many sexual harassment allegations against him. The city council will formally consider the deal at 1pm tomorrow, but a host of outlets, including NBC San Diego, say it calls for Filner to resign immediately. A special election to replace him could get under way as soon as Saturday. The Los Angeles Times reports Filner was seen loading boxes into an SUV outside city hall last night. Pressure has certainly been mounting since at least 17 women came forward with allegations of groping, headlocks, and inappropriate comments. In addition to the full San Diego city council and the Democratic National Committee calling for his resignation, a recent poll says 81% of San Diego residents want to see Filner take a hike, the National Post reports. |
Hey Friends. As many of you know, I am a teacher at Pittsburgh Perry High School. Each day, I am fortunate enough to hang out with some of Pittsburghs most amazing young people. If these young folks are the future of Pittsburgh, we are a very lucky city. Seriously, they are great. Every teacher knows that there are some students who stand out along the way and over the years.Kevonna is one of those students.I met Kevonna two years ago when she was in an AP Language class I was teaching. It didn't take me long to realize that Kevonna was the kind of person who pushed through anything to make the most of her opportunities. And unfortunately, as life goes, she had to push through more than some others. Half way through that year, her house burnt to the ground. Her family lost everything and was forced to move across the city. She barely blinked. She would get on a bus for an hour each day, traverse the city in time to arrive at Perry by 7:11 for first period. She kept smiling, kept being a good friend to her classmates, and kept getting good grades. In fact, her grades were good enough toand an acceptance to Temple University.For her, the hard work was paying off.Somewhere in the midst of that 11th grade year, I started telling Kevonna that. She asked what I meant, and I told her that she always seems to rise to the top. There has been plenty of reasons for her to give in to the weight and sink, but she continues to rise up. In fact, on our school talent night, Kevonna sang "Rise Up" by Andra Day and it almost made me tear up. She really will keep rising, and she'll do it "1000 times again" as the song says.Kevonna's financial aid at Temple covers all but $3500 of her semester's tuition ($7000 per year). Temple will not let her sign up for her Spring classes until she can pay $3500 dollars. In fact, they will not even release her first semester's transcripts without that money. She has lived at the financial aid office over the last month trying to exhaust every option, and it seems that there are none. We called everyone we knew who might be able to help, but we are learning that it is late to get that kind of money. She needs to get a private loan to cover the rest of her tuition. Unfortunately, no one in her amazing family has the positive credit to co-sign for a loan. She has all "A's" and "B's," which is pretty remarkable for a first generation college student in a new city. She is succeeding in every way that she can. I am too much of an optimist to allow Kevonna to come home midway through her freshman year over $3500.I asked Kevonna how personal she wanted me to be in this appeal. She said this:I wish I could cut a check for $7000 and help Kevonna figure out her scholarships for next year. She is that kind of person. She will not fail. I'm confident of that. In fact, she has overcome harder things than tuition bills. She will find a way to overcome this.But I don't want her to have to do this one on her own. She'll float, but this time I would like for all of us to show Kevonna that we can throw her a life jacket. We have the chance to help her ease the load a little.Temple is fortunate to have such an amazing young person on their campus. Pittsburgh should be proud of Kevonna. Her Perry family certainly is.If you can help, it would be great. Our first goal is to raise the $3500 needed to register for Spring classes. When we get there, we will keep going to try to pay the $7000 for the whole year. We are hoping to transfer the money from here directly to Temple. Help us tell Kevonna that we believe in her. And that we are all cheering. ||||| Starting in 1996, Alexa Internet has been donating their crawl data to the Internet Archive. Flowing in every day, these data are added to the Wayback Machine after an embargo period. | – Kevonna Stevens graduated as valedictorian of her class and became the first of her family to head to college, thanks in part to teacher Jason Boll, who helped her apply. Now Boll is stepping up for Stevens again, in an even bigger way. The 18-year-old told the Pittsburgh teacher in October that while she was getting good grades, she might not be able to afford to stay in college at Philadelphia's Temple University, Boll's alma mater. With Stevens' OK, Boll started a GoFundMe campaign that passed its $7,500 fundraising goal in just about a week, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports. Boll closed the fundraiser when $8,500 had been raised, since that covers what Stevens needs for the rest of the school year, but he encourages backers to share any scholarships or other financial assistance they knew of for students. Stevens lived in Las Vegas, North Carolina, and New York before arriving in Pittsburgh her freshman year of high school; she moved multiple times even once she'd settled there, including when her father moved across the country after her parents split up, and then after the family home burned down. None of this seemed to faze her, Boll wrote on the GoFundMe page. She got a job to pay for bus fare, and "she would get on a bus for an hour each day, traverse the city in time to arrive at [school] by 7:11 for first period. She kept smiling, kept being a good friend to her classmates, and kept getting good grades," Boll tells the Post-Gazette. When he heard about her financial troubles, he says, "I thought, there's no way that this is the end of the story." Most of Stevens' college costs are covered with grants, student loans, and scholarships, but a housing mix-up led to the financial issue. |
If I'm out at 12am, it DOES NOT mean I'm to be raped, molested, chased. My dignity is my right 24X7 # AintNoCinderellapic.twitter.com/6SN0I5NbSN ||||| Image copyright Palak Sharma
Women in India have been posting photographs of themselves enjoying a night out on social media in response to a politician who said a woman who was chased in her car by two men "should not have gone out so late at night".
Varnika Kundu, who works as a DJ in the northern city of Chandigarh, was returning home on Friday night when she was allegedly chased by the men, one of whom was Vikas Barala, the son of a prominent politician from India's governing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
On Wednesday, Mr Barala was arrested - police say he stands accused of "stalking, drink-driving and attempt to kidnap".
Ms Kundu said she was "chased and almost kidnapped" and that she was "not lying raped and murdered in a ditch somewhere" only because police quickly responded to her distress call and rescued her.
After she wrote a Facebook post about her ordeal which went viral, senior BJP politician in Haryana state Ramveer Bhatti blamed Ms Kundu for what happened to her.
"The girl should not have gone out at 12 in the night," he told the CNN-News18 television channel. "Why was she driving so late in the night? The atmosphere is not right. We need to take care of ourselves."
Mr Bhatti then went on to tell The Times of India that "parents must take care of their children. They shouldn't allow them to roam at night. Children should come home on time, why stay out at night?"
This "victim shaming" didn't go down well, and soon women began posting photos of themselves out at night under the hashtag #AintNoCinderella.
The campaign was launched by Divya Spandana, head of the opposition Congress party's social media cell who is a popular film actress from the southern state of Karnataka and often goes by her screen name Ramya.
"Why shouldn't women go out after midnight? I'm asking people like Mr Bhatti who are they to set curfew hours for us? I want to ask him who is he to question us? This is such a regressive mindset," Ms Spandana told the BBC.
She started out by sending a message to some women on her WhatsApp group on Monday evening.
"Ladies, how often have you heard something regressive like this from the mouth of a 'leader' who doesn't know much better? I'll answer: too often," the message said.
"This time they're telling us when we can and cannot go out of the our houses. This has to STOP" she added.
Then, she posted an image of herself on Twitter and invited other women to do the same.
Image copyright Divya Spandana
The campaign soon caught on and hundreds of women have since posted photographs on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram challenging patriarchal mindsets that always blame women.
Among the first to post a midnight selfie was Sharmistha Mukherjee, Congress party leader and daughter of former Indian president Pranab Mukherjee:
Image copyright Sharmistha Mukherjee
Many others followed up, often with defiant messages:
Image copyright queenpsays
Image copyright sharmilamandre
Image copyright sharika menon
When journalist Palak Sharma posted her image, sipping a drink and winking at the camera, she got loads of messages appreciating her "bold stand":
Image copyright Palak Sharma
"But in the last two days, I've received lots of threats too. I've been called a whore, a slut," she told the BBC.
"Think about it - I'm a journalist, I work for the government-run media, I'm no pushover and I'm being threatened for my tweet," she said.
"But I'm not afraid," Ms Sharma added. "Nothing is going to stop us, no amount of naysayers can frighten us. We aren't Cinderellas, we don't have to be home at midnight."
With more and more women joining the campaign, it seems many others are refusing to be intimidated too. ||||| CCTV footage from five locations in the stalking case involving the son of BJP Haryana president's son was missing, police said Monday, while the party's state unit blamed the victim for driving "so late in the night"."The girl should not have gone out at 12 in the night. Why was she driving so late in the night? The atmosphere is not right. We need to take care of ourselves," said BJP state vice president Ramveer Bhatti, talking to CNN-News18.This came when Bhatti was contacted to comment on the Chandigarh police claiming that CCTV footage from 5 locations related to the stalking case in the city were missing. Police sources said the CCTV footage could be a vital piece of evidence in the case.The 29-year-old daughter of a top bureaucrat alleged that she was followed by Haryana BJP chief Subhash Barala's son Vikas Barala and his friend Ashish Kumar last Friday. Barala's SUV pulled up close to her car several times in a bid to block her way from other routes.The Congress attacked the Haryana and the central governments for allegedly trying to cover-up the case. “We are releasing three videos today, relating to the stalking of a girl by BJP state president Subhash Barala’s son Vikas. The cases filed by the police definitely raise a question. This is clearly a case of abduction. The Centre is trying to stall the case. It was not registered under proper sections of the IPC,” said Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjewala.The Congress leader asked what is stopping the Centre from acting when the Chandigarh police comes directly under the Home Ministry.“Why is the FIR diluted? Rajnath Singh and Sushma Swaraj protested when a Congress leader's son was involved in a similar case. The word 'sexual' is totally omitted from the police report in the present case. How have the CCTV cameras stopped working? Is the BJP trying to protect its leader?” Surjewala added.Meanwhile, BJP’s Kurukshetra MP Raj Kumar Saini has said that Subhash Barala should resign on “moral grounds” till the case was on.Earlier, Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar claimed that the state BJP chief Subhash Barala had "nothing to do with the incident". Congress leader Rahul Gandhi retorted by saying that the state government should punish the guilty and not "collude" with culprits and the mindset they represent.The incident had come to light when the woman called up the police on Friday night and complained that two youth were chasing her. The woman in her complaint had alleged that two youth in an SUV followed her when she was driving from the Sector 8 market in Chandigarh towards Panchkula on the intervening night of August 4 and 5."There were two guys inside the SUV, and they seemed to really be enjoying harassing a lone girl in the middle of the night, judging by how often their car swerved, just enough to scare me that it might hit me," the woman wrote on her Facebook post.“I’m lucky, it seems, to not be the daughter of a common man, because what chance would they have against such VIPs? I'm also lucky, because I'm not lying raped and murdered in a ditch somewhere. If this can happen in Chandigarh, it can happen anywhere," she said. ||||| Varnika Kundu, the city-based DJ who was stalked on Madhya Marg last week, welcomed the news of the arrest of the accused — Haryana Bharatiya Janata Party chief’s son Vikas Barala and his friend Ashish Kumar — on Wednesday, expressing relief, although her father still remained sceptic.
Watching her father, VS Kundu , a senior Indian Administrative Services (IAS) officer, give a TV interview at their home in Panchkula, her expressions changed as soon as she received the news of Barala’s rearrest and addition of attempt to kidnap charge in the FIR.
“My faith in the system has been somewhat restored, after being shaken on hearing the news about the medical report,” she told HT.
HT had reported on Wednesday how the accused refused to give their blood and urine samples during their medical examination after being arrested on the intervening night of Friday and Saturday, potentially weakening the case against them.
However, her father doesn’t want to jump to any conclusion.
“The arrest doesn’t mean anything at this point,” said VS Kundu. “First, the case has to reach its logical conclusion.”
Perturbed over the medical report issue, Kundu said he wasn’t sure “how much of what to trust any longer”, even though he said he wanted to stick to his earlier stand of staying away from the police investigation as much as possible.
“I was told by the investigating officer (IO) that the medical examination was conducted, and trusting him, I didn’t seek the report,” he said.
Kundu said first he was told the medical examination was conducted at Government Medical College and Hospital, Sector 16, while now he heard it took place at the Manimajra civil hospital. “I feel the distortion of facts started that night at 1:30am itself,” he said.
‘Have my team of lawyers ready’
On the way forward, Kundu said: “I’d like to hold on for a while. But I have my team of lawyers ready, and if things get more wayward from here, we’ll take the judicial route. I am prepared to do that.”
Admitting that he was still in “shock”, the IAS officer said it is for the higher officials concerned to take action against those buckling under any political pressure.
Meanwhile, responding to Subhash Barala’s statement that Varnika is like his daughter, the 29-year-old complainant said: “Well, then he should behave like one (father) and ensure we get justice.” Her father concurred. | – If you want to help Indian women stay safe, one overture that won't be embraced is giving them a curfew. That's what one politician has discovered after his remarks following what one woman says was her near-kidnapping. Per the BBC, DJ Varnika Kundu was driving home Friday night just after midnight when she was allegedly chased by two men in an SUV. She described what she says was a stalking ordeal on Facebook, which ended in the arrest of two men, including the son of a prominent BJP politician. "I'm … lucky, because I'm not lying raped and murdered in a ditch somewhere," she wrote online. Enter another BJP pol, Ramveer Bhatti, who told CNN-News 18 that maybe Kundu should bear some responsibility. "The girl should not have gone out at 12 in the night," he said of the 29-year-old. "Why was she driving so late in the night?" This didn't sit well with actress Divya Spandana, aka Ramya, who blasted Bhatti's "regressive" statements on WhatsApp, then posted a Twitter pic of herself at night, seemingly in a vehicle, with the hashtag #AintNoCinderella. Hundreds of Indian women have since joined in, uploading their own photos showing them going out and having a good time "after-hours." One notable poster: Sharmistha Mukherjee, daughter of India's ex-President Pranab Mukherjee and a politician in her own right. "If I'm out at 12am, it DOES NOT mean I'm to be raped, molested, chased. My dignity is my right 24X7," she tweeted. Journalist Palak Sharma, who put up her own now-viral pic showing her winking and enjoying a nighttime beverage, says she's received both messages of support and ones calling her "whore" and "slut." "But I'm not afraid," she tells the BBC. "Nothing is going to stop us." |
If she scores this jaw-dropping book deal, Lena Dunham won't be just one of the "Girls" anymore.
Bidding for Dunham's upcoming book skyrocketed to $3.6 million on Wednesday, according to Deadline.com's Mike Fleming. Fleming reports that this number could climb even higher:
The numbers for the book of advice and anecdotes from the 26-year old creator of the HBO series Girls should go even higher as publishers see her as an influential creative voice for young women. She met yesterday with editors. Stay tuned.
Dunham's literary agent Kim Witherspoon of InkWell Management is working on the deal, which should be finalized soon, according to Deadline.com. Witherspoon is an ideal agent to contend for Dunham's deal, as she herself founded an agency at 26 years old and now represents the likes of Sophie Kinsella, Lionel Shriver and Anthony Bourdain, the New York Observer notes.
Slate's David Haglund reported on Monday that Dunham's book deal had a set an "in-house floor of $1 Million” for U.S. rights to the book. Dunham told the online magazine: “There is nothing gutsier to me than a person announcing that their story is one that deserves to be told, especially if that person is a woman.”
Dunham's book, tentatively titled "Not That Kind of Girl: Advice by Lena Dunham," is a collection of essays with an advice motif.
"In the intro, Dunham is self-deprecating about the idea that she has any wisdom to share, but says that if the book can help anyone avoid some of the mistakes she’s made it will be worth it," according to Slate. The proposal says the work will include candid accounts of "losing her virginity, trying to eat well (detailed diet journal included), obsessing about death, and so on, along with tips about how to stay focused on work, how not to ruin a potential relationship, and what have you."
Dunham's potential multi-million dollar deal is certainly impressive addition to her list of accomplishments. The 26-year-old filmmaker and actress has written for The New Yorker and Rookie. Her feature-length film "Tiny Furniture" won Best Narrative Feature at the 2010 South by Southwest festival. ||||| Lena Dunham’s proposal for the book Not That Kind Of Girl reached $3.6 million last night. Her lit agent Kim Witherspoon from InkWell Management is working the deal, and it should be finalized soon. The numbers for the book of advice and anecdotes from the UTA-repped 26-year old creator of the HBO series Girls should go even higher as publishers see her as an influential creative voice for young women. She met yesterday with editors. Stay tuned.
Get Deadline news and alerts sent to your inbox. ||||| The Girls creator and star Lena Dunham had the honor of attending Fortune’s Most Powerful Women Summit earlier this week and in an interview with CNN’s Soledad O’Brien, she revealed some details about what is to come for her hit HBO series.
Dunham has come into the spotlight incredibly fast since Girls premiered last April. Having been nominated for multiple prestigious Emmys, it is hard to believe that the show even has critics.
But O’Brien pointed out in their interview, of which Fortune has the whole transcript, that some critics have found the show elitist for following four white girls.
“In the second season there are a multitude of new characters who enter. Some are people of color, some are not, some are Caucasian, because I went to the actors who I wanted to work with,” Dunham said. “I don't care about satisfying the critics, but I care about satisfying my viewers. And I know I have viewers who are women of color who want to see themselves reflected on screen. So, that's what matters to me.”
The Huffington Post reported last May that Donald Glover was seen on set filming for the second season of Girls, and it's speculated that it was because of the criticisms.
Girls is expected to return in January 2013 on HBO. | – If you wanted proof that Lena Dunham qualifies for the "rising young star" label, Deadline.com has it: Bidding for her book proposal Not That Kind of Girl: Advice by Lena Dunham is at $3.6 million and counting, the site reports. The 26-year-old Dunham is the creator and star of HBO's well-received Girls, set in New York City, notes the Huffington Post. The Celebrity Cafe, meanwhile, has more details on the show and what's in store for season two, including more minority characters. |
Published on Jun 9, 2017
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Actor, producer and rap icon Ice Cube joins Symone Sanders, David Gregory and former Rep. David Jolly on the Real Time panel for a discussion about race, white privilege, and policing.
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HBO Latino: http://www.youtube.com/HBOLatino ||||| Last week, Bill Maher did a very bad thing. During an exchange with Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Nebraska) on his show Real Time, the political satirist casually dropped the n-word.
Responding to a silly dig by Sasse (“We’d love to have you work in the fields with us,” he joked), Maher quipped, “Work in the fields? Senator, I’m a house nigger.”
The backlash was appropriately swift, with Black Lives Matter activist DeRay Mckesson and MC/activist Chance the Rapper calling for Maher to be kicked off the air, and the Rev. Al Sharpton digging up a vintage clip of Maher cavalierly tossing around the n-word and defending his use of it by citing the way African-American rappers regularly use it in their songs. The comic, for his part, issued a rare apology: “Friday nights are always my worst nights of sleep because I’m up reflecting on the things I should or shouldn't have said on my live show,” he wrote. “Last night was a particularly long night as I regret the word I used in the banter of a live moment. The word was offensive and I regret saying it and I'm very sorry.”
Well, on Friday night’s edition of his HBO program Real Time, the host first welcomed close pal Michael Eric Dyson on the show for his mea culpa. But that exchange, a black friend of Maher’s serving as his character witness and shield of sorts, was transparently disingenuous.
The real exchange occurred later in the program when the iconic rapper turned actor Ice Cube joined the program. Cube, who served as frontman for the hip-hop group N.W.A. (which stood for “Niggas with Attitude”), gave Maher a piece of his mind.
“I knew you was gonna fuck up sooner or later,” Cube told Maher. “I did. I did. I love your show, you’ve got a great show, but you’ve been buckin’ up against that line a little bit. You know, you’ve got a lot of black jokes. You know what I’m sayin’, you do.”
“Well, against racists. Yes,” Maher responded, stunned by Cube’s criticism.
“Eh. Sometimes you sound like a redneck trucker,” added Cube.
“No, I don’t. That I gotta push back on,” replied Maher, clearly on the defensive.
“It’s my opinion,” offered Cube. “My thing is this, and you know, I’m cool with you. I like your show, to be honest. I just wanna know two questions. What made you think it was cool to say that? That’s one question.”
An annoyed Maher interrupted Cube—which he did repeatedly throughout the exchange: “You know, I just explained there was no thought put into it. Obviously I was telling Dr. Dyson, comedians, they react. And it was wrong. And I apologize. And you know, more than that I can’t do.”
Then Ice Cube enlightened Maher on why his use of the n-word was so damn problematic—in far more nuanced and poignant fashion than the host’s friend Dyson.
“I accept your apology. But I still think we need to get to the root of the psyche,” Cube explained. “Because I think there’s a lot of guys out there who cross the line because they a little too familiar—or they think they too familiar—or its guys that, you know, might have a black girlfriend or two who made them some Kool-Aid every now and then, and they think they can cross the line. And they can’t. It’s a word that has been used against us; it’s like a knife, man. And you can use it as a weapon, or you can use it as a tool. It’s been used as a weapon against us by white people, and we’re not gonna let that happen again by nobody, because it’s not cool. Now, I know you heard [it], it’s in the lexicon and everybody’s talkin’, but that’s our word now. That’s our word now. And you can’t have it back. I know they’re tryin’ to get it back.”
The hip-hop maestro was referencing Maher’s history of dating black women, and how he may have gotten “too familiar” and felt that it entitled him to cross certain lines of propriety. One of Maher’s exes Karine Steffans, who is black, once said of him, “Bill wants someone he can put down in an argument, tell you how ghetto you are, how big your butt is and that you’re an idiot. That’s why you never see him with a white girl or an intellectual.”
With that being said, Cube wasn’t done. “And I’m not talkin’ about you, Bill. But I’m talkin’ about guys who cross the line every day because they got some black homies, they got some friends, they think it’s cool. And it’s not cool because when I hear my homies say it, it don’t feel like venom. When I hear a white person say it, it feels like that knife stabbin’ me, even if they don’t mean it,” he said.
“So, I like your show—and it’s a great show—I just don’t know sometimes, is it a political show, or is it a show about jokes?” he continued. “This, to me, is a political show. And I think you just have to not step on some of the political messages that you sayin’ with a joke, because some things just ain’t funny, you know what I mean? This is real right here that we’re going through. And I’m not tryin’ to get on your case, Bill. I’m tellin’ you: I like your show and I like you. But I think this is a teachable moment, not just to you but to the people who are watching right now.”
Maher, visibly aggravated by Cube’s words, quipped, “I think the people who are watching right now are saying: that point has been made.”
“Not by me,” fired back Cube.
The outspoken funnyman was, for once, at a loss for words. ||||| Update, with videos “It’s like a knife, man,” actor-musician Ice Cube told Bill Maher about the host’s use last week of the N-word. “When I hear my homies say it, it don’t feel like venom. When I hear a white person say it, it’s like a knife.”
“That’s our word now,” he continued, “and you can’t have it back.” (See video above).
The first episode of HBO’s Real Time With Bill Maher since Maher ignited a firestorm last Friday by jokingly referring to himself as a “house N-word,” Maher took the stage tonight to a standing ovation and shouts of “We love you Bill” from his loyal audience.
“Thank you for letting a sinner in your midst,” Maher said. “Michael Eric Dyson will be out here shortly to take me to the woodshed.”
And so he did, as Maher and the author of Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon To White America launched into a discussion of race intended to clear the air after Maher crossed the line from politically incorrect to, as Dyson called it, the “unconscious reflex of white privilege.”
“I wanted you to come by here because I want you to school me,” Maher told Dyson. “I did a bad thing.”
“That’s a great place to begin, Bill,” Dyson said. “A very bad thing.”
Dyson told Maher that with today’s “resurgence” of racism — he referenced Steve Bannon and Jeff Sessions — it’s even more important for Maher to fight the “unconscious reflex.”
“My Bible tells me that to whom much is given,” Dyson said, “much is expected.”
Maher acknowledged “it doesn’t matter that it wasn’t said in malice” since the word “brought pain to people.”
“I’m not here to do that. I reiterate tonight, and that’s sincere. I’m not that big of an asshole.”
Maher also mentioned Kathy Griffin, “who by the way owes me a fruit basket for getting her off the front page.” Maher said “as much as I hate Trump,” Griffin was wrong to be photographed holding a fake, bloody decapitated head of the president. Still, he added, she “should not go away.”
“He broke me?” Maher said, quoting Griffin about Trump. “No, he didn’t.”
Later in the show, a very serious Ice Cube told Maher, “I knew you was going to f*ck up sooner or later. Sometimes you sound like a redneck trucker.”
The former N.W.A rapper also criticized Real Time for blurring the line between political discourse and jokes. Maher responded the show was meant to be both.
Activist Symone Sanders, the former national press secretary for Bernie Sanders and frequent CNN contributor, told Maher that his joke about being a “house N-word” was particularly offensive to black women, and accused Maher of “white-washing” the word. “It was mostly black women who were in the house,” she said, where they were often beaten and raped.
Another guest, Republican (and former congressman) David Jolly, applauded Maher for apologizing. “Let’s start focusing,” he said, “on the people who refuse to apologize.”
Although Maher was contrite throughout the episode, he repeatedly insisted that he meant no harm last week. “I don’t want to pretend this is more of a race thing than a comedian thing,” he told Dyson. “Comedians are a special kind of monkey.”
“So to speak,” Dyson responded as the audience laughed nervously.
“Don’t,” Maher said. “Don’t f*ck with me. We are a trained thing that tries to get a laugh. That’s all we are always thinking.”
No mention was made tonight of Sen. Al Franken, who canceled his planned appearance earlier this week. | – Bill Maher got a scolding from Ice Cube in his first show since he dropped the N-bomb on air, the Daily Beast reports. "It's a word that has been used against us; it’s like a knife, man," the rapper-turned-actor told Maher on Friday night's Real Time. (See video here.) "What made you think it was cool to say that?" he asked, to which Maher replied: "I just explained there was no thought put into it. And it was wrong. And I apologize. And you know, more than that I can’t do." Ice Cube said he accepted the apology, but pressed the issue. "We need to get to the root of the psyche," he said, and explained that the slur has "been used as a weapon against us by white people, and we’re not gonna let that happen again by nobody. … That’s our word now. And you can’t have it back." Earlier, Maher got a standing O from the audience, per Deadline Hollywood. He told his first guest, the author Michael Eric Dyson, "I wanted you to come by here because I want you to school me. ... I did a bad thing.” Dyson told him, "That’s a great place to begin, Bill." Maher said the word "brought pain to people. … I'm not here to do that. I reiterate tonight, and that’s sincere. I’m not that big of an ass----." (Al Franken was originally supposed to appear, but he canceled.) |
A woman arrested for sitting on a bench outside a Dunkin' Donuts with no clothes on told police she did it on a dare as part of joining a dance troupe, according to a Greenacres Department of Public Safety arrest report.
Police were called to the doughnut shop, at 2995 S. Jog Road, in Greenacres, at about 9 p.m. Sunday in response to reports of a woman "completely naked" outside the business. There, an officer found Shakara Martin, 32, "fully exposed."
The officer asked if she was all right and if she needed medical attention, according to the report. Martin apologized and said she purposely came to the Dunkin' Donuts naked for a dare that was part of pledging the dance group.
Onlookers said Martin was offered clothes multiple times and refused them.
She was arrested on a charge of indecent exposure and released from the Palm Beach County Jail about an hour later. ||||| The seed for Wide00014 was:
- Slash pages from every domain on the web:
-- a ranking of all URLs that have more than one incoming inter-domain link (rank was determined by number of incoming links using Wide00012 inter domain links)
-- up to a maximum of 100 most highly ranked URLs per domain
- Top ranked pages (up to a max of 100) from every linked-to domain using the Wide00012 inter-domain navigational link graph | – A Palm Beach woman better hope she makes the dance team after an apparent dare from the unnamed group landed her in jail. Shakara Monik Martin was spotted sitting naked outside a Dunkin' Donuts on Sunday, yet rebuffed numerous offers of clothes, the Palm Beach Post reports. By the time police arrived, a "fully exposed" Martin, 32, was apologetic and revealed the stunt was part of a pledge for a dance group, according to police documents, per the South Florida Sun Sentinel. She was charged with indecent exposure and released from the Palm Beach County Jail on Monday. |
[There was a video here]
Rupert Murdoch appeared before a British parliamentary committee today to testify about his knowledge of phone hacking at News of the World. On tonight's Daily Show, Jon Stewart took the opportunity to poke fun at the 80-year-old media mogul—and praise wife Wendi Deng for defending him against a pie-wielding assailant—before mocking Fox News's efforts to downplay the scandal. ||||| >>> is an american citizen , the head of a media empire that is well known and widely watched here, the current scandal involving his company is mostly unraveling in great britain where he's already shut down one newspaper. where we know people's cell phones were hacked and where today, murdoch and his son and former employee faced members of parliament in a hearing. both murdochs tried to stay above the fray and then the fray came to them in the form of a guy with a cream pie aimed right at the face of the patriarch. it was that kind of day. it's been that kind of scandal. we begin our reporting here tonight with nbc's stephanie gosk in london , stephanie , good evening.
>> reporter: good evening. brian. the police were armed with machine guns outside the front doors of parliament today, a good indication it was not going to be business as usual . many here in london said today that this was one of the most important days in parliament's history. the murdoch 's made a business out of covering the story. today, they were the story. the man who runs the second largest media company in the world side-by-side with his son, in front of members of parliament . po apologetic.
>> this has been the most humble day of my life. i would like to say as well, how sorry i am and how sorry we are to, particularly the victims of illegal voice mail interceptions and to their families.
>> reporter: from the beginning, james took the lead.
>> i think my son can perhaps answer that in more detail. i think that's a question for james .
>> reporter: at times jumping in to help when his 80-year-old father searched or stumbled for answers. but it was rupert murdoch 's wife who stepped in at the most critical moment. throwing a right hook to protect over husband from a surprise pie attack. the protester, an amateur comedian that calls himself johnny marbles was arrested and led away by police. for most of the question about phone hacking at "news of the world" the committee focused on who knew what and when. both of the murdochs repeatedly denied prior knowledge and never assumed responsibility.
>> i don't know.
>> i have no knowledge.
>> that's the first i've heard of that.
>> i don't have direct knowledge of that.
>> i can't answer. i don't know.
>> reporter: at one point, murdoch claimed his company is too billing for him to know the details of -- too big to know the details of each business.
>> "news of the world" say small percent of our company and i'm spread watching and appointing people in my trust.
>> reporter: james defended executives rebekah brooks who resigned last friday. both led british newspaper's arm.
>> there's no evidence that i'm aware of that brooks or mr. hinton or any of those executives, had knowledge of that. nonetheless, those resignations have been accepted.
>> reporter: later in the day, brooks faced questions by herself from the same panel. she was arrested on sunday over allegations of phone hacking and payments to police for information. she, too, denies any knowledge of wrongdoing.
>> i have never paid a policeman.
>> reporter: but for the murdochs today's questioning was about salvaging news corp.'s reputation, a business rupert brought up with one paper.
>> i was brought up by a father who was not rich but a great journalist. before he died, it was a small paper.
>> reporter: james hopes to one day lead the family business but first he'll have to repair the damage sustained over two weeks of an ever-widening scandal.
>> it's our determination to put things right. make sure these things don't happen again.
>> reporter: rumors were floated that the head of news corp. might use today to announce his own resignation. just rumors.
>> have you considered resigning?
>> no.
>> why not?
>> because i feel that people i trusted have let me down. i'm the best person to clean this up.
>> reporter: and there may be more tough questions to come. british prime minister david cameron has called for a judicial inquiry that could summon both rupert and james murdoch for questioning. and some u.s. lawmakers are calling for their own hearing, another opportunity to question the media mogul on capitol hill , brian.
>> stephanie gosk starting off our reporting with the wild day in london , thanks. | – Wendi Deng came off as having "Chuck Norris-esque hand speed" yesterday while defending her hubby from a pie-thrower, but Rupert Murdoch ... not so much, chortles Jon Stewart. In fact, the 80-year-old publisher is seen nodding off in the middle of his grilling by a parliament committee on the News of the World phone hacking scandal. "I'm not a big proponent of the four-decade marriage age gap," says Stewart. "But if ever there was a situation where it would pay dividends it would be an ambush like that." Stewart notes that it came at a time when Murdoch "appeared somewhat vulnerable"—and shows a clip of the dozing mogul as Murdoch's head is about to drop to his chest. While Deng, 42, looked like a major force to be reckoned with, Murdoch seemed muddled and "foggy," noted several observers. But that might not be all bad. Murdoch's "doddering" performance may end up winning him sympathy, notes MSNBC. "If you appear as an old man, there is a certain level of sympathy," said a reputation management expert. That reaction would have been "reinforced by this whole pie-throwing incident," he added. "The appearance went reasonably well. It was kind of a stabilizing day." But there's always the chance that Murdoch's apparent confusion and denial that he knew what was going on at the News of the World was all an act, MSNBC notes. |
Jay McDowell, a teacher in Howell, Michigan, was temporarily suspended without pay earlier this month after telling a student wearing a Confederate flag and a student making anti-gay remarks to get out of his class. At a school-board meeting on Friday, openly gay 14-year-old high-school student Graeme Taylor came to McDowell's defense, thanking the teacher for doing "an amazing thing" in a town home to the KKK, and urging the school board to give McDowell his pay and reverse the disciplinary actions. The inspiring video has made its way around the Internet, because how cool is this kid? ||||| A video of a southeast Michigan teen has caught national attention this morning after he delivered an impassioned defense of a Howell High School teacher who was disciplined for a heated exchange about gay rights with two students.
Graeme Taylor, 14 of Ann Arbor, addressed the Howell School Board last Monday, saying he had tried to kill himself at the hands of bullying when he was 9.
The video of Taylor was shot and produced by a Free Press sister paper, the Daily Press and Argus in Livingston, and has been featured on prominent national blogs like Gawker, Perez Hilton and New York Magazine. It ... | – Video of a 14-year-old student’s incredibly eloquent defense of a suspended Michigan teacher is making waves on the web, the Detroit Free Press reports. The clip shows Graeme Taylor speaking at a school board meeting about his experience as a 9-year-old driven to a suicide attempt by bullying. Taylor spoke in defense of Jay McDowell, who was suspended for a day without pay after he asked two students to leave his classroom at Howell High School; one was wearing a Confederate flag belt buckle, the other was making anti-gay comments, notes New York magazine. Howell has ties to the Ku Klux Klan, Taylor notes, "And you probably want to get rid of that, so how would you like more headlines of 'Howell Denies Gays'?" He asked that the decision be reversed and McDowell's pay given to him, and continued, "This teacher finally stood up and said something. He did an amazing thing." “If you only watch one video today this should be it,” noted the anti-bullying It Gets Better Project. Click here to watch. |
New security regulations put in place after last week's terrorist incident aboard a Northwest Airlines jet are going to make flying into the U.S. difficult, boring, and unpleasant, at least for a little while.
First, the good news: Virgin America and Southwest confirmed that new regulations don't seem to affect domestic flights. So laptops, Live TV, and other distractions are still A-OK if you're flying within the USA.
The problem comes for folks flying into the USA from elsewhere. According to rules quoted on Gizmodo, you can't hold anything in your lap or access your carry-on bags for the last hour of a flight, and any in-flight communications equipment, including live TV and Internet, must be turned off for the entire duration of the flight. Airlines have so far interpreted this to mean that you can read an analog book, but not use a laptop during that final hour. It's unclear whether this prohibits iPods or other gadgets that could be stored in a pocket rather than a lap.
But wait! It gets worse! JetBlue confirmed to me this morning that because they can't unravel their Live TV system from the rest of their in-flight entertainment, they're turning off all in-flight entertainment on flights from foreign countries into the U.S. That means no movies for the whole flight (although you can use your laptop, except for the final hour). They're working on a solution to allow for movies on flights into the U.S., they said.
JetBlue only flies relatively short international routes, mostly to and from the Caribbean. We haven't heard details from any longer-haul carriers who don't have live TV integrated into their entertainment systems.
Fortunately, reliable airline analyst Chris Elliott says that several of the security bulletins involved expire on January 1, which means that this draconian regime may be short-lived.
For a full guide to the new security regulations - independent of gadgets - check out Frommers.com.
UPDATE: Updated. JetBlue now says they've returned Live TV and entertainment to all of their flights. Wow, things change fast.
This post originally appeared on Gearlog. ||||| Ever since the TesticleTerrorist succeeded in nothing but scorching his balls, word spread of the TSA issuing reactionary regulations. Proof: this flight announcement recorded by none other than Vimeo's founder and DOTD-nominee Jakob Lodwick, which he posted to his blog.
Look! I put a pretty picture on it and gave it a transcript for People Who Don't Hear So Great.
Jakob was flying in from San Juan, and this is constant with what's been previously reported, which was that the new regulations would be in place for international flights arriving into America. Jetblue's site notes:
Operations Update Last Updated: 12/27/2009 [10:00 pm EST] Customers on flights originating outside of the United States are asked to allow at least one additional hour for check in due to U.S. government mandated security procedures. Please note: JetBlue's LiveTV programming will be inoperable on these flights as a result of these new procedures. Customers are asked to plan accordingly.
Jakob also—surprisingly, for this blogger!—makes both a salient, populist point and a trenchant observation when he notes the following. Astute kvetching, here:
I was also pissed that we couldn't watch TV on our flight. And if I were JetBlue, I'd be pissed that one of my company's distinguishing features was now indefinitely banned.
Truth. That said, if I were
1. Working in print,
2. Working in the business of drugs that will knock you the fuh out, or
3. A kinetophobic,
I could see this as the kind of thing that would make my day. Until then, most people will simply buy an extra magazine and stock up on Xanax. And this is where I'd lament these regulations not actually being of any foreseeable security value except for terrorists who wait to file their taxes at the last minute and terrorize during the last hour of the plane ride, and uh, the paralyzing threat that is JetBlue's XM Radio, but that's fairly obvious as it is. What more's there to say, here? This is patently ridiculous, and also, sucks.
Monday update: JetBlue P.R. Morgan Johnston emails to say that the ban on live TV has been rescinded: "I wanted to advise you and your readers, that as of this morning JetBlue will be resuming regular LiveTV service for all US bound international flights." | – The latest casualty of the TSA’s updated airline security regulations: JetBlue LiveTV programming, at least on flights that originate outside the US. The TV service—a “distinguishing feature” of the airline, as Vimeo founder Jakob Lodwick points out—has been disabled in the wake of Northwest Flight 253, and along with it the rest of the airline's entertainment. At least one pilot (whom Lodwick recorded) doesn’t sound too happy about it. “Uh, unfortunately we’re not going to have any live TV today,” says the pilot in Lodwick’s recording. “No movies, no TV, no XM radio, uh, the system is required by the federal government to be shut down! I do apologize for that but that is out of our hands for the moment.” Adds Gawker's Foster Kamer, "This is where I'd lament these regulations not actually being of any foreseeable security value. This is patently ridiculous, and also, sucks." Maybe so, but JetBlue confirms to PC Magazine that all in-flight entertainment will be turned off on flights from foreign countries, because the live TV component can't be uncoupled from the rest. |
The Romney campaign stressed Monday that states should take the lead in responding to emergencies like hurricanes. But the campaign said Romney would not abolish the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
“Gov. Romney believes that states should be in charge of emergency management in responding to storms and other natural disasters in their jurisdictions,” Romney spokesman Ryan Williams said in a statement. “As the first responders, states are in the best position to aid affected individuals and communities, and to direct resources and assistance to where they are needed most. This includes help from the federal government and FEMA.”
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(PHOTOS: Hurricane Sandy)
A campaign official added that Romney would not abolish FEMA.
The statement came after The Huffington Post highlighted Romney’s comments from a June 2011 CNN primary debate in which Romney said states should take on a bigger role in responding to disasters. “Mitt Romney In GOP Debate: Shut Down Federal Disaster Agency, Send Responsibility To The States,” read the Huffington Post’s headline.
“FEMA is about to run out of money, and there are some people who say, ‘Do it on a case-by-case basis.’ And there are some people who say, ‘You know what, maybe we’re learning a lesson here that the states should take on more of this role.’ How do you deal with something like that?” debate moderator John King asked Romney during the debate, pointing to the May 2011 tornado that killed more than 150 people in Joplin, Mo.
“Absolutely. And every time you have an occasion to take something from the federal government and send it back to the states, that’s the right direction. And if you can go even further and send it back to the private sector, that’s even better,” Romney responded.
“Instead of thinking in the federal budget, ‘What we should cut?’ we should ask ourselves the opposite question, ‘What should we keep?’ We should take all of what we’re doing at the federal level and say, ‘What are the things we’re doing that we don’t have to do?’ And those things we’ve got to stop doing,” Romney continued.
(PHOTOS: Political plans: Rock me like a hurricane) ||||| Back when he was being “severely conservative,” Mitt Romney suggested that responsibility for disaster relief should be taken from the big, bad federal government and given to the states, or perhaps even privatized. Hurricane Sandy would like to know if he’d care to reconsider.
The absurd, and dangerous, policy prescription came in a GOP primary debate in June. Moderator John King said he had recently visited communities affected by severe weather and noted that the Federal Emergency Management Agency “is about to run out of money.”
Eugene Robinson writes a twice-a-week column on politics and culture, contributes to the PostPartisan blog, and hosts a weekly online chat with readers. In a three-decade career at The Post, Robinson has been city hall reporter, city editor, foreign correspondent in Buenos Aires and London, foreign editor, and assistant managing editor in charge of the paper’s Style section. View Archive
“There are some people . . . who say, you know, maybe we’re learning a lesson here that the states should take on more of this role,” King said. “How do you deal with something like that?”
Romney replied: “Absolutely. Every time you have an occasion to take something from the federal government and send it back to the states, that’s the right direction. And if you can go further and send it back to the private sector, that’s even better.”
Romney went on to express the general principle that, given the crushing national debt, “we should take all of what we’re doing at the federal level and say, ‘What are the things we’re doing that we don’t have to do?’ ”
King gave him a chance to back off: “Including disaster relief, though?”
Romney didn’t blink. “We cannot afford to do those things without jeopardizing the future for our kids,” he said, adding that “it is simply immoral . . . to rack up larger and larger debts and pass them on to our kids.”
Now, with an unprecedented and monstrous storm bashing the East Coast, this glib exercise in ideological purity is newly relevant. Was Romney really saying that the federal government should abdicate the task of responding to natural disasters such as the one now taking place? Yes, he was. Did he really mean it? Well, with Romney, that’s always another question.
As the legendary Watergate source Deep Throat never actually said: “Follow the money.”
The dishonest “solution” proposed by Romney and running mate Paul Ryan for the federal government’s budget woes relies largely on a shell game: Transfer unfunded liabilities to the states.
Most disastrously, this is what Romney and Ryan propose for Medicaid, the health-care program for the poor. The GOP plan would give the states block grants that would not begin to cover Medicaid’s rising costs. Governors and legislatures would be forced to impose draconian cuts, with potentially catastrophic impact for millions of Americans.
Medicaid’s most expensive role — and thus, under Romney, the most imperiled — is to fund nursing-home care for seniors who classify as “poor” only because they have exhausted their life savings. Transferring the onus of Medicaid and other programs to the states would save money only by making it impossible to provide services at current levels.
For the hard-right ideologues who control the Republican Party, this would be a good thing. Our society has become too dependent on government, they believe, too “entitled” to benefits; we are unwilling to “take personal responsibility and care for” our lives, as Romney said in his secretly recorded “47 percent” speech.
Romney’s budget proposals would end all this coddling — except for the Pentagon and its contractors, who would get a big boost in federal largess, and of course, the wealthy, who would get a huge tax cut.
So-called “discretionary” federal spending would be sharply reduced. This would include spending for such agencies as FEMA. So yes, even if Romney was just pandering to the right-wing base at that June debate, one consequence of his policies would be to squeeze funding for federal emergency relief.
I guess having to survive a few hurricanes, tornados and earthquakes on our own would certainly foster personal responsibility.
And by the way, why is it that we’re having such a huge hurricane make landfall in such an unusual place at such a late date in the season? Is this another of those freakish once-in-a-century weather events that seem to be happening so often these days?
I know it’s impossible to definitively blame any one storm on human-induced atmospheric warming. But I’m sorry, these off-the-charts phenomena are becoming awfully commonplace. By the time scientists definitively establish what’s happening, it will be too late.
As has been noted, the words “climate change” were not spoken during the presidential debates. Hurricane Sandy wants to know why.
eugenerobinson@washpost.com | – There's something of a Sandy-related brouhaha swirling around comments Mitt Romney made in the ancient days of 2011: Seems that when asked during a Republican debate about disaster relief, Romney sounded like he wanted to gut FEMA, saying he'd shift responsibility for disaster management to the states—or even private firms. Said Romney: "Every time you have an occasion to take something from the federal government and send it back to the states, that’s the right direction. And if you can go further and send it back to the private sector, that’s even better." Asks Eugene Robinson at the Washington Post: "Hurricane Sandy would like to know if he’d care to reconsider." "Even if Romney was just pandering to the right-wing base at that June debate, one consequence of his policies would be to squeeze funding for federal emergency relief." The New York Times editorial board echoes Robinson, asking, "Does Mr. Romney really believe that financially strapped states would do a better job than a properly functioning federal agency?" The Romney campaign took the opportunity to clarify its position, Politico reports: "States should be in charge of emergency management in responding to storms and other natural disasters in their jurisdictions." But he wouldn't abolish FEMA: The states would act "with help from the federal government and FEMA." |
Story highlights Ten of the whales have died, with four euthanized because of their poor condition
A fishing guide sounded the alarm Tuesday after spotting the whales in distress
Such strandings are common, one whale expert says
"It's a largely, but not entirely, hopeless undertaking," says Phillip Clapham
The outlook for dozens of short-finned pilot whales stranded in shallow water off Florida's Everglades National Park "does not look good," wildlife officials said Wednesday.
"We want to set the expectations low" that the 41 remaining stranded whales can be saved, said Blair Mase, a marine mammal scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The assessment came as the number of dead whales climbed to 10, including four euthanized by wildlife officials after being found in "poor condition," Mase said.
Wildlife officials are unsure how long the pod of whales has been stranded. Fishermen spotted the whales, several of which had beached themselves, on Tuesday night in a remote area accessible only by boat off the west coast of the Everglades, park spokeswoman Linda Friar said.
An attempt earlier in the day to herd the whales out of the park's remote Highland Beach failed.
Rescuers have been using five boats to create a blockade of sorts between the whales and the beach as part of the effort to keep them from beaching and simultaneously encouraging them to make their way back to the Gulf of Mexico, Friar said.
Wildlife officials believe that it took the pilot whales several days to travel the 20 miles from the deep waters where they typically make their home to the shallow beach area where they were found.
That area is blanketed with sandbars and sand flats.
"It's a very difficult situation" given the remote location and the terrain, Mase said.
JUST WATCHED Whales stuck in shallow Everglades Park Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Whales stuck in shallow Everglades Park 03:37
JUST WATCHED Pod of whales stranded in the Everglades Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Pod of whales stranded in the Everglades 02:53
Although there is a slight possibility the whales could swim out during high tide, Mase said, "I wouldn't set out hope for that."
"Even in high tide, you're going to have a series of sandbars and sand flats," she said.
Necropsies were being performed to try to determine why the pod carried out a mass stranding.
"At this point in time, we don't know why this particular group is stranding," Mase said.
In all, 25 people were involved in rescue efforts, including officials from NOAA, the Marine Mammal Conservatory and the Marine Animal Rescue Society, Mase said.
Mass strandings by pilot whales are not altogether uncommon in Florida. In 2012, nearly two dozen pilot whales stranded and beached themselves. In 2011, 23 pilot whales stranded and beached themselves.
Such strandings are common and occur in a variety of locations, said Phillip Clapham, director of the whale research program at the National Marine Mammal Laboratory in Seattle.
It's difficult to explain why any particular mass stranding occurs, but they tend to occur in areas where previous strandings have occurred, during low tide -- particularly those around the new and full moons, in areas dotted with sand bars and during storms.
The animals' cohesion can doom an entire group. "These are very, very social animals," Clapham said. "They remain together as family units. If the lead animal gets in trouble, probably everyone else is going to follow them and be in trouble."
Would-be rescuers have their hands full, he said, noting that the animals can weigh a ton apiece. "It's a largely, but not entirely, hopeless undertaking," he said.
Clapham noted that on Cape Cod in Massachusetts, where such strandings are routine events, rescuers have used cranes and a flatbed truck. But heavy equipment is not readily available in the remote area off the Everglades where the most recent stranding occurred.
No good estimates exist for how many pilot whales exist, but they are not endangered, he said.
"These events, while they're tragic, don't have any implications for the survival of the species." ||||| Wildlife workers in boats struggled Wednesday to coax nearly four dozen pilot whales out of dangerous shallow waters in Florida's Everglades National Park, hoping to spare them the fate of 10 others that already have died.
Officials in boats monitor the scene where dozens of pilot whales are stranded in shallow water in a remote area of Florida's Everglades National Park, Wednesday, Dec. 4, 2013. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky) (Associated Press)
In this Tuesday, Dec. 3, 2013, photo provided by the National Park Service, pilot whales are stranded on a beach in a remote area of the western portion of Everglades National Park, Fla. Federal officials... (Associated Press)
A dead pilot whale lies near the beach in a remote area of Florida's Everglades National Park, Wednesday, Dec. 4, 2013. Federal officials say 10 of the dozens of whales stranded in Florida's Everglades... (Associated Press)
A man paddles a kayak past two pilot whales in a remote area of Florida's Everglades National Park, Wednesday, Dec. 4, 2013. Federal officials say 10 of the dozens of whales stranded in Florida's Everglades... (Associated Press)
People stand on the beach where two dead pilot whales lie in the water in a remote area of Florida's Everglades National Park, Wednesday, Dec. 4, 2013. Nearly four dozen pilot whales are stranded in shallow... (Associated Press)
Six of the whales were found dead, and four of the whales had to be euthanized Wednesday, said Blair Mase, coordinator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's marine mammal stranding network. At least three could be seen on the beach, out of the water.
The whales are stranded in a remote area near Highland Beach, the western boundary of Everglades National Park and about 20 miles east of where they normally live. It takes more than an hour to reach the spot from the nearest boat ramp and there is no cellphone service, complicating rescue efforts.
"We want to set the expectation low, because the challenges are very, very difficult," Mase said.
Park spokeswoman Linda Friar said rescuers were trying to surround the whales, which were in roughly 3 feet of salt water about 75 feet from shore, and herd them back to sea.
"They are not cooperating," Friar said.
Workers also tried to nudge the whales out to sea earlier in the day with no success.
The short-finned pilot whales typically live in very deep water. Even if rescuers were able to begin nudging the 41 remaining whales out to sea, Mase said they would encounter a series of sandbars and patches of shallow water along the way.
This particular whale species is also known for its close-knit social groups, meaning if one whale gets stuck or stays behind, the others are likely to stay behind or even beach themselves as well.
"It would be very difficult for the whales to navigate out on their own," Mase said.
Federal officials were notified about the whales Tuesday around 4 p.m. Because of the remote location, workers were unable to access the site before dark. They arrived Wednesday morning and discovered 45 whales still alive.
"There were some that were very compromised and in very poor condition," Mase said.
Four were euthanized with sedatives, and more could be put down Thursday if their condition deteriorates, Mase said. She described the remaining whales as swimming and mobile but said scientists don't know how long they have been out of the deep, colder water they are accustomed to and could be impacted by secondary consequences, such as dehydration.
"I don't think we have a lot of time," Mase said.
Necropsies were being done Wednesday on the deceased whales. Scientists will look for disease or other signs to indicate how whales got stuck in the shallow Everglades waters.
As workers tried to coax the animals to deeper water, at least one could be seen a few feet from shore floating upside down with its head bobbing up and down. Three to four more could be seen on the beach bleeding.
Twenty-two pilot whales became stranded in Florida's Avalon State Park in Fort Pierce in 2012. Residents, state and national officials attempted to rescue them, but only five could be saved.
"It's not uncommon," Friar said. "But it's not something that happens a lot."
Mase said NOAA was consulting with experts in different counties with experience in herding whales to see if there were other options, but said she was not optimistic.
