document
stringlengths 0
2.92M
| summary
stringlengths 190
5.91k
|
|---|---|
Eva Longoria's Rep Sinks '100% False' Divorce Report
Email This UPDATE: According to
Are
Longoria's publicist, Liza Anderson, did not expand on the denial in her comment to X17Online, nor did an unnamed Parker rep in a similar statement ("100% false") to
TMZ quickly corrected themselves, admitting that they received some bad information from two clerks at the Bexar County Courthouse in Texas, who claimed the case was filed and sealed by a family law judge. According to PEOPLE , Eva filed for divorce from Tony in Los Angeles.Are Eva Longoria and Tony Parker the latest Hollywood couple to call it quits? Minutes after TMZ published a crushing report claiming the pair filed for divorce on Monday in a Texas court, a rep for the 'Desperate Housewives' beauty is calling the story "100% false."Longoria's publicist, Liza Anderson, did not expand on the denial in her comment to X17Online, nor did an unnamed Parker rep in a similar statement ("100% false") to CelebBuzz TMZ quickly corrected themselves, admitting that they received some bad information from two clerks at the Bexar County Courthouse in Texas, who claimed the case was filed and sealed by a family law judge.
http://xml.channel.aol.com/xmlpublisher/fetch.v2.xml?option=expand_relative_urls&dataUrlNodes=uiConfig,feedConfig,entry&id=879491&pid=879490&uts=1273503952 http://www.popeater.com/mm_track/popeater/tv/?s_channel=us.tvpop&s_account=aolpopeater,aolsvc&omni=1&ke=1 http://cdn.channel.aol.com/cs_feed_v1_6/csfeedwrapper.swf Stars in Love Colin Hanks and Samantha Bryant
Married
Hanks tied the knot with publicist Samantha Bryant on Saturday, May 8 in Los Angeles at sunset on the roof of the London Hotel in West Hollywood. Neilson Barnard, Getty Images Neilson Barnard, Getty Images Stars in Love
"But Eva's rep tells us Tony did not file and does not even have a divorce lawyer," the site now says. "Another clerk at the courthouse now tells us she's in charge of sealed cases and says no such case has crossed her desk."Despite the denial, a source told PEOPLE that the Longoria was "totally and completely blindsided" by reports appearing this week of infidelity by her NBA star husband. The source adds that the 'Desperate Housewives' star plans to file divorce papers on Wednesday.Longoria and Parker married three years ago. The actress announced her engagement to the San Antonio Spurs point guard in November 2006, and the couple wed in Parker's native France the following year.The 'Desperate Housewives' star was previously married to 'General Hospital' actor Tyler Christopher from 2002-04.Longoria and Parker have been the subject of the occasional scandal during their relationship. In 2007, a number of tabloids reported that Parker had cheated on Longoria with model Alexandra Paressant. The couple denied the claims and were eventually issued an apology from X17Online, which claimed to have been misled by Paressant. ||||| As the world still adjusts to the news of Eva Longoria and Tony Parker's impending divorce, Celebuzz has obtained exclusive new information about the circumstances behind their split.
A source close to Parker confirms rumors that the NBA star had sent numerous text messages to his former San Antonio Spurs teammate Brent Barry's wife, Erin Barry (pictured above), but that the two had NOT shared a romantic relationship.
According to the source, the Barrys have been close friends with Longoria and Parker for some time, even spending New Year's Eve together a couple of years ago at Longoria's Los Angeles restaurant, Beso. The Barrys are currently in the midst of a divorce and, our source adds, Parker and Erin's texts involved the two leaning on each other as their respective marriages went through troubles. A seemingly innocent exchange between close friends, it would seem, but Longoria appears to be prone to jealousy in her marriage to Parker.
One interesting note, Parker recently signed a four-year, $45 million extension with the Spurs. Eva waited til after that deal was signed to file for divorce.
Whatever the motive might have been, our source stresses that Parker and Longoria's split is amicable.
Meanwhile, the Desperate Housewives has opened up about the divorce to her good friend Mario Lopez, who tells Extra! that rumors of Parker's cheating indeed weigh heavily on Longoria's mind:
"Eva wants everyone to know, she's devastated by the rumors of Tony's infidelity. She loved her husband and is heartbroken about their split. But she's strong."
Longoria, who married Parker in 2007, filed for divorce in Los Angeles on Wednesday. Earlier today, she acknowledged the split, tweeting, ||||| 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. | – Now that Eva Longoria has filed for divorce (just one day after her publicist called rampant divorce rumors "100% false"), the stories about Tony Parker's alleged other woman are coming out. Supposedly, Parker has been texting Erin Barry, the wife of his former San Antonio Spurs teammate Brent Barry, a Sports Illustrated writer tweeted. Click here for more on Barry and a picture of her and her hubby hanging out with Longoria and Parker. The Barrys are also reportedly divorcing, but a source tells Celebuzz that the numerous text messages between Erin Barry and Parker were innocent, and that the two were not romantically involved but were simply leaning on each other as friends who were both going through marital troubles. |
The shooting of a woman at an Owings Mills apartment complex was the precursor for the ambush killing of two New York City police officers later in the day, law enforcement officials said.
Police in New York and Baltimore County said they believe Ismaaiyl Abdulah Brinsley shot and wounded his ex-girlfriend before 6 a.m. Saturday at an apartment near the Owings Mills Mall, then posted anti-law enforcement messages on social media as he traveled to Brooklyn, N.Y.
There, he approached a marked police vehicle parked in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood around 2:45 p.m. He "took a shooting stance" and fired a handgun several times through the window, New York Police Commissioner William Bratton said at a news conference.
Officers Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos were struck in the head, and taken to a hospital, where they were pronounced dead. Police said Brinsley, 28, ran into a subway station, where he shot himself in the head.
"Today, two of New York's finest were shot and killed with no warning, no provocation," Bratton said. "They were, quite simply, assassinated — targeted for their uniform."
Elise Armacost, a Baltimore County Police spokeswoman, said officers tracking Brinsley's posts and the location of his cellphone notified the NYPD's 70th precinct of the threats against officers in a phone call at 2:10 p.m.
Handout Instagram post geotagged to Brooklyn Instagram post geotagged to Brooklyn (Handout)
Bratton told reporters that the warnings were received just as the officers were shot.
"The tragedy here is that just as the warning was coming in, the murder was occurring," Bratton said.
The shooting comes at a time of heightened tensions amid grand jury decisions in the police-involved deaths of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., and Eric Garner in New York, among other incidents. Bratton said police were investigating Brinsley's background to see what role his anti-police messages played in the shooting.
In New York, police were reacting by instructing officers not to take enforcement action "unless absolutely necessary," the New York Times reported. A memo circulated by the police officers union also said at least two units were to respond to all calls, "no matter the condition or severity."
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio urged the public to come forward and report possible attacks against law enforcement. "When a police officer is murdered, it tears at the very foundation of our society — it is an attack on all of us," he said at the news conference with Bratton..
The killings follow the shooting six days earlier in Baltimore of Officer Andrew Groman, who was shot in the stomach while asking a man to get out of a vehicle during a traffic stop in West Baltimore.
That incident sparked concern from the Baltimore police union that officers were battling anxiety that could compromise officer safety. The suspect's attorney, meanwhile, raised the idea that the attention around police brutality had spurred "survival instincts" to kick in for the 19-year-old, who has a prior conviction for a gun offense.
On Friday, the Baltimore FBI office issued a memo that the Black Guerrilla Family gang was targeting "white cops" in Maryland, an agency spokeswoman confirmed. The memo, circulating among officers, said a contact who had given reliable information in the past said members of the gang — connected to the high-profile corruption scandal at the Baltimore City Detention Center — were planning to target white officers to "send a message."
A federal law enforcement official said Brinsley had no known ties to the BGF.
Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said Saturday in response to the New York officer killings that "the overwhelming majority of law enforcement are good, decent and honorable men and women who care deeply about the communities they serve."
"It is an act of cowardice to target law enforcement in such a shameful way, and doing so does nothing to honor the lives lost in police custody," Rawlings-Blake said.
The Baltimore County shooting occurred inside an apartment in the Greenwich Place complex in the 10000 block of Mill Run Circle. Police had said earlier in the day that the woman was shot in the abdomen by a male whom she knew and that they were searching for a suspect, whom they did not identify.
The apartment complex lines the parking lot of the Owings Mills Mall and is next to a movie theater. Residents and guests must pass through a gate in order to enter by vehicle, though it is accessible by foot.
The management of the apartment complex tucked a letter into the doors of residents saying the shooting was the result of a "domestic dispute."
"We share this information with you to assure you this was a private, isolated incident," the letter read.
The woman, who was not identified by county police, was listed in serious condition but expected to survive, county police late Saturday.
Within hours of the shooting of the officers in Brooklyn, reports began surfacing that the incidents were linked.
Armacost, the county police spokeswoman, said detectives learned of the Brinsley's threats against police on the photo sharing site Instagram at about 1:30 p.m. and began trying to determine his location. They tracked his phone and determined he was in New York's 70th precinct, and officers from Baltimore County and New York discussed the posts in a telephone call, she said.
County police said they faxed a warning poster around the same time, and at 2:50 p.m. a Teletype was sent to the NYPD's real-time crime center, a data warehouse.
Bratton said the messages posted to Instagram were "very anti-police" and showed a "very strong bias against police officers."
"Whether that was the principal motivation, we'll try to put together what was the actual motivation," Bratton said.
On an Instagram account taken down Saturday afternoon, an image of a silver handgun was accompanied by the message, "I'm Putting Wings On Pigs Today. They Take 1 Of Ours…..Let's Take 2 of Theirs #ShootThePolice #RIPErivGardner #RIPMikeBrown This May Be My Final Post."
Posts on the account were geo-tagged to Georgia and the area around the Owings Mills Mall. The posting with the image of the gun was tagged in Brooklyn.
Brinsley appeared to reside in Georgia, Bratton said. Online records from Georgia's Fulton County sheriff's office show that Brinsley has been arrested nine times since 2004 including charges of simple battery, criminal trespassing, carrying a concealed weapon, obstruction of a law enforcement officer and shoplifting.
His last arrest in the Atlanta area came in April 2010 when he was charged with possession of marijuana, simple battery and terrorist threats. He was convicted of disorderly conduct and shoplifting, while dispositions of the other cases were not clear. ||||| Two NYPD officers were shot and killed at about 2:45 p.m. on Dec. 20, 2014. View Full Caption
BEDFORD-STUYVESANT — Two police officers were killed in an "ambush" as they sat in a police vehicle Saturday afternoon by a gunman who bragged on Instagram about plans to kill police, Police Commissioner Bill Bratton said.
"Today two of New York's Finest were shot and killed with no warning," Bratton said.
Mayor Bill de Blasio and Bratton described their deaths as an "assassination."
After the shooting, gunman Ismaaiyl Brinsley, 28, then entered the nearby Myrtle-Willoughby G train subway station where he fatally shot himself, Bratton said.
Early Saturday morning, Brinsley shot his ex-girlfriend in Maryland, Bratton said. A warning from Baltimore-area police was faxed to the NYPD, but arrived too late.
NYPD Forms Honor Guard to Salute Slain Officers View Full Caption DNAinfo/Katie Honan
"The tragedy here is just that the warning was coming in the murder was occurring," Bratton said.
Officers Wenjian Liu, 32, and Rafael Ramos, 40, were sitting in a Critical Response Vehicle having taken part in a patrol exercise in 79th Precinct and were parked near Myrtle and Tompkins avenues at about 2:45 p.m. when Brinsley walked up and shot them both at close range, Bratton said.
Brinsley approached from the passenger side, where Liu was sitting, with Ramos in the driver's seat, took a shooting stance, and fired through the passenger window, striking both officers in the head, Bratton said.
"They may never have actually seen their assailant, their murderer," Bratton said.
Liu and Ramos both worked in the 84th Precinct, and were taken to Woodhull Medical Center, according to the NYPD, but were later pronounced dead.
"Our city is in mourning. Our hearts are heavy," de Blasio said. "We lost two good men who devoted their lives to protecting all of us."
Brinsley was taken to Brooklyn Hospital.
At 5:45 a.m. Saturday, Brinsley shot and wounded his ex-girlfriend in Baltimore County, MD, Bratton said.
Brinsley then posted threats against the police on both his and his ex-girlfriend's Instagram accounts, sources said.
He said he was going to "put wings on pigs today," in a post that earned at least 140 likes.
He also used hashtags referencing the deaths of Eric Garner and Michael Brown, who were both killed by police.
"They take 1 of ours," the post continued. "Let's take 2 of theirs."
The woman's mother notified Baltimore authorities that she saw the social media rants, police said.
Baltimore police then sent a fax that arrived as the officers were being ambushed, Bratton said.
More than a hundred emotional police officers lined the street as the two men's bodies were taken from Woodhull Medical Center just after 9:30 p.m.
Afterwards, the head of the city's largest police union blamed de Blasio and recent anti-NYPD protests for the shooting.
"There's blood on many hands tonight," Patrolmen's Benevolent Association President Pat Lynch said. "That blood on the hands starts on the steps of City Hall, in the office of the mayor."
Rev. Al Sharpton said in a statement that he had spoken to the Garner family and that they were "outraged" the gunman had invoked the Staten Island man's name.
"Any use of the names of Eric Garner and Michael Brown, in connection with any violence or killing of police, is reprehensible and against the pursuit of justice in both cases," Sharpton said.
Baltimore County police said on Facebook that Brinsley is the suspect in the shooting of a woman in Owings Mills, MD.
They tracked him to New York City by his cell phone, sources said. Brinsley may have had a connection to East Flatbush, Bratton said.
Ramos and Liu were part of a special program to increase police presence in Police Service Area 3, which patrols nearby public housing complexes, said City Councilman Robert Cornegy, who represents the area.
"They were just a presence, they weren't over-policing," he said. "They were here as a presence to make the community feel safer."
Officer Liu, who had been on the force seven years, was married just two months ago, Bratton said.
Officer Ramos, who was also married and had a 13-year-old son, had been on the force for nearly three years, Bratton said, adding that he had been a school safety agent from 2009-2012.
Cassandra Harrell, 52, lives nearby and said she was "hoping and praying" that the shooting had nothing to do with the recent decision not to indict a police officer in the death of Eric Garner.
"I'm very worried there's going to be a backlash because of this horrible crime committed against the police," she said.
"This sets us back 1000 percent. I don't even know how you come back from this," Cornegy said. "If you wanted to articulate what the worst case scenario could be at a time when the city is trying to get back on track with police and community relations, this is it." | – As New York City grapples with the fallout from the execution-style murders of two NYPD officers, Police Commissioner Bill Bratton yesterday lamented that "two of New York's Finest were shot and killed with no warning." Except, as he amended, "the warning was coming." What went down, via reporting in the Baltimore Sun and DNAinfo: Police in Baltimore County say that shortly before 6am yesterday, 28-year-old shooter Ismaaiyl Brinsley shot and wounded an ex-girlfriend at an apartment complex outside Baltimore. She is listed in serious condition, but expected to survive. Police believe he then traveled to New York City, posting threats on social media along the way. Brinsley posted to Instagram: "I'm putting wings on pigs today. They take 1 of ours, let's take 2 of theirs. This May Be My Final Post. I'm Putting Pigs In A Blanket." He used hashtags Shootthepolice, RIPErivGardner (sic), and RIPMikeBrown. According to the Sun's screenshot, the post garnered at least 221 likes. A Baltimore County Police spokeswoman said officers became aware of Brinsley's posts about 1:30pm, and began monitoring them, as well as his location via his cellphone. They tracked him to NYPD's 70th Precinct, which they called at 2:10pm to warn of the threat. They sent a Teletype at 2:50pm. But it was too late: Officers Wenjian Liu, 32, and Rafael Ramos, 40, were shot at 2:45pm. |
Syria has decided to cede control of its chemical weapons because of a Russian proposal and not the threat of US military intervention, Interfax news agency quotes President Bashar al-Assad as saying in a Russian television interview.
Assad made the statement in an interview with Russian state TV which was televised on Thursday, as John Kerry, US secretary of state, landed in the Swiss city of Geneva to meet his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov and discuss how UN can secure and destroy Assad's chemical weapons.
"Syria is placing its chemical weapons under international control because of Russia. The US threats did not influence the decision," Interfax quoted Assad as telling Russia's state-run Rossiya-24 channel.
Assad also told Rossiya-24 that Syria would in the next few days submit documents to the UN for an agreement governing the handover of its chemical arsenal, state-run Russian news agency RIA reported on Thursday.
The UN on Thursday confirmed it had recieved a document from Syria.
"In the past few hours we have received a document from the government of Syria which is being translated," Farhan Haq, a UN spokesman, said.
Assad said after the papers were submitted "work will start that will lead to the signing of the convention prohibiting chemical weapons".
Rossiya-24 did not immediately air the interview and it was not clear when it was recorded.
Syria, which denies it was behind an August 21 poison-gas attack in Damascus, has agreed to the US proposal that it give up its chemical weapons stocks, averting what would have been the first direct Western intervention in a war that has killed more than 100,000 people.
Assad appeared to continue this denial by saying that countries that supplied chemical weapons to "terrorists" in Syria should held responsible. He also called for an "in-depth investigation" into the use of chemical weapons in Syria.
Putin's op-ed
For his part, Vladimir Putin has said the Russian initiative will not succeed unless the US abandons plans for potential air strikes to punish Assad for the chemical-weapons attack which US President Barack Obama blames on Syrian government forces.
The Russian president directly appealed to the American people and to US politicians on Thursday by writing an article in the New York Times warning that a military strike could unleash a new wave of "terrorism".
Qadri Jamil, Syria's deputy prime minister, went a step further on Thursday and said that the Russian proposal will only succeed if the US and its allies pledge not to attack Syria in the future.
"We want a pledge that neither it [the US] nor anyone else will launch an aggression against Syria," Jamil told the Associated Press news agency in Damascus.
Jamil was responding to a question on his expectations from Thursday's meeting between Kerry and Lavrov.
Kerry and a team of US experts will have at least two days of meetings with their Russian counterparts in Geneva.
They hope to emerge with an outline of how about 1,000 tonnes of chemical weapons stocks and precursor materials as well as potential delivery systems can be safely inventoried and isolated under international control in an active war zone and then destroyed.
Rossiya 24 did not give any further details of the content of the interview, which it said would be broadcast in full "soon".
While news of the Assad interview was released, Syria's main rebel commander Salim Idris, in a statement carried on pan-Arab satellite channel, called for regime officials to be put on trial.
"We call upon the international community, not only to withdraw the chemical weapons, that were the tool of the crime, but to hold accountable those who committed the crime in front of the International Criminal Court," he said.
Surge in clashes
Idris said his Free Syrian Army "categorically rejects the Russian initiative" as falling short of the expectations of rebel fighters.
Against this backdrop of diplomatic developments, violence has raged on in different parts of Syria.
A surge of clashes in the country's oil-producing northeast has killed dozens of rebels and Kurdish fighters in the past two days, activists said on Thursday.
Fighters from Syria's ethnic Kurdish minority - roughly 10 percent of the 23-million-strong population - have carved out an increasingly autonomous region near the frontiers with Iraq and Turkey.
Elsewhere, air force jets bombed one of the main hospitals serving rebel-held territory in the north, according to activists and video footage.
Eleven civilians, including two doctors, were killed in the strike against the hospital on Wednesday in the town of al-Bab, 30km northeast of Aleppo city, the opposition Aleppo Media Centre said on Thursday.
Video footage posted on YouTube showed the limp body of a young child being carried out of the hospital by a man.
The Aleppo Media Centre said that the emergency and radiology departments were destroyed in the attack.
The government has not commented on the strike but state news agency SANA said on Thursday that the army had killed 14 "terrorists" - a term it uses for rebels - north of al-Bab in an operation on a convoy. ||||| U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is rejecting Syrian President Bashar Assad's suggestion Thursday that he begin submitting data on his chemical weapons arsenal one month after signing an international chemical weapons ban.
Speaking at a news conference with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, Kerry noted that Assad said a 30-day lead time would be standard.
"There is nothing standard about this process," Kerry said, because Assad has used his chemical weapons.
"The words of the Syrian regime in our judgment are simply not enough."
Kerry cautioned that a U.S. military strike could occur if Assad doesn't agree to dismantle his chemical arsenal properly.
He said, "There ought to be consequences if it doesn't take place."
Lavrov said the dismantling "will make unnecessary any strike against the Syrian Arab Republic." ||||| GENEVA/UNITED NATIONS The United States and Russia began high-stakes talks on Thursday on Moscow's plan for Syria to surrender its chemical weapons as Damascus formally applied to join a global poison gas ban, but Secretary of State John Kerry underscored that U.S. military force may still be necessary if diplomacy fails.
"This is not a game," Kerry said in an appearance with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov after opening talks in Geneva aimed at fleshing out Russia's plan to secure and dispose of Syria's stockpiles of chemical arms.
The talks were part of a diplomatic push that prompted President Barack Obama to put on hold plans for U.S. air strikes in response to a chemical weapons attack on civilians near Damascus on August 21.
The United States and its allies say Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces carried out the attack with sarin nerve gas, killing more than 1,400 people, including 400 children. Russia and Assad blame rebel forces.
The United Nations said it received a document from Syria on joining the global anti-chemical weapons treaty, a move Assad promised as part of a deal to avoid U.S. air strikes.
The move would end Syria's status as one of only seven nations outside the 1997 international convention that outlaws stockpiling chemical weapons. Other holdouts include neighbours Egypt and Israel, as well as North Korea.
The United States immediately warned Syria against stalling tactics to avoid military strikes. Assad told Russian state television in an interview broadcast on Thursday he would finalise plans to abandon his chemical arsenal only when the United States stops threatening to attack him.
Kerry expressed some optimism about the talks in Geneva - expected to last two days - saying, "We do believe there is a way to get this done" and that the United States was "grateful" for ideas put forward by Russia to resolve the crisis.
But he and Lavrov differed sharply on U.S. military threats.
"We proceed from the fact that the solution of this problem will make unnecessary any strike on the Syrian Arab Republic," Lavrov said during the appearance with Kerry.
Russian President Vladimir Putin's Russia has been Assad's most powerful backer during the civil war, which has killed more than 100,000 people since 2011, delivering arms and - with China - blocking three U.N. resolutions meant to pressure Assad.
"President Obama has made clear that should diplomacy fail, force might be necessary to deter and degrade Assad's capacity to deliver these weapons," Kerry asserted.
"Only the credible threat of force - and the intervention of President Putin and Russia based on that - has brought the Assad regime to acknowledge for the first time that it even has chemical weapons and an arsenal, and that (it) is now prepared to relinquish it," Kerry added.
Kerry said any agreement must be comprehensive, verifiable, credible and implemented in a "timely" way - "and finally, there ought to be consequences if it doesn't take place." Kerry called a peaceful resolution "clearly preferable" to military action.
A version of the Russian plan that leaked to the newspaper Kommersant described four stages: Syria would join the world body that enforces a chemical weapons ban, declare production and storage sites, invite inspectors, and then decide with the inspectors how and by whom stockpiles would be destroyed.
'LEGALLY SPEAKING'
Syria has agreed to a Russian proposal that it give up its chemical weapons stocks, averting what would have been the first direct Western intervention in the civil war.
"Legally speaking, Syria has become, starting today, a full member of the (chemical weapons) convention," Syrian U.N. Ambassador Bashar Ja'afari told reporters in New York after submitting documents to the United Nations.
Several U.N. diplomats and a U.N. official told Reuters on condition of anonymity that it was not yet clear that Syria had fulfilled all the conditions for legal accession to the treaty.
"The chemical weapons in Syria are a mere deterrence against the Israeli nuclear arsenal," Ja'afari said as he waved a document he called a CIA report on Israeli chemical weapons.
"And now the time has come for the Syrian government to join the (convention) as a gesture to show our willingness to be against all weapons of mass destruction," Ja'afari added.
Dressed in a white shirt and dark suit and seated in a wood-panelled office, Assad said in his TV interview that Syria opted to cede control of its chemical weapons because of a Russian proposal and not the threat of U.S. military intervention.
Assad said in comments translated into Russian, "When we see the United States really wants stability in our region and stops threatening, striving to attack, and also ceases arms deliveries to terrorists, then we will believe that the necessary processes can be finalised."
Syria is already bound by the separate Geneva accords that have banned the use of chemical weapons in warfare for nearly a century, but it had never been required before this week to disclose whether it possessed them. Western nations believe Syria has vast stockpiles of poison gas.
Assad said Syria would provide an accounting of chemical weapons stocks in 30 days, standard practice under the treaty.
Kerry questioned the offer. "We believe there is nothing standard about this process at this moment because of the way the regime has behaved - not only the existence of these weapons but they have been used," Kerry said. "And the words of the Syrian regime, in our judgment, are simply not enough."
Kerry and Lavrov flew to Geneva with delegations of chemical weapons and nonproliferation experts to begin to hammer out how to identify, secure and neutralise Syria's chemical weapons.
A draft U.N. Security Council Resolution submitted by France this week demands that Syria declare its chemical weapons holdings within 15 days, and holds out the threat of sanctions or military force if it fails to disarm.
HOSPITAL BOMBED
While the diplomats met in Switzerland, the war ground on relentlessly in Syria. Activists said Syrian warplanes bombed one of the main hospitals serving rebel-held territory in the north of the country, killing at least 11 civilians including two doctors.
Video footage showed the limp body of a young child being carried out of the hospital by a man. Another boy lay on the floor, blood on his head and dust covering his body.
Assad's opponents were also accused of atrocities. An anti-Assad monitoring group, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said Sunni Muslim Islamist rebels killed 22 members of Assad's Alawite minority sect in a massacre after storming a village east of the central city of Homs.
Dozens of people have also been killed in the past two days of fighting in the oil-producing northeast of the country, where Sunni Arab rebels are battling members of the Kurdish minority in a fight among factions opposed to Assad.
U.S. officials criticised Putin over his remarks in an opinion piece in the New York Times.
Putin said it was alarming that U.S. foreign military intervention had become "commonplace" He also rejected Obama's assertions of "American exceptionalism," saying, "It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation.
White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters: "The fact is that Russia offers a stark contrast that demonstrates why America is exceptional. Unlike Russia, the United States stands up for democratic values and human rights in our own country and around the world. And we believe that our global security is advanced when children cannot be gassed to death by a dictator."
(Reporting by Warren Strobel and Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva, Thomas Grove, Gabriela Baczynska and Steve Gutterman in Moscow, Michelle Nichols and Louis Charbonneau in New York, Paul Eckert and Arshad Mohammed in Washington, and Daren Butler in Istanbul; Writing by Will Dunham; Editing by Peter Cooney) | – John Kerry and Russia's foreign minister began wrangling over the details of Moscow's plan to defuse the Syria crisis today, as Bashar al-Assad publicly embraced the idea and simultaneously zinged the US: "Syria is placing its chemical weapons under international control because of Russia," he said in an interview with Russian state TV, reports al-Jazeera. "The US threats did not influence the decision." Assad said Syria would formally sign an international ban on chemical weapons, and the UN said after the interview aired that it had received the paperwork, reports Reuters. "This is a two-sided process and we are counting, first of all, on the United States to stop conducting the policy of threats regarding Syria," said Assad, who added that Syria would begin submitting data a month after signing the weapons pact. That's not good enough, said Kerry in opening remarks at his US-Russian summit with Sergei Lavrov, reports AP. Noting that Assad had called the 30-day period "standard," Kerry argued that "there is nothing standard about this process" because chemical weapons were actually used. He still held out the possibility of a military strike if the dismantling doesn't take place, but Lavrov said the Russian plan "will make unnecessary any strike against the Syrian Arab Republic." (Click to read about Vladimir Putin's much-discussed op-ed today.) |
Photo: Connor Radnovich, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 99 Caption Close
Image 1 of 99 Adrian Jerry Gonzalez at his arraignment hearing via a video feed at the courthouse in Santa Cruz, California, on Thursday, July 30, 2015. Adrian Jerry Gonzalez at his arraignment hearing via a video feed at the courthouse in Santa Cruz, California, on Thursday, July 30, 2015. Photo: Connor Radnovich, The Chronicle
Image 2 of 99 Adrian Jerry Gonzalez hands are seen in a video feed at his arraignment hearing at the courthouse in Santa Cruz, California, on Thursday, July 30, 2015. Adrian Jerry Gonzalez hands are seen in a video feed at his arraignment hearing at the courthouse in Santa Cruz, California, on Thursday, July 30, 2015. Photo: Connor Radnovich, The Chronicle
Image 3 of 99 Adrian Jerry Gonzalez at his arraignment hearing via a video feed at the courthouse in Santa Cruz, California, on Thursday, July 30, 2015. Adrian Jerry Gonzalez at his arraignment hearing via a video feed at the courthouse in Santa Cruz, California, on Thursday, July 30, 2015. Photo: Connor Radnovich, The Chronicle
Image 4 of 99 Adrian Jerry Gonzalez, center, is flanked by public defender Larry Biggam and attorney Leila Sayar as they enter the courtroom Thursday, July 30, 2015 where his arraignment was delayed in Santa Cruz, Calif. Gonzalez charged with murder, kidnapping and rape in the death of 8-year-old Madyson Middleton, in an artists' complex in the California beach town. less Adrian Jerry Gonzalez, center, is flanked by public defender Larry Biggam and attorney Leila Sayar as they enter the courtroom Thursday, July 30, 2015 where his arraignment was delayed in Santa Cruz, Calif. ... more Photo: Dan Coyro, Associated Press
Image 5 of 99
Image 6 of 99 Adrian Jerry Gonzalez hands are seen in a video feed at his arraignment hearing at the courthouse in Santa Cruz, California, on Thursday, July 30, 2015. Adrian Jerry Gonzalez hands are seen in a video feed at his arraignment hearing at the courthouse in Santa Cruz, California, on Thursday, July 30, 2015. Photo: Connor Radnovich, The Chronicle
Image 7 of 99 Buy photo Police Chief Kevin Vogel and Santa Cruz County district attorney Jeffrey Rosell arrive for a news conference in Santa Cruz, Calif. on Wednesday, July 29, 2015 to announce that 15-year-old Adrian Jerry Gonzalez will be tried as an adult on kidnapping and murder charges in the death of 8-year-old Madyson Middleton. less Police Chief Kevin Vogel and Santa Cruz County district attorney Jeffrey Rosell arrive for a news conference in Santa Cruz, Calif. on Wednesday, July 29, 2015 to announce that 15-year-old Adrian Jerry Gonzalez ... more Photo: Paul Chinn, The Chronicle Buy this photo
Image 8 of 99 Adrian Jerry Gonzalez, as seen on his Instagram page, has been charged as an adult in the death of eight-year-old Madyson Middleton in Santa Cruz. Adrian Jerry Gonzalez, as seen on his Instagram page, has been charged as an adult in the death of eight-year-old Madyson Middleton in Santa Cruz.
Image 9 of 99 Adrian Jerry Gonzalez, as seen on his Instagram page, has been charged as an adult in the death of eight-year-old Madyson Middleton in Santa Cruz. Adrian Jerry Gonzalez, as seen on his Instagram page, has been charged as an adult in the death of eight-year-old Madyson Middleton in Santa Cruz.
Image 10 of 99
Image 11 of 99 Geoffrey Nelson holds his phone with a photo he took of murder suspect Adrian Jerry Gonzalez, 15, being led away by police in Santa Cruz, California, on Monday, July 27, 2015 at the apartment complex where 8-year-old Madyson Middleton disappeared Sunday afternoon. less Geoffrey Nelson holds his phone with a photo he took of murder suspect Adrian Jerry Gonzalez, 15, being led away by police in Santa Cruz, California, on Monday, July 27, 2015 at the apartment complex where ... more Photo: Connor Radnovich, The Chronicle
Image 12 of 99 Adrian Jerry Gonzalez is taken into custody by police in this cell phone photo taken by a resident of the Tannery Arts Center in Santa Cruz, California, on Monday, July 27, 2015. Adrian Jerry Gonzalez is taken into custody by police in this cell phone photo taken by a resident of the Tannery Arts Center in Santa Cruz, California, on Monday, July 27, 2015. Photo: Geoffrey Nelson, Contributed
Image 13 of 99 Adrian Jerry Gonzalez, is lead away from the Tannery Arts Center by police on July 27, 2015 in Santa Cruz. Adrian Jerry Gonzalez, is lead away from the Tannery Arts Center by police on July 27, 2015 in Santa Cruz. Photo: KSBW.com
Image 14 of 99 Buy photo Setorro Garcia sheds a tear after Santa Cruz County district attorney Jeffrey Rosell appeared at a news conference in Santa Cruz, Calif. on Wednesday, July 29, 2015 to announce that 15-year-old Adrian Jerry Gonzalez will be tried as an adult on kidnapping and murder charges in the death of 8-year-old Madyson Middleton. Garcia is a resident at the Tannery Arts Center and knew both the suspect and young victim. less Setorro Garcia sheds a tear after Santa Cruz County district attorney Jeffrey Rosell appeared at a news conference in Santa Cruz, Calif. on Wednesday, July 29, 2015 to announce that 15-year-old Adrian Jerry ... more Photo: Paul Chinn, The Chronicle Buy this photo
Image 15 of 99
Image 16 of 99 Buy photo Santa Cruz County district attorney Jeffrey Rosell appears at a news conference in Santa Cruz, Calif. on Wednesday, July 29, 2015 to announce that 15-year-old Adrian Jerry Gonzalez will be tried as an adult on kidnapping and murder charges in the death of 8-year-old Madyson Middleton. less Santa Cruz County district attorney Jeffrey Rosell appears at a news conference in Santa Cruz, Calif. on Wednesday, July 29, 2015 to announce that 15-year-old Adrian Jerry Gonzalez will be tried as an adult on ... more Photo: Paul Chinn, The Chronicle Buy this photo
Image 17 of 99 Buy photo Santa Cruz County district attorney Jeffrey Rosell appears at a news conference in Santa Cruz, Calif. on Wednesday, July 29, 2015 to announce that 15-year-old Adrian Jerry Gonzalez will be tried as an adult on kidnapping and murder charges in the death of 8-year-old Madyson Middleton. less Santa Cruz County district attorney Jeffrey Rosell appears at a news conference in Santa Cruz, Calif. on Wednesday, July 29, 2015 to announce that 15-year-old Adrian Jerry Gonzalez will be tried as an adult on ... more Photo: Paul Chinn, The Chronicle Buy this photo
Image 18 of 99 Madyson Middleton, 8, was found dead in Santa Cruz on Monday, July 17, 2015. Neighbor Adrian Jerry Gonzalez, 15, has been charged with murder, kidnapping and sexual assault as an adult. Madyson Middleton, 8, was found dead in Santa Cruz on Monday, July 17, 2015. Neighbor Adrian Jerry Gonzalez, 15, has been charged with murder, kidnapping and sexual assault as an adult. Photo: Santa Cruz Police
Image 19 of 99 Santa Cruz Police Chief Kevin Vogel pauses during a news conference at the Santa Cruz Police Station in Santa Cruz, California, on Tuesday, July 28, 2015. Santa Cruz Police Chief Kevin Vogel pauses during a news conference at the Santa Cruz Police Station in Santa Cruz, California, on Tuesday, July 28, 2015. Photo: Connor Radnovich, The Chronicle
Image 20 of 99
Image 21 of 99 A growing memorial for Madyson Middleton in the apartment complex where she lived in Santa Cruz, California, on Tuesday, July 28, 2015. Eight-year-old Madyson was found dead Monday evening at the apartment complex. less A growing memorial for Madyson Middleton in the apartment complex where she lived in Santa Cruz, California, on Tuesday, July 28, 2015. Eight-year-old Madyson was found dead Monday evening at the apartment ... more Photo: Connor Radnovich, The Chronicle
Image 22 of 99 Marielle Mulligan holds her daughter Anjelle Mulligan at a memorial for Madyson Middleton in Santa Cruz, California, on Tuesday, July 28, 2015. Marielle Mulligan holds her daughter Anjelle Mulligan at a memorial for Madyson Middleton in Santa Cruz, California, on Tuesday, July 28, 2015. Photo: Connor Radnovich, The Chronicle
Image 23 of 99 Neighbor Adrian Jerry Gonzalez, 15, has been charged with murder, kidnapping and sexual assault as an adult. less Residents of the Tannery Arts Center gather near a memorial for Madyson Middleton Tuesday, July 28, 2015, in Santa Cruz, Calif. The search for the missing 8-year-old girl came to a tragic end after police found a body inside a trash bin at a Northern California complex where she was last seen riding her scooter. Residents of the Tannery Arts Center gather near a memorial for Madyson Middleton Tuesday, July 28, 2015, in Santa Cruz, Calif. The search for the missing 8-year-old girl came to a tragic end after police ... more Photo: Ben Margot, AP
Image 24 of 99 Neighbor Adrian Jerry Gonzalez, 15, has been charged with murder, kidnapping and sexual assault as an adult. less San Jose police guard the entrance to the garage on Tuesday, July 28, 2015, after police found a body inside a trash bin on Monday in Santa Cruz, Calif. The search for Madyson Middleton, a missing 8-year-old girl came to an end after police found the body at the Northern California complex where she was last seen riding her scooter. San Jose police guard the entrance to the garage on Tuesday, July 28, 2015, after police found a body inside a trash bin on Monday in Santa Cruz, Calif. The search for Madyson Middleton, a missing 8-year-old ... more Photo: Ben Margot, AP
Image 25 of 99
Image 26 of 99 A small vigil for 8-year-old Madyson Middleton at Tannery Arts Center in Santa Cruz, California, on Monday, July 27, 2015. A small vigil for 8-year-old Madyson Middleton at Tannery Arts Center in Santa Cruz, California, on Monday, July 27, 2015. Photo: Connor Radnovich, The Chronicle
Image 27 of 99 Neighbor Adrian Jerry Gonzalez, 15, has been charged with murder, kidnapping and sexual assault as an adult. less Santa Cruz Chief of Police Kevin Vogel finishes a news conference in front of the apartment complex where Madyson Middleton disappeared from in Santa Cruz, California, on Monday, July 27, 2015. Neighbor Adrian ... more Santa Cruz Chief of Police Kevin Vogel finishes a news conference in front of the apartment complex where Madyson Middleton disappeared from in Santa Cruz, California, on Monday, July 27, 2015. Photo: Connor Radnovich, The Chronicle
Image 28 of 99 The mother of murder suspect Adrian Jerry Gonzalez speaks on the phone minutes after her son was arrested at the apartment complex where Madyson Middleton went missing Sunday afternoon in Santa Cruz, California, on Monday, July 27, 2015. less The mother of murder suspect Adrian Jerry Gonzalez speaks on the phone minutes after her son was arrested at the apartment complex where Madyson Middleton went missing Sunday afternoon in Santa Cruz, ... more Photo: Connor Radnovich, The Chronicle
Image 29 of 99 Police officers stand at Tannery Arts Center in Santa Cruz, California, on Monday, July 27, 2015. Police officers stand at Tannery Arts Center in Santa Cruz, California, on Monday, July 27, 2015. Photo: Connor Radnovich, The Chronicle
Image 30 of 99
Image 31 of 99 FBI personnel walk down a hallway toward the apartment where the 15-year-old suspect, Adrian Jerry Gonzalez lives in Santa Cruz, California, on Monday, July 27, 2015. FBI personnel walk down a hallway toward the apartment where the 15-year-old suspect, Adrian Jerry Gonzalez lives in Santa Cruz, California, on Monday, July 27, 2015. Photo: Connor Radnovich, The Chronicle
Image 32 of 99 Elisha Mckeown (left) and Laura Albrecht hug after placing balloons and flowers in front of the apartment complex where Madyson Middleton disappeared from in Santa Cruz, California, on Monday, July 27, 2015. Elisha Mckeown (left) and Laura Albrecht hug after placing balloons and flowers in front of the apartment complex where Madyson Middleton disappeared from in Santa Cruz, California, on Monday, July 27, 2015. Photo: Connor Radnovich, The Chronicle
Image 33 of 99 FBI personnel stand in the hallway near where a teenager arrested in connection with the homicide of 8-year-old Madyson Middleton lives in Santa Cruz, California, on Monday, July 27, 2015. The teenager was arrested Monday evening at the apartment complex where 8-year-old Madyson Middleton was last seen Sunday afternoon. less FBI personnel stand in the hallway near where a teenager arrested in connection with the homicide of 8-year-old Madyson Middleton lives in Santa Cruz, California, on Monday, July 27, 2015. The teenager was ... more Photo: Connor Radnovich, The Chronicle
Image 34 of 99 The dumpster where police found the body of Madyson Middleton in Santa Cruz, California, on Monday, July 27, 2015. The dumpster where police found the body of Madyson Middleton in Santa Cruz, California, on Monday, July 27, 2015. Photo: Connor Radnovich, The Chronicle
Image 35 of 99
Image 36 of 99 Madyson Middleton, 8, was last seen riding her Razor scooter in Santa Cruz Madyson Middleton, 8, was last seen riding her Razor scooter in Santa Cruz Photo: Santa Cruz Police
Image 37 of 99 Madyson Middleton, 8, is missing in Santa Cruz Madyson Middleton, 8, is missing in Santa Cruz Photo: Santa Cruz Police
Image 38 of 99 A missing poster for Madyson Middleton blows in the wind in Santa Cruz, California, on Monday, July 27, 2015. Eight-year-old Madyson Middleton was last seen Sunday afternoon. A missing poster for Madyson Middleton blows in the wind in Santa Cruz, California, on Monday, July 27, 2015. Eight-year-old Madyson Middleton was last seen Sunday afternoon. Photo: Connor Radnovich, The Chronicle
Image 39 of 99 A makeshift gathering area outside an apartment complex where a 15-year-old suspect was arrested by police in connection to the death of Madyson Middleton in Santa Cruz, California, on Monday, July 27, 2015. A makeshift gathering area outside an apartment complex where a 15-year-old suspect was arrested by police in connection to the death of Madyson Middleton in Santa Cruz, California, on Monday, July 27, 2015. Photo: Connor Radnovich, The Chronicle
Image 40 of 99
Image 41 of 99
Image 42 of 99 Madyson Middleton's step-grandmother Gena Greene holds back tears in Santa Cruz, California, on Monday, July 27, 2015. Eight-year-old Madyson was last seen Sunday afternoon. Madyson Middleton's step-grandmother Gena Greene holds back tears in Santa Cruz, California, on Monday, July 27, 2015. Eight-year-old Madyson was last seen Sunday afternoon. Photo: Connor Radnovich / The Chronicle
Image 43 of 99 Michael Middleton (center), father of the missing girl, talks with friends outside the Santa Cruz residence where she vanished. Michael Middleton (center), father of the missing girl, talks with friends outside the Santa Cruz residence where she vanished. Photo: Connor Radnovich / The Chronicle
Image 44 of 99 Julie Black cries on Noria Jablonski's lap while Linda Cover comforts her in Santa Cruz, California, on Monday, July 27, 2015. They are neighbors of the Middletons. Julie Black cries on Noria Jablonski's lap while Linda Cover comforts her in Santa Cruz, California, on Monday, July 27, 2015. They are neighbors of the Middletons. Photo: Connor Radnovich / Connor Radnovich / The Chronicle
Image 45 of 99
Image 46 of 99 Police tape in front of the apartment complex where Madyson Middleton disappeared from in Santa Cruz, California, on Monday, July 27, 2015. Police tape in front of the apartment complex where Madyson Middleton disappeared from in Santa Cruz, California, on Monday, July 27, 2015. Photo: Connor Radnovich, The Chronicle
Image 47 of 99 The apartment complex where the arrested teenager lives with yellow police tape set up in Santa Cruz, California, on Monday, July 27, 2015. Eight-year-old Madyson Middleton was last seen Sunday afternoon at the complex. less The apartment complex where the arrested teenager lives with yellow police tape set up in Santa Cruz, California, on Monday, July 27, 2015. Eight-year-old Madyson Middleton was last seen Sunday afternoon at the ... more Photo: Connor Radnovich, The Chronicle
Image 48 of 99 A makeshift gathering area outside an apartment complex where a 15-year-old suspect was arrested by police in connection to the death of Madyson Middleton in Santa Cruz, California, on Monday, July 27, 2015. A makeshift gathering area outside an apartment complex where a 15-year-old suspect was arrested by police in connection to the death of Madyson Middleton in Santa Cruz, California, on Monday, July 27, 2015. Photo: Connor Radnovich, The Chronicle
Image 49 of 99 FBI agents walk in front of the apartment complex where Madyson Middleton lives in Santa Cruz, California, on Monday, July 27, 2015. Eight-year-old Madyson Middleton was last seen Sunday afternoon. FBI agents walk in front of the apartment complex where Madyson Middleton lives in Santa Cruz, California, on Monday, July 27, 2015. Eight-year-old Madyson Middleton was last seen Sunday afternoon. Photo: Connor Radnovich, The Chronicle
Image 50 of 99
Image 51 of 99 A missing poster for Madyson Middleton is taped in a park next to NBC News vans in Santa Cruz, California, on Monday, July 27, 2015. Eight-year-old Madyson Middleton was last seen Sunday afternoon. A missing poster for Madyson Middleton is taped in a park next to NBC News vans in Santa Cruz, California, on Monday, July 27, 2015. Eight-year-old Madyson Middleton was last seen Sunday afternoon. Photo: Connor Radnovich, The Chronicle
Image 52 of 99 FBI agents walk toward the apartment complex where Madyson Middleton lives in Santa Cruz, California, on Monday, July 27, 2015. FBI agents walk toward the apartment complex where Madyson Middleton lives in Santa Cruz, California, on Monday, July 27, 2015. Photo: Connor Radnovich, Connor Radnovich/The Chronicle
Image 53 of 99 Two police officers stand on the second floor of an apartment complex connected to the one where Madyson Middleton lives in Santa Cruz, California, on Monday, July 27, 2015. Two police officers stand on the second floor of an apartment complex connected to the one where Madyson Middleton lives in Santa Cruz, California, on Monday, July 27, 2015. Photo: Connor Radnovich, Connor Radnovich/The Chronicle
Image 54 of 99 FBI agents walk in front of the apartment complex where Madyson Middleton lives in Santa Cruz, California, on Monday, July 27, 2015. FBI agents walk in front of the apartment complex where Madyson Middleton lives in Santa Cruz, California, on Monday, July 27, 2015. Photo: Connor Radnovich, Connor Radnovich/The Chronicle
Image 55 of 99
Image 56 of 99 A man walks by the parking area of the Tannery Arts Center where a security camera last captured the image of 8-year-old Madyson Middleton riding her scooter on Sunday afternoon, Monday, July 27, 2015, in Santa Cruz, Calif. less A man walks by the parking area of the Tannery Arts Center where a security camera last captured the image of 8-year-old Madyson Middleton riding her scooter on Sunday afternoon, Monday, July 27, 2015, in Santa ... more Photo: Ben Margot, Associated Press
Image 57 of 99 A missing poster for Madyson Middleton blows in the wind in Santa Cruz, California, on Monday, July 27, 2015. A missing poster for Madyson Middleton blows in the wind in Santa Cruz, California, on Monday, July 27, 2015. Photo: Connor Radnovich, Connor Radnovich/The Chronicle
Image 58 of 99 A missing poster for Madyson Middleton is taped to the back window of a Toyota SUV in Santa Cruz, California, on Monday, July 27, 2015. A missing poster for Madyson Middleton is taped to the back window of a Toyota SUV in Santa Cruz, California, on Monday, July 27, 2015. Photo: Connor Radnovich, Connor Radnovich/The Chronicle
Image 59 of 99 The search and rescue patches on the sleeve of a volunteer in Santa Cruz, California, on Monday, July 27, 2015. The search and rescue patches on the sleeve of a volunteer in Santa Cruz, California, on Monday, July 27, 2015. Photo: Connor Radnovich, The Chronicle
Image 60 of 99
Image 61 of 99 Volunteer search and rescue member Mike Oxford checks his map during a search in the woods for Madyson Middleton in Santa Cruz, California, on Monday, July 27, 2015. Volunteer search and rescue member Mike Oxford checks his map during a search in the woods for Madyson Middleton in Santa Cruz, California, on Monday, July 27, 2015. Photo: Connor Radnovich, The Chronicle
Image 62 of 99 Volunteer search and rescue member Mike Oxford (center) points in a direction for volunteer Chris Masten to search for Madyson Middleton near her apartment complex in Santa Cruz, California, on Monday, July 27, 2015. less Volunteer search and rescue member Mike Oxford (center) points in a direction for volunteer Chris Masten to search for Madyson Middleton near her apartment complex in Santa Cruz, California, on Monday, July 27, ... more Photo: Connor Radnovich, The Chronicle
Image 63 of 99 Volunteer search and rescue member Mike Oxford searches in the woods for Madyson Middleton near her apartment complex in Santa Cruz, California, on Monday, July 27, 2015. Volunteer search and rescue member Mike Oxford searches in the woods for Madyson Middleton near her apartment complex in Santa Cruz, California, on Monday, July 27, 2015. Photo: Connor Radnovich, The Chronicle
Image 64 of 99 A woman holds missing posters for Madyson Middleton while neighbors and friends talk in Santa Cruz, California, on Monday, July 27, 2015. A woman holds missing posters for Madyson Middleton while neighbors and friends talk in Santa Cruz, California, on Monday, July 27, 2015. Photo: Connor Radnovich, The Chronicle
Image 65 of 99
Image 66 of 99 Madyson Middleton's grandmother Lisa gestures over a table piled with missing posters in Santa Cruz, California, on Monday, July 27, 2015. Madyson Middleton's grandmother Lisa gestures over a table piled with missing posters in Santa Cruz, California, on Monday, July 27, 2015. Photo: Connor Radnovich, The Chronicle
Image 67 of 99 A man holds missing posters for Madyson Middleton while neighbors and friends talk in Santa Cruz, California, on Monday, July 27, 2015. A man holds missing posters for Madyson Middleton while neighbors and friends talk in Santa Cruz, California, on Monday, July 27, 2015. Photo: Connor Radnovich, The Chronicle
Image 68 of 99 Laura Jordan, mother of missing eight year-old Madyson Middleton, is embraced by a neighbor Monday, July 27, 2015, outside the Tannery Arts Center apartments where Madyson disappeared Sunday evening while waiting for a friend in Santa Cruz, Calif. Jordan pleaded for her safe return Monday as a statewide search grew to include federal authorities. Madyson Middleton vanished Sunday afternoon from an artist community center in a Northern California beach town where she lives with her mother. less Laura Jordan, mother of missing eight year-old Madyson Middleton, is embraced by a neighbor Monday, July 27, 2015, outside the Tannery Arts Center apartments where Madyson disappeared Sunday evening while ... more Photo: Dan Coyro, Associated Press
Image 69 of 99 Neighbor Adrian Jerry Gonzalez, 15, has been charged with murder, kidnapping and sexual assault as an adult after Madyson's body was discovered near her home. less Search volunteer Sean Milligan, left, tapes a missing girl flyer on the back of his wife Pepper Milligan, who then roller skated on the Santa Cruz boardwalk to alert people to the disappearance of Madyson Middleton, Monday, July 27, 2015, in Santa Cruz, Calif. Police and volunteers were searching Monday for a missing 8-year-old girl a day after she vanished from a California community center where she lived with her mother. Search volunteer Sean Milligan, left, tapes a missing girl flyer on the back of his wife Pepper Milligan, who then roller skated on the Santa Cruz boardwalk to alert people to the disappearance of Madyson ... more Photo: Ben Margot, Associated Press
Image 70 of 99
Image 71 of 99 Martin Olander (center) and David Churchill talk to a Santa Cruz Police Officer about search locations in Santa Cruz, California, on Monday, July 27, 2015. Martin Olander (center) and David Churchill talk to a Santa Cruz Police Officer about search locations in Santa Cruz, California, on Monday, July 27, 2015. Photo: Connor Radnovich, The Chronicle
Image 72 of 99 Mike Middleton smokes and walks near the apartment complex where his daughter Madyson lives in Santa Cruz, California, on Monday, July 27, 2015. Mike Middleton smokes and walks near the apartment complex where his daughter Madyson lives in Santa Cruz, California, on Monday, July 27, 2015. Photo: Connor Radnovich, The Chronicle
Image 73 of 99 Volunteer search and rescue member Mike Oxford searches in the woods for Madyson Middleton near her apartment complex in Santa Cruz, California, on Monday, July 27, 2015. Volunteer search and rescue member Mike Oxford searches in the woods for Madyson Middleton near her apartment complex in Santa Cruz, California, on Monday, July 27, 2015. Photo: Connor Radnovich, The Chronicle
Image 74 of 99 Volunteer search and rescue member Chris Masten searches by a stream for Madyson Middleton near her apartment complex in Santa Cruz, California, on Monday, July 27, 2015. Volunteer search and rescue member Chris Masten searches by a stream for Madyson Middleton near her apartment complex in Santa Cruz, California, on Monday, July 27, 2015. Photo: Connor Radnovich, The Chronicle
Image 75 of 99
Image 76 of 99 Volunteer search and rescue member Mike Oxford searches in the woods for Madyson Middleton near her apartment complex in Santa Cruz, California, on Monday, July 27, 2015. Volunteer search and rescue member Mike Oxford searches in the woods for Madyson Middleton near her apartment complex in Santa Cruz, California, on Monday, July 27, 2015. Photo: Connor Radnovich, The Chronicle
Image 77 of 99 Volunteer search and rescue member Chris Masten searches by a stream for Madyson Middleton near her apartment complex in Santa Cruz, California, on Monday, July 27, 2015. Volunteer search and rescue member Chris Masten searches by a stream for Madyson Middleton near her apartment complex in Santa Cruz, California, on Monday, July 27, 2015. Photo: Connor Radnovich, The Chronicle
Image 78 of 99 Chris Masten (right) and two other members of a volunteer search and rescue team search for Madyson Middleton near her apartment complex in Santa Cruz, California, on Monday, July 27, 2015. Chris Masten (right) and two other members of a volunteer search and rescue team search for Madyson Middleton near her apartment complex in Santa Cruz, California, on Monday, July 27, 2015. Photo: Connor Radnovich, The Chronicle
Image 79 of 99 Part of a search and rescue crew returns to home base in Santa Cruz, California, on Monday, July 27, 2015. Part of a search and rescue crew returns to home base in Santa Cruz, California, on Monday, July 27, 2015. Photo: Connor Radnovich / Connor Radnovich / The Chronicle
Image 80 of 99
Image 81 of 99 Neighbors look around in the woods behind the apartment complex where Madyson Middleton lives in Santa Cruz, California, on Monday, July 27, 2015. Neighbors look around in the woods behind the apartment complex where Madyson Middleton lives in Santa Cruz, California, on Monday, July 27, 2015. Photo: Connor Radnovich / The Chronicle
Image 82 of 99 Mike Middleton walks on a major street near the apartment complex where his daughter Madyson lives in Santa Cruz, California, on Monday, July 27, 2015. Mike Middleton walks on a major street near the apartment complex where his daughter Madyson lives in Santa Cruz, California, on Monday, July 27, 2015. Photo: Connor Radnovich, The Chronicle
Image 83 of 99 Mike Middleton (center) walks down a path with some friends near the apartment complex where his daughter Madyson lives in Santa Cruz, California, on Monday, July 27, 2015. Mike Middleton (center) walks down a path with some friends near the apartment complex where his daughter Madyson lives in Santa Cruz, California, on Monday, July 27, 2015. Photo: Connor Radnovich, The Chronicle
Image 84 of 99 Julie Black cries on Noria Jablonski's lap while Linda Cover comforts her in Santa Cruz, California, on Monday, July 27, 2015. Julie Black cries on Noria Jablonski's lap while Linda Cover comforts her in Santa Cruz, California, on Monday, July 27, 2015. Photo: Connor Radnovich, The Chronicle
Image 85 of 99
Image 86 of 99 Toni Riley holds a poster seeking help in finding the 8-year-old Santa Cruz girl, who disappeared Sunday afternoon. Toni Riley holds a poster seeking help in finding the 8-year-old Santa Cruz girl, who disappeared Sunday afternoon. Photo: Connor Radnovich / The Chronicle
Image 87 of 99 Mike Middleton's friend Miguel listens to Mike talk at a coffee shop near the apartment where Mike's daughter Madyson lives in Santa Cruz, California, on Monday, July 27, 2015. Mike Middleton's friend Miguel listens to Mike talk at a coffee shop near the apartment where Mike's daughter Madyson lives in Santa Cruz, California, on Monday, July 27, 2015. Photo: Connor Radnovich, The Chronicle
Image 88 of 99 Buy photo Santa Cruz Police Chief Kevin Vogel (left) and District Attorney Jeff Rosell prepare to speak to the news media. Santa Cruz Police Chief Kevin Vogel (left) and District Attorney Jeff Rosell prepare to speak to the news media. Photo: Paul Chinn / Photos By Paul Chinn / The Chronicle Buy this photo
Image 89 of 99 Buy photo Setorro Garcia, a Tannery Arts Center resident who knew Madyson “Maddy” Middleton and her alleged killer, cries at the news conference. Setorro Garcia, a Tannery Arts Center resident who knew Madyson “Maddy” Middleton and her alleged killer, cries at the news conference. Photo: Paul Chinn / Paul Chinn / The Chronicle Buy this photo
Image 90 of 99
Image 91 of 99 Buy photo Santa Cruz County District Attorney Jeff Rosell announces the charges against Adrian Gonzalez in Madyson Middleton’s death. Santa Cruz County District Attorney Jeff Rosell announces the charges against Adrian Gonzalez in Madyson Middleton’s death. Photo: Paul Chinn / Paul Chinn / The Chronicle Buy this photo
Image 92 of 99 Buy photo Geoffrey Nelson displays a photo on his phone that he says shows Gonzalez being arrested Sunday at the Santa Cruz apartment complex where both he and Madyson lived. Geoffrey Nelson displays a photo on his phone that he says shows Gonzalez being arrested Sunday at the Santa Cruz apartment complex where both he and Madyson lived. Photo: Connor Radnovich / Connor Radnovich / The Chronicle Buy this photo
Image 93 of 99 Gonzalez’s photo appears on his Instagram account, @awkwardyoyoer. Gonzalez’s photo appears on his Instagram account, @awkwardyoyoer. Photo: Screen Shoot / Instagram
Image 94 of 99 Buy photo The mother of the arrested teen speaks on the phone minutes after her son was arrested at the apartment complex where Madyson Middleton went missing Sunday afternoon in Santa Cruz. The mother of the arrested teen speaks on the phone minutes after her son was arrested at the apartment complex where Madyson Middleton went missing Sunday afternoon in Santa Cruz. Photo: Connor Radnovich / Connor Radnovich / The Chronicle Buy this photo
Image 95 of 99
Image 96 of 99 Madyson “Maddy” Middleton of Santa Cruz. Prosecutors charged Adrian Jerry Gonzalez, 15, with murder, kidnapping and sexual assault Wednesday in the death of the 8-year-old girl in an artists complex in the beach town. Police say Gonzalez lured Madyson from a courtyard where she had been riding her scooter over the weekend into his family’s apartment where he attacked and killed her. less Madyson “Maddy” Middleton of Santa Cruz. Prosecutors charged Adrian Jerry Gonzalez, 15, with murder, kidnapping and sexual assault Wednesday in the death of the 8-year-old girl in an artists complex in the ... more Photo: Uncredited / Courtesy Of Santa Cruz Police Department
Image 97 of 99 Buy photo Setorro Garcia reacts after Santa Cruz County district attorney Jeffrey Rosell spoke at a news conference in Santa Cruz, Calif. on Wednesday, July 29, 2015 to announce that 15-year-old Adrian Jerry Gonzalez will be tried as an adult on kidnapping and murder charges in the death of 8-year-old Madyson Middleton. Garcia is a resident at the Tannery Arts Center and knew both the suspect and young victim. less Setorro Garcia reacts after Santa Cruz County district attorney Jeffrey Rosell spoke at a news conference in Santa Cruz, Calif. on Wednesday, July 29, 2015 to announce that 15-year-old Adrian Jerry Gonzalez ... more Photo: Paul Chinn, The Chronicle Buy this photo
Image 98 of 99 Adrian Jerry Gonzalez at his arraignment hearing via a video feed at the courthouse in Santa Cruz, California, on Thursday, July 30, 2015. Adrian Jerry Gonzalez at his arraignment hearing via a video feed at the courthouse in Santa Cruz, California, on Thursday, July 30, 2015. Photo: Connor Radnovich, The Chronicle ||||| A.J. Gonzalez, a 15-year-old from Santa Cruz, is accused of killing 8-year-old Madyson Middleton. He appears in an Instagram photo he posted. (Contributed)
SANTA CRUZ >> Murder charges filed against 15-year-old Adrian Jerry “A.J.” Gonzalez Wednesday describe a brutal kidnapping and sexual attack against 8-year-old Madyson Middleton that could send the teen to prison for life, Santa Cruz County District Attorney Jeff Rosell said Wednesday.
Maddy, according to the charging document, was tied up, beaten, raped, killed and dumped in a garage recycling bin, which merited a charge in superior court rather than juvenile court.
“We’re confident in the charges we filed and that’s what justice demands,” Rosell said, crediting law enforcement for the quick resolution of the case.
“People do things for lots of reasons. Sometimes we understand them. Sometimes we don’t,” Rosell said. “We are going to bring him to justice and at this point there is no plea deal on anything.”
Rosell declined to go into detail about the crime, saying, “We are trying to preserve the right to a fair trial. The details of which will come out in court.”
The charging document states that Gonzalez faces one count of murder with a special allegation of murder by lying in wait. It also includes allegations of felony murder, forcible rape, lewd acts with a child younger than 14 and rape by instrument.
VIOLENT CRIME
“I can’t remember any 15-year-old with these specific charges,” Rosell said of his nearly quarter century with the DA’s Office.
The charging document states that the: “defendant engages in tying or binding of the victim” and “defendant personally used a dangerous or deadly weapon.”
Defendants age 14 and older charged with murder must face an adult trial, according to a state proposition that voters approved in 2000. The death penalty for minors was banned by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2005.
Prosecutors declined to say whether Gonzalez had a juvenile criminal record, most of which are not public record. Attempts to reach Gonzalez’ mother and an attorney who will represent Gonzalez were not successful Wednesday.
Authorities have not yet said the cause and manner of Maddy’s death because results of an autopsy have not been released publicly. Citing an anonymous source Wednesday, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that Gonzalez used ice cream to lure Maddy into his mother’s apartment, then strangled and killed her with blunt force trauma to the head.
Advertisement
News reports said Gonzalez’ motive was that he was suicidal and wanted to see the reaction to Maddy’s death. Santa Cruz Police Chief Kevin Vogel said earlier this week he did not know if the teen suffered from a mental illness.
Gonzalez, who was set to enter 10th grade at Santa Cruz High School in the fall, is expected to be arraigned Thursday morning.
Maddy was found dead about 7:55 p.m. Monday in a recycling bin in a ground-floor parking garage at the Tannery Arts Center, where she lived with her mother. Gonzalez also lived in the red apartment complex on the third floor with his mother.
During a massive search triggered by a 911 call just after 6 p.m. Sunday, Gonzalez blended in by participating and asking leaders for updates.
Tannery resident Setorro Garcia said he practically had to shoo away Gonzalez because of his incessant questions about the status of the search. At one point, Garcia said he told the teen: “Dude, you’re the only one asking me.”
Santa Cruz police detectives found Maddy in a cardboard-recycling bin just paces from where a surveillance camera had last photographed her outside the apartments. Gonzalez watched detectives uncover her, and police detained him seconds later. His mother screamed and struggled with police as he was taken for questioning.
Video footage, Maddy’s belongings found by police and witness statements are the pillars of the case, Santa Cruz police have said. Media reports say Gonzalez confessed his crime to police though Wednesday, Santa Cruz police said they were done talking about it.
At the Tannery, friends of Maddy and Gonzalez continued to express disbelief about how a shy teenager could rape and kill a scooter-riding 8-year-old on a Sunday afternoon.
“That kid (Gonzalez) has been in everybody’s life. That’s why it’s so hard to believe. That’s why it’s such a shocker,” said Andy Ruble, a 43-year-old sculptor who has an art studio at the Tannery.
Ruble said Gonzalez was usually alone and often asked him about his art. Gonzalez’ interest in yo-yo tricks was new, although he excelled at it and was practicing for a potential bid in a National Yo-Yo Contest in Redondo Beach on Sept. 25, Ruble said.
“Just a year-and-a half ago he was just a little kid. He did a lot of growing up. He’s always just been around the quad.”
Lisa Silas, who has lived at the artists’ residential complex since it opened in 2009, is struggling to piece together the pleasant boy she knew and the killer that police say he is.
“First I’m very, very heartbroken for Maddy. But I thought it had to be a mistake,” Silas said, while fighting through tears. “This is really hard. We’re just really upset, really devastated.”
“We don’t know what happened. This may have been there, but we didn’t see it,” Silas added. “I can’t speculate for A.J. or his mental health history, but to do something like that, he must have had some history we didn’t know about.”
SOCIAL MEDIA
Before Gonzalez’ Instagram account @AwkwardYoYoer was taken offline Wednesday, there was a string of recent lovelorn posts, homemade music videos and references to the “crippling anxiety” of being unloved.
“We didn’t date, technically. She wasn’t an ex-girlfriend, but an ex-something, ex-maybe, an ex-almost,” he posted four weeks ago with a picture of him looking at city lights at night in the distance.
Under a picture of the ocean, he wrote, “I need you, but you don’t need me, and that’s a feeling I won’t ever forget.” The post also mentions the AwolNation song “All I need.” One week ago, a picture of a plate of a salad is captioned simply with “Dinner Of One.”
The most recent, ominous post was Sunday, the day Maddy was killed. It was black-and-white video of a solo piano rendition of “Mad World,” a 1982 Tears for Fears song: “The Dreams in which I’m Dying are the Best I’ve ever had.”
San Bruno-based clinical psychologist Oscar Cervantes, who was reviewed some of the posts, said, “It definitely sounds like this guy was dealing with depression and thinking about suicide.”
Cervantes said, “It seems like this guy knew something was really wrong with him.”
Rosell, the district attorney, declined to say whether Gonzalez, who reportedly said he wanted to commit suicide prior to the crime, is on suicide watch at Juvenile Hall.
SUPPORT
Staying at a hotel in Santa Cruz, Maddy’s 42-year-old mother, Laura Jordan, grieved for her daughter.
Friends of Jordan, a trained painter, said she has been “constantly” supported and surrounded by good people.
“I’ve been really impressed with how strong she’s been,” said Kirby Scudder, her boyfriend and well-known Santa Cruz artist.
“It’s hard for any of us to wrap our heads around it. We’re trying to protect her from the onslaught of media out here.”
Maddy’s father, Michel Middleton of Aptos, also has been supported by extended family who came from Southern California this week.
A memorial fund has not yet been set up for Maddy’s funeral expenses because it could interfere with potential government funding for families of child victims, supporters said.
Maddy would have entered fourth grade at DeLaveaga Elementary School, said Santa Cruz City Schools Superintendent Kris Munro.
Although school is not in session, DeLaveaga opened to parents, staff and students Wednesday for grief counseling with county mental health workers. At 1 p.m. Thursday, Santa Cruz High also will open to students, staff and parents for grief counseling, Munro said.
“It’s a terrible tragedy,” said Munro. “Staff and students and families are distraught.”
Munro and others advised parents to listen to their children if they want to talk about Maddy’s loss.
Coping guidelines distributed by the school district advise parents to “help children understand the death and intervene to correct false perceptions about the cause of the event.” The idea is to ensure “that they do not blame themselves or others for the situation.”
Dozens of Santa Cruz residents gripped by the story of Maddy’s death lined West Cliff Drive near John Street on Tuesday night holding candles and flowers.
Many prayed for Maddy’s family and friends. A separate vigil took place at the Town Clock in downtown Santa Cruz.
Rosell, the district attorney, also offered his condolences to those who knew her.
“During these tragic times, our thoughts and prayers are with Madyson Middleton, her family, her friends and the entire Santa Cruz community,” Rosell said.
Bay Area News Group reporter Robert Salonga contributed to this report.
Correction: A.J. Gonzalez did not quote lyrics from an AwolNation song. The information was incorrect in a previous version of this story.
Criminal complaint
A criminal complaint filed against Adrian Jerry Gonzalez on Wednesday lists these charges, which are all felonies.
Count 1: Murder with a special allegation of lying in wait.
Count 2: Kidnapping to commit another crime with a special allegation of great bodily injury.
Count 3: Sexual penetration with a foreign object.
Count 4: Forcible lewd act upon a child.
Count 5: Forcible rape with a child younger than 14.
Count 6: Forcible lewd act upon a child with special allegations of aggravated circumstances, great bodily injury, use of a deadly weapon, murder of a child younger than 14, sexual assault of a child younger than 14 and death of a minor.
Source: Santa Cruz County Superior Court | – A source said to be close to the investigation into the death of 8-year-old Madyson "Maddy" Middleton tells the San Francisco Chronicle that the 15-year-old accused of raping and killing her lured her into his family's Santa Cruz, Calif., apartment with ice cream, then jumped her. Surveillance video shows Adrian Jerry "AJ" Gonzalez placing Maddy's body in a garbage bin at the Tannery Arts Center complex where they lived, then coming back twice during the search, the source says, adding that Maddy's mother reported the girl missing five minutes after her body was discarded. A resident who was helping look for Maddy says Gonzalez was pestering him for details during the search to the point where he told the teen, "Dude, you're the only one asking me," the San Jose Mercury News reports. Meanwhile, more details are emerging about Gonzalez, who's scheduled to be arraigned this morning. The teen is an avid yo-yoer and had a now-deleted Instagram account at @awkwardyoyoer. One darker post apparently made on the day Maddy's body was discovered shows a clip of hands playing the piano to Gary Jules' "Mad World," with a caption that showed the song's line "The Dreams in which I'm Dying are the Best I've ever had." However, the founder of the National Coalition for the Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation notes, "If we weren't looking through that lens [of knowing about these horrible acts], would it say anything? That age is full of angst," per the Mercury News. Despite being charged as an adult, Gonzalez won't face the death penalty if convicted—the Supreme Court banned executions for minors in 2005, per the Santa Cruz Sentinel. Instead, he faces life in prison if found guilty. |
Identification of new Neandertal remains at Goyet and their biogeochemical characterization
The reanalysis of the Goyet material comprised (i) the revision of the human skeletal material, (ii) systematic sorting of the faunal collections to check for unidentified human remains (Supplementary Fig. S2), and (iii) a multidisciplinary study of the human remains and their context. Two-hundred and eighty three human remains were identified from different periods, including 96 bone specimens and three isolated teeth identifiable as Neandertal (Supplementary Table S1 and Supplementary Notes S3, S4 and S5). A good number (n = 47) of the bone specimens refit, reducing the total number of isolated Neandertal remains to 64 (Fig. 1 and Supplementary Table S2), of which 10 were directly radiocarbon (14C) dated, 15 were sampled for stable isotope analyses, and 10 for DNA extraction (Table 1 and Supplementary Table S3). Based on their morphology and morphometric characteristics, developmental stage and side for paired elements, as well as the successful recovery of endogenous mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) sequences, the minimum number of individuals (MNI) represented by the Goyet sample is estimated at five (four adolescents/adults and one child represented by a single tooth; Supplementary Note S5 and Supplementary Fig. S3). Although the Neandertal sample includes cranial and postcranial elements (Fig. 1), with long bones best represented and extremities mostly absent, the minimum number of elements (MNE = 35) demonstrates a very low overall skeletal representation. The best represented elements are, in decreasing order, the tibia (six of the eight tibias expected for four adolescents/adults, 75% representation), femur and cranium (50%), humerus and mandible (25%; Supplementary Table S4).
Figure 1: Neandertal remains from the Troisième caverne of Goyet (Belgium). *Designates the specimens that have been directly dated. Scale = 3 cm. Full size image
Table 1: Sample information and results of the 14C and genetic analyses of the Neandertal remains from Goyet. Full size table
Chemical elemental analyses performed together with stable isotope analyses were used to assess collagen preservation in preparation of 14C dating (see Methods). The ecology of the Goyet Neandertals was also investigated using δ13C and δ15N isotope composition of bone collagen28. Direct 14C dates obtained from the newly identified skeletal material place the Goyet Neandertals to ca. 40.5–45.5 ky calBP. However, when the youngest ages, which likely reflect undetected bone collagen contamination, are excluded (Supplementary Note S6), we cannot rule out the possibility that the Goyet Neandertals represent a single chronological group dating to ca. 44–45.5 ky calBP. Although this appears the most parsimonious hypothesis when individual bone associations, taphonomic aspects and similar anthropogenic modifications observed across the sample are taken into account, we retain the conservative range of ca. 40.5–45.5 ky calBP for the Goyet Neandertals in the absence of definitive evidence.
Out of the 10 samples processed for genetic analysis, seven show three distinct complete or almost complete mtDNA lineages (noted 1–3 in Table 1). The newly reconstructed mtDNAs from Goyet were compared with the mtDNA of 54 modern humans, eight previously sequenced Neandertals and one Denisovan individual29,30,31,32,33,34. Phylogenetic relationships were assessed using maximum parsimony and maximum likelihood trees (Fig. 2 and Supplementary Fig. S4), confirming the analysed specimens to fall within the known diversity of Neandertal mtDNA. The Goyet Neandertal mtDNAs appear most closely related to late Neandertal mtDNAs from Central and Western Europe, such as those from the Neandertal type-site (Germany), El Sidrón (Spain) and Vindija (Croatia), which all show only modest genetic variation despite large geographic distances when compared to modern humans. As previously suggested31, this might reflect a low effective population size of Neandertals in general, and for the late Neandertals in particular.
Figure 2: Maximum parsimony tree for the seven analysed Goyet samples that produced complete or almost complete mitochondrial genomes compared to 63 published modern human, Neandertal and Denisovan mtDNAs. Numbers at the main branch nodes represent bootstrap values after 1,000 iterations. Full size image
Taphonomic analysis of the Goyet Neandertal material and anthropogenic modifications
Overall, the Neandertal remains are highly fragmented. Forty-nine percent of the bone specimens (47 out of 96) were refit to at least one other, with the number of specimens per refit set ranging from 2 to 8 (tibia I; Supplementary Fig. S5). Several examples of refits between levels 1 through 3 were also identified. None of the Neandertal bones are complete, although the proximal extremity of a hand phalanx (2878–37) is only slightly eroded (Fig. 1). Cortical surfaces are well preserved and exhibit limited post-depositional modifications. Most long bones fractures involve green breaks, as indicated by smooth margins and spiral fractures35. Traces of peeling may also provide evidence for the fresh bone fracture of a cranial fragment and several ribs (ref. 11; Supplementary Fig. S6). Although bears can produce such traces36, the presence of cutmarks on several ribs (see below) suggests that the most parsimonious hypothesis is that they are anthropogenic. Traces of human chewing37,38 are also suspected on the Neandertal phalanges but are inconclusive (Supplementary Fig. S6). The numerous unambiguous anthropogenic marks on the Goyet Neandertal remains can be attributed to three categories of bone surface modifications (Figs 3, 4, 5, Table 2, and Supplementary Figs S7 and S8):
Cutmarks. Nearly a third of the Neandertal specimens bear cutmarks. The locations of the limited number of cutmarks observed on the upper limb may indicate disarticulation whereas those on the lower limb are consistent with defleshing. Several cutmarks on the internal and external surfaces of the ribs may be connected to evisceration, dismemberment of the thoracic cage and removal of the thoracic muscles. An additional cutmark on the medial side of the mandible, close to the mandibular condyle, appears consistent with dismemberment. Two types of percussion marks (notches and pits) were identified. Observed only on a single radius alongside several femurs and tibias, notches are likely connected to the fracturing of fresh diaphyses and marrow extraction. Percussion pits are common and probably indicate failed attempts at fracturing bones. Both percussion notches and pits were also identified on eight bones (e.g. femur I, Fig. 5). Retouching marks. These marks, found on a femur and three tibias (Supplementary Figs S9–S12), result from retouching the edges of stone tools. The fact that none of the affected areas overlap on adjacent fragments suggests the bones to probably have first been marrow cracked. Femur III shows two retouching zones on the anterior and postero-medial surfaces, both located at mid-shaft. Interestingly, the traces found on the tibias are located in the same areas of the shaft on all three bones (posterior or postero-medial surface at mid-shaft). The retouchers are made on four different Neandertal bones that represent at least three of the four adolescent/adult Neandertal individuals (Supplementary Note S5).
Figure 3: Overview of the anthropogenic modifications observed on the Neandertal remains from the Troisième caverne of Goyet (Belgium). See Supplementary Fig. S8 for individual Neandertal bones with anthropogenic modifications. Skeleton diagrams modified from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Human_skeleton_front_en.svg and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Human_skeleton_back_en.svg using Adobe Illustrator CS4 v. 14.0.0. Full size image
Figure 4: Retouching marks (b1,b2) and cutmarks (c1,c2) present on the Goyet Neandertal bones (example of femur III). (a) femur III in anterior view; (b1,c1) close-up photos; (b2,c2) images obtained using a minidome (see Methods). Full size image
Figure 5: Percussion pits (b1,b2) and percussion notch (c1,c2) present on the Goyet Neandertal bones (example of femur I). (a) femur I in posterior view; (b1,c1) close-up photos; (b2,c2) images obtained using a minidome (see Methods). Full size image
Table 2: Numbers and proportions of Neandertal, horse, reindeer and carnivore remains bearing anthropogenic modifications and toothmarks in the Goyet assemblage. Full size table
While animal bone retouchers are common in European Middle Palaeolithic contexts (e.g., refs 39, 40, 41), Goyet is one of only four sites (Krapina in Croatia42, La Quina and Les Pradelles in France43,16) to have yielded retouchers on Neandertal skeletal elements and the sole to have produced multiple examples (Table 3). At Krapina and Les Pradelles, femur shaft fragments were used as retouchers, whereas the La Quina example is on a parietal fragment. According to the criteria proposed by Mallye et al.40, the blanks used for the Goyet retouchers made on Neandertal bones were most likely green due to the absence of scaled areas, and in addition, two of the five retoucher areas exhibit concentrated and superposed marks which imply prolonged use. The rectilinear morphology of the marks also supports the use of the bones for retouching flint flakes, the most common raw material found at Goyet.
Table 3: Description of the Neandertal bone retouchers from Goyet using the criteria of Mallye et al. 40 and Daujeard et al. 41. Full size table
Comparative taphonomic analysis of the fauna from the Troisième caverne
Due to the large size of the Goyet faunal collection (>30,000 specimens), only a sample from Dupont’s excavation was examined (see Methods; Supplementary Fig. S2 and Supplementary Table S5). The skeletal material analysed corresponds mostly to long bone shaft fragments from various species that were mixed together within the collection and did not appear to have been previously sorted. We focused on remains from levels 3 and 2, which yielded the Neandertal remains, and on material from the same storage trays containing the human remains in order to have an overview of the associated faunal spectrum and assess food procurement and management strategies. Horse and reindeer are by far the most frequent species in the studied assemblage (86% of the 1,556 identified specimens; Supplementary Table S5). No rodent toothmarks were observed, carnivore remains are relatively sparse and carnivore damage is extremely rare on the Neandertal, horse and reindeer remains (Table 2), indicating carnivores to have had limited access to the bone material.
Anatomical profiles reveal numerous similarities between the Neandertal sample on one hand and horse and reindeer on the other (Supplementary Table S6 and Supplementary Fig. S13). The tibia is the most abundant element of all three species, whereas the axial skeleton and extremities of the forelimb and hindlimb are poorly represented. Bones of the hindlimb are better represented for all three species compared to forelimb elements, this is especially the case with the Neandertal material. The only notable difference between the faunal and Neandertal remains is the high representation of cranial elements for the latter. Unfortunately, the absence of contextual data precludes an analysis of the spatial distribution of both the faunal and Neandertal remains within the Troisième caverne.
The most intensely processed Neandertal elements are femurs and tibias (Supplementary Fig. S7), which are also the bones with the highest nutritional content (meat and marrow). The same pattern was documented for horse and reindeer bones. Overall, anthropogenic marks on the Neandertal remains match those most commonly recorded on the faunal material (Supplementary Figs S14–S16). All three taxa were intensively exploited, exhibiting evidence of skinning, filleting, disarticulation and marrow extraction. However, the Neandertal remains stand out as they show a high number of percussion pits (Table 2), which may be linked to the thick cortical structure of Neandertal long bones. Although the Neandertal remains show no traces of burning, the possibility that they may have been roasted or boiled cannot be excluded. The high number of cutmarks and the fact that DNA could be successfully extracted are, however, inconsistent with this possibility44,45,46. Lastly, similar to what has been noted at other sites40,41,47, the Neandertal retouchers are made on fragments of dense bones with comparable mechanical properties to the horse and reindeer bones. At Goyet, as at several French Middle Palaeolithic sites, large bone fragments of medium and large-sized animals were selected40,41,48,49,50,51. Among the Goyet Neandertal material, the largest and thickest fragments were also selected, as was the case at Les Pradelles16 and Krapina42. Interestingly, a femur and tibias of cave bears were also among the retoucher blanks selected by Neandertals at Scladina52.
The observed patterns of faunal exploitation can be interpreted as the selective transport of meat and marrow rich elements to the site that were subsequently intensively processed. However, this apparent pattern may reflect a collection bias favoring the largest and most easily identifiable fragments. Similarities in anthropogenic marks observed on the Neandertal, horse and reindeer bones do, however, suggest similar processing and consumption patterns for all three species. ||||| Members of human subspecies also appear to have fashioned tools out of bones of their own kind, researchers say
Belgian Neanderthals were eating each other 40,000 years ago, new research has shown.
The grisly discovery was made in a cave where scientists found bones bearing marks left by intentional butchering.
Not only were they cannibals, but the Neanderthals appear to have fashioned tools out of the bones of their own kind.
Neanderthals were a human subspecies that lived in Europe and western Asia for hundreds of thousands of years before becoming extinct between 30,000 and 40,000 years ago.
Their disappearance followed the arrival of Homo sapiens, ancestors of people living today, from Africa. Evidence shows that the two kinds of humans interbred, and up to 4% of the DNA of modern Europeans and Asians is believed to have been inherited from Neanderthals.
The bones uncovered from the Goyet caves near Namur in Belgium bore cut marks, pits and notches signifying butchery, said researchers writing in the journal Scientific Reports.
It appears to have been a thorough process. There is evidence of skinning, cutting up, and extraction of bone marrow. Lead scientist Prof Hervé Bocherens, from the University of Tübingen in Germany, said: “These indications allow us to assume that the Neanderthals practised cannibalism. The many remains of horses and reindeer found in Goyet were processed the same way.”
Other hints of Neanderthal cannibalism have emerged previously in Spain and France. Four bones from Goyet clearly suggest that Neanderthals also used the remains of their deceased as tools.
One thighbone and three shinbones were used to shape stone implements. In a similar way, animal bones were often used as knapping tools. ||||| News
06.07.2016 15:31
Cannibalism among late Neandertals in northern Europe
Tübingen researchers in international team uncover grisly evidence that Neandertals butchered their own kind some 40,000 years ago
These Neandertal bone fragments from the Troisième caverne came from at least five individuals. Fragments marked with a star were dated 40,500 - 45,500 years old. Scale shown = 3cm. Photo: Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences.
Neandertal bones from an excavation in Belgium have yielded evidence of intentional butchering. The findings, from the Goyet caves near Namur, are the first evidence of cannibalism among Neandertals north of the Alps. The skeletal remains were radiocarbon-dated to an age of around 40,500 to 45,500 years. Remarkably, this group of late Neandertals also used the bones of their kind as tools, which were used to shape other tools of stone.
Professors Hervé Bocherens and Johannes Krause of Tübingen’s Senckenberg Center for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment, along with Cosimo Posth and Christoph Wissing, also of the University of Tübingen, took part in the investigations. A review of the finds from the Troisième caverne of Goyet combined results from various disciplines; it identified 99 previously uncertain bone fragments as Neandertal bones. That means Goyet has yielded the greatest amount of Neandertal remains north of the Alps.
By making a complete analysis of the mitochondrial DNA of ten Neandertals, the researchers doubled the existing genetic data on this species of humans which died out some 30,000 years ago. They confirmed earlier studies’ results, which showed relatively little genetic variation in late European Neandertals - in other words, that they were closely related to one another. The findings have been published in the latest Scientific Reports.
The Troisième caverne of Goyet was excavated nearly 150 years ago. Today, researchers are able to extract vast amounts of information using current methods - such as precise digital measurement and categorization of the bones, examination of the conditions in which the bone fragments were preserved, as well as isotopic and genetic analysis.
Some Neandertal remains from Goyet have been worked by human hands, as evidenced by cut marks, pits and notches. The researchers see this as an indication that the bodies from which they came were butchered. This appears to have been done thoroughly; the remains indicate processes of skinning, cutting up, and extraction of the bone marrow. “These indications allow us to assume that Neandertals practised cannibalism,” says Hervé Bocherens. But he adds that it is impossible to say whether the remains were butchered as part of some symbolic act, or whether the butchering was carried out simply for food. “The many remains of horses and reindeer found in Goyet were processed the same way,” Bocherens says. Researchers have long debated the evidence of cannibalism among Neandertals, which until now focused on the sites of El Sidrón and Zafarraya in Spain and two French sites, Moula-Guercy and Les Pradelles. The Troisième caverne of Goyet is the first example of this phenomenon from more northern parts of Europe.
Four bones from Goyet clearly indicate that Neandertals used their deceased relatives’ bones as tools; one thigh bone and three shinbones were used to shape stone tools. Animal bones were frequently used as knapping tools. “That Neandertal bones were used for this purpose - that’s something we had seen at very few sites, and nowhere as frequently as in Goyet,” Bocherens says.
The new findings open up many possibilities regarding the way late Neandertals dealt with their dead in this last period before they died out. Bocherens says none of the other Neandertal sites in the region have yielded indications that the dead were dealt with as they were in Goyet. On the contrary, they have yielded burials. Researchers say that, in addition, other northern European Neandertal sites had a greater variety and various arsenals of stone tools. “The big differences in the behavior of these people on the one hand, and the close genetic relationship between late European Neandertals on the other, raise many questions about the social lives and exchange between various groups,” says Bocherens.
Publication:
Rougier, H., Crevecoeur, I., Beauval, C., Posth, C., Flas, D., Wißing, C., Furtwängler, A., Germonpré, M., Gómez-Olivencia, A., Semal, P., van der Plicht, J., Bocherens, H. & Krause, J., 2016. Neandertal cannibalism and Neandertal bones used as tools in Northern Europe. Scientific Reports 6: 29005; doi: 10.1038/srep29005.
The entrance to the Troisième caverne, Belgium. An international team of researchers has identified butchered remains of Neandertals from the cave, indicating cannibalism. The cave was excavated nearly 150 years ago. Photo: Préhistomuseum de Ramioul, © A. C. Pottier. Archaeozoologist Cédric Beauval of Archéosphère (left), palaeoanthropologist Hélène Rougier from California State University Northridge (center) and Isabelle Crevecoeur of the University of Bordeaux (right) identify human remains in the collection of finds from the Goyet caves. Photo: Damien Flas
Various categories of human action upon the Neandertal bones of Goyet: Femur I (left) shows pits and a notch caused by striking, and femur II shows scratches indicative of butchering. Femur III has marks on it consistent with its having been used to knapp stone tools. Scale shown = 1cm
Photo: Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences.
Contact:
Professor Hervé Bocherens
University of Tübingen
Senckenberg Center for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment (HEP)
Faculty of Science
Working group Biogeology
Phone +49 7071 29-76988
herve.bocherens[at]uni-tuebingen.de
The University of Tübingen
Innovative. Interdisciplinary. International. Our guiding principles in research and teaching - from the very beginning. The University of Tübingen has been nurturing great European and international intellects for more than five hundred years. The University has been at the forefront of key developments in the Sciences and Humanities, Medicine and the Social Sciences. Tübingen is one of the world’s foremost locations for neuroscientific research. Along with clinical imaging, translational immunology and cancer research, microbiology and infection research, and molecular plant biology, it makes Tübingen a cutting-edge center of research in the Life Sciences. Further areas of core research are in Geoscience and Environmental Science; Astrophysics, Elementary Particle and Quantum Physics; Archaeology and Anthropology; Language and Cognition; and Education and the Media. The University of Tübingen is one of eleven universities given the title of excellent under the German government’s Excellence Initiative, and ranks well in international comparisons. A number of respected non-university research institutes have established themselves in this attractive and highly innovative research environment, as have ambitious new start-up companies. Our close integration of research and teaching offers optimal conditions for our students. More than 28,000 students from Germany and around the world are currently enrolled at the University of Tübingen, enjoying a broad spectrum of some 300 different study programs.
Senckenberg Nature Research Society
To study and understand nature with its limitless diversity of living creatures and to preserve and manage it in a sustainable fashion as the basis of life for future generations – this has been the goal of the Senckenberg Gesellschaft für Naturforschung for almost 200 years. This integrative geobiodiversity research and the dissemination of research and science are among Senckenberg’s main tasks. Its nature museums display the diversity of life and the earth’s development over millions of years. The Senckenberg Nature Research Society is a member of the Leibniz Association. The Senckenberg Nature Museum in Frankfurt am Main is supported by the City of Frankfurt am Main as well as numerous other partners. Further information at: www.senckenberg.de
Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen
Public Relations Department
Dr. Karl Guido Rijkhoek
Director
Antje Karbe
Press Officer
Phone +49 7071 29-76789
Fax +49 7071 29-5566
antje.karbe[at]uni-tuebingen.de ||||| TüBINGEN, Netherlands, July 6 (UPI) -- Neanderthal bones found in Belgium show signs of intentional butchering, evidence the human ancestors consumed their own.
Unearthed from the Goyet caves near Namur, Belgium, the bones are the first evidence of Neanderthal cannibalism north of the Alps.
The discovery was made possible by the largest haul of Neanderthal bones north of the Alps. Researchers with the University of Tübingen excavated 99 bones and bone fragments, dated between 40,500 to 45,500 years old.
Cuts, notches and marks offer evidence of the butchering process. Some bones showed signs of skinning, slicing and marrow extraction.
"These indications allow us to assume that Neanderthals practiced cannibalism," Hervé Bocherens, a professor at Tübingen's Senckenberg Center for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment, said in a news release. "The many remains of horses and reindeer found in Goyet were processed the same way."
In addition to revealing signs of butchering, the remains featured Neanderthal bones fashioned into tools.
DNA samples were collected from the remains and analyzed, doubling the amount of late Neanderthal genetic data. Their analysis shows late Neanderthals had limited genetic diversity and were increasingly interrelated as they approached extinction some 30,000 years ago. Such findings are in line with previous DNA studies.
No other groups of European Neanderthals in the region have revealed signs of cannibalism, and several excavated communities have revealed signs of burials. Other digs have yielded more sophisticated arsenals of stone tools.
"The big differences in the behavior of these people on the one hand, and the close genetic relationship between late European Neandertals on the other, raise many questions about the social lives and exchange between various groups," concluded Bocherens.
The findings are detailed in a new paper, published this week in the journal Scientific Reports. | – Neanderthals appear to have had quite the appetite for, well, one another, at least according to findings by researchers at the University of Tübingen in Germany. Reporting in the journal Scientific Reports, they say that an analysis of 99 new Neanderthal remains from a cavern in Belgium that date back roughly 40,000 to 45,000 years "provide unambiguous evidence of Neanderthal cannibalism in Northern Europe." What's more, they add that in the period immediately before they died out, there was "considerable diversity in mortuary behavior." In other words, for reasons that can only be guessed, Neanderthals of the not-too-distant past skinned one another, sliced into their bones, and even extracted bone marrow, reports UPI. The team's complete analysis of the mitochondrial DNA of 10 Neanderthals doubles the existing genetic data on a species that died out around 30,000 years ago and confirms previous research suggesting that, due to the low genetic variation, late European Neanderthals were closely related. The Guardian, which calls the latest finding of intentional butchery "grisly," notes that Neanderthal cannibalism has also been suspected in findings in Spain and France, while four bones have suggested that Neanderthals at the very least used the remains of deceased brethren as tools. (Perhaps Neanderthals were tasty; after all, we modern humans may have hunted and eaten them into extinction.) |
Los Angeles, California (Dec. 17, 2009)-Nominees for the 16th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards® for outstanding performances in 2009 in five film and eight primetime television categories and for the SAG honors for film and television stunt ensembles were announced this morning in Los Angeles at the Pacific Design Center's Silver Screen Theater in West Hollywood.
Screen Actors Guild President Ken Howard introduced Michelle Monaghan ("Trucker") and Chris O'Donnell ("NCIS: Los Angeles") who announced the nominees for this year's Actors®. SAG Awards® Committee Chair JoBeth Williams and Vice Chair Daryl Anderson announced the stunt ensemble nominees.
The 16th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards will be simulcast live nationally on TNT and TBS on Saturday, Jan. 23, 2010 at 8 p.m. ET/PT, 7 p.m. CT, and 6 p.m. MT from the Los Angeles Shrine Exposition Center. (Check local listings if viewing via satellite or in HD). Recipients of the stunt ensemble honors will be announced from the SAG Awards red carpet during the TNT.TV and TBS.COM live pre-show webcasts.
Of the top industry accolades presented to performers, only the Screen Actors Guild Awards are selected solely by actors' peers. Two randomly selected panels-one for television and one for film-each comprised of 2,100 Guild members from across the United States, chose this year's Actor and stunt ensemble honors nominees. Integrity Voting Systems, the Awards' official teller, mailed the nominations secret ballots on Nov. 25. Voting was completed by 5:00 p.m. on Monday, Dec. 14, 2009.
Awards ballots will be mailed on Tuesday Dec. 29, 2009. The entire active membership of the Guild across the country, numbering approximately 100,000 actors, will vote on all categories. Ballots must be received by Integrity Voting Systems by noon Thursday, Jan. 21, 2010. Results will be tallied and sealed until the envelopes are opened by the presenters at the 16th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards ceremonies on Jan. 23.
The Screen Actors Guild Post-Awards Gala benefiting the Screen Actors Guild Foundation, will be hosted for the 14th consecutive year by People Magazine and by the Entertainment Industry Foundation (EIF).
The complete list of nominations for the 16th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards follows. A replay of both announcements will be available for viewing on TNT.TV <http://www.tnt.tv> and TBS.COM.
NOTE TO MEDIA:
A downloadable version of this announcement and thumbnail photos of this year's nominees are available to you online at www.sagawards.org.
CONTACTS:
Rosalind Jarrett - Screen Actors Guild Awards - 310-235-1030 publicity@sagawards.org
Eileen Quast - TNT/TBS Los Angeles - 310-788-6797 eileen.quast@turner.com
Susan Ievoli - TNT/TBS New York - 212-275-8016 susan.ievoli@turner.com
Heather Sautter - TNT/TBS Atlanta - 404-885-0746 - heather.sautter@turner.com
16th ANNUAL SCREEN ACTORS GUILD AWARDS® NOMINATIONS
THEATRICAL MOTION PICTURES
Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role
JEFF BRIDGES / Bad Blake - "CRAZY HEART" (Fox Searchlight Pictures)
GEORGE CLOONEY / Ryan Bingham - "UP IN THE AIR" (Paramount Pictures)
COLIN FIRTH / George Falconer - "A SINGLE MAN" (The Weinstein Company)
MORGAN FREEMAN / Nelson Mandela - "INVICTUS" (Warner Bros. Pictures)
JEREMY RENNER / Staff Sgt. William James - "THE HURT LOCKER" (Summit Entertainment)
Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role
SANDRA BULLOCK / Leigh Anne Tuohy - "THE BLIND SIDE" (Warner Bros. Pictures)
HELEN MIRREN / Sofya - "THE LAST STATION" (Sony Pictures Classics)
CAREY MULLIGAN / Jenny - "AN EDUCATION" (Sony Pictures Classics)
GABOUREY SIDIBE / Precious - "PRECIOUS: BASED ON THE NOVEL ‘PUSH' BY SAPPHIRE" (Lionsgate)
MERYL STREEP / Julia Child - "JULIE & JULIA" (Columbia Pictures)
Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role
MATT DAMON / Francois Pienaar - "INVICTUS" (Warner Bros. Pictures)
WOODY HARRELSON / Captain Tony Stone - "THE MESSENGER" (Oscilloscope Laboratories)
CHRISTOPHER PLUMMER / Tolstoy - "THE LAST STATION" (Sony Pictures Classics)
STANLEY TUCCI / George Harvey - "THE LOVELY BONES" (Paramount Pictures)
CHRISTOPH WALTZ / Col. Hans Landa - "INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS" (The Weinstein Company/Universal Pictures)
Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role
PENÉLOPE CRUZ / Carla - "NINE" (The Weinstein Company)
VERA FARMIGA / Alex Goran - "UP IN THE AIR" (Paramount Pictures)
ANNA KENDRICK / Natalie Keener - "UP IN THE AIR" (Paramount Pictures)
DIANE KRUGER / Bridget Von Hammersmark - "INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS" (The Weinstein Company/Universal Pictures)
MO'NIQUE / Mary - "PRECIOUS: BASED ON THE NOVEL ‘PUSH' BY SAPPHIRE" (Lionsgate)
Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture
AN EDUCATION (Sony Pictures Classics)
DOMINIC COOPER / Danny
ALFRED MOLINA / Jack
CAREY MULLIGAN / Jenny
ROSAMUND PIKE / Helen
PETER SARSGAARD / David
EMMA THOMPSON / Headmistress
OLIVIA WILLIAMS / Miss Stubbs
THE HURT LOCKER (Summit Entertainment)
CHRISTIAN CAMARGO / Col. John Cambridge
BRIAN GERAGHTY / Specialist Owen Eldridge
EVANGELINE LILLY / Connie James
ANTHONY MACKIE / Sgt. J.T. Sanborn
JEREMY RENNER / Staff Sgt. William James
INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS (The Weinstein Company/Universal Pictures)
DANIEL BRÜHL / Fredrick Zoller
AUGUST DIEHL / Major Hellstrom
JULIE DREYFUS / Francesca Mondino
MICHAEL FASSBENDER / Lt. Archie Hicox
SYLVESTER GROTH / Joseph Goebbels
JACKY IDO / Marcel
DIANE KRUGER / Bridget Von Hammersmark
MÉLANIE LAURENT / Shosanna
DENIS MENOCHET / Perrier LaPedite
MIKE MYERS / General Ed French
BRAD PITT / Lt. Aldo Raine
ELI ROTH / Sgt. Donny Donowitz
TIL SCHWEIGER / Sgt. Hugo Stiglitz
ROD TAYLOR / Winston Churchill
CHRISTOPH WALTZ / Col. Hans Landa
MARTIN WUTTKE / Hitler
NINE (The Weinstein Company)
MARION COTILLARD / Luisa Contini
PENÉLOPE CRUZ / Carla
DANIEL DAY-LEWIS / Guido Contini
JUDI DENCH / Lillian
FERGIE / Saraghina
KATE HUDSON / Stephanie
NICOLE KIDMAN / Claudia
SOPHIA LOREN / Mamma
PRECIOUS: BASED ON THE NOVEL "PUSH" BY SAPPHIRE (Lionsgate)
MARIAH CAREY / Ms. Weiss
LENNY KRAVITZ / Nurse John
MO'NIQUE / Mary
PAULA PATTON / Ms. Rain
SHERRI SHEPHERD / Cornrows
GABOUREY SIDIBE / Precious
PRIMETIME TELEVISION
Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Television Movie or Miniseries
KEVIN BACON / Lt. Col. Michael R. Strobl - "TAKING CHANCE" (HBO)
CUBA GOODING, JR. / Ben Carson - "GIFTED HANDS: THE BEN CARSON STORY" (TNT)
JEREMY IRONS / Alfred Stieglitz - "GEORGIA O'KEEFFE" (Lifetime)
KEVIN KLINE / Cyrano de Bergerac - "GREAT PERFORMANCES: CYRANO de BERGERAC" (PBS)
TOM WILKINSON / Salter - "A NUMBER" (HBO)
Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Television Movie or Miniseries
JOAN ALLEN / Georgia O'Keeffe - "GEORGIA O'KEEFFE" (Lifetime)
DREW BARRYMORE / Little Edie - "GREY GARDENS" (HBO)
RUBY DEE / Mrs. Harper - "AMERICA" (Lifetime)
JESSICA LANGE / Big Edie - "GREY GARDENS" (HBO)
SIGOURNEY WEAVER / Mary Griffith - "PRAYERS FOR BOBBY" (Lifetime)
Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series
SIMON BAKER / Patrick Jane - "THE MENTALIST" (CBS)
BRYAN CRANSTON / Walter White - "BREAKING BAD" (AMC)
MICHAEL C. HALL / Dexter Morgan - "DEXTER" (Showtime)
JON HAMM / Don Draper - "MAD MEN" (AMC)
HUGH LAURIE / House - "HOUSE" (FOX)
Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Drama Series
PATRICIA ARQUETTE/ Allison Dubois - "MEDIUM" (NBC/CBS)
GLENN CLOSE / Patty Hewes - "DAMAGES" (FX)
MARISKA HARGITAY / Det. Olivia Benson - "LAW & ORDER: SPECIAL VICTIMS UNIT" (NBC)
HOLLY HUNTER / Grace Hanadarko - "SAVING GRACE" (TNT)
JULIANNA MARGULIES / Alicia Florrick - "THE GOOD WIFE" (CBS)
KYRA SEDGWICK / Deputy Chief Brenda Leigh Johnson - "THE CLOSER" (TNT)
Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Comedy Series
ALEC BALDWIN / Jack Donaghy - "30 ROCK" (NBC)
STEVE CARELL / Michael Scott - "THE OFFICE" (NBC)
LARRY DAVID / Himself - "CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM" (HBO)
TONY SHALHOUB / Adrian Monk - "MONK" (USA NETWORK)
CHARLIE SHEEN / Charlie Harper - "TWO AND A HALF MEN" (CBS)
Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Comedy Series
CHRISTINA APPLEGATE / Samantha Newly - "SAMANTHA WHO?" (ABC)
TONI COLLETTE / Tara Gregor - "UNITED STATES OF TARA" (Showtime)
EDIE FALCO / Jackie Peyton - "NURSE JACKIE" (Showtime)
TINA FEY / Liz Lemon - "30 ROCK" (NBC)
JULIA LOUIS-DREYFUS / Christine Campbell - "THE NEW ADVENTURES OF OLD CHRISTINE" (CBS)
Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series
THE CLOSER (TNT)
G.W. BAILEY / Lt. Provenza
MICHAEL PAUL CHAN / Lt. Mike Tao
RAYMOND CRUZ / Det. Julio Sanchez
TONY DENISON / Lt. Andy Flynn
ROBERT GOSSETT / Commander Taylor
PHILLIP P. KEENE / Buzz Watson
COREY REYNOLDS / Sgt. David Gabriel
KYRA SEDGWICK / Deputy Chief Brenda Leigh Johnson
J.K. SIMMONS / Asst. Police Chief Will Pope
JON TENNEY / FBI Special Agent Fritz Howard
DEXTER (Showtime)
PRESTON BAILEY / Cody
JULIE BENZ / Rita Bennett
JENNIFER CARPENTER / Debra Morgan
BRANDO EATON / Jonah Mitchell
COURTNEY FORD / Christine
MICHAEL C. HALL / Dexter Morgan
DESMOND HARRINGTON / Joey Quinn
C.S. LEE / Vince Masuka
JOHN LITHGOW / Arthur Mitchell
RICK PETERS / Elliot
JAMES REMAR / Harry Morgan
CHRISTINA ROBINSON / Astor
LAUREN VÉLEZ / Lt. Maria Laguerta
DAVID ZAYAS / Angel Batista
THE GOOD WIFE (CBS)
CHRISTINE BARANSKI / Diane Lockhart
JOSH CHARLES / Will Gardner
MATT CZUCHRY / Cary Agos
JULIANNA MARGULIES / Alicia Florrick
ARCHIE PANJABI / Kalinda Sharma
GRAHAM PHILLIPS / Zach Florrick
MacKENZIE VEGA / Grace Florrick
MAD MEN (AMC)
ALEXA ALEMANNI / Allison
BRYAN BATT / Salvatore Romano
JARED S. GILMORE / Bobby Draper
MICHAEL GLADIS / Paul Kinsey
JON HAMM / Don Draper
JARED HARRIS / Lane Pryce
CHRISTINA HENDRICKS / Joan Holloway (Harris)
JANUARY JONES / Betty Draper
VINCENT KARTHEISER / Peter Campbell
ROBERT MORSE / Bertram Cooper
ELISABETH MOSS / Peggy Olson
KIERNAN SHIPKA / Sally Draper
JOHN SLATTERY / Roger Sterling
RICH SOMMER / Harry Crane
CHRISTOPHER STANLEY / Henry Francis
AARON STATON / Ken Cosgrove
TRUE BLOOD (HBO)
CHRIS BAUER / Andy Bellefleur
MEHCAD BROOKS / Eggs
ANNA CAMP / Sarah Newlin
NELSAN ELLIS / Lafayette Reynolds
MICHELLE FORBES / Maryann Forrester
MARIANA KLAVENO / Lorena
RYAN KWANTEN / Jason Stackhouse
TODD LOWE / Terry Bellefleur
MICHAEL McMILLIAN / Steve Newlin
STEPHEN MOYER / Bill Compton
ANNA PAQUIN / Sookie Stackhouse
JIM PARRACK / Hoyt Fortenberry
CARRIE PRESTON / Arlene Fowler
WILLIAM SANDERSON / Bud Dearborne
ALEXANDER SKARSGÅRD / Eric Northman
SAM TRAMMELL / Sam Merlotte
RUTINA WESLEY / Tara Thornton
DEBORAH ANN WOLL / Jessica Hamby
Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series
30 ROCK (NBC)
SCOTT ADSIT / Pete Hornberger
ALEC BALDWIN / Jack Donaghy
KATRINA BOWDEN / Cerie
KEVIN BROWN / Dot Com
GRIZZ CHAPMAN / Grizz
TINA FEY / Liz Lemon
JUDAH FRIEDLANDER / Frank Rossitano
JANE KRAKOWSKI / Jenna Maroney
JOHN LUTZ / Lutz
JACK McBRAYER / Kenneth Parcell
TRACY MORGAN / Tracy Jordan
KEITH POWELL / Toofer
CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM (HBO)
LARRY DAVID / Himself
SUSIE ESSMAN / Susie Greene
JEFF GARLIN / Jeff Greene
CHERYL HINES / Cheryl David
GLEE (FOX)
DIANNA AGRON / Quinn Fabray
CHRIS COLFER / Kurt Hummel
PATRICK GALLAGHER / Ken Tanaka
JESSALYN GILSIG / Terri Schuester
JANE LYNCH / Sue Sylvester
JAYMA MAYS / Emma Pillsbury
KEVIN McHALE / Arty Abrams
LEA MICHELE / Rachel Berry
CORY MONTEITH / Finn Hudson
HEATHER MORRIS / Brittany
MATTHEW MORRISON / Will Schuester
AMBER RILEY / Mercedes
NAYA RIVERA / Santana Lopez
MARK SALLING / Puck
HARRY SHUM JR. / Mike Chang
JOSH SUSSMAN / Jacob Ben Israel
DIJON TALTON / Matt Rutherford
IQBAL THEBA / Principal Figgins
JENNA USHKOWITZ / Tina
MODERN FAMILY (ABC)
JULIE BOWEN / Claire Dunphy
TY BURRELL / Phil Dunphy
JESSE TYLER FERGUSON / Mitchell Pritchett
NOLAN GOULD / Luke Dunphy
SARAH HYLAND / Haley Dunphy
ED O'NEILL / Jay Pritchett
RICO RODRIGUEZ / Manny Delgado
ERIC STONESTREET / Cameron
SOFIA VERGARA / Gloria Delgado-Pritchett
ARIEL WINTER / Alex Dunphy
THE OFFICE (NBC)
LESLIE DAVID BAKER / Stanley Hudson
BRIAN BAUMGARTNER / Kevin Malone
CREED BRATTON / Creed Bratton
STEVE CARELL / Michael Scott
JENNA FISCHER / Pam Beesly
KATE FLANNERY / Meredith Palmer
ED HELMS/ Andy Bernard
MINDY KALING / Kelly Kapoor
ELLIE KEMPER / Kellie Erin Hannon
ANGELA KINSEY / Angela Martin
JOHN KRASINSKI / Jim Halpert
PAUL LIEBERSTEIN / Toby Flenderson
B.J. NOVAK / Ryan Howard
OSCAR NUÑEZ / Oscar Martinez
CRAIG ROBINSON / Darryl Philbin
PHYLLIS SMITH / Phillis Lapin-Vance
RAINN WILSON / Dwight Schrute
SAG HONORS FOR STUNT ENSEMBLES
Outstanding Performance by a Stunt Ensemble in a Motion Picture
PUBLIC ENEMIES (Universal Pictures)
STAR TREK (Paramount Pictures)
TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN (Paramount Pictures)
Outstanding Performance by a Stunt Ensemble in a Television Series
24 (FOX)
THE CLOSER (TNT)
DEXTER (Showtime)
HEROES (NBC)
THE UNIT (CBS)
LIFE ACHIEVEMENT AWARD
Screen Actors Guild Awards 46th Annual Life Achievement Award
Betty White
16th ANNUAL SCREEN ACTORS GUILD AWARDS® NOMINATIONS FACT SHEET
ACTORS WITH MULTIPLE NOMINATIONS - THEATRICAL MOTION PICTURES
PENÉLOPE CRUZ (2)
FEMALE SUPPORT - "Nine"
CAST - "Nine"
MO'NIQUE (2)
FEMALE SUPPORT - "Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push' by Sapphire"
CAST - "Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push' by Sapphire"
CAREY MULLIGAN (2)
FEMALE LEAD - "An Education"
CAST - "An Education"
DIANE KRUGER (2)
FEMALE SUPPORT - "Inglourious Basterds"
CAST - "Inglourious Basterds"
JEREMY RENNER (2)
MALE LEAD - "The Hurt Locker"
CAST - "The Hurt Locker"
GABOUREY SIDIBE (2)
FEMALE LEAD - "Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push' by Sapphire"
CAST - "Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push' by Sapphire"
CHRISTOPH WALTZ (2)
MALE SUPPORT - "Inglourious Basterds"
CAST - "Inglourious Basterds"
ACTORS WITH MULTIPLE NOMINATIONS - PRIMETIME TELEVISION
ALEC BALDWIN (2)
MALE COMEDY - "30 Rock"
ENSEMBLE COMEDY - "30 Rock"
STEVE CARELL (2)
MALE COMEDY - "The Office"
ENSEMBLE COMEDY - "The Office"
LARRY DAVID (2)
MALE COMEDY - "Curb Your Enthusiasm"
ENSEMBLE COMEDY - "Curb Your Enthusiasm"
TINA FEY (2)
FEMALE COMEDY - "30 Rock"
ENSEMBLE COMEDY - "30 Rock"
MICHAEL C. HALL (2)
MALE DRAMA - "Dexter"
ENSEMBLE DRAMA - "Dexter"
JON HAMM (2)
MALE DRAMA - "Mad Men"
ENSEMBLE DRAMA - "Mad Men"
JULIANNA MARGULIES (2)
FEMALE DRAMA - "The Good Wife"
ENSEMBLE DRAMA - "The Good Wife"
KYRA SEDGWICK (2)
FEMALE DRAMA - "The Closer"
ENSEMBLE DRAMA - "The Closer"
THEATRICAL MOTION PICTURES WITH MULTIPLE NOMINATIONS
INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS - 3
PRECIOUS: BASED ON THE NOVEL "PUSH" BY SAPPHIRE - 3
UP IN THE AIR - 3
AN EDUCATION - 2
THE HURT LOCKER - 2
INVICTUS - 2
THE LAST STATION - 2
NINE - 2
PRIMETIME TELEVISION PROGRAMS WITH MULTIPLE NOMINATIONS
30 ROCK - 3
THE CLOSER - 3
DEXTER - 3
CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM - 2
THE GOOD WIFE - 2
GREY GARDENS - 2
MAD MEN - 2
THE OFFICE - 2
NOMINATIONS BY STUDIO FOR THEATRICAL MOTION PICTURES
PARAMOUNT PICTURES - 6
THE WEINSTEIN COMPANY - 6
SONY PICTURES CLASSICS - 4
LIONSGATE - 3
UNIVERSAL PICTURES - 3
WARNER BROS. PICTURES - 3
SUMMIT ENTERTAINMENT - 2
COLUMBIA PICTURES - 1
FOX SEARCHLIGHT PICTURES - 1
OSCILLOSCOPE LABORATORIES - 1
NOMINATIONS BY NETWORK FOR PRIMETIME TELEVISION
NBC - 8
CBS - 7
HBO - 7
SHOWTIME- 5
TNT - 5
LIFETIME - 4
ABC - 3
AMC - 3
FOX - 3
FX - 1
PBS - 1
USA NETWORK - 1
NOMINEE SAG AWARDS® HISTORIES
(Note: "Total" tallies include this year's nominations)
THEATRICAL MOTION PICTURES
Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role
JEFF BRIDGES / "Crazy Heart"
Total nominations in this category: 1
Previous Actors®: 0
Total Actor® nominations: 3
Previous Actor® nominations:
2004 - MOTION PICTURE CAST - "Seabiscuit"
2001 - MALE SUPPORT - "The Contender"
GEORGE CLOONEY / "Up in the Air"
Total nominations in this category: 2
Previous Actors®: 4
Total Actor® nominations: 11
Previous Actors®:
1999, 1998, 1997, 1996 - ENSEMBLE IN A DRAMA SERIES - "ER"
Previous Actor® nominations:
2008 - MALE LEAD - "Michael Clayton"
2006 - MOTION PICTURE CAST - "Good Night, and Good Luck"
2006 - MALE SUPPORT - "Syriana"
1997, 1996 - MALE DRAMA SERIES - "ER"
1995 - ENSEMBLE IN A DRAMA SERIES - "ER"
COLIN FIRTH / "A Single Man"
Total nominations in this category: 1
Previous Actors®: 1
Total Actor® nominations: 3
Previous Actors®:
1999 - MOTION PICTURE CAST - "Shakespeare in Love"
Previous Actor® nominations: 1
1997 - MOTION PICTURE CAST - "The English Patient"
MORGAN FREEMAN / "Invictus"
Total nominations in this category: 2
Previous Actors®: 1
Total Actor® nominations: 4
Previous Actors®:
2005 - MALE SUPPORT - "Million Dollar Baby"
Previous Actor® nominations:
2005 - MOTION PICTURE CAST - "Million Dollar Baby"
1995 - MALE LEAD - "The Shawshank Redemption"
JEREMY RENNER / "The Hurt Locker"
Total nominations in this category: 1
Total Actor® nominations: 2
Concurrent nominations this year:
MOTION PICTURE CAST - "The Hurt Locker"
These are Jeremy Renner's first Actor® nominations.
Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role
SANDRA BULLOCK / "The Blind Side"
Total nominations in this category: 1
Previous Actors®: 1
Total Actor® nominations: 2
Previous Actors®:
2006 - MOTION PICTURE CAST - "Crash"
HELEN MIRREN / "The Last Station"
Total nominations in this category: 2
Previous Actors®: 4
Total Actor® nominations: 8
Previous Actors®:
2007 - FEMALE LEAD - "The Queen"
2007 - FEMALE TV MOVIE OR MINISERIES - "Elizabeth I"
2002 - FEMALE SUPPORT - "Gosford Park"
2002 - MOTION PICTURE CAST - "Gosford Park"
Previous Actor® nominations:
2004 - FEMALE TV MOVIE OR MINISERIES - "The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone"
2003 - FEMALE TV MOVIE OR MINISERIES - "Door to Door"
2000 - FEMALE TV MOVIE OR MINISERIES - "The Passion of Ayn Rand"
CAREY MULLIGAN / "An Education"
Total nominations in this category: 1
Total Actor® nominations: 2
Concurrent nominations this year:
MOTION PICTURE CAST - "An Education"
These are Carey Mulligan's first Actor® nominations.
GABOUREY SIDIBE / "Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push' by Sapphire"
Total nominations in this category: 1
Total Actor® nominations: 2
Concurrent nominations this year:
MOTION PICTURE CAST - "Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push' by Sapphire"
These are Gabourey Sidibe's first Actor® nominations.
MERYL STREEP / "Julie & Julia"
Total nominations in this category: 7
Previous Actors®: 2
Total Actor® nominations: 12
Previous Actors®:
2009 - FEMALE LEAD - "Doubt"
2004 - FEMALE TV MOVIE OR MINISERIES - "Angels in America"
Previous Actor® nominations:
2009 - MOTION PICTURE CAST - "Doubt"
2007 - FEMALE LEAD - "The Devil Wears Prada"
2003 - MOTION PICTURE CAST - "Adaptation"
2003 - MOTION PICTURE CAST- "The Hours"
2000 - FEMALE LEAD - "Music of the Heart"
1999 - FEMALE LEAD - "One True Thing"
1997 - MOTION PICTURE CAST- "Marvin's Room"
1996 - FEMALE LEAD - "The Bridges of Madison County"
1995 - FEMALE LEAD - "The River Wild"
Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role
MATT DAMON / "Invictus"
Total nominations in this category: 1
Previous Actors®: 0
Total Actor® nominations: 5
Previous Actor® nominations:
2007 - MOTION PICTURE CAST - "The Departed"
1999 - MOTION PICTURE CAST - "Saving Private Ryan"
1998 - MOTION PICTURE CAST - "Good Will Hunting"
1998 - MALE LEAD - "Good Will Hunting"
WOODY HARRELSON / "The Messenger"
Total nominations in this category: 1
Previous Actors®: 1
Total Actor® nominations: 3
Previous Actors®:
2008 - MOTION PICTURE CAST - "No Country for Old Men"
Previous Actor® nominations:
1997 - MALE LEAD - "The People vs. Larry Flynt"
CHRISTOPHER PLUMMER / "The Last Station"
Total nominations in this category: 1
Previous Actors®: 0
Total Actor® nominations: 3
Previous Actor® nominations:
2006 - MALE TV MOVIE OR MINISERIES - "Our Fathers"
2002 - MOTION PICTURE CAST - "A Beautiful Mind"
STANLEY TUCCI / "The Lovely Bones"
Total nominations in this category: 1
Previous Actors®: 0
Total Actor® nominations: 2
Previous Actor® nominations:
1999 - MALE TV MOVIE OR MINISERIES - "Winchell"
CHRISTOPH WALTZ / "Inglourious Basterds"
Total nominations in this category: 1
Total Actor® nominations: 2
Concurrent nominations this year:
MOTION PICTURE CAST - "Inglourious Basterds"
These are Christoph Waltz's first Actor® nominations.
Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role
PENÉLOPE CRUZ / "Nine"
Total nominations in this category: 2
Previous Actors®: 0
Total Actor® nominations: 3
Previous Actor® nominations:
2009 - FEMALE SUPPORT - "Vicky Cristina Barcelona"
2007 - FEMALE LEAD - "Volver"
VERA FARMIGA / "Up in the Air"
Total nominations in this category: 1
Previous Actors®: 0
Total Actor® nominations: 2
Previous Actor® nominations:
2007 - MOTION PICTURE CAST - "The Departed"
ANNA KENDRICK / "Up in the Air"
Total nominations in this category: 1
Total Actor® nominations: 1
This is Anna Kendrick's first Actor® nomination.
DIANE KRUGER / "Inglourious Basterds"
Total nominations in this category: 1
Total Actor® nominations: 2
Concurrent nominations this year:
MOTION PICTURE CAST - "Inglourious Basterds"
These are Diane Kruger's first Actor® nominations.
Mo'nique / "Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push' by Sapphire"
Total nominations in this category: 1
Total Actor® nominations: 2
Concurrent nominations this year:
MOTION PICTURE CAST - "Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push' by Sapphire"
These are Mo'Nique's first Actor® nominations.
PRIMETIME TELEVISION
Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Television Movie or Miniseries
KEVIN BACON / "Taking Chance"
Total nominations in this category: 1
Previous Actors®: 1
Total Actor® nominations: 5
Previous Actors®:
1996 - MOTION PICTURE CAST - "Apollo 13"
Previous Actor® nominations:
2009 - MOTION PICTURE CAST - "Frost/Nixon"
2004 - MOTION PICTURE CAST - "Mystic River"
1996 - MALE SUPPORT - "Murder in the First"
CUBA GOODING, JR. / "Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story"
Total nominations in this category: 1
Previous Actors®: 1
Total Actor® nominations: 3
Previous Actors®:
1997 - MALE SUPPORT - "Jerry McGuire"
Previous Actor® nominations:
2008 - MOTION PICTURE CAST - "American Gangster"
JEREMY IRONS / "Georgia O'Keeffe"
Total nominations in this category: 2
Previous Actors®: 1
Total Actor® nominations: 2
Previous Actors®:
2007 - MALE TV MOVIE OR MINISERIES - "Elizabeth I"
KEVIN KLINE / "Great Performances: Cyrano de Bergerac"
Total nominations in this category: 2
Previous Actors®: 1
Total Actor® nominations: 3
Previous Actors®:
2008 - MALE TV MOVIE OR MINISERIES - "As You Like It"
Previous Actor® nominations:
2002 - MALE LEAD - "Life as a House"
TOM WILKINSON / "A Number"
Total nominations in this category: 2
Previous Actors®: 2
Total Actor® nominations: 7
Previous Actors®:
1999 - MOTION PICTURE CAST - "Shakespeare in Love"
1998 - MOTION PICTURE CAST - "The Full Monty"
Previous Actor® nominations:
2009 - MALE TV MOVIE OR MINISERIES - "John Adams"
2008 - MALE SUPPORT - "Michael Clayton"
2002 - MOTION PICTURE CAST - "In the Bedroom"
2002 - MALE LEAD - "In the Bedroom"
Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Television Movie or Miniseries
JOAN ALLEN / "Georgia O'Keeffe"
Total nominations in this category: 1
Previous Actors®: 0
Total Actor® nominations: 4
Previous Actor® nominations:
2001 - FEMALE LEAD - "The Contender"
1996 - FEMALE LEAD - "Nixon"
1996 - MOTION PICTURE CAST - "Nixon"
DREW BARRYMORE / "Grey Gardens"
Total nominations in this category: 1
Total Actor® nominations: 1
This is Drew Barrymore's first Actor® nomination.
RUBY DEE / "America"
Total nominations in this category: 1
Previous Actors®: 1
Total Actor® nominations: 3
Previous Actors®:
2008 - FEMALE SUPPORT - "American Gangster"
Previous Actor® nominations:
2008 - MOTION PICTURE CAST - "American Gangster"
Ruby Dee was honored with SAG's Life Achievement Award with her husband Ossie Davis in 2000.
JESSICA LANGE / "Grey Gardens"
Total nominations in this category: 1
Previous Actors®: 0
Total Actor® nominations: 2
Previous Actor® nominations:
1995 - FEMALE LEAD - "Blue Sky"
SIGOURNEY WEAVER / "Prayers for Bobby"
Total nominations in this category: 2
Previous Actors®: 0
Total Actor® nominations: 2
Previous Actor® nominations:
1998 - FEMALE TV MOVIE OR MINISERIES - "Snow White: A Tale of Terror"
Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series
SIMON BAKER / "The Mentalist"
Total nominations in this category: 1
Total Actor® nominations: 1
This is Simon Baker's first Actor® nomination.
BRYAN CRANSTON / "Breaking Bad"
Total nominations in this category: 1
Total Actor® nominations: 1
This is Bryan Cranston's first Actor® nomination.
MICHAEL C. HALL / "Dexter"
Total nominations in this category: 4
Previous Actors®: 2
Total Actor® nominations: 11
Concurrent nominations this year:
DRAMA SERIES ENSEMBLE - "Dexter"
Previous Actors®:
2004, 2003 - DRAMA SERIES ENSEMBLE- "Six Feet Under"
Previous Actor® nominations:
2009 - DRAMA SERIES ENSEMBLE - "Dexter"
2009, 2008, 2007 - MALE DRAMA SERIES- "Dexter"
2006, 2005, 2002 - DRAMA SERIES ENSEMBLE- "Six Feet Under"
JON HAMM / "Mad Men"
Total nominations in this category: 3
Previous Actors®: 1
Total Actor® nominations: 6
Concurrent nominations this year:
DRAMA SERIES ENSEMBLE - "Mad Men"
Previous Actors®:
2009 - DRAMA SERIES ENSEMBLE - "Mad Men"
Previous Actor® nominations:
2009, 2008 - MALE DRAMA SERIES - "Mad Men"
2008 - DRAMA SERIES ENSEMBLE - "Mad Men"
HUGH LAURIE / "House"
Total nominations in this category: 5
Previous Actors®: 2
Total Actor® nominations: 6
Previous Actors®:
2009, 2007 - MALE DRAMA SERIES - "House"
Previous Actor® nominations:
2009 - DRAMA SERIES ENSEMBLE - "House"
2008, 2006 - MALE DRAMA SERIES - "House"
Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Drama Series
PATRICIA ARQUETTE / "Medium"
Total nominations in this category: 3
Previous Actors®: 0
Total Actor® nominations: 3
Previous Actor® nominations:
2007, 2006 - FEMALE DRAMA SERIES - "Medium"
GLENN CLOSE / "Damages"
Total nominations in this category: 2
Previous Actors®: 1
Total Actor® nominations: 5
Previous Actors®:
2005 - FEMALE TV MOVIE OR MINISERIES - "The Lion in Winter"
Previous Actor® nominations:
2008 - FEMALE DRAMA SERIES - "Damages"
1998 - FEMALE TV MOVIE OR MINISERIES - "In the Gloaming"
1996 - FEMALE TV MOVIE OR MINISERIES - "Serving in Silence"
MARISKA HARGITAY / "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit"
Total nominations in this category: 5
Previous Actors®: 0
Total Actor® nominations: 5
Previous Actor® nominations:
2009, 2007, 2006, 2004 - FEMALE DRAMA SERIES - "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit"
HOLLY HUNTER / "Saving Grace"
Total nominations in this category: 3
Previous Actors®: 0
Total Actor® nominations: 4
Previous Actor® nominations:
2009, 2008 - FEMALE DRAMA SERIES - "Saving Grace"
2004 - FEMALE SUPPORT - "Thirteen"
KYRA SEDGWICK / "The Closer"
Total nominations in this category: 5
Previous Actors®: 0
Total Actor® nominations: 9
Concurrent nominations this year:
DRAMA SERIES ENSEMBLE - "The Closer"
Previous Actor® nominations:
2009, 2008, 2007, 2006 - FEMALE DRAMA SERIES - "The Closer"
2009, 2008, 2006 - DRAMA SERIES ENSEMBLE - "The Closer"
Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Comedy Series
ALEC BALDWIN / "30 Rock"
Total nominations in this category: 4
Previous Actors®: 4
Total Actor® nominations: 12
Concurrent nominations this year:
COMEDY SERIES ENSEMBLE - "30 Rock"
Previous Actors®:
2009 - COMEDY SERIES ENSEMBLE - "30 Rock"
2009, 2008, 2007 - MALE COMEDY SERIES - "30 Rock"
Previous Actor® nominations:
2008 - COMEDY SERIES ENSEMBLE - "30 Rock"
2007 - MOTION PICTURE CAST - "The Departed"
2005 - MOTION PICTURE CAST - "The Aviator"
2004 - MALE SUPPORT - "The Cooler"
2001 - MALE TV MOVIE OR MINISERIES - "Nuremberg"
1996 - MALE TV MOVIE OR MINISERIES - "A Streetcar Named Desire"
STEVE CARELL / "The Office"
Total nominations in this category: 4
Previous Actors®: 3
Total Actor® nominations: 9
Concurrent nominations this year:
COMEDY SERIES ENSEMBLE - "The Office"
Previous Actors®:
2008, 2007 - COMEDY SERIES ENSEMBLE - "The Office"
2007 - MOTION PICTURE CAST - "Little Miss Sunshine"
Previous Actor® nominations:
2009 - COMEDY SERIES ENSEMBLE - "The Office"
2009, 2008, 2007 - MALE COMEDY SERIES - "The Office"
LARRY DAVID / "Curb Your Enthusiasm"
Total nominations in this category: 2
Previous Actors®: 0
Total Actor® nominations: 4
Concurrent nominations this year:
COMEDY SERIES ENSEMBLE - "Curb Your Enthusiasm"
Previous Actor® nominations:
2006 - COMEDY SERIES ENSEMBLE - "Curb Your Enthusiasm"
2006 - MALE COMEDY SERIES - "Curb Your Enthusiasm"
TONY SHALHOUB / "Monk"
Total nominations in this category: 7
Previous Actors®: 2
Total Actor® nominations: 7
Previous Actors®:
2005, 2004 - MALE COMEDY SERIES - "Monk"
Previous Actor® nominations:
2009, 2008, 2007, 2003 - MALE COMEDY SERIES - "Monk"
CHARLIE SHEEN / "Two And A Half Men"
Total nominations in this category: 2
Previous Actors®: 0
Total Actor® nominations: 3
Previous Actor® nominations:
2005 - MALE COMEDY SERIES - "Two and a Half Men"
2000 - MOTION PICTURE CAST - "Being John Malkovich"
Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Comedy Series
CHRISTINA APPLEGATE / "Samantha Who?"
