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WASHINGTON — Key coronavirus updates for Friday, March 20:
- Member of Vice President Mike Pence's staff tests positive for coronavirus.
- Amid a huge surge in testing in New York, medical providers in New York City have been told to only test those sick enough to be hospitalized.
- Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker has ordered the state's residents to remain in their homes except for essential needs.
- Connecticut's governor ordered non-essential businesses closed and urged residents to stay home.
- USA Swimming has urged the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee to speak out and get the Tokyo Olympic Games postponed to 2021.
- U.S. officials announced new restrictions on travel between the U.S. and Mexico due to the pandemic.
- The worldwide death toll due to the new virus has surpassed 10,000.
- California's governor says all 40 million residents should stay at home except for essential jobs, errands and exercise. He says he doesn't expect police enforcement will be necessary.
- Lawmakers on Capitol Hill are expected to meet Friday to negotiate a $1 trillion rescue deal.
Starbucks going drive-thru only
Starbucks is going drive thru and delivery only while offering to pay its workers for the next month, whether they come to work or stay home.
The Seattle-based coffee chain said it will pay its workers for the next 30 days, whether or not they come to work, or stay home. It also said it's temporarily closing access to its stores across the U.S.
With the duration of the viral outbreak unknown, major corporations are piling up cash to ride it out. AT&T canceled a $4 billion accelerated stock buyback program scheduled for the second quarter. Meanwhile, Target Corp. says it will give a $2 an hour wage increase to its 300,000-plus workers who have been scrambling to help customers. And Mercedes-Benz and BMW became the latest automakers to announce that they're pausing production, bringing almost the entire U.S. auto industry to a halt.
Oregon Gov. Kate Brown, Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler and Multnomah County Chair Deborah Kafoury plan to work together over the weekend on a "stay home" order to influence social distancing with the hopes of curbing the spread of the coronavirus.
Details of the potential order were sparse and it was unclear whether the order would be citywide, countywide or statewide. Those details will be worked on over the weekend, Brown said.
United Airlines warns of massive layoffs without federal aid
United Airlines is hinting that major layoffs could be coming if Washington doesn't pass an airline bailout by the end of this month.
United executives and leaders of four airline unions said Friday that without federal aid the company will have to cut payroll to match a 60% reduction in flying next month. That could be job cuts or pay cuts. United has nearly 100,000 workers.
So far, no major U.S. airline has announced layoffs because of the COVID-19 outbreak, although two small regional carriers have said they will shut down next month. Airlines have canceled thousands of flights due to the virus.
White House: VP Pence staffer tests positive
The White House says a member of Vice President Mike Pence's staff has tested positive for coronavirus.
Pence's spokeswoman Katie Miller said Friday that the staff member, who is not being identified, did not have "close contact" to either the vice president or President Donald Trump.
Miller said contact tracing, or contacting everyone the individual has been in contact with, is being conducted in accordance with guidelines issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Miller says Pence's office was notified Friday evening of the positive test result.
"This evening we were notified that a member of the Office of the Vice President tested positive for the Coronavirus. Neither President Trump nor Vice President Pence had close contact with the individual. Further contact tracing is being conducted in accordance with CDC guidelines," the vice president's press secretary said.
Connecticut governor orders non-essential businesses closed
Connecticut Gov. Lamont urged residents who aren't "essential" employees to stay home to help combat the spread of coronavirus.
An executive order detailing which Connecticut businesses can stay open will go into effect by 8 p.m. Sunday.
NYC will only test hospitalized patients from now on
New York City health officials have directed medical providers to stop giving patients tests for COVID-19 except for those sick enough to require hospitalization. Widespread testing is exhausting supplies of protective equipment.
In an advisory issued Friday, the health department said outpatient testing should stop unless results would impact treatment for the patient.
The order came amid a huge surge in testing in New York.
As of Friday morning, more than 32,000 people had been tested in the state, almost a third of them in the last day, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said.
More than 7,000 New Yorkers have tested positive. More than 1,200 have been hospitalized.
Illinois governor orders shelter in place
Illinois is joining New York state and California in ordering all residents to stay in their homes unless they have vital reasons to go out.
Together, the actions by the states' governors amount to the most sweeping efforts in the U.S. yet to contain the spread of the coronavirus.
The three states encompass more than 70 million people and the three biggest cities in America: New York, Los Angeles and Chicago.
The Chicago Tribune was the first news outlet to confirm the impending state shutdown.
XFL cancels remainder of 2020 season
The XFL has officially canceled the remainder of its 2020 season due to the coronavirus pandemic.
"While we are disappointed to not complete the 2020 season, our hearts are full of appreciation of your overwhelming support," XFL's Commissioner and CEO and President and COO said in a letter.
USA Swimming calls for Tokyo Olympics delay
USA Swimming has sent a letter to the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee calling on the group to push for a one year postponement of the Tokyo Olympics.
"Our world class swimmers are always willing to race anyone, anytime and anywhere; however, pressing forward amidst the global health crisis this summer is not the answer," USA Swimming Chief Executive Tim Hinchey III said in a letter.
During a conference call earlier in the day, the leaders of the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee said it's still too soon to decide about whether the Tokyo Games should go on as scheduled.
Italy sees biggest day-to-day rise in coronavirus deaths
Italy has recorded its highest day-to-day-rise in the number of deaths of people infected with the new coronavirus.
Civil Protection Chief Angelo Borrelli said Friday the country recorded 627 more deaths in the 24 hours since Italy surpassed China on Thursday as the nation with the most COVID-19-related deaths. The total now stands at 4,032.
Authorities said most of the people who died had existing health problems such as heart disease and diabetes before they were infected with the virus. Borrelli says Italy also saw a staggering increase of 5,986 cases from a day earlier, bringing the official total in Italy to 47,021.
Army closing recruit stations, moves to online recruiting
The top Army officer says all of the service's recruiting stations are now closing, as the military takes more dramatic steps to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
Gen. James McConville, chief of staff of the Army, tells Pentagon reporters that the service will move to "virtual" recruiting.
It will woo recruits more heavily through a variety of social media sites and other online activities.
Olympic organizers: Too soon to decide fate of games
Leaders of the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee say it's still too soon to decide about whether the Tokyo Games should go on as scheduled.
Uncertainties caused by the coronavirus have pushed many athletes to call for a postponement of the Games. But the USOPC leaders sounded a lot like their colleagues at the IOC. They call for patience and say they need more information from world health experts before doing anything drastic. They also acknowledged the uncertainty is taking its toll.
The USOPC is increasing the availability of mental and emotional counseling for athletes who have seen their Olympic hopes thrown into limbo.
Florida orders beaches, gathering spots closed in 2 counties
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis ordered the closure Friday of beaches, movie theaters, concert halls, gymnasiums and similar businesses in two major counties hard hit by the coronavirus.
DeSantis also ordered all Broward and Palm Beach county restaurants and bars with seating for more than 10 closed. Restaurants can still provide drive-thru and takeout service. Broward and Palm Beach are the second- and third-most populous counties in the state. The mayor of Miami-Dade County, the most populous, issued a similar order Thursday. Fort Lauderdale and some other Broward and Palm Beach cities had already banned beach-going and set restrictions on bars and restaurants.