"The outlook ultimately does not look good," she said.
___
Armario contributed to this report from Miami. ||||| A total of 10 pilot whales have died and another 41 remain stranded in a remote area of Everglades National Park, officials said Wednesday. Rescue efforts were suspended after dark Wednesday, but were expected to resume Thursday morning. NBC 6’s Laura Rodriguez reports. (Published Thursday, Dec. 5, 2013)
A total of 10 pilot whales have died and another 41 remain stranded in a remote area of Everglades National Park, officials said Wednesday afternoon.
A team that arrived on the scene Wednesday morning found six whales dead, and they were forced to euthanize four through sedation as a humane option, NOAA Fisheries Southeast marine mammal stranding coordinator Blair Mase said.
Rescue workers who are trying to herd the whales out of shallow waters suspended their efforts after dark, but planned to return Thursday morning to resume the effort, according to NOAA Fisheries spokeswoman Kim Amendola.
10 Whales Dead, 41 Still Stranded
A total of 10 pilot whales have died and another 41 remain stranded in a remote area of Everglades National Park, officials said Wednesday afternoon. NBC 6's Ari Odzer reports. (Published Wednesday, Dec. 4, 2013)
“The whales are about half a mile to three-quarters of a mile offshore, but they are not heading out to sea,” said marine mammal biologist Liz Stratton. “So we’re not sure what they’re doing, and we’re not sure if they’re not going to come back in the morning, unfortunately.”
Necropsies were being conducted Wednesday on the beached whales as scientists sought to determine their cause of death and find clues on why they ended up beached in the area.
The swimming whales do not show any signs of injury or trauma, but there is not a lot of time to save them, Mase said. The whales are out of their normal home range, and they may be dehyrdrated or malnourished, she added.
They are in Monroe County near Highland Beach, which is the western boundary of Everglades National Park. The closest deep water is about 20 miles west. In between are sandbars and channels that would be very difficult for the whales to navigate on their own.
Crews Try to Push Whales Into Deeper Waters
Crews on Wednesday tried to push a pod of beached pilot whales into deeper waters in efforts to save them. (Published Wednesday, Dec. 4, 2013)
But efforts to herd the close-knit animals out of the area, which is about an hour from the nearest boat ramp, have not been successful so far.
“They’re freely swimming about. They’re a species that likes to stay together, and we’re just not able to get them to move away,” Everglades National Park spokeswoman Linda Friar said.
There will be a multi-day effort to rescue the animals that would last at least through Thursday and possibly Friday, Mase said. But she tried to set expectations low, saying that the goal was to save the whales, but most mass strandings do not have a successful outcome.
The goal is to keep the whales alive during low tide, and then when high tide comes in, crews will try to get them back into the sea, Friar said.
The whales are slightly larger than dolphins, Friar said.
Mase said that when the team returned from the remote location, its members would brief National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration officials on how to move forward Thursday.
Whales Stranded Near Everglades National Park
“So we are going to explore options for these animals. We are going to work hard to try to find out if we can save any, but we want to set the expectations low because the challenges are very, very difficult – the environmental challenges, the resource challenges, the location of the whales,” Mase said.
Officials are also talking with experts from different countries that have experience with herding, she said.
“The outlook does not ultimately look good for the remaining live whales,” Mase said.
The whales, who scientists say appeared confused, were originally spotted around 2:30 p.m. Tuesday near Highland Beach, according to Friar.
Friar said rangers and workers from NOAA responded and found 10 beached whales and the others in shallow waters nearby.
Four of the whales died but the workers were able to get six back into the water, Friar said.
"It's so shallow at low tide for such a long distance it makes it more difficult to get the whales to an area where they can swim away," Friar said.
It's not unusual for the whales to end up in the shallow waters, which stretch for hundreds of yards, Friar said.
"The thing about these whales, as the day heats up they'll have to keep them wet," she said.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, Marine Mammal Conservancy and Marine Animal Rescue Society are assisting the rangers and NOAA Fisheries in the rescue effort.
The Gulf of Mexico has a very strong pilot whale population and this pod is very far from where they normally would be. They are very far from their deep water habitat and this makes it difficult for rescuers to "push" them back out to sea, Mase said.
"If we did push the healthy ones out, if they see one dead one they will come back again," Mase said.
She said a mass stranding occurred in Fort Pierce in 2012.
More NBC6.com Stories:
Copyright Associated Press / NBC 6 South Florida | – A slow-moving marine tragedy is unfolding in the Florida Everglades, where 10 pilot whales are dead and 41 more are stranded in shallow water, reports NBC Miami. Rescuers are trying desperately to coax the whales back to the Gulf of Mexico, but they'd have to make it 20 miles over sandbars and sand flats. It "does not look good," says a marine scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, reports CNN. "We want to set the expectation low because the challenges are very, very difficult." Pilot whales are known for keeping "close-knit social groups," notes AP, which helps explain why such group strandings occur. The whales are now in a remote western part of Everglades National Park, swimming in about 3 feet of water. It's unclear when they got there, but scientists are watching for signs of dehydration and malnutrition. Six of the whales, slightly bigger than dolphins, were found dead, and scientists euthanized four others today. "I don't think we have a lot of time," says the NOAA official. |
Breitbart executive chairman Steve Bannon has cut ties with Paul Nehlen, the far-right activist who is challenging Paul Ryan for his congressional seat and who has received extremely favorable coverage from Breitbart in the past.
"Nehlen is dead to us," said Arthur Schwartz, an adviser of Bannon's who is familiar with the former White House chief strategist's thinking.
Nehlen, who became a lightning rod for his anti-immigrant views, has escalated his rhetoric in recent days with a number of incendiary tweets.
In one tweet, Nehlen proudly revealed that he is reading "The Culture of Critique," a book about Jewish culture widely considered to be anti-semitic. In other tweets, he has used the "#ItsOkayToBeWhite" hashtag.
The inflammatory online activity has drawn fierce scrutiny from Nehlen's critics, and beckoned the question whether Breitbart, which previously published highly supportive coverage of his candidacy, still supported him.
When Nehlen challenged Ryan during the 2016 Republican primary, Breitbart dispatched Mathew Boyle, one of its top writers, to Wisconsin. Throughout the race, Boyle taunted Ryan on the campaign trail with outlandishly negative stories while simultaneously writing positive articles about Nehlen. Ryan ultimately walloped Nehlen by a margin of 84% to 16%.
During the special election for the Alabama Senate seat, Nehlen endorsed far-right candidate Roy Moore, who was accused by several women of sexual misconduct, including one who alleged the incident occurred when she was just 14 years old. On the eve of that election, which Moore lost, Nehlen stumped at the same rally that Bannon spoke at.
But Breitbart and Bannon recently severed ties with Nehlen. Schwartz told CNN the decision was made earlier this month after Bannon was alerted that Nehlen had appeared on a white nationalist podcast.
Nehlen, who previously published material on Breitbart, has seen his author page scrubbed entirely from the far-right website. Moreover, Joel Pollak, a senior editor at Breitbart, publicly denounced Nehlen on Twitter.
"We don't support him," Pollak tweeted late Tuesday night, adding that Nehlen had "disqualified" himself.
As of Wednesday afternoon, Breitbart had not denounced Nehlen on its website. A Google search returned no articles this week about Nehlen's latest tweets or statements.
Neither a spokesperson for Bannon nor Breitbart responded to a request for comment.
Reached for comment, Nehlen told CNN, "Putting America First above all other nations, such as being pro-wall and for freedom of lawful speech, has brought a coordinated attack by globalists from both parties; nevertheless I will continue to stand strong against anti-American sentiment, however it manifests."
Update: This article has been updated to reflect information provided by Schwartz after it was published. ||||| CNN, the network that has fared the absolute worst all year in terms of credibility problems, has had its own very fake news scandal reignited right before the end of the year by two of the worst perpetrators of fake news at CNN.
Lead Anchor Jake Tapper falsely alleged on Wednesday morning that Paul Nehlen is a “Breitbart favorite,” despite the fact that Breitbart News has cut all ties with Nehlen and removed his contributor page from the website after the challenger of House Speaker Paul Ryan in Wisconsin’s First Congressional District made a series of anti-Semitic and pro-white supremacist comments. These developments fit a larger pattern of very fake news from CNN after CNN spiked a fake story it had planned to print about Breitbart News last week and comes in a year where the network has seen top talent forced to resign amid getting caught printing inaccurate and unverified information. All of this comes as another CNN writer, Oliver Darcy, printed demonstrably inaccurate allegations against Breitbart News on Wednesday that were made with a reckless disregard for the truth — false statements that CNN has removed from an article after publication without notifying its readers of the fact it made an edit to the piece post-publication.
A series of actions by CNN operatives over the past week plus — culminating in a demonstrably false tweet about Breitbart News on Wednesday morning from Jake Tapper — have thrown the network into turmoil turning into the new year, rejuvenating a scandal that CNN had hoped was in its rear-view mirror. These actions by CNN’s various agents, the most prominent of which is Tapper but others network-wide have proven to be involved, cap off a horrendous year for CNN.
Tapper has previously been caught inflating his own background. This summer, as Breitbart News exposed, Tapper inflated his credentials with working class voters in Pennsylvania, acting as though he comes from a middle class background when he does not. As Breitbart News reported back then, Tapper claimed he came from the middle class — but he actually went to an elite expensive private high school and then was a legacy admission into Ivy League school Dartmouth. Tapper’s father went to Dartmouth before he did.
The beleaguered CNN anchor has had historic troubles in the rankings. While CNN brags about how he regularly outpaces MSNBC, Tapper has come under fire for bad ratings from ex-Fox News host Bill O’Reilly.
Sean Hannity kicking serious butt in the ratings. Tapper on CNN as low as you can go. — Bill O'Reilly (@BillOReilly) October 18, 2017
The notoriously thin-skinned Tapper fired back quickly:
"Low" would be sexually harassing staffers and then getting fired for it — humiliated in front of the world. Now THAT would be low. https://t.co/e2d6kOHL7F — Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) October 18, 2017
But that has not alleviated the concerns about Tapper inside CNN, including with his quick-on-the-trigger Twitter account where he sometimes fires too fast and loose for the facts. Now, Tapper has been caught printing demonstrably false allegations against Breitbart News as part of a larger effort by CNN to engage in attacks on Breitbart News and its Executive Chairman Stephen K. Bannon. This latest example finds Tapper abandoning his appearance of neutrality and objectivity for an outright smear that is baseless in fact, something that seriously threatens the core of CNN’s business model at a time when the network cannot afford mistakes.
What’s more, another agent of CNN — a reporter who covers media for its online outlet — has now been caught printing a demonstrably inaccurate claim about Breitbart News and Bannon, something that was easily proved to be false and demonstrates that the network has operatives working with a reckless disregard for the truth.
It all started when Oliver Darcy, a CNN media reporter, last Friday reached out to Breitbart News saying that he had two sources telling him that Bannon, the former White House chief strategist and President Donald Trump’s successful general election campaign CEO, was somehow plotting his own presidential campaign in 2020 and that this reporter was telling people he was. The claim is demonstrably false and completely untrue — but in pushing the very fake news, Darcy inadvertently reopened a can of worms CNN had hoped it would close, re-igniting the network’s lack of transparency regarding the resignations of three senior journalists this past summer over very fake news the network printed. This summer, CNN printed a blatantly false story about the Russia scandal that it was forced to then retract in full, and the three journalists responsible for it — a Pulitzer Prize-nominated reporter, a Pulitzer Prize-winning editor, and the head of CNN’s investigative unit — were forced to resign in disgrace from the network.
This all comes as Tapper, a lead anchor at the network, printed what were false allegations against Breitbart News on Wednesday morning via his Twitter account. Tapper tweeted that Paul Nehlen, a 2016 and 2018 candidate for Congress in the GOP primary against House Speaker Paul Ryan, is a “Breitbart favorite” while bashing Nehlen — rightfully so — for his public anti-Semitism. Nehlen, who ran against Ryan last cycle on the economic nationalist agenda of renegotiating trade deals, has recently publicly come out making several white supremacist comments — something he had not done before. Nehlen has announced his plans to run against Ryan again this cycle, and while Breitbart News did cover his race in depth in 2016 — something that was highlighted by everyone from now President Donald Trump via Twitter to CNN and many others — this news outlet has cut all ties with Nehlen after he made a number of clearly anti-Semitic and white nationalist comments via his Twitter account this past couple weeks. Breitbart News pulled down his contributor page earlier this week, and allies of Bannon have made clear publicly for more than a week that Bannon does not support Nehlen and cut ties as soon as he found out about these comments.
.@EsotericCD, Bannon had no idea and has cut the guy loose. I’ve spoken to Team Bannon about it and they were shocked and disgusted. As was I as I’ve previously backed Nehlen. Nehlen is now PNG on my show and I suspect many others. His comments were reprehensible. https://t.co/kdvSdQ3zwA — John Cardillo (@johncardillo) December 19, 2017
Bannon tossed you to the curb too. Have you put Steve on the shekels for hire list yet? — Arthur Schwartz (@ArthurSchwartz) December 26, 2017
"Meanwhile, the Cardillo tweet remains the only (even second-hand) evidence that Breitbart is at all bothered by the explicit extremism of their chosen candidate."@Salon, stop lying and spreading #FakeNews. Bannon immediately cut support for Nehlen.https://t.co/ihHMBWEkb0 — John Cardillo (@johncardillo) December 27, 2017
Wrong. Bannon didn’t know; he does care; he sure as hell doesn’t think it’s a good thing. Did you speak with him before tweeting this nonsense? Spoiler alert: You didn’t. https://t.co/3iQaMdatNQ — Arthur Schwartz (@ArthurSchwartz) December 19, 2017
CNN has since activated Darcy in an effort to cover up Tapper’s activity and fix the mistakes that his co-worker has made — a transparent bid to fix the serious mistake that one of CNN’s lead on-air personalities made and something that sets up yet another round of grueling scandal for CNN to deal with heading into the new year, even as the network had hoped it would leave its problems behind in 2017. A piece Darcy published on Wednesday, however, contained demonstrably false allegations against Breitbart News that CNN — after Breitbart News contacted its corporate communications leadership — stealthily removed from the article without notifying readers. The since-removed false allegations were published with a reckless disregard for the truth.
Darcy has brought the very fake news scandal – for which CNN has resisted all efforts for transparency, infuriating senior staff, including several high-profile on-air network talents – back to the forefront with his sloppy attacks on Breitbart News, forcing CNN executives to again deal with a serious credibility crisis storm they thought they had previously weathered.
Here’s how it all went down, from the beginning.
Darcy, last Friday, sent a press request to Breitbart News about the claims that Bannon was somehow plotting a presidential campaign. The request came from Darcy after a story in Vanity Fair magazine from Gabe Sherman claimed that Bannon was plotting a presidential campaign in 2020.
“‘I HAVE POWER’: IS STEVE BANNON RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT?” was the headline on Vanity Fair’s article.
“In October, Bannon called an adviser and said he would consider running for president if Trump doesn’t run for re-election in 2020. Which Bannon has told people is a realistic possibility,” Sherman wrote in the piece, citing anonymous sources.
But that, per sources close to Bannon who spoke to Newsweek right after the Vanity Fair piece, is not true.
“STEVE BANNON IS NOT RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT IN 2020, ASSOCIATES OF TRUMP’S FORMER CHIEF STRATEGIST SAY,” Newsweek’s headline from Alex Nazaryan read.
The story quoted several people with actual intimate knowledge of Bannon’s plans, including an official spokesperson who denied the inaccurate report: “#FakeNews. Steve is 100% not running for President. He is not a politician.”
“NO,” a second Bannon associate told Nazaryan. “Steve 100% not running for President.”
A third Bannon ally said: “Chalk this up to fake news. Steve has repeatedly and very publicly said he believes that President Trump will win reelection in 2020 with even more votes than when he defeated Crooked Hillary Clinton in a landslide last year – in fact, Steve has said Trump will get more than 400 electoral votes.”
What Bannon is really doing, this source said, is “building and cultivating a movement designed to help President Trump enact his economic nationalist agenda.”
Publicly, Bannon has repeatedly undercut this narrative. In fact, at the Values Voter Summit in October, Bannon predicted that, not only will Trump run again for president in 2020 but, because of his massive success as president with economic nationalism, he will win with more than 400 electoral votes.
“President Trump’s not only going to finish this term, he’s going to win with 400 electoral votes in 2020,” Bannon said in his October address to the Values Voter Summit.
Interestingly, on Thursday of last week, even Darcy himself tweeted a statement from a Bannon spokesperson shooting down the very fake news.
Spokesperson for Bannon shoots down suggestion Bannon is mulling run for president: "#Fake News. Steve is 100% not running for President. He is not a politician. He is spending all his time building a grassroots organization to support the President.” — Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) December 21, 2017
So when Darcy reached out to Breitbart News about the very fake news that had already been debunked, he knew it was very fake news by the fact that he tweeted about it himself on Thursday. This is the content of the email Darcy asked Breitbart News to respond to: “Matthew Boyle told people in recent weeks that Bannon was considering a future run for the Oval Office, per two people familiar with his comments.”
Since Darcy was seeking comment on something that he knew did not happen, we asked Darcy if he would agree to run a statement from me in full. He agreed, and so we sent him a statement that made it very clear that not only was the lie he was pushing more very fake news but that he would — if CNN has any ounce of belief in journalistic integrity — find himself in league with his former colleagues who were forced to resign earlier this year after they were caught printing similarly fake news.
“Just like when Thomas Frank, Eric Lichtblau, and Lex Harris were forced to resign from CNN after getting caught this year printing demonstrably untrue allegations, this is 100 percent very fake news from CNN,” I told Darcy. “If the network prints this inaccurate allegation and does not hold Oliver Darcy accountable for printing this fake news, it is proving again it does not believe in journalistic integrity or accuracy.”
What is interesting here is that, originally, Darcy had insisted to us that he had this story locked down — even though it was demonstrably very fake news — and was absolutely going to run it on Friday. But late Friday after he received our statement demonstrating it was very fake news, he changed his tune and was unclear about when or if it would run at all. As of press time here at Breitbart News nearly a full week later, Darcy has not run the piece — and sources inside CNN tell Breitbart News that there are serious deliberations among senior management about what they now understand to be a mistake, which is allowing Darcy to report things like this without oversight from senior management on Breitbart News. It appears at this time that Darcy’s plans were foiled, and the network’s leadership — per CNN sources — have spiked his very fake news plans.
CNN spokeswomen Lauren Pratapas and Emily Kuhn have not replied to in depth detailed requests for comment on why the network — with Oliver Darcy acting on its behalf — is again refusing transparency, openness, or accountability with regard to the forced resignations of Lichtblau, Frank, and Haris. They also refuse to answer whether Darcy will be held accountable for his actions — a clearly demonstrated effort to print something he knew to be false — in the same way Lichtblau, Frank, and Haris were — or if CNN is done altogether with journalistic integrity. They also are refusing as of this time to make network president Jeff Zucker available for comment on CNN’s practices and how it handles avoiding the printing of very fake news like the inaccuracies that Lichtblau, Frank, and Haris resigned over and the ones that Darcy was attempting to print on Friday.
The network’s lack of transparency on this entire debacle of what started with Frank, Lichtblau, and Haris and has now transcended to Darcy’s actions — a conscious decision by someone acting as an agent of CNN to re-ignite the scandal — among other serious mistakes network-wide, have earned CNN a public drubbing from all corners.
“From the beginning, CNN was reluctant to say what went wrong,” the Washington Post’s Paul Farhi wrote about the Russia story weeks later, something that remains true to this day.
“On Thursday, June 22, it published an article on its website, reporting that a Senate committee was investigating alleged ties between a Russian-government investment fund and people associated with Donald Trump’s presidential campaign,” Farhi wrote, continuing:
The article said that federal investigators were looking into a January meeting between then-White House adviser Anthony Scaramucci and the fund’s director, a Russian national named Kirill Dmitriev. The story was based on information from an anonymous source. By late the next day, its reporting under fire, CNN took some extraordinary steps: It retracted the story and apologized to Scaramucci. In the article’s place, a brief editor’s note said that the story ‘did not meet CNN’s editorial standards’ and had been removed. It didn’t say that the story was wrong. On June 26, a Monday, the news organization did something even more remarkable: It asked for and accepted the resignations of the three journalists — one a Pulitzer Prize winner, another a Pulitzer finalist — who were principally responsible for reporting and editing the article. And then it said little else, declining to explain what had happened.
The network’s stunning lack of transparency has earned it serious rebukes from even the president of the United States, who has a penchant for bashing fake news but now, after this scandal has rocked CNN all year, has something to grip onto to back up his point. For an organization that claims it supports the truth, accuracy, honesty, and journalistic integrity — and continually beats up on Donald Trump with those claims — it has been surprisingly and shockingly silent about its own messy house when it comes to those very things.
But the CNN agents’ actions did not end there. After getting caught last week and abandoning prior plans to falsely attack Breitbart News, Tapper falsely attacked Breitbart News on Wednesday morning. After Nehlen tweeted that he was reading a book that blames Jews for anti-Semitism — something that is obviously inaccurate and entirely unacceptable — Tapper shot back with a criticism of Nehlen via Twitter. But in his criticism of Nehlen, Tapper falsely attacked Breitbart News by claiming Nehlen was a “Breitbart favorite.”
Book blaming Jews for anti-Semitism, written by the Neo-Nazi movement’s fave “academic,” being pushed by Breitbart favorite Paul Nehlen. https://t.co/TbGJRq1Bnj — Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) December 27, 2017
Arthur Schwartz, an ally of Bannon’s and Breitbart News, tweeted back at Tapper that his comments were a “lie,” something Tapper quote-tweeted saying simply: “Bannon ally says Bannon has cut ties with Nehlen.”
Breitbart favorite? That’s a lie. Bannon cut all ties with him & tossed him to the curb. Is Linda Sarsour still one of the darlings of CNN? Asking for a friend. https://t.co/bMVfA5Jl5A — Arthur Schwartz (@ArthurSchwartz) December 27, 2017
Bannon ally says Bannon has cut ties with Nehlen 👇 https://t.co/HwmohLva7y — Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) December 27, 2017
But Tapper’s comments are demonstrably factually inaccurate, and he continues to refuse to withdraw his originally false statement.
.@jaketapper, this is a lie. Steve Bannon and his entire team immediately cut ties with Nehlen after the first tweet. You’re knowingly and unethically spreading #fakenews. You should retract and correct this tweet. https://t.co/Iltq6xROPy — John Cardillo (@johncardillo) December 27, 2017
But that is not all. A high-ranking editor at CNN then, per a senior official with the network, assigned Darcy to follow back up with Breitbart News about this whole debacle with Nehlen, and he sent a comment request to Breitbart News with a tweet from Joel Pollak — a senior editor-at-large for Breitbart News — in which he again confirmed that Breitbart News has cut ties with Nehlen. Darcy asked if Pollak’s tweet is the “official Breitbart editorial position,” as if Pollak’s comments and Breitbart News pulling down Nehlen’s contributor page, as well as all the other statements made weeks ago, were not enough to confirm what the news organization believes. When Darcy was informed — yet again — that Bannon and Breitbart News have cut ties with Nehlen, and that Bannon considers Nehlen “dead” to him, Darcy still did not consider that enough and kept pushing for more with further emails for comment to others at Breitbart News.
On Wednesday afternoon, Darcy published a piece online under this headline: “Bannon adviser: Ryan challenger Paul Nehlen is ‘dead to us’ after inflammatory tweets.”
The story contained no new information –e verything was previously public weeks ago — but it did contain a demonstrably false line that could have been avoided had Darcy done basic journalism and fact-checking. “But in the last 24 hours, Breitbart and Bannon, a former White House chief strategist, have moved to distance themselves from him,” Darcy wrote on Wednesday about Nehlen’s relationship with Breitbart News.
That statement is provably false. In fact, Schwartz — the Bannon adviser whose comments CNN based its entire Darcy story on Wednesday — had previously tweeted back on Dec. 19 that Bannon was done with Nehlen:
Wrong. Bannon didn’t know; he does care; he sure as hell doesn’t think it’s a good thing. Did you speak with him before tweeting this nonsense? Spoiler alert: You didn’t. https://t.co/3iQaMdatNQ — Arthur Schwartz (@ArthurSchwartz) December 19, 2017
After CNN’s corporate communications team of Kuhn and Pratapas were contacted about Darcy’s reckless disregard for the truth in printing this inaccurate claim that Breitbart News and Bannon had distanced themselves from Nehlen just “in the last 24 hours,” the network removed the false statement from Darcy’s article. That section now reads: “But Breitbart and Bannon, a former White House chief strategist, have recently moved to distance themselves from him.”
More than an hour after the original publication of the article — and more than an hour after important alterations to remove this inaccurate information were made — CNN finally included a partially inaccurate “update” at the end of the piece.
“Update: This article has been updated to reflect information provided by Schwartz after it was published,” the CNN “update” reads.
But the “update” does not note that inaccurate information was pulled out of the article and that significant alterations were made. It also does not note that the “information provided by Schwartz” that forced the correction and alteration after publication was public, on Twitter, since Dec. 19. It similarly does not include the fact that the “update” came after Kuhn and Pratapas were informed of the fact that CNN and Darcy published inaccurate information with a reckless disregard for the truth — public statements available on Twitter would have debunked it. Kuhn and Pratapas have not replied to another request for comment late Wednesday when asked why this “update” is incomplete in all of those and other regards — and have not agreed to be transparent about a forthcoming investigation into CNN’s conduct on this matter. The fact that the network is covering this up, combined with everything else he and Tapper and others have done in recent weeks, severely threatens the network’s ability to move forward into 2018 while leaving its setbacks and mistakes behind in 2017. |||||
Paul Nehlen, a Republican primary challenger to House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.). (Scott Bauer/Associated Press)
A Wisconsin businessman challenging House Speaker Paul D. Ryan in next year’s congressional primaries denounced “globalists from both parties” Wednesday, after his anti-Semitic tweets prompted Breitbart News to distance itself from his campaign.
Paul Nehlen, who is challenging Ryan for the second time, responded to the accusations of anti-Semitism by saying he was “pro-white” and opposed to double standards.
“Allow me to answer with this question: If pro-White is White supremacy, what is pro-Jewish?” Nehlen told The Washington Post in a text message. “I reject being called a White Supremacist, because clearly Pro-White isn’t White Supremacy unless Pro-Jewish is Jewish Supremacy.”
CNN’s Oliver Darcy first reported that Stephen K. Bannon, who left a political role at the White House to return to Breitbart, had “cut ties” with Nehlen, citing an interview with one of Bannon’s advisers. Arthur Schwartz, an adviser to Bannon, told the Washington Post that the decision was made after Bannon learned of Nehlen’s appearance on white nationalist podcasts. In tweets Tuesday night, Breitbart Senior Editor-at-Large Joel Pollak said that the site was no longer paying attention to Nehlen.
“He’s gone off the deep end,” Pollak wrote. “We don’t support him. Haven’t covered him in months.”
The hands-off approach to Nehlen’s campaign was a major shift; in 2016, Breitbart had sent reporters to Ryan’s congressional district to cover Nehlen’s challenge, running as many as 30 stories a week. Julia Hahn, one of the Breitbart reporters on the ground for the Nehlen race, followed Bannon into the White House when he became President Trump’s chief strategist. After Nehlen was defeated, taking just 16 percent of the vote, he contributed some commentary to Breitbart. His archive on the site has been deleted.
But as recently as Dec. 11, when Nehlen joined Bannon and a host of conservative speakers at GOP Senate candidate Roy Moore’s final rally in Alabama, he was one of the higher-profile insurgent candidates running at the Republican “establishment” from the right. Nehlen, who said he’d raised $150,000 to help Moore, told The Post at the time that he was ready to repel any attack Ryan or the Republican Party launched at him.
“You’re going to see candidates like Roy Moore, like myself, like Kelli Ward [of Arizona] standing strong with President Trump,” Nehlen told The Post after his speech at the rally. “Paul Ryan took dirty pedophile money from Dennis Hastert, and he never gave it back.” Hastert, a Republican who was House speaker from 1999 to 2007, pleaded guilty to a felony in 2015 and admitted at his sentencing hearing that he had sexually abused teenagers in the past.
By Dec. 11, Nehlen’s flirtations with the so-called “alt-right” had been widely reported. He had an active account on Gab, a chat site that has positioned itself as a gathering place for white nationalists as Twitter and Facebook have cracked down on “hate speech.” On the site, he shared and reposted memes — including the slogan “it’s okay to be white” — and accused Ryan of wanting to “replace American whites with anti-white substandard foreign” workers.
On Dec. 9, Nehlen appeared on the white-nationalist podcast “Fash the Nation,” where he referred to a Twitter ban by saying he’d been “shoah’d for 12 hours” — a reference to the Holocaust — and said that Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.), then in the process of resigning from Congress over a sex scandal, had been targeted over his politics.
“I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Rep. Franks has an A-rating from Numbers USA,” said Nehlen, referring to a group that favors restrictions on legal immigration.
Nehlen also recounted a Twitter fight between himself and John Podhoretz, and he laughed at how the editor of Commentary had called him a “catamite,” a word he had to look up in the dictionary.
“What race even has that word?” Nehlen said, apparently referring to Jews. “Well, there’s one, right?”
After Moore’s defeat, Nehlen got into more Twitter spats, often deploying alt-right imagery or arguments. He attacked one writer, Ari Cohn, by putting a “bell” made of parentheses around his name — a symbol that racist accounts have used to identify Jews.
Just admit you are a (((bigot))) @aricohn and I'll pretend you didn't pretend you were white for the purposes of starting a race war w me. pic.twitter.com/huxsS0qcbw — Paul Nehlen (@pnehlen) December 19, 2017
He shared more memes to promote the “It’s Okay to Be White” slogan.
He criticized Minneapolis police for removing a memorial that white nationalists had created for a white woman shot by a Somalia-born officer.
Soon we will only be given sanctioned grief periods and *performed* by designated multicultural secular mourners. We will be forbidden from grieving our dead. https://t.co/qs0T4WO3PI #ShallNotCensor — Paul Nehlen (@pnehlen) December 26, 2017
And he showcased his copy of a book, “The Culture of Critique,” in which author Kevin MacDonald argues that “millions of people have been killed as a result of the failure of Jewish assimilation into European societies.”
Nehlen responded to a question about Breitbart and Bannon by sharing the same statement he had given CNN. “Putting America First above all other nations, such as being pro-wall and for freedom of lawful speech, has brought a coordinated attack by globalists from both parties; nevertheless I will continue to stand strong against anti-American sentiment, however it manifests,” he said.
On far-right social media and news sites, Nehlen’s public brawls with center-right figures have become celebrated.
“Nehlen can comfortably enter the political arena and use his history as a hard-working, productive citizen to back up his aggressive campaign,” wrote “Ash Brighton,” a contributor to “Fash The Nation,” on Dec. 20. “With just twenty people or so like Paul Nehlen in Congress, there won’t be enough resources in the anti-White establishment to mount an effective resistance.” ||||| 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 | – A far-right challenger to Paul Ryan's congressional seat has lost the backing he once enjoyed from Steve Bannon and Breitbart News. Paul Nehlen "is dead to us," Bannon adviser Arthur Schwartz tells CNN. Breitbart editor Joel Pollak tweeted Tuesday night that "he's disqualified himself," and a story posted Wednesday on the site notes that "Breitbart News has cut all ties with Nehlen and removed his contributor page from the website after ... a series of anti-Semitic and pro-white supremacist comments." Nehlen has been posting "it's okay to be white" memes, and he also tweeted that he was currently reading The Culture of Critique, a book widely viewed as anti-Semitic because of lines such as one arguing that "millions of people have been killed as a result of the failure of Jewish assimilation into European societies," per the Washington Post. Nehlen also appeared on a white nationalist podcast earlier this month. Coverage of the split notes that when Nehlen challenged Ryan last year—and lost by 68 points—he enjoyed favorable and frequent coverage at Breitbart News, which dispatched a top reporter to follow him. Nehlen, for his part, acknowledged to the Post that he is "pro-white" but seemed unfazed by the new controversy. “Allow me to answer with this question: If pro-White is White supremacy, what is pro-Jewish?" he wrote. "I reject being called a White Supremacist, because clearly Pro-White isn’t White Supremacy unless Pro-Jewish is Jewish Supremacy.” |
BOSTON (CN) – Showcasing the diversity of Howard Stern’s appeal, a woman suing the IRS says an agent who had been calling into the show inadvertently gave the shock jock and his listeners an earful of their conversation on a private tax matter.
Judith Barrigas of Sandwich, Massachusetts, filed the federal complaint Monday in Boston, nearly two years after her debut on satellite radio left her in a state of humiliation and anxiety.
She says it all started on May 19, 2015, when she called the IRS to discuss a private tax matter. During that 45-minute call with agent Jimmy Forsyth, Barrigas allegedly began receiving numerous text messages from unknown people because her call was being broadcast live on “The Howard Stern Show.”
In addition to her phone number, which Stern fans promptly began dialing up, Barrigas says other personal information she shared during the course of the call included her tax-return and -refund issues, and the details of a repayment plan for certain tax liabilities.
Stern’s program draws approximately 1.2 million listeners to SiriusXM every day.
The shock jock apparently got access to the call because the agent with whom Barrigas was speaking, Jimmy Forsythe, was on hold with Stern when he took the Barrigas call on another line.
“Mr. Stern and The Stern Show joked about the publication and broadcast of Mrs. Barrigas’s tax and personal information and conversation with the IRS’s Agent Forsythe and used the broadcast and the humiliation of Mrs. Barrigas as a source of amusement for their listeners,” the complaint states.
Barrigas says hundreds of thousands of people have heard her call already thanks to Stern, and that she received hundreds of phone calls about it in the days afterward, “leaving Mrs, Barrigas in a frantic, high anxiety state.”
Despite her efforts to close this Pandora’s box, according to the complaint, Stern left the episode up for weeks on his website. By now the call is all over the internet.
Barrigas says the IRS was apparently planning to ignore her complaint altogether until she not reported the incident to the consumer helpline run by local news outlet WCVB-TV.
“Only upon notice from WCVB did the IRS begin an investigation into the matter and place Agent Forsythe on administrative leave,” the complaint states.
Representatives for the IRS and Stern have not returned requests seeking comment.
Barrigas is represented by Sol Cohen of Cohen & Sales in Waltham. She seeks punitive damages, alleging invasion of privacy, emotional distress and other claims.
Like this: Like Loading... ||||| An IRS agent called in to the radio show and was put on hold. Then …
Donald Trump never did sue The New York Times for revealing he took a $916 million loss on his 1995 income tax returns. He threatened, but to date, no lawsuit has come. That leaves some unanswered questions about the legality of a media outlet disclosing one's tax information, since there are many statutes that broadly guard the confidentiality of tax returns. Can Howard Stern fill the void?
On Monday, Stern was sued by a woman named Judith Barrigas, whose tax information was disseminated in the oddest way.
According to her complaint filed in Massachusetts federal court, she called the IRS's service center on May 19, 2015, to discuss how the tax agency had applied prior year liabilities to her tax refund. She got connected to Jimmy Forsythe, an IRS agent.
Before the two connected, Forsythe had called in to The Howard Stern Show using another phone line. While on hold, Forsythe took Barrigas' call and proceeded to spend 45 minutes with her discussing her tax case. Apparently, during this conversation, someone at Stern's show heard what was happening and decided to air the discussion live on satellite radio.
"While on the phone with Agent Forsythe, Mrs. Barrigas suddenly began to receive a barrage of text messages and phone calls from unknown callers/individuals," states the complaint. "The text messages were informing Mrs. Barrigas that her personal information and phone number was being aired live on The Stern Show."
The lawsuit says that the phone call in question can still be accessed on the internet, and after what happened, Forsythe was put on administrative leave. Barrigas claims the "outrageous violation" of her privacy has resulted in difficulty finding employment, anxiety, loss of sleep and irregular eating patterns.
She is suing the government under the Federal Tort Claims Act and for an unlawful disclosure of her tax return.
But she's also asserting negligence and an invasion of her privacy against Stern and his show.
"The defendants breached their duty of reasonable care by broadcasting the private phone conversation between Mrs. Barrigas and the IRS on May 19, 2015, and thereby publicly disseminating private tax return and identity information of Mrs. Barrigas’s to over one million people worldwide," states the lawsuit demanding compensatory and punitive damages.
In Bartnicki v. Vopper, the Supreme Court protected a radio broadcaster who disclosed the contents of an illegally intercepted communication. That case turned on a media outlet's lawful obtainment of tapes and the First Amendment. Here, the IRS agent called in, but arguably there wasn't much that was newsworthy about Barrigas' tax situation. Plus, it all happened live.
Now Stern and the government under Trump are co-defendants in a suit over tax disclosures. THR will provide updates on this case as it develops. In the meantime, here's the full complaint. | – Taxpayers who call the IRS for advice should have a reasonable expectation that their call will not be broadcast on Howard Stern's radio show, according to a lawsuit filed in Massachusetts this week. In the lawsuit, Judith Barrigas says she called the IRS to discuss a private tax matter in 2015, only to discover that IRS agent Jimmy Forsythe was on the phone to the satellite radio Howard Stern Show on another line during their 45-minute call—and much of their conversation had been broadcast to the show's 1.2 million listeners, Courthouse News reports. Barrigas is suing both Stern and the IRS, saying personal information including her phone number and tax details were shared with Stern's listeners. "While on the phone with Agent Forsythe, Mrs. Barrigas suddenly began to receive a barrage of text messages and phone calls from unknown callers/individuals," telling her that her phone number had been aired on Stern's show, the lawsuit states, per the Hollywood Reporter. It says someone from the Stern show heard the separate Barrigas-Forsythe conversation taking place and decided to air it. The show, the lawsuit alleges, "used the broadcast and the humiliation of Mrs. Barrigas as a source of amusement for their listeners." Barrigas is seeking punitive damages for invasion of privacy. Forsythe was placed on administrative leave, per the lawsuit. (Stern is worried about his friend, the current president.) |
FILE - In this Friday, Sept. 1, 2017, file photo, nurse Alex Wubbels displays video frame grabs from Salt Lake City Police Department body cams of herself being taken into custody, during an interview... (Associated Press)
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A Utah nurse who was arrested for refusing to let a police officer draw blood from an unconscious patient settled Tuesday with Salt Lake City and the university that runs the hospital for $500,000.
Nurse Alex Wubbels and her lawyer, Karra Porter, announced the move nearly two months after they released police body-camera video showing Detective Jeff Payne handcuffing Wubbels. The footage drew widespread attention online amid the national debate about police use of force.
The settlement covers all possible defendants in a lawsuit, including individual police officers, university police and hospital security guards. The payout will be divided among the city and the University of Utah.
Wubbels plans to use part of the money to fund legal help for others trying to get similar body-camera video. She said that in cases like hers, video is essential to being heard and believed.
"We all deserve to know the truth, and the truth comes when you see the actual raw footage, and that's what happened in my case," she said. "No matter how truthful I was in telling my story, it was nothing compared to what people saw and the visceral reaction people experienced when watching the footage of the experience I went through."
She said she also plans to give a portion of the $500,000 to a nurse's union and help lead a campaign to stop physical and verbal abuse of nurses on the job.
University of Utah hospital officials said in a statement they support Wubbels and have changed their procedures and training on how police and health care workers interact to ensure nothing similar happens again.
A spokesman for Salt Lake City didn't immediately return messages seeking comment.
Wubbel was following hospital policy when she told Payne he needed a warrant or the consent of the patient to draw blood after a July 26 car crash. The patient was not under arrest or suspected of wrongdoing.
Payne had neither. He eventually dragged Wubbels outside and handcuffed her as she screamed that she had done nothing wrong.
She was released without being charged but has said the incident left her feeling terrified and bullied. In a call for changes, Wubbel and her lawyer released the video they had obtained through a public records request.
Salt Lake City Police Chief Mike Brown has since apologized and fired Payne after an internal investigation found he violated department policies.
Brown said in a disciplinary letter that he was "deeply troubled" by Payne's conduct, which he said brought "significant disrepute" on the department.
Payne is appealing that decision, saying the firing was an unfair reaction to the negative publicity.
The patient was an off-duty Idaho reserve police officer driving a semitrailer when he was hit by a man fleeing police in a pickup truck. He later died of his injuries.
Lt. James Tracy, a police supervisor who ordered the arrest of the nurse, was demoted to officer and also is appealing. He said he suggested Payne consider handcuffing the nurse and that his superiors had never informed him of the hospital's blood-draw policy, according to appeal documents.
Wubbels said she was relieved at the discipline and would be disappointed if it's overturned, though she stressed that decision is out of her control.
"The police have to police themselves," she said. "This is something I never would have expected to happen, but I'm also honored by the weight of it." ||||| Published on Aug 31, 2017
Alex Wubbels, a nurse at University Hospital in Salt Lake City, was arrested after explaining to police that she couldn't draw a blood sample from an unconscious person. A Salt Lake City police detective asked for a blood sample. After explaining to the detective that the police needed a warrant, consent from the unconscious patient or that the patient needed to be under arrest before the blood sample could be drawn, she was arrested. | – A Utah nurse who was arrested for refusing to let a police officer draw blood from an unconscious patient settled Tuesday with Salt Lake City and the university that runs the hospital for $500,000. Nurse Alex Wubbels and her lawyer, Karra Porter, announced the move nearly two months after they released police body-camera video showing Detective Jeff Payne handcuffing Wubbels, the AP reports. The footage drew widespread attention online amid the national debate about police use of force. The settlement covers all possible defendants in a lawsuit, including individual police officers, university police, and hospital security guards. The payout will be divided among the city and the University of Utah. Wubbels plans to use part of the money to fund legal help for others trying to get similar body-camera video. She says that in cases like hers, video is essential to being heard and believed. "We all deserve to know the truth, and the truth comes when you see the actual raw footage, and that's what happened in my case," she says. "No matter how truthful I was in telling my story, it was nothing compared to what people saw and the visceral reaction people experienced when watching the footage." She says she also plans to donate to a nurse's union and help lead a campaign to stop physical and verbal abuse of nurses on the job. (Payne has been fired and his supervisor has been demoted.) |
Authorities have arrested two eastern Ohio girls suspected of making social media threats against a West Virginia girl who accused two high school football players of raping her in a case that drew widespread attention.
Trent Mays, 17, left, gets a hug from his father, Brian Mays, after Trent and co-defendant Ma'Lik Richmond, 16, were found delinquent on rape and other charges after their trial in juvenile court in Steubenville,... (Associated Press)
Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine, right, answers questions about the successful prosecution of two juveniles in a rape case during a news conference Sunday, March 17, 2013, at the Jefferson County Justice... (Associated Press)
Defense attorney Walter Madison, right, holds his client, 16-year-old Ma'Lik Richmond, second from right, while defense attorney Adam Nemann, left, sits with his client Trent Mays, foreground, 17, as... (Associated Press)
Ma'Lik Richmond covers his eyes and cries as his attorney Walter Madison, standing, asks the court for leniency after Richmond and co-defendant Trent Mays, lower left, were found delinquent on rape and... (Associated Press)
Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine said the girls arrested Monday posted threatening Facebook and Twitter comments on Sunday, the day the players were convicted in Steubenville (STOO'-behn-vihl). DeWine says the girls are being held in juvenile detention on allegations of aggravated menacing after an investigation by state and local authorities.
DeWine says he hopes the arrests end harassment of the alleged victim.
A judge sentenced the players to at least a year in juvenile prison. A grand jury will look into whether others broke the law by not speaking up after the attack last summer.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.
The head football coach at Steubenville High School and the owners of a house where an infamous 12-minute video was filmed could be investigated as Ohio prosecutors look into how adults responded to allegations of rape last year.
One day after a judge convicted two high school football players of raping the 16-year-old girl in August, Steubenville's top official said she welcomed a new, wide-ranging probe into possible wrongdoing connected with the rape.
The announcement of the guilty verdict was barely an hour old Sunday when state Attorney General Mike DeWine said he was continuing his investigation and would consider charges against anyone who failed to speak up after the summertime attack. That group could include other teens, parents, school officials and coaches for the high school's beloved football team, which has won nine state championships.
According to trial testimony, one of the two football players said the coach knew about what happened and "took care of it."
The video, passed around widely online, depicted a student joking about the attack. "She is so raped right now," the boy says.
Investigators interviewed the owners of a Steubenville house where the video was filmed, which was also the same place a photograph was taken of the girl being carried by her ankles and wrists, DeWine's office confirmed Monday. That picture, Exhibit No. 1 at the trial, generated international outrage. There is no phone listing for the home.
Numerous students, including defendant Trenton Mays, referred to the girl as "dead" in text messages the night of the attacks, apparently in reference to her unconscious state. The girl, who acknowledged drinking, testified she had no memory of the assaults.
A grand jury will meet in mid-April to consider evidence gathered by investigators from dozens of interviews, including with the football program's 27 coaches, which include junior high, freshman and volunteer coaches.
Text messages introduced at trial suggested the head coach was aware of the rape allegation early on. Reno Saccoccia "took care of it," Mays said in one text introduced by prosecutors.
DeWine said coaches are among officials required by state law to report suspected child abuse. Saccoccia has not commented.
The case brought international attention to the small city of 18,000 and led to allegations of a cover-up to protect the Steubenville High School football team.
Steubenville city manager Cathy Davison said residents want to see justice done, and the city will be better off going forward because of the wider investigation.
"Football is important in Steubenville, but I think overall if you looked at the community in and of itself, it's the education process, the moral fiber of our community, and the heritage of our community, that is even more important," Davison told The Associated Press.
Steubenville schools Superintendent Mike McVey released a statement Monday reiterating his position that the district was waiting until the trial ended to take action. He declined to address the grand jury investigation.
"What we've heard so far is deeply disturbing," McVey's statement said. "At this time, we believe it is important to allow the legal process to play out in court before we as a school district make any decisions or take action against any of the individuals involved with this case."
It's unclear what could happen to the school's sports programs if coaches were charged. Sanctions against teams or programs typically involve violations of rules related to playing, such as improper recruiting of student-athletes or playing ineligible athletes, said Tim Stried, spokesman for the Ohio High School Athletic Association.
"The incident that happened was not during a contest, was not even at school. No playing rules were violated, and it didn't have anything to do with eligibility or recruiting," Stried said.
Mays and Ma'Lik Richmond were charged with penetrating the West Virginia girl with their fingers, first in the back seat of a moving car after a mostly underage drinking party on Aug. 11, and then in the basement of a house.
Mays, 17, and Richmond, 16, were sentenced to at least a year in juvenile prison for the rapes. Mays was ordered to serve an additional year for photographing the underage girl naked.
They can be held until they turn 21.
Special Judge Thomas Lipps recommended the boys be assigned to Lighthouse Youth Center-Paint Creek in Chillicothe. The Ohio Department of Youth Services contracts with the secure, residential center. Lipps said it had a strong program for treating juvenile sex offenders.
___
Andrew Welsh-Huggins can be reached on Twitter at https://twitter.com/awhcolumbus | – Police have arrested two 16-year-old girls for allegedly posting social media death threats against the victim of the Steubenville rape case, WTOC reports. The threats were made on Facebook and Twitter, the AP reports; CBS News quotes one of them as reading, "you ripped my family apart, you made my cousin cry, so when I see you xxxxx, it’s gone be a homicide." Police say they've linked one of the girls to one of the convicted rapists, Ma'Lik Richmond. The girls are being held in a juvenile facility and face charges of aggravated menacing. (A grand jury probe may lead to other arrests in the rape case.) |
Weiner's tweet-hearts
By S.A. MILLER in Washington and PERRY CHIARAMONTE AND CHUCK BENNETT in NY
New York Post, Last Updated: 8:31 AM, June 1, 2011
Posted: 2:40 AM, June 1, 2011
It takes a certain type of woman to set his heart a-Twitter.
Rep. Anthony Weiner follows only a select 198 of his nearly 49,000 Twitter fans -- and a surprising number of them are total babes.
Yesterday, outside his DC office, the model-loving, married congressman testily refused to talk about the pretty women he's following.
He flashed a tight, uncomfortable smile and avoided eye contract as he tried to deflect point-blank questions from reporters about whether or not he had sent a crotch shot of himself in underwear to a 21-year-old co-ed in Seattle.
"Was it from you or not," demanded CNN's Capitol Hill producer Ted Barrett.
To which the squirming Weiner replied:
"If I were giving a speech to 45,000 people and someone in the back threw a pie or yelled out an insult, I would not spend the next two hours of my speech responding to that pie or that insult." ||||| I never thought I would spend my Tuesday afternoon squinting at an obscene image of grey Hanes boxers trying to decide if I thought their occupant looked like a part of Anthony Weiner. But there are many things about my present life that I did not visualize.
This is a family newspaper, so I can only tell you that the trouser weasel resident in the aforementioned boxers seemed to be fairly alert.
It’s called “Weinergate.” It began Friday night, when Andrew Breitbart’s blog Big Government posted that Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) had tweeted a lewd image of his underwear-clad crotch to a 21-year-old college student.
The tweet was deleted. The college student, who had tweeted, “I wonder what my boyfriend @RepWeiner is up to right now” and received, in response, the offensive picture, deleted her account and told the New York Daily News that she’d been harassed by conservative tweeters before the photo was sent. Weiner stated that his account had been hacked. Since the first person to retweet the picture had been claiming for days that a sex scandal of Chris-Lee-esque proportions was about to fall and smite the Democratic party, this didn’t seem entirely incredible.
But Breitbart is sticking by the story, and the one person to screencap and post the picture is insisting he had nothing to do with it and is begging us to test his IP address.
Breitbart sometimes tends to be confused about the meaning of making news. So it’s one word against the other — the recipient refuses to confirm or deny the hacking theory — and his word, so far, has not been stellar.
But I’m sort of curious as to why Weiner was tweeting about Seattle right before the picture was sent. And of the 200 people @RepWeiner follows on Twitter, a surprising number (well, more than zero, at any rate) do seem to be what might be termed nubile out-of-state houris.
While we wait for more information, we have dozens of years of pent-up pun energy waiting to explode. “Weiner!” we exclaim. The junior congressman gets enough flak without this! This was really hitting below the belt.
Now Weiner is retaining a lawyer and is begging us to talk about something more serious. Anything. Hockey! So is the college student to whom the Twitter message was directed, noting to the New York Daily News that “my reputation has been called into question by those who lack the character to report the facts.”
But reputation is the key word of this mini-drama.
Say what you will about Weiner (and I’ve said some), he has a definite style. @RepWeiner has always had a little more pizazz than your average member of Congress on Twitter. He is intense, yes, colorful, yes, and young enough to “get it.” He is the sort of figure, like Jon Stewart, who inspires random college students to refer to him as their boyfriend, delivering sarcastic tirades on the house floor and yelling on Fox News.
So the crotch shot seems entirely too ham-fisted. It’s the sort of thing you’d expect from someone who didn’t send his own tweets. Anyone who uses that many hashtags clearly knows what happens when you post compromising images online.
Or maybe not. Since he’s lawyering up and the “prank” furor hasn’t died down, it’s hard to say.
This has been quite the week for hacking. PBS was hacked, with reports that Tupac Shakur was alive and well and living in New Zealand. This weekend, Lockheed Martin also fell under attack. And Sony is still reeling from the attack on its Playstation network.
The other forms of hacking raise questions of information security and even physical safety. But this one (assuming it was a hack) touches on something more subtle: reputation security.
In Shakespeare’s “Othello,” Cassio keens, “Reputation, reputation, reputation! O, I have lost my reputation! I have lost the immortal part of myself, and what remains is bestial.”
People used to have reputations. Now they just have Generally Inoffensive Twitter Feeds. Replace “Carefully Cultivated Online Presence” with Reputation, and you’ve got Weiner’s trouble in a nutshell. It’s not what you’ve done but what comes up when we Google you that counts — as Rick Santorum has been learning.
