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Economy Detroit Shuts Off Water To Thousands Of Broke Residents CREDIT: Shutterstock As the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department moves to shut off water to thousands of residents who are delinquent on their bills, a coalition of activists is appealing to the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights to intervene on behalf of the bankrupt city’s most vulnerable citizens. Their report, filed Wednesday with the UN’s Special Rapporteur on the Human Right to Safe Drinking Water and Sanitation, alleges that the DWSD crackdown is part of an effort “to sweeten the pot for a private investor” to take over the city’s heavily-indebted water and sewer system as part of Detroit’s broader bankruptcy proceedings. One of the activist groups behind the report, the Detroit People’s Water Board, notes that city residents have seen water rates more than double over the past decade at the same time that the city’s poverty rate rose to nearly 40 percent, putting the cost of basic running water beyond reach for tens of thousands of households. Earlier this week, city lawmakers voted to raise water rates by a further 8.7 percent. Almost exactly 50 percent of the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department’s 323,900 total accounts were delinquent as of March, according to the Detroit News (via Nexis), with a combined $175 million in unpaid water bills outstanding. The department announced at that time that it would begin an aggressive campaign of water shutoffs, and a DWSD spokesman said that it has shut off water to nearly 7,000 separate clients since the beginning of April. DWSD mailed warnings about the shutoffs in March, but the People’s Water Board report says that some residents it interviewed either never received a warning notice or had their water shut off before the payment deadline printed in the notices had passed. One key piece of the activists’ complaint has to do with allegedly disparate treatment of residential and commercial clients by the DWSD. The People’s Water Board claims that delinquent business entities “have not been targeted in the same way as residential users,” a claim the department strongly disputes. “There are no sacred cows. We aren’t discriminating in terms of individuals or businesses,” DWSD spokesman Bill Johnson said in an interview. “Last month we shut off about 3,600 accounts, both businesses and residential. Everybody is getting cut off who is $150 or 60 days in arrears. That is our policy and we’re ramping up our enforcement of that policy.” The department has not yet had time to break out the data on water shutoffs by client category, Johnson said, but he hopes to be able to report exact figures on the number of business clients who have lost water access soon. The DWSD’s roughly $5 billion in debts have turned out to be the most difficult piece of Detroit’s bankruptcy, after initially seeming to be on track for a rapid resolution. Neighboring counties have balked at absorbing the city system into a regional water and sewer authority, and subsequent plans to privatize the city’s water services have been criticized as too rapid, too costly, and too damaging to residents’ quality of life. The system’s massive backlog of delinquent bills makes it harder to convince anyone, whether private company or public authority, to shoulder the DWSD’s obligations. But if the water shutoffs were aimed at making the department look like a shinier prize in bankruptcy negotiations, they would likely be targeted at corporate clients directly, for the same reason that Depression-era gangsters robbed banks: that’s where the money is. While the vast majority of the nearly 165,000 delinquent accounts reported in March are residential clients, those private households owe much smaller amounts than the commercial and industrial clients who are delinquent on their DWSD bills. Fewer than 11,000 delinquent accounts relate to commercial or industrial clients. But those delinquencies average more than $7,700 per business, according to the numbers published in the Detroit News in March, compared to an average debt of less than $600 per residential delinquency. Non-residential clients account for almost half of what DWSD is owed despite being less than 7 percent of total delinquencies, according to the March figures. The People’s Water Board obtained a document with more recent figures which shows a similar distribution of the delinquencies but lower total debts to DWSD as of May. “We are asking the UN special rapporteur to make clear to the U.S. government that it has violated the human right to water,” said Maude Barlow, the National Chairperson of the Council of Canadians and a key member of the coalition that put the report together. In addition to creating international pressure to stop the Detroit shutoffs, Barlow said, the UN’s intervention could lead to formal consequences for the United States. “If the US government does not respond appropriately this will also impact their Universal Periodic Review,” she said, “when they stand before the Human Rights Council to have their [human rights] record evaluated.” A request for comment from the UN official to whom the report was submitted went unanswered. ||||| (New York) -- A severe water crisis in the financially bankrupt city of Detroit, Michigan has prompted several non-governmental organizations and activists to appeal for U.N. intervention in one of the world's richest countries. "This is unprecedented," said Maude Barlow, founder of the Blue Planet Project, a group that advocates water as a human right. She pointed out that hundreds of thousands of people, mostly African Americans, are having their water ruthlessly turned off. Families with children, the elderly and the sick, cannot bathe, flush their toilets or cook in their own homes, she added. "This is the worst violation of the human right to water I have ever seen outside of the worst slums in the poorest countries in failed states of the global South," said Barlow, a one-time senior advisor on water to a former President of the U.N. General Assembly. Last March, the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department (DWSD) announced plans to shut off water service for 1,500 to 3,000 customers every week if their water bills were not paid. And on Tuesday, the City Council approved an 8.7-percent water rate increase. According to a DWSD document, more than 80,000 residential households - in a city of 680,000 people - are in arrears, with thousands of families without water, and thousands more expected to lose access at any moment. A group of NGOs has submitted a report to Catarina de Albuquerque, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Human Right to Safe Drinking Water and Sanitation, urging the United Nations to weigh in on the crisis and help restore water services and stop further cut-offs. In a joint report released Wednesday, the Detroit People's Water Board, the Blue Planet Project, the Michigan Welfare Rights Organization and Food and Water Watch made several recommendations, including an appeal to the state of Michigan and the U.S. government to respect the human right to water and sanitation. The report also calls on the city of Detroit to abandon its plans for further cut-offs and restore services to households that have suffered water cuts. Sources say there are many factors driving this: federal assistance for water infrastructure has been cut back by more than three-quarters since the 1970s, ageing systems are reaching the end of their lifespan, and water quality standards are getting stronger as we learn more about the health risks of substances that contaminate our water. Large cities, in particular, are struggling to maintain and modernize water systems without making water service unaffordable for their least well-off residents. Over the last decade, Detroit residents have seen water rates rise by 119 percent, according to a press release Wednesday. With unemployment rates at a record high and the poverty rate at about 40 percent, Detroit water bills are unaffordable to a significant portion of the population. Many of those affected by the shut-offs were given no warning.For more, click here. ||||| Detroit has too much of some things – stray dogs, abandoned houses – and not enough of others, such as residents who pay their water bills. The latest sign of Detroit’s decline came from the city’s water department, when it said in March it would begin shutting off water for up to 3,000 homes and businesses a week in an attempt to stop the utility from sliding even further into debt. The announcement sparked outrage among activists groups, who say the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department (DWSD) is going after the city’s most vulnerable citizens to shore up its bottom line. Now those groups have called on the United Nations to intervene. In a letter sent to the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Human Right to Safe Drinking Water and Sanitation last week, local nonprofit Detroit People’s Water Board, Food and Water Watch and Canada-based Blue Planet Project pleaded for the world body to weigh in on the shut-offs. "What we see is a violation of the human right to water," said Meera Karunananthan, an international campaigner with the Blue Planet Project. "The U.S. has international obligations in terms of people’s right to water, and this is a blatant violation of that right. We’re hoping the U.N. will put pressure on the federal government and the state of Michigan to do something about it." The groups accuse DWSD of charging unaffordable rates to Detroit citizens, and placing the burden of the city's fleeing tax base on its poorest residents. They say DWSD is trying to rid itself of low-income customers in a bid to make the utility more attractive for a private takeover. DWSD denies the charge. But the city has acknowledged that at least a partial privatization of DWSD is being considered as Detroit attempts to shed some of its $18 billion in debt. DWSD accounts for $5 billion of that sum. DWSD has struggled to stay afloat as hundreds of thousands of Detroiters have left the city over the last several decades, leaving the utility with an outsized, aging system, and too few paying customers. "We really don't want to shut off anyone’s water, but it’s really our duty to go after those who don’t pay, because if they don’t pay then our other customers pay for them," said DWSD spokeswoman Curtrise Garner. "That’s not fair to our other customers." Garner also said the new focus on shutting off delinquent accounts had nothing to do with making the utility more attractive to private investors. "We've just changed the way we’re doing business," she said. Nearly 50 percent of DWSD’s 323,000 accounts were behind on payments as of March, according to the Detroit Free Press. That’s left DWSD with $175 million in outstanding bills. Detroit tried to integrate DWSD with the water systems of richer suburban counties earlier this year, but that effort failed after the counties said they feared absorbing DWSD would saddle them with too much debt. At the same time that the utility has financially faltered, it has raised rates significantly. According to activists, the rate for residential customers has doubled in the last 10 years. The average bill is now $75 a month, according to the Free Press, much higher than the nation’s average rate of about $40. Earlier this week, DWSD said it would again raise rates, this time by 8.7 percent. “There are families that have gone months and months without water,” Mia Cupp, the director of development at nonprofit Wayne Metropolitan Community Action Agency, told the Free Press. “You can only imagine, how do go to the bathroom? How do you take showers? How do you clean yourself? .... You can’t conduct the normal daily things that you would do.” ||||| With the harsh winter’s end, the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department is resuming efforts to shut off water service to thousands of delinquent customers. Meanwhile, resources are limited for Detroit residents in need to get assistance with water bills and avoid the health risks associated with having water cut off. Delinquent residential and commercial customers in Detroit owe the department about $118 million, according to the department. That does not include those who are on a payment plan or involved in a bankruptcy case. Next week, the water department will deploy crews to shut off up to 3,000 delinquent accounts on a weekly basis, said Darryl Latimer, the department’s deputy director. Every winter, the department suspends shutoff efforts because freezing temperatures complicate the process. Crews will be targeting those who have received a shutoff notice and whose bills are more than two months late. Customers with late bills can avoid a shutoff by entering into a payment plan. Typically, it takes a payment of 30% to 50% of the amount owed to start such a plan. “If you know you have a delinquent account, we want you to be proactive now and come in so you don’t find yourself without the service,” Latimer said. The average monthly water bill in Detroit is about $75. Delinquent bills affect rates for other customers in Detroit, but not in the suburbs, Latimer said. There are 323,900 DWSD accounts in Detroit. Of those, 150,806 are delinquent. Some of those delinquencies are low-income customers who are struggling to keep their utilities on, said some who work in providing assistance to those in need. “The need is huge,” said Mia Cupp, director of development and communications for the Wayne Metropolitan Community Action Agency. “There are families that have gone months and months without water.” The group is among a handful of local agencies that provide assistance to those who need help with their water bills. The Water Access Volunteer Effort, a Detroit-based nonprofit, is another. Going without water can be dangerous, Cupp said. “You can only imagine, how do go to the bathroom? How do you take showers? How do you clean yourself?” she said. “You can’t conduct the normal daily things that you would do.” The organization has very limited resources. Cupp said the group raised about $148,000 during a charity walk; that money could go to helping people pay water bills. Mayor Mike Duggan’s spokesman John Roach referred to the Water and Sewerage Department questions about how the city handles community outreach to inform residents about programs to help with water bills. Detroit’s Human Services Department used to perform outreach but no longer does, Latimer said. So the water department is finalizing an agreement with The Heat And Warmth Fund, or THAW, to do so, he said. THAW provides low-income Michigan residents with emergency energy assistance. Jill Brunett, vice president for marketing and communication for THAW, confirmed that the group is in talks with the water department. She said the extreme weather this winter increased heating bills, putting a strain on finances. “A lot of the people that come to us for help need help in many areas in their life,” Brunett said. “People who may have just gotten by last year might’ve needed help this year.”

– Detroit Water and Sewerage has been shutting off water to thousands of residents who are behind on paying their bills—and now a coalition of activists is asking the UN to get involved. As of March, nearly half of the city's 323,900 DWSD accounts were delinquent, the Detroit Free Press reported at the time. Since April, nearly 7,000 clients have lost water service, and some say they were never warned their water would be shut off, ThinkProgress reports. In a report last week to the UN Special Rapporteur on the Human Right to Safe Drinking Water and Sanitation, activists say some families have abandoned their homes after more than a year without water. "This is the worst violation of the human right to water I have ever seen outside of the worst slums," one of the activists says, per Fox 25. Water rates have jumped 119% over the past decade—and will be raised by 8.7% July 1, a challenge for residents of a city with a 40% poverty rate. The activists' report cites a city rep who confirms that the shut-offs were to get more aggressive, targeting 3,000 delinquent customers per week, as of June 2. The activists also allege that DWSD is treating business clients—roughly half of which are also delinquent—differently, though a DWSD rep insists any account, either residential or commercial, gets shut down if it is $150 delinquent or 60 days in arrears. The activists say DWSD is trying to get rid of lower-income customers so the department will be more attractive to private investors for a potential takeover, Al Jazeera America reports, another charge DWSD denies. But privatization of the department is possible, Detroit has said, as the city works to lower its debt—$5 billion of which is tied to DWSD. (In slightly better news, last week Detroit got a $195 million life raft.)

Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption The UK is the first country to approve the procedure The UK has now become the first country to approve laws to allow the creation of babies from three people. The modified version of IVF has passed its final legislative obstacle after being approved by the House of Lords. The fertility regulator will now decide how to license the procedure to prevent babies inheriting deadly genetic diseases. The first baby could be born as early as 2016. A large majority of MPs in the House of Commons approved "three-person babies" earlier this month. The House of Lords tonight rejected an attempt to block the plan by a majority of 232. Power packs Mitochondria are the tiny compartments inside nearly every cell of the body that convert food into useable energy. But genetic defects in the mitochondria mean the body has insufficient energy to keep the heart beating or the brain functioning. The structures are passed down only from the mother and have their own DNA, although it does not alter traits including appearance or personality. The technique, developed in Newcastle, uses a modified version of IVF to combine the healthy mitochondria of a donor woman with DNA of the two parents. It results in babies with 0.1% of their DNA from the second woman and is a permanent change that would echo down through the generations. Timeline Image copyright SPL March to August - The UK fertility regulator will develop and then publish their licensing rules for assessing applications to perform three-person IVF Early Summer - The team in Newcastle publish the final safety experiments demanded by the regulator 29 October - Regulations come into force 24 November - Clinics can apply to the regulator for a licence By the end of 2015 - the first attempt could take place 'Hope' In the debate, health minister Lord Howe said there was an opportunity to offer "real hope" to families. He stated the UK was leading the world and that three safety reviews by experts suggested it would be safe. Lord Howe told the House: "Families can see that the technology is there to help them and are keen to take it up, they have noted the conclusions of the expert panel. "It would be cruel and perverse in my opinion, to deny them that opportunity for any longer than absolutely necessary." Lord Deben, the former government minister John Gummer, countered that there were "real doubts about safety". He also voiced concerns about whether the creation of such babies would be legal. "It is quite clear that there is considerable disagreement, let me put it simply like that, about whether this action is legal under European law." Baroness Scotland of Asthal, a former Labour attorney general, also questioned the legality asking: "Why the haste? "Everyone agrees we have to get this right. If we're going to do something which everyone agrees is novel, different and important internationally we really have to be confident that we are on solid ground. If we are not we give a disservice." Fertility doctor, Lord Winston, told the House there were comparison with the early days of IVF which was "also a set in the dark". He added: "I don't believe my Lords, in spite of what we've heard this evening, that this technology threatens the fabric of society in the slightest bit." Image copyright Method one: Embryo repair Image caption 1) Two eggs are fertilised with sperm, creating an embryo from the intended parents and another from the donors 2) The pronuclei, which contain genetic information, are removed from both embryos but only the parents' are kept 3) A healthy embryo is created by adding the parents' pronuclei to the donor embryo, which is finally implanted into the womb Image caption 1) Eggs from a mother with damaged mitochondria and a donor with healthy mitochondria are collected 2) The majority of the genetic material is removed from both eggs 3) The mother's genetic material is inserted into the donor egg, which can be fertilised by sperm. Sally Cheshire, the chairwoman of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, said: "Britain is the first country in the world to permit this treatment, and it is a testament to the scientific expertise and well-respected regulatory regime that exists across the UK that Parliament has felt able to approve it. "The HFEA now have to develop a robust licensing process, which takes into account on a case by case basis the technical and ethical complexities of such treatments to ensure that any children born have the best chance of a healthy life. "The HFEA has a long tradition of dealing with medical and scientific breakthroughs, ensuring that IVF techniques, pioneered in the UK and now practised across the world, can be used safely and effectively in fertility treatment." Prof Alison Murdoch, who was instrumental in developing the technique at Newcastle University, said: "For 10 years we have publically discussed mitochondrial donation to explain how it could help patients whose families are blighted by the consequences of mitochondrial abnormalities. "Whilst acknowledging the views of those who have a fundamental objection to our work, Parliament has determined that we should continue. We hope that opponents will accept its democratic decision. "The science will be reviewed and, if accepted, we hope to be able to submit a treatment application to the HFEA when regulatory policies have been determined." Objections 'hopeless' James Lawford Davies, a lawyer from Lawford Davies Denoon which specialises in the life sciences, told the BBC: "All of the legal arguments made in opposition to the regulations are hopeless. "The regulations do not breach the Clinical Trials Directive which applies only to medicinal products. "The regulations do not breach the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms which prohibit 'eugenic practices' as this is intended to prevent practices such as forced sterilisation and reproductive cloning, not treatments intended to prevent the transmission of disease." The Catholic and Anglican Churches in England said the idea was not safe or ethical, not least because it involved the destruction of embryos. Other groups, including Human Genetics Alert, say the move would open the door to further genetic modification of children in the future - so-called designer babies, genetically modified for beauty, intelligence or to be free of disease. Estimates suggest 150 couples would be suitable to have babies through the technique each year. If the measure goes ahead, the first "three-person" baby could be born next year. ||||| LONDON - Britain will become the first nation to legalize a "three-parent" IVF technique which doctors say can prevent some inherited incurable diseases but which critics fear will effectively lead to "designer babies". After more than three hours of debate, lawmakers in parliament's upper house voted on Tuesday for a change in the law to allow the treatments, echoing a positive vote in the lower house earlier this month. The treatment, called mitochondrial transfer, is known as "three-parent" in vitro fertilization (IVF) because the babies, born from genetically modified embryos, would have DNA from a mother, a father and from a female donor. Although the techniques are still at the research stage in laboratories in Britain and the United States, experts say that now legal hurdles have been overcome, Britain's first 3-parent baby could be born as early as 2016. Mitochondrial transfer involves intervening in the fertilization process to remove faulty mitochondrial DNA, which can cause inherited conditions such as heart problems, liver failure, brain disorders, blindness and muscular dystrophy. Mitochondria act as tiny energy-generating batteries inside cells, and around 1 in 6,000 babies around the world are born with serious mitochondrial disorders. Responding to the vote, Jeremy Farrar, director of the Wellcome Trust medical charity commended lawmakers for a "considered and compassionate decision". "Families who know what it is like to care for a child with a devastating disease are the people best placed to decide whether mitochondrial donation is the right option," he said. Mark Downs, chief executive of the Society of Biology, hailed "a great day for UK science" and said the landmark decision "will ensure mothers who carry faulty mitochondria can have healthy children free from the devastating conditions." But Marcy Darnovsky, director of the campaign group The Center for Genetics and Society, called the move a "historic mistake" which turns children into biological experiments and will "forever alter the human germline". "The techniques ... are relatively crude and will not in and of themselves create so-called designer babies," she said. "However, they will result in children with DNA from three different people in every cell of their bodies, which will impact a large range of traits in unknowable ways and introduce genetic changes that will be passed down to future generations." (Editing by Janet Lawrence) ||||| Peers have approved historic legislation which would see Britain become the first country in the world to create three-parent babies, despite fears children could be born sterile. Health minister Lord Howe urged the House of Lords to pass the amendment to the 2008 Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act and permit controversial IVF techniques which are aimed at preventing serious inherited mitochondrial diseases. MPs, including all three main party leaders, voted earlier this month in the Commons to legalise the mitochondrial donation technique , which uses genetic material from a ‘second mother’ to mend DNA faults. But opponents, including church leaders and pro-life groups, have warned that the change has been brought about too hastily and marked the start of a "slippery slope" towards designer babies and eugenics. Lord Deben called for a delay and asked peers to form a committee to look at the safety and legality of the procedure. He warned that children born from the technique could be sterile and argued that the majority of the public did not agree with the procedure. "We have to protect three sets of people, the families, the children and the wider society," he told the House of Lords. “We should be concerned about the children who would be born in these circumstances. There are real doubts about safety.” Former Attorney General Baroness Scotland also said the legislation had been rushed through and argued that neither the current Attorney General Jeremy Wright nor the Lord Chancellor supported the new law. "This matter is not easy, it's complex. Why the haste?" she added. Baroness Hollins, chair of the British Medical Association's Science Committee also said she could not support the new legislation while Baroness O'Loan warned that many more egg donors would be needed for the procedure whihc would place women at risk of complications from hyperstimulation. However Lord Howe said mitochondrial replacement could 'give real hope to families.' "It would be cruel and perverse to deny them that opportunity for any longer than necessary," he added. Lord Winston, one of Britain's leading fertility experts, also backed the law. "I don’t believe that this technology threatens the fabric of our society in the slightest bit. On the contrary in a way it protects it. What we’re doing is recognising our limits by accepting regulation.” The vote was passed 280 to 48 and will now become law in October. The first babies could be born next Autumn. Newcastle University has already started offering women £500 to become ‘second mothers’ to three-parent babies. Last weekend MEPs claimed that Britain has breached EU law and ‘violated human dignity’ by allowing the creating of three-parent babies. But Chief medical officer Dame Sally Davies has argued that changing the mitochondria is no different from swapping a faulty car battery. "It would give these women their own children and these families hope, and I believe this is right," she said. "We have a very strong regulatory system that would regulate first the service and secondly would review every individual case before they could happen." She also denied the legislation would lead to a "slippery slope" giving way to the creation of designer babies. The move to amend the 2008 Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act, which forbids IVF treatments that affect inherited "germline" DNA in eggs and sperm, was carried by 382 votes to 128 in the Commons earlier this month. Prime Minister David Cameron, Labour leader Ed Miliband and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg exercised their free vote to support the decision. Research has shown that mitochondrial donation could potentially help almost 2,500 women of reproductive age in the UK who are at risk of transmitting harmful DNA mutations in the mitochondria. Critics have pointed out no clinical trial has taken place to show conclusively that the treatments are safe in humans. However, three separate expert reviews for the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority found that the procedures are ready to go forward.

– At some point around the fall of 2016, a baby will emerge in Britain who will have a biological mom and dad, plus another biological mom. The British parliament today approved an IVF technique that will produce such "three-parent" babies, reports Reuters. Known more formally as mitochondrial transfer, the technique is designed to help mothers who carry DNA mutations conceive healthy children. The procedure involves replacing a mother's damaged mitochondria in the egg with mitochondria from a healthy woman. The resulting child will get 0.1% of its DNA from the second mom, reports the BBC. "It would be cruel and perverse in my opinion, to deny them that opportunity for any longer than absolutely necessary," health minister Earl Howe said of families looking to take advantage of the procedure. Critics, however, fear the advent of "designer babies," reports the Telegraph. The next step is to develop rules and regulations, and clinics should be able to begin helping women who qualify get pregnant by the end of this year. Today's move makes Britain the first nation to legalize the method, though the FDA is considering it for the US.

(CNN) We're all doomed. Unless we can figure out how to get the heck off this planet. Don't believe it? Then ask noted theoretical scientist and astronomer Stephen Hawking. He says humanity won't survive another 1,000 years on Earth because of, you know, the usual suspects -- climate change, nukes, robots. Hawking, speaking earlier this week at Oxford University Union, says our best chance for survival as a species is to leave the only home we've ever known and establish colonies on other planets. "Although the chance of a disaster to planet Earth in a given year may be quite low, it adds up over time, and becomes a near certainty in the next 1,000 or 10,000 years," Hawking said in the speech, according to the Christian Science Monitor . "By that time we should have spread out into space, and to other stars, so a disaster on Earth would not mean the end of the human race." And the pace of space exploration seems to be ramping up. NASA is busy searching for "goldilocks" -- exoplanets that might be able sustain human life. Meanwhile, Space X CEO Elon Musk has already laid out his plans to colonize Mars within the next century. Read More ||||| Stephen Hawking says that humans will need to leave Earth The human race will have to find a new home within a millennium if the species is to continue existing. The shock claim came from Professor Stephen Hawking who warned that Earth’s dominant species will continue to eat through the planet’s resources at an alarming rate, leaving Earth battered and bruised and quickening its inevitable end. Speaking at the Oxford Union, the famed theoretical physicist stated that although it is a "glorious time to be alive and doing research into theoretical physics”, there are problems that humanity will not be able to overcome if were are to be resigned to this planet alone. The 74-year old said: “Our picture of the universe has changed a great deal in the last 50 years and I am happy if I have made a small contribution. ||||| 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. ||||| Renowned theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking said in a speech at Oxford University Union that humanity only has about 1,000 years left of viable existence if it doesn't leave the planet and colonize the stars. The professor argued that humanity is unlikely to survive all of the different crises we will face over the next millennium. But humans can avoid extinction, he said, if we have colonized other planets by that time, giving humanity a fighting chance away from our "fragile" Earth. Dr. Hawking's prediction may seem gloomy, but much of his speech took an optimistic tone. After all, a thousand years is a long time to figure out how to colonize space, and plans are already underway for humans to visit Mars with an ultimate goal of colonizing the red planet. Scientists continue to discover potentially habitable exoplanets elsewhere in the galaxy that could potentially be new homes for humans – if we can make it there. During his speech, Hawking noted that the biggest and most immediate challenge for humanity will come in the next century, with threats such as potential nuclear terrorism, climate change, and the rise of artificial intelligence potentially outcompeting humans foremost in his mind, according to The Washington Post. "Although the chance of a disaster to planet Earth in a given year may be quite low, it adds up over time, and becomes a near certainty in the next 1,000 or 10,000 years," Hawking said in the speech. "By that time we should have spread out into space, and to other stars, so a disaster on Earth would not mean the end of the human race." NASA has already discovered thousands of exoplanets using telescopes like Kepler, which can detect planets based on fluctuations in light created by planets passing between their stars and the telescope. While only a few are potentially habitable, and almost all are out of the reach of current technology, a rapid increase in our ability to detect Earth-like planets and the development of new propulsion methods could one day lead us to multiple new worlds for future generations to inhabit. While large-scale colonization of space still feels like a goal rooted more in science fiction than science fact, Elon Musk, the founder and chief executive officer of Tesla and SpaceX, unveiled a plan last September to begin colonizing Mars by 2024, beating NASA's timetable for such a task by 10 years, as the Christian Science Monitor's Lonnie Shekhtman reported: Mars' first colonists will contend with unprecedented obstacles. First there's the hefty price tag. Under current conditions, Musk estimates that a trip to Mars would cost about $10 billion per person. (By comparison, NASA pays $70 million per seat to fly on a Russian spacecraft to the International Space Station). By some projections, it would cost NASA around $100 billion over 30 years to send astronauts there and bring them back. Other predictions have attached a $500 billion price tag to the trip. As of today, there isn’t a rocket in operation that can transport humans even to the moon, which is 200 times closer to Earth than Mars. To make colonization sustainable, Musk says, would require reducing the cost to about $200,000 per person, or approximately the median cost of a house in the United States. Achieving that would involve making rockets reusable and increasing capacity and efficiency of the Mars journey. Musk estimates that SpaceX initially would need to build a fleet of about 1,000 ships, carrying 100 people, departing from Earth every 26 months to make the venture economically viable. "The key is making this affordable to anyone who wants to go," Musk said. While exploration farther into space stalled after the end of the cold war, the growing role of private space companies in recent years has created a new kind of space race between corporations such as Boeing, Blue Origin, and SpaceX. The commercial nature of corporate space programs ensures a cash flow that traditional government agencies can't always count on. Private companies often collaborate with NASA to facilitate many of the government agency's more ambitious projects, including the co-development of NASA and Boeing's Space Launch System, a heavy-lift rocket for deep space exploration, as the Monitor previously reported. Get the Monitor Stories you care about delivered to your inbox. By signing up, you agree to our Privacy Policy This kind of collaboration might allow humanity to spread out into space before we hit Hawking's expiration date in 1,000 years. "Remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet," Hawking said, according to The Independent. "Try to make sense of what you see, wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious. However difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at. It matters that you don’t just give up."

– Stephen Hawking has a simple message for humanity: Haul your butt to Mars (and beyond). In a speech delivered this week at the Oxford Union, the legendary scientist says humanity can only survive another thousand years or so on Earth thanks to growing threats that include climate change, nuclear war, and artificial intelligence, CNN reports. “I think the human race has no future if it doesn't go to space," the Daily Express quotes Hawking as saying. According to the Christian Science Monitor, Hawking says it's a "near certainty" that disaster will strike the human race within a thousand years if it stays on Earth, which he calls "fragile." There are some challenges on Earth, such as the depletion of its natural resources, humanity won't be able to overcome, he argues. Fortunately, the rate of space exploration is speeding up again, with private companies like Boeing and SpaceX picking up the slack from NASA and other government agencies. NASA is continuing its search for "goldilocks" planets, and Elon Musk recently outlined his plan for colonizing Mars. Hawking himself sounded optimistic, the Independent reports. “Remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet," he said Monday. "However difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at. It matters that you don’t just give up.” (This planet has three sunrises and three sunsets every day.)

Alki David says an Amy Winehouse concert is coming, but first comes a patent lawsuit over a popular Cirque du Soleil show in Las Vegas. Two years ago, a hologram of Tupac Shakur at the Coachella Music Festival had people wondering about what might be next in concert possibilities. Now, the technology that created the spectacle has landed in the hands of a noteworthy billionaire: Alki David, the eccentric one who attempted to transform the television business with streaming technology before Aereo stole his thunder and TV broadcasters unleashed their legal guns on him. Now, David finds himself on the flip side of the intellectual property coin. His FilmOn and hologram-maker Musion are the plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed on Monday against Cirque du Soleil and MGM Resorts for allegedly infringing patents to create a hologram used in the final scene of Michael Jackson: One, the resident acrobatic production at Mandalay Bay Theatre in Las Vegas. PHOTOS: Inside Cirque’s New Las Vegas Thriller 'Michael Jackson One' The complaint filed in California federal court begins with some history. "In 1862, John Pepper and Henry Dircks invented 'Pepper's Ghost,' an illusion technique, which, over the last 150 years, has appeared in movies, concerts, magic shows and amusement park rides," says the lawsuit. "Today a new incarnation of Pepper's Ghost exists -- Musion Eyeliner technology. Musion Eyeliner uses a patented system to project three-dimensional images virtually indistinguishable from real life bodies." David was apparently impressed upon seeing the technology being used to create the deceased rapper Tupac appearing on stage with Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg. He says he recently bought the exclusive license to Musion's patent and has started up a company called Hologram USA with a showroom at the FilmOn Studios on Canon Drive in Beverly Hills. Why? He's got plans. "We already agreed on hologram performances with Flo Rida and the late Amy Winehouse," he says. "Many other shows are coming." But first comes some score-settling about who owns rights to hologram technology. David says he's about to file a slew of lawsuits. This Michael Jackson one is the first. The new lawsuit mentions two patents at issue: One for a device for displaying moving images in the background of a stage and one for a projection apparatus and method for pepper's ghost illusion. "Although it has been widely acknowledged that Defendants employ the technology to create a three-dimensional hologram of Michael Jackson in Cirque du Soleil's Michael Jackson: One, Defendants do not possess a valid license to practice that technology." STORY: Making Zombies With 'LED Guts' for Cirque's 'Michael Jackson One' The show has been enormously successful and has helped the Michael Jackson estate reap almost a billion dollars in revenue since the King of Pop's passing in 2009. The lawsuit claims that since the technology behind the Tupac hologram got so much press attention, the defendants knew or should have known the system was patented. The plaintiffs demand an injunction and maximum damages for willful infringement. The hologram is the climax of the 26-scene show, which never has a performer portraying Jackson onstage. Instead, the show strategically uses video and audio footage of the singer throughout the plot's peaks and valleys. "His presence, even on video, is so powerful, that it can be very tricky to use him," Welby Altidor, One's director of creation, told The Hollywood Reporter just before the show's opening in May 2013. "What we wanted to do in this show is build Michael's presence through his voice and feeling his shadow, to feeling him progressively becoming more and more present throughout the show, until we can create the longing. And then the apex, the moment where we'll really feel that he's there and he's still with us." THR has reached out to Cirque du Soleil and will update with any response. Meanwhile, the hologram technology has landed in the hands of a Hollywood bad boy with a taste for the outrageous. David tells THR, "This is by far the most exciting business opportunity I have ever seen. Imagine running 100 meters against Usain Bolt or resurrecting Richard Pryor!" Additional reporting by Ashley Lee. E-mail: Eriq.Gardner@THR.com Twitter: @eriqgardner ||||| 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

– Tupac paved the way, and now Amy Winehouse may follow. British tabloid the Sun reports that the late Winehouse may go on a world tour as a 3D hologram. "The idea is in its early stages, but it’s hoped that Amy’s dad Mitch will maybe join her and do the introductions," says a source in the story. Billionaire Alki David is behind the plan, which would use the same technology that put Tupac Shakur on the stage at the Coachella Music Festival in 2012. That show so impressed David that he bought the rights to the technology. In fact, his film and hologram companies sued Cirque du Soleil and MGM Resorts this week for patent infringement over a hologram of Michael Jackson used in Vegas, reports the Hollywood Reporter.

Everest avalanche: Search continues for missing guides Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play. Continue reading the main story Related Stories The search for three missing Sherpa guides on Mount Everest has resumed after 13 were killed by an avalanche. The avalanche struck around 06:45 local time (01:00 GMT) on Friday in an area known as "popcorn field", just above Everest base camp at 5,800m (19,000ft). The Sherpa guides had climbed up the slope early on Friday morning to fix ropes for climbers and prepare the route for mountaineers. The incident is the deadliest accident on the world's highest mountain. Madhusudan Burlakoti, chief of the ministry's tourism industry division, told the BBC that several mountaineers along with high-altitude doctors are involved in the search. He said three seriously injured climbers that were rescued from the mountain are still receiving medical treatment in Kathmandu. Sherpas often prepare the route for the mountaineers to follow The avalanche struck a perilous passage called the Khumbu Icefall, which is riddled with crevasses and large ice boulders that can break free without warning. Although relatively low on the mountain, climbers say it is one of its most dangerous points - but there are no safer paths along the famous South Col route first scaled by Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay in 1953. An injured survivor told his relatives that the path was unstable just before the avalanche hit. Please turn on JavaScript. Media requires JavaScript to play. "I sat and counted 13 helicopter lifts - 12 were dead bodies flying overhead suspended by a long line from a helicopter," Tim Rippel of Peak Freaks Expeditions wrote in a blog post. The body of a 13th climber was recovered on Sunday. Sherpas often make 20-25 round trips to carry kit and supplies to advanced camps, exposing them to greater risk. The most endangered are the so-called Icefall Doctors - a team that maintains and fixes the route. The Sherpa people are one of the main ethnic groups in Nepal's alpine region It was the first major avalanche of this year's climbing season on Everest, which has been scaled by more than 3,000 climbers. The rising number of tourists has raised concerns about safety and environmental damage, although Nepal still plans next year to cut fees for those wishing to do the trek. The government has issued permits to 334 foreign climbers this season, up from 328 for the whole of last year. An equal number of guides also climb to help the foreign mountaineers. Some 250 climbers have died on the mountain, which is on the border between Nepal and the Chinese region of Tibet and can be climbed from both sides. Eight climbers died in 1996 during a fierce storm and the disaster eventually formed the basis of best-selling book Into Thin Air. ||||| 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. ||||| Photo Advertisement Continue reading the main story NEW DELHI — The Sherpas always go first, edging up the deadly flank of Everest while international clients wait for days in the base camp below. They set off in the dark, before the day’s warmth causes the ice to shift. They creep one by one across ladders propped over crevasses, burdened with food and supplies, all the while watching the great wall of a hanging glacier, hoping that this season will not be the year it falls. On Friday, however, it did. Around 6:30 a.m., as the Sherpas were tethered to ropes, a chunk of ice broke off, sending an avalanche of ice and snow down into the ice fields on the mountain’s south side and engulfing about 30 men. The toll, at 12 dead, was the worst in a single day in the history of Everest, climbers and mountaineering experts said. A 13th body was recovered Saturday; three men were still missing. The disaster has focused attention on the Sherpas, members of an ethnic group known for their skill at high-altitude climbing, who put themselves at great risk for the foreign teams that pay them. Among their most dangerous tasks is fixing ropes, carrying supplies and establishing camps for the clients waiting below, exposing themselves to the mountains first. Continue reading the main story Video A Sherpa typically earns around $125 per climb per legal load, which the Nepalese government has set at around 20 pounds, though young men will double that to earn more, guides say. Raised on stories of wealth earned on expeditions, they also have very little choice, coming from remote places where there is little opportunity other than high-altitude potato farming. Friday’s avalanche, which killed no foreigners, left many thinking about this calculation. “All the hard work is done by Sherpas, that is the reality,” said Pasang Sherpa of the Nepal National Mountain Guide Association. “The client will say, ‘I did the summit three times, four times.’ That is our guest, and we have to accept it. Our job is to make a good scale for the clients, to make this comfortable. We have to do that.” “Normally our culture is like, we say, ‘The client is our god,’ ” he added. The Sherpas were spread out at an elevation of about 19,000 feet when the avalanche hit, crossing a notorious area known by some locals as the Golden Gate because of the shape of its ice formations, Pasang Sherpa said. Climbers try to pass it as quickly as possible, but they have no choice but to edge across ladders one by one, stretching the crossing to 20 or 30 minutes, he said. Typically, he added, the teams try to cross before sunrise, when rising temperatures may cause shifts in the ice. “This morning, our friends started a little late,” Pasang Sherpa said. “They arrived at quarter to seven.” Tim Rippel, who is leading a group of mountaineers on the mountain with his company Peak Freaks, wrote on his company’s website that the Sherpas had been moving slowly, hauling “the mountainous loads of equipment, tents, stoves, oxygen and so on up to stock camps.” He was on the phone from base camp just before 7 a.m. local time when an ice chunk began to fall, causing the avalanche, said his wife, Becky Rippel. Advertisement Continue reading the main story Advertisement Continue reading the main story The mountaineers were following a popular southern route up Everest from the Nepalese side, but this route means they have to pass underneath the western shoulder and its moving glacier. Mr. Rippel had been watching the glacier, which is a well-known problem, in recent days but did not think it looked as dangerous as it had in the past, Ms. Rippel said. In the post on his website, Mr. Rippel described watching search and rescue efforts. “I sat and counted 13 helicopter lifts,” he wrote, “12 were dead bodies flying overhead, suspended by long-line from a helicopter.” “Everyone is shaken here at base camp. Some climbers are packing up and calling it quits. They want nothing to do with this,” Mr. Rippel wrote. Between 350 to 450 Sherpas are hired above the base camp during the two-month season, said Richard Salisbury, who works on the Himalayan Database, a record of Everest climbs. Apoorva Prasad, the founder of The Outdoor Journal, an Indian lifestyle and adventure magazine, described it as “very dirty work,” laborious and dangerous. “These are the guys going up the mountain every season in the least safe way possible,” he said. Foreigners are increasingly bringing their own guides, and, in an attempt to secure their livelihoods, Nepal this year proposed requiring outsiders to hire a local guide for any ascent above 26,000 feet. One such team hit a tense point last April, when three European climbers fought with a group of local guides between two camps. Some Sherpas said the foreign climbers had ascended ahead of their guides while they were fixing lines, violating the custom in Everest climbing. Nima Nuru Sherpa, the first vice president of Nepal Mountaineering Association, said there was little question that Sherpas take more risks on Everest, mainly because they go ahead to fix lines and set up camp for paying clients. “Today the incident happened, so we are just feeling sorry about ourselves,” he said. “The day-to-day life is very tense. We never know what will happen. So we are not at peace. It’s a scary profession, a scary job.” The Himalayan Times identified the dead recovered Friday as Mingma Nuru Sherpa, Dorji Sherpa, Ang Tshiri Sherpa, Nima Sherpa, Phurba Ongyal Sherpa, Lakpa Tenjing Sherpa, Chhiring Ongchu Sherpa, Dorjee Khatri, Then Dorjee Sherpa, Phur Temba Sherpa, Pasang Karma Sherpa and Asman Tamang. The missing were identified as Tenzing Chottar Sherpa, Ankaji Sherpa, Pem Tenji Sherpa and Ash Bahadur Gurung. Nima Nuru Sherpa said the men’s families would consult lamas, or holy men, to determine the most auspicious time to burn their bodies. He said he knew all the men reported dead, but was closest to Ankaji Sherpa, who was a member of his association and a friend. “It’s too terrible for us, it’s very sad for us, it’s sad,” he said. “I say God will take him to the right heaven.” ||||| KATMANDU, Nepal (AP) — Search teams recovered a 13th body Saturday from the snow and ice covering a dangerous climbing pass on Mount Everest, where an avalanche a day earlier swept over a group of Sherpa guides in the deadliest disaster on the world's highest peak. FILE - In this Saturday May 17, 2003 file photo, a view of the Kumbhu icefall, the first hurdle in the ascent to Everest from base camp, is seen from Everest Base camp, where 12 Nepalese guides were killed,... (Associated Press) FILE - In this Sunday, May 18, 2003 file photo, mountaineers pass through the treacherous Khumbu Icefall on their way to Mount Everest near Everest Base camp, Nepal. An avalanche swept down a climbing... (Associated Press) Father and sons of Nepalese mountaineer Ang Kaji Sherpa, killed in an avalanche on Mount Everest, wait for his body to arrive at Sherpa Monastery in Katmandu, Nepal, Saturday, April 19, 2014. Rescuers... (Associated Press) The body of Nepalese mountaineer Ang Kaji Sherpa, killed in an avalanche on Mount Everest, is carried to the Sherpa Monastery in Katmandu, Nepal, Saturday, April 19, 2014. Search teams recovered a 13th... (Associated Press) Daughter of Nepalese mountaineer Ang Kaji Sherpa, killed in an avalanche on Mount Everest, cries as her father's body is brought to the Sherpa Monastery in Katmandu, Nepal, Saturday, April 19, 2014. Rescuers... (Associated Press) FILE - In this May 18, 2013 file photo released by mountain guide Adrian Ballinger of Alpenglow Expeditions, climbers make their way to the summit of Mount Everest, in the Khumbu region of the Nepal Himalayas.... (Associated Press) A relative of Nepalese mountaineer Ang Kaji Sherpa, killed in an avalanche on Mount Everest, cries as she waits for his body at Sherpa Monastery in Katmandu, Nepal, Saturday, April 19, 2014. Rescuers... (Associated Press) Mother of Nepalese mountaineer Ang Kaji Sherpa, killed in an avalanche on Mount Everest, cries while she waits for his body at Sherpa Monastery in Katmandu, Nepal, Saturday, April 19, 2014. Rescuers were... (Associated Press) Family members of Nepalese mountaineer Ang Kaji Sherpa, killed in an avalanche on Mount Everest, cry as his body is brought to the Sherpa Monastery in Katmandu, Nepal, Saturday, April 19, 2014. Rescuers... (Associated Press) Another three guides remained missing, and searchers were working quickly to find them in case weather conditions deteriorated, said Maddhu Sunan Burlakoti, head of the Nepalese government's mountaineering department. But the painstaking effort involved testing the strength of newly fallen snow and using extra ropes, clamps and aluminum ladders to navigate the unstable field. The avalanche barreled down a narrow climbing pass known as the "popcorn field" for its bulging chunks of ice at about 6:30 a.m. Friday. The group of about 25 Sherpa guides were the first people making their way up this climbing season to dig paths and fix ropes for their foreign clients to use in attempting to reach the summit next month. One of the survivors told his relatives that the path had been unstable just before the snow slide hit at an elevation near 5,800 meters (19,000 feet). The area is considered particularly dangerous due to its steep slope and deep crevasses that cut through the snow and ice covering the pass year round. As soon as the avalanche occurred, rescuers, guides and climbers rushed to help, and all other climbing was suspended. Seven of the 12 bodies pulled out and brought down Friday were handed over to their families in the Everest region, while the other five were taken to Katmandu, Nepal's capital. Four survivors were conscious and being treated in the intensive care units of several Katmandu hospitals for broken ribs, fractured limbs, punctured lungs and skin abrasions, according to Dr. C.R. Pandey from Grande Hospital. Others were treated for less serious injuries at the Everest base camp. Hundreds of climbers, guides and support crews had been at Everest's base camp preparing to climb the 8,850-meter (29,035-foot) peak when weather conditions are most favorable next month. As with each year, the Sherpa guides from each of the expedition teams had been working together to prepare the path by carving routes through the ice, fixing ropes on the slopes and setting up camps at higher altitudes. One of the injured guides, Dawa Tashi, said the Sherpas were delayed on their way up the slope because the path was unsteady. With little warning, a wall of snow crashed down on the group and buried many of them, according to Tashi's sister-in-law, Dawa Yanju. Doctors said Tashi, who was partially buried in the snowfall, suffered several broken ribs. The Sherpa people are one of the main ethnic groups in Nepal's alpine region, and many make their living as climbing guides on Everest and other Himalayan peaks. More than 4,000 climbers have summited Everest since 1953, when it was first conquered by New Zealander Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay. Hundreds have died trying. The worst recorded disaster on Everest had been a fierce blizzard on May 11, 1996, that caused the deaths of eight climbers, including famed mountaineer Rob Hall, and was later memorialized in a book, "Into Thin Air," by Jon Krakauer. Six Nepalese guides were killed in an avalanche in 1970. Earlier this year, Nepal announced several steps to better manage the heavy flow of climbers and speed up rescue operations. The steps included the dispatch of officials and security personnel to the base camp at (5,300 meters) 17,380 feet, where they will stay throughout the spring climbing season, which ends in May.

– Yesterday's avalanche on Everest already had been the deadliest ever, but the toll grew by one today with the discovery of a 13th Sherpa body, reports the BBC. Three more of the Nepalese guides remain missing, reports AP, and another three remain hospitalized. The avalanche struck yesterday morning as the guides were slowly hauling equipment up a narrow, perilous pass called "popcorn field" in some accounts, or "Golden Gate" and "Khumbu Icefall" in others. A member of the Nepal National Mountain Guide Association tells the New York Times that the pass is so dangerous, guides generally leave before sunrise to prep the route—before the day's heat can cause ice to shift. "Our friends started a little late,” he says. “They arrived at quarter to seven.” At another point, he sums up the sherpa-climber relationship this way: The guides do nearly all the work, while the foreign climbers get the glory. Tim Rippel, a mountaineer leading an expedition with his company Peak Freaks writes in a blog post that "there is a lot of soul searching going on right now" on Everest. “Everyone is shaken here at base camp. Some climbers are packing up and calling it quits. They want nothing to do with this."

Killer robots are a dead serious moral issue. In its "Campaign to Stop Killer Robots," a global coalition is urging the United Nations to ban the emerging technology of weaponized drones that kill without human intervention. The hope is to forestall an age of "mechanical slaughter." But when the wrath of killer robots is aimed at a scourge to all of humanity—jellyfish—maybe there is a better case to be made. Jellyfish appear to be on the rise around the world, some marine experts believe, linked to warmer and more oxygen-depleted ocean waters (though some scientists dispute that this is a trend). At the very least, the impacts of large blooms are becoming more visible. The gelatinous creatures made headlines this week for clogging the cooling pipes of a nuclear reactor in Sweden, causing it to shut down—a phenomenon that is growing into a global problem. In South Korea, in 2009, they caused an estimated $300 million in economic loss to marine-related industries, says Hyun Myung, director of the Urban Robotics Lab at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology. That's around when he began working on a robot that can kill them. He saw the robots as a cheaper alternative to plans to trap them in nets attached to large trawl boats. The resulting robot, named JEROS (short for the Jellyfish Elimination Robotic Swarm), floats on the water’s surface and has motors and a special jellyfish-pulverizing propeller attached. JEROS detects jellyfish swarms and plans its path of attack using a camera and GPS system and then it traps them in a submerged net before ingesting them. Myung designed the system so that three robots could travel together and act as one. In a field test in August in South Korea’s Masan Bay, together the three robots shredded about 900 kilograms of jellyfish an hour, he says, at a lower cost than manual ship-based removal methods. The team is planning to commercialize the robots by next year after tinkering with JEROS some more. They are also exploring other uses, such as patrolling or guarding waters, oil spill prevention, or marine debris removal. These killer robots could indeed help combat the growing plague of jellyfish (a child died on the beach in South Korea last year) and save governments money, too. However, listening to the mechanical sounds of the shredding in the video above is eerie nonetheless. ||||| South Korean civil and environmental engineers are fine-tuning a robotic swarm that has one purpose: destroy jellyfish. The shredding mechanism might strike some as extreme, but jellyfish are a deadly threat to humans. Anything You Can Do, Robots Can Do Better: Photos The system is called the Jellyfish Elimination Robotic Swarm or JEROS for short and was developed at the South Korean research university KAIST. Associate robotics professor Myung Hyun began working on an unmanned jellyfish removal system three years ago, motivated by jellyfish attacks along the country’s southwest coast. Jellyfish have also caused enormous losses in the local fishing industry, where they clog nets, feed on fish eggs and consume the plankton that fish normally eat. JEROS robots float on the water surface and use both a GPS system and camera to detect jellyfish swarms. The robots then automatically determine the optimal path and formation. Propulsion motors attached to each robot allow them to move around in the water. Submerged nets guide the jellyfish up into the robot, where a special propeller shreds them. Here’s a video showing JEROS in action. The KAIST engineers reported that their first swarm was able to destroy about 900 pounds (400 kilograms) of jellyfish an hour while the newer version can suck up closer to 2,000 pounds in the same amount of time. Usually something like this would make me slightly nauseous — and that video is its own horror movie soundtrack — but given how much havoc jellyfish can wreak, I do understand the need here. When jellyfish and humans clash, the stories sound like science fiction but they’re both real and really awful. The venom from box jellyfish tentacles that can stretch 6.5 feet in length is among the most deadly in the world. Jellyfish regularly mess with power plants by clogging water pipes needed for cooling. Over the weekend they shut down a nuclear reactor in Sweden. The creatures have decimated fisheries as well. In 2007, a mauve stinger jellyfish attack in Ireland suffocated 100,000 salmon in their cages. Freaky Clean: Mini Robots Scrub Your House Given all that chaos, judicious and closely monitored checks on jellyfish swarms seems warranted to me. But I don’t think they should all be eradicated. Jellyfish do have advantages — and they’ve even inspired unique robot designs. Meanwhile, the KAIST team plans to continue testing their robots in Masan Bay. They hope that beyond jellyfish, the swarm could be used for other purposes such as sea waste removal. To tackle that, they’re going to need bigger propellers. Photo: The Jellyfish Elimination RObotic Swarm or JEROS shreds jellyfish during a test last August in Masan Bay, South Korea. Credit: KAIST (video) ||||| They can leave swimmers and surfers cowering on the beaches, clog fishing nets and have even caused nuclear reactors to shut down. Swarms of jellyfish regularly cause disruption to seaside economies and there are fears that in some places they are becoming more common. Now scientists at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology in Daejeon, South Korea, have developed “jellyfish terminator” robots that can patrol the coastline. The machines, known as the Jellyfish Elimination Robotic Swarm , or JEROS, use on-board cameras to visually detect jellyfish swimming in the water. The robots float on the surface of the water and use submerged nets to suck up the jellyfish as they travel and then a propeller shreds them into pieces. The scientists, who began work on the project in 2009, have now conducted full tests of their robots in the ocean. Videos posted online show the robots swimming in formation and then shredding jellyfish underwater. While jellyfish tentacles can still sting even when shredded, they can be prevented from swimming into areas where they may pose a problem for human activities. The robots, which travel through the water at around 4 knots (4.6mph), could also help control jellyfish breeding, helping to prevent large swarms from forming. According to Professor Myung Hyun, who led the team behind the project, the robots can remove 880lbs of jellyfish each per hour. They have just finished conducting tests in the Masan Bay on the southern coast of South Korea with three prototype robots. Writing in the journal Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, Professor Hyun said: “Recently, the increase in population of jellyfish is becoming a great menace to the oceans ecosystem, which leads to drastic damage to the fishery industries. “The JEROS consists of an autonomous surface vehicle (ASV), a grid for jellyfish removal, and an autonomous navigation system. “Once jellyfish are detected using a camera, the jellyfish removal scenario is started with generating efficient path to remove the jellyfish. “Finally, the jellyfish is sliced up with the grid installed underneath the JEROS by following the generated path. “The prototype of the system was implemented, and its feasibility was demonstrated through outdoor experiments and field tests.” The researchers now intend to carry out further field tests while also focusing on ensuring the robots can stand up to waves and develop "cooperative jellyfish removal strategies". Jellyfish swarms can cost coastal resorts millions in lost trade around the world as beaches are closed down. Around Australia, box jellyfish cause particular problems as their stings can be deadly. Swarms of jellyfish can at times stretch for hundreds of miles in the right conditions. In South Korea, jellyfish are estimated to be responsible for around $300 million in damages and losses to fisheries. On Sunday a swarm of jellyfish forced the Oskarshamn nuclear power plant in Sweden to shut down after clogging the pipes that bring in seawater to cool the plant’s turbines.

– Flesh-shredding robots that can devour 2,000 pounds an hour may sound like the stuff of horror movies, but they're very real and come with a purpose: kill jellyfish. Engineers in South Korea are working on something called the Jellyfish Elimination Robotic Swarm to cut down deadly attacks on humans, losses to fisheries, and, yes, even nuclear plant closures, reports Discovery. It's big business, notes Fast Company: South Korean marine industries lost an estimated $300 million because of jellyfish in 2009 alone. Though still in the tinkering stage, the makers hope to commercialize the robots by next year. So how do they work? Equipped with a GPS and camera to detect jellyfish swarms, three robots travel together on the surface via propulsion motors, scooping up jellyfish in submerged nets. A shredding propeller takes care of the rest—think of it as a "jellyfish terminator," explains the Telegraph. (On behalf of the jellyfish, Discovery's Alyssa Dangelis writes that while "judicious and closely monitored checks on jellyfish swarms" seem warranted, the creatures shouldn't be eradicated.) Also in the works: Figuring out how the system might be used for other purposes, like cleaning up trash from the sea. (Maybe it could tackle one of those floating "plastic patches"?)

Atos, the largest IT services firm in Europe, is going to do away with internal e-mail. Atos CEO Thierry Breton says that only 15 percent of the 200 e-mails his staff receive on average are valuable, and that staff are wasting between 5 and 20 hours a week handling e-mail. Instead of e-mail, he wants staff to use instant messaging and other chat-like communications media. Breton himself claims not to have sent a work e-mail for three years, saying that if staff want to communicate with him they can visit his office, call, or send a text message. The 56-year-old CEO explains, "e-mails cannot replace the spoken word." Whether a switch away from e-mail for internal communication will actually improve staff productivity is less clear. Communication outside the company will still tend to use e-mail, so staff will still have to run an e-mail client and still be vulnerable to e-mail-based interruptions. Moreover, research suggests that instant messaging and phone calls are just as disruptive to productivity as e-mail. The problem is not really e-mail; it's interruptions. Eighty-five percent of Atos' internal mail may be worthless, but ditching internal mail doesn't mean that employees will end their unproductive communication. Switching from one kind of interruption to another doesn't solve the problem—and indeed, a conscientious, well thought-out e-mail that included a number of points or questions might be less of a distraction that a regular barrage of instant messages. Of course, for Breton the decision to abandon internal e-mail was easier than it is for most: Breton has a secretary. ||||| (Hannelore Foerster/Bloomberg/Getty Images) You’ve got mail–not. Employees of tech company Atos will be banned from sending emails under the company’s new “zero email” policy. CEO Thierry Breton of the French information technology company said only 10 percent of the 200 messages employees receive per day are useful and 18 percent is spam. That’s why he hopes the company can eradicate internal emails in 18 months, forcing the company’s 74,000 employees to communicate with each other via instant messaging and a Facebook-style interface. Caroline Crouch, a spokeswoman for the company, told ABC News the goal is focused on internal emails rather than external emails with clients and partners. Atos has already reduced the number of internal emails by 20 percent in six months. When asked how employees have responded to the policy, Crouch told ABC News the overall response “has been positive with strong take up of alternative tools.” Breton, the French finance minister from 2005 to 2007, told the Wall Street Journal he has not sent an email in the three years since he became chairman and CEO of Atos in November 2008. “We are producing data on a massive scale that is fast polluting our working environments and also encroaching into our personal lives,” he said in a statement when first announcing the policy in Feburary. “At [Atos] we are taking action now to reverse this trend, just as organizations took measures to reduce environmental pollution after the industrial revolution.” Atos had revenue last year of of EUR 8.6 billion, or $11.5 billion, and has offices in 42 countries, according to the company website. The company says by 2013, more than half of all new digital content will be the result of updates to, and editing of existing information. Middle managers spend more than 25 percent of their time searching for information, according to the company. Crouch said Atos is evaluating a number of new tools to replace internal email including collaborative and social media tools. Those include the Atos Wiki, which allows all employees to communicate by contributing or modifying online content, and Office Communicator, the company’s online chat system which allows video conferencing, and file and application sharing.

– Soon, employees of the biggest IT company in Europe won't be able to do the most common of tech tasks: send or receive email. Atos CEO Thierry Breton thinks email is a tremendous waste of time, and he's in the process of having it eliminated in the workplace, reports Ars Technica (which isn't convinced the move will solve anything). Instead, employees will have to communicate via IMs, texts, maybe even the spoken word. Breton sees the shift as being on a grand scale, notes ABC: “We are producing data on a massive scale that is fast polluting our working environments and also encroaching into our personal lives,” he says. "We are taking action now to reverse this trend, just as organizations took measures to reduce environmental pollution after the industrial revolution.”

Billionaire Donald J. Trump, an early presidential favorite among tea party activists, has a highly unusual history of political contributions for a prospective Republican candidate: He has given most of his money to the other side. The real estate mogul and “Celebrity Apprentice” host has made more than $1.3 million in donations over the years to candidates nationwide, with 54 percent of the money going to Democrats, according to a Washington Post analysis of state and federal disclosure records. Recipients include Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (Nev.), former Pennsylvania governor Edward G. Rendell, and Rahm Emanuel, a former aide to President Obama who received $50,000 from Trump during his recent run to become Chicago’s mayor, records show. Many of the contributions have been concentrated in New York, Florida and other states where Trump has substantial real estate and casino interests. The donations provide another view into the odd political spectacle surrounding Trump, who may be the most unlikely of possible GOP presidential hopefuls in an already eclectic field. Although candidates such as Mitt Romney and Tim Pawlenty have spent years carefully crafting and plotting a White House run, the tycoon and fixture of the New York tabloids has leapt onto the scene with loud proclamations and surprisingly strong poll numbers among likely Republican voters. The iconoclastic developer and television personality is attempting to appeal to social conservatives, even with a record of failed marriages and earlier statements in favor of abortion rights. His attacks on Obama have focused on conspiracy theories about the president’s birth in Hawaii that make many Republican leaders nervous. And Trump is considering a run for the nomination in an increasingly conservative Republican Party, despite years of donations to prominent Democrats. None of which has stopped him from forging ahead with a potential candidacy, including a scheduled trip on Wednesday to the early primary state of New Hampshire. The Democratic recipients of Trump’s donations make up what looks like a Republican enemies list, including former senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.), Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.), Rep. Charles B. Rangel (N.Y.), Sen. Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.) and the late liberal lion Edward M. Kennedy (Mass.). The biggest recipient of all has been the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee of New York, which has taken in more than $125,000 from Trump and his companies. Overall, Trump has given nearly $600,000 to New York state campaigns, with more than two-thirds going to Democrats. His representatives did not respond to requests for comment Tuesday. But Trump said in a recent interview that he had relatively few Republican options in an overwhelmingly blue state. “Everyone’s Democratic,” he told Fox News in an interview about his potential candidacy. “So what am I going to do — contribute to Republicans? One thing: I’m not stupid. Am I going to contribute to Republicans for my whole life when they get heat when they run against some Democrat and the most they can get is 1 percent of the vote?” His Democratic generosity is hardly confined to New York, however. Trump has given more than $250,000 to federal candidates and campaigns, including more than $100,000 to the party’s House and Senate campaign committees. He donated $10,400 to Reid, including for his 2010 battle with Sharron Angle, the GOP nominee and tea party favorite. Ron Bonjean, a GOP consultant and former Capitol Hill aide, said that “it will be hard for him to spin his way out of direct campaign contributions” to Reid and other Democrats. “In a Republican primary, it shows where your loyalty lies,” said Bonjean, who has not signed on with a GOP presidential candidate. “He may be giving this money to Democrats because it helps his business, but it will be a big deal to Republican primary voters.” While favoring Democrats, Trump has donated more than $600,000 to Republicans as well, including Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), the party’s 2008 presidential nominee, whom Trump first supported in 1998. He gave $95,000 to the Republican Governors Association for its record-breaking electoral push in 2010, and he has donated more than $80,000 to the three national GOP political committees in the past two decades. Individual Republicans supported by Trump include former congressman Tom DeLay (Tex.), former House speaker Newt Gingrich (Ga.) and former senator George Allen (Va.). The data collected by The Post for this article does not include donations to outside interest groups. Last year, for instance, Trump gave $50,000 to American Crossroads, which supported Republican candidates in the midterm elections. GOP political consultant Alex Castellanos said Trump’s contribution pattern is similar to the approach of many business leaders and corporations that divide their donations between the two parties. But to get through a Republican primary season, he added, “it doesn’t help to have that record.” One of Trump’s biggest Democratic beneficiaries was Rendell, who received $32,000 from the mogul during his 2002 primary and general election campaigns to become Pennsylvania’s governor. Rendell, who favors abortion rights, was challenged in the Democratic primary by Bob Casey Jr., who opposes abortion. When he considered a run for president in 2000 as a Reform Party candidate, Trump said he supported abortion rights. But he said last week that he now opposes the procedure except in cases of rape or incest or when the mother’s health is at risk. In Pennsylvania, Rendell favored allowing slots gambling, and Trump waged a long and ultimately fruitless battle to secure a casino license in the state after the practice was legalized. He publicly lashed out at Rendell when an independent gaming board rejected the license application, calling Pennsylvania “a little too political of a state for me.” The tycoon benefited from a Rendell decision to lift a moratorium on water development rights in Philadelphia, allowing a planned Trump Tower project to proceed. The luxury development has since been put on hold amid the economic downturn. Rendell did not respond to a telephone message seeking comment Tuesday. Former congressman Thomas M. Davis III (Va.), who served as chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, said Trump’s close ties to some Democrats would be “a huge obstacle, but it’s not insurmountable.” Trump, he added, would not be running as a “purity” candidate. “Republicans are looking for a savior,” Davis said. “Here’s a guy who has succeeded outside politics and articulates the right vision. Sometimes that works. . . . It’s a long shot, but it’s not out of the bounds of possibility.” ||||| HANNITY: Recently, you said that if you don't get the nomination that you would run as an independent. You are asking Republicans -- TRUMP: I didn't say that. I said I would certainly think about that. Because the question is what happens if you don't get the nomination? And this was also before the new polls came out that showed me leading. But they said, what happens if you don't get? Would you consider running? I said yes, I would consider running as an independent. HANNITY: All right. But if you do that, that would be the greatest gift to Barack Obama and -- TRUMP: Unless I won. No, no, unless I won. HANNITY: In reality though, if you are a conservative and you didn't get the nomination you are running against another conservative, you split the vote, Barack Obama sails into the presidency. TRUMP: Unless I thought I could win as an independent. I wouldn't do that, because if I lost, I get a tremendous amount of votes and I would take them all from the Republican Party, which would be terrible. So, unless I thought I could win, really win as an independent, I would not do that. Because I wouldn't want to come in second or third place and Obama ends up winning. HANNITY: OK. So, if you thought that it would hurt the chances of defeating Obama, you would not do it? TRUMP: The only way I would run is, would be if I didn't get the Republican nomination and felt through polls and lots of other things that are pretty good and pretty scientific. And seem to work over the years, I've been watching lots of polls, and they seem to be pretty accurate, amazingly, right? If I thought I could win absolutely win as an independent I would do it. If I didn't, it would be devastating because you wouldn't have a Republican in. So, I would have a real problem unless I really felt certain, pretty certain of victory. HANNITY: You described yourself a conservative. What does it mean for you when you say, that you are a conservative person? How do you describe that? TRUMP: Well, I think I have great values. I think I really have a great solid strong value. I love this country. I feel so strongly about this country. I love people that work. This weekend I'm making a speech in Boca Raton, Florida, and there was supposed to be like 200 people before it was announced that I was speaking. And now I hear they have thousands -- they had to lead the hall, it is going to be in some park, where they have thousands and thousands of people coming, which really makes me feel good. But I really relate to the Tea Party people. Somebody was asking me, in fact every reporter asks me, what do you think of the Tea Party? I said, I think they are great. They are workers. They love the country. And you know, their greatest service has been -- and this is very simple -- they've made everyone think. They were the first that brought up the deficit. People, we were just riding this deficit, borrowing more and more money, they were the first ones that really made both Democrats and Republicans think. So, I think the Tea Party has served an unbelievable and performed an unbelievable function. HANNITY: How do you describe, some Republicans are saying, wait a minute he wants the Republican nomination, years gone by, you have donated to people like Harry Reid, Chuck Schumer, other Democrats. Why? TRUMP: I get along with everybody. And, you know, can I be honest, you are a pretty conservative guy. HANNITY: Yes. TRUMP: Don't you think it is time -- I get along with everybody. I get along -- I also have plenty of enemies as you probably know. HANNITY: Rosie. TRUMP: My worst enemy will be Obama, probably. Well, you said Rosie, I didn't. But the fact is, I get along with people. I also come from a place that is almost exclusively Democratic. HANNITY: New York. TRUMP: I'm in New York. OK. I mean, the Republicans don't even think they have a chance. And, you know, maybe I would have a chance, OK? But they don't even think about New York. So, I've lived in New York. This building, this great tower and many other towers I own, they are in New York. Everyone is Democratic. So, what am I going to do, contribute to Republicans? Am I going to contribute to, I mean, one thing I'm not stupid. Am I going to contribute to a Republican for my whole life when they get, they run against some Democrat. And the most they can get is one percent of the vote? So, I think more importantly, and this question will always be asked. I mean, I've contributed to Schumer, I contributed -- I've known Schumer for many, many years. And I have a good relationship with him. The fact is, that I think it is time maybe that we all do get along. (END VIDEO CLIP) (COMMERCIAL BREAK) HANNITY: And welcome back to "Hannity." We continue with more of my interview with Donald Trump. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) HANNITY: Who were the people that you might be running against? You mentioned you like Mike Huckabee. You know, the other candidates, Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich. TRUMP: I sort of like them all. You know, I have a problem. They've treated me so nicely. I have such a problem, everyone said such nice things. I saw Santorum said something nice. HANNITY: Newt Gingrich did, Sarah Palin did. TRUMP: The all did. Newt Gingrich last month joined my club in Washington. A little before he heard about this in all fairness, but I already have his money. HANNITY: He said something nice about in a speech this weekend. TRUMP: Well, that is very nice. I mean, so, I wish I didn't like them, does that make sense to you? HANNITY: Well you're all going to have to debate each other. TRUMPP They are all saying these nice things about me. I have a hard time. So, the truth is, I watched Pawlenty the other day. I don't know him but he said these wonderful things about Donald Trump. And I can't now say, oh gee, this and that. HANNITY: Well, look, you're all... TRUMP: The good news is I don't think Barack Obama is going to be saying nice things and that's a positive. (CROSSTALK) Look, I think I'm a great negotiator. I think I will do a better job than anybody because I'm really a great negotiator. I know how to negotiate. I know how people are ripping us off. I know why they're ripping us off and I know how to solve the problem. And as far as yesterday is concerned and what is going on over the last couple of days, the numbers aren't as bad as you are thinking, because what is happening is, if you take away $300 billion where China is ripping us and you take away Colombia and you take away virtually every nation in the world, who is making a huge -- let's use the word profit on the United States. When you start equalizing that, not even to make money of them, just to neutralize it, China shouldn't be making $300 billion on us, this year.

– If Donald Trump officially decides to enter the Republican race, he'll probably have to explain why he has donated to so many Democrats. Of the more than $1.3 million in political donations he's made over the years, 54% has gone to Democrats, the Washington Post reports. Those include such big names as Harry Reid, Rahm Emanuel, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Charles Schumer, and Ted Kennedy. Of course, many of Trump's contributions have been in states where he has significant real estate interests. In a recent Fox News interview, Trump explained that New York is overwhelmingly Democratic; the Post notes that more than two-thirds of his donations in the state have gone to Dems. “So what am I going to do—contribute to Republicans? One thing: I’m not stupid. Am I going to contribute to Republicans for my whole life when they get heat when they run against some Democrat and the most they can get is 1% of the vote?” Even though he has also given more than $600,000 to Republicans, "it will be hard for him to spin his way out of" the Democratic contributions, says a GOP consultant. (Click to read Trump's thoughts on how intelligent Obama is—or isn't.)

« Previous | Main | Next » Mitts Off: Watch Mitt Romney's Joke, Pretending a Waitress Grabs His Rear ABC's Z. Byron Wolf (@zbyronwolf) reports: We pointed out yesterday the joke Mitt Romney played on a group of waitresses at MaryAnn’s diner in Derry, New Hampshire, pretending that one of the poodle-clad servers had goosed him. After a round of hugs and while posing for a photo with the waitresses, he sprang forward as if someone had grabbed his rear end. He later clarified that no one had squeezed his butt, but the photo op reminded him of an experience during a previous campaign when someone had. Romney was in the midst of a quick morning tour of the small downtown area, visiting the diner, a hardware store and a feed shop. It was an odd moment in the retail politics of the day and here is the video: ||||| ABC News’ Emily Friedman ( @EmilyABC ) reports: Presidential candidate Mitt Romney was criticized today by The Democratic National Committee for being “out of touch” after remarking during a campaign stop in Florida today that he too is unemployed. The DNC’s “Rapid Response” team circulated a New York Times article this afternoon along with the message “Out of touch much…” to subscribers. Romney was in Tampa today as part of a three-day trip to the Sunshine State for multiple fundraisers, and made a campaign stop along the way at Buddy Brew Coffee to talk to small business owners and Floridians looking for jobs. After listening to stories about how hard it is to find work, Romney said, “I should tell my story, I’m also unemployed,” the Times reported. “I have my sight on a particular job,” Romney added, according to the report, before saying that he might be without a job for “longer than [he’d] like.” But aides who were with Romney at the event told ABC News that his remarks garnered laughter from the crowd and that the remark was meant to be self-deprecating, an attempt by the candidate to make fun of himself. Romney has so far focused much of his campaign on pegging President Obama as the one who is out of touch when it comes to creating jobs to spur the struggling economy. Following the May jobs report that showed an increase in the unemployment rate – it went up from 9 percent to 9.1 percent – Romney remarked at a town hall in Manchester, N.H., that President Obama has “failed the American people.” “The borrowing and the spending and the 1.6 trillion dollar deficit these numbers are his, they are on his back, and that is why he it’s why he is going to lose,” Romney said. And earlier this week the Romney campaign released a new web video “ Bump in the Road ,” a jab at President Obama’s remarks that there are “always bumps in the road to recovery.” The video featured individuals declaring, “I am an American, not a bump in the road.” ||||| Jeff Zeleny/The New York Times TAMPA, Fla. — Mitt Romney sat at the head of the table at a coffee shop here on Thursday, listening to a group of unemployed Floridians explain the challenges of looking for work. When they finished, he weighed in with a predicament of his own. “I should tell my story,” Mr. Romney said. “I’m also unemployed.” He chuckled. The eight people gathered around him, who had just finished talking about strategies of finding employment in a slow-to-recover economy, joined him in laughter. “Are you on LinkedIn?” one of the men asked. “I’m networking,” Mr. Romney replied. “I have my sight on a particular job.” The morning coffee hour at Buddy Brew Coffee here on West Kennedy Boulevard was interrupted by a conversation about small businesses and job creation as Mr. Romney finished a three-day swing through Florida. While his visit was largely focused on fund-raising, he spent more than an hour promoting his pitch that he would be a stronger steward of the economy than President Obama. But any of the bravado that accompanied him in the wake of his first presidential debate on Monday in New Hampshire — he vowed to return to the state in four years, accompanied by a Secret Service detail — was absent. He took a humble, self-deprecating approach. “I wish I had a job for everybody,” Mr. Romney said at the end of his discussion. He added, “I may be unemployed for longer than I’d like.” The references to Mr. Romney’s own unemployment status added yet another humorous, but occasionally awkward, moment to his ever-growing catalog of off-the-cuff remarks that he makes as he seeks the Republican presidential nomination. He spent the morning doing more listening than talking — a woman in the crowd openly urged him to talk about the deficit — and it was unclear whether he persuaded any voters to join his effort. Tom Yarranton, 55, lost his job in March 2010. He had spent 31 years as an internal auditor at a manufacturing company. He said he liked Mr. Romney’s mind-set as a businessman, but added that he did not blame Mr. Obama for still being unemployed. “I’m not mad at him,” Mr. Yarranton said in an interview after the session ended. “It’s amazing in politics. They’re all into pointing fingers at each other. The Republicans right now are so mad at the Democrats, but nobody is doing anything.” The sentiment illustrated the long-term challenge for Mr. Romney and other Republican candidates as they try to win over independent voters — and, perhaps, even some conservative Democrats — to accomplish their ultimately goal on Election Day in November 2012. In the conversation with voters, Mr. Romney modulated his criticism of the president, saying, “I won’t be too partisan here.” A few moments later, as he stood before television cameras, he ratcheted up his disapproval. “We have all been distressed by the policies that this administration has put in place over the last two years,” Mr. Romney said. “We have seen the most anti-investment, antigrowth, antijob strategy in America since Jimmy Carter. The result has been it’s harder and harder for people to find work.” Joan Savage, who described herself as a die-hard Republican, said she was uncertain whether her party could win back the White House. She said that she walked away with a favorable impression of Mr. Romney, but added, “I don’t know that anyone can beat Obama right now.” The path to that fight will begin here in Tampa, where Republicans will hold their national convention next summer and formally crown their nominee to challenge Mr. Obama.

– Discussing unemployment at a Florida coffee shop, Mitt Romney said he felt the pain of his jobless listeners: “I should tell my story, I’m also unemployed,” he said, according to the New York Times. "I'm networking," he added. “I have my sight on a particular job.” Romney and his small audience laughed at the banter, but Democrats jumped on the comment, sending supporters the Times piece with the note “Out of touch much…" Romney aides, however, say he was just being self-deprecating, ABC News reports. (Romney also raised eyebrows recently with another joke in which he pretended to get goosed in a photo with women. ABC has the video.)

HIV-infected ex-Lindenwood wrestler may have videotaped more sex victims (KMOV) --Prosecutors tell News 4 they now know more than 30 people could have gotten HIV from a former student at Lindenwood University who allegedly knew he had the deadly disease. He is accused of knowingly giving it to others. In October, Michael Johnson, 22, was charged with exposing sexual partners to HIV. Police later discovered multiple videos of Johnson having unprotected sex. They believe those partners were unaware Johnson was HIV positive and that they were being videotaped. The startling details were revealed after hidden camera sex tapes were uncovered, according to prosecutors. “On that laptop were 32 videos engaged in sexual acts with Mr. Johnson,” said Tim Lohmar, St. Charles County prosecutor. Lohmar said Johnson can be seen with 31 unidentified people in videos taken over four months. Most of the videos were shot on the campus of Lindenwood University in St. Charles. Johnson has already been charged with five counts of knowingly transmitting the disease. “It’s safe to safe that numerous of those videos were taken inside his dorm room; we know that because we recognize the furniture,” Lohmar said most of victims not only likely had no idea they were being video-taped; they were clueless that Johnson had HIV. That’s why Lohmar wants any potential victims to come forward immediately. It’s a matter not only of their individual safety but public safety as well. Lindenwood University school officials tell News 4 they will assist law enforcement with identifying victims. They say they had no idea the videos existed until just a few days ago. “I think it’s really scary, thinking someone like that is on campus, not thinking about others,” said Student Jenny Counts. Students are shaken up by this latest news, but glad that Johnson is still behind bars for now. If convicted of knowingly transmitting HIV, he could get up to life in prison. The Prosecuting Attorney’s Office requests that anyone who may have had an intimate relationship with Johnson or who may have information pertinent to this investigation contact the St. Charles Detective Bureau at 636-949-3330.” ||||| Close Get email notifications on Susan Weich daily! Your notification has been saved. There was a problem saving your notification. Whenever Susan Weich posts new content, you'll get an email delivered to your inbox with a link. Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.

– The case of a 21-year-old Missouri man accused of knowingly exposing people to HIV became infinitely more awful last week, when police revealed that he'd allegedly secretly videotaped himself having sex with as many as 31 other people. Former Lindenwood University wrestling star Michael L. Johnson was originally arrested back in October, after one of his partners told police that he'd become infected, according to the Indianapolis Star. Four more men soon came forward. Police believe Johnson knew he had HIV, but didn't tell his partners, and didn't use a condom. But last week, police revealed that they'd found a laptop with 32 videos of Johnson having unprotected sex with different people—only one of whom they'd previously identified, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and KMOV report. Based on the furniture, they believe the videos were shot in his dorm room. Police don't think any of the victims knew either that they were being recorded or that Johnson had HIV. They're urging those people, or anyone with information on the case, to come forward. Johnson has been charged with recklessly infecting another with HIV, and recklessly exposing others to infection, and faces up to life in prison.

Alec Baldwin Sobs On Witness Stand In Stalker Case Alec Baldwin -- Sobs On Witness Stand In Stalker Case Breaking News broke down on the stand this morning -- facing his alleged stalker and crying on the stand in an explosive series of exchanges over the nature of their relationship.is on trial for stalking and harassment. She has incessantly tweeted and emailed Alec, shown up at his home and harassed his wife. Sabourin claims she met Baldwin in 2002, had dinner in 2010 and she claims they slept together -- Baldwin denies anything sexual ever occurred.Although tears flowed during Baldwin's testimony, some spectators in the courtroom felt it was not authentic. Nonetheless, Baldwin painted a picture of a woman who imposed her obsession on him and his wife, making their lives miserable.Sabourin repeatedly shouted at Baldwin as he testified, challenging him. When Baldwin said he never had sex with her, she fired back, "REALLY?!??!"She also loudly accused Baldwin of having a "lying disease," as he walked through the tale of alleged harassment.On his way out, Baldwin was in typical form, telling reporters, "I hope you choke to death."The trial is continuing. ||||| She threatens to confront Baldwin in an email on April 12, 2012: "I will use my very good contact in NBC universal to be INSIDE ... I will get to you ... not to hurt you or harm you in any way ... but to simply straiten(sic) your a-- out, because you gave humiliated me for the last time!! I'm coming!! Though less (like) Kim Basinger wanna be!" ||||| He hurled insults at a Post photographer on his way into court – and even offered the shutterbug a death wish on his way out — but hotheaded Alec Baldwin reserved his best emoting for the witness stand. The rage-filled, former “30 Rock” star appeared to choke up on cue, dabbing at his eyes with a finger, as he described a March 2012 encounter with accused stalker Genevieve Sabourin shortly after his engagement to his wife, Hilaria. “I got home the day of getting engaged to my wife [and] the defendant pulled up to my house in a car,” he said in Manhattan Criminal Court of Sabourin, the shapely French Canadian woman who claims Baldwin dumped her after a steamy affair. “It was a rainy day … my wife and I were sitting in the living room… She started to get out of the car and [I] held up my hand to say wait,” Baldwin testified of the encounter outside his East Hampton pad. “My wife was worried and I was worried this very thing would happen,” he said, wiping his tearing-on-demand eyes and dramatically pausing as if to compose himself. “I told my wife not to come to the door I didn’t know if she had a gun or a weapon and I called the police,” Baldwin said. “Why is he crying?” Sabourin mockingly asked, one of numerous courtroom outbursts from the zany blonde that at one point led the judge to threaten to hold her in contempt. The movie star-turned- MSNBC host said she also appeared at his East Village home and when he and Hilaria were at a film screening at Lincoln Center, where he asked a security guard to escort her out. During questioning from prosecutor Zachary Stendig, Baldwin flatly denied having an affair with Sabourin — prompting one of many outbursts angrily branding him a liar. “You’re lying! Why are you lying?” Sabourin shouted. “That’s not true!” And he again denied an affair under cross-examination by defense lawyer Todd Spodek, who asked Baldwin if the pair had sex at the Lowell Hotel. An incensed Sabourin shouted, “You have a scar here!” and pointed to her hip as Judge Robert Mandlebaum told her to settle down Later, when the judge threatened to hold her in contempt, she shouted: “I got to prove that I had a sexual relationship! I didn’t do anything wrong. He’s lying to you his honor!” as Spodek led her from the courtroom. Baldwin described meeting Sabourin while on a film shoot in Montreal in 2000. He testified that he didn’t see her again until 2010 when he went to dinner in New York with filmmaker Martin Bregman and Sabourin, whom he described as the “Scarface” producer’s mistress. “Marty called me told me he needed my help. That Marty Bregman was ending his relationship with her. He wanted to help get her a job. She wanted to be an actress — he wanted me to meet her to help with her potential acting career,” Baldwin said. Baldwin then testified that he wanted to try to help his friend — an influential producer whose credits also included other Al Pacino hits like “Carlito’s Way” and “Dog Day Afternoon,” among other hits. “Bregman asked me to do it as a favor. I wanted to handle the situation as delicately as I could knowing this was Marty’s girlfriend. The issue as I saw then was that she was 39 years old at the time, she was a French Canadian with a discernible accent… and the most I could offer her [was] advice on was where to study acting,” Baldwin testified. Baldwin claimed the pair only met once, and testified that they exchanged phone calls and emails for about a month – a statement Spodek later shot down during cross-examination. Asked about the nature of the calls, Baldwin said she told him she didn’t want to be with Bregman anymore and wanted a relationship with him. “I want to see you again. When can I see you again? I want us to be together. I want to be with you,” Baldwin described her as having said. He said she left repeated voicemails that grew more alarming in nature. “They varied wildly, either her sobbing and crying and begging me to call her and to commence this relationship with her or it would be her laughing and giggling and bubbling, talking about what we were going to do together in her imagination…the messages would sometimes be five minutes apart…she sounded very inebriated.” He said she eventually left hundreds of messages, prompting another outburst. “No!” Sabourin shouted. “It was nightmarish,” the actor said. “The final ones were threats to myself and my wife [Hilaria] … ‘I’m going to get into your wife’s classroom, I’m going to penetrate the building you live in,’ ” Sabourin said, according to his testimony. Baldwin said he deleted many of her emails, prompting Sabourin to shout: “You delete women after sex!” But during cross-examination, Baldwin admitted that he continued exchanging emails with Sabourin into 2012 — long after he claimed he’d told her he wanted her to stop contacting him. “In fact you emailed her seven more times after July 11th [2011],” Spodek said, noting that, “It’s your testimony you wanted no contact with Miss Sabourin after July 11th.” Baldwin at first replied, “I don’t know,” but then claimed that he responded to emails that she had sent to him after that date. “The contact keeps coming, I was trying to encourage her to move on,” Baldwin replied. “But you continued to email her?” the lawyer asked. “In response to emails she sent to me,” Baldwin admitted. The defense lawyer asked if Baldwin recalled an August 2011 email in which Sabourin said, “She’s crying like a dying animal and how she asks you [to] trust her again and give her another chance?” Baldwin replied, “She writes she can’t stop crying like a dying animal [and] I wrote, ‘Believe me, I’ve been there but you must stop,’” he testified. Spodek also referred to an email Baldwin sent her in January 2012 about a trip to Europe she was planning with another man – in which he urged her to make sure she had protected sex with her partner. “The person she was going to be traveling to Europe with was very important… I urged her to wear protection,” he admitted. Spodek asked if this advice was personal or professional — the only kind of advice Baldwin claimed he gave the love-struck Sabourin. “This was personal,” Baldwin replied, prompting another outburst from the accused stalker. “Like the sex we had!” she shouted out. Later, prosecutors questioned Baldwin’s yoga instructor wife Hilaria, first asking her to describe how the actor in described his relationship with Sabourin. “Purely professional. She was the mistress of a dear friend of his and he agreed to meet with her to discuss that she wanted to become an actress,” Hilaria said, prompting still another outburst from the defendant. “She doesn’t know what she’s talking about!” she interrupted. Hilaria told the prosecutor that Sabourin called her home once, started speaking to her in Spanish and then threatened her in English. “She started shrieking at me: ‘You bitch, you bitch, you bitch!’ and I said ‘Genevieve this isn’t an appropriate conversation to have but you need to stop and leave us alone,” prompting another furoius reply from Sabourin. “I neve spoke with you and you know it!” she yelled, adding moments later: “G “You’re going to go to hell!” Hilaria also testified about the encounter at Lincoln Center. “I’ve never been more afraid in my entire life,” she said of seeing Sabourin at the event. Hilaria also testified about a Twitter message she received from Sabourin that mocked her for calling herself Hilaria when her birth name was Hillary, and another message wishing that she would have a miscarriage after she became pregnant. On both the way in and way out of the courthouse, Baldwin lost his cool and hurled more insults at a Post photographer. “I hope you choke to death!” he snarled at G.N. Miller as he left the courthouse after his testimony – leaving his wife Hilaria behind in the building. On his way into court, the hot-headed actor spat “Tough guy!” and “You’re a liar!” at Miller, a retired NYPD detective who was snapping photos as Baldwin emerged from a car, wearing dark shades despite the overcast, snowy weather. Sabourin, who arrived later Tuesday morning, saying she wanted to hear “the truth” from the actor when he took the stand. “Does the truth make you nervous?” she responded when asked if she were nervous. “I’m not guilty.” She then blasted the trial as a waste of money – the taxpayers’ and her own. “Two hundred thousand dollars. I lost my house, I lost my retirement plan. And what’s happening to me could happen to any New Yorker,” she said in a light French accent. “I was seeking for mediation for nearly two years, and what is happening right now is, they were never available for mediation. The DA was never available for true mediation. And we lost, what, half a million dollars and more of the New York taxpayers’ [money],” she fumed. And she again insisted she was innocent. “I haven’t done anything wrong,” she said. The shapely Sabourin, 41, is accused of harassing Baldwin and his wife — though she insists they were lovers before he jilted her after a hotel tryst. She repeatedly interrupted a opening statements in her trial last week with assorted outbursts “Oh, my God,” she blurted at one point as a prosecutor read aloud a 2012 email she allegedly sent to Baldwin saying she wanted to have his baby. “I will be in prime of my ovulation this St. Patrick’s Day and the best gift from you of all would be to conceive a mini Baldwin on this Ireland National Day,” read the email she sent to Baldwin. Sabourin was arrested outside Baldwin’s East 10th Street penthouse on April 8, 2012. Her defense lawyer argued that the case was about a “crumbling” romantic relationship. The two dined together at the upscale eatery Elio’s in February 2010, he said. Baldwin then escorted Sabourin back to an Upper East Side hotel, where pair engaged in a sexual relationship, her lawyer said, after which he dumped her.

– Things got a little crazy in court today when Alec Baldwin testified against the woman accused of stalking him, with Baldwin crying and Genevieve Sabourin screaming at him. The waterworks came on while Baldwin was describing the time Sabourin allegedly came to his house on the day he proposed to his now-wife. (Though the New York Post and TMZ are both doubtful Baldwin was actually crying; the Post notes his eyes seemed dry.) He also denied they were ever romantically involved, as Sabourin claims they were, which is when Sabourin started yelling. Among her outbursts, courtesy of the New York Daily News: "Wow, you're lying. I can't believe you're doing that!" "He's lying, why he do that?" "You have a scar!" She pointed to her hip, apparently indicating she knows about a secret mark on that part of Baldwin's anatomy. "I gotta prove that I had a sexual relationship. I didn’t do anything wrong. He’s lying! He’s lying!" "Are you crazy?" (This was in response to Baldwin's testimony that she made hundreds of harassing phone calls to him.) "Why is he crying?" The judge repeatedly demanded Sabourin pipe down; finally, after he threatened to hold her in contempt, her lawyer forced her to leave the courtroom. The 40-year-old is charged with 23 counts of harassment and one count of stalking; she allegedly emailed and texted Baldwin as well, asking him to help her "conceive a mini Baldwin." For his part, Baldwin says a producer friend introduced him to Sabourin in 2002, and he agreed to meet with her and give her career advice as a favor because she was the producer's mistress. Both before and after court, Baldwin also got heated with a Post photographer he recognized outside, at one point telling him, "I hope you choke to death."

Julian Barnes won the Man Booker Prize for Fiction last night for “The Sense of an Ending,” a slim novel whose narrator must grapple with the fallibility of his memory and sense of self when a friend’s long-ago suicide returns to haunt him. This is the 65-year-old Barnes’s first time winning the U.K.’s most prestigious literary award, which comes with 50,000 pounds ($78,400), though three of his previous novels were shortlisted. As he accepted the prize at a black-tie dinner in London’s medieval Guildhall, he said, “Borges, when asked as he continually was why he had never won the Nobel Prize, always used to reply that in Sweden there was a small cottage industry solely devoted to not giving Borges the Nobel Prize. “At times over the last years in occasional moments of mild paranoia I’ve wondered whether there wasn’t perhaps some similar sister organization operating over here,” he said. “So I am as much relieved as I am delighted to receive the 2011 Booker Prize.” Barnes famously dismissed the Booker as “posh bingo” back in 1987. After winning it, he clarified: “The Booker Prize has a tendency to drive writers a bit mad with lust and greed and expectation,” he said at the post- ceremony press conference. “I was saying that the best way to stay sane is to treat it as ‘posh bingo.’ That means unless and until you win it, when you realize that the judges are the wisest heads in literary Christendom.” Photographer: Alan Edwards/Colman Getty Consultancy via Bloomberg Author Julian Barnes won the Man Booker Prize for Fiction for "The Sense of an Ending." Close Author Julian Barnes won the Man Booker Prize for Fiction for "The Sense of an Ending." Close Open Photographer: Alan Edwards/Colman Getty Consultancy via Bloomberg Author Julian Barnes won the Man Booker Prize for Fiction for "The Sense of an Ending." Bookies’ Favorite Barnes emerged early as the bookies’ favorite, beating five lesser-known finalists. The judges praised the beauty and concision of his prose, as well as the universality of the novel’s appeal. “We thought it was a book that spoke to humankind in the 21st century,” said the chairman of the judges, author and former MI5 spy chief Stella Rimington. “The Sense of an Ending” (Cape/Knopf) tells the story of Tony Webster, a divorced retiree whose uneventful middle age is disturbed by a mysterious bequest from the mother of his college girlfriend, Veronica. Along with 500 pounds, Tony receives a diary belonging to his brilliant school friend, Adrian, who took up with Veronica after she and Tony split and later committed suicide. This charged legacy is the catalyst for a meditation on friendship, aging and the slipperiness of memory, which along the way reveals just how little we truly know ourselves. Pat Kavanagh Dedicated to Barnes’s late wife, the literary agent Pat Kavanagh, “The Sense of an Ending” is just 150 pages long, making it one of the briefest winners in the prize’s history. “We thought that it was a book which, though short, was incredibly concentrated, and crammed in to a very short space a great deal of information which you don’t get out of a first read,” Rimington said. Runners-up for the prize included two debut novels: “Pigeon English” (Bloomsbury/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), Stephen Kelman’s tale of an 11-year-old Ghanaian immigrant caught in the fallout of a London knifing, and “Snowdrops” (Atlantic/Doubleday), A.D. Miller’s thriller-like account of an Englishman whose moral compass drifts in Moscow. The other finalists were Carol Birch’s “Jamrach’s Menagerie” (Canongate/Doubleday), about a boy who leaves London’s Victorian slums for the South Seas in search of a mythical dragon; Patrick deWitt’s “The Sisters Brothers” (Granta/Ecco), about sibling assassins in California during the Gold Rush; and Esi Edugyan’s “Half Blood Blues” (Serpent’s Tail), a novel of betrayal set among a mixed-race jazz group in WWII-era Paris and 1990s Germany. Rival Award This year’s prize has caused its share of controversy, with literary commentators questioning the judges’ credentials and bemoaning a “dumbed-down” shortlist. A group of authors and publishers is even gathering around the idea of a rival award. While sticking by her previous use of the term “readability,” Rimington said the judges had been looking for quality, too. “You can have more than one adjective when you’re talking about books,” she said. Now in its 43rd year, the prize continues to promise an almost certain sales boost -- and this latest shortlist is the best selling since records began. Each of the six finalists, including the winner, receives 2,500 pounds ($3,900) and an edition of his or her own book in a unique designer binding. The contest is designed to celebrate the best novel of the year written by a citizen of the British Commonwealth, the Republic of Ireland or Zimbabwe. Established in 1968 by food wholesaler Booker Plc, the prize has been sponsored since 2002 by Man Group Plc (EMG), the world’s largest publicly traded hedge-fund manager. Jon R. Aisbitt, the chairman of Man Group, announced before the ceremony that Man has signed an agreement to sponsor the prize for 10 more years. To contact the writer on the story: Hephzibah Anderson in London at hephzibah_anderson@hotmail.com. To contact the editor responsible for this story: Manuela Hoelterhoff at mhoelterhoff@bloomberg.net. ||||| He is the author who described the Booker Prize as “posh bingo”. Last night, at the fourth time of trying, Julian Barnes’s numbers finally came up. The 65-year-old writer won for The Sense of an Ending, a 150-page novella about a middle-aged man looking back on his younger days. His win was also one in the eye for critics who have derided this year’s shortlist as too low-brow. Dame Stella Rimington, chairman of the judging panel, outraged the literary establishment when she declared that she was looking for “readability”, so much so that a rival prize was announced last week to champion more high-minded fare. The shortlist included a Western and a debut novel based on the death of Damilola Taylor, but there was no place for heavyweight authors Alan Hollinghurst or Graham Swift. However, Barnes’s elegant prose was the bookmakers’ favourite throughout, and the judges took just 31 minutes to reach their decision. Explaining why The Sense of an Ending won out, Dame Stella said: “We thought it was a beautifully written book, and a book that spoke to humankind in the 21st century.” She said the book “has the markings of a classic of English Literature”, describing it as “exquisitely written, subtly plotted and revealing new depths with each reading”. The protagonist, Tony Webster, is a divorcee who lives an ordered and humdrum existence, but finds his life unravelling after a lawyer’s letter causes him to revisit his school days. Julian Barnes won for The Sense of an Ending “It is a book about somebody who appears to be at first blush a rather boring bloke, and you think, ‘Why are we reading about a very boring bloke?’ But gradually, as the book goes on, he’s revealed to be far from that,” said Dame Stella. “What this book does is unravel for us this person and who he really is, and it shows that his memory of what happened and his understanding of himself is actually quite wrong.” As for the controversy over the ‘dumbing down’ of the prize, Dame Stella appeared to have taken it in her stride. The former head of MI5, now a spy novelist, said: “I’ve had a long life in varied, different careers and I’ve been through many crises of one kind or another, against which this one pales.” Accepting the award, Barnes said: “I would like to thank the judges – who I won’t hear a word against – for their wisdom, and the sponsors for their cheque.” He declared himself “as much relieved as I am delighted” and likened himself to Jorge Luis Borges, the Argentinian writer who was considered by the Nobel Prize committee year after year but always overlooked. Barnes said: “When asked, as he continually was, why he had never won the Nobel Prize, Borges used to reply that there was a cottage industry devoted to not giving Borges the Nobel Prize. "Over the last years, in occasional moments of mild paranoia, I have wondered whether there wasn’t some similar, sinister organisation operating over here.” Winning the award, he joked, had made him realise that the judges “are the wisest heads in literary Christendom”. Barnes triumphed 27 years after his first Booker nomination. He was shortlisted in 1984 for Flaubert’s Parrot but lost to Anita Brookner for Hotel Du Lac. England, England was nominated in 1998 but beaten by Ian McEwan’s Amsterdam. Barnes was shortlisted in 1984 for Flaubert's Parrot. England, England was nominated in 1998 His 2005 novel, Arthur and George, was strongly fancied but John Banville took the prize for The Sea. His appearance at the Guildhall ceremony to accept the £50,000 prize was a rare one – Barnes has avoided Booker-related publicity, perhaps on account of his infamous remark about the prize. “The only sensible attitude to the Booker is to treat it as posh bingo,” he said. “It drives publishers mad with hope, booksellers mad with greed, judges mad with power, winners mad with pride, and losers (the unsuccessful short-listees plus every other novelist in the country) mad with envy and disappointment.”

– Julian Barnes once described the Man Booker Prize as “posh bingo,” but he won that game of bingo this week. Barnes won the 2011 prize for his 150-page novella, The Sense of an Ending, in a decision that took the judges just 31 minutes to reach, the Telegraph reports. The novella concerns a seemingly boring middle-aged man who revisits his younger years and questions his memories after receiving the diary of an old friend who committed suicide. Barnes, who was also nominated in 1984, 1998, and 2005, joked while accepting the award that he used to wonder if there was a “sinister organization” devoted to not giving him the prize. He also clarified his infamous 1987 comments about the prize (see them in full at left), Bloomberg reports: “The Booker Prize has a tendency to drive writers a bit mad with lust and greed and expectation. I was saying that the best way to stay sane is to treat it as ‘posh bingo.’ That means unless and until you win it, when you realize that the judges are the wisest heads in literary Christendom.”

Scientists have found evidence for a huge mountain range that sustained an explosion of life on Earth 600 million years ago. The mountain range was similar in scale to the Himalayas and spanned at least 2,500 kilometres of modern west Africa and northeast Brazil, which at that time were part of the supercontinent Gondwana. "Just like the Himalayas, this range was eroded intensely because it was so huge. As the sediments washed into the oceans they provided the perfect nutrients for life to flourish," said Professor Daniela Rubatto of the Research School of Earth Sciences at The Australian National University (ANU). "Scientists have speculated that such a large mountain range must have been feeding the oceans because of the way life thrived and ocean chemistry changed at this time, and finally we have found it." The discovery is earliest evidence of Himalayan-scale mountains on Earth. "Although the mountains have long since washed away, rocks from their roots told the story of the ancient mountain range's grandeur," said co-researcher Professor Joerg Hermann. "The range was formed by two continents colliding. During this collision, rocks from the crust were pushed around 100 kilometres deep into the mantle, where the high temperatures and pressures formed new minerals." As the mountains eroded, the roots came back up to the surface, to be collected in Togo, Mali and northeast Brazil, by Brazilian co-researcher Carlos Ganade de Araujo, from the University of Sao Paulo and Geological Survey of Brazil. Dr Ganade de Araujo recognised the samples were unique and brought the rocks to ANU where, using world-leading equipment, the research team accurately identified that the rocks were of similar age, and had been formed at similar, great depths. The research team involved specialists from a range of different areas of Earth Science sharing their knowledge, said Professor Rubatto. ||||| Scientists have found evidence for a huge mountain range that sustained an explosion of life on Earth 600 million years ago. The mountain range was similar in scale to the Himalayas and spanned at least 2,500 kilometres of modern west Africa and northeast Brazil, which at that time were part of the supercontinent Gondwana. "Just like the Himalayas, this range was eroded intensely because it was so huge. As the sediments washed into the oceans they provided the perfect nutrients for life to flourish," said Professor Daniela Rubatto of the Research School of Earth Sciences at The Australian National University (ANU). "Scientists have speculated that such a large mountain range must have been feeding the oceans because of the way life thrived and ocean chemistry changed at this time, and finally we have found it." The discovery is earliest evidence of Himalayan-scale mountains on Earth. "Although the mountains have long since washed away, rocks from their roots told the story of the ancient mountain range's grandeur," said co-researcher Professor Joerg Hermann. "The range was formed by two continents colliding. During this collision, rocks from the crust were pushed around 100 kilometres deep into the mantle, where the high temperatures and pressures formed new minerals." As the mountains eroded, the roots came back up to the surface, to be collected in Togo, Mali and northeast Brazil, by Brazilian co-researcher Carlos Ganade de Araujo, from the University of Sao Paolo. Dr Ganade de Araujo recognised the samples were unique and brought the rocks to ANU where, using world-leading equipment, the research team accurately identified that the rocks were of similar age, and had been formed at similar, great depths. The research team involved specialists from a range of different areas of Earth Science sharing their knowledge, said Professor Rubatto. "With everyone cooperating to study tiny crystals, we have managed to discover a huge mountain range," she said. ###

– Scientists have discovered evidence of an ancient mountain range that spread 1,550 miles from Africa to South America back when the two continents were one. And strange as it may sound, the massive mountain range on the supercontinent Gondwana, similar in size to the Himalayas, actually fed our oceans millions of years ago. "Just like the Himalayas, this range was eroded intensely because it was so huge," the study's co-author tells the Australian National University. "As the sediments washed into the oceans they provided the perfect nutrients for life to flourish." The study authors add that their 600-million-year-old find marks the earliest evidence of a large-scale mountain range, comparable to the Himalayas, on the planet. Researchers guessed that such a mountain range existed "because of the way life thrived and ocean chemistry changed at this time, and finally we have found it," a researcher says. Though the mountains are long gone, the "rocks from their roots told the story of the ancient mountain range's grandeur," another adds. Such rocks have been found in both Mali and Brazil, Eureka Alert reports. Scientists analyzed the samples and discovered they were not only of similar age, but also formed at similar depths. They say the samples indicate the mountains formed when two continents collided, sending rocks 62 miles into the Earth's mantle. (Meanwhile, geologists say they've discovered why the Appalachian mountain chain bends.)

PPP's newest national poll finds Donald Trump just continuing to grow his lead over the GOP field. He is at 29% to 15% for Ben Carson, 9% for Jeb Bush, 8% for Carly Fiorina, 7% for Marco Rubio, 6% each for Ted Cruz and John Kasich, and 5% each for Mike Huckabee and Scott Walker. That group makes a pretty clear top 9. Rounding out the field are Chris Christie and Rick Santorum at 2%, Jim Gilmore, Rand Paul, and Rick Perry at 1%, and Lindsey Graham, Bobby Jindal, and George Pataki at less than 1%. Our new poll finds that Trump is benefiting from a GOP electorate that thinks Barack Obama is a Muslim and was born in another country, and that immigrant children should be deported. 66% of Trump's supporters believe that Obama is a Muslim to just 12% that grant he's a Christian. 61% think Obama was not born in the United States to only 21% who accept that he was. And 63% want to amend the Constitution to eliminate birthright citizenship, to only 20% who want to keep things the way they are. Trump's beliefs represent the consensus among the GOP electorate. 51% overall want to eliminate birthright citizenship. 54% think President Obama is a Muslim. And only 29% grant that President Obama was born in the United States. That's less than the 40% who think Canadian born Ted Cruz was born in the United States. Trump's supporters aren't alone in those attitudes though. Only among supporters of John Kasich (58/13), Jeb Bush (56/18), Chris Christie (59/33), and Marco Rubio (42/30) are there more people who think President Obama was born in the United States than that he wasn't. And when you look at whose supporters are more inclined to think that the President is a Christian than a Muslim the list shrinks to just Christie (55/29), Kasich (41/22), and Bush (29/22). Bush's inability to appeal to the kind of people who hold these beliefs is what's keeping him from succeeding in the race- his overall favorability is 39/42, and with voters identifying themselves as 'very conservative' it's all the way down at 33/48. Trump is winning his fight with Megyn Kelly. When we last polled her in December of 2013 her favorability with Republicans nationally was 44/9. Her favorability is in a similar place now at 42% but her negatives have shot up to 20%, largely because she's at 20/43 with Trump's supporters. Meanwhile Trump's popularity with GOP voters has just continued to grow. Last month before the debate his favorability with them was 48/39, now it's improved to 56/30. Fox News as a whole isn't suffering for the feud though- in February we found 66% of Republicans said they trusted the network, and now we find 66% say they have a favorable opinion of it. Notes on candidates who aren't Trump: -Ben Carson is easily the most popular candidate in the field with a 68/14 favorability rating. The closest anyone else comes to that is Marco Rubio at 58/24. Carson is also the most frequent second choice of GOP voters at 13%. And he's the only Republican who would win a head to head showdown with Trump, 49/43. Among candidates with meaningful support, only Mike Huckabee's supporters would go to Trump in a head to head with Carson. ||||| Well into his second term as president, over half of Republicans remain convinced that president Barack Obama is a Muslim, according to a poll released Tuesday by Democratic firm Public Policy Polling. The poll finds that 54 percent of Republicans think Obama is a Muslim, 14 percent think he's a Christian and 32 percent say they are unsure. Obama's country of birth also remains a question for Republicans. A plurality, 44 percent, say they don't think he was born in the U.S. Less than a third believe that he is American-born and slightly more than a quarter are unsure of where he was born. Beliefs that Obama is a foreign-born Muslim are even stronger among Trump supporters. Sixty-six percent of Trump supporters surveyed think Obama is a Muslim; another 61 percent think he was not born in the U.S. Conspiracy theories about Obama's faith, as well as his birth, have existed among Republicans since the start of his 2008 campaign and have persisted throughout his presidency. In 2010, a Pew Research report found that 31 percent of Republicans believed Obama was a Muslim. Most recently, Republican presidential hopeful Wisconsin Gov Scott Walker told The Washington Post that he didn't know if Obama was a Christian. Obama has responded to criticism about his religion by asserting that he is in fact a Christian, but has made note that even if he practiced a different religion, that should not be treated as if it were a bad thing. Questions about Obama's birth reached a peak in 2011 when Donald Trump became one of the more famous Republican figures to accuse Obama of not having been born in the U.S. Obama eventually released a copy of his birth certificate that proved he was born in Hawaii. Chris Cillizza of The Washington Post notes the survey results could be overstated, and its question may have served as an excuse for some Republicans to vent their dislike of Obama by agreeing with a statement they see as negative, regardless of whether they truly believe he's a Muslim. Public Policy Polling surveyed 572 likely Republican primary voters nationwide, reaching respondents through automated telephone interviews and online Aug. 28-30. Correction: A previous version of this article overstated the number of Republicans who believe Obama is American-born as well as those who are unsure. ||||| Story highlights Misperceptions about Obama's religious beliefs are more common than those about his birth Obama ultimately did release a certified long-form birth certificate in April 2011 Washington (CNN) A new CNN/ORC poll finds that although misperceptions about Barack Obama's religious beliefs and background persist, they are not as widespread as some recent polling has suggested. Obama was born in Hawaii and is a Christian. Overall, when asked "Where was Obama born, as far as you know?" 80% of adults said they believe Obama was born in the United States. The other 20% said that he was born outside the country, including 9% who believe there is solid evidence of that and 11% who say it is just their suspicion. Misperceptions about Obama's religious beliefs are more common than those about his birth, particularly among Republicans. Overall, 29% of Americans say they think the President is a Muslim, including 43% of Republicans. The findings suggest beliefs about Obama's birth are remarkably stable: When ABC News and the Washington Post asked this question in the same way in April 2010, 77% of adults said Obama was born in the United States, 20% said in another country, with just 9% saying there was solid evidence Obama was not born in the United States.

– Bit of bad news for President Obama: The latest CNN/ORC poll shows that nearly a third of Americans and 43% of Republicans still believe he's Muslim. Breaking that down, 39% of adults say he's Protestant or another kind of Christian, 29% say he's Muslim, 14% don't know, and among the remaining numbers, 2% say he's Mormon and 1% say he's Jewish. And according to another recent poll, 66% of Donald Trump supporters say the president is Muslim, reports the Huffington Post. On the upside for Obama, 80% of adults have apparently shrugged off The Donald's concerns and come to believe that Obama was born American, per CNN/ORC. CNN's take seems straightforward: "Obama was born in Hawaii and is a Christian."

KIROV/MOSCOW, Russia (Reuters) - Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny accused the Kremlin of trying to block him from running in next year’s presidential election after a court on Wednesday found him guilty of embezzlement. Navalny, who has made a name for himself exposing official corruption, said he would still stand for president, but it was not immediately clear if that was legally possible. The court, in the provincial city of Kirov, found Navalny guilty of embezzlement in relation to a timber firm called Kirovles, and gave him a five-year suspended prison sentence. Navalny denies wrongdoing. “What we are seeing now is a sort of telegram sent from the Kremlin, saying that they believe that I, my team, and the people whose views I voice, are too dangerous to allow us to take part in the election campaign,” Navalny said. “We don’t recognize this ruling. I have every right to take part in the election according to the constitution and I will do so,” he told reporters in the court room, moments after the sentence was handed down. Related Coverage Britain says concerned by conviction of Russian opposition leader Navalny Late last year, Navalny announced a plan to run for president in 2018, when Vladimir Putin’s current term expires. Putin has not said if he will seek a new term, though most Kremlin-watchers expect him to run. If Navalny is allowed to run and is up against Putin, opinion polls indicate the opposition leader will lose by a big margin. However, having Navalny on the ballot paper could be an irritant for the Kremlin. It could provide a focus for anti-Kremlin protests, especially in the big urban centers where Navalny draws most of his support. GAME OF CARDS Wednesday’s ruling was the culmination of a retrial, after the European Court of Human Rights said Navalny’s right to a fair hearing in the original trial were violated. Russian opposition politician and anti-corruption campaigner Alexei Navalny attends the verdict in his trial for embezzlement at the Leninsky Court in the city of Kirov, Russia February 8, 2017. REUTERS/Sergei Brovko Russian law states that someone sentenced to a prison term for a crime such as embezzlement is disqualified from running for elected office. But Navalny said after the verdict he believed he could still run, because the disqualification did not apply to someone given a suspended sentence. “We will rely on the constitution,” his lawyer Olga Mikhailova told Reuters. A final decision on whether Navalny will be able to run will be up to the Kremlin and is likely to be made at the end of this year, said Lilia Shevtsova, a Russian politics researcher. “The Kremlin’s goal is not to turn the next election into the butt of jokes,” she told Reuters. “Navalny is being kept in reserve, like an ace in the hole in a game of cards, but it’s not yet clear if that card will be played.” Asked if Navalny’s absence from the presidential race would undermine the legitimacy of the election, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters earlier on Wednesday: “We believe any concerns about this are inappropriate.” Slideshow (7 Images) Navalny did unexpectedly well in a 2013 mayoral election in Moscow, but has lost some support recently because of the popularity of Putin’s policies, said Yevgeny Minchenko, a political analyst familiar with Kremlin thinking. “The (opposition) statement that the election would only be legitimate if Navalny took part is a bluff,” said Minchenko. ||||| Russian opposition activist Alexei Navalny has been given a five-year suspended prison sentence after being found guilty of embezzlement. The decision jeopardizes his hopes of running for the Russian presidency in 2018, when Vladimir Putin is likely to seek his fourth term in office. Navalny first stood trial on embezzlement charges in 2013, despite widespread criticism that the case was politically motivated. He was also found guilty and given a five-year suspended sentence. The Russian Supreme Court overturned the conviction in November 2016, under pressure from the European Court of Human Rights. The court ordered a retrial which began in January 2017. Critics described the trial as “a copy of the first,” alleging that the case had been rushed in a bid to stop Navalny's presidential aspirations. Navalny alleged that the new verdict directly copied comments on witness testimony from his previous trial, despite different testimony being put forward in the second case. ||||| Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny takes a selfie with his supporters at the opening of his campaign office in St. Petersburg, Russia, Saturday, Feb. 4, 2017. Alexei Navalny, Russia's most prominent... (Associated Press) MOSCOW (AP) — A Russian court on Wednesday found opposition leader Alexei Navalny guilty in the retrial of a 2013 fraud case, which disqualifies him as a candidate for president next year. However, an associate said Navalny will carry on with the campaign he announced in December. In a webcast hearing, Judge Alexei Vtyurin found Navalny guilty of embezzling timber worth about $500,000. The previous guilty verdict was overturned by the European Court of Human Rights which ruled that Russia violated Navalny's right to a fair trial. The judge has yet to pronounce sentence in the trial held in Kirov, a city nearly 800 kilometers (500 miles) east of Moscow. During a break in the proceedings, Navalny told reporters that he and his lawyers were comparing this verdict with the text of the 2013 verdict and found them to be identical. "You can come over and see that the judge is reading exactly the same text, which says a lot about the whole trial," Navalny told reporters, adding that even the typos in the names of companies were identical in both rulings. Navalny, the driving force behind massive anti-government protests in 2011 and 2012, had announced plans to run for office in December and had begun to raise funds. Navalny's campaign manager, Leonid Volkov, insisted that the campaign goes on even though the guilty verdict formally bars Navalny from running. In a post on Facebook, Volkov said that the Kremlin will ultimately decide whether Navalny will be confirmed as a presidential candidate. "This is the political decision we need to win by campaigning," he said. Navalny's plans to run in the 2013 Moscow mayoral election were shattered when the Kirov court found him guilty and sent him to prison. But after he spent a night in jail, the court held an emergency hearing and released Navalny on a suspended sentence. The unusual move was seen by observers as the Kremlin's decision to allow him to run against its candidate in the mayoral race in order to make it look more legitimate. Navalny came in second, garnering about a third of the vote.

– A Russian court on Wednesday found opposition leader Alexei Navalny guilty in the retrial of a 2013 fraud case, which disqualifies him as a candidate for president next year. In a webcast hearing, Judge Alexei Vtyurin found Navalny guilty of embezzling timber worth about $500,000 and handed him a 5-year suspended sentence, reports the Moscow Times. The previous guilty verdict was overturned by the European Court of Human Rights, which ruled that Russia violated Navalny's right to a fair trial. During a break in the proceedings, Navalny told reporters that he and his lawyers were comparing this verdict with the text of the 2013 verdict and found them to be identical, reports the AP. "The judge is reading exactly the same text, which says a lot about the whole trial," Navalny said. He added that even the typos in the names of companies were identical in both rulings. "They were too lazy to write another one. It was a demonstration that they don't give a damn about the European Court and can take the old verdict," he claimed. Navalny, the driving force behind massive anti-government protests in 2011 and 2012, had announced plans to run for office in December and had begun to raise funds. Navalny's campaign manager, Leonid Volkov, insisted that the campaign goes on even though Reuters reports the guilty verdict bans Navalny from running for major office for a decade. In a post on Facebook, Volkov said that the Kremlin will ultimately decide whether Navalny will be confirmed as a presidential candidate. The Guardian reports President Vladimir Putin is expected to run again.

.......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... .......... Copyright © 2018 Albuquerque Journal A YouTube celebrity couple hid in the closet late last month, calling 911 while police say a man searched through their home in Austin, armed with a gun and firing at least one round inside the house. Less than 10 minutes later, that man was dead in the driveway. The couple had not been harmed. Christopher Giles, who police described as “single, lonely and disturbed,” had made the 11-hour drive from Albuquerque, according to documents filed in the 2nd Judicial District Court. And his phone was full of notes suggesting he had “developed a fondness” for the woman, Megan Turney, and a dislike of her boyfriend, Gavin Free. ADVERTISEMENTSkip Turney, 30, was made famous through her video blogs on anime, relationship advice and her life. Free, 29, is the co-host of a YouTube video series of slow-motion videos. “A search of Giles’ cellular phone identified various notations identifying Megan Turney and Gavin Free by name,” a detective wrote in the documents. “Furthermore, threatening thoughts were recorded by Giles and directed toward Gavin Free, i.e., ‘I want Gavin Free to die alone, with no children.’ ” A spokeswoman for the Austin Police Department said the case is under investigation and she could not answer any additional questions about it. But part of that investigation includes assistance from homicide detectives with the Albuquerque Police Department who served a search warrant on Giles’ Northwest Albuquerque apartment a couple of days after the shooting. According to that search warrant affidavit, around 3:40 a.m. on Jan. 26, Turney and Free awoke to the sound of breaking glass and a gunshot. They hid in their bedroom closet and called 911 while Giles searched their home for them. ADVERTISEMENTSkip When he couldn’t find the couple, Giles left, encountering Austin Police Department officers on his way out. The officers found Giles backing out of the driveway in his Lincoln sedan with a New Mexico license plate and ordered him to stop. Instead, they heard a single gunshot coming from the car. An officer returned fire. Giles was pronounced dead on the scene, a .45 caliber handgun near his hand, according to the affidavit. Turney and Free were not harmed. In a press briefing the day of the shooting, Austin Police Department Assistant Chief Troy Gay said that two officers were there but that only one fired. A preliminary postmortem examination by the Travis County Medical Examiner found that Giles may have shot himself, according to the affidavit, but an official ruling on his manner of death is underway. ADVERTISEMENTSkip Giles’ family members could not be reached by the Journal last week. Neither Turney nor Free responded to phone calls. Chilling evidence Throughout the investigation, Austin Police Department detectives found chilling evidence about what Giles might have been up to. They said security footage shows him searching the home for the residents, a gun in his hand. “Based on the footage seen it was apparent that Giles’ sole intent was to cause harm to someone who resides there,” the detective wrote in the complaint. On Giles’ cellphone, they found even more clues – various comments about Free and Turney, according to the affidavit, and more than a thousand other notes, including about his dislike of Free. The detective said it was apparent that Giles had “developed a fondness of Turney yet resented Free for his lifestyle and success.” ADVERTISEMENTSkip Albuquerque Police Department detectives who executed a search warrant on his home in Albuquerque said Giles lived alone and was “an avid player of video games and was known for watching YouTube videos that were centered on his hobby.” Detectives took two cellphones, a laptop, two tablets and an XBox gaming system from his home. “Based upon the known circumstances and investigative findings, your affiant is led to believe that evidence related to the planned burglary and homicides of Megan Turney and Gavin Free will be found,” the detective wrote in the affidavit. ||||| Hey everyone. I just wanted to say thanks for all the support and concern regarding the recent incident. It’s been a rough time for Meg and myself the last few weeks but we are doing ok. I want to give a huge thanks to @ Austin_Police for the amazing response time. you all. ||||| A man accused of breaking into an Austin home, who was later shot dead, might have targeted its residents. An Albuquerque man who died in an officer-involved shooting after breaking into a Hyde Park home last month might have died from a self-inflicted gunshot and appears to have been trying to harm a couple who are internet celebrities, according to an Albuquerque police search warrant. Christopher Giles, 23, was familiar with the Austin couple — Gavin Free and Megan Turney — because of their YouTube fame, according to the warrant, which was obtained by the Albuquerque Journal and based on information from the Albuquerque and Austin police departments. Authorities wanted to search Giles’ Albuquerque apartment because they thought “evidence related to the planned burglary and homicides of Megan Turney and Gavin Free will be found,” the search warrant says. MORE FROM NEW MEXICO: Albuquerque man targeted YouTube celebrities Giles is accused of breaking into Turney’s and Free’s house in the 4500 block of Avenue G on Jan. 26. He fired a gun both inside and outside the home while the couple hid in a closet, but Free and Turney were not injured, Austin police have said. Austin police reported that officers responding to a 911 call coming from the house saw Giles leaving the home and told him to stop. Giles fired at police, and an officer fired back, interim Austin Police Chief Brian Manley said. The warrant says his fatal gunshot wound might have been self-inflicted, based on preliminary findings from the Travis County medical examiner’s office. Turney and Free both gained fame making videos for YouTube — many of them video game-related — and both have worked at the Austin-based media company Rooster Teeth Productions. Free created and co-hosts the YouTube-based series “The Slow Mo Guys.” Police searched Giles’ phone, where they found multiple notes in which he talks about Turney and Free by name. Giles recorded threatening thoughts about Free, including “I want Gavin Free to die alone, with no children,” the warrant says. “Based upon these notations, it was apparent that Giles developed a fondness of Turney yet resented Free for his lifestyle and success,” the warrant says. People whom police interviewed — who were not named in the warrant — described Giles as single, lonely and disturbed, the document says. Turney called 911 about 3:40 a.m. Jan. 26. She told the dispatcher that she and Free were awakened by the sound of a gunshot followed by breaking glass, and they heard an intruder walking around their home, the warrant says. Austin officers encountered Giles as he was backing out of the couple’s driveway in a Lincoln sedan, the warrant says. The officers announced their presence, heard a single gunshot come from the car and returned fire. After his death, officers found a .45-caliber handgun near Giles’ right hand, the warrant says. Nothing was stolen from the couple’s house, the warrant says. Armed with the warrant, police searched Giles’ house on Jan. 29 and seized two cellphones, a laptop, two tablets and an Xbox gaming system, Albuquerque court documents show. No available records say what they found on those electronics, and Albuquerque and Austin police declined to comment on the case. Free and Turney did not immediately respond to requests for comment, but both tweeted about the incident this week. “Thanks for all the support and concern regarding the recent incident,” Free wrote Monday on Twitter. “It’s been a rough time for Meg and myself the last few weeks but we are doing OK. I want to give a huge thanks to Austin police for the amazing response time.” Turney wrote: “Thank y’all so, so much for each and every kind message today and a special thank you to the Austin police for their quick response that night and their ongoing support during this difficult time.” ||||| Actually, having been a cosplayer for over 10 years, the first thing to consider when choosing a cosplay (in my opinion), is your love for the character. I could already tell Elizabeth was going to be a fun, fierce, badass character and being a huge fan of the series, I wanted to give her a go. I've been making costumes just to run around in at conventions since I was 15 - it has nothing to do with being in the entertainment industry. In fact, this costume was created for a competition I judged. ||||| Follow the Slow Mo Guys Gav and Dan in this new YouTube Originals Series as they travel the globe in search of the most awe-inspiring, jaw-dropping, time-stopping slow motion moments of wonder. From lightning strikes to the speed of light, awesome flying martial artists to gravity-defying flying fish, this is the ordinary made extraordinary like you’ve never seen it before, all shot in super slow mo. Show less

– It's their job to attract viewers. YouTube personalities Megan Turney and boyfriend Gavin Free just never expected one would turn up at their house with a gun. That's precisely what police say happened late last month in Austin, Texas. According to police documents, Turney and Free awoke to the sound of a gunshot and breaking glass around 3:40am on Jan. 26. As they hid in a bedroom closet and called 911, an armed man described by police as "single, lonely, and disturbed" searched the house for them, reports the Albuquerque Journal. Coming up empty-handed, he left and got into his car, only to be confronted by police. After hearing a gunshot come from inside the car, an officer returned fire. Christopher Giles, a 23-year-old who'd made the 11-hour journey from New Mexico, was pronounced dead at the scene. Noting Giles may have died from a self-inflicted gunshot, authorities say they later found notes on Giles' phone suggesting he'd "developed a fondness" for 30-year-old Turney, who shares video blogs with 341,000 subscribers on YouTube, and a dislike for her 29-year-old boyfriend, co-host of "The Slow Mo Guys" channel, which has more than 10 million subscribers. "I want Gavin Free to die alone, with no children," he said in one of the notations mentioning the couple, police say. Giles "resented Free for his lifestyle and success" and his "sole intent was to cause harm to someone who resides" at the home, a detective wrote in a complaint. "It's been a rough time for Meg and myself the last few weeks but we are doing OK," Free said in a Monday tweet, per the Austin American-Statesman. Both he and Turney praised the police response. (A YouTube record was just almost broken.)

Get daily news updates directly to your inbox Subscribe Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Could not subscribe, try again later Invalid Email Horrifying footage has emerged from the tragic shooting at Pulse nightclub in Orlando on Sunday morning. Amanda Alvear posted a video of her night out at Pulse to her Snapchat exclusively obtained by the Mirror through a friend. Clips initially show her having fun with friends, but later on the sound of gunfire rings out loudly. It is the first footage from inside the nightclub massacre, with Amanda having since been confirmed as one of the fatalities. Ashley Velez, sister of the 25-year-old Puerto Rican, pid tribute to Amanda, saying: "I love you baby girl. Keep up to date with the latest from Orlando on our live blog here (Image: Facebook) "You were and will always be my baby sister. I'm so heartbroken. "You could make anyone's day with the smile of yours." Mercedez Marisol Flores, who was at Pulse with her best friend Amanda, has also been named among the victims. (Image: PA) The 26-year-old worked at the retailer Target and lived in the Florida city of Davenport. Read more: Josean Garcia said: "She was the one I fought with the most ... but somehow we understood each other. We did everything together." (Image: Getty Images) Omar Mateen, 29, was identified as the shooter by his ex-wife. Read more: He was later gunned down by a SWAT team who are believed to have used explosives to distract Mateen after he took hostages. (Image: Barcroft) ISIS has since claimed responsibility for the shooting. (Image: Reuters) Read more: “The armed attack that targeted a gay night club in the city of Orlando in the American state of Florida which left over 100 people dead or injured was carried out by an Islamic State fighter,” Amaq News Agency reported. Islamic State then reiterated once more a claim of responsibility for the attack today. "One of the Caliphate's soldiers in America carried out a security invasion where he was able to enter a crusader gathering at a nightclub for homosexuals in Orlando, Florida ... where he killed and injured more than a hundred of them before he was killed," the group said in a broadcast on its Albayan Radio. (Image: Reuters) Although the group claimed responsibility, this did not necessarily mean it directed the attack: there was nothing in the claim indicating coordination between the gunman and ISIS before the rampage. (Image: Getty) Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton and her Republican rival Donald Trump are both expected to address the issue later today at campaign events. (Image: Getty) Some 350 patrons were attending a Latin music event at Pulse, a well-known gay nightspot in the city, and survivors described scenes of carnage and pandemonium as the shooter took hostages inside a bathroom. Partygoer Eddie Justice texted his mother Mina from the toilets inside the club as she waited outside. He wrote: “He’s coming. I’m gonna die,” before then saying: “He has us, and he’s in here with us.” It was the last she heard from him and he was later confirmed as one of the victims. (Image: Facebook) Another reveller, Kenneth Melendez, said four of his friends were shot and taken to hospital. He said: "At first, when I heard the shots I thought it was part of the music, but then we realised it was really happening. "I started running and saw someone bleeding from the arm and I was like, wow, this is really happening and I kept running." (Image: Twitter / MEN Media) Witness Juan Rivera added: “Around 2am when the club was about to close we heard shooting outside – once they finished the shooter came inside and he had a rifle and he started shooting everywhere. We heard about 30 shots and all of a sudden the lights went off and we had blood all over our shirts.” Mr Rivera said the gunman, who was thought to be wearing a suicide vest, said nothing and was firing as he blocked one of the two exits from the club. ||||| Orlando Mass Shooting Victim's Snapchat Captured Start of Gun Battle Orlando Mass Shooting: Victim's Snapchat Captured Start of Gun Battle Breaking News One of Omar Mateen's victims was posting videos to social media at the moment he fought his way into the club and opened fire. 25-year-old Amanda Alvear recorded several Snapchat clips from inside Pulse Nightclub -- most of them are innocent fun with friends. But in the final video Amanda was recording herself when more than a dozen shots are heard. Many survivors have said clubgoers initially thought the shots were part of the music DJs were playing -- so they didn't react immediately. You can see in Amanda's video -- obtained by the Daily Mirror -- she was not panicked at first by the gunfire. Amanda was killed during the standoff. Her sister commented on the video ... "I'm so heartbroken. You could make anyone's day with the smile of yours."

– Amanda Alvear, 25, was posting videos to Snapchat documenting her fun night out at Orlando's Pulse nightclub—and ended up recording the beginning of the terror there early Sunday, the Guardian reports. In her final video, more than a dozen shots can be heard ringing out in the background. Alvear, who was killed in the massacre, does not appear to panic at first, TMZ reports; others who were at Pulse at the time say many clubgoers initially thought the gunshots were just part of the music.