Exemptions are made for restaurants that are part of hospitals and airports and gyms that are an amenity at a hotel or residential complex as long as the capacity is less than 10. Florida now has 520 confirmed cases of coronavirus, 70% of them in those three neighboring South Florida counties. That is about a 30% jump since Thursday. There have been nine deaths statewide.
Indiana's May 5 primary postponed due to coronavirus threat
Indiana political leaders say they decided to postpone the state's May 5 primary because of concern about the coronavirus pandemic.
Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb said during a news conference with the state GOP and Democratic chairmen that the primary will instead be held on June 2. Political leaders have agreed that all voters will have the option to cast mail-in ballots for the primary.
The announcement came shortly after Indiana health officials reported that the state had 23 new cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus. That raised the state's total count to 79, including two patients who died. Neighboring Ohio and Kentucky are among at least seven other states that have postponed their primaries.
US, Mexico agree to limit travel on Southern border
President Donald Trump says the U.S. and Mexico will sharply curtail cross-border travel to curtail the spread of the coronavirus.
The limits on travel will apply only to recreational and tourist travel. Trade will not be affected.
The restrictions are similar to limits the U.S. and Canada put in place earlier this week along their shared border
There also will be no ban on people traveling for work or other essential activities.
Trump says these actions taking with America's North American partners "will save countless lives."
Department of Education will waive K-12 standardized testing requirements
President Donald Trump says the Department of Education will not enforce standardized testing requirements for students in elementary through high school for the current year.
Trump said students have already been through a lot with schools opening and closings.
He says his administration also has temporarily waived all interest on federally held student loans and he says he's directed Education Secretary Betsy DeVos to tell federal lenders to allow borrowers to suspend their student loans and loan payments, without penalty for at least the next 60 days.
New York joins California in locking down against the virus
New York state is joining California in ordering nearly all residents to stay home, as governors watch with growing alarm as southern Europe buckles under the strain of the coronavirus outbreak.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo says New York is going to "close the valve," because its hospital system could become overwhelmed. The move came after California, the nation's most populous state, with some 40 million people, all but confined its population in the biggest lockdown in the U.S.
Cuomo ordered all workers in nonessential businesses to stay home and banning gatherings statewide. He said he'll sign an executive order Friday. He also says nonessential gatherings of individuals of any size or for any reason are canceled or postponed.
Income tax filing deadline moved to July 15
Secretary of Treasury Steven Mnuchin has announced that the deadline to file income taxes will be moved to July 15 from April 15, at President Trump's direction. All taxpayers and businesses will be get additional time to file and make payments without interest or penalties.
The Grand Ole Opry to play on in an empty theater
The Grand Ole Opry, the longest running radio show in history, is playing on through the coronavirus outbreak.
The country music institution, which has been airing Saturday nights for 94 years, is set to broadcast live on television this week from a mostly empty venue.
Country singer Marty Stuart will perform Saturday with just a guitar and a mandolin. He says people need music to give them hope and take their minds off their burdens.
Dan Rogers, the show's executive producer, said the Opry's crew and artists would be maintaining safe distances and cleaning recommendations to prevent the spread of the virus.
NBC News employee dies after testing positive for COVID-19
NBC News announced one of its employees died after testing positive for the new virus. Chairman Andy Lack announced the death in an email sent to staff.
The employee, Larry Edgeworth, worked in the equipment room at NBC's offices at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in Manhattan. His wife said he had other health conditions. According to NBC, he had spent 25 years working for the company as an audio technician.
TODAY Show anchor Savannah Guthrie wrote saying she "adored him."
"He was full of spirit and joy and humor," she wrote. "We traveled in 2008 on a campaign plane for two months. He was a bright light every day."
FAA closes air traffic facilities in New York and Indianapolis
The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration is temporarily closing two facilities after workers tested positive for coronavirus. The control tower at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York and the Indianapolis Air Route Traffic Control Center will close for cleaning.
JFK remains open with air traffic controllers moving to an alternate location on airport property. Flights handled by the Indianapolis center will be rerouted.
Air traffic control towers in Las Vegas and at Chicago's Midway airport remained closed after other coronavirus cases were reported earlier this week.
Scripps National Spelling Bee is canceled
The Scripps National Spelling Bee won't be held as scheduled this year because of the coronavirus. Scripps informed The Associated Press of its decision Friday morning, citing recommendations against large gatherings by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the ongoing state of emergency in Maryland.
The bee had been scheduled for the week of May 24 at a convention center in Oxon Hill, Maryland, just outside Washington. Scripps said it would try to reschedule the bee for later this year but it did not commit to a new date. It's possible the bee won't be held at all.
4,000 US National Guard reservists in 31 states
Defense Secretary Mark Esper says more than 4,000 National Guard reservists have been deployed in 31 states to help battle the coronavirus.
Esper told Fox News that the Army Corps of Engineers were in New York three days ago working to help identify sites, such as college dorms or hotels, that it could renovate for hospital beds. Esper says the military also is preparing Army units to assemble field hospitals.
Esper, who has spoken with New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, says the Comfort hospital ship will be in New York. He says the Mercy hospital ship will be deployed early next week on the West Coast.
He adds 67 U.S. service members are infected with coronavirus and that 1,500 Americans are quarantined on four U.S. bases in an effort to lighten the burden on the nation's civilian medical facilities.
Global death toll surpasses 10,000
The global death toll of the new virus has surpassed, 10,000 according to a tracker from John Hopkins University.
Italy, with 60 million citizens, has recorded 3,405 deaths, exceeding the 3,248 in China, a country with a population over 20 times larger. Spain, second behind Italy in Europe, reported 1,002 deaths and 19,980 infections. The U.S. death toll rose to 205.
"Certain medical centers are suffering stress that is reaching the limit," said Fernando Simón, director of Spain's center for health alerts and emergencies. "The difficult days in which we must bear down are coming now. We must keep our focus."
Though the illness is mild in most people, the elderly are particularly susceptible to serious symptoms. Italy has the world's second-oldest population, and the vast majority of its dead — 87% — were over 70.
UK asking doctors, nurses to come out of retirement
Britain is asking 65,000 retired nurses and doctors to return to work to help fight the coronavirus.
The government is sending letters to 50,000 former nurses and 15,000 retired doctors, and Health Secretary Matt Hancock said he hoped "many, many thousands will respond" to the appeal. He said volunteers would be given training over the next few weeks before being allocated to hospitals.
Final-year nursing and medical students could also be drafted to bolster health care staff.
40 million Californians ordered to stay home
California's 40 million residents should stay home indefinitely and venture outside only for essential jobs, errands and some exercise, Gov. Gavin Newsom said Thursday, warning that the coronavirus threatens to overwhelm the state's medical system. It's the most sweeping move by any state so far to curb the spread of the virus.
He assured residents that they "can still take your kids outside, practicing common sense and social distancing. You can still walk your dog." Restaurant meals can still be delivered to homes.
The governor said he doesn't expect police will be needed to enforce his stay-at-home order, saying "social pressure" already has led to social distancing throughout the state.
Trump's team, senators to negotiate $1 trillion economic rescue deal
Members of President Donald Trump's economic team will convene on Capitol Hill to launch negotiations with Senate Republicans and Democrats racing to draft a $1 trillion-plus economic rescue package amid the coronavirus outbreak.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has unveiled a sweeping economic rescue plan to pump $1,200 checks directly to taxpayers, $300 billion for small businesses to keep idled workers on payroll and $208 billion in loans to industries.