Cassio knew, as Weiner seems to, that reputation has a tangible existence outside the self, and once it’s dented, just try to keep Google from suggesting “trouser weasel” after your name. Do you remember that one evening in college? No? Well, Facebook does. Long after the sun has exploded and we have passed into the arms of the ancient Mayans, those photos we forgot to untag will linger to bear witness to our misdeeds. It’s the immortal part of ourselves, and what remains is — suing.
And supposing it was an indiscretion and not a hack, it’s an easy mistake to make. Our actual selves are so bound up in our online selves that it’s sometimes hard to tell where one ends and the other begins. Defriending on Facebook is a personal insult. Posing shirtless on Craigslist? Sending lascivious direct messages? You’ll have to answer for those. We are held accountable in the real world for the things we do in the virtual one. We’re existing in a new dimension, and it’s no longer truly anonymous and free of consequences.
Before, people had to have real scandals. Now all they have to do is post trouser photos to the Internet.
Curiosity used to kill the cat. These days, it launches the reality TV career of whatever the cat was last looking at. There was a time when we only heard about indiscretions. Now, if you’re at all curious, you can see what all that Brett Favre fuss is about (not much), or read Tiger Woods’s text messages or glimpse Chris Lee’s Craigslist photos.
If this was a prank, whoever planned it had the formula — and the forum — down pat. This is where scandals are made — not face to face, but Facebook to Facebook.
Who cares whose shorts those were?
Whose IP address was it? ||||| Porn Star Says Weiner Sent Her a Private Message
Ginger Lee—a porn star, stripper and fan of Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY9)—was ecstatic on March 13 2011:
Ginger Lee’s tweet said: You know it’s a good day when you wake up to a DM from @RepWeiner. (I’m a fangirl, y’all, he’s my trifecta of win.)
[NOTE: DM is a Twitter abbreviation for Direct Message, in which a tweet is sent privately and only to the one recipient. To send a DM, the person you wish to message must be following you on Twitter. Ginger must have been following @RepWeiner for him to DM her. He would not necessarily have to have been following her to send the DM. However, a tweet was publicly broadcast by @patriotusa76 back on April 12 saying that Weiner only followed 91 people at that time, and it names “PORN star Ginger Lee” as one of them. PatriotUSA76 aka Dan Wolfe appears to have been on Weiner’s trail for some time now and has been tweeting his curious finds to various blogs and conservative websites, apparently to no avail.]
Following Ginger’s excited announcement of receiving a DM from Weiner, a few Ginger and/or Weiner fans piped up with questions:
@MilesLord asks @GingerLee: How do u DM people, and why the heck is Congressman Weiner DM-ing u??? To which @GingerLee replies: Because he is one of my heroes, & a DM from him is like a DM from Buddha.
And then there was this:
Ginger Lee tweeted to @starchild111: He thanked me for the shout-outs and said he likes my blog. (I died a little inside…in a good way.)
A couple months ago, around the time of this message, @Starchild111 was a high school girl who was trying to get Weiner to be her prom date. She was overjoyed when he followed her, upset when conservatives laughed that Weiner was trolling the school yard, and dismayed when he unfollowed her. Starchild has deleted her twitter account. I only just found her last night, so I have no knowledge of when she deleted it, but I have found tweets by her as recent as May 18.
Starchild is not the only teenage girl with a crush on Weiner that he has followed. There’s another one that he has apparently had an on-again, off-again following involvement with for a couple months. And he’s currently following her again now.
This pattern of behavior, following and DMing young women that apparently have no relation to his district or his work, fits in with the suspected behavior of him DMing a crotch shot to a college girl in Seattle. Weiner is claiming his Facebook account was hacked, which doesn’t explain how the photo was uploaded to his yfrog account and then tweeted from his twitter account (that he was tweeting on around that time, including after the supposed hacking).
For more coverage on #Weinergate, see these excellent roundups:
I have more that I have found. Still sorting through it to see if there’s anything else to contribute to fleshing out the full extent of #Weinergate.
UPDATE [5/29/11 6:00pm]
Thanks to The Other McCain for the linkage. Welcome, TOMers.
Yukyuk: In a bit of irony, back in May 2004, Rep. Weiner introduced legislation to stop sexual harassment on college campuses:
“Institutions of higher learning have a responsibility to establish clear boundaries between acceptable and unacceptable conduct on campus,” said Rep. Weiner. “That means putting students on notice from day one that sexual harassment of any kind will not be tolerated.”
Perhaps Weiner’s just been conducting online research for some new legislation?
UPDATE II: [5/29/11 6:30pm]
Thanks for the links from JustPaste.It and Uncoverage.net
UPDATE III: [5/29/11 7:15pm]
Thanks for the links, DaTechGuy and DailyCaller!
UPDATE IV: [5/29/11 7:25pm]
Oops…and not to forget, thanks to Velvet Hammer at Ironic Surrealism, Gateway Pundit and AceOfSpades.
Another yukyuk: The Wall Street Journal has posted a very short little AP story regarding Weinergate. Note the pronunciation key they give in the first sentence. When was the last time you read an AP story that had that?:
NEW YORK — A spokesman for New York Rep. Anthony Weiner (WEE’-nur) says a lewd photograph sent from the Democrat’s Twitter account is just “a distraction” perpetrated by a hacker. Weiner spokesman Dave Arnold told The Associated Press in an email Sunday the Twitter episode was “a distraction” from the congressman’s “important work representing his constituents.” The photo showed a man’s bulging underpants. It first was reported Saturday by BigGovernment.com, a website run by conservative commentator Andrew Breitbart. The site said the photo was tweeted to a woman in Seattle. The photo was quickly deleted. Weiner later joked about it on Twitter, asking whether his kitchen blender would be next to “attack” him.
UPDATE: [5/30/11 9:00am]
Thanks for links from Doug Ross, The Pajamas Media Tatler, American Power and Verum Serum.
UPDATE: [6/1/11 1:30am]
Thanks to the following linkers (and welcome to their readers!)
Daily Beast
Gawker
American Spectator
Patterico
Plus, thanks to Socialite Life, Carolyn Castiglia, Newsvine, Just Barking Mad, Temple of Mut, Ragan’s PR Daily, Conservative Blogs Central, and Texas Sparkle.
UPDATE [6/1/11 11:45]
The Daily Caller has a new story in which Ginger Lee emailed them a nonresponse to all of their questions, except to say:
“I haven’t met Rep Weiner. I follow him on twitter because I support him & what he stands for,” Lee said in an email to TheDC. “I have been hounded by his political opponents but that hasn’t changed my view of him and what he fights for.” | – The media are all atwitter over Anthony Weiner’s Twitter scandal, with the main takeaway being: Anthony Weiner likes to tweet with pretty girls, and he should probably stop doing that. Regardless of whether Weiner actually sent the naughty picture in question to one of his followers, the congressman has a lot of what Fox News terms “tweet-hearts” (groan), and one of them just so happens to be a porn star. Conservative blog The Prudence Paine Papers first revealed the exchanges between Weiner and porn star/stripper Ginger Lee, a self-described “fangirl” of Weiner’s. Weiner sent at least one direct message to Lee, and followed her at least briefly. The blog also notes that Weiner seems to have had a habit of following young women who have a crush on him. Fox News adds that of Weiner’s 198 followees, “a surprising number … are total babes.” And in the Washington Post, Alexandra Petri concurs: “a surprising number … do seem to be what might be termed nubile out-of-state houris.” On Gawker, Adrian Chen observes that to avoid these sorts of scandals in the future, Weiner should simply treat Twitter like real life: “Would you have a picture taken with your arm around a blonde porn star who basically writes fanfic about you on her blog?” If not, don’t tweet with her, either. |
This summer, Michael Phelps is swimming for his last time at the Olympics and collecting a few more gold medals along the way. Outside of his extensive hardware collection, Phelps has helped Under Armour and agency Droga5 hit some major milestones with his "Rule Yourself" ad, including a Film Craft Grand Prix at the Cannes Lions festival. Now it's become one of the most shared Olympics spots ever.
New data from Unruly shows the Phelps Under Armour spot is now the second most shared Olympics ad for 2016—behind Channel 4's incredible Paralympics spot "We're The Superhumans,"—and the fifth most shared Olympics spot of all time.
What makes the ad, created by Droga5, so sharable?
For one, it's striking the right emotional chord with its target audience: millennial men between the ages of 18 and 34. The dramatic nature of the Phelps spot (with a killer track from The Kills) and its ability to take viewers through the swimmer's intense training process elicited a sense of inspiration among 47 percent of overall viewers, and 68 percent of millennial men.
Twenty-two percent of viewers reported feeling amazement watching the athlete training and even undergoing some extraordinarily painful-looking sessions of cupping therapy. Millennials also felt happiness and surprise—all key emotions needed to engage younger viewers, according to Unruly.
"Something we've learned from all of the ads we tested if we look at different demographics and the emotions that are most resonant to them, for millennials—especially male millennials—inspiration is one of the top emotions. If that is present at all in an ad, they tend to experience it," Devra Prywes, VP, marketing and insight at Unruly, said. Prywes noted that the inspiration factor seemed to be lacking in a lot of Super Bowl spots from this year but stands out in many Olympics spots, which is likely helping to propel shares for the Olympic ads.
To date, 56 percent of the spots' shares are coming from Facebook, followed by Twitter at 28 percent.
Prywes contended that Under Armour has successfully been able to consistently create authentic spots, with stars from Misty Copeland to the U.S. Women's Gymnastics team. Each piece of work continues to inspire and amaze audiences while also building a sense of pride in viewers, according to the data.
Droga5 co-head of strategy Harry Roman echoed Prywes, adding that the Phelps ad is so shareable because it's able to convey the sacrifice that the swimmer makes each day to prepare for Rio.
"I think people connect with this film because it paints hard work and sacrifice with beautiful strokes, but does so in a way that is raw and real about what it takes to win. I would like to think that this film and the stirring lyrics, 'It's The Last Goodbye,' are playing in the back of people's minds when they see him smiling on the podium. We probably won't ever see another athlete like Michael Phelps for a very long time," Roman said.
Added Prywes: "Especially with younger viewers, over three-quarters will lose trust in a brand if an ad feels fake. Under Armour's recent campaigns are all consistently authentic. They're doing a really nice job of drawing this out and creating new content that all work really well together in their content stack, in this authentic way of portraying athletes and their origin stories, showing the things that you don't always see."
Take a look at some additional data from Unruly below. ||||| These crawls are part of an effort to archive pages as they are created and archive the pages that they refer to. That way, as the pages that are referenced are changed or taken from the web, a link to the version that was live when the page was written will be preserved.Then the Internet Archive hopes that references to these archived pages will be put in place of a link that would be otherwise be broken, or a companion link to allow people to see what was originally intended by a page's authors.The goal is to fix all broken links on the web . Crawls of supported "No More 404" sites. ||||| The American Catholic Blogs Collection archives blogs written by American Catholics. The Collection is comprehensive in scope, seeking to record multiple viewpoints and perspectives on Catholicism. ||||| Starting in 1996, Alexa Internet has been donating their crawl data to the Internet Archive. Flowing in every day, these data are added to the Wayback Machine after an embargo period. | – Under Armour's ad featuring Michael Phelps has been viewed 7.7 million times on YouTube and is now the fifth most shared Olympic ad of all time. Why? It's not simply because Phelps is insanely impressive, as is his training routine. As data from Unruly reported by Adweek demonstrates, millennials aged 18 to 34—and male millennials in particular—usually resonate with an ad if they find it inspiring. Some 47% of viewers and 68% of millennial men said they felt inspired watching Phelps' ad from agency Droga5. Phelps probably did, too, since he teared up when he saw it for the first time. The ad itself is fairly dark in color, which is parlayed into the proclamation at the end that "It's what you do in the dark that puts you in the light." (Cue the goosebumps.) "I think people connect with this film because it paints hard work and sacrifice with beautiful strokes, but does so in a way that is raw and real about what it takes to win," says a Droga5 rep. It depicts some intense-looking exercises, a lot of sweat, and "extraordinarily painful-looking sessions of cupping therapy," notes Adweek, backed by an emotive track from The Kills. Michelle McGahan at Bustle agrees: It "[reminds] us all that training for the Olympics is no joke." (The ad shows Phelps cupping.) |
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Thank you for reading 5 free articles. You can come back at the end of your 30-day period for another 5 free articles, or you can purchase a subscription and continue to enjoy valuable local news and information. If you are a current 7-day subscriber you are granted an all-access pass to the website and digital newspaper replica. Please click Sign Up to subscribe, or Login if you are already a member.
Thank you for reading 5 free articles. You can come back at the end of your 30-day period for another 5 free articles, or you can purchase a subscription and continue to enjoy valuable local news and information. If you are a current 7-day subscriber you are granted an all-access pass to the website and digital newspaper replica. Please click below to Get Started. ||||| Across the country, white supremacists and Neo-Nazis are attacking people at will. In spite of being filmed, photographed, and seen by eyewitnesses during their attacks, most of them still remain at large. We will identify them and bring them to justice ourselves.
Neither state nor federal law enforcement have been able to independently identify a single one of DeAndre Harris’ attackers. These men were caught on several audio visual recordings, from various angles, in high definition, bludgeoning DeAndre with blunt objects as he curled into a ball and attempted to shield himself from their repeated blows. The men taunted and pursued him when he was finally able to escape and then regrouped and marched together right passed a local police station. Afterward the uploaded video to the internet bragging about the assault. “They were beating that nigger on the ground! It was glorious!!! I got the whole thing [on camera]!” Images of the men prior to the attack, during the attack, immediately after the attack, have been shared with Charlottesville PD and the FBI. The men wore symbols indicating the hate groups they are affiliated with. The men were photographed and recorded throughout the week interacting with known associates. iPhone 8 and Google have facial recognition software, so we'd imagine law enforcement has similar, hypothetically more advanced, identification programs. The same notwithstanding, police have failed to identify any of the several assailants not first gift-wrapped and delivered to them with their full name, address and place of birth by social justice advocate and writer Shaun King. At least four men remain at large.
At this point it is clear, it’s on us. We cannot wait around for law enforcement to identify or capture white supremacist who criminally attack black people or others who speak out against injustice. We cannot rely on police to get justice for DeAndre and others who have been attacked. We will do it ourselves.
We are hoping to crowd-source #JusticeForDeAndre by raising funds for three areas
(1) A cash reward for anyone with information leading to the identification and arrest of DeAndre’s attackers
(2) Hiring private investigators to do the job of law enforcement
(3) create a general fund for anyone who is able to provide identifying information on Neo-Nazi’s guilty of criminal acts against citizens.
We are committing to pursuing justice for DeAndre and other victims of racism no matter what value law enforcement gives this pursuit. Lets do this together. ||||| The black man beaten in a Charlottesville parking garage by white supremacists after a "Unite the Right" rally has been charged with a crime in connection with the incident, even as police arrested a third person accused of kicking him to the ground and pummeling him.
A local magistrate issued an arrest warrant Monday for DeAndre Harris on a felony charge of unlawful wounding after a man, identified by Harris's attorney as Harold Ray Crews, reported that he was injured by the 20-year-old during the August brawl. Crews, who describes himself as a "Southern Nationalist" and an attorney on Twitter, did not return phone calls seeking comment.
The magistrate's charge against Harris, who suffered a spinal injury and a head laceration that required 10 stitches, came less than 48 hours after a second rally by white supremacists and white nationalists in Charlottesville and caught the city's police department by surprise.
"We were not expecting this. We were expecting to do our own investigation into the man's allegations," said Detective Sgt. Jake Via, who is supervising the parking garage case.
But alleged crime victims can go to magistrates for warrants after they've filed police reports.
Harris's attorney, S. Lee Merritt, denounced the charge and said it was orchestrated by the League of the South, an organization labeled by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a hate group. Crews, who runs the group's North Carolina chapter, was not injured "in any way" by Harris, Merritt said.
"We find it highly offensive and upsetting," Merritt said, "but what's more jarring is that he's been charged with the same crime as the men who attacked him."
[Third white supremacist arrested in Charlottesville garage beating of black man]
The brutal attack, which occurred in a garage next to police department headquarters, was captured in a video that went viral in the days after the rally. The confrontation has come to symbolize the racial hatred that was unleashed in Charlottesville on Aug. 12, when white supremacists, Klan members and neo-Nazis clashed with counterprotesters. The violence left one counterprotester, Heather Heyer, dead.
Harris's beating has inspired a social-media campaign by activists to identify his attackers, two of whom were charged weeks ago. A third man, Jacob Scott Goodwin, a 22-year-old from Ward, Ark., was arrested by U.S. Marshals Tuesday night after being identified by online sleuths, who are led by journalist and Black Lives Matter activist Shaun King.
King, who has spent hundreds of hours poring over photos and video footage of the rally and the parking garage attack, said he was appalled that Harris has been charged.
"I am disgusted that the justice system bent over backwards to issue a warrant for one of the primary victims of that day, when I and others had to fight like hell to get that same justice system to prosecute people who were vicious in their attacks against Harris and others," King said. "Now, we're seeing white supremacists celebrate on social media, bragging about Harris's arrest. They're hailing this as a victory."
Indeed, after the charge was announced, Hunter Wallace, a prominent white nationalist, issued a celebratory tweet — along with a photo of the main character from the film "American Psycho" grinning widely.
"Did you hear the news?" Wallace asked. "DeAndre Harris is going to jail. Yeah, he is being booked this morning. His whole story was another race hoax."
Avnel Coates, the chief magistrate for the district that includes Charlottesville, declined to say whether she issued the arrest warrant. She referred The Washington Post to Kristi Wright, the director of the state's Department of Legislative and Public Relations, who said Coates cannot comment on pending or concluded legal matters in her office.
Any alleged crime victim can approach a magistrate to obtain a warrant against the alleged perpetrator. The alleged victim must file a police report, and then the magistrate needs probable cause to issue an arrest warrant, based on that person's testimony.
Via said Harris's alleged victim did file a complaint with police, who told him they'd investigate the allegations. Crews apparently also went to the magistrate's office, which needed only evidence of a police report to issue a warrant.
"The arrest warrant was based solely on the victim's testimony," Via said.
Once the warrant is served on Harris — probably this week — the decision of whether to prosecute the case falls to Commonwealth's Attorney Warner D. "Dave" Chapman. The prosecutor told The Post on Tuesday evening that it wouldn't be appropriate to comment on a pending investigation.
[Finding the white supremacists who beat a black man in Charlottesville]
Meanwhile, King and the other online sleuths had been waiting for the police department to act on their evidence against Goodwin, whom they initially nicknamed "Shield" because of what he was carrying that day.
They watched footage of the parking garage attack multiple times from different angles. They noticed that "Shield" had stuffed his large ponytail into the back of his military helmet. They measured his military goggles and examined his plastic, body-length shield. They zoomed in and saw that he wore a twisted, copper-colored bracelet. They also discovered that he wore a Traditionalist Worker Party pin.
"Dear Jacob Scott Goodwin, age 22, of Ward, Arkansas," King posted on his own Facebook page Sept. 24. "We have looked for you for a month. In the end it was your hair, your bracelets, your glasses, your tattoo on your forearm, the white supremacist pins and necklaces, and your own bragging online that helped us identify you as one of the felony attackers of DeAndre Harris in Charlottesville. Soon, you will be arrested."
King and his online investigators also gathered information that led to the arrests of two other alleged attackers: Daniel P. Borden, 18, of Ohio, and Alex Michael Ramos, 33, of Georgia. Both have been charged with malicious wounding.
They also identified a suspected attacker from a separate incident during the Charlottesville rally — a man accused of punching a counterprotester on the street. Dennis Mothersbaugh, 37, who lives in North Vernon, Ind., was arrested by police Sept. 28 and charged with assault and battery, and awaits extradition to Virginia.
"It's me, and maybe 15 people, all Internet volunteers, we're all doing this together," said King, a columnist with the Intercept. "We have Facebook messages, Twitter and email conversations, and whenever we find something, we share it. We're doing it knowing we can't afford to make a mistake."
In video of the parking garage fight, the man identified as Crews tries to spear a counterprotester with the pole of a Confederate flag. Harris retaliates, swinging a flashlight at Crews, appearing to strike him. But Harris's attorney, Merritt, said that the flashlight failed "to make significant contact" and that Crews was injured in a separate incident that did not involve Harris.
Within seconds of Harris swinging the flashlight, he was kicked to the ground by a group of at least five white supremacists, who began hitting him with wooden sticks and a large board. In the video, the man police have identified as Goodwin, clad in military tactical gear, kicks Harris. At one point, he appears to strike Harris with his shield. As the fight is ending, a counterprotester sucker-punches Goodwin's helmeted head.
Goodwin did not return a message seeking comment.
In an interview, his mother, Tamera Goodwin, who also attended the Charlottesville rally, confirmed that it is her son in the video wearing military tactical gear and carrying a shield. She asked him about his involvement in the attack that day, she said.
"I told him, 'It does look like you kicked him,' but he said, 'No, Mom, I didn't,' " she said.
"He said, 'We just tried to get out, but there was no way out other than to fight back.' "
King and his team noticed that he was wearing a red pin with the number 88 — code for "Heil Hitler," because H is the eighth letter of the alphabet. Then, they focused on the pin for the Traditionalist Worker Party, a white nationalist group run by Matthew Heimbach.
[This white nationalist who shoved a Trump protester may be the next David Duke]
Maybe, they thought, "Shield" had attended the Traditionalist Worker Party rally in Pikeville, Ky., in the spring. They began sifting through the party's public Facebook pages for photos from the gathering.
"We'd click on each person who liked a photo from the Pikeville rally, and every person who commented on a photo. And that's how we got to Jacob's page," King said. "We clicked on his profile, and there he was, with the exact same bracelets and necklaces. He even explained where he got his helmet."
Not only did they finally have a name, they took screenshots of Goodwin's Facebook page: Smiling with his mom. Posing in a camouflage uniform, clutching a long firearm.
Then King did what he always does. He passed the evidence on to police. | – A black counterprotester at August's white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va., who was shown being beaten in a viral video, is now facing his own troubles with the law. The Daily Progress reports an arrest warrant has been issued for 20-year-old DeAndre Harris for his alleged attack on an unnamed victim who says it happened shortly before Harris' own beating in a parking garage on Aug. 12. Per WVIR, a Charlottesville Police Department release notes that the victim went to the local magistrate's office to detail the attack allegedly carried out by Harris and to request a warrant. After a detective "verified" those facts, a warrant against Harris for unlawful wounding, a felony, was issued. Harris was not yet in custody as of the PD's statement. S. Lee Merritt, one of Harris' attorneys, tells the Washington Post the warrant is "clearly retaliatory" and also "highly unusual" in that it was issued by a magistrate, not the cops. "We find it highly offensive and upsetting, but what's more jarring is that he's been charged with the same crime as the men who attacked him," Merritt adds. NBC News notes that Merritt started a fundraiser in September for Harris, which has brought in close to $45,000 to help identify and bring to justice his attackers. Two men have already been arrested in that case: Alex Michael Ramos, 33, of Georgia, and Ohio's Daniel Patrick Borden, 18, both charged with malicious wounding. Meanwhile, Zach Roberts, a journalist who took photos of Harris' beating, tweeted that neither Charlottesville cops nor the FBI have had any interest in interviewing him on what he saw that day as a witness, per the Root. |
« "Do Intelligent Arguments Make A Difference?" | Main | Face Of The Day II »
Those of us who hoped for some kind of winding down of the longest war in US history will almost certainly be disappointed now. David Petraeus is the real Pope of counter-insurgency and if he decides that he needs more troops and more time and more resources in Afghanistan next year, who is going to be able to gainsay him? That's Thomas P. Barnett's shrewd assessment. Obama's pledge to start withdrawing troops in 2011 is now kaput. It won't happen. I doubt it will happen in a second term either. Once Washington has decided to occupy a country, it will occupy it for ever. We are still, remember, in Germany! But Afghanistan?
Obama's gamble on somehow turning the vast expanse of that ungovernable "nation" into a stable polity dedicated to fighting Jihadist terror is now as big as Bush's in Iraq - and as quixotic. It is also, in my view, as irrational, a deployment of resources and young lives that America cannot afford and that cannot succeed. It really is Vietnam - along with the crazier and crazier rationales for continuing it. But it is now re-starting in earnest ten years in, dwarfing Vietnam in scope and longevity.
One suspects there is simply no stopping this war machine, just as there is no stopping the entitlement and spending machine. Perhaps McChrystal would have tried to wind things up by next year - but his frustration was clearly fueled by the growing recognition that he could not do so unless he surrendered much of the country to the Taliban again. So now we have the real kool-aid drinker, Petraeus, who will refuse to concede the impossibility of success in Afghanistan just as he still retains the absurd notion that the surge in Iraq somehow worked in reconciling the sectarian divides that still prevent Iraq from having a working government. I find this doubling down in Afghanistan as Iraq itself threatens to spiral out of control the kind of reasoning that only Washington can approve of.
This much we also know: Obama will run for re-election with far more troops in Afghanistan than Bush ever had - and a war and occupation stretching for ever into the future, with no realistic chance of success. Make no mistake: this is an imperialism of self-defense, a commitment to civilize even the least tractable culture on earth because Americans are too afraid of the consequences of withdrawal. And its deepest irony is that continuing this struggle will actually increase and multiply the terror threats we face - as it becomes once again a recruitment tool for Jihadists the world over.
This is a war based on fear, premised on a contradiction, and doomed to carry on against reason and resources for the rest of our lives.
Maybe this is why you supported Obama - to see the folly of nation-building extended indefinitely to the least promising wastelands on earth, as the US heads toward late-imperial bankruptcy. It is not a betrayal as such. But it is, in my view, a huge and metastasizing mistake.
(Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty.) ||||| For complete coverage of Afghanistan, go to the Afghanistan Crossroads blog.
Washington (CNN) -- Gen. David Petraeus told CNN on Thursday that he supports President Barack Obama's July 2011 deadline to start withdrawing U.S. troops from Afghanistan, a key point of contention between the president and many of his Republican critics in Congress.
Petraeus -- tapped to replace Gen. Stanley McChrystal as the U.S. commander in Afghanistan -- expressed his respect and appreciation for McChrystal's work and said the circumstances surrounding the change in command are "sad."
Obama relieved McChrystal of his duties Wednesday after the general and his staff were quoted in a Rolling Stone magazine article making comments that appear to mock top administration officials.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen endorsed Obama's decision during a Pentagon news conference Thursday. Mullen said he was nearly physically "sick" when he read the Rolling Stone story. The comments in the article constituted an unacceptable challenge to civilian authority, the men said.
"We do not have the right, nor should we ever assume the prerogative to cast doubt upon the ability or mock the motives of our civilian leaders, elected or appointed," Mullen said. "We are and must remain a neutral instrument of the state."
Petraeus' remarks to CNN's Dana Bash and Ted Barrett were his first public comments since being chosen as the new U.S. military chief for the Afghan conflict. The Senate Armed Services Committee is set to begin his confirmation hearings Tuesday morning.
"I support the president's policy, and I will also provide the best professional military advice as we conduct assessments," Petraeus said.
The general said it's a privilege to serve. "It's obviously a hugely important mission," he said.
"It's very sad that I have to assume it in this manner," he said. We "all have enormous respect and gratitude to Gen. McChrystal for all that he did. He's played a key role in helping get the inputs right in Afghanistan."
Petraeus declined to immediately say whether he would fire the unnamed officers on McChrystal's staff who are quoted in Rolling Stone making disparaging remarks.
"You have to understand an officer -- a commander -- cannot prejudge a situation because that crosses the line into what is called 'command influence,'" he said. "So we'll need to sort out the facts and take the appropriate action once we've done that."
Mullen emphasized that Petraeus will have the authority to make changes to McChrystal's battle plans and tactics. Obama also reinforced the notion of both tactical and strategic flexibility at the top levels of U.S. command, stressing Thursday that the July 2011 date is only for the start of the process under which U.S. forces will be removed from Afghanistan.
The decision to replace McChrystal with Petraeus was hotly debated by top administration officials. While Gates and Mullen both publicly defended Obama's decision to remove McChrystal, Gates initially backed keeping McChrystal on the job because top Pentagon brass considered the general vital to the Afghan war effort, a senior Pentagon official told CNN's Barbara Starr.
But in a 35-minute meeting in the Oval Office on Tuesday, Obama said he wanted to replace McChrystal with Petraeus, Gates said.
"It was the president's idea," Gates told reporters Thursday. "It was the president who first raised Petraeus' name."
The appointment of Petraeus is the "best possible outcome to an awful situation," Gates said.
Military officers both in Washington and on the ground in Afghanistan have continually stressed Obama's assertion that the switch in leadership does not represent a change in policy.
"Nothing changes about our strategy," said Mullen, who is departing for Afghanistan and Pakistan on Thursday night.
"We remain absolutely focused on our tasks and the operational tempo will not miss a beat," Lt. Gen. Sir Nick Parker said Thursday. Parker, who is British, has assumed command pending Petraeus' confirmation by the U.S. Senate.
Petraeus, who also led the U.S. military surge in Iraq, expressed gratitude toward his wife Thursday, saying he had asked about her feelings on his new assignment
"She's a great wife, army daughter and army mother," he said.
CNN's Ted Barrett, Dana Bash, Barbara Starr and Alan Silverleib contributed to this report. | – With David Petraeus running the show in Afghanistan, you can forget about US troops beginning to withdraw as promised in July of next year, writes Andrew Sullivan. Obama's pledge is "now kaput," he writes at his Daily Dish blog at the Atlantic. "It won't happen. I doubt it will happen in a second term either." Petraeus, remember, is the architect of the Afghan strategy. Though the general tells CNN that he supports Obama's plans, Sullivan says he won't "concede the impossibility of success in Afghanistan just as he still retains the absurd notion that the surge in Iraq somehow worked in reconciling the sectarian divides that still prevent Iraq from having a working government." The Afghan war is a huge mistake, "an imperialism of self-defense, a commitment to civilize even the least tractable culture on earth because Americans are too afraid of the consequences of withdrawal." The irony is that the war will actually make things worse as a Jihadist recruiting tool. |
Story highlights Jason Brezler faces possible discharge on less than honorable terms
He served for 13 years, including four tours in Iraq and Afghanistan
Brezler is accused of mishandling classified information
Influential supporters are leaping to the 32-year old veteran's defense
Jason Brezler is an elite New York firefighter. He is also a highly decorated officer in the U.S. Marine Corps Forces Reserve, who has served four tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.
So why is Maj. Brezler facing possible discharge on less than honorable terms after serving 13 years with the Marines?
He is accused of mishandling classified information and faces an investigation that could determine his future.
"For a man like Jason Brezler, being asked to separate from the Marine Corps that he loved so much would be an even worse punishment than jail," said Kevin Carroll, Brezler's attorney, a former CIA officer who is providing Brezler pro bono representation along with his law firm Quinn, Emanuel, Urquhart & Sullivan.
In an e-mail to CNN, Marine Col. Francis Piccoli wrote that because of "the mishandling of classified information, Maj. Brezler has been ordered to show cause of retention in the U.S. Marine Corps before a Board of Inquiry."
That board will consist of three officers: one colonel and two lieutenant colonels.
Brezler, a tall man with a strong New York accent and a blond buzz-cut, is legally barred from speaking about his case.
But influential supporters are leaping to the 32-year-old veteran's defense. A congressman, a senator and two Marine Corps generals have written letters on Brezler's behalf.
None of his defenders dispute the fact that Brezler broke security protocol when he sent classified information over an insecure line in summer 2012. In fact, his attorney said Brezler quickly reported the mistake to his superiors.
His defenders argue the urgency of the situation warranted the security breach.
"Maj. Brezler was in a position where lives were in danger and time was of the essence, and in the end his assessment of the threat proved accurate," wrote New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand in a letter to the Marines.
During summer 2012, Brezler was attending graduate courses in Oklahoma when he received an e-mail from Marine officers in Afghanistan's Helmand province, a deeply troubled area where Brezler had been deployed in 2009-2010.
"The subject line of the e-mail he received said in all capital letters with three exclamation marks 'IMPORTANT: SARWAR JAN IS BACK,'" said Carroll.
Brezler had history with Jan, an Afghan police commander who had been active in Helmand province.
"When Jason was serving in Afghanistan in 2010, he caused Sarwar Jan, a police official, to be fired from that position because he was raping children," Carroll said.
Despite repeated efforts by CNN's bureau in Kabul, Jan could not be found to comment for this report.
Carroll said "within minutes" Brezler wrote his colleagues back at Forward Operating Base Delhi in Afghanistan, with a warning about Jan. He attached to the e-mail a classified document that included allegations about Jan, claiming he had ties to the Taliban.
"Jason immediately responded with everything he knew, including some extraordinarily derogatory information he knew about this man indicating that he was a threat not only to local children but to Marines," Carroll said. "When the Marines in Afghanistan wrote back saying that some of that information might have been classified, (Brezler) immediately turned himself in."
In retrospect, some observers believe this was a breach of security that could have saved lives.
On August 10, 2012, less than two weeks after Brezler's warning, three Marines were shot to death in the gym at FOB Delhi. Their names were Staff Sgt. Scott Dickinson, Cpl. Richard Rivera and Lance Cpl. Gregory Buckley.
The suspected gunman was a teenage servant, known by the single Afghan name Aynoddin, who was working on the base for Jan.
Despite his earlier dismissal, Jan had been appointed to command the Afghan police in another district of Helmand Province, where FOB Delhi was located.
More than a year later, Buckley's home in Oceanside, New York, is decorated with American flags and photos in honor of the slain 21-year old.
Asked what would have happened if commanders at FOB Delhi heeded Brezler's warning, Greg Buckley Sr. paused, his eyes filling with tears.
"I would have my son," he said. "I would have my boy with me today."
Before the shooting, Buckley Sr. said that his son had warned him over the phone about the Afghan police commander named Jan.
"He told me that (Jan) was a bad person," the elder Buckley said.
"They all knew that he was a bad guy. He was thrown out of two other bases prior to this for drug laundering, prostitution and ties to the Taliban," he said.
In the aftermath of the shooting, Jan was detained by Afghan security forces, according to an August 2012 report in The Washington Post.
Despite repeated requests for information, Afghan officials both in the Helmand provincial government and in the Interior Ministry of the national government in Kabul told CNN they had no information about either Jan or Aynoddin's current whereabouts.
Meanwhile, more than 14 months after the deadly shooting, American investigators have yet to publish the results of their inquiry.
"The case is still open, pending prosecution by the Afghanis," wrote Ed Buice, a spokesman for Naval Criminal Investigative Service, in an e-mail to CNN.
Military experts and government officials are questioning why it has taken so long to release a report.
"Generally, investigations are conducted a lot more quickly," said Rep. Peter King, a Republican from New York.
Last month, King sent a letter to the Department of Defense asking investigators to answer several questions, including:
-- Did Sarwar Jan commit sex crimes against juveniles while on U.S. Defense Department facilities?
-- Did Jan use U.S. government funds to procure his victims?
-- Why was Jan reportedly dismissed as district police chief? Why was he reappointed?
Instead of getting answers, King said he saw action being taken against Brezler.
"The only person who's being penalized, or potentially punished, is the person who tried to warn the Marines," the congressman said. "I cannot possibly understand it."
Brezler's case has been taken up by the Marine Corps Times, the newspaper that first broke the story of the major's legal troubles.
"Brezler's treatment sends the messages that in the Marine Corps there's no room for honest mistakes," the Times wrote in a recent editorial.
"He's the sort of officer the Corps needs more of," it read.
Buckley Sr, father of the slain Marine, agrees: "They should be giving him a medal, not prosecuting him."
The Marine Corps declined to comment further on Brezler's case. Piccoli said the silence was vital to avoid influencing the officers the major is expected to face at his board of inquiry next month.
The hearing, which could take a few hours or a few days depending on the number of witnesses called, will end with an immediate recommendation by the board.
Depending on the evidence presented, there are several options open to the board. The three officers could recommend either an honorable discharge or a less-than-honorable discharge. The latter could result in a loss of veteran's benefits, including free health care.
The Secretary of the Navy would need to give a final stamp of approval on that decision. If the board recommends no action against Brezler, the decision is final. ||||| A Marine facing military discharge for mistakenly sending a threat warning from an unclassified email account is now getting bipartisan support on Capitol Hill from members who say he used the fastest and only method available to respond.
New York Democratic Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand is among the most recent congressional lawmakers to support Maj. Jason Brezler, a Marine Corps reservist, who faces a military hearing for his actions.
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Gillbrand, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, sent a letter earlier this week to a Marine general arguing Brezler was responding to an “urgent” request from fellow soldiers in Afghanistan concerned about a senior Afghan police official and that he immediately reported the potential security breach.
Brezler told his fellow Marines the official was a security risk, in part because of allegations he sexually abused minors on U.S. bases in Afghanistan.
Days later, one of the official's assistants and purported victims opened fire and killed three U.S. Marines.
The senator said Brezler, a New York City firefighter, was somewhere in Oklahoma at the time of 2012 request that “precluded him from accessing … classified military networks” and that officials please “exercise discretion and leniency" when considering punishment, considering the circumstances.
“Maj. Brezler was in a position where lives were in danger and time was of the essence. And in the end his assessment of the threat proved true,” Gillibrand wrote Brigadier Gen. Richard L. Simcock, of the Marine Senate Liaison Office.
Brezler's lawyer Kevin Carroll said his client’s immediate chain-of-command in the United States is not recommending punitive action, and the Marine command in Afghanistan called for the relevant document in the case to be declassified “because there is no information in the document which, if released, would damage national security."
Brezler now faces a board of inquiry as early as next month where he could be forced from the Marine Corps. He could get what amounts to an "other than honorable" separation for sending the warning from a Yahoo account.
Brezler received the urgent request in summer 2012 from fellow Marines in Helmand Province, Afghanistan looking for background information on the official, Sarwar Jan, who was routinely allowed on base as part of the U.S. strategy to train local security forces before the 2014 withdrawal.
Brezler immediately responded, but there is no evidence that immediate action was taken. And days later, one of Jan's assistants allegedly opened fire on the Marines.
In September, Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., wrote to the Defense Department inspector general that Brezler "suspected Jan had committed sex crimes against juveniles at U.S. Department of Defense facilities in Afghanistan. On August 10, 2012 one of Jan's subordinates and sex-crime victims killed three U.S. Marines, including my constituent Lance Corporal Greg Buckley, Jr."
Buckley, along with Staff Sgt. Scott Dickinson and Cpl. Richard Rivera, were all murdered at Forward Operating Base Delhi after the alleged shooter, a teenage boy who worked for Sarwar Jan as an "assistant," opened fire on the men while they worked out at the gym. Another Marine, Staff Sgt. Cody Rhode, was shot five times and survived.
In a July letter to Commandant Gen. Jim Amos, King said Jan was believed to be a security risk, and Brezler was only trying to save lives. It is "unfair for Maj. Brezler's good-faith effort to warn his fellow Marines, of what sadly proved to be mortal danger, to derail his reserve career. The Marines and the (New York City) Fire Department need more good men such as Maj. Brezler, not less," King wrote. The congressman, who also sits on the Homeland Security and Intelligence committees, said the report about Brezler's actions from March 12, 2013 "contains several administrative irregularities."
Francis Piccoli, a spokesman at the Marine Corps Forces Reserve headquarters in New Orleans, told Fox News: "Due to the impending Board of Inquiry for Maj. Brezler, it is inappropriate for me to address this issue at this time other than stating that pursuant to a NCIS investigation that substantiated the mishandling of classified information, Maj Brezler has been ordered to show cause for retention in the U.S. Marine Corps before a Board of Inquiry."
Fox News’ Catherine Herridge contributed to this report. | – Jason Brezler is a highly decorated Marine Corps reserve officer, and has served four tours in Afghanistan and Iraq over 13 years. But now he faces "other than honorable" discharge, and all because he tried to warn his colleagues in Afghanistan about a child rapist, CNN reports. During his 2009-2010 deployment in Helmand province, Brezler got a local police commander named Sarwar Jan fired because he was allegedly raping children on US bases. Last year, Brezler learned that Jan had been reappointed. He immediately warned his colleagues at Forward Operating Base Delhi in an email, to which he attached a classified document with allegations about Jan (who is also allegedly tied to the Taliban). The email was sent from an unclassified account, Fox News reports. Brezler wanted FOB Delhi to know that Jan "was a threat not only to local children but to Marines," says his lawyer. But the Marines responded to the email indicating that some of the information Brezler sent may have been classified, and Brezler turned himself in right away. He'll face a board of inquiry next month. Two Marine Corps generals, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, and Rep. Peter King have all written letters supporting Brezler, with Gillibrand pointing out that "in the end his assessment of the threat proved accurate." Less than two weeks after Brezler sent the warning—which there's no evidence inspired any action—an assistant working for Jan allegedly shot and killed three Marines at FOB Delhi. The father of one of those Marines believes that if Brezler's warning had been heeded, "I would have my son." |
Roseanne Barr said Thursday she's running for the Green Party's presidential nomination _ and it's no joke.
The actress-comedian said in a statement that she's a longtime supporter of the party and looks forward to working with people who share her values. She said the two major parties aren't serving the American people.
"The Democrats and Republicans have proven that they are servants -- bought and paid for by the 1% -- who are not doing what's in the best interest of the American people," Barr said.
Occupy Wall Street protesters popularized the "We are the 99 percent" slogan in their fight against economic disparity and perceived corporate greed.
Barr has submitted paperwork to the Green Party for her candidacy. The party's presidential nominee will be selected at a convention in Baltimore in July.
Barr said she has been fighting for working-class families and women for decades.
"I will barnstorm American living rooms," she said in a candidate questionnaire submitted to the Green Party. "Mainstream media will be unable to ignore me, but more importantly they will be unable to overlook the needs of average Americans in the run-up to the 2012 election."
Barr's hit TV sitcom "Roseanne" aired from 1988 to 1997 and earned her an Emmy and a Golden Globe. She played a wise-cracking mom in the comedy about a blue-collar family. Barr has a 46-acre macadamia nut farm in Hawaii. ||||| With the late addition of Roseanne Barr to the race, we are now looking at a four way Green Party Presidential race.
The Green Party nominates its Presidential slate at the Green Party Presidential Nominating Convention (PNC) in Baltimore, July 12-15, 2012. Delegates to the Green Party’s PNC are elected by the various State Green Parties and Caucuses. The exact number of Delegates and the distribution of them among the states and caucuses has not been determined since the last proposal on the matter was rejected in October 2011.
Although some State Parties will have state run primaries, namely Arizona (Feb. 28), Massachusetts (Mar. 6), DC-Statehood (Apr. 3), and California (June 5), most state parties and caucuses will elect their delegates at state conventions. If you don’t know when and where your state party’s convention is, go here, find your state, and find out.
Here are the candidates:
Kent Mesplay – Dr. Kent Mesplay is an air quality inspector in San Diego County. Dr. Mesplay has a Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from Northwestern University. He was born in Papua New Guinea, raised there for the first 10 years of his life. He identifies as 1/16th Blackfoot, and has a strong identification with indigenous peoples and their struggles around the world. Environmental issues and working towards sustainable, localized communities is at the core of Mesplay’s Campaign.
“Sustainability is Security. Humanity must do everything possible to stabilize the climate. Climate change is a public health and safety issue of epic proportions. It has been called the World War III of our time. Cutting way back on carbon emissions is a key step, requiring a change in our lifestyle as U.S. citizens. Scientifically, there is no debate that this is a real issue, that human behavior affects the climate, and that public policy and private action must be geared toward recognizing and correcting the problem.”
Dr. Mesplay previously sought the Green Party nomination in 2004 and 2008.
Jill Stein – Dr. Jill Stein is a mother, housewife, physician, longtime teacher of internal medicine, and pioneering environmental-health advocate. She was the Massachusetts Green-Rainbow Party’s candidate for Governor in 2002 and in 2010, and ran for Massachusetts Secretary of State in 2006 and picked up 350,000 votes. She has twice been elected to town meeting in Lexington, Massachusetts. Jill Stein has built a strong campaign team, led by former Green Party co-chair Ben Manski, that has hired on three staff and raised over $40,000 through mid-January. Jill’s campaign has already committed staff to national ballot access, and Dr. Stein has campaigned so far in California, Illinois, Wisconsin, Maryland, Virginia, DC, Massachusetts and Delaware. She has spoken at Occupy Wall Street events from Dover to Sacramento. The “Green New Deal” is at the center of the Stein Campaign. In her words:
“First, we will guarantee the economic rights of all Americans, beginning with the right to a job at a living wage for every American willing and able to work. Second, we will transition to a sustainable, green economy for the 21st century, by adopting green technologies and sustainable production. Third, we will reboot and reprogram the financial sector so that it serves everyday people and our communities, and not the other way around. Fourth, we will protect these gains by expanding and strengthening our democracy so that our government and our economy finally serve We the People.”
Harley Mikkelson – Harley Mikkelson is retired from a 26 year career with the Michigan Departments of Community Health, Education, and Human Services. He graduated from Michigan State University, served in the U. S. Army and spent one year in South Vietnam. He was an active American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) and United Auto Workers (UAW) member, and he has held several union offices. Labor issues are at the core of his platform:
“It is the working class perspective I hope to bring to this race. I do not want the Green Party to be the party of a small group of left wing intellectuals. I want to represent people who shop at Walmart as well as Macy’s. I want to represent working people such as teachers, factory workers, farmers, government employees, health care workers, etc…”
Harley Mikkelson has not filed with the FEC to date.
Roseanne Barr – Comedian, Actress, and Author Roseanne Barr first announced her intent to run for President on the Green “Tea” Party ticket last summer, and made her intent to seek the Green Party nomination official in the last week. Her late entry into the race has prevented her from appearing on primary ballots in California, Arizona, Massachusetts and DC. Roseanne Barr may be more commonly known as a comedian, but she has been an outspoken social justice advocate for decades.
“Both the Democratic and Republican parties are bought and paid for by corporate America and cater to the needs of the highest bidder as opposed to the people they claim to represent. I cannot be bought. I have been a tireless advocate of Occupy Wall Street since Day 1 when I delivered my campaign speech in Liberty Plaza on September 17th, 2011.”
She supported the 2008 Green Party slate of Cynthia McKinney and Rosa Clemente, and supported Cindy Sheehan’s 2010 congressional run against Democrat Nancy Pelosi. Ms. Barr lives in Southern California. You can find out more about Roseanne Barr at her personal website, Roseanneworld.
Additionally, in Arizona, which has very open ballot access laws for Presidential Primaries, six candidates will appear on their ballot. Besides Jill Stein and Kent Mesplay, on the ballot will be Gary Swing, who is also a Congressional Candidate in Colorado, and three Arizonans: Gerald Davis, Michael Oatman, and Richard Grayson. Grayson was a candidate for Congress in 2010,
but was embroiled in a controversy with the Arizona Green Party, which had identified him as a “sham” candidate.
Green Party Watch will be providing regular updates to the Green Party Presidential nomination news section as we hear it.
We will also be posting a Presidential Poll on Wednesday February 1. ||||| Roseanne Barr Files Official Docs to Become President
-- who famously butchered the National Anthem -- has filed official documents to become the Green Party's nominee for President of the United States of America.Barr -- who has been waging a Twitter and Facebook grassroots, digital campaign -- has just made it official. She wants to carry the Green Party banner in the November election.Barr says she's sick of Democrats and Republicans, whom she believes are not working in the best interests of the American people.So what, you ask, is Roseanne pushing? The answer is simple ... pot. She wants marijuana legalized and sold strictly domestically.As for the whole Iraq thing ... she'll get back to us. | – Roseanne is in. The comedian has filed papers to seek the Green Party's nomination for president, reports TMZ, which says she'll be pushing hard to legalize marijuana. Barr says the run is no joke, and she's looking to capitalize on the Occupy Wall Street sentiment, notes AP. "The Democrats and Republicans have proven that they are servants—bought and paid for by the 1%—who are not doing what's in the best interest of the American people," she said in a statement. Barr joins three other Green Party candidates, and Green Party Watch has bios here. She first talked about running a while back on Leno. |
Todd Kohlhepp has been charged with the kidnapping of Kala Brown and has confessed to a 2003 quadruple homicide in Chesnee, authorities said. (Photo: Ken Ruinard/Independent Mail)
Court documents in the case of Todd Kohlhepp, the Upstate real estate agent turned accused serial killer, reveal new details of his alleged crimes, including that he is now charged with sexually assaulting Kala Brown and holding at least one woman captive before her.
Kohlhepp, 45, was indicted by a Spartanburg County grand jury last week, according to court documents. In all, he faces 14 charges, including seven counts of murder, multiple weapons charges and kidnapping. He remains in the Spartanburg County Detention Center.
The Spartanburg County Clerk of Court's Office made available 89 pages of documents, including arrest warrants, portions of deputies' supplemental incident reports and the indictments. Victims' names are redacted from the documents, but based on visible dates and information, the documents provide details about the about the captivity of Brown, the death of her boyfriend, Charles David Carver, and the disappearance and deaths of Johnny and Meagan Coxie, the Spartanburg husband and wife who went missing in December 2015. The documents also include information about Kohlhepp confessing last November to killing four employees at Superbike Motorsports in Chesnee in 2003.
Brown, 30, was found Nov. 3 chained in a metal container on property near Woodruff owned by Kohlhepp. Brown had been missing from Anderson for more than two months along with Carver, whose remains were found on the property.
According to a deputy's supplemental report from the Spartanburg County Sheriff's Office, Brown "was able to tell investigators that she witnessed Kohlhepp shoot her boyfriend ... in the chest three times."
"She also told investigators that she had been sexually assaulted by Kohlhepp as well," the report says.
Brown appeared on "Dr. Phil" in episodes that aired in February. She told show host Phil McGraw that while she was held captive, Kohlhepp raped her repeatedly.
In a separate incident report, a deputy wrote that Kohlhepp confessed to shooting Brown's boyfriend and "admitted that he had sex with her on multiple occasions." He is charged with sexual battery by the use of aggravated force, according to indictments.
Documents also reveal that the Coxies were taken to Kohlhepp's 95-acre property in Woodruff in December 19, 2015, allegedly for work. Brown has said she, too, went there last year for what she believed was work.
According to court documents, Kohlhepp told investigators that he brought the Coxies to his property with the intention of allowing them to clean houses he had for sale. Kohlhepp claimed to investigators that Johnny Coxie attempted to rob him on the property. Kohlhepp told investigators that he shot the man twice in the chest, then tackled his wife and put her in handcuffs and leg irons. He then returned to Johnny Coxie and shot him in the back, according to an incident report from the Sheriff's Office.
According to documents, Meagan Coxie was held captive in a shipping container on Kohlhepp's property for approximately six days. He told a deputy that he took her out around Christmas Day 2015 and shot in the back of the head while she walked in front of him.
"He claims to have done this because she upset him," a Spartanburg County deputy wrote.
The documents also say that Kohlhepp confessed to killing Scott Ponder, Beverly Guy, Brian Lucas and Chris Sherbert, who were fatally shot at Superbike Motorsports more than a decade ago.
A deputy's supplemental incident report says Kohlhepp "gave details specific that only the killer would know."
Included in the documents is a motion filed Feb. 16 by lawyer Clay Allen of the 7th Judicial Circuit Public Defender's Office. Allen is representing Kohlhepp and writes in court documents that Kohlhepp does not wish to be questioned without an attorney present.
Anderson Police Chief Jim Stewart said this week that his agency has turned over to the Spartanburg County Sheriff's Office sets of cellphone records gathered while city police investigated the disappearance of Brown and Carver. Stewart referred questions about any ongoing investigation to the Sheriff's Office. Lt. Kevin Bobo, a spokesman for the Sheriff's Office, said Wednesday that his agency is still investigating Kohlhepp, but he would not discuss any specifics about the probe.
Follow Nikie Mayo on Twitter @NikieMayo.
Read or Share this story: https://www.independentmail.com/story/news/crime/2017/03/01/new-details-revealed-kohlhepp-court-documents/98530064/ ||||| A suspected serial killer in South Carolina may have repeated his crimes on multiple women — luring them to his property and keeping them hostage after killing their male partners — before he was arrested last year, newly released court documents reveal.