The nation’s 29 Republican governors are a powerful force within the party, representing a wellspring of the GOP’s top talent. Yet as many of them make the rounds of the National Governors Association winter meeting in Washington this weekend, they are cautiously tip-toeing around the matter that the rest of the party is consumed with: the GOP presidential nominating contest. Text Size - + reset Branstad: ‘Jobs’ primary issue Walker defends primary process For an influential group that casts such a big shadow over the party, the governors have been remarkably reticent to play a role in picking a nominee. Most haven’t endorsed a candidate yet — and show little inclination that they’ll get involved at all until the bulk of the primary season is over. “I’ve never understood why anyone would care what I thought, and most endorsements don’t seem to move the needle very much anyway,” said Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, who reiterated his plans Saturday to stay on the sidelines. A long nominating contest means “there’s a more and more viable possibility that Indiana has a real primary” in early May. The explanations for the governors’ non-involvement vary widely, often prefaced with the justification that they’re focused on the problems ailing their home state. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has said he cannot afford to offend any of the Republican base because of his impending recall election. Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad explained Saturday he wanted to be “a good host” for his state’s January caucuses. “I want to bring the party together,” Branstad told POLITICO. “Governors want to play a unifying role of getting behind whoever becomes the nominee. Wait ‘til we get to the general election.” South Dakota Gov. Dennis Daugaard insisted that he hasn’t spent enough time studying the candidates’ positions. “I have to be self-critical here,” he said. “I remember when I was running for governor myself, I kept urging uncommitted voters to ‘go to my web site.’ But yet, have I been to the web sites of all the presidential candidates? No, I haven’t. So I’m guilty as much as those voters were then. And I need to do that.” “Yet at the same time, I know that the endorsement of the governor of South Dakota won’t carry much weight and hold much sway,” he added. “By the time the primary reaches South Dakota, the decision will likely have been made.” Modesty, state issues and lack of familiarity with the candidates haven’t always been such a stumbling block. Former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore recalled the key role GOP governors played in 2000 for George W. Bush, a fellow governor. ||||| Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon (D), left, speaks at the Special Committee on Homeland Security and Public Safety panel as Virginia Gov. Robert F. McDonnell and Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval, both Republicans, listen at the National Governors Association winter meeting in Washington on Sunday. (Jose Luis Magana/AP) As the Republican presidential candidates dig in for a protracted battle for their party’s nomination, GOP leaders are increasingly eager to put the intraparty arguments behind them and focus their attention on defeating President Obama in November. Republican governors attending the winter meeting of the National Governors Association here this weekend cautiously expressed the hope that the scars from a nomination battle that has turned increasingly personal will heal quickly once there is a nominee. But they said the time and money spent by the candidates attacking one another are resources that would be far better aimed at Obama and the Democrats. Virginia Gov. Robert F. McDonnell, a supporter of former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, said he wishes that his candidate could wrap up the nomination by Super Tuesday, March 6. “The longer it goes on, the longer money has to be spent against a Republican as opposed to President Obama,” he said, “the more fodder there is for the record for pundits through the fall and the Obama campaign — that’s certainly true. So, yes, a more immediate resolution is clearly preferable.” Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who has not endorsed anyone but thinks Romney will emerge as the nominee, said he worries that a protracted fight could result in side issues, rather than economic messages, defining the party and the eventual candidate. “Any day they’re not talking about the economy is a wasted day in terms of contrasting with the president,” he said. Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels said the president remains highly vulnerable because of the economy, despite some recent improvements. Once the GOP contest is over, he said, the Republican nominee will have plenty of opportunities to make his case. “I think a lot of the miniature issues and squabbles and supposed stumbles of today will be long forgotten,” he said. The governors were gathered days ahead of crucial primaries in Michigan and Arizona. Romney predicted Sunday that he would win both contests over former senator Rick Santorum (Pa.) but also suggested that there will be no quick conclusion to the nomination battle. “I’m convinced I’m going to become the nominee, and we’ll be willing to take however long it takes to get that job done,” he said on “Fox News Sunday.” Although Michigan is his native state, Romney fell behind Santorum there immediately after the former senator won three contests on Feb. 7. Romney has staged a significant comeback, with polls showing him in either a dead heat or slightly ahead. In response, Santorum has escalated his attacks on Romney and has vowed to keep the campaign going as long as possible. Santorum, on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” said his message is resonating in Michigan and described his rival’s economic prescriptions as “sort of warmed-over pabulum . . . ideas that are timid, ideas that are institutional, insider” and designed by Washington lobbyists. “It’s not inspiring anybody,” he said. Santorum’s best hope Tuesday is in Michigan. He acknowledged that he is trailing in Arizona, saying the state is more difficult demographically for him — setting up the possibility of twin defeats Tuesday. But he added that the results will show “that this is a two-person race right now.” Appearing on ABC’s “This Week,” Santorum also stood by his comment Saturday that Obama is a “snob” for saying he wants all young people to attend college. He said many people “have no desire or no aspiration to go to college because they have a different set of skills and desires and dreams that don’t include college,” and to suggest otherwise “devalues the tremendous work” that those people do. On the same program, he defended a statement he made last fall in which he said he “almost threw up” when he read former President John F. Kennedy’s famous speech to Baptist ministers in Houston during the 1960 presidential campaign. “To say that people of faith have no role in the public square?” he said. “You bet that makes you throw up.” With former House speaker Newt Gingrich (Ga.) and Rep. Ron Paul (Tex.) also vowing to keep their campaigns going and the Republican electorate unwilling to coalesce around Romney, Republican governors see a distant possibility that the battle could continue to the national convention in August. But they dismissed talk of another candidate getting into the race. Daniels and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, often cited as possible late entrants, said Sunday that they have no interest in the role. Christie, appearing on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” twice said he does not want to enter the contest. “I’m with Governor Romney,” he said. “And one of the things people know about me is that when I make up my mind, it pretty much stays made.” Daniels reiterated his long-standing position that he will not run. “I haven’t played any games with anybody,” he said in an interview. “Nothing has changed.” Still, he acknowledged that the nomination battle has kept the possibility of a late entrant alive. “The fact that no one has sewn it up like previous cycles means it’s a relevant question,” said Daniels, who is neutral about the race. “It wouldn’t have been a relevant question in previous cycles. This one’s different in so many ways.” Most governors have not picked sides in the contest, but Romney has the biggest number among those who have. The latest endorsement came Sunday from Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, who said she sees the him as the party’s most electable candidate “I think Mitt is by far the person who can go in and win,” she said. Michigan Gov. Rick Synder endorsed Romney almost two weeks ago and is predicting victory on Tuesday. He said Romney’s background in private business and as chief executive of Massachusetts are strong credentials. But he parted company with the former governor on the auto industry bailout — Romney opposed the bailout; Snyder said it worked. Snyder also disagrees with the negative campaign tactics that Romney and his rivals have adopted. He said Romney would be better to stop explaining his opposition to the bailout and look to the future. And as a politician who tries to remain relentlessly positive, Snyder said, he wished all the Republicans would cease the attacks. “I’m not a negative advertising kind of guy,” he said in an interview, adding: “I don’t make judgments about that, but I have my own philosophy that I believe is a better answer.” Other governors expressed concerns that the nomination battle has created distractions from what they think should be the main message of the campaign — the economy and the nation’s debt and deficit problems. Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin said in an interview that one challenge for the presidential candidates will be to keep the focus on those bread-and-butter issues. “It has become a heated race, as we’ve seen,” she said, with the result that the candidates are “getting sidetracked on issues other than job creation and the national debt.” She said the candidates are not solely responsible for that, because the debates have forced them to answer questions about many other issues. She said of the debates: “I don’t think it’s been helpful to the candidates on the Republican side. They’ve gotten off course. It’s not that they want to; it’s that when you get asked certain questions, you have to answer those questions.” Governors interviewed said the fall campaign will be competitive, although in a state such as Michigan, the president has opened up a big lead in the polls. Snyder attributed that to improvements in the economy. Daniels said that when the race refocuses on the president’s record, the Republican nominee will have a strong case to make. One risk is that the nomination battle will leave the eventual nominee weakened, rather than strengthened. Asked whether he thinks that could be happening to Romney, Walker said it is too soon to tell. But he said Romney needs a sharper message. “As much as you want to be profound and in depth, you’ve got to be simple,” he said. “It’s got to be boiled down to a few direct points. It’s got to have a profound basis and substance to back it up, but it’s got to be more simply stated than it has in the past.” Staff writer Philip Rucker contributed to this report.

– The National Governors Association gathered in Washington over the weekend—and though DC is abuzz over who the GOP nominee will be, most Republican governors are resolutely sitting on their hands. The majority haven't yet endorsed a candidate, and probably won't until the nomination is near, Politico notes—a decided change from the days when governors prided themselves on delivering their state to the nominee. "I’ve never understood why anyone would care what I thought, and most endorsements don’t seem to move the needle very much anyway," says Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels. Many governors pointed to concerns in their own states taking precedence over the contest; others worried about dividing the party. "Governors want to play a unifying role of getting behind whoever becomes the nominee," says Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad. But with primary season looking long, it may be a while before that can happen, a matter of growing worry for many, the Washington Post notes. Candidates spending money against each other doesn't much help the Republican cause, notes Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell. "Any day they’re not talking about the economy is a wasted day in terms of contrasting with the president," adds Scott Walker of Wisconsin.

Over the years, Richmond.com has published several data projects using public information. Here's a sampling of some of those projects. - Our annual database of state employee salaries was recently updated with 2016-17 data. - Our salary database of local government employees was updated recently with the 2016-17 data. ||||| RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — The Latest on a shooting at a bus station in Richmond, Virginia (all times local): 8:20 p.m. Virginia State Police say a trooper has died after a shooting at a Greyhound bus station in Richmond. Virginia State Police Superintendent Col. Steven Flaherty says the trooper, Chad Dermyer, died Thursday after being shot multiple times. State Police have said two civilians were also shot at the terminal. The gunman was shot dead by two other troopers. The Greyhound station is west of the city's downtown area, across from Richmond's minor league baseball stadium and within a former industrial area. It is on a main thoroughfare connecting a residential district to the stadium and nearby restaurants. City Councilwoman Rita Trammell was at the scene of the shooting and says it was a "senseless act." ___ 5 p.m. Police say the suspect in a shooting at the Richmond, Virginia, bus station has died. State Police spokeswoman Corinne Geller told a news conference Thursday that the suspect died after he shot a trooper and two other troopers returned fire. She said the trooper was taken to the hospital with life-threatening injuries. Geller said two civilians were also injured, but had non-life-threatening injuries. It was not clear if they had been shot. Police had cleared the station by Thursday afternoon and arrangements were being made to get passengers to their destinations. ___ 3:30 p.m. Virginia State Police say two troopers responding to a shooting at a Richmond bus station and a civilian have been taken to a hospital. Spokeswoman Corinne Geller says the shooting suspect was in custody Thursday afternoon. She had no details on the condition of the troopers or the civilian.

– A gunman fatally shot a Virginia state trooper Thursday at a busy bus terminal in the capital city of Richmond before he was shot dead by two other troopers, police said. Two civilians were also shot but were expected to recover, reports AP. It's unclear what motivated the attack, which occurred just inside an entrance about 2:45pm after the trooper—identified as 37-year-old Chad Dermyer—encountered the shooter, reports the Richmond Times-Dispatch. "While he was talking to this individual, the individual pulled out a gun and shot the trooper," says a police spokeswoman. "Two troopers who were standing nearby returned fire." The gunman has not been identified, pending notification of his relatives. It's not known at this point whose bullets struck the civilians. Dermyer is a former Marine who leaves behind a wife and two children. "This has been a tough evening," said State Police Superintendent W. Steven Flaherty. Leigha Schilling, who was between stops on her bus trip from New York to South Carolina, said she was smoking a cigarette outside the station Thursday when she heard banging. She went back inside briefly and saw people lying on the ground and what appeared to be blood on the floor. A security guard ordered her to get on the floor, but she ran back outside, and then heard several shots, she said. "I was terrified," she said. "I didn't know what was going on." City Councilwoman Rita Trammell was at the scene of the shooting and says it was a "senseless act."

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration announced Tuesday that it would prosecute in civilian court a Somali accused of ties to two Islamist militant groups. The decision to fly the man to New York for trial, after interrogating him for months aboard a United States naval vessel, is likely to reignite debate about the detention and prosecution of terrorism suspects. In an indictment unsealed in the Southern District of New York, the Somali, Ahmed Abdulkadir Warsame, was charged with nine counts related to accusations that he provided support to the Shabab in Somalia and Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, in Yemen. Mr. Warsame, believed to be in his mid-20s, was captured on April 19, and a plane carrying him arrived in New York City around midnight Monday night, officials said. While the Justice Department called Mr. Warsame a “Shabab leader,” it does not accuse him of plotting any specific attack. Officials gave conflicting accounts of his significance: one portrayed him as a “senior operational commander” while another played down his role, saying that his capture was instead important because he had provided large amounts of intelligence about the groups and ties between them. Regardless, his case is likely to have outside significance in the political arena because it resonates with intense debates surrounding the administration’s counterterrorism policies — including whether to bring newly captured detainees to the military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba; whether to prosecute terrorism cases in civilian court or before a military commission; and what rights terrorism suspects have during interrogation. The House has already passed a bill that would probably prohibit the transfer of such military detainees into the United States. In a statement, the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Representative Howard P. “Buck” McKeon, Republican of California, denounced the administration’s decision. “The transfer of this terrorist detainee directly contradicts Congressional intent and the will of the American people,” he said. “Congress has spoken clearly multiple times — including explicitly in pending legislation — of the perils of bringing terrorists onto U.S. soil. It is unacceptable that the administration notified Congress only after it unilaterally transferred this detainee to New York City despite multiple requests for consultation.” But officials argued that civilian court was a better fit because his prosecution would face fewer legal hurdles there. Civilian prosecutors will need only to prove that he provided support to the two groups, since both are designated terrorist organizations. Military prosecutors would need to establish that the commission has jurisdiction over him — a task that would involve trying to prove that he was part of Al Qaeda itself or that he personally was engaged in hostilities against the United States or its allies. The case comes at a time when the administration is increasingly worried about thickening ties between the groups in Somalia and Yemen, and whether the Somali group is starting to look beyond its parochial efforts to a broader conflict with the West. The indictment says that Mr. Warsame has fought on behalf of the Shabab since 2007. Starting in 2009, it says, he began to work with Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, providing money, training and equipment. It also alleged that he went to Yemen in 2010 and received explosives and other military-type training, and helped broker a weapons deal between the groups. In a telephone briefing with reporters, senior administration officials said Mr. Warsame and another person were captured by American forces somewhere “in the Gulf region” on April 19. Another official separately said the two were picked up on a fishing trawler in international waters between Yemen and Somalia. That other person was released. Mr. Warsame was taken to a naval vessel, where he was questioned for the next two months by military interrogators, the officials said. They said his detention was justified by the laws of war, but declined to say whether their theory was that the Shabab are covered by Congress’s authorization to use military force against the perpetrators of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks; whether the detention was justified by his interactions with Al Qaeda’s Yemen branch; or something else. The officials also said interrogators used only techniques in the Army Field Manual, which complies with the Geneva Conventions. But they did not deliver a Miranda warning because they were seeking to gather intelligence, not court evidence. One official called those sessions “very, very productive,” but declined to say whether his information contributed to a drone attack in Somalia last month. After about two months, Mr. Warsame was given a break for several days. Then a separate group of law enforcement interrogators came in. They delivered a Miranda warning, but he waived his rights to remain silent and have a lawyer present and continued to cooperate, the officials said, meaning that his subsequent statements would likely be admissible in court. Throughout that period, administration officials were engaged in deliberations about what to do with Mr. Warsame’s case. Eventually, they “unanimously” decided to prosecute him in civilian court. If he is convicted of all the charges against him, he would face life in prison. Last week, Vice Adm. William H. McRaven, who was until recently in charge of the military’s Joint Special Operations Command, told a Senate hearing that detainees are sometimes kept on Navy ships until the Justice Department can build a case against them, or they are transferred to other countries for detention. Another senior administration official said Tuesday that such detentions are extremely rare, and that no other detainees are now being held on a Navy ship. ||||| A Somali citizen captured in April was interrogated aboard a U.S. warship for two months and is now in New York to face terrorism charges. The case against Ahmed Abdulkadir Warsame shows the Obama administration is sticking by its plan to use civilian courts to prosecute terrorists, a strategy that was successful for years under President George W. Bush but which has drawn fire from Republicans since Democrat Barack Obama became President. The case also offers a glimpse at how the U.S. plans to interrogate detainees now that Obama has closed the CIA's network of secret prisons. The military captured Warsame on April 19, and then put him aboard a Navy warship, where he was interrogated at sea by intelligence officials, senior administration officials said Tuesday. Under interrogation, Warsame gave up what officials called important intelligence about al-Qaida in Yemen and its relationship with al-Shabab militants in Somalia. The two groups have been known to have ties, but the extent of that relationship has remained unclear. After the interrogation was complete, the FBI stepped in and began to interrogate Warsame from scratch, in a way that could be used in court. After the FBI informed Warsame of his rights under U.S. law not to incriminate himself, to remain silent and to have an attorney, he opted to keep talking for days, helping the government build its case. One of the unanswered questions of the Obama administration's counterterrorism strategy has been what it would do if it captured an important terrorist. Obama does not want to send more people to Navy's Guantanamo Bay prison used by the Bush administration, and the CIA's so-called "black sites" are closed. The unusual case against Warsame was foreshadowed in congressional testimony late last month when Obama's choice to become commander of the U.S. Special Operations Command, Navy Vice Adm. William H. McRaven, told senators that the U.S. could hold suspected terrorists on naval ships until prosecutors file charges against them. McRaven did not say exactly how long such detentions could last. The senior officials who spoke to reporters Tuesday said there are no other detainees in custody aboard ships. They all spoke on condition of anonymity because the case is continuing. The normally routine machinations of criminal prosecution have become political issues since Obama took office promising to end harsh interrogation tactics and close Guantanamo Bay. Congress has blocked the administration from transferring any detainees out of Guantanamo Bay for trial in the U.S., and some in Congress are also questioning whether all new terrorism cases should be handled by military commissions. Most recently, Sen. Mitch McConnell, the Senate's top Republican, said two men arrested by the FBI on terrorism charges should be prosecuted at Guantanamo Bay. That has rankled many at the Justice Department and FBI. Congress has designated the FBI as the nation's lead domestic counterterrorism agency. But some lawmakers contend the FBI's reliance on the U.S. system of informing prisoners they do not have to incriminate themselves and are entitled to an attorney, makes the bureau incapable of handling terrorism cases. Warsame is not believed to be a senior member of either organization, but court documents unsealed Tuesday said he was a fighter for and al-Shabab and helped train others in the organization in2009, then helped support and train al-Qaida in Yemen until 2011. That makes him a potentially valuable intelligence asset, since he had unique access in both groups. Senior administration officials said the intelligence interrogations were conducted by the High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group, a team of people from the military, intelligence agencies and Justice Department. Because those sessions were conducted before Warsame was read his rights, the intelligence can be used to underpin military strikes or CIA actions but are not admissible in court. That is why the FBI restarted the interrogations from the beginning. Warsame pleaded not guilty at his arraignment Tuesday. His lawyer, Priya Chaudhry, did not immediately return a phone message for comment. Warsame's next court appearance was scheduled for Sept. 8. Court documents unsealed Tuesday show that the Justice Department plans to use a laptop computer, handwriting analysis, USB drives and a memory card as evidence against Warsame at trial. ||||| The U.S. military captured a Somali terrorism suspect in the Gulf of Aden in April and interrogated him for more than two months aboard a U.S. Navy ship before flying him this week to New York, where he has been indicted on federal charges. The case represents the Obama administration’s attempt to find a middle ground between open-ended detentions in secret prisons, as practiced by the George W. Bush administration, and its commitment to try as many terrorism cases as possible in civilian courts. With the capture of Ahmed Abdulkadir Warsame, the administration appeared to split the difference, with military and intelligence officials interrogating him secretly for two months before bringing in law enforcement officials to question him for purposes of an indictment. He is the first foreign terrorism suspect captured by the administration outside the United States and moved to this country for trial. In flying Warsame to New York before announcing his capture, the administration circumvented likely congressional objections to his transfer here. Congress has barred the administration from moving detainees held at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to the United States for trial. The administration has increasingly utilized counterterrorism tactics, such as attacks from drone aircraft, that have killed an unprecedented number of militants. But there have been no known foreign captures outside the Iraq and Afghanistan war zones, leading critics to charge that valuable intelligence information was being lost. Some lawmakers have questioned where the administration, which has vowed to close the Guantanamo facility, would send any new detainees. A senior administration official said that no opportunity for capture had been passed up “when the risk to U.S. personnel was deemed acceptable” and that “a long list of terrorists” had been captured by other countries as a result of U.S.-provided intelligence and other assistance. The nine-count indictment, which was returned under seal by a federal grand jury in the Southern District of New York late last week, does not accuse Warsame of carrying out or plotting attacks against U.S. targets. It charges him with conspiracy and providing material support to two groups the United States considers terrorist organizations: al-Shabab, a militant Islamist group opposed to Somalia’s weak, U.S.-backed government, and Yemen-based al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). Warsame is also accused of weapons offenses related to both alleged conspiracies; conspiracy to teach and demonstrate explosive-making; and receiving military training from AQAP. The administration has described AQAP as the most “operationally active” affiliate of Pakistan-based al-Qaeda, responsible for the Christmas Day 2009 bombing attempt aboard a Detroit-bound airliner and last year’s cargo plane bomb plot. In recent months, administration officials have described increasing ties between AQAP and al-Shabab, and indications that al-Shabab was expanding its ambitions to target the United States and its allies. Warsame, said to be in his mid-20s, “clearly served as an important conduit between the two organizations,” which are “directly engaged in plotting against the United States or our interests,” the senior administration official said. Warsame “was in Yemen last year, and this year . . . and helped facilitate contacts between the organizations,” the official said. The White House made available three senior officials Tuesday to brief reporters on the case on the condition that they not be identified by name. Other U.S. officials, interviewed separately, said Warsame and another individual were apprehended aboard a boat traveling from Yemen to Somalia by the U.S. military’s Joint Operations Command. The vessel was targeted because the United States had acquired intelligence that potentially significant operatives were on board, the officials said. Court documents said the capture took place April 19. One of the senior administration officials who briefed reporters said that the other suspect was released “after a very short period of time” after the military “determined that Warsame was an individual that we were very much interested in for further interrogation.” According to court documents, Warsame was interrogated on “all but a daily basis” by military and civilian intelligence interrogators. During that time, officials in Washington held a number of meetings to discuss the intelligence being gleaned, Warsame’s status and what to do with him. The options, one official said, were to release him, transfer him to a third country, keep him prisoner aboard the ship, subject him to trial by a military commission or allow a federal court to try him. The decision to seek a federal indictment, this official said, was unanimous. Administration officials have argued that military commission jurisdiction is too narrow for some terrorism cases — particularly for a charge of material support for terrorist groups — and the Warsame case appeared to provide an opportunity to try to prove the point. But some human rights and international law experts criticized what they saw as at least a partial return to the discredited “black site” prisons the CIA maintained during the Bush administration. “What we’re seeing in this case is a government that is conflicted about the legal nature of its counterterrorism operations,” said John Sifton, a human rights attorney with extensive experience in detainee cases. “On the one hand, it detains persons indefinitely, without access to counsel, using questionable Bush-era interpretations of the laws of war. On the other hand,” he said, “it embraces a more sophisticated approach, by indicting suspects, knowing that the Justice Department is better suited to prosecute them than the military.” “It is not exactly satisfactory, from a legal point of view,” Sifton said. Initial reaction from Congress was also critical. Rep. Howard P. “Buck” McKeon (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said the transfer contradicted the intent of Congress, which “has spoken clearly multiple times — including explicitly in pending legislation — of the perils of bringing terrorists onto U.S. soil.” “It is unacceptable that the administration notified Congress only after it unilaterally transferred this detainee to New York City,” McKeon said in a statement. Warsame was questioned aboard the ship because interrogators “believed that moving him to another facility would interrupt the process and risk ending the intelligence flow,” one senior administration official said. The official said Warsame “at all times was treated in a manner consistent with all Department of Defense policies” — following the Army Field Manual — and the Geneva Conventions. Warsame was not provided access to an attorney during the initial two months of questioning, officials said. But “thereafter, there was a substantial break from any questioning of the defendant of four days,” court documents said. “After this break, the defendant was advised of his Miranda rights” — including his right to legal representation — “and, after waiving those rights, spoke to law enforcement agents.” The four-day break and separate questioning were designed to avoid tainting the court case with information gleaned through un-Mirandized intelligence interrogation, an overlap that has posed a problem in previous cases. The questioning continued for seven days, “and the defendant waived his Miranda rights at the start of each day,” the documents said. The indictment against Warsame alleges that he aided and conspired with a U.S. national “and an alien lawfully admitted for permanent residence in the United States.” The Justice Department declined to comment on the reference. One administration official said it did not refer to Anwar al-Aulaqi, a U.S. citizen who is a leading AQAP figure sought in Yemen. In recent years, more than 30 individuals — many of them U.S. citizens or immigrants with Somali roots — have been charged in federal courts in connection with al-Shabab. Last month, a U.S. aerial drone fired a missile at two al-Shabab leaders who had been involved in preparing plots to strike Europe, U.S. officials said. At least one of the two militant leaders had been in direct contact with Aulaqi. One senior administration official said the intelligence Warsame provided was “very valuable,” but declined to say whether it was the basis for the drone attack. U.S. Navy Vice Adm. William H. McRaven alluded to the captures in testimony before a Senate committee last week in which he lamented the lack of clear plans and legal approvals for the handling of terrorism suspects seized beyond the war zones of Iraq and Afghanistan. At one point in the hearing, Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, referred to “the question of the detention of people” and noted that McRaven had “made reference to a couple, I think, that are on a ship.” McRaven replied affirmatively, saying, “It depends on the individual case, and I’d be more than happy to discuss the cases that we’ve dealt with.” Staff writer Peter Finn and staff researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.

– A Somali man has been indicted on terror charges in federal court in New York, and his case is drawing big attention because it touches a slew of hot-button issues. The easy part is that the US military, acting on a tip, picked up Ahmed Abdulkadir Warsame on a boat in the Gulf of Aden in April, reports the Washington Post. He was then brought aboard a US Navy ship and questioned for two months about his purported ties with two key terror groups, al-Shabab (based in Somalia) and al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (based in Yemen). After intelligence officials questioned him, the FBI took over, read him his Miranda rights, and questioned him anew, reports AP. One official called his information "very valuable." The US then flew Warsame to New York to indict him on nine counts of offenses related to terrorism. The case hits at least a trifecta of controversial issues, notes the New York Times, "including whether to bring newly captured detainees to the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; whether to prosecute terrorism cases in civilian court or before a military commission; and the rights of terrorism suspects during interrogation." The Post, meanwhile, notes that the US military killed at least one al-Shabab leader with a drone strike last month, though it's not clear whether the hit was a result of Warsame's information.

Fossil by fossil, scientists over the last 40 years have suspected that their models for the more immediate human family tree — the single trunk, straight as a Ponderosa pine, up from Homo habilis to Homo erectus to Homo sapiens — were oversimplified. The day for that serious revision may be at hand. The discovery of three new fossil specimens, announced Wednesday, is the most compelling evidence yet for multiple lines of evolution in our own genus, Homo, scientists said. The fossils showed that there were at least two contemporary Homo species, in addition to Homo erectus, living in East Africa as early as two million years ago. Uncovered from sandstone at Koobi Fora, badlands near Lake Turkana in Kenya, the specimens included a well-preserved skull of a late juvenile with a relatively large braincase and a long, flat face, which has been designated KNM-ER 62000 (62000 for short). It bears a striking resemblance to the enigmatic cranium known as 1470, the center of debate over multiple lineages since its discovery in the same area in 1972. If the 62000 skull showed that 1470 was not a single odd individual, the other two specimens seemed to provide a vital piece of evidence that had been missing. The specimen 1470 had no mandible, or lower jaw. The new finds included an almost complete lower jaw (60000) — considered to be the most complete mandible of an early Homo yet found — and a part of another lower jaw (62000). The fossils were collected between 2007 and 2009 by a team led by Meave and Louise Leakey, the mother-and-daughter paleoanthropologists of the Koobi Fora Research Project and members of the famous African fossil-hunting family. Dr. Meave Leakey is the wife of Richard Leakey, a son of Louis and Mary Leakey, who produced the early evidence supporting Africa’s central place in early human origins. Mr. Leakey divides his time between Stony Brook University on Long Island, where he is a professor of anthropology, and the Turkana Basin Institute in Kenya. After looking “long and hard” for fossils to confirm the intriguing features of 1470’s face and show what its teeth and lower jaw were like, Dr. Meave Leakey said this week, “At last we have some answers.” The real crux of matter, said Susan C. Antón of New York University, a member of the team, is how the discovery shapes the interpretation of 1470’s place in the early world of Homo. “These fossils are anatomically like 1470, and we now have some teeth,” she said. “We are more certain that 1470 was not a one-off, and not everything 1470 is big.” In their first formal report, Dr. Leakey and her colleagues wrote in the journal Nature, “These three specimens will greatly aid the reassessment of the systematics and early radiation of the genus Homo.” They, however, chose not to assign the fossils to any existing or new species until more analysis is conducted on contemporary hominids. The 1470 specimen was two million years old; the new face and fragmentary jaw are 1.9 million to 1.95 million years old; the better-preserved lower jaw is younger still, at 1.83 million years old. Fred Spoor, a member of the discovery team who directed the laboratory analysis, said in a news teleconference that the research showed clearly that “human evolution is not this straight line it was once thought to be.” Instead, East Africa, he said, “was quite a crowded place, with multiple species” with presumably different diets. Dr. Spoor is a paleoanthropologist at University College London and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. The lab work was supported by the institute. The fieldwork was financed by the National Geographic Society, and the dating of the fossils, mainly by Craig S. Feibel of Rutgers University, was supported by the Leakey Foundation. Although a few specialists in human origins questioned whether the still sparse evidence was sufficient to back the new conclusions, Ian Tattersall of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, who was not involved in the new discovery, concluded, “This new material certainly substantiates the idea, long gathering ground, that multiple lineages of early Homo are present in the record at Koobi Fora.” Dr. Tattersall continued, “And it supports the view that the early history of Homo involved vigorous experimentation with the biological and behavioral potential of the new genus, instead of a slow process of refinement in a central lineage.” Bernard Wood of George Washington University, who has studied the early Homo fossil record, wrote in a companion article in Nature, “In a nutshell, the anatomy of the specimens supports the hypothesis of multiple early Homo species.” ||||| Our family tree may have sprouted some long-lost branches going back nearly 2 million years. A famous paleontology family has found fossils that they think confirm their theory that there are two additional pre-human species besides the one that eventually led to modern humans. A team led by Meave Leakey, daughter-in-law of famed scientist Louis Leakey, found facial bones from one creature and jawbones from two others in Kenya. That led the researchers to conclude that man's early ancestor had plenty of human-like company from other species. These would not be Homo erectus, believed to be our direct ancestor. They would be more like very distant cousins, who when you go back even longer in time, shared an ancient common ancestor, one scientist said. But other experts in human evolution are not convinced by what they say is a leap to large conclusions based on limited evidence. It is the continuation of a long-running squabble in anthropology about the earliest members of our own genus, or class, called Homo _an increasingly messy family history. And much of it stems from a controversial discovery that the Leakeys made 40 years ago. In their new findings, the Leakey team says that none of their newest fossil discoveries match erectus, so they had to be from another flat-faced relatively large species with big teeth. The new specimens have "a really distinct profile" and thus they are "something very different," said Meave Leakey, describing the study published online Wednesday in Nature. What these new bones did match was an old fossil that Meave and her husband Richard helped find in 1972 that was baffling. That skull, called 1470, just did not fit with Homo erectus, the Leakeys contended. They said it was too flat-faced with a non-jutting jaw. They initially said it was well more than 2.5 million years old in a dating mistake that was later seized upon by creationists as evidence against evolution because it indicated how scientists can make dating mistakes. It turned out to be 2 million years old. For the past 40 years, the scientific question has been whether 1470 was a freak mutation of erectus or something new. For many years, the Leakeys have maintained that the male skull known as 1470 showed that there were more than one species of ancient hominids, but other scientists said it wasn't enough proof. The Leakeys' new discoveries are more evidence that this earlier "enigmatic face" was a separate species, said study co-author Fred Spoor of the Max Planck Institute in Germany. The new bones were found between 2007 and 2009 about six miles (10 kilometers) away from the old site near the fossil-rich Lake Turkana region, Leakey said. So that would make two species _ erectus and the one represented by 1470. But it's not that simple. The Leakey scientific team contends that other fossils of old hominids _ not those cited in their new study _ don't seem to match either erectus or 1470. They argue that the other fossils seem to have smaller heads and not just because they are female. For that reason, the Leakeys believe there were three living Homo species between 1.8 million and 2 million years ago. They would be Homo erectus, the 1470 species, and a third branch. "Anyway you cut it there are three species," study co-author Susan Anton, an anthropologist at New York University. "One of them is named erectus and that ultimately in our opinion is going to lead to us." Both of the species that Meave Leakey said existed back then went extinct more than a million years ago in evolutionary dead-ends. "Human evolution is clearly not the straight line that it once was," Spoor said. The three different species could have been living at the same time at the same place, but probably didn't interact much, he said. Still, he said, East Africa nearly 2 million years ago "was quite a crowded place." And making matters somewhat more confusing, the Leakeys and Spoor refused to give names to the two non-erectus species or attach them to some of the other Homo species names that are in scientific literature but still disputed. That's because of confusion about what species belongs where, Anton said. Two likely possibilities are Homo rudolfensis _which is where 1470 and its kin seem to belong _ and Homo habilis, where the other non-erectus belong, Anton said. The team said the new fossils mean scientists can reclassify those categorized as non-erectus species and confirm the earlier but disputed Leakey claim. But Tim White, a prominent evolutionary biologist at the University of California Berkeley, is not buying this new species idea, nor is Milford Wolpoff, a longtime professor of anthropology at the University of Michigan. They said the Leakeys are making too big a jump from too little evidence. White said it's similar to someone looking at the jaw of a female gymnast in the Olympics, the jaw of a male shot-putter, ignoring the faces in the crowd and deciding the shot-putter and gymnast have to be a different species. Eric Delson, a paleoanthropology professor at Lehman College in New York, said he buys the Leakeys' study, but added: "There's no question that it's not definite." He said it won't convince doubters until fossils of both sexes of both non- erectus species are found. "It's a messy time period," Delson said. ___ Seth Borenstein can be followed at http://twitter.com/borenbears

– The discovery of three new fossils, unveiled today, illuminate and confirm a line of human evolution that is more complicated than scientists once thought. The groundbreaking bones, about 2 million years old and unearthed in Kenya, prove that there were at least two Homo species—in addition to Homo erectus—living simultaneously with each other before the dawn of modern Homo sapiens, reports the New York Times. “Human evolution is not this straight line it was once thought to be," says one paleoanthropologist, and East Africa “was quite a crowded place, with multiple species." The fossils were found between 2007 and 2009 (by the mother-daughter Leakey team) and appear to hold the key to a mystery dating back to 1972, when a peculiar, unidentifiable skull, dubbed 1470, was located in the same area. The new fossils, which are remarkably similar to 1470, provide strong evidence that 1470 was not merely an odd-looking ancient human but a different offshoot of the Homo genus. (The AP notes that that the discovery by the famed Leakeys is being met with some skepticism in the field.)

Humpback whales have long been thought of as solitary creatures—they spend most of their time solo, sometimes moving in pods of two or three. But on rare occasions, the creatures meet in the polar regions to feed in what is known as a "supergroup," containing 10 to 15 animals. But new research is challenging the notion of the solitary humpback, detailing several sightings of supergroups with up to 200 animals, reports Mallory Locklear at New Scientist. Scientists found these massive supergroups ​during research cruises in 2011, 2014 and 2015. The gatherings occurred in the Benguela Upwelling System, ocean currents off the southwestern tip of South Africa between St. Helena Bay and Cape Point. The groups were not only surprising for their size, which ranged from 20 to 200, but also the time of year in which they were spotted. Scientists recorded their presence off the African coast in October and November (late summer in South Africa) when they typically migrate to Antarctic waters to feed. The whales were clearly feeding, according to the new study published in the journal PLOS One. The researchers observed the whales diving vertically, turning tightly and performing other maneuvers that indicated they were feeding. The color of their poop and a fishy odor while clearing their blowholes also suggested that they were mid hunt. “I’ve never seen anything like this,” Ken Findlay lead author of the study from the Cape Peninsula University of Technology in South Africa tells Locklear. So what’s behind this whale jamboree? The researchers lay out four possible scenarios. First, an increase in available prey may be drawing the whales to the Benguela System. According to the paper, predatory fish caught near the whales were stuffed with mantis shrimp, stomach contents that matched those of a humpback whale studied in 1990 that died after getting entangled in rock lobster fishing gear. A second possibility is that recent increases in humpback numbers are putting more pressure on food supplies, pushing the whales into new hunting territories. A third alternative is that whale numbers have increased, causing them to return to a hunting strategy used in the past. A final option, according to the researchers, is that the whales have been summer hunting in Benguela all along. “It’s possible that the behavior was occurring but just not where it was visible. Because there were so few of them, we may not have seen it,” Findlay tells Locklear. In the last two decades, however, humpback numbers have rapidly increased. Recent reports suggest they've reached 90 percent of pre-whaling numbers on the west coast of Australia and over 60 percent on the east coast. The whales are even re-colonizing urban areas like New York Harbor and globally have reached around 150,000 individuals. “For the last few decades, suddenly they seem to have overcome some threshold and have begun to increase very fast,” Gísli Vikingsson, head of whale research at the Marine and Freshwater Research Institute in Iceland tells Locklear. It’s possible that as the numbers increase, researchers will begin to see other behaviors that were somehow hidden or interrupted by their previously low numbers. Chambers reports that the researchers hope to continue their study the whale parties and figure out what types and concentrations of prey are drawing the whales to Benguela. ||||| Abstract Southern Hemisphere humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) generally undertake annual migrations from polar summer feeding grounds to winter calving and nursery grounds in subtropical and tropical coastal waters. Evidence for such migrations arises from seasonality of historic whaling catches by latitude, Discovery and natural mark returns, and results of satellite tagging studies. Feeding is generally believed to be limited to the southern polar region, where Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba) has been identified as the primary prey item. Non-migrations and / or suspended migrations to the polar feeding grounds have previously been reported from a summer presence of whales in the Benguela System, where feeding on euphausiids (E. lucens), hyperiid amphipods (Themisto gaudichaudii), mantis shrimp (Pterygosquilla armata capensis) and clupeid fish has been described. Three recent research cruises (in October/November 2011, October/November 2014 and October/November 2015) identified large tightly-spaced groups (20 to 200 individuals) of feeding humpback whales aggregated over at least a one-month period across a 220 nautical mile region of the southern Benguela System. Feeding behaviour was identified by lunges, strong milling and repetitive and consecutive diving behaviours, associated bird and seal feeding, defecations and the pungent “fishy” smell of whale blows. Although no dedicated prey sampling could be carried out within the tightly spaced feeding aggregations, observations of E. lucens in the region of groups and the full stomach contents of mantis shrimp from both a co-occurring predatory fish species (Thyrsites atun) and one entangled humpback whale mortality suggest these may be the primary prey items of at least some of the feeding aggregations. Reasons for this recent novel behaviour pattern remain speculative, but may relate to increasing summer humpback whale abundance in the region. These novel, predictable, inter-annual, low latitude feeding events provide considerable potential for further investigation of Southern Hemisphere humpback feeding behaviours in these relatively accessible low-latitude waters. Citation: Findlay KP, Seakamela SM, Meÿer MA, Kirkman SP, Barendse J, Cade DE, et al. (2017) Humpback whale “super-groups” – A novel low-latitude feeding behaviour of Southern Hemisphere humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) in the Benguela Upwelling System. PLoS ONE 12(3): e0172002. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0172002 Editor: Alexander J. Werth, Hampden Sydney College, UNITED STATES Received: June 7, 2016; Accepted: January 30, 2017; Published: March 1, 2017 This is an open access article, free of all copyright, and may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, modified, built upon, or otherwise used by anyone for any lawful purpose. The work is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication. Data Availability: All relevant data are within the paper and its Supporting Information file. Funding: David Hurwitz is employed by The Simon's Town Boat Company. The Simon's Town Boat Company provided support in the form of salary for author DH, but did not have any additional role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. The specific role of this author is articulated in the ‘author contributions’ section. Competing interests: We have the following interests: DH is employed by The Simon's Town Boat Company. There are no patents, products in development or marketed products to declare. This does not alter our adherence to all the PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials. Introduction Southern Hemisphere humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) are generally understood to migrate seasonally between summer high-latitude Antarctic feeding grounds and low-latitude winter calving and mating grounds in tropical and subtropical coastal waters of Southern Hemisphere continents and island archipelagos [1–4]. Evidence for such migrations arises from the timing and seasonality of historic whaling catches [5–12] and contemporary sighting survey results [13, 14] by latitude, Discovery mark ([2, 15, 16] and natural mark returns, [17, 18] as well as results of satellite tagging studies [19–25]. Of the seven Breeding Stocks recognised in the Southern Hemisphere by the International Whaling Commission [26], the migrations of the B Breeding Stock occurs between breeding grounds off the west coast of southern and central Africa (the coast between Angola and Gabon) and the Southern Ocean. Although historical catches were recorded off the Cape coast of South Africa and Namibia in the austral winter, spring and summer [6, 9, 12], it has been argued that the majority of the population migrates offshore along the Walvis Ridge to the west of the southern Benguela region [6, 9, 27]. At the northern limit of Southern Hemisphere humpback whale migrations, Rasmussen et al. [4] found a direct correlation between sea surface temperature and the location of wintering areas, indicative that warmer waters (of between 21.1 and 28.3°C) are integral in defining winter breeding migration patterns. The prevailing cold temperate oceanographic conditions in the Benguela Upwelling System off the west coast of Southern Africa results in the breeding grounds on this coast being significantly further north (0–16°S) than off the east coast (13–26°S). Feeding has long been understood on the whole to be seasonally limited to summer and spatially limited within the southern high-latitude polar regions [3, 9, 10, 28, 29], with analyses of stomach contents of whales caught outside the Southern Ocean in the winter season often showing little or no food in their stomachs [3, 9, 30–32]. In Southern Ocean regions, Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba) has been identified as the primary prey item within stomachs examined on whaling flensing platforms [3, 9, 10, 33] and the distribution of humpback whales during the feeding season in Southern Ocean waters appears strongly coupled to that of these krill [34–36]. During the migrations to low latitude waters humpback whales are understood to survive off energy reserves accumulated during summer feeding as whales caught at the end of winter in the low latitude grounds were recorded to be considerably leaner with lower oil yields than those caught early in winter [31]. Whereas Corkeron and Connor [37] noted that the summer humpback whale migrations to the high latitudes are easily understood as feeding migrations [38–40], there is also considerable evidence that some populations, including those off the west coasts of South America [41] and southern Africa [42–44], suspend their southward migrations to polar waters whilst others may remain in productive temperate waters during the non-breeding season. Furthermore, a non-migratory humpback whale population in the Arabian Sea has been described by Minton et al. [45]. Records of feeding by humpback whales during their migrations in lower latitudes have been reported, although many of these records are of individual animals or small groups in apparent opportunistic feeding behaviours [46–53]. The more regular encounters of feeding from the Southern Benguela region [42–44], northern Patagonia [41] and the Magellan Straits of Chile [54] and the Eden coast of New South Wales, Australia, [55, 56] suggest that mid-latitude feeding and suspended migrations do occur on all three of these continents, although feeding is at a relatively low frequency compared to feeding at high latitudes. The distributions of feeding baleen whales are good indicators of oceanographic productivity because these whales require dense and predictable prey aggregations for successful foraging [34, 57]. The productive coastal Benguela Upwelling System extends from between 14–17°S to 37°S off the southern African west coast. Distinct upwelling cells occur within the System, the most intense of which is the almost permanent Lüderitz upwelling cell (in the region of about 26°S to 27°S) that effectively divides the ecosystem into physically and biologically distinct northern and southern subsystems [58]. This study focussed within the southern Benguela subsystem between St Helena Bay and Cape Point, the oceanography of which is dominated by seasonal wind cycles of predominantly south-easterly offshore winds in summer and north-westerly winds in winter, with the summer south-easterly winds (October to March) resulting in pulsed, wind-driven coastal upwelling [58, 59]. The high productivity and abundant concentrations of zooplankton associated with the upwelling [60] results in the southern Benguela area being an important nursery ground for several fish species of ecological and commercial importance, including small planktivorous pelagic shoaling species such as sardine (Sardinops sagax) and anchovy (Engraulis encrasicolus) [58, 59]. Historic catches (1909 to 1928) made at the shore-based whaling stations in the Saldanha Bay region on the west coast of South Africa showed a bimodal [61] migration pattern believed to comprise the northward (July/August) and southward (October/ November) migrations [6, 8], with Olsen [6] noting that the whaling seasons from 1912 to 1913 were relatively long compared to other regions lasting till mid-December. However, Olsen [6] translated in Hinton [61] also reported that “In the cold currents of Saldanha Bay one could meet single young males probably yearlings, throughout the whole summer”, although the provenance of this information is questioned by Findlay and Best [62] as the whalers only operated between the months of March and late December. Best et al. [42] hypothesised that the suspension of the southward migration of humpback whales on the west coast of South Africa was in response to locally abundant prey. Historic reports of the presence of humpback whales within the northern Benguela subsystem during summer months arise from Townsend’s [63] records of 19th century catches in January off Walvis Bay, Namibia (23°S) and a comment of Keeler’s (in [64]) that many humpback whales were found off Hollam’s Bird Island, Namibia in January 1829. In January, the majority of animals are expected to be on the Antarctic feeding grounds. Notwithstanding the numerous reports of apparent or suspected feeding by humpback whales within the Benguela Upwelling System [6, 9, 42, 44, 62], or some evidence for relatively large loose feeding associations (ca. 20 individuals) at a local scale [46] this paper describes a unique humpback whale feeding behaviour that has been observed during the months of October and November in recent years (2011, 2014 and 2015) at a much wider regional scale within the southern Benguela sub-system. Methods and materials In this paper, we use the term “super-group” to describe groups of 20 or more individual humpback whales estimated to be within five body lengths of their nearest neighbour. Such observations are novel in that prior observations of feeding by humpback whales in the region (e.g. [42–44]) were of loose aggregations of small groups of whales (of up to 20 individuals). These records of the “super-groups” of humpback whales within the southern Benguela region arise from two sources, namely primary observations from dedicated research cruises, and incidental observations reported by the general public. Three dedicated research cruises were carried out in coastal waters between 32°20’S and 34°20’S off the south-western Cape region of South Africa (Fig 1) in late October–early November of 2011, 2014 and 2015 and focussed on identifying the distribution, relative abundance and movements of migratory large whales and other cetacean fauna in relation to biotic and abiotic factors (including upwelling areas) and the trophic ecology of large whales within this coastal area. The 2011 cruise was conducted from 10 November to 20 November, the 2014 cruise from 28 October to 8 November, while the 2015 cruise was conducted from 29 October to 7 November. The 2011 cruise was conducted aboard the South African Department of Environmental Affairs’ research vessel RV Algoa, while both of the 2014 and 2015 cruises were carried out aboard the South African Department of Agriculture Forestry and Fisheries research vessel the FRS Ellen Khuzwayo (hereafter both vessels are referred to as “mothership” below). During 2014 and 2015 concurrent oceanographic cruises (to those carried out on the FRS Ellen Khuzwayo) were carried out in the region aboard the RV Algoa. Due to limitations in the launching and recovery of rigid hull inflatable boats (RHIBs) from the FRS Ellen Khuzwayo in the prevailing south-westerly swell conditions during 2014 and 2015 this vessel generally anchored in sheltered conditions at night with the overnight position defining the area of search effort the following day. Searching for whales was generally initiated each morning from the bridge or monkey island of the mothership en route to the 100m isobath (some 5 n. miles offshore) and positions of whale groups were communicated by radio to one or two RHIBs following astern or parallel to the FRS Ellen Khuzwayo if conditions for RHIB operations allowed. Once approachable groups of whales were sighted, research personnel were transferred to the RHIBs for approach of whale groups, and RHIBs could be directed from whale group to whale group by the FRS Ellen Khuzwayo, until late afternoon when personnel were transferred back to the ship prior to seeking a sheltered anchorage or providing a lee, if swell conditions allowed for the recovery of the RHIBs. In 2011, the RHIBs were deployed from the RV Algoa at sea only once the first approachable whale group was sighted, and thereafter travelled astern or parallel to the mothership between whale groups. Where weather conditions precluded RHIB operations, whale groups were approached by the mothership. All approaches to whale groups and all research activities reported in this study were carried out under research permits (numbers RES2011/70, RES2014/61, RES2015/94) granted to Mammal Research Institute, University of Pretoria by the South African Department of Environmental Affairs and research permit (number RES2015/DEA) granted to the South African Department of Environmental Affairs by the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries under provisions of the South African Marine Living Resources Act (Act 18 of 1998) and under ethics permits of the University of Pretoria, South Africa (Reference numbers—EC020-12 and EC061-15). PPT PowerPoint slide PowerPoint slide PNG larger image larger image TIFF original image Download: Fig 1. Locations of the Study Region and dedicated (open circles) and incidental observations (open squares) of feeding “super-groups” off the south west Cape coast of South Africa. The 200m isobath is shown. The inset expands the area shaded in grey. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0172002.g001 Due to the tight spacing and repeated diving behaviour of whales within “super-groups” (at times less than 2–3 m apart) and the high risk of entangling whales within sampling gear, no plankton sampling could be carried out from the RHIBs in the near vicinity of these groups. Group sizes of dedicated sightings were estimated independently by experienced observers as upper, lower and best estimates during the close approaches of the group, either by RHIBs or by the mothership so that group size estimates were not carried out at distance and consequently not influenced by Beaufort Scale or Sea State. Best estimates of group size were not necessarily the mean of the overall upper and lower estimates as independent estimates were made by all of the personnel observing the group and the final estimated group size was based on consensus of these individual estimates. The estimates of the sizes of “super-groups” pertain only to those individuals within five body lengths of the nearest neighbour at the time of the largest aggregation during the encounter. Fluidity of the associations within groups and movement of identified individuals between groups within aggregations (including in and out of “super-groups”) was difficult to determine in the field, due to the repetitive deep dive behaviour of the individual whales, which made the determination of group sizes difficult. Where such difficulty precluded accurate group size estimation, the lowest estimate was selected. Incidental observations of “super-groups” were reported by the general public from aircraft during 2015 including during two sightseeing flights made by DH between Koeberg and St Helena Bay (including offshore of Dassen Island) on 19 October and 26 October 2015. These two flights were carried out at over 300m above sea level in a Cessna 185 aircraft. All of the reported incidental observations were verified from photographs. Group size estimates of the incidental sightings were estimated by the observers who recorded these sightings. Although other reports were received from boat-based and shore-based observers these have been excluded from the database as they were not accompanied by adequate photographic verification. Discussion Southern Hemisphere humpback whales are generally understood to feed at the summer polar termini of their annual migrations, with the majority of evidence of such feeding arising from investigations of stomach contents of whales examined on flensing platforms (both in Antarctic region and lower latitude migration corridors and breeding grounds) [3, 9]. Although evidence for feeding during mid and low latitude migrations have been reported [41, 42, 44, 56, 62, 65], the predictable seasonal observations of novel feeding behaviour by such large groups of feeding humpback whales across at least five years (2011 to 2015) reported here are the first confirmed records of such large aggregation behaviour patterns within low latitude waters, and possibly surpass the sizes of feeding groups in both northern and southern polar waters. Neither Best et al. [42] nor Barendse et al. [44] report of group feeding behaviours in their shore-based observations and associated small boat surveys within this region in 1995 and between 2001 and 2003 respectively. One group of 20 whales was recorded by Barendse et al. [44], although the authors noted that this “in reality was a dynamic aggregation of several smaller groups” and a “Large, loosely associated group identified as 11 smaller groups from Land”: Such observations may have been precursors of the contemporary super-groups, but given the limited spatial extent of the shore-based studies and more-limited sighting conditions from shore, other larger groups could have remained undetected. Despite feeding humpback whales having been recorded by a number of authors within the southern Benguela region [6, 9, 42, 44], we propose that the “super-group” feeding phenomenon (as tightly spaced large groups of whales) is a relatively recent behaviour exhibited by these whales. Whilst the difficulty of the group size estimation is acknowledged, the estimates were made in close proximity to the groups so that the estimates are influenced only through the whale behavioural patterns rather than environmental variables. Furthermore, although aerial platforms may provide some elevated perspective, they do not increase the confidence of group size estimation as repeated surfacing bouts are impossible to link to particular individuals. The novelty of the encountered behaviours is twofold, namely a) the formation of tightly-spaced large groups of humpback whales feeding intensely within concentrated areas (an intensity which appears to exceed that observed by two of the authors (MAM and KPF) in Antarctic waters), and b) the predictability of these feeding behaviours of humpback whales within low latitude waters. Nowacek et al’s. [36] description of high densities of humpback whales feeding on Antarctic krill in the Western Antarctic Peninsula report whale densities of 5.1/km2, an order of magnitude less than the group aggregations reported here. Furthermore, no such dense feeding aggregations have been reported elsewhere in low or mid latitudes during Southern Hemisphere humpback whale migrations. Indeed, aggregations of whales of this size have seldom been reported in the literature, with “large” groups often numbering in the range of 10–20 or less [66–68]. Barendse et al. [69] found that the study area is used during spring and summer by a small component of about 500 humpback whales which they thought were likely to migrate and breed within the tropical waters off Gabon in Central Africa. However, Carvalho et al. [70] noted that some of the whales feeding in the southern Benguela may be breeding and calving in an area that is yet to be identified. Whilst no abundance estimates have yet been generated from the photo-identification in the 2011, 2014 and 2015 surveys, the numbers of whales seen in both large “super-groups” and aggregations during the late October and early November 2014 and 2015 surveys must suggest a brief temporary immigration into the region that is well in excess of the 500 individuals estimated to occur in the region in summer by Barendse et al. [69]. Preliminary results of satellite tracking carried out in 2014 showing that six of eight individuals tagged within “super-groups” migrated southwards to the Southern Ocean by early summer (November), although four of these individuals first moved north for some 100 to 150 n. miles before migrating south [71]. However, whereas there is little current information on the migratory origin of the whales within the “super-groups”, there is some evidence to suggest that they may not necessarily be a suspended southward migration of whales from the breeding grounds off West Africa as proposed by Best et al. [42]. The southward migration route of humpback whales from the West Africa breeding grounds is likely further to the west of the study area, as appears to be the case for the northwards migration of these animals based on historical reports [6, 8, 61] and more recent scientific observations [44] showing little evidence for northwards migrating animals in the vicinity of Saldanha Bay. Furthermore, the migration tracks of two humpback whales satellite-tagged in the breeding grounds off Gabon as these animals travelled south-westwards along the Walvis Ridge were well to the west of our study domain during their southward migration [27]. The above and the combination of (a) the lack of encountered calves that would be expected at this time of year if the whales in “super-groups” were emanating from the breeding grounds and although Barendse et al. [69] and Findlay and Best [62] report of observations of single calves from the region at this time of year, the expected numbers should be far higher based on observations of calves on the east coast of South Africa during the southward migration [72] or during southward migrations off other continents [73]; (b) that whale disentanglement efforts in the region have shown links through gear-type to the south coast of the country during the previous months (MAM pers. obs.); and (c) the high incidence of yellow diatom films (presumed to be Benetella ceticola) on the skin of the whales found in this area is suggestive of a recent movement of whales from a cold water habitat (see [74]), and not from the tropics. We believe the animals encountered within “super groups” did not migrate further north than South African waters during the preceding austral winters and possibly comprises a non-breeding migration of young animals from Antarctic waters and the immigration of young non-breeding animals from Breeding Stock C during their southern migration. It should be noted that Dawbin [2] found that younger humpback whales could be caught on mid-latitude grounds during the mid-winter season when mature whales were on the more northerly breeding grounds. Furthermore, Olsen [6] reported that young male humpback whales were encountered in the southern Benguela during the summer months. The identification of the prey species eliciting “super-group” feeding behaviours remains undetermined. Humpback whales have been recorded feeding on a number of prey species within the region. Although Barendse et al. [44] noted that the 26 observations of feeding behaviour and “apparent feeding behaviour” (including defecations) during spring and summer in the southern Benguela upwelling region between 2001 and 2003 provide evidence that the region may function as an important feeding area for these whales, they note that little evidence of prey species could be obtained, apart from possible euphausiid exoskeleton remains and a hyperiid amphipod found within collected faecal samples. Humpback whales have been recorded feeding in summer on copepods (“rodaate” in Norwegian from Olsen (1914) [6] translated in [44] and “herrings” [6], mantis shrimp (P. armata capensis) [62], euphausiids (E. lucens) and amphipods [42, 44] including hyperiid amphipod (Themisto gaudichaudii) [44] in the southern Benguela, while Matthews [9] found that of a total of eight stomachs of humpback whales examined at Saldanha Bay during winter, fish (“? Clupeiods” and “a pasty mash of fish scales and bones”) were present in two; one in June, 1926 and one in September, 1926. Best et al. [42] recorded apparent feeding behaviour by humpback whales on 10 occasions over their 38 days of shore-based observations and the observation of production of faeces indicative of recent feeding on 7 occasions during small boat approaches. Their collected faecal samples contained euphausiid remains (“possibly E. lucens”) on 2 occasions and amphipods on another. The available evidence points to considerable opportunistic feeding behaviour on a wide range of prey species from the region. Clear differences in the acoustic scattering of prey patches (measured at 200 kHz and 38 kHz from the FRS Ellen Khuzwayo) were highly suggestive of dense aggregations of euphausiids in 2015. In all the study years, the RHIB echo-sounders identified dense prey aggregations almost on the sea floor under the “super-groups” although the possibility of these aggregations being prey species other than E. lucens cannot be ruled out. During the 2014 observations of the super-groups, a co-occurring predatory fish species, Snoek (Thyrsites atun), were caught at Dassen Island with full stomach contents of stomatopod mantis shrimps (P. armata capensis) (CW pers. obs.). Although no such catches were made in 2015, mantis shrimps were observed in association with humpback whales on 06 November 2015 off Hout Bay and a mass stranding of mantis shrimps occurred in this bay within 14 days after the cruise. Furthermore, the only prey recorded in the stomach of a 6.4m humpback whale entangled in rock lobster fishing gear in 1990 (see [62]) was young adults of this stomatopod species which Griffiths and Blaine [75] found to be the only stomatopod species occurring to the west of Cape Point, with the distribution off the west coast corresponding to terrigenous mud beds. Although predominantly a benthic species, the occurrence of P. armata capensis in stomachs of other pelagic predators such as African penguins, cormorants and snoek, [75] suggests that pelagic swarming behaviour makes the species available to predators including baleen whales [62]. The recent observations of this novel and intense feeding behaviour is of particular interest in light of rapidly recovering humpback populations on both the east and west coasts of southern Africa and in the associated Southern Ocean region [14, 43, 76, 77] with the observation of this behaviour potentially arising from the following potential four scenarios: alterations in prey availability leading to a novel feeding strategy; increasing humpback whale abundance intensifying pressure on prey availability elsewhere and a consequential switch in feeding strategies or areas; a restoration of a previously unobserved feeding strategy as the population abundances re-establish; or an increase in the probability of detection of “super-group” behaviour as the population abundance increases. Although Verheye et al. [78] describe long-term changes in neritic zooplankton communities in the southern Benguela subsystems with a shift in domination from large to smaller species, we currently remain uncertain as to the mechanism driving this novel low-latitude behaviour in Southern Hemisphere humpback whales. Given that Olsen [6] reported of a summer incidence of juvenile humpback whales in the region prior to 1914 (albeit not at such densities) the observed behaviour may well be a restoration of a previously unobserved feeding strategy as the population abundances re-establish. Furthermore, as noted by Owen et al. [55] the extent of feeding on migration could influence the extent to which humpback whales rely on the Antarctic ecosystem each year. Despite the unknown cause of this recent behaviour, we postulate that the area has developed / is developing into an important seasonal humpback whale feeding ground that attracts significant immigration into the region in the late austral spring / early summer. Whilst humpback whales in the region are clearly feeding opportunistically on a range of prey species, the concentrations, identity and size of the prey eliciting “super-group” feeding behaviours remain unknown and require investigation as we believe this will be a primary step in identifying the system changes (including whale population increases) that have resulted in these observations. Owen et al. [55] suggest that prey type may be important in influencing the extent of feeding on migration. Further required investigations include a) the origin of this immigration into the region as the lack of calves in the “super-group” encounters and the high incidence of cold water diatoms on the whales is unexpected at this time of year, b) observations of tagged or marked individuals within “super-groups” to obtain some information on the surfacing time to dive time ratios (along with aerial observations) for the modelling of group size estimation. This novel, predictable (at least over the 2014–2015 period) and accessible feeding behaviour within low latitudes provides considerable opportunity for further investigation of Southern Hemisphere humpback feeding aggregations and behaviours outside of the relatively inaccessible ice-edge region of the Southern Ocean. Future areas of investigation should include identifying migration links and the population identity of participating whales, multiscale examination of the feeding ecology of these humpback “super-groups” (e.g. [79]) and modelling of the energetic advantages of the migration suspension. Supporting information S1 Dataset. Dedicated and incidental sightings of “super-groups” of humpback whales reported in this study. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0172002.s001 (DOCX) Acknowledgments We thank observers on the cruises who provided sightings data, including Gwenith Penry, Tess Gridley, Kirsty Venter, Jean Purdon, the late Nompilo Radebe, Noloyiso Gwanqa, Laurenne Snyders, Kuhle Hlati, Oyena Masiko, Lelethu Zepe, Miranda Sofika, Bridget James, Taryn Morris, Lieze Swart, Zyanda Nkumanda, Lihle Sikolo, Kyle Lloyd, Sizwekazi Yapi, Abongile Sobekwa, Thubelihle Thwala and Mike Makhale. We are indebted to the public for reports of “super-groups” including Jean Tresfon for supplying imagery. We thank the captains and crews of the FRS Ellen Khuzwayo and RV Algoa for their dedication to this project during the 2011, 2014 and 2015 cruises. Author Contributions Conceptualization: KPF MAM SMS. Data curation: MAM AK MT SMS DH. Funding acquisition: MAM SMS. Investigation: KPF SK DEC MAM PGHK SAM AK JB OAVF MT SMS DH CGW. Methodology: KPF MAM AK SMS. Project administration: KPF MAM SMS. Resources: MAM SMS DH. Supervision: KPF JB. Validation: KPF SMS. Visualization: KPF. Writing – original draft: KPF. Writing – review & editing: KPF SK DEC MAM AK JB OAVF MT SMS DH CGW.

– Humpback whales, which humans have long observed to be solitary creatures, are gathering in large groups to feed, and it's kind of astounding the scientists who study them. Typically living alone or in pairs, a group of 10 to 15 is considered big, but research crews have now spotted super-groups as large as 200 on three occasions, they report in the journal PLOS One. Not only was it "novel" to spot so many humpbacks in one place, but the sightings took place in 2011, 2014, and 2015 off the southwestern tip of South Africa in the fall, which is when they're typically hunting further south in Antarctic waters, reports the Smithsonian. "I've never seen anything like this," lead author Ken Findlay tells New Scientist. The team has posited some theories about what's going on, but it's still anyone's guess. The simplest one is that the practice isn't as rare as humans might think. "It’s possible that the behavior was occurring but just not where it was visible," says Findlay. A variation of that suggests that this is an age-old practice of the whales, but it hasn't been visible because the humpback population was previously decimated by humans—that is, we saw them as loners merely because so few of them existed. Now that their numbers are bouncing back, that might be changing. Similarly, the increase in numbers might be forcing the whales to change up their usual hunting locales. (This "granny" whale is believed to be older than 100.)

THE teenager who was mauled by a crocodile while showing off to a girl has shrugged off his “haters” following his dramatic brush with death. Lee De Paauw, 18, suffered serious injuries to his left arm when he was viciously attacked by a crocodile after he jumped into the Johnstone River in Innisfail on Saturday night. As he recovered from surgery at the Cairns Hospital he told media the incident occurred because he wanted to “prove a point” to a young female backpacker he had just met. “I started telling (her) about backpackers are more likely to get eaten by crocodiles than Australians so we decided to go down to the river and test the theory,” he said. Mr de Paauw said the crocodile immediately grabbed his arm and didn’t let go when he punched it in the snout, only finally releasing him when he gouged it in the eye. Mr De Paauw said he had consumed “about ten cups of goon” before jumping in the river but denied he was “one of the stupidest people around” simply replying “haters gonna hate”. Officers from the department of Environment and Heritage Protection have set a trap to capture the crocodile, which is believed to be about 3m long. “I don’t want that crocodile harmed, I want it released back into the wild and I want it to have a happy life,” Mr De Paauw said. EARLIER: A QUEENSLAND teenager who jumped into a crocodile-infested river went through with the “dare” to impress a female backpacker. Lee De Paauw was mauled by a crocodile after leaping into a river at Innisfail on a so-called “dare” and was witnessed “screaming and splashing the second he hit the water”. Missing Queensland fisherman ‘taken by a crocodile’ De Paauw, 18, managed to escape the jaws of a crocodile, which was believed to be up to 3m long, by punching it in the head repeatedly as a female backpacker watched on, unable to help as the attack unfolded. De Paauw has since revealed he accepted the dare to impress the young British backpacker. “I just wanted to show the backpacker. I got her number and her name is Sophie,” he told Nova FM’s Fitzy and Wippa on Monday. Mr De Paauw said he had jumped in the water and was swimming back to a jetty “when the croc grabbed my arm, dragged me back out and started rolling”. “It took me out about six metres from the wharf. I hit it once on the nose, it loosened a bit. “I got another hit in and it was right on its eye. I was lucky because it just dropped me.” British backpacker Sophie Paterson, 24, said the local teenager jumped into the Johnstone River just after midnight yesterday after earlier bragging about being able to swim in the crocodile infested waters. “He was talking about the local creek saying ‘I can swim out’ and so we said, ‘go on then’, but we didn’t think he would do it,” she said. media_camera Innisfail man Lee De Paauw, 18, was attacked by a crocodile after jumping into a river on a dare. Picture: Supplied Ms Paterson said she and her friends had met Mr De Paauw a few hours earlier over drinks at the local hostel where she was staying. “He sort of made this claim ‘I’ll swim out and back’, (and) at first we just said ‘don’t be so ridiculous’ and didn’t think he was going to go through with it,’’ she said. “It all happened very fast, pretty much as soon as he jumped in, there was splashing and screaming.” media_camera British backpacker Sophie Paterson saw the crocodile attack. Picture: Elisabeth Champion Ms Paterson said the teenager managed to pull himself from the water while she yelled at her friends to call an ambulance. “There was blood everywhere and he just wouldn’t stop screaming,’’ she said. “I thought he had lost his arm because of how bad it looked.” Paramedics rushed Mr De Paauw, who suffered lacerations and multiple fractures, to Innisfail Hospital where he was stabilised. He was then taken to Cairns Hospital where he underwent surgery on his left arm. The surgery is understood to have been successful. Ms Paterson said she arrived in Innisfail last Wednesday and while she was aware there were crocodiles had “no idea how ­serious it was”. “I know he’s a local and probably knew the area better but I can’t help but feel for him,’’ she said. The attack comes in the midst of renewed debate about a proposal to cull crocodile populations in northern Queensland. Whitsunday MP Jason Costigan said most locals would know not to jump into the Johnstone River. “Most people have got common sense ... we can’t legislate to protect dickheads, but we need to be protecting the community, public safety and our tourism reputation are priority,” he said. A Department of Environment and Heritage Protection spokesman confirmed the crocodile was being targeted for capture and removal. ||||| 'Croc Kid' explains why he jumped in dangerous crocodile infested waters near Cairns. It was all to impress a 'beautiful backpacker'. Courtesy: The TODAY Show/Channel Nine IT WAS the romance that blossomed in deadly crocodile infested waters. Lee De Paauw, 18, was dared to jump into the Johnstone River near Innisfail in far-north Queensland on the weekend. Almost as soon as he hit the water — known for being infested with crocodiles — one of the killer reptiles latched onto him. On Tuesday morning, he told Channel 9 he foolhardily flung himself towards the crocs “for that beautiful backpacker”, referring to Sophie Paterson, a tourist from Britain. “She didn’t even know I had been attacked at first. She thought I was pulling her leg until I hopped out of the water with my arm hanging down.” He told Today’s Karl Stefanovic and Lisa Wilkinson that Ms Paterson had said she would go on a date following his ordeal. But love’s young dream appears to have soured as quickly as an amphibious reptile can take a chomp out of a teenager’s arm. At the exact moment Lee was talking up Sophie’s appearance on one network, she was demolishing his reputation on another. “Look, I would have to be quite twisted to be impressed by that,” Sophie told Channel 7’s Sunrise on Tuesday. British backpacker says she wasn't impressed by 'Croc Kid's' dangerous jump 0:52 'Croc Kid' and British backpacker, Sophie, talk about his dangerous jump into crocodile infested waters. Sophie says he was less than impressed. Courtesy: The TODAY Show/Sunrise “Risking your life, there is nothing funny about that. I’m not impressed by somebody risking their life.” Ms Patterson said she had arrived in Innisfail to do some fruit picking and was relaxing in the hostel with a friend when Mr De Paauw rocked up. “Lee came to the hostel because he knew someone there. We were drinking, having a nice night. It was my first experience drinking goon. “It was quite quiet, chilled out. Nothing too crazy,” she said. “And then he decided to jump in with the crocodiles.” Meanwhile, over on Channel 9, when quizzed about what made Sophie so special, a somewhat stilted Mr De Paauw suddenly seemed started to doubt she was really worth almost dying for. “Ah, she is not really [so special], just another girl,” the sweet-talking charmer said. “But she is really good-looking. [She’d] been kind to me the night before.” Ms Patterson said she’d try and see Mr De Paauw — if her schedule allowed. “I had the intention of driving to the hospital the next morning but he was moved to Cairns. “I’ll try to pop up at the weekend if I can. I have a commitment to a job that I can’t get out of.” As for witnessing a potential suitor’s arm getting ripped off as he tried to woo her, she said she was “pretty shaken up”. “It was a horrific experience [but] it was an introduction to Innisfail, wasn’t it?” Blissfully unaware of Ms Paterson’s comments on 7, Stefanovic said the prospect of a date meant there was a lesson to be learned. “That is, if you jump into crocodile infested waters you can still come out a winner.” But Ms Paterson’s reaction could mean that while he may manage to save his arm, Mr De Paauw may lose out on that sought after date after all. Mr De Paauw, 18, has been making the most of his national notoriety, giving interviews on TV and radio after being mauled by a crocodile during a late-night swim at the weekend. Mr De Paauw has recounted the horrific attack to Nine News with classic Aussie understatement, while still stained in his own blood. “I was thinking f***, I’m gone, I’m gone for sure,” he said from his hospital bed. The cheeky teenager explained how he was trying to impress Ms Paterson, who he had just met. The fact that he had downed “10 cups of goon” may have contributed to his bravado. “I started telling about how backpackers are more likely to get eaten by a crocodile than Australians. So, we decided to go down to the river and test the theory,” Mr De Paauw said. He jumped into the river and the croc caught him in its powerful jaws and dragged him about six metres. “It started shaking its head and carrying on,” he said. Acting on instinct, Mr De Paauw punched the croc in the snout, but just before it could perform the death roll, he gouged the beast in the eye. This split-second decision probably saved his life, because the croc let go. “I swam back to the stairs with one floppy arm and pulled myself out,” he said. A teenager who nearly had his arm ripped off by a crocodile, says he'd jump in the water all over again. @Zara_James9 #9News pic.twitter.com/v7kKYmHGYl — Nine News Brisbane (@9NewsBrisbane) March 20, 2017 Nine News journalist Zara James asked: “Do you understand that most of the country thinks that you’re one of the stupidest people around right now?” “Yep, I do,” Mr De Paauw replied. “What’s your response to that?” James asked. “I’m not really. I’m just, I dunno, trying to prove a point.” It seems Mr De Paauw is not embarrassed by the looking foolish in the national headlines. “Haters gonna hate,” he said. Two bones in his left arm were broken in the attack, and he is sporting gouge marks at the top and bottom of the limb. Mr De Paauw also bragged about his punch-on with the croc on Nova FM yesterday morning. “It took me out about six metres from the wharf. I hit it once on the nose, it loosened a bit,” he told Fitzy and Wippa. “I got another hit in and it was right on its eye. I was lucky because it just dropped me.” Although he won a date with his backpacker crush, her comments to Channel 9 may not help his street cred all that much. “I’ve never heard a guy scream like that,” Miss Paterson said of witnessing the attack. “You know, he was obviously terrified and he was obviously in agony. You know, it was just sheer panic.” The crocodile attack was one of two in the Innisfail area within 24 hours. Tragically, however, Cairns spearfisherman Warren Hughes, 35, did not survive when taken by a croc earlier in the day, while spearfishing at nearby Palmers Point. Despite being described as super-cautious by those who had fished with him, Mr Hughes’ body was pulled from the water about 8am Monday. Water police said his injuries were consistent with being mauled by a large crocodile. He disappeared on Saturday and a search was sparked after his empty dinghy was discovered with his speargun nearby. A crocodile measuring at least four metres was seen near the dinghy on Sunday night and charged at a police boat, behaviour that is consistent for a crocodile protecting a food source. — with AAP

– An Australian teenager mauled after getting drunk and jumping into a crocodile-infested river to impress a woman he had just met denies being "one of the stupidest people around." "Haters gonna hate," says 18-year-old Lee De Paauw, per the Courier-Mail. He suffered gouges and two broken bones in his left arm Saturday night after jumping into the river near the town of Innisfail, Queensland, and being attacked by a croc almost immediately. De Paauw says after drinking around 10 cups of "goon"—Aussie slang for boxed wine—he told British backpacker Sophie Paterson that "backpackers are more likely to get eaten by crocodiles than Australians, so we decided to go down to the river and test the theory." De Paauw says he saved himself by punching the croc in the snout and scratching at its eye before it could drag him underwater, reports news.com.au. Officials have been trying to trap the animal, though De Paauw says he doesn't want it to be harmed. Paterson, 24, says she and her friends didn't think he would really jump in the river. After the attack, "there was blood everywhere and he just wouldn't stop screaming," she says. De Paauw claims that Paterson agreed to go on a date with him afterward, but she says she'd have to be "quite twisted" to be impressed by the stunt. (This tourist accidentally bodyslammed a croc and lived to tell the tale.)

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) – The NYPD says a man is in custody after anti-Semitic graffiti was found inside a Brooklyn synagogue Thursday, ahead of a planned political event hosted by “Broad City” star Ilana Glazer. 26-year-old James Polite, of Brooklyn, allegedly wrote several hate words in black marker inside Union Temple in Prospect Heights, according to police. The suspect also drew a picture of the Puerto Rican flag and wrote “Free P.R.” Mayor Bill de Blasio called the hateful messages “tremendously upsetting.” “Coming at a time when Jewish New Yorkers are feeling a profound sense of loss and sadness because of what happened at the Pittsburgh Tree of Life synagogue and all those who were killed there because of their faith,” he said outside Union Temple late Friday, where security guards and NYPD officers patrolled as congregants stood up to fear. The vandalism came less than a week after 11 people were shot and killed inside a Pittsburgh synagogue in the deadliest attack on Jews in U.S. history. “I got back from Pittsburgh on Wednesday after visiting the community there and seeing really the utter brokenness of that community and what they’re going through. And then to come back here and to feel unsafe here is really concerning,” said Rabbi Jon Leener. Before the arrest, NYPD Chief of Detectives Dermot Shea revealed that police were looking for a man caught on surveillance cameras at the temple. He was seen wearing a red suit jacket and using a black marker to write messages of hate throughout the building before fleeing. UPDATE – Arrest has been made on this incident. Thank you #Hatecrimestaskforce , proving every day that there is no place for hate anywhere in NYC. https://t.co/QDbGWvZ68d — Chief Dermot F. Shea (@NYPDDetectives) November 3, 2018 Police say Polite was seen wearing a red suit jacket and using a black marker to write messages of hate throughout the building before fleeing. Once the graffiti was discovered, organizers decided to prioritize safety and cancel the event. A preschool that operates in the build was also closed Friday. “I’m just horrified. I work at the school here, the preschool. There’s little kids in the building, and it’s just, it’s so upsetting,” Janet Weeks told CBS2. Prior to pulling the plug on the event, Glazer excitedly took to Instagram to talk about her guests. “I’ll also be interviewing two local candidates running tight political races: Andrew Gounardes of South Brooklyn and Jim Gaughran of Long Island. They are also, they just happen to be good men, which is nice to see,” she said. “Don’t you worry, we will be hooking you up with volunteering canvassing opportunities this weekend.” She later told attendees not to be fearful. “We’ll have more events soon. Thank you for coming and caring,” she said. “This is action in itself, gathering. And we’ll follow up with more, you know, specific action.” Gounardes released a statement, which read in part, “Tonight’s attack, right here in a temple in Brooklyn–is a painful reminder that anti-semitism and prejudice are alive and well in our own community. I commend the NYPD for their quick response and believe whoever committed this hate crime should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Now more than ever, we have an obligation to reaffirm our commitment to tolerance and send a clear message that any individual or group who promotes violence and hate is not welcome in our City.” Gaughran also spoke out against the slurs during a Friday morning rally. “This is a hate crime, and I think it was important that they cancelled the event so that we make sure everybody was protected,” he said. The NYPD has increased patrols at the synagogue and other places of worship. Synagogue leaders say Shabbat services will go on Friday night and Saturday morning. Sources tell CBS2 Polite could be behind a series of fires at other shuls and yeshivas in the area. He was charged with criminal mischief, hate crime, and making graffiti in connection to the messages scrawled at Union Temple. He remained in police custody at Woodhull Hospital, where he was receiving a psychiatric evaluation late Friday. ||||| NEW YORK (AP) — Police have arrested a 26-year-old Brooklyn man for scrawling anti-Semitic graffiti throughout a Jewish temple. James Polite was charged Friday with criminal mischief as a hate crime, and making graffiti. Police say he entered the temple in the Prospect Heights neighborhood on Thursday evening and used a black marker to deface its walls with racial slurs such as "Kill all Jews" and "Jews better be ready." He also is charged with setting arson fires in Brooklyn's Williamsburg section, including one at a Jewish banquet hall. The suspect reportedly was admitted to a hospital psychiatric ward for observation. Temple administrator Ross Brady told the New York Daily News that the hate crime has spurred the house of worship to move ahead with most of its programs and services. ||||| "It's coming at a time when Jewish New Yorkers are feeling a profound sense of loss and sadness because of what happened in Pittsburgh at the Tree of Life Synagogue and all those who were killed there because of their faith," de Blasio said.

– Police have arrested a 26-year-old Brooklyn man for scrawling anti-Semitic graffiti throughout a Jewish temple, the AP reports. James Polite was charged Friday with criminal mischief as a hate crime, and making graffiti. Police say he entered the historic Union Temple in the Prospect Heights neighborhood on Thursday evening and used a black marker to deface its walls with racial slurs such as "Kill all Jews" and "Jews better be ready." He also is charged with setting small arson fires in Brooklyn's Williamsburg section, including one at a Jewish banquet hall, per the Daily News. He was arrested wearing the same clothing seen in surveillance video at the temple. The suspect reportedly was admitted to a hospital psychiatric ward for observation. Temple administrator Ross Brady says the hate crime has spurred the house of worship to move ahead with most of its programs and services. But the graffiti discovery prompted the synagogue to cancel an event by Ilana Glazer, star of the Comedy Central series Broad City. "I got back from Pittsburgh on Wednesday after visiting the community there and seeing really the utter brokenness of that community and what they’re going through," Rabbi Jon Leener tells CBS News. "And then to come back here and to feel unsafe here is really concerning." (Twitter has made a statement about its "Kill all Jews" trending topic.)

April 16, 2015 11:17 PM Marybel Rodriguez is an Emmy-nominated weekend anchor for the ... Follow CBSMIAMI.COM: Facebook | Twitter MIAMI (CBSMiami) – A growing number of workers are taking their tech and heading to paradise for something called a “workation.” When Vanessa Van Edwards and her husband set out to travel the world, they didn’t have to leave their careers behind. “We literally had our entire office in our computer, on Skype, and with our phone,” said Edwards. It’s not all work and not all vacation. Experts said “workations” like the trip Edwards took are growing in popularity and the benefits go beyond fun. “We were able to network with people and industries we had never thought we’d be able to. And even if it’s the same work, the different atmosphere inspires you. It’s, it’s a way to really recharge your life, recharge your work,” said Edwards. “Workation retreats” are popping up in locations around the world. “What’s allowing more people to do workations is the new work flexibility. So bosses, teams are much more open to working with a virtual person,” said Edwards. Co-working and co-living sites like the Surf Office offer travelers office space and the ability to meet new people all while enjoying the local surroundings. “They run yoga workshops. They do wine tastings. They do sort of group communal dinners. Already in the short time I’ve been here, I’ve actually made a lot of very interesting connections and I’m hoping to kind of forge new business relationships,” said Surf Office visitor Ruper Clage. “I feel like I can be more productive in a workation. You have a lot more creativity and freedom and mental space to, to be able to produce,” said Surf Office visitor Desiree Tavera. A workation isn’t just for independent workers or individual employees. Some companies are getting in on the trend and taking their employees on a group workation. Zen Payroll CEO Joshua Reeves said staying and working together in a beautiful setting is a great way to build community. “Sometimes just literally changing environment can create a big impact in terms of helping someone think about what they’re doing differently,” said Reeves. A recent survey found 75 percent of employees rank workplace flexibility as their top benefit. Dan Schawbel, founder of workplacetrends.com, said the workation is one way to give employees the flexibility they seek. “The workation is becoming increasingly popular because employees know that they’re getting less and less personal time but they want more and more flexibility. It’s one way employers are coping with this,” said Schawbel. For those considering taking an extended workation, Edwards suggests starting small, with a weeklong trip, to get a sense of logistics on the road and when you’re away, make the most of the local environment. “Go to networking events. Try a meetup you’ve never done before. Do a dance class. Do a cooking class. It gets you out of your daily routine. That’s what workations are all about,” said Edwards. Edwards said dealing with different time zones can be a challenge of a workation since 9 a.m. where your office might be in the middle of the night during your travels. Others point out that in order to succeed at a workation, you have to have good self-discipline since you’re managing your own schedule. ||||| This spring, Shirley Bloomfield spent a week at a Delaware beach house, taking long walks along the shore with her husband and their golden retriever, Cassie, and roasting marshmallows in the rental home’s fireplace when the weather grew chilly. But the couple was there to work. Ms. Bloomfield, the chief executive of the NTCA—The Rural Broadband Association, a trade association for rural telecommunications providers, wanted a break from the bustle of Washington, D.C., but had a full slate of work already on her schedule. So...

– Don't have a lot of vacation days stockpiled but need to get away? Consider taking a "workcation"—what the Wall Street Journal describes as a growing trend in which workers head to a destination and pay for their own travel and lodgings, but don't get docked vacation days because they're actually doing work while sprawled on the beach or holed up in a remote mountain cabin. An employer may agree to an employee's workcation if she simply does some basic work tasks (e.g., checking email, calling in for conference calls) from the road. Or, if that's not enough, the employee could still put in regular workdays, then venture off to check out her destination in her off-hours. Besides, the Journal notes, many American workers already feel compelled to check in with the office while on vacation, so why not make it official? But it turns out while it may work for some (said PTO-strapped employees), some fear this alternative could come back to bite everyone in the sunburned bum. First, it won't be a viable option for every worker (think salesmen who need to be in a specific territory to work). Plus, there may be time zone differences to contend with, one worker pointed out to CBS Miami after recently traveling the world with her portable workstation. And by perpetuating our constant need to check in, it may condition us to never fully log off from work, leading to burnout. "It's not a good thing for employees who are vacationing to feel like they are always on an electronic leash," the president of a time-off advocacy group tells the paper. (See if you're in one of the five best—or worst—US cities for a summer staycation.)

BALTIMORE (AP) — A woman was found pushing her dead 3-year-old son in a park swing Friday, and authorities say she may have been there for hours, or even since the day before. There were no obvious signs of foul play, but it has not been ruled out, said Diane Richardson, a spokeswoman with the Charles County Sheriff's Office. Richardson said authorities are trying to trace the 24-year-old woman's movements over the past several days "to find out what was going on in her life, what led to this moment." Sheriff's deputies went to the park in La Plata, Maryland, about 7 a.m. after being called to check on the welfare of the woman and child, Richardson said. The officers went to remove the boy from the swing and give him first aid, but "it was instantaneously clear the child was dead," she said. There were no signs of trauma to his body. Deputies cut the chain on the swing's seat and removed the body, which was taken to the Officer of the Chief Medical Examiner in Baltimore. A spokesman for the medical examiner said he couldn't provide any information. The woman, whom police did not identify, was able to answer some of the deputies' questions before being taken to a local hospital for a medical evaluation, Richardson said. She listed several addresses, including one in Washington and another in Charles County, where La Plata is located, Richardson said. She said the woman also had stayed with a relative in the county. La Plata is about 30 miles southeast of Washington, with a population of about 8,700, according to the town's website. "It's a very sad and tragic situation for the mother, her family, the officers," Richardson said. "All of us want answers. We're working very hard on that." ||||| When Charles County Sheriff's deputies responded to a call about a woman pushing a child in a playground swing for an unusually long time, they made a heartbreaking discovery. News4's Derrick Ward reports. (Published Friday, May 22, 2015) A toddler was found dead on a playground swing in Charles County, Maryland, Friday morning with his mother still pushing him. "A citizen called and said they'd noticed a woman pushing a child in a swing for an unusually long period of time," said Diane Richardson with the Charles County Sheriff’s Office. Deputies went to Wills Memorial Park about 7 a.m., and as they got close they noticed the 3-year-old boy in the swing was lifeless. They cut the swing down to administer first aid to the child, but it was too late. "They were able to get the child out of the swing, but there was really nothing they could do," Richardson said. Top News Photos of the Week The boy was taken to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner for an autopsy. The child's 24-year-old mother was taken to a hospital. No one in the neighborhood knew who she was or where she'd come from with the child. The sheriff’s office knows the identity of the mother and child and is trying to find the father. Copyright Associated Press / NBC4 Washington ||||| Mom found pushing three-year-old son in La Plata park. (Photo: WUSA9) LA PLATA, Md. (WUSA9) -- A Maryland mother was found pushing her dead three-year-old child in a swing at a park Friday morning, according to the Charles County Sheriff's Office. Officers responded to Wills Memorial Park located at 500 St. Mary's Avenue around 6:55 a.m. for the report of a woman who had been pushing a child in a swing for an unusually long period of time. The 24-year-old mother and her son may have been at the park since the day before, officials said. When officers got to the park, they found the woman pushing the three-year-old in a swing at the playground. Officers noticed right away that the boy was dead. There were no signs of trauma, officials said. The child was taken to the Office of Chief Medical Examiner in Baltimore where an autopsy will be done in order to determine the cause of death. The mother remains in the hospital for a medical evaluation, officials said Saturday. The investigation is ongoing. Anyone with additional information is asked to call Det. C. Shankster at (301) 609-6513. OTHER NEWS: Police: Woman killed prior to Oxon Hill apartment fire Man killed inside Salisbury home Death of 3-year-old Vienna boy under investigation Read or Share this story: http://on.wusa9.com/1Sp22oC

– In a tragic and bizarre case, authorities yesterday found a woman pushing her dead son in a park's swing, the AP reports. She may have been at the Maryland park for hours or even overnight, they say. The story began with a call to sheriff's deputies regarding the well-being of the child and mother, according to Charles County Sheriff's Office spokeswoman Diane Richardson. "A citizen called and said they'd noticed a woman pushing a child in a swing for an unusually long period of time," she tells NBC Washington. Sheriff's deputies found the 24-year-old woman at about 7am at Wills Memorial Park in La Plata, Md., WUSA9 reports, roughly 30 miles from Washington. Deputies cut the swing's chain and pulled the boy out, but "it was instantaneously clear the child was dead," says Richardson. No trauma was seen on the boy's body, she adds, but foul play is still a possibility. The woman, who remains unidentified, answered questions before being taken to a nearby hospital for evaluation. She also gave authorities a few addresses, including at least two of her own in the area and one where she had stayed with a relative. Now authorities are trying to track her activities over recent days. "It's a very sad and tragic situation for the mother, her family, the officers," says Richardson. "All of us want answers. We're working very hard on that."

Move over President Donald Trump. You are yesterday’s news. It seems like this is now The Anthony Scaramucci Show. And Trump better get used to it. The new White House communications director called the New Yorker’s Ryan Lizza, a member in good standing in the Opposition Party, on Wednesday evening to blast his co-workers in a rambling rant that was so outrageous and discordant that reporters wondered whether Scaramucci drunk-dialed Lizza, was drunk with power, or, revealing he was unqualified for his communications director job, did not know how to smoothly go on and off the record — like Trump skillfully did recently with three New York Times reporters — so that such inflammatory comments do not reflect badly on his boss. There is absolutely no way that Scaramucci could be stupid enough to make those comments on the record, so Scaramucci, in a fit of rage about leaks about him, may have temporarily forgotten he was on the record or not realized that he was talking to someone in the Opposition Media, whose members only protect liberals when it comes to sweeping such comments under the rug. Regardless, his defamatory comments about Steve Bannon, the White House’s chief strategist, will only ensure that the story will be all about Scaramucci again. At this point, Scaramucci might as well just be Trump’s permanent replacement on The Apprentice. “I’m not Steve Bannon, I’m not trying to suck my own cock,” he reportedly said. “I’m not trying to build my own brand off the fucking strength of the President. I’m here to serve the country.” In a rambling interview, Scaramucci also vowed to hunt down the White House’s leakers, suggested that embattled White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus would be fired if he leaks, and was incensed that Priebus “cock-blocked” him for six months from getting a position in the Trump administration. He also called Priebus “a fucking paranoid schizophrenic” and seemed to imply that some White House staffers may have committed a felony by leaking sensitive financial information about Scaramucci even though his financial disclosure form was publicly available. It is also interesting that Scaramucci had nothing bad to say about globalists Jared Kushner, Gary Cohn, and Dina Powell during his rant. Scaramucci also called a member of the Opposition Party when he was seething because details about his dinner with Sean Hannity, President Donald Trump, and First Lady Melania Trump leaked. That’s usually never a good idea given those in the Opposition Party are looking to bring down conservatives and nationalists, especially when they are not in the soundest of emotional states and thus vulnerable to such comments. His comments about Bannon also sound like someone falsely hating in another person what he secretly may hate about himself. Since accepting the communications director job, Scaramucci has promoted his book from the White House podium. Despite having told students not to brag about Harvard, Scaramucci has name-checked his alma mater nearly every chance he gets, acting like someone who needs to reference “Harvard” to try to prove to others that he is not in over his head and actually belongs. Scaramucci, the ultimate self-promoter and brand-builder, also ran the “SALT” conference, which is a wanna-be Davos-style conference that brings together globalists and members of the permanent political class from the D.C. swamp to hobnob and self-perpetuate. Legacy media reporters have also mocked Scaramucci for vowing to crack down on leakers given that he was reportedly known as the “go-to” leaker for those seeking info from Mitt Romney’s and Jeb Bush’s campaigns. “I sometimes use colorful language. I will refrain in this arena but not give up the passionate fight for @realDonaldTrump’s agenda. #MAGA,” Scaramucci tweeted on Thursday evening. I sometimes use colorful language. I will refrain in this arena but not give up the passionate fight for @realDonaldTrump's agenda. #MAGA — Anthony Scaramucci (@Scaramucci) July 27, 2017 But Scaramucci’s reckless interview raises serious concerns about whether he may accidentally put Trump and members of his administration and family in legal limbo since every word that is spoken by Trump’s team will be parsed endlessly. In addition, Stephanie Ruhle, one of the savviest anchors around when it comes to Wall Street and someone who obviously knows even more about the financial industry than she publicly reveals, said on Thursday evening that Scaramucci’s comments may make it more difficult for him to sell off his hedge fund firm to Chinese investors, which is a deal he must seal and get approval for in order for Scaramucci to officially work in the White House. Here's a question-if HNA was buying SkyBridge its pristine reputation&possible WH hook up..what exactly are they thinking now? #nocoverbid — Stephanie Ruhle (@SRuhle) July 27, 2017 If Scaramucci is tarnishing his brand at the moment when it needs to be the most spotless and pristine, then imagine the disregard he will have for Trump’s brand, which Trump has built up over his lifetime. If Trump thinks that Scaramucci’s outbursts will damage Trump’s brand for the long haul, he may see Scaramucci as a gamble that is not worth taking. UPDATE: 8:50 PM ET: ||||| Donald Trump’s new communications chief has already delivered some choice phrases – but can you tell which quotes are his, and which come from Veep? Who said it: Anthony Scaramucci or someone from Veep? – quiz Most people keep their heads down and try not to ruffle any feathers during their first few days at a new job. But Anthony Scaramucci is not most people. The new White House communications director, aka “The Mooch”, has burst on to the national stage sounding more like a character dreamed up by the Veep and The Thick of It creator, Armando Iannucci, than a real-life political operative. Can you tell the difference between Scaramucci’s actual comments to CNN, the BBC or the New Yorker and some of the choicest lines from Veep’s satirical White House? ||||| Fox News host Sean Hannity said Thursday that Anthony Scaramucci, the new White House communications director, thought he was off the record during the explosive interview with a reporter in which he unloaded on White House leaks and key players within the Trump administration. "Now speaking with Anthony Scaramucci, as he expressed -- and as [Fox News chief national correspondent] Ed Henry reported -- in his tweets, he regrets using some of the language he used with the reporter," Hannity said during the opening monologue of his evening program. "He told me he thought it was off the record." Hannity admitted leaks and infighting have plagued Trump's first six months as chief executive, but said such discord was not uncommon in work environments. "And the president, Anthony Scaramucci, Reince Priebus, Steve Bannon, you know what? The one thing they all have in common in spite of maybe disagreeing here and maybe some infighting, they're all tired of the deep state leaks," Hannity said, using a term employed by some conservatives to talk about Obama administration holdovers who are trying to undermine Trump. "Anthony Scaramucci rightly is trying to put an end to it. I don't know who's leaking in the White House, I've no idea but I hope it ends." Hannity interviewed Scaramucci on Wednesday. During the interview, Scaramucci referred to taking "dramatic steps" to stop leakers. The pair also reportedly had dinner together with President Trump. ||||| 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 ||||| Good Friday morning. Situational awareness: "Bomb cyclone" flight cancellations at U.S. airports yesterday, per FlightAware: 4,395. Cancellations today: 1,128. 1 big thing: What Wolff got most right @realDonaldTrump There are definitely parts of Michael Wolff's " of Michael Wolff's " Fire and Fury " that are wrong, sloppy, or betray off-the-record confidence. But there are two things he gets absolutely right, even in the eyes of White House officials who think some of the book's scenes are fiction: his spot-on portrait of Trump as an emotionally erratic president, and the low opinion of him among some of those serving him. Why it matters: Wolff captures the contempt some Trump aides have for the president and his family. Axios' Jonathan Swan notes that this includes people you see trumpeting their loyalty to him. Wolff captures the contempt some Trump aides have for the president and his family. Axios' Jonathan Swan notes that this includes people you see trumpeting their loyalty to him. So Wolff's liberties with off-the-record comments — while ethically unacceptable to nearly all reporters — have the effect of exposing Washington's insider jokes and secret languages, which normal Americans find perplexing and detestable. In the past year, we have had many of the same conversations with the same sources Wolff used. We won't betray them, or put on the record what was off. But, we can say that the following lines from the book ring unambiguously true: How Trump processes (and resists) information: "It was during Trump's early intelligence briefings … that alarm signals first went off among his new campaign staff: he seemed to lack the ability to take in third-party information." "Or maybe he lacked the interest; whichever, he seemed almost phobic about having formal demands on his attention." "Trump didn't read. He didn't really even skim. ... [H]e could read headlines and articles about himself, or at least headlines on articles about himself, and the gossip squibs on the New York Post's Page Six." "Some ... concluded that he didn't read because he just didn't have to, and that in fact this was one of his key attributes as a populist. He was postliterate — total television." "[H]e trusted his own expertise — no matter how paltry or irrelevant — more than anyone else's. What's more, he had an extremely short attention span, even when he thought you were worthy of attention." Instinct over expertise: "The organization ... needed a set of internal rationalizations that would allow it to trust a man who, while he knew little, was entirely confident of his own gut instincts and reflexive opinions, however frequently they might change." "Here was a key Trump White House rationale: expertise, that liberal virtue, was overrated." Ill-preparedness: "[T]he president's views of foreign policy and the world at large were among [his White House's] most random, uninformed, and seemingly capricious aspects. His advisers didn't know whether he was an isolationist or a militarist, or whether he could distinguish between the two." "He was enamored with generals and determined that people with military command experience take the lead in foreign policy, but he hated to be told what to do." "In the Trump White House, policy making ... flowed up. It was a process of suggesting, in throw-it-against-the-wall style, what the president might want, and hoping he might then think that he had thought of this himself." Low regard by key aides: "He spoke obliviously and happily, believing himself to be a perfect pitch raconteur and public performer, while everyone with him held their breath. "If a wackadoo moment occurred on the occasions … when his remarks careened in no clear direction, his staff had to go into intense method-acting response. It took absolute discipline not to acknowledge what everyone could see." "At points on the day's spectrum of adverse political developments, he could have moments of, almost everyone would admit, irrationality. When that happened, he was alone in his anger and not approachable by anyone." "His senior staff largely dealt with these dark hours by agreeing with him, no matter what he said." Be smart: More than half a dozen of the more skilled White House staff are contemplating imminent departures. Many leaving are quite fearful about the next chapter of the Trump presidency. 2. How to sell a book Letter from Trump's lawyer to Wolff and Steve Rubin, president and publisher of Henry Holt President Trump is so furious about Michael Wolff's book that some aides are just trying to avoid him. Key aides tried to talk him out of legal threats against the author and Steve Bannon, the key source. tried to talk him out of legal threats against the author and Steve Bannon, the key source. Lawyers laughed: Does Trump really want to give discovery to Michael Wolff? Does Trump really want to give discovery to Michael Wolff? But Trump was insistent on following a tactic he frequently used in business — rattling cages with lawyers' letters that resulted in no actual legal action. was insistent on following a tactic he frequently used in business — rattling cages with lawyers' letters that resulted in no actual legal action. His demand that the publisher withhold the book (POTUS needs to see "The Post," with its takeaway on prior restraint) was a publisher's impossible dream that had the predictable effect: more publicity and presales. that the publisher withhold the book (POTUS needs to see "The Post," with its takeaway on prior restraint) was a publisher's impossible dream that had the predictable effect: more publicity and presales. The publisher issued this statement: "Henry Holt confirms that we received a cease and desist letter from an attorney for President Trump. We see 'Fire and Fury' as an extraordinary contribution to our national discourse, and are proceeding with the publication of the book." issued this statement: "Henry Holt confirms that we received a cease and desist letter from an attorney for President Trump. We see 'Fire and Fury' as an extraordinary contribution to our national discourse, and are proceeding with the publication of the book." Not only that: "Due to unprecedented demand, we are moving the on-sale date for all formats ... to [today] from the [previous] on-sale date of [next] Tuesday." "Due to unprecedented demand, we are moving the on-sale date for all formats ... to [today] from the [previous] on-sale date of [next] Tuesday." In D.C., Kramerbooks started selling copies at midnight. P.S. WashPost Style front, "Breitbart may see a Bannon backlash," by Paul Farhi: "The website and its chairman found themselves isolated ... after Bannon's comments ... caused a backlash inside the White House, among rival conservative media outlets and among Trump supporters." and its chairman found themselves isolated ... after Bannon's comments ... caused a backlash inside the White House, among rival conservative media outlets and among Trump supporters." "Bannon's comments ... prompted a key backer, the billionaire Mercer family, to withdraw financial support for Bannon's political activities. So far, however, the Mercers have not signaled that they will walk away from Breitbart itself, which would be a crippling blow." Be smart: Key conservatives tell us Bannon could wind up being ousted from Breitbart. 3. Is obstruction the new collusion? "Legal experts said that of the two primary issues ... Mueller appears to be investigating — whether Mr. Trump obstructed justice ... and whether there was collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia — there is currently a larger body of public evidence tying the president to a possible crime of obstruction," the N.Y. Times' Michael Schmidt writes in the paper's lead story: "Mueller has ... substantiated claims that [former FBI Director James] Comey made in a series of memos describing troubling interactions with the president before he was fired in May." substantiated claims that [former FBI Director James] Comey made in a series of memos describing troubling interactions with the president before he was fired in May." "Mueller has also been examining a false statement that the president reportedly dictated on Air Force One in July ... about a meeting that Trump campaign officials had with Russians in 2016." been examining a false statement that the president reportedly dictated on Air Force One in July ... about a meeting that Trump campaign officials had with Russians in 2016." But, but, but: "[I]t could be difficult to prove that the president, who has broad authority over the executive branch, including the hiring and firing of officials, had corrupt intentions when he [ousted] the F.B.I. director." 4. Bugs named Meltdown and Spectre "The disclosure of security flaws in computer chips dealt Intel Corp.what seemed like a sudden crisis, but behind the scenes it and other tech companies and experts have been grappling with the problem for months," the Wall Street Journal reports on the front page: "Apple ... became the latest tech giant to acknowledge it was affected by the vulnerabilities. The company said all iPhones, iPads and Mac computers were exposed, and that it already issued updates to fix the flaws." the latest tech giant to acknowledge it was affected by the vulnerabilities. The company said all iPhones, iPads and Mac computers were exposed, and that it already issued updates to fix the flaws." "The flaws, which could allow hackers to pilfer sensitive information like passwords, affect most modern chips from an array of companies." "Nonetheless, the impact on Intel is likely to be minimal ... Intel said it expects by the end of next week to have issued software updates for more than 90% of processors introduced in the past five years." which could allow hackers to pilfer sensitive information like passwords, affect most modern chips from an array of companies." Why it matters: "The issue called into question the security of Intel's products, and requires many customers to take action to protect their systems." "It also highlights how the growing complexity in chips and the software that runs on them makes them difficult to lock down and allows them to harbor flaws that can go undetected for years." "The issue called into question the security of Intel's products, and requires many customers to take action to protect their systems." Go deeper: Axios' Ina Fried on the chip vulnerability 5. Global economy absorbs Trump "2017 turned out to be the global economy's best year since 2010, according to the International Monetary Fund, and 2018 looks even better," the WashPost's David Lynch writes on A1: The takeaway: "[T]he contrast between Trump's inflammatory rhetoric and the placid economic scene is striking." "Investors and corporate executives ... have learned to cope with an unpredictable president, often by ignoring his most provocative statements." "[T]he contrast between Trump's inflammatory rhetoric and the placid economic scene is striking." The big picture : "Economics dominated politics last year outside the United States, too. In Europe, fears that ascendant populism in Britain, Poland, and Hungary would destabilize the E.U. proved exaggerated. And in Asia, prosperity surged despite rising tensions on the Korean Peninsula." : "Economics dominated politics last year outside the United States, too. In Europe, fears that ascendant populism in Britain, Poland, and Hungary would destabilize the E.U. proved exaggerated. And in Asia, prosperity surged despite rising tensions on the Korean Peninsula." What's next: "[S]ome foreign executives are acting on concerns that the president may finally erect barriers against countries that sell more to the United States than they buy. ... Japanese companies [including] Toyota ... have stepped up investments in U.S.-based research, production and distribution." N.Y. Times Quote of the Day ... From a front-page James Stewart "Common Sense" column, "The Dow Hits 25,000: The Party Will End One Day, but When?": James Stack, a market historian and president of InvesTech Research: "A correction would be healthy. The longer we go without one, the greater the risk this will end badly." 6. Trump, GOP leaders to Camp David today The reflecting pool was frozen yesterday at the Capitol. (AP's Jose Luis Magana) Republicans have begun the year divided over whether their legislative agenda should include the use of a special budget tool (reconciliation) allowing them to pass legislation without Democrats — and whether to use it for health care or a welfare overhaul, Axios' Caitlin Owens the year divided over whether their legislative agenda should include the use of a special budget tool (reconciliation) allowing them to pass legislation without Democrats — and whether to use it for health care or a welfare overhaul, Axios' Caitlin Owens writes What to watch: This will be discussed when GOP leaders meet with President Trump at Camp David beginning this afternoon. This will be discussed when GOP leaders meet with President Trump at Camp David beginning this afternoon. The takeaway: While Speaker Ryan is eager to tackle welfare and entitlements, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has said it's not happening. 7. Fears of weed crackdown by feds "The buzz kill long dreaded in the marijuana industry came just days after California opened what is expected to be the world's largest legal pot market," AP long dreaded in the marijuana industry came just days after California opened what is expected to be the world's largest legal pot market," AP reports from L.A. "The Trump administration announced ... that it was ending an Obama-era policy to tread lightly on enforcing U.S. marijuana laws." announced ... that it was ending an Obama-era policy to tread lightly on enforcing U.S. marijuana laws." "The declaration renewed anxiety, confusion and uncertainty that has long shadowed the bright green leafy drug still forbidden under federal law but now legal in a majority of states as medicine and in a handful of those for recreational purposes." anxiety, confusion and uncertainty that has long shadowed the bright green leafy drug still forbidden under federal law but now legal in a majority of states as medicine and in a handful of those for recreational purposes." Why it matters: "The action by Attorney General Jeff Sessions was not unexpected given his longtime opposition to pot, but comes at a heady time for the industry as retail pot sales rolled out New Year's Day in California." What's next: Citing states' rights, Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.), chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said he found Sessions' announcement "extremely alarming," and said he was prepared to place a hold on Justice Department nominees." A DoJ source: "Cory Gardner can change federal law; the Department of Justice cannot." 8. "My personal challenge for 2018" Facebook screenshot Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced his announced his 2018 personal challenge : "fixing" the platform he created so that "we'll end 2018 on a much better trajectory." Zuckerberg wrote that when he announced his first challenge in 2009, "the economy was in a deep recession and Facebook was not yet profitable. We needed to get serious about making sure Facebook had a sustainable business model. It was a serious year, and I wore a tie every day as a reminder." that when he announced his first challenge in 2009, "the economy was in a deep recession and Facebook was not yet profitable. We needed to get serious about making sure Facebook had a sustainable business model. It was a serious year, and "Today feels a lot like that first year. The world feels anxious and divided, and Facebook has a lot of work to do — whether it's protecting our community from abuse and hate, defending against interference by nation states, or making sure that time spent on Facebook is time well spent." a lot like that first year. and Facebook has a lot of work to do — whether it's protecting our community from abuse and hate, defending against interference by nation states, or making sure that time spent on Facebook is time well spent." What's next: The issues facing Facebook "touch on questions of history, civics, political philosophy, media, government, and of course technology. I'm looking forward to bringing groups of experts together to discuss and help work through these topics." Why it matters: Zuckerberg's post is the latest indication that Facebook leaders recognize that misuse of the platform during the 2016 election — including fake news, and infiltration by Russian manipulators — are no passing blip, and require fixes from the top. Facebook execs tell us they plan to change without waiting for legislation, and this is a sign of that. tell us they plan to change without waiting for legislation, and this is a sign of that. Go deeper: See Zuckerberg's full post. For each of us: What's your singular personal challenge for 2018? If you have an interesting one, shoot me a note at mike@axios.com (or must reply to this email!), and I'll share your idea with other AMers. 9. New overnight: Sports talker Robert Kraft, owner and CEO of the New England Patriots, head coach Bill Belichick and Tom Brady celebrate a year ago at the AFC Championship Game in Foxboro, Mass. (Photo by Maddie Meyer/Getty Images) Power struggle at Foxboro: "For Kraft, Brady and Belichick, is this the beginning of the end?" by ESPN The Magazine senior writer Seth Wickersham: "[T]he three most powerful people in the franchise — [coach Bill] Belichick, [QB Tom] Brady and owner Robert Kraft — have had serious disagreements." people in the franchise — [coach Bill] Belichick, [QB Tom] Brady and owner Robert Kraft — have had serious disagreements." "They differ on Brady's trainer, body coach and business partner Alex Guerrero; over the team's long-term plans at quarterback; over Belichick's bracing coaching style; and most of all, over who will be the last man standing." on Brady's trainer, body coach and business partner Alex Guerrero; over the team's long-term plans at quarterback; over Belichick's bracing coaching style; and most of all, over who will be the last man standing." Why it matters: "Those interviewed describe a palpable sense in the building that this might be the last year together for this group." "Those interviewed describe a palpable sense in the building that this might be the "Kraft, Brady and Belichick were supposed to meet in late December to clear the air, but that never happened. It probably won't until after the season. Those interviewed describe a lingering sadness around the team, as if coaches and staff know that the end might be near." were supposed to meet in late December to clear the air, but that never happened. It probably won't until after the season. Those interviewed describe a lingering sadness around the team, as if coaches and staff know that A classic Brady moment ... In a legendary playoff game, the Snow Bowl in 2002 (the Tuck Rule Game), when the Patriots played the Raiders in the snow, Brady once recalled in an NFL Films interview that "he took the field for warm-ups wearing a sleeveless T-shirt in the thick snow. He was 24 years old, at the beginning of a career only he saw coming. He wanted to send a message to everyone watching that nobody was tougher, both mentally and physically, than this California kid." In a legendary playoff game, the Snow Bowl in 2002 (the Tuck Rule Game), when the Patriots played the Raiders in the snow, Brady once recalled in an NFL Films interview that "he took the field for warm-ups wearing a sleeveless T-shirt in the thick snow. He was 24 years old, at the beginning of a career only he saw coming. He wanted to send a message to everyone watching that nobody was tougher, both mentally and physically, than this California kid." Worthy of your time. ||||| On Wednesday night, I received a phone call from Anthony Scaramucci, the new White House communications director. He wasn’t happy. Earlier in the night, I’d tweeted, citing a “senior White House official,” that Scaramucci was having dinner at the White House with President Trump, the First Lady, Sean Hannity, and the former Fox News executive Bill Shine. It was an interesting group, and raised some questions. Was Trump getting strategic advice from Hannity? Was he considering hiring Shine? But Scaramucci had his own question—for me. “Who leaked that to you?” he asked. I said I couldn’t give him that information. He responded by threatening to fire the entire White House communications staff. “What I’m going to do is, I will eliminate everyone in the comms team and we’ll start over,” he said. I laughed, not sure if he really believed that such a threat would convince a journalist to reveal a source. He continued to press me and complain about the staff he’s inherited in his new job. “I ask these guys not to leak anything and they can’t help themselves,” he said. “You’re an American citizen, this is a major catastrophe for the American country. So I’m asking you as an American patriot to give me a sense of who leaked it.” In Scaramucci’s view, the fact that word of the dinner had reached a reporter was evidence that his rivals in the West Wing, particularly Reince Priebus, the White House chief of staff, were plotting against him. While they have publicly maintained that there is no bad blood between them, Scaramucci and Priebus have been feuding for months. After the election, Trump asked Scaramucci to join his Administration, and Scaramucci sold his company, SkyBridge Capital, in anticipation of taking on a senior role. But Priebus didn’t want him in the White House, and successfully blocked him from being appointed to a job until last week, when Trump offered him the communications job over Priebus’s vehement objections. In response to Scaramucci’s appointment, Sean Spicer, an ally of Priebus’s, resigned his position as press secretary. And in an additional slight to Priebus, the White House’s official announcement of Scaramucci’s hiring noted that he would report directly to the President, rather than to the chief of staff. Scaramucci’s first public appearance as communications director was a slick and conciliatory performance at the lectern in the White House briefing room last Friday. He suggested it was time for the White House to turn a page. But since then, he has become obsessed with leaks and threatened to fire staffers if he discovers that they have given unauthorized information to reporters. Michael Short, a White House press aide considered close to Priebus, resigned on Tuesday after Scaramucci publicly spoke about firing him. Meanwhile, several damaging stories about Scaramucci have appeared in the press, and he blamed Priebus for most of them. Now, he wanted to know whom I had been talking to about his dinner with the President. Scaramucci, who initiated the call, did not ask for the conversation to be off the record or on background. “Is it an assistant to the President?” he asked. I again told him I couldn’t say. “O.K., I’m going to fire every one of them, and then you haven’t protected anybody, so the entire place will be fired over the next two weeks.” I asked him why it was so important for the dinner to be kept a secret. Surely, I said, it would become public at some point. “I’ve asked people not to leak things for a period of time and give me a honeymoon period,” he said. “They won’t do it.” He was getting more and more worked up, and he eventually convinced himself that Priebus was my source. “They’ll all be fired by me,” he said. “I fired one guy the other day. I have three to four people I’ll fire tomorrow. I’ll get to the person who leaked that to you. Reince Priebus—if you want to leak something—he’ll be asked to resign very shortly.” The issue, he said, was that he believed Priebus had been worried about the dinner because he hadn’t been invited. “Reince is a fucking paranoid schizophrenic, a paranoiac,” Scaramucci said. He channelled Priebus as he spoke: “ ‘Oh, Bill Shine is coming in. Let me leak the fucking thing and see if I can cock-block these people the way I cock-blocked Scaramucci for six months.’ ” (Priebus did not respond to a request for comment.) Scaramucci was particularly incensed by a Politico report about his financial-disclosure form, which he viewed as an illegal act of retaliation by Priebus. The reporter said Thursday morning that the document was publicly available and she had obtained it from the Export-Import Bank. Scaramucci didn’t know this at the time, and he insisted to me that Priebus had leaked the document, and that the act was “a felony.” “I’ve called the F.B.I. and the Department of Justice,” he told me. “Are you serious?” I asked. “The swamp will not defeat him,” he said, breaking into the third person. “They’re trying to resist me, but it’s not going to work. I’ve done nothing wrong on my financial disclosures, so they’re going to have to go fuck themselves.” Scaramucci also told me that, unlike other senior officials, he had no interest in media attention. “I’m not Steve Bannon, I’m not trying to suck my own cock,” he said, speaking of Trump’s chief strategist. “I’m not trying to build my own brand off the fucking strength of the President. I’m here to serve the country.” (Bannon declined to comment.) He reiterated that Priebus would resign soon, and he noted that he told Trump that he expected Priebus to launch a campaign against him. “He didn’t get the hint that I was reporting directly to the President,” he said. “And I said to the President here are the four or five things that he will do to me.” His list of allegations included leaking the Hannity dinner and the details from his financial-disclosure form. I got the sense that Scaramucci’s campaign against leakers flows from his intense loyalty to Trump. Unlike other Trump advisers, I’ve never heard him say a bad word about the President. “What I want to do is I want to fucking kill all the leakers and I want to get the President’s agenda on track so we can succeed for the American people,” he told me. He cryptically suggested that he had more information about White House aides. “O.K., the Mooch showed up a week ago,” he said. “This is going to get cleaned up very shortly, O.K.? Because I nailed these guys. I’ve got digital fingerprints on everything they’ve done through the F.B.I. and the fucking Department of Justice.” “What?” I interjected. “Well, the felony, they’re gonna get prosecuted, probably, for the felony.” He added, “The lie detector starts—” but then he changed the subject and returned to what he thought was the illegal leak of his financial-disclosure forms. I asked if the President knew all of this. “Well, he doesn’t know the extent of all that, he knows about some of that, but he’ll know about the rest of it first thing tomorrow morning when I see him.” Scaramucci said he had to get going. “Yeah, let me go, though, because I’ve gotta start tweeting some shit to make this guy crazy.” Minutes later, he tweeted, “In light of the leak of my financial info which is a felony. I will be contacting @FBI and the @TheJusticeDept #swamp @Reince45.” With the addition of Priebus’s Twitter handle, he was making public what he had just told me: that he believed Priebus was leaking information about him. The tweet quickly went viral. Scaramucci seemed to have second thoughts. Within two hours he deleted the original tweet and posted a new one denying that he was targeting the chief of staff. “Wrong!” he said, adding a screenshot of an Axios article that said, “Scaramucci appears to want Priebus investigated by FBI.” Scaramucci continued, “Tweet was public notice to leakers that all Sr Adm officials are helping to end illegal leaks. @Reince45.” A few hours later, I appeared on CNN to discuss the overnight drama. As I was talking about Scaramucci, he called into the show himself and referenced our conversation. He changed his story about Priebus. Instead of saying that he was trying to expose Priebus as a leaker, he said that the reason he mentioned Priebus in his deleted tweet was because he wanted to work together with Priebus to discover the leakers. “He’s the chief of staff, he’s responsible for understanding and uncovering and helping me do that inside the White House, which is why I put that tweet out last night,” Scaramucci said, after noting that he had talked to me Wednesday night. He then made an argument that journalists were assuming that he was accusing Priebus because they know Priebus leaks to the press. “When I put out a tweet, and I put Reince’s name in the tweet,” he said, “they’re all making the assumption that it’s him because journalists know who the leakers are. So, if Reince wants to explain that he’s not a leaker, let him do that.” Scaramucci then made a plea to viewers. “Let me tell you something about myself,” he said. “I am a straight shooter.” More: David Remnick and Ryan Lizza listen back to audio of the phone call from Anthony Scaramucci. David Remnick on why Scaramucci’s attack on Priebus and Bannon matters.

– Just how foul-mouthed was Anthony Scaramucci's tirade against his West Wing enemies? The Guardian is running a who-said-it quiz pitting his quotes against those of the comically foul-mouthed staff from Veep. In the immediate aftermath of the story going public on Thursday, Scaramucci tweeted a mea culpa of sorts, promising to refrain from such "colorful language" in the future. And two hours after that, he suggested that he thought he was off the record. "I made a mistake in trusting in a reporter," he tweeted. "It won't happen again." Fox News' Sean Hannity backed up the latter point: "He told me he thought it was off the record," Hannity said on his Thursday night show, per the Washington Examiner. However, both the reporter involved and his publication, the New Yorker, dispute that. "Scaramucci, who initiated the call, did not ask for the conversation to be off the record or on background," Ryan Lizza wrote in the original story. And a spokesperson for the magazine tells Axios that "Scaramucci was clear and agreed that the conversation was on the record." Neither of Scaramucci's main targets, Reince Priebus and Steve Bannon, have responded publicly. But Bannon's former publication, Breitbart, offers a theory: "There is absolutely no way that Scaramucci could be stupid enough to make those comments on the record, so Scaramucci, in a fit of rage about leaks about him, may have temporarily forgotten he was on the record." Either that, or he figured Lizza wouldn't run the volatile stuff. The piece also warns that Scaramucci will be in trouble with President Trump if the president thinks he'll damage the Trump brand.

Koch: We’ll back you any way we can. What we were thinking about the crowd was, uh, was planting some troublemakers. Walker: You know, well, the only problem with that —because we thought about that. The problem—the, my only gut reaction to that is right now the lawmakers I’ve talked to have just completely had it with them, the public is not really fond of this […] Walker: [...] I went on “Morning Joe” this morning. I like it because I just like being combative with those guys, but, uh. You know they’re off the deep end. Koch: Joe—Joe’s a good guy. He’s one of us. Walker: Yeah, he’s all right. He was fair to me…[bashes NY Senator Chuck Schumer, who was also on the program.] Koch: Beautiful; beautiful. You gotta love that Mika Brzezinski; she’s a real piece of ass. Walker: Oh yeah. ||||| The call made by a Buffalo blogger pretending to be billionaire right-wing activist David Koch to Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker is quickly making an impact on the news cycle. (You can listen to the call on YouTube: Part 1 | Part 2.) Walker is extremely frank with the man he believes to be an important financial supporter, both of his own campaign and right-wing causes. Below are the six most important revelations we learn from listening to the Governor speak his mind. 1. Walker and the Senate Republicans are conspiring to withhold Democratic lawmakers' paychecks. A minute into the call, Governor Walker describes a plan by the Senate Majority Leader to institute a new rule that would stop automatic deductions of lawmakers' paychecks if they do not appear in the Senate for more than two days. It would require lawmakers to appear in person to collect their checks. Walker describes this as part of a plan he is working on with GOP Senators: "Each day, we're going to rachet this up a little bit." 2. Walker sees billionaire David Koch as "one of us." Two and a half minutes in, Walker is describing a conversation he had with a Democratic state lawmaker, Tim Cullen, who Walker says is the "only reasonable" one among the Democrats. When the man pretending to be Koch suggests he calls Cullen, Walker says that although Cullen is reasonable, he is not "one of us." Who is the "us" that includes Walker and out-of-state billionaire Koch, but not an elected state legislator? 3. Walker is planning to threaten state workers with layoffs. Five minutes into the call, Governor Walker says he is planning to issue between 5,000 and 6,000 "risk notices" to state workers announcing that they are at risk of being laid off. He makes this statement in the context of what he is planning to do to put pressure on Democrats to cave into his demands, not what is necessary due to the budget crunch. "If they want to start sacrificing thousands of public workers to be laid off," he says, "sooner or later there's gonna be pressure on Senators to come back. We're not going to compromise." 4. Walker has a plan to lie to Senate Democrats and pass the bill while they are not aware of the vote. Seven minutes in, Walker describes a plan created by his chief of staff to call Senate Democrats back to "hear what they have to say." While he is discussing the issues with the Democrats, the Senate would be in recess. In actuality, once Democrats come back to the state assembly, Republicans would be able to pass the bill eliminating collective bargaining rights while Walker is in discussions with Democrats. 5. Walker considered planting fake protesters to cause trouble among the real protesters. Fourteen and a half minutes in, the fake David Koch says that they are considering "planing some troublemakers" among the crowd of protesters. Walker responds with, "we thought about that." He expresses no moral objection to the plan, but says that he thinks it is the wrong strategy, because a "ruckus" would make people think he should compromise. 6. Walker is corrupt. Although early in Walker says they are investigating the Democratic Senators to see if they are committing ethics violations by accepting union funds, when the fake David Koch says he will fly Walker "out to Cali and really show you a good time," Walker responds by saying "that would be outstanding." ||||| Not since those Montreal comedians got through to Sarah Palin has a stunt like this worked, but a reporter from the Buffalo Beast, posing as David Koch, appears to have managed to get Scott Walker on the line. The alt-weekly's site is down, but you can hear the recording at Mother Jones. But they didn't actually get much from Walker, other than his assent to bizarre "Koch" statements. He does give a glimpse of his -- utterly reasonable -- strategy, including courting an independent-minded Senate Democrat who he describes as "pretty reasonable, but he's not one of us." He also tips his hand to an attempt to lure Democrats back to the state for a meeting that, even if they fled again, would allow Republicans to pass his bill. "I'm not negotiating," he said. He also clearly believes that time is on his side, and that Democrats are desperate to get out of the fix. Walker said his administration is looking into the question of whether legislators can be charged with a felony if unions are paying them "to keep them from doing their job." The call is worth a listen though, for the candid glimpse it offers at the suddenly-prominent Walker. It's also typical in that it reflects politicians willingness to give large amounts of time to rich guys whose obvious weirdness and terrible ideas are to be tolerated for the cash they put up. One other interesting bit: Walker says he talks to Ohio's John Kasich "every day." ||||| By Michelle Malkin • February 23, 2011 11:43 AM A left-wing website that specializes in pranking celebrities, pundits, and politicians — a la Howard Stern — is doing a Snoopy dance over a fake call its operatives made to GOP Gov. Scott Walker. The hoaxer pretended to be David Koch, the progs’ favorite capitalist target. I’m not going to give any direct traffic to the infamy-seekers. Here is the Memeorandum link round-up on the story. In sum, Walker talked to the poser for about 20 minutes (audio is here). Walker stood firm on his no-negotiations stance with Big Labor and talked about his already publicized efforts to bring the Dems back to the state by requiring them to collect their paychecks in person. Gov. Walker’s office put out a statement this morning: The Governor takes many calls everyday. Throughout this call the Governor maintained his appreciation for and commitment to civil discourse. He continued to say that the budget repair bill is about the budget. The phone call shows that the Governor says the same thing in private as he does in public and the lengths that others will go to disrupt the civil debate Wisconsin is having. The tapes show a strong executive focused on his job. They also show that Walker is not in deep, dark cahoots or collusion with Koch. If he were, he would have caught on quickly. But the progs will see and hear what they want to hear. And now this stunt will unleash a thousand wanna-bes trying to distract Walker for the financial/economic/union reform task at hand. Which is exactly what Big Labor wants. The means and the ends are the same: Distraction, distraction, distraction. *** Exit question: Will all those who condemned serious undercover investigations by the Right condemn the sensational buffoonery of the Left? Of. Course. Not. *** A Hot Air commenter sums it up well: “So, what we now know is that Walker has never met Koch and barely knows who he is, but even when talking privately to his supposed ‘corporate master,’ Walker doesn’t say anything that he hasn’t said in public. Yes, I am quite shocked and scandalized.”

– The phone call to Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker from a gonzo journalist pretending to be GOP donor David Koch (click for the story and audio) continues to reverberate on the left and right: Michelle Malkin: "The tapes show a strong executive focused on his job. They also show that Walker is not in deep, dark cahoots or collusion with Koch. If he were, he would have caught on quickly." David Dayen, Firedog Lake: Ordinary citizens can't get an audience with the governor, but a big donor can. "This power imbalance is at the heart of our corporate-captured government. Without a strong citizen’s movement, people like the Koch Brothers would have all the access, all the influence, and all the power. And they would get legislation written their way, protecting and furthering their interests." Gov. Scott Walker's office: "Throughout this call the Governor maintained his appreciation for and commitment to civil discourse. He continued to say that the budget repair bill is about the budget. The phone call shows that the Governor says the same thing in private as he does in public and the lengths that others will go to disrupt the civil debate Wisconsin is having.” Ben Smith, Politico: The hoaxer "actually didn't get much from Walker, other than his assent to bizarre 'Koch' statements." But it's "typical in that it reflects politicians' willingness to give large amounts of time to rich guys whose obvious weirdness and terrible ideas are to be tolerated for the cash they put up." Click for one take on the call's best revelations.

Sign in using you account with: {* loginWidget *} Sign in using your wsbtv profile Welcome back. Please sign in Why are we asking this? By submitting your registration information, you agree to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy . Already have an account? We have sent a confirmation email to {* data_emailAddress *}. Please check your email and click on the link to activate your account. Thank you for registering! Thank you for registering! We look forward to seeing you on [website] frequently. Visit us and sign in to update your profile, receive the latest news and keep up to date with mobile alerts. Click here to return to the page you were visiting. ||||| A DeKalb County law enforcement officer talks to a person inside a guest room at the United Inn and Suites Hotel Saturday, May 12, 2018, in Decatur, Ga. Officers were called out to investigate a dead... (Associated Press) A DeKalb County law enforcement officer talks to a person inside a guest room at the United Inn and Suites Hotel Saturday, May 12, 2018, in Decatur, Ga. Officers were called out to investigate a dead body found inside a room that had a strong chemical smell which began to make the officers sick resulting... (Associated Press) DECATUR, Ga. (AP) — Police outside Atlanta said three officers will recover after being sickened by chemicals Saturday in a motel room where a body was found. Dekalb County Police spokeswoman Shiera Campbell says the three hospitalized officers are conscious and alert. She also told the Atlanta Journal Constitution that the guest's death at the extended-stay motel is not being treated as a homicide. Police think the chemical killed the man, but they don't know yet what chemical it is, or whether the man was exposed accidentally or on purpose. Fire Capt. Eric Jackson said samples of a substance were recovered by a hazardous materials crew. An autopsy will be performed by the medical examiner. "Something in there made the officers sick," Jackson said. "We have no idea what, none whatsoever."

– The FBI has identified the chemicals that made three Atlanta-area cops sick in a motel room where a body was found Saturday. Per WSB-TV, the police officers were sickened by a combination of household cleaning agents, though they were not specified. The DeKalb County police said Sunday that the officers were released after being treated at a hospital overnight. Police spokeswoman Shiera Campbell also said the guest's death at the extended-stay motel is not being treated as a homicide, the AP reports. Police think the chemical combination killed the man, but they don't know yet whether he was exposed accidentally or on purpose. The officers reported feeling dizzy and nauseous after contact with the agent. Fire Capt. Eric Jackson said samples of a substance were recovered by a hazardous materials crew. The motel has since resumed normal operation. An autopsy will be performed by the medical examiner. His identity has not been made public. However, police say he was 48 years old.

PHOENIX - The focus of the Jodi Arias trial is now turning to the jurors. Some have come forward to explain their positions, while others are trying to stay anonymous, like juror 17, who has become the focus of Internet chatter. ABC15 is not releasing her name, but a little bit of investigating revealed that she may have links to the criminal justice system in Maricopa County. Her first husband has a lengthy criminal past, according to court documents. Court records show in 1998, before he married juror 17, he was charged with murder and drive-by shooting. In 2000, those charges were dropped. However, on the same day they were dropped, he pleaded guilty in a separate burglary case. He served a minimal sentence on that charge. It was only uncovered that Juan Martinez was the prosecutor in both cases. Martinez was the lead prosecutor in the Jodi Arias trial. Juror 17 and her husband married in 2001. In 2008, the husband was arrested for a burglary that ended in a police chase with shots fired. He was convicted and is now serving more than 25 years in prison. In 2010, documents show that the couple filed for divorce. Before trials, attorneys from the prosecution and the defense ask potential jury members a lot of questions, including where they work, if they know anyone involved in the case, or have any potential knowledge of the case already. On Thursday, a judge declared a mistrial in the Arias case because the jury could not reach a unanimous decision on whether or not to sentence her to death. The deadlock meant that Arias would be sentenced to life in prison. Quickly after that announcement, many took to social media to express their frustration or satisfaction with the result. The most heated came from those who were looking for a death penalty verdict. Jurors who spoke to the media revealed that they had voted 11 to 1 in favor of the death penalty. Who was the lone holdout? Apparently it was juror 17. Somehow, personal information and threats were posted online for all to see. Authorities were called in to protect this juror’s home. These new details about her ex-husband’s criminal past, and Juan Martinez’s court involvement, bring up a new question: Did Martinez know about it? Other jurors told the media that they felt juror 17 had her mind made up, admitted to seeing a Lifetime movie about Arias’ first trial, and refused to equally deliberate. Does this account for juror misconduct? Could this potentially have changed the outcome? A spokesperson for the Maricopa County Attorney's Office would not comment, but said they are investigating the reported threats. ABC15 has reached out to Arias’ defense team, but has not heard back. Former criminal defense attorney Scott Halverson said that past would create concerns during the jury selection process. He said attorneys sometimes have to do their own research regarding potential jurors. If they see a connection, they can have that potential juror removed. "You only have so many strikes," he said. "Sometimes you may have to live with it but you are always trying to make sure you don't have jurors with a bias like that." If it is determined a juror lied on a questionnaire and it can be proven, there is a chance they could be found in contempt. There is nothing at this point indicating proof that anyone lied about anything. ||||| PHOENIX (AP) — Authorities were providing security Friday for the sole juror who voted to spare the life of convicted murderer Jodi Arias. Murder victim Travis Alexander's sister Tanisha Sorenson, center right, leaves the court house after the Jodi Arias sentencing retrial in Phoenix on Thursday, March 5, 2015. Arias was spared the death... (Associated Press) Tanisha Sorenson, sister of murder victim Travis Alexander, leaves the court house, Thursday, March 5, 2015, in Phoenix. A judge declared a mistrial Thursday in the Jodi Arias sentencing retrial after... (Associated Press) Murder victim Travis Alexander's sister Tanisha Sorenson leaves the court house after the Jodi Arias sentencing retrial in Phoenix on Thursday, March 5, 2015. Arias was spared the death penalty on Thursday... (Associated Press) Jodi Arias, right, reacts as the jury leaves the courtroom after announcing the verdict in the sentencing phase of her retrial, Thursday, March 5, 2015, in Maricopa County Superior Court in Phoenix. Arias... (Associated Press) Convicted murderer Jodi Arias, center, watches jury enter courtroom before hearing their verdict Thursday, March 5, 2015, in Maricopa County Superior Court in Phoenix. Arias was spared the death penalty... (Associated Press) Jodi Arias, right, listens during her sentencing retrial, Thursday, March 5, 2015, in Maricopa County Superior Court in Phoenix. Arias was spared the death penalty on Thursday after a jury for a second... (Associated Press) Tanisha Sorenson, sister of murder victim Travis Alexander, sobs as she hears the jury verdict in the Jodi Arias sentencing phase retrial, Thursday, March 5, 2015, in Maricopa County Superior Court in... (Associated Press) Tanisha Sorenson, sister of murder victim Travis Alexander, cries as she leaves the courthouse with family and friends, Thursday, March 5, 2015, in Phoenix. A judge declared a mistrial Thursday in the... (Associated Press) No threats had been reported against any of the 12 jurors, authorities said. However, the lone holdout on the death penalty had requested the security after her name was posted on social media. Prosecutors also said they're examining whether the holdout disclosed that her husband had been prosecuted by the same county attorney who headed the case against Arias. The 2013 trial of Arias became a global sensation with its revelations about her sexual relationship with the victim and that she had slit his throat so deeply that he was nearly decapitated. She was convicted of murder but that jury deadlocked on her punishment. Prosecutors say Arias killed Alexander as revenge because he wanted to date other women and was planning a trip to Mexico with his latest love interest. The name of the holdout juror in the sentencing retrial was leaked through a Twitter account that also posted sympathetic comments about Arias' victim Travis Alexander. The juror could not be reached for comment. Meanwhile, a pro-Arias website published names of 11 people it said were the jurors who voted to sentence Arias to death for the 2008 killing. A mistrial was declared Thursday and a judge will sentence Arias on April 13 to life in prison or life with the possibility of parole after 25 years. Arizona law prohibits the public release of juror names. It's unknown how the identities were leaked, but information appeared online after jurors who favored the death penalty expressed frustrations over the holdout. Juror Emily Cova said she was relieved to hear that authorities were looking into the leak. "I was a little nervous last night. But I'm feeling better now," said Cova, who agreed to be named. Aaron Nash, a spokesman for the clerk of Maricopa County Superior Court, said no member of the clerk's staff reported being approached by anyone seeking the names of jurors. "The office's primary concerns are the safety and privacy of these individuals who responded to this difficult and lengthy call to public service," Nash said in a statement. Most of the jurors discussed their deliberations with the media on Thursday. However, the holdout hasn't publicly commented. Her phone wasn't in service. She didn't return emails seeking comment. And no one answered the door when a reporter knocked on the door to her home Friday. Officials at Maricopa County Superior Court didn't immediately return messages seeking comment. Arias will remain in the Estrella Jail in west Phoenix as she testifies in a civil case. Further information on the matter wasn't immediately available. Once her testimony is complete, Arias will be sent to prison. She'll begin her sentence in a 12-by-7 foot cell in a maximum-security unit at the Perryville prison for women, located 30 miles west of downtown Phoenix. If prison officials deem her behavior good over time, she could be moved to a medium security unit.