Total nominations in this category: 3
Previous Actors®: 0
Total Actor® nominations: 3
Previous Actor® Nominations
2009, 2008 - FEMALE COMEDY SERIES - "Samantha Who?"
TONI COLLETTE / "United States of Tara"
Total nominations in this category: 1
Previous Actors®: 1
Total Actor® nominations: 3
Previous Actors®:
2007 - MOTION PICTURE CAST - "Little Miss Sunshine"
Previous Actor® Nominations
2003 - MOTION PICTURE CAST - "The Hours"
TINA FEY / "30 Rock"
Total nominations in this category: 3
Previous Actors®: 3
Total Actor® nominations: 6
Concurrent nominations this year:
COMEDY SERIES ENSEMBLE - "30 Rock"
Previous Actors®:
2009, 2008 - FEMALE COMEDY SERIES - "30 Rock"
2009 - COMEDY SERIES ENSEMBLE - "30 Rock"
Previous Actor® Nominations:
2008 - COMEDY SERIES ENSEMBLE - "30 Rock"
EDIE FALCO / "Nurse Jackie"
Total nominations in this category: 1
Previous Actors®: 5
Total Actor® nominations: 14
Previous Actors®:
2008, 2003, 2000 - FEMALE DRAMA SERIES - "The Sopranos"
2008, 2000 - DRAMA SERIES ENSEMBLE - "The Sopranos'
Previous Actor® nominations:
2007, 2005, 2002, 2001 - FEMALE DRAMA SERIES - "The Sopranos"
2007, 2005, 2002, 2001 - DRAMA SERIES ENSEMBLE - "The Sopranos"
JULIA LOUIS-DREYFUS / "The new adventures of old christine"
Total nominations in this category: 7
Previous Actors®: 5
Total Actor® nominations: 11
Previous Actors®:
1998, 1997 - FEMALE COMEDY SERIES - "Seinfeld"
1998, 1997, 1995 - COMEDY SERIES ENSEMBLE - "Seinfeld"
Previous Actor® nominations:
2007 - FEMALE COMEDY SERIES - "The New Adventures of Old Christine"
1995, 1996, 1999 - FEMALE COMEDY SERIES - "Seinfeld"
1996 - COMEDY SERIES ENSEMBLE - "Seinfeld"
Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series
THE CLOSER
Total nominations in this category: 4
Previous Actors®: 0
Total Actor® nominations: 4
Previous Actor® nominations:
2009, 2008, 2006 - DRAMA SERIES ENSEMBLE
DEXTER
Total nominations in this category: 2
Previous Actors®: 0
Total Actor® nominations: 2
Previous Actor® nominations:
2009 - DRAMA SERIES ENSEMBLE
THE GOOD WIFE
Total nominations in this category: 1
Total Actor® nominations: 1
This is the "The Good Wife" ensemble's first Actor® nomination.
MAD MEN
Total nominations in this category: 3
Previous Actors®: 1
Total Actor® nominations: 3
Previous Actors®:
2009 - DRAMA SERIES ENSEMBLE
Previous Actor® nominations:
2008 - DRAMA SERIES ENSEMBLE
TRUE BLOOD
Total nominations in this category; 1
Total Actor® nominations: 1
This is the "True Blood" ensemble's first Actor® nomination.
Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series
30 ROCK
Total nominations in this category: 3
Previous Actors®: 1
Total Actor® nominations: 3
Previous Actors®
2009 - COMEDY SERIES ENSEMBLE
Previous Actor® nominations:
2008 - COMEDY SERIES ENSEMBLE
CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM
Total nominations in this category: 2
Previous Actors®: 0
Total Actor® nominations: 2
Previous Actor® nominations:
2006 - COMEDY SERIES ENSEMBLE
GLEE
Total nominations in this category: 1
Total Actor® nominations: 1
This is the "Glee" ensemble's first Actor® nomination.
MODERN FAMILY
Total nominations in this category: 1
Total Actor® nominations: 1
This is the "Modern Family" ensemble's first Actor® nomination.
THE OFFICE
Total nominations in this category: 4
Previous Actors®: 2
Total Actor® nominations: 4
Previous Actors®:
2008, 2007 - COMEDY SERIES ENSEMBLE
Previous Actor® nominations
2009 - COMEDY SERIES ENSEMBLE
SAG HONORS FOR STUNT ENSEMBLES
Outstanding Performance by a Stunt Ensemble in a Television Series
24
Total Stunt Ensemble nominations: 2
Previous Stunt Ensemble Honors: 2008
THE CLOSER
Total Stunt Ensemble nominations: 2
Previous Stunt Ensemble nominations: 2009
DEXTER
This is the "Dexter" stunt ensemble's first nomination.
HEROES
Total Stunt Ensemble nominations: 3
Previous Stunt Ensemble Honors: 2009
Previous Stunt Ensemble nominations: 2008
THE UNIT
Total Stunt Ensemble nominations: 3
Previous Stunt Ensemble nominations: 2008, 2009 ||||| Earlier this week, the trio of films were nominated for Golden Globes and Critics' Choice Movie Awards, and all three have been hauling in their share of year-end honors from critics groups as well.Quentin Tarantino's gory World War II epic earned a supporting nomination for Christoph Waltz and Diane Kruger as well as one for best ensemble. The dramedy "Up in the Air" scored nominations for best lead male actor for George Clooney and best supporting female actor for Vera Farmiga and Anna Kendrick. And "Precious" the harrowing drama about an abused teenager received nominations for best lead female actor Gabourey Sidibe, best supporting female actor for Mo'Nique and best ensemble.Joining Clooney in the best lead male actor race are Jeff Bridges for "Crazy Heart," Colin Firth for "A Single Man," Morgan Freeman for "Invictus" and Jeremy Renner for "The Hurt Locker." Vying with Sidibe for outstanding female actor are Sandra Bullock for "The Blind Side," Helen Mirren for "The Last Station," Carey Mulligan for "An Education" and Meryl Streep for "Julie & Julia."The SAG Awards are the only accolades devoted strictly to honoring actors. The awards are also a prime bellwether for the Academy Awards. Though several actors have earned Oscar nominations without receiving a SAG nod, only one performer, Marcia Gay Harden for 2000's "Pollock," won the Academy Award without being nominated for a SAG.Other nominees for best ensemble in a film are "The Hurt Locker, "An Education" and "Nine."On the TV side, "Glee," "Mad Men," "30 Rock," "Dexter," "True Blood" and "The Good Wife" were among the top nominees. The nominees for best male actor in a drama series are Simon Baker for "The Mentalist," Bryan Cranston for "Breaking Bad," Michael C. Hall for "Dexter," Jon Hamm for "Mad Men" and Hugh Laurie for "House."Nominations for best female actor in a drama series went to Patricia Arquette for "Medium," Glenn Close for "Damages," Mariska Hargitay for "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit," Holly Hunter for "Saving Grace," Julianna Margulies for "The Good Wife," and Kyra Sedgwick for "The Closer." Because there was a tie, there were six nominees instead of the traditional five nominees in this category.Competing for best ensemble in a drama series are the cast of "The Closer," "Dexter," "The Good Wife," "Mad Men" and "True Blood." On the comedy series front, the nominees for best male actor in a comedy series are Alec Baldwin for "30 Rock," Steve Carell in "The Office," Larry David in "Curb Your Enthusiasm," Tony Shaloub for "Monk" and Charlie Sheen for "Two and a Half Men."Vying for best female actor in a comedy series are Christina Applegate for "Samantha Who?" which is no longer on the air, Toni Collette for "The United States of Tara," Edie Falco for "Nurse Jackie," Tina Fey for "30 Rock" and Julia Louis-Dreyfus for "The New Adventures of Old Christine." Rounding out the category of best ensemble nominees: "30 Rock," "Curb Your Enthusiasm," "The Office" and newcomers "Glee" and "Modern Family."Betty White has been announced as this year's lifetime achievement award recipient.The SAG Awards air at 8 p.m. Jan. 23 on both TNT and TBS from the Shrine Exposition Hall in Los Angeles. The two-hour program will be shown tape-delayed on the West Coast.susan.king@latimes.com | – Award-season frontrunners Inglourious Basterds, Precious, and Up in the Air led today’s Screen Actors Guild nominations with three apiece. Included in those nominations for Basterds and Precious is a nod for outstanding performance by a motion picture cast—SAG’s answer to the typical “best picture” category. Other films nominated in that category are An Education, The Hurt Locker, and Nine. The leading TV shows also received three nominations each: 30 Rock, The Closer, and Dexter. The SAG Awards is the only ceremony that honors actors only, the Los Angeles Times reports, and it is considered a bellwether for the Academy Awards—most Oscar nominees are also SAG nominees. Notably missing from the nominations list: Avatar, E! points out, along with The Hangover. The award ceremony airs Jan. 23. For the complete list of nominees, click here. |
WILMINGTON, DEL./TOKYO (Reuters) - Westinghouse Electric Co, a unit of Japanese conglomerate Toshiba Corp, filed for bankruptcy on Wednesday, hit by billions of dollars of cost overruns at four nuclear reactors under construction in the U.S. Southeast.
The bankruptcy casts doubt on the future of the first new U.S. nuclear power plants in three decades, which were scheduled to begin producing power as soon as this week, but are now years behind schedule.
The four reactors are part of two projects known as V.C. Summer in South Carolina, which is majority owned by SCANA Corp, and Vogtle in Georgia, which is owned by a group of utilities led by Southern Co.
Costs for the projects have soared due to increased safety demands by U.S. regulators, and also due to significantly higher-than-anticipated costs for labor, equipment and components.
Pittsburgh-based Westinghouse said it hopes to use bankruptcy to isolate and reorganize around its “very profitable” nuclear fuel and power plant servicing businesses from its money-losing construction operation.
Westinghouse said in a court filing it has secured $800 million in financing from Apollo Investment Corp, an affiliate of Apollo Global Management, to fund its core businesses during its reorganization.
For Toshiba, the filing will help keep the crisis-hit parent company afloat as it lines up buyers for its memory chip business, which could fetch $2 billion. Toshiba said Westinghouse-related liabilities totalled $9.8 billion as of December.
Toshiba said it would guarantee up to $200 million of the financing for Westinghouse. Toshiba shares closed up 2.2 percent but have lost half their value since the nuclear problems surfaced late last year.
The Apollo loan needs court approval and is expected to carry Westinghouse for a year, people familiar with the matter said. The funds would support the company’s global operations, including its healthier services and maintenance businesses, and pay for construction workers on site in Georgia and South Carolina, the people said.
However, the money cannot be used to repay the liabilities stemming from cost overruns and delays at the projects, the people said.
SCANA told investors on a conference call on Wednesday that 5,000 workers would continue working on its South Carolina site for 30 days while the company while it weighed options.
“Our preferred option is to finish the plants. The least preferred option is abandonment,” said SCANA CEO Kevin Marsh.
Southern Co said in a statement it would hold Westinghouse and Toshiba accountable for its contract.
States regulators have approved costs of around $14 billion for each project but Morgan Stanley has estimated the final bill of around $22 billion for the South Carolina project and around $19 billion for the Georgia plant.
POSSIBLE SALE
Westinghouse’s nuclear services business is expected to continue to perform profitably over the course of the bankruptcy and eventually be sold by Toshiba, people familiar with the matter said. They cautioned that the sale process will likely be highly complex and litigious.
The Vogtle Unit 3 and 4 site, being constructed by primary contactor Westinghouse, a business unit of Toshiba, near Waynesboro, Georgia, U.S. is seen in an aerial photo taken February 2017. Georgia Power/Handout via REUTERS
The bankruptcy could embroil the U.S. and Japanese governments, given the scale of the collapse and the $8.3 billion in U.S. government loan guarantees that were provided to help finance the reactors.
A U.S. Department of Energy spokeswoman said the agency expects the parties to honor their commitments.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission said it was inspecting the sites to ensure the facilities met the requirements of the licenses that were issued to units of Southern and SCANA.
Shares of SCANA were down 0.8 percent at $65.64 and Southern Co fell 0.4 percent to $49.90 in trading on the New York Stock Exchange.
NUCLEAR RENAISSANCE
When regulators in Georgia and South Carolina approved the construction of Westinghouse’s AP1000 reactors in 2009, it was meant to be the start of renewed push to develop U.S. nuclear power.
However, a flood of cheap natural gas from shale, the lack of U.S. legislation to curb carbon emissions and the 2011 Fukushima nuclear accident in Japan dampened enthusiasm for nuclear power.
Toshiba had acquired Westinghouse in 2006 for $5.4 billion. It expected to build dozens of its new AP1000 reactors - which were hailed as safer, quicker to construct and more compact - creating a pipeline of work for its maintenance division.
Slideshow (3 Images)
NUCLEAR FALLOUT
Toshiba has said it expects to book a net loss of 1 trillion yen ($9 billion) for the fiscal year that ends Friday, one of the biggest annual losses in Japanese corporate history. Toshiba had earlier forecast a loss of 390 billion.
Toshiba will close the first round of bids for its chip business - the world’s second-biggest NAND chip producer - on Wednesday. A source with knowledge of the issue said that about 10 potential bidders had shown interest, including Western Digital Corp which operates a Japanese chip plant with Toshiba, rival Micron Technology Inc, South Korean chipmaker SK Hynix Inc and financial investors. Tsunakawa said offers for the unit are likely to allow Toshiba to maintain shareholder equity. Toshiba believes the unit will be worth at least 2 trillion yen ($18 billion), he added.
The government-backed Innovation Network Corporation of Japan, and Development Bank of Japan are expected to enter later bidding rounds as part of a consortium, sources said.
A separate source said that Foxconn, the world’s largest contract electronics manufacturer, is expected to place an offer which is likely to be the highest bid. Other sources have said the Japanese government is likely to block a sale to Foxconn due to its deep ties with China. ||||| Strategic Restructuring
Additional Resources
On March 29, Westinghouse Electric Company, LLC, a U.S. company, and certain of its subsidiaries and affiliates, filed voluntary petitions under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code. The Company is seeking to undertake a strategic restructuring as a result of certain financial and construction challenges in its U.S. AP1000power plant projects. Westinghouse has obtained $800 million in debtor-in-possession (DIP) financing from third-party lenders to help fund and protect its core businesses during its reorganization. Under Chapter 11 protection, Westinghouse will operate in the ordinary course of business and has the exclusive right to develop a plan of reorganization.The DIP financing will fund Westinghouse’s core businesses of supporting operating plants, nuclear fuel and components manufacturing and engineering as well as decommissioning, decontamination, remediation and waste management as the company works to reorganize around these strong business units. Existing letters of credit have been cash collateralized in full and will remain in place. The financing will also allow for new letters of credit to be issued.The Company’s operations in its Asia and Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) Regions are not impacted by the Chapter 11 filings. Customers in those regions will continue to receive the high-quality products and services they have come to expect in the usual course as the regions will also be supported by the DIP financing.Westinghouse's core businesses throughout the world remain strong and will continue to operate normally during our reorganization.Additional information can be accessed using the links below.For all media inquiries, please contact:External Communications ManagerPhone: +1 412-374-4744Click the link below to access the press release announcing Westinghouse's lead bidder.For more information about Brookfield, visit its website For claims information and legal filings, please reference the address provided below.c/o KCC2335 Alaska AvenueEl Segundo, CA 90245Toll Free: (877) 634-7177Outside U.S. & Canada: (424) 236-7223 ||||| Toshiba was looking to profit from a global nuclear power revival when it paid $5.4 billion for Westinghouse Electric in 2006. Instead, cost overruns and missed deadlines threaten to sink the Japanese conglomerate.
Westinghouse Electric Co. filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Wednesday, setting off a showdown between the nuclear power company’s Japanese parent and a major U.S. utility, and threatening to drive a wedge between governments of two countries over the fate of industries each considers vital.
Westinghouse had incurred billions in cost overruns related to four nuclear reactors it is building in the southeastern U.S. The runaway costs from the half-finished reactors threatened the viability of its Japanese parent company,... ||||| Among the winners could be China, which has ambitions to turn its growing nuclear technical abilities into a major export. That has raised security concerns in some countries.
The shrinking field is a challenge for the future of nuclear power, and for Toshiba’s revival plans. Its executives have said they would like to sell all or part of Westinghouse to a competitor, but with a dwindling list of potential buyers — combined with Westinghouse’s history of financial calamity — that has become a difficult task.
Toshiba still faces tough questions. The company is also divesting its profitable semiconductor business and plans to sell a stake to an outside investor to raise capital. Most of the companies seen as possible buyers are from outside Japan. Some Japanese business leaders have expressed fears that the sale will further erode Japan’s place in an industry it once dominated.
After writing down Westinghouse’s value, Toshiba said it expected to book a net loss of $9.9 billion for its current fiscal year, which ends on Friday.
“We have all but completely pulled out of the nuclear business overseas,” Toshiba’s president, Satoshi Tsunakawa, said at a news conference. Of the huge loss, he added, “I feel great responsibility.”
Bankruptcy will make it harder for Westinghouse’s business partners to collect money they are owed by the nuclear-plant maker. That mostly affects the American power companies for whom it is building reactors, analysts say. Now, it is unclear whether the company will be able to complete any of its projects, which in the United States are about three years late and billions over budget.
The power companies — Scana Energy in South Carolina and a consortium in Georgia led by Georgia Power, a unit of Southern Company — would face the possibility of new contract terms, long lawsuits and absorbing losses that Toshiba and Westinghouse could not cover, analysts say. The cost estimates are already running $1 billion to $1.3 billion higher than originally expected, according to a recent report from Morgan Stanley, and could eventually exceed $8 billion over all. ||||| TOKYO (AP) — Japan's embattled Toshiba Corp. says its U.S. nuclear unit Westinghouse Electric Co. has filed for bankruptcy protection.
Toshiba said in a statement Wednesday that it filed the chapter 11 petition in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court of New York. The move had been largely expected.
Toshiba is expecting a loss of 500 billion yen ($4.3 billion) for April-December of last year, including a 712.5 billion yen ($6.2 billion) hit from its embattled nuclear business.
Toshiba acquired Westinghouse in 2006 with much fanfare, making nuclear power an important part of its business strategy.
After the March 2011 nuclear disaster in Fukushima, costs of the business have ballooned because of growing safety concerns and regulations, and a souring of sentiment toward nuclear power in some countries, such as Germany. | – More fallout from Toshiba's reported "nuclear" loss last month, this time in the form of a bankruptcy filing. In what the AP says was a "largely expected" move, Toshiba noted in a statement Wednesday that its Westinghouse nuclear unit has submitted a Chapter 11 petition to the US Bankruptcy Court of New York. This announcement leaves up in the air what's going to happen to four still-to-be-finished nuclear reactors in South Carolina and Georgia, which were plagued with surpassed budgets and missed deadlines, per the Wall Street Journal. Reuters reports that Toshiba—which ventured into nuclear waters when it purchased Westinghouse for $5.4 billion in 2006—is expecting to take a $9 billion loss for the year ending March 31. The New York Times details some of the company's challenges in the nuclear industry, including more affordable forms of other alternative energy, such as wind and solar power, as well as safety fears spurred by the 2011 Fukushima disaster. A Westinghouse statement says that while the firm attempts to reorganize under Chapter 11 parameters, it will be kept afloat by special $800 million financing. Reuters notes the bankruptcy will allow Westinghouse to figure out whether it's worth it to keep plugging ahead on the nuclear reactor projects, some of which are only about a third completed. Some say Toshiba's unique situation can be applied more broadly to the nuclear industry in general. "This … illustrates that there is no bright future for nuclear anymore," a consultant tells the Journal, which notes that Westinghouse boldly proclaims "We Are Nuclear Energy" on its site. |
This article is over 3 years old
The Kermadec ocean sanctuary, in the South Pacific and spanning 620,000 sq km, expands an existing reserve surrounding the Kermadec Islands
New Zealand's new ocean sanctuary will be one of world's largest protected areas
New Zealand will create one of the largest marine protected areas in the world, spanning an area of 620,000 sq km.
The Kermadec ocean sanctuary will be one of the world’s most significant fully protected ecosystems, the prime minister of New Zealand, John Key, told the UN general assembly in New York.
The sanctuary is in the South Pacific Ocean, about 1000km north-east of New Zealand, and expands a marine reserve that surrounds a clutch of small islands.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest The Kermadec ocean sanctuary. Photograph: NZ Ministry of Environment/EPA
The area is considered crucial in terms of biodiversity, featuring nearly 35 species of whales and dolphins, 150 types of fish and three of the world’s seven sea turtle species. It is also geologically significant, encompassing the world’s longest chain of submerged volcanoes and the second deepest ocean trench, plunging to 10km underwater – deeper than Mount Everest is tall.
The scale of the sanctuary will dwarf any previous New Zealand protected area, spanning twice the size of the country’s landmass. It will cover 15% of New Zealand’s exclusive economic zone.
Commercial and recreational fishing will be completely banned, as will oil, gas and mineral prospecting, exploration and mining. Key’s government aims to pass legislation establishing the sanctuary next year.
“The Kermadecs is a world-class, unspoiled marine environment and New Zealand is proud to protect it for future generations,” Key said.
“New Zealanders value our coasts and oceans, which are an important part of our culture, economy and environment and we are committed to managing them sustainably.
“Creating protected areas will support not only our own fisheries, but those of our Pacific neighbours, adding to New Zealand’s efforts to help grow Pacific economies through the responsible management of their ocean resources.”
Big fish, big money: the business case for conservation in Australia's marine parks Read more
Nick Smith, New Zealand’s environment minister, said the sanctuary might impose a cost upon the mining industry but it was important to protect the ocean before exploration took place.
“New Zealand needs to use its vast ocean resources for jobs and exports with industries like fishing, aquaculture, minerals and energy, but we also need to set aside special areas where nature comes first and marine life is fully protected,” Smith said.
New Zealand will monitor the area via its navy and satellite technology. The Kermadec region will join three other key areas in the Pacific protected by the US, UK and Australia, with the four reserves covering 3.5m sq km of the ocean.
Matt Rand, director of the Pew Charitable Trust’s global ocean legacy campaign, welcomed Key’s announcement.
“New Zealand will create the gold standard of conservation areas in the Kermadecs, preserving one of the few relatively unspoiled areas of ocean on Earth,” he said.
“This commitment is an exciting step toward meeting global goals to safeguard at least 30% of the ocean through fully protected marine reserves.” ||||| (CNN) New Zealand is creating one of the world's largest fully protected ocean sanctuaries, twice the size of the nation itself, the country's prime minister announced on Monday.
"This is an area twice the size of our land mass and 50 times the size of our largest national park. It is truly a special place and we want to keep it that way," prime minister John Key said at a United Nations summit on Monday.
The 620,000 square kilometre (about 240,000 square miles) ocean sanctuary is in the Kermadec region, to the northeast of New Zealand.
The area is 35 times larger than the country's existing marine reserves and includes the world's longest chain of submerged volcanoes and the second deepest ocean trench, the New Zealand government said
It's also home to several endangered sea turtle species, and serves as an important breeding and feeding ground for seabirds, whales and dolphins.
Balance with business
It's a major step in ocean conservation that has been lauded by environmental groups. Unlike a marine reserve which allows for undersea cables, it will establish a no-take, fully protected zone that essentially limits all activities.
3 cheers for NZ's huge new Kermadec Ocean Sanctuary—home to critical creatures & habitat: http://t.co/0x5zvbSJlx 🎉🎉🎉 pic.twitter.com/lxb5hMM2X6 — CA AcademyOfSciences (@calacademy) September 29, 2015
While Key admitted there will most likely be some impact on the fishing and mining industries, a substantial part of the New Zealand economy, he said the sanctuary had struck the the right balance with economic growth.
"The mining resources are potentially very, very large there because there are unknown quantities of silver and other resources there," Key said but, "on the other side of the coin, we are also trying to protect what is, from a geological perspective, a very important and significant part of the world."
JUST WATCHED NASA: Rising sea levels more dangerous than thought Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH NASA: Rising sea levels more dangerous than thought 02:01
He added: "There's bound to be a mixture of emotions but for New Zealanders have a strong sense of wanting a good economy and one that creates jobs but also preserving our environment and our environmental credentiais. I think this is a nice balance between that."
Cynicism over carbon emissions
Business interests however aren't the only quibble. Some see this is as a maneuver to distract from the country's poor efforts to rein in carbon emissions.
"It's interesting timing for us," Bunny McDiarmid, executive director at Greenpeace New Zealand said. The establishment of a sanctuary had been under discussion for six years and she points out that it is 2015 Paris Climate Conference in early December.
The New Zealand government has outlined a plan to cut carbon emissions by 11% from 1990 levels by 2030, which pales in comparion to other countries that are aiming for cuts of around 30 to 40%.
JUST WATCHED Climate change major issue at U.N. General Assembly Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Climate change major issue at U.N. General Assembly 03:29
"They're going to Paris with a really bad proposal," McDiarmid said.
"On the one hand, they're establishing this wonderful area and on the one hand, they're completely undermining it with completely inadequate action on climate change," she said.
"Oceans will not be protected by it by calling it an ocean sanctuary. If the government is serious about these areas, they need a really strong climate plan and they don't have it."
Rising ocean temperature due to carbon emissions is causing coral to die off and higher acidity of waters creates an inhospital environment for marine life.
"If you think that's all that will take, then we are dreaming," McDiarmid said. "We need to have incredibly good climate agreement out of Paris." | – A marine reserve about 600 miles northeast of New Zealand will get much, much bigger if Prime Minister John Key has his way. Just how big? Well, the Kermadec ocean sanctuary will stretch for 240,000 square miles—an area twice the size of New Zealand's landmass—if government legislation to establish the fully-protected reserve passes next year, Key told a United Nations summit Monday. Given its massive size—the reserve will be one of the largest in the world and cover 15% of the country’s exclusive economic zone—it's no surprise it'll be home to some 35 species of whales and dolphins who breed there, 150 kinds of fish, and three species of sea turtle, reports the Guardian. But the sanctuary in the South Pacific will also house the world's longest chain of underwater volcanoes and an ocean trench so deep that it could hide Mount Everest. As a fully-protected sanctuary, there will be no fishing, mining, or oil, gas, and mineral prospecting allowed. "The mining resources are potentially very, very large there because there are unknown quantities of silver and other resources," Key says, per CNN. But it's more important "to protect what is, from a geological perspective, a very important and significant part of the world." Reactions online have been mostly positive, though the executive director of Greenpeace New Zealand suspects the announcement is to distract from the country's plan to cut carbon emissions by 11% from 1990 levels by 2030; other countries are pledging cuts of 30% to 40%. "On the one hand, they're establishing this wonderful area and on the one hand, they're completely undermining it," she says. If the sanctuary is established, 1.35 million square miles would be protected in the Pacific. |
Arizona State Library, Archives, and Public RecordsArchive-It Partner Since: Apr, 2007Organization Type: State Archives & LibrariesOrganization URL: http://www.lib.az.us/ The Arizona State Library, Archives and Public Records ensures that the Arizona Legislature and Arizonans have access to the information they need today, and the history of Arizona for tomorrow, through partnerships with all types of cultural and public information institutions.The agency provides access to unique historical and contemporary resources in the areas of law, government, genealogy and Arizoniana. The agency includes the official archives of the state, a state and federal publications depository library, the state law library, the Capitol Museum, and a genealogy and maps collection. The agency also offers special services for the visually and physically impaired, services to public libraries, and the public records management program. ||||| This episode of Black Mirror sucks.
In the ultimate backhanded compliment against her own son, mommy blogger Katie Bower took to Instagram to wish her child a happy sixth birthday, and to lament the fact that "his photos never got as many likes."
"From a statistical point of view, he wasn't as popular with everyone out there," she complained in the caption, before musing over whether people liked her younger children better because they were babies. "I saw all that because I want to believe that it wasn't him ... that it was on me. My insufficiency caused this statistical deficit because obviously my Munch should get ALL the love and squinty eyes are totally adorable."
Yikes. In the post, which has since been taken down, Bower admits she's worried that her son will "see the numbers" one day and "have to learn that his value is not in online approval."
Both Instagram and Twitter users responded, horrified that she would put so much value on her kid's internet popularity.
Omg this Instagram mommy blogger is celebrating her sons bday by writing about how out of all her kids, he “statistically” performs the worse on her Instagram. And she’s worried one day it will ruin his self esteem 👀💀 pic.twitter.com/QpFfJwDOab — Stephanie McNeal (@stephemcneal) November 19, 2018
This is like when my parents grounded me because I slacked on producing content and my Klout score dropped to 57 — Prufrock451 (@prufrock451) November 19, 2018
Image: instagram/bowerpowerblog
"one day he will see these numbers"
I am mystified and horrified at the level of self-involvement. — SharkHand (@SharkHand) November 19, 2018
Image: instagram/bowerpowerblog
before she can teach her son 'his value is not in online approval,' she needs to learn that lesson herself. — Lauren Kleiman (@laurkleiman) November 19, 2018
Image: instagram/bowerpowerblog
Oh. My. God. What in the hell?? — christine teigen (@chrissyteigen) November 19, 2018
Some were supportive, but still gently criticized her for her caption.
"All my love, Katie ..." one follower said. "But maybe some things are better left off Instagram."
Image: instagram/bowerpowerblog
Image: instagram/bowerpowerblog
Bower also faced backlash in September, when she admitted that she "had literally no idea what the deal was with 9/11" and that she "didn't realize that people were actually in the buildings."
"It didn't hit me until a year later that so many people died," she captioned a photo of her sons patriotically sitting on a bale of hay.
"Unfortunately there is always backlash when things are twisted and taken out of context," Bower said in an Instagram DM, but said that the messages of support she's received "makes being vulnerable worth it."
Bower says that Weston doesn't know what Instagram is, but knows that "Mommy has a job on the computer that means we have friends all over the world that we have never met in person."
At least he doesn't care about clout! ||||| This is a set of web collections curated by Mark Graham using the Archive-IT service of the Internet Archive. They include web captures of the ISKME.org website as well as captures from sites hosted by IGC.org.These web captures are available to the general public.For more information about this collection please feel free to contact Mark via Send Mail ||||| "His photos never got as many likes. Never got as many comments. From a statistical point of view, he wasn't as popular with everyone out there."
Katie Bower is a DIY and parenting blogger who has more than 52,000 followers on Instagram. Instagram: @bowerpowerblog
Bower and her husband, Jeremy, have five children — four boys and a baby daughter — and live in Georgia.
This week, the second of her four sons turned 6, so Bower posted on Instagram and Facebook to mark his birthday. Katie Bower
BuzzFeed News is choosing not to name or show recent identifying photos of Bower's children, as they are all minors.
The message started out pretty normal, with Bower discussing what she loves about her son: Thankful for [redacted] today. My [redacted] was just the best baby....cuddly and easy...a hard toddler...always on the move and slow to talk which led to lots of crying....and one of the most helpful and sweet hearted little boys. He is quiet except when he’s not....overflowing with unique personality. He hates the car and is a complete homebody. He loves art and sports and is quick with a joke. He loves organizing and quality time and says one day he is gonna be a daddy to one hundred babies 😂 And when he hugs and kisses you, you believe it. ❤️❤️❤️.
She then took a turn. Bower wrote about how her son's photos never got "as many likes" as her other photos, and how she had struggled with that for years. She blamed the lower engagement on everything from Instagram's algorithm to him being lost as a middle child, to his "squinty eyes": Guys I am gonna be perfectly honest...Instagram never liked my Munchkin and it killed me inside. His photos never got as many likes. Never got comments. From a statistical point of view, he wasn’t as popular with everyone out there. Maybe part of that was the pictures just never hit the algorithm right. Part might be because he was “the baby” for a very short amount of time...And people like babies. I say all that because I want to believe that it wasn’t him...that it was on me. My insufficiency caused this statistical deficit because obviously my Munch should get ALL the love and squinty eyes are totally adorable. ☺️ She then asked her followers to give him likes for his birthday: so can we do this right? Because I truly KNOW that my Munch deserves alllllll the likes...whether or not a stranger gives it to them. And on his sixth birthday - I am thankful that I know that...that no matter what other people think of me or my kids or my marriage or my house or my life or my everything...that they are 1000000000x better in real life than any tiny little picture could hold.
Judgment on social media was swift. Full-time mommy bloggers scare me. These women use their kids' faces to promote content and products that they will make money off of. It is the 2018 version of turning your kids into child stars and profiting off of them, and who knows what kind of long-term impact it'll have?!
Many questioned her. If you are an IG mommy blogger who's afraid that how many likes on your child's pictures is going to one day hurt his self esteem, your parenting is horrid and feel bad for your kid.
And some questioned themselves. Damn. That mommy blogger might have cured me off insta forever .....by liking pple's kids selectively si am also part of the problem https://t.co/l9WTAgnavF
In a tearful Instagram story after publishing the post, Bower responded to some of the negative comments. Instagram: @https://www.instagram.com/stories/bowerpowerblog/
Bower said she posted it to describe "personal growth for me" to realize it doesn't matter if her son's posts get less engagement. "I had to learn that the likes do not reflect much to me," she said. "That I had to choose that, because I work with brands that tell you the opposite. I read an article about how to grow your Instagram that tells you the opposite." Bower also said she gets that people don't understand this thinking because blogging is "a weird job," and denied accusations she needed her son to be "liked" on Instagram. "But kids are smart, y'all," she said. "Kids know there's likes on photos and it's very human nature to compare. So for me, my personal growth journey is teaching my kids it doesn't matter." Bower added she shared the post to help others understand that social media isn't everything. "That's the personal growth that I had to learn," she said.
Later on Monday, Bower archived the post and told her followers via story she got rid of it because the "drama was out of hand." She said she will read her son the birthday wishes. Instagram: @https://www.instagram.com/stories/bowerpowerblog/ | – One of Katie Bower's five kids turned 6 on Saturday, and the mommy blogger is taking flak for bemoaning that he's never gotten as many "likes" as the rest of her kids. Bower, who runs the Bower Power blog, also has more than 53,000 followers on Instagram. Over the weekend, she wrote that she was so grateful for Weston, but "Instagram never liked my Munchkin and it killed me inside. His photos never got as many likes. ... From a statistical point of view, he wasn't as popular with everyone out there." She wondered if perhaps this was the case because "people like babies" and he was only the baby for a brief period before the next one came along. "I say all that because I want to believe that it wasn't him...that it was on me. My insufficiency caused this statistical deficit because obviously my Munch should get ALL the love and squinty eyes are totally adorable." The post—which Bower deleted but is saved in screenshots—later clarified that she was simply saying all this because "one day he will see the numbers and have to learn that his value is not in online approval." That hasn't muted the criticism, however, and Mashable rounds up examples of critics who say that Bower is teaching her kids the wrong lessons about social media; model Chrissy Teigen got in on the action, wondering, "What in the hell??" In a followup Instagram post, Bower denied that she needed Weston to be "liked" and said her "personal growth journey is teaching my kids it doesn't matter," per BuzzFeed. Bower also faced backlash in September when she revealed that it took her a year to realize people were in the World Trade Center when the planes hit on 9/11. (Read our favorite Instagram story so far this year.) |
The parents of a missing 23-year-old State High graduate thought they’d be attending his graduation from Penn State this weekend.
As it turned out, Jon Steindorf had not enrolled last fall and had mysteriously vanished on Friday.
Steindorf was reported missing by his family Friday evening, a few hours after they went to his Pugh Street apartment at 4 p.m. to pick him up for Penn State commencement exercises.
His father, Paul Steindorf, said Sunday that he learned his son was not set to graduate this weekend, although Jon Steindorf told his parents that he wrapped up studies in the fall semester and delayed graduation until this spring.
“We thought he’d graduate, and that was our understanding that he completed fall classes and he delayed graduation until now, but the most recent information we received was he was not on the list to graduate,” Paul Steindorf said. “Apparently he wasn’t enrolled this fall.”
Graduation, however, is an afterthought for his parents.
“We love him and want him to come home to us,” Paul Steindorf said. “That’s all that matters to us is that he’s safe at home.”
Jon Steindorf is 5 feet 10 inches, weighing 170 pounds with brown hair and blue eyes. He may be carrying a red backpack and have a black Specialized bicycle with him, according to police.
The last person to be known to have seen Jon Steindorf was his roommate at about 11:30 a.m. Friday.
No one is known to have seen or heard from him since then.
Possible sightings have been reported to State College police.
“We have had calls and checked those out,” Lt. Bradley Smail said Sunday afternoon. “As of this point, nothing.”
He also said friends have checked areas Jon Steindorf liked to go hiking without luck.
Rebecca Sommer, a friend of Jon Steindorf, posted on Twitter and Facebook that his credit and debit cards, keys and phone were found in his apartment, which Paul Steindorf confirmed. She said in the post he was known to wear black-rimmed glasses.
Paul Steindorf thinks his son left behind his credit cards so they couldn’t be used to help track him. He also said it would be unlike his son to leave town for a few days without telling family.
He also doesn’t believe his son had enemies.
“I don’t think we have reason to suspect foul play,” Paul Steindorf said.
Paul Steindorf and his wife, Joanne, said they have searched for their son on their own but have not organized any search party efforts.
They hope it won’t come to that.
“For us, the greatest thing would be to see him walk down the street and come in the door,” Paul Steindorf said. “That’s what everyone is interested in. We love him, and we want him back home.”
Anyone with more information is asked to contact State College police at 234-7150.
Shawn Annarelli can be reached at 235-3928. Follow him on Twitter @Shawn_Annarelli. ||||| State College Police are currently looking for Penn State student and almost-graduate Jon Steindorf (pictured above), according to a press release and various social media posts. Steinforf was reported missing when he did not meet his family to go to his Penn State graduation yesterday at around 4 p.m.
Steindorf is described as a 23-year-old white male, 5’10” tall, 170 lbs with brown hair and blue eyes, according to the police release. He may have his black Specialized bicycle with him and a red backpack. He left his apartment on Pugh Street without any form of identification, credit/debit cards, keys, phone, and potentially money, according to a social media post circulating among Steindorf’s family and friends.
Below are several additional photos of Steindorf provided by his friends. Anyone who knows anything about his whereabouts should contact the State College Police Department at (814) 234-7150. | – Jon Steindorf's parents headed to his apartment Friday to pick him up for Penn State's graduation—only to discover that not only was the 23-year-old not graduating like he'd told them, but that he'd gone missing. The former student hasn't been seen since Friday morning, the Centre Daily Times reports. Nor was he enrolled for classes last fall, despite having told his parents otherwise, dad Paul Steindorf says. "The most recent information we have is that he was not, in fact, still enrolled, and was not on the list to graduate," his mother, Joanne Steindorf, says in a statement, via Onward State. Steindorf was last seen by his roommate at 11:30am on Friday. His credit cards, phone, and keys were all left in his apartment, according to a friend's social media posts, per the Centre Daily Times. "The police have gone through his apartment, talked to his roommate, and took his phone for forensic analysis," Joanne Steindorf tells the Daily Collegian. "We've been in contact with all of his friends, everybody they know, and really are just at a loss as to his whereabouts." Steindorf is a white male, 5'10" with brown hair and blue eyes, and weighs about 170 pounds, Onward State reports. He may have a red backpack and black Specialized bike. "We love him and want him to come home to us," his father says. "That’s all that matters to us, is that he’s safe at home." (Another recent missing student lived on fruit for four days.) |
USC Fraternity Sued Over Student's Suicide ... Hazing Led to My Son's Death
Dead USC Student's Mother Sues Fraternity, Claims Hazing Accident Led to Suicide
EXCLUSIVE
USC student and model Alasdair Russell killed himself after suffering head injuries while pledging a fraternity, and now his mother wants the frat to pay up ... TMZ has learned.
Alasdair attended an October 2016 party at the Phi Kappa Psi frat house, where he was trying to become a member. According to a lawsuit, frat members forced him to drink in excess "to the point of passing out" -- and that's exactly what happened when he fell off a platform, smashed his head and lost consciousness.
In the suit, Alasdair's mother says after he passed out, frat brothers discouraged him from getting medical attention out of fear it would "expose PKP Local's conduct, including but not limited to supplying alcohol to minors and engaging in hazing activities."
The next day, Alasdair complained of concussion-like symptoms -- head pain, vomiting, blurry vision and wooziness. His mother claims PKP bros gave him Adderall and cocaine to keep him in the game ... as far as pledge duties and partying.
According to the suit -- obtained by TMZ -- over the next few months, his personality changed, he dropped out of school in January 2017, and he ended being involuntarily committed ... presumably to a psychiatric facility. Then, on April 1, he took his own life on a beach in Florida ... while wearing a tuxedo.
Alasdair appeared in print and TV ads, including at least one with Naomi Campbell, Rumer Willis, Chelsea Tyler and Evan Ross. His mother is suing Phi Kappa Psi for negligence with regard to drinking, partying and pledge hazing. ||||| Fraternity & Sorority Leadership Development expects all students and fraternities and sororities to uphold their organization and USC values. As demonstrated in the Trojan Greek Standards & Accreditation, membership in a fraternity or sorority is considered to be a privilege, and with this privilege comes the responsibility to perform in a manner exemplifying the ideals of the Trojan: faithful, scholarly, skillful, courageous, and ambitious.
The USC code of conduct, SCampus, outlines prohibited conduct for students and student organizations.
In an effort to demonstrate the current judicial standings of USC fraternities and sororities, Fraternity & Sorority Leadership Development will post the current statuses of organizations who are no longer recognized by the university and their inter/national organization, including their current status with USC Student Judicial Affairs and Community Standards.
Learn more on how to report an incident and the LiveSafe app is also available for reporting.
Interim Suspension
These organizations are unable to conduct chapter operations until an investigation is complete by Student Judicial Affairs and Community Standards.
Beta Theta Pi Fraternity: social suspension for spring 2018 (Interfraternity Council)
Tau Kappa Epsilon Fraternity: interim social suspension as of spring 2018 (Interfraternity Council)
Theta Xi Fraternity: interim suspension as of spring 2018 (Interfraternity Council)
Loss of Recognition/Unrecognized
These organizations are no longer recognized by USC and their respective inter/national organization due to investigation findings. These organizations cannot conduct any chapter operations, including recruitment/intake, socials, meetings, etc.
Please remember that any student who knowingly chooses to affiliate with an organization or group who has been suspended or disbanded is subject to disciplinary action up to and including suspension and expulsion from the university as outlined in Section G. l .IV of the Student Conduct Code. Also note that organizations who do not adhere to university recognition and council expansion processes can jeopardize their eligibility for future recognition opportunities.
Beta Omega Phi Fraternity (Asian Greek Council)
Gamma Epsilon Omega Fraternity (Asian Greek Council)
Alpha Tau Omega Fraternity (Interfraternity Council)
Delta Chi Fraternity (Interfraternity Council)
Phi Gamma Delta Fraternity (Interfraternity Council)
Phi Kappa Psi Fraternity: as of spring 2018 (Interfraternity Council)
Sigma Alpha Epsilon Fraternity (Interfraternity Council)
Sigma Phi Epsilon Fraternity (Interfraternity Council) ||||| Two University of Southern California fraternities are being investigated following allegations of hazing violations.The fraternities were each ordered to halt their USC chapter's operations and all social events until the inquiry is completed by the university's Student Judicial Affairs and Community Standards office."I think there needs to be serious repercussions so that these types of things don't happen," one student told ABC7 in an interview. "Because I know that at other schools, this has resulted in death. It's just very serious and I think college kids don't really realize that yet."Sigma Alpha Mu and Phi Sigma Kappa were suspended as of Friday. Details of the allegations were not disclosed."We continue to work with our young men, our alumni, and the University administration to investigate the situation," Phi Sigma Kappa said in a statement.Sigma Alpha Mu also issued a statement after the suspension."We are currently working closely with the local chapter and the university to better understand the situation," the fraternity's International Headquarters said. "Sigma Alpha Mu does not accept or condone any behavior inconsistent with our values, and we are committed to fully investigating this matter."Two other fraternities were placed on suspension in September amid similar allegations."You know, innocent until proven guilty, but if this is what USC thinks is appropriate, I think that's OK," a student said.Another student described hazing as "a nationwide issue.""It isn't just a 'here' issue. It needs to be taken care of all over," she said, adding that handing down the right punishment is sometimes difficult. "There are a lot of guys or girls who are really invested in some of those things and have found community there, so to completely shut it out, you're taking away community from a lot of people."But it is a serious thing that needs to be taken care of," she said.In a statement, USC said it "takes allegations of hazing very seriously and is investigating.""Organizations that are being investigated for alleged violations of the code of conduct can be instructed to suspend or modify social activities pending results of an investigation," the university said. ||||| A fraternity at the University of Southern California is reportedly facing a lawsuit from a grieving mother who claims her son killed himself after pledging.
Kathleen Russell is suing the USC chapter of Phi Kappa Psi for negligence with regard to drinking, partying and pledge hazing that allegedly resulted in the 19-year-old’s April 2017 death, according to the lawsuit obtained by TMZ on Tuesday.
Get push notifications with news, articles, and more!
Russell, 55, claims members of Phi Kappa Psi “hazed and forced her son to drink in excess to the point of passing out” at an October 2016 party held in the fraternity house. Alasdair allegedly lost consciousness after falling off a platform and hit his head.
In her lawsuit, Russell claims fraternity members discouraged Alasdair from seeking medical attention “out of fear it would expose PKP Local’s conduct, including but not limited to supplying alcohol to minors and engaging in hazing activities.”
TMZ also reported that one day after the incident, Alasdair complained of concussion-like symptoms, including head pain, vomiting, blurry vision and wooziness. Russell alleges fraternity members gave her son Adderall and cocaine.
Over the course of months following the incident, Russell claims Alasdair’s “personality changed, he dropped out of school in January 2017, and he ended being involuntarily committed.” On April 1, 2017, he was found dead in Boca Raton, Florida, where his mother moved in 2016.
At the time of the incident, the Broward Sheriff’s Office said in a statement there was an investigation into Alasdair’s death after his body was found at a property overlooking the ocean, 40 miles north of Miami.
Representatives from the University of Southern California and Phi Kappa Psi did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment.
Gap
Alasdair, who was from the village of Shipbourne in Kent, England, appeared in print and TV ads, including a Gap campaign alongside Naomi Campbell, Rumer Willis and Evan Ross.
“On Saturday April 1st due to tragic circumstances my family lost 19-year-old Alasdair. He was funny, smart and beautiful and meant great deal to anyone who knew him,” his family said in a JustGiving fund set up following his death.
In an April 2017 interview with The Times, Russell described her son as a “dreamer,” adding that “the driving force in his life was to climb Everest. He was very artistic and loved the beautiful views.”
If you or someone you know is considering suicide, please contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255), text “help” to the Crisis Text Line at 741-741 or go to suicidepreventionlifeline.org. | – The mother of a former University of Southern California student who killed himself last year is putting blame on the fraternity that allegedly hazed him. Kathleen Russell claims Phi Kappa Psi members forced 19-year-old pledge Alasdair Russell to "drink in excess to the point of passing out" at an October 2016 fraternity party, per People. The British model from Kent, who appeared in a Gap ad alongside Naomi Campbell, complained of concussion-like symptoms after he fell off a platform and hit his head, losing consciousness, according to a lawsuit. By April 1, 2017, when Alasdair was found dead on a beach in Boca Raton, Fla., where his mother lived, he'd undergone a personality change, dropped out of school, and been "involuntarily committed," the lawsuit reads. Its claim of negligence by Phi Kappa Psi further extends to the events of the day after the party, when Russell says Alasdair complained of pain, blurry vision, and vomiting. Per TMZ, the lawsuit alleges frat members not only discouraged him from seeking medical attention for fear it would expose rule-breaking, "including but not limited to supplying alcohol to minors and engaging in hazing activities," but also gave the teen cocaine and Adderall to keep him partying. The USC website notes Phi Kappa Psi lost its status as a fraternity in March following "hazing and health and safety violations." ABC7 reports four other USC frats have been suspended for hazing allegations in the past two months. (Relatives believe a pledge was hazed before his September death in California.) |
America's most influential right-wing media outlet is facing up to the chilling prospect of having a whistleblower in its own newsroom.
Two internal memos from Fox News' Washington bureau chief, Bill Sammon, have found their way into the public domain in recent days via the liberal website Media Matters.
They detail how the news organisation which bills itself "fair and balanced" has made its reportage anything but.
At issue in the supposedly-secret directives is semantics; specifically the language that Fox correspondents use when discussing two of the most controversial items on Barack Obama's presidential agenda: healthcare reform and climate change. Sammon, according to critics, at least, is shown by the emails to be ensuring that coverage of the Obama agenda carries a hostile bias. That would directly contradict Fox's official policy, which has always been to insist that while commentators such as Bill O'Reilly and Glenn Beck are dyed-in-the-wool conservatives, its news teams are unbiased.
The first leaked memo, made public last week, was sent by Sammon last October, shortly after the US Senate unveiled a health bill which included a provision that would give the public sector a small role in providing medical insurance to Americans.
This provision was widely described at the time as the "public option", but Sammon decreed that Fox should instead describe it using one of three sanctioned phrases: "government-run health insurance", "government option" or "so-called public option".
All three of those phrases had previously been identified by Republican Party researchers as polling badly among the US electorate. The phrase Sammon outlawed ("public option") by contrast inspired positive reaction.
The second intriguing directive from Sammon leaked on Wednesday. It was sent to Fox staff in the run-up to this year's Copenhagen climate summit and ordered that any mention of climate change on the station should be coupled with an expression of scepticism regarding its very existence.
Reporters should "refrain from asserting that the planet has warmed (or cooled) in any given period without IMMEDIATELY pointing out that such theories are based upon data that critics have called into question," the memo read. "It is not our place as journalists to assert such notions as facts, especially as this debate intensifies." All but a tiny handful of global warming sceptics accept that the Earth's temperature has risen in recent decades.
Sceptics instead tend to deny that temperature change is linked to human activity and claim it is, in any case,rendered insignificant when viewed against longer-term trends.
So Fox duly found its journalistic practices in the firing line yesterday. "The network's coverage regularly gives unwarranted weight to anti-scientific claims regarding climate change," read a statement from the Union of Concerned Scientists. Al Gore, for his part, published a blog entry, claiming: "Fox News has consistently delivered false and misleading information to its viewers about the climate crisis. The leaked emails now suggest that this bias comes directly from the executives responsible for their news coverage."
Sammon's line on climate change contradicts that of Fox – and Newscorp – owner Rupert Murdoch. In 2007, Mr Murdoch said: "Climate change poses clear, catastrophic threats. We certainly can't afford the risk of inaction."
The world according to Fox
* On his radio show last week, Fox News commentator Glenn Beck alleged that 10 per cent of the world's Muslims are terrorists, asking "why isn't this receiving coverage?" The reason: the real figure is closer to 0.1 per cent.
* Last November, Fox host Gregg Jarrett told viewers to marvel at "huge crowds" attending the launch of Sarah Palin's memoir Going Rogue. Accompanying his spiel was footage of crowds watching Ms Palin speak. But that footage had been shot during the 2008 presidential election. The network later apologised for misleading viewers, blaming a "production error".
* A year ago, Republican lawmakers held a rally in Washington opposing Barack Obama's healthcare reform. Fox Host Sean Hannity spoke wistfully of the vast turnout of "between 20,000 and 45,000 people". But eagle-eyed viewers noted that crowds depicted on screen were in fact attendees at an entirely different (and much larger) event which had taken place in the Capitol two months earlier. Hannity later apologised for "an inadvertent mistake".
* During the 2004 election, Fox's Chief Political Correspondent, Carl Cameron, quoted Democrat candidate John Kerry calling himself a "metrosexual" who enjoyed getting manicures. One problem: the quote was fabricated. A spokesman for the network later apologised: "Carl Cameron made a stupid mistake, and he has been reprimanded for his lapse in judgement."
Guy Adams ||||| It became apparent on Wednesday that the liberal website Media Matters has an informant planted at Fox News Channel who is leaking memos to it from its Washington DC managing editor Bill Sammon. The website on Wednesday published a copy of a year-old memo sent out by Sammon a year ago within minutes after Fox News reporter Wendell Goler reported that 2000-2009 was the warmest decade on record. In his memo, Sammon said, "Given the controversy over the veracity of climate change data, we should refrain from asserting that the planet has warmed (or cooled) in any given period without IMMEDIATELY [caps are Sammon's] pointing out that such theories are based upon data that critics have called into question. It is not our place as journalists to assert such notions as facts, especially as this debate intensifies." Climatologists have indicated that there is virtually no disagreement among them on the issue of climate change and that the controversy has been created by a small number of political conservatives who confuse weather and climate and who muddle the matter by citing meteorologists or others who have little knowledge of the science of climate.
16/12/2010 | – Fox News had better watch its back now that a snitch is apparently feeding memos to the media exposing it as more of a conservative propaganda machine than a news operation. Two memos leaked to Media Matters revealed orders from the top directing staff to put a right-wing spin on issues of the day. Now America's "most influential right-wing media outlet is facing up to the chilling prospect of having a whistleblower in its own newsroom," notes the Independent. It could be even more cloak-and-dagger. "Liberal website Media Matters has an informant planted at Fox leaking memos, crows Contact Music. One of the memos ordered reporters to use terms implying skepticism of global warming, another dictated terms when referring to the federal health care bill (such as referring to the "so-called public option') which polled poorly with Americans in research conducted by the Republican Party. Both memos came from Bill Sammon, managing editor of Fox News' DC operation. The Union of Concerned Scientists yesterday blasted Fox for its "unscientific" take on global warming. "Emails now suggest that this bias comes directly from the executives responsible for their news coverage," said a statement from the organization. |
A bloom of new jellyfish started appearing in the Gulf of Venice last autumn. They were first detected by a fisherman from Chioggia in north-east Italy when hundreds of the beautiful yellow species filled his nets. News of this reached my team at the University of Salento’s MED-JELLYRISK and VECTORS projects through a citizen-science initiative we run that gets locals to report jellyfish sightings along the Italian coasts.
When photos of the new jellyfish started to filter through, it was immediately clear that we were dealing with a previously undescribed species. To an expert eye, the differences were manifest. The white horseshoe-shaped, ribbon-like gonads, the yellow-ochre colour of the jellyfish umbrella, the pronounced warts on its surface and the long and delicate, transparent arms were distinctive elements. They altogether indicated the jellyfish was something new to any species that’s previously been categorised.
Manifold differences
To investigate further, I asked colleagues from the Chioggia marine station to collect and send me some specimens. As well as being able to describe the anatomical features more distinctively and accurately, we carried out molecular analyses to confirm the jellyfish belonged to a new species within the genus Pelagia. This involved DNA barcoding, which compares short sequences of the jellyfish’s DNA with other, similar, species. It works like the barcode sequence of stripes commercially adopted by supermarket scanners to rapidly distinguish between different products.
Fabrizio Marcuzzo
The new species bears similarities to the Pelagia noctiluca, also known as the mauve stinger for its purple glow and stinging abilities. But there are visible and genetic differences, and the species is distinct from other species contending to be part of the Pelagia species recorded from other areas of the world. This is why we’ve dubbed it the Pelagia benovici.
New kid on the block
The most interesting issue is that the North Adriatic sea is one of the most investigated areas of the world as there are several marine stations in the area. This means that it is impossible for such a conspicuous jellyfish with large population numbers to have remained unnoticed until now. It would hardly be more remarkable to discover a new chimp species in London’s Hyde Park.
Clearly, this jellyfish has been involuntarily introduced by humans. The Gulf of Venice is a renowned hotspot for bioinvasions in the Mediterranean Sea, which are often brought about through the ballast water of ships or when harvested species are transported for aquaculture purposes and additional, unwanted alien species are carried along with them.
Managing their impact
Invasive species can have a large impact on the environment they are entering. It’s hard to say what the exact impact of the new Pelagia benovici will be, as our knowledge of it is still limited and our efforts have so far focused on identifying it. But, in general, non-indigenous species can affect the biodiversity and functioning of an ecosystem, potentially displacing or threatening native species with key roles.
Human activities can also be impaired by new species, where they find suitable conditions to proliferate. They can cause the collapse of fisheries, as happened in the 1980s in the Black Sea, after the introduction of a voracious comb jellyfish. Tourism may also be affected, when stinging species arrive.
This was the case with the large Rhopilema nomadica jellyfish that entered the Mediterranean Sea through the Suez Canal over 20 years ago. In 2011, outbreaks of Rhopilema clogged the cooling pipes of a coastal power plant, forcing energy shutdown in Tel Aviv. Similarly, a nuclear power plant was shut down in Scotland in 2011 and Sweden in 2013 by outbreaks of the moon jellyfish, Aurelia aurita in the North Sea.
Our MED-JELLYRISK project is planning strategies to minimise the impact of jellyfish on human activities like tourism and fishing, as well as health. As more jellyfish are spotted and new species emerge, we are testing out anti-jellyfish nets and how to create safe swimming zones in areas where they find best conditions to proliferate.
Reports of the Pelagia benovici have dried up in the last couple of months, but jellyfish are erratic – they can be present in their millions, disappear and then suddenly come back. Our citizen science projects will help keep tabs on them and we are currently extending them to include all the countries around the Mediterranean with its diverse, ever-changing sea life. ||||| Italy New jellyfish species identified in Gulf of Venice Thousands of yellow jellyfish were spotted in North Adriatic Sea last year and have since disappeared, scientists say The Pelagia benovici jellyfish. Photograph: Fabrizio Marcuzzo
Scientists in Italy say they have discovered a new species of jellyfish in the Gulf of Venice.
Sightings of yellow jellyfish in the North Adriatic Sea were reported to a citizen science project last year, said Ferdinando Boero, a zoologist.
"People were saying, this jellyfish is not in your poster [of the region's known jellyfish], we don't know what it is," said Boero, from the University of Salento. "They were in their thousands. Fishermen had them in their nets. They couldn't fish easily because there were so many jellyfish."
Scientists including Boero set about trawling records of known jellyfish species to try to identify it, but found no match. "It's a new species," said Boero. The team decided on the name Pelagia benovici, after a late colleague, Adam Benovic.
They found that it bore similarities to Pelagia noctiluca, a mauve jellyfish known for its venomous stings, which wiped out a 100,000-strong salmon farm in Northern Ireland in 2007.
Could this new species pose the same kind of threat? "We really don't know because there have not been so many investigations besides what it is. What it does is a completely different story," said Boero. "There have to be more investigations about it."
Quite how Pelagia benovici got to the North Adriatic and within the Venice lagoon remains a mystery. Scientists think it was probably introduced to the area in the ballast water of ships. In the 1980s, Mnemiopsis leidyi, a kind of comb jellyfish known as the sea walnut, was suspected to have been introduced into the Black Sea via the ballast water of merchant ships. Its arrival caused a dramatic decline in the local fish populations.
The jellyfish-spotting project is no longer receiving reports of Pelagia benovici, whose sudden appearance appears to have lasted until March. "But jellyfish have this erratic distribution. They are present in their millions, then they disappear and then they come back," said Boero. ||||| Bayha, K.M. & Dawson, M.N. (2010) New family of allomorphic jellyfishes, Drymonematidae (Scyphozoa, Discomedusae), emphasizes evolution in the functional morphology and trophic ecology of gelatinous zooplankton. Biological Bulletin Woods Hole, 219, 249–67.
Bayha, K.M., Dawson, M.N., Collins, A.G., Barbeitos, M.S. & Haddock, S.H. (2010) Evolutionary relationships among scyphozoan jellyfish families based on complete taxon sampling and phylogenetic analyses of 18S and 28S ribosomal DNA. Integrative and comparative biology, 50 (3), 436–455.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/icb/icq074
Boero, F. (2013) Review of jellyfish blooms in the Mediterranean and Black Sea. Studies and Reviews. General Fisheries Commission for the Mediterranean 92,FAO, Rome, 54 pp.
Boero, F., Bouillon, J., Gravili, C., Miglietta, M.P., Parsons, T. & Piraino, S. (2008) Gelatinous plankton: irregularities rule the world (sometimes). Marine Ecology Progress Series, 356, 299–310.
http://dx.doi.org/10.3354/meps07368
Brotz, L. & Pauly, D. (2012) Jellyfish populations in the Mediterranean Sea. Acta Adriatica, 53, 211–230.
Canepa, A., Fuentes, V., Sabatés, A., Piraino, S., Boero, F. & Gili, J.M. (2014) Pelagia noctiluca in the Mediterranean Sea. In: Pitt, K.A. & Lucas, C.H. (Eds.), Jellyfish Bloom. Springer, Netherlands, pp. 237–266.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-7015-7_11
CIESM (2001) Gelatinous zooplankton outbreaks: theory and practice. CIESM Worshop series 14, Mediterreanan Science Commission, Monaco, 112 pp.
Cornelius, P.F.S. (1996) Pelagia flaveola Eschscholtz 1829 (little brown stinger or little yellow stinger). In: Williamson, J.A., Fenner, P.J., Burnett, J.W. & Rifkin, J.R. (Eds.), Venomous and Poisonous Marine Animals: A Medical and Biological Handbook. University of New South Wales Press, Sydney, pp. 230–231.
Cornelius, P.F.S. (1997) Class Scyphozoa – jellyfish. In: Richmond, M.D. (Ed.), A guide to the seashores of eastern Africa and the western Indian Ocean islands. SIDA/Department for Research Cooperation, SAREC, Stockholm, pp. 122–125.
Cornelius, P.F.S. (2013) Pelagia Péron & Lesueur, 1810. Available from: http://www.marinespecies.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=135262 (accessed 4 March 2014)
Dawson, M.N. (2005) Cyanea capillata is not a cosmopolitan jellyfish: morphological and molecular evidence for C. annaskala and C. rosea (Scyphozoa : Semaeostomeae : Cyaneidae) in south-eastern Australia. Invertebrate Systematics, 19, 361–370.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1071/is03035
Dawson, M.N. & Jacobs, D. (2001) Molecular evidence for cryptic species of Aurelia aurita (Cnidaria, Schyphozoa). Biological Bullettin Woods Hole, 200, 92–96.
http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1543089
Dawson, M.N., Raskoff, K. & Jacobs, D. (1998) Preservation of marine invertebrate tissues for DNA analyses. Molecular Marine Biology and Biotechnology, 7, 145–152.
Folmer, O., Black, M., Hoeh, W., Lutz, R. & Vrijenhoek, R. (1994) DNA primers for amplification of mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit I from diverse metazoan invertebrates. Molecular Marine Biology and Biotechnology, 3, 294–299.
Galil, B.S. (2009) Taking stock: inventory of alien species in the Mediterranean Sea. Biological Invasions, 11, 359–372.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10530-008-9253-y
Galil, B.S. (2012) Truth and consequences: the bioinvasion of the Mediterranean sea. Integrative Zoology, 7, 299–311.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1749-4877.2012.00307.x
Galil, B.S., Kumar, B.A. & Riyas, A.J. (2013) Marivagia stellata Galil and Gershwin, 2010 (Scyphozoa: Rhizostomeae: Cepheidae), found off the coast of Kerala, India. BioInvasions Records, 2, 317–318.
http://dx.doi.org/10.3391/bir.2013.2.4.09
Galil, B.S., Spanier, E. & Ferguson, W. (1990) The Scyphomedusae of the Mediterranean coast of Israel, including two Lessepsian migrants new to the Mediterranean. Zoologisches Mededlingen, 64, 95–105.
Galil, B.S., Gershwin, L.-A., Douek, J. & Rinkevich, B. (2010) Marivagia stellata gen. et sp. nov. (Scyphozoa: Rhizostomeae: Cepheidae), another alien jellyfish from the Mediterranean coast of Israel. Aquatic Invasions, 5, 331–340.
http://dx.doi.org/10.3391/ai.2010.5.4.01
Gershwin, L.-A. & Collins, A.G. (2002) A preliminary phylogeny of Pelagiidae (Cnidaria, Scyphozoa), with new observations of Chrysaora colorata comb. nov. Journal of Natural History, 36, 127–148.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00222930010003819
Gul, S. & Morandini, A.C. (2013) New records of scyphomedusae from Pakistan coast: Catostylus perezi and Pelagia cf. noctiluca (Cnidaria: Scyphozoa). Marine Biodiversity Records, 6, e86.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1755267213000602
Huang, X. & Madan, A. (1999) CAP3: A DNA Sequence Assembly Program. Genome Research, 9, 868–877.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1101/gr.9.9.868
Kramp, P. (1961) Synopsis of the medusae of the world. Journal of the Marine Biological Association UK, 40, 1–469.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0025315400007347
Krasinska, S. (1914) Beiträge zur Histologie der Medusen. Zeitschrift für wissenschaftliche Zoologie, 109, 256–348.
Lewinsohn, C. & Holthuis, L.B. (1978) On a new species of Alpheus (Crustacea Decapoda, Natantia) from the Eastern Medeterranean. Zoologisches Mededlingen, 53, 75–82.
Maas, O. (1903) Die Scyphomedusen der Siboga Expedition. Siboga Expedition Monographs, 11, 1–91.
http://dx.doi.org/10.5962/bhl.title.11300
Maddison, D.R. & Maddison, W.P. (2005) MacClade 4: Analysis of phylogeny and character evolution. Version 4.08a. Available from: http://macclade.org (accessed 25 April 2014).
Mariscal, R. (1974) Nematocysts. In: Muscatine, L. & Lenhoff, H. (Eds.), Coelenterate Biology. Reviews and new Perspectives. Academic Press, New York, pp. 129–178.
Menon, M.G.K. (1930) The Scyphomedusae of Madras and the neighbouring coast. Bulletin of the Madras Government Museum, 3, 1–28.
Mianzan, H.W. & Cornelius, P. (1999) Cubomedusae and Scyphomedusae. In: Boltovskoy, D. (Ed.), South Atlantic Zooplankton. Blackuys Publishers, Leiden, pp. 513–559.
Miller, B.J., Von der Heyden, S. & Gibbons, M.J. (2012) Significant population genetic structuring of the holoplanktic scyphozoan Pelagia noctiluca in the Atlantic Ocean. African Journal of Marine Science, 34 (3), 425–430.
Morandini, A.C. & Marques, A.C. (2010) Revision of the genus Chrysaora Péron & Lesueur, 1810 (Cnidaria: Scyphozoa), Zootaxa, 97, 1–97.
Occhipinti-Ambrogi, A., Marchini, A., Cantone, G., Castelli, A., Chimenz, C., Cormaci, M., Froglia, C., Furnari, G., Gambi, M.C., Giaccone, G., Giangrande, A., Gravili, C., Mastrototaro, F., Mazziotti, C., Orsi-Relini, L. & Piraino, S. (2011) Alien species along the Italian coasts: an overview. Biological Invasions, 13, 215–37.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10530-010-9803-y
Ortman, B.D., Bucklin, A., Pagès, F. & Youngbluth, M. (2010) DNA Barcoding the Medusozoa using mtCOI. Deep Sea Research Part II Topical Studies in Oceanography, 57, 2148–2156.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.dsr2.2010.09.017
Östman, C. (2000) A guideline to nematocyst nomenclature and classification, and some notes on the systematic value of nematocysts. Scientia Marina, 64, 31–46.
http://dx.doi.org/10.3989/scimar.2000.64s131
Östman, C. & Hydman, J. (1997) Nematocyst analysis of Cyanea capillata and Cyanea lamarckii (Scyphozoa, Cnidaria). Scientia Marina, 61, 313–344.
Prieto, L., Armani, A. & Macias, D. (2013) Recent stranding of the giant jellyfish Rhizostoma luteum Quoy and Gaimard, 1827 (Cnidaria: Schyphozoa: Rhizostomeae) on the Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts. Marine Biology, 160, 3241–3247.
Russell, F.S. (1964) On scyphomedusae of the genus Pelagia. Journal of the Marine Biological Association UK, 44, 133–136.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0025315400024693
Russell, F.S. (1970) The medusae of the British Isles II. Pelagic Scyphozoa with a supplement to the first volume on Hydromedusae. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 284 pp. Available from: http://www.mba.ac.uk/nmbl/publications/medusae_2/medusae_2_complete.pdf (accessed 25 April 2014).
Stopar, K., Ramšak, A., Trontelj, P. & Malej, A. (2010) Lack of genetic structure in the jellyfish Pelagia noctiluca (Cnidaria: Scyphozoa: Semaeostomeae) across European seas. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, 57, 417–428.
Tamura, K., Peterson, D., Peterson, N., Stecher, G., Nei, M. & Kumar, S. (2011) MEGA5: Molecular Evolutionary Genetics Analysis using Maximum Likelihood, Evolutionary Distance, and Maximum Parsimony Methods. Molecular Biology and Evolution, 28, 2731–2739.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msr121
Thompson, J.D., Gibson, T.J., Plewniak, F., Jeanmougin, F. & Higgins, D.G. (1997) The CLUSTAL_X Windows Interface: Flexible Strategies for Multiple Sequence Alignment Aided by Quality Analysis Tools. Nucleic Acids Research, 25, 4876–4882.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/nar/25.24.4876
Weill, R. (1934) Contribution a l’étude des Cnidaries et de leurs nématocystes. II: Valeur taxonomique du cnidome. Travaux de la Station Zoologique de Wimereux, 10/11, 348–701. | – A new species of jellyfish has been discovered in the Gulf of Venice—but where it hails from remains a mystery. In a phenomenon known as a bloom, the now-named Pelagia benovici showed up in such force in September that it interfered with fishing; citizen jellyfish trackers who were unable to identify it as a local variety contacted scientists, the Guardian reports. Italian researchers who studied the "beautiful yellow-ochre" jellyfish (stunning image here) speculate in the journal Zootaxa that the species came to the North Adriatic Sea in a ship’s ballast water (carried in tanks to help the ship maintain stability) from its native habitat, where it has yet to be recorded. That sea is "one of the most investigated [marine] areas of the world," writes Stefano Piraino, one of the zoologists involved in the study, in the Conversation, meaning there's no way the jellyfish hails from there and somehow went unnoticed. And as of March, the creature has vanished from the Venice lagoon, but they can "suddenly come back," Piraino writes. Among the other details scientists shared: Pelagia benovici joins what is currently "the only valid species" in the genus Pelagia, a mauve variety that obliterated a $2 million salmon farm in Northern Ireland in a "spectacular attack," the AP reported in 2007. (Jellyfish can cause a great deal of mischief: They are such a nuisance in South Korea that a robot has been designed to destroy them.) |
CLOSE The CDC reported dozens of children have died this flu season, the worst in a decade. Buzz60
Getting a flu shot in Atlanta. (Photo: David Goldman, AP)
The worst flu season in a decade continues to take a grim toll, with 22 more child deaths reported Friday, bringing the total to 84.
The latest update by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also shows that the flu remained widespread in 48 states.
The newly listed child deaths are the most reported in any week this harsh flu season, but they occurred over several weeks, the report said. The overall count of 84 child deaths nearly matches the 86 reported by this time in 2015, during a severe season that ended up killing 148 children, CDC spokeswoman Kristen Nordlund said.
An estimated 56,000 people, mostly older adults, died that year. The CDC does not keep exact counts of adult flu deaths, but said that nearly 10% of all newly reported deaths in the country were due to influenza and pneumonia. Flu hospitalization rates among adults over age 50 also remained high.
More: Flu vaccines just 25% effective against worst strain this year, CDC says
More: Is Tamiflu the answer for your flu? Here's what you need to know
More: Nasty flu season takes toll on small businesses
Friday's report showed one inkling of hope: The rate at which people visited doctors for flu-like illness stopped rising, after reaching peaks not seen since the swine flu pandemic of 2009. Such visits made up 7.5% of trips to doctors, down slightly from 7.7% the week before.
"It would be too early to say that we’ve peaked," Nordlund said. "We need to see more data, but that is something we are definitely hopeful for."
In a press conference Thursday about flu vaccines, acting CDC director Anne Schuchat said this flu season is far from over, even after 12 weeks of unusually persistent coast-to-coast misery.
“This flu season continues to be extremely challenging and intense, with very high levels of office visits for flu and hospitalization rates, all indications that flu activity is high and likely to continue for several more weeks,” she said.
This year's flu vaccines are preventing about 36% of flu cases in vaccinated people but are working better, at a rate of about 59%, in young children, the CDC reported Thursday. The vaccines are less effective, about 25%, at preventing illnesses caused by the dominant virus behind this year's epidemic, the report said.
But most of the children who have died this year have not been vaccinated, the report said. That also has been true for children who died in previous years, according to a study published this week.
Read or Share this story: https://usat.ly/2o9xOwM ||||| Story highlights 3 out of 4 children who died from the flu had not gotten a flu vaccine
Widespread activity continues through 48 states
(CNN) The deaths of 22 more children from flu-related causes were reported Friday by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in its weekly surveillance report.
Those deaths bring the total number of children reported to have died to 84 since October, when the current flu season began. Three out of four children who died from the flu had not gotten a flu vaccine, the acting director of the CDC said in a Thursday news conference.
"We continue to recommend parents get their children vaccinated even though it's late in the season," Dr. Anne Schuchat said. The season may continue for several more weeks, she added.
Caused by viruses, flu is a contagious respiratory illness with mild to severe symptoms that can sometimes lead to death.
The vaccine's performance in children was "better than we expected," Schuchat said after the release of the CDC's midseason report of estimated vaccine effectiveness rates.
Read More ||||| FILE - In this Friday, Feb. 9, 2018 file photo, lab technologist Sharda Modi tests a patient's swab for a flu infection at Upson Regional Medical Center in Thomaston, Ga. On Friday, Feb. 16, 2018, a report... (Associated Press)
FILE - In this Friday, Feb. 9, 2018 file photo, lab technologist Sharda Modi tests a patient's swab for a flu infection at Upson Regional Medical Center in Thomaston, Ga. On Friday, Feb. 16, 2018, a report released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows the flu season may finally be... (Associated Press)
FILE - In this Friday, Feb. 9, 2018 file photo, lab technologist Sharda Modi tests a patient's swab for a flu infection at Upson Regional Medical Center in Thomaston, Ga. On Friday, Feb. 16, 2018, a report released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows the flu season may finally be... (Associated Press) FILE - In this Friday, Feb. 9, 2018 file photo, lab technologist Sharda Modi tests a patient's swab for a flu infection at Upson Regional Medical Center in Thomaston, Ga. On Friday, Feb. 16, 2018, a report... (Associated Press)
NEW YORK (AP) — This nasty flu season, which has been worsening for months, may finally be leveling off.
Health officials on Friday said about 1 of every 13 visits to the doctor last week was for fever, cough and other symptoms of the flu. That's no reason for health officials to celebrate yet: That level is among the highest in a decade. But it's no worse than last week, and flu activity had been increasing each week since November.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the number of states reporting heavy flu patient traffic also held steady at 43.
"I thought I was going to die, I really did," said Ben Bland, a 39-year-old event planner in Kansas City, Missouri, who was hospitalized this week with pneumonia on top of flu. "My lungs felt like they were going to blow out of my esophagus every time I coughed. My body ached head to toe."
This season started early and has been driven by a formidable type of flu that tends to put more people in the hospital and cause more deaths. Making a bad year worse, this year's flu vaccine is estimated to be only 25 percent effective against that type.
Preliminary data released last week indicated patient traffic in doctor's offices and emergency rooms this flu season was as bad as the height of the swine flu pandemic in 2009. However, the CDC readjusted its numbers down slightly in Friday's report, meaning this season did not quite match the intensity of flu activity seen in October 2009.
Still, it counts as one of the most intense flu seasons in more than a decade. Whether it's peaking or not, flu season is still expected to last several more weeks.
Flu remained widespread in every state except Oregon and Hawaii, the same as the week before.
The new report shows that for the week ending Jan. 27, just under 10 percent of U.S. death certificates listed flu or pneumonia. That's down slightly from the week before, but indicates that flu remains at epidemic levels. There are as many as 56,000 deaths connected to the flu during a bad year.
Eighty-four children have died so far. Childhood deaths have reached about 170 in a season.
Figures released Thursday suggest this year's flu vaccine has worked fairly well in children younger than 9. That was no comfort to parents with sick children.
"It's horrible to see your child with a breathing mask on her face," said Stephanie Calvin, 35, of Mandeville, Louisiana, whose 4-year-old daughter has been sick with flu for four weeks.
Calvin has taken four days of unpaid time off work to care for her daughter, alternating with her husband. "I'm a mom before I'm an employee. It was a no-brainer to stay home with her."
___
Johnson reported from Seattle. | – Another 22 children have been reported killed by the flu, and experts say that, despite signs of slowing, this flu season—the worst in a decade—is still far from over, USA Today reports. According to CNN, 84 children have died from the flu since October. That's two fewer than at this point in the 2015 flu season, which ended up killing 148 children. While the CDC reported Thursday that this year's flu vaccine was only 36% effective overall, it was more effective—59%—in children, which CDC acting director Dr. Anne Schuchat says is "better than we expected." So far, three out of four children killed this flu season hadn't received a flu vaccination. Schuchat says parents should still get their children vaccinated even though we're months into the flu season. While the flu is still widespread in 48 states— Hawaii and Oregon are the exceptions—it's possible this flu season has peaked. The rate of people seeing a doctor for flu-like symptoms decreased from 7.7% to 7.5% from the previous week. It's the first week since November that flu activity has decreased, the AP reports. "It would be too early to say that we’ve peaked," CDC spokesperson Kristen Nordlund says. "We need to see more data, but that is something we are definitely hopeful for." Nearly 10% of all deaths in the US in mid-February were related to the flu and pneumonia. A 39-year-old man hospitalized with both this week in Missouri says he thought he was going to die: "My lungs felt like they were going to blow out of my esophagus." (Inside the six-day decline of a teacher diagnosed with the flu.) |
The Local/at · 17 Feb 2014, 09:50
Published: 17 Feb 2014 09:50 GMT+01:00
Abba has pulled the sequined rug from under its fantastic stage outfits, with Björn Ulvaeus confessing that they were designed to fend off the Swedish taxman.
"In my honest opinion we looked like nuts in those years," Björn Ulvaeus said in the new publication Abba: The Official Photo Book. "Nobody can have been as badly dressed on stage as we were."
The reason for all that glitter, Ulvaeus said, was to keep the Swedish tax authorities (Skatteverket) at bay, as stage clothes need not to be wearable in everyday life.
IN PICTURES: Abba's stage outfits over the years
While Ulvaeus was referring to spandex and satin in the 1970s and 80s, the Swedish tax code has changed little. One of Sweden's Nordic Noir personalities, crime thriller writer Camila Läckberg, as late as last year had her knuckles rapped for trying to pass off normal fashion as work wear in her tax returns.
"It should be fantasy clothes, pure stage clothes, clothes with the employer's name or logo, or other attributes that make them clearly distinguishable from ordinary garments," Sweden's Tax Agency (Skatteverket) said in an official statement about Läckberg's outfits from Zara, Karen Millen, and Hope.
ALSO IN PICTURES: Abba through the years
In order for a business owner to get money back on taxes for clothes purchases, the official verdict stated, it was not enough that a dress or a blouse makes it into one of the many public events or television shows in which Läckberg has participated.
VIDEO: Swedes sing their favourite Abba songs with The Local reporter Oliver Gee
Story continues below…
Nor have Swedish celebrities escaped the eye of the taxman in other matters either. In fact, Ulvaeus himself at one point was accused of not paying taxes to the tune of 85 million kronor ($13.2 million) between 1999 and 2000. He went on to successfully appeal the claim.
Joey Tempest, of Europe and Final Countdown fame, was also pulled into a quagmire of tax evasion claims. Most notoriously, however, legendary film maker Ingmar Bergman left Sweden after being accused of tax crimes in 1976. ||||| The glittering hotpants, sequined jumpsuits and platform heels that Abba wore at the peak of their fame were designed not just for the four band members to stand out – but also for tax efficiency, according to claims over the weekend.
Reflecting on the group's sartorial record in a new book, Björn Ulvaeus said: "In my honest opinion we looked like nuts in those years. Nobody can have been as badly dressed on stage as we were."
And the reason for their bold fashion choices lay not just in the pop glamour of the late 70s and early 80s, but also in the Swedish tax code.
According to Abba: The Official Photo Book, published to mark 40 years since they won Eurovision with Waterloo, the band's style was influenced in part by laws that allowed the cost of outfits to be deducted against tax – so long as the costumes were so outrageous they could not possibly be worn on the street.
In 2007 Ulvaeus was wrongly accused of failing to pay 85m kronor (£7.9m) in Swedish taxes between 1999 and 2005, and went on to successfully appeal against the decision.
"I am of course very happy that I have been informed in writing that I have always done the right thing concerning my taxes," he said after the court victory. | – The crazy outfits ABBA was known for donning onstage? The band didn't pick them solely based on a love of sequins and spandex, the Guardian reports. Rather, Björn Ulvaeus confesses in a new book, Swedish tax laws allowed bands to deduct money spent on costumes, as long as the clothing in question was so insane it could never be worn in any other capacity than onstage. "In my honest opinion we looked like nuts in those years," Ulvaeus admits in ABBA: The Official Photo Book. "Nobody can have been as badly dressed on stage as we were." In order to be deducted from taxes, clothing "should be fantasy clothes, pure stage clothes, clothes with the employer's name or logo, or other attributes that make them clearly distinguishable from ordinary garments," according to an official statement procured by the Local. |
Story highlights Air Force pilot backs up first officer during medical emergency last December
A United 737 from Iowa to Colorado diverted to Nebraska
Pilot handled radio communication with controllers while first officer landed the plane
He kept quiet about his story until recently when reporters asked the Air Force
(CNN) It sounds like the plot from an old movie: airline crew members make this passenger announcement, "Is anyone on board a pilot?"
That was the situation last December when Air Force Capt. Mark Gongol and his wife and daughter were traveling from Des Moines to Denver aboard a United Boeing 737.
"I looked at my wife and she looked back at me and she said, 'I think you should ring the call button,'" Gongol told CNN on Tuesday.
JUST WATCHED Hero passenger steps in for ailing pilot Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Hero passenger steps in for ailing pilot 03:38
Gongol, who pilots B1B Lancer bombers, already could tell something was wrong. Flight attendants were rushing to the front of the aircraft. One was carrying a first-aid kit.
When Gongol reached the cockpit, it was clear the captain was in trouble. Passengers and crew were helping him out of the cockpit. A cot had been set up. The captain looked pale and clammy from an apparent heart attack, Gongol remembered.
Read More ||||| Photos Capt. Mark Gongol, 13th Air Support Operations Squadron assistant director of operations at Fort Carson, helped land a commercial 737 Dec. 30 when the pilot had a medical emergency. The pilot has since recovered, due in part to Gongol helping with the emergency landing. Gongol is a B-1B Lancer pilot. (U.S. Air Force photo)
Download HiRes
Local USAF pilot helps in airline emergency
Posted 5/28/2014 Updated 5/28/2014 Email story Print story
by Staff Sgt. Jacob Morgan
21st Space Wing Public Affairs
5/28/2014 - PETERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Colo. -- Most people think that during an emergency they would step up to the plate, act heroically and do what is necessary to save lives. Thinking one might rescue the day is a noble thought, but acting on those thoughts is what sets the nation's heroes above noble thinkers.
"Every pilot thinks 'what would I do if this all goes wrong' on an aircraft they are not controlling," said Capt. Mark Gongol, 13th Air Support Operations Squadron assistant director of operations at Fort Carson. "As a professional courtesy, we all know the aircrew at civilian airlines are extremely qualified, but as a byproduct of being a pilot, I always have a heightened awareness when flying. However, I never thought I would be in the situation I was in."
Gongol, his wife and daughter were on the way from Des Moines International Airport Dec. 30, with 151 other passengers and six crewmembers, after spending the holidays with his family. To him and his family, the day was just like any other, except for a short flight delay due to weather.
Approximately 30 minutes into the flight, Gongol, a B-1B Lancer pilot, noticed the engines power down to idle. The thoughts immediately started jumping through his head; there were a variety of reasons why the engines would shut down to idle, none of them categorized as normal. Slowly, the aircraft began to descend and turn right.
"Over the public address system; a flight attendant asked if there was a doctor on board the plane," said Gongol. "A few more calls went out for medical professionals and the flight attendants were all hurrying to first class with their beverage carts and a first-aid kit."
At that moment, Gongol thought it was a medical emergency with a first class passenger, his instincts told him to stay seated and stay out of the way. A fourth call went out, "are there any non-revenue pilots on board, please ring your call button." Immediately, Gongol realized the pilot was the patient. He looked to his wife; as she gave him a nod, Gongol pressed his button and headed toward the flight deck.
Arriving at the flight deck, Gongol saw four flight attendants and two passenger nurses assembling a make-shift bed, medical kits were strewn across the ground and the captain of the aircraft was seated in his chair, eyes dilated, sweaty, clammy and disoriented. Gongol immediately thought the pilot was suffering some serious cardiac trauma.
"After they moved the pilot, I was asked by the first officer, 'are you a pilot,' which was quickly followed with 'what do you fly,'" said Gongol. "I knew she was in a serious situation and that question gave her five seconds to judge if I would be useful. I also had about five seconds to asses her, 'was she panicking, or was she OK to fly the aircraft?' We both finished our silent assessments, she made the right judgment and told me to close the door and have a seat."
From there, Gongol was calm and collected, and the first officer decided that he would be most useful to talk on the radios, back her up on the aircraft's checklists and look for anything going wrong.
Having been an aircraft commander, Gongol is used to making decisions, but he knew the best way to get the aircraft down safely was to play a support role to the first officer and make things as normal as possible for her. In an emergency situation, he had the ability to place himself outside the situation for a second and make the right call.
"She was calm, but you could tell she was a little stressed, who wouldn't be," said Gongol. "At the beginning, I interrupted her flow of operations, but we figured everything out extremely quickly. She was very impressive."
There were hundreds of issues the two pilots talked through on the aircraft while descending; cabin pressure, approach, contact with air traffic control, visual cues and programming of the auto-pilot were just a few, said Gongol. At about 500 feet above ground level, the first officer hand-flew the approach to a normal touchdown.
After landing, the first officer turned to Gongol and asked if he knew where to taxi, she had never been to the Omaha airport before. Taken aback by how cool, calm and collected the first officer had acted without knowing the airport, Gongol remembered landing at the airport before pilot training.
"Surprisingly, taxiing was the most stressful part of the day for the first officer," said Gongol. "She had never taxied a 737 before and the ATC had no idea that the pilot was the reason for the emergency. We had to make a quick decision that her switching to the pilot's seat and taxiing the aircraft without the training was necessary to save the captain's life."
As the air stairs went down and the aircraft was shut down, Gongol and the first officer talked through the decisions they had just made. Gongol assured the first officer that every decision she made would be backed up by him; he would have taken the exact same actions had he been in her place.
The captain of the aircraft is recovering well and contacted Gongol directly to thank him. The crew of the aircraft, the two nurses who provided first aid for the captain and the first officer have all been in contact with Gongol; an emergency has brought together several strangers as friends.
"I saw nothing but the finest professionalism under pressure out of the flight attendants, the nurses and the first officer," said Gongol. "Everyone aboard the aircraft remained calm, there is no doubt in my mind this contributed above all else to our successful outcome. In my opinion any military pilot would have done the exact same thing I did."
Gongol acted in an emergency situation, realized the role that would be best for him to play and while he was not necessarily the direct savior to more than 150 souls on board, his actions contributed to a safe ending to the flight. His actions, according to him, do not make him a hero. However, they surely place him one step above a noble thinker. | – Capt. Mark Gongol flies B-1B bombers for the Air Force in his day job, and he had to put those skills to use while returning from vacation with his family on a United jet. About a half-hour into the flight from Des Moines to Denver, Gongol figured something was wrong when he noticed the engines idle as the plane made an unscheduled turn, explains Gizmodo. Flight attendants rushed to the cockpit, one with a first-aid kit, as the call went out asking if there was a doctor, then a pilot, aboard. "I looked at my wife and she looked back at me and she said, 'I think you should ring the call button,'" Gongol tells CNN. It turns out the United captain had suffered an apparent heart attack, and the first officer was at the controls. They made a quick decision to keep it that way, with Gongol handling the radio communication and backing up the first officer. "She was calm, but you could tell she was a little stressed, who wouldn't be," Gongol recounts to Air Force Space Command. "At the beginning, I interrupted her flow of operations, but we figured everything out extremely quickly. She was very impressive." They made it down safely in Omaha, and Gongol was able to tell the first officer where to taxi because he'd flown at the airport in his own training. Later, he got a thank-you call from the stricken pilot, who is recovering. As for his wife, "she said, 'Good job.'" |
Missing OKC Valedictorian, "They've Found Nothing So Far" Posted: Wednesday, June 19, 2013 8:54 PM EDT Updated: Wednesday, July 10, 2013 9:44 PM EDT
An Oklahoma City Valedictorian has been missing in Ecuador since Sunday. 18-year-old August Reiger was on vacation with his parents and younger brother in Banos, Ecuador when he went missing while on a hike. "Unbelievable, he was (only) a few minutes ahead of us on the trail," Chris Reiger, the teens father said from his hotel room in Ecuador.
According to Reiger, the local police, US embassy and more than 150 volunteers have been searching for the teen on foot and by helicopter, "They've found nothing so far," Reiger said. Authorities believe August either fell, or was kidnapped, "Nobody is asking for a ransom or something like that," Reiger added, "Everybody is both shocked and baffled, because they say nothing like this has happened in this town."
August graduated from Classen School of Advanced studies in Oklahoma City this past May. "He has got a full ride scholarship to OU, he's got a full life waiting for him in OKC," Friend and classmate Brodie Lockett added, "He was top of his class in everything."
As the search continues in Ecuador Chris Reiger said they will now be putting up missing persons posters in the surrounding areas. "He didn't have anything with him, no money, no water," Reiger said. He plans to stay in Ecuador until his son is found. ||||| An 18-year-old who graduated as a valedictorian from Classen School of Advanced Studies last month went missing Sunday while on vacation with his family in Ecuador, his father said.
August Reiger was hiking with his younger brother and his parents, Chris and Randa Reiger, in the town of Banos when he disappeared Sunday afternoon, Chris Reiger said.
The family was staying at a hotel in the town, which Chris Reiger described as an Ecuadorean version of Aspen, Colo. The family decided to go hiking Sunday.
“On the mountain there are a couple of trails that take a few hours to make a loop,” Chris Reiger said. “We started on one of them.”
August Reiger went ahead of the rest of the family. When they reached a pavilion at the top of the mountain, they did not see him, and he was not at the hotel when they returned.
“The really strange thing about it is that whatever happened to him was in the space of five or 10 minutes,” Chris Reiger said. “We were right behind him.”
Chris Reiger said local authorities quickly responded and began searching the trails. Dozens of firefighters from across the country are involved in the search, along with the Ecuadorean military. Family members also have been in contact with the U.S. State Department.
“He couldn't have gotten lost,” Reiger said. “The whole of the trail is visible from the hotel. You can see the way down. It's a tourist area, and it's not isolated at all. If he was hurt on the trail, somebody would have seen him.”
Chris Reiger said authorities think August Reiger either fell off a steep ledge just off the trails or was kidnapped, although Banos is considered a safe part of the country.
“A kidnapping has never happened here before,” Chris Reiger said.
The family has not received any ransom calls, which would be likely in an abduction.
“He speaks Spanish,” Chris Reiger said. “He's 18. If he had wanted to go on that hike alone, I would have been fine with it.”
An American who now lives in Ecuador and works with the local authorities has been serving as a translator and keeping the family updated on the search.
“There is a massive search effort,” Chris Reiger said.
“That is the only thing I feel good about. They are doing everything they can.”
School community's reaction
An Oklahoma City Public Schools spokeswoman said August Reiger graduated last month from Classen School of Advanced Studies. He was an International Baccalaureate Valedictorian, a National Merit Scholar and an Oklahoma Academic Scholar.
Dixie Hendrix, president of the parent-teacher association at Classen School of Advanced Studies, said she knows August Reiger and his family.
“He's just a really great kid,” Hendrix said. “About 30 to 40 kids are valedictorian at Classen because so many of them have a high GPA. That means he was certainly a kid who was responsible, did everything he needed to do. He is also a funny guy.”
Hendrix said word of August Reiger's disappearance is spreading among the school community on social media.
“He's not the kind of kid that would cause anybody any trouble at all,” she said. | – Just last month, August Reiger graduated as a valedictorian from his Oklahoma advanced studies high school. On Sunday, the 18-year-old National Merit Scholar was hiking in Ecuador during a family vacation with his parents and younger brother when he disappeared. He had gone on ahead by himself, and was not at the mountaintop when his family arrived—nor at their hotel when they got back, the Oklahoman reports. "Whatever happened to him was in the space of five or 10 minutes. We were right behind him," his father says. "He couldn't have gotten lost. The whole of the trail is visible from the hotel. You can see the way down. It's a tourist area, and it's not isolated at all. If he was hurt on the trail, somebody would have seen him." Police, firefighters, volunteers, and even the military have been searching for the teen; his father says authorities believe he either fell off a ledge or was kidnapped. But Banos, where the family was vacationing, is considered safe and has never seen a kidnapping, his father says, and the family has not received a ransom call. The family has hired an American who lives in Ecuador as a translator (August, his dad notes, speaks Spanish) and his father tells KOKH-TV he'll remain in the country until the teen is found. Says one of August's friends, "He has got a full ride scholarship to OU; he's got a full life waiting for him in OKC." |
Donald Trump and his running mate Mike Pence traveled to Baton Rouge on Friday to visit flood victims and relief crews and survey damage from the catastrophic flooding that has killed 13 people and displaced thousands across South Louisiana.
In a speech in Michigan Friday evening, Trump talked about his "tour of the suffering and devastation in Louisiana."
"We mourn for the lives lost, and we pledge our help, comfort and support to every last person in need. To the people of Louisiana: We are with you, and we will always be with you," he said. "In my visit, I saw not only the suffering of our people, but also their strength, courage and unbeatable spirit. Their spirit will overcome."
The GOP presidential nominee's campaign was largely mum on Trump's rather spontaneous visit -- with word only circulating late Thursday night and no formal acknowledgement.
President Barack Obama has faced criticism for not traveling to Louisiana since the flood to view the damage first-hand. He later announced that he will travel to Baton Rouge on Tuesday. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's campaign has not announced plans to visit Louisiana.
In a post on Facebook, Clinton said she had been in touch with Edwards and she urged people to donate to flood relief efforts. But her campaign has not announced plans to travel to Louisiana.
"My heart breaks for Louisiana, and right now, the relief effort can't afford any distractions," she wrote. "The very best way this team can help is to make sure Louisianans have the resources they need.
"These are our friends, our family members, our community — and they’re counting on us to reach out with open arms right now," she added.
Trump was greeted by several Louisiana Republicans when his "Trump"-emblazoned private jet landed at the Baton Rouge Airport shortly after 9 a.m., including Congressmen Steve Scalise and Garret Graves, Lt. Gov. Billy Nungesser and Attorney General Jeff Landry.
+2 Louisiana's Republican delegation casts votes at GOP Convention Louisiana status as the "sportsman's paradise" was touted during the roll call at the GOP Co…
Gov. John bel Edwards, a Democrat, said Thursday night that he had not been notified of Trump's plans to visit.
"Donald Trump hasn't called the governor to inform him of his visit. We welcome him to LA, but not for a photo-op," the governors office said in a statement. "Instead we hope he'll consider volunteering or making a sizable donation to the LA Flood Relief Fund to help the victims of this storm."
Edwards has also defended Obama's decision not to travel here yet, saying that it would be a drain on resources.
Trump traveled across flood-ravaged areas through East Baton Rouge, Livingston and Ascension parishes, where piles of debris -- water-logged couches, mattresses, baby cribs, televisions and other items -- line the roadway.
Can't see video? Click here.
Outside Greenwell Springs Baptist Church, Trump supporters wearing T-shirts and hats with his name emblazoned on them, waited for his arrival and cheered as he walked around surveying flood relief efforts there.
"We knew you would be here for us," people in the crowd shouted, winning his attention.
Trump waved and then went into the crowd to sign autographs and shake hands.
"I came here to help," he said.
Jeff Nolan of Denham Springs said he lost his home in the flood. As Trump approached the crowd, Nolan had the real estate mogul sign the back of his shirt.
"The only thing I've got left is my truck," Nolan said. "But material things can be replaced."
Already a Trump supporter, Nolan said it meant "everything" to him that the presidential candidate was there to see the damage and relief efforts first-hand.
"Trump is the man," he said. "He's the real deal."
Nolan said he supports Trump because he's a straight shooter who isn't worried about being politically correct.
"America needs to wake up," he said. "And don't let the Hispanic votes take the election."
Rae Anne Antoone of Central said she lost everything in the flood. Her home took on four feet of water and she estimated that 85 percent of her family has been affected.
"When we heard Donald Trump was coming, no one could keep us away," Antoone said.
She said she hasn't watched TV in several days but she was confident that Trump would visit Louisiana if he knew about the damage here. She was among the group yelling for Trump to come over to the crowd, and she was proud that she got a chance to shake his hand.
+2 Hillary Clinton 'closely monitoring' flooding in Louisiana Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton on Tuesday said via social media that she's …
"I knew he would come," she said. "I feel like I know him, and now I feel like he knows me."
Her husband, Eric, got Trump's autograph on his hat. A small business owner, Eric Antoone said he wants to start a new business to help with the clean-up from the flood. He had hoped to speak to Trump directly about his plan and pitch a potential reality TV show based around it, but he didn't get a chance in the brief exchange.
"It's just so much more than they realize," he said.
Later in St. Amant, Trump thanked first responders and others at an emergency operations center in hard-hit Ascension Parish.
"Great job, great job fellas," Trump told national guardsmen, shaking hands in a brief stop.
James LeBlanc, chief of the St. Amant Volunteer Fire Department, said he lost everything in the flood.
"My heart is completely shattered, but my faith is strong," he said. "This is Day 8 and the St. Amant community still has 30 percent of its residents underwater."
He said visits by Trump and other high-profile officials "means more to people than anything."
"It means so much to the people living here that the word is out that we were heavily impacted."
Nungesser said he also appreciated the attention from Trump.
"This is a red state," Nungesser said. "He didn't need to come here to win the presidency. He came here because he cares.
"And I think that speaks volumes for the people of Louisiana, and you can see it in their eyes as we walk through the neighborhoods. It truly makes a difference that someone cares enough to come."
The fact that Trump planned to stop at this seemingly out-of-the-way strip mall in Ascension Parish was kept under wraps before the candidate's noon arrival.
Even amid ongoing emergencies and the visit by the GOP presidential nominee, LeBlanc and his lieutenants rolled out the red carpet for the lone reporter in the office that Trump visited, offering food, drinks and a work station, WiFi included.
Landry said Trump's visit benefits the state amid criticism that record flooding was sparking little interest in the national news media.
"Trump's presence here brings that media back into focus," he said. "I think it is huge, huge. I think it is great for Louisiana."
Appearing on CNN, former U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu, a Democrat, also praised Trump's trip.
"I want to thank Mr. Trump for coming to Louisiana," she said. "He brought attention to our state and we need that now."
Landrieu said she hopes that Clinton and Obama will make similar trips to Louisiana in the coming days.
"It's really a serious disaster," she said. "We need all the attention and help we can get."
Scalise, the House Majority Whip who represents Louisiana's 1st District, said he thought Trump's visit was helpful to the state and to flood victims.
"You can see how he really lifted the spirits of a lot of people who need that right now," Scalise said after Trump left. "One of the most important jobs of a president as it relates to national disasters is to show up and show people you care."
Scalise said he witnessed Trump serve as an "inspiration" for people who are struggling to recover.
"It shows that he really cares, and he's got our backs," Scalise said. "It was really uplifting for people to see him."
Trump spent about three hours touring flood damage and meeting with people who have been affected by the storms.
U.S. Sens. Bill Cassidy and David Vitter did not join Trump. Representatives for each of them said they were busy with flood recovery efforts -- Cassidy volunteering in the Lafayette area and Vitter meeting with local and federal officials, and organizing a trip for the administrator of the Small Business Administration to come to Louisiana to see flood damage.
Both released statements saying they supported Trump's decision to visit Louisiana.
“Seeing the damage in person helps bring much-needed attention to the ongoing struggles of those displaced and impacted by the historic, disastrous flooding,” Vitter said. “Full recovery will take time which is why it’s important for the presidential candidates to be here and fully understand the massive devastation.”
Graves, who represents Louisiana's 6th District, said he was impressed by Pence.
"I was really impressed with the questions and interest that Gov. Pence had today," he said after meeting the duo at the airport. "You can tell he's really looking at it as a federal administration and what needs to be done going forward."
Graves, who has been in regular briefings on the flood, also praised Fugate and Johnson's willingness to see the flood effects for themselves.
"It's really good to have all of these high-profile folks coming here," Graves said. "This disaster is not getting the national attention that quite frankly it warrants." ||||| Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, followed by running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, emerges from his plane as he arrives to tour the flood damaged city of Baton Rouge, La., Friday, Aug.... (Associated Press)
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, followed by running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, emerges from his plane as he arrives to tour the flood damaged city of Baton Rouge, La., Friday, Aug. 19, 2016. (AP Photo/Max Becherer) (Associated Press)
BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Donald Trump and his running mate Mike Pence were in Louisiana Friday to survey the flood damage that killed at least 13 people and displaced thousands more.
The visit comes amid an ongoing staff shakeup. Trump's campaign chairman Paul Manafort resigned Friday following revelations about his work for a pro-Russian political party in Ukraine. In a statement, Trump praised Manafort's work on the campaign and called him a "true professional."
The Associated Press reported Thursday that Manafort's firm orchestrated a covert Washington lobbying operation on behalf of Ukraine's then-ruling political party. Manafort and his deputy, Rick Gates, never disclosed their work as foreign agents as required under federal law.
In East Baton Rouge Parish, Friday, Trump's motorcade drove through hard-hit communities, where ripped up carpet and flooring, furniture and the entire contents of homes were piled on the curb. People who were still mucking out their homes, in some instances, came out to wave at the motorcade with gloved hands dirty from their house-gutting work. He and Pence then met a group of volunteers at a Baptist church who have been cooking meals for flood victims and helping the elderly gut their homes.
"Thank you for coming, Mr. Trump," one woman screamed.
"We knew you would be here for us!" another shouted.
A torrent of about 2 feet of rain inundated the southern part of the state, devastating areas hit hard by Hurricane Katrina over a decade ago.
Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards, a Democrat, says he won't be involved in Trump's visit, saying Thursday that Trump is welcome, "but not for a photo-op." Edwards' spokesman Richard Carbo said in a statement that "we hope he'll consider volunteering or making a sizable donation to the LA Flood Relief Fund to help the victims of this storm. "
Trump said this week he's overhauling his campaign operation, bringing in a new chief executive and appointing a new campaign manager. Trump's decision to tap Stephen Bannon, a combative conservative media executive, as his new campaign chief suggested to some that he might continue the divisive rhetoric that has angered minorities and alienated large swaths of the general election electorate.
In an interview with Fox News Friday, Trump's son Eric said that Manafort "was amazing," but his father didn't want to be "distracted by whatever things Paul was dealing with."
Trump's trip to Louisiana, a rare departure for the candidate whose campaign so far has consisted largely of mass rallies and television phone-ins, comes a day after he made a rare expression of remorse for making comments that "may have caused personal pain."
In a highly uncharacteristic move at a rally in North Carolina on Thursday night, Trump said for the first time that he regrets some of the caustic comments he's made in "the heat of debate."
"Sometimes in the heat of debate and speaking on a multitude of issues, you don't choose the right words or you say the wrong thing. I have done that," the GOP nominee, reading from prepared text, said at a rally in Charlotte, N.C. Thursday night. "And believe it or not, I regret it — and I do regret it — particularly where it may have caused personal pain."
It was a rare admission for a man who has said that he prefers "not to regret anything" and it underscored the dire situation Trump finds himself in. With just 80 days left until the election, Trump is trailing Democratic rival Hillary Clinton in preference polls of most key battleground states.
Earlier Thursday, Trump moved to invest nearly $5 million in battleground state advertising — the first ad airing Friday, accusing Clinton of rigging the election. Clinton, by contrast, has spent more than $75 million on advertising in 10 states since locking up her party's nomination, Trump's new investment marks his first of the general election season.
Trump's decision to visit Louisiana came after the White House said President Barack Obama was unlikely to break from a New England vacation to survey the damage, despite calls for him to visit and meet with responders and victims.
In an editorial published Wednesday, The Advocate newspaper in Baton Rouge called on Obama to visit "the most anguished state in the union." The newspaper noted that Obama interrupted his two-week vacation on Martha's Vineyard earlier this week to attend a fundraiser for Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton on the Massachusetts island.
Louisiana's Democratic governor defended the administration's response Thursday, saying he has spoken daily with the White House and would prefer Obama hold off on visiting because such stops pull local police and first responders into providing security.
Trump's new campaign manager Kellyanne Conway suggested that the visit was part of a larger effort, like his speech on Thursday, to pivot to a more presidential phase.
"It's also presidential today to have him and Governor Pence going to Louisiana in a decidedly nonpolitical event," she told ABC's Good Morning America Friday," adding that they would be "going to help people on the ground who are in need."
___
AP writers Steve Peoples, Julie Bykowicz and Lisa Lerer in Washington contributed to this report. ||||| BATON ROUGE, La. (Reuters) - U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump toured flood-battered Louisiana on Friday, shrugging off the Democratic state governor’s plea for politicians not to stop in areas affected by deadly rains.
President Barack Obama said he was also eager for a firsthand look at the damage done by floods that damaged more than 40,000 homes and killed at least 13 people, announcing plans to visit Baton Rouge on Tuesday.
Obama’s travel requires a massive retinue of Secret Service agents and assistance from local and state law enforcement officials, so the White House usually waits to visit disaster zones to avoid tying up police and emergency resources needed elsewhere.
On Friday, Trump’s motorcade drove past piles of possessions and building materials that had been ripped out of flooded homes en route to Greenwell Springs Baptist Church in a hard-hit portion of East Baton Rouge Parish.
“You’re going to be fine,” Trump told several dozen supporters gathered outside, many asking for autographs and selfies.
The deluge that dumped more than 2-1/2 feet (0.76 meter) on parts of Louisiana has been described as the worst U.S. disaster since Superstorm Sandy in 2012.
Trump told reporters he came to help out, joined by vice presidential running mate, Indiana Governor Mike Pence, in a visit to a state that is typically a Republican stronghold in presidential elections.
Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards’ office, however, had said Trump did not call to discuss plans.
“We welcome him to (Louisiana), but not for a photo op,” the governor’s office said in a statement, urging Trump to volunteer or make “a sizable donation.”
Trump told reporters he believed Obama should have cut short a vacation on Martha’s Vineyard in New England to visit the area of flood devastation.
Trump told reporters he believed Obama should have cut short a vacation on Martha’s Vineyard in New England to visit the area of flood devastation.
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and Republican U.S. vice presidential candidate Mike Pence speak with flood victims outside Greenwell Springs Baptist Church in Central, Louisiana, U.S. August 19, 2016. REUTERS/Jonathan Bachman
Some Louisianans and others, using the hashtag #wheresobama and #laflood on Twitter, had urged Obama to visit, and Baton Rouge's newspaper, The Advocate, voiced a similar view in an editorial published on Wednesday. (bit.ly/2bDpiiP)
Obama’s vacation is due to end on Sunday. The White House said the president’s advisers had determined, in consultation with state officials, that Tuesday was an appropriate time to visit.
“The president is mindful of the impact that his travel has on first responders and wants to ensure that his presence does not interfere with ongoing recovery efforts,” the White House said in a statement.
Obama planned to visit Baton Rouge, the state’s capital city, which saw wide flooding. The White House said he would talk to local officials about what more the federal government can do to assist in the recovery.
The president has declared much of the state a federal disaster, freeing up emergency resources.
He has been receiving updates from U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson and Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Craig Fugate, who both have visited Louisiana.
In 2005, then-President George W. Bush, a Republican, drew criticism for flying over extensively damaged New Orleans, Louisiana, and then giving a speech in the still-flooded city following Hurricane Katrina.
Some 86,500 people have already filed for federal aid following the historic levels of rainfall. The state expected 4,000 would still need refuge in shelters on Friday night. Entire neighborhoods must now contend with flood-hit homes.
“We’re talking about an awful lot of people, which is why we are trying to turn on the assistance as soon as possible,” Edwards said at a news conference on Friday afternoon, offering details on temporary housing.
He spoke earlier in the day with Trump’s Democratic rival in the Nov. 8 election, Hillary Clinton, she said on social media.
“My heart breaks for Louisiana, and right now, the relief effort can’t afford any distractions,” she said on Facebook, directing people to support organizations providing assistance.
Slideshow (8 Images)
Yet Kellie Michelli, who lost her home in the flood and was also at the church to pick up food with her family, beamed as she showed off an autograph on a Trump hat from an earlier rally in Baton Rouge.
“He took time out of his busy schedule to come here,” Michelli said. “I don’t care if he gives a nickel, he showed he cared by coming here.” | – As part of his most recent effort to be more presidential, Donald Trump visited Louisiana Friday with Mike Pence, the AP reports. Flooding in Louisiana has killed at least 13 people and displaced thousands more. According to Reuters, 40,000 homes were damaged. Trump's campaign manager says Trump was there "to help people on the ground who are in need." His motorcade drove through debris-strewn streets, and Trump stopped to meet with supporters and volunteers. "You're all going to be fine, you're going to be fine," Trump told one group. He also signed autographs, the Advocate reports. "We knew you would be here for us," one supporter shouted. Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards, who says he wasn't informed of Trump's visit, welcomed the candidate as long as he wasn't just there for a "photo-op." "We hope he'll consider volunteering or making a sizable donation," a spokesperson for the governor says. Despite calls for President Obama to visit the state, Edwards says he'd prefer Obama stay away for a few weeks, as his visit would pull police and others away from where they're needed. Hillary Clinton, who has no plans to visit Louisiana, says the "relief effort can't afford any distractions." Louisiana attorney general Jeff Landry disagrees, saying Trump's visit brings important media attention to the disaster. "I think it is huge," he tells the Advocate. |
Environmental activist Erin Brockovich, portrayed by Julia Roberts in a 2000 movie about her fight over the pollution of a California town, was arrested on suspicion of boating while intoxicated at Lake Mead near Las Vegas, authorities said Sunday.
Brockovich was arrested late Friday night after breath tests showed her blood-alcohol level was just over twice the legal limit of .08, said Edwin Lyngar, spokesman for the Nevada Department of Wildlife.
A game warden noticed she was struggling and needed assistance while trying to moor her motor boat at the Las Vegas Boat Harbor, he said. Brockovich had been out on the boat with a male companion but was alone when she tried to dock it.
"She was not sure how to maneuver the boat into the dock," Lyngar told The Associated Press. "It's a simple thing if you can think clearly. But if you add alcohol and unfamiliarity of the area, it can all cause serious problems."
Brockovich, 52, of Agoura Hills, Calif., was released from the Clark County Detention Center after posting $1,000 bail.
In a statement issued Sunday, she apologized for her actions but stressed that she did not operate the boat in open waters. She only moved the boat within its own slip, she said.
"At no time was the boat away from the dock and there was no public safety risk," Brockovich said. "That being said, I take drunk driving very seriously, this was clearly a big mistake, I know better and I am very sorry.
"After a day in the sun and with nothing to eat it appears that a couple of drinks had a greater impact than I had realized," she added.
Under Nevada law, a first-time offense of boating while intoxicated is a misdemeanor that draws fines from $1,000 to $2,000 but no jail time. Authorities were unsure whether it was Brockovich's first arrest on the charge.
Brockovich's efforts to sue Pacific Gas & Electric for polluting the water supply of a small Southern California town were adapted into a big-screen story, "Erin Brockovich," starring Roberts in the Oscar-winning title-role.
Last year, Brockovich was back on the big screen in the documentary "Last Call at the Oasis," which explores challenges related to the planet's dwindling and increasingly polluted water supply. ||||| Erin Brockovich The Mug Shot [PHOTO]
Erin Brockovich -- The Mug Shot ... And It's ROUGH [PHOTO]
EXCLUSIVE
new mug shot is pretty rough and pretty shocking ... but that's what you get when you operate a boat wasted ... allegedly.... Brockovich was popped over the weekend for operating a boat under the influence.A Nevada game warden spotted Brockovich struggling to dock her vessel at Lake Mead ... her BAC was nearly double the .08 legal limit.Brockovich apologized this morning ... insisting she didn't endanger anyone because she wasn't boating in open waters -- just moving the boat "within its own slip.""That being said, I take drunk driving very seriously, this was clearly a big mistake, I know better and I am very sorry,” she added.We're told Brockovich is free on bail after briefly docking at the Clark County Detention Center. | – Erin Brockovich says a day of sun led to her weekend arrest for boating while intoxicated. The environmental activist—whose legal battle over pollution in a California town became a movie starring Julia Roberts—was arrested and breath-tested after a game warden at Lake Mead, Nevada, saw that she was having a hard time mooring her boat on Friday night, the AP reports. Brockovich, who was released on $1,000 bail, says she's sorry for her actions, but stresses that she was moving the boat at the dock, not operating it in open waters. "At no time was the boat away from the dock and there was no public safety risk," she said in a statement. "That being said, I take drunk driving very seriously, this was clearly a big mistake, I know better, and I am very sorry. After a day in the sun and with nothing to eat it appears that a couple of drinks had a greater impact than I had realized." See her mugshot here. |
The White House has gone hush-hush over a meeting President Obama reportedly held last weekend with Speaker John Boehner John BoehnerThe disorderly order of presidential succession GOP leadership critic finds way around alleged retribution Lobbying world MORE, refusing to confirm whether it happened.
Though administration officials have repeatedly talked of running the most transparent White House in history, they argue announcing, confirming or discussing meetings like the one Obama is said to have had with Boehner John BoehnerThe disorderly order of presidential succession GOP leadership critic finds way around alleged retribution Lobbying world MORE (R-Ohio) could blow up a deal over raising the debt ceiling.
ADVERTISEMENT
In comments Tuesday at the White House Briefing Room, Obama promised to keep updating the American people on his negotiations with congressional leaders, which he said had taken place over the weekend.
But White House press secretary Jay Carney on Wednesday refused to confirm that Obama and Boehner had spoken face-to-face. He also said no specifics would be forthcoming from his office.
“The general fact that the president stated yesterday is true, that he and senior members of his staff had conversations and meetings with congressional leaders over the weekend to discuss ongoing progress in these budget negotiations, or rather deficit-cutting negotiations,” Carney said.
“But we’re not going to get into specific meetings, or read them out, or preview them, because we believe that is the right approach to increase our chances of reaching an agreement.”
Sunday’s meeting was at least the second time Obama and Boehner have come together to quietly discuss the debt-ceiling talks. The first occurred two weeks ago, just before Republicans walked out of talks led by Vice President Biden.
House Democrats largely excluded from the year’s earlier budget battles say they aren’t unnerved by the Obama-Boehner meetings.
They expressed confidence that they’ll hold much greater sway over legislation to raise the debt limit, saying Boehner will not be able to move a measure without Democratic support.
“They will need Democratic votes like me,” Rep. Peter Welch Peter WelchDem lawmakers: Clinton should have disclosed illness sooner Former Clinton adviser unsure of security protections on server Dems vow to keep heat on GOP over guns MORE (D-Vt.) told The Hill on Wednesday. “And we’re not going to do it at any price.”
Other House Democrats described the meeting as “just part of the process.”
“If that’s what it takes to get an agreement, I don’t have a problem with that,” said Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas), who characterized Obama as a mediator trying to end an impasse by pulling the parties aside separately.
Dozens of Republicans are expected to vote against a package to raise the nation’s debt ceiling no matter the deficit-reduction package attached, meaning Boehner will need Democrats to make up for GOP defections.
Such leverage is uncommon for the minority party in the House, and Democrats are using it to push back hard against safety-net cuts, as well as GOP demands that the package exclude new revenues.
House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said Wednesday that he’s ready to whip Democratic votes to get the bill over the finish line — but for a price.
“I’ve told Mr. Boehner that I will help,” Hoyer said, but “I’m not going to help on some draconian, do-it-my-way-or-the-highway vote. … Revenues need to be a significant part of it.”
There are signs that Republicans realize they’ll need some Democratic votes.
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor Eric CantorRyan seeks to avoid Boehner fate on omnibus GOPers fear trillion-dollar vote is inevitable Insiders dominate year of the outsider MORE (R-Va.) on Wednesday suggested Republicans might be open to the elimination of certain tax loopholes if the new revenues go toward lowering taxes elsewhere.
“If the president wants to talk loopholes,” Cantor said, “we’ll talk loopholes.”
Obama will meet Thursday at the White House with the top two leaders from both parties in the House and Senate, including Boehner and Hoyer, but Carney predicted a final deal wouldn’t emerge from that meeting.
He also suggested there could be future gatherings that might not include all of the principals at Thursday’s meeting.
“I don’t anticipate any final decision or deal — no — to be reached tomorrow,” Carney said. “I would certainly be happy to be surprised, if I’m wrong. But I think this is going to require further meetings, maybe not necessarily of this group but — potentially of this group — but this is part of a process that will continue beyond tomorrow.”
Such comments could irritate House Democrats, who have been stewing for months after the president ignored their concerns and cut a December deal with Senate Republicans to extend the George W. Bush-era tax rates, including to the wealthiest Americans.
Carney dismissed suggestions that White House recalcitrance to discussing whom Obama is meeting in the debt talks could hurt the president, saying the public is far more interested in a deal than the details of who is meeting with the president.
“What I’m saying is that if you can find people out in America who would rather know the content of an individual meeting the president may or may not have had with a member of Congress than an actual accomplishment from Washington, I’ll buy you lunch,” Carney said.
This story was originally published at 1:21 p.m. and updated at 8:23 p.m.
||||| 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
WASHINGTON—A top House Republican leader suggested a way to end the continuing stalemate over taxes in the ongoing debt-ceiling negotiations, saying Wednesday that Republicans could endorse ending some business tax breaks targeted by Democrats if they also agreed to renew other business-backed tax benefits.
The proposal by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R., Va.), which was described in a briefing with reporters, represents a potential path forward in the budget discussions.
"I have said from day one, we are not for tax hikes on the American people or businesses, and if the president wants to talk loopholes, we'll be glad ... ||||| In a marked shift, Republicans are now willing to close some tax loopholes as part of a final deal to raise the nation’s legal borrowing limit, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said Wednesday.
But Cantor said that raising taxes was still off limits in negotiations to raise the $14.3 trillion debt ceiling by the Aug. 2 deadline.
“If the president wants to talk loopholes, we’ll be glad to talk loopholes,” Cantor said at his weekly roundtable with reporters. “We’ve said all along that preferences in the code aren’t something that helps economic growth overall. But listen, we’re not for any proposal that increases taxes, and any type of discussion should be coupled with offsetting tax cuts somewhere else.”
Republicans have rebuffed Democrats’ calls for any comprehensive deficit-reduction package to close tax loopholes such as those for corporate jet owners and oil and gas companies. Such measures, GOP leaders have said, should be considered only as part of a comprehensive tax-reform effort.
That position seemed to hold firm for Senate Republican leaders on Wednesday as they balked at Cantor’s new openness to closing the loopholes.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) reiterated that the closing of loopholes should be a separate debate in talks about tax reform.
“I’m open to tax reform,” McConnell said. “We need to do it broadly. To sort of cherry-pick items in the context of this current negotiation with the White House strikes me as pretty challenging.”
McConnell said that ending tax preferences is a “big, complicated subject” and that targeting certain industries could hurt the economy. “We want to tackle deficit reduction in a way that doesn’t exacerbate unemployment,” he said.
Cantor’s apparent turnaround, however, is an indication that some Republicans are cracking open the door to addressing those loopholes if they’re accompanied by tax cuts elsewhere, such as an extension of the payroll tax holiday or changes to the alternative minimum tax.
But Senate Democrats said Wednesday that the door still isn’t open wide enough. They cast Cantor’s comments as evidence that they had put Republicans “on their heels” over taxes. But they criticized him for insisting that the closing of any loopholes be balanced by more tax cuts.
“If Republicans are going say we can only close these loopholes in a revenue-neutral way, it is like taking one step forward and then two steps back,” Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said in a statement. “The point isn’t to get rid of these loopholes simply to pay for new tax breaks elsewhere, it’s to do it in a way that contributes to the reduction of the debt.”
The Senate GOP’s reaction to Cantor’s new openness on the tax issue could suggest an emerging split in strategy between the House GOP majority and their Senate counterparts, who are eyeing the 2012 election in hopes of winning back the chamber from Democrats.
Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) noted that President Obama has said he wants to insert the tax discussion into debt talks as a way to increase revenue, and he stuck to the position that Republicans reject ending subsidies and loopholes to raise new dollars.
“Trying to do that in this context then raises the question: Are you trying to raise revenues, or are you trying to get a more coherent tax code?” Kyl said. “If you’re trying to do the latter, it’s probably not best done in this context, and you’re probably not going to be able to do the number or the magnitude of things that are really necessary to really make a difference in the tax code. If you’re trying to do it to raise revenue, then obviously, that’s something that’s not going to pass.”
Cantor also said Wednesday that he would endorse a pledge gaining traction among some conservatives to oppose any increase in the debt ceiling without the substantial spending cuts and passage of a balanced-budget amendment.
“I don’t want to sign a pledge that conditions my vote on what the Democrats may or may not do,” Cantor said.
Cantor’s remarks come a day after Obama invited congressional leaders to meet at the White House on Thursday to try to break the impasse over raising the nation’s debt ceiling. And earlier at the Capitol on Wednesday, Democrats and Republicans continued to spar over one of the most contentious issues in the talks: whether to raise taxes.
“The Republican Party has been taken over by ideologues either devoted to or terrified by Grover Norquist and his no-tax pledge,” Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said Wednesday morning in remarks on the Senate floor, referring to the president of the anti-tax advocacy group Americans for Tax Reform. “These Republicans refuse to believe the countless respected voices that have said over and over how serious a crisis we face if we fail to avoid default.”
House Minority Whip Steny H. Hoyer (D- Md.) echoed Reid, seizing on previous criticism of Norquist by former senator George Voinovich (R-Ohio) to make the case that Republicans must be willing to put tax increases on the table.
“Senator Voinovich said that the pledge that so many Republicans, almost every Republican, have taken expressing fealty to Mr. Norquist’s premise was inconsistent with their oath to the Constitution to preserve and protect the welfare and the security of the United States of America,” Hoyer told reporters at his weekly roundtable. “I believe that Senator Voinovich was correct.”
Republican leaders fired back with the argument that the insistence by the White House and congressional Democrats that tax increases be part of a “balanced” deal contradicts Obama’s agreement late last year to extend the Bush-era tax cuts.
“Just this last December the president acknowledged that preventing a tax hike meant more resources were available for job creators to add employees,” McConnell said on the Senate floor. “Does the president now think the economy is doing so well, that unemployment is so low and economic growth so rapid that we can take billions of dollars away from these very same job creators?”
McConnell said that Democrats and the White House were the ones who were “ludicrous” for proposing hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue increases “at a time when 14 million Americans are looking for work and job creators are struggling.”
“We don’t think it’s absolutist to oppose more stimulus spending,” he said. “We don’t think it’s maximalist to oppose hundreds of billions of dollars in tax hikes in the middle of a jobs crisis. We’d have a better term for it: common sense.”
The retorts came after Obama announced Tuesday that he and Vice President Biden will meet at the White House on Thursday with congressional leaders of both parties.
The huddle will mark the first formal involvement by the president in the debt-limit discussions, but Obama has been working behind the scenes. He and House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) have held two private meetings on the debt limit. The two met in late June, the day before Cantor pulled out of the first phase of the debt talks. And Obama said Tuesday that he “made progress” in talks with congressional leaders over the Fourth of July weekend, meeting with Boehner on Sunday.
Still, Republicans reacted warily Tuesday to the change in the negotiating structure and to Obama’s suggestion that the parties produce the biggest debt-reduction package of the past two decades over the next two weeks. They said they would attend the Thursday summit but offered little hope for progress in the tax debate.
“We’re not dealing just with talking points about corporate jets or other ‘loopholes.’ The legislation the President has asked for — which would increase taxes on small businesses and destroy more American jobs — cannot pass the House, as I have stated repeatedly,” Boehner said in a statement. “I’m happy to discuss these issues at the White House, but such discussions will be fruitless until the President recognizes economic and legislative reality.”
Summoning congressional leaders to meet at the White House, Obama on Tuesday rejected calls for a short-term increase in the debt ceiling.