Todd Kohlhepp was taken into custody after police freed missing Kala Brown on Nov. 3 from a metal shipping container on his nearly 100-acre property in Woodruff, South Carolina.
This week, a grand jury returned a 14-count indictment against the 45-year-old realtor, formally charging him with the murders of seven people, PEOPLE confirms.
Authorities claim in the court documents that Kohlepp used the same crate where he allegedly kept Brown to restrain a second woman, who was confined for several days before being shot to death on Christmas Day and buried in a shallow grave.
In addition to his murder charges, Kohlhepp is facing a number of weapons and kidnapping charges as well as a single count of sexual battery by the use of aggravated force for allegedly repeatedly raping Kala Brown
The 30-year-old Brown — who is believed to be Kohlhepp’s only surviving victim — has since appeared as a guest on the Dr. Phil show, where she discussed her harrowing ordeal and recalled being chained up for more than two months.
According to court documents, investigators believe Kohlhepp killed Brown’s boyfriend, 32-year-old Charlie Carver, who vanished with her on Aug. 31. Carver’s body was later found on his property.
Brown told police she watched Kohlhepp shoot her boyfriend in the chest three times, according to the indictment. She also told investigators she was raped twice a day; Kohlhepp admitted to these sexual assaults, the indictment alleges.
• Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Click here to get breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases in the True Crime Newsletter.
A Pattern of Violence?
Authorities say Kohlhepp has also confessed to the quadruple killings of Beverly Guy, Brian Lucas, Scott Ponder and Chris Sherbert — all shot to death in 2003 inside Superbike Motorsports in Chesnee, South Carolina.
Kohlhepp’s sixth and seventh murder charges are in connection with the 2015 deaths of Johnny and Meagan Coxie, ages 25 and 29, whose bodies were recovered from Kohlhepp’s property after Brown’s rescue. They were reported missing in December 2015.
Meagan, the indictment reveals, was allegedly held in Kohlhepp’s storage container for about six days after she disappeared, chained at both the wrists and ankles.
After his arrest, Kohlhepp allegedly told detectives he shot her in the back of the head as she walked in front of him.
He also allegedly told police that he killed Meagan because she “upset” him, according to the indictment.
Court documents further claim Kohlhepp had offered to pay the couple to clean and maintain commercial properties that he was trying to sell. That echoes what Brown has said — that she had been cleaning house for Kohlhepp before she was abducted, and she brought Carver with her to help before he was killed.
According to the indictment, Kohlhepp claimed that on the day the Coxies were supposed to start work, one of them turned violent and demanded money.
Kohlhepp allegedly told police he then shot Johnny twice in the chest with a semiautomatic weapon before tackling his wife as she tried to flee.
Once he had Meagan handcuffed and in leg shackles, he returned to her husband, shooting him once more in the back, according to the indictment.
He allegedly told police he buried Johnny next to a gravel driveway on his land.
The indictment alleges Meagan was held against her will for approximately six days before she was murdered on Dec. 25, 2015. Kohlhepp allegedly told police he buried her remains in a shallow grave, next to her husband. Autopsy results on both bodies support Kohlhepp’s account of the shootings, according to the indictment.
• Pick up PEOPLE’s special edition True Crime Stories: Cases That Shocked America, on sale now, for the latest on Casey Anthony, JonBenét Ramsey and more.
‘He Did Not Break Me’
Court officials tell PEOPLE that Kohlhepp is not expected to attend a preliminary hearing on his case, which has been scheduled for March 6. His attorneys did not immediately return messages seeking comment, and he has not entered a plea to his charges.
During her appearance on Dr. Phil, Brown said she did not think her captor wanted her dead.
“I don’t think he wanted to kill me,” she said, adding, “He explained Stockholm Syndrome to me and told me that it would kick in and then we’d be happy together.”
Brown, who filed a civil suit against Kohlhepp in December that seeks unspecified monetary damages for “severe emotional distress,” claimed the disgraced realtor described to her their future together.
“He was going to build a house on the property and I was going to have a soundproof room, and he’d let me have the run of the property eventually when he trusted me,” she said he told her. “He even said that he would let me go and give me some money if he ever got old and sick.”
“No matter what he did to me, he did not break me,” Brown said in her interview.
The Coxies have also been processing their grief: A family friend told PEOPLE in November that Johnny’s mom was “numb” after confirmation of the couple’s deaths. But she was “very stable at the same time” and was turning to her faith.
The friend said, “She feels like this was an answer.” | – Todd Kohlhepp is accused of murdering Kala Brown's boyfriend and then keeping Brown chained up on his South Carolina property for two months—and a newly released indictment against Kohlhepp, who's charged with seven murders, reveals that he may have carried out the same type of crime in the past. In the court documents, authorities say the same crate used for Brown, who was found alive on Nov. 3, 2016, was also used for another woman. Kohlhepp is charged with murdering Johnny Coxie, 29, in Dec. 2015, and keeping his wife, 25-year-old Meagan, in the crate for about six days before shooting her to death and burying her. Authorities say Kohlhepp, 45, told the couple he would pay them to clean properties he was attempting to sell, which is similar to the story he told Brown and her boyfriend, Charlie Carver, before allegedly abducting them. Kohlhepp reportedly told authorities that upon arriving at his property, Johnny Coxie tried to rob him, so Kohlhepp shot him, the Independent Mail reports. He allegedly said he later killed Meagan Coxie "because she upset him," per an investigator's statement. Kohlhepp is charged with the Coxies' murders, the murder of Brown's boyfriend, and four murders inside a motor sports store in 2003, People reports. |
Well, that just happened.
Today at TechCrunch Disrupt in New York City, Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz took the stage for a fireside chat with our own Michael Arrington. It took about 15 minutes, but Mike got her to tell him to “fuck off.”
That’s not all she had to say. When Mike pressed her about Yahoo outsourcing the social graph to Facebook. Bartz admitted that if she could own it (as Facebook does), she’d love to. “Oh, I’d love to own it — shit, why not?,” she said. She said also that “I’d love to be Queen Poobah — but I’m not.”
I highly suggest you read the notes below. She had plenty of interesting things to say. Not just about the new Nokia and Match.com deals, but about Apple, Google, Facebook, and yes, even TechCrunch.
Just wow.
Update: And here’s the video (or it’s at the bottom).
Below find my live notes (paraphrased):
MA: So how the fuck are you?
CB: Is that all you got?
MA: So my last two posts were critical.
CB: Were they?
MA: You don’t read TechCrunch? I can show you how. It’s weird, I talked to you backstage, you’re a human being. You took the time to talk to us.
Okay let’s go. What is Yahoo?
CB: (her mic cuts off) What is Yahoo? Yahoo is a company that is very strong in content. It’s moving towards the web of one. We have 32,000 variations on our front page module. We serve a million of those a day. It’s all customized. Our click-through rate went up twice since we started customizing this. People come to check the things they like. “You can just get it together.” Yahoo is one site people always stop at.
MA: You had two pieces of news. One is a partnership with Match.com. Why abandon personals?
CB: It wasn’t in the sweet spot of what we do. It was the same with HotJobs. It’s just not about in line with we do anymore. I was trying to think about if I should fly with the volcano cloud, I checked the AP, it was 17 hours old info. We need live content feeds.
MA: Are there any other of the big Yahoo properties you’re killing?
CB: No. We’re focused now.
MA: What was the other one?
CB: We had an announcement with Nokia. Co-branded.
MA: How important is mobile to Yahoo going forward?
CB: We’re on 37 million of the 82 million mobile devices in the US. We have half the US market. People don’t think that’s true, but it is. And we’re huge in the emerging world. It was important to get to the dominant partner outside the market.
MA: So is the focus not on the smartphones?
CB: We still do them too. We have an iPhone app, for example. We have alliances with 100 OEMs. We’re on 2,300 different handsets. I have a BlackBerry and an iPhone.
MA: No Android?
CB: No.
MA: Let’s talk about the product perspective. You’ve made some changes and there have been departures. The new blood is Blake Irving. Does he run product at Yahoo now?
CB: Absolutely.
MA: Is there a product Czar? Does he answer to you? Think about how Steve Jobs acts, he’s in charge. Is that Blake?
CB: You can’t find anyone like a VP that compares to Steve Jobs so that’s not fair. Blake reports to me — under him there are three segments. We have one of the largest private clouds in the world. We serve 10 billion ads a day — that’s a huge technical effort. There’s no one strategy at Yahoo. We do a lot of things.
CB: We know that men have banner blindness but will look at them in certain areas. Women will look at them in other areas. Men are odd.
MA: What about the iPad?
CB: With the iPad, Apple is a hardware and software company. It’s an evolution — not revolution. These days if you’re not coming out with some device, you’re not innovating, apparently. But that’s not true. There’s a soul to our product. Absent Steve Jobs, who’s the product soul in big companies? It’s a lot of people who have to do it.
MA: You ever hear the saying, “a camel is a horse designed by committee”?
CB: That’s true but you implement with several people. I can imagine that a lot of concepts are brought to Jobs too — there are people involved. It’s naive to think there’s not.
MA: Why Blake? He was a professor at Pepperdine. Before that he was at Microsoft.
CB: Well he was taking a two year break from Microsoft.
MA: Fair enough. How important is social to Yahoo?
CB: Back when social had a broad definition, you could almost say that Yahoo Finance chat was the first social product. We have a million comments a day now. We had 85,000 comments on day one at Yahoo News. And we’re merging in some of the big products like Twitter, etc. We’re doing some new cool things with Mail next month too. It’s about finding out the new things about people.
MA: Facebook would say the social graph is key. Is that important to you? Are you comfortable not owning that?
CB: I don’t know if anyone really owns it. They share it with partners. It’s just about getting the information. Building a better user experience.
“Oh, I’d love to own it — shit, why not?” “I’d love to be Queen Poobah — but I’m not.” (reference to Grand Poo-Bah from Gilbert & Sullivan’s “The Mikado“?)
MA: In 2008 you said Jerry Yang first approached you about the job. You said you weren’t the right person for the job. Are you now?
CB: I’m one of many. Many people could do this job. There’s no one special person for any job. That’s the beauty of it.
MA: You’ve asked bloggers to tone down some of the critiques and advice. But you made a statement earlier this year that Google has some problems.
CB: Did you see the interview? I said Google needs to grow a Yahoo every year — just go into a lot of businesses. They have to be a 20% grower. It’s not so bad to say.
MA: You said they were so reliant on search advertising.
CB: Is that wrong?
MA: No but you said it’s not a good trick to have.
CB: I would love to have that! Like the social graph. What I said has to be true. I’m just saying they need to grow a company the size of us every year. They have to do other things.
MA: Are you being a hypocrite by giving them advice when you say you don’t want advice?
CB: I gave them my opinion. You do that all the time. “I’ve never had a bong in my life if that means anything to you.”
MA: Is your pitch kind of BS though?
CB: Steve Jobs came back to Apple in 1997 — the iPod came out 4 years later. 3 years after that is the first time his market cap grew. It took 7 years. I’ve been here a few months. Give me a break. You are involved in a very tiny company.
MA: Very tiny.
CB: It probably takes you a long time just to convince yourself what to do. “So fuck off!”
MA: Are you a search company or not?
CB: Half of our revenue is from search. The fact that you can crawl the web is a commodity. We’re about search, but we’re not a search company. We do a lot of things.
(Video starts a few minutes in, skip ahead. We’ll replace this shortly) ||||| Summary: A "fireside chat" between Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz and TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington was anything but ordinary.
So how the f*ck are you?"
"Is that appropriate?"
"That's all I've got."
"If that's all you've got, you'd better quit now."
Those were the opening lines of a "fireside chat" between Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz and TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington this morning at the TechCrunch: Disrupt conference in New York City.
In an interview that was at times awkward, pained and yes, a little interesting, Arrington questioned the direction of the enormous company Bartz leads by simply asking, "What is Yahoo?"
Bartz responded:
Yahoo is a great company that is very, very strong in content for its users, uses amazing technology to serve up what increasingly we think is going to be the web of one. People come to us to figure out what's going on in the world...it's a place where you can just get it together.
Citing Monday morning's news, in which Yahoo announced a partnership with Match.com for its personal listings and another to exclusively serve Nokia mobile phones, Bartz said Yahoo was consolidating its major properties to focus on its "sweet spots."
"Mobile is extremely important," Bartz said, adding that emerging markets -- where Yahoo Messenger use is strong -- are a focus. "Of the 82 million devices, we're on 37 [million] of them."
See more TechCrunch Disrupt coverage:
Responding to Arrington's inquiry, Bartz said she carries a BlackBerry and an iPhone, and noted that Yahoo is nearly ready with its Android stack.
Bartz also defended the company's direction, including its recent hire of ex-Microsoft executive Blake Irving as its chief product officer.
"Our advertising business is an enormous technical effort," Bartz said. "These days in the Valley, if you're not coming out with a device or a platform is somehow not innovating."
More choice quotes from Bartz:
"Lots of people work on a project, even at Apple. Proposals get made, sent back..."
"We're in a very new industry here. Most of these wonderful startups that are shooting through here...it's like in the early days. Yahoo's 15 years old."
"The first day we put up comments on Yahoo News, that first morning we had 85,000 comments. People are very eager to interact with people."
"How do we interact with the Facebooks and real-time info like Twitter....it is a combination of not having a walled garden, getting feeds inside Yahoo products in a very integrated fashion -- social mail's important -- in the right way, you find out more about people."
On data: "I'd love to own it. Shit, why not? I'd like to be Queen Poobah of the world, but I'm not."
To be a 20 percent grower, [Google] has to grow a company the size of Yahoo every year.
On Arrington's choice headlines: "By the way, I've never had a bong [hit] in my life, if that means anything to you."
Bartz also defended herself, saying she shouldn't be expected to come up with a game-changing innovation after 16 months on the job, and noted that Steve Jobs was at Apple for four years before it released its first iPod.
"You are involved in a very tiny company," Bartz said to Arrington, holding her fingers in the air, an inch apart. "And it probably takes a long time to even convince yourself what to do."
"So I don't want to hear any crap about something magical that the fine people of Yahoo are supposed to do in this short time. So f*ck off."
ZDNet's The Web Life contributor Andrew Mager was also present for the talk. Here's his take.
Photo: Andrew Mager/Flickr | – Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz, never one to mince words, turned up at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference today and wound up telling TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington to "fuck off." The famously potty-mouthed exec didn't like the line of questioning the blogger was pursuing, and she reminded him that he's "involved in a very tiny company." The TechCrunch transcript mysteriously omits the context, so we'll let ZDNet—and the video above—fill in the blanks. Bartz has been at Yahoo just 16 months, "so I don’t want to hear any crap about something magical that the fine people of Yahoo are supposed to do in this short time," she told Arrington. "So fuck off." And as Gawker points out, both CNBC and the Wall Street Journal have felt the sting of Bartz's wrath, which is pretty good company for a tech blog. |
Richard Cohen's column in Tuesday's Washington Post— arguing that George Zimmerman was right to assume Trayvon Martin was a criminal, because he was a black male—is racist and wrong. More important, it's wrong because it's racist. That is, it's not that Cohen is "wrong" in the oh-that's-so-politically-incorrect sense. It's that he's wrong because the assumptions he makes about race and crime are not based on facts.
Cohen appears to believe all black men are the same, and that they are violent. Cohen says he's "tired" of politicians and activists "who essentially suggest that, for recognizing the reality of urban crime in the United States, I am a racist." He justifies Zimmerman's assumption that Martin was a criminal by citing statistics about crime in New York. "In New York City, blacks make up a quarter of the population, yet they represent 78 percent of all shooting suspects—almost all of them young men," Cohen writes. "We know them from the nightly news." While New York's stop-and-frisk program has been criticized for disproportionately targeting minorities, Cohen says, "if young black males are your shooters, then it ought to be young black males whom the police stop and frisk." If police "ignore race, then they are fools and ought to go into another line of work."
"Urban crime" is shorthand for young black people committing crimes in big cities on the verge of collapse. But Martin wasn't killed in Cabrini-Green. He was killed in Sanford, Florida (population 53,570), inside a gated community called the Retreat at Twin Lakes, which has about 260 townhouses. The alleged crime was a suburban crime. And, just for the record, it was not the black kid who was just acquitted of it.
Cohen is trying to conjure images of urban blight in the 1980s—back when, as Matt Yglesias points out, Cohen argued that it was okay for jewelry store owners to refuse to let black people in because they were afraid of crime. Today, Cohen writes that even the black male president should be scared of black males:
In his acclaimed Philadelphia speech on race, [President Obama] cited his grandmother as “a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed her by on the street.” How about the former Barry Obama? When he was a Columbia University student living on the lip of then-dangerous Harlem, did he never have the same fear?
The thing is, a lot has changed since the 1980s. Reading Cohen's column, you'd get the impression that there was an epidemic of crime committed by black people. Too bad he didn't read Jamelle Bouie's article in The Daily Beast a day earlier, about "the Myth of Black-on-Black Crime." Crime rates have been dropping for 20 years. (Just for the record, New York's murder rate in 2012 was the lowest since the 1960s.) If black people were predisposed to committing crimes, Bouie points out, "you would still see high rates of crime among blacks, even as the nation sees a historic decline in criminal offenses. Instead, crime rates among African-Americans, and black youth in particular, have taken a sharp drop." Fewer than 10 percent of black kids in Washington, D.C., the home of Cohen's employer, "are in a gang, have sold drugs, have carried a gun, or have stolen more than $100 in goods."
Cohen is upset that no one is talking about the epidemic of black violence that isn't real. "Where is the politician who will own up to the painful complexity of the problem and acknowledge the widespread fear of crime committed by young black males?" he asks. "Crime where it intersects with race is given the silent treatment... It is, like sex in the Victorian era (or the 1950s), an unmentionable but unmistakable part of life."
It is unacceptable to complain that "nobody is talking about X" when you have an Internet connection. You can find people talking about anything. Email me, and I can point you to the top 10 '90s nostalgia GIF tumblrs. But you wouldn't need to dig for people saying we should be afraid of black violence—warning, say, that black people would riot if Zimmerman were acquitted. You could just flip on Rush Limbaugh.
Studies have shown poverty has more to do with crime than race does. More unexpectedly, research published in the American Journal of Sociology in 2001 found that people are more likely to think their neighborhood has a higher crime rate if more young black men live there. The Retreat at Twin Lakes is a multi-ethnic neighborhood—about half white, 20 percent Hispanic, and 20 percent black, The Daily Beast's Amy Green reports. George Zimmerman had called police 46 times. He organized the neighborhood watch. Cohen writes, "There’s no doubt in my mind that Zimmerman profiled Martin and, braced by a gun, set off in quest of heroism. The result was a quintessentially American tragedy—the death of a young man understandably suspected because he was black and tragically dead for the same reason." With his column, Cohen is perpetuating the attitude that made that tragedy possible.
Update: Washington Post editorial page editor Fred Hiatt tells the Huffington Post, "If I had not published the column, just as many people would be asking why the Post can’t tolerate diverse points of view." He added, "I think if people want a 'conversation about race,' as is frequently suggested, they should be open to a range of views and perspectives." There are a range of issues where on-the-one-hand-on-the-other-hand makes sense, because there are compelling arguments and data on both sides: campaign finance, defense spending, charter schools. But it's a little tone deaf on this issue: some people think black teenagers are dangerous monsters, some people think holding that opinion is an unconscionable danger to black teenagers.
Want to add to this story? Let us know in comments or send an email to the author at ereeve at theatlantic dot com. You can share ideas for stories on the Open Wire.
Elspeth Reeve ||||| I don’t like what George Zimmerman did, and I hate that Trayvon Martin is dead. But I also can understand why Zimmerman was suspicious and why he thought Martin was wearing a uniform we all recognize. I don’t know whether Zimmerman is a racist. But I’m tired of politicians and others who have donned hoodies in solidarity with Martin and who essentially suggest that, for recognizing the reality of urban crime in the United States, I am a racist. The hoodie blinds them as much as it did Zimmerman.
One of those who quickly donned a hoodie was Christine Quinn, the speaker of the New York City Council. Quinn was hardly a lonesome panderer. Lesser politicians joined her and, as she did, pronounced Zimmerman a criminal. “What George Zimmerman did was wrong, was a crime,” Quinn said before knowing all of the facts and before the jury uncooperatively found otherwise. She was half-right. What Zimmerman did was wrong. It was not, by verdict of his peers, a crime.
Where is the politician who will own up to the painful complexity of the problem and acknowledge the widespread fear of crime committed by young black males? This does not mean that raw racism has disappeared, and some judgments are not the product of invidious stereotyping. It does mean, though, that the public knows young black males commit a disproportionate amount of crime. In New York City, blacks make up a quarter of the population, yet they represent 78 percent of all shooting suspects — almost all of them young men. We know them from the nightly news.
Those statistics represent the justification for New York City’s controversial stop-and-frisk program, which amounts to racial profiling writ large. After all, if young black males are your shooters, then it ought to be young black males whom the police stop and frisk. Still, common sense and common decency, not to mention the law, insist on other variables such as suspicious behavior. Even still, race is a factor, without a doubt. It would be senseless for the police to be stopping Danish tourists in Times Square just to make the statistics look good.
I wish I had a solution to this problem. If I were a young black male and were stopped just on account of my appearance, I would feel violated. If the police are abusing their authority and using race as the only reason, that has got to stop. But if they ignore race, then they are fools and ought to go into another line of work.
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The problems of the black underclass are hardly new. They are surely the product of slavery, the subsequent Jim Crow era and the tenacious persistence of racism. They will be solved someday, but not probably with any existing programs. For want of a better word, the problem is cultural, and it will be solved when the culture, somehow, is changed.
In the meantime, the least we can do is talk honestly about the problem. It does no one any good to merely cite the number of stop-and-frisks involving black males without citing the murder statistics as well. Citing the former and not the latter is an Orwellian exercise in political correctness. It not only censors half of the story but also suggests that racism is the sole reason for the policy. This mindlessness, like racism itself, is repugnant.
Crime where it intersects with race is given the silent treatment. Everything else is discussed — and if it isn’t, there’s a Dr. Phil or an Oprah saying that it should be. Crime, though, is different. It is, like sex in the Victorian era (or the 1950s), an unmentionable but unmistakable part of life. We all know about it and take appropriate precaution but keep our mouths shut.
At one time, I thought Barack Obama would bring the problem into the open and remove the racist stigma. Instead, he perpetuated it. In his acclaimed Philadelphia speech on race, he cited his grandmother as “a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed her by on the street.”
How about the former Barry Obama? When he was a Columbia University student living on the lip of then-dangerous Harlem, did he never have the same fear?
There’s no doubt in my mind that Zimmerman profiled Martin and, braced by a gun, set off in quest of heroism. The result was a quintessentially American tragedy — the death of a young man understandably suspected because he was black and tragically dead for the same reason.
Read more from Richard Cohen’s archive. ||||| Article Excerpt
George Zimmerman's acquittal of murder charges in a Florida court has been followed by predictable calls for America to have a "national conversation" about this or that aspect of the case. President Obama wants to talk about gun control. Civil-rights leaders want to talk about racial profiling. Others want to discuss how the American criminal justice system supposedly targets black men.
All of which is fine. Just don't expect these conversations to be especially illuminating or honest. Liberals in general, and the black left in particular, like the idea of talking about racial problems, but in practice they typically ignore ... ||||| In the wake of the Zimmerman verdict, Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen has penned a controversial column in which he defends George Zimmerman's suspicion of Travyon Martin and calls on politicians to acknowledge that a disproportionate amount of crimes are committed by black males.
In a somewhat befuddling line, Cohen wrote that he "can understand why Zimmerman was suspicious and why he thought Martin was wearing a uniform we all recognize."
"A hoodie," Cohen told POLITICO when asked what he meant by that line. "It's what's worn by a whole lot of thugs. Look in the newspapers, online or on television: you see a lot of guys in the mugshots wearing hoodies."
I pointed out that Mark Zuckerberg, the Facebook founder, is also known to wear a hoodie.
"Right, so it's the uniform of billionaires and thugs," Cohen said with a chuckle.
Cohen's column has been met with some criticism on Twitter, and it's fair to expect that we'll see a handful of "shame on you" columns (like this one) within the hour. Cohen said he anticipated this return-fire before the piece had even been published.
"This is not the first time I've dealt with the issue," he told me. "Each time, the counter-argument is that I'm a racist."
(WATCH: Zimmerman trial juror speaks out)
Indeed, in 1986 the Washington Post had to apologize for a column Cohen wrote in which he "sided with city jewelry store owners who refuse to allow young black men to enter their shops because of a fear of crime."
When I asked Cohen about this, he corrected me: "I didn't say 'black men,' I said 'young black men who were dressed in a certain way,'" he said. (The column actually just referenced "young black males," regardless of attire.)
Cohen says he's not a racist, and described Martin's death as a tragedy. "I think it was atrocious," he said.
But he also said it was unfair to accuse someone of racism simply because they thought a young black man in a hoodie might be a criminal.
"What I'm trying to deal with is, I'm trying to remove this fear from racism. I don't think it's racism to say, 'this person looks like a menace,'" he explained. "Now, a menace in another part of the country could be a white guy wearing a wife-beater under-shirt. Or, if you're a black guy in the South and you come around the corner and you see a member of the Klu Klux Klan."
The Washington Post is standing behind Cohen.
"I think if people want a 'conversation about race, as is frequently suggested, they should be open to a range of views and perspectives," Fred Hiatt, the Post's editorial page editor, told the Huffington Post.
"If I had not published the column, just as many people would be asking why the Post can’t tolerate diverse points of view," he said.
Read more about: Trayvon Martin, George Zimmerman, Richard Cohen | – Washington Post op-ed writer Richard Cohen sent some people searching for pitchforks today, with a column declaring that he "can understand why Zimmerman was suspicious and why he thought Martin was wearing a uniform we all recognize." And apparently that opinion was going around among op-ed writers at major newspapers, because Jason Riley at the Wall Street Journal wrote a similar column running through black crime statistics. "Did the perception of black criminality play a role in Martin's death?" he asks. "We may never know for certain, but we do know that those negative perceptions of black men are rooted in hard data on who commits crimes." Cohen in particular is taking a bunch of heat—the Atlantic Wire called the piece "racist and wrong"—so he talked with Politico to clear the air, explaining that hoodies are "worn by a whole lot of thugs," and that it's not racist to suspect black men wearing them. "I'm trying to remove this fear from racism," he says. "I don't think it's racism to say, 'this person looks like a menace.'" The Post is standing by the piece, saying it's "open to a range of views." Cohen's been here before; back in 1986 he wrote a piece supporting jewelry store owners' right to ban young black men. |
Courtney Love Loses Rights to Kurt’s Image
Courtney Love’s control over the estate of Kurt Cobain continues to slip. In 2009, Cobain's drug and alcohol addiction troubled widow lost custody of their only daughter, Frances Bean Cobain. Now, according to sealed documents exclusively obtained by The Fix, 19-year-old Frances has taken over control of the publicity rights for the Nirvana icon’s name, likeness and appearance.
“Publicity rights are potentially worth a fortune,” says Jonathan Faber, an attorney and managing partner of Luminary Group, who once represented Kurt’s estate in policing copyright infringement and investigating licensing opportunities. “They amount to the intellectual property rights.”
The documents show that Love agreed to step down as Acting Manager of End of Music LLC—the business entity responsible for generating cash from Cobain’s publicity rights—once she’d received a $2.75 million loan from Frances’ trust fund in 2010. The massive loan was transferred from Frances’ fund to EOM in Los Angeles, and then into an account held by Courtney’s then-lawyers, Pryor Cashman, in New York. Until Courtney pays it back, she won’t receive a dime from Kurt’s name, likeness or appearance from the deals formed by Frances and her advisers since December 2010.
Frances also has the final say-so in business agreements negotiated by the attorney and now acting manager of EOM David Byrnes, of Ziffren Brittenham in LA. Love remains a company member, but without the power to make decisions on anything bearing the likeness of Cobain, who committed suicide on April 5, 1994.
Love lost legal control of her daughter (and her daughter’s fortune) in a custody battle in 2009; Frances cited drug addiction and violence to justify a restraining order against her mother, and The Fix’s e-book, Courtney Comes Clean, by founder Maer Roshan, quotes Frances saying Love “has taken drugs for as long as I can remember. She basically exists now on...Xanax, Adderall, Sonata and Abilify, sugar and cigarettes."
After the custody battle, reps for Frances’ trust fund in Seattle ousted Courtney from the trust, where she served as an adviser. The case ended publicly in December 2010, with both Courtney and the fund manager, Laird Norton, stepping down, but it continued quietly in JAMS Arbitration in LA.
Included in the arbitration is a large collection of Cobain’s belongings, currently warehoused in Art Pack in LA and due to be divvied between mother and daughter. The items include Kurt’s paintings that The Fix exclusively revealed last month, as well as musical equipment and personal items, such as his pajamas. Court documents show that Frances owns at a least 40% share of these items, while Courtney has around 60%.
So Courtney Love’s realm is shrinking. The singer now has no say in her daughter’s affairs and little influence over the use of Kurt’s publicity rights and music. The BMI catalog shows Larry Mestel, of Primary Wave Music, owns 100% of the administrative rights. According to Faber, this means only Mestel and Primary Wave have the power to decide how Kurt’s music is used—as evidenced by the recent use of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” in the new Muppets movie. So Courtney was wrong to claim that Disney didn’t have the right to use the song; it wasn’t her decision. Mestel makes those calls.
Meanwhile, an inside source tells The Fix that Mestel also owns 50% of Kurt’s publishing rights. Mestel refuses to confirm or deny this when asked. Like the publicity rights, these publishing rights are likely to be worth many millions.
“One licensed use of a top-tier song in a major ad campaign, for instance, can be worth as much as $5 million,” says Faber, who has handled music licensing deals for Chuck Berry and served as an expert consultant for Nikki Sixx of Motley Crue. “I know of a number of bands and artists who will not consider any licensing of their music for anything less than a million dollars.”
Courtney’s legal troubles keep on growing. A JAMS spokesperson confirms that that arbitration process continues. And her lawyers, Pryor Cashman, are bailing on her because she allegedly stiffed them of fees and is (surprise) difficult to work with. She still has impending lawsuits against her. In New York she’s wanted for allegedly not paying a security group for work they did to protect her in LA, and a case regarding unreturned jewelry on loan from a New York retailer remains active. She also faces a previous attorney’s wrath for allegedly libeling her on Twitter.
Courtney Love’s next move is as hard to predict as it’s always been. But she’s now looking more isolated than ever before.
Carmela Kelly is a regular contributor to The Fix, and contributed additional reporting to The Fix's e-book, Courtney Comes Clean. ||||| Can you imagine an alternate reality wherein Kurt doesn’t commit suicide and the Cobain clan lives on happily ever after?
The ongoing saga of the family Cobain just got another wrinkle when The Fix revealed that 19-year old Frances Bean Cobain—the only child of Kurt and Courtney—has actually been in control of her father’s name, likeness, and appearance rights since 2010.
Documents show that in 2009, following her losing custody battle for Frances in 2009, Courtney agreed to step down as the administrator of End of Music LLC in exchange for $2.75 million, paid out to through Frances’ trust fund. The payout is a loan and until Courtney pays it back, she has no say in the business use of her late husband’s name or likeness.
As a part of the custody battle from a few years ago, Frances Bean also owns a generous portion of her father’s artifacts, including paintings, musical equipment, and personal items.
Though an executive named Larry Mestel has administrative rights to the catalog, and can approve usages like the inclusion of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” in the recent Muppets movie, this ultimately means that Frances is in control of her father’s posthumous legacy. So if Nirvana songs show up in advertisements or if her dad’s hologram goes on tour, it’ll be on her.
Read more on EW.com:
Vintage footage of unreleased Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love duet surfaces: Watch it here
Courtney Love apologizes to Frances Bean Cobain on Twitter
In honor of Kurt Cobain’s 45th birthday, let’s listen to his other band | – She lost custody of her daughter, Frances Bean in 2009, and in 2010 Courtney Love gave up custody of the name and likeness of Frances' father Kurt Cobain, according to court documents obtained by The Fix. The documents show that Love surrendered publicity rights for the Nirvana frontman in return for a $2.75 million loan from Frances' trust fund. Love has no say in the use of Cobain's name and likeness until the loan is repaid in full. The administrative rights to Nirvana's music, meanwhile, are owned by Larry Mestel of Primary Wave Music, meaning that Love—who said the Muppets "raped" Kurt Cobain by using "Smells Like Teen Spirit" in their latest movie—was wrong when she claimed Disney had no right to use the song, because the decision was Mestel's. But it's 19-year-old Frances who now controls Cobain's image, so it'll be on her "if her dad's hologram goes on tour," notes Entertainment Weekly. |
Image copyright Thinkstock
Even low levels of light in bedrooms may stop breast cancer drugs from working, US researchers have warned.
Animal tests showed light, equivalent to that from street lamps, could lead to tumours becoming resistant to the widely used drug Tamoxifen.
The study, published in the journal Cancer Research, showed the light affected sleep hormones, which in turn altered cancer cell function.
UK experts said it was an intriguing finding, but not proven in people.
Tamoxifen has transformed the treatment of breast cancer by extending lives and increasing survival times.
It stops the female hormone oestrogen fuelling the growth of tumours although the cancerous cells may eventually become resistant to the drug.
Light
Researchers at the Tulane University School of Medicine investigated the role of the body clock in Tamoxifen resistance.
They focused their research on the sleep-promoting hormone melatonin, which normally begins to rise in the evening and continues through the night, before falling away as dawn approaches.
However, light in the evening - such as from a smartphone, tablet or artificial lights - can lower melatonin levels.
Rats, with human breast cancer and treated with Tamoxifen, were left to sleep in a completely dark cage or one that had dim light.
The scientists showed that in dim light, melatonin levels were lower, the tumours were bigger and were resistant to Tamoxifen.
A second set of tests showed that giving those mice melatonin supplements kept Tamoxifen working and resulted in smaller tumours.
Image copyright Thinkstock
Dr Steven Hill told the BBC News website: "I'm not advocating people buy melatonin over the counter, there's not enough evidence.
"But they could make sure they sleep in a room that is completely dark or they could wear eye-masks to let night-time melatonin rise and take Tamoxifen right before going to bed, that would be the easiest way to see if it works."
Some studies have suggested that melatonin may improve cancer treatments.
It has been suggested that the hormone calms down cancer cells, which are working on overdrive, to slow down the processes needed to develop resistance.
Dr Hill wants to move the research into human breast tissue.
Evening tech
He did add a warning about using technology, which tends to produce blue light wavelengths that disrupt melatonin production, in the run-up to bedtime.
"If you get seven hours sleep at night, but use an iPad or computer or watch TV then those blue wavelengths are suppressing melatonin production for anywhere from an hour to an hour and half.
"So instead of seven hours of melatonin, you're getting six or five and a half."
Dr Samuel Godfrey, from the charity Cancer Research UK, said: "The link between developing drug-resistant breast cancer and sleeping in dim light is an intriguing one, but it's important that we remember this link was found after studying a small number of rats implanted with breast cancer cells, not humans.
"More research in people is needed before we know whether the same mechanisms are at work in people." ||||| Melatonin
Other common name(s): none
Scientific/medical name(s): N-acetyl-5-methoxytryptamine
Description
Melatonin is a hormone produced naturally by the pineal gland-- a pea-sized gland located just beneath the center of the brain-- in response to darkness. Melatonin is also available as a man-made supplement.
Overview
Research suggests that the melatonin made by the body plays a large role in the daily rhythms of sleeping and waking. Some recent studies have found that people who work night shifts may be at increased risk for cancer, which could be linked to melatonin levels in the body. Study results regarding the effect of melatonin supplements on survival and quality of life in people with cancer have been mixed, and further research in this area is needed.
How is it promoted for use?
There is some evidence that melatonin may have a role in the regulation of daily body cycles, sleep patterns, mood, and reproduction. Possible effects on tumor growth and aging are also under study.
Melatonin is promoted mainly as a sleep aid. Its production in the body may decrease with age, which, according to proponents, may explain why many older people have trouble sleeping. Melatonin is also promoted to help people adjust to odd or irregular work schedules and to counter the effects of jet lag, as it may restore normal sleeping and waking schedules. Some practitioners also believe that melatonin influences hormones in the body that regulate reproduction, the timing of ovulation, and aging. It is sometimes promoted to prevent Alzheimer disease and is often sold as an anti-aging hormone.
Proponents also claim that melatonin is a powerful anti-oxidant, a compound that blocks the action of free radicals, activated oxygen molecules that can damage cells. Because of melatonin's suspected antioxidant properties, some believe it may suppress the growth of some types of cancer cells, especially when combined with certain anti-cancer drugs. Some supporters suggest that melatonin may also stimulate a type of white blood cell called natural killer cells, which attack tumors.
Others suggest that melatonin levels and daily body cycles are abnormal in some people with cancer and that melatonin supplements may help them sleep at night. There are also claims that melatonin may decrease the toxic effects of radiation therapy and chemotherapy.
What does it involve?
Melatonin is sold as a supplement and is available in drugstores, health food stores, and over the Internet. There are no widely accepted recommendations for dosage or duration of use. Melatonin can also be found in many foods, such as milk, peanuts, almonds, turkey, and chicken, but in such small amounts that one would have to eat very large volumes to obtain a measurable dose.
What is the history behind it?
The existence of the pineal gland has been known for thousands of years, although its function remained a mystery until the late 20th century. In the 1600s, the French philosopher René Descartes called the pineal gland "the seat of the soul," because many people believed emotions originated there.
Researchers at Yale University first discovered melatonin and its connection to the pineal gland in the late 1950s. Its link to sleep and hormonal influences and its possible link to cancer have been studied since that time. Melatonin became available as a dietary supplement in the 1990s.
What is the evidence?
Some recent research has suggested that low melatonin levels in the body may be linked to a higher risk of certain types of cancer. For example, a few studies have found that women who work night shifts for many years (and therefore would be expected to have lower levels of melatonin) seem to have a slightly higher risk of breast and colorectal cancer. Even if this research is confirmed, however, it does not necessarily mean that melatonin supplements can lower cancer risk.
Melatonin has been shown to slow or stop the growth of several types of cancer cells when studied in the laboratory. Whether this same effect occurs in the body is unknown.
Several studies have looked at the use of melatonin to treat cancer. Melatonin has been used alone and combined with chemotherapy, radiation therapy, hormone therapy (such as tamoxifen), or immunotherapy (such as interleukin-2) in a number of studies involving different types of cancer. Some of the studies have suggested that melatonin may extend survival and improve quality of life for patients with certain types of untreatable cancers such as advanced lung cancer and melanoma. Some studies reported that a small number of cancers went into total or partial remission, while other studies indicated that melatonin caused little or no response in tumors.
In a 2005 clinical trial looking at cancer-related weight loss (cachexia), melatonin was compared to fish oil in a small group of patients with advanced intestinal cancer. Although neither group gained weight on these substances, three of the eleven patients in the melatonin group did not lose more weight over the 4 week trial period. However, this study was limited by its small size and short period of follow up, and other factors may have accounted for the more stable weight in these patients.
Most of the studies reporting positive results from melatonin were small and conducted by the same group of Italian researchers. Before the results are widely accepted, they will need to be confirmed in larger studies at other centers.
Some early studies have reported that melatonin may improve appetite, blood platelet counts, and mouth sores in people undergoing chemotherapy. But a study of melatonin's ability to ease the effects of chemotherapy on the blood counts of lung cancer patients found that high doses of the hormone had little effect. More research is needed to clarify these results.
There is relatively good evidence that melatonin supplements can influence sleep and fatigue and can help with jet lag and some sleep problems. Research has not yet shown the most effective way to use melatonin supplements for patients with sleep disorders or for people who have trouble sleeping occasionally. Some research shows that melatonin affects not only how quickly people fall asleep but also the duration and quality of sleep.
Are there any possible problems or complications?
There appear to be few short-term side effects from taking melatonin. Some people report headaches or feeling drowsy or confused after taking it. People taking high doses have reported nightmares and trouble sleeping.
The effects of long-term use of melatonin and how it interacts with other medicines or supplements are unknown. Some reports have indicated that melatonin may interact with blood-thinning medicines and with medications for seizures or diabetes. People taking these medicines should speak with their doctors before taking melatonin.
Since melatonin may have an effect on hormone levels, women who are trying to conceive, are pregnant, or are breast-feeding should not use this supplement. The National Institute on Aging has also warned that melatonin may constrict blood vessels, which could be dangerous for people with high blood pressure or heart disease. Some practitioners believe that children and people under the age of 40 should not take melatonin because their bodies make enough of the hormone naturally. Some also caution people with severe mental illness and those taking steroid medications against using melatonin.
Because it has antioxidant properties, concerns have been raised that melatonin might interfere with radiation therapy or chemotherapy, possibly making these treatments less effective. While this concern is based largely on theories of how cancer treatments work, it is supported by some recent studies. For this reason, people being treated for cancer should speak with their doctors before taking this supplement.
Some experts also suggest that people with immune system disorders (such as severe allergies, rheumatoid arthritis, or cancers such as lymphoma) should not take melatonin because it may further stimulate the immune system and worsen these conditions. Again, this is based on a theory and not scientific evidence, but people with immune system problems should speak with their doctors before taking this supplement.
Relying on this type of treatment alone, and avoiding or delaying conventional medical care for cancer, may have serious health consequences.
Additional resources
More information from your American Cancer Society
The following information on complementary and alternative therapies may also be helpful to you. These materials may be found on our Web site (www.cancer.org) or ordered from our toll-free number (1-800-ACS-2345).
Dietary Supplements: What Is Safe?
The ACS Operational Statement on Complementary and Alternative Methods of Cancer Management
Complementary and Alternative Methods and Cancer
Placebo Effect
Learning About New Ways to Treat Cancer
Learning About New Ways to Prevent Cancer
References
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Cerea G, Vaghi M, Ardizzoia A, et al. Biomodulation of cancer chemotherapy for metastatic colorectal cancer: a randomized study of weekly low-dose irinotecan alone versus irinotecan plus the oncostatic pineal hormone melatonin in metastatic colorectal cancer patients progressing on 5-fluorouracil-containing combinations. Anticancer Res. 2003;23:1951-1954.
Davis S, Mirick DK. Circadian disruption, shift work and the risk of cancer: a summary of the evidence and studies in Seattle. Cancer Causes Control. 2006;17:539-545.
Ghielmini M, Pagani O, de Jong J, et al. Double-blind randomized study on the myeloprotective effect of melatonin in combination with carboplatin and etoposide in advanced lung cancer. Br J Cancer. 1999;80:1058-1061.
Karasek M. Melatonin in humans – Where we are 40 years after its discovery. Neuroendocrinology Letters. 1999;20:179-188.
Lawenda BD, Kelly KM, Ladas EJ, Sagar SM, Vickers A, Blumberg JB. Should supplemental antioxidant administration be avoided during chemotherapy and radiation therapy? J Natl Cancer Inst. 2008;100:773-783.
Lissoni P. Is there a role for melatonin in supportive care? Support Care Cancer. 2002;10:110-116.
Lissoni P, Barni S, Ardizzoia A, Tancini G, Conti A, Maestroni G. A randomized study with the pineal hormone melatonin versus supportive care alone in patients with brain metastases due to solid neoplasms. Cancer. 1994;73:699-701.
Lissoni P, Chilelli M, Villa S, Cerizza L, Tancini G. Five years survival in metastatic non-small cell lung cancer patients treated with chemotherapy alone or chemotherapy and melatonin: a randomized trial. J Pineal Res. 2003;35:2-15.
Lissoni P, Paolorossi F, Tancini G, et al. A phase II study of tamoxifen plus melatonin in metastatic solid tumour patients. Br J Cancer. 1996;74:1466-1468.
Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. About herbs: Melatonin. 2006. Accessed at: http://www.mskcc.org/mskcc/html/69298.cfm on June 11, 2008.
National Institute on Aging. Pills, Patches, and Shots: Can Hormones Prevent Aging? January 2005. Accessed at: http://www.niapublications.org/tipsheets/pills.asp on June 11, 2008.
M D Anderson Cancer Center. Biologic/Organic/Pharmacologic Therapies: Melatonin. 2005. Accessed at: www.mdanderson.org/departments/cimer/display.cfm?id=90e5bf72-ee9e-463e-bc9ea125d8912312&method=displayfull&pn=6eb86a59-ebd9-11d4-810100508b603a14 on June 11, 2008.
Persson C, Glimelius B, Ronnelid J, Nygren P. Impact of fish oil and melatonin on cachexia in patients with advanced gastrointestinal cancer: a randomized pilot study. Nutrition. 2005;21:170-178.
Schernhammer ES, Laden F, Speizer FE, et al. Rotating night shifts and risk of breast cancer in women participating in the Nurses' Health Study. J Natl Cancer Inst. 2001;93:1563-1568.
Schernhammer ES, Laden F, Speizer FE, et al. Night-shift work and risk of colorectal cancer in the Nurses' Health Study. J Natl Cancer Inst. 2003;95:825–828.
Note: This information may not cover all possible claims, uses, actions, precautions, side effects or interactions. It is not intended as medical advice, and should not be relied upon as a substitute for consultation with your doctor, who is familiar with your medical situation. ||||| The modern bedroom is full of lights, from glowing computer monitors and clock radios to any number of blinking and glimmering electronic devices. Trouble is, chronic exposure to light at night leads to a host of health problems.
To understand why chronic exposure to light at night is so bad, we need to consider human evolution. Prior to the end of the stone age, humans were exposed to two different kinds of natural light responsible for regulating circadian rhythmicity. During the day we had the sun, while at night we had the moon and the stars, and perhaps the light from campfires. The binary day/night pattern was unrelenting, and our biological programming followed suit.
Today, we have artificial lighting at night (LAN), and it's a different case altogether. Indoor lighting is considerably less powerful than sunlight, but many orders of magnitude greater than star and moonlight. Check out this chart to see what I mean:
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Keep in mind that this is a logarithmic scale, so the difference between sunlight and moonlight is considerable — a difference that influences a series of critical biochemical cascades tied to light periodicity, including the production of cortisol and melatonin levels.
Light is a Drug
Melatonin suppression is key to understanding much of why LAN is so crappy for us. This workhorse biochemical is produced by the brain's pineal gland at night — when it's dark — to regulate our sleep-wake cycle. It lowers blood pressure, glucose levels, and body temperature — key physiological responses responsible for restful sleep. As neurologist George Brainard puts it, "Light works as if it's a drug, except it's not a drug at all."
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The part of your brain that controls your biological clock is the Suprachiasmatic Nucleus (SCN), a group of cells in the hypothalamus. These cells respond to light and dark signals. The optic nerves in our eyes senses light and transmits a signal to the SCN telling the brain that it's time to wake up. It also kickstarts other processes, like raising body temperature and producing hormones like cortisol. Our cortisol levels are relatively low at night, allowing us to sleep, and higher during the day, allowing for the stabilization of energy levels and the modulation of immune function.
But LAN unnaturally elevates cortisol levels at night, which disrupts sleep and introduces a host of problems relating to body-fat levels, insulin resistance, and systemic inflammation. It also contributes to sleep debt and a disruption the neuroregulation of appetite.
But if our rooms are dark at night, there's no optic signal to the SCN, so our bodies pump out the much needed melatonin. Moreover, our melatonin levels are regulated according to the amount of exposure we had to light during the previous day.
Related: The science behind power naps and insomnia.
The Light Before You Sleep
Indeed, studies have shown that exposure to room light before bedtime shortens melatonin duration by about 90 minutes compared to dim light exposure. In addition, exposure to room light during usual hours of sleep suppresses melatonin levels by more than 50%. That's significant.
So, even before you hit the hay, the light in your bedroom is causing you problems. With the introduction of tablets, smartphones, and energy-efficient light bulbs, it's an issue that's only getting worse.
And just to add insult to injury, many modern devices emit blue light from light-emitting diodes (LEDs) — light that's especially good at suppressing melatonin. This is because melanopsin — a photopigment found in specialized cells of the retina involved in the regulation of circadian rhythms — is most sensitive to blue light.
Recently, scientists warned college students about the impact of light from computer monitors on melatonin levels. They found that computer light at night — particularly blue light that was scanned by wearing different wavelength-blocking glasses — reduces college students' melatonin levels. A related study found that backlit tablet displays suppress melatonin, disrupting sleep. But the researchers write: "[It] is important to acknowledge that usage of self-luminous electronic devices before sleep may disrupt sleep even if melatonin is not suppressed. Clearly, the tasks themselves may be alerting or stressful stimuli that can lead to sleep disruption." Which is a very good point.
The Cancer Link
Regrettably, all this hormone and biochemical disruption is creating downstream effects — cancer being one of them. Scientists aren't entirely sure why, but studies consistently show a correlation.
For example, a 10-year study found that a sample group of over 1,670 women exposed to higher intensity light in their sleeping environment had 22% higher odds of developing breast cancer than those who slept in total darkness. The researchers blamed it on hormone disruption caused by melatonin suppression.
In another study, researchers implanted nude rats with breast cancer xenografts and then gave them perfusions of blood from different women. Rats receiving blood from women who were exposed to dim light at night had their tumor growth reduced — but those with blood from women who were exposed to bright light at night weren't granted this beneficial effect.
Troublingly, this has grim implications for workers who do shift work. Case-controlled studies have shown that nurses who work rotating shifts at midnight are more at risk for breast cancer compared to nurses with permanent day work.
Low Light, Blue Light, Depression and Immune Response
Disturbingly, the light at night doesn't even have to be bright to cause problems. Chronic exposure to dim light at night leads to depression-like symptom in hamsters, such as exhibiting less interest in drinking the sugar water that they normally love. But by returning them to a normal, non-lit day/night schedule, the researchers were able to reverse the depression. Scientists suspect that this dim-light depression may be the result of a protein called tumor necrosis factor.
Chronic dim light at night also detrimentally affects the immune system.
You might want to think about this next time you leave even the dimmest lights on in your bedroom — including your clock radio and the light that bleeds in from street lights.
Another study, also on rodents, showed that blue light at night in particular is especially powerful at inducing depression-like symptoms. LAN can also impair mood and learning, again likely on account of melanopsin-expressing neurons.
Premature Aging and Heart Problems
Melatonin also has antioxidant properties, which plays an important role in anti-aging. Researchers have been able to treat artificially aged mice with melatonin, thus reducing oxidative stress. These mice models are helping scientists understand the fundamental mechanism behind aging because they're the same markers found in neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's.
Other studies show a link between melatonin suppression and cardiovascular disease.
Weight Gain
Light at night also contributes to weight gain by shifting the time of our food intake. Mice, when exposed to LAN, gained more weight — despite exercising and eating as much as their darkness-exposed brethren. Scientists have also correlated low levels of melatonin to diabetes, though it's not clear what role, if any, LAN plays in this matter.
Pitch Black
All this research points to one basic fact: We need to keep our bedrooms as dark as possible and avoid blue light before sleep. To that end, you should turn off all your light-emitting gadgets and close the blinds. And if possible, refrain from reading your tablet computer or smartphone in the hours preceding sleep.
I know, easier said than done.
Additional reporting by Joseph Bennington-Castro.
Images: Africa Studio/Shutterstock, MNStudio/Shutterstock.
Follow me on Twitter: @dvorsky ||||| Tamoxifen is an estrogen-blocking medication typically used to treat breast cancer that has spread to other parts of the body. But new research conducted in rats suggests exposure to dim light at night - as little as that coming in a window from a street light - suppresses melatonin production, making tumors resistant to the drug.
Researchers found that exposure to dim light at night results in breast cancer tumors becoming resistant to tamoxifen. Researchers found that exposure to dim light at night results intumors becoming resistant to tamoxifen.
The study, led by Prof. Steven M. Hill of Tulane University School of Medicine in New Orleans, LA, is published in Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.
"Our levels of melatonin are not determined by sleep, as many people think," explains Prof. Hill. "It is actually the darkness that is important. During the night, if you sleep in a brightly lit room, your melatonin levels may be inhibited; however, if you are in the dark but cannot sleep, your melatonin levels will rise normally."