– The woman responsible for keeping Jodi Arias alive is officially known as juror No. 17, but authorities say that her identity has been revealed online. As a result, police are protecting her for the time being, reports the AP. Her 11 fellow jurors all voted in favor of the death penalty for Arias, convicted in the brutal murder of her boyfriend, but the woman refused to budge from her preference for a life sentence. The hung jury means that Arias won't get the death penalty. Court records show that the holdout juror is a Hispanic woman in her 30s who grew up with domestic violence and was abused by her ex-husband, reports azcentral. "Clearly this is a person with a strong personality, perhaps a person with an agenda," says the president of a jury-consulting company. Two other notable developments: One juror says the holdout claimed to have seen a Lifetime movie about the case, which prompted other jurors to ask the judge to remove her. That never happened. The woman's ex-husband is a convicted felon, and the lead prosecutor in the Arias case, Juan Martinez, handled two previous cases against him, reports ABC15. It's not clear whether the juror disclosed that connection.

A teenage North Korean soldier surrendered himself to South Korean border guards about 8am after walking across the border into Hwacheon, north-east of Seoul. “We’ve confirmed his will to defect after he reached our guard post,” said a South Korean ministry spokesman. He was under investigation by the authorities, and the ministry promised to disclose more details later. The defection sparked a tense stand-off between North and South Korean border guards across the four-kilometre-wide and 248-kilometre-long demilitarised zone, but there was no conflict, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported. Hundreds of North Koreans flee their isolated homeland each year but it is rare for defectors to cross the land border, marked by barbed wire and guarded by tens of thousands of troops on both sides. Most North Koreans who flee repression and poverty at home cross the porous frontier with China first before travelling through a south-east Asian nation and eventually arriving in South Korea. In 2012, a North Korean soldier walked unchecked through rows of electrified fencing and surveillance cameras, prompting Seoul to sack three field commanders for a security lapse. In August 2014, two North Koreans swam across the Yellow sea border to a South Korean frontline island. ||||| Seoul, South Korea (CNN) A North Korean soldier defected to South Korea on Monday across the heavily fortified border that separates the two countries, South Korean authorities said. The soldier crossed the Military Demarcation Line on foot from the eastern North Korean province of Gangwon, said a South Korean Defense Ministry official, who declined to be identified. A North Korean controller is seen along the railway line between the Pyongyang and North Pyongan provinces in April 2012. A North Korean controller is seen along the railway line between the Pyongyang and North Pyongan provinces in April 2012. Members of a North Korean military band gather following an official ceremony at the Kim Il Sung stadium in Pyongyang in April 2012. Members of a North Korean military band gather following an official ceremony at the Kim Il Sung stadium in Pyongyang in April 2012. North Korean soldiers listen to a speech during an official ceremony attended by leader Kim Jong Un at a stadium in Pyongyang in April 2012. North Korean soldiers listen to a speech during an official ceremony attended by leader Kim Jong Un at a stadium in Pyongyang in April 2012. North Korean soldiers relax at the end of an official ceremony attended by leader Kim Jong Un at a stadium in Pyongyang in April 2012. North Korean soldiers relax at the end of an official ceremony attended by leader Kim Jong Un at a stadium in Pyongyang in April 2012. A closer look at the UNHA III rocket on its launch pad in Tang Chung Ri, North Korea. – A closer look at the UNHA III rocket on its launch pad in Tang Chung Ri, North Korea. In April 2012, Pyongyang launched a long-range rocket that broke apart and fell into the sea. Here, the UNHA III rocket is pictured on its launch pad in Tang Chung Ri, North Korea. In April 2012, Pyongyang launched a long-range rocket that broke apart and fell into the sea. Here, the UNHA III rocket is pictured on its launch pad in Tang Chung Ri, North Korea. A North Korean soldier stands guard in front of an UNHA III rocket at the Tangachai-ri Space Center in April 2012. A North Korean soldier stands guard in front of an UNHA III rocket at the Tangachai-ri Space Center in April 2012. A crowd watches as statues of North Korean founder Kim Il Sung and his son Kim Jong Il are unveiled during a ceremony in Pyongyang in April 2012. A crowd watches as statues of North Korean founder Kim Il Sung and his son Kim Jong Il are unveiled during a ceremony in Pyongyang in April 2012. Kim visits the Rungna People's Pleasure Ground, under construction in Pyongyang, in a photo released in July 2012 by the KCNA. Kim visits the Rungna People's Pleasure Ground, under construction in Pyongyang, in a photo released in July 2012 by the KCNA. Kim, center, poses in this undated picture released by North Korea's official news agency in November 2012. Kim, center, poses in this undated picture released by North Korea's official news agency in November 2012. In a photo released by the official North Korean news agency in December 2012, Kim celebrates a rocket's launch with staff from the satellite control center in Pyongyang. In a photo released by the official North Korean news agency in December 2012, Kim celebrates a rocket's launch with staff from the satellite control center in Pyongyang. Soldiers in the North Korean army train at an undisclosed location in March 2013. Soldiers in the North Korean army train at an undisclosed location in March 2013. Kim arrives at Jangjae Islet by boat to meet with soldiers of the Jangjae Islet Defense Detachment in March 2013. Kim arrives at Jangjae Islet by boat to meet with soldiers of the Jangjae Islet Defense Detachment in March 2013. Kim is surrounded by soldiers during a visit to the Mu Islet Hero Defense Detachment, also near Taeyonphyong Island, in March 2013. Kim is surrounded by soldiers during a visit to the Mu Islet Hero Defense Detachment, also near Taeyonphyong Island, in March 2013. Kim is greeted by a soldier's family as he inspects the Jangjae Islet Defense Detachment in March 2013. Kim is greeted by a soldier's family as he inspects the Jangjae Islet Defense Detachment in March 2013. Kim uses a pair of binoculars to look south from the Jangjae Islet Defense Detachment, near South Korea's Taeyonphyong Island, in March 2013. Kim uses a pair of binoculars to look south from the Jangjae Islet Defense Detachment, near South Korea's Taeyonphyong Island, in March 2013. Kim, with North Korean soldiers, makes his way to an observation post in March 2013. Kim, with North Korean soldiers, makes his way to an observation post in March 2013. In this KCNA photo, Kim inspects naval drills at an undisclosed location on North Korea's east coast in March 2013. In this KCNA photo, Kim inspects naval drills at an undisclosed location on North Korea's east coast in March 2013. Kim is briefed by his generals in this undated photo. On the wall is a map titled "Plan for the strategic forces to target mainland U.S." Kim is briefed by his generals in this undated photo. On the wall is a map titled "Plan for the strategic forces to target mainland U.S." Kim visits the Ministry of People's Security in 2013 as part of the country's May Day celebrations. Kim visits the Ministry of People's Security in 2013 as part of the country's May Day celebrations. Kim inspects a military factory in this undated picture released by the KCNA in May 2013. Kim inspects a military factory in this undated picture released by the KCNA in May 2013. Kim inspects the command of an army unit in this undated photo released Sunday, January 12, by the KCNA. Kim inspects the command of an army unit in this undated photo released Sunday, January 12, by the KCNA. A photo released by the KCNA on Thursday, January 23, shows the North Korean leader inspecting an army unit during a winter drill. A photo released by the KCNA on Thursday, January 23, shows the North Korean leader inspecting an army unit during a winter drill. A North Korean soldier kicks a pole along the banks of the Yalu River on Tuesday, February 4. A North Korean soldier kicks a pole along the banks of the Yalu River on Tuesday, February 4. A North Korean soldier uses binoculars on Thursday, February 6, to look at South Korea from the border village of Panmunjom, which has separated the two Koreas since the Korean War. A North Korean soldier uses binoculars on Thursday, February 6, to look at South Korea from the border village of Panmunjom, which has separated the two Koreas since the Korean War. In this photo released Thursday, April 24, by the Korean Central News Agency, Kim smiles with female soldiers after inspecting a rocket-launching drill at an undisclosed location. In this photo released Thursday, April 24, by the Korean Central News Agency, Kim smiles with female soldiers after inspecting a rocket-launching drill at an undisclosed location. A North Korean soldier patrols the bank of the Yalu River, which separates the North Korean town of Sinuiju from the Chinese border town of Dandong, on Saturday, April 26. A North Korean soldier patrols the bank of the Yalu River, which separates the North Korean town of Sinuiju from the Chinese border town of Dandong, on Saturday, April 26. A picture released by the KCNA shows Kim and his wife watching a performance by the Moranbong Band on Wednesday, September 3, in Pyongyang. A picture released by the KCNA shows Kim and his wife watching a performance by the Moranbong Band on Wednesday, September 3, in Pyongyang. This undated photo, released Tuesday, October 14, by the KCNA, shows Kim inspecting a housing complex in Pyongyang, North Korea. International speculation about Kim went into overdrive after he failed to attend events on Friday, October 10, the 65th anniversary of the Workers' Party. He hadn't been seen in public since he reportedly attended a concert with his wife on September 3. This undated photo, released Tuesday, October 14, by the KCNA, shows Kim inspecting a housing complex in Pyongyang, North Korea. International speculation about Kim went into overdrive after he failed to attend events on Friday, October 10, the 65th anniversary of the Workers' Party. He hadn't been seen in public since he reportedly attended a concert with his wife on September 3. Kim sits in the pilot's seat of a fighter jet during the inspection. Kim sits in the pilot's seat of a fighter jet during the inspection. Kim is seen walking with a cane in this image released Thursday, October 30, by the state-run Korean Central News Agency. Kim is seen walking with a cane in this image released Thursday, October 30, by the state-run Korean Central News Agency. A picture released by the North Korean Central News Agency shows North Korean leader Kim Jong Un appearing without his cane at an event with military commanders in Pyongyang on Tuesday, November 4. Kim, who recently disappeared from public view for about six weeks, had a cyst removed from his right ankle, a lawmaker told CNN. Kim speaks during a meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea in Pyongyang, North Korea, in this photo released February 19 by the state-run Korean Central News Agency. Kim speaks during a meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea in Pyongyang, North Korea, in this photo released February 19 by the state-run Korean Central News Agency. Kim inspects a drill for seizing an island at an undisclosed location in North Korea in an undated picture released by North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency on February 21. Kim inspects a drill for seizing an island at an undisclosed location in North Korea in an undated picture released by North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency on February 21. Kim visits the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun in Pyongyang, North Korea, on April 15 to celebrate the 103rd birth anniversary of his grandfather, North Korean founder Kim Il Sung. Kim visits the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun in Pyongyang, North Korea, on April 15 to celebrate the 103rd birth anniversary of his grandfather, North Korean founder Kim Il Sung. Kim Jong Un, center, poses with soldiers on the snow-covered top of Mount Paektu in an April 18 photo released by South Korean news agency Yonhap. Kim Jong Un, center, poses with soldiers on the snow-covered top of Mount Paektu in an April 18 photo released by South Korean news agency Yonhap. Kim stands on the snow-covered top of Mount Paektu in North Korea in a photo taken by North Korean newspaper Rodong Sinmun on April 18 and released the next day by South Korean news agency Yonhap. Kim scaled the country's highest mountain, North Korean state-run media reported, arriving at the summit to tell soldiers that the hike provides mental energy more powerful than nuclear weapons. Kim stands on the snow-covered top of Mount Paektu in North Korea in a photo taken by North Korean newspaper Rodong Sinmun on April 18 and released the next day by South Korean news agency Yonhap. Kim scaled the country's highest mountain, North Korean state-run media reported, arriving at the summit to tell soldiers that the hike provides mental energy more powerful than nuclear weapons. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un meets with North Korea's first female fighter jet pilots in this undated photo released by the country's state media on Monday, June 22. He called the women "heroes of Korea" and "flowers of the sky." North Korean leader Kim Jong Un meets with North Korea's first female fighter jet pilots in this undated photo released by the country's state media on Monday, June 22. He called the women "heroes of Korea" and "flowers of the sky." Further details on the circumstances of the defection weren't immediately available. There was no reaction to the news on North Korean state media. The border between North and South Korea is considered to be the most heavily militarized in the world. The two countries technically remain at war, because the 1950-53 Korean War ended in an armed truce and not a peace treaty. North Korean soldiers have occasionally made it across the highly sensitive zone in the past. In 2012, one managed to cross the border unnoticed and knock on the door of a South Korean barracks, embarrassing the South Korean military and prompting a public apology from the defense minister at the time for the security lapse. But defections directly across the border from North to South Korea are rare. Defection harder under Kim Jong Un Most people attempt to flee the impoverished, oppressively ruled North by crossing the more open border into China and then trying to make their way to South Korea through other countries. More than 26,000 refugees from the North have reached the South since the end of the Korean War, according to the Unification Ministry in Seoul. The vast majority of them arrived during the past 15 years. But defection has become harder in recent years, the Unification Ministry says, and the number of people doing it has fallen significantly since Kim Jong Un succeeded his father as the North Korean leader. North Korea says it's willing to talk Separately, North Korea on Monday said it was willing to hold talks with the South -- but with conditions attached. "If an atmosphere of trust and reconciliation is created between North and South Korea, there is no reason not to hold dialogue and negotiation between the two sides," a North Korean government statement carried by state media said. The conditions it set out included its often repeated call for South Korea to stop holding joint military exercises with the United States, a request that Seoul and Washington have consistently dismissed. 2 South Koreans to be released Pyongyang also told Seoul on Monday that it plans to release two South Korean citizens this week, according to the South Korean Unification Ministry. North Korea said the two South Koreans -- a man in his late 50s with the surname Lee, and a woman in her early 50s with the surname Jin -- illegally entered North Korea on May 11. North Korea detained them the same month. The South Korean government said it believes the two went missing while traveling in China near the North Korean border. It expects to collect them Wednesday morning at Panmunjom, the "truce village" that straddles the border between the two Koreas. ||||| SEOUL, South Korea — A North Korean soldier defected to South Korea on Monday, walking across the countries’ shared border, which is so heavily guarded that only a few refugees from the North have managed to cross it in recent years, South Korean officials said. The soldier, in his late teens, presented himself at a South Korean guard post inside the southern half of the 2.5-mile-wide Demilitarized Zone that separates the rival countries, said a Defense Ministry spokesman, who spoke on the customary condition of anonymity. North Korean soldiers usually serve for 10 years, starting from age 17. The soldier told South Korean officials that he decided to defect because of widespread beatings and other abuse within the North Korean military, the spokesman said. The soldier defected through the central border near Hwacheon, a South Korean town northeast of Seoul, the capital, the spokesman said. “It did not trigger an exchange of fire between the two sides,” the spokesman said. Other details of the defection were not immediately available. More than 28,000 North Koreans have fled to South Korea since a widespread famine hit their isolated and impoverished country in the late 1990s. Nearly all of them traveled through China. But a handful of North Koreans have also defected through the Demilitarized Zone, which is guarded by minefields and guard posts, as well as tall fences topped with barbed wire, some of them electrified. The soldier was the first North Korean serviceman to defect to the South in three years. In 2012, a North Korean soldier scaled three barbed-wire fences and knocked on doors of the barracks of South Korean border guards. The same year, another North Korean soldier fled across the border after killing his platoon and squadron leaders. Last year, two North Korean men, both civilians, swam to a South Korean island near the countries’ disputed sea border off the west coast. Since he took power in late 2011, the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, has tightened patrols on his country’s border with China in an attempt to turn off the steady stream of refugees. The number of North Korean defectors arriving in South Korea plummeted to 1,397 last year from 2,706 in 2011. In the first five months of this year, 535 North Korean defectors arrived in South Korea, according to the Unification Ministry of South Korea. Also on Monday, in a rare conciliatory gesture, North Korea said that it would repatriate two South Koreans held in the North. The two, a 59-year-old man and a 51-year-old woman, will be handed over on Wednesday through the border village of Panmunjom, officials in Seoul said. They said they would interrogate the two, once they were returned, to find out how they ended up in the North. They were recently reported missing in China, according to the Unification Ministry of the South. North Korea is still holding at least four other South Koreans, some of them on espionage charges. In 2013, it returned six South Koreans it had held on charges of illegal entry. ||||| Image copyright AFP Image caption Most North Korean defectors cross over into China then make their way to South Korea A North Korean soldier has walked across one of the world's most heavily militarised borders to defect to the South, officials say. The teenager approached a South Korean guard post in north-eastern Hwacheon in the demilitarised zone (DMZ) on Monday, South Korea's defence ministry said. There was no exchange of fire and the soldier is now being held in custody. It is extremely rare for defectors to walk across the DMZ. The last time it happened was in 2012. Most defectors cross over into China, then make their way through South East Asia and then into South Korea. 'Through a wire fence': Kevin Kim, BBC News, Seoul Image copyright AFP Of the nearly 28,000 North Koreans who have resettled in the South, most of them left the country through the border with China, and not through the DMZ. This is because the 250km-(155 mile)-long demilitarized zone is heavily guarded, littered with anti-personnel landmines. The last time a North Korean soldier defected through the wire fence was in October 2012, when a soldier managed to cross undetected. This was a huge embarrassment for the South Korean military and steps were taken to strengthen border security. Recently, there has been increased activity by North Korean soldiers in the DMZ and some believe the North has been trying to make defections more difficult. The DMZ is fortified with landmines and barbed wire and guarded by tens of thousands of troops on both side. Hundreds of North Koreans flee poverty and a repressive regime at home each year. In August last year, two North Koreans swam across the Yellow Sea border to a South Korean island.

– For the first time in three years, a North Korean soldier has defected to the South after walking through the 2.5-mile-wide Demilitarized Zone that separates the two countries. South Korea's defense ministry says a teenager reached a South Korean guard post today in Hwacheon and was taken into custody, per CNN. The DMZ is among the world's most heavily militarized borders, guarded by tens of thousands of soldiers on either side, and strewn with land mines, electric fences, and barbed wire, reports the BBC. Most defectors leave North Korea via China before making their way to South Korea to avoid crossing the zone. AFP reports the defection "sparked a tense stand-off between North and South Korean border guards," but there was no exchange of fire. "We've confirmed his will to defect after he reached our guard post," a ministry rep says. The Unification Ministry of South Korea says 535 North Koreans have defected to the South this year, but their number has fallen dramatically since Kim Jong Un came to power; the New York Times reports 1,397 defected last year, down from 2,706 in 2011. Though North Korea hasn't addressed the defection, it did announce today that it would release two South Korean citizens it said illegally entered North Korea on May 11, reports CNN. South Korea believes the pair, a male and a female, went missing while traveling near the North Korean border in China. (The last defector to cross the DMZ said he killed two superiors.)

Right now, wildfires of "epic proportions" are tearing through the Colorado forests. Thousands of federal firefighters charged with taming the blazes do not have health insurance. That includes 27-year-old John Lauer. He's a member of a Colorado-based "hotshot" crew, one of the teams of the most skilled federal fighters that gets deployed where fires are the worst. In six years, he has fought fires in Utah, Colorado, Washington, Oregon, South Dakota, Nebraska, Minnesota - "Pretty much every state west of the Mississippi," Lauer says. "Alaska too, once." Of all the jobs where you might want health insurance, firefighting near certainly ranks near the top of the list. Firefighters spend two-week shifts working 18 hour days in dangerous conditions. Some develop breathing problems due to smoke inhalation. But many federal firefighters are temporary employees, who only work six months out of the year (although as Lauer describes it, they can often work a full year's worth of hours with the long shifts). Under federal regulations, temporary employees of the Forest Service do not receive benefits. That means no health care and no retirement pension. "A lot of them are not making a lot," says Bill Dougan, president of the National Federal of Federal Employees. "The only way they can afford insurance is if they have a spouse that might be able to get coverage under an employer. In some places that's not an option." Dougan's group represents all temporary federal firefighters; he estimates there are about 15,000 to 20,000 of them. He worked himself as a firefighter for three decades before coming into his current position. He remembers being stationed in Eastern Washington, in the 1970s, and paying for his son's birth out of pocket. "God forbid there were any outstanding issues," says Dougan. "I don't know how we would have paid for it." The Affordable Care Act--if survives the Supreme Court Thursday--could help. It would guarantee access to health insurance for a firefighter who, for example, might have bronchitis. Many earn relatively low salaries, about $25,000 to $35,000 per year, meaning they would qualify for subsidies. If the law gets overturned, however, the firefighters stay in the same situation they've been in all along: Working a dangerous job and unable to afford coverage. Lauer counts himself among the lucky ones on his crew; he has never had any serious health care needs. He skips out on preventive care, like regular check-ups, but hasn't seen much harm. He's looked at buying insurance but says it's too expensive. Annual premiums for an individual policy hover around $2,777 in Colorado. "It's pretty pricey unless you can buy into a group policy," he says. The other guys on his crew have not been as lucky. Many are in their late 20s, and starting families. He's a godfather to one of his coworker's son, Rudy, who was born prematurely. He now has $70,000 in outstanding medical bills. Another friend is looking at $40,000 for some specialized tests on his newborn. "He's my godson, kind of family to me, and it just feels really unfair," Lauer says. "I've seen all the stuff his father does. We're dispatched from 6 a.m. until 10:30 p.m. Then we're sleeping in the dirt. It can make you feel kind of haggard at times." Lauer has taken some steps to try and change that. Earlier this month he started circulating a petition on Change.org in support of health benefits for firefighters. It has about 112,000 signatures so far. Here in the District, there's some action too: Dougan's group is drafting legislation that would give the Forest Service the authority to transfer some employees from temporary to permanent. That wouldn't solve all the problems--the transfer would still be at the department's discretion--but Dougan thinks it's a step in the right direction. The bill would also let temporary employees compete for new permanent positions, often only opened up to those who are already permanent employees. He estimates that extending these benefits would cost about $12 million annually. "When you look at the total budget, the federal government doesn’t have calculators that round off that," Dougan says. That legislation is probably a far way off: Dougan's group has not finished drafting the language. It certainly won't come into effect this fire season. That means Lauer and his team will spend another summer fighting blazes without coverage, and keeping their fingers crossed for the best. "It's one of the things all temporary firefighters talk about," Lauer says of the lack of health coverage. "As soon as you get out there, you become well aware there are no benefits. But you just keep going about your job, and doing what you're being paid to do." ||||| John Lauer has been fighting fires for 6 years, all without health care. After he started his petition, more than 126,000 people joined him to ask Obama for health care for wildland firefighters. And he won! On July 10, President Obama announced that he would direct federal agencies to ensure that wildland firefighters like John qualify for health care coverage. You can watch the video John recorded to say THANK YOU to everybody who signed his petition here: http://youtu.be/gF1UXtb82Co Right now, wild fires are raging in New Mexico, Colorado and Arizona. And more are sure to come. I'm a part of a hotshot crew of firefighters. We are on call to go anywhere, at any time to fight fires in our country. It's intense work, but my crew is like my family and we are all committed to serving our communities. Because wildfire is more common from May to October, most of us are seasonally employed. More than 90% of us return year after year and we often work the equivalent of a full year in 6-7 months. Despite this -- and despite putting our lives on the line every day- we still don’t have the opportunity to buy into a government health care plan even at the most basic level. This is because we are classified as temporary workers. I have been a wildland firefighter for 6 years and I still don't have health insurance, but I'm one of the lucky ones. Just in my own hotshot crew, I've seen the damage and suffering this lack of coverage can produce. My godson, Rudy, was born prematurely. Rudy’s dad, a fellow firefighter, was stuck with $70,000 worth of hospital bills that he and his wife couldn’t pay back. All because the federal government won’t allow him to access health insurance. Another crew member’s child, who was born even more recently, required special attention in the hospital and his parents’ are now facing a $40,000 in medical bills. Wildland firefighters face enormous risks in order to serve and protect our communities. In the past 12 years, 179 wildland firefighters have been killed in the line of duty, and the conditions of the firefighting environment have been linked to cancer and permanent lung damage. We want federal legislation that gives us that option, but we know that Congress can be slow moving. That's why we are asking President Obama to extend health coverage benefits to seasonal wildland firefighters. Baby Rudy doesn’t deserve to be born into debt -- his father is a hero. -------------- Also check us out on facebook at facebook.com/hotshothealthcare You can also follow us on Twitter at @hotshotf Thanks! --------------- Federal Employees: You have a right to sign this. Click here to read legal permission from the Office of Special Council. The Hatch Act (5 U.S.C. §§ 7321-7326) governs the political activity of federal civilian executive branch employees. The Act permits most covered employees to actively participate in partisan political management and partisan political campaigns. Employees, however, are prohibited from: using their official authority or influence for the purpose of affecting the result of an election; knowingly soliciting, accepting or receiving political contributions from any person; being candidates for public office in partisan elections; and knowingly soliciting or discouraging the political activity of any individual with business before their employing office. 5 U.S.C. § 7323(a)(1)-(4). The Hatch Act also prohibits employees from engaging in political activity while on duty, in a government building, while wearing an official uniform or insignia, or using a government vehicle. 5 U.S.C. § 7324. Political activity has been defined as activity directed toward the success or failure of a political party, candidate for a partisan political office or partisan political group. 5 C.F.R. § 734.101. However, the Hatch Act does not prohibit covered employees from engaging in nonpartisan political activities. In upholding the constitutionality of the Hatch Act, the Supreme Court observed that “[i]t is only partisan political activity that is interdicted . . . Expressions, public or private, on public affairs, personalities and matters of public interest, not an objective of party action, are unrestricted by law so long as the Government employee does not direct his activities toward party success.” United Public Workers of America v. Mitchell, 330 U.S. 75, 100 (1947) (emphasis added); see also, Civil Serv. Comm’n v. National Ass’n of Letter Carriers, 413 U.S. 548, 556 (1973); S. Rep. No. 103-57, at 2 (1993) (“For more than a century, the idea that Federal employees should not be involved in partisan politics has been a fundamental civil service feature”) (emphasis added). The Supreme Court also noted that the prohibition against political activity “was not to be construed to prohibit political activity . . . in connection with questions not specifically identified with any national or state political party, such as questions relating to constitutional amendments, referendums, approval of municipal ordinances, and others of a similar character.” National Ass’n of Letter Carriers, 413 U.S. at 562. Thus, the Act would not prohibit U.S. Forest Service employees from advocating for a nonpartisan issue, such as health insurance for seasonal employees. However, when participating in such nonpartisan advocacy, we caution that you should not engage in any fundraising for a candidate, party, or political organization and, if any activities occur while on duty or in a federal building, to avoid anything that is directed at a partisan candidate, political party, or partisan organization. Best regards, Corinne R. Seibert Attorney, Hatch Act Unit U.S. Office of Special Counsel

– As if fighting an "epic" and "apocalyptic" wildfire doesn't sound bad enough, try doing it without health insurance. That's actually what an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 federal firefighters do, writes Sarah Kliff for the Washington Post. "Of all the jobs where you might want health insurance, firefighting near certainly ranks near the top of the list," she asserts, backing that up by explaining that firefighters work two-week shifts comprised of 18-hour days. With days that long, they can pack in a full year's worth of work in just six months—which is what many federal firefighters tend to work. And that makes them temporary employees, which causes a health-insurance catch-22. Per federal regulations, temporary employees of the Forest Service don't get health insurance. And they typically earn between $25,000 and $35,000 a year, the president of the National Federal of Federal Employees explains, meaning that for many, "the only way they can afford insurance is if they have a spouse that might be able to get coverage under an employer." The Post talks to the 27-year-old member of a "hotshot" crew (a sort of elite team) who started a Change.org petition clamoring for insurance. He notes that one co-worker's son was born premature, leading to $70,000 in medical bills. "It just feels really unfair. I've seen all the stuff his father does. We're dispatched from 6am until 10:30pm. Then we’re sleeping in the dirt."

Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God) 2012 REMIX We can now confirm that the digital download of “Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God) 2012 REMIX” was officially released today (12th August). Kate had this to say about the new release and its involvement in the proceedings... Hi there, I hope you all enjoyed the remix of Running Up That Hill this evening at the Olympics Closing Ceremony. They certainly put on a brilliant show. Kate Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God) 2012 REMIX was released digitally on 12th August 2012 and is available to purchase here: Amazon iTunes (Rest of the world) iTunes USA Play.com 7 Digital ||||| David Bowie turned down the offer to sign off Sunday night's Olympic Games closing ceremony with a performance of Heroes, one of several high-profile acts who passed up the chance to perform in front of a global TV audience of hundreds of millions at the finale of London 2012. Organisers of the £15m show had also hoped to persuade the Rolling Stones, Kate Bush and the Sex Pistols to appear in what was intended to be a history of British music. Even the Who, who did close the Games with a medley ending with My Generation, turned down the request to play twice, according to industry sources. But a decision by the band to announce a US tour in July swayed them, given the scale of the promotional opportunity. The three-hour show featuring Elbow, Take That and another Spice Girls reunion was watched by an average of 23.2m viewers, making it marginally more popular than the £27m opening ceremony two weeks earlier. Viewing peaked at 26.3m on the night, although the event, which garnered a more mixed reception than Danny Boyle's show, would have been helped by its Sunday night slot, when people are more likely to be at home. As for Bowie, the 65-year-old has not toured since 2006, and it was always an ambitious request to try to persuade him to participate, even if Heroes was used as an unofficial anthem for Team GB during the Games. Although he closely monitors his own press coverage, Bowie, now based in New York, repeatedly turns down requests to perform or appear in public. Fans of the singer had to make do with a segment in the middle of the "Symphony for British Music" in which Fashion was played against a catwalk sequence featuring Kate Moss and Naomi Campbell – one of several recorded sections which suggested that hoped-for performers would not appear. Six months ago, artist managers and other music industry executives were given a presentation by concert producer Kim Gavin and film composer David Arnold of ambitious plans to showcase the history of British pop music from the 1960s. At that stage, there were few confirmed participants other than an agreement to play John Lennon's Imagine, which formed a centrepiece of the programme. Kate Bush was among those Gavin and Arnold hoped would appear, and there were rumours in the industry that she had agreed to perform. However, Bush too is reluctant to appear in public. Organisers agreed to play a remix of Running Up That Hill, and the singer released a statement on her website on Monday praising a "brilliant show". Backstage on the night, there was surprise that George Michael was allowed to perform his new single, White Light, which was released on Monday , in addition to solo classic Freedom. Island Records, his record company, hastily deleted a tweet inviting viewers to buy the song and the single did not make the top 10 on iTunes on Monday. One manager keen to support the event was Simon Fuller, the impresario behind the Spice Girls, David Beckham and Andy Murray. Some of the Spice Girls were particularly reluctant to perform at an event that despite all its apparent expense was still felt to be staged at minimal cost, but Fuller persuaded them, helpfully keeping the quintet in the public eye a few months ahead of the opening of the musical Viva Forever, which is based on their songs. Fuller, who was in the royal box on Sunday night, also saw another of his acts, singer Annie Lennox, perform Little Bird. But there was little sign of his rival svengali, Simon Cowell, with only one X Factor act, One Direction, performing at the event. HMV said it expected sales of music by John Lennon, the Spice Girls and Elbow – who performed One Day Like This – to soar by up to seven-fold this week. A compilation of the night's music, A Symphony for British Music, went to number two on the iTunes album chart, behind Now That's What I Call Music! 82.

– The star-studded Olympic closing bash seemed to include all of Britain's pop royalty, but in fact major figures snubbed the event—including David Bowie, Kate Bush, and the Rolling Stones, the Guardian reports. Bowie, 65, was considered a long-shot because he hasn't toured since 2006. Rumor had it Bush would take the stage last night, but alas, she only posted a statement on her website commending a "brilliant show." Backstage at the ceremony, people were surprised that George Michael was allowed to play his new release, "White Light," as well as the classic "Freedom." His record company, Island Records, quickly removed a tweet asking people to buy the new tune, which didn't make iTunes' top 10 today. But a mix of the evening's music called A Symphony for British Music did climb to number two on the list.

Image copyright AFP Image caption The kidnapping of the schoolgirls from Chibok has outraged the international community Nigeria's President Goodluck Jonathan has called off a visit the town where more than 200 schoolgirls were abducted, officials say. Sources had told the BBC he would stop in Chibok, in the north-east, on his way to a conference in France on the threat from Boko Haram militants. But the visit was called off for security reasons, the officials said. The president - under pressure over his government's failure to rescue the girls - will fly direct to Paris. The BBC's Gabriel Gatehouse in Nigeria says the cancellation of this visit underlines just how fragile the security situation is in the north-east. On Thursday, relatives of the girls called for their unconditional release by Boko Haram. Mr Jonathan is said to have ruled out negotiations over a possible release of prisoners. Nothing was seen of the girls for almost a month after they were taken from Chibok. But on Monday the group released a video showing more than 100 of them and offering an exchange for prisoners. UK Africa Minister Mark Simmonds said Mr Jonathan had "made it very clear that there will be no negotiation" at a meeting on Wednesday. Image copyright AP Image caption A video emerged on Monday showing about 130 of the girls wearing hijabs and reciting Koranic verses President Jonathan has been criticised for not visiting the town - more than a month after the girls were seized. The president will travel to Paris to take part in a summit convened by French President Francois Hollande to discuss Boko Haram. The leaders of Nigeria's neighbours - Benin, Cameroon, Niger and Chad - are scheduled to attend the summit on Saturday, which will also include representatives from the UK, US and EU. A statement said delegates at the meeting will "discuss fresh strategies for dealing with the security threat posed by Boko Haram and other terrorist groups in west and Central Africa". 'Troubling atrocities' Meanwhile, US officials on Thursday criticised the speed of Nigeria's response to the threat from Boko Haram. Alice Friend, director for African affairs at the US defence department, said its security forces had been "slow to adapt with new strategies and new tactics". Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption John Simpson assesses the threat of Boko Haram She also said the US was unable to offer aid to Nigeria's military because of "troubling" atrocities perpetrated by some units during operations against Boko Haram. "We cannot ignore that Nigeria can be an extremely challenging partner to work with," Ms Friend said. State of emergency US drones and surveillance aircraft have been deployed to assist in the search for the schoolgirls, while the UK has sent a military team to the capital, Abuja, to work alongside US, French and Israeli experts. The lower house of Nigeria's parliament, the House of Representatives, approved an extension of the state of emergency in the north-east states of Yobe, Borno and Adamawa on Thursday. Image copyright AFP Image caption A US official said its cooperation with Nigeria's army was limited by its links to "troubing" atrocities President Jonathan had requested a six-month extension, calling the security situation in the region "daunting" and saying he was concerned by the mounting loss of life among civilians. The state of emergency, which still needs to be approved by the Senate, gives the military widespread powers such as detaining suspects, imposing curfews and setting up roadblocks. On Thursday, there were reports of fresh attacks by suspected Boko Haram militants in Borno state. A witness told the BBC's Hausa Service that there had been explosions in Gamboru Ngala, were some 300 people were killed last week in a massacre blamed on Boko Haram. ||||| ABUJA Nigeria's hunt for more than 200 abducted schoolgirls is not all that it seems. In public, an international operation is gathering pace while behind the scenes, officials say it is unlikely to deliver the success that global opinion demands. The United States and Britain are helping Nigerian forces in the effort to liberate the girls taken from their school in Borno state a month ago by Boko Haram Islamist militants. The pressure for results is huge, with the likes of Michelle Obama and film star Angelina Jolie supporting a social media campaign operating under the Twitter tag #BringBackOurGirls. Washington has sent surveillance aircraft as well as assigning medical, intelligence, counter-terrorism and communications advisers to the mission. But officials have little idea where the girls are, and acknowledge that if they are found, any rescue attempt would be fraught with problems. On top of that, morale is shaky among some of the Nigerian troops involved in the hunt who already have experience of Boko Haram as a formidable foe. "We commend the effort by the #BringBackOurGirls protesters but it doesn't fit with the reality of the security situation we are facing," said a senior Nigerian military source who spoke on condition of anonymity. Foreign experts are also pessimistic that the girls can be extricated from the rebels' clutches and returned to their homes in Nigeria's remote northeast where Boko Haram operates. "I think a rescue is currently unlikely and unfeasible," said Jacob Zenn, a Boko Haram expert at U.S. counter-terrorism institution CTC Sentinel. Until Monday, nothing had been seen of the girls since they were snatched from the village of Chibok near Nigeria's borders with Cameroon, Chad and Niger. Then Boko Haram released a video showing more than 100 girls together in a rural location. In it, rebel leader Abubakar Shekau offered to exchange them for captured militants. The video raised hopes that their location could be found using ground forces, state-of-the-art intelligence and surveillance planes. Then an operation could be staged, perhaps with forces swooping from the sky like a British raid in Sierra Leone in 2000 to free soldiers held by militiamen, or Israeli commandoes' rescue of passengers from a jet hijacked to Entebbe, Uganda, in 1976. However, such a scenario is unlikely this time. One source with knowledge of the search said the footage was probably taken at least 10 days ago, if Boko Harma's past videos are any guide. By now, the girls could be somewhere else as a group, or dispersed to many places. VIRTUALLY UNDETECTABLE The Sambisa forest, Boko Haram's stronghold, is a first target but it is not conducive to aerial search because it covers 60,000 square km (23,000 square miles), more than twice the size of Rwanda. The rebels know this area intimately and could spread the girls among local families, making them virtually undetectable by conventional security forces. Two U.S. national security sources said initially the girls were separated into around three large groups but were subsequently scattered in smaller groups. Other experts said they could be in mountains near Gwoza on the Cameroon border. If this is the case, some girls might be found before others, posing a dilemma for would-be rescuers. "In the past, Boko have threatened, and maybe actually gone ahead with, killing hostages upon sensing the merest hint of possible rescue operations," said a security source. Rescuing some girls could add to danger faced by others still captive. Another problem is time. Britain's minister responsible for African affairs, Mark Simmonds, said on Wednesday that it was "early days" in the rescue operation, yet the abduction happened on April 14 so rebels have had ample time to prepare for an international response. A senior U.S. Defense Department official criticized Nigeria on Thursday for being too slow to adapt to the threat of Boko Haram. TIRED OF FIGHTING An incident this week highlighted the problems of the Nigerian army, whose 1st and 7th divisions have been deployed to Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state, to confront the rebels. On Tuesday, gunmen ambushed a unit returning to Maiduguri from Chibok, killing at least four soldiers. Rebels were also killed. The next day soldiers fired into the air at Maiduguri barracks to protest about what they said was poor leadership. Defense headquarters quickly stated that the situation had been resolved, but soldiers told Reuters they remained angry. "These Boko Haram have special forces. They know how to shoot and maintain their grounds more than us. What is making it worse is our superior officers who are insensitive to the plight of the troops," said a soldier, who declined to be identified. "We are tired of this whole thing because we are being killed every day and we don't get the required support and care from our superiors," another soldier said. President Goodluck Jonathan will visit Chibok on Friday, senior government officials said. Even coordinating an international effort faces difficulties in Nigeria, which recently overtook South Africa as the continent's biggest economy. Nigeria has close ties with Western powers but has historically resisted foreign military involvement on its soil. One possible sign of differing approaches is that Simmonds, rather than the president himself, announced that Jonathan had ruled out any prisoner exchange for the girls' release. Nigerian officials have since declined to comment. Ultimately, the girls' best hope may lie in dialogue but the road to talks remains uncertain because the rebels do not form a unified group. Boko Haram is faceless and even Shekau heads just one of several loosely coordinated groups with differing objectives, said a senior official with knowledge of the northeast. A Nigerian presidential committee set up last year for talks with the rebels dealt last year with Boko Haram proxies. But they were later denounced by other Boko Haram militants as impostors, according to Minister of Special Duties Tanimu Turaki, who leads the committee. One security source in Abuja cautioned against raising false hopes. "It is time we removed the thought of a very happy ending to this situation," the source said. (Additional reporting by Felix Onuah in Abuja, Isaac Abrak in Maiduguri and Mark Hosenball in Washington; Editing by David Stamp) ||||| FILE - This file photo taken from video by Nigeria's Boko Haram terrorist network on Monday, May 12, 2014, shows the missing girls alleged to be abducted on April 14 from the town of Chibok in northeastern... (Associated Press) A coalition of Kenyan women's groups stage a protest in solidarity with their counterparts in Nigeria and demanding the release of the hundreds of schoolgirls abducted in Nigeria by the Muslim extremist... (Associated Press) Women attend a sit down rally calling on the government to rescue the kidnapped school girls of the Chibok secondary school, in Abuja, Nigeria, Thursday, May 15, 2014. Islamic militants again attacked... (Associated Press) It would have been the first reported visit by the president to the scene of an attack in the northeastern region that has suffered for five years the increasingly deadly assaults by Nigeria's homegrown Boko Haram terrorist network. Jonathan, a Christian from the south, has been accused of insensitivity to the plight of the mainly Muslim northerners. Thousands have been killed over the years and more than 1,500 civilians have died in the insurgency this year alone. Two officials in the presidency confirmed the cancellation saying there were apparent concerns about security after news of the planned trip was leaked to the media and published on front pages of newspapers Friday. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not supposed to give information to reporters. Jonathan had been expected to fly on one of his presidential jets from Abuja, the capital in central Nigeria, to Maiduguri, the Borno state capital in the northeast, and then be transported by military helicopter to the town of Chibok, 130 kilometers (80 miles) to the south. The road from Maiduguri to Chibok passes by the Sambisa Forest to which the girls first were taken that is a known hideout of the insurgents and has been attacked many times. Soldiers say 12 troops were killed in an ambush on that road on Monday night. The Defense Ministry said four soldiers were killed in a firefight on the outskirts of Chibok that night. Soldiers revolted and opened fire on the car of a commanding officer who came to pay respects to the bodies brought to a Maiduguri barracks on Tuesday, said the soldiers, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they want to keep their jobs. The Defense Ministry said the soldiers only fired into the air. The commander was unharmed. There have been other signs that some Nigerian troops are near mutiny, complaining that they are outnumbered and outgunned by the insurgents, are not properly paid and have to scavenge for food in the bush. The weakness of the Nigerian military was described Thursday by Alice Friend, the U.S. Department for Defense director for African affairs at a hearing about the kidnapped girls and the threat posed by Boko Haram. "And so we're now looking at a military force that's, quite frankly, becoming afraid to even engage" the enemy, she told the U.S. Senate subcommittee on African Affairs in Washington. She also said "much of the funding" for Nigeria's military is "skimmed off the top" by corrupt officers in a country where corruption is endemic. Soldiers in Nigeria have told The Associated Press that some in their ranks actually fight alongside Boko Haram, and Jonathan last year said he suspected the Boko Haram members and sympathizers had infiltrated every level of his government and military, including the Cabinet. In Chibok, community leader Pogu Bitrus had said earlier Friday that that though residents had been angry at Jonathan's slow response to the girls' plight, they did not hold it against the president and considered his visit "better late than never." The presidency said Jonathan is traveling later Friday to Paris for a French-organized summit including leaders of Nigeria's four neighbors to discuss how to address the regional threat posed by Boko Haram. Boko Haram insurgents on April 15 abducted more than 300 students from the Chibok Government Girls Secondary School. Police say 53 managed to escape and 276 remain in captivity.

– Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan today called off what was to be his first reported visit to Chibok since hundreds of girls were taken from the town last month. The AP reports security reasons were a factor after news of the visit leaked and reports surfaced of fresh attacks in the state by suspected Boko Haram militants. Jonathan will instead fly directly to France where he will attend a summit—along with other African leaders and officials from the UK, US, and EU—to "discuss fresh strategies for dealing with the security threat posed by Boko Haram and other terrorist groups in west and Central Africa," a statement reads, per the BBC. Meanwhile, a US official testified at a hearing yesterday that Nigerian security forces have been "slow to adapt with new strategies and new tactics." She added, "Nigeria can be an extremely challenging partner to work with" as the US is unable to aid its military because of "troubling" atrocities committed by some units. The UK team is working with French, Israeli, and UK experts in the search for the missing girls but Nigerian forces seem to be giving up hope. "We are tired of this whole thing because we are being killed every day and we don't get the required support and care from our superiors," a soldier tells Reuters. A security source adds, "It is time we removed the thought of a very happy ending to this situation."

A New York man charged with falsely reporting his father had drowned in an alleged insurance scam was abused, manipulated and coerced into participating in the scheme, his attorney said Tuesday. Jonathan Roth, left, listens as his attorney Joey Jackson speaks to the press following Roth's appearance at Nassau County Court in Mineola, N.Y., Tuesday, Aug. 14, 2012. Jonathan Roth is out on bail... (Associated Press) Jonathan Roth, 22, has pleaded not guilty to charges including conspiracy to commit insurance fraud after reporting that his father, Raymond Roth, had drowned last month at Jones Beach in New York. The elder Roth was later reported to be in Florida and got a speeding ticket in South Carolina. He is receiving psychiatric treatment at an undisclosed hospital on New York's Long Island, his lawyer said, but is expected to be released Wednesday. Raymond Roth, 47, expects to then be immediately arrested on similar charges to those facing his son, said attorney Brian Davis. Jonathan Roth, who was freed Monday on $10,000 bond, had a brief court appearance Tuesday; the case was postponed until Sept. 19. Attorney Joey Jackson did not allow his client to speak with reporters, but alleged he had a strained relationship with his father and was not a willing participant in the ruse. "This case in and of itself is about three things in my mind: It's about coercion, it's about the abuse we talked about, and it's about manipulation," he said. Jackson had made allusions to a prior case involving an unnamed Child Protective Services agency but did not elaborate. "When the facts come out as to how this thing ultimately came about, in addition to the past history that his father, just the things his father's done to him over the course of time, it's going to be obvious why this thing happened," Jackson said. Nassau County Social Services Commissioner John Imhof said because of "stringent confidentiality and privacy requirements," he could not say whether Child Protective Services has ever investigated the Roths. "I don't know what kind of abuse they're talking about," said Davis, the elder Roth's attorney. "All I know in speaking to his family about this is that it was almost a kind of buddy-buddy relationship and not a father-and-son relationship. I don't know if he had a heavy hand while the kid was growing up, but the kid's 22 now." Days after his disappearance, Raymond Roth was reported to be at a resort in Orlando, Fla. On Aug. 2, he was stopped going 90 mph in Santee, S.C. Roth said he was returning to New York, and the officer let him proceed north; he never showed for a planned meeting with police and his attorney later revealed he instead had been admitted to a hospital for depression. Investigators wrote in court papers that Jonathan Roth "was fully aware that his father never walked into the water and had in fact driven off in his own personal vehicle." He faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted. Raymond Roth's wife, Evana, has told reporters that her husband staged the disappearance without her knowledge. She also implicated her stepson in the scheme, distributing emails that she said were on a family computer in their Massapequa home. In one dated the day before he vanished, the elder Roth instructs his son to contact him at an Orlando, Fla., resort to update him on developments following his disappearance. Evana Roth, 45, said her husband had recently been fired from his job at a telecommunications company in New York City. ||||| A Long Island man may have faked his own death to get his hands on life-insurance money — and to get away from his wife, who sobbed to The Post yesterday that she learned he was alive only through e-mails he had sent his son. And he didn’t have very nice things to say about her. “DO NOT allow that a–hole to give the house away,’’ Raymond Roth, 47, of Massapequa, allegedly wrote to his 22-year-old son, Jonathan, referring to wife Evana the day before he supposedly vanished while swimming off Jones Beach. He was so calculating, he even left his shorts, shirt, shoes and wallet — without his driver’s license — on the beach for her to find, Evana said. Evana cried about discovering the e-mails on her stepson’s computer Wednesday, four days after her husband was believed to have drowned. “This is a terrible nightmare that I just want to wake up from,’’ said the 43-year-old woman. “Why did he do this? I think I’m just numb.’’ Evana said that up until she found the e-mails, she had thought everyone believed that her husband, an unemployed computer manager, was dead. In the damning e-mails, Raymond also wrote to his son: “I need to get to the bank for cash for the trip.” He adds: “about the jewelry we spoke of yesterday, you need to whisper in [a relative’s] ear about it and do not worry she will get it,” and, “tell [another relative] i handed you the papers — then you JUST noticed that there was an envelope with [his] name on it (the last Will and Testemnet [sic]) then hand it to him.” In another e-mail Raymond sent to his son, he wrote, “you will need to help me get my car loaded. get your f–king ass out of bed you lazy bastard.’’ In a third, he adds, “there needs to be a way for me to find out how things are going. call me Sunday night at 8 PM at the resort. “you cannot call from your phone,’’ the dad allegedly warned. “go to a pay phone or borrow your friends phone. you must call within 15 minutes of the determined call time in order to be sure i will be available.” Evana said she immediately called Raymond’s brother when she saw the e-mails. He came over, and they called the cops. Police in Orlando, Fla., were directed to an address to find him, authorities said — but he was gone. He was stopped for speeding on I-95 in Santee, SC, yesterday morning and let go after telling cops there he had gotten in a fight with his wife and left. Long Island cops said that they’ve since been in contact with him by phone and that he told them he was coming in to talk. It was unclear whether charges will be filed against him or anyone else, they said. Meanwhile, “he withdrew money from all my accounts,” his wife sobbed as she spoke in the office of her lawyer, Lenard Leeds. “While I was crying and thinking he had drowned, he was vacationing in a resort and having a drink in the pool.” Evana said her husband began acting suspiciously in January when “he increased his life-insurance policy.” She said she didn’t know who the beneficiary was. “He tripled it,” she said. “He also did revise his will on Wednesday before the beach.” She said he then recently began getting into trouble at his work at Level 3 Communications at 1 Penn Plaza in Herald Square. He was demoted and promptly threatened to shoot the two supervisors who had bumped him, she said. The threat led Nassau County cops to go to the family’s home to confiscate the licensed handgun Roth owned. Roth was fired the day after the threats. Level 3 declined to comment. His wife said her hubby’s bizarre behavior continued. He insisted on putting the house up for sale the next Wednesday. He started packing up all his suits. “I said, ‘You haven’t even put out a résumé, and you want to sell the house? You’ll need your suits for interviews,’ ” Evana said. “He told me he didn’t need [the clothes] — he would go back to driving a truck,” she said. “On the day he went to the beach, he told me he was going to his mother’s house,” she recalled. “I said, ‘How long are you going to be? Are you going to be home for dinner?’ He said, ‘I’ll be home in an hour,’ ” she said. A few hours later, the wife said, her stepson, Raymond’s son, Jonathan, called her. “[He] said, ‘Dad went into the water and he didn’t come out,’ ” she recalled. Her stepson swore his dad was missing and presumed drowned, she said. “If these allegations are true, this is one of the most despicable acts I have ever seen,” Leeds said. Police confirmed that Jonathan Roth called 911 to report his dad missing near the beach’s Field 6 in an area where there were no lifeguards. Jonathan could not be reached for comment. A family neighbor said that he ran into Jonathan on Monday after his dad had been missing for two days and that the man told him, “My dad’s gone, my dad’s dead.” “The son was not crying,” the neighbor recalled. Additional reporting by Jim Hooker and Lorena Mongelli ||||| The man who failed to fake his own death last month by pretending to drown off the shores of Long Island has been arrested...finally.Attorney Brian Davis also told thethat despite his fragile mental state, Roth would turn himself into police this week, which happened this morningRoth is facing charges for an alleged insurance fraud scam stemming from the faux-drowning, although the exact charges have not been announced. A few days after his son, Jonathan Roth, reported to authorities that he'd seen his father go into the ocean at Jones Beach and never come out, Roth turned up in South Carolina -- and that was only after spending a few days at a resort in Florida, all as investigators were scouring the ocean in a rescue effort that cost taxpayers tens of thousands of dollars.Roth's wife also found emails he'd exchanged with his son detailing the phony drowning plan.Once the jig was up, Roth repeatedly told police that he'd turn himself in. However, that never happened -- Roth remained on the lam until checking himself into a Long Island mental health facility last week.We asked Davis if checking himself into a psych center was just the alleged fraudster's attempt to setup some sort of insanity defense for a potential trial. He says his client's mental state is fragile, as evident from his harebrained attempt to fake his own death. "He took his own car [after claiming to drown]," Davis says. "[An insanity] defense is only used in very extreme cases. He wasn't thinking rationally throughout all of this."Jonathan Roth was arraigned last week on charges of insurance fraud, conspiracy and falsely reporting an incident.According to an affidated filed by the Nassau County District Attorney's Office, "[Jonathan Roth] stated ... that he saw his father walk into the ocean and walk in chest high. The defendant was present when a massive search of the waters and area was conducted."Prosecutors added that "The defendant at all times was fully aware that his father never walked into the water and had in fact driven off in his personal vehicle."Davis says Roth will plead not guilty to the charges. He will be arraigned later today. ||||| A man suspected of faking his own drowning at a New York beach in a scheme to collect on a life insurance policy was arrested Wednesday at the hospital where he was receiving psychiatric treatment. Jonathan Roth, left, listens as his attorney Joey Jackson speaks to the press following Roth's appearance at Nassau County Court in Mineola, N.Y., Tuesday, Aug. 14, 2012. Jonathan Roth is out on bail... (Associated Press) Raymond Roth arrived at state park police headquarters in handcuffs wearing a blue polo shirt and white pants. He didn't speak to reporters. He was scheduled to be arraigned in a Long Island courtroom later Wednesday on charges of insurance fraud, conspiracy to commit insurance fraud and falsely reporting an incident. Roth will plead not guilty, attorney Brian Davis said. Roth was arrested at South Nassau Communities Hospital in Oceanside, where he had spent about 10 days. The 47-year-old was reported missing by his son on July 28 at Jones Beach. The elder Roth was later reported to be in Florida and got a speeding ticket in South Carolina. His son was arrested last week. According to court documents, the pair conspired to get more than $50,000 in life insurance money. But Davis said his client was not aware of an insurance scam, blaming Jonathan Roth. "My client's intent was to disappear, not to cash in on a life insurance policy," Davis told The Associated Press on Tuesday. He said Jonathan Roth is the one who tried to cash in on the policy just days after reporting his father's disappearance. "It was never my client's intent to make a claim." Days after his disappearance, Raymond Roth was reported to be at a resort in Orlando, Fla. On Aug. 2, he was stopped going 90 mph in Santee, S.C. Police there saw that Roth was listed in a national registry of missing people. Roth said he was returning to New York, and the officer let him continue driving north; he never showed up for a planned meeting with police, and his attorney later revealed that he instead had been admitted to a hospital for depression. Jonathan Roth, 22, was arrested last week and is free on $10,000 bond. He has pleaded not guilty to conspiracy to commit insurance fraud, filing a false report and other charges. In court papers, Jonathan Roth admitted to investigators that the drowning never happened. He "was fully aware that his father never walked into the water and had in fact driven off in his own personal vehicle," according to the criminal complaint. He faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted. The younger Roth's attorney, Joey Jackson, said his client and his father had a "strained" relationship. He also claims that Jonathan Roth was abused and coerced into cooperating with the scheme; Davis has denied that allegation. Raymond Roth's wife, Evana, has told reporters that her husband staged the disappearance without her knowledge. She also implicated her stepson in the scheme, distributing emails that she said were on a family computer in their Massapequa home. In one dated the day before he vanished, the elder Roth instructs his son to contact him at an Orlando resort to update him on developments following his disappearance. Raymond Roth put the family's home up for sale just days before he vanished. Evana Roth also said her husband had recently been fired from his job in New York City. Police estimated that an air and sea search for Roth cost tens of thousands of dollars.

– After 10 days in a psychiatric ward, a New York state man has been arrested for allegedly faking his own death—by pretending to drown near Long Island. Raymond Roth faces insurance fraud charges following the incident, in which his son reported he'd disappeared off Jones Beach (leading to an air and sea search estimated to cost tens of thousands of dollars). Soon after Jonathan Roth's report, the elder man was spotted at an Orlando resort, then appeared in South Carolina, where he got a speeding ticket. Raymond eventually made his way back to New York, and was in the psychiatric center following his lawyer's claim that he was "a danger to himself," the Village Voice notes. Jonathan has already pleaded not guilty to an insurance-fraud conspiracy, and now the two men's stories conflict: While Jonathan's lawyer says the 22-year-old was abused and coerced into the plot, Raymond's lawyer holds that the elder man's "intent was to disappear, not to cash in on a life insurance policy," the AP reports (leaving his sobbing wife behind). It was Jonathan, he says, who tried to cash in on the $50,000 policy just days after reporting his father's disappearance.

Instant articles will be available from nine publishers starting at 10 a.m. ET: the Times, BuzzFeed, The Atlantic, National Geographic, NBC News, The Guardian, BBC News, and Germany’s Bild and Der Spiegel. For now, you’ll only be able to see them on the iOS version of Facebook’s app; an Android version is forthcoming. Many instant articles won’t look much different from the links you’re already seeing as you scroll through your feed. But Facebook has created tools to help them stand out, including video "covers" that autoplay as you scroll. But if the format proves successful, and Facebook maintains its dominance in distributing news online, publishers could become ever more dependent on a platform they can’t control. Those concerns may prove valid, but it hasn’t stopped big partners from signing up. Soon, many more publishers may feel that they don’t have a choice. Whatever happens, the arrival of instant articles marks a turning point in the evolution of the news. Facebook today is rolling out "instant articles," quick-loading stories from publishers including The New York Times and BuzzFeed that load on Facebook’s flagship app 10 times faster than before. The articles, which are hosted on Facebook’s servers, are well designed and create a genuinely better experience than the typical 8-second wait for an article to load on the mobile web. A turning point for the media Once you tap, the article loads close to instantly — at least, it did for the handful stories I tested in a demonstration at Facebook’s headquarters. The app manages this using the same technology Facebook has used to get photos and videos to load quickly. It begins pre-loading the story as you approach it in your News Feed, and is able to show you the top of the story as soon as you tap. On the web, publishers typically lard their pages with dozens of modules for serving advertisements and analytics; one reason instant articles load faster is because they strip most of those out. Those who expected instant articles to be stripped-down dumps of text may be surprised at the extra features Facebook has built here. Publications get their logo on top of every story, along with a "follow" button that you can click to subscribe to their Facebook page and get more stories. Publishers can also opt to include authors’ and photographers’ Facebook photos at the top of the story; clicking takes you to their profiles and lets you to subscribe to their public posts. The body of the story can contain photos, image galleries, and videos, and publishers can use a web view to embed objects like tweets and interactive graphics. It's a new publishing format Facebook also built a handful of special interactions for instant articles, and is working on more. Photos can have audio captions, allowing a kind of internal narration for stories. Photos can also be geo-tagged; tapping the name of the location opens an interactive map. And you can like and comment on individual photos within stories, which gives them a higher chance of spreading throughout your social network. (Every thumbs-up and comment creates the possibility that a story will be created about it in your friends’ News Feeds.) The result is something more than a new user experience for opening the links you find on Facebook: it’s a new publishing format. And it’s one that publishers are going to take very seriously. "This is a very exciting experiment," says Declan Moore, chief media officer for National Geographic, which has 35 million followers on Facebook. He acknowledged having some concerns about how Facebook’s role as a distributor of news would evolve. But ultimately, he said, it was in the organization’s interest to work with Facebook. A growing influence Facebook’s ambitions as a distributor of news have grown slowly but steadily. It has been enormously successful: nearly one-third of Americans regularly get news from the app, according to the Pew Research Center. Along the way, it has become a primary channel of distribution for the media, creating huge new audiences for new media companies while launching the most successful of them to multi-billion-dollar valuations. "Speed is the most important feature for any mobile software." Most people surveyed by Pew say they don’t seek out news on Facebook, but they see so much of it there for a reason: it makes them use Facebook more. The more we clicked links to articles on Facebook, the more of them that Facebook showed us. From Facebook’s perspective, though, there’s a significant problem with this arrangement. One is that links take an average of 8 seconds to load in a mobile browser after someone clicks a link — an eternity, by software standards. "Speed is the most important feature for any mobile software," said Chris Cox, Facebook’s chief product officer. "Photos, text, video. We keep learning the lesson that if it’s not delivered instantly, you’re losing a bunch of the goodness that could have happened." The point of instant articles, then, is to retain the … goodness. By eliminating the lag between tapping and reading, Facebook expects people will spend more time in the News Feed reading articles. While it hasn’t done a formal test of user behavior yet, Cox says, early results from employees’ usage of instant articles has been encouraging. Work on the format began in earnest about six months ago, and was led by the team behind Paper, Facebook’s effort to reimagine the service as a mobile app geared toward news consumption. Paper’s reliance on interactive gestures — tilting your phone, say, or swiping up to open an article — made it something of a design curiosity, and it languished on the download charts. "Paper was like a short film that let us explore a lot of things." But Cox says Paper contained the seeds of what became instant articles. "Pixar spends a lot of time building these short films where they can develop technology that they can then apply to their longer films," he says. "For us, Paper was like a short film that let us explore a lot of things without the constraint of, a billion people need to be able to use this." Predicting the future At the same time, Facebook’s growing power as a news distributor creates new revenue opportunities. Starting with the launch, publishers can now let Facebook sell ads on their instant articles, splitting revenue with Facebook. Or they can choose to sell the ads themselves, and keep all the revenue — for now, anyway. I asked Justin Osofsky, Facebook’s vice president of media partnerships, whether that was a limited-time offer that would change over time. "We’re committed to working with publishers in a way that gives them tools to build their business," he said. So eventually you’ll take, what, 20, 30 percent? I asked. "We’re going to work with publishers to give them tools that build their business," he repeated, unblinking. Maximizing the time spent in News Feed Here’s a scenario that may play out over the next year or so. Instant articles prove popular, driving significant new traffic and revenue to Facebook’s launch partners. More publishers join the platform, even modifying their publishing tools to let writers incorporate instant-article features into their stories. Meanwhile, traditional links shared on Facebook become less effective as readers migrate toward instant articles. Having hooked readers on instant articles — and publishers on the revenue they generate — Facebook starts taking an increasing percentage of ad revenue. What appeared to the media as a friendly tweak to the user interface was really a trap. This possibility has been explored with mordant fatalism by The Awl’s John Herrman, whose Content Wars series has presented Facebook’s offer to publishers in the bleakest terms. It is true that Facebook began to explore hosting news not primarily as a means of supporting independent journalism or related civic virtues but rather to maximize the amount of time spent in the News Feed. As Herrman put it: The prospect of Facebook, for example, as a primary host for news organizations, not just an outsized source of traffic, is depressing even if you like Facebook. A new generation of artists and creative people ceding the still-fresh dream of direct compensation and independence to mediated advertising arrangements with accidentally enormous middlemen apps that have no special interest in publishing beyond value extraction through advertising is the early internet utopian’s worst-case scenario. At this point it feels necessary to point out that the fortunes of The Verge itself, along with its parent company, Vox Media, are likely to be affected by Facebook’s experiment with instant articles one way or another. Though not a partner yet, Vox has talked with Facebook about a partnership, according to a person familiar with the matter. If Vox adopts instant articles and they become a huge success, The Verge could benefit directly. If it doesn’t, and instant articles become the default mode of publishing on Facebook, The Verge could suffer the consequences. The arithmetic around risk, revenues, and the future of media distribution involve calculations whose variables are impossible to estimate right now. Yet it’s an equation every publisher of appreciable size — Vox included — must try to solve. Much of the fear comes down to this: Facebook has already established itself as more important than even Google as a referrer of traffic to online publications. Failing to get the math right on instant articles could be tantamount to failing, period. Photo: Facebook ||||| Note: By submitting this form, you agree to Third Door Media's terms . We respect your privacy . Today, Facebook announced Instant Articles, a way for publishers to post stories directly on Facebook. We’ve known this would be coming, and there’s been some debate over whether it’s good or bad. But I haven’t seen that extended to what would happen if Google follows Facebook’s lead. It could, potentially causing the web to be swallowed up by two gatekeeping giants. Introducing Google Instant Results Allow me to demonstrate how easily Google could mimic Facebook. Here’s the top part of Facebook’s press release announcing the move. All I’ve done is replace the word “Facebook” with Google and made a few other small changes: Today we’re excited to introduce Instant Results Articles , a new product for publishers to create fast, interactive pages articles on Google Facebook . As more people get their information news on mobile devices, we want to make the experience faster and richer on Google Facebook . People search for share a lot of information articles on Google Facebook , particularly on our mobile app. To date, however, these pages stories take an average of eight seconds to load, by far the slower than single content type on Google Facebook itself. Instant Results Articles makes the reading experience as much as ten times faster than standard mobile web articles. Along with a faster experience, Instant Results Articles introduces a suite of interactive features that allow publishers to bring their stories to life in new ways. Zoom in and explore high-resolution photos by tilting your phone. Watch auto-play videos come alive as you scroll through stories. Explore interactive maps, listen to audio captions, and even like and comment on individual parts of an article in-line. We designed Instant Results Articles to give publishers control over their stories, brand experience and monetization opportunities. Publishers can sell ads in their articles and keep the revenue, or they can choose to use Google AdSense Facebook’s Audience Network to monetize unsold inventory. Publishers will also have the ability to track data and traffic through comScore and other analytics tools. “Fundamentally, this is a tool that enables publishers to provide a better experience for their readers on Google Facebook ” said a Google executive Facebook Chief Product Officer Chris Cox . “Instant Results Articles lets them deliver fast, interactive articles while maintaining control of their content and business models.” Paved With Good Intentions I understand that Facebook has good reasons to offer Instant Articles. I’ve been frustrated many times waiting for some article to load, after clicking on a link at Facebook. It even happened to me today. I gave up waiting for the article to load. For this and other reasons, it also makes sense for publishers, at least in the short term. Some do worry the move could cause publishers already too dependent on Facebook and its fickle News Feed algorithm to grow even more so. That’s a valid concern. But the bigger concern to me is that having a giant like Facebook suck so much content effectively within its walled garden gives license for that other giant, Google, to do the same. Facebook’s Move Enables Google Every argument Facebook has made for this program, Google could make as equally valid. Facebook’s move — which is backed initially by major publishers including Axel Springer’s Bild, will enable Google to have exactly the same type of program, if it wants. That’s especially ironic when Axel Springer is so critical of Google just linking to its content. How’s it going to feel when Google wants to actually host that content? Google, of course, already hosts some publisher content now, most notably via YouTube. Google Currents, which I doubt few even remember, is closer to what Facebook is doing. But potentially, Google could leverage Facebook’s move to have a program where anyone listed in its search results has an option to host their content right on Google. Because speed. Because user experience. Because interactive maps, zooming video, etc. Despite all those good reasons, I worry what it means when the free and independent web is mirrored within the walled gardens of two giants, Facebook and Google. Healthy Evolution Or Seismic Shift? Don’t get me wrong. We’re living in a web of streams, where it makes a great deal of sense for publishers to go to where the users are. Some even think web sites aren’t even necessary these days. I’m not one of those. I think you want a place you own and control in addition to how you outreach. Maybe we’re overdue for textual content to be hosted offsite in the way we’re used to with images and video, especially if ads can be embedded. Maybe the clickthrough to content is finally getting its inevitable death. But my gut says if we eventually have both Facebook and Google offering to host everything in the name of speed and user experience, that’s not a good thing. Maybe I’ll be wrong. ||||| By Michael Reckhow, Product Manager Today we’re excited to introduce Instant Articles, a new product for publishers to create fast, interactive articles on Facebook. As more people get their news on mobile devices, we want to make the experience faster and richer on Facebook. People share a lot of articles on Facebook, particularly on our mobile app. To date, however, these stories take an average of eight seconds to load, by far the slowest single content type on Facebook. Instant Articles makes the reading experience as much as ten times faster than standard mobile web articles. Along with a faster experience, Instant Articles introduces a suite of interactive features that allow publishers to bring their stories to life in new ways. Zoom in and explore high-resolution photos by tilting your phone. Watch auto-play videos come alive as you scroll through stories. Explore interactive maps, listen to audio captions, and even like and comment on individual parts of an article in-line. We designed Instant Articles to give publishers control over their stories, brand experience and monetization opportunities. Publishers can sell ads in their articles and keep the revenue, or they can choose to use Facebook’s Audience Network to monetize unsold inventory. Publishers will also have the ability to track data and traffic through comScore and other analytics tools. “Fundamentally, this is a tool that enables publishers to provide a better experience for their readers on Facebook” said Facebook Chief Product Officer Chris Cox. “Instant Articles lets them deliver fast, interactive articles while maintaining control of their content and business models.” Facebook is working with nine launch partners for Instant Articles: The New York Times, National Geographic, BuzzFeed, NBC, The Atlantic, The Guardian, BBC News, Spiegel and Bild. Mark Thompson, President and CEO, The New York Times Company said, “The New York Times already has a significant and growing audience on Facebook. We’re participating in Instant Articles to explore ways of growing the number of Times users on Facebook, improving their experience of our journalism and deepening their engagement. We have a long tradition of meeting readers where they are and that means being available not just on our own sites, but on the social platforms frequented by many current and potential Times users.” “It is great to see Facebook trialing new ways for quality journalism to flourish on mobile,” said Tony Danker, International Director, Guardian News & Media. “The Guardian is keen to test how the new platform can provide an even more engaging experience for our readers. It is then vital that, over time, Instant Articles delivers recurring benefit for publishers, whose continued investment in original content underpins its success.” Instant Articles is launching on Facebook for iPhone with a special set of stories published by The New York Times, BuzzFeed, National Geographic, NBC and The Atlantic. We will continue developing Instant Articles with our partners over the coming months and will listen to feedback from readers to help us improve the experience. For further information about Instant Articles, visit instantarticles.fb.com. Downloads: Screenshots B-roll Instant Articles Video Embed Code ||||| Facebook's long-rumored direct-to-Facebook publishing deal was finally unveiled officially on Wednesday. Facebook Instant Articles is a way for publishers to post their articles directly to the social network's iOS app, allowing the articles to load faster for users than if they had to be redirected to (often clunky) publisher websites. They also include other interactive formats such as embedded video, GIFs that automatically load, and a way to expand a large image by moving your phone back and forward, as BuzzFeed demonstrates. This could be the future of news on the web, making news articles even easier to publish and share among Facebook's vast audience. Or it could further hurt news publishers by stealing the business they have developed on the web and transferring it into an arena controlled by Facebook. Earlier this week Facebook began testing its own search engine, which will allow users to find and post links to articles without venturing anywhere near Google — another way for Facebook to remove the need for you to navigate away from its platform. The first Facebook Instant Articles partners are: BuzzFeed, The Guardian, The New York Times, National Geographic, NBC News, The Atlantic, Spiegel Online, and Bild. Some publishers, including News UK, the biggest newspaper publisher in the UK, had been skeptical about the introduction on Facebook Instant. News UK's CMO told Business Insider last year such an idea would be a "tax on navigation," and a "tax on audience," referring to the data Facebook would garner about publishers' readers, and that visits to their own sites might be cannibalized, along with some associated ad revenue (or, in the case of News UK's The Sun and The Times, which operate behind a paywall, potential subscription revenue). TechCrunch reports, however, that Facebook says it will share analytics and that Instant Articles will be compatible with traditional online measurement systems like comScore, Omniture, and Google Analytics (so audiences will not be lost to Facebook, in other words). In addition, publishers will receive "100%" of the revenue from ads that appear inside Facebook Instant articles. Facebook will split revenue (with 70% going to the publisher) only if it sells the ads against the articles. They can also use the Facebook Audience Network (which allows advertisers to extend their Facebook campaigns into other non-Facebook apps) to sell any leftover ad inventory. That should also seek to allay publishers' fears about any potential cannibalization. But critics could say it's a mere marketing move to encourage publishers and advertisers to buy more advertising through Facebook. Those publishers not part of the launch group might fear that Facebook Instant articles will get bumped up the all-important News Feed, but Facebook says this will not be the case. Of course, if users click on lots of Facebook Instant articles, the algorithm will adapt to their preferences and show them more of that kind of content. The launch of Facebook Instant is not the first time the social network has asked publishers to form content partnerships. In 2011, a number of publishers including The Guardian, The Washington Post, Business Insider, and The Independent partnered with Facebook to create "Social Reader" apps to allow users to consume and share content in the Facebook environment. In 2012, however, most of those publishers began to phase out those apps. Though many of them proved extremely popular, the majority of the engagement was happening only on the Facebook platform, without much click-through to the publishers' sites (where they can generate revenue). In some cases it was even having a negative impact on traffic to publishers' sites. The Social Reader App also generated what many users deemed as excessive updates about what readers were reading, clunking up the News Feed. Earlier this year Facebook also launched standalone app Paper, its answer to news-aggregation apps like Feedly and Flipboard. But its popularity tanked soon after launch. Google last month announced a "Digital News Initiative" with eight European publishers, investing in training, partnerships, and research to develop new digital journalism ideas. Disclosure: Axel Springer is Business Insider's parent company.

– Facebook rolled out a new mobile feature today called Instant Articles, one that a blogger at the Verge calls a "turning point in the evolution of the news." The feature lets publishing companies that have partnered with Facebook post stories onto news feeds that load instantly—a far cry from typical mobile Web stories—even with video and interactive features. Nine big names have signed up to start, including the New York Times, National Geographic, and BuzzFeed. They can sell ads on the articles themselves and keep all the revenue or have Facebook sell the ads and split the money; the articles are hosted on Facebook's servers. The feature, available only on iPhones for now, "is something more than a new user experience for opening the links you find on Facebook," writes Casey Newton at the Verge. "It's a new publishing format. And it's one that publishers are going to take very seriously." Some other reaction: Lara O'Reilly, Business Insider: "This could be the future of news on the web, making news articles even easier to publish and share among Facebook's vast audience. Or it could further hurt news publishers by stealing the business they have developed on the web and transferring it into an arena controlled by Facebook." Danny Sullivan, Marketing Land: "The bigger concern to me is that having a giant like Facebook suck so much content effectively within its walled garden gives license for that other giant, Google, to do the same. ... My gut says if we eventually have both Facebook and Google offering to host everything in the name of speed and user experience, that's not a good thing." Gabriel Sherman, New York: This is a "tectonic shift in the publishing industry," he writes, framing it mostly as a deal between Facebook and the New York Times. "As much as anything, the Facebook deal is a concession by Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. that the paper's app strategy failed to produce the turnaround the company hoped for. Now the Times is throwing its fate into Facebook's hands."

Published on May 8, 2018 An experimental technology called Duplex may change the way you talk to your Google Assistant. It sounds pretty ordinary, but it's anything but. Read more about Duplex on CNET: https://cnet.co/2roXyH4 Subscribe to CNET: www.youtube.com/user/cnettv Check out our playlists: www.youtube.com/user/CNETTV/playlists Download the new CNET app: https://cnet.app.link/GWuXq8ExzG Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cnet Follow us on Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/cnet Follow us on Instagram: http://bit.ly/2icCYYm ||||| At this year’s Google I/O developer’s conference in Mountain View, Google demoed a very natural-sounding Google Assistant making an appointment over the phone — a feature it calls Google Duplex . This wasn’t just auto-filling an online form — according to various recordings tweeted from the conference, this was a phone call between Google’s AI Assistant and a human working at a salon. But more immediately, it might be able to make calls and book your appointments in a very-natural-sounding human voice, if a recent demo is to be believed. Google’s Assistant AI is getting better every year. It can tell you the weather, or perhaps crack a terrible joke if that’s more your speed. Give it another year or two, and it’ll be able to pre-order your lunch before you even had your morning coffee. A machine playing the part of a human? Well someone nudge forward the Doomsday Clock, the singularity is almost here. This is bananas. Google Assistant just called to book a haircut for someone. #io18 pic.twitter.com/gr2V0NjfiH — Daniel Bader (@journeydan) May 8, 2018 With practically no delay, Google’s AI seemed to navigate the conversation effortlessly. Granted, it didn’t take too much back-and-forth to settle on a time. But it’s eerie to listen to. The lines between human and AI have been tremendously blurred; it’s nearly impossible to tell the cheerful salon worker from Google’s Assistant. The intonation was spot on, and far from monotonous, or robotic. The AI even threw in a couple of “uh’s” and “hmm’s,” before it answered, the way a real human would. Whether or not it lives up to its demo, Google’s Duplex feature shows how far AI has come. But we might have to wait a bit until we can find out for ourselves. “We are still developing this technology,” CEO Sundar Pichai announced after the demo at Google I/O. Duplex will be rolled out to a limited number of testers as part of an “experiment in the coming weeks.” Duplex wasn’t the only impressive AI feature announced at the conference. Google also announced a Smart Compose feature that can write emails for you, expanding on its “canned response”-style Smart Reply feature. Google’s AI can even colorize black-and-white photos now using machine learning and advanced object recognition. Oh, and John Legend’s silky-smooth voice could be the one to book those hair appointments for you, instead of the boring default Assistant’s. But Duplex definitely seems to be the most impressive — and, perhaps, the most useful. I, for one, can’t wait to outsource all of my phone calls to a robotic assistant. ||||| Google CEO Sundar Pichai detailed a number of new Google Assistant features during his annual I/O keynote, the creepiest of which was an announcement that the voice assistant will be able to call up businesses on your behalf in the very near future. The reasoning behind the new feature is pretty sound. 60% of small businesses in the US don’t offer any form of online booking, so you have to call if you want to book a haircut at a hairdresser, or a table at a restaurant. But that’s where it gets a little bit creepy. So that you don’t have to call up the business yourself, Google has trained Assistant to be able to make the call for you. Google’s first example was using the voice assistant to book a haircut. The user typed in what kind of haircut they’d like between what times and the assistant was able to call up and have a convincing conversation with the salon’s secretary. And by convincing we really do mean convincing. “Powered by a new technology we call Google Duplex, the Assistant can understand complex sentences, fast speech, and long remarks, so it can respond naturally in a phone conversation,” says Google. “Even though the calls will sound very natural, the Assistant will be clear about the intent of the call so businesses understand the context.” Once the appointment was booked, Assistant knew to place a calendar event in the user’s Google Calendar. A true digital assistant The second interaction was even more impressive. Despite the fact that the restaurant didn’t accept reservations for the amount of people Google Assistant was trying to book for, the voice assistant was still able to navigate the conversation to establish that waiting times wouldn’t be too long if the party turned up that evening. For its final trick, Pichai detailed how the Assistant could make a phone call to establish a business’s opening times, before automatically updating its listing on the search engine. It was a pretty stunning moment from I/O, but we couldn’t help but be a little taken aback at how effective it was. The new functionality is going to be tested over the coming weeks and months, but no full release has yet been announced. Would you trust Google Assistant to book a haircut on your behalf? Let us know @TrustedReviews. ||||| Onstage at I/O 2018, Google showed off a jaw-dropping new capability of Google Assistant: in the not too distant future, it’s going to make phone calls on your behalf. CEO Sundar Pichai played back a phone call recording that he said was placed by the Assistant to a hair salon. The voice sounded incredibly natural; the person on the other end had no idea they were talking to a digital AI helper. Google Assistant even dropped in a super casual “mmhmmm” early in the conversation. Pichai reiterated that this was a real call using Assistant and not some staged demo. “The amazing thing is that Assistant can actually understand the nuances of conversation,” he said. “We’ve been working on this technology for many years. It’s called Google Duplex.” Duplex really feels like next-level AI stuff, but Google’s chief executive said it’s still very much under development. Google plans to conduct early testing of Duplex inside Assistant this summer “to help users make restaurant reservations, schedule hair salon appointments, and get holiday hours over the phone.” Pichai says the Assistant can react intelligently even when a conversation “doesn’t go as expected” and veers off course a bit from the given objective. “We’re still developing this technology, and we want to work hard to get this right,” he said. “We really want it to work in cases, say, if you’re a busy parent in the morning and your kid is sick and you want to call for a doctor’s appointment.” Google has published a blog post with more details and soundbites of Duplex in action. “The technology is directed towards completing specific tasks, such as scheduling certain types of appointments. For such tasks, the system makes the conversational experience as natural as possible, allowing people to speak normally, like they would to another person, without having to adapt to a machine.” Google envisions other use cases like having Assistant call businesses and inquire about their hours to help keep Maps listings up to date. The company says it wants to be transparent about where and when Duplex is being used, as a voice that sounds this realistic and convincing is certain to raise some questions. In current testing, Google notes that Duplex successfully completes most conversations and tasks on its own without any intervention from a person on Google’s end. But there are cases where it gets overwhelmed and hands off to a human operator. This section on the ins and outs of Duplex is very interesting: ||||| MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. (AP) — Google showcased its plans for the next several months as it kicked off its annual developers' conference Tuesday. Many of the new features center on the use of artificial intelligence to help save time. Here are the highlights: ___ MAPS: Google will use augmented reality to help guide you to your destination. When you pull up direction on Google Maps, you can look through the camera and get turn-by-turn directions while viewing the actual street. The app will also orient you and verify your position using local landmarks such as buildings and shops viewed through the camera. Google calls the technology VPS, or visual positioning system. The feature is expected this summer. ___ GOOGLE DUPLEX: Google's digital assistant will take on the task of making appointments and other tedious calls with actual people at businesses. In two demonstrations — one setting up a hair appointment, the other a restaurant reservation — a realistic-sounding automated voice used pauses and "ums" and "mmm-hmms" to sound more human during interactions with people. Google says the technology is rolling out as "an experiment" in coming weeks. ___ GMAIL: An autocomplete feature called "smart compose" uses artificial intelligence to suggest ways to finish sentences you start typing. For example, "I haven't seen you" might be autocompleted to "I haven't seen you in a while and I hope you're doing well." The feature will start rolling out this month. ___ PHOTOS: When Google recognizes a photo of someone who is one of your contacts, it can suggest sending the photo to that person. It can also convert photos to PDFs and automatically add color to black-and-white photos or make part of a color photo black and white. The changes are coming in the next few months. ___ GOOGLE ASSISTANT: Google's digital assistant will get six new voices, including one based on that of singer John Legend, later this year. The voices aim to sound more natural and will include pauses that convey meaning. Google is also unveiling ways to let you issue multiple commands without having to say "Hey Google" each time. And it will reward kids who say "please," similar to a feature Amazon is bringing to its Alexa voice assistant. ___ LENS: Google's visual assistant will be built into the camera. Just point the camera at a building or sign to get more information. Or copy text from images of menus, documents and other sources into another app on your phone. Samsung phones aren't on the list of phones getting the feature starting next week. Samsung has its own version, Bixby Vision. ___ NEWS: Google is redesigning the News feature to present five stories you need to know, plus others that it thinks will be most relevant to you. For outlets with subscriptions, Google will allow you to subscribe directly through your Google account, without needing new passwords or credit card information. The feature should be available to everyone by next week. ___ ANDROID P: The version of Google's Android phone software will infuse basic functions with AI smarts. The battery will adapt to how you use apps in order to conserve energy. "Adaptive brightness" will learn how bright you like your screen based on manual adjustments, instead of automatically adjusting based on the how bright it is. Apple's latest system, iOS 11, has a similar feature. Owners of some Android phones — none from Samsung — can get an early test version now. ___ WELL-BEING: Android P also includes features to combat overuse. A "shush" mode automatically turns on the "Do Not Disturb" mode when you turn your phone face down on a table. And "Wind Down Mode" will fade the screen to greyscale at a designated bed time to help you disconnect before bed.

– Google showcased its plans for the next several months as it kicked off its annual developers' conference Tuesday, the AP reports. Many of the new features center on the use of artificial intelligence to help save time. Highlights: Google Duplex: This service will use Google's digital assistant to take on the task of making appointments and other tedious calls with actual people at businesses. In two demonstrations—one setting up a hair appointment, the other a restaurant reservation—a realistic-sounding automated voice used pauses and "ums" and "mmm-hmms" to sound more human during interactions with people. Google says the technology is rolling out as "an experiment" in coming weeks. (This piece was getting some of the biggest attention online, with commenters calling the demo "stunning" and "mindblowing" and saying it "really feels like next-level AI stuff.")

While cruder and blunter than his past public statements, the president’s comments were in keeping with his long-standing position that the United States should shift its immigration policy away from poorer, developing countries, and instead focus on carefully selecting educated immigrants, especially from Europe, who can already speak English and have professional or technical skills needed in the United States. ||||| 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 ||||| President Trump grew frustrated with lawmakers Thursday in the Oval Office when they discussed protecting immigrants from Haiti, El Salvador and African countries as part of a bipartisan immigration deal, according to several people briefed on the meeting. "Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?" Trump said, according to these people, referring to countries mentioned by the lawmakers. Trump then suggested that the United States should instead bring more people from countries such as Norway, whose prime minister he met with Wednesday. The president, according to a White House official, also suggested he would be open to more immigrants from Asian countries because he felt that they help the United States economically. In addition, the president singled out Haiti, telling lawmakers that immigrants from that country must be left out of any deal, these people said. "Why do we need more Haitians?" Trump said, according to people familiar with the meeting. "Take them out." In November, the Trump administration rescinded deportation protection granted to nearly 60,000 Haitians after the 2010 earthquake and told them to return home by July 2019. Lawmakers were taken aback by the comments, according to people familiar with their reactions. Sens. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) and Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) had proposed cutting the visa lottery program by 50 percent and then prioritizing countries already in the system, a White House official said. A White House spokesman defended Trump's position on immigration without directly addressing his remarks. White House officials did not dispute the account. [200,000 Salvadorans may be forced to leave the U.S. as Trump ends immigration protection] "Certain Washington politicians choose to fight for foreign countries, but President Trump will always fight for the American people," spokesman Raj Shah said in a statement issued after The Washington Post first reported Trump's remarks. ". . . Like other nations that have merit-based immigration, President Trump is fighting for permanent solutions that make our country stronger by welcoming those who can contribute to our society, grow our economy and assimilate into our great nation." Trump built his candidacy and presidency around hard stances on immigration, vowing to build a wall along the Mexican border and cut legal immigration by half, among other positions. Officials at the Department of Homeland Security have increased immigration raids, including dozens this week at convenience stores across the country. Trump's comments Thursday also put further scrutiny on his long-standing tendency to make racially charged remarks — including attacks on protesting black athletes and his claim that there were fine people "on both sides" after neo-Nazis rioted in Charlottesville, Va. Trump falsely claimed for years that Barack Obama was not born in the United States and took out advertisements calling for the death penalty for members of the Central Park Five — four black youths and a Hispanic youth who were accused of a brutal rape in New York and later exonerated. The president's remarks were quickly met with scorn from Demo­crats and some Republicans and could throw another wrench into bipartisan discussions on immigration, which had shown promise in recent days, according to legislators. Rep. Luis Gutiérrez (D-Ill.) said the comments "will shake the confidence that people have" in the ongoing immigration policy talks. "Democrats and Republicans in the Senate made a proposal. The answer is this racist outburst of the president. How can you take him seriously?" Gutiérrez said. "They [Republicans] don't believe in immigration — it's always been about people of color and keeping them out of this country." Rep. Cedric L. Richmond (D-La.), chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, said on Twitter that Trump's remarks "are further proof that his Make America Great Again Agenda is really a Make America White Again agenda." Some Republicans also raised objections. Rep. Mia Love (R-Utah), whose family is from Haiti, said in a statement that Trump's remarks were "unkind, divisive, elitist, and fly in the face of our nation's values. This behavior is unacceptable from the leader of our nation." "My grandmother used to say, 'Digame con quién caminas, y te diré quién eres.' 'Tell me who you walk with, and I'll tell you who you are,' " said Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-N.Y.), who represents most of Harlem and is an immigrant from the Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti. "If he's walking around with white supremacists and supporting them, this kind of talk doesn't surprise me." The New York Times also reported last year that Trump said immigrants from Haiti have AIDS. The White House denied that report. [White House: No deal yet on immigration] In a statement condemning Thursday's remarks by Trump, Haiti's ambassador to the United States, Paul G. Altidor, said that "the president was either misinformed or miseducated about Haiti and its people." He said the Haitian Embassy was inundated with emails from Americans apologizing for what the president said. Democrats were quick to note that Trump employs Haitians at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida and that he praised Haitian Americans during a roundtable in Miami in September. "Whether you vote for me or don't vote for me, I really want to be your greatest champion, and I will be your champion," Trump said at the roundtable. Alix Desulme, a city council member in North Miami, home to thousands of Haitian Americans, said the president's latest remarks were "disgusting." "Oh, my God. Oh, my God Jesus," Desulme said. "I don't know how much worse it can get." "This is very alarming. We know he's not presidential, but this is a low," he said. "It's disheartening that someone who is the leader of the free world would use such demeaning language to talk about other folks, referring to folks of color." Trump's critics also said racially incendiary language could damage relationships with foreign allies. For many of Trump's supporters, however, the comments may not prove to be particularly damaging. Trump came under fire from conservatives this week for seeming to suggest that he would be open to a comprehensive immigration reform deal without money for a border wall, before he quickly backtracked. "He's trying to win me back," conservative author Ann Coulter, who has called for harsh limits on immigration, wrote on Twitter. Outlining a potential bipartisan deal, the lawmakers discussed restoring protections for countries that have been removed from the temporary protected status (TPS) program while committing $1.5 billion for a border wall and making changes to the visa lottery system. Lawmakers mentioned that members of the Congressional Black Caucus had requested that some African countries be included in a deal, according to a White House official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a private conversation. The exchange was "salty" on all sides, this person said, with the president growing profane and animated while discussing immigrants from other countries. "It did not go well," this person said. [Trump wants to remove these immigrants. An ugly bit of history tells us what it could do to the economy.] The administration announced this week that it was removing TPS status for citizens of El Salvador. Haitians were added to the TPS program because of a strong earthquake that devastated Haiti eight years ago. Trump had seemed amenable to a deal earlier in the day during phone calls with lawmakers, aides said, but shifted his position in the meeting and did not seem interested in the bipartisan compromise. The scene played out hurriedly in the morning. Graham and Durbin thought they would be meeting with Trump alone and were surprised to find immigration hard-liners such as Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) and Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) at the meeting. White House and Capitol Hill aides say Stephen Miller, the president's top immigration official, was concerned there could be a deal proposed that was too liberal and made sure conservative lawmakers were present. After the meeting, Marc Short, Trump's director of legislative affairs, said the White House was nowhere near a bipartisan agreement on immigration. "We still think we can get there," White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said at the daily White House news briefing. Ed O'Keefe, Maria Sacchetti and Erica Werner contributed to this report.

– “What do we want Haitians here for?” the Los Angeles Times quotes President Trump as saying during a meeting Thursday, as per two sources briefed on the meeting. “Why do we want all these people from Africa here? Why do we want all these people from shithole countries?" Two sources provided the Washington Post with a similar quote. Trump reportedly made the comment while meeting with senators about a bipartisan deal on immigration. It was suggested by Republican Sen. Lindsay Graham and Democratic Sen. Richard Durbin that protections for immigrants from Africa, Haiti, and El Salvador could be restored in exchange for $1.5 billion for the border wall and eliminating the visa lottery system. Trump rejected that idea, saying the US should focus on getting immigrants from places like Norway. The White House didn't deny Trump made the reported remarks, instead issuing a statement that he would "always fight for the American people." CNN reporter Kaitlain Collins tweets that White House staff aren't concerned about the "shithole" comment, as they believe Trump's base will approve of it. Meanwhile, Democrats are condemning the remarks. "This is racism, plain and simple, and we need to call it that," Democratic Rep. Tim Walz tweets. "My Republican colleagues need to call it that too." The Times reports the incident shows how hard it will be to secure a deal for Dreamers. Aides say Trump seemed interested in a deal earlier Thursday but had lost that interest by the time of the meeting. And a legislative aide to the president said afterward that a deal is far off.

USA forward T.J. Oshie (74) is congratulated by his teammates after scoring the winning goal in an overtime shootout. (Photo: Scott Rovak, USA TODAY Sports) Story Highlights T.J. Oshie, chosen partly before his shootout prowess, went 4-for-6 for a victory Oshie is 7-for-10 in shootout attempts, with two game-deciding goals Americans catch a break when Russian go-ahead goal is disallowed SOCHI, Russia – T.J. Oshie's magic in shootouts was a frequent topic of conversation when general manager David Poile and his selection committee chose the U.S. Olympic team roster. "You know at some point we are going to end up in a shootout, and we are going to want T.J. Oshie," Poile said more than once. Coaches had the same mindset about Oshie's specialty. The Americans appreciated what he brought to the team in general, but they loved his shootout prowess. He was like the team's ace in the hole, a guy who habitually hits it out of the park when it was needed most. The "some point" that Poile talked about came Saturday when Oshie converted four of six shootout chances against Russian goalie Sergei Bobrovsky to give the Americans a wildly entertaining 3-2 shootout win against the Russians. MEET T.J. OSHIE: Everyone's new favorite hockey player DISALLOWED GOAL: Aids USA's victory "I've never seen anything quite like that," said U.S. defenseman Ryan McDonagh. "I never knew he had that in his repertoire, all of those moves." Oshie scored right after U.S. goalie Jonathan Quick stood his ground to force Ilya Kovalchuk to miss for the second time in four chances. "I think I aged two years in that shootout," U.S. coach Dan Bylsma said. In the NHL this season, Oshie is 7-for-10 in shootout attempts, with two game-deciding goals. U.S. captain Zach Parise said he felt nervous for Oshie. Unlike in the NHL where a player shoots only once, international rules allow for using the same player over and over once three different players have been used. SELECTION PROCESS: See how Team USA was picked HISTORY: Slovenia wins first-ever Olympic game At one point, Pavel Datsyuk scored to give Russia a 2-1 lead in the shootout. Oshie had to score on his next shot, or Russia would have won. He did. "It was somewhat of a chess match – he kept him guessing," said U.S. center Joe Pavelski, who missed his shootout attempt. Oshie doesn't recall ever facing Bobrovsky in a shootout. "I was just trying to think of something to do," Oshie said. U.S. goalie Jonathan Quick wasn't surprised by Oshie's performance. "I've faced him a few times in the shootout and I didn't do well against him," he said. Backes said he has seen that move 1,000 times in St. Louis Blues practices. "It kind of makes me chuckle when I see it," Backes said, adding, "His hockey sense is off the charts and he makes plays. Today, he got to do it in front of a lot of spectators here and back home." A crowd of 11,678, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, was on the edge of their seats for the entire game that was intense and hard fought from the opening faceoff. PHOTOS: USA VS. RUSSIA HIGHLIGHTS Russia's hockey players probably have more pressure on them than any other athletes in the Games because they are expected to win the gold medal. It's been said the Russian people won't view the Olympic Games as a success unless the hockey team wins a gold medal. "Everything is OK, nothing terrible has happened," said Russian wing Ilya Kovalchuk. "We played good and showed our character by equalizing the game at the end." Since this was only a preliminary round game, Russia still has a chance of winning the gold medal. But the win helps the Americans because it puts them in an excellent position to earn a bye into the quarterfinals. To win their group, the Americans only need a win against Slovenia on Sunday. On Saturday, Slovenia upset Slovakia. Slovenia lost 5-2 Russia in its first game. The Russians thought they had produced the game winner on a shot by Fedor Tyutin with 4:40 remaining in the game, but the goal was disallowed because the net was slightly dislodged. Even the Americans admitted that was a big break. "I saw it was off, but I didn't know if it was before or after the puck went in," Quick said. ZETTERBERG: Injury raises team vs. country debate NHL RUN OVER: Is Sochi last Olympics for NHL players? With Dustin Brown in the penalty box, Datsyuk tied the score with a power play goal with 7:16 remaining in the third period. It was his second goal of the game. Midway through the third period, Joe Pavelski scored a power play goal to give USA a 2-1 lead. Patrick Kane set up the goal by threading a perfect pass through bodies in the slot. The game was as tight and hotly contested as it was expected to be. The symbol of intensity came early in the game when USA's Ryan Callahan and Russia's Evgeny Medvedev stood nose-to-nose jawing each other after a whistle. There might not have been a more heated exchange between a Russian and American since President Kennedy exchanged words with Nikita Khrushchev during the Cuban Missile crisis. That level of intensity continued throughout the game. Backes was a beast for the Americans, using his big body to be a physical defensive force. At one point, he threw heavy body checks against both Evgeni Malkin and Alex Ovechkin on the same shift He also mixed it up with Tyutin. The Russians aren't known for their physical play, but these Russians resembled the hard-to-play-against Blues more than the Big Red Machine of CCCP era. In the past, the Russians could be spooked by physical play. Not this era of Russians. They mixed it up push for shove against an American team that was built with the idea that they needed an edge to their game to succeed. These two gritty teams could end up facing each other again in the medal round. Follow Kevin Allen on Twitter @ByKevinAllen Sara Shookman breaks down all of Saturday's action in Sochi, including the U.S. men's hockey team's huge win over Russia in a thrilling finish. VIDEO: Daily Olympics wrap-up ||||| T.J. Oshie wins it for the USA with an eighth-round shootout goal. (Getty Images) The United States got four goals from T.J. Oshie in an eight-round shootout to defeat Russia by a final score of 3-2 on Saturday to move atop Group A in the Olympic hockey tournament. In a game that will rival any of the best hockey games you've ever seen, the United States prevailed in a shootout that was as good as the game that preceded it. Because of IIHF rules, after the first three shooters a player can take another turn so after the third round, USA coach Dan Bylsma just kept going back to Oshie and time and time again he delivered. Finally in the eighth round after Jonathan Quick stopped Ilya Kovalchuk, Oshie beat Sergei Bobrovsky for a fourth time to seal the USA win. After the first period the game was scoreless but Russia drew first blood in the second period when Pavel Datsyuk split the American defense and beat Quick from the slot on the rush. At that point, Russia was pretty well in control of the game. Sochi 2014 Olympic ice hockey standings Penalties against Russia allowed the US to get back into the game as the power play was strong for the Americans. The USA got the equalizer later in the second period when James van Riemsdyk found a chraging Cam Fowler and his pass went off Fowler's skate and into the net. In the third period the United States struck again on the power play when Patrick Kane found Joe Pavelski on the back door for a one-timer to give the US a 2-1 lead. That lead didn't last long though as a Dustin Brown penalty put Russia on the power play again for the fifth time in the game and that's when Datsyuk scored his second of the game to tie it up. Minutes later it looked like Russia took the lead on a goal from Fedor Tyutin but after review the goal was waved off. The net came off its moorings a few seconds earlier ever so slightly when Quick made a sliding save attempt and in the international game, if the net is off its position at all, goals are no good. It was a huge break for the Americans but in the international game it was the right call. The United States had one last power play to end regulation but couldn't convert, carrying it over into the five-minute overtime session. Patrick Kane had the best chance of the OT when he sprung free on a breakaway attempt but was unable to beat Bobrovsky five hole. The game would go to the shootout where it was the Oshie show for the USA against Ilya Kovalchuk and Pavel Datsyuk for Russia. Quick recevied the start for the USA in the second straight game and was phenomenal. He stopped 29 of 31 shots for Russia on the day and came up big in the shootout as well. Certainly he cemented himself as the USA's goalie in this tournament. The fact that this game did go to a shootout will have a big impact on the standings. The USA is now a win over Slovakia away from clinching the group and earning a bye into the quarterfinal. But they only received two points instead of three, putting them behind Canada/Finland in Group B and Sweden in Group C, who all have six points. Assuming the Canada/Finland winner wins in overtime and Sweden does the same over Latvia, they will be the top two seeds. The one point in the loss does help Russia because if that Canada/Finland game ends in regulation and Russia beats Slovakia, they will earn the fourth quarterfinal spot and a bye. Look back on the game with our live blog as it happened. FINAL: USA 3, Russia 2 (Shootout) (GIF via @PeteBlackburn) Eighth round -- T.J. Oshie for USA: GOAL! USA WINS! Eighth round -- Ilya Kovalchuk for Russia: NO GOAL Seventh round -- T.J. Oshie for USA: NO GOAL Seventh round -- Pavel Datsyuk for Russia: NO GOAL Sixth round -- T.J. Oshie for USA: GOAL Sixth round -- Ilya Kovalchuk for Russia: GOAL Fifth round -- T.J. Oshie for USA: GOAL Fifth round -- Pavel Datsyuk for Russia: GOAL Fourth round -- T.J. Oshie for USA: NO GOAL Fourth round -- Ilya Kovalchuk for Russia: NO GOAL Third round -- Ilya Kovalchuk for Russia: GOAL Third round -- Joe Pavelski for USA: NO GOAL Second round -- Pavel Datsyuk for Russia: NO GOAL Second round -- James van Riemsdyk for USA: NO GOAL First Round -- Evgeni Malkin for Russia: NO GOAL First Round -- T.J. Oshie for USA: GOAL 10:03 a.m. -- A small difference in the IIHF shootout rules. Shootout. Three shooters. After first three go and it's still tied, anyone can shoot whether he's gone or not. 2 points on the line. — Chris Peters (@chrismpeters) February 15, 2014 10:02 a.m. -- That's it for overtime, here comes the shootout. What. A. Game. 10 a.m. -- Kane gets another great chance in tight, tries to go backhand but Bobrovsky with another save. 27 seconds to go, offensive zone draw for USA. 9:58 a.m. -- Patrick Kane breakaway denied! He was all alone but Bobrovsky stops him. 9:55 a.m. -- Pavel Datsyuk gets a scary chance on the kill when an innocent dump-in gives rebounds off Quick and hangs there but he couldn't put it home. 3:49 left in 4-on-4 OT. 9:53 a.m. -- Don't forget, USA will have another 29 seconds on the power play to start overtime here. 9:52 a.m. -- To overtime we go! This game will have a winner whether it happens in overtime or in the shootout. Though this does hurt the winner in the seeding for quarterfinals, the important part is get the win at this point to get in position to win Group A. 9:50 a.m. -- Everybody is watching right now, even Rob Gronkowski. 9:48 a.m. -- POWER PLAY, USA. Evgeny Medvedev draws an interference call with 1:32 to play. The USA will have a chance to end this game in regulation, the only two goals thus far on the Power Play. Find a TV NOW. 9:46 a.m. -- We have the answer. The goal was waved off because the net was off it's moorings. Quick had nudged it a few seconds earlier on a sliding save attempt and in the international game, the goal has to be in its position, no question. Again, a MASSIVE break but perhaps not a blown call. Left post was off. No goal. pic.twitter.com/fIe0BRppxB — Pete Blackburn (@PeteBlackburn) February 15, 2014 9:44 a.m. -- That goal has been waved off but we're not sure why. That puck was not deflected on the way in so high sticking shouldn't be an issue there. USA just caught a MASSIVE break. Massive. 9:44 a.m. -- NO GOAL! 9:43 a.m. -- They're reviewing this one but it looks to be a good goal from Fedor Tyutin. It might have been touched by a high stick, we'll see. 9:42 a.m. -- GOAL RUSSIA 9:38 a.m. -- The fifth power play of the day is the charm for Russia. Pavel Datsyuk creeks in from the right side and fires, beating Jonathan Quick on the short side. Great screen by Radulov in front of the net to slightly redeem himself. Now Brown is feeling the Goat status. 9:38 a.m. -- GOAL RUSSIA 9:36 a.m. -- POWER PLAY, Russia. Dustin Brown now going back to the back for a kneeing hit in the neutral zone on Vladimir Tarasenko. Yes, this is important, 7:34 to go. 9:34 a.m. -- Sad Rad. 9:31 a.m. -- The Americans run a play off the faceoff on the power play and Joe Pavelski finds himself all alone on the far side to hammer home a one-timer. Tremendous pass from Patrick Kane across the width of the ice. The Americans are up with 10:28 to go. Alexander Radulov is feeling so much shame right now. 9:31 a.m. -- GOAL USA! 9:29 a.m. -- Remember Ryan Kesler blocking that shot and leaving briefly? His hand is tied up now. He's still playing because America and because Olympics. And of course because HOCKEY. Kesler with his hand taped up after that shot block earlier in the game pic.twitter.com/z5Pc4TI1qz — Pete Blackburn (@PeteBlackburn) February 15, 2014 9:28 a.m. -- POWER PLAY, USA. Radulov will go to the box and feel more shame, this time for a trip. The USA's only goal came on the power play. 11:33 to go. 9:27 a.m. -- The Americans are still having a tough time getting any sustained offensive zone pressure, Russia's neutral-zone trap has been gumming the USA up. A lot of dump-and-chase play for the US. 11:45 left. 9:23 a.m. -- PENALTY KILLED. Russia spends almost the whole two minutes in the offensive zone but mostly just cycling. Jonathan Quick did face two shots, though, and made one heck of a save on a short-angle one-timer from Evgeni Malkin. 9:20 a.m. -- POWER PLAY, Russia. Dustin Brown draws an offensive zone penalty while the USA was in possession of the puck. He touches a Russian defender who falls. That's a dubious call but a Russian power play it is with 17 minutes left. 9:19 a.m. -- PENALTY KILLED. USA never lets Russia get set up, the only shot attempt was an Ovechkin shot blocked once again by McDonagh. 9:16 a.m. -- Third period is ON. Russia has 1:59 of power play time to start. 9:10 a.m. -- The US started the period well with a power play, but took a good long while to get things going offensively. A defensive breakdown led to Pavel Datsyuk having a clean lane to the net and Russia deservedly was first on the board. The ice tilted after Alex Radulov's costly penalty and Cam Fowler's goal clearly woke up the Americans offensively. They actually ended up out-shooting Russia 13-8 in the period, but the US needs to do a better job of breaking through Russia's trap and getting to the middle of the ice. Patrick Kane's penalty puts the US in a bad spot to start the third, but if they can weather the storm early, they'll have a good chance to turn things around. -- Chris Peters 9:04 a.m. -- For your intermission pleasure, watch Cam Fowler score for the Americans and don't forget to celebrate JVR's pass. (GIF again via @PeteBlackburn.) 9:01 a.m. -- That's it for the second period, Pavel Datsyuk scores for Russia and Cam Fowler for the US. This is going to be an awesome final 20 minutes, the group win is (likely) on the line. Shots through 40 minutes: 23-21 in favor of USA. 9 a.m. -- POWER PLAY, Russia. Patrick Kane is called for a trip with 0.9 seconds remaining in the period. Not a great way to start the third for the US. It could really swing the game back to Russia because the US finished that period very strong and turned the tide. 8:56 a.m. -- Never forget, he is Cam America. 8:52 a.m. -- The Americans get some excellent chances and convert this one! James van Riemsdyk has a tremendous pass to Cam Fowler crashing the crease, it goes off his skate and in for the goal. JVR just had an amazing power play shift. Amazing. 8:52 a.m. -- GOAL USA! 8:50 a.m. -- POWER PLAY, USA. Alexander Radulov hits Dustin Brown in the neutral zone well away from the puck. Brown helps draw the call but that's what he does. USA with the man advantage here with 4:45 to go in the second. 8:50 a.m. -- The entire Canadian contingent is in Bolshoy, all of the coaches and GMs too. "Why can't I be as dreamy as Claude?" - Lindy Ruff pic.twitter.com/68dtkqAKDB — Pete Blackburn (@PeteBlackburn) February 15, 2014 8:48 a.m. -- Russia continues to control this game, playing much of it in the USA's end but the Americans did just get a nice look with the puck going wide. The USA can't get any sustained offensive time. 8:44 a.m. -- Time for some 4-on-4 action. David Backes and Fedor Tyutin get matching minors. Even more ice for a couple of minutes. 8:43 a.m. -- Here's that Datsyuk goal, GIF via @PeteBlackburn. 8:41 a.m. -- The USA desperately needs to tighten up in transition, Russia is excelling in that department so far. Ryan Kesler is back for the US though, 10 minutes left in the period. 8:38 a.m. -- After a defensive zone faceoff win, Pavel Datsyuk is able to find a massive seam in the American defense and he beats Jonathan Quick from the slot. Tremendous pass through the neutral zone to spring Datsyuk but the defense there by Brooks Orpik and John Carlson made that too easy. 8:38 a.m. -- GOAL RUSSIA 8:35 a.m. -- Kesler blocked an Ilya Kovalchuk slapper from point-blank distance and took it right in the hand. He looked to be in a lot of pain on the bench and has now headed to the dressing room. Ryan Kesler on the bench, in a lot of pain pic.twitter.com/EyltIRmGCp — Brian Stubits (@StubitsCBS) February 15, 2014 8:33 a.m. -- PENALTY KILLED. Ryan Kesler and Ryan McDonagh both take painful shots to the body on the penalty kill. USA really paid the price for that kill. 12:45 to play in the second. 8:32 a.m. -- Russia learned from the last power play and Ovechkin is in his firing spot in the faceoff circle. The result? Russia hits two posts and looks absolutely terrifying on the power play. 8:31 a.m. -- POWER PLAY, Russia. Max Pacioretty gets whistled for a hold and the Russian power play comes back out with 14:55 to go in the second. 8:29 a.m. -- The Americans get a 3-on-2 rush and Kessel throws it to defenseman Kevin Shattenkirk who joined the rush but Bobrosvky smothers it. The goaltending has been good on both sides so far but not a ton of tremendous chances either with 15 minutes left in the period. 8:24 a.m. -- PENALTY KILLED. The Americans get some looks, mostly right in the crease with Parise sitting just outside the crease but no dice. However Sergei Bobrovsky is leaving some rebounds out there if the USA can find any of them. 8:22 a.m. -- GAME IS BACK. USA opens on the power play for another 1:24 8:21 a.m. -- Jonathan Toews is in the building too. Who knew that Captain Serious becomes Canadian super fan in his off time? Toews, what are you doing pic.twitter.com/Rz2BfEZlmc — Threat In The Net (@ThreatInTheNet) February 15, 2014 8:19 a.m. -- NBC credits the scoring chances in the first period at 6-6. It sure didn't feel that way, Russia held play for most of the period. 8:16 a.m. -- Sidney sighting inside Bolshoy! You wanna piece of me Ovi? How about you, Geno? pic.twitter.com/GeYUCotG8A — SabresBuzz (@SabresBuzz) February 15, 2014 8:12 a.m. -- Well, looks like this is the game we expected. Russia got some great opportunities in this game, but Jonathan Quick has looked really good so far. The US might be a little too passive currently, but they started to get more aggressive as the period wore on. Team USA is doing a good job of getting sticks on pucks in the defensive zone which helps a lot. Russia definitely has the skill, but it should be also noted that their neutral zone trap is working well in forcing the U.S. to play a dump and chase game and give up possession. The US gets a power play to start the second period and will need to try and put Russia on their heels. It should be an excellent closing 40 minutes of hockey coming up. -- Chris Peters 8:07 a.m. -- The American power play gets a few shots in just 36 seconds to finally really test Sergei Bobrovsky but we hit the intermission with no goals. Shots after one period: 13-10 in favor of Russia. 8:05 a.m. -- POWER PLAY. With 36 seconds left in the period, the Russians get called for holding, Nikulin going to the box for holding. This is a HUGE chance for the USA to turn the tide in this game. 8 a.m. -- First major close call of the game. Alexander Semin throws the puck to the stick of a hard-charging Evgeni Malkin but Quick gets just enough and the puck dribbles wide. Russia has really taken control of this game with 3:39 left in the first period. 7:59 a.m. -- This is the face of a hockey player. Always a good look, right Radulov? In Mother Russia, dentist does not find you. pic.twitter.com/Xt3kTNomvA — World of Isaac (@WorldofIsaac) February 15, 2014 7:56 a.m. -- PENALTY KILLED. The Russians get some pretty good looks by so far Quick has been very good and looks settled. The USA needs to find a way to get a little traction back in this game. 7:54 a.m. -- Welp, that couldn't have felt good. Referee nailed in the, um, well, you know, that family spot consisting of jewels, so play has to stop. — Dan Rosen (@drosennhl) February 15, 2014 7:53 a.m. -- Alex Ovechkin makes a living in the NHL by sitting in the faceoff circle on the power play. He's playing the point for Russia. This does not compute. 7:50 a.m. -- POWER PLAY. The first penalty of the game goes to Blake Wheeler of the USA with a trip in the neutral zone. This Russian PP unit is kind of talented. 7:50 a.m. -- Further to the atmosphere, Bruce Arthur nails it. Here's the thing about a hockey World Cup replacing the Olympics: It could never replace the Olympics. — Bruce Arthur (@bruce_arthur) February 15, 2014 7:47 a.m. -- This game has a tremendous pace so far and the crowd is really into it. Olympic hockey rules! 7:44 a.m. -- With seven minutes gone there's no score, Shots are 5-4 Russia and the action has been equal so far too. The physicality probably playing to USA's preference. 7:41 a.m. -- Ryan Callahan lays a big hit on Alex Ovechkin and then gets a shot from the high slot a few moments later. After the save, the pushing and shoving starts. This game is intense. 7:39 a.m. -- Valeri Nichushkin shows off some of that immense talent by weaving through the USA defense to get a shot off. It looked pretty but no harm. 7:37 a.m. -- Byslma elected to reunite his Penguins defensemen Paul Martin and Brooks Orpik and so far they are indeed matched up against Evgeni Malkin. 7:35 a.m. -- GAME ON! 7:33 a.m. -- In case you needed to be reminded, this game is on NBC Sports Network this morning. Doc, Eddie O and Pierre on the call. 7:28 a.m. -- Are people excited for this game back in the States? How about these pictures answer that for you. 7:24 a.m. -- Bikes have been the mode of transportation of choice in Sochi among hockey players. Playing up to that and the stereotypes of Southern Californians, Jonathan Quick and Dustin Brown biked from the Olympic village to the Ice Dome on Saturday. Proof: Dustin Brown and Jonathan Quick arrive for the game on their bikes. pic.twitter.com/HA8uoxTnnE — Rich Hammond (@Rich_Hammond) February 15, 2014 7:23 a.m. -- It won't be ALL Russian fans in Bolshoy Ice Dome on Saturday, even though it will probably sound like it. 7:20 a.m. -- The players have finished warmpus. We'd say the anthems are right around the corner but they don't do them pregame in the Olympics. 7:09 a.m. -- You're obviously going to hear an awful lot about 1980 and the Miracle on Ice today for good reason but remember, that was against the Soviet Union, not Russia. Comparisons are warranted, though, as every member of that Soviet team was from Russia. 7:06 a.m. -- This is the second game of the day in Group A. Earlier, Slovenia beat Slovakia 3-1. Does that make you feel any different about USA's win over the Slovaks on Thursday? 7:02 a.m. -- The teams are on the ice at Bolshoy. Jonathan Quick getting in the right mindset. 6:54 a.m. -- Even though the game is in Russia against Russia, the USA is the home team. That means a couple of things; Dan Bylsma will get to make the last change and the Americans will be wearing their dark uniforms. A look inside men's team lockerroom prior to player arrivals today. USA-Russia live on@nbcsn at 730 am ET. pic.twitter.com/GoRwC11d1l — USA Hockey (@usahockey) February 15, 2014 6:51 a.m. -- As for the Russians, here's how the stack up. Most noteable change: Sergei Bobrovsky is starting instead of Semyon Varlamov. The rest: RUS lines: Ovechkin-Malkin-Semin, Kovalchuk-Datsyuk-Radulov, Kulemin-Anisimov-Tarasenko, Nichushkin-Tereshenko-Popov. 12 forwards dressed. — Dan Rosen (@drosennhl) February 15, 2014 RUS D pairs: Markov-Voynov, Medvedev-Emelin, Tyutin-Nikulin, Nikitin-Belov. — Dan Rosen (@drosennhl) February 15, 2014 6:47 a.m. -- Despite all of the success the Americans had against Slovakia, the USA projects with slightly different combinations. The scratches, however, remain the same; Jimmy Howard, Justin Faulk and Derek Stepan. Likely lines for USA-Russia game today: Parise-Backes-Callahan; Brown-Kesler-Kane; JVR-Pavelski-Kessel; Pacioretty-Stastny-Oshie; Wheeler — USA Hockey (@usahockey) February 15, 2014 Likely D pairs for USA-Russia game today: Fowler-Shattenkirk; Orpik-Martin; Suter-McDonagh; Carlson. Quick starts in goal. #teamusa #usah — USA Hockey (@usahockey) February 15, 2014 _______ Preview By Chris Peters The Facts Who: Russia (1-0-0-0) vs. United States (1-0-0-0) What: Second game of the Olympics for both teams in Group A When: 7:30 a.m. eastern Saturday on NBC Sports Network Where: Bolshoy Ice Dome, Sochi, Russia Eye on the United States Three Key Players: Jonathan Quick, Patrick Kane, Ryan Suter Quick Preview: Coming off the big 7-1 win over Slovakia, Team USA has proven they can score as well as any team, but they will face a much more difficult task defensively against Russia. The American defense wasn't challenged as much as they will be against Russia which also puts a lot of pressure on starting goalie Jonathan Quick to play a key role. The U.S. may jumble some of their forward lines and defensive pairings coming into this game which could slightly alter the way Team USA plays. If they're able to keep Russia on their heels despite home ice advantage and a load of offensive weapons, the U.S. should be able to make it tough on their hosts. This game is going to be played at a very, very fast pace. Eye on Russia Three Key Players: Alexander Ovechkin, Andrei Markov, Pavel Datsyuk Quick Preview: Russia took a while to put away Slovenia in a somewhat surprising opener, but there's no denying their offensive prowess. With a top six that includes some of the very best players in the world, they have to make sure they are the ones pushing the pace and not the Americans. All four lines can score, but the defense looked a little shaky, even against Slovenia, which can't be the case against Team USA. They'll have the home crowd behind them and expect this team to be very motivated. The U.S. is likely going to take a physical game to Russia, but they can't let that get them frustrated. If Russia can make the most of the chances they get, it's going to be tough for the U.S.

– They're still in the prelim rounds in hockey, but that didn't detract from the drama as USA beat Russia 3-2 today in an eight-round shootout. All the talk afterward was about TJ Oshie, who scored four times in said shootout to secure the win, reports CBS Sports (which has a GIF of the winning goal). Under Olympic rules, once the first three shooters go, the coach can keep sending the same player back out, and that's precisely Dan Bylsma did with Oshie. He scored on four of his six attempts. "I've never seen anything quite like that," US defenseman Ryan McDonagh tells USA Today. "I never knew he had that in his repertoire, all of those moves." But a more fitting quote came well in advance of the game from, GM David Poile: "You know at some point we are going to end up in a shootout, and we are going to want TJ Oshie." Adds Deadspin blogger Timothy Burke: "It's a match that will be remembered for a long time, even if it didn't have the must-win qualities of a knockout round game." (In other Olympic news, a Russian skier is recuperating from a broken spine.)

SIMI VALLEY (CBS13) — Joseph James DeAngelo faced a judge for the first time in Sacramento Friday, following his arrest on Wednesday. Now police in Southern California suspect he may be connected to a double murder in their area. For 40 years, investigators in Simi Valley thought they had the right man behind bars. Craig Coley was convicted and spent four decades behind bars. He was released last fall after DNA evidence cleared his name. “I always had hope,” Coley said. “Sometimes it was stronger than others.” Coley spent 39 years in a jail cell. His alleged crimes: the 1978 murder of 24-year-old Rhonda Wicht and her 4-year-old son Donald. “From the Day 1 when they arrested me, I told them ‘Look, do what you wanna do to me but keep looking, you have the wrong man,’” Coley explained. Wicht was beaten, raped and strangled, while Donald was smothered in his sleep. Detectives turned to her ex-boyfriend Coley as their main suspect. “Any legal charge against anybody is a search for the truth,” he said. “But the truth is the truth. It doesn’t change. I’ve told them the same story since they arrested me before I even went to trial.” Part of his criminal case hinged on DNA. Using the science in courtrooms was in its infancy then and not widely accepted as reliable until the late 80s. Coley was convicted and incarcerated. Last fall, Gov. Jerry Brown gave Coley a full pardon saying that the evidence was faulty and he was wrongly convicted. Forty years later, Simi Valley police want to check the DNA profile in the death of Rhonda Wicht and her son against that of Joseph DeAngelo thinking it might be the match they never made. Now 70 years old, Coley says he feels cheated yet he’s still working on moving forward with his life. “People need to realize that these things occur out there,” he said. “Police are human, they make mistakes.” Coley expects to receive some money in a lawsuit. But says there’s no amount that can make up for spending more than half of his life behind bars. ||||| On the morning of Nov. 11, 1978, a family member stopped in to check on Simi Valley single mother Rhonda Wicht and her 4-year-old son Donald. The two had not shown up for a family gathering in a quiet eastern suburb of Los Angeles located in Ventura County. The relative discovered a horrifying scene: 24-year-old Wicht was beaten, raped and strangled with a macrame rope. Her 4-year-old son had been smothered in his sleep. Rhonda’s boyfriend Craig Coley, wrongly convicted for the crimes, never saw another free day until this past Thanksgiving, nearly 40 years later, when he was released after DNA evidence cleared him of the brutal double homicide. Back in 1978, the crime shook the quiet bedroom community nestled west of San Fernando Valley. The town had never seen a violent crime so barbaric, and it demanded swift justice. Attention quickly turned to Rhonda's estranged boyfriend Coley, who was at the time a 31-year-old restaurant manager. Wicht and Coley had dated for two years, but the relationship was dwindling to an end. Coley was immediately held for questioning the same day. In the Fall of 2016, Simi Valley Police Chief David Livingstone was reviewing old newspaper clippings about the Wicht murders and something caught his eye. He reached out to retired detective Mike Bender, a Carlsbad resident, who Livingstone remembered had always expressed doubt about Coley's guilt. Bender has worked for 29 years to find the real killer or killers in the Wicht case and bring them to justice. Livingstone, Bender and Detective Dan Swanson began reinvestigating the case. Recently, DNA evidence at the crime scene unequivocally cleared Coley as the killer. In a letter pardoning Coley, Governor Jerry Brown wrote: “I requested the Board of Parole Hearings to conduct an investigation. During that investigation, a former police detective, police captain, and police officer reported that they believed Mr. Coley was wrongfully convicted and opined that the detective who originally investigated the matter mishandled the investigation or framed Mr. Coley.” Every single time, Coley takes a deep breath when he reads those words. “How can you feel when someone just reaches in and takes four decades out of your life?” he said when asked to describe his emotions during an exclusive interview with NBC 7 in November. It’s that same DNA evidence that detectives now hope may answer the 40-year mystery and bring justice to Wichts’ family. And maybe give Coley an answer, however partial and unsatisfactory it will likely be, as to why he lost 40 years of freedom. Wednesday, while news broke the infamous Golden State Killer had been arrested in Sacramento, Simi Valley police detectives quickly got to work requesting the DNA profile of 72-year-old Joseph James DeAngelo Junior. “We want to solve this case,” said Simi Valley Police Chief David Livingstone. “The Golden State case gives us a lot of hope that even after many years, there’s always the chance. It still shows you that you can solve cases even though it has been that many years. “ Livingstone noted the similarities between the crimes of the East Area Rapist or Golden State Killer and the Wichts’ murders. The Golden State Killer often attacked young single women alone in their homes or with children alone. He used specific types of ligatures during his rapes as a type of sexual gratification, and in the later crimes in Southern California, he bludgeoned his victims. He also notably ransacked the rooms of his victims, Livingstone said. “There was some ransacking in the Wicht case,” Livingstone said. “Not that a lot of murders don’t have some similarities, in terms of violence, but this one is close enough and with the timeframe it’s close enough to where we want to take a look at it and see if we can include or eliminate [DeAngelo] as a possible suspect in that case." Livingstone said if the DNA does not come back a match to DeAngelo they've eliminated one suspect and are that much closer to solving their case. "Even if the DNA is not a match, the Golden State Killer case is one that gives us hope that if we keep working it, we will one day solve our case," he said. If DNA links Deangelo to the Wicht murders, it will add new cases previously unlinked to the man police say committed 45 suspected rapes and 12 suspected murders in a sadistic crime spree starting in the summer of 1976. And Rhonda and Donald will not be the only new names on the Golden State Killer victims’ list. Craig Coley, then a 31-year-old restaurant manager, was arrested on suspicion of their murders on Veteran’s Day 1978 after serving his country honorably in the U.S. Navy. His service included several deployments to Vietnam aboard USS Enterprise and USS Bainbridge. During his 38 years of wrongful incarceration, he was a model inmate, according to Gov. Brown, dedicating his time not to feeling sorry for himself, but volunteering as an officer with Veteran Affairs, mentoring for a bible study group and earning his Bachelor of Arts in Biblical Studies before starting on a master's degree. Looking back, he says his biggest regret is being behind bars when his mother and father, a retired Los Angeles police officer, passed away. Coley said he doesn’t recall his path ever crossing with DeAngelo who also served in the Navy and deployed to Vietnam aboard the USS Canberra. DeAngelo spent time docked in San Diego in early 1970's after his deployment to Vietnam, and was a police officer for Auburn in Northern California until 1979. He was fired for shoplifting a can of dog repellent and a hammer. During Coley's nearly four decades behind bars, he always maintained his innocence. “I told them, 'Do what you want with me, but keep looking for the killer because you’ve got the wrong man,'” Coley said. “You’ve got the wrong man.” Speaking exclusively with NBC 7 on Thanksgiving Day in 2017, the first day he woke up a free man in 38 years, he described finding religion, and thus peace, in prison. He said forgiveness to the people who wrongly put him behind bars was something he counted as his personal blessing. But to the person who committed the horrific murder of his then-girlfriend and her innocent son, he said forgiveness was something he was still working on. “Shame on you,” he said. “Shame on you. If I wasn’t a Christian, I could curse them out, but what good is that going to do? They’ll get theirs in the end when God judges them. I just hope and pray they haven’t hurt anyone else.” He said he never stopped thinking about Rhonda and her son, praying that Bender and Livingstone find her real killer and that when they do, it doesn't open up too many painful, dark memories for her family.

– Forty years ago, the wrong guy took the rap for a gruesome double murder in Simi Valley, Calif.—and now police are asking if the real culprit was the Golden State Killer, NBC San Diego reports. Back in 1978, a family member stumbled on the raped, strangled, and beaten body of 24-year-old single mom Rhonda Wicht and her smothered 4-year-old son Donald. Suspicion fell on Wicht's boyfriend Craig Coley, a Navy veteran who was convicted and spent nearly 40 years in prison despite police officials arguing at the time for his innocence. DNA tests exonerated Coley last year and Gov. Jerry Brown pardoned him, which re-opened the question: Who really did it? The killers' MOs are similar: The Golden State Killer struck young unmarried women at home alone or with kids, and ransacked his victims' rooms—features both found in the Wicht killings. Now Simi Valley police are asking for the DNA of Joseph DeAngelo Junior, the Golden State Killer suspect, to see if it matches evidence from the Wicht crime scene. That wouldn't give 70-year-old Coley back his lost decades, but CBS Los Angeles reports that he's eligible to receive money in a lawsuit, and his religious conversion apparently brought him peace behind bars. "If I wasn't a Christian, I could curse [the killer] out, but what good is that going to do?" he asks. "They'll get theirs in the end when God judges them. I just hope and pray they haven’t hurt anyone else."