The negotiations are certain to encounter difficulties ahead, as some Republicans object and Democrats say it doesn't go far enough.
Arizona governor calls up National Guard, halts surgeries
Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey said Thursday he's activating the National Guard to help grocery stores and food banks, halting elective surgeries and closing businesses in areas with known cases of COVID-19.
Ducey intensified his response to the coronavirus outbreak under growing pressure from other elected officials to take more aggressive action. His actions came on a day public health authorities reported the biggest day-to-day jump in cases, from 30 to at least 46.
Trump urges states to do more as hospitals sound alarms
President Donald Trump responded to increasing pressure from states by calling on them to do more to secure their own critically needed masks, ventilators and testing supplies for hospitals coping with a rising number of coronavirus patients.
He asserted Thursday that the federal government is not a "shipping clerk." This, as governors complained that they're running short of needed supplies in some states and need more federal help.
Reports: US senators sold stocks before market crash
Four U.S. senators reportedly sold off millions of dollars in stock combined prior to the market crash from the coronavirus pandemic, according to multiple independent reports.
Richard Burr, R-NC, the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, dumped more than $1 million of stock after reassuring the public about officials' response to what's now the coronavirus pandemic.
The selloff by the Republican senator from North Carolina came around the time he and the committee were getting daily briefs on the threat of the new virus, news outlets reported.
The Daily Beast reported Sen. Kelly Loeffler, R-Ga., also.sold off hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of stock in late January, as senators began to get briefings on the virus, also according to Senate records. Loeffler took to Twitter to call the report a "baseless attack" and that she was not aware of the sales until weeks later.
The New York Times, citing public disclosure documents, also reported Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., sold stocks around the same time. TEGNA has reached out to them for comment.
Paper money shunned for fear of virus spread
A growing number of businesses and individuals worldwide have stopped using banknotes in fear that physical currency, handled by tens of thousands of people over their useful life, could be a vector for the spreading coronavirus.
Public officials and health experts have said that the risk of transferring the virus person-to-person through the use of banknotes is small. But that has not stopped businesses from refusing to accept currency and some countries from urging their citizens to stop using banknotes altogether.
Low-cost airline suspends all flights
The Hong Kong low-cost airline HK Express, part of the Cathay Pacific Group, is suspending all flights through the end of April due to falling demand from the coronavirus outbreak.
The airline said it tentatively plans to resume flying May 1. HK Express normally flies 25 routes throughout Asia.
Olympic flame arrives in Japan as Games remain in question
The Olympic flame has arrived in Japan from Greece and was greeted in a scaled-down ceremony at an air base in northern Japan.
The flame touched down amid doubts if the Tokyo Games can open as scheduled on July 24 because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Organizers and the IOC say it will, but postponement or cancellation is seen as a growing option.


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The killer arrived just after lunch. Clutching a sawed-off shotgun in a leather-gloved hand, he slipped through the back door of a long, stucco dental office. But then, because he wore a ski mask and the afternoon burned hot, he coughed. Down a narrow hallway at the front of the office, a gentle and wavy-haired dentist named Norman Benton Larzelere put down some papers and walked back to investigate the sound.
"No!" the dentist yelled, running away when he saw the gunman. Seconds later, he reached the waiting room, swung open the door, and slammed it behind him. But the masked killer was close behind. He raised the shotgun and fired once. Buckshot blasted through the door and struck the doctor in the chest, inflicting what medical reports would later call a "sucking wound" and "profuse bleeding."
"Is that you, Jason?" the dentist gasped, seemingly identifying the assailant as his teenaged stepson. Hearing this, the gunman broke through a side exit and vanished down the streets of a small town called Edgewater, east of Orlando, without anyone having seen his face.
Inside the office, the dentist's wife and office manager, Virginia Larzelere, appeared at his side. His chest heaved as crimson spread across his white button-down. "Where's Jason?" he whispered, ashen and scared. "Was that Jason?"
Virginia Larzelere grabbed the phone at her desk. "Get me an ambulance!" she screeched at a 911 dispatcher, dissolving into incoherent wailing. "Someone just came in and shot my husband! Somebody shot my husband!"
It didn't take long for the criminal charges to arrive. On May 4, 1991, less than two months later, local police arrested Virginia Larzelere as she prepared to ditch town with a purse full of cash and gold. Based on the testimony of two witnesses, the state charged the slight 38-year-old mother of four with first-degree murder. Prosecutors accused her of ordering her then-18-year-old son, Jason, who was also charged with first-degree murder, to kill her husband so they could pocket nearly $2.1 million in insurance money.
At her trial eight months later, it seemed like a classic case of a psychopathic woman who would do anything for money. And after 14 days of testimony, she was convicted of hatching the plot, sentenced to death, and deposited inside a cell on Florida's death row for women in Broward County right next to Aileen Wuornos, the most notorious serial killer in Sunshine State history.
But the case against Virginia Larzelere, who's been in jail for 23 years now, wasn't nearly as strong as it appeared the day of her conviction. Six months after her trial concluded, prosecutors brought the same evidence against Jason, but he was acquitted after his attorney raised reasonable doubt and proved key elements of witness testimony to be lies.
Given the discrepancy in outcomes, it appears Virginia Larzelere received some bad counsel. But its shocking breadth emerged only in her appeals. At the time of her trial, her lead attorney, Jack Wilkins, was allegedly ingesting "gross amounts" of cocaine and methamphetamine, drinking a liter of vodka a day, and hiding tens of thousands of dollars from the government, according to appellate court records. And incredibly, Wilkins — who denied he did drugs but was later convicted of 16 felonies and sent to federal prison for four years for unrelated crimes — was also romantically involved with the court reporter, a newspaper account shows. So in 2008, citing the ineffectiveness of Larzelere's counsel, the Florida Supreme Court removed her from death row and gave her a life sentence.
But even now, she's locked up at Homestead Correctional Institution. Why? This is Florida, home to one of the most dysfunctional capital justice systems in the nation, where it doesn't take anything more than circumstantial evidence to put someone to death. It just takes a few people who are committed to a terrible lie.
If there are any clues to explain the injustice inflicted upon Virginia Larzelere, they're buried in a small, flat town outside Orlando called Lake Wales. Years before the Disney explosion, in 1952, she was born there into a three-bedroom house where unspeakable things happened.
Larzelere grew up tall and angular, with cascades of curly raven hair. One of four girls, she oozed charisma. Both parents worked for a local juice company called Donald Duck, and the family wasn't poor, recalls Larzelere, whom New Times interviewed several times in prison over the past two months. "But," says Larzelere, smiling sadly during a recent interview, "sexual abuse doesn't only happen in poor households, does it?"
Her father, Pee-Wee Antley, had a heavy presence in the household. According to a biographical report submitted into evidence during Larzelere's appeals, he was a "chronic alcoholic, sitting on the porch drinking daily, with no outside hobby or social interest." In turn, he molested each of his four daughters, but especially Virginia, who, her sisters say, took the worst of it to protect her siblings. At age 17, Larzelere escaped the house and married the first of four husbands. And after Virginia moved out, sister Peggy Beasley testified, "she never moved back."