With an Aug. 2 deadline closing in for raising the nation’s borrowing limit before it defaults on its debt, Obama urged lawmakers in both parties to break the stalemate that halted talks nearly two weeks ago and seize what he called “a unique opportunity to do something big” to rebalance the nation’s finances.
“There may be some in Congress who want to do just enough to make sure that America avoids defaulting on our debt in the short term but then want to kick the can down the road when it comes to solving the larger problem of our deficit. I don’t share that view,” Obama said.
Cantor said Wednesday said that he agrees that a short-term deal on raising the debt limit is unacceptable.
“I think many of you reported way back that the president had said one time that he’s going to keep looking for something that he and Eric Cantor could agree on,” Cantor said. “I think this is that. I agree with him that we need to go and drive toward a deal which is not a deal which kicks the can down the road.”
Obama’s surprise announcement Tuesday was a signal that he was taking charge of a situation that was rapidly devolving into a perilous game of chicken over tax increases.
The president also struck a more conciliatory tone than he did in a news conference last week, when he ridiculed Republicans’ work ethic and accused them of seeking to prevent the super-rich from making sacrifices alongside those who stand to suffer from unprecedented cuts to federal programs.
“It’s my hope that everybody is going to leave their ultimatums at the door,” he said.
Polls show that Americans largely disapprove of Obama’s handling of the economy, and failing to reach a debt-reduction deal could make the president more vulnerable leading into the 2012 election.
The battle over the debt limit, which has dominated debate in Washington for much of the spring, is set to intensify to code-red levels. Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner has said he will run out of money to pay the nation’s bills — forcing the first government default in U.S. history — unless Congress acts to increase the debt ceiling by Aug. 2. The Treasury needs a little more than $2 trillion in fresh borrowing authority to cover the government’s needs through the 2012 election.
Republicans, however, are refusing to raise the debt ceiling unless the increase is accompanied by spending cuts of an equal amount. In bipartisan talks led by Biden, negotiators had identified more than $1 trillion in savings before Republicans pulled the plug on June 23, declaring an impasse over the issue of taxes.
On Tuesday, a GOP aide familiar with the talks put the numbers even higher, saying the two sides had agreed on as much as $2.3 trillion in potential savings, including more than $300 billion in interest payments averted through lower borrowing. That would match the amount needed to cut a long-term deal.
But serious hurdles block the path forward. Republicans, for example, have refused to agree to Democratic demands for a “firewall” between defense and non-defense spending that would distribute the pain broadly across government, hitting the military as well as domestic agencies. And although Democrats have offered to reduce spending on government health programs as long as the reductions do not affect benefits, Republicans have been adamantly opposed even to eliminating tax breaks that are unpopular among Republicans.
Since the talks broke down, some lawmakers in both parties have expressed doubts about their ability to negotiate, draft and approve such a momentous package of spending cuts and revenue increases in the dwindling time that remains. That has fueled talk of a short-term extension of the debt limit that would permit the Treasury to cover the bills for a few more months while discussions continue.
On Sunday, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) issued the latest call for a “mini-deal.” Cornyn, who is in charge of 2012 Republican Senate campaign strategy, said, “We’ll take the savings we can get now, and we will re-litigate this as we get closer to the election.”
Many lawmakers are loathe to defer a decision on the debt until next year, however, because that would force them to take another unpopular vote to raise the debt limit within months of facing voters. Such a vote could prove devastating to as many as a dozen vulnerable Senate Democrats, and McConnell, who stands to gain control of the Senate in the 2012 elections, has been perhaps the most persistent advocate of a short-term deal.
House Republicans would also be vulnerable, and Boehner has said he wants a long-term deal.
Obama weighed in Tuesday, noting that a remarkable bipartisan consensus has emerged about the scope and severity of the nation’s debt problem. “Most of us already agree that to truly solve our deficit problem, we need to find trillions in savings over the next decade, and significantly more in the decades that follow,” he said. “And that’s the kind of substantial progress that we should be aiming for here.”
Staff writers Peter Wallsten, Rosalind S. Helderman and Paul Kane contributed to this report. | – With crunch time on a debt ceiling deal approaching, some hope emerged today that an agreement might be possible: Eric Cantor said Republicans would be willing to close tax loopholes that benefit the rich provided Democrats returned the favor elsewhere by, say, extending the payroll tax holiday to help businesses. “If the president wants to talk loopholes, we’ll be glad to talk loopholes,” said Cantor. Other Republicans were skeptical of the approach, including Mitch McConnell: "I'm open to tax reform. We need to do it broadly, but to cherry pick items in the context of these negotiations strikes me as pretty challenging." As was Democrat Chuck Schumer: "It is like taking one step forward and then two steps back." But both the Washington Post, which described Cantor's comments as a "marked shift," and the Wall Street Journal, which called them a "potential path forward," were more optimistic. Another sign: The DC rumor mill has it that John Boehner and President Obama met face to face at the White House over the weekend to "quietly" discuss the debt ceiling, reports the Hill. The White House will not confirm or deny. Obama meets with leaders of both parties tomorrow. |
Every Sunday, Barbara Miller makes the journey to a small cemetery in Caernarvon Township.
'No trespassing' signs
She visits the grave of her son, Ricky, who passed away in 1980 at the tender age of 3. It's her way of staying connected to the child she lost much, much too soon.The current owners of the land on which the cemetery rests are making that connection more difficult to maintain.NNR Real Estate Ventures filed a civil lawsuit Monday in Berks County Court that would bar Miller and others with family members buried there from stepping foot on the property. The families would, however, be permitted to enter the cemetery to exhume the bodies to move them to another site.It's the latest move in a battle that's been going on since Paul and Jean Dovin bought the small parcel along Twin Valley Road that contained an 18th century stone church in 2010. And Miller is at her wits' end."I don't know what to do anymore," Miller said Wednesday between sobs. "I don't think I can go through all that again. My baby suffered so much when he was alive from brain tumors. It was so terrible. What's wrong with these people?"The suit, which had still not been delivered Wednesday to all 17 of its named defendants, states that the Dovins were unaware that the "old cemetery" mentioned in the advertisement for sale of the property was active.The law firm representing the Dovins declined to comment on the suit.
The Honey Brook couple beat out other interested bidders by offering $85,000 at an auction, according to Berks County property records. The suit asserts that the auctioneer of the land, Rock Church Properties, never informed them that people were still being buried in plots.
'I feel disgusted'
But they found out a few weeks after when Louise Shepherd died.Her last wish was to be buried in the plot she had purchased at the graveyard - locally known as Rock Cemetery - next to her husband. She got her wish with a little help from funeral director David Eames of The Labs Funeral Home, who said he walked the Dovins through the burial process. He said it was clear from the beginning they were uncomfortable with this new responsibility.The Dovins announced in 2013 that they would no longer honor the plots sold by those who had previously owned the cemetery.A year later, they decided to switch ownership of the property to an incorporated limited liability company they founded. That's when relatives of those buried there say things got worse.They say "No Trespassing" and "Private Property" signs started popping up around the cemetery. They say they were told police would be called if they continued to enter the graveyard, that their flowers and flags would mysteriously disappear within days of visiting the tombstones and that the grass would remain uncut for weeks at a time.Then, relatives say, the Dovins began to photograph and record their visits to the cemetery.The distressed group took action by making their private struggle public through media reports.Now, nearly two months after the Reading Eagle first published a story detailing their concerns, the suit arrived at the homes of some of those who spoke out. Vicki Nunemaker, a Honey Brook resident whose father is buried at the cemetery, was one of them."I was shocked," she said. "It's hard enough to bury someone you love in the first place. Now, they want me to dig up his remains after nine years at rest just so I can visit his grave in peace. Not to mention, who's going to pay for another burial and headstone? It's unreal."But the Dovins argue that her father should never have been buried there in the first place.The suit states that the sellers listed on receipts for the purchased plots, the late Harvey Kurtz and his son Titus Kurtz, lacked the necessary license to sell the plots.Wanda Murren, a spokeswoman for the Pennsylvania Department of State, which oversees occupational licensing, said in June that cemetery owners and people who sell grave sites must secure a license to do so through the Real Estate Commission because they are involved in the buying and selling of deeds. State records show neither was licensed to sell the plots.Titus Kurtz, an Elverson resident who is listed as a defendant in the suit, said Wednesday that he was unaware that he needed approval from the state. He said he was simply doing what he thought was right by letting relatives be buried next to their loved ones."I had no idea, and my father never said anything to me about it," he said.County property records show Titus Kurtz sold it to Rock Church Properties in 2004 for $30,000.When asked if he feels responsible for the predicament these relatives now find themselves in, Titus Kurtz said there was no way to know that the current owners would want to keep people out of the cemetery."I feel for them. But how was I supposed to know what would happen?" he said.
Jaime Hendricks, a Honey Brook resident and defendant in the suit, said her family is trying to decide what step to take next. They have 20 days to respond to the suit. They're seeking advice from friends and searching for representation.
"I feel disgusted by this lawsuit," she said. "Whether (Harvey and Titus Kurtz) had a license to sell those plots shouldn't matter. The fact is that they were sold, people were buried there and the Christian thing to do is to honor that."One of the biggest supporters of those shut out of the cemetery agrees.State Rep. Mark M. Gillen said Wednesday that he was disappointed that the Dovins had decided to file a suit. The Robeson Township Republican has been working hard to pass legislation that he believes will help resolve the situation.The bill, which is awaiting action in the House Local Government Committee, would allow reasonable access to the relatives of those buried in privately owned cemeteries. Anyone blocking their access would be charged with a misdemeanor."My goal was to have this settled outside the courts, but I'm willing to offer them any assistance necessary in this fight," he said. "It's gratifying for me to help give a voice to those who have been crying, literally, for a solution to this situation that is heart-rending."Contact Karen Shuey: 610-371-5081 or kshuey@readingeagle.com. ||||| CAERNARVON TWP., Pa. -
A cemetery is at the center of a battle that's brewing in Berks County.
Rock Cemetery on Twin Valley Road in Caernarvon Township is coming under fire. Officials said the owners are claiming it's closed, which is upsetting people who were planning to be buried next to their loved ones.
"It just makes me sick to my stomach," said Hazel Hamm, who purchased a burial plot in the cemetery more than 30 years ago.
Rock Cemetery is the final resting place for Hamm's husband, Doug, who passed away in 1995.
"He's been gone for over 20 years and I want to be buried beside him, and I think I have a right to be," Hamm said.
Hamm's name is already engraved on the tombstone and she has the deed. At 87 years old, she said she is now experiencing added stress and heartbreak.
According to the local funeral director, Rock Cemetery is closed and the owners are not allowing any more burials.
Nina Pruitt is devastated. Her husband, Van, died in 2004 from heart failure. He served in World War II and the Korean War. Van earned two purple hearts and a bronze star.
"It rips our hearts out because I know how much my mom wants to be buried by our dad," said Cathy Shepherd, who has several family members buried in the cemetery.
The cemetery was sold at public auction in 2010. Officials said the Dovin family purchased the property, but now "Private Property" and "No Trespassing" signs are posted beyond the graves.
Vickie Nunemaker told 69 News the owners are not allowing families to visit their loved ones in peace.
"These people just need to do the right thing and let us come visit our loved ones without harassing us when we come on the property," Nunemaker said.
The Berks County district attorney is aware of the ongoing feud. He said it's a civil matter, but he advised police not to cite anyone visiting the cemetery.
It's not clear why burials are no longer permitted.
Barbara Miller is just hoping the owners will honor the plots that were already sold. She planned to be buried next to her 3-year-old son, Rickey, who passed away from cancer in 1980.
"I have a lot of sorrow. You can't sleep and you wonder why you can't be here," Miller said.
"That's a pity. You have your child laying there and you can't be buried where you planned," said Bill Miller, Barbara's husband.
69 News reached out to the Dovin's attorney. He said, at this point, he had no comment due to the threat of pending litigation. | – It’s not every day that a cemetery goes up for sale. And what do you do with one? For the new owners of a tiny graveyard in Caernarvon Township, Pennsylvania, that meant planting "Private Property” signs to bar visitors, the Reading Eagle reports. The owners filed a lawsuit this week asking a Berks County judge to enforce the order at Rock Cemetery. Paul and Jean Dovin bought the small parcel at auction in 2010; distraught family members say that three years later, the Dolvins announced plots purchased from the previous owner (which the Dolvins contend were sold improperly due to the lack of the necessary license) were no longer valid, and that no new burials would occur. In 2014, "No Trespassing" signs sprouted up and visitors were warned that police would be called on them. The sole exception: Relatives may come on the land to exhume a body and take it elsewhere. "It just makes me sick to my stomach," Hazel Hamm tells WFMZ. Her husband Doug is buried there and, she said, "I want to be buried beside him, and I think I have a right to be.” Every Sunday, Barbara Miller used to visit the grave of her son Ricky, who died at age 3 in 1980. "I don't think I can go through all that again," Miller tells Reading Eagle. "What's wrong with these people?" The Dovins contend they had no idea the “old cemetery” they bought for $85,000 was still in use because the advertisement for the public auction never mentioned it, according to the lawsuit. Their lawyers have refused comment. |
CNBC's Jim Cramer shares his thoughts on McDonald's big earnings miss. Cramer says the quarter was so horrible a shakeup is coming and believes it's an activist play.
As fast food giant McDonald's struggles to retain customers domestically and abroad, it reported its worst monthly comparable sales decreases in the U.S. and Europe since early 2003, according to a new note from Janney Montgomery Scott.
"Holy moley!" Janney analyst Mark Kalinowski said in a phone interview. "This one is certainly not going to be talked about for decades to come in a positive way."
During September, comps dived 4.1 percent in the U.S., 4.2 percent in Europe and 7.5 percent in the fast food company's Asia Pacific Middle East Africa unit.
In the third quarter, global comparable sales dived 3.3 percent.The fast food giant was expected to see its global same store sales shrink by 3 percent with U.S. sales falling by 2.9 percent and those in the Asian Pacific Middle East Africa unit dropping by 10.6 percent, according to a forecast from Consensus Metrix.
To spark a turnaround it its U.S. unit, McDonald's has been ramping up its transparency efforts and highlighting its food quality. Abroad, McDonald's sales have seen an impact after a scandal involving one of its suppliers in China, which it has since suspended.
Watch: Yum, McDonalds face food safety scandal in China
McDonald's on Tuesday reported net income that dropped 30 percent and revenue that missed analysts' expectations as the Dow component battled declining traffic in all major segments.
After the earnings announcement, the company's shares were lower in late morning trading. (Click here to get the latest quotes for the fast food giant.)
Net income during the third quarter fell 30 percent to $1.07 billion or $1.09 per share from $1.52 billion or $1.52 a share in the year-earlier period.
Revenue fell to $6.99 billion from $7.32 billion a year ago.
"I think they're still losing share," said Telsey Advisory Group senior analyst Peter Saleh, adding that millennial diners are part of the problem for McDonald's.
"They're moving toward higher quality, naturally raised food, and McDonald's just isn't resonating with that younger crowd," Saleh added.
Analysts had expected McDonald's to deliver earnings of $1.37 per share on $7.18 billion in revenue, according to Thomson Reuters.
"McDonald's third quarter results reflect a significant decline versus a year ago, with our business and financial performance pressured by a variety of factors—from a higher effective tax rate, to unusual events in the operating environments in APMEA and Europe, to under-performance in the U.S., our largest geographic segment," McDonald's President and Chief Executive Officer Don Thompson said in a statement.
Read MoreMcD's wood pulp and pink slime? No way, chain says ||||| Fast food behemoth McDonald's is struggling to remain relevant.
It reported a larger-than-expected drop in profits Tuesday morning. Net income for the third quarter fell 30% to $1.07 billion ($1.09 per share) from $1.52 billion ($1.52 per share) a year ago.
"McDonald's third quarter results reflect a significant decline versus a year ago, with our business and financial performance pressured by a variety of factors - from a higher effective tax rate, to unusual events in the operating environments in APMEA and Europe, to under-performance in the U.S., our largest geographic segment," said McDonald's President and Chief Executive Officer Don Thompson.
The restaurant chain has struggled to maintain its relevancy with millennials, a key consumer group, in the face of competition from fast-casual chains like Chipotle, which continues to report explosive growth. It's also still reeling from a supplier scandal in China involving expired meat.
Recent initiatives to bolster sales include an aggressive push into breakfast, plus beefed up customer service during busy hours.
Overall, revenue was down 5% to $6.9 billion, and global comparable sales decreased by 3.3%.
The stock was down 2% to $89.60 in pre-market trading, and is up just 0.2% year-to-date but pays a 3.7% dividend yield. ||||| ENLARGE McDonald’s reported its global same-store sales fell 3.3% in the latest quarter. John Taggart for The Wall Street
McDonald’s Corp. outlined plans for what it called fundamental changes to its business as it reported one of its worst quarterly profit declines in years, driven by problems in nearly every major part of its business.
The 30% decline in net income for the period ended Sept. 30 was the latest in a string of disappointing results for the world’s largest restaurant chain. It is struggling with weak sales in Asia, Europe and, most important, its home market in the U.S.
In the U.S., an increasingly complicated menu has slowed service and McDonald’s once reliable base of younger customers have defected to fast-casual chains boasting customized ordering and fresh ingredients, including Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc., and specialty-burger places such as Five Guys.
McDonald’s has focused so far on efforts including increased staffing at busy times, and has shaken up its management ranks, including replacing the head of its U.S. business for the second time in less than two years. But the changes have yet to boost sales or profit.
ENLARGE
The 4.1% decline in McDonald’s September U.S. same-store sales marked the worst monthly U.S. same-store sales performance since February 2003.
In response, McDonald’s Chief Executive Don Thompson on Tuesday said it would simplify its menu starting in January, in part to remove low-selling products, and plans to give the company’s 21 domestic regions more autonomy in rolling out products that are locally relevant.
By the third quarter of next year, McDonald’s also plans to fully roll out new technology in some markets to make it easier for customers to order and pay digitally and to give people the ability to customize their orders, part of what the company terms the “McDonald’s Experience of the Future” initiative.
“The key to our success will be our ability to deliver a more relevant McDonald’s experience for all of our customers,” Mr. Thompson said. “Customers want to personalize their meals with locally relevant ingredients. They also want to enjoy eating in a contemporary, inviting atmosphere. And they want choices in how they order, choices in what they order and how they’re served.”
McDonald’s thrived through the global economic downturn. In the decade from 2001 to 2011, sales nearly doubled and profit more than tripled. But Mr. Thompson, who helped drive that growth as head of McDonald’s U.S. business, has confronted a series of challenges since taking the top job in July 2012.
In China, a scandal at one of its meat suppliers has shaken customer confidence, driving same-store sales down 9.9% in the latest quarter in McDonald’s Asia/Pacific, Middle East and Africa region. In Europe, broader economic softness was compounded by political complications in Russia, where authorities have been inspecting and, in some cases, shutting McDonald’s restaurants—moves widely seen as retaliation for U.S. sanctions in response to Russia’s military incursion in Ukraine.
The problems in China and Europe are considered to be short term. McDonald’s said it would be another six to nine months before the China business fully recovers. But the U.S. market, which accounts for roughly 40% of its more than 35,000 global restaurants, is facing a fundamental shift in the way Americans buy food. Young consumers, in particular, have been flocking to fast casual restaurants such Chipotle and Panera Bread Co.
Mr. Thompson said he knows consumers want more transparency about the source of ingredients. McDonald’s recently launched a social-media campaign in which it offers to answer questions about its food, and he said McDonald’s is considering offering organic food in some markets.
McDonald's shares are down with a decline in global sales and Coca-Cola unveils a broader cost-cutting plan. MarketWatch's Sital Patel has the details. Photo: Getty
“We recognize that we must demonstrate to our customers and the entire McDonald’s system that we understand the problems we face and are taking decisive action to fundamentally change the way we approach our business,” he said.
Analysts who participated in McDonald’s earnings call on Tuesday remained skeptical about whether the company can address bigger shifts in consumer behavior and win back younger customers without a major overhaul of the menu to include healthier fare.
Tony Scherrer, director of research at Smead Capital Management, which owns more than 150,000 McDonald’s shares, applauded the efforts. “To add some components that would give you a sense of local feel and health and for them to brand it as such would speak to the demographic they’ve missed out on,” he said. “For people to expect McDonald’s to change their lineup in order to become a Chipotle is unreasonable.”
Edward Jones analyst Jack Russo said that while people want variety, customizing menu items at a chain that derives about 70% of its sales from the drive-through could slow service even more. And becoming more healthful isn’t a panacea, he said, especially for a chain that has already tried adding salads, fruit smoothies and oatmeal to its menu with little traction.
“There’s a huge portion of the population that could care less about health and wellness,” Mr. Russo said. “They need to get lower middle-income consumers back to their stores.”
For the third quarter, profit fell to $1.07 billion, or $1.09 a share, from $1.52 billion, or $1.52 a share, a year earlier. The latest result included tax-related charges of 26 cents a share, flowing largely from what McDonald’s said was an unfavorable tax-court ruling in a foreign tax jurisdiction that it didn’t name.
Revenue fell 5% to $6.99 billion. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters had expected earnings of $1.37 a share and revenue of $7.18 billion.
The drop in quarterly profit was the steepest since 2007, according to Sara Senatore, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein. Excluding one-time items like the tax charge, it was McDonald’s worst quarterly earnings decline since 2002, she said.
Shares closed 0.6% lower at $91.01 on Tuesday, leaving them down more than 6% for the year.
—Chelsey Dulaney contributed to this article.
Write to Julie Jargon at julie.jargon@wsj.com ||||| 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. ||||| NEW YORK (AP) — McDonald's CEO Don Thompson said Tuesday the company hasn't been keeping up with the times and that changes are in store for its U.S. restaurants.
FILE - In this July 22, 2014 file photo, a man rests outside a McDonald's restaurant in Beijing. McDonald's reports quarterly financial results on Tuesday, Oct. 21, 2014. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan, File) (Associated Press)
Starting in January, Thompson said McDonald's will "simplify" its menu to make room for restaurants to offer options that are best-suited for their regions. To offer greater customization, he also said the company planned to expand its "Create Your Taste" offering that lets people pick the buns and toppings they want on burgers by tapping a touchscreen. The program is currently being offered in Southern California.
"We haven't been changing at the same rate as our customers' eating-out expectations," Thompson conceded during a conference call outlining the changes.
The remarks came after McDonald's said its profit sank 30 percent in the third quarter, with sales at established locations down 3.3 percent globally and in its flagship U.S. market. In the division encompassing Asia, where a major McDonald's supplier was shown on TV repackaging expired beef, the figure sank 9.9 percent.
Some analysts questioned whether the moves McDonald's has in store will be enough to fix its problems. Sara Senatore, a Bernstein restaurant analyst, noted that the company efforts seem focused on marketing around its food, rather than changing recipes.
In the U.S., perceptions around the freshness and quality of its ingredients have been a problem for McDonald's. The chain has been fighting to boost sales as people gravitate toward foods they feel are more wholesome. A day earlier, for instance, Chipotle said its third-quarter sales at established locations surged 19.8 percent. Steve Ells, Chipotle's co-CEO, said the results show people are realizing "there are better alternatives to traditional fast food" and that he expects the trend to continue.
McDonald's, meanwhile, launched a social media campaign last week inviting customers to ask questions about its food. It began with frank questions like, "Why doesn't your food rot?" and "Is the McRib made from real pork?", showing just how bad some of the perceptions about McDonald's food can be.
Over in China, an undercover TV report this summer showed one of its major suppliers repackaging expired meat. The plant stopped operations and many of McDonald's restaurants in the country were left unable to sell burgers, chicken nuggets and other items. The chain's reputation took a hit as well.
McDonald's, which has more than 35,000 locations around the world, said it expects its challenges will continue into the current quarter, with global sales down for October as well.
For the quarter, revenue declined to $6.99 billion, short of the $7.23 billion Wall Street expected. Net income declined to $1.07 billion, or $1.09 per share. Adjusted for one-time costs, earnings were $1.52 per share. Analysts expected $1.37 per share.
Shares of McDonald's Corp. were down 59 cents at $91 in midday trading.
___
Follow Candice Choi at www.twitter.com/candicechoi | – Investors were bracing for lousy numbers from McDonald's today, and the chain failed to meet even those expectations. McDonald's reported a 30% drop in quarterly profit, thanks to what the Wall Street Journal calls "problems in nearly every major part of its business." As one analyst puts it to CNBC: "Holy moley!" Sales were down in the US, in Europe, and in China, with dismal numbers in the latter country hurt further by a meat scandal. But this isn't about one-time trouble. "McDonald's has a problem," writes Ben Levisohn at Barrons. "Investors have known this for a while, and now it seems McDonald’s management does too." In the US, at least, a big part of that problem is that the chain "has struggled to maintain its relevancy with millennials," writes Lauren Gensler at Forbes. In fact, McDonald's "is struggling to remain relevant," period, she writes. CEO Don Thompson unveiled reforms today to try to turn things around, starting with a push to "simplify" the menu and let people customize their food to a greater extent, reports AP. But "it might take bigger steps, however, before investors can start believing in McDonald’s again," writes Levisohn. (Click to read about McDonald's latest trouble in Russia.) |
Evidence is thought to be 50,000 years older than any previously finds
Early humans first began to master fire around 350,000 years ago, helping to drive the development of complex culture among our ancestors, new archaeological evidence has revealed.
Flint fragments discovered in a cave in the limestone cliffs of Mount Carmel, close to Haifa on the Mediterranean coast of northern Israel, have provided the oldest signs of humans controlling fire.
The Tabun Cave is an archaeological site that holds evidence of having being inhabited by humans and their ancestors for around 500,000 years.
Flints found in the Tabun Cave showed signs of having been blackened and turned red by flames while others showed characteristic round pits where part of the stone had flaked off in the heat in what are called 'pot lids'
By examining flint debris and tools found in the cave, archaeologists found that some of them show discolouration, cracking and small round depressions that are signs of exposure to fire.
The researchers looked at flints from 100 layers of sediment in the lowermost 16 metres of the cave. In those that are older than 350,000 years, none of the flints were found to be burned.
However, after that there is a sudden explosion in the number of flints that were exposed to fire.
WHEN DID WE START COOKING? Exactly when humans first began using fire to make their lives easier remains one of the most controversial topics in archaeology. The earliest suggested date is around 1.5 million years ago. However, some research suggests that our ancestors first began using fire to cook their food as far back as two million years ago. Cooking meat played a vital role in human evolution, making it easier to digest, reducing the time it took to feed and requiring smaller teeth. A study in 2011 by biologists at Harvard University, in Cambridge, Massachusetts compared the body patterns, DNA and other characteristics of modern humans, non-human primates and 14 extinct hominins. They found used the information to look for patterns when eating time began to reduce. They calculated that if humans were ordinary primates living off raw food, eating would take up 48 per cent of their day. However, modern humans spend just 4.7 per cent of their day to food consumption. They suggest that the evolution of smaller teeth in Homo erectus around 1.9 million years ago coincided with a change in diet that may have been driven by the cooking of food.
Given that wildfires rarely spread into caves due to the lack of vegetation, the scientists believe these flints were burned in the fires built within the cave by prehistoric humans.
The discovery means our human ancestors in this area of Israel mastered control of fire nearly 50,000 years before other widely accepted evidence found to support the regular human use of fire.
It could bring new understanding to the development of culture and human behaviour.
While 350,000 years ago, the lower Paeleolithic period, is too late for fire to have played a role in the development of human's big brains as some scientists have suggested, it would have played a key role in the origins of social behaviour, argue the scientists behind the latest study.
It has also been suggested that control of fire was one of the key developments that allowed early humans to spread into colder climates, but this expansion had already begun by 350,000 years ago.
Dr Ron Shimelmitz, an archaeologist at the University of Haifa who led the new study, said: 'Understanding the time frame of this "technological mutation" will help explain aspects of our anatomical evolution and encephalization over the last million years.
'It will also provide an important perspective on hominin dispersals out of Africa and the colonization of temperate environments, as well as the origins of social developments such as the formation of provisioned base camps.'
Early humans are widely accepted to have gained complete widespread control of fire by around 125,000 years ago with the ability to kindle and light fires themselves.
However, the time when human ancestors first gained this essential technological ability has been highly controversial.
Tabun Cave at Mount Carmel in northern Israel holds evidence of early humans from up to 500,000 years ago
The Tabun Cave was discovered in the limestone cliffs of Mount Carmel around 14 miles south of Haifa, Israel
Some anthropologists claim that early humans, such asHomo erectus, began exploiting fire as long as 1.5 million years ago while still in Africa.
However, much of this evidence - which consists of heated clays and charcoal fragments - is disputed and could have occurred as a result of natural bush fires.
There are some who believe that fire played an instrumental role in the evolution of early hominins around two million years ago when our teeth and guts became smaller.
They have also argued that fire played a key role in the evolution of larger human brains.
However, many experts believe that early uses of fire may well have been opportunistic where early humans used natural bush fires rather than lighting fires themselves.
The artifacts found at these sites often show few signs of burning, suggesting fire was not used regularly, according to Dr Shimelmitz and his colleagues, whose research is published in the Journal of Human Evolution.
They say their findings at Tabun Cave are supported by evidence from other recent discoveries.
Burnt flints, bones and ash found in the Qesem Cave in Tel Aviv, Israel, point towards the use of a hearth in this cave that has been dated to around 300,000 years ago.
Dr Shimelmitz, along with other researchers from the University of Haifa and the University of Arizona, said: 'While the earliest evidence of fire associated with hominin activities is much older, the data presented here indicate that fire became a regular and constant part of hominin behavioral adaptations in Eurasia only after 350,000 years ago.
'The benefits of fire for processing food, altering raw materials or enhancing social interactions would be fully realized only when use of fire shifted from opportunistic and occasional to habitual and regular.
Thousands of flints fragments with signs of exposure to heat and fire have been discovered in the Tabun Cave. They begin appearing in the lower Paleaolithic period around 350,000 years ago but none are seen before then
'Regular use of fire changed hominin existence and influenced the direction of evolution in our lineage in a diversity of ways .
'To the extent that humans' physical, cognitive and social evolution was affected by the emergence of habitual fire use, we should be able to trace evidence for such impacts most clearly in the hominins that inhabited the landscape over the last 350,000 years ago.'
Tabun Cave has proved to be a rich site for archaeological evidence and is thought to have been inhabited intermittently through the Lower and Middle Paleolithic ages between 500,000 and 40,000 yaers ago.
Around 82 feet of sand, silt and clay have built up in the cave, allowing archaeologists to date the signs of human habitation left in each layer.
Among the remains found there were the skull fragments and bones from a female Neanderthal, that is thought to be around 120,000 years old.
Large numbers of deer bones have also been found there, which has led to suggests that is served as a place where animals were trapped and then butchered by humans.
Hundreds of flint tools, used to scrape and cut, have also been discovered together with thousands of fragments that have broken off as tools were shaped.
Flint handaxes are among the stone tools to have been discovered in sediment layers in Tabun Cave in Israel
However, Dr Shimelmitz said it was still unclear how the fires were started in the cave and may have been either by sparking kindling or keeping fire alight from natural bush fires.
He said: 'The changes in burning frequency at Tabun and Qesem not only signal the point in time where the use of fire became habitual, but also indicate that humans had mastered the art of kindling fire.
'Unfortunately there are no means currently available to directly determine how ancient fires were started, so the latter remains simply a hypothesis for the time being.'
Dr Simon Underdown, an athropologist at Oxford Brookes University, said the latest findings in Israel were 'exciting'.
He said: 'While we have evidence of fire use going back to almost 1 million years, it only appears irregularly and does not seem to have be a widespread behaviour - perhaps just being used by one or two bright sparks.
'Crucially this paper shows that by at least 350,000 years ago fire was being regularly used as a tool by our ancestors.
'Having the ability to make and control fire, along with projectile weapons and stone tools, further cemented our position as an apex predator of the Pleistocene.
'Fire use is one of the most important developments in human evolution but also very difficult to recognise in the archaeological record.
'Burnt material could have been from intentional campfires or from natural events such as bush fires.
'Fire allows food to be cooked which increases the calories in the diet while reducing the amount of energy our ancestors needed to use collecting it. But fire was also an important social tool.
'The heat allowed expansion into cold areas and the light extended the day and offered protection from predators. ||||| Mastering fire was one of the most important developments in human prehistory. But it’s also one of the hardest to pin down, with different lines of evidence pointing to different timelines. A new study of artifacts from a cave in Israel suggests that our ancestors began regularly using fire about 350,000 years ago—far enough back to have shaped our culture and behavior but too recent to explain our big brains or our expansion into cold climates.
If most archaeological sites offer a snapshot of the ancient past, Tabun Cave provides a time-lapse video. The site, about 24 kilometers south of Haifa, documents 500,000 years of human history. “Tabun Cave is unique in that it’s a site with a very long sequence,” says Ron Shimelmitz, an archaeologist at the University of Haifa and a co-author on the new study. “We could examine step by step how the use of fire changed in the cave.”
The researchers examined artifacts previously excavated from the site, which are mostly flint tools for cutting and scraping, and flint debris created in their manufacture. To determine when fire became a routine part of the lives of the cave dwellers, the team looked at flints from about 100 layers of sediments in the lowermost 16 meters of the cave deposits.
In layers older than roughly 350,000 years, almost none of the flints are burned. But in every layer after that, many flints show signs of exposure to fire: red or black coloration, cracking, and small round depressions where fragments known as pot lids flaked off from the stone. Wildfires are rare in caves, so the fires that burned the Tabun flints were probably controlled by ancestral humans, according to the authors. The scientists argue that the jump in the frequency of burnt flints represents the time when ancestral humans learned to control fire, either by kindling it or by keeping it burning between natural wildfires.
The findings are consistent with data from several nearby sites. On their own, these other sites provide little information about when humans mastered fire, because they represent shorter slices of time and most are not well dated. But in combination with the long, detailed record from Tabun, they suggest that ancestral humans all over the eastern Mediterranean learned to control fire around the same time, Shimelmitz says. Earlier ancestral humans may have used fire occasionally when they could find it, but because their artifacts show few signs of burning, they probably didn’t use it daily, the researchers report in this month’s issue of the Journal of Human Evolution.
This time frame is consistent with that of European sites. A 2011 review dated routine fire use in Europe to between 400,000 and 300,000 years ago. Together with the new study from Tabun, the data suggest that ancient humans did not master fire until hundreds of thousands of years after they expanded into cold climates. There are earlier sites with evidence of fire, but these are rare and often hard to interpret, according to Paola Villa of the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History in Boulder, a co-author of the 2011 review.
The new study won't end the debate, however. A few researchers have argued that ancestral humans did not regularly control fire until more recently, and others, such as Richard Wrangham of Harvard University, think that our ancestors mastered fire much earlier. Wrangham has argued that our ancestors started cooking food about 2 million years ago, when humans evolved smaller teeth and guts. He credits fire for favoring the evolution of many human traits, including our large brains.
All of those changes began long before the rise of burnt flints in Tabun Cave. Although he calls the finds “exciting,” Wrangham is not convinced by the sequence at this single site. The earliest inhabitants may have used the cave in different ways, such as to gather materials or butcher animals, saving their cooking for open-air sites, he says. “We clearly need more information.”
But he and Shimelmitz agree that whenever it arrived, fire gave ancestral humans tremendous advantages, including cooking, warmth, light in the night, and safety from predators. "There's a reason people think we got fire from the gods,” Shimelmitz adds. | – As early human milestones go, it's as big as they get: the "invention" of fire. Or more precisely, the mastering of fire. Now archaeologists studying an ancient cave in Israel say they've figured out when humans managed the feat: about 350,000 years ago, reports Science. Researchers discovered that burned flints began showing up regularly around that time in Tabun Cave near Haifa. Humans were using the cave as long as 500,000 years ago, and they apparently had the occasional fire way back then, but they didn't learn to control it and start campfires at will for a while. 'While the earliest evidence of fire associated with hominin activities is much older, the data presented here indicate that fire became a regular and constant part of hominin behavioral adaptations in Eurasia only after 350,000 years ago," says Ron Shimelmitz of the University of Haifa, as quoted in the Daily Mail. Both stories says the study in the Journal of Human Evolution won't end the debate: Other prominent archaeologists say that controlled fire must have come along much earlier and played a role in the evolution of our bigger brains and smaller guts. (Click to read about the discovery of an ancient, busty statuette.) |
Sit back and enjoy their virtuoso brilliance as I run down my top five solo wonder goals of all time.
You could call them selfish, but is there a more thrilling thing in football than one man running through the entire opposition to score?
I'd suggest not, and here are a few examples that prove my point... ||||| Football history is littered with inventive excuses, from Manchester United's grey shirts at Southampton to the wrong kind of grass. But after North Korea slipped to a 2-0 defeat in their opening World Cup game against the United States their coach, Kim Kwang-min, came up with a new one – his team lost because they were struck by lightning.
Not while they were at the Rudolf-Harbig Stadium in Dresden, but almost a month ago in Pyongyang. "In the first half our team was strong," said Kim. "But in the second half the strength of our players was not sufficient so our strategic measures could not be implemented. The players gave their best.
"There were changes in the physical condition before the match. There were unexpected changes. Our players didn't feel well. During training before we left Pyongyang some of our players suffered a minor accident. Some stayed in hospital and then came to Germany shortly before the competition. So they didn't feel quite well.
"When we stayed in Pyongyang during training there was an unexpected accident so our team was not capable of playing. Our players were hit by lightning during a training match. More than five were hospitalised. The match was on 8 June."
There remains some confusion as to who exactly was affected. Fifa's official translation of Kim's words stated: "The goalkeeper and the four strikers were most affected and some midfielders as well", while the Korean press officer stated that four defenders rather than forwards were injured. "The physicians said the players were not capable of participating in the tournament," said Kim. "But until the very last minute they gave their best."
Though Kim's claims were met with understandable scepticism, a similar case, indeed one much worse, has happened before. In 1998 players from Bena Tshadi in the Democratic Republic of Congo were killed mid-game. Bena Tshadi were drawing 1-1 with visitors Basanga in the eastern province of Kasai when tragedy struck. "Lightning killed at a stroke 11 young people aged between 20 and 35 years during a football match,' reported the daily newspaper L'Avenir in Kinshasa. The account added that while 30 other people received burns, "the athletes from Basanga curiously came out of this catastrophe unscathed."
The United States team were clearly taken aback by the claim. "It's the first we have heard about it," said the striker Abby Wambach. The USA coach, Pia Sundhage, was also unaware of any such problems affecting their opponents.
Korea had the better of the opening half but faded after the interval. In the second period Wambach had scooped over and Shannon Boxx skewed likewise before Lauren Cheney put the Americans in front. Wambach's sumptuous cross begged to be buried and Cheney did just that with a cool header across goal. A Wambach header was then tipped on to the bar by Hong Myong-hui in the Korea goal, before Rachel Buehler made the points safe with a scrambling effort 15 minutes from time.
"With today's game I think the players have shown that you need the will to play the game," said Kim. "Most of the players are young and inexperienced, but we showed to everyone that we can fight with the best." | – The USA women's soccer team started the World Cup with a 2-0 victory today thanks to goals by Lauren Cheney and Rachel Buehler and, er, a lightning strike on June 8. Or so says the North Korean coach, who claims five of his players were hospitalized earlier this month when lightning struck during a match in Pyongyang, reports the Guardian. All the players are still feeling the effects, he says, and probably shouldn't even be at the tournament. "It's the first we have heard about it," said surprised USA striker Abby Wambach. The US women next play Saturday, against Colombia. Bleacher Report, meanwhile, celebrates the start of the World Cup with a video celebration of its five favorite solo goals ever. Click here to watch. |
Photo taken on Dec. 2, 2016 shows the scene of the trial. A man convicted for rape and murder in China had his conviction overturned by China's top court on Friday, 21 years after he was executed. The second circuit court under the Supreme People's Court revoked the verdict, ruling that the previous conviction was based on insufficient evidence and unclear facts. Nie Shubin was convicted in 1995 of raping and murdering a woman on the outskirts of Hebei provincial capital, Shijiazhuang, and executed the same year at the age of 21. (Xinhua) ||||| Under President Xi Jinping, the government has been making efforts to overhaul the criminal justice system, with the overturning of wrongful convictions a key part of that effort. Prosecutors in China almost always secure a conviction, and confessions are often made under duress.
Advertisement Continue reading the main story
“To some extent, this shows the determination of the central leadership to genuinely address some unjust cases,” William Nee, a researcher for Amnesty International in Hong Kong, said Friday of Mr. Nie’s exoneration. “But the Chinese government also wants to ensure that it is seen by the public as redressing these emblematic cases of injustice, and thereby restore greater legitimacy for its troubled criminal justice system.”
Intentionally or not, that message was conveyed to the public by Nie Xuesheng, Mr. Nie’s father. A video by Pear Video, a news service, showed him wailing when he heard of his son’s exoneration on Friday. He vowed to visit his son’s grave the next day.
But he also added a political statement: “Thank you, President Xi Jinping,” Mr. Nie said. “Your ruling the country by law has brought me huge benefits. I give you a thumbs up.”
The Hebei High Court, which had upheld Mr. Nie’s murder conviction, expressed “sincere apologies” to his parents Friday on Weibo, a Chinese social media platform. The court promised to improve and said it would begin the process of awarding compensation to the parents.
Newsletter Sign Up Continue reading the main story Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up You agree to receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times's products and services. Thank you for subscribing. An error has occurred. Please try again later. View all New York Times newsletters.
Legal experts say that despite some improvements in China’s criminal justice system, the underlying problem is that the system is not independent but controlled by the Communist Party.
Xu Xin, a lawyer and scholar in Beijing who studies capital punishment, said that meant that rulings were often made for political reasons. That was true in Mr. Nie’s case, he said. Part of the reason for the 11-year delay between Mr. Wang’s confession and Mr. Nie’s exoneration was resistance from the local police and prosecutors who handled the original case, Mr. Xu said.
“Those who have caused unjust cases do not want to redress them,” said Mr. Xu, who for years posted frequent messages on social media asking for Mr. Nie’s case to be reopened. “There still isn’t an independent judicial system. If we don’t have such a system, it is still difficult to avoid such cases.”
In addition, prosecutors wield enormous influence over the courts. Nationally, the conviction rate was more than 99.9 percent last year, drawing international condemnation.
Wrongful convictions are made more likely by periodic anti-crime drives, or “strike hard” campaigns. Mr. Nie was convicted and executed in the midst of one such campaign. Another is underway now in the far western region of Xinjiang, where thousands have been arrested in an attempt to tamp down unrest among Uighurs, an ethnic minority that calls the region home.
Advertisement Continue reading the main story
Another exoneration of a man who had been executed years before came in 2014, in Inner Mongolia, a region of northern China. That man, an 18-year-old ethnic Mongolian named Huugjilt, had been put to death for murder in 1996; as in Mr. Nie’s case, another person later confessed to the crime.
Even as the Chinese authorities work to assure people that the courts are becoming more fair, the means for people to publicize injustices and bring them to court are being hobbled by a nationwide crackdown on lawyers who take up the causes of the powerless. Since July 2015, hundreds of lawyers and rights activists have been swept up in a nationwide dragnet, as Mr. Xi seeks to stamp out a perceived threat to Communist Party rule. The latest known detentions happened just days ago.
“With the crackdown on lawyers and human rights defenders, and new regulations restricting the freedom of expression for lawyers, the government is stifling the type of advocacy that brought about this positive outcome in the Nie Shubin case,” Mr. Nee of Amnesty International said. ||||| Beijing (CNN) More than two decades after her son was executed for rape and murder, Zhang Huanzhi has finally proven his innocence.
China's top court overturned Nie Shubin's conviction Friday, in a landmark case that exposed deep flaws in China's criminal justice system.
"I wanted to tell my son: you're a good person, you're innocent," Zhang told CNN.
Amid emotional scenes in the courtroom, judges ruled that Nie's original trial didn't "obtain enough objective evidence," saying there were serious doubts about the time of death, murder weapon and cause of death.
"The moment the justice announced the verdict, Zhang burst into tears," lawyer Li Shuting said. "Not only her, other people in the courtroom felt emotional too. I almost stood up and applauded but I didn't, I had to comfort Zhang as she was crying so hard."
Innocent
Another man, Wang Shujin, confessed to the crime that Nie was executed for in 2005 -- 10 years after Nie was executed.
"In this case, the Supreme People's Court changed the original sentence and ruled Nie Shubin is innocent," according to state-run news agency Xinhua.
"As the evidence is not accurate or adequate and nor can it exclude the possibilities of other suspects, it is recommended that the Supreme People's Court retry the case."
"After his death, his mother repeatedly dreamed of him knocking at the window and muttering 'Mom, I'm back'," Li said.
Nie would have been 42 this year. Following his execution his father Nie Xuesheng tried to commit suicide, but survived.
"My son can finally rest in peace," the older Nie told the Beijing Times Friday.
Mother fights for her son
Photos: One woman's battle for justice One woman's quest for justice – Zhang hopes the government would do whatever it takes to protect other families from the kind of anguish she has suffered. Hide Caption 1 of 4 Photos: One woman's battle for justice Nie Shubin was executed in 1995 for raping and killing a woman. A decade later, another man confessed to the same crimes. Hide Caption 2 of 4 Photos: One woman's battle for justice Zhang's husband (left), crushed by their son's execution, tried to commit suicide and later became half-paralyzed. Hide Caption 3 of 4 Photos: One woman's battle for justice Zhang goes to court whenever she catches a break between tending the cornfield and feeding her livestock. Hide Caption 4 of 4
In July, Zhang told CNN she was very excited about the review.
"I'll visit his grave soon to tell him that mom's efforts all these years weren't in vain -- and justice will prevail in your case," she said.
The court said that Nie's family could ask for compensation from the government.
CNN first met Zhang in her small village in 2011, when the farmer from Hebei Province was still fighting in earnest to clear her son's name, making countless journeys to the provincial capital of Shijiazhuang -- some 320 kilometers (200 miles) southwest of Beijing.
Her refusal to stay quiet appears to have made a difference in this case.
Authorities tried Nie behind closed doors and barred the parents from the courtroom, but Nie told a lawyer hired by his family that he was beaten into a confession on his sixth day in jail.
Seven months after he was first detained, the government executed Nie -- without notifying his parents.
After the initial shock, Zhang had to endure more agony to locate her son's remains and deal with a failed suicide attempt and subsequent half-paralysis of her husband, who was devastated by Nie's execution.
Flawed system
For years, it seemed no one would listen, but Zhang later found an unlikely ally in the People's Daily -- the official newspaper of the ruling Communist Party. It ran a scathing commentary in September 2011 that asked: "In a case where someone was clearly wronged, why has it been so difficult to make it right?"
"Rehabilitation means little to the dead, but it means a lot to his surviving family and all other citizens," the paper said. "We can no longer afford to let Nie's case drag on."
Many have viewed Zhang's plight -- and the case involving her only son -- as an egregious example of widespread police torture, deficient due process and lax review of death sentences.
China is the world's most prolific executioner, killing thousands of people last year, according to rights group Amnesty International. ||||| BEIJING (AP) — China's supreme court ruled Friday that a young man executed 21 years ago for rape and murder had been innocent, in a case that has drawn attention to problems in the legal system as well as the frequent application of the death penalty.
Nie Shubin was 20 at the time of his 1995 execution for crimes he was accused of committing in the northern city of Shijiazhuang in August of 1994. Another man, Wang Shujin, confessed to the crimes in 2005 while in police custody, although a legal review of the case did not get underway until 2014.
In its ruling, the court cited numerous examples of negligence and procedural errors by police and prosecutors, including the fact that Nie was singled out as a suspect "without a shred of evidence." It also said it couldn't rule out that Nie's testimony was coerced by torture or other means, a frequent accusation against the legal system that relies heavily on confessions to gain convictions.
China ordered speeded-up trials and executions during anti-crime campaigns in the 1990s, leading to frequent cutting of corners by legal authorities. Two years ago, another court ruled that 18-year-old Huugjilt, an ethnic Mongolian who was executed in 1996 for rape and murder, also was innocent after another man confessed to the crime. The court awarded Huugjilt's parents compensation.
However, under reforms in recent years, all death penalties are now automatically reviewed by the supreme court and the justices say executions are carried out only for the most heinous crimes. The exact number of people put to death is a state secret, but rights groups say China remains the world's top executioner.
Chinese legal scholar Xu Xin, a prominent advocate of legal reforms to reduce wrongful convictions, said Nie's case has emerged as highly representative of the country's problems with miscarriages of justice.
"In China's legal and social spheres, this case has garnered the greatest concern and has the most influence. Everyone's views on this case have basically been the same — that there was grave injustice," Xu said.
But the fact that it took this long for him to be exonerated shows the challenges ordinary people face in gaining legal redress in China, he said. "A vindication like this implies that compensation would have to be made, and someone could potentially be held responsible for the mistake, so that makes authorities unwilling to make an active push to correct the injustice," he said.
He credited the Chinese media, concerned defense lawyers and others who drew attention to the case for the court's overturning of the verdict, but said that the problem at the heart of the issue remained China's lack of an independent judiciary.
"The police, prosecutors and the court mainly cooperate with each other, not as checks against each other, defense lawyers aren't able to play their roles fully, while officials can easily interfere in cases. These all contribute to wrongful convictions," Xu said.
___
Associated Press writer Gillian Wong also contributed to this report. | – In August 1994, a Chinese man was named a suspect in the rape and murder of Kang Juhua, whose body was found in the northern Hebei province. He was allegedly beaten into a confession, subjected to a trial his parents couldn't attend, and executed by gunshot without their knowledge seven months later. Now, 21 years after that, China's supreme court has declared Nie Shubin, just 20 years old at the time of his death, innocent. CNN calls it "a landmark case that exposed deep flaws in China's criminal justice system," where 99.93% of cases ended with a conviction in 2013. In their ruling, the judges noted that Nie was made a suspect "without a shred of evidence" and that the time and cause of death and murder weapon couldn't be verified, reports the AP. And, then, there was the other confession. A man named Wang Shujin admitted to the crimes in 2005; it took nine years for a legal review of the case to commence—Beijing legal expert Xu Xin tells the New York Times the police and prosecutors who worked on the case drove the hold-up—and the court in June of this year decided the case should be retried. On Friday, Xinhua reports the Supreme People's Court, among other things, ruled the "truth and legitimacy of Nie's confession" were in doubt. Nie's mother, burdened by both the loss of her son and her husband's attempted suicide in the wake of Nie's death, broke down sobbing at the news. She tells CNN, "I wanted to tell my son: you're a good person, you're innocent." Xinhua reports Wang was sentenced to death for unrelated rape and murder cases. (Something similar happened almost exactly two years ago.) |
WASHINGTON — The memo distributed to House Republicans this week was concise and blunt, listing talking points and marching orders: “Because of Obamacare, I Lost My Insurance.” “Obamacare Increases Health Care Costs.” “The Exchanges May Not Be Secure, Putting Personal Information at Risk.” “Continue Collecting Constituent Stories.”
The document, the product of a series of closed-door strategy sessions that began in mid-October, is part of an increasingly organized Republican attack on the Affordable Care Act, President Obama’s signature legislative initiative. Republican strategists say that over the next several months, they intend to keep Democrats on their heels through a multilayered, sequenced assault.
The idea is to gather stories of people affected by the health care law — through social media, letters from constituents, or meetings during visits back home — and use them to open a line of attack, keep it going until it enters the public discourse and forces a response, then quickly pivot to the next topic.
For a House more used to disarray than methodical game plans, the success so far has been something of a surprise, even to the campaign’s organizers.
“Yeah, there is a method being followed here,” said Representative Michael C. Burgess, a Texas Republican involved in the effort, “but, really, these stories are creating themselves.”
First it was the malfunctioning website, HealthCare.gov, then millions of insurance policy cancellation notices sent to individuals with plans that did not meet the requirements of the health law. Earlier this week, the House aired allegations that personal data is insecure on the Internet-based insurance exchanges.
At a congressional field hearing set for Friday in Gastonia, N.C., the line of attack will shift to rate shocks expected to jolt the insurance markets in the next two years. Coming soon: a push to highlight people losing access to their longtime physicians and changes in Medicare Advantage programs for older people.
The effort has its roots in a strategy developed last spring, when House Republican leaders — plagued by party divisions that were thwarting legislative accomplishments — refocused the House’s committees on oversight rather than on the development of new policies.
Rob Borden, a general counsel to Representative Darrell Issa of California, the chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, moved to a newly created position that reported jointly to Speaker John A. Boehner and Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia, the majority leader. Mr. Borden’s task was to coordinate and monitor oversight activities across separate committees to make sure they are not overlapping or undercutting one another.
That aggressive campaign, which produced numerous hearings on the attacks in Benghazi, Libya, as well as on I.R.S. scrutiny of conservative groups, is now increasingly consumed by the health care fight. House Republican leaders empowered four committees — oversight, Ways and Means, Energy and Commerce, and Education and the Workforce — to take the lead, with support from other panels, such as the Science and Homeland Security Committees, which have examined computer security.
Mr. Cantor and Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington, another member of the Republican leadership, have also leaned on all 231 House Republicans. A 17-page “House Republican Playbook” walks members through “messaging tools” like talking points, social media tactics and “digital fliers”; details lines of attack; offers up a sample opinion article for local newspapers; and provides an extensive timeline on the health care law and an exhaustive list of legislative responses that have gone nowhere.
A message of the week is presented to the Republican members at the beginning of each week, Ms. McMorris Rodgers said. A “Call to Action” email chain distributes relevant breaking news. A new website, gop.gov/yourstory, is collecting anecdotes from each member.
The goal, according to Ms. McMorris Rodgers, is to use all the “Republican voices we have in the House, the media markets in all the districts we represent, to take our message all over the country.”
“It penetrates,” she said. “It’s powerful.”
To Democrats, especially in the White House, the power of the effort stems from using anecdotes to paint a fundamentally misleading picture. ||||| Ted Cruz (Steve Pope/Getty Images)
In 2012, the meta-pundit narrative turned on whether the election would be a choice between two visions for the future (as Dems hoped) or a referendum on the anemic Obama status quo (as Republicans predicted). The outcome surprised observers who thought the weight of the bad economy made the latter inevitable.
Now Democrats are going to attempt a repeat performance around Obamacare, at a time when the law’s travails have triggered widespread predictions that it, too, will serve as the focus of a referendum, just as the Obama economy was supposed to last year.
I’m told the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is set to launch a new campaign designed to refocus the debate on the Republican position on health care, which Dems will widely label as “Cruz Care.”
With Ted Cruz set to roll out his own health plan — one that will probably look like the usual grab bag of GOP reform ideas, which just aren’t a reform alternative to Obamacare — Dems plan to tar GOP Senate candidates across the country with it, by hitting them as proponents of “Cruz Care.” Many GOP candidates also embraced Cruz’s Obamacare-driven government shutdown.
The “Cruz Care” campaign is grounded in a conviction that Republicans — and not a few D.C. pundits — are misreading public opinion on Obamacare. Dems believe that despite the law’s unpopularity, many voters don’t view the health care issue as a zero sum decision over whether Obamacare is good or bad. Rather, they can be persuaded to see this as choice — between fixing an admittedly imperfect reform and giving it a chance to work, and the GOP alternative, which is essentially to go back to the old system, where junk insurance and a lack of standards “exposed people to financial and medical calamity.”
“The polls all show that when you shift the conversation from `support or oppose’ to ‘fix versus repeal,’ Democrats have the advantage,” Matt Canter, a spokesman for the DSCC, tells me. Regular readers know I broadly agree polls show disapproval of the law does not equal support for the GOP position of repeal.
Republicans continue to maintain Obamacare will be nothing but a liability. “ObamaCare was designed with the intention of forcing millions of Americans from their current insurance into the ObamaCare exchanges,” says NRSC spokesman Brad Dayspring. “The same politicians and Washington insiders who promised that everyone could keep their health insurance and doctors if they wanted despite knowing and voting otherwise are now asking voters to trust them? Vulnerable Democrats face an ugly choice: Admitting incompetence or admitting that they lied.”
Hundreds of millions of dollars will be spent on ads about Obamacare in 2014, and huge sums will be spent on the Dem side to recast the debate as a choice between sticking with a flawed law and returning to the pre-reform status quo. This could play differently in different races, depending on how each vulnerable Senate Dem handles Obamacare.
While the punditry has focused on Dems supposedly “running away” from the law, what is really happening is they are adopting variations of the “keep and fix” message that will be central to the Dem approach next year. Dems like Kay Hagan, Mary Landrieu, and Mark Pryor are embracing various “fixes,” but they will be attacking GOP opponents for supporting repeal. Dems remain committed to sticking with the law, which could get tougher if it continues to experience problems, but easier if it works and coverage continues to expand.
Pundits will probably see this new messaging as a kind of political “lemons to lemonade” play. And to be sure, many Dems remain nervous about what the law will do to their prospects. But the new push from Dems is also about recasting the meta-pundit debate over Obamacare — it’s an effort to persuade the commentariat that while Obamacare may be unpopular, the GOP repeal stance is a liability, too.
As 2012 illustrated, getting commentators to view the debate over a major political albatross (whether it’s the economy or Obamacare) as a “choice” rather than a “referendum” is not easy. But as 2012 also illustrated, voters don’t always view things in the same terms the pundits do. | – If it sounds like Republicans are reading from the same playbook in their ObamaCare offensive, it's because they are. A memo sent to House Republicans this week detailed an unusually focused attack plan, the New York Times explains. Republicans are to focus en masse on one of the program's failings, then swiftly pivot to the next as soon as that narrative gains traction, constantly keeping Democrats on their heels. First they focused on the website, then on dropped plans, and next they plan to shift to rate shocks. "Yeah, there is a method being followed here," one rep says, "but really these stories are creating themselves." (This story, for example, must have been music to strategists' ears.) Democrats, meanwhile, have developed a counter-strategy: The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is set to launch a campaign contrasting ObamaCare with "CruzCare," in hopes of highlighting how limited Republican policy alternatives are, the Washington Post reports. Ted Cruz is actually planning to roll out his own plan, but Democrats expect it to be the a potpourri of standard-issue Republican policies, rather than a credible ObamaCare alternative. |
Days after a missing Florida teenage girl was allegedly found hundreds of miles away from home with a 27-year-old high school soccer coach, she stood between her parents at a news conference today.
Caitlyn Frisina, 17, was found safe Friday in a car in Syracuse with Rian Rodriguez, who is a family friend and assistant soccer coach at her Florida high school, authorities said. She had last been seen at home six days earlier.
Columbia County Sheriffs Office
The teenager, who has since been reunited with her parents, silently stood between them at today's news conference in Columbia County, Florida, holding her father's hand and linking arms with her mother.
WFOX
WFOX
"We are so thankful and blessed to have our beautiful daughter ... back with us," said Caitlyn Frisina's mother, Scarlett Frisina. "We're looking forward to a very merry Christmas"
Columbia County Sheriff Mark Hunter said he's proud of the teen for coming to the news conference.
Hunter said he believes the teen “was influenced by someone who was in control, was in a supervisory role. That shouldn't be. She’s got a lot of growing up to do even though she’s a very strong young lady.”
Meanwhile, Rodriguez is being held in New York on a Florida warrant for alleged custodial interference, Onondaga County District Attorney William Fitzpatrick said.
He appeared in front of an Onondaga County Court judge this morning where he was appointed an attorney. Rodriguez was also informed of the charges and chose to waive his extradition to Florida, where authorities have two weeks to pick him up.
Columbia County Sheriffs Office
The incident began Nov. 26 when Caitlyn Frisina's parents reported her missing. She had last been seen at her home the night before.
Caitlyn Frisina and Rodriguez were spotted on surveillance cameras in Georgia and then at a pawn shop in Fayetteville, North Carolina.
Columbia County Sheriffs Office
Scarlett Frisina called friends of her missing daughter and "discovered she is possible in a relationship with her assistant soccer coach Rian Rodriquez," according to an affidavit.
A friend of Caitlyn Frisina's sent a message to Scarlett Frisina saying the missing teen "hooked up with Rian and he worked his way into her life," the affidavit said.
Rodriguez allegedly wanted to leave the country with the teen "and she didn’t know how to get out of it," the affidavit said. "She said she was scared and she didn’t know what to do."
On Friday around 4 p.m. ET, a New York State Police officer in Syracuse spotted the car the teen and coach were believed to have fled in, according to the Columbia County Sheriff's Office. The officer pulled the car over and took Rodriguez into custody without incident, the sheriff's office said.
Hunter today credited the "observant" trooper who found them after spending his shift looking for the missing duo.
Rodriguez was suspended from his coaching job pending the investigation, according to a statement from Lex Carswell, superintendent of Columbia County Schools. ||||| Caitlyn Frisina, the Florida teenager who was found with her former soccer coach days after being reported missing, was allegedly pressured to leave the country with him and worried he would “mess up her life,” according to court records obtained by PEOPLE.
Frisina, now safe at home with her parents, was located in New York state with her soccer coach, Rian Rodriguez, on Friday. The 27-year-old allegedly ran off with the 17-year-old on Nov. 26, and authorities said they were investigating the possibility the two had an “intimate relationship.”
Rodriguez is being held on a charge of interference with a child’s custody.
Rodriguez’s arrest warrant affidavit, which was obtained by PEOPLE, alleges that one of the teen’s friends said Frisina had engaged in a sexual relationship with Rodriguez, who pressured her to leave the country with him.
From left: Caitlyn Frisina, Rian Rodriguez
• Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Click here to get breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases in the True Crime Newsletter.
The affidavit alleges that the Fort White High School senior told friends “she didn’t know how to get out [of] it and if she did he would mess up her life.”
The affidavit adds: “She said she was scared and didn’t know what to do.”
The affidavit confirms that Frisina’s phone had been reset, but that data recovered from the SIM card indicated the two were in a sexual relationship.
According to the affidavit, a school resource officer investigated a rumor in August that Frisina and Rodriguez were in a relationship, but determined those allegations were not true.
Frisina and Rodriguez were found last week by a New York State Police officer who had spotted his red Mercury Sable GS in Syracuse, New York.
The officer conducted a traffic stop, and was able to determine that the driver and passenger in the vehicle were the suspect and the missing child, Sheriff Mark Hunter said in a press conference Friday.
• For more compelling True Crime coverage, follow our Crime magazine on Flipboard.
Frisina withdrew $200 from an ATM on the day of her disappearance in St. Marys, Georgia, about 115 miles north of Fort White, Florida, where she is from, and a second sighting of the pair together was caught on convenience store surveillance video that later placed them in South Carolina.
Rodriguez is the head boys soccer coach at Frisina’s Fort White High School, where he also worked as an assistant coach on her girl’s soccer team, Columbia County, Florida, Sheriff’s Detective Capt. Katina Dicks told PEOPLE.
Jail records show Rodriguez is due in Onondaga court Monday. He has yet to enter a plea to the charge he faces and it was unknown Monday if he has a lawyer who could comment in his behalf.
The Columbia County Sheriff’s Office said additional charges are possible and could be revealed at a press conference Monday. | – The 27-year-old school soccer coach who was found with a high school girl days after she was reported missing allegedly pressured the teen to leave the country with him. Caitlyn Frisina, 17, disappeared from her home in Fort White, Fla., on Nov. 26, and on Friday, Frisina and Rian Rodriguez were found by a police officer in Syracuse, NY, People reports. Though police initially said there were no signs of a relationship between the two, that seems to be giving way: The arrest affidavit for Rodriguez alleges that one of Frisina's friends said the girl's relationship with Rodriguez was sexual in nature and that he pushed her to leave the country with him. The document alleges Frisina told friends "she didn't know how to get out [of] it and if she did he would mess up her life." Though the phone she left behind had been erased, the affidavit says data pulled from the SIM card also suggests the two were involved in a sexual relationship. At a press conference held Monday in Florida, Columbia County Sheriff Mark Hunter said Frisina—who was in attendance—had been "influenced by someone who was in control, was in a supervisory role. She's got a lot of growing up to do even though she's a very strong young lady." The affidavit alleges Frisina's mother called her daughter's friends after she went missing and learned she was possibly in a relationship with Rodriguez, ABC News reports. Rodriguez is currently being held in New York on charges of custodial interference. |
LISBON, Portugal (AP) — The chair umpire who penalized Serena Williams in the U.S. Open final has spoken publicly for the first time since the match, saying he is “fine.”
Ramos, who is from Portugal, spoke briefly to Portuguese newspaper Tribuna Expresso this week.
“I’m fine, given the circumstances,” Ramos said, according to the newspaper. “It’s a delicate situation, but umpiring ‘a la carte’ doesn’t exist. Don’t worry about me.”
The newspaper said Ramos received hundreds of messages of support from family, colleagues, players and former players. He said he has avoided social media and only reads “balanced” articles about the incident. He also refrained from going out the day after the final to avoid problems, according to the report.
Advertisement
The International Tennis Federation has defended Ramos for his actions during the final. The U.S. Open fined Williams for her three code violations.
The WTA later called for equal treatment of all tennis players and coaching to be allowed across the sport.
Ramos has been assigned to officiate the Davis Cup semifinal matches between the United States and Croatia, a best-of-five series which begins Friday and ends Sunday in Zadar, Croatia. ||||| It’s worth noting that Ms. Williams has some serious scar tissue when it comes to this particular tournament. In 2004, she was subjected to some notoriously awful line-calling and umpiring in a match against Jennifer Capriati. In 2009, she suffered a self-inflicted wound when, at match point in a semifinal against Kim Clijsters, she lost her temper at a line judge, leading to a point penalty that resulted in her automatically losing the match. In 2011, in a final against Samantha Stosur, Ms. Williams lost a point for yelling, “Come on!” after hitting a forehand that appeared to help her regain her momentum in a game she’d been losing. She went on to berate the umpire, calling her “unattractive inside,” and was hit with another code violation.
All of this U.S. Open history, combined, perhaps, with always feeling like an outsider in the game of tennis — I know exactly how that feels — goes some way toward explaining why Ms. Williams reacted the way she did, and most of all, how she just couldn’t let go. But what is clear is she could very much not let go.
Much of the coverage has focused on what happened when Ms. Williams confronted Mr. Ramos a second time, demanding an apology and calling him a thief. Mr. Ramos handed Ms. Williams a third code violation — which cost her a whole game. After a long confrontation, play resumed. Naomi Osaka went on to win the match — her first major title, and the first major title for Japan as well — under an onslaught of booing and drama the likes of which, as far as I know, we have never seen in a final of a Grand Slam.
It’s difficult to know, and debatable, whether Ms. Williams could have gotten away with calling the umpire a thief if she were a male player. But to focus on that, I think, is missing the point. If, in fact, the guys are treated with a different measuring stick for the same transgressions, this needs to be thoroughly examined and must be fixed. But we cannot measure ourselves by what we think we should also be able to get away with. In fact, this is the sort of behavior that no one should be engaging in on the court. There have been many times when I was playing that I wanted to break my racket into a thousand pieces. Then I thought about the kids watching. And I grudgingly held on to that racket.
Ms. Williams was absolutely marvelous toward Ms. Osaka after the match. A true champion at her best. But during the match — well, enough said. The way Ms. Osaka carried herself both during and after the match was truly inspiring.
So is there a double standard in tennis?
We do need to take a hard look at our sport, without any rose-colored glasses, and root out any inconsistencies and prejudices that might be there. Tennis is a very democratic sport, and we need to make sure it stays that way.
But it is also on individual players to conduct themselves with respect for the sport we love so dearly. Because we all look so forward to the next time Ms. Williams and Ms. Osaka play each other; hopefully the drama will come from their magnificent shots and their fierce competitiveness — two athletes showing us how it is done, inspiring us all in the process.
Martina Navratilova is a broadcaster, former tennis champion and human rights activist.
Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook and Twitter. ||||| The game’s top umpires are considering forming a union because they believe Carlos Ramos was “hung out to dry” by the authorities during and after the US Open women’s final despite upholding the rules in sanctioning Serena Williams.
Serena Williams’s meltdown is a sign that tennis lies at a crossroads | Kevin Mitchell Read more
Many officials were also left angry with the fact that the International Tennis Federation took nearly 48 hours to defend Ramos, on Monday afternoon, by which time the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) and United States Tennis Association (USTA) had supported Williams’s claims of sexism after she was given a game penalty for her behaviour during her defeat by Naomi Osaka.
Umpires are not allowed to speak out publicly under the terms of their contracts, and are employed by grand slams and men’s and women’s tours, which means many are reluctant to say anything for fear of losing their jobs. However, one senior figure told the Guardian that privately there was widespread concern about how the USTA and WTA had rushed to support Williams – which had led to vitriol and abuse on social media for Ramos.
“There is a lot of unhappiness in the umpiring community because no one is standing up for officials,” the senior figure told the Guardian. “Umpires keep asking: ‘What if it was me in that chair on Saturday?’ There is a widespread feeling that Carlos was hung out to dry for nearly 48 hours and that no one is standing up for officials.”
Sign up to The Recap, our weekly email of editors’ picks.
In the absence of any official support for Ramos until Monday, it was left to two former senior umpires, Mike Morrissey and Richard Ings, to defend the Portuguese official. “I have had lots of messages saying this is a joke,” said one source. “There is a lot of anger out there.”
That has led to several umpires privately pushing for an officials’ union, an idea that has floated around on and off for years, as a matter of urgency. One source, who has been privy to some of the discussions, said: “Umpires don’t have any independent means of representation and are employed by the governing bodies. If talking to the media is not allowed, and governing bodies are speaking out against them, what are umpires supposed to do?”
On Monday, the International Tennis Federation, for whom Ramos is a contracted gold badge umpire, belatedly issued a statement to support his handling of the final. It confirmed that, under the grand slam rulebook, all three violations he issued against Williams – following the three-step penalty process of warning-point-game – were correct.
'Repugnant, racist': News Corp cartoon on Serena Williams condemned Read more
“Carlos Ramos is one of the most experienced and respected umpires in tennis,” the statement said. “Mr Ramos’s decisions were in accordance with the relevant rules and were reaffirmed by the US Open’s decision to fine Ms Williams for the three offences.”
Ramos also made a public statement, his first since the US Open, saying he was “good, under the circumstances” despite the controversy. “It’s an unhappy situation but à la carte refereeing doesn’t exist,” the 47-year-old told Portugal’s Tribuna Expresso. “Don’t you worry about me!”
Ramos, who told the newspaper that he had avoided walking the streets of New York on Sunday to avoid any “complicated situations”, confirmed he would be back in the chair on Friday after the ITF appointed him to officiate the semi-final of the Davis Cup, the international men’s team event, between Croatia and the United States.
||||| The ITF has released the following statement relating to umpiring decisions during the 2018 US Open Women’s final:
“Carlos Ramos is one of the most experienced and respected umpires in tennis. Mr. Ramos’ decisions were in accordance with the relevant rules and were re-affirmed by the US Open’s decision to fine Serena Williams for the three offences.”
“It is understandable that this high profile and regrettable incident should provoke debate. At the same time, it is important to remember that Mr. Ramos undertook his duties as an official according to the relevant rule book and acted at all times with professionalism and integrity.”
The Grand Slam Rule Book can be found here. Player on site offences including the point penalty schedule used in this instance can be found in Article III. ||||| FILE - In this Saturday, Sept. 8, 2018, file photo, Serena Williams, right, talks with referee Brian Earley during the women's final of the U.S. Open tennis tournament against Naomi Osaka, of Japan, in... (Associated Press)
FILE - In this Saturday, Sept. 8, 2018, file photo, Serena Williams, right, talks with referee Brian Earley during the women's final of the U.S. Open tennis tournament against Naomi Osaka, of Japan, in New York. Some black women say Serena Williams’ experience at the U.S. Open final resonates with them.... (Associated Press)
MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — A cartoon of Serena Williams that has been widely condemned as a racist depiction of the tennis great has been partially reprinted on the front page of the Melbourne-based newspaper that initially published it.
The Herald Sun newspaper printed an edited portion of the cartoon — featuring 23-time Grand Slam winner Williams jumping on a broken racket during her dispute with a chair umpire in the U.S. Open final — among caricatures of other famous people Wednesday under the headline "Welcome to the PC World."
The newspaper, which has Australia's largest circulation, has defended its cartoonist Mark Knight's depiction of Williams and is asserting that the condemnation, which has come from all parts of the world, is driven by political correctness.
"If the self-appointed censors of Mark Knight get their way on his Serena Williams cartoon, our new politically correct life will be very dull indeed," the paper said on its front page.
Williams has won the Australian Open singles title seven times at Melbourne Park, including in 2017 when she was pregnant. She is a crowd favorite at the first tennis major of the year, which is held each January at a venue that is within sight of the Herald Sun's headquarters.
In comments published by News Corp., Knight said that he created the cartoon after watching Williams' "tantrum" during her U.S. Open final loss to Naomi Osaka on Saturday and that it was designed to illustrate "her poor behavior on the day, not about race."
Knight reportedly has disabled his Twitter account after his post of the cartoon attracted tens of thousands of comments, mostly critical.
During the final against Osaka, Williams got a warning from the chair umpire for violating a rarely enforced rule against receiving coaching from the sidelines. An indignant Williams emphatically defended herself, denying she had cheated. A short time later, she smashed her racket in frustration and was docked a point. She protested and demanded an apology from the umpire, who penalized her a game.
Critics of Knight's cartoon described it as a clear example of a stereotype facing black women, depicting Williams as an irate, hulking, big-mouthed black woman jumping up and down on a broken racket. The umpire was shown telling a blond, slender woman — meant to be Osaka, who is Japanese and Haitian — "Can you just let her win?"
"I was deeply offended. This is not a joke," said Vanessa K. De Luca, former editor-in-chief of Essence magazine, who wrote a column about the U.S. Open furor.
The cartoonist "completely missed the point of why she was upset," De Luca told The Associated Press. "It was about her integrity, and anybody who doesn't get that is perpetuating the erasure that so many black women feel when they are trying to speak up for themselves. It's like our opinions don't matter."
In a social media post, Peter Blunden, managing director of News Corp.'s operations in the state of Victoria, said: "Australia's finest cartoonist Mark Knight has the strongest support of his colleagues for his depiction of Serena Williams' petulance. It's about bad behavior, certainly not race. The PC brigade are way off the mark ... again."
This isn't the first time a cartoon in a News Corp. newspaper has drawn allegations of racism. In 2009, civil rights leaders and others criticized a New York Post cartoon that some interpreted as comparing President Barack Obama to a violent chimpanzee.
In Britain, where fiercely competitive tabloids often trade in sensationalism, Rupert Murdoch-owned newspapers have been accused of sexism, racism and xenophobia over the years. Last year a former editor of the Murdoch-owned Sun, Kelvin MacKenzie, quit as a contributor to the tabloid after writing a column comparing a soccer player with part-Nigerian heritage to a gorilla.
Many years of outrage over articles and cartoons did little to hurt Murdoch's power over British politics and media, though his papers' underhanded practices did. Murdoch was forced to shut down the 168-year-old tabloid News of the World in 2011 after the revelation that its employees had eavesdropped on the phone voice mails of celebrities, politicians and crime victims.
Australian indigenous playwright and actress Nakkiah Lui tweeted in response to the front page, saying the Herald Sun needed to "chill."
"Freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom above criticism," she said.
"What we have is a bunch of people who get paid to publicly exercise their implied freedom to speech then whining when people disagree with what they have had the privilege of being paid to say," she added.
Australian writer Maxine Beneba Clarke said she believed the front page demonstrated a "misunderstanding" of the criticism leveled at the cartoon.
"I think it's really interesting that the Herald Sun has not included really any other caricatures or cartoons of black people — either Aboriginal people or African-American people, black people of any descent," Clarke, who is of Afro-Caribbean descent, told Australian Broadcasting Corp.
Cartoonist Paul Zanetti, a friend of Knight, said cartooning was under threat from political correctness, and the Herald Sun front page "spelt out exactly where we are at this point."
"Political correctness is really all about censoring, it's about being bullied into conforming to a view of the world," he said. | – Serena Williams has already been hit with a $17,000 fine for a confrontation Saturday at the US Open with the chair umpire. Now she may face a boycott from other umps who stand behind Carlos Ramos, per the Washington Post. In Serena's court: the US Tennis Association, tennis legend Billie Jean King, and NOW, which back her claims of sexism after Ramos issued a game penalty in her faceoff against Naomi Osaka. But the International Tennis Federation, the tourney's governing body, has said Ramos acted with "professionalism," and Martina Navratilova agrees that there's a double standard for men and women in tennis, but thinks that Williams "got part of it wrong." Now, new reports reveal umpires are mulling a boycott of Williams' games, as well as unionization, partly because they can't speak to the media about specific matches. An anonymous official tells the Times of London that Ramos was "thrown to the wolves" and "not supported" by the USTA, leaving umpires to feel "hung out to dry," per the Guardian. "If talking to the media is not allowed, and governing bodies are speaking out against them, what are umpires supposed to do?" one source notes. "The umpiring fraternity is thoroughly disturbed at being abandoned by the WTA," a retired ump tells ESPN. Ramos, a Portuguese native, told a newspaper in his home country he's "fine, given the circumstances" and "don't worry about me," the AP reports. "It's a delicate situation, but umpiring 'a la carte' doesn't exist," he added. Meanwhile, Australia's Herald Sun has defiantly issued a partial reprint of a controversial cartoon of Williams, widely condemned for being a racist caricature, on its front page, accompanied by the headline "Welcome to the PC World," per the AP. |
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — She hadn't done splits and high kicks since her cheerleading days in high school, but 40-year-old dance instructor Kriste Lewis set a lofty goal: to try out for the New Orleans Saints cheerleading squad, known as the Saintsations.
New Orleans Saints Saintsation Kriste Lewis performs during a photo shoot at the NFL football team's training facility in Metairie, La., Wednesday, July 16, 2014. Lewis is one of only two NFL cheerleaders... (Associated Press)
New Orleans Saints Saintsation Kriste Lewis performs during a photo shoot at the NFL football team's training facility in Metairie, La., Wednesday, July 16, 2014. Lewis is one of only two NFL cheerleaders... (Associated Press)
New Orleans Saints Saintsation Kriste Lewis poses for a photograph at the NFL football team's training facility in Metairie, La., Wednesday, July 16, 2014. Lewis is one of only two NFL cheerleaders in... (Associated Press)
Vassie Owens, mother of New Orleans cheerleaer Kriste Lewis, looks at the Saints' Vince Lombardi trophy at the NFL football team's training facility in Metairie, La., Wednesday, July 16, 2014. Lewis is... (Associated Press)
New Orleans Saints Saintsation Kriste Lewis performs during a photo shoot at the NFL football team's training facility in Metairie, La., Wednesday, July 16, 2014. Lewis is one of only two NFL cheerleaders... (Associated Press)
New Orleans Saints Saintsation Kriste Lewis performs during a photo shoot at the NFL football team's training facility in Metairie, La., Wednesday, July 16, 2014. Lewis is one of only two NFL cheerleaders... (Associated Press)
New Orleans Saints Saintsation Kriste Lewis, right, embraces a teammate at the NFL football team's training facility in Metairie, La., Wednesday, July 16, 2014. Lewis is one of only two NFL cheerleaders... (Associated Press)
New Orleans Saints cheerleader Kriste Lewis, right, her sons Jake, 14, and Rob, 11, center, and her Mother Vassie Owens, left, poses for a photograph at the NFL football team's training facility in Metairie,... (Associated Press)
New Orleans Saints Saintsation Kriste Lewis, center, performs during a photo shoot at the NFL football team's training facility in Metairie, La., Wednesday, July 16, 2014. Lewis is one of only two NFL... (Associated Press)
New Orleans Saints Saintsation Kriste Lewis reacts during a photo shoot at the NFL football team's training facility in Metairie, La., Wednesday, July 16, 2014. Lewis is one of only two NFL cheerleaders... (Associated Press)
Rob Lewis, left, 11-hers-old, and his brother Jake Lewis , 14, the sons of New Orleans Saints Saintsation Kriste Lewis, take photos at the NFL football team's training facility in Metairie, La., Wednesday,... (Associated Press)
Faced with competition from women who mostly ranged in age from 18 to 28, Lewis never thought she'd make the team. And then, she did.
"I wanted to set a goal for myself, and the audition was a specific date that required specific training, so my goal was just to make it to the audition," said Lewis, who lives with her husband and two sons in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, about 100 miles northeast of New Orleans. "Honestly, I really did not think I was going to make it."
Lewis is one of only two NFL cheerleaders in her 40s, and she's the oldest to ever audition for the Saintsations, said Lesslee Fitzmorris, director of the squad since 2001. The other dancer is 45-year-old Laura Vikmanis, who has been with the Cincinnati Bengals dance team, the Ben-Gals, since making the squad at age 40.
"The applications hadn't been processed when the dance auditions started, so the judges didn't even know Kriste was 40 until she had made it through three rounds of cuts and revealed her age in the interview round," Fitzmorris said.
Something besides her age sets Lewis apart. A big part of her motivation was her will to make the most of every day since being diagnosed with a debilitating kidney disease that will eventually lead to dialysis treatments and the need for a kidney transplant. Several family members have died of the disease, and her mother has already undergone dialysis and a kidney transplant that her body twice rejected.
Lewis said she had to have her doctor's permission to join the 36-member Saintsations.
"I know my time is limited," Lewis said. "I don't want to let any time go. I want to make every day count."
Lewis will take the field with the Saintsations when the New Orleans Saints play their first exhibition game of the season Aug. 15 at the Superdome against the Tennessee Titans.
"I can't wait to get on that field," she said. "Just being able to put a cheerleading uniform back on and go at it for my favorite team is unbelievable to me, and I'm having a blast." ||||| HATTIESBURG -- A passion for dance and a desire to celebrate her 40th birthday in a monumental way led Kriste Lewis to the New Orleans Saints' practice facility.
Standing before a panel of judges, Lewis calmed her nerves by remembering her husband's motto -- "focus and fun" -- as she tried out for the Saintsations in April.
With six months of dance, fitness training and the love and support of her family and friends, Lewis said she prepared to check a life experience off her bucket list.
"For me, trying out for the Saintsations was something I always wanted to do," said Lewis, who went to Moss Point High School and the University of West Alabama. "I grew up on the Coast and was a Saints fan all my life. I went into (the tryout) with the idea that the audition would be a celebration."
Saintsations director Lesslee Fitzmorris said Lewis' attitude and train
ing paid off.
"When she needed to blend with the others, she did, and when she needed to stand out, she did," Fitzmorris said. "For example, the first audition was a dance audition. None of the judges knew her age and judged her strictly on her presentation and dance ability.
"The second phase of the audition process was the professional interview. It was during this phase that Kriste stood out.
"In the final selection process, it was a unanimous decision to put her on the team."
Serving her church and community as a dance fitness instructor, the mother of two said she'd lost track of her love for dance until she began training for the NFL cheerleading team tryout.
"When you're an instructor, you're leading them in exercise," she said. "It's not just for you.
"I told my husband, 'Please remind me after this audition to not stop dancing.'"
A matter of health
Lewis doesn't just dance because she loves it -- it helps her stay healthy.
Lewis, whose family has a history of kidney issues, was diagnosed with kidney disease 14 years ago. After watching her mother's body reject a transplanted kidney twice, Lewis said she made the decision to live a healthy lifestyle and make the most of each day.
"Today is the day, not tomorrow," she said. "Wear your best shoes. Don't save that bottle of wine. Why are you hoarding that from yourself? I know there is no cure for (my kidney disease), and I know that I will be on dialysis and in need of a transplant, but I could be killed in a car wreck tomorrow.
"I think too many times we wait too late to start on our bucket lists. Start it while you feel good and can enjoy it."
Make every moment count
Fitzmorris said she survived bacterial meningitis, so she understands Lewis' "time is precious" outlook, and believes Lewis' story will inspire people.
"I know that she will inspire others to overcome adversity, never give up and send the message to go for your dreams and anything is possible," she said.
As one of the 36 women who make up this year's Saintsations team, Lewis said she's had a fantastic time getting to know her teammates.
Lewis is joined by fellow Pine Belt residents Summer Rials, Sara Bass and Lee Armstrong. South Mississippi Saintsations are Jennifer Cain and Mary Cassalme of Biloxi, Sarah Friday of Ocean Springs, Victoria Hunt of Vancleave and Brandy Jarvis of Gulfport. Lee Armstrong is from Tupelo.
"It's a family," Lewis said. "It's like I have 35 little sisters. All of the girls are so intelligent and they are so kind and well-rounded.
Team players
Fitzmorris said with Lewis' background, she wasn't sure how this year's team would relate to one another.
"At our first meeting, it was immediately apparent that everyone on the team had respect for each other and appreciated the different perspectives and the team's diversity," she said. "The younger ones look up to the older ones for life advice on school, careers and relationships and the older ones look up to the younger ones for advice and tips on the latest trends and to not take things too seriously."
Having been an English teacher, dance instructor and stay-at-home mother, Lewis said she hopes her story shows the world a woman can be anything she aspires to be at any age.
"It goes back to a definition of what a 40-year-old woman could be or should be, and they forget that you can be beautiful and smart," she said. "I think my generation especially is redefining (that image)."
Redefining womanhood
That's in line with the Saintsations' mission to reach out to the community and young girls.
"Our program encompasses more than just dance and cheer," she said. "My emphasis is team building and teaching young women how to represent in a positive manner. We understand that we serve as role models for young girls."
As football season approaches, Lewis said she is getting more excited to cheer for her team.
She said she intends to soak up all the wonderful experiences this year has to offer, and to try out again in the future.
"I can't even fathom what it's going to be like to walk out on that field in the Superdome with all those Saints fans," she said. "I hope I don't pass out.
"If I died tomorrow, I'm good. I'm a happy girl. It's been a blast." | – Finally, a nice story about cheerleading in the NFL: Kriste Lewis is a 40-year-old mother of two who has a debilitating kidney disease that will ultimately require dialysis and a kidney transplant ... and she's also one of the newest cheerleaders for the New Orleans Saints. Her diagnosis inspired Lewis to make the most of every day, because "I know my time is limited," she says. So, with her doctor's permission, she set a goal: Try out for the Saintsations. "Honestly, I really did not think I was going to make" the cut, she tells the AP. But, the squad's director tells the Sun-Herald, "it was a unanimous decision to put her on the team. ... When she needed to blend with the others, she did, and when she needed to stand out, she did." She was the oldest person ever to audition for the team, and her competition was made up mostly of women ages 18 to 28. Because the applications weren't processed before the dance auditions started, "the judges didn't even know Kriste was 40 until she had made it through three rounds of cuts and revealed her age in the interview round," the director says. Lewis, who was a high school cheerleader and is currently a dance instructor, is one of just two NFL cheerleaders in her 40s; the other, Laura Vikmanis, is 45 and has been dancing with the Cincinnati Bengals Ben-Gals since age 40. Lewis' first time performing with the 36-member squad will be Aug. 15 at an exhibition game. "It's a family," Lewis says. "It's like I have 35 little sisters." (In less heartwarming news, click to see why one columnist thinks NFL cheerleaders really do have it bad.) |
Sorry, this zipcode is not in our deliverable area for this subscription service.
Re-enter zip code or sign up for digital access.
Get digital access ||||| (Reuters) - Atlantic City’s Trump Taj Mahal casino, owned by Carl Icahn, will close at the end of the summer, the billionaire investor’s company (IEP.O) said on Wednesday.
The Trump Taj Mahal is lit up at sunset in Atlantic City, New Jersey July 5, 2016. Picture taken July 5, 2016. REUTERS/Brian Snyder
Closure of the casino, which is in the midst of a strike by its unionized workers over wages and health insurance costs, would be another blow to the struggling New Jersey beach resort. Four of its 12 casinos remain shut after closing in 2014, though one of them reopened as a hotel only.
“Currently the Taj is losing multimillions a month, and now with this strike, we see no path to profitability,” Tony Rodio, chief executive of Tropicana Entertainment Inc TPCA.PK, said in a statement.
The board of the Taj and Icahn Enterprises “cannot just allow the Taj to continue burning through tens of millions of dollars when the union has single handedly blocked any path to profitability.” said Rodio, whose company is controlled by Icahn.
He said the company intends to send required layoff notices to workers before this weekend, adding that Icahn’s company has lost nearly $100 million “trying to save the Taj.”
The casino was once owned by Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, who lost his stake in it during its bankruptcy.
Bob McDevitt, president of Unite Here Local 54, which represents about 1,100 workers at the casino who will lose their jobs, called the closure “petty” and an attempt to break their labor strike.
“The great dealmaker would rather burn the Trump Taj Mahal down just so he can control the ashes,” McDevitt said in a statement.
“In the end he’ll have to live with what he’s done to working people in Atlantic City,” he said. “The Boardwalk is littered with empty monuments to his greed.”
Atlantic City, once the U.S. East Coast’s only casino gambling site, is struggling to pay its bills and has until November to devise a fiscal recovery plan or else face possible state takeover.
Its property tax base eroded when its gambling industry lost value because competing casinos began opening in neighboring states.
Atlantic City Mayor Don Guardian said in a statement that it is “unfortunate and disappointing” that no resolution has been found to keep the Taj Mahal open.
“Atlantic City has been resilient for over 160 years and we will continue to do so, as we rise to meet any challenge ahead of us,” Guardian said. ||||| Casino once owned by now defunct Trump Entertainment Resorts will be shuttered after Labor Day weekend as union leader takes parting shot at Trump
It was billed as the “eighth wonder of the world” when it opened a quarter-century ago on the glitziest stretch of the Jersey shore, but after multiple bankruptcies and the longest union strike in Atlantic City casino history, the Trump Taj Mahal is about to go the way of the Colossus of Rhodes.
The casino, once the crown jewel of the now defunct Trump Entertainment Resorts company, will shutter after Labor Day weekend, according to a statement issued by Tropicana Entertainment’s CEO Tony Rodio, who put the failure of the casino at the feet of striking union members and “the prior equity owners who put it into its recent bankruptcy” – that is, the Trump Organization.
“Icahn Enterprises [which owns Tropicana Entertainment] saved the Tropicana [another Atlantic City casino owned by the company], and to date has lost almost $100m trying to save the Taj when no other party including the prior equity owners who put it into its recent bankruptcy were willing to invest even one dollar to save it,” Rodio said, referring to Carl Icahn, the current owner of the Trump Taj Mahal, who purchased the final shares of the resort casino from Trump in February.
“Currently the Taj is losing multi-millions a month, and now with this strike, we see no path to profitability,” Rodio continued. “Unfortunately, we’ve reached the point where we will have to close the Taj after Labor Day weekend.”
More than 1,000 members of the Local 54 chapter of the Unite-Here union have been on strike since 1 July, demanding restoration of the health insurance and pension benefits that were stripped from the casino’s employees by a bankruptcy court judge in 2014.
In a statement by the president of Local 54, Bob McDevitt, the union put the blame on mismanagement by Icahn – and threw in a sideshot at Trump, who has floated Icahn as a potential treasury secretary if he wins the presidential election in November.
“In the end, these workers stood up for what every other casino worker doing their job in this town has, and what every other casino worker here has had since gaming was introduced to Atlantic City over three decades ago,” McDevitt said. “If this is the guy Donald Trump wants to be treasury secretary of the United States, then this country is doomed.”
Atlantic City, once seen as a potential rival to Las Vegas as a gaming capital of the country, struggled economically after the Great Recession, combined with the redevelopment of Las Vegas and the construction of casinos in nearby Philadelphia. Inaccurate reports of the city’s partial destruction during Hurricane Sandy in 2012 dampened tourism further, and plans for further casino construction dwindled as a result. | – The Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City is closing down for good—two years after Donald Trump sued to get his name off the casino because its "appalling condition" was wrecking his brand. The casino is now owned by billionaire Carl Icahn and operated by his Tropicana Entertainment company, which says it will shut the place down after Labor Day weekend, reports Reuters. Around 1,100 of the casino's 2,100 workers have been on strike since July 1, and Tropicana CEO Tony Rodio blames their union, Unite Here, for the closure. In a statement, he said the casino is losing millions of dollars a month, and Icahn Enterprises "cannot just allow the Taj to continue burning through tens of millions of dollars when the union has single-handedly blocked any path to profitability." The service workers were striking to restore the health insurance and pension benefits a bankruptcy judge stripped them of in 2014, reports the Press of Atlantic City, which notes that five other casinos in the city, including sister casino Trump Plaza, shut down the same year. Trump himself no longer had any stake in the casino, though Unite Here Local 54 President Bob McDevitt mentioned him in a statement that blamed the closing on Icahn, the Guardian reports. "These workers stood up for what every other casino worker doing their job in this town has, and what every other casino worker here has had since gaming was introduced to Atlantic City over three decades ago," McDevitt said. "If this is the guy Donald Trump wants to be treasury secretary of the United States, then this country is doomed." |
Cardiovascular disease resulting from atherosclerosis is one of the most common causes of death worldwide, and additional therapies for this disease are greatly needed because not all patients can be effectively treated with existing approaches. Cyclodextrin is a common FDA-approved substance that is already used as a solubilizing agent to improve delivery of various drugs. Now, Zimmer et al. have discovered that cyclodextrin can also solubilize cholesterol, removing it from plaques, dissolving cholesterol crystals, and successfully treating atherosclerosis in a mouse model. Because cyclodextrin is already known to be safe in humans, this drug is now a potential candidate for testing in human patients for the treatment of atherosclerosis.
Atherosclerosis is an inflammatory disease linked to elevated blood cholesterol concentrations. Despite ongoing advances in the prevention and treatment of atherosclerosis, cardiovascular disease remains the leading cause of death worldwide. Continuous retention of apolipoprotein B–containing lipoproteins in the subendothelial space causes a local overabundance of free cholesterol. Because cholesterol accumulation and deposition of cholesterol crystals (CCs) trigger a complex inflammatory response, we tested the efficacy of the cyclic oligosaccharide 2-hydroxypropyl-β-cyclodextrin (CD), a compound that increases cholesterol solubility in preventing and reversing atherosclerosis. We showed that CD treatment of murine atherosclerosis reduced atherosclerotic plaque size and CC load and promoted plaque regression even with a continued cholesterol-rich diet. Mechanistically, CD increased oxysterol production in both macrophages and human atherosclerotic plaques and promoted liver X receptor (LXR)–mediated transcriptional reprogramming to improve cholesterol efflux and exert anti-inflammatory effects. In vivo, this CD-mediated LXR agonism was required for the antiatherosclerotic and anti-inflammatory effects of CD as well as for augmented reverse cholesterol transport. Because CD treatment in humans is safe and CD beneficially affects key mechanisms of atherogenesis, it may therefore be used clinically to prevent or treat human atherosclerosis.
Here, we found that subcutaneous administration of CD profoundly reduced atherogenesis and induced regression of established atherosclerosis in mouse models. CD augmented dissolution of CCs, reducing their appearance in lesions. Furthermore, CD increased cholesterol metabolism and liver X receptor (LXR)–dependent cellular reprogramming, which resulted in more efficient reverse cholesterol transport (RCT) as well as reduced proinflammatory gene expression. The atheroprotective effect of CD was dependent on LXR expression in myeloid cells transplanted into LDL receptor (LDLR)–deficient mice. These studies suggest that CD mediates atheroprotection by increasing production of oxysterols and LXR-dependent cellular reprogramming and provide preclinical evidence that CD could be developed into an effective therapy for atherosclerosis in humans.
Genetic approaches to increase the capacity of macrophages to remove free cholesterol from atherosclerotic lesions have proven to be highly successful in preclinical trials ( 11 ). This prompted us to test whether pharmacologically increasing cholesterol solubility, clearance, and catabolism can be exploited for the prevention or treatment of atherosclerosis. 2-Hydroxypropyl-β-cyclodextrin (CD) is a U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)–approved substance used to solubilize and entrap numerous lipophilic pharmaceutical agents for therapeutic delivery in humans ( 12 , 13 ). Although it has previously been shown that CD increases cholesterol solubility, promotes the removal of cholesterol from foam cells in vitro, and initiates anti-inflammatory mechanisms ( 14 – 16 ), it remains unknown whether CD can exert antiatherogenic effects in vivo.
CCs, which can result from excessive cholesterol deposition in atherosclerotic lesions, are among the proinflammatory triggers that contribute to the inflammatory response during atherogenesis ( 7 ). CCs can trigger complement activation and neutrophil extracellular trap (NET) formation, as well as induction of innate immune pathways ( 4 , 5 , 8 – 10 ). Hence, therapeutic strategies aimed at the prevention of cholesterol phase transition or the removal of CCs could reduce tissue inflammation and disease progression.
Atherosclerosis is characterized by arterial wall remodeling, which is initiated by the retention and accumulation of different classes of lipids in the subendothelial layer. Lipid deposition and the appearance of cholesterol crystals (CCs) have been associated with the induction of an inflammatory reaction in the vessel wall, which contributes to the pathogenesis ( 4 , 5 ). Patients with increased systemic inflammation have increased risk of cardiovascular death, and studies are under way to test whether anti-inflammatory treatment can reduce cardiovascular event rates ( 6 ).
Atherosclerosis is the underlying pathology that causes heart attacks, stroke, and peripheral vascular disease. Collectively, these conditions represent a common health problem, and current treatments are insufficient to adequately reduce the risk of disease development. Pharmacologic reduction ( 1 – 3 ) of high-cholesterol concentrations is among the most successful therapeutic approaches to reduce the risk of developing cardiovascular disease and stroke, but adequate reduction of low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol is not possible in all patients.
RESULTS
CD treatment impairs atherogenesis To investigate the efficacy of CD treatment in murine atherosclerosis, apolipoprotein E (ApoE−/−) deficient mice were fed a cholesterol-rich diet and concomitantly treated subcutaneously with CD or vehicle control for 8 weeks. Although plasma cholesterol, the main driver of atherosclerosis, remained unaffected (Fig. 1A), CD treatment profoundly reduced atherosclerotic lesions within the aortic root (Fig. 1B). Furthermore, we found reduced amounts of CCs in atherosclerotic plaques of CD-treated mice as assessed by laser reflection microscopy (Fig. 1, C and D). CD did not influence weight gain, blood pressure, heart rate, or the number of bone marrow–derived or circulating sca1/flk1-positive cells (fig. S1, A to E). Moreover, plasma concentrations of phytosterols, cholestanol, and cholesterol precursors were not influenced by CD treatment, indirectly showing that CD did not alter enteric cholesterol uptake or overall endogenous biosynthesis (fig. S1F) (17). CD also did not change the relative plaque composition, including cellularity and macrophage content (Fig. 1, E and F). However, the production of aortic reactive oxygen species (Fig. 1G) and plasma concentrations of proinflammatory cytokines were reduced by CD treatment (Fig. 1, H to J), suggesting that CD may reduce the inflammatory response during atherogenesis. Fig. 1. CD treatment impairs murine atherogenesis. ApoE−/− mice were fed a cholesterol-rich diet for 8 weeks and concomitantly treated with CD (2 g/kg) or vehicle control by subcutaneous injection twice a week (n = 7 to 8 per group). (A) Plasma cholesterol concentrations. (B) Atherosclerotic plaque area relative to total arterial wall area. (C) Plaque CC load shown as the ratio of crystal reflection area to plaque area. (D) Representative images of the aortic plaques obtained by confocal laser reflection microscopy. Red, macrophages stained with anti-CD68 antibodies; white, reflection signal of CCs; blue, nuclei stained with Hoechst. Enlarged images are the boxed areas in the left images. Scale bars, 500 μm. (E) Plaque cellularity shown as the ratio of nuclei to plaque area. (F) Plaque macrophage load shown as the ratio of CD68 fluorescence area to total plaque area. (G) Aortic superoxide production determined by L-012 chemiluminescence. ROS, reactive oxygen species; RLU, relative light units. (H to J) Plasma IL-1β, TNF-α, and IL-6 concentrations. Data are shown as means + SEM. ***P < 0.001, **P < 0.01, and *P < 0.05, control versus CD (unpaired two-tailed Student’s t test); n.s., not significant.
CD treatment mediates regression of atherosclerotic plaques Although continuous drug administration in parallel to Western diet feeding of mice is a standard protocol to investigate potential atheroprotective substances (18), patients are generally not treated in early stages of atherogenesis. Therefore, we tested the effect of CD treatment on atherosclerosis regression. ApoE−/− mice are hypercholesterolemic even on normal or lipid-reduced chow, and thus, most murine atherosclerotic regression models rely on interventional strategies that normalize plasma lipids, such as viral gene transfer, transplantation, or infusion of high-density lipoprotein (HDL) particles (19). We adapted a less invasive regression protocol (20) in which ApoE−/− mice were first fed a cholesterol-rich diet for 8 weeks to induce advanced atherosclerotic lesions and then switched to a normal chow diet for another 4 weeks during which CD or vehicle control was administered (Fig. 2A). As expected, plasma cholesterol concentrations were decreased in both groups compared to baseline, but no difference between control and CD treatment was observed (Fig. 2B and fig. S2A). Although switching to a normal chow diet had no effect on atherosclerotic lesion size in vehicle-treated mice, CD treatment resulted in a regression of atherosclerotic plaques by about 45% (Fig. 2C). Although CC load in lesions was already decreased in vehicle-treated animals compared to the load before treatment, CC amounts were further reduced by CD treatment (Fig. 2D). Because patients with cardiovascular disease often do not adhere to the recommended lifestyle changes, which include dietary modifications, we next investigated whether CD treatment can affect atherosclerosis regression during continuous enteric cholesterol challenge. CD or vehicle treatment was started after 8 weeks of cholesterol-rich diet, which was continued for the entire 12 weeks (Fig. 2E). Although plasma cholesterol and general cholesterol metabolism were not altered (Fig. 2F and fig. S2B), atherosclerotic plaque size and CC load were decreased in CD-treated mice on continuous cholesterol-rich diet (Fig. 2, G and H). These data demonstrate that CD treatment is effective in reducing established plaques. Fig. 2. CD treatment facilitates regression of murine atherosclerosis. ApoE−/− mice were fed a cholesterol-rich diet for 8 weeks to induce advanced atherosclerotic lesions. Then, the diet was either changed to a normal chow (A to D) or the cholesterol-rich diet was continued for another 4 weeks (E to H). Mice were simultaneously treated with CD (2 g/kg) or vehicle control twice a week (n = 6 to 8 per group). (A and E) Diet and treatment schemes. (B and F) Plasma cholesterol concentrations. (C and G) Atherosclerotic plaque area relative to total arterial wall area. (D and H) Plaque CC load shown as the ratio of crystal reflection area to plaque area. Data are shown as means + SEM. ***P < 0.001, **P < 0.01, and *P < 0.05, control versus CD (unpaired two-tailed Student’s t test).
CD dissolves extra- and intracellular CCs There are several possibilities to explain the protective effects of CD treatment on both atherogenesis and established atherosclerosis. Because CD is known to form soluble inclusion complexes with cholesterol, thereby enhancing its solubility in aqueous solutions by about 150,000-fold, we tested whether CD increases the solubility of CCs. Fluorescent CD bound to the surface of CCs (Fig. 3, A and B) and CD mediated the solubilization of CCs in a dose-dependent manner (Fig. 3C). To be effective in atherosclerotic plaques, CD must also act on intracellular CCs. Macrophages rapidly internalized fluorescent CD (Fig. 3D) and concentrated it in intracellular compartments (Fig. 3E). Furthermore, incubation with 10 mM CD, a subtoxic dose (fig. S3), enhanced the dissolution of intracellular CCs over time (Fig. 3F and fig. S4). Fig. 3. CD interacts with and dissolves extra- and intracellular CCs. (A and B) CCs (1 mg) were incubated with 0.5 mM rhodamine-labeled CD or phosphate-buffered saline as control. (A) Representative images obtained by confocal laser reflection microscopy. Scale bar, 20 μm. (B) Quantification of rhodamine fluorescence on CCs by flow cytometry. (C) 3H-CCs were incubated with CD solutions of the indicated concentrations overnight with shaking at 37°C. Upon filtration through 0.22-μm filter plates, radioactivity was determined in the filtrate (filterable/solubilized) and the retentate (crystalline). (D and E) iMacs (immortalized macrophages) were loaded with 200 μg of CC per 1 × 106 cells for 3 hours before incubation with 1 mM rhodamine-labeled CD. (D) Quantification of rhodamine fluorescence by flow cytometry. (E) Representative images obtained by confocal microscopy. Red, rhodamine-labeled CD; green, laser reflection signal. Scale bars, 5 μm. (F) Intracellular CC dissolution in BMDMs treated with 10 mM CD or control for the indicated times determined by polarization microscopy. Data are shown as means ± SEM of at least three independent experiments.
Metabolism of crystal-derived cholesterol is increased by CD Macrophages within the arterial wall take up excessive amounts of cholesterol and transform into foam cells, a process that can impair macrophage function and promote atherogenesis (21). This can be mimicked in vitro by loading macrophages with CCs (fig. S5). After uptake of CCs into phagosomes, cholesterol is moved from the lysosome via the Niemann-Pick type C1 (NPC1) transporter to the endoplasmic reticulum, where acetyl–coenzyme A (CoA) acetyltransferase catalyzes the formation of cholesteryl esters. This mechanism turns excess free cholesterol, which forms crystals and is cytotoxic, into cholesteryl esters that can be stored in lipid droplets. A second pathway to metabolize free cholesterol is the formation of water-soluble oxysterols. Oxysterols can diffuse across cell membranes and are known to reprogram macrophages through activation of LXR, which in turn modulates the inflammatory response and supports RCT to HDL (22–24). To study how CD influences the ability of macrophages to reduce the amount of cholesterol derived from CCs, we incubated macrophages with CCs prepared from D 6 -cholesterol (D 6 -CCs) and followed D 6 -cholesterol metabolism products in cells and cellular supernatants by gas chromatography–mass spectrometry selective ion monitoring (GC-MS-SIM) (Fig. 4A). This analysis revealed that CD treatment promoted esterification of crystal-derived D 6 -cholesterol (Fig. 4B). Furthermore, CD amplified D 6 -cholesterol concentrations in supernatants while reducing the overall cellular pool of D 6 -cholesterol (Fig. 4C). Hence, CD treatment increased the cholesterol efflux capacity of macrophages, which represents an important protective factor in patients with coronary artery disease (25, 26). Active cholesterol transport is mediated primarily by the adenosine 5′-triphosphate–binding cassette transporters A1 and G1 (ABCA1 and ABCG1), which transfer free cholesterol to ApoA1 and mature HDL particles, respectively (27). In line with the observed increase in cholesterol efflux capacity, macrophages incubated with CCs had increased expression of both ABCA1 and ABCG1, which was even further enhanced by CD treatment (Fig. 4, D to F). Genes involved in driving cholesterol efflux, including Abca1 and Abcg1, are under the control of the LXR/retinoid X receptor (LXR/RXR) transcription apparatus (22, 28). Because the transcriptional activities of LXRs are positively regulated by oxysterols, we next analyzed whether CD can potentiate cholesterol oxidation. We found that CD treatment of D 6 -CC–loaded macrophages resulted in a marked 15-fold increase in D 6 -cholesterol–derived 27-hydroxycholesterol (D 5 -27-hydroxycholesterol) (Fig. 4G), although the expression of Cyp27a1 was not altered (fig. S6). Unexpectedly, CD also increased 27-hydroxycholesterol production and secretion from macrophages under normocholesterolemic conditions, meaning macrophages not treated with D 6 -CCs (Fig. 4H). Hence, CD increases the metabolism of free cholesterol and could thereby lower the potential for its phase transition into crystals. Fig. 4. CD mediates metabolism and efflux of crystal-derived cholesterol. (A) Macrophages loaded with CCs prepared from D 6 -cholesterol (D 6 -CC) can reduce the amount of free, crystal-derived D 6 -cholesterol by three main mechanisms. First, acetyl-CoA acetyltransferase (ACAT-1) can catalyze the formation of D 6 -cholesteryl esters, the storage form of cholesterol, which are deposited in lipid droplets. Second, the mitochondrial enzyme 27-hydroxylase (Cyp27A1) can catalyze the formation of D 5 -27-hydroxycholesterol, which can passively diffuse across cell membranes. Third, D 5 -27-hydroxycholesterol is a potent activator of LXR transcription factors, which in turn mediate the up-regulation of the cholesterol efflux transporters ABCA1 and ABCG1. (B and C) iMacs loaded with 200 μg of D 6 -CC per 1 × 106 cells for 3 hours were treated with 10 mM CD or vehicle control before GC-MS-SIM analysis of crystal-derived cholesterol. (B) Percentage of esterified D 6 -cholesterol in cell and supernatant fractions before CD treatment (control bar) and after 48 hours of CD treatment. (C) Efflux of D 6 -cholesterol into supernatants of D 6 -CC–loaded macrophages before CD treatment (control bar) and upon 24 hours of CD treatment. (D to F) Gene expression of Abca1 and Abcg1 and protein expression of ABCA1 in BMDMs loaded with 100 μg of CC per 1 × 106 cells for 3 hours and then incubated with 10 mM CD or medium control for (D and E) 4 or (F) 24 hours. Immunoblot in (F) is representative of three independent experiments, and densitometric analysis of all three experiments is provided for 10 mM CD and presented as ABCA1 expression relative to the loading control β-actin. Data are shown as means + SEM of at least three independent experiments. (G) D 5 -27-hydroxycholesterol in cell and supernatant fractions of iMacs loaded with 200 μg of D 6 -CC per 1 × 106 cells for 3 hours before 48 hours of treatment with 10 mM CD or medium control, determined by GC-MS-SIM. (H) 27-Hydroxycholesterol in cell and supernatant fractions of iMacs after 48 hours of treatment with 10 mM CD or medium control. ***P < 0.001 and *P < 0.05, medium versus CD (B to C); CC + control versus CC + CD (D to F); control versus CD (G and H) (unpaired two-tailed Student’s t test).
CD induces LXR target gene expression in macrophages The drastic CD-mediated increase in oxysterol production upon D 6 -CC loading and the unanticipated finding that CD can increase oxysterols in normocholesterolemic macrophages prompted us to comprehensively investigate whether CD influences the expression profiles of LXR-regulated genes. Wild-type or LXRα−/−β−/− macrophages were exposed to CD, CC, or CC and CD, and gene expression was assessed by genome-wide mRNA profiling. To investigate whether CD changes LXR target gene expression in macrophages, we performed gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) (29) with a set of 533 of previously identified LXR target genes (30) (Fig. 5A and table S1). Enrichment of LXR target gene sets was identified when wild-type macrophages were incubated with CCs (Fig. 5B), presumably because of cholesterol overloading of macrophages. Consistent with the strong induction of CC-derived 27-hydroxycholesterol and the observed increase in cholesterol efflux by CD, LXR target gene sets were enriched when CD was added together with CCs (Fig. 5B). CD treatment alone also resulted in LXR gene set enrichment under normocholesterolemic conditions, which correlates with the observed induction of cellular 27-hydroxycholesterol (Fig. 4H). In LXRα−/−β−/− macrophages, none of the conditions resulted in significant enrichments of LXR target gene sets (Fig. 5C). Furthermore, these findings could be confirmed for the key LXR target genes ABCA1 and ABCG1 in wild-type and LXRα−/−β−/− macrophages on the mRNA and protein levels (Fig. 5, D to F) (31). Fig. 5. CD induces LXR target gene expression in wild-type macrophages. (A) BMDMs from wild-type (WT) and LXRα−/−β−/− mice were loaded with 100 μg of CC per 1 × 106 cells for 3 hours and incubated with 10 mM CD for 4 hours for microarray analysis. GSEA for the LXR target gene sets described by Heinz et al. (30) (table S1) was performed on gene expression data. DB, database. (B and C) GSEA results for (B) WT and (C) LXRα−/−β−/− BMDMs presented as volcano plots of normalized enrichment score (NES) and enrichment P values. Red circles show positively and significantly enriched gene sets (NES > 1, P < 0.05). (D to F) Gene expression of (D) Abca1 and (E) Abcg1, and (F) protein expression of ABCA1 in BMDMs from WT and LXRα−/−β−/− mice loaded with 100 μg of CC per 1 × 106 cells for 3 hours and then incubated with 10 mM CD for (D and E) 4 or (F) 24 hours. The synthetic LXR agonist T0901317 (10 μM) was used as a positive control for ABCA1 protein induction. Immunoblot in (F) is representative of two independent experiments. Data are shown as means + SEM of two independent experiments. *P < 0.05, CC + control versus CC + CD (unpaired two-tailed Student’s t test).
CD increases in vivo RCT To test whether CD-induced LXR reprogramming of macrophages improves macrophage cholesterol efflux in vivo, bone marrow–derived macrophages (BMDMs) from wild-type or LXRα−/−β−/− mice were loaded with D 6 -CCs ex vivo and injected into the peritoneum of wild-type mice. The mice carrying crystal-loaded macrophages were then treated with CD or vehicle control, and D 6 -cholesterol excretion into the feces and urine was monitored by GC-MS-SIM (Fig. 6A). CD increased RCT of crystal-derived D 6 -cholesterol from wild-type and, to a lower extent, LXRα−/−β−/− macrophages (Fig. 6B). Of note, CD treatment not only induced D 6 -cholesterol excretion into the feces but also promoted urinary D 6 -cholesterol elimination (Fig. 6C), a process that is normally not observed during RCT. Prior work on NPC disease, a rare genetic disorder in which cholesterol cannot escape the lysosome, has shown that CD can mobilize lysosomal cholesterol and activate LXR-dependent gene expression (32, 33). NPC1-deficient patients receive weekly injections of CD with the aim of overcoming this cholesterol transport defect. To investigate whether CD can also stimulate urinary cholesterol excretion in humans, we monitored urinary cholesterol excretion of patients with NPC1 mutations after CD infusion over time. CD, which is primarily excreted through the urinary tract, resulted in a time-dependent cholesterol excretion into the urine (Fig. 6D). These data suggest that CD enhances in vivo RCT from macrophages, partially in an LXR-dependent manner, but can also directly extract and transport cholesterol for excretion. Fig. 6. CD facilitates RCT in vivo and promotes urinary cholesterol excretion. (A) BMDMs from WT or LXRα−/−β−/− mice were loaded with 100 μg of D 6 -CC per 1 × 106 cells and injected into the peritoneum of WT mice. Subsequently, mice were treated subcutaneously with CD (2 g kg) or vehicle control (n = 4 per group). (B and C) D 6 -cholesterol content in feces and urine collected every 3 hours over 30 hours after CD injection. Data are shown as total area under the curve (AUC) of excreted D 6 -cholesterol pooled from the mice within a group per time point. (D) Urine samples collected from three individual NPC1 patients upon intravenous application of CD for specific treatment of NPC. Urine cholesterol concentration was determined by GC-MS-SIM and normalized to urine creatinine excretion.
CD modifies human plaque cholesterol metabolism and gene expression To test whether the protective functions of CD on murine macrophages are also exerted in human atherosclerotic plaques, we next performed lipid and genomic analyses on biopsy specimens obtained from carotid endarterectomies (Fig. 7A). Comparable to our findings in murine macrophages, incubation of human atherosclerotic plaques with CD resulted in a transfer of cholesterol from plaques to supernatants (Fig. 7B). Moreover, we observed an increase in the production of 27-hydroxycholesterol, which was mainly released into the supernatants of the CD-treated plaques (Fig. 7C). Gene expression profiling of a large panel of human immunology–related genes and selected LXR target genes (table S3) was performed in resting or treated plaque tissue. These gene expression data were analyzed by several bioinformatics approaches. First, we performed gene ontology enrichment analysis (GOEA) using the genes differentially expressed (DE) after treatment with CD or vehicle control. Consistent with our lipid results, we found that genes involved in lipid transport, storage, metabolism, and efflux were up-regulated upon CD exposure. Conversely, genes known to regulate immune responses, represented by terms such as “regulation of immune responses in lymphocytes,” “regulation of leukocyte-mediated immunity,” or “interleukin response, T cell, and natural killer cell regulation,” were down-regulated after CD treatment (Fig. 7D). Further interrogation of the GOEA revealed that CD treatment of human plaques affected many key genes in the GO term “regulation of inflammatory response” (GO:0050727). These included innate immune receptors, such as Toll-like receptors (TLRs) 2, 3, 4, 7, and 9; the TLR adapter MyD88; the inflammasome sensor NLRP3; and the inflammasome-dependent proinflammatory cytokines interleukin-1β (IL-1β) and IL-18 (Fig. 7E). Because we observed that CD increased the endogenous LXR agonist 27-hydroxycholesterol, we next analyzed whether CD regulates the expression of LXR target genes in human atherosclerotic plaques. GSEA revealed an enrichment of LXR target genes after CD treatment when compared to control-treated plaques (Fig. 7F and table S2). Additionally, many LXR target genes were found among the most DE genes (Fig. 7G, red or blue gene labels). Of note, the inflammasome sensor NLRP3 and the inflammasome inhibitor HSP90 (34) are both LXR target genes (24) and CD treatment resulted in NLRP3 down-regulation and an up-regulation of HSP90 when compared to control (Fig. 7H). Together, these data show that CD activates LXR-dependent transcriptional programs in human plaques, influencing both cholesterol transport and several inflammatory processes, which are relevant to the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis. Fig. 7. CD induces cholesterol metabolism and an anti-inflammatory LXR profile in human atherosclerotic carotid plaques. (A) Human atherosclerotic carotid plaques obtained by carotid endarterectomy (n = 10) were split into two macroscopically equal pieces and cultured for 24 hours with 10 mM CD or control. Half of the plaque tissue was used for mRNA profiling with nCounter Analysis System (NanoString Technologies), and the other half and the culture supernatant were analyzed by GC-MS-SIM. (B) Cholesterol efflux from plaque tissue into supernatants displayed as percent of total cholesterol per sample. (C) Distribution of 27-hydroxycholesterol relative to cholesterol in plaque and supernatant. (D) GOEA of DE genes (fold change > 1.3, P < 0.05) visualized as GO network, where red nodes indicate GO term enrichment by up-regulated DE genes and blue borders indicate GO term enrichment by down-regulated DE genes. Node size and border width represent the corresponding false discovery rate (FDR)–adjusted enrichment P value (q value). Edges represent the associations between two enriched GO terms based on shared genes, and edge thickness indicates the overlap of genes between neighbor nodes. Highly connected terms were grouped together and were annotated manually by a shared general term. (E) Heat map of genes involved in the GO term “regulation of inflammatory response” (GO:0050727). Color bar indicates fold change. (F) Volcano plot of NES and enrichment P values based on GSEA for the LXR target gene set (table S2). Red circle indicates positive and significant enrichment of the LXR target gene set (NES > 1, P < 0.05). (G) Top DE genes determined by three-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) (fold change > 1.5, P < 0.05). LXR target genes are colored in red or blue. (H) The expression of genes relevant to the NLRP3 inflammasome pathway. Color bar indicates fold change. (B and C) Data are shown as means ± SEM. ***P < 0.001 and *P < 0.05, CD versus control (paired two-tailed Student’s t test). ||||| Cyclodextrin, a compound now in testing to treat a very rare genetic disease, may have a potential use in treating a much more common condition too: heart disease.
Researchers reported Wednesday in Science Translational Medicine that in mice, cyclodextrin was able to reduce plaque and dissolve cholesterol crystals, which some research suggests could play a role in atherosclerosis, or narrowing of the arteries.
Statins and... ||||| Two parents’ quest to save their twin daughters’ lives from a rare, degenerative genetic disorder may end up saving and improving the lives of millions.
After digging through medical literature and fitting pieces of data together, the non-medically trained couple contacted German researchers and suggested that a chemical called cyclodextrin may be able to treat atherosclerosis—the hardening of arteries with cholesterol-rich plaques, which is a precursor to heart attack, stroke, and other cardiovascular diseases.
The researchers, Eicke Latz at the University of Bonn and colleagues, followed up on the parents’ hypothesis and found that in mice, cyclodextrin indeed blocked plaque formation, melted away plaques that had already formed in arteries, reduced atherosclerosis-associated inflammation, and revved up cholesterol metabolism—even in rodents fed cholesterol-rich diets. In petri dish-based tests, the researchers found that the drug seemed to have the same effects on human cells and plaques.
The findings, published Wednesday in Science Translational Medicine, suggest that cyclodextrin—a drug already approved for use in humans by the US Food and Drug Administration—may be highly effective at treating and preventing heart disease.
Currently, cardiovascular diseases are the leading cause of death worldwide, and around 43 percent of Americans have high cholesterol, which can lead to atherosclerosis. Typical treatments include statins and other cholesterol-lowering drugs, which are not always effective, particularly when patients don’t adhere to doctor-prescribed, low-cholesterol diets.
While Latz and co-authors stress that clinical trials are needed to validate the effects of cyclodextrin, the researchers note that it would be fairly easy to repurpose the drug to treat and prevent cardiovascular diseases.
But, while cyclodextrin’s road ahead may be clear, its path to medical treatments was oddly bumpy.
Sweet solution?
The chemical, which is simply a bunch of sugar molecules assembled in a ring, is already widely used in medications and foods. Because the outside of the ring is hydrophilic (it mixes with water) and the inside of the ring is hydrophobic (it doesn’t mix with water), cyclodextrin can trap chemicals inside the ring and help them mix into medicines and foods. In medications, cyclodextrin acts as a ‘carrier’ that make active drugs dissolve better in the body. Cyclodextrin is also used in foods, such as mayonnaise, sweets, and butter, to stabilize flavors and emulsifications and to remove cholesterol. But besides its role as an additive, it was largely overlooked by researchers.
One of the first inklings of cyclodextrin’s therapeutic potential came in a 2004 scientific publication. Researchers were searching for a treatment for an ultra-rare genetic disorder called Niemann-Pick type C disease (NPC), which likely affects only a few hundred patients in the US. The disease is caused by a genetic mutation that breaks a protein responsible for shuttling cholesterol in cells. Because cholesterol is a vital building block to cell membranes and various organic molecules, its transport through the body and its cells is critical for proper health. In the absence of a working transporter, cholesterol gradually piles up in cells throughout the body, causing organ dysfunction, neurodegeneration, and eventual death.
NPC is sometimes called childhood Alzheimer’s because kids with the disease are often diagnosed after they develop symptoms similar to dementia, including deteriorating memory, balance, and verbal skills.
In the 2004 study, researchers presented data that a neurosteroid—given with the carrier cyclodextrin—seemed to help mice that were genetically engineered to have a broken cholesterol transporter. A single dose, the researchers found, doubled the life expectancy of the mice.
While other researchers rushed to repeat the experiment, which validated the finding, it took several years for researchers to figure out what was really going on: that the neurosteroid had no effect on the mice at all—it was the cyclodextrin.
Enter the Hempels
As researchers rolled out data on cyclodextrin, a couple named Chris and Hugh Hempel in Reno, Nevada, paid close attention. In 2007, their twin daughters, Addi and Cassi, then three years old, were diagnosed with NPC. As doctors repeatedly told them there was nothing to be done, the parents kept digging into the research and looking for a cure.
They found cyclodextrin and initially tried using it in oral doses, which is known to be safe. However, the chemical couldn’t effectively reach the brain that way. The couple made headlines with their tireless efforts to get drug companies, the FDA, and doctors to let them try out intravenous treatments of cyclodextrin for their twins—and they won. Regular treatments gradually improved—although didn’t cure—the twins’ conditions. Cyclodextrin is now in clinical trials to treat other kids with NPC.
Meanwhile, in 2010, Latz and colleagues published a study in Nature showing that cholesterol crystals, which accumulate along arteries when there’s too much cholesterol in the blood stream, can trigger inflammation. The immune response then produces a snowball effect eventually leading to the development of plaques—layers of cholesterol crystals, immune cells, and calcified lesions in the artery wall. Upon reading the study, Chris Hempel contacted Latz and told him about their experience with cyclodextrin clearing cholesterol from cells. Perhaps the sweet chemical could also clear it from plaques.
In mice fed high-cholesterol diets, cyclodextrin cleared away plaques and helped prevent more plaques from forming, Latz and his colleagues found. The chemical also activated cholesterol metabolism that boosted clearance of the waxy substance from arteries, plus dampened inflammation responses that spur atherosclerosis.
Using blood vessel tissue from human patients with atherosclerosis, researchers found that cyclodextrin induced the same changes in the human cells as it did in the mice.
The study, which includes Hempel as a coauthor, shows that cyclodextrin is a promising new treatment for atherosclerosis in humans, the researchers conclude—all thanks to some motivated parents.
Science Translational Medicine, 2015. DOI: 10.1126/scitranslmed.aad6100 (About DOIs). | – The unlikely use of a compound in powdered booze could ultimately help save millions of people from heart disease—and it was the mother of twin girls with a rare genetic disorder who first pitched the idea to scientists. The compound is called beta-cyclodextrin, which is already approved by the FDA and is widely used in medications and foods (including powdered alcohol), reports Ars Technica. It's long been seen as more of a "carrier"—it delivers other drugs and makes them more effective—but now it seems cyclodextrin itself is plenty potent, reports the Wall Street Journal. Writing in the journal Science Translational Medicine, researchers say it dissolved cholesterol crystals and plaque building up around the hearts of mice. “This is a potentially promising therapeutic approach,” says a Michigan State University cardiologist not involved with the study. An unusual twist is that one of the co-authors listed is Chris Hempel, an American mom without formal medical training who suggested the heart disease study. She is the mother of twin daughters with a rare genetic disease called Niemann-Pick type C, or NPC, often referred to as childhood Alzheimer's. Cyclodextrin has shown promise in treating NPC—it is currently being tested in clinical trials, thanks in large part to the advocacy of Hempel and her husband, Hugh—and Chris Hempel suggested to heart researchers that it might help on that front, too. The initial findings suggest her hunch was correct. More research is needed, but if further studies back up the results, cyclodextrin would be an improvement over the statins that don't always work on patients with clogged arteries, reports Popular Science. (Check out a profile of one of the NPC kids taking cyclodextrin.) |
[Photo: Le Figaro]
The latest effort by McDonald's to adapt to the local culture: adding the iconic baguette to its menus in France. An article in French newspaper Le Figaro says that McCafe locations in the country will add freshly-baked baguettes with butter and jam to the menu. The jam will of course come in apricot, raspberry, and orange varieties and will be made "artisanally by a producer in the Pyrenees." Baguette sandwiches are due in the first half of 2012.
Introducing a large-scale fast food version of a signature French artisanal foodstuff supposedly makes economic sense. According to Reuters, which picked up the story, "French people eat nine sandwiches for every single burger they tuck into."
The Le Figaro article, by the way, begins with the rhyming phrase "Cocorico chez McDo." As some wiseass noted on Twitter, this translates to "Cock-a-doodle-do at McDonald's." Some things just sound better in French.
· La Baguette Fait Son Entrée Chez McDonald's [Le Figaro]
· McDonald's Bets on Baguette to Lure French [Reuters]
· All McDonald's Coverage on Eater [-E-] ||||| While Happy Meals are getting ever-so-slightly healthier with the token addition of apple slices and milk, over in France, McDonald's restaurants are operating on another culinary plane entirely.