So when my kids Gabe & Alayna started memorizing some verses from James last fall I wanted to make it easier for them. Wha lah the book of James all in memes, ...verse by verse... Today's Verse Rehearse Verse Dates are out of Joshua 1:8 & 1:9... A tribute to Joshua Davidson, (pictured on cover) who memorized the entire book of James. Get the full-color paperback edition with 100 bible verse memes here - https://www.amazon.com/dp/1976846366 Get the ebook free at https://www.patreon.com/posts/verse-memes-of-6-15886131 Like products like this? I'm asking you to be a Surge Up Patreon supporter at SurgeUp.com ||||| Nothing fires up a crowd like cloture. Rick Santorum, the man who has improbably become a contender in Tuesday’s Iowa caucuses, was making his closing argument to a sea of TV cameras here on Monday when he swerved into a thicket of Senate trivia. “I’m not disagreeing with the 17th Amendment,” the former senator from Pennsylvania proclaimed to journalists (and a few locals) at a coffee shop here. But, he went on, that obscure 1913 provision that established the direct election of senators had the side effect of creating “something called cloture.” All was quiet in the coffee shop. At the senator’s side, a child played with his Game Boy. It’s not clear why Santorum thought his final pitch to Iowa voters should include a mention of century-old legislative procedure. More clear from the Polk City appearance — and a subsequent one up the road in Perry, Iowa — is that he won’t last long as a top-tier presidential candidate if he doesn’t improve his game. The “Santorum surge” in recent days has little to do with the candidate himself and everything to do with the fact that he is the last man standing after voters discarded all the rest. There’s little time left to scrutinize Santorum before the Iowa vote — and in his case, that’s an exceedingly lucky thing. Given more time in the spotlight, he would reveal himself as a hard-edged Dan Quayle. In Perry, Santorum gave his opinion that President Obama was more of a divisive figure than Richard Nixon, keeper of the enemies list: “I suspect President Nixon, although I don’t know, would talk and work with people and wouldn’t go out and demonize them as this president has done.” Santorum doesn’t know it, but that doesn’t stop him from asserting it. At the same stop, he played loose with the facts when contrasting Ronald Reagan’s vacation schedule with Obama’s. “I don’t know if it’s true, but somebody told me this,” he began, “that Ronald Reagan never left the White House at Christmas, and the reason was he wanted all the staff to be able to spend that time at home.” A check of the record would have revealed to Santorum that in 1988, Reagan was in Los Angeles during Christmas, and that he spent the week after nearly every Christmas (and more than a year of his presidency) in Santa Barbara, Calif. I’ve covered Santorum on and off since his first run for Congress, in 1990, when I was a rookie reporter in Pittsburgh. Months ago, I predicted there would be such a Santorum surge in Iowa. But if and when he receives serious scrutiny, the surge will surely subside. On Monday, for example, he claimed that he is the only candidate who “has proof that, with a conservative record, they were able to attract independents and Democrats.” And that is why Pennsylvania voters unceremoniously tossed him from office in 2006 by a nearly 18-point margin? A n Iowan reminded him of this. “Great question,” the candidate replied, blaming his GOP congressional colleagues and President George W. Bush’s unpopularity. Talking about Obama’s health-care legislation, he pledged that “I simply won’t enforce the law.” But discussing immigration policy minutes later, he said that “we need to enforce the law.” If the surge sustains him past Iowa, he will have difficulty explaining such things as his pledge to make abortion restrictions his first order of business (never mind that nonsense about jobs) or the treason accusation he hurled at Obama on Monday: In foreign conflicts, he said, “he’s sided with our enemies on almost every single one.” Scrutiny would also expose Santorum’s attachment to Washington process. His closing argument to Iowa voters moved from his cloture talk to mention of the Senate Appropriations Committee, earmarks, the House Judiciary Committee, the Syrian Accountability Act and a long discourse on Honduras. He grew particularly impassioned when telling his uncomprehending listeners that “we can take the 9th Circuit and divide it into two circuits.” Santorum is clearly enjoying his surge, boasting that, while other campaigns had an “airplane, bus, cars, etcetera,” he simply had “Chuck’s truck” — a Dodge pickup. Now there is a shiny campaign bus with his name on it. At Santorum’s first stop, in Polk City, the coffee shop’s maximum occupancy was listed as 49, but at least 200 filled the room and 100 more spilled into the street. In the media throng were journalists from Japan, Russia, France, Britain, Italy and Australia. “They weren’t here last week,” a pleased Santorum told the crowd. Enjoy it, Senator. They won’t be here for long. ||||| 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 ||||| From Left: Jim Wilson/The New York Times; Josh Haner/The New York Times; Jim Wilson/The New York Times; Jim Wilson/The New York Times It’s just that in Iowa, he happens to like a smart, sleeveless V-neck number. Crewnecks, with their neck-hugging collars, aren’t suitable for stuffy rooms crammed with voters who have little respect for personal space. Cardigans? Not his thing. Mr. Santorum prefers the sweater vest, that sensible, traditional choice of grandfathers and college football coaches. He owns them in navy blue, gray and tan, which he sported here on Monday for a voter meet-and-greet. Sensing they were seeing a political fashion statement in the making, members of his staff recently ordered vests embroidered with the Santorum campaign logo. The vests have inspired their own Twitter feed — @FearRicksVest — and a Web site, FearRicksVest.com, which redirects to a pro-Santorum Facebook page. There is also a music video, “Sleeves Slow Me Down,” on YouTube. The clip is loaded with catchy slogans like “Rick is getting ready to inVEST in you.” Mr. Santorum’s rivals are biased toward sleeves. Mitt Romney likes his crisply pressed oxford shirts, often under a blazer. Ron Paul is partial to suits, albeit ill-fitting ones. And Michele Bachmann, who has said her fashion icons are Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Audrey Hepburn, is almost always carefully turned out, so much so that she once prohibited photographers from taking her picture when she was wearing cargo pants. In an interview here on Monday, Mr. Santorum insisted that he was not anti-sleeve. He harbors no bigotry toward extra fabric, whether it’s cotton, cashmere or wool. He said the vests started gaining notice after a forum in Des Moines a few weeks ago with Mike Huckabee. Most of the other candidates were in suits. Mr. Santorum chose a sweater vest and unwittingly made a fashion statement. After that, he said, “It sort of took on a life of its own. So I started wearing more and more. My staff bought me a bunch more.” He buys most of them from JoS. A. Bank. But he’s been known to splurge on a vest at Brooks Brothers. On Twitter, the sweater has adopted its own persona and first-person voice, as in “Fear me ... and ... hear me! I’m ready to relocate to the White House,” and “@RickSantorum at 16% among Iowa R’s! Take off that sweater vest, Rick, it’s gettin hot in herre!” He even fielded questions about the vests from Laura Ingraham, the conservative radio talk show host. “Maybe it’s a trend?” she asked. He started to explain, saying, “One of the things I get all the time ...” Ms. Ingraham interrupted. “Geek?” she joked. ||||| (Photo Credit: AP) We thought Rick Santorum’s sweater vests were just a regular old-fashion statement. Turns out, they’re so much more. Santorum explained to Laura Ingraham on Monday that he likes to wear the sleeveless numbers because they make him look “a little older.” Said Ingraham, “When I think of sweaters I think of Jimmy Carter, I think of Lamar Alexander, so all I’m saying Rick, with how you and I are so aligned on social issues and world view, but I’ve got to take issue with you on the sweater vest.” “Is it geek chic? What is it?” Ingraham pressed. The 2012 candidate explained that saying yes to the vests has a lot to do with looking more like an elder statesman. Santorum, 53, pointed out that a man in Iowa guessed he was 32. “You’ve never been in the sun. … It’s awful how lucky you are,” said Ingraham and Santorum explained, “I’m thinking the sweater vest makes me look a little older and that might be a good thing.” Read more about: Rick Santorum

– As Rick Santorum surges in the Iowa polls, his collection of sweater vests is also winning popularity. Santorum has taken to wearing the sleeveless V-necks while campaigning in Iowa; the sartorial choice apparently first garnered attention at a Des Moines forum a few weeks ago during which most other candidates wore suits. "It sort of took on a life of its own" after that, he explains. "So I started wearing more and more. My staff bought me a bunch more." They even, the New York Times notes, had vests embroidered with his campaign logo. The vests have a Twitter feed, Facebook page, and music video (watch at left). Why does he wear them? In order to look older, he told Laura Ingraham yesterday, according to Politico. Pointing out that he, at age 53, was mistaken for 32 while in Iowa, Santorum said, "I’m thinking the sweater vest makes me look a little older and that might be a good thing." But it's not all light news for Santorum today: Dana Milbank wrote a particularly scathing piece on the candidate for the Washington Post, pointing out a number of Santorum's errors and inconsistencies. Predicts Milbank, "He won’t last long as a top-tier presidential candidate if he doesn’t improve his game." Click to read Milbank's piece.

A Delaware judge sentenced former Ravens cheerleader and fitness author Molly Shattuck on Friday to 48 weekends in a community corrections center for the sexual assault of a 15-year-old boy. Shattuck, who pleaded guilty in June to a count of fourth-degree rape as part of an agreement with prosecutors, is to spend alternating weekends in a facility in Delaware for the next two years. She is required to register as a sex offender in Maryland and Delaware, and forbidden to be around anyone under the age of 18 other than her children. The 48-year-old mother of three admitted to performing oral sex on the teenager last summer at a rented vacation house in Bethany Beach, Del. The boy had attended McDonogh School in Owings Mills with her son. "I take full responsibility for what I did," Shattuck, 48, said between sobs as she stood before Judge E. Scott Bradley. "I was the adult." Shattuck is the former wife of Mayo A. Shattuck, former CEO of Constellation Energy, the parent company of Baltimore Gas and Electric Co. She won fame as the oldest cheerleader in NFL history. Life in pictures: Molly Shattuck Dressed in a dark suit and polka-dot blouse, she entered the Sussex County Courthouse on Friday morning surrounded by a group of women as photographers and reporters snapped photos. Shattuck appeared to be shaken throughout the proceedings. She was incomprehensible at times during her testimony. She rocked back and forth at the defense table as defense attorney Michelle N. Lipkowitz placed her hand on Shattuck's back. Shattuck is to report to a Delaware violation-of-probation center during the first weekend of September, and return every other weekend for two years. The sentencing order does not specify which center Shattuck must report to, said Carl Kanefsky, spokesman for the Delaware Department of Justice. The 250-bed Sussex Violation of Probation Center in Georgetown is described on the state website as a "military-style, highly regimented program of discipline," with a "no-frills environment" in which offenders rise at 5 a.m. The tan, warehouse-like building is part of a larger correctional campus run by the state, a few miles from the courthouse where Shattuck was sentenced. "It's not a walk in the park," defense attorney Eugene Maurer told reporters outside the courthouse. He had asked the judge for probation, and called the sentence fair. "[The judge] is punishing her … while at the same time not punishing her children," he said. Shattuck's children range in age from 12 to 16. But her sentence drew criticism from some victims' advocates. Lisae C. Jordan, executive director of the Maryland Coalition Against Sexual Assault, called it "totally inappropriate." "It's certainly a significant accommodation to a defendant to allow a sentence to be served on weekends, much less every other weekend," she said. Raeann Warner, a civil attorney in Delaware who represents sexual abuse victims, said she was surprised by the sentence. She said many people tend to think that abuse by female perpetrators against male victims is less serious than it is. "That's not fair or right, because boys are just as scarred by this," she said. The judge heard emotional testimony from the victim's parents. The boy's mother said Shattuck had stolen her son's innocence. She described changes in her son, who she said now finds it difficult to trust people. "Miss Shattuck is a criminal," the victim's mother said. "She admits to being a rapist. ... She must be held responsible." The teen's father recalled dropping his son off at the beach house. He asked Shattuck whether she could handle taking care of the big group of kids staying at the house. While he worried the teens could sneak out and find alcohol, he said, he never imagined Shattuck would violate his son. Weeks later, he stood "elbow to elbow" with Shattuck at a school social event. "That woman stood right next to me after having raped my son," the father said. He said Shattuck reached out to his son through her own son with the message "Call my mom. She thinks you're hot." The Baltimore Sun does not generally name victims of sexual assault. Prosecutor John Donahue called the case a "classic" example of victim grooming. He said Shattuck groomed the teenager for three months before the incident at the vacation house. "This was not an interaction between two adults," said Donahue. He asked Bradley to incarcerate Shattuck. Sentencing guidelines in the case called for up to 22 months for the fourth-degree rape charge. Shattuck faced other charges that were dropped as part of the plea agreement. Maurer, the defense attorney, said Mayo Shattuck had left Molly Shattuck for a younger woman, which was a blow to her psyche. Later Friday, an attorney for Mayo Shattuck called the claim "completely erroneous." "After the hearing, Molly apologized to Mayo for that comment by her lawyer, which she said came as a shock to her," attorney Sandy Ain told The Baltimore Sun. Maurer, reached late Friday, declined to comment. Ain said his client had no comment on the sentence his former wife received. "Mayo's principal goal is to protect his children and to have his privacy protected as much as possible," Ain said. "The whole episode has been disastrous for the family and for their children." In handing down the sentence, Bradley said he couldn't imagine what either the victim or Molly Shattuck have been through. "This is a difficult case," he said. The judge sentenced Shattuck to 15 years in prison — the maximum sentence for the charges — with all but two years suspended. The two years are to be served as probation, with the alternating weekends in the Delaware facility. She also will be required to pay more than $10,000 in restitution. As the courtroom emptied after the sentencing, Shattuck collapsed into a chair. Baltimore Sun reporter Justin Fenton contributed to this article. alisonk@baltsun.com twitter.com/aliknez ||||| The family of the 15-year-old victim told the judge that Shattuck's actions have been "devastating" for their son, the station reported. The Baltimore socialite, fitness author and mother of three pleaded guilty in June to fourth-degree rape as part of a deal with prosecutors. Investigators say she had oral sex with a 15-year-old boy last Labor Day weekend at a beach house in Delaware. The boy, whom she had first contacted through Instagram, attended the same school as her son, police said. An official at the children's school went to Baltimore County police after learning about the sexual encounter. Shattuck — the estranged wife of Mayo Shattuck, a Baltimore businessman and the chairman of energy company Exelon Corp. — became the oldest NFL cheerleader in history when the Ravens hired her in 2005. She was 38.

– Two months after pleading guilty to the rape of a 15-year-old boy, former Baltimore Ravens cheerleader Molly Shattuck was today sentenced to 48 weekends in jail—to be served on alternating weekends over two years beginning the first weekend in September, report NBC News and the Baltimore Sun. A Delaware judge also ordered Shattuck, 48, to pay $10,650 to the boy's parents, who called her a rapist, reports WBAL. They added the effect of the crime on their son has been "devastating." "I will spend the rest of my life making this right," Shattuck, who must also register as a sex offender, said to the court through tears. Shattuck's lawyers placed the blame on the fitness guru's ex-husband, noting he left her for a younger woman; they claim that made Shattuck turn to the teen boy, first on Instagram, then at a vacation rental home in Delaware last summer. She is not permitted to be around anyone under age 18 except her kids. More on the case here.

Thermal Imaging What if you have a critical system on your premises that requires constant monitoring of its temperature? Knightscope can run a thermal image and not only push an alert at a certain threshold but also capture data for historical analysis or pattern recognition. And, of course, we can detect fires in the deployment area. ||||| Technically Incorrect offers a slightly twisted take on the tech that's taken over our lives. Enlarge Image Anton/YouTube screenshot by Chris Matyszczyk/CNET They mean well, robots. They're just trying to make our world a better place. I fear, however, we're still not so sure. I base this -- today, at least -- on an incident that allegedly occurred last Thursday in the parking lot of a company called Knightscope. The company makes K5 security robots and boasts on its website: "Robots Winning Against Crime." Well, not always. Last Thursday, one of Knightscope's security robots was on patrol at the company's offices in Mountain View, California, when, police say, it was assaulted by a human being. "On April 19 around 8:15 pm, we responded to Knightscope, located on the 1000 block of Terra Bella Avenue, for reports of a prowler in the area," a police spokeswoman told me. This alleged prowler wasn't the robot. It was a human, 41-year-old Jason Sylvain. He was accused of knocking over the robot. Some might consider this a feat, as the robot weighs 300 lbs. Was this a fit of existential woe? "When we arrived, we met with Sylvain, and as we were speaking with him, he appeared confused, had red, glassy eyes and a strong odor of alcohol emitted from him," the spokeswoman told me. Stacy Dean Stephens, Knightscope's vice president of marketing and sales, told me that the robot took it all in its stride. "The robot did exactly as it was suppose to do -- the 'assault' was detected and immediately reported. The alarms on the robot sounded, the suspect attempted to flee the scene and was detained by one of my colleagues and me until the Mountain View Police arrived," he told me. The robot only suffered scratches. "The robot has recuperated from his injuries and is back on patrol keeping our office and employees safe again," Stephens told me. It's unclear, however, whether it bears any emotional scars. What's clear is that Sylvain is in trouble. Police say that "the employee of the business requested a private person's arrest for Sylvain for prowling." He was also charged with being drunk in public. Police weren't able to say whether Sylvain had legal representation, and CNET's attempts to contact him were unsuccessful. Stephens, however, told me: "He claimed to be an engineer that wanted to 'test' the security robots. I guess he now has his answer." It's easy to imagine these robots are innocent beings, there only for the good of mankind. Last year, however, a mom and dad accused a robot of mowing down their child at a shopping mall, causing injury. The robot was a K5 security robot, made by Knightscope. First published April 25, 8:32 p.m. PT. Update, 8:46 p.m.: Adds comment from Knightscope. Technically Incorrect: Bringing you a fresh and irreverent take on tech. Virtual reality 101: CNET tells you everything you need to know about VR. ||||| The future is going to be full of robots, which might be exciting or depressing depending on your viewpoint. The future is also going to be full of drunk people tackling said robots for fun, which is going to be very funny right up until the point corporations pass robot hate crime laws in order to protect their property. Then it’ll be depressing. But hey, while we’re still at the funny stage, why not enjoy the news that last week in Mountain View, a drunk man was arrested after knocking over a 300-pound security robot, the Knightscope K5. If the name sounds familiar, it’s because a different Knightscope K5 was previously in the news for running over a toddler’s foot. So, maybe this is just payback? Robo-human wars have to star somewhere I guess. According to ABC7 News, the perp, 41-year-old Jason Sylvain, approached the K5 while it was patrolling a parking lot. He toppled it over (out of spite or curiosity? We don’t know), inflicting a number of scratches on the bot. The K5 is now back on patrol, while Sylvain has been arrested for “prowling and public intoxication.” .@iKnightscope says it's a "testament to the technology" that guy who attacked anti-crime droid was arrested pic.twitter.com/SWGGVOWlvi — Tiffany Wilson (@TWilsonTV) April 25, 2017 Reaction to the incidents seems mixed. One local resident told ABC7 News: “It’s a funny situation.” While another said “[it’s] a pretty pathetic incident because it shows how spineless the drunk guys in Silicon Valley really are because they attack a victim who doesn't even have any arms.” Which also means “it’s a funny situation.” Drunken japes aside, it’ll be interesting to see how companies deal with this sort of incident in future. If people are going to damage robots, how should they program those bots to react? Do we need new laws, or will people just slowly acclimatize to the technology, like they always do? Some context: in one experiment in Japan, a robot was let loose to wander in a busy shopping mall, asking humans who blocked its path to move out the way. The researchers found that adults were happy to step aside, but children were less accommodating. When no one was looking they obstructed the robot; kicking it, punching it, and calling it names. Finding no easy way to stop this behavior, the roboticists programmed the bot to simply avoid any human shorter than 1.4 meters. Drunks and children, it seems, simply can’t be trusted around robots. ||||| A 300-pound egg-shaped security robot was punched to the ground by an allegedly drunken man outside a Silicon Valley shopping center, Mountain View police said. A 41-year-old Mountain View man has been arrested in connection to the alleged parking-lot altercation with the Knightscope-made droid. The accused robo-assailant, who faces charges of prowling and public intoxication, was identified as Jason Sylvain. The robot suffered minor scratches and is back on duty following last week's incident, which was first reported Tuesday by ABC7 News. Sylvain was not immediately reachable for comment. Last year, one of the Knightscope's security robots knocked over a 16-month-old child at a Silicon Valley shopping center. The robot ran over the boy's right foot, causing bruising but not breaking it. The five-foot-tall, K5 robots can read 300 license plates per minute. They also are equipped to supply 360-degree video streaming. Once an anomaly is detected by these robots, they alert security guards. The robots are not armed. Knightscope, which is based in Mountain View, charges $7 per hour for the robots that the company claims will soon be able to detect guns. The company says it has dozens of clients, including Microsoft and the NBA's Sacramento Kings. ||||| Meet K-5 ---the droid taken down by an alleged drunk man last week. Don't worry, he's back on patrol :) details @abc7newsbayarea at 11 pic.twitter.com/0qthDHONQq — Tiffany Wilson (@TWilsonTV) April 25, 2017 .@iKnightscope says it's a "testament to the technology" that guy who attacked anti-crime droid was arrested pic.twitter.com/SWGGVOWlvi — Tiffany Wilson (@TWilsonTV) April 25, 2017 Police arrested a man accused of being drunk and knocking down a robot that was built to prevent crime near Terra Bella and Linda Vista Avenue in Mountain View.The 300-pound robot named K5 spins and occasionally whistles, so it's hard to understand why someone would want to knock it down."I think this is a pretty pathetic incident because it shows how spineless the drunk guys in Silicon Valley really are because they attack a victim who doesn't even have any arms," Mountain View resident Eamonn Callon said.Police say Jason Sylvain, 41, knocked down the Knightscope droid while it was patrolling the parking lot, last week."I think this is probably a first for us, but we are no strangers to technology," one woman said.Patrons at Peet's Coffee couldn't get enough of the story. "I don't think this is a fair fight, really totally unacceptable," Callon said."I don't know, it's a funny situation," Mountain View resident Guy Simoes said.Another man said he would've arrested the guy or given him a ticket.The robot referred to as K5 suffered some scratches, but it is back on the street.The co-founder said it's a testament to the technology that police caught the aggressor and booked in him jail. Knightscope is the company behind the robot that ran over a toddler's foot at a Stanford shopping center last year.Since then, they've made many adjustments and just launched their first security droids out of state.Police said Sylvain faces prowling and public intoxication charges.

– A crime-fighting robot wasn't able to prevent a drunk guy from attacking it—but it did get the last laugh, er, whistle, according to police. Authorities say Jason Sylvain, 41, knocked down the 5-foot-tall, 300-pound Knightscope K5 security droid—which is equipped with a camera, per Ars Technica, and whistles and spins in a circle when it detects a crime—as it was patrolling Knightscope's parking lot in Mountain View, Calif., last Thursday. The robot, which suffered some scratches, was the clear loser in the fight, though it was a rather one-sided affair since K5 doesn't have any arms. The droid got its revenge, however, by sounding its alarms, reports CNET. Knightscope rep Stacy Dean Stephens says Sylvain tried to flee when the alarms sounded, but was restrained until police arrived. A police rep says he was charged with prowling and public intoxication after officers noted he “appeared confused, had red, glassy eyes and a strong odor of alcohol emitted from him." According to Stephens, "the robot did exactly as it was supposed to do—the 'assault' was detected and immediately reported." The fact that Sylvain was arrested is "a testament to the technology," the company adds, per ABC 7. While the Verge wonders if this marks the start of "robo-human wars," Knightscope notes K5 recovered quickly and is back on patrol. (A robot with "no function" roams a desert.)

Starbucks Corporation is an American coffee company and coffeehouse chain. Starbucks was founded in Seattle, Washington in 1971. As of 2018, the company operates 28,218[2] locations worldwide. Starbucks is considered the main representative of "second wave coffee", initially distinguishing itself from other coffee-serving venues in the US by taste, quality, and customer experience while popularizing darkly roasted coffee.[5] Since the 2000s, third wave coffee makers have targeted quality-minded coffee drinkers with hand-made coffee based on lighter roasts, while Starbucks nowadays uses automated espresso machines for efficiency and safety reasons.[5][6] Starbucks locations serve hot and cold drinks, whole-bean coffee, microground instant coffee known as VIA, espresso, caffe latte, full- and loose-leaf teas including Teavana tea products,[7] Evolution Fresh juices, Frappuccino beverages, La Boulange pastries, and snacks including items such as chips and crackers; some offerings (including their annual fall launch of the Pumpkin Spice Latte) are seasonal or specific to the locality of the store. Many stores sell pre-packaged food items, hot and cold sandwiches, and drinkware including mugs and tumblers; select "Starbucks Evenings" locations offer beer, wine, and appetizers.[8] Starbucks-brand coffee, ice cream, and bottled cold coffee drinks are also sold at grocery stores. Starbucks first became profitable in Seattle in the early 1980s.[9] Despite an initial economic downturn with its expansion into the Midwest and British Columbia in the late 1980s,[10] the company experienced revitalized prosperity with its entry into California in the early 1990s.[11] The first Starbucks location outside North America opened in Tokyo in 1996; overseas properties now constitute almost one-third of its stores.[12] The company opened an average of two new locations daily between 1987 and 2007.[13] On December 1, 2016, Howard Schultz announced he would resign as CEO effective April 2017 and would be replaced by Kevin Johnson. Johnson assumed the role of CEO on April 3, 2017,[14] and Howard Schultz retired to become Chairman Emeritus effective June 26, 2018.[15] History Founding The first Starbucks opened in Seattle, Washington, on March 31, 1971,[16] by three partners who met while they were students at the University of San Francisco:[17] English teacher Jerry Baldwin, history teacher Zev Siegl, and writer Gordon Bowker were inspired to sell high-quality coffee beans and equipment by coffee roasting entrepreneur Alfred Peet after he taught them his style of roasting beans.[18] The company took the name of the chief mate in the book Moby-Dick: Starbuck, after considering "Cargo House" and "Pequod".[19] Bowker recalls that Terry Heckler, with whom Bowker owned an advertising agency, thought words beginning with "st" were powerful. The founders brainstormed a list of words beginning with "st". Someone pulled out an old mining map of the Cascade Range and saw a mining town named "Starbo", which immediately put Bowker in mind of the character "Starbuck". Bowker said, "Moby-Dick didn't have anything to do with Starbucks directly; it was only coincidental that the sound seemed to make sense."[20] The Starbucks store at 1912 Pike Place. This is the second location of the original Starbucks , which was at 2000 Western Avenue from 1971 to 1976. The first Starbucks store was located in Seattle at 2000 Western Avenue from 1971–1976. This cafe was later moved to 1912 Pike Place; never to be relocated again.[21] During this time, the company only sold roasted whole coffee beans and did not yet brew coffee to sell.[22] The only brewed coffee served in the store were free samples. During their first year of operation, they purchased green coffee beans from Peet's, then began buying directly from growers. Sale and expansion In 1984, the original owners of Starbucks, led by Jerry Baldwin, purchased Peet's.[23] During the 1980s, total sales of coffee in the US were falling, but sales of specialty coffee increased, forming 10% of the market in 1989, compared with 3% in 1983.[24] By 1986, the company operated six stores in Seattle[24] and had only just begun to sell espresso coffee.[25] In 1987, the original owners sold the Starbucks chain to former manager[26] Howard Schultz, who rebranded his Il Giornale coffee outlets as Starbucks and quickly began to expand. In the same year, Starbucks opened its first locations outside Seattle at Waterfront Station in Vancouver, British Columbia, and Chicago, Illinois.[27] By 1989, 46 stores existed across the Northwest and Midwest, and annually Starbucks was roasting over 2,000,000 pounds (907,185 kg) of coffee.[24] At the time of its initial public offering (IPO) on the stock market in June 1992, Starbucks had 140 outlets, with a revenue of US$73.5 million, up from US$1.3 million in 1987. The company's market value was US$271 million by this time. The 12% portion of the company that was sold raised around US$25 million for the company, which facilitated a doubling of the number of stores over the next two years.[28] By September 1992, Starbucks' share price had risen by 70% to over 100 times the earnings per share of the previous year.[22] In July 2013, over 10% of in-store purchases were made on customer's mobile devices using the Starbucks app.[29] The company once again utilized the mobile platform when it launched the "Tweet-a-Coffee" promotion in October 2013. On this occasion, the promotion also involved Twitter and customers were able to purchase a US$5 gift card for a friend by entering both "@tweetacoffee" and the friend's handle in a tweet. Research firm Keyhole monitored the progress of the campaign and a December 6, 2013, media article reported that the firm had found that 27,000 people had participated and US$180,000 of purchases were made to date.[30][31] As of 2018, Starbucks is ranked 132nd on the Fortune 500 list of the largest United States corporations by revenue.[32] Development since 2005[33] Year Revenue in mil. USD$ Net income in mil. USD$ Total Assets in mil. USD$ Price per Share in USD$ Employees 2005 6,369 494 3,514 11.70 2006 7,787 564 4,429 15.39 2007 9,412 673 5,344 12.32 2008 10,383 316 5,673 6.64 2009 9,775 391 5,577 6.87 2010 10,707 946 6,386 11.49 2011 11,700 1,246 7,360 16.89 2012 13,277 1,384 8,219 23.21 2013 14,867 8 11,517 30.99 182,000 2014 16,448 2,068 10,753 35.19 191,000 2015 19,163 2,757 12,416 50.33 238,000 2016 21,316 2,818 14,313 54.17 254,000 2017 22,387 2,885 14,366 55.75 277,000 Expansion to new markets and products The first Starbucks location outside North America opened in Tokyo, Japan, in 1996.[34] On December 4, 1997, the Philippines became the third market to open outside North America with its first branch in the country located at 6750 Ayala Building in Makati City, Philippines.[35][36] Starbucks entered the U.K. market in 1998 with the $83 million[37] USD acquisition of the then 56-outlet, UK-based Seattle Coffee Company, re-branding all the stores as Starbucks. In September 2002, Starbucks opened its first store in Latin America, at Mexico City. Currently, there are over 500 locations in Mexico and there are plans for the opening of up to 850 by 2018.[38] In 1999, Starbucks experimented with eateries in the San Francisco Bay area through a restaurant chain called Circadia.[39] These restaurants were soon "outed" as Starbucks establishments and converted to Starbucks cafes. In October 2002, Starbucks established a coffee trading company in Lausanne, Switzerland to handle purchases of green coffee. All other coffee-related business continued to be managed from Seattle.[40] In April 2003, Starbucks completed the purchase of Seattle's Best Coffee and Torrefazione Italia from AFC Enterprises for $72m. The deal only gained 150 stores for Starbucks, but according to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, the wholesale business was more significant.[41] In September 2006, rival Diedrich Coffee announced that it would sell most of its company-owned retail stores to Starbucks. This sale included the company-owned locations of the Oregon-based Coffee People chain. Starbucks converted the Diedrich Coffee and Coffee People locations to Starbucks, although the Portland International Airport Coffee People locations were excluded from the sale.[42] In August 2003, Starbucks opened its first store in South America in Lima, Peru.[43] In 2007, the company opened its first store in Russia, ten years after first registering a trademark there.[44] In 2008, they purchased the manufacturer of the Clover Brewing System. They began testing the "fresh-pressed" coffee system at several Starbucks locations in Seattle, California, New York, and Boston.[45] [27] Graph showing the growth in the number of Starbucks stores between 1971 and 2011 In early 2008, Starbucks started a community website, My Starbucks Idea, designed to collect suggestions and feedback from customers. Other users comment and vote on suggestions. Journalist Jack Schofield noted that "My Starbucks seems to be all sweetness and light at the moment, which I don't think is possible without quite a lot of censorship". The website is powered by Salesforce.com software.[46] In May 2008, a loyalty program was introduced for registered users of the Starbucks Card (previously simply a gift card) offering perks such as free Wi-Fi Internet access, no charge for soy milk and flavored syrups, and free refills on brewed drip coffee, iced coffee, or tea.[47] In 2009, Starbucks began beta testing its mobile app for the Starbucks card, a stored value system in which consumers access pre-paid funds to purchase products at Starbucks.[48] Starbucks released its complete mobile platform on January 11, 2011. On November 14, 2012, Starbucks announced the purchase of Teavana for US$620 million in cash[49] and the deal was formally closed on December 31, 2012.[50] On February 1, 2013, Starbucks opened its first store in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam,[51][52][53] and this was followed by an announcement in late August 2013 that the retailer will be opening its inaugural store in Colombia. The Colombian announcement was delivered at a press conference in Bogota, where the company's CEO explained, "Starbucks has always admired and respected Colombia's distinguished coffee tradition."[54] In August 2014, Starbucks opened their first store in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. This location will be one of 30 Starbucks stores that will serve beer and wine.[55] In September 2014, it was revealed that Starbucks would acquire the remaining 60.5 percent stake in Starbuck Coffee Japan that it does not already own, at a price of $913.5 million.[56] In August 2015, Starbucks announced that it will enter Cambodia, its 16th market in the China/Asia Pacific region. The first location will open in the capital city of Phnom Penh by the end of 2015.[57] In February 2016, Starbucks announced that it will enter Italy, its 24th market in Europe. The first location will open in Milan by 2018.[58] In August, startup company FluxPort introduced Qi inductive charging pads at select locations in Germany.[59][60][61] In September 2016, Starbucks announced a debut of its first-ever original content series called "Upstanders" which aims to inspire Americans with stories of compassion, citizenship, and civility. The series features podcasts, written word, and video, and will be distributed via the Starbucks mobile app, online, and through the company's in-store digital network.[62] On July 27, 2017, Starbucks acquired the remaining 50% stake in their Chinese venture from long-term joint venture partners Uni-President Enterprises Corporation (UPEC) and President Chain Store Corporation (PCSC).[63] On March 21, 2018, Starbucks announced that it is considering the use of blockchain technology with an idea to connect coffee drinkers with coffee farmers who eventually can take advantage of new financial opportunities. The pilot program is going to start with farmers in Costa Rica, Colombia and Rwanda in order to develop a new way to track the bean to cup journey.[64] On June 19, 2018, Starbucks announced the closing of 150 locations in 2019, this is three times the number the corporation typically closes in a single year. The closings will happen in urban areas that already have dense clusters of stores.[65] In 2018, Starbucks expanded its partnership with Uber Eats to bring its beverages to U.S. customers' doorsteps, as it had already done for some time in China.[66] Corporate governance Starbucks' chairman, Howard Schultz, has talked about making sure growth does not dilute the company's culture[67] Howard Schultz served as the company's CEO until 2000.[68] Orin C. Smith was President and CEO of Starbucks from 2001 to 2005. In January 2008, Schultz resumed his roles as President and CEO after an eight-year hiatus, replacing Jim Donald, who took the posts in 2005 but was asked to step down after sales slowed in 2007. Schultz aims to restore what he calls the "distinctive Starbucks experience" in the face of rapid expansion. Analysts believe that Schultz must determine how to contend with higher materials prices and enhanced competition from lower-price fast food chains, including McDonald's and Dunkin' Donuts. Starbucks announced it would discontinue the warm breakfast sandwich products they originally intended to launch nationwide in 2008 and refocus on coffee, but they reformulated the sandwiches to deal with complaints and kept the product line.[69] As of January 2015 , the chief operating officer of Starbucks was Troy Alstead, though at that time he announced he was taking an extended leave of absence of undetermined length.[68] Subsequently, Kevin Johnson was appointed to succeed Alstead as president and COO.[70] In October 2015, Starbucks hired its first Chief Technology Officer, Gerri Martin-Flickinger, to lead their technology team.[71] In April 2017, Schultz became executive chairman of Starbucks with Johnson becoming President and CEO. Starbucks maintains control of production processes by communicating with farmers to secure beans, roasting its own beans, and managing distribution to all retail locations. Additionally, Starbucks' Coffee and Farmer Equity Practices require suppliers to inform Starbucks what portion of wholesale prices paid reaches farmers.[72][73] Products A typical sales area, this one in Peterborough , UK, showing a display of food and the beverage preparation area In 1994, Starbucks bought The Coffee Connection, gaining the rights to use, make, market, and sell the "Frappuccino" beverage.[74] The beverage was introduced under the Starbucks name in 1995 and as of 2012, Starbucks had annual Frappuccinos sales of over $2 billion.[74] The company began a "skinny" line of drinks in 2008, offering lower-calorie and sugar-free versions of the company's offered drinks that use skim milk, and can be sweetened by a choice of "natural" sweeteners (such as raw sugar, agave syrup, or honey), artificial sweeteners (such as Sweet'N Low, Splenda, Equal), or one of the company's sugar-free syrup flavors.[75][76] Starbucks stopped using milk originating from rBGH-treated cows in 2007.[77] In June 2009, the company announced that it would be overhauling its menu and selling salads and baked goods without high fructose corn syrup or artificial ingredients.[78] This move was expected to attract health- and cost-conscious consumers and will not affect prices.[78] Starbucks introduced a new line of instant coffee packets, called VIA "Ready Brew", in March 2009. It was first unveiled in New York City with subsequent testing of the product also in Seattle, Chicago, and London. The first two VIA flavors include Italian Roast and Colombia, which were then rolled out in October 2009, across the U.S. and Canada with Starbucks stores promoting the product with a blind "taste challenge" of the instant versus fresh roast, in which many people could not tell the difference between the instant and fresh brewed coffee. Analysts[who?] speculated that by introducing instant coffee, Starbucks would devalue its own brand.[79] Starbucks began selling beer and wine at some US stores in 2010. As of April 2012 , it is available at seven locations and others have applied for licenses.[80] In 2011, Starbucks introduced its largest cup size, the Trenta, which can hold 31 US fluid ounces (920 ml).[81] In September 2012, Starbucks announced the Verismo, a consumer-grade single-serve coffee machine that uses sealed plastic cups of coffee grounds, and a "milk pod" for lattes.[82] On November 10, 2011, Starbucks Corporation announced that it had bought juice company Evolution Fresh for $30 million in cash and planned to start a chain of juice bars starting in around middle of 2012, venturing into territory staked out by Jamba Inc. Its first store released in San Bernardino, California and plans for a store in San Francisco were to be launched in early 2013.[83] In 2012, Starbucks began selling a line of iced Starbucks Refresher beverages that contain an extract from green arabica coffee beans. The beverages are fruit flavored and contain caffeine but advertised as having no coffee flavor. Starbucks' green coffee extraction process involves soaking the beans in water.[84] On June 25, 2013, Starbucks began to post calorie counts on menus for drinks and pastries in all of their U.S. stores.[85] In 2014, Starbucks began producing their own line of "handcrafted" sodas, dubbed "Fizzio".[86] In 2015, Starbucks began serving coconut milk as an alternative to dairy and soy.[87] In March 2017, Starbucks announced to launch limited-edition of two new specialty drinks made from beans aged in whiskey barrels at its Seattle roastery.[88] Starbucks' barrel-aged coffee will be sold with a small batch of unroasted Starbucks Reserve Sulawesi beans, which are then hand-scooped into whiskey barrels from Washington D.C.[89] Name Measurement Notes Demi 3 US fl oz (89 ml) Smallest size. Espresso shots. Short 8 US fl oz (240 ml) Smaller of the two original sizes Mini[90] 10 US fl oz (300 ml) Smaller than the three original Frappuccino sizes, offered as lower-calorie option Tall 12 US fl oz (350 ml) Larger of the two original sizes Grande 16 US fl oz (470 ml) Italian for "large" Venti 20 US fl oz (590 ml) 24 US fl oz (710 mL) Italian for "twenty" Trenta 31 US fl oz (920 ml) Italian for "thirty" Tea Starbucks entered the tea business in 1999 when it acquired the Tazo brand for US$8,100,000.[91][92] In late 2012, Starbucks paid US$620 million to buy Teavana.[50][93] As of November 2012 , there is no intention of marketing Starbucks' products in Teavana stores, though the acquisition will allow the expansion of Teavana beyond its current main footprint in shopping malls.[92] In January 2015, Starbucks began to roll out Teavana teas into Starbucks stores, both in to-go beverage and retail formats.[94] Coffee quality Kevin Knox, who was in charge of doughnuts quality at Starbucks from 1987 to 1993, recalled on his blog in 2010 how George Howell, coffee veteran and founder of the Cup of Excellence, had been appalled at the dark roasted beans that Starbucks was selling in 1990.[45][95] Talking to the New York Times in 2008, Howell stated his opinion that the dark roast used by Starbucks does not deepen the flavor of coffee, but instead can destroy purported nuances of flavor.[45] The March 2007 issue of Consumer Reports compared American fast-food chain coffees and ranked Starbucks behind McDonald's Premium Roast. The magazine called Starbucks coffee "strong, but burnt and bitter enough to make your eyes water instead of open".[96] As reported by TIME in 2010, third wave coffee proponents generally criticize Starbucks for over-roasting beans.[97] Other products In 2012, Starbucks introduced Starbucks Verismo, a line of coffee makers that brew espresso and regular chocolate from coffee capsules, a type of pre-apportioned single-use container of ground coffee and flavorings utilizing the K-Fee pod system.[98] In a brief review of the 580 model, Consumer Reports described the results of a comparative test of the Verismo 580 against two competitive brands: "Because you have to conduct a rinse cycle between each cup, the Verismo wasn't among the most convenient of single-serve machines in our coffeemaker tests. Other machines we've tested have more flexibility in adjusting brew strength—the Verismo has buttons for coffee, espresso, and latte with no strength variation for any type. And since Starbucks has limited its coffee selection to its own brand, there are only eight varieties so far plus a milk pod for the latte."[99] Locations The company's headquarters is located in Seattle, Washington, United States, where 3,501 people worked as of January 2015.[100] The main building in the Starbucks complex was previously a Sears distribution center. Current As of September 2018, Starbucks is present on 6 continents and in 76 countries and territories, with a total of 27,340 locations[101] Expansion In 2008, Starbucks continued its expansion, settling in Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, and Portugal.[27] European and Scandinavian expansion continued in 2009 with Poland (April),[102] Utrecht, Netherlands (August), and Sweden at Arlanda Airport outside Stockholm (October).[103] In 2010, growth in new markets continued. In May 2010, Southern Sun Hotels South Africa announced that they had signed an agreement with Starbucks to brew Starbucks coffees in select Southern Sun and Tsonga Sun hotels in South Africa. The agreement was partially reached so Starbucks coffees could be served in the country in time for the 2010 FIFA World Cup hosted by South Africa.[104] In June 2010, Starbucks opened its first store in Budapest, Hungary and in November, the company opened the first Central American store in El Salvador's capital, San Salvador.[105] In December 2010, Starbucks debuted their first ever Starbucks at sea, where with a partnership with Royal Caribbean International; Starbucks opened a shop aboard their Allure of the Seas Royal Caribbean's second largest ship, and also the second largest ship in the world.[106] Starbucks is planning to open[when?] its fourth African location, after South Africa, Egypt, and Morocco, in Algeria. A partnership with Algerian food company Cevital will see Starbucks open its first Algerian store in Algiers.[107] In January 2011, Starbucks and Tata Coffee, Asia's largest coffee plantation company, announced plans for a strategic alliance to bring Starbucks to India and also to source and roast coffee beans at Tata Coffee's Kodagu facility.[108] Despite a false start in 2007,[109] in January 2012, Starbucks announced a 50:50 joint venture with Tata Global Beverages called Tata Starbucks. Tata Starbucks will own and operate Starbucks outlets in India as Starbucks Coffee "A Tata Alliance".[110] Starbucks opened its first store in India in Mumbai on October 19, 2012.[111][112][113] In February 2011, Starbucks started selling their coffee in Norway by supplying Norwegian food shops with their roasts. The first Starbucks-branded Norwegian shop opened on February 8, 2012, at Oslo Airport, Gardermoen. In October 2011, Starbucks opened another location in Beijing, China, at the Beijing Capital International Airport's Terminal 3, international departures hall; making the company's 500th store in China. The store is the 7th location at the airport. The company planned to expand to 1,500 stores in China by 2015.[114] In May 2012, Starbucks opened its first coffeehouse in Finland, with the location being Helsinki-Vantaa Airport in Vantaa.[115] Starbucks recently[when?] opened a store in San Jose Costa Rica, in 2 popular locations. 1 opened in a mall and the other in Avenida Escazu. In October 2012, Starbucks announced plans to open 1,000 stores in the United States in the next five years.[116] The same month, the largest Starbucks in the US opened at the University of Alabama's Ferguson Center.[117] In 2013, Starbucks met with Dansk Supermarked, which is the biggest retail company in Denmark. The first Starbucks inside Dansk Supermarked opened in August 2013 in the department stores Salling in Aalborg and Aarhus.[118] Starbucks has announced its first café in Bolivia would open in 2014 in Santa Cruz de la Sierra and the first in Panama in 2015.[119] On June 19, 2015, a Starbucks opened at Disney's Animal Kingdom on Discovery Island. Since the park does not allow plastic straws due to the animals, this location features special green eco-friendly straws with their cold drinks.[120] This was the sixth Starbucks to open in Walt Disney World, following locations in the Magic Kingdom (Main Street, U.S.A.), Epcot (Future World), Disney's Hollywood Studios (Hollywood Boulevard),[121] and two in Disney Springs (Marketplace and West Side). In addition to these six, there are locations in Disneyland (Main Street, U.S.A.), Disney California Adventure (Buena Vista Street), Anaheim's Downtown Disney, and Disney Village at Disneyland Paris. The Downtown Disney and Disney Springs locations are Starbucks-operated, while the locations inside of the theme parks are Disney-operated.[122] Bill Sleeth, Starbucks' vice president of global design, has overseen efforts to make a neighborhood feel for new stores, saying "What you don't want is a customer walking into a store in downtown Seattle, walking into a store in the suburbs of Seattle and then going into a store in San Jose, and seeing the same store." Sleeth said "The customers were saying, 'Everywhere I go, there you are,' and not in a good way. We were pretty ubiquitous." As part of a change in compact direction, Starbucks management wanted to transition from the singular brand worldwide to focusing on locally relevant design for each store. [123] Starbucks' first Channel Island store was opened in early 2015, in the primary business area of St Peter Port in Guernsey.[124] In 2014 Starbucks was scheduled to open a store in Azerbaijan, in the Port Baku Mall.[125] In August 2013, Starbucks' CEO, Howard Schultz, personally announced the opening of Starbucks stores in Colombia. The first café was set to open in 2014 in Bogotá and add 50 more stores throughout Colombia's main cities in a 5-year limit. Schultz also stated that Starbucks will work with both the Colombian Government and USAID to continue "empowering local coffee growers and sharing the value, heritage and tradition of its coffee with the world." Starbucks noted that the aggressive expansion into Colombia was a joint venture with Starbucks' Latin partners, Alsea and Colombia's Grupo Nutresa that has previously worked with Starbucks by providing coffee through Colcafe. This announcement comes after Starbucks' Farmer Support Center was established in Manizales, Colombia the previous year making Colombia an already established country by the corporation.[126] On April 21, 2015, Kesko, the second largest retailer in Finland, announced its partnership with Starbucks, with stores opened next to K-Citymarket hypermarkets.[127] As of June 2017, 3 stores had been opened next to K-Citymarkets: In Sello in Espoo and in Myyrmanni and Jumbo in Vantaa.[2] On December 18, 2015, Starbucks opened in Almaty, Kazakhstan. On the next day, 1 more coffee shop was opened.[128] The first Starbucks store in Slovakia opened in Aupark Shopping Center in Bratislava on May 31, 2016,[129][130] with two more stores confirmed to open in Bratislava by the end of 2016. In February 2016, Howard Schultz announced the opening of stores in Italy. The first Italian Starbucks store was inaugurated in Milan on September 6, 2018.[131] After Taste Holdings acquired outlet licensing for South African stores, Starbucks opened its first store in South Africa in Rosebank, Johannesburg on Thursday, April 21, 2016, and its second in the country at the end of April in Mall of Africa.[132][133] In May 2017, Starbucks announced it was commencing operations in Jamaica, where the first store is to open in the resort city of Montego Bay.[134] The company announced that its first store would be on located on the shores of the world-famous Doctor's Cave Beach, offering views of the Caribbean Sea.[135] Starbucks Jamaica expects thereafter to roll out a further 14 locations across the island by the year 2020. The company also reaffirmed its commitment to working with local coffee farmers to "implement systems to increase productivity and yields, while also increasing compliance to international standards."[136] Starbucks Jamaica officially opened its first store on November 21, 2017, with plans to open 15 locations islandwide over a 5-year period.[137] Starbucks Jamaica, recently opened its 3 stores at the Sangster International Airport in Montego Bay and one at the Historic Falmouth Pier, in Falmouth, Jamaica. Starbucks Jamaica announced its intention to open 2 stores in Jamaica's capital city, Kingston in 2018, with plans for up to 6 stores by 2019.[138] The first of the Kingston stores opened on June 21, 2018. The second store is located in the heart of Kingston's central business district, New Kingston. Starbucks is also opening its first in-store location in the new flagship location for Jamaica's largest Pharmacy chain, Fontana Pharmacy, also located in Kingston; making it Starbucks' third confirmed location.[139] This location will open in July 2019. Caribbean Coffee Baristas, franchise-holders for Starbucks' Jamaican operations are set to open new stores in the Cayman Islands and the Turks and Caicos Islands; up to three stores are planned for the Caymans and a yet undisclosed number for the Turks & Caicos. The first of these stores will be opened by year-end of 2018.[140] At the end of December in 2017, the world biggest Starbucks store opened in Shanghai, China. Starbucks announced the opening of stores in Serbia in late 2018.[141] The first store is expected to open in Belgrade.[142] Former In 2003, after struggling with fierce local competition, Starbucks, along with its partner Delek Group of Israel,[143] closed all six of its locations in Israel, citing "on-going operational challenges" and a "difficult business environment."[144][145] The Starbucks location in the former imperial palace in Beijing closed in July 2007. The coffee shop had been a source of ongoing controversy since its opening in 2000 with protesters objecting that the presence of the American chain in this location "was trampling on Chinese culture."[146][147] In July 2008, the company announced it was closing 600 underperforming company-owned stores and cutting U.S. expansion plans amid growing economic uncertainty.[148][149] On July 29, 2008, Starbucks also cut almost 1,000 non-retail jobs as part of its bid to re-energize the brand and boost its profit. Of the new cuts, 550 of the positions were layoffs and the rest were unfilled jobs.[150] These closings and layoffs effectively ended the company's period of growth and expansion that began in the mid-1990s. Starbucks also announced in July 2008 that it would close 61 of its 84 stores in Australia in the following month.[151] Nick Wailes, an expert in strategic management of the University of Sydney, commented that "Starbucks failed to truly understand Australia's cafe culture."[152] In May 2014, Starbucks announced ongoing losses in the Australian market, which resulted in the remaining stores being sold to the Withers Group.[153] In January 2009, Starbucks announced the closure of an additional 300 underperforming stores and the elimination of 7,000 positions. CEO Howard Schultz also announced that he had received board approval to reduce his salary.[154] Altogether, from February 2008 to January 2009, Starbucks terminated an estimated 18,400 U.S. jobs and began closing 977 stores worldwide.[155] In August 2009, Ahold announced closures and rebranding for 43 of their licensed store Starbucks kiosks for their US based Stop & Shop and Giant supermarkets.[156][157] In July 2012, the company announced that they may begin closing unprofitable European stores immediately.[158] Unbranded stores In 2009, at least three stores in Seattle were de-branded to remove the logo and brand name, and remodel the stores as local coffee houses "inspired by Starbucks."[159][160] CEO Howard Schultz says the unbranded stores are a "laboratory for Starbucks".[161] The first, 15th Avenue Coffee and Tea, opened in July 2009 on Capitol Hill. It served wine and beer and hosted live music and poetry readings.[162] It has since been remodeled and reopened as a Starbucks-branded store. Another is Roy Street Coffee and Tea at 700 Broadway E., also on Capitol Hill. Although the stores have been called "stealth Starbucks"[159][163] and criticized as "local-washing",[164] Schultz says that "It wasn't so much that we were trying to hide the brand, but trying to do things in those stores that we did not feel were appropriate for Starbucks."[161] Licensed and franchise operations Independently operated Starbucks locations exist. Stores that independently operate locations include Ahold Delhaize, Barnes & Noble, Target, Albertsons, and more recently, Publix stores. As of 2015, 4,962 licensed locations exist.[165] In the EMEA (Europe, Middle East, and Africa) markets, Starbucks holds a franchising program. Different to the License program in which existing corporations may apply to operate a Starbucks kiosk within an existing store, Franchises have the ability to create new freestanding stores. Automated locations Starbucks has automated systems in some areas. These machines have 280 possible drink combinations to choose from. They have touchscreens and customers can play games while they wait for their order.[166] Facilities Free Wi-Fi Internet access varies in different regions. In Germany, customers get unlimited free Wi-Fi through BT Openzone, and in Switzerland and Austria, customers can get 30 minutes with a voucher card (through T-Mobile). Since 2003, Starbucks in the UK rolled out a paid Wi-Fi based on one-time, hourly or daily payment. Then, in September 2009, it was changed to a 100% free Wi-Fi at most of its outlets. Customers with a Starbucks Card are able to log-on to the Wi-Fi in-store for free with their card details, thereby bringing the benefits of the loyalty program in-line with the United States.[167] Since July 2010, Starbucks has offered free Wi-Fi in all of its US stores via AT&T and information through a partnership with Yahoo!. This is an effort to be more competitive against local chains, which have long offered free Wi-Fi, and against McDonald's, which began offering free wireless internet access in 2010.[168] On June 30, 2010, Starbucks announced it would begin to offer unlimited and free Internet access via Wi-Fi to customers in all company-owned locations across Canada starting on July 1, 2010.[169] In October 2012, Starbucks and Duracell Powermat announced a pilot program to install Powermat charging surfaces in the tabletops in selected Starbucks stores in the Boston area.[170] Furthermore, Starbucks announced its support in the Power Matters Alliance (PMA) and its membership in the PMA board, along with Google and AT&T, in an effort to create "a real-world ecosystem of wireless power" through a universal wireless charging standard that customers could use to recharge smartphones.[171] Starbucks launched a new Mobile Order & Pay app in Portland, Oregon on December 2015.[172] This includes a bar code in mobile. This bar code needs to be scanned by a small scanner at the counter. Customers can pay from their smartphone by just waving their phone off the scanner. In one-quarter, 16% of transactions were made through this mobile app.[citation needed] Advertising Logo In 2006, Valerie O'Neil, a Starbucks spokeswoman, said that the logo is an image of a "twin-tailed mermaid, or siren as she's known in Greek mythology".[173] The logo has been significantly streamlined over the years. In the first version,[174] the Starbucks siren was topless and had a fully visible double fish tail.[175] The image also had a rough visual texture and has been likened to a melusine.[176] The image is said by Starbucks to be based on a 16th-century "Norse" woodcut, although other scholars note that it is apparently based on a 15th-century woodcut in J.E. Cirlot's Dictionary of Symbols.[177][178] In the second version, which was used from 1987–92, her breasts were covered by her flowing hair, but her navel was still visible.[179] The fish tail was cropped slightly, and the primary color was changed from brown to green, a nod to the Alma Mater of the three founders, the University of San Francisco.[180][181] In the third version, used between 1992 and 2011, her navel and breasts are not visible at all, and only vestiges remain of the fish tails. The original "woodcut" logo has been moved to the Starbucks' Headquarters in Seattle. At the beginning of September 2006 and then again in early 2008, Starbucks temporarily reintroduced its original brown logo on paper hot-drink cups. Starbucks has stated that this was done to show the company's heritage from the Pacific Northwest and to celebrate 35 years of business. The vintage logo sparked some controversy due in part to the siren's bare breasts,[182] but the temporary switch garnered little attention from the media. Starbucks had drawn similar criticism when they reintroduced the vintage logo in 2006.[183] The logo was altered when Starbucks entered the Saudi Arabian market in 2000 to remove the siren, leaving only her crown,[184] as reported in a Pulitzer Prize-winning column by Colbert I. King in The Washington Post in 2002. The company announced three months later that it would be using the international logo in Saudi Arabia.[185] In January 2011, Starbucks announced that they would make small changes to the company's logo, removing the Starbucks wordmark around the siren, enlarging the siren image, and making it green.[186] Partnerships Starbucks has agreed to a partnership with Apple to collaborate on selling music as part of the "coffeehouse experience". In October 2006, Apple added a Starbucks Entertainment area to the iTunes Store, selling music similar to that played in Starbucks stores. In September 2007, Apple announced that customers would be able to browse the iTunes Store at Starbucks via Wi-Fi in the US—with no requirement to log into the Wi-Fi network—targeted at iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, and MacBook users. The iTunes Store will automatically detect recent songs playing in a Starbucks and offer users the opportunity to download the tracks. Some stores feature LCD screens with the artist name, song, and album information of the current song playing. This feature has been rolled out in Seattle, New York City, and the San Francisco Bay Area, and was offered in limited markets during 2007–2008.[187] During the fall of 2007, Starbucks also began to sell digital downloads of certain albums through iTunes. Starbucks gave away 37 different songs for free download through iTunes as part of the "Song of the Day" promotion in 2007, and a "Pick of the Week" card is now available at Starbucks for a free song download. Since 2011, Starbucks also gives away a "Pick of the Week" card for app downloads from the App Store. A Starbucks app is available in the iPhone App Store. Starting on June 1, 2009, the MSNBC morning news program Morning Joe has been presented as "brewed by Starbucks" and the show's logo changed to include the company logo. Although the hosts have previously consumed Starbucks coffee on air "for free" in the words of MSNBC president Phil Griffin, it was not paid placement at that time.[188] The move was met with mixed reactions from rival news organizations, viewed as both a clever partnership in an economic downturn and a compromise of journalistic standards.[189] Starbucks and Kraft Foods entered into a partnership in 1998 to sell Starbucks products in the Mondelez grocery stores owned by the latter. Starbucks claimed that Kraft did not sufficiently promote its products and offered Kraft US$750 million to terminate the agreement; however, Kraft declined the offer, but Starbucks proceeded with the termination anyway. Starbucks wanted to terminate the agreement because at the time, single coffee packs were beginning to become popular. In their agreement, Starbucks was confined to selling packs that only worked in Kraft's Tassimo machines. Starbucks didn't want to fall behind in the market opportunities for k cups.[190] In mid-November 2013, an arbitrator ordered Starbucks to pay a fine of US$2.8 billion to Kraft spin-off Mondelez International for its premature unilateral termination of the agreement.[191][192][193] In June 2014, Starbucks announced a new partnership with Arizona State University (ASU) that would allow Starbucks employees in their Junior and Senior years of college to complete four years of college at Arizona State University's online program for only around 23K. Starbucks employees admitted into the program will receive a scholarship from the college, College Achievement Plan (CAP), that will cover 44% of their tuition. The remaining balance and all other expenses would be paid by the student or through traditional financial aid. In April 2015, Starbucks and ASU announced an expansion of the College Achievement Program. The program would now allow all eligible part-time and full-time employees working in a U.S. Starbucks to enroll in the program for full-tuition reimbursement.[194] After the completion of each semester, Starbucks reimburses the student their portion of the tuition. The student can then use the reimbursement to pay any loans or debt incurred during the semester.[195] In 2015, Starbucks signed a deal with PepsiCo to market and distribute Starbucks products in several Latin American countries for 2016.[196] In May 2015, Starbucks entered a partnership with music streaming service Spotify. The partnership entailed giving U.S.-based employees a Spotify premium subscription and to help influence the music played in store via playlists made using Spotify. Starbucks was also given its own curated Spotify playlist to be featured on Spotify's mobile app.[197] Parodies and infringements Starbucks has been a target of parodies and imitations of its logo, particularly the 1992 version, and has used legal action against those it perceives to be infringing on its intellectual property. In 2000, San Francisco cartoonist Kieron Dwyer was sued by Starbucks for copyright and trademark infringement after creating a parody of its siren logo and putting it on the cover of one of his comics; later placing it on coffee mugs, T-shirts, and stickers that he sold on his website and at comic book conventions. Dwyer felt that since his work was a parody it was protected by his right to free speech under U.S. law. The case was eventually settled out of court, as Dwyer claimed he did not have the financial ability to endure a trial case with Starbucks. The judge agreed that Dwyer's work was a parody and thus enjoyed constitutional protection; however, he was forbidden from financially "profiting" from using a "confusingly similar" image of the Starbucks siren logo. Dwyer was allowed to display the image as an expression of free speech, but he can no longer sell it.[198] In a similar case, a New York store selling stickers and T-shirts using the Starbucks logo with the phrase "Fuck Off" was sued by the company in 1999.[199][200] An anti-Starbucks website, starbuckscoffee.co.uk, which encouraged people to deface the Starbucks logo[201] was transferred to Starbucks in 2005,[202][203] but has since resurfaced at www.starbuckscoffee.org.uk. Christian bookstores and websites in the US are selling a T-shirt featuring a logo with the siren replaced by Jesus and the words "Sacrificed for me" around the edge.[204] Other successful cases filed by Starbucks include the case won in 2006 against the chain Xingbake in Shanghai, China for trademark infringement, because the chain used a green-and-white circular logo with a name that sounded phonetically similar to the Chinese for Starbucks.[205] Starbucks did not open any stores after first registering its trademark in Russia in 1997 and in 2002 a Russian lawyer successfully filed a request to cancel the trademark. He then registered the name with a Moscow company and asked for $600,000 to sell the trademark to Starbucks, but was ruled against in November 2005.[44] In 2003, Starbucks sent a cease-and-desist letter to "HaidaBucks Coffee House" in Masset, British Columbia, Canada. The store was owned by a group of young Haida men, who claimed that the name was a coincidence, due to "buck" being a Haida word for "young man" (a claim that cannot be substantiated). After facing criticism, Starbucks dropped its demand after HaidaBucks dropped "coffee house" from its name.[206] Sam Buck Lundberg, who owns a coffee store in Oregon, was prohibited from using "Sambuck's Coffee" on the shop front in 2006.[207] Starbucks lost a trademark infringement case against a smaller coffee vendor in South Korea that operates coffee stations under the name Starpreya. The company, Elpreya, says Starpreya is named after the Norse goddess, Freja, with the letters of that name changed to ease pronunciation by Koreans. The court rejected Starbucks' claim that the logo of Starpreya is too similar to their own logo.[208] A bar owner in Galveston, Texas, USA[209] won the right[citation needed] to sell "Star Bock Beer" after a lawsuit by Starbucks in 2003 after he registered the name,[209] but the 2005 federal court ruling also stated that the sale of the beer must be restricted to Galveston, a ruling upheld by the Supreme Court in 2007.[citation needed] Ongoing cases include a dispute over the copyright application for Seattle's Rat City Rollergirls logo in 2008.[210] The company claimed the roller derby league's logo by a Washington artist[211] was too similar to its own. Starbucks requested an extension to further examine the issue and possibly issue a complaint, which was granted by the Trademark Office. The July 16, 2008, deadline passed without action by the corporation.[212] Starbucks launched action against an Indian cosmetics business run by Shahnaz Husain, after she applied to register the name Starstruck for coffee and related products. She said she aimed to open a chain of stores that would sell coffee and chocolate-based cosmetics.[213] A cafe in Al-Manara Square,[214] Ramallah, Palestinian Territories, opened in 2009 with the name "Stars and Bucks" and a logo using a similar green circle and block lettering.[215] Like Starbucks, the Stars and Bucks serves cappuccinos in ceramic cups, and offers free Wifi. According to speculation cited in the Seattle Post Intelligencer, the cafe's name and imitation Starbucks style may be a political satire of American consumerism. Starbucks is not known to have taken action against this business. In 2014, Nathan Fielder, a Canadian comedian behind the hit show Nathan for You, opened a store called "Dumb Starbucks Coffee" in Los Feliz, Los Angeles CA. The store resembled a typical Starbucks with one exception: everything was preceded by the word "dumb." For example, the drinks he carried included Dumb Skinny Vanilla Lattes and Dumb Frapuccinos.[216] The store carried music titled "Dumb Jazz Standards" and "Dumb Norah Jones Duets." [217] He thought he could bypass infringement and copyright claims through the "Parody Law", referring to the parody aspect of Fair Use laws (that protect parodists such as "Weird Al" Yankovic and SNL). No lawsuits were filed though because the store was short-lived. The Los Angeles Health Department shut it down after 4 days because Fielder lacked the proper permits.[218][219] Others have used the Starbucks logo unaltered and without permission, such as a café in Pakistan that used the logo in 2003 in its advertisements[220] and a cafe in Cambodia in 2009, the owner saying that "whatever we have done we have done within the law".[221] Environmental and social policies Environmental impact Grounds for your Garden In 1999, Starbucks started "Grounds for your Garden" to make their business environmentally friendlier. This gives leftover coffee grounds to anyone requesting it for composting. Although not all stores and regions participate, customers can request and lobby their local store to begin the practice. In 2004, Starbucks began reducing the size of their paper napkins and store garbage bags, and lightening their solid waste production by 816.5 t (1,800,000 lb).[222] In 2008, Starbucks was ranked No.15 on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's list of Top 25 Green Power Partners for purchases of renewable energy.[223] In October 2008, The Sun newspaper reported that Starbucks was wasting 23.4 million liters (6.2 million US gal) of water a day by leaving a tap constantly running for rinsing utensils in a 'dipper well' in each of its stores,[224] but this is often required by governmental public health code.[225] In June 2009, in response to concerns over its excessive water consumption, Starbucks re-evaluated its use of the dipper well system. In September 2009, company-operated Starbucks stores in Canada and the United States successfully implemented a new water saving solution that meets government health standards. Different types of milk are given a dedicated spoon that remains in the pitcher and the dipper wells were replaced with push button metered faucets for rinsing. This will reportedly save up to 150 US gal (570 l) of water per day in every store.[226][not in citation given] Recycling A bin overflowing with Starbucks cups Starbucks began using 10% recycled paper in its beverage cups in 2006—the company claimed that the initiative was the first time that recycled material had been used in a product that came into direct contact with a food or beverage.[227] Allen Hershkowitz of the Natural Resources Defense Council called the 10% content "minuscule",[227] but Starbucks received the National Recycling Coalition Recycling Works Award in 2005 for the initiative.[228] In a 2008 media article, Starbucks' vice president of corporate social responsibility acknowledged that the company continued to struggle with environmental responsibility, as none of its cups were recyclable and stores did not have recycling bins. At the time that the article was published, Starbucks gave customers who brought in their own reusable cup a 10-cent discount, in addition to using corrugated cup sleeves made from 85 percent post-consumer recycled fiber, which is 34 percent less paper than the original. During the same period, Starbucks entered into a partnership with Conservation International—pledging US$7.5 million over three years—to help protect the natural environment of coffee-growing communities in Mexico and Indonesia.[229] Farmer equity practices Starbucks began drafting plans for corporate social responsibility in 1994.[230] Since Starbucks has partnered with Conservation International (CI) to draft plans and audit its coffee and farmer equity (C.A.F.E.) program,[231] Starbucks' C.A.F.E. practices are based on a rating system of 249 indicators. Farmers who earn high overall scores receive higher prices than those who achieve lower scores. Ratings categories include economic accountability, social responsibility, environmental leadership in coffee growing and processing. Indicators for social responsibility have evolved and now include 'zero tolerance' indicators that require workers to be paid in cash, check, or direct deposit, ensure that all workers are paid the established minimum wage, that workplaces are free of harassment and abuse, that workplaces are nondiscriminatory and do not employ persons under the age of 14, and several more.[232] Starbucks has moved 90% of its coffee purchases to preferred C.A.F.E. certified providers, and the company is approaching its stated goal to purchase 100% of its coffee through C.A.F.E. or other 'ethically sourced' certification systems.[231] Washington State University Assistant Professor Daniel Jaffee argues that Starbucks' C.A.F.E. practices merely 'green wash' "to burnish their corporate image."[233] Additionally, Professor Marie-Christine Renard of Rural Sociology of Chapingo University in Mexico wrote a case study of Starbucks', Conservation International's, and Agro-industries United of Mexico (AMSA) joint conservation effort in Chiapas, Mexico in which she concluded that "[w]hile the CI-Starbucks-AMSA Alliance paid better prices, it did not allow the producers to appropriate the knowledge that was necessary for the organizations to improve the quality of their coffee."[234] Fair trade In 2000, the company introduced a line of fair trade products.[235] Of the approximately 136,000 tons (300 million pounds) of coffee Starbucks purchased in 2006, about 18 million pounds or 6% was certified as fair trade.[236] According to Starbucks, they purchased 2,180 metric tons (4.8 million pounds) of Certified Fair Trade coffee in fiscal year 2004 and 5,220 metric tons (11.5 million pounds) in 2005. As of 2006 they were the largest buyer of Certified Fair Trade coffee in North America (10% of the global market). Transfair USA.[237][full citation needed] All espresso roast sold in the UK and Ireland is Fairtrade.[238] Questions have been raised regarding the legitimacy of the Fair Trade designation.[239] Groups such as Global Exchange are calling for Starbucks to further increase its sales of fair trade coffees.[240] According to Starbucks, in 2004 it paid on average $1.42 per pound ($2.64 kg) for high-quality coffee beans, 74% above the commodity prices at the time.[241] After a long-running dispute between Starbucks and Ethiopia, Starbucks agreed to support and promote Ethiopian coffees. An article in BBC NEWS,[242] states that Ethiopian ownership of popular coffee designations such as Harrar and Sidamo is acknowledged, even if they are not registered. Ethiopia fought hard for this acknowledgement mainly to help give its poverty-stricken farmers a chance to make more money. Unfortunately, this has not been the case. In 2006, Starbucks says it paid $1.42 per pound for its coffee. The coffee Starbucks bought for $1.42 per pound, had a selling price—after transportation, processing, marketing, store rentals, taxes, and staff salary and benefits—of $10.99 per pound.[243] As of August 2010, the Starbucks website sells only one Ethiopian coffee, which it says is new. In addition, Starbucks is an active member of the World Cocoa Foundation. Ethos water Ethos, a brand of bottled water acquired by Starbucks in 2003, is sold at locations throughout North America. Ethos bottles feature prominent labeling stating "helping children get clean water", referring to the fact that US$0.05 from each US$1.80 bottle sold (US$0.10 per bottle in Canada) is used to fund clean water projects in under-developed areas. Although sales of Ethos water have raised over US$6,200,000 for clean water efforts, the brand is not incorporated as a charity. Critics have argued that the claim on the label misleads consumers into thinking that Ethos is primarily a charitable organization when it is actually a for-profit brand and the vast majority of the sale price (97.2%) does not support clean-water projects.[244][245] The founders of Ethos have stated that the brand is intended to raise awareness of third-world clean water issues and provide socially responsible consumers with an opportunity to support the cause by choosing Ethos over other brands.[246] Starbucks has since redesigned the American version of the Ethos water bottles, stating the amount of money donated per bottle in the description.[citation needed] Food bank donations Since 2010, Starbucks has been donating leftover pastries in the United States to local food banks through a food collection service named Food Donation Connection.[247] In March 2016, Starbucks unveiled a five-year plan to donate 100 percent of unsold food from its 7,600 company-operated stores in the U.S. to local food banks and pantries.[248] Perishable food will be transported in refrigerated trucks to area food banks through the company's partnerships with the Food Donation Connection and Feeding America. This program, called FoodShare, is expected to provide up to 50 million meals over the next five years.[249] As of 2017, the program was in 10 different markets, including New York City.[250] In New York, Starbucks works with Feeding America and City Harvest, both non-profits, to donate food from 45 locations. It plans to expand the program to all 305 Manhattan stores. Controversies A local coffee shop in New York's East Village claiming it had to close because Starbucks is willing to pay higher rent for the space Starbucks has been accused of selling unhealthy products, and has been the target of multiple controversies.[251][252][253][254] Boycotts Starbucks chairman and CEO, Howard Schultz, was born to a Jewish family.[255] Despite this, during several calls to boycott, Starbucks stated that neither they nor Schultz personally support the Israeli Government or the Israeli Defence Force.[256] Starbucks also reiterated that they did not close the Israeli locations due to political reasons, but due to market challenges.[257] A store on Piccadilly with its windows boarded up after being smashed by protesters A damaged front window of a Starbucks coffee shop in Toronto In 2006, 2009, 2010 and 2014 when fighting in Israel has worsened, there were several calls to boycott Starbucks for supporting Israel.[258] These calls for boycott of Starbucks stores and products were also based on what has been wrongly claimed, that Starbucks sends part of its profits to the Israeli military,[259] but such allegations are based on a hoax letter attributed to the President, Chairman, and CEO of Starbucks Howard Schultz, who supports Israel's right to exist.[260] He is a recipient of several Israeli awards including "The Israel 50th Anniversary Tribute Award" for "playing a key role in promoting a close alliance between the United States and Israel".[261] The hoax letter claiming that Schultz had donated money to the Israeli military was actually written by an Australian weblogger, Andrew Winkler, who has admitted fabricating the document.[260][262] Starbucks responded to these claims, widely circulated on the internet, stating that "Neither Chairman Howard Schultz nor Starbucks fund support the Israeli Army. Starbucks is a non-political organization and does not support individual political causes".[261] The protests against Starbucks derived from the Winkler letter were not the first; earlier protests occurred in June 2002 in Cairo, Dubai and Beirut universities in response to Schultz's criticism of Yasser Arafat.[262] Starbucks has been a regular target of activists protesting against Israel's role in the Gaza War over the claims. Organizations have urged a boycott of Starbucks, accusing Starbucks of serving as an ally of Israeli militarists.[263][264] Starbucks was forced to close a store in Beirut, Lebanon due to demonstrators shouting anti-Israel slogans and causing customers to flee.[265] Demonstrators hung several banners on the shop's window and used white tape to paste a Star of David over the green-and-white Starbucks sign. They also distributed a letter saying, Schultz "...is one of the pillars of the American Jewish lobby and the owner of the Starbucks," which they said donates money to the Israeli military.[266] On January 2009, two Starbucks stores in London were the target of vandalism by pro-Palestinian demonstrators who broke windows and reportedly ripped out fittings and equipment after clashes with riot police.[267][268][269][270][271][272] Exclusion of Anti-Defamation League from anti-bias training In 2018, following the arrest of two young African-American men at a Starbucks for allegedly trespassing, Starbucks announced it would host a nationwide anti-bias training in collaboration with the Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish civil rights organization.[273] Tamika Mallory, a prominent activist and organizer of the 2017 Women's March, criticized the decision, accusing the ADL of "attacking black and brown people," further remarking in a tweet that “The ADL sends US police to Israel to learn their military practices. This is deeply troubling. Let’s not even talk abt [sic] their attacks against .@blacklivesmatter.”[274] Starbucks was subsequently reported by Politico to have excluded the ADL from its anti-bias training, a decision that critics called "giving in to bigotry." The company responded that it had not done so in response to political pressure, saying it was "architecting a multi-phase approach to addressing bias."[275] Music, film, and television Hear Music is the brand name of Starbucks' retail music concept. Hear Music began as a catalog company in 1990, adding a few retail locations in the San Francisco Bay Area. Hear Music was purchased by Starbucks in 1999. Nearly three years later, in 2002, they produced a Starbucks opera album, featuring artists such as Luciano Pavarotti, followed in March 2007 by the hit CD "Memory Almost Full" by Paul McCartney, making McCartney the first artist signed to the new Hear Music label sold in Starbucks outlets. Its inaugural release was a big non-coffee event for Starbucks the first quarter of 2007. In 2006, the company created Starbucks Entertainment, one of the producers of the 2006 film Akeelah and the Bee. Retail stores advertised the film before its release and sold the DVD.[276] Starbucks has become the subject of a protest song, "A Rock Star Bucks a Coffee Shop" by Neil Young and his band, Promise of the Real. The single from Young's album, The Monsanto Years aims at Starbucks' alleged use of genetically modified food, but also at the GMO company Monsanto.[277][278] By May 31, 2015, the song was Video of the week on the Food Consumer website.[279] See also References ||||| Two-thirds of Americans drink coffee daily, unchanged from 1999 PRINCETON, NJ -- Nearly half of Americans, 48%, report drinking at least one glass of soda per day, while 52% say they normally drink no soda. Among those who drink any soda, the average daily amount is 2.6 glasses, with 28% drinking one glass a day, on average, and 20% drinking two or more glasses. The latest results are from Gallup's annual Consumption Habits poll, conducted July 9-12. This is Gallup's first measure of daily soda consumption. Coffee Consumption Flat Since 1999 The same survey finds roughly two-thirds of Americans, 64%, reporting that they typically drink at least one cup of coffee per day. Perhaps surprisingly, given the explosion of upscale coffee houses and specialty coffee products being marketed to consumers over the past decade, this is nearly identical to the 63% who drank coffee in 1999. Additionally the number of coffee cups consumed by regular coffee drinkers has not increased, and may have even declined, with the average number of reported cups consumed by coffee drinkers registering 2.5 today, compared with 2.9 in 1999. Among all Americans, including those who drink no coffee, daily coffee consumption averages 1.6 cups today compared with 1.8 cups in 1999. Frequent Soda Drinkers No Heavier Than Non-Soda Drinkers Unlike coffee, which may have some health benefits when consumed in moderation, soda has no known health benefits, and the sugary form can contribute to obesity, diabetes, and other health problems. Health experts say even one glass of sugary soda per day is too much. Despite that, there is essentially no difference in the self-reported weight situation of Americans who drink two or more glasses of soda compared with those who drink none: About four in 10 of each group says they are either very or somewhat overweight. Those who drink one soda per day are slightly more likely to classify themselves as overweight. This might be explained by heavier soda drinkers consuming more diet soda than those who drink only one soda per day; however, the current survey question did not specify the type of soda consumed. Nonwhites and Young Adults Favor Soda Over Coffee Men and women are about equally likely to drink coffee, however, by 69% to 45%, whites are much more likely than nonwhites to drink it. And there is a significant age skew, with coffee drinking much more prevalent among middle-aged and older Americans than among those aged 18 to 34. The pattern is somewhat the inverse when it comes to soda. In line with higher rates of obesity among blacks and Hispanics, soda drinking is slightly more common among nonwhites than whites. Young adults aged 18 to 34 and men are also slightly more likely to consume soda than their counterparts. Bottom Line For better or worse from a health perspective, coffee and soda are both popular with Americans, but coffee is consumed by far more adults on a regular basis. It is especially popular with whites, middle-aged, and older adults, while nonwhites and younger adults tend slightly more toward soda consumption. With so many new options for buying premium coffee available in recent years, including at upscale coffee shops and on the menu at fast food chains, one might assume Americans' coffee consumption has grown. And it's possible Americans are drinking larger cups or stronger coffee than they did in the past. But in terms of sheer number of cups, the rate of coffee drinking is largely unchanged, with Americans currently averaging 1.6 cups per day. As for soda, the U.S. beverage industry has recently been reporting a decline in Americans' consumption of carbonated beverages, as well as a switch by consumers to more consumption of diet soda. Nevertheless, the majority of soda sales continue to be of the sugary variety, and with nearly half of Americans drinking at least one glass daily -- with even higher rates seen among men, young adults, and minorities --the health implications for Americans remains significant.

– One nation, under Pepsi ... or Coke. When it comes to soda, 48% of Americans have at least one every single day, according to a new Gallup poll. The remaining 52% drink zilch, but among those who do reach for a pop, they drink an average of 2.6 glasses a day, with 7% of Americans reporting having four or more. It's the first time Gallup has asked about soda in its annual Consumption Habits poll, which found that, America's nearly 13,000 Starbucks notwithstanding, coffee consumption really hasn't budged since 1999—but it remains our liquid stimulant of choice. Some 64% of people reported having at least one cup, up just a hair from 63% 13 years ago.

North Korean soldiers walk in the Ryomyong residential area after attending its official opening ceremony on Thursday, April 13, 2017, in Pyongyang, North Korea. Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, speaking... (Associated Press) North Korean soldiers walk in the Ryomyong residential area after attending its official opening ceremony on Thursday, April 13, 2017, in Pyongyang, North Korea. Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, speaking at a parliamentary panel on national security and diplomacy, warned Thursday that North Korea... (Associated Press) TOKYO (AP) — Prime Minister Shinzo Abe warned Thursday that North Korea may be capable of firing a missile loaded with sarin nerve gas toward Japan, as international concern mounted that a missile or nuclear test by the authoritarian state could be imminent. "There is a possibility that North Korea is already capable of shooting missiles with sarin as warheads," Abe told a parliamentary panel on national security and diplomacy. Abe was responding to a question about Japan's readiness at a time of increased regional tension. A U.S. navy aircraft carrier is heading toward the Korean Peninsula as Pyongyang prepares for the 105th anniversary of the birth of its founder Kim Il Sung this weekend. Citing Syria where dozens of people died recently in an alleged sarin nerve gas attack, Abe said Japan should take the example seriously, stressing the need to strengthen its deterrence against the North. North Korea, which is not a signatory to the international Chemical Weapons Convention, has been producing chemical weapons since the 1980s and is now estimated to have as many as 5,000 tons, according to a South Korean defense white paper. Its stockpile reportedly has 25 types of agents, including sarin. Experts say if North Korea were to attack South Korea, it would likely target Seoul's defenses with chemical and biological weapons dropped from aircraft or delivered via missiles, artillery and grenades. Japan, under its postwar constitution, has limited the role of its military to self-defense only and relied on the U.S. for offensive and nuclear capability. But recently, Abe's ruling party has proposed that Japan should bolster its missile defense, including upgrading the capability to shoot down an enemy missile and acquiring the capacity to attack the base it was fired from. With President Donald Trump's administration not ruling out a military option to dealing with North Korea, "tension is certainly rising," Abe said Wednesday to a group of lawmakers from his ruling party who sought increased safety measures for Japanese nationals in case of an emergency. ___ Follow Mari Yamaguchi on Twitter at https://www.twitter.com/mariyamaguchi Find her work at AP News https://www.apnews.com/search/mari%20yamaguchi ||||| Japan is preparing to send several warships to join a US aircraft carrier strike group heading for the Korean peninsula, in a show of force designed to deter North Korea from conducting further missile and nuclear tests. Citing two well-placed sources who spoke on condition of anonymity, Reuters and the Kyodo news agency said several destroyers from Japan’s maritime self-defence forces would join the USS Carl Vinson and its battle group as it enters the East China Sea. The move comes as the Chinese president called for calm in the region in a phone conversation with Donald Trump. China “is committed to the goal of denuclearisation on the Korean peninsula, safeguarding peace and stability on the peninsula, and advocates resolving problems through peaceful means,” Xi Jinping said, according to CCTV, the state broadcaster. Syria strike designed to intimidate North Korea, Chinese state newspaper says Read more The call came after a series of tweets in which Trump pressed China to be more active in pressuring North Korea to abandon its nuclear programme. In a pair of tweets, Trump linked trade deals and the future of the US-China relationship to progress on reining in the regime’s nuclear programme. The US president wrote: Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) North Korea is looking for trouble. If China decides to help, that would be great. If not, we will solve the problem without them! U.S.A. In another tweet, Trump said he had told Xi any trade deal between the two countries would be “far better for them if they solve the North Korean problem”. The US aircraft carrier was redeployed from a planned visit to Australia and is sailing north from Singapore towards the Korean peninsula, as speculation mounts that Pyongyang is planning more missile launches to coincide with national anniversaries this month. North Korea watchers believe the regime could conduct missile tests on or around the 105th anniversary of the birth of the state’s founder, Kim Il-sung, on Saturday, or on the 85th anniversary of the ruling Korean People’s Army on 25 April. China is the North’s only key diplomatic ally and its largest trading partner, providing a lifeline to the reclusive state. There are signs China is taking steps to squeeze North Korea and its erratic leader, Kim Jong-un. Chinese authorities have ordered trading companies to return North Korean coal shipments and banned all imports in late February. To bridge the gap, China started importing coal from the US, the first time in two years, a move that is likely to be viewed favourably in Washington. The sources said Japanese and US ships would take part in joint exercises, including helicopter landings on each other’s vessels and communications drills, as the Carl Vinson passe d through waters off Japan. The planned rendezvous is a further sign of increased cooperation between the US, Japanese and South Korean navies. Last month, Aegis ships from the three countr ies held a joint drill to improve their ability to detect and track North Korean missiles. The Carl Vinson is powered by two nuclear reactors and carries almost 100 aircraft. Its strike group also includes guided-missile destroyers and cruisers. A submarine is also expected to join the group. “Japan wants to dispatch several destroyers as the Carl Vinson enters the East China Sea,” one of the Japanese sources was quoted as saying. Reuters said one of the unnamed officials had direct knowledge of the plan, while the other had been briefed about it. Japan’s self-defence forces have not commented on the report. Chinese media warned that the Korean peninsula was closer to war than at any time since the North conducted the first of its five nuclear tests in 2006. The Global Times, a state-run tabloid, suggested Chinese public opinion was turning against North Korea and said harsher measures could be needed, including restricting oil shipments. “Pyongyang can continue its tough stance, however, for its own security, it should at least halt provocative nuclear and missile activities,” the paper wrote in an editorial. “Pyongyang should avoid making mistakes at this time.“ A senior Japanese diplomat said the arrival of a US naval strike group off the peninsula was designed to pressure North Korea into agreeing to a diplomatic solution to its ballistic missile and nuclear weapons programmes. “ If you consider overall things such as the fact that the US government has not put out warnings to its citizens in South Korea, I think the risk [of military action) at this point is not high,” the diplomat said. Some experts in South Korea said an imminent North Korean nuclear test was unlikely. Prof Kim Dong-yub of the Institute for Far Eastern Studies at Kyungnam University , told the Korea Times a ballistic missile launch was the most likely option, adding that the chances of a nuclear detonation were “very low”. On Tuesday, North Korea warned of “catastrophic consequences” in response to any further provocations by the US, days after the Carl Vinson began its journey towards the Korean peninsula. “We will hold the US wholly accountable for the catastrophic consequences to be entailed by its outrageous actions,” North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency quoted a foreign ministry spokesman as saying. “[North Korea] is ready to react to any mode of war desired by the US.” Reuters contributed to this report ||||| BEIJING/PYONGYANG (Reuters) - China said on Friday tension over North Korea had to be stopped from reaching an “irreversible and unmanageable stage” as a U.S. aircraft carrier group steamed toward the region amid fears the North may conduct a sixth nuclear weapons test. Concern has grown since the U.S. Navy fired 59 Tomahawk missiles at a Syrian airfield last week in response to a deadly gas attack, raising questions about U.S. President Donald Trump’s plans for North Korea, which has conducted missile and nuclear tests in defiance of U.N. and unilateral sanctions. The United States has warned that a policy of “strategic patience” is over. U.S. Vice President Mike Pence travels to South Korea on Sunday on a long-planned 10-day trip to Asia. China, North Korea’s sole major ally and neighbor which nevertheless opposes its weapons program, has called for talks leading to the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula. “We call on all parties to refrain from provoking and threatening each other, whether in words or actions, and not let the situation get to an irreversible and unmanageable stage,” Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi told reporters in Beijing. North Korea denounced the United States for bringing “huge nuclear strategic assets” to the region as the Carl Vinson strike group with a flag-ship nuclear-powered aircraft carrier steamed closer, and said it stood ready to strike back. “The Trump administration, which made a surprise guided cruise-missile strike on Syria on April 6, has entered the path of open threat and blackmail,” the North’s KCNA news agency quoted the military as saying in a statement. “The army and people of the DPRK will as ever courageously counter those who encroach upon the dignity and sovereignty of the DPRK and will always mercilessly ravage all provocative options of the U.S. with Korean-style toughest counteraction.” DPRK stands for the North’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. North Korea, still technically at war with the South after their 1950-53 conflict ended in a truce, not a treaty, has on occasion conducted missile or nuclear tests to coincide with big political events and often threatens the United States, South Korea and Japan. On Saturday, it marks the “Day of the Sun”, the 105th anniversary of the birth of state founder Kim Il Sung. U.S. ally South Korea warned against any North Korean “provocation”, such as a nuclear or missile test. “There is certain to be powerful punitive measure that will be difficult for the North Korean regime to endure,” the South’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement. WITH OR WITHOUT YOU While Trump has put North Korea on notice that he will not tolerate any more provocation, U.S. officials have said his administration is focusing its strategy on tougher economic sanctions. Trump said on Thursday North Korea was a problem that “will be taken care of” and he believed Chinese President Xi Jinping would “work very hard” to help resolve it. Trump has also said the United States is prepared to tackle the crisis without China, if necessary. He diverted the Carl Vinson aircraft carrier and its strike group toward the Korean peninsula last weekend in a show of force. (tmsnrt.rs/2p1yGTQ) North Korean leader Kim Jong Un waves to people cheering during an opening ceremony of a newly constructed residential complex in Ryomyong street in Pyongyang, North Korea April 13, 2017. REUTERS/Damir Sagolj Trump has also been pressing China to do more to rein in North Korea. China banned all imports of North Korean coal on Feb. 26 under U.N. sanctions, cutting off the North’s most important export, and on Friday, Chinese state broadcaster CCTV said national airline Air China was suspending flights to Pyongyang. It did not say why the flights, which operate on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, were being suspended and Air China could not be reached for comment. Worry about North Korean aggression has also led to a deterioration of ties between China and South Korea because China objects to the deployment of a U.S. Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-missile system in the South. “It’s not hard to see that ever since the United States and Republic of Korea decided to deploy THAAD, the situation has not become harmonious but has become more tense,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang, said in response to a question about the system. South Korea and the United States say the sole purpose of the THAAD is to guard against North Korean missiles, but China says that its powerful radar could penetrate its territory. The dollar fell on Friday against a basket of currencies, on track for a losing week as tension over North Korea underpinned the perceived safe-haven Japanese yen. Japan’s Nikkei business daily said the government had discussed how to rescue an estimated 57,000 Japanese citizens in South Korea as well as how to cope with a possible flood of North Korean refugees coming to Japan, among whom might be spies. In Pyongyang, retired soldier Ho Song Chol told Reuters that North Korea would win should there be any conflict with the United States. “We don’t think about other things, we just live in our belief that we will win as long as our Supreme Leader is with us,” Ho said, referring to Kim Jong Un. Slideshow (12 Images) Kang Gil-won, a 26-year-old graduate living in Seoul, said his biggest concern was not North Korea, but finding work in a tough job market. “There’s no concern that war is going to break out tomorrow,” he told Reuters at a “study café” where many job seekers prepare for interviews. “Getting a job is a war that I feel in my bones.”

– Prime Minister Shinzo Abe warned Thursday that North Korea may be capable of firing a missile loaded with sarin nerve gas toward Japan, as international concern mounted that a missile or nuclear test by the authoritarian state could be imminent. "There is a possibility that North Korea is already capable of shooting missiles with sarin as warheads," Abe told a parliamentary panel when asked about Japan's readiness at a time of increased regional tension. A US navy aircraft carrier is heading toward the Korean Peninsula as Pyongyang prepares for the 105th anniversary of the birth of founder Kim Il Sung this weekend. The Guardian reports there is speculation the country could stage a missile test around the birthday celebration or on April 25, which marks the 85th anniversary of the Korean People's Army. North Korea has been producing chemical weapons since the 1980s and is now estimated to have as many as 5,000 tons, according to a South Korean defense white paper. Its stockpile reportedly has 25 types of agents, including sarin, reports the AP. Japan, under its postwar constitution, has limited the role of its military to self-defense only and relied on the US for offensive and nuclear capability. But recently, Abe's ruling party has proposed that Japan should bolster its missile defense, including upgrading the capability to shoot down an enemy missile. China weighed in on the overall situation Thursday, per Reuters, with Foreign Minister Wang Yi saying, "Military force cannot resolve the issue. ... Amid tensions we will also find a kind of opportunity to return to talks."

Politics Support for Icelandic president continues to rise, just 3.8% view former history professor negatively By Staff Guðni Th. Jóhannesson and first lady Eliza Reed Former presidents Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson, who was president 1996-2016 and Vigdís Finnbogadóttir who was president 1980-1996 can be seen in the background. Guðni is the sixth president of Iceland Photo/GVA Guðni Th. Jóhannesson, former professor of history and current president of Iceland, continues to enjoy overwhelming support of voters. According to a poll conducted by the local polling firm MMR only 3.8% hold a negative view of the president, while 81.4% view him positively. The two groups which record the highest negative views of the president are voters who are 68 years or older and those in the highest income brackets, although his support is overwhelming in these groups as well. Just 9% of those are 68 years or older are unhappy or very unhappy about the President, as are those whose family income is 9,600,000-12,000,000 ISK annually (84,000-105,000 USD/78,000-97,000 EUR). Virtuallu unanimous support Guðni's popularity in MMR polls has been rising steadily since he assumed office on August 1 2016. The first poll taken after his inauguration showed 68.6% of voters were pleased with the president, while 6.4% were unhappy. Other polls have shown Guðni with even more striking popularity figures. A poll taken by the TV station Stöð 2 and newspaper Fréttablaðið, in December showed that a whopping 97% of respondents were pleased with the president. Read more: 97% approve of history professor-turned president's first four months in office Guðni has made a point of reducing the pomp and circumstance which characterized the presidency during the five terms of his predecessor, Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson. One of the first official acts of Guðni after inauguration was to participate in the 2016 Reykjavík Gay Pride, becoming the first president anywhere in the world to participate in Gay Pride festivities. He has also received praise for turning down a monthly pay increase of 5,300 USD. ||||| Guðni Th. Jóhannesson had expressed dislike of tropical fruit on pizza but now says he is glad he does not have power to initiate ban Faced with uproar at home and a social media storm abroad, the president of Iceland has been forced to clarify his outspoken stance on one of the defining questions of the age: whether pineapple should be allowed on pizza. Last week, answering questions from pupils at a high school in Akureyri, Guðni Th. Jóhannesson said his favourite football team was Manchester United and he was “fundamentally opposed” to pineapple on pizzas. The president then went further, saying that if he could, he would ban the tropical fruit as a pizza topping. Understandably, Twitter and half the world’s online media went into overdrive. On Tuesday, a statement in English and Icelandic on his Facebook page titled A Statement on the Pizza Controversy clarified his stance, saying he liked pineapple, just not on his pizzas – but could not stop people who did putting it on theirs. “I do not have the power to make laws which forbid people to put pineapples on their pizza,” Guðni, a former history professor at the University of Iceland, wrote. “I am glad I do not hold such power.” lalammar (@Layla_AlAmmar) Iceland's President is the hero we all need right now... #pineappleonpizza Presidents should “not have unlimited power”, he continued. “I would not want to hold this position if I could pass laws forbidding that which I don’t like. I would not want to live in such a country. For pizzas, I recommend seafood.” Guðni, 47, has enjoyed huge popularity since his election last June, buoyed by his decision to refuse a 20% pay rise, donate 10% of his pre-tax salary to charity, and become the first president of any country to march in a Gay Pride parade. The president’s informal style – he has been spotted picking up a takeaway pizza on his way home from the office – has seen his approval rating soar as high as 97%, prompting some foreigners to wonder whether others might not benefit from his approach. Mark Lawrence (@MLawrenceJourno) Iceland's President has said he would ban pineapple on pizza. The type of guy that should be leading us here in the UK Guðni’s latest intervention in the great pizza debate, however, appeared to spark further furore on Tuesday after Iceland Magazine pointed out he had used the Icelandic word for fish products, rather than seafood. The controversy was by now big enough to “deserve its own –gate suffix,” the magazine said. ||||| Food & Drink President of Iceland announces that he would ban pineapple as a pizza topping By Staff Guðni Th. Jóhannesson The president of Iceland has enjoyed spectacular popularity. Photo/Vísir UPDATED: See below The president of Iceland, Guðni Th. Jóhannesson, threw a political bombshell into one of the national conversation today when he took sides in one of the more contentious debates of our times: The "pineapple as a pizza topping" debate. Today Guðni visited a high school in the town of Akureyri in North Iceland. The former history professor chatted with students and teachers and visited a history class where he talked about the history of the school and told stories of former students who had left their mark on Icelandic history. Read more: President of Iceland, Guðni Th, picks up a Domino's pizza on his way home from work The local news site Vísir reports that at the end of his visit Guðni took questions from students. Guðni answered questions about various personal things, including which team he rooted for in the English premiere league (which turned out to be Manchester United). He was then asked about his opinion about pineapples as a pizza topping. Guðni answered that he was fundamentally opposed to putting pineapple on top of a pizza. Then he went one step further, announcing that he would pass a ban on pineapple as a pizza topping if he had the power to pass laws on his own. Read more: Support for Icelandic president continues to rise, just 3.8% view former history professor negatively It is not clear whether Guðni's approval ratings (which are currently as high as 97%) will suffer as a result of him taking a stand on this controversial topic! UPDATE: The President flip-flops on his pineapple ban, issuing a Facebook order: People should try fish on their pizza! Read more: Pineapple-pizza-gate: President backtracks "I can't dictate pizza toppings!" Then encourages people to put fish on their pizza ||||| 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.

– It's not every day that the president of Iceland's visit to a high school makes international news, but here we are: Guðni Th. Jóhannesson—a history professor in a former life—last week stopped at a school in the northern town of Akureyri and, during a Q&A period, was asked about what Iceland Magazine frames as "one of the more contentious debates of our times": whether pineapple is an appropriate pizza topping. He not only replied in the negative but quipped that if he could unilaterally pass a law, he'd ban the fruit as a pizza topping altogether. Feathers were ruffled, leading the magazine to ask whether his stance could chip away at his sky-high approval ratings; in January a pollster found only 3.8% of citizens view Jóhannesson negatively, down from 6.4% when he took office in August. On Tuesday, Jóhannesson took to Facebook with a revised stance that clarifies he is no tropical fruit hater: "I like pineapples, just not on pizza. I do not have the power to make laws which forbid people to put pineapples on their pizza. I am glad that I do not hold such power. Presidents should not have unlimited power. I would not want to hold this position if I could pass laws forbidding that which I don't like. I would not want to live in such a country." As for the kind of country he does want to live in, the Guardian reports the 47-year-old's first moves in the position—turning down a 20% pay bump; donating 10% of his salary; and in a world first, marching in a Gay Pride parade as president—have been well regarded. Maybe less so his parting advice: "For pizzas, I recommend seafood." (Read an awesome story about the founder of Little Caesars.)

It shall be unlawful for any person in this state to wear a mask, hood or covering, which conceals the identity of the wearer during the commission of a crime or for the purpose of coercion, intimidation or harassment; provided, the provisions of Section 1301 et seq. of this title shall not apply to the pranks of children on Halloween, to those going to, or from, or participating in masquerade parties, to those participating in any public parade or exhibition of an educational, religious or historical character, to those participating in any meeting of any organization within any building or enclosure wholly within and under the control of said organization, and to those participating in the parades or exhibitions of minstrel troupes, circuses or other amusements or dramatic shows. Any person, or persons, violating the provisions of this section, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction thereof, shall be punished by a fine of not less than Fifty Dollars ($50.00) nor more than Five Hundred Dollars ($500.00), or by imprisonment in the county jail for a period of not exceeding one (1) year, or by both such fine and imprisonment. ||||| Please enable Javascript to watch this video A state legislator in Oklahoma has proposed an amendment that would impose a $500 fine on people who cover their faces with clothing — including hooded sweatshirts. An existing statute already makes it illegal to wear such clothing while committing a crime, KFOR-TV reported. An amendment to that law, authored byRepublican state Sen. Don Barrington, would ban the concealment of a person's identity in public. "Oklahoma businesses want state leaders to be responsive to their safety concerns, and this is one way we can provide protection," Barrington said in a statement. Reactions to the proposal have been mixed. "I think it is a violation of an individual's right to choose what they want to wear as long as it doesn't violate the realm of public decency and moral values," said attorney James Siderias, "and I think that this could be very problematic." Siderias said he believes the legislature is simply trying to make the state "a little bit safer, and in doing so, I think they just overreached a little bit." Oklahoma resident Tracy Wehagen, who was wearing hooded jacket in an interview, said people wearing hoodies "might have personal issues for keeping them on." "They might have a bad hair day or maybe they have cancer or [are] their losing their hair," she said. "You just don't know why." A man who identified himself only as "A.T." said he was skeptical about Barrington's proposal. "I don't think that solution will work," he said. "I just think that will cause a little more tension within the community. It probably will be a reason for cops to mess with more people wearing hoodies." ||||| The state of Oklahoma may soon ban wearing hoodies.Republican state Senator Don Barrington has introduced a bill that would ban people from hiding their identity in public. That includes having a hoodie over someone's head.Oklahoma already bans wearing such clothing or a disguise while committing a crime.But the new proposal would also ban a person from intentionally concealing "his or her identity in a public place by means of a robe, mask, or other disguise."The bill states that it is "immediately necessary for the preservation of the public peace, health and safety."Violators would face a $500 fine. Click here to read the bill. ||||| Please enable Javascript to watch this video OKLAHOMA CITY,Okla.-The cold Oklahoma weather has many sporting hoodies outside to help fight the cold, but wearing a hood in a public place could soon be against the law. The idea of banning hoods is not new to Oklahoma, right now, there is a law banning hoods during crimes that's been around since the 20's. It was originally drafted to help combat crimes from the Ku-Klux-Klan, but people we spoke with say a new amendment of banning hoodies in public could open doors to a bigger problem. They're a common closet find, the hoodie. "I've been wearing hoodies since I was a little kid," Eduar Carreon, a hoodie user said. Even Kevin Durant is a hoodie fan. "If somebody is out running, especially in this kind of weather, where it`s cold, drizzly, you might be inclined to wear your hoodie at Lake Hefner," attorney James Siderias said. "21 OS 1301 has always made it a crime to wear a hoodie or some sort of disguise during the commission of criminal offense," Siderias says. Now, a proposal for an amendment to that law, could make it illegal to hide your identity in public. The fine for your fashion crime? $500. "I think this is a violation of an individual's right to choose what they want to wear as long as it doesn't violate the realm of public decency and moral values, and I think this could be very problematic," Siderias said. Senator Don Barrington authored the proposed amendment; he says they want to help victims of robberies. “The intent of Senate Bill 13 is to make businesses and public places safer by ensuring that people cannot conceal their identities for the purpose of crime or harassment....Similar language has been in Oklahoma statutes for decades and numerous other states have similar laws in place. Oklahoma businesses want state leaders to be responsive to their safety concerns, and this is one way we can provide protection.” – said Sen. Don Barrington of Lawton. "I think the legislature is just trying to make Oklahoma a little bit safer, and in doing so, I think they just over-reached a little bit," Siderias said. "They might have personal issues for keeping them on; they might have a bad hair day or maybe they have cancer or they're losing their hair. You just don't know why," Tracy Wehagen said. "I don't think that solution will work. I just think that will cause a little more tension within the community. It probably will be a reason for cops to mess with more people wearing hoodies," A.T. said. The proposal provides exceptions for religious garments, protection from weather, parades, Halloween celebrations and numerous other circumstances. To read the full bill with the proposed amendment, click here. The ACLU of Oklahoma is speaking out against the proposed bill, and released the following statements on Monday. "This bill is an affront to fundamental rights, including the rights of free speech and privacy. No one should worry about retaliation or retribution because they choose to attend a rally or a protest, which is precisely why the First Amendment protects anonymous speech in these instances. It is no less concerning that such a vague and overly-broad law would invite selective enforcement and over-policing of otherwise law-abiding people. For lawmakers who campaign against Government overreach, voting against this bill would be a great way to practice what they preach," said Ryan Kiesel, executive director of ACLU of Oklahoma. "Here in Oklahoma, it has been illegal to use a hood, mask, or disguise for criminal conduct for over 90 years. This bill does nothing whatsoever to strengthen that law or to prevent or punish crime. Instead, this bill specifically targets only law-abiding individuals. Worse yet, the bill explicitly attempts to criminalize protected First Amendment rights. This bill would turn Oklahoma law enforcement into literally “the fashion police.” What it proposes is both unnecessary and unconstitutional. Instead of bringing criminals to justice, this bill is far more likely to land the State of Oklahoma in the courtroom," said Brady Henderson, legal director of ACLU of Oklahoma. See a mistake? Report a typo here.

– A law originally meant to dissuade crime by Ku Klux Klan members may soon keep people having a bad-hair day from wearing hoodies in public. Oklahoma state Sen. Don Barrington has proposed an amendment to an early 1920s bill that makes it illegal to wear a "mask, hood, or covering" while committing a crime—except Barrington's addition would now make it against the law in his state to wear such apparel in public at all, with a $500 fine for offenders, KFOR reports. The proposal is designed to prevent people from keeping their identities hidden "by means of a robe, mask, or other disguise" and is, the proposed bill states, "immediately necessary for the preservation of the public peace, health, and safety," ABC7 reports. Barrington cites businesses wary of being robbed as his impetus. There are exceptions, including religious garb, Halloween costumes, and clothing worn to shield wearers from the elements. "Oklahoma businesses want state leaders to be responsive to their safety concerns, and this is one way we can provide protection," he says in a statement, per KTLA. Attorney James Siderias believes the intention behind Barrington's idea is to make Oklahoma "a little bit safer" but that it has "overreached a little bit"; he tells KFOR that "it is a violation of an individual's right to choose what they want to wear as long as it doesn't violate the realm of public decency and moral values." One local resident points out to the station that "[people] might have personal issues for keeping [hoodies] on … maybe they have cancer or they're losing their hair," while another worries such a law would "cause a little more tension within the community [and] … probably will be a reason for cops to mess with more people wearing hoodies." (Wearing a hoodie may have cost Mark Zuckerberg a lot of money.)

There was no plan for how to keep the park occupied throughout the night in the face of the new regulations, and many people made arrangements for overnight shelter. Some people offered couches to one another, and two Manhattan churches opened their doors and said protesters could sleep there. Shortly after midnight, about a hundred people remained at the park, and some said they were prepared to stay awake through dawn. “If they are letting us stay here, I am staying up all night,” said Jordan McCarthy, 22. But absent from the park on Tuesday night were some of the Occupy movement’s core members. “Our actual organization is taking the night off,” said Justin Stone Diaz, 38, a member of the information group. “We’re trying to give our people a break.” A surprise police raid that began at about 1 a.m. Tuesday had emptied the park. Officers not only removed the protesters who had camped there for almost two months, but they also removed their tents, tarps and belongings. As the morning unfolded, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg defended the decision to clear the park, saying “health and safety conditions became intolerable.” He also told a City Hall news conference that in approving the police operation, he had had to balance concerns about free speech against concerns about what had been happening in the park. “New York City is the city where you can come and express yourself,” the mayor said. “What was happening in Zuccotti Park was not that.” He said the protesters had taken over the park, “making it unavailable to anyone else.” Mr. Bloomberg said the city had planned to reopen the park on Tuesday morning after the protesters’ tents and tarps had been removed and the stone steps had been cleaned. He said the police had already let about 50 protesters back in when officials received word of a temporary restraining order sought by lawyers for the protesters. The police closed the park again while a judge heard arguments in State Supreme Court. Advertisement Continue reading the main story The judge, Justice Michael D. Stallman, handed down his decision late Tuesday afternoon, ruling for the city and saying the protesters could go into Zuccotti Park but could not take their tents and sleeping bags. Justice Stallman said that the demonstrators “have not demonstrated that they have a First Amendment right to remain in Zuccotti Park, along with their tents, structures, generators and other installations” — to the exclusion of the landlord or “others who might wish to use the space safely.” The mayor’s comments at a City Hall news conference came about seven hours after hundreds of police officers moved in to clear the park, after warning that the nearly two-month-old camp would be “cleared and restored” but that demonstrators who did not leave would face arrest. The protesters, about 200 of whom have been staying in the park overnight, initially resisted with chants of “Whose park? Our park!” The police commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly , said that nearly 200 people had been arrested, 142 in the park and 50 to 60 in the streets nearby. Most were held on charges of disorderly conduct and resisting arrest, among them City Councilman Ydanis Rodriguez, a Democrat who represents northern Manhattan. He was with a group near the intersection of Broadway and Vesey Street that was trying to link up with the protesters in the park. The group tried to push through a line of officers trying to prevent people from reaching the park. Later in the day, the police cleared a lot at Canal Street, about a mile away, where some of the protesters had gone after the sweep. About two dozen people were arrested there after protesters snipped a chain-link fence with bolt cutters. At least four journalists who trailed the protesters as they went through the opening in the fence were also led out in handcuffs, including a reporter and photographer for The Associated Press and a reporter from The Daily News. The operation in and around the park was a blow to the Occupy Wall Street movement, which saw the park as its spiritual heart. The sweep was intended to empty the birthplace of a protest movement that has inspired hundreds of tent cities from coast to coast. Participants criticize a financial system that they say favors the rich and corporations at the expense of ordinary citizens. On Monday, hundreds of police officers raided the main encampment in Oakland , Calif., arresting 33 people. Protesters returned later in the day. But the Oakland police said no one would be allowed to sleep there anymore, and promised to clear a second camp nearby. The police action was quickly challenged as lawyers for the protesters obtained a temporary restraining order barring the city and the park’s private landlord from evicting protesters or removing their belongings. That left the protesters in a kind of limbo as they waited for Justice Stallman to issue his ruling. Occupy Wall Street’s legal team had spent most of the day trying to reverse the reasoning the city used as the legal underpinning for the sweep. The protesters’ lawyers said after Justice Stallman issued the decision that their clients would continue their struggle. “This has not stopped the movement,” said Yetta Kurland, one of the lawyers for the protesters. “Win, lose or draw, the 99 percent will continue to show up, continue to express themselves.” Advertisement Continue reading the main story The mayor, at his news conference in the morning, read a statement he had issued around 6 a.m. explaining the reasoning behind the sweep. “The law that created Zuccotti Park required that it be open for the public to enjoy for passive recreation 24 hours a day,” the mayor said in the statement. “Ever since the occupation began, that law has not been complied with” because the protesters had taken over the park. “I have become increasingly concerned — as had the park’s owner, Brookfield Properties — that the occupation was coming to pose a health and fire safety hazard to the protesters and to the surrounding community,” Mr. Bloomberg said. He added that on Monday, Brookfield asked the city to assist in enforcing the no sleeping and camping rules. “But make no mistake,” the mayor said, “the final decision to act was mine and mine alone.” Some of the displaced protesters regrouped a few blocks away at Foley Square, with the row of courthouses on Centre Street as a backdrop, and swapped stories of their confrontations with the police as they talked about what to do next. Newsletter Sign Up Continue reading the main story Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up You will receive emails containing news content , updates and promotions from The New York Times. You may opt-out at any time. You agree to receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times's products and services. Thank you for subscribing. An error has occurred. Please try again later. View all New York Times newsletters. One protester, Nate Barchus, 23, said the eviction from Zuccotti Park was likely to galvanize supporters, particularly because a series of gatherings had already been planned for Thursday, the protest’s two-month anniversary. “This,” he said, referring to the early morning sweep, “reminds everyone who was occupying exactly why they were occupying.” The midday arrests at the Canal Street lot unfolded next to a triangular space known as Duarte Square, for the first president of the Dominican Republic , Juan Pablo Duarte. The city owns slightly less than half an acre of land there, on the eastern edge of the square. The western section is owned by Trinity Church, a major landowner downtown, and had been fenced off for the winter recently after an art installation was dismantled. With dozens of police officers watching, protesters climbed to the top of the plywood fence and held a general-assembly-style discussion on whether to “liberate another piece of property,” and about an hour later — after some protesters said they had tried to obtain permission to enter the church’s lot — two protesters dressed in black appeared with bolt cutters. They quickly made an opening in the fence. As the crowd poured in, police vans sped down Varick Street toward Zuccotti Park, where another group of several hundred protesters was trying to retake the space where they had camped out since mid-September. It was cleaner than it had been in some time: after the protesters were thrown out, workers using power washers blasted water over the stone that covers the ground. The cleaned-up park caught the attention of passers-by who had become accustomed to seeing the protesters’ tents and tarps. One young father, pushing his toddler son in a stroller, gave police officers guarding Zuccotti Park a thumbs-up sign. Another man, rushing by in a cream suit, flashed them a huge grin, and a blonde woman stopped in her tracks. “Ooh, good,” she said. Advertisement Continue reading the main story Marybeth Carragher, who lives in a building overlooking the park, said she and other residents were apprehensive about the city’s plan to let the protesters return, without their tents. “I think my neighbors and I are very thankful that the mayor acted,” she said, “but we remain completely outraged for having to endure this for nine weeks.” The operation to clear the park had begun near the Brooklyn Bridge , where the police gathered before riding in vans to the block-square park. As they did, dozens of protesters linked arms and shouted “No retreat, no surrender,” “This is our home” and “Barricade!” The mayor’s office sent out a message on Twitter at 1:19 a.m. saying: “Occupants of Zuccotti should temporarily leave and remove tents and tarps. Protesters can return after the park is cleared.” Fliers handed out by the police at the private park on behalf of the park’s owner and the city spelled out the same message. The protesters rallied around an area known as the kitchen, near the middle of the park, and began putting up makeshift barricades with tables and pieces of scrap wood. Over the next two hours, dozens of protesters left the park while a core group of about 100 dug in around the food area. Many locked arms and defied police orders to leave. Some sang “We Shall Overcome” and chanted at the officers to “disobey your orders.” “If they come in, we’re not going anywhere,” said Chris Johnson, 32, who sat with other remaining protesters near the food area. By 3 a.m., dozens of officers in helmets, watched over by Commissioner Kelly, closed in on those who remained. The police pulled them out one by one and handcuffed them. Most were led out without incident. The police move came as organizers put out word on their Web site that they planned to “shut down Wall Street” with a demonstration on Thursday to commemorate the completion of two months of encampment, which has prompted similar demonstrations across the country. Advertisement Continue reading the main story The move also came hours after a small demonstration at City Hall on Monday by opponents of the protest, including local residents and merchants, some of whom urged the mayor to clear out the park. Before the police moved in, they set up a battery of klieg lights and aimed them into the park. A police captain, wearing a helmet, walked down Liberty Street and announced: “The city has determined that the continued occupation of Zuccotti Park poses an increasing health and fire safety hazard.” The captain ordered the protesters to “to immediately remove all private property” and said that if they interfered with the police operation, they would be arrested. Property that was not removed would be taken to a sanitation garage, the police said. About 200 supporters of the protesters arrived early Tuesday after hearing that the park was being cleared. They were prevented from getting within a block of the park by a police barricade. There were a number of arrests after some scuffles between the two sides, but no details were immediately available. After being forced up Broadway by the police, some of the supporters decided to march several blocks to Foley Square. In the weeks since the protest began, Mr. Bloomberg had struggled with how to respond. He repeatedly made clear that he did not support the demonstrators’ arguments or their tactics, but he has also defended their right to protest and in recent days and weeks has sounded increasingly exasperated, especially in the wake of growing complaints from neighbors about how the protest and the city’s response to it has disrupted the neighborhood and hurt local businesses. ||||| Journalists at the overnight raid of Occupy Wall Street's New York encampment were kept at a distance from covering it Tuesday, and several were arrested, handcuffed and hauled onto police buses along with hundreds of protesters. At least half a dozen journalists were among those arrested in and around Zuccotti Park and at other protest sites in downtown Manhattan, according to demonstrators and other journalists who photographed and filmed their peers being taken into custody. Reporter Karen Matthews and photographer Seth Wenig of The Associated Press in New York were taken into custody along with about eight other people after they followed protesters through an opening in a chain-link fence into a park, according to an AP reporter and other witnesses. Matthew Lysiak of the Daily News of New York was also arrested at the park, according to witnesses and the Daily News. Julie Walker, a freelance radio journalist, told the AP she was arrested on a disorderly conduct charge while walking several blocks north of Zuccotti Park after covering the raid that evicted protesters from the two-month encampment. She said an officer grabbed her arm twice and arrested her after she asked for the officer's name and badge number. "I told them I'm a reporter," said Walker, who was working for National Public Radio. "I had my recorder on before he ripped it out of my hand." Mayor Michael Bloomberg defended the NYPD's policy of keeping the media back, saying it was intended to keep them out of harm's way. "The police department routinely keeps members of the press off to the side when they're in the middle of a police action. It's to prevent the situation from getting worse and it's to protect the members of the press," the mayor said. But journalists said the multiple arrests, which followed the detention of two journalists Sunday who were handcuffed at a protest in Chapel Hill, N.C., were unusual even for the most chaotic press events. A city official said the police behavior was troubling and called for an investigation. "American foreign correspondents routinely put themselves in harm's way to do their jobs, in some of the most brutal dictatorships in the world. And their NYC colleagues deserve the freedom to make the same choice," Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer said. "Zuccotti Park is not Tiananmen Square." Journalists who arrived on the outskirts of Zuccotti Park as riot police evicted protesters said they were kept from standing in one place to watch the events and some, including an AP videojournalist, said they were kept several blocks from the site. Journalists wearing press passes were kept on the sidewalks and away from the park, along with the protesters, several said. The NYPD didn't immediately respond to a request for comment outlining its policies toward journalists, and couldn't immediately say how many journalists were arrested. Deputy NYPD inspector Kim Royster said that 22 people were arrested, including two AP journalists and two other journalists, for entering a private park; protesters clipped a chain link fence to get in, she said. "The space was off limits. It was private property and there was signage that said no trespassing," Royster said. A protester at the site confirmed the police account, saying protesters tore a hole in a chain link fence to get into the park after the Zuccotti encampment was cleared. "They had hardware. There was a chunk of wood keeping it together along with a chain and they used hardware to remove all of it," protester April Kidwell said. David Higginbotham, a freelance video journalist working for TV New Zealand, said he was arrested late Tuesday morning after protesters tried to re-enter Zuccotti Park. Higginbotham said he was standing on top of a phone booth to film and was told to get down. "The police just pulled me off, put me in handcuffs, slapped me against the truck. They took my press ID off me," said Higginbotham, who has worked a decade in New York. "Ten years. Never been arrested. I covered 9/11. I covered DSK (Dominique Strauss-Kahn)." ___ Associated Press writers Verena Dobnik, Samantha Gross and Amy Westfeldt contributed to this report. ||||| By Ben Fractenberg, Julie Shapiro, Sonja Sharp, Carla Zanoni, Della Hasselle and Caroline Jumpertz DNAinfo Staff LOWER MANHATTAN — Hundreds of protesters reentered Zuccotti Park Tuesday evening, determined to reclaim the birthplace of the Occupy Wall Street movement, despite losing a major legal battle with the city. Cheers and cries of victory coud be heard as the protesters trickled back into the park through checkpoints under the watchful eye of the NYPD, which had kicked them out of the park 16 hours earlier. "It feels like our own little part of history," said Lee Debo, 44, of the Bronx. "I still have some worries about what's going to happen coming down the road, but it feels good for the common man to prevail." The protesters had surrounded the park Tuesday afternoon in anticipation of a judge's ruling about whether they would be allowed back into the space where they'd been encamped for nearly two months. The judge said they could return, provided they didn't bring their sleeping bags and tents with them. They were also instructed not to lie down on the benches and ground and were barred from storing personal property there. The rules would be enforced by employees of Brookfield Properties, which owns Zuccotti Park, with the assistance of the NYPD, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly told NY1. Those who did not comply with the rules, which were posted on new signs around the park, were subject to arrest, he said. Musical instruments, particularly drums, which had tormented Occupy Wall Street's neighbors for weeks, weren't explicitly banned under park rules, but several protesters said they were told by cops they couldn't bring their instruments in. Nevertheless, more than 1,000 protesters flowed back into the park, and some were planning to spend the night. "I'm staying because it's awesome that we're still here after all the madness," said Jack Amico, 23, an artist from Staten Island. Mark Wood, 52, from upstate New York, was also planning to stay. "We are half back," he said. "[The eviction] backfired on them. I'm concerned about what the government is going to do to us next. Are they going to take the shoes and coats away?" The NYPD evicted the Occupy Wall Street protesters during a 1 a.m. raid that resulted in roughly 200 arrests. The plan had been put together well in advance of the predawn action. Sources said hundreds of cops who were ending their normal shift Monday night were told to head to lower Manhattan and get into riot gear. Several journalists were arrested during the ensuing scrum between cops and protesters, including two from DNAinfo.com. News Editor Patrick Hedlund was arrested early Tuesday morning. A freelance photographer on assignment for DNAinfo.com, Paul Lomax, was arrested covering protests at Duarte Square in SoHo. Both journalists were released later Tuesday. After Zuccotti Park was cleared, Dept. of Sanitation workers moved in and tore down the encampment's tents, tarps and protest signs. Protesters were told they could retrieve their belongings at a Hell's Kitchen Sanitation facility Tuesday afternoon, but they were turned away when they showed up. They were told to come back Wednesday. Sunshine Simpson, 22, of North Carolina, stood outside Zuccotti Park Tuesday afternoon wearing a tie-died T-shirt and was bracing himself for a chilly night. He had lost lost most of his belongings (including his wallet, sleeping bag, journal and books) during the raid. "I don't know what we're going to do, but I'm not going anywhere," said Simpson. "Because of this hardship we are going to grow tremendously." The throng of protesters were informed of the judge's decision by the "human microphone," where one protester's words are repeated and amplified by the group so all can hear. There was an audible groan when the word came that the protesters wouldn't be allowed to take up residence again in Zuccotti Park. "It's garbage," Mia Ragovino, 23, of Brooklyn, said of the decision. "Taking away the right to have tents and sleeping bags is shutting down the movement. The point is not to have a march every day, the point is to be here all the time every hour of every day. "With the winter, how are we supposed to stay here without blankets and tents to protect us?" she said. Mayor Michael Bloomberg said he sent in the NYPD after receiving a letter from Brookfield Properties requesting the city help in to clear the park so it could be cleaned. "We have been in constant contact with Brookfield and yesterday they requested that the city assist it in enforcing the no sleeping and no camping rules in the park," Bloomberg said at a morning press conference. "But make no mistake — the final decision to act was mine." Cops roused protesters just after 1 a.m. Tuesday and forced them to vacate the park. They distributed fliers that told the park needed to be cleared because the protesters had become a health and safety hazard. "We lost the infrastructure. We lost the tents," said Liz Dalton, 45, of the Upper East Side, as a light drizzle fell over the protesters. "But, if anything, this forceful disruption has just ignited even more momentum."

– Marchers were clogging the streets around empty Zuccotti Park this afternoon, awaiting a judge's decision on whether they can return after this morning's raid. Some other developments from DNA Info, the New York Times, and the AP: More protests: Minor clashes were reported throughout the day as demonstrators marched through lower Manhattan. At one point, protesters tried to take over a lot at Canal Street, but police cleared them out. Most seemed to head toward the closed Zuccotti Park again. Bloomberg defends raid: “New York City is the city where you can come and express yourself," said the mayor. "What was happening in Zuccotti Park was not that.” Protesters made it "unavailable to anyone else," and health and safety conditions became "intolerable." Protester's response: “This reminds everyone who was occupying exactly why they were occupying.” Journalists arrested: At least a half-dozen journalists were among the 200 or so arrested in the overnight raid and subsequent protests today.