He and his team note that disruption of circadian rhythms by night shift work or disturbed sleep could result in an increased risk of breast cancer and other diseases. For patients with hormone receptor-positive breast cancer, Prof. Hill adds that tamoxifen resistance "is a growing problem."
"Our data, although they were generated in rats, have potential implications for the large number of patients with breast cancer who are being treated with tamoxifen, because they suggest that nighttime exposure to light, even dim light, could cause their tumors to become resistant to the drug by suppressing melatonin production," he says.
Nighttime melatonin supplement resulted in regressed tumors
To conduct their study, the researchers observed rats with human breast tumors that were living in either normal light and dark conditions - which involved 12 hours of light and 12 hours of complete darkness - or alternative conditions - 12 hours of normal light and 12 hours of dim light.
Fast facts about tamoxifen's uses To treat breast cancer that has spread to other parts of the body
To treat early breast cancer in women who have already been treated with surgery, radiation or chemotherapy
To reduce risk of developing a more serious type of breast cancer in women who have had ductal carcinoma in situ
To reduce risk of breast cancer in women at high risk for the disease.
The rats who were living under normal conditions had blood melatonin levels that rose during the dark period and fell again during the light period. However, the rats living in the alternative conditions had melatonin levels that remained low during the light/dark cycle.
Compared with the rats living in normal conditions, the rats living in the dim night light conditions had tumor growth that was 2.6-fold times faster.
Additionally, the team found that the rats living in the dim night light had tumors that were completely resistant to tamoxifen, while the rats living in normal conditions had tumors that significantly regressed.
However, the team also found that when given a nighttime melatonin supplement, the tumors of the rats living in dim night light conditions likewise regressed.
"These data suggest that, in the not-too-distant future, it may be possible to combine melatonin and tamoxifen," says Prof. Hill. "However, before this is done we would need to identify the optimal times of day to give the two because if the timing between the two is off, the advantage of giving them in combination may be lost."
He also notes that their study does not reveal how much light exposure is needed to decrease nighttime melatonin production, resulting in tamoxifen resistance in humans, "but we think that it could be as little as the amount of light that comes in the bedroom window from a street light."
Though melatonin supplements can be purchased over the counter, Prof. Hill cautions that their research is not yet at the point where he and his team can recommend that breast cancer patients on tamoxifen take melatonin:
"Melatonin is produced by our bodies at a very specific time of day, exclusively during darkness at night, and taking melatonin supplements at the wrong time of day would potentially disrupt the circadian system, particularly the natural melatonin cycle, which may, in itself, paradoxically impair breast cancer responsiveness to tamoxifen."
The team is now conducting further studies to investigate how much light exposure suppresses nighttime melatonin production in humans to the point where it would make tumors tamoxifen-resistant.
Medical News Today recently reported on a study that suggested the gel form of tamoxifen is just as effective as the oral form, with fewer side effects. | – Light at night has already been widely linked to poorer sleep quality, but now even dim light is being shown to interfere with a breast cancer drug's ability to do its job. So says a new study on rats out of Tulane University School of Medicine, which found that even the low light of a nearby street lamp interferes with the body's natural production of the sleep hormone melatonin. And the rats (all of which had human breast tumors) exposed to dim light at night not only exhibited lower levels of melatonin but had larger, faster-growing tumors that were also completely resistant to the breast cancer drug Tamoxifen. "Our levels of melatonin are not determined by sleep, as many people think," one researcher tells Medical News Today. "It is actually the darkness that is important." And he tells the BBC that the blue light emitted from digital devices such as TVs and tablets is particularly disruptive for melatonin production. Other studies have suggested that melatonin may help improve cancer treatments. Still, researchers warn that this study needs to be replicated and validated in humans before determining that all the same mechanisms are at play. (City lights have also been linked to higher breast cancer rates.) |
Klansman who orchestrated Mississippi Burning killings dies in prison
CLOSE Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood says he and the FBI have closed their investigation into the Ku Klux Klan's 1964 killings of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner.
Edgar Ray Killen — the Klansman who orchestrated one of the nation’s most notorious mass killings, the slayings of three civil rights workers in Mississippi in 1964 — has died.
In 2005, a jury convicted Killen on three counts of manslaughter in the June 21, 1964, deaths of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner and sentenced him to 60 years in prison.
Edgar Ray Killen, in this Jan. 7, 2005, file photo at the Neshoba County Courthouse in Philadelphia, Miss.,was convicted in 2005 of three counts of manslaughter in the slayings of civil rights workers James Chaney, Michael Schwerner and Andy Goodman in 1964. (Photo: Rogelio Solis/The Associated Pre, Copyright 2005 The Clarion Ledge)
Goodman’s brother, David, said Friday that he had been informed by Mississippi corrections officials that Killen had died at 9 p.m. Thursday.
“Any time a person passes, their family grieves," he said. "However, in the case of Edgar Ray Killen, he belongs to a bigger part of American history, where white supremacists took black lives with impunity."
Chaney, 21, was a Mississippi native who became involved in the civil rights movement. Schwerner, 24, was from New York City and had come with his wife, Rita, to join the movement in Mississippi.
Goodman, 20, was a Queens College student who became involved in Freedom Summer.
The FBI put out this poster of the three missing civil rights workers, Andrew Goodman, James Chaney and Michael Schwerner, after they disappeared June 21, 1964. Forty-four days later, FBI agents made the grisly discovery of their bodies, buried in an earthen dam. (Photo: FBI)
On June 21, 1964, the three young men went to investigate the burning of the Mount. Zion Methodist Church, where Chaney and Schwerner had previously spoken. The Ku Klux Klan had burned down the church.
Neshoba County Deputy Cecil Price jailed the trio and released them at about 10:30 p.m. — into the hands of waiting Klansmen, who shot them to death and buried their bodies in an earthen dam.
Forty-four days later, FBI agents found the bodies.
"The 15 men who murdered Goodman, Schwerner and Chaney weren’t indicted, much less tried," David Goodman said. "It’s an American tragedy that law enforcement, the FBI and others knew the names of those who were involved in the killings, but none were ever tried for murder. The only person tried was Edgar Ray Killen, who wasn’t even there."
The killings were depicted in "Mississippi Burning," a fictional 1988 film based on the real-life FBI investigation into the case.
Killen, who died less than a week from his 93rd birthday, worked much of his life cutting trees and on Sundays preached in so many rural Baptist churches that he became known as "Preacher" Killen." He was the last living Klansman in a Mississippi prison for a civil rights cold case.
Thomas Blanton, who turns 80 this year, remains at the St. Clair Correctional Facility in Alabama. He was convicted for his role in the Ku Klux Klan’s 1963 bombing of a Birmingham church that killed four girls.
In 1967 in Mississippi, a federal jury convicted Price, Imperial Wizard Sam Bowers, Alton Wayne Roberts, Horace Doyle Barnette, Jimmy Arledge, Billy Wayne Posey and Jimmie Snowden of conspiracy..
The rest of the 18 who went on trial on those charges went free, including Killen.
That federal jury deadlocked 11-1 in favor of his guilt, with one juror telling the rest that she could “never convict a preacher.”
In 1999, Mississippi authorities reopened the case after the Clarion Ledger reported the contents of a secret interview Bowers had given in which he said he was “quite delighted to be convicted and have the main instigator walk out of the courtroom a free man.”
Killen bragged to the Clarion Ledger that he wouldn’t be prosecuted, claimed Goodman and Schwerner were “communists” and said he wanted to shake hands with the assassin of Martin Luther King Jr.
In 2004, a group of citizens known as the Philadelphia Coalition pushed for prosecution.
A year later, a Neshoba County grand jury indicted Killen for murder in the slayings of Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner.
District Attorney Mark Duncan, Attorney General Jim Hood, Special Assistant Attorney General Lee Martin and others prosecuted the case.
In a compromise verdict, the jury voted unanimously to convict Killen on three counts of manslaughter on June 21, 2005 — the anniversary of the killings.
In 2014, each of the families of Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner received the President Medal of Freedom.
Families of the three civil rights workers killed in Neshoba County in 1964 were presented the Medal of Freedom Monday by President Obama at the White House. From left are David Goodman, brother of Andrew Goodman; Rita Bender, widow of Michael Schwerner, and Angela Lewis, daughter of James Chaney. (Photo: Deborah Barfield Berry/Gannett Washington Bureau)
Schwerner's widow, Rita Bender, said, “It is tragic for the country that in all these years Preacher Killen could not bring himself to acknowledge his orchestration of these senseless murders. Perhaps even more troubling is that the racism which fueled the violence of many murders all those years ago presently remains a part of our nation’s discourse, and is encouraged at the highest levels of government.”
Chaney’s daughter, Angela Lewis, said she is praying for the Killen family and that she knows of the pain of death because of what she experienced with her mother.
“I pray to God that Edgar Ray repented and that he had peace with God,” she said. “My ultimate desire is when I get to heaven and meet my dad for the first time, I pray that my dad and I could embrace Edgar Ray.”
In the years after his conviction, Killen remained defiant in interviews with The Guardian, the Associated Press and the Greenwood Commonwealth, insisting he would be exonerated and freed from prison.
David Goodman said that "the history of this country has a shadow over it because this case and many others like it have never been resolved to bring justice to these families and especially black citizens who were murdered and killed because of white supremacy and racism. That’s what Edgar Ray Killen’s life was about in an important way, and we’re still dealing today with white nationalism."
Contact Jerry Mitchell at 601-961-7064 or jmitchell@gannett.com. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter.
Read or Share this story: https://www.clarionledger.com/story/news/local/journeytojustice/2018/01/12/klansman-who-orchestrated-mississippi-burning-killings-dies-prison/1028454001/ ||||| Edgar Ray Killen Dies; Klansman Behind Civil Rights Workers' Murders In 1964
Enlarge this image toggle caption Kyle Carter/Reuters Kyle Carter/Reuters
Edgar Ray Killen, the former Ku Klux Klansman responsible for a notorious civil rights era murder, has died in a Mississippi prison. Killen orchestrated the killings of three Freedom Summer workers in Neshoba County, Miss. in 1964, a crime that shocked the nation and acted as a catalyst for passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
The state corrections department says Killen died at 9 p.m. Thursday night at the Mississippi State Penitentiary. He was 92 years old and was serving a 60-year sentence for manslaughter in the killings of civil rights workers James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner.
The three civil rights workers, all in their 20s, were ambushed on June 21, 1964. They'd been lured to the area to investigate a church burning outside Philadelphia, Miss., and as they were leaving, local authorities arrested them. Hours later, they were released from jail, chased down by carloads of Klansmen, and shot to death.
Their bodies were discovered 44 days later, buried in an earthen dam. The dramatic search for the missing men drew national attention to the violent resistance to the civil rights movement.
Killen, a part-time Baptist preacher and KKK kleagle (organizer), faced federal charges in 1967, but the trial ended in a hung jury after a hold-out juror said she couldn't convict a preacher. The state of Mississippi didn't press charges at the time.
Nearly four decades later, state prosecutors re-opened the case, which had been dramatized in the 1988 movie Mississippi Burning.
Killen was the only person charged, even though other suspects were still living.
According to testimony in Killen's 2005 murder trial, he plotted the murders — right down to arranging for the bulldozer to bury the bodies — and later bragged how the civil rights workers had "been taken care of."
At the time, Neshoba County District Attorney Mark Duncan told the jury their decision carried historical significance.
"For 41 years it's been Edgar Ray Killen and his friends who have written the history of Neshoba County," he said during closing arguments. "What you do today when you go into that jury room is going to echo through the history of Neshoba County from now on."
The jury convicted Killen of manslaughter, which some of the victims' families found insufficient. Mickey Schwerner's widow, Rita Schwerner Bender, has said it's too late to achieve justice. She has long called for the acknowledgement of the state's role in encouraging racist violence.
The Mississippi Department of Corrections says Killen's cause of death is pending an autopsy, but that he was suffering from congestive heart failure and hypertension. "No foul play is suspected," according to a statement. ||||| Edgar Ray Killen, the former Klansman who was sentenced to a 60-year prison term in 2005 for arranging the murders of three young civil rights workers outside Philadelphia, Miss., in 1964 during the Freedom Summer drive to register Southern black voters, died on Thursday night in prison in Parchman, Miss. He was 92.
The Mississippi corrections department said he was pronounced dead at the hospital at the Mississippi State Penitentiary at 9 p.m. No cause was given, but the department said he had been treated for congestive heart failure and hypertension.
Mr. Killen was convicted of state manslaughter charges 41 years to the day after James Earl Chaney, 21, a black man from Meridian, Miss., and two white New Yorkers, Andrew Goodman, 20, and Michael Schwerner, 24, disappeared in a death trap set by a local deputy sheriff and a gang of his fellow Ku Klux Klansmen.
He was prosecuted in one of the South’s major “atonement” trials, in which the Mississippi authorities revisited civil rights-era atrocities. He was convicted of a crime that galvanized the civil rights movement, stamped the town of Philadelphia as an outpost of terror and inspired the 1988 Hollywood movie “Mississippi Burning,” directed by Alan Parker. | – A KKK member responsible for the 1964 murder of three civil rights workers in Mississippi has died while serving a 60-year-sentence for manslaughter, the Clarion Ledger reports. The Mississippi Department of Corrections tells NPR that Edgar Ray Killen died Thursday night at the age of 92. He was suffering from congestive heart failure and hypertension. Killen, a tree-cutter and small-time preacher, was a founding member and main recruiter for the KKK in the Philadelphia area of Mississippi in 1964 when James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner were investigating a church fire, the New York Times reports. The three civil rights workers in their early 20s were arrested and then released to Klan members, who shot them and buried the bodies. The killings were instrumental in the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and were later dramatized in the 1988 film Mississippi Burning. Killen was one of 18 people put on trial in 1967 for the murders, but the jury was hung after one juror said she couldn't convict a preacher. The case was reopened decades later, and Killen was convicted in 2005 of three counts of manslaughter. He was the only one charged despite other suspects being alive. Goodman's brother calls it "an American tragedy" that none of the others ever faced justice. “I pray to God that Edgar Ray repented and that he had peace with God,” Chaney's daughter tells the Clarion Ledger. “My ultimate desire is when I get to heaven and meet my dad for the first time, I pray that my dad and I could embrace Edgar Ray.” |
One man died Saturday night after witnesses say he ran into a ceremonial bonfire at a regional burning festival Saturday night.
GRANTSVILLE — One man died Saturday night after witnesses say he ran into a ceremonial bonfire at a regional burning festival Saturday night.
The annual event, put on by Element 11, is a spinoff of the Burning Man festival held in Black Rock City, Nevada. As part of the event, several effigies about 30 feet tall are constructed out of dry wood and ceremoniously burned, according to Element 11 spokesman J.P. Bernier.
Because the burning produces extreme heat, volunteers form a perimeter around the burning for the safety of other participants, Bernier said.
After 11 p.m., volunteers noticed a man who came running forward through the crowd and went past the perimeter. Volunteers made attempts to call out and stop the man, but they were unsuccessful in preventing him from jumping into the fire, Bernier said.
"The nature of the fire is such that our volunteers were not able to get close enough to the fire for risk of their own safety," Bernier said. "He was very fast; he was very motivated. It wasn't an accident or any act of negligence on anybody's part. He had a very deliberate objective to get past our volunteers, past our safety perimeter."
The victim's name was not released Sunday. Grantsville police issued a very brief statement only saying that they were investigating "a fatality at an event being held within Grantsville City."
Many participants were distraught and confused by the suddenness of the incident, according to a participant and a documentary photographer named Christian, who declined to provide his last name.
"I did see that a lot of the community was shocked and traumatized," he said. "There's a lot of questions, a lot of facts that are unknown."
Doug Johnson said the incident was the first of its kind that he's seen after attending the event for more than a dozen years.
"I was blown away," Johnson said. "Fifteen years and I've never had anything like that happen, ever."
More than 100 volunteers help facilitate the regional event, which is intended to "ignite a culture of creativity in the community," Bernier said. The event hosted more than 1,200 attendees, and members of the volunteer Grantsville Fire Department were present.
A burning scheduled for Sunday morning was canceled after Saturday's incident.
Christian said safety has been an ever-growing priority at the event over the five years he's been attending.
"This is the first event that I was restricted as a documentary photographer to ever get near anything there because safety was such a concern," he said. "And the fact that he had to break through that barrier anyway, I would just say that it was not something that was easily prevented at all."
Bernier said that while safety procedures were followed, policies will be examined in the hope that such incidents will be prevented in the future.
"We'll definitely look at our policies," Bernier said.
Contributing: Devon Dolan
Email: mjacobsen@deseretnews.com, Twitter: DNewsCrimeTeam ||||| Man dies after running into bonfire at Utah Burning Man festival
Man dies after running into bonfire at Utah Burning Man festival
: The man has been identified as Christopher Wallace, 30, of Salt Lake City.(KUTV) A man witnesses say ran into a bonfire at a Utah Burning Man festival died on Saturday night.The annual Element 11 festival, called "Into the Wild" this year, inspires as many as 1,200 event-goers to create, celebrate and burn art.A photographer captured video of the entire incident at the sold-out festival about 11 p.m. on Saturday. A man, yet unidentified by police, made his way through a crowd of event-goers and a circle of security personnel before spinning around and dancing and then running into a structure that was being intentionally burned."He was running out there. He was dancing around a little bit, and then all of a sudden he jumped into it. It's like he didn't even know it was fire," said witness Daisey McDonald. "The whole time I was thinking, 'He's going to walk out, he's going to be okay.'"Each night, a different, large structure is burned as a crowd gathers. J.P. Bernier, the director of safety volunteers for the event, said plenty of safety officials were present."The fire was intentional, and it was planned. A great deal of preparation and care goes into the constructing of the effigy we burn in ceremonial fashion with attendance by Grantsville fire," Bernier said. "We have a perimeter of safety officials that surround the fire."Grantsville police are investigating what led up to incident."It was a very tragic event," Bernier said. "Our hearts go out to the family and friends of the victim."By Christine McCarthyFollow Christine on Twitter @ReporterXtine (Copyright 2014 Sinclair Broadcasting Group.)Follow us on Twitter @KUTV2News and LIKE us on Facebook forupdates. ||||| Man dies after leap into bonfire at Utah’s Element 11 festival
Grantsville » Police say he told Element 11 participants that he planned to kill himself.
A joyous festival was cut tragically short Saturday night when a man burned to death after leaping into a huge ceremonial bonfire.
As a three-story wooden effigy, inspired by the creatures from Where the Wild Things Are, burned to mark the culmination of the Element 11 festival in Grantsville, hundreds of festival-goers watched in horror as Christopher Wallace of Salt Lake City broke through a safety barrier, danced wildly for a few moments and ran full speed into the flames.
"He looked like he was having a great time. He was running out there. He was dancing a little bit," witness Daisy McDonald told KUTV. "All of a sudden he jumped into the fire. It’s like he didn’t even know it was fire. It’s like he thought it was just a playground."
Fire safety rangers were unable to stop Wallace from tossing himself into the inferno. Witnesses said they saw Wallace’s hand rise up from the flames as he died.
"The whole time I was thinking, ‘He’s gonna walk out. He’s gonna be okay,’ " McDonald said. "I thought he was gonna survive."
Wallace, who was in his late 20s or early 30s, had told other festival-goers earlier in the day that he planned to kill himself by jumping into the burning effigy, said Grantsville police Lt. Steve Barrett.
"This is what he was going to do, and it’s what he did," Barrett said, adding that neither security rangers nor firemen could have prevented Wallace from killing himself. "It took not even seconds. He was just through the barricades and into the fire."
Grantsville police reviewed video footage recorded by witnesses before determining that Wallace’s death was a suicide. The effigy had been burning for about 30 minutes when Wallace leapt into the fire at about about 11 p.m. Saturday, said Grantsville police Lt. Steve Barrett. Firefighters on scene tried to extinguish the flames but could not save Wallace.
"It was shocking to everybody," said Grantsville Mayor Brent Marshall, who did not witness the burn but visits the event site each year to perform a safety inspection. Marshall expressed his sympathy not only for the family of the dead man but also for the people who witnessed the suicide.
"Horrific things get embedded into people’s minds," Marshall said. "It’s a tragedy any way you want to look at it."
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Element 11, or E-11 for short, is a so-called "regional burn," one of dozens of smaller-scale events affiliated with the Burning Man arts and culture festival that takes place in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert every August. The event drew 1,200 attendees, several hundred of whom were on hand when Wallace dove into the burning effigy.
Grantsville police contacted Wallace’s wife Sunday before releasing his name to the public. Police have asked medical examiners to do a toxicology report to determine if Wallace had drugs in his system, Barrett said. That report should be available in two to three weeks.
hstevens@sltrib.com
Twitter: @Harry_Stevens | – Onlookers at a Utah Burning Man festival watched in horror Saturday as a man ran head-long into a ceremonial bonfire and never came back out, KUTV reports. It was about 11pm when Christopher Wallace, 30, broke through a barrier surrounding a burning three-story structure inspired by the book Where the Wild Things Are at the Element 11 Festival in Grantsville. "He looked like he was having a great time," an eyewitness said. "He was dancing a little bit." Then he ran into the flames "like he didn’t even know it was fire. It’s like he thought it was just a playground." Other witnesses said his hand came up in the flames during his final moments, the Salt Lake Tribune reports. Police said that Wallace had told other festival-goers that day that he would kill himself the very way he did it. But a festival spokesman said stopping him would have been an impossibility: "The nature of the fire is such that our volunteers were not able to get close enough to the fire for risk of their own safety," he told the Deseret News. "He was very fast; he was very motivated. It wasn't an accident or any act of negligence on anybody's part." |
I've never hit a golf ball. I've never set foot on a golf course. Everything I draw is from inside a 6-by-10 prison cell. The first course I ever drew was for warden James Conway. He would often stop by my cell to ask how my appeal was going and to see my drawings. Before he retired, the warden brought me a photograph of the 12th hole at Augusta National and asked if I could draw it for him.
I spent 15 hours on it. The warden loved it, and it was gratifying to know my art would hang in his house. Something about the grass and sky was rejuvenating. I'd been getting bored with drawing animals and people and whatever I'd get out of National Geographic. After 19 years in Attica (N.Y.) Correctional Facility, the look of a golf hole spoke to me. It seemed peaceful. I imagine playing it would be a lot like fishing.
There's an inmate here who subscribes to Golf Digest. He crosses his name out and loans me the issues, because you get a ticket if you're caught with something that has somebody else's name on it, just like you get tickets for draping sheets across your bars, or fighting. Some guys in here break the rules anyway, but life's better when you stay invisible.
Except for that one drawing for the warden, I never copy holes exactly. I use a photograph as a starting point and then morph the image in my own way. Sometimes I'll find a tiny piece of reference material, like a tree on a stamp or mountains on a calendar, and then imagine my own golf course with it. I find the challenge of integrating these visions very rewarding.
The past two years I've drawn more than 130 golf pictures with colored pencils and 6-by-8-inch sheets of paper I order through the mail. We're not allowed to have brushes and paints, but that's all right; I like pencils. When I was little, my mom and grandma used to slap my hand because of the unconventional way I gripped the pencil, until one day my aunt Gwen told them to stop and look at the comics I'd done from the newspaper. My mom didn't believe I'd done it without tracing, so she made me draw them again freehand as she watched.
Growing up on the east side of Buffalo, my only sports were football and basketball. Talk about golf in our neighborhood and you'd probably get shot. Because of my art ability, I attended the performing-arts high school and stayed pretty clean until I graduated. Then I started dating a girl whose brothers were drug dealers, and before long I was in it, too. It's no excuse. It was what you did in my neighborhood if you wanted to make money. I became a mid-level cocaine dealer and pulled in enough to drive flashy cars and cover friends, but not much else. I rode with a weapon, same as everybody. I was out on bail for possession charges the night my life changed forever. I was 21 then. I'm 42 now.
Pinterest Valentino Dixon in an Attica Correctional Facility visitation room.
No one likes to hear how you're innocent. I get that, and I don't talk about my case to inmates or guards. Everyone's innocent, right? Truth is, there are a lot of bad folk in Attica who deserve to be locked up. They were animals even before they were treated as animals. Violent people who want to rape and cut you, and society is safer because they're in here. But there are also people who'd never hurt anybody, who deserve a second chance. And out of 2,200 inmates, you'd better believe there are a few innocents who got railroaded by the system. When you're young and black, it can happen, and it happened to me.
It was 1:30 in the morning, and we were hanging out at a popular street corner. There were probably 70 people there when word came that the Jackson brothers were looking to get my friend Mario. It was over a girl. You never knew how seriously to take these threats in our neighborhood, but sure enough, I was in a store buying beer when I heard the shots: pow pow. I ran outside the store and grabbed my half-brother to flee. I didn't want any involvement. I was out on bail, and of all things, I wasn't going to let some romance drama among younger kids land me in prison.
I drove home and went to bed. From what I saw, I didn't think anybody had died. The next day the cops pulled me over, and within minutes a tow truck was there to haul away my car. It wasn't until I got to the station that they said I was being charged with second-degree murder, second-degree attempted murder and third-degree assault.
I wasn't nervous because so many people had witnessed the shooting. But soon there I was, being paraded before television cameras in a white paper suit on my way to county lockup. Two days later, LaMarr Scott, a guy I knew but wasn't close to, gave a statement to WGRZ television confessing to be the shooter and turned himself in to the police. Because my dad drove LaMarr downtown, much was made that he had coerced LaMarr into confessing. For murder? Please. My half-brother had brought LaMarr to our dad to set everything straight, and LaMarr owned only a bicycle.
Pinterest Dixon, 21, shortly before he was incarcerated.
I now see LaMarr regularly. One year after I was convicted, LaMarr shot a teenager in the face after an armed robbery and made him a quadriplegic. I choose not to hold a grudge against LaMarr because psychologically, it would kill my spirit. LaMarr's eligible for parole in 2018; I'm not up until 2030.
For the past 12 years I've lived in "honor block," which holds 145 inmates with the cleanest disciplinary records. We can shower every day, use the telephone, and our cells are mostly open so we can socialize and play cards and chess. There are hotplates we share to cook our food, and I buy a lot of rice, beans and pack-dried chicken from the commissary. Still, tension can brew in here. A guy will tell another guy to take it to the back, but mostly people want to stay here so they avoid trouble.
Every two months I get to visit my family for two days in a trailer. My mom lives an hour away, and I have three daughters (my youngest can thank her existence to the family-reunion program) and a wife, Louise, who was recently deported to her native Australia. Louise encountered my drawings on the Internet and moved to the United States to help with my appeals. We were married in a brief ceremony in the visitation room.
The light in my cell isn't great for drawing, but I do have an outlet to plug in my Walkman. When I draw I listen to cassettes to block out the noise of the other prisoners, which can get relentless, even in honor block. I also work as a barber, do push-ups, run in place and read. One of my favorites is Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl about his experiences in a concentration camp. You have to find meaning in your suffering, Frankl said. To that, I say I think God put me here to draw golf courses. Maybe one day I'll play.
Some days I feel like giving up, it's true. I just want to turn nasty and bitter, but in a few hours, or maybe a few days, I'm reaching for the pencils again.
It's possible I wouldn't have lived to this age if I'd stayed on the outside. When I was a young man I wasn't useful to society -- this I don't argue. But I'm not a murderer. That's the worst thing somebody can be, and I'm not that. I hope all you need to do is look at my drawings to know that.
IS VALENTINO DIXON INNOCENT?
It might be impossible to know exactly what happened in a beery east Buffalo parking lot on the early morning of Aug. 10, 1991, but it's worth trying to figure out: Someone's freedom is at stake.
As many as 70 people were present when what started as a fistfight ended with gunfire. Four young black males were shot, and one, Torriano Jackson, was killed.
Valentino Dixon is at Attica (N.Y.) Correctional Facility, having served 21 years of a life sentence, and still protests his innocence. Another Attica inmate, LaMarr Scott, has confessed to being the killer, but his words are not taken seriously.
It's an extremely complex case. Across two decades, 15 eyewitnesses have testified in court or signed sworn statements. These witnesses pretty much shake out 7 to 3 in favor of Valentino Dixon's innocence, with the others saying everything happened too fast or their vantage wasn't clear. Nearly everyone there was a teenager, and many of the key participants didn't know, barely knew, just met, or claimed not to know other key participants.
Clearly, some are telling the truth and some are not. Depending on how you mix, accept or deny the conflicting accounts, two versions emerge: (1) Known drug dealer Valentino Dixon, 21, stood over Torriano Jackson, 17, and emptied the clip of a 9-millimeter automatic. (2) LaMarr Scott, 18, struggled with the same automatic, and when he finally got the barrel under control, he settled its aim on Torriano Jackson, who had shot first.
Minutes before the 1:30 a.m. shooting, a yellow Geo Storm pulled up and parked at the corner of Bailey and East Delavan avenues. From this car emerged Torriano Jackson and his older brother Aaron Jackson, 20, intent on confronting Mario Jarmon, 19, over an earlier dispute. They exchanged angry words. A crowd circled. Then, at the sound of gunshots, the crowd dispersed.
The police arrived shortly. From the bloody pavement officers recovered a .32-caliber handgun with a single spent bullet in its cylinder, a .22-caliber bullet casing, and 27 spent 9-millimeter bullet casings -- same as what riddled Torriano Jackson. (This is significant because the prosecution would present Valentino Dixon as responsible for shooting all four people.) The murder weapon was never recovered.
Christopher J. Belling, who prosecuted the case and is now the senior trial counsel of the Erie County District Attorney's Office, says the extra gun and bullet casings don't cause him to doubt that Dixon was the only gunman responsible. "Given the neighborhood and the chaos of the scene, they could've come from anywhere," Belling told Golf Digest in April 2012. "Whoever had the .32 probably decided they didn't want to have it in their hand anymore. They wanted it on the ground."
As the wounded were taken to hospitals, the police interviewed people who lingered at the scene. Some of these records haven't survived, but the police did speak to the driver of the yellow Geo, Travis Powell, 22, who said he didn't recognize the shooter.
Emil Adams, 18, made a sworn statement at the police station. He described two guys with guns; he knew neither. He said the smaller guy had a handgun and the "heavyset" guy had the automatic. That afternoon, Valentino Dixon, 5-foot-9 and 145 pounds, was arrested. His car and clothes were confiscated so they could be tested for gunpowder residue and blood.
John Sullivan, 17, who'd been released from the hospital that morning after being treated for a gunshot wound to the leg, signed a statement with police 45 minutes after Dixon's arrest. He didn't see who'd shot him in the leg, but he named Valentino Dixon as the individual who killed Torriano Jackson.
The next day the police visited Mario Jarmon (the person the Jackson brothers had been intent on fighting) in the hospital. In addition to being punched and kicked, Jarmon had been shot and couldn't speak because of a tracheal tube. The police report states: "He nodded his head to indicate that the guy that shot him was the dead guy. . . . [He] did not see [Valentino Dixon] with a gun."
Two days after the shooting, the police visited Aaron Jackson in the hospital. (The brother of the deceased would spend weeks recovering from his bullet wound.) The detective showed Jackson six mugshots, and Jackson picked No. 4. The identity of No. 4 is absent from the detective's one-page report. Written on the bottom of the report is Jackson's quote: "But I can't be sure, it all happened so fast."
That same night, LaMarr Scott confessed to a local TV reporter that he, not Valentino Dixon, had shot Torriano Jackson. According to Scott, the guys in the yellow Geo had made threats throughout the day, which prompted him to ride his bike home and retrieve his 9-millimeter, a gun he had recently bought with cash but hadn't yet fired. When the argument escalated at the parking lot, Scott said Torriano Jackson shot first. "I was scared," Scott told the TV reporter. "I didn't know whether he was gonna kill anybody or not, so I just opened fire back on him. I didn't have any control of the automatic weapon at all, and I panicked at the same time. That's why I kept shooting him as many times as I shot him."
But this apparent good news for Valentino Dixon didn't last long. After meeting with the police and Belling, LaMarr Scott recanted what he'd told the TV reporter (and said Dixon's family put him up to the confession) and was not held or charged.
Dixon remained in prison the rest of the year. Mario Jarmon recovered, and in January 1992 a grand jury investigated the shooting. In this hearing, Mario Jarmon and another eyewitness, Leonard Brown, 20, corroborated the story of LaMarr Scott shooting an armed Torriano Jackson. Belling charged them both with perjury. At this same hearing, LaMarr Scott testified, "[Torriano] pulled out a gun and shot Mario three times and then Valentino shot [Torriano]." Concerning Valentino Dixon's gun, Scott testified, "I guess he had it. I didn't see the gun with him at the time when we walked to the corner because we was all laughing and giggling and everything. I wasn't paying attention."
In June 1992, 10 months after the fight, the murder trial began. Because Jarmon and Brown had been charged with perjury, they were not called as witnesses. "Even if I tried calling them to testify, their attorneys wouldn't have let them because it would've exposed them to additional perjury liability," Joseph Terranova, Valentino Dixon's court-appointed public defender, told Golf Digest in May 2012. "What Belling did was extremely clever, and the right thing to do as a prosecutor."
"That sort of witness intimidation by the prosecution almost never happens," says attorney Don Thompson, who worked for a number of years on Dixon's appeal but is no longer involved. "If you're just engaged in a search for the truth, you let the jury have everything and let them sort it out. On the other hand, if you've already decided what the truth is, you try to eliminate any testimony you don't like that isn't consistent with your version." Thompson also believes the perjury indictment might have deterred other witnesses from coming forward.
As for why he indicted Jarmon and Brown for perjury, Belling told Golf Digest in February 2012: "A lot of prosecutors would call it a brilliant stroke of tactical genius." Belling says Brown (Dixon's half-brother) and Jarmon (Dixon's friend) both lied to cover for Dixon, who had accidentally shot Jarmon with a stray round.
Of the prosecution's six witnesses, three testified they saw Dixon firing a gun. Of the three, Aaron Jackson gave the most vivid account. He was there with his little brother, Torriano Jackson, punching and kicking Jarmon, when he heard shots and felt shells brush his body. Shot in the stomach, he crawled to the yellow Geo with the thought of starting it and running over the shooter. He said he then turned to see Dixon kill his brother.
On cross-examination, Jackson was asked to reconcile his current certainty with his statement at the hospital 10 months earlier. Jackson responded, "My memory gets better with time." When questioned why he didn't volunteer Dixon's name (a man he knew) at the hospital, he said, "I don't remember," citing emotional and medical stress.
Emil Adams testified he jumped behind a car when he heard gunshots. Consistent with what he'd told police hours after the shooting, he testified he saw two men walk up to the fight, each carrying guns. But unlike before, at trial Adams could give a description of only one: Dixon. In his police statement Adams had said, The "kind of skinny" guy had a handgun, and the "heavyset" guy had the automatic. At trial Dixon was asked to stand, and Adams agreed the defendant was not heavyset. LaMarr Scott, who is now 6-foot-2, 270 pounds, weighed 200 pounds when he was 18.
There is controversy over the alleged interaction Emil Adams had with private investigator Roger Putnam in 2000. Working on behalf of Dixon's appeal team, Putnam says he visited Adams several times at a barbershop where Adams worked. Putnam said in an affidavit that Emil Adams indicated that his trial testimony had not been truthful and agreed to meet at Putnam's office to record a statement, but he never showed. (Adams has since sworn to police, "I do not know a Roger Putnam. I never talked to Putnam. I never lied in court or was coerced by the District Attorney's Office.")
Bob Lonski is the administrator of the Erie County Bar Association Assigned Counsel Program, which gives public defense to people who cannot afford to retain counsel in criminal matters. In the 18 years Lonski has worked there, Roger Putnam has been a regular investigator for their attorneys. Says Lonski of Putnam: "I've never heard a single mark against his reputation. While some investigators are known as computer sleuths, he's known as a very experienced guy who has a lot of contacts on the streets."
Prosecution Witness No. 3, John Sullivan, had a charge pending in Georgia when he was escorted to Buffalo under custody to testify. (He was convicted of sexual battery and simple assault.) Shot in the leg during the fight, Sullivan had fled to the steps of a church 86 yards away (as later measured) when he saw the killing. Sullivan admitted to smoking marijuana sprinkled with cocaine and drinking malt liquor earlier in the day, but he said he slept off the high and wasn't hindered by distance or the quality of the streetlights in identifying Dixon.
Jospeh Terranova, Dixon's public defender, waived the opportunity to make an opening statement and called no witnesses. With Jarmon and Brown neutralized by perjury charges, "The witnesses we had left were not that strong," said Terranova after the trial. "If I'd called one or two weak witnesses, the jurors might have asked themselves: Is that all the defense has to offer? He must have done it."
The first pages of the trial transcript detail Terranova relaying his client's request for an attorney other than himself. Valentino Dixon claimed Terranova had visited him only once in jail, was unprepared because there were witnesses he hadn't talked to, and was possibly aligned with the prosecution. Terranova says he was prepared. "When you're appointed by the court, it's not unusual that the client has a certain level of frustration and feeling of powerlessness. It's not unusual that they lash out at the only people capable of helping them."
In the trial, Terranova tried to impeach the credibility of the prosecution witnesses. He stressed the absence of motive and rested on the fact there was no physical evidence linking Dixon to the victim, Torriano Jackson. The murder weapon was never recovered, and the test results of Dixon's clothes and car had produced nothing to submit.
Carl Krahling, now 53, was the foreman and youngest member of the all-white jury that convicted Dixon of second-degree murder, second-degree attempted murder and third-degree assault. To this day Krahling remains unsettled. "The first vote was 9-3, not guilty, and I was one of those [voting not guilty]," he says. As he remembers, one very vocal juror steadily persuaded the rest over 14 hours. But his most vivid memory is of their 11 p.m. police escort through the chaotic courtroom after the verdict, news cameras flashing and Dixon's mother wailing. On the way out, Krahling says, the judge called him into his chambers and asked, "What took so long?"
Two decades later, Krahling's memory of what the judge said is this: "There's a lot you're not allowed to know. Just trust me, you did the right thing on this. The guy lied to the grand jury; he was involved with weapons charges and drive-by shootings, drug dealings. This guy is a menace and should be off the street. Sleep well tonight, you did the right thing."
Judge Michael D'Amico says his recollection of the case is faint, but he is certain this never happened. "In the first place, I don't usually talk to individual jurors, and, secondly, I would never say something like that."
"In retrospect I should've hung the jury," Krahling told Golf Digest. "All the people testifying seemed like shady characters. And if they were all members of a rival gang, who knows what happened?"
Three months after Dixon was sentenced, Jarmon and Brown faced their perjury trial. A key line in the prosecution's opening remarks reads, "The proof in this case is going to show that only one person had a gun that night. That was Valentino Dixon."
Jarmon and Brown were acquitted of three of four counts of perjury. In essence, the verdict decreed the two were not lying in saying Torriano Jackson had a gun, shot it, and shot it at Mario Jarmon. But the verdict says they were lying in saying LaMarr Scott was the person who shot back.
Judge D'Amico presided over Jarmon and Brown's perjury trial as well as Valentino Dixon's murder trial.
LaMarr Scott entered Attica on the heels of Valentino Dixon. He is serving 25 to 50 years for a 1993 shooting after an armed robbery that left his victim a quadriplegic. He has reverted to the original story he told the TV reporter, that he killed Torriano Jackson. Scott told Golf Digest in March 2012, "Each and every day it eats away at me that I allowed them to convince me to do the wrong thing." He's eligible for parole in 2018, so he risks more prison time if the responsibility for Torriano Jackson's murder is switched to him.
As a reward for a clean disciplinary record, LaMarr Scott is also one of the 7 percent of Attica inmates who live in "honor block." He encounters Valentino Dixon regularly, and both say their relationship is cordial. "You can't think negative in here," Dixon says. "The more you resent your situation, the quicker you're going to start dying."
LaMarr Scott says criminal justice personnel pressured him into changing his story by bringing his foster parents into the meeting room and threatening their well-being after they left. The earliest record of Scott re-confessing is a 1994 interview he had with Dixon's attorney. Again in 2002, Scott took responsibility for Torriano Jackson's death in a sworn statement, but this generated nothing of consequence. On confessing to police detectives two days after the shooting, Scott wrote in his 2002 statement, "I was told that they had who they wanted, and to leave the situation up to them."
"No, it didn't happen," Christopher Belling says about pressuring Scott. "[Scott] had his own lawyer, and I don't remember any foster parents being there. . . . [Scott] came to the grand jury, and he told a different story. That was the story the grand jury heard, and that's the story they went with."
Valentino Dixon's theory of the case -- and his conviction -- hasn't wavered. He believes criminal-justice personnel saw an opportunity to halt the ostentatious and rising criminality of his cocaine dealing, and seized it. He says he didn't have a gun that night. He believes the prosecution used Sullivan's pending charge as leverage to get him to testify a certain way. The night of the shooting Dixon had been out on bail for 10 months. When he heard shots, he says, he got out of there as fast as he could.
Belling says that any criminal charges Sullivan faced had no connection or impact on Dixon's case. "Apples and oranges," says Belling.
Besides dealing drugs, Dixon's worst mistake might have been cutting ties with distinguished attorney Don Thompson. "Appeal work goes very slowly. I understood his frustration, but it was a frustrating case for us, too," Thompson says. "Probably for good reasons of their own, the witnesses we were trying to track down didn't want to talk or be found."
Of the handful of witnesses who have surfaced since the murder trial, the most compelling might be Tamara Frida, a social worker with a master's degree who was working in a lab at Buffalo General Hospital in 1991. She says she clearly saw LaMarr Scott shoot Torriano Jackson before she scrambled behind her car. That night a bullet punctured the radiator of her red Geo Tracker, and on the drive home it broke down. Fear of gangland retribution, she says, is what kept her quiet until 1998.
"[Torriano] fell face down in the street, and LaMarr was behind him, shooting. They were headed right toward my car. It all happened maybe 10 yards away," Frida told Golf Digest in March 2012.
A Buffalo police intra-departmental memo dated four days after the shooting documents a phone call from a female who refused to identify herself: "She said Valentino was not the shooter. . . .She was asked if she was the girl from the red Tracker, and she said yes. . . . She would not say if she could identify the shooter. . . . She would think about it and call back later."
Tamara Frida says she was the one who made this phone call, but out of fear she didn't call back.
There have been wrongful convictions in Erie County. In 2008, prosecutors dropped murder charges against Lynn DeJac of Buffalo after 13 years served. In 2010, Anthony Capozzi of Buffalo was awarded $4.25 million for 22 years served for rapes he didn't commit. New DNA evidence overturned both convictions. Unfortunately for Dixon, the particulars of his case make the chance of new DNA evidence virtually nil. The only "scientific" backing Dixon has is the results of a lie-detector test he passed. The administrator of the test, Malcolm Plummer, 75, a career private investigator who now teaches criminal justice at Onondaga Community College, says he is convinced of Dixon's innocence.
As for appeals, Dixon has made three swings, all misses. The best explanation of why his conviction has been upheld is a 100-page report prepared by U.S. Magistrate Victor Bianchini in 2009. The report attempts to sort out which witnesses are telling the truth and which are not. On nearly every matter in dispute the report rules against the prisoner. The report says the statements of investigator Putnam (about Emil Adams) and Tamara Frida both lack "credibility." Magistrate Bianchini writes, "It is quite difficult to believe that [Frida] would stand by silently while Dixon, whom she purportedly knew to be an innocent man, was charged, convicted and imprisoned, based only upon her notion that she might be subject to retribution by persons unknown for reasons unknown." The only statement by LaMarr Scott "which appears to have any reliability, in this Court's opinion, is his sworn testimony before the grand jury, wherein he [said Dixon was the shooter]."
For Jarmon and Brown, the report cites their indictment on four counts of perjury and later conviction, yet omits that each was acquitted on three of the counts. The possible implications of this outcome are not addressed.
"The Magistrate erred in failing to hold a hearing [to hear new witnesses speak] on any issue in this complex case," wrote Jim Ostrowski in 2009, just one attorney who tried for Dixon. "Instead, he relied virtually verbatim on the highly dubious decision in the state court by Judge D'Amico... In the absence of a hearing where the credibility of witnesses could be judged, the Magistrate nevertheless made credibility judgments about witnesses."
Magistrate Bianchini declined to comment with Golf Digest, citing the ethical problem of a judge commenting on a case that is pending.
"A bureaucratic system is set up to protect itself, and so it's not in its interest to admit mistakes," says Ostrowski.
Serving a 39 years-to-life sentence, Dixon will be eligible for parole in 2030, when he is 60. But he maintains hope he will be freed before then. The Exoneration Initiative, an organization that provides free legal assistance to wrongfully convicted persons in New York, has looked into his case. Of all Dixon's dreams, his most vivid is to a draw a golf course from real life. ||||| After 27 years in prison, a man who loves golf walked free today. Not only that, he was given back his innocence. Of course, the state can regift innocence about as capably as it can 27 years.
Nevertheless, the Erie County District Court in Buffalo, N.Y., has vacated the murder conviction of Valentino Dixon, 48, who was serving a 39-years-to-life sentence—the bulk of it in the infamous Attica Correctional Facility—for the 1991 killing of Torriano Jackson. On that hot August night long ago, both were at a loud street party with underage drinking when a fistfight over a girl turned to gunfire.
But before we dive into what really happened, a quick refresher on why golfers might care extra about Valentino Dixon. Six years ago, Golf Digest profiled this inmate who grinds colored pencils to their nubs drawing meticulously detailed golf-scapes. Although Dixon has never hit a ball or even stepped foot on a course, the game hooked him when a golfing warden brought in a photograph of Augusta National’s 12th hole for the inmate to render as a favor. In the din and darkness of his stone cell, the placid composition of grass, sky, water and trees spoke to Dixon. And the endless permutations of bunkers and contours gave him a subject he could play with.
“The guys can’t understand,” Dixon has said. “They always say I don’t need to be drawing this golf stuff. I know it makes no sense, but for some reason my spirit is attuned to this game.”
Pinterest A sampling of Dixon's golf illustrations.
It took about a hundred drawings before Golf Digest noticed, but when we did, we also noticed his conviction seemed flimsy. So we investigated the case and raised the question of his innocence.
The case is complicated, but on the surface it involves shoddy police work, zero physical evidence linking Dixon, conflicting testimony of unreliable witnesses, the videotaped confession to the crime by another man, a public defender who didn’t call a witness at trial, and perjury charges against those who said Dixon didn’t do it. All together, a fairly clear instance of local officials hastily railroading a young black man with a prior criminal record into jail. Dixon’s past wasn’t spotless, he had sold some cocaine, but that didn’t make him a murderer.
Golf Digest’s 2012 article led to further national spotlights on the case by NBC/Golf Channel, CRTV.com, Fox Sports, the Georgetown University Prison Reform Project and others. Alongside this, Dixon’s daughter, Valentina, led a grassroots campaign to raise money for her father’s legal fees by selling his artwork online. Still, the gears of the legal system refused to turn. As of Christmas 2017, appeals exhausted, Dixon’s petitions for pardon or clemency drew no response from New York governor Andrew Cuomo’s office.
But now suddenly, a vacated conviction—which means innocence—a far more lofty legal victory. Why now?
It rises from a confluence of factors, according to Donald Thompson, who along with Alan Rosenthal, filed Dixon's latest motion (which included the Golf Digest article) pro bono. “Once a case crosses a certain threshold of media attention, it matters, even though it shouldn’t,” Thompson says. “It’s embarrassing for the legal system that for a long time the best presentation of the investigation was from a golf magazine.”
Thompson says Golf Digest’s work eventually was eclipsed by the recent report filed by the Erie County district attorney’s wrongful convictions unit, which is a new type of department popping up in various districts these days. Their report was helped by the Georgetown University students, a group of undergraduates who have also created documentaries, websites and social-media campaigns around three other individuals thought to be wrongfully imprisoned, as part of a class. “They did a great job of speaking to witnesses who could still be located, as well as getting Chris Belling [who prosecuted Dixon] to say things at variance with positions he’s argued in the past.”
Pinterest Dixon rubbed colored pencils to their nubs while drawing.
Also not to be discounted is the value of fresh blood. Frank Sedita III, the longtime Erie County district attorney who’s said that society ought to be more concerned with “wrongful acquittals,” is out. The new man, John Flynn, has been in the job a year, and it’s basically due to his blessing that Dixon was released.
Of course, one small matter to be addressed before a man’s guilt is absolved is to place it on someone else. Just before Dixon walked out of the courthouse, LaMarr Scott walked in and officially plead guilty to Jackson’s murder. Scott admitted responsibility the night of the shooting and has for decades since (including to Golf Digest), with the exception of a brief window of time when Belling pressured him to say otherwise. Scott is already serving a life sentence for a 1993 shooting in an armed robbery that left one victim a quadriplegic. Tacking on a concurrent sentence for Jackson’s murder doesn’t change his prospects, other than maybe making any future parole a slimmer possibility.
Where’s Dixon heading after the courthouse? “I’m going to Red Lobster to celebrate with my family and my support team, then we’re going to go a park,” he said. The next day he’s going to visit his grandmother, and the day after that he’s going to buy a cellphone and register for a passport at the post office so he can visit his wife of 12 years, Louise, who lives in Australia. She has a golden heart, and the two met because she has spent her life seeking to help those she can.
“So many times I’ve come close [to giving up], but God kept giving me the strength to keep on and now I know why," Dixon told me by phone, hours after learning of his impending freedom.
The careers of the people who put Dixon away will not be impacted. All have either retired or moved to new positions. “The positive is that this case could serve as a shining example to wrongful convictions units elsewhere,” Thompson says.
Lesser men would’ve broken. With his mind and body in tact, Dixon hopefully has some good years ahead. Maybe he’ll even take up golf. ||||| Valentino Dixon smiles outside Erie County Court in Buffalo, N.Y., on Wednesday, Sept. 19, 2018, following a hearing at which he was cleared of a murder charge that kept him in prison for 27 years. Family... (Associated Press)
BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) — A New York prison artist who never played golf but became known for drawings of lush courses he could only imagine was set free Wednesday after authorities agreed that another man committed the murder that put him behind bars for nearly three decades.
Valentino Dixon walked out of Erie County Court into bright sunshine and hugs from his mother, daughter and a crowd of other relatives and friends, ready for a meal at Red Lobster and vowing to fight on behalf of others who are wrongly convicted.
"I love y'all," Dixon shouted after trading the green prison uniform he wore in court for jeans and a T-shirt. "It feels great."
Earlier Wednesday, a judge agreed to set aside Dixon's conviction in the 1991 shooting death of 17-year-old Torriano Jackson on a Buffalo street corner and accepted a guilty plea from another man who had confessed to the killing two days after it happened.
"There was a fight. Shots were fired. I grabbed the gun from under the bench, switched it to automatic, all the bullets shot out. Unfortunately, Torriano ended up dying," Lamarr Scott, who has been in prison for 25 years for an unrelated attempted murder, told the court. "I dropped the gun and ran and it was over and done with."
Scott said he had gotten the gun, a Tec-9 semi-automatic, from Dixon and the two men had driven together to the crowded corner where the fighting broke out. Scott was given a sentence of 8 1/3 to 25 years in prison, concurrent with his current term.
Judge Susan Eagan let stand a count of criminal possession of a weapon against Dixon, and its 5- to 15-year sentence, which she said he had satisfied.
"You are eligible for release today," the judge said, igniting applause and shouts from courtroom supporters.
"Mr. Dixon is not an innocent man. Don't be misguided in that at all," Erie County District Attorney John Flynn told reporters after the hearing. He described Dixon as "an up-and-coming drug dealer in the city of Buffalo" at the time of the shooting and said Scott was Dixon's bodyguard.
"Mr. Dixon is innocent of the shooting and of the murder for what he was found guilty of," he said, "but Mr. Dixon brought the gun to the fight. It was Mr. Dixon's gun."
While behind bars, Dixon rekindled his childhood passion for drawing, often spending 10 hours a day creating vivid colored pencil landscapes, including of golf courses, while imagining freedom. Articles in Golf Digest and elsewhere have drawn public attention to Dixon's case, as well as a documentary produced by Georgetown University students as part of a prison reform course last spring.