Feast your eyes on the McBaguette, the newest addition to the menu, which comes served with apricot, raspberry, and orange marmalade preserves — fashioned "artisanally by a producer in the Pyrenees" — as well as with a pretty coquette who giggles seductively as she pats the crumb remnants from the corners of your mouth with a napkin. If the new menu item is a hit overseas, look for American franchises to adopt their own version, which will serve the miniature loaves of crusty bread between two syrup-soaked McPancabiscuits™, along with a quarter-pound sausage patty and eight generous slices of American cheese. [Eater] | – Oh, well, isn't McDonald's just getting très chic? We knew about the fast-food resturant's precious demi-tasse cups of coffee, and now it's about to serve ... baguettes to the French. Still sticking sort of true to its roots, though, Mickey D's is calling the haute culinary offering the McBaguette, which comes with apricot, raspberry, and orange marmalade preserves, fashioned "artisanally by a producer in the Pyrenees." It's smart marketing because for every single burger the French scarf down, they gobble nine sandwiches, Eater points out. "The French are passionate about bread and crazy about baguettes," a McDonald's exec in Europe tells Reuters. "For the first 15 years, from 1980, what we did above all was offer people a slice of America." Who knows, if the French go all oo la la for it, the McBaguette might make its way across the pond—but would then likely be served with a "quarter-pound sausage patty and eight generous slices of American cheese," sniggers Gawker. |
This undated photo the Alabama Department of Corrections shows inmate Doyle Lee Hamm. Alabama will not make a second attempt to execute an ailing Hamm who had his lethal injection halted last month when... (Associated Press)
This undated photo the Alabama Department of Corrections shows inmate Doyle Lee Hamm. Alabama will not make a second attempt to execute an ailing Hamm who had his lethal injection halted last month when the team could not find a usable vein, his attorney said Tuesday, March 27, 2018. Hamm was scheduled... (Associated Press)
This undated photo the Alabama Department of Corrections shows inmate Doyle Lee Hamm. Alabama will not make a second attempt to execute an ailing Hamm who had his lethal injection halted last month when the team could not find a usable vein, his attorney said Tuesday, March 27, 2018. Hamm was scheduled... (Associated Press) This undated photo the Alabama Department of Corrections shows inmate Doyle Lee Hamm. Alabama will not make a second attempt to execute an ailing Hamm who had his lethal injection halted last month when... (Associated Press)
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Alabama will not make a second attempt to put to death an ailing inmate who had his lethal injection halted last month when the execution team could not find a usable vein, his attorney said Tuesday.
Doyle Lee Hamm will not face a second trip to the state's death chamber under a settlement reached to end Hamm's lawsuit against the state, attorney Bernard Harcourt wrote in an email. The filing noted that Hamm's request for compensation had been dismissed, but the terms of the settlement were confidential.
"I will say that Doyle, his family, and his legal team are extremely relieved," Harcourt wrote.
Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall's office confirmed the agreement to dismiss the lawsuit, but did not respond to questions about what it meant for another execution date. "There is no further comment," a spokeswoman wrote in an email.
Harcourt had written in earlier court filings that Hamm had endured "torture" during the state's attempt to execute him on Feb. 22.
Hamm was scheduled to be put to death for the 1987 slaying of motel clerk Patrick Cunningham. His attorneys argued that Hamm's history of lymphoma, hepatitis and drug use had compromised his veins to the point that lethal injection would be unconstitutionally painful or impossible. The state disputed that.
However, Alabama halted the lethal injection after the execution team had trouble connecting the intravenous line. The announcement came about 2 ½ hours after the U.S. Supreme Court cleared the execution to proceed.
A doctor hired by Hamm's attorney wrote in a court filing that Hamm had at least 11 puncture wounds. The doctor said that Hamm said someone from the state announced that the execution was over after he began bleeding heavily from the groin. ||||| CLOSE A U.S. judge ordered Alabama to preserve death chamber evidence of an aborted execution and be ready to present it at court after lawyers for the condemned man warned his poor health left him with veins unusable for a lethal injection. Wochit
In September 2017, a doctor hired by Doyle Lee Hamm's legal team reported execution officials would likely have trouble setting an IV due to vein damage from lymphatic cancer. (Photo: Bernard Harcourt)
Alabama will not try to execute a death row inmate a second time after he walked out of the execution chamber last month, the inmate's lawyer said Tuesday.
Doyle Lee Hamm's legal team on Tuesday said a private settlement would end efforts at setting another execution date.
Alabama Department of Corrections officials called off his lethal injection attempt at Holman Correctional Facility shortly before midnight on Feb. 22. ADOC officials said it was a time issue — Hamm's death warrant expired at midnight — but Hamm's legal team say multiple attempts to set an IV in his lower legs and groin led to extreme pain, possible infection and psychological distress.
"In a private, confidential settlement agreement that I signed with the attorneys from the Alabama Attorney General’s office, we resolved all of our differences and have jointly dismissed all the state and federal litigation in Doyle Hamm’s cases," attorney Bernard Harcourt wrote in an emailed statement.
The Montgomery Advertiser has requested comment from the Attorney General's office.
Harcourt said Hamm and his family are "extremely relieved."
According to court document's, Hamm's claim for monetary damages was dismissed.
Doyle Lee Hamm was convicted of the 1987 murder of Cullman hotel clerk Patrick Cunningham in the course of a robbery. (Photo: Bernard Harcourt)
Hamm believes Alabama lost its chance to kill him: His lawyer had argued in court a second execution attempt would violate the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment and the double jeopardy clause of the Fifth Amendment.
Convicted of killing Cullman motel clerk Patrick Cunningham in 1987, Hamm had previously argued his veins were too damaged to access because of a host of medical issues.
Hamm is one of four American men to walk out of the execution chamber since the mid-1900s, and one of only two still living.
In Ohio in 2009, an execution team spent nearly two hours trying to locate a suitable vein in Romell Broom, who had been convicted for the kidnapping, rape and murder of a teen girl.
Broom’s lawyers fought against a second execution date, arguing it would amount to cruel and unusual punishment and double jeopardy.
But Ohio's Supreme Court found that setting an IV is prep for an impending execution, not part of the execution itself. An execution can't begin until "lethal drugs flow through the tubes," the court found. The U.S. Supreme Court in 2016 declined to hear Broom's challenge to a second injection attempt, and a new execution date was set in June 2020.
Read or Share this story: https://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/story/news/crime/2018/03/27/https-montgomeryadvertiser-story-news-local-solutions-journalism-2018-03-20-can-alabama-try/461862002/ | – Last month, Doyle Lee Hamm walked out of an Alabama execution chamber alive. On Tuesday, the inmate's legal team said a private settlement had been reached to ensure the state won't try to execute Hamm again. Hamm, sentenced to death for killing a motel clerk during a 1987 robbery, was scheduled for execution Feb. 22; his death warrant expired at midnight. Alabama Department of Corrections officials said they called off the lethal injection execution because they didn't have enough time to prepare before the warrant expired, but Hamm's legal team say officials actually did make multiple attempts to get an IV in him and ultimately failed. One of Hamm's lawyers called it a "gory, botched," and very bloody attempt to put the inmate to death, and his team says it left him in extreme pain and psychological distress and possibly suffering from an infection. The settlement puts an end to Hamm's resulting lawsuit against the state. "In a private, confidential settlement agreement that I signed with the attorneys from the Alabama Attorney General’s office, we resolved all of our differences and have jointly dismissed all the state and federal litigation in Doyle Hamm’s cases," Hamm's attorney Bernard Harcourt said in a statement Tuesday, according to the Montgomery Advertiser. Hamm's team argued in court that attempting to put him to death a second time would violate the Fifth Amendment's double jeopardy clause as well as the constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment. The Attorney General's office has not yet commented, but the Advertiser notes that court documents show Hamm's claim for monetary damages was dismissed. "I will say that Doyle, his family, and his legal team are extremely relieved," reads Harcourt's statement, per the AP. |
A cancer patient who lost most of his penis to a flesh-eating superbug after routine surgery has won a six-figure payout.
Andrew Lane, 63, contracted the potentially fatal infection necrotising fasciitis after an operation to remove his prostate gland in March 2013. His bowel was punctured during the procedure at Southend hospital in Essex, but staff only noticed the injury six days later, his lawyers said.
Lane, from Thurrock in Essex, was rushed to theatre but the damage caused by the infection was so severe that he was left with just an inch-and-a-half of his penis.
His lawyers, Slater and Gordon, said on Monday that Southend University hospital NHS foundation trust paid him an undisclosed sum to settle the case in July, admitting liability.
Lane said: “They’ve admitted their mistake, but I’ve not had an apology and knowing that just a scan a few days earlier would have prevented all of this is very difficult to accept.
“I’ve been compensated, but I’ll never get my health back and I just want other people to be aware of how dangerous this flesh-eating bug is. If you don’t feel you are getting the right treatment, you have got to speak out.”
Lane, who married his partner of 18 years shortly after being discharged from hospital, is incontinent and has been treated for depression. He can no longer have sex despite retaining his desire. “It’s been a difficult thing to come to terms with for both of us,” he said. “I know Sue still loves me, but I do feel less of a man.”
He was also forced to have contaminated muscle tissue covering his stomach removed, which he said left him looking nine months pregnant, as his stomach intestines hang out.
Lane, who now works as a carer, said: “I’m at greater risk of hernias and I have two so I’m in constant pain. I used to be sporty and proud of my body, but now I can’t bear to look in the mirror.”
Denise Townsend, director of nursing at Southend University hospital, said: “I can confirm that the trust is in communication with Mr Lane regarding his case, a settlement sum has been agreed and that the trust has admitted failures in relation to delays in Mr Lane’s diagnosis.”
Tom Spearpoint, a clinical negligence specialist at Slater and Gordon, said Lane had shown incredible strength and selflessness in speaking out to raise awareness of this rare but serious bacterial infection, which left untreated can be life-threatening. “The impact has been devastating, both physically and emotionally, but the trust’s admissions have at least given him some closure and the means to get the care and support that he needs to move on with his life,” he said ||||| Image copyright Slater and Gordon solicitors Image caption Andrew Lane, pictured with his wife Sue, said he feels like "less of a man" since his life-changing operation
A cancer patient who lost most of his penis to a flesh-eating superbug has won a six-figure payout.
Andrew Lane, 63, contracted the potentially fatal necrotising fasciitis infection following surgery to remove his prostate gland in March 2013.
His bowel was punctured during the routine operation at Southend hospital but staff only noticed six days later.
Southend University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust admitted there were "failures" in diagnosing the problem.
Mr Lane, from Thurrock, said: "They've admitted their mistake, but I've not had an apology and knowing that just a scan a few days earlier would have prevented all of this is very difficult to accept."
Following the life-changing operation, Mr Lane can no longer have sex, is incontinent and has been treated for depression.
Image copyright Slater and Gordon solicitors Image caption Mr Lane has also been left looking "nine months pregnant" after infected tissue on his stomach had to be removed
The damage caused by the infection was so severe that he was left with just an inch-and-a-half of his penis.
He was also forced to have the contaminated tissue covering his stomach removed, which has left him looking "nine months pregnant".
Mr Lane, who married his long-term partner Sue shortly after being discharged from hospital, decided to speak out to warn people how dangerous the necrotising fasciitis bug is.
He said: "I've been compensated, but I'll never get my health back.
"I used to be sporty and proud of my body, but now I can't bear to look in the mirror."
Image caption Mr Lane contracted a flesh-eating superbug at Southend Hospital
Mr Lane, who works as a carer, added: "My wife and I have been together for 18 years and enjoyed a healthy sex life but since this happened, that has been impossible.
"The desire is still there, but the little that's left just doesn't function any more.
"I know Sue still loves me, but I feel less of a man."
Denise Townsend, director of nursing at Southend University Hospital, said: "I can confirm that the trust is in communication with Mr Lane regarding his case, a settlement sum has been agreed and that the trust has admitted failures in relation to delays in Mr Lane's diagnosis." | – A UK cancer patient who lost all but an inch and a half of his penis to a flesh-eating infection, leaving him unable to have sex, is being compensated to the tune of six figures. The undisclosed sum was awarded to Andrew Lane, 63, who contracted necrotising fasciitis after his bowel was punctured during surgery to remove his prostate gland in March 2013, reports the Guardian. Undetected for six days, according to lawyers, the complication left Lane with an inch and a half of his penis and a bulging stomach, as affected muscle in that area had to be removed. "I can't bear to look in the mirror" and "feel less of a man," says Lane, who wed his longterm partner following the procedure, per the BBC. "My wife and I have been together for 18 years and enjoyed a healthy sex life but since this happened, that has been impossible. The desire is still there, but the little that's left just doesn't function any more," continues Lane, who is incontinent, "in constant pain" from hernias, and has been treated for depression. "Knowing that just a scan a few days earlier would have prevented all of this is very difficult to accept," he adds. As part of the July settlement with the Southend University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, the Essex hospital admitted to "failures in relation to delays in Mr. Lane's diagnosis." Lane says he now wants others to know "how dangerous this flesh-eating bug is." (Penis transplants are available.) |
SAN FRANCISCO — Drought could kill vast swaths of forests around the world if global warming isn't contained, new research suggests.
That's in part because a fundamental structure found in trees may limit how much they can adapt to parched conditions.
What's more, climate predictions seem to suggest that droughts will be much more common in the United States, said William Anderegg, a biologist at Princeton University who studies forests and climate change. [Dry and Dying: Images of Drought]
"The droughts of the future look to be more frequent and more severe," Anderegg said here yesterday (Dec. 14) at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union.
However, there's a potential silver lining in the (absent) clouds: If humans can reduce their carbon emissions sufficiently, the worst drought scenarios may not play out, leaving hope that more forests will survive, Anderegg said.
Uncertain models
Climate models of the impacts of forests on carbon emissions have come to wildly divergent conclusions. Some viewed forests as natural carbon "sinks" that absorb and trap carbon dioxide, thus helping to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. But others see forests as a significant source of atmospheric carbon.
This huge uncertainty came from one problem: People weren't sure exactly how many trees would be around in the future. (Beyond that, people didn't even know how many trees were on Earth right now. Until recently, scientists assumed that there were about 400 billion trees on Earth, but another study presented here put the number of trees on Earth at a whopping 3.04 trillion.)
At its heart, though, the disparity stemmed from uncertainty about whether plants would respond to the coming droughts. A plant's response to drought is enormously complicated — water shortage can kill a tree in many ways, from making it more susceptible to bark beetles to producing conditions ripe for wildfires that could burn down a whole forest, Anderegg said.
Hydraulic factors
However, one factor seemed to play an outsize role in a tree's ability to adapt to parched conditions. Plants suck water up through their xylem, the vascular system that threads through a tree's roots and branches, by creating a pressure gradient. The less water there is in the soil, the harder these plants have to suck.
"At a certain point, which varies by species and tissue, we start to get air bubbles pulled into these xylem elements," Anderegg said.
When enough of these air bubbles form in the xylem, they form an embolism, similar to the kind found in humans, that blocks the flow of needed water and nutrients, leading to "hydraulic failure," Anderegg said.
"This may be the dominant process we've got to get at to predict tree mortality," he added.
In a study published in the journal Nature Geoscience earlier this year, Anderegg and his colleagues calculated the hydraulic failure point of trembling aspen (Populus tremuloides) in Colorado, and found that those forests would die off if the hotter climate predictions came to pass.
In follow-up research, he and his team found that the plant hydraulics seem to vary more among individual trees in a stand than they do among species or even different types of trees. Given that researchers know some plant types are much more resilient to drought than others (think of a cactus versus a fern), the findings suggest that the current definitions of plant types may not fully capture the diverse responses of plants to drought, he said.
Exactly how plants seem to recover may also depend on how frequently the drought occurs, Anderegg said. He and his colleagues have found that there's a fairly pervasive effect of drought on tree growth that lasts for two to four years after a drought period, with some forest regions having a stronger drought effect than others.
"There are fairly strong legacy effects in the southwestern U.S." Anderegg said.
So, if drought occurs more frequently than that, trees in a forest may never return to their full stature, he said.
Follow Tia Ghose on Twitter and Google+. Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science. |||||
A dead tree is seen against a barren landscape in the Tejon Pass between the San Joaquin Valley to the north and Los Angeles to the south, in Lebec, California, January 22, 2014. AFP PHOTO / ROBYN BECKROBYN BECK/AFP/Getty Images
We know that temperatures are heating up around the globe — but climate change is also responsible for all kinds of other changes on the planet, including increases in storms, fires, floods and, not surprisingly, drought.
It seems obvious that forests, which are full of water-guzzling trees, are among the ecosystems likely to be most affected by droughts. But while scientists know that drought is stressful on trees, “what we didn’t really know is what happened after the drought was alleviated,” said William Anderegg, a postdoctoral fellow at Princeton University’s Environmental Institute.
“One scenario is that once the water comes back into the soil and atmosphere, trees recover, in essence, immediately — kind of like your house plants might if you water them after a couple days of not watering them,” Anderegg said. But the other possibility is that drought causes “legacy effects,” or damage to trees that lingers long after the drought is over. This kind of lasting damage could have important implications for Earth’s climate, as healthy trees are able to store large amounts of carbon that would otherwise go into the atmosphere. Long-lasting damage could hurt this carbon-storing ability.
Currently, many models that focus on climate and vegetation assume that trees recover immediately, Anderegg said. He and his colleagues suspected that this was not actually the case. And in a new study, published Thursday in the journal Science, they demonstrate that legacy effects actually do exist.
It turns out trees don’t recover from drought immediately, as models often assume they do. Trees may slow their growth for up to four years following a severe drought, the researchers discovered. They used an international database to examine data on tree growth from 1,338 sites around the world, mostly non-tropical forests in the Northern Hemisphere. Legacy effects in general lasted two to four years, with growth being the most affected (about 9 percent slower than normal expected growth) in the first year following a severe drought. That said, after the first year or two, the effects are generally “very modest,” cautioned Robert Jackson, a professor of environmental science at Stanford University, who was not involved with the study.
The effects seemed to be worse for some areas and some types of trees than others. Damage was worse in drier ecosystems, and the effects also seemed to be a little more pronounced in gymnosperms — a classification including cone-bearing trees, such as pines — than angiosperms, or flowering trees, such as oaks.
[Global warming threatens pine forests, forcing federal officials to shift strategy]
The reasons behind the lengthy growth delays following drought aren’t totally clear, but Anderegg and his colleagues have some theories. Drought could cause leaves to shrink or trees to lose certain carbohydrates that assist in growth. Droughts are also sometimes followed by an increased burden of pests or diseases, which could weaken trees and limit their growth. But one of the likelier explanations, according to Anderegg, is that drought causes damage to trees’ water transport systems. If trees become less effective at shuttling water into their leaves, their growth will be stunted.
More research is likely needed on which causes apply to which types of trees. Regardless, the researchers maintain that representing these legacy effects in models can help scientists better understand how drought might affect forests’ ability to store carbon, which could have important implications for Earth’s climate future.
Forests generally serve as “carbon sinks,” meaning they trap carbon that would otherwise end up in the atmosphere. Bigger trees and larger forests can suck up more carbon, so if a forest’s growth is compromised, its status as a carbon sink could also be damaged.
[Report suggests forest-cutting can immediately harm climatic patterns]
The researchers even make some predictions about the way drought could affect carbon storage in forests, based on their results. For example, they write, if they base their predictions on the way carbon is stored in forests in the Southwestern United States, “legacy effects could lead to 3 percent lower carbon storage in semi-arid ecosystems over a century, equivalent to 1.6 metric gigatons of carbon when considering all semi-arid ecosystems across the globe.”
“We want to try to predict which types of forests are going to be most resilient in a changing climate,” said Anderegg, research that more accurate models can help facilitate. But Jackson, the Stanford professor, cautioned that there could be some difficulties implementing the results in global climate-vegetation models, partly because these models are so large-scale.
“One of the limitations for the models is that whatever you do has to be done on a large regional or global basis,” Jackson said. “You have to treat most trees the same. You can’t tune a response for a given species, or even genus, in a global model.” Since different species may react to drought in different ways and experience slightly different effects, this means it would be hard to end up with a perfect global model.
However, just knowing that legacy effects do, in fact, exist can help improve the models. For example, Jackson said, “One way to do it would be to just dial down growth a little bit after a drought in subsequent years.”
The paper also highlights the need for further research in related areas. The study largely left out tropical forests, whose growth is more difficult to study because many tropical species don’t produce annual rings in their trunks — the way growth and age is often measured in trees. More research should be done to see if tropical trees react to drought in similar ways, Anderegg said.
And even more important than drought’s effect on tree growth is its effect on tree mortality, Jackson added, which has “far bigger implications for the carbon cycle than these legacy effects of the drought.” Dead trees can release large amounts of carbon into the atmosphere, and there’s a possibility that more frequent and severe droughts could cause mass die-off events in forests, especially if they’re still in recovery from a previous drought, said Anderegg.
[More than 12 million trees killed by California drought]
Events that release large amounts of carbon into the atmosphere can contribute to what’s known as a feedback loop: More trees dying and releasing carbon into the atmosphere could accelerate climate change, which could cause more changes on Earth, such as more severe droughts. More droughts could then cause more forest die-offs, perpetuating the vicious cycle. Similar climate loops exist in other aspects of the planet — for example, the polar ice caps, which reflect sunlight away from the Earth and help keep temperatures from getting too high. Human-caused climate change, however, is causing the ice to melt, which means more sun is absorbed by the Earth, causing temperatures to rise. This accelerated climate change, in turn, causes more ice to melt.
Research in these areas is important for understanding the ways forests and climate change effects interact and could affect one another. It’s a learning opportunity, and also a reminder that humans still have some control over the events that influence the Earth, Anderegg said.
“One of the final things I’d like to emphasize is that the future of a lot of these forests really rests in our hands,” Anderegg said. “The sooner and the more effectively we address climate change, the less risks forests will face.” | – The ability of Earth's forests to stand up to droughts may be worse than previously believed. The Washington Post reports that many current scientific models assume trees recover immediately following a drought. But Princeton's William Anderegg demonstrated droughts actually have "legacy effects" on trees in a study published earlier this year. According to Live Science, Anderegg explained the problem Monday at the annual American Geophysical Union meeting. Trees have to work harder to suck up water during a drought; that creates air bubbles in the tree's vascular system that can lead to water- and nutrient-blocking embolisms. Anderegg's team found that droughts can continue to affect trees for up to four years after normal conditions return. During the years following a drought, trees are prevented from growing at their normal rates, possibly hurting the amount of carbon dioxide they pull out of the atmosphere, the Post reports. Even worse, dead trees dump greenhouse gases back into the atmosphere, creating a feedback loop of more droughts and dead trees. While climate models suggest droughts will become more frequent and severe in the coming years, Anderegg tells Live Science it's not too late to prevent the worst of it by reducing carbon emissions. "The future of a lot of these forests really rests in our hands,” he tells the Post. “The sooner and the more effectively we address climate change, the less risks forests will face.” (Listen closely, and you can hear California's drought.) |
Subscriber Content Read Preview When Bond Funds Jump the Fence Unconstrained bond funds have a lot of freedom to try beating the bond market. But that freedom can backfire.
N.Y. Hotel Fetches Record Price China’s Sunshine Insurance Group has agreed to acquire the Baccarat Hotel in Manhattan for more than $2 million a room, a record valuation. ||||| SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — In a move aimed at restoring investor confidence following a year of upheaval, Hewlett-Packard Co. on Thursday named Meg Whitman as its new chief executive, picking the former eBay Inc. CEO to replace Leo Apotheker, who held the job for less than 11 months.
Reuters
H-P’s /quotes/zigman/229301/quotes/nls/hpq HPQ +0.55% made the announcement after the market closed, putting an end to two days of reports that the company’s directors were set to fire Apotheker and replace him with Whitman, who has been on H-P’s board since January.
�?The decision to change leadership was taken very, very seriously,�? said H-P executive chairman Ray Lane, on a conference call. “One that we believe was absolutely necessary.�?
Apotheker had been under fire seemingly since he was named to the top job on Sept. 30 of last year. Investors showed their displeasure with the former chief executive of SAP from the start, having cut down H-P’s shares by more than 45% since the announcement.
The stock also hit a six-year low of $22.13 last week, and closed Thursday down nearly 5% at $22.80. The shares turned down slightly in after-hours trading following the announcement.
Speaking on the same conference call, Whitman addressed H-P’s recent performance, saying, “I know we have disappointed investors. We will take the necessary actions to get H-P back on track.�?
Some of those steps may still included the possible spinning off or sale of the company’s personal computer business, which Apotheker announced on August 18. Whitman said she didn’t want to waste any time on the matter.
“We’re going to get to a decision as fast as possible,�? Whitman said. “A decision like this is not like fine wine, it doesn’t get better with age.�?
Whitman becomes the fourth person to hold the company’s CEO seat in the last 13 months, following Mark Hurd, interim CEO Cathie Lesjak and then, Apotheker. She is best-known for leading eBay /quotes/zigman/76117/quotes/nls/ebay EBAY -0.10% from 1998 until 2008 and steering the online auction and retail site from about $4 million in annual revenue to more than $8 billion in the year she left the company.
In 2010, Whitman ran as the Republican candidate for governor of California, spending a reported $144 million of her own money on the campaign. Whitman was defeated by Democrat Jerry Brown.
Lane defends board performance
On Thursday’s call, chairman Ray Lane defended the performance of the companys’ board, which has come under fire for supporting Apotheker’s more controversial moves.
Lane responded to analysts questions about the amount of time H-P put into picking a new CEO by saying, “We did everything we could to drive a process, but I knew the strongest candidate was Meg. While we went through a process, I knew where the process would come out. We became convinced this was our best choice.“
Whitman’s predecessor, Apotheker, had also been CEO of German software giant SAP. He will walk away from his short-lived gig at H-P with a severance package worth an estimated $35 million in cash and stock, according to an estimate by the Wall Street Journal. ||||| Hewlett-Packard Co. (HPQ) named Meg Whitman as president and chief executive officer, replacing Leo Apotheker, who departs after taking the job in November.
Ray Lane is also becoming executive chairman from non- executive chairman.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Greg Chang at gchang1@bloomberg.net | – Score one for the rumor mill: Hewlett-Packard waited for the markets to close, then named Meg Whitman its new CEO, effective immediately, reports Bloomberg. The former eBay exec, recently off a failed bid to be California governor, will take over for Leo Apotheker, who resigned under pressure after 11 lackluster months. He had lowered the company's financial outlook after three successive quarters, notes the Wall Street Journal. "Meg is a technology visionary with a proven track record of execution," says the board's newly named executive chairman, Ray Lane. "As a member of HP's board of directors for the past eight months, Meg has a solid understanding of our products and markets." She is the fourth CEO in 13 months, adds MarketWatch. (Remember Mark Hurd?) It's still unclear whether H-P will move ahead with Apotheker's plan to spin off the PC business. |
We've seen everything from treehouses to castles listed on Airbnb, but here's a first: a whole country.
After the huge success of 'The Swedish Number' campaign, Sweden is looking for more creative ways to promote tourism. Building on Allemansrätten - the Swedish law that allows you to roam, sleep, eat, or do pretty much whatever you want freely anywhere in Swedish nature - the organization Visit Sweden has launched a campaign to showcase the unique availability of Swedish nature.
By listing Sweden on Airbnb, the organization is pointing out that while you're in Sweden, you're free to stay in anywhere in nature and use all its amenities completely free of charge. You don't have to go to the trouble of finding a national park. In a country of 447 435 km² and a population set to hit 10 million this year, there's plenty of nature to go around - so just bring your tent. All you have to do is to be respectful of nature and neighbors.
Swedes take the freedom to roam so much for granted that putting up a 'no trespassing' sign or 'private road' is considered a severe faux pas.
Ad
”Swedes. Sometimes I think they don’t know how lucky they are,” Natalia Brzezinski, CEO of Brilliant Minds and Symposium Stockholm, said in support of the project.
The campaign features nine inspiring examples of Swedish nature. They're really just like any Airbnb listings:
Just like with any Airbnb, the example locations come with a list of amenities and a description. This one features a beech forest in Skåne, southern Sweden. Airbnb / Visit Sweden
Here's a boiled down version of the 'Freedom to roam' or Outdoor Access Right:
You are allowed to access any land, except private residences, the immediate vicinity (70 meters) of a dwelling house and cultivated land.
You can put up a tent.
Campfires are allowed.
You are allowed to collect flowers, mushrooms and berries.
Driving on private roads is allowed unless there’s a sign saying otherwise.
Swimming in lakes is allowed.
You can access any beach as long as you stay away from private residences.
You are allowed to catch fish in the five big lakes and along the entire coastline.
Source: The Swedish Environmental Protection Agency ||||| In an effort to boost tourism, Sweden is appealing to the Airbnb generation of travelers in an unusual way: by listing their entire country as available for stay.
Sweden is trying to educate and interest travelers in their concept of "Allemansrätten," otherwise known as "the freedom to roam."
SEE ALSO: Cliffside hotel pods offer the ultimate panoramic views at terrifying heights
Basically, Swedish law states that all people have the right to be free on their land. That means free to camp, to hike, and explore, and to use natural resources at will.
As a concept, it's pretty appealing, especially when camping outdoors can frequently cost the same or more as a hostel (or Airbnb for that matter).
Sites listed include rocky beaches, deep forests, and scenic cliffs, all branded to sound like rooms for rent.
Image: visitsweden/airbnb
Locations profile the available "amenities" like "natural heating (May-August)" and "infinity pool." It's all very cute.
Image: visitsweden/airbnb
It also provides maps and directions to the destinations, just like a normal Airbnb listing. Reviews highlight the activities available at each location, as well as anecdotes from past visits.
Image: visitsweden/airbnb
All pretty enticing, but honestly, they had us at "eat berries from the ground, sleep under the stars." | – If your last-minute weekend getaways involve turning to the loving arms of Airbnb, we have that special listing for you: It is the entire nation of Sweden, reports Mashable, and it can be yours for the bargain price of free. Citing the Swedish principle of Allemansrätten—the freedom to roam or right to be free in nature—the crafty tourism wizards write that the country is "a place where you can eat berries from the ground, sleep under the stars, swim in the lakes and roam freely. To make this home available for everyone, Sweden has listed the entire country on Airbnb." There are nine very normal-looking Airbnb listings with amenities such as "Open roof bedroom," "Natural Heating (May-August)," "Wild Pets," and availability 365 days a year. Business Insider runs down the list of things Allemansrätten entitles you to and it's pretty extensive: Access to any land except private residences and 70 yards of them; cultivated land is also excluded Pitch a tent, make a campfire, swim in lakes, fish in five main lakes or along the whole coast Help yourself to flowers, mushrooms, and berries Drive on any road not marked private |
Image copyright AFP Image caption The Marshlands were deliberately devastated by Saddam Hussein
The United Nations cultural agency Unesco has named Iraq's southern marshes - once decimated by Saddam Hussein - a World Heritage Site.
Home to the Marsh Arabs, three archaeological sites and an array of species of birds and fish, the marshes are "unique", Unesco says.
The area was ordered drained in the 1990s by Saddam to stop it being used for cover by rebels.
The marshlands have partially revived since his overthrow in 2003.
A major restoration programme has seen people and wildlife return to the area, regarded by some as the site of the Biblical Garden of Eden.
Unesco said the area was "unique, as one of the world's largest inland delta systems, in an extremely hot and arid environment".
It also contains the ancient sites of Uruk, Tell Eridu and Ur - the birthplace of Biblical patriarch Abraham.
In the 1970s, the marshes, formally known as the Ahwar of Southern Iraq, covered some 3,500 sq miles (9,000 sq km), but were reduced by Saddam to barely 290 sq miles.
The former ruler sought to punish the Marsh Arab tribes who had risen up against him after the first Gulf War and also deprive opposition forces of a base for operations.
Huge tracts were drained and dams were built, causing hundreds of thousands of Marsh Arabs to flee.
Over the past decade, local efforts to re-flood the area and help from environmental agencies have replenished about half the wetlands.
Wildlife and Marsh Arabs, native to the wetlands for about six millennia, have also since made a return.
The marshlands, however, remain at risk to drought, dams and irrigation schemes. ||||| Story highlights UNESCO has named new World Heritage Sites around the world
China, India and Spain all have new sites on the exclusive list
(CNN) A narrow, 10-mile strip of Canadian coastal cliffs dating back more than 500 million years contains the oldest known collection of large fossils in the world.
Located on the southeastern tip of the island of Newfoundland, the Mistaken Point cliffs were added to the exclusive UNESCO World Heritage List on Sunday.
A series of 99 artificial islets built off the the southeast coast of the Micronesian island of Pohnpei sometime between 1200 and 1500 AD were also added to the list.
The ruins on the islets were the ceremonial center of the Saudeleur dynasty, and the structures are evidence of the religious and social practices of the period.
The UNESCO World Heritage Committee inscribed 21 sites on the Wold Heritage List during its annual meeting in Istanbul, Turkey, from July 10 to 17.
Read More ||||| BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A wetland in southeast Iraq, thought to be the biblical Garden of Eden and almost completely drained during Saddam Hussein’s rule, has become a UNESCO world heritage site, Iraqi authorities said on Sunday.
Boat owners gather in marshes in Nassiriya, southeast of Baghdad, Iraq July 14, 2016. Picture taken July 14, 2016. REUTERS/Essam Al-Sudani
Fed by the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, the marshlands of Mesopotamia are spawning grounds for Gulf fisheries and home to bird species such as the sacred ibis. They also provide a resting spot for thousands of wildfowl migrating between Siberia and Africa.
Saddam Hussein, who accused the region’s Marsh Arab inhabitants of treachery during the 1980-1988 war with Iran, dammed and drained the marshes in the 1990s to flush out rebels hiding in the reeds.
After his overthrow by the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, locals wrecked many of the dams to let water rush back in, and foreign environmental agencies helped breathe life back into the marshes.
The marshes, which covered 9,000 square kilometers (3,500 square miles) in the 1970s, had shrunk to just 760 sq km by 2002 before regaining some 40 percent of the original area by 2005. Iraq has said it aims to recover a total of 6,000 sq km.
Vast, remote and bordering Iran, the marshes have been used in recent years for drugs and arms smuggling, receiving stolen goods and keeping hostages for ransom.
The Marsh Arabs have lived in the wetlands for millennia, but are on the fringes of Iraqi society. A study put their population at 400,000 in the 1950s but several hundred thousand fled Saddam’s repression or become economic migrants.
Estimates of the numbers returning vary wildly. Many Marsh Arabs are illiterate and have struggled to find work outside the marshes.
Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi on Sunday praised UNESCO’s decision, which he said “coincides with the consecutive military victories in the war against” Islamic State.
The militant group, which has been pushed back from about half the territory it seized in 2014, controls some of the world’s richest archaeological sites in northern Iraq but has not come close to the country’s south. ||||| Supporters of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan demonstrate at the Turkish consulate in Stuttgart, Germany, early Saturday July 16, 2016. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told the nation... (Associated Press)
Supporters of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan demonstrate at the Turkish consulate in Stuttgart, Germany, early Saturday July 16, 2016. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told the nation... (Associated Press)
World leaders expressed support for Turkey and its democratic institutions on Saturday after the government quashed an attempted military coup.
ITALY
Italian Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni said Turkish authorities must do their utmost to ensure "respect for the rule of law, of fundamental rights and of parliament's role" following the failed military coup.
In a statement issued by the Foreign Ministry Saturday evening, Gentiloni expressed "relief" that Turkey thwarted what he calls a "military adventure that would have brought the country into chaos with the return of ghosts of the past."
Gentiloni also said that, "prompt re-establishment of constitutional order and stability is urgent and necessary" but that must occur without "indulging in the logic of violence."
___
GERMANY
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she condemns the coup attempt in Turkey, saying democratic institutions must be respected.
Merkel told reporters at the chancellery in Berlin on Saturday that it was "tragic that so many people paid for this coup attempt with their lives" and urged an end to the bloodshed.
She said "Germany stands on the side of all of those in Turkey who defend democracy and the rule of law."
___
EUROPEAN UNION
The European Union's foreign affairs chief said it is "indispensable" that Turkey regain stability, following a failed military coup.
The Italian news agency ANSA Saturday further quoted Federica Mogherini as telling it and another Italian agency AGI in a joint interview that it is imperative that "a dangerous spiral of violence" isn't fueled.
Mogherini was also quoted as calling on Turkey to respect the law, rule of law and democratic conventions, calling them "binding and inalienable principles" which are also the "best way to face the difficulties that Turkey is experiencing."
___
RUSSIA
Russia's Foreign Ministry expressed concern about tensions in Turkey in the wake of an attempted military coup.
"The aggravation of the political situation in the context of the terrorist threats existing in the country and armed conflict in the region carry a high risk to international and regional stability," the ministry said in a statement Saturday. "We call on the government and people of Turkey to solve the existing problems without violence, to respect the constitutional order."
Tensions between Russia and Turkey have been strong since last fall when Turkey shot down a Russian warplane near the border with Syria. However, relations appeared to be moving toward repair after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan issued an apology for the incident last month.
___
UNITED STATES
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said the United States would entertain an extradition request for exiled cleric Fethullah Gulen, whom Turkey's president blames for a failed coup.
But Kerry added that Turkey's government would have to present evidence of Gulen's wrongdoing that withstands scrutiny.
While visiting Luxembourg, Kerry said Turkey hasn't made a request to extradite the Pennsylvania-based Gulen. But he said he anticipates questions about Gulen, who has condemned the coup attempt.
Kerry said on Saturday the U.S. opposed any attempt to overthrow a democratically elected leader and change must come through a constitutional process.
___
ISRAEL
A statement from the Israeli Foreign Ministry said it respects the democratic process in Turkey and looks forward to the continued reconciliation between the countries.
Israel and Turkey recently struck a broad reconciliation pact to restore diplomatic relations after six years of animosity between the once-close Mideast powers following a deadly Israeli naval raid to stop an activist flotilla aiming to breach the Gaza blockade.
Relations between Israel and Turkey began to decline soon after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose party has Islamist roots, came to power in 2003.
Since then, Erdogan has sought closer ties with Muslim nations while trying to distance his country from Israel. Erdogan's close ties with Gaza's Islamic Hamas rulers have further strained ties.
___
PAKISTAN
An aide to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif condemned the attempted coup in a statement and said Pakistan "hopes that peace and normalcy will be restored in Turkey."
Tariq Fatimi also said he had contacted Turkey's foreign minister to express solidarity with Turkey's government and democratic institutions.
Pakistan's main political parties have also praised the people of Turkey for foiling the coup.
Sharif was himself overthrown in a 1999 coup led by Gen. Pervez Musharraf, who ruled Pakistan until 2008.
A Pakistani non-profit organization organized a pro-Erdogan demonstration in the capital Islamabad to pay tribute to the Turkish people and their leader for foiling the coup attempt.
Dozens of supporters of the Khubaib Foundation, which works mainly on education and support of orphans, gathered near the National Press Club Saturday and chanted slogans in favor of the Turkish government and President Erdogan.
Holding Turkish and Pakistani flags and displaying banners written in Turkish and Urdu, demonstrator chanted "Long live the Turkish people." One banner in Urdu read "The Pakistani nation salutes the people of Turkey and Erdogan for sustaining democracy."
The foundation's chairman Nadeem Ahmed Khan said the Turkish people's success in foiling the coup attempt is a triumph of democracy and human rights.
___
BRITAIN
British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said he had spoken to his Turkish counterpart, Mevlut Cavusoglu, to underline support for Turkey's "democratic elected government and institutions" in the wake of the overnight coup attempt.
The Foreign Office is advising Britons in Turkey to stay indoors, avoid public places, especially demonstrations, and remain vigilant.
British Airways said it is canceling all flights to and from Turkey Saturday, but budget airline easyJet said it plans to runs its scheduled flights, largely to Turkish resort towns. The airline said the schedule "will be kept under continuous review."
___
SPAIN
Spain's acting Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Garcia Margallo condemned the attempted coup, telling Spanish national television that his government completely supports the Turkish government headed by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
He says "without a doubt we support respecting the constitution and democratically elected institutions, and we condemn all coups without reservation."
Garcia Margallo spoke by telephone from Mongolia, where he is attending the ASEM Asia-Europe Meeting.
___
SYRIAN OPPOSITION
The exiled Syrian opposition congratulated the Turkish people for halting the attempted military coup.
The Turkey-based Syrian National Coalition said Turkey has protected its democratic institutions "in the face of dark and desperate attempts that sought to take control of the popular will."
It said the Turkish people value democracy and "will not let a group of putschists take it away in a desperate attempt to restore military rule."
Turkey has been one of the main backers of the uprising against Syrian President Bashar Assad, and is hosting some 2.7 million Syrian refugees.
In the early hours of the attempted coup, celebratory gunfire broke out across Damascus. The government and its supporters view the rebels as terrorists and consider Turkey to be one of their chief sponsors.
___
HAMAS
The Islamic militant group Hamas congratulated Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for quashing a "vicious" plot to overthrow him.
The Turkish leader has been a staunch supporter of Hamas and a fierce critic of Israel. Hamas said it remembers Turkey's "wise leadership in supporting the Palestinian people and their cause" and working to lift the blockade on Gaza, the coastal territory ruled by the group.
Hamas supporters took to the streets in several places across the Gaza Strip to celebrate the failure of the coup, raising Turkish flags and posters bearing Erdogan's image.
Turkey recently restored ties with Israel after a six-year lull following a deadly Israeli naval raid to stop an activist flotilla aiming to breach the Gaza blockade.
___
QATAR
The Gulf nation of Qatar, which has close ties to Erdogan's government, was quick to condemn the military coup attempt.
It called the attempted coup a "violation of the constitutional legitimacy" in Turkey and said it supports all legal measures the government takes to maintain security and stability.
The official Qatar News Agency said the ruling emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, has spoken with Erdogan by phone to express Qatar's support.
Qatar and Turkey have grown increasingly close in recent years, and share similar stances on their support for Syrian rebel groups and the Muslim Brotherhood. The two countries agreed last year to establish a Turkish military base in Qatar.
___
IRAN
Iran said the attempted military coup in Turkey was "doomed to fail."
Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif was quoted by the official IRNA news agency as praising the "brave defense by the people of Turkey of their democracy and elected government."
He said the events in neighboring Turkey prove "that coup d'etat has no place and is doomed to fail in our region."
___
SUDAN
Sudanese President Omar Bashir condemned the attempted coup in Turkey and expressed support for the government.
Bashir, who himself came to power in a 1989 military coup, said in a statement that the "Sudanese people and government stand alongside President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, his government and the people of Turkey."
Sudan's Foreign Ministry congratulated "Turkey, its president, government and people for the decisive victory of the national will."
___
AZERBAIJAN
The president of Turkey's neighbor Azerbaijan condemned the attempted coup.
President Ilham Aliev was concerned about developments in Turkey and "welcomed measures taken to prevent the attempt at a coup and to stabilize the situation," spokesman Ali Hasanov said.
Azerbaijan is a Turkic nation and its late president Geidar Aliev once described their relations as "one nation, two states" -- a phrase later echoed by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
___
TURKMENISTAN
Turkmenistan said the coup attempt has caused "serious anxiety."
The Foreign Ministry said President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov "expressed support for the Turkish people and government and also firm confidence in stabilizing the situation in Turkey."
Turkmenistan is ethnically Turkic but does not share a border with Turkey. ||||| 17 July 2016 From a national park to a fossil site and a naval dockyard, the United Nations cultural agency today inscribed 12 new sites of special cultural or physical significance on its World Heritage List.
The new sites added to the list – designated by the World Heritage Committee of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) – include the transnational serial site of the Architectural Work of Le Corbusier, an Outstanding Contribution to the Modern Movement, along with the Antigua Naval Dockyard and Related Archaeological Sites in Antigua and Barbuda, the Pampulha Modern Ensemble in Brazil, and the Khangchendzonga National Park in India.
Those four sites were added during the morning meeting of the 40th session of the World Heritage Committee, which opened on 10 July in Istanbul, Turkey, and closed today. The session was suspended yesterday due to the attempt on Friday to overthrow the Government of Turkey.
This afternoon, the Committee also inscribed eight new sites on the list: one transnational site (in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan), and others in Canada, Chad, China, Iraq, Iran, Mexico and Sudan.
Architectural Work of Le Corbusier
The Architectural Work of Le Corbusier, an Outstanding Contribution to the Modern Movement, is spread over Argentina, Belgium, France, Germany, India, Japan and Switzerland.
The 17 sites comprising the property were chosen from the work of Charles-Édouard Jeanneret-Gris, who was better known as Le Corbusier, and are a “testimonial to the invention of a new architectural language that made a break with the past,” UNESCO said.
The sites were built over a period of a half-century, over the course of what Le Corbusier described as “patient research.”
The Complexe du Capitole in Chandigarh in India, the National Museum of Western Art in Tokyo, Japan, the House of Dr. Curutchet in La Plata, Argentina, and the Unité d'habitation in Marseille, France, reflect the solutions that the Modern Movement sought to apply during the 20th century to the challenges of inventing new architectural techniques to respond to the needs of society, according to the agency.
“These masterpieces of creative genius also attest to the internationalization of architectural practice across the planet,” UNESCO said.
Antigua and Barbuda
The Antigua Naval Dockyard and Related Archaeological Sites – the first property in Antigua and Barbuda to be included on the World Heritage List – consist of a group of Georgian-style naval buildings and structures, set within a walled enclosure.
With its deep, narrow bays surrounded by highlands, the natural environment of this side of the island of Antigua offered shelter from hurricanes and was ideal for repairing ships.
UNESCO underscored that the construction of the Dockyard by the British navy would not have been possible without the labour of generations of enslaved Africans since the end of the 18th century. Its aim was to protect the interests of sugar cane planters at a time when European powers were competing for control of the Eastern Caribbean.
Brazil
The Pampulha Modern Ensemble was the centre of a visionary garden city project created in 1940 at Belo Horizonte, the capital of Minas Gerais State in Brazil.
Designed around an artificial lake, the cultural and leisure centre included a casino, a ballroom, the Golf Yacht Club and the São Francisco de Assis church. The buildings were designed by architect Oscar Niemeyer, in collaboration with innovative artists.
The Ensemble comprises bold forms that exploit the plastic potential of concrete, while fusing architecture, landscape design, sculpture and painting into a harmonious whole. It reflects the influence of local traditions, the Brazilian climate and natural surroundings on the principles of modern architecture, according to UNESCO.
Canada
Mistaken Point is a fossil site located at the south-eastern tip of the island of Newfoundland, in eastern Canada.
The site consists of a narrow, 17 kilometre-long strip of rugged coastal cliffs. Of deep marine origin, the cliffs date to the Edicarean Period (580-560 million years ago), representing the oldest-known assemblages of large fossils anywhere. These fossils illustrate a watershed in the history of life on earth: the appearance of large, biologically complex organisms, after almost three billion years of micro-dominated evolution.
Chad
Ennedi Massif: Natural and Cultural Landscape is a sandstone in the northeast of Chad that has been sculpted by water and wind erosion over time into a plateau featuring canyons and valleys.
In the largest canyons, the permanent presence of water plays an essential role in the Massif's ecosystem, sustaining flora and fauna as well as human life. Thousands of images have been painted and carved into the rock surface of caves, canyons and shelters, presenting one of the largest ensembles of rock art in the Sahara.
China
Located in Hubei Province, in central-eastern China, Hubei Shennongjia is one of three centres of biodiversity in the country, and consists of Shennongding/Badong to the west and Laojunshan to the east.
The centre protects the largest primary forests remaining in central China and provides habitat for many rare animal species, such as the Chinese Giant Salamander, the Golden or Snub-nosed Monkey, the Clouded Leopard, Common Leopard and Asian Black Bear. The site features prominently in the history of botanical research and was the object of international plant collecting expeditions in the 19th and 20th centuries, according to UNESCO.
India
Khangchendzonga National Park – located at the heart of the Himalayan range in the State of Sikkim in northern India – includes a diversity of plains, valleys, lakes, glaciers and snow-capped mountains covered with ancient forests, including the world's third-highest peak, Mount Khangchendzonga.
Mythological stories are associated with the mountain and with a great number of natural elements, such as caves, rivers and lakes, which are the object of worship by the indigenous people of Sikkim. UNESCO highlighted that the sacred meanings of these stories and practices have been integrated with Buddhist beliefs and constitute the basis for Sikkimese identity.
Iran
The Lut Desert, or Dasht-e-Lut, is located in the south-east of Iran. Between June and October, this arid subtropical area is swept by strong winds, which transport sediment and cause aeolian erosion on a colossal scale.
Consequently, the site presents some of the most spectacular examples of aeolian yardang landforms (massive corrugated ridges). It also contains extensive stony deserts and dune fields.
Iraq
The Ahwar of Southern Iraq: Refuge of Biodiversity and the Relict Landscape of the Mesopotamian Cities is made up of seven sites: three archaeological sites and four wetland marsh areas.
The archaeological cities of Uruk and Ur and the Tell Eridu archaeological site form part of the remains of the Sumerian cities and settlements that developed in southern Mesopotamia between the 4th and the 3rd millennium BC in the marshy delta of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.
UNESCO highlighted that the Ahwar of Southern Iraq – also known as the Iraqi Marshlands – are unique, as one of the world's largest inland delta systems, in an extremely hot and arid environment.
Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan
Western Tien-Shan is a transnational site located in the Tien-Shan mountain system, one of the largest mountain ranges in the world. The site is situated at an altitude of 700 to 4,503 metres and features diverse landscapes that are home to exceptionally rich biodiversity.
Mexico
Located in the eastern Pacific Ocean, Archipiélago de Revillagigedo is made up of four remote islands and their surrounding waters: San Benedicto, Socorro, Roca Partida and Clarión. The archipelago is part of a submerged mountain range, with the four islands representing the peaks of volcanoes emerging above sea level.
The islands provide critical habitat for a range of wildlife and are of particular importance for seabirds. The surrounding waters have a remarkable abundance of large pelagic species, such as manta rays, whales, dolphins and sharks, UNESCO said.
Sudan
Sanganeb Marine National Park and Dungonab Bay – Mukkawar Island Marine National Park consists of two separate areas: Sanganeb is an isolated, coral reef structure in the central Red Sea and the only atoll, 25 kilometres off the shoreline of Sudan.
The second element of the property is made up of Dungonab Bay and Mukkawar Island, situated 125 kilometres north of Port Sudan. It includes a highly diverse system of coral reefs, mangroves, seagrass beds, beaches and islets. The site provides a habitat for populations of seabirds, marine mammals, fish, sharks, turtles and manta rays. Dungonab Bay also has a globally significant population of dugongs.
The World Heritage Committee has inscribed 21 properties to the World Heritage List thus far in 2016, with the list now numbering 1,052 sites in 165 countries.
Also today, the Committee said that its 40th session will resume in Paris in October to examine outstanding issues that could not be discussed over the past seven days. The Committee adjourned its work three days before schedule due to the UN security protocol put in place following the events that occurred in Turkey on Friday.
The Committee also announced that its 41st session will be held in Cracow, Poland, in July 2017. | – Fed by the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, vast and remote wetlands along the border with Iran in southern Iraq that are considered to be the biblical "Garden of Eden" have just been named a UNESCO world heritage site, the United Nations reports. Among the 12 new sites added to the list at this year's meeting in Istanbul—which CNN reports was cut short due to the UN security protocol that went into effect following the recent coup attempt in Turkey—are the Pampulha Modern Ensemble in Brazil, the Antigua Naval Dockyard and Related Archaeological Sites in Antigua and Barbuda, and the Khangchendzonga National Park in India. The UN's preservation list now consists of 1,052 sites notable for their "outstanding universal value," a prestigious list UNESCO has been adding to since 1978. Formerly known as the Ahwar of Southern Iraq, the marshlands of Mesopotamia actually comprise seven sub-sites—four wetland marsh areas and three archaeological sites that date back to the 3rd and 4th millennium BC. In spite of the unforgivingly hot and arid climate, the marshlands boast one of the largest inland delta systems in the world, reports the BBC, and are home to bird species that include the ibis as well as spawning grounds for many Gulf fisheries. Reuters reports that after Saddam Hussein accused the region's Marsh Arabs of treachery during the war with Iran in the 1980s, he intentionally dammed and drained the region, shrinking it from 3,500 square miles to just less than 300 square miles by 2002. Great conservation efforts have helped re-establish the area, but it is still considered to be on the brink as well as plagued by drug and weapons smuggling. (Donald Trump recently seemed to praise Hussein.) |
At least 8 people taken to Denver Health Medical Center
At least one person was killed after a shooting/stabbing melee Saturday afternoon during a motorcycle expo at the National Western complex that possibly involved two motorcycle gangs.
At a 6 p.m. news conference, Denver Police Chief Robert White said four people were shot and one person was stabbed. One person died and three are in critical condition. Three others received minor injuries.
White said the motorcycle clubs involved will not be named at this time. No arrests have been made, but one person of interest in connection with the incident is being questioned.
Police believe gunfire was exchanged and are also investigating whether other law enforcement officers from outside Denver were involved. Off duty officers were at the expo before the shooting.
There was no security screening at the event.
White said police "strongly suspect there's more than one shooter."
Shortly before the news conference, the city and county of Denver sent out a news release announcing the second day of the 38th Annual Colorado Motorcycle Expo would be canceled.
White said Saturday's events were allowed to proceed because there was a heavy police presence and the event was close to its scheduled closing time.
"We allowed them to finish out their evening," he said.
Denver Health tweeted shortly before 2 p.m. that nine people had been transported to area hospitals.
At a 3:30 p.m. news briefing, Denver Health announced 7 patients were brought in after the shooting. One died, three are critical and three are stable.
Bob Cook witnessed the shooting. His booth for Quarterchaps, a leather goods company was located across from where the shooting happened.
He heard two shots fired and saw people dive under tables. He didn't hear any arguments before the shooting and doesn't know what may have prompted it.
He said there were puddles of blood on the floor, but minutes later, the scene returned to normal. "Everyone is so desensitized," he said as he pointed to dried blood on the floor that people were walking over.
Denver Police escorted a man in handcuffs away from the National Western Stock Show complex January 30, 2016. DPD reported a shooting and stabbing at the complex during the Colorado Motorcycle Expo with one dead and several wounded. (Andy Cross, The Denver Post)
Britney Shaw was working at a jewelry stand when she saw a group of about 50 men brawling on the stairs, which are now covered in blood and cordoned off.
Denver Health Medical Center put its campus on a temporary precautionary lockdown to ensure patient and visitor safety. There were no threats made to the hospital. One officer on duty there has a semi-automatic rifle slung over his shoulder.
ER doctor Kevin McVaney said the hospital was able to handle the emergency. "We are very prepared for this number of trauma patients." All seven arrived via ambulance and no other injured parties are expected.
Raquel Lopez, Denver police spokeswoman, said the disturbance happened at 12:48 p.m. Multiple shots were fired and at least one person was stabbed.
One witness, who asked to remain anonymous out of fear of retaliation, said the feud was started by rival biker gangs.
Police filled the parking lot. People who left the show and crossed the police tape are not being allowed back into the building.
No new attendees are being allowed in, but people who are still in the building have not been asked to leave and continue to mill about and shop leisurely.
Some of the people who came out are angry they won't be let back inside.
Mary Eckhart, who left the building, said some people attending the show don't even know about the violence.
She said she attends the expo every year and is angry that some feuding people "can't control their tempers for one day."
A man gestures towards the media gathered outside of the National Western Stock Show Complex January 30, 2016. DPD reported a shooting and stabbing at the complex during the Colorado Motorcycle Expo leaving one dead and several wounded. (Andy Cross, The Denver Post)
The Kicker Arena Cross Show, which is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. in the National Western Event Center, will go on as planned.
On Saturday evening, the city and county of Denver sent out a news release saying the second day of the expo would be canceled due to safety concerns.
The city, in conjunction with the Western Stock Show Association, owns the National Western Complex, which had been contracted for the two-day expo.
A refund policy will be administered to ticketholders.
The Arena Cross event being held at the National Western Events Center will go on as scheduled with shows at 7:00 p.m. tonight and 2:00 p.m. Sunday. Arena Cross has no relation to the Expo.
Staff writer John Ingold and Katy Canada contributed to this report. ||||| DENVER (CBS4)– One person was killed and numerous others injured after a shooting and stabbing at the National Western Stock Show Complex on Saturday afternoon.
The shooting happened inside the National Western Complex Expo Hall during the Colorado Motorcycle Expo.
Officers tweeted that there were several people shot.
BREAKING: DPD working multiple shootings (1 stabbed) at Coliseum. PIO RESPONDING — Denver Police Dept. (@DenverPolice) January 30, 2016
The shooting happened about 1 p.m. at the Coliseum. Seven people were rushed to Denver Health Medical Center. Witnesses described a chaotic scene.
“More than likely it was a fight,” said Denver Police Chief Robert White in a news conference on Saturday evening. “There were four individuals who were shot, one fatally and three lesser injuries.”
“Everyone started running, a couple of guys went out the south side that were shot and one went out the north that was shot. They just took one out in the ambulance,” said witness Trey Schipper.
The injured were rushed to Denver Health Medical Center where multiple police officers were standing on patrol outside the emergency room entrance.
“During the disturbance there were shots fired and at least one stabbing,” said Denver Police spokeswoman Raquel Lopez. “We do have one deceased party and multiple other victims.”
The shooting happened during the Colorado Motorcycle Expo. It’s described as “The largest motorcycle show & swap in the Rocky Mountain Region with antiques, custom motorcycles- live music auction- much, much more!”
The Motorcycle Expo scheduled for Sunday has been cancelled.
“The event has been cancelled in part due to the police investigation and safety,” said White. “The other events scheduled at the complex tomorrow will go on and there will be extra police presence.”
The event continued as scheduled after the shooting but once attendees left the complex and crossed police lines they were barred from re-entering.
Denver police tweeted some pictures from the scene.
VIEW FROM THE SCENE: https://t.co/1GeYr1plc6—
Denver Police Dept. (@DenverPolice) January 30, 2016
Police confirmed that one person was killed and there were numerous other injuries.
Eight patients were admitted into Denver Health, one died, three were in critical condition on Saturday afternoon. The hospital was on lockdown for a few hours.
“At this time we do not have anyone in custody,” said Lopez.
“We are interviewing several witnesses and have a person of interest we are interviewing,” said White. “This is very early on in the investigation and as it unfolds we’ll give you and the community an update.”
What initiated the attack is being investigated but witnesses tell CBS4 that there was a dispute between motorcycle gangs. | – At least one person is dead following an outbreak of violence that involved multiple shootings Saturday afternoon at the Colorado Motorcycle Expo, the Denver Post reports. Multiple people were shot and at least one person was stabbed outside the Denver Coliseum around 1pm local time, according to 9News. A witness tells the Post the incident was a beef between rival motorcycle gangs. At least nine people were hospitalized. And CBS Denver reports multiple officers were seen patrolling outside Denver Health Medical Center. The event was shut down, and police escorted people out of the Coliseum, according to the Post. Many seemed upset at being forced to leave the event. No arrests have been announced so far. |
One of the Amtrak employees killed in Sunday morning's crash in South Carolina was an Army veteran who worked in the railroad industry for more than a decade, his brother told the Daily News.
Michael Kempf, 54, had been with Amtrak for up to six years, his younger brother, Rich, said. After a recent round of train accidents and budget tightening he'd voiced concerns something could happen to him on the rails.
"Me and him always talked about this...something happening," said Rich Kempf, who lives in Mesa, Ariz. "He was voicing concerns about getting killed."
Michael Kempf, left, was one of two Amtrak employees killed early Sunday. (Courtesy Donna Kempf)
Kempf and conductor Michael Cella, 36, died after Amtrak Train 91 headed for Miami collided with a stationary CSX freight train at about 2:35 a.m. south of Cayce, S.C., according to Lexington County coroner Margaret Fisher.
2 dead, 116 hurt as Amtrak carrying nearly 150 from N.Y. derails
Gov. Henry McMaster indicated the Amtrak train may have been on the wrong track, potentially due to a signal issue.
Conductor Michael Cella, 36, died after Amtrak Train 91 headed for Miami collided with a stationary CSX freight train at about 2:35 a.m. south of Cayce, S.C. (Courtesy of WLTX / News19)
Amtrak said CSX is responsible for maintaining signals on that stretch of rail, which is located southwest of Columbia, the state's capital.
The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating what caused the crash.
Amtrak didn’t immediately return a request for comment.
Rep. Roger Marshall performs CPR on truck driver
Kempf, a father of three sons who lived in Savannah, Ga., spent 20 years in the Army, his brother said. He was stationed in South Korea and Panama, and was a tank driver for some of that time.
Investigators are looking into what caused the Amtrak and CSX trains to collide. (Randall Hill/REUTERS)
He went to work for CSX once he got out of the Army, and spent between eight or nine years first as a conductor and then as a certified engineer, Rich Kempf told the News.
"They paid good money and you got good benefits," he said.
"He was a good guy," Rich Kempf continued, adding Michael had cared for their mother since their father's death 12 years ago. "He's been taking care of my mom, his kids and his wife."
Workers warned Amtrak about lack of training before deadly crash
Cella, who lived in Orange Park, FL., was a married father of two children, The State newspaper reported.
Sign up for BREAKING NEWS Emails privacy policy Thanks for subscribing!
With Laura Thompson, News Wire Services ||||| A railroad switch that was apparently locked in the wrong position is being blamed by federal investigators for a train collision early Sunday that killed two people and injured up to 116 others near Cayce.
Robert Sumwalt, chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, said Sunday afternoon that there’s no evidence of foul play, although the FBI is assisting in the investigation.
Sumwalt said the accident could have been avoided if a federal safety system, under consideration for years, had been in place. The system is supposed to slow down trains when a problem lies ahead on a track. He called the damage to the trains “catastrophic.”
Sumwalt made his remarks after an Amtrak train slammed into a stationary CSX freight train at 2:35 a.m. in Lexington County. An NTSB official declined to say if the accident was the fault of CSX, but noted that CSX is responsible for maintaining proper track position. CSX is the owner of the track but Amtrak uses the line.
SIGN UP
Never miss a local story. Sign up today for a free 30 day free trial of unlimited digital access. SUBSCRIBE NOW
A switch was aligned and padlocked to divert the Amtrak train onto a side track, where the CSX freight train was parked. The train, estimated to be traveling at more than 50 mph but within the 59 mph speed limit, then slammed into the line of two locomotives and 34 freight cars, officials said. Sumwalt said there was “no way” the Amtrak train could have stopped to avoid a collision.
“The key to this investigation is learning why that switch was lined that way,” Sumwalt said during a packed news conference attended by media from across the country. He said “our goal is to find out not only what happened, but why it happened so we can prevent it from happening again.”
CSX issued a statement late Sunday afternoon, offering condolences to the families of the two men killed in the train wreck.
“We remain focused on providing assistance and support to those impacted by today’s accident,’’ the company’s statement said.
SHARE COPY LINK Watch this timeline of the events following the deadly train crash in Cayce, South Carolina on February 4, 2018. Ashlen Rennerarenner@thestate.com
Sumwalt, a Columbia resident in town when the accident occurred, said a safety system known as “positive train control” could have saved lives in the accident, as it could with other train wrecks across the country. The NTSB has been trying for more than 40 years to have such controls implemented, he said.
According to the Federal Railroad Administration, Congress required some railroad mainlines, including those with commuter rail passenger service, to fully implement positive train control by the end of 2015. But Congress extended the deadline by at least three years to Dec. 31, 2018, according to the FRA.
Such technology acts similar to a braking system, to prevent crashes. If signals ahead indicate a problem, the positive train control is supposed to slow down the locomotive remotely.
“Everyone of these accidents, in fact, could have been prevented” by positive train control, he said. “How many years have we been calling for PTC?”
Positive train control is a system designed to compensate for human error, such as leaving a train switch in the wrong position, officials said. In this case, the switch was locked, but in the wrong position, Sumwalt said.
“This is indeed a tragic human error,” Sumwalt said after the news conference.
SHARE COPY LINK NTSB chairman explains investigation next step at the South Carolina Emergency Management Division on February 4, 2018, in West Columbia. Gavin McInytreonline@thestate.com
Sumwalt said NTSB investigators would likely be in the Midlands throughout the week. Sumwalt said video from the Amtrak train had been recovered and sent to Washington for analysis, but two data recorders in each train had not been recovered.
Sunday’s news conference provided some new details of the tragedy. Among them was the revelation the freight train was there to unload automobiles before parking for the night on the side track. Sumwalt also said the Amtrak train had nine crew members. Two of the crew died in the wreck.
During the coming days, the NTSB will examine whether the crew of the trains had taken required drug and alcohol tests and whether crew members had been given proper rest. The agency will also look at cell phone records and examine the signal system, visible lighting on the tracks that warn of problems ahead.
The latter could be an issue.
Amtrak President Richard Anderson said earlier Sunday that the signal system was down when the wreck occurred.
Anderson said dispatchers at CSX were manually routing trains around 2:45 a.m. Sunday. He says he would defer to National Transportation Safety Board investigators to determine what role that played in the wreck that also sent 116 people to the hospital, most with minor injuries.
Speaking in a phone conference call with reporters, Anderson says the crash of the train heading from New York to Miami shows why the U.S. needs to install positive train control by year's end.
The system is in place in the Northeast, but Anderson says private companies that run the tracks Amtrak uses elsewhere have in the past asked for extensions to deadlines.
The Associated Press contributed to this story. | – The crash that killed two Amtrak crew members and injured more than 100 other people wouldn't have happened under a safety system the National Transportation Safety Board has been seeking for decades, says NTSB chairman Robert Sumwalt. He said Sunday that "Positive Train Control," which slows trains down remotely when signals indicate there is a problem ahead, would have saved lives in this crash and many others, the State reports. He said the system is designed to compensate for "tragic human errors," like the one that caused the New York-Miami train to slam into CSX freight trains near Cayce, SC, after it ended up on the wrong track early Sunday. Congress required PTC to be installed on railroad mainlines by the end of 2015, but later changed the deadline to the end of this year, the Federal Railroad Administration says. Amtrak President Richard Anderson said Sunday that the freight company was responsible for sending the Amtrak train onto the sidetrack where a CSX train was stopped. "CSX had lined and padlocked the switch off the mainline to the siding, causing the collision," he said, per Reuters. The brother of engineer Michael Kempf, one of two men killed in the crash, tells the New York Daily News that his brother, an Army veteran who had worked on the railroads for almost a decade, had been "voicing concerns about getting killed" after recent accidents and budget cuts. |
America is getting older. U.S. Census data projects that the last of the Baby Boomers will turn 65 in 2029, making up 16% of the total population. And now a suit — called AGNES (Age Gain Now Empathy System) — created by researchers at MIT's AgeLab, can simulate old age.
The suit can be worn by students, product developers and engineers for the sake of better design. Heavy helmets, neck braces and yellow-tinged glasses create the feeling of achey joints, limited mobility and blurred vision.
SEE ALSO: How Baby Boomers Are Embracing Digital Media
"Put on this suit and you feel increased fatigue, reduced flexibility in joints and muscles, spinal compression and difficulty with vision and balance," according to MIT AgeLab's Meet AGNES YouTube video.
Check out the video above to see suited young individuals having difficulty reaching a low supermarket shelf, reading medicine labels and getting off public buses. ||||| 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. | – Ever wondered just how much it sucks to be your grandmother? Well thanks to the folks at the MIT AgeLab, you don’t have to wonder anymore. They’ve created a suit called AGNES—short for “Age Gain Now Empathy System”—that simulates the trials and tribulations that come with your average 70-year-old body, Mashable reports. The suit uses various braces, bands, and other tricks to limit wearers' mobility, and give them a glimpse of senior citizen discomfort. A band from the helmet, for example, helps simulate the curved, compressed spine that comes with aging, while braces limit knee and elbow mobility, and earplugs and yellow glasses dull the senses, according to the project’s official page. The goal? To give product designers, engineers, architects and more insight into how the elderly will experience their work. |
We know Halloween is a time to act like a kid again but, c’mon. Grow up.
A “Call Me Caitlyn” costume inspired by Caitlyn Jenner’s groundbreaking Vanity Fair cover has surfaced on multiple online Halloween costume retailers. The costume includes a sash, wig, and padded top and, in pictures on the sites, is worn by a man, complete with stubble.
ETONLINE
“You probably won't break any Twitter records when you wear this outfit like Caitlyn did when she first made her account, but you'll be sure to get a few laughs out of your friends and the other guests at the get together,” Anytime Costumes explains in their description.
WATCH: Kris Jenner Confronts Caitlyn Over Not Being ‘Sensitive’ to Family
The costume is filed under “Humorous,” but many people find it anything but:
The struggle that Caitlyn Jenner has to face isn't a Halloween costume. Whoever made this is a shitty person. pic.twitter.com/dlwP4LJraw — RXB SPXXRS (@Sonickid1234) August 13, 2015
the fact that Caitlyn Jenner was made into a Halloween costume is absolutely disgusting. the struggle she went thru is not funny in any way — meredith (@meredith_furl) August 24, 2015
While supporters of the costume claim people are being too PC and that the costume is, in fact, funny, there’s no defending this “Call Me Caitlyn Mr. Olympian Costume Kit" from BuyCostumes.com. (Though it now appears to have been pulled offline.)
ETONLINE
It doesn’t even make sense. It’s literally just offensive.
WATCH: Caitlyn Jenner Brought to Tears in BTS 'Vanity Fair' Video
There are more Caitlyn Jenner costumes on the way too: One of the largest Halloween retailers, Spirit Halloween, has already confirmed they will release their own version in the next few weeks.
“Caitlyn Jenner has proven to be the most important real-life superhero of the year,” Spirit Halloween rep Trisha Lombardo told New York Daily News. “Spirit Halloween is proud to carry the costume that celebrates her.”
Though there are about 4,000 reasons to change their minds before then: A Change.org petition, titled “Stop Exploiting Caitlyn Jenner with a Transphobic Costume,” is only 1K signatures shy of reaching it’s 5K goal.
“Caitlyn Jenner is a hero and celebrated in modern day culture, but that doesn't excuse the exploitation and transphobia you'll be committing this Halloween,” the petition reads. “To make a costume out of a marginalized identity reduces that person and community to a stereotype for privileged people to abuse.”
It continues, “At a time when trans women...especially black trans women, are being murdered at such a high rate, and homelessness, unemployment, and inaccessbility to healthcare run rampant in our community, making fun of one or all of us is utterly insensitive and deplorable.”
NEWS: Laverne Cox on Meeting Caitlyn: 'She's Such a Sweet Woman'
Jenner herself has yet to comment on the controversy, but during her ESPY Awards speech earlier this summer, she said, "If you want to call me names, make jokes, doubt my intentions, go ahead because the reality is, I can take it.”
“But for the thousands of kids out there coming to terms with being true to who they are, they shouldn't have to take it,” she continued. "All across the world at this very moment there are young people coming to terms with being transgender. They are learning that they're different, and they're trying to figure out how to handle that, on top of every other problem that a teenager has. They are getting bullied, they are getting beaten up. They're getting murdered and they are committing suicide."
Watch more of Caitlyn’s emotional call to action during the ESPYs:
Related Gallery ||||| share tweet pin email
After living decades as “the ultimate male,” Caitlyn Jenner says she doesn’t miss a thing about her former life as a man.
“I think about my life — and where I'm at in my life right now. What a tremendous experience this is. Hardly nobody gets to live two genders in their life,” she told TODAY’s Matt Lauer in an exclusive morning program interview.
“Everybody wonders, ‘Oh, what's it like to be coming from the other side? You know, their thinking, the way they act, everything?’ And here I have the opportunity to do that. And to be honest with you, everything's so new and fun. From that standpoint, it's been great.”
Speaking to Lauer while the two played golf at Woodland Hills Country Club outside of Los Angeles, Jenner expressed gratitude for the kind reception she has felt since making her public debut as a transgender woman on the cover of Vanity Fair.
“There's nothing more, nothing better in life to wake up in the morning, look at yourself in the mirror and feel comfortable with yourself and who you are,” she said.
Jenner also opened up about a fatal car accident earlier this year in which her Cadillac SUV rear-ended another vehicle, causing a chain-reaction that resulted in the death of a 69-year-old woman.
RELATED: Caitlyn Jenner car accident: Charges depend on negligence, analyst says
Jenner said she remembers “very little” about the collision.
“I remember it happening. That's about it,” she said, explaining that current litigation has prevented her from talking about it. “A tragedy like this, you'll never get over it. You just learn to live with it the best you possibly can.”
Investigators say that while Jenner did not violate any traffic laws, speed may have been a factor in the crash because of rainy road conditions at the time, although Caitlyn told Matt she was driving under the speed limit. The investigators are weighing a possible misdemeanor manslaughter charge against Jenner, who could face a year in a county jail if convicted.
“The media wants that picture, don't they?” Jenner said with a laugh. “That is the worst case scenario. I don't know. We'll see. The men's county jail. It is an enormous problem that they would put trans-women in a men's county jail.”
Jenner also addressed critics who said questioned her worthiness of an ESPY Awards honor for her courage this past July. less than two months after she made her public debut as a woman, Jenner was selected as the recipient of the Arthur Ashe Courage Award.
“I didn't ask for it. They gave me the award,” Jenner said. “Did it take a lot of courage to come out? Absolutely. Did I have tremendous respect for Arthur Ashe and that award? Absolutely. And I'm very honored to have them award that to me, not just to me but this entire community. So I'm very pleased the way it turned out.”
MORE: 'I Am Cait' series premiere: 5 must-see moments
Despite being the punchline to some "extraordinarily hurtful" jokes prior to her public transition, Jenner said the tabloids and late-night talk show hosts have eased up since she has come out as Caitlyn. That's made it easier to maintain a sense of humor about some of the sillier things that have come up — like learning about Halloween costumes that have been made of her from the Vanity Fair cover.
“I'm in on the joke. Yeah, no, I don't think it's offensive at all," she said. " I know the community does, and they’ve gotten a lot of criticism for doing it."
But Jenner thinks the costume is a great idea, except the execution of it could have used some more work.
“I could have done my own costume! I mean, that was a serious bustier on the cover of Vanity Fair. I mean at least get some good clothes," she said. "You’ve got to enjoy life. Life's too short. I can't get too upset about that type of stuff.”
The second part of Jenner's interview with Lauer airs on Thursday.
Follow TODAY.com writer Eun Kyung Kim on Twitter. | – Matt Lauer interviews Caitlyn Jenner in a Today segment airing today and tomorrow, and the Olympic champ and Kardashian stepparent talks—among other things—about the fatal car accident she was involved in earlier this year. "I remember it happening. That's about it," she says. "A tragedy like this, you'll never get over it. You just learn to live with it the best you possibly can." She says she was driving under the speed limit when she allegedly rear-ended another vehicle whose driver died after the car was pushed into oncoming traffic, but the DA may charge her with manslaughter. If convicted, Jenner faces a year in county jail—a prospect that disturbs her. "The media wants that picture, don't they?" she says of the idea that she could end up in a men's jail. "That is the worst-case scenario. I don't know. We'll see. The men's county jail. It is an enormous problem that they would put trans women in a men's county jail." On a lighter note, Jenner also addressed the Halloween costume based on her Vanity Fair cover. "I'm in on the joke. Yeah, no, I don't think it's offensive at all. ... You've got to enjoy life. Life's too short. I can't get too upset about that type of stuff," she says, though she notes the costume could be of higher quality. "I could have done my own costume! I mean, that was a serious bustier on the cover of Vanity Fair. I mean, at least get some good clothes." Click to see photos of the costume. |
The father of four suspected of mowing down a group of worshippers outside a Finsbury park mosque was a "complex" and "troubled" individual known for “flipping his lid” when he drank too much, it has been claimed, as his mother said he is "no terrorist".
Darren Osborne, 47, is being held in custody on suspicion of terror offences including attempted murder. He is alleged to have expressed increasingly antagonistic views towards Muslims in the weeks since the London Bridge atrocity.
After ploughing down a group of men as they left Ramadan prayers, he is alleged to have rammed his hired van into bollards before jumping out and shouting “I'm going to kill all Muslims - I did my bit”. ||||| The sister of the man suspected of mowing down Muslims at an attack near a mosque in north London has said he's not a racist and never expressed views on Muslim people.
Darren Osborne, 47, is accused of deliberately mowing down worshippers outside the Muslim Welfare House near Finsbury Park mosque in a van rented 160 miles away in his hometown of Cardiff.
Speaking to the Standard from her home in Weston-super-Mare, Mr Osborne’s sister Nicola said: “Obviously I’m really sad about what’s happened. It’s terrible, I can’t believe it. I think I’m in shock.”
Asked whether she had recognised her brother in the video of his arrest, she said: “No I haven’t seen it, I don’t want to. My son told me about it this morning.”
The crashed van near the mosque in Finsbury Park (Jeremy Selwyn )
It emerged today that jobless handyman Mr Osborne had been living in a tent for the past three weeks after splitting with his long term partner Sarah Andrews, 42.
Moment the Finsbury Park mosque attacker is arrested
Ms Osborne said her brother had called her earlier on the day of the attack to wish her a happy 50th birthday.
She said: “He’s not political. He wouldn’t even know who the Prime Minister is. I’ve never heard him say anything about Muslims or anything racist.
“I feel terribly sorry for all of the families hurt by this and for our family too — my mum is going to be broken for life.”
Osborne's nephew Ellis Osborne, 26, said in a statement: "We are massively shocked. It's unbelievable. It still hasn't really sunk in.
"We are devastated for the families. Our hearts go out to the people who have been injured."
Suspect Darren Osborne is pinned down and arrested ()
Nicola Osborne added: "I'm sorry that my brother has been that troubled that it has taken him to this level of troubledness. He has just been troubled for a long time."
In a telephone interview with ITV News, his mother described him as a "complex" person but said "that's all I can say".
She said: "It's a terrible, terrible shock."
Neighbours In Pentwyn on the outskirts of Cardiff where Mr Osborne had lived until three months ago shared differing views of the father-of-four, who was born in Singapore but grew up in Weston-super-Mare.
Sadiq Khan and Jeremy Corbyn at the scene (Victoria Jones/PA)
One said: “He had lived on the estate for a few years. He’s always been a complete c*** but this is surprising.”
Another neighbour said: “Sadly he is a bit of a troublemaker. He is always arguing with neighbours in the street, shouting.”
The day before the attack Mr Osborne was reportedly thrown out of his local pub for ranting about Islam.
A line of police at the scene in the small hours of yesterday morning (PA)
One drinker said: “He got chucked out as he was so drunk. He was cursing Muslims and saying he would do some damage.”
Another added: “He’s a loud and aggressive person. He’s always shouting the odds if anyone disagrees with him.”
Jeremy Corbyn at the scene of the attack (Jeremy Selwyn )
A woman who knew Mr Osborne in Weston-super-Mare said: “The words I would use to describe Darren would be a ‘bloody psycho’. He would just drink too much and flip.”
Last night, his mother Christine Osborne, 72, insisted her son was not a terrorist, adding: “It is him, he did it – but there are mental health issues.”
Osborne was pinned to the ground and restrained by shocked crowd outside the mosque before being arrested on suspicion of attempted murder after allegedly shouting: “I want to kill all Muslims.”
One man, who is believed to have fallen ill before the van hit, has been confirmed dead following the attack, while nine others remain in hospital.
Scotland Yard later confirmed they were investigating Mr Osborne for terrorism offences as commissioner Cressida Dick described the incident as “quite clearly an attack on Muslims” who had been celebrating the holy month of Ramadan.
Mr Osborne was initially arrested for attempted murder and later further arrested for the commission, preparation or instigation of terrorism including murder and attempted murder. He is being held in a south London police station. ||||| One dead and 11 injured after van ploughs into Muslim worshippers in Finsbury Park in fourth UK attack in past three months
A man from Cardiff is believed to be responsible for a terrorist attack that left one person dead and 11 injured when a van he was driving ploughed into a group of worshippers near a mosque in north London.
Darren Osborne, 47, is alleged to have shouted “I want to kill all Muslims – I did my bit” after the hired van hit a crowd that had gathered to help an elderly man who had collapsed near a mosque.
The Met said a 47-year-old man had been arrested on suspicion of the commission, preparation or instigation of terrorism including murder and attempted murder in the immediate aftermath of the incident, which occurred near two mosques in Finsbury Park after late prayers in the small hours of Monday morning.
On Monday neighbours in Pentwyn, where Osborne had lived for several years, described him as “aggressive” and “strange”. They said that over the weekend he told a 10-year old Muslim neighbour he was an “inbred” and had been thrown out of a local pub for getting drunk “cursing Muslims and saying he would do some damage”.
Witnesses to the attack said it had occurred after a small crowd had gathered around a man who had collapsed outside the Muslim Welfare House near the Finsbury Park mosque, when the van ploughed into them at around 12.20am.
Emergency services respond after van hits pedestrians in Finsbury Park – in pictures Read more
One man, who did not want to give his name, said he and his friends had stopped to help the “elderly man” who was lying on the ground.
“In seconds this terrible thing happened,” he said. “Within a minute a van with speed turned to where we were and ran over the man who was laying on the floor and the people around him. Around eight or 10 people got injured, some of them seriously. Thank God I’m safe but my friends got injured.”
Onlookers said the driver then got out of the van and shouted “I want to kill all Muslims” before he was wrestled to the ground.
Abdikadar Warfa said he was one of those who caught hold of the van driver, who tried to kick and punch people as he tried to escape. “He tried to run away, he tried to escape. Some people were hitting him. He was fighting to run away.”
The prime minister, Theresa May, said that the “hatred and evil” seen in the attack would never succeed and visited the scene at lunchtime on Monday. The prime minister said the attack on Muslims was “every bit as insidious and destructive to our values and our way of life” as the recent string of attacks apparently motivated by Islamist extremism, adding: “We will stop at nothing to defeat it.”
Mohammed Mahmoud, an imam at the Muslim Welfare House, arrived moments later and was praised for stopping anybody attacking the suspect. “By God’s grace we managed to surround him and protect him from any harm,” Mahmoud said at a press conference on Monday afternoon. “We stopped all forms of attack and abuse towards him that were coming from every angle.”
Mahmoud said he and others managed to flag down a passing police van. “We told them the situation and said there’s a mob attempting to hurt him. If you don’t take him, God forbid, he might be seriously hurt.”
The man who had collapsed had come round moments before the van ploughed into the crowd. He died at the scene and was later named as 51-year-old Makram Ali. Mahmoud said: “People came to tend to him. They brought him a chair. He regained consciousness and then, as he regained consciousness, the van drove perpendicular to Seven Sisters Road.”
The attack took place in the constituency of the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, who spent much of the day at the mosque. He said the targeting of the Muslim community at the height of Ramadan had shocked the community. “A lot of the time people are saying Islamophobia isn’t real. But this time it’s actually killed someone and injured others,” he said. “There are kids who grew up (watching this) on TV and never expected it to happen in their own backyard.”
The Muslim Council of Britain said the attack was the most violent incident in a wave of Islamophobic attacks to hit Muslim communities over the past few months and called for “transformative action ... to tackle not only this incident but the hugely worrying growth in Islamophobia”.
Writing in the Guardian the home secretary, Amber Rudd, said the scale of policing operations to protect and reassure Muslim communities across the country has been enhanced as a result of the attack and would continue “for as long as necessary”.
She said British Muslims had been quick to show solidarity and support victims of other attacks in recent weeks and it was “now time to extend the same hand of friendship to them. Other faiths have already been quick to express their shock and lend their support”.
The home secretary said that she had been saddened to see suggestions that this “cowardly crime” was not being dealt with in the same way as the Westminster Bridge, Manchester or London Bridge attacks. “Let there be no doubt this attack is every bit as horrifying as the others we have seen. Our grief is no less raw.” And she pledged to be tough on terrorism “wherever it strikes” and emphasised that she would not shy away from tackling the “stark figure” that more than half of victims of religious hate attacks were Muslims.
The suspect is believed to have links to the extreme right, according to investigators. They said they extent is not clear at this stage but the finding cemented the view this should be classed as a hate crime.
The man’s mental health is also being explored by the counter-terrorism investigation which is trying to establish if the attack was premeditated or opportunistic.
Police are also concerned about the possibility of copycat incidents or retaliation for an attack on Muslim targets.
London’s mayor, Sadiq Khan, spent much of the day at the scene of the attack. Writing in the Guardian he said London had been through “an incredibly difficult few weeks … I know Londoners will remain strong and united. While we have been filled with great sorrow and anger at the unnecessary loss of innocent lives, we have also shown, time and again, our great resolve not to allow those who seek to divide us to succeed.”
| – The man accused of driving a van into worshippers near a London mosque early Monday has been named as 47-year-old Darren Osborne—a man described as "aggressive," "strange," "cuckoo," and "a bloody psycho" by neighbors in Cardiff, Wales. Witnesses say Osborne shouted "I want to kill all Muslims" after the attack, which left one person dead and 11 injured, the Guardian reports. Neighbors say he was always troublesome but his behavior had deteriorated in recent weeks and he had been thrown out of a local pub over the weekend for "cursing Muslims and saying he would do some damage." He also allegedly abused a 10-year-old Muslim neighbor, telling him he was "inbred." Osborne's sister tells the Evening Standard that he was "troubled," but was so unpolitical she doubts he knows who the country's prime minister is. Neighbors say Osborne had split up with the mother of his four children in recent weeks and had been living in a tent he put up in woodland or sometimes in the backyard of the home they used to share. Police believe he rented the van used in the attack on Sunday and drove the 150 miles to London, the Telegraph reports. After the Finsbury Park attack, he was restrained by bystanders, with an imam convincing people to stop hitting him. Police say Osborne is being held on suspicion of terrorist offenses and attempted murder. |
Michael Sam will step away from professional football, he announced via Twitter on Friday night.
Sam, the 25-year-old who began the season with the CFL's Montreal Alouettes, cited a tumultuous past year for leaving football at this time.
The Alouettes confirmed in a release that Sam has left the club for "personal reasons" and that he has been added to the team's suspended list.
Sam made the announcement in a series of tweets.
The last 12 months have been very difficult for me, to the point where I became concerned with my mental health. Because of this I am 1/3 — Michael Sam (@MichaelSamNFL) August 14, 2015
going to step away from the game at this time. I thank the Alouettes for this opportunity and hope to be back on the field soon. Thank 2/3 — Michael Sam (@MichaelSamNFL) August 14, 2015
you all for your understanding and support. 3/3 — Michael Sam (@MichaelSamNFL) August 14, 2015
Sam, the first openly gay player to be drafted into the NFL, agreed to a two-year deal with the Alouettes this summer. He left training camp June 12, citing personal reasons, and sat out the team's first five games. He failed to record a tackle in his Alouettes debut Aug. 7.
Sam, the 2013 SEC defensive player of the year at Missouri, was selected in the seventh round of the 2014 NFL draft by the St. Louis Rams, did not make the team and spent some time on the Dallas Cowboys' practice squad before being released.
The Associated Press contributed to this report. ||||| David Denson tips his hat to the crowd during the Pioneer League all-star game in August. Denson hit a home run and was named MVP of the game against the Northwest League all-stars. Credit: Josh Randolph, 9inningknowitall.com
SHARE David Denson of the Helena Brewers is tagged out at home by Missoula Osprey catcher Matt Jones as he attempts to score from third on an errant pitch in a game in June. Michael Gallacher / Missoulian Billy Bean, Major League Baseball's first Ambassador for Inclusion, helped counsel Denson about his decision to reveal that he is gay. Audio Related Coverage Brewers say Denson would be welcome in clubhouse
By of the
For so long, David Denson desperately wanted to reveal to his baseball teammates that he is gay. He just never envisioned it happening in such impromptu and unstructured fashion.
A first baseman for the Milwaukee Brewers' rookie affiliate in Helena, Mont., Denson had just entered the clubhouse a month or so ago when a teammate jokingly referred to him using a derogatory term for a gay male. It was the kind of profane, politically incorrect banter heard in that environment since team sports have been around.
That teammate had no way of knowing Denson actually is gay, but the 20-year-old slugger of African-American and Hispanic descent quickly seized the opportunity.
"Be careful what you say. You never know," Denson cautioned the player with a smile.
Before he knew it, Denson was making the emotional announcement he yearned to share, and the group around him expanded to the point that he soon was speaking to most of the team. Much to Denson's relief, when the conversation ended he was greeted with outward support and understanding instead of condemnation.
"Talking with my teammates, they gave me the confidence I needed, coming out to them," recalled Denson. "They said, 'You're still our teammate. You're still our brother. We kind of had an idea, but your sexuality has nothing to do with your ability. You're still a ballplayer at the end of the day. We don't treat you any different. We've got your back.'
"That was a giant relief for me," Denson said. "I never wanted to feel like I was forcing it on them. It just happened. The outcome was amazing. It was nice to know my teammates see me for who I am, not my sexuality."
The more Denson thought about it, though, the more he came to realize that a clubhouse confession wasn't going to be enough. Until he came out publicly as gay and released that burden, Denson didn't think he could truly blossom and realize his potential on the field.
With the help of former major-leaguer Billy Bean, who last year was named Major League Baseball's first Ambassador for Inclusion, Denson reached out to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel to tell his story in a telephone interview. In doing so, he becomes the first active player in affiliated professional baseball to reveal he is gay.
Sean Conroy, a pitcher for the Sonoma Stompers of the independent Pacific Association, revealed in June that he is gay, becoming the first active pro baseball player to do so. That league is not affiliated with MLB. In the history of the game, only two major-leaguers revealed they were gay — Glenn Burke and Bean — and both did so after leaving the game.
Former NBA player Jason Collins announced that he is gay after the 2013 season when he was a free agent. Collins played in 22 games with the Brooklyn Nets in 2014 before retiring, and therefore was the first active player in one of the major team sports to reveal he is gay.
When Denson learned of Bean and his new role with MLB, he reached out for advice and counsel, and the two have become like brothers. Bean long has rued not revealing his sexuality during his modest big-league career from 1987-'95 with Detroit, the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego, and said he is immensely proud of Denson for having the courage to come forward.
"He is definitely cognizant of how it might affect his team," said Bean, who eventually quit baseball over the personal conflict of hiding his sexuality. "I just wanted to make sure his parents were part of the conversation. David has two loving parents who obviously are very concerned. They're worried about how this will affect him.
"Any player who happens to be gay and is a professional and has kept that secret, they just want to be judged for their baseball or football or basketball ability. David would not be playing professional baseball if he wasn't an excellent baseball player.
"The beauty of what could come from this is he can be an example that can help change that perception and change the stereotype that there would never be a gay person on a men's professional sports team. That was something I struggled with."
Before revealing his secret to teammates, Denson figured it was time to finally tell his family, and did so in the spring. First, he told his sister, Celestine, a professional dancer married to former Brewers farmhand Jose Sermo.
"She said, 'I've known since you were little,'" said Denson. "I said, 'How did you know?' She said, 'You're my little brother. I'm around you all the time.'"
Telling his parents, Lamont and Felisa, was not as easy. His father, a former athlete, needed some time to come to grips with the news.
"It took some stress off me, but it kind of built up a wall at the same time," said Denson. "They weren't too happy about it at first, though I think they sort of knew since I was little. They were afraid I'd be judged. They jumped right into the stereotype. No parents want to see their child discriminated against and talked about and put down.
"I don't question that they love me. They never said they were upset about me being gay. It was harder on my dad than my mom. He's a very hard-core Christian and he goes off the Bible and all that, which I completely understand, growing up in the church. I'm a Christian myself.
"It was an eye-opener for him. He finally came to terms with it. Coming out to my father was even harder than coming out to my teammates, because I knew how he felt about it. He grew up in sports, and I heard him talk (in derogatory fashion) about gay guys. That was hard for me to hear at the time.
"But I'm his son and he said, 'It's your life and it's who you are. I love you.' There's a difference between accepting it, and supporting it and respecting it. I know he loves me and supports me and has my back."
Denson had concealed the fact he is gay since being taken by the Brewers in the 15th round of the 2013 draft out of South Hills High School in West Covina, Calif. But the secret began to weigh more heavily on him, to the point he felt on the verge of a mental breakdown — or worse — at the outset of spring training this year.
"It became a depression level," he revealed. "I wasn't being myself. It was visible in my body language. I didn't know if I should still stay in the sport."
Denson sought advice from Becky Schnakenberg, a professional counselor contracted at that time by the Brewers to provide mental health assistance to players in need. He said those consultations convinced him it was necessary to let the Brewers know he is gay or risk a further downward spiral.
Denson requested a meeting at the Brewers minor-league complex with farm director Reid Nichols, who was accompanied by Class A Wisconsin Timber Rattlers manager Matt Erickson and hitting coordinator Jeremy Reed.
"I was shaking and crying, and just very scared," recalled Denson. "I didn't know if it would go good or bad, or if they'd look at me any different.
"When I finally told them about my sexuality, Reid said, 'To me, it doesn't matter. You're still a ballplayer. My goal for you, as well as anybody else in the organization, is to get you to the big leagues. You are who you are. That doesn't make a difference. Just go out and play the game. This is a very brave thing for you to do.'
"I wasn't doing it to be brave. I just couldn't hide it anymore. For them to be so accepting and want the best for me, it showed they are looking at me for my ability, not my sexuality. They don't treat me any different. They said if there was anything they could do to help, let them know. It was a huge relief."
Nichols said his message to Denson at the time was simple: Concentrate on developing as a player with the knowledge that the organization was behind him.
"I told him we supported him and would continue to support him," said Nichols. "I thought the meeting went well. We told him that was his personal business and we would judge him only on his career in baseball, as we do with every player."
Denson was assigned to the Timber Rattlers, for whom he had played 68 games in 2014, batting .243 with four home runs and 29 runs batted in. The second time around, he struggled mightily at the plate, hitting only .195 with a .569 OPS in 24 games before being sent to Helena to regroup.
Denson was convinced the personal torment over concealing his sexuality from teammates contributed to his struggles on the field.
"There was that stereotype stuck in my head that there would never be a gay player on a team," he said. "I was thinking that once they found out, they would shut me out or treat me different.
"That was one of the things that was holding me back. I was always saying, 'Just keep it quiet. You don't need to tell them. You don't want them to see you different. You don't want them to judge you.'
"It started to affect my game because I was so caught up in trying to hide it. I was so concerned about how they would feel. I was pushing my feelings aside. Finally, I came to terms with this is who I am and not everybody is going to accept it. Once you do that, it's a blessing in itself."
Since coming out to his Helena teammates, Denson said he has felt like a different person and player. He was selected for the Pioneer League All-Star Game in August and was named most valuable player, displaying his prodigious power with a home run.
As for Denson's teammates living and playing with a gay player, Helena manager Tony Diggs said: "I don't think there have been any problems whatsoever with the team. I'm pretty sure everybody on our team has an understanding of it.
"We are professional baseball players first, and I think that's the way they've taken it. They've handled it well. David has always gone about his business professionally. He has shared with me that (keeping the secret for so long) was a burden for him and he feels more freedom after coming out.
"This is a new chapter as he decides to say it publicly. Now, there will be more people that know and they'll have their opinions as to what they feel about it. At least, he's being himself."
With growing confidence and peace of mind, Denson hopes for understanding from those now learning about his sexuality. Rather than holding him back in any way, he believes coming out will help him reach his full potential.
"Growing up trying to hide it, knowing I'm an athlete, I was always nervous that my sexuality would get in the way of me ever having an opportunity, that people would judge me on my sexuality and not my ability," he said.
"I wasn't able to give fully of myself because I was living in fear. What if this person finds out? What if somebody else finds out? Instead of going out and just playing, I was trying to hide myself.
"I didn't get drafted because of my sexuality. I didn't start playing this game because of my sexuality. I started playing this game and got drafted because I have a love for this game. It's a release for me to finally be able to give all of myself to the game, without having to be afraid or hide or worry about the next person who might find out."
If Denson can serve as a role model for other gay professional athletes hiding their sexuality, he welcomes the opportunity to help others as Bean has helped him. He's not sure what public reaction will be or how his story will be treated by the media going forward. If the folks at "60 Minutes" come calling, so be it. But there are no hidden agendas with Denson or Bean.
"David is not doing this for celebrity or publicity," said Bean, who has remained in constant contact with Denson, using his own experiences as a compass. "David is very humble. It's really about being his best self. He's a great baseball player, but he needs to be his best self to get to the big leagues.
"I was just starting to understand how to play and when everything started to unravel, I just gave up on myself. I was consumed with the part I hated about my life.
"I'm excited to see David not have to worry about all of that. He can just tell the truth all the time. That's a huge relief. When your life is a secret, you have to navigate on what levels of truth you're allowed to share. And that becomes exhausting."
What if this revelation in some way prevents Denson from attaining his goal of making the major leagues? He is not considered an elite prospect in the Brewers' organization, but any player with his kind of power has a chance. During a showcase at Marlins Park in Miami before the 2013 draft, Denson crushed several home runs, including a 515-foot blast that scouts still talk about.
Football player Michael Sam, who revealed he is gay after his college career at Missouri, was drafted by the St. Louis Rams in 2014 but didn't make the roster and recently cited mental health issues for leaving the Montreal team of the Canadian Football League. Did coming out prevent Sam from securing an NFL roster spot, or was he just not good enough?
"I don't have any expectations of what might happen," said Denson, who is batting .253 with four homers and 17 RBI in 41 games with Helena. "I'm hoping it will open the eyes of people in general that we're all people, we're human, we're brothers in the sport. We're all here trying to get to the big leagues. I'm excited to see where it goes from here, now that I don't have that wall holding me back anymore.
"It has crossed my mind (that his revelation could be an obstacle). Baseball has taught me a lot of life lessons. One is to worry about what you can control and not worry about what you can't control. I'm going to go out and do the best I can do, and hopefully make it one day.
"I think what I do on the field will matter more than my sexuality. At the end of the day, if I'm playing well, why should I not get the same opportunity as anyone else?" | – A player on a Milwaukee Brewers farm team has become the first active player in Major League Baseball to come out as gay, and as the Journal-Sentinel tells it, David Denson sort of did it accidentally—in response to being called a gay slur by a Helena Brewers teammate who he says didn't know he was gay. So he came out as a crowd gathered in the locker room. But then, after "talking with my teammates, they gave me the confidence I needed, coming out to them," Denson says. "They said, 'You're still our teammate. You're still our brother. We kind of had an idea, but your sexuality has nothing to do with your ability. You're still a ballplayer at the end of the day." From there, Denson reached out to former player Billy Bean, MLB's Ambassador for Inclusion who eventually quit baseball after hiding his homosexuality for years. "Any player who happens to be gay and is a professional and has kept that secret, they just want to be judged for their baseball or football or basketball ability," says Bean. Denson says hiding his sexuality was taking a toll. "It became a depression level," he tells the Journal Sentinel. "I didn't know if I should still stay in the sport. ... I wasn't doing it to be brave. I just couldn't hide it anymore." Bean, who is described as being "in constant contact" with Denson, says the younger man has found "huge relief. When your life is a secret, you have to navigate on what levels of truth you're allowed to share. And that becomes exhausting." Meanwhile, ESPN notes that Michael Sam, the first openly gay player drafted into the NFL, has left his team in the CFL, citing his mental health. |
NEW YORK (AP) — The latest on developments in financial markets (All times local):
4:00 p.m.
Stocks are closing mostly lower on Wall Street, but energy companies rose along with the price of crude oil.
Gains in Exxon Mobil and Chevron nudged the Dow Jones industrial average to another record Monday, but other indexes declined as media companies, banks and technology stocks lost ground.
Viacom plunged 9 percent after merger talks with CBS were called off by the controlling shareholder of both companies.
Crude oil jumped 3 percent after oil-producing countries outside of OPEC agreed to reduce output.
The Standard & Poor's 500 index slipped 2 points, or 0.1 percent, to 2,256. The S&P 500 is coming off its sixth straight gain.
The Dow climbed 39 points, or 0.2 percent, to 19,796. The Nasdaq composite lost 31 points, or 0.6 percent, to 5,412.
___
11:45 a.m.
Stocks are moving mostly lower on Wall Street, except for energy companies, which rose along with the price of oil.
Big jumps in Exxon Mobil and Chevron nudged the Dow Jones industrial average higher Monday, but other major market indexes fell. The Dow is at a record high.
The price of crude oil jumped 3 percent after oil-producing countries outside of OPEC agreed to reduce production. OPEC nations had already agreed on their own production cuts.
The Standard & Poor's 500 index slipped 4 points, or 0.2 percent, to 2,255. The S&P 500 is coming off its sixth straight gain, its longest winning streak since June 2014.
The Dow climbed 26 points, or 0.1 percent, to 19,782. The Nasdaq composite lost 40 points, or 0.7 percent, to 5,404.
___
9:35 a.m.
Stocks are opening mostly lower on Wall Street, except for energy companies, which rose along with the price of oil.
Big jumps in Exxon Mobil and Chevron early Monday nudged the Dow Jones industrial average higher, but other major market indexes were lower.
The price of crude oil jumped 4 percent as oil-producing countries outside of OPEC agreed to reduce production. OPEC nations had already agreed on their own production cuts.
The Standard & Poor's 500 index slipped 1 point, or 0.1 percent, to 2,257. The S&P 500 is coming off its sixth straight gain, its longest winning streak since June 2014.
The Dow climbed 16 points, or 0.1 percent, to 19,773. The Dow is trading at another record high.
The Nasdaq composite slipped 27 points, or 0.5 percent, to 5,416. ||||| 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. | – Stocks are closing mostly lower on Wall Street, but energy companies rose along with the price of crude oil, and the Dow Jones found its sixth consecutive record close, reports Marketwatch. Gains in Exxon Mobil and Chevron nudged the Dow Jones industrial average to another record Monday, reports the AP, but other indexes declined as media companies, banks, and technology stocks lost ground. Viacom plunged 9% after merger talks with CBS were called off by the controlling shareholder of both companies. Crude oil jumped 3% after oil-producing countries outside of OPEC agreed to reduce output. The Standard & Poor's 500 index slipped 2 points, or 0.1%, to 2,256. The S&P 500 is coming off its sixth straight gain. The Dow climbed 39 points, or 0.2%, to 19,796. The Nasdaq composite lost 31 points, or 0.6%, to 5,412. |
Akida, a Siberian Husky, stands with owner Alecia Cestroni as she shovels snow from her driveway in Chicopee, Mass. during the storm. The storm was New England’s biggest snowstorm so far this season,... (Associated Press)
BOSTON (AP) — The Latest on the snowstorm that's moving into the Northeast (all times local):
1:55 p.m.
A Connecticut charter bus accident on Interstate 95 during a snowstorm has left at least 30 people injured, including six critically.
The state Department of Transportation says the accident happened at around 12:30 p.m. Monday in Madison.
A Yale-New Haven Hospital spokesman says hospital officials were told to expect 30 patients, six of whom were listed in critical condition.
State police say 55 passengers were on the Dahlia tour bus.
Video from near the scene showed the bus on its side off the right shoulder of the highway surrounded by numerous emergency vehicles. Authorities closed the northbound side of the interstate in Madison.
The accident occurred during a storm that was expected to drop up to a foot of snow on parts of the state.
___
1:15 p.m.
A charter bus accident has closed the northbound side of Interstate 95 in Connecticut.
Television video from near the scene showed the bus on its side off the right shoulder of the highway. Numerous emergency vehicles are at the scene, and people are being loaded onto stretchers and into ambulances.
The state Department of Transportation says the accident happened at about 12:30 p.m. Monday in Madison.
The accident occurred during a snowstorm that was expected to drop up to a foot of snow on parts of the state, but it was not immediately clear if the crash was caused by the weather.
There was no immediate word on the number or extent of injuries or how many passengers were on the bus.
___
12:55 p.m.
The coastal storm that's pounding Massachusetts isn't expected to amount to much in Maine and New Hampshire, states that rely on heavy snow to drive their economies.
The National Weather Service says the New Hampshire coast could see 6 to 8 inches of snow, while the southern Maine coast could get 4 to 6 inches.
Strong gusts could limit visibility with blowing snow, and some coastal flooding is expected.
But the snowfall starting Monday won't do much to lift snowfall totals in a region where skiing, snowmobiling and ice fishing are big business.
Concord, New Hampshire, has had just 17 inches so far this season. The normal average is 39 inches for this time of the year. Portland, Maine, has 29.3 inches of snow, compared to the normal 37.5 inches.
___
10:25 a.m.
Coastal communities in Massachusetts are bracing for possible coastal flooding as a potent winter storm moves into the region.
The Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency is urging coastal communities south of Boston, including Cape Cod and Nantucket, to take "appropriate action" after the National Weather Service advised that strong winds will likely result in widespread, moderate coastal flooding at high tide late Monday morning.
Earlier forecasts called for only pockets of moderate flooding. Coastal communities north of the city are expected to experience minor flooding.
Waves splashing over seawalls were being reported in communities south of Boston even before high tide.
The state has banned parking on several major coastal roadways.
Gov. Charlie Baker is monitoring the storm from the Statehouse and was scheduled to hold a briefing at noon.
___
9:55 a.m.
Schools across Connecticut closed in preparation for a winter storm that was predicted to bring as much as a foot of snow to parts of the state.
Bradley International Airport reported the cancellations of a handful of flights and numerous delays.
The University of Connecticut closed its main campus in Storrs and satellite campuses at Avery Point and West Hartford.
Minor flooding also was reported along the shoreline in advance of a late-morning high tide.
The storm arrived in southern Connecticut toward at the end of the morning commute and the State Department of Transportation reported some slippery conditions, but no major weather-related accidents.
___
9:35 a.m.
A storm moving up the East Coast is causing tidal flooding in some New Jersey shore towns.
High tide arrived Monday morning and police have had to close some streets in Atlantic City, Absecon, Neptune Township and Union Beach.
Forecasters have issued a coastal flood warning for the entire New Jersey shore. Widespread moderate coasting flooding is possible during high tide. There's also a chance for beach erosion as wave heights build to 8 to 12 feet.
The National Weather Service has issued a winter storm watch from Monday night through Tuesday evening for Burlington, Cumberland, Atlantic, Cape May counties. Forecasters say there is the potential for 4 to 8 inches of snow.
A winter weather advisory is in effect for other parts of the state.
___
9:20 a.m.
New Hampshire is getting another round of snow just in time for the first-in-the-nation presidential primary.
The snow is expected to start Monday morning and last into early Tuesday, primary day. Many polls open at 7 a.m. The snow is heading from south to north; a number of schools have closed for the day or are dismissing students early.
Most areas will see several inches, with up to 8 inches possible in coastal areas.
The forecast calls for wind at 5 to 15 mph with gusts up to 25 mph, and temperatures in the lower 20s.
___
5 a.m.
Forecasters say southeast Massachusetts could get the brunt of a snowstorm that's heading for the East Coast.
The National Weather Service has issued a blizzard warning for the coast, including Cape Cod and the islands, saying it could get 6 to 12 inches of snow through Monday evening. Gusty winds of up to 60 mph are expected with some whiteout conditions.
The rest of Massachusetts, plus Rhode Island and eastern Connecticut, could see winter storm conditions with an accumulation of 4 to 8 inches. The heaviest snowfall is expected during Monday's morning commute through the afternoon.
The weather service says New York City, Philadelphia and northern New Jersey could get from 2 to 3 inches of snow between Monday and Tuesday night. The snow could even stretch into Wednesday. ||||| More than two dozen people were injured, including at least four who are in critical condition, when a charter bus heading to Mohegan Sun Casino flipped onto its side on snow-covered Interstate 95 in Madison, Connecticut, prompting police to shut down the highway. (Published Monday, Feb. 8, 2016)
Thirty-six people were injured, at least seven critically, when a charter bus heading to Mohegan Sun Casino flipped onto its side Monday on snow-covered Interstate 95 in Madison, Connecticut, authorities said.
Officials from Mohegan Sun said the Dahlia charter bus — based in New York — was en route to the Uncasville casino around 12:20 p.m. Monday when it rolled over on I-95 north, between the exit 61 off-ramp and the on-ramp.
The driver told police he was merging right from the left lane when he lost control on the snow-slick highway and hit the metal barrier. Snow began falling on Monday morning and Madison had around 2 to 3 inches around the time of the crash.
State police and emergency officials said the bus was carrying about 55 people, including the driver. The frightening ordeal was captured on video, which showed several passengers climbing out of the front and top of the bus.
Bus Crash Injures Dozens
(Published Monday, Feb. 8, 2016)
Ambulances lined the highway and rushed the injured to nearby hospitals, including Yale-New Haven Hospital, Saint Raphael's and Middlesex Hospital. Officials said during a news conference on Monday that 22 people were taken to the hospital initially and 12 more sought medical care after going to a warming center.
Chris Bernier, director of Madison EMS, said the majority of the passengers were able to walk off the bus on their own, but some in critical condition were taken to the trauma center at Yale-New Haven Hospital.
Officials at Yale-New Haven Hospital said Tuesday the hospital received 22 patients, including seven in critical condition. Six patients were transferred from Middlesex Hospital. The Yale-New Haven Shoreline Medical Center received four patients, two of whom were admitted. The Saint Raphael campus received one patient, officials said Tuesday.
Some patients suffered shoulder injuries, while others had trouble breathing.
All additional buses from the New York area to Mohegan Sun were rerouted after the crash, according to a spokesperson for Mohegan Sun.
Connecticut State Police are investigating. Gov. Dannel Malloy issued a statement saying his office is closely following the situation and prioritizing public safety.
Driver Witnessed Bus Crash
(Published Monday, Feb. 8, 2016)
"Our thoughts are with those who are injured, and we extend our gratitude to the first responders who are working to protect the safety of all those involved," the governor said, in part. "We urge all those who must travel to use added caution, allow extra time to travel, and reduce speeds as conditions warrant."
Dahlia is based in New York, officials said, but the bus has a Massachusetts license plate.
VMC East Coast, which operates the bus for Dahlia, said in a statement the company was saddened "that this has happened" and thanked firefighters, paramedics and police.
"We pray that all our passengers are OK and will be safely returned to their families soon," the statement read.
I-95 was shut down for about 4 1/2 hours after the crash. Crews were able to get the bus back on its tires around 3:30 p.m. The highway reopened around 5 p.m. | – A charter bus flipped on its side on Interstate 95 in Connecticut Monday, leaving about 30 people injured, including six critically, reports AP. The state Department of Transportation says the accident happened about 12:30pm Monday in Madison during a snowstorm. NBC News reports that the bus was en route from New York to the Mohegan Sun Casino in Connecticut, and that other buses in the group were sent back to New York. Exactly what happened is unclear, but the bus could be seen on its side off the right shoulder of the highway surrounded by emergency vehicles. Police say about 70 passengers were on the Dahlia charter bus, and Yale-New Haven Hospital was told to expect 30 patients, six of whom were critically inured. |
Hillsborough County sheriff's Col. Donna Lusczynski.
Lusczynski said. Various small fireworks also were found throughout the house, she said.
Lusczynski .
The investigation and identification process likely will take several days, Lusczynski said. Authorities are exploring all angles of the case, including the possibility of murder-suicide, she said.
“We're continuing to process the scene,” she said. “It will take several days to complete this investigation. We can't come to any conclusions yet.”
Firefighters responded to multiple 911 calls reporting a fire at about 5:45 a.m. One caller reported hearing “popping” noises. In another call, a woman, obviously upset, told the dispatcher she was walking her dog when she saw that the house was engulfed in flames.
“The house just exploded,” she said on the recording.
Neighbor Ken Hoverman said he woke up to a bang that he didn't know where it originated.
“I'm right next door,” Hoverman said. “I heard a big boom. I didn't know what it was. Didn't know immediately where it was.”
He kept hearing multiple noises. He believes there was an explosion on the garage side of the home. The garage is on the north side of the house on the opposite of Hoverman's home.
“It was scary, believe me,” Hoverman said.
He said he saw the father and son at the fitness center a lot. He didn't speak to them, he said. He couldn't recognize the mother and daughter, he said.
He said the houses are separated and he never heard anything from the home.
“Very traumatic,” Hoverman said. “We're all very saddened.”
Firefighters remained on scene throughout the morning, as hot spots continued to flare up. A search warrant was executed at 3 p.m., and sheriff's office investigators entered the burned out structure.
The fire was contained to the residence and did not threaten other residents in the affluent North Tampa gated community, Lusczynski said.
Darrin Campbell is a member of the board of trustees at the school, and his two children are students there. Erma Ruffkess, communications director at Carrollwood Day School, said deputies had been in touch with the school Wednesday.
Several members of the school's board of trustees declined to comment when reached by telephone Wednesday.
Darrin Campbell previously worked at Anchor Glass Containers in Tampa, said a spokeswoman for the company. After that, he went to PODS in Clearwater, where he was the chief operating officer from 2005 until 2008, a PODS company spokesman said.
Deputies were not called to the Avila house during the two years the Campbells lived there, authorities said.
Mary Helen Smith, who lives a few houses away, said helicopters woke her up at about 6:30 a.m.
“I could hear them circling,” she said.
Smith and her daughter walked over to the scene around 8 a.m. and could still see flames toward the back of the house, she said. Her daughter had to park her car outside the gate because authorities weren't allowing anyone to drive into the neighborhood.
She did not know the Campbells, she said.
Blake, who is married and has a 2-year-old daughter, retired from competitive tennis in 2013 after a 14-year career.
In a 2007 interview with The Tampa Tribune, he said he was attracted to the Tampa Bay area beginning in 1999 as a training ground for his tennis career. Property records show he purchased the 5,856-square-foot house in Avila in 2005, the same year it was built.
Walter Godfrey, who has been president and senior fire and explosion analyst with Fire/Reconstruction Consultants in Cape Canaveral since 1981, said most houses built over the past decade, perhaps longer, have safeguards to prevent fires from spreading throughout the home.
Arson investigators have their work cut out for them in a house of this size, he said, as everything, from building materials to the sizes of rooms and what furnishings are there, must be documented as precisely as possible.
Godfrey, a former deputy fire marshal for the state of Florida, said investigators start wide and narrow down their search for a cause.
“Basically, we all have a systematic way to go through a fire scene,” he said. Outdoor inspections include measurements between windows and doors and indoors, investigators do the same, with an eye toward areas with the most fire damage.
That, he said, is where the fire likely started.
Staff writer Joey Johnston contributed to this report.
ebehrman@tampatrib.com
(813) 259-7691 ||||| Two adults and two teenage children were found dead in a Tampa Bay-area mansion fire that appeared to have been set intentionally Wednesday, officials in Florida said.
Investigators said they were not ruling out the possibility of a homicide or murder-suicide at the roughly 6,000-square-foot home, which is owned by former tennis star James Blake but which he had rented out and has not lived in for the last two years.
We have confirmed that there were also various fireworks -- small, commercial-type fireworks -- throughout the residence. - Hillsborough Sheriff's Office Col. Donna Lusczynski
The victims have not been positively identified as the family that had been renting the home from Blake, though officials said they had contacted their relatives to prepare them for the worst.
Blake, who announced his retirement at last year's U.S. Open, was apparently out of state during the time of the fire, according to the Hillsborough Sheriff's Office.
Neighbors first called 911 at 5:45 a.m. to report an explosion and the possibility of a fire in the well-to-do Avila subdivision, and when firefighters arrived, they found a ferocious blaze that took hours to defeat.
Once it was safe for investigators to make it inside of the home, they discovered the four bodies in separate bedrooms -- two adults in one bedroom and the two youths in two other bedrooms, according to Hillsborough Sheriff's Office Col. Donna Lusczynski.
Two of the victims had unspecified upper-body trauma, but Lusczynski wouldn't go into further detail, saying the causes of death have yet to be determined.
That wasn't the only discovery.
"We have confirmed that there were also various fireworks -- small, commercial-type fireworks -- throughout the residence," Lusczynski told reporters in a televised news briefing.
Lusczynski added that the fire was started by an unknown accelerant and said the fireworks may have been the source of the explosion heard by the neighbors.
She said it would probably take several days to identify the victims and that an investigation into the fire was underway.
Blake retired from professional tennis last year at the age of 33 after reaching a top-five world ranking at the peak of his career.
The Associated Press reported that Blake bought the five-bedroom, five-bathroom Avila home in 2005 for $1.5 million, according to Hillsborough County property records.
According to the AP, many well-known football, baseball and tennis players have bought homes in the exclusive subdivision, which has a country club and golf course. | – Four people were found dead in a Tampa Bay-area mansion owned by tennis star James Blake after an explosion and fire—and though the fire appears to have been intentionally set, authorities believe it wasn't what killed the two adults and two teenagers. A police spokeswoman says two of the bodies had visible upper-body trauma, and murder or murder-suicide is suspected, reports the Tampa Tribune. A couple and their two teenage children had been renting the house for the last two years but investigators haven't confirmed the identities of the four bodies. Police say the fire appears to have been started by an unknown accelerant and fireworks may have caused the explosion heard by neighbors, the Los Angeles Times reports. "We have confirmed that there were also various fireworks—small, commercial-type fireworks—throughout the residence," the spokeswoman says. Blake, who retired from competitive tennis last year at the age of 33, was at his home in Connecticut when the fire happened, his management company says. |
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton dished up a bit of American politics for her audience at a town hall-style forum.
Asked Tuesday how she would feel if former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, a Republican, were elected president, Clinton said, "I will not be emigrating."
Then she lamented the seemingly never-ending election cycle in the United States. Clinton told her college audience, "It is part of the American political environment that people are always speculating on who will run for president." The secretary also said, "I've gone through that experience personally, so I'm very well acquainted with it."
Clinton spoke at an all-woman college in Jeddah. ||||| Oh, Canada for HRC if Pres. Palin?
Posted: Tuesday, February 16, 2010 10:47 AM by Domenico Montanaro
Filed Under: ,
From NBC's Courtney Kube
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton could not escape U.S. politics during her trip to Saudi Arabia.
Early this morning during a town hall meeting with students at Dar Al Hekma College, a student asked Clinton if she thinks Sarah Palin will be president and whether Hillary would move to Canada if Palin were elected.
The audience laughed -- so did Clinton -- before she said, "Well, the short answer is no. I will not be immigrating. I will be visiting as often as I can."
She added, "Our political seasons never end" and that she will continue to support President Obama. She said she is "very well-acquainted" with running for president. | – What’s on Saudi Arabia’s mind? American politics apparently. At a town hall-style meeting at Dar Al Hekma College in Saudi Arabia this morning, a student asked Hillary Clinton if she was scared by the prospect of Sarah Palin becoming president. “Would you consider moving to Canada or possibly even Russia in the event of this happening?” the student asked, drawing laughter from the crowd. Clinton, too, laughed. “The short answer is no. I will not be emigrating,” she replied, then added, “I will be visiting (Canada) as often as I can,” reports NBC. She went on to lament that “our political seasons never end,” in America, notes AP. “People are always speculating on who will run for president. I've gone through that experience personally, so I'm very well acquainted with it.” |
KINGSTON, MASS. (WHDH) - The Donahue family learned of ‘Whitey’ Bulger’s prison murder through text messages Tuesday morning.
And Tommy Donahue, whose father, Michael, was among the 11 murder victims linked to the notorious South Boston mob moss, said his immediate reaction was elation.
“I grew up going to Catholic school,” Tommy Donahue said. “It just brings me a lot of joy knowing that for the rest of his life, he’ll be getting a pitchfork in his (expletive) from the devil himself to eternity.”
The Donahues are somewhat relieved to put this chapter of their lives behind them.
“Thirty-something years of him putting my family in distraught, finally it’s all over,” Donahue said. “We weren’t ever going to be able to move on until he was dead.”
Tommy and his mother Pat attended nearly every court appearance Bulger made and when the crime boss was convicted for killing Donahue’s dad, Tommy said he hoped the next time he saw Bulger was on his deathbed.
“I said ‘next time I’m going to talk to the media will be when he’s dead,'” Donahue said. “Very true. Here I am, a happier man.”
Tommy’s mother, Pat, also expressed relief following the 89-year-old’s death.
“I want to open a champagne bottle and pop that cork. That’s how I feel,” Pat Donahue said. “Whitey Bulger meant nothing to me.”
The Donahues said that while they wanted Bulger to sit in prison for all of his crimes, especially the murders, getting killed in prison wasn’t the easy way out.
“He died the way he lived,” Pat Donahue said. “He killed people and he was killed.”
Pat Donahue is working on a documentary about Bulger’s trial.
(Copyright (c) 2018 Sunbeam Television. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.) ||||| Whitey Bulger Killers Tried to Remove His Tongue ... Victim's Fam Says Justice was Served
Whitey Bulger Killers Tried to Remove His Tongue, Victim's Fam Thinks Justice was Done
Exclusive Details
Whitey Bulger was targeted for a mob hit and the killers did what mob killers do with so-called "rats" -- they try to cut out their tongue and gouge their eyes out.
Sources at the USP Hazelton prison in West Virginia tell TMZ, Bulger was killed in his cell at around 6 AM Tuesday, NOT in a common area as first reported. We're told 4 inmates walked into the cell where Whitey was sitting in his wheelchair.
They brutally beat him with a lock in a sock and used a shiv to try and gouge his eyes out. They also attempted to cut out his tongue. We're told there was a lot of blood in Bulger's mouth but we don't know if the tongue was actually removed.
We're told surveillance cameras captured the 4 inmates walking into Bulger's cell and walking out with their clothes clearly bloodied. The attack was not caught on video.
We're told the killers went back to their cells, changed out of their bloody clothes and then walked back to Bulger's cell with a mop and a bucket to clean up the mess.
As for the motive ... our prison sources say prison officials believe it was mob retaliation because Bulger was considered a rat and an informant who helped put away several members of the mob.
The officials believe the mob put out a hit on Bulger and removal of the eyes and tongue are signs of such a hit.
BTW ... Patricia Donahue -- the widow of Michael Donahue whom Bulger killed in 1982 -- reacted to the news by saying justice was served. She also told us how she plans to celebrate. Her son, Tommy, agreed, saying how Bulger's death brought some much-needed relief.
Originally published -- 6:41 AM PT ||||| FILE - This undated file FBI photo found in Boston during an evidence search and released Dec. 30, 1998, shows James "Whitey" Bulger. Officials with the Federal Bureau of Prisons said Bulger died Tuesday,... (Associated Press)
FILE - This undated file FBI photo found in Boston during an evidence search and released Dec. 30, 1998, shows James "Whitey" Bulger. Officials with the Federal Bureau of Prisons said Bulger died Tuesday, Oct. 30, 2018, in a West Virginia prison after being sentenced in 2013 in Boston to spend the rest... (Associated Press)
BOSTON (AP) — A Mafia hit man who is said to hate "rats" is under suspicion in the slaying of former Boston crime boss and longtime FBI informant James "Whitey" Bulger, who was found dead hours after he was transferred to a West Virginia prison, an ex-investigator briefed on the case said Wednesday.
The former official said that Fotios "Freddy" Geas and at least one other inmate are believed to have been involved in Bulger's killing. The longtime investigator was not authorized to discuss the case and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Authorities have not disclosed the cause of death.
Bulger's killing has raised questions of why he was transferred to the prison and why the 89-year-old was placed in the general population instead of special housing. He was found dead Tuesday.
Geas, 51, and his brother were sentenced to life in prison in 2011 for their roles in several violent crimes, including the 2003 killing of Adolfo "Big Al" Bruno, a Genovese crime family boss who was gunned down in a Springfield, Massachusetts, parking lot.
Private investigator Ted McDonough, who knew Geas, told The Boston Globe: "Freddy hated rats."
"Freddy hated guys who abused women. Whitey was a rat who killed women. It's probably that simple," McDonough told the newspaper, which first reported that Geas was under suspicion.
It was not clear whether Geas has an attorney. Several other lawyers who represented him over the years didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
An FBI spokeswoman in Pittsburgh declined to comment on Geas. Federal officials said only that they are investigating the death as a homicide.
Bulger's death was the third killing in the past six months at the prison, where union officials have raised concerns about dozens of vacant jobs. Two inmates were killed in fights with other prisoners in September and April.
Five members of Congress wrote to Attorney General Sessions last week about what they saw as chronic understaffing at USP Hazelton and other federal prisons.
Bulger led South Boston's Irish mob for decades and became an FBI informant who supplied information on the New England Mafia, his gang's main rival, in an era when bringing down the Italian mob was a top national priority for the bureau.
Tipped off that he was about to be indicted, Bulger became a fugitive and eluded authorities for 16 years before being captured in 2011. He was convicted in 2013 in 11 underworld slayings and a long list of other crimes and was sentenced to spend the rest of his life behind bars.
He had just arrived Monday at USP Hazelton, a high-security prison in Bruceton Mills, West Virginia. He had previously been in a prison in Florida, with a stopover at a transfer facility in Oklahoma City. Federal Bureau of Prisons officials and his attorney declined to comment on why he was being moved.
Bulger's attorney, J.W. Carney Jr., blamed his death on prison officials, saying Bulger "was sentenced to life in prison, but as a result of decisions by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, that sentence has been changed to the death penalty."
Bureau of Prison officials had no comment on Carney's remarks.
The Geas brothers were not made members of the Mafia because they were Greek, not Italian. But they were close associates of the mob and acted as enforcers.
___
Associated Press reporters Eric Tucker and Mike Balsamo in Washington and John Raby in Charleston, West Virginia contributed to this report. ||||| When private investigator Ted McDonough heard that Freddy Geas was suspected by authorities of taking part in the murder of James “Whitey” Bulger, he knew immediately why Geas might have done it.
“Freddy hated rats,” said McDonough, using the slang for criminal informants. McDonough had become friendly with Geas while working for him as an investigator.
“Freddy hated guys who abused women. Whitey was a rat who killed women. It’s probably that simple,” McDonough said.
Advertisement
Fotios “Freddy” Geas — Mafia hitman, career criminal, prison lifer — did not like informants, and was almost certainly well aware of the fact that Bulger had led a charmed life for a long time as an informant for the FBI.
Get Metro Headlines in your inbox: The 10 top local news stories from metro Boston and around New England delivered daily. Sign Up Thank you for signing up! Sign up for more newsletters here
People with knowledge of the investigation said that Bulger had requested to be housed in general population at the federal prison in Hazelton, W. Va., where he had just been transferred from a federal prison in Florida after a brief stop in Oklahoma.
Geas is serving a life sentence at the prison in Hazelton for his role in the assassination of Adolfo “Big Al” Bruno, the onetime head of the Mafia in Springfield, after both the man who ordered him to kill Bruno and the hitman he dispatched to do the murder turned on him and testified against him.
People familiar with the investigation suggest that Bulger was murdered by more than one of his fellow inmates, and that Geas didn’t dispute his role in the killing.
RELATED: The long and deadly career of ‘Whitey’ Bulger
David Hoose, the lawyer who initially represented Geas in the Mafia killings, said he was not surprised to hear that Geas didn’t dispute his role in Bulger’s killing and refused to identify a possible accomplice.
Advertisement
“He wouldn’t rat on anybody,” Hoose said, “and he had no respect for anyone who would.”