Abstract Background Previous estimates of mortality in Iraq attributable to the 2003 invasion have been heterogeneous and controversial, and none were produced after 2006. The purpose of this research was to estimate direct and indirect deaths attributable to the war in Iraq between 2003 and 2011. Methods and Findings We conducted a survey of 2,000 randomly selected households throughout Iraq, using a two-stage cluster sampling method to ensure the sample of households was nationally representative. We asked every household head about births and deaths since 2001, and all household adults about mortality among their siblings. We used secondary data sources to correct for out-migration. From March 1, 2003, to June 30, 2011, the crude death rate in Iraq was 4.55 per 1,000 person-years (95% uncertainty interval 3.74–5.27), more than 0.5 times higher than the death rate during the 26-mo period preceding the war, resulting in approximately 405,000 (95% uncertainty interval 48,000–751,000) excess deaths attributable to the conflict. Among adults, the risk of death rose 0.7 times higher for women and 2.9 times higher for men between the pre-war period (January 1, 2001, to February 28, 2003) and the peak of the war (2005–2006). We estimate that more than 60% of excess deaths were directly attributable to violence, with the rest associated with the collapse of infrastructure and other indirect, but war-related, causes. We used secondary sources to estimate rates of death among emigrants. Those estimates suggest we missed at least 55,000 deaths that would have been reported by households had the households remained behind in Iraq, but which instead had migrated away. Only 24 households refused to participate in the study. An additional five households were not interviewed because of hostile or threatening behavior, for a 98.55% response rate. The reliance on outdated census data and the long recall period required of participants are limitations of our study. Conclusions Beyond expected rates, most mortality increases in Iraq can be attributed to direct violence, but about a third are attributable to indirect causes (such as from failures of health, sanitation, transportation, communication, and other systems). Approximately a half million deaths in Iraq could be attributable to the war. Please see later in the article for the Editors' Summary Editors' Summary Background War is a major public health problem. Its health effects include violent deaths among soldiers and civilians as well as indirect increases in mortality and morbidity caused by conflict. Unlike those of other causes of death and disability, however, the consequences of war on population health are rarely studied scientifically. In conflict situations, deaths and diseases are not reliably measured and recorded, and estimating the proportion caused, directly or indirectly, by a war or conflict is challenging. Population-based mortality survey methods—asking representative survivors about deaths they know about—were developed by public health researchers to estimate death rates. By comparing death rate estimates for periods before and during a conflict, researchers can derive the number of excess deaths that are attributable to the conflict. Why Was This Study Done? A number of earlier studies have estimated the death toll in Iraq since the beginning of the war in March 2003. The previous studies covered different periods from 2003 to 2006 and derived different rates of overall deaths and excess deaths attributable to the war and conflict. All of them have been controversial, and their methodologies have been criticized. For this study, based on a population-based mortality survey, the researchers modified and improved their methodology in response to critiques of earlier surveys. The study covers the period from the beginning of the war in March 2003 until June 2011, including a period of high violence from 2006 to 2008. It provides population-based estimates for excess deaths in the years after 2006 and covers most of the period of the war and subsequent occupation. What Did the Researchers Do and Find? Interviewers trained by the researchers conducted the survey between May 2011 and July 2011 and collected data from 2,000 randomly selected households in 100 geographical clusters, distributed across Iraq's 18 governorates. The interviewers asked the head of each household about deaths among household members from 2001 to the time of the interview, including a pre-war period from January 2001 to March 2003 and the period of the war and occupation. They also asked all adults in the household about deaths among their siblings during the same period. From the first set of data, the researchers calculated the crude death rates (i.e., the number of deaths during a year per 1,000 individuals) before and during the war. They found the wartime crude death rate in Iraq to be 4.55 per 1,000, more than 50% higher than the death rate of 2.89 during the two-year period preceding the war. By multiplying those rates by the annual Iraq population, the authors estimate the total excess Iraqi deaths attributable to the war through mid-2011 to be about 405,000. The researchers also estimated that an additional 56,000 deaths were not counted due to migration. Including this number, their final estimate is that approximately half a million people died in Iraq as a result of the war and subsequent occupation from March 2003 to June 2011. The risk of death at the peak of the conflict in 2006 almost tripled for men and rose by 70% for women. Respondents attributed 20% of household deaths to war-related violence. Violent deaths were attributed primarily to coalition forces (35%) and militia (32%). The majority (63%) of violent deaths were from gunshots. Twelve percent were attributed to car bombs. Based on the responses from adults in the surveyed households who reported on the alive-or-dead status of their siblings, the researchers estimated the total number of deaths among adults aged 15–60 years, from March 2003 to June 2011, to be approximately 376,000; 184,000 of these deaths were attributed to the conflict, and of those, the authors estimate that 132,000 were caused directly by war-related violence. What Do These Findings Mean? These findings provide the most up-to-date estimates of the death toll of the Iraq war and subsequent conflict. However, given the difficult circumstances, the estimates are associated with substantial uncertainties. The researchers extrapolated from a small representative sample of households to estimate Iraq's national death toll. In addition, respondents were asked to recall events that occurred up to ten years prior, which can lead to inaccuracies. The researchers also had to rely on outdated census data (the last complete population census in Iraq dates back to 1987) for their overall population figures. Thus, to accompany their estimate of 460,000 excess deaths from March 2003 to mid-2011, the authors used statistical methods to determine the likely range of the true estimate. Based on the statistical methods, the researchers are 95% confident that the true number of excess deaths lies between 48,000 and 751,000—a large range. More than two years past the end of the period covered in this study, the conflict in Iraq is far from over and continues to cost lives at alarming rates. As discussed in an accompanying Perspective by Salman Rawaf, violence and lawlessness continue to the present day. In addition, post-war Iraq has limited capacity to re-establish and maintain its battered public health and safety infrastructure. Additional Information Please access these websites via the online version of this summary at http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1​001533 This study is further discussed in a PLOS Medicine Perspective by Salman Rawaf. The Geneva Declaration on Armed Violence and Development website provides information on the global burden of armed violence. The International Committee of the Red Cross provides information about war and international humanitarian law (in several languages). Medact, a global health charity, has information on health and conflict. Columbia University has a program on forced migration and health. Johns Hopkins University runs the Center for Refugee and Disaster Response. University of Washington's Health Alliance International website also has information about war and conflict. Citation: Hagopian A, Flaxman AD, Takaro TK, Esa Al Shatari SA, Rajaratnam J, et al. (2013) Mortality in Iraq Associated with the 2003–2011 War and Occupation: Findings from a National Cluster Sample Survey by the University Collaborative Iraq Mortality Study. PLoS Med 10(10): e1001533. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1001533 Academic Editor: Edward J. Mills, University of Ottawa, Canada Received: April 21, 2013; Accepted: September 3, 2013; Published: October 15, 2013 Copyright: © 2013 Hagopian et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Funding: Support for this study came from pooled internal resources by the American and Canadian researchers without external funding. No funding bodies had any role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. Abbreviations: COSIT, Iraqi Central Statistical Organization; ICSS, improved corrected sibling survival; IFHS, Iraq Family Health Survey; IMIRA, Iraq Multiple Indicator Rapid Assessment; PY, person-years; UI, uncertainty interval Introduction Estimates of the number of Iraqi deaths after the US-led invasion in 2003 have varied considerably and are contested [1]–[24]. Measuring deaths during war is complex, and methods vary, yet assessing the public health consequences of armed conflict is important [25]. There are several approaches to measuring mortality during a period of conflict, including registration of vital events, passive surveillance, and population-based surveys [26]. Iraq's last complete census was in 1987, with a partial census in 1997, after which Iraq experienced a period of extensive demographic change, including internal and external migration. With regard to vital events, death certificates continued to be issued during the conflict, though aggregation and tabulation were affected [27]. To date, five population-based surveys have attempted to estimate war-related deaths in Iraq. None of these were conducted after 2006, the peak of the conflict and subsequent migration [4]. Two of these studies reported only the violent death rate [28],[29], and three estimated both violent-only and all-cause death rates [30]–[32]. These studies reported widely varying rates of mortality. All attracted various criticisms, including potential bias in sample selection, wide ranges of uncertainty intervals (UIs) related to relatively small sample sizes, and disputes related to statistical methods, the choice of reference populations for calculating rates, and the plausibility of results [4]. There has been substantial demographic change in Iraq as a result of both internal and cross-border migration throughout the course of the long conflict. Our study builds on lessons from previous mortality studies in conflict settings and, to our knowledge, provides the first estimates for mortality in Iraq during the years 2006–2011. We used both the standard household demographic method (reported household deaths) and the improved corrected sibling survival (ICSS) method [33], the latter to increase sample size, correct for survival bias [33]–[35], and reduce migration bias. We analyzed data from both methods to produce nationally representative estimates of conflict-related mortality for both the general population (household survey) and for Iraqi adults, defined [36] as those aged 15–60 y (sibling survey). Additional analyses of secondary data were performed to adjust these estimates to account for migration. Methods In mid-2011 we conducted a nationally representative cross-sectional survey of all adults living in 2,000 randomly selected households in 100 clusters across Iraq. In retrospective cluster sample mortality surveys, the idea is to use random selection to generate a predetermined number of “clusters,” or geographically proximate household groups, across the area in question. These representative households are then queried about their composition and mortality events over a given time period, to allow researchers to generate crude death rates; these rates are then multiplied by the country's population total to calculate a death estimate [37]. We used a questionnaire that asked all adults in the household about the births and deaths of their siblings, as well as all births and deaths in the household since 2001. The questionnaire is provided as Questionnaire S1. Setting and Sample Selection We employed a two-stage cluster sampling method. We used a commercial software product (LandScan) that contained gridded population data at the 1-km2 level in a geographic information system, and we linked it to Google Earth imagery. In the first stage of cluster selection, we randomly selected 100 1-km2 areas using a probability-proportional-to-size approach. After those areas were selected, we superimposed a smaller grid (10 m×10 m) onto each of the selected areas, and randomly selected one grid cell in each of the 100 clusters. In each small grid cell, we examined the Google Earth image and selected the residential rooftop that most fully fit in the square to serve as the start household [38]. Details are in Figure S1, Text S2, and Questionnaire S1. Our field manual (see Manual S1) established protocols for selecting 19 dwellings adjacent to the starting household. Our sample size was established building on experience derived from previous studies. By doubling the number of clusters used in two previous mortality studies [30],[31], we were able to reduce the possibility of missing pockets of unusually high or low conflict-related mortality, and by halving the number of households per cluster we were able to keep the operational complexity of conducting the survey manageable, and still visit a reasonable number of households per cluster. Processes and Timeline We recruited study collaborators and drafted questionnaires in early 2011. Lead researchers from three North American universities and two Iraqi team leaders met in northern Iraq in March 2011 to revise data collection instruments and survey processes, finalize the field manual, and gain experience finding start households using Google maps. The two Iraqi team leaders recruited eight medical doctors with experience in community surveys as interviewers. Author W. M. W. conducted training for data collectors in Iraq in March 2011. Weekly (or more frequent) teleconferences were held between the North American team and the lead Iraqi investigator during the design and implementation phases. The entire team met again in Iraq in September 2011 to review and interpret preliminary findings. Data Collection and Entry Four two-person teams along with their supervisors (for a total of ten surveyors) surveyed 100 clusters of 20 households between May 13 and July 2, 2011. The supervisor returned to one randomly selected household in each cluster (where he or she had not previously visited) to repeat the survey as a quality check. When in governorates outside Baghdad, persons familiar with locations and local security issues joined the teams to help obtain local approvals and find designated clusters. An Iraqi events calendar and an age/birth-year chart were created to assist with recalling dates of birth or death. Interviewers asked for causes of death, and coded these from a brief listing of common causes. For war-related deaths, we asked for specific causes (such as gunshots or explosions) and perceived responsible parties (such as coalition forces or criminals). We trained interviewers to probe for sensitive information about missing or disappeared persons, and about events distant in time among siblings and household members. We compiled qualitative observations about the remoteness and other characteristics of each cluster. We needed to replace only one cluster (in Kerbela; governorate names per the Iraqi Central Statistical Organization [COSIT]; http://www.cosit.gov.iq/AAS/AAS2012/sect​ion_10/1.htm) for security reasons. We were obliged, however, to drop two remote clusters where our teams were strongly advised by community leaders not to visit dwellings (for cultural reasons); instead, household members were invited to a central location for interviews. As this violated the study protocol, these households were dropped from the analysis. Instruments Each paper questionnaire contained a household and a sibling component. After obtaining verbal consent following our human subjects protocol, we interviewed the head of household (or the most senior member present) to complete a household listing. A household was defined as a group of people, not necessarily related, who regularly eat and sleep together in a building with a separate entrance and who share a kitchen. For the household component, household births and deaths between January 1, 2001, and the interview date were recorded. When deaths were reported, interviewers requested to see death certificates. We recorded whether interviewers were shown the certificate, whether the certificate was reported to be present but not seen, or whether it was absent. The second component of the questionnaire was a sibling history module (commonly used in Demographic and Health Surveys in developing countries) [33]. By asking all adults in the household to recall and report on each of their siblings (defined as persons born to the same biological mother), we were able to estimate probabilities of death for adults across several decades. Respondents to the sibling history module included all household members aged 18 y and older, and any married people under 18 y. Where necessary, telephone interviews of absent adult household members were conducted while the interviewers were in the household. We allowed limited proxy reporting for siblings. The mother of adult siblings in the home was allowed to report about her own children. If an adult in the home was incapable of responding (because of absence, disability, or refusal), his or her relatives reported on that person's siblings, but only if they said they were fully knowledgeable. Otherwise, the person's response was marked as missing. If two or more siblings lived together in the same home, we interviewed only one (whichever one was actually present, or, if all were present, the sibling with the nearest next birthday to the date of our visit). Data were recorded on paper forms, and then entered using EpiData soon after collection (see full dataset at http://ghdx.healthmetricsandevaluation.o​rg/record/mortality-iraq-associated-2003​-2011-invasion-and-occupation). Data were immediately uploaded to a website “dashboard” to allow all investigators to monitor data collection. We employed algorithms to scan for systematic interviewer error [39], and observed none. All data records were rechecked against the paper record to identify and correct discrepancies. Analysis Household analysis. We estimated crude death rates for the time periods January 1, 2001–February 28, 2003 and March 1, 2003–June 30, 2011 by counting deaths occurring in all households in each time period and dividing by the person-years lived within the time period. We collected month and year of birth and death information and month and year of household formation. When the value was missing for month of death (7%, n = 26), we used June (except for 2011, where we used March for the one case with the month missing). We calculated UIs at the 95% level for crude death rates for each time period using a bootstrapping method. Uncertainty intervals can be interpreted similarly to confidence intervals. To account for clustering, we first sampled (with replacement) the 98 existing clusters 1,000 times, so that each time we selected 98 clusters—with some of the original clusters sampled more than once, and some not sampled at all. Next, for each of the 1,000 sets of clusters, we resampled the original number of households (with replacement) within each of the 98 sampled clusters. For each of these 1,000 replicates, we calculated annual crude death rates. The 2.5th and 97.5th percentiles of these 1,000 values served as our lower and upper bounds, respectively [40],[41]. To estimate excess deaths caused by conflict, we calculated the war-related death rate to be the difference between the crude death rate for each time period and the crude rate during the baseline time period (January 1, 2001, to February 28, 2003). To create a war-related death count for the total population, we used the yearly United Nations Population Division estimates [42] for Iraq multiplied by the war-related crude death rate. To estimate upper and lower uncertainty bounds, we used the bootstrapping method described above. Because the bootstrap process randomly chooses 1,000 possible scenarios, and we did not limit the assumptions otherwise, the occasional random selection could (and did) show a protective effect of conflict (which served to lower our final death rates). To assess the effects of clustering on our data (“design effects”), we compared our two-stage bootstrap estimates of crude mortality to a naïve bootstrap: the ratio of the confidence interval of the larger to the smaller constitutes an estimate of the square root of the design effect. These effects of cluster sampling were not particularly large, ranging from 1.19 to 1.54 for each sex by year [43]. Sibling analysis. Data about adult mortality using the sibling report method are subject to predictable biases. Sibships that experience a higher mortality risk are underrepresented at the time of the survey, because these siblings are less likely to survive to be able to report (survival bias). Additionally, larger sibships are overrepresented in the sample, because there are more siblings in the sampling frame. We used the ICSS method to adjust for these biases [33]. Further details are in Text S1. We calculated mortality rates for 5-y age groups between the ages of 15 and 59 y for the time periods January 1, 2001–February 28, 2003; March 1, 2003–December 31, 2004; the full years 2005–2006, 2007–2008, 2009–2010; and January 1–June 30, 2011. Our summary metric of adult mortality is 45 q 15 , which is the risk that an individual will die before his or her 60th birthday given that he or she has lived to age 15 y. For example, male 45 q 15 ranges from below 0.05 in a few countries to above 0.45 in a handful of high-mortality African nations [44]. Uncertainty intervals were calculated using the same bootstrapping method as in the household analysis. Bootstrapping is appropriate for complex methods such as ICSS, where there is no alternative to calculating UIs. We used Stata/IC 12.0 and Python 2.6 for all analyses. Migration Adjustment Unlike the adult sibling survival method, there is no accepted method for adjusting household figures to account for households entirely destroyed subsequent to the death of all members, or lost to migration out of the country, especially for households that experienced a death. The Iraq Family Health Survey (IFHS) study acknowledges this shortcoming in its work as well [32]. There is evidence that the killings in Iraq were disproportionately targeted towards the higher-income intelligentsia, a group typically in a better position to migrate to a safer setting if under attack [45]. We therefore reviewed a number of secondary data sources to estimate the number of Iraqis who migrated out of the country over the course of the war, to arrive at a total estimate of the missing households that left the country (and were therefore no longer available in our sampling frame). We then divided this total by an estimated household size, and multiplied total households by the average fraction of deaths per household [46] to estimate the total deaths our household survey would have missed, and added this number to our total death count. Ethical Review We had review board approval from each participating institution in the study. Methods were reviewed to ensure they complied with the ethical guidelines for epidemiological research set out by the Council for International Organizations of Medical Sciences and other guidance, including the professional responsibility code of the American Association for Public Opinion Research [47]–[49]. An ethicist experienced in international research associated with the Institute of Translational Health Sciences at the University of Washington, Benjamin Wilfond, further reviewed the protocols to ensure the safety of participants and interviewers was adequately protected. Discussion We estimate about half a million excess deaths occurred in Iraq following the US-led invasion and occupation (March 2003–2011). This estimate is derived from reports of deaths by respondents in our nationally representative survey of 2,000 households in 100 clusters, and adds a correction for deaths that would have been reported by households that emigrated. Our household data indicate that the wartime crude death rate in Iraq was 4.6 per 1,000 PY, more than 0.5 times higher than the death rate during the 26-mo period preceding the war. We were also able to estimate the risk of death among adults, both before and during the war, by asking all adults in the household about the deaths of their siblings, and learned that the risk of death rose 0.7 times higher for women and 2.9 times higher for men between the pre-war period and the peak of the war. There were an estimated 766 excess (war-related) adult deaths per week when the war was taking its highest casualties, with about 70% of these attributable to war-related violence. Five previous studies of mortality in Iraq were conducted over the course of the war using household surveys. Roberts et al. [31] estimated 12.3 deaths per 1,000 PY (for the period 2003–2004). That finding was reasonably similar to the rate obtained by the study by Burnham et al. [30] conducted 2 y later (2003–2006), which reported 13.2 deaths per 1,000 PY. The IFHS [32] conducted during a similar period (2003–2006) reported a lower crude death rate (5.31 per 1,000 PY), although this survey failed to collect primary data from 115 high-violence clusters (of 1,086), and instead imputed missing data for these clusters from Iraq Body Count (http://www.iraqbodycount.org/) figures. The Iraq Living Conditions Survey [28] conducted in the spring of 2004 attempted to count war-related deaths for the period March 20, 2003–May 30, 2004 (estimated at between 18,000 and 29,000) and war-related chronic illnesses (200,000), but did not report an all-cause death rate. At the high end of estimates, an Opinion Research Business poll [29] in 2007 estimated a violent (not all-cause) mortality rate of 10.3 per 1,000 PY for all but three governorates (Kerbela, Al-Anbar, and Erbil). As an alternative to conducting household surveys, the Iraq Body Count used media and other accounts to simply tally civilian war fatalities, arriving at a total of about 116,475 (or about 0.4 deaths per 1,000 PY as of February 2013). We provide comparisons of some of these rates in Figures 3 and 6. We have three hypotheses for the low crude death rates we found in comparison to three previous retrospective mortality surveys: sampling differences, recall bias, and other non-sampling errors, and/or reporting problems related to migration. Our study used different sampling methods than Roberts et al. [31], Burnham et al. [30], and IFHS. Not only did we sample at least twice the number of clusters as Roberts et al. and Burnham et al.—albeit with the same sample size—we also selected the sample using a more sophisticated randomization approach. Our methods may have avoided biases that served to overrepresent deaths in the other two studies. In contrast to IFHS, we skipped only one cluster for security reasons, and did not substitute Iraq Body Count data, which we know underrepresent death rates. The long recall period required of participants in this study likely contributed to underreporting of deaths, and in the setting of a country with increasing sectarian divisions, some people may have been unwilling to report deaths, as well. The war has also caused wide-scale redistribution of Iraq's population, both internally and externally; we know we missed the families that migrated out of the country, and likely missed a representative proportion of internally displaced people as well. We know the earlier census data did not capture these movements, and our sample was selected using those data. It is highly likely that households experiencing more violence were more likely to migrate, thus serving to reduce our death rates using the retrospective mortality survey method. The gold standard for measuring conflict-related mortality is prospective active surveillance, with real-time data collection of mortality events as they occur [62],[63]. International initiatives to commence these methods prior to the outbreak of war have been recommended [64], and could be initiated now for the several anticipated or emerging armed conflicts. Failing that, retrospective surveys are the next best approach, despite their shortcomings (which include delays in analysis and reporting, large confidence intervals, lack of good baseline data for comparison purposes, and the inability to capture varying results by sub-region using feasible sample sizes). Body counts based on passive surveillance are the least reliable of methods [62]. Our study has limitations. National systems of census count and vital registration are typically disrupted during war, making it difficult to use recent measures for a denominator population. We relied on Iraq's decades-old census reports, as more recently projected by the national population authority (COSIT). These are obviously imperfect. Our sub-analysis of Baghdad clusters (Figure 7) and the comparison of our sample to the COSIT census distribution by governorate (with a 14% index of dissimilarity) indicates our sample was representative. Any cluster sample, however, is likely to miss sequestered enclaves of various types, some of which may have had particularly low or high mortality. Our sample likely did not include a good representation of the 1.1 million people who were living in camps or buildings as internally displaced people [60]. Additionally, we replaced one start household that no longer existed, and when a household was vacant after two visits we replaced it; these could have led to sampling bias. Verbal autopsies were not done, and thus family reports on causes of death were not validated. Retrospective reports of death by household members and siblings require survivors to make accurate accounts. Threats to validity of estimates from household and sibling reports include the lack of survivors (due to household dissolution or migration or no surviving siblings), recall bias, unwillingness to report, and sampling error. To address survivor bias, we attempted to estimate deaths that would have been reported by household members that had migrated. The sibling method we used also includes a correction for survival bias. We assessed the role of recall bias at length (see Text S2 for details), and concluded that our results were robust to this potential problem, provided such bias affected both pre-war and post-war reporting periods. Most excess deaths (above pre-war rates) were attributable directly to violence, primarily from gunshots, car bombs, and explosions. Cardiovascular conditions were the principal cause of about half of nonviolent deaths. War-induced excess deaths not caused by violence would include those caused by diversion of the health system to a focus on crisis care, interruption of distribution networks for crucial supplies, and the collapse of infrastructure that protects clean water, nutrition, transportation, waste management, and energy. Further, war contributes to a climate of fear, humiliation, and interruption of livelihoods that undermines health [65]–[68]. The pattern of mortality we observed with both our household and sibling methods correlates with media accounts of how the violence rose and ebbed over the years of the war. Deaths increased to twice expected levels at the onset of the war, plateaued briefly at the end of 2003, then rose again to a new peak in 2006. Thereafter, deaths dropped until 2008, when they leveled off, and then rose again slightly just before the time of our data collection in 2011. The number of events recorded by the households we visited was relatively small, yet it generated rates that appear large when magnified to the national population; that is the nature of this method. On the other hand, we did not adjust for world secular trends of declining mortality, therefore probably understating the number of excess deaths over this long conflict. Although the US military initially denied tracking civilian deaths, 2011 Wikileaks documents revealed that coalition forces did track some noncombatant deaths. The emergence of the Wikileaks “Iraq War Logs” reports in October 2010 [69] prompted the Iraq Body Count team to add to its count, but a recent comparison of recorded incidents between the two databases revealed that the Iraq Body Count captured fewer than one in four of the Iraq War Logs deaths [70]. One important reason for the discrepancy is that small incidents are often missed in press reports. For example, when asked why the assassination of a medical school dean in Baghdad did not merit reporting, Tim Arango (of the New York Times) stated in personal correspondence to AH in April 2011, “Unfortunately there are numerous assassinations every day, and we cannot cover them all.” The deaths of citizens swept up in the conflict are seldom commemorated [71], and yet memorializing and reconciling these casualties has been found to be important for creating a peaceful post-conflict society [72]–[74]. Those who attempted to predict the mortality consequences of an impending invasion of Iraq in 2002 under-projected the death count [75], because methods for this type of assessment remain too crude. Estimates of mortality in the final stages of this protracted war suffer from methodological problems as well, because of complex population shifts [54]. Our contribution has been to use one nationally representative sample to collect both household and adult sibling mortality data. Researchers should continue to refine methods to count the mortality effects of conflicts. The American Public Health Association has adopted a policy encouraging governments to conduct health impact assessments prior to making policy decisions, such as entering into war [76]. When researchers can refine methods to project death counts in advance, as well as to measure total deaths incurred as wars conclude, the public can make wiser decisions about the costs of entering into armed conflict. An authoritative worldwide body could assemble scholars to perfect these methods. Acknowledgments We express gratitude to our interviewers, who visited more than 2,000 Iraqi households at personal risk, and to co-authors who requested anonymity. We are thankful to Johan von Schreeb and Skip Burkle, who reviewed the manuscript. The bioethicist we consulted, Benjamin Wilfond, was a member of the University of Washington's Institute of Translational Health Sciences—Regulatory Support and Bioethics Core, supported by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences of the National Institutes of Health (UL1TR000423). University of Washington administrators Craig Johnson and Sally Weatherford helped with logistics. Shannon Doocy and Linnea Zimmerman at Johns Hopkins University provided consultations on data, and Ben Birnbaum set up the website dashboard to monitor incoming field data. We are grateful to Les Roberts for his encouragement. ||||| New research on the human cost of the war in Iraq estimates that roughly half a million men, women and children died between 2003 and 2011 as a direct result of violence or the associated collapse of civil infrastructure. In a study published Tuesday in the journal PLOS Medicine, researchers concluded that at least 461,000 "excess" Iraqi deaths occurred in the troubled nation after the U.S.-led invasion that resulted in the overthrow of President Saddam Hussein. Those were defined as fatalities that would not have occurred in the absence of an invasion and occupation. The study's release follows several controversial and widely varying estimates of Iraq war deaths. It is the first analysis published since 2006, the bloodiest period of the war. Lead author Amy Hagopian, an associate professor of global health at the University of Washington, said the analysis was limited by a lack of accurate health and census reporting in Iraq. However, she said, it was a duty of public health officials to assess the effects of war. "It's a politically loaded topic," Hagopian said. "Everyone's against polio and wants to eradicate it, but it's different with war." According to Hagopian and her colleagues, at least 60% of the excess deaths were the result of violence. The rest were linked to so-called secondary causes. "War causes a huge amount of chaos, disruption and havoc," Hagopian said. "Some deaths are direct, but there are also deaths that result from destroyed infrastructure, increased stress, inability to get medical care, poor water, poor access to food.... These are all reasons why people die." Of those deaths determined to be the result of direct violence, the study attributed 35% to coalition forces, 32% to sectarian militias and 11% to criminals. Contrary to public perception of mayhem in Iraq, bombings accounted for just 12% of violent deaths. The overall majority of violent deaths, 63%, were the result of gunfire. The task of estimating war deaths in Iraq has been extremely difficult. When epidemiologists in developed nations study mortality, they use real-time death reporting databases or census comparisons to calculate overall rates. These methods are largely unavailable in Iraq, so researchers must rely on a less accurate method: surveying families about their deceased relatives. For the study released Tuesday, a team of Iraqi physicians visited 2,000 randomly selected homes and asked residents to recount all family deaths that had occurred in the period beginning two years before the invasion, through 2011. Based on the survey, researchers arrived at a crude death rate and then applied that to Iraq's estimated population of more than 32 million. That figure was then corrected for deaths that would have been reported by families who fled the nation. "One of the problems clearly is that we're asking people to remember a very long period of time," Hagopian said. "There can be a lot of forgetting, and that forgetting will be in favor of a lower count." Several experts who were not involved in the study said it provided a crude picture of Iraq war deaths and was therefore valuable. However, they raised concerns about the lack of accurate census data. "The main problem with this survey, and with others, is the underlying denominator: the total population," said Dr. Prabhat Jha, director of the Center for Global Health Research in Toronto. "That's the tricky part of war zone situations. People not only get killed, but they move out of the country and rarely move in." To provide perspective on the war death figures, Jha said that the 1918-19 flu pandemic killed 20 million to 60 million people. During the 20th century, about 200 million people died worldwide because of war, famine and natural disaster. During that same period, about 2 billion died of childhood diseases. Estimates of Iraq war deaths have varied greatly over the years. In a study that appeared in the journal Lancet in 2004, Les Roberts and his colleagues estimated that about 100,000 deaths occurred during the first year of the war; a second study he helped conduct estimated that more than 600,000 deaths had occurred by 2006. In both cases, Roberts said, officials in the George W. Bush administration dismissed the estimates as not credible. He said the latest study is further evidence that the Iraq war death toll is much higher than officials realized or chose to acknowledge. monte.morin@latimes.com ||||| Iraqis mourn over the coffins of slain Shiite pilgrims during a funeral in Karbala in 2011. A new survey estimates nearly 500,000 people have died as a result of the war. Mohammed Sawaf/AFP/Getty Images The number of deaths caused by the Iraq war has been a source of intense controversy, as politics, inexact science and a clamor for public awareness have intersected in a heated debate of conflicting interests. The latest and perhaps most rigorous survey, released Tuesday, puts the figure at close to 500,000. The study, — a collaboration of researchers in the U.S., Canada and Iraq appearing in the journal PLoS Medicine — included a survey of 2,000 Iraqi households in 100 geographic regions in Iraq. Researchers used two surveys, one involving the household and another asking residents about their siblings, in an attempt to demonstrate the accuracy of the data they were collecting. Using data from these surveys, researchers estimated 405,000 deaths, with another 55,800 projected deaths from the extensive migration in and emigration from Iraq occurring as a result of the war. The researchers estimated that 60 percent of the deaths were violent, with the remaining 40 percent occurring because of the health-infrastructure issues that arose as a result of the invasion — a point they emphasized in discussing their research, since the figure is higher than those found in previous studies. “I hope that one of the takeaways from this paper will be that when we invade a country, there are many health consequences that aren’t directly related to violence,” said study author Amy Hagopian, program director of the community-oriented public-health practice at the University of Washington School of Public Health. She said approximately half those deaths were attributed to inadequate treatment for cardiovascular disease. To conduct the household surveys, researchers worked with volunteer Iraqi scientists and improved on the methods used for similar surveys in the past. Because the survey was conducted in mid-2011, researchers were able to access more areas of the country safely. The households surveyed were chosen by a grid placed on Google Maps, and a home was selected by a quadrant in that grid from randomly generated numbers. Ultimately, the researchers were able to survey twice as many areas as previous studies and had a more random selection of homes, avoiding the past problems of home selection by the survey takers on the ground, who may have been more likely to approach homes along more-traveled streets. The more thorough investigation may negate some of the criticism levied against past studies on Iraqi mortality after the invasion, which were published in the medical journal The Lancet in 2004 and 2006. The 2006 study in particular was a subject of scrutiny because it estimated a toll of 655,000 excess deaths, mostly violent, at a time when other surveys had five-digit death tolls. New access, new method The central criticism of that study focused on the number of areas surveyed, with 50 clusters instead of the 100 in the new study, which may have distorted the numbers but was the result of safety concerns at the time. “The problem in conflict is you’re putting researchers at risk, interviewers at risk in these areas,” said Dr. Gilbert Burnham, a co-director of the center for refugee and disaster response at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, who was an author on both Lancet studies and the new one. Researchers who were critical of earlier work by Burnham and his colleagues praised the new study for improvements in the methods but said there was still something lacking. “I can see that over the years in this type of research, they made an attempt to be more rigorous, and that is very good,” said Beth Osborne Daponte of Social Science Consultants, who was involved in tallying mortality in Iraq during the first Gulf War. But, she added, “there’s a tremendous amount of uncertainty here.” “This one is very much better than the last one because they’ve actually eliminated quite a bit of the methodological shortcomings. The result is the numbers plummet,” said Michael Spagat, head of the department of economics at Royal Holloway University of London. “There’s huge vindication for the critics here — the fact that the numbers have gone down so much.” For his part, Burnham defended the results of both studies. “From a statistical standpoint, the numbers are not really different from each other,” he said. “These represent estimates, and that’s what we’ve always said.” Spagat said that while the numbers have become more accurate, he does not feel the authors have done much to address past criticisms, changing methods without acknowledging the flaws of past work. An analyst for the Iraq Body Count, which tracks violent civilian deaths in Iraq using confirmed violent deaths and therefore should be considered a low-end estimate, echoed those sentiments. “Hopefully, the widespread reporting of this study can contribute towards a more mature and reflective attitude among those who may have too easily latched onto conveniently massive round numbers as political footballs,” said Hamit Dardagan, an analyst for Iraq Body Count, in an email to Al Jazeera. “It might also help if the authors were a little more forthcoming in acknowledging and perhaps exploring the discrepancies between the earlier work and the new study, whose results are much less of an outlier amongst the various existing estimates for deaths from violence.” Spagat, who was a vocal critic of the 2006 Lancet paper, said that too much of the discussion in the media criticizing the study focused on funding sources (the 2006 study was funded in part by a group funded by left-leaning billionaire George Soros) and that it was not focused where it should have been: on methods in the study that could have been done better and would have made the numbers more accurate. “I’m sure Soros’ people there would be … pretty happy if the results would come out with a high estimate, but that doesn’t mean instantly the survey is wrong,” he said. The new study says support “came from pooled internal resources by the American and Canadian researchers without external funding. No funding bodies had any role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish or preparation of the manuscript.” Public misperception

– How many Iraqis died in the Iraq war? It's tough to say—the usual methods of calculating such things (like census counts) aren't available in the country, reports the Los Angeles Times. But one new study, published yesterday in PLOS Medicine, puts the figure at 461,000. Researchers polled 2,000 households around the country to arrive at the figure, asking people to recall family deaths between 2003 and 2011. This data gave them an estimated 405,000 deaths; they projected that another 55,800 would have been reported by families who fled the country, Al Jazeera America reports. Of those who died, 60% were estimated to have been killed in violence, with the remaining 40% victims of things like damaged infrastructure and inaccessible medical care. "I hope that one of the takeaways from this paper will be that when we invade a country, there are many health consequences that aren’t directly related to violence," says one of the study authors, who predicts half of that 40% was due to lack of treatment for heart disease. Another figure that might surprise: Only 12% of violent deaths were linked to bombings (gunfire was the leading cause, at 63%). Of course, the study methodology is imperfect, though it has been regarded by many as better than the last attempt, which put the figure at 655,000. "I think that the period of contention is over, and the focus now should not be on putting the blame on anyone,” says the editor of the study, “but on how do we figure out rebuilding the health structure in this environment."

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexican rescuers raced against the clock on Wednesday to save a 12-year-old girl trapped beneath a collapsed school and reach other possible survivors buried in rubble in central Mexico following the country’s most deadly earthquake in three decades. At least 237 people were killed by the 7.1-magnitude quake that struck about 150 km (90 miles) southeast of Mexico City on Tuesday afternoon, 32 years after a 1985 quake killed thousands. Rescue workers were able to communicate with the girl, identified only as Frida Sofia, who responded that there were two other students nearby but she could not tell if they were alive, according to broadcaster Televisa, whose cameras and reporters had special access to the scene. Rescuers previously had seen a hand protruding from the debris, and she wiggled her fingers when asked if she was still alive, Televisa said. The girl’s full name was not made public, but her family waited in anguish nearby, knowing that the bodies of 21 school children and four adults were already recovered from the Enrique Rebsamen School. They and other parents clung to hope after rescue teams reported a teacher and two students had sent text messages from within the rubble. Rescuers moved slowly, erecting makeshift wooden scaffolding to prevent rubble from crumbling further and seeking a path to the child through the unstable ruins. As in rescue scenes throughout the central Valley of Mexico, officials ruled out using heavy equipment as long as there were signs of life below. Some 14 hours after the effort began, rescue workers in hard hats made an urgent plea on camera for beams and chains to support parts of the school ruins that were collapsing. “We have a lot of hope that some will still be rescued,” said David Porras, one of scores of volunteers helping the search at the school for children aged 3 to 14. “But we’re slow, like turtles,” he said. Rescuers periodically demanded “total silence” bystanders, who would freeze in place and stay quiet, to better hear calls for help. Similar efforts have pulled more than 50 survivors from buildings around the country, President Enrique Pena Nieto said in a national address. Such rescues lead to impassioned cries of “Yes we can!” from responders and bystanders. Fifty-two buildings collapsed in Mexico City alone, Mayor Miguel Angel Mancera told reporters. In all the quake killed 102 people in Mexico City and the remaining 135 from five surrounding states. Another 1,900 people were treated for injuries, the president said. The quake struck a mere 31 km (32 miles) beneath the surface, sending major shockwaves through the metropolitan area of some 20 million people. Much of the capital is built upon an ancient lake bed that shakes like jelly during a quake. Rescue workers search through the rubble for students at Enrique Rebsamen school after an earthquake in Mexico City, Mexico, September 20, 2017. REUTERS/Edgard Garrido Initial reports suggest that collapses were limited mostly to buildings that predated the 1985 quake, after which stricter building codes were enacted. “The central part of Mexico City, in the lake bed, is always going to be a complicated place to build,” said Rodrigo Suarez, chief operating officer at Mexico City-based apartment developer Hasta Capital. “These old buildings (may) survive an earthquake or two or three, but since they weren’t built to modern code, there’s always going to be a risk in major earthquakes.” INTERNATIONAL AID The national electric company restored service to 95 percent of the 5 million customers who had lost power, Pena Nieto said, and the state oil monopoly Pemex said its installations suffered no significant damage and that all its operations were normal. Mexico was still recovering from another powerful tremor that killed nearly 100 people in the south of the country less than two weeks ago. Slideshow (29 Images) Reinforcements from other countries began to arrive and more were on the way. The United States, Israel, Spain, Japan and several Latin American countries had already responded with technical assistance and rescue teams, the president said. A Panamanian team of 32 rescue workers dressed in orange jumpsuits and helmets and two dogs arrived at Mexico City’s international airport on Wednesday, prepared to go to work immediately searching for survivors. They came self sufficient with seven days’ worth of food, water and supplies and prepared to work around the clock, said Cesar Lange, leader of the Panamanian Civil Protection unit. The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) was sending a Disaster Assistance Response Team to help, at the request of the Mexican government, the agency said. “The United States remains committed to helping our neighbors during this difficult time,” the statement said. Throughout the capital, crews were joined by volunteers and bystanders who used dogs, cameras, motion detectors and heat-seeking equipment to detect victims who may still be alive. Pena Nieto spent the day surveying several of the rescue sites, making note of the large number of university students and others have volunteered for the search and rescue effort. “I have seen an active and very committed participation from the Mexican youth. ... I have seen a lot of solidarity,” Pena Nieto said. The president has been unusually visible since the two earthquakes, a sign of the political sensitivity of disaster relief less than a year before the next presidential election. “We’re clearly aware that this is a test we cannot flunk,” said Senator Miguel Angel Chico of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI. For a graphic on earthquake location, click: here ||||| A pay phone is surrounded by rubble after a 7.1 earthquake, in Jojutla, Morelos state, Mexico, Wednesday, Sept. 20, 2017. Adding poignancy and a touch of the surreal, Tuesday's magnitude-7.1 quake struck... (Associated Press) MEXICO CITY (AP) — The wiggling fingers of a young girl trapped in the rubble of her collapsed school in Mexico City raised hopes among hundreds of rescuers working furiously Wednesday to try to free her — a drama that played out at dozens of buildings toppled by the powerful earthquake that killed at least 223 people. But it was the ongoing rescue at the Enrique Rebsamen school, where 25 people including 21 children perished, that was seen as emblematic of Mexicans' rush to save survivors before time runs out. Helmeted workers spotted the girl buried in the debris early Wednesday and shouted to her to move her hand if she could hear. She did, and a rescue dog was sent inside to confirm she was alive. Hours later the crews were still laboring to free her, as images of the rescue effort were broadcast on TV screens nationwide. Workers in neon vests and helmets used ropes, pry-bars and other tools, frequently calling on the anxious parents and others gathered around to be silent while they listened for any other voices from beneath the school. At one point, the workers lowered a sensitive microphone inside the rubble to scan for any noise or movement. A rescuer said they thought they had located someone, but it wasn't clear who. "It would appear they are continuing to find children," said Carlos Licona, a burly sledge-hammer wielding volunteer who came to help in any way he could. Asked if that made him optimistic, he said, "I hope so." It was part of similar efforts at the scenes of dozens of collapsed buildings, where firefighters, police, soldiers and civilians wore themselves out hammering, shoveling, pushing and pulling debris aside to try to reach the living and the dead. By mid-afternoon, 52 people had been pulled out alive since Tuesday's magnitude 7.1 quake, Mexico City's Social Development Department said, adding in a tweet: "We won't stop." Among them were 11 people rescued at the Enrique Rebsamen school, where three people remained missing, two children and an adult. Earlier, journalists saw rescuers pull two small bodies from the rubble, covered in sheets. More than 24 hours after the collapse, the debris being removed from the school began to change as crews worked their way inside: From huge chunks of brick and concrete, to pieces of wood that looked like remnants of desks and paneling, to a final load that contained a half-dozen sparkly hula-hoops. Volunteer rescue worker Dr. Pedro Serrano managed to crawl into the crevices of the tottering pile of rubble and make it to a classroom, where he found no survivors. "We saw some chairs and wooden tables. The next thing we saw was a leg, and then we started to move rubble and we found a girl and two adults — a woman and a man," he said. All were dead. "We can hear small noises, but we don't know if they're coming from ... the walls above, or someone below calling for help," Serrano said. A helicopter overflight of some of the worst-hit buildings revealed the extent of the damage wrought by the quake: Three mid-rise apartment buildings on the same street pancaked and toppled in one Mexico City neighborhood; a block in the town of Jojutla, in Morelos state, where nearly every home was flattened or severely damaged and a ruined church where 12 people died inside. The death toll included 93 people killed in Mexico City; 69 in Morelos state just south of the capital; 43 in Puebla state to the southeast, where the quake was centered; 12 in Mexico State, which borders Mexico City on three sides; four in Guerrero state; and one in Oaxaca, according to the official Twitter feed of civil defense agency head Luis Felipe Puente. President Enrique Pena Nieto declared three days of national mourning even as authorities made rescuing the trapped and treating the wounded their priority. "Every minute counts to save lives," Pena Nieto tweeted. In the town of Jojutla in Morelos state, dozens of buildings collapsed, including the town hall. One building had been rocked off its foundations and part way into a river. The town's Instituto Morelos secondary school partly collapsed, but an earthquake drill held Tuesday morning to mark the anniversary of an 8.0 earthquake that killed thousands in 1985 proved fortuitous, the school's director, Adelina Anzures said. "I told them that it was not a game, that we should be prepared," Anzures said of the drill. When the quake hit, she said, children and teachers rapidly filed out and nobody was hurt. Town residents who had spent Tuesday night on the streets next to homes that were severely damaged or flattened outright, wrapped in blankets or on mattresses, walked past shattered buildings and picked through what was left when daylight came At a wake for Daniel Novoa, a toddler killed when his home collapsed, family members bent over a white child-size coffin surrounded by a crucifix and images of Mexico's patron, the Virgin of Guadalupe. Alongside was a larger open coffin for the child's aunt, Marta Cruz. In Atzala in Puebla state, villagers mourned 11 family members who died inside a church when it crumbled during a baptism for a 2-year-old girl. People at the wake said the only ones to survive were the baby's father, the priest and the priest's assistant. Power was being restored in some Mexico City neighborhoods that had been left in darkness overnight, and officials reported that the sprawling Metro system was running at near-normal capacity. Mayor Miguel Angel Mancera said there were 38 collapsed buildings in the capital alone, down from the 44 he had announced previously. People rallied to help their neighbors in a huge volunteer effort that included people from all walks of life in Mexico City, where social classes seldom mix. Doctors, dentists and lawyers stood alongside construction workers and street sweepers, handing buckets of debris or chunks of concrete hand-to-hand down the line. Even Mexico City's normally raucous motorcycle clubs swung into action, using motorcades to open lanes for emergency vehicles on avenues crammed with cars largely immobilized by street closures and malfunctioning stoplights. Economist Alfredo Coutino, Latin America director for Moody's Analytics warned Wednesday of economic disruption to several central states and the capital in particular. "Though it is too early for authorities to have an estimate of the damage as rescue work continues, it is certain that economic activity ... will continue to be disrupted for some time," Coutino wrote. ||||| Mexico City, Mexico (CNN) When the Enrique Rebsamen School fell, it did not do so lightly. The 7.1-magnitude earthquake that jolted the region on Tuesday caused part of the building to fold in on itself, sandwiching and collapsing, classroom onto classroom. In the destruction, rescuers found the bodies of 21 schoolchildren and four adults. Now, the community is waiting for word on the dozens more still missing. But waiting isn't enough. They -- strangers, friends and rescue crews -- are scraping through the rubble with their bare hands, walking the streets with the names of the missing children printed on cardboard signs. When all else fails, they are sharing names on social media and offering whatever comfort can be managed. While the scene is grim, every rescue provides hope. Walking around the dusty perimeter of what used to be the schoolhouse, a man notices something behind a hole in an outer wall. Read More

– Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto said Wednesday afternoon that up to 30 people are still trapped inside the rubble of the Enrique Rebsamen School in Mexico City, CNN reports. It's unclear how many of the missing are still alive. The school, which houses children as young as kindergarten, collapsed following the 7.1 magnitude earthquake that struck Mexico Tuesday and killed at least 224 people. According to Reuters, the bodies of at least 21 children and four teachers have been pulled from what was once a private school. “We have a lot of hope that some will still be rescued,” says one of the dozens of rescuers, both volunteer and professional, working the scene. A young girl's wiggling fingers kept that hope alive Wednesday, the AP reports. Rescuers saw the girl early in the day and had her move her hand to confirm she was alive. They were able to snake a hose to her to get her water, but the hours-long process of carefully getting to her was ongoing. "We won't stop," Mexico City's Social Development Department stated. Hundreds of people, including neighbors, were pulling rubble from the collapsed school by hand. One neighbor says the community has come together in the wake of the school collapse. "Houses were turned into hospitals," she tells CNN. "We brought shovels, spikes, first aid material."

More than 350 letters from Pope John Paul II to the Polish-born American philosopher Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka were found at the National Library of Poland, said Edward Stourton, the senior BBC journalist who made the documentary. The first dated from 1973 and the last a few months before the pope's death, in 2005. "I would say they were more than friends but less than lovers," Stourton told the AFP news agency. "One of the fascinating stories that comes out of these letters is of a struggle to contain what was certainly a very intense relationship which mixed emotions and philosophical ideas in proper Christian boundaries." According to the broadcaster, the letters did not suggest that the pope broke his vow of celibacy. Statue of John Paul II in Czestochowa, Poland: The former Pope was declared a saint in 2014 The intense friendship began in 1973, when the philosopher contacted the future pope Cardinal Karol Wojtyla, then archbishop of Krakow, about a book he had written. The "intense" correspondence revealed that the two spent camping and skiing holidays together and went on country walks. In one letter, he called the woman "a gift from God." When he was still cardinal, he gave Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka one of his most treasured possessions: a scapular, a small piece of cloth worn as part of the habit of monastic orders. "Last year I was looking for an answer to these words: 'I belong to you,' and finally, before leaving Poland, I found a way - a scapular," he wrote in September 1976. "The dimension in which I accept and feel you everywhere in all kinds of situations, when you are close, and when you are far away." The BBC has only seen the sainted pope's letters, not Tymieniecka's side of the correspondence. The philosopher died in 2014. The National Library of Poland stated that the friendship between Tymieniecka and John Paul II "is well known and has been presented in many publications". It was "neither secret nor extraordinary." According to the National Library of Poland, "the statements made in the media have no basis in the content of the letters of John Paul II to Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka." ||||| Image copyright From the estate of Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka Image caption Cardinal Karol with Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka on a skiing trip Pope John Paul II was one of the most influential figures of the 20th Century, revered by millions and made a saint in record time, just nine years after he died. The BBC has seen letters he wrote to a married woman, the Polish-born philosopher Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, that shed new light on his emotional life. Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka was a great hoarder, and she seems to have kept everything relating to her 32-year friendship with Saint John Paul. After her death, a huge cache of photographs was found among her possessions. We are used to seeing John Paul in formal papal clothing amid the grandeur of the Vatican, and yet here he is on the ski slopes, wearing shorts on a lake-side camping trip, and, in old age, entertaining privately in his rather sparse-looking living quarters. Even more revealing is the archive of letters that Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka sold to the National Library of Poland in 2008. These were kept away from public view until they were shown to the BBC. When the two met in 1973, Cardinal Karol Wojtyla - as he then was - was the Archbishop of Krakow. Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka was Polish by birth, and, like him, had endured the searing experience of the Nazi occupation during World War Two. After the war she left to study abroad and eventually pursued an academic career as a philosopher in the United States, where she married and had three children. Image copyright From the estate of Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka Image caption Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka with her husband Hendrik Houthakker It is public knowledge that for four years Cardinal Wojtyla and Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka collaborated on an English-language version of a book on philosophy he wrote while teaching at Lublin University, and Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka has a walk-on part in several John Paul biographies. But the relationship was much deeper and more complex, and continued for far longer than has previously been recognised. In 2008, the letters were bought by the National Library of Poland for what is thought to be a seven-figure sum. Usually when a library buys an important archive about a figure of Pope John Paul's stature you would expect a bit of a fanfare, and the letters would be put on display and made available to scholars. But these were kept away from public view. Find out more Watch Ed Stourton's Panorama report: The Secret Letters of Pope John Paul II on BBC One on Monday 15 February at 20:30. You can catch up via the iPlayer. In 1970s Poland any relationship between a clergyman and a woman was risky. The communist regime in Warsaw regarded the Catholic Church as the enemy, and the secret police - the SB, as they were known - watched its leaders constantly. Dr Marek Lasota, who has been studying communist-era files at the Institute of National Remembrance in Krakow, says the SB took a particularly close interest in Cardinal Wojtyla. "They installed wiretaps in his flat and his telephone was bugged," he says. "Every letter was intercepted and checked, both private and official." Image copyright Alamy Image caption Cardinal Wojtyla in the 1970s So the first hint of any real intimacy comes in a letter sent not from Krakow, but from Rome, where Cardinal Wojtyla spent more than a month attending a meeting of Catholic bishops in the autumn of 1974. He took several of her letters with him so that he could answer them "without using the mail", and writes that they are "so meaningful and deeply personal, even if they are written in philosophical 'code'". Towards the end of the letter he adds that "there are issues which are too difficult for me to write about". I have only seen one side of the correspondence - his letters to her - and it is, of course, sometimes impossible to know what the cardinal is referring to. But I have done some old-fashioned journalistic sleuthing, and I believe that at an early stage of the relationship - probably in the summer of 1975 - Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka told Karol Wojtyla that she was in love with him. Image copyright From the estate of Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka Image caption Cardinal Wojtyla and Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka on a camping trip in 1978 Image copyright From the estate of Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka Image caption Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka and Cardinal Wojtyla in 1977 As Pope, John Paul rewrote the rules of the papacy, travelling the world as no pope had done before him and, in the early days especially, pulling the crowds like a rock star. His response to Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka's declaration when he was a cardinal showed he could be every bit as unconventional in his private life. Far from ending the relationship, as a more prudent prelate might have done, he gave her one of his most treasured possessions - an item of devotional clothing known as a scapular. Devotional scapulars are formed of two tiny bits of cloth, worn next to the skin over the chest and back, designed to echo the full-length, apron-like garments which monks wear over their habits. Not many Catholics wear them now, but for centuries they were widely used as a symbol of commitment to the Christian life. This one had been given to Karol Wojtyla by his father at the time of his first Holy Communion, and it seems that he invested it with a special significance in his relationship with Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka. Image caption The scapular given to Ms Tymieniecka He later told her that it allowed him to "accept and feel you everywhere in all kinds of situations, whether you are close, or far away". Cardinal Wojtyla had a number of female friends, including Wanda Poltawska, a psychiatrist with whom he also corresponded for decades. But his letters to Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka are at times more intensely emotional, sometimes wrestling with the meaning of their relationship. In the summer of 1976 Cardinal Wojtyla was chosen to lead a delegation of Polish bishops to a big Catholic gathering in the United States, and Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka invited him to stay with her family at their country home outside the tiny town of Pomfret in Vermont. It was just the sort of outdoor life he enjoyed, and photographs that I think were taken at the time show him at his most relaxed. It also seems that she made a further declaration of her feelings for him while he was there, because the letter he wrote to her afterwards suggests he was struggling to make sense of the relationship in Christian terms. He tells her she is a gift from God, and goes on: "If I did not have this conviction, some moral certainty of Grace, and of acting in obedience to it, I would not dare act like this." Image copyright From the estate of Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka Image caption Cardinal Wojtyla loved spending time outdoors When he was elected Pope, John Paul wrote to Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka to say that he wanted their connection to continue. He said he did not want "the exchange of ideas, which I have always thought to be so creative and fruitful" to be interrupted. But they fell out badly over the book they had been working on together. She rushed it into print, but the Vatican mounted a legal challenge against it, and she was accused of having distorted the new Pope's ideas. When John Paul failed to stick up for her, she felt betrayed. But eventually the old warmth returned to the relationship, and some of the most touching photographs and letters we have been able to see relate to his old age. John Paul was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in the early 1990s, and became increasingly isolated in the Vatican. She visited him often, and sent him pressed flowers and photographs from her home at Pomfret. In one letter he told her: "I am thinking about you, and in my thoughts I come to Pomfret every day." And his letters include frequent references to their shared past. After his last visit to Poland in 2002 he wrote: "Our mutual homeland; so many places where we met, where we had conversations which were so important to us, where we experienced the beauty of God's presence." Anna-Teresa's husband, Hendrik Houthakker, was a distinguished Harvard economist. After the collapse of communism, he advised John Paul on post-communist economies, and the Pope granted him a papal knighthood in recognition of his services. Image copyright From the estate of Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka Image caption Ms Tymieniecka and Pope John Paul II in the Vatican Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka visited John Paul the day before he died in 2005. He was declared a saint in 2014, and nothing I have found would have been an obstacle to his canonisation. But the process was done and dusted in record time - just nine years. I have been unable to confirm that his correspondence with Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka was considered during the saint-making process, as it certainly should have been. Carl Bernstein, the veteran investigative journalist of Watergate fame, was the first writer to get some sense of Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka's importance in John Paul's life. He interviewed her for the book His Holiness in the 1990s. "We are talking about Saint John Paul. This is an extraordinary relationship," he says. "It's not illicit, nonetheless it's fascinating. It changes our perception of him." Subscribe to the BBC News Magazine's email newsletter to get articles sent to your inbox. ||||| Image copyright From the estate of Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka Image caption Cardinal Wojtyla and Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka on a camping trip in 1978 Hundreds of letters and photographs that tell the story of Pope John Paul II's close relationship with a married woman, which lasted more than 30 years, have been shown to the BBC. The letters to Polish-born American philosopher Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka had been kept away from public view in the National Library of Poland for years. The documents reveal a rarely seen side of the pontiff, who died in 2005. There is no suggestion the Pope broke his vow of celibacy. The friendship began in 1973 when Ms Tymieniecka contacted the future Pope, Cardinal Karol Wojtyla, then Archbishop of Krakow, about a book on philosophy that he had written. The then 50-year-old travelled from the US to Poland to discuss the work. Image copyright From the estate of Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka Image caption Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka at the time she met Cardinal Wojtyla Shortly afterwards, the pair began to correspond. At first the cardinal's letters were formal, but as their friendship grew, they become more intimate. The pair decided to work on an expanded version of the cardinal's book, The Acting Person. They met many times - sometimes with his secretary present, sometimes alone - and corresponded frequently. In 1974, he wrote that he was re-reading four of Ms Tymieniecka's letters written in one month because they were "so meaningful and deeply personal". Photographs which have never been seen before by the public reveal Karol Wojtyla at his most relaxed. He invited Ms Tymieniecka to join him on country walks and skiing holidays - she even joined him on a group camping trip. The pictures also show her visiting him at the Vatican. "Here is one of the handful of transcendentally great figures in public life in the 20th Century, the head of the Catholic Church, in an intense relationship with an attractive woman," says Eamon Duffy, Professor of the History of Christianity at Cambridge University. Find out more In the UK, you can watch Ed Stourton's Panorama report: The Secret Letters of Pope John Paul II on BBC One on Monday 15 February at 20:30, and you can catch up via the iPlayer. And read the full story of Pope John Paul II and Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka In 1976, Cardinal Wojtyla attended a Catholic conference in the US. Ms Tymieniecka invited him to stay with her family at their country home in New England. She appeared to have revealed intense feelings for him because his letters immediately afterwards suggest a man struggling to make sense of their friendship in Christian terms. In one, dated September 1976, he writes: "My dear Teresa, I have received all three letters. You write about being torn apart, but I could find no answer to these words." He describes her as a "gift from God". The BBC has not seen any of Ms Tymieniecka's letters. It is believed copies of them were included in the archive that was sold to the Polish National Library by Ms Tymieniecka in 2008, six years before she died. But they were not with the Pope's letters when the BBC was shown them. The National Library of Poland has not confirmed that they have Ms Tymieniecka's letters. Marsha Malinowski, a rare manuscripts dealer who negotiated the sale of the letters, says she believes Ms Tymieniecka fell in love with Cardinal Wojtyla in the early days of their relationship. "I think that it's completely reflected in the correspondence," she told the BBC. The letters reveal that Cardinal Wojtyla gave Ms Tymieniecka one of his most treasured possessions, an item known as a scapular - a small devotional necklace worn around the shoulders. Life of John Paul How does someone become a saint? Image caption The scapular given to Ms Tymieniecka In a letter dated 10 September 1976 he wrote: "Already last year I was looking for an answer to these words, 'I belong to you', and finally, before leaving Poland, I found a way - a scapular." He said it allowed him to "accept and feel you everywhere in all kinds of situations, whether you are close - or far away". After becoming Pope he wrote: "I am writing after the event, so that the correspondence between us should continue. I promise I will remember everything at this new stage of my journey." Cardinal Wojtyla had a number of female friends, including Wanda Poltawska, a psychiatrist with whom he also corresponded for decades. But his letters to Ms Tymieniecka are at times more intensely emotional, sometimes wrestling with the meaning of their relationship. Pope John Paul II died in 2005, after an almost 27-year reign. In 2014 he was declared a saint. Image copyright From the estate of Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka Image caption The Pope at the Vatican with Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka The process of saint-making is usually long and very costly, but John Paul II was fast-tracked to sainthood in just nine years. Normally the Vatican asks to see all public and private writings when considering a candidate for sainthood, but the BBC has not been able to confirm whether the letters were seen. The Congregation for the Causes of Saints said it is up to individual Catholics to decide whether to send in documents. "All our duties were done," it told the BBC in a statement. "All private documents, sent by faithful as a response to the edict, and documents found in important archives were studied." The National Library of Poland disputes that this was a unique relationship. It says it was one of many warm friendships the Pope enjoyed throughout his life. ||||| Image copyright From the estate of Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka Image caption Cardinal Karol with Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka on a skiing trip Pope John Paul II was one of the most influential figures of the 20th Century, revered by millions and made a saint in record time, just nine years after he died. The BBC has seen letters he wrote to a married woman, the Polish-born philosopher Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka, that shed new light on his emotional life. Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka was a great hoarder, and she seems to have kept everything relating to her 32-year friendship with Saint John Paul. After her death, a huge cache of photographs was found among her possessions. We are used to seeing John Paul in formal papal clothing amid the grandeur of the Vatican, and yet here he is on the ski slopes, wearing shorts on a lake-side camping trip, and, in old age, entertaining privately in his rather sparse-looking living quarters. Even more revealing is the archive of letters that Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka sold to the National Library of Poland in 2008. These were kept away from public view until they were shown to the BBC. When the two met in 1973, Cardinal Karol Wojtyla - as he then was - was the Archbishop of Krakow. Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka was Polish by birth, and, like him, had endured the searing experience of the Nazi occupation during World War Two. After the war she left to study abroad and eventually pursued an academic career as a philosopher in the United States, where she married and had three children. Image copyright From the estate of Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka Image caption Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka with her husband Hendrik Houthakker It is public knowledge that for four years Cardinal Wojtyla and Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka collaborated on an English-language version of a book on philosophy he wrote while teaching at Lublin University, and Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka has a walk-on part in several John Paul biographies. But the relationship was much deeper and more complex, and continued for far longer than has previously been recognised. In 2008, the letters were bought by the National Library of Poland for what is thought to be a seven-figure sum. Usually when a library buys an important archive about a figure of Pope John Paul's stature you would expect a bit of a fanfare, and the letters would be put on display and made available to scholars. But these were kept away from public view. Find out more Watch Ed Stourton's Panorama report: The Secret Letters of Pope John Paul II on BBC One on Monday 15 February at 20:30. You can catch up via the iPlayer. In 1970s Poland any relationship between a clergyman and a woman was risky. The communist regime in Warsaw regarded the Catholic Church as the enemy, and the secret police - the SB, as they were known - watched its leaders constantly. Dr Marek Lasota, who has been studying communist-era files at the Institute of National Remembrance in Krakow, says the SB took a particularly close interest in Cardinal Wojtyla. "They installed wiretaps in his flat and his telephone was bugged," he says. "Every letter was intercepted and checked, both private and official." Image copyright Alamy Image caption Cardinal Wojtyla in the 1970s So the first hint of any real intimacy comes in a letter sent not from Krakow, but from Rome, where Cardinal Wojtyla spent more than a month attending a meeting of Catholic bishops in the autumn of 1974. He took several of her letters with him so that he could answer them "without using the mail", and writes that they are "so meaningful and deeply personal, even if they are written in philosophical 'code'". Towards the end of the letter he adds that "there are issues which are too difficult for me to write about". I have only seen one side of the correspondence - his letters to her - and it is, of course, sometimes impossible to know what the cardinal is referring to. But I have done some old-fashioned journalistic sleuthing, and I believe that at an early stage of the relationship - probably in the summer of 1975 - Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka told Karol Wojtyla that she was in love with him. Image copyright From the estate of Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka Image caption Cardinal Wojtyla and Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka on a camping trip in 1978 Image copyright From the estate of Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka Image caption Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka and Cardinal Wojtyla in 1977 As Pope, John Paul rewrote the rules of the papacy, travelling the world as no pope had done before him and, in the early days especially, pulling the crowds like a rock star. His response to Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka's declaration when he was a cardinal showed he could be every bit as unconventional in his private life. Far from ending the relationship, as a more prudent prelate might have done, he gave her one of his most treasured possessions - an item of devotional clothing known as a scapular. Devotional scapulars are formed of two tiny bits of cloth, worn next to the skin over the chest and back, designed to echo the full-length, apron-like garments which monks wear over their habits. Not many Catholics wear them now, but for centuries they were widely used as a symbol of commitment to the Christian life. This one had been given to Karol Wojtyla by his father at the time of his first Holy Communion, and it seems that he invested it with a special significance in his relationship with Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka. Image caption The scapular given to Ms Tymieniecka He later told her that it allowed him to "accept and feel you everywhere in all kinds of situations, whether you are close, or far away". Cardinal Wojtyla had a number of female friends, including Wanda Poltawska, a psychiatrist with whom he also corresponded for decades. But his letters to Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka are at times more intensely emotional, sometimes wrestling with the meaning of their relationship. In the summer of 1976 Cardinal Wojtyla was chosen to lead a delegation of Polish bishops to a big Catholic gathering in the United States, and Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka invited him to stay with her family at their country home outside the tiny town of Pomfret in Vermont. It was just the sort of outdoor life he enjoyed, and photographs that I think were taken at the time show him at his most relaxed. It also seems that she made a further declaration of her feelings for him while he was there, because the letter he wrote to her afterwards suggests he was struggling to make sense of the relationship in Christian terms. He tells her she is a gift from God, and goes on: "If I did not have this conviction, some moral certainty of Grace, and of acting in obedience to it, I would not dare act like this." Image copyright From the estate of Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka Image caption Cardinal Wojtyla loved spending time outdoors When he was elected Pope, John Paul wrote to Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka to say that he wanted their connection to continue. He said he did not want "the exchange of ideas, which I have always thought to be so creative and fruitful" to be interrupted. But they fell out badly over the book they had been working on together. She rushed it into print, but the Vatican mounted a legal challenge against it, and she was accused of having distorted the new Pope's ideas. When John Paul failed to stick up for her, she felt betrayed. But eventually the old warmth returned to the relationship, and some of the most touching photographs and letters we have been able to see relate to his old age. John Paul was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in the early 1990s, and became increasingly isolated in the Vatican. She visited him often, and sent him pressed flowers and photographs from her home at Pomfret. In one letter he told her: "I am thinking about you, and in my thoughts I come to Pomfret every day." And his letters include frequent references to their shared past. After his last visit to Poland in 2002 he wrote: "Our mutual homeland; so many places where we met, where we had conversations which were so important to us, where we experienced the beauty of God's presence." Anna-Teresa's husband, Hendrik Houthakker, was a distinguished Harvard economist. After the collapse of communism, he advised John Paul on post-communist economies, and the Pope granted him a papal knighthood in recognition of his services. Image copyright From the estate of Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka Image caption Ms Tymieniecka and Pope John Paul II in the Vatican Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka visited John Paul the day before he died in 2005. He was declared a saint in 2014, and nothing I have found would have been an obstacle to his canonisation. But the process was done and dusted in record time - just nine years. I have been unable to confirm that his correspondence with Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka was considered during the saint-making process, as it certainly should have been. Carl Bernstein, the veteran investigative journalist of Watergate fame, was the first writer to get some sense of Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka's importance in John Paul's life. He interviewed her for the book His Holiness in the 1990s. "We are talking about Saint John Paul. This is an extraordinary relationship," he says. "It's not illicit, nonetheless it's fascinating. It changes our perception of him." Subscribe to the BBC News Magazine's email newsletter to get articles sent to your inbox. ||||| Letters written by Pope John Paul II have emerged that reveal the pontiff was involved in an "extraordinary" relationship with a married woman lasting more than 30 years. The former Pope, who died in 2005 and was canonised in 2014, met Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka before he was elected Pope in 1978. The letters, which lay undiscovered and away from public view in the Polish national library until they were shown to the BBC's Panorama programme, tell of a complex and intense friendship in which it has been suggested that Ms Tymieniecka told the pontiff she loved him. In the correspondence, Pope John Paul II declares she is a "gift of God", indicating he was struggling to come to terms with the nature of their relationship. He writes: "If I did not have this conviction, some moral certainty of Grace, and of acting in obedience to it, I would not dare act like this." The letters also reveal he gave her the scapular (a small devotional necklace) his father had given him at his first Holy Communion. There is no suggestion his vow of celibacy was broken at any point. Their correspondence began when Ms Tymieniecka contacted him in 1973 about a book of philosophy he had written. Eamon Duffy, professor of the History of Christianity at Cambridge University, said: "Here is one of the handful of transcendentally great figures in public life in the 20th Century, the head of the Catholic Church, in an intense relationship with an attractive woman." He wrote in September 1976: "My dear Teresa, I have received all three letters. "You write about being torn apart, but I could find no answer to these words." The correspondence can only be understood so far, as the only letters available are the ones he sent to her. The researchers analysing his letters believe that in the early stage of their relationship, around 1975, Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka told him she was in love with him. Pope John Paul II 7 show all Pope John Paul II 1/7 Pope John Paul II holds his arm around Mother Teresa as they ride in the Popemobile outside the Home of the Dying in Kolkata AP 2/7 Queen Elizabeth II and Pope John Paul II as they meet at the Vatican, 2000 3/7 Jimmy Cater and family meet the Pope John Paul II in Rome, 1980 Getty 4/7 Canonised: Pope John Paul II 5/7 Pope John Paul II visits Knock in 1979 6/7 Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger blesses the coffin of Pope John Paul II during his funeral mass in St Peter's Square at the Vatican City 8 April 2005. 7/7 2 February 1986: Pope John Paul II in New Delhi looks at a book entitled 'Opening The Eye Of New Awareness', written by Dalai Lama, Spiritual Chief of Tibetan Buddhists. In another letter from September 1976, he explains the gift of the scapular. "Already last year I was looking for an answer to these words, 'I belong to you', and finally, before leaving Poland, I found a way - a scapular. "The dimension in which I accept and feel you everywhere in all kinds of situations, when you are close, and when you are far away." Even after he became Pope, the two continued their correspondence and she visited the Vatican on various occasions. Carl Bernstein, the American journalist famous for uncovering the Watergate scandal was the first person to write about the significance of the relationship in the 1990s. He said: "We are talking about Saint John Paul. This is an extraordinary relationship. "It's not illicit, nonetheless it's fascinating. It changes our perception of him." Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka sold the letters to the National Library of Poland in 2008 and died in 2014.

– Photos and more than 350 "intense" letters from Pope John Paul II to a married woman he corresponded with for more than three decades have been found at the National Library of Poland, Deutsche Welle reports, via a BBC documentary. The notes and images—often showing the pontiff, who was made a saint in 2014, in casual wear—reveal a friendship between himself and American philosopher Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka that included holidays spent together and an intimate relationship that historians are trying to figure out. "Here is one of the handful of transcendentally great figures in public life in the 20th century, the head of the Catholic Church, in an intense relationship with an attractive woman," a Christianity history professor at Cambridge University tells the BBC, which notes there's never a "suggestion [he] broke his vow of celibacy." "I would say they were more than friends but less than lovers," Edward Stourton, the documentary maker, tells AFP, via Deutsche Welle. Tymieniecka, who was born in Poland, first wrote to Karol Wojtyla in 1973 when he was still a cardinal, and their friendship deepened over the years. Stourton writes for the BBC that he believes Tymieniecka first told Wojtyla she was in love with him in 1975 and that it appeared the cardinal struggled with their relationship, writing that she was "a gift from God" and that "if I did not have this conviction, some moral certainty of Grace … I would not dare act like this." He also gave her a scapular—a piece of devotional clothing—that his own father had given him at his first Holy Communion. "I was looking for an answer to these words, 'I belong to you,' and finally, before leaving Poland, I found a way—a scapular," he writes in a September 1976 letter. "The dimension in which I accept and feel you everywhere in all kinds of situations, when you are close, and when you are far away." Tymieniecka, who the BBC says visited the pope the day before he died in 2005, sold her letters to the Polish library in 2008 and died in 2014, per the Independent. (See some of their pics here.)

Rob Gronkowski tells everyone not to eat Tide Pods Something called the "Tide Pod Challenge" has been going viral online recently. It's extremely dangerous and involves people posting videos of themselves putting the toxic laundry detergent pods in their mouths and eating them. In an effort to spread the word that the pods are not for eating, Tide got the help of Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski to tell everyone, "What the heck is going on, people? Use Tide Pods for washing. Not eating. Do not eat." What should Tide PODs be used for? DOING LAUNDRY. Nothing else. Eating a Tide POD is a BAD IDEA, and we asked our friend @robgronkowski to help explain. pic.twitter.com/0JnFdhnsWZ — Tide (@tide) January 12, 2018 I’ve partnered with @Tide to make sure you know, Tide PODs are for doing laundry. Nothing else! https://t.co/Oo7n7ZZpbG — Rob Gronkowski (@RobGronkowski) January 13, 2018 There you have it: Do not eat Tide Pods because Gronk says so. But seriously, don't eat them. The managing director of the Florida Poison Information Center in Tampa told USA TODAY that swallowing the detergent could result in a life-threatening situation, and that even putting a small amount in your mouth and spitting it out can cause diarrhea, vomiting or breathing difficulties. MORE: The Rock digs Roger Federer's perfect 'smoldering intensity' impression All in poker pro loses 1.5 million-chip pot on a brutal river card WWE's Triple H explains how 'Monday Night Raw' changed wrestling forever Christian Pulisic has withering response for critic of American soccer system Triple H explains what made Jim Ross and Jerry Lawler a legendary team Read or Share this story: http://ftw.usatoday.com/2018/01/rob-gronkowski-gronk-tide-pod-challenge-do-not-eat-stop-video ||||| A government watchdog is expressing concern over the dangerous misuse of a laundry detergent. In this latest social media fad, teenagers are putting detergent pods in their mouths in what's being called the "Tide Pod Challenge." Ingredients in the pods include ethanol, hydrogen peroxide and polymers – a highly-toxic mix of detergent meant to wipe out dirt and grime. Manufacturers have been concerned about toddlers mistakenly ingesting them, but now teens are popping them on purpose and posting videos of the results online, reports CBS News correspondent Anna Werner. Nineteen-year-old Marc Pagan, who did it on a dare, told CBS News he knew better but did it anyway. "A lot of people were just saying how stupid I was or how – why would I be willing to do that," he said. "No one should be putting anything like that in their mouths, you know?" Ann Marie Buerkle, acting chairman of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, says ingesting any of the liquid carries a deadly risk. "This is what started out as a joke on the internet and now it's just gone too far," Buerkle said. The pods are bright and colorful and to children they can look like candy. At least 10 deaths have been linked to ingesting these pods. Two were toddlers, eight were seniors with dementia. Procter & Gamble, the maker of Tide products, told CBS News: "They should not be played with... Even if meant as a joke. Safety is no laughing matter." More than 62,000 children under the age of six were exposed to laundry and dishwasher detergents, between 2013 and 2014. The next year, Consumer Reports said it would no longer recommend detergent packets, citing "the unique risks" while urging the "adoption of tougher safety measures." Buerkle says her group has worked with manufacturers to make the packets less attractive to children. "Making that laundry packet opaque, less attractive, less colorful, reducing the toxicity and the strength of laundry detergent," Buerkle said. The CPSC also found that elderly adults with dementia were confused by the product and have also ingested it. The danger to little kids is so high that researchers have recommended the parents of children under six years old not buy these at all and instead use regular detergent only. Anyone concerned about the dangers of laundry pods can get more information from the American Association of Poison Control Centers. If you need immediate help, call 1-800-222-1222, or text "poison" to 797979 to save the number in your phone. ||||| A kid reaches for a Tide Pod. Tide Pods contain detergent. For washing your clothes and your sheets. Not for eating. Doesn’t matter how much they look like a snack, or a candy, or an oversize Gushers. You shouldn’t eat them unless you’d like to, well, potentially die. A child might not know better, so you should probably keep them out of reach of little hands — these things have killed before — for safety. (Or just buy some boring, cheaper, non-pod detergent. It works better anyway.) If you, after all of this, are still looking at a Tide Pod and thinking, Maybe just a little bit … you definitely shouldn’t go on Twitter today. Tide Pod–eating, a long-running internet joke, has reached something of a fever pitch this December. someone: were you just eating a tide pod ? me: pic.twitter.com/SOLTaegBnx — fat bully (@ricardojkay) December 25, 2017 I thought y’all were so weird for talking about eating Tide pods but now I been thinking about how weird it is for so long that now I’m thinking it might not be weird and I wanna eat one too what is this — h (@halsey) December 28, 2017 ┏┓ ┃┃╱╲ in ┃╱╱╲╲ this ╱╱╭╮╲╲house ▔▏┗┛▕▔ we ╱▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔╲ eat tide pods ╱╱┏┳┓╭╮┏┳┓ ╲╲ ▔▏┗┻┛┃┃┗┻┛▕▔ — rosie mcmahon (@rosiemcmahon_) December 27, 2017 Vincent van Gogh used to eat Tide pods because he wanted happiness inside him — swedish forest monster (@elkalumpy) December 27, 2017 when the tide pod hits in pic.twitter.com/PgycdouooQ — riley || 46 (@babypetalwt) December 28, 2017 tide pods -satisfying gush -amazing mouth feel -pretty colors -delicious smell pic.twitter.com/EFlFSnScSq — morg (@fevervinyI) December 28, 2017 The earliest origins of the Tide Pods–as–food bit date back to an internet forum in 2013, according to Know Your Meme. The topic of said forum, however, was less about Tide Pods as a delicious snack and more about old people and kids accidentally eating them. In the years following, sites like CollegeHumor and the Onion both created content around the idea of edible laundry pods. See here: “Don’t Eat the Laundry Pods” from last March. Communities of people — on Twitter and Reddit — have since become very into talking about eating, or how badly they want to eat, Tide Pods. (I’m assuming that very few to none make good on these conversations, given the whole Tide Pods are poison thing.) This December, there have been a number of viral tweets about Tide Pod–consumption that seem likely to have been the impetus for the detergent renaissance this week. The most important being a person who tweeted at Gushers on the day after Christmas with something “very important” to tell them. They sent a DM asking if Gushers would consider making a fruit snack shaped like a Tide Pod — which is a great idea if you ask me — so all of the would-be Tide Pod–munchers could satisfy their pod hunger. Gushers blocked the user after receiving the DM. i really tried and died for the cause pic.twitter.com/WxtF27BMjP — ً (@nightfiIm) December 27, 2017 me when i see tide pods at my friends house pic.twitter.com/QzqaH8ggE3 — fat bully (@ricardojkay) December 23, 2017 anyone: are u eating those tide pod detergents me: pic.twitter.com/NXNQZ4628M — sarah (@fastjelIyfish) December 22, 2017 no more eating xanax in 2018 we eating tide pods from now on — alex tan (@mineifiwildout) December 9, 2017 If anybody knows a gummy company looking for a hot new product, I think we might be onto something here. And again … don’t eat the dang Tide Pods. Though if you do, please have somebody film you and send us the video. ||||| In January 2018, millions of cable TV viewers had their first encounter with the “Tide pod challenge”—an online and social media phenomenon in which someone with a camera (usually a teenager) films themselves biting into one of the laundry detergent pods. “A government watchdog is expressing concern over the dangerous misuse of a laundry detergent,” CBS News reported on 12 January. “In this latest social media fad, teenagers are putting detergent pods in their mouths in what’s being called the ‘Tide Pod Challenge.'” “I can’t even believe I have to say this right now,” said Good Morning America‘s Diane Macedo. “They are brightly colored and they’re very nicely wrapped, but these Tide pods are not candy or pizza toppings or breakfast cereal—they are not edible.” We’ve received several enquiries from readers wanting to know whether people really were putting laundry detergent in their mouths on camera. They are. Amid a wave of news coverage in January 2018, safety watchdogs — in response to media enquiries — warned of the dangers associated with biting Tide pods. Ann Marie Buerkle, Chairperson of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, told Good Morning America: “Teens trying to be funny are now putting themselves in danger by ingesting this poisonous substance.” A spokesperson for the American Association of Poison Control Centers told us that in the first 11 days of 2018, there had been 40 reported exposures to liquid laundry detergent pods by 13- to 19-year-olds. That figure represents 20 percent of the total number of similar incidents in all of 2017. Furthermore, more than half the incidents so far this year have been deemed deliberate, as opposed to around a quarter in 2017, the spokesperson added. Even Tide itself had to intervene with a plea to not eat their detergent: What should Tide PODs be used for? DOING LAUNDRY. Nothing else. Eating a Tide POD is a BAD IDEA, and we asked our friend @robgronkowski to help explain. pic.twitter.com/0JnFdhnsWZ — Tide (@tide) January 12, 2018 Google (which owns YouTube) and Facebook both announced on 18 January that they are deleting Tide Pod Challenge videos from their platforms because they encourage dangerous activities. We haven’t been able to pinpoint the exact origins of the Tide pod challenge as a viral social media phenomenon, nor the allure of eating Tide pods as a meme. Online pranksters and daredevils have been messing with laundry detergent for years. We don’t want to encourage any dangerous activity, but some relevant keyword searches on YouTube and Facebook will yield videos dating back to 2011 which show people ingesting detergent of various kinds. In 2012, the Proctor and Gamble-owned brand Tide introduced Tide pods — brightly-colored plastic pods that contain liquid laundry detergent. Following reports that young children had been mistaking them for candy and putting them in their mouths, the company added a safety latch to the pod containers. The rising popularity of Tide pods brought more online stupidity, with the bursting texture of the pods an apparent focus of attention for daredevils. We found videos on YouTube and Facebook from as far back as 2012 and 2013 that involved squeezing the pods until they burst. The earliest instance we found of the “Tide pod challenge” as a concept involving eating the detergent pods was in September 2012, and we found a YouTube video dating to June 2014 which showed a prankster biting into one. Since 2014, every video-hosting social network has been replete with clip after clip of teenagers biting into Tide pods, only to discover that what they had been told (“Don’t eat Tide pods”) really was sage advice. A 2015 article on the satirical web site The Onion (an op-ed by a young boy vowing to eat a detergent pod as soon as his parents drop their guard) reintroduced the concept into what you might call the internet’s collective unconscious. It’s also possible that some pranksters were inspired to use the name “Tide pod challenge” on their pod-eating videos as a subversion of the “Tide pod challenge” series, an online video marketing campaign that Tide itself — perhaps unaware of the other viral phenomenon of the same name — launched in 2015. A viral 2017 video by the College Humor web site captured the somewhat perverse allure that biting into Tide pods holds for some people. (It also accurately described the possible consequences, showing a young man being rushed to hospital afterwards.) The concept of eating Tide pods, the bizarre temptation to eat them, warnings not to eat them, and the serious physical damage done by eating them, all spread more intensively as an online meme and cultural touchstone in the later months of 2017, as New York Magazine documented. Worryingly, the actual practice of biting into Tide pods appears to have intensified as well, prompting the wave of warnings and news coverage in January 2018. Call the national poison help hotline at 1-800-222-1222 or text POISON to 797979 to save the number in your phone. ||||| Here to chat with you about how to keep everything bright and clean – your clothes, your fabrics and even your life. # TidePower

– Dear reader, it appears the teens are at it again. ABC News reports the US Consumer Product Safety Commission and Procter & Gamble are asking young people to please not put Tide Pods in their mouths "even if meant as a joke." And Tide even enlisted an NFL player to warn teens not to purposefully ingest its laundry detergent, according to USA Today. "What the heck is going on, people?" the New England Patriots' Rob Gronkowski pleads in the video. "Use Tide Pods for washing. Not eating. Do not eat." The "Tide Pod Challenge," in which teens are apparently filmed putting laundry detergent pods in their mouths, seems made up—too dumb for even the most YouTube-addled youth. But Snopes says it checks out. And New York reports what what started as "a long-running internet joke" has, years later, "reached something of a fever pitch." Nineteen-year-old Marc Pagan tells CBS News he took part in the Tide Pod Challenge on a dare. "A lot of people were just saying how stupid I was," he says. Ann Marie Buerkle with the CPSC says the internet joke has "gone too far." “Teens trying to be funny are now putting themselves in danger by ingesting this dangerous substance,” she says. Tide Pods are highly toxic—and potentially fatal. The American Association of Poison Control Centers says it has already had about 40 cases related to laundry pods, "of which around half were intentionally ingested," in 2018. So, kids, please listen to Gronk and stop eating detergent.

By Jenna Deery Experts said saltier water caused by a coastal drought, along with the water's warmth, and the increase in fish swimming close to shore are factors drawing sharks towards packed beaches. Two men were fishing in Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina, on Friday morning when they caught a shark, witness Chloe Finlay told ABC News. The shark was measured at 77 inches and then released. No one was hurt, but already this year along the Carolina coastline there have been 11 shark attacks -- all but one happening just in the last three weeks. Man bitten by shark on NC Outer Banks is 10th this summer for Carolinas coast A shark bit a 67-year-old man several times Wednesday in waist-deep water off North Carolina's Outer Banks, officials said, the seventh in a record-breaking year of shark attacks for the state's coastal waters. A spokeswoman at the Greenville, North Carolina, hospital where he was taken said Wednesday night that the man, Andrew Costello, was in fair condition. He suffered wounds to his ribcage, lower leg, hip and both hands as he tried to fight off the animal, said Justin Gibbs, the director of emergency services in Hyde County. The attack happened around noon on a beach on Ocracoke Island, right in front of a lifeguard tower, he said. "He was pulled under by the shark," said Gibbs, who said witnesses reported the animal was about 7 feet long. INTERACTIVE MAP: See where the attacks happened in the Carolinas: He was swimming in waist-deep water with his adult son about 30 feet offshore, the National Park Service said in a news release. There were no other swimmers injured. Costello was the former editor-in-chief of the Boston Herald, the newspaper reported early Thursday. Costello's niece, Freya Solray, told the newspaper Costello's wife and sons were with him at the hospital, where he was "doing well." RECENT ATTACKS: Costello is the seventh person attacked along the North Carolina coast in three weeks, the most in one year in the 80 years for which the Florida Museum of Natural History's International Shark Attack File keeps records. The highest previous total was five attacks in 2010. Three of the 52 confirmed shark attacks between 1935 and 2014 were deadly, according to the database. Most of this year's attacks happened in shallow water. The injuries ranged widely: An 8-year-old boy had only minor wounds to his heel and ankle, while at least two others have required amputation. Another person attacked Saturday had initially been considered at critical risk of dying. WATCH about safety tips before heading into the water: Shark experts say the recent spate of attacks along on the coast of the Carolinas is due to so many more people getting in the water. Americans made 2.2 billion visits to beaches in 2010, up from 2 billion in 2001, according to a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers estimate. The record-breaking numbers of shark bites might be related to an unseasonably hot June that rapidly raised ocean temperatures off North Carolina and prompted fish to migrate north earlier than usual, said Chuck Bangley, a shark researcher at East Carolina University. "So when you have more marine life in general in the water and then more people heading to the beach than usual, then you've got a potential recipe for accidents to happen," Bangley said. WATCH: Shark scientist George Burgess talks about "unique situation" on coast: Roger Rulifson, a distinguished professor of biology and senior scientist at East Carolina University, said recently that there have been reports of small bait fish coming closer to shore this summer, which attracts sharks. There have also been reports of larger numbers of sea turtles along the coast, which sharks also like to eat, he said. Patrick Thornton, 47, from Charlotte, was bitten Friday at Avon Beach off the Outer Banks. "It took a pretty big chunk out of my right leg so I started punching the shark and then it grabbed my back and must have bit me in the back," Thornton said. Thornton fought back, which experts suggest in an attack, but scientists are having a hard time explaining why so many attacks are happening. "When we get a chance to look at more forensics, like more detailed oceanographic data, we might find a smoking gun, but for now we don't have it. And that said, our situation right now is we've got a problem on our hands," said George Burgess, director of the Florida Program for Shark Research. Burgess believes a combination of several environmental factors, like warmer water, an abundance of bait fish along the coast and more people in the water, may be causing an influx of attacks. He said this is a Mother Nature issue, not one that people can fix outside of making wise choices. "Since we've got the brains and the sharks have the teeth, it's incumbent for us to make the modifications, especially since we are entering their house," Burgess said. To ensure complete safety, Burgess said beaches may have to be closed for a few days. He said the environment will change and this problem will disappear, but people should use caution in the meantime. State tourism officials said they still feel comfortable encouraging people to head to the coast, as long as visitors are informed. LINKS: "I think people realize that the risk is still minimal based on the millions of people that go to the beach in North Carolina, but people just want to know how to be a little more safe when they go out," said Whit Tuttle, executive director of the Department of Commerce's Visit North Carolina. Lynette Holman, 44, of Boone, said she was on the beach Wednesday with her husband and 10-year-old son when she noticed a commotion about 50 yards down the beach. She saw a man walking through knee-deep water and then people rushing to help him out of the surf. There was no panic or screaming, and the nearest lifeguard on duty told her she thought the man might have been having heart trouble. Then Holman saw a gash above his knee. "The skin was pulled away. It was an open-wound gash," said Lynette Holman, a journalism professor at Appalachian State University. Laura Irish Hefty of New Hope, Pennsylvania, said she was about 100 yards away when she saw a crowd gathering. She said her husband, David, saw blood on both of the man's legs. Costello was treated on the beach for about 20 minutes until he was stabilized and carried off the sand and beyond the dunes to a road, Hefty said. A helicopter flew him to Vidant Medical Center in Greenville, about 85 miles away. Swimmers were back in the water within a couple of hours, Hefty said. "Nobody seems to be that scared," she said. Shark bites teen on Isle of Palms Tuesday Another shark bite was reported in the Isle of Palms, South Carolina that occurred Tuesday. Isle of Palms County Park officials said a 12-year-old boy was bitten in the back of the leg around 6 p.m. near the pier. Lifeguards were able to respond quickly and treat the victim. The shark was estimated to be between 4- to 5-feet, officials said. He was taken to the hospital in a personal vehicle. Reported on June 23, a 9-year-old boy was nipped on St. Helena Island while standing in about 12 inches of water. SHARK ATTACK HISTORICAL DATA: CLICK HERE to see more about shark attacks in North Carolina (Source: Shark Research Institute, Inc.): Read more top trending stories on wsoctv.com: ||||| RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — A shark bit a 68-year-old man several times Wednesday in waist-deep water off North Carolina's Outer Banks, officials said, the seventh in a record-breaking year of shark attacks for the state's coastal waters. People surround and attend to a 68-year-old man that was bit by a shark in waist-deep water off Ocracoke Island, N.C., Wednesday, July 1, 2015. The man suffered wounds to his ribcage, lower leg, hip and... (Associated Press) A hospital spokeswoman had no report of his condition Wednesday afternoon. The man suffered wounds to his ribcage, lower leg, hip and both hands as he tried to fight off the animal, said Justin Gibbs, the director of emergency services in Hyde County. The attack happened around noon on a beach on Ocracoke Island, right in front of a lifeguard tower, he said. "He was pulled under by the shark," said Gibbs, who said witnesses reported the animal was about 7 feet long. He was swimming in waist-deep water with his adult son about 30 feet offshore, the National Park Service said in a news release. There were no other swimmers injured. The man is the seventh person attacked along the North Carolina coast in three weeks, the most in one year in the 80 years for which the Florida Museum of Natural History's International Shark Attack File keeps records. The highest previous total was five attacks in 2010. Three of the 52 confirmed shark attacks between 1935 and 2014 were deadly, according to the database. Most of this year's attacks happened in shallow water. The injuries ranged widely: An 8-year-old boy had only minor wounds to his heel and ankle, while at least two others have required amputation. Another person attacked Saturday had initially been considered at critical risk of dying. Shark experts say the recent spate of attacks along on the coast of the Carolinas is due to so many more people getting in the water. Americans made 2.2 billion visits to beaches in 2010, up from 2 billion in 2001, according to a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers estimate. The record-breaking numbers of shark bites might be related to an unseasonably hot June that rapidly raised ocean temperatures off North Carolina and prompted fish to migrate north earlier than usual, said Chuck Bangley, a shark researcher at East Carolina University. "So when you have more marine life in general in the water and then more people heading to the beach than usual, then you've got a potential recipe for accidents to happen," Bangley said. Roger Rulifson, a distinguished professor of biology and senior scientist at East Carolina University, said recently that there have been reports of small bait fish coming closer to shore this summer, which attracts sharks. There have also been reports of larger numbers of sea turtles along the coast, which sharks also like to eat, he said. Lynette Holman, 44, of Boone, said she was on the beach with her husband and 10-year-old son when she noticed a commotion about 50 yards down the beach. She saw a man walking through knee-deep water and then people rushing to help him out of the surf. There was no panic or screaming, and the nearest lifeguard on duty told her she thought the man might have been having heart trouble. Then Holman saw a gash above his knee. "The skin was pulled away. It was an open-wound gash," said Holman, a journalism professor at Appalachian State University. Laura Irish Hefty of New Hope, Pennsylvania, said she was about 100 yards away when she saw a crowd gathering. She said her husband, David, saw blood on both of the man's legs. The man was treated on the beach for about 20 minutes until he was stabilized and carried off the sand and beyond the dunes to a road, Hefty said. A helicopter flew him to Vidant Medical Center in Greenville, about 85 miles away. Swimmers were back in the water within a couple of hours, Hefty said. "Nobody seems to be that scared," she said. ___ Emery P. Dalesio can be reached at http://twitter.com/emerydalesio ___ Associated Press writer Emily Masters contributed to this report. ||||| A shark attacked a 68-year-old man swimming off a North Carolina beach on Wednesday and bit him repeatedly, causing injuries to his torso, hip, leg and hands, authorities said. The attack off Ocracoke Island was the latest in a recent spate of reported shark incidents in the state, including back-to-back strikes last month in which two youths were badly mauled. The man injured on Wednesday had been swimming 25 to 30 feet (8 to 9 meters) off the beach in waist-deep water with his adult son, according to a National Park Service Cape Hatteras National Seashore post on Facebook. No other swimmers were injured, the Park Service said. A gray shark, 6 to 7 feet (1.8 to 2.1 meters) long, pulled the man underwater and bit his rib cage, hip, lower left leg and both hands, according to the Park Service and local officials. The attack took place in front of a lifeguard stand, a Hyde County statement said, and the man was able to swim to shore, where lifeguards helped him out of the water. Emergency workers stabilized the victim, who was flown to a hospital for further treatment, authorities said. His name was not immediately released. Wednesday's attack followed two others on Saturday, when a 17-year-old boy and a 47-year-old man were injured off North Carolina's Outer Banks. On June 14, a 16-year-old boy lost an arm and a 12-year-old girl lost part of an arm in separate attacks within about an hour and some 2 miles (3 km) apart on the same stretch of beach on Oak Island, North Carolina. (Reporting by Suzannah Gonzales in Chicago; Editing by Letitia Stein and Eric Walsh)

– Beaches along the North Carolina coast are sure to be jam-packed this holiday weekend, which makes this bit of news especially troubling: A shark attacked a 67-year-old man off Okracoke Island in the Outer Banks today, making him the state's seventh victim this season, reports Reuters. In the 80 years of records on such things, the previous season's high was five, reports AP. And the total doesn't count two other attacks in South Carolina. In today's attack, the victim survived after a shark estimated to be 7 feet long dragged him under in waist-deep water and bit him repeatedly. He was able to swim to shore, reports WSOC, though there was no immediate word on his condition. Experts are floating several theories on what might be going on. One is that an especially hot June has caused fish to begin migrating north earlier than usual. Combine that with a general increase in beach attendance. "So when you have more marine life in general in the water and then more people heading to the beach than usual, then you've got a potential recipe for accidents to happen," says a shark researcher at East Carolina University. Also not helping: shark fishing off the coast.

Please enable Javascript to watch this video CHICAGO -- Newly released videos from four other police cars offer new perspective on the moments before and after the 2014 shooting death of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald by police Officer Jason Van Dyke, who has been charged with first-degree murder. One of the videos, out of focus as it is, appears to be from the police vehicle in which Van Dyke was a passenger. As the vehicle approaches a nearby Burger King, an image of Laquan McDonald appears, cutting in front of the vehicle and then running across the front of the restaurant onto Pulaski Road. Please enable Javascript to watch this video The new video released Wednesday also shows other squads responding rapidly to the scene. One dashcam reveals an ambulance staged nearby, about five minutes after the shooting. Some police vehicles are on the scene for just a matter of seconds, before peeling around and helping set up a perimeter. But from the grainy video, WGN counts at least 10 different cars and SUVs. Most would have dashboard cameras and the city has released video from five so far. None have audio -- a technical glitch the police superintendent says the department is working to iron out. Even without sound, the pictures are revealing, and not just the blurry shot that shows the last minutes of McDonald’s life, but the one from a responding unit that pulls up alongside the Burger King and reminds us how close it was to the scene of the shooting. There have been allegations that Chicago police may have tampered with surveillance video from the restaurant, deleting 86 minutes. Police insist that did not happen. State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez addressed that question somewhat awkwardly at Tuesday's news conference: "The video at the Burger King was something that came up and it was something that was looked at, but it should be noted that the cameras at the Burger King would not have captured the shooting. It doesn’t appear that they’ve been tampered with, and did not reveal any of that kind of evidence, however, the investigation will always continue." WGN has five dashcam recordings now. Several more exist and have not been released, but police and prosecutors say none show the Laquan McDonald shooting more clearly than the graphic video released Tuesday. One video, that WGN has chosen not to broadcast, shows a close view of McDonald lying in the street moments after being shot. An object that appears be a knife is lying next to him. ||||| Newly released videos from four additional police vehicles at the scene of the 2014 shooting of Laquan McDonald raise questions about how the city's Police Department documented the killing of an African-American teenager that has led to a Chicago cop being charged with first-degree murder. The police dashboard camera videos also shed new light on how the events unfolded leading up to McDonald's death by showing police response to the incident from new perspectives. That includes from the vehicle Officer Jason Van Dyke rode in as he briefly followed the 17-year-old McDonald before shooting him 16 times in the middle of Pulaski Road on the Southwest Side on Oct. 20, 2014. Mayor Rahm Emanuel's Law Department released the videos from five separate police vehicles to the Chicago Tribune on Wednesday in response to an open records request. The videos, released on DVDs, included the one widely circulated publicly Tuesday that shows the most complete coverage of the shooting released to date. All told, the videos show at least eight police vehicles responding to the shooting scene, and now the Emanuel administration has released videos from five of those vehicles. But no video has been provided from the three other vehicles, all of which were at the scene as the shooting unfolded. The Tribune asked police, prosecutors and the mayor's office whether those vehicles had video and requested any such video under open records law. The city has not responded to those questions. Chicago Police Department orders require officers to use in-car video if the vehicle is equipped with it. According to that order, the in-car video system will automatically engage audio and video recording when the vehicle's emergency lights are activated. Officers may also manually engage the recording system without activating the lights. The question of why there is so little discernible sound on any of the videos is an important emerging issue that city officials have yet to address. All the videos released to date include some sound, but most of it is just the faint noise of the vehicles' sirens. The videos, including the one from Van Dyke's vehicle, did not include any audio of officers talking, either in the vehicles or over police radios, raising questions about why sirens outside the vehicles are audible but voices and other sounds from inside the vehicle are not. The Tribune put those questions to the Police Department, the office of Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez and the Law Department early Wednesday afternoon. None responded to the questions. However, in a news conference Tuesday before releasing the now-viral video that shows McDonald's shooting, Chicago police Superintendent Garry McCarthy was asked whether there was any audio on that footage. "No, there was no audio with the tape that I saw, the video I saw," McCarthy said. "I don't think that audio does exist." Asked whether the police cameras were supposed to have sound, McCarthy responded, "There's supposed to be (audio), and it's supposed to happen at a couple different instances. "This is one of the things that we are working on. Sometimes we have technical difficulties," McCarthy said. "Sometimes officers need to be disciplined if they don't turn it on at the right circumstance, which is why we are working out all the details." Again asked if any audio existed with footage of the shooting, McCarthy answered, "No, no, no there was no audio to my knowledge with any of the video that was taken. No, it didn't exist." Only one of the five police dashboard camera videos that the Emanuel administration did release shows the shooting of McDonald, the same video the mayor was forced to release under an order by a Cook County judge. The other DVDs released by the city show: •A video of Van Dyke's squad car following McDonald through the lawn of a Burger King restaurant and pulling up alongside him as he walked down the center of Pulaski. •Another video of a squad car arriving at the shooting scene moments after McDonald crumpled to the ground. The video shows the teen appear to move slightly in the street with streams of blood trailing from his body. •Two other videos from a pair of other police vehicles that drove up near the incident but appeared to be quickly dispatched to help set up a perimeter and control traffic. The absence of any recorded discussions from officers in any of the five vehicles for which videos were released makes it impossible to discern what the officers might have discussed in their cars on the runup to the shooting of McDonald. In the charging papers against Van Dyke, prosecutors paraphrased radio traffic from four different cars responding to the incident. The five videos vary in length, from just a few minutes to over a half-hour. Each also starts at different points in the sequence of events, with one squad car's video not starting until after it's already parked near an ambulance at the scene. In charging Van Dyke with murder on Tuesday, Alvarez said that only one police dashboard camera recorded the shooting. While other Chicago police vehicles at the scene were equipped with working cameras, Alvarez said, none of the vehicles was positioned to capture the shooting. The official recitation of evidence supporting the charge against Van Dyke filed by Alvarez's office also stated "no audio was recorded" on the dashboard camera video that showed the shooting. Alvarez's office did not respond to questions Wednesday about whether her office had reached a conclusion as to why there was no sound of conversations inside the squad cars or over police radio on the videos. Chicago Tribune's Steve Schmadeke contributed. bruthhart@tribpub.com bsecter@tribpub.com dkidwell@tribpub.com ||||| (CNN) Newly-released videos from four police cars at the scene of Laquan McDonald's shooting are providing additional details on the killing of the 17-year-old in Chicago last year. The new dashboard camera videos include one from the car Jason Van Dyke was in, the Chicago Tribune reported. The Tribune said the latest videos were on DVDs that it obtained from the city following an open records request. New videos One video shows a car, which the paper described as the squad car Van Dyke was in, jumping a curb to pursue the teen through a lawn. In two other videos, two police cars near the scene are dispatched to control traffic, according to the paper. Another video at the scene did not start recording until it was near an ambulance, the paper said. No audio or conversations among officers is heard in the videos, but sirens hiss in the background of some of them. Outrage, protests The first dash-cam video showing McDonald's killing in October last year was released Tuesday, sending protesters to the streets of Chicago this week. Paul Callan, a criminal defense attorney and CNN legal analyst, expressed shock it took so long to release the video. Even more surprising, he said, is why prosecutors took so long to file charges. "Like many Americans, I was deeply disturbed by the footage of the fatal shooting of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald," President Barack Obama said in a statement Wednesday. "This Thanksgiving, I ask everybody to keep those who've suffered tragic loss in our thoughts and prayers, and to be thankful for the overwhelming majority of men and women in uniform who protect our communities with honor. And I'm personally grateful to the people of my hometown for keeping protests peaceful," Obama said. Demonstrators have peacefully marched through the Loop, a major downtown business district in Chicago. 16 shots in 15 seconds The video released Tuesday shows McDonald running, then walking on a street. He heads toward some police cars with flashing lights, then veers away. It's then that he appears to spin around and falls, brought down by a barrage of bullets. There were 16 shots fired over 15 seconds, all by Van Dyke. "The video clearly shows Laquan walking away and he was not threatening anybody and he certainly didn't lunge at the police officer. This was originally presented as an act of self-defense," an attorney for McDonald's family told CNN's "Erin Burnett OutFront." "And that was a lie," Mike Robbins said. "The video is clearly an indication that this was an unnecessary shooting." Officer feared for his life, lawyer says The officer's lawyer, Daniel Q. Herbert, said the video doesn't tell the full story. His client, he said, feared for his life and that of fellow officers. "Video by nature is two-dimensional and it distorts images," Herbert said. "So what appears to be clear on a video sometimes is not always that clear." Others say the teen was never a danger to the officers. McDonald had a 3-inch knife and, according to toxicology tests, had PCP in his system. But he wasn't within 10 feet of anyone at the time the shots rang out. Several other officers were at the scene, and none fired any shots. Herbert has said his client was closest to McDonald, and in the most vulnerable position. Van Dyke had been on site less than 30 seconds, and out of his car for six seconds, when he started shooting, Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez said. National conversation The shooting rekindled the national conversation on the police treatment of African-Americans. The deaths of people like Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and Eric Garner in New York -- both after confrontations with white police officers -- have spurred protests nationwide under the umbrella of Black Lives Matter. ||||| CHICAGO (AP) — Small groups of demonstrators gathered throughout the day Wednesday to protest the death of a black teen shot 16 times by a white police officer, and they urged supporters to join them in trying to shut down Chicago's famous Michigan Avenue shopping district during the Black Friday shopping bonanza. A protester is silhouetted against Chicago's famed Wrigley Building as he directs others to shutdown traffic on both sides of the Michigan Ave. bridge over the Chicago River, Wednesday, Nov. 25, 2015,... (Associated Press) Chicago police officers line up outside the District 1 central headquarters at 17th and State streets, Tuesday, Nov. 24, 2015, in Chicago, during a protest for 17-year-old Laquan McDonald, who was fatally... (Associated Press) Protesters march during a protest, Tuesday, Nov. 24, 2015, in Chicago, for 17-year-old Laquan McDonald, who was fatally shot and killed in October 2014. Chicago police Officer Jason Van Dyke was charged... (Associated Press) Protesters march during a demonstration, Tuesday, Nov. 24, 2015, for 17-year-old Laquan McDonald, who was fatally shot and killed in October 2014, in Chicago. Chicago police Officer Jason Van Dyke was... (Associated Press) CORRECTS DAY/DATE TAKEN TO TUESDAY, NOV. 24, INSTEAD OF WEDNESDAY, NOV. 25 - A protestor marches during a demonstration for 17-year-old Laquan McDonald, Tuesday, Nov. 24, 2015, in Chicago. Chicago police... (Associated Press) CORRECTS DAY/DATE TAKEN TO TUESDAY, NOV. 24, INSTEAD OF WEDNESDAY, NOV. 25 - Protesters shut down a street during a protest for 17-year-old Laquan McDonald, Tuesday, Nov. 24, 2015, in Chicago. Chicago... (Associated Press) Lamon Reccord, right, stares and yells at a Chicago police officer "Shoot me 16 times" as he and others march through Chicago's Loop Wednesday, Nov. 25, 2015, one day after murder charges were brought... (Associated Press) A protester yells at Chicago police officers outside the District 1 central headquarters at 17th and State streets, Tuesday, Nov. 24, 2015, in Chicago, during a protest for 17-year-old Laquan McDonald,... (Associated Press) Two Chicago police officers take a man into custody during a protest march, Wednesday, Nov. 25, 2015, in Chicago, the day after murder charges were brought against police officer Jason Van Dyke in the... (Associated Press) CORRECTS DAY/DATE TAKEN TO TUESDAY, NOV. 24, INSTEAD OF WEDNESDAY, NOV. 25 - Protesters march during a demonstration for 17-year-old Laquan McDonald, Tuesday, Nov. 24, 2015, in Chicago. Chicago police... (Associated Press) CORRECTS DAY/DATE TAKEN TO TUESDAY, NOV. 24, INSTEAD OF WEDNESDAY, NOV. 25 - Protesters block a street during a protest for 17-year-old Laquan McDonald, Tuesday, Nov. 24, 2015, in Chicago. Chicago police... (Associated Press) Quovadis Green, with the organization One Chicago, calls for the removal of Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, along with other police officials during a news conference at City Hall, Wednesday, Nov. 25, 2015,... (Associated Press) Pedestrians walk past a phalanx of Chicago police officers keeping protesters off Wacker Drive, Wednesday, Nov. 25, 2015, in Chicago, the day after murder charges were brought against police officer Jason... (Associated Press) Chicago police officers line up outside the District 1 central headquarters at 17th and State streets, Tuesday, Nov. 24, 2015, during a protest for 17-year-old Laquan McDonald, who was fatally shot and... (Associated Press) About two dozen protesters gathered outside Mayor Rahm Emanuel's office a day after authorities released the graphic video, footage that President Barack Obama said "deeply disturbed" him. The video shows officer Jason Van Dyke, who was charged Tuesday with first-degree murder, firing an entire magazine into 17-year-old Laquan McDonald. The protesters held banners showing photos of other black people fatally shot by police in Chicago and elsewhere. Several said they were parents of black men killed by Chicago officers. "You cannot kill our children and expect us to be quiet any longer," protester Quovadis Green said. "It is unacceptable." Activist Mark Carter called on people to "rise up" and shut down the Magnificent Mile shopping area on Friday. Protesters also planned to target the Board of Trade and other landmarks in the coming days, he said. Carter and others want the Department of Justice to investigate the Chicago Police Department and its history of covering up bad behavior. The Urban League of Chicago joined in the call for a federal investigation, alleging a pattern of "discriminatory harassment" against black people. The Rev. Jesse Jackson said other officers involved in McDonald's death should be fired or at least suspended. He also wants a special prosecutor appointed to the case, complaining that Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez took too long to bring a murder charge in the shooting, which happened more than a year ago. Obama said in a statement Wednesday night he was "deeply disturbed" by the video footage. In a Facebook post, the president said he is asking Americans to "keep those who've suffered tragic loss in our thoughts and prayers" this Thanksgiving "and to be thankful for the overwhelming majority of men and women in uniform who protect our communities with honor." Obama said he is personally grateful to the people of his hometown — Chicago — for keeping protests peaceful. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton also weighed in, saying McDonald's family and Chicago residents "deserve justice and accountability." Clinton, who made the comments Wednesday in an emailed statement, added that police officers across the country are doing their duty honorably "without resorting to unnecessary force." One of Clinton's rivals, Sen. Bernie Sanders, said in his own statement that all Americans "should be sickened" by the video. For months, Chicago leaders had feared that the release of the video could provoke the kind of turmoil that rocked cities such as Baltimore and Ferguson, Missouri, after young black men were slain by police or died in police custody. Van Dyke was the subject of 18 civilian complaints over 14 years, including allegations that he used racial epithets and excessive force, police and court records show. Complaints against police are not uncommon. But the number filed against Van Dyke was high compared with other officers. At least one person he arrested was later awarded $350,000 in damages in a lawsuit. Van Dyke's lawyer, Daniel Herbert, did not return a message left Wednesday by The Associated Press. Also Wednesday, a Cook County judge dismissed a charge against a protester accused of hitting a police officer in the hours after the video was made public. Judge Peggy Chiampas said the state's attorney's office recommended dropping the charge against 22-year-old Malcolm London and told London he was free to go. London, who was wearing a T-shirt with the phrase "Unapologetically black" on it, walked outside the courthouse to loud cheers. Prosecutors did not explain why they sought to dismiss the charge. London was among five people arrested on charges that included weapons possession and resisting arrest. At least two people were detained amid protests late Wednesday when demonstrators disrupted traffic in the city's financial district. On the South Side, about 100 people marched about a half mile to Chicago police headquarters after a community meeting. Crowds remained on Michigan Avenue late into the night, marching and chanting. Meanwhile, in Minneapolis on Wednesday afternoon, hundreds of people filled a church to pay their respects to a man whose death in an unrelated confrontation with police sparked more than a week of ongoing protests. A picture of a smiling Jamar Clark adorned the program for his funeral. The relevant portion of the Chicago video runs for less than 40 seconds and has no sound. McDonald swings into view on a four-lane street where police vehicles are stopped in the middle of the roadway. As he jogs down an empty lane, he appears to pull up his pants and then slows to a brisk walk, veering away from two officers who are emerging from a vehicle and drawing their guns. Almost immediately, one of the officers appears to fire from close range. McDonald spins around and collapses on the pavement. The car with the camera continues to roll forward until the officers are out of the frame. Then McDonald can be seen lying on the ground, moving occasionally. At least two small puffs of smoke are seen coming off his body as the officer continues firing. In the final moments, an officer kicks something out of McDonald's hands. Police have said the teen had a knife. Alvarez said Tuesday that a 3-inch knife with its blade folded into the handle was recovered from the scene. ___ Associated Press writers Sara Burnett, Jason Keyser and Michael Tarm contributed to this report.

– A disturbing dashcam video isn't the only footage authorities have from the scene of Laquan McDonald's shooting in Chicago on Oct. 20, 2014. The Chicago Tribune has acquired videos from four additional police vehicles—including the one that carried Officer Jason Van Dyke before he shot the 17-year-old 16 times—that show at least eight police vehicles on the scene. WGN counts at least 10 cars and SUVs. Though none of the videos show the actual shooting, Van Dyke's squad car is seen following McDonald through a Burger King parking lot, jumping a curb to pursue him, and pulling up beside him in the center of the road where he was shot, per the Tribune and CNN. Another view shows McDonald shifting slightly on the ground as blood streams from his body. Just as with the first video, the new footage contains little to no sound. In-car video and audio is supposed to be activated when a vehicle's emergency lights are turned on. But there's no audio of officers talking inside the vehicles or on police radios. "I don't think that audio does exist," Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy said Tuesday. "Sometimes we have technical difficulties. Sometimes officers need to be disciplined if they don't turn it on at the right circumstance." Paperwork filed by the Cook County State's Attorney's Office states "no audio was recorded," but there's no explanation as to why. In a statement, President Obama says he was "deeply disturbed" by footage of the shooting, per the AP. "This Thanksgiving, I ask everybody to keep those who've suffered tragic loss in our thoughts and prayers, and to be thankful for the overwhelming majority of men and women in uniform who protect our communities with honor," he said in a Facebook post Wednesday.

- A Minnesota nurse is recovering at a hospital in Utah after falling 100 feet from a cliff while hiking in northwestern Arizona. Amber Kohnhorst, 25, of Rochester, Minn., was stranded for nearly 25 hours before she was rescued and evacuated. Kohnhorst was out for a short hike on Rose Cliffs Trail on Friday, May 20 when she fell from a rock ledge. She fractured her back in three places and suffered a broken nose and crushed pelvis. The owners of the Cane Beds Inn where Kohnhorst was staying noticed she hadn't returned from her hike by Saturday morning and called the sheriff’s office. According to a GoFundMe campaign established to help with her recovery: “This life-changing accident occurred during a volunteer trip to the Best Friends Animal Society in Utah. Since childhood, animals and the outdoors have played a vital role in Amber's life. As a nurse in the Cardiovascular Surgical ICU at the Mayo Clinic, Amber's dedication to caring for others is apparent to anyone who meets her. This trip gave her the ability to combine these passions and give back to the animals that she cares so much about.” You can contribute at https://www.gofundme.com/AmberK ||||| Out for a short hike on the afternoon of Friday May 20, Amber fell nearly 100ft onto an unforgiving rock ledge. She fractured her back in three places, crushed her pelvis, broke her nose, and sustained multiple other injuries. After lying in the open for more than 24 hours without food, water, or cell service she was rescued from a cliff Saturday night and evacuated to Intermountain Healthcare in St George, UT.This life-changing accident occurred during a volunteer trip to the Best Friends Animal Society in Utah. Since childhood, animals and the outdoors have played a vital role in Amber's life. As a nurse in the Cardiovascular Surgical ICU at the Mayo Clinic, Amber's dedication to caring for others is apparent to anyone who meets her. This trip gave her the ability to combine these passions and give back to the animals that she cares so much about.With such significant injuries, it is unclear when she will be able to return to her loving family in the Midwest to heal and rehab. Certainly, it will be many months before she can return to work. All donations received will be used for medical, travel, possible rescue fees, and any other unexpected expenses she may encounter. While she is a Mayo employee, she on her parent's insurance, which will not cover transport home.She is far away from her family, friends, and her beloved animals. With this campaign, we hope to lessen the financial burden faced by both Amber and her family. Thank you for your donation. ||||| CANE BEDS, Ariz. – A woman who went out for a short hike Friday fell at least 100 feet, spent the night on a ledge and was plucked from a cliff Saturday night by rescuers using a helicopter. A 25-year-old woman traveling from the midwest had been staying at a bed and breakfast in Cane Beds, Hildale-Colorado City Fire Chief Kevin Barlow said, and apparently went out for a short hike Friday afternoon. When she didn’t return by Saturday, the owners of the bed and breakfast and some of their neighbors started searching, Barlow said, but after a couple of hours called authorities. The Mohave County Sheriff’s Office was called to investigate and it appeared the woman intended a short hike because all of her personal belongings were still at the bed and breakfast. Search crews were called out between 3 and 4 p.m. Saturday and initiated a search of the foothills and mountains above Cane Beds. An Arizona Department of Public Safety helicopter was also called in. “It was really nothing short of miraculous that this lady was found,” Barlow said. “She was ledged out 200 feet down a cliff in a slot (canyon).” The woman had fallen sometime Friday and been knocked unconscious, and it was dark when she regained consciousness. “We estimate she fell 50 feet, free fall, and another 50 feet of tumble and slide,” Barlow said. “She was real beat up.” “She couldn’t go up or down, she had injured her back and had multiple bruises and scrapes,” Barlow said. The woman was located around 6 or 6:30 p.m. Saturday, Arizona Standard Time, Barlow said, above the Rose Cliff Lane area of Cane Beds. She was found when a search team pulled into the base of one of the canyons and heard her blowing a wilderness emergency whistle. Once the search crews heard the whistle, the helicopter crew was able to locate the woman from the air. She was found in an area near Lyons Point, Barlow said, which is within the extremely rugged Cottonwood Point Wilderness area. “She was about 200-feet down a drainage slot,” Barlow said, trying to get down a different way than she had gone up. Cliffs in the area can be deceptive. “I can see how it would have looked like she could have gotten down there.” The helicopter, a Bell 407, lifted six members of the technical rescue team to a cliff top above the woman, but there was no place for the helicopter to set down or land. The team had to climb out of the hovering helicopter onto a knob of rock and then make the climb down to the fallen hiker. “They rappelled down 100 feet or more,” Barlow said. The woman was out of water, but once she was rehydrated she was able to help rescuers, who placed her in a harness and raised her up the cliff. Once at the top of the cliff, rescuers again had to do a “hover load” with the helicopter at full power, hovering, but unable to touch down at all. The woman and all the rescuers didn’t get off the mountain until 1-2 a.m. Sunday, Barlow said. “It’s very miraculous. It was a very, very good team effort between Mohave County Sheriff’s Office, Mohave County Search and Rescue, Arizona Department of Public Safety Air Rescue and Colorado City.” There’s a good lesson to be learned, Barlow said. “Always take a hiking partner and know the terrain. Go prepared – even if it’s a short hike – go prepared for an overnight stay.” About 30 people were involved in the search and rescue, Barlow said. Email: japplegate@stgnews.com Twitter: @STGnews Copyright St. George News, SaintGeorgeUtah.com LLC, 2016, all rights reserved.

– Amber Kohnhorst was on what was supposed to be a short hike on northwestern Arizona's Rose Cliffs Trail Friday when she fell 100 feet. Amazingly, after being stranded for almost 25 hours, she survived—though she broke her nose, crushed her pelvis, and suffered three back fractures, Fox 10 Phoenix reports. Kohnhorst was rescued after the owners of the inn where the 25-year-old Minnesota nurse was staying alerted authorities when she didn't return to the inn by Saturday. Searchers heard Kohnhorst blowing her emergency whistle and located her, and she was evacuated to a hospital in Utah, St. George News reports. "It was really nothing short of miraculous that this lady was found. She was ledged out 200 feet down a cliff in a slot (canyon)," the local fire chief tells the News. "We estimate she fell 50 feet, free fall, and another 50 feet of tumble and slide. She was real beat up." A GoFundMe campaign raising money for Kohnhorst's medical expenses notes that she was on a volunteer trip to Utah's Best Friends Animal Society at the time of her accident: "Since childhood, animals and the outdoors have played a vital role in Amber's life." Per the campaign, it's not clear when Kohnhorst—who has already undergone multiple surgeries—will be able to return home, but she got a back brace on Tuesday, which allowed her to sit up for the first time since her fall.

The rusty patched bumblebee, a prized but vanishing pollinator once familiar to much of North America, was listed on Tuesday as an endangered species, becoming the first wild bee in the continental United States to gain such federal protection. One of several species facing sharp declines, the bumblebee known to scientists as Bombus affinis has plunged nearly 90% in abundance and distribution since the late 1990s, according to the US Fish and Wildlife Service. Bee's knees: a new $4m effort aims to stop the death spiral of honeybees Read more The agency listed the insect after determining it to be in danger of extinction across all or portions of its range, attributing its decline to a mix of factors, including disease, pesticides, climate change and habitat loss. Named for the conspicuous reddish blotch on its abdomen, the rusty patched bumblebee once flourished across 28 states, primarily in the upper Midwest and Northeast – from South Dakota to Connecticut – and in the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec. Today, only a few small, scattered populations remain in 13 states and Ontario, the Fish and Wildlife Service said. The agency in September listed seven varieties of yellow-faced, or masked, bees in Hawaii as endangered. But Bombus affinis is the first bumblebee species to given that status, and the first wild bee of any kind to be listed in the Lower 48 states. Bumblebees, as distinguished from domesticated honeybees, are essential pollinators of wildflowers and about a third of all US crops, from blueberries to tomatoes, according to the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation, which petitioned the government for protection of the insect. Pollination services furnished by various insects in the United States, mostly by bees, have been valued at an estimated $3bn each year. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature ranks the rusty patched as one of 47 species of native US and Canadian bumblebees, more than a quarter of which face a risk of extinction. Government scientists point to a certain class of pesticides called neonicotinoids – widely used on crops, lawns, gardens and forests – as posing a particular threat to bees because they are absorbed into a plant’s entire system, including leaf tissue, nectar and pollen. Bumblebee populations may be especially vulnerable to pesticides applied early in the year because for one month an entire colony depends on the success of a solitary queen that emerges from winter dormancy, the wildlife service said. Listing under the Endangered Species Act generally restricts activities known to harm the creature in question and requires the government to prepare a recovery plan. It also raises awareness and helps focus conservation planning for the imperiled species. ||||| Around the world, the populations of bees, butterflies and other insects that promote plant growth are crashing, a threat not only to biodiversity but also to the global food supply. A study last year from a group associated with the United Nations warned that an increasing number of species that aid the growth of hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of food each year face extinction. “Obviously, it’s sad that anything has to get on the endangered list, but this really provides a great opportunity,” said Dennis vanEngelsdorp of the University of Maryland, a bee expert who applauded the government’s decision. “When you’re talking about saving the bumblebees, what you’re really talking about is saving the community.” The kinds of measures that could protect the rusty-patched bumblebee could help many other pollinators, as well, by restoring habitats and food sources and restricting the use of pesticides — especially nicotine-based insecticides that have been linked to the decline in bee species. Such measures are especially important with native bumblebees, Dr. vanEngelsdorp noted, as opposed to honeybees, which are maintained in large colonies and trucked around the country for commercial pollination. The service is reviewing three other species of bees to determine whether they ought to be listed as endangered as well: Franklin’s bumblebee, the western bumblebee and the yellow-banded bumblebee. When a species is listed as endangered, the Fish and Wildlife Service is required to design a recovery plan, which is often carried out by other agencies, nongovernmental organizations, universities and tribes. Other federal agencies have to check that their actions will not hurt an endangered species or its habitat, particularly when it comes to land use planning. Bumblebees are particularly effective pollinators because, though they seem to prefer native flowers, they will pollinate pretty much anything and can fly in lower temperatures and lower light conditions than many other insects. They also use the technique of “buzz pollination,” in which they grab the pollen-producing part of the flower in their jaws and vibrate their wings, shaking the pollen loose, a process that seems to benefit plants like tomatoes, peppers and cranberries, according to the Fish and Wildlife Service. ||||| Story highlights Other bees from Hawaii are on endangered list Bees pollinate more than one-third of the world's food (CNN) For the first time, a bee species in the continental United States has been declared endangered by the US Fish and Wildlife Service. The rusty patched bumblebee is in worrisome decline and it is a race to keep it from becoming extinct, the agency said. "Listing the bee as endangered will help us mobilize partners and focus resources on finding ways right now to stop the decline," Wildlife Service Midwest Regional Director Tom Melius said. The population of the rusty patched bumblebee has shrunk by 87% since the late 1990s, the wildlife service said. Bees help pollinate 35% of the world's food, and bumblebees pollinate everything from tomatoes to cranberries, blueberries and melons. Read More ||||| This 2012 photo provided by The Xerces Society shows a rusty patched bumblebee in Minnesota. Federal officials said Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2017, that the rusty patched bumblebee has become the first bee species... (Associated Press) TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. (AP) — The rusty patched bumblebee has become the first bee species in the continental U.S. to be declared endangered after suffering a dramatic population decline over the past 20 years, federal officials said Tuesday. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service first told The Associated Press it was adding the bee to the endangered list before a news release was issued. That means there will be a recovery plan to encourage people to provide more habitat and reduce pesticide usage — many steps that could help other struggling bees and monarch butterflies, which pollinate a wide variety of plants, officials said. "Pollinators are small but mighty parts of the natural mechanism that sustains us and our world," said Tom Melius, the service's Midwest regional director. "Without them, our forests, parks, meadows and shrublands, and the abundant, vibrant life they support, cannot survive, and our crops require laborious, costly pollination by hand." The decision drew praise from environmentalists but criticism from the nonprofit American Farm Bureau Federation, which acknowledged the role bees play in pollinating crops but contended the listing could lead to costly regulation of land or chemical use. "I think we can do better in the private sector, where landowners working collaboratively can come up with protection for these species without intervention and bureaucratic red tape of the federal government," said Ryan Yates, the group's director of congressional relations. The Endangered Species Act prohibits significant modification or degradation of habitat that leads directly to death or injury of listed species. The Fish and Wildlife Service said it hadn't yet developed a strategy for dealing with private landowners regarding the rusty patched bumblebee, which it said already has disappeared from large-scale farming areas and is found mostly in yards and gardens. Officials said they would seek cooperation from landowners and local organizations on "bee-friendly practices," including use of native flowering plants for landscaping, planting flowers and trees and avoiding use of pesticides that harm bees. Notable for the rust-colored marking on its back section, the rusty patched bumblebee buzzed across the East Coast and much of the Midwest in high numbers as recently as the 1990s. Today, only scattered populations remain in 13 states — Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia and Wisconsin — and the Canadian province of Ontario. The bee's historic range and the number of observed colonies have plummeted by about 87 percent since the late 1990s. The crash happened so quickly that few researchers took notice until the damage was largely done. They're investigating a number of potential causes, including disease, pesticide exposure, habitat loss, climate change and the domino effect of falling populations making it harder for bees to find suitable mates. The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation, which petitioned the government to list the bee as endangered, previously said the population decline probably was caused by the spread of bacteria or viruses from bumblebees raised commercially to those in the wild. The group, based in Portland, Oregon, also blamed widespread use of long-lasting insecticides. "Addressing the threats that the rusty patched bumble bee faces will help not only this species, but countless other native pollinators that are so critical to the functioning of natural ecosystems and agriculture," Rich Hatfield, the society's senior conservation biologist, said Tuesday. Fish and Wildlife Service biologists agreed there probably were overlapping factors behind recent declines of bumblebees, honeybees and monarchs — raising concern for all 48 bumblebee species in North America. The agency in September placed seven species of yellow-faced bees in Hawaii, that state's only native bees, on the endangered list. A study continues on whether to list the monarch butterfly, agency spokeswoman Georgia Parham said. Bees and other insects provide billions of dollars' worth of pollination each year, benefiting crops such as tomatoes, cranberries and peppers. Even plants that can pollinate on their own generate bigger fruit when bumblebees do the job instead. The bees also support growth of flowers and wild plants that produce fruits, seeds and nuts essential for natural food chains. Listing the bee is "the best — and probably last — hope" for its survival, said Rebecca Riley, senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council. ___ Online: http://www.fws.gov/Midwest/endangered

– If Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov had been prescient, he may have named his famous orchestral piece "Plight of the Bumblebee." The rusty patched bumblebee, or Bombus affinis, is now the first US bumblebee placed on the endangered species list, the Guardian reports. Seven other bees from Hawaii previously made the list, but they weren't bumblebees, reports the New York Times. Per the US Fish and Wildlife Service, the population of the rusty patched bumblebee—which once buzzed happily around 28 different states, DC, and Ontario and Quebec—has plummeted 90% since the late '90s, with pesticides, climate change, and habitat issues among the culprits. Today, "scattered populations" remain in just 13 states and Ontario, reports the AP. Designating the bee, named for the red blotch on its abdomen, as endangered is likely "the best—and probably last—hope" for it to survive, says an NRDC senior attorney. Even though wildlife officials say getting onto the endangered list can take years, President Obama has made the rusty patched bumblebee a priority, all part of the administration's "flurry of last-minute efforts to protect the environment and preserve (his) legacy on climate change," per the Times. It's not a lightly made decision. "Without [pollinators], our forests, parks, meadows, and shrub lands, and the abundant, vibrant life they support, cannot survive, and our crops [would] require laborious, costly pollination by hand," says Tom Melius, a regional FWS director. The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation notes bumblebees pollinate about one-third of all US crops. Meanwhile, a recovery plan must now be set up for B. affinis. "Listing the bee as endangered will help us mobilize partners and focus resources on finding ways right now to stop the decline," Melius says, per CNN. (These bees were taught a special trick.)

She was the artist who put the contemporary in contemporary Inuit art, a catalyst for other Inuit artists, young and old, to deal with life as it was in Canada’s North, an award-winning international standard-bearer. And now Annie Pootoogook is dead at 47. Officials with the West Baffin Eskimo Co-operative in her hometown of Cape Dorset confirmed Friday afternoon that the woman whose body had been recovered Monday morning from the Rideau River in Ottawa was Ms. Pootoogook. Police said they were not treating the incident as a homicide but crime investigators are seeking the public’s help in retracing the artist’s last hours and days. Ms. Pootoogook had been living for roughly the past nine years in Ottawa, sometimes on the street and in shelters, sometimes plagued by alcohol and drug abuse and, in 2012, an unwanted pregnancy. She’d relocated there from Nunavut in the wake of a string of major artistic successes in southern Canada and internationally. These included an acclaimed solo exhibition, in 2006, of her ink, crayon, pencil and chalk drawings at Toronto’s Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery, one of Canada’s premier venues for cutting-edge art. This in turn led to her winning the $50,000 Sobey Art Award that same year, given annually to an artist of singular talent under 40. In 2007 she was invited to participate at the prestigious Documenta 12 showcase, held every five years in Kassel, Germany. Two years later, she was given a solo show at New York’s National Museum of the American Indian George Gustav Heye Center. In photos: The work of artist Annie Pootoogook Ms. Pootoogook’s art was far removed from the imagery of kayaks, walruses, harpoons and the other tried-and-true themes and subjects that had informed much Inuit art from the 1950s onward. She wielded a matter-of-fact, almost deadpan style to closely depict all facets of modern Inuit life, from a husband beating his wife and families shopping, to men watching television porn and women beading. Ms. Pootoogook, who began drawing in 1997, was the granddaughter of Pitseolak Ashoona, one of the earliest Cape Dorset drawers and print-makers. Her mother Napachie was a prolific graphic artist while father Eegyvudluk was similarly esteemed as a carver and print-maker. However, after her triumphs of 2006-09, Ms. Pootoogook’s output slowed, then seemed to stop. Toronto dealer Pat Feheley, who’d given Ms. Pootoogook her first commercial bow in 2001 as part of a group show called The Unexpected, then her first solo outing in 2003, told The Globe and Mail in July of 2012 that she hadn’t received an original Pootoogook drawing in more than three years. In an interview Friday, Ms. Feheley said she was “stunned” by the loss. “She had a rough couple of years but I always thought she’d be back. We’d go back to Dorset and the image bank she would have had would have been amazing.” Ms. Pootoogook’s art, at least initially, was almost a kind of therapy, Ms. Feheley said. “It was simply to get it out of her head. She didn’t particularly care if they sold or not.” Tributes were quick to pour in. Andrew Hunter, Canadian art curator at the Art Gallery of Ontario, called her “a profoundly influential artist who had the courage to push the boundaries of Inuit art.” Academic curator Gerald McMaster said “her legacy will not be forgotten, in that she leaves us thinking about the same troubled world she was brave enough to depict.” Nancy Campbell, former AGO associate curator of special projects, spoke of Ms. Pootoogook’s “poignant, often difficult pictures” being “a crucial part of opening the dialogue about art-making in the North.” Report Typo/Error ||||| Prominent Inuk artist Annie Pootoogook has been identified as the woman whose body was found in Ottawa's Rideau River earlier this week. Officials with the West Baffin Eskimo Co-operative in her hometown, Cape Dorset, Nunavut, confirmed the death of the chalk-and-ink artist, who rose to prominence when she won the Sobey Award in 2006. Pootoogook, 47, had been living in Ottawa. Her drawings offered a contemporary take on her culture, where old customs intermingled with modern technology and goods. Her work is part of the collections at the National Gallery of Canada and the Art Gallery of Ontario and was recently part of an exhibition on Indigenous pop art at Ottawa's Saw Gallery. "Her inclusion in the exhibition was a no-brainer, in that she looked at contemporary life in a way no other artist had ever done," said Saw Gallery curator Jason St-Laurent, who first met Pootoogook five years ago. Fine Liner Eyebrow one of Pootoogook's drawings on display at the National Gallery of Canada. (Annie Pootoogook/National Gallery of Canada/Dorset Fine Arts) 'Revolutionary' impact Pootoogook was from an artistic family. Her parents, Napachie and Eegyvudlu Pootoogook, and her grandmother Pitseolak Ashoona were all artists. It was "like the artistic lives were already aimed to be passed on to Annie," said Jimmy Manning, the president of the Inuit Art Foundation, in Inuktitut. Saw Gallery curator Jason St-Laurent, standing in front of one of Annie Pootoogook's drawings, said the artist was a "shining light" to those who knew her. (CBC News) "As soon as she started sketching [when she was a child] you knew her art was going to go somewhere." "Her impact was revolutionary and it's no surprise she had international acclaim for her work," he said. St-Laurent described Pootoogook as a free spirit who lived life on her own terms. He said he lost touch with her a few months ago, but said she was always welcome at the gallery. "When she came into Saw, she was a shining light, and made everyone laugh… she was the kindest soul you could ever meet. If you talk to anyone who has met Annie Pootoogook, they'll never forget her," he said. AGO Canadian art curator Andrew Hunter said in a statement Pootoogook would "be deeply missed." "She was a profoundly influential artist who had the courage to push the boundaries of Inuit art, capturing in her work challenging and even troubling themes that reflected the reality of contemporary life for women in the North. Her work has had a remarkable impact not only on Inuit art, but on contemporary Canadian art as well." Major crimes unit investigating Ottawa police say they are not treating it as a homicide, but the major crimes unit is investigating. Police are hoping to get the public's help in retracing her steps leading up to the discovery of her body on Sept. 19. A city worker called 911 just before 9 a.m. ET Monday after seeing a body in the river near Bordeleau Park, which sits off King Edward Avenue, Cathcart and Bruyère streets in the Lowertown neighbourhood. Anyone who saw Pootoogook in the days leading up to Sept. 19 is asked to contact the major crimes unit at 613-236-1222 ext. 5493. Anonymous tips can be submitted by calling Crime Stoppers toll-free at 1-800-222-8477 (TIPS), or by downloading the Ottawa Police Service app. ||||| Ottawa police are asking for the public’s help in tracing the last movements of Annie Pootoogook, an acclaimed Inuit artist whose body was found in the Rideau River earlier this week. Pootoogook’s body was discovered Monday at about 8:50 a.m. in the water close to Bordeleau Park in Lowertown. Police do not consider her death to be suspicious or a homicide, said Const. Marc Soucy. “We just want to recreate her final moments.” Soucy said an autopsy has been performed, but police are not releasing a cause of death. It is unclear where Pootoogook was last seen. Pootoogook’s story is one of a rocket ride to superstardom in the art world, followed by a crash into addiction, life on the street and tragedy. Originally from Cape Dorset, Nunavut, Pootoogook was considered one of Canada’s most pre-eminent Inuit artists. Her grandmother, Pitseolak Ashoona, an artist, was the last to grow up in the traditional Inuit lifestyle. Her mother, Napachie Pootoogook, was also an artist who died in 2002. Pootoogook began drawing in 1997 and was discovered about 14 years ago by Patricia Feheley of Feheley Fine Arts, a Toronto art gallery that began buying her work through the West Baffin Eskimo Co-operative in Cape Dorset. Her drawings were a jarring chronicle of modern Inuit life — a family watching Jerry Springer on television, ATM cash machines, scenes of alcoholism and spousal abuse. Feheley helped to raise Pootoogook’s profile and sold her drawings in coloured pencils for as much has $2,600. Related “I was just hit by their power,” Feheley said in a 2012 interview. “The best I have ever heard it described is they are so direct, they are so honest, they so come from the head to the hand to the paper, and that is why they resonate so much with people.” Pootoogook won the $50,000 Sobey Art Award in 2006 and exhibited on an international scale. In 2007, showed at the Montreal Biennial, the Basel Art Fair in Switzerland and Documenta 12 in Kasel, Germany. In 2009-10 there was a solo show in New York, and a review in the New York Times which called her work “disconcertingly autobiographical.” Her last solo show was in 2011 in Kingston. Pootoogook, who has lived in Ottawa since 2007, battled the demons of sexual abuse, alcohol and drugs. By 2012 she had disappeared from view and journalists who attempted to track down the media-shy artist were disappointed. She drew attention again when Citizen reporter Hugh Adami found her in July of 2012, pregnant, panhandling and selling drawings for $25 to $30 on the street to pay for cigarettes. That September, she gave birth to a baby girl, named Napuchie, in a bathroom at the Shepherds of Good Hope. The baby was a month premature and weighed three pounds, 10 ounces. (She had two previous children on Baffin Island.) Three days later, Pootoogook was back on Rideau Street. Her art appeared to reflect the torment of her life. Crying While Making a Drawing, dated 2003, shows a woman in tears on her knees in a near-empty room, with drawings of Christian crosses on the floor in front of her. Another drawing from that time period, called Evil Spirit, shows a woman on her hands and knees being tormented by a horned demon. Last October, Pootoogook told Adami that she was living at a women’s shelter after moving out of an ex-boyfriend’s apartment in the wake of a tumultuous relationship. She said she knew she had an alcohol problem and planned to see an addiction counsellor. She was on probation because she made a “mistake” related to drinking. “When people tell you to stop drinking,” Pootoogook told Adami, her tendency is to “keep drinking and drinking.” On Friday, Adami, now retired, said when he first met Pootoogook “I thought she was going to pull it together. People in the art community were reaching out to her. Lots of people wanted to help.” He interviewed her several times after that, most recently last October. “It was getting worse and worse. She was ravaged by alcohol. She mentioned her baby and started crying. It was very, very sad.” In a 2012 interview with Citizen arts writer Paul Gessell, Feheley said Pootoogook’s fame was “just too much, too fast.” “Her vault to stardom, which was serious stardom, was really a two-and-one-half year thing for someone who was living a relatively sheltered life and not that happy a life in Cape Dorset, when suddenly she was in Switzerland and she was in Germany and she won all this money and there were three books and two movies,” said Feheley. “I think she just literally got overwhelmed.” Police ask anyone who saw Pootoogook in the days leading up to the discovery of her body to contact the Ottawa Police major crime unit at 613 236 1222, ext. 5493. Anonymous tips can be submitted by calling Crime Stoppers toll-free at 1-800-222-8477. jlaucius@postmedia.com ||||| The body of Pootoogook, 46, was spotted in the water around 8:50 a.m. Monday near Bordeleau Park in Lowertown, near the Ontario-Quebec border. An autopsy was performed later in the week to confirm her identity; Ottawa police identified Pootoogook in a news release Friday. Pootoogook, born in Cape Dorset, Nunavut, was an acclaimed, award-winning contemporary Inuit artist best known for her frank, ink-and-crayon drawings of contemporary northern life. Her work was reflective of her own life and community, at times chronicling her experience of physical and sexual abuse and living with relatives suffering from alcoholism. In 2006, Pootoogook won the Sobey Art Award, beating out four other shortlisted artists from across Canada for the $50,000 prize. The same year, her work was exhibited at a landmark show at Toronto’s Power Plant Gallery, the first time Canada’s pre-eminent contemporary art venue had held a major show by an Inuit. In 2007 she took part in Documenta 12 in Kassel, Germany, a prestigious, invitation-only art exhibition — held once every five years — that defines the current state of contemporary and modern art. Pootoogook’s Toronto dealer, Pat Feheley, said at the time that it was the first time that an Inuit artist had been invited to participate. Nunavut Premier Peter Taptuna offered his condolences to Pootoogook’s family Friday afternoon on Twitter.

– An Inuit artist whose "impact was revolutionary" but who had trouble coping with "serious stardom" was found dead in a river this week. Annie Pootoogook's life changed dramatically in 2006, the Ottawa Citizen reports. She went from drawing in a tiny town in Canada's deep north to having her work displayed in Toronto, New York, Germany, and Switzerland. She won a $50,000 award for her art, which could sell for up $2,600 per piece. But it was "too much, too fast," says the art dealer who discovered her. According to the Globe and Mail, Pootoogook had largely stopped creating art by 2009. She was living on and off the street in Ottawa and struggling with drugs and alcohol. She could occasionally be found selling drawings for cigarette money. Authorities confirmed Friday that a body pulled from a river on Monday was Pootoogook. She was 47. Authorities haven't released a cause of death but aren't treating it as a homicide. "She has left a tremendous legacy to the Canadian cultural fabric,” the Toronto Star quotes a statement from the Sobey Art Foundation. Her work will be remembered for portraying contemporary Inuit life—from women beading to spousal abuse—in a "poignant, often difficult way." "She was the kindest soul you could ever meet," a gallery curator tells CBC. "If you talk to anyone who has met Annie Pootoogook, they'll never forget her." (Her art was her photos. She didn't take a single one.)