The class worked with Dixon's attorney, Donald Thompson, to have the conviction overturned.
"It went so far beyond reasonable doubt that it's pretty outrageous that he would have been convicted and it would have been upheld," said Marc Howard, director of the university's Prisons and Justice Initiative. Howard taught the course with childhood friend, Marty Tankleff, who also spent years wrongfully imprisoned.
Dixon said he will keep drawing, while working on behalf of other prisoners.
"If you don't have any money in this system, it's hard to get justice because the system is not equipped or designed to give a poor person a fair trial," he said. "So we have a lot of work ahead of us."
His daughter, Valentina Dixon, was a baby when her father went to prison. She brought her 14-month-old twins, Ava and Levi, to court from their Columbus, Ohio, home.
"We're definitely going to go shopping and go explore life," she said. "I can't wait to get him a cellphone and teach him how to Snapchat."
Dixon's mother, Barbara Dixon, said she was in shock after relying on her faith while fighting for his release.
"We're going to Red Lobster," she said when asked what was next. "And everybody's invited." | – A New York inmate who has never golfed a game in his life is now a free man, with his innocence restored to him thanks to the game. Golf Digest has the incredible conclusion to the story of Valentino Dixon, a 48-year-old who caught the magazine's attention six years ago, when it profiled the detailed colored-pencil drawings he did of golf courses, a passion that began when a warden asked him to illustrate Augusta National’s 12th hole using a photograph. He spent as many as 10 hours a day drawing, and the magazine dove into his art as well as his story. It seemed off. He was serving a 39-years-to-life sentence for the August 1991 murder of 17-year-old Torriano Jackson at a Buffalo street party, reports the AP. What Golf Digest found when it started digging didn't exactly inspire confidence in the conviction: Though the gun was Dixon's, there was no physical evidence, unreliable witnesses, and another man's confession to the crime just two days after it occurred, among other things. Its 2012 article spurred national media coverage and interest from the Georgetown University Prison Reform Project, but as of 2017, things seemed at a dead end. The article explains the "confluence of factors" that went on to fuel Dixon's vacated conviction, which included the magazine's work and attention on the case from the Erie County district attorney’s wrongful convictions unit. After 27 years behind bars, Dixon was released on Wednesday. Read the full story for more on the man who has now admitted to the shooting and what Dixon plans to do now. |
After helping to ignite a firestorm over a possible nuclear agreement with Iran, Senator John McCain, a former Republican presidential candidate, is now sort of acknowledging his error. “Maybe that wasn’t exactly the best way to do that,” he said on Fox News on Tuesday.
He was referring to the disgraceful and irresponsible letter that he and 46 Senate colleagues sent to Iran’s leaders this week that generated outrage from Democrats and even some conservatives.
The letter was an attempt to scare the Iranians from making a deal that would limit their nuclear program for at least a decade by issuing a warning that the next president could simply reverse any agreement. It was a blatant, dangerous effort to undercut the president on a grave national security issue by communicating directly with a foreign government.
Maybe Mr. McCain, who is chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, should have thought about the consequences before he signed the letter, which was drafted by Tom Cotton, a Republican of Arkansas, a junior senator with no foreign policy credentials. Instead of trying to be leaders and statesmen, the Republicans in Congress seem to think their role is outside the American government, divorced from constitutional principles, tradition and the security interests of the American people. ||||| TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran's supreme leader said Thursday that a letter from Republican lawmakers warning that any nuclear deal could be scrapped by the next U.S. president is a sign of "disintegration" in Washington.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called the letter a sign of "the collapse of political ethics and the U.S. system's internal disintegration," according to the official IRNA news agency. It was the first reaction to the letter by Khamenei, who has the final say over all major policies.
Khamenei said states typically remain loyal to their commitments even if governments change, " but American senators officially announced the commitment will be null and void after this government leaves office. Isn't this the ultimate degree of the collapse of political ethics and the U.S. system's internal disintegration?"
Khamenei said that whenever the talks approach a deadline, "the tone of the other party, particularly the Americans, becomes harsher, harder and more violent. This is part of their tricks and deceits."
However, he said, "Iranian officials know what they are doing."
Khamenei has generally supported the talks, but he frequently expresses doubt over the true intentions of the U.S. and other Western nations.
The supreme leader said a "Zionist clown" had delivered a speech in Washington, an apparent reference to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's address to Congress earlier this month, in which he argued against the emerging agreement.
The U.S. and five world powers are negotiating with Iran to try and reach a framework agreement this month and a final accord in July which would curb Tehran's nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief.
Western nations have long suspected that Iran is covertly pursuing a nuclear weapons capability. Iran insists its program is entirely devoted to civilian applications. ||||| Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) appeared on "Fox and Friends" this morning to discuss the open letter he and 46 of his Republican colleagues in the Senate are sending today to Iranian leaders about the ongoing nuclear negotiations between their country and the U.S.
"Many Iran experts say that Iran's leaders don't understand our Constitution," Cotton said. "So they need to understand that under our Constitution, Congress plays a very important role of approving international agreements. And any deal that isn't approved by the Congress won't be accepted by the Congress, now or in the future."
Cotton said he hopes more Republicans, Democrats and possible presidential candidates also sign the letter.
"We already have four Senators on the letter who are thinking about running for president," Cotton revealed. "Rick Perry said last week that he wouldn't honor a deal that doesn't go through Congress. I've spoken privately with other presidential candidates who might join us. And for that matter, I would encourage Hillary Clinton to join us in saying that Congress must approve any nuclear deal with Iran."
"Many Senate Democrats have been strong on this issue. They think that we need to approve any nuclear deal with Iran, but the White House is putting a lot of pressure on Senate Democrats to hold their fire," Cotton explained.
Cotton said they don't know yet what the final terms of the proposed agreement are, but he does know that National Security Advisor Susan Rice has already conceded that Iran will have a robust nuclear enrichment capability.
Cotton added that the president has said that this deal will have a sunset clause, perhaps as soon as ten years.
"Those two terms alone make this deal unacceptable, dangerous to the United States and dangerous to the world," Cotton stated.
Watch more above and read the open letter below. | – The 47 GOP senators who sent a letter to Iran's leadership about nuclear negotiations likely anticipated the reaction they got from President Obama. But some were taken aback by public backlash, and now they have another opinion to mull: that of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who said today through Iran's state news agency that the letter is a sign of "the collapse of political ethics and the US system's internal disintegration," the AP reports. The country's leader mentioned how, according to the letter, any deal made now would "be null and void after this government leaves office" and that states typically stick with previously made promises no matter who's in charge. Khamenei then accused those handling the nuclear deal negotiations of putting pressure on Iran, stating that in the 11th hour, "the tone of the other party, particularly the Americans, becomes harsher, harder, and more violent. This is part of their tricks and deceits." And, despite a statement by the letter's main driver, Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton, on Monday's Fox & Friends that "many Iran experts say that Iran's leaders don't understand our Constitution," Khamenei assured everyone today that "Iranian officials know what they are doing." Meanwhile, a scathing New York Times editorial addresses the "Republican idiocy on Iran," calling the senators' letter "disgraceful and irresponsible" and accusing GOPers of "being willing to sabotage any deal with Iran (before they know the final details)" and "diminish America's standing as a global power capable of crafting international commitments and adhering to them." Even Sen. John McCain, who partially blamed the letter's haste on an approaching snowstorm, is reconsidering the missive. "Maybe that wasn't exactly the best way to do that," he said Tuesday on Fox News, per the Times. |
BERLIN (AP) — A series of lines scratched into rock in a cave near the southwestern tip of Europe could be proof that Neanderthals were more intelligent and creative than previously thought.
This undated image provided by Journal shows a Neanderthal rock engraving at Gorham’s Cave in Gibraltar. The series of lines scratched into the rock could be proof that Neanderthals were more intelligent... (Associated Press)
The cross-hatched engravings inside Gorham's Cave in Gibraltar are the first known examples of Neanderthal rock art, according to a team of scientists who studied the site. The find is significant because it indicates that modern humans and their extinct cousins shared the capacity for abstract expression.
The study, released Monday by the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, examined grooves in a rock that had been covered with sediment. Archaeologists had previously found artifacts associated with Neanderthal culture in the overlying layer, suggesting that the engravings must be older, said Clive Finlayson, one of the study's authors.
"It is the last nail in the coffin for the hypothesis that Neanderthals were cognitively inferior to modern humans," said Paul Tacon, an expert in rock art at Australia's Griffith University. Tacon, who was not involved in the study, said the research showed that the engravings were made with great effort for ritual purposes, to communicate with others, or both.
"We will never know the meaning the design held for the maker or the Neanderthals who inhabited the cave but the fact that they were marking their territory in this way before modern humans arrived in the region has huge implications for debates about what it is to be human and the origin of art," said Tacon.
Not everyone is convinced: Another recently published study examining the dating of various archaeological sites across Europe raises the possibility that the artifacts may not have been made by Neanderthals but by modern humans. Neanderthals disappeared between 41,030 and 39,260 years ago, while modern humans arrived in Europe about 45,000-43,000 years ago, according to that study, leaving several thousand years of overlap.
"Any discovery that helps improve the public image of Neanderthals is welcome," said Clive Gamble, an archaeologist at the University of Southampton, England. "We know they spoke, lived in large social groups, looked after the sick, buried their dead and were highly successful in the ice age environments of northern latitudes. As a result rock engraving should be entirely within their grasp."
"What is critical, however, is the dating," said Gamble. "While I want Neanderthals to be painting, carving and engraving, I'm reserving judgment."
But Finlayson, who is the director of the heritage division at the Gibraltar Museum, is certain that the artifacts, and therefore the engravings, were made by Neanderthals.
"All European Neanderthal fossil sites from this period, including Devil's Tower Rock Shelter just one mile from Gorham's Cave, have this technology associated," he said in an email. "In contrast no modern human site in Europe has this type of technology. So we are confident that the tools were made by Neanderthals."
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Follow Frank Jordans on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/wirereporter ||||| An engraving found at a cave in Gibraltar may be the most compelling evidence yet for Neanderthal art.
The pattern, which bears a passing resemblance to the grid for a game of noughts and crosses, was inscribed on a rock at the back of Gorham's Cave.
Image copyright STEWART FINLAYSON
Mounting evidence suggests Neanderthals were not the brutes they were characterised as decades ago.
But art, a high expression of abstract thought, was long considered to be the exclusive preserve of our own species.
The scattered candidates for artistic expression by Neanderthals have not met with universal acceptance.
However, the geometric pattern identified in Gibraltar, on the southern tip of Europe, was uncovered beneath undisturbed sediments that have also yielded Neanderthal tools.
Details of the discovery by an international team of researchers has been published in the journal PNAS.
There is now ample evidence that Neanderthal intellectual abilities may have been underestimated. Recent finds suggest they intentionally buried their dead, adorned themselves with feathers, painted their bodies with black and red pigments, and consumed a more varied diet than had previously been supposed.
One of the study's authors, Prof Clive Finlayson, director of the Gibraltar Museum, said the latest find "brings the Neanderthals closer to us, yet again".
Image copyright Stewart & Clive Finlayson, Gibraltar Museum Image caption Gorham's Cave is located on the south-east face of Gibraltar
Image copyright Stewart & Clive Finlayson, Gibraltar Museum Image caption Today, the sea is a short distance away, but when the cave was first inhabited, the shore was several kilometres away
Previous candidates for Neanderthal cave art exist, including motifs from caves in northern and southern Spain. Possible jewellery has been found at a site in central France, and there are even claims Neanderthals were responsible for an early musical instrument - a bone "flute" found at Divje Babe in Slovenia.
These proposed flickerings of abstract thought among our ancient relatives have all proven controversial. But the authors of the PNAS study went to great lengths to demonstrate the intentional nature of the Gorham's Cave design.
In order to understand how the markings were made, experimental grooves were made using different tools and cutting actions on blocks of dolomite rock similar to the one at Gorham's cave.
The method that best matched the engraving was one in which a pointed tool or cutting edge was carefully and repeatedly inserted into an existing groove and passed along in the same direction. This, the authors argue, would appear to rule out an accidental origin for the design, such as cutting meat or fur on top of the rock.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption 'Compelling evidence' for Neanderthal art has been found in cave in Gibraltar
Francesco d'Errico is director of research at the French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) in Bordeaux, and oversaw these experiments.
"[Dolomite] is a very hard rock, so it requires a lot of effort to produce the lines," he told BBC News.
The archaeologist estimates that the full engraving would have required 200-300 strokes with a stone cutting tool, taking at least an hour to create.
"If you did it in a single session, you would most probably injure your hand, unless you cover your tool with a piece of skin," he said.
Prof d'Errico explained that the rock was in a very visible location in the cave and that the engraving would have stood out to any visitors.
"It does not necessarily mean that it is symbolic - in the sense that it represents something else - but it was done on purpose," he said.
Clive Finlayson said team members deliberately avoided speculation in their scientific paper as they wanted it to be a "watertight" description of the discovery. But, he explained: "One intriguing aspect is that the engraving is at the point in the cave where the cave's orientation changes by 90 degrees.
Image copyright Stewart & Clive Finlayson, Gibraltar Museum Image caption Team members Prof Joaquin Rodriguez Vidal (L) and Francisco Giles Pacheco (R) inspect the engraving
Image copyright Stewart & Clive Finlayson, Gibraltar Museum Image caption The geometric pattern was discovered during excavation work by an international team in July 2012
"It's almost like Clapham Junction, like it's showing an intersection. I'm speculating, but it does make you wonder whether it has something to do with mapping, or saying: 'This is where you are'."
Prof d'Errico added: "It's in a fixed location so, for example, it could be something to indicate to other Neanderthals visiting the cave that somebody was already using it, or that there was a group that owned that cave."
The researchers also carried out an analysis of the likely position of the person when they were making the engraving, and whether it was likely to have been made by a left- or right-hander, but they have decided not to publish these results for the time being.
The engraving was first spotted in July 2012 by Francisco Giles Pacheco, an eagle-eyed team member who is director of the Archaeological Museum of El Puerto Santa Maria, Spain.
Sediments covering the engraving have previously yielded stone tools made in the Mousterian style, which is considered diagnostic of Neanderthals. However, other researchers note that such artefacts turn up in North Africa, where there is no trace of habitation by Neanderthals. They have previously reasoned that if Homo sapiens made the Mousterian tools in Africa, they might also be responsible for the ones in Gibraltar.
Some 28km of sea separates Gibraltar from the coast of North Africa, and if you look south from the Rock on a clear day, it's hard to miss Jebel Musa - part of Morocco's Rif mountains - rising above the horizon. However, Prof Finlayson says there is no evidence that modern humans made the crossing until much later. In addition, he points out, Mousterian tools are associated with Neanderthal skeletal remains at the Devil's Tower site in Gibraltar.
Another possibility is that Neanderthals were imitating the behaviour of modern humans they'd come into contact with. While Homo sapiens was in Europe by around 45,000 years ago, Prof Finlayson says the moderns reached southern Iberia later than some other regions, casting doubt on the copycat idea.
But Dr Matt Pope, a Palaeolithic archaeologist at University College London, who was not involved with the latest study, was less convinced.
"The engravings do appear intentional and it's hard to easily envisage a purely functional explanation for them. Consequently it's useful to consider these structured scratches as deriving from abstract or symbolic thought," he told BBC News.
"But linking them directly to Neanderthal populations, or proving Neanderthals made them without any contact with modern humans is harder. The dates presented here are indirect, referring to material from within sediments covering the engravings and not the marks themselves.
"Given the dates also span a period when we know modern humans have reached Europe, a period where we have unresolved 'transitional' archaeological evidence difficult to attribute to either population, I'd be cautious in accepting Neanderthal authorship."
He added: "Certainly, the Gibraltar team have provided another piece of compelling, important evidence which will help bring this period into sharper focus and under deeper scrutiny."
Follow Paul on Twitter. ||||| NEW YORK (Reuters) - Belying their reputation as the dumb cousins of early modern humans, Neanderthals created cave art, an activity regarded as a major cognitive step in the evolution of humankind, scientists reported on Monday in a paper describing the first discovery of artwork by this extinct species.
The discovery is "a major contribution to the redefinition of our perception of Neanderthal culture," said prehistorian William Rendu of the French National Centre for Scientific Research, who was not involved in the work. "It is a new and even stronger evidence of the Neanderthal capacity for developing complex symbolic thought" and "abstract expression," abilities long believed exclusive to early modern humans.
In recent years researchers have discovered that Neanderthals buried their dead, adorned themselves with black and red pigments, wore shell and feather jewelry and cared for the elderly and infirm, all evidence of complex thought. But no unambiguously Neanderthal art was ever found.
The new study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, could change that.
Researchers from 11 European institutions reported that deep in Gorham's Cave in Gibraltar, overlooking the Mediterranean Sea, they found carvings that resemble nothing so much as a rococo Twitter hashtag: eight partially crisscrossing lines with three shorter lines on the right and two on the left, incised on a shelf of bedrock jutting out from the wall about 16 inches (40 cm) above the cave floor.
The engraving is covered by undisturbed sediment that contains 294 previously discovered stone tools. They are in a style long known as the signature of Neanderthals, who had reached Europe from Africa some 300,000 years ago.
Standard techniques had dated the tools at 39,000 years old, about when Neanderthals went extinct, meaning the art below it must be older.
Modern humans, who painted the famous caves at Lascaux in France and Altimira in Spain, by then had not reached the region where Gorham's Cave is located.
The researchers ruled out the possibility that the engravings were accidental or from cutting meat or animal skins. Instead, they were made by repeatedly and intentionally using a sharp stone tool to etch the rock, reflecting persistence and determination: one line required at least 54 strokes and the entire pattern as many as 317.
"This engraving represents a deliberate design conceived to be seen by its Neanderthal maker and, considering its size and location, by others in the cave as well," anthropologist Clive Finlayson, director of the Gibraltar Museum, and his colleagues wrote. "It follows that the ability for abstract thought was not exclusive" to modern humans.
Another hint that Neanderthals created art came in 2012, when archaeologists dated simple wall paintings (mostly red dots and hand stencils) in Spain's El Castillo Cave to 41,000 years old. That made them the world's oldest prehistoric art and old enough for it to have been made by Neanderthals. But because no artifacts were found, it was not possible to definitively rule out modern humans as the artists.
(Reporting by Sharon Begley; Editing by Dan Grebler) | – An ancient etching inside a cave in Gibraltar may mean that Neanderthals' knuckles weren't dragging quite as much as we believed, reports the BBC. The design suggests Neanderthals were capable of symbolic thinking, a trait once believed to be unique to modern humans, anthropologist Clive Finlayson of the Gibraltar Museum argues in a new study. The 39,000-year-old design was carved in a visible spot so it could have marked cave ownership by a certain group, been part of a map, or even been ritualistic in nature. The design—eight long lines crossing with three shorter ones, as per Reuters—was carved with 317 purposeful strokes into hard dolomite with a stone point. "Is it art? Is it a doodle? I don't know, but it is clearly an abstract design," Finlayson tells National Geographic. This new find doesn't stand alone in the quest to prove Neanderthal smarts. Recent studies show Neanderthals may have tanned hides, buried their dead, decorated their bodies with feathers and pigment, worn jewelry, played a bone "flute," and decorated a Spanish cave. But some scientists say the indirect dating—done with 294 stone tools found in sediment above the carving—doesn’t definitively link it to Neanderthals, the AP reports. And despite no evidence of humans in the area at this time, the period is one of human emigration to Europe, so it's possible they were behind the carving. Finlayson isn't deterred: "No modern human site in Europe has this type of technology. So we are confident that the tools were made by Neanderthals." |
COLERAIN TOWNSHIP, Ohio -- A woman did not lose an unborn child during a mass shooting at a gender reveal party as she'd led some to believe, police said Monday.
The woman, Cheyanne Willis, was not pregnant at the time, police spokesman Jim Love said. He said police would let a prosecutor determine whether she should face charges.
Police Chief Mark Denney said it's just one example of how much time investigators have "wasted following leads known to be lies."
"From the very beginning of this investigation, we have met significant resistance that is uncommon from victims of crime wanting a resolution," Denney said.
Denney said he wasn't trying to embarrass anyone by revealing the fake pregnancy, but wanted to give the public "a fair understanding of the challenges we have faced in the past nine days."
"The Colerain Police Department will not comment further on any other misleading information, other than to say we wish our time had been spent on true leads that would help us remove these dangerous criminals from the streets."
RELATED: Everything we know about Colerain party shooting
Willis did not respond Monday to a request for comment.
The gender reveal party, held July 8 at a home on Capstan Drive, was for her. It's a kind of baby shower, in which an expectant parent or parents share the sex of their unborn child.
Police believe two gunmen entered through the front door and fired 14 rounds while partygoers watched a movie.
Autum Garrett, 22, of Huntington, Indiana, was killed. The victims included five other adults and three children, ages 2, 6 and 8. They have been recovering. The gunfire also injured a dog.
READ MORE: Report reveals new details in Colerain shooting
The gunmen did not say anything, a police report said, and they did not demand any property. They ran off into the night.
Willis spoke off-camera with WCPO's reporter and photographer outside the home the next morning; she was using crutches and claimed she lost her pregnancy after she was shot in the leg. Family friends also told reporters she'd been expecting.
A police report says officers recovered an unloaded handgun from the home's front yard; Denney told WCPO there was no shootout. He said he thought the renter owns the gun.
No one has been arrested, and police haven't identified any suspects. An anonymous donor has offered a $10,000 reward for information leading to arrests.
Anyone with information can call 513-321-COPS or text 513-470-7165, a special line set up for this case. ||||| CLOSE Nine people were shot, one of whom died, at a home on Capstan Drive in Colerain Township Saturday. Some profanity included. Provided
Buy Photo Colerain Township Police Chief Mark Denney speaks at a news conference following a mass shooting that left one dead and eight injured. (Photo: The Enquirer/Cameron Knight)Buy Photo
She lied.
Police say the Colerain Township woman who was hosting a gender-reveal party where nine people were shot July 8 wasn't pregnant at the time of the shooting.
The day after the shooting, relatives said Cheyanne Willis lost her fetus the night of the incident, a detail that was reported by The Enquirer and other local media.
"Sadly, the police department, media and public have been given information we have found to be false," said Colerain Township Police Chief Mark Denney in a Monday news release.
Police say the false information is hampering the investigation into the shooting that killed Autum Garrett, 22, of Andrews, Indiana, and wounded eight others.
Denney said police do not have an explanation as to why Willis, 21, had a gender-reveal party if she was not pregnant. A gender-reveal party is a popular event for expecting families where the gender of the fetus is revealed.
Willis was shot in the leg, treated at University of Cincinnati Medical Center, and released. A family member who was also shot previously said Willis was no longer pregnant after the shooting.
"The purpose of the party was to disclose the gender of Cheyanne Willis' unborn child," the police report on the shooting, filed by a patrol officer, said.
The shooting happened late on a Saturday night after the party that began around 4 p.m. had ended. But more than a dozen people of the 30 who originally were there stayed behind.
"Hours and days have been wasted following leads known to be lies when they were provided to our officers," Denney said. "From the very beginning of this investigation, we have met significant resistance that is uncommon from victims of crime wanting a resolution.
More: New details emerge on Colerain Township shooting, no arrests
"As an example, we were led to believe an unborn child was murdered in this incident only to find out that was not the case. That information is not provided to embarrass anyone, only to provide a fair understanding of the challenges we have faced in the past nine days."
Denney said his department would be consulting with the Hamilton County Prosecutor's Office to "update their office and seek advice on how to proceed with some of our information."
More questions than answers
"All we have at this point is speculation," Denney said Monday about why Willis would hold a party celebrating her non-existent pregnancy.
Dr. Caleb Adler, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, said false pregnancies fall into two categories: volitional or pseudocyesis.
He said a person with pseudocyesis believes she is pregnant and may have physical signs that support that belief, such as weight gain, menstrual irregularity and other traditional indicators of pregnancy.
“It’s very uncommon,” he said. “I think the statistic is one in 22,000 pregnancies.”
Adler stressed that he was speaking generally and was not making a diagnosis or specifically addressing the Colerain Township situation.
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The doctor said when false pregnancy is volitional, when the person knows she is not pregnant but says she is, it can be the result of a personality disorder, a bid for attention, or for personal gain, whether that gain is financial or to affect the course of a relationship.
“It wouldn’t necessarily have to be the result of mental illness,” he said. “People do things for a variety of reasons.”
Monday's development is the most significant to come out of the case since two gunmen walked into the front door of the Capstan Drive home the night of July 8, did not say a word, and fired at least 14 rounds striking nine people including three children while they watched a Spider-Man film. A dog was also struck by a gunfire, police said.
Buy Photo This home in Colerain was the scene of a shooting the night before that left nine shot, one fatal. Three of those injured were children. At the time of the shooting, the group, mostly related, were watching a Spider Man movie, when two gunmen went into the home and began shooting, according to eye witnesses. (Photo: The Enquirer/ Liz Dufour)
Police have not announced any known motive, made any arrests or released any more identifying information on the suspects outside of the fact they were wearing hoodies.
Police did find a gun outside the home, but it was the property of the homeowner and was not involved in the shooting, Denney has said.
Willis is the same woman who was beaten and robbed on Christmas Eve 2015 near the Forest Fair Village mall in Forest Park. Willis was hit and had her hair cut off. The attacker also wrote on her face. The incident, which stemmed from a car robbery, was recorded with a cell phone and the video was posted to social media.
A woman and a man were arrested in connection with that case, but a Hamilton County grand jury ignored the charges and the two were never prosecuted.
It remains unclear if that earlier assault is connected to the July 8 attack.
Autum Garrett, 22, of Andrews, Indiana, was slain during a mass shooting at a Colerain Township home on July 8, 2017. (Photo: Provided)
Visitation and funeral Tuesday for Garrett, mother of 2
Autum Garrett's husband, Bryan, son, Bryan Jr. and daughter Layia were also struck by gunfire at the party.
Bryan Sr. was struck in the eye during the shooting. It's unclear what injuries the children suffered.
The three were treated at Cincinnati hospitals and are preparing for Autum's visitation and funeral service Tuesday at Myers Funeral Home in Huntington, Indiana.
The family established a GoFundMe page to help with the medical bills. It has raised nearly $3,596 of the $5,000 goal as of Monday evening.
More: Co-worker: Autum Garrett, killed in Colerain Township shooting, lived for her family
"We are devastated. We are beyond devastated. We just can't believe this happened," David Moyer, Garrett's supervisor at M & S Industrial Metal Fabricators, Inc. in Huntington previously told The Enquirer. "All she ever talked about was her family. Her husband and her two little ones."
There is a $10,000 reward in the case. Anyone with information is asked to call Colerain police at 513-321-COPS or text them at 513-470-7165.
Chris Graves contributed.
Read or Share this story: https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/local/colerain/2017/07/17/mother/483867001/ ||||| These crawls are part of an effort to archive pages as they are created and archive the pages that they refer to. That way, as the pages that are referenced are changed or taken from the web, a link to the version that was live when the page was written will be preserved.Then the Internet Archive hopes that references to these archived pages will be put in place of a link that would be otherwise be broken, or a companion link to allow people to see what was originally intended by a page's authors.The goal is to fix all broken links on the web . Crawls of supported "No More 404" sites. | – A bizarre twist in the mass shooting at a gender-reveal party near Cincinnati earlier this month: Police say that Cheyanne Willis, the woman hosting the party to disclose the gender of her unborn child, wasn't pregnant at the time. Willis, 21, was shot in the leg and claimed she lost her baby after the shooting, the New York Daily News reports. Seven other people were injured in the shooting and 22-year-old Autum Garrett was killed. "Hours and days have been wasted following leads known to be lies when they were provided to our officers," Colerain Township Police Chief Mark Denney said Monday, adding that investigators have met "significant resistance that is uncommon from victims of crime wanting a resolution." Denney said that "all we have at this point is speculation" about why Willis would hold a gender-reveal party when she wasn't pregnant, the Cincinnati Enquirer reports. Police say prosecutors will decide whether Willis will face charges for lying to investigators, WCPO reports. In a 2015 incident Willis was filmed being beaten and having her hair cut off, but two people arrested for robbery in the case were never prosecuted. It's not clear whether that incident was related to the July 8 party shooting, in which two men walked into the home and fired 14 rounds at a group of people, including several children, who were watching a movie. Police haven't made any arrests or disclosed a possible motive. |
(Jay Paul/for The Washington Post)
The thieves allegedly arrived in the dark of night and worked quietly and meticulously to steal their items — 2½ tons of grapes that the owner of the Virginia vineyard says were on the cusp of being harvested.
It’s a loss worth $50,000 in supplies, labor and potential wine sales for Firefly Hill Vineyards in Elliston, near the Blue Ridge Mountains, about 20 miles from Roanoke.
David Dunkenberger, who has owned the family-run vineyard for 12 years, said he doesn’t know who could have taken the grapes or what the thieves might plan to do with them. He said he doubts another winery would purchase grapes without knowing their history and suspects the thieves might try to sell them outside the area.
“I can handle losing a crop to Mother Nature, but to come in and take my crop in the middle of the night and steal what we’ve worked for for eight months, that’s disheartening,” he said.
Dunkenberger, who lives about a 10-minute drive away, said his daughter took samples of the grapes Sunday, and the family planned to harvest them Tuesday. Dunkenberger said he and his father showed up that morning and “everything was gone.” They suspect the heist occurred earlier that morning.
Dunkenberger estimated it would have taken his team of eight people about 12 hours to pick the grapes and process them properly. Vandals probably made away with his crop in much less time, he said.
“If they were cutting, they could have picked it clean in six hours,” Dunkenberger said. “I have no idea what they will do with them.”
He shared his feelings in several Facebook posts, describing how the 36-acre vineyard is a family experience and how his daughters, his father and others help during the season.
“Cherished memories spoiled by a bunch of low life, no soul, heartless excuses for human beings,” he wrote.
Capt. Brian Wright, a spokesman for the Montgomery County sheriff’s office in Christiansburg, Va., which is investigating the grape theft, said the “million-dollar question” is the whodunit.
A police report indicated “the victim discovered a crop of grapes about to be harvested had been stolen overnight.” Wright said it appeared the grapes had “just been cut off the vine.”
He said the case was unusual for the agency.
“We’ve had cases of plants being stolen,” he said. “The occasional shrubbery or ornamental trees. But we’ve not had a large case of crops.”
A bird netting that normally covers the grapes was still in place when Dunkenberger arrived Tuesday morning. He said the thieves apparently removed the netting, cut the grapes, then replaced it.
Dunkenberger said he expected to have a good crop this year, despite heavy amounts of rain that could have damaged the grapes.
He had planned to use the grapes for two French-American hybrid wines. But with fewer than 200 pounds of grapes available, the business is closed for the time being.
“You work your whole year for the harvest day and we were about to have that,” he said. “We were almost there, and somebody stole it.” ||||| Thank you for Reading.
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You must log in to continue. | – A family-run Virginia winery is indefinitely closed and in the "grieving process" after a theft that stripped it of nearly all its grapes. Allison Dunkenberger, co-owner of Firefly Hill Vineyards in Elliston, tells the Roanoke Times that someone she thinks "knew something about the winery's operations" came onto the property overnight Monday, then cut and removed up to 2.5 tons of grapes from 2,500 vines. The theft came the night before a staff of eight was to harvest the same grapes, husband David Dunkenberger tells the Washington Post. "Quick, efficient, multiple, pathetic pieces of excrement," a post on the vineyard's Facebook page called the pilferers. All that's now left of Firefly Hill's inventory: not even 200 pounds of grapes. "We still can't wrap our heads around this," Allison Dunkenberger says. David Dunkenberger put it more forcefully in his rebuke of "the pieces of cowardly, human scum" behind the theft. "May you die a slow and agonizingly painful death so that when you are writhing in pain someone will be kind enough to offer you a drink of wine so you know for what you suffer," he wrote. Between the grapes themselves, as well as the labor, supplies, and lost sales potential, the Dunkenbergers estimate they're out about $50,000, and Allison Dunkenberger says their insurance doesn't include coverage for crop theft. David Dunkenberger says he suspects whoever took the grapes will try to sell them far away from Elliston. "I can handle losing a crop to Mother Nature, but to ... steal what we've worked for for eight months, that's disheartening," he says. Police are investigating. (In Canada, someone stole 20,000 cases of beer.) |
The lower jaw of an adult male found in Tomb I. This jaw may belong to Philip II, father of Alexander the Great.
A decades-old mystery about the body of Alexander the Great's father has been solved, anthropologists claim.
A new analysis of bones from a Macedonian tomb complex reveals a skeleton with a knee injury so severe that it would have caused a noticeable limp in life. This injury matches some historical records of one sustained by Philip II, whose nascent empire Alexander the Great would expand all the way to India.
The skeleton in question, however, is not the one initially thought to be Philip II's — instead, it comes from the tomb next door. The skeletons are the subject of an entrenched debate among experts on ancient Greece and Macedonia. While some praised the new study, others pushed back, suggesting the new research will not quell 40 years of controversy.
"The knee is the clincher," said Maria Liston, an anthropologist at the University of Waterloo, who was not involved in the new study, which is detailed today (July 20) in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). [See Photos of the Tomb at Vergina and Mysterious 'Philip' Bones]
"This publication in PNAS is incorrect," said Theodore Antikas, a researcher at Aristotle University in Greece and author of another controversial study on bones from the tombs.
A violent history
This artist's impression reveals how the fused bones would have set Philip II's leg in a permanently bent position. Credit: Image Courtesy Arturo Asensio
The story of Philip II is wrought with twists and turns. In 336 B.C., the king was murdered by one of his bodyguards. The motives for the assassination are unclear. Some ancient historians wrote that the murder was an act of revenge stemming from a sordid tale of suicide and sexual assault between Philip II's male lovers and other members of the court.
Whatever the cause, murder was de rigueur for the Macedonian royal family. Within days of Philip II's murder, one of his wives, Olympias — mother of Alexander the Great — let her own homicidal tendencies run free. According to the Latin historian Justin, Olympias killed the newborn daughter of Philip II's newest wife, Cleopatra, in her mother's arms. She then forced Cleopatra to hang herself.
A generation later, after the death of Alexander the Great, the conqueror's half-brother Philip III Arrhidaeus (also spelled Arrhidaios) took the throne. Philip III Arrhidaeus was king in name only, and ancient historians record him as being mentally unfit. His wife, Eurydice, was a warrior, however. She was determined to make her husband more than a figurehead puppet for Alexander's generals, who were by this time vying for power in the void left by his death.
But Philip III Arrhidaeus and Eurydice would lose that battle. In 317 B.C., Olympias came out against them. The couple's troops refused to fight the forces of the mother of Alexander the Great. Olympias had the pair killed and buried. Some months later, they were exhumed and cremated in a display to shore up legitimacy for the next king. [Family Ties: 8 Truly Dysfunctional Royal Families]
Cremation and controversy
Philip II. Cleopatra. Philip III. Eurydice.
When archaeologists uncovered a Macedonian tomb complex near the Greek city of Vergina in the 1970s, they knew they had royal burials on their hands. But which tombs belonged to which royals?
There are three tombs at the site. Tomb I had been plundered in antiquity but contained human remains and an intricate wall painting of the Rape of Persephone. Tomb II was intact. Inside were the cremated bones of a man and a woman, surrounded by armor and other lavish items. Tomb III is widely accepted to belong to Alexander IV, Alexander the Great's son.
Initially, the bodies in lavish Tomb II were identified as those of Philip II and Cleopatra. But debate has raged over possible injuries to the male skull, over the ages and dating of the skeletons, and over whether the bones were burned with flesh on or off. (As Philip III Arridaeus was cremated long after burial, archaeologists looked for signs that the bones had been burned after the flesh had rotted away.) Many archaeologists suspected the two burned bodies were not Philip II and Cleopatra, but Philip III and Eurydice.
The two sides have been lobbing research papers at each other for years, but seemed at an impasse.
"In fact, the issue has become eminently political, and for years a sort of vendetta has been raging between factions," said historian Miltiades Hatzopoulos of International Hellenic University, who was not involved in the new research.
Now, Antonis Bartsiokas of Democritus University of Thrace in Greece has taken a different tact. Instead of examining the burnt bones in Tomb II, he and his team took a close look at three skeletons from the tomb next door.
The smoking gun
The analysis revealed that the man in Tomb I was in his 40s when he died, and stood 5 feet 9 inches tall (180 centimeters) — impressive for the era. The woman died around 18 years of age, based on measurements of the fusion of her bones. She was about 5 feet 4 inches tall (165 cm). The baby was a newborn, probably only a week to three weeks past the due date.
The ages match historical records of Philip II, Cleopatra and their infant. But the real smoking gun, Liston said, was a knee injury on the male skeleton.
The left leg of an adult male skeleton found in Tomb I at Vergina. The thigh bone (femur) and one of the bones of the lower leg (the tibia) are fused, and hole at the knee suggests a devastating penetrating injury. Credit: Image Courtesy Javier Trueba
The man's left thigh bone, or femur, had fused with one of his lower leg bones, the tibia. This fusion left the knee joint frozen in place at a 79-degree angle. A hole in the bone suggests the wound was caused by a penetrating injury from a projectile, such as a spear.
And that's where things get exciting. According to historical records, Philip II was injured in the leg during a battle in 345 B.C. He then limped for the rest of his life.
"When I found the femur fused to the tibia at the knee joint, I suddenly remembered the leg injury of Philip, but I could not recall any details," Bartsiokas told Live Science. "I then ran to study the historical evidence."
He found a description of Philip II's wounds in the writings of the ancient historian Justin. "At that moment," he wrote in an email to Live Science, "I knew the bone must belong to Philip!" [Bones With Names: Long-Dead Bodies Archaeologists Have Identified]
The injury does match descriptions of Philip II's limp, the University of Waterloo's Liston said.
"This was a devastating injury that separated the knee joint and left it probably completely unstable until it fused," Liston told Live Science. The pain would have been excruciating, she said.
After reading the new PNAS paper, she said, she asked two middle-age men at her lab in Athens to stand on one foot, with the toes of the other foot just touching the ground. The angles of their knees were 72 degrees and 80 degrees. This ad hoc experiment suggests that, like Philip II, the man in the tomb could have walked, but only with difficulty. He probably could have ridden a horse — but he may have been vulnerable in hand-to-hand combat.
"This injury may also explain why Philip, a skilled warrior, was so utterly unable to fight off the assassins," Liston said. "With this knee, he would have limited mobility and very poor balance."
An end to controversy?
If Philip II and his wife and baby occupy Tomb I, it stands to reason that Philip III and his wife are the contested skeletons in Tomb II, Bartsiokas and his colleagues write today (July 20) in PNAS. [See Images of the Tomb II and Bones Inside]
Whether the finding will rewrite history remains to be seen. The museum at the site of the Royal Tombs of Vergina identifies Tomb II, not Tomb I, as belonging to Philip II. So does UNESCO, which classifies the monuments as a royal heritage site.
"These are bold claims that I don't think will be very welcome in certain quarters in Greece," said Jonathan Musgrave, an anatomist at the University of Bristol, who has argued that the bones in Tomb II belong to Philip II and Cleopatra.
Indeed, researchers who have argued for Tomb II as Philip II's final resting place were not quickly convinced by the new study. In 2014, two bags of human and animal bones were found in a storage area with plaster from Tomb I, Antikas told Live Science. He and his team have analyzed those bones, he said, and found that Tomb I contained not two adults and a baby as discussed in Bartsiokas' new paper, but two adults, a teenager, a fetus and three newborns. Those findings have yet to be published in a peer-reviewed journal, pending permission for further study from Greece's Central Archaeological Council, Antikas said.
"Any prejudgment concerning the occupants is impossible before the complete context is re-examined," said Chrysoula Paliadeli, an archaeologist at the director of the Aristotle University excavations at Vergina.
Even the "smoking gun" leg wound falls under scrutiny; ancient historians were not always very detailed or clear with their sourcing. Bartsiokas and his team trust the writings of Demosthenes, a contemporary of Philip II, who simply wrote that the king was wounded in his leg. But 300 years later historian Didymos wrote that Philip's wound was in his right thigh, said Hatzopoulos of International Hellenic University. The wound on the skeleton analyzed by Bartsiokas was on the left leg.
It might seem natural to trust the historian who was writing at the time of Philip II's life versus the one writing 300 years later, but Didymos' source was probably Theopompos, who did live at the same time as Philip II, Hatzopoulos said.
"Having followed this controversy through four decades I have come to the conclusion that in this particular issue one cannot put much faith in the so-called 'exact sciences,'" Hatzopoulos said. "Reputed scientists have contradicted one another time and time again."
Bartsiokas and his team seemed prepared for ongoing strife.
"I think that we have made a very strong case," said study co-author Juan-Luis Arsuaga of the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. "Now the focus of attention will turn to Tomb I. I am open to debate."
Editor's Note: This article was updated to correct a mention of Desmothenes that should be Didymos.
Follow Stephanie Pappas on Twitterand Google+. Follow us @livescience, Facebook& Google+. Original article on Live Science. ||||| The knee ankylosis and the hole through it ties perfectly with the penetrating wound and lameness suffered by Philip II and conclusively identifies him as the occupant of Tomb I in Vergina, Greece. The age estimates of the three occupants are consistent with those derived from the historical sources. Cleopatra's (Philip’s wife) child was born a few days before Philip II’s assassination and both were murdered soon after Philip’s assassination. It follows that Tomb II belongs to King Arrhidaeus and his wife Eurydice and may well contain some of the armor of Alexander the Great. Thus, a nearly 40-y-old mystery concerning the Royal Tombs of Vergina has finally been solved that puzzled historians, archaeologists, and physical anthropologists.
Abstract
King Philip II was the father of Alexander the Great. He suffered a notorious penetrating wound by a lance through his leg that was nearly fatal and left him lame in 339 B.C.E. (i.e., 3 y before his assassination in 336 B.C.E.). In 1977 and 1978 two male skeletons were excavated in the Royal Tombs II and I of Vergina, Greece, respectively. Tomb I also contained another adult (likely a female) and a newborn skeleton. The current view is that Philip II was buried in Tomb II. However, the male skeleton of Tomb II bears no lesions to his legs that would indicate lameness. We investigated the skeletal material of Tomb I with modern forensic techniques. The male individual in Tomb I displays a conspicuous case of knee ankylosis that is conclusive evidence of lameness. Right through the overgrowth of the knee, there is a hole. There are no obvious signs that are characteristic of infection and osteomyelitis. This evidence indicates that the injury was likely caused by a severe penetrating wound to the knee, which resulted in an active inflammatory process that stopped years before death. Standard anthropological age-estimation techniques based on dry bone, epiphyseal lines, and tooth analysis gave very wide age ranges for the male, centered around 45 y. The female would be around 18-y-old and the infant would be a newborn. It is concluded that King Philip II, his wife Cleopatra, and their newborn child are the occupants of Tomb I. ||||| There are many unrecorded conquerors, battles and Romeo and Juliets in the vastness of prehistory whose stories are waiting to be told. Prehistoric finds like Hoyo Negro's earliest American, the Hobbit-like species Homo floresiensis and insight into the first artists suggest the best stories may await discovery. New Fossils Help Bring Hobbit Humans to Life
While 17 new pyramids were discovered in Egypt in 2011 alone, using infrared satellite technology, a previously unknown pharaoh named Woseribre Senebkay and the necropolis of his dynasty were found earlier this year. Long-Lost Pyramids Found?
Unique findings include a Gate to Hell in Hierapoils, in southwestern Turkey, complete with animals that died from getting too close. Known as Pluto's Gate -- Ploutonion in Greek, Plutonium in Latin -- the cave was celebrated as the portal to the underworld in Greco-Roman mythology and tradition. Photos: 'Gate to Hell' Guardians Found
The list of findings from the last few years goes on and on and includes Captain Kidd's shipwreck. The wreckage of Quedagh Merchant, the ship abandoned by the 17th century pirate Captain William Kidd as he raced to New York in an ill-fated attempt to clear his name, was found in less than 10 feet of Caribbean seawater by a team from Indiana University. Most Famous Pirates of the Caribbean
A small village in Greece might be home to the greatest discovery of the new century. The largest ancient tomb ever found in Greece has been dated to the period of Alexander the Great. A 16-foot lion statue sits atop the tomb and two sphinxes guard an entrance bricked up with granite blocks weighing a ton each. As the excavation progresses, archaeologists have uncovered two incredible female caryatid statues, mosaic floors and three chambers. Greek Tomb's Female Sculptures Fully Revealed
Decades of underwater research have provided us with a good understanding of our maritime past. But there has been one looming gap: ancient warships. After years of searching, the site of the Battle of the Egadi Islands, the decisive climax to the First Punic War, was discovered off the coast of Sicily. The site has yielded 11 warship rams, as the one depicted in this picture, as well as armament and amphoras (container vases) that were meant to resupply Hamilcar Barca's forces, Hannibal's father. Photos: Biggest Shipwreck Finds in History
Machu Picchu was not known to the outside world until 1911, but what lost cities are awaiting discovery today? Three ancient Mayan cities were recently discovered and researchers say they think more are in the surrounding area. Photos: The Hunt for Lost Cities
Have the most important temples, tombs, pyramids, cities, and civilizations been found? Not at all, according to Peter B. Campbell, director of archaeology at the Albanian Center for Marine Research. "The greatest age of discovery is happening right now. And the real fun is just about to begin," Campbell said.
The “Tomb of Philip” in the northern Greek town of Vergina does not belong to King Philip II of Macedon, says new research which fuels the long-standing dispute over the final resting place of Alexander the Great’s father.
According to the study, a skeleton found in an adjacent tomb shows evidence of a leg wound which is consistent with the one sustained by Philip II, as reported by some historical accounts.
The claim is in stark contrast to other research published two months ago which maintains Alexander the Great’s father was indeed buried in the famous “Tomb of Philip.”
Photos: Great Archaeological Discoveries Ahead
Scholars have argued over Philip II’s tomb ever since Greek archaeologist Manolis Andronikos discovered the site of his likely burial in 1977-78. He excavated a large mound — the Great Tumulus — at Vergina on the advice of the English classicist Nicholas Hammond.
Among the monuments found within the tumulus were three tombs. One, called Tomb I, had been looted, but contained a stunning wall painting of the Rape of Persephone, along with fragmentary human remains.
Tomb II remained undisturbed and contained the almost complete cremated remains of a male skeleton in the main chamber and the cremated remains of a female in the antechamber. Grave goods included silver and bronze vessels, gold wreaths, weapons, armor and two gold larnakes.
Tomb III was also found undisturbed, with a silver funerary urn that contained the bones of a young male, and a number of silver vessels and ivory reliefs.
“There is an unanimous agreement that Tomb III, which has a façade strikingly similar to that of Tomb II, belongs to Alexander the Great’s son, Alexander IV,” Antonis Bartsiokas of the Democritus University of Thrace and Juan-Luis Arsuaga of the Centro Mixto Universidad Complutense de Madrid and colleagues wrote in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
In fact, most of the scholarly debate concentrates on the occupants of Tomb II.
“Despite anthropological and archaeological evidence that the tomb belongs to King Arrhidaeus and his wife Eurydice, the archaeological establishment still maintains that Tomb II belongs to Philip II,” the researchers wrote.
Remains of Alexander the Great's Father Confirmed Found
A powerful 4th century B.C. military ruler from the Greek kingdom of Macedon, King Philip II gained control of Greece and the Balkan peninsula through tactful use of warfare, diplomacy, and marriage alliances (the Macedonians practiced polygamy).
His efforts — he reformed the Macedonian army and proposed the invasion of Persia — later provided the basis for the achievements of his son and successor Alexander the Great, who went on to conquer most of the known world.
The overlord of an empire stretching from Greece and Egypt eastward across Asia to India, Alexander died in Babylon, now in central Iraq, in June of 323 B.C. — just before his 33rd birthday.
His elusive tomb is one of the great unsolved mysteries of the ancient world.
Using scanning and radiography, Bartsiokas and colleagues analyzed a partial skeleton of a middle-aged male that had been long disinterred from Tomb I at Vergina.
The researchers judged the individual to be around 45 when he died, matching the age at which Philip was killed, and estimated he was 5.9 feet tall.
Photos: Female Sculptures Revealed in Greek Tomb
They noticed the individual had a knee joint showing signs of fusion (ankylosis), and a hole through the overgrowth of the knee, likely produced by a penetrating instrument, such as a fast-moving projectile, like a spear.
The wound “would have affected locomotion and rendered the person lame, with an uneven gait,” the researchers concluded.
According to some historical reports, a lance impaled Philip’s leg three years before his assassination in 336 BC, leaving him lame.
The injury “is conclusive evidence for the identification of one tomb occupant as Philip,” the researchers said.
Bartsiokas and colleagues also stated that Tomb I contains the remains of a 18-year-old female and a 42-week-old infant of unknown gender.
The researchers believe the individuals are Philip’s wife Cleopatra, and their newborn child, both killed shortly after Philip’s death. He was killed by his bodyguard Pausanias as he walked into a theater in the Macedonian capital of Aegae.
“As a consequence, Tomb II could only belong to King Arrhidaeus and Eurydice and may well contain some of the armor of Alexander the Great,” Bartsiokas and colleagues concluded.
However, according to Theodore Antikas, author of another study which concluded the bones found in Tomb II are those of Philip II and a Scythian princess, Bartsiokas and colleagues are missing a point—or more precisely, some bones.
In a letter to the editor of PNAS, Antikas, head of the anthropological research team of Vergina Excavation at Aristotle University, maintains Bartsiokas’s research has been done on a small part of the bones found in Tomb I in 1977-78.
According to the researcher, the bones from Tomb I took different routes ever since their discovery. Some were first kept at Vergina, and some were sent to the Archaeological Museum in Thessaloniki (AMT). ||||| Portrait of King Philip II of Macedonia in his late years, after having received a wound through his left leg by a lance. Credit: Arturo Asensio. A team of researchers from Greece, Spain and France has found evidence that suggests that the bones of King Phillip II of Macedon—father of Alexander the Great, were those found in Tomb I, not those found in Tomb II at the burial site in Vergina, Macedonia. The team's work and their findings have been published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Back in 1977, archeologists discovered ancient tombs at Vergina, and soon thereafter, researchers began offering arguments regarding the identities of the skeletons that were found in them—the focus of most of the attention has been on Tombs I and II, because it is believed they were the final resting place for some of Alexander the Great's relatives—most specifically, his father. Early on, many believed the bones found in Tomb II were his, though the identity of others buried along with him remained a matter of speculation. This theory was further bolstered by work done by a team of researches with results published just this past May. In this new effort, the researchers cite evidence that they believe proves bones found in Tomb I are those of Phillip, and that furthermore, other bones in the same tomb belong to his wife Cleopatra and his newly born baby.
The most striking evidence comes in the form of a leg bone—an upper thigh fused to a shin at the knee with a hole in it—it appears to align with historical texts that describe Philip as suffering a wound from a lance. Additional testing showed the bone had fused and smoothed over just a few years time, which also agrees with writings from the time—Phillip was murdered just a few years after suffering the injury. Dating showed the skeletal remains to be that of man approximately 45 years old, which is consistent with the age at which Philip reportedly died. The ancient writings also describe Cleopatra as being young, approximately 18 years old at the time of her death, which occurred shortly after Phillip was killed. Dating of the other bones in the Tomb I showed them to be from a woman of just that age range. Also, the early texts describe the baby, which was killed around the same time as well.
In studying the bones in Tomb II, the researchers concluded that they were entombed much later than those in Tomb I, too late for them to have been the remains of Philip. Taken together, the evidence proves that the bones in Tomb I were those of Philip, the researchers claim, suggesting that the matter has finally been settled for good.