Freddy Geas, 51, and his brother Ty, 46, were a tag team pair of criminals from West Springfield who were well known, and feared, in Western Massachusetts. They have long rap sheets and were known for their violent impulsivity. When Ty Geas was 17, he was sentenced to a year in jail for firing an assault rifle into the air during a high school hockey game. Freddy Geas exhibited what would become a lifelong, violent animosity toward those who cooperate with the authorities, eventually pleading guilty to threatening to kill a witness against his brother.
Freddy Geas’s reputation for sudden, impulsive violence is long established. When a bar fight at a Springfield bar called Sh-Booms spilled onto the street in 1989, Freddy, then 22, wrecked an expensive vintage car parked outside. In 2006, he went to jail for beating a pair of men with a baseball bat at a strip club.
By that time, the Geas brothers were well known to local authorities as the hired muscle for an aspiring Mafia leader named Anthony Arillotta. Because they were Greek, the Geas brothers could not be “made” members of the Mafia, but they carried the mob’s imprimatur, according to Springfield and State Police.
“Nobody screwed with them,” McDonough said. “Freddy, especially.”
Advertisement
In 2009, Freddy Geas was charged with a series of crimes, including the hit on Al Bruno and the 2003 murder of Gary Westerman, Arillotta’s brother-in-law. He was also charged with being the getaway driver in the botched murder of Frank Dabado, a cement union boss in the Bronx. Dabado was targeted for murder after he and Artie Nigro, a Genovese crime family boss, had a fight over some Tony Bennett concert tickets.
RELATED: Inmate with Mafia ties investigated in Bulger’s killing
McDonough, the private investigator, said Freddy Geas was crushed to learn that the star witness against him was Arillotta, the Mafia up-and-comer who had groomed him.
Arillotta’s testimony described a chaotic scene right out of a Martin Scorcese movie. After Freddy Geas shot Westerman in the head twice, the mortally wounded Westerman tried to break free from the Geas brothers as they dragged him to a grave. Arillotta testified that he and Emilio Fusco, a Mafia soldier in the Genovese crime family, finished Westerman off by beating him to death with shovels.
Arillotta testified that Freddy Geas complimented the assembled murderers for good teamwork.
Freddy Geas was convicted of hiring the hitman who killed Bruno, who was murdered so that Arillotta could assume control of the Mafia in Springfield. Geas met that hitman, Frankie Roche, in prison and was his friend, police said. But like so many other people who once considered themselves Freddy Geas’s friend, Roche rolled on him.
In a 2007 statement to Springfield police that was obtained by the Globe, Roche admitted that he shot Bruno outside the Mount Carmel Society social club in Springfield.
“Freddy had called me earlier in the day and told me that Al was definitely going to be there,” Roche told police. “I killed Al Bruno because I was paid to do it. Freddy Geas is the person who paid me to do it.”
McDonough said that Geas harbored a special hatred for informants, criminals who saved their own skin by giving up others.
In 2016, Taylor Geas, Freddy’s daughter, wrote a piece for The Republican newspaper of Springfield, recalling that as a child she thought her father was never around because he was in the Army.
“My dad led a double life,” she said.
She could not reconcile the father she knew with the criminal whose exploits were well documented in newspapers and on television.
“The person I know is the father that would tuck me in at night, and tell me funny stories until I fell asleep,” she wrote. “He was the person that taught me how to throw a baseball, and got me my first pair of soccer cleats. When I look in the mirror I see his smile because I have the same one.”
TIMELINE: Bulger’s crimes, escape, capture, conviction, death
McDonough described Freddy Geas as extremely personable, but a committed criminal. They met regularly at the Cafe Manhattan, a bar in downtown Springfield.
“A good conversationalist,” McDonough said. But McDonough was under no illusions. “He liked me because I was his private investigator. You would not want Freddy as an enemy.”
McDonough speculated that if Freddy Geas killed Bulger, it would elevate him in the criminal hierarchy, especially among the Mafia, whose members and associates would have felt duty-bound to kill Bulger after they learned he had fed the FBI information about the Mafia in Boston.
For those whose loved ones were murdered by Bulger, and those who hunted him down and prosecuted him, Bulger’s demise brought a sense of relief — and irony, given that the suspect in his killing was believed to have been motivated by Bulger’s informant status. They said Bulger inflicted similarly terrible ends on others, especially those he suspected of being informants.
Tom Donahue, the son of one of Bulger’s victims, said he always assumed Bulger would die in prison of natural causes. He said he took comfort from knowing that Bulger experienced some of the pain that so many of his victims did.
“I think it’s justice,” said Donahue, whose father, Michael, an innocent truck driver, was murdered by Bulger.
Donahue said he hoped he would be able to put some money into Freddy Geas’s prison canteen account.
Shelley Murphy of the Globe staff contributed to this report. Kevin Cullen can be reached at cullen@globe.com . Follow him on Twitter @GlobeCullen | – A Mafia hit man is suspected to be behind the killing of James "Whitey" Bulger, who was found beaten to death in his prison cell Tuesday. Fotios "Freddy" Geas and at least one other inmate at the West Virginia prison to which Bulger had been transferred just hours before are believed to have been involved, a former investigator briefed on the case tells the AP. "Freddy hated rats," a private investigator tells the Boston Globe of Geas, 51, who was sentenced to life in prison in 2011 along with his brother for their roles in multiple violent crimes including the 2003 killing of a crime boss in Massachusetts. Bulger, a former Boston crime boss, was a longtime FBI informant. "Freddy hated guys who abused women. Whitey was a rat who killed women. It's probably that simple," the PI continues. Sources at USP Hazelton prison tell TMZ that Bulger, 89, was targeted for a mob hit and that his killers did to him what is typically done to so-called rats: They attempted to cut out his tongue and gouge out his eyes. The sources say four men walked into Bulger's cell, where he was sitting in a wheelchair, and used a lock in a sock to beat him and a shiv to attempt the aforementioned two gruesome tasks. There was reportedly "a lot of blood" in Bulger's mouth but it's unclear whether they succeeded. As relatives of Bulger victims celebrated his death, questions were also raised about why he was transferred in the first place and why he was placed in the general population. Bulger, says his attorney, "was sentenced to life in prison, but as a result of decisions by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, that sentence has been changed to the death penalty." (In a "surreal" case, a mob victim's body was found 23 years later.) |
(CNN) -- A 68-year-old Idaho man has been charged with misdemeanor battery after police say he struck a teen who would not turn off his iPhone while the plane they were in was taxiing for takeoff.
The incident took place Tuesday evening on a Southwest Airlines flight from Las Vegas to Boise, Idaho, said Lt. Kent Lipple of the Boise police.
The man, Russell Miller, was arrested after the plane landed, Lipple said.
Miller told police that the 15-year-old boy refused to turn off his phone after directions from the flight crew. The suspect "felt he was protecting the entire plane and its occupants," Lipple said.
According to the police report, Miller said he smacked the boy with the back of his hand to get his attention. Officer, however, said the incident left a mark on the boy's shoulder. ||||| Cops: Man punches teen on flight during iPhone kerfuffle
Share this story
print
email
BOISE, Idaho - You hear the woes of holiday traveling: packed, delayed and stranded flights. Police said a Boise man lost his cool on a flight home from Vegas for a very different reason.
Passengers and the flight crew told police that while the plane was preparing to take off in Vegas, Russell Miller punched a 15-year-old after he refused to turn off his iPhone.
Police said the teen was playing games and listening to music when the flight attendants announced their final approach to land and all powered devices needed to be turned off.
When the teenager didn't respond to the intercom request, witnesses said the man got angry. During the in-flight fight, they told police the man punched the teenager in the arm.
Lt. Kent Lipple tells KBOI-TV 2News after the argument the pilots radioed the air traffic control tower and requested airport and local police to be ready at the gate.
"He punched him so hard there was a mark on the teen's arm," Lipple said. "That gave us probable cause to believe the reports from the other passengers."
In an interview with the Idaho Statesman, Russell told the reporter it was only a tap.
Travelers who heard the story had mixed emotions.
"I don't think it's ever appropriate to touch another person physically," said Barbara of Boise.
"People are tense and some people freak out on planes, so violence I guess I can see it, but it is sad that that kind of thing happens" said Anna Spears who traveled from Minnesota.
In hindsight people told KBOI2 News they'd react differently.
"I believe in following the rules, but I think the stewardess should monitor that. The guy shouldn't have taken it into his own hands" said Deb Sloan of Boise.
"I'm kind of nervous about flying myself so I wouldn't want anyone breaking the rules on my flight," said a Florida man while traveling.
"First the 15-year-old should've listened to the stewardess. But he was out of line. I'm sure he did something to provoke the older gentleman, but he probably should've shown more restraint then he did by punching him. But having teenagers I know where he was coming from," said Dan Kern of San Diego.
Russell was arrested and charged with misdemeanor battery.
"That's battery and he should be prosecuted," said a Nampa man.
Not everyone agrees with the charge.
"Give him a ticket or some community service or make him go to a chalk board and write I won't hit a teenager a thousand times and call it good. I think the teenager should apologize for whatever part of the story we don't know. What are the rules for? Either follow them or don't get on the plane," said Kern.
The teen victim is not from Boise and was flying alone and without parents. He did not receive a citation. | – Next time the flight attendants ask you to turn off your cell phone before takeoff, you better do it … because if you don’t, the 68-year-old guy sitting next to you just might punch you. Russell Miller, accused of doing just that, was arrested upon landing last week and charged with misdemeanor battery. He got into a fight with a 15-year-old boy on a Southwest flight from Las Vegas to Boise, CNN reports, and allegedly smacked the kid on the shoulder when he refused to turn off his iPhone. Fellow passengers say the boy was playing games and listening to music at the time, KBOI2 adds. Miller “felt he was protecting the entire plane and its occupants,” a police officer says. "He punched him so hard there was a mark on the teen's arm.” |
Truth rating: 0
By Daniel Gates
“Kim Kardashian and Kanye West have spent just over £500,000 on four gold-plated toilets,” claims The Sun.
That’s roughly $765,000.
Um… what?!
The Sun says that the couple’s new mansion in Bel Air will be outfitted with insanely expensive furnishings including “six special-edition beds” costing $175,000 apiece and a “Swarovski-encrusted fridge freezer.”
If those expenditures seem outrageous even given the couple’s wealth, that’s because The Sun pulled the numbers from… well, let’s just say a place intimately familiar with toilets.
The story is “not true,” a source assures Gossip Cop.
Given The Sun’s recent bogus report about a West-Kardashian engagement, and previous missteps with the couple, we’re not surprised.
Consider this story flushed.
Follow @GossipCop on Twitter!
Like us on Facebook! | – The Kimye camp is denying this, but it seems totally within the realm of possibility: The Sun reports that Kim Kardashian and Kanye West recently shelled out more than $764,000 for four toilets (which are, obviously, gold-plated) for their new Bel Air mansion. A source explains, "They expect the interior to cost twice as much as the property. They’re spending more than a million on a security system alone." The source adds that they've also spent the same amount on kitchen gear (including a Swarovski crystal-studded freezer) as they did on the toilets, plus more than $174,00 each on six swanky special-edition beds. Of course, a source (who, we assume, is friends with Kim or Kanye) insists to Gossip Cop that the story isn't true, but we give you permission to choose to believe it anyway. |
IRS Chief: No Evidence Of 'Intentional Wrongdoing' So Far
i i Win McNamee / Getty Images Win McNamee / Getty Images
That "be on the lookout list" used to flag Tea Party groups for extra scrutiny of their tax-exemption applications?
It turns out it wasn't the only one the Internal Revenue Service had been using.
There were also other lists, covering a "broad spectrum" of categories and cases, according to a preliminary IRS report released Monday.
"Once we came to that conclusion, we took immediate action to suspend the use of these lists in the Exempt Organizations unit within IRS," said Danny Werfel, the new acting chief of the IRS, in a conference call with reporters.
Werfel said he hopes to be able to release more information about the sorts of other groups that were being flagged in the coming days, but that he could not until the documents were scrubbed of details that could identify groups by name, which privacy laws prohibit.
Werfel also said that his review so far hasn't found any evidence of unintentional wrongdoing by any IRS employee, nor any influence by entities outside the IRS in the actions of the exempt-organizations office in Cincinnati. "I'm not providing a definitive conclusion that no intentional wrongdoing occurred. What I'm suggesting is that based on the ongoing review to date, no evidence has yet surfaced," he said.
Werfel replaced former acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller last month after revelations that the IRS had pulled aside groups with "Tea Party," "patriot" or "9/12" in their names for extra scrutiny. That, combined with bureaucratic stumbles, forced some groups to wait years to get an answer on their applications. Nonprofits often seek IRS approval to make it easier to solicit donations as well as guarantee those donors that their names will be kept secret from the public.
In Monday's half-hour call, Werfel said the manager at every level in the organizational chart having to do with the exempt organizations had been replaced. "We believe that these individuals should no longer hold a position of public trust within IRS, and therefore we've replaced the leadership in those areas," he said.
For groups still awaiting an answer on their applications as 501(c)(4) "social welfare" organizations, Werfel said the IRS has created a new, fast-track process. This allows those waiting more than 120 days to fill out a form on which they promise not to engage primarily in politics and then start operating as a tax-exempt group.
Groups set up as social welfare organizations have always had that option available, rather than seeking formal approval from the IRS, Werfel pointed out. (Charities seeking 501(c)(3) status, which, unlike social welfare groups, can offer donors a deduction on their federal taxes, are required to seek pre-approval from the IRS.) If a subsequent audit shows too much politics or other legally impermissible activity, the IRS could then revoke that status — just as it can now.
Werfel is the sole witness scheduled to appear before the House Ways and Means Committee hearing on the issue on Thursday. Both the House and the Senate have ongoing inquiries into the matter.
To date, leaked transcripts from House interviews of IRS Cincinnati employees portray an environment of unclear guidelines and uneven management, rather than a concerted, politically motivated effort.
Werfel said that he hopes a planned Treasury Department analysis of how tax-exempt organizations are reviewed will help create standardized guidelines in the future. "Clearly this issue associated with some ambiguity in the regulation that governs this area contributed in part to these problems," he said.
Werfel's assurances Monday, though, did not satisfy the IRS's leading inquisitor in the House, California Republican Darrell Issa, chairman of the House Oversight and Governmental Reform Committee. "As investigations by Congress and the Justice Department are still ongoing, Mr. Werfel's assertion that he has found no evidence that anyone at IRS intentionally did anything wrong can only be called premature," Issa said in a statement Monday. "Only through continued cooperation with ongoing Congressional and Justice Department inquiries can IRS make a meaningful claim that it is trying to regain the trust of the American people." ||||| Daniel "Danny" Werfel, acting commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), speaks during a House Appropriations subcommittee hearing in Washington, D.C., on June 3, 2013.
Daniel "Danny" Werfel, acting commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), speaks during a House Appropriations subcommittee hearing in Washington, D.C., on June 3, 2013. Close
The Internal Revenue Service used terms such as “progressive” and evidence of advocacy on Israel to flag groups’ tax-exempt applications for extra attention, complicating what had been seen as targeted scrutiny for small-government groups.
The IRS’s disclosure yesterday of 15 redacted versions of its Be On the Lookout document, or BOLO, bolstered its contention that delays experienced by Tea Party groups applying for nonprofit status were a symptom of mismanagement and not politically motivated action.
“The BOLO list in my mind loses this sinister nature,” said Jeff Trinca, who was chief of staff to the IRS restructuring commission in the 1990s and is now a lobbyist at Van Scoyoc Associates in Washington. “And it becomes another way of creating criteria lists to try to deal with the huge volumes that come through the agency.”
The disclosure raised a new set of questions about the IRS, which acknowledged last month that it had given extra attention to Tea Party organizations and other advocates for small government. The documents don’t explain how employees used the BOLO or which groups, if any, received extra scrutiny because of it.
Representative Sander Levin of Michigan, the top Democrat on the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, said the IRS inspector general, J. Russell George, should explain why his May 14 report didn’t include this information.
Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg The Internal Revenue Service revealed May 10 that it had given extra attention to Tea Party groups and other small-government advocates. Close The Internal Revenue Service revealed May 10 that it had given extra attention to Tea... Read More Close Open Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg The Internal Revenue Service revealed May 10 that it had given extra attention to Tea Party groups and other small-government advocates.
‘Flawed’ Probes
“The audit served as the basis and impetus for a wide range of congressional investigations and this new information shows that the foundation of those investigations is flawed in a fundamental way,” Levin said in a statement.
Since the IRS apologized for scrutiny of Republican-leaning groups on May 10, six congressional committees have opened inquiries and the Justice Department has begun a criminal probe. President Barack Obama replaced the acting IRS commissioner and Danny Werfel, the agency’s interim leader, has replaced three others with direct responsibility for tax-exempt groups.
The documents don’t show that Tea Party groups and progressives were treated equally. In fact, they suggest that the entries on the BOLO derived from separate efforts to police applications for tax-exempt status for political activity.
Law Enforcement
The IRS is charged with enforcing tax law, which forbids political activity for 501(c)(3) charities that can receive tax-deductible contributions and limits campaign involvement for 501(c)4 social welfare groups that don’t have to disclose their donors.
The term “progressive” appeared on a November 2010 document released by House Ways and Means Committee Democrats. It appears to refer to applications for 501(c)(3) status, not the 501(c)(4) status sought by many Tea Party groups.
Employees were told to watch for applications that were “partisan and appear as anti-Republican.” On the document released by Democrats, the reference to progressives is in a different section than the Tea Party groups, and it doesn’t direct employees to send the cases to a special unit, unlike the Tea Party cases.
Even on the first BOLO document released, from August 2010, progressives are listed under the label of TAG Historical, short for Touch-and-Go Historical, or issues that had been raised in the past. Tea Party is listed under Emerging Issues.
18-Page Surveys
The disclosure of the scrutiny of groups working on Israel-related issues confirms what organizations had suspected.
Ameinu, which on its website calls itself a “community of progressive Jews,” received its 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status on May 28 -- five years after applying.
IRS agents peppered the group with 18-page surveys and lingered for months without follow-up, Hiam Simon, national director of Ameinu, said in a telephone interview. He said he was looking at a 4-inch thick folder of Ameinu’s communications with the IRS.
“I think they were painting with a broad brush, with worries about Middle East ties to terrorism,” he said of the IRS. “I don’t think it was caused by malice. Ignorance is too strong a word, too. They simply weren’t nuanced enough or careful enough.”
Committee hearings, an inspector general’s report and congressional investigators’ interviews with IRS employees have shown the scrutiny of Tea Party groups started with a single case in February 2010 that an employee flagged to his manager.
Werfel said he was suspending the use of BOLOs, which were employed as recently as last month. The final BOLO released, from April, doesn’t include Tea Party or progressive groups specifically, just general language about political involvement.
Redacted Information
The IRS took several weeks to release yesterday’s documents, because it had to scrub the be-on-the-lookout lists of taxpayer-specific information before making them public. The BOLO mostly consists of redacted information.
The prospect that Democratic-friendly groups experienced extra scrutiny wasn’t entirely new.
Eight groups with “progress” or “progressive” in their names had appeared on a publicly available list of groups whose applications had been delayed and later approved by the IRS. That list included many small-government groups.
Progress Texas, an Austin-based group that typically backs Democratic positions, received an IRS letter with essentially the same questions the agency had asked of some Republican-leaning groups. As with Tea Party groups, the IRS wanted promotional materials, backgrounds of officers, meeting minutes and specifics about activities the organization said it would conduct.
Time Consuming
Matt Glazer, former executive director, told Bloomberg News in May that the questionnaire was time consuming, though not intrusive. His group was approved.
Still, Steven Miller, the former acting IRS commissioner, told the Ways and Means Committee May 17 that progressive groups weren’t targeted.
Congressional Republicans said the IRS’s actions against small-government and Republican-leaning groups weren’t limited to extra scrutiny of tax-exempt applications.
House committees are also probing gift-tax audits of donors to a group that backed the war in Iraq, disclosures of the confidential information of several groups and IRS requests that anti-abortion groups agree not to protest at Planned Parenthood as a condition of receiving their tax-exempt status.
Flagging Groups
“It is one thing to flag a group,” Sarah Swinehart, a spokeswoman for Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp, said in an e-mailed statement. “It is quite another to repeatedly target and abuse conservative groups.”
Werfel will testify at a Ways and Means hearing June 27.
J. Russell George, the inspector general whose report revealed the Tea Party scrutiny, was asked at a May 22 hearing whether Democratic-leaning groups were targeted.
At first, he said he couldn’t give a definitive answer when questioned by Representative Darrell Issa, a California Republican and chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
Then, George said that under “the purposes of the audit that we conducted, which was to determine whether they were looked for in the context of political campaign intervention, there were no others.”
The inspector general’s office said in a statement that the initial review had been limited to language designed to flag political involvement.
New Review
“Although these criteria were not used to select cases for review of potential political campaign intervention, we are reviewing whether these criteria led to expanded scrutiny for other reasons,” according to the statement.
Dianne Belsom, president of the Laurens County Tea Party in South Carolina, told lawmakers earlier this month her group had been waiting almost three years to hear from the IRS on an application for tax-exempt status after answering repeated and extensive questionnaires.
“The IRS needs to be fully investigated and held accountable for its incompetence, harassment and targeting of conservative groups,” Belsom said at a June 4 Ways and Means Committee hearing.
The BOLO also has terms related to Israel, looking for applications that “deal with disputed territories in the Middle East” and “may be inflammatory.”
Z Street, which describes itself as a Zionist education organization, sued the IRS in federal court over its treatment, which it called discriminatory.
“It’s great that they’re finally acknowledging what we’ve known all along,” co-founder Lori Lowenthal Marcus said in a telephone interview.
IRS Backlog
Marcus said the IRS told Z Street it “froze” their application for 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status when it filed suit. The case is scheduled for hearings next month in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
The documents also show that the tax-exempt office was handling issues that had nothing to do with political campaigns or partisanship, such as cases involving medical marijuana, “potentially abusive” pain management clinics and life insurance policies owned by charities.
Also yesterday, Werfel released a report outlining his plans for restoring trust in the agency and reducing the backlog of applications for tax-exempt status.
‘Fairness,’ Neutrality
Groups stuck in the backlog will have a chance for approval of their applications within two weeks if they promise to limit political spending. The IRS will send letters to about 80 groups.
“The administration is committed to making sure the IRS continues to reform itself with the goals of providing the highest quality service and reflecting the principles of fairness and neutrality,” Jay Carney, the White House press secretary, said in a statement.
Obama was briefed yesterday by Werfel and Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew.
Werfel said his review of the agency’s actions hasn’t found evidence of intentional wrongdoing or involvement from outside the IRS. That’s consistent with the findings so far of congressional investigators.
“They just let it fester and then they let some folks who didn’t really have the guidance they need go crazy with these questions,” said Trinca, a former Democratic congressional staff member. “The whole thing was just an absolute debacle.”
To contact the reporters on this story: Richard Rubin in Washington at rrubin12@bloomberg.net; Julie Bykowicz in Washington at jbykowicz@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Jodi Schneider at jschneider50@bloomberg.net | – Tea Party groups weren't the only ones targeted by the IRS. Documents obtained by Bloomberg reveal the agency also used terms such as "Israel," "progressive," and "occupy" when applying extra scrutiny to groups seeking tax-exempt status. New agency chief Danny Werfel earlier confirmed that there were more "be on the lookout" lists than just the already known Tea Party-related ones—and that some lists were still being used as recently as last month— but did not disclose what words featured on those lists, the AP reports. "There was a wide-ranging set of categories and cases that spanned a broad spectrum" on the lists, Werfel says. He says he will officially release more information soon, once the lists have been censored to protect groups' privacy, NPR reports. However, Werfel still maintains that no evidence of "intentional wrongdoing" has been found. "I'm not providing a definitive conclusion that no intentional wrongdoing occurred," he clarified. "What I'm suggesting is that based on the ongoing review to date, no evidence has yet surfaced." |
GIF
The engineers at Nissan are excited about autonomous driving technology. So excited in fact, they pulled themselves away from working on actual cars to demonstrate how smart they were with self-parking office chairs. Office chairs that terrifyingly move around when you leave the room.
Advertisement
I’m admittedly a little confused. I bought my office chair for too much money at Staples, in pieces, in a box. I brought it home, assembled it my damn self, and put it at my desk; a spot it happily hasn’t moved from in over six months. I’m quite satisfied knowing it is dead inside, and not going to suddenly drag me away into the hell Nissan’s autonomous seats spawn from.
Nissan apparently has different plans for its office chairs.
NOPE. Tell me that isn’t something straight out of Paranormal Activity. Here’s an idea: tell your employees to not be inconsiderate and lazy.
The system uses at least four cameras in the room to analyze the 3D space, communicating and informing the chairs how to navigate the room and tuck themselves back under the desk. First we took cursive out of third grade, and now we wont even be teaching Kindergartners to push in their chairs. What little monsters they’ll become.
The chairs were developed to show off Nissan’s upcoming autonomous automotive technology. Technology they plan to provide in either semi-autonomous or fully-autonomous capacity in at least ten production models by 2020. You want to know how other companies would approach showing off autonomous automotive technology? Making an updated autonomous automobile to demonstrate (and not the Leaf from three years ago).
Advertisement
Why not make a refrigerator that comes to me when I clap? Or a bookshelf? Interactive terrifying punching bag you get to chase?
But that’s just me. Demonized haunted office chairs are cool too, I guess.
Advertisement
Meanwhile, Nissan dropped out of LeMans with a failed FWD racing prototype, there’s no news of a new Z sports car being developed, and all while some humble Jalopnik staff rode in a Tesla Model S that virtually drove itself across the country entirely on its own.
Via CarScoops ||||| Rating is available when the video has been rented.
This feature is not available right now. Please try again later. ||||| Never push your chair in again. That’s the promise of a new robotic “self-driving” chair from Nissan.
The seat that parks itself works a little like clap-on-clap-off lights: Clap once, and an entire roomful of office chairs usher themselves back into their spots, Marie Kondo-neatfreak-style.
The chairs are rigged up to a bird’s-eye office camera system via Wi-Fi. Four cameras keep track of each chair’s position and help steer the chairs back into place with all the precision of a Japanese tea service. Nissan powers the driving, while Japanese chair company Okamura provides the seat:
But you’re probably not going to be able to buy these wonder chairs for your own office anytime soon. (Which is probably for the best, since it’s unclear what clap-powered chairs would do if the whole office ever burst into applause.)
The concept chairs were designed to show off Nissan’s “Intelligent Parking Assist” technology. It’s a camera-based car system that can steer a vehicle into a parking spot hands-free, while the driver applies the brakes and the gas.
Get Data Sheet, Fortune’s technology newsletter.
Intelligent parking assist is a first in what Nissan reports will be a fleet of self-driving technologies for consumer vehicles: The company tells Fortune it will be adding more autonomous features to ten vehicle models over the next four years. Nissan also expects to make a fully self-driving car by 2020, something the company is testing out on the roads in California now.
Until then, at least the chairs know how to drive. ||||| 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. ||||| 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. | – And the strangest tech innovation of the month award goes to the engineers at Nissan for inventing an office chair that puts itself neatly back under a desk at the sound of a clap. It's true: The "Intelligent Parking Chair" has motors and wheels in its circular base that sync with cameras placed in a room. When somebody claps, the chair navigates its way back to the proper location, reports Jalopnik. (Watch the video here.) It's also more of a publicity stunt than a new product: Nissan is looking to generate publicity for its soon-to-be-unveiled technology for self-parking cars, notes Engadget. At least 10 models will have some iteration of the tech by 2020. As a publicity stunt, however, it seems to be succeeding, because auto and tech blogs are picking up on the story. Carscoops, for instance, is intrigued: "Considering how seamlessly the chairs seem to work, we wouldn't be surprised to see a technology company try and make them a production reality." Nissan teamed with an actual chair company, Okamura, to create the seats, so that might not be too far-fetched. But Fortune has a practical concern: "It’s unclear what clap-powered chairs would do if the whole office ever burst into applause." (Tesla is starting to dabble with "autopilot" mode.) |
A handout picture provided by the International Tracing Service (ITS) on 12 August 2015 shows the 91-year-old Italian woman, holding an illustrated book with photos of the family of her daughter Margot Bachmann in her hands in Novellara, Italy, 08 August 2015. (International Tracing Service ITS/dpa)
“Dear Mum, my name is Margot Bachmann and I am your daughter, born on Oct 25 1944 in Heidelberg. All my life I asked my family about you, without being given any answers. I want to come and find you so that I can hug you once again. I’m immensely happy to be able to finally know you.”
The above is an excerpt, published in the Telegraph and verified by The Washington Post, from a letter German citizen Margot Bachmann sent to her Italian mother. Last weekend, Bachmann and her 91-year old mother, who did not want to be named, were finally reunited in the Italian village of Novellara – 71 years after being separated.
"What we observed last weekend, comes close to a miracle," Friederike Scharlau, representative of International Tracing Service, said in a news release. The organization, in collaboration with the initiative Restoring Family Links which is led by the International Committee of the Red Cross, had helped Bachmann and her mother be reunited.
"Nowadays, it is extraordinarily rare that parents and children reconnect who were separated by the Nazi regime. Many Nazi-survivors have died by now," Scharlau said. Often, the organization is only able to connect relatives with cousins or siblings of subsequent generations.
Bachmann was born in Heidelberg in Germany, where her mother had moved to during the Second World War to work in a factory where she was forced to live in a labor camp. A German soldier impregnated her when she was 20, and she was pressured to hand over the baby to authorities after her parental custody was revoked.
Margot Bachmann was temporarily raised in a children's home, until the German soldier's family adopted her shortly after the end of World War II. Post-war chaos divided the Italian mother and her daughter even further. In the belief that her daughter had been killed, the woman later returned to Italy.
She did not know that her daughter -- raised under the name Margot Bachmann -- was still alive. Bachmann says her German father prohibited her from searching for her biological mother throughout his life. Although Bachmann's father wanted to make her believe that her mother had died, she had doubts early on. "Already as a child I had the feeling that this wasn't true," she said.
Last year, her father died and Bachmann decided to defy his wishes. "I wanted to know who my mother was, whether we were similar; and I wanted to find photos or some information. I didn't dare to hope that I would ever be able to hug her. Now, I am overtly happy that she is doing well and that we were able to get to know each other," Bachmann was quoted as saying by the International Tracing Service.
On her original birth certificate, Bachmann found the full name of her mother and asked the International Tracing Service to search for information about her, using a database of about 30 million documents.
"We were lucky because in all these years, the mother had not moved away from her home town," Laura Bastianetto, a spokesperson for the Italian Red Cross which accompanied the reunion last weekend, told La Repubblica. "We were able to trace her fairly quickly. We hope that the mother, who believed she had lost her daughter forever, can now make up for lost time. She doesn't know when, but she is sure to come back as soon as possible," Bastianetto said.
"A bottle of sparkling wine, the excitement of the reunification and an exchange of gifts and family pictures filled the time," the Italian Red Cross spokesperson described the reunion to The Washington Post in an email.
Looking at her daughter, the mother said: "I thought you were dead, otherwise I would have searched for you," according to Bastianetto.
More on WorldViews
The trauma of World War II might outlast its survivors
How the Hiroshima bombing is taught around the world ||||| After more than 70 years of separation, an Italian woman and the daughter she had with a German soldier during the Second World War have finally been reunited.
The Italian woman, who is now 91, moved to Germany voluntarily during the war to work in a factory in Heidelberg and there fell in love with a soldier.
She became pregnant and in October 1944 gave birth to a baby girl, but the child was soon taken away from her by the soldier’s family.
After the war the Italian woman returned to her home village of Novellara in the northern region of Emilia Romagna, believing that the baby had probably died of illness or had been killed in an Allied bombardment during the last, desperate days of the war.
But unknown to her, the infant had been adopted by the soldier’s parents, who raised her as Margot Bachmann.
As she grew up, the little girl was told that her birth mother was Italian but that the family had no idea of her whereabouts, and was forbidden from searching for her.
Mrs Bachmann, now aged 70, always wondered what became of her mother, and last year, when her father died, decided to redouble efforts to track her down.
Encouraged by her own daughter, who was curious about the family saga, she managed to find her mother with the help of the Italian Red Cross and the International Tracing Service, a centre based in Germany which works on reuniting families torn apart by the war.
With the help of the Red Cross, the ITS discovered that Mrs Bachmann's mother was still alive and living in Novellara.
After more than seven decades, the two had an emotional encounter at the weekend, crying and toasting their reunion with a bottle of sparkling wine.
“I started out doing some research, hoping to know a bit more about my mother,” said Mrs Bachmann. “But I would never have imagined that I would be able to embrace her once again. I’m so happy to have found her still alive, despite her advanced age.
"My father had forbidden me from looking for her, and I began to do so only after his death.”
Before their encounter, Mrs Bachmann sent her mother a letter. “Dear Mum, my name is Margot Bachmann and I am your daughter, born on Oct 25 1944 in Heidelberg. All my life I asked my family about you, without being given any answers. I want to come and find you so that I can hug you once again. I’m immensely happy to be able to finally know you.”
Their story has raised uncomfortable questions about the extent of the collaboration between Italians and their Nazi occupiers, reviving memories of women having their heads shaved after being accused of sleeping with the enemy at the end of the war.
Her mother has refused to be identified, mindful of the lingering resentment towards Italian women who had romantic liaisons with German troops.
“I can understand her position,” said Elena Carletti, the mayor of Novellara. “In this village, people have not forgotten [the war]. Even my generation knows the names of those who, during the war, were for or against the Germans. These stories still weigh heavily on many families. This encounter between a mother and daughter reminds us of a complicated chapter of history.”
One local, Dilva Daoli, now aged 94, said she could remember seeing local women who had fraternised with the Germans being abused and spat at after the village was liberated by Italian partisans and Allied troops.
“The partisans cut off all the hair of the girls who had danced, dined and then spent the night with the Germans and the Fascists,” she told La Repubblica newspaper. “Those poor girls understood nothing.”
Laura Bastianetto, of the Italian Red Cross, described the reunion after so many years as “a small miracle”.
"It is rare for a mother and daughter to find each other after 71 years. We were lucky because in all these years, the mother had not moved away from her home town. We were able to trace her fairly quickly. We hope that the mother, who believed she had lost her daughter forever, can now make up for lost time.” | – One of the countless millions of family bonds severed by the chaos and horror of World War II has been made whole again after 71 years. Margot Bachmann's Italian mother was living in a forced-labor camp in Germany in 1944 when she was impregnated by a German soldier she had fallen in love with, the Washington Post reports. Nazi authorities took the baby away from her (perhaps as soon as a month after the child's birth) and placed the girl in a children's home. When the war ended, the woman, identified only as Gianna, returned to Italy, believing the child had been killed. She wasn't. The two were reunited last weekend by the International Tracing Service organization, which says in what is "close to a miracle" it was able to locate the 91-year-old mother in her home village in northern Italy. Bachmann was raised by the soldier and his family, who told her that her birth mother was Italian but ordered her not to try to find out more and gave the impression that she was dead, the Telegraph reports. Bachmann's own daughters encouraged her to search after her father's death and they were able to track down her birth certificate. "All my life I asked my family about you, without being given any answers. I want to come and find you so that I can hug you once again," she wrote to her, per the Telegraph. A Red Cross spokeswoman tells the Post that when they finally met, "a bottle of sparkling wine, the excitement of the reunification, and an exchange of gifts and family pictures filled the time." (A Facebook photo reunited this mother and son after 15 years.) |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Justice Department said on Monday it would appeal against a federal judge’s ruling that President Donald Trump may not legally block Twitter users from his account on the social media platform based on their political views, according to a court filing.
FILE PHOTO: The masthead of U.S. President Donald Trump's @realDonaldTrump Twitter account is seen on July 11, 2017. @realDonaldTrump/Handout via REUTERS
Jameel Jaffer, a lawyer for the seven plaintiffs who sued, said the @realDonaldTrump account had unblocked the seven plaintiffs on Monday.
“We’re pleased that the White House unblocked our clients from the President’s Twitter account but disappointed that the government intends to appeal the district court’s thoughtful and well-supported ruling,” Jaffer said in an email.
The White House did not comment immediately. A Justice Department spokeswoman confirmed the plaintiffs had been unblocked.
Trump has made his Twitter account - with more than 52 million followers - an integral and controversial part of his presidency, using it to promote his agenda, announce policy and attack critics. He has blocked many critics from his account, which prevents them from directly responding to his tweets.
U.S. District Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald in Manhattan ruled on May 23 that comments on the president’s account, and those of other government officials, were public forums and that blocking Twitter users for their views violated their right to free speech under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
Buchwald’s ruling was in response to a First Amendment lawsuit filed against Trump in July 2017 by the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University and several Twitter users.
The plaintiffs include Philip Cohen, a sociology professor at the University of Maryland, and Brandon Neely, a Texas police officer.
Cohen, who was blocked from Trump’s account a year ago, wrote on Twitter late Monday: “We whined. We complained. We sued. We won our First Amendment lawsuit in federal court. And now @realDonaldTrump has unblocked me. Wow!”
Neely tweeted at Trump after he was unblocked late Monday: “@realDonaldTrump 368 days and a win in court and now I AM BACK!!!”
Novelists Stephen King and Anne Rice, comedian Rosie O’Donnell, model Chrissy Teigen, actress Marina Sirtis and the military veterans political action committee VoteVets.org are among others who have said on Twitter that Trump blocked them.
Buchwald rejected the argument by Justice Department lawyers that Trump’s own First Amendment rights allowed him to block people with whom he did not wish to interact.
Trump could “mute” users, meaning he would not see their tweets while they could still respond to his, she said, without violating their free speech rights. ||||| President Donald Trump has repeatedly said he uses his tweets as a way to get around the mainstream media. Here is Twitter feed is shown on April 3. | J. David Ake/AP Justice Dept. appeals ruling in Trump Twitter-blocking case
President Donald Trump and one of his top aides on Monday night appealed a federal court ruling that said the president was violating the constitutional rights of individuals he has blocked from viewing his personal Twitter feed.
Three Justice Department officials filed notice of their appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on behalf of Trump and Dan Scavino, the White House social media director.
Story Continued Below
Late last month, U.S. District Court Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald, an appointee of President Bill Clinton, ruled that Twitter serves as a “designated public forum.” Since Twitter reaches that threshold, the judge ruled, blocking people from the president’s personal Twitter account is a violation of their constitutional rights.
Trump has repeatedly said he uses his tweets as a way to get around the mainstream media that he views as biased against him. On occasion, he has also appeared to use his personal account to make policy statements, like last July when he declared that transgender service members would be barred from serving in the military in “any capacity.”
The most reliable politics newsletter. Sign up for POLITICO Playbook and get the latest news, every morning — in your inbox. Email Sign Up By signing up you agree to receive email newsletters or alerts from POLITICO. You can unsubscribe at any time.
The Justice Department has previously argued that the case would thrust the First Amendment into “uncharted waters,” as federal courts would be dictating what a president could or could not do on a private website.
“It would send the First Amendment deep into uncharted waters to hold that a president’s choices about whom to follow, and whom to block, on Twitter — a privately run website that, as a central feature of its social-media platform, enables all users to block particular individuals from viewing posts — violate the Constitution,” Justice Department attorney Michael Baer wrote in August 2017. | – "We whined. We complained. We sued. We won our First Amendment lawsuit in federal court. And now @realDonaldTrump has unblocked me," University of Maryland sociology professor Philip Cohen tweeted Monday. The Justice Department later confirmed all seven plaintiffs who successfully argued President Trump violated their right to free speech by blocking them on Twitter had been unblocked following their court win two weeks ago, reports Reuters. Still, it's apparently too soon for them to celebrate. Trump and White House social media director Dan Scavino are appealing the ruling that determined the blocking of people who addressed the presidential account was a constitutional violation, Politico reports, citing notices filed by three DOJ officials on Monday. Though the basis for the appeal wasn't made clear, DOJ attorney Michael Baer previously said "it would send the First Amendment deep into uncharted waters to hold that a president's choices about whom to follow, and whom to block, on Twitter—a privately run website that, as a central feature of its social-media platform, enables all users to block particular individuals from viewing posts—violate the Constitution," per Politico. A lawyer representing the seven plaintiffs says she's "disappointed that the government intends to appeal the district court's thoughtful and well-supported ruling," though she adds she's "pleased" to see blocked users regain their right to free speech. Among them: Texas police officer Brandon Neely. "I AM BACK!!!" he wrote to Trump on Monday. |
Mark Duggan, whose shooting by police sparked London's riots, did not fire a shot at police officers before they killed him, the Independent Police Complaints Commission said on Tuesday.
Releasing the initial findings of ballistics tests, the police watchdog said a CO19 firearms officer fired two bullets, and that a bullet that lodged in a police radio was "consistent with being fired from a police gun".
One theory, not confirmed by the IPCC, is that the bullet became lodged in the radio from a ricochet or after passing through Duggan.
Duggan, 29, was killed last Thursday in Tottenham, north London, after armed officers stopped the minicab in which he was travelling.
The IPCC said Duggan was carrying a loaded gun, but it had no evidence that the weapon had been fired. It said tests were continuing.
The officer who fired the fatal shots has been removed from firearms duties, which is standard procedure, pending the IPCC investigation.
Officers from the Met's Operation Trident and Special Crime Directorate 11, accompanied by officers from CO19, the Met's specialist firearms command, stopped the silver Toyota Estima minicab in Ferry Lane, close to Tottenham Hale tube station, to arrest Duggan.
He was killed by a single gunshot wound to the chest, and received a second gunshot wound to his right bicep. He was pronounced dead at the scene at 6.41pm.
The IPCC's statement said the bullet lodged in the police radio was a "jacketed round". This is a police-issue bullet and is "consistent with having been fired from a [police] Heckler and Koch MP5", it said.
The non-police firearm found at the scene was a converted BBM Bruni self-loading pistol. The gun was found to have a "bulleted cartridge" in the magazine, which is being subjected to further forensic tests.
The officer whose radio was hit was taken to Homerton hospital where he was examined and discharged later that night. The minicab driver was not injured but was badly shaken by what he saw, the IPCC said. His account, as well as those of the officers, is being examined along with the forensic evidence.
The police watchdog said it was examining CCTV footage of the area, including from buses passing by at the time.
The statement said: "Our investigators will be examining recordings of radio transmissions from both police and London ambulance service, including 999 calls, with a view to tracing further witnesses. We will also be examining any intelligence and surveillance material leading up to the planning of the operation."
The IPCC commissioner Rachel Cerfontyne said: "Any concerns expressed by the wider public about a perceived lack of information from the IPCC should be considered in the context that I am only willing to share information once I have had it independently verified and once the people who are directly involved in this case – including Mr Duggan's family and community leaders – have been fully informed."
An inquest into Duggan's death was opened at north London coroner's court on Tuesday. The coroner, Andrew Walker, adjourned the hearing to 12 December and offered his sympathies to Duggan's family.
"As members of the family will know, in due course there will be an inquest touching the death of Mark Duggan and this is the first stage in that process, he said. "Of course, as well as offering our deepest sympathies, I would like to reassure members of the family that we will be working closely with Mr Duggan's family and the IPCC throughout the process."
After the hearing, the family said they were "distressed" by the rioting in the wake of his death. In a statement on their behalf, Helen Shaw, from the organisation Inquest, said: "The family want everyone to know that the disorder going on has nothing to do with finding out what has happened to Mark. They also want people to know they are deeply distressed by the disorder affecting communities across the country." ||||| Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Police try to tackle masked youths in Manchester
Sporadic violence has broken out in several cities around England, although London stayed largely quiet overnight.
There was unrest in cities including Manchester, Salford, Liverpool, Nottingham and Birmingham, with shops being looted and set alight.
Three men died when they were hit by a car in Birmingham - locals claimed they were protecting their neighbourhood.
Greater Manchester Police's assistant chief constable said officers had faced "unprecedented levels of violence".
London Mayor Boris Johnson urged the government to reconsider its plans to cut police numbers, saying the argument had been "substantially weakened" by the riots.
GMP's ACC Garry Shewan said he had seen "the most sickening scenes" of his career, and said the force had been overwhelmed.
Speaking at a press conference on Wednesday morning he said GMP was "absolutely intent" on bringing the rioters to justice and officers were already studying CCTV.
"Hundreds and hundreds of people, we have your image, we have your face, we have your acts of wanton criminality on film. We are coming for you, from today and no matter how long it takes, we will arrest those people responsible," he said.
Some 113 people have been arrested so far over the trouble in Manchester and Salford, where hundreds of youths looted shops and set fire to cars and buildings.
Three dead
In the West Midlands, 109 have been arrested and 23 charged following scenes of disorder in Birmingham, Wolverhampton and West Bromwich - where vehicles were set on fire.
Meanwhile, West Midlands Police have started a murder inquiry after the deaths of the three pedestrians hit by a car.
In Birmingham, riot police surrounded the Mailbox, the city's upmarket shopping centre, following the disturbances seen in the area on Monday night.
In other developments:
Wounded officers
Scotland Yard drafted in special constables and community support officers in London to ensure five times the usual number of officers for a Tuesday - 16,000 - were on duty. They made 81 arrests.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption UK riots: How Monday's night of violence unfolded
Downing Street said the increased level of policing would remain in place "as long as necessary" to prevent a repeat of the violence.
It said while there was "no complacency," police tactics in London had "clearly worked".
It followed three nights of rioting in the city which saw shops looted, property set alight and police attacked, with some 111 Met officers suffered injuries including serious head and eye wounds, cuts and fractured bones after being attacked by rioters wielding bottles, planks, bricks and even driving cars at them. Five police dogs have also been hurt.
The Met's Deputy Assistant Commissioner, Stephen Kavanagh said London deserved "some resilience and sustainability from police".
'Stand together'
David Cameron, who is chairing a meeting of the cabinet's emergency committee Cobra for the second day running, met officers in the Met Police's Gold command in Lambeth on Tuesday afternoon, before speaking to emergency service personnel in Croydon.
He condemned the "sickening scenes of people looting, vandalising, thieving, robbing".
He told rioters: "You will feel the full force of the law. And if you are old enough to commit these crimes, you are old enough to face the punishment."
Parliament was being recalled on Thursday, which would allow MPs to "stand together in condemnation of these crimes and to stand together in determination to rebuild these communities", he said.
The prime minister returned early from his holiday in Tuscany to discuss the unrest, which first flared on Saturday after a peaceful protest in Tottenham over the fatal shooting of Mark Duggan, 29, by police.
London has seen a wave of "copycat criminal activity" since the initial disturbance, the Met Police said.
DAC Kavanagh said the use of plastic bullets - never before fired to deal with riots in England - would be "considered carefully" in the event of further disorder.
But he added: "That does not mean we are scared of using any tactic."
Acting Commissioner Tim Godwin had earlier ruled out calling in the Army.
Officers believe some rioters have used Blackberry Messenger - a service allowing users to send free real-time messages - to organise violence.
Referring to proposed police cuts, London Mayor Boris Johnson said: "That case was pretty frail and it's been substantially weakened. This is not a time to think about making substantial cuts in police numbers."
Labour leader Ed Miliband called for a "rapid response" from the government to help affected communities.
He urged the government to work with the insurance industry "to put in place fast-track procedures with immediate effect so that individuals and businesses making claims do not have to wait for the money they need to start putting things right".
The Association of British Insurers says the damage is likely to cost insurers "tens of millions of pounds".
Monday's disturbances included:
The Association of British Insurers says the damage is likely to cost insurers "tens of millions of pounds".
Monday's violence started in Hackney, north London, at about 16:20 BST after a man was stopped and searched by police, who found nothing.
Groups of people began attacking officers, wrecking cars with wooden poles and metal bars, and looting shops. Violence then flared separately in other parts of the capital.
Mayor of London Boris Johnson, who also cut short a holiday to return, was heckled by the members of the public while viewing damage in Clapham Junction on Tuesday.
Some people have complained there have been too few police to deal with the violence.
Mr Johnson told those gathered that those responsible for the violence "face punishment they will bitterly, bitterly regret".
However, when challenged to do more for communities, Mr Johnson rejected "economic or social justifications" for the violence. | – The man whose death at the hands of police prompted London’s massive riots did not shoot at the cops, a public investigatory body has concluded. Though Mark Duggan had a loaded gun, there was no evidence he fired it, the watchdog group said. A bullet stuck in a police radio was “consistent with being fired from a police gun,” and a firearms officer shot twice; he has been called off firearms work as the investigation continues, the Guardian reports. Duggan, 29, was riding in a minicab on Thursday in north London when firearms officers stopped the car to arrest him. He was killed by a shot to the chest and pronounced dead at the scene. The watchdog group is continuing to investigate and a coroner’s office is launching an inquest. Meanwhile, London authorities are taking action to block a fourth night of rioting, with 16,000 police now on the streets, the BBC reports. |
JK Rowling, Mary Portas, Stan Collymore and others join calls for Europe to welcome those seeking sanctuary
Celebrities, authors and footballers have spoken out to pledge their support for the thousands of refugees seeking sanctuary in Europe.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Video: Charity helps refugees find a flatshare in Berlin
Bob Geldof, in a highly charged interview on Irish radio, offered to take in four families immediately and give them shelter in his homes in Kent and London. Geldof said: “If there’s a new economy then there needs to be a new politics, and it’s a failure of that new politics that’s led to this disgrace, this absolute sickening disgrace,” he said.
“I’m prepared – I’m lucky, I’ve a place in Kent and a flat in London – me and (partner) Jeanne would be prepared to take three families immediately in our place in Kent and a family in our flat in London, immediately, and put them up until such time as they can get going and get a purchase on their future.”
He told RTÉ the images of three-year-old Syrian Aylan Kurdi’s body being washed up on a Turkish beach, and other distressing reports from borders and cities across Europe, were a source of shame.
“I look at it with profound shame and a monstrous betrayal of who we are and what we wish to be,” he said.
“We are in a moment currently now that will be discussed and impacted on in 300 years time.”
Facebook Twitter Pinterest JK Rowling. Photograph: Suzanne Plunkett/Reuters
On her Twitter account, the author JK Rowling added her support to the refugees welcome campaign that is spreading across Europe.
J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) If you can't imagine yourself in one of those boats, you have something missing. They are dying for a life worth living. #refugeeswelcome
Mary Portas, the fashion retail expert, added her name to the refugees welcome campaign, urging her followers to sign a Save the Children petition for urgent EU action and for Britain to take its fair share of refugees.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Mary Portas. Photograph: Graeme Robertson for the Guardian
Stan Collymore, the former Aston Villa striker, is among those supporting the campaign to show solidarity for those trying to start a new life in Europe after fleeing war zones in Syria and elsewhere. “I remember Doug Ellis and our team taking aid to Bucharest in 1997 ahead of playing Steaua [Bucureşti], and also Birmingham is a vibrant multicultural community,” he said. “I think our great club could and should do our bit to help.”
He also said he would look after a refugee family in his own home.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Stan Collymore. Photograph: David Levene for the Guardian
Stan Collymore (@StanCollymore) If my government allows, I'll take a Syrian family in my home for a year, tomorrow @leehayward1970 . Will you? Or just bitch?
The authors Rosamund Lupton, David Nicholls, Francesca Simon and Marian Keyes were among the writers and publishers who added their money to a fund set up by the children’s author Patrick Ness which will be given to Save the Children. Ness pledged to match the first £10,000 of donations, and by Friday he had raised more than £200,000. ||||| Bob Geldof says Britain's response so far has been inadequate
Bob Geldof has offered to accommodate four refugee families in his London and Kent homes as Europe struggles comes to terms with the scale of the humanitarian crisis.
The aid campaigner and singer said he felt sick at seeing images of three-year-old Syrian Aylan Kurdi's body being washed up on a Turkish beach.
"I look at it with profound shame and a monstrous betrayal of who we are and what we wish to be," he told RTÉ Radio One in Ireland.
"We are in a moment currently now that will be discussed and impacted on in 300 years’ time."
He said he would open the doors to his family home as a personal response to the growing refugee crisis.
Play video "Britons Offer To House Syrians" Video: Britons Offer To House Syrians
"I'm prepared - I'm lucky, I've a place in Kent and a flat in London - me and (partner) Jeanne would be prepared to take three families immediately in our place in Kent and a family in our flat in London, immediately, and put them up until such time as they can get going and get a purchase on their future."
The dean of York Minster, the Very Reverend Vivienne Faull, has also offered to house a refugee family and has urged the government to offer more support to those fleeing war.
"I understand Britain is providing considerable help through its overseas aid budget but it is now clear that this is not providing an adequate solution and we need to do more to help those in desperate need," she said.
Play video "Migrants Begin Walk Towards Border" Video: Migrants Begin Walk Towards Border
Geldof criticised the limited response from governments to date and said he decided to put his money where his mouth is.
"I've known, you've known, and everyone listening has known that the b******s we talk about, our values, are complete nonsense," he said.
"Once it comes home to roost we deny those values, we betray ourselves, but those values are correct, and it happens time and time again.
Play video "Who Accepts The Most Refugees?" Video: Who Accepts The Most Refugees?
"So we are better than this, we genuinely are.
"All of this is happening now. We must have the politics and the humanity to deal with it. It makes me sick and a concert won't do it," he added.
Both Geldof and Dean Faull made the comments before the UK Prime Minister confirmed that Britain would accept “thousands more” Syrian refugees. | – The drowned 3-year-old who perished as his family tried to flee Syria for safer shores has touched people around the world, including author JK Rowling, who tweeted a welcome message for refugees everywhere, the Guardian reports. "If you can't imagine yourself in one of those boats, you have something missing. They are dying for a life worth living. #refugeeswelcome," Rowling wrote in her tweet yesterday. Other celebrities have also joined the call for Europe to welcome refugees—and rock star Bob Geldof made a pretty incredible offer to house four refugee families. Geldof said in an interview on Ireland's RTE Radio One that he and his partner, Jeanne, have "a place in Kent and a flat in London" they'd be willing to use to "put [four refugee families] up until such time as they can get going and get a purchase on their future," per Sky News. He was spurred into action by what he calls the "absolute sickening disgrace" of little Aylan Kurdi's body washing up on a Turkish shore, the Guardian notes. "I look at it with profound shame and a monstrous betrayal of who we are and what we wish to be," he said in the interview. "We are in a moment currently now that will be discussed and impacted on in 300 years' time." (An anonymous death notice in the Sydney Morning Herald also mourns Aylan.) |
A man stands in front of an altar dedicated to the missing and dead passengers on board the capsized Sewol ferry, at a port in Jindo, April 28, 2014.
ANSAN South Korea (Reuters) - Six teenagers who survived South Korea's worst maritime disaster in 44 years told on Monday how classmates helped them float free as water flooded their cabins despite crew instructions to stay put even as their ferry sank, killing more than 300 people.
The teenagers, whose names were withheld to protect their privacy, were giving testimony at the trial of 15 crew members, who face charges ranging from homicide to negligence for abandoning the sinking ship.
"We were waiting and, when the water started coming in, the class rep told everyone to put on the life vests ... the door was above our heads, so she said we'll float and go through the door and that's how we came out," one of the teenagers said.
"Other kids who got out before us pulled us out."
The ferry Sewol sank on April 16, killing 304 people, as many as 250 of them school children on a field trip. Twelve of their teachers were also killed.
The ferry was on a routine trip from the port of Incheon south to Jeju island, carrying students and teachers from the Danwon High School on the outskirts of Seoul as well as other passengers and cargo.
Another of the teenagers told how crew members had told passengers, "specifically the students of Danwon High School", to stay in their cabins.
"Water started to fill in and friends helped us move out," the student said.
Others described how coastguard officers waited outside the stricken ferry for passengers to swim out rather than go into the ship to try and rescue them.
"They were outside. They pulled us (onto boats) but they didn't come inside to help," one said.
"We said to ourselves, 'why aren't they coming in?'."
"MORE FISHERMEN THAN RESCUERS"
Another student said it appeared there were more fishermen involved in the rescue than coastguard. Like others, she said the crew should be punished severely for their actions.
"More than that, I want to know the fundamental reason why my friends had to end up like that," she said.
The six teenage survivors described how there were repeated orders not to move from their cabins. Orders to put on their life vests came much later and without any information about what was happening to the ship as it began to list sharply.
They were the first of 75 children who survived due to give evidence in the trial at the Gwangju court, which has been moved to Ansan south of Seoul to accommodate the students.
Five of them gave their evidence facing away from the court. One testified from another room via closed-circuit television.
The crew members on trial, including the captain, Lee Joon-seok, have said they thought it was the coastguard's job to evacuate passengers. Video footage of their escape triggered outrage across South Korea.
Two musicians from the Philippines who had been working on the ship testified that the crew appeared to be in a state of panic as they gathered on the ship's bridge as it started to list, making no effort to get passengers off the vessel.
"I remember them panicked and worried," one of the pair, who was identified only by her first name, Alex, told the court.
She said the captain was crouched and holding onto a metal bar, apparently shaking with fear, and a junior ship's officer at the helm when the vessel started to list was crying loudly.
The government of President Park Geun-hye was heavily criticised over the slow and ineffective handling of the rescue operation. Park has vowed to break up the coastguard and streamline rescue operations, which are now split between the police, coastguard and others, into a single national agency.
The disaster also sparked South Korea's biggest manhunt as authorities searched for Yoo Byung-un, the man at the head of a family business that operated the doomed ferry.
Yoo's badly decomposed body was identified last week after it was found by a farmer at an orchard last month.
Earlier on Monday, a close associate of Yoo, a woman identified by police only by her last name of Kim, was arrested after handing herself in. It was believed she helped him elude police after the disaster.
Another woman, the wife of Yoo's driver who was thought to have been with him during his final days at large, also turned herself in to police.
Kim's arrest came three days after police stormed an apartment on the outskirts of Seoul and found Yoo's elder son, Dae-gyun, who was wanted for embezzlement.
Yoo Dae-gyun was not believed to have been as actively involved in management of the family business as his younger brother, who is believed to be in the United States. He said he only learned of his father's death from police.
Extensive decomposition of Yoo Byung-un's body meant it was not possible to determine the cause of his death despite forensic and DNA tests, authorities said last week.
(Writing by Jack Kim; Editing by Paul Tait and Robert Birsel) ||||| Student survivors of South Korea's ferry disaster testified at the murder trial of the captain and crew on Monday how they were left to fend for themselves in the sinking vessel.
One recalled orders for her and her classmates to stay put being relayed "over and over," until the ferry had listed so far that the door to their cabin was above their heads.
Another described watching a wave sweep her classmates back inside the sinking boat.
The actual trial is taking place in the southern city of Gwangju, but the judges and lawyers decamped to a court in Ansan city, south of Seoul, for a special two-day session with the 17 students who agreed to testify.
Police cordons blocked public access to the district court as the students -- all from Ansan's Dawon High School -- arrived in a red mini-bus and were escorted into the building by a tight phalanx of police officers.
Although they were offered the option of testifying by video from a nearby room, five of the six female students involved in Monday's morning session chose to give their testimony in the courtroom.
View gallery South Korean police guard a minibus carrying student survivors of the Sewol ferry as it arrives outs …
The student who took the video option described how passengers suddenly slid to one side as the ferry listed heavily.
- 'The door was above our heads' -
"The internal tannoy announcement said we should put our life vest on and stay put," she was quoted as saying by a pool reporter in the court, adding that the message was given repeatedly.
Of the 476 people on board the 6,825-tonne Sewol passenger ferry when it capsized on April 16 off the southern coast, 325 were Dawon High School pupils on an organised outing.
Only 75 students survived.
View gallery Sewol captain Lee Joon-Seok (centre) is escorted upon his arrival at the Gwangju District Court in t …
The female student said they had obeyed the order not to move until water started coming through the window of their cabin which, by now, was under their feet.
"The door was above our heads. We had our lifejackets on and the president of our class suggested we wait until we could float upwards and then escape," she said.
Eventually some classmates managed to clamber up fixed furniture. They pulled the others up and out as the waters inside rose.
Another witness, who testified in the courtroom, said at no time was she or those who escaped with her helped by any crew.
As the ferry keeled over to one side, she said a group of them managed to move along a now horizontal stairwell towards an escape hatch.
View gallery This file photo taken on April 16, 2014 shows the South Korea Coast Guard searching for passengers n …
- 'I dream about them' -
At the moment she jumped out, a sea swell swept over their escape route.
"There were many classmates in the corridor and most of them were swept back into the ship," she recalled.
"I sometimes think about those friends ... dream about them," she added.
Despite the trauma of their experience, the teenaged witnesses spoke calmly and clearly.
View gallery Relatives of victims of the Sewol disaster arrive at the Gwangju district court on July 8, 2014 duri …
The tragedy, and in particular the loss of so many young lives, rocked South Korea with an overwhelming sense of collective shock and grief.
Sewol captain Lee Joon-Seok and three senior crew members are accused of "homicide through wilful negligence" -- a charge that can carry the death penalty.
Eleven other crew are being tried on lesser violations of maritime law.
The bulk of the charges against the crew arise from the fact that Lee and the others chose to abandon ship while hundreds of people were still trapped inside.
The final death toll was just over 300.
Lee and his crew were publicly vilified in the wake of the tragedy, and there have been some expressions of concern about how fair their trial can be with emotions still running so high.
The sinking triggered a nationwide manhunt for a fugitive businessman, Yoo Byung-Eun, who headed the family which owned the company operating the Sewol.
Police announced last week that a badly decomposed body recovered six weeks ago from a field had been identified as Yoo's. | – Teens aboard the doomed South Korean ferry Sewol testified today as the trial of 15 crew members continues in the April tragedy. Five of the six kids faced away from listeners as they testified, while another testified from another room via video feed, Reuters reports. The teens called for harsh punishments for the crew, saying members "specifically" told the 250-odd students from their high school, who were on a field trip, to stay in their cabins while the ship sank. Those orders were repeated "over and over," a student said, per AFP. "We were waiting and, when the water started coming in, the class rep told everyone to put on the life vests," said one teen. "The door was above our heads, so she said we'll float and go through the door and that's how we came out." She added that "other kids who got out before us pulled us out." But even after some escaped, a wave pulled them back onto the boat, a student noted. The kids also offered troubling accounts of Coast Guard members, who they said helped them onto lifeboats but didn't actually enter the ship to help them. In a separate development, two reported associates of ferry owner Yoo Byung-un, who was recently found dead, have turned themselves in, Reuters reports. |
Inmate Access to Information from ADC’s Inmate Datasearch:
Pursuant to A.R.S. section 31-221(E), an inmate "shall not have access to any prisoner records other than viewing the prisoner's own automated summary record file." This means that, other than the AIMS report that inmates are allowed to receive once a year, they may not have any other information about their own or any other inmate’s prison record. This includes information regarding inmates downloaded and copied from the Arizona Department of Corrections website. If this information is sent to an inmate, it shall be treated as contraband. The sender will be liable to prosecution under A.R.S. section 13-2505 "Promoting Prison Contraband." This is a Class 5 felony subject to two and a half years in the Department of Corrections.
Note: Some ADC inmates have recently been victims of identity theft and fraud. In order to protect all ADC inmates from further victimization, ADC has removed their dates of birth from its public website.
Click here if you are having difficulty with the inmate search tool If, after following the above instructions, you are still having difficulty with the Inmate Datasearch, please contact us at [email protected]
Note:
Release dates and types have not been verified or audited by the Department and are subject to change.
Details of inmate offenses can be accessed by reviewing the case file at the Office of the Clerk of the Court where the case was adjudicated. ||||| Jared Fogle is “lucky he's still alive” after a prison yard beatdown meant to send a message to the once-again portly pedophile, the attacker’s family says.
Steven Nigg, 60, has been put in solitary confinement at the Colorado prison where he beat down Jared Fogle in January.
Steven Nigg took a run in January at the former Subway pitchman, who’s been acting like a “bigshot” at Colorado’s Englewood FCI since he arrived after his November sentencing for child sex crimes.
“He walks the yard and he’s rubbing shoulders with people he shouldn’t be,” Nigg’s nephew, Jimmy Nigg Jr., told the Daily News. “My uncle feels like he should never be allowed to do this.”
Most sex offenders in prison, where they are a particularly unliked group, try to keep a low profile according to Jimmy Jr. But Fogle’s access to cash, which he uses to pay fellow inmates for protection, allows him to feel invincible.
JARED FOGLE ATTACKED IN BLOODY PRISON BRAWL
“Jared’s lucky he’s still alive. My uncle was in a position to kill him. No one was there,” Jimmy Jr. said after speaking to his uncle and reading the incident report. “He got him down, then walked away. He’s not a violent guy, he doesn’t have a violent history. He’s sending a message is what he’s doing. A guy walks in with all this money and celebrity and instead of flying under the radar, he’s going into the yard, walking around with big guys, saying no one can mess with me, flashing his money around and that's what (my uncle) is pissed off about.”
Jared Fogle was sentenced to prison in November. (David Lodge/FilmMagic)
Fogle suffered a bloody nose, scratches to his neck and redness and swelling to his face after the Jan. 29 pummeling, according to an incident report. He’s been put in the “hole” -- solitary confinement -- and lost time he’d earned off his 15-year sentence for good behavior, Nigg’s brother, Jimmy Sr., said.
EX-SUBWAY PITCHMAN JARED FOGLE GAINS 30 POUNDS IN PRISON
Nigg himself was fine, and felt proud of what’d he done when Jimmy Sr. went to see him on Friday, saying he’d do it again if he had the chance.
The document detailing the prison incident involving Fogle.
“He said these kids (the victims) got dads and uncles and they’d love to do what I just did,” Jimmy Sr. told The News. “‘I’m doing it for the families. I couldn’t help it.’”
Steven Nigg, 60, who is scheduled to be released from the minimum security lockup in 2024, is frustrated by the amount of sex offenders sent to Englewood, which has a special program designed to rehabilitate the convicted fiends. The felon, who spent 15 years locked up in Arizona for armed robberies in the 1970s and was later convicted of selling guns he inherited from his father, even asked the authorities to send him to a higher security prison so he could avoid interacting with pedophiles.
“He took justice into his own hands in this incident,” Nigg’s proud nephew said.
Aside from the beating, prison hasn’t been too kind to Fogle’s physique. He’s gained a significant amount of weight and goes out into the yard just to “snack,” Steven recounted for his family.
Former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich is one of the inmates at the prison where Fogle and Steven Nigg are behind bars. (Ed Andrieski/AP)
“The inmates joke that they need to put him back in the Subway commercials because he’s put on weight again,” Jimmy Jr. said.
The sandwich pitchman isn’t even the most famous man at Englewood. Disgraced former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich is also serving out his term at the federal penitentiary, but he’s well-liked by the rest of the guys - and can apparently take a joke at his own expense.
“Steve was telling me, when (Blago) first got there, he was putting down a food tray, asking ‘Can I sit here?’ And one of the inmates says, ‘If you got $2 million, I’ll sell you this seat,’” Jimmy Sr. said of the disgraced pol, who was convicted of trying to sell President Obama’s vacated Illinois Senate seat.
Sign up for BREAKING NEWS Emails privacy policy Thanks for subscribing! | – Steven Nigg, the inmate who bloodied ex-Subway pitchman Jared Fogle in a prison-yard fight, did so because he hates child sex offenders and resents what he perceives as special treatment Fogle receives at the Colorado prison they're both housed in—and he wanted to "send a message," Nigg's nephew tells the Arizona Republic. "In … my uncle's words, people convicted of … crimes against children, sexual predators, rapists, they shouldn't be in a minimum-security prison," Jimmy Nigg says. "He felt like it wasn't fair. He [Fogle] gets to order any food he wants, he can use his money to do things," including paying other prisoners to protect him instead of "flying under the radar," per the New York Daily News. And Steven Nigg's "message" could've included something far worse for Fogle if Nigg hadn't exercised restraint, his nephew continues, noting that "if he wanted to kill Jared Fogle, he would have been able to." Nigg's history as a career criminal in Arizona doesn't cast him in a positive light, despite his nephew telling the Daily News his uncle "doesn't have a violent history": Described in the mid-'70s by a Phoenix police detective as one of the "worst criminals" he'd seen, Nigg was in his early 20s when he first started his prison career with a 15- to 30-year sentence for a robbery spree. Per the Arizona Department of Corrections website, Nigg had a particularly troublesome year in 1988: He caught heat for deliberately starting a fire, striking someone, and issuing a verbal threat, among other infractions. After his 1989 release, he was arrested again on various charges, including battery, disorderly conduct, and obstructing a cop, but it was a more low-key crime that sent him back to prison for the long haul: selling items from his dad's estate, including antique guns, which he wasn't allowed to do because of his criminal background. |
CLOSE Detroit resident James Robertson, 56, of Detroit talks about his journey walking 21 miles a day to work and back. Ryan Garza/Detroit Free Press
A story about a Detroit man who commutes about 21 miles a day on foot to and from work has spurred donations from across the nation.
Buy Photo James Robertson, 56, of Detroit. (Photo: Ryan Garza, Detroit Free Press)Buy Photo
A story about a Detroit man who commutes about 21 miles a day on foot to and from work has spurred reaction from across the nation, including social media fund-raisers that have netted more than $80,000 in donations as of 6:30 p.m. Monday.
Because buses don't cover the full distance between James Robertson's home in Detroit and his job in Rochester Hills, he walks about eight miles headed to work and about 13 miles home, five days a week. His story — told by Bill Laitner in Sunday's Detroit Free Press — has inspired hundreds to offer money to buy him a car, pay his insurance and to provide professional help in managing the donations.
Robertson said Sunday he was flattered by the attention he'd gotten for his arduous commutes after the Free Press published a front-page story about him -- and amazed that complete strangers would respond so generously, some by offering to buy him a new car and others offering to give him one.
"Are you serious?" he said to a reporter after hearing of one crowd-funding effort alone that, by early Sunday night, had raised $30,000 — $25,000 more than the goal of the originator, a Wayne State University student.
Evan Leedy, 19, of Macomb Township, a WSU student studying computer science, said he was struck by the article and by the sudden torrent of people commenting online, many of them asking how they could help Robertson. Leedy said he decided to act.
"I just used my phone. I created the go-funding site and within an hour we had $2,000," he said.
"I set the goal at the beginning of $5,000. Right now my page has more than $30,000" as of 6 p.m. Sunday, Leedy said.
Two other people created GoFundMe sites, "so I contacted them so we could coordinate this, and they've raised $3,000," he added.
Leedy said he wanted to take steps that would ensure that the money goes directly to Robertson and that publicity about it doesn't put him at risk of being pressured to share it.
"And I think some of it should be set aside for his insurance and gas and maintenance," Leedy said.
A Downriver car dealership offered to give him a 2014 Chevrolet Cruz or Sonic. "He gets to choose," said Angela Osborne, customer service specialist at Rodgers Chevrolet in Woodhaven.
"We were just impressed with his determination," Osborne said.
Sales manager Darwin Filey said he read about Robertson after a fellow Facebook friend shared the story with him.
"When I saw the story I said 'wow.' Some people said you guys have got to do something. Then I called my owner and she read the story and said put something together," Filey said.
He said Robertson would have to pay the tax on the car, which would be about $900.
"We've never done anything like this at all. We've given to various causes but nothing at this magnitude," said Filey, who has been with the dealership for 2 1/2 years.
More than a hundred others offered cash for a car, or their own cars, as well as bus tickets, bicycles and even daily chauffeur service for Robertson.
"Monday is gonna be some bad weather and I don't want him making that trek," said Stuart Sutherland, a student at Oakland University who offered to donate cash in an e-mail.
Joe Coppola, a technical recruiter for Optomi, wrote: "I want to give him my 2004 Chevy Cavalier. It runs well and is certainly better than not having a car."
Honda North America, and David Fischer – owner of the Suburban Collection – offered "to keep Mr. Robertson in the Honda family by donating a vehicle to him."
A man in Evanston, Ill., said he wanted to pay for a car and several years' worth of insurance. A self-employed man in Madison Heights said he would drive Robertson to work and home, each day, for free.
Meanwhile, the modest Detroiter who walks an amazing 21 miles on his daily commutes to work in suburban Detroit said not even Sunday's snowstorm would keep him from getting to his job Monday. Eyeing the snow piling up around his white-frame house in Detroit, Robertson sounded not a bit worried.
"I've had worse. This is reminiscent of those snowstorms last year, and I made it then," said the man with a perfect attendance record in more than a dozen years at Schain Mold & Engineering in Rochester Hills.
Robertson said he likes walking and being outdoors, and prizes his job and coworkers, but he knows he can't keep up his arduous commuting forever.
Robertson's aging Honda Accord quit on him in 2005, and after repeated cutbacks in bus service the walking segments of his daily commutes grew years ago to take more time than he spends in his eight-hour factory shifts molding parts.
As for the possibility that a new federal program, available from Detroit's bus system, might provide a small-bus service that would pick Robertson up at home and deliver him directly to his job temporarily, he said: "I'd rather they spent that money on a 24-hour bus system, not on some little bus for me. This city needs buses going 24/7. You can tell the city council and mayor I said that."
Like hundreds of other Detroiters, the cost of car insurance is a factor Robertson knows he will have to deal with in acquiring his own transportation. A nationwide survey conducted last week found car insurance in Detroit to be the costliest in the nation, at an average of about $5,000 a year.
Darwin said it's not uncommon for Detroit motorists to have insurance premiums higher than car payments.
"I'm not an insurance agent, if I'm guessing it's going to be about $2,200 for six months." He added insurance companies often provide discounts for a year's payment upfront.
"I can work that insurance thing out," Robertson said. "It might be tough, but my dad used to say, tough times don't last — tough people do."
UBS banker Blake Pollock, who befriended Robertson while stopped in Oakland County and has given him dozens of rides this winter, said he was thrilled but wary about the outpouring of donations.
During his own commutes to his office in Troy, Pollock last year began noting Robertson's foot-slogging commutes, day after day, and finally offered him a ride. Now, they're fast friends.
On Sunday, Pollock said he planned to set up a board "of several professionals" to oversee the donations rolling in for Robertson.
"Putting a car in his driveway and just handing James the keys or filling his pockets with cash is not the answer. But with these resources now, we should be able to do something very positive for the guy," said Pollock, a vice president at UBS.
"I think the hundreds of donors want this to go to James and not have this go out of his hands. So, if we can set up this little board to manage his money, I think that can happen.
"When I'm with him tomorrow, I'm going to talk to him about that" — during the Monday-morning ride that Pollock planned to give Robertson after a bus gets him from Detroit to Troy.
Contact Bill Laitner: blaitner@freepress.com or 313-223-4485.
Read or Share this story: http://on.freep.com/1BMTexd ||||| CLOSE James Robertson, 56, of Detroit has a champ's commute. He rides buses part-way but walks about 21 miles in round trips to a factory. Ryan Garza/Detroit Free Press
He doesn't look athletic but James Robertson, 56, of Detroit has a champ's commute. He rides buses part-way but walks about 21 miles in round trips to a factory, unless his banker pal offers a lift.
Buy Photo James Robertson, 56, of Detroit, makes his way along Crooks Road after working his shift at Schain Mold & Engineering in Rochester Hills on Friday, Jan. 9, 2015. (Photo: Ryan Garza Detroit Free Press)Buy Photo Story Highlights Think your commute is tough? Detroiter James Robertson, 56, walks about 21 miles a day, round trip.
Robertson also takes a bus ride part-way to his hourly job in Rochester Hills, and part-way home.
He says he loves his job and bosses, buses are limited and he can't afford a car on $10.55 an hour.
Lately he catches breaks when a friendly banker heading for Troy sees him and offers frequent lifts.
Leaving home in Detroit at 8 a.m., James Robertson doesn't look like an endurance athlete.
Pudgy of form, shod in heavy work boots, Robertson trudges almost haltingly as he starts another workday.
But as he steps out into the cold, Robertson, 56, is steeled for an Olympic-sized commute. Getting to and from his factory job 23 miles away in Rochester Hills, he'll take a bus partway there and partway home. And he'll also walk an astounding 21 miles.
Five days a week. Monday through Friday.
It's the life Robertson has led for the last decade, ever since his 1988 Honda Accord quit on him.
Every trip is an ordeal of mental and physical toughness for this soft-spoken man with a perfect attendance record at work. And every day is a tribute to how much he cares about his job, his boss and his coworkers. Robertson's daunting walks and bus rides, in all kinds of weather, also reflect the challenges some metro Detroiters face in getting to work in a region of limited bus service, and where car ownership is priced beyond the reach of many.
But you won't hear Robertson complain — nor his boss.
"I set our attendance standard by this man," says Todd Wilson, plant manager at Schain Mold & Engineering. "I say, if this man can get here, walking all those miles through snow and rain, well I'll tell you, I have people in Pontiac 10 minutes away and they say they can't get here — bull!"
As he speaks of his loyal employee, Wilson leans over his desk for emphasis, in a sparse office with a view of the factory floor. Before starting his shift, Robertson stops by the office every day to talk sports, usually baseball. And during dinnertime each day, Wilson treats him to fine Southern cooking, compliments of the plant manager's wife.
"Oh, yes, she takes care of James. And he's a personal favorite of the owners because of his attendance record. He's never missed. I've seen him come in here wringing wet," says Wilson, 53, of Metamora Township.
With a full-time job and marathon commutes, Robertson is clearly sleep deprived, but powers himself by downing 2-liter bottles of Mountain Dew and cans of Coke.
"I sleep a lot on the weekend, yes I do," he says, sounding a little amazed at his schedule. He also catches zzz's on his bus rides. Whatever it takes to get to his job, Robertson does it.
"I can't imagine not working," he says.
'Lord, keep me safe'
The sheer time and effort of getting to work has ruled Robertson's life for more than a decade, ever since his car broke down. He didn't replace it because, he says, "I haven't had a chance to save for it." His job pays $10.55 an hour, well above Michigan's minimum wage of $8.15 an hour but not enough for him to buy, maintain and insure a car in Detroit.
As hard as Robertson's morning commute is, the trip home is even harder.
At the end of his 2-10 p.m. shift as an injection molder at Schain Mold's squeaky-clean factory just south of M-59, and when his coworkers are climbing into their cars, Robertson sets off, on foot — in the dark — for the 23-mile trip to his home off Woodward near Holbrook. None of his coworkers lives anywhere near him, so catching a ride almost never happens.
Instead, he reverses the 7-mile walk he took earlier that day, a stretch between the factory and a bus stop behind Troy's Somerset Collection shopping mall.
"I keep a rhythm in my head," he says of his seemingly mechanical-like pace to the mall.
At Somerset, he catches the last SMART bus of the day, just before 1 a.m. He rides it into Detroit as far it goes, getting off at the State Fairgrounds on Woodward, just south of 8 Mile. By that time, the last inbound Woodward bus has left. So Robertson foots it the rest of the way — about 5 miles — in the cold or rain or the mild summer nights, to the home he shares with his girlfriend.
Buy Photo The daily route of "the incredible commuter" James Robertson, 56, of Detroit. (Photo: Detroit Free Press)
"I have to go through Highland Park, and you never know what you're going to run into," Robertson says. "It's pretty dangerous. Really, it is (dangerous) from 8 Mile on down. They're not the type of people you want to run into.
"But I've never had any trouble," he says. Actually, he did get mugged several years ago — "some punks tuned him up pretty good," says Wilson, the plant manager. Robertson chooses not to talk about that.
So, what gets him past dangerous streets, and through the cold and gloom of night and winter winds?
"One word — faith," Robertson says. "I'm not saying I'm a member of some church. But just before I get home, every night, I say, 'Lord, keep me safe.' "
The next day, Robertson adds, "I should've told you there's another thing: determination."
A land of no buses
Robertson's 23-mile commute from home takes four hours. It's so time-consuming because he must traverse the no-bus land of rolling Rochester Hills. It's one of scores of tri-county communities (nearly 40 in Oakland County alone) where voters opted not to pay the SMART transit millage. So it has no fixed-route bus service.
Once he gets to Troy and Detroit, Robertson is back in bus country. But even there, the bus schedules are thin in a region that is relentlessly auto-centric.
"The last five years been really tough because the buses cut back," Robertson says. Both SMART and DDOT have curtailed service over the last half decade, "and with SMART, it really affected service into Detroit," said Megan Owens, executive director of Transportation Riders United.
Detroit's director of transportation said there is a service Robertson may be able to use that's designed to help low-income workers. Job Access and Reverse Commute, paid for in part with federal dollars, provides door-to-door transportation to low-income workers, but at a cost. Robertson said he was not aware of the program.
Still, metro Detroit's lack of accessible mass transit hasn't stopped Robertson from hoofing it along sidewalks — often snow-covered — to get to a job.
At home at work
Robertson is proud of all the miles he covers each day. But it's taking a toll, and he's not getting any younger.
"He comes in here looking real tired — his legs, his knees," says coworker Janet Vallardo, 59, of Auburn Hills.
But there's a lot more than a paycheck luring him to make his weekday treks. Robertson looks forward to being around his coworkers, saying, "We're like a family." He also looks forward to the homemade dinners the plant manager's wife whips up for him each day.
"I look at her food, I always say, 'Excellent. No, not excellent. Phenomenal,' " he says, with Wilson sitting across from him, nodding and smiling with affirmation.
Although Robertson eats in a factory lunchroom, his menus sound like something from a Southern café: Turnip greens with smoked pork neck bones, black-eyed peas and carrots in a brown sugar glaze, baby-back ribs, cornbread made from scratch, pinto beans, fried taters, cheesy biscuits. They're the kind of meal that can fuel his daunting commutes back home.
Though his job is clearly part of his social life, when it's time to work this graduate of Northern High School is methodical. He runs an injection-molding machine the size of a small garage, carefully slicing and drilling away waste after removing each finished part, and noting his production in detail on a clipboard.
Strangers crossing paths
Robertson has walked the walk so often that drivers wonder: Who is that guy? UBS banker Blake Pollock, 47, of Rochester, wondered. About a year ago, he found out.
Pollock tools up and down Crooks each day in his shiny black 2014 Chrysler 300.
"I saw him so many times, climbing through snow banks. I saw him at all different places on Crooks," Pollock recalls.
Last year, Pollock had just parked at his office space in Troy as Robertson passed. The banker in a suit couldn't keep from asking the factory guy in sweats, what the heck are you doing, walking out here every day? They talked a bit. Robertson walked off and Pollock ruminated.
From then on, Pollock began watching for the factory guy. At first, he'd pick him up occasionally, when he could swing the time. But the generosity became more frequent as winter swept in. Lately, it's several times a week, especially when metro Detroit sees single-digit temperatures and windchills.
"Knowing what I know, I can't drive past him now. I'm in my car with the heat blasting and even then my feet are cold," Pollock says.
Other times, it's 10:30 or 11 p.m., even after midnight, when Pollock, who is divorced, is sitting at home alone or rolling home from a night out, and wondering how the man he knows only as "James" is doing in the frigid darkness.
On those nights, Pollock runs Robertson all the way to his house in Detroit.
"I asked him, why don't you move closer" to work. "He said his girlfriend inherited their house so it's easy to stay there," Pollock said.
On a recent night run, Pollock got his passenger home at 11 p.m. They sat together in the car for a minute, outside Robertson's house.
"So, normally you'd be getting here at 4 o'clock (in the morning), right?" the banker asks. "Yeah," Robertson replies. Pollock flashes a wry smile. "So, you're pretty early, aren't you?" he says. Robertson catches the drift.
"Oh, I'm grateful for the time, believe me," Robertson says, then adds in a voice rising with anticipation: "I'm going to take me a bath!"
After the door shuts and Pollock pulls away, he admits that Robertson mystifies him, yet leaves him stunned with admiration for the man's uncanny work ethic and determination.
"I always say to my friends, I'm not a nice guy. But I find myself helping James," Pollock says with a sheepish laugh. He said he's picked up Robertson several dozen times this winter alone.
Has a routine
At the plant, coworkers feel odd seeing one of their team numbers always walking, says Charlie Hollis, 63, of Pontiac. "I keep telling him to get him a nice little car," says Hollis, also a machine operator.
Echoes the plant manager Wilson, "We are very much trying to get James a vehicle." But Robertson has a routine now, and he seems to like it, his coworkers say.
"If I can get away, I'll pick him up. But James won't get in just anybody's car. He likes his independence," Wilson says.
Robertson has simple words for why he is what he is, and does what he does. He speaks with pride of his parents, including his father's military service.
"I just get it from my family. It's a lot of walking, I know."
Robertson's commute by the miles
Detroit City Hall to Metro Airport: What he walks each day
Detroit to Lansing: What he walks each week
Detroit to Louisville, Ky.: What he walks each month
Detroit to Los Angeles – and back: What he walks each year
Read or Share this story: http://on.freep.com/1CNbtXf | – At 8am, it's time for James Robertson, 56, to leave for work—for a job that starts at 2pm. That's because he makes much of the 23-mile journey on foot, resulting in a 21-mile round-trip walk every day, the Detroit Free Press reports. His car broke down about a decade ago and he's been walking ever since, combining the slog with bus rides in the few areas where buses are available. Once he's worked from 2pm to 10pm, he heads home again in the dark, normally arriving around 4am. With some buses shut down for the day by that point, he walks a total of 13 miles, the Free Press notes. Faith and determination keep him going, he says. He was mugged once, his boss says, though Robertson himself only mentions that he walks through some dangerous areas. But the many miles have their benefits: He loves his co-workers, and his boss's wife cooks him dinner every night. "She takes care of James. And he's a personal favorite of the owners because of his attendance record," says the plant manager at Schain Mold & Engineering. That record is perfect. "I set our attendance standard by this man," the manager says. And this story has a happy ending. Now that Robertson's story is known, people are coming to his aid. Yesterday's front-page Free Press story spurred a number of crowdfunding efforts, which as of last night had brought in more than $30,000, the paper reports. Others offered him rides. Robertson's reaction when the paper told him: "Are you serious?" |
17-year-old boy fatally shot along with woman and National Guardsman as the opposition calls for another mass protest on Thursday
At least three people have been killed and dozens injured in Venezuela as street battles erupted alongside a mass anti-government demonstration that the opposition billed as “the mother of all marches”.
A 17-year-old boy was fatally shot in the head in a neighbourhood of Caracas, while several hours later a woman was killed in gunfire during a rally in the Andean state of Tachira near the Colombian border.
At least one legislator had to be hospitalised, and images posted online showed opposition leader and former presidential candidate Henrique Capriles choking on teargas.
Venezuela on the brink: a journey through a country in crisis Read more
As night fell, a few thousand people were still gathered in a plaza in wealthy eastern Caracas as residents in nearby buildings banged pots and pans in a show of support. A group of youths with their faces covered tore down street signs and billboards for makeshift barricades. They then launched rocks and Molotov cocktails against lines of police and national guardsmen who responded with tear gas in cat-and-mouse skirmishes.
The opposition called for another protest on Thursday, raising the specter of prolonged disruption in the country.
“Same place, same time,” said Capriles on Wednesday night. “If we were millions today, tomorrow we’ll be more.”
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Demonstrators clash with police during protests in Caracas. Photograph: GUTIERREZ/EPA/REX/Shutterstock
Fears of bloodshed had been stoked after President Nicolás Maduro put troops on the streets, supplied guns to sympathetic civil militias and called for a simultaneous rally of his supporters against what he said was a United States-backed coup.
Wednesday’s deaths brought the total number of deaths at protests this month to seven.
The first victim on Wednesday, Carlos Moreno, was not taking part in the demonstration but was shot when government supporters approached an opposition gathering and opened fire, witnesses told Reuters. Moreno, who was three days from his 18th birthday, was shot in the head, and later died in the hospital.
Hours later, university student Paola Ramírez died in the opposition stronghold of San Cristóbal, after she and her boyfriend, were shot at by a group of men as they left a protest.
“We were on a motorbike and they were following us, shooting,” her boyfriend told Reuters. “I left her on a block where she was going to find her sister and I went to hide the bike. I heard shots and when I arrived she was on the ground. I tried to protect her as much as I could,” he said.
A National Guard sergeant was later killed by a sniper, the human rights ombudsman Tarek Saab tweeted on Wednesday night.
State TV images showed red-shirted government loyalists on the rival march “to defend the homeland”.
Violence after anti-government march in Caracas – in pictures Read more
But their numbers were far exceeded by the tens of thousands who joined protests across Venezuela to express their anger and frustration at an administration that has led the country with the planet’s biggest oil supplies into the world’s deepest economic recession.
Banners reading “No more dictatorship” highlighted the steady erosion of democracy. In the past month, the supreme court attempted to circumvent Congress’s legislative powers – a power grab which was subsequently reversed, while opposition figurehead Capriles was banned from running for office for 15 years.
Many targeted the Venezuelan president, who is blamed for high inflation and the chronic shortages of food, medicine and other basic goods. The chant “Esta es la ruta para salir del hijueputa” (“This is the way to oust the son of a bitch”) echoed repeatedly around the downtown district.
The protesters came from all walks of life. Some said they had previously supported the government under Maduro’s predecessor, Hugo Chávez, but the worsening economic and social crisis had made them march for change.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Demonstrators build a barricade while clashing with riot police during the so-called ‘mother of all marches’ in Caracas, Venezuela, on Wednesday. Photograph: Carlos Garcia Rawlins/Reuters
“We are desperate and tired of living in misery,” said Kelvyn Cava, a former Chavista from the eastern state of Zulia. “With Chávez our salaries were worth something. Now, if hunger doesn’t kill us, then crime will.”
A group of Catholic clergy were also among the crowd, although the Vatican has tried to adopt a neutral position in hosting talks between the two sides.
“I came with several priests because we have reached the breaking point for this regime of narcotraffickers and terrorists. We need peace and to reconstruct this country,” said Father José Palmar.
“We ask Pope Francis to do for Venezuela what Pope John Paul II did for Poland,” he add, referring to the role that the Catholic church played in overthrowing communism in eastern Europe during the Soviet era.
Others said they were prepared for clashes with the security forces. “We have come today because we want freedom and a functional economy. It’s paralysed,” said Luis Machado, a money changer who was wearing gloves in case he had to pick up a gas canister and throw it back at the security forces.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest A demonstrator against Nicolás Maduro’s government in Caracas on Wednesday. Photograph: Ronaldo Schemidt/AFP/Getty Images
Foro Penal, an NGO that tracks human rights abuses, said that at least 24 people had been detained in connection with the demonstration.
Eleven countries from the Organisation of American States have jointly called on all sides to remain peaceful and urged the government to call new elections.
This was echoed by the United States, which issued a communique on Tuesday warning that “those responsible for the criminal repression of peaceful democracy institutions and practices, and for gross violations of human rights, will be held individually accountable for their actions by the Venezuelan people and their institutions, as well as by the international community”.
Maduro responded in a live televised address on Tuesday night in which he claimed, “The US government, the state department, have given the green light, the approval for a coup process to intervene in Venezuela.”
He then signed a decree to mobilise the military to defend internal order. The government has also tried to reduce the size of protests by cutting subway services and setting up highway roadblocks.
For seasoned observers of Venezuelan politics, this may sound familiar. In the 18 years since the late Hugo Chávez, and his successor Maduro assumed power, Venezuelans have grown accustomed to giant rallies for and against the government.
Several have turned violent, but none have spurred significant change. Although the opposition seized control of Congress in the 2015 election, they are divided and have failed to galvanise popular discontent.
'We are like a bomb': food riots show Venezuela crisis has gone beyond politics Read more
But there are differences from the past. The economy is deteriorating, with the IMF predicting this week that Venezuelan unemployment will surpass 25% this year as the country suffers a third year of recession. There is also less regional support for Maduro following the rightward shift of governments in Argentina and Brazil.
The mood is becoming more confrontational.
Whereas in previous marches people wore white shirts and baseball caps with Venezuela’s tricolor flag, this time protesters on the frontline hid their identity behind masks and hoodies. Banners and flags have given way to slingshots and rocks.
Even Maduro was recently pelted with objects in the eastern city of San Félix, traditionally a bastion of government support.
On Wednesday, the president addressed a red-shirted crowd of supporters in Caracas, saying that a “corrupt and interventionist right wing” had been defeated.
Socialist Venezuela chipped in $500,000 to Trump's inauguration Read more
“Today the people stood by Maduro!” the president said, who claimed that more than 30 “terrorists” had been arrested. “We’ve triumphed again! Here we are, governing, governing, governing with the people!” he added, before breaking into song.
Shortages of food, medicine and other basics have eroded support for the government in poor neighbourhoods. According to the Observatory of Social Conflict, there were close to 5,000 incidents of protests in 2016 – 15% more than in the previous year.
“This is no longer people chanting and taking selfies. People are indignant – and they are resolute,” Capriles said.
||||| Demonstrators take cover with a piece of corrugated tin roofing during anti-government protests in Caracas, Venezuela, Wednesday, April 19, 2017. Tens of thousands of opponents of President Nicolas Maduro... (Associated Press)
Demonstrators take cover with a piece of corrugated tin roofing during anti-government protests in Caracas, Venezuela, Wednesday, April 19, 2017. Tens of thousands of opponents of President Nicolas Maduro flooded the streets of Caracas in what's been dubbed the "mother of all marches" against the embattled... (Associated Press)
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Two people were shot dead as opponents of President Nicolas Maduro flooded the streets of Caracas and other Venezuelan cities Wednesday, battling security forces in what's been dubbed the "mother of all marches" against the embattled socialist leader.
Tens of thousands of protesters made an unsuccessful attempt to march to downtown Caracas as security forces fired tear gas and rubber bullets into the crowd. Dozens even had to slide down a concrete embankment and into the Guaire River to escape the noxious fumes.
Carlos Romero, just three days away from his 18th birthday, was walking to play soccer with friends when he bumped into pro-government militias stalking a pocket of protesters, family spokesman Melvin Sojo told The Associated Press, based on the accounts of two people who rushed Romero to the hospital after he was hit by gunfire.
"This was supposed to be a happy moment but instead I came home to see my brother die," said Sojo, who grew up in the Romero home and returned Tuesday from Ecuador, where he had been living the past year.
There was no immediate confirmation that the militias shot the boy, and some government officials cast doubt on the account, saying Romero was killed during an attempted assault.
In the western city of San Cristobal, a 23-year-old woman identified as Paola Ramirez was shot dead by similar groups, according to Mayor Patricia Gutierrez, who said the groups circled demonstrators on motorcycles as they were heading home from the demonstration.
The two killings bring to seven the death toll since protests began three weeks ago over the Supreme Court's decision to strip the opposition-controlled congress of its last remaining powers, a move that was later reversed but not before enraging the opposition and causing a storm of international criticism. The charges that Venezuela is moving toward a full-blown dictatorship come against the backdrop of an ever-deepening economic crisis.
As night fell, a few thousand people were still gathered in a plaza in wealthy eastern Caracas as residents in nearby buildings banged pots and pans in a show of support. A group of youths with their faces covered tore down street signs and billboards for makeshift barricades. They then launched rocks and Molotov cocktails against lines of police and national guardsmen who responded with tear gas in cat-and-mouse skirmishes likely to last deep into the night.
The Supreme Court's decision energized Venezuela's fractious opposition, which had been struggling to channel growing disgust with Maduro over widespread food shortages, triple-digit inflation and rampant crime. They've called for another day of protests Thursday.
"We'll see each other tomorrow at the same place and same time because our fight for democracy doesn't end," former presidential candidate Henrique Capriles, who the government last week barred from running for public office, said at an evening press conference to announce the opposition's next steps.
Opponents are now pushing for Maduro's removal through early elections and the release of scores of political prisoners. The government last year abruptly postponed regional elections the opposition was heavily favored to win and cut off a petition drive to force a referendum seeking Maduro's removal before elections late next year.
Maduro, addressing supporters at a large countermarch, seemed open to some sort of electoral showdown. He said he was "anxious" to see elections take place sometime "soon" and repeated his call for dialogue, saying he had a proposal he wanted to make the opposition.
"Today they attempted to take power by force and we defeated them again," said Maduro.
Opposition marchers included Liliana Machuca, who earns about $20 a month holding two jobs teaching literature. Although she doesn't expect change overnight, she said protesting is the only option the opposition has after what she says are scores of abuses committed by the government.
"This is like a chess game and each side is moving whatever pieces they can," said Machuca, her face covered in a white, sticky substance to protect herself from the noxious effects of tear gas. "We'll see who tires out first."
A short block away, a sea of red-shirted government supporters marched by calmly, some dancing to a salsa band that tried to provide an air of normalcy to the otherwise tense political standoff that has paralyzed Venezuela the past few weeks.
Many were state workers like Leidy Marquez, who was bused in from Tachira state, on the other side of the country, along with co-workers at state-run oil giant PDVSA.
"The opposition is trying to provoke a conflict but they aren't going to achieve their goal," said Marquez, wearing a shirt emblazoned with the eyes of the late Hugo Chavez, a symbol of revolutionary zeal in Venezuela.
The government has responded to the near-daily protests with its own show of force: jailing hundreds of demonstrators, barring Capriles from running for office and standing by as pro-government groups violently attack opposition members of congress.
The president also signed orders on TV late Tuesday activating the "green phase" of enigmatic military plans to defend Venezuela against what he describes as U.S.-backed attempts to sow chaos and overthrow him. He also said authorities in recent hours had rounded up unnamed members of an underground cell of conspirators at Caracas hotels, including some who were allegedly planning to stir up violence at the march.
Maduro didn't provide evidence to back his claim that a coup attempt was underway, and the opposition rejected his comments as a desperate attempt to intimidate Venezuelans from exercising their constitutional right to protest.
"We're convinced the country knows who the true coup mongers are and it's against them we will march," the opposition said in a Tuesday late-night statement.
Foreign governments are also warning about the increasingly bellicose rhetoric and repressive stance of the government.
Maduro this week said he was dramatically expanding civilian militias created by Chavez and giving each member a gun. There's also criticism that the government isn't doing enough to restrain the collectives — motorcycle-driving militants — that have operated like shock troops firing on protesters as security forces stand by.
"We're a peaceful people, but we're also armed," Energy Minister Luis Motta Dominguez told state workers gathering for Wednesday's rally.
The U.S. State Department said those who commit human rights abuses and undermine Venezuela's democratic institutions would be held accountable.
"We are concerned that the government of Maduro is violating its own constitution and is not allowing the opposition to have their voices heard, nor allowing them to organize in ways that expresses the views of the Venezuelan people," Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told reporters Wednesday.
___
Joshua Goodman on Twitter: https://twitter.com/APjoshgoodman
___
More Associated Press reporting on Venezuela's problems can be found at https://www.ap.org/explore/venezuela-undone | – What anti-government activists in Venezuela called the "mother of all marches" turned bloody on Wednesday, with at least three people killed and dozens more injured during rallies and marches across the country. The Guardian reports that at least one opposition lawmaker was hospitalized after taking part in the demonstrations, and photos shared online showed opposition leader Henrique Capriles choking on tear gas during a protest in Caracas. Thousands of people clashed with soldiers and riot police in the capital, with protesters building barricades and throwing rocks and Molotov cocktails at security forces. The AP reports that one of the people shot dead during the protest in Caracas was Carlos Romero, who was three days away from his 18th birthday. Family members say he was on his way to play soccer when he found himself between protesters and pro-government militias. Another victim was a 23-year-old woman shot dead by militia members as she was on her way home from a protest, according to the mayor of the city of San Cristobal. A third victim, a National Guardsman, was reportedly shot dead by a sniper. Protesters, including Catholic clergy members, are seeking to oust President Nicolas Maduro. The opposition has called for another mass protest on Thursday. |
Last week, Justin Bieber puked onstage. This week, it was Lady Gaga's turn. The pop star ralphed during her performance in Barcelona yesterday. Like a true pro, she kept on performing and even tried to blend the retching into her choreography. More of a pro, though, was her dancing partner, who admirably showed no fear of being puked on.
Enjoy.
(via Vulture) ||||| In a video making the rounds, the 26-year-old can be seen slinking down a staircase with her back to the audience during a performance of "Edge of Glory" in Barcelona. Then, as she makes her way across a stage plank toward a dancer, she abruptly throws up at least four times.
At one point, her backup dancer gently pats her on the back as she tries to hurl inconspicuously.
But you gotta give it to Mother Monster: Ever the pro, she barely missed a beat and continued with the performance. ||||| Latest News from Vulture
1 min ago
This Cut For Time SNL Sketch Has the Perfect Doll for Your Little Future Wicked Stepmother
“Mommy? Where’s the drama in that?”
23 mins ago
Theater Review: Martin McDonagh on a Dying Profession, in Hangmen
Theater Review: Martin McDonagh on a Dying Profession, in Hangmen
23 mins ago
Vanderpump Rules Recap: This Grill Is on Fire
How in the world did Katie fall through a skylight?
25 mins ago
The Alienist Recap: Making a Murderer
“Silver Smile” moves fast and packs a lot of story into each minute.
9:44 p.m.
Remembering John Mahoney, the Frasier Star with the Perpetual Twinkle in His Eye
On Frasier and in his film roles, Mahoney’s exuberance shone brightly.
8:32 p.m.
Lindsay Lohan Tries to Punch Up One of Her Favorite Mean Girls Quotes
If anything, Sears is a funnier reference now.
7:57 p.m.
Melissa McCarthy Lives the Mom Dream in Her New Life of the Party Trailer
The movie is nominally about a parent returning to get her degree, but it seems to be about the chillest teen daughter in the world.
6:39 p.m.
Frasier Star John Mahoney Dead at 77
Mahoney was in hospice care at the time of his death.
5:55 p.m.
Henry Cavill’s Mustache Has Taken Over His Instagram
“I have taken it upon myself to address you, my lovers and my haters to announce this exciting event!”
5:33 p.m.
Why Are Elton John, Paul Simon, and So Many Other Musicians Retiring From Touring?
See these artists while you still can.
Load More | – Has Justin Bieber started some sort of really gross trend? Just days after he threw up on stage, Lady Gaga did the same in Barcelona this weekend. Of course, Gaga's gagging was also caught on video for your viewing displeasure. Gawker and Vulture commenters are alternately impressed by Gaga (who continued to perform) and unhappy with the revelation that she was lip syncing at the time. Her backup dancer, who appears unfazed, also gets some admiration. Of course, some are convinced it was all an act. "Maybe not a hollar [sic] back to the beebs, but a self-referential nod to professed bulimia?" wonders one. "Was praying nobody saw but actually its quite a good laugh if u need one! Check out Lady PukeGA doing Swan 'Vomit' Lake," Gaga herself tweeted this morning, linking to the YouTube video of the incident. "I still hit my routine mom!! :) Thank goodness for the Dorchester...i need some tea ,i think i just cried a little watching that." E! hypothesizes the culprit may have been the paella Gaga ate hours before performing, and also notes that the pop star did not have a great weekend: Last night in London, she was booed by fans after she showed up an hour late to launch her new perfume at Harrod's. |
Suspect identified as Robert Lewis Dear, 57; Slain officer is Garrett Swasey, 44, of University of Colorado at Colorado Springs
COLORADO SPRINGS — A gunman killed three people, including a veteran police officer, at a Planned Parenthood clinic here Friday, the latest act of bullet-riddled mass terror to strike a state achingly familiar with it.
The shooting and subsequent standoff spanned five hours, and, by the end, nine other people had been transported to the hospital with gunshot wounds. All of the injured were reported in good physical condition Friday night. The emotional injuries struck the community deeply.
Colorado Springs Police Chief Peter Carey said it was a "very, very difficult afternoon in Colorado Springs."
"All that I can say," Carey said Friday evening, "is my heart is broken."
The city's mayor, John Suthers, said: "This is a terrible, terrible tragedy that occurred here in Colorado Springs today."
RELATED: Live blog of Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood shooting
The shooting killed Garrett Swasey, 44, a police officer at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. Swasey, a championship ice dancer turned six-year-veteran officer, was one of the first officers to respond to the clinic, which is about 10 minutes from the university campus.
The shooting began at 11:38 a.m., and the entire incident took place at the Planned Parenthood clinic, according to police. Officers exchanged gunfire with the suspect, identified by a federal law enforcement source as Robert Lewis Dear, 57, throughout the afternoon, even as they also used an armored vehicle to rescue people trapped inside the clinic. After preparing over the police radio for a final gunbattle, officers took the suspected shooter into custody without incident at 4:52 p.m. Colorado Springs police Lt. Catherine Buckley said officers at the scene were able to shout to the man and convince him to give himself up.
He was led out of the clinic in handcuffs, wearing a white T-shirt and a white beard. Police did not release his name and said Friday night they would not confirm it. He told officers at the scene that he acted alone, according to police radio transmissions. But Buckley said investigators can't yet say why he acted at all. "To even speculate on a motive would not be reasonable" at this point, Buckley said.
WATCH: Lt. Catherine Buckley updates media at 4 p.m.
She said initial reports described the shooter's weapon as "a long gun," such as a rifle. Buckley said the suspect also carried "items" into the clinic, although authorities didn't know whether they were explosive devices. Police saw a propane tank at the clinic, but officers do not know whether the suspect brought that to the clinic.
The clinic is at 3480 Centennial Blvd., just north of West Fillmore Street, on the city's west side. During the standoff, police shut down Centennial Boulevard and told people at nearby businesses to shelter in place as officers tried to capture the shooter. More than 100 people waited out the chaos inside a King Soopers.
UCCS police officer Garrett Swasey. (Courtesy of University of Colorado Colorado Springs)
Shortly after noon, Colorado Springs police Cmdr. Kirk Wilson told journalists at the scene that police were having trouble getting officers to the shooting area.
At a news conference at about 1:30 p.m., Buckley said police could not confirm where the shooter was or whether he was alone. At 2:15 p.m., the police department reported that officers were "encountering gunfire" from the suspect inside the Planned Parenthood building.
And still they pushed further into the building.
"Our officers acted with untold valor," Buckley said.
Outside the police roadblock stood a man named Joan Motolinia, who said his sister was in the clinic. He said he talked to her by phone at about 1:30 p.m., but she could talk for only a short time. She had gone to the clinic for an appointment, and now she was hiding under a table. "She was very afraid," he said.
While she was talking, he could hear gunfire in the background. And after about two minutes, his sister hung up on him. "She was telling me to take care of her babies," he said.
PHOTOS: Scene at the Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood
Back at the clinic, a SWAT team made plans over the police radio to end the standoff. It called for tear gas and gas masks. Outside the clinic, one officer shouted for a sniper.
"We've got to stop this guy," an officer said into his police radio.
Afternoon drifted toward nightfall, and the tension persisted. Police maneuvered through the clinic, apparently watching the suspect's movements on surveillance cameras. At one point, he sat down in a chair and looked around.
"It looks like he's almost waiting," one officer said over the air.
All the while, police raced to evacuate those inside.
Police dispatchers relayed to officers at the scene information from victims who called 911 while huddled behind locked doors in the clinic, according to radio traffic. One person was in a bathroom. Another was in a file room. There was chatter about the clinic's "safe room." There was a special passcode of rhythmic knocks that would convince the evacuees to open the door.
Multiple times, the SWAT team's armored truck, called a BearCat, sped away from the clinic and toward a line of more than a dozen waiting ambulances.
In one of the vehicle's runs, first responders unloaded an injured person onto a gurney.
In three more runs, people wrapped in blankets and others wearing hospital scrubs walked out of the truck.
Several of the rescued exited the BearCat wearing T-shirts in weather that had dipped into the low 20s with thickly falling snow. Police called out instructions to them, some going into ambulances and others into police cars.
Two hours passed, then three, and the number of people trapped inside the clinic dwindled.
WATCH: Man says sister was inside Planned Parenthood clinic
Meanwhile, the suspect had moved into a room, and officers had closed in. On the radio, they discussed a tentative plan: Shoot through the wall.
"Shoot head-high to start with," one officer said on the air.
And, then, suddenly, the standoff was over.
An officer said calmly into his radio that the suspect was detained.
"OK," another officer responded. "Good job."
When it was over, police said there was still more work to do.
It could take days to process the crime scene and gather evidence. There will have to be a separate investigation about the police officers' use of force.
"At this point I have as many questions as you do," Carey said at a news conference immediately after the shooter was apprehended. "I have some police officers at the hospital. That's where I'm going next."
And so he and Suthers and other officials did, meeting with four of the wounded Colorado Springs police officers at Penrose Hospital on Friday evening. It was unclear where the fifth wounded officer was taken for treatment.
The officers were conscious and grateful for rescue personnel who rendered aid under fire, Colorado Springs Fire Chief Christopher Riley said.
The law-enforcement victims — three police officers and a sheriff's deputy, all men — were surrounded by their families at the hospital, he said.
"There's one word: heroes," Riley said. "They laid their lives on the line today."
"The officers are obviously in some pain, but thankfully they're alive and talking to us," Riley said. "They're heroes. They're absolutely heroes."
And back at the scene, officers began trying to piece everything together.
Over the radio, one officer asked what should be done with the BearCat. There was blood inside, bullet marks on its body.
"I don't think," another officer replied, "we'll have time to do anything with that tonight."
Staff writers Elizabeth Hernandez. Kirk Mitchell and Joey Bunch contributed to this report. ||||| Garrett Swasey, 44, the University of Colorado Colorado Springs police officer who was shot and killed while responding to a shooting at a Planned Parenthood office, was described by his fellow church members and friends as a courageous man and loving father who drew strength and inspiration from his Christian faith.
He was married, with two young children, and had been on the campus police force for six years. He also spent seven years as a co-pastor at Hope Chapel in Colorado Springs. “Here’s a guy who worked full time as a police officer, and then gave a great amount of time to his local church and didn’t get a dime for it,” said Scott Dontanville, a co-pastor who knew Officer Swasey for 15 years. “He did it because it was the thing that he felt he needed to do.”
Kurt Aichele, a co-pastor at the church and a close friend, said Officer Swasey was once a nationally ranked figure skater and ice dancer and moved to Colorado Springs years ago to train. ||||| COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) — A gunman burst into a Planned Parenthood clinic and opened fire, launching several gunbattles and an hourslong standoff with police as patients and staff took cover under furniture and inside locked rooms.
Colorado Springs, Colo., Mayor John Suthers, second from left, talks to media after a deadly shooting at a Planned Parenthood clinic Friday, Nov. 27, 2015, in Colorado Springs, Colo. (Daniel Owen/The... (Associated Press)
People are escorted away after a deadly shooting at a Planned Parenthood clinic Friday, Nov. 27, 2015, in Colorado Springs, Colo. A gunman opened fire at the clinic on Friday, authorities said, wounding... (Associated Press)
Police stand guard after a suspect was apprehended Friday, Nov. 27, 2015, in northwest Colorado Springs, Colo. A gunman opened fire at a Planned Parenthood clinic on Friday, authorities said, wounding... (Associated Press)
Police stand guard near a Planned Parenthood clinic Friday, Nov. 27, 2015, in Colorado Springs, Colo. A gunman opened fire at the clinic on Friday, authorities said, wounding multiple people. (Daniel... (Associated Press)
Planned Parenthood clinic shooting survivor Ozy Licano describes his encounter with the shooter Friday, Nov. 27, 2015, in Colorado Springs Colo. A gunman who opened fire inside a Colorado Springs Planned... (Associated Press)
Police take a man into custody near a Planned Parenthood clinic Friday, Nov. 27, 2015, Colorado Springs, Colo. A gunman opened fire at the clinic on Friday, authorities said, wounding multiple people.... (Associated Press)
A law enforcement officer secures a perimeter near a deadly shooting at a Planned Parenthood clinic Friday, Nov. 27, 2015, in Colorado Springs, Colo. A gunman opened fire at the clinic on Friday, authorities... (Associated Press)
Police take a man into custody near a Planned Parenthood clinic Friday, Nov. 27, 2015, Colorado Springs, Colo. A gunman opened fire at the clinic on Friday, authorities said, wounding multiple people.... (Associated Press)
This photo provided by the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs shows officer Garrett Swasey, who was killed in a shooting at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs, Colo., Friday, Nov.... (Associated Press)
A person is transported to an ambulance Friday, Nov. 27, 2015, in Colorado Springs, Colo. A gunman opened fire at a Planned Parenthood clinic on Friday, authorities said, wounding multiple people. (Daniel... (Associated Press)
By the time the shooter surrendered, three people were killed — including a police officer — and nine others were wounded, authorities said.
For hours, police had no communication with the shooter other than intermittent gunfire from inside the Colorado Springs clinic. As the standoff progressed, officers inside the building herded people into one area and evacuated others.
Officers eventually moved in, shouted at the gunman and persuaded him to surrender, police said. About five hours after the attack started, authorities led away a man wearing a white T-shirt.
A law enforcement official identified the gunman as Robert Lewis Dear of North Carolina. The official, who had direct knowledge of the case, was not authorized to speak to the media about the ongoing investigation and spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity. Dear is 57 years old, according to jail booking records.
No other details about the gunman were immediately available, including whether he had any connection to Planned Parenthood.
"We don't have any information on this individual's mentality, or his ideas or ideology," Colorado Springs police Lt. Catherine Buckley told reporters.
Planned Parenthood said all of its staff at the clinic was safe. The organization said it did not know the circumstances or motives behind the attack or whether the organization was the target.
The University of Colorado in Colorado Springs police department identified the officer killed as 44-year-old Garrett Swasey, a six-year veteran of the force. He was married and had a son and daughter, according to the website of his church, Hope Chapel in Colorado Springs.
There were no immediate details about the two civilians killed in the attack. Five officers and four others were hospitalized in good condition, police said.
"Certainly it could have been much, much worse if it were not for the heroism of our police officers to corner the person in the building," Colorado Springs Fire Chief Chris Riley said.
Witnesses described a chaotic scene when the shooting first started just before noon.
Ozy Licano was in the two-story building's parking lot when he saw someone crawling toward the clinic's door. He tried to escape in his car when the gunman looked at him.
"He came out, and we looked each other in the eye, and he started aiming, and then he started shooting," Licano said. "I saw two holes go right through my windshield as I was trying to quickly back up and he just kept shooting and I started bleeding."
Licano drove away and took refuge at a nearby grocery store.
"He was aiming for my head," he said of the gunman. "It's just weird to stare in the face of someone like that. And he didn't win."
Inside, terrified patients and staff hid wherever they could find cover. Jennifer Motolinia ducked under a table and called her brother, Joan, to leave him final instructions for the care of her three children in case the gunman found her.
Joan Motolinia said he could hear gunshots in the background as his sister spoke. "She was telling me to take care of her babies because she could get killed," he said.
For others, the first sign that something was wrong was when police officers appeared and ushered people to the building's second floor. Planned Parenthood employee Cynthia Garcia told her mother, Tina Garcia, that the officers wouldn't say why they were gathering everybody together — then she heard the gunshots.
Her daughter and the others were holed up there for hours while the standoff continued, Tina Garcia said.
Some people managed to escape the building and flee to a nearby bank. An armored vehicle was seen taking evacuees away from the clinic to ambulances waiting nearby.
With the immediate threat over, authorities swept the building and turned their attention to inspecting unspecified items the gunman left outside the building and carried inside in bags. They were concerned that he had planted improvised explosive devices meant to cause even more destruction. As of late Friday, police did not say what was found.
___
Associated Press writers Kristen Wyatt in Colorado Springs, Alina Hartounian in Phoenix and Colleen Slevin, Dan Elliott and Thomas Peipert in Denver contributed to this report. ||||| Click here for more recent updates
Click here for complete coverage
Saturday 1:15 p.m. UPDATE
A heavy police presence could be seen early Saturday afternoon at Dear's residence in Park County, located just off U.S. 24 in a grassy expanse known as Hartsel flats.
Two officers were crouched down examining a wood-paneled shack at the five-acre property, 809 Ouray Court, which also included a small RV or mobile home and stacks of firewood.
Other law enforcement officers -- including two Park County sheriff's SUVs, at least one ambulance and a command center vehicle -- where stationed in a makeshift parking area farther away.
A sheriff's deputy blocked the entrance of Ouray Court, which is nestled in a 10-mile-long stretch of rolling prairies frequented by antelope between Wilkerson Pass and Hartsel.
He previously lived in North Carolina in a mountain cabin where he kept mostly to himself, living with no electricity or running water on a winding dirt road about 15 miles west of Asheville, the Associated Press reported. "If you talked to him, nothing with him was very cognitive -- topics all over the place, said James Russell, who lived a few hundred feet away. He would often avoid eye contact. Still, Russell said religion or abortion never came up in conversation, the Associated Press reported.
Saturday 12:49 p.m. UPDATE
Planned Parenthood officials say that all 15 staff members who were in the Centennial Boulevard clinic at the time of the shootings on Friday are unharmed.
Saturday 12:41 p.m. UPDATE
Penrose-St. Francis hospital spokesman Chris Valentine says that three patients from the Planned Parenthood shootings had been discharged from the hospital and three remained as of about 12:30 p.m. Saturday.
Saturday 11:49 a.m. UPDATE
Two funds thus far have been set up for the wife and children of slain Officer Garrett Swasey:
- Aventa Credit Union has established the Garrett Swasey Memorial Fund. To make a donation, stop by any Aventa Credit Union branch or call Aventa Credit Union at 719.482.7600 or 800.555.6665.
- An online memorial fund is accepting donations for the family at:
https://www.youcaring.com/the-family-of-officer-swasey-rachel-swasey-and-children-477034.
Saturday 10:56 a.m. UPDATE
Officials at the University of Colorado-Colorado Springs have announced the school will schedule a moment of silence for slain officer Garrett Swasey prior to Saturday's basketball games.
Chancellor Pam Shockley Zalabak, UCCS Police Chief Brian McPike and members of the UCCS Police Department will participate in the pre-game moment of silence at Gallogly Events Center.
Saturday 10:25 a.m. UPDATE
U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn Saturday morning reacted to comments on the Colorado Springs from the White House: "I'm sorry that President Obama tried to politicize this tragedy."
"The only appropriate thing to do is to grieve with the families ... and express gratitude to our first responders."
The Associated Press reports Colorado Springs Mayor John Suthers says authorities aren't ready to discuss a possible motive of the gunman who attacked a Planned Parenthood clinic there, but says people can make "inferences from where it took place."
Suthers says investigators have interviewed Dear, but that authorities still want to learn more about him, suggesting that his mental health was part of the investigation.
The mayor praised the security staff working at the clinic Friday and said they were "incredibly helpful" in working with police to monitor the gunman's whereabouts on surveillance video and advising on the building's layout, AP reported.
Saturday 9:26 a.m. UPDATE
Colorado Springs police tweet that a residential address in Hartsel, Colo., has been linked to Robert Dear, and that it has been closed to access by the Park County Sheriff's Department.
Springs police also confirm that the Planned Parenthood clinic has been cleared, though it still is an active crime-investigation scene.
Saturday 9:10 a.m. UPDATE
An online memorial fund has been set up for University of Colorado at Colorado Springs Police Officer Garrett Swasey, who was one of three people killed Friday during a shooting at the Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs.
Donations are being taken at:
https://www.youcaring.com/the-family-of-officer-swasey-rachel-swasey-and-children-477034.
Money raised will start an education fund for Swasey and his wife Rachel’s two children, Faith, 6, and Elijah, 10.
The $5,000 goal had been surpassed by Saturday morning, topping more than $8,200.
The six-year veteran of the UCCS Police Department was on duty at the campus Friday morning and responded to the shooting to support Colorado Springs police.
Originally from Boston, Swasey moved to Colorado Springs in the early ’90s to train at the Olympic Training Center as an ice dancer before retiring and moving into law enforcement. He was an elder who led various groups at his church, Hope Chapel.
The church will have a prayer gathering in his honor Saturday at 3 p.m. The church, at 5740 N. Academy Blvd., is located near Academy Boulevard and Vickers Drive.
UCCS will observe a moment of silence before Saturday’s basketball games. The teams will play games at 3:30 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. at the Gallogly Events Center on campus.
UCCS also will host a vigil Saturday evening at 7:30 p.m. Attendees are asked to those who attend are asked to park in the parking garage and take the north exit to access the west lawn of the campus.
Saturday 9:01 a.m. UPDATE
Mayor Suthers, a former attorney general, said, "this is the largest incident I know of in the post-Columbine era."
The mayor reaffirmed his support for open-carry gun laws in Colorado, and praised law enforcement officers for their "incredible response" to the incident.
Saturday 8:52 a.m. UPDATE
A tired Mayor John Suthers revisited the scene of the shooting Saturday morning, and asked about himself by The Gazette, said "I've been better."
Suthers went on to say, "This is a town I know will support everyone involved ... this town will rally."
Saturday 8:08 a.m. UPDATE
El Paso County Sheriff's Office website states that Robert Dear is in jail on a no-bond hold.
Saturday 8:04 a.m. UPDATE
A few workers head into the King Soopers, indicating the store may reopen later today.
Many police are still working the scene around Planned Parenthood. Two badly damaged police cruisers, one with windows shot out, can be seen sitting behind the crime-scene tape.
In the King Soopers lot, scores of cars still remain. One pickup truck has its window open, a cell phone lying on the snow-covered car seat.
Saturday 7:55 a.m. UPDATE
ABC News has reported that Robert Dear is being held without bond as he awaits his first court appearance scheduled for Monday.
Jail records didn't list charges but showed him being held on two administrative holds, ABC reported.
Saturday 7:30 a.m. UPDATE
The Colorado Springs Police Department confirms that the items brought to the scene by the suspect have been secured, and processed items are no longer a threat.
Saturday 7:16 a.m. UPDATE
Colorado Springs police issue a notice that those who had to leave their vehicles in the King Soopers parking lot Friday night are now able to retrieve them.
Snowplows were brought to the area Saturday morning to make it easier to move the snow-covered cars.
The scene at the Planned Parenthood center Saturday morning was busy: law enforcement officials and about 12 television crews, but all businesses are closed.
Saturday 6:42 a.m. Saturday UPDATE
As the sun rose over Colorado Springs, the new day was still marred by Friday's tragedy.
Even several inches of fresh snow couldn't disguise the crime-scene tape still hung up by the yard at Fillmore Street and Centennial Boulevard. In the King Soopers parking lot, dozens of snow-covered cars await their owners who were caught by Friday's killings and hunkered down inside stores.
Across the way, police cars idle, with lights flashing outside the Planned Parenthood Clinic that police say was targeted by Robert Lewis Dear.
Friday 9:15 P.M. UPDATE
A law enforcement official confirmed the identity of the man arrested Friday in connection to the shooting. His name is Robert Lewis Dear.
Friday 7:30 P.M. UPDATE:
UCCS has confirmed Garrett Swasey, 44, a six-year veteran of the UCCS Police, was killed in Friday's shoting.
Here is a statement from UCCS Chancellor Pamela Shockley-Zalabak:
It is with great sadness that I share the tragic events today at the offices of Planned Parenthood in Colorado Springs have touched the campus of the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs.
A UCCS police officer, Garrett Swasey, 44, responded in support of Colorado Springs Police to the active shooter sitation at about 11:50 a.m. Friday. He was killed in the line of duty.
UCCS officers are sworn, state-certified police officers. Officer Swansey was on duty at the campus and responded in support of Colorado Springs Police.
Officer Swasey was a six-year veteran of the UCCS Police Department.
UCCS is working with Officer Swasey's family and continues to support the Colorado Springs Police Department at the shooting scene.
All questions about the investigation of Planned Parenthood shootings should be directed to the Colorado Springs Police Department.
Friday 7 P.M. PRESS CONFERENCE UPDATE:
Lt. Catherine Buckley of the Colorado Springs Police Department confirms two civilians and a UCCS police officer died in Friday's shooting. Four civilians and five officers were transported to hospitals with gunshot wounds. All are in good condition.
Mayor John Suthers: "This is a terrible tragedy. It could have been much worse but for the actions of the first responders. I commend the Colorado Springs Police Department and all of the other first responders."
Police Chief Pete Carey: "My heart's broken. This is a tough situation for a lot of people in our community."
Friday 6:45 P.M. UPDATE:
The Colorado Fraternal Order of Police has confirmed that a police officer wounded in the shooting has died.
Colorado Springs Fire Chief Chris Riley said during a news conference at Penrose Hospital that he had visited all four officers wounded during the shooting. Three are Colorado Springs Police officers and one is an El Paso County Sheriff's deputy. He said all are awake and talking.
"All of the firefighters and police at the scene are heroes. They laid their lives on the line today to prevent this disaster from getting worse."
"This has been a tragic day, a very, very tragic day."
All victims have been transported away from the scene, but emergency responders continue to search the area "to make sure the area is safe. We are not leaving anything to chance. It is also a crime scene, so I can't tell you how long law enforcement will be there combing the scene for evidence."
"We train for days like this, but hope they never happen. We have to be prepared and our people stood up to that challenge."
Riley said 14 fire trucks and other vehicles with crews totaling 35 reponded to the scene, along with 12 ambulances and 26 crew members from American Medical Response and countless officers and support personnel from the Colorado Springs Police, El Paso County Sheriff's Office, the Colorado State Patrol, Colorado Bureau of Investigation, the FBI and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.
Friday 6:16 P.M. UPDATE:
Statement by University of Colorado at Colorado Springs Chancellor Pam Shockley-Zalabak:
We at UCCS are saddened by the tragic events today at the offices of Planned Parenthood in Colorado Springs, about 10 minutes southwest of campus.
Our thoughts and support are with those injured.
A UCCS police officer responded in support of CSPD to the active shooter situation at about 11:50 a.m. Friday.
He was on duty at the campus and responded in support of an officer under fire.
UCCS officers continue to work in support of the Colorado Springs Police Department at the shooting scene.
Friday 6 P.M. UPDATE:
Multiple news outlets are reporting fatalities in Friday's shooting at a Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood building. Gazette news partner KKTV reports that a University of Colorado at Colorado Springs officer was killed; 9News in Denver reported that one offficer and one civilian are dead.
A gunman surrendered to police at 4:52 p.m. Friday outside a Planned Parenthood in western Colorado Springs after an hours-long standoff all afternoon.
Eleven people were taken to hospitals, including five law enforcement officers.
The gunman and an unknown number of people remained inside for nearly five hours after a shots fired call was made to police at 11:38 a.m. Police have not identified the gunman nor said whether there were any fatalities.
“This is a horrible tragedy for our community,” said Dan May, 4th Judicial District Attorney. “We saw a lot of individual acts of bravery today and actually a lot of bravery as a team.”
A woman in a nearby hair salon said she heard 10-20 shots, and looked outside to see an officer fall to the ground and another officer try to drag him to safety.
"We can't stop shaking," she said, in a phone interview.
Over the next several hours, people wounded were taken to a police staging area in armored personnel carriers. As one was put on a stretcher and taken by ambulance, shouts in the crowd of law enforcement officers could be heard calling for a sniper to help out.
More than 100 law enforcement officers from around El Paso County are on the scene, including bomb squads, law enforcement from the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, Colorado State Patrol, the ATF and the FBI. Police have cordoned off a large swath of the area around Fillmore Street and Centennial Boulevard, near where the Planned Parenthood facility is. In a nearby strip mall anchored by King Soopers and at least a dozen stores, police asked people to shelter in place. As the shooting began, officers tried to clear the shopping center parking lot. Other Officers with guns could be seen hiding behind buildings.