Sparking conversation about the 'right' way to pour a pint of Guinness. Sparking conversation about the 'right' way to pour a pint of Guinness. A Canadian cafe is using an image of a pint of Guinness to entice customers to their St Patrick's Day party. Sounds straightforward enough. Until you see the pint in the promotion images. What would lure the punters into your place? A picture of a pint of Guinness with a dense, white, creamy foam? Or, one with a thin and watery head, that's dribbling down the side of a glass? Railtown Cafe's St Patrick's Day Party. Pic: Railtown Cafe / Facebook The Vancouver cafe went with the latter. Sacrilegious when you consider that this here pint was being pushed to entice people into bars on the most sacred of Guinness-consuming days. After much feedback online the cafe responded with a post on their Facebook. "Thanks for the friendly comments, everyone! We’re not all a bunch of maple-syrup drinking snow farmers and to make up for the blasphemous pour depicted in the photo, we’ve poured another pint that we hope is worthy of Ireland. "In true Canadian fashion, we'd like to apologize, so we’re inviting anyone of age with a valid Irish passport to join us this Friday, St. Patrick’s Day, for a perfectly poured Guinness and a shot of Jameson," the apology said. The accompanying snap looked much more like Guinness as we know it. The second picture of a pint of Guinness added by the Railtown Cafe (Image: Facebook) Online Editors ||||| 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 ||||| How a Vancouver pub 'annoyed an entire country' with a poorly poured pint of Guinness This image, posted to Railtown Cafe's Facebook page, has ignited fury among the Irish. (Twitter) more stories from this episode Full Episode Read Story Transcript Dan Olson, owner of the Railtown Cafe in Vancouver, woke up on Tuesday morning to find his phone inundated with angry messages from the good people of Ireland. The target of their rage? A photo of a very badly poured pint of Guinness posted to the pub's Facebook page to promote its upcoming St. Patrick's Day celebrations. "There was some irate people up there and, believe me, there were some colourful comments," Olson told As It Happens host Carol Off. "Let's just say that Jesus Christ was brought into it on more than one occasion. One comment actually said that Jesus wept when he saw our pint of Guinness." @GuinnessIreland please do not supply anymore Guinness to @RailtownCafe just for this alone pic.twitter.com/vsBpmWHpPq — @M2a2c2a Olson admits, it really was a terrible pour. "It was coming out of a can. It was frothing over the tip like you'd find a Budweiser in a tailgate commercial," he said. "So, instead of cascading up to have a nice proper head like Guinness is supposed to, it was a mess." The Irish Independent newspaper branded it "sacrilegious," while the Irish Mirror said it "caused Irish people everywhere to grimace in disgust." "We really annoyed an entire country," Olson said. That pint looks like it had 16 pints on St Patrick's Day and struggled to keep them down! That and calling it St Pattys! 🙄@RailtownCafe pic.twitter.com/XAERYYlcqj — @gavinoconnor "The picture was not representative of us. We actually do know how to pour a Guinness. It was a mistake and we take full responsibility for it." The Railtown Cafe is now extending a booze-soaked olive branch to the citizens of Ireland. Anyone with a valid Irish passport who swings by the pub on St. Patrick's Day will get a free pint of "nicely poured" Guinness and a shot of Jameson whisky to boot. "What's St.Paddy's Day without a room full of Irishmen drinking Guinness and Jameson?" Olson said. ||||| St. Paddy's Day is today! And as one of my favourite "holidays", I celebrate by drinking Jameson and Guinness (I never drink Guinness). You probably do too. Here's how to pour the perfect pint of Guinness from a can, according to Chow, so you can impress your friends. Doing this gets the perfect Guinness head without having to measure angles, do maths, time pouring pressure, get sober and all that nonsense. Plop and drank. [CHOW] ||||| See more of Railtown Cafe on Facebook

– There are plenty of online resources for those looking to pour a perfect pint of Guinness this St. Patrick's Day, but it doesn't appear anyone behind the bar at Vancouver's Railtown Cafe did their due diligence. Per the CBC, the Canadian pub decided to advertise its celebrations for the Irish-themed holiday, posting a pic on Facebook of a Guinness glass filled to the brim and literally losing its head, with foam leaking over the sides and onto the table—a move the Irish Independent called "sacrilegious." "@GuinnessIreland please do not supply anymore Guinness to @RailtownCafe just for this alone," read one incensed tweet. Pub owner Dan Olson concedes that the beer, which had been poured out of a can, looked like "a Budweiser in a tailgate commercial." Olson notes the complaints came flowing in as fast, with one person even using good old-fashioned Catholic guilt against them. "'[The commenter] actually said that Jesus wept when he saw our pint of Guinness," Olson says, adding, "We really annoyed an entire country." After taking their lumps, the folks at Railtown have since shown that they listened to the masses, noting that staff does indeed know how to do a proper pour and posting a new photo on Facebook with a much better-looking Guinness glass to make up for the original "blasphemous" one. "We're not all a bunch of maple-syrup drinking snow farmers," the post reads. In response to at least one comment that the new pour "is not great either," the pub says it's looking into getting a Guinness tap installed. (The Guinness brewery just announced it will host its first overnight guests.)

Nato troops are facing rising violence in western Afghanistan Two US soldiers missing in western Afghanistan after failing to return from a routine resupply mission are thought to have drowned, officials say. Afghan officials say the men died two days ago in what appears to have been an accident. They died trying to recover supplies dropped by Nato aircraft which had fallen into a river, police said. A Taliban spokesman told Reuters news agency that they recovered the bodies in Badghis province. Provincial police chief Abdul Jabar said that the two servicemen were Americans who drowned after arriving in the area during a gun battle on Wednesday. Police said that the incident happened after Nato aircraft "dropped some logistical packages for a Nato base in [Badghis] province and a number of these packages went into the river nearby". "Two NATO soldiers went to take these packages from the river and drowned," Badghis deputy police chief Abdul Jabar, told the AFP news agency. In a statement released earlier on Friday, Nato did not give the soldiers' nationalities or say which province they had been in when they went missing Military officials said the families of the two soldiers had been informed. Rising violence Nato added that three of its troops were killed in two separate roadside bomb attacks on Thursday. Two of the soldiers were American, but the nationality of the third was not given. "The families of these service members have been notified about their loved ones' status and we will continue to keep them informed as information becomes available," a Nato spokeswoman said. Soldiers from more than 40 countries are taking part in Nato's force of nearly 110,000 troops in Afghanistan, two-thirds of them from the US. The biggest contingents operating in the west of the country are from the United States and Italy. Western Afghanistan has recently seen a rise in violence, with Taliban insurgents planting roadside bombs to maximise fatalities. This year more than 400 troops have been killed, most of them Americans. US President Barack Obama is currently considering a request from the military to increase troop numbers by up to 40,000, a decision that is not likely to be made imminently. The senior Nato commander in Afghanistan, Gen Stanley McChrystal, has warned that without an increase on the ground, the war could be lost. Bookmark with: Delicious Digg reddit Facebook StumbleUpon What are these? E-mail this to a friend Printable version ||||| Kabul, Afghanistan (CNN) -- Two American paratroopers went missing on Wednesday during a "routine resupply mission in western Afghanistan," the NATO-led force in the country said Friday. The pair -- from the 4th Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division -- are operating under NATO's International Security Assistance Force. Initial reports indicate that 25 ISAF and Afghan forces have been wounded in the search for the two. "All available resources are being used to find the two missing paratroopers," said the brigade operations officer, Lt. Col. Guy Jones. "Our rear detachment is doing everything they can to support the families during this difficult time while we continue the search with our Afghan and coalition partners." U.S. Navy Capt. Jane Campbell of the ISAF Joint Command said, "We are committed to taking every measure possible to rescue or recover our missing service members. We continue to do everything we can to find them." The service members disappeared near Afghanistan's border with Turkmenistan, in the town of Bala Morghab and the province of Baghdis, said Sayed Ahmad Sami, the provincial police chief. He said they appeared to have gone missing in the Morghab River, but he didn't have any details about what happened. Service members from 42 countries serve in the International Security Assistance Force, including military men and women from 28 NATO countries, according to ISAF's Web site. U.S. military personnel account for the bulk of ISAF service members. Separately, military authorities reported other recent incidents: • Two U.S. service members and a British soldier were killed in southern Afghanistan on Thursday in roadside bombings, ISAF and the British Defense Ministry said. • Police in Kunduz province said more than 130 Taliban insurgents were killed in a weeklong Afghan-ISAF operation that began on October 31. Eight Taliban commanders and four Chechen fighters were among those killed, police said. CNN's Thomas Evans contributed to this report.

– Two NATO soldiers have been missing in Western Afghanistan since Wednesday after a routine supply mission went awry. “We continue exhaustive search and rescue operations to locate our missing service members,” a NATO spokesperson tells the BBC. “We are doing everything we can to find them.” That part of Afghanistan has recently seen a rise in violence, notably roadside bombs. NATO troops in western Afghanistan are predominantly Italian and American. The British government confirmed that the missing are US soldiers, but the Pentagon refused to confirm that, CNN reports. “The families of these service members have been notified about their loved ones' status,” a spokesperson says.

Disney’s newest animated film Finding Dory will threaten the population of Blue Tang Fish unless Disney takes action to protect it. After Finding Nemo came out, the demand for Clownfish as souvenirs spiked in the US. Fortunately, Clownfish can be bred in captivity, so the market has been partially fulfilled that way. But Blue Tang Fish cannot be bred in captivity, so there is no way to fill a demand in pet Blue Tang except pulling them from their natural habitat. If Disney does not place an explicit warning at the beginning of the film asking viewers not to adopt Blue Tang like Dory, then we will see a sharp decline in their population. Finding Nemo’s central message is conservation, yet it still prompted a 40 percent rise in sales of Clownfish for pets or decoration. This increase is alarming because even though Clownfish can be bred in captivity very easily, they are still often pulled from the ocean instead. The transition from ocean to captivity is very hard on reef fish like Clownfishes and Blue Tang fishes, often costing them their lives. Now that Disney knows the effect Finding Nemo had on Clownfish, they should prepare for the effect Finding Dory will have on Blue Tang by doing their part to warn folks who see the movie. With the new film Finding Dory coming out, researchers are seriously panicking. That’s because Dory, voiced by Ellen DeGenerous, is a Blue Tang Fish and that species has never been successfully bred in captivity. So each and every “Dory” Blue Tang Fish that is adopted will have been plucked from its home in the ocean. If folks purchase Blue Tang at the same rate as they did Clownfish after Nemo, the Blue Tang population will become extremely threatened. Even worse, researchers would have no way to repair the loss with captive breeding. Individual viewers may not know that Blue Tang can’t be bred in captivity. But Disney does, so they should educate viewers to protect the fish. Putting a simple PSA at the beginning of Finding Dory would significantly decrease the number of people who decide to adopt a Blue Tang fish. The film premiers on June 17; we have less than a month to convince Disney that they must educate consumers on the effect of adopting their own Dory. Add your name to this petition to tell Disney you want to see a warning at the beginning of Finding Dory discouraging folks from buying Blue Tang. ||||| A Care2 petition is asking Disney to run a PSA before screening 'Finding Dory' to ensure the safety of the blue tang. Dory is an ultra lovable Pixar character, which could prove to be a problem for the fish. A Care2 petition is asking Disney to take special precautions to ensure the safety of the blue tang, Dory's species of fish, leading up to and following the release of Pixar's Finding Dory. The petition is asking that Disney add a public service announcement to play before screenings of the latest Pixar film, which is set to hit theaters June 17, that will outline the importance of protecting the blue tang. Following the release of 2003's Finding Nemo, sales of clownfish (the species of Nemo and dad Marlin) skyrocketed. According to the Saving Nemo Conservation Fund, over 1 million clownfish are taken from reefs and sold for home aquariums each year, causing clownfish to go extinct in areas like the Philippines and parts of Thailand. “Now that Disney knows the effect Finding Nemo had on clownfish, they should prepare for the effect Finding Dory will have on blue tang by doing their part to warn folks who see the movie,” writes Care2 petition author Kelsey Bourgeois. "I love these films, but it is such a shame that harm can come to real animals because of them." The petition has already garnered over 27,000 signatures of its 30,000 goal. ||||| “Finding Nemo” was a huge box office success, but the clown fish population took a serious hit in the process because fans raced to pet stores to get their own pet Nemo. As “Finding Dory” is heading into theatres, a Care2Petition is requesting Disney to run a PSA before the movie, stressing the importance of protecting the Blue Tang fish. The petition has reached 27,000 of the 30,000 signatures goal. Care2Petition creator Kelsey Bourgeois told FOX411the Blue Tang fish is at risk due to the upcoming film. “When I saw a recent article about how the movie (‘Finding Nemo’) had adversely affected the Clownfish population, despite its main moral theme, I was dismayed,” she said. “Then I learned that with 'Finding Dory' the risk is even greater because Blue Tang Fish can't be bred in captivity, I was super worried.” After “Finding Nemo” in 2003, the sales of the clownfish skyrocketed. The Saving Nemo Conservation Fund proclaims on its website that over 1 million clownfish are taken from reefs and brought to aquarium’s each year, which adversely affects the population. Bourgeois said she believes Disney doesn't mean to be harming the fish population. “I really think Disney would not intend for their films to harm the actual animals their characters are based off and adding a PSA at the beginning of the movie would be such an easy way to help prevent that,” she explained. “It also seems like stating that would encourage more people to buy merchandise based on the fish, which would be great for Disney.” In her petition, she notes that “Finding Dory” has researchers panicking. “With the new film 'Finding Dory' coming out, researchers are seriously panicking,” she wrote. “So each and every 'Dory' Blue Tang Fish that is adopted will have been plucked from its home in the ocean. Individual viewers may not know that Blue Tang can’t be bred in captivity. But Disney does, so they should educate viewers to protect the fish.” “Finding Dory” stars Ellen DeGeneres, Ed O’Neill, Diane Keaton and Eugene Levy hits theaters June 17. Disney and Pixar did not return FOX411’s request for comment. ||||| Finding Dory: Film release sparks concern for impact on dwindling global clownfish population Updated Australian researchers are warning people not to take the "wrong message" from the sequel to Finding Nemo. Key points: Decline populations of tropical fish featured in the film linked to popularity as pets The blue tang cannot be bred in captivity Concerns raised about use of cyanide in capturing the fish from ocean Flinders University and the University of Queensland experts say studies conducted since the 2003 release have found clownfish populations declined on coral reefs after popularity in keeping the tropical fish as household pets soared. "The film had a very strong fish conservation message, but instead people decided, because Marlin and Nemo were such charismatic characters, that they wanted a clownfish as a pet," Flinders University associate Professor Karen Burke da Silva said. Some studies have looked at the declining rates of clownfish and other ornamental fish on coral reefs since the release of the animated film about clownfish Marlin, who goes on a search with blue tang Dory to find his son, Nemo, after he was abducted by a scuba diver and kept in an aquarium. "A number of studies in America looked at the huge increase in the demand for clownfish, according to pet shop figures, exports, et cetera," she said. "In one year alone, 2012, over 400,000 clownfish were imported to America. It was the fifth most imported species to America." Professor Burke da Silva is one of the co-founders of the Saving Nemo Conservation Fund, which aims to provide education, awareness and captive breeding programs to protect marine ornamental species that are often captured on reefs for sale in pet shops. She said the marine fish aquarium trade has been a major cause of the decline in coral reef fish numbers, because while clownfish are quite easy to breed in captivity, for a lot of ornamental fish it is not so easy. "About 90-95 per cent of marine fish found in aquarium shops come from the wild," she said. "The blue tang fish, for example, cannot be bred in captivity. This is because the blue tang fish release their eggs and sperm into the sea and this cannot be mimicked in a lab." People shocked to discover ornamental fish not bred in captivity Professor Burke da Silva said that from what she had read of the new film, she believed Finding Dory also has a strong conservation message. "What we hope is that people take that message home. Fish in the wild are going through enough problems, due to global warming and coral bleaching, so the worst thing we can do is add to that by taking huge numbers of them from the wild," she said. There was also a lack of understanding about what kind of fish are being taken from the wild and what fish are bred in captivity, Professor Burke da Silva said. "From our own surveys we've found that people who buy marine fish don't know they are taken from the wild," she said. "Freshwater fish are bred in captivity but ornamental fish — such as clownfish and blue tang fish — are not bred in captivity. "When we told them this, most people were shocked to discover that they weren't bred in captivity." She said the team wanted to create more awareness and to brand ornamental fish as not captive bred, "so then people are informed when they go into a pet shop to buy a fish". Professor Burke da Silva said there were concerns about the welfare of the animals collected from places like Sri Lanka and Philippines, huge exporters of ornamental fish to places like US. "They sometimes use cyanide poisoning to collect fish. It is used as a kind of anaesthetic to knock them out so they can be easily collected in a short amount of time," she said. However, Professor Burke da Silva said the lengthy process of collecting the fish and exporting them can have a huge effect on mortality rates. She said she had once read up to 90 per cent "die before they make it into someone's living room". "What we mostly want to achieve is an awareness about where the fish come from and the fact that ornamental fish are being taken from the wild and 100 per cent of blue tang fish are caught in the wild," she said. Topics: fish, animal-science, film-movies, australia, asia First posted

– Disney's upcoming film Finding Dory will likely be a hit with kids around the world, and that's got fish-lovers worried. “Now that Disney knows the effect Finding Nemo had on clownfish, they should prepare for the effect Finding Dory will have on blue tang by doing their part to warn folks who see the movie," states an online petition that's gathered more than 60,000 signatures so far. The petition is asking Disney to run a PSA before screenings of Finding Dory. The Saving Nemo Conservation Fund says more than 1 million clownfish are taken from reefs every year and sold as pets thanks to the popularity of Finding Nemo, according to the Hollywood Reporter. That's led to the extinction of clownfish in certain areas. The problem could be even worse for blue tang, which can't be bred in captivity. That means 100% of blue tang bought by and for Dory-loving children will come from the wild, and conservationists have no way of replacing them. “I really think Disney would not intend for their films to harm the actual animals their characters are based off, and adding a PSA at the beginning of the movie would be such an easy way to help prevent that,” Kelsey Bourgeois, who created the online petition, tells Fox News. Karen Burke da Silva, cofounder of the Saving Nemo Conservation Fund, tells ABC most people are unaware that the majority of the marine fish they're buying as pets weren't raised in captivity. A PSA before Finding Dory, which opens June 17, could change that. (Vandals may have killed one of the world's rarest fishes.)

An Australian doctor who also is a renowned cave diver... The last member of the rescue team to leave the Thai cave, Australian doctor Richard Harris, has lost his father. Harris’s boss Andrew Pearce said in a statement that the father died shortly after the last of the 13 soccer team members was freed from the cave. Pearce said, “This is clearly a time of grief for the Harris family, magnified by the physical and emotional demands of being part of this week’s highly complex and ultimately successful rescue operation.” Pearce said the anesthetist and experienced cave diver would return to his home in Adelaide soon. Harris played a part in deciding the order in which the 13 were freed. Pearce did not say how the father died and asked for the family’s privacy to be respected. ||||| Image copyright OZTEK/RICHARD HARRIS Image caption Dr Richard Harris spent three days underground with the young Thais and their coach It was his rare combination of talents that led Australian doctor Richard Harris deep into the Tham Luang cave in Thailand. When the Wild Boars football team was located deep inside the cave, after being missing for a week, the Adelaide anaesthetist abandoned his holiday in Thailand and volunteered to help. He went in to assess the boys' health and stayed with them for three days. It was under his direction that the weakest boys were first led out with the others successfully following in the complex operation. Dr Harris, known as Harry, is believed to have been one of the last rescuers out of the cave. But relief and celebration were suddenly cut short by personal tragedy - on Wednesday it emerged that Dr Harris's father had died shortly after the rescue's finish. Image copyright RICHARD HARRIS/FACEBOOK Image caption The Adelaide doctor is globally renowned for his cave-diving expertise His employer, South Australia's ambulance service, said his family's grief had been "magnified" by the physical and emotional demands of the rescue operation. "It has been a tumultuous week with highs and lows," Dr Andrew Pearce from MedSTAR said, asking for privacy. "Harry is a quiet and kind man who did not think twice about offering his support on this mission." 'Integral part of the rescue' Dr Harris was specifically identified by British divers and requested by the "highest levels" of the Thai government to join the rescue, according to the Australian government. Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Divers stayed with the boys after they were found deep inside the cave "He was an integral part of the rescue attempt," said Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop who added that the doctor was internationally renowned for his cave rescue expertise. "[The Australians] have been a big help, especially the doctor," the leader of the rescue mission, acting Chiang Rai governor Narongsak Osotanakorn told an Australian Nine News reporter on Wednesday. "Very good. The very best," he said in reference to Dr Harris. Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Wife and father remember 'hero' Thai diver: "He loved helping others" His friend Sue Crowe told the BBC the doctor was an unassuming and selfless family man, whose calm presence would have comforted the boys in the cave. "He is brilliant with children, and he would have made sure that they were prepared in the best possible way from a cave-diving perspective," she said. "He would have been the perfect person to support them." On social media, there has been an outpouring of gratitude directed towards him. Many have called for him to be made Australian of the Year - the nation's highest civic honour - while the government has indicated there will be some formal recognition. Skip Twitter post by @PeterGleeson63 Adelaide doctor Richard Harris stopped his holiday to help those Thai boys. If ever a bloke deserved to be Australian of the Year it’s this man. He’s what embodies the true spirit of this country — Peter Gleeson (@PeterGleeson63) July 10, 2018 Report Skip Twitter post by @dannybaxter27 Dr Richard Harris, who was the last person out of the Thai cave should be awarded Australian of the Year 🇦🇺 — Dan Baxter (@dannybaxter27) July 11, 2018 Report Skip Twitter post by @sophy_symonds Thank you Dr. Richard Harris. You're a true hero and so does everyone from the rescue team. We thank you from the bottom of our hearts. — Sophy Symonds (@sophy_symonds) July 10, 2018 Report The experienced diver, also an underwater photographer, has completed several cave-diving expeditions in Australia, New Zealand, Christmas Island and China. One tragic expedition in 2011, involved the retrieval of the body of his friend, Agnes Milowka, who ran out of air during a cave dive in South Australia. Image copyright OZTEK/RICHARD HARRIS Image caption Dr Harris had previously led cave rescue operations Ms Bishop said the doctor is also known to authorities for his work on medical assistance teams in natural disasters in the Pacific region, and has taken part in Australian aid missions in Vanuatu. "[He] is an extraordinary Australian and he has certainly made a big difference to the rescue effort here in Thailand," she said. She also praised his diving partner, Craig Challen, a vet from Perth who accompanied Dr Harris into the caves. The pair were part of a team of 20 Australians, including police and navy divers, who assisted in the operation.

– Shortly after the joy of all 12 boys and their coach being rescued from a flooded cave in Thailand, personal tragedy struck the Australian doctor who helped the boys when his father died. Dr. Richard Harris was on holiday in Thailand when the boys got trapped in the cave and volunteered to help; he entered the cave to assess the boys' conditions and ended up staying with them for three days, directing rescuers to lead the weakest boys out first. Harris, an experienced cave diver, is believed to have been one of the final rescuers to leave the cave, the BBC reports. But shortly after he did so, his father died. "This is clearly a time of grief for the Harris family, magnified by the physical and emotional demands of being part of this week’s highly complex and ultimately successful rescue operation," Harris' boss says in a statement, per the New York Post.

Notice You must log in to continue. ||||| Chris Brown described the infamous night he physically attacked then-girlfriend Rihanna in a clip from his new documentary, Chris Brown: Welcome to My Life, released Monday. Related Chris Brown: 'My Character's Been Defaced' by Accusations "I cannot wait till the truth comes to light about this incident and this situation," singer says of suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon arrest The R&B singer, who served five years probation and a community service order for the assault, recounts the evolution of the couple's relationship in the 11-minute segment. He called their young romance "a fairytale." Though their relationship imploded after Brown lied about sleeping with another woman, a former employee, early on in their relationship, he reveals. "After that, my trust was lost with her. She hated me after that," he says. "I tried everything, she didn't care. She just didn't trust me after that. From there, it just went downhill because there were too many verbal fights, physical fights as well. Mutual sides. … We would fight each other. She would hit me, I would hit her and it never was okay." Then, on the night of Clive Davis' 2009 Grammy party, Brown and Rihanna got into a major argument after the woman approached the couple at the celeb-studded fete. Brown remembers looking over at Rihanna and seeing her "bawling." After they left the party, he says he offered her his phone to look through as proof of his loyalty; she spotted a message from her and surmised that Brown had lied to her again. "She starts going off, she throws the phone," he says. "'I hate you.' Starts hitting me. We're in a little Lamborghini. She's fighting me. I'm like, 'Look, I'm telling you the truth, I swear.' ... She hits me a couple of more times and it doesn't go from translation to, 'Let's sit down, I'm telling you the truth.' It goes to, 'Now, I'm going to be mean, be evil.' I remember she tried to kick me, but then I really hit her, with a closed fist, I punched her. I busted her lip. When I saw it, I was in shock. I was like, 'Fuck, why the hell did I hit her?'" He says that he felt like a "fucking monster" for what he had done, and later, when he saw the police photo of Rihanna's bruised and battered face, he felt the full weight of what he had done. "I look back at that picture and I'm like, 'That's not me, bro,'" he says. "I hate it to this day. That's going to haunt me forever." ||||| See more of Chris Brown Fan on Facebook

– In a clip from Chris Brown's new documentary, Chris Brown: Welcome to My Life, that is currently making headlines, the singer describes how his "fairytale" romance with Rihanna turned to a nightmare, Rolling Stone reports. After he lied to her about cheating on her in the early days of their relationship, "she just didn't trust me after that," Brown says. "From there, it just went downhill because there were too many verbal fights, physical fights as well. Mutual sides. … We would fight each other. She would hit me, I would hit her and it never was OK." On the night of Clive Davis' Grammys party in 2009, the woman Brown had cheated with approached them at the party, and things went horribly downhill. Brown says that after leaving the party, he gave an upset Rihanna his phone to look through, but instead of reassuring her, Rihanna saw a text from the other woman and got even angrier. "She starts going off, she throws the phone," Brown says. "Starts hitting me. We're in a little Lamborghini. She's fighting me. I'm like, 'Look, I'm telling you the truth, I swear.' ... She hits me a couple of more times and it doesn't go from translation to, 'Let's sit down, I'm telling you the truth.' It goes to, 'Now, I'm going to be mean, be evil.' I remember she tried to kick me, but then I really hit her, with a closed fist, I punched her. I busted her lip. When I saw it, I was in shock. I was like, 'F---, why the hell did I hit her?'" But the fight continued, with Brown even biting Rihanna at one point. He says that in the aftermath of the beating, "I felt like a f---ing monster. ... That's going to haunt me forever."

Photo Advertisement Continue reading the main story Donald J. Trump seemed irritated. He had been grilled for two hours in a lawsuit over a failed Florida real estate project, and he told the lawyer that her questions were “very stupid.” When the lawyer, Elizabeth Beck, asked for a medical break, Mr. Trump and his lawyers objected, demanding that the deposition continue. Ms. Beck said it was urgent — she needed to pump breast milk for her 3-month-old daughter, and she took the pump out to make her point. Mr. Trump erupted. “You’re disgusting,” he told Ms. Beck, in a remark that is not disputed by either side. He then walked out of the room, ending the testimony for the day. In his unorthodox campaign for the Republican nomination for president, Mr. Trump has portrayed himself as a teller of difficult truths, whose wealth unburdens him from the careful pronouncements of ordinary candidates. “Politicians,” he has said, “are all talk.” Hundreds of pages of sworn testimony by Mr. Trump over the past decade show something less flattering. Some of his claims, made under oath, and under pressure, are shown to be hyperbolic overstatements, and others to be shadings of the truth or even outright misstatements. And in rare instances, he turns boorish and demeaning. The testimony, drawn from a series of lawsuits since 2007, reveals much about the personal preoccupations and business tactics of the developer-turned-candidate. It showcases Mr. Trump’s fixation with his image as a financial success, and lays bare his hypersensitivity to any suggestion of failure. It chronicles his methodical cultivation — and elbows-out defense — of a brand name he has licensed around the world for millions of dollars in fees; and it at times displays a lack of sympathy for ordinary consumers who have lost money on the purchase of Trump-branded products. In the Beck deposition, he said that home buyers who had forfeited their down payments in a building bearing his name were “very lucky” that the project failed because, he asserted, they would have lost more had the project proceeded after the financial crisis of 2008. Advertisement Continue reading the main story “Congratulate your clients,” Mr. Trump told Ms. Beck and her husband and co-counsel, Jared Beck, whose clients had alleged that they lost tens of thousands of dollars each. A lawyer for Mr. Trump, Alan Garten, said the depositions showed that “Mr. Trump, unlike the other candidates (all of whom are career politicians), is a determined businessman who stands up for what he believes, speaks his mind and talks from the heart.” Above all, the testimony suggests that Mr. Trump’s relationship with the truth can be tenuous — especially when it involves claims about his business. “Have you ever exaggerated in statements about your properties?” one lawyer asked him. “I think everyone does,” Mr. Trump replied. “Does that mean that sometimes you’ll inflate the value of your properties in your statements?” the lawyer tried a moment later. “Not beyond reason,” he answered. Case by case, lawyers deposing Mr. Trump examined his public statements. Advertisement Continue reading the main story Was he the developer of Trump-branded condominium towers in Tampa and Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and in Mexico, as marketing materials led some buyers to believe? Nope. (“I’m a builder in New York,” he said. “Generally, when I venture outside of New York, I do a form of a license.”) Was he really paid $1 million for a 2005 speech, as he had boasted on television? He was not. (It was $400,000; in testimony, he said he counted efforts to promote the talk as a form of payment.) Did his debts ever reach $9 billion in the 1990s, as he said in two of his books to dramatize his eventual financial comeback? They did not. (“That is a mistake,” Mr. Trump said, “and I don’t know how it got there.”) But, he said, it hardly mattered. “Frankly, whether it’s $9 billion or $3.6 billion,” Mr. Trump said, “I don’t think makes any difference to anybody if they hear the story.” In words that echo now that he is a candidate, Mr. Trump compared his own inclination toward blurring the facts to a strategy he learned from America’s elected officials. “I’m no different from a politician running for office,” he said. “You always want to put the best foot forward.” The lawsuits for which Mr. Trump was deposed stemmed largely from real estate deals that went bust. In two of the cases, Mr. Trump was accused of misleading home buyers about his role as a developer of condominium towers in Florida when he was in fact licensing his name to the projects. In a third case, he was the accuser, leveling claims of defamation against Timothy O’Brien, a reporter for The New York Times at the time who asserted in a book that Mr. Trump’s net worth was far less than he had publicly claimed. (Mr. Trump settled with plaintiffs in one condo case; he won the other. He failed to prove his case against Mr. O’Brien.) For Mr. Trump, a man accustomed to luxurious private planes and a solicitous staff, the dozens of hours of tedious testimony represented a humbling and, at times, aggravating concession to the American legal system. His temper sometimes flared. Under questioning by Ms. Beck in 2011 in the Florida real estate case, he was insulting. “Do you even know what you’re doing?” he challenged her. But when Ms. Beck insisted on pausing for an hour to pump breast milk, Mr. Trump, in the words of her husband, had “a meltdown” during a break in the deposition. In a letter at the time, Mr. Beck said Mr. Trump had called his wife “uptight” as well as “disgusting.” Mr. Garten, the Trump lawyer, did not dispute Mr. Beck’s account of Mr. Trump’s language, but said it “was in no way a statement about her decision to breast-feed or pump.” “It was solely the fact that she was appearing to do it in the middle of a deposition,” he said — although no one involved suggested that she had gone beyond displaying the pump. Continue reading the main story First Draft Newsletter Subscribe for updates on the 2016 presidential race, the White House and Congress, delivered to your inbox Monday - Friday. Mr. Garten added: “In my 20 years of legal practice, I’ve never seen more bizarre behavior at a deposition. That is what led to his remark.” Advertisement Continue reading the main story Advertisement Continue reading the main story Mr. Garten said that “every accommodation” had been made for Ms. Beck to take breaks, but that he believed she was seeking to buy time to come up with new questions for Mr. Trump. The Becks lost one of their cases against Mr. Trump and are appealing. The depositions also expose other intriguing details about the habits and preferences of a man whose public persona can have a one-dimensional quality. Alcohol? He does not touch it, Mr. Trump testified. Television? “I don’t have a lot of time,” he said, “for listening to television.” Text messages? Not for him. For a candidate who says he is an authority on modern business, Mr. Trump is slow to adopt technology. In 2007, he said he had no home or office computer. “Does your secretary send emails on your behalf?” he was asked. His secretary generally typed letters, Mr. Trump said. “I don’t do the email thing.” By 2013, Mr. Trump was still not sold on email. “Very rarely, but I use it,” he said under questioning. Perhaps the most striking revelations surround Mr. Trump’s fluid evaluations of his own financial portfolio, which he declared in a deposition can fluctuate based on his “feelings.” “Yes, even my own feelings,” Mr. Trump testified, “as to where the world is, where the world is going, and that can change rapidly from day to day.” In the deposition for the defamation lawsuit, lawyers for Mr. O’Brien asked Mr. Trump to explain the role his feelings played in valuing a parcel of land in Westchester County, N.Y. He had stated it was worth $80 million one year and then $150 million the next. “Was it your view of the value of the property that changed from 2005 to 2006?” he was asked. “Yeah, that the value of the property has gone up substantially,” Mr. Trump said. “Did you have any appraisal done?” he was asked a moment later. “I don’t believe so, no.” “Did you have any basis for that view other than your own opinion?” a lawyer followed up. “I don’t believe so, no,” he said. That unconventional approach may raise questions about Mr. Trump’s public claim this month that he is worth $10 billion. Pressed repeatedly in depositions about optimistic financial figures, Mr. Trump sounded, even years ago, like a man who was weighing a campaign for elected office. “I didn’t confirm or deny,” Mr. Trump joked at one point, “as a politician would say.” But not just any politician, the depositions suggest. In 2013, when a lawyer asked Mr. Trump how he chose his business partners, Mr. Trump made clear the level of office he had in the back of his mind. “You get references and opinions of people, and you go on that,” Mr. Trump said. “That’s true with the president of the United States.” The lawyer questioning Mr. Trump seemed perplexed. “Did we have references for the president of the United States?” Before Mr. Trump could answer, his lawyer jumped in. “Objection.” ||||| Washington (CNN) Donald Trump distanced himself Tuesday from comments one of his top advisers made in an explosive interview while defending the Republican presidential candidate from a decades-old rape accusation. Michael Cohen, special counsel to Trump and an executive vice president at The Trump Organization, apologized Tuesday after telling the Daily Beast that legally "you cannot rape your spouse." The rape claim stems from an accusation Trump's then-wife Ivana Trump leveled at her husband during divorce proceedings in the early 1990s, an allegation she walked back Tuesday. "He's speaking for himself. He's not speaking for me, obviously," Trump said to CNN's Don Lemon Tuesday, which aired on "The Situation Room." Trump called The Daily Beast a "joke" desperate to remain relevant. "Michael was extremely angry because he knew (the alleged incident) never took place," Trump told Lemon. Marital rape has been illegal in all 50 states since 1993 and non-consensual sex between spouses does in fact constitute rape, said Scott Berkowitz, the president and founder of the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network. Cohen apologized for his comments Tuesday, calling them "inarticulate," and said the reporter's question sent him into a tailspin. "As an attorney, husband and father there are many injustices that offend me but nothing more than charges of rape or racism. They hit me at my core. Rarely am I surprised by the press, but the gall of this particular reporter to make such a reprehensible and false allegation against Mr. Trump truly stunned me. In my moment of shock and anger, I made an inarticulate comment - which I do not believe -- and which I apologize for entirely," Cohen said in a statement to CNN. Cohen, who is one of Trump's top lawyers, threatened to sue the Daily Beast reporter and ruin the reporter's life. "I will make sure that you and I meet one day while we're in the courthouse. And I will take you for every penny you still don't have. And I will come after your Daily Beast and everybody else that you possibly know," Cohen said, according to the Daily Beast. "So I'm warning you, tread very f---ing lightly, because what I'm going to do to you is going to be f---ing disgusting. You understand me?" "Mr. Trump didn't know of his comments but disagrees with them," Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski told CNN, referring to Cohen's remarks to the Daily Beast. In a statement obtained by CNN, Ivana Trump said the Daily Beast story "is totally without merit." "I have recently read some comments attributed to me from nearly 30 years ago at a time of very high tension during my divorce from Donald. The story is totally without merit. Donald and I are the best of friends and together have raised three children that we love and are very proud of. I have nothing but fondness for Donald and wish him the best of luck on his campaign. Incidentally, I think he would make an incredible president," Ivana Trump said in the statement, which was verified by the Trump campaign. The campaign also distanced itself from Cohen, who has spent weeks appearing on multiple television news shows, including CNN's "New Day," to play up Trump's candidacy for president and defend the campaign from attacks from Trump's primary opponents. "Michael Cohen is a corporate employee and is not affiliated with the campaign in any way.=," Lewandowski told CNN. When asked whether Cohen would continue to make television appearances and behave as a surrogate for Trump, he dismissed the question, saying the campaign and Trump's company are separate enterprises. "This would be like asking Nike what they think of Reebok," Lewandowski said. JUST WATCHED Trump adviser backs controversial Huckabee comments Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Trump adviser backs controversial Huckabee comments 01:29 "Mr. Trump speaks for Mr. Trump and nobody but Mr. Trump speaks for him," a campaign source told CNN on Tuesday morning. A second campaign source toed the same line and pushed back against the notion that Cohen is a surrogate for the campaign. "He is speaking as someone who has great insight into Mr. Trump's skills as an executive," the source said. Both sources emphasized that Cohen is employed by the Trump Organization and not the campaign. Cohen has not only repeatedly appeared on TV to support Trump's presidential campaign, but he has also provided statements in response to political reporters' inquiries about Trump campaign controversies. Cohen sent CNN a statement via email earlier this month when Trump's official Twitter account posted photo of men in Nazi uniforms. In a deposition during divorce proceedings, Ivana Trump accused her husband of raping her during a 1989 incident, an accusation that was first revealed in the 1993 book by former Newsweek reporter Harry Hurt III, "Lost Tycoon: The Many Lives of Donald J. Trump." CNN could not obtain a copy of the deposition. As the book was about to be published, Ivana Trump wrote a statement that was printed on the first page of that book: "I felt violated, as the love and tenderness, which he normally exhibited towards me, was absent," she said in the statement. "I referred to this as a 'rape,' but I do not want my words to be interpreted in a literal or criminal sense." A Trump campaign spokesperson said in a statement that the rape accusation "is old news and it never happened." "It is a standard lawyer technique, which was used to exploit more money from Mr. Trump especially since he had an ironclad prenuptial agreement," the spokesperson said. Democrats quickly pounced on Cohen's remarks, with Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz calling Cohen's comments "a new low" in a statement Tuesday morning and telling Republicans to take a stand. "Rape is rape. Full stop. End of story. There is no difference or division between 'forcible', 'legitimate', 'marital' or any other label Republicans slap on before the word 'rape'. All rape is a disgusting violation, and Americans have fought too long and hard for that to be acknowledged to still have it questioned in 2015," Wasserman-Schultz said in the statement. "It's a pattern of outrageous comments that must stop, and Republicans should call it what it is - despicable." Ivana Trump is Donald Trump's first wife and mother to his three oldest children: Ivanka, Eric and Donald, Jr. who are all top officials at The Trump Organization. Trump is now married to his third wife, Melania Trump.

– The New York Times has pored over hundreds of pages of Donald Trump testimony from his many lawsuits over the last decade and found a lot of what it describes as "hyperbolic overstatements" and "outright misstatements," as well as some instances of truly obnoxious behavior—like the time he told a lawyer who wanted to take a break to pump breast milk that she was "disgusting." That happened during a 2011 hearing in a Florida real estate case, the Times reports, when lawyer Elizabeth Beck asked for a medical break to pump milk for her 3-month-old daughter, holding up the pump to make a point when the Trump team objected. "You're disgusting," Trump said, per the Times, and walked out of the room, ending proceedings for the day. Trump lawyer Alan Garten doesn't dispute the events, but he tells the Times that "disgusting" wasn't a statement on breastfeeding—it was on Beck displaying the pump. "In my 20 years of legal practice, I've never seen more bizarre behavior at a deposition," the lawyer says. "That is what led to his remark." Another Trump lawyer, Michael Cohen, has apologized for falsely claiming that "by the very definition, you can't rape your spouse." He tells CNN that the remark was made in a "moment of shock and anger" when a Daily Beast reporter brought up a decades-old allegation. The Trump campaign tells CNN that Trump "didn't know of his comments but disagrees with them" and that Cohen is a Trump corporate employee not affiliated in any way with the campaign.

It's somewhat of a miracle that Jaxon Taylor is alive. Three weeks after a horror high-speed crash which left the boy with severe spinal injuries, the one-year-old is on a slow road to recovery. It took surgeons at Brisbane's Lady Cilento Children's Hospital six hours to re-attach Jaxon's skull to his spine, following the smash on the Newell Highway on September 15. He suffered a fractured C1, C2 vertabrae and collarbone, and a partially collapsed lung. Somehow his spinal cord was not severed. Jaxon Taylor is lucky to be alive after a high-speed crash left him with severe neck and head injuries. Photo: Seven News Queensland "A lot of children wouldn't survive that injury in the first place and if they did and they were resuscitated they may never move or breathe again," Dr Geoffrey Askin told Seven News. Advertisement "How the spinal cord has managed to go around that corner and survive is a miracle, really" Jaxon's story has now gone worldwide, with media outlets in Europe and America reporting on the incredible medical case. The Taylors were travelling in a Kia Cerato when it collided with a Ford Falcon. Photo: Samantha Manchee/Moree Champion On the day of the crash. Jaxon was in the car with his nine-year-old sister Shayne and mother Rylea. The trio had packed up their life in Victoria and were driving to the Queensland town of Moranbah, where they were set to join father Andrew who had relocated for work. They had reached the northern NSW town of Moree when disaster struck. Ms Taylor said she saw a giant puff of dust on the road, and within seconds her small Kia Cerato was allegedly hit head-on by an oncoming Ford Falcon. The airbags deployed immediately, and when Ms Taylor regained her senses, she realised both her children were hurt. Jaxon's neck was broken and Shayne was also suffering back pain. Happier times...Jaxon, sister Shayne and mother Rylea Taylor before the crash. Photo: Facebook "I looked at my kids and they were both bleeding from their faces. I remember Shayne said "mummy help me" but lost consciousness," Ms Taylor told Fairfax Media. "I kicked my door open and stepped in petrol, I wanted to get the kids out the car because I was afraid the car would catch fire. I wanted to get the two of them to safety." NSW Police have charged an 18-year-old with dangerous driving occasioning grievous bodily harm and negligent driving occasioning grievous bodily harm. He is due to face court later this month. Jaxon Taylor was treated in the Lady Cilento Children's hospital. Photo: Seven News Queensland After the crash, Rylea said she saw the school-aged occupants of the Falcon just standing, looking at the wreckage. "What are you thinking, I have my children in the car," she screamed. The crash victims were taken to the local hospital in Moree, before Jaxon was airlifted to the Lady Cilento Children's Hospital. Specialists fitted a "halo" brace and attached it to his skull, and the device was expected to be in place for two months. Jaxon was able to leave hospital late last month but will require ongoing treatment. Meanwhile his mother fears the men who were in the car that hit hers will get off lightly. She has decided to wage a campaign online, calling for tougher penalties for dangerous driving. Ms Taylor wants uniformed laws across Australia, and started a petition which has secured nearly 10,000 signatures. She wants laws that "carry substantial punishments [that] might actually make people think twice before driving recklessly". "My children will have rehabilitation, physio appointments, scars and a life different to the one I hoped for them," she wrote. "I hoped they could play the sports they chose, they could jump on a trampoline, play together and run and be children - at no point ever will I have the joy of watching my children play without fearing that they will be hurt by their injuries caused to them by someone's stupidity." - Moree Champion with Brisbane Times ||||| Surgeons in a Brisbane, Australia, hospital have managed to reattach the head of a toddler after it was severed internally from his spine. Local media reported that Jaxon Taylor, a 16-month-old toddler, was travelling in the car with his mother and nine-year-old sister when they collided with another car at the speed of 110 km/h. The force of the crash tore the toddler's head from his neck internally, according to local media. "It is, it's, it is a miracle," said Jaxon's mother Rylea. "The second I pulled him out I knew that he, I knew that his neck was broken," she added. Jaxon was airlifted to a Brisbane hospital where a team of surgeons, headed by Dr. Geoff Askin, performed the six-hour surgery to reattach the head to the spine. "A lot of children wouldn't survive that injury in the first place, and if they did and they were resuscitated, they may never move or breathe again," said Askin. Doctors said Jaxon will have to wear a brace over his head for eight weeks to help the tissues and nerves connecting his head to his spine to heal. Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children says its doctors perform a similar procedure about once a year. "It is probably a severe spinal injury with no serious trauma to blood vessels or the spinal cord itself," Dr. Brett Belchetz, an emergency room physician in Toronto, said in an email. "Otherwise it would have been unsurvivable. Repairing such an injury is complex but routine. The miraculous element here is to have such a severe bony injury without associated other deadly vascular or spinal cord trauma." In 2006, doctors at Vancouver General wrote a case report about treating a 46-year-old woman in the Canadian Journal of Emergency Medicine. ||||| When Rylea Taylor pulled her son Jaxon from the wreckage of their family car on September 15, she knew instantly that his neck was broken—an injury that usually leaves victims paralyzed or dead. The force of the 70-mile-per-hour head-on collision had fractured Jaxon’s top two vertebrae and torn apart the ligaments that stabilize them. His top vertebra and skull were completely detached from the rest of his spinal column. The spinal cord itself was bent at a 45-degree angle and dangerously vulnerable to further movements that could sever critical nerves. Yet just three weeks later, the 16-month-old was stepping along with the wobbly gait common to toddlers, relying on nothing more for support than a chubby hand grasping his mother’s finger. How did Jaxon make such a dramatic recovery? He was fortunate to survive and to come under the care of Geoffrey Askin, senior spinal surgeon at the Lady Cilento Children’s Hospital in Brisbane and the man known as Australia’s godfather of spinal surgery. The soft-spoken surgeon and a team of more than 20 doctors, nurses and support specialists planned a six-hour operation to put Jaxon’s skull back onto his spine. Unattached Gruesomely nicknamed internal decapitation, this kind of injury often kills by severing the spine, impeding signals sent by the brain that tell the lungs to breathe from reaching their destination. The prognosis for what is medically termed a C1–C2 dislocation is dire: A 2010 study of upper-neck dislocations found that 68 percent of victims die before the dislocation could even be diagnosed, often at the scene of the accident; another 22 percent die at the hospital. Even if patients are resuscitated and brought to the hospital in time, they may remain so severely paralyzed that they are permanently unable to breathe on their own. C1–C2 and other upper-neck dislocations most commonly occur in very young children, whose relatively heavy heads are not strongly stabilized by their extra-flexible ligaments. High-speed motor vehicle accidents cause 80 percent of these injuries, Askin says, often when the child’s body is securely strapped into their car seat and their head is flung forward. The physician’s job is further complicated because even making a full assessment of the damage can be problematic. Regular x-rays have difficulty revealing the full extent of the injury, because the scanner stays still and the patient must be moved around to examine various angles—not ideal for a patient with a spinal injury who needs to be kept as still as possible. To overcome the limitations of traditional x-rays, physicians turn to computed tomography (CT). At Moree District Hospital, near the crash site, Jaxon was placed on a platform inside a CT scanner where an x-ray beam rotated around him. The resulting 3-D images revealed the appalling extent of his injury. “They were pretty alarming,” says Askin, who received the images while Jaxon was being airlifted to Lady Cilento. “I thought, he can’t possibly be moving or breathing, he must have been resuscitated.” He was surprised to learn that Jaxon was still breathing by himself—which meant astonishingly that the nerves in the spinal cord had remained intact. Once at Lady Cilento, doctors also used a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machine to further investigate the injury. In MRI radio waves and powerful magnets detailed a picture of swelling and ligament damage to confirm that Jaxon’s spinal cord was still intact. While Jaxon spent the night in intensive care, staff rallied for the next-day surgery. They even constructed necessary contraptions on the spot including a custom-fabricated halo brace that would hold Jaxon’s head and neck in the correct position for both the surgery and a time afterward. Askin who routinely performs operations lasting more than six hours, likens the preparations to a military operation. “You’ve got to have a plan B in your preoperative plan—you’ve got to have every scenario nutted out,” he says. Because, despite the ever-more detailed images provided by modern CT and MRI scans, there’s no telling the true extent of the damage until a patient’s body is opened up in the theater. Bolts, wires and bone grafts Jaxon’s surgery began with bolting the custom-made halo brace into the bone of his skull with eight screws. Although it is the most rigid splint available, a halo is light enough even for a fussy toddler to tolerate. Named for the aluminum hoop that encircles the patient’s head, a halo is anchored to a vest worn on the patient’s body so that the neck cannot turn or bend in any direction. First, though, the broken neck must be properly aligned. Guided by live x-ray images, Askin maneuvered Jaxon’s head until the cracked vertebrae and the spinal cord within were in the correct position. It’s a treatment fraught with risk: the area is grossly unstable and often contains sharp fragments of shattered bone. With one wrong move, critical nerves can be irreparably damaged, leaving the patient with partial or total paralysis. “It’s a pretty adrenaline-producing sort of operation,” Askin says. “You don’t know if the spinal cord is still working till the patient wakes up the next day.” Only the most senior surgeons, who have honed their craft for years on less precarious injuries, perform these operations. Askin’s registrars, young doctors training to specialize as spinal surgeons, come to the operating theater to observe the 25-year veteran in this most delicate of operations. Askin operates on just one or two C1–C2 dislocations each year. That’s not because the injury is so rare, but because it is so deadly that victims are more likely to die on the roadside than make it to the ER, let alone the operating room. Still, in the last decade advances in every step of medical care—from the time emergency responders arrive up to the moment the patient is wheeled into recovery—have increased survival chances so much that Askin is now contributing to a manual on standard-care practices for similar injuries in children. “Anesthetics are much safer, instruments for exposing the spine or passing wires are more sophisticated [and] preoperative imaging with CT scans provide much more information before we even make an incision,” Askin says. The CT scans can even be used to make a silicon 3-D model of the injury site to aid planning the operation. Still, the improvements in tools were not quite enough in Jaxon’s case. Once the spine was properly aligned and Askin had made the 10-centimeter-long incision to expose the fractures, the team found that even the smallest surgical screws were too large to use on Jaxon’s tiny vertebrae. Using a microscope, Askin resorted to a long-superseded method: using wire to join the fractured bones together, a technique he describes as “primitive.” Under the weight of Jaxon’s head, wires were not enough to keep the top C1 vertebra stacked correctly on top of the rest of the vertebrae. In a healthy spine a network of ligaments keeps the vertebrae properly stacked, but once torn or overstretched they never recover their former strength. Instead, Askin finished the surgery by grafting a 7.6-centimeter fragment of one of Jaxon’s ribs onto the joint. The rib bone, laid against the back of the vertebrae with one end over each to form a bridge over the in-between joint, will continue to grow into the two vertebrae and eventually fuse them together. They will no longer be able to move independently of one another but children’s necks are so flexible that Jaxon’s other vertebral joints will compensate, and with continuous use will keep the ligaments flexible. His rib will grow back, too. From hospital to home Just three weeks after the devastating accident, Jaxon was able to not only leave the hospital, but even leave Brisbane for his home in the small town of Moranbah. His hometown’s tiny 12-bed hospital will regularly send x-rays to Askin to verify that Jaxon’s spine is staying in the correct position while he wears the halo brace for three months. After that, Jaxon should need no physiotherapy or extra treatment. Aside from not being able to play rugby or engage in other activities that could cause whiplash-style injuries, he should be able to live a normal life No one knows why Jaxon’s spinal cord bent instead of tearing. Askin says it was the worst case of C1–C2 dislocation he has seen, and he has trouble imagining the separation between the vertebrae at the crash scene, which was undoubtedly worse than the extent of injury he encountered when Jaxon arrived at the hospital before emergency responders immobilized the child’s neck. “How the spinal cord managed to go around that corner and survive is a miracle really,” he says. “He’s just really, really lucky.”

– In mid-September, Rylea Taylor and her two children survived a 70mph head-on collision in Australia. But when Rylea pulled 16-month-old Jaxon out of the wreckage, she didn't need to be an expert to see her son's neck was broken. Indeed, his top two vertebrae were fractured, and both they and the boy's head were completely detached from Jaxon's spinal column. Still, he was alive and somehow not paralyzed—though the slightest wrong movement could have permanently damaged nerves—so the doctor known as Australia’s "godfather" of spinal surgery, Geoffrey Askin, pulled off a six-hour operation at the Lady Cilento Children’s Hospital in Brisbane to reattach Jaxon’s skull to his spine. The story made headlines earlier this month—the Brisbane Times called it "somewhat of a miracle," while a Reuters story refers to the "miracle baby"—and now Scientific American has new details on how Askin's team managed it. Most people die from this "internal decapitation" because the brain signals that instruct the lungs to breathe don't reach their destination. With 68% of victims dying before they are even diagnosed, and another 22% in the hospital, Jaxon was among the 10% who survive. In children, high-speed car accidents cause 80% of these upper spinal dislocations, Askin says, with the secured child’s head flung forward. Among the survivors, paralysis is the norm, but somehow the nerves in Jaxon's spinal cord were intact. During surgery, a light, custom-made halo brace was screwed into his skull and the fragmented bones were carefully realigned. With surgical screws proving too large for Jaxon's bones, surgeons used the "primitive" approach of rejoining the bones with wire. They also had to use a piece of one of the boy's ribs to fuse two vertebrae together. Now Jaxon is able to walk, and, because he's still growing, he could recover fully. "He's just really, really lucky," Askin says. (Check out the weight-loss surgery performed on this toddler.)

Tesla Motors C.E.O. Elon Musk’s dream of uniting two of his businesses into a single clean energy company just became a reality. More than a month after Tesla made an all-stock offer to merge with SolarCity, the solar-energy company Musk co-founded with his cousins, C.E.O. Lyndon and C.T.O. Peter Rive, the two family companies are officially combining. According to a post Monday on SolarCity’s blog announcing the news, the deal will be worth $2.6 billion—$300 million less than Tesla’s initial bid—valuing SolarCity shares at $25.37 and creating “the world's only vertically integrated sustainable energy company.” The deal must still be approved by shareholders. The merger could be the Hail Mary that saves SolarCity and helps Musk move Tesla closer to his “master plan” for the company, which involves integrating solar energy into some of Tesla’s batteries. Both companies have faced challenges: Tesla has had difficulty expanding its production capacity and has had problems delivering its products to customers; it also faces formidable competition from traditional automakers, which are expanding into autonomous-driving technology and electric-vehicle manufacturing—the very things that previously made Tesla unique. Meanwhile, short sellers like Jim Chanos have been criticizing SolarCity all year, comparing the company’s leasing model to subprime lending. SolarCity, the biggest U.S. installer of rooftop solar systems, lowered its earning outlook earlier in the year, and shares have fallen 52 percent in 2016 as sales have slowed. Musk, the largest single shareholder in SolarCity, has said that combining the companies will “remove conflicts of interest” and create more opportunities for both. “We expect to achieve cost synergies of $150 million in the first full year after closing [the deal],” Tesla said in its own blog post Monday. “We also expect to save customers money by lowering hardware costs, reducing installation costs, improving our manufacturing efficiency and reducing our customer acquisition costs. We will also be able to leverage Tesla’s 190-store retail network and international presence to extend our combined reach.” “Synergies” could also euphemistically mean that layoffs are eventually coming to the companies. At the end of 2015, SolarCity had 15,273 employees, and Tesla had 13,058—but in the interim, Musk seems optimistic about the merger. "When I think of a combined automotive and power-storage and power-generation company and the potential for Tesla to be a $1 trillion company in market cap,” he said in June. In the meantime, Wall Street shouldn’t expect any further consolidation of Musk’s companies. “Never,” he said on Twitter when a follower asked when one could expect a SpaceX/Tesla merger. “There is no product rationale for doing so.” ||||| FILE - In a Sept. 29, 2015 file photo, Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla Motors Inc., talks about the Model X car at the company's headquarters, in Fremont, Calif. On Monday, Aug. 1, 2016, Tesla and SolarCity announced... (Associated Press) FILE - In a Sept. 29, 2015 file photo, Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla Motors Inc., talks about the Model X car at the company's headquarters, in Fremont, Calif. On Monday, Aug. 1, 2016, Tesla and SolarCity announced they have entered into an agreement under which Tesla will acquire SolarCity. Tesla will pay... (Associated Press) FILE - In a Sept. 29, 2015 file photo, Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla Motors Inc., talks about the Model X car at the company's headquarters, in Fremont, Calif. On Monday, Aug. 1, 2016, Tesla and SolarCity announced they have entered into an agreement under which Tesla will acquire SolarCity. Tesla will pay... (Associated Press) FILE - In a Sept. 29, 2015 file photo, Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla Motors Inc., talks about the Model X car at the company's headquarters, in Fremont, Calif. On Monday, Aug. 1, 2016, Tesla and SolarCity announced... (Associated Press) DETROIT (AP) — Tesla wants to put its car and energy storage businesses under one solar-powered roof. Tesla said Monday it will buy solar panel maker SolarCity Corp. in an all-stock deal worth $2.6 billion. The deal must still be approved by the government and shareholders at both companies. It's expected to close in the fourth quarter if it goes through. Thirteen-year-old Tesla currently makes two luxury vehicles — the Model S sedan and Model X SUV— as well as Powerwall and Powerpack energy storage units for homes and businesses. The company said Monday that a tie-up with SolarCity would create a one-stop shop for cleaner energy. With one service call, customers could get their solar panels installed and connected to a Powerwall, which preserves energy for later use. Users could also get the system hooked up to chargers for one of Tesla's vehicles. "This is really all part of solving the sustainable energy problem," said Elon Musk, the chairman and biggest shareholder of both companies, during a conference call. But some have questioned the wisdom of the deal, which combines two money-losing companies that already have a lot on their plates. Tesla is working feverishly on its new, lower-cost Model 3 sedan, which is due out by the end of next year, as well as pickups, electric buses and semi-trucks. It's in the midst of building one of the world's largest factories in Nevada to make batteries. And it's under investigation by the government after the semi-autonomous Autopilot system in its Model S failed to prevent a fatal crash in Florida. Ten-year-old SolarCity is the top provider of residential solar panels in the U.S., and installs about one-fifth of all commercial solar panels. But the company said Monday that it experienced lower-than-expected residential bookings in the first half of the year, so it's reducing its full-year guidance for megawatts installed. Others have questioned the conflicts of interest in the deal. Musk owns a 26 percent stake in Tesla Motors Inc., based in Palo Alto, California, and a 22.5 percent stake in SolarCity Corp., which is based in nearby San Mateo, California. Musk's cousins, Lyndon Rive and Peter Rive, run SolarCity. But Musk said the companies have synergies they can't take advantage of unless they're combined. "The point of the merger is to get rid of the conflicts," he said. "Until then it's very limited what we can do unless we are one company." Musk said he believes the companies could save $150 million to $200 million in the first year alone by streamlining manufacturing, sales and service. Customers could learn about SolarCity products at Tesla's 190 stores, for example, and save on installation costs because they'd be done more efficiently. Tesla also would give SolarCity access to international customers. SolarCity's stock slid more than 8 percent to $24.56 in afternoon trading Monday. Tesla's shares fell 1.3 percent to $231.71. Tesla's current offer values SolarCity's shares at $25.37. That's less than the $26.50 to $28.50 value it placed on them in June, when it made its initial overture to SolarCity. Musk said he had no role in establishing the value of the deal. "I know about as much as you do about how this price was obtained," he said. S&P Global raised its target price for SolarCity shares to $26 but reiterated its "sell" opinion on Tesla shares Monday, saying the deal benefits SolarCity more than Tesla. "We see benefits from a combined solar/storage offering and manufacturing efficiencies, but remain concerned about cash flow and capital needs," S&P analyst Efraim Levy said in a research note to investors. The deal may draw more attention to the financial position of both companies. Tesla has lost $1.2 billion in the past two years alone while SolarCity has suffered losses exceeding $1.1 billion during the same span. Analysts surveyed by FactSet are predicting a $416 million loss from Tesla this year while they believe SolarCity will lose $851 million. Rebecca Lindland, a senior analyst with Kelley Blue Book, said the deal addresses a tiny market for now. About 1 percent of the 17 million cars sold in the U.S. are electric and only 1.4 percent of single family homes have solar power. Those markets are expected to grow over time, she said, but in the meantime, both businesses are capital intensive and propped up by government incentives. Electric car buyers can currently get a $7,500 federal tax credit, for example, while solar panel buyers can deduct 30 percent of the cost of their installation from their federal taxes. "If anything happens with incentives or the economy in general, this could come crashing down even faster than others are projecting," Lindland said. SolarCity has a 45-day "go-shop" period in which it can solicit alternative acquisition proposals. It will have to pay Tesla a $78.2 million termination fee unless it ends the deal with Tesla in order to enter an agreement with a third party that initially made an alternative offer before the "go-shop" period ended. If that happens, SolarCity would pay a $26.1 million termination fee, according to a regulatory filing. Musk said if someone makes a better offer for SolarCity, he has committed to vote his shares with that offer. ||||| 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.

– Tesla wants to put its car and energy storage businesses under one solar-powered roof. Tesla said Monday it will buy solar panel maker SolarCity Corp. in an all-stock deal worth $2.6 billion, the AP reports. The deal must still be approved by the government and shareholders at both companies. It's expected to close in the fourth quarter if it goes through. Thirteen-year-old Tesla currently makes two luxury vehicles—the Model S sedan and Model X SU—as well as Powerwall and Powerpack energy storage units for homes and businesses. Musk owns a 26% stake in Tesla Motors Inc., based in Palo Alto, California, and a 22.5% stake in SolarCity Corp., which is based in nearby San Mateo, California. Musk's cousins, Lyndon Rive and Peter Rive, run SolarCity, which Musk helped to found. Tesla said Monday that a tie-up with SolarCity would create a one-stop shop for cleaner energy. With one service call, customers could get their solar panels installed and connected to a Powerwall, which preserves energy for later use. Users could also get the system hooked up to chargers for one of Tesla's vehicles. "This is really all part of solving the sustainable energy problem," said Elon Musk, the chairman and biggest shareholder of both companies, during a conference call. Vanity Fair is painting the deal as "a major step toward completing [Musk's] master plan," while the Los Angeles Times lays out the basics of that master plan: The merger "aims to create a vertically integrated company with a nationwide network of retail stores that sell electric automobiles, rooftop solar systems, wall-mounted storage units for backup power in the home and electric charging stations that channel energy from the sun to the car—most of it manufactured by Tesla itself."

New Zealand Surrogacy couple's pleas for help from Mexican 'hell hole' draw anger and offence New Zealand couple’s public claims of cockroach-infested facilities in a ‘dangerous’ country spark fierce response, including from their own lawyer The Give A Little homepage showing the triplings of New Zealand couple David and Nicky Beard, who have appealed for help to bring the children home from Mexico. Photograph: Give A Little A lawyer in Mexico acting for a New Zealand couple who have publicly appealed for money to help bring back surrogate “triplings” born there has questioned their claims they are stuck in a “dangerous country” and have suffered a traumatic experience in a “hell hole”. Gay couple in fight to bring 'triplings' home to New Zealand Read more David and Nicky Beard made headlines in March after travelling to Mexico to have triplings – three babies born from one set of sperm and one egg, but carried by different surrogates – and then publicly appealing for money when they ran into financial difficulties in what was described as a “third-world” country. By Monday a Give A Little online donations page set up for them had received more than $25,000 from nearly 700 donors. However, León Altamirano, the Beards’ lawyer who specialises in surrogacy law in Tabasco state, said: “There are no problems”. “They need to sign some affidavits and some consents for the adoption … but they are not stuck here … They already have the birth certificates and they have the apostille [authentification] of the birth certificate. They also have the CURP [Mexican identification] of the babies.” A fellow surrogacy father, named Jorge, who met the couple in Mexico at the registry said the pair spoke in glowing terms of their stay in Mexico and he found it offensive that they were later “telling a totally different story” in online reports. The Beards told website GayNZ how they had spent four years saving to have babies born via two women in Mexico but that one was born premature and required hospital care costing NZ$118,132 (£56,000), leaving them in debt. “We have spent every cent we have left to bring these three beautiful Kiwi babies into the world. We now need to get ourselves and the three babies out of this dangerous country and back to the safety of New Zealand,” the site quoted them as saying. They also said they had been abandoned by the surrogacy agency. In an online video, they introduced baby Lachlan and twins Blake and Kelly and said a combination of fraud and medical costs had left them $280,000 in debt. “I wanna come home desperately. I can’t express how much I want to come home,” said Nicky Beard, a lawyer who founded Auckland company Legal Street. David and Nicky Beard with their surrogate triplings. Grace Nixon, a friend of the Beards, is credited with setting up the Give A Little page, saying: “The problem now is that they are stranded in this third-world country with little or no finances left and another month or so of bureaucracy to get through.” “We now hope that with your help they can move things along and get their beautiful new family home to the safety of New Zealand.” Altamirano did not dispute that the Beards were in debt and had no money to bring the children home, but said the main remaining cost was notarising their documents, which costs about 15,000 or 20,000 pesos, or about NZ$1,700 (£800). “On the legal side, he has everything he needs,” he said. Altamirano then questioned the comments the couple had made in their appeal for help. “I didn’t understand why on the interview he said that at the place where the babies were born there were cockroaches. It’s a private clinic,” he said. “You can get everything here.” “He wrote something that this was a hell hole. I thought, ‘What’s wrong with you?’” “I’m pretty sure what he was trying to do was get the sympathy of the readers,” he said. “I don’t know what he is trying to do, but the truth isn’t all there.” A consular official said last week the couple had not sought assistance from the New Zealand embassy. A spokesperson for Mexico’s welfare agency, the Family Development Institute in Tabasco state, said the Beards had not made contact with them either and that it had no involvement in the case. Jorge, who also had a baby born through surrogacy in Tabasco state, met the Beards at the registry and said the couple’s public description of the Mexican facilities did not tally with what they had told him. Jorge, whose identity has been protected because he does not want his newborn to know of his surrogacy heritage until adulthood, said: “They said they had nothing but good things to say about the people in Mexico. We were staying at the same hotel and [they] said wonderful things about the hotel and that everywhere they went, people were kind and helpful.” I was surfing the web and found this news about these guys from New Zealand telling a totally different story. Jorge, surrogacy father who met the couple “It’s very nice to hear people from outside [the country] talk well of Mexico. I’m kind of shocked because I was surfing the web and found this news about these guys from New Zealand telling a totally different story. “I really got mad because you can’t do that ... I really feel offended … having someone say that their babies were born around cockroaches is really offensive.” Jorge also revealed the Beards spoke of their financial fears. “He told me that it was going to be a huge financial issue having three babies. He wasn’t prepared to have three babies and that when he went home he was going to try to become a judge because he was going to need the income.” Nixon, who set up the fundraising webpage, denied in an online posting that the Beards ever met Jorge. Alice Torres Meza, who coordinated the surrogacy process for Surrogacy Cancun Mexico, described the accusations of poor hygiene and cockroaches as “ludicrous” and said more than 100 couples in the past three years had no mention of such conditions. Torees Meza said the Beards were well aware that a premature birth would result in costs not covered in their contract. “It is listed in his contract, as part of his responsibility, he has known this all along. It is very unfortunate but, his parental responsibility,” she said. “We have two other gay couples that had their baby born during the same time, going through the passport process. They are very aware that it is a due process. No one is keeping them here for no other reason than the passport process, which their country request for a baby born abroad to enter their country.” Weeks before their appeal, a Facebook post on David Beard’s account voiced his frustration and anger. On 11 March, a post from Villahermosa: “Uncle Johnny we need you and your double barrel shot gun – not just for the crocs, for some of the Mexicans too.” As the saga unfolded, another post appeared on Beard’s Facebook account urging friends and family not to talk to the media, saying they were being harassed. “If you are contacted then tell all journalists: ‘No comment’ and hang up immediately!” it read. Last week, Nicky Beard spoke to The Guardian in a short Skype conversation. Before the chat, Beard emailed: “Get us out of this hell hole!” Speaking from his hotel room in Mexico he then said: “We want you to promote this headline. It will read, ‘LegalStreet lawyer comes out as father of triplings’. And the reason is, when I get home I need as much work as possible.” The Guardian has subsequently contacted the Beards and given them the opportunity to respond to the questions raised by others. They have not responded yet. ||||| An Auckland gay couple have welcomed the first ever ‘triplings’ into the world, but are desperately trying to find a way to bring them back to New Zealand as the babies - who were born to two different women in Mexico - are unable to leave the country. ‘Triplings' are born from the sperm of one man and one egg donor, but carried by two different surrogates.The men say they have spent four years saving to pay for bringing the children into the world and believe the adoption agency they were going through have abandoned them."We have spent every cent we have left to bring these 3 beautiful Kiwi babies into the world. We now need to get ourselves and the 3 babies out of this dangerous country and back to the safety of New Zealand,â€� they wrote in an online plea for help."Although I should be feeling blessed as a proud father, instead I feel ashamed, embarrassed, humiliated and humbled to be compelled to send out this post to my respected friends and colleagues."It's very hard to hold my head up in a situation where I fight for the underdog and now I need other people to support me."One of the babies was born premature and required hospital care costing the couple $118,132 and leaving them in debt, which they are fundraising to pay off. Other costs include travel to the capital to obtain passports for the babies, and DNA tests, reports Stuff.co.nz.Mexico was recently banned international surrogacy for homosexual couples, but the surrogates were pregnant before this law passed.The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade say there is nothing they can do to help the couple as this is an international surrogacy case but have provided them with advice. ||||| Share This What is probably the last case of legal surrogacy in Mexico since new legislation was approved in December, has turned into a nightmare for a New Zealand same sex couple, just as many others have done. The “triplings” were born to surrogate mums in Cancún, Quintana Roo, in an arrangement with their Auckland parents, David and Nicky Beard, and an Argentinian egg donor. The Beards have now decided to publicly identify themselves on Kiwi news website Stuff, to raise awareness of their battle. They believe they were the last gay couple allowed to use international surrogates to give birth to their children, as Mexico tightens its IVF laws to bring them in line with most other nations. David Beard, 41, the biological dad, is a prominent lawyer and the owner of Auckland law firm LegalStreet. His husband Nicky Leonard Beard, 32, is originally from Ireland. The couple issued a simple plea early on Tuesday morning: “David, Nicky, Lachlan, Blake and Kelly simply want to come home to their family.” One of their Irish friends set up a Givealittle fundraising page on Sunday, to coincide with the first publication of their story on Stuff and in the Sunday Star-Times. Speaking openly early on Tuesday March 29th, David Beard shared his emotions at becoming a father. “I cannot describe the feeling. It was beautiful. It was instant love and caring, like a lion with its cubs, I looked at them and could not believe that they had come from me. “I looked at their eyes and their faces and I cried. I only cry when I am happy – which is weird in itself! They are beautiful, and no matter how smelly the nappies are, they are still beautiful.” The couple desperately wanted to get their children home from Villahermosa, where they said they were born among cockroaches and in other unhygienic hospital conditions. They were pleading for help from friends and family around the world but, most of all, from the New Zealand and Mexican governments. The Mexican government has assured them they would be allowed to take the children out of the country, but the wheels were turning worryingly slowly. The New Zealand government has told them, essentially, buyer beware. International surrogacy is a dangerous business, and there are legal risks involved. The babies were carried by two different surrogates, producing a set of twins, Kelly and Blake born on March 5 and single child, Lachlan on March 1. But the couple say the Cancun adoption agency took off with all the money they had sent for medical and hospital bills, legal costs and care for the surrogates. The couple has engaged prominent family lawyer Margaret Casey QC to help fight their case, but it has been an uphill battle with government agencies. David Beard said even though he was a lawyer, the couple was finding the process extraordinarily challenging. “If the combination of David Beard and Margaret Casey QC can suffer this kind of conduct then the whole nation should fear for other prospective surrogacy parents who, whether gay or straight, are desperate for children – because this level of desperation is what the international surrogacy agencies bank on.” Speaking from Mexico, David Beard said it took the couple four years to get to this point. They have forked out tens of thousands of dollars to have the babies – but say they were abandoned by the agency’s surrogacy manager before the babies were born. They were horrified when Lachlan, born prematurely, was delivered in a local hospital infested with cockroaches. The newborn then required extra hospital care, to the tune of USD$79,000 (NZD$118,132) – leaving the couple in deep debt. “The sad thing was that I had to sit outside Lachlan’s neonatal ward, only catching glimpses through the pulled blind, but I sat there like a loyal dog. I can’t put it into words,” David said. The North American surrogacy company used by the couple has said it had no involvement in the case other than to pay bills to the Cancun agency for them. “In absolutely every instance, payments have been made on time, and in many cases early, as indicated in the agreement with their agency,” the company said. It said the Cancun agency was run by a female former employee – who disappeared, and whom the Beards had been unable to track down. “In the last couple of months of the pregnancy, she began to show her true colours. She would disappear for days and weeks on end. This was an alarming surprise for us and extremely stressful,” the couple said. The Beards said she vanished entirely around February when she received the final payment from the escrow – leaving the fathers in the lurch when Lachlan was born prematurely. They are now asking the public, friends and family to help fund raise to cover some of the costs, and to get home. “Despite being stranded in Mexico this story does have an exceptionally happy ending,” David Beard said. “[We] are the proud fathers of three beautiful babies, Lachlan, Blake and Kelly.” They had, he said, “achieved their dreams”. The couple were asking for Immigration Minister Michael Woodhouse to intervene, so the three babies could have New Zealand passports issued immediately by the NZ Embassy in Mexico City – “rather than having to go through the expensive and lengthy process of obtaining Mexican passports for babies who have no biological connection to Mexico”. “Hopefully they will all arrive home to the safety of New Zealand as soon as possible.” ​The Ministry of Social Development’s Paula Attrill said the New Zealand government was aware of the case and had provided advice to the Beards. “Their situation is typical of many international surrogacy cases. They can be highly complicated, involving other countries’ laws and procedures and involve a high degree of uncertainty,” she said. Attrill said any further assistance would be focused on the adoption process by the non-biological parent, once the children arrived in New Zealand. International surrogacy by homosexual couples was only recently banned in Mexico, but the Beards said government officials assured them they would be able to take the children home because the surrogates were already pregnant. The Beards were still confident that was the case – but they wanted to leave as soon as possible, hopefully within the next month. Source: stuff.co.nz Corpofaciales Comments comments ||||| Speaking from Mexico, David Beard tells the story of the couple's new babies, and why they want to come home. Meet Lachlan, Kelly and Blake: the newborns who are about to find themselves at the centre of an international legal storm. The "triplings" were born to surrogate mums in Mexico, in an arrangement with their Auckland parents, David and Nicky Beard, and an Argentinian egg donor. The Beards have now decided to publicly identify themselves on Stuff, to raise awareness of their battle. They believe they were the last gay couple allowed to use international surrogates to give birth to their children, as Mexico tightens its IVF laws to bring them in line with most other nations. SUPPLIED David (left) and Nicky Beard with their "triplings" Lachlan, Kelly and Blake. David Beard, 41, the biological dad, is a prominent lawyer and the owner of Auckland law firm LegalStreet. His husband Nicky Leonard Beard, 32, is originally from Ireland. The couple issued a simple plea early on Tuesday morning: "David, Nicky, Lachlan, Blake and Kelly simply want to come home to their family." READ MORE: * Surrogacy company denies help to Kiwi couple in 'triplings' row * Kiwi couple stuck overseas with three newborn surrogate babies One of their Irish friends set up a Givealittle fundraising page on Sunday, to coincide with the first publication of their story on Stuff and in the Sunday Star-Times. SUPPLIED David Beard and his daby daughter Kelly, born to a Mexican surrogate mother. Speaking openly early on Tuesday, David Beard shared his emotions at becoming a father. "I cannot describe the feeling. It was beautiful. It was instant love and caring, like a lion with its cubs, I looked at them and could not believe that they had come from me. "I looked at their eyes and their faces and I cried. I only cry when I am happy – which is weird in itself! They are beautiful, and no matter how smelly the nappies are, they are still beautiful." SUPPLIED Kelly and her brothers, Lachlan and Blake, were born to two different surrogates. The couple desperately wanted to get their children home from Villahermosa, where they said they were born among cockroaches and in other unhygienic hospital conditions. They were pleading for help from friends and family around the world but, most of all, from the New Zealand and Mexican governments. The Mexican government has assured them they would be allowed to take the children out of the country, but the wheels were turning worryingly slowly. The New Zealand government has told them, essentially, buyer beware. International surrogacy is a dangerous business, and there are legal risks involved. SUPPLIED Nicky (left) and David Beard have pleaded for the New Zealand government to help get their babies home from Mexico. The babies were carried by two different surrogates, producing a set of twins, Kelly and Blake born on March 5 and single child, Lachlan on March 1. But the couple say the Cancun adoption agency took off with all the money they had sent for medical and hospital bills, legal costs and care for the surrogates. The couple has engaged prominent family lawyer Margaret Casey QC to help fight their case, but it has been an uphill battle with government agencies. David Beard said even though he was a lawyer, the couple was finding the process extraordinarily challenging. "If the combination of David Beard and Margaret Casey QC can suffer this kind of conduct then the whole nation should fear for other prospective surrogacy parents who, whether gay or straight, are desperate for children – because this level of desperation is what the international surrogacy agencies bank on." Speaking from Mexico, David Beard said it took the couple four years to get to this point. They have forked out tens of thousands of dollars to have the babies – but say they were abandoned by the agency's surrogacy manager before the babies were born. They were horrified when Lachlan, born prematurely, was delivered in a local hospital infested with cockroaches. The newborn then required extra hospital care, to the tune of USD$79,000 (NZD$118,132) – leaving the couple in deep debt. "The sad thing was that I had to sit outside Lachlan's neonatal ward, only catching glimpses through the pulled blind, but I sat there like a loyal dog. I can't put it into words," David said. The North American surrogacy company used by the couple has said it had no involvement in the case other than to pay bills to the Cancun agency for them. "In absolutely every instance, payments have been made on time, and in many cases early, as indicated in the agreement with their agency," the company said. It said the Cancun agency was run by a female former employee - who disappeared, and whom the Beards had been unable to track down. "In the last couple of months of the pregnancy, she began to show her true colours. She would disappear for days and weeks on end. This was an alarming surprise for us and extremely stressful," the couple said. The Beards said she vanished entirely around February when she received the final payment from the escrow - leaving the fathers in the lurch when Lachlan was born prematurely. They are now asking the public, friends and family to help fund raise to cover some of the costs, and to get home. "Despite being stranded in Mexico this story does have an exceptionally happy ending," David Beard said. "[We] are the proud fathers of three beautiful babies, Lachlan, Blake and Kelly." They had, he said, "achieved their dreams". The couple were asking for Immigration Minister Michael Woodhouse to intervene, so the three babies could have New Zealand passports issued immediately by the NZ Embassy in Mexico City – "rather than having to go through the expensive and lengthy process of obtaining Mexican passports for babies who have no biological connection to Mexico". "Hopefully they will all arrive home to the safety of New Zealand as soon as possible." ​The Ministry of Social Development's Paula Attrill said the New Zealand government was aware of the case and had provided advice to the Beards. "Their situation is typical of many international surrogacy cases. They can be highly complicated, involving other countries' laws and procedures and involve a high degree of uncertainty," she said. Attrill said any further assistance would be focused on the adoption process by the non-biological parent, once the children arrived in New Zealand. International surrogacy by homosexual couples was only recently banned in Mexico, but the Beards said government officials assured them they would be able to take the children home because the surrogates were already pregnant. The Beards were still confident that was the case – but they wanted to leave as soon as possible, hopefully within the next month. ||||| A friend in need. I'm hoping to help my best friend and his family get home safely following the births of their babies abroad. My name's Grace and I've created this page in the hope that I can get some help for my best friend, his husband and their new family. They are a happily married gay Kiwi couple who have been blessed with "Triplings" via a surrogacy arrangement overseas. "Triplings" are 3 babies born using the same eggs and sperm implanted in multiple surrogate mothers. They chose to use 2 surrogate mothers as there is roughly a 30% chance of success per embryo. This was their second attempt. This time 3/4 implanted embryos were successful. Unfortunately the Agency that was supposed to help them left them stranded on arrival for the births of their babies and they went into hiding with their final payments for the births. This meant that they had to pay all the birthing fees again along with the after care for the surrogate mothers. Along with this, their first born had complications and had to be rushed to another hospital to be put on a respirator. The Clinic that delivered him held them ransom by not letting the ambulance leave until they paid them more money. Their baby then had to spend 2 weeks in specialist care which cost them a huge amount of money which they hadn't budgeted on. Thankfully he has made a full recovery and is now with his parents, his brother and sister. The problem now is that they are stranded in this country with little or no finances left and another month or so of bureaucracy to get through. They also have an internal flight and accommodation requirements not to mention the hundreds of nappies. They have been getting great support from family and friends but we can only help so much. We now hope that with your help they can move things along and get their beautiful new family home to the safety of New Zealand.

– Ask David and Nicky Beard about their time in Mexico to bring their newborns home to New Zealand, and they'll tell you they're stuck in a "dangerous ... hellhole" and "third-world" nation they say has left them $190,000 in debt and abandoned by the Cancun surrogacy agent for their "triplings" (three babies created with one set of sperm and one egg, but carried by different surrogates), per the Guardian. Ask their Mexican lawyer (and others), however, and the response is: "There are no problems." It's an odd case, with the same-sex couple saying they lost four years' worth of savings not only on the process, but also through fraud: They claim their agent skipped out with money they paid for medical costs, which skyrocketed when one baby was born prematurely in what they say was a cockroach-infested hospital, per the Yucatan Times. The Beards, who first IDed themselves on Stuff, also said they had to fund DNA tests and travel to get the babies' passports, GayNZ.com notes. But Leon Altamirano, the Beards' surrogacy lawyer, is skeptical of what they're saying. Although he admits that the couple seems to be out of funds to bring their sons and daughter home, he says they're exaggerating their story to play on people's sympathies and that all that's left to pay is document notarization, which would cost around $1,100 (far less than the $19,000-plus donated on a fundraising page set up by a friend). "The truth isn't all there," Altamirano tells the Guardian. And their Cancun surrogacy coordinator says the men knew that a premature birth wasn't covered by their contract. Meanwhile, another dad who went through a surrogate there says he met the couple and they raved about Mexico and expressed fears about the costs of raising three kids. Both an official from the New Zealand Embassy and a rep for Mexico's welfare agency tell the Guardian the Beards haven't approached them for assistance. (A California surrogate refused to abort one of the fetuses she was carrying, per the biological dad's request.)

Facebook is just about ready to launch a questions and answers product it believes "will be as exciting as Facebook Photos and Facebook Events." In doing so, Facebook will likely squash Quora – a little Q&A site just out of beta that is one of the most talked about and admired startups in Silicon Valley. Of course, big Valley companies stomp little Valley companies all the time. What's odd about this particular smushing, though, is that one of Quora's two cofounders is Adam D'Angelo – the same Adam D'Angelo who grew up as Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's best friend. The pair went to Exeter together. Mark built his first very popular Web app, a proto-Pandora, together with Adam. When Mark was a Harvard sophomore about to create theFacebook.com, trying to figure what to do about a trio of Harvard seniors who wanted him to build a social network for them instead – who did he go to? He went to Adam. He asked him for advice over instant messenger. In one conversation, Adam basically gave Mark the idea for Facebook: Zuck: I wonder what the ideal solution is. Zuck: I think the Facebook thing by itself would draw many people, unless it were released at the same time as the dating thing. Zuck: In which case both things would cancel each other out and nothing would win. Any ideas? Like is there a good way to consolidate the two. D'Angelo: We could make it into a whole network like a friendster. haha. Stanford has something like that internally After Mark finally did create TheFacebook.com and it got very popular, very quickly, Adam was one of the handful of people he shared a house with in Palo Alto during the summer of 2004. Adam eventually became a Facebook employee. He got lots of stock. He became Facebook's first CTO. He quit the company. He re-joined it. He invented FBML, the first programming language for the Facebook platform. At one point, Mark risked an options back-dating scandal making sure Adam got Facebook stock he was due, but almost lost thanks to a paper work error. Now, along with another early Facebook employee, Charlie Cheever, Adam runs Quora. And together, they are standing directly under Facebook's heel. How did it come to this between such old friends? There are some theories. And, in an inevitible irony, these theories are answers to questions on Quora. Quora isn't anywhere near mainstream in the greater market, but in Silicon Valley, it's already huge with the insiders. Poke around for a few minutes and you can find people like Marc Andresseen, Chris Dixon, and Reid Hoffman spending time writing long answers for the site. So, when someone asked, "Why is Facebook creating a Q&A product to compete against Quora?", the most popular answer you'll find isn't from some arm-chair executive, but Facebook's director of product Blake Ross himself. Blake's answer is exactly what you'd expect from a self-decieving, California cool business exec. He writes, "I'm not someone who's driven by 'killing' someone else's baby. There are too many new and exciting things to give birth to. I was one of Quora's earliest users, and like everyone else here, I'm now an addict. I'm also friends with Quora's founding team. You can bet I'll be rooting them on in their inevitable march to success." Because Quora allows users to answer questions anonymously, you'll also find nastier, more interesting, and perhaps more honest stuff like this answer to the same question: [Facebook's Q&A] project is basically a "f--k you" from Zuck to some employees who left and a manifestation of Blake Ross's insecurities. Nothing Blake has worked on has launched and so his strategy here is to copy something that's getting a lot of hype. Questions isn't a priority and so the only people working on it are people who weren't good enough to be on higher priority projects. It's such a clone of Quora that people inside the company have even called the project "quora" by accident a few times. While it would be great fun to believe that Facebook, a $25 billion company company with $2 billion revenues and 1,600 employees, is really planning to squash Quora as a "screw you" to two early employees who left the company, we don't believe it – just like we don't believe Blake when he preaches all that "we don't reallly want to compete" junk. Here's the reality: Mark and Adam got along as teenagers and twenty-somethings because they're both brilliant and the tend to be interested in building the same kind of Web apps. Even after Facebook began to get very popular in 2004, Mark still prefered to spend his time working with Adam on a file-sharing service called Wirehog. Quora and Facebook's Q&A product are just another example of the two having the same idea at the same time. It's only different in this instance because Adam isn't ceding control over to Mark. Why? In The Facebook Effect, a new book about Facebook's founding, cofounder Chris Hughes explains: "Working with Mark is very challenging. You're never sure if what you're doing is something he likes or doesn't like. It's so much better to be friends with Mark than to work with him." Meet Facebook's (soon-to-be) billionaires → ||||| By signing up you indicate that you have read and agree to Quora's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

– Facebook is working on a new questions and answers product that, it promises, “will be as exciting as Facebook Photos and Facebook Events.” It might also happen to totally destroy Quora, the Q&A startup that’s become the darling of Silicon Valley. Which is interesting, because Quora happens to have been co-founded by Adam D’Angelo, Facebook’s first CTO, and a longtime friend and one-time roommate of Mark Zuckerberg. In fact, Nicholas Carson of Business Insider has found an old IM conversation in which D’Angelo essentially comes up with the idea for Facebook. Zuckerberg was trying to decide what to do with the domain name. “We could make it into a whole network like a friendster,” D’Angelo suggested. “haha. Stanford has something like that internally.” Some have theorized that bad blood cropped up when D’Angelo left Facebook, but Carlson thinks it’s more likely that the two simply came up with the same idea, again.

The ship was en route to the Bahamas. A 29-year-old man was killed Friday night when he fell aboard a ship heading from the Port of Palm Beach to Freeport in the Bahamas, authorities confirmed Monday. The incident occurred at about 8 p.m. Friday aboard the Bahamas Paradise Cruise Line's 1,680-passenger Grand Classica, U.S. Coast Guard spokesman John Lally said. He said a boat from the Coast Guard's Lake Worth station traveled to the ship, then 13 miles east of the port, and then brought the man to shore. Local paramedics took him by ground to St. Mary's Medical Center in West Palm Beach, where he was pronounced dead, Lally said. He did not have the man's name, age or hometown. Riviera Beach Fire-Rescue could not immediately provide any information about the incident. Marcia Lehmann of Singer Island, who had been aboard with her husband, Robert, celebrating his 70th birthday, said Monday she was coming out of a show on the eighth deck when a "code blue" alert came over the intercom. "I'm thinking someone had a heart attack," Marcia Lehmann said. She said she saw crowds around a stairway and looked down. "All we could see was pools and pools of blood and (part of) a white sheet," she said. "He fell above us, so it had to have been either the 10th or 11th (deck)." A spokesman for the cruise line would not provide any information except to say the Coast Guard evacuated a passenger "due to a medical emergency" and then continued to Grand Bahama Island, and to add that "our thoughts and prayers go out to the guest’s family at this time. We commend the crew and U.S. Coast Guard for their swift response." The Grand Classica and its sister ship, the Grand Celebration, began operations in April. Bahamas Paradise Cruise Line is the only provider of year-round two-night cruises and cruise and resort stays from the Port of Palm Beach to Grand Bahama Island. The company is projected to carry more than 500,000 passengers annually and be the largest contributor to tourism in Grand Bahama Island. ||||| A Florida man was just months away from marrying the love of his life when he tragically fell to his death while aboard a cruise ship traveling to the Bahamas on Friday, the Associated Press reported. Christopher McGrory, 29, was celebrating his bachelor party with friends on the Paradise Cruise Line’s Grand Classica ship at the time of his death, according to Palm Beach Post. His wedding was planned for December 1. Get push notifications with news, features, and more. U.S. Coast Guard spokesman John Lally told the outlet guardsmen received a call about an incident that occurred around 8 p.m. nearly 13 miles away. Lally explained a boat from the Coast Guard’s Lake Worth station rushed to the ship and McGrory was transported to shore, Palm Beach Post reported. McGrory fell on the ship onto a lower deck and did not fall overboard. He was then taken to St. Mary’s Medical Center where he was pronounced dead. Passengers aboard the ship recall hearing a “code blue” alert after McGrory’s fall. “I’m thinking someone had a heart attack,” Marcia Lehmann, who was aboard the ship with her husband Robert, said to Palm Beach Post before adding she saw crowds of people gathered around a stairway. Grand Classica ship Kefalonitis94/Wikimedia “All we could see was pools and pools of blood and [part of] a white sheet,” Lehman continued. “He fell above us, so it had to have been either the 10th or 11th [deck].” The cruise line did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment, but a spokesman told Palm Beach Post the Coast Guard “evacuated a passenger due to a medical emergency.” The ship then continued to its destination. “Our thoughts and prayers go out to the guest’s family at this time. We commend the crew and U.S. Coast Guard for their swift response,” the spokesman added. RELATED: Four Americans Killed in ‘Nightmare’ Rafting Accident During Bachelor Party Trip to Costa Rica McGrory’s fiancée Jessica Arnett opened up about his sudden death on Facebook writing, “With a heavy, heavy broke heart, it kills me to write this as it all seems surreal but I should tell you all my sweet Chris was in a tragic accident and has passed away.” For the last several years, McGrory worked as a collateral analyst at Wells Fargo in Fernandina Beach. He attended Florida State University as did his fiancée. “I’m at a loss for words, that man was my true love and my best friend. Please keep us all in your prayers,” Arnett said. ||||| See more of Jessica Arnett on Facebook ||||| The 29-year-old man fell Friday night aboard a ship headed to the Bahamas from the Port of Palm Beach. The man who died Friday night aboard a cruise ship was at a bachelor's party in advance of his Dec. 1 wedding, his fiancee's grandmother said Tuesday. Christopher McGrory, 29, reportedly fell Friday night aboard the Bahamas Paradise Cruise Line’s 1,680-passenger Grand Classica, heading from the Port of Palm Beach to Freeport in the Bahamas. The U.S. Coast Guard said a boat from its station in Riviera Beach traveled with a crew from Riviera Beach Fire-Rescue to the ship, then 13 miles east of the port, and brought the man to shore. Paramedics took him by ground to St. Mary’s Medical Center in West Palm Beach, where he was pronounced dead. Riviera Beach Fire-Rescue has not provided details about the incident. McGrory, who grew up in Palm Beach County, met Jessica Arnett about four years ago in Tallahassee, where both were working after having graduated Florida State University, her grandmother, Jean Arnett, said Tuesday morning from Yulee. In 2013, school records show, McGrory received a bachelor's degree in finance from FSU. According to McGrory's page on the Linkedin professional database, he is an analyst for Wells Fargo and has worked there since the summer of 2015. In addition to his FSU degree, the page says he received an associate of arts in business administration from Palm Beach State College. A manager at the Wells Fargo bank in Fernandina Beach said Tuesday she was not authorized to comment. Jean Arnett said her family has for years lived on 50 acres in Yulee, a community northwest of Jacksonville. She said McGrory moved to the property soon after meeting Jessica and was working at a bank in nearby Fernandina Beach. The wedding was to be in Yulee. Arnett said she heard only sketchy details about what happened on the ship but did say one of the members of the wedding party was McGrory's brother. Jean Arnett said the last few days have not been easy for her granddaughter. "How could it be?" she said. "He was the love of her life." McGrory's father, Brian McGrory, said Tuesday he was not up to talking. The Martin Funeral Home in Stuart said Tuesday that a visitation for McGrory was set for 6 to 8 p.m. today, with services set for 11 a.m. Wednesday. The Coast Guard so far has not provided either McGrory's name or hometown and said it will not release information about what might have happened on the ship while its investigation is open. The cruise line also has not identified McGrory or provided information about what happened but did express its "thoughts and prayers" for the man's family. The Grand Classica and its sister ship, the Grand Celebration, began operations in April. Staff researcher Melanie Mena contributed to this story.

– With less than two months to go until his wedding, Florida's Christopher McGrory boarded Bahamas Paradise Cruise Line's Grand Classica ship planning to celebrate his last days as a bachelor. But the party was short-lived, per the Palm Beach Post. In what his fiancee calls "a tragic accident," the 29-year-old groom-to-be fell from the ship heading from Palm Beach to Freeport in the Bahamas around 8pm Friday, landing on a lower deck. One passenger who recalled seeing "pools and pools of blood" said he fell from the 10th or 11th deck, per the Post. The US Coast Guard rushed from its Lake Worth station to the ship, 13 miles from port, and transported McGrory to shore. He was later pronounced dead at a hospital. "Our thoughts and prayers go out to the guest's family at this time," a spokesman for the cruise line says, per People. Meanwhile, McGrory's fiancee, Jessica Arnett, describes "a heavy, heavy broken heart" in a Facebook post. "I'm at a loss for words, that man was my true love and my best friend. Please keep us all in your prayers," she writes. Her grandmother tells the Post that the couple, both graduates of Florida State University, were much in love, having met four years ago in Tallahassee. Instead of the expected Dec. 1 wedding date in Yulee, McGrory's funeral is set for 11am Wednesday in Stuart. (Another bachelor party this month in Costa Rica ended with the deaths of four celebrants.)

An "appalled" Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton said Thursday that police wouldn't have shot and killed Philando Castile if he'd been white and called for justice "with the greatest sense of time urgency." Castile, who was about to turn 33, was killed Wednesday during a traffic stop in Falcon Heights, a suburb of the Twin Cities. He died at a hospital after the incident, which occurred about 9 p.m. (10 p.m. ET) Wednesday. The Hennepin County medical examiner's office said in an autopsy report late Thursday that Castile, 32, died of multiple gunshot wounds. It classified his death as a homicide. Castile's fiancée, Diamond Reynolds, recorded the aftermath of the incident on live video. She said Castile was shot five times as he sat at the steering wheel reaching into his back pocket for his ID. ||||| FILE - In this July 6, 2016 file photo, President Barack Obama speaks in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington. The fatal police shootings of two black men in Louisiana and Minnesota show... (Associated Press) FILE - In this July 6, 2016 file photo, President Barack Obama speaks in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington. The fatal police shootings of two black men in Louisiana and Minnesota show... (Associated Press) WASHINGTON (AP) — The fatal police shootings of two black men in Louisiana and Minnesota show the U.S. has a "serious problem," President Barack Obama said Thursday. He said he shares feelings of "anger, frustration and grief" that police killings have triggered across the country. In his first public reaction to the shootings, Obama said it is clear they were not isolated incidents, adding that the U.S. had "seen such tragedies far too many times." He said all Americans should be "deeply troubled" by the deaths in Baton Rouge and suburban St. Paul. "They are symptomatic of the broader challenges within our criminal justice system, the racial disparities that appear across the system year after year, and the resulting lack of trust that exists between law enforcement and too many of the communities they serve," Obama wrote in a Facebook post. Obama's diagnosis of the problem reflected a growing sense of frustration and willingness to speak out publicly about police killings despite the risk of making law enforcement officers feel under attack. The White House has sought to avoid weighing in on specific cases, particularly while they're being investigated, and Obama said he was limited in what he could say about the facts. Early in his presidency, Obama caused a major stir when he said a Massachusetts officer had "acted stupidly" in arresting a black Harvard University professor at his home. Yet despite Obama's efforts to bridge misunderstandings between African-Americans and the police, the problem clearly persists, and the wide use of cellphone cameras and social media has thrust the issue further into public view. In 2014, Obama created a task force to develop modern policing guidelines, and he urged local communities and policing agencies to implement those recommendations drafted by the Justice Department. "To admit we've got a serious problem in no way contradicts our respect and appreciation for the vast majority of police officers who put their lives on the line to protect us every single day," Obama said. "It is to say that, as a nation, we can and must do better to institute the best practices that reduce the appearance or reality of racial bias in law enforcement." Obama said he is "encouraged" that the Justice Department is conducting a civil rights investigation into the incident in Louisiana, where 37-year-old Alton Sterling was fatally shot Tuesday as he tussled with two white officers outside a convenience store in a predominantly black neighborhood. The shooting was caught on tape and went viral online. On Wednesday in Minnesota, a man identified as 32-year-old Philando Castile was shot to death during a traffic stop. His girlfriend posted video of the aftermath of his killing live on Facebook, saying he had been shot "for no apparent reason" while reaching for his wallet as an officer had asked. Obama has wrestled for much of his presidency with the policing issue, the "Black Lives Matter" movement and his role as the first black president in responding to it. After the issue burst into the spotlight in 2012 with the shooting of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in Florida, Obama insisted the U.S. take the issue seriously and added, "If I had a son, he'd look like Trayvon." ___ Reach Josh Lederman on Twitter at http://twitter.com/joshledermanAP ||||| "No one begins their life as a hashtag. Yet the trend of being reduced to one continues." In times of despair, people look upwards to those in power, their idols and celebrities for hope and clarity. Last night, Drake posted a letter in light of the Alton Sterling and Philando Castile shootings, calling for “open and honest dialogue.” “I am grateful to be able to call America my second home,” Drake’s letter begins. “Last night when I saw the video of Alton Sterling being killed it left me feeling disheartened, emotional, and truly scared. I woke up this morning with a strong need to say something.” The rapper then pointed out how the “strained” relationship between “black and brown communities” and law enforcement hasn’t improved in decades. He also noted that all too often, people are reduced to hashtags when their lives are taken as a result of police brutality. “This is real and I’m concerned,” Drake writes. “Concerned for the safety of my family, my friends, and any human being that could fall victim to this pattern. I do not know the answer. But I believe things can change for the better. Open and honest dialogue is the first step.” Thoughts and prayers are with the Sterling and Castile families and those close to them. Read Drake’s letter in full here, via Instagram. ||||| Beyoncé performing at Super Bowl 50 -- (CBS screenshot) Pop music icon Beyoncé is using her website to call for action and express outrage over this week’s killings by police of two African-American men, Alton Sterling and Philando Castile. “We don’t need sympathy,” she wrote. “We need everyone to respect our lives.” The singer, whose video and performances for the song “Formation” have drawn criticism from police, continued, “We’re going to stand up as a community and fight against anyone who believes that murder or any violent action by those who are sworn to protect us should consistently go unpunished.” She then called for unity. “This is a human fight,” she wrote. “No matter your race, gender or sexual orientation. This is a fight for anyone who feels marginalized, who is struggling for freedom and human rights.” She called the killings by police of people of color a “war” that “needs to be over.” Read the entire statement on her home page, here. ||||| The Resistance web archive is a thematic collection, created by Columbia University Libraries, of websites documenting and embodying grass roots political resistance activities in the United States arising in the wake of the election and inauguration of Donald Trump. Includes selected web resources focused on: protest/demonstration planning; calls to action and guidelines for political participation by citizens; official statements in response to controversial executive orders; and campaigns to contain and mitigate the effects of specific dramatic policy shifts. Archiving of selected websites began in April 2017, wtih periodic re-crawls of those websites that continue to be updated, and new websites added to the collection as they are identified.

– With two deadly shootings of black men at the hands of police caught on tape this week, the country is reacting with outrage, sadness, and protests. Here's how some politicians, celebrities, and others—including President Obama and Beyoncé—addressed the deaths of Philando Castile in Minnesota and Alton Sterling in Louisiana: Obama expressed his "anger, frustration, and grief" over the killings. “They are symptomatic of the broader challenges within our criminal justice system, the racial disparities that appear across the system year after year, and the resulting lack of trust that exists between law enforcement and too many of the communities they serve," the AP quotes the president as saying. Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton says race absolutely played a part in Castile's death. "Would this have happened if those passengers, the driver were white?" NBC News quotes Dayton as saying. "I don't think it would have." Raw Story reports Beyoncé is asking for respect, not sympathy, in what she describes as a "war." “This is a human fight,” she says. “No matter your race, gender or sexual orientation. This is a fight for anyone who feels marginalized, who is struggling for freedom and human rights.” Shaun King at the New York Daily News writes that the killings have left America at a "boiling point." “A few hours ago my wife asked me if we could just leave the country for good. It wasn't a rhetorical question, but a serious, sobering, painful one coming from a distraught black mother of five young black children.” In a Facebook post, Sen. Elizabeth Warren calls for action: “I’ll never personally experience or fully understand the fear and pain that black Americans feel every day. But I also know that we can no longer ignore this ugly reality.” And Drake is worried about America, his "second home." “This is real and I’m concerned,” VH1 quotes the musician as saying. “Concerned for the safety of my family, my friends, and any human being that could fall victim to this pattern."

First lady Melania Trump’s office is sending a strong and clear message when it comes to Rudy Giuliani: Mrs. Trump speaks for herself, thank you very much. Interested in Melania Trump? Add Melania Trump as an interest to stay up to date on the latest Melania Trump news, video, and analysis from ABC News. Add Interest On Wednesday when addressing a conference in Tel Aviv, Israel, Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani was asked about first lady's reaction to an alleged affair between Trump and porn star Stormy Daniels. Giuliani replied, the first lady “believes her husband, and she knows it’s untrue. I don't even think there's a slight suspicion that it's true. But Thursday, the first lady’s spokesperson forcefully swatted back. “I don’t believe Mrs. Trump has ever discussed her thoughts on anything with Mr. Giuliani,” Stephanie Grisham, communications director for the first lady, told ABC News. Mrs. Trump, who just Wednesday re-emerged for the first time after weeks out of the spotlight, has not discussed the alleged sexual encounter between Trump and Daniels in public. Mrs. Trump was a young mother at the time of the alleged affair. Mary Altaffer/AP Daniels went public about her relationship with Trump early this year in an attempt to void a nondisclosure agreement and bring attention to a $130,000 hush money payment the president's lawyer made just weeks before the 2016 presidential election. Trump now admits he reimbursed his lawyer, Michael Cohen, for the payment. In Israel, Giuliani went on to criticize Daniels’ credibility and allegation she had an affair with Trump because she is a porn star. Doug Mills/The New York Times via Redux “Look at his three wives. Beautiful women. Classy women. Women of great substance. Stormy Daniels?” Giuliani said while shaking his head. “I’m sorry I don’t respect a porn star the way I respect a career woman or a woman of substance or a woman who has great respect for herself as a woman and as a person and isn’t going to sell her body for sexual exploitation.” Daniels’ attorney Michael Avenatti replied by calling Giuliani a “misogynist” on Twitter. “Mr. Giuliani is a misogynist. His most recent comments regarding my client, who passed a lie detector test and who the American people believe, are disgusting and a disgrace. His client Mr. Trump didn’t seem to have any “moral” issues with her and others back in 2006 and beyond,” Avenatti tweeted. Mr. Giuliani is a misogynist. His most recent comments regarding my client, who passed a lie detector test and who the American people believe, are disgusting and a disgrace. His client Mr. Trump didn’t seem to have any “moral” issues with her and others back in 2006 and beyond. — Michael Avenatti (@MichaelAvenatti) June 6, 2018 On Thursday, Giuliani was asked to explain his comments. “So the point I made about her industry is, it's an industry in which you sell looks at your body for money. That's demeaning to women, the way I was brought up and the way I always believed the feminist movement has,” Giuliani said. “The only reason I answered it was to, I think, say what the vast majority of Americans would say to somebody engaged in the kind of behavior she’s been engaged in – which is looking for money.” ABC News' Ben Gittleson contributed to this report ||||| WASHINGTON — President Trump hired Rudolph W. Giuliani to speak for him. But no less than Mr. Trump’s wife and his chief diplomat spent Thursday explaining that Mr. Giuliani does not always know what he is talking about. Melania Trump, the first lady, let it be known that Mr. Giuliani has no idea how she feels about Stephanie Clifford, the pornographic film actress who goes by the name Stormy Daniels and says she had a sexual encounter with Mr. Trump, while Mike Pompeo, the secretary of state, made clear that Mr. Giuliani has nothing to do with North Korea policy. Their pushback came in response to the latest in a series of seemingly off-script moments by Mr. Giuliani, the former New York mayor who has joined the legal team representing Mr. Trump in the special counsel’s investigations into his campaign and associates. Mr. Giuliani has been something of a loose cannon, making public comments that surprised other advisers, were later contradicted or touched on matters beyond his ostensible mandate. At a conference in Israel this week, Mr. Giuliani said Mrs. Trump accepted her husband’s denial that he had any sexual liaisons with Ms. Clifford. “She believes her husband and she knows it’s untrue,” Mr. Giuliani said. That drew a sharp retort from the first lady’s office. “I don’t believe Mrs. Trump has ever discussed her thoughts on anything with Mr. Giuliani,” the first lady’s spokeswoman, Stephanie Grisham, said in an email to The New York Times.

– Rudy Giuliani spoke out on Stormy Daniels Wednesday—causing the office of Melania Trump to speak out on Rudy Giuliani. The first lady has never publicly discussed President Trump's alleged affair with the adult film star, and a spokeswoman made it clear Thursday that Giuliani wasn't speaking on behalf of Melania when he said the first lady "believes her husband, and she knows it’s untrue," ABC reports. "I don’t believe Mrs. Trump has ever discussed her thoughts on anything with Mr. Giuliani," said Stephanie Grisham, the first lady's communications director. Melania's response to Giuliani's remark was "unusually pointed," according to the New York Times, which notes that the first lady "did nothing to affirm that she did accept her husband’s explanation of what happened with Ms. Clifford." Giuliani also addressed Trump's upcoming summit with Kim Jong Un when he spoke to the press Wednesday. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo echoed Melania's office when he said Giuliani wasn't speaking for anybody else when he claimed Kim "got on his hands and knees and begged" for the summit to go ahead. "Rudy doesn't speak for the administration when it comes to this negotiation and this set of issues," he said.

The Dooley family: Cameron, Todd, Landon, Lori, and Brooke. (Photo: Family photo) CHESAPEAKE, Va. (WVEC) -- Police have identified six family members killed in a domestic murder-suicide in Chesapeake. Police say they were first called out to the 2300 block of Wildwood Road Wednesday around 3:35 p.m. to perform a welfare check on an individual. Upon arrival, police discovered the body of 22-year-old Landon Dooley inside. The residence was the home of Landon, his parents and his sister. Further investigation led officers about a block away to the home of Landon's grandmother, not far from the Portsmouth city line at the intersection of George Washington Highway North and Wintergreen Drive. An armed person -- later identified as 26-year-old Cameron Dooley -- was barricaded inside. Cameron and Landon are brothers. A police department spokeswoman says officers negotiated with the suspect for hours, and witnesses say they saw the SWAT team outside of the home. Police made their way inside early Thursday morning, where officers found five more bodies, including Cameron's. Friends and neighbors tell 13News Now all six people were members of the Dooley family, who were prominent in the community and members of the Temple Baptist Church of Chesapeake. On social media, friends and surviving relatives have shown outpouring of grief and condolences for the Dooley family. In addition to Cameron and Landon, police say the other victims were their parents, 50-year-old Steven Todd Dooley and 54-year-old Lori Dooley, as well as their sister, 17-year-old Brooke Dooley. Neighbors say the sixth victim was the grandmother, Doris. Family friend and neighbor says Dooley family was well known in the community and their church. Neighbors are in complete shock. — Marcella Robertson (@13MarcellaRob) January 28, 2016 Neighbors say the father, Steven Todd, was a Chesapeake Police Officer with the Marine Dive Unit who recently retired. "I'm still in shock," one neighbor tells 13News Now. "I don't know... it's too much." He went to work at a Dive Center as a repair technician -- a job he was eager to start following his retirement from the force. "He was the kind of guy with like a little grin under his big beard smile, but you could see it," said Lindsey Hillier-Hotchkiss, a co-worker of Todd's. "He always had it every day no matter what." 13News Now Eric Kane reports. Investigators believe the five victims were dead before police arrived and began negotiating with Cameron. The Medical Examiner's Office has ruled the cause of death of Cameron's family members to be gunshot wounds to the head, while Cameron died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the chest. Photo Gallery: Chesapeake family killed in murder-suicide 'Tears are just flowing' As police continue their investigation to find out what happened, friends and neighbors are telling us more about the Dooley family. We now know Brooke Dooley was a student at Deep Creek High School. On Twitter and Facebook, people are posting their condolences, remembering Brooke and the entire family. One person tweeted that the "tears are just flowing" Thursday at Deep Creek High, and that there is a just an overwhelming sense of sadness. Among the victims was a cheerleader from Deep Creek High School. From what we've gathered through social media, we know that Brooke was a girl who was dearly loved. She appeared to have a lot of friends, was on the cheerleading team, and seemed to be very involved. The cheer squad has its own Facebook page, and its profile picture was recently changed to a picture of Brooke, with comments from people talking about how great of person she was and how she will be dearly missed. The father of Brooke's boyfriend says it is tough and the community is hurting, but could not comment any further. 13News Now reached out to the school district to see if grief counselors were on site, but they said no information could be given, because this is an active and ongoing police investigation. Police say a family of six are dead in an apparent domestic murder-suicide in Chesapeake. Meanwhile, a candlelight vigil is planned at Temple Baptist Church on Saturday, January 30 at 5 p.m. A prayer service will then follow from 6 to 10 p.m. Temple Baptist's address is: 1322 George Washington Hwy N Chesapeake, Virginia 23323 Read or Share this story: http://on.wvec.com/1VtTso9 ||||| CHESAPEAKE A veteran of the police force and his wife of 29 years. Their daughter – a cheerleader – and their son, painted purple at football games in yearbook photos. A grandmother who helped build up the community’s church. Three generations of one family are gone, killed in a murder-suicide that spanned two crime scenes a block apart in Deep Creek. Police said Thursday that Cameron Dooley, 26, shot and killed his father, Steven Todd Dooley, 50; mother, Lori Dooley, 54; brother, Landon Dooley, 22; sister, Brooke Dooley, 17; and a fifth person neighbors identified as his grandmother, Doris Dooley. Then, after negotiating with police for hours through the night, Cameron fatally shot himself. It’s not clear when he fired the shots that killed his family. Monday was the last day Brooke was seen at school and the last time Todd showed up for work. He retired less than three months ago, after 25 years with the Chesapeake Police Department, and had started working at a dive shop in Virginia Beach. Neighbors said they felt stunned Thursday as the news spread through the community. Teenagers shared stories about Brooke. New co-workers spoke of Todd’s passion for diving. A lifetime of friends gathered at the church that Doris’ late husband led for decades. All asked why, but none had an answer. Related +4 Deep Creek community comes together at service for Dooley family A long line of people from the Deep Creek community joined together at Temple Baptist Church Thursday night to pray, hug and cry. The group supported one another and remembered members of the Dooley family, who died in a murder-suicide. ___ It began with a call to police Wednesday afternoon, someone asking for an officer to check on Todd and Lori’s house in the 2300 block of Wildwood Road. When officers arrived, they found Landon’s body inside. At 7 p.m. – about three and a half hours later – the investigation led police to his grandmother’s house one block away, at George Washington Highway and Wintergreen Drive. Cameron was barricaded inside, police said. Cheryl Harris, who lives on nearby Ferndale Road, said she was sitting in her living room Wednesday evening when she saw blue lights: police, fire, EMS. “I knew it was a bad situation because they all came in without sirens,” said Harris, a retired Portsmouth dispatcher. She watched as officers set up barricades and shut down traffic near the two houses. For hours, a negotiator spoke to Cameron over a loudspeaker, trying to get him to come outside. “Let’s talk,” Harris said she heard the negotiator saying. “We can work this out.” Harris heard no gunshots. About 2:10 a.m. Thursday, officers went in and found Cameron and the others dead. They said they think Cameron killed his family before police arrived at the scene. ___ Desiree Darst and her husband, who live a few doors down, couldn’t tell for sure which house police had surrounded Wednesday night because officers had blocked off much of the street. They were stunned when they realized it was the Dooley house on the corner. “I knew Todd, I used to babysit him,” Darst said. “He was really good friends with my brother.” Doris and her late husband, the Rev. Allen Dooley, moved to Chesapeake in the late 1960s. Allen was pastor of Temple Baptist Church down the street, and the couple built up the church community during their years there. Many Brentwood residents, including Darst’s grandfather, attended services there, she said. In the years after Allen died, Doris’ health began to decline, Darst said. Cameron moved in to help take care of her. He would walk from his grandmother’s house to his parents’ home about a block away. “That’s how we know him,” Darst said. “He’d stop by and talk. He’d come in and chit-chat.” They last saw him five days ago. Doris was planning to sell her house and move in with her daughter, Darst said. Relatives from North Carolina had been in town recently to help clear some items from the house. “It hasn’t sunk in yet,” Darst said. The old Deep Creek neighborhood, where residents all know and look after one another, is “still hanging on,” she added. “It won’t be the same.” Related +7 About the Dooley family Chesapeake police say six members of the Dooley family were found dead this week in a murder-suicide that took place at two houses in Deep Creek. This is what we know about them. ___ Todd Dooley had been an active member of the Police Department’s dive team and Marine Patrol unit. He retired on Nov. 1, said police spokeswoman Kelly O’Sullivan. This past fall, Todd started working full time at Lynnhaven Dive Center in Virginia Beach. Owner Lindsey Hillier Hotchkiss and service department manager Blake Hughes had known him for nearly 14 years. He came in a lot for recreational diving and to drop off equipment to be serviced for police. “We had been talking about him coming to work here for the past couple of years,” Hillier Hotchkiss said. “He was very excited about it.” Todd serviced the scuba equipment that was brought in by recreational divers and by public safety and military dive teams that they work with, Hillier Hotchkiss said. He already knew how to do a lot of it from his work with the police dive team. “He fit in perfect,” she said. “He was such a good team player and team member.” Todd liked to dive locally, as well as in the Florida Keys and at Bonaire in the Caribbean. He loved Jimmy Buffett and would go see him every time he came to town. Neither Hillier Hotchkiss nor Hughes knew why Todd didn’t come to work Tuesday or Wednesday. The center is laid back, and it’s not a big deal if someone doesn’t come in. Todd had been sick a couple of weeks ago and was out for a week then. He also had taken time off when his daughter was sick. “It was peculiar, but I didn’t think anything of it,” Hughes said. He just assumed Todd wasn’t feeling well. Luke Gray, a sales associate at the center, said Todd’s wife, Lori, worked at an orthodontist’s office in Virginia Beach. Gray was a patient of the office, and his sister works there. Lori was the one who put on his braces and took them off. “Lori was a very heartwarming, lovable person,” Gray said. “She had nothing but a smile on her face every time that I saw her. … She was like the mother hen of the office. She looked out for everyone.” Related Kerry Dougherty: The horror in Chesapeake There are no answers today. There may never be. A week, a month, a year from now, we’ll still struggle to understand what triggered the ghastly events in two Chesapeake houses this week. ___ Chesapeake Public Schools did not have any record of Cameron Dooley attending school in the division, spokeswoman Kellie Goral wrote in an email. Police have not said what may have motivated the shootings or how Cameron got the gun. Landon Dooley graduated from Deep Creek High School in 2012, according to a school yearbook. Pictures show him dressed up for skits at pep rallies and painted purple at football games. Brooke Dooley, who was studying nursing at Deep Creek High’s Science and Medicine Academy, would have turned 18 in February, according to her mother’s Facebook page. She was a varsity cheerleader at the high school. Deep Creek High graduates Devin Perkins and Marissa Bolen, who became good friends with Brooke several years ago, said she was goofy and talkative. “You wouldn’t be able to get a word in,” Bolen said. Often, she would get so excited when telling a story that she stuttered in an effort to talk faster. “We’d have to tell her to calm down,” Bolen said, laughing. The Dooleys treated Brooke’s friends like family and welcomed the teens into their home. “They were a church-oriented, loving family,” Perkins said. “You never went in that house and felt judgment.” On Thursday, purple paint stained the Dooleys’ driveway on Wildwood Road – remnants of an afternoon six years ago when Marissa and Brooke doodled on the concrete. Todd was mad at Brooke when he saw it, but not for long. “She had him wrapped around her finger,” Bolen said. “She was daddy’s little girl.” Pilot writers Cindy Clayton, Mike Connors, Mary Beth Gahan and Jane Harper contributed to this report. ||||| CHESAPEAKE, Va. (WAVY) — Forensics investigators were back at the scene Friday collecting more evidence from a Chesapeake home where a family was killed. Six members of the same family were found dead early Thursday morning following an apparent murder-suicide in the Deep Creek section of Chesapeake. The suspect has been identified as 26-year-old Cameron Dooley. He is accused of killing his 17-year-old sister Brooke, his 22-year-old brother Landon, his mother Lori, his father Steven “Todd” and his grandmother Doris Dooley. All of the victims were shot, according to police. Brooke Dooley and her father Todd Dooley were victims of a murder-suicide in Chesapeake, Va., according to a reliable WAVY News 10 source. Four other family members were killed, police say. (Photo courtesy: Facebook) Brooke Dooley was the victim of a murder-suicide in Chesapeake, Va., according to a reliable WAVY News 10 source. Five other family members were killed, police say. (Photo courtesy: Facebook) Doris Dooley was the victim of a murder-suicide in Chesapeake, Va., according to a reliable WAVY News 10 source. Five other family members were killed, police say. (Photo courtesy: Facebook) Lori Dooley and her daugher Brooke Dooley were among six family members killed in a murder-suicide in Chesapeake. The investigation began on Jan. 27, 2016. (Photo courtesy: Facebook) Landon Dooley was the victim of a murder-suicide in Chesapeake, Va., according to a reliable source. Five other family were killed. (Photo courtesy: Facebook) Brooke Dooley was the victim of a murder-suicide in Chesapeake, Va. Five other family members were killed, police say. (Photo courtesy: Facebook) Cameron Dooley is believed to have killed five members of his family then himself. The investigation into the murder-suicide began Jan. 27, 2016. (Photo courtesy: Facebook) Investigators are now working to put together the timeline of the incident as well as a possible motive for the shooting. On Thursday, police released a preliminary timeline of the events leading up to the discovery that the family members had been killed. According to Kelly O’Sullivan with Chesapeake Police, officers were called to the 2300 block of Wildwood Road around 3:35 p.m. Wednesday to check on the welfare of a person. That is when they found Landon Dooley dead inside the home. Photos: Six dead in Chesapeake murder-suicide Further investigation by police at Wildwood Road led them to another home at the intersection of North George Washington Highway and Wintergreen Drive — a few blocks from the first scene. Once there, officers found an armed person who would not come out of the home, now identified as Cameron Dooley. Police blocked off the neighborhood and tried to negotiate with the person to get him to come out of the house. After several hours, officers entered the home in the early morning hours of Thursday, and found five people dead — including Cameron, who shot himself. According to O’Sullivan, investigators believe Cameron killed his family members before officers got to the home Wednesday evening. “We lived across the street from them about eight years ago or seven years, and I knew them and I went to school with them, and it was like I didn’t believe it,” said Brittni Phillips who attended Deep Creek High School with Cameron Dooley. Phillips added, “They were a church family. It’s something that you don’t expect coming from a family like that. They were a very close-knit family and had a lot of ties to the community. A WAVY Viewer sent 10 On Your Side an 18-minute video from the night of the incident: “I heard the loud speakers from the SWAT team. I heard some shots,” said Kimberly Karika, who lives nearby. “I live on Canal and so I heard most of what went on, so I was up a lot of the night and heard everything that was going on…I just couldn’t believe it; I was in complete shock.” Investigators say they believe this all stemmed from a domestic incident. Medical examiners arrived on the scene at Wintergreen Drive around 6:45 a.m. to remove the victims’ bodies from the home. At one point, a local chaplain went out to the scene to talk to police officers. The deadly shooting has left residents of the Deep Creek community shocked. Ben Pilkington was friends with the youngest victim, 17-year-old Brooke Dooley, who was a cheerleader at Deep Creek High School. He said, “She was a great person and never hurt anybody.” Todd Dooley was a former Chesapeake Marine Police Officer. “I describe him as an all round great guy,” said Lindsey Hillier-Hotchkiss. “He was a church going, good family man and loved his work as a police officer.” Todd retired from the department and started working at the Lynnhaven Dive Center in Virginia Beach in October. He didn’t show up for work on Tuesday. It is unknown why. Family friends said the grandmother, Doris Dooley, was very involved in her church Temple Baptist right down the street from her home. Her late husband was once pastor of the church. A neighbor across the street talked to 10 On Your Side’s Rico Bush, and gave his reaction to the traumatic events. “It’s crazy, it’s too much. I’m right beside it,” Demetrius Peacock said. “My family and I don’t feel safe.” A man who lives near the house on Wintergreen said, “It hits Deep Creek hard. But, knowing Deep Creek, we’re going to be able get through this. We just have to be able to get away from the sad parts, and look at the memories of Brooke her family — and remember the good things about them.” A vigil was held for the family Thursday night at the Temple Baptist parking lot. A GoFundMe account has been set up to help the family pay for funeral expenses, according to family members. 10 On Your Side’s Andy Fox is in Chesapeake working to get more information. Look for more coverage on WAVY News 10 starting at 4 p.m.

– Police who were called Wednesday afternoon to perform a welfare check at a home in Chesapeake, Va., found a dead body—and before the night was over, five more people were dead, victims of an apparent murder-suicide. An investigation of the initial scene led to another nearby home, where police found an armed suspect "barricaded inside," USA Today reports. After several hours of negotiation, police went into the home to find five more bodies, including the suspect's; authorities believe the other four people were killed before cops arrived on the scene. All of the victims are members of the Dooley family, which 13News Now describes as "prominent in the community." The family belonged to Temple Baptist Church, and the patriarch, Todd Dooley, was a retired police officer in Chesapeake's Marine Dive Unit. Citing "a reliable source," WAVY reports that Dooley's son, Cameron, is believed to have killed everyone: Todd Dooley, Cameron's mother Lori Dooley, siblings Brooke and Landon Dooley, and grandmother Doris Dooley. Neighbors tell the Virginian-Pilot that Todd and Lori owned the first house police went to, and Doris and her late husband (a pastor who "helped Temple Baptist Church grow") owned the second house where the standoff took place, but that she was planning to sell it. They say Doris' grandson had moved in to take care of her, and that he would often return to his parents' home about a block away. It's not clear if that grandson is Cameron Dooley.