But she couldn't shake the memories of abuse. "They made her who she is," says her daughter, Jessica Larzelere, who's now 36 years old. And that first marriage, which lasted less than a decade and was marred by domestic violence, injected more conflict into her life. This perhaps caused her to be, at times, callous, manipulative, and given to impulse. "She is very intelligent and she had looks," Jessica added. "She used that to her advantage. She used sex to get whatever she wanted."
But her wants were often capricious. After that first marriage fell apart in late 1978, she bounced through two more husbands during the early 1980s, the second of whom she wed illegally because she was, technically, still married to the first. She developed a keen sense of business and by the mid-1980s was president of a construction company called V-Lar, based in Edgewater, a forgotten highway town of 15,000 along I-95.
On a weekday afternoon in 1985, Virginia visited a nearby dental office on Knapp Street, where she met a dark-haired dentist named Norman Larzelere. She now says she adored him from the start. The two made an odd pair: he wonky and careful, she vivacious and sexual. They married quickly, on June 14, 1985, and Norman Larzelere, whom everyone called Doc, soon adopted his new wife's two children, Jessica and Jason.
The family moved into the dentist's multiwing mansion in DeLand, which had housed aristocrats from a U.S. congressman to John Graham, president of First Union Bank. "Norm was my best friend," says Virginia, chestnut eyes electric with memories. "It's rare in life when you meet someone you can talk to about anything in the world."
Juanita Washington, who's now 82 and still in DeLand, was the Larzelere housekeeper. She remembers tending to an archetypal nuclear family. "There was nothing but love in that household," she says. "Nothing but love."
According to a financial statement from those years, times were indeed good for the dentist. He had a net worth of $1.1 million and owned boats, cars, and $200,000 worth of paintings and antiques. His home, tucked among oaks dripping Spanish moss, included a screened pool, a basketball court, and a guesthouse.
But despite the family's apparent wealth, disturbing problems simmered. In 1986, Virginia's business went bankrupt after she was charged in state court with embezzling $30,000 from a Daytona Beach construction company; she paid a settlement of $34,000, and the charges were dismissed.
More troubling, her six-foot, 130-pound son began to evince a temperament that was volatile and violent. "We were all close when we were young," says Jason's sister, Jessica. "But two years before my father died, I had a friend over. Jason was so angry that she and I had to lock ourselves in the closet as he was beating on the door. When we finally thought it was safe to come out, he punched me in the face and broke my nose."
Jason, who attended gay clubs in Orlando and collected drag-queen friends, also displayed an unusual and aggressive fealty to his mother. "He threw me down the stairs and broke my ribs by kicking me over and over again," his sister recalls. "I had told my dad that Mom was cheating on him with a patient of his."
Virginia Larzelere had, in fact, cheated on her husband with at least three other men, court records show. One of them was Phillip Langston, a six-foot-five exotic-animal and parrot collector who lived in a New Smyrna Beach hovel north of Edgewater. He slept with Virginia in 1989, and, he alleged in court, she once complained about her husband abusing her in a rage, saying she wanted to "get rid" of Norman for $50,000 — though Langston didn't think she was serious.
Another of Virginia's lovers was a Californian named Norman Lee Karn, who favored big black cowboy hats and dated Larzelere for three months in early 1989. After requesting $500,000 for his testimony, which authorities rejected, he claimed Virginia had asked one of his pals at a tavern to kill her husband so she could marry Karn. (The friend later testified it was just "bar talk.")
And on that warm afternoon in March 1991, when a masked man broke into Dr. Norman Larzelere's dental office with a sawed-off shotgun and unloaded a single round into the dentist, every eyeball in Edgewater settled upon Virginia Larzelere and her strange son, Jason.
Six weeks after the murder, on an early May morning, a jowly and good-natured detective named Dave Gamell, who often played Santa Claus for local kids, grabbed a phone at the Edgewater Police Station. It was a friend of Jason Larzelere's, and he said he wanted to talk. He knew where the murder weapon was.
So that morning, Gamell climbed into his car and drove through 37 miles of baking farmland to a weather-battered, beige house in DeBary, where he shook hands with a cherub-faced kid named Steven Heidle.
The 20-year-old, who shared an Orlando apartment with Jason and was paid by the Larzeleres to look after their troubled son, seemed terrified.
The detective listened to the boy talk for hours. Heidle said he performed household tasks for Jason and knew him better than most. Days after the murder, Heidle confessed he had climbed into his own mom's attic and retrieved a bag of cement and a sawed-off shotgun he alleged Jason had stashed there. Next, under the orders of Virginia Larzelere, a woman he claimed to have met only once before, he went to the Larzelere manor with the gun and cement.
Azure eyes big and glassy, Heidle stressed to police he did this only because of the control Virginia had over him. She was evil, he said. "She'd just had her husband killed," he later explained at trial. "She wouldn't think twice about killing me too."
When Heidle arrived at the Larzelere house that night, he joined Virginia and Jason, who was complaining about money. Virginia, sitting at the kitchen table, told Jason not to worry, Heidle claimed. Jason would get his $200,000 because he had "taken care of business."
Soon after that conversation, Heidle said, he connected with a chubby 22-year-old named Kris Palmieri, who had once worked at Dr. Larzelere's Edgewater office. At Virginia's direction, Heidle alleged, he and Palmieri took the sawed-off shotgun and a blue, .45 caliber Argentine pistol into the second-story bathroom. Crouching next to the tub, they wiped down both guns in muriatic acid to expunge the prints, he told police. They then stacked them in a plastic container and poured in wet concrete.
Next, Virginia told them to "dispose" of the guns. So Heidle and Palmieri left at dawn the following morning, driving north for hours. They finally discovered Pellicer Creek south of St. Augustine. There, they exited the car and tumbled the guns into its murky waters.
Heidle told police both weapons belonged to Jason; he'd even found a hacksaw resting next to a recently sawed-off shotgun at their West Orlando apartment.
The afternoon of Heidle's statement, Detective Gamell called Palmieri, who quickly buckled under interrogation. At 3:15 p.m. at the police station, she described how she and Heidle had dumped the guns. He had pulled the car over, she wrote in a sworn statement, telling police she followed Virginia's orders because of the control she had over her. "I took out my jack and spare tire and was making it look like we had a flat. I threw the cement container and guns over the side of the bridge, and it was about this time that I realized that maybe Jason did kill his father. Jason said he had killed his father for Virginia... He did not say why."
Heidle provided police with the motive: insurance money. He alleged he'd heard Jason say his mother had forged her husband's life insurance. "She said she's [forged] all of Norman's legal documents and it was no big deal," Heidle volunteered in his statement. And indeed, less than six months before the murder, Norman Larzelere had suddenly increased his insurance from $1 million to $2.1 million, according to court records. Heidle also accused Virginia of doctoring her husband's will, which, according to a copy obtained by New Times, left everything from Dr. Larzelere's estate to his wife and was signed within weeks of the dentist's new life insurance contract.
On May 3, a team of divers appeared at Pellicer Creek and searched its muddy bottom. Gamell stood above the water on the bridge, cradling a shotgun, watching for alligators. Heidle, his blond hair coifed and piled high on his head, pointed to where he'd deposited the weapons.
And sure enough, under ten feet of water and six feet of muck was a plastic container holding a rust-choked shotgun and a .45 Argentine pistol, which had been stolen from an Orlando gun shop. It was all the proof the cops needed. They granted Heidle and Palmieri immunity — meaning that unless they had pulled the trigger, they'd escape all charges.