Meanwhile, some staff and possibly clients were seen leaving the scene and were taken to a nearby Veterans Administration building to speak with investigators.
For the latest updates, see below:
---
Friday 5:15 p.m.
Lt. Catherine Buckley states that officers do not yet have an identification of the suspect, and that the overall scene and circumstances could "take days to process."
When asked how many bystanders in the nearby King Soopers and other businesses had been rescued by law enforcement, Buckley had no numbers but said there were many instances of "untold valor" on the part of the officers involved.
Buckley said during the press conference that a total of 11 people have been transported to UCHealth Memorial and Penrose hospitals to be treated following the shootings.
5:07 p.m.: Colorado Springs Mayor John Suthers states at a press conference that the alleged shooter "is in custody."
There is a "huge crime scene" to be covered, Suthers added, and officials have yet to determine the number of victims.
4:54 p.m.: Police have detained a shooter at a Planned Parenthood building, according to Colorado Springs police.
Radio traffic from police starting at 4:50 p.m.:
* "He's going to come out with his hands up."
* "He's standing up."
* "Can you confirm he has his hands clear?"
* "He's facing down that hallway to the east, his shoulders down."
* "Bear, you can back up."
* "Bear, he is coming out."
* "We've got to take him out if he has any IED suspicion on him."
* "Are we in the way of the snipers?"
* "Z-39, we have one suspect trained right now."
* 4:52 p.m.: "We have our suspect right now. He is alone and by himself."
Police then began to disperse throughout the building to search for improvised explosive devices.
---
3:17 p.m. UPDATE
Police confirm that officers and the suspect have exchanged gunfire inside the Planned Parenthood building.
The president of Planned Parenthood Vicki Cowart issues a statement: "At this time, our concern is for the safety of our patients, staff and law enforcement."
3:11 p.m. UPDATE
Policy report that the shooter is still active, and that all roads around the scene continue to be closed.
White House officials announced that President Barack Obama has been notified about the situation in Colorado by Homeland Security Advisor Lisa Monaco and will be updated as necessary.
3:03 p.m. UPDATE
Penrose Hospital confirmed they have six victims of the shootings and Memorial confirmed they are handling three shooting victims.
2:51 p.m. UPDATE
One person in scrubs and an employee of Planned Parenthood were just placed in police cars and taken to another staging area.
The man who was searching for his daughter began hopping up and down as soon as he saw his daughter being taken away in a police cars.
“She’s all right,” the man said.
There was a moment this afternoon when a man walked up to the scene with a handgun strapped to his waist and ammunition vest around his chest. He appeared to be asking police if he could help. Officers told him to leave immediately because appearing at the scene while wearing firearms and that equipment was a bad idea.
2:48 p.m. UPDATE
Joan Motolinia said his sister Jennifer had an appointment at the Planned Parenthood today. He spoke with his sister on the phone about 1 p.m. She was hiding under a table and he heard gunshots before she hung up. He hasn’t heard from her since.
2:38 p.m. UPDATE
Police are actively engaged with the shooter inside the Planned Parenthood facility and are receiving gunfire, Buckley said. When asked if the shooter has made any demands or had any communications besides firing at officers, she said “no.”
Police confirm that a fourth officer has been injured, and Buckley would not confirm how many civilians have been injured.
2:17 p.m. UPDATE:
Colorado Springs police just tweeted that "officers are encountering gunfire" and the scene is still an active shooting.
2:11 p.m. UPDATE
Around 1:20 p.m., a man walked up Fillmore Street after parking at least one-quarter to a half-mile away.
As police officers and tactical units continued working at the scene, the man stood on the south side of Fillmore Street looking toward the Planned Parenthood building.
An officer pulled up and told the man, “You guys are in the line of fire.”
The man replied “my daughter’s in the line of fire. She works there.” He verified that she works at Planned Parenthood.
“We’re trying to get her out,” the officer told the man, adding that the apparent shooter has “a high-powered rifle.”
1:53 p.m. UPDATE
Police report that officers went to a Veterans Affairs clinic across the road from the shooting scene and warned patients and staff to stay away from windows. KKTV reports that Penrose Hospital, where injured were transported, is under a lockdown.
1:43 p.m.
Police say they do not know the connection to Planned Parenthood, but that is where the 911 call came from. Police do not know the number of shooters, the containment of the shooters, or the number of victims. Police are not evacuating neighborhoods to the north of the scene, but they are asking residents to stay inside and to avoid the area. There are still people inside the nearby businesses, and police do not know if there are any hostage situations.
Between Colorado Springs Police Department, El Paso Sheriff's Office and State Patrol, "we are using all of our resources," said spokeswoman and Lt. Catherine Buckley. Officers do not know the type of weapon involved, except there is a rifle involved.
1:34 p.m.:
The shooting situation remains active and the shooter is not contained. Colorado Springs police says there is no connection to Planned Parenthood and shooting victims are getting treatment.
1:28 p.m.:
CSPD tweeted that three officers are injured and unknown civilians are injured. Police say the situation remains unstable and to avoid the area.
1:01 p.m.:
One of the victims being loaded onto an ambulance yelled.
12:54 p.m.:
At least three officers are injured, as well as multiple others. There are no estimates of the number injured or whether there are fatalities.
The shooter is “contained,” according to Lt. Kirk Wilson, a Colorado Springs police spokesman. Officers are working to “extricate” an officer who is at the scene, but police could not immediately reach him.
12:52 p.m.:
At least three officers have been hurt, according to a police commander on the scene.
12:47 p.m.:
Two patients were just transferred from a black tactical vehicle into waiting ambulance.
12:47 p.m.:
A tactical team is positioned near the Chase Bank on Centennial Boulevard.
12:45 p.m.:
Police are communicating by cell phone with three people trapped in a bathroom closet inside Planned Parenthood.
12:43 p.m.:
Denise Speller, manager at a nearby haircut salon, said she heard roughly 10-20 gunshots in the span of less than five minutes. She said she saw a police cruiser and two officers outside near Chase Bank, not far from the Planned Parenthood facility. One of the officers appeared to fall to the ground and the other office knelt down to render aid, then tried to get the officer to safety behind the car, she said. Another officer told Speller to seek shelter inside the building.
“We’re still pretty freaked out,” Speller said by phone. “We can’t stop shaking. For now we’re stuck back here not knowing.”
12:38 p.m.:
The Mobile Command Center of the Colorado Springs Police and the Tactical Rescue unit from the El Paso County Sheriff's Office both are on scene. One officer asked colleagues to move because "we are in the line of fire."
12:36 p.m.:
Colorado Springs Police report that Centennial Boulevard is closed in both directions between Garden of the Gods Road and Fillmore Street.
12:31 p.m.:
Scanner traffic indicated at least two officers were down, one near a dumpster, and another taken by ambulance to a hospital. A dispatcher said one wounded patient was reported to be located outside Elite Vision, which is in an adjacent building at 3470 Centennial Blvd. A later dispatch said at four were injured and an officer was heard requesting an ambulance. Another officer indicated wounded patients were being taken to Penrose Hospital, 2222 N. Nevada Ave.
At least one victim was taken by stretcher to an ambulance shortly after noon.
Three police officers with guns drawn were pointing their weapons in the vicinity of Planned Parenthood.
One officer said on his radio that the gunman shot out the back window of his cruiser as the officer tried to "get a look at him." A dispatcher said the gunman wore a long coat with a "hunting-type" hat.
Police closed Centennial Boulevard in both directions and customers were locked down at a King Soopers grocery store and several nearby shops at Fillmore Street and Centennial Boulevard.
-
Contact Stephen Hobbs: 636-0275
Twitter @bystephenhobbs | – The suspect accused of killing a police officer and two civilians at a Planned Parenthood in Colorado Springs on Friday was a long way from home, according to law enforcement sources. The sources tell the Denver Post that the suspect, who surrendered after an hours-long standoff, has been identified as North Carolina man Robert Lewis Dear, 57. Police have not discussed a motive for the rampage, which left nine people injured. "We don't have any information on this individual's mentality, or his ideas or ideology," a Colorado Springs police spokeswoman says, per the AP. At least four police officers are among the injured, and Mayor John Suthers says the tragedy could have been "much worse but for the actions of the first responders," the Colorado Springs Gazette reports. In a statement, Planned Parenthood Rocky Mountains CEO Vicki Cowart said that while the motive is still unclear, they "share the concerns of many Americans that extremists are creating a poisonous environment that feeds domestic terrorism in this country." The slain officer has been identified as University of Colorado at Colorado Springs officer Garrett Swasey, 44. He was a co-pastor at the city's Hope Chapel and church members tell the New York Times that he was on a mission to save lives on Friday and his own anti-abortion beliefs would not have affected his actions. A co-pastor says church members gathered at Swasey's home on Friday night, where his wife had to break the news to their 10-year-old son and 6-year-old daughter. "She had to tell her kids that their daddy wasn’t coming home," he says. |
India’s telecom regulator said Monday that service providers cannot charge discriminatory prices for Internet services, a blow to Facebook’s global effort to provide low-cost Internet to developing countries.
Facebook’s “Free Basics” program provides a pared-down version of Facebook and weather and job listings to some 15 million mobile-phone users in 37 countries around the world.
When it debuted in India in April, however, Free Basics immediately ran afoul of Internet activists who said it violated the principle of “net neutrality,” which holds that consumers should be able to access the entire Internet unfettered by price or speed.
On Monday, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India agreed, prohibiting data service providers from offering or charging different prices for data — even if it’s free. The Free Basics program has run into trouble elsewhere in the world recently — with Egypt banning it and Google clarifying that it pulled out of the application during a testing phase in Zambia.
[India, Egypt say no thanks to free Internet from Facebook]
In a statement, Facebook said that while the company was “disappointed with the outcome, we will continue our efforts to eliminate barriers and give the unconnected an easier path to the Internet.”
In an interview before the ruling, Chris Daniels, Facebook’s vice president for Internet.org — the umbrella organization of the global effort — said India’s negative reaction has been “unique versus other markets we’ve seen. We’ve been welcomed with open arms in many countries.”
Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg launched the program to great fanfare in 2013, partnering with other international tech firms on a mission to connect the 4 billion people in the world without Internet access — which he says is a basic human right.
India has 300 million mobile Internet users but still has close to 1 billion people without proper Internet access. But it is second only to the United States in number of Facebook users, with 130 million, with vast expansion potential as Facebook works to increase its user base beyond the developed world.
Yet the Free Basics program was controversial from the start in India, where critics accused Facebook of creating a “walled garden” for poor users that allowed them access to only a portion of the web that Facebook controlled.
Dozens of well-known tech entrepreneurs, university professors and tech industry groups spoke out against it, saying that the curated app, with its handpicked weather, job and other listings, put India’s scrappy start-ups and software developers at a disadvantage.
On Monday, Vijay Shekhar Sharma, the founder and creator of India’s payment application PayTM, applauded the regulator’s move.
He had been among the program’s fiercest critics, dubbing Free Basics “poor Internet for poor people” and comparing Facebook’s actions to that of British colonialists and their East India Co.
“India, Do u buy into this baby internet?” Sharma tweeted in December. “The East India company came with similar ‘charity’ to Indians a few years back!”
“In a country like India that’s just taking off, it’s important that there is an equal playground for every app developer,” he said in an interview.
In December, India’s regulator put out a position paper on differential pricing and asked for public comment on whether such programs were fair.
In response, Facebook launched a public relations blitz, with television and newspaper advertisements, billboards and an opinion piece by Zuckerberg in the Times of India in which he argued against criticism that the social-media giant was providing the service simply to expand its user base.
Facebook also engineered a prompt to users that sent “robo” letters of support for Free Basics to India’s telecommunications regulator. The regulator, flooded with form letters, was not amused.
Facebook’s behavior may not have helped its cause, some analysts said.
“Facebook went overboard with its propaganda [and] convinced ‘the powers that be’ that it cannot be trusted with mature stewardship of our information society,” said Sunil Abraham of the Center for Internet and Society in Bangalore.
Yet David Kirkpatrick, the author of “The Facebook Effect,” says that Zuckerberg is determined to see the program succeed.
“Facebook is relentless,” he said. “Zuckerberg has said from the beginning his goal is to make the world more open and connected. And that’s a phrase he continues to repeat 10 years later.”
The regulator had asked Facebook, and its local telecom partner, Reliance Communications, to suspend Free Basics’ operations during the public comment period. But the social-media giant and its partner appeared to flout the suspension order, with the program continuing to be operational on Reliance SIM cards.
A spokesman for Reliance earlier said that the applications was in “testing mode” and that it was not commercially promoting the product.
The regulatory body said Monday that anybody violating the order in the future will be subject to a fine of about $735 a day. It will return to review the policy in two years to see if it is effective. ||||| To connect a billion people, India must choose facts over fiction
In every society, there are certain basic services that are so important for people’s wellbeing that we expect everyone to be able to access them freely.
We have collections of free basic books. They’re called libraries. They don’t contain every book, but they still provide a world of good.
We have free basic healthcare. Public hospitals don’t offer every treatment, but they still save lives.
We have free basic education. Every child deserves to go to school.
And in the 21st century, everyone also deserves access to the tools and information that can help them to achieve all those other public services, and all their fundamental social and economic rights.
That’s why everyone also deserves access to free basic internet services.
We know that when people have access to the internet they also get access to jobs, education, healthcare, communication. We know that for every 10 people connected to the internet, roughly one is lifted out of poverty. We know that for India to make progress, more than 1 billion people need to be connected to the internet.
That’s not theory. That’s fact.
Another fact – when people have access to free basic internet services, these quickly overcome the digital divide.
Research shows that the biggest barriers to connecting people are affordability and awareness of the internet. Many people can’t afford to start using the internet. But even if they could, they don’t necessarily know how it can change their lives.
Over the last year Facebook has worked with mobile operators, app developers and civil society to overcome these barriers in India and more than 30 other countries. We launched Free Basics, a set of basic internet services for things like education, healthcare, jobs and communication that people can use without paying for data.
More than 35 operators have launched Free Basics and 15 million people have come online. And half the people who use Free Basics to go online for the first time pay to access the full internet within 30 days.
So the data is clear. Free Basics is a bridge to the full internet and digital equality. Data from more than five years of other programs that offer free access to Facebook, WhatsApp and other services shows the same.
If we accept that everyone deserves access to the internet, then we must surely support free basic internet services. That’s why more than 30 countries have recognized Free Basics as a program consistent with net neutrality and good for consumers.
Who could possibly be against this?
Surprisingly, over the last year there’s been a big debate about this in India.
Instead of wanting to give people access to some basic internet services for free, critics of the program continue to spread false claims – even if that means leaving behind a billion people.
Instead of recognizing the fact that Free Basics is opening up the whole internet, they continue to claim – falsely – that this will make the internet more like a walled garden.
Instead of welcoming Free Basics as an open platform that will partner with any telco, and allows any developer to offer services to people for free, they claim – falsely – that this will give people less choice.
Instead of recognizing that Free Basics fully respects net neutrality, they claim – falsely – the exact opposite.
A few months ago I learned about a farmer in Maharashtra called Ganesh.
Last year Ganesh started using Free Basics. He found weather information to prepare for monsoon season. He looked up commodity prices to get better deals. Now Ganesh is investing in new crops and livestock.
We just took another step towards connecting India. As of today, everyone in India nationwide can access free internet… Posted by Mark Zuckerberg on Monday, 23 November 2015
Critics of free basic internet services should remember that everything we’re doing is about serving people like Ganesh. This isn’t about Facebook’s commercial interests – there aren’t even any ads in the version of Facebook in Free Basics. If people lose access to free basic services they will simply lose access to the opportunities offered by the internet today.
Right now the TRAI is inviting the public to help decide whether free basic internet services should be offered in India.
For those who care about India’s future, it’s worth answering some questions to determine what is best for the unconnected in India.
What reason is there for denying people free access to vital services for communication, education, healthcare, employment, farming and women’s rights?
How does Ganesh being able to better tend his crops hurt the internet?
We’ve heard legitimate concerns in the past, and we’ve quickly addressed those. We’re open to other approaches and encourage innovation. But today this program is creating huge benefits for people and the entire internet ecosystem. There’s no valid basis for denying people the choice to use Free Basics, and that’s what thousands of people across India have chosen to tell TRAI over the last few weeks.
Choose facts over false claims. Everyone deserves access to the internet. Free basic internet services can help achieve this. Free Basics should stay to help achieve digital equality for India.
Also read: Nikhil Pahwa’s counterview on Free Basics and net neutrality
What is net neutrality and why it is important? ||||| Nobody ever said connecting the world would be easy.
Despite aggressive efforts to promote universal connectivity in India, Facebook just struck out. India’s telecom regulator has blocked the company’s Free Basics service as part of a ruling that supports net neutrality. The decision follows nearly a year of escalating conflict between Facebook and the country’s net neutrality activists, who argue Free Basics violates neutrality by favoring some services over others. It also undermines founder Mark Zuckerberg’s larger Internet.org efforts to bring the entire world online.
Still, it is not the end for Zuck's grand plan. Although India remains an essential market, it’s not the only place where Facebook offers Free Basics, which provides access to a host of Internet services like Wikipedia, the BBC, health sites and weather reports, and, of course, Facebook. The services are lightweight versions of the originals that load quickly and perform well on less robust 2G and 3G networks. It’s available in 36 countries, and Facebook claims it has brought the Internet to more than 19 million people who wouldn’t otherwise have been able to afford access.
Today's ruling follows an intense period of public discussion after Indian regulators released a whitepaper detailing data pricing differentials in December, and invited a public response. During the past two months, net neutrality activists in India registered their opinions while Facebook sunk resources into online polls and offline ad campaigns to sway public opinion. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India ultimately said in its ruling that no service provided can “offer or charge discriminatory tariffs for data services on the basis of content.” In effect, regulators are banning "zero-rating," the practice of exempting some Internet-usage from the data cap that covers other services. Regulators say that by working with telecom companies to make some services free, and not others, Facebook's Free Basics unfairly helps some Internet services while disadvantaging others.
Troubled From the Start
Facebook began rolling out its app, which at the time it called Internet.org, in India last February in a partnership with various wireless carriers and other organizations. In April, shortly after the app launched in India, several publishers withdrew from the program, saying it violated the principles of net neutrality because Internet providers were favoring some services over others. Net neutrality, they argued, dictates that all online services be treated equally. By leaving out some apps, they argued, Facebook put some services at a competitive disadvantage.
Zuckerberg was upset. In a Facebook post, he said Facebook had no intention of blocking or throttling the Internet, which is how he defined net neutrality, but felt that building the app was necessary to get everyone online quickly. “These two principles—universal connectivity and net neutrality—can and must coexist,” he wrote. He said the debate itself was unfair because the people who stood to benefit most from free Internet service were not online to advocate for it.
In May, Facebook opened its developer platform so anyone could launch a service within the free app. In a video published at the time, Zuckerberg also argued for a “reasonable” definition of net neutrality. “It’s not an equal Internet if the majority of people can’t participate,” he said. After listing the non-Facebook services people could use, he concluded with a call to action, asking, “Are we a community that values people and improving people’s lives above all else? Or are we a community that puts the intellectual purity of technology above people’s needs?”
His speech only served to fuel critics. In mid-May, digital rights groups from 31 countries signed an open letter to Zuckerberg, saying Internet.org “violates the principles of net neutrality, threatening freedom of expression, equality of opportunity, security, privacy and innovation.”
Trying to Reboot
Facebook responded by rebranding its effort as Free Basics so it might sound less like the app intended to displace the entire Internet. Facebook also improved app security. Zuckerberg stepped up his efforts to defend the app. In September, he hosted prime minister Narendra Modi in Menlo Park. The following month, he returned to India, where he held a town hall meeting at the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi. At the event, he said a million people were using the app in India, and it had brought 15 million people online for the first time. That was Facebook’s version of success.
Then, in December, Indian regulators issued a temporary ban on the service. Zuckerberg penned an op-ed for an Indian newspaper, once again making his case for why, in a country where only 19 percent of the population is online, it’s more important to get everyone online quickly than it is to quibble about whether that process favors some Internet services over others. “This isn’t about Facebook’s commercial interests—there aren’t even any ads in the version of Facebook in Free Basics,” he wrote. “If people lose access to free basic services, they will simply lose access to the opportunities offered by the Internet today.”
With today's ruling, it's clear his opinion did not sway the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India.
Meanwhile, the battle over net neutrality also is playing out in the US, where regulators are taking a less aggressive approach toward zero-rating. As WIRED's Klint Finley wrote recently, when Verizon launched the video service Go90, it decided not to ding Verizon customers for streaming its videos. But Netflix and YouTube videos still count against your data cap. A number of big telecoms are doing this. T-Mobile, Sprint and AT&T are experimenting with the idea, and the Federal Communications Commission has yet to attempt regulating it.
Facebook is not giving up on its efforts to connect the unconnected in India. Although the company is disappointed by today's ruling, it insists, “We will continue our efforts to eliminate barriers and give the unconnected an easier path to the Internet and the opportunities it brings.” | – Facebook failed Monday in its attempt to provide millions in India with a free but limited mobile Internet service called "Free Basics," the Washington Post reports. After nearly a year of debate between Mark Zuckerberg, Internet activists, and software developers, India's telecom regulator ruled that no data service provider can offer a different price—even a price of zero. The ruling jibes with critics who say Free Basics violates the principle of "net neutrality" and provides a "walled garden" of Internet access for the nation's poor. Indeed, Free Basics combines limited versions of services like Facebook, job listings, weather reports, the BBC, and Wikipedia, Wired reports. But Zuckerberg argues that Free Basics, used by millions worldwide, is about bringing more people online. "We know that when people have access to the internet they also get access to jobs, education, healthcare, communication," he wrote in a Times of India op-ed in December. "We know that for every 10 people connected to the internet, roughly one is lifted out of poverty." He also says Facebook doesn't profit because it places no ads in Free Basics. But Vijay Shekhar Sharma, a software developer and fierce Free Basics critic, calls the service "poor Internet for poor people" and compares it to British colonialism. "India, Do u buy into this baby internet?" he tweeted in December. "The East India company came with similar 'charity' to Indians a few years back!" Facebook says it plans to continue its effort to bring millions more people in India online. |
Colin Kaepernick's decision to sit during the national anthem in protest of racial injustice and police brutality has the Santa Clara police union saying its officers might stop working San Francisco 49ers home games. Ian Cull reports. (Published Friday, Sept. 2, 2016)
Colin Kaepernick's decision to speak out against racial injustice and police brutality, as well as direct critical words at officers across the nation, has the Santa Clara police union saying its officers might stop working San Francisco 49ers home games.
NBC Bay Area obtained a letter, penned by union members, to the San Francisco 49ers stating that if the organization does not take action against Kaepernick, "it could result in police officers choosing not to work at your facilities."
The Santa Clara Police Department is the lead police agency at Levi’s Stadium. During 49er games, around 70 officers volunteer to work and are paid as security personnel. Now it is unknown whether more than half of those officers will show up at the team's next game on Sept. 12.
"I'm already hearing it this week that next week on Monday Night Football, some officers are not going to work," said Frank Saunders, president of the Santa Clara Police Officers Association.
According to the union, about one-third of the officers who work during 49ers games are from other Bay Area law enforcement departments. If Santa Clara's police officers refuse to work, others officers might be hired. But, Saunders said, that may create a conflict with the city’s contract with the police union.
Santa Clara Police Union Threatens Boycott of 49ers Games Over Kaepernick Protest
Colin Kaepernick's decision to sit during the national anthem in protest of racial injustice and police brutality has the Santa Clara police union saying that its officers might stop working San Francisco 49ers home games. Ian Cull reports. (Published Friday, Sept. 2, 2016)
Although disheartened and angered by Kaepernick's remarks, Santa Clara Police Department Chief Michael Sellers called for his officers to put the community's safety above potential boycotts in a statement issued Saturday.
"The safety of our community is our highest priority," Sellers wrote. "I will urge the POA leadership to put the safety of our citizens first. I will work with both sides to find a solution. In the meantime, I will ensure we continue to provide a safe environment at Levi's Stadium."
Sellers added that he respects Kaepernick's right to voice an opinion and encourages his officers to protect those constitutional rights for every citizen, even if they disagree.
Santa Clara Police Chief Calls for Safety First at Levi's Stadium
Although disheartened and angered by Kaepernick's remarks, Santa Clara Police Department Chief Michael Sellers called for his officers to put the community's safety above potential boycotts in a statement issued Saturday. Laura Malpert reports. (Published Saturday, Sept. 3, 2016)
Officers are angered by Kaepernick's comments about police brutality and accusations that officers "murder minorities." They are also frustrated by the San Francisco quarterback's decision to wear socks during practice that depict pigs in police uniforms, according to the association.
"The 49ers are allowing this to come out from an employee and it's making for a hostile work environment for us at the stadium," Saunders said.
The union's letter also stated that its board of directors have "a duty to protect its members and work to make all of their workings environments free of harassing behavior."
The San Francisco 49ers organization reiterated Friday night that it stands behind its previous statements and respects Kaepernick's right to freedom of expression.
In a statement made immediately following reports of Kaepernick's decision to sit down during the playing of the national anthem before San Francisco preseason game against Green Bay last week, the franchise said, "In respecting such American principles as freedom of religion and freedom of expression, we recognize the right of an individual to choose to participate, or not, in our celebration of the national anthem."
But Saunders wants the team to treat the quarterback like any company would treat an employee.
"It was a totality of all those circumstances that we felt, 'Let's go talk to the 49ers. Let's have them go deal with" Kaepernick, he said.
Top News: New Supreme Court Photo, Cohen Plea, and More
Kaepernick’s decision not to stand has triggered a firestorm of comments on social media, in the Bay Area and across the nation. Local police agencies invited Kaepernick over to see their work in action, while many of the quarterback’s colleagues in the NFL said they disagree with his decision not to stand — though some of said they support him.
Some American military veterans, many of them black, came to his defense online, using the hashtag #VeteransForKaepernick to indicate that they supported his right to express himself. And Kaepernick pledged to donate $1 million to as-yet unnamed community organizations.
NBC Bay Area's Brendan Weber contributed to this report.
Read the Santa Clara Police Officers Association's entire letter here: ||||| Skip Ad Ad Loading... x Embed x Share USA TODAY Sports' Tom Pelissero gives his thoughts on Colin Kaepernick's national anthem protest and whether that will endanger his spot on the 49ers roster. USA TODAY Sports
Colin Kaepernick (Photo: Orlando Jorge Ramire, USA TODAY Sports)
The police chief for the agency that patrols San Francisco 49ers' Levi’s Stadium urged the police union upset over quarterback Colin Kaepernick's actions to back away from their boycott threat on Saturday.
Chief Michael J. Sellers didn’t specifically say that his officers would work 49ers home games, according to a statement sent to USA TODAY Sports on Saturday. Sellers, however, did say there would be no security concerns.
“I will urge the (Santa Clara Police Officers' Association) leadership to put the safety of our citizens first,” Sellers said. “I will work with both sides to find a solution. In the meantime, I will ensure we continue to provide a safe environment at Levi’s Stadium.”
The Santa Clara Police Officers' Association threatened its officers could chose not to work security details at Levi’s Stadium and 49ers headquarters in response to Kaepernick's pregame protest of not standing for the national anthem, his comments about police brutality and his controversial choice of socks. The letter penned by the police union was sent to the 49ers on Friday.
“Many of us in the law enforcement community have been saddened and angered by Kaepernick's words and actions,” Sellers said. “His blanket statements disparaging the law enforcement profession are hurtful and do not help bring the country together. As distasteful as his actions are, these actions are protected by the Constitution. Police officers are here to protect the rights of every person, even if we disagree with their position."
Reached vie email on Saturday, interim police union president Frank Saunders referred all questions back to the letter sent to the 49ers. NBC Bay Area was the first outlet to report on the union's letter on Friday.
About 70 Santa Clara police officers staff home games.
The 49ers are scheduled to open the season at Levi's Stadium against the Los Angeles Rams on Monday, Sept. 12, as part of a national television doubleheader.
Niners safety Eric Reid, who joined Kaepernick by taking a knee during the national anthem before Thursday night’s game in San Deigo, took aim at police brutality, posting a video on Twitter on Saturday of a student at a South Carolina high school being forcefully removed from her desk by an officer last year.
This is the behavior by officers that we're bringing awareness to. Once again, no charges. https://t.co/WOB8Hlnb6T — Eric Reid (@E_Reid35) September 3, 2016
Reid followed that with this tweet: “Some have eyes but do not see & ears but do not hear,” Reid wrote. “Nothing justifies what happened in that video. He is an officer & she is a child.”
Kaepernick was photographed Wednesday wearing socks that displayed cartoon pigs wearing police hats. He said he has worn them before, but this time the socks grabbed national attention, coming just five days after it also became known that he has chosen to sit during the national anthem before 49ers’ games.
The socks — along with Kaepernick's comments on police brutality — were mentioned in the letter.
"It was learned by the members of the SCPOA that the 49er organization has been allowing Mr. Kaepernick to wear exposed socks with the image of a pig wearing a police hat during practices at the training camp in Santa Clara," the union said in the letter. "Photos of Mr. Kaepernick wearing these socks with the derogatory image have been broadcast nationally."
The 49ers, according to NBC Bay Area's report, said Friday they continue to stand behind the statement they first made when Kaepernick’s protest was first publicized.
In that statement, the team said, "In respecting such American principles as freedom of religion and freedom of expression, we recognize the right of an individual to choose to participate, or not, in our celebration of the national anthem." | – If Colin Kaepernick is going to continue boycotting the national anthem in protest of police brutality, then the police might just boycott the San Francisco 49ers in protest of Colin Kaepernick. NBC Bay Area reports the Santa Clara police union has threatened to stop providing security for 49ers games unless the team forces its quarterback to get in line. About 70 Santa Clara police officers currently work as paid security at Levi Stadium. "The 49ers are allowing this to come out from an employee and it's making for a hostile work environment for us at the stadium," the police union's president says. Later, Santa Clara's chief of police urged the union to reconsider its boycott, asking members to "put the safety of our citizens first," USA Today reports. Kaepernick made headlines when he refused to stand for the national anthem in protest against police brutality and injustice. The Santa Clara police union is specifically upset that he said officers "murder minorities" and wore socks showing pigs dressed as police, which the union calls "derogatory." Kaepernick has been joined in his protest of the national anthem by at least two other NFL players and has promised to donate $1 million to community organizations, Fox News reports. The 49ers organization repeated Friday its support for Kaepernick's right to protest as an "American principle." The 49ers' next home game is a nationally televised Monday night contest Sept. 12. It's estimated more than half the officers who typically provide security may not show up. |
Messages, feared to be from Isis recruiters, sent on Sunday after video online apparently showed young people celebrating attacks
Young men in the Molenbeek district of Brussels were sent messages over the weekend calling on them to “make the right choice” and “fight the westerners”.
The texts were sent on Sunday night from a prepaid account that could not be traced or replied to. It followed a video distributed on Facebook, since removed, apparently showing local youths celebrating the attacks in Brussels last week. The death toll from the bombings has risen to 35, Belgium’s health minister said on Monday.
The short SMS message written in French, which the Guardian has seen, says: “My brother, why not fight the westerners? Make the right choice in your life.”
The text reportedly sent to young men in Molenbeek.
The rapid use of technology to spread propaganda after the attacks will stoke fears that Islamic State is trying to use the heightened tension to recruit more disaffected youths.
It is not known how the recipients’ phone numbers were obtained, but community activists believe Isis handlers download all contacts from the phone books of new recruits and select young men of north African origin to follow up.
Jamal Ikazban, the local Socialist party MP, told the Guardian that the communications were stoking tensions in the community. “These people are trying to take our youth by storm,” he said.
“It is like having a big-time drug dealer outside the school gates. We feel the same. They have to be taken off the streets. They are predators and our youths are the victims.”
For jihadis to be brazen enough to put out propaganda during a police crackdown after the attacks was “cheeky”, Ikazban said.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Police stand guard outside court where Salah Abdeslam, wanted over Paris attacks, was appearing last week after his arrest in Molenbeek. Photograph: Christophe Petit Tesson/EPA
There are multiple reports of similar Facebook messages and emails being sent to young Muslims around Brussels, although those who receive them often do not wish to be identified.
Jamal Zaria, the imam at Molenbeek’s Arafat mosque, said fears among parents in the area’s Belgo-Moroccan community were growing.
“They are being exposed to something like a cancer at a metastasic stage,” he said. “It is really spreading very quickly. We have to race against time to develop an immune system for the children in our community so that they reject the message of Daesh [Isis].”
Belgium has been criticised for a slack response to the rise of Isis, and Ikazban said political authorities and security services had not reacted to past warnings from him about locations used by jihadi groups.
Radicalisation in Molenbeek: 'People call me the mother of a terrorist' Read more
A mother of two sons who went to fight in Syria told the Guardian that one of them was subjected to a barrage of intrusive messages before his departure. “In the 10 days before he left home, his recruiter called him 140 times,” she said. “If that is not harassment, I don’t know what is.”
The police refused to intervene when warned that her son was about to depart for Istanbul, she said.
Molenbeek is one of Belgium’s most deprived and stigmatised districts with high levels of poverty and a youth unemployment rate of about 50%. Youths complain that some employers will not hire anyone with a Molenbeek postcode.
“Joining Daesh is a form of suicide,” Ikazban said. “They understand that there is a despair here which could be used to indoctrinate and recruit these people. I’m very angry that we have not done enough about that.”
There are concerns that the polarisation Isis feeds off could be amplified by an “expel the Islamists” demonstration planned in Molenbeek next Saturday by a far-right group.
The march has been banned but after nationalists successfully defied a prohibition on marches on Sunday, community leaders said they were anxious about the risk of more violence. ||||| ISIS Recruiters Feed On Working-Class, Heavily Muslim Molenbeek
The Molenbeek district of Brussels is the home to many of the terrorists behind last year's attacks in Paris and last week's Brussels bombing. We find out why it's fertile ground for radical Islam.
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:
The terror attacks in Brussels last week killed at least 38 people, including the attackers. That's according to the Belgian Health Ministry. More than 300 were wounded. Many people are asking how this could've happened since police presence in the Belgian capital had been high since the Paris attacks in November. And the chief suspect in those attacks, Salah Abdeslam, was arrested in the Brussels neighborhood of Molenbeek. Neighborhoods like Molenbeek have been seen as fertile recruiting grounds for radical Islamist groups. In part, many experts say, because Muslim communities haven't integrated into the mainstream European society. NPR's Melissa Block has been reporting in Molenbeek, which has come to be known as the jihadi capital of Europe.
MELISSA BLOCK, BYLINE: It's just a quick walk from the center of Brussels with its gilded towers and shops selling fine chocolates and lace, a walk across a canal that used to be the industrial heart of the city and into a densely populated neighborhood lined with halal butchers and shops selling head scarves, hijabs. Molenbeek is a sprawling district, home to a large Muslim population mostly of Moroccan descent. It was also home to a number of the terrorists responsible for last week's suicide bombings in Brussels and the November attacks in Paris. And this is where I've come to find an entrepreneur named Ibrahim Ouassari.
IBRAHIM OUASSARI: I grew up in this house. It's the house of my father. So it's my area here, yeah.
BLOCK: Ouassari is 37, a second-generation Belgian, his parents from Morocco. He grew up next to the Molenbeek City Hall, not far from where two of the Paris attackers also lived.
OUASSARI: People think it's jihadi land here, you know? But it's really not like that. It's just some stupid people without a perspective for the future.
BLOCK: And that future can look bleak indeed. Parts of Molenbeek have a 50 percent unemployment rate. The Muslim community here is marginalized in ways large and small. Ibrahim Ouassari takes me back to the canal, a symbolic, psychological border between the two divided communities. He recalls crossing this canal to go to the Brussels City Center for the first time on his own when he was 16. And for the first time, he felt discrimination, felt like an outsider in his own country. In a cafe, someone told him, you 're not Belgian.
OUASSARI: It is like you're not really a Belgian guy, you know? It's a little bit like schizophrenia because in my mind I feel like Belgian guy. The other guy, he tell me, no, you are not. So what I am?
BLOCK: Ibrahim says his first name alone is an instant signal of identity. It even kept him from renting an apartment.
OUASSARI: I gave my name, Ibrahim. The guy he tell me no, it's not possible because we don't want Muslim.
BLOCK: ISIS recruiters have had an easy time finding foot soldiers in Molenbeek to join the fight. The recruiters feed on a population with few prospects for their future. Both Ouassari and his colleague, Morad Chahboun, know of young men from Molenbeek who have gone to fight in Syria. Chahboun tells me young professionals like him hope they can turn the Molenbeek narrative around.
MORAD CHAHBOUN: My feeling is that we are 99 percent the same. And though we think that our 1 percent different will lead us to kill their people, it's not the case. And definitely we try to change the perception on this.
BLOCK: I go to see Molenbeek's mayor, Francoise Schepmans, in her elegant, chandeliered office.
When you hear Molenbeek described as a jihadi capital, how does that strike you?
FRANCOISE SCHEPMANS: (Through interpreter) It's false, absolutely false.
BLOCK: But Schepmans does rattle off the names of the known terrorists from this neighborhood - Abdeslam, Abaaoud, Abrini - a web, she says, of people who knew each other from childhood, became delinquents, were radicalized, or as she puts it, contaminated together.
SCHEPMANS: (Foreign language spoken).
BLOCK: "That's the path," she says, "thugs, gangsters, radicals, terrorism." Last fall, a month before the Paris terrorist attacks, Belgium's federal office that coordinates threat analysis sent Schepmans a list of 80 residents of Molenbeek suspected to be Islamic militants. Local police did an investigation. And I ask her, what happened then?
SCHEPMANS: (Through interpreter) We transmitted that information to the federal police.
BLOCK: And then?
SCHEPMANS: (Through interpreter) That's up to the federal police to take care of. Everyone has their role. Everyone has their responsibility.
BLOCK: And that illustrates a problem that many here are furious about - dots that weren't connected before last Tuesday's attacks, siloed intelligence information, a fractured government divided into many parts that simply don't communicate with each other. Melissa Block, NPR News, Brussels.
Copyright © 2016 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record. | – In the troubled Molenbeek district of Brussels, extremists have spied opportunity in the wake of last week's attacks. Over the weekend, young men in the heavily Muslim neighborhood were sent text messages, reading (in French): "My brother, why not fight the Westerners? Make the right choice in your life," the Guardian reports. The district, which was home to extremists involved in the Paris attacks as well as the Brussels bombings, is seen as fertile ground for extremists because many residents from North African backgrounds have failed to integrate with Belgian society, NPR reports. The youth unemployment rate is around 50%, and young people complain that employers refuse to hire people from Molenbeek. An imam at a local mosque tells the Guardian that parents are alarmed by how extremists are targeting local youth through social media. "They are being exposed to something like a cancer at a metastatic stage," he says. "It is really spreading very quickly. We have to race against time to develop an immune system for the children in our community so that they reject the message" of ISIS, he says. Belgian authorities, meanwhile, say the death toll from last week's attacks has risen to 35, not including three suicide bombers, the Washington Post reports. After the release of a suspect on Monday, authorities are still seeking the "man in the hat" seen on surveillance video before the airport blasts. |
Michael Lohan Arrested AGAIN Falls 3 Stories, Drugs, Booze Involved
was just arrested AGAIN in Florida after allegedly contacting his GF-- and law enforcement tells TMZ, he tried to escape by jumping off a 3rd-story balcony ... and plummeting 34 feet to the ground ... and cops say drugs and alcohol were involved.According to law enforcement sources, Tampa police responded to a call early this morning from Kate, who claimed Michael had been trying to contact her by phone and wouldn't leave her alone.We're told officers interviewed Kate at her apartment after she made the call -- the same apartment where Michaelearlier this week -- and while they were there, Michael allegedly called again.According to law enforcement, officers believed Michael was a "threat" -- so they rolled up to his hotel to arrest him.But here's the crazy part -- law enforcement tells TMZ, Michael tried to escape by hopping his 3rd story balcony ... but fell 34 feet to the ground, crashing onto some wooden chairs ... and then he tried to hide in some trees.After officers pulled him down, Michael was placed under arrest for violating a condition of his pretrial release (presumably for contacting Kate) ... and resisting arrest without violence.Michael is currently back in custody -- at the same jailfrom less than twelve hours ago.Michael is currently in the hospital getting a possible foot injury checked out.-- Kate Major has released a statement to TMZ ... saying, "I am sick of being lied about by Michael Lohan Sr.'s false allegations about his continual physical and mental abuse toward me.""Obviously the judge was correct when questioning if he could 'read.'"She adds, "He has no regard for the justice system. He can beat up women but Mr. tough guy who slurred his words calling me 5 times after getting out of jail wasn't too tough by jumping off a 3rd floor balcony into a tree to try to flee from going back to the same jail he just got released from less than 12 hours ago""Maybe they have phonics books in jail!" ||||| By Radar Staff
Michael Lohan was back in a Florida court on Wednesday morning facing charges of domestic battery, RadarOnline.com has learned.
Lindsay’s dad appeared exhausted and serious as he stood handcuffed in front of the judge in Tampa, Florida, who told him not to even “dream” about his ex-girlfriend, Kate Major.
PHOTOS: Michael Lohan Gets Booked And Stands Before The Judge
As RadarOnline.com previously reported, Lohan was arrested for battery domestic violence and was taken into custody in the early hours of Tuesday morning after getting into an argument with former fiance, Kate.
PHOTOS: Sexy Stars Who Have Been Arrested
He had been held in jail ever since and was granted a $5,000 bond on Wednesday after over 24 hours in custody.
Judge Walter Heinrich Jr. told the 51-year-old to stay away from Kate, 28, at all costs. “You even dream of her and you’re going to jail,” he said.
The judge ordered that Lohan be detained until 6pm ET until the authorities could determine whether a warrant had been issued out of Sarasota County involving a temporary restraining order sought by Major, reported TampaBayOnline.com.
PHOTOS: Celebs Who Have Done Jail Time
When the police responded to Major’s 9-1-1 call on Tuesday, they said they arrived to a tense scene between Lindsay’s father and the journalist who famously dated reality star Jon Gosselin two years ago.
“As we approached the door, we could hear a female yelling ‘Stop’ and ‘Leave me alone,’” police said, adding Lohan was “wearing only shorts, and was out of breath/sweating” when he answered the door.
“He immediately got defensive, saying, ‘Everything is OK and nothing happened here,’” police said. “The victim started yelling in the background for us to help her because he was lying. We separated the two at this time.”
PHOTOS: Celebrity Death Threats
Major told officers Lohan repeatedly pushed her, squeezed her arms and “told her he would slit both his wrist and her wrist.”
After Lohan threatened to throw Major off the 4th floor balcony, Major told officers, he “threw the remote control at her, but missed.”
Lohan told police Major told him she drank a bottle of wine and took some of her medication. He said he had to go pick her up because she was too intoxicated.
PHOTOS: Celebs Who Have Battled Drinking Problems
Lohan told police he and Major “got back to their apartment and had sex.
“Major did not want Michael to ejaculate inside her; Lohan stated he did ejaculate in her and his girlfriend got very angry,” police wrote. “The two argued and Major told him she might be pregnant from previous sexual encounters with him. They argued some more.”
PHOTOS: Celebrity Cheaters
According to TampaBayOnline.com, Lohan’s attorney said he will fight the charges.
“We’ll defend all the allegations and we’re going to be denying everything,” said Sarasota defense attorney Michael Perry. “But we’re going to pursue this and defend him to the best of our ability here and get this thing resolved.”
RELATED STORIES:
Lindsay Lohan Arrives 20 Minutes Early At Morgue
Dr. Drew On Michael Lohan Arrest: ‘I Knew He Would End Up In Jail Again’
Kate Major’s 911 On Michael Lohan: ‘I’m Afraid He’s Going To Hit Me’ ||||| I’m fully convinced that Michael Lohan’s headline-making domestic violence arrest yesterday was copied straight out of Mel Gibson’s playbook. Of course, Mel’s famed blowouts were uniquely terrible because some of them were directed towards the teenage son of ex-girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva. Last month, Mel paid $100,000 to Oksana’s 14-year-old for the guarantee that he wouldn’t sue the once-respected actor for reportedly “terrorizing” him during altercations with his mother. That’s low, even for Mel Gibson. Additionally, his own toddler daughter with Grigorieva bore witness to a number of her father’s detonations.
It’s hard to top this sh**ty parenting, but surprise, surprise, more than a few celebs come come! After the jump, six more celebrities who I definitely wouldn’t want for a dad. | – Michael Lohan couldn’t even go a full day as a free man: Just hours after he was released from a Tampa jail, he was arrested again. Lohan had been jailed on domestic violence charges related to his girlfriend (yes, the AP still refers to her as his girlfriend) Kate Major. Early this morning, Major called 911 to report a harassing phone call from Lohan; he called again after police arrived at her home, and she put him on speaker phone. The calls violated Lohan’s pre-trial release order (Radar notes that the judge had told him, “You even dream of [Major] and you're going to jail.”), so cops went to his hotel—where, they say, he jumped off a third-floor balcony in an attempt to evade them. Best detail: TMZ reports he landed in a tree. He made a pit stop at a hospital with a possible broken foot before heading back to jail. Not surprisingly, Lohan makes The Frisky’s list of the seven worst celebrity dads of all time—click to see who else joins him. |
STAFFORD, Va. (AP) — A Virginia woman says she received more than 13,000 text messages and 600 calls after C-SPAN accidentally plastered her number on TV during the presidential debate.
Media outlets report that 26-year-old Tripp Diaz of Stafford began receiving a barrage of texts Monday evening because C-SPAN had just put her number on TV, asking viewers to call and text to comment on the candidates' debate performances. C-SPAN spokesman Howard Mortman says they got it wrong and they've apologized to Diaz.
The presidential debate was the most watched in history, with more than 84 million viewers.
Diaz says she's already made up her mind about who she's voting for, so the comments she got aren't influencing her decision — they're just driving her crazy.
Luckily, Diaz says, she has unlimited text messaging. ||||| In order to get in touch with Tripp Diaz these days, callers have to email her in advance. That way, Diaz knows it isn't a random person wishing to discuss their feelings about Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.
"I have no idea what happened," Diaz says, but somehow C-SPAN posted her number on screen during the channel's debate coverage coverage, alongside ways to contact them through Facebook and Twitter. Her phone instantly became unusable thanks to the ensuing flood of calls and texts.
Diaz, a bartender at Eatbar on Barracks Row, was having an utterly uneventful night at home on Monday. She already made up her mind about who she is going to vote for in November and didn't want to watch the candidates bicker. "I was being a horrible citizen and watching American Horror Story instead," Diaz says. The nightmare was still to come, though.
Around 11 p.m., she stared at her phone, completely bewildered, as it blew up with calls and texts. It was so constant that Diaz's girlfriend had trouble getting through.
When a friend's sister shared a screenshot from C-SPAN, Diaz finally realized what had happened and why so many people were itching to tell her their political affiliations. C-SPAN has not responded to a request for comment as to how the mishap occured.
Diaz went to sleep with 7,900 texts awaiting her, and woke up on Tuesday to another 4,500. In total, she's "missed" more than 400 calls. It's given her a window into what the American electorate is thinking.
Though the overwhelming consensus has been that Clinton won the debate (whatever that means nowadays), most of the responses that Diaz actually read were from Trump supporters. But she thinks that there was a selection bias at work, given that she generally opened the ones that seemed funny.
"The Clinton ones were rather reasonable. Their text messages were boring like 'I'm Jen from Florida and I support Hillary,' " Diaz says. "They’re just reasonable humans." A registered Democrat in Virginia, she says, "I think that we have to choose between two at the bottom of the barrel right now, but I'm obviously voting for Hillary."
Some of the messages have been amusing. Others have been sad—like Doug, who now realizes the number he has been relentlessly texting isn't C-SPAN but just wants to talk to someone, anyone, anyway.
"People all across the country they were texting me," Diaz says. "One guy gave me his whole entire address and said I’m voting for Trump."
Many have been riddled with the same toxic sexism and racism of Trump's campaign. "I was taken aback by a lot of comments," Diaz says. She largely didn't respond because she didn't want make the flow of messages even worse, though a couple of times she sent back #VoteTripp.
Even this afternoon, Diaz is still getting texts and calls, most recently someone who dialed in to say "This is for C-SPAN and I support Trump cuz I don't give a fuck about [N-word]." It's been traumatic for her to hear and see (including graphically photoshopped images of Clinton), but there is little recourse.
Verizon told her she's unlikely to face any additional charges since she has unlimited texts and didn't answer the calls. "I’m probably just going to change my number," Diaz says, thanks to the "the fools who sit and respond to C-SPAN." | – A Virginia woman received more than 13,000 text messages and 600 calls after C-SPAN accidentally plastered her number on TV during the presidential debate, reports AP. Bartender Tripp Diaz of Stafford, 26, began receiving a barrage of texts Monday night because C-SPAN put up her number and asked viewers to comment on the candidates' performances, reports DCist. C-SPAN spokesman Howard Mortman says the network got it wrong and has apologized to Diaz, who wasn't even watching the political spectacle. Not helping: The debate was the most watched in history, with more than 84 million viewers. |
Play Facebook
Twitter
Google Plus
Embed Missing US Student Found Dead in Siberia 0:20 autoplay autoplay Copy this code to your website or blog
The body of an American student who went missing in a mountainous region of Siberia has been found, investigators and the State Department said Monday.
Police, rescuers and volunteers had been combing the area in search of Missouri native Colin Madsen. The 25-year-old disappeared after leaving his guesthouse in the Russian Republic of Buryatia's village of Arshan on March 27, reportedly without wearing a coat.
His body was found Sunday about one mile from Arshan at the foot of the Sayan Mountains, according to Russia's Investigative Committee.
Colin Madsen, whose body was found Sunday. Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs
There were no obvious signs of injury, Madsen's clothing was intact and he was carrying personal items and money, the committee said in a statement in Russian.
Investigators have yet to establish exactly how he died or why he left the guest house without telling friends.
The State Department confirmed Madsen's death but referred questions about the circumstances to Russian authorities.
"We extend our deepest condolences to his loved ones," it said in a statement. "The U.S. Embassy in Moscow is providing consular assistance. Out of respect for Mr. Madsen's family during this difficult time, we have no further comment."
Madsen entered a student exchange program in Irkutsk State Linguistic University in 2013. He spoke fluent Russian and had traveled to Arshan four times before his disappearance.
Madsen and two friends were planning to scale a 1.2-mile high mountain known as the "Love Peak," according to local reports.
Daily temperatures in the region have been hovering around 32 degrees, with rain and sleet, hampering the search.
Local shamans joined the search operation, regional news site Baikal-daily.ru reported.
"There are plenty of sacred sites here," shaman Radna Dashitsyrenova was quoted as saying. "Their hosts may mislead [hikers]. You need to pay them honors before a trip, otherwise such tragedies would happen."
Though the population of Buryatia is split between Buddhism and Orthodox Christianity, beliefs persist in traditional animistic cults worshiping various spirits of the land. ||||| A U.S. student missing for over a week in eastern Siberia has been found dead, Russian investigators said today.
Colin Madsen’s body was found by rescuers about a mile from the village where the Missouri man had disappeared in the Buryatia region, investigators said in a statement released by the local branch of Russia’s Investigative Committee, the equivalent of the FBI.
Russian police had earlier opened a possible murder inquiry into Madsen's vanishing in the foothills of the Sayan mountains, roughly 3,000 miles from Moscow, where a search for the student has been gradually intensifying since last Monday.
WHAT TO KNOW Russian police say they have found the body of U.S. student Colin Madsen, 25, who went missing in eastern Siberia over a week ago.
But today’s statement said that there were no signs of outward injury on Madsen’s body or any indication he had been robbed. Investigators said a cause of death has not yet been established but the statement suggested that it may be related to drugs.
Police are now testing Madsen’s body for traces of narcotics and the statement noted that the group with which Madsen had been travelling had taken drugs in the day before his disappearance.
Police today said the murder inquiry remained open while the full circumstances around Madsen’s death were established.
Madsen, 25, a native of Jefferson City, Missouri, who was studying at a university in the nearby city of Irkutsk, vanished a week ago early on a Sunday morning in the Sayan mountains, where he was on a hiking trip with friends. The manner of his disappearance has puzzled police and his friends: Madsen left the guest house where the group was staying in the village of Arshan, without warning at around 5 a.m. and wearing only a T-shirt and trousers despite freezing temperatures outside. He had not been seen since.
Dozens of officers, as well as a number of Madsen's local friends, had been searching forests around the village for him since then.
Madsen had been traveling with three friends, two local Russians and another American student, on exchange at the same university. The friends have told police that Madsen had intended to join them on an early morning hike but when they woke up they found him missing and all of his equipment still laid out.
A number of Madsen’s friends have told ABC News that it was uncharacteristic of him to leave without warning in the middle of the night or without appropriate clothing. The friends traveling with him have told police Madsen had been behaving normally before he disappeared and that he was excited for the day’s hike. Police have said the group had not quarreled in the day before Madsen left.
Madsen had been studying in at Irkutsk State Linguistics University since 2013 and had repeatedly visited the area around Arshan, friends said. He knew the area well and spoke fluent Russian.
Madsen’s body has been transferred to the city of Ulan-Ude for testing. His mother is already in eastern Siberia, where she had arrived to participate in the search. ||||| MOSCOW (AP) — Russian investigators say the body of an American student has been found on the outskirts of a Siberian village, a week after he vanished from a guesthouse in the middle of the night.
A statement from the Investigative Committee said Colin Madsen's body was found Monday about 1.5 kilometers (a mile) outside Arshan, a resort village poplar for its mineral springs and proximity to mountains.
The statement said there were no visible injuries to the 25-year-old Madsen and that his documents and money had been left untouched.
Madsen, who was a student at a university in Irkutsk, came to Arshan on March 26 with friends who intended to hike to a mountain summit. But he left the guesthouse between 2 and 5 a.m., without a coat despite freezing temperatures. ||||| Rescuers found the body of a missing 25-year-old student of one of the universities of the city of Irkutsk. Picture: Arigus TV
The body of the 25 year old US citizen was found dead two kilometres from Arshan village where he was staying when he disappeared. Initial local TV reports suggest he had numerous injuries which might indicate murder, but later it was suggested he may have frozen to death.
'As a result of search activities in the village of Arshan in Buryatia, Tunkinsky district, on the slopes of the mountain range Eastern Sayan, rescuers found the body of a missing 25-year-old student of one of the universities of the city of Irkutsk,' said an official statement from police. The cause of death was 'being investigated'.
Earlier Madsen's mother, Dana, had promised to pay 100,000 roubles for any useful information about her son's whereabouts. Picture: Arigus TV, Dana Madsen-Calcutt
The head of Buryatia's search and rescue service Pavel Shubin said: 'He was found by rescuers. Now police is working at the spot. Then the body will be brought down to the village.'
Madsen, from Jefferson City, Missouri, had been studying at a linguistics university in Irkutsk. He was on a vacation with Russian friends - and an American - when he died, it is understood.
Madsen evidently left his guest house two hours before the group were due to climb local 2,412-metre high Peak of Love (7,913 feet), a mysterious mountain in the Eastern Sayan range in Buryatia, a Buddhist region in southern Siberia, close to Lake Baikal.
Madsen evidently left his guest house two hours before the group were due to climb local Peak of Love. Pictures: Vlad Rasputin
He had gone out without a coat, wearing a T-shirt in sub zero night temperatures. His documents and money was untouched on his body.
Among the group with Madsen, were students who had taken drugs the night he vanished, said Arigus TV. Tests will be conducted for alcohol, narcotic or other toxic and poisonous substances.
The body of the 25 year old US citizen was found dead two kilometres from Arshan village where he was staying when he disappeared. Pictures: The Siberian Times, @baikal_meridian
Earlier Madsen's mother, Dana, had promised to pay 100,000 roubles for any useful information about her son's whereabouts. Police had earlier quizzed his friends using a polygraph.
The Russian Investigative Committee last week opened a murder probe into Madsen's disappearance | – A Missouri man attending college in Russia headed with friends on Easter weekend to a popular resort town known for its mineral springs, with plans to hike a mountain, the AP reports. But when 25-year-old Colin Madsen's friends—two Russian locals and an American student—woke up early Easter morning, Madsen wasn't in their Arshan guesthouse, having left in the wee hours in only a T-shirt and pants in the brutal Siberian cold, ABC News reports. Russian investigators announced Monday that after a massive search, Madsen's body had been located about a mile from where he was last seen. A statement by the country's Investigative Committee says Madsen didn't have outward injuries or seem roughed up, and was still carrying money and other items, per NBC News. Madsen, a student at Irkutsk State Linguistic University who spoke fluent Russian and who had visited the resort a handful of times, was to ascend the 1.2-mile "Love Peak," and his companions said he had seemed pumped the day before and that there was no tiff that would explain why Madsen had taken off in the middle of the night (the AP reports he slipped out between 2am and 5am on March 27). But while investigators haven't determined a cause of death, ABC reports that the IC's statement "suggested" his death may have been drug-related, and it also noted the group had taken drugs the day before Madsen vanished. Police are carrying out drug tests on the body, although they haven't ruled out foul play, and the Siberian Times reports the friends have taken a polygraph. (A woman isolated in Siberia for decades recently emerged.) |
Tropical Storm Isaac expected to rebound as hurricane as it moves toward Florida
By Anna M. Phillips and Marissa Lang, Times Staff Writers
In Print: Friday, August 24, 2012
The Tampa Bay Times Forum, shown on the Garrison Channel, is in evacuation Zone B for category 2 hurricanes. It is the main site of the Republican National Convention beginning Monday. RNC officials said Thursday that they expect the convention to go on.
It was only yesterday that Joe Morelli finished righting the palm trees knocked askew by Tropical Storm Debby on Bayshore Boulevard in Tampa.
On the Pinellas beaches, the Pass-a-Grille Marina is still a work zone a month after a tornado spawned by Debby ripped off its roof.
The rivers are swollen, the beaches are eroded and some areas are still water-logged from a combination of Debby and heavy rains this week.
The threat of a strike from Tropical Storm Isaac comes at a time when Tampa Bay is particularly vulnerable to storm surge, flooding and high winds.
"If it hits us, we're definitely worse off than we were before Debby," said Andy Squires, Pinellas County coastal manager.
Forecasters were still uncertain late Thursday night how Isaac would affect Tampa Bay, though the forecasts throughout the day had the storm veering farther to the west — and perhaps away from the bay area.
The storm was about 190 miles southwest of Puerto Rico on Thursday evening, and heading toward Hispaniola and Cuba. Forecasters said it could be a hurricane by today.
If it continues on its current route, Isaac could make a left turn out into the Gulf of Mexico, sparing Tampa from a direct hit while the city is simultaneously welcoming about 50,000 visitors for the Republican National Convention.
But the region is not out of harm's way.
Forecasters on Thursday could not say with certainty what Isaac will look like when it emerges from Hispaniola and Cuba. National Hurricane Center forecaster Jack Beven said the tropical storm could weaken to the point where it would be unable to regroup and gather speed. But if it trains around the islands and sits over warm water, which strengthens hurricanes, it could become a major storm before moving into the gulf.
Compared to Debby, which had tropical storm winds extending 200 miles from its center, Isaac's winds reach 185 miles out. And with an average speed of 18 mph, it is traveling faster than its predecessor, which parked over the bay area for days before moving on.
Isaac could be bad news for coastal areas prone to the effects of storm surge, experts said. Surge is difficult to predict as it depends largely on rapidly changing factors such as a storm's size, speed, reach and intensity. Beven noted "significant uncertainty" remains about Isaac's ability to harm Florida.
Emergency management officials in Hillsborough and Pinellas said it was too soon to predict whether the storm surge and rainfall would flood neighborhoods and force evacuations or bypass the Gulf Coast of Florida on its way north.
"The models are all over the place right now, and we're not going to declare a state of emergency until we've got a higher probability of the storm coming here," said Pinellas County spokesman Tom Iovino.
Declaring a state of emergency would propel the county's storm-response systems into action and give them the authority to call for evacuations, a step they would take in low-lying areas that are likely to flood or in regions that, though dry, could easily be cut off from major roads and bridges by rising water levels. Both counties have five evacuation levels — lettered A through E — that depend on the severity of the storm. Because of mobile home parks' susceptibility to high winds, their residents are required to leave regardless of the likelihood of flooding.
When the "preponderence of data" tips toward major flooding, county officials make the call, Iovino said. There is no set threshold.
Hillsborough County Sheriff David Gee dismissed the possibility of damage from storm surge, noting that Pinellas, with its barrier islands in the gulf, is more likely to get swamped.
But if Isaac were to approach the bay area from the southwest, high winds would move mass amounts of water into Tampa Bay, causing tremendous flooding, particularly in Hillsborough County, where the Interbay Peninsula could be virtually under water.
Most forecasters do not think Isaac will come from this angle, but they noted that its projected route would bring it parallel to the peninsula and could create threatening waves and flooding.
The bay area's rivers and lakes are already elevated after several days of heavy rainfall, and in Hillsborough, officials issued flood warnings for three rivers: Little Manatee in Wimauma, Alafia River in Lithia and Cypress Creek in Worthington Gardens. The Hillsborough River is also rising, they said.
In Pinellas County, this week's rains overwhelmed a water treatment plant, prompting officials to urge residents to cut back on flushing toilets, washing clothes and bathing.
Many of Pinellas County's beaches, which lost more sand to Tropical Storm Debby than any other storm in the past decade, still look bruised, their dunes eviscerated and hundreds of thousands of cubic yards of expensive sand lost to offshore sandbars. As natural barriers shielding homes and businesses from damage, the dunes are not in fighting condition.
"South of Sand Key, Pinellas beaches are pretty sad," said Squires, the Pinellas coastal manager.
Last week, he delivered 4,000 sea oat seedlings to Sand Key beach, where contractors have been dredging sand miles offshore and pumping it back onto the beach. Planted in hopes that they would eventually rebuild sand dunes, the oats could easily be washed out to sea in a storm.
University of South Florida geology professor Ping Wang predicted that a stronger and faster storm like Isaac would bring higher waves and more dune erosion than Debby. The sandbars will slow down the water somewhat, he said, but are likely too small to prevent a storm surge from rising over them and past seawalls, dunes, and roadways.
Morelli, who is responsible for the 42 Florida date palms that line Bayshore Boulevard, said he hoped they would withstand another storm.
"As long as the water recedes quickly, they should be fine," he said. "It's that brutal wind that just tears things up."
Times staff writer Jessica Vander Velde contributed to this report. ||||| Story highlights In Port-au-Prince, no signs of storm preparation as Haitians unaware storm is coming
The storm could become a hurricane before it reaches Hispaniola
It could pose dangers to Haitians still recovering from the deadly 2010 earthquake
It's unclear whether the storm will affect the GOP convention in Florida next week
As Tropical Storm Isaac swirls in the Caribbean -- becoming more powerful mile by mile -- it threatens to unleash disaster once again on vulnerable and often unaware Haitians by Friday night.
The possibility of stinging rain and tree-bending wind descending on the hundreds of thousands of Haitians living in camps has aid groups in the country on high alert.
By the time Isaac strikes Haiti, it is forecast to be at hurricane strength, bringing destructive wind and water to an area still recovering from a devastating 2010 earthquake.
As much of 12 inches of rain is forecast for some parts of the country, posing danger to the more than 400,000 Haitians in the camps.
Many of those people had no idea that a storm was coming, CNN correspondent Gary Tuchman reported from Port-au-Prince. Not until a translator told them that a potential hurricane was nearing did people in the streets know of Isaac's approach or that the government had opened some shelters. Residents of one tent community said they were staying put with their belongings and would ride out the storm.
JUST WATCHED Tampa RNC storm scenario Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Tampa RNC storm scenario 03:46 PLAY VIDEO
JUST WATCHED Haiti in hurricane danger Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Haiti in hurricane danger 01:26 PLAY VIDEO
There were no signs of hurricane preparations in the city, no buildings being boarded up in Port-au-Prince.
Isaac threatens to bring more destruction, cholera to Haiti
"These rains could cause life-threatening flash floods and mudslides," the National Hurricane Center in Miami said.
Isaac also poses a risk to the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida. The storm could hit anywhere in the state, Gov. Rick Scott said Thursday, and it will be up to convention organizers to decide the fate of the event.
But before it nears Florida, Isaac is forecast to run over Hispaniola, the island that's home to Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
"The risks are obvious in terms of flooding of low-lying areas," said Jean-Michel Vigreux, director for CARE International in Haiti.
Even though two-and-a-half years have passed since the earthquake, its impact on the country cannot be understated, he said.
Large amounts of rainfall will cause mudslides and runoff that can block roads, or worse.
"The country is still recovering from the earthquake. It's difficult to imagine that (a storm) will hurt the most vulnerable places again," Vigreux said.
As of 8 p.m. ET, Isaac was about 210 miles (340 kilometers) southeast of Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, the center said.
It was moving to the west-northwest near 16 mph with maximum sustained winds near 45 mph.
The center of the storm is forecast to approach the Dominican Republic on Thursday night and move over the south coast of Hispaniola on Friday, the center said.
While the storm is yet to reach hurricane strength, it has already delivered shock waves to the Caribbean, postponing a hearing for September 11 terrorist attack suspects at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
"Strengthening is forecast during the next 48 hours, and Isaac could still become a hurricane on Friday before it reaches Hispaniola," according to forecasters.
Aid organizations were keeping an eye on Haiti. According to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, 421,000 people are in camps in and around Port-au-Prince, the capital.
Isaac could be the first significant storm to hit Haiti since the devastating earthquake. Tropical Storm Emily threatened in 2011, but it weakened before hitting western Haiti.
The forecast map shows Isaac crossing the nation as a tropical storm with winds under 74 mph.
"We watch those storms every single time they come near because Haiti is so vulnerable," said Amy Parodi, a spokeswoman for the Christian humanitarian organization World Vision.
The agency has met with the government in previous summers to discuss contingency plans for major storms, and pre-positioned relief items are available, she said.
Isaac's path remains uncertain, but some computer models show the storm slicing its way up Florida's peninsula. Others send it farther west, into the Gulf of Mexico.
Officials are taking the threat seriously.
"Obviously, we hope Isaac doesn't hit Florida, but we must take every precaution," said Scott, the Florida governor.
While the convention will have the final say on any changes to the planned event, the organizers are working with state and local officials to ensure everyone has the same information, the governor said.
But Tampa is not the only part of Florida that could be hit, and Scott urged Floridians to be prepared.
"What everyone needs to do is to starting tracking it, watch the weather, heed any warnings, get ready, get 72 hours' worth of supplies," he said.
Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn said his city is prepared for the 50,000 people headed to there for the Republican National Convention, which starts Monday.
"We have contingency plan after contingency plan," Buckhorn said. "We are ready in the event that it happens. I don't think it's going to be a factor in this particular convention. But we are prepared in the event that it is."
Scott said that any police officers who were going to Tampa will still go, and the Florida National Guard will stand ready to back up authorities around the state.
He said he spoke with Republican candidate Mitt Romney and assured him the state would be ready for the convention.
"We're a hospitality state that knows how to deal with hurricanes," he said.
Possibly complicating matters, the convention site -- The Tampa Bay Times Forum -- is a mandatory evacuation zone once storms reach 96 mph, a Category 2 hurricane, according to the Hillsborough County Hurricane Guide. The current forecast doesn't have Isaac reaching that status.
At the Guantanamo Bay base, officials canceled the pretrial arguments scheduled to get under way in the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four others.
Mohammed, who has been held since 2006, is facing charges related to the 9/11 attacks.
Pentagon officials said all court events at Guantanamo were canceled because of the potential hurricane. All detainees have been moved to buildings that can withstand such a storm, and those who flew in for the hearing went back home.
Officials in the Dominican Republic issued a tropical storm warning for the nation's southern coast.
Isaac's impact will be felt in several areas:
Bahamas
The government has issued a tropical storm warning for the southeastern Bahamas, including Long Cay. Tropical storm conditions are expected by late Friday.
Cuba
The storm is projected to near Cuba on Friday night. The Cuban government has issued a tropical storm watch for the provinces of Camaguey, Granma, Guantanamo, Holguin, Las Tunas and Santiago de Cuba.
Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands
The storm was passing south of the islands Thursday, and there were tropical storm conditions forecast through Thursday evening. The forecast called for 2 to 4 inches of rain and as much as 6 inches at higher elevations. The storm surge was expected to be 1 to 3 feet higher than normal but gradually subside during the night. Dangerous surf and rip currents will affect waters there for the next few days.
Turks and Caicos
A tropical storm warning is in effect, and tropical storm conditions are expected by late Friday.
United States
Outer bands of the storm could reach Florida by Sunday. But the eye of the storm could make landfall anywhere from Galveston, Texas, to the Carolinas, CNN Meteorologist Chad Myers said. The five-day projection from the hurricane center puts the storm approaching U.S. landfall on the Florida peninsula Tuesday.
Bracing for Isaac? Share your images with CNN iReport, but stay safe. ||||| Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands braced for torrential rains on Thursday as Tropical Storm Isaac whipped up waves as high as 10 feet (3 meters) in the Caribbean and threatened to become a hurricane that could take a shot at Florida just as Republicans gather for their national convention.
Dr. Lixion Avila, senior hurricane specialist, foreground, updates Dr. Rick Knabb, director of the National Hurricane Center, on other developing tropical storms Wednesday, Aug. 22, 2012, at the National... (Associated Press)
This NOAA satellite image taken Thursday, Aug. 23, 2012 at 1:45 a.m. EDT shows Tropical Storm Isaac spinning over the eastern Caribbean Sea. The system is now about 265 miles southeast of San Juan, Puerto... (Associated Press)
Map locates Tropical Storm Isaac and its projected path for the next five days (Associated Press)
Some flooding was reported in eastern and southern regions of Puerto Rico as the storm approached.
U.S. forecasters said Isaac will likely turn into a Category 1 hurricane by Friday as it nears the Dominican Republic and Haiti. It was expected to weaken a little while heading over their island and Cuba.
The storm was projected to head toward Florida as a hurricane by Monday, but the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said some forecast models show it could go further west into the Gulf of Mexico, so "significant uncertainty remains about the threat Isaac poses to Florida."
Isaac was centered 200 miles (320) kilometers south-southeast of Puerto Rico late Thursday morning, with maximum sustained winds of 40 mph (65 kph). It was moving west at 15 mph (24 kph) according to the Hurricane Center.
The system has slowed down, and as a result, the island will see more rain, said Ernesto Morales, forecaster with the National Weather Service in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
"This is not the moment to become complacent," he said.
The U.S. territory has opened 428 shelters, and 50 people have taken refuge, said Gov. Luis Fortuno. Some 4,000 people were without power and more than 3,000 without water.
Schools and government offices remained closed Thursday, but the governor said it was safe for people to go to work if they needed to. However, he warned everyone to stay away from beaches and swollen rivers.
"It's not the day to participate in recreational activities in these areas," Fortuno said.
While Isaac itself has caused on reported injuries or deaths, police in Puerto Rico say a 75-year-old woman died near the capital of San Juan on Wednesday when she fell off a second-floor balcony while filling a drum with water in preparation for the storm.
Puerto Rico's main international airport remained open, but Cape Air and American Eagle cancelled all their flights Thursday, Fortuno said. Ferry service to the tourist islands of Vieques and Culebra also was temporarily suspended.
In Vieques, one of the owners of Bananas Guesthouse said his brother had called from Florida and suggested he tell reporters "there are mudslides and cows flying through the air. But in fact, there's a breeze going by," Glenn Curry said. "We've had a little bit of rain. Nothing much has happened so far ... Overnight it didn't even blow enough to wake me up."
In the U.S. Virgin Islands town of Christiansted, streets lined with historic buildings of Danish architecture, were largely deserted. All but a small handful of businesses and government offices were closed. Hurricane shutters covered the entrances to most buildings and sandbags were stacked in anticipation of potential floods and storm surge.
Two shelters were open on the island, and 10 people were housed overnight, according to Elton Lewis, director of the Virgin Islands Territorial Emergency Management Agency.
In St. Croix, the owners of Turtle's, a seaside restaurant, were baking bread for sandwiches, selling coffee and snacks to the few passersby and fielding calls from people about the weather.
"Yes, we're open," Mary Scribner said cheerily. "No, it's not raining!"
The Scribners pulled out sandbags in case the predicted storm surge or flooding impacted their business, but by mid-morning, the sandbags sat in a pile in the corner.
"We didn't see this as a big deal," Bob Scribner said. "Moderate rain and wind."
The storm already forced military authorities at the U.S. base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to cancel pretrial hearings for five prisoners charged in the Sept. 11 attacks. They also planned to evacuate about 200 people, including legal teams and relatives of Sept. 11 victims.
Isaac also posed a threat to next week's Republican National Convention in Tampa, where officials said they were ready to take emergency measures even as 70,000 delegates, journalists and protesters descend on the city.
"Public safety will always trump politics," Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn said. "And so my job, and our job, if we move into that mode, is to make sure we get people out of harm's way."
In St. Kitts, the government said all businesses and schools were open after Isaac passed through late Wednesday.
In Dominica, the government said no damage or injuries were reported. The airport and seaports have reopened and things are back to normal, said Benoit Bardouille, CEO of the island's Air & Seaport Authority.
However, Disaster Coordinator Don Coriette warned that heavy rains would persist through Friday.
"Dominica has been spared the full brunt of Tropical Storm Isaac," he said. "We want to thank the almighty God for that."
Meanwhile, another tropical storm, Joyce, formed over the open water of the eastern Atlantic. Forecasters said it does not pose an immediate threat to land. The Hurricane Center in Miami said Thursday the storm has maximum sustained winds of 40 miles per hour (65 kph). Little change in strength was expected in the next 48 hours.
___
Associated Press reporters Jason Bronis in Frederiksted, St. Croix; Carlisle Jno Baptiste in Roseau, Dominica; Clive Bacchus in Basseterre, St. Kitts; and Tamara Lush in Tampa contributed to this report. | – Tropical Storm Isaac still has the potential to foul up Republicans' convention plans in Florida, but relief agencies are more worried about Haiti at the moment. Isaac is expected to be at hurricane strength when it rolls in tomorrow night—the first major storm to hit since the 2010 earthquake, reports CNN. Especially vulnerable are the more than 400,000 people still living in refugee camps around Port-au-Prince. The storm should hit Tampa on Monday, though the Tampa Bay Times reports that the latest computer models show it tracking further west of Florida, which would lessen the impact. Forecasters will know more as they watch Isaac's path and strength over the next few days. Puerto Rico is already getting torrential rains, and Isaac will then hit the Dominican Republican and Haiti, before heading toward Cuba and the US, reports the AP. |
Oklahoma City Girl Scout Katie Francis has achieved her goal of breaking the national record for cookie sales — and she’s getting national attention for it.
In February, the Hefner Middle School sixth-grader set her sights on breaking the national record after smashing the state record for Girl Scout cookies sales two years in a row.
Katie’s mother, DeLee Francis, confirmed for The Oklahoman on Monday that the 12-year-old has exceeded her record-breaking goal of selling 18,100 boxes of cookies. As of Sunday night, Katie had sold 18,107 boxes of the tasty treats, her mom said.
In honor of her record-breaking feat, the intrepid Cadette is scheduled to be featured on NBC’s “Today” show Tuesday, according to a producer. “Today” airs from 7 to 11 a.m. weekdays on KFOR-TV in Oklahoma City.
The girl also was to be featured Monday on ABC’s “World News Tonight.” Both shows contacted The Oklahoman seeking permission to use photographs Director of Photography Doug Hoke took of Katie in February.
Since cookie sales were extended for a week because of wintry weather, Francis said her daughter isn’t done with the delicious annual fundraiser. Katie has set a new goal of 20,000 boxes and plans to keep selling to the new final day of cookie sales, which is March 30. ||||| “There's three ingredients to selling cookies: There's lot of time, lots of commitment, and I have to ask everybody that I see (to buy),” says the self-described “Girl Scout Cookie Entrepreneur.”
When it comes to racking up record-setting sales, Katie Francis is one smart cookie.
“I'm good at what I do. Cookie selling is just so much fun to me.”
After breaking the state record for Girl Scout cookies sales the past two years, the Hefner Middle School sixth-grader is setting her sights even higher: She wants to break the national record.
If a goal of selling 18,100 boxes of cookies in less than two months sounds like the 11-year-old is biting off more than she can chew, Girls Scouts Western Oklahoma CEO Shannon Evers has no doubt the intrepid Cadette will make it.
“Katie is a stellar Girl Scout. She embodies everything that we teach in Girl Scouting and through the Girl Scout cookie sale program,” Evers said.
“We figured out last year … that over $40,000 went through her hands in a six-week period. And just for a kid her age to have that experience, you know, she's running her own business.”
More than just crumbs
Girl Scout cookie sales officially begin Friday, and troops can start booth sales Feb. 21. Continuing through March 23, sales of the tasty treats amount to more than just cookie crumbles.
“A lot of people don't realize it's an almost $800 million business nationwide,” Evers said. “Not every girl is Katie Francis … but when they join Girl Scouts, they want to participate in the cookie sale.”
After Little Brownie Bakers gets paid, the cookie cash stays local. A portion covers sales incentives such as camp opportunities and tablet computers. The council gets part to fund its operations, including camps, volunteer training and financial assistance for children who can't otherwise afford Girl Scouts. And the troops get a cut of the cookie, too.
“In Girl Scouting everything is girl-led, so the girls decide together how they want to spend the money,” Evers said.
In 2012, Katie's Troop No. 3469 took a cruise to Mexico and donated 54 backpacks of school supplies to an orphanage in Cozumel, said DeLee Francis, Katie's mom and the troop's co-leader and “cookie mom.” Last year, they donated and volunteered with the Noble-based WildCare Foundation, and this year, they plan to give to breast cancer research.
“She's motivated a lot of other people in the troop to sell big numbers as well,” DeLee Francis said. The troop's goal exceeds 30,000 boxes.
The cookie program is meant to teach five essential life skills: goal setting, decision making, money management, people skills and business ethics.
Sweet experiences
A popular children's book ponders all the things that could happen “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie.” If you give Katie an opportunity, she'll sell cookies — lots of them. | – An Oklahoma City girl who says she asks everyone she meets to buy Girl Scout cookies has broken the organization's decades-old sales record by a margin about the size of a Thin Mint. Katie Francis sold 18,107 boxes in the seven-week sales period that ended Sunday night. The previous mark was set by Elizabeth Brinton, who sold approximately 18,000 one year in the 1980s. The sixth-grade student, who sold 12,428 boxes last year, told the Oklahoman last month that there were only three ingredients needed to rack up large sales: a lot of time, a lot of commitment, and asking everyone she met to buy. Her troop receives a share of the proceeds from the fundraiser and intends to donate to breast cancer research. The Oklahoman adds that this year's cookie-sale deadline was actually extended one week to March 30 due to winter weather; Katie hopes to reach the 20,000-box mark by then. |
Article Excerpt
MOSCOW—Addressing Russians' fears of a new wave of terror attacks, President Dmitry Medvedev made a surprise visit to Dagestan, where suicide bombers killed 12 Wednesday, and called for "crueler" measures against terrorists.
Investigators have identified suspects in Wednesday's bombings in Dagestan as well as the two suicide strikes that killed 39 in Moscow's subway on Monday, Federal Security Service Chief Alexander Bortnikov told officials at the meeting. He said evidence confirmed the attacks were linked to terrorist groups in the North Caucasus.
Mr. Medvedev adopted not only the tough talk of his patron and predecessor, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, but ... ||||| MAKHACHKALA, Russia — President Dmitry Medvedev made a surprise visit Thursday to the violence-wracked southern province of Dagestan, telling police and security forces to use tougher, "more cruel" measures to fight the "scum" responsible for terrorist attacks.
In his dress — a black T-shirt under a black suit coat — and rough language, Medvedev was following the lead of Russia's powerful prime minister, Vladimir Putin.
Twin suicide bombings this week in Moscow — which Islamic militants from the North Caucasus claim to have carried out — has refocused attention on the violence that for years has been confined to the predominantly Muslim republics in Russia's southern corner.
An explosion Thursday morning killed two suspected militants and wounded a third in Dagestan near the border with Chechnya. Police said the men may have been transporting a makeshift bomb. The day before, two suicide bombings in Dagestan killed 12 people, including nine policemen, a frequent target of attacks because they represent Russian authority.
The suicide bombings on the Moscow subway killed 39 people on Monday and have left nearly 90 hospitalized.
'Bandits' identified as bomb masterminds
Federal Security Service director Alexander Bortnikov said the organizers of the Moscow attacks have been identified as "bandits" from the Northern Caucasus, and some have been detained.
"We know the personalities of organizers," he said in televised remarks. "We have detained a number of people, conducted interrogations, got evidence."
Medvedev said much more needed to be done to stop the attacks.
"The measures to fight terrorism should be expanded, they should be more effective, more harsh, more cruel," he said during a televised meeting with local officials.
In recent months, police and security forces have killed at least two high-profile Islamic militants, but they have been unable to capture the veteran Chechen militant Doku Umarov, who has claimed responsibility for the Moscow subway attacks.
"We have torn of the heads of the most notorious bandits, but clearly this was not enough. In any case, we will find them all and punish them," Medvedev said. | – Russian President Dmitry Medvedev yesterday told security forces to use "harsher, crueler" tactics to fight the "scum" responsible for terrorist attacks. The comments, made during a surprise visit to Dagestan, where suicide bombers killed 12 Wednesday, evoked his ally Vladimir Putin's tough talk on terror, notes the Wall Street Journal. The attack has been linked to separatists in the North Caucasus. Russian forces have killed two high-profile militants recently, but key figures, like Chechen militant Doku Umarov, remain at large, reports the AP. "We have torn off the heads of the most odious bandits, but clearly this was not enough," Medvedev said. "In any case, we will find them all and punish them." |
Perhaps it’s simpler to say what you won’t see in Avengers: Infinity War. This is a movie, after all, that features large-scale battles on multiple planets, no less than 25 recognizable costumed characters, three strapping golden-haired actors with the first name Chris, a few stolen kisses, a trail of tears and one whaaa? cliffhanger. It’s all there, save for banter between Spider-Man and Star-Lord about Kevin Bacon’s dancing in Footloose. Wait, nevermind. You can check off that box too! Scariest Horror Movie Villains of All Time Welcome to the ultimate superhero extravaganza. The culmination of a decade’s worth of Marvel Comic Universe films, Avengers: Infinity War is a massively ambitious, thrilling, satisfying, rock ’em sock ’em epic crowd-pleaser to the highest degree. It’s not the best MCU movie ever, not by a long shot. And thanks to Black Panther, it’s not even the best MCU movie of the first half of 2018. (For starters, Part 1 of a two-parter inevitably lacks closure). Still, what co-directors Joe and Anthony Russo have accomplished on the screen is astounding. All the fireworks of summer movie season have been crammed into April.
Spoiler: This is a spoiler-free review. I won’t even lean heavily on a storyline description, except to note that it’s blessedly streamlined and easy to follow. All you need to know going in is that the Avengers are still splintered in the wake of 2016’s Captain America: Civil War. Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark/Iron Man remains hesitant about calling Chris Evans’ Steve Rogers/Captain America for help etc. etc.. Also, remember all those much-coveted Infinity Stones? The gems each represent a source of power: Mind, Soul, Time, Reality, Power and Space.
A Godzilla-sized alien named Thanos (Josh Brolin), the last survivor of his planet, is determined to collect them all so he can harness this all-encompassing power. His goal: Destroy half the universe’s population with the snap of his fingers. He already has one when the action starts. He’ll have another before the Avengers: Infinity War title card even pops up on the screen. The action is that breakneck. His deadly scavenger hunt serves as the catalyst for all your favorite superheroes to meet each other, form alliances and attempt to stop him.
The greatest source of joy stems from these mix-and-match interactions. Moviegoers that have followed the MCU since Iron Man in 2008 will no doubt geek out over Iron Man bickering with Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) and Star-Lord (Chris Pratt). Peter Parker/Spider-Man (Tom Holland) still idolizes and annoys Stark. There was a big round of applause in the theater when Captain America brought some of his cohorts to Wakanda to enlist Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman) and his partners in heroism (hey, Lupita Nyong’o!). The dialogue during the getting-to-know-you scenes are chock full of clever one-liners, highlighted by Thor (Chris Hemsworth) verbally sparring with the Guardians of the Galaxy crew. By 2025, I do hope the Russo brothers have figured out a way to spin-off a buddy comedy between Thor and wisecracking Rocket Raccoon (voiced by Bradley Cooper).
Unlike its D.C. Comics counterpart, Marvel has perfected the comedy-to-action ratio. And no doubt the crackling humor helps make the big heavy set pieces more palatable. There is galaxy’s worth of ground to cover in this 2 ½-hour-long movie, with the superheroes going to war everywhere from New York City to Scotland to Wakanda to a dank, grey planet called Knowhere. The world tour may be catnip those who want their money’s worth of CGI aliens and explosions; I thought the action needed a tranquilizer. You will miss the quieter — and literally down-to-Earth — moments that helped entries such as Black Panther and Spider-Man: Homecoming so enjoyable. There’s scant time here to process the story, the punchlines or the crying. And I assure you Zoe Saldana (Gamora) is an Olympian crier.
I promise I haven’t revealed anything. I couldn’t even if I wanted to! Though the upcoming Avengers movie is no longer titled Infinity War: Part II (they were filmed back-to-back), this installment can’t realistically be considered as a complete, well-rounded film. And this Part 1, like many before it, suffers because of it. That’s why nothing seems 100 percent decided and final, no matter how dramatic it plays out on the screen. I do wonder how audiences will respond to the end, but that’s a future fun debate for social media. ||||| Avengers Infinity War isn’t really anything you could call a movie—it’s more of a fulfillment center. All of the most well-loved Marvel comic-book characters are here, and something huge is going to happen. That something huge is set in motion in the first scene, which isn’t really a beginning, but more of a middle or an end with a new piece of yarn attached. You need to have seen and internalized every one of the previous 18 Marvel Cinematic Universe movies to fully get it, but the gist is this: The ambitious evildoer Thanos (Josh Brolin, in the form of a giant dude with a pronounced, corrugated chin, like the cow catcher on an old railway engine) seeks to acquire all six of the most powerful tokens in the universe, little glowing rocks that will give him the ability to do anything to anybody anywhere. They’re called the Infinity Stones, and each controls a very important thing in the grand scheme of things: Space, Mind, Reality, Power, Soul, Time and the Missing Sock. OK, I made that last one up, but you get the idea.
Thanos has a big glove with a little setting for each gem; his goal is to collect ’em all. As the movie opens, he demands that skinny Norse mischief maker Loki (played by the always awesome Tom Hiddleston) hand over the stone currently in his possession. (Loki has been hoarding one or the other of the things for years.) Loki holds out until Thanos comes desperately close to killing Loki’s brother, Thor (Chris Hemsworth), who, as you know if you’ve seen Thor: Ragnarok, now has only one eye. Long story short—this part of it, at least—Loki gives in and Thanos gets another stone for his jeweled glove. Though if you’re thinking that glove sounds like something Diana Ross would wear in Mahogany, you’re bound to be disappointed: It’s a big, jointed gauntletty thing, more like something you’d wear for intergalactic gardening than for swanning around looking fabulous.
Anyway, for Thanos to get all the stones in his glove would be a very bad thing, and the Avengers, who have broken up but not really, must fight him to make sure that doesn’t happen. The list of Avengers who show up in Avengers: Infinity War, includes, but is not limited to, Iron Man/Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.), Peter Parker/Spider-Man (Tom Holland), Steve Rogers/Captain America (Chris Evans), Dr. Steven Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) and Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson). A few are missing because they had to stay home with the kids, but basically, it’s all of them. Faves from Guardians of the Galaxy pop up too: Peter Quill/Star Lord (Chris Pratt), Rocket the Raccoon (voiced by Bradley Cooper) and Gamora (Zoe Saldana). Everybody in Avengers: Infinity War has at least a little something to do, and some have more to do than others. Thankfully, Saldana is one of the latter: Her Gamora, with that radiant green face, gets some of the movie’s best faux-Shakespearian moments. Saldana makes them seem almost not faux.
Sorry to be so vague about everything, but Marvel Studios has released an impassioned entreaty to critics: “19 films, 10 years of Marvel Studios, and thousands of hours of work by thousands of people have all lead [sic] up to this moment. Out of respect to them, and to everyone else who is still out there, patiently waiting to see what’s in store for our Heroes, we ask that you help us keep the secrets of our universe for the rest of this universe.” The studio has a point: Movies are personal things, and the joy of them unfolds in the watching. And so I will be compliantly unspecific in telling you, in what I hope is only a vaguely descriptive way, that the movie features lots of Avengers-vs.-Thanos clashes, complete with elaborate, if belabored, CGI effects. The most ambitious of these is a Henry V-style battle set in Wakanda, the home territory of T’Challa/Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman), where part of the story partially takes place.
Yet overall, Avengers: Infinity War—directed by Anthony Russo and Joe Russo and written by a team of about 26 writers (or so it seems)—is so different from Black Panther that it may as well inhabit a whole other universe. You didn’t need an encyclopedic knowledge of all things Marvel to respond to the story, and to the characters, of Black Panther. Its visual beauty came largely from faces, from costumes, from human movement. In making the film, director Ryan Coogler clearly had to obey all sorts of Marvel Universe-movie dictums, but he still managed to tell a story with some semblance of grace.
There’s no pacing in Avengers: Infinity War. It’s all sensation and no pulse. Everything is big, all of the time. Tucked amid the story’s numerous operatic sacrifices—barely a moment goes by when a character doesn’t almost die, or actually die, or temporarily die—there are jokes folded in, lots of them: Muttered gags having to do with Ben and Jerry’s flavors, jaunty references to the fact that two Marvel heroes are actually insects, knowing asides uttered by wisecracking raccoons. The Marvel Universe is not all serious infinity stones and stuff. It also wants us to laugh—but it will decide when it’s OK to poke fun, not you. It’s impossible to just relax into the zaniness of a Marvel movie—they’re never gloriously, inclusively, intergalactically loopy, like, say, a Sun Ra performance. Even when you’re supposed to be having fun, you’re really following a very strict set of rules.
That said, there’s potential poetry buried deep in Avengers: Infinity War. But it’s not a sturdy enough crocus to push through the movie’s ironclad surface. There is at least one truly poignant idea here: Thanos’ goal of destroying half the universe is much worse than pulverizing the whole thing, because those who remain will remember the world as it was—and they’ll be left to mourn those who are gone. The movie’s climax scratches at something close to melancholic grandeur, featuring a visual effect that’s Biblical in both its force and its delicacy. But it’s way too little too late. Avengers: Infinity War knows what a big deal it is. Just about all the Avengers together, in one two-hour-and-forty-minute movie, battling the most power-mad villain there ever was: Wow! Better not blow this one. And so the movie treats audience expectations like a set of ice-cube trays to be filled, and in the end, you have to admit it’s very thorough. That’s not the nicest thing you can say about it; it’s the most damning. ||||| 'Avengers: Infinity War': Film Review
Marvel's biggest, most star-studded film yet brings together characters from all of its franchises, including 'Guardians of the Galaxy' and 'Black Panther.'
“We're in the endgame now,” Benedict Cumberbatch's Doctor Strange intones in the final stretch of the indisputably epic Avengers: Infinity War — and, more than in any other comics-derived superhero concoction one could mention, there's a whiff of something resembling tragedy in a franchise that, for millions of fans, seems to play a role similar to what mythology did for the Greeks.
This grand, bursting-at-the-seams wrap-up to one crowded realm of the Marvel superhero universe starts out as three parts jokes, two parts dramatic juggling act and one part deterministic action, an equation that's been completely reversed by the time of the film's startling climax. "Huge" is the operative word here — for budget, scope and size of the global audience.
Back in Hollywood's big studio heyday, the grandest company of them all, MGM, boasted of having “more stars than there are in heaven.” Marvel could arguably make that argument today, and it's crammed almost all of them into this one densely packed superhero orgy, the first half of which is basically dedicated to finding a semi-coherent way of shuffling them into the same dramatic deck. How are ultra-egotists like Dr. Strange, Robert Downey Jr.'s Iron Man, Chris Hemsworth's Thor, Chris Evans' Steve Rogers, Tom Holland's Spider-Man and even Chadwick Boseman's more even-keeled Black Panther going to like having to share the heroic spotlight with one another, while also allowing some derring-do and dazzling deeds to be performed by at least another dozen characters with unusual talents?
The sharp-witted answer delivered by writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely and directors Anthony and Joe Russo, under the supervision of Marvel Films maestro Kevin Feige, is to acknowledge the traffic jam of egos and play it for laughs. The effect is both scatter-shot and precise, knowing and witty enough to be initially disarming and ultimately ingratiating. With more limited screen time than they're used to and even more limited elbow room, the actors and characters (in what at least some knew would be their swan songs in these costumes) snap off one-liners and sharp remarks with an extra edge of sarcastic disdain. They don't exactly send up their heroic characters, but there is more of a subtle commentary underneath it all (not so subtle in the case of Mark Ruffalo's and Evans' roles) about the frustrations of having two different personas in life.
Even early on, however, one makes note of tragic forebodings that Dr. Strange articulates. For all the activity generated by the superheroes, the fellow driving the action here is the heretofore glimpsed but never central Thanos (Josh Brolin), a brooding tree trunk of a man whose stated goal is to achieve universal dominance by acquiring all six Infinity Stones. Each of these variously colored gems confers distinct powers. As he acquires them, he becomes increasingly unbeatable, but along with his determination and brute force he brings a philosophical intelligence.
Thanos has thoroughly thought through his ambition, as well as the moral and emotional toll it will take to achieve it, and Brolin's calm, considered reading of the character bestows this conquering beast with an unexpectedly resonant emotional dimension, making him much more than a thick stick figure of a supervillain.
The imposing and unquestionable danger Thanos represents, and the way it increases exponentially with each stone he acquires, becomes quite serious after a while. So what begins as a lark — with the vast assortment of comic book characters trotting out their costumes; middle-aged Bruce Banner humorously being so out of practice that he can no longer transform himself into the Hulk; Tony Stark bantering once again with Gwyneth Paltrow's Pepper Potts; Holland's Peter Parker looking so childish even he seems to wonder what he's doing in this company; Dave Bautista stealing every scene he's in; Scarlett Johansson and Don Cheadle being given absolutely nothing fresh or original to do; Evans trying to leave his Captain America persona behind him — transforms into something genuinely threatening and grim, something, in fact, that has to be taken seriously: the prospect that evil can win.
With so many ingredients to stir into this overflowing pot, you have to hand it to the two experienced teams of Marvel collaborators who had a feel for how to pull this magnum opus off. Markus and McFeely wrote all three Captain America entries and have a deft, jokey, sometimes glib touch that spreads the humor around and prevents this long film from ever getting stodgy. The Brothers Russo directed the last two Captain America features and have a breezy approach that prevents the action here from sagging in any serious way.
And the scale of that action is astonishing. Some of it is set in space or in different realms, while other scenes take place in New York and elsewhere on Earth. When the intergalactic conflict winds up in Wakanda, Black Panther's African homeland, it provides a bit of a start: Wait, we were just there a few months ago, and here we are again already for another giant battle?
Another major dramatic thread concerns the hitherto secondary figure of Vision (Paul Bettany), who crucially possesses the final stone sought by Thanos and hies to Scotland with Elizabeth Olsen's Wanda Maximoff/Scarlet Witch before being tracked down.
But, after Thanos, the most significant figure of all, and the character who lends the tale much of its ultimately tragic stature, is Zoe Saldana's Gamora, Thanos' adopted daughter. This relationship and story strain emerges from the distant background to play a decisive role both in the plot and the work's ultimate thematic resonance, and the way it plays out is highly dramatic, upsetting and inevitable. By the time Thanos and Gamora's relationship truly comes into focus, the film has rather remarkably shifted from a mood of larky fun to one of classical tragedy, not an inconsiderable feat in a comic book-derived entertainment.
Without giving anything away, the climax is startling in its gravity, and no Marvel fan will leave before the long final credits scroll gives way to the traditional kicker tease at the very end, which amplifies the ending by serving up even more questions, not answers. This will achieve the desired result of making millions of fans debate what it all means until the next installment. All we know for sure is that just one identified character will return.
No question about it, barely two months after the release of Black Panther, Marvel (and Disney, of course) has returned with another of the most expensive films ever made that will pull off another of the biggest commercial hauls of all time. This franchise isn't going away anytime soon.
Production company: Marvel Studios
Distributor: Disney
Cast: Robert Downey Jr., Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Don Cheadle, Benedict Cumberbatch, Tom Holland, Chadwick Boseman, Zoe Saldana, Karen Gillan, Tom Middleston, Paul Bettany, Elizabeth Olsen, Anthony Mackie, Sebastian Stan, Idris Elba, Danai Gurira, Peter Dinklage, Benedict Wong, Pom Klementieff, Dave Bautista, Vin Diesel, Bradley Cooper, Gwyneth Paltrow, Benicio Del Toro, Josh Brolin, Chris Pratt, William Hurt
Directors: Anthony Russo, Joe Russo
Screenwriters: Christopher Markus, Stephen McFeely, based on the Marvel comics by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby
Producer: Kevin Feige
Executive producers: Louis D'Esposito, Victoria Alonso, Michael Grillo, Trihn Tran, Jon Favreau, James Gunn, Stan Lee
Director of photography: Trent Opaloch
Production designer: Charles Wood
Costume designer: Judianna Makovsky
Editors: Jeffrey Ford, Matthew Schmidt
Music: Alan Silvestri
Visual effects supervisor: Dan DeLeeuw
Casting: Sarah Finn
Rated PG-13, 149 minutes ||||| ‘Avengers: Infinity War’ unites Stark and Star-Lord in a massive Marvel mashup
“There’s an Ant-Man AND a Spider-Man?” – One of the many chuckle-inducing moments in “Avengers: Infinity War” in which even the characters are having trouble keeping track of all the characters.
Before you settle in for the massively enjoyable and just plain massive candy-colored thrill ride adventure that is “Avengers: Infinity War,” keep in mind this is Part One of a two-part adventure.
So don’t expect anything approaching a resolution in this, the 19th film in the Marvel Universe.
Not that we’re ever going to see Full Marvel Closure in our lifetimes. There’s always another story to tell, another adventure to be had, another character to take center stage, as we’re reminded in the teaser scene(s) that pop up after the obligatory 10-minute end credits crawl.
“Infinity War” might be the biggest and most ambitious Marvel movie yet, but it’s certainly not the best. (I’d put it somewhere in the bottom half of the Top 10.) However, there’s plenty of action, humor and heart — and some genuinely effective dramatic moments in which familiar and beloved characters experience real, seemingly irreversible losses.
One of the elements setting “Infinity War” apart from far too many superhero movies is the introduction of a villain who’s more than just another fire-breathing, multi-tongued monster-god hell-bent on destroying everything in its way while mouthing platitudes through some kind of filter that makes him sound like he watched “Star Wars” a thousand times and was always rooting for Darth Vader.
To be sure, the gigantic, all-powerful, merciless Thanos (voiced and performed by Josh Brolin in perhaps the film’s most interesting performance) is a genocidal maniac who DOES want control of all living things — but according to his twisted and demented and damaged mindset, if he can arbitrarily remove half the population through a snap of his mighty fingers, he’ll actually be saving the universe by thinning out the population to a manageable number.
“The universe is in need of a correction,” is the way Thanos puts it.
Also, Thanos is actually capable of love — and of making a heartbreaking sacrifice in the name of what he believes to be a greater good. Rarely has the seemingly unstoppable evil force in a comic-book superhero film been given such a richly dramatic background and so many scenes in which there’s actual dialogue and not just CGI-laden battle sequences.
In order to carry out a plan that will eliminate trillions of lives from the galaxies, Thanos needs to obtain all six of the brightly colored Infinity Stones, which are scattered among the planets. (Each time Thanos gains control of a stone, he drops it into place on the fingers of his enormous glove. That’s right: Thanos is bedazzling the heck out of that big armor glove thingy.)
When Mark Ruffalo’s Bruce Banner/Hulk (last seen in “Thor: Ragnorak”) returns to Earth after an extended absence to warn his fellow Avengers of the coming storm, Tony Stark tells him they’ve broken up and aren’t even in touch any more.
“Broken up?” says the baffled Banner. “Like a group? Like the Beatles?”
Yes, Bruce. Like the Beatles.
Once the severity of the crisis is evident, most of the feuds and squabbles and self-interests are set aside, with Steve Rogers (Chris Evans), Spider-Man (Tom Holland), Thor (Chris Hemsworth) and Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), among others, teaming up to save not only the world, but the universe.
“Infinity War” kicks into a particularly exhilarating gear when the action shifts to Wakanda, where Chadwick Boseman’s Black Panther gathers his armies and joins the fight; the genius Dr. Bruce Banner is stunned by the amazing mind of Shuri, and the great warrior Okoye (Danai Gurira) gets one look at the powers of the Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) in battle and exclaims, “What was she doing [back in the lab] all this time”!
Ah, but of course this is more than a mere Avengers All-Star movie, as we also have the very welcome presence of the Guardians of the Galaxy, who provide most of the comic relief (along with a few moving dramatic touches). When the mighty and stunningly handsome Thor literally crash-lands on the windshield of their ship, Drax (the always likable Dave Bautista Jr.) marvels at this god: “It’s as if an angel and a pirate had a baby,” as Gamora literally massages Thor’s muscles, apparently in an attempt to revive him, while Star-Lord (Chris Pratt) stews.
Thor takes a liking to Rocket (Bradley Cooper), whom he calls “The Rabbit,” and he innocently calls the rest of the Guardians “morons” because he thinks that’s what they call themselves.
Oh geez, and we’ve yet to mention the presence of the fantastic Benedict Cumberbatch as Dr. Strange, Sebastian Stan as the un-brainwashed White Wolf, Tom Hiddleston’s ever-duplicitous Loki, Idris Elba’s Heimdall, Benicio del Toro’s The Collector and Peter Dinklage in a role sure to delight anyone who loves Peter Dinklage, and who in the world doesn’t love Peter Dinklage?
At times it’s nearly impossible to keep track of all the Guardians and Avengers who are banding together on Earth and on far-flung planets such as Knowhere and Titan. “Infinity War” has just enough self-awareness without becoming too jokey or winking at the audience. When Spider-Man rescues a number of the Guardians and says, “I got you, I got you, I got you! I’m sorry I haven’t learned everyone’s names!,” it’s just the right light comedic touch at just the right moment.
The final moments of “Infinity War” are haunting and impactful and mysterious, taking us to a nearly hopeless place but of course leaving the door open for a bigger and possibly even more ambitious second chapter.
And yes, you should stick around for the end credits, and a hint of what’s to come.
★★★ 1⁄2
Marvel Studios presents a film directed by Anthony and Joe Russo and written by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely. Rated PG-13 (for intense sequences of sci-fi violence and action throughout, language and some crude references). Running time: 156 minutes. Opens Friday at local theaters. | – Your favorite Marvel superheroes from Black Panther to Spiderman rally against a villain hoping to destroy half the universe in Avengers: Infinity War, the lengthy (2 hours, 40 minutes) third installment in the series slated to wrap up next year. Setting the stage for an epic conclusion, the film directed by brothers Joe and Anthony Russo is pretty well received with a 85% rating from critics on Rotten Tomatoes. What they're saying: "Welcome to the ultimate superhero extravaganza," Mara Reinstein writes at US Weekly, calling Avengers: Infinity War "a massively ambitious, thrilling, satisfying, rock 'em sock 'em epic crowd-pleaser to the highest degree." She found the most joy in scenes in which superheroes get acquainted. They're "chock full of clever one-liners," she says. Richard Roeper ranks the film "somewhere in the bottom half of the Top 10" of Marvel's 19 superhero pictures, despite it being "the biggest and most ambitious Marvel movie yet." That doesn't mean it's not worth seeing. "There's plenty of action, humor and heart," he writes at the Chicago Sun-Times, noting the film "kicks into a particularly exhilarating gear when the action shifts to Wakanda." Stephanie Zacharek thinks the film tries to do too much. It's "more of a fulfillment center" than a movie. As a result, "there's no pacing … It's all sensation and no pulse," she writes at Time. "The movie's climax scratches at something close to melancholic grandeur," she continues. "But it's way too little too late." Todd McCarthy disagrees. "The climax is startling in its gravity" and an after-credits teaser "amplifies the ending by serving up even more questions," he writes at the Hollywood Reporter. He was also impressed with Josh Brolin's performance in this "densely packed superhero orgy." He gives villain Thanos "an unexpectedly resonant emotional dimension, making him much more than a thick stick figure of a supervillain." |
(CNN) Jason Spencer, a Georgia state lawmaker who dropped his trousers and repeatedly used the "n-word" on an episode of the Showtime series "Who Is America?" on Sunday night, has announced his resignation.
His resignation will take effect on July 31, according to a letter he submitted to Georgia House Speaker David Ralston.
Spencer, a Republican who represents the community of Woodbine in southeast Georgia, appeared in a segment in which the show's star, Sacha Baron Cohen, played a character named Col. Erran Morad.
Spencer was pranked into believing the comedian was an Israeli anti-terrorism expert who was able to convince the legislator that a series of racist acts would protect him against terrorists.
They first discussed Spencer's support of a burqa ban.
Spencer told Cohen's character, "I don't call it a burqa ban, I call it an anti-masking statute."
From there, Cohen engaged in a series of supposed anti-terrorism exercises that included telling Spencer to yell as a way of attracting attention during an ISIS kidnapping attempt.
"In America there is one forbidden word," Cohen said. "It is the 'n-word.'"
After Spencer yelled the racial slur, Cohen responded "Are you crazy? The 'n-word' is noonie! Not this word. This word is disgusting."
"Got it," Spencer said.
Cohen also got Spencer to imitate an Asian accent in an exercise that had him pretending to be an Asian tourist in an attempt to take a photo under a person's burqa and to drop his trousers "to use your buttocks to intimidate ISIS."
Ralston called Spencer's actions and language "reprehensible" in a statement provided to CNN, and called for him to resign, saying: "Georgia is better than this."
The actions and language used by Jason Spencer are appalling and offensive. There is no excuse for this type of behavior, ever, and I am saddened and disgusted by it. — Governor Nathan Deal (@GovernorDeal) July 23, 2018
Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal tweeted about Spencer's actions on Monday.
"The actions and language used by Jason Spencer are appalling and offensive," Deal tweeted. "There is no excuse for this type of behavior, ever, and I am saddened and disgusted by it."
JUST WATCHED Did Sacha Baron Cohen punk Dick Cheney? Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Did Sacha Baron Cohen punk Dick Cheney? 02:12
Spencer has not returned calls from CNN, but told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution the Showtime series got him to participate by taking advantage of his fears that he or his family would be attacked -- fears sparked by death threats he says he received after he proposed legislation barring Muslim women from wearing burqas in public.
"In posing as an Israeli agent, (Cohen) pretended to offer self-defense exercises. As uncomfortable as I was to participate, I agreed to, understanding that these 'techniques' were meant to help me and others fend off what I believed was an inevitable attack.
"My fears were so heightened at that time, I was not thinking clearly nor could I appreciate what I was agreeing to when I participated in his 'class.' I was told I would be filmed as a 'demonstration video' to teach others the same skills in Israel. Sacha and his crew further lied to me, stating that I would be able to review and have final approval over any footage used.
"I deeply regret the language I used at (Cohen's) request as well as my participation in the 'class' in general. If I had not been so distracted by my fears, I never would have agreed to participate in the first place.
"I apologize to my family, friends, and the people of my district for this ridiculously ugly episode," Spencer said.
Spencer told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution the show "exploited" his state of mind "for profit and notoriety."
"This media company's deceptive and fraudulent behavior is exactly why President Donald Trump was elected," he said in a statement last week in response to other politicians falling prey to the comedian.
Showtime had no comment when contacted by CNN on Monday.
Boker tov. I have been inform elected official & all-round mensch I meet, Jason Spencer, have somehow been portray in bad light by Showtime. To reveal the truth, here is the unedited film. Do not worry Jason Shpenker, Erran Morad have got your backsidehttps://t.co/Tnj7lX8zf5 — Colonel Erran Morad (@ErranMorad) July 23, 2018
Still in character, Cohen, as Israeli Col. Erran Morad, posted videos of Spencer on Twitter with this message:
"Boker tov. I have been inform elected official & all-round mensch I meet, Jason Spencer, have somehow been portray in bad light by Showtime. To reveal the truth, here is the unedited film. Do not worry Jason Shpenker, Erran Morad have got your backside."
Previous calls for Spencer's resignation
Some called for Spencer's resignation last year after he warned former state Rep. LaDawn Jones, a black woman, that she would not be "met with torches but something a lot more definitive" if she continued to call for the removal of Confederate statues in south Georgia, and suggested that someone who didn't understand this "will go missing in the Okefenokee" swamp.
Spencer was elected to the Georgia House in 2010. He has served four terms and is still in office, but was defeated by political newcomer Steven Sainz in the Republican primary in May. ||||| The actions and language used by Jason Spencer are appalling and offensive. There is no excuse for this type of behavior, ever, and I am saddened and disgusted by it. ||||| The Georgia lawmaker who exposed himself and yelled racial slurs during an episode of Sacha Baron Cohen’s Showtime series is resigning his seat in the state Legislature, according to House Speaker David Ralston’s office.
State Rep. Jason Spencer faced increasing pressure to step down shortly after the episode of “Who is America?” aired Sunday night, and some politicians were urging a special session to oust him if he refused. He will step down at the end of the month, Ralston spokesman Kaleb McMichen said late Tuesday.
Spencer apologized for the “ridiculously ugly episode,” but initially refused to resign. Although he lost the GOP primary in May, he could have remained in public office through the November general election.
“Sacha Baron Cohen and his associates took advantage of my paralyzing fear that my family would be attacked,” said Spencer, who added that he was told the techniques would deter “what I believed was an inevitable attack.”
If he refused to step down, he faced potential repercussions: Georgia Republican leaders were researching ways to reprimand him, and two legislative leaders discussed filing a joint ethics complaint targeting Spencer’s behavior.
But he also had financial incentive to stay. If he had remained in office through January, he would have logged eight years of service and become eligible for taxpayer-subsidized health insurance for life.
What You Need to Know: Jason Spencer
Read more: Jason Spencer and the ‘crazy’ factor in Georgia politics
Read more: Pranking of state Rep. Jason Spencer is a television tradition
Read more: In Rep. Jason Spencer's Southeast Georgia district, disgust at his racist words, antics
The episode shows Cohen, who portrayed himself as an Israeli military expert, at a gym persuading Spencer to take part in what he was told was a counterterrorism video.
Cohen gets Spencer to yell racial epithets, make offensive remarks about Chinese tourists and pull down his pants and shimmy his naked buttocks toward purported attackers while yelling “USA” and “America.” He was told these tactics ward off homophobic militants.
(Watch Spencer’s unedited appearance on the show, which contains profanity and nudity)
In another clip after the show’s credits, Spencer returns to the camera with a “message to the terrorists.” He then repeats a racial slur and stabs a knife into the groin area of a dummy clad in a black burqa before shoving another item into the dummy’s mouth.
At the end of the segment, Spencer reminds the audience he’s an elected official serving in the Georgia Legislature. It ends with the Georgia peach logo flashing on screen.
It was the most humiliating yet to air on Cohen’s new show, which last week featured several Republican lawmakers and gun rights supporters backing a fictitious program to teach kindergartners to use firearms.
Spencer told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution last week that he was considering legal action against the show’s producers, and he claimed they “took advantage of my fears that I would be attacked by someone” to persuade him to appear.
“They exploited my state of mind for profit and notoriety,” said Spencer, who said he was denied the chance to have final approval over what will air. “This media company’s deceptive and fraudulent behavior is exactly why President Donald Trump was elected.”
Spencer has declined to comment further and couldn’t be reached late Tuesday. Showtime has denied that Cohen or the show’s producers acted improperly.
Spencer was defeated by Republican challenger Steven Sainz after four terms representing a conservative southeast Georgia district, where he grabbed headlines that enraged lawmakers from both parties.
He faced calls for resignation late last year after he warned a black former state legislator that she won’t be “met with torches but something a lot more definitive” if she continued to advocate for the removal of Confederate statues in South Georgia.
And Republican leaders roundly criticized his legislative proposal that would bar women from wearing burqas on public property, forcing him to withdraw the legislation.
This year, he shifted his focus toward a bill that would have allowed adult survivors of child sexual abuse more time to file lawsuits. The bill didn’t pass amid powerful opposition from the Boy Scouts and some other nonprofit organizations. | – After an initial refusal to resign, Georgia state Rep. Jason Spencer is doing just that. The Republican who pulled down his pants and yelled racial slurs during what he believed to be anti-terrorism training with an Israeli military expert on the latest episode of Sacha Baron Cohen's Who Is America? will step down at the end of the month, according to a letter sent to Georgia House Speaker David Ralston, CNN reports. Ralston had been among the Republicans calling for Spencer's resignation given his "reprehensible" actions. "Georgia is better than this," Ralston said, while Gov. Nathan Deal said he was "disgusted" by Spencer's "appalling and offensive" behavior. Spencer apologized for Sunday's "ridiculously ugly episode," but initially said he would remain in office until January, having lost his primary election in May. Had he done so, Spencer's eight years in office would've made him eligible for taxpayer-subsidized health insurance for life, reports the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. But the 43-year-old physician assistant representing the Woodbine area of southeast Georgia continued to feel the pressure, with talk of a bipartisan ethics complaint. It's unclear if his resignation will factor into any legal action. Last week, Spencer told the Journal-Constitution he was considering suing the show's producers, who "took advantage of my fears that I would be attacked." |
Image caption Silvio Berlusconi proclaimed his innocence in a video message after the verdict
Italy's highest court has upheld a prison sentence given to former PM Silvio Berlusconi for tax evasion.
The court also ordered a further judicial review on whether he should be banned from holding public office.
In an emotional video statement, Berlusconi denounced the decision as "based on nothing, and which deprives me of my freedom and political rights".
The sentence cannot be appealed against further but Berlusconi, 76, is unlikely to go to jail because of his age.
The ruling by the Court of Cassation in Rome came after a three-day hearing. Berlusconi was not in court.
The former prime minister was sentenced to four years in prison at the conclusion of the trial last October, though this was automatically reduced to a year under a 2006 pardon law.
Berlusconi is likely to serve house arrest or carry out community service.
His lawyers described Thursday's ruling as "unjust".
Analysis The courtroom dramas of Silvio Berlusconi are part of the backdrop to Italian life. The nation has watched around two dozen trials unfold over nearly 20 years. But until now they have never seen Berlusconi definitively convicted. And there can be no appeal. This damning judgement will forever be part of his record - and he will surely see this as one of the darkest moments in his extraordinary political career. But it could have been even worse: the judges did not uphold the order that would have barred Berlusconi from public office. That will be re-examined by a lower court. So Berlusconi is certainly down, but not entirely out. He has been diminished and humiliated, but even now it might be a mistake to bet against him.
They had been hoping to overturn his conviction in a case involving television rights bought by his company Mediaset.
It is the billionaire businessman's first definitive conviction after decades of criminal prosecutions.
In his video message after the court's decision he said: "I never devised any system of fiscal fraud. No false invoice exists in the history of Mediaset."
Berlusconi said he was the victim of "an incredible series of accusations and trials that had nothing to do with reality".
He described the more than 50 court cases he has faced as "genuine judicial harassment that is unmatched in the civilised world".
Still in senate
The review of the lower court's five-year ban on holding public office means Berlusconi can remain as a senator and as leader of his centre-right People of Freedom Party (PDL) for now.
The BBC's Alan Johnston in Rome says the former prime minister will be relieved that judges ordered a review of the political ban.
Berlusconi's political grouping forms part of Italy's coalition government. Prime Minister Enrico Letta needs both the PDL and his own centre-left Democratic Party to govern.
Image caption Opponents of Silvio Berlusconi celebrated Thursday's court ruling
In a statement after the court ruling, Mr Letta urged "a climate of serenity" for the good of the country.
President Giorgio Napolitano also urged the country to stay calm.
"The country needs to rediscover serenity and cohesion on vitally important institutional matters that have for too long seen it divided and unable to enact reforms," he said.
A former minister and ally of Berlusconi, Nitto Palma, told Reuters on leaving a PDL meeting that there was a lot of bitterness about the verdict.
However, the sentence would not affect the Letta government, he said.
Berlusconi's legal team said there were "solid reasons" why their client should have been acquitted, and they would "evaluate and pursue any useful initiative, also in Europe, to make sure that this unjust sentence is radically reformed".
Anti-establishment politician Beppe Grillo welcomed the court ruling, comparing the sentence to the fall of the Berlin Wall.
In a statement on his blog, Mr Grillo said Berlusconi had "polluted, corrupted and paralysed Italian politics for 21 years".
'Vendetta'
Image caption Berlusconi remained at his Rome residence, Palazza Grazioli, while the judges delivered their verdict
The original ruling last October found that Berlusconi's Mediaset media empire had inflated the price it had paid for film distribution rights to avoid paying taxes.
He was labelled the "author of a whole system of tax fraud".
The three-time prime minister has faced a string of trials since leaving office in November 2011.
Appeals are pending in other cases in which he was convicted of having paid for sex with an under-age prostitute, and arranging for a police wiretap to be leaked and published in a newspaper.
Two other cases of alleged tax evasion, one of them involving British lawyer David Mills, expired under the statute of limitations. ||||| ROME Italy's supreme court on Thursday upheld a jail sentence against Silvio Berlusconi for tax fraud in a devastating blow to the four-times prime minister that could throw the country's fragile coalition government into crisis.
The former cruise ship crooner is Italy's most colorful and scandal-prone figure but it was his first definitive conviction in up to 30 court cases on charges ranging from fraud and corruption to having sex with an underage prostitute.
After a three-day hearing, the five judges of the supreme court rejected Berlusconi's final appeal against a verdict handed down by two lower courts which sentenced the media mogul to four years in jail - commuted to one year under an amnesty.
But the top judges ordered a review by a Milan court of the second part of his sentence, a five-year ban from public office. This will enable him to remain a senator and leader of his center-right People of Freedom Party (PDL) for the moment.
In a sober video message after the verdict, Berlusconi proclaimed his total innocence and launched a bitter attack on magistrates he said had hounded him for 20 years and become an undemocratic rival power to the state.
Looking shaken, he vowed to press ahead in politics with the refoundation of his original political party, Forza Italia, through the mobilization of young people, and a reform of the justice system. But he acknowledged that he had "arrived almost at the end of my working life."
Berlusconi, Italy's longest serving premier, had previously said the government must not fall whatever the verdict but he made no mention of this in his video address.
The 76-year-old billionaire who has dominated politics for 20 years and been prime minister four times, was convicted for inflating the price paid for television rights by his Mediaset media empire and skimming off part of the money to create slush funds.
Because of his age he is likely to serve the sentence either through community service or under house arrest.
He accuses leftist magistrates of relentlessly trying to remove him from politics since he stormed onto the scene in 1994 after a corruption scandal wiped out the old order.
The verdict could not only mark the twilight of his long career but destabilize the three-month-old government of Prime Minister Enrico Letta and potentially send tremors across the euro zone.
The bloc's third-largest economy is ruled by a fractious coalition of Letta's center-left Democratic Party (PD) and Berlusconi's PDL.
President Giorgio Napolitano, architect of Letta's coalition after a two month hiatus following inconclusive elections in February, quickly issued a statement urging calm and national cohesion. He called for trust and respect for the judiciary.
Letta echoed his comments, calling for calm and saying the nation's interests must come before those of individuals.
DANGER OF POLITICAL TURMOIL
PDL hawks had called for a mass walkout of its ministers and public protests including blocking motorways if he was convicted.
His supporters demonstrated outside his central Rome home before the verdict, disrupting traffic.
A greater threat to the government could come from the faction-ridden PD, many of whose members are already unhappy with ruling in coalition with Berlusconi's party and could rebel following his first definitive conviction.
A close Berlusconi ally, former Justice Minister Francesco Nitto Palma, said after meeting the former premier that the verdict "will not affect the Letta government, which was created to serve the country."
But comments from other politicians, on the left and right, were less harmonious.
Luca d'Alessandro, head of the PDL parliamentary justice committee said: "This country used to be famous as the cradle of law. Today it has become its tomb, run by a corporation of grave diggers in gowns who have carried out the perfect crime."
The leader of Letta's PD, Guglielmo Epifani said, "The sentence has to be respected and carried out."
Beppe Grillo, leader of the populist 5-Star Movement that stunned mainstream politicians by taking a quarter of the vote in the February election, hailed the sentence on his blog: "The verdict is like the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989."
Investors have hitherto shown little concern, with the main barometer of market confidence, the spread between Italian 10 year bond yields and their safer German counterparts, at 270 basis points, well below levels seen during earlier crises.
But markets were closed before the verdict came out.
Napolitano and Letta are adamant that Italy cannot afford more instability as it struggles to climb out of its worst postwar recession.
There has been speculation that Berlusconi's oldest daughter, Marina, 46 and chairwoman of his Fininvest holding company, could become the PDL's figurehead if he was convicted.
Both major parties may be reluctant to precipitate an election that might produce an even more chaotic result than the February vote in which Grillo surged to prominence.
But the verdict could add to inertia which has prevented Letta's fractious government from passing urgently needed economic reforms.
The supreme court decision is not Berlusconi's only legal headache. He is also appealing in a lower court against a seven-year jail sentence imposed in June for abuse of office and paying for sex with Moroccan-born nightclub dancer Karima El Mahroug, alias "Ruby the Heartstealer", when she was underage.
(Editing by Robin Pomeroy) ||||| Italy's three-time former Premier Silvio Berlusconi for the first time in two decades of criminal prosecutions related to his media empire was definitively convicted of tax fraud and sentenced to four years in prison Thursday by the nation's highest court.
Italy's highest court President Antonio Esposito arrives to read the sentence confirming a four year term for Italian media Mogul and former Premier Silvio Berlusconi for tax fraud in Rome, Thursday,... (Associated Press)
Francesca Pascale, the girlfriend of Italian former Premier Silvio Berlusconi, waits with bodyguards inside an ice-cream shop, near his residence in Rome, Tuesday, July 30, 2013. Berlusconi is waiting... (Associated Press)
Italy's highest court President Antonio Esposito, third right, read the sentence confirming a four year term for Italian media Mogul and former Premier Silvio Berlusconi for tax fraud in Rome, Thursday,... (Associated Press)
FILE - In this file photo taken June 17, 2003 Silvio Berlusconi shows some files as he addresses the Law court in Milan, Italy. Italy’s top court confirmed Thursday, Aug. 1, 2013 Berlusconi tax fraud... (Associated Press)
News cameramen wait outside Grazioli palace, Silvio Berlusconi's residence in Rome, Thursday, Aug. 1, 2013. Berlusconi's fate is hanging in the balance as Italy's highest court deliberates his appeal... (Associated Press)
FILE - In this file photo taken June 17, 2003 Silvio Berlusconi adjusts his tie before addressing the Law court in Milan, Italy. Italy’s top court confirmed Thursday, Aug. 1, 2013 Berlusconi tax fraud... (Associated Press)
A demonstrator holds a sign reading in Italian "Guilty for the justice, acquitted by the political system" outside Italy’s highest court building where Berlusconi's case on tax fraud will be decided in... (Associated Press)
The tensely awaited decision was described as a historical moment by opposition politicians and puts fresh pressure on Premier Enrico Letta's fragile coalition government. He needs the support of both Berlusconi supporters and his own center-left Democratic Party to push through reforms to get Italy out of recession, and the ruling is likely to have a destabilizing impact.
Judge Antonio Esposito, in reading the court's decision, declared Berlusconi's conviction and prison term were `'irrevocable," though he ordered another court to review the length of a ban on public office.
Lower courts had put it at five years, but a state prosecutor recommended in its arguments this week that it be lowed to three, citing conflicts in the relevant sentencing laws.
How the government is affected by the ruling is likely to emerge in comings days. On the one side, Berlusconi supporters may withdraw support in protest, while center-left lawmakers may find it unpalatable to continue in a coalition with a party whose leader has been convicted of defrauding the state of tax income.
Beppe Grillo, the leader of the anti-establishment 5 Star Movement, declared on his blog: `'Berlusconi is dead." He compared the conviction to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 that helped bring down Soviet communism.
Berlusconi's exit from the political scene he has dominated for two decades is unlikely to be quiet. A Milan appeals court will now have to determine the length of a public office ban. And then, the Senate, where Berlusconi holds a seat, will have to debate and vote on revoking his seat as part of a process that can stretch for months, if not a year. If the Senate opposes it and refuses to formally revoke Berlusconi's seat, the high court could turn to the constitutional court in a bid to resolve the standoff.
Berlusconi is highly unlikely to actually go to prison. Three years will be shaved off as part of a general pardon for crimes committed before 2006 aimed at easing prison crowding, and it is unusual for defendants to serve sentences of just one year for a first offense, particularly at Berlusconi's age, 76. He would likely be given the choice to serve the remaining year under house confinement or opt for social services.
Berlusconi awaited the sentence at his residence in central Rome with his lawyers, deputy party leader Angelino Alfano and his eldest daughter, Marina, all of whom were seen entering the building in the hours leading up to the announcement. He issued no immediate reaction.
___
Barry contributed from Milan. ||||| ROME — For years, former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi deftly navigated the labyrinth of Italian justice, always finding an exit — until Thursday, when Italy’s highest court handed him his first definitive sentence, upholding a prison term for tax fraud and sending Italy’s fragile government on the road to crisis.
The court called for a re-examination of a ban on Mr. Berlusconi’s holding public office, but did not reject the ban. This staved off the imminent collapse of the right-left coalition of Prime Minister Enrico Letta, which was formed to tackle Italy’s dire economy — but probably only bought it more time.
Parts of Mr. Letta’s center-left Democratic Party are reluctant to share power with a now-convicted criminal. Meanwhile, the center-right People of Liberty party looked poised to split between Berlusconi loyalists and those seeking more independence from the former prime minister in a future bloc.
“The barometer signals a very strong storm,” said Giovanni Orsina, professor of contemporary history at LUISS Guido Carli and author of “Understanding Berlusconi.” “I expect a lot of quake tremors in the next few days, but I think that the government will survive.”
The Court of Cassation confirmed Mr. Berlusconi’s four-year prison sentence, which had already been reduced to one year under a law aimed at combating prison overcrowding.
Two lower courts had convicted Mr. Berlusconi and other defendants on charges of buying the rights to broadcast American movies on his Mediaset networks through a series of offshore companies and falsely declaring how much they paid to avoid taxes.
In other cases over the past 20 years, Mr. Berlusconi, a three-time prime minister, has been convicted of tax evasion, buying judges and embezzlement, but was either acquitted on appeal or the statute of limitations had run out. (A trial in which Mr. Berlusconi is accused of paying for sex with a minor is continuing.)