Image copyright Getty Images Christine Keeler found herself at the centre of an affair that rocked the British establishment. The revelations about her relationship with the cabinet minister John Profumo hastened the end of the Macmillan government. The resulting scandal, involving allegations of espionage and prostitution, and a dramatic court case, saw her pilloried in the tabloid press. But Keeler was a somewhat naive victim of an establishment that was determined to protect its own position against what it saw as a tide of permissiveness. Christine Keeler was born in Uxbridge, west London, on 22 February 1942. Her father deserted the family while she was still a young child and her mother later set up home with Edward Huish, in a pair of converted railway carriages near Windsor. She was sexually abused as a teenager both by her mother's lover and his friends, for whom she babysat. Image copyright Getty Images Image caption She suffered an abusive childhood Keeler left school with no qualifications and had a succession of jobs, including working in a gown showroom and a spell as a waitress. She also posed for some modelling pictures. Platonic friendship At the age of 17 she became pregnant. Attempts at a self-induced abortion failed but the child, a boy, died days after the birth. "I was just 17, I did not have many illusions left, and the ones that did remain were soon to vanish." Keeler found a job in Murray's, a Soho nightclub, where she served drinks and posed semi-naked on the stage. She also befriended another model, Mandy Rice-Davies. "When we weren't on stage, we were allowed to sit out with the audience for a hostess fee of £5," she later wrote. By her own account she, like a number of the girls, had sexual relationships with the club's clients, although it was officially forbidden by the management. Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Her relationship with Stephen Ward was platonic It was at Murray's that she met Stephen Ward, an osteopath who had a client list that included a number of rich and important people, including the former Conservative MP Viscount Astor. Keeler moved into Ward's flat although the couple maintained a platonic friendship. Ward took Keeler to parties where he introduced her to many of his friends including Peter Rachman, the notorious slum landlord, with whom she had a relationship. Ward and Keeler were also frequent attendees at weekend parties at the Astors' Cliveden estate in Buckinghamshire. Dismissed At one of these events, on 8 July 1961, Keeler, splashing in the swimming pool, caught the attention of John Profumo, then Secretary of State for War. Profumo, who was married to the actress Valerie Hobson, was seen as one of the government's rising stars. He kept in touch with Keeler and the pair had a brief affair. Also at the party was Eugene Ivanov, assistant naval attaché at the Soviet Embassy, who was friendly with Ward. Image copyright Getty Images Image caption John Profumo, here with his wife Valerie Hobson, was seen as a rising political star Keeler later claimed she had been sleeping with Ivanov at the same time as she was having an affair with Profumo, but many commentators have since dismissed her account. She had also been having relationships with two other men, Lucky Gordon and Johnny Edgecombe. Gordon and Edgecombe quarrelled bitterly over Keeler, resulting in Edgecombe firing shots at a flat where Keeler was hiding. The subsequent police investigation led the press to take an interest, and reporters soon learned of Keeler's relationship with Profumo. 'No impropriety' Suspicions that Keeler had obtained secrets from Profumo and passed them to Ivanov, led Labour to decide the whole matter was a security issue. With the press unwilling to risk a libel suit by publishing the story, Labour MP George Wigg used parliamentary privilege to accuse Profumo of having an affair with Keeler. Profumo was forced to come to the House where he denied having sexual relations with Keeler. Image copyright PA Image caption Stephen Ward was not destined to hear the verdict at his trial "Miss Keeler and I were on friendly terms," he told fellow MPs. "There was no impropriety whatsoever in my acquaintanceship with Miss Keeler." Meanwhile, Keeler had testified at the trial of Lucky Gordon, who she claimed had assaulted her. He was jailed for three years. On 5 June, Profumo resigned as Secretary of State for War, having admitted that he had lied to the House of Commons about his relationship with Keeler. Perjury Stephen Ward was arrested and accused of living on Keeler's immoral earnings. His trial began at the Old Bailey in July 1963. Image copyright PA Image caption Mandy Rice-Davies (l) was, with Keeler, a key witness in Ward's trial In what the writer Ludovic Kennedy described as a blatant miscarriage of justice, Ward was convicted following a devastating summing up by the trial judge. But, by the time the jury announced its verdict, Ward was in a coma, having taken an overdose of sleeping pills. He died in hospital three days later. In December 1963 Lucky Gordon's sentence was overturned by the Court of Appeal, and Keeler was accused of lying at his trial. She pleaded guilty to charges of perjury, and was sentenced to nine months in prison. Scandal Labour won the 1964 General Election, having used the Profumo affair to accuse the Conservatives of being unfit to govern. On her release from prison, Christine Keeler largely disappeared from the public eye. There were two marriages which did not last, but did produce two children. Image copyright PA Image caption She had little time for a fusty establishment Much of the money she had been paid by newspapers had disappeared by the 1970s. She published five books about her life, one of which, entitled Scandal, was the basis for the 1989 film of the same name, which starred Joanne Whalley as Keeler. As a young woman, Christine Keeler was desperate to get away from an unhappy home and make something of herself. She had little time for the fusty morals of a traditional establishment class. Unfortunately for her, that class was desperate to maintain its influence in a country about to experience the dawn of the huge social changes of the 1960s. That establishment was aided and abetted by a tabloid press, desperate to expose scandal, even where it didn't exist, just to maintain circulation. "They wanted to hear about the sex of course," she once said bitterly. "But not the rest. No one wanted to hear the rest." ||||| Christine Keeler, a London showgirl whose simultaneous relationships with British war secretary John Profumo and a Soviet military attache produced the country's most notorious political scandal of the 1960s, died Dec. 4 at a hospital in Farnborough, England. She was 75. Her son Seymour Platt announced the death on his Facebook page, noting that the cause was chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. The Profumo Affair, as it became known, has echoed through the years as one of the era's most lurid tabloid scandals, with hints of espionage, Cold War politics, class prejudice and sexual hypocrisy. The case has stayed in the popular imagination in the form of theatrical plays, including a musical by Andrew Lloyd-Webber, a feature film and dozens of books — three of which were written by Ms. Keeler. The Profumo Affair made the strikingly beautiful young woman from the British provinces a London celebrity and a perennial staple of headlines and gossip. A nude photograph of Ms. Keeler straddling a chair in 1963 became one of the decade's most famous images. She was often described as the call girl — a term she adamantly rejected — who brought down Britain's ruling Conservative government. Profumo, a rising political star who held the cabinet post of secretary of state for war, saw his career go down in flames. Christine Keeler in 1963. (Stf/AP) He and Ms. Keeler met in 1961, when she was taking a dip in a swimming pool at the estate of a British lord. He was 46, married and wearing a dinner jacket; she was 19, free-spirited and wearing a smile. They began an affair that lasted several months. At the same time, Ms. Keeler was seeing other men, including Yevgeny Ivanov, widely believed to be a Soviet spy. Profumo, who was married to film actress Valerie Hobson, tried to conceal his affair with Ms. Keeler. But in 1962, another of her jealous lovers, Johnny Edgecombe, opened fire on the front door of the house where Ms. Keeler was living. When she failed to appear as a witness at Edgecombe's trial, people began to wonder why. The full extent of the scandal came to light in 1963. After the press learned that Ms. Keeler was keeping company with a Soviet spy, there was concern that she had been wheedling state secrets from Profumo during pillow talk. She said she had to devise clever ploys to keep her romantic (and geopolitical) rivals from bumping into each other. 1 of 66 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad × Notable deaths in 2017 View Photos Remembering those who died in 2017. Caption Remembering those who died in 2017. Katherine Frey Buy Photo Wait 1 second to continue. The disgraced Profumo resigned his cabinet post and his seat in parliament. The scandal also led to the 1963 resignation of Britain's Conservative prime minister, Harold Macmillan. "Christine was no spy," her onetime lover, Edgecombe, said years later after he served a seven-year prison sentence. "She was far too scatterbrained. She was a party girl. A gorgeous-looking woman who liked men, liked sex and liked to be the center of attention." Ms. Keeler and a friend, Mandy Rice-Davies, who died in 2014, acquired a cheeky kind of notoriety, known for their looks and their airy dismissal of stuffy social standards. When Lord Astor, the nobleman in whose swimming pool Ms. Keeler had been cavorting, denied that he was involved with the teenage Rice-Davies, she quipped in court, "Well, he would, wouldn't he?" Wherever she turned, Ms. Keeler found herself caught up in legal trouble. She was convicted of perjury in the assault trial of another of her onetime lovers, a man named Lucky Gordon. She found her connection to high society through a well-connected osteopath named Stephen Ward. In 1963, Ward went on trial for living off the "immoral earnings" of Ms. Keeler and Rice-Davies — a charge denied by all three. "This is a political revenge trial — someone had to be sacrificed, and that was me," Ward said at the time. Near the end of the trial, he took an overdose of sleeping pills. He was found guilty, then died days later without regaining consciousness. The story of Profumo, Ward and Ms. Keeler was portrayed in director Michael Caton-Jones's 1989 film "Scandal," in which Ms. Keeler was played by Joanne Whalley. "You talk to Christine, and it all happened the day before yesterday," the film's screenwriter, Michael Thomas, told the New York Times. "She says Ward's the only man she ever loved, and you believe her. It's a love story between two people who were the weapons of each other's destruction." Christine Margaret Keeler was born Feb. 22, 1942, in Uxbridge, England. Her father left the family when she was young, and she grew up with her mother and stepfather in an abandoned railroad car in rural Berkshire, England. She lived in such fear of her stepfather, she said, that she kept a knife under her pillow. She left home for London when she was 15. Over the years, she said she had liaisons with the Beatles' Ringo Starr and actors Warren Beatty, Peter Lawford and George Peppard. Ms. Keeler co-wrote three autobiographical books and had two brief marriages, to James Levermore and Anthony Platt. Survivors include a son from each marriage and a granddaughter. Profumo, once considered a potential candidate for British prime minister, reconciled with his wife and quietly worked on behalf of the poor and downtrodden. He died in 2006. In her later years, Ms. Keeler lived in poverty. She adopted the name of C.M. Sloane as she struggled to find work in advertising, in a school cafeteria and as a receptionist. "I mean, it's been a misery for me, living with Christine Keeler," she told Britain's Observer newspaper in 2001. "Even a criminal has the right to a new life, but they made sure I did not have that. They just didn't stop calling me a prostitute for ever and ever and ever and ever. How can anyone live with that? I took on the sins of everybody, of a generation, really." ||||| Showgirl’s affairs with Russian diplomat and British MP John Profumo caused one of UK’s biggest scandals of 20th century Christine Keeler, the former model at the centre of the Profumo affair that shook British politics in the 1960s, has died aged 75, her family and a close friend have said. Keeler, then a teenage model and showgirl, became famous for her role in the 1963 scandal that rocked the establishment when she had an affair with the Tory cabinet minister John Profumo and a Russian diplomat at the same time at the height of the cold war. Profumo was eventually forced to resign after lying to parliament about the affair. Keeler’s son, Seymour Platt, 46, told the Guardian she died on Monday at the Princess Royal university hospital in Farnborough: “My mother passed away last night at about 11.30pm,” he said on Tuesday. Quick guide The key players in the Profumo scandal Show Hide Christine Keeler A former model who was introduced to society figures by the osteopath Stephen Ward. In June 1961, when Keeler was 19, Ward introduced Keeler to John Profumo at a party at the Buckinghamshire stately home, Cliveden. Stephen Ward In 1963, Ward was tried for living off “immoral earnings” after claims that he introduced women including Mandy Rice-Davies and Keeler to rich clients. The case ended with Ward’s suicide. Mandy Rice-Davies The British model made a headline-grabbing appearance at Ward’s trial, claiming that her lovers included Viscount “Bill” Astor, the owner of Cliveden. Told that her alleged former lover denied her allegations, she answered: “Well, he would, wouldn’t he?” Rice-Davies died of cancer aged 70 in 2014. Yevgeny Ivanov The Soviet naval attaché had an affair with Keeler at the same time as Profumo. The romantic triangle led to Profumo, then secretary of state for war, resigning. John Profumo The affair nearly destroyed Harold Macmillan’s government. Profumo spent the rest of his life volunteering at Toynbee Hall, a charity in east London. He died in 2006, aged 91. Written by Holly Watt Photograph: PA She had been ill for several months, and suffered from the lung disease COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease). A major BBC series revisiting the scandal is due to start filming next year. Keeler, who had been living under the name of Sloane for many years, was briefly married twice, both marriages ending in divorce. She had two sons – James from her first marriage, and Seymour from her second – and a granddaughter. Platt, who lives in Ireland, said he, his wife and their daughter had last seen his mother a week ago. “There was a lot of good around Chris’s rather tragic life, because there was a family around her that loved her,” he said. “I think what happened to her back in the day was quite damaging.” Born in Uxbridge, Middlesex, and raised by her mother and stepfather, Keeler was working as a cabaret dancer in Soho in London when she met Stephen Ward, an osteopath, artist and “man about town”. Christine Keeler obituary Read more He introduced her to a party scene attended by aristocrats and VIPs, and through him, in 1961, she met both Profumo, then 46 and secretary of state for war, and the Russian military attache Yevgeny Ivanov, having affairs with both men. When the relationships came to light in 1963, amid fears of a cold war security leak, the scandal rocked the Harold Macmillan government. Profumo told the House of Commons there was no “impropriety” in their relationship after being asked about it by opposition MPs who voiced concerns about national security implications. Eventually, after more newspaper stories emerged, he admitted lying to the house, and resigned from the cabinet and the Commons. His fall from grace was deemed a contributory factor in the fall of the Macmillan government, with Labour winning under Harold Wilson in 1964. Keeler met Mandy Rice-Davies when they worked as dancers in Soho and both women were involved with Ward’s social set. Ward would later be convicted of living off immoral earnings, with Keeler and Rice-Davies as the main witnesses, but he took a fatal overdose before the jury returned their guilty verdict in August 1963. At the height of the Profumo affair, Keeler gave newspaper interviews and also posed for the now famous photograph of her sitting naked on a chair. Lewis Morley took the photo at the request of Peter Cook as publicity for a film. Photograph: Lewis Morley/Sloane The affair only came to light after an incident with Aloysius “Lucky” Gordon, a man whom Keeler’s family and friends said abused and stalked her. Shots were fired into the home of Ward, where Keeler was temporarily seeking refuge. When she was questioned during the subsequent police investigation, details of the affair became public. At the end of 1963, Keeler was sentenced to nine months in prison for perjury in a case brought against Gordon, where she accused him of assault. She spent six months in Holloway prison. Platt, a business analyst, said of his mother: “She was stalked [by Gordon] and didn’t really have anywhere to turn. It made her very vulnerable and extremely mistrusting of men. There weren’t a lot of male figures as I grew up because she wanted to protect me from men.” Platt said his mother was from a generation where there was “great shame” and she had felt it when she recalled her past. “But she shouldn’t have because, looking back, there was real good that came out of what happened. It did pull the curtain back, and there were changes in society that were needed.” The photo that launched a thousand poses: photographing Christine Keeler Read more He said she was a devoted, loving mother. “She was a good, decent person, and she got a very unfair label that was hard for her to live with.” But the press had vilified her, he said. “She was just a young girl having fun during the burgeoning of sexual liberation. She picked up labels, which I think were quite unfair.” She found her “notoriety” difficult, he said, and changed her name to Sloane in an attempt to gain anonymity. “Chris was feisty. And she would never shy away from a fight. She had a terrific sense of fairness. She would stand up against anybody she thought was doing the wrong thing. “And that is something I am very proud of. And hopefully, if there is one lesson I can learn from her, it would be that.” Desmond Banks, who had known Keeler since her 20s, and was her solicitor, said: “She was an extraordinary woman, much misunderstood, who deserves redemption.” The scandal had “overshadowed” her life, in particular the behaviour she suffered at the hands of Gordon, he said. “Had it not been for “Lucky” Gordon, Christine and indeed, Profumo’s affair with her, would never have been known.” He added: “I can’t think of anyone else who has had three musicals written about her, and several plays, and is seldom out of the news, for one reason or another. “She was the last survivor of a story that gripped Great Britain and the world more than 50 years ago.” • This article was amended on 5 December 2017 to amend some details about events relating to Aloysius “Lucky” Gordon.

– "She was the last survivor of a story that gripped Great Britain and the world more than 50 years ago." So says the attorney for Christine Keeler to the Guardian upon news of the 75-year-old's Monday night death. She had been living under the last name Sloane in an attempt to put more distance between herself and the Profumo affair that she was so infamously and indelibly attached to. In 1961 Keeler, then a young cabaret dancer working in London, met Tory cabinet minister and rising political star John Profumo—as well as Russian military attache Yevgeny Ivanov. She began affairs with both men, and when the triangle came to light in 1963, it gripped Britain, played upon Cold War fears, and triggered events that led to the undoing of the Harold Macmillan government. The BBC reports Keeler caught Profumo's eye while "splashing" in a swimming pool at a party in Buckinghamshire; she was 19, reports the Washington Post, and he was 46 and married. Their brief affair surfaced in a convoluted way: Two other men fought over Keeler, and one of them fired shots into a home where she was hiding. Police investigated, and Keeler's connection to Profumo ultimately became publicized. The Ivanov angle led to fears of a security issue; when Profumo was questioned by Parliament, he characterized his relationship with Keeler as platonic. Profumo ended up resigning after admitting he lied. An interesting note from the BBC: "Keeler later claimed she had been sleeping with Ivanov at the same time as she was having an affair with Profumo, but many commentators have since dismissed her account."

Electromagnetic radiation has been around since the birth of the universe; light is its most familiar form. Electric and magnetic fields are part of the spectrum of electromagnetic radiation which extends from static electric and magnetic fields, through radiofrequency and infrared radiation, to X-rays. Comprehensive information is provided hereafter on what electromagnetic fields are, their impact on health, as well as the current exposure standards and recommended precautions. See also ||||| A lawsuit filed by a Massachusetts couple claiming that a school's Wi-Fi network is harming their son is drawing attention to a condition that is so controversial that many in the medical community even question its existence. The parents filed a lawsuit claiming that the Fay School in Southborough has "high-intensity Wi-Fi emissions" that have harmed their son, identified in the lawsuit only as "G" because he is a minor. The parents are also not identified in the lawsuit to protect the identity of their son. "G" he has a condition called Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity Syndrome (EHS), according to the lawsuit, filed on Aug. 12 in state court. The syndrome has been controversial and its existence has been the subject of debate in the medical community. The World Health Organization recognizes the condition but clarifies that it is not a medical diagnosis since there is no symptom criteria and since it has not been proven to be caused by electromagnetic field sources. However, "G" reportedly had multiple symptoms after the school switched wireless Internet systems. "The high-density Wi-Fi used in the Fay classrooms is causing G to suffer headaches, chest pains, nosebleeds, nausea, dizziness, and rashes, all recognized symptoms of EHS," the family claimed in court papers on Aug. 19 seeking an injunction to force the school to take action. The family is asking that Ethernet cables be used in classes when the boy is present or that the school revert to an old Wi-Fi network that they claimed did not cause their son to have symptoms. The boy's physician wrote to the court saying his symptoms may get worse if the exposure continues. "The complete extent of these effects on people is still unknown," wrote Dr. Jeanne Hubbuch in the lawsuit. "But it is clear that children and pregnant women are at the highest risk. This is due to the brain tissue being more absorbent, their skulls are thinner and their relative size is small. There are no studies that show that exposure to these two vulnerable groups is safe." The family is seeking damages in the amount of $250,000, according to court papers. In a statement sent to ABC News, school officials said they had hired a company, Isotrope LLC, to analyze the radio communication signals and emissions in 2014. "Isotrope’s assessment was completed in January 2015 and found that the combined levels of access point emissions, broadcast radio and television signals, and other [radio frequency emissions] on campus 'were substantially less than 1/10,000th of the applicable safety limits (federal and state)," the school said in a statement. Questions about the safety of electromagnetic radiation have gained steam as wireless technology has become more pervasive. However, research into EHS and health effects of Wi-Fi exposure has yet to indicate how these technologies could be causing symptoms as long as radiation is kept within acceptable levels. "It has been suggested that symptoms experienced by some EHS individuals might arise from environmental factors unrelated to EMF [electromagnetic fields]," the WHO explained. "Examples may include 'flicker' from fluorescent lights, glare and other visual problems with [visual display units], and poor ergonomic design of computer workstations. Other factors that may play a role include poor indoor air quality or stress in the workplace or living environment." While the syndrome is not fully understood, WHO recommends that patients seek medical attention from a health professional to evaluate their symptoms. Studies on the health effects of Wi-Fi remain limited, but appear to show no conclusive signs of ill effects related to Wi-Fi exposure. One study with 120 subjects exposed some people to Wi-Fi radiation and others to "sham" Wi-Fi radiation and found no significant differences in the subjects' reactions or symptom severity. In another small study, people watched news reports linking Wi-Fi exposure to negative health effects. When those subjects were exposed to "sham" Wi-Fi, some reported feeling the same ill effects that had been reported in the news program. ||||| The woman claims to suffer an allergy to electromagnetic radiation from gadgets such as cellphones. Photo: gail/Flickr A French court has awarded a disability grant to a woman claiming to suffer from a debilitating allergy to electromagnetic radiation from everyday gadgets such as cellphones. The applicant, Marine Richard, 39, hailed the ruling as a "breakthrough" for people afflicted by Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity (EHS). The condition is not recognised as a medical disorder in most countries, including France, but sufferers insist that exposure to mobile phones, wifi routers, televisions and other gadgets cause them anything from mild discomfort to life-ruining disability. Scientific studies have found no evidence linking electromagnetic exposure to the symptoms -- tingling, headaches, fatigue, nausea, or palpitations. Richard, a former radio documentary producer, has opted for a reclusive life in the mountains of southwest France, in a renovated barn without electricity, and drinking water from the well. In a ruling last month, a court in the southern city of Toulouse decided she can claim a disability allowance -- about €800 ($912) per month for an adult -- for a period of three years. The ruling accepted that her symptoms prevented Richard from working, but stopped short of recognising EHS as an illness. Her lawyer Alice Terrasse said the ruling could set a legal precedent for "thousands of people" concerned. "It's a breakthrough," added Richard. The World Health Organisation lists EHS as a condition, but says there is "no scientific basis" for linking the symptoms to electromagnetic exposure. Sweden and Germany have classified it as an occupational disease. Double-blind scientific trials, where neither the patient or researcher was aware whether they had been exposed to electromagnetic waves, have refuted any link to the symptoms, and many experts ascribe the condition to a phobia. Some believe it might be triggered by the so-called "nocebo" effect -- the placebo effect in reverse -- when people feel unwell because they believe they have been exposed to something harmful. ||||| What are electromagnetic fields? Summary of health effects What happens when you are exposed to electromagnetic fields? Exposure to electromagnetic fields is not a new phenomenon. However, during the 20th century, environmental exposure to man-made electromagnetic fields has been steadily increasing as growing electricity demand, ever-advancing technologies and changes in social behaviour have created more and more artificial sources. Everyone is exposed to a complex mix of weak electric and magnetic fields, both at home and at work, from the generation and transmission of electricity, domestic appliances and industrial equipment, to telecommunications and broadcasting. Tiny electrical currents exist in the human body due to the chemical reactions that occur as part of the normal bodily functions, even in the absence of external electric fields. For example, nerves relay signals by transmitting electric impulses. Most biochemical reactions from digestion to brain activities go along with the rearrangement of charged particles. Even the heart is electrically active - an activity that your doctor can trace with the help of an electrocardiogram. Low-frequency electric fields influence the human body just as they influence any other material made up of charged particles. When electric fields act on conductive materials, they influence the distribution of electric charges at their surface. They cause current to flow through the body to the ground. Low-frequency magnetic fields induce circulating currents within the human body. The strength of these currents depends on the intensity of the outside magnetic field. If sufficiently large, these currents could cause stimulation of nerves and muscles or affect other biological processes. Both electric and magnetic fields induce voltages and currents in the body but even directly beneath a high voltage transmission line, the induced currents are very small compared to thresholds for producing shock and other electrical effects. Heating is the main biological effect of the electromagnetic fields of radiofrequency fields. In microwave ovens this fact is employed to warm up food. The levels of radiofrequency fields to which people are normally exposed are very much lower than those needed to produce significant heating. The heating effect of radiowaves forms the underlying basis for current guidelines. Scientists are also investigating the possibility that effects below the threshold level for body heating occur as a result of long-term exposure. To date, no adverse health effects from low level, long-term exposure to radiofrequency or power frequency fields have been confirmed, but scientists are actively continuing to research this area. Biological effects or health effects? What is a health hazard? Biological effects are measurable responses to a stimulus or to a change in the environment. These changes are not necessarily harmful to your health. For example, listening to music, reading a book, eating an apple or playing tennis will produce a range of biological effects. Nevertheless, none of these activities is expected to cause health effects. The body has sophisticated mechanisms to adjust to the many and varied influences we encounter in our environment. Ongoing change forms a normal part of our lives. But, of course, the body does not possess adequate compensation mechanisms for all biological effects. Changes that are irreversible and stress the system for long periods of time may constitute a health hazard. An adverse health effect causes detectable impairment of the health of the exposed individual or of his or her offspring; a biological effect, on the other hand, may or may not result in an adverse health effect. It is not disputed that electromagnetic fields above certain levels can trigger biological effects. Experiments with healthy volunteers indicate that short-term exposure at the levels present in the environment or in the home do not cause any apparent detrimental effects. Exposures to higher levels that might be harmful are restricted by national and international guidelines. The current debate is centred on whether long-term low level exposure can evoke biological responses and influence people's well being. Widespread concerns for health A look at the news headlines of recent years allows some insight into the various areas of public concern. Over the course of the past decade, numerous electromagnetic field sources have become the focus of health concerns, including power lines, microwave ovens, computer and TV screens, security devices, radars and most recently mobile phones and their base stations. The International EMF Project In response to growing public health concerns over possible health effects from exposure to an ever increasing number and diversity of electromagnetic field sources, in 1996 the World Health Organization (WHO) launched a large, multidisciplinary research effort. The International EMF Project brings together current knowledge and available resources of key international and national agencies and scientific institutions. Conclusions from scientific research In the area of biological effects and medical applications of non-ionizing radiation approximately 25,000 articles have been published over the past 30 years. Despite the feeling of some people that more research needs to be done, scientific knowledge in this area is now more extensive than for most chemicals. Based on a recent in-depth review of the scientific literature, the WHO concluded that current evidence does not confirm the existence of any health consequences from exposure to low level electromagnetic fields. However, some gaps in knowledge about biological effects exist and need further research. Effects on general health Some members of the public have attributed a diffuse collection of symptoms to low levels of exposure to electromagnetic fields at home. Reported symptoms include headaches, anxiety, suicide and depression, nausea, fatigue and loss of libido. To date, scientific evidence does not support a link between these symptoms and exposure to electromagnetic fields. At least some of these health problems may be caused by noise or other factors in the environment, or by anxiety related to the presence of new technologies. Effects on pregnancy outcome Many different sources and exposures to electromagnetic fields in the living and working environment, including computer screens, water beds and electric blankets, radiofrequency welding machines, diathermy equipment and radar, have been evaluated by the WHO and other organizations. The overall weight of evidence shows that exposure to fields at typical environmental levels does not increase the risk of any adverse outcome such as spontaneous abortions, malformations, low birth weight, and congenital diseases. There have been occasional reports of associations between health problems and presumed exposure to electromagnetic fields, such as reports of prematurity and low birth weight in children of workers in the electronics industry, but these have not been regarded by the scientific community as being necessarily caused by the field exposures (as opposed to factors such as exposure to solvents). Cataracts General eye irritation and cataracts have sometimes been reported in workers exposed to high levels of radiofrequency and microwave radiation, but animal studies do not support the idea that such forms of eye damage can be produced at levels that are not thermally hazardous. There is no evidence that these effects occur at levels experienced by the general public. Electromagnetic fields and cancer Despite many studies, the evidence for any effect remains highly controversial. However, it is clear that if electromagnetic fields do have an effect on cancer, then any increase in risk will be extremely small. The results to date contain many inconsistencies, but no large increases in risk have been found for any cancer in children or adults. A number of epidemiological studies suggest small increases in risk of childhood leukemia with exposure to low frequency magnetic fields in the home. However, scientists have not generally concluded that these results indicate a cause-effect relation between exposure to the fields and disease (as opposed to artifacts in the study or effects unrelated to field exposure). In part, this conclusion has been reached because animal and laboratory studies fail to demonstrate any reproducible effects that are consistent with the hypothesis that fields cause or promote cancer. Large-scale studies are currently underway in several countries and may help resolve these issues. Electromagnetic hypersensitivity and depression Some individuals report "hypersensitivity" to electric or magnetic fields. They ask whether aches and pains, headaches, depression, lethargy, sleeping disorders, and even convulsions and epileptic seizures could be associated with electromagnetic field exposure. There is little scientific evidence to support the idea of electromagnetic hypersensitivity. Recent Scandinavian studies found that individuals do not show consistent reactions under properly controlled conditions of electromagnetic field exposure. Nor is there any accepted biological mechanism to explain hypersensitivity. Research on this subject is difficult because many other subjective responses may be involved, apart from direct effects of fields themselves. More studies are continuing on the subject. The focus of current and future research Much effort is currently being directed towards the study of electromagnetic fields in relation to cancer. Studies in search for possible carcinogenic (cancer-producing) effects of power frequency fields is continuing, although at a reduced level compared to that of the late 1990's. The long-term health effects of mobile telephone use is another topic of much current research. No obvious adverse effect of exposure to low level radiofrequency fields has been discovered. However, given public concerns regarding the safety of cellular telephones, further research aims to determine whether any less obvious effects might occur at very low exposure levels. Key points ||||| Image copyright Thinkstock Image caption Electromagnetic hypersensitivity (EHS) sufferers say radiowaves affect their health A French woman has won a disability grant after telling a court she suffers from an allergy to electromagnetic radiation from gadgets. Marine Richard, 39, was told she may claim €800 (£580) per month for three years as a result. She said it was a "breakthrough" for people affected by electromagnetic hypersensitivity (EHS). The condition is recognised by the World Health Organisation (WHO), though it says the causes are unclear. Ms Richard had resorted to living in a remote area in the mountains of south-west France - in a barn that has no electricity. She said she had been affected by everyday gadgets such as phones. Typical symptoms reported by those who say they suffer from EHS include headaches, fatigue, nausea and palpitations. The disability allowance was granted by a court in Toulouse, though the ruling did not formally recognise EHS as an illness. School sued In a case in the US, the parents of a 12-year-old boy who they say is hypersensitive to his boarding school's WiFi have decided to file a lawsuit against the establishment. The parents say their son, a day pupil, has been diagnosed with EHS. They say he began suffering from headaches, nosebleeds and nausea after the Fay School installed new WiFi in 2013. The school asked the communications technology firm Isotrope to assess the electromagnetic emissions on campus. "Isotrope found that the combined levels of access point emissions, broadcast radio and television signals, and other RFE emissions on campus comply with federal and state safety limits by a wide margin," the school said in a statement. The statement also quoted from the Isotrope report, which said that levels of emissions both in the school and on the grounds "were substantially less than one ten-thousandth (1/10,000th) of the applicable safety limits (federal and state)". Understanding electromagnetic fields By Philippa Roxby, BBC News Health Reporter Electromagnetic fields are all around us but most cannot be seen. In recent years a lot of research has been carried out into man-made sources of these fields, such as electrical power supplies and appliances in the home. X-ray machines, TV and radio transmitters, mobile phones, WiFi and microwave ovens are all everyday sources of electromagnetic waves. Those who are sensitive to them talk of experiencing headaches, sleeplessness, ear pain when using a mobile phone, skin tingling and problems with concentration and memory. For them, the only solution at present is to avoid objects that emit radiation in the home - not easy in the modern world. In the UK, electromagnetic hypersensitivity is not a recognised condition. That's because Public Health England says there is no scientific evidence that electromagnetic fields damage people's health. The WHO agrees and believes more research on long-term health effects needs to be done. Difficult case Although some countries, notably Sweden and the US, have officially recognised EHS as a condition, there is still much debate over whether a legal case on the condition would be worthwhile in certain other states. In the UK, for example, members of the public who are worried about exposure to mobile phone masts tend to challenge their construction on a planning basis, according to research group Powerwatch. "The health issue is close to a no-win in this country at the moment," Graham Lamburn, its technical manager, told the BBC. "You really need to win on things like 'it's devalued my property because it's outside my window' or 'there's an irregularity in the way it's been put through with planning'." Electrosensitivty UK (ES-UK), a charity that campaigns for wider recognition of EHS, said it welcomed the French court's decision. "Several people in the UK have been diagnosed with electrosensitivity and received help for the disability but any financial allowance usually refers to a different name for the condition or a related condition," it said in a statement. ||||| A French woman is set to get disability payouts - because she is allergic to gadgets and the waves they emit. Marine Richard claimed she suffered a “serious handicap” due to her electromagnetic hypersensitivity (EHS). Mobile phone and wi-fi waves made her ill and left her unable to work, the 39-year-old alleged. And a Toulouse court ruled in her favour this week - meaning she is now entitled to £587 a month for at least three years. A judge accepted that her symptoms had stopped her from working, but did not recognise EHS as an illness. The condition, which sufferers say brings on tingling, headaches, fatigue and nausea after being exposed to electromagnetic waves, is not actually recognised as a medical condition in France. Lawyers said that it could now lead to a tide of new claimants coming forward. Former radio documentary producer Richard, who has moved off-grid to a renovated barn without electricity in the south of France, hailed the ruling as a “breakthrough,” according to The Local. (Stock image by Novastock/REX)

– Electromagnetic radiation has been around since the universe first formed; it is, in its "most familiar form," light, reports the World Health Organization. But as cellphone towers and gadgets proliferate, electromagnetic radiation has increased, and some claim a sensitivity to it. One woman in France is now getting roughly $900 a month from the government in disability pay, reports the BBC. Marine Richard, 39, who says she's had to move to a barn without electricity in a remote region of France to escape electromagnetic waves, calls the decision a "breakthrough" for those who experience electromagnetic hypersensitivity. But the court in Toulouse—which ruled last month that her symptoms stopped her from working—did not go so far as to call EHS an illness, reports Yahoo News UK. Though people like Richard have claimed a range of adverse health symptoms, from headaches and nausea to loss of libido and depression, the WHO reports that "scientific evidence does not support a link" between the electromagnetic fields and the symptoms; that "scientific knowledge in this area is now more extensive than for most chemicals"; and that anxiety about exposure could be causing these health problems. In the US, the parents of a 12-year-old boy at a Massachusetts school filed a lawsuit on Aug. 12 claiming that their son has been dealing with headaches, chest pains, nosebleeds, nausea, dizziness, and rashes since the school installed a new wireless network in 2013, reports ABC News. The family is asking for $250,000 in damages. (West Virginia is home to a town for those who say they've been sickened by WiFi.)

(ANSA) - Ascoli Piceno, August 25 - A 10-year-old girl who spent 16 hours in the rubble of her quake-hit house in the Marche town of Pescara del Tronto was successfully operated on in Ascoli Piceno hospital Thursday. Fire teams got to Georgia at about eight o'clock last night after locating her room in the ruins. Her sister, who was lying next to her, did not make it. Pescara del Tronto was destroyed by the 6.2-magnitude quake that hit mountain towns between Lazio, Umbria and Marche early Wednesday. Two other towns, Amatrice and Accumoli, were also reduced to rubble. ||||| A man sits on a bench after spending the night in a makeshift camp set up inside a gymnasium following an earthquake, in Amatrice, central Italy, Thursday, Aug. 25, 2016. The civil protection agency set... (Associated Press) AMATRICE, Italy (AP) — The Latest on the earthquake in central Italy (all times local): 1 p.m. Romania's foreign ministry says that five Romanians have died, and 11 are missing in the earthquake in Italy, updating earlier figures. Ionut Valcu, foreign ministry spokesman, said Thursday that four Romanians were being treated for injuries in hospitals He did not provide details on the identity of those who died or were injured. Romania consular officials have traveled to the area, are visiting the hospitals and are in touch with the families of those affected. Earlier, officials said two Romanians had died and eight were missing. Media reports say some 8,000 Romanians live in the area in central Italy where the quake struck early Wednesday. ___ 11:35 a.m. Italy's culture ministry has decreed that proceeds from public museums across Italy this Sunday will be dedicated to helping restore damaged buildings in the quake zone. Several churches and other medieval-era buildings were damaged or destroyed in the 6-magnitude quake that struck central Italy. In a statement Thursday, Culture Minister Dario Franceschini urged Italians to go out in force on Sunday to visit museums and Italy's numerous archaeological sites "in a concrete sign of solidarity" with quake victims. ___ 11:30 a.m. Spain's foreign ministry says at least one Spaniard has died in the earthquake in central Italy. The ministry said that it could give no further details regarding the victim. Italian rescue crews were racing against time looking for survivors from the earthquake that leveled three towns in central Italy on Wednesday. The death toll has risen to 247. ___ 11 a.m. Romania's foreign ministry says two Romanians have died, and eight are missing after the earthquake in Italy. Ministry spokesman Ionut Valcu said Thursday that four Romanians were being treated for injuries in hospitals He did not provide details on the identity of those who died or were injured. Romania consular officials have traveled to the area, are visiting hospitals and are in touch with the families of those affected. Media reports say about 8,000 Romanians live in the area in central Italy where the quake struck early Wednesday. ___ 6:30 a.m. Italian authorities say that the death toll from Wednesday's earthquake in the central part of the country has risen to 247. The civil protection agency gave the updated figure early Thursday, about 27 hours after the earthquake struck. The tremors reduced three towns to rubble and sparked urgent search efforts. __ 5:40 a.m. Residents in a central Italian region devastated by an earthquake have been jolted awake by a strong aftershock. The U.S. Geological Survey put its magnitude at 4.7 with the epicenter about 7 kilometers east of Norcia, with a relatively shallow depth of 10 kilometers (6 miles). The latest temblor struck at about 5:40 am Thursday. Norcia, which is about 170 kilometers (105 miles) northwest of Rome, was the epicenter of Wednesday morning's 6.2 earthquake that leveled the central Italian towns of Amatrice, Accumoli and Pescara del Tronto, and killed at least 159 people. __ 2:30 a.m. Italian rescue workers are expecting fewer casualties than initially feared at the site of a hotel that was badly damaged in Wednesday's earthquake. Officials initially said about 70 people had been staying at the Hotel Roma in the central Italian town of Amatrice when the quake struck. But an official with Italy's civil protection agency, Luigi d'Angelo, told Sky TG24 that about 35 people had been staying at the hotel, and most had managed to get out. Carlo Cardinali, a local fire official taking part in the search efforts at the hotel, estimated that about 10 guests were missing. Five bodies have been pulled from the rubble. Workers had been forced to suspend their search at the hotel, though overnight searches for earthquake survivors were continuing elsewhere. __ 12:30 a.m. Among the victims of an earthquake in Italy was an 18-month-old girl whose mother survived the deadly earthquake of 2009 in nearby L'Aquila and moved away from there after that terrible experience. The news agency ANSA reported that the toddler, Marisol Piermarini, was sleeping in her bed in the family's vacation home in Arquata del Tronto when the quake struck early Wednesday. Her mother, Martina Turco, survived the earthquake that struck L'Aquila, killing more than 300 people. Now she is being treated in a hospital after being pulled from the rubble as the family mourns the death of the little girl. ||||| The death toll from the devastating pre-dawn earthquake that struck central Italy on Wednesday has been raised to 241, after rescue teams using sniffer dogs, bulldozers and their bare hands worked through the night in a desperate search for survivors. At least 368 more people were injured, the national civil protection agency said in Rome, and an unknown number remained trapped in the rubble of collapsed and damaged buildings in the cluster of ancient hilltop towns and villages, some almost entirely razed by the 6.2-magnitude quake. A powerful aftershock of 4.3 was reported in Amatrice on Thursday afternoon, prompting rescue workers to retreat from damaged buildings and sending a huge dust cloud into the air. One of the youngest victims was an 18-month-old girl whose mother survived the 2009 quake in L’Aquila, a few miles south of the epicentre of Wednesday’s 3.36am tremor. The quake flattened houses, buckled roads and buried residents under mounds of debris in and around Amatrice, Accumoli and Arquata and Pescara del Tronto. “The town just isn’t here any more,�? said Sergio Pirozzi, the mayor of Amatrice, voted one of Italy’s most beautiful historic towns last year. He feared 200 people, including many of his friends, could have died in the town and up to 40 were missing. “Our heart is broken, but will be resurrected,�? he told RAI News. Italy earthquake: death toll rises to 159 as search for survivors continues – live Read more Lorenzo Boti, 59, a firefighter who arrived from Rome on Wednesday evening, said the situation was still very dangerous. He estimated around 15 survivors had been rescued overnight, including several children: “There are no words when that happens. It’s an emotional feeling inside; it makes you feel alive.�? But, Boti added, “I don’t like to count the number of dead bodies. There are so many children.�? His team had recovered the body of a three or four-year-old child this morning, he said, and there would certainly be more to come: “Many of these buildings are still very unstable.�? To muted cheers and applause, rescuers working in the darkness with emergency lighting had earlier pulled a 10-year-old girl alive from the rubble in Pescara del Tronto late on Wednesday night, nearly 20 hours after the quake struck. “You can hear something under here. Quiet, quiet,�? one rescue worker said, before soon urging her on: “Come on, Giulia, come on.�? Facebook Twitter Pinterest Matteo Renzi hugs a rescuer in Amatrice. Photograph: Tiberio Barchielli/Chigi Palace/Handout/EPA Other children, however, were not so lucky: among those who died in nearby Accumoli were a family of four, including two boys aged eight months and nine years. Cristobal Rodriguez, from a Spanish emergency rescue NGO, arrived from Málaga with his dog Lula at 10pm on Wednesday after travelling for eight hours. His group headed first to Accumoli, but then left for harder-hit Amatrice. “Only 20% of that town was affected. Here, it’s much worse,�? he said. “Still, we are hopeful of finding more survivors.�? His colleague, Juan Manuel La Cueva, with his dog Blackie, said firefighters from Málaga were often among the first to be called: “We have the best dogs.�? A veteran of numerous international disasters, La Cuava said this one was “Hard. It’s tragic. For Europe, this is very dramatic. We were hoping to find there were fewer victims. It’s truly tragic.�? But he was convinced more survivors would be found. Dogs were useful for the first three days, he said, as few victims can survive longer than that without water. “We will find them,�? he said. “We’ll sleep when we’re back in Spain.�? Italy’s prime minister, Matteo Renzi, warned after visiting the remote area, which straddles the regions of Umbria, Marche and Lazio about 90 miles east of Rome, that the toll from the quake – felt more than 135 miles away, in Bologna to the north and Naples to the south – was likely to rise. “Right now we feel terrible pain,�? Renzi said. “Italy is a family that has been hit and struck, but we are not going to be stopped. From tomorrow, and in the next few months, we’ll work on reconstruction. But now is a time to pray and shed tears; a moment for respect and pain for all Italians for this huge shock.�? Hastily erected tent cities and kitchens outside the ruined towns catered to some of the more than 2,000 people unable to return home because of the risk from aftershocks. The mountainous area, just north of L’Aquila, which was hit by a 2009 earthquake that left 300 dead, is particularly popular with holidaymakers escaping the summer heat of Rome. “Tonight will be our first nightmare night,�? said Alessandro Gabrielli as he prepared to spend the night in one of the many emergency tents, each housing 12 homeless quake victims. “Last night, I woke up with a sound that sounded like a bomb.�? The influx of visitors makes it hard for rescuers to know exactly how many people were staying in holiday homes and hotels. More than 70 were initially thought to be inside the Hotel Roma in Amatrice when it collapsed, but the number was later lowered to 35, many of whom survived. Five bodies were pulled from the rubble and 10 guests were still missing. A steady stream of trucks brought tonnes of twisted metal, rock and cement down the hill and on to the main road on Wednesday, passed in the other direction by cranes, bulldozers and rescue teams from the army, Alpine guides, carabinieri, firefighters, Red Cross and volunteers. Many small, remote hamlets had to wait several hours before they were reached. Amatrice’s regular population was swollen with visitors before the town’s 50th annual festival to celebrate the amatriciana pasta sauce named after it. In response to the disaster, more than 600 restaurants across Italy said they were putting the dish on their menus and would donate €2 from each one sold to the Red Cross. Facebook Twitter Pinterest People keep warm under blankets after the earthquake in Amatrice. Photograph: Stefano Rellandini/Reuters Italy’s earthquake institute, INGV, said the focus of the quake was near Accumoli and Amatrice and was relatively shallow, at about 2.5 miles underground. Italy sits on two fault lines, making it one of Europe’s most seismically active countries. “The Apennine mountains in central Italy have the highest seismic hazard in western Europe and earthquakes of this magnitude are common,�? said Richard Walters, a lecturer in Earth sciences at Durham University. The country’s most deadly earthquake since the start of the 20th century came in 1908, when a major tremor followed by a tsunami killed an estimated 80,000 people in Reggio Calabria and Sicily. ||||| In the early morning of April 6, 2009 a 20 seconds lasting earthquake with magnitude 6,9 (followed later by weaker aftershocks) occurred near the city of L´Aquila (Abruzzo, Italy). More than 45 towns were affected, 308 people killed, 1.600 injured and more then 65.000 inhabitants were forced to leave their homes. Italy has a long and tragic history of earthquakes. The position between two large continental plates (the European and African) and various micro-plates of the Mediterranean Sea results in highly active seismicity all over the peninsula. The first map of seismicity of the Mediterranean area and an extensive research on earthquakes in Italy was published in 1857 by the Irish engineer - and self educated geologist - Robert Mallet under the title "Great Neapolitan Earthquake- The First Principles of Observational Seismology". Mallet got interested in earthquakes in 1830 by a drawing in a natural sciences book, displaying two stone columns twisted by an earthquake in Calabria. He decided to study the forces able to do this to human constructions. In his work he noted that damages on buildings were distributed in distinct areas, setting out from a point of heaviest destruction. These points, the epicentre of an earthquake, were not randomly distributed, but found in "seismic belts" following the Apennine Mountains. Earthquakes mark the history of the area surrounding L'Aquila and the province of Abruzzo. Historic events or swarms of trembles are recorded for 1315, 1349, 1452, 1461, 1498, 1501, 1646, 1703, 1706, 1791, 1809, 1848 and 1887. One of the most important earthquakes occurred February 2, 1703, causing devastation across much of central Italy and destroying the city of L'Aquila, killing 5.000 people. The destruction caused by the earthquake of 2009 surprised experts and generated discussions about the anti-seismic building standards adopted in Italy. While most of the medieval structures in rural areas collapsed or were heavily damaged, in L'Aquila most concern arouse from the observation that modern buildings suffered the greatest damage and that the death toll included mostly young people. L'Aquila was a university town and cheap accommodations which suffered severe damage were inhabited by students, also many students died when a dormitory at the University of L'Aquila collapsed. Even some buildings, believed to be "earthquake-proof", collapsed, like parts of the new hospital and various buildings of the government. Fig.1. The local prefecture damaged by the earthquake, emblem of the situation in Italy, image from Wikipedia-User TheWiz83 May 7, 2009. In rural areas the "core" of most of the historic buildings consisted of local material, like stone, superimposed by cement constructions or supplementary floors of recent age. It was this mismatch that caused the collapse of these buildings. In L'Aquila the earthquake of 1703 destroyed most of the older buildings. During reconstruction work first "anti-seismic standards" were introduced - the rebuild houses possessed thicker walls, improved joints between floors and the allowed height of the building was limited. Many "modern" buildings of the city in contrast were build previously of 1984, before modern anti-seismic buildings standards were introduced in Italy. However there was and still is a widespread disregard of building standards and the ignorance by people and (in part corrupt) authorities of the seismic hazards. Many concrete elements of the collapsed buildings (like the hospital) "seemed to have been made poorly, possibly with sand", a common tactic to build fast and cheap by building enterprises controlled by criminal organisations. The earthquake of L'Aquila was therefore only in part a natural disaster and the manmade catastrophe was strongly misused by Italian politics and many promises made shortly after the earthquake are still unrealized today. Most alarming were the legal repercussions of the earthquake on science. Based on a general lack of understanding of science by the public and authorities various persons were accused ("Scientists on trial: At fault?" Nature September 14, 2011) to have ignored "premonitory signs" of the earthquake - in form of pseudoscientific claims of dubious veracity and "warnings" mostly published by individuals in the internet. Bibliography: TERTULLIANI, A. (2011): Il segni del terremoto sul tessuto urbano. DARWIN No. 42 Marzo/Aprile: 80-83 WALKER, B. (1982): Earthquake. Planet Earth. Time Life Books: 154 ||||| (ANSA) - Rome, August 25 - There were some 100 after-shocks overnight in the areas hit by a 6.0-magnitude earthquake that killed at least 247 people Wednesday, the strongest measuring 4.5 at 05.17 near Rieti, geologists said Thursday. The said it was normal to have such after-shocks. "The after-shocks are continuing in a way that is consistent with theoretical models," they said. They also said that quakes of 6.0 magnitude happen on average every 15 years in Italy, a fact that should prompt further risk prevention.

– After what the AP terms a night of "uninterrupted search efforts," the death toll in central Italy has risen to 247, the number steadily inching toward that of the devastating 2009 L'Aquila quake, which killed 308. The tiny towns of Amatrice and Accumoli were the hardest hit and claim the lion's share of the casualties. "Unfortunately, 90% we pull out are dead, but some make it, that's why we are here," says a volunteer in Amatrice. One firefighter who came in from Rome to help says around 15 survivors were found in Amatrice overnight. "There are no words when that happens." In Pescara del Tronto, a 10-year-old girl was pulled alive from the rubble after 16 hours; her sister, by her side, was dead, reports ANSA. The Guardian reports one victim, an 18-month-old, had been born to a mother who survived the L'Aquila quake. As the rescue efforts continue, so too do the aftershocks, with 460 occurring since the 3:36am Wednesday quake. ANSA reports 100 of them hit overnight, with the strongest having a magnitude of 4.5. The AP reports Italy's culture minister asked that Italians turn out en masse at the country's museums and archaeological sites on Sunday "in a concrete sign of solidarity" with victims; all of Sunday's proceeds will go to the restoration of damaged buildings.

Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders Bernard (Bernie) SandersBiden rallies Dem support for progressive Md. governor candidate Ocasio-Cortez: Democratic socialism is 'part of what I am, it's not all of what I am' Divided Democrats are in danger MORE said on Sunday that he takes issue with the idea of superdelegates. "The whole concept of superdelegates is problematic," he said on CBS's "Face The Nation." ADVERTISEMENT The Vermont senator said he thinks it would be a good idea for superdelegates to come over to his side in states where he has won by a significant margin. "I think it might be a good idea for superdelegates to listen to the people in their own state," he said. "I just talked to a person the other day who said, 'You know what? I am going to listen to my state, and if my state votes for you, Bernie, you're going to have my vote.'" Sanders said that's something he hopes a lot of superdelegates take into consideration, adding that it's "common sense" to listen to the voters. The superdelegates have the right to make their own decisions, he said, adding that the primary objective is making sure a Republican does not win the White House. "[If] it appears that I am the stronger candidate against Trump, I think you're doing to see some superdelegates saying, 'You know what, I like Hillary Clinton Hillary Diane Rodham ClintonOcasio-Cortez responds to Dem senator who said policies 'too far to the left' don't win in Midwest July vote to repeal medical device tax may bolster vulnerable GOP lawmaker Rosenstein conflicts undermine legitimacy of Mueller's investigation MORE, but I want to win this thing. Bernie is our guy.'" ||||| Is this just another case of the Establishment sticking it to the people, or legitimate frustration with a gadfly who won’t wake up and smell the coffee? Bernie Sanders’ colleagues in the Senate want to sound supportive, Politico reports, mindful of the anger of the populism that has allowed the longtime socialist crank to seriously contend for their party’s presidential nomination. They love Bernie. And more precisely, they’d love him even more if he got on the Hillary Clinton bandwagon: After holding their fire on Sanders for the better part of a year, the senators — all backers of Hillary Clinton — are gently calling on Sanders to face the reality that there’s almost no chance he’s going to be the Democratic nominee. They don’t say outright he should quit; doing so would be counterproductive, they say. But nearly a dozen Democratic lawmakers suggested in interviews that Sanders should focus more on stopping Donald Trump and less on why he believes Clinton’s stands on trade, financial regulation and foreign policy would make her a flawed president. “What’s important is not whether or not he gets out, but how he campaigns,” said Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.). “If the contrast is now about what separates us from Donald Trump, then I think it’s fine. I just hope that we can begin to focus on unifying because obviously a lot of us are perplexed that we could be facing a country led by someone who seems to be a buffoon.” Added Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.): “It’s good [for Sanders] to continue to raise the concerns that people have, but I think it ought to be in the context of, ‘This is the difference between the Democrats and Republicans in this race.’” Or, in other words, keep campaigning … but for Hillary. This request isn’t so much a party establishment putting down its considerable foot as it is a cold dash of reality. Hillary already has two-thirds of the delegates she needs for the nomination, while Sanders would need almost double what he currently has to win on the first ballot. The problem for Sanders is that Democrats have gone through half of the states already, and at least some of the delegate-rich states left on the table will go to Hillary — New York and Pennsylvania for sure, Kentucky and Indiana probably, and California more than likely. Even in states where Sanders competes well, close races will split delegates too narrowly to help, such as the upcoming Wisconsin primary. As Paul Begala pointed out in the aftermath of Super Tuesday II, Bernie wins the tight races and Hillary wins the blowouts. That produces an inevitable delegate-allocation gap that Sanders can’t overcome. Ah, but what about the superdelegates? Absent the superdelegates, Hillary only has a lead of around 300 delegates — a difficult gap to bridge, but not insurmountable. Superdelegates can change their minds and flip to Sanders, right? Sure, but that won’t happen. Superdelegates exist to prevent candidates like Sanders from seizing the nomination from the party establishment. The reason it didn’t work in 2008 was that Barack Obama got too big of a lead on Hillary, and the historical moment and organizational power of Obama convinced the superdelegates to throw in with him in the end. (Recall that the question of the superdelegates ran almost all the way down to the convention in 2008.) The Democratic party establishment is right on the math and on the moment this time around, but don’t expect Sanders to listen. He’ll keep campaigning until the cash runs out or until the DNC cuts him some sort of deal. Perhaps Hillary will offer Sanders a Cabinet post, such as HHS, where he can indulge all of his single-payer healthcare fantasies if Hillary wins the election. The deal will probably come sooner rather than later, but it may take a couple of more major-state blowouts to get the message through to Bernie that it’s over … and it’s been over for a while. ||||| Democratic senators of all stripes are as impressed as they are surprised by Bernie Sanders’ insurgent campaign. But the time has come, they say, for Sanders to start winding things down. Story Continued Below After holding their fire on Sanders for the better part of a year, the senators — all backers of Hillary Clinton — are gently calling on Sanders to face the reality that there’s almost no chance he’s going to be the Democratic nominee. They don’t say outright he should quit; doing so would be counterproductive, they say. But nearly a dozen Democratic lawmakers suggested in interviews that Sanders should focus more on stopping Donald Trump and less on why he believes Clinton’s stands on trade, financial regulation and foreign policy would make her a flawed president. “What’s important is not whether or not he gets out, but how he campaigns,” said Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.). “If the contrast is now about what separates us from Donald Trump, then I think it’s fine. I just hope that we can begin to focus on unifying because obviously a lot of us are perplexed that we could be facing a country led by someone who seems to be a buffoon.” Added Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.): “It’s good [for Sanders] to continue to raise the concerns that people have, but I think it ought to be in the context of, ‘This is the difference between the Democrats and Republicans in this race.’” The subtext of these comments is the general view among Democrats that Sanders has no path to win. Clinton has nearly double the number of delegates that Sanders has, and she swept the Vermont independent in three distinct regions of the country last week. “It will be almost impossible for Sen. Sanders to catch up. And he should do the math and draw his own conclusions,” said Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.). “The writing’s on the wall,” said Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.). The message senators are airing publicly mirrors what President Barack Obama told donors in private recently, according to The New York Times: That while Clinton may have her faults as a candidate, the party needs to channel its energy into defeating Trump. Over the past month, Clinton campaign staffers have bristled at the way Sanders is running. A Clinton campaign memo said Sanders has been “increasingly negative” and accused him of breaking his vows not to name Clinton in his ads, blaming his sweeping losses on a negative strategy that “backfired.” While tame compared with the accusations of lying and name-calling that dominate the Republican race, Sanders has gone after Clinton more aggressively of late. In the run-up to the Illinois primary, he highlighted her ties to Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who’s unpopular among African-American voters and distrusted by progressives. And Sanders has repeatedly dismissed Clinton supporters as part of the “establishment,” which Democratic senators interpret as showing disrepect for them. Still, Democratic leaders say they’re confident Sanders will do the right thing in the end. As pointed as some of his barbs at Clinton have been, they argue, the self-described democratic socialist hasn’t gone overboard. “Bernie is a very constructive person. And he wants to move American politics closer in his direction. He’s done that already,” said Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, the expected next Democratic leader. “I am not worried.” The Sanders campaign dismissed any suggestion that it’s time to wrap up his long-shot bid and pivot to defeating Trump and the Republicans. Campaign spokesman Michael Briggs insisted Sanders is still a superior general election candidate because he “consistently draws much more support than she does in general election matchups with the Republican front-runner.” “If Democrats are interested in holding on to the White House, if Democratic senators are interested in regaining a majority in the Senate and picking up seats in the House and statehouses all across the county, Bernie’s the best bet,” Briggs said. Even so, Democrats privately believe Sanders is already calculating how to gradually shift toward a posture of unity by summertime. With Clinton favored to win the nomination and beat Trump in the general election, Sanders also has to think about his relationship with a potential future president and returning to the Senate, where he caucuses with Democrats. “He won’t do it,” said one high-ranking Democratic staffer on Capitol Hill of Sanders continuing to attack Clinton in ways that go beyond their policy differences. At the same time, Democrats need to tread carefully in how they treat Sanders. His legion of followers will be critical to getting Clinton elected, not to mention scores of Democratic Senate and House candidates. It’s unknown how hard Sanders would campaign for Clinton, assuming she does prevail. “I think that Sen. Sanders has built a movement. And that whatever happens, the two big tribes of the Democratic Party will be able to unite at the convention and be so much stronger,” said Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii). But the dance is sure to be awkward. Not a single Democratic senator has endorsed Sanders. And beneath their deference, there’s growing irritation among the lawmakers that the longer his campaign continues, the more he will undermine Clinton in the fall. “That’s something he’s going to have to decide,” Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said of how long Sanders remains in the race. “She’s going to be the nominee.” But, for now at least, Democrats believe measured diplomacy is the best approach for dealing with Sanders and his supporters. “I don’t think any Democrat should call on him to get out,” said Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio). “Almost no Democrat I know would say that. And shouldn’t.” Seung Min Kim contributed to this report.

– Politico interviewed about a dozen Democratic lawmakers about the Bernie Sanders campaign and finds that a clear consensus is in the air: "The time has come, they say, for Sanders to start winding things down." The general view is that he can't possibly win and that if he wants to stay in the race, that's OK—as long as he starts directing his fire more toward Donald Trump than at Hillary Clinton. Sen. Claire McCaskill is one of those quoted in the story, and her remarks sum things up: “What’s important is not whether or not he gets out, but how he campaigns," she says. "If the contrast is now about what separates us from Donald Trump, then I think it’s fine." The story echoes the sentiment behind a recent New York Times story that said President Obama has been privately telling donors that it's time to get behind Clinton so she can focus on Trump. Blogger Ed Morrissey at Hot Air sums up the Democratic viewpoint toward Sanders as "keep campaigning ... but for Hillary." And he thinks that party leaders are probably on the mark with the strategy. "Perhaps Hillary will offer Sanders a Cabinet post, such as HHS, where he can indulge all of his single-payer healthcare fantasies if Hillary wins the election," he writes. "But it may take a couple of more major-state blowouts to get the message through to Bernie that it’s over … and it’s been over for a while." Sanders, though, clearly disagrees. On Sunday, he began raising pressure on superdelegates in states he's won by big margins to respect the will of voters and back him at the convention instead of Clinton. The whole issue of unbound superdelegates is "problematic," he says, per the Hill. (The latest campaign finance reports had some surprise winners and losers.)

Millennium Tower homeowners propose $100 million solution to sinking problem The Millennium Tower is seen in front of Salesforce Tower in San Francisco, Calif. on Tuesday, March 27, 2018. Engineers may begin preliminary work soon to stabilize the sinking and leaning Millennium Tower. The Millennium Tower is seen in front of Salesforce Tower in San Francisco, Calif. on Tuesday, March 27, 2018. Engineers may begin preliminary work soon to stabilize the sinking and leaning Millennium Tower. Photo: Paul Chinn / The Chronicle Buy photo Photo: Paul Chinn / The Chronicle Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Millennium Tower homeowners propose $100 million solution to sinking problem 1 / 1 Back to Gallery Homeowners in the sinking Millennium Tower on Tuesday will submit a permit application to shore up the 58-story building by drilling more than 50 new piles down to bedrock, a nearly $100 million fix. In an application to be filed with the city’s Department of Building Inspection, the Millennium Tower Association laid out plans for a “perimeter pile upgrade,” 52 steel and concrete piles that would shift a portion of the building’s weight from its existing foundation system to bedrock about 250 feet below. While the application outlines about $30 million worth of work, the entire pile upgrade would cost nearly $100 million and take 18 months. The contractor would drill 22 new piles along Mission Street and 30 along Fremont Street. Each pile is 24 inches in diameter and weighs 140,000 pounds and would take three or four days to drill into place. A reinforced concrete “inner pile” would be installed within each steel shaft. That shift would relieve stress on soils that have compressed beneath the building, causing it to settle more than anticipated and to tilt, according to engineer Ronald Hamburger of the firm Simpson Gumpertz & Heger, which designed the plan. The new piles on the north and west sides would limit future settlement of the tower to minimal levels and reverse the building’s tilt, according to Hamburger. “We have high confidence in the engineers who designed this retrofit, and we look forward to working with the city and county of San Francisco to get the project under way,” said Howard Dickstein, president of the Millennium Tower Association’s Center board of directors. “While the city and other experts have always certified the building as safe, this solution will eliminate any lingering questions about its stability and ensure future settlement is within the normal range.” Photo: Paul Chinn / The Chronicle A man walks past the Millennium Tower in San Francisco, Calif. on... One of the city’s flashiest luxury condo towers when it opened in April 2009, the Millennium, at 301 Mission St., has become notorious internationally over the past two years as San Francisco’s leaning tower, settling 18 inches and leaning 14 inches to the west. The flawed foundation sparked multiple lawsuits from residents against the developer, Millennium Partners, as well as the architect and engineers who designed the concrete and glass building. Mission Street Development LLC, the tower’s original developer, agreed to perform and warrant the retrofit, which would eventually be paid for by a settlement reached in ongoing, confidential mediation. Hamburger said the soils that are most heavily stressed are along the north and west sides of the building. That is because there is a deep garage on the east side, and the train box for the Transbay Transit Center is on the south side. “It’s primarily the soils on the north and west side that are overstressed and as a result are compressing and allowing the building to settle and tilt,” said Hamburger. The plan will be reviewed by a panel of experts, and if everything goes well, work could start in the late winter or early spring. The work would be underground and should not cause much of a disturbance to residents, Hamburger said. “There won’t be a lot of noise or pounding or vibration from the operation,” he said . The tower sits on a 10-foot-thick concrete mat foundation, held in place by 950 reinforced concrete piles driven up to 90 feet deep. Under the retrofit plan, the 52 new piles would extend into bedrock beneath the compressible soils currently causing the settlement. They would be connected to the existing foundation by an extension of the concrete mat. While it’s common for buildings downtown to be built on shorter friction piles as the Millennium is, the height of the tower and its concrete frame make it heavier than neighboring high-rises. The developer, an affiliate of Millennium Partners, has been working with the homeowners for months to reach agreement on an appropriate plan to address harm caused to the residential tower by its settlement as well as tilting associated with surrounding construction activities by the Transbay Joint Powers Authority, which built the Transbay Terminal, and the developer of Salesforce Tower. The developers blamed the sinking on dewatering that took place during the construction of the adjacent Transbay Transit Center, which they argued weakened the soil under the tower’s foundation. Philip Aarons, a principal at Millennium Partners, said that the additional piles would make the tower “one of the safest buildings in California.” “We have made clear from the beginning that getting to a ‘fix’ has been Mission Street Development’s top priority,” Aarons said. In the 30 months since news broke of the building’s structural problems, the 419-unit tower has been in limbo, with few units on the market, and those are selling for well under asking. In April, a four-bedroom unit sold for $4.66 million, 23 percent less than the asking price, and 13 percent less than it went for in May 2014. “It will continue to trade at a discount until it’s fixed,” said Chris Foley, a partner with Polaris Pacific, which markets and sells new condos. “Once it is fixed, it will trade at market, but it will never be a premier building again.” Part of the hope of the retrofit is that it will “restore the reputation of the building,” said P.J. Johnston, a spokesman for the developer. J.K. Dineen is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jdineen@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @sfjkdineen ||||| The building has been given the nickname "the leaning tower of San Francisco." Eric Risberg/AP At 58 stories and 645 feet high, the luxury Millennium Tower is the tallest concrete structure in San Francisco. It's also one of the most unstable. On Saturday, an apartment owner detected a large fissure in his window on the high-rise's 36th floor, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. Earlier that day, residents reported hearing a series of creaking noises, followed by a loud pop. As of Tuesday, the building's management company had 72 hours to report on the issue. Though officials blocked off part of the sidewalk, a spokesperson for the Department of Building Inspection said there was no safety risk for pedestrians. It's concerning news for inhabitants of 301 Mission Street, who have already had to contend with the fact that their building is sinking. In 2016, an independent consultant found the tower had sunk 16 inches and tilted 2 inches to the northwest since its completion in 2008. By 2018, it had sunk an additional inch and tilted another 12 inches. The builders originally anticipated that the structure would sink only 4 to 6 inches over the course of its lifetime. This rapid shift has led to speculation that the building's facade is separating from its interior, making it vulnerable to an earthquake or fire. Stress gauges have been used to measure floor-to-ceiling cracks in the parking garage of the Millennium Tower. Eric Risberg/AP While the Department of Building Inspection has since determined that the tower is safe to live in, residents are concerned about their investments. When the building first opened, its units sold for anywhere from $1.6 million to more than $10 million. Since then, around 100 condo owners have each seen a $320,000 drop on average in their apartment value. The high-rise has also endured a string of lawsuits, including one spearheaded by the homeowners' association. Developers have gone back and forth over who's to blame. Millennium Partners, the real estate company behind the tower, cites the 2010 construction of the recently-completed Salesforce Transit Center as the reason for the sinking. The developers contend that construction workers pumped too much water out of the ground while the transit center was being built, causing the sand to compress and the tower to settle. But the Transbay Joint Powers Authority, which oversaw the center's development, argue that the sinking started before they broke ground. Earlier this year, engineers proposed a solution to the tower's structural instability: a project with a price tag up to $500 million that involves anchoring the building to bedrock, which is more compact and tends to shake less than sand. Until then, residents may continue to witness unsettling damages, such as cracks in the basement or malfunctioning elevators, as the tower continues to shift.

– Residents of San Francisco's leaning luxury condo tower have come up with a $100 million solution to be put in place as soon as this winter. Homeowners at the 58-story Millennium Tower, which has sunk 18 inches and tilted 14 inches since its construction, plan to submit a permit application Tuesday to drill 52 new steel and concrete piles securing the 10-foot-thick concrete mat foundation into bedrock 250 feet below, reports the San Francisco Chronicle. The 140,000-pound piles installed on the north and west sides of the tower would reverse its 14-inch tilt to the west by relieving stress on the soft soil compressing beneath, designer and engineer Ronald Hamburger of Simpson Gumpertz & Heger tells the Chronicle, which notes the work should take 18 months without much disturbance to residents. The 419-unit tower currently has 950 reinforced concrete piles driven up to 90 feet deep, along with cracks in the foundation and windows, per Business Insider. "While the city and other experts have always certified the building as safe, this solution will eliminate any lingering questions about its stability," the president of the Millennium Tower Association's Center Board of Directors tells the Chronicle. A rep for developer Millennium Partners, which faces multiple lawsuits, adds the retrofit would make the tower "one of the safest buildings in California." Original developer Mission Street Development has agreed to perform the work, with the funds coming out of an eventual settlement. Work could begin in late winter or early spring, if approved by a panel of experts. (Pisa's Leaning Tower has lost some of its tilt.)

In this Wednesday, June 22, 2016 photo "Skyslide" juts out from the side of the U.S. Bank Tower building in downtown Los Angeles. Starting this weekend, thrill-seekers can begin taking the ride that is... (Associated Press) In this Wednesday, June 22, 2016 photo "Skyslide" juts out from the side of the U.S. Bank Tower building in downtown Los Angeles. Starting this weekend, thrill-seekers can begin taking the ride that is about 1,000 feet high and perched on the outside of the tallest skyscraper west of the Mississippi,... (Associated Press) LOS ANGELES (AP) — I've jumped out of a plane from 13,000 feet. I've ridden 400-foot-tall roller coasters that top speeds of 100 mph, and I once found myself using my fingernails to clutch the side of a rock face way too steep to climb without gear. Heights have never fazed me. Until the Skyslide, a terrifying glass tube on the outside of the U.S. Bank Tower in downtown Los Angeles. It's open to the public Saturday, and journalists were given an early chance to try it out. Perched 1,000 feet above the ground on the side of the tallest skyscraper west of the Mississippi, the 360-degree glass slide is utterly terrifying. It's is nearly a straight shot down, except for a small turn at the beginning that causes riders to bump against the side of the glass, much to their horror. I tried not to pay attention to the screams from other people riding the slide as I waited in what seemed like an interminable line. I tried not to think about the fact that just 1¼ inches separated me from a 1,000-foot drop. My heart thumped as I approached the top of the slide. I could see the streets below me and the infinite city straight ahead. As I hooked each foot into a little mat that helps riders pick up speed and avoid skidding on the glass, I felt my hands trembling. And when I scooched slowly toward the point of no return, I thought strongly about turning around. I forged on, unable to contain a terrified squeal as I flew down. "Oh my God, Richard!" I yelled to my friend, an AP photographer at the bottom of the slide. All I wanted was to see him again. I shot out of the bottom and am proud to say I stuck the landing. Others have tumbled nearly head over heels. Was it one of the scariest things I've ever done? Absolutely. Would I do it again? I just did. ___ The Skyslide opens to the public for the first time on Saturday. It spans 45 feet from the 70th to the 69th floor of the U.S. Bank Tower in downtown Los Angeles. The slide is part of a $50 million renovation that includes an open-air observation desk and a bar. Tickets to reach the deck are $25. It costs $8 more to ride the slide. ||||| The interactive transcript could not be loaded. Rating is available when the video has been rented. This feature is not available right now. Please try again later.

– Think China's glass bridge is a bit freaky? Check out this video of AP reporter Amanda Lee Myers sliding down a glass slide. Did we mention it's 1,000 feet above the ground? The 45-foot Skyslide, as it's known, connects the 69th and 70th floors of the US Bank Tower in Los Angeles and will be open to the public Saturday (for a $33 fee) after a $50 million renovation. But a warning from Myers in her first-person account: It's "utterly terrifying" and "nearly a straight shot down."

According to Syrian opposition sources, the Free Syrian Army has taken over a nuclear facility in Al-Kibar, the Al-Jazeera network reported. According to foreign media reports, the Al-Kibar facility was reportedly struck by Israel in 2007. Related stories: The rebels released a video, in which they are seen in a base storing missiles, most likely scud missiles. The rebels in a scud-missile base In 2007, Syria's news agency reported that President Bashar Assad regime’s was close to completing a nuclear reactor at Al-Kibar, in the east of the country, when it was reportedly destroyed by Israeli jets in September 2007. Israel has never admitted to attacking the reactor. Meanwhile, a source with Syria's National Coalition said on Friday that the coalition will meet in Istanbul on March 2 to choose a prime minister to head a provisional government to operate in rebel-held areas of the country. The date was set after a compromise was reached between a bloc in the coalition that includes the powerful Muslim Brotherhood and other members who favor speedy formation of a government, the source told Reuters at the end of a two-day meeting of the coalition in Cairo. Reuters contributed to this report Follow Ynetnews on Facebook and Twitter ||||| By BLOOMBERG Free Syria Army fighters in Saraqeb [file photo] Photo: REUTERS / Handout Syria’s main opposition group agreed to set up a transitional government seeking recognition as the legitimate alternative to President Bashar Assad’s rule, as rebels said they seized control of a nuclear research center. The Syrian National Coalition will name a premier for the new administration within 10 days, Haitham El-Maleh, a leading member of the group, said in a phone interview. He didn’t give further details. Syrian rebel fighters seized control of a nuclear research center at Al Kibar, in the eastern province of Deir Ezzour, which was reportedly bombed by Israelis in 2007, the opposition Local Coordination Committees said in an e-mail. At least 85 people were killed today by Assad’s forces, the opposition Local Coordination Committees said, according to Al Arabiya television. The coalition was set up in November at a meeting in Qatar to unify the forces, including Islamist groups, that have been fighting for two years to oust Assad. While it has won backing from the US, European allies and Arab League nations, it’s not clear how much control the group has over rebel forces engaged on the ground in a conflict that has killed almost 70,000 people, according to United Nations estimates. Syria’s government and the National Coalition have both signaled in the past month that they are ready to hold talks, though there has been no agreement over terms and conditions. Bomb attack in Damascus kills 53 The opposition group won’t accept any political solution that doesn’t involve Assad’s departure, and will insist that the president and his military and security leaders be tried for crimes against Syrians, Egypt’s state-run Middle East News Agency reported today, citing a document drafted by the coalition after a two-day meeting in Cairo. The government said a bomb attack in Damascus yesterday that left 53 people dead was carried out by groups linked to al- Qaida. The bombing in the densely populated area also injured 235 people, the government said in a letter to the United Nations that was published by the state-run SANA news agency. The casualties included children and students, it said. The opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on its Facebook page that 61 people were killed in the bombing, including 17 members of the military. The attack took place in the vicinity of the Russian Embassy and the ruling Baath Party headquarters. No Russian diplomats or their families were hurt in the attack, which damaged the embassy’s windows and doors, Russia’s Foreign Ministry said. The opposition coalition blamed Assad’s government for the attack, saying it “never hesitates” to bomb residential areas. “The Assad regime has opened the doors for anarchy in Syria in order to justify committing heinous and unprecedented crimes against the innocent Syrian population,” the group said yesterday in an e-mailed statement.

– Syria's leading opposition group agreed today to establish a transitional government at the same time rebels said they had taken over the nuclear facility that Israel bombed in 2007, the Jerusalem Post reports. A top member of the Syrian National Coalition said the group will choose a leader within 10 days, but gave no further details. The coalition will name its leader in a meeting scheduled to begin in Istanbul on March 2, reports YNet News. They set the date after a compromise was reached between two powerful groups in the party—one representing the Muslim Brotherhood, the other urging the quick formation of a government. Meanwhile, the rebels say they've seized the remains of the nuclear center at Al Kibar. They also released a video that apparently shows them storing missiles—probably scuds—at the former nuclear site. (Read about the huge blast that hit Damascus yesterday.)

This frame taken from a video released by the Italian firefighters, shows an aerial view of the collapsed Morandi highway bridge in Genoa, northern Italy, Tuesday, Aug. 14, 2018. A large section of the... (Associated Press) This frame taken from a video released by the Italian firefighters, shows an aerial view of the collapsed Morandi highway bridge in Genoa, northern Italy, Tuesday, Aug. 14, 2018. A large section of the bridge collapsed over an industrial area in the Italian city of Genova during a sudden and violent... (Associated Press) MILAN (AP) — The Latest the collapse of a bridge in Italy (all times local): 5:10 p.m. The mayor of the Italian city of Genoa says the death toll in the collapse of a highway bridge in the city has risen. Genoa Mayor Marco Bucci told Sky TG24 that the number of dead was now above 25 people and that 11 others who were injured have been pulled from the rubble. A huge section of the Morandi Bridge on a main highway linking Italy with France collapsed Tuesday in Genoa during a sudden, violent storm, sending vehicles plunging 45 meters (nearly 150 feet) into a heap of rubble below. Hundreds of rescue workers with sniffer dogs are searching through the tons of rubble and twisted metal looking for more victims. The bridge is on a key highway that connects Genoa to the eastern Liguria coastline and to France. ___ 4:45 p.m. It's too early to say what caused the deadly collapse of a highway bridge in the Italian city of Genoa, but corrosion or weather conditions could have been part of the cause, a structural engineer specializing in bridges says. "As this reinforced and prestressed concrete bridge has been there for 50 years it is possible that corrosion of tendons or reinforcement may be a contributory factor," said Ian Firth, former president of The Institution of Structural Engineers. "The fact that there was reported to be a storm at the time may or may not be particularly relevant. In addition, ongoing work on the bridge may or may not be partly responsible for the collapse," he added. Firth said the bridge is an unusual design but is similar to a larger bridge in Venezuela, and both were designed by Riccardo Morandi. ___ 3:45 p.m. The head of Italy's civil protection agency Angelo Borrelli has put the number of victims of the Genoa bridge collapse at 20 people dead and 13 injured. Borrelli told a press conference in Rome on Tuesday that the victims appear to all have been in vehicles that plunged from the bridge. Borrelli said that while there are two warehouses below the collapse it is believed they were closed for the summer holiday and that no one was inside. He said no residences were involved. Borelli said that highway engineers were checking the safety of the bridge in other points, and that some areas were being evacuated as a precaution. Earlier, Italy's deputy transport minister Edoardo Rixi said the number of victims had risen to at least 22 dead and eight injured. ___ 3:30 p.m. Italian Rixi told Sky TG24 that, as he was speaking, emergency response crews were recovering a body from an automobile that was suspended on a central part of the bridge. Rixi said it is "the biggest tragedy involving a bridge of this importance in Europe in the last decades." He said that at least 20 vehicles on the bridge had plunged in the collapse, and that also people in buildings below the bridge were in some way involved. That included the trash management offices for the city of Genoa. ___ 3 p.m. French President Emmanuel Macron has offered Italy his country's help after a bridge collapsed in the Italian city of Genoa. The president's office said that Macron, who is currently staying at a presidential residence in southern France, had a phone call with Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte. In French and Italian, Macron wrote on Twitter: "Our thoughts go to the victims, their relatives and all the Italian people. France stands by Italy in that tragedy and is ready to provide all necessary support." The disaster occurred on a major highway that connects Italy to France and other vacation resorts. ___ 2:20 p.m. The Italian news agency ANSA citing the Interior Ministry says that 11 people are confirmed dead in the collapse of a highway bridge in the port city of Genoa. ANSA reported Tuesday that five people are injured and in serious condition. The Interior Ministry press office could not immediately confirm the fatalities. An official with Italian firefighters, Amalia Tedeschi, told RAI state TV that some 20 vehicles, including cars and trucks, had been involved in the collapse. She confirmed that two people had been extracted alive from vehicles, with injuries. Tedeschi said that sniffer dogs are at work in the rubble looking for more injured and victims. In addition, heavy equipment was being moved in so they could lift pieces of the bridge. Tedeschi said the part of the bridge that collapsed was about 80 meters (yards) in length. Media reports had earlier put it at 200 meters. ___ 1:30 p.m. Italian news agency ANSA says one person has been extracted alive from the rubble of the bridge collapse near the northern city of Genoa and is being transported by helicopter to a hospital. ANSA says Italian rescue workers have identified at least 10 vehicles involved the bridge collapse. There was no immediate word on overall deaths or injuries. Maria Luisa Catalano of the highway police in Genoa said work was ongoing, adding, "we don't know numbers of victims/injured yet." Interior Minister Matteo Salvini said some 200 fire fighters are responding to the accident. On Twitter he says "we are following minute by minute the situation of the bridge collapse in Genoa." The bridge is an important interchange between the northern regions of Lombardy and Piedmont and the beaches of Liguria, and to the main highway heading westward into France. ___ 12:55 p.m. Italian authorities say that about 10 vehicles were involved when a raised highway collapsed during a sudden and violent storm in the northern port city of Genoa. Private broadcaster Sky TG24 said that a 200-meter section of the Morandi Bridge collapsed Tuesday over an industrial zone, and firefighters told The Associated Press that there are concerns about gas lines. Police on Twitter said the collapse occurred during a sudden, violent storm, while firefighters said vehicles were involved, indicating the likelihood of fatalities. Photos published by the ANSA news agency on its website showed a huge gulf between two sections of the highway. Video captured the sound of a man screaming: "Oh god, oh, god." Other images showed a green truck that had stopped just meters (yards) short of the gaping hole in the bridge. ___ 12:30 p.m. The Italian news agency ANSA says a raised highway has partially collapsed in the northern port city of Genoa. There was no immediate word on deaths or injuries. ANSA said that authorities suspected that a structural weakness caused the collapse on Tuesday. Images circulating on Italian media show the highway through the city with a large section missing. Emergency vehicles were responding. ||||| Rescuers in Italian city work through the night with sniffer dogs and heavy lifting equipment in scenes compared to an earthquake Italian rescuers have searched through the night for any survivors from the motorway bridge collapse in Genoa that has now been confirmed to have killed 35 people. “The latest official number is 35 but we can’t rule out it could rise further,” a Genoa police spokeswoman said on Wednesday. Genoa bridge collapse – pictures from the scene Read more More than a dozen people have been injured, most of them seriously. One fire official, Emanuele Giffi, told AFP: “We’re not giving up hope, we’ve already saved a dozen people from under the rubble. “We’re going to work round the clock until the last victim is secured.” Facebook Twitter Pinterest Rescuers inspect the rubble of the Morandi bridge. Photograph: Valery Hache/AFP/Getty Images In what witnesses described as an “apocalypse”, an 80-metre section of the Morandi bridge on the A10 motorway came down in an industrial area of the port city during a sudden and violent storm at about 11.30am on Tuesday. About 30 vehicles, including cars and trucks, were on the affected section when it fell 100 metres, mostly on to rail tracks, the fire service said. Investigators are now looking at what could have caused such a catastrophic collapse, creating a scene rescuers compared to the aftermath of an earthquake. Sniffer dogs searched through the rubble, and heavy equipment was moved in to lift pieces of the bridge. Heavy rain also made conditions more challenging. As cars and trucks tumbled off the bridge, truck driver Afifi Idriss just managed to come to a halt in time. “I saw the green lorry in front of me stop and then reverse so I stopped too, locked the truck and ran,” he told AFP. The green truck was still on the bridge in the late evening, stopped just short of the now yawning gap. 'Unusual' span of collapsed Genoa bridge had seen frequent repair work Read more Aerial footage showed that the falling structure narrowly missed houses and other buildings as it collapsed over a river. The disaster occurred on a major artery to the Italian Riviera and to France’s southern coast. Traffic would have been heavier than usual as many Italians were travelling to beaches or mountains on the eve of a public holiday, Ferragosto. Play Video 0:32 Aftermath of motorway bridge collapse in Genoa – video “The scene is apocalyptic, like a bomb had hit the bridge,” Matteo Pucciarelli, a journalist for La Repubblica who lives in Genoa, told the Guardian. “There are about 200 rescuers working continuously. People are in shock, it’s a very important arterial road that connects Lombardy and Piedmont with Liguria.” Alberto Lercari, a bus driver, earlier told Corriere della Sera: “I saw people running towards me, barefoot and terrified. I heard a roar. People ran away coming towards me. It was horrible.” Davide Ricci, who had been travelling south, told La Stampa: “The debris landed about 20 metres from my car. First the central pillar crumbled and then everything else came down.” Facebook Twitter Pinterest A police official sifts through the wreckage. Photograph: Flavio Lo Scalzo/EPA Matteo Pierami drove across the bridge with his wife and child, aged two months, almost an hour before it collapsed. The family had been making their way from Lucca, in Tuscany, to the Ligurian town of Imperia. A couple of friends and their baby had been travelling in another car. “I’ve had some time to calm down and am now trying to understand what happened, but my wife and our friends are very shocked,” Pierami said. “We didn’t hear or see anything, but after passing the bridge stopped at an Autogrill [roadside restaurant], and started to receive calls from family.” Pierami, an engineer, had driven over the bridge many times before. “There was lots of traffic; there is always a lot of traffic there.” Facebook Twitter Pinterest How the bridge appeared before its collapse. Photograph: Alamy Stock Photo The Italian transport minister, Danilo Toninelli, immediately blamed the collapse on poor infrastructure maintenance and pledged that those responsible “would pay”. The minister, from the Five Star Movement, was rebuked by the opposition for using “political propaganda” so soon after the tragedy. Giuseppe Conte, the prime minister, arrived in Genoa on Tuesday night and was expected to be joined later by his deputy, Luigi Di Maio. Conte said: “It’s too early to talk about the causes and hypothesis, but one thing is certain, a tragedy of this kind cannot be repeated.” The president, Sergio Mattarella, expressed his condolences in a statement, while stressing that Italians should be guaranteed the right “to modern and efficient infrastructure that accompanies everyday life”. Facebook Twitter Pinterest General view of collapsed Morandi bridge in Genoa. Photograph: Stefano Rellandini/Reuters “Now is the time for a common commitment towards dealing with the emergency, assisting the injured and supporting those hit by the pain,” he added. “Then a serious investigation into the cause of what happened must follow. No authority can evade an exercise of full responsibility.” The Morandi bridge, which was inaugurated in 1967, is 90-metres high and just over 1km long. Restructuring work on the bridge was carried out in 2016. The highway operator said work to strengthen the road foundations of the bridge was being carried out at the time of the collapse, and the bridge was constantly monitored. Andrea Montefusco, an engineering expert at Luiss University in Rome, said: “It’s difficult to make any serious hypothesis right now. Some people are saying maybe lightning could have struck a cable on the bridge, but at this moment it’s too early to say anything about the cause.” Facebook Twitter Pinterest Rescuers among the rubble. Photograph: Luca Zennaro/EPA Montefusco, who grew up in Genoa, added: “It [the bridge] was a sort of jewel in Italian engineering, because at that time it was built with new engineering techniques. I used to enjoy passing over the bridge as a child, it was a novelty.” About 12 bridges and overpasses have collapsed in Italy since 2004, killing seven people between them. In early 2015 a €13m viaduct in Palermo collapsed within days of opening. Poor structural maintenance was identified as the cause in most of the cases. ||||| (ANSA) - Genoa, August 14 - The interior ministry said that 11 people are known to have have died after a section of a highway bridge in Genoa collapsed on Tuesday. It said five injured people were in hospital in a serious condition. Several crushed vehicles are under the rubble with dead people inside and two people were pulled out alive, rescue sources said. Some lorries ended up in the Polvecera river, Carabinieri police sources said. The Morandi viaduct upon which the A10 motorway runs gave way amid torrential rain. It runs over shopping centres, factories, some homes, the Genoa-Milan railway line and the river. "I am following what has happened in Genoa with maximum ransport and Infrastructure Minister Danilo Toninelli said via Twitter. "We are in close contact with the highways agency and we are going to the scene with deputy minister Rixi. "My total support and the moment is with the city".

– A witness described an "apocalyptic scene" Tuesday in Genoa, Italy, where a 250-foot section of the Morandi Bridge on the A10 highway collapsed in a fierce storm, reports the AP. Mayor Marco Bucci says at least 25 people have been confirmed dead. The bridge is 300 feet high, and some 20 cars and trucks were said to have fallen; two people have been pulled alive from their vehicles, and ANSA cites police sources who say some trucks fell into the Polcevera River. The Guardian notes the A10 links Italy and France and is a popular route for vacation-goers. "As this reinforced and prestressed concrete bridge has been there for 50 years, it is possible that corrosion of tendons or reinforcement may be a contributory factor," says Ian Firth, former president of the Institution of Structural Engineers. Witnesses described the aftermath: “I saw people running towards me, barefoot and terrified," says a bus driver. "I heard a roar. People ran away coming towards me. It was horrible.”

(CNN) Investigators have identified a suspect in the death of a western Pennsylvania police officer who was gunned down during a traffic stop. Rahmael Sal Holt, 29, shot and killed officer Brian Shaw on Friday, police said. "Consider Holt armed and dangerous," the Pennsylvania State Police tweeted. Update New Kensington Police Officer Shooting: Rahmael Sal HOLT (DOB 05/31/88) has been identified as the person who shot and killed Officer Shaw. A warrant has been issued for Holt's arrest. Consider Holt armed and dangerous! Call 911 with info on his location. Pictured below pic.twitter.com/6L6vqQ0WVs Brian Shaw had been a patrolman with New Kensington's police department for less than a year when he was killed Friday night, according to police Chief James Klein. The traffic stop resulted in a foot chase before Shaw, 25, was shot, Klein said. New Kensington is about 20 miles northeast of Pittsburgh. Our thoughts and prayers are with the New Kensington police and all who mourn the loss of Officer Brian Shaw. #EOW pic.twitter.com/xnVj2xM25E — Pittsburgh Police (@PghPolice) November 18, 2017 Authorities have put up a $40,000 reward for information leading to the suspect's arrest, according to a Pennsylvania State Police spokesman, with money pooled from multiple agencies, including the US Marshals Service, the FBI, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Officers from Westmoreland County and neighboring Allegheny County, as well as Pittsburgh police, combed the area overnight and processed the scene, CNN affiliate KDKA reported Trooper Stephen J. Limani, a spokesman for the Pennsylvania State Police, emphasized the importance of any information people can provide. We are again deeply saddened by the loss of another officer. Our thoughts and prayers are with the officer's family and friends and the New Kensington Police Department. Lest We Forget. #EOW #LODD — FBI Pittsburgh (@FBIPittsburgh) November 18, 2017 "If you look back in the history of many horrific incidents, a very small, minute tip could be the tipping point to lead us in a direction of who the person was that committed this crime," Limani said. Shaw graduated from the Allegheny County Police Training Academy in 2014, according to a post on the Allegheny County Police Department's Facebook page. "Officer Brian Shaw, you were taken from us too soon," the department wrote. "You are in our thoughts and prayers. Pittsburgh Steelers coach Mike Tomlin tweeted his condolences to Shaw's family and New Kensington police. My thoughts and prayers are with the family of Officer Brian Shaw and the entire New Kensington Police Department. So sad. RIP. — Mike Tomlin (@CoachTomlin) November 18, 2017 Shaw played for Slippery Rock University's football team, according to the school athletic department's Twitter page "Words can't describe how I feel," head football coach Shawn Lutz told KDKA . "He was part of our 2011 and 2013 championship teams." Shaw was the team's kicker, Lutz said. The university is about an hour's drive north of Pittsburgh. "He said he wanted to be a police officer, he was a hard working guy, such a positive young man," Lutz said of his former player. "Every time I think about Brian, I think of such a positive guy who would be successful at anything he did." ||||| ... wanted person investigation. On September 15, 2018, the Allegheny County Police Department (ACPD) assisted the Pitcairn Police Department in attempting to apprehend Jerome Solomon on outstanding arrest warrants at a residence in Pitcairn. Solomon was wanted on charges from two different incidents. As officers were approaching the residence, Solomon fled on foot. Officers gave chase and located Solomon behind a garage at 625 Second Avenue. Solomon had gone over a wall and fallen approximately 15 feet. He was suffering a compound fracture of his left ankle and was transported to a local hospital where he underwent surgery. The hospital contacted ACPD to advise that Solomon was out of surgery. Before officers could get to the hospital, Solomon had fled the hospital with an IV and a heart monitor still attached to him. Police reviewed surveillance video from the hospital and discovered that Jerome Solomon, a 39-year-old black male, had absconded from the hospital with the help of two other black males and two black females. Solomon is wanted on robbery, theft, aggravated assault, recklessly endangering another person, and other charges on the two outstanding arrest warrants. Anyone with information concerning the whereabouts of Jerome Solomon is asked to call Pittsburgh Crime Stoppers at 412-255-TIPS (412-255-8477). A reward of up to $1,000 is offered for information leading to the arrest and prosecution of individuals wanted for featured crimes. Callers may remain anonymous. Pittsburgh Crime Stoppers is seeking the public’s assistance with a ||||| The man who authorities say shot and killed a Pennsylvania police officer was caught Tuesday morning following a manhunt that lasted nearly 3 1/2 days. Pennsylvania State Police announced early Tuesday that authorities had apprehended Rahmael Sal Holt, who is accused of fatally shooting New Kensington Police Officer Brian Shaw following a Friday night traffic stop about 20 miles northeast of Pittsburgh. Westmoreland County District Attorney John Peck said at a news conference Tuesday that Holt, 29, was arrested at a home in Pittsburgh. The Pittsburgh Tribune Review reported that several associates and relatives, including the suspect’s mother, Sherry Holt, and another woman, Aysa Benson, were also arrested and accused of helping Rahmael Holt. Court records show the two have been charged with hindering apprehension, a third-degree felony. Rahmael Holt has been charged with first-degree murder of a law enforcement officer; murder of the first degree; possession of a firearm; and carrying a firearm without a license, according to an online court docket. The shooting happened just after 8 p.m. Friday, when Shaw tried to pull over an SUV. Holt, who was the passenger, jumped out of the moving vehicle and Shaw ran after him, according to an affidavit. Surveillance footage shows Holt running to a nearby parking lot, where authorities said he shot Shaw. [Suspected cop killer arrested following days-long manhunt, Pennsylvania State Police say] Peck said Holt fired six shots, striking Shaw multiple times. The officer, who was wearing a vest, was able to radio to the 911 center that he had been shot. He tried to stand up before he fell down and was not able to return fire, Peck told reporters. The surveillance footage shows Holt running toward the back of a building and into an alley after he shot Shaw, the affidavit said. The 25-year-old officer, who had been with the New Kensington Police Department for less than a year, died at a hospital less than an hour later. The affidavit said he had multiple gunshot wounds to the torso. Police later found the SUV not far from where the shooting occurred. The suspected driver, 27-year-old Tavon Jamere Harper, was arrested over the weekend and is facing fleeing and drug-related charges, court records show. Harper told investigators that he was accompanying Holt when Shaw tried to pull them over. After Holt leaped out, Harper said he kept driving, “clipping” Holt as he fled, the affidavit said. Peck said investigators received information from “various informants” that led to Holt’s capture. He did not elaborate further. He said the investigation is still ongoing. The suspect’s weapon has not been found, but Peck said .40-caliber casings were found at the crime scene. Investigators also are still looking for people who had contact with Holt before and after the shooting. It also remains unclear why Shaw tried to pull over the SUV. Videos and photos taken by local media Tuesday show Holt wearing a black hooded jacket as he was being led by officers to a small courthouse, where he was arraigned. Jail records show Holt is being held without bail. The Pittsburgh Tribune Review reported that he would hire a private attorney. Westmoreland Detective Ray Dupilka and New Ken police Chief Jim Klein spoke briefly before they led suspect Rahmael Holt to his arraignment on homicide charges. pic.twitter.com/6UVwSDdKAU — Renatta Signorini (@ByRenatta) November 21, 2017 Multiple law enforcement agencies and several residents had offered a total of $55,000 to anyone who could provide information leading to Holt’s capture. Authorities have not said if that money has been awarded to anyone. Speaking briefly at the news conference Tuesday, New Kensington Police Chief James Klein said Holt’s capture would allow him and his police officers to finally start grieving. “Our officers are dedicated to providing the best possible service to protect you and keep you safe. There’s no better example than Officer Brian Shaw who gave his life serving this community,” Klein said, taking deep breaths and pausing several times mid-sentence. “I promise you that officers will continue to serve with the same honor that Brian did.” Klein, as he did in previous news conferences, spoke only for a few minutes and did not take any questions from reporters. “At this time, it is important for me to spend time with the Shaw family,” he said. He also asked reporters to refrain from contacting the officer’s family, thanked them and left the news conference before it was over. [Slain border agent may have been beaten to death by rocks in ‘grisly scene,’ union leader says] Holt has a lengthy criminal history that stretches back to at least 2007. Court records show he had pleaded guilty to gun and drug charges, resisting arrest and disorderly conduct. He does not have a license to carry a firearm, the affidavit said. Shaw left behind his parents, a brother, a grandmother and his girlfriend, according to his obituary. He loved working out, hunting and playing with his dogs, Satie May and Gus. He was also a fan of sports and enjoyed playing soccer and football. Shaw graduated from the Allegheny County Police Academy. He worked as a part-time officer for three other towns before he joined the New Kensington Police Department, the Associated Press reported. Shaw’s parents, Stephan and Lisa Shaw, watch while their son’s casket is moved into the Rusiewicz Funeral Home in Lower Burrell, Pa., on Nov. 18. (Pam Panchak/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, via AP) He attended Burrell High School and Slippery Rock University, where he received a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice and played football for four years. “Our hearts are broken this morning as we mourn the loss of former Rock football player Brian Shaw, who was killed last night while serving as a police officer in New Kensington,” the university’s athletics department said Saturday on Twitter. “Our thoughts and prayers are with the Shaw family and The Rock football brotherhood.” A procession to move Shaw’s body to the Rusiewicz Funeral Home in Lower Burrell, Pa., where the officer lived, took place Saturday morning. Residents, many of whom carried American flags, and firefighters, all wearing their gear, waited on the streets to pay their respects. People line the street during the procession of slain New Kensington police officer Brian Shaw in Lower Burrell, Pa., on Nov. 18. (Nate Smallwood/Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, via AP) Read more: Man accused of fatally shooting a Missouri police officer during a traffic stop has been arrested Parolee’s anger at police may have led to shooting ‘I’m not playing, Mister Officer’: Gunman appears to complain about police mistreatment in video months before shooting NYPD officer ||||| Brian David Shaw December 30, 1991 - November 17, 2017 Share this obituary Brian David Shaw Age 25, of Lower Burrell died Friday November 17, in 2017 in his line of duty as a New Kensington Police Officer. He was born in Pittsburgh on December 30, 1991 to Stephan A. Sr. and Lisa J. Kristofik Shaw and has been a life long resident of Lower Burrell. Brian was a 2010 graduate of Burrell High School and attended Slippery Rock University where he was the place kicker for four years. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice then graduated from Allegheny County Police Academy. He worked as a police officer for the New Kensington Police Department and had previously worked East Deer, Frazier, and Cheswick Police Departments. He was a member of St. Joseph Roman Catholic Church, New Kensington and the F.O.P. Lodge 39. He enjoyed working out, soccer, football, hunting, playing with his dogs Satie Mae and Gus and was a fan of all sports. He will always be remembered for his charismatic, outgoing personality and addictive smile. In addition to his parents he is survived by his brother Steffan Shaw of Plum Boro., maternal grandmother Bernadine Kristofik of New Kensington, girlfriend Haylee Oliver of Lower Burrell and numerous aunts, uncles and cousins. He was preceded in death by his grandparents Lillie and Donald Berkoben and Frank Kristofik. Friends will be received Monday and Tuesday from 1-4 and 6-8 PM at THE RUSIEWICZ OF LOWER BURRELL FUNERAL HOME, 3124 Leechburg Road at Alder Street where Prayers of Transfer will be said Wednesday 9:15 AM followed by Christian Funeral Mass at 10 AM in Mount St. Peter Church, New Kensington. The F.O.P. will conduct services at 8 PM Tuesday in the funeral home. Donations may be made to the First National Bank, c/o Officer Brian Shaw Memorial Fund,110 Burrell Plaza, Lower Burrell, PA 15068 www.RusiewiczFH.com

– Police have identified a suspect in the tragic shooting of a rookie officer in western Pennsylvania. Per CNN, authorities named Rahmael Sal Holt, 29, as the alleged gunman who killed officer Brian Shaw Friday during a traffic stop turned foot chase. Details about the incident are still unfolding, including why Holt was pulled over and how many gunshots were fired, the Washington Post reports. A warrant for Holt’s arrest has been issued. “Consider Holt armed and dangerous!” Pennsylvania State Police warned in a tweet calling for tips. A $40,000 reward has been posted for information leading to the suspect’s arrest as a manhunt is under way (the money was reportedly pooled from multiple agencies, including the FBI.) "If you look back in the history of many horrific incidents, a very small, minute tip could be the tipping point to lead us in a direction of who the person was that committed this crime,” said a Pennsylvania State Police spokesman. The Allegheny County Police Department offered condolences to Shaw’s family and colleagues in a Facebook post, writing, “Your life mattered and you will be missed.” Shaw, 25, had been on the force for under a year. According to his obituary, he is survived by his parents, brother, grandmother, and girlfriend. “He will always be remembered for his charismatic, outgoing personality and addictive smile,” it said.

Having friends who suffer from depression doesn't affect the mental health of others, according to research led by the University of Warwick. The academics found that having friends can help teenagers recover from depression or even avoid becoming depressed in the first instance. The findings are the result of a study of the way teenagers in a group of US high schools influenced each others' mood. The academics used a mathematical model to establish if depression spreads from friend to friend. Professor Frances Griffiths, head of social science and systems in health at Warwick Medical School, University of Warwick, said: "Depression is a major public health concern worldwide. But the good news is we've found that a healthy mood amongst friends is linked with a significantly reduced risk of developing and increased chance of recovering from depression. "Our results offer implications for improving adolescent mood. In particular they suggest the hypothesis that encouraging friendship networks between adolescents could reduce both the incidence and prevalence of depression among teenagers." The study has been published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B entitled Spreading of healthy mood in adolescent social networks. Using data from The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health they looked at more than 2,000 adolescents in a network of US high school students. They examined how their mood influenced each other by modelling the spread of moods using similar methods to those used to track the spread of infectious diseases. Individuals were classified as either having depressive symptoms (low mood) or not being depressed (healthy mood) according to the score cut-off associated with a clinical diagnosis of depression. The team found that while depression does not 'spread', having enough friends with a healthy mood can halve the probability of developing, or double the probability of recovering from, depression over a six to 12 month period. The mathematical model used suggests that adolescents who have five or more mentally healthy friends have half the probability of becoming depressed compared to adolescents with no healthy friends. And teenagers who have 10 healthy friends have double the probability of recovering from depressive symptoms compared to adolescents with just three healthy friends. University of Warwick mathematics researcher Edward Hill is lead author of the research paper. He said: "In the context of depression, this is a very large effect size. Changing risk by a factor of two is unusual. "Our results suggest that promotion of any friendship between adolescents can reduce depression since having depressed friends does not put them at risk, but having healthy friends is both protective and curative." Social factors such as living alone or having experienced abuse in childhood are already linked to depression. Also social support, such as having someone to talk to has been cited as important for recovery from depression. However this study looks at the effect of being friends with people on the likelihood of developing depression or recovering from it. Another author of the paper, Dr Thomas House senior lecturer in applied mathematics from the University of Manchester said: "It could be that having a stronger social network is an effective way to treat depression. More work needs to be done but it may be that we could significantly reduce the burden of depression through cheap, low-risk social interventions. "As a society, if we enable friendships to develop among adolescents (for example providing youth clubs) each adolescent is more likely to have enough friends with healthy mood to have a protective effect. This would reduce the prevalence of depression." Other research into adolescent mental health by Warwick Medical School will be explored in an upcoming play called Cracked which is being performed by Santé Theatre Warwick ### Photocaption: Edward Hill ||||| 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.

– Happiness is contagious, but depression doesn't rub off on you, according to a new study out of England. Researchers examined data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health to study the moods of some 2,000 American high school students, according to a press release. By employing modelling akin to that used to chart the spread of infectious diseases, they found that depression does not spread, but having happy friends can alleviate or prevent depressive symptoms. "Our results offer implications for improving adolescent mood," says author Frances Griffiths of the University of Warwick. "In particular they suggest the hypothesis that encouraging friendship networks between adolescents could reduce both the incidence and prevalence of depression among teenagers." The "contagious" property of happiness is actually quite significant statistically. "Adolescents with five or more healthy friends have half the probability of becoming depressed over a six- to 12-month period compared with adolescents with no healthy friends, and that adolescents with 10 healthy friends have double the probability of recovering from depressive symptoms over a six to 12-month period compared with adolescents with three healthy friends," according to the study, published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B. The researchers end on this kicker: "If such an effect were demonstrated in an intervention study, this would massively outperform existing interventions." Another author gives that some context: "Changing risk by a factor of two is unusual," he says. (This teen pretended to be a friend and saved a life.)

Image caption The airline airBaltic says it is introducing new safety measures including increasing breathalyser tests for all "safety-critical personnel" A Latvian co-pilot who admitted drinking whisky and beer hours before an airBaltic flight from Norway to Crete has been jailed for six months. Two flight attendants were also given prison sentences of 45 and 60 days respectively. The co-pilot, 38, was found to have a blood alcohol level of almost seven times the legal limit. He told the court that he and his colleagues had downed two bottles of whisky before he began drinking beer. "We lost control," the man told the court on Monday, explaining his blood alcohol reading of 1.35mg of ethanol per millilitre of blood, far over the 0.2mg limit. Pilot facing trial The crew were tested by Norwegian police after an anonymous tip-off and the four accused were prevented from boarding the plane. They had begun drinking at 15:00 on 7 August, the co-pilot told the court, and had agreed to stop at 20:00 but lost control of the amount they had drunk because they were tired after three consecutive flights. He was still drinking beer shortly before 02:00 the next day, around four hours before his flight was due to leave with some 100 passengers on board. He was initially sentenced to eight months in jail but that was reduced to six because he admitted the charges. He is yet to decide whether to appeal. The plane's 50-year-old captain is also being held in custody and faces trial on 17 September. He denies some of the charges against him. Reports suggest his blood alcohol level was more than double the limit, at 0.54mg. After the four crew members were arrested, airBaltic said it was introducing additional safety measures, including pre-duty breathalyser tests for all "safety-critical personnel". The airline said all four had been suspended and it was seeking their dismissal. ||||| airBaltic Introduces Additional Safety Measures Riga, 10.08.2015. The Latvian airline airBaltic has introduced additional safety measures following the incident when its crew was removed before operating the flight BT7843 from Oslo, Norway, to Chania on the Greek Island of Crete on August 8 due to alcohol abuse. Safety is the top priority for airBaltic. Up to Saturday, 8 August 2015, airBaltic performed random breathalyser tests for its crew every single day, 365 days a year. airBaltic has increased the amount of the daily tests with immediate effect. Furthermore, airBaltic has decided to introduce pre-duty breathalyser tests for 100% of the safety-critical personnel. airBaltic has suspended the four individuals involved in the Oslo-Chania flight and is preparing for their dismissal due to the damage caused. airBaltic apologizes for the inconvenience to our customers. airBaltic thanks the Norwegian airport and police authorities for their contribution towards enforcing airBaltic safety principles. airBaltic has several layers of control mechanism to ensure the safety of all airBaltic-operated flights. Procedures are in place to ensure potential mistakes of human factor are addressed. airBaltic reiterates that it has zero tolerance for diverting from the safety principles. airBaltic serves over 60 destinations from its home base in Riga, Latvia. From every one of these locations, airBaltic offers convenient connections via Riga to its network spanning Europe, Scandinavia, Russia, CIS and the Middle East. In addition, airBaltic also offers new direct flights from Tallinn and Vilnius. airBaltic (AIR BALTIC CORPORATION) is the world’s most punctual airline connecting Riga, Latvia, with 60 destinations in Europe, the Middle East, and the CIS. airBaltic is a joint stock company that was established in 1995. Its primary shareholder is the Latvian state, which holds 99.8% of the stock. The airBaltic fleet consists of 25 aircraft – 13 Boeing 737 and 12 Bombardier Q400Next Gen. airBaltic has received numerous international awards for excellence, innovative services, and achievements in reshaping its business. In 2012, airBaltic was ranked by Airlinetrends among the Top 10 airlines globally for innovations. airBaltic achieved the best on-time performance globally in 2014. For further information, please contact: Janis Vanags, Vice President Corporate Communications A/S Air Baltic Corporation Riga International Airport LV-1053 Riga, Latvia Tel. (+371) 6720 7726 E-mail: janis.vanags@airBaltic.lv ||||| UPDATED: The co-pilot of an airBaltic flight testified in a Norwegian court on Monday that he was glad police stopped the entire flight crew before they were about to fly more than 100 passengers from Oslo to Crete earlier this month. He claimed they “lost control” over how much alcohol they drank the night before the early morning flight, resulting in four out of five crew members testing positive for high blood alcohol levels. The co-pilot’s was the highest of all, at 1.35, and he was ultimately sentenced to six months in prison on Monday. He admitted that he couldn’t remember when he stopped drinking. “But police have a picture of me from the bar when I bought a drink,” the co-pilot said, reportedly taken just four hours before the airBaltic flight was scheduled to depart at 5:45am. Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK) reported from the courthouse in Lillestrøm Monday that the co-pilot admitted he was under the influence of alcohol but thought at the time he was stopped in a police alcohol control at the airport that he was just tired after having slept too little. The 38-year-old co-pilot from Latvia described long and hard working days at the airline, with lots of travel and little sleep. “The early morning flights can therefore be difficult, you’re not quite sure whether you’ve slept,” he said. “It’s very good that the police stopped us.” He testitifed that he believed the crew shared two bottles of whisky, but admitted he had trouble remembering all the details from the evening. “We drank outside the hotel, but we agreed to stop drinking at 8pm,” he testified. “After that I only drank beer.” He said the drinking began around 3pm outside the hotel where the crew was spending the night. “We were just going to chat for awhile, but at some point, we lost control over how much we drank,” he said with the help of an interpreter. “It all ended as you know.” He and the 50-year-old captain were on trial in one courtroom, while two of the three flight attendants were on trial in a neighbouring courtroom. Only one flight attendant of the five-member crew tested negative when confronted with breathalyzer tests as they were boarding the flight at Oslo’s main airport at Gardermoen. All four on trial were immediately suspended by airBaltic and then given notice of dismissal. Prosecutors claimed they would have put the lives of the flight’s passengers in danger. The captain faces the most serious charges, expanded on Friday, because he was responsible for the entire crew. He ended up having his trial postponed until September 17 and agreed to stay in custody until then. Defense attorney Jørund Lægland told NRK that the co-pilot, meanwhile, wanted to “lay all his cards on the table” and therefore was making a full confession in the hopes that would lead to a lighter prison term. “He wants to get this over with and get a verdict,” Lægland said. Prosecutors asked that he be sentenced to seven months in jail, down from the nine months sought by police, because of his confession. Lægland thinks three to four months in prison would be sufficient, while the judge settled on a six-month sentence. Newspaper VG reported later that one of the flight attendants received a jail term of 45 days and the other 60 days. newsinenglish.no/Nina Berglund

– Too drunk to fly, and possibly too drunk to walk: A co-pilot who went on a drinking binge with three other airBaltic crew members hours before a flight was found to have a blood alcohol level around seven times the legal limit, the BBC reports. The 38-year-old told a court in Norway that he and his colleagues "lost control" after going out drinking in the afternoon and were still boozing at 2am, four hours before departure time, although they did switch from whiskey to beer at some point. The crew was breathalyzed after an anonymous tip before their Aug. 8 flight from Oslo to the Greek island of Crete, and authorities found that the pilot, co-pilot, and two out of three flight attendants were over the legal limit. The co-pilot was sentenced to six months in prison yesterday, while one flight attendant got 45 days and the other 60 days. The 50-year-old pilot—who faces more serious charges because he was responsible for the crew, as well as around 100 passengers—has had his trial postponed until next month and will remain in custody until then, reports NewsinEnglish.no. He was found to have a blood alcohol level around twice the legal limit, the BBC notes. In a statement, the Latvian airline said all four crew members have been suspended prior to dismissal, and it has brought in mandatory breath tests for all "safety-critical personnel." (These pilots were fired for letting a Playboy model fly the plane.)

An NGO from Africa, left, gets information at the inter-active climate wall during the UN Climate summit in Copenhagen, Denmark, Monday, Dec. 14, 2009. With a week for the climate summit to end, the split... (Associated Press) China, India and other developing nations boycotted U.N. climate talks Monday, bringing negotiations to a halt with their demand that rich countries discuss much deeper cuts in their greenhouse gas emissions. Representatives from 135 developing countries said they refused to participate in any formal working groups at the 192-nation summit until the issue was resolved. The developing countries want to extend the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which imposed penalties on rich nations if they did not comply with its strict emissions limits. The African-led move was a setback for the Copenhagen talks, which were already faltering over long-running disputes between rich and poor nations over emissions cuts and financing for developing countries to deal with climate change. However, the move was largely seen as a ploy to shift the agenda to the responsibilities of the industrial countries and make emissions reductions the first item for discussion when world leaders begin arriving Tuesday. "I don't think the talks are falling apart, but we're losing time," said Kim Carstensen, of the World Wildlife Fund. The developing countries "are making a point." The dispute came as the conference entered its second week, and only days before more than 100 world leaders, including President Barack Obama, were scheduled to arrive in Copenhagen. "Nothing is happening at this moment," Zia Hoque Mukta, a delegate from Bangladesh, told The Associated Press. He said developing countries have demanded that conference president Connie Hedegaard of Denmark bring the industrial nations' emissions targets to the top of the agenda before talks can resume. Poor countries, supported by China, say Hedegaard had raised suspicion that the conference was likely to kill the Kyoto Protocol. The United States withdrew from Kyoto over concerns that it would harm the U.S. economy and that China, India and other major greenhouse gas emitters were not required to take action. "We are seeing the death of the Kyoto Protocol," said Djemouai Kamel of Algeria, the head of the 50-nation Africa group. It was the second time the Africans have disrupted the climate talks. At the last round of negotiations in November, the African bloc forced a one-day suspension until wealthy countries agreed to spell out what steps they will take to reduce emissions. An African delegate said developing countries decided to block the negotiations at a meeting hours before the conference was to resume. He was speaking on condition of anonymity because the meeting was held behind closed doors. He said applause broke out every time China, India or another country supported the proposal to stall the talks. U.N. climate chief Yvo De Boer said Hedegaard was holding informal consultations with delegates "to get things going." In Washington, the White House on Monday announced a new program drawing funds from international partners to spend $350 million over five years to give developing nations clean energy technology to curb greenhouse gas emissions and reduce global warming. The program will distribute solar power alternatives for homes, including sun-powered lanterns, supply cleaner equipment and appliances and work to develop renewable energy systems in the world's poorer nations. The funding plan grew out of the Major Economies Forum (MEF) established among the world's top economies earlier this year. The U.S. share of the program will amount to $85 million, with the rest coming from Australia, Britain, the Netherlands, Norway and Switzerland, the White House said in a statement. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Energy Secretary Steven Chu is to coordinate with partners in the group to ensure immediate action on the program. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown's office said he would go to Copenhagen on Tuesday _ two days earlier than planned _ to try to inject momentum into the talks. Former Vice President Al Gore told the conference that new data suggests a 75 percent chance the entire Arctic polar ice cap may disappear in the summertime as soon as five to seven years from now. Gore, who won a Nobel Peace prize for his work on climate change, joined the foreign ministers of Norway and Denmark in presenting two new reports on melting Arctic ice. ____ Associated Press writer Arthur Max contributed to this report. ___ EDITOR'S NOTE _ Find behind-the-scenes information, blog posts and discussion about the Copenhagen climate conference at http://www.facebook.com/theclimatepool, a Facebook page run by AP and an array of international news agencies. Follow coverage and blogging of the event on Twitter at: http://www.twitter.com/AP_ClimatePool ||||| One of the two negotiating tracks at the UN climate talks in Copenhagen broke up in drama and confusion today when the Africa group of countries followed by other developing countries accused the chair of the conference of trying to "kill" the Kyoto protocol. They were also objecting to what they characterised as efforts to sideline the poorest countries. The crisis was then exacerbated after Australia said that rich countries should suspend talks about emission cuts. The UN and the chair of the conference, Denmark, tried hurriedly to repair the rifts as ministers began to arrive in Copenhagen for the high level political section of the talks. But after the talks were suspended for two hours, observers said that it looked increasingly unlikely that an ambitious deal would now be negotiated by Friday. Earlier today, it was confirmed that the UK prime minister, Gordon Brown, will fly to Copenhagen tomorrow, two days earlier than planned. Brown's spokesman denied the change was due to concerns that the negotiations lacked momentum. "The prime minister has re-prioritised his diary this week to ensure that he can put the time that is required into shaping the next few days," said the spokesman. "He is not seeking to push himself forward but he has taken a personal view that it is important that, if world leaders can, they should get there early." In the next two days he will meet other leaders who have brought forward their arrival at Copenhagen, including prime ministers Kevin Rudd of Australia, Jens Stoltenberg of Norway, Sheikh Hasina Wajed of Bangladesh and Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia. The confrontation in Copenhagen began when the Africa group called a press conference in the Bella centre. Seven countries, led by Algeria and including South Africa and Nigeria, said that rich countries were trying to collapse the Kyoto protocol. This followed moves by Japan, Australia and other rich countries at the weekend who argued that a new single treaty had to be presented to heads of state to be signed. Developing countries fear that rich nations will ensure that a new treaty will not place strict and legally binding commitments on the developed countries to cut their emissions, unlike the Kyoto protocol. Victor Fodeke, head of the Nigerian special climate change unit, said any attempt to remove the Kyoto track would be disastrous for the talks. "Africa is on death row. It has been sidelined by some countries. If there is any attempt to remove one of the tracks of negotiations, then it's obvious the train will crash." "This is of paramount importance. We cannot, we can never accept the killing of the Kyoto protocol. It will mean the killing of Africa," said another spokesman for the group. "Right now we are going to lose everything. In one or two days they will tell us that we don't have the time to deal with Kyoto protocol issues." said Maria Mbengashe, adviser to the South African minister of the environment. The extreme sensitivity of the Kyoto issue had been raised earlier by the UK climate change minister, Ed Miliband, who said today, "I am sympathetic to developing countries that they do not want the Kyoto track to be ended before new instruments are in place." Later, in a fast moving series of meetings between Connie Hedegaard, the Danish climate minister, the G77 and other countries, provisional agreement was reached to continue the talks on two tracks. "The developing countries have won this round," Lumumba Di-Aping, chief negotiator of the G77 (a group of 130 developing nations) told the Guardian. "Two texts will be presented to heads of state to sign. We won because Africa and other countries stood up." Yvo de Boer, the executive secretary of the UN talks, said that countries would now go into an open-ended "conversation". "If we try to end the Kyoto protocol now or in the next year, then we face the risk of no second commitment period for 35% of the emissions," he said. ||||| COPENHAGEN | COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - A protest by African nations accusing rich countries of doing too little to cut greenhouse gas emissions slowed U.N. climate talks on Monday just four days before world leaders are due to forge a deal in Copenhagen. After a five-hour standoff, the African nations let talks restart after assurances their objections would be heard. They accused the rich of trying to kill off the Kyoto Protocol, which obliges many industrialized nations to cut emissions until 2012. "We're talking again," said Kemal Djemouai, an Algerian official who leads the group of African nations at the December 7-18 meeting. Talks on a pact to succeed Kyoto have been sluggish since they started two years ago in Bali, Indonesia. But negotiators have scant time to reach a new U.N. deal to fight global warming at a summit of 110 world leaders on Friday, shifting the world economy from fossil fuels in a bid to avert heatwaves, floods, mudslides or rising sea levels. In Washington, the White House said President Barack Obama was working this week to help advance the Copenhagen talks ahead of his visit for the summit. And White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said developing countries such as China and India would have to do their part to reach a climate accord. China is the top greenhouse gas emitter ahead of the United States. After overcoming the African objections in Copenhagen, negotiators on Monday appointed pairs of ministers from poor and rich nations to seek solutions to the most contentious issues ahead of the summit. Ghana and Britain would examine ways to raise billions of dollars in new funds to help the poor, Grenada and Spain would look at disputes about sharing out the burden of emissions cuts by 2020. Singapore and Norway would look at a possible levy on bunker fuels to help raise funds. Despite the huge amount of work ahead, U.S. climate envoy Todd Stern said: "The desire will be that nothing is booted upstairs," for Obama and other world leaders to hash out when they arrive in Copenhagen. Earlier, African delegates said that the rich were trying ditch the Kyoto Protocol, which binds almost 40 industrialized nations to cut greenhouse gas emissions by at least 5.2 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12. KILL KYOTO Australian Climate Minister Penny Wong accused the African nations of staging a "walkout" and said it was "not the time for procedural games" so close to the end of the meeting, for which 35,000 people are registered. At the heart of the dispute, developing nations want to extend the 1997 Kyoto Protocol and work out a separate new deal for the poor. But most rich nations want to merge Kyoto into a single new accord obliging all nations to fight global warming. Industrialized nations want a single track largely because the United States never ratified Kyoto. They fear signing up for a binding new Kyoto while Washington slips away with a less strict regime [nLDE5BD1DU]. In a sign of the impacts of warming, a report by former U.S. Vice President Al Gore and Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere said world sea levels could rise by up to 2 meters by 2100, with worrying signs of a thaw in Antarctica.

– A group of 125 developing countries, including China and India, boycotted the climate change talks in Copenhagen today, accusing developed countries of trying to ditch the Kyoto protocol, and the penalties it imposes on them if they don't meet emissions limits. The Africa-led move created chaos at the talks, which were already faltering over long-running disputes between rich and poor nations over emissions cuts and financing for developing countries to deal with climate change. “We can never accept the killing of the Kyoto protocol,” one spokesman said. “It will mean the killing of Africa.” Reuters reported a breakthrough and possible return to the negotiating table this afternoon after Danish hosts agreed to give developing nations' demands for the Kyoto extension more attention. “The developing countries have won this round,” the group’s top negotiator told the Guardian, “because Africa and other countries stood up.”

Photo credit: Greg Rannells Photography/StockFood There may be something extra lurking in your morning cup of joe, and it’s not fairy dust. A new report reveals that due to recent coffee shortages, producers may be turning to finely ground fillers such as wood, husks, whole coffee berries, and even clumps of earth to compensate for the lost beans. Once roasted and ground, these fillers resemble coffee, which makes it difficult to visually confirm a coffee blend’s contents. Even more troubling, ”normal people can’t taste [the difference],” research team leader Suzana Lucy Nixdorf told us via email. Other common filler ingredients (detailed in the graphic below) include wheat, soybeans, and corn, the taste of which are even more difficult to detect. “Corn is very common because it tastes sweet, and people don’t perceive the added sugar. The same [goes] for brown sugar,” Nixdorf emailed. ”That is why we need a method [that’s] very sensible and not subjective [to determine] if the coffee is pure or not.” Nixdorf has, in fact, developed such a method. In a press release, she said that the test, which relies on statistical tools and lab techniques, can correctly determine whether or not a coffee sample is pure 95 percent of the time. She’ll present her report at the American Chemical Society annual meeting in San Francisco. "I hope the [coffee] industry will [use] this method to really guarantee quality without using fillers," Nixdorf wrote to us. Fingers crossed, dirt-infused coffee won’t ever become the norm. Of course, if you’re worried, there’s always tea. Photo credit: American Chemical Society ||||| Do you think your morning cup of joe — before you put the cream and sugar in, anyway — is pure unadulterated ground beans? Think again. Coffee shortages caused by climate change have increased the likelihood that the coffee grounds we use have “fillers” in them like wheat, soybean, brown sugar, barley, corn, seeds, and even stick and twigs — which, in addition to being misleading could also cause allergic reactions in people who are sensitive to the undeclared fillers. When ground up and mixed with coffee, it can be difficult to tell there are foreign objects. A team of Brazilian researchers is developing a process to detect counterfeit coffee, since some estimates have shown that 70% of the global coffee supply could run out by 2080, with Brazil losing out big time. According to the researchers, Brazil usually produces about 55 million bags of coffee every year, but projections for 2014 put them at only 45 million. To identify fillers in coffee that may be added on purpose, the researchers use liquid chromatography, which sensitively separates components within a mixture for identification. Since coffee is made up of carbohydrates, the researchers believe they could create what they refer to as a “characteristic fingerprint,” which would identify what’s coffee, leaving behind the fake stuff. “With our test, it is now possible to know with 95 percent accuracy if coffee is pure or has been tampered with,” said study author Suzana Lucy Nixdorf of State University of Londrina, in Brazil, in a statement. The research is still under development, but the team is presenting their findings at the 248th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society.

– Some things are better left unknown. Java lovers who prefer to buy their coffee pre-ground may be in for a shocker with the latest news out of Brazil: It might well be tainted. Amid recent coffee shortages, the ground variety has been found to contain anything from brown sugar, corn, wheat, soybeans, and seeds to wood, dirt, and twigs—which isn't merely unpalatable, but could be dangerous to those with allergies. "Corn is very common because it tastes sweet, and people don't perceive the added sugar. The same [goes] for brown sugar," a researcher tells Yahoo. Because the filler ingredients are hard to detect via taste and smell, a team of scientists in Brazil is developing a test that uses something called liquid chromatography, which can separate ingredients with extreme precision. With coffee being made of carbohydrates, the researchers say they should be able to create a fingerprint of the beans, and anything else would be spotted as the imposter, reports Time. "I hope the [coffee] industry will [use] this method to really guarantee quality without using fillers," says the researcher. Not convinced? The squeamish might shift to buying whole beans and grinding them at home. (Check out the fungus doing so much damage to coffee in Latin America.)

FILE - In this Dec. 14, 2012 file photo, Alissa Parker, left, and her husband, Robbie Parker, leave the firehouse staging after receiving word that their six-year-old daughter Emilie was one of the 20... (Associated Press) FILE - In this Dec. 14, 2012 file photo, Alissa Parker, left, and her husband, Robbie Parker, leave the firehouse staging after receiving word that their six-year-old daughter Emilie was one of the 20... (Associated Press) The parents of one of the 20 first-graders killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre met with the gunman's father for more than an hour in an effort to bring some closure to the tragedy, asking him about his son's mental health and other issues. Alissa Parker told "CBS This Morning" in an excerpt of an interview that aired Thursday the meeting with Adam Lanza's father, Peter Lanza, was her idea. Her 6-year-old daughter, Emilie, died in December's shooting rampage. "I felt strongly that I needed to tell him something, and I needed to get that out of my system," Alissa Parker said. "I felt very motivated to do it and then I felt really good about it and prayed about it. And it was something that I needed to do." It was unclear what they discussed or when the meeting took place. CBS plans to show the rest of the interview with Alissa and Robbie Parker on Friday morning, revealing more details about their meeting with Peter Lanza. No one answered the phone at the Parkers' home Thursday morning. A message seeking comment from Peter Lanza was left with a Lanza family spokesman. The Parkers told CBS they wanted to ask Peter Lanza about his son's medical history, his and his ex-wife's relationships with Adam Lanza and other issues. Robbie Parker was the first parent of a child killed at the school to speak publicly about the massacre. A day after the Dec. 14 killings, he fought back tears and struggled to catch his breath as he spoke lovingly of Emilie at a wrenching, lengthy news conference. "She was beautiful. She was blond. She was always smiling," he said, adding that the world was a better place because Emilie was in it. "I'm so blessed to be her dad." Adam Lanza, 20, shot 20 children and six educators to death at the school and killed himself as police arrived. He also fatally shot his mother, Nancy Lanza, at their Newtown home before going to the school. Peter Lanza, who was divorced from Nancy Lanza, said in a statement after the killings that his family also was asking why Adam Lanza would go on a shooting spree. People close to the investigation have told The Associated Press that Adam Lanza showed interest in other mass killers. ||||| Newtown victim's parents talk about meeting killer Adam Lanza's father (CBS News) Vice President Biden and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg are expected to meet with the families of Newtown school shooting victims on Thursday, over three months after the massacre took place in Connecticut. Ahead of the meeting, CBS This Morning's Norah O'Donnell spoke with Robbie and Alissa Parker, the parents of six-year-old victim Emilie Parker. They revealed that they recently met with the father of gunman Adam Lanza as part of their search for understanding and grieving process. The meeting "was kind of my doing," Alissa Parker explained. "I guess the reason why I felt strongly that I needed to tell [Peter Lanza] something. And I needed to get that out of my system. I felt very motivated to do it and ... I felt really good about it, I prayed about it, and it was something that I needed to do. Robbie added their family has experienced "a little bit of everything," as they've dealt with the scope of the tragedy over the past three months. "You know, you went from the absolute worst experience that you could ever imagine to have to go through as a parent ... and being overwhelmed with that sense of grief and loss to, on the other end of the spectrum, you're being completely overwhelmed with outpouring of love and support from so many people and everything that kinda falls in between," he said. The Parkers addressed the recent news that Newtown investigators determined that Adam Lanza kept a spreadsheet methodically detailing the death toll of other mass shooters, types of weaponry, and plotted how he would add to the death tolls. "Any information ... that you gain in this experience is just that. It's information," Robbie said. "And then you have to choose how you're gonna handle it. And so for us, we've decided that what works best for us is you receive a bit of information, you process it, you feel the emotion that comes along with it, and then you have to let it go." Alissa added, "It's just like another piece to the puzzle. And it always brings with it a period of, you know, sorrow, pain, and you deal with it and you just move on. The outcome is still the same, regardless if it was planned, not planned. But it doesn't change anything. It doesn't change that our child's gone."

– Peter Lanza has remained out of the spotlight since news of the Newtown shooting broke, but one victim's family tells CBS that they have privately met with him. Robbie and Alissa Parker, parents to 6-year-old Emilie, spent more than an hour with Lanza; in CBS' Norah O'Donnell's words, they believe he "holds the keys" to understanding Adam Lanza's motivation. The AP notes that it's unclear when the meeting occurred or what was discussed, though O'Donnell says the couple wanted to ask Lanza about his son's medical history and his and Nancy's relationship with him. In a portion of an interview with the Parkers aired today, Alissa explains that the meeting "was kind of my doing. I guess the reason why I felt strongly that I needed to tell him something. And I needed to get that out of my system. I felt very motivated to do it and ... I felt really good about it, I prayed about it, and it was something that I needed to do." CBS will air part two tomorrow. Meanwhile, news broke this week that Adam Lanza kept a "score sheet."

Protesters in Portland made it into a Wells Fargo Bank branch Thursday and managed to plant themselves there briefly before being hauled away by police -- the most visible incident in a noisy but largely peaceful march through the city's downtown bank district. Two street marches in Seattle, meanwhile, were poised to get underway in the afternoon near the University of Washington to protest state budget cuts that have chiseled jobs and strangled higher education. The mood in the Pacific Northwest -- a region with a deep tradition of street protest theater -- was raucous, celebratory and so far, except for a bit of shoving, lacking the kind of clashes with police that have erupted in recent days. FULL COVERAGE: Occupy protests around the nation Occupy Portland activists with drums and hand-scrawled signs paraded in tight circles outside the offices of Chase Bank, U.S. Bank and others, but many financial institutions appeared to have locked their doors and hired extra security to guard the windows. "Due to Occupy Portland the building has been locked down until further notice," said a sign on the door of Chase Bank. At one point, a U.S. flag was pulled down and re-raised upside down. "We shut down the banks today because they shut down our economy," a speaker at a rally at Portland's Waterfront Park said before at least several hundred marchers set off through the streets. Portland Police Bureau spokesman Sgt. Pete Simpson said 25 people were arrested on suspicion of disorderly conduct earlier in the day when they refused to move off the east end of Steel Bridge. At the Wells Fargo Bank branch, he said, several people -- TV news reports put the number at about 10 -- were taken into custody when they managed to get inside the bank. "They sat down in some kind of protest, and refused to leave," Simpson said in an interview. He said police mainly were focusing on keeping marchers out of the street. "We're trying to contain it to the sidewalks as best we can and get people moving." In Seattle, some confusion arose as two separate marches were planned at mid-afternoon, one commencing from the remnants of the Occupy Seattle encampment at Seattle Central Community College and moving toward the University of Washington, one originating near the university under the auspices of local labor unions and the Washington Community Action Network. Occupy Seattle organizers said that, whatever the routes, the goal was a joint city-wide rally to highlight issues of importance to students. In both Northwest cities, rally organizers were emphasizing the need to avoid violence and keep peace with the police. One Portland activist addressed the appeal via Twitter to the Portland Police Bureau --which regularly tweets its own news of the protests. "Be patient," the post urged. "For no other reason than patience = overtime. Overtime = Awesome holiday shopping." ALSO: New Yorkers spearhead national day of protests New judge named in Penn State child sexual abuse case Devastating storms kill 6 in Southeast, months after earlier deaths -- Kim Murphy in Seattle Photo: Protesters outside a Wells Fargo Bank branch in Portland ,where several were arrested. Credit: Don Ryan / Associated Press ||||| Dow Jones Reprints: This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies for distribution to your colleagues, clients or customers, use the Order Reprints tool at the bottom of any article or visit www.djreprints.com PHILADELPHIA—Authorities have told Occupy Philly protesters to vacate their encampment next to City Hall to make way for a long-planned plaza renovation. The city posted official notices Wednesday at the site, saying the permit granted to protesters in early October expires at the start of the $50 million construction project, which is imminent, though no date was given. The city told people to vacate the plaza and remove all personal belongings immediately. The activists, who have protested against income disparity and were inspired by the Occupy Wall Street group in New York, have been ... ||||| Los Angeles police said Thursday night that 72 people had been arrested in protests downtown. Protesters were arrested on charges that included trespassing, remaining at an unlawful assembly and interfering with a peace officer, the Los Angeles Police Department said. PHOTOS: Day of protest The arrests were primarily made during a morning action on Figueroa Street and at an afternoon demonstration at the Bank of America Plaza on Hope Street. The protesters included members of the Service Employees International Union, the American Federation of Teachers, the group MoveOn.org, and Occupy L.A. ALSO: UCLA tells Occupy Wall Street protesters to take down tents West Hollywood officials disappointed by Proposition 8 ruling Faculty strike at Cal State Dominguez Hills, East Bay campuses — Robert J. Lopez twitter.com/LAJourno Photo: Protester is carried away by LAPD near 4th and Figueroa streets. Credit: Mark Boster/Los Angeles Times ||||| Kevin Hagen/New York Daily News Officers arrest another Wall St. protestor during day of marches in lower Manhattan. With their expulsion from Zuccotti Park and their numbers dwindling, the future of Occupy Wall Street seemed uneasy at best just two months after its birth. What will likely linger, no matter what happens to the demonstrators, is the anti-greed message they brought to the national agenda. “I sure hope it’s not the end of Occupy Wall Street,” said history professor Jay Moore, 59, who came down from Vermont to witness Thursday’s march on Wall Street. “It’s not just here in New York, it’s all over the place,” he said. “It will take a while to see where it all shakes out. This is history in the making right here.” Others suggested that two months was long enough for the protesters to wear out their Big Apple welcome. Mitchell Moss, NYU professor of urban policy and planning, said it’s time for the protesters to take their show on the road. “At this point, I think they should quickly migrate to the Washington Monument,” he said. “There’s ample space, and close proximity to the decision makers. “That should be the next stop on their magical mystery tour.” Moss said the protesters were successful in bringing attention to the issue of wealth distribution in the U.S. But he felt additional demonstrations like the one aimed at shutting down Wall Street would work against OWS. “New Yorkers are a work-oriented people, and there is only a limited amount of patience with people who want to disrupt the city,” he said. Tourist Bill Lett, 61, of Denver, thought Moss’ idea of a trip to the nation’s capital made sense. “I think Washington, D.C., is going to be the place where it ends up,” said the retiree. “That’s where the power is. The money flows in Washington.” Radio host and Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa suggested the group’s future was damaged by their Tuesday eviction from Zuccotti Park. “The lack of a place where people are gathered 24/7 is really going to hamper the movement,” he said. “Now they’re on the go, like Bedouins. “Why not go to Crotona Park in the Bronx?” he suggested. “Nobody’s going to evict you there. But the moment you leave the Wall Street area, things start to dissipate.” Newsstand owner John Suda, 50, watched the protesters Thursday and proclaimed the movement still had legs. “Just look at all the people,” he said. “Even with the rain pouring down, still all these people come out. This amount of people won’t just disappear.” Financial analyst Anthony Lyons, 39, offered a different take. “These characters are a joke,” he said. “All week we hear about how they were going to shut down Wall Street, and what do they do? They walk around in circles, chanting to themselves. “This isn’t a movement. It’s a fad.” Baruch College professor Douglas Muzzio said OWS could be finished in terms of bringing its message to the masses. He noted that on a visit to Thursday’s protest, the NYPD appeared to outnumber the demonstrators. But time, he said, would provide the real test for the movement and its message. “It has resonated,” said Muzzio. “The question is does this resonance lead to results? And I can’t say if it’s going to have long-lasting policy and political impact.” lmcshane@nydailynews.com ||||| Can Occupy Ditch Wall Street for New Tactics, Fresh Territory? ShareThis Counter Email After a volatile day of protests and nearly 300 arrests, Occupy Wall Street rang in its two-month anniversary with a show of force across lower Manhattan on Thursday. But it doesn’t change the essential fact that nobody will be sleeping in Zuccotti Park tonight, or perhaps ever again. The “Day of Action” saw Occupy Wall Street organizers trying new tactics: a roving protest model; continuous, decentralized direct action; and disruptions to New York City that reach beyond the boundaries of downtown’s financial district. The leading occupiers are spinning the eviction as creative destruction, a way to refresh and revitalize a movement that had grown stale and claustrophobic. Amid reports that the recent spate of police raids were nationally coordinated and federally planned, organizers hope to boost coordination themselves — from Oakland to Albuquerque. The new message: Leave the parks and take to the streets; occupy offices, bridges, subways, and Ivy League schools. Harrison Schultz, a central organizer of the protests, has been at the occupation since it was just a handful of people in used sleeping bags. Along with the AdBusters crew, he was among several early arrivals who laid the occupation’s foundations; now, they’re racing to rethink them. “Many of my colleagues and I do think that this is the beginning of a new phase for the occupy movement,” he told New York. “New tactics are in order to respond to a national effort against the occupy movement.” Jackie DiSalvo, a former member of SDS and English professor at Baruch College who has helped coordinate Occupy's dealings with the labor movement, said that unions will intensify their efforts outside of the park. “The labor movement is pretty angry,” she told me. “They're going to get their forces out.” More broadly, DiSalvo said, “things are spreading out.” As Brendan Burke, a security-minded occupier, told the Village Voice, it "doesn't have to be about holding ground anymore." The occupation’s presence will grow in Brooklyn and Harlem. Their motto: “Occupy the Hood.” In Harlem, a group of occupiers are planning on occupying old brownstones. And although many reports alleged that the occupation intends to “shut down” the subways, organizers say the real plan is to “recruit people on the trains.”