The next day, police found Virginia driving out of town, with a purse stuffed with cash and gold. She swore she was innocent, but it was too late. "I've dealt with a lot of murders and a lot of deaths, and you know when someone mourns legitimately and when someone's overacting," Gamell said. "That's how she seemed."
To work the case, the state called in special prosecutor Dorothy Sedgwick, a round-faced woman from Orlando. She's a methodical, calculating lawyer and can be cold and aggressive. Or as one opposing attorney called her, "not a likable person" and "remorseless."
For her defense, Virginia enrolled Jack Wilkins, a prominent Orlando-area lawyer who was a friend of her family. At age 44, he was handsome, scruffy, and looked better-suited for a reshooting of Boogie Nights than a courtroom.
Which, all things considered, often suited his clientele. In 1990, Wilkins became one of the most recognizable and flamboyant attorneys in the state when he argued, unsuccessfully, before the state Supreme Court that a Polk County cinema called Varsity Adult Theatre had a constitutional right to sell porno. Wilkins, who had a reputation for hard partying and recently told New Times he drank nearly every night during that time, also banked more than $250,000 annually representing accused drug dealers. "And they paid me cash," he remembers.
Behind dark sunglasses, he embodied the persona of a rock-star attorney. "But I'd never done a capital murder case before," says Wilkins, who claims he tried to turn down the case three or four times. "My primary work was drug importing and distribution."
If statements entered by Wilkins' office manager and three former clients are to believed, however, his inexperience wouldn't be his most crippling problem. At the time of Virginia's trials, appellate records say, Wilkins was putting back a liter of vodka every day, snorting cocaine — even smoking meth.
Wilkins, who installed a bar in his Bartow office, allegedly told one client, Dennis Harris, that he bought meth by the "quarter pound," was on the prowl for a "cheaper drug supplier," and it would "keep him up wired for 6-7 days," court documents filed in a Larzelere appeal show. Another client, Ronald Bilbrey, testified he dealt Wilkins an ounce of coke per month at the time of Larzelere's trial and saw him snort some. And finally, there's Bernadette D'Alvia Eady. She testified that around the time of the trial, she and Wilkins had gone to the bathroom together at a "South Florida nude bottle club." Inside a stall, they drank vodka, smoked meth, and snorted coke off a toilet seat. Wilkins also allegedly confessed he bought meth at $2,000 an ounce.
The partying possibly even spilled over into trial, which began in early 1992 with Dorothy Sedgwick striding across a Daytona Beach courtroom in a blazer. While she was busy making the case that Virginia Larzelere was a cold, manipulative killer over 13 days of prosecution testimony, six trial attendees — including two prosecutors — remembered they smelled alcohol on Wilkins' breath, court records show. Sedgwick, who didn't immediately alert the court, later expressed dismay because, she said, it was "such a serious case."
But there were other serious concerns for Wilkins. In mid-February, at the height of the trial, he received a Florida Bar complaint that claimed he refused to refund a client a $25,000 retainer. What's more, the federal government later learned, he had substantially underreported that money on his income taxes — in addition to many other significant inconsistencies on his tax returns. (On September 22, 1995, Wilkins pleaded guilty to 16 federal charges that included the laundering of drug money, income tax evasion, perjury, and obstruction of justice. A federal judge in Tampa sentenced him to four years in federal prison, and he resigned from the state bar.)
It got worse. A 1992 report in the Daytona Beach News-Journal showed that the wayward Wilkins was also in a romantic relationship with the trial court reporter. According to that report, Sedgwick knew of the affair but didn't report it, though she'd been "somewhat concerned." ("She was my girlfriend," Wilkins claims.)
So maybe it was the booze, the alleged drug use, or the financial misdealings. Perhaps, even, it was the sex with the court reporter. But whatever the reason, Jack Wilkins reported he spent less than $3,000 on Larzelere's defense, according to court records. Then, after the state entered more than 70 pieces of evidence, Wilkins countered with exactly one day of defense. Worse, he didn't enlist even one expert to refute any of Heidle's claims, which were the crux of the state's case.
"There wasn't really much an expert could testify to," says Wilkins, who today lives in Spanish Fort, Alabama, with his wife. "And I've never used drugs in my life. I don't know where that came from. It's a bunch of bull... If you watched the trial tape, you'd see I didn't do a bad job."
His confidence wasn't born out in the result. On February 24, after just one hour of deliberation, the jury found Virginia Larzelere guilty of first-degree murder. But it didn't know Steven Heidle had lied about a few important things.
Weeks after Virginia's conviction, inside a 12th-floor office overlooking the Intracoastal Waterway in West Palm Beach, a phone rang. Wearing sandals and a mustache, attorney William Lasley picked up. Tall and thin, he exuded self-assurance. He exclusively wore suits that cost more than $1,000, rented an oceanside penthouse condo, drove an all-white 944 Porsche Turbo, and accepted only murder-one cases.
Lasley had closely monitored Virginia's trial with mounting abhorrence — not for the state's allegations against her but because her defense was so awful. "It was just absolute incompetence," he said. "Wilkins wasn't a murder lawyer. Murder is the Super Bowl, and you don't go to the big game with your B team."
Now, he had just taken Jason Larzelere's defense. That same day, he placed calls to a dozen experts to dig into the state's evidence. What Lasley discovered over the next several weeks was shocking. Virginia Larzelere didn't forge the signature on her husband's will, according to handwriting expert Shirl Solomon from Palm Springs, Florida. Dated August 19, 1992, her assessment also showed the notary's signature was genuine. Then an insurance analyst confirmed the life insurance policies weren't excessive.
Heidle had also testified that Jason was obsessed with guns. He said the younger Larzelere owned a .45 Argentine pistol that Jason adored and that, before the murder, Heidle had seen a sawed-off shotgun sitting on a bed of metal shavings next to a hacksaw near the couch. When police had searched the apartment, they did, in fact, find metal shavings. But there was a problem, Lasley learned. Those slivers didn't match the alloy in the shotgun retrieved from Pellicer Creek.
Another bombshell soon arrived. At Virginia Larzelere's trial, Heidle and Kris Palmieri both testified they'd mixed the concrete at Virginia Larzelere's house. Police found concrete there inside a cooking pot, seemingly linking the older Larzelere to the murder weapon. But then, Lasley discovered, the concrete at Larzelere's place didn't match that found in the case with the guns in Pellicer Creek.
"This was vital exculpatory information," seethes attorney David Hendry, with the state Capital Collateral Regional Counsel, which has tried to get Virginia out of prison. "It would not only have impeached Heidle and Palmieri's testimony but it would have distanced Virginia Larzelere from the concrete-encased weapons. Had Wilkins presented [this], she would have been acquitted."
During the weeks before the trial, Lasley also built an unsettling profile of the state's star witness. Heidle was insecure, money-driven, and highly dishonest, his friends said. Four of them gave statements alleging he had lied to authorities. "Steve was always looking for money," said Sarah Gabrys, a drag queen living in Orlando who first met Heidle at a gay club. "It was his main topic of conversation. How he wanted money, how he'd get it, and what he'd do with it. Personally, I don't believe a word he says. People don't trust him."