Thursday’s ruling, like everything about Mr. Berlusconi, polarized Italy. Some of the former prime minister’s loyalists called it the equivalent of a judicial coup d’état, while his critics called it tantamount to Al Capone being convicted of tax evasion.
After the ruling, a furious, saddened and uncharacteristically unsmiling Mr. Berlusconi took to the airwaves of Rete4, one of the channels in his Mediaset empire, and declared his innocence, attacking the magistrates who he said had tormented him for 20 years and become an antidemocratic force within Italy.
“The sentence is absolutely groundless and violates my personal liberty and my rights,” Mr. Berlusconi said.
The man who once called himself “the politician most persecuted by prosecutors in the entire history of the world throughout the ages,” added that he would once again create Forza Italia, the party he founded in 1994. He had dissolved that party to form People of Liberty with another right-wing party. “Long live Italy, long live Forza Italia,” he concluded.
Mr. Berlusconi is widely seen as wanting to stay in public office in the hope of wielding the political influence he needs to protect his business interests.
Thursday’s ruling did not automatically send Mr. Berlusconi to prison or house arrest. It is up to the same appeals court in Milan that convicted him to formally request his arrest. Mr. Berlusconi’s lawyers can also request a suspended sentence.
Experts said that considering his age, 76, Mr. Berlusconi would more likely face house arrest or community service than prison.
Opposition politicians immediately called for Mr. Berlusconi to resign from Parliament.
Vito Crimi, a member of Parliament from the Five Star Movement of Beppe Grillo, called it “shameful” that Mr. Berlusconi would stay in public office.
In other circumstances, the ruling might have dealt a final blow to Mr. Berlusconi’s role in politics. But today Mr. Berlusconi, who came back from the dead in national elections in February, is an element of stability in the coalition government. | – Silvio Berlusconi has had his share of bad days in court in recent years, but none worse than today. Italy's top court upheld his tax-fraud conviction and related one-year jail sentence, and almost every story calls it his "first definitive conviction" or some close variation after all his various charges. (See Reuters, AP, the BBC, and the New York Times.) The verdict could "mark the twilight of his long career," destabilize the 3-month-old government, and "potentially send tremors across the euro zone," adds Reuters. As for Berlusconi himself, don't expect to see him head to jail anytime soon. The AP thinks it's highly unlikely that a court would send a 76-year-old first-time offender to prison, especially for only a one-year sentence. More likely is probation or perhaps house arrest. That decision is back in the hands of the lower court in Milan. The former prime minister might even be able to keep his current seat in the Senate, because the top court today also ordered a review of a five-year ban from public office imposed by the lower court. |
The 32-year-old Norwegian man who allegedly went on a shooting spree on the island of Utoya has been identified as Anders Behring Breivik, according to multiple reports.
The Daily Mail and Sky News were among those to report the suspect's name. According to witnesses, the gunman was dressed as a police officer and gunned down young people as they ran for their lives at a youth camp.
Police said Friday evening that they've linked the youth camp shooting and Oslo bombing. Breivik is believed to have acted alone.
Norwegian TV2 reports that Breivik belongs to "right-wing circles" in Oslo. Swedish news site Expressen adds that he has been known to write to right-wing forums in Norway, is a self-described nationalist and has also written a number of posts critical of Islam.
A Twitter account for Breivik has surfaced, though it only has one post, this quote from philosopher John Stuart Mill: "One person with a belief is equal to the force of 100 000 who have only interests." The tweet was posted on July 17.
On a Facebook account that Norwegian media outlets have attributed to Breivik, he describes himself as having Christian, conservative views. He says he enjoys hunting, the games World of Warcraft and Modern Warfare 2, and lives in Oslo. He also lists political analysis and stock analysis as interests. ||||| (CNN) -- As Norway struggles to come to terms with its greatest loss of life in decades, all eyes are on the man charged in the explosion in central Oslo and the deadly shooting rampage at a youth camp.
While police have not officially named him, Norwegian television and newspaper reports have identified the suspect as 32-year-old Anders Behring Breivik, of Norwegian origin.
A picture is emerging, gleaned from official sources and social media, of a right-wing Christian fundamentalist who may have had an issue with Norway's multi-cultural society.
Norwegian and international news outlets have run photographs of a blond man with blue-green eyes and chiseled features, dressed in a preppy style.
A victim who was shot during the attack at the youth camp on Utoya island told CNN Saturday that he had seen pictures of Breivik taken from what is believed to be his Facebook page and shown on NRK and TV2. The victim said he recognized the man from the news reports as the gunman.
Breivik is a member of the Oslo Pistol Club and has three weapons registered in his name, according to leading Norwegian newspaper VG, citing Norway's official weapons register. They are a Glock pistol, a rifle and a shotgun, VG reported.
NRK reports that Breivik does not have a military background and was exempt from Norway's mandatory military service. He has not had any special military training, it adds on its website.
He was a youth and adult member of the conservative Fremskrittspartiet (FrP) or Progress Party, VG newspaper reports, remaining involved until 2007. The party's most prominent manifesto pledge is to minimize immigration.
His membership was confirmed by a senior party member, Jonas Kallmyr, who is quoted by VG as saying that encountering Breivik was "like meeting Hitler before World War II."
The leader of the Progress Party, Siv Jensen, told Norwegian broadcaster TV2 News she was "horrified" to learn that the suspect was a former member of her party.
"But this is first and foremost an attack against the entire nation. It has affected all of us," she said, saying that her party members stood in solidarity with the youth movement of the Labour Party.
A post in Breivik's name on an online forum, Document.no, from December 2009, talks about non-Muslim teenagers being "in an especially precarious situation with regards to being harassed by Islamic youth."
"I know of many hundred occasions where non-Muslims have been robbed, beaten up and harassed by Islamic gangs," the post reads. "I had a best friend between the ages of 12-17 who was a Pakistani, so I was one of the many protected, cool 'potatoes' that had protection. But this also made me see the hypocrisy up close and personal and made me nauseous."
Such anti-Islamic sentiment is nothing new in Norway or other European nations, where there has been resistance against increasing numbers of Muslims and their practices.
About 3% of Norway's population in 2010 -- 144,000 people -- were Muslim, but that was expected to more than double to 6.5% over the next 20 years, according to a report released earlier this year by The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life. That is one of the largest percentage increases in Muslim populations across all of Europe, thanks in part to fertility rates significantly higher than those of non-Muslims.
Another post in Breivik's name in October 2009 advises "Hans", described as the founder of Document.no, to "develop an alternative to the violent extreme Norwegian Marxist organisations Blitz, SOS Rasisme and Rod Ungdom" -- all left-wing movements in Norway.
"The conservatives dare not openly express their viewpoints in public because they know that the extreme Marxists will trump them. We cannot accept the fact that the Labour Party is subsidising these violent "Stoltenberg jugend", who are systematically terrorising the politically conservative," the post reads.
He is making a reference to the youth movement of Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, who heads the Labour Party.
A Twitter account attributed to Breivik by Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten has only one message, dated July 17. "One person with a belief is equal to the force of 100,000 who has only interests," it says, adapting a quote from 19th-century British philosopher John Stuart Mill.
Police have not ruled out the possibility that other people may have helped the suspect.
"The official questioning is starting now," Roger Andresen, a police official, told reporters during a news conference Saturday.
The suspect was cooperating with police, making it clear he wanted to explain himself, Andresen said.
Norway's police website said the suspect is currently charged with breaking paragraph 147a of the penal code -- a terrorism offense, with a maximum sentence of 21 years.
The statement said he was charged in both the Utoya attack and the bombing of government buildings in Oslo, and that the charges might change. "The suspect has never been arrested by the police before," it said.
Two addresses connected to the suspect are being searched, police said. One of them is believed to be an apartment in Oslo and the other a farm in Hedmark.
NRK reports that Breivik is registered as having run a company that produced "vegetables, melons, roots and tubers" -- an industry which allows access to large amounts of fertilizer, the broadcaster notes, which can be used for explosives.
An employee at a Norwegian agricultural cooperative told CNN that the man identified in media reports as the suspect in Friday's attacks bought six tons of fertilizer from her company in May.
Oddmy Estenstad, of Felleskjopet Agr, said she did not think the order was strange at the time because the suspect has a farm, but after the Oslo attack she called police because she knew the material can be used to make bombs.
"We are very shocked that this man was connected to our company," said Estenstad. "We are very sad about what happened."
More details on the man are sure to emerge in the coming hours and days. But what many Norwegians find hard to comprehend is that the chief suspect in the massacre appears to be one of their own.
Stoltenberg stressed that whoever was behind the attacks must be dealt with properly.
"It is very important that those who are responsible -- one or several persons -- are sentenced according to Norwegian law, in the Norwegian system of justice," he said.
"Norway is a small country but it is a proud country. We are all very close, especially in times like this."
CNN's Laura Smith-Spark and Cynthia Wamwayi contributed to this report. ||||| Norwegian massacre gunman was a right-wing extremist who hated Muslims
Suspect named by Norwegian media as Anders Behring Breivik
Police believe he is not connected to Islamist organisations
Claims he boasted online about having talks with English Defence League
'Loner' lived with mother in a wealthy suburb and is well-educated
Reports say he attended same school as Norway's crown prince
Posted on Twitter: 'One person with a belief is equal to the force of 100,000 who have only interests'
Farm business gave him easy access to fertiliser - an ingredient used in bomb-making
Police say he is a 'very demanding suspect'
Suspect: Norwegian media reported that Anders Behring Breivik has been arrested
The man responsible for the massacre in Norway was a member of a Swedish nazi forum which encourages attacks on government buildings.
It was also revealed by local police that he had extreme right wing views who hated Muslims.
According to Swedish website Expo Anders Behring Breivik is a member of 'Nordisk' which has 22,000 members and focuses on political terrorism.
Officers also found a series of raving internet posts by the 32-year-old, who has been charged with two counts of terrorism after gunning down children on the island of Utoya and detonating a bomb in Oslo yesterday.
Media reports in Norway described Breivik as a 'loner', who lived with his mother in a wealthy suburb of west Oslo, was well-educated and enjoyed hunting.
Only a few days ago he set up a Twitter account and posted a single message: 'One person with a belief is equal to the force of 100,000 who have only interests'.
It is attributed to the English philosopher John Stuart Mill, whose concept of liberty justified the freedom of the individual in opposition to unlimited state control.
The account appears to have only been set up a few days ago.
On his Facebook profile, Breivik describes himself as a Christian and a conservative.
It also listed interests such as body-building and freemasonry.
Breivik is believed to have grown up in Oslo, and studied at the Oslo School of Management.
He later appears to have moved out of the city and established Breivik Geofarm, a company believed to be an organic farm.
Arrested: Anders Behring Breivik callously opened fire on groups of teenagers on the island of Utoya
Suspect: Further photographs of Anders Behring Breivik, such as this one where he is carrying a weapon, have emerged
It specialised in melons and root vegetables. There is speculation among the media in Norway that this may have allowed him easy access to fertiliser, an ingredient used in bomb-making .
Along with the farm, he also appears to own a flat in Oslo. Breivik had no military background except for ordinary national service and no criminal record.
It is thought that the 32-year-old is a former member of Labour's opposition youth party, Fremskrittspartiet.
Police at the home of Breivik, a farm at Ostre Asta near Oslo, where he allegedly planned the entire massacre
He is reported to have attended the same Smestad primary school as Norway's crown prince.
He is later said to have attended schools in Oslo's Gaustad and the Handelsgymnasium.
Classmate Michael Tomola, who knew Breivik from the age of 13 to 16, said: 'He was rather introverted at school, even though he was a good student. I'm very surprised by this. I had a good impression, although he became very engaged in subjects he cared for. He got very extreme about things he cared for.'
According the website Atlantic.com, Breivik expressed extremist Islamophobic views on forums and criticised immigration policies.
He argued on a Swedish news website that the media were not critical enough about Islam and claimed that Geert Wilders' Party for Freedom in the Netherlands was the only 'true' party of conservatives.
Web: Breivik's sole tweet, posted last week, is attributed to the English philosopher John Stuart Mill - whose concept of liberty justified the freedom of the individual in opposition to unlimited state control
He said that socialism was breaking down traditions, culture, national identity and other societal structures and that this in turn made society weak and confused.
He claimed to admire the Norwegian Second World War hero Max Manus, a highly decorated sailor who was an expert in sinking Nazi ships.
It has also been reported he boasted about conversations with unnamed members of the far-right English Defence League and the organisation Stop the Islamification of Europe.
He is said to have spoken to them about the success of provocative street actions leading to violence.
It is claimed he wrote on a blog two years ago: 'I have on some occasions had discussions with SIOE and EDL and recommended them to use certain strategies.
'The tactics of the EDL are now to 'lure' an overreaction from the Jihad Youth/Extreme-Marxists, something they have succeeded in doing several times already.'
Breivik's Facebook profile listed his favourite books as The Trial by Franz Kafka and Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell.
His favourite TV show was named as Dexter - a series about a Miami police forensics expert who moonlights as a serial killer of criminals whom he believes have escaped justice.
Police officer Roger Andresen said today: 'He is clear on the point that he wants to explain himself.'
Andersen said the suspect posted on websites with Christian fundamentalist tendencies. He did not describe the websites in any more details.
Crime scene: The 32-year-old Norwegian is said to have used this white van to drive onto the island of Utoya
National police chief Sveinung Sponheim said he was talking to them and has admitted to firing weapons on the island.
It was not clear if he had confessed to anything else he is accused of. Police said he retained a lawyer, who did not want to be named
'He has had a dialogue with the police the whole time, but he's a very demanding suspect,' Sponheim said.
He also told public broadcaster NRK that the suspected gunman's Internet postings 'suggest that he has some political traits directed toward the right, and anti-Muslim views, but if that was a motivation for the actual act remains to be seen'.
Six foot tall and blond Breivik is reported to have arrived on the island of Utoya dressed as a policeman and opened fire after beckoning several young people over in his native Norwegian tongue.
Reports suggest he was also seen loitering around the site of the bomb blast in Oslo two hours before the island incident.
Suspect: The 32-year-old Norwegian Anders Behring Breivik, who has been arrested after the attacks
Police said later that the suspect had right-wing and anti-Muslim views, but the motive for the attacks was unclear.
The Norwegian daily Verdens Gang quoted a friend as saying he became a rightwing extremist in his late 20s. It said he expressed strong nationalistic views in online debates and had been a strong opponent of the idea that people of different cultural backgrounds can live alongside each other.
An official said the gunman used both automatic weapons and handguns, and that there was at least one unexploded device at the youth camp that a police bomb disposal team and military experts were working on disarming.
Some 92 are believed to have been killed - seven in Oslo and 84 on Utoya Island, 50 miles north of the capital.
Initially it was not known what were the motives of the gunman and architect of the car bomb - whether they or the single person had been radicalised and was part of a militant Muslim group waging Jihad or was trying to further a home-grown political cause.
But it now appears Breivik was behind both attacks, a fact that it took police hours to realise as the mayhem ensued.
The incidents come as social tensions with Norway heighten in recent months over the country’s perceived stance on Islamic issues.
Fatal: Seven people were killed in the Oslo bomb blast (pictured)
Though a long-standing Nato member, Norway has not attracted many enemies because it has tended to stay out of international conflicts.
However, it has recently increased its military presence in Muslim countries such as Afghanistan or Libya, a move bound to anger fanatics.
There was anger among some of the 150,000 Muslims living in Norway when a newspaper reproduced the controversial Danish cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad in January last year.
Last night ‘Helpers of the Global Jihad’ posted a message on the internet claiming the bombing was ‘only the beginning’ of the retaliation over the cartoons.
But this has been dismissed by some commentators as a publicity stunt.
Other Scandinavian countries have faced radical Islamic attacks in the past.
Violence erupted in Denmark after a newspaper published a cartoon of the Prophet wearing a turban in the shape of a bomb in 2005.
And last December an Islamic suicide bomber, who was radicalised in Britain, set off a bomb in Stockholm.
Police would not speculate on who was responsible for the attack or whether international groups were involved.
But the country is also in the midst of grappling with a homegrown terror plot linked to al-Qaeda.
Two suspects are in jail awaiting charges.
Last week, a Norwegian prosecutor filed terror charges against an Iraqi-born cleric for threatening Norwegian politicians with death if he is deported from the Scandinavian country.
The indictment centred on statements that Mullah Krekar - the founder of the Kurdish Islamist group Ansar al-Islam - made to various news media, including American network NBC.
Jihadist groups have also made recent threats to Norway over plans to expel Mullah Krekar, the founder of the Kurdish Islamist group Ansar al-Islam.
Norway's support of NATO's mission in Libya also earned it enemies, Bob Ayers, a former U.S. intelligence officer, told AP.
'Norwegians are in Afghanistan. They're in Tripoli. They reprinted the cartoons,' he said.
Many intelligence analysts said they had never heard of Helpers of Global Jihad, which took initial credit. Ansar al-Islam also took credit on some jihadist web sites.
And Ayers said it appeared more than one person was involved.
Wrecked: The blast in Oslo was outside a government office
Asked at a press conference in Tripoli about Libya's reaction to the events in Oslo, government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim said, 'We never support any acts of terrorism whatsoever.'
But he suggested NATO's policies could have prompted the attack, saying, 'NATO is planting terrorism in the hearts of many. This is unfortunate and sad.'
Authorities in Norway and other Scandinavian countries have focused on anti-terrorism tactics that frustrate countries like the U.S. that are more aggressive about making arrests.
Scandinavian authorities fight terrorism by disrupting plots, sometimes telling suspects they know what they're up to, and warning them of the consequences.
Terror convictions are also difficult to get because of scepticism in Scandinavian courts toward cases built on intent - as most terrorism trials are - and a demand for more evidence than in the U.S. and many other places.
Europe has been the target of numerous terror plots by Islamist militants.
The deadliest was the 2004 Madrid train bombings, when shrapnel-filled bombs exploded, killing 191 people and wounding about 1,800.
A year later, suicide bombers killed 52 rush-hour commuters in London aboard three subway trains and a bus.
And in 2006, U.S. and British intelligence officials thwarted one of the largest plots yet - a plan to explode nearly a dozen trans-Atlantic airliners.
In October, the U.S. State Department advised American citizens living or travelling in Europe to take more precautions following reports that terrorists may be plotting attacks on a European city.
Some countries went on heightened alert after the May 2 killing of Osama bin Laden.
Intelligence analysts said they doubted the attack was linked to bin Laden's death.
||||| As the death toll mounts in the most horrific violence Norway has seen since World War II, local police have arrested the suspected perpetrator of both the bombing and the shooting at a children's summer camp. His name is Anders Behring Breivik, a 32-year-old man reportedly spotted at the scene of the bombing. Police believe he was acting alone.
According to multiple news reports in Norway and Sweden, Brievik belonged to Oslo's extreme right wing. He was a frequent poster in Norwegian right-wing online forums, the accounts said, and had two guns registered to his name. He also appears to have launched a social media presence just days before the attacks.
In Breivik's Facebook account, now removed, the suspect identifies himself as a Christian conservative. However, that was far from his only interest. Breivik also listed himself as a fan of World of Warcraft, Modern Warfare 2, bodybuilding and stock analysis. The account, which appeared to have only been started last week, was mostly filled with music videos. Breivik, who listed himself as single, said he had completed "3,000 hours of study in micro and macro finance, religion."
Breivik appears to have started a Twitter account on the same day as he launched his Facebook presence, July 17. The account, which has not been removed, has just one tweet to its name. It's a quote from the philosopher John Stuart Mill: "One person with a belief is equal to the force of 100 000 who have only interests."
The attacks may well have been politically motivated. The bombing took place outside a building where the Prime Minister, who wasn't present, has an office. And the purpose of the summer camp on the island of Utoya was to teach teenagers about politics. | – The snapshot emerging of 32-year-old Anders Behring Breivik, the suspect in Norway's twin attacks: He is a self-described nationalist who posted in extreme right forums in Norway. He often complained about Islam ("I know of many hundred occasions where non-Muslims have been robbed, beaten up and harassed by Islamic gangs" reads one sample) and Norway's immigration policy. He is thought to be a single, well-educated loner who lived with his mother in Oslo. He ran some kind of a farm, which gave him access to large amounts of fertilizer that could be used to make bombs. According to his now-removed Facebook profile, he likes Dexter, the video games World of Warcraft and Modern Warfare 2, body-building, and hunting. His favorite books are 1984 and Kafka's the Trial. His lone post on Twitter is a John Stuart Mill quote: "One person with a belief is equal to the force of 100,000 who have only interests." See more at CNN, Mashable, the Daily Mail, and the Huffington Post. (With the death toll approaching 100, police aren't ruling out a second shooter.) |
TAMPA — When you wake up trapped in the back of a garbage truck, it's a good time to review your decisions.
A man and a woman from Kissimmee learned that lesson the hard way early Wednesday morning. The pair had apparently fallen asleep in a commercial garbage bin outside a Wawa after spending time at the nearby Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino. Their luck? At least the bin was an early stop for the garbage truck driver, Radames Velazquez of Progressive Waste Solutions.
"If I was fully loaded, I probably would have crushed them today," Velazquez said at a news conference hours after his 5:02 a.m. call to 911 reporting screaming people in the back of the truck.
Velazquez, who has been driving a truck for nine years, said he had heard in training about people who sleep in bins. But at the Wawa on Hillsborough Avenue at Orient Road, he said he had looked in the bin and hadn't seen anything but cardboard. As he drove to his next pickup, he initiated the compactor blade to make room for more refuse. That's when Velazquez saw a man jumping up and down on the truck's closed-circuit television that monitors the compaction. He stopped the compactor, pulled over on U.S. 301 N near Interstate 75 and called 911.
"I got two people . . . stuck in the truck," Velazquez said in the call. "I almost killed both of them."
Responding deputies and emergency medical services personnel were able to rescue Donald Jordan, 37, and Lisa Sirabella, 49.
Sirabella was "screaming her head off" when Velazquez stopped the truck to call 911, he said. Jordan smelled of alcohol, slurred his speech and was aggressive toward the deputies, sheriff's officials said. Neither suffered visible injury, but both were transported to Tampa General Hospital with back pain.
Sirabella was admitted and was in fair condition Wednesday, hospital spokeswoman Ellen Fiss said. Jordan was treated and released.
Seminole Tribe police confirmed the pair had been in the casino earlier. A Wawa spokeswoman said the pair are not believed to have visited the store before climbing into the bin, which is inside a fenced corral outfitted with a latch and bolt.
Jordan and Sirabella both have extensive criminal histories. Jordan has been arrested 43 times since 1999 for charges relating to drugs, public drinking, disturbing the peace, burglary, battery and trespassing, according to state law enforcement records. He has served time in both Osceola County jail and state prison.
Sirabella has been arrested 22 times since 2000, records show. She has been convicted of battery, disorderly conduct and driving under the influence. She has served short sentences in jail.
Neither Jordan nor Sirabella could be reached. A man identifying himself as Jordan's father at Jordan's last known address declined to comment.
"It was originally believed that they were homeless," a Sheriff's Office report said, "but it seems they were just really intoxicated after hanging out at the casino."
Contact Josh Solomon at (813) 226-3446 or jsolomon@tampabay.com. Follow @josh_solomon15. ||||| TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — Authorities in Florida say a man and woman who were intoxicated had to be rescued after falling asleep in a dumpster that was later emptied into a garbage truck.
Hillsborough County Sheriff's officials say the couple had been sleeping in a dumpster outside a convenience store near Tampa early Wednesday. When the dumpster was emptied into the back of the garbage truck, they started screaming and banging on the sides of the truck.
Rescue crews were called just after 5 a.m. They removed 37-year-old Donald L. Jordan and 49-year-old Lisa Sirbella from the truck. They were taken to Tampa General Hospital after complaining of back pain.
Deputies originally believed they were homeless, but learned they were highly intoxicated after hanging out at a nearby casino. | – It takes a good stretch of the imagination to get from a hot night at the casino to the back of a garbage truck, but a couple from America's hotbed of strange and often illegal activity has this morning given us such a tale: As the Tampa Bay Times reports, a Progressive Waste Solutions driver was going about his rounds when he heard banging and yelling from the back of his truck. Lo and behold, there were Donald L. Jordan, 37, and Lisa Sirbella, 49, who appear to have fallen asleep in a Dumpster located outside a Tampa Wawa. They were rather abruptly awakened when the driver emptied the Dumpster into his compactor. Cops say Jordan was aggressive, slurring his words, and smelled like booze; both were taken to the hospital with back pain. "It was originally believed that they were homeless," according to a sheriff's office report, "but it seems they were just really intoxicated after hanging out at the casino." |
BRUSSELS The European Union will raise the stakes in a confrontation with Russia over Ukraine on Monday by slapping sanctions on Russian officials, a day after voters in Ukraine's Crimea region opted to join Russia in a referendum the EU condemned as illegal.
EU diplomats worked late into the night on Sunday, haggling over a list of people in Crimea and Russia who will be hit with travel bans and asset freezes for actions which "threaten the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Ukraine."
The initial list of 120 to 130 names, including senior figures in Russia's military and political establishment, will be whittled down to perhaps "tens or scores" of people before EU foreign ministers take the final decision in Brussels on Monday, diplomats say.
Ministers are also expected to cancel an EU-Russia Summit scheduled to be held in Sochi in June.
Sunday's Crimea referendum has only reinforced European anger over Russia's military intervention there, despite results showing Crimeans voted overwhelmingly to break away from Ukraine and to join Russia.
An EU statement on Sunday said the referendum was illegal and illegitimate and its outcome would not be recognized.
"It is quite clear that the behavior of Russia until now is completely unacceptable," Dutch Foreign Minister Frans Timmermans said as he arrived for a meeting of Socialist foreign ministers in Brussels on Sunday evening.
Timmermans said he expected EU sanctions adopted on Monday would be "relatively limited" but said there could be more to come, possibly as soon as an EU summit later this week.
The risk of Europe and Russia becoming locked in a damaging spiral of economic retaliation depended on Russia, he said.
"I would do anything possible to avoid sanctions, because I believe everybody will suffer if we get into sanctions, but the only ones who can prevent this are the Russians," he said.
SANCTIONS ON THE WAY
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, accusing Russia of preparing the annexation of Crimea, said Moscow had not accepted the ways out of the crisis it had been offered.
"So (on Monday) we'll have to take decisions that will make clear our attitude to the preparation of this annexation. That will be an area of sanctions in the next step," he told Germany's ZDF television.
He said he would argue for a process of gradually tightening sanctions "in which there is a way out at every step."
British Foreign Secretary William Hague said in a statement that the EU must adopt measures on Monday "that send a strong signal to Russia that this challenge to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine will bring economic and political consequences."
German tabloid newspaper Bild reported last week that the chief executive officers of Russia's two biggest companies - Gazprom's Alexei Miller and Igor Sechin of Rosneft - would be on the final sanctions list, but European diplomats have dismissed that report.
EU foreign ministers are expected on Monday to condemn what they will call "an illegal referendum" in Crimea, according to a draft statement seen by Reuters.
"It was held in the visible presence of armed soldiers under conditions of intimidation of civic activists and journalists, blacking out of Ukrainian television channels and obstruction of civilian traffic in and out of Crimea," they will say.
They will urge Russia to defuse the crisis and hold direct talks with Ukraine's government but will repeat the EU's warning that any further steps by Russia to destabilize the situation in Ukraine would lead to "additional and far-reaching consequences for relations in a broad range of economic areas."
Russia's military occupation of Crimea after Ukraine's pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovich was ousted has provoked a deep crisis in East-West relations reminiscent of the Cold War.
Yanukovich's decision to turn his back on signing a trade and political agreement with the 28-nation EU last November in favor of closer ties with Moscow prompted months of street protests that eventually led to his downfall.
(Additional reporting by Justyna Pawlak, Phil Blenkinsop and Luke Baker in Brussels and Annika Breidthardt in Berlin; Editing by Chris Reese) ||||| SIMFEROPOL, Ukraine (AP) — Crimea's parliament on Monday declared the region an independent state, after its residents voted overwhelmingly to break off from Ukraine and seek to join Russia.
Self defense volunteers line up outside the Parliament in Kiev, Ukraine, Monday, March 17, 2014. A referendum held in Crimea on Sunday was widely condemned by Western leaders who were planning to discuss... (Associated Press)
Pro-Russian people celebrate in the central square in Sevastopol, Ukraine, early Monday, March 17, 2014. Russian flags fluttered above jubilant crowds Sunday after residents in Crimea voted overwhelmingly... (Associated Press)
Pro-Russian people celebrate in the central square in Sevastopol, Ukraine, late Sunday, March 16, 2014. Russian flags fluttered above jubilant crowds Sunday after residents in Crimea voted overwhelmingly... (Associated Press)
In this photo taken on Sunday, March 16, 2014, Pro-Russia demonstrators chant slogans as they carry a giant flag during a rally at a central square in Kharkiv, Ukraine. Thousands of pro-Russia demonstrators... (Associated Press)
Pro-Russian people celebrate in the central square in Sevastopol, Ukraine, late Sunday, March 16, 2014. Russian flags fluttered above jubilant crowds Sunday after residents in Crimea voted overwhelmingly... (Associated Press)
In the same resolution, it said that all Ukrainian state property on the territory of the Black Sea peninsula will be nationalized and become the property of the Crimean Republic.
Sunday's referendum is not recognized by the West, and the United States and the European Union are preparing sanctions against Russia, whose troops have been occupying Crimea for several weeks.
Crimean lawmakers have asked the United Nations and other nations to recognize it.
A delegation of Crimean lawmakers is set to travel to Moscow Monday for negotiations on how to proceed further. Russian lawmakers have suggested that formally annexing Crimea is just a matter of time. ||||| Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Daniel Sandford reports from Crimea: ''Wild scenes in Simferopol''
EU foreign ministers are due to discuss further sanctions against Russia after a Moscow-backed referendum in Crimea backed a split from Ukraine.
Election officials in Crimea, where pro-Russian forces are in control, say 97% of voters backed joining Russia.
The government in Kiev described the vote as a "circus performance" and said it would not recognise the result.
The EU and US say the referendum was illegal, but Russia says it was consistent with international law.
The truth is that there is little that the authorities here can do without significant outside help Kiev seeks West response
US President Barack Obama has warned Moscow that Washington is also ready to impose "costs" over its actions in Ukraine.
As polls closed on Sunday night, the White House said the international community "will not recognize the results of a poll administered under threats of violence", describing Russia's actions as "dangerous and destabilizing".
Assets freeze
The new authorities in Kiev say Russian troops moved in to Crimea after Ukraine's pro-Moscow president, Viktor Yanukovych, was ousted following months of street protests.
Image copyright Reuters Image caption Crimea's pro-Moscow leader Sergei Aksyonov told people celebrating in Sevastopol that the region was "going home" to Moscow
Image copyright AP Image caption Pro-Russian troops, which Moscow says are self-defence forces and not under its command, began arriving in Crimea in late February
Image copyright Reuters Image caption The EU's foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, said the bloc "can't simply sit back and say this situation can be allowed to happen"
The Kremlin has officially denied deploying its troops in Crimea, describing the armed men without insignia as "Crimea's self-defence forces".
Crimea would perish as part of the EU. We are not competitive - what could be offer Europe? Sveta Tweeting from a lunch in #Crimea
Crimean leaders are expected to formally apply to the Kremlin on Monday to join Russia.
The Russian parliament had been expected to wait until Friday to begin debating the relevant legislation. But the BBC's Richard Galpin in Moscow says it is now believed the process of absorbing Crimea could take place under existing laws.
Whatever the procedure is, the indications so far are that it will happen soon, says our correspondent.
Speaking in Brussels, EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said the "so-called referendum" was "illegal under the constitution of Ukraine and under international law".
"I call upon Russia yet again to meet with Ukrainian leaders and to start a dialogue with them, and to try to move to de-escalation, please, as quickly as possible. We've seen no evidence of that," she told reporters.
She said the EU "can't simply sit back and say this situation can be allowed to happen", but that ministers needed to think carefully about what their response should be.
EU foreign ministers from the 28 EU countries, meeting in Brussels, are considering a visa ban and an asset freeze against a number of Russian officials.
The bloc has already suspended talks on an economic pact with Russia and an easing of visa restrictions.
The ministers will now be toughening the measures by discussing a list of names of those who could be subject to an asset freeze and a visa ban.
Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Crimean Tatars say they want the peninsula to stay with Ukraine, fearing further deportations
Image copyright Reuters Image caption Many Tatars said they were refusing to take part in the poll, which did not give the option of maintaining the status quo
However, the question remains whether the target should just be the list of people related to the takeover in Crimea or the inner circle around Russian President Vladimir Putin, the BBC's Europe editor Gavin Hewitt says.
If an asset freeze and visa ban does not rattle Moscow or Russia makes further military moves into eastern Ukraine, he adds, the EU has already warned of moving to another stage which would involve economic sanctions.
Earlier, the EU said in a statement that the vote was "illegal and illegitimate and its outcome will not be recognised".
'Going home'
Crimean voters had been asked whether they wanted to join Russia, or have greater autonomy within Ukraine. There was no option for those who wanted the constitutional arrangements to remain unchanged.
On Sunday night, thousands of Crimeans began to celebrate as news of a landslide pro-Moscow result emerged.
Crisis timeline 21 Nov 2013: President Viktor Yanukovych abandons an EU deal
President Viktor Yanukovych abandons an EU deal Dec: Pro-EU protesters occupy Kiev city hall and Independence Square
Pro-EU protesters occupy Kiev city hall and Independence Square 20-21 Feb 2014: At least 88 people killed in Kiev clashes
At least 88 people killed in Kiev clashes 22 Feb: Mr Yanukovych flees; parliament removes him and calls election
Mr Yanukovych flees; parliament removes him and calls election 27-28 Feb: Pro-Russian gunmen seize key buildings in Crimea
Pro-Russian gunmen seize key buildings in Crimea 6 Mar: Crimea's parliament votes to join Russia
Crimea's parliament votes to join Russia 16 Mar: Crimea voters choose to secede in disputed referendum Wording of ballot paper Law and order breakdown Is Russian intervention legal?
Sergei Aksyonov, Crimea's pro-Moscow leader installed last month after the Russian takeover, appeared on stage in Crimea's regional capital, Simferopol.
Backed by the Russian national anthem, Russian flags, and the personnel of Russia's Black Sea fleet, he told supporters that Crimea was "going home".
On Monday morning, the chairman of the regional election commission, Mikhail Malyshev said complete initial results showed voters were 96.77% in favour of joining Russia.
Some 58% of people in Crimea are ethnic Russian, with the rest made up of Ukrainians and Tatars.
Most of the Tatars that the BBC spoke to said they had boycotted the vote, and felt that life under the Kremlin would be worse.
The Tatars were deported to Central Asia by Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin in 1944. They were only able to return with the fall of the Soviet Union and many want to remain in Ukraine. ||||| As Crimea votes in favor of secession, the threat of sanctions with Russia grows. (Reuters)
As Crimea votes in favor of secession, the threat of sanctions with Russia grows. (Reuters)
Having failed to prevent a Russian-sponsored referendum in Crimea, the Obama administration and its European allies refocused their efforts Sunday on keeping Moscow from annexing the autonomous Ukrainian region and expanding its military moves into other parts of Ukraine.
In a telephone call to Russian President Vladimir Putin — his third in two weeks — President Obama said that the referendum “would never be recognized by the United States and the international community” and that “we are prepared to impose additional costs on Russia for its actions,” the White House said.
An earlier White House statement, issued as Crimean polls were closing on an overwhelming vote by residents to become part of Russia, called Moscow’s actions “dangerous and destabilizing” and said that “military intervention and violation of international law will bring increasing costs for Russia.”
European Union officials are due to meet Monday to consider measures — including an asset freeze and a travel ban on as-yet-unnamed Russian individuals deemed responsible for military aggression and corruption in Ukraine — that British Foreign Secretary William Hague said “must be adopted.”
But how far the West is prepared to go in punishing Russia for the referendum, and how much further Putin intends to take his quest for control over part, if not all, of Ukraine, remain uncertain.
1 of 43 Full Screen Autoplay Close March 21, 2014 Friday March 19, 2014 March 18, 2014 March 16, 2014 Skip Ad × Crimeans vote on Russia referendum View Photos Crimeans turned out in large numbers for a vote that may determine whether they join Russia or remain with Ukraine. Caption After an ultimatum to abandon the base and an hours-long standoff, Russian troops in at least four armored vehicles seized control of one of the last Ukrainian military outposts in Crimea. March 22, 2014 Armed men, believed to be Russian servicemen, take cover behind an armored vehicle as they attempt to take over a military base in the Crimean town of Belbek, near Sevastopol. Shamil Zhumatov/Reuters Buy Photo Wait 1 second to continue.
Obama administration promises last week to exact a cost if the vote were held — even before new Russian military exercises on Ukraine’s eastern and southern borders and Saturday’s seizure of a Ukrainian gas plant just beyond Crimea’s northern boundary — would seem to make the imposition of at least some sanctions this week a foregone conclusion.
The question for the West is whether harsh retribution now will make Putin more or less likely to desist from further action. Although he has so far been impervious to American and European threats, U.S. officials think that the cost the upheaval has already imposed on the Russian economy will become unbearable if Putin does not yield.
The West could also suffer costs if Russia cuts off energy supplies to Europe and further squeezes the Ukrainian economy. But Western officials say that is a price they are willing to pay and have pledged economic support to Ukraine.
At the same time, the Obama administration wants to hold more severe punishment in reserve, to unleash in response to annexation or further Russian attempts to destabilize Ukraine.
“In this century, we are long past the days when the international community will stand quietly by while one country forcibly seizes the territory of another,” the White House statement said. “We call on all members of the international community to continue to condemn such actions, to take concrete steps to impose costs, and to stand together in support of the Ukrainian people and Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty.”
Short of immediate Russian annexation, U.S. officials said, post-referendum Crimea is likely to continue in a sort of limbo status — while both Russia and the West decide what to do about it.
As he has since the Ukraine crisis began last month, Obama urged Putin to take advantage of “a clear path for resolving this crisis diplomatically” that would allow international monitors to investigate alleged abuses against the ethnic Russians in Crimea whom Moscow says it is protecting. The West, along with numerous reporters in the region, has said the abuses are largely nonexistent.
1 of 62 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad × Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula votes on secession referendum View Photos Crimea votes on whether the autonomous region should join Russia. Caption Crimea votes on whether the autonomous region should join Russia. March 15, 2014 Svetlana Kalisetskaya, a polling-committee chairwoman, checks a voting cabin after completing preparations for Sunday’s referendum at a polling station in Perevalne, in Ukraine‘s Crimea region. Vadim Ghirda/AP Buy Photo Wait 1 second to continue.
The Kremlin also reported on the call, saying Putin told Obama that the referendum was “fully consistent with the norms of international law and the U.N. charter” and comparing the Crimea situation to the West’s recognition of a legal framework for the breakup of the former Yugoslavia.
Ukraine’s interim government, under close guidance from the United States and Europe, has offered constitutional reforms and consultation with Russia on a new arrangement for increased Crimean autonomy. Presidential elections scheduled for May 25 in Ukraine will “provide a legitimate opportunity for all Ukrainians to make their voices heard on the future of their country,” the White House repeated Sunday.
But Obama, the White House said, “reiterated that a diplomatic resolution cannot be achieved while Russian military forces continue their incursions into Ukrainian territory and that the large-scale Russian military exercises on Ukraine’s borders only exacerbate the tension.”
There was a small glimmer of optimism early Sunday after a telephone call between Secretary of State John F. Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. The Foreign Ministry said that the two had agreed to continue working toward a solution to the crisis through “an earliest possible launch of constitutional reform” in Ukraine.
A senior State Department official, speaking on the condition of anonymity about the sensitive diplomacy, said that it was “positive to see Russia focusing on the political processes in the form of constitutional reforms that have been ongoing.”
But until Russia ends its “provocative” troop movements, pulls its troops in Crimea back to their barracks and stops its partisans from agitating within Ukrainian cities, the official said, political overtures cannot be taken seriously.
Several senior U.S. lawmakers expressed skepticism about any deal involving Russia.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) said on “Fox News Sunday”: “Putin has started a game of Russian roulette, and I think that the United States and the West have to be very clear in their response, because he will calculate about how far he can go. So that means having very robust sanctions ready to go, starting with the Crimea vote and moving onward.”
He added: “I think the question will be, what does Russia do in response? And having those sanctions ready — whether it be against the defense minister, the federal security service, the secretary of their security council, possibly the executives of Gazprom and Rosneft, which are their oil and gas companies — send a very clear message.” | – Crimea declared independence from Ukraine today, with officials claiming an overwhelming 96.7% of voters voted to join Russia—but the US and its European allies say the vote in the Ukrainian region was illegal and the results will never be accepted. The White House says President Obama has warned Vladimir Putin that the result "would never be recognized by the United States and the international community" and that "we are prepared to impose additional costs on Russia for its actions," reports the Washington Post. Crimea's leaders formally applied to join Russia today, and while the Russian parliament had been expected to wait until the end of the week to debate the issue, it is now believed that the region can be absorbed under existing Russian laws, reports the BBC. In what analysts believe could be the first step in a long and damaging cycle of economic retaliation, European Union officials plan to slap sanctions, including travel bans and asset freezes, on scores of top Russian and Crimean officials today, Reuters reports. |
Par pitié, savourez nos plats, au lieu de les mitrailler. Deux chefs français font part de leur agacement face à certains clients qui, téléphone en main, prennent des photos de leurs assiettes pour les poster sur les réseaux sociaux.
Gilles Goujon, chef trois étoiles de L'Auberge du vieux puits, à Fontjoncouse, dans l'Aude, prend l'exemple de son œuf de poule "pourri" de truffes. "Si les gens le prennent en photo coupé et l'envoient sur les réseaux sociaux, ça enlève la surprise, déplore-t-il. On enlève aussi un peu ma propriété intellectuelle, on peut être copié."
"On n'arrive pas à déconnecter les gens"
Alexandre Gauthier, chef du restaurant la Grenouillère, à La Madelaine-sous-Montreuil (Pas-de-Calais), a lui représenté un appareil photo barré sur sa carte. "Les photos ne sont pas interdites, mais je veux créer l'interrogation", explique-t-il. "On n'arrive pas à déconnecter les gens", regrette le chef étoilé, âgé de 34 ans, tout en assurant qu'il ne s'agit que d'une minorité de clients.
"Avant, ils faisaient des photos de famille, de la grand-mère, et maintenant on fait des photos de plat", note-t-il. "C'est gratifiant, mais nous sommes une maison où il y a peu d'éclairage, donc il faut le flash. (...) On tweete, on 'like', on commente, on répond. Et le plat est froid", lâche-t-il encore. "Il y a des moments pour tout. (...) On essaie de créer une parenthèse dans la vie de nos clients. Pour ça, il faut déconnecter du portable."
Agacement à New York aussi
Les chefs français ne sont pas les seuls à se plaindre. Dans le New York Times, des chefs de New York ont dénoncé récemment l'attitude de certains clients, debout sur leur chaise pour prendre la meilleure photo possible, qui utilisent le flash, voire des trépieds en plein restaurant. Conséquence : quelques-uns interdisent aux clients de prendre des clichés.
"Beaucoup de gens" le font, "c'est compliqué d'interdire", confie Gilles Goujon. "Je cherche une phrase à écrire [sur le menu], mais je n'ai pas encore trouvé la bonne formule, qui ne soit pas choquante." ||||| Thanks to the likes of Twitter, Instagram and Facebook the internet is now awash with carefully taken photos of extravagant plates of food – or ‘food porn’.
But the phenomenon has not gone down well with many of France’s finest chefs, some of whom are now asking customers not to take photos of dishes at their restaurants – something they claim infringes on their "intellectual property".
Gilles Goujon, whose "L’Auberge du Vieux Puits" restaurant in southern France holds three Michelin stars, says photos posted on social networks can ruin the experience for other diners.
“If people take a photo and put it out on social media, it takes away the surprise,” he told AFP, citing the example of his dish “oeuf de poule pourri de truffles” (chicken egg laden with truffles).
“It takes away a little bit of my intellectual property too. Someone could copy me,” he continued.
Description of the dessert I have eaten at L'auberge du vieux Puits, Fontjoncouse! http://t.co/ewC3A2qX4z pic.twitter.com/nXgGJkzPf3 — DreamLife of Emma (@EmmaChocolate) April 3, 2013
The quality of some of the photos taken is another problem for Goujon.
A photo “taken with a smartphone … is rarely good,” he says. “It doesn’t give the best impression of our work. It’s annoying.”
While admitting “it’s complicated” to ban photos from his restaurant, Goujon says he intends to put a message about the issue on his menus as soon as he can find a way of phrasing it so that will not be “too shocking” for diners.
‘The food is cold’
Alexandre Gauthier, chef at "La Grenouillère" in Pas-de-Calais in northern France, has already taken that step. His menus now come with a picture of a camera with a line through it to let customers know photos are not welcome, if not technically banned.
“Photos are not banned, but I want them to question it,” said the Michelin-starred chef.
#resto. La Grenouillère (La Madelaine-sous-Montreil): rarement cuisine n'aura été si déstabilisante, souvent brillante. pic.twitter.com/ghK91ROs — Parispot (@fredquidet) June 24, 2012
Like Goujon, Gauthier believes the constant snapping of dishes by smartphone-wielding customers detracts from the dining experience.
“They used to take family photos, of their grandmother, and now its photos of food,” he told AFP. “We tweet, we ‘like’, we comment, we respond. And the food is cold.
“We try to create a short break from ordinary life for our customers. In order to do that, you have to disconnect from your phone.”
But chefs should not be so quick to shirk the free publicity that social networks bring them, says French food blogger Stéphane Riss, of the “Cuisiner en Ligne” website.
“The more we talk about chefs, the better it is for them,” he said. “Photos increase visibility and therefore revenue.”
Some of France’s chefs agree.
“We must move with the times" says David Toutain, who opened his eponymous Paris restaurant in December.
"I think social networks helped me at the start of my career and still help me. It is advertising for us.”
(FRANCE 24 with AFP)
Date created : 2014-02-14 ||||| Image copyright Camille Labro Image caption Food journalist Camille Labro praised Alexandre Gauthier's creations on social media
Two Michelin-starred French chefs are cracking down on customers who take photographs of their food, it's been reported.
Gilles Goujon, who runs the three-starred L'Auberge du vieux puits restaurant in Fontjoncouse in southern France, says it is poor etiquette to take photos of food, and more importantly, every time his creations appear on social networks it "takes away the surprise, and a little bit of my intellectual property", news website France TV Info reports.
Another chef, Alexandre Gauthier of the Grenouillere restaurant in the northern French town of La Madelaine-sous-Montreuil, has gone as far as to add a "no cameras" logo to his menu - although photography isn't strictly banned there.
Gauthier lamented the fact that customers now take pictures of the food rather than the people they are dining with. "Before, they were pictures of family, grandmother, and now we take pictures of food… We tweet, we like, we respond to comments, and the dish is cold."
But not all fine dining establishments take the same view - some have even been known to offer food photography courses.
Use #NewsfromElsewhere to stay up-to-date with our reports via Twitter. | – Food porn—the incessant taking and sharing of photos of meals—has been around for a while now, as have complaints against it, notes the Eater blog. But a story by Francetv info and AFP is catching some attention because it features two top chefs, from France no less, who are pleading with people to put their phones away. (The story is here, but in French.) Gilles Goujon, who runs the three-star L'Auberge du Vieux Puits, says people who post photos "ruin the surprise" for subsequent diners, reports France24. He also complains that the photos are crimping on his "intellectual property," notes the BBC. And just for good measure, he carps that smartphone photos "are rarely good." Alexandre Gauthier of La Grenouillère, meanwhile, thinks the photo-taking detracts from the dining experience. And what's worse, "the food is cold." He has added a no-camera logo to his menu, though it's not exactly enforced. “Photos are not banned, but I want them to question it." Goujon says he's working up some kind of tactful message for his menu as well. All the stories sound a note of skepticism about whether the anti-food-porn message will take hold, however. As David Toutain, another Parisian chef, puts it, "I think social networks helped me at the start of my career and still help me. It is advertising for us." |
ELMWOOD PARK, N.J. (AP) — Prosecutors say a 100-year-old man apparently killed his wife with an ax as she slept in their home, then killed himself in the bathroom with a knife.
Police tape marks off a home where the bodies of an elderly couple were found Monday, April 6, 2015, in Elmwood Park, N.J. Prosecutors say a 100-year-old man apparently killed his wife with an ax as she... (Associated Press)
Authorities arrive at a home where the bodies of an elderly couple were found Monday, April 6, 2015, in Elmwood Park, N.J. Prosecutors say a 100-year-old man apparently killed his wife with an ax as she... (Associated Press)
People gather across the street from the home where the bodies of an elderly couple were found Monday, April 6, 2015, in Elmwood Park, N.J. Prosecutors say a 100-year-old man apparently killed his wife... (Associated Press)
But it's still not clear what sparked the murder-suicide late Sunday in Elmwood Park.
Bergen County Prosecutor John Molinelli says there was a "history of domestic issues" between Michael Juskin and his 88-year-old wife, Rosalia. But he said a motive for the attack remains under investigation.
Police officers found the couple in their Spruce Street home after relative — who was not in the home — called authorities. The deaths were made public Monday.
Authorities do not believe anyone else was in the home when the attack occurred.
Neighbors told The Record newspaper that they often saw the couple out and about — Michael Juskin walking a dog and his wife tending to her garden — but said they kept to themselves.
Barbara Szczecina, 65, who lives down the block, said she saw Rosalia sitting on her front porch around 10 a.m. Saturday.
"She used to be in her garden all the time," Szczecina said. "They were always together, putzing around outside."
Family members who were at the home on Monday declined to comment on the deaths. ||||| A 100-year-old Elmwood Park man whose family said he suffered from dementia killed his 88-year-old wife with an ax as she slept, before taking his own life with a knife, according to authorities, becoming one of the oldest people ever accused of homicide. TARIQ ZEHAWI / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER Paramedics arrive at the Spruce Street home. Update: Elmwood Park police called to home of couple in murder-suicide three times TARIQ ZEHAWI / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER Bergen County Sheriff's Department and Prosecutor's Office on the scene at a home on Spruce Street Monday morning. Michael and Rosalia Juskin had a “history of domestic issues,” Bergen County Prosecutor John L. Molinelli said in a tweet on Monday evening. He said authorities had yet to determine a motive for the murder-suicide, which he said had taken place sometime late Sunday. The bodies were found early Monday after a relative, who was not at the home at the time of the violence, called police, authorities said. Molinelli said Michael Juskin committed suicide in a bathroom at the couple’s Spruce Street home after killing his wife. He did not provide further details. Related: Domestic violence a hidden problem among the elderly Elmwood Park Police Chief Michael Foligno said that the exact time of death was unknown and that he did not believe anyone else was in the two-family house when the killings happened. He referred all other questions to the Prosecutor’s Office. Neighbors said they often saw the couple out and about — Michael walking his dog and Rosalia tending her garden. A family member who insisted on anonymity said Michael had been suffering from dementia, a condition that affects the brain and is sometimes related to aging. “Sometimes he was lucid and sometimes he wasn’t,” the family member said. Mobile users, click here for video The Juskins often “kept to themselves,” said one neighbor, Teresa Communicates. She said she had conversations with Rosalia as she worked in her garden but that Michael “wasn’t the type to converse.”
“It really is sad — and shocking, to be honest,” Communicates said.
Another neighbor, Dorota Biskup, 42, said police had been to the Juskin home a few times in recent years. Foligno confirmed that police had been there on several occasions over the years but did not provide details. Police reports of those incidents were unavailable Monday afternoon. Molinelli did not provide details about the couple’s domestic issues.
The Juskins had been living part time in a condominium complex in Gulfport, Fla., until they sold it a little more than a year ago, former neighbors from the complex said.
One of them, Carole Lynch, said Rosalia told her that Michael was “not well” but did not tell her specifically what was wrong with him. Lynch said Michael “didn’t talk much” but that she sometimes heard him “hollering through the door” as she passed the Juskins’ apartment.
More than a year ago, the Juskins moved to the east coast of Florida to be near a daughter, Lynch said. Rosalia wanted to live in Florida full time but told her that Michael wanted to keep their home in New Jersey, Lynch said. She remembered Rosalia as “a very sweet lady.”
One of the Juskins’ neighbors in Elmwood Park, Barbara Szczecina, said she last saw Rosalia sitting on her front porch at 10 a.m. Saturday.
“She used to be in her garden all the time,” said Szczecina, 65. “They were always together, putzing around outside.”
Another neighbor, Karen Bionda, 67, said she remembered seeing Michael walking his dog around the neighborhood. “I didn’t think stuff like this happened in nice neighborhoods, huh?” she said. “This is just too close to home.”
Family members who stood outside the Juskins’ home on Monday declined to comment. A woman who later answered the phone at a relative’s home said the family was too distraught to talk.
It could not be verified on Monday whether anyone older than Michael Juskin ever has been accused of committing a homicide.
In 2011, a 96-year-old woman became the oldest person ever charged with murder in Florida in the fatal shooting of her 53-year-old nephew. Authorities dropped the charges two years later after the woman was found to be not mentally competent to stand trial.
Last year, a Massachusetts woman who strangled her nursing home roommate in 2009 was ruled incompetent to stand trial at age 102. Authorities said the woman, who had a longstanding diagnosis of dementia, was the oldest murder defendant in the state’s history. The woman, who was committed to a psychiatric hospital, was 98 at the time of the killing.
Email: seasly@northjersey.com, dazio@northjersey.com and koloff@northjersey.com | – A century-old New Jersey man ended his long life in a horrific fashion on Sunday, killing his sleeping wife with an ax before taking his own life, according to a prosecutor in Bergen County, NJ. The bodies of Elmwood Park residents Michael Juskin and his wife Rosalia, 88, were found after a relative (who wasn't there at the time of the apparent murder-suicide) called police, the AP reports. The prosecutor says Juskin appears to have killed himself in a bathroom with a knife after killing his wife, and while the motive isn't known yet, the couple had a "history of domestic issues," the Bergen Dispatch reports. A family member tells the Record that Juskin had dementia and "sometimes he was lucid and sometimes he wasn't." A former neighbor tells the newspaper that Rosalia, who could often be seen tending her garden, was a "very sweet lady." Police had been called to the house several times in the last few years, neighbors say. The Record also notes that Juskin may be the oldest person on record to be accused of homicide; a 102-year-old Massachusetts woman accused of killing her nursing home roommate when she was 98 was ruled unfit for trial last year. (A doctor in Indiana killed his wife and himself a few hours after their wedding.) |
Mind you, it seems unlikely that Frankie (Scoot McNairy) and Russell (Ben Mendelsohn), the two stringy-haired losers we meet first in “Killing Them Softly,” have any idea who Barack Obama is or what the hell is happening on Wall Street. (Other than the fact that guys in good clothes are making money and they're not, perhaps.) A loudmouth wannabe crime boss named Johnny Amato (Vincent Curatola, aka Johnny Sack from “The Sopranos”) talks them into sticking up a mob-sponsored poker game run by Markie Trattman (the ever creepier Ray Liotta), a mid-level operator who somehow survived an episode in which he robbed his own game years earlier. Johnny’s assumption is that the bosses will take out their frustration on Markie, shrug off the losses and move on. Like low-level financial gamesters the world over, he is unable to see the future beyond his next few thousand bucks, and his assumption is only partly correct.
I’ve already made it sound way too much as if “Killing Them Softly” was driven by plot. In fact the story largely follows a mostly predictable arc and the experience of watching it is dominated by the scum-coated, rain-soaked cityscapes (photographed by the suddenly hot Aussie cinematographer Greig Fraser, who also shot Kathryn Bigelow’s “Zero Dark Thirty”), the deliberately disorienting point-of-view shots and the eruptions of gruesome violence, often seen in poetic slow motion. Jackie gets to town to clean up the mess left behind by Markie, Johnny, the two deadbeat thieves and pretty much everybody else, and finds himself uniformly disappointed and let down. His principal point of contact is an apologetic middle-manager type played by the reliably terrific Richard Jenkins, who approaches the challenges of organized crime with a Dilbert-like lack of fervor. It’s a business like any other, and you have to deal with jerks. Both he and Jackie seem to work for a boss named Dillon, who makes only one brief appearance (a cameo for Sam Shepard) and then disappears altogether. ||||| Brad Pitt is the dissatisfied hit man Jackie Cogan in Killing Them Softly.
Brad Pitt Alliance Films Brad Pitt is the dissatisfied hit man Jackie Cogan in Killing Them Softly.
Killing Them Softly
(out of 4)
Starring Brad Pitt, James Gandolfini, Richard Jenkins, Ray Liotta, Ben Mendelsohn and Scoot McNairy. Written and directed by Andrew Dominik. 97 minutes. Opens Nov. 30 at major theatres. 18A
This is the dead land
This is cactus land
—T. S. Eliot, The Hollow Men
They are indeed empty vessels, these drained gangsters of Andrew Dominik’s Killing Them Softly.
They’re guys who would steal a waiter’s $1 tip, and for whom $1,000 might as well be $1 million. They drink to excess and whore around, but achieve little satisfaction from either escape.
They have vacant eyes, zombie hearts and zero conscience. They will pull a trigger, smash a face or betray a pal, but there’s no serious intent. There’s just opportunity, money and, above all, business.
Business has been bad lately. It’s the fall of 2008 in post-Katrina New Orleans, and despite the constant chatter about “the American promise” from presidential candidate Barack Obama, few people are dreaming big.
It’s a time of hesitation, doubt and fear. Gangsters drive around in 40-year-old gas guzzlers and walk tiny dogs. They’re feeling the pinch as keenly as the bankers who have driven the economy into the dirt.
“This country is f---ed, I’m telling you,” says mob hit man Jackie Cogan (Brad Pitt), who is disgusted by what he sees. He still possesses a modicum of self-respect, but it’s started to fade. He has to clean up the mess of incompetent dirty work.
He sees idiots like Frankie (Scoot McNairy) and Russell (Ben Mendelsohn) doing idiotic things like knocking over a backroom poker game between members of the mob. The game is run by another idiot, Markie Trattman (Ray Liotta), who previously arranged to have another of his mob games robbed and bragged about it. Guess who is going to be blamed for this one?
There are elements of Scorsese’s grime and Tarantino’s wit in Killing Them Softly, and the story source is the 1974 novel Cogan’s Game by George V. Higgins. But writer/director Dominik has his own methods. He’s brilliant at using atmosphere and attitude to set up a scene, as he also showed in Chopper and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.
This is a deeply cynical movie, with not much to say but a lot to feel. Everything sinks into your bones, like the watered-down colours of cinematographer Greig Fraser’s palette. Like the deep funk of Pitt’s disillusioned Cogan. Like the economic meltdown that siphons wallets and then souls.
Obama’s talk of “hope” and “change” blares from every blurry barroom TV screen, as well as George W. Bush’s final excuses, but nobody here is feeling energized.
There’s an election coming, but also a reckoning: Johnny Cash’s apocalyptic “The Man Comes Around” plays on the soundtrack, and that man isn’t Jesus, it’s Cogan.
He’s been hired to settle a few scores regarding the poker-game robbery. He gives the film’s title meaning as he describes his technique: “I like to kill them softly, from a distance. Not close enough for feelings.”
But he’s feeling something: frustration. His fellow enforcer (James Gandolfini), whom he’s summoned to town for assistance, seems more interested in getting smashed and laid.
Cogan’s mob contact Driver (Richard Jenkins) keeps sweating the details of the planned hits, and also the cost (“Fly coach”).
Bullets will eventually fly and blood will flow. The victims will hardly have time to feel pain.
It’s nothing new, but it’s smartly done, with slow-motion scenes mirroring the blurred states of mind.
“Crime is the business of America,” Cogan says, but we’ve already noted that business ain’t good.
Killing Them Softly, however, is very good. | – Killing Them Softly, starring Brad Pitt as a jaded gangster, is a seedy tale of hopelessness in a world of theft, revenge, and plenty of violence. It's a worthwhile watch, though it doesn't quite achieve its goals: With "elements of Scorsese's grime and Tarantino's wit," the film is "nothing new, but it’s smartly done," writes Peter Howell in the Toronto Star. It's "a deeply cynical movie, with not much to say but a lot to feel. Everything sinks into your bones." The film offers an "agreeably scuzzy, small-time feeling," notes AO Scott in the New York Times. But it's "sapped of vitality by its own self-conscious, curatorial fastidiousness. It takes place entirely in a universe of tropes and archetypes, which is a polite way of saying clichés and pretensions." At Salon, Andrew O'Hehir didn't exactly "enjoy" the movie, but then, it's "a deliberately chilly and nerve-wracking experience, and one of the bleakest portraits of American society seen on-screen in the last several decades," he writes. Indeed, it "suffers from a nearly terminal case of undergraduate nihilist philosophy ... reaching for grand existential meaning and not quite getting there." At USA Today, Claudia Puig is less equivocal, calling the film "a stylish thriller worth seeing—despite its relentless violence—for its sharp dialogue, mesmerizing photography, and gritty performances." |
The police detained 11 people on Friday, including one German, after they staged a bizarre ceremony at the Auschwitz death camp. Visits to the site were temporarily suspended.
According to officials from the Auschwitz museum, several men and women between the ages of 20 and 27 took off their clothes and slaughtered a sheep at the site of the Nazi German death camp located in present-day Poland. They then proceeded to chain themselves together near the gate that bears the infamous slogan "Arbeit Macht Frei."
"We're shocked and outraged by this attempt to use this memorial site for a protest and which mars the memory of thousands of victims. It's a reprehensible act," museum spokesman Bartosz Bartyzel told the AFP news agency.
"This is the first time something like this has happened at Auschwitz," museum director Piotr Cywinski told the AFP news agency.
"I have no idea what their motives were."
Local media reported that the youths used a drone to film the incident and draped a white banner with the red text "love" over the camp gate.
Foreigners also questioned
The police promptly removed the perpetrators and transferred them the local police station for questioning. Poles, Belarusians and one German were said to be among the perpetrators.
"A large group of police officers are at the scene," local police spokeswoman Malgorzata Jurecka told the agency. The participants will "likely be charged with desecrating a monument or other historical site," she added.
During World War II, Germany's Nazi regime used Auschwitz to exterminate around a million Jews and some 100,000 Poles, Roma, Soviet prisoners and anti-Nazi resistance fighters. Researchers believe that around 232,000 children died on site. The camp has grown to symbolize the tragedy of the Holocaust and all other Nazi atrocities of the time period.
dj/sms (AP, AFP) ||||| Image copyright Reuters Image caption The incident took place beneath the infamous front gate at Auschwitz
Police in Poland have detained at least 11 people after a naked demonstration at the Auschwitz museum, on the site of the former Nazi death camp.
The museum said "a group of people killed a sheep, undressed and chained themselves together".
The incident took place beneath the main gate, which bears the infamous slogan "Arbeit Macht Frei" ("Work sets you free").
The motive behind the demonstration was unclear, officials said.
A firecracker was also launched in the car park.
Museum guards immediately intervened and ordered the group to dress. Police attended the site in the southern city of Oswiecim, which was closed to visitors.
The individuals involved are said to be aged 20 to 27, and their identities are unknown.
The seven men and four women included six Poles, four Belarusians and one German, regional police spokesman Sebastian Glen said.
Image copyright EPA Image caption A photo released by Polish police shows one of the suspects at the police station in Oswiecim, Poland
The demonstrators could be charged with insulting a monument or symbolic place, which may result in a fine or a restriction of liberty, police said.
Local media reported that they used a drone to film the disturbance, and draped a white banner with the red text "love" over the gate.
Some Polish media say the action was a protest against the war in Ukraine, the BBC Warsaw correspondent Adam Easton reports.
In a statement, the Auschwitz museum said: "Using the symbol of Auschwitz for any kind of manifestations or happenings is outrageous and unacceptable. It is disrespectful to the memory of all the victims of the German Nazi Auschwitz concentration and extermination camp".
About 1.1 million people, including one million Jews, were murdered by the Nazis at the camp. | – A group of 11 young people from several countries was detained after a bizarre protest at the Auschwitz death camp Friday. The Auschwitz museum says the men and women stripped naked, slaughtered a sheep, and chained themselves together under the infamous "Arbeit Macht Frei" gate, the BBC reports. The seven men and four women, from countries including Poland, Belarus, and Germany, also draped a banner with the word "Love" over the gate and used a drone to film the incident, Deutsche Welle reports. Their motives are unknown, though local media have reported it was a protest against the war in Ukraine. Museum guards intervened and the group was taken to the local police station for questioning. Authorities in Poland say they are likely to face charges including desecrating a monument. "Using the symbol of Auschwitz to any kind of manifestation of happenings is outrageous and unacceptable," the museum said in a statement. "It is disrespectful to the memory of all the victims of the German Nazi Auschwitz concentration camp." |
WARCZone is a collection of outsider-uploaded WARCs, which are contributed to the Internet Archive but may or may not be ingested into the Wayback Machine. They are being kept in this location for reference and clarity for the Wayback Team, while also being accessible to the general public who are seeking any particular items they can regarding certain websites. ||||| Oak tree, one of the UK heritage trees that produces recalcitrant seeds and can't be banked in a seed bank Credit: Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew In paper published today in Nature Plants, researchers at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, detail for the first time the scale of threatened species that are unable to be conserved in seed banks. The paper reveals that when looking at threatened species, 36 per cent of 'critically endangered' species produce recalcitrant seeds . This means they can't tolerate the drying process and therefore cannot be frozen, the key process they need to go through to be safely 'banked'.
In the paper, Kew scientist Dr. John Dickie, former Kew scientist Dr. Sarah Wyse, and former Director of Science at Kew Prof. Kathy Willis, found that other threatened categories and global tree species list also contain high proportions of species that are unbankable including 35% of 'vulnerable' species, 27% of 'endangered' species and 33% of all tree species.
This comes after research was published last year that estimated around 8% of the world's plants produce recalcitrant seeds . Among these species are important UK heritage trees such as oaks, horse chestnuts and sweet chestnuts, as well as worldwide food staples like avocado, cacao, and mango. This latest research reveals that the scale of plants unable to be conserved in seed banks is much higher for threatened species. The issue is particularly severe for tree species, especially those in tropical moist forests where a half of the canopy tree species can be unsuitable for banking.
Seed Banking
Currently, seed banking is the most commonly practiced way of conserving plants outside of their natural habitats. Seed banking works as an 'insurance policy' against the extinction of plants in the world—especially for those that are rare, endemic and economically important—so that they can be protected and utilised for the future.
This type of 'ex-situ' conservation is preferred for a number of reasons: it allows for the preservation of high levels of genetic diversity at relatively low cost in minimal space and can be kept for comparatively long periods.
Credit: Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
However, this doesn't work for all seeds and this new paper suggests there is a huge knowledge gap of knowing which of the world's most rare, endemic and economically important plants are not suitable for conservation in seed banks. To estimate for the first time the extent of the problem, Wyse and Dickie developed a set of models to predict the likely seed storage behaviour of species. This analysis has highlighted that the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation (GSPC) target of conserving 75% of the world's threatened plant species outside of their natural habitat by 2020 is practically impossible.
Cryopreservation
Wyse, Dickie and Willis, argue that alternative techniques are required to achieve the GSPC target, most likely using cryopreservation—a form of preservation using liquid nitrogen which offers a potential long-term storage solution for recalcitrant seeds. In seed banks, seeds are dried and frozen at -20°C whereas cryopreservation involves removing the embryo from the seed and then using liquid nitrogen to freeze it at a much colder temperature of -196°C.
Kew has been championing the use of cryopreservation at its world-famous Millennium Seed Bank (MSB) at Wakehurst for a number of years and outlined it as a key priority for conserving the world's seeds in Kew's Collections Strategy published earlier this year. Kew aims to develop a generic protocol for the banking of recalcitrant seeds and to kick-start large-scale use of cryopreservation. As well as allowing 'unbankable' species to be stored, cryopreservation also helps to extend the lifespans of orthodox seeds that otherwise have storage lives that are too short at -20°C.
In 2010, Kew scientist Dr. Hugh Pritchard and Prof of Botany at CAS Kunming Institute of Botany, De-Zhu Li called for an updated of the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation to outline clear aims for cryopreservation to increase research efforts into the technology. This subsequently didn't happen and now Kew are urgently calling for cryopreservation to be prioritised as a key conservation tool post 2020 as it's likely to provide us with the greatest gains in safeguarding 'unbankable' species.
John Dickie, Head of Seed & Lab-based Collections at Kew's Millennium Seed Bank and one of the authors of the paper, says that "Ex-situ conservation of plants is more critical than ever, with many threats to plant populations including climate change, habitat conversion and plant pathogens, we need to make sure we're doing all we can to conserve the most important and threatened species. As successful as seed banking is for some species, it is not suitable for all seed plants and we need to invest in other ways to safeguard recalcitrant seeds. This paper shows that we need greater international effort to understand and apply alternative techniques like cryopreservation which have the potential to conserve many more species from extinction."
Explore further: Researchers develop new approach to conserving tree species
More information: "Seed banking not an option for many threatened plants" Nature Plants, www.nature.com/articles/s41477-018-0298-3
| – The UN’s Global Strategy for Plant Conservation program has set a 2020 deadline for conserving 75% of the world’s threatened plant species outside of their natural habitat. But, based on the results of a new study, the prospects of meeting that target aren’t very good. According to a paper published earlier this month in Nature Plants, 36% of “critically endangered” species produce recalcitrant seeds, meaning that they can’t survive being dried out. And that means that they aren't candidates for the traditional seed banking process, Phys.org reports. The study, performed by scientists affiliated with the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, also found that 35% of “vulnerable” species and 27% of “endangered” species generate seeds that cannot be banked using the common method of freezing them at about -4 degrees Fahrenheit. Among them are trees such as oak, avocado, cacao, and mango. “As successful as seed banking is for some species, it is not suitable for all seed plants and we need to invest in other ways to safeguard recalcitrant seeds,” says study co-author John Dickie, per Earth.com. One of those other ways to preserve recalcitrant seeds may be cryopreservation, which involves removing the embryo from a seed and freezing it at about -320 degrees Fahrenheit using liquid nitrogen. Per Phys.org, Kew has been using cryopreservation at its Millennium Seed Bank for years and is planning to develop a protocol to “kick-start large-scale use” of the method. (Animal species aren't doing so well, either.) |
It looks like Samantha Ronson still has a soft spot for her ex Lindsay Lohan.
PHOTOS: How Lindsay's face has changed
Joan Rivers mocked Lohan, who was just sentenced to 90 days in jail, in a series of Tweets. "Lindsay Lohan is so dumb. Her idea of being sworn in is cursing at the judge," said one, a clear reference to Lohan's F-word manicure.
Said another, "I was just reading about the new Lindsay Lohan diet, which is all liquid. 80 Proof." The actress is going to jail for violating probation on two 2007 DUIs. Rivers, 77, also quipped, "Lindsay Lohan said she wouldn't mind being under oath because she thought Oath was a Norwegian ski instructor." (Rivers also had a few biting words for judge Marsha Revel, who sentenced Lohan.)
Ronson, 32, stood up for Lohan, from whom she split in April 2009.
PHOTOS: Child stars gone bad
"Hey Joan Rivers," she Twittered. "You have collagen older than Lindsay, pick on someone your own age, oh wait I guess people that old can't hear."
Lohan appreciated the support. She re-Tweeted the message Saturday morning, and added, "thank you. ;)"
The exchange was much more civil than one of their recent run-ins, in which Lohan pitched a glass at Ronson at a Hollywood club. Retorted Ronson after, "She's an angry human being."
Meanwhile, TMZ.com reports she's hired a new lawyer, Chicago-based Stuart V. Goldberg, to appeal her jail sentence. Her former lawyer, Shawn Chapman Holley, issued a scathing statement slamming Lohan's sentece and quit the same day.
But Lohan's New York-based attorney, Stephanie Ovadia, says the family is still searching. (Dina told Entertainment Tonight she spends hours a day going over legal papers herself to help mount a defense.)
"No attorney has been retained by the family at this point," she told UsMagazine.com. ||||| Tweet with a location
You can add location information to your Tweets, such as your city or precise location, from the web and via third-party applications. You always have the option to delete your Tweet location history. Learn more | – The bad news: Lindsay Lohan is going to jail. The good news: Her pined-after ex, Samantha Ronson, is back on her side. Ronson recently defended Lohan against a stream of hilarious—er, mean—tweets from Joan Rivers. Samples: “Lindsay Lohan said she wouldn't mind being under oath because she thought Oath was a Norwegian ski instructor” and “I was just reading about the new Lindsay Lohan diet, which is all liquid. 80 Proof.” “Hey Joan Rivers,” tweeted Sam in response, “You have collagen older than Lindsay, pick on someone your own age, oh wait I guess people that old can't hear.” LiLo was quick to re-tweet with a “thank you ;),” Us reports. |
Just how rich can Bill Gates get?
According to a new analysis by CNBC using data from Oxfam, the Microsoft founder could become America’s first-ever trillionaire.
That’s 12 zeroes.
Gates, 61, is currently worth more than $84 billion, according to Forbes. Since 2009, the average net worth of ultra-rich individuals has grown at 11 percent per year since 2009, according to Oxfam.
If this rate stays constant, by age 86, Gates will have surpassed the $1,000,000,000,000 mark.
In the current environment, Oxfam says, “If you are already rich, you have to try hard not to keep getting a lot richer.”
Here’s the age at which the other top 5 world billionaires could become trillionaires at Oxfam’s 11% average rate.
Warren Buffett: 111 (current net worth $73 billion, current age 86)
Jeff Bezos: 78 (current net worth $72 billion, current age 53)
Amancio Ortega: 105 (current net worth $72 billion, current age 80)
Mark Zuckerberg: 59 (current net worth $56 billion, current age 32)
SPONSORED FINANCIAL CONTENT
Of course, Bill Gates wouldn’t be the world’s first-ever trillionaire, as historians have estimated various historical figures to have amassed holdings worth well in excess of 12 figures. And no one really knows how much Vladimir Putin is worth, but there are hints he could beat Gates to the mark.
Still, it would be a good list to join. ||||| Richard and Joan Branson Stuff really is not what brings happiness. Family, friends, good health and the satisfaction that comes from making a positive difference are what really matters. Happily our children, who will be our principal heirs, agree with me on this. As and when we take monies out of the Virgin Group of companies the majority of it will be invested in entrepreneurial approaches to help make a difference in the world. We want the value created by the Virgin Group to be used to invest in new collaborative approaches to addressing issues, where business, governments and not-for-profits join forces to create a healthy, equitable and peaceful world for future generations to enjoy. We started by trying to give a voice to the young people of the 1960s and hope our Giving pledge will help many generations to come. We look forward to working with Bill Gates and Warren Buffett in expanding the number of people who are part of this pledge outside America. ||||| These 8 billionaires own same wealth as half the world's poorest 2:57 PM ET Tue, 17 Jan 2017 | 00:47
Eight billionaires from around the globe have as much money as the 3.6 billion people who make up the poorest half of the world's population, according to a report published by Oxfam on Monday.
The report is timely as the global political and business elite gather in snow-clad Davos for the annual World Economic Forum's annual meeting which aims to look at responsive and responsible leadership this year.
The report, "An Economy for the 99 percent", highlights the gap between rich and poor is far greater than had been feared.
"In 2015 the world's richest one percent retained their share of global wealth and still own more than the other 99 percent combined. This concentration of wealth at the top is holding back the fight to end global poverty," the report found.
The eight billionaires mentioned in the report, according to the Forbes billionaires list published in March 2016, are veteran investor Warren Buffett, Microsoft's Bill Gates, Inditex founder Amancio Ortega, Mexico's Carlos Slim, Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos, Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, Oracle's Larry Ellison and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. | – Eight billionaires on Earth boast as much money as the world's 3.6 billion poorest people—and one of those eight wealth-wielders has a good shot at ascending to the next level. CNBC reports that Bill Gates is on pace to become the planet's first trillionaire within the next quarter-century. This prediction is based on the latest Oxfam report, "An Economy for the 99%," which took Gates' current worth ($84 billion or so, per Forbes) and number-crunched it using the average rate growth for the super-rich, which has been around 11% a year for the past eight years. Using that formula, the 61-year-old Microsoft co-founder would top the trillion mark right around his 86th birthday. "In such an environment, if you are already rich, you have to try hard not to keep getting a lot richer," Oxfam says. Gates has accumulated nearly $35 billion since he said goodbye to Microsoft in 2006, and that's even with him doing whatever he can to dump his stash, both through his own foundation and via his participation in the Giving Pledge, an elite gathering of the richest folks in the world promising to dump the bulk of their wealth into philanthropic efforts. Other billionaires Oxfam looked at could also join the trillionaires club going by that same rate, though it will take awhile longer: Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, now 32, could hit that benchmark when he's 59, for example. Warren Buffett could get there in 25 years, but he's already 86 and would have to live to 111, per Money. (We call Bill Gates as our Secret Santa when he hits the big time.) |
Sherri Papini (Photo: Courtesy photo)
REDDING - The so-far unexplained disappearance of a 34-year-old Redding-area woman shocked her family and friends, who said she’s a devoted mother of two who’d never leave her children.
And it’s that same devotion that leads family members to believe Sherri Papini was abducted.
“She was out for a run. She wouldn’t leave her babies,” Sheila Koester, 36, said of her sister, who disappeared Wednesday afternoon while on a run in the neighborhood surrounding her home.
Shasta County Sheriff Tom Bosenko said Papini was last seen at about 2 p.m. Wednesday in the area of Old Oregon Trail and Sunrise Drive, less than 1.5 miles east of Interstate 5 in the Mountain Gate area north of Redding.
She was jogging in the rural neighborhood, where residents live on large properties and the streets are sometimes paved and sometimes just gravel.
Sherri Papini sent a text message to her husband, Keith Papini, earlier in the day to ask whether he’d be home for lunch, Koester said. He replied later in the afternoon and said he wouldn’t.
“He returned to the home later in the evening, around 5, and no one was here,” Koester said. “He called the authorities immediately.”
Sherri Papini typically picks up the couple's two children from day care in the afternoon, family members said. Jogging in the neighborhood is typical for her.
“She’s here with them every day gardening and doing projects. There’s just no way she would just take off,” said Suzanne Papini, Keith Papini’s sister.
Keith Papini used the Find My iPhone app to track his wife’s phone less than a mile from their home to the intersection of Old Oregon Trail and Sunrise Drive, where he found the phone, according to authorities.
But there was no other sign of his wife.
“I would say my personal reaction is that it’s twofold,” Suzanne Papini said. “One, is that is it’s good to have some sort of clue. The other portion is that it really points to she’s been taken. I mean, she wouldn’t just drop her phone if she was running away. So, at least it’s giving us some kind of information, but it’s pretty — we’re sick. This is a pretty sickening situation.”
About two-dozen searchers spent the night and day combing the area where the phone was found, although the search radius of about a half-mile could be expanded.
“It depends on the search today and what we find and the evidence and we’ll have to expand it out potentially if something else has not developed,” sheriff’s Lt. Anthony Bertain said Thursday.
Sherri Papini doesn’t have any known physical or mental health conditions that could explain why she disappeared, Bosenko said.
Deputies also have no history of calls for major incidents to the Papini home, Bosenko said.
Deputies haven’t identified anyone suspected of involvement in the disappearance, although they are checking with registered sex offenders who live in the area. Bosenko said. A search of the state’s sex offender registry reveals four men reported living within about a mile of where the phone was found.
Bosenko wouldn’t say whether deputies had cleared any of those four men of their involvement, citing the ongoing investigation.
Family members so far have let deputies handle the search effort. The wait for information is taking a toll, they said.
“It’s terrible. I’m just in a state of being emotionless so that I can do what needs to be done and take care of my brother,” Suzanne Papini said.
The family is looking into a possible reward for information that leads to finding the woman they described as “very bubbly, friendly," adding that she "has a great smile, absolutely loves her children and would do anything for them.”
Sherri and Keith Papini grew up in Redding, friends and family members said.
Sherri Papini is 5 feet, 3 inches tall and weighs about 100 pounds and was last seen wearing pink running clothes, deputies said.
Anyone with information relevant to the case is asked to call 245-6540. Tips also can be submitted via email to mcu@co.shasta.ca.us.
Family members and friends wishing to help in the search efforts can contact Koester via Facebook messenger, she said.
“It’s hard for me to filter through all the posts right now,” Koester said.
Read or Share this story: https://www.vcstar.com/story/news/2016/11/03/california-woman-missing-possibly-abducted/93261962/ ||||| As the search intensifies for Sherri Papini, a California mother of two who was reported missing after failing to return from an afternoon jog, her husband tells ABC News that he believes she was abducted.
Interested in Sherri Papini? Add Sherri Papini as an interest to stay up to date on the latest Sherri Papini news, video, and analysis from ABC News. Add Interest
“Everybody who knows my wife knows that there’s no reason for her to leave ... She was definitely taken against her will,” Keith Papini told ABC News in a Sunday interview.
Sherri Papini, 34, of Shasta County was reported missing on Wednesday at about 6 p.m. after having gone jogging at approximately 2 p.m. According to a poster that was distributed in the search effort, Papini was last seen jogging alone on Sunrise Drive in Redding.
Described by her family as being a “super mom,” she failed to pick up her two young children from child care on Wednesday, sparking concern.
“I received a text message from her at 10:37 a.m. that day asking me if I was coming home for lunch,” Keith Papini said. “I usually don’t bring my personal phone in on my job. So I didn’t respond to that message until 1:39 p.m. that day.”
Papini added that he traced his wife’s cellphone using an app that tracks lost phones and found the device on the side of a road.
“Knowing that she didn’t pick up our kids — there is no way that ever happens,” Papini said. “She could drop her phone, but she would never in a million years not pick up our children on a time that she normally would have.”
Shasta County Sheriff Tom Bosenko said on Saturday that the missing woman was “considered at risk due to the suspicious circumstances.”
She was last seen wearing a pink jogging top. Search teams have been scouring the area, and Papini’s family has offered a $50,000 reward to anyone who can provide information leading to her whereabouts.
“She has a family that loves her. Please just bring her home,” said her sister, Sheila Koester. ||||| Husband talks about missing wife,...
MOUNTAIN GATE, Calif. - Sherri Papini went missing last Wednesday and no one as seen or heard from her since.
Keith Papini, Sherri's husband, believes she was abducted and is asking for her safe return.
"Bring her home, bring her home, just bring her home,” Keith said as tears filled his eyes. “Bring her home safe there is a $50,000 reward just bring her home."
It's been five days since Sherri was last seen wearing a pink jogging jacket off Old Oregon Trail in Mountain Gate, north of Redding.
"It's hard waiting you know, you are waiting for a phone call, you're waiting for something to tell us this is the directions, or this is the house, or this is the car and that is very difficult right now."
On November 2, Keith came home and noticed Sherri's car was there, which is normal, but when he went inside their house it was abnormally quiet.
"And on normal days I would open the door and my family comes, runs and give me a hug," Keith said with a small smile on his face.
This time he was not welcomed with hugs from Sherri and his two children ages two and four.
So he searched their house and their property, but could not find his family.
Keith called their daycare and the children still had not been picked up.
He used the Find my iPhone app to locate Sherri's phone, which was down the street, off Old Oregon Trail and Sunrise.
"That's when I knew she had been taken or abducted, in my opinion," Keith noted.
He called 911 and a search for his wife started.
The sheriff's office does not have enough evidence or information at this time to point to an abduction.
Anthony Bertain, a lieutenant with the Shasta County Sheriff's Office, noted they have received well over 100 tips since last Thursday.
Keith is determined to find his wife.
"If she is listening I want to say, 'We are trying, we are trying the best we can and I am sorry I'm not there',." Keith said while crying. "I'm coming honey. I am trying, I'm doing everything I can and I love you."
The Papini children do not know their mother is missing and not having his wife by his side is difficult.
"It's the worst thing in the world," Keith paused and continued to say,"I never, it's never, it's the worst thing ever,"
Keith noted he just wants his wife back.
He is also extremely grateful for the support the community is offering to help him find his wife.
Anthony Bertain, a lieutenant with the Shasta County Sheriff's Office, noted Keith is cooperating with them.
Today the sheriff’s office was vetting through possible leads.
Bertain noted they along with officers from the Redding Police Department were making contact with known sex offenders, parolees and people on probation.
"So far no leads have come from those particular individuals," Bertain noted.
He added they temporarily suspended the ground search in the area where the phone was found.
"We have not ruled out going back out there, but right now it's temporarily suspended until we get a better direction on which way we are going to go on this investigation," Bertain explained.
If anyone has information on Sherri Papini’s whereabouts or tips, they can call dispatch 24 hours a day at 530-245-6540, or the Major Crimes Unit at 530-245-6135. Tips can also be submitted to mcu@co.shasta.ca.us. ||||| Friends, family and neighbors united over the weekend in a desperate effort to find a missing California woman.
Sherri Papini
Sherri Papini, 34, of Redding, CA was last seen jogging in her neighborhood on the morning of Wednesday, November 2.
Family members sounded the alarm later that day, when they learned that Sherri hadn't picked her two children up at daycare, which was completely out of character.
"She absolutely loved and adored her children and did anything for them," Sheila Koester, Sherri's sister, told Dateline NBC.
Keith Papini, Sherri's husband, tracked her cell phone to less than 1.5 miles east of Interstate 5 in the Mountain Gate area north of Redding using the Find My iPhone application. Sherri's ear buds were still in the phone, with strands of her hair attached. No other items were recovered at the scene.
A coordinated search effort began on Thursday. Members of the Shasta County Sheriff's Office and Rescue team deployed all over the area in search of Sherri, with helicopters from the California Highway patrol providing air support.
Sherri's family and friends, as well as residents of the community, pounded the pavement in a steadfast effort to get the word out about Sherri's disappearance, putting up fliers all over town.
Over the weekend, an impassioned army of community members was dispersed to air the search.
"It's an amazingly close-knit community," Sheila Koester told Dateline. "We had an outpouring of community that wanted to help with the search. We had, I believe, close to 1,000 people who came out within those days periodically to help us."
The pink top Sherri was reportedly last seen wearing.
Sheila said the search spanned a 5-6 mile radius from the Papini home and described the search area as "rural and forested."
The family has also received support from the nonprofit organization Secret Witness, which has offered a $50,000 reward for Sherri's safe return.
A family friend set up a GoFundMe account to provide additional funds for the reward. As of Monday evening, the account had raised over $26,000.
The Nor-Cal Alliance for the Missing assisted Sherri's family in coordinating the search effort and the Facebook page "Help Find Sherri Papini" which now has more than 8,000 likes.
Related: Alarming Amazon Reviews Linked to Alleged S.C. Killer
Sheila said Sherri was training for an upcoming race where participants dress in superhero clothes and run to raise money for disadvantaged children.
"She is a bright, bubbly, intelligent, beautiful and loving mother," Sheila told Dateline.
Authorities continue to follow up on leads and, in a Shasta County News Release, labeled Sherri's disappearance as "suspicious circumstances/at risk."
"She's a beloved mother, she would never leave her children," Sheila told Dateline. "We miss her. And if I was speaking to Sherri, I would want her to know that we are looking for her and we are not giving up."
Anyone with information on Sherri Papini is asked to call the Shasta County Sheriff's office at 530-245-6540 or the Sheriff's Major Crimes Unit at 530-245-6135. Tips can also be submitted via email to mcu@co.shasta.ca.us or call 530-243-2319.
For further information or to request posters to help and post in your area please visit https://www.facebook.com/Help-Find-Sherri-Papini-1869941749906203/ ||||| Nathan Solis/ Record Searchlight
Mark Cox directs volunteers on Sunday morning in a neighborhood north of Redding in the search for Sherri Papini, who was reported missing Wednesday afternoon.
SHARE Sherri Papini Sherri Papini
By Nathan Solis of the Redding Record Searchlight
Four days after the disappearance of a Redding woman last seen jogging in her Mountain Gate neighborhood, organizers met Sunday morning in hats and jackets to continue the search in the rain.
Sherri Papini, 34, was last seen Wednesday wearing a pink jogging top near Sunrise Drive and Old Oregon Trail, according to the Shasta County Sheriff's Office, who called her disappearance suspicious and said the mother of two is at risk.
On Sunday morning volunteers fanned out into the neighborhood near Sundust Road northeast of Redding to ask residents if they had seen or heard anything suspicious in the area.
Volunteers noted homes with surveillance cameras pointing out to the street. They will pass along that information to the Sheriff's Office.
Over the three days of searching the surrounding neighborhood volunteers have found only a few bits of items that would be worth mentioning, said Trudy Nickens, organizer with Nor-Cal Alliance for the Missing. They will pass along any information to the Sheriff's Office Major Crimes Unit.
"The public did a great job," Nickens said. "They really tried hard to get out there and look. It is so nice to see the community come in and take this seriously."
Members of the Shasta Support Services were also part of the search group on Sunday.
Mark Cox, a friend of Papini's family, led a group of 13 along Portero Drive, east of Old Oregon Trail. Volunteers walked in the rain and a neighbor pointed the group to a nearby pond. The group walked a dirt trail and saw that the area was undisturbed.
Maria Schwartz and her husband, Lee, met Papini's parents at a social event and kept in touch through social media. They walked the neighborhood with the rest of the group.
"As a mother I can't even imagine what they are going through," said Maria Schwartz.
The volunteer group knocked on doors along the street and called out Papini's name in the open fields. They ducked their heads into storm drains and yelled to the homes behind locked gates.
Earlene Solly and her husband, Mike, did not know Papini or anyone in her family, but felt the need to join the search efforts.
"It's the least we can do," Earlene Solly said. "Having more people asking questions will be better for everyone."
Art Apple of Redding, and Jeff Taylor of Paradise walked the neighborhood with the group. Taylor's known Papini's family for several years and felt compelled to be part of the search.
Along the way the group stopped at Martin Schuler's house. Schuler went to high school with Papini and learned of the news from a friend.
"It's just so sad," Schuler said. "She was a few years younger than me, but we knew the same friends growing up."
Search organizers plan to meet again later in the week.
Papini's sister, Sheila Koester, said Saturday that $40,000 has been added to a previous reward of $10,000 offered through Secret Witness of Shasta County. Money for the added reward was pledged through private donations.
Anyone with information on Sherri Papini is asked to call the sheriff's office at 245-6540 or the Sheriff's Major Crimes Unit at 245-6135. Tips can also be submitted via email to mcu@co.shasta.ca.us. | – Family members fear a California woman has been abducted after she went for a jog on Wednesday and never returned. Sherri Papini, a 34-year-old mother of two, seemingly vanished while jogging around 2pm Wednesday near her home in a rural neighborhood of Redding, reports Redding's Record Searchlight. Relatives say her husband arrived home from work around 5pm and immediately realized his wife was missing as she hadn't picked up their children, aged 2 and 4, from daycare, reports KRCR. Using the Find My iPhone app, Keith Papini discovered his wife's phone on the side of a road at an intersection less than a mile from their home, but she was nowhere to be found, reports ABC News. NBC News notes that the headphones were still plugged in, and strands of her hair were present. "She was definitely taken against her will," her husband says. "She could drop her phone but she would never in a million years not pick up our children." The Shasta County Sheriff's Office says it's investigating registered sex offenders in the area—there are reportedly four living within a mile radius of the phone's location—but "so far no leads have come from those particular individuals," an officer says. Members of the public who've been searching the area have discovered only a few items that could be linked to the case, a rep for Nor-Cal Alliance for the Missing tells the Record Searchlight, without elaborating. A $50,000 reward is offered for information leading to Papini's whereabouts. (Two joggers were brutally killed in August.) |
His latest album Divide had all 16 singles in the top 20 at the same time but he can't get away from malicious online trolls
Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window)
Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
ED Sheeran was the headline act at Glastonbury 2017 and is a world renowned artist loved by millions.
But he's now quit Twitter because of constant attacks from vile trolls. Here's the lowdown on one of Britain's biggest artists...
Rex Features Ed Sheeran is a singer song writer worth an estimated £37 million - he is rivalling the success of Adele who is the only singer to have outsold him in the past ten years
What is Ed Sheeran's net worth?
It seems Ed can do no wrong in the eyes of the music world.
The 26-year-old has released three albums since 2011 and his latest album, Divide, sold 232,000 more copies in its first day than any other album in 2016.
As a result of his success Ed's net worth is estimated to be £37 million. Adele is the only person to have sold more records than him in the last ten years.
What are his biggest songs?
His three albums, ÷, x, and the original +, have all had numerous top ten hits.
His latest album ÷ had all 16 tracks in the top 20 at the same time in March of this year.
Rex Features He has collaborated with a variety of artists over the years from Taylor Swift to an iconic performance with Queen Bey herself
The singer song writer's biggest track to date is Thinking Out Loud, which spent 19 weeks at number one and was the first ever single to spend a year inside the Top 40.
This is closely followed by his debut single The A Team and recent tune Shape of You.
Who's his girlfriend?
Ed is currently dating his childhood sweetheart Cherry Seaborn.
After being linked to a string of other artists such as Taylor Swift, who he collaborated with on the track Everything Has Changed, and Ellie Goulding who he has previously admitted Don't is about, the singer has finally settled down.
At the end of last year The Sun exclusively revealed that hockey star, Cherry, moved from the US to the UK to be closer to Ed.
Rex Features A fresh faced Ed back in 2010 - he now has 60 tattoos covering his body and has spent 40 hours in a tattoo chair to get the etchings done
Why did he quit Twitter?
Ed has left Twitter after a constant stream of vile comments had been bringing him down.
He told The Sun: “I’ve actually come off Twitter completely. I can’t read it.
“I go on it and there’s nothing but people saying mean things. Twitter’s a platform for that.
“One comment ruins your day. But that’s why I’ve come off it.
“The head-f*** for me has been trying to work out why people dislike me so much.”
Ed’s Instagram account will automatically generate tweets on the site but he will not be using it himself.
What tattoos does he have?
No stranger to a needle, Ed has a whopping 60 tattoos on his body.
It is reported that the singer has spent more than 40 hours in a tattoo chair in his life.
Among the tats are a pair of Rolling Stones lips, the crest of his old school and a massive lion in the centre of his chest.
Tattoo artist to the stars Kevin Paul is responsible for a large amount of Ed's etchings.
He has also tattooed the likes of Rihanna and Harry Styles.
MOST READ IN SHOWBIZ TO HAVE BRAND TO HOLD Russell Brand, 42, ties the knot with Laura Gallacher, 30, before shipping wedding guests home in a paddle steamer GAME OVER Winter is here - so how long do we have to wait for the final season of Game of Thrones? bumping along Pregnant Danniella Westbrook, 43, shows off her baby bump on holiday with her toyboy fiance, 34 'nobody is faster than pricey!' Katie Price jokes she will be married again five weeks after Kieran Hayler split PRICE WAR Katie Price forced to kick her cheating husband Kieran Hayler out of their home in a furious row as he refuses to accept divorce despite his year-long affair with their nanny eye-wateringly tight Nicki Minaj suffers 'camel toe' fashion fail in skin-tight pink latex catsuit at MTV VMAs ||||| Image copyright AFP / Getty Images Image caption The star was accused of using a backing track at Glastonbury
Ed Sheeran says he's quit Twitter after receiving a stream of abuse.
"I've actually come off Twitter completely," he told The Sun. "I can't read it.
"I go on it and there's nothing but people saying mean things. One comment ruins your day. But that's why I've come off it."
The star, who has 19 million followers, says he'll keep the account open, but it will only share automatic updates from his Instagram page from now on.
A quick scan of Twitter finds a number of negative - although not necessarily abusive - comments directed towards the 26-year-old.
"Irritating ginger busker" is a particularly common insult; while the song Galway Girl has provoked a torrent of anger.
Image copyright Twitter
"Revolting, fudged cultural appropriation," wrote David N about the jaunty jig, in which Sheeran describes falling for a girl who "played the fiddle in an Irish band".
Another user described it as "awful 'diddly-eye leprachaun'" music, full of "stereotypical nonsense".
Richard Roche had some helpful advice regarding the lyrics, which he described as: "Full of geographical inaccuracies (there's no pub on Grafton St)."
Most recently, Sheeran had to defend himself against accusations of using a backing track during his headline set at Glastonbury.
The star uses a loop pedal during his performances, which allows him to record his vocal and guitar lines, creating a layered, looped accompaniment live, on the spot.
"Is it a backing track or invisible musicians?!? Who's playing when Ed Sheeran stops?!?" wrote one mystified fan. "Couldn't he get real musicians? I like him but all a bit karaoke," wrote another.
In his last personally-authored tweet, the star sounded exasperated by the accusations.
"Never thought I'd have to explain it, but everything I do in my live show is live, it's a loop station, not a backing track. Please google," he wrote.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Ed Sheeran performs The A Team at Glastonbury 2017
Other users took aim at Sheeran's televised Glastonbury show after he suffered guitar problems during the song Bloodstream.
"Ed Sheeran come to my house and I will show you how to tune a guitar you useless mess," wrote one.
Speaking to The Sun, Sheeran said he had "been trying to work out why people dislike me so much" but the simple answer is that he's the victim of his own success.
His third album ÷ (Divide) is the year's biggest-seller, dominating the charts and radio around the world. In the UK, every song on the record made the top 20 of the singles chart, while the lead single, Shape Of You, spent 14 weeks at number one.
That sort of ubiquity draws out the more mean-spirited and aggressive users of Twitter - which has gained a reputation for harbouring trolls.
Stars including Miley Cyrus, Sue Perkins, Stephen Fry, Halsey and Avengers director Joss Whedon have all quit the site after suffering abuse.
Others, including Selena Gomez and Tom Daley, have received death threats. (We saw no evidence of similar tweets to Sheeran, although it is possible such messages would have been deleted for violating Twitter's terms and conditions).
Last year, Bloomberg reported that Disney chose not to pursue an acquisition of the social media network in part because it thought the bullying behaviour of some users might damage the film company's image.
Twitter has since taken action to combat abuse - giving users better tools to mute or block trolls.
Image copyright AFP / BBC Image caption Twitter quitters (L-R): Halsey, Sue Perkins and Miley Cyrus
Based upon a trawl of Sheeran's account, mean tweets are vastly outweighed by positive ones.
Every time he posts a photo or a comment, the majority of responses are variations of, "I love you", "te amo" and "come to Portugal!"
And if Sheeran ventures back onto the site, he'll find heartwarming messages like this one from Castie Collins, who wrote: "I'm learning guitar because of you."
"Thank u @edsheeran for making great music so studying isn't always SO terrible," said Emily Estopare.
Hannah Robinson added: "I'm sick and feel like crap but I turned on some Ed Sheeran songs and felt better."
And Karen Porter had kind words for Sheeran's Glastonbury slot: "Could tell you were having the best time ever up on that stage," she said. "Amazing to see true talent and a genuine soul. Much love."
Even the star's least-liked song received some (faint) praise from Sadie Lyon, who wrote: "My Uber driver knows the rap bit in Galway Girl."
Follow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk. ||||| Add this Tweet to your website by copying the code below. Saber máis
Add this video to your website by copying the code below. Saber máis
Vaites, produciuse un problema na conexión co servidor. Queres tentalo de novo? Incluír o chío pai Incluír multimedia
Ao inserires contido de Twitter no teu sitio web ou na túa aplicación, aceptas o Acordo de programadores e a Normativa de programadores.
Previsualizar | – "I go on it and there's nothing but people saying mean things," says Ed Sheeran. That's the reason the 26-year-old English singer is offering for why he's "quitting" Twitter, the Sun reports, apparently deciding he just couldn't take those mean statements any longer. "One comment ruins your day," he continues. "[That's] why I've come off it. The head-f--- for me has been trying to work out why people dislike me so much." The BBC, which notes it found "a number of negative—although not necessarily abusive—comments" directed toward Sheeran, says accusations that Sheeran used a backing track at a recent show (he has tried to clarify it was a "loop pedal," which allows for live recording during a performance, not a backing track) seems to have been the tipping point for him. Reaction to Sheeran's claimed departure is mixed. His devotees are obviously upset, with one saying, "Can't blame him," while others are simply posting notes of affection. Others, however, are mocking him for his defection, including fellow Brit Piers Morgan, who says Sheeran didn't need to get so dramatic. "Celebrities who quit Twitter, you don't have to quit, you just have to stop tweeting," Morgan said on Good Morning Britain, per the Evening Standard. "Why do you have to announce you're quitting Twitter?" Morgan added he gets plenty of "nasty" messages himself online and "I love it—especially when they can't spell." Fans needn't worry, however, that they'll find a "Sorry, that page doesn't exist" notice when they search for Sheeran's Twitter account: The singer notes he'll still auto-post from his Instagram account, which he did Tuesday with a "Reppin' on July 4th" photo. |
President Obama, along with Sandy Hook families, Vice President Joe Biden, and former Rep. Gabby Giffords, responded to the U.S. Senate failing to pass gun-control legislation by vowing to continue the fight for background checks.
WASHINGTON — Sen. Pat Toomey lent his name to the most meaningful federal gun bill in two decades but failed to change Republican colleagues' minds. The political pressure outweighed overwhelming public support, even the pleas of Sandy Hook Elementary School parents.
With a single vote Wednesday afternoon, the gun control legislation died, ending days of drama centered on the Pennsylvania politician with conservative bona fides.
A bipartisan deal on background checks, considered the most likely new gun law to pass, fell six votes short of the 60 needed to clear a procedural hurdle in the U.S. Senate. The vote was 54-46. Subsequent efforts, including a restriction on larger ammunition magazines, also failed in later voting.
An angry President Barack Obama stood outside the White House with former Arizona Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, a gunshot survivor, and the families of the 20 children and six adults killed at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn.
"All in all, this was a pretty shameful day for Washington," Obama said, insisting the effort "is not over. Sooner or later, we are going to get this right. The memories of these children demand it. And so do the American people."
Mark Barden, the father of a victim of the Newtown shootings, said as Obama looked on: "Our hearts are broken. Our spirit is not. We always knew this would be a long road. We don't have the luxury of turning back."
But Toomey, who threw his political weight into working with his Senate friend Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., on a compromise to expand background checks to commercial firearms sales over the Internet and at gun shows, said that for him it's time to move on.
"I did the best I could. I wish it had passed, but the Senate has spoken and these things happen," Toomey told The Morning Call immediately after the vote on his amendment. "It's always worth it to do the right thing … no regrets."
The fiscally conservative Lehigh County Republican arrived in the Senate three years ago focused on economic issues, and said Wednesday that's where he will be redirecting his energies now.
"We have a lot of other issues we have to deal with," Toomey said. "Chief among them is getting our fiscal house in order. I'll be getting back to that."
Though he stuck his neck out for no tangible end result, his bipartisan effort will be remembered not as a failure, pundits said, but as an attempt to do something amid political gridlock. Obama again praised Toomey and Manchin by name.
T.J. Rooney, the former chairman of Pennsylvania's Democratic Party, said he was proud of Pennsylvania's Republican senator.
"You cannot and should not take away the fact that our senator did something out of the box and extraordinary and is deserving of our praise for that," he said. "He shouldn't feel it's a fool's errand or a loss. His courage is a symbol for what is possible."
D.C.-based consultant John Brabender, who has run Rick Santorum's political campaigns, said the net result for Toomey will be positive.
"Even within the Republican Party, many will look at him as a commonsense Republican, and I think there will be moderate Republicans in the eastern side of the state who will say, 'I actually have more in common with him now.' That means he looks at every issue one at a time, instead of always taking the Republican position, and a lot of voters respect that," Brabender said.
But there are gun-rights Republicans in Pennsylvania and elsewhere who are angry with Toomey, and he started the fence-mending even before Wednesday's vote. He had kept an open dialogue with those in opposition throughout the pre-deal negotiating process, and he gave two pre-vote interviews to conservative publications, one in-state and one national.
On the Senate floor, several Republicans cast their votes against Toomey after patting him on the back, as if to show there were no hard feelings.
Vice President Joe Biden, who wrote gun control legislation during the Clinton era, presided over Wednesday's vote. New Jersey Democrat Frank Lautenberg, absent most of the year due to serious illness, was wheeled in to vote. But neither one's presence was enough to pass the amendment.
Neither were the families of shooting victims at Sandy Hook; the Aurora, Colo., movie theater; Virginia Tech; and Tucson, Ariz. All watched from the gallery as their lawmakers voted.
When the Toomey/Manchin amendment failed on the very first vote, Patricia Maisch — who had knocked an ammunition clip out of the hand of the man trying to assassinate Congresswoman Giffords — yelled down at the senators, "Shame on you." ||||| Guns: Did Newtown Change Anything?: The Times’s Michael Luo discusses whether attitudes toward guns have changed in America since the Newtown shooting, even though legislation died in the Senate this week.
WASHINGTON — The last whimpers of the gun control debate in the Senate played out in anticlimactic fashion on Thursday as lawmakers began the process of formally moving on.
All that remained of a broad package of measures representing the most serious changes to the nation’s gun laws in 20 years were two amendments: one that would address mental health care, and another that would penalize states that divulge information about gun owners except under very specific circumstances like a criminal investigation.
Both passed overwhelmingly, the only two gun-related measures to clear the Senate’s 60-vote threshold for passage. The vote on the amendments has no practical effect, since the underlying legislation has no immediate prospect of passing.
Despite the push from proponents of stricter gun regulations, the amendments that received the most support in two days of voting were not the ones that tightened restrictions on weapons purchases, but the ones that loosened them.
Fifty-seven senators voted on Wednesday to essentially nullify state laws that prohibit carrying concealed weapons. Fifty-six senators voted to restore gun ownership rights to veterans who have had them taken away.
In the end, only 54 voted for a compromise plan to expand background checks for gun buyers, 46 voted to ban high-capacity magazines and 40 voted to renew a ban on certain military-style rifles.
While supporters of plans to strengthen the regulation of gun purchases, including Senator Harry Reid, the majority leader, vowed to keep the issue alive, the growing consensus on Capitol Hill was that any effort to resuscitate the legislation was far away.
Senate Democrats believe that their best option is to put their bill in the procedural equivalent of a deep freeze. Mr. Reid is expected to exercise an option that allows him to put the bill in an indefinite hold so he can bring it back up later.
“Make no mistake: this debate is not over,” Mr. Reid said Thursday. “This is not the end of the fight. Republicans are in an unsustainable position — crosswise with 9 out of 10 Americans.”
After the series of gun control amendments went down to defeat on Wednesday, Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, who played a central role in the early efforts to bring together a bipartisan coalition to support stronger background checks, said he did not see a viable path forward in the near term, but remained optimistic about the months ahead.
Asked on Thursday what the next step for the gun bill could be, the Senate’s No. 2 Democrat, Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, responded, “That’s a good question.”
The leading Republican who joined with Democrats to forge a bipartisan background check bill, Patrick J. Toomey of Pennsylvania, told a local newspaper that he was ready to deal with other matters. “I did the best I could,” he told The Morning Call of Allentown. “I wish it had passed, but the Senate has spoken, and these things happen.”
Mark Glaze, the director of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, a group founded by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg that has gone after lawmakers with aggressive advertising campaigns, said Thursday that efforts by his organization and others would not cease.
“Today and for the foreseeable future, mayors and supporters and survivors and some pretty outraged citizens will be letting senators know they’re paying attention,” he said. “And their memories are long.”
Senate Democrats were also looking at what options they might have to force a change in Senate rules that would make it harder for Republicans to subject everything to a 60-vote threshold instead of a simple majority vote.
“In matters like this, the majority ought to rule,” said Senator Barbara Mikulski, Democrat of Maryland.
But the Senate was already preparing to take up other issues. Next on the agenda: a bill that would allow states to collect sales tax for items sold online.
But in the Senate, with its tangled knot of procedural hurdles, little moves forward without a fight.
Senator Tom Coburn, Republican of Oklahoma, is preventing his colleagues from quickly taking up another matter because he objected when Democrats asked for a routine unanimous consent agreement to dispense with the gun bill. He said Thursday that he would not cooperate because Democrats refused to put his background check bill, which is opposed by gun control groups, up for a vote.
“There’s only one way to get background checks, and they don’t want to vote on it,” he said. ||||| Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid Harry Mason ReidAmendments fuel resentments within Senate GOP Donald Trump is delivering on his promises and voters are noticing Danny Tarkanian wins Nevada GOP congressional primary MORE (D-Nev.) announced that the Senate would put aside the gun control bill to start work on other legislative matters.
“It’s only a matter of time before we bring this anti-gun-violence measure back to the floor for a vote,” Reid said Thursday. “The stand of the Republicans is not sustainable.”
ADVERTISEMENT
Reid said Democrats knew passing gun control measures would be an uphill battle.
"We knew all along that efforts to pass stronger background checks and keep guns out of the hands of criminals wouldn’t be easy," Reid said. "But it's worth the effort."
Democrats called for stricter gun laws after a gunman killed 20 first-graders and six educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., in December.
For the past two weeks the Senate has been working on the Safe Communities, Safe Schools Act, S.649, which would expand background checks on gun purchases, crack down on gun trafficking and beef up security in schools. On Wednesday, a bipartisan amendment from Sens. Joe Manchin Joseph (Joe) ManchinOvernight Energy — Presented by Chevron — EPA proposes biofuel mandate increase | US wants allies to stop Iran oil imports | Cities' climate suits get tossed The Hill's Morning Report — Sponsored by Better Medicare Alliance — Washington grapples with civility, protests in charged political times Trump, midterm pressures complicate immigration fight MORE (D-W.Va.) and Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) failed on a 54-46 vote, short of the needed 60 votes.
Only four Republicans joined most Democrats in supporting the measure, which could have served as a compromise to move the larger gun control bill forward.
“Yesterday, the families of gun violence victims watched as Republicans defeated a common-sense proposal to expand background checks that has the support of 90 percent of Americans,” Reid said. “Republicans once again filibustered a common-sense proposal.”
Reid said that tabling the bill would allow the Senate to skip procedural hurdles when it returns to the measure after more negotiations off the floor.
"Make no mistake, this debate is not over. In fact, this fight is just beginning," Reid said. "I've spoken with the president. He and I agree that the best way to keep working towards passing a background check bill is to hit a pause and freeze the background check bill where it is."
Reid filed a cloture motion on the Marketplace Fairness Act, S. 743, a bill that would allow states to collect online sales taxes. The Senate is likely to begin votes on that bill next week. | – Given that the gun legislation moving through the Senate had been stripped of pretty much every reform advocates considered meaningful, Harry Reid today yanked what remained from consideration, reports the Hill. But he promised the Senate would revisit the proposal to tighten background checks after this indefinite "pause and freeze" period. "It is only a matter of time," said Reid, who ended up voting no on the measure himself yesterday to make this legislative maneuver possible. "The stand of the Republicans is not sustainable.” Given that only four Republicans bucked their party on the vote, however, Reid and Democrats have much work to do. One thing they're looking at, according to the New York Times: Trying to change Senate rules so that the legislation would need only a majority of votes to pass rather than a filibuster-proof 60. Republican Pat Toomey, who helped craft the amendment on background checks, tells the Morning Call of Allentown that he has "no regrets" about the failed effort. "I did the best I could," he says. "I wish it had passed, but the Senate has spoken and these things happen." |
I received a call Monday night from Roger Stone, the infamous political prankster and Donald Trump confidant. He wanted to talk about Anthony Scaramucci, whose 10-day tenure as White House communications director had just ended in ignominy.
Stone said that Scaramucci reminded him of “a suicide bomber,” then switched centuries for his next metaphor. “The administration is like the French Revolution,” Stone said. “You never know who will be beheaded next.”
But Stone didn’t believe that Scaramucci would stay far from the president for long. “As you know, none of us are ever really gone. He still has the president’s cellphone, the president’s private number. Just because he’s not in the White House, no one should think his influence has gone.”
When I spoke to Scaramucci on Tuesday afternoon, the financier was more interested in justifying his recent past.
From the beginning of his time in the Trump White House, way back on July 20, critics said that Scaramucci was too similar to Trump, too eager to be on TV, to last. Scaramucci was keenly aware of that particular liability. It explains why his opening news conference was so filled with compliments for the president. He knew there was only one person watching whose opinion of him mattered.
“The president thought I killed it,” Scaramucci told me the following day, still clearly hyped up by his experience in the White House briefing room.
The administration is like the French Revolution. You never know who will be beheaded next. Republican strategist Roger Stone
“If you were 7 inches taller, I’d be worried,” Trump told Scaramucci, according to someone familiar with the conversation who asked not to be named quoting the president.
The euphoria wouldn’t last long. A Politico reporter alerted Scaramucci that Ryan Lizza of The New Yorker tweeted Wednesday night that Scaramucci was at dinner with the president, first lady Melania Trump, Fox News host Sean Hannity and former Fox News co-president Bill Shine.
Scoop: Trump is dining tonight w/Sean Hannnity, Bill Shine (former Fox News executive), & Anthony Scaramucci, per to 2 knowledgeable sources — Ryan Lizza (@RyanLizza) July 26, 2017
Senior White House official tells me that Melania was also at the dinner tonight with Trump, Hannity, Shine, and Scaramucci. — Ryan Lizza (@RyanLizza) July 27, 2017
Scaramucci was livid about the information being passed on to a reporter. For one thing, he said the guest list was incomplete. The tweets didn’t mention the presence of Ainsley Earhardt and Brian Kilmeade, co-hosts of “Fox & Friends,” as well as White House counselor Kellyanne Conway and Vice President Mike Pence, who, he said, left before the sit-down dinner. For another, he knew that the full guest list also included Kimberly Guilfoyle, co-host of “The Five” on Fox News. Early the next morning, Olivia Nuzzi of New York Magazine confirmed that Guilfoyle was there.
A source close to Scaramucci tells me that additionally, Kimberly Guilfoyle, the Fox News host, was there. https://t.co/vMz3lVNP5K — Olivia Nuzzi (@Olivianuzzi) July 27, 2017
Scaramucci realized that the inclusion of Guilfoyle would raise suspicion. He said he was aware that some associates and members of the media were gossiping about his friendship with the Fox host and feared this particular connection would only make matters worse. He said he took it as “an attack.”
Scaramucci strongly denies having a sexual relationship with Guilfoyle. Stone, a friend of Guilfoyle’s, explained that Scaramucci and Guilfoyle “are very close friends but nothing more.” He added, “He is way too short for Kimberly.”
Through a Fox News spokesperson, Guilfoyle said she’s known Scaramucci for years through her work at Fox News and the two are “good friends.”
As soon as Scaramucci returned from Wednesday night’s dinner, he called Lizza and gave his now-infamous interview, published Thursday, in which he suggested that former White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus was a “paranoid schizophrenic” and that White House chief strategist Steve Bannon practiced auto-fellatio.
Scaramucci said he felt burned by the interview. “The Lizzas and Scaramuccis have been friends for over 50 years. My dad knew his dad from construction, and we were building a personal relationship. Most of what I said was humorous and joking. Legally, it may have been on the record, but the spirit of it was off. And he knew that.”
Still, Scaramucci told me, he has plans to take Lizza out for a beer.
Most of what I said was humorous and joking. Legally, it may have been on the record, but the spirit of it was off. And he knew that. Anthony Scaramucci on The New Yorker interview
When I asked Lizza for his response, he wrote back: “I’ve only known Anthony in his capacity as a Trump surrogate and then White House communications director. We are not and have never been ‘old family friends,’ though I think our fathers knew each other, so maybe that’s what he’s talking about. (The Long Island Italian world in that generation is relatively small.) But again, that would not be a reason to suppress an explosive on-the-record interview.”
According to several sources close to the White House, the president was initially amused by the Lizza exchange but changed his opinion when he saw how much negative attention it was bringing. Scaramucci said he offered to resign before the weekend. The president told him that wouldn’t be necessary, but he instructed Scaramucci to “watch it” in the future, according to someone familiar with the conversation.
I spoke with Scaramucci on Saturday morning, and he sounded defeated. “I think I have strep,” he said. On top of everything else, the night before, The New York Post had broken the news of his impending divorce from his second wife, Deidre Ball.
Jonathan Ernst / Reuters White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci arrives with President Donald Trump aboard Air Force One in Ronkonkoma, New York, on Friday. On Monday, Scaramucci was out of a job.
That Scaramucci’s marriage was in trouble was hardly a secret. Long before Ball filed for divorce on July 6, Scaramucci was open with friends and associates about what he believed to be the sorry state of their union and how they were struggling through regular counseling sessions.
He just hated that his relationship was being discussed in public. A follow-up report from the Post said that Scaramucci didn’t attend the birth of their son last week. Instead, he sent Ball a short congratulatory text.
Scaramucci said this is an unfair characterization of events. He told me that Ball’s due date was Aug. 9, so when he boarded Air Force One to West Virginia last Monday to attend the president’s address at the National Scout Jamboree, he didn’t think he’d be in danger of missing the birth. As soon as she texted him that she was going into labor, he said, he looked into chartering a plane from West Virginia but discovered that there was a wide no fly-zone around Air Force One. He explained that he decided to wait to fly back to Washington with the president, then travel to New York from there.
As of Tuesday afternoon, he still hadn’t met his son. Scaramucci claimed that right after the birth Ball texted him her request for some space. When I asked about this text, Ball’s lawyer, Jill Stone, responded: “Any texts of that nature had nothing to do with the baby or seeing the baby.” (Jill Stone said she couldn’t comment on the rest of Scaramucci’s version of events.)
When I spoke to Scaramucci on Saturday, he didn’t have much to say about the collapse of his marriage. “It’s fine. I mean, what am I going to do?” He perked up when he started talking about the fantastic team he was going to bring into the White House’s communications shop and the big plans he was going to enact after a tumultuous first week.
But on Monday morning, Scaramucci knew he was cooked. Retired Marine Gen. John Kelly, the new chief of staff, who insisted that all White House staff report to him, asked for his resignation. “It was a very polite conversation,” Scaramucci says.
Scaramucci then went to see Trump, who was unavailable. He ended up speaking with the president, his daughter Ivanka Trump and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, separately later in the day by telephone. All were gracious, he said. “The president told me he knows I have his back, but he has to try to tighten the ship.”
So what are you going to do next, I asked him.
“I am now going to go dark,” he said.
And then?
“Then I will reemerge.” He paused. “As me.” ||||| Anthony Scaramucci Moocho Dinero Waiting After D.C. On Public Speaking Circuit
Anthony Scaramucci Can Turn White House Debacle into $75k Speaking Engagements
EXCLUSIVE
Anthony Scaramucci's absurdly brief gig in the White House is going to pay off big-time, and help make the rich man even richer ... IF he chooses to cash in on making speeches.
Multiple sources plugged into the public speaking circuit tell us the Mooch is such a hot ticket right now, he could haul in $75,000 per event. We're told his market value as a hedge fund magnate and entrepreneur already made his speaking engagements worth roughly $25-50k -- but those 10 days in the West Wing make him a bigger draw, which means way more dough.
Our sources say the high drama around his administration stint adds extra appeal ... especially if he wanted to play the "sacrificial lamb." However, it's doubtful Scaramucci would turn on Trump in speeches just to make a buck. He's got plenty of money, and most D.C. insiders agree loyalty to the Prez wasn't his issue.
Bottom line -- Mooch is in position to clean up, and -- as they say -- come out smelling like a rose. ||||| I received a call Monday night from Roger Stone, the infamous political prankster and Donald Trump confidant. He wanted to talk about Anthony Scaramucci, whose 10-day tenure as White House communications director had just ended in ignominy.
Stone said that Scaramucci reminded him of “a suicide bomber,” then switched centuries for his next metaphor. “The administration is like the French Revolution,” Stone said. “You never know who will be beheaded next.”
But Stone didn’t believe that Scaramucci would stay far from the president for long. “As you know, none of us are ever really gone. He still has the president’s cellphone, the president’s private number. Just because he’s not in the White House, no one should think his influence has gone.”
When I spoke to Scaramucci on Tuesday afternoon, the financier was more interested in justifying his recent past.
From the beginning of his time in the Trump White House, way back on July 20, critics said that Scaramucci was too similar to Trump, too eager to be on TV, to last. Scaramucci was keenly aware of that particular liability. It explains why his opening news conference was so filled with compliments for the president. He knew there was only one person watching whose opinion of him mattered.
“The president thought I killed it,” Scaramucci told me the following day, still clearly hyped up by his experience in the White House briefing room.
The administration is like the French Revolution. You never know who will be beheaded next. Republican strategist Roger Stone
“If you were 7 inches taller, I’d be worried,” Trump told Scaramucci, according to someone familiar with the conversation who asked not to be named quoting the president.
The euphoria wouldn’t last long. A Politico reporter alerted Scaramucci that Ryan Lizza of The New Yorker tweeted Wednesday night that Scaramucci was at dinner with the president, first lady Melania Trump, Fox News host Sean Hannity and former Fox News co-president Bill Shine.
Scoop: Trump is dining tonight w/Sean Hannnity, Bill Shine (former Fox News executive), & Anthony Scaramucci, per to 2 knowledgeable sources — Ryan Lizza (@RyanLizza) July 26, 2017
Senior White House official tells me that Melania was also at the dinner tonight with Trump, Hannity, Shine, and Scaramucci. — Ryan Lizza (@RyanLizza) July 27, 2017
Scaramucci was livid about the information being passed on to a reporter. For one thing, he said the guest list was incomplete. The tweets didn’t mention the presence of Ainsley Earhardt and Brian Kilmeade, co-hosts of “Fox & Friends,” as well as White House counselor Kellyanne Conway and Vice President Mike Pence, who, he said, left before the sit-down dinner. For another, he knew that the full guest list also included Kimberly Guilfoyle, co-host of “The Five” on Fox News. Early the next morning, Olivia Nuzzi of New York Magazine confirmed that Guilfoyle was there.
A source close to Scaramucci tells me that additionally, Kimberly Guilfoyle, the Fox News host, was there. https://t.co/vMz3lVNP5K — Olivia Nuzzi (@Olivianuzzi) July 27, 2017
Scaramucci realized that the inclusion of Guilfoyle would raise suspicion. He said he was aware that some associates and members of the media were gossiping about his friendship with the Fox host and feared this particular connection would only make matters worse. He said he took it as “an attack.”
Scaramucci strongly denies having a sexual relationship with Guilfoyle. Stone, a friend of Guilfoyle’s, explained that Scaramucci and Guilfoyle “are very close friends but nothing more.” He added, “He is way too short for Kimberly.”
Through a Fox News spokesperson, Guilfoyle said she’s known Scaramucci for years through her work at Fox News and the two are “good friends.”
As soon as Scaramucci returned from Wednesday night’s dinner, he called Lizza and gave his now-infamous interview, published Thursday, in which he suggested that former White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus was a “paranoid schizophrenic” and that White House chief strategist Steve Bannon practiced auto-fellatio.
Scaramucci said he felt burned by the interview. “The Lizzas and Scaramuccis have been friends for over 50 years. My dad knew his dad from construction, and we were building a personal relationship. Most of what I said was humorous and joking. Legally, it may have been on the record, but the spirit of it was off. And he knew that.”
Still, Scaramucci told me, he has plans to take Lizza out for a beer.
Most of what I said was humorous and joking. Legally, it may have been on the record, but the spirit of it was off. And he knew that. Anthony Scaramucci on The New Yorker interview
When I asked Lizza for his response, he wrote back: “I’ve only known Anthony in his capacity as a Trump surrogate and then White House communications director. We are not and have never been ‘old family friends,’ though I think our fathers knew each other, so maybe that’s what he’s talking about. (The Long Island Italian world in that generation is relatively small.) But again, that would not be a reason to suppress an explosive on-the-record interview.”
According to several sources close to the White House, the president was initially amused by the Lizza exchange but changed his opinion when he saw how much negative attention it was bringing. Scaramucci said he offered to resign before the weekend. The president told him that wouldn’t be necessary, but he instructed Scaramucci to “watch it” in the future, according to someone familiar with the conversation.
I spoke with Scaramucci on Saturday morning, and he sounded defeated. “I think I have strep,” he said. On top of everything else, the night before, The New York Post had broken the news of his impending divorce from his second wife, Deidre Ball.
Jonathan Ernst / Reuters White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci arrives with President Donald Trump aboard Air Force One in Ronkonkoma, New York, on Friday. On Monday, Scaramucci was out of a job.
That Scaramucci’s marriage was in trouble was hardly a secret. Long before Ball filed for divorce on July 6, Scaramucci was open with friends and associates about what he believed to be the sorry state of their union and how they were struggling through regular counseling sessions.
He just hated that his relationship was being discussed in public. A follow-up report from the Post said that Scaramucci didn’t attend the birth of their son last week. Instead, he sent Ball a short congratulatory text.
Scaramucci said this is an unfair characterization of events. He told me that Ball’s due date was Aug. 9, so when he boarded Air Force One to West Virginia last Monday to attend the president’s address at the National Scout Jamboree, he didn’t think he’d be in danger of missing the birth. As soon as she texted him that she was going into labor, he said, he looked into chartering a plane from West Virginia but discovered that there was a wide no fly-zone around Air Force One. He explained that he decided to wait to fly back to Washington with the president, then travel to New York from there.
As of Tuesday afternoon, he still hadn’t met his son. Scaramucci claimed that right after the birth Ball texted him her request for some space. When I asked about this text, Ball’s lawyer, Jill Stone, responded: “Any texts of that nature had nothing to do with the baby or seeing the baby.” (Jill Stone said she couldn’t comment on the rest of Scaramucci’s version of events.)
When I spoke to Scaramucci on Saturday, he didn’t have much to say about the collapse of his marriage. “It’s fine. I mean, what am I going to do?” He perked up when he started talking about the fantastic team he was going to bring into the White House’s communications shop and the big plans he was going to enact after a tumultuous first week.
But on Monday morning, Scaramucci knew he was cooked. Retired Marine Gen. John Kelly, the new chief of staff, who insisted that all White House staff report to him, asked for his resignation. “It was a very polite conversation,” Scaramucci says.
Scaramucci then went to see Trump, who was unavailable. He ended up speaking with the president, his daughter Ivanka Trump and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, separately later in the day by telephone. All were gracious, he said. “The president told me he knows I have his back, but he has to try to tighten the ship.”
So what are you going to do next, I asked him.
“I am now going to go dark,” he said.
And then?