– What’s the future of an Occupy movement that doesn't have a space to occupy? Experts offer a range of suggestions for those who have been booted from Zuccotti Park: "At this point, I think they should quickly migrate to the Washington Monument," an NYU professor of urban policy tells the New York Daily News. "There’s ample space, and close proximity to the decision-makers." Efforts like yesterday’s to disrupt a city’s functioning won’t get much sympathy, he notes: "New Yorkers are a work-oriented people." A radio host suggests a location closer to home: "Why not go to Crotona Park in the Bronx? Nobody’s going to evict you there." Trouble is, he acknowledges that "the moment you leave the Wall Street area, things start to dissipate." Of course, the movement isn’t confined to New York: Some 72 protesters were arrested yesterday in Los Angeles for trespassing and staying at an unlawful assembly, the Times reports. In Portland, protesters briefly occupied a Wells Fargo Bank branch before getting arrested; other city banks took preemptive action and closed. Occupy Philly members, who have had a positive relationship with the city government, have been told to pack their bags for a new location ahead of planned construction work at City Hall, notes the Wall Street Journal. For more Occupy updates, head to Daily Intel—or check out how protesters managed to "take over" Manhattan's Verizon building.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — The spokesman for the Missouri auditor's has died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound in what police described Monday as an apparent suicide. The death comes about a month after the state auditor also killed himself. Robert "Spence" Jackson was found was found dead Sunday evening in his home in Jefferson City after police responded to a well-being check, the Jefferson City Police Department said in a written statement. Police said they are investigating the case as a suicide. Jackson's boss, Auditor Tom Schweich, fatally shot himself on Feb. 26 at his home in the St. Louis suburb of Clayton in what police also have described as a suicide. Jackson, 45, had remained as the auditor's office spokesman after Schweich's death. He also previously had served as a spokesman for former Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt. Blunt issued a written statement Monday saying he was saddened to learn of his friend's death. "Spence was a gifted communicator who dedicated his talents in public affairs to public service," Blunt said. "Spence was hard-working, well-liked and quick-witted." Police said they responded to a call to Jackson's apartment a little after 7 p.m. Sunday after one of Jackson's family members said he had been unresponsive to phone calls. A property manager provided a key to police officers, who found Jackson dead in his bedroom from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, according to police. Police said there was no physical evidence of a forced entry or struggle, but that an autopsy is planned for Monday and detectives are continuing to investigate the case. ||||| Please enable Javascript to watch this video JEFFERSON CITY, MO (KTVI)- Spence Jackson, media director for former Missouri Auditor Tom Schweich, was found dead in his Jefferson City apartment Sunday night. Jackson’s death comes about one month after Schweich’s suicide. He was 44. Jefferson City police responded to Jackson’s apartment in the 900 block of Southwest Boulevard for a “check well-being” call. Jackson’s mother said her son was unresponsive to calls and other attempts to raise him. The property manager provided the key to the officers who entered to find Jackson in his bedroom. Authorities are saying he died of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound. Jefferson City Police held a press conference about the death on Monday morning. They revealed that Jackson was found in his apartment with a note and a .357 Magnum revolver. They say the note points towards a suicide as a cause of death. The gun had one spent round. Spence Jackson did not have a gun registered in his name. Police are working on determining who owns the weapon. There were no calls of gunshots near the apartment complex where Jackson lived. Police say it is possible that no one called police about the gunshot. There were no signs of forced entry. A number of items have been removed from Spence Jackson’s apartment as evidence. An autopsy was scheduled for Monday. The results could take some time to be released. The toxicology screening can take a while. Jackson had been Schweich`s media director since May of 2011. He also held other key republican jobs in state government. Jackson was critical of Schweich`s political adversaries and even called for the resignation of Missouri`s Republican Party Chairman John Hancock. That came after allegations that Hancock was behind an anti-Semitic ‘whisper campaign’ that may have led to Schweich committing suicide. Hancock has strongly denied that accusation. Schweich shot and killed himself at his Clayton home on February 26th. Sources tell the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that Jackson took a sick day last Friday. Some of Jackson`s other jobs included being the communications director for Matt Blunt when he was Secretary of State. Former Missouri Governor Matt Blunt today issued the following statement: “Melanie and I are deeply saddened to learn of the passing of Spence Jackson who was a good friend for many years. Spence was a gifted communicator who dedicated his talents in public affairs to public service. Over his career he served as chief spokesman for three of Missouri’s statewide offices including that of the governor when I held that post. Spence was hard-working, well-liked and quick-witted. He will truly be missed. We mourn his passing and offer our prayers to his family and friends.” Jackson also worked for Blunt when he was governor as well as for the Missouri Department of Economic Development. Dave Luther, former spokesperson for Jefferson City schools was asked to serve as interim spokesman for the auditor’s office. “The situation is unusual to say the least, very tragic, but just having been with a few of the individuals that work in the auditor’s office, what strikes me is this is a very sad time but they are doing the work that they need to do and that’s impressive,” Luther said. At the apartment complex where Jackson lived and where his body was found, a neighbor expressed her sadness at the news. “I am shocked, it just seems like there is no closure to this,” said Che Wilson.’ “A very tragic situation,” she said. Please enable Javascript to watch this video ||||| After a strong indictment of Tom Schweich’s political opponents within his own party, some are calling for the resignation of the Missouri Republican Party’s recently elected chairman. Most who have made such a suggestion have not made it publicly, but a member of Schweich’s staff in his Auditor’s office is speaking out. “Let’s pledge that we will not put up with any whisper of anti-Semitism,” said former U.S. Senator John Danforth. That was part of his message as he stood on a pulpit over most of Missouri’s current crop of elected officials, eulogizing one of their own. Danforth said before his death, Schweich told him he believed a whispering campaign saying he was Jewish was being conducted to use anti-Semitic sentiment to cost him votes in his race for Governor. Earlier story: Danforth eulogy condemns ‘bullying,’ ‘whispering campaign’ against Schweich The spokesman for the auditor’s office under Schweich, Spence Jackson, says Republican Party Chairman John Hancock and Republican candidate for governor Catherine Hanaway were behind that campaign. “I believe with all my heart that John knew what he was doing,” Jackson told Missourinet. “He knew the reaction he was seeking from people. He knew what he was trying to get out of people.” Jackson said the alleged whispering campaign had been weighing on Schweich for months. As Danforth said in his eulogy, Jackson also said Schweich was passionate when he believed anti-Semitism was occurring. “His grandfather was a persecuted Jew in Germany. He had a card which Tom kept with him that said, ‘This belongs to Julius Schweich, who is a good Jew.’ I don’t have to tell you what a loaded term that was,” said Jackson. “Traditions and values get passed from generation to generation in families, and one of those traditions that was passed down through the Schweich family was when you see anti-Semitism, you speak out against it. You do something about it.” “It just kept getting worse in Tom’s mind,” said Jackson. “I wish it hadn’t, but it did.” Jackson said it would be “fitting” for Hancock to resign, “simply because his anti-Semitic whisper campaign does not reflect the values of the majority of Missouri Republicans.” Jackson said even if Hancock was not behind any “whispering campaign,” he believes it would be better for the party that the chairman, who was elected less than two weeks ago at the Party’s Reagan Lincoln days event in Kansas City, step down. “There’s just no way that you can have this cloud hanging around the chairman of your political party heading into a crucial election year like 2016, particularly when the presumptive Democratic candidate Jason Kander shares Tom’s Jewish heritage,” said Jackson. Kander has announced he is challenging U.S. Senator Roy Blunt (R-MO). That announcement last month by Kander, who is Jewish, was praised by the National Jewish Democratic Council. “You can’t have a chairman of a Republican party who’s been out conducting, coordinating this sort of a whisper campaign while at the top of the ticket, the first person on a Missouri ballot that people will see underneath the president, will be the candidate for the United States Senate, and that candidate more likely than not is going to be Jason Kander, who is Jewish, and I’m sure is very proud of his Jewish heritage just like Tom Schweich was,” said Jackson. Hancock has denied the allegations and declined additional comment following the memorial service. His spokesman released this statement: “Today is not an appropriate time to engage in political back-and-forth. Out of respect for Tom and his family, we have nothing to add at this time.” ||||| Missouri state auditor Tom Schweich (R) announced his candidacy for governor in St. Louis in January. Schweich, 54, died Thursday, Feb. 26, of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson, File) For days, Missouri state auditor Tom Schweich had been growing outwardly agitated, those close to him noted, over remarks that were made about his religion. He also seemed upset about a recent low-blow political attack ad intended to present the gubernatorial candidate as one who “could be easily confused for the deputy sheriff of Mayberry.” But this is standard fare in American rough-and-tumble political campaigns. And when Schweich fatally shot himself Thursday morning in his home — minutes after calling two reporters — it rattled state officials, staffers and journalists who knew him. “I couldn’t speculate on his mental state,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch editorial page editor Tony Messenger told The Washington Post in a telephone interview. “But he was clearly agitated. He was clearly bothered. I just don’t know what other demons he had.” “I have no idea why Schweich killed himself,” he wrote in the Post-Dispatch. Schweich, 54, was someone who had been around. He was chief of staff to three U.S. ambassadors to the United Nations — John Danforth, Anne Patterson and John Bolton. He was principal deputy secretary of state in the administration of President George W. Bush, responsible for international law enforcement. Schweich announced last month that he was seeking the Republican nomination for governor in 2016, pitting him against Republican contender Catherine Hanaway, a former Missouri House speaker. Messenger, who had known Schweich since he hit the state’s political scene some six years ago, said he took public service seriously and himself even more so. “For a politician, he had very thin skin. He didn’t take criticism well,” he told The Post. “If something was on his mind and he wanted to say it, he said it.” Recently, Schweich alleged that Missouri Republican Party chairman John Hancock had launched a “whisper campaign” among his donors claiming Schweich was a Jew. Schweich said he wasn’t. He attended an Episcopal church. But his grandfather was Jewish, and he said he was “proud” of that. “He said his grandfather taught him to never allow any anti-Semitism go unpunished, no matter how slight,” Messenger said in a written statement. Still, Schweich told reporters at the Post-Dispatch and the Associated Press that he wanted to set the record straight. Schweich showing off some of his autographed memorabilia from the golden age of Hollywood in 2014. (By David A. Lieb, File) On Thursday morning, Schweich called the AP at 9:16 a.m. to invite a reporter to his house for an interview that afternoon. The AP spoke to him again at 9:35 a.m. to confirm. At 9:41 a.m., he called Messenger at the Post-Dispatch and left a voicemail message. “I’m willing to speak to the Post-Dispatch and AP only on this matter,” Schweich said in the recording. “To me, this is more of a religion story than a politics story, but it’s your choice on who the reporter is. Thanks, bye.” Seven minutes later, a 911 call was placed from Schweich’s home. An unnamed police source told the Post-Dispatch that Schweich’s wife, Kathy, heard him talking on the phone. Then she heard the gunshot. He was transported to Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis, where he was pronounced dead. “What we know at this point suggests an apparent suicide,” Clayton Police Chief Kevin Murphy told reporters during a news conference Thursday afternoon.”There is nothing to support anything other than that at this point.” But to many who knew him, his apparent suicide didn’t make sense. One of Schweich’s campaign donors, Sam Fox, a former U.S. ambassador to Belgium, told the Post-Dispatch that Schweich did not seem personally or professionally troubled. “Not to me nor to any friends that I’m aware of,” he said. Schweich joined the public service sector in 1999, when he was named former U.S. Senator John Danforth’s chief of staff for a federal government probe into the FBI’s actions at the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Tex. In 2010, he won the seat for state auditor. He won it again last year. And he was gearing up for next year’s gubernatorial race. Though it was early, he was polling respectably and seemed to be on a path toward further political success. Last week, a political action committee called Citizens for Fairness launched a radio attack ad in which the narrator mimics Kevin Spacey’s voice in “House of Cards,” calling Schweich a weak contender for the Republican party. “Elections have consequences,” the advertisement begins. “Tom Schweich, like him? No. Is he a weak candidate for governor? Absolutely, just look at him. He could be easily confused for the deputy sheriff of Mayberry.” The ad was referencing the clownish Barney Fife character played by Don Knotts in “The Andy Griffith Show.” This week, Schweich seemed to be getting anxious about some comments he alleged Hancock made about his faith. He told the AP that he had heard rumors that Hancock made some comments last year that Schweich was Jewish and he thought Hancock should step down from his position as party chairman, to which he was just elected. Messenger, from the Post-Dispatch, said in his statement that Schweich told him he thought Hancock meant to “harm him politically in a gubernatorial primary in which many Republican voters are evangelical Christians.” On Monday, Schweich told the AP and Post-Dispatch reporters he wanted to hold a news conference to explain the issue. He canceled a scheduled press conference the next day. Then on Wednesday, he told Messenger he thought Hancock might resign and he wanted to wait and see. Hancock told the Post-Dispatch he went to Jefferson City, Mo., for Tuesday’s news conference “to set the record straight” regarding allegations that, he said, were “demonstrably untrue.” “This whole thing doesn’t make any sense,” he told the newspaper. “Three months of allegations about me that are not true don’t make any sense. Suicide doesn’t make any sense. It is a tragedy.” Hancock told the AP that Schweich had approached him about the alleged incident late last year, claiming he found out that Hancock had made “anti-Semitic” statements about him. Hancock said he doesn’t have a “specific recollection” about any remarks relating to Schweich’s religion, but said that if he did mention something about it, it would not have been with any intent to harm him. “It’s plausible that I would have told somebody that Tom was Jewish because I thought he was, but I wouldn’t have said it in a derogatory or demeaning fashion,” he said. But, Hancock told the Post-Dispatch, he is not a bigot. “I have been a public figure for nearly 30 years,” he said. “No one has ever accused me of bigotry in any shape, manner or form.” After Schweich’s death on Thursday, Hancock released a statement, saying he was in “utter shock” and asking the state to mourn with him. “Tom will be remembered as a tenacious, energetic, effective elected official who worked tirelessly on behalf of the citizens of this state and this nation,” he said. “I ask all Missourians to join me in praying for Tom’s family.” More from Morning Mix [American atheist blogger hacked to death in the street in Bangladesh] [Missing: one Oscar gown, 6000 pearls, worth up to $10 million] [The inside story of the ‘white dress, blue dress’ drama that divided a planet] [Days before apparent suicide, potential Missouri governor agonized over alleged anti-Semitic remarks] [The ‘gentle, kind’ Jihadi John, a ‘beautiful young man’]

– A strange, tragic story just got even stranger and more tragic: The spokesman for Missouri Auditor Tom Schweich—a gubernatorial candidate who killed himself Feb. 26 just minutes after arranging interviews with the media—has apparently taken his own life, the AP reports. Jefferson City Police officers found Robert "Spence" Jackson, 45, dead in his home last night after family members became concerned he wasn't answering his phone. Police say no evidence of foul play was apparent and that they're treating the case as a suicide; an autopsy is being conducted today, the AP notes. Sources say Jackson had called in sick to work on Friday, KTVI reports. Jackson had recently called for Republican Party Chairman John Hancock to step down for allegedly running an anti-Semitic smear campaign against Schweich, which Jackson believes "had been weighing on Schweich for months" before his death, as Missouri.net puts it; Hancock has steadfastly denied these accusations. Before his stint with Schweich, Jackson had been in the employ of former Gov. Matt Blunt when Blunt served as Missouri's secretary of state and as governor. "Spence was a gifted communicator who dedicated his talents in public affairs to public service," Blunt said in a statement, per KTVI. "He was hard-working, well-liked, and quick-witted. He will truly be missed."

Same-sex couples in Maryland were greeted with cheers and noisemakers held over from New Year's Eve parties, as gay marriage became legal in the first southern state on New Year's Day. Darcia Anthony, left, and her partner, Danielle Williams, chat before participating in a marriage ceremony at City Hall in Baltimore, Tuesday, Jan. 1, 2013. Same-sex couples in Maryland are now legally... (Associated Press) James Scales, left, and William Tasker react after participating in a wedding ceremony at City Hall in Baltimore, Tuesday, Jan. 1, 2013. Same-sex couples in Maryland are now legally permitted to marry... (Associated Press) James Scales, 68, who has worked for the Baltimore mayor's office for 25 years, was married to William Tasker, 60, on Tuesday shortly after midnight by Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake inside City Hall. "It's just so hard to believe it's happening," Scales said shortly before marrying his partner of 35 years. Six other same-sex couples also were being married at City Hall. Ceremonies were taking place in other parts of the state as well. The ceremonies follow a legislative fight that pitted Gov. Martin O'Malley against leaders of his Catholic faith. Voters in the state, founded by Catholics in the 17th century, sealed the change by approving a November ballot question. "There is no human institution more sacred than that of the one that you are about to form," Rawlings-Blake said during the brief ceremony. "True marriage, true marriage, is the dearest of all earthly relationships." Brigitte Ronnett, who also got married, said she hopes one day to see full federal recognition of same-sex marriage. Maryland, Maine and Washington state were the first states to approve same-sex marriage by popular vote, in November, a development Ronnett said was significant. "I think it's a great sign when you see that popular opinion is now in favor of this," said Ronnett, 51, who married Lisa Walther, 51, at City Hall. Same-sex couples in Maryland have been able to get marriage licenses since Dec. 6, but they did not take effect until Tuesday. In 2011, same-sex marriage legislation passed in the state Senate but stalled in the House of Delegates. O'Malley hadn't made the issue a key part of his 2011 legislative agenda, but indicated that summer that he was considering backing a measure similar to New York's law, which includes exemptions for religious organizations. Shortly after, Archbishop Edwin O'Brien of Baltimore wrote to O'Malley that same-sex marriage went against the governor's faith. "As advocates for the truths we are compelled to uphold, we speak with equal intensity and urgency in opposition to your promoting a goal that so deeply conflicts with your faith, not to mention the best interests of our society," wrote O'Brien, who served as archbishop of the nation's first diocese from October 2007 to August 2011. The governor was not persuaded. He held a news conference in July 2011 to announce that he would make same-sex marriage a priority in the 2012 legislative session. He wrote back to the archbishop that "when shortcomings in our laws bring about a result that is unjust, I have a public obligation to try to change that injustice." The measure, with exemptions for religious organizations that choose not to marry gay couples, passed the House of Delegates in February in a close vote. O'Malley signed it in March. Opponents then gathered enough signatures to put the bill to a statewide vote, and it passed with 52 percent in favor. In total, nine states and the District of Columbia have approved same-sex marriage. The other states are Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York and Vermont. ||||| In the 17 years since Katie Cleary and Sharon Dongarra locked eyes in the kitchen of an Arby's restaurant, they have shared a first, tentative kiss, traded letters across continents, set up a home, exchanged vows before family and friends, signed a host of legal documents and nurtured a young daughter.The couple has shared nearly every experience that can bond two people, except for one. Until today.But just after midnight, the two women pledged themselves to each other yet again in their Towson home, becoming one of the first same-sex couples to be legally married in Maryland."After 17 years, we might as well do it the very moment we can," said Sharon Dongarra, 37, a chiropractor. New Year's Day marks the culmination of years of work by gay and lesbian Marylanders and their allies to persuade state legislators, and later voters, to support full marriage rights for same-sex couples. The General Assembly approved same-sex marriage in 2012, only to have opponents petition it onto the ballot in the November election.The Dongarras — Katie legally changed her last name to Sharon's a couple years ago — were exuberant when Maryland, along with Maine and Washington, became the first states in which voters approved extending marriage rights to gay and lesbian couples.The next day, Sharon Dongarra recalled, she got teary-eyed watching Katie help their daughter, Lucy, into the car. "I remember thinking, 'She will not remember a time when her moms were considered second-class citizens in Maryland,' " she said.The couple was one of dozens planning a New Year's Day wedding ceremony. Partners of 29 years exchanged vows on the roof of their Harborview home as fireworks rocketed over the Inner Harbor . The doors of Baltimore's City Hall opened just after midnight to host the weddings of seven couples. And an Eastern Shore inn was preparing to host 50 weddings throughout the day — including one for the inn's owners.John Kyle and Pete Satten planned to mark their 23rd anniversary as a couple with an intimate wedding at a Brewers Hill restaurant. The pair had posted a sign in support of Question 6 — the ballot question that authorized same-sex marriage — in front of their stone house in Bolton Hill months ago and planned to affix a "Just Married" sticker on it after the ceremony.Even as couples were arranging flowers and cupcakes for their ceremonies, others were planning protests. The ultra-conservative Westboro Baptist Church, known for picketing high-profile funerals with signs saying "God hates" gay people, has received permits to rally in front of courthouses in Towson and Annapolis on Wednesday, police said.Meanwhile, parishioners of St. Anne's, the 300-year-old Episcopal church across from the Annapolis courthouse, were planning a counter-protest the same day to "bear witness to the good news of God's unconditional love.""We will not engage them. But we will speak our message of love more loudly," Joe Pagano, the associate rector of St. Anne's, wrote to parishioners. "Come and join us and let us show the world that the love of Jesus is more powerful than hate."For those who came of age during earlier eras, the fact that same-sex marriage could be legal in Maryland — and nine other states — seems nearly too good to be true.When Michael Williams, 53, and Clifton Scott, 61, met on Feb. 4, 1984, the two men never dreamed that they would one day marry — or that they would be together 29 years later. Williams and Scott were at a bar in Indianapolis when Michael Jackson's "Thriller" — the year's top song — began to play.Scott asked Williams to dance, and the two men instantly felt a powerful bond."I knew as soon as I met him," said Scott, a human resources director. "Did we even date? We were very committed from the beginning."Williams, a neurologist, said the couple's exuberance was tempered by his family's reluctance to accept that he was gay."My parents came down to Indianapolis the summer after we met," he said. "It was very hard for them. My mother cried. My dad got mad and stayed mad for a couple years."But in time, Williams' parents grew to embrace Scott. The couple attended holiday gatherings and family vacations together. Their nieces and nephews, born after the men fell in love, think of them as inseparable.

– New Year's Eve parties overlapped with Maryland's first same-sex marriage parties as 2013 began in the first state south of the Mason-Dixon line to legalize gay marriage. Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake married 68-year-old mayor's office employee James Scales to his male partner of 35 years shortly after midnight, when the law came into effect, the AP reports. "There is no human institution more sacred than that of the one that you are about to form," she said during the brief ceremony. "True marriage, true marriage, is the dearest of all earthly relationships." In November, Maryland, Maine, and Washington became the first states to approve gay marriage by popular vote. Dozens more same-sex weddings are due to take place across the state today, although protests against gay marriage are also planned, the Baltimore Sun reports. The Westboro Baptist Church has received permission to protest outside the courthouse in Annapolis, but the Episcopal church across the street plans a counter-protest to "bear witness to the good news of God's unconditional love."

Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Protests have broken out on the streets of Bangkok, as Jonah Fisher reports Ousted Thai leader Yingluck Shinawatra has appeared at a military facility in Bangkok, a day after the army took power in a coup. Ms Yingluck is one of more than 100 political figures summoned by the army. The army has banned 155 prominent politicians and activists from leaving the country without permission. On Thursday the military suspended the constitution, banned gatherings and detained politicians, saying order was needed after months of turmoil. On Friday afternoon it appeared Ms Yingluck had left the facility where she had been summoned and was going to another military location, the BBC's Jonah Fisher reports from Bangkok. It was not clear if she was still being detained, our correspondent says. The leaders of both her Pheu Thai party and the opposition Democrats were released from military detention overnight, he adds. However, protest leaders are thought to still be in detention and some pro-government MPs have now gone into hiding. The coup, which followed months of anti-government protests, has drawn widespread international criticism. It came two days after the army declared martial law. It is not clear how long the army intends to stay in power. Military leader Gen Prayuth Chan-ocha is seen as a strong royalist and may be concerned over the royal succession after the ailing King Bhumibol. Correspondents say it would not be a surprise to see the generals holding on to power until the next monarch is on the throne. Analysis from the BBC's Jonathan Head in Bangkok After seven months the tents, stages and all the paraphernalia of protest are coming down in Bangkok's old quarter. With their goal of a military coup achieved, the weary anti-government movement can declare victory and go home. Armed soldiers now patrol their rally sites, next to the monument that commemorates the birth of Thai democracy 82 years ago. That democracy is now in ruins. When the army mounted a coup eight years ago it did so almost apologetically and promised a speedy return to democratic rule. This coup wears a grimmer face, and there have been no such promises. Instead, land border crossings are being scrutinised to prevent potential resistance leaders escaping. Those the military fears most have been ordered to give themselves up or face arrest. Dozens are being held incommunicado. No one knows yet what General Prayuth's real intentions are. He has good reason to worry about resistance. The pro-government Red-Shirt movement is far better organised than eight years ago, and could still be financed by former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra's deep pockets. Image copyright AP Image caption The army has been overseeing the clearing of pro-government protest camps, so far without serious clashes Image copyright AP Image caption There have been small anti-coup protests - the army has banned political gatherings of more than five people Thais spent Thursday night under a curfew which ran from 22:00 to 05:00. Bangkok was reported to be largely peaceful. A small anti-coup protest on Friday afternoon prompted a brief standoff before protesters succeeded in driving the soldiers away. How Thai media has been affected - from BBC Monitoring In the first 16 hours of junta rule, military authorities have issued two orders and 19 announcements. Each is read several times over radio and TV stations, which otherwise are blacked out, and playing only traditional music used for junta takeovers. Periodically, army spokesmen appear in short segments reading out official announcements. No Thai television stations are broadcasting any regular programming. International news channels including CNN and the BBC are also blocked. Other communications, including print media, the internet, landline and mobile phones, have not been affected so far. Press fearful after Thai coup 'Work as normal' Gen Prayuth - who has appointed himself the new prime minister - said troops were taking power "in order for the country to return to normal quickly". "All Thais must remain calm and government officials must work as normal," he said in a televised address. Thailand's armed forces, which have staged at least 12 coups since the end of the absolute monarchy in 1932, acted after months of political deadlock. Thailand has faced a power struggle since Ms Yingluck's brother, Thaksin Shinawatra, was ousted by the military as PM in 2006. Mr Thaksin and Ms Yingluck have strong support in rural areas but are opposed by many in the middle class and urban elite. The latest unrest began last year, when anti-government protesters embarked on a campaign to oust Ms Yingluck's government. A court ordered her removal for alleged abuse of power this month. Key coup conditions Curfew nationwide from 22:00 to 05:00 Gen Prayuth to head ruling National Peace and Order Maintaining Council Senate and courts to continue operating 2007 constitution suspended except for chapter on monarchy Political gatherings of more than five people banned, with penalties of up to a one-year jail term, 10,000 baht ($300; £180) fine, or both Social media platforms could be blocked if they carry material with provocative content Media warned not to carry criticism of army operations ||||| 1 of 9. Soldiers hold their weapons as they guard a road in central Bangkok, a day after the Thai army chief seized power in a coup May 23, 2014. BANGKOK (Reuters) - Thailand's military rulers detained former Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra on Friday, a senior officer said, after summoning her for talks a day after the army overthrew her caretaker government in a coup. As the army moved to consolidate its grip on the country, its chief, General Prayuth Chan-ocha, set out his plans for the country, saying reforms were needed before an election. But some Thais defied martial law to protest against the takeover. Prayuth launched his coup after rival factions refused to give ground in a struggle for power between the royalist establishment and Yingluck's populist government that had raised fears of serious violence and damaged the economy. "We have detained Yingluck, her sister and brother-in-law," a senior military officer told Reuters. The two relatives have held top political posts. "We will do so for not more than week, that would be too long. We just need to organize matters in the country first," said the officer who declined to be identified. He declined to say where Yingluck was being held, but media said she was at an army base in Saraburi province, north of Bangkok. Soldiers detained politicians from both sides on Thursday after Prayuth announced the military takeover, which drew swift international condemnation. In what appeared to be a coordinated operation to neutralize possible opposition to the coup, the military summoned the ousted Yingluck to a meeting and then banned her and 154 others, including politicians and activists, from leaving Thailand. Yingluck is the sister of Thaksin Shinawatra, a billionaire telecommunications tycoon turned politician who won huge support among the poor but the loathing of the royalist establishment, largely over accusations of corruption and nepotism. He was ousted as premier in a 2006 military coup. Responding to the summons, Yingluck arrived at an army facility at noon along with other politicians. Prayuth was there at the same time but there was no confirmation they met. After Prayuth had left, nine vans with tinted windows were seen leaving, but it was not clear if Yingluck was in one of them or where they were going. An aide to a minister in the ousted government who declined to be identified said some people, including his minister, had been detained. A former aide to Yingluck said she had been out of telephone contact for hours. Yingluck was forced to step down as prime minister by a court on May 7 but her caretaker government, buffeted by more than six months of protests against it, had remained nominally in power, even after the army declared martial law on Tuesday. Prayuth also summoned hundreds of civil servants and told them he needed their help. "We must have economic, social and political reforms before elections. If the situation is peaceful, we are ready to return power to the people," he said. The military has censored the media, dispersed rival protesters and imposed a nationwide 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. curfew. The armed forces have a long history of intervening in politics - there have been 18 previous successful or attempted coups since Thailand became a constitutional monarchy in 1932. "GET OUT DICTATORS" Bangkok was mostly calm and life appeared normal, but there was some opposition to the takeover. Several hundred people, including students, gathered in a central shopping district despite a ban on protests by five or more people to voice their opposition to military rule. Some held signs saying "No coup" and "Get Out Dictators". About 200 soldiers lined up across a road to contain the protesters and eventually dispersed them. There was no serious trouble but at least one person was detained, a Reuters witness said. About 80 protesters also gathered in the northern city of Chiang Mai, Thaksin's hometown and power base, to denounce the putsch and call for an election, a Reuters witness said. Several policemen watched the protesters, who vowed to gather every day. The former education minister in Yingluck's government criticized the coup in a posting on Facebook. "A coup will only make the situation worse. Seizing power is not a way out," Chaturon Chaisang said. The military suspended television and radio broadcasts on Thursday and made channels broadcast its material, but six free-to-air channels came back on the air late on Friday. Several satellite channels, including partisan ones on both sides, remained banned. International news channels were off the air and the military threatened to block provocative websites. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Thursday there was no justification for a coup, which would have "negative implications" for ties with its ally, especially military ones. Washington is reviewing its aid to Thailand and on Friday the U.S. State Department said it had already suspended about $3.5 million in military aid, including a portion for training. "We are reviewing all programs to determine other assistance which we may suspend," State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said. The U.S. Army's top general, Raymond Odierno, had spoken by phone with Prayuth, in the first contact between Prayuth and a U.S. military official since the coup, the Pentagon said on Friday. The U.S. Defense Department said the call was constructive and that Odierno had "made it clear that we certainly expect a return to democratic principles in Thailand just as soon as possible," Pentagon spokesman Rear Admiral John Kirby said. The State Department also recommended that U.S. citizens reconsider any non-essential travel to Thailand, particularly Bangkok, due to the unrest. The Thai military briefed diplomats on Friday though some declined the invitation, apparently as a gesture of disapproval. Prayuth is a member of the royalist establishment generally seen as hostile to the Shinawatras, although he tried for months to keep the army out of the strife and to appear even-handed. The army chief, who is 60 and due to retire later this year, has taken over the powers of prime minister, but it was not clear whether he intended to hold on to the position. An undercurrent of a crisis that is dividing rich and poor is causing deep anxiety over the issue of royal succession. King Bhumibol, the world's longest-reigning monarch, is 86 and spent the years from 2009 to 2013 in hospital. Crown Prince Vajiralongkorn does not command the same devotion as his father, but some Thaksin supporters have recently been making a point of their loyalty to the prince. MARKET REACTION MUTED The anti-Thaksin protesters had demanded electoral changes that would end the Shinawatras' success at the ballot box. Thaksin or his parties have won every election since 2001. Thaksin's "red shirt" supporters were angry but said they had no immediate plans for protests. Many political analysts predicted tension and violence. Mass protests by Thaksin's well-organized loyalists would be a major test for the military. In 2010, more than 90 people were killed in clashes, most when the army broke up protests against a pro-establishment government that had taken office after a pro-Thaksin administration was removed by the courts in 2008. Investors have generally taken Thailand's upheavals in stride, and the market reaction to the coup was muted. The baht traded at about 32.60 per dollar, firmer than its low point on Thursday of 32.70. The stock market opened down 2 percent but rallied to end 0.6 percent lower. Thailand's economy contracted 2.1 percent in the first quarter of 2014 largely because of the prolonged unrest, which has frightened off tourists and dented confidence, bringing fears of recession. (Additional reporting by Apornrath Phoonphongphiphat, Aukkarapon Niyomyat and Bangkok bureau and David Brunnstrom and Phil Stewart in Washington; Writing by Robert Birsel and Alan Raybould; Editing by Alex Richardson, Andrew Hay and Ken Wills) ||||| BANGKOK (AP) — Thailand's junta has commandeered every TV channel for round-the-clock broadcasts of dour announcements and patriotic hymns. The public's verdict: DJ, please change the soundtrack. A pro-government protester points at a soldier during a cleanup at a pro-government demonstration site on the outskirts of Bangkok, Thailand Friday, May 23, 2014. Thailand's ruling military on Friday... (Associated Press) In this day and age, it's not surprising that the generals who launched Thailand's coup have set up a Facebook page. But it is a sign of the times that the junta's vintage martial tunes are not resonating with the Facebook generation. "Since you're reforming politics, you might as well reform your music," said one of many postings on the page, which had over 210,000 likes by Friday afternoon, up exponentially from earlier in the day. Song requests poured in — for Justin Timberlake, Michael Jackson, the Disney hit "Let It Go," and for foot-tapping Thai folk music. "Please give us something more uplifting," said another comment on the page, which bears the junta's self-declared name: National Peace and Order Maintaining Council. The running commentary offered a lighthearted and lively sideshow to the otherwise dramatic events unfolding in Thailand, where the military declared martial law on Tuesday and then announced two days later it was overthrowing the government. The country's powerful army chief, Gen Prayuth Chan-ocha, justified the coup as a means of restoring stability and avoiding more violence in a crisis that has left 28 dead and hundreds injured since it escalated seven months ago. But some on social media joked that the nationalistic hymns could unleash old aggressions. "Play other songs, will you! Your marching music is making me so patriotic that I want to wield a sword and slash some Burmese!" — a reference to Thailand's historical enemy and neighbor, now known as Myanmar. The Facebook page was created Tuesday to post the military's announcements and edicts. But the complaints started streaming in Thursday when the martial music replaced all broadcasts on television and radio stations. There was no apparant crackdown on the criticism, despite an order that asked social media sites to suspend services if any messages opposed the coup makers. Not all the postings were about music. While schools were ordered closed Friday, parents posted pleas for the return of children's channels: "Can I have my TV back? At least the cartoon channel for my kid? It won't hurt national stability," said one father. One woman posted a picture of a smiling shirtless soldier and asked: "Do you know if he has a girlfriend? I like him." The coup Thursday was the 12th since the end of absolute monarchy in 1932. One comment on the Facebook page suggested that when this coup is over, it would be nice to have a musical souvenir: "When it all comes to an end, don't forget to make a CD." ___ Associated Press writer Thanyarat Doksone in Bangkok contributed to this report. ___ Online: The National Peace and Order Maintaining Council's Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/PeaceandOrderMaintainingCommand

– With Thailand's military now firmly in control of the country after yesterday's coup, more than 150 politicians and activists have been detained and banned from leaving the country. Among them was ousted Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, who was summoned for talks with army chief Prayuth Chan-ocha today along with other members of her powerful family, reports Reuters. Military officials say the detentions are "to ensure smooth operation of restoration of peace and order." More: The US condemned the coup, saying military ties will be reviewed and aid could be frozen. "There is no justification for this military coup," said John Kerry. "I urge the restoration of civilian government immediately, a return to democracy, and respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, such as press freedoms." Australia, Japan, Britain, Indonesia, and Malaysia also voiced concern. Bangkok was largely peaceful overnight under a curfew that ran from 10pm to 5am in the capital and the rest of the country, the BBC reports. The anti-government movement has declared victory and told protesters to go home. Pro-government camps have been cleared by the military without any major clashes taking place. Many Thais, meanwhile, have discovered an unexpected downside to life under military rule: the music. The military has commandeered every TV channel and radio station and is broadcasting nothing but military announcements and patriotic songs, the AP finds. A Facebook page urging the junta to change the tune has received hundreds of thousands of likes. "Since you're reforming politics, you might as well reform your music," wrote one poster.

Michelle Obama is Barbara Walters' Most Fascinating Person of 2009. Almost a year since the Obama family moved to Washington, D.C., the first lady reflected on the transition to the White House. "It has been a whirlwind. But it's been amazing," she told Walters. "I mean, if you think about this year, I had to get these two beautiful girls settled into a new city, into a new home, into a new school. We got a dog. I visited eight countries with my husband. I planted a garden. I've started a mentoring program. It has been everything. And now, here we are at our first Christmas in the White House." Play During her tenure as first lady, Obama has promoted healthy living and taken steps to combat childhood obesity -- creating a vegetable garden on the White House lawn and holding health fairs with exercise stations for kids. "I think I've begun to lay the foundation to a conversation about the health of our kids -- particularly when we're looking at statistics that say that one in three kids in this country are obese, and those numbers increase if you're African-American or Hispanic," she said. "So we're going to spend a lot more time on that issue in the years to come." The first African-American first lady is also one of the fittest. Wearing a sleeveless dress in her official White House portrait, Obama's toned arms have become part of her signature style -- and the envy of many. Obama, who often joins her husband in the White House gym, told Walters that her workout regimen began after the birth of their first daughter, Malia. Play "My personal routine hasn't changed much in the past 11 years," she said. "I really started right after I had Malia, our oldest, and some of that was, you know, in all honesty it was a little sort of revenge because I'm married to a man who has worked out all of his life. And regardless of how busy he is, he finds the time to work out. And there was a point at which I got a little resentful of that." "[Malia] was still waking up for that four o'clock feeding and I'd get up because I'd be the first one to hear her, and he'd be asleep," she added. "And I thought, 'I'm up, I might as well go to the gym. And if I get to the gym, then he'll have to wake up and do that feeding.' I get a workout in and everyone will be happy. So you know, if there's anything that I can attribute these arms to, it's probably just determination." Play Michelle Obama on Marriage, Family, Bo The Obamas who have been married for 17 years have had their share of ups and downs. Michelle Obama told Walters that despite her confidence in her husband's natural ability, at a certain point, the grueling demands of politics bothered her. "I had always had this dilemma," she said. "It wasn't that I didn't believe in my husband as a phenomenal leader. I mean, that was always the pull -- because I always thought, 'Well, if I wanted somebody as my state senator, or as my U.S. senator, or as my president, I would want Barack Obama.' And the only reason he wouldn't do it is if I said no." Play When asked by Walters if the president would have stopped pursuing politics if she really put her foot down, the first lady said, "He would have." "I think it's the truth, the fact that he would have not pursued any of this had I really, really put my foot down," she said. "It made it really hard to be the person that would stand in the way of someone else's dreams, and the possibilities of his leadership. And I definitely didn't want to be in that position. I think I made the right call." First Lady's Guilty Pleasures? Between greeting world leaders and raising tweens, Malia and Sasha, in the national spotlight, Obama's scheduled is packed. But even she has her "lazy days." The first lady said her guilty pleasures are often "food based," or are watching "really bad TV" with the family's Portuguese water dog, Bo. "I sit with Bo, who usually climbs up on my lap. He thinks he's a lap dog," she said. "He'll cozy up with me, and I'm just clicking through mindless shows. A lot of, you know, shows about food and design, and all that good stuff. And it's just quiet, and I'm not thinking about anything for that second -- not about the kids, not about my husband, not about my schedule. If I get an hour of that during the course of a week, it feels like heaven." Obama gushed about Bo, who instantly became the apple of the family's eye. "Bo is my baby, he's our son. He's wonderful. He's growing," she said. "It's like I'm a mother. You ask about my kid, I'm gone." But the reality of life at the White House has not yet set in for the first lady, who said she sometimes walks through the grand, historic rooms and has to pinch herself. "There are moments when -- especially at night when it's quiet or you're driving up to the White House at night and the white lights are shining on … this beautiful home and you pull up to it, and somebody opens the door and says, 'Welcome home' -- those are the times when you think, 'Really? Wow. OK, here we go,'" she said Barack Obama was dubbed Walters' Most Fascinating Person of 2008. Click here to see photos of this year's Most Fascinating! ||||| Ball Bustin' Barbara Walters Won't Take Any Lip on The O'Reilly Factor Barbara Walters was kind of tough on Bill O’Reilly on Wednesday evening when she went on The Factor to promote her “10 Most Fascinating People” special. “What are you watching, Nickelodeon?” she said before calling O’Reilly “old fashioned — my god!” She also rolled her eyes and shouted O’Reilly down when he challenged her decisions to include Lady Gaga and Adam Lambert (“this gay guy”) on her list. Then Barbara took it below the belt and accused O’Reilly of being jealous of his colleague, Glenn Beck, also on the list. O'Reilly laughed it off awkwardly. Barbara Walters Tells Bill O'Reilly: You're Jealous Of Glenn Beck [HuffPo]

– Barack Obama, Barbara Walters’ most fascinating person of 2008, was succeeded this year by…his wife, Michelle. Walters named the first lady her top pick during last night’s ABC special, which also included interviews with the rest of the top 10. Obama discussed the “amazing whirlwind” of life in the White House, the importance of her healthy kids campaign, her guilty pleasures (“really bad TV”), and—of course—how she keeps up those toned arms. The rest of the 10 were Lady Gaga, Adam Lambert, Glenn Beck, Michael Jackson's children, Jenny Sanford, Kate Gosselin, Sarah Palin, Brett Favre, and Tyler Perry. Bill O’Reilly, who interviewed Walters yesterday, did not agree with some of her choices, leading Walters to criticize him—and accuse him of being both homophobic and jealous of Glenn Beck, New York reports. Watch their spat, as well as a few of Walters’ other interviews, above.

In the U.S., legal hurdles have long hampered research into marijuana. But as more states approve medical and even recreational marijuana, scientific inquiries have spiked, especially studies aimed at finding out what exactly is in today's weed—and what it does to our bodies. In Colorado, which made marijuana legal in November 2012, the latest results show that the pot lining store shelves is much more potent than the weed of 30 years ago. But the boost in power comes at a cost—modern marijuana mostly lacks the components touted as beneficial by medical marijuana advocates, and it is often contaminated with fungi, pesticides and heavy metals. “There's a stereotype, a hippy kind of mentality, that leads people to assume that growers are using natural cultivation methods and growing organically," says Andy LaFrate, founder of Charas Scientific, one of eight Colorado labs certified to test cannabis. "That's not necessarily the case at all." LaFrate presented his results this week at a meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS) in Denver. LaFrate says he's been surprised at just how strong most of today's marijuana has become. His group has tested more than 600 strains of marijuana from dozens of producers. Potency tests, the only ones Colorado currently requires, looked at tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the psychoactive compound that produces the plant's famous high. They found that modern weed contains THC levels of 18 to 30 percent—double to triple the levels that were common in buds from the 1980s. That's because growers have cross-bred plants over the years to create more powerful strains, which today tout colorful names like Bruce Banner, Skunkberry and Blue Cookies. Those thinking that stronger pot is always better pot might think again. Breeding for more powerful marijuana has led to the virtual absence of cannabidol (CBD), a compound being investigated for treatments to a range of ills, from anxiety and depression to schizophrenia, Huntington's disease and Alzheimer's. Much of the commercially available marijuana LaFrate's lab tested packs very little of this particular cannabinoid. “A lot of the time it's below the detection level of our equipment, or it's there at a very low concentration that we just categorize as a trace amount,” he says. Consumers specifically seeking medical benefits from cannabis-derived oils or other products may have a tough time determining how much, if any, CBD they contain, because Colorado doesn't currently require testing. “I've heard a lot of complaints from medical patients because somebody claims that a product has a high level of CBD, and it turns out that it actually doesn't,” LaFrate says. Colorado also does not yet require testing of marijuana for contaminants. Washington, the second state to legalize recreational marijuana, does require such testing for microbial agents like E. coli, salmonella and yeast mold, and officials there rejected about 13 percent of the marijuana products offered for sale in 2014. "It's pretty startling just how dirty a lot of this stuff is," LaFrate says. His team commonly found fungi and bacteria in the marijuana products they tested. But for now it's unclear just how much marijuana growers need to clean up their product. "Like ourselves, this plant is living with bacteria that are essential to its survival. In terms of microbial contamination, it's kind of hard to say what's harmful and what's not," he adds. "So the questions become: What's a safe threshold, and which contaminants do we need to be concerned about?" At the top of that list would be chemical contaminants in products such as concentrates, like the hard, amber-colored Shatter, which contains more than 90 percent THC, LaFrate suggests. Concentrates and edibles (think brownies) make up perhaps half of the current Colorado market. Their makers sometimes suggest that their chosen products are healthier than standard weed because they don't involve frequent smoking. But some manufacturers employ potentially harmful compounds like butane to strip the plant of most everything but THC. Tests also show that marijuana plants can draw in heavy metals from the soil in which they are grown, and concentrating THC can increase the amounts of heavy metals, pesticides or other substances that end up in a product. That means regulations for their production still need to be hammered out, LaFrate says. “People use all kinds of different methods to produce concentrates,” LaFrate says. “They allow people to use rubbing alcohol and heptane. But what grade of solvents are they using? Are they buying heptane on eBay, and if so, what exactly is in there? There are a whole bunch of issues to figure out, and right now there are not enough resources and really no watchdog.” ||||| Phillipa Morton Verified CBD Oil ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ This is a great product. Easy to just take when needed. Raw and very well produced. Great information and company so you know you’re getting a quality product. Jess Atkins NuLeaf Naturals Full-Spectrum CBD Oil ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ I like the taste of this CBD Oil. It was shipped very fast which I like. Very good service and a good price. Thank you for the recommendation! Joel White Elixinol Hemp Oil Drops ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ I tried this for nerve pains in my arm, it works extremely well. Much better than any pain killers in a pill. I recommend this product. Thanks so much. Steven McCarthy CBDistillery Full-Spectrum CBD Tincture ★ ★ ★ ★ I found this on CBDTrust.org when someone recommended that I try cbd oil for my chronic pain. I take it twice a day and it has helped with my pinched nerves in my back. 4/5 Michael M. 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For over a year, Coloradans age 21 and up have been able to buy recreational marijuana from state-regulated dispensaries. As part of the experiment, several labs have been certified to monitor samples from the state's burgeoning pot industry. One of those labs is scheduled to report its initial findings on Monday at the annual meeting of the American Chemical Society, in Denver. Those tests revealed one pattern that was somewhat surprising -- namely, the pot's high concentrations of THC, according to Andy LaFrate, president of Denver-based testing firm Charas Scientific. THC is the compound that gives marijuana users a "high," and on average, the pot in Colorado's retail supply is 30 percent THC. According to LaFrate, that's more than triple the THC level typically found in street marijuana a few decades ago. Is that concerning? "I don't think so," LaFrate said. "Especially when you're talking about smoking." However, he added, high potency can be an issue with marijuana-infused "edibles." People can easily overdo it with ingested pot because its effects aren't as immediate as when it is smoked. LaFrate noted that Colorado has passed new regulations targeting edible marijuana -- including potency restrictions and stronger child-resistant packaging. LaFrate's lab also found some contaminants in retail pot samples, including fungus and the chemical butane, which is used in making marijuana extracts. Whether that's any cause for worry, however, is unclear. "Some contamination is inevitable," LaFrate said. "Is there a threat from the contaminants we found? It's hard to say. But if you're smoking, these [substances] will be inhaled into the lungs." Finally, the lab found that pot samples contained little to no cannabidiol, or CBD -- one of the marijuana compounds believed to have medicinal properties. That's not surprising, LaFrate said, given that the point of recreational pot is to get high. But, he added, "there is a decent number of people buying retail marijuana who want some medicinal value." So those folks should be aware that what they buy could be devoid of CBD, LaFrate said. Paul Armentano, deputy director of the nonprofit NORML, saw no surprises in the findings. "It is well known that Colorado possesses two separate markets for [marijuana] -- one for medical consumers and one for retail consumers," said Armentano, whose Washington, D.C.-based group advocates for legal marijuana use. So it's "hardly surprising," he said, that the state's retail pot would be high in THC, but low in CBD. And, Armentano said, concerns about high THC levels seem "largely misplaced." People seeking a high will probably smoke less, because it will take less higher-potency marijuana to achieve a high. As for contaminants, Armentano said, "obviously one wants consumers to be able to obtain a product of consistent quality and safety." And that's why ongoing quality testing is crucial, he added. "Further regulatory oversight may be needed in order to assure that consumers are presented with a product of consistent and acceptable quality," Armentano said. That may eventually happen, LaFrate speculated. Still, he said, "even though we did find these contaminants, I think overall the supply is very safe." Along with Colorado, three other states -- Alaska, Oregon and Washington -- and Washington, D.C. currently have a legal marijuana market. More information NORML keeps track of state marijuana laws. ||||| Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings. / Updated This is not your father's weed. Colorado marijuana is nearly twice as potent as illegal pot of past decades, and some modern cannabis packs triple the punch of vintage ganja, lab tests reveal for the first time. In old-school dope, levels of THC — the psychoactive chemical that makes people high — were typically well below 10 percent. But in Colorado's legal bud, the average THC level is 18.7 percent, and some retail pot contains 30 percent THC or more, according to research released Monday. “That was higher than expected,” said Andy LaFrate, president of Charas Scientific. His Denver lab is licensed by the state and paid by marijuana businesses to measure the THC strength in their products before they go to market. “It’s common to see samples in the high 20s.” What’s really in — and not in — Colorado’s retail weed surprised LaFrate. After analyzing more than 600 samples of bud provided by certified growers and sellers, LaFrate said he detected little medical value and lots of contamination. He presents those findings Monday to a national meeting of the American Chemical Society, a nonprofit scientific group chartered by Congress. “We don’t want to be alarmists and freak people out, but at the same time we have been finding some really dirty marijuana,” LaFrate told NBC News. Some green buds he viewed were covered in funghi — and he estimated that several marijuana flowers were "crawling" with up to 1 million fungal spores. "It's a natural product. There's going to be microbial growth on it no matter what you do," LaFrate said. "So the questions become: What's a safe threshold? And which contaminants do we need to be concerned about?" For example, he also examined more than 200 pot extracts or "concentrates" and found some contained solvents like butane. All the tests were done with high-performance liquid chromatography, a method to separate, classify and measure individual compounds. What LaFrate didn't see, however, also astonished him. The 600-plus weed samples generally carried little or no cannabidiol, or CBD — the compound that makes medical marijuana “medical.” The average CBD amount: 0.1 percent, his study reports. CBD is anecdotally known to control depression, anxiety, and pain. About 200 families with ill children also moved to Colorado to access a strain called Charlotte’s Web, which appears to control seizures in some kids. “It’s disturbing to me because there are people out there who think they’re giving their kids Charlotte’s Web. And you could be giving them no CBD — or even worse, you could be giving them a THC-rich product which might actually increase seizures,” LaFrate said. “So, it's pretty scary on the medical side." The majority of samples tested came from recreational-pot merchants. Under Colorado law, recreational weed must be tested for potency. Some medical-pot sellers voluntarily provided samples to LaFrate. Colorado does not require pre-sale testing of medical marijuana. LaFrate did not analyze any edibles. "Really, there is very little difference between recreational and medical in terms of the THC-to-CBD ratio, at least at the aggregate level," LaFrate said. What does that mean for buyers? There may be little difference in how various strains make users feel, even though some people claim one type induces relaxation and another hikes alertness, LaFrate said. Three decades of cross-breeding pot strains — done to meet a demand for stronger weed — generally elevated THC and decreased CBD in many marijuana varieties, LaFrate said. "These samples are representational, I think, of what’s happening here in the state and, probably, across the country," LaFrate said. "Because most of the new states coming online with medical or retail marijuana have people from Colorado coming in to set up those markets. "We found there’s a tremendous amount of homogeneity within the genetics, at least as far as potency." But some legal weed producers have launched new breeding projects, using different genetic combinations to boost CBD content, said Sean Azzariti, a cannabis advocate in Denver. Azzariti also champions contamination testing as "an integral part of our industry." "I personally am very excited to see technology in testing continue to advance. You would be very hard pressed to find a garden that hasn't at one point had some sort of issue, whether it's an infestation, microbial problems," said Azzariti, an Iraq War veteran. He uses cannabis to help treat post-traumatic stress disorder. On Jan. 1, 2014, he became Colorado's first buyer of legal weed. Meanwhile, pot-legalization opponents are using LaFrate's findings to compare retail weed to food raised or grown with genetically modified organisms or GMOs. And pot foes continue to link the rise of the marijuana industry to the long-ago advance of Big Tobacco. "This study is further evidence that Colorado legalization is not working. It proves that even under government control, there's no way to ensure marijuana is free of bacteria and chemicals," said Kevin Sabet, president of Smart Approaches to Marijuana (SAM). "This shows that marijuana is a GMO product just like other products sold by big business. And just like other industries, now you have a big marijuana industry determined to hide these findings from the public. Where is their outcry? Where are the promises to change the way they do business?" Sabet said. "I won't hold my breath. For years, the tobacco industry did the same thing. Welcome, America, to Big Tobacco 2.0 — Big Pot."

– If a meeting of the American Chemical Society wouldn't typically catch your attention, this week's Denver gathering may prove an exception. That's after Andy LaFrate presented his pot-themed paper, which had three standout (but not particularly worrisome) findings: retail pot is way more potent, potentially less medically beneficial, and a little dirty. LaFrate runs Charas Scientific; it's one of eight labs certified to test recreational pot in the state, and what it found after examining 600 strains of marijuana from legally certified growers and sellers is that THC—the compound behind pot's "high"—is present in levels as high as 30%, though NBC News reports the average is 18.7%. In the '80s, it was usually below 10%. As Smithsonian explains, that isn't an accidental occurrence: Growers have been crossbreeding strains in a bid to up the potency. LaFrate tells HealthDay it's not really a big deal, at least in terms of smoking, as smokers can just smoke less. But in that cross-breeding, cannabidiol—that's CBD, a compound that may benefit those suffering from everything from depression to Alzheimer's—has nearly been bred-out. "A lot of the time it's below the detection level of our equipment," says LaFrate. The director of a nonprofit that tracks state marijuana laws isn't wowed by the finding, saying he expects retail pot would be heavy on the THC and light on the CBD. But LaFrate noted that his lab has seen "very little difference between recreational and medical in terms of the THC-to-CBD ratio, at least at the aggregate level." As for it being "really dirty," his lab found fungus (up to 1 million spores, in some cases) on buds, and butane in some pot concentrates. "There's going to be microbial growth on it no matter what you do," he notes. But "what's a safe threshold?" (Would you ever put your pet on pot?)

One of the reasons to be skeptical that Rick Santorum could win the Republican nomination is that we now have a pretty good idea of how the vote will play out from state to state — and the coalition that he is building seems short of a majority. It is not that Mr. Santorum’s delegate deficit is mathematically insurmountable. But he’s behind, and he is very unlikely to win states like New Jersey and California that either have a lot of delegates or use winner-take-all rules to award them. That might not leave enough fertile opportunities for him to gain delegates. If you go through the states one by one and make some reasonably optimistic assumptions about how Mr. Santorum might perform in each one based on their demographics, and then apply the delegate rules in each state, you’ll find it very challenging to come up with a plan in which he wins a plurality of delegates, let alone a majority of them. So what Mr. Santorum needs instead is some kind of change in the underlying conditions of the race. Not just one where he starts to win marginal states (say, Illinois and Wisconsin) by a point or two instead of lose them (as he did in Michigan and Ohio). That doesn’t actually make all that much difference in the delegate math. He needs something more fundamental than that. There is one obvious candidate: what if Newt Gingrich were to drop out of the race? This is hardly so far-fetched. Mr. Gingrich had a poor Super Tuesday, and his advisers have said that Mississippi and Alabama, which vote next Tuesday, are “must-wins” for him. Indeed, the main competition in these states might be between Mr. Santorum and Mr. Gingrich, with Mr. Romney likely to finish in third place especially if he makes little effort there. If Mr. Gingrich dropped out, how many of his supporters would go to Mr. Santorum? It is hard to know for sure and it might depend in part on whether Mr. Gingrich endorsed Mr. Santorum. The firm Public Policy Polling, however, has recently started to ask its respondents who they would support in a three-way race of Mr. Romney, Mr. Santorum and Mr. Paul, with Mr. Gingrich no longer on the ballot. By comparing the support levels in this question with those from the four-candidate ballot, it is possible to back into an estimate of where Mr. Gingrich’s supporters would go. Performing this calculation and averaging out the results from the five states where Public Policy Polling recently asked this question (Ohio, Tennessee, Georgia, Wisconsin and North Carolina), I came up with the following answer. Slightly more than half (57 percent) of Mr. Gingrich’s supporters would go to Mr. Santorum. About a quarter (27 percent) would go to Mr. Romney. The remainder (16 percent) would go to Ron Paul. Those numbers seem a pinch optimistic for Mr. Santorum — surveys conducted at earlier points in the race sometimes showed a more even distribution of second-choice support. The calculation also ignores the fact that some of Mr. Gingrich’s supporters would probably not vote at all if he weren’t on the ballot, rather than turn out for their second choice. However, if you look at the actual ways in which voters behaved when the number of alternatives was limited, the results are a little troubling for Mr. Romney. One example is Missouri, a state where Mr. Gingrich was not on the ballot because he did not file on time. (Missouri’s primary did not count for delegate selection — the state holds a caucus for that purpose instead — but it is an interesting data point.) Mr. Santorum got 55 percent of the vote there, far more than he has in any other state, and Mr. Romney just 25 percent. It was similar in Virginia, where both Mr. Santorum and Mr. Gingrich were off the ballot. (That contest, unfortunately for Mr. Santorum, did count for delegate selection). In that state, Mr. Paul got 40 percent of the vote — twice as much as he’s attracted in any other primary and much better than polls projected. Although turnout in Virginia was low and Mr. Romney won all but three delegates there (he actually lost one Congressional district to Mr. Paul), this result was in some ways the most negative sign for Mr. Romney on Super Tuesday, since it suggested the presence of an “anybody but Romney” vote. So suppose that you took those estimates from the Public Policy Polling surveys — Mr. Santorum gets 57 percent of Mr. Gingrich’s voters, Mr. Romney 27 percent, and Mr. Paul 16 percent — and redistributed Mr. Gingrich’s votes accordingly in the states that have already voted. Then you recalculated the delegate distribution based on the revised vote totals. It took some work, but here is the calculation I came up with: Mr. Santorum would have carried four states that he actually lost. The first two are the ones Mr. Gingrich won originally, South Carolina and Georgia, although his margin would have been very small in South Carolina. His share of the Gingrich vote would also have been enough to push him past Mr. Romney in Ohio and Alaska. He would not have won Michigan — Mr. Gingrich received very few votes there so there was little marginal benefit to Mr. Santorum — although it would have flipped one Congressional district and therefore given him the majority of delegates in the state. Calculating the delegate totals is more challenging. One issue is states like Iowa, in which the results reported by the news media are from a presidential-preference straw poll that is not directly tied to delegate selection. In these cases, I assumed that delegates were proportional to the straw poll results, even though they are picked though a separate process. Another is states that allocate some of their delegates by Congressional district. I was able to find district-by-district results for Georgia, Michigan, South Carolina and Ohio and make exact calculations for those states, but had to make some best guesses in Oklahoma and Tennessee. With those qualifications in mind, this general result should hold: Mr. Romney would still be significantly ahead in the delegate count. I have him with 404 delegates versus 264 for Mr. Santorum and 71 for Mr. Paul. Mr. Romney’s delegate total, in fact, is very slightly higher than it would have been before the redistribution of the vote. There are cases when the shift in votes costs him delegates, such as in winner-take-all districts, or when one of his opponents gains more votes and crosses a threshold that enables him to receive proportional delegates. But Mr. Romney is being given some votes under these assumptions — if not as many as Mr. Santorum — and that helps him in cases where the delegate allocation is more proportional. These factors came close to balancing out, but Mr. Romney gained about 10 delegates on net. Mr. Santorum, however, made the larger gains, winning about 110 more delegates than he has taken in the real world with Mr. Gingrich on the ballot. He made up a net of about 100 delegates with Mr. Romney, although he still trailed him. Some of Mr. Romney’s advantage, just as in the real delegate count, is because the delegate rules have tended to work in his favor. Much of Mr. Romney’s delegate advantage comes from three states — Arizona, Florida and Idaho — that apply winner-take-all rules or something close to it, plus Virginia, where the other candidates were too disorganized to get on the ballot. Still, that doesn’t explain all of Mr. Romney’s edge, nor does the split in the conservative vote. Even after receiving his share of Gingrich vote, Mr. Santorum would still have trailed Mr. Romney in the overall popular vote — about 45 percent to 38 percent. Of course, an exercise like this cannot account for the dynamics of the race. If he had received some of Mr. Gingrich’s votes, for instance, Mr. Santorum would have won Iowa by about four points and been declared the winner there on election night, possibly giving him more momentum heading into future states. But there are also occasions when this would have worked in Mr. Romney’s favor — he would have narrowly lost South Carolina to Mr. Santorum, for example, rather than been overwhelmed there by Mr. Gingrich. It would undoubtedly still help Mr. Santorum if Mr. Gingrich dropped out — especially if Mr. Gingrich endorsed Mr. Santorum and asked his delegates to vote for him. In fact, the combined total of Santorum and Gingrich delegates right now is quite similar to the number that we calculate Mr. Santorum would have won without Mr. Gingrich in the race. But that would be just the first step for Mr. Santorum — at best, a necessary but not sufficient condition for a comeback. He’ll need to find some further means by which he can eat into Mr. Romney’s coalition, and he’ll need to do so in a hurry since 21 states have already voted. ||||| One of the reasons to be skeptical that Rick Santorum could win the Republican nomination is that we now have a pretty good idea of how the vote will play out from state to state — and the coalition that he is building seems short of a majority. It is not that Mr. Santorum’s delegate deficit is mathematically insurmountable. But he’s behind, and he is very unlikely to win states like New Jersey and California that either have a lot of delegates or use winner-take-all rules to award them. That might not leave enough fertile opportunities for him to gain delegates. If you go through the states one by one and make some reasonably optimistic assumptions about how Mr. Santorum might perform in each one based on their demographics, and then apply the delegate rules in each state, you’ll find it very challenging to come up with a plan in which he wins a plurality of delegates, let alone a majority of them. So what Mr. Santorum needs instead is some kind of change in the underlying conditions of the race. Not just one where he starts to win marginal states (say, Illinois and Wisconsin) by a point or two instead of lose them (as he did in Michigan and Ohio). That doesn’t actually make all that much difference in the delegate math. He needs something more fundamental than that. There is one obvious candidate: what if Newt Gingrich were to drop out of the race? This is hardly so far-fetched. Mr. Gingrich had a poor Super Tuesday, and his advisers have said that Mississippi and Alabama, which vote next Tuesday, are “must-wins” for him. Indeed, the main competition in these states might be between Mr. Santorum and Mr. Gingrich, with Mr. Romney likely to finish in third place especially if he makes little effort there. If Mr. Gingrich dropped out, how many of his supporters would go to Mr. Santorum? It is hard to know for sure and it might depend in part on whether Mr. Gingrich endorsed Mr. Santorum. The firm Public Policy Polling, however, has recently started to ask its respondents who they would support in a three-way race of Mr. Romney, Mr. Santorum and Mr. Paul, with Mr. Gingrich no longer on the ballot. By comparing the support levels in this question with those from the four-candidate ballot, it is possible to back into an estimate of where Mr. Gingrich’s supporters would go. Performing this calculation and averaging out the results from the five states where Public Policy Polling recently asked this question (Ohio, Tennessee, Georgia, Wisconsin and North Carolina), I came up with the following answer. Slightly more than half (57 percent) of Mr. Gingrich’s supporters would go to Mr. Santorum. About a quarter (27 percent) would go to Mr. Romney. The remainder (16 percent) would go to Ron Paul. Those numbers seem a pinch optimistic for Mr. Santorum — surveys conducted at earlier points in the race sometimes showed a more even distribution of second-choice support. The calculation also ignores the fact that some of Mr. Gingrich’s supporters would probably not vote at all if he weren’t on the ballot, rather than turn out for their second choice. However, if you look at the actual ways in which voters behaved when the number of alternatives was limited, the results are a little troubling for Mr. Romney. One example is Missouri, a state where Mr. Gingrich was not on the ballot because he did not file on time. (Missouri’s primary did not count for delegate selection — the state holds a caucus for that purpose instead — but it is an interesting data point.) Mr. Santorum got 55 percent of the vote there, far more than he has in any other state, and Mr. Romney just 25 percent. It was similar in Virginia, where both Mr. Santorum and Mr. Gingrich were off the ballot. (That contest, unfortunately for Mr. Santorum, did count for delegate selection). In that state, Mr. Paul got 40 percent of the vote — twice as much as he’s attracted in any other primary and much better than polls projected. Although turnout in Virginia was low and Mr. Romney won all but three delegates there (he actually lost one Congressional district to Mr. Paul), this result was in some ways the most negative sign for Mr. Romney on Super Tuesday, since it suggested the presence of an “anybody but Romney” vote. So suppose that you took those estimates from the Public Policy Polling surveys — Mr. Santorum gets 57 percent of Mr. Gingrich’s voters, Mr. Romney 27 percent, and Mr. Paul 16 percent — and redistributed Mr. Gingrich’s votes accordingly in the states that have already voted. Then you recalculated the delegate distribution based on the revised vote totals. It took some work, but here is the calculation I came up with: Mr. Santorum would have carried four states that he actually lost. The first two are the ones Mr. Gingrich won originally, South Carolina and Georgia, although his margin would have been very small in South Carolina. His share of the Gingrich vote would also have been enough to push him past Mr. Romney in Ohio and Alaska. He would not have won Michigan — Mr. Gingrich received very few votes there so there was little marginal benefit to Mr. Santorum — although it would have flipped one Congressional district and therefore given him the majority of delegates in the state. Calculating the delegate totals is more challenging. One issue is states like Iowa, in which the results reported by the news media are from a presidential-preference straw poll that is not directly tied to delegate selection. In these cases, I assumed that delegates were proportional to the straw poll results, even though they are picked though a separate process. Another is states that allocate some of their delegates by Congressional district. I was able to find district-by-district results for Georgia, Michigan, South Carolina and Ohio and make exact calculations for those states, but had to make some best guesses in Oklahoma and Tennessee. With those qualifications in mind, this general result should hold: Mr. Romney would still be significantly ahead in the delegate count. I have him with 404 delegates versus 264 for Mr. Santorum and 71 for Mr. Paul. Mr. Romney’s delegate total, in fact, is very slightly higher than it would have been before the redistribution of the vote. There are cases when the shift in votes costs him delegates, such as in winner-take-all districts, or when one of his opponents gains more votes and crosses a threshold that enables him to receive proportional delegates. But Mr. Romney is being given some votes under these assumptions — if not as many as Mr. Santorum — and that helps him in cases where the delegate allocation is more proportional. These factors came close to balancing out, but Mr. Romney gained about 10 delegates on net. Mr. Santorum, however, made the larger gains, winning about 110 more delegates than he has taken in the real world with Mr. Gingrich on the ballot. He made up a net of about 100 delegates with Mr. Romney, although he still trailed him. Some of Mr. Romney’s advantage, just as in the real delegate count, is because the delegate rules have tended to work in his favor. Much of Mr. Romney’s delegate advantage comes from three states — Arizona, Florida and Idaho — that apply winner-take-all rules or something close to it, plus Virginia, where the other candidates were too disorganized to get on the ballot. Still, that doesn’t explain all of Mr. Romney’s edge, nor does the split in the conservative vote. Even after receiving his share of Gingrich vote, Mr. Santorum would still have trailed Mr. Romney in the overall popular vote — about 45 percent to 38 percent. Of course, an exercise like this cannot account for the dynamics of the race. If he had received some of Mr. Gingrich’s votes, for instance, Mr. Santorum would have won Iowa by about four points and been declared the winner there on election night, possibly giving him more momentum heading into future states. But there are also occasions when this would have worked in Mr. Romney’s favor — he would have narrowly lost South Carolina to Mr. Santorum, for example, rather than been overwhelmed there by Mr. Gingrich. It would undoubtedly still help Mr. Santorum if Mr. Gingrich dropped out — especially if Mr. Gingrich endorsed Mr. Santorum and asked his delegates to vote for him. In fact, the combined total of Santorum and Gingrich delegates right now is quite similar to the number that we calculate Mr. Santorum would have won without Mr. Gingrich in the race. But that would be just the first step for Mr. Santorum — at best, a necessary but not sufficient condition for a comeback. He’ll need to find some further means by which he can eat into Mr. Romney’s coalition, and he’ll need to do so in a hurry since 21 states have already voted.

– The math is not looking good for Rick Santorum, and his supporters are pressing Newt Gingrich to drop out of the race so as to change that. So Nate Silver of the New York Times decided to do the math and see just how much that would help Santorum's cause. Based on Public Policy Polling data, he estimates that 57% of Gingrich's supporters would back Santorum, with 27% backing Romney. The number seems plausible but realistic, given that Romney's opponents surged in the essentially one-on-one contests in Missouri and Virginia. But using that math, Silver calculates that even if Gingrich hadn't been in the race at all, Santorum would still trail Romney 264 delegates to 404. Gingrich dropping out and throwing his delegates to Santorum would result in a similar total, and it would certainly help. "But that would be just the first step," Silver says. The demographics Santorum is winning simply don't add up; he needs to find another way to cut into Romney's coalition, "and he'll need to do so in a hurry." Click for Silver's full column.

A Korean Air executive had a flight attendant kicked off a plane after an improper pre-flight snack procedure, but now the airline vice president could be facing much more serious charges herself. Heather Cho reportedly reprimanded a junior crew member for not following the correct procedure for asking passengers about macadamia nuts before the plane took off, and then serving the nuts in a bag instead of on a plate, according to the Korea Times. Then, Ms. Cho demanded the chief flight attendant produce the flight service manual, and when he failed to find it, she ordered him off the plane. The plane had already left the gate, so it returned for the chief attendant to disembark, and the flight departed 20 minutes late. "The chief flight attendant failed to get the right manual, and this led Cho to believe he was not qualified for that job," a Korean Air official told the Times. The nutty incident on the tarmac at John F. Kennedy International Airport has critics in South Korea angry over what they see as pompous behavior from monied elite, and aviation officials are now investigating for possible breaches of safety regulations. Cho, whose father is chairman at Korean Air – which excused her behavior while apologizing to inconvenienced passengers – has now resigned amid the surge in public criticism. Cho is the oldest child in a tycoon family and her siblings are also executives at South Korea's largest airline. The incident drew wide and deep criticism in South Korea where the economy is dominated by family-controlled conglomerates known as chaebol, according to the Associated Press. Family members often wield greater influence over major companies than shareholders and executives with no blood ties to the founding family. The Cho family owns about 10 percent of Korean Air Lines Co., part of a business empire that spans the travel, logistics, hotel and leisure industries. Korean Air said the flight's captain made the decision to turn the plane around and dispense the crew member, and that it was "natural" to fault the attendant's procedural ignorance, according to the Associated Press. But South Korea's government said it is probing whether Cho violated aviation safety law. Cho could have legal trouble if the investigation turns out evidence she interrupted the flight or endangered safety by using threats, her status, or violence. Cabin crew members are only to take orders from the captain during a flight, the Guardian noted. A ministry official told reporters inspectors were investigating whether her behavior was in violation of the law, noting the incident is "unprecedented," a ministry official told reporters. “Even if she is the vice-president of the airline, she was one of [many] passengers and should have been treated as such,” he said. He said Cho should have waited for landing to lecture the attendant. According to Korea's Aviation Safety and Security Law, only the pilot is in charge of the management of flight attendants during flights. It also bars passengers from causing disturbances, including violent language or yelling. The Korea Times reported "those disturbing flight crew's service through violence or threats, and threatening the safety of passengers and the flight, are subject to up to 5 million won in fine." Civic group People's Solidarity for Participatory Democracy said it would file a complaint against Cho, the Associated Press reported. "The anger and the concern from the public were so big because safety and procedures related to important services were simply ignored" due to Cho's status, the group said. Get the Monitor Stories you care about delivered to your inbox. By signing up, you agree to our Privacy Policy Korean Air maintained Cho is in charge of in-flight service for the carrier and that checking the quality of service was one of her jobs. The flight from New York arrived in Incheon, South Korea, 11 minutes behind schedule. ||||| Story highlights Heather Cho asks for forgiveness, says she takes full responsibility, airline says Korean Air says Cho has resigned from some roles but is keeping VP title Airline says ordering a flight assistant to get off the plane was excessive Cho ordered a plane back to the gate after a flight attendant served nuts in a bag (CNN) A Korean Air executive has resigned from some of her duties after she ordered a flight to be turned around to the gate and a flight attendant off the plane because she was served nuts in a bag instead of on a plate. Heather Cho, whose Korean name is Cho Hyun-ah, resigned Tuesday from the airline's catering and in-flight sales business, and its cabin service and hotel business divisions, an airline spokesman said. But she is keeping her title as a vice president of the national carrier, he said. As for the next steps, the spokesman told CNN there is an investigation going on, so "we will have to see." The incident occurred Friday at New York's JFK airport on a flight due to take off for the South Korean city of Incheon. Read More

– A Korean Air exec whose temper tantrum about macadamia nuts has become an international story resigned from some of her duties today, reports CNN. Heather Cho, daughter of the airline's CEO, will still be a VP of some sort, but she'll no longer oversee operations including cabin service. That's what got her in trouble: When a flight attendant offered her macadamia nuts in a bag instead of on a plate, Cho reportedly berated the chief flight attendant for failing to have his crew follow protocol for first-class passengers, then ordered the pilot to return to the gate at JFK so the chief attendant could be removed from the plane. As a result, the plane took off about 20 minutes late. “I am sorry for causing trouble to the passengers and the people,” said Cho in a statement. “I seek forgiveness from those who were hurt by what I did.” The 40-year-old's apology and partial resignation might not be the end of it, however. Authorities are investigating whether forcing the plane back to the gate when there was no emergency subjects Cho to fines or worse for violating air-safety regulations, reports the Christian Science Monitor. A South Korean civic group plans to file a complaint with prosecutors.

Casino giants are finding new ways to cut costs and save money. The new tactics affect you, the consumer. 13 Action News first told you about MGM International Properties decreasing their shot pours . Now, we're learning about some new ways the casinos are trying to limit those comped drinks everyone looks forward to while sitting at the slot and poker machines. Sitting at a slot machine or video poker machine, putting in a $10 bill or a $20 bill, slowly hitting the button, and waiting for the cocktail waitress to come around to take your order for your free drink - may soon be a ritual of the past. "It's kind of what Vegas is known for," said the founder of vitalvegas.com , Scott Roeben. "They've gotten all the low-hanging fruit; now I think they are looking at the things that can have a huge financial impact," he said. Roeben says the point is for the casino giants to save money. "Casinos are being very aggressive about it," said Roeben. "The casinos are taking the discretion out of the hands of the bartenders to give comped drinks." One way is with a red light, green light system. Pictures taken by Roeben at the Caesars sports book show three lights attached to the video poker machines. One light is red, one light is green, one light is blue. Once money is put in the machine, the light turns blue. Once you spend enough, or lose enough, a green light comes on, signaling to the bartender, you are ready for a comped drink. The red light flashes back on until you put more money in. "You gotta pace yourself, and you've got be willing to invest a little to get that free drink," said Roeben. Roeben says a slot voucher system is in place at the Mirage Lobby Bar. By that, he means, video poker machines print out vouchers that say 'You've earned a free drink' after you've spent enough. "The machine decides if you're worthy of your comped drink!" said Roeben. Roeben said this is going on at the Cosmopolitan too. He adds it's only a matter of time before an automated comped drink monitoring system is in place at every bar on the strip. We reached out to the casinos for comment. The Cosmopolitan said they have various systems in place but wouldn't say more than that. Caesars never got us a statement before show time. MGM International Properties provided us with the statement below. "We are pilot-testing a new slot machine feature at the Lobby Bar, which provides vouchers for drinks based on the time and length of slot play. The new technology has eliminated the guessing game for bartenders about how many drinks each guest is eligible to receive based on play. Further, it has made the number of comped drinks that players receive consistent for all slot players at the bar.” LAS VEGAS (KTNV) - ||||| Las Vegas observers predicted this was coming, and now its here. Caesars Entertainment, which operates nine Sin City resorts, has rolled out its “Red Light, Green Light” (our term, not theirs) comp drink monitoring system to all its Las Vegas casinos. The color-coded light system, installed on the back of video poker machines at casino and sports book bars, tells bartenders when a guest’s play warrants a free, or “comped,” drink. Las Vegas casinos have experimented with a variety of comp drink monitoring systems, the first being a voucher system at Mirage. The voucher system is now used in the lobby bar at MGM Grand as well. Then, the Red Light, Green Light system appeared at the sports book bar at Caesars Palace. Most recently, Cosmopolitan Las Vegas became the first Strip resort to implement a voucher system across all its casino bars, including its remodeled Chandelier bar. The move by Caesars Entertainment to implement its comp drink monitoring system is a huge development in Las Vegas because the company owns so many casinos. Drink monitoring systems will now be the norm, and a company-wide roll-out at MGM Resorts resorts are sure to follow. We personally verified the comped drink system is in place at these Caesars Entertainment resorts: Bally’s (including Sully’s bar and Casino Bar), Cromwell (Lobby Bar), Linq (includes Tag Sports Bar, Catalyst and 3535 Bar), Flamingo (including X Bar and Bugsy’s, pictured below) and Harrah’s. Our alert readers have confirmed that the system is in place at Rio, Caesars Palace, Paris and Planet Hollywood. Remarkably, the Red Light, Green Light monitoring system seems to have been installed at all these Caesars Entertainment resorts within just a two-week window. So, here’s how the system works, as best we can decipher, anyway. See, Caesars Entertainment hasn’t made any official announcements about the details of the monitoring system. Implementing the new system under-the-radar was a strategic decision to avoid potential backlash, as one bartender confirmed. When you sit down at a video poker machine at a sports book or casino bar in a Caesars Entertainment resort, and put $20 into the machine, a blue light comes on. That signals to the bartender that you’ve “activated” the machine. Yes, there are guests who sit at these machines and put a dollar in and expect free drinks. They’re the ones this system is trying to address. Once you choose your game, and begin play, you’ll need to play “max bet” for 4-5 hands (in most cases, $1.25 a pop, or five times 25 cents), then a green light comes on. That green light means you get a comped drink. Good times. As long as your green light is on, you’re good for comped drinks. This requires consistent play at max bet. There doesn’t appear to be a time requirement. You play, your light stays green, you’re hammered. If you don’t play max bet, or if you play too slowly, you’ll get the red light. That signals to the bartender you no longer “qualify” for a free drink. You’ll need to meet the qualifications again before the liquor flows freely again. That’s about it. Simple, but effective. When we first learned of systems like this, we railed against them, but our position has evolved as we’ve learned more. In essence, bartenders have always been the comped drink monitoring system. They watched the level and frequency of play and determined who earned a free drink. Now, it’s automated. When these systems first hit the casinos, bartenders weren’t thrilled. They felt it impeded their ability to give good customer service, and it also decreased their tips. When asked during our most recent visit, one Bally’s bartender said, “They’re a blessing.” Now, the pressure is off the bartenders, and an automated system creates an environment where players know what’s expected, and the freeloaders know they can’t get away with scamming casinos for free drinks without a reasonable amount of play. It’s worth noting bartenders say they have some discretion to veer from the rigidity of the Red Light, Green Light system for Seven Stars and Diamond tier loyalty club members. Those are some of Caesars Entertainment’s most lucrative customers, and it’s unlikely they’d nickel and dime them over cocktails that have a hard cost of mere pennies. At the moment, the light system at Caesars Entertainment resorts can’t easily be seen by customers. They’re installed on the back of video poker machines, and most players don’t even realize they’re there. If you want to know which of your lights are showing, you can place your hand behind the light display to see the color reflected, or use your smartphone’s selfie mode to take a look. Or just ask your bartender. They’re not secretive about it at all. One bartender suggested the lights should be clearly visible to players so guests could easily tell if they’ve earned another free drink. That suggestion, however, didn’t go over well with management due to concerns about the potential of a negative customer response. The customers we’ve chatted with, though, understand the fundamental purpose of the comped drink system, and figure the only people it will impact are those who expect something for nothing. That arrangement has never actually existed in Las Vegas, despite many who mistakenly believe it did. They just didn’t understand how Vegas worked. Casino revenue has always paid for the free rooms, buffets and show tickets. People did the comping, not machines. The implementation of the Red Light, Green Light comped drink monitoring system at all Caesars Entertainment resorts in Las Vegas marks a dramatic turning point in the culture and business of Las Vegas casinos. It means we’re going to see similar monitoring systems in all Las Vegas casino bars and, in time, on all slot machines across the entire casino floor. These changes, along with downsized liquor pours and paid parking, have sparked heated discussion among Las Vegas visitors, many contending Las Vegas casinos are compromising the destination’s perceived value for short-term financial gain. Ultimately, though, painful as they may seem, the changes are smart business, and casinos are for-profit businesses. Always have been, always will be. Update (9/27/16): Caesars Entertainment has confirmed that the comp drink monitoring system has been implemented at all its Nevada casinos. A statement reads: “Caesars Entertainment has implemented the comp validation system statewide throughout our Nevada resorts. This system enables us to offer complimentary beverages to those gamers who choose max play at our video poker bar top units.” See more on this story from our friends at KTNV. It ain’t glitzy, but it is the reality, so play on. ||||| Caesars has installed indicator lights on the rear of video poker machines at sports bars in all nine of its properties on or near the Strip. Guests have to wager a certain amount on each hand for the "green" light to flash. Only then will bartenders serve free booze. Lower bidders have to pay if they want a splash of wine or a cocktail. ||||| LAS VEGAS, Nevada - Say goodbye to the days of stretching a dollar as long as you can in a video poker machine to get free drinks. Caesars Entertainment has officially rolled out a comp drink monitoring system at all of its resorts in Las Vegas. "The people it affects are the people who want something for nothing," said Scott Roeben, the founder of the popular blog VitalVegas.com. Within the last few weeks, Caesars rolled out the system that makes sure you're spending enough money before you get your free drink. "It happened overnight," said Roeben. "The bartenders are still getting used to it, the customers are definitely still getting used to it." It's essentially a red light, green light system. 13 Action News first told you about it a few months ago when the system was just being tested out. Well, now it's all over the Strip and pretty unavoidable. "Now it's an automated system," said Roeben. "The bartenders have a little flexibility but not very much." Here's how it works. You put in $20 to the video poker machine to get it activated. A blue light will turn on. If you play a few max bets, your light will turn green. If you keep up your playing pace, the drinks will keep coming. If you stop or slow down, the light will turn red and the drinks will stop. "If you slow down, turn and talk to a friend, there's a chance that your pace could be too slow and they will start you over again." Roeben was initially ticked off about the change. "When I first heard about it, I was really upset, I was riled, and I would rant on my blog." But Roeben says, there's been a little change of perception about it. He points out casinos are not nonprofits and they must operate like businesses. "I'm getting on board with it just because I realized I love big shiny things and how does a casino make more big shiny things if they're not making money," he said. Caesars Entertainment released a statement about the new system's implementation. "Caesars Entertainment has implemented the comp validation system statewide throughout our Nevada resorts. This system enables us to offer complimentary beverages to those gamers who choose max play at our video poker bar top units."

– Sammy Davis Jr. would never have let this happen. The Los Angeles Times reports the days of comped drinks for Las Vegas gamblers may be coming to an end. "It's kind of what Vegas is known for," Scott Roeben, founder of Vital Vegas, tells KTNV. But in recent months, two of the biggest casino owners in Vegas launched systems to regulate the free alcohol being handed out to video poker players in their bars. And according to Vital Vegas, that means it's only a matter of time until similar systems are put in place at bars all over Vegas before being rolled out to slot machines and beyond. Currently, the changes mean gamblers can no longer milk video poker games for cheap in order to drink for free, WGBA reports. MGM Resorts started things off by deploying video poker machines in bars at the MGM Grand and the Mirage that print out drink vouchers when gamblers have been playing for long enough. It says the new machines take the pressure off bartenders to figure out who deserves to have their drinks comped. But the major sea change appears to be happening at Caesars Entertainment, which installed colored lights on the backs of video poker machines in the bars at all nine of its Vegas-area casinos. If you bet the max—usually $1.25 or so—for four or five hands, the green light goes on and a free drink is headed your way. The red light will cut off the flow of gratis booze if you slow down your playing pace. "You've got be willing to invest a little to get that free drink," Roeben tells KTNV. (Synthetic alcohol promises the buzz without the hangover.)

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. ||||| FRANKLIN, Tenn. (AP) — Hospital operator Community Health Systems said a cyberattack took information on more than 4 million patients from its computer network earlier this year. The Franklin, Tennessee, company said Monday that no medical or credit card records were taken in the attack, which may have happened in April and June. But Community said the attack did bypass its security systems to take patient names, addresses, birthdates, and phone and Social Security numbers. The hospital operator said it believes the attack came from a group in China that used sophisticated malware and technology to get the information. Community Health has since removed the malware from its system and finalized "other remediation efforts" to prevent future attacks. A spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a request from The Associated Press seeking comment on the attacks. The information that was taken came from patients who were referred to or received care from doctors tied to the company over the past five years. Community Health Systems Inc. is notifying patients affected by the attack and offering them identity theft protection services. The company owns, leases or operates 206 hospitals in 29 states. The attack follows other high-profile data security problems that have hit retailers like the e-commerce site eBay and Target Corp. Last year, hackers stole from Target about 40 million debit and credit card numbers and personal information for 70 million people. Shares of Community Health climbed 38 cents to $51.38 late Monday morning, while broader trading indexes also rose less than 1 percent.

– Hackers hit Community Health Systems, a company that operates 206 hospitals across the United States, accessing the records of some 4.5 million patients, reports CNN. What they got, as per the AP: patient names, addresses, birthdates, and phone and Social Security numbers. That affects anyone treated at any location within the last five years. What they didn't get: medical records or credit card numbers. CHS says that the hack, which used malware to access data, was likely the work of Chinese hackers and occurred in April and June. It says the malware has since been removed and "other remediation efforts" are in place. CNN notes that CHS has a heavy presence in Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Texas. (A list of locations is here, though the site appears to be down currently.)

The depletion of the ozone layer shielding Earth from damaging ultraviolet rays has reached an unprecedented low over the Arctic this spring because of harmful chemicals and a cold winter, the U.N. weather agency said Tuesday. Britain's Prince Harry tries out an immersion suit, during training for the Walking with the Wounded expedition, on the island of Spitsbergen, situated between the Norwegian mainland and the North Pole,... (Associated Press) Britain's Prince Harry, second left, joins the Walking with the Wounded team, on the island of Spitsbergen, situated between the Norwegian mainland and the North Pole, Tuesday, March 29, 2011. Palace... (Associated Press) The Earth's fragile ozone layer in the Arctic region has suffered a loss of about 40 percent from the start of winter until late March, exceeding the previous seasonal loss of about 30 percent, the World Meteorological Organization said. The Geneva-based agency blamed the loss on a buildup of ozone-eating chemicals once widely used as coolants and fire retardants in a variety of appliances and on very cold temperatures in the stratosphere, the second major layer of the Earth's atmosphere, just above the troposphere. Arctic ozone conditions vary more than the seasonal ozone "hole" that forms high in the stratosphere near the South Pole each winter and spring, and the temperatures are always warmer than over Antarctica. Because of changing weather and temperatures some Arctic winters experience almost no ozone loss while others with exceptionally cold stratospheric conditions can occasionally lead to substantial ozone depletion, U.N. scientists say. This year the Arctic winter was warmer than average at ground level, but colder in the stratosphere than normal Arctic winters. U.N. officials say the latest losses _ unprecedented, but not entirely unexpected _ were detected in observations from the ground and from balloons and satellites over the Arctic. Atmospheric scientists who are concerned about global warming focus on the Arctic because that is a region where the effects are expected to be felt first. Ozone scientists have said that significant Arctic ozone depletion is possible in the case of a cold and stable Arctic stratospheric winter. Ozone losses occur over the polar regions when temperatures drop below -78 degrees Celsius (-108 Fahrenheit), when clouds form in the stratosphere. Average temperatures in January range from about -40 to 0 C (-40 to 32 F), while average temperatures in July range from about -10 to 10 C (14 to 50 F). "The Arctic stratosphere continues to be vulnerable to ozone destruction caused by ozone-depleting substances linked to human activities," said WMO secretary-general Michel Jarraud. "The degree of ozone loss experienced in any particular winter depends on the meteorological conditions." The loss comes despite the U.N. ozone treaty, known as the 1987 Montreal Protocol, which has resulted in cutbacks in ozone-damaging chemicals, such as chlorofluorocarbons, halons and other, that were used in the making of refrigerators, air conditioners, fire extinguishers and even hairspray. The 196-nation ozone treaty encourages industries to use replacement chemicals less damaging to ozone, the atmospheric layer that helps protect against the sun's most harmful rays. But because these compounds have long atmospheric lifetimes, it takes decades for their concentrations to subside to pre-1980 levels as was agreed in the Montreal Protocol. U.N. officials project the ozone layer outside the polar regions will recover to pre-1980 levels sometime between 2030 and 2040. ||||| Image caption Long a consideration in the Antarctic, ozone levels in the Arctic are now a cause for concern The ozone layer has seen unprecedented damage in the Arctic this winter due to cold weather in the upper atmosphere. By the end of March, 40% of the ozone in the stratosphere had been destroyed, against a previous record of 30%. The ozone layer protects against skin cancer, but the gas is destroyed by reactions with industrial chemicals. These chemicals are restricted by the UN's Montreal Protocol, but they last so long in the atmosphere that damage is expected to continue for decades. "The Montreal Protocol actually works, and the amount of ozone-depleting gases is on the way down, but quite slowly," said Geir Braathen, a senior scientist with the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), which co-ordinates ozone data globally. "In the meantime, we have some winters that get much colder than before and also the cold periods last longer, into the spring," he told BBC News. "So it's really a combination of the gases still there and low temperatures and then sunshine, and then you get ozone loss." Dr Braathen was one of a number of scientists presenting the findings at the European Geosciences Union (EGU) annual meeting in Vienna. 'Sun screen' The destructive reactions are promoted by cold conditions (below -78C) in the stratosphere. While this is an annual occurrence in the Antarctic, where the annual depletion has garnered the term "ozone hole", the Arctic picture is less clear, as here the stratospheric weather is less predictable. With no ozone layer, you would have 70 times more UV than we do now - so you can say the ozone layer is a sunscreen of factor 70 Geir Braathen, World Meteorological Organization This winter, while the Arctic was unusually warm at ground level, temperatures 15-20km above the Earth's surface plummeted and stayed low. "The low temperatures were not that different from some other years, but extended much further into March and April - in fact it's still going on now," said Farahnaz Khosrawi, an ozone specialist at the Meteorological Institute at Stockholm University, Sweden. Another, Dr Florence Goutail from the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), put the 2010/11 winter in context. "Usually in cold winters we observe that about 25% of the ozone disappears, but this winter was really a record - 40% of the column has disappeared," she said. The longer and colder Antarctic winters often see 55% of the ozone depleted. However, this has hardly any impact on human health, as the region is largely uninhabited - only the southern tip of South America sometimes comes under the ozone hole. But in the Arctic, the situation is different. Over the last month, severe ozone depletion has been seen over Scandinavia, Greenland, and parts of Canada and Russia. The WMO is advising people in Scandinavian countries and Greenland to look out for information on daily conditions in order to prevent any damage to their health. Loss of ozone allows more of the Sun's harmful ultraviolet-B rays to penetrate through the atmosphere. This has been linked to increased rates of skin cancer, cataracts and immune system damage. "With no ozone layer, you would have 70 times more UV than we do now - so you can say the ozone layer is a sunscreen of factor 70," said Dr Braathen. Snow fall Ozone depletion is often viewed as an environmental problem that has been solved. The Montreal Protocol, established in 1987, and its successor agreements have phased out many ozone-depleting chemicals such as the chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) that used to be in widespread use as refrigerants. Image caption Ozone data were captured using satellites and weather balloons Use of some continues at a much lower level, with poorer developing countries allowed more time in which to switch away from substances essential to some of their industries. But even though concentrations of these chemicals in the atmosphere are falling, they can endure for decades. In polar regions, the concentration of ozone-depleting substances has only fallen by about 10% from the peak years before the Montreal Protocol took effect. In addition, research by Markus Rex from the Alfred Wegener Institute in Germany suggests that winters that stand out as being cold in the Arctic stratosphere are getting colder. "For the next few decades, the [Arctic ozone] story is driven by temperatures, and we don't understand what's driving this [downward] trend," he said. "It's a big challenge to understand it and how it will drive ozone loss over coming decades." Projections suggest that the Antarctic ozone hole will not fully recover fully until 2045-60.

– The ozone layer above the Arctic withered by 40% this winter, according to the UN's weather agency, a stark increase from the previous seasonal record of 30%. The loss was driven largely by frigid conditions in the stratosphere—though surface temperatures were actually warmer than normal—and lingering chemicals banned in 1987's Montreal Protocol. "The 2011 ozone loss shows that we have to remain vigilant and keep a close eye on the situation in the Arctic in the coming years," the secretary-general of the World Meteorological Organization says. Late last month, wind blew the hole over Greenland and Scandinavia, where the WMO asked that people heed national ozone-level alerts. The BBC notes that though the amount of chemical pollution driving ozone loss is falling, the Antarctic ozone hole is expected to persist until 2045 to 2060. Ozone outside the poles is expected to hit pre-1980 levels between 2030 and 2040, reports the AP.

Donald Trump, co-owner of the Miss Universe Organization, poses with Miss Connecticut Erin Brady at a news conference after she was crowned Miss USA 2013 at the Planet Hollywood Resort and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada in a June 16, 2013 file photo. NEW YORK Donald Trump, the billionaire real estate developer, is planning to sue U.S. Spanish-language TV network Univision for hundreds of millions of dollars for dropping coverage of the Miss USA pageant, which he partly owns, his lawyer said on Thursday. Michael Cohen, the executive vice president and special counsel to Trump, said he was finalizing a retainer agreement with outside counsel. "We intend to pursue all legal rights and remedies available to Mr. Trump pursuant to the terms of the license agreement as well as a defamation case against Univision," he said. "The lawsuit is going to be for hundreds of millions of dollars." Univision said on Thursday that it would not air the Miss USA pageant on July 12 because of what it called insulting remarks by Trump about Mexican immigrants. During his speech last week announcing his candidacy for the U.S. Republican presidential nomination, Trump accused Mexico of sending rapists and criminals to the United States. "They're sending people that have lots of problems and they're bringing their problems," he said. "They're bringing drugs, they're bringing crime, they're rapists, and some I assume are good people, but I speak to border guards and they tell us what we are getting." Univision [UVN.UL] said it would also sever ties with the Miss Universe Organization, a joint venture between Trump and Comcast-owned NBCUniversal. In an interview with Fox News on Thursday, Trump said he had a signed contract with Univision. "Of course I have a signed contract: five years, they have to pay me almost $15 million," he said. "They can't do this." U.S. TV network NBC has the rights to broadcast the English-language version of the Miss USA pageant. Univision had planned to simulcast the event in Spanish for the first time. In addition to nixing the pageant, Univision said it would not work with any projects tied to the Trump organization. On Thursday, an unrepentant Trump said the Mexican government had pressured Univision to sever ties with him because he had exposed problems on the southern U.S. border and in trade deals with the United States. "Mexican leadership has been doing serious damage to the United States by out-negotiating our representatives and political leaders," Trump said in a statement. Univision said its local news division would continue to cover all candidates, including Trump, who are vying for the U.S. presidency. Univision was taken private by a group of buyout firms, including Madison Dearborn Partners, Saban Capital, Providence Equity Partners, TPG Capital and Thomas H. Lee Partners, for $12.3 billion in 2007. (Reporting by Patricia Reaney; Additional reporting by Lisa Lambert; Editing by Jill Serjeant and Marguerita Choy) ||||| Trump, Univision at war over 'Miss Universe' Donald Trump and Univision Communications became embroiled in a contractual dispute on Thursday after the New York-based media company announced that it would end its business relationship with the Miss Universe Organization, based on what it described as Trump's "insulting remarks about Mexican immigrants." In an interview with the On Media blog, Trump, a co-owner of the Miss Universe Organization, accused Univision of defaulting on an "iron-clad" five-year, $13.5 million contract that it had no right to terminate. "They have no termination rights whatsoever," Trump said. "They've defaulted on their contract because of pressure put on them by Mexico." Trump said Univision has already paid for the rights to broadcast the Miss Universe and Miss USA pageants in Mexico and South America, and reiterated that there were no clauses and "no outs" allowing for the breakage of the contract. Trump, who is running for the Republican presidential nomination, said in a speech earlier this month that he would build a wall to stop Mexico from dumping "rapists" and criminals on U.S. soil. On Wednesday, Trump issued a statement accusing the media of trying "to distort my comments regarding Mexico and its great people," adding that he has "many successful business relationships with Mexican companies and employ, and am close friends with, many Mexican people," and that he has "tremendous respect for the leaders of Mexico." In Thursday's statement, Univision said the company saw the "the work ethic, love for family, strong religious values and the important role Mexican immigrants and Mexican-Americans have had and will continue to have in building the future of our country. We will not be airing the Miss USA pageant on July 12th or working on any other projects tied to the Trump Organization." "Univision News and the local news division will continue to provide comprehensive coverage of all candidates, including Mr. Trump, to ensure our audience continues to have access to all points of view," the company said. As Trump sees it, Univision is capitulating to pressure "put on them by various sources in Mexico." "The Mexican government is putting pressure on Univision to get me to stop exposing the weaknesses the U.S. has at the southern border," he said during the interview, citing his claims that U.S. leaders were "incompetent" on trade with Mexico, allowing the country to take advantage of the U.S., and that the southern border "is a sieve" that "illegals are pouring through." "The government of Mexico and the lobbyists and the special interests have put tremendous pressure on Univision, a company that is very subservient to Mexico, to get Trump to stop exposing the terrible situation at the border and the terrible trade deals that are being made by the United States to the benefit of Mexico," he said. "I will not be party to that, because my love of the country is too great to allow this to happen." Trump said any "normal politician" would have "immediately folded and said, 'Oh, gee, we're sorry' and apologized and let this rip-off continue," and singled out Jeb Bush: "Anyone else would be subservient to that. Bush would say, 'I'm sorry, keep ripping us off.'" Throughout the interview, Trump claimed he was "statistically tied in first place" with Bush, whom he described as "very stiff," based on two recent polls: a Fox News poll that had Bush in first place with 15 percent and Trump in second place with 11 percent, and a Suffolk University poll had Trump second behind Bush in New Hampshire. The Miss Universe Organization is co-owned by Trump and NBCUniversal, the latter of which has yet to comment on the matter.

– The Donald Trump-Univision spat looks like it could outlast the Donald Trump 2016 campaign. Trump's lawyer says his client plans to sue the network for "hundreds of millions" over its decision to drop the Miss USA pageant, reports Reuters. "We intend to pursue all legal rights and remedies available to Mr. Trump pursuant to the terms of the license agreement, as well as a defamation case against Univision," says the lawyer. Trump part-owns the pageant, and Univision says it decided to cut its ties with him and his organization after he claimed Mexico was sending criminals and rapists to the US. Trump, who says Univision has no right to terminate the Miss USA contract, tells Politico that he believes the network is kowtowing to the Mexican government. "The government of Mexico and the lobbyists and the special interests have put tremendous pressure on Univision, a company that is very subservient to Mexico, to get Trump to stop exposing the terrible situation at the border and the terrible trade deals that are being made by the United States to the benefit of Mexico," he says, referring to himself in the third person. Any "normal politician," especially Jeb Bush, would have folded under the pressure by now, Trump says. (Trump also has a beef with a famous Canadian.)

Sinkhole opens between two homes in Seffner Posted: Saturday, March 23, 2013 8:51 PM EDT Updated: Sunday, March 24, 2013 1:00 PM EDT Some kids playing in the neighborhood discovered the sinkhole just after 7 p.m. Saturday night. Another sinkhole has opened up in Seffner. The chasm appeared just after 7 p.m. Saturday between two homes in the 1400 block of Lakeshore Ranch Dr. The location is approximately 1.6 miles from the sinkhole that opened up on Faithway Dr. on February 28th. A 43-year-old Hillsborough County man who was asleep at the time lost his life when he fell into the sinkhole. According to a Hillsborough County Fire Rescue report the hole is 8' by 5' and 10 feet deep. It was discovered by some kids playing in the neighborhood. The residents of both homes on either side of the hole were temporarily evacuated as a precaution but were allowed to spend the night there. The crater did not expand. Engineers with Hillsborough County's Code Enforcement are evaluating the situation. ||||| People who live in a Seffner community are on edge after a sinkhole opened up in someone’s yard Saturday evening. It happened in the yard of a home on Lake Shore Ranch Drive, less than two miles from where the sinkhole that swallowed a man while he was sleeping, opened up last month. It’s news Ginger Kephart says she wasn’t prepared for. “A neighbor down the street told me that there was a sinkhole in my yard between my yard and the neighbor’s yard,” Kephart said. Her first reaction was to panic. “I said, oh my god! I was thinking about the neighbors down the street about a mile and a half away what happened to them,” she said. It’s a thought many of Kephart’s neighbors share because they live so close to that deadly sinkhole that swallowed Jeffery Bush while he was in bed. “It’s just very, very scary. It’s not knowing what could happen,” she said. That fear wasn’t enough to get Kephart and her neighbor to evacuate their homes Saturday night. Emergency officials say it’s about eight feet wide and 10 feet deep but it didn’t start out that way. “The hole was only about the size of a tortoise hole so I tripped into it and we thought it was just a little hole so we just kept moving on,” said neighborhood kid, Nathan Reynolds. To make sure Reynolds and other neighborhood kids don’t fall into the hole, code enforcement was back out again. They were putting up more caution tape and cones. It’s something Kephart says is making her rethink her decision to stay home. “I’m definitely worried and frightened. So that’s why we’re kinda packing up stuff just in case we do need to leave,” Kephart said. But the same can’t be said for her neighbor who Kephart says plans to stay home. We’re told the people who live in this home just had it inspected for sinkholes a few weeks ago and none were found. Code enforcement says they will continue to monitor the sinkhole. But ultimately it’s up to the homeowner and their insurance company to fix it. Code enforcement initially issued those two neighbors a voluntary evacuation warning. Neighbors say code enforcement is telling them to be careful if they decide to stay and listen for cracks or popping sounds. They say those are indicators that the sinkhole is opening up.

– Thousands of sinkholes plague Florida, so the occasion of a new one emerging wouldn't be overly noteworthy—except that this one is located in Seffner, making it the third such sinkhole that has opened up in town in the last month. The first claimed the life of a man whose bedroom was above the sinkhole. That one was located less than two miles from sinkhole No. 3, which sits between two homes and was spotted by kids on Saturday. MyFox Tampa Bay reports that the hole is 10 feet deep and 8.5 feet wide. The owner of one of the homes flanking the hole tells Bay News 9 she panicked upon learning about it. "I said, 'oh my god!' I was thinking about the neighbors down the street ... It’s just very, very scary." Of course, as Bay 9 News notes, it wasn't scary enough to get her out of her own bedroom: She was issued a voluntary evacuation warning, and while she's "kinda packing up stuff just in case we do need to leave" she hasn't done so yet. The owner of the home across from her apparently had the property inspected for sinkholes in recent weeks. See a photo here.

The next time you’re standing at the edge of a scenic cliff or on top of a waterfall, take care before snapping a quick selfie. It could be the last thing you do. More than 250 people worldwide have died while taking selfies in the last six years, according to a new study from researchers associated with the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, a group of public medical colleges based in New Delhi. The findings, which analyzed news reports of the 259 selfie-related deaths from October 2011 to November 2017, were published in the July-August edition of the Journal of Family Medicine and Primary Care. Of the 259 deaths, researchers found the leading cause to be drowning, followed by incidents involving transportation — for example, taking a selfie in front of an oncoming train — and falling from heights. Other causes of selfie-related deaths include animals, firearms and electrocution. “The selfie deaths have become a major public health problem,” Agam Bansal, the study’s lead author, told The Washington Post. [More people died taking selfies in India than anywhere in world, study says. Way more.] Though the study found India to have the highest number of deaths of all countries, multiple reports of fatal selfie incidents have also come from Russia, the United States and Pakistan. Bansal noted that while the simple act of taking a selfie isn’t deadly, hazards arise when people take risks while trying to get that perfect shot. “If you’re just standing, simply taking it with a celebrity or something, that’s not harmful,” he said. “But if that selfie is accompanied with risky behavior then that’s what makes the selfies dangerous.” Bansal added he was also concerned about how many of the selfie-related fatalities involved young people. More than 85 percent of the victims were between the ages of 10 and 30, Bansal said. “What worries me the most is that it is a preventable cause of death,” he said. “Taking a toll on these many numbers just because you want a perfect selfie because you want a lot of likes, shares on Facebook, Twitter or other social media, I don’t think this is worth compromising a life for such a thing.” While the number of deaths reported in the study may seem high, Bansal said there could be many more cases that just haven’t been documented because of issues with reporting. In 2018 alone, there have already been several selfie-related deaths. In May, a man in India tried to take a selfie with an injured bear and was mauled to death, the Independent reported. Just last month, two people died in the United States in separate cases also involving selfies. On Sept. 5, an 18-year-old hiker from Jerusalem died after he fell more than 800 feet off a cliff at Yosemite National Park, according to ABC News. The man’s mother said he had been trying to take a selfie at the edge of Nevada Fall, a popular waterfall in the park, when he fell, the Times of Israel reported. Roughly two weeks later, a 32-year-old California woman met a similar fate while hiking at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore in Michigan when she slipped and fell to her death after stopping at the edge of a 200-foot cliff to snap some selfies, the Detroit Free Press reported. Mohit Jain, an orthopedic surgeon who was not involved in the recent study but has done research into selfie deaths, described the work of Banal and fellow researchers Chandan Garg and Abhijit Pakhare as “really necessary” to “make people aware that you can die while taking a selfie.” Jain published his own study last year about selfie-related mortality in the International Journal of Injury Control and Safety Promotion. “Sometimes eyes don’t see if your mind doesn’t know,” Jain told The Post. Jain’s research found that 75 people had died attempting to take selfies from 2014 to mid-2016. “It’s like a man-made disaster,” he said. “It’s not a natural disaster.” One possible way to prevent selfie deaths would be “no selfie zones,” Bansal said, banning them in certain areas such as bodies of water, mountain peaks and at the top of tall buildings. Efforts to dissuade people from taking dangerous selfies have already been attempted in multiple countries, including India, Russia and Indonesia. Three years ago, Russia launched a “Safe Selfie” campaign, which featured the slogan, “Even a million ‘likes’ on social media are not worth your life and well-being,” the BBC reported. An informational graphic with icons of “bad selfie ideas” — highlighting stick figures posing on power poles and while holding guns — was also distributed, Jain noted in his study. In 2016, Mumbai declared 16 “no selfie zones” across the city following a slew of selfie-related deaths, the Guardian reported. Earlier this year, a national park in Indonesia announced it would be working to create a safe spot for photos after a hiker died taking a selfie, according to the Jakarta Post. ||||| J Family Med Prim Care . 2018 Jul-Aug; 7(4): 828–831. doi: 10.4103/jfmpc.jfmpc_109_18 PMCID: PMC6131996 PMID: 30234062 Selfies: A boon or bane? ,1 ,2 ,1 and 1 Agam Bansal 1Community and Family Medicine, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India Find articles by Agam Bansal Chandan Garg 2Department of Civil Engineering, IIT Kanpur, Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, India Find articles by Chandan Garg Abhijith Pakhare 1Community and Family Medicine, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India Find articles by Abhijith Pakhare Samiksha Gupta 1Community and Family Medicine, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India Find articles by Samiksha Gupta Author information Copyright and License information Disclaimer 1Community and Family Medicine, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India 2Department of Civil Engineering, IIT Kanpur, Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, India Address for correspondence: Dr. Agam Bansal, Room no. 213 Boys Hostel, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Saket Nagar, Bhopal - 462 020, Madhya Pradesh, India. E-mail: Dr. Agam Bansal, Room no. 213 Boys Hostel, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Saket Nagar, Bhopal - 462 020, Madhya Pradesh, India. E-mail: moc.liamg@7lasnabmaga Copyright : © 2018 Journal of Family Medicine and Primary Care This is an open access journal, and articles are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 License, which allows others to remix, tweak, and build upon the work non-commercially, as long as appropriate credit is given and the new creations are licensed under the identical terms. Abstract Background: Selfie deaths have become an emerging problem and we performed this study to assess the epidemiology of selfie-related deaths across the globe. Subject and Methods: We performed a comprehensive search for keywords such as “selfie deaths; selfie accidents; selfie mortality; self photography deaths; koolfie deaths; mobile death/accidents” from news reports to gather information regarding selfie deaths. Results: From October 2011 to November 2017, there have been 259 deaths while clicking selfies in 137 incidents. The mean age was 22.94 years. About 72.5% of the total deaths occurred in males and 27.5% in females. The highest number of incidents and selfie-deaths has been reported in India followed by Russia, United States, and Pakistan. Drowning, transport, and fall form the topmost reasons for deaths caused by selfies. We also classified reasons for deaths due to selfie as risky behavior or non-risky behavior. Risky behavior caused more deaths and incidents due to selfies than non-risky behavior. The number of deaths in females is less due to risky behavior than non-risky behavior while it is approximately three times in males. Conclusion: “No selfie zones” areas should be declared across tourist areas especially places such as water bodies, mountain peaks, and over tall buildings to decrease the incidence of selfie-related deaths. Keywords: Mortality, no selfie zone, risky, selfie Introduction Selfie is a recent phenomenon and was named as the word of the year 2013 by Oxford Dictionary.[1] It is described as a photograph that a person takes of himself (or group) typically using a smartphone likely for the purpose of sharing in social media. Google estimated that 24 billion selfies were uploaded to Google photos in 2015.[2] About 1 million selfies are clicked per day in 18- to 24-year-old demographic. Pew research centers have found that around 55% of millenials have posted a selfie on social media services.[3] Technology has also promoted the phenomenon of “selfie.” There are sites sharing information on “how to have a perfect selfie” and “different poses for selfie.” New terms have been introduced such as koolfie, restaurantfie, musclefie, dentisfie, and many more. Introduction of “selfie sticks” and “selfie shoe” have enhanced obsession among people for selfies.[4] These days the choice of smart phones is based on their selfie picture quality. In addition, there are certain events held at school or college level that promotes “selfies” like the “best selfie” prize. Clicking selfies and sharing them on social media has become a mode of self-expression. People sometimes portray themselves amidst dangerous settings[5,6] so as to gain attention on social media sites. In some cases, this has had fatal consequences. The first time Google search engine got a request for “selfie deaths” in January 2014, when the death of a Lebanonian became the tragic viral sensation after being killed by a car bomb moments after posing for a selfie.[7] Selfies are never reported as an official cause of death. It is believed that selfie deaths are underreported and the true problem needs to be addressed. For example, certain road accidents while posing for selfies are reported as death due to Road Traffic Accident. Thus, the true magnitude of problem is underestimated. It is therefore important to assess the true burden, causes, and reasons for selfie deaths so that appropriate interventions can be made. Previous studies have taken data from Wikipedia and Twitter images, which may underestimate the true number of selfie deaths. Our study incorporates the records from news reports, thus we were able to get a wider range of information related to selfie deaths. Objectives The objective of this article is to study the epidemiology of selfie-related deaths across the globe. Methodology Selfie-related death was defined as any accidental death that occurs while doing self-photography or clicking selfies. Initially, we made an exhaustive list of the English newspapers of various countries using Wikipedia or Ministry of broadcasting of respective countries. We performed a Google search for keywords such as “selfie deaths; selfie accidents; selfie mortality; self photography deaths; koolfie deaths; mobile death/accidents.” The web link addresses of the news from search results were cross-matched with the web links of list of prepared English newspapers of various countries. The results that did not match were excluded from the study. Inclusion criteria Incidents of selfie-related deaths reported in news in English Language The news report links that matched with the list of prepared English newspapers. Exclusion criteria Selfie deaths/mortality was differentiated from deaths due to mobile phones. For example, if a person died while using mobile phone, he was excluded from study. Only deaths while clicking selfies have been considered The news reports in language other than English Duplicates were identified based on date and time of event, location of event, age, and gender of victim. The duplicates identified were removed from the study The news reports that contained statistical articles regarding selfies, opinions regarding selfie deaths, or further research on selfie deaths were excluded from the study. Results We report a comprehensive analysis of selfie-related deaths. From October 2011 to November 2017, there have been 259 deaths while clicking selfies in 137 incidents. There have been 3 selfie-related deaths reported in 2011; 2 in 2013; 13 in 2014; 50 in 2015; 98 and 93, respectively, in 2016 and 2017. In one incident with 48 casualities, we were unable to obtain data regarding their age and gender. The mean age was 22.94 years with range from 10 to 68 years. About 72.5% (153) of the total deaths occurred in males and 27.5% in females. Considering agewise distribution, about 50% (106) of total selfie deaths occurred in 20–29 year age group followed by 36% deaths in 10–19 year age group [ ]. Open in a separate window Highest number of incidents and selfie-deaths has been reported in India accounting for approximately 50% of total reported followed by Russia, the United States, and Pakistan [ ]. Except India, the ratio of casualties to incidents is approximately 1, whereas it is double in India. Open in a separate window The causes of selfie deaths along with the respective deaths and incident cases have been elicited in . Drowning, transport, and fall form the topmost three reasons for deaths caused by selfies. The most common drowning incidents include washed away by waves on beach, capsizing of boats while rowing, clicking selfies on shore while not knowing how to swim, or ignoring warnings. Similarly, for transport, it is majorly the accidents due to clicking in front of a running train. Among all the reasons for death, drowning and fire have the highest deaths/incident ratio. Also, most of the selfie-related deaths because of firearms occurred in the United States. Table 1 Open in a separate window We also classified reasons for deaths due to selfie as risky behavior or non-risky behavior [ ]. The incident where it is quite evident that the person took risk to click selfie and lost her life has been classified as risky. For example, getting to a slippery edge of a cliff to click selfie has been marked risky while getting hit by a sea wave on a calm sea and drowning has been marked non-risky. In case of ambiguity (for example, slipping from stairs and getting injured and finally succumbing), a survey was conducted with 15 respondents and majority vote was taken to classify into one of the classes. Risky behavior caused more deaths and incidents due to selfies than non-risky behavior. Our study has shown that the number of deaths in females is less due to risky behavior than non-risky behavior while it is approximately three times in males. is a tree map demonstrating the risky and non-risky behavior in males and females. Open in a separate window Open in a separate window Discussion Taking selfies is considered to be a mode of self-expression in today's generation like looking in a mirror. Selfies are well popular among Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest users. It is rewarding for individuals seeing the number of likes and positive comments and this further influences them to post unique pictures which may also involve indulging in risky behavior to click selfies.[8] Our study reports 259 deaths due to selfie deaths in 137 incidents. A significant number of cases are not reported in developing countries, which will also trickle down to selfie-related deaths since these countries grab a major chunk in overall numbers. There has been an exponential increase in the number of selfie deaths from 2014–2015 to 2016–2017. This is because of increased usage of mobile phones, enhanced selfie features on mobile phones, increased availability of selfie sticks, and also promotion of the phenomenon of selfies through events like “best selfie prize.” About three-fourth of selfie deaths occurred in males. A project called selfiecity[9] has established that women take more selfies as compared to men. But because men are more likely to take risk to click selfie as compared to women, it justifies the higher number of deaths and incidents for men. Overall, the total number of casualties and incidents is high for 10–19 and 20–29 age group, highest for latter. Then, it decreases as the age range goes up. It is expected because people tend to be less adventurous as they age. This is evident from the fact that the reasons for casualties in higher age range are animal/fall unlike electrocution/drowning/firearms and so on in younger age group. Drowning and fire have the highest deaths/incidents ratio among all reasons because most of the times the other person who dies in incident is the one who actually got into trouble while clicking selfies. Interestingly, most of the selfie deaths due to firearms occurred in the United States, which could be due to less restrictive gun laws in the region. India has the highest number of selfie-related deaths. One reason that partially accounts for such high share is the world's largest young (age ≤30 years) population residing in India, the age group that has the highest number of deaths due to selfies. Also, our study has shown that the ratio of deaths to incidents is almost double in India, whereas in other countries incidents approximate the number of deaths. This unique feature could be attributed to the reason that trend of group selfies is more prevalent in India as compared to other countries. Selfies take a toll on a large number of adolescents.[7] There have been certain measures taken to reduce selfie deaths such as declaration of certain areas as “No selfie zones.” In Mumbai, 16 areas have been declared as “no selfie zones.”[10] In Indonesia, administrative officials are preparing a safe selfie spot for foreigners and tourists at Mt. Merapi taking into consideration the risk of selfie deaths.[11] In Russia, there are boards and slogans displaying not to take selfies in particular risky condition that could endanger life.[12] Lamba et al.[13] are working on developing an application that will be able to identify when someone is taking a selfie at dangerous situation and thus alert him or her to the possible risk to life. This is based on analyzing the location service and identifying a risky and unsafe location. Although our study has enlisted the largest number of selfie deaths and incidents till date, this is just the tip of iceberg. Many cases are not reported. The limitation of our study was that we included news reports only in English language. Therefore, news reports in local language have been missed. There is no reporting of cases as selfie-related deaths in India. Thus, certain deaths due to selfies may be reported as road traffic accidents or others, which leads to underreporting of a large number of cases. Large-scale use of phone and time-to-time up gradation of phone features have led to increased selfie deaths. Usually the youth and tourists are frequently affected because of the desire of “being cool,” posting photos on social medical, and getting rewards in forms of likes and comments. Selfies are themselves not harmful, but the human behavior that accompanies selfies is dangerous. Individuals need to be educated regarding certain risky behaviors and risky places where selfies should not be taken. “No selfie zones” areas should be declared across many tourist areas specially places such as water bodies, mountain peaks, and over tall buildings to decrease the incidence of selfie-related deaths. Financial support and sponsorship Nil. Conflicts of interest There are no conflicts of interest. ||||| As an increasing number of people die due to selfie-related accidents, researchers are calling for “no-selfie zones” at tourist locations across the globe to prevent people from partaking in risky behavior for the sake of the perfect photo. According to a new study in the Journal of Family Medicine and Primary Care, at least 259 people died from October 2011 to November 2017 while snapping selfies, with the highest number occurring amongst 20 to 29-year-olds — with 72.5 percent being male. BURGER KING CUSTOMER CLAIMS WHOPPER CONTAINED DEAD COCKROACH: 'I HEAVED A LITTLE BIT' The researchers note, “Selfies are themselves not harmful, but the human behavior that accompanies selfies is dangerous. Individuals need to be educated regarding certain risky behaviors and risky places where selfies should not be taken.” In one such example of this risky behavior, a man’s attempt at a selfie in Maryland above the swollen Potomac River nearly turned deadly Sunday when he slipped into the raging waters and had to be rescued by bystanders. Earlier this year, a 20-year-old student from India fell to his death while taking photos at a popular ocean cliff tourist attraction in Australia. The young man was posing for selfies when he slipped off the 131-foot precipice and was swept out to sea. In England, tourists have been seen on numerous occasions posing atop a dangerous chalk cliff edge 200 feet above jagged rocks at Seaford Head in East Sussex. For years there have been calls to install security fences at the top of the cliff to prevent people falling off the sheer drop. FOLLOW US ON FACEBOOK FOR MORE FOX LIFESTYLE NEWS Incidents such as these are why researchers deem it necessary to take action. “’No-selfie zones’ should be declared across tourist areas especially places such as water bodies, mountain peaks, and over tall buildings to decrease the incidence of selfie-related deaths,” the study concludes. Fox News’ Travis Fedschun and Janine Puhak contributed to this report.

– A study investigating the increasing problem of fatalities that stem from victims taking selfies in dangerous locales has placed a body count on the preventable tragedy, per the Washington Post. In the study titled "Selfies: A boon or bane?" researchers published findings in the Journal of Family Medicine and Primary Care that estimate some 259 people worldwide perished between October 2011 to November 2017 while attempting to take photos. The study came up with the number by looking at English-language news reports from across the globe. The data was broken down in some surprising ways. For instance, when countries were tallied separately, the data revealed that incidents in India accounted for 50% of all reported selfie deaths, followed in prevalence by Russia, the US, and Pakistan, in that order. Drowning was found to be the most common cause. One such drowning occurred just last month when a selfie-taker plunged 200 feet off a cliff into Lake Superior. In July, a 19-year-old Mormon missionary from Utah suffered a similar fate in Australia. About 72.5% of victims were found to be males and half of all victims were between the ages of 20 and 29. Per Fox News, such tragedies led study authors to conclude there's a need for "no selfie zones" around problem areas including "water bodies, mountain peaks, and over tall buildings" in order to warn prospective self-takers of the inherent dangers. "Selfies are themselves not harmful, but the human behavior that accompanies selfies is dangerous," wrote lead author Agam Bansal. "Individuals need to be educated regarding certain risky behaviors and risky places where selfies should not be taken."

Looks like Jerry Seinfeld is not gaga over Lady Gaga’s Citi Field antics. “This woman is a jerk. I hate her,” Seinfeld joked during an interview on WFAN radio Monday night. “I can’t believe they put her in my box, which I paid for.” Seinfeld was referring to June 10 incident at Citi Field when the eccentric singer stripped down to her bra and bikini bottom and boorishly barraged fans and photographers with double-barrel bird-flipping during a bizarre, profanity-laced meltdown. Gaga showed up during the fifth inning of the day game between the Mets and Padres and was furious that her front-row seats were so close to photographers covering the game. Instead of sitting, she vanished into a lower-deck concourse — only to reappear in the seventh inning in the empty luxury box owned by Seinfeld, a big Mets fan. “You give people the finger and you get upgraded? Is that the world we’re living in now? he said. In his trademark stand-up schtick, Seinfeld added, “Why is she giving the finger? How old is the finger? How’d it even get to be the finger?” By the time fans and photographers spotted her, she had shed her coat to reveal bedazzled undies that looked like the get-up she wore in the video for her single “Telephone.” When host Steve Somers brought up the episode, Seinfeld at first said, “I wish her the best,” but then added, “you take one ‘A’ off of that and you’ve got gag.” “I don’t know what these young people think or how they promote their careers,” he said. “I’m older, I’m 56. I look at Lady Gaga the way Keith Hernandez watches these kids when they pull the pocket out, they wear the inside-out pocket. … Do you think he understands that? He can’t understand that. That’s a new game, that’s kids.” He added, “I’m not one of these all-publicity-is-good people. People talk about you need exposure — you could die of exposure.” “She is talented,” admitted Seinfeld. “I don’t know why she’s doing this stuff.” Seinfeld said he didn’t know she’d been taken to his box until he arrived for the night game of the doubleheader. Then when Somers pointed out that Gaga was at the Yankee game Friday, Seinfeld said, “Oh please, wake me when it’s over.” “You’ve had enough of her?” Somers asked. “Yeah,” Seinfeld said. ||||| Craig Carton Thursday, July 8th - Craig Carton who happends to be in Miami on vacation checks in with Steve to set the scene from South Beach as we all await LeBron's decision. Average Rating : 0 Mitch Lawrence Thursday, July 8th - Mitch Lawrence from the Daily News joins Steve to talk about LeBron James as the entire world stops and waits for his decision at 9pm. Average Rating : 0 7-8 Show Open Thursday, July 8th - Steve opens a Judgement Day Schmooze by speculating where LeBron will end up as he gets set to announce his decision in just a few short hours. Average Rating : 0 Alex Cora Friday, July 2nd - Alex Cora who had a key 3 run triple in the Mets 5-3 win over the Nationals joins Steve to talk about his contribution to the Amazin's huge win in Washington. Average Rating : 5.00 7-2 Show Open Friday, July 2nd - Steve opens a Friday night schmooze by recapping the Mets exciting 5-3 win in Washington as well as the Yankees meltdown earlier in the day against Toronto. Average Rating : 5.00 Frank Isola Thursday, July 1st - Frank Isola of the Daily News joins Steve to make sense of all the craziness that's going on with the Knicks, Nets, LeBron and NBA free agency. Average Rating : 3.00 Tom Verducci Saturday, June 26th - Tom Verducci from Sports Illustrated joins Steve to talk about the Mets, Yankees, Joe Torre and the entire baseball landscape. Average Rating : 1.67 David Lennon Saturday June 19th- Steve talks with David Lennon the Mets beat writer for Newsday. Steve and David talk about the tough loss for the Mets in the 2nd game of the subway series. Average Rating : 4.83 Sam Rosen Monday, June 14th - Rangers PBP guy Sam Rosen joins Steve to talk about the 16th anniversary of the Rangers Stanley Cup Championship. Average Rating : 5.00 Howie Rose Saturday, May 29th - Howie Rose joins Steve to talk Stephane Matteau and the 1994 Rangers as well as the Mets. Average Rating : 2.00 Rick Peterson Saturday, May 29th - The former Mets pitching coach, and current Brewers pitching coach joins Steve to talk about his squad and the old Mets. Average Rating : 3.00 Benny Agbayani Sunday May 23rd- Former Met Benny Agbayani joins Steve to recap his time in New York and playing in the Subway Series. Average Rating : 2.00 Al Iannazzone Tuesday, May 18th - Al Iannazzone of The Record joins Steve to talk about the Nets and their disaster at the lottery. Average Rating : 0 Joe Magrane Wednesday May 12th- Steve talks with MLB Network analyst and former Major Leage Pitcher Joe Magrane about Mets and Yankees pitching Average Rating : 0.00 Bob Costas Sunday May 9th- Broadcasting great Bob Costas joins Steve to talk about Dallas Braden's perfect game, Yankees-Red Sox Ernie Harwell and Robin Roberts Average Rating : 5.00 Steve Kallas Thursday May 6th- Steve talks with New York City Attorney Steve Kallas. Kallas gives his expertise on the Lawrence Taylor case. Average Rating : 5.00 Mark Feinsand Wednesday May 5th- Daily News Yankees beat writer Mark Feinsand fills us in on Andy Pettitte's MRI and the latest on the injury front with the Bronx Bombers. Average Rating : 0.00 Kim Jones Saturday May 1st- Kim Jones of the YES Network joins Steve to talk about the injury to Curtis Granderson and the never ending New York saga that is Javier Vazquez. Average Rating : 0.00 Jeff Feagles Saturday May 1st-Recently retired Punter Jeff Feagles joins Steve to talk about his career , retirement and his time with the Giants. Average Rating : 0 Tom Verducci Thursday, April 29th - Tom Verducci from Sports Illustrated spends a couple of minutes with Steve giving his thoughts on the first month of the major league season so far. Average Rating : 0.00 Ken Rosenthal Wednesday April 28th- Steve talks with Ken Rosenthal, writer for foxsports.com. Steve and Ken talk about an interview that Ken had with Tony Bernazard and about the baseball season so far. Average Rating : 0.00 Kevin Morris Saturday April 24th- UMass head football coach Kevin Morris joins Steve to talk about his former player and Jets draft pick Vlad Ducasse Average Rating : 0 Linval Joseph Saturday April 24th - Giants 2nd Round pick Linval Joseph joins Steve to talk about his college career and playing in New York. Average Rating : 0.00 Peter King Saturday April 24th- SI's Peter King recaps the NFL Draft, the Jets trade of Leon Washington, the Giants outlook and more. Average Rating : 0 Mia Harris Thursday, April 22nd- Steve is joined by WFAN's own Mia Harris to break down the Jet's 1st round selection of Kyle Wilson as well as the other picks made by their AFC East rivals. Average Rating : 0 Paul Dottino Friday, April 23rd- Steve is joined by Giant's beat reporter for WFAN Paul Dottino to break down the Giant's 1st round selection of Jason Pierre-Paul. Average Rating : 0 Mark Messier Saturday, April 17th - The 'Captain,'Mark Messier joins Steve to talk about what he is up to now and his thoughts on the Rangers future. Average Rating : 0.00

– Jerry Seinfeld didn't mince words when talking about Lady Gaga, code name Lady Gag-Gag. "This woman is a jerk. I hate her," said (joked?) Seinfeld during a radio interview last night. "I can’t believe they put her in my box, which I paid for." That box, incidentally, was where she spent the end of the now-infamous June 10 Mets game in which she stripped down to her underwear and flipped everyone off. Seinfeld was a little more mellow at the interview's start, notes the New York Post, saying, "I wish her the best"—but then he added, "you take one 'A' off of that and you've got gag." Maybe it's just generational? "I'm older, I'm 56. I look at Lady Gaga the way Keith Hernandez watches these kids when they pull the pocket out, they wear the inside-out pocket. Do you think he understands that? He can't understand that. That's a new game, that's kids." Listen to the interview here.