Heidle also had a dark propensity for violence, friend Jeff Sansbury testified. One night at 2 a.m. months before the murder, in the parking lot of a gay club in Orlando called the Big Bang, Heidle pulled out a .45 Argentine pistol — the same gun he alleged was Jason's — and shoved it in Sansbury's face. So after the state filed murder indictments against the Larzeleres, Sansbury returned home, frantic, his 79-year-old grandmother, Hazel Johnson, recalled. "Jeff said, 'Steven's lying about Jason and Virginia,' " Johnson recalled.
On a separate occasion after leaving the Big Bang, another pal named Glenn Pace remembered Heidle melting into a rage, pulling a gun from the glove compartment, and waving it. "He said, 'Someone is going to die tonight,' " Pace recalled. "He was out of control." Pace also said the gun looked very similar to the .45 Argentine in state evidence.
So days before Jason Larzelere's trial opened in fall 1992 and more than a year after Norman Larzelere had been killed, the defense was ready. "There's no doubt in my mind that Heidle was the shooter," Lasley says. "Heidle had the murder weapon all along. It was in his house, and then he put it in the creek. And how often does someone who didn't commit the murder have the murder weapon?"
In the Palatka courthouse, near St. Augustine, Lasley settled at the defendant's table wearing a $500 pair of black leather shoes. Minutes later, he remembers, prosecutor Sedgwick materialized before him. "She loved to get in your personal space," Lasley says. "She bent over and was an inch away from me with her face. She said, 'I have won 32 straight capital cases. And this is going to be number 33.' "
"Get ready to be 32 and 1," Lasley replied.
And indeed, days later, in what one newspaper report described as Lasley's "Perry Mason strategy," he claimed Heidle was a killer, who had, with immunity, lied repeatedly to save his own skin. "All I had to do was replace Jason's name with Heidle and I had my case won," Lasley says now.
"Do you think it's funny that I'm accusing you of all of this?" Lasley bristled, when Heidle began to chuckle from the witness stand.
"Yes," Heidle said. "I do."
"I just remember thinking, 'Oh my God,' " trial observer DorrieJean Muller tells New Times. "This is what they convicted Virginia on, and it's a lie!"
After four weeks of proceedings, on September 20, Jason was acquitted. He sank his head into his hands and wept. His mother, meanwhile, was just months away from death row.
The first thing Virginia Larzelere heard on that May morning, as she breathed in the sterile air of X Dorm at Broward County Correctional, were the howls. Aileen Wuornos, eyes wide and hair stringy and unwashed, pressed her face against the glass of her cell and watched Larzelere glide past. Then Wuornos, who had been convicted of killing six men and was later immortalized in the 2003 Hollywood film Monster, began to grin. Death row had a new member.
"Hello! Hello!" Wuornos bellowed at Larzelere and dissolved into laughter. "How are you? How are you?" Then, as if in a dog kennel, the mania infected the other four women on death row, and they all rose and looked out from behind the plexiglass.
"Hello!" shouted Florida's Black Widow, Judy Buenoano, who killed her husband and son with arsenic.
"What took you so long?" boomed Ana Maria Cardona, who tortured and killed her son.
"Are you OK?" queried Andrea Hicks Jackson, who shot a cop six times after he tried to arrest her in 1983.
Larzelere ducked inside cell eight, found a new set of clothing, and crumpled on the bed, weeping. "I can't believe this is happening," she remembers sobbing into the pillow. "I can't believe this is happening."
Her disbelief wasn't unwarranted. If the tragedy of Virginia Larzelere shows anything, it is just how terrifyingly easy it is to be wrongfully convicted. Once an investigation starts moving in a certain direction, almost nothing can stop it. Little things, like the fact that Detective Dave Gamell jotted down Virginia and Jason's names as suspects within days of the murder, can balloon into confirmation bias. And that bias, not to mention the desire for a conviction, can blot out key problems in any case — like evidence exposing a lying witness.
There would almost be a dark, tragicomic air to it if this didn't happen so often. Quantitatively speaking, Florida has the worst capital justice system in the nation, having exonerated more people than any other state since 1973. The next worst is Illinois, which abolished the death penalty in 2011 after freeing 20 people, four fewer than Florida. (Illinois had found too much room for error.) Texas, by means of comparison, has exonerated only 12 death row inhabitants. To make matters worse, "In Florida, circumstantial evidence like [that presented in] Virginia's trial can put a needle in your arm," says Orange County Judge Marc Lubet.
After the state Supreme Court rejected her appeal in 1996, Virginia Larzelere thought that would happen to her too. But then she received a letter from West Palm Beach private investigator Gary McDaniel. The hulking and irascible detective had scoured every scrap of testimony in her case and thought Larzelere was innocent.
In 1998, he tracked down a curly haired petty criminal named Kristopher Harvey, who admitted his brother had stolen and sold the pistol that had wound up in Pellicer Creek. According to that interview, Harvey said, the Larzelere family had been targeted because they were rich. "Virginia Larzelere wasn't the one who bought any of our weapons, nor her son," he said. "Virginia Larzelere wasn't the one who did [the murder]. The guy who [got] the .45, he wasn't going to [rob Larzelere] and just get a little bit. He went there to get everything he could. And whatever happened, happened."
McDaniel asked Harvey if he knew Heidle, and Harvey responded that he did. Then, McDaniel recalls, he showed Harvey a picture of Heidle and asked, "Did your brother sell the pistol to this person?" Harvey nodded yes.
On December 17, 1999, Heidle hanged himself with an electrical cord. His mother, Patricia, found him near the family pool and cut him down with a knife. "I tried to catch him, but I couldn't," she told police, adding that he'd tried to kill himself seven times before that.
Larzelere suspected the suicide was related to her case, but there was nothing she could do. So she acclimated to a new life. "Death row is the last stop," she says. "Everyone is your friend. It's a sisterhood, because you never know when the death warrant will be signed. We share everything." She and the other women ate, showered, and took walks together every day. Everyone but Wuornos, that is. She sometimes screeched deep into the night, bathed only every other month, and referred to Larzelere as Cher.
Soon, however, the sisterhood broke apart. On March 30, 1998, Buenoano became the first woman Florida had executed in 150 years. Next went Wuornos, who once whispered to Larzelere that she'd actually killed 17 men, not six. Larzelere was eventually left alone inside the pink-paneled X Dorm — as Florida's only female death row inhabitant — with nothing but memories. "I never thought for one minute I'd be found guilty of murder," she told New Times. "Not for something I didn't do. I'm guilty of a lot... I cheated on my husband. I was a home wrecker. I only cared about money. But I'm just not guilty of this. Do I deserve to be punished for the things I've done? Yes. But do I deserve this? No."
She added: "My reputation convicted me, and I never got the benefit of the doubt."
But in 2008, she finally did. Citing the fact that Larzelere's attorneys hadn't called a single witness to testify on her behalf at her sentencing, the Florida Supreme Court removed her from death row. "In the years that I've been up here, I don't remember a situation in which we have had as many problems with the lawyers," said Justice Charles Wells, who had then sat on the high court for 13 years.
Larzelere's attorney, David Hendry, had pushed the court to vacate her conviction, but on February 28, 2008, it rejected that appeal, ruling that experts at trial wouldn't have saved Larzelere. "Given the overwhelming evidence of Larzelere's guilt, even favorable testimony by these sorts of experts would not have undermined our confidence in the verdict," the court said, remanding her case back to a lower court for sentencing.