“Then I will reemerge.” He paused. “As me.” | – After what TMZ calls an "absurdly brief gig" in the White House, Anthony Scaramucci may soon be enjoying big bucks from speaking engagements. Scaramucci, who was a White House fixture for less time than it takes for milk to spoil, could be getting a hefty ROI from his short stint as communications director, with "multiple sources plugged into the public speaking circuit" telling TMZ he could command $75,000 for each speaking gig, in no small part due to the drama that surrounded his short tenure. TMZ doesn't think Scaramucci would actually dish on Trump—it notes Scaramucci's apparent loyalty and already fat bank account—but it says he could cash in if he wanted to, especially if he were willing to play the part of "sacrificial lamb." Meanwhile, Vicky Ward of HuffPost spoke with Scaramucci on Tuesday, and he told her "most" of what he said in his infamous call to New Yorker reporter Ryan Lizza "was humorous and joking." He also says Lizza threw him under the bus—their families have been friends for more than 50 years, he claims—and that "legally, [the interview] may have been on the record, but the spirit of it was off. And [Lizza] knew that." (Lizza, for his part, tells Ward: "We are not and have never been 'old family friends,' though I think our fathers knew each other.") Scaramucci also revealed his next steps: He's going to "go dark," then "re-emerge—as me." Ward also chatted with Trump surrogate Roger Stone, who told her Trump's administration is "like the French Revolution. You never know who will be beheaded next." (Scaramucci talks about his marital woes and his last hours in the White House here.) |
SAVANNAH | Remote-sensing cameras set up to help researchers count deer on Jekyll Island ended up capturing images of a more elusive animal that had never before been confirmed at the island state park.
The only prior evidence that bobcats may live on Jekyll Island was a photograph from the early 1900s showing pelts hanging in the gamekeeper’s cabin. A century later, park staff and island residents sometimes reported fleeting glimpses of the nocturnal predators. But nobody had proof.
That changed this fall as conservation staff for the Jekyll Island Authority were working to estimate the population of white-tailed deer and using cameras triggered by motion to photograph them at night. Two weeks apart, cameras on different parts of the island snapped photos before dawn of a lone bobcat with its stubby tail and white patches behind its ears. Park officials suspect both photos show the same animal.
“It’s the first definite, confirmed documentation of a bobcat on the island ever,�? said Ben Carswell, conservation director for Jekyll Island. “We have no way to be sure whether this animal showed up recently on Jekyll. They’re such secretive animals, it could be this one and others have been out here for some time.�?
The discovery prompted the state authority that manages Jekyll Island, known for its undeveloped beaches and maritime forests teeming with wildlife, to take a closer look in December for more bobcats prowling unseen at night. The island is home to few other predators, save for gray foxes and alligators.
The follow-up study didn’t turn up much. Cameras caught two more images of a lone bobcat. Carswell said there’s no way to tell if it’s a different animal than the one photographed in September. Meanwhile, pungent bait was left at 50 locations across Jekyll Island inside a circle of powdered lime to collect tracks from lured animals. The bait drew plenty of gray foxes and raccoons, Carswell said, but no bobcats.
“If we do have more than one bobcat on Jekyll Island, there aren’t very many more than one,�? Carswell said. “A few at most.�?
It’s possible the bobcat photographed in September came from the mainland and either trudged up the 5-mile causeway to Jekyll Island or even swam across the marsh, Carswell said. There’s longstanding uncertainty about whether larger bobcat populations have ever lived there.
According to Jekyll Island’s 2013 master plan for managing the island, bobcats probably once helped limit whitetail deer and raccoon populations, but evidence suggests they may have been exterminated by hunting during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Bobcats are known to steer clear of humans and should pose no threat to Jekyll Island residents or visitors, Carswell said.
Even a breeding pair of bobcats living on the island could point toward a natural solution for how the state park ultimately handles a tricky problem with its deer population, said David Egan, an island resident and leader of the Initiative to Protect Jekyll Island State Park.
The Jekyll Island Authority board in July approved a report that recommended hiring government sharpshooters to thin what officials say is an overabundance of white-tailed deer on the island. Many residents oppose the idea, saying a park known for wildlife conservation shouldn’t resort to such lethal methods. The board hasn’t revisited the issue in months.
Despite their compact size, bobcats are known to prey on deer.
“Let’s say there’s actually two of them, a male and a female, then obviously we’re going to get more bobcats here down the road,�? Egan said. “But if it’s a lone bobcat, it won’t have much impact.�? ||||| Blog post by Ben Carswell.
The first-ever documented occurrence of a bobcat on Jekyll Island was recorded this Fall by Jekyll Island Authority Conservation staff. These two photos were taken by automatically-triggered cameras in two locations, four-miles apart in remote locations on the north end and south end of the island. Careful inspection and professional consultation has led us to the conclusion that the photos are of the same animal. It may be a young male that recently came from the mainland and has been looking for somewhere to establish a territory. Bobcats have been sighted on the Jekyll Island causeway before and could either cross the bridge or swim Jekyll Creek to get to the island. It is unknown at this time whether the animal we photographed is transient or here to stay or whether any other bobcats are present on Jekyll. A bobcat track was also confirmed from a third location on the island, but it is unknown whether this track was left by the same animal seen in the photographs.
We believe that bobcats were present on Jekyll historically due to the appearance of bobcat pelts in a photo taken inside the Jekyll Island Club game keeper’s cabin in the early 1900’s. However, skeptics have suggested that these pelts may not have come from Jekyll bobcats. Over the years, bobcat sightings have been reported sporadically, but have never before been confirmed with photographic documentation.
It is important to note that bobcats are NOT dangerous and will naturally avoid humans. There is no need to alter your daily routine on Jekyll Island because of this exciting discovery. If you live anywhere on the mainland, bobcats are probably nearby, but are rarely seen due to their secretive habits. One of the barrier islands in South Carolina, Kiawah Island (http://www.wildlifeatkiawah.com/bobcats.html), has 30-35 bobcats that are the pride of the island’s residents. The community values the vital role that the bobcats play in the overall health of the ecosystem. In the late 1980’s, bobcats where successfully reintroduced to Cumberland Island, just south of Jekyll.
This winter, we plan to conduct a survey that will use scented bait to attract bobcats to locations where their presence will be recorded by track or photo. We will use this scent station survey to address some of the various questions we have about the species on Jekyll.
If you think that you may have seen a bobcat on Jekyll Island, please call or email Director of Conservation Ben Carswell, with the approximate time and location of the sighting. If at all possible, please try to take a photograph of the animal. Bobcats have a short, stubby tail and are about twice the size of an average housecat. Adult males weigh 18 to 25 pounds and adult females weigh 15 to 20 pounds. Bobcats are yellowish, gray, or reddish-brown and spotted or streaked with brown, black, and/or white. | – Not long after authorities recommended hiring sharpshooters to thin out herds of white-tailed deer on Georgia's Jekyll Island, a more natural solution was spotted: Remote-sensing cameras set up to measure the deer population captured images of a lone bobcat, the first of its kind known to have been on the wildlife-rich island for more than a century, reports the Florida Times-Union. There had been rumors in recent years of bobcat sightings, but the only previous evidence of their presence on the island was a photograph from the early 1900s showing bobcat pelts hanging in the island gamekeeper's cabin. "They're such secretive animals, it could be this one and others have been out here for some time," the island's conservation director says. But while it's possible that the elusive animals could have been hiding out on the island for many years, the bobcat in the photos may be a young male looking for territory who swam to the island or walked up the 5-mile causeway, researchers wrote at Jekyll Island after the sightings this fall. Follow-up research that involved checking animal tracks around bait failed to produce any more evidence of bobcats, so researchers believe their numbers are very small and hope there's at least one breeding pair. (In California, meanwhile, state authorities have banned bobcat-, fox-, and coyote-killing contests.) |
Story highlights Some Operation Enduring Freedom deaths have occurred outside Afghanistan
The number of Americans who have died in Afghanistan itself is 1,884
The operation started after the 9/11 attacks
The death of a U.S. Marine in southern Afghan combat has ushered in a grim milestone.
Cpl. Taylor J. Baune of Andover, Minnesota, is the 2,000th American to die in Operation Enduring Freedom, the name for what the Bush administration characterized as the "war on terror" after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.
The operation began with the invasion of Afghanistan and the toppling of the Taliban, which harbored the al Qaeda terror network that conducted the attacks. But there were military actions and activities in other countries, nearby and far-flung.
Most coalition casualties have occurred in Afghanistan, but others occurred in Pakistan, Uzbekistan. Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Jordan, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, the Philippines, Seychelles, Sudan, Tajikistan, Turkey and Yemen.
The number of Americans who've died in Afghanistan itself totals 1,884. ||||| Three months ago, Taylor Baune married his high school sweetheart shortly before his first deployment to Afghanistan with the Marines. On Wednesday, the 21-year-old Andover man became the 2,000th American killed in combat in Afghanistan, during operations in Helmand Province, the Defense Department said Thursday.
Baune, an Andover High School graduate who had joined the Marines in September 2008, was based out of Twentynine Palms, Calif. His unit is leading operations this summer in Sangin, a part of Helmand that has been seen the heaviest casualties of the war in Afghanistan. The military released no further information on the circumstances of his death.
Baune and his wife, Colleen, also from Anoka County, were married in Las Vegas in March and called the San Diego area home.
At his father's home in Andover, an American flag flapped in Thursday's intermittent rain. Neighbors said Taylor and his father moved into the house about six years ago, part of a close-knit suburban neighborhood where residents often look out for each other and chat in the street.
"I only saw Taylor a few times. I wish I had gotten to know him better now. He seemed like a good guy," said Tom Dooher, who moved in across the street about a year ago.
Cpl. Baune is the second Minnesota fatality in Afghanistan this year and the 28th from the state to die there in the current U.S. military campaign.
His current commitment was up late this year, said his father-in-law, Randy Crooker, and he was not intending to make the military a career. "He was a happy-go-lucky guy," Crooker said.
Taylor and Colleen attended Anoka High School together; Taylor was there through 10th grade and participated in golf and football.
Anoka Principal Michael Farley described him as a bright student.
"Just a good young man. I'm a former military person myself so I'm very proud that he served, but very saddened by this," said Farley, a Navy veteran. School officials sent out an e-mail Thursday about the death.
Baune's decorations included the Navy Meritorious Unit Commendation, the National Defense Service Medal, the Afghanistan Campaign Medal, the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, the Sea Service Deployment Ribbon and the NATO Medal-ISAF Afghanistan.
Staff writer Mark Brunswick contributed to this report. Paul Walsh • 612-673-4482 | – "Operation Enduring Freedom" has officially claimed its 2,000th American life, with the death of Cpl. Taylor J. Baune of Andover, Minnesota, yesterday, CNN reports. Baune died in combat, according to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, but no other details are available. He had just gotten married in March. Operation Enduring Freedom is the broad name George W. Bush gave to the "war on terror." Its most visible component is the war in Afghanistan, and the lion's share of the casualties (1,884) have come there, but it also includes actions in more than a dozen other countries, including Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, Djibouti, Eritrea, Turkey, and Yemen. |
Story highlights Shots are fired at police, sending officers into a defensive position behind vehicles
Authorities fire tear gas into a crowd marching toward the police command post
Police: Protesters threw Molotov cocktails before police shot tear gas toward them
Michael Brown was shot at least six times, according to the preliminary results of a private autopsy that his family requested.
The independent autopsy was conducted by high-profile pathologist Michael Baden. Baden testified in the O.J. Simpson, Phil Spector and Drew Peterson murder trials.
Family attorney Daryl Parks did not provide additional details about the preliminary results.
However, the New York Times, reporting on the same independent autopsy, reported that two of the bullets struck Brown in the head. The other four struck him in the right arm -- and all six were fired into his front.
"This is bound to escalate tensions," the Rev. Jesse Jackson told CNN. "This is a very provocative report."
Even before the release of this latest information, the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson has been a racially charged tinderbox.
Clashes once again
Late Sunday night, a day of peaceful protests devolved into a night of gunfire, Molotov cocktails and tear gas .
Officers fired tear gas into a crowd of hundreds of protester, including children, who were marching toward a police command post despite an impending midnight curfew. Authorities also struck at least one defiant protester with rubber bullets.
St. Louis County police said several protesters had thrown Molotov cocktails toward the officers before authorities shot tear gas toward them.
The violence escalated through the night as shots were fired toward police. Officers had to take up a defensive position behind vehicles.
"That is a lie. It was no fight, it was no shots fired," a very upset protester, Lisha Williams, told CNN. "The only ones who fired was police. All we did was march to the command center to fall to our knees and say, 'Don't shoot.' And they started shooting."
The scene was a far cry from a packed church earlier Sunday, where hundreds of people gathered for a two-hour rally demanding justice for Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager shot dead eight days ago by a white police officer.
"I'm astonished at this reversal of mood," Jackson said. "The mood was so positive."
Cousin: Brown killed without reason
A cousin of Brown told the church audience that Brown was killed without reason.
"What I want y'all to remember is that Michael Brown was not just some young black boy. He was a human being ... ," Ty Pruitt said. "He was not a suspect. He was not an object. He was not an animal. But that's how he was killed."
Michael Brown's parents -- Lesley McSpadden and Michael Brown Sr. -- appeared on stage at the rally at Greater Grace Church with attorney Benjamin Crump but didn't address the audience.
"What we're really asking for is simple justice," Crump said. "We're not asking for anything extraordinary. They just want what anybody else would want if their children were shot down in broad daylight."
Crump said there would be an independent investigation in addition to the federal and local probes already under way.
Missouri State Highway Patrol Capt. Ron Johnson spoke to the 1,300 people in the congregation and said he had a heavy heart.
JUST WATCHED New image of officer Darren Wilson Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH New image of officer Darren Wilson 02:25
Photos: Photos: Emotions run high in Ferguson Photos: Photos: Emotions run high in Ferguson Protesters march in Ferguson, Missouri, on Thursday, August 21 2014. The St. Louis suburb saw turmoil after a white police officer, Darren Wilson, fatally shot an unarmed black teenager, Michael Brown, on August 9, 2014. Some protesters and law enforcement officers clashed in the streets, leading to injuries and arrests. Hide Caption 1 of 76 Photos: Photos: Emotions run high in Ferguson A crowd gathers in Ferguson on August 21, 2014. With the situation appearing to calm, Gov. Jay Nixon ordered the Missouri National Guard to begin withdrawing from the city. Hide Caption 2 of 76 Photos: Photos: Emotions run high in Ferguson Police escort a Wilson supporter to a police vehicle, away from crowds protesting Brown's death on Wednesday, August 20, 2014. Police have said Brown and Wilson struggled over the officer's gun; some witnesses said Brown had his hands in the air when he was shot. Hide Caption 3 of 76 Photos: Photos: Emotions run high in Ferguson Lightning streaks over protesters on August 20, 2014. Hide Caption 4 of 76 Photos: Photos: Emotions run high in Ferguson Demonstrators protest on August 20, 2014. Hide Caption 5 of 76 Photos: Photos: Emotions run high in Ferguson U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder meets with Capt. Ron Johnson of the Missouri State Highway Patrol at a Ferguson restaurant on August 20, 2014. Holder came to Missouri to talk to community leaders and review the federal civil rights investigation into Brown's shooting. Hide Caption 6 of 76 Photos: Photos: Emotions run high in Ferguson Protesters march through the streets of Ferguson on August 20, 2014. Hide Caption 7 of 76 Photos: Photos: Emotions run high in Ferguson Police point out a demonstrator who has his arms raised before moving in to arrest him Tuesday, August 19, 2014. Hide Caption 8 of 76 Photos: Photos: Emotions run high in Ferguson People watch from inside a restaurant as protesters rally August 19, 2014. Hide Caption 9 of 76 Photos: Photos: Emotions run high in Ferguson Police arrest a demonstrator on August 19, 2014. Hide Caption 10 of 76 Photos: Photos: Emotions run high in Ferguson Police charge into the media work area with weapons drawn as they try to control demonstrators on August 19, 2014. Hide Caption 11 of 76 Photos: Photos: Emotions run high in Ferguson A protester speaks to a police officer on August 19, 2014. Hide Caption 12 of 76 Photos: Photos: Emotions run high in Ferguson People on August 19 stand near a memorial where Brown was shot and killed, 2014. Hide Caption 13 of 76 Photos: Photos: Emotions run high in Ferguson Protesters march on August 19, 2014. Hide Caption 14 of 76 Photos: Photos: Emotions run high in Ferguson Police watch as protesters march August 19, 2014. Hide Caption 15 of 76 Photos: Photos: Emotions run high in Ferguson A demonstrator is arrested on August 19, 2014. Hide Caption 16 of 76 Photos: Photos: Emotions run high in Ferguson Police try to control protesters on Monday, August 18, 2014. Hide Caption 17 of 76 Photos: Photos: Emotions run high in Ferguson Police lead a man away during a protest August 18, 2014. Hide Caption 18 of 76 Photos: Photos: Emotions run high in Ferguson A demonstrator shouts during a protest on West Florissant Avenue, one of Ferguson's main streets, on August 18, 2014. Hide Caption 19 of 76 Photos: Photos: Emotions run high in Ferguson Capt. Ron Johnson of the Missouri State Highway Patrol pulls his men back from aggressive protesters on August 18, 2014. Hide Caption 20 of 76 Photos: Photos: Emotions run high in Ferguson Police arrest a demonstrator August 18, 2014, after peaceful protests gave way to angry confrontations with authorities. Hide Caption 21 of 76 Photos: Photos: Emotions run high in Ferguson Law enforcement officers stand guard during a protest on West Florissant Avenue on August 18, 2014. Hide Caption 22 of 76 Photos: Photos: Emotions run high in Ferguson A woman helps a man affected by tear gas August 18, 2014. The situation overnight deteriorated after a handful of protesters threw rocks, bottles and Molotov cocktails at police. Officers responded by firing stun grenades and tear gas canisters. Hide Caption 23 of 76 Photos: Photos: Emotions run high in Ferguson Officers stand with weapons drawn during a protest on West Florissant Avenue on August 18, 2014. Hide Caption 24 of 76 Photos: Photos: Emotions run high in Ferguson Musician Nelly, center, joins demonstrators in Ferguson on August 18, 2014. Hide Caption 25 of 76 Photos: Photos: Emotions run high in Ferguson Demonstrators receive red roses as they protest August 18, 2014. Hide Caption 26 of 76 Photos: Photos: Emotions run high in Ferguson Demonstrators march on August 18, 2014. Hide Caption 27 of 76 Photos: Photos: Emotions run high in Ferguson The Rev. Jesse Jackson shakes hands with a police officer as he visits Ferguson's demonstration area on August 18, 2014. Hide Caption 28 of 76 Photos: Photos: Emotions run high in Ferguson A protester picks up a tear gas canister on Sunday, August 17, 2014. Hide Caption 29 of 76 Photos: Photos: Emotions run high in Ferguson Police wait to advance after using tear gas to disperse protesters August 17, 2014. Hide Caption 30 of 76 Photos: Photos: Emotions run high in Ferguson Water gets poured into a woman's eyes after a tear gas attack by police on August 17, 2014. Hide Caption 31 of 76 Photos: Photos: Emotions run high in Ferguson A man runs through clouds of tear gas on August 17, 2014. Hide Caption 32 of 76 Photos: Photos: Emotions run high in Ferguson Protesters react as police fire tear gas at them August 17, 2014. Hide Caption 33 of 76 Photos: Photos: Emotions run high in Ferguson Police advance through a cloud of tear gas on August 17, 2014. Most of the crowd had dispersed after a curfew went into effect at midnight, St. Louis County authorities said. Hide Caption 34 of 76 Photos: Photos: Emotions run high in Ferguson People take cover from tear gas inside a McDonald's on August 17, 2014. Hide Caption 35 of 76 Photos: Photos: Emotions run high in Ferguson A large group of police officers advance toward protesters on August 17, 2014. Hide Caption 36 of 76 Photos: Photos: Emotions run high in Ferguson A man fights the effects of tear gas in Ferguson on August 17, 2014. Hide Caption 37 of 76 Photos: Photos: Emotions run high in Ferguson Michael Brown Sr. and Lesley McSpadden, the parents of Michael Brown, attend a rally at Greater Grace Church in Ferguson on August 17, 2014. Hide Caption 38 of 76 Photos: Photos: Emotions run high in Ferguson The Rev. Al Sharpton hugs McSpadden during the rally. Hide Caption 39 of 76 Photos: Photos: Emotions run high in Ferguson Capt. Ron Johnson of the Missouri State Highway Patrol speaks at the rally. He had been appointed by the governor to take control of security operations. Hide Caption 40 of 76 Photos: Photos: Emotions run high in Ferguson Demonstrators defy a curfew early on August 17, 2014. Hide Caption 41 of 76 Photos: Photos: Emotions run high in Ferguson Police fire tear gas at demonstrators after curfew on August 17, 2014. Hide Caption 42 of 76 Photos: Photos: Emotions run high in Ferguson A law enforcement officer aims his rifle August 17,, 2014, after tear gas was fired to disperse a crowd. Hide Caption 43 of 76 Photos: Photos: Emotions run high in Ferguson Law enforcement officers check a building on August 17, 2014. Hide Caption 44 of 76 Photos: Photos: Emotions run high in Ferguson People attend a protest after the midnight curfew on August 17, 2014. Hide Caption 45 of 76 Photos: Photos: Emotions run high in Ferguson A law enforcement officer watches as tear gas is fired to disperse a crowd on August 17, 2014. Hide Caption 46 of 76 Photos: Photos: Emotions run high in Ferguson Police stand guard before the midnight curfew on Saturday, August 16, 2014. Hide Caption 47 of 76 Photos: Photos: Emotions run high in Ferguson People loot the Ferguson Market and Liquor store on August 16, 2014. Several businesses were looted as police held their positions nearby. Hide Caption 48 of 76 Photos: Photos: Emotions run high in Ferguson Missouri State Highway Patrol officers listen to taunts from demonstrators during a protest on Friday, August 15, 2014. Hide Caption 49 of 76 Photos: Photos: Emotions run high in Ferguson Demonstrators protest with their hands up on August 15, 2014. The "hands up" gesture has become a symbol in protests as Brown, according to eyewitnesses, was trying to surrender when he was shot multiple times. Hide Caption 50 of 76 Photos: Photos: Emotions run high in Ferguson Police confront demonstrators on August 15, 2014. Hide Caption 51 of 76 Photos: Photos: Emotions run high in Ferguson A demonstrator throws a tear gas canister back at police on August 15, 2014. Hide Caption 52 of 76 Photos: Photos: Emotions run high in Ferguson Police confront demonstrators on August 15, 2014. Hide Caption 53 of 76 Photos: Photos: Emotions run high in Ferguson ri – Thousands of demonstrators march down a Ferguson street with members of the St. Louis County Police and the Missouri State Highway Patrol on Thursday, August 14, 2014. Hide Caption 54 of 76 Photos: Photos: Emotions run high in Ferguson Demonstrators hold signs as traffic moves slowly past them on August 14, 2014. Hide Caption 55 of 76 Photos: Photos: Emotions run high in Ferguson People scramble as police fire tear gas on August 17, 2014. Hide Caption 56 of 76 Photos: Photos: Emotions run high in Ferguson State Highway Patrol Capt. Ron Johnson smiles at demonstrators on August 14, 2014. Johnson was appointed to lead security as state troopers took over after days of clashes between protesters and local police. Hide Caption 57 of 76 Photos: Photos: Emotions run high in Ferguson The Rev. Traci Blackmon uses a megaphone to talk to a large group of demonstrators on August 14, 2014. Hide Caption 58 of 76 Photos: Photos: Emotions run high in Ferguson A man picks up a flaming bottle and prepares to throw it as a line of police advance in the distance on Wednesday, August 13, 2014. Hide Caption 59 of 76 Photos: Photos: Emotions run high in Ferguson Police stand in clouds of smoke as they clash with protesters on August 13, 2014. Hide Caption 60 of 76 Photos: Photos: Emotions run high in Ferguson An Al-Jazeera television crew runs for cover as police fire tear gas at its position on August 13, 2014. Video and images on social media showed police later breaking down the journalists' gear. Hide Caption 61 of 76 Photos: Photos: Emotions run high in Ferguson A protester runs from tear gas exploding around him on August 13, 2014. Hide Caption 62 of 76 Photos: Photos: Emotions run high in Ferguson Police stand guard among demonstrators on August 13, 2014 Hide Caption 63 of 76 Photos: Photos: Emotions run high in Ferguson Ferguson Police Chief Thomas Jackson fields questions during a news conference on August 13, 2014. Hide Caption 64 of 76 Photos: Photos: Emotions run high in Ferguson A small group of protesters block traffic in the street before police arrived on August 13, 2014. Hide Caption 65 of 76 Photos: Photos: Emotions run high in Ferguson A protester throws a tear gas canister back toward police on August 13, 2014. Hide Caption 66 of 76 Photos: Photos: Emotions run high in Ferguson Police detain a man on Tuesday, August 12, 2014. Hide Caption 67 of 76 Photos: Photos: Emotions run high in Ferguson People congregate at the Greater St. Marks Family Church in St. Louis along with the family of Michael Brown and the Rev. Al Sharpton on August 12, 2014. Hide Caption 68 of 76 Photos: Photos: Emotions run high in Ferguson Michael Brown Sr. stands alongside Sharpton, right, during a news conference in St. Louis on August 12, 2014. Hide Caption 69 of 76 Photos: Photos: Emotions run high in Ferguson Demonstrators protest August 12 in Ferguson, 2014. Hide Caption 70 of 76 Photos: Photos: Emotions run high in Ferguson A makeshift memorial sits in the middle of the street where Michael Brown was shot and killed. Hide Caption 71 of 76 Photos: Photos: Emotions run high in Ferguson A woman tries to calm an emotional protester during a demonstration outside the headquarters of the Ferguson Police Department on August 11, 2014. Hide Caption 72 of 76 Photos: Photos: Emotions run high in Ferguson Phaedra Parks, left, comforts Desuirea Harris, the grandmother of Michael Brown, during a news conference in Jennings, Missouri, on August 11, 2014. Hide Caption 73 of 76 Photos: Photos: Emotions run high in Ferguson Police officers arrest a man who refused to leave when police cleared streets in Ferguson on August 11, 2014. Hide Caption 74 of 76 Photos: Photos: Emotions run high in Ferguson A burned-out QuikTrip gas station smolders on August 11, 2014 after protesters looted and burned the Ferguson building the night before. Hide Caption 75 of 76 Photos: Photos: Emotions run high in Ferguson Police officers and protesters confront each other on Saturday, August 9, the same day Michael Brown was shot and killed. Hide Caption 76 of 76
"The past 24 hours have been tough for me," said Johnson, who took over security in the town on Thursday after what many saw as an overly aggressive police response by the local authorities. Johnson said he met with members of the Brown family and was moved to tears.
Protests had turned violent on Saturday night as well after a curfew began. One male was shot overnight Saturday, authorities said. It was unclear how old he was or who shot him. The victim was in critical condition Sunday.
Officials said state highway patrol officers didn't fire any shots. They did fire tear gas to get to the wounded victim, Johnson said early Sunday.
A third autopsy
JUST WATCHED Who is pathologist Michael Baden? Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Who is pathologist Michael Baden? 02:03
JUST WATCHED DOJ to do 2nd autopsy on Michael Brown Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH DOJ to do 2nd autopsy on Michael Brown 02:06
JUST WATCHED Looting, tensions dash peace in Ferguson Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Looting, tensions dash peace in Ferguson 01:47
Brown was shot to death August 9 by a police officer after a confrontation as the teen walked down the street. Accounts of exactly what happened when Officer Darren Wilson stopped Brown vary widely.
Witnesses said they saw a scuffle between the officer and Brown at the police car before the young man was shot. Police said Brown struggled with the officer and reached for his weapon.
Several witnesses said Brown raised his hands and was not attacking the officer.
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has approved another autopsy on Brown's body, the Justice Department said. The autopsy will be conducted by a federal medical examiner. ||||| Michael Brown, the unarmed 18-year-old whose shooting by a police officer set off more than a week of unrest in Ferguson, Mo., was struck by at least six bullets, including two to the head, according to a former New York City medical examiner.
The autopsy results came as a march protesting Mr. Brown's Aug. 9 death erupted in chaos Sunday night... ||||| FERGUSON, Mo. (AP) — Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon ordered the National Guard to Ferguson early Monday, hours after police used tear gas to clear protesters off the streets following a week of demonstrations against the fatal police shooting of a black Missouri teenager.
A law enforcement officer on a tactical vehicle watches after a device was fired to disperse a crowd Sunday, Aug. 17, 2014, during a protest for Michael Brown, who was killed by a police officer last... (Associated Press)
People protest Sunday, Aug. 17, 2014, for Michael Brown, who was killed by a police officer last Saturday in Ferguson, Mo. As night fell Sunday in Ferguson, another peaceful protest quickly deteriorated... (Associated Press)
Police check a store after tear gas was used to disperse a crowd Sunday, Aug. 17, 2014, during a protest for Michael Brown, who was killed by a police officer last Saturday in Ferguson, Mo. As night fell... (Associated Press)
People run from tear gas after police dispersed a crowd Sunday, Aug. 17, 2014, during a protest for Michael Brown, who was killed by a police officer last Saturday in Ferguson, Mo. As night fell Sunday... (Associated Press)
People protest Sunday, Aug. 17, 2014, for Michael Brown, who was killed by a police officer last Saturday in Ferguson, Mo. As night fell Sunday in Ferguson, another peaceful protest quickly deteriorated... (Associated Press)
Police advance after tear gas was used to disperse a crowd Sunday, Aug. 17, 2014, during a protest for Michael Brown, who was killed by a police officer last Saturday in Ferguson, Mo. As night fell Sunday... (Associated Press)
A protester stands in the street after police fired tear gas to disperse a crowd Sunday, Aug. 17, 2014, during a protest for Michael Brown, who was killed by a police officer last Saturday in Ferguson,... (Associated Press)
A protester stands in the street after police fired tear gas to disperse a crowd Sunday, Aug. 17, 2014, during a protest for Michael Brown, who was killed by a police officer last Saturday in Ferguson,... (Associated Press)
A man wearing a police hat protests Sunday, Aug. 17, 2014, for Michael Brown, who was killed by a police officer last Saturday in Ferguson, Mo. As night fell Sunday in Ferguson, another peaceful protest... (Associated Press)
Police wait to advance after tear gas was used to disperse a crowd Sunday, Aug. 17, 2014, during a protest for Michael Brown, who was killed by a police officer last Saturday in Ferguson, Mo. As night... (Associated Press)
People protest Sunday, Aug. 17, 2014, for Michael Brown, who was killed by a police officer last Saturday in Ferguson, Mo. As night fell Sunday in Ferguson, another peaceful protest quickly deteriorated... (Associated Press)
Police wait to advance after tear gas was used to disperse a crowd Sunday, Aug. 17, 2014, during a protest for Michael Brown, who was killed by a police officer last Saturday in Ferguson, Mo. As night... (Associated Press)
Police wait to advance after tear gas was used to disperse a crowd Sunday, Aug. 17, 2014, during a protest for Michael Brown who was killed by a police officer last Saturday in Ferguson, Mo. As night... (Associated Press)
Police wait to advance after tear gas was used to disperse a crowd Sunday, Aug. 17, 2014, during a protest for Michael Brown, who was killed by a police officer last Saturday in Ferguson, Mo. As night... (Associated Press)
In a statement, Nixon said the National Guard would help "in restoring peace and order" to this the St. Louis suburb that has been filled almost nightly with angry, defiant crowds.
"These violent acts are a disservice to the family of Michael Brown and his memory and to the people of this community who yearn for justice to be served and to feel safe in their own homes," Nixon said.
The latest confrontations came on the same day that Attorney General Eric Holder ordered a federal medical examiner to perform another autopsy on a black Missouri teenager who was fatally shot by a white police officer. A preliminary private autopsy found that Brown was shot at least six times, including twice in the head.
As night fell in Ferguson, another peaceful protest quickly deteriorated after marchers pushed toward one end of a street. Police pushed them back by repeatedly firing tear gas, and the streets were empty well before the curfew took effect at midnight.
Authorities said they were responding to reports of gunfire, looting, vandalism and protesters who hurled Molotov cocktails.
"Based on the conditions, I had no alternative but to elevate the level of response," said Capt. Ron Johnson of the Missouri Highway Patrol, who is command in Ferguson.
At least two people wounded in shootings, he said.
The "extraordinary circumstances" surrounding the death of 18-year-old Michael Brown and a request by Brown's family members prompted the Justice Department's decision to conduct a third autopsy, agency spokesman Brian Fallon said in a statement.
The examination was to take place as soon as possible, Fallon said.
The results of a state-performed autopsy would be taken into account along with the federal examination in the Justice Department investigation, Fallon said.
Dr. Michael Baden, a former New York City chief medical examiner, told The New York Times that one of the bullets entered the top of Brown's skull, suggesting that his head was bent forward when he suffered a fatal injury.
Brown was also shot four times in the right arm, and all the bullets were fired into his front, Baden said.
The Justice Department already had deepened its civil rights investigation into the shooting. A day earlier, officials said 40 FBI agents were going door-to-door gathering information in the Ferguson neighborhood where Brown, who was unarmed, was shot to death Aug. 9.
A federally conducted autopsy "more closely focused on entry point of projectiles, defensive wounds and bruises" might help that investigation, said David Weinstein, a former federal prosecutor who supervised the criminal civil rights section of Miami's U.S. attorney's office. The move is "not that unusual," he added.
Federal authorities also want to calm any public fears that no action will be taken on the case, Weinstein said.
Back in Ferguson, Sunday's clashes erupted three hours before the midnight curfew imposed by Gov. Jay Nixon.
Officers in riot gear ordered all the protesters to disperse. Many of the marchers retreated, but a group of about 100 stood defiantly about two blocks away until getting hit by another volley of tear gas.
Protesters laid a line of cinder blocks across the street near the QuikTrip convenience store that was burned down last week. It was an apparent attempt to block police vehicles, but the vehicles easily plowed through. Someone set a nearby trash bin on fire, and the crackle of gunfire could be heard from several blocks away.
Within two hours, most people had been cleared off West Florissant Avenue, one of the community's main thoroughfares. The streets remained quiet as the curfew began. It was to remain in effect until 5 a.m.
Earlier in the day, Johnson said he had met members of Brown's family and the experience "brought tears to my eyes and shame to my heart."
"When this is over," he told the crowd, "I'm going to go in my son's room. My black son, who wears his pants sagging, who wears his hat cocked to the side, got tattoos on his arms, but that's my baby."
Johnson added: "We all need to thank the Browns for Michael. Because Michael's going to make it better for our sons to be better black men."
The protests have been going on since Brown's death heightened racial tensions between the predominantly black community and the mostly white Ferguson Police Department, leading to several run-ins between police and protesters and prompting Missouri's governor to put the state highway patrol in charge of security.
Ferguson police waited six days to publicly reveal the name of the officer and documents alleging Brown robbed a convenience store shortly before he was killed. Police Chief Thomas Jackson said the officer did not know Brown was a robbery suspect when he encountered him walking in the street with a friend.
Nixon said Sunday on ABC's "This Week" that he was not aware the police were going to release surveillance video from the store where Brown is alleged to have stolen a $49 box of cigars.
"It's appeared to cast aspersions on a young man that was gunned down in the street. It made emotions raw," Nixon said.
Police have said little about the encounter between Brown and the officer, except to say that it involved a scuffle in which the officer was injured and Brown was shot. Witnesses say the teenager had his hands in the air as the officer fired multiple rounds.
The officer who shot Brown has been identified as Darren Wilson, a six-year police veteran who had no previous complaints against him. Wilson has been on paid administrative leave since the shooting, and the department has refused to say anything about his whereabouts. Associated Press reporters have been unable to contact him at any addresses or phone numbers listed under that name in the St. Louis area.
Also Sunday, about 150 people gathered in St. Louis to show support for Wilson. The crowd protested outside a TV station because it had broadcast from in front of the officer's home.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch said the station, KSDK, later apologized. Other in the group, composed mostly of police and relatives of officers, carried signs urging people to wait for all the facts.
___
Associated Press writers Darlene Superville in Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, and Eric Tucker in Brewster, Massachusetts, contributed to this report. | – Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon ordered the National Guard to Ferguson early today, hours after another violent night. The National Guard will help "in restoring peace and order" to the St. Louis suburb that has been rocked by angry protests since the fatal police shooting of unarmed 18-year-old Michael Brown, Nixon said in a statement, as per the AP. "These violent acts are a disservice to the family of Michael Brown and his memory and to the people of this community who yearn for justice to be served and to feel safe in their own homes," Nixon said. In Ferguson, another day of protests ended in violence after tear gas was fired at marchers approaching a police command post ahead of a midnight curfew, reports the Wall Street Journal. Police say Molotov cocktails were thrown at them and shots were fired, though protesters dispute that account. "That is a lie. It was no fight, it was no shots fired," a protester tells CNN. "The only ones who fired was police. All we did was march to the command center to fall to our knees and say, 'Don't shoot.' And they started shooting." "Based on the conditions, I had no alternative but to elevate the level of response," said Capt. Ron Johnson of the Missouri Highway Patrol, who is in command in Ferguson. At least two people were wounded in shootings, he said. |
The Vietnamese version of The Bachelor dished up drama when one female contestant asked another to leave the show to be with her — and the second woman almost went through with it.
During the shocking rose ceremony, Minh Thu tearfully explained to the bachelor, Nguyen Quoc Trung, that she had her eye on another person after it appeared Thu was not going to receive a rose.
Get push notifications with news, features and more.
“I went into this competition to find love,” she said. “But I’ve found that love for myself. But it isn’t you. It’s someone else.”
Thu then left her spot in the lineup and walked over to Truc Nhu. They shared a long hug as the surprised contestants looked on.
RELATED: Colton Underwood Meets 3 of His Bachelor Contestants, Talks Being a Virgin in the Fantasy Suite
Bachelor Vietnam
“Come home with me. Come home with me. Yeah?” Thu said to Nhu, who patted her head emotionally.
Then Nhu got her turn to speak. Approaching Trung, she said, “I’m sorry. I really want to get to know you because you’re someone who made me feel special and I haven’t felt that way in a long time.”
Trung did not want her to go. “I want to ask, if you decide this, would you feel regretful? This doesn’t change my decision,” he pleaded. “I’m not going to give this rose to anyone else. You only get one chance in this life, and you need to take it. Only you, not anyone else. I want to let you know that I think you’ll have regret if you continue with what you are about to say.”
RELATED VIDEO: Chris Harrison on Controversial ‘Bachelor’ Couple Arie & Lauren: ‘He Brings a Lot of Heat on Himself’
Despite Trung’s impassioned speech, Nhu returned the rose, embraced Trung and told him, “I know you’ll find someone who really loves you, who understands you, who knows how to take care of you, who can look at you from afar and know how you’re feeling. I’m sorry.”
RELATED: The Bachelor‘s Bekah Martinez Shares Baby Bump Photo — in a Bikini: ‘Beach Belly Babe’
Nhu and Thu then walked out together, but according to NextShark, Nhu ultimately came back.
In a screenshot on the website, Nhu said, “After talking to Trung, I’ve changed my mind to accept this rose and continue this journey.” ||||| Published on Sep 21, 2018
Instead, with fellow contestant, Truc-Nhu.
DIỄN BIẾN GÂY SỐC TRONG THE BACHELOR VIETNAM: Thí sinh Minh Thư tỏ tình với Trúc Như và rời khỏi Anh Chàng Độc Thân!
►Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/bachelorviet...
►Website : http://www.thebachelorvietnam.com/
►Youtube : https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBIU...
►Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/thebachelor...
►Twitter : https://twitter.com/TheBachelorVN
© Bản quyền thuộc về Warner Bros
© Copyright by Warner Bros ☞ Do not Reup
© Bản quyền thuộc về The Bachelor Việt Nam
© Copyright by The Bachelor Việt Nam ☞ Do not Reup
© Đơn vị sản xuất HappyCanvas và Fusion3 Media
© Produce by HappyCanvas and Fusion3 Media ||||| Rose ceremonies on The Bachelor are usually drama-packed, but Vietnam's version of the hit TV show has quite the surprise plot twist.
In a clip that's since gone viral, contestant Minh Thu was left without a rose from the show's Bachelor, Quoc Trung.
But before leaving for good, she decided to stun everyone by professing her love to another contestant, Truc Nhu, then convincing her to leave the show.
"Come home with me," Minh Thu tells Truc Nhu. If only other versions of The Bachelor were this interesting.
Truc Nhu, who has a rose, then decides to hand it back to the show's Bachelor, Quoc Trung, before leaving with Minh Thu.
"I know you'll find someone who really loves you, who understands you, knows how to take care of you, who can look at you from afar and know how you're feeling. I'm sorry," Truc Nhu said.
It's certainly the first time we've seen something like this happen on the dating show. In the Australian version of the TV series, two contestants dated each other, but not until after the show had finished.
The spectacle didn't last for long, with Truc Nhu eventually deciding to stay on the show after being convinced by Quoc Trung to stay, according to Nextshark.
I want to be more excited about the Vietnam Bachelor twist but..... pic.twitter.com/LDyM6dOgPg — p i l o t (@pilottofive) September 22, 2018
For a show that's normally pretty trashy, and a haven for unrelenting straightness, this moment is a welcome reprieve from it all — even if it didn't last for long. ||||| However, instead of fighting for him, Thu confessed her love for a fellow contestant, Truc Nhu.
"I went into this competition to find love, and I’ve found that love for myself, but it isn’t with you. It’s with someone else," she said to Trung. | – Bachelor host Chris Harrison is known for repeatedly promising "the most dramatic rose ceremony ever," but the hit ABC reality show has nothing on what just happened on its Vietnamese counterpart. Mashable calls it a "surprise plot twist," which was likely an understatement for bachelor Nguyen Quoc Trung, who first offered a rose (a sign that a competitor is invited to remain in the dating contest) to Truc Nhu, then declined to give one to Minh Thu. Thu, however, had a shocking announcement to make before she left. "I went into this competition to find love," she said, per People. "I've found that love for myself. But it isn't you. It's someone else." Then, while a stunned Trung and other wide-eyed contestants looked on, Thu walked over to Nhu, buried her head in her chest, and implored: "Come home with me. Come home with me. Yeah?" An emotional Nhu patted Thu's head several times, then walked over to Trung, said he'd made her "feel special," and apologized. Trung, trying to fend off her departure, told Nhu she would "have regret" if she left and said, "You only get one chance in this life, and you need to take it." But Nhu tearfully gave him his rose back and walked off the set with Thu. Per NextShark, showrunners say this is the first time this has happened in any of the Bachelor franchises in more than 30 countries; two contestants from the Aussie version dated, but after the show had wrapped. Don't celebrate Nhu and Thu's happily ever after quite yet, though: NextShark notes Trung caught up with Nhu, "had a heart-to-heart with her," and got her to return. "After talking to Trung, I've changed my mind to accept this rose and continue this journey," Nhu said, per the site. Thu's emotional confession here. |
Given our inherent human-centric viewpoint, we tend to think that our species is more advanced in all respects than other animals, but new research finds that human hands are more primitive than those of our closest primate ancestors: chimpanzees.
The study, published in the latest issue of the journal Nature Communications, determined that while human hand proportions have changed little from those of the last common ancestor of chimps and humans, the hands of chimps and orangutans have evolved quite a bit.
Prehistoric Moms Had Their Hands Full: Photos
“The findings suggest that the structure of the modern human hand is largely primitive in nature, rather than, as some believe, the result of more recent changes necessary for stone tool-making,” Kurtis Hiatt, a spokesperson for The George Washington University, told Discovery News.
Sergio Almécija, a scientist in the university’s Center for the Advanced Study of Human Paleobiology, led the study, which was co-authored by Jeroen Smaers and William Jungers. Smaers and Jungers are researchers at Stony Brook University, where the research was conducted.
The researchers came to their conclusions after analyzing the hands of humans, chimps and orangutans, as well as the remains of hands for early apes like Proconsul heseloni and the hands of human ancestors, such as Ardipithecus ramidus and Australopithecus sediba.
Almécija and his team discovered that human hands today are not that different from those of the early human ancestors.
“Human hands are marked by a relatively long thumb when compared to the length of their four other fingers — a trait that is often cited as one of the reasons for the success of our species because it facilitates a ‘pad-to-pad precision grip,’” Hiatt said.
Conversely, chimp hands are much longer and narrower. Since the thumb is not as long, it just meets up with the palm, while the chimp’s other four fingers extend upward. As a result, chimps and orangutans do not have opposable thumbs as we do.
Like Humans, Chimps Tend to Be Right-handed
Gorillas also appear to have inherited our more primitive hand structure. Like human hands, gorilla hands have five fingers, including an opposable thumb. Gorilla feet are similar to ours too. Each gorilla foot has five toes, but their big toe is opposable and can move much more flexibly than ours can.
Almécija and his colleagues suspect that all living primates survived a late Miocene (12 to 5 million years ago) extinction event by specializing to exist in certain habitats. While chimps and orangutans became tree-climbing specialists, humans evolved to become more terrestrial. Gorillas did too.
While we tend to think that gorillas spend much of their time hanging around in trees, the truth is that they only spend about 5 to 20 percent of their time in trees. Even then, the tree scaling is just to escape threats or to forage for food.
The new study challenges the assumption that the evolution of a more “sophisticated” hand in humans first appeared in the common ancestor of chimps and our species. Our hands, however useful, may instead represent a very primitive anatomical structure that’s been around for millions of years.
Photos: Left, human hand; Credit: Sergio Almécija
Right, chimpanzee hand; Credit: Credit: Michele W, Flickr ||||| Intrinsic hand proportions
Hand proportions of humans are usually compared with those of apes using the thumb-to-digit ratio (or IHPs), which is a good functional measure of thumb opposability and therefore a proxy for manual dexterity (for example, refs 1, 14, 19). Accordingly, we queried our anthropoid sample (see details of our sample in Supplementary Table 1) to see whether our IHP measure (as revealed by the thumb-to-fourth ray ratio; Fig. 1b) was consistent with previous observations that humans can easily be distinguished from modern apes by a long thumb relative to the other digits4, 5, 14. The modern human IHP range is well above that of modern apes (that is, no overlap; analysis of variance (ANOVA) with Bonferroni post hoc comparisons, P<0.001; see Supplementary Table 2 for details on the taxa-specific comparisons), which can be linked directly to the human capability (unique among modern hominoids20) to perform an efficient ‘pad-to-pad precision grasping’ (that is, broad contact of the distal pads of the thumb and index finger, Supplementary Note 1)1, 4, 5, 13. In contrast, chimpanzees and especially orangutans are found to have significantly shorter thumbs than gorillas and hylobatids (ANOVA with Bonferroni post hoc comparisons, P<0.001). Fossil hominins fall within the modern human range, but Ar. ramidus exhibits a shorter thumb (within the gorilla-hylobatid range), implying limits to its precision grasping capabilities. Most non-hominoid anthropoids, including the fossil ape Pr. heseloni, exhibit IHP ranges in-between modern apes and humans. Both Cebus and Theropithecus overlap in this index with humans, supporting the relationship between this ratio and enhanced manipulative skills (see Supplementary Note 1).
Extrinsic hand proportions
Despite the aforementioned functional connections, IHPs provide limited information regarding what distinguishes humans from apes: is it a longer thumb, shorter digits or a combination of both? More specifically, which elements contribute most to the overall ray length? To clarify this and inspect how each of the individual elements of the thumb and ray IV contribute to IHPs (Fig. 1b), we standardized each length relative to overall body size (approximated by the cube root of its body mass, BM), creating relative length shape ratios of external hand proportions (EHPs; Supplementary Fig. 1). Major trends of EHP variation between the individuals in our anthropoid sample are summarized and inspected by means of principal components analysis of extant and fossil individuals (Supplementary Table 3), revealing high EHP heterogeneity in extant hominoids (and in non-hominoid anthropoids; Fig. 2a, Supplementary Fig. 1). In other words, there is a clear EHP structure that allows the characterization of the hominoid taxa. Statistical differences in EHP between each great ape genus, hylobatids and humans were established (P<0.001) by means of multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA with Bonferroni-corrected post hoc pairwise comparisons; see Supplementary Table 4). Differences among extant great ape genera are more apparent when the eigenanalysis is carried out exclusively on great ape individuals (Supplementary Fig. 3), even revealing significant differences between species of gorillas (P=0.014) and chimpanzees (P=0.047). EHPs of selected species are depicted to help understand extreme morphologies along the major axes of variation in shape space (Fig. 2b). A complex pattern is revealed: hylobatids, orangutans and chimpanzees (in this order) exhibit longer digits than humans, but gorillas do not. Thumb length follows a rather different trend: hylobatids have both the longest digits and the longest thumbs, whereas Theropithecus displays the shortest digits but not the shortest thumbs (rather, eastern gorillas do). For Ar. ramidus we inspect two different relative shape possibilities based on substantially different but plausible BM estimations: 50.8 kg (as a quadruped) and 35.7 kg (as a biped). Fossil hominins display a modern human pattern, but Ar. ramidus shows only slightly longer or shorter (BM-depending) digits than Pr. heseloni (that is, it is intermediate between humans and chimpanzees), but in both cases it exhibits shorter thumbs (specifically shorter pollical phalanges; Supplementary Table 3) than this fossil ape and other hominins, and occupies a different region of EHP shape space (Fig. 2 and Supplementary Fig. 2). The observed differences in EHP between hominoid taxa cannot be merely attributed to size-dependent effects (that is, allometry; Supplementary Fig. 4, Supplementary Table 5).
Figure 2: Extrinsic hand proportions of humans and other anthropoid primates. (a) Principal components analysis of the body mass-adjusted hand lengths. (b) Summary of the contribution of each hand element in selected anthropoids. Species are arranged by maximum length of ray IV (notice that the thumb does not follow the same trend). ARA-VP-6/500 L refers to an iteration of Ar. ramidus with an estimated body mass of 50.8 kg, whereas ARA-VP-6/500 S uses a smaller estimate of 35.7 kg. Full size image (74 KB) Previous
Figures index
Next
The evolution of human and ape hand proportions
Previous observations on modern ape thoraces and limbs suggest that living apes show similar but not identical adaptations to accommodate similar functional demands related to specialized climbing and suspension (especially Pan and Pongo), reinforcing the role of parallelism in ape evolution3, 21, 22, a phenomenon explained by common evolutionary developmental pathways in closely related taxa23. To test this homoplastic hypothesis for similarities in hand-length proportions between suspensory taxa, we enlist the ‘surface’ method24, which allows inferring the history of adaptive diversification in hominoids (and other anthropoids) using a phylogeny (Fig. 3) and phenotypic data, in this case the two major axes of EHP variation among extant and fossil species (accounting for 94.5% of variance; see Fig. 4 and Supplementary Table 7). This method models adaptive evolutionary scenarios by fitting a multi-regime Ornstein Uhlenbeck (OU) stabilizing selection model25 to the tip data. This procedure allows taxonomic units to undergo shifts towards different phenotypes (‘adaptive peaks’) and can be used to identify cases where multiple lineages have discovered the same selective regimes (that is, convergence). Regimes are here understood as comprising a group of taxonomic units that are inferred to have similar phenotypes. Adaptive peaks can be understood as the optimal phenotypic values that characterize the different regimes. The advantage of the surface method is that it locates regime shifts without a prior identification of regimes. The method hereby fits a series of stabilizing selection models and uses a data-driven stepwise algorithm to locate phenotypic shifts on the tree. Thus, this method allows to ‘naively’ detect instances of phenotypic convergence in human and ape hand proportions. Starting with an OU model in which all species are attracted to a single adaptive peak in morphospace, ‘surface’ uses a stepwise model selection procedure based on the finite-samples Akaike information criterion (AICc)26, 27 to fit increasingly complex multi-regime models. At each step, a new regime shift is added to the branch of the phylogeny that most improves model fit across all the variables inspected, and shifts are added until no further improvement is achieved. To verify true convergence, this method then evaluates whether the AICc score is further improved by allowing different species to shift towards shared adaptive regimes rather than requiring each one to occupy its own peak. For the EHPs, ‘surface’ detects five adaptive optima (see edge colours in phylogenetic tree in Fig. 3) corresponding to (1) Cebus and Alouatta; (2) Papio and Theropithecus; (3) Macaca, Mandrillus, Nasalis, Gorilla and hominins; (4) hylobatids; and (5) Pan and Pongo. In other words, in terms of human and great ape evolution ‘surface’ identifies convergent evolution between the EHPs of Pan and Pongo, whereas Gorilla and hominins share a more plesiomorphic condition for catarrhines. To verify this result, we compare the statistical fit of this evolutionary scenario with that of five other evolutionary hypotheses based on the respective relative AICc weights (Supplementary Fig. 5; Supplementary Table 8). The alternative models include Brownian motion evolution, a single-regime OU model, a multi-regime OU model differentiating the different clades, and most importantly an alternative version of the five-regime OU model detected by ‘surface’ in which the condition shared by Pan and Pongo is hypothesized to represent the plesiomorphic state for great apes (OU5 ‘alt’ in Supplementary Fig. 5). Our results support the ‘surface’ output as the best fit model using either a large or a small body size estimate for Ar. ramidus (ΔAIC c =0.00, AIC c weight=1.00), and even when excluding Ar. ramidus and Pr. heseloni from the analysis (ΔAIC c =0.00, AIC c weight=0.77). To test the sensitivity of our results to a possible sampling bias due to the higher number of hominoid species in comparison with monkey clades in our sample, we repeat the analysis once more after excluding the most speciose and morphologically derived group of hominoids (the hylobatid species), together with the fossil closest to the hominoid LCA in our sample (that is, Pr. heseloni). Again, ‘surface’ identifies a best fit model in which Pan and Pongo are convergent, with the difference that the slightly reduced digits of gorillas and hominins are now interpreted as being convergent with baboons, while the remaining monkey taxa share a common, more plesiomorphic, regime (Supplementary Fig. 6). This evolutionary scenario also has the best support (ΔAIC c =0.00, AIC c weight=0.92) when compared with Brownian motion, and four other alternative evolutionary scenarios (Supplementary Table 8). Importantly in terms of human and ape evolution, irrespective of the difference in results between the full vs reduced hominoid sample, the similarities between the EHP of hominins and gorillas are reconstructed as representing the plesiomorphic condition for the African ape and human clade (Fig. 3), while Pan would be more derived (and convergent with Pongo).
Figure 3: Time-calibrated phylogenetic tree showing the estimated adaptive regimes in our anthropoid sample. Adaptive optima are based on the two major axes of extrinsic hand proportions (EHP) variation between extant and fossil species (accounting for 94.5% of the variation). Branches are colour-coded according to different adaptive regimes (revealing that Pan and Pongo -red edges- are convergent). Clades are colour-coded (circles) as follows: brown, platyrrhines; dark green, cercopithecids; purple, hylobatids; light green, orangutans; red, gorillas; orange, chimpanzees; pink, fossil hominins; light blue, modern humans. The nodes corresponding to the last common ancestor (LCA) of great apes-humans and chimpanzees-humans are highlighted. Full size image (141 KB) Previous
Figures index
Next
Figure 4: The evolutionary history of human and ape hand proportions. Phylomorphospace projection of the phylogeny presented in Fig. 3 onto the two first principal components (PCs) of extrinsic hand proportions (EHP) in extant and fossil species. Taxa are colour-coded as in the phylogenetic tree; internal nodes (that is, ancestral-states reconstructed using maximum likelihood) are also indicated, highlighting the positions in shape space of the great ape-human and chimpanzee-human LCAs (plus 95% confidence intervals for the latter estimate). (a) EHP of Ardipithecus ramidus estimated using 50.8 kg. Owing to space constrictions, macaque species are not labelled. (b) Iteration using 35.7 kg for Ar. ramidus. Outlines (scaled to similar length) of extant and fossil apes and Ar. ramidus are plotted in this phylomorphospace to help visualizing major shape changes occurred during ape and human hand evolution. Panels (c) and (d) depict the EHP of chimpanzees and humans vis-à-vis their reconstructed last common ancestor (LCA) assuming, respectively, 50.8 kg and 35.7 kg for Ar. ramidus. Full size image (118 KB) Previous
Figures index
Next
Furthermore, to visually track major evolutionary changes driving differences between apes and humans, we summarize the evolutionary history of hominoid hand length diversification (as compared with platyrrhine and cercopithecid monkey out-groups) by means of a phylomorphospace approach28. These are the steps that we followed: First, we reconstructed hypothetical ancestral morphologies (that is, internal nodes in Fig. 3) using a maximum likelihood approach and plotted them on the shape space defined by the two major EHP axes of variation among extant and fossil species (Fig. 4). Second, we mapped our time-calibrated phylogenetic tree (Fig. 3) onto this shape space by connecting the ancestral sate reconstructions and the terminal taxa. The lengths and orientations of the branches of this phylomorphospace allows one to intuitively visualize the magnitude and directionality of inferred shape changes along each branch of the tree. Owing to the possible impact of Ar. ramidus in the reconstruction of the chimpanzee-human LCA (based on its proximity in time), we present this analysis with both large and small body size estimates (Fig. 4a,b respectively), as well as by excluding Ar. ramidus and Pr. heseloni (Supplementary Fig. 7). In all cases, major evolutionary changes along PC1 (~86% of variance; see Supplementary Table 7) relate to digital (primarily metacarpal and proximal phalanx) lengthening/shortening (positive and negative values, respectively), whereas PC2 (~8% of variance) relates to thumb proximal phalanx (positive values) and digital metacarpal (negative values) lengthening, and thereby serves to separate our platyrrhine and catarrhine taxa (especially baboons). Although the position of Ar. ramidus in shape space differs depending on estimated BM, the overall evolutionary pattern remains constant: from moderate digital length, digital lengthening has been achieved to different degrees and independently in chimpanzees, orangutans and hylobatids (in this increasing order; with Pan and Pongo sharing the same adaptive optimum, see Fig. 3). In contrast, hominins and gorillas (especially eastern gorillas) have slightly reduced their digital lengths (although both would still represent the same evolutionary regime, see Fig. 3). In terms of thumb evolution, only a modest reduction in extant great apes and slight elongation in later hominins appears to have occurred. It is worth noticing that, irrespective of which Ar. ramidus BM estimate is used, Pan falls clearly outside of the 95% confident interval for the estimated chimpanzee-human LCA, whereas Ar. ramidus is very close to it (Fig. 4), as previously suggested2, 29. This supports the idea that chimpanzees exhibit derived hands, in this case convergent with Pongo (Fig. 3).
This previous phylogenetic patterning observed in our EHP morphospace (that is, homoplasy along PC1, and more clade-specific groups along PC2; see Fig. 4) was tested with Blomberg’s K statistic30. Our results indicate that for PC2 variance is concentrated among clades (K>1; 1,000 permutations, P=0.001): Alouatta (long thumb proximal phalanx and short digital metacarpal) and baboons (reverse condition of howler monkeys) are situated at opposite extremes, and other cercopithecids and hominoids exhibit intermediate values. For PC1, however, the variance is concentrated within clades (K<1; 1,000 permutations, P=0.001), indicating that the observed variance in finger length (that is, PC1) is larger than expected based on the structure of the tree. This supports the idea of adaptive evolution (that is, shape change associated with change in function)31 in hominoid finger length uncorrelated with phylogeny30. In other words, finger lengthening has been achieved homoplastically in different ape lineages (probably in relation to increased suspensory behaviours), as also revealed by our multi-regime OU modelling (Fig. 3, Supplementary Figs 5 and 6) and phylomorphospace approach (Fig. 4).
To inspect how the addition of more taxa with long fingers affects our evolutionary reconstructions of digital length, we revisit the phylomorphospace after excluding the thumb elements. Specifically, we incorporate the fossil ape Hispanopithecus laietanus17 (which does not preserve thumb elements; Fig. 5a–c) and the suspensory platyrrhine Ateles (which exhibits only a vestigial thumb32). Hi. laietanus represents the earliest evidence of specialized adaptations for below-branch suspension in the fossil ape record17, 33. However, its phylogenetic position is not resolved, being alternatively considered as a stem great ape, a stem pongine or even a stem hominine (Fig. 5d–f). In the fourth ray morphospace (Fig. 6), PC1 (~92% of variance; Supplementary Table 7) is mainly related positively to metacarpal and proximal phalanx lengths, whereas PC2 (~6% of variance) is positively related to metacarpal length and negatively to proximal phalanx length. When ancestral state reconstructions and phylogenetic mapping are inspected in this phylomorphospace, the overall evolutionary pattern reflecting homoplasy in modern (and fossil) ape digital elongation is also evident, irrespective of the BM estimate of Ar. ramidus and the phylogenetic position of Hi. laietanus (Fig. 6). Specifically, these results also indicate independent digital elongation (to different degrees) in hylobatids, orangutans, chimpanzees, spider monkeys and Hi. laietanus. Although chimpanzees and Hi. laietanus exhibit a similar relative digital length (Supplementary Fig. 4b), it has been achieved by different means. In contrast to chimpanzees and baboons that display long metacarpals relative to proximal phalanges (as revealed by PC1 in Fig. 6), Hi. laietanus approaches a condition similar to that of howler monkeys by exhibiting long phalanges relative to short metacarpals (as revealed by PC2 in Fig. 6). Overall, these results match the previously recognized mosaic nature of the Hi. laietanus hand morphology17, which suggests that its suspensory-related adaptations evolved independently from that of other apes. More broadly, even though the living hominoid lineages represent the few remnants of a much more prolific group during the Miocene22, the evidence presented above indicate that hominoids constitute a highly diversified group in terms of hand proportions (as identified in Fig. 2, Supplementary Fig. 1, and Figs 4 and 6).
Figure 5: The hand of the late Miocene ape Hispanopithecus laietanus. Its reconstructed hand is displayed in dorsal (a) and palmar (b) views, and together with its associated skeleton (c). This species represents the earliest specialized adaptations for below-branch suspension in the fossil ape record33, although its hand combining short metacarpals and long phalanges, dorsally oriented hamato-metacarpal and metacarpo-phalangeal joints, presents no modern analogues17. The phylogenetic position of Hispanopithecus is still highly debated: stem great ape (d), stem pongine (e) or stem hominine (e)? Scale bars represent 10 cm. Reconstruction of the IPS 18800 (Hispanopithecus) skeleton in panel (c) reproduced with the permission of Salvador Moyà-Solà and Meike Köhler. Full size image (256 KB) Previous
Figures index
Next
Figure 6: Reconstructed evolutionary histories of human and ape digital extrinsic proportions. The phylomorphospace approach was limited to the three long bones of ray IV to include the fossil ape Hispanopithecus laietanus and Ateles species. The same analysis was iterated with the large (a) and small (b) body mass estimates of Ardipithecus ramidus (finding no differences in the overall evolutionary pattern). Internal nodes (that is, ancestral-state reconstructions) and branch lengths are indicated for three different phylogenetic hypotheses: Hi. laietanus as a stem great ape (black), a stem pongine (orange) and stem African ape (red). Species names are indicated in (a) with the exception of macaques. Full size image (132 KB) Previous
Figures index ||||| The human hand is a marvel of dexterity. It can thread a needle, coax intricate melodies from the keys of a piano, and create lasting works of art with a pen or a paintbrush. Many scientists have assumed that our hands evolved their distinctive proportions over millions of years of recent evolution. But a new study suggests a radically different conclusion: Some aspects of the human hand are actually anatomically primitive—more so even than that of many other apes, including our evolutionary cousin the chimpanzee. The findings have important implications for the origins of human toolmaking, as well as for what the ancestor of both humans and chimps might have looked like.
Humans and chimps diverged from a common ancestor perhaps about 7 million years ago, and their hands now look very different. We have a relatively long thumb and shorter fingers, which allows us to touch our thumbs to any point along our fingers and thus easily grasp objects. Chimps, on the other hand, have much longer fingers and shorter thumbs, perfect for swinging in trees but much less handy for precision grasping. For decades the dominant view among researchers was that the common ancestor of chimps and humans had chimplike hands, and that the human hand changed in response to the pressures of natural selection to make us better toolmakers.
But recently some researchers have begun to challenge the idea that the human hand fundamentally changed its proportions after the evolutionary split with chimps. The earliest humanmade stone tools are thought to date back 3.3 million years, but new evidence has emerged that some of the earliest members of the human line—such as the 4.4-million-year-old Ardipithecus ramidus (“Ardi”)—had hands that resembled those of modern humans rather than chimps, even though it did not make tools. And back in 2010, a team led by paleoanthropologist Sergio Almécija, now at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., began arguing that even earlier human relatives, dating to 6 million years ago—very soon after the human-chimp evolutionary split—already had humanlike hands as well. This even included the ability to press the thumb against the fingers with considerable force, a key aspect of precision gripping.
To get a grasp on what early hands really looked like, Almécija and his colleagues analyzed the thumb and finger proportions of a large number of living apes and monkeys, including modern humans. They then compared these to the hands of several extinct species of apes and early humans, including Ardi, the Neandertals, and the 2-million-year-old Australopithecus sediba from South Africa, which its discoverers controversially think might be a direct ancestor of humans. The sample also included the 25-million-year-old fossil ape known as Proconsul.
The team crunched the measurements from all these samples using sophisticated statistical methods designed to determine the course of hand evolution over time. The researchers found that the hand of the common ancestor of chimps and humans, and perhaps also earlier ape ancestors, had a relatively long thumb and shorter fingers, similar to that of humans today. (Gorillas, which spend most of their time on the ground and not in trees, have similarly shaped hands.) Thus, the human hand retains these more “primitive” proportions, whereas the elongated fingers and shorter thumbs of chimps, as well as orangutans, represent a more specialized and “derived” form ideal for life in the trees, the team reports today in Nature Communications.
Almécija says that a hand capable of precision grasping was “one of the earliest adaptations” among members of the human line, possibly because it made our ancestors better at gathering a wider variety of foods, and not originally because it made them better toolmakers. And if human hands largely retained the “primitive” state, he adds, the most important changes that led to toolmaking would have been “neurological” -- that is, the result of the enlargement and evolution of the human brain and its ability to plan ahead and better coordinate hand movements.
“Their results fit very nicely with the view … that the human hand is best described as primitive,” says Tracy Kivell, an anthropologist at the University of Kent in the United Kingdom who specializes in the study of the primate hand and wrist. “It’s good to see that some of the implications of Ardi”—that the common ancestor of chimps and humans was not chimplike—“are being noticed,” adds Owen Lovejoy, an anatomist at Kent State University in Ohio and member of the team that studied this early member of the human line. Rather than being a good model for this common ancestor, Lovejoy says, today’s chimps are “highly specialized” for a fruit-eating life high up in the trees.
But the study is not likely to receive a warm welcome from researchers who think the common ancestor of chimps and humans was indeed more chimplike. The team “build[s] an evolutionary scenario based on one data point, bony proportions of hands, with the underlying assumption that they tell a story,” says Adrienne Zihlman, a primatologist at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Zihlman argues that the hands alone provide researchers with only a very limited view of what the common ancestor was like. “This paper serves as a poster child for what is wrong with a lot of work in paleoanthropology.” ||||| Scientists in the United States and Spain said the human hand may be more primitive than that of our closest living cousin, the chimpanzee Strong fists for defending ourselves and opposable thumbs for work as fine as threading a needle—hand specialisation is widely believed to have given humans a major evolutionary advantage.
On Tuesday, scientists in the United States and Spain said the human hand may be more primitive than that of our closest living cousin, the chimpanzee.
In fact, human hands are likely more similar to those of the last common ancestor we and chimps shared millions of years ago.
"These findings indicate that the structure of the modern human hand is largely primitive in nature, rather than the result of selective pressures in the context of stone tool-making," said a press summary from the journal Nature Communications, which published the study.
In fact, it is the hands of chimps and orangutans that changed most since they split off to form new branches of the hominid family tree—developing longer fingers, compared to the thumb, for swinging on tree branches.
The human hand has a longer thumb relative to the other fingers than that of chimps and other apes—allowing for what scientists call "pad-to-pad" precision grasping, which simply means that our fingertips are able to touch.
There is a widely held assumption among palaeontologists that the last common ancestor (LCA) of humans and apes, an individual whose identity remains uncertain, was a prototype chimp with chimp-like hands.
But a team led by Sergio Almecija of The George Washington University's Center for the Advanced Study of Human Paleobiology, is challenging that.
They analysed the hand-length proportions of humans, as well as living and fossil apes to draw a picture of the evolutionary history, and found the human "thumb-to-digits ratio required little change since the LCA."
"The inevitable implication is that when hominins (the extended human family excluding apes) started producing flaked stone tools in a systematic fashion, probably as early as 3.3 million years ago, their hands were—in terms of overall proportions—pretty much like ours today," Almecija told AFP by email.
"Another important take-home message is that if human hands are largely primitive, the 'relevant' changes promoting the emergence of widespread reliance on stone tool culture were probably neurological" and not manual—meaning it was our brains that allowed for adaptation.
"Any evolutionary model of human hand evolution assuming a chimpanzee-like ancestor will likely be flawed from the beginning," he added.
Explore further: Human ancestor was less-chimp-like than thought: study
More information: Nature Communications, DOI: 10.1038/ncomms8717
| – Consider yourself more advanced than a chimpanzee? When it comes to your hands, at least, you might be wrong. American and Spanish researchers who studied the hands of chimps, orangutans, humans, as well as those of human ancestors and ancient apes, say a chimp’s hands have evolved significantly since humans and chimps diverged on the evolutionary path some 7 million years ago. Initially displaying a long thumb and shorter fingers, chimp and orangutan fingers elongated to allow them to swing among the trees, reports AFP. But human hands—with a long thumb for grasping objects—have changed little over millions of years, a Nature study finds. When early humans "started producing flaked stone tools in a systematic fashion, probably as early as 3.3 million years ago, their hands were—in terms of overall proportions—pretty much like ours today," explains study author and George Washington University scientist Sergio Almécija. Almécija suggests the hands of early humans as far back as 6 million years ago may have been similar as well, Science reports. The whole idea challenges the long-held view that our earliest ancestors had chimplike hands that evolved over time. "The findings suggest that the structure of the modern human hand is largely primitive in nature, rather than, as some believe, the result of more recent changes necessary for stone tool-making," a university rep tells Discovery News. Almécija adds the human changes that allowed for toolmaking likely occurred in the brain. So why were our ancestors capable of precision grasping if not to snatch up tools? Almécija suggests the adaptation made them better at gathering foods. Humans apparently weren’t the only ones to have that skill. The study suggests capuchins, baboons, and gorillas, developed a strong grip at the same time. (Another researcher claims our hands evolved for punching.) |
Hillary Clinton supporters are growing nervous as votes pour in for Donald Trump on Election Night.
Despite a palpable buzz in the air at the start of the evening, the crowd grew quiet as the swing states of North Carolina and Florida went to the Republican presidential nominee. Michigan, New Hampshire and Wisconsin all look as though they could swing for Trump, as well.
Get push notifications with news, features and more.
“I feel nauseous,” one top campaign official for Clinton told PEOPLE before slipping behind a black curtain beyond which reporters were barred.
Aaron P. Bernstein/Getty Aaron P. Bernstein/Getty
John Moore/Getty John Moore/Getty
Matt Rourke/AP Matt Rourke/AP
Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images
Drew Angerer/Getty Drew Angerer/Getty
Drew Angerer/Getty Drew Angerer/Getty
Supporters watch the election results during Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton's election night rally in the Jacob Javits Center glass enclosed lobby in New York, Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2016. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
Although cheers erupted when Clinton took California, the crowd cheers are few and very far between, and people seem to be in disbelief. Many are doing napkin math to see if a win is attainable.
In the hall where Clinton is set to deliver her speech — whether in victory or defeat — supporters sat slumped on the carpet before a stage empty of all but one imposing wooden lectern. Two veteran outside advisers to Clinton were spotted heading for the doors just before Florida was called for Trump. “We’re going home,” said one, asking to remain anonymous. “Can’t stand the tension in this room.”
Inside the Jacob K. Javits Center in New York City at Clinton’s election-night party, people are staring at the many screens waiting for the results. Barbara Tate, a longtime supporter of the Democratic nominee, said she was growing increasingly nervous as her friends already left.
“My heart is hanging on every word here,” she said. “I’m on the verge of tears. I’m so upset right now. I have a 20 year old daughter in college, and I just feel if he gets to be president… it’s all over. It’s just … nothing. I feel like we’re going to go back to a really scary world of hate and prejudice and anti-woman. But [holding out hope] ’til the last second.”
The dread continued as the night turned into morning. Supporters sat in the bleachers looking resigned. A string of young women was seen crying in the ladies’ room at the Javits Center.
Two friends who came down from Connecticut were debating whether they should stay or leave.
“It’s going to be a long night, I think,” Bibi Constantino told PEOPLE. “I want to see history being made, and I’m afraid if I leave I’ll regret it if she does win.”
PEOPLE spoke to Debra Messing and Tony Goldwyn, both showing their support for Clinton on Election Night, and both admitted they were nervous.
Goldwyn called the October surprise of FBI re-opening the Clinton email case “one of the reasons we’re seeing what we’re seeing here tonight,” saying that by the time FBI director James Comey admitted the emails revealed nothing new “it was too late.”
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
John Tlumacki/The Boston Globe via Getty Images John Tlumacki/The Boston Globe via Getty Images
Meanwhile, Trump supporters are celebrating. Those gathered are singing “God Bless America” and chanting “USA USA.”
“They’ve been very confident in this win,” a veteran Republican campaign advisor tells PEOPLE. “The enthusiasm you see on the road is palpable … You can cut it with a knife.”
“It’s only been two weeks since Hillary was leading in the polls, but he closed the gap and turned it around. For the last seven days, everyone inside the Pence campaign has been very confident in a win. We knew we would get Ohio. Florida is ours. North Carolina is a wonderful surprise. Trump is a rock star when you deal with him. He can talk to anybody. And Pence is the same.”
With reporting by Allison Adato, Mary Green and Sandra Sobieraj ||||| Supporters watch the election results on a larger television monitor during Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton's election night rally in the Jacob Javits Center glass enclosed lobby in New... (Associated Press)
Supporters watch the election results on a larger television monitor during Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton's election night rally in the Jacob Javits Center glass enclosed lobby in New York, Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2016. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke) (Associated Press)
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Latest on Election Day 2016 (all times EST):
2:05 a.m.
Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman says it has nothing more to say even as votes turn against her.
John Podesta told a crowd in New York early Wednesday that with states still uncalled "we're not going to have anything else to say tonight."
Clinton trails in the Electoral College count and Donald Trump is close to breaking the 270-vote threshold to become president.
Podesta told the crowd Clinton "has done an amazing job" and "is not done yet."
___
1:56 a.m.
Hillary Clinton has won the statewide vote in Maine.
Clinton has won one of the state's congressional districts, giving her three electoral votes. Trump has won one district in the state and wins one electoral vote.
Trump also won the remaining congressional district in Nebraska, which gives him another electoral vote.
Clinton now has 218 electoral votes. Her Republican opponent has 266, just four shy of the threshold needed to be elected president.
___
1:36 a.m.
Donald Trump has won Pennsylvania and its prize of 20 electoral votes.
Trump's stunning victory in the key battleground state gives him 264 electoral votes.
It takes 270 electoral votes to win the presidency. Trump's opponent, Hillary Clinton, has 215.
Pennsylvania last voted for a Republican for president in 1988. Trump repeatedly campaigned there, believing his populist message would resonate with the state's working-class voters.
Clinton long viewed the state as a key part of her "firewall" and rallied in Philadelphia with President Barack Obama on Monday night. The Democrats also held their nominating convention in the city.
___
1:30 a.m.
House Speaker Paul Ryan has congratulated Donald Trump on "his big night."
A Ryan spokeswoman confirms that the Republican speaker called the Republican presidential nominee Tuesday evening. The spokeswoman, AshLee Strong, says they had "a very good conversation."
She says, "The speaker congratulated Trump on his big night and also spoke with his good friend Gov. Mike Pence."
___
12:42 a.m.
The mood is dark at Hillary Clinton's election night party.
Stony-faced supporters were crying and anxiously staring at the big screens showing election results. Some began leaving as the race wore on into the early hours of Wednesday morning.
Thousands had gathered at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York City for Clinton's election night party. The glass-ceilinged building was picked as a nod to what aides expected would be the historic election of the first female U.S. president.
Clinton, her family and close aides have spent hours ensconced in a suite at the Peninsula New York, a luxury hotel in midtown Manhattan.
___
12:30 a.m.
Donald Trump's campaign manager Kellyanne Conway is describing the mood inside Trump Tower as "buoyant."
She tells The Associated Press that the team is hopeful as results continue to roll in.
A Trump victory would represent a stunning upset against his rival Hillary Clinton.
Thousands of his supporters are gathered in a midtown Manhattan hotel ballroom watching the results on Fox.
___
12:25 a.m.
Former Navy SEAL Eric Greitens has won the Missouri governor's race, beating Democratic Attorney General Chris Koster. The contest offered voters a vivid choice between experience and a fresh start.
Greitens, a first-time Republican candidate, has touted himself as an outsider and pledged to tackle corruption in the state Capitol. Koster took the opposite approach, emphasizing that his nearly 22 years in elected office make him qualified to run state government.
Without a voting record, Greitens was running on his time as a Navy SEAL officer and founder of a charity for veterans, The Mission Continues. Greitens' lengthy resume also includes stints as a Rhodes scholar and White House fellow, champion boxer and martial artist, a best-selling author and motivational speaker.
___
12:23 a.m.
Republicans have clinched continued House control for the new Congress. They'll likely lose seats from their current historic high, but they won enough seats to extend their six-year streak of commanding the chamber.
With voting results still being counted early Wednesday, Republicans have won at least 218 House seats. That exceeds the number needed to control the chamber.
Democrats started the year hoping Donald Trump's divisive presidential candidacy would cost Republicans bushels of House seats. His impact on down-ballot candidates proved spotty.
Republicans now control 247 seats in the House. With a smaller GOP majority, dissident hard-right conservatives could have added leverage to press House Speaker Paul Ryan and other party leaders on the budget and other issues.
___
12:21 a.m.
Hillary Clinton has won Nevada and its six electoral votes.
Her victory there in the presidential election brings Clinton's Electoral College total to 215. Republican Donald Trump has 244 votes.
It takes 270 electoral votes to win the presidency.
Clinton's win in Nevada is the first time since the 1940s that the Democrats have carried the state in three consecutive elections.
The winner of the U.S. presidential election has failed to carry Nevada only once since 1908.
___
12:05 a.m.
Democrat Jay Inslee has been re-elected governor of Washington, beating challenger Bill Bryant.
Inslee, a former congressman, touted his environmental record throughout the campaign. He said the state is requiring the biggest polluters to reduce emissions and is promoting alternative energy.
Bryant, a former Seattle Port commissioner, sharply criticized Inslee in the months leading up to the November election. He said Inslee had mismanaged state departments, especially the state's mental health system. He also said Inslee had failed to come up with a plan to fund K-12 education, as mandated by the state Supreme Court.
___
12:02 a.m.
Donald Trump has won the battleground state of Iowa.
He was awarded the state's six Electoral College votes early Wednesday.
Trump now has 244 electoral votes. His Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton has 209.
Iowa had voted for a Republican only once since 1984 but polls remained tight throughout the campaign. Trump proved popular with the state's sizable evangelical population while Clinton and her allies campaigned frequently in its college towns.
__
11:53 p.m.
Donald Trump has won Utah.
The Republican nominee was awarded its six electoral college votes.
He now has 238 electoral votes. His Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton has 209.
Utah is normally one of the safest states on the map for Republicans. But the presence of independent Evan McMullin changed the calculation this year as polls consistently reflected a tight three-way race. Trump also had struggled with Mormons, who are normally reliably Republican voters.
___
11:44 p.m.
Kate Brown has been re-elected governor of Oregon over Republican newcomer Bud Pierce.
Brown became governor in February 2015 after the resignation of John Kitzhaber over an influence-peddling scandal. Brown was then secretary of state and next in line to succeed him.
Tuesday's gubernatorial vote was a special election to fill the remainder of Kitzhaber's four-year term.
___
11:43 p.m.
Donald Trump's victory in Ohio demonstrates the Republican nominee's ability to energize working-class voters outside of America's largest cities.
Mahoning County stands out as a working-class county where organized labor still maintains political clout. Trump didn't win the county that surrounds Youngstown. But he might as well have.
Hillary Clinton won by just 3 percentage points and less than 3,500 votes. Four years ago, President Barack Obama outpaced Mitt Romney by almost 25,000 votes on his way to a 28-point margin in the county. Clinton fell more than 20,000 votes shy of Obama's total.
Youngstown is represented in Congress by a Democrat who offers some of the same populist appeal to labor as Trump. But those loyalties to Rep. Tim Ryan apparently didn't transfer to Clinton.
___
11:37 p.m.
Republican Lt. Gov. Phil Scott has won election as governor of Vermont.
He defeated Democrat Sue Minter.
The popular construction company executive and part-time race-car driver had served three two-year terms as Vermont's part-time lieutenant governor. He was previously in the state Senate.
Scott takes over in January from Democratic Gov. Peter Shumlin, who decided not to seek a fourth two-year term.
___
11:36 p.m.
The crowd at Donald Trump's election watch party is jubilant as returns continue to roll in putting him closer to 270 Electoral College votes.
Supporters packed into a hotel ballroom in midtown Manhattan are breaking into chants of "USA!" and embracing each other in groups.
Others are breaking into song, bellowing "God Bless America" at the top of their lungs.
The screens in the ballroom are turned to Fox News. When the station shows images of Clinton's election headquarters, the room breaks into boos and chants of one of Trump's slogans: "Drain the swamp!"
___
11:33 p.m.
Donald Trump has won Georgia.
The Republican nominee on Tuesday was awarded its 16 electoral votes.
Trump now has 232 electoral votes while his Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton has 209.
The Democrats had some hopes that changing demographics in Georgia could allow then to flip the reliably Republican state but their efforts fell short.
___
11:29 p.m.
Hillary Clinton has won Washington state and its 12 electoral votes.
The victory in Tuesday's elections brings the former secretary of state's electoral vote total to 209. Republican Donald Trump has 216.
It takes 270 votes to win the presidency.
___
11:15 p.m.
California voters passed a ballot measure to legalize the recreational use of marijuana, giving a big boost to the campaign to end the drug's national prohibition.
Adults older than 21 can legally possess up to an ounce of marijuana and grow six plants.
California was one of five states where votes were considering the legalization of recreational marijuana Tuesday. Four other states were considering measures to legalize medicinal marijuana.
So far, voters in Florida and North Dakota have also passed marijuana measures Tuesday.
Collectively, it's the closest the U.S. has ever come to national referendum on marijuana. ||||| Hillary Clinton’s bid for history appeared dashed Tuesday when Donald Trump locked up several key states to pull within striking distance of a stunning presidential upset.
The Democratic nominee’s Election Night party at the Jacob Javits Center kicked off with the enthusiasm of a pep rally.
Clinton was leading in most of the polls before Election Day — and early results in the crucial state of Florida looked promising.
The few-thousand-strong crowd pulsed with excitement. The West Side convention hall — with its glass ceiling — appeared to provide the perfect setting for Clinton’s long-awaited coronation.
LIVE 2016 ELECTION RESULTS MAP: See up-to-the-minute vote counts
Election Night 2016: Joy and despair as Donald Trump is elected president
But as the night wore on — with Trump notching crucial wins in Ohio, Florida and North Carolina — Clinton's victory party began to feel more like a hospital waiting room.
Clinton operatives who had happily held court with the press early in the night were suddenly nowhere to be found. Others paced nervously outside the party talking on the phone and waving off reporters.
The once-boisterous crowd all of a sudden fell silent.
Marta Lunez reacts to the elections results at the Clinton rally in New York. (DON EMMERT/AFP/Getty Images)
One teenage girl cried as her mother talked to reporters.
Here are the presidential election results as state polls close
“I'm feeling sick,” one Florida Democratic strategist yelled into a phone around 9:30 p.m.
Black Lives Matter organizer DeRay McKesson summed up the feelings of many in the room as Trump’s path to victory widened.
Clinton supporters looked stunned as they watched Trump take the lead on Election Night. (James Keivom/New York Daily News)
“This means we have a lot to reckon with,” McKesson said. “It shouldn't be this close. He ran on a platform based on hate and bigotry and many in America are supporting it. This is frightening.”
The feeling was the same outside the convention center where hundreds of Clinton supporters had gathered for what they thought would be an early celebration.
Potential Trump presidency leaving Clinton supporters horrified
"It's hard to comprehend,” said Linda Khan, 49, an Upper West Side mother of two teenage girls. “Sadly, New York is not the rest of the U.S. I'm very afraid for women's rights.”
A woman watches the election results during Clinton's rally in New York. (Frank Franklin II/AP)
Marta Karamuz, a 39-year-old architect, cast her disappointment in even more dramatic terms. “I'm just really disappointed in humankind at the moment,” Karamuz said.
“Considering she's the most qualified person to ever run for President, I can't understand why people are not voting for her.”
A loss would mark Clinton’s second failed attempt at becoming commander-in-chief — following her 2008 primary loss to Barack Obama — and likely the end of her political career.
U.S. stock futures tumble as White House race proves tight
Supporters hug as the election results are displayed at Hillary Clinton's rally in New York. (Patrick Semansky/AP)
Her campaign was hobbled less than two weeks before Election Day when FBI director James Comey announced that the agency was reopening its probe into her handling of classified emails.
Comey informed Congress that agents had discovered tens of thousands of more emails from Clinton’s top aide, Huma Abedin, amid an investigation into her estranged husband, serial sexter Anthony Weiner. On Sunday, Comey cleared her in the investigation again.
Still, few were expecting Trump to snatch victory on Election Day.
Clinton began her day to cheers — and chants of “Madam President.”
Republicans on verge of keeping control of New York State Senate
A crowd of roughly 150 people showered the Democratic nominee with adulation as she arrived at a polling station in her hometown of Chappaqua alongside former President Bill Clinton.
“This is absolutely the epicenter of the world today,” Coline Jenkins, 63, said outside the Douglas Grafflin Elementary School.
Bill Clinton, after casting his vote, told reporters he’s relishing his role as political spouse — joking that he’s had “15 years of experience.” His run, like his wife’s, now appears over.
Sign up for BREAKING NEWS Emails privacy policy Thanks for subscribing! | – A shock win for Donald Trump may be all but inevitable, according to the latest results—but whatever happens, Hillary Clinton will not be speaking tonight, according to campaign chairman John Podesta. "We're not going to have anything more to say tonight," he told the crowd at Clinton's election night party at the Javits Center in New York after 2am, NBC reports. He told the crowd Clinton "has done an amazing job" and, with some states still uncalled, "is not done yet," the AP reports. Podesta said there are many votes still to be counted, and urged supporters to get some sleep. People reports that the "palpable buzz in the air" at the Javits Center earlier in the evening vanished as results from swing states including Florida and North Carolina rolled in. "I feel nauseous," one top campaign official said. As the night went on, the gathering developed an atmosphere that the New York Daily News likened to a hospital waiting room—and the campaign officials that had earlier been chatting to reporters had largely vanished to staff-only areas. |
Credit: University of Nottingham A 'one in a million' mutant garden snail, who achieved international notoriety after a public appeal was launched to help find him a mate, has died.
Jeremy, the brown garden snail with a rare left-coiling shell, was found dead on Wednesday, his scientist Dr Angus Davison in the University's School of Life Sciences confirmed.
However, the sad news comes with a bittersweet twist to the tale – shortly before his death, Jeremy was finally able to produce offspring after mating three times with another 'lefty' snail, ensuring that his legacy will live on through continuing genetic studies into his rare mutation.
Dr Davison has also received another four sinistrals from another snail farm in Spain – the high concentration of 'lefties' found in one location firing his belief that the condition may be inherited.
Dr Davison said: "Although it is unfortunate that Jeremy has gone, the help that we have received from the public has been amazing. Because of the rarity of lefty garden snails, we have never before been able to get two lefty snails together to study the inheritance of the condition. Through the appeal that on BBC Radio 4, which then went out worldwide, we ended up finding six other lefty snails. This would not have been possible without the public's help."
He went on to say: "This may be the end for Jeremy, but now that the snail has finally produced offspring, this is a way point in our long term research goal to understand the genetics of body asymmetry. Ultimately, we would like to know why these snails are so rare, but also how the left and right sides of the body are signalled at the molecular level, and whether a similar process is taking place during human development."
Jeremy was discovered around a compost heap in South West London by a retired scientist from the Natural History Museum, who contacted Dr Davison after hearing about his interest in snail genetics.
Dr Davison – who had never before seen a sinistral brown garden snail in 20 years of working with the creatures – was keen to discover whether the mutation was the result of genetic inheritance or a quirk in development.
Offspring from Jeremy were needed for the study, which may offer valuable insights into a common understanding of body asymmetry in other animals, including humans.
Sadly, however, Jeremy's unique traits were not confined to his shell – the condition features the reversal of other major organs – including the genitals – meaning that he was unable to successfully mate with the more common variety of 'dextral' garden snails with shells that coil in a clockwise direction.
The lonely snail's story fired the public's imagination when Dr Davison appeared on BBC Radio 4's Today programme in October last year appealing for help in finding another of these rare creatures to mate with Jeremy.
And following the appeal via the national media and a #snaillove hashtag on Twitter, Jeremy became an overnight international media sensation, with his story featuring on primetime BBC current affairs and comedy programmes including Have I Got News For You and No Such Thing as the News.
He had a burgeoning following on his Twitter account (@leftysnail) and his story even inspired one fan to have a tattoo of the 'shellebrity' snail and another on YouTube to pen a tragic love ballad about his plight.
Two potential beaus were uncovered for Jeremy – Lefty from Ipswich in the UK and Spaniard Tomeu rescued from the pot at a snail farm in Majorca.
They were brought to Nottingham but in a tragic twist, Jeremy was left 'shell-shocked' after being given the cold shoulder by both of his suitors who initially seemed to prefer each other, and produced more than 300 tiny snail babies between them.
Happily, shortly before Jeremy's death was discovered on Wednesday, Tomeu produced a batch of 56 babies – about one-third of which are likely to be 'fathered' by Jeremy. The remainder will be the result of an earlier liaison with Lefty before its return to Ipswich.
Just like their half-siblings before them, Jeremy's offspring have all been born with right coiling shells, proving that in the case of these mutant snails, two lefts make a right - at least in the second generation.
The fact that the babies developed right-coiling shells may be because the mother carries both the dominant and recessive versions of the genes that determine shell-coiling direction. Body asymmetry in snails is inherited in a similar way to bird shell colour – just as only the mother's genes determine the colour of a bird egg, only the mother's genes determine the direction of the twist of a snail shell. It is far more likely that left-coiling babies will be produced in the next generation or even the generation after that.
Last year, in research published in the journal Current Biology, Dr Davison and colleagues at universities in Edinburgh, Germany and the US, revealed they had discovered a gene that determines whether a snail's shell twists in a clockwise or anti-clockwise direction.
The same gene also affects body asymmetry in other animals – including humans - and research using these snails could offer the chance to develop our understanding of how organs are placed in the body and why this process can sometimes go wrong when some or all of the major internal organs are reversed from their normal placement.
Jeremy's shell has been preserved for the University's natural history collection and will be used to teach students about this rare genetic variant.
Explore further: Shell-shocked: Rare snail loses out in love triangle ||||| Jeremy, The Lonely, Left-Twisting Snail, Dies — But Knows Love Before The End
Enlarge this image toggle caption Stephanie Hayworth/University of Nottingham Stephanie Hayworth/University of Nottingham
Jeremy, the rare snail with the left-curling shell whose search for a mate kicked off an international quest, has slithered off this mortal coil.
But there's one last twist to the story. Reader, before he died, Jeremy procreated.
That's right. The little lefty did it.
You might remember Jeremy from our previous coverage, as reported by NPR's Merrit Kennedy.
Jeremy, a brown garden snail, has a shell that twists in the opposite direction from most snails. It's an extremely rare trait. Because Jeremy's mating apparatus is also unusually situated, and he'd only be able to mate with another left-twisting snail, he seemed fated for a life of unwilling chastity.
Until the scientists got involved.
A BBC callout prompted a global search for a potential partner. Along the way, Jeremy became famous. And two other snails were located — Lefty, from Ipswich, and Tomeau, from Majorca, Spain.
It seemed like a happy ending. But then, as Merrit reported this spring, "what had been a snail fairy tale has turned into something of a tragedy for Jeremy. Its two possible mates proceeded to mate with each other instead. They've been feverishly reproducing, with three batches of eggs between them."
If you're thinking, "my God, this sounds like a tragic love ballad," then you should be friends with Lydia Hiller. She thought the same thing ... and then she wrote it.
Lydia Hiller YouTube
Fast-forward to the present.
Jeremy was found dead on Wednesday. But "the sad news comes with a bittersweet twist," writes the University of Nottingham.
"Shortly before his death, Jeremy was finally able to produce offspring after mating three times with another 'lefty' snail, ensuring that his legacy will live on through continuing genetic studies into his rare mutation."
(Three times! Nice work, Jeremy.)
In case you've forgotten how snail mating works, Merrit explained it last November. She spoke to Angus Davison, an evolutionary geneticist at The University of Nottingham who has been Jeremy's dedicated keeper:
"The way snails mate is "fantastically bizarre," Davison says. The carnal act is known as 'traumatic insemination,' and copulation kicks off by mutually stabbing each other with 'love darts' — tiny calcium spears that transfer a hormone. Snails are simultaneous hermaphrodites, he says, meaning that they are both male and female at the same time and will 'reciprocally fertilize each other' and ultimately each produce offspring. "In a further twist, snails can reproduce on their own because they are hermaphrodites. But Davison says this happens 'very rarely but they'd much prefer to mate with another snail.' Inbreeding, he notes, is 'generally not a good strategy.' "
Enlarge this image toggle caption Angus Davison/University of Nottingham Angus Davison/University of Nottingham
Jeremy mated with Tomeau, the Spanish left-coiler, and Tomeau has now produced a batch of 56 baby snails.
About a third of those are likely to be Jeremy's offspring, while "the remainder will be the result of an earlier liaison with Lefty before its return to Ipswich," the university writes.
Jeremy's children won't face the same struggle he did. They are all — every one — right-coilers.
The University of Nottingham explains the implications:
"The fact that the babies developed right-coiling shells may be because the mother carries both the dominant and recessive versions of the genes that determine shell-coiling direction. Body asymmetry in snails is inherited in a similar way to bird shell colour – just as only the mother's genes determine the colour of a bird egg, only the mother's genes determine the direction of the twist of a snail shell. It is far more likely that left-coiling babies will be produced in the next generation or even the generation after that."
Last year, Davison and some colleagues "revealed they had discovered a gene that determines whether a snail's shell twists in a clockwise or anti-clockwise direction," the university writes.
Enlarge this image toggle caption Angus Davison/University of Nottingham Angus Davison/University of Nottingham
The research isn't over now that Jeremy is gone. In addition to Lefty and Tomeau, Davison was alerted to the existence of four more sinistral snails, as they're formally known, all from a farm in Spain.
And, of course, they have a new generation of little snails to study.
It's all thanks to the initial search, prompted by Jeremy's Lefty Lonely Hearts Club.
From the humble compost heap where he was discovered to the hearts of an adoring public and the eternal fame of scientific study ... Jeremy truly came a long way, for such a little snail.
Lydia Hiller YouTube
And now that he's passed, he inspired one last song — a eulogy. ||||| However, the sad news comes with a bittersweet twist to the tale – shortly before his death, Jeremy was finally able to produce offspring after mating three times with another ‘lefty’ snail, ensuring that his legacy will live on through continuing genetic studies into his rare mutation.
Jeremy, the brown garden snail with a rare left-coiling shell, was found dead on Wednesday, his scientist Dr Angus Davison in the University’s School of Life Sciences confirmed.
A ‘one in a million’ mutant garden snail, who achieved international notoriety after a public appeal was launched to help find him a mate, has died.
Click here for full story
Dr Davison has also received another four sinistrals from another snail farm in Spain – the high concentration of ‘lefties’ found in one location firing his belief that the condition may be inherited.
Dr Davison said: “Although it is unfortunate that Jeremy has gone, the help that we have received from the public has been amazing. Because of the rarity of lefty garden snails, we have never before been able to get two lefty snails together to study the inheritance of the condition. Through the appeal that on BBC Radio 4, which then went out worldwide, we ended up finding six other lefty snails. This would not have been possible without the public’s help.”
He went on to say: “This may be the end for Jeremy, but now that the snail has finally produced offspring, this is a way point in our long term research goal to understand the genetics of body asymmetry. Ultimately, we would like to know why these snails are so rare, but also how the left and right sides of the body are signalled at the molecular level, and whether a similar process is taking place during human development.”
Jeremy was discovered around a compost heap in South West London by a retired scientist from the Natural History Museum, who contacted Dr Davison after hearing about his interest in snail genetics.
Dr Davison – who had never before seen a sinistral brown garden snail in 20 years of working with the creatures – was keen to discover whether the mutation was the result of genetic inheritance or a quirk in development.
Offspring from Jeremy were needed for the study, which may offer valuable insights into a common understanding of body asymmetry in other animals, including humans.
Sadly, however, Jeremy’s unique traits were not confined to his shell – the condition features the reversal of other major organs – including the genitals – meaning that he was unable to successfully mate with the more common variety of ‘dextral’ garden snails with shells that coil in a clockwise direction.
The lonely snail’s story fired the public’s imagination when Dr Davison appeared on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme in October last year appealing for help in finding another of these rare creatures to mate with Jeremy.
And following the appeal via the national media and a #snaillove hashtag on Twitter, Jeremy became an overnight international media sensation, with his story featuring on primetime BBC current affairs and comedy programmes including Have I Got News For You and No Such Thing as the News.
He had a burgeoning following on his Twitter account (@leftysnail) and his story even inspired one fan to have a tattoo of the ‘shellebrity’ snail and another on YouTube to pen a tragic love ballad about his plight.
Two potential beaus were uncovered for Jeremy – Lefty from Ipswich in the UK and Spaniard Tomeu rescued from the pot at a snail farm in Majorca.
They were brought to Nottingham but in a tragic twist, Jeremy was left ‘shell-shocked’ after being given the cold shoulder by both of his suitors who initially seemed to prefer each other, and produced more than 300 tiny snail babies between them.
Happily, shortly before Jeremy’s death was discovered on Wednesday, Tomeu produced a batch of 56 babies – about one-third of which are likely to be ‘fathered’ by Jeremy. The remainder will be the result of an earlier liaison with Lefty before its return to Ipswich.
Just like their half-siblings before them, Jeremy’s offspring have all been born with right coiling shells, proving that in the case of these mutant snails, two lefts make a right - at least in the second generation.
The fact that the babies developed right-coiling shells may be because the mother carries both the dominant and recessive versions of the genes that determine shell-coiling direction. Body asymmetry in snails is inherited in a similar way to bird shell colour – just as only the mother’s genes determine the colour of a bird egg, only the mother’s genes determine the direction of the twist of a snail shell. It is far more likely that left-coiling babies will be produced in the next generation or even the generation after that.
Last year, in research published in the journal Current Biology, Dr Davison and colleagues at universities in Edinburgh, Germany and the US, revealed they had discovered a gene that determines whether a snail’s shell twists in a clockwise or anti-clockwise direction.
The same gene also affects body asymmetry in other animals – including humans - and research using these snails could offer the chance to develop our understanding of how organs are placed in the body and why this process can sometimes go wrong when some or all of the major internal organs are reversed from their normal placement.
Jeremy’s shell has been preserved for the University’s natural history collection and will be used to teach students about this rare genetic variant.
— Ends —
Our academics can now be interviewed for broadcast via our Media Hub, which offers a Globelynx fixed camera and ISDN line facilities at University Park campus. For further information please contact a member of the Communications team on +44 (0)115 951 5798, email mediahub@nottingham.ac.uk or see the Globelynx website for how to register for this service.
For up to the minute media alerts, follow us on Twitter
Notes to editors:
The University of Nottingham is a research-intensive university with a proud heritage, consistently ranked among the world's top 100. Studying at the University of Nottingham is a life-changing experience and we pride ourselves on unlocking the potential of our 44,000 students - Nottingham was named University of the Year for Graduate Employment in the 2017 Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide, was awarded gold in the TEF 2017 and features in the top 20 of all three major UK rankings. We have a pioneering spirit, expressed in the vision of our founder Sir Jesse Boot, which has seen us lead the way in establishing campuses in China and Malaysia - part of a globally connected network of education, research and industrial engagement. We are ranked eighth for research power in the UK according to REF 2014. We have six beacons of research excellence helping to transform lives and change the world; we are also a major employer and industry partner - locally and globally.
Impact: The Nottingham Campaign, its biggest-ever fundraising campaign, is delivering the University’s vision to change lives, tackle global issues and shape the future. More news… | – Jeremy, the unlucky-in-love snail whose left-curling shell made it tricky for him to mate, has died—but yes, he found a partner first. Jeremy made headlines back in May, when scientists at the University of Nottingham put out a call for other left-curling snails who could act as potential mates for him. The trait is very rare, and Jeremy's "unusually-situated" genitalia made it impossible for the lefty to match up with a typical right-curling snail's sex organs, NPR reports. Two other lefties were found, but they ended up mating with each other instead. Fortunately, shortly before Jeremy was found dead Wednesday, he did end up procreating with one of the two. The pair mated three times and produced offspring, the scientists say, "ensuring that [Jeremy's] legacy will live on through continuing genetic studies into his rare mutation." However, none of Jeremy's baby snails are left-coiling. "The fact that the babies developed right-coiling shells may be because the mother carries both the dominant and recessive versions of the genes that determine shell-coiling direction," the scientists say, explaining that in snails, "body asymmetry" is determined by only the mother's genes. "It is far more likely that left-coiling babies will be produced in the next generation or even the generation after that." Research will continue; scientists have since located four more left-curling snails in Spain. "Ultimately, we would like to know why these snails are so rare, but also how the left and right sides of the body are signalled at the molecular level, and whether a similar process is taking place during human development," one of the scientists says in a press release. Jeremy's shell will be preserved and used to teach students about his rare trait. |
Starting in 1996, Alexa Internet has been donating their crawl data to the Internet Archive. Flowing in every day, these data are added to the Wayback Machine after an embargo period. ||||| A recent study published in the journal Law and Human Behavior shows that angry women are less likely to wield influence over others, while the inverse is true for their upset male counterparts. According to the study's abstract, researchers set up a deception paradigm in which participants "believed they were engaged in a computer-mediated mock jury deliberation about a murder case."
Unbeknownst to the study's participants, the other jurors in the simulation were simply reading lines. Of the five other jury members in the mock trial, four were scripted to agree with the study participant's verdict of the case; one juror was a holdout. When the holdout was labeled with a "male" name and expressed angered dissent against the participant's verdict, the participant was more likely to question themselves. When the holdout juror, following the same script, expressed anger and was identified by a typically female name, study participants were more likely to trust their initial verdict and not question themselves.
Anger is a really justified response to the world we live in.
Dr. Jeanne Vaccaro is a postdoctoral fellow in gender studies at Indiana University and a research fellow at the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction. "My initial reaction [to this study] is thinking about hysteria," she says, "and the historical use of hysteria to pathologize women—any kind of eruption being seen as irrational as opposed to grounded."
Dr. Vaccaro says that the perception of women as irrational is deeply ingrained in the contemporary cultural psyche. Sexist beliefs manifest in the unconscious; people are often totally unaware of the biases they're carrying around. "There's this really strong pairing of the feminine and the hysterical; they've been sutured together," she says. "Even the etymology of the word uterus traces back to hysteria. In the Victorian era they sent women off to the sanatorium to 'relax' or whatever after these [hysterical] 'episodes.'"
Read More: The History of Female Anger
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders is an internationally recognized medical tool. Historically oppressed demographics have often been classified as disorders in it. The status quo of neutral persons has long been defined by straight, white, cisgender, and heterosexual males, and the behavior of people who don't qualify as neutral persons has long been pathologized in the DSM. This is not inconsequential, as the DSM is considered to represent scientific fact about the human mind.
As social justice movements progress and change society, concrete manifestations of discrimination are often the first to go. Policy and legislation reform attempt to level out inequality. In 1973, in the wake of the gay liberation movement, for example, homosexuality was famously declassified as a mental disorder and removed from the DSM.
Right now, it's very important in our world that people are allowed to be angry.
Dr. Vaccaro explains that it's the same with hysteria, which was declassified in the 1950s. But, she says, a change in the documentation of cultural bias doesn't mean the stereotype is gone. "There are other things that have appeared in the wake of hysteria. We still have the legacy that women aren't rational."
According to Dr. Vaccaro, some people have even suggested that the gender bias inherent in hysteria shifted after hysteria was declassified and is now manifest in the way physicians dismiss medical conditions like fibromyalgia, Lyme disease, and chronic fatigue. "Even though there's no longer hysteria as a diagnosis, people have said these new diseases have come to fill this gap left by hysteria," she says. "Female patients complain of not being listened to by their doctors. These are people who report experiencing chronic pain. You go to the doctor over and over again, and nobody listens."
The form of persistent bias seen in the unsettling results of this study isn't exclusive to women, Dr. Vaccaro adds. Like the pathologization of difference, emotions of historically oppressed demographics are often not taken seriously on a person-to-person level, such as when the anger of people of color is written off or used against them. "People should and can be really angry about post-colonialism, institutional racism, everyday racism, or everyday sexism. Anger is a really justified response to the world we live in."
These biases are not inconsequential. Female survivors of sexual assault, for example, fear social persecution, which makes them much less likely to speak out against their rapists or abusers. Anger is a natural response to assault, but when being angry is likely to undermine your case, it's much more difficult to step forward—and thus much more difficult to move on, or share your story to help other victims.
"Right now, it's very important in our world that people are allowed to be angry," Dr. Vaccaro says. "Angry at the police, or angry at sexism." She explains that anger is a right, and that it's threatening because it disrupts the sexist order of things. "It's like you're being defiant, you're being political, you're resisting the status quo. That upsets people who have a stake in power relations as they currently are. Their power is antagonized by resistance. [But] how could you not be angry?" | – Guys can blow a fuse and be respected for it, but women? Not so much, according to a new study that reveals an apparent double standard in the way we react to angry people, Pacific Standard reports. "Our results lend scientific support to a frequent claim voiced by women, sometimes dismissed as paranoia," that their "impassioned" arguments are dismissed because they're female, say study leads Jessica Salerno and Liana Peter-Hagene. Published in Law and Human Behavior, the study had 210 "jury-eligible undergraduates" learn about the real-life trial of a man who allegedly murdered his wife. Each then gave a preliminary verdict and swapped messages about it with others. But the messages were really scripted in advance, with four imaginary jurors agreeing and one holding out. That holdout—the only one whose gender was revealed—became angry or fearful and sometimes wrote in ALL CAPS. Lo and behold, participants became less confident when the fictional juror was male and angry, but moreso when a fictional female got upset. "Men were able to exert more social pressure by expressing anger," the researchers say. Jeanne Vaccaro, a research fellow at the Kinsey Institute, tells Vice.com that this prejudice dates back to the diagnosis of hysteria in women: "We still have the legacy that women aren't rational," she says. Other oppressed demographics suffer similar treatment, she adds, though "people should and can be really angry about post-colonialism, institutional racism, everyday racism, or everyday sexism. Anger is a really justified response to the world we live in." (Raging online makes you angrier, no matter your gender.) |
A Dane County judge late Friday struck down Wisconsin's controversial 2011 collective bargaining law because he said it violates the state and U.S. constitutional guarantees of free speech and freedom of association.
Ruling in a lawsuit brought by Madison Teachers Inc. and a union representing public workers in Milwaukee, Circuit Judge Juan B. Colas said in a 27-page decision that sections of the law "single out and encumber the rights of those employees who choose union membership and representation solely because of that association and therefore infringe upon the rights of free speech and association."
Colas also said that the law violates the constitutional equal protection clause by creating separate classes of state workers who are treated differently and unequally under the law.
The law, which was passed early last year in an atmosphere of almost constant protest that drew tens of thousands to the state Capitol, severely restricted the collective bargaining rights of most public workers in Wisconsin.
Madison lawyer Lester Pines, who represented MTI in court, said the decision means that for municipal workers, including teachers, who still have certified collective bargaining units, "their unions are back in business, for all business," including issues related to wages, hours and working conditions.
"I think Judge Colas did an excellent job analyzing cases and law, and I believe the decision will be upheld (on appeal)," Pines said.
"I'm ecstatic," said MTI President John Matthews.
"I've been doing this a little over 44 years, and this is the biggest news I've heard," Matthews said. "This restores that ability to have an equal voice in the workplace."
He said the court's decision takes the union back to January 2011, and now it doesn't have to worry about agreements expiring at the end of the school year. While it rolls back all of the rights the union previously had, the district has already taken WPS health insurance as a choice out of the collective bargaining agreement, and Matthews is not certain yet how that will be restored.
Cullen Werwie, spokesman for Gov. Scott Walker, said that the immediate ramifications of the ruling are not clear and that lawyers are still reviewing the decision.
But he added, "We are confident today's ruling will be overturned upon appeal."
In a statement, Walker called Colas a "liberal activist judge" who "wants to go backward and take away the lawmaking responsibilities of the Legislature and the governor."
"The people of Wisconsin clearly spoke on June 5," Walker said. "Now, they are ready to move on."
Pines ripped Walker's response, saying Walker and his allies "have no respect for the judiciary. The governor is attempting to systematically undermine respect for the courts," he said, by implying political bias.
He said Walker should simply admit he lost despite having law firm Michael Best & Friedrich defend the law at a cost of $500,000, but Walker "doesn't have the class to say 'maybe I did something wrong.'"
Democrats applauded the ruling. State Sen. Tim Cullen, of Janesville, said the law was only intended to destroy a political opponent, not balance the state budget. Assembly Minority Leader Peter Barca called the decision "a huge victory for Wisconsin workers and a huge victory for free speech," and state Sen. Jon Erpenbach said he would be surprised if the decision were overturned.
Republicans joined Walker in criticizing the decision and Colas.
"It's no surprise that in the fantasy world of a judge in Dane County, he can substitute his will for the will of the people as expressed through the Legislature and the recall," state Rep. Robin Vos said.
State Sen. Glenn Grothman said going back to the original law "would be a disaster for schools."
Dana Brueck, spokeswoman for Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen, whose office led the defense of the law, said the decision is under review and an appeal is certain.
In his decision, Colas disagreed with the unions' contention that the enactment of the law violated a constitutional clause limiting special legislative sessions and said the law does not violate the constitutional prohibition against taking a property interest without due process.
But he wrote that while collective bargaining is not a constitutional right, once the government has permitted it, "it may not make the surrender or restriction of a constitutional right a condition of that privilege."
He wrote that the law imposes burdens on employees' exercise of their right of free speech and association, limiting what local governments may offer union-represented employees and prohibiting them from paying dues by payroll deduction, "solely because the dues to go a labor organization."
"Conversely," he wrote, "employees who do not associate for collective bargaining are rewarded by being permitted to negotiate for and receive wages without limitation."
Colas also wrote that the law creates distinct classes of public workers who are represented by unions and those who are not. The law also prohibits payroll deduction for dues for general labor unions but allows dues deductions for public safety and transit unions.
"These classes are similarly situated and unequally treated," he wrote.
-- State Journal reporter Clay Barbour contributed to this report. ||||| A Wisconsin judge on Friday struck down nearly all of the state law championed by Gov. Scott Walker that effectively ended collective bargaining rights for most public workers.
In this June 25, 2012 file photo, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker speaks at a news conference in Chicago. A Wisconsin judge strikes down Gov. Walker's law ending most collective bargaining for public workers.... (Associated Press)
Walker's administration immediately vowed to appeal, while unions, which have vigorously fought the law, declared victory. But what the ruling meant for existing public contracts was murky: Unions claimed the ruling meant they could negotiate again, but Walker could seek to keep the law in effect while the legal drama plays out.
The law, Walker's crowning achievement that made him a national conservative star, took away nearly all collective bargaining rights from most workers and has been in effect for more than a year.
Dane County Circuit Judge Juan Colas ruled that the law violates both the state and U.S. Constitution and is null and void. He said the law violated the constitutional rights of free speech and association.
The ruling applies to all local public workers affected by the law, including teachers and city and county government employees, but not those who work for the state. They were not a party to the lawsuit, which was brought by a Madison teachers union and a Milwaukee public workers union.
Walker issued a statement accusing the judge of being a "liberal activist" who "wants to go backwards and take away the lawmaking responsibilities of the legislature and the governor. We are confident that the state will ultimately prevail in the appeals process."
Wisconsin Department of Justice spokeswoman Dana Brueck said DOJ believes the law is constitutional.
Lester Pines, an attorney for Madison Teachers Inc., said the ruling means all local governments, including school districts, are now required to bargain with employees covered by unions, just as they did before the law passed. Pines predicted the case would ultimately be resolved by the state Supreme Court.
"What's going to happen in the interim is unknown," he said.
The proposal was introduced shortly after Walker took office in February last year. It resulted in a firestorm of opposition and led to huge protests at the state Capitol that lasted for weeks. All 14 Democratic state senators fled the state to Illinois for three weeks in an ultimately failed attempt to stop the law's passage from the Republican-controlled Legislature.
The law required public workers to pay more for their health insurance and pension benefits at the same time it took away their ability to collectively bargain over those issues. Walker argued the changes were needed to help state and local governments save money at a time Wisconsin faced a $3 billion budget shortfall.
"This is a huge victory for Wisconsin workers and a huge victory for free speech," said Democratic Assembly Minority Leader Peter Barca. "This decision will help re-establish the balance between employees and their employers."
Anger over the law's passage led to an effort to recall Walker from office. More than 930,000 signatures were collected triggering the June recall election. Walker won and became the first governor in U.S. history to survive a recall. | – Aching for a victory, Wisconsin public unions got one today when a judge struck down most of the state's ban on collective bargaining for public workers, the Wisconsin State Journal reports. Judge Juan Colas said the controversial law violated workers' constitutional rights to freedom of speech and freedom of association. Gov. Scott Walker—who fought hard for the law—vowed to appeal and branded the judge a "liberal activist," reports the AP. Walker accused Colas of wanting "to go backwards and take away the lawmaking responsibilities of the legislature and the governor." But Lester Pines, an attorney for Wisconsin teachers, said the ruling forces cities, towns, and school districts in the state to once again bargain with public union employees. He said the Supreme Court will likely cast the final ruling, and "what's going to happen in the interim is unknown." The law sparked a fiercely debated recall of Gov. Walker, who not only held office but became America's first governor to win a recall election. |
Powell journals: 'I can hardly control myself when it comes to her'
Share this story
print
email
SEATTLE -- Steven Powell's recently unsealed personal journals offer a unique insight into his mind, but it's unclear if they will help investigators get any closer to finding out what happened to his daughter-in-law, Susan Powell.
It was a year ago that Steven Powell shocked the world by claiming he was involved in a sexually-charged relationship with Susan Powell.
"We interacted in a lot of sexual ways because Susan enjoys doing that. I enjoy doing that," he said in August 2011.
Susan's family denies that claim, saying she felt uneasy around her father-in-law.
Detectives say that perverse relationship came to light as they investigated Susan's disappearance from her Utah home in December 2009. Investigators came across Steven Powell's journals, which detailed his obsession with Susan.
In one of the 2,300 pages spanning 17 spiral notebooks, Steven Powell wrote, "The fact is, I can hardly control myself when it comes to her."
He also detailed how he liked to photograph Susan when she wasn't watching. The journals include dozens of photos of Susan, and while some were innocent, many others zeroed in on her legs and feet. Powell also wrote about using a mirror under the bathroom door to spy on Susan.
Later, he admits to feeling guilty about the action, saying it " ... represents the first time I've mentioned fetishes and what might be considered sociopathic. I mean, who looks under the bathroom door with a mirror?"
The journal entries and photos stopped just before Susan disappeared, and there's no mention of what happened to her.
"There's nothing in the diary that's going to lead anybody anywhere to find Susan's body," said Pierce County sheriff's spokesman Ed Troyer. "It's just disturbing reading."
Despite the lack of information in the journals, Susan's family believes Steven Powell knows what happened. But if he does know what happened to his daughter-in-law, he's not telling. He's said nothing to police or anyone else since his arrest and conviction for voyeurism of two neighbor girls.
Steven Powell is currently serving a prison sentence in state prison in Shelton, but he could be released as soon as next May. ||||| Rick Egan/Pool Steven Powell during his trial.
The personal journals of prisoner Steven Powell offer a disturbing portrait of a man who was obsessed with his daughter-in-law years before she went missing in 2009 — a case that’s taken one tragic turn after another.
Police have released 17 spiral-bound notebooks that belonged to Powell, who was sentenced in June to two and a half years in a Washington state prison for acts of voyeurism against young girls.
The 62-year-old wasn’t considered the main suspect in the disappearance of his daughter-in-law, Susan Powell, from her home in West Valley City, Utah.
His journals, however, detailed his desire for her right up until she went missing.
Family Handout/KOMONews.com
“The fact is, I can hardly control myself when it comes to her,” he wrote in one entry, according to ABC affiliate KOMO-TV in Seattle.
Other entries also highlighted an intense preoccupation, according to ABC News.
“What has driven me in the past year is primarily lust. I have never lusted for a woman as I have for Susan. I take chances sometimes to take video clips of her, which I watch regularly,” he wrote.
He once described how he slipped a mirror under the bathroom door when she was in there and would masturbate with her underwear he nabbed from the laundry.
The 2,300 pages of notes also included photos of Susan, some of which focused on her feet and legs, ABC News said.
Powell recognized that he “might be considered sociopathic. I mean, who looks under the bathroom door with a mirror?”
But the journals fail to give insight into what might have happened to Susan, who was 28 when she vanished.
“There’s nothing in the diary that’s going to lead anybody anywhere to find Susan’s body,” Pierce County sheriff’s spokesman Ed Troyer told KOMO. “It’s just disturbing reading.”
The police’s prime suspect was her husband, Josh Powell, who had been uncooperative during the investigation, authorities said.
Earlier this year, Josh Powell was involved in a custody dispute over his two sons, who were taken away when police found child pornography in Steven Powell’s home, where they all lived together.
In February, Josh Powell killed his children and himself in a house fire.
His father has refused to comment about Susan’s disappearance since his arrest last September. A month before, Steven Powell publicly claimed he had a sexually charged relationship with her, according to KOMO.
eortiz@nydailynews.com ||||| The personal diaries of Steven Powell show a man obsessed with his daughter-in-law, fantasizing about and spying on Susan Cox Powell for more than a year before her disappearance.
Police released thousands of pages of police reports and diary entries that were collected during the years since Susan Powell's 2009 disappearance, in which her husband, Josh Powell, was the only named person of interest. Josh Powell denied involvement in her death. He killed their two children and himself in a fiery house explosion in February of this year.
Steven Powell, Josh's father, was found guilty on charges of voyeurism in May of this year for photographs and videos he took of young girls changing and bathing in their bathroom. He is serving a prison sentence in Washington state prison.
The documents released Tuesday include numerous journal entries referencing Steven Powell's desire and love for his daughter-in-law.
"What has driven me in the past year is primarily lust. I have never lusted for a woman as I have for Susan," he wrote. "I take chances sometimes to take video clips of her, which I watch regularly."
"How I would love to kiss those lips," he wrote later.
Powell wrote about going through his daughter-in-law's laundry and masturbating with her underwear, as well as to pictures of her and, he claimed, in her presence twice.
He also admitted to using a mirror he slipped under the bathroom door to spy on Susan while she went to the bathroom.
"The fact is, I can hardly control myself when it comes to her," he wrote, noting later that his feelings "might be considered sociopathic. I mean, who looks under the bathroom door with a mirror?"
Steven Powell previously told ABC News that he and Susan had interacted in sexual ways.
"We interacted in a lot of sexual ways because Susan enjoys doing that. I enjoy doing that," he said in August 2011.
The diaries offer a clear picture of Steven Powell's feelings for his daughter-in-law, but few clues about her disappearance.
According to Josh Powell, Susan disappeared one night in December 2009 when Josh had taken their two sons on a late-night camping trip in the Utah desert.
"There's nothing in the diary that's going to lead anybody anywhere to find Susan's body," Pierce County sheriff's spokesman Ed Troyer told ABC News affiliate KOMO. "It's just disturbing reading." | – The diaries of Susan Powell's imprisoned father-in-law have emerged, and they tell a story of "lust" for the missing woman. "The fact is, I can hardly control myself when it comes to her," Steven Powell wrote in an entry obtained by KOMO-TV. From ABC News: "I have never lusted for a woman as I have for Susan. I take chances sometimes to take video clips of her, which I watch regularly." The elder Powell also described masturbating with Susan's underwear and sliding a mirror under the bathroom door to watch his daughter-in-law, a habit he recognized as possibly "sociopathic." The 2,300 pages contain no clues to Susan's whereabouts, according to the New York Daily News. The 62-year-old Powell is in a Washington state prison for voyeurism and was named a person of interest in Susan's disappearance; pictures of Susan were previously found in his home. |
Nun’s former lawyer says he will take legal action against unauthorised use of design to combat ‘misuse’ of reputation
The white, blue-rimmed cotton sari made famous by Saint Teresa of Kolkata has been trademarked in a case the nun’s former lawyer has claimed as a first for a religious uniform anywhere in the world.
The design of the sari, which Teresa is said to have purchased from a Kolkata market the evening she was granted permission to start working in the city’s slums, is now the exclusive intellectual property of the Missionaries of Charity, the order the nun founded nearly 70 years ago.
A lawyer for the order, Biswajit Sarkar, said he had applied for the trademark in 2013 to combat the “misuse” of the saint’s reputation, often for commercial gain. The trademark was formally granted in early 2016 but only recently publicised.
He said he would now take “severe” legal action against unauthorised use of the design, even by charitable enterprises that the order’s nuns had been willing to tolerate.
Mother Teresa to become saint amid criticism over miracles and missionaries Read more
“There are many organisations starting schools naming themselves after Mother Teresa, and wearing the uniform, where the Missionaries of Charity have no connection,” he said.
Teachers at some schools named after Teresa had been writing to the Missionaries of Charity complaining about late salary payments, unaware their schools were separate entities, he said.
A cooperative bank had also been established in the nun’s name, he said, and in another instance, religious books were being published with the blue-striped trimming, giving the impression they were endorsed by the Kolkata-based order.
Sarkar, who has also had the name Mother Teresa trademarked, said the “soft-hearted” nuns had initially objected to also copyrighting the uniform. “They don’t like taking court cases,” he said. “They say, ‘One day the people will understand they are doing the wrong thing.’
Pope Francis canonises Mother Teresa before St Peter’s Square masses Read more
“But we cannot allow that. Now if anybody is misrepresenting the Missionaries of Charity we can take severe legal action.”
He said no exceptions would be made for use of the pattern by other religious orders, or by not-for-profit enterprises.
“Even the nuns were asking me, if the people are not using it for commercial gains, should we stop them?” he said.
“But whether it is for commercial gain or not is not the issue. We are thinking about our identity. If the blue pattern, which is unique in the world, is diluted or used by the public, then one fine morning the organisation will lose their identity.”
Saint Teresa was born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu to an Albanian family in 1910, and joined a Kolkata-based convent at age 21. Horrified by the poverty in Kolkata, she sought permission to leave the institution and work among the city’s poor.
In 1950, she established the Missionaries of Charity, which now runs 758 homes, hospices and shelters in 139 countries around the world. She died in 1997 and was canonised by Pope Francis in September last year.
Teresa’s emphasis on helping the “poorest of the poor” earned her global admiration and a slew of awards including the Nobel peace prize in 1979.
But the nun’s work has also drawn sharp criticism. Aroup Chatterjee, a doctor who grew up in Kolkata, wrote in a 2003 book that Teresa exaggerated the number of people her order had assisted, and treated the sick and dying in sub-standard medical facilities, despite having the money for upgrades.
A 2013 report in a religious studies journal concluded the Vatican had consistently ignored the nun’s “rather dubious way of caring for the sick, her questionable political contacts, her suspicious management of the enormous sums of money she received, and her overly dogmatic views regarding … abortion, contraception and divorce”.
Sarkar, who works pro bono for the nuns, said his next goal was to copyright Teresa’s name and the distinctive uniform of her order in other countries.
He will also seek to remove children’s versions of her sari that are advertised on Amazon’s India store and the websites of other retailers. “Instantly we’ll work on that, we will write to them,” he said. ||||| KOLKATA: The famous blue-bordered sari of Mother Teresa , who has been canonised as Saint Teresa of Calcutta by the Vatican, has been recognised as an Intellectual Property of the Missionaries of Charity "The Trade Marks Registry , Government of India, has granted the registration of the trade mark for that pattern of blue border of sari," Intellectual Property attorney Biswajit Sarkar said.The diminutive nun of Albanian descent went around the streets of Kolkata since 1948 to be with the poor and the destitutes wearing a white sari with three blue borders, the outer border being wider than the two inner ones."The blue-designed border on the sari worn by nuns of Missionaries of Charity was recognised as Intellectual Property for the organisation on September four, 2016, the day the Mother was canonised," Sarkar told PTI here."The Missionaries of Charity does not believe in publicity and as such it was not publicised, but since we are witnessing unscrupulous and unfair usage of the design across the globe, we are now trying to spread awareness among people about the trademark," Sarkar said."The blue border pattern is a distinctive symbolic identity of Missionaries of Charity under the concept of colour trade mark protection," he said.Applications were filed before the Trade Marks Registry on December 12, 2013 and after "a stringent test of legal proceedings" for nearly three years, the registrations were granted.In order to mark the sainthood of Mother Teresa, Government of India granted the trade mark registration on the same day on September four, 2016, despite it being a Sunday, Sarkar said.The exclusive right of use of the said blue pattern on white saris adopted by the Missionaries of Charity is unique and is the first time ever that a uniform has been protected under the Intellectual Property rights, the attorney said.Born in 1910 at Skopje in Macedonia in a Catholic family and baptised as Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu, she came to India in 1929 as Sister Mary Teresa and went to Darjeeling for her novitiate period.She later came to Kolkata and was assigned as a teacher at Saint Mary's High School for Girls before she was given consent by her convent in 1948 to work for the poor.That year she left the Loreto Convent donning the blue striped white sari that she would wear in public throughout her life.The saris with the three blue stripes are woven at the Missionaries of Charity-run Gandhiji Prem Niwas at Titagarh in North 24 Parganas.Around 4,000 such saris are woven annually and are distributed among nuns all over the world. | – The nuns who belong to Mother Teresa's order were willing to forgive and forget groups taking advantage of their late matriarch's image. Their lawyer? Not so much. And that's why the Missionaries of Charity in India now owns the trademark to the saint's famous blue-bordered sari, reports the Guardian. It seems that organizations all over the world were making use of the design and suggesting, intentionally or not, that they were affiliated with the group. The nuns of the order shrugged it off for years, saying, "One day the people will understand they are doing the wrong thing," per attorney Biswajit Sarkar, who began going after the trademark for the order in 2013. "Now if anybody is misrepresenting the Missionaries of Charity we can take severe legal action," he says. The former Sister Mary Teresa began wearing the distinctive, blue-striped sari in the late 1940s when she got permission to leave her convent and begin working among India's poor, recounts the Times of India. Today, about 4,000 of the saris are woven annually and distributed to the order's nuns around the world. Attorney Sarkar says this is the first time a trademark has been issued for a religious uniform. (Pope Francis made Teresa a saint last year.) |