Explore further: Skeleton from Greek mystery tomb to be identified next month
More information: PNAS Early Edition DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1510906112
www.pnas.org/content/early/2015/07/15/1510906112.full.pdf
| – The bad news: The ancient tomb at Vergina believed to house Alexander the Great's father may in fact be the final resting place of someone else. The good news: King Philip II's tomb is just a few doors down, according to a new study—though not everyone is in agreement. Researchers built a convincing case last year that Alexander's pop rested in what is known as Tomb II, but a different set of experts now say a partial skeleton in the adjacent Tomb I could be his, reports Discovery. For one thing, the individual was 45 when he died, as was Philip. For another, records note that a leg injury three years before his death left Philip with a limp. Researchers say a left femur in Tomb I, joined awkwardly to the shin, includes a hole likely made by a projectile, reports Phys.org. The injury would've "rendered the person lame, with an uneven gait," researchers say, noting the find "conclusively identifies (Philip) as the occupant of Tomb I," per the study in PNAS. The remains of a woman, 18, and a newborn also found inside are likely Philip's wife and their child, killed shortly after Philip's assassination in 336BC, researchers say. Meanwhile, the male skeleton found in Tomb II "bears no lesions to his legs that would indicate lameness," they argue, adding the bones entombed there are too late to be Philip's and a Scythian warrior. Instead, the study says those bones probably belong to Alexander the Great's half-brother, King Arrhidaeus, and his wife, Eurydice, who died in 317BC, reports LiveScience. But Theodore Antikas, who authored the earlier study on Tomb II, says the latest research is "unreliable" since only some of the bones in Tomb I were analyzed. It also isn't clear when some of them were removed from the tomb; they were found in storage and hadn't been seen since the tomb's discovery in 1977. The controversy is likely to continue. One thing experts agree on: Tomb III at the complex belongs to Alexander the Great's son. (Divers recently found treasure dating to Alexander's reign.) |
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NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Nashville Police have made an arrest in connection to the murder of UNA graduate, Tiffany Ferguson.
24-year-old Christopher Drew McLawhorn was arrested and charged with criminal homicide and especially aggravated burglary Wednesday.
Metro Nashville Police officials made the announcement in a press conference Wednesday night.
Police said Ferguson was killed in late February when a man broke into her condo and stabbed her to death.
Police said McLawhorn was in the apartment complex that night trying to break into cars and apartments. He's accused of killing Ferguson while burglarizing her condo. ||||| Christopher McLawhorn (Photo: MNPD)
Metro Nashville police announced Wednesday night they have arrested a man in the stabbing death of a 23-year-old nurse at her condo in Wedgewood-Houston.
Midtown Hills Precinct detectives are charging Christopher Drew McLawhorn with criminal homicide and especially aggravated burglary in connection with last week's death of Tiffany Ferguson inside her Wedgewood Park apartment last week.
“I am so relieved,” said Ferguson's 32-year-old sister Molly Cox who learned of the arrest about 8 p.m. Wednesday. "Thank you to all the thoughts and prayers that have been sent to our family during this time. This will by no means bring her back to us but it helps us to know that we are one step closer to getting justice for her."
Cox also thanked police for their efforts in finding her sister's alleged killer.
Police spokesman Don Aaron said the investigation has been nonstop.
Police previously said an apparent stranger randomly broke into Ferguson's condo in the early morning hours of Feb. 28 and fatally stabbed Ferguson. A roommate woke up to the sound of screaming, finding Ferguson fatally injured in bed and the front door open, police said.
Mobile users: Click here to watch news conference
Surveillance video outside the home shows a man walking around the building checking for open vehicles and open apartment doors.
Eventually, police said, the suspect entered Ferguson’s condo through the unlocked front door and began searching for valuables. He left with items from her condo at least once, putting them down before going back inside. At that point, there was a confrontation and Ferguson was stabbed, police said. Police have not yet released information about what was taken while the investigation remains ongoing.
"First, I want to offer my condolences to the Ferguson family," Metro Councilman Colby Sledge said. "Ms. Ferguson was a beloved member of the community, was somebody who served others and her passing and her murder was something that truly shook this community and this area."
Sledge thanked police for working around the clock to try and solve the case.
"We're continuing to work with neighbors to make sure something like this doesn't happen again, but I think tonight, hopefully everyone can rest a little bit easier," he said.
Detectives Wednesday evening said tips from the community helped them narrow the search for a suspect.
McLawhorn had already been developed as a person of interest in the investigation when Central Precinct officers found him on Third Avenue North and Broadway at 4:25 a.m. Sunday with two bottles of alcohol and a small quantity of marijuana, police said. They arrested him on the spot for misdemeanor drug possession, and the 24-year old has remained in jail since.
When detectives questioned McLawhorn on Sunday, he denied any knowledge of the Ferguson's death, police said.
He was booked on the criminal homicide and burglary warrants by the Davidson County Sheriff’s Office Thursday.
A little over 24 hours before the announcement, Wedgewood-Houston residents came to the Midtown Hills Precinct to talk to police and Councilman Sledge about their safety concerns. Since the fatal attack on Ferguson, officers had increased patrols in the neighborhood.
Multiple people said that if police had done more to reduce homelessness and foot traffic in the area, they might have prevented Ferguson's death. They called for nearby parks to be razed, for brick walls providing shade to be removed and for those staying in the parks to be arrested.
According to police, McLawhorn was homeless, although he did stay with a friend on 14th Avenue North sometimes.
Homeless people are statistically less likely to be charged with violent crimes and more likely to be victims of violence than are housed persons, according to a report commissioned by the U.S. Department of Justice. They also are more likely to suffer from drug addiction and mental illness.
According to police, McLawhorn has a limited prior arrest history in Nashville. He was arrested for public intoxication and misdemeanor theft on separate incidents in 2015 failure to be booked on the misdemeanor theft charge at the end of last year.
The investigation was led by Detective Anthony Chandler, Sgt. Andrew Injaychock, Lt. Joe Towers and Sgt. Marjorie Haworth.
RELATED:
Slain Nashville nurse's family pleads for help finding killer
Woman fatally stabbed inside Wedgewood apartment
Reach Stacey Barchenger at 615-726-8958 or on Twitter @sbarchenger. Reach Ariana Sawyer at asawyer@tennessean.com or on Twitter @a_maia_sawyer.
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Read or Share this story: http://tnne.ws/2mIcpvM | – An arrest has been made in what police called the "very rare, random" murder of a nurse in Nashville last week. Police announced Wednesday night that Christopher Drew McLawhorn, 24, had been charged with criminal homicide and especially aggravated burglary in the death of Tiffany Ferguson, WHNT reports. Police believed McLawhorn stabbed the 22-year-old nurse to death after breaking into her condo early on Feb. 28, reports the Tennessean. He is believed to be the man captured on surveillance footage walking around Ferguson's building searching for open doors or vehicles. Police say McLawhorn was already a person of interest in the murder investigation when he was found with a small amount of marijuana early Sunday. He was arrested for drug possession and has been in jail since. Police say McLawhorn, who is homeless, has an arrest record that includes public intoxication and minor theft charges. Ferguson, a nurse at Saint Thomas West Hospital, was a "beloved member of the community" and her murder "truly shook this community," Councilman Colby Sledge told reporters Wednesday night. "I think tonight, hopefully everyone can rest a little bit easier." |
Mike Coppola, Getty Images
Joe Walsh once ran a tongue-in-cheek campaign for the presidency, but that doesn’t mean he wants to be associated with this year’s race.
The Eagles star pulled out of a concert scheduled for July 17 in Cleveland, after he says he was misled about its mission.
“It was my understanding that I was playing a concert which was a non-partisan event to benefit the families of American veterans,” Walsh says, via Facebook. “Today it was announced that this event is, in fact, a launch for the Republican National Convention. In addition, my name is to be used to raise sponsorship dollars for convention-related purposes. Therefore, I must humbly withdraw my participation in this event with apologies to any fans or veterans and their families that I might disappoint.”
Aside from apparently feeling misled, Walsh said he is also upset with the tone of this year’s campaign – specifically citing “the rampant vitriol, fear-mongering and bullying coming from the current Republican campaigns. It is both isolationist and spiteful,” he added. “I cannot in good conscience endorse the Republican party in any way.”
Walsh now joins Cheap Trick in refusing to play for the GOP. “The Republican National Committee called our office and offered us $100,000 to play at their convention in Cleveland,” Robin Zander told The Guardian, before making a joke at the party’s expense. “We turned it down,” Zander said. “Then we had second thoughts. Maybe we should have accepted it – but we would all have got swastika guitars made.”
Walsh – who ran for president in 1980, not long after the Eagles initially broke up – pledged to schedule a concert for veterans later this year. He also reportedly threw his hat in the ring for a vice presidential nod in 1992, and briefly mulled over a campaign for Congress in 2012.
The Top 100 Rock Albums of the ’70s
Next: Top 10 Joe Walsh Songs ||||| ...
s on addiction, sobriety and making music. https://www.gq.com/story/clean-musicians Photo: @RobertMaxwellPhotos
Check out the latest @gq and my interview with other fellow musician | – Someone's already contesting the Republican National Convention—or at least his role in it. Eagles guitarist and keyboardist Joe Walsh is backing out of playing a July 18 concert in Cleveland to kick off the convention, saying now that he was misled about why he was asked to play, Ultimate Classic Rock reports. "It was my understanding that I was playing a concert which was a non partisan event to benefit the families of American veterans," Walsh wrote in a Wednesday Facebook post. "Today it was announced that this event is, in fact, a launch for the Republican National Convention." Walsh also found out his name "is to be used to raise sponsorship dollars for convention-related purposes," further prompting him pull out. Plus he's not exactly harboring peaceful, easy feelings toward the GOP overall—and he can tell you why. "I am very concerned about the rampant vitriol, fear-mongering and bullying coming from the current Republican campaigns," he writes. "It is both isolationist and spiteful. I cannot in good conscience endorse the Republican party in any way. I will look at doing a veteran related benefit concert later this year." (No "Lyin' Eyes" for "Lyin' Ted," apparently.) |
An air tanker battling a wildfire at Yosemite National Park crashed Tuesday afternoon, coming to rest on a granite cliff. The pilot was found dead, officials said.
By Tuesday night, rescuers had climbed to the wreckage, which was perched on a 2,500-foot escarpment near El Portal, the park's west entrance.
A National Park Service search and rescue team was the first to set out for the site in the late afternoon, lighting a path with headlamps. Daniel Berlant, a spokesman for the state Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, said the agency's S2-T tanker crashed while fighting the 130-acre Dog Rock fire. Debris from the crash was scattered on Highway 140, which was closed because of the blaze.
Berlant said it was believed the pilot was alone in the plane, which came down in an area where many Yosemite employees reside and few tourists visit. The cause of the crash has not been determined.
Officials did not identify the pilot or his home base. Berlant said the pilot worked for DynCorp International, which also maintains Cal Fire's planes.
The Dog Rock fire was first reported about 2:45 p.m. The tanker was among a handful of aircraft fighting the blaze, which broke out on El Portal Road between the park's boundary and the Arch Rock entrance station, officials said.
Fire in Yosemite National Park Los Angeles Times Map shows location of Dog Rock fire, which an air tanker crashed while battling Tuesday, killing the pilot. Map shows location of Dog Rock fire, which an air tanker crashed while battling Tuesday, killing the pilot. (Los Angeles Times)
Word of Tuesday's crash spread quickly through the small and tight-knit community of fire aviation.
"This is a stunning development," said Bill Gabbert, a wildfire expert who operates a popular website, Wildfire Today. "Any crash is a huge deal."
Attacking fires from the air is extremely dangerous, and firefighting planes have crashed. The last time a Cal Fire air tanker crashed was in 2001, when two tankers collided while fighting a fire in Mendocino County, killing both pilots.
The pilot is usually alone in the aircraft, but there are times when a mechanic or a pilot in training are onboard, Cal Fire officials said.
Cal Fire air tanker Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times An S2-T air tanker drops retardant on a fire at Camp Pendleton in 2011. The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection owns 23 of the small planes, one of which crashed Tuesday at Yosemite National Park. An S2-T air tanker drops retardant on a fire at Camp Pendleton in 2011. The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection owns 23 of the small planes, one of which crashed Tuesday at Yosemite National Park. (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)
The small S2-T tankers are the workhorses of the U.S. firefighting fleet. The U.S. Forest Service — and a few state agencies such as Cal Fire — obtained the twin-engine planes from the Pentagon's "boneyard" as much as 50 years after they were used by the military to chase submarines.
The planes' safety record has been under scrutiny in recent years.
Cal Fire's tankers have been retrofitted for firefighting, adding turboprop engines and fitting reservoirs that carry 1,200 gallons of retardant.
The small planes are most effective for "initial attack," in the early hours of a fire when managers seek to prevent small fires from growing to unmanageable size.
Retardant drops do not put out fires but slow the flames' progress, allowing ground crews to move in and more safely create fire lines.
When the payload of retardant is dropped, the plane returns to a remote base to refuel and take on more retardant. Small tankers are prized for their ability to make a number of sorties each day and for their maneuverability, particularly in California's canyon fires.
Gabbert called S-2Ts dependable.
"I'm not aware of a chronic problems," he said.
California is one of a handful of states to maintain a fleet of firefighting planes. Cal Fire has 23 S-2T tankers operated by DynCorp, which also provides the pilots. The McLean, Va., company's performance with Cal Fire was awarded the Diamond Award of Excellence in 2012 and 2013 by the Federal Aviation Administration.
The federal fleet has been shrinking, as the Forest Service seeks to modernize the planes. The agency has for some time sought to entice the aviation industry to build a dedicated firefighting plane, to no avail.
adolfo.flores@latimes.com
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Twitter: @julie_cart ||||| An air tanker battling a fire burning on the west side of Yosemite National Park crashed Tuesday afternoon, authorities said, underscoring the danger of wildfires fueled by the historic drought that have broken out across the state in recent months.
The plane, a Grumman S2 Tracker that is operated by the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection and is designed to drop flame retardant from its belly, crashed about 4:30 p.m. near Arch Rock, said Ashley Mayer, a Yosemite spokeswoman.
At about 6:45 p.m, Cal Fire reported that rescue teams had reached the crash site in rugged terrain and were working to determine the condition of the pilot.
It was not clear whether anyone was on the plane besides the pilot, but the Grumman S2 Tracker is usually flown with only a pilot aboard, said Alyssa √Smith, a Cal Fire spokeswoman.
The Dog Rock Fire broke out on the west side of Yosemite on Tuesday afternoon, prompting road closures and evacuations as it quickly scorched more than 130 acres, officials said.
The fire was reported around 2:45 p.m. off El Portal Road — the continuation of Highway 140 that leads into Yosemite — between the park boundary and the Arch Rock entrance station.
About 50 people were evacuated from the community of Foresta, officials said, and El Portal Road between the park boundary and the junction with Big Oak Flat Road was closed to all traffic.
Visitors trying to get to Yosemite Valley could still take Wawona Road, which is an extension of Highway 41, or Big Oak Flat Road, an extension of Highway 120.
Cal Fire has been using aircraft to fight fires since the 1950s, beginning with World War II biplanes and torpedo bombers. It now has a fleet of more than 50 aircraft, including helicopters and planes. Some drop water or retardant and others are used to plan strategy and drop off firefighters.
The agency began using the S2 Trackers in the 1970s, and sped up its transition to the former military planes after six accidents within a two year period involving torpedo bombers. The S2 Trackers were originally built as an aircraft carrier-based, anti-submarine warfare plane.
Cal Fire now has about two dozen of the newest version of the S2 Tracker, which hauls up to 1,200 gallons of retardant at a time and can travel in excess of 300 mph. They are used when the agency needs to quickly drop retardant on advancing blazes.
The most recent aircraft-related death at Cal Fire occurred in 2006, when a spotter plane crashed in the Mountain Home Demonstration State Forest in Tulare County, killing the two people on board. Federal investigators found the cause was pilot error.
Staff writer Marisa Lagos contributed to this story. | – An air tanker fighting a wildfire at Yosemite National Park mysteriously crashed yesterday, killing the pilot, the Los Angeles Times reports. A spokesman for the state's Department of Forestry and Fire Protection says it's believed the pilot was alone in the plane and that he worked for DynCorp International, a contractor that provides planes to California's firefighting forces. Rescue efforts were initially hampered due to the crash site's location: the top of a 2,500-foot cliff. An FAA spokesman notes that the plane crashed "under unknown circumstances," CNN reports. The pilot—whose name his family asked to be withheld until other loved ones are notified—was battling the Dog Rock fire, which has already raged over 130 acres and prompted park officials to evacuate at least 60 homes, notes CNN. The S-2T tanker that crashed was one of 26 that Cal Fire bought nearly 20 years ago from the Department of Defense, souping them up "with modern, powerful turboprop engines" that made them "faster, safer, and more maneuverable." The air tankers can speed around a fire site at more than 300mph and dump 1,200 gallons of fire retardant at once, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. Although a wildfire expert tells the Times that the S-2Ts are "dependable," the newspaper notes that the US Forest Service has been pushing for a plane specifically designed for firefighting. (This Alaska wildfire was bigger than the city of Chicago.) |
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — An Alabama family says an escaped snake at Disney's Animal Kingdom dropped from a tree and bit a boy, which led to the death of the boy's grandmother.
The family's attorney, Matt Morgan, said Thursday that the family plans to sue Disney World.
He says the grandmother saw the snake bite the boy, went into cardiac arrest and died a short time later.
Disney spokeswoman Jacquee Wahler says the allegations mischaracterize what happened.
Disney contends the snake was wild, not part of an Animal Kingdom exhibit, and that there was no call for an ambulance for the grandmother after the incident.
Disney also says after the boy was treated with a Band-Aid, the family returned to the park. ||||| ORLANDO, Fla. - A well-known Orlando attorney said Thursday that he has been retained by a family who claims a snake bit their 8-year-old son at Disney's Animal Kingdom, causing the boy's grandmother to go into cardiac arrest, which caused her death.
Matt Morgan said the incident occurred in October 2014 at the Walt Disney World theme park.
Morgan said he will file a formal lawsuit against Disney for the injuries sustained by the boy and the wrongful death of the woman. Morgan said the names of the family members are not being released at this time.
According to Morgan, the family claims that the snake escaped at the park and entered an area reserved for the general public. The family said the snake fell from a tree and bit the boy, according to Morgan.
Disney confirmed to News 6 that the boy was bitten by a snake at the park but said it was a wild, nonvenoumous snake, not part of the the park's collection.
Disney said the boy was treated by a park nurse, who put a Band-Aid on his finger, and the family went back into the park to enjoy the rest of their day.
The family said the boy's grandmother witnessed the incident, went into cardiac arrest and died a short time later, according to Morgan.
Disney did not address the woman's death, but a park representative said, "These allegations are an utter mischaracterization of the facts."
Morgan said he will investigate the incident through the court system.
Copyright 2016 by WPLG Local10.com - All rights reserved. | – An Alabama family says an escaped snake at Disney's Animal Kingdom in Orlando dropped from a tree and bit a boy, which led to the death of the boy's grandmother. The family's attorney, Matt Morgan, said Thursday that the family plans to sue Disney World, the AP reports. He says the grandmother saw the snake bite the boy, went into cardiac arrest, and died a short time later. Disney spokeswoman Jacquee Wahler says the allegations mischaracterize what happened during the October 2014 incident, Local 10 reports. Disney contends the snake was wild, not part of an Animal Kingdom exhibit, and that there was no call for an ambulance for the grandmother after the incident. Disney also says after the boy was treated with a Band-Aid, the family returned to the park; the snake was not venomous. |
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 ||||| The father of a Florida shooting survivor who accused CNN of wanting him to ask a “scripted” question during a town hall on gun rights last week admitted to altering the contents of an email he received from a producer working on the show.
Glenn Haab, the father of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School student Colton Haab, told The Associated Press on Tuesday that he left out some words when forwarding an email that he and his son received from CNN producer Carrie Stevenson. Haab sent an altered version of the email to HuffPost and Fox News last week in an attempt to corroborate his son’s claim.
He told AP that there was “nothing malicious behind” his decision to leave out certain words. But the omitted words show that CNN was clearly asking his son to stick to asking the question he had already submitted.
CNN hit back against the claims on Friday, releasing a copy of the email exchange that shows Stevenson was informing Haab that his son had to ask a question “that he submitted” instead of a 700-word opening statement plus three questions and a closing statement that was sent over to the network after one question had already been agreed upon. Stevenson said in the email that they wanted to allow as many students as possible to ask questions, and the version Colton’s father submitted was “way too long.” ||||| CNN is denying reports that it asked a Florida school shooting survivor to read a “scripted” question during a town hall debate on gun violence that aired on the network Wednesday night.
Colton Haab, a junior at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, where 17 people were gunned down last week, told local media Wednesday that he declined an invitation to appear on CNN’s program. He said he’d wanted to speak about the possibility of putting more armed guards in schools to protect students ― but, he said, CNN squelched his proposed remarks.
“CNN had originally asked me to write a speech and questions, and it ended up being all scripted,” Haab told local ABC affiliate WPLG. “I don’t think that it’s going to get anything accomplished. It’s not gonna ask the true questions that all the parents and teachers and students have.”
The network on Thursday vehemently denied Haab’s accusation.
“There is absolutely no truth to this,” CNN said in a statement. “CNN did not provide or script questions for anyone in last night’s town hall, nor have we ever.”
“After seeing an interview with Colton Haab, we invited him to participate in our town hall along with other students and administrators from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School,” the statement says. “Colton’s father withdrew his name from participation before the forum began, which we regretted but respected.”
CNN invited Haab to appear on the network Thursday “to discuss his views on school safety,” according to the network’s statement. Colton Haab did not immediately respond to HuffPost’s request for comment.
A CNN source told HuffPost that the town hall was intended to give participants a chance to ask a question, but Haab wanted to read an “extensive” speech. Colton’s father, Glenn Haab, declined to have his son participate after the network refused to let his son read the full speech, according to the source.
Glenn Haab told HuffPost that a CNN producer told him Colton’s speech ― which consisted of an opening statement, three questions and closing remarks ― was “too long,” and that Colton would have to stick to asking one question.
The elder Haab said he told the producer that Colton wouldn’t read “one short question” without the option of first presenting the audience with “extremely relevant” background information.
Colton, a member of the high school’s Junior Reserve Officers ’ Training Corps, helped usher dozens of students to safety during last week’s shooting. He told Fox News on Saturday that he believed the high school’s assistant football coach, Aaron Feis, who was killed in the massacre, could have stopped the shooter if he’d been armed.
“Unfortunately, gun control, it’s definitely needed a little bit more,” Haab told Fox News on Saturday. “I believe that if we did bring firearms on campus to teachers that are willing to carry their firearm... if they got their correct training for it, I think that would be a big beneficial factor into school safety.” ||||| Media critic
CNN appears to have had enough.
On Friday afternoon, the network released email correspondence between one of its producers, Carrie Stevenson, and a student from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School after last week’s school shooting in Parkland, Fla. The exchanges roared into the news following Wednesday night’s CNN town hall meeting on gun violence. Colton Haab, 17, told a TV station in Florida that he was disappointed with the network: “CNN had originally asked me to write a speech and questions and it ended up being all scripted,” he told ABC affiliate WPLG-TV. He did not attend the town hall.
The “scripted” remarks acquired their own Internet nutritional system, feeding an attack that CNN was seeking to insert bias into the proceedings. CNN strenuously denied that claim on Thursday, both before and after President Trump picked up the story based on a report on the Fox News program “Tucker Carlson Tonight”:
There is absolutely no truth to this story -- and we can prove that. CNN did not provide or script questions for anyone in last night's town hall, nor have we ever. Those are the facts. #FactsFirst 🍎 — CNN Communications (@CNNPR) February 23, 2018
In a post on Friday, the Erik Wemple Blog published excerpts from the emails in which Stevenson negotiated Haab’s participation in the event. Since then, the story has continued to develop: A CNN spokesman tells the Erik Wemple Blog that the network has received inquiries from other outlets stemming from what the network says are doctored portions of that correspondence that paint CNN in a negative light.
To counter those leaks, CNN has authorized the publication of the emails below. Here’s a list of proposed questions from Haab:
As Stevenson and Haab were discussing the matter, Colton Haab’s father, Glenn Haab, passed along several pages of “background” points that the family wanted Colton Haab to recite to contextualize the question that he was supposed to pose to Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.). After Stevenson examined the proposal, she wrote this email to Glenn Haab:
Glenn Haab responded as follows:
According to a CNN spokesman, Fox News and HuffPost on Friday presented the network with a misleading version of the second email as part of their due diligence in pursuing the story. Whereas the correspondence supplied by CNN, above, makes clear that Stevenson was insisting that Colton Haab use a question that he himself had already “submitted” — prefaced by a lead-in that the student had already articulated in a “Fox & Friends” appearance, and that Haab proposed in a phone call with Stevenson — the allegedly doctored version of the correspondence suggests a different scenario.
CNN has disclosed the email that Carlson’s Fox News program had inquired about. It chops off the part about “that he submitted,” as below:
A CNN source claims that the edit leaves the network open to the charge that it “dictated” the question and obscures the fact that Colton Haab submitted it.
A CNN spokesperson issued this statement: “The Stand Up: The Students of Stoneman Douglas Demand Action Town Hall was intended to be a forum for students, parents and teachers to speak directly to the elected leaders and stakeholders that are at the center of this critical issue. It is unfortunate that an effort to discredit CNN and the town hall with doctored emails has taken any attention away from the purpose of the event. However, when presented with doctored email exchanges, we felt the need to set the record straight.”
“Background” text:
Opening statement:
page 1
Ladies & gentlemen, lawmakers, fellow students, parents, teachers, faculty – last Wednesday will change our lives forever. My thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families of this horrific attack on our school. To me, it’s totally incomprehensible how this attacker was able to exit an Uber ride, walk into our freshman building and start shooting.
There’s been a lot of talk about Gun Control since this senseless attack. Many of my peers are in Tallahassee with lawmakers now – unfortunately yesterday did not go in the right direction for us. I hope the much needed changes to Gun Laws can be made and implemented by the time the next generation (my kids) enters high school.
The way I see it- 3 main things have to happen:
1) Tighten up gun laws
2) Secure the school and make it safe
3) Defend the school I BASED MY QUESTIONS TONIGHT ON #2 & # 3 Question 1) The Number One responsibility of the Federal Government is: To keep Americans safe & secure.
We will be called back to school next week … How do we come back if Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School is not safe?
Many of us students are afraid to go back until this school is safe & secure. Only 1 School Resource Officer cannot secure a 45 acre campus with multiple entry and exist points. So my 1st question is:
What is being done to drastically improve the security of the school? Question 2)
page 2
There are armed security defending our President, Congressmen, court houses, IRS buildings, banks, jewelry stores, even the Smithsonian has guards with guns. Yet a gunman walked into our school’s freshman building with a rifle… and hero’s like Coach Fies ….unarmed… died trying to stop him. This is totally unacceptable.
Schools are defended with a sign that reads:
This is a gun free zone/it might as well also say:
(Call someone with a gun if there’s an emergency).
It is my opinion and the opinion of many – that this makes us an easy target for evil people to do their evil with little, if any resistance. I personally would much rather see a sign that read:
“Please be aware that certain staff members at Marjory Stoneman Douglas are legally armed and may use whatever force necessary to protect our students”. We students should not have to beg to be kept safe. I ask you: are our students’ lives not as significant as court documents?
As tax returns? As cash money? As a diamond ring or a fine watch?
ARE our lives, our security & safety not as important as old dinosaur bones?
My 2nd question is:
What measures are being taken to defend our school from future attacks?
And how can we get select faculty trained and armed to give them a fighting chance, if GOD forbid, there is another attack? Question 3) page 3
There are over 450,000 unemployed Veterans living in the United States.
Many are able, willing & trainable and would find a real purpose in the job of keep our schools safe and defend our students & faculty against evil.
What steps can be taken to utilize our select retired military in this capacity? Closing Statement: page 4
President Trump, Governor Scott, Senators Nelson, Rubio and Deutch, Sherriff Israel, Superintendent Runcie, Principle Thompson – I urge you, the student body urges you, our parents urge you: to secure our school. We cannot wait for legislative Gun Law Changes to be approved and implemented. We are going to be called back to school next week. We need Action Now! We have attended way too many funerals this week. We need to make MSD SAFE Now! Secure all Broward schools, secure all Florida Schools and secure all schools across this Nation.
The Number One responsibility of the Federal Government is: To keep Americans safe & secure. We students should not have to beg to be kept safe. Please secure our school from outside threats from evil people and give the right people the training & tools needed to defend our lives. It’s time for a change! Don’t let the 17 lives lost last week be just another statistic.
Is time to make MSD SAFE! MAKE AMERICA SAFE AGAIN # MSD STRONG Thank you!
Read more by Erik Wemple:
The ‘scripted’ town-hall question: A CNN non-scandal
NRA spokeswoman Dana Loesch: ‘Many in legacy media love mass shootings’
‘I do not know if the president is having an affair’: Michael Wolff squirms on Dutch TV
Ted Cruz says questions from Capitol Hill reporters are ‘never about substance.’ Oh really?
CNN makes history with stunning event on gun violence ||||| Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School students and parents wait for a CNN town hall broadcast to begin, Wednesday, Feb. 21, 2018, at the BB&T; Center, in Sunrise, Fla. (Michael Laughlin/South Florida Sun-Sentinel... (Associated Press)
Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School students and parents wait for a CNN town hall broadcast to begin, Wednesday, Feb. 21, 2018, at the BB&T; Center, in Sunrise, Fla. (Michael Laughlin/South Florida Sun-Sentinel via AP) (Associated Press)
Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School students and parents wait for a CNN town hall broadcast to begin, Wednesday, Feb. 21, 2018, at the BB&T; Center, in Sunrise, Fla. (Michael Laughlin/South Florida Sun-Sentinel via AP) (Associated Press) Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School students and parents wait for a CNN town hall broadcast to begin, Wednesday, Feb. 21, 2018, at the BB&T; Center, in Sunrise, Fla. (Michael Laughlin/South Florida Sun-Sentinel... (Associated Press)
The father of a Florida shooting survivor acknowledged Tuesday he omitted words in an email he sent media outlets accusing CNN of using scripted remarks at a town hall on guns and school safety.
Dozens of conservative websites called the network's Feb. 21 town hall forum scripted after Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School junior Colton Haab skipped the event and said the network had told him what question to ask. The websites call it proof the forum was slanted against gun rights. President Donald Trump tweeted about it on Friday, saying "Just like so much of CNN, Fake News!"
CNN countered with a release of email exchanges between producer Carrie Stevenson, Colton Haab and his father Glenn and accused Glenn Haab of deliberately altering email sent to Fox News and the Huffington Post.
"It is unfortunate that an effort to discredit CNN and the town hall with doctored emails has taken any attention away from the purpose of the event," the network said in a statement.
Glenn Haab told The Associated Press he omitted some words from the email but said he didn't do it on purpose.
"There was nothing malicious behind it," he said.
In one exchange, 17-year-old Colton Haab proposes several questions to ask at the town hall, including one on whether to arm teachers. His father, a Republican gun owner, later emailed Stevenson a four-page document with a roughly 700-word speech and a series of questions he said Colton wanted to ask.
Stevenson told the father the additional language he proposed was "way too long" and Colton would need to stick to the question "that he submitted." The words "that he submitted" were left off the email sent to Fox News and Huffington Post.
CNN said Stevenson had discussed which one of Colton's several questions to ask at the forum and they mutually agreed on one using his own words and a statement he made during another television appearance. | – An emotional CNN town hall last week after the Feb. 14 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School focused on gun control and school safety, but the network soon found itself in a tiff with the family of one of the survivors. Conservative outlets went after CNN for "scripting" the event after 17-year-old Colton Haab, who was supposed to take part in the town hall, didn't show because his family says the network was telling him what question to ask, per HuffPost. Even President Trump weighed in, once more calling CNN "fake news." But the AP reports that on Tuesday, Colton's dad, Glenn Haab, fessed up to modifying an email he sent to other media outlets as supposed proof that CNN was trying to tell Colton what to say during the event. CNN had adamantly denied it scripted Colton's, or anyone's, questions for the town hall, but Glenn Haab then sent to Fox News and HuffPost an email between himself, his son, and a CNN producer that was meant to show Colton was being told what question to ask by CNN. But CNN offered up its own version to the Washington Post, which shows the email exchange in its entirety and reveals that Haab's version of one of the emails deleted certain words that made clear the question Colton was cleared to ask was one he'd originally submitted himself. Glenn Haab now tells the AP he did leave out some words from his version of the email, but that "there was nothing malicious behind it." "It is unfortunate that an effort to discredit CNN and the town hall with doctored emails has taken any attention away from the purpose of the event," the network said in a statement. |
This story was updated at 8:26 p.m. ET.
NASA recently released a study suggesting that the Antarctic Ice Sheet is gaining more ice than it is losing — a finding that, at first blush, seems to contradict the idea of global warming. So, how can Antarctica be gaining ice mass in a warming world where ice sheets are collapsing and the melting is predicted to increase sea levels across the globe?
It turns out that the two phenomena — a growing ice sheet and warming-related melting — are not mutually exclusive. Moreover, the NASA study, which was published Oct. 30 in the Journal of Glaciology, does not disprove global warming.
Rather, the researchers found that snow accumulation is adding more ice to East Antarctica (the huge chunk of the continent to the east of the Transantarctic Mountains) and the interior region of West Antarctica than is being lost as glaciers across Antarctica thin out. More snow accumulation is, counterintuitively, a sign of global warming; more precipitation happens when there is more moisture in the air, and more moisture in the air is a product of higher temperatures, said Elizabeth Thomas, a glaciologist with the British Antarctic Survey. [Infographic: Your Guide to Antarctica]
Ice elevation
Map shows notable features and facts about Antarctica. Credit: by Karl Tate, Infographics Artist
The NASA researchers made their observation on the current state of the Antarctic Ice Sheet — which covers an area roughly the size of the United States and Mexico combined — by taking altitude measurements using data collected by the European Remote Sensing (ERS) satellites between 1992 and 2001 and using the Ice, Cloud and land Elevation Satellite (ICESat) between 2003 and 2008.
The ERS satellites were equipped with radar altimeters, whereas the ICESat had a laser altimeter. An altimeter measures elevation by shooting a beam of radio waves (radar) or a beam of light (laser) to the ice surface. The altimeter records the time it takes the waves to bounce off the surface and back to the satellite. The higher the elevation, the quicker the return time, and vice versa. [See Stunning Photos of Antarctic Ice]
Then, the researchers mapped out how ice elevation had changed over time. They found that, although certain areas of Antarctica, such as the Antarctic Peninsula and the coastal parts of western Antarctica, are losing more ice than they are gaining, overall, the continent's ice is growing.
Specifically, between 1992 and 2001, snow accumulation added about 121 gigatons of ice per year, on average, where 1 gigaton equals about 1 billion U.S. tons. That number dropped to 82 gigatons per year between 2003 and 2008.
Controversy over the study
However, although the findings don't negate climate change or suggest warming is slowing down, they have been met with some pushback from the scientific community.
For example, the study doesn't include current data, leading some scientists to question whether the results are meaningful.
The most recent data in the study was from 2008, noted Michael Mann, a climate scientist at Pennsylvania State University. Many of the recent studies that demonstrate the range of ice loss take more recent data into account, Mann told Live Science. The study "is making a statement about the way things are today [using] a data set that is seven years out of date," he said. "If they used data that was up-to-date, they would find a higher rate of loss," Mann noted.
Using a RADARSAT dataset of Antarctica, an abandoned Russian station on top of frozen Lake Vostok is visible. It is in the left section of the lake in this image. Credit: NASA
Mann also mentioned that he knows of several ice experts who are a little skeptical of the elevation measurements in certain regions, such as the region surrounding Lake Vostok. Regions near large bodies of water have highly variable elevations because of the presence of liquid water, and it's not clear whether the NASA study accounted for this. [See Photos of a Subglacial Lake in Antarctica]
The results also contradict a finding detailed last year in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters, in which Christoper Harig, a geoscientist at Princeton University, and his colleagues found a net loss of ice covering Antarctica. They relied on GRACE measurements for their study.
Jay Zwally, a glaciologist with NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and colleagues said in their Journal of Glaciology paper that the new results are more accurate than those in Harig's Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellite study because they are based more on ICESat measurements, which according to Zwally, are better at adjusting for the rise and fall of land that happens when ice has been removed or added to it, respectively — a phenomenon called glacial isostatic adjustment (GIA). When ice melts, the land beneath it rebounds slightly as the weight is removed. It's critical to account for that rebound when measuring elevation, scientists say.
"This paper, which uses laser altimetry, claims the discrepancy between our results is due to recent GIA model corrections being incorrect, and that GRACE is more sensitive to error," Harig wrote in an email to the Washington Post, according to this WaPo report. "If we added back the GIA corrections, and compare our results, then their estimates should agree with ours because we measure mass directly. Instead, they are still very far away."
However, Mann said that, although the consensus among climate scientists is that Antarctica is, indeed, losing more ice than it is gaining, the new NASA study still demonstrates good science.
"This is the way science works; the scientific community is doing its best to understand and reconcile [the NASA study data]," he said. Even if the results can't be verified, Mann said, the research was conducted in good faith and shouldn't be dismissed as unimportant to the greater body of work.
Is Antarctica warming?
A portion of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet, called Wilkes Land, flowing into the ocean. Credit: Michael Hambrey (glaciers-online.net)
So, what is actually happening in Antarctica? The Antarctic is not warming as fast as the Arctic is, said Zwally, who led the NASA study. "It's more like the global change [rates]," Zwally said. In other words, the Antarctic region is seeing a regional temperature rise that matches the temperature rise seen on average around the world, instead of the much higher temperature rise in the Arctic regions noted by NOAA. Scientists think the Antarctic region is experiencing a slower temperature rise than the Arctic, because the ozone hole over Antarctic has created weather trends, specifically in East Antarctica, that has slowed it down.
"East Antarctica is not warming as fast as West Antarctica — that's the part of Antarctica that is the most susceptible to ice loss," Mann said. In 2007, researchers reported in the journal Geophysical Research Letters that they had found a link between this phenomenon and the ozone hole over Antarctica. Depleting ozone in the upper atmosphere changes wind dynamics there, Mann said. That change causes a strengthening of the jet stream and the polar winds, but it also traps the cold air in the regions around East Antarctica, creating a cooling effect.
An image of the ozone hole over Antarctica in early October 2015. Credit: DLR (German Aerospace Center)
As the ozone hole has gotten smaller, this cooling effect has mostly disappeared, Mann said, meaning that even East Antarctica will have warming rates comparable to global warming rates soon.
Zwally also noted that if the warming were to continue at current rates, the ice gains that the NASA study found would not continue. In other words, the melting would increase enough to offset the large amounts of snow building on the surface.
Trends over time
Other research has started to look at older records of Antarctica's climate, in order to place current data into historical context. Doing so can help scientists better understand how current observations fit into the larger story of Antarctica's climate. In a separate study, published Nov. 4 in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, researchers studied the climate of West Antarctica over the past three centuries by looking at ice core records. The researchers found that snow accumulation in the 20th century had been significantly higher than in the previous two centuries looked at in the study.
"It looks as though [this trend] is related to there being more storms [in West Antarctica]," said Thomas, of the British Antarctic Survey. "Just because [West Antarctica] is getting more snow doesn't mean that [the ice sheet is] getting thicker."
She explained that both higher snow accumulation and thinning ice sheets are results of the same regional warming phenomenon. The amount of precipitation is tied to the amount of sea ice in the region. "When we had a lot of sea ice, we don't have so much moisture," she said.
Going forward
It's clear that studying climate change is a complicated endeavor, but any climate scientist will stress the importance of understanding what's happening to Antarctica. "In terms of climate, [the process] is hugely complex, and [there is] a lot going on," Thomas said. It will take a lot of research to get a better understanding of what's happening there because records of the region date back only decades.
Moreover, further research should investigate the smaller changes happening in Antarctica that contribute to regional climate change, scientists say.
Editor's Note: This story was updated to show that the NASA study used ERS satellite data, not GRACE satellite data, between 1992 - 2001. GRACE was not launched until 2002.
Follow Elizabeth Newbern @liznewbern. Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science. |||||
The ice front of Venable Ice Shelf, West Antarctica. (AFP photo/NASA/JPL-Caltech/UC Irvine)
Late last week, a study published by NASA scientists in the Journal of Glaciology made the surprising claim that the gigantic continent of Antarctica is actually gaining ice, rather than losing it, to the tune of 82 gigatons (or billion metric tons) per year from 2003 to 2008.
The study has drawn massive amounts of media attention — and no wonder. It contradicts numerous prior scientific claims, including a 2012 study in Science by a small army of polar scientists, a study from earlier this year in Earth and Planetary Science Letters (which found 92 gigatons of net losses per year) and this 2014 study in Geophysical Research Letters (160 gigatons of net losses per year). It also contradicts assertions by the leading consensus body of climate science, the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which stated in 2013 that Antarctica is “losing mass” and that this process is accelerating. That statement was itself based on multiple studies showing Antarctic ice loss.
Not only does the new research fly in the face of all of this — if true, it also raises serious questions about our current understanding of sea level rise. If Antarctica is actually gaining ice, that means that a significant percentage of the current rise of the seas, estimated at roughly 3.22 millimeters per year by NASA itself, must be coming from elsewhere. (It takes 360 gigatons of ice to raise seas by 1 millimeter).
No wonder, then, that a number of researchers have been quoted expressing skepticism about the new research, even as climate change doubters have had a field day — adding the study to an argumentative arsenal that previously included misleading claims about growing Antarctic sea ice.
So what’s going on here — and what should you make of the new claim that Antarctica isn’t losing ice or raising our seas?
Measurement disputes and burdens of proof. The new NASA study uses satellite data from NASA’s ICEsat (Ice, Cloud and land Elevation Satellite) and the European Remote-sensing Satellite to derive its results, which are based on precision measurements of the elevation of the ice sheet and how that is changing over time. The key finding is that snow-related mass gain atop the ice sheet is more than compensating for the flow of ice outward in glaciers that reach the sea.
“Our interpretation is that this has been going on since the beginning of the last ice age when the snowfall over the continent doubled, the accumulation over the continent doubled, as shown in ice cores,” says H. Jay Zwally, the lead author and a longtime NASA expert on the planet’s ice sheets and methods for studying them with satellites.
More specifically, the research asserts that a “dynamic thickening” of ice over time has occurred as a result of this snowfall. Or as a NASA explanation puts it, “This small thickening, sustained over thousands of years and spread over the vast expanse of these sectors of Antarctica, corresponds to a very large gain of ice – enough to outweigh the losses from fast-flowing glaciers in other parts of the continent and reduce global sea level rise.”
However, this contradicts many other results, including those derived using a different NASA tool — the GRACE satellites, twin measurement devices that orbit the Earth and measure the changing mass of ice based on differential tugs of gravity on the spacecraft as they pass over it. Accordingly, numerous scientists have expressed skepticism, to varying degrees, about the new research.
Andrew Shepherd, a glaciologist at the University of Leeds in the UK who was an author of one of the recent studies cited above finding net Antarctic mass loss, puts it this way in an e-mail to the Post:
Zwally and his team have tried to account for snowfall, which masks changes in the thickness of the polar ice sheets. It’s right to attempt this, but in places where nothing much happens – like the interior of Antarctica, which is a vast desert – it’s really quite difficult to be sure that snowfall can be simulated with enough precision to detect ice imbalance. Fortunately we now have many different ways to examine Earth’s ice sheets – from space and on foot – and I’m confident that we can get to the bottom of this contradiction by taking everything into account.
I also reached an author of the other study cited above finding a net mass loss using GRACE — geoscientist Christopher Harig of Princeton University. Harig defended the GRACE measurements and the finding that Antarctica is losing mass, and said that a key part of the difference between his research and the new study involves how researchers handle something called “glacial isostatic adjustment” or GIA, which refers to the rising of land as the weight of ice has been removed from it since the last ice age.
As Harig put it by e-mail:
GRACE gives us the most direct measurement of mass changes that we have currently. This paper, which uses laser altimetry, claims the discrepancy between our results is due to recent GIA model corrections being incorrect, and that GRACE is more sensitive to the error. If we add back the GIA corrections, and compare our results then, their estimates should agree with ours because we measure mass directly. Instead they are still very far away. Arguing that because their results are different, they must be better, is unsustainable.
Other scientists have also defended the GRACE approach, and criticized the new research. Al Jazeera, for instance, quoted two other top Antarctic researchers — NASA’s Eric Rignot and the National Snow and Ice Data Center’s Ted Scambos — expressing arguably stronger criticisms of the new work than those cited above. Rignot has published some of the most cited work on the rapid retreat and unsettling vulnerability of West Antarctica, and Scambos is an author of a recent study finding that strong winds are wearing down East Antarctica and likely adding 80 gigatons per year to sea level rise — results that pretty clearly trend in a very different direction from the new NASA study.
So there is plenty of skepticism out there — but at the same time, Zwally fully stands by the new research. “We have a very high confidence in our results,” he says. “We have examined the accuracy of our results quite carefully, we believe they’re accurate, and in the paper we report why they differ from other methods, and provide constructive critiques of why they differ.”
In an interview, Zwally also reiterated the notion that GRACE is more sensitive to how one treats glacial isostatic adjustment — clearly, a key point of dispute here.
What’s clear, then, is that we are looking at a significant scientific disagreement — one that turns on different technologies, methodologies, and adjustments. In such a situation, scientists will now need to hash this out and reconcile their understanding of what is happening to the gigantic snowy mass of East Antarctica in particular.
In the meantime, nonspecialists may understandably feel baffled by the technical details at play here. But here’s where they can be more confident: Since the new results contradict a lot of other findings, they will likely face a major challenge when it comes to convincing the Antarctic research community as a whole.
That’s no criticism of the scientists behind the new study — it’s simply how science works. And as the process plays out, it’s fair for scientists and outside observers alike to regard the new research as having to overcome a relatively high burden of proof, and to stay skeptical.
None of which means you should worry any less about Antarctica and sea level rise. In the meantime, the reasons for worry about Antarctica aren’t any less — and particularly when it comes to West Antarctica, a marine based ice sheet that some scientists fear has already begun a process of irreversible collapse. Indeed, a new study released Monday finds that accelerating mass loss in the glaciers of West Antarctica’s Amundsen sea region could undermine the entire ice sheet and set in motion an inevitable, if slow moving, 3.3 meter (or over 10 foot) rise in global sea levels.
All of the research groups involved here agree that a key part of West Antarctica is losing mass and that, if treated on its own rather than as part of the larger continent, is making a net positive contribution to sea level rise. The new NASA study only covers a period from 1992 to 2008, so it excludes more recent observations that other researchers have made in this area. Nonetheless, it too finds accelerating mass loss in one key part of West Antarctica that includes the closely watched Pine Island and Thwaites glaciers, growing from 60 gigatons per year between 1992 to 2001 to 97 gigatons per year between 2003 and 2008.
Undated photo of Thwaites glacier in West Antarctica. (AFP Photo/NASA/handout)
Zwally is skeptical about some of the more worrying takes on West Antarctic loss, but he certainly doesn’t deny that it’s happening. “There’s no reason to believe that the loss that we see now will not continue for a long time,” he says. “But there’s a serious question about whether it is still accelerating.”
Research drawing on more recent data, however, does suggest the loss rate continues to increase. Another NASA supported study of the Amundsen Sea region alone, published in late 2014, ran from 1992 all the way to 2013, and found that the melt rate had “tripled during the last decade.”
As for what’s actually happening to sea levels if Antarctica is a net gainer rather than loser of ice, Zwally says he thinks the ice is indeed coming from elsewhere — the possibilities include Greenland, the melting of smaller glaciers around the world, and more ocean heat leading to greater thermal expansion of seawater.
Any way you look at it, though, the bottom line is that we’re facing ongoing sea level rise — and an increasing mass loss from Antarctica or a decreasing mass gain (as the new study finds) would both make that problem worse. As Jamin Greenbaum, a researcher at the University of Texas at Austin who studies East Antarctica, put it by e-mail:
Unfortunately, this study doesn’t change the fact that sea level rise has been accelerating since around 1870. Actually, it suggests that Antarctica’s ability to slow that rise is decreasing due to alarming trends in coastal mass loss. For instance, in East Antarctica, Totten Glacier is losing enough mass on its own to balance mass gains in an area larger than Texas.
All in all, then, the current disagreement helps to underscore that even as humans begin to modify the biggest systems and features of the planet, scientists are still struggling to fully measure and comprehend those changes.
Until the current debate gets ironed out, then, there are several possible stances you can take, ranging from fully accepting the new study over the prior ones — as many climate change doubters seem to be doing — to dismissing it out of hand. But the most reasonable one is probably to regard these surprising new findings with a fair dose of skepticism — and to continue worrying about ice losses along the Antarctic coasts.
Read more in Energy & Environment:
Scientists confirm their fears about West Antarctica — that it’s inherently unstable
Scientists say illegal pot farming operations are poisoning threatened weasels
The huge paradox at the heart of how people think about environmental risks
For more, you can sign up for our weekly newsletter here, and follow us on Twitter here. ||||| Abstract: Mass changes of the Antarctic ice sheet impact sea-level rise as climate changes, but recent rates have been uncertain. Ice, Cloud and land Elevation Satellite (ICESat) data (2003–08) show mass gains from snow accumulation exceeded discharge losses by 82 ± 25 Gt a–1, reducing global sea-level rise by 0.23 mm a–1. European Remote-sensing Satellite (ERS) data (1992–2001) give a similar gain of 112 ± 61 Gt a–1. Gains of 136 Gt a–1 in East Antarctica (EA) and 72 Gt a–1 in four drainage systems (WA2) in West Antarctic (WA) exceed losses of 97 Gt a–1 from three coastal drainage systems (WA1) and 29 Gt a–1 from the Antarctic Peninsula (AP). EA dynamic thickening of 147 Gt a–1 is a continuing response to increased accumulation (>50%) since the early Holocene. Recent accumulation loss of 11 Gt a–1 in EA indicates thickening is not from contemporaneous snowfall increases. Similarly, the WA2 gain is mainly (60 Gt a–1) dynamic thickening. In WA1 and the AP, increased losses of 66 ± 16 Gt a–1 from increased dynamic thinning from accelerating glaciers are 50% offset by greater WA snowfall. The decadal increase in dynamic thinning in WA1 and the AP is approximately one-third of the long-term dynamic thickening in EA and WA2, which should buffer additional dynamic thinning for decades. | – A recent NASA study has come to a shocking conclusion that contradicts a host of other studies, multitudes of climate scientists, the UN, and even other scientists at NASA: Antarctica is actually gaining more ice than it's losing, despite global warming. How's that possible? Live Science reports the gains—approximately 82 billion tons of ice per year between 2003 and 2008—come from snow accumulating faster in parts of Antarctica than ice sheets are collapsing and glaciers thinning out elsewhere. Basically, warmer temperatures mean more moisture in the air, which leads to precipitation. NASA notes the study, which was published Oct. 30 in the Journal of Glaciology, doesn't disprove global warming, and if warming trends continue the scales will eventually tip toward Antarctica losing more ice than it's gaining. The Washington Post reports the study has—obviously—been controversial within the scientific community and led to climate-change deniers having "a field day." Skeptical scientists point out the most recent data in the NASA study comes from 2008, while others question the accuracy of its measurement and tools, according to LiveScience. The Post reports still others wonder what is causing the annual rise in sea levels if not the loss of Antarctic ice. The NASA scientists behind the study aren't swayed. “We have a very high confidence in our results,” one researcher says. “We have examined the accuracy of our results quite carefully. We believe they’re accurate." Still the controversy is unlikely to die out anytime soon. "Arguing that because their results are different, they must be better is unsustainable," one geoscientist says. |
Archaeologist Who Uncovered China's 8,000-Man Terra Cotta Army Dies At 82
Enlarge this image toggle caption Ludovic Marin /AFP/Getty Images Ludovic Marin /AFP/Getty Images
A Chinese archaeologist who identified a long-lost clay army consisting of 8,000 soldiers died Wednesday, according to China's state media.