That August, Circuit Judge Joseph Will gave her a life sentence. And, perhaps, that modicum of leniency will be enough. She's up for parole in 2015 and then, finally, the system may set her free. Helping that cause, while incarcerated, she's been disciplined only once, on September 23, 2004, for a minor infraction, according to her prison record.
Hendry isn't satisfied, though. "This is an unsolved murder," he tells New Times. "There were inconsistent verdicts. One jury acquitted the alleged shooter, but another jury convicted Ms. Larzelere of masterminding that same shooting. So what really happened? Who was the shooter? We don't know. But the bottom line here is there was more than enough reasonable doubt. If we don't know who the actual shooter was, we have doubt."
On a recent Thursday afternoon at Homestead Correctional Institute, inside a room bathed in blue and pastel, Virginia Larzelere, now 61, contemplates her fate. Hands stitched together on her lap, she laughs softly and shakes her head. She hasn't seen her son, Jason, or daughter, Jessica, in more than a decade.
So she finds satisfaction in the small things. She crochets, prays, and teaches English. She also nurtures hope. "One day, it will all come out," she sighs. "People will know what happened and know that everything they've heard about me wasn't true."
Then, slowly, she withdraws a letter. It arrived last year without a return address, she says, signed by someone named Kris and addressed to "Ginny" — which is what Kris Palmieri once called Virginia. (Repeated attempts to contact Palmieri weren't returned, and New Times couldn't verify the letter's author.) "I know you didn't have Doc killed," it says. "And I never thought you would be convicted. Then it was too late to say anything to correct it. I am sorry. I tried to find Jason to apologize, but couldn't. I lived a lie all of these years. I understand you are fine and hope you'll accept my apology."
After reading the letter out loud, Virginia carefully folds it up. She isn't sure it's genuine. But she hopes it is.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
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text:
Businesses that need to buy significant quantities of cocoa can hedge against rising cocoa price by taking up a position in the cocoa futures market.
These companies can employ what is known as a long hedge to secure a purchase price for a supply of cocoa that they will require sometime in the future.
To implement the long hedge, enough cocoa futures are to be purchased to cover the quantity of cocoa required by the business operator.
A chocolate maker will need to procure 1,000 tonnes of cocoa in 3 months' time. The prevailing spot price for cocoa is GBP 1,812/ton while the price of cocoa futures for delivery in 3 months' time is GBP 1,800/ton. To hedge against a rise in cocoa price, the chocolate maker decided to lock in a future purchase price of GBP 1,800/ton by taking a long position in an appropriate number of Euronext Cocoa futures contracts. With each Euronext Cocoa futures contract covering 10 tonnes of cocoa, the chocolate maker will be required to go long 100 futures contracts to implement the hedge.
The effect of putting in place the hedge should guarantee that the chocolate maker will be able to purchase the 1,000 tonnes of cocoa at GBP 1,800/ton for a total amount of GBP 1,800,000. Let's see how this is achieved by looking at scenarios in which the price of cocoa makes a significant move either upwards or downwards by delivery date.
With the increase in cocoa price to GBP 1,993/ton, the chocolate maker will now have to pay GBP 1,993,200 for the 1,000 tonnes of cocoa. However, the increased purchase price will be offset by the gains in the futures market.
By delivery date, the cocoa futures price will have converged with the cocoa spot price and will be equal to GBP 1,993/ton. As the long futures position was entered at a lower price of GBP 1,800/ton, it will have gained GBP 1,993 - GBP 1,800 = GBP 193.20 per tonne. With 100 contracts covering a total of 1,000 tonnes of cocoa, the total gain from the long futures position is GBP 193,200.
In the end, the higher purchase price is offset by the gain in the cocoa futures market, resulting in a net payment amount of GBP 1,993,200 - GBP 193,200 = GBP 1,800,000. This amount is equivalent to the amount payable when buying the 1,000 tonnes of cocoa at GBP 1,800/ton.
With the spot price having fallen to GBP 1,631/ton, the chocolate maker will only need to pay GBP 1,630,800 for the cocoa. However, the loss in the futures market will offset any savings made.
Again, by delivery date, the cocoa futures price will have converged with the cocoa spot price and will be equal to GBP 1,631/ton. As the long futures position was entered at GBP 1,800/ton, it will have lost GBP 1,800 - GBP 1,631 = GBP 169.20 per tonne. With 100 contracts covering a total of 1,000 tonnes, the total loss from the long futures position is GBP 169,200
Ultimately, the savings realised from the reduced purchase price for the commodity will be offset by the loss in the cocoa futures market and the net amount payable will be GBP 1,630,800 + GBP 169,200 = GBP 1,800,000. Once again, this amount is equivalent to buying 1,000 tonnes of cocoa at GBP 1,800/ton.
As you can see from the above examples, the downside of the long hedge is that the cocoa buyer would have been better off without the hedge if the price of the commodity fell.
An alternative way of hedging against rising cocoa prices while still be able to benefit from a fall in cocoa price is to buy cocoa call options.
Buying straddles is a great way to play earnings. Many a times, stock price gap up or down following the quarterly earnings report but often, the direction of the movement can be unpredictable. For instance, a sell off can occur even though the earnings report is good if investors had expected great results....[Read on...]
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text:
Maybe you are going to Japan. Maybe you're not, but one day, you hope to. There is an array of options—from fancy hotels and traditional inns to more budget-priced lodging. Or, perhaps, you just missed the last train.
You could always stay at a capsule hotel.
Capsule hotels debuted in 1979 in Osaka with the "Capsule Hotel In Osaka" in the city's bustling Umeda district. Architect Kisho Kurokawa designed the hotel, which seemed like a logical extension of the Tokyo residential and office tower, Nakagin Capsule Tower. That structure, built in 1972, offered tiny, capsule-like apartments.
During the 1960s, the word "capsule" ("kapuseru" or カプセル) started appearing in Japanese. Sometimes English words change meaning when absorbed into Japanese, but the word "capsule" carried a similar meaning to what it does in English: very futuristic and compact. This is probably why when a new start up in Osaka needed a name to describe its compact gaming experiences, it chose a moniker based off of "capsule computer". Today, you know that company as Capcom. This is also why "capsule" was used to describe these small, compact hotels.
When visiting a capsule hotel, there are some things to be aware of. One is that many capsule hotels are men only. They are traditionally geared towards businessmen. However, there are capsule hotels with women only floors. Some of the newest (and nicest) capsule hotels are aimed at both male and female guests.
The going rate for capsule hotels is usually between US$30 to $50 a night, depending on the hotel. But that often includes high-speed internet access and, also depending on the hotel, basic amenities, like toiletries.
Different capsule hotels have different rules, but as this Japanese site notes, there are some basic rules:
• Take off your shoes
Generally speaking, most Capsule Hotels have shoe lockers near the front desk. If you see a rack or cubbyhole of slippers when you enter, take off your shoes, put on the slippers, and carry your shoes to the locker. When you check in, you might have to give the shoe locker key to the front desk clerk.
• Your Key
After checking in, you'll usually get another key. It's usually attached to a wristband. This is a locker key in the changing room that you can use to store your belongings and clothes in. It should have the same number as your capsule. Do lock your valuables. While Japan is "safe", there is crime. Keep that in mind.
• Capsule Hotel Wear
In the capsule hotel, guests are usually given a gown, a robe or even sweats. Change into the robe (or whatever). Unlike at a business hotel, it's not considered gauche to walk around in your robe.