Zhao Kangmin first laid eyes on fragments of terra cotta warriors in 1974. Farmers some 20 miles from China's central city of Xi'an were digging a well and struck into the pieces.
They had no idea what they had found — an army that had been interred for more than 2,000 years to guard China's first emperor.
The farmers contacted Chinese authorities, who sent out government archaeologists, reported National Geographic.
"Because we were so excited, we rode on our bicycles so fast it felt as if we were flying," Zhao reportedly stated.
The archaeologist found heads, torsos and limbs. He began to reconstruct a figure, piece by piece. Each warrior was life-sized, with a different face and expression, and details that were realistic down to the fingernails. Eventually more archaeologists would uncover standing and kneeling archers, infantrymen, armored officers and chariots with horses.
At the time, Zhao grew nervous about the warrior he was restoring, according to historian John Man who wrote The Terra Cotta Army. He was "nervous that he might be swept up again by the madness of the Cultural Revolution, whose teenage Red Guards had forced him to criticize himself for being involved with old things and therefore encouraging the revival of feudalism."
The emperor who united China in the third century B.C., Qin Shi Huang, had commissioned the army to protect his tomb. More than 700,000 people built his soldiers and burial site, archaeologists estimate.
In more recent times, the terra cotta forces have allowed archaeologists to learn more about the Qin Empire. Based on the damage of the clay, they believe that the dynasty collapsed suddenly, Smithsonian reported. Rebellious forces may have raided the pits where clay soldiers stood sentry, setting fires, striking down warriors and stealing their real weapons.
Nearly 600 sites within some 22-miles have been identified, amounting to the largest tomb in Chinese history, according to UNESCO.
Farmers have since sued the government for recognition of the discovery. But Zhao didn't think they necessarily deserved credit.
"The farmers saw the terracotta fragments, but they didn't know they were cultural relics, and they even broke them," he told China Daily in 2009. "It was me who stopped the damage, collected the fragments and reconstructed the first terracotta warrior."
The publication reported that even after he retired from his role as curator at a museum in Xi'an, Zhao would go the museum every day and sit beside four terra cotta soldiers and a horse that he had reconstructed in the '70s.
In that display room, he would write autographs that read, "Zhao Kangmin, the first discoverer, restorer, appreciator, name-giver and excavator of the terracotta warriors."
He died at age 82. ||||| BEIJING: The Chinese archaeologist credited with discovering the emblematic ancient Terracotta Warriors, Zhao Kangmin, has died aged 82, state media said.
Zhao was the first archaeologist to identify fragments of terracotta found by local farmers digging a well in 1974 as relics dating back to the Qin dynasty and the first to excavate the site.
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The 8,000-man clay army, crafted around 250 BC for the tomb of China's first emperor Qin Shihuang, is a UNESCO world heritage site, a major tourist draw and a symbol of ancient Chinese artistic and military sophistication.
Zhao's death on May 16 was reported by the state-run People's Daily late Friday (May 18).
When the farmers first stumbled upon the tomb in Xian, capital of the northern province of Shaanxi, they alerted Zhao - then a curator at a local museum - to their discovery.
"I went to the site with another officer ... Because we were so excited, we rode on our bicycles so fast it felt as if we were flying," the archaeologist wrote in an article published in 2014 on the website of the Museum of Qin Terracotta Warriors and Horses.
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"The commune supervisor told us that heads and partial torsos of six to seven terracotta figures had been found by men digging a well. Someone had taken one of the heads home and stuck it in a granary to chase away rats," Zhao wrote.
Zhao ordered the farmers to collect the broken terracotta pieces and pile them on to three trucks, which he took to his small museum. He began to reconstruct the statues from these fragments, some as small as a fingernail, according the article.
"It was the tail end of the Cultural Revolution. But some factions were still against restoring old things. So we decided to keep it a secret," he wrote.
But an article on Zhao's work by a reporter from state-run Xinhua news agency soon roused the interest of authorities in Beijing and a larger team of archaeologists was sent to excavate the site alongside him.
China's State Council later recognised Zhao as the discoverer of the painstakingly carved battalion of terracotta soldiers, archers, and charioteers, each with unique facial features, costumes, weapons and even hairstyles.
The group of farmers petitioned the Chinese government for recognition of their discovery and compensation in 2004, according to media reports, but it is not clear whether their claims were upheld. | – It was Chinese farmers digging a well in 1974 who made the first strange discovery, but it was archaeologist Zhao Kangmin who realized the import. The farmers had stumbled onto an incredible "army" of about 8,000 life-size terra cotta warriors who had been guarding the tomb of China's first emperor for more than 2,000 years. Zhao's work is back in the news because the archaeologist died last week at age 82, reports NPR. A story at AFP fills in the details of the discovery: The farmers found terra cotta heads and torsos in the province of Shaanxi and alerted Zhao, then working as the curator at a local museum. "I went to the site with another officer," he once recalled. "Because we were so excited, we rode on our bicycles so fast it felt as if we were flying." Zhao had the farmers collect as many fragments as they could and had them trucked back to his museum, where he began the painstaking task of reconstructing them. "It was the tail end of the Cultural Revolution," he once said. "But some factions were still against restoring old things. So we decided to keep it a secret." Word eventually got out, however, and Zhao is credited with being the first to trace the warriors, horses, and chariots back to 250BC and figure out that they were set in place near the tomb of emperor Qin Shi Huang to guide him into the afterlife. Today, about 600 different sites in a 22-mile area have been unearthed, and the entire location is a UNESCO World Heritage site. (Decades after the discovery, the find is still rewriting history.) |
People are gaga for Lady Gaga.
The "Alejandro" singer, 24, has become the first living person to nab 10 million Facebook fans.
PHOTOS: Lady Gaga's craziest outfits of all time
On Friday, she surpassed President Barack Obama to take the honor.
According to USA Today, only five entities, none of them living people, have more Facebook fans than Gaga: Michael Jackson, Texas Hold 'em Poke, the Family Guy TV show, the game Mafia Wars and Facebook itself.
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Gaga (real name: Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta) has long thanked her fans for keeping her in the spotlight.
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In the latest of Rolling Stone, she confessed: "When I wake up in the morning, I feel just like any other insecure 24-year-old girl. Then I say, '... you're Lady Gaga, you get up and walk the walk today.' " ||||| Lady Gaga might not be so popular with everybody on the Internet, but no one would know that by looking at her Facebook profile – Gossip Cop just broke the news that the pop culture juggernaut has become the first living person to reach (and rapidly exceed) 10 million fans on the social networking site.
10 million might not seem like much on paper, so here’s a quick point of reference to put this in context: the population of Sweden is around 9.4 million. Lady Gaga has more minions than Sweden has inhabitants.
Gossip Cop previously reported on June 25 that Gaga and President Barack Obama were both on the verge of reaching the 10 million fan milestone, Gaga trailing Obama with 9,023,966 fans compared to the president‘s 9,058,881. It only took a week for her to acquire almost 1 million new followers, pushing her over the edge and making her officially more Facebook popular than the leader of the free world, who is still about half a million away from reaching the big 1-0 himself.
Gaga posted a video on her profile today thanking her fans for helping her accomplish such a momentous feat, telling viewers “Become my friend on Facebook, I’ll never forget you.” Every last million of you.
Gratulerar, Gaga! That’s Swedish for congrats. ||||| See more of Lady Gaga on Facebook | – More than 10 million Facebook users are fans of Lady Gaga, making her the first living person to reach the eight-digit reaches of global popularity, Us reports. Michael Jackson, Family Guy, Texas Hold 'Em, and Mafia Wars are the only other entities with 10 million fans. Even President Obama has only 9,058,881, according to Mediaite. Lady Gaga posted a video on Facebook to thank her fans. |
Nightmare on Elm Street, A (2010) Buy posters from this movie by Peter Sobczynski
"The Bastard Film Of 100 Idiots."
Despite being a child of the 1980�s and someone with an odd fascination for gory horror films from that era, I must confess that I have never had much use for the �Nightmare on Elm Street� series, that string of ultra-violent horror-fantasy extravaganzas in which Freddy Krueger, the hideously burned and razor-fingered bastard son of 100 maniacs, brutally haunted and hunted his victims in their dreams. Sure, Wes Craven�s 1984 original was a pretty effective work--thanks to his clever script and deft direction, a cast of engaging newcomers (including the then-unknown Johnny Depp in his film debut) and Robert Englund�s instantly iconic performance as Krueger--that was marred only by a truly asinine final scene, a bit of tacked-on tackiness that made the finale of �Back to the Future� look palatable by comparison) that became a huge hit with audiences and even earned decent reviews from many critics as well. However, with the exception of Craven�s brilliant 1994 meta-movie experiment �Wes Craven�s New Nightmare,� a smart commentary on the slasher genre that anticipated many of the ideas that he would explore a couple of years later in �Scream,� and 2003�s �Freddy Vs. Jason,� an agreeably silly monster mash between Krueger and fellow aging slasher icon Jason Voorhees, the series quickly degenerated into a string of quickie sequels that were little more than a series of elaborate kill scenes in which the endlessly wisecracking Krueger, whose jokes were more terrifying than his actions (though it should be noted that whatever life the films had was due almost entirely to Englund�s relentlessly energetic performances), bumped off a seemingly endless string of bland teen dopes until he was temporarily dispatched just before the end credits. Although many seemed to enjoy the formula for a while--the films made tons of money and Freddy appeared on the cover of �Fangoria� as often as Oprah Winfrey appears on the cover of �O� (and with much the same effect)--their sheer repetitiveness began to grate on even the most loyal fans and the franchise eventually went bust. Now �A Nightmare on Elm Street� has, like so many well-known horror properties, has been given the remake treatment to attract a new audience that wasn�t even born when the original films were still haunting the multiplexes. While the idea of doing such a film may have struck many old-school genre buffs as anathema, especially when it was announced that neither Craven nor Englund would be involved, I have to admit that it didn�t sound like the worst idea in the world--the basic premise of being stalked in your sleep when you are at your most vulnerable is still a pretty potent idea and while it seemed impossible for anyone to step into Englund�s charred sweater and glove, the casting of Jackie Earle Haley, hot off his comeback performances in �Little Children� and �Watchmen,� in the role was an off-beat and inspired move that suggested that it might have slightly higher ambitions than most of the recent string of reboots. Unfortunately, based on the unbelievably lame and deeply unentertaining results, it feels as if the filmmakers never actually got around to seeing the original film and instead took their inspiration from all the lame-ass sequels and the result is a hugely disappointing craptacular whose sole obvious virtue is the fact that it might--might--be slightly better than �Freddy�s Revenge,� the generally accepted low point of the franchise.
As the film opens, the seemingly bucolic suburb of Springwood is rocked when a local teenager plagued by bizarre nightmares kills himself in a diner in an exceptionally gruesome manner in front of his girlfriend, Kris (Katie Cassidy). Before long, it becomes apparent that she and several other classmates--arty waif Nancy (Rooney Mara), emo guy Quentin (Kyle Gallner) and hothead Jesse (Dean Braun)--have been having similar dreams involving a hideously burned man coming after them with a glove with razor blades attached to the fingers that also suggest that they all knew each other long before they supposedly met in high school. Thanks to a conveniently timed expository of nightmarish exposition, it turns out that they did indeed known each other as little children when they all attended a local pre-school where they were all befriended by Freddy Krueger (Haley), the kindly janitor who slept in a room in the basement in an arrangement that not a single parent apparently objected to in any form--they were presumably too busy ridding the playground of any item that might provide a bit of actual fun. Anyway, some of the kids eventually began to suggest that Krueger was molesting them and instead of doing something mundane than report it to the police, their parents (including Connie Britton and Clancy Brown) formed a vigilante mob and, despite his pleas of innocence, burned him to death. For reasons never quite explained, Krueger now has the power to invade the dreams of those now-grown children and is killing them off one by one in their sleep and it is up to Nancy and Quentin to stay awake long discover his secret and stop his reign of terror without getting sliced up themselves.
One of the reasons that the original �A Nightmare on Elm Street� worked was because it was a horror film that relied on more than just cheap shocks and gallons of gore to spook audiences--it mined its real scares from the twin notions of being attacked while asleep in bed, a position of vulnerability as primal and effective as a shower, and discovering that the very authority figures you were raised to believe were there to help you not only couldn�t when the time came, they were responsible for your traumas in the first place. (In this sense, the film was kind of like a horrific take on the John Hughes movies that were appearing at the same time.) While there are many problems with the revamped screenplay by Wesley Strick and Eric Heisserer, the biggest by far is its complete lack of ambition--having apparently never decided whether they were doing a strict remake or a complete revamp, they have presented an uncomfortable m�lange of the two that combines lame retreads of the first film�s most memorable moments with new plot details and developments that only manage to take an already shaky premise and tip it over into the realm of outright silliness. In the most ridiculous of these additions--Spoiler Warning!--there is actually a plot development that suggests that Freddy was actually innocent of the charges of molestation and that the kids lied about what happened to them. In capable hands, this approach might have led to an interesting twist to the familiar proceedings that might have explained Haley�s presence (or at least made the film seem like an odd quasi-sequel to �Little Children�) but here, it leads absolutely nowhere and by the time it is finally abandoned (Good news, parents--you lucked out and killed a guilty guy after all), most people will find themselves wondering why they went down that particular path in the first place, especially in the service of what is nothing more than a cheesy slasher retread.
Then again, it shouldn�t come as a shock that the screenplay doesn�t work when nothing else about the film works either. Director Samuel Bayer, a music video veteran making his feature debut here, evidently has one basic scary move in his repertoire--the �BOO!� moment where something pops up out of the frame unexpectedly and causes the less canny viewers to jump in their seats--and deploys it over and over for 95 minutes without ever showing any real aptitude for it. The performances from the young stars are universally execrable--as our heroine, Rooney Mara turns in one of the most wan and lifeless performances in recent memory (even after factoring in that her character is meant to be exhausted and running on fumes) and her co-stars aren�t much of an improvement--while Britton and Brown are completely wasted and largely forgotten about in the second half. As Krueger, Jackie Earle Haley does what he can to live up to the unenviable task of replacing Robert Englund but in the end, all he has to offer is a slightly less psychotic variation on his performance as Rorschach in �Watchmen.� The special effects are obviously far more elaborate here than in any other �Elm Street� film but completely lack the visceral impact of what Craven was able to achieve on a far more limited budget. As for the terrible final scene to the first film that I alluded to earlier, all I will say is that this, sadly, is the one area in which this new version has outdone the original. �A Nightmare on Elm Street� is a slickly made and ceaselessly stupid retread that seems to have been made for and by people who thought that last year�s revamp of �Friday the 13th� was too complex and arty for their tastes. With a lack of anything else of interest currently in major release, it will probably do well at the box-office, at least until the arrival of �Iron Man 2� next week, but my guess is that the exiting audiences will be divided into older viewers annoyed at the desecration of yet another icon of their misspent youth and bored younger viewers wondering what all the fuss was about. As for me, I was so bored with the whole thing that, ironically enough, I could barely keep my eyes open during it. Who knows--maybe if I had fallen asleep during it, I might have found myself being killed off by a better movie.
link directly to this review at http://www.efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=19472&reviewer;=389
originally posted: 04/30/10 13:57:24
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||||| Things that seem like a good idea at the time but you regret later: a second mortgage, a third beer and yet another installment of "A Nightmare on Elm Street."
Not, mind you, a sequel or a remake. No, director Samuel Bayer's version falls under the current trendy heading of "re-imagining," which is code for "making a movie similar to the 1984 original." Call it what you want, but the best word to describe it is: unnecessary.
The original "Nightmare," written and directed by Wes Craven, is for reasons unclear thought of as some sort of horror classic. It's not, but it did have two good ideas. The first is the blurring of dreams and reality; like the characters, we're not always sure when they're sleeping and when they're awake. The second is that in dreams (and nightmares), anything is possible.
The new version keeps those ideas alive, even expands upon them a little, especially visually. Freddy Krueger is still a disfigured burn victim with razors on one gloved hand, showing up in teenagers' dreams and, often as not, slicing and dicing them. Gone is Robert Englund, the actor who played Freddy in the original and the exhaustive string of remakes, replaced by Jackie Earle Haley, in a more-lurid take on the character. But he's still burned, still wearing the iconic fedora and sweater and still haunting kids in their nightmares.
This time around, however, his crimes are different, though the fallout from them is the same. It's a vigilante world out there, apparently.
Once again the kids who live on Elm Street are having bad, bad dreams. Dean (Kellan Lutz), Jesse (Thomas Dekker), Kris (Katie Cassidy), Quentin (Kyle Gallner) and Nancy (Rooney Mara) are afraid to sleep, but no one can stay awake forever. It gives nothing away to say that not all of them will survive their dealings with Freddy. Nor does it give too much away to say that you won't particularly care which do, as they are somewhat interchangeable, both in the story and in their performances. (There are only so many ways to portray being disemboweled by a supernatural lunatic.)
Their parents are hiding a secret. As with most of the movie, most people will surely know this going in. Those parents include Clancy Brown and Connie Britton, two fine actors asked here to do little more than give pat line readings of bad dialogue at varying volumes.
This is Bayer's first feature after a long and impressive career of music videos. If nothing else, he gives the film an intriguing look, playing with color tones and morphing from reality into dreams and back again. If the steamy boiler room Freddy inhabits looks familiar, it's probably because Bayer used a similar look for the first video he directed, the groundbreaking "Smells Like Teen Spirit" by Nirvana, which helped launch the grunge movement in the early '90s (and for which he gets a free pop-culture-hero pass for all time).
His new "Nightmare" isn't going to launch anything in particular except, probably, a sequel. It's not terrible. It's just . . . superfluous. With any number of "Nightmare" movies to choose from available for rental ("Look, it's Johnny Depp!"), the idea that someone's cool screenplay got passed over so that this franchise could wheeze back to life is disappointing.
Come to think of it, that third beer doesn't sound so bad after all.
Reach Goodykoontz at bill.goodykoontz@arizonarepublic.com. Facebook: facebook.com/GoodyOnFilm. Twitter: goodyk. ||||| Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)
'A Nightmare on Elm Street,' starring Jackie Earle Haley, bludegons classic Freddy Krueger tale
Photo Courtesy of Warner Bros. P In "A Nightmare On Elm Street," Jackie Earle Haley stars as Freddy Krueger. The remake of Wes Craven's classic leaves a lot to be desired.
The studio optimist who wrote the official press notes for "A Nightmare on Elm Street" describes Freddy Krueger's latest appearance as "a reinvention of the seminal 1984 horror classic." In reality, it's more like a bludgeoning.
The fan anxiety over Jackie Earle Haley replacing Robert Englund turns out to be warranted: Haley's a fine actor, but he was far scarier in the suburban drama "Little Children." And Englund's unpredictable presence is definitely missed.
Don't blame Haley, though. Wesley Strick and Eric Heisserer's screenplay goes in the wrong direction entirely, dropping Freddy's sick sense of humor while turning him into a generic bogeyman.
Novice director Samuel Bayer returns to the initial Elm Street crime scene, where high-school senior Nancy (Rooney Mara) is being stalked by Freddy in her dreams. Other students (including "Twilight's" Kellan Lutz) are also tortured when they fall asleep, though no one knows why.
With help from her mom (Connie Britton) and boyfriend (Kyle Gallner), Nancy learns that Freddy was once a pedophile preying on preschoolers. She and her friends were his final victims, before their enraged parents set him on fire. Years later, he's returned for revenge.
When he kills someone in her sleep, she dies in reality, so Nancy's only hope is to stay awake. But all the Red Bull in the world won't keep her and her friends up forever.
While the filmmakers plundered Wes Craven's original for their plot, they neglected to retain other essential elements, like a genuine sense of dread. Bayer doesn't even know how to exploit the potential terror of nightmares.
And he cares even less about the characters. Haley's reptilian menace is lost under all that makeup, along with Freddy's personality. The rest of the cast is encouraged to behave in equally bland fashion, so talented actors like Gallner and Britton are completely wasted.
If all you're looking for are cheap scares, you'll find a few minor jolts and a decent - though not interesting or unusual - amount of gore. But be warned: You may need your own case of Red Bull just to make it all the way through.
eweitzman@nydailynews.com ||||| Wes Craven’s 1984 horror film A Nightmare On Elm Street owes at least part of its success to reasons evident in the title. For his setting, Craven didn’t use some cobwebbed old house or fog-drenched Eastern European village but, like John Carpenter’s Halloween, a bucolic suburban anywhere, the sort of prosperous picket-fence neighborhood previous generations had strived hard to reach. But Elm Street had a troubled past that included child murders, vigilante justice, and, in Freddy Krueger, a dream-haunting bogeyman determined to shed some teenage blood to make sure everyone knew about it. Craven’s film has its creaky moments, but the powerful notion of a whole generation dying in a ruined All-American paradise thanks to the sins of their parents made them easy to ignore. So too did Craven’s inventive, low-budget surrealism and Robert Englund’s portrayal of Krueger, a casually relentless undead maniac driven by a perverse sense of justice.
Sadly, the above paragraph could double as a catalog of what’s missing from this remake, another slick updating of a horror classic from Michael Bay’s Platinum Dunes imprint, the production company responsible for 21st century remakes of Friday The 13th, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and others. Director Samuel Bayer, a veteran commercial and music video director responsible for Nirvana’s “Smell Like Teen Spirit Video” back when the original Nightmare series was still a going concern, brings a slick visual sense but not a hint of vision. The film cops virtually every memorable image from the original, but loses the depth that gave them power and the sense of place that grounded them. And while, after Little Children, this officially confirms Jackie Earle Haley as the go-to actor to play child molesters, his Krueger simply isn’t that threatening, more a fidgety runt than the stuff of cold sweat-inducing bad dreams.
Bayer keeps repeating the image of teenage characters—some, like lead Rooney Mara, who look almost old enough to have teen kids of their own—waking up screaming as if trying to convince the audience they were watching a scarier movie than they are. No matter how often the film returns to the same foreboding boiler room or how much the sound design pushes the sound of flesh getting cut—which for some reason sounds like metal on metal—there’s little to be frightened of here. (Unless, of course, you count the creepy way Bayer tries to wring gross-out thrills from images of child molestation.) Some recurring dreams get less powerful with repetition. | – Freddy Krueger may be haunting teen dreams once again in A Nightmare on Elm Street, but this "re-imagining" of the horror franchise is seriously short on imagination, say critics. The remake of Wes Craven's 1984 horror flick "cops virtually every memorable image from the original, but loses the depth that gave them power and the sense of place that grounded them," complains Keith Phipps for the AV Club. Jackie Earle Haley as Freddy doesn't measure up to the job previously done by Robert Englund, writes Elizabeth Weitzman at the New York Daily News, but the real problem here is that the "screenplay goes in the wrong direction entirely, dropping Freddy's sick sense of humor while turning him into a generic bogeyman." The movie isn't terrible, writes Bill Goodykoontz at the Arizona Republic, praising director Samuel Bayer's visual touches, "it's just superfluous." Peter Sobczynski at eFilmcritic had trouble staying awake during this "slickly made and ceaselessly stupid retread" of the much scarier original. "Who knows, maybe if I had fallen asleep during it, I might have found myself being killed off by a much better movie." |
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/ Updated / Source: TODAY By Scott Stump
During last year's trial in which graduating senior Owen Labrie was charged with sexually assaulting a younger student at the prestigious St. Paul's School, his accuser was shielded in anonymity by law.
Chessy Prout, who was 15 years old at the time of the incident, has now decided to publicly reveal her identity in order to speak out about the crime.
"I want everyone to know that I am not afraid or ashamed anymore, and I never should have been,'' Prout told Savannah Guthrie in an exclusive interview that aired on TODAY Tuesday.
Labrie, 20, was acquitted on three counts of felony sexual assault in August 2015 and convicted on three counts of misdemeanor sexual assault, felony illegal use of computer services and misdemeanor endangering the welfare of a child. He is currently appealing the verdict.
Labrie had been accused of raping Prout during a ritual called the “Senior Salute” at the prestigious boarding academy in Concord, New Hampshire. The ritual involves seniors trying to have sex with younger girls in the school before graduating.
"It's been two years now since the whole ordeal, and I feel ready to stand up and own what happened to me and make sure other people, other girls and boys, don't need to be ashamed, either,'' Prout said.
Prout says the criminal trial, which made national headlines, could have been avoided.
"We had been prepared to just receive an apology letter,'' she said. "We had been prepared to finish this and just move forward with our lives and let them move forward with their lives, but, you know what, in the pursuit of justice I would've done anything."
Prout took the stand and testified for three days during the trial.
"It was something that was necessary,'' she said. "Although it was scary and although it was pretty difficult...I wouldn't be where I am today without having been able to speak up for myself during that time,'' she said.
RELATED: Prout’s family files suit against St. Paul’s School
In October 2015, Labrie was sentenced to a year in jail, but was initially free while the appeal of the verdict was pending. Labrie was ordered to adhere to a curfew from 5 p.m. to 8 a.m. at his mother’s house in Vermont, but was found by a judge to have violated the curfew in March and taken into custody to begin serving his jail sentence.
However, he was freed on bail again in May after a New Hampshire judge gave him another chance to live at his mother’s house as long as he wears a GPS monitor as he awaits his appeal. Labrie is also currently registered as a sex offender in New Hampshire pending his appeal.
Chessy Prout with her family during Savannah Guthrie's exclusive interview. TODAY
"I hope he learns,'' Prout said. "I hope he gets help. And that's all I can ever hope for in any sort of process like this. Because if he doesn't learn, he will do it to another young woman."
While Labrie was convicted on misdemeanor charges, the jury acquitted him of the more serious felony sexual assault charges.
"They said that they didn't believe that he did it knowingly, and that frustrated me a lot because he definitely did do it knowingly,'' Prout said. "And the fact that he was still able to pull the wool over a group of people's eyes bothered me a lot and just disgusted me in some way."
St. Paul's School had long been part of Prout's family, as her father, Alex, is a graduate along with her older sister, Lucy. Chessy was adamant about returning to school in the wake of the trial, but said previous male friends would no longer speak to her.
On one occasion, she claims a pair of senior football players organizing a Powder Puff football game said, "We're only directing this at the upper formers because we're not allowed to look at lower formers anymore."
"I looked at them like this and thinking that that had to be approved by the rector of the school,'' Prout said. "And they let those boys go up there and make a joke about consent and the age. I said to myself, 'That's it, I don't have to deal this anymore.
"I tried my best to go back to my school and try to have a normal life again. But if they're going to treat this topic as a joke, this is not a place I want to be."
In June, the Prouts filed a civil lawsuit against the school, arguing that it failed to protect children entrusted to its care. St. Paul's School issued the following statement to TODAY:
"As was the case when the survivor was a student here and subsequently, the School admires her courage and condemns unkind behavior toward her. We feel deeply for her and her family. We have always placed the safety and well-being of our students first and are confident that the environment and culture of the school have supported that. We categorically deny that there ever existed at the School a culture or tradition of sexual assault. However, there’s no denying the survivor’s experience caused us to look anew at the culture and environment. This fresh look has brought about positive changes at the School."
On Aug. 15, attorneys for St. Paul’s School made a request that Prout's identity be publicly released. The school argued that her family is attacking its reputation “from behind a cloak of anonymity,” according to court documents.
"Unfortunately, it seems like the school's reputation became more important than supporting our daughter,'' Prout's mother, Susan, told Guthrie.
"There was just no recognition that I had gone through something like this,'' Chessy said. "And that is one of the reasons why we're pushing for change."
In response NBC News' specific question about programming, the school says they:
Employ developmentally appropriate education models designed to prevent and reduce risky adolescent behavior.
Implement healthy boundary and bystander intervention programming for adults and students.
Engage external teams of experts to examine the health of the student culture.
Bring in leading experts to train the faculty on adolescent relationships, consent, sexuality, and culture.
Created an Associate Head of School position for the purpose of integrating and advancing healthy culture initiatives.
Continually assess and strengthen our advising system and the role of the head of house.
Regularly review and clarify rules governing student behavior.
Regularly review and upgrade our security systems.
Led a nationally recognized symposium on the influence of technology on adolescent relationships
Prout is now working with the non-profit Promoting Awareness Victim Empowerment (PAVE) organization, which "works both to shatter the silence and prevent sexual violence through social advocacy, education and survivor support." PAVE is launching a new site, I Have the Right To, on Tuesday in the wake of Prout's interview.
TODAY
"I want other people to feel empowered and just strong enough to be able to say, 'I have the right to my body. I have the right to say no,''' Prout said.
Prout has been grateful for the support of her family during the trial and its aftermath.
"I just can't imagine how scary it is for other people to have to do this alone, and I don't want anybody else to be alone anymore,'' she said.
Follow TODAY.com writer Scott Stump on Twitter. ||||| NEW YORK (AP) — A teen who was sexually assaulted during a game of sexual conquest at a prestigious New Hampshire prep school said Tuesday in her first public comments that she is no longer ashamed or afraid and she hopes to be a voice for others.
Chessy Prout spoke in an interview on NBC's "Today" show about what happened to her at St. Paul's School in 2014 when she was a 15-year-old freshman.
"It's been two years now since the whole ordeal, and I feel ready to stand up and own what happened to me and make sure other people, other girls and boys, don't need to be ashamed, either," said Prout, now 17 and about to start her senior year at a different school.
The Associated Press normally does not identify victims of sexual assault, but Prout has now spoken publicly about the case.
Former St. Paul's student Owen Labrie, of Tunbridge, Vermont, was arrested in 2014, days after graduating from the Concord school. Prosecutors alleged he assaulted the girl as part of a competition known as the Senior Salute in which some seniors sought to have sex with underclassman.
Labrie was convicted last year of misdemeanor sex assault charges and a felony charge of using a computer to lure the student. He was acquitted on three counts of felony sexual assault.
Labrie was sentenced to a year in jail, but he remains free pending appeal.
Prout's parents have sued the school, arguing it should have done more to protect their daughter. The school has denied it could have prevented the assault, but it has since taken steps to "prevent and reduce risky adolescent behavior."
In the interview, Prout said she sometimes gets panic attacks and hides in her closet and rocks on the floor. She wants to use the experience to help others.
"I want everyone to know that I am not afraid or ashamed anymore, and I never should have been," she said. | – A year after her sexual assault at St. Paul's School made headlines, Chessy Prout says she's tired of hiding. "I want everyone to know that I am not afraid or ashamed anymore, and I never should have been,'' she tells Today of the May 2014 assault. Prout was just 15 when she was sexually assaulted at the prestigious New Hampshire school while on a date with senior Owen Labrie, who is out on bail while appealing his conviction of misdemeanor sexual assault. Prout says she was "disgusted" that Labrie—acquitted of felony sexual assault charges—convinced a jury that he didn't knowingly rape her "because he definitely did do it knowingly," but says she hopes he learns from his crime. "Because if he doesn't learn, he will do it to another young woman." Prout—who also described having panic attacks and hiding in her closet, per the AP—has teamed up with nonprofit Promoting Awareness Victim Empowerment and says she wants to encourage "other people to feel empowered and just strong enough to be able to say, 'I have the right to my body. I have the right to say no.''' In an effort to bring about change, she's also filed a civil case against St. Paul's, which accused her of attacking the school "from behind a cloak of anonymity" and filed a request that her identity be released. The school denies "a culture or tradition of sexual assault" existed there but says Prout's case has already "brought about positive changes," including new faculty training and updates to security systems. (Read Prout's testimony here.) |
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 ||||| Ginnifer Goodwin Pregnant: Once Upon a Time Star Expecting Baby With Fiance Josh Dallas
A little prince or princess is on the way for Snow White and Prince Charming! Once Upon a Time actress Ginnifer Goodwin is pregnant and expecting a baby with fiance (and costar) Josh Dallas, their reps confirm to Us Weekly.
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Rumors that the 35-year-old Something Borrowed star had a baby on board first swirled when she was photographed on the set of her hit ABC drama in a gray swing coat that seemed to strategically conceal her stomach.
PHOTOS: Costar couples
This will be the first child for Goodwin and Dallas, 31. Together since March 2012, the couple confirmed their engagement to Us in October of this year, just a few days after the actor popped the question.
"They really hit it off," a source told Us Weekly of the costars in 2012. "She and Josh have a blast together and had instant chemistry."
PHOTOS: The cast of Once Upon a Time
Goodwin was previously engaged to actor Joey Kern. Dallas was wed to actress Lara Pulver; they split in 2011 after four years of marriage. ||||| Leighton Meester and Adam Brody are engaged!
The cutie pie couple of 10 months is heading to the altar after the former Gossip Girl star accepted Adam’s surprise proposal.
“Leighton and Adam are crazy about each other and have talked about getting married eventually,�? an insider tells Star. “But she had no idea he would propose so soon! It was the surprise of her life and she’s ecstatic!�?
Adam, 33, and Leighton, 27, have been friends for years, getting close in 2011 while co-starring in the independent film, The Oranges. In January they took their relationship to the next level and were soon spotted taking in art exhibits at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and traveling together through Bangkok in February.
Adam previously dated director Lorene Scafaria in 2010 and his co-star on The O.C., Rachel Bilson, for three years. Leighton was most recently linked to actor Aaron Himelstein, which followed her 2-year relationship with Gossip Girl co-star Sebastian Stan ending in 2010.
“Right now their plan is to get married next summer,�? adds the insider. “They are still deciding if they want a destination wedding or if they’ll marry in Southern California somewhere.”
While there are no plans for children in the immediate future the couple do have two dogs together, Penny Lane and Trudy. | – Well, at least one celebrity is explaining her odd name choice: Fergie says she and hubby Josh Duhamel chose their baby's name, Axl Jack, after a dream she had while pregnant. In the dream, "I was in the audience at this festival. It was outdoors and it was all grimy and nobody knew who I was," she reveals in an appearance airing today on the Ellen DeGeneres Show. "On stage singing was Jim Morrison and then came Bob Marley and then Axl Rose. I was in heaven in this dream and I’m dancing and just getting into the music." Then her still-in-utero baby woke her up by kicking her for the first time. "It was like he was feeling the music with me," she says. "It was really beautiful and I woke Josh up and I said, 'Honey, honey, honey, he kicked me. He finally kicked me.'" They figured it was a sign, and after considering the names "Morrison" and "Marley," finally settled on "Axl." They had already chosen "Jack" as a tribute to Fergie's late uncle. More in the world of celebrity romance and babies: Kelly Clarkson is expecting her first baby with husband Brandon Blackstock, tweeting yesterday, "I'm pregnant!!! Brandon and I are so excited! Best early Christmas present ever :)" Ginnifer Goodwin is also expecting her first baby, with fiance and Once Upon a Time co-star Josh Dallas, their reps confirm to Us. And no baby yet, but Gossip Girl star Leighton Meester is engaged to The OC star Adam Brody, if Star's sources are to be believed. |
Protesters shout slogans as they march outside of the Chinese Consulate hours before the Hague-based UN international arbitration tribunal is to announce its ruling on South China Sea Tuesday, July 12,... (Associated Press)
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — An international tribunal ruled unanimously Tuesday that there is no legal basis for China's "nine-dash line" claiming rights to much of the South China Sea.
The panel of legal experts in The Hague said that any historic rights to resources that China may have had were wiped out if they are incompatible with exclusive economic zones established under a U.N. treaty.
The Philippines, which brought the arbitration case against China, welcomed the ruling. Philippine Foreign Secretary Perfecto Yasay called it a "milestone decision" and pledged to pursue a peaceful resolution of its territorial disputes with China.
"The Philippines strongly affirms its respect for this milestone decision as an important contribution to ongoing efforts in addressing disputes in the South China Sea," he said.
How Beijing responds to the ruling in the case filed by U.S. ally the Philippines could chart the course of global power relations in an increasingly dangerous hotspot. It comes as the U.S. has ramped up its military presence in the region and could seek to marshal world opinion to pressure Beijing into complying with the verdict. A new Philippine leader who appears friendlier to Beijing could also influence the aftermath of the ruling.
China drafted its so-called nine-dash line to demarcate its claims to virtually the entire South China Sea. Manila brought the case because China's claims infringe upon its own 200-mile exclusive economic zone. The dispute centers on waters through which an estimated $5 trillion in global trade passes through each year and are home to rich fishing stocks and a potential wealth of oil, gas and other resources.
China, which boycotted the case, summoned its demobilized sailors and officers for training drills in exercises that apparently started just days ago.
The People's Liberation Army Daily newspaper said on social media late Monday that Chinese navy reserves have been called up to perform "functional tasks." The post followed online rumors that reservists in central Chinese provinces were called up for an unspecified mission from July 10-22.
In the Philippines, more than 100 left-wing activists marched to the Chinese Consulate in metropolitan Manila, yelling, "Philippine territory is ours, China get out." They called their campaign to push China out of the South China Sea, "CHexit" or "China exit now."
Vietnam, meanwhile, accused Chinese vessels of sinking a Vietnamese fishing boat in disputed waters. Nguyen Thanh Hung, a local fisheries executive in the central province of Quang Ngai, said two Chinese vessels chased and sank the Vietnamese boat around midday Saturday as it was fishing near the Paracel islands. The five fishermen were rescued by another trawler around seven hours later.
China has argued that the tribunal has no jurisdiction and says it won't accept the ruling. It has insisted that bilateral talks between Beijing and other claimants is the only way to address the dispute.
Findings of the tribunal are binding on the parties, including China. But the court — without police or military forces or a system of sanctions at its disposal — can't enforce its ruling, so its potential impact remains unclear.
___
Gomez reported from Manila, Philippines. Associated Press writer Vijay Joshi in Bangkok contributed to this report. ||||| Xi Jinping says China’s ‘territorial sovereignty and marine rights’ in the seas will not be affected
China has said it will not accept a ruling against it in a key international legal case over strategic reefs and atolls that Beijing claims would give it control over disputed waters of the South China Sea.
The judgment by an international tribunal in The Hague came down overwhelmingly in favour of claims by the Philippines and is likely to increase global diplomatic pressure on Beijing to scale back military expansion in the area. By depriving certain outcrops of territorial-generating status, the ruling from the permanent court of arbitration effectively punches holes in China’s all-encompassing “nine-dash” line that stretches deep into the South China Sea.
The Chinese president, Xi Jinping, said China’s “territorial sovereignty and marine rights” in the seas would not be affected by the ruling, which declared large areas of the sea to be neutral international waters or the exclusive economic zones of other countries. He insisted China was still “committed to resolving disputes” with its neighbours.
Chinese state media reacted angrily to the verdict. Xinhua, the country’s official news agency, hit out at what it described as an “ill-founded” ruling that was “naturally null and void”. The Communist party mouthpiece newspaper the People’s Daily said in an editorial that the tribunal had ignored “basic truths” and “trampled” on international laws and norms.
“The Chinese government and the Chinese people firmly oppose [the ruling] and will neither acknowledge it nor accept it,” it added.
The Philippine foreign affairs secretary, Perfecto Yasay Jr, said the country welcomed the ruling and called for “restraint and sobriety”. The US State Department called on both parties to comply with their obligations, according to a statement from spokesman John Kirby.
The ruling makes grim reading for Beijing and contains a series of criticisms of China’s actions and claims. The tribunal declared that “although Chinese navigators and fishermen, as well as those of other states, had historically made use of the islands in the South China Sea, there was no evidence that China had historically exercised exclusive control over the waters or their resources.
“The tribunal concluded that there was no legal basis for China to claim historic rights to resources within the sea areas falling within the ‘nine-dash line’.”
None of the fiercely disputed Spratly Islands, the UN body found, were “capable of generating extended maritime zones … [and] having found that none of the features claimed by China was capable of generating an exclusive economic zone, the tribunal found that it could — without delimiting a boundary — declare that certain sea areas are within the exclusive economic zone of the Philippines, because those areas are not overlapped by any possible entitlement of China.”
The tribunal found that China had violated the Philippines’ sovereign rights in its exclusive economic zone by interfering with Philippine fishing and petroleum exploration, constructing artificial islands and failing to prevent Chinese fishermen from fishing in the zone. At Scarborough Shoal, where it said fishermen from the Philippines and China had traditional fishing rights, it said China had restricted these rights. It added that China had created a serious risk of collision when its patrol boats had physically obstructed Philippine fishing vessels.
South China Sea dispute: what you need to know about The Hague court ruling Read more
The tribunal also condemned China’s land reclamation projects and its construction of artificial islands at seven features in the Spratly Islands, concluding that it had caused “severe harm to the coral reef environment and violated its obligation to preserve and protect fragile ecosystems and the habitat of depleted, threatened, or endangered species”.
Land reclamation “was incompatible with the obligations on a state during dispute resolution proceedings”, it added, since it involved causing “irreparable harm to the marine environment”, building a “large artificial island in the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone”, and destroying “evidence of the natural condition of features in the South China Sea that formed part of the parties’ dispute”.
Paul Reichler, of the law firm Foley Hoag LLP, who who coordinated the Philippines’ legal team, said: “The tribunal’s ruling not only benefits the Philippines, it also benefits other states bordering the South China Sea like Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam. If China’s nine-dash line is invalid as to the Philippines, it is equally invalid to those states and, indeed, the rest of the international community.”
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Image from a US Navy surveillance aircraft purportedly shows Chinese dredging vessels in the waters around Mischief reef in the disputed Spratly islands. Photograph: HANDOUT/Reuters
Beijing claims 90% of the South China Sea, a maritime region believed to hold a wealth of untapped oil and gas reserves and through which roughly $4.5tn of ship-borne trade passes every year. Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan also contest China’s claims to islands and reef systems closer to their territory than Beijing’s.
China says it follows a historical precedent set by the “nine-dash line” that Beijing drew in 1947 following the surrender of Japan. The line has been included in subsequent maps issued under Communist rule.
Sporadic violence between Chinese vessels and those of south-east Asia militaries have broken out in recent decades and the verdict, the first international legal decision on the issue, could have unpredictable consequences.
Ashley Townshend, a scholar at the University of Sydney’s United States Studies Centre, said the tribunal’s decision to disqualify China’s “nine-dash” claim on the basis of historic rights was “a huge setback for Beijing”. China had stirred up so much nationalism over the South China Sea issue that it would now have to respond in some way.
'We won't have to live in fear anymore' : readers on the South China Sea ruling Read more
“In terms of China’s domestic politics [the ruling] is unacceptable to the regime and unfortunately the regime will perceive that the Chinese people view that as unacceptable,” Townshend predicted.
“So there will be huge pressures on Beijing to respond, to save face, to demonstrate with more than just words that it doesn’t abide by and doesn’t credit the ruling with any legal validity and will not adhere to it and will defend its ‘sovereign space’ in the South China Sea.”
Townshend said he did not expect Beijing to lash out militarily but believed further military drills in the South China Sea were possible as well as the establishment of an air defence identification zone somewhere over the region.
Xu Liping, a pro-Beijing scholar from China’s National Institute of International Strategy, told the Guardian he believed the ruling was “biased and unfair”, “absolutely terrible” and “a joke”.
The nationalistic Global Times tabloid attacked the ruling in an English language editorial on Tuesday night as “more radical and shameless than many people had ever expected”, saying it had “brazenly violated China’s territorial sovereignty and maritime rights.”
The newspaper, which is controlled by the Communist party and sometimes reflects its thinking, also warned of a military escalation. “If the US and Japan use [the ruling] to pile military and political pressure on Beijing, Chinese people will firmly support our government to launch a tit-for-tat counterpunch,” it said. “We trust Chinese law enforcement and military forces have been well-prepared.”
The case at the permanent court of arbitration in The Hague, the UN-appointed tribunal that adjudicates in international disputes over maritime territory, has been running since 2013. Philippe Sands QC, who represented the Philippines in the hearing, said: “This is the most significant international legal case for almost the past 20 years since the Pinochet judgment.”
The judgment does not allocate any of the outcrops or islands to rival countries but instead indicates which maritime features are capable under international law of generating territorial rights over surrounding seas.
Last year, US officials claimed the Chinese had built up an extra 800 hectares (2,000 acres) on their occupied outposts across the South China Sea over the previous 18 months. The main focus of activity has been on Mischief Reef, where satellite images reveal the island is growing bigger, and is surrounded by fleets of dredgers and tankers.
China has previously stated that it “will neither accept nor participate in the arbitration unilaterally initiated by the Philippines”. The tribunal ruled, however, that China’s refusal to participate did not deprive the court of jurisdiction. | – An international tribunal ruled unanimously Tuesday that there is no legal basis for China's "nine-dash line" claiming rights to much of the South China Sea. The panel of legal experts in the Hague said that any historic rights to resources that China may have had were wiped out if they're incompatible with exclusive economic zones established under a United Nations treaty, the AP reports. The Philippines, which brought the arbitration case against China, welcomed the ruling and pledged to pursue a peaceful resolution of its territorial disputes with China. The dispute centers on waters through which an estimated $5 trillion in global trade passes each year and that are home to rich fishing stocks and a potential wealth of oil, gas, and other resources. The ruling, which condemned China's land reclamation projects around disputed islands, "will make grim reading for Beijing," the Guardian notes. The tribunal found that much of the sea counts as international waters, and that the disputed Spratly Islands and other features claimed by China could not generate exclusive economic zones of their own, which gives the Philippines control of certain disputed areas. State media in China reacted angrily, saying Beijing "does not accept or acknowledge" the ruling and that China's military will "unswervingly safeguard state sovereignty, security, maritime rights, and interests." (Beijing may have to rethink its plans for floating nuclear power plants and manned deep-sea labs.) |
Huge algae blooms discovered beneath Arctic ice
WASHINGTON — A NASA mission to study the tiny algae vital to the ocean's food chain has turned up a massive amount of phytoplankton where scientists least expected it -- under the Arctic ice.
In a project that uses both satellites and on-site measurements to study this important food source for many of the ocean's creatures, NASA sent a team to sample the ice pack off the Chukchi Sea along Alaska's coast.
Researchers aboard the US Coast Guard icebreaker ship, Healy, sampled beneath the 0.8-1.3 meter (2.4-4.0 feet) thick sea ice and found phytoplankton biomass was "extremely high, about fourfold greater than in open water."
The "massive under-ice bloom" also appeared to extend about 100 kilometers (60 miles) into the ice shelf, until "the waters literally looked like pea soup," mission leader Kevin Arrigo told reporters.
"We were astonished. It was completely unexpected. It was literally the most intense phytoplankton bloom I have ever seen in my 25 years of doing this type of research," said Arrigo, a scientist at Stanford University in California.
"Just like the tomatoes in your garden, these and all phytoplankton require light and they require nutrients to grow," Arrigo explained.
"It has been presumed that there was very little light under the ice and we didn't expect to see much."
Known formally as "Impacts of Climate on Ecosystems and Chemistry of the Arctic Pacific Environment," or ICESCAPE, mission scientists went on two expeditions in June-July of 2010 and 2011.
The latest findings are published in the June 7 edition of the journal Science.
Arrigo said the discovery caused "a fundamental shift in our understanding of the Arctic ecosystem," which was previously believed to be cold and desolate.
Before, the tiny single-celled plants were not believed to grow until the ice melted.
"If you rank all the phytoplankton blooms anywhere in the world by the amount of phytoplankton that is contained in them, the under-ice bloom that we saw during ICESCAPE would finish at the very top of the list," he added.
"And it was growing beneath a layer of sea ice as thick as a five-year-old child is tall."
Phytoplankton were scarcer and deeper in the open waters, and were "greatest at depths of 20 to 50 meters (66-164 feet) because of nutrient depletion near the surface," said the study.
More research is needed to determine how these under-ice phytoplankton affect local ecosystems.
Phytoplankton blooms in the Arctic have been observed to peak as many as 50 days earlier than they did a dozen years ago, a development that could have implications for the larger food web, scientists have said.
"My concern is that if phytoplankton continue to develop and grow earlier and earlier in the year, it is going to become increasingly difficult for those animals that time their life cycle to be in the Arctic... to be there at the right time of year," Arrigo said.
The microscopic organisms are the base of the food chain and drive the food and reproductive cycles of fish, seabirds and polar bears. How larger animals may react to phytoplankton changes remains unknown.
Phytoplankton are also important because through the process of photosynthesis they remove about half of the harmful carbon dioxide produced by the burning of fossil fuels worldwide.
Previous research has shown the microscopic organisms have been disappearing globally at a rate of one percent per year.
Since 1950, phytoplankton mass has dropped by about 40 percent, most likely due to the accelerating impact of global warming, said a 2010 study in the journal Nature.
Copyright © 2013 AFP. All rights reserved. More » ||||| The most intense phytoplankton bloom recorded on Earth occurred under the Arctic ice last summer — a finding that has stunned seasoned polar scientists.
“The ice was over a metre thick,” says Kevin Arrigo at Stanford University, leader of the international team that reported Thursday finding the massive bright green algal bloom beneath the ice.
[np-related]
It turns out that first-year polar ice — long considered impenetrable to sunlight — can create ideal conditions for growing phytoplankton, the single-celled plants crucial to the Arctic food chain.
“It’s like the perfect environment,” says Arrigo.
The team was on a U.S. icebreaker smashing its way across the Chukchi Sea between Siberia and Alaska last July when equipment used to measure phytoplankton went “haywire.”
“We thought there was something wrong with the instruments,” Arrigo told Postmedia News.
Then the scientists made their first scheduled stop to take ice samples and got a good look at the ocean below.
“The water was completely green,” Arrigo said. “It was like pea soup.”
The farther they ventured into the ice-covered sea for their NASA-funded project to study ice, the more intense the under-ice algae bloom, says Arrigo, a veteran of many trips to the Arctic and Antarctic.
“It was shocking,” he says.
Phytoplankton were growing and multiplying at an extraordinary rate under an expanse of ice more than 100 kilometres across, the team reported Thursday in the journal Science.
Arrigo says records indicate it was the “most intense” algal bloom ever seen anywhere on Earth. “We had incredibly high concentrations of algae all of the way down to 70 metres in some cases,” he said.
First-year polar ice, which forms over just one winter, is becoming more common in the Arctic due to the recent retreat of much thicker multi-year ice.
While first-year ice was thought to be impenetrable by sunlight, Arrigo says it can actually create optimal growing conditions for algae.
Melt ponds tend to form on top of the ice as temperatures climb in June and July. And the shallow ponds act like lenses, allowing 50% of the light to penetrate through the ice into the water below.
At the same time, the ice screens out UV radiation that can stunt algal growth, he says.
Add the Arctic’s 24-hour summer sunshine, and phytoplankton populations under the ice can explode.
Another factor at play is a “striking” change in some Arctic winds in recent years, says co-author Kent Moore at the University of Toronto. More persistent easterly winds are bringing up more nutrients in the Chukchi Sea, which appears to have fed the under-ice bloom.
Thursday’s report deals with the bloom under the ice in the Chukchi Sea, but Arrigo suspects algae could be blooming under the ice in about 25% of the Arctic Ocean, including large parts of Canada’s North. Anywhere, he says, with shallow water, lots of nutrients and first-year ice.
As the Arctic warms, the scientists say under-ice phytoplankton blooms could become increasingly common, occur early in the season and consume nutrients that would normally feed open-water blooms.
“The real surprise is all these unanticipated consequences of global warming,” says Moore.
The shift may benefit some creatures, the researchers say, but others may have difficulty adjusting.
“If you’re a seabird planning to get to Chukchi Sea in mid-July to feed, you may be out of luck,” says Moore.
Postmedia News | – Scientists studying algae for NASA have discovered it in the most unusual of places: beneath the Arctic ice, reports AFP. What's more, there's a lot of it, defying the conventional belief that it couldn't grow there because there was too little light. The discovery, outlined in the new edition of Science, could shake up the current understanding of the region's ecosystem. "We were astonished," says a Stanford University scientist in on the discovery off the Alaskan coast. "If you rank all the phytoplankton blooms anywhere in the world by the amount of phytoplankton that is contained in them, the under-ice bloom that we saw ... would finish at the very top of the list." The algae seems prevalent wherever first-year polar ice is present, and the National Post notes that such ice is becoming more common as thicker multi-year ice retreats. |