• Using the Bath or Sauna
Many capsule hotels put a lot of effort into their bathing facilities, giving guests a sentou (銭湯) or communal bathing experience. So, yes, you'll be bathing with strangers. Capsule hotels are segregated by gender, so if you are a man, you'll be bathing with men. Likewise, females bathe with females.
A note on bathing in Japan: Wash your body and hair before you get in the bath. There will be a washing area with faucets. Also, if you have tattoos, you will either need to cover them with bandages or not take a bath. Tattoos are typically prohibited due to their organized crime connotations in Japan.
• Post Bath
After your bath, you might want a beer or something to drink. Capsule hotels usually have snack bars; tell the staff your capsule number (on your key), and food and drink will be charged to your bill. Some hotels have reclining chairs with TVs, while some even have manga or newspapers you can check out. There might be smoking sections, if you smoke, but don't smoke in the capsule.
• In the Capsule
Each capsule usually has a shutter or blinds that you can close. The walls are thin, so be a courteous neighbor!
• Checkout
Typically, checkout at capsule hotels is at 10am. But do confirm when you check-in. Before you check out, be sure to change back into to your clothes and take the key to the front desk.
Below are some interesting, and unique, capsule hotels from across Japan.
Capsule Hotel Inn Osaka: Yep, you can stay at the first capsule hotel. It's still open in Osaka. Sadly, it's men only. However, if you are in Osaka, there is a capsule hotel called Asahi Plaza in the city's Shinsaibashi district that offers lodging for male and female customers.
Green Plaza Shinjuku: Claiming to be Tokyo's first capsule hotel, Green Plaza Shinjuku does not, unfortunately, offer accommodation for females. [Pic: Matuhuji]
Capsule Hotel Shinjuku 510: This capsule hotel, also located in Shinjuku, does have female lodgings as well as capsules for males.
Capsule Ryokan Kyoto: A capsule hotel with a decidedly traditional Kyoto spin: you sleep on tatami mats! The hotel also has high-speed internet, so it's the best of both worlds. [Pic and more info on A Trini Traveller]
9hours (top photo, too): This could be the swankiest capsule hotel Japan has to offer. 9hours is in Kyoto, and it offers accommodation for both male and female guests—with separate elevators for each. At 9hours, the capsules are called "pods" and even feature a "Sleep Ambient Control System" and specially designed pillows to help you sleep. This capsule hotel is anything but typical.
Culture Smash is a regular dose of things topical, interesting and sometimes even awesome—game related and beyond.


text:
This is Amou Haji. He is 80 years old, he lives in Southern Iran, and for the last 60 years he has not taken a bath, because he believes"cleanliness brings him sickness," according to the Tehran Times.
He lives a nomadic life, smokes a pipe filled with animal feces and says his favorite meal is dead porcupine:
Not to our surprise, when we searched the reason behind Amou Haji's way of life, we found out that he had gone through some emotional setbacks in his youth and from then on decided to live an isolated life.
According to the article in the Tehran Times, the previous record for not taking a bath or showering was held by Kailash Singh, a 66-year-old Indian man who had not taken a bath in 38 years.
Images via imgur/ hedgehogsinhats


text:
More info about the name "Austin"
Austin is a short form of Augustine. Augustine is an English variant of Augustus. Augustus originates in Latin language and means "exalted". This was the name of the first emperor of the Roman Empire. As a masculine given name it sounds rather old-fashioned in modern times and is rarely used.


text:
Posted 11 years ago
(88 items)
It was made by the D. N. Carlin Company in Pittsburgh PA. The company was founded in 1917, so you can imagine where he drew the influence of this piece. Documentation on this company is hard to dredge up, but this most likely dates from the late teens-early 20s.
The construction style is very indicative of the early days; heavy duty is a understatement. The gauge of the steel on some parts is as much as 3/32", which puts some industrial grade parts made today to shame. There even appears to be a few machined parts to go along with the mostly stamped and pressed steel components.
The L shaped rod coming out of the back is pulled until the plate (holding the springs) catches behind the trigger. When ready to fire, just pull the chain! It comes complete with a crank to adjust the elevation of the barrel.
From end to end this thing is about 14". I can't imagine something like this being made today.
I need to try to find the patent date for this design, that will give me a good idea of when it was made. The stamp, though faint, reads "Patent applied for". Hopefully I can figure out which one it is!


text: Art Community, Art Market, Art Rental - MyArtPlot.com (MAP) is a global arts and crafts community and movement. Fighting elitism, it is an empowerment platform that offers functional tools to re-design the industry's archaic social, professional, and commercial dynamics. On MAP, any one participant is a crucial element of the global movement. By providing functional social, professional and commercial tools, MAP allows disconnected artists, crafters, artisans and buyers worldwide to connect socially while interacting professionally and commercially. On MAP, you can showcase, critique, rate, review, favorite, buy, and sell original arts and crafts while interacting with people from around the world and across all experience levels.MAP attempts to solve a problem that has plagued artists and art buyers worldwide since the emergence of the artisan profession some millennia ago. The problem is that social, professional, and commercial interactions between artists, artisans, crafters and buyers are inefficient, partially due to technology deficiency, with all parties suffering from (1) information asymmetry, lacking equal distribution of information about each other, and (2) isolation, having no easy centralized channel through which to connect and interact globally. Therefore, those who create original arts and crafts are notoriously known for earning substandard incomes simply because they, as independent operators, lack easy access to a global concentration of each other and of buyers. Similarly, buyers, lacking the same access to those who create goods, have trouble accessing original arts and crafts, which are thus only available to those who are well connected to the artistic communities and who can afford the high prices, driven up by the inability to sell in large quantities. This situation of inaccessibility from all sides and high prices results in a majority of the arts and crafts professions earning low incomes, while original arts and crafts buyers become an extremely elitist group which likely excludes the majority of potential buyers, who, lacking social and financial resources, resolve to buying reprints. Facing this problem, MAP offers itself as a solution.


text:
Ten Second Review
The Audi Q8 is one of those large coupe-style SUVs, part of a genre pioneered by BMW a decade ago with their X6 and subsequently copied by Mercedes. Audi's considered solution for fashion-orientated folk browsing in this segment is Q7-based and very Vorsprung durch technic.
The Volkswagen Group's MLB Evo platform has certainly spawned lots of luxury SUVs. First, we had the Audi Q7, then the Bentley Bentayga, the Porsche Cayenne, the Volkswagen Touareg, the Lamborghini Urus and now we've come back full circle to a derivative of the Q7, this swoopier Q8. You can see why Audi wants a slice of the large sector SUV-coupe market. BMW has, after all, shifted over half a million X6s since that car pioneered the genre a decade ago. This one rolls off the same Slovakian Bratislava line as the Q7, the Cayenne and the Touareg and shares the same wheelbase and cabin width as its large Audi stablemate. The driveway demeanour though, is very different here, the emphasis on fashion, rather than family. It's pointless asking whether we really need this kind of car. People want them. Audi's made one. Is it any good? Let's find out.
Driving Experience
The Q8's primary engine is the '50 TDI' 3.0-litre diesel unit we're familiar with from the A7 Sportback and the A8. Most will go for this unit in 286PS form, but you can also talk to your dealer about a lesser version of this powerplant with 231PS (the Q8 '45 TDI'). A 3.0 TFSI petrol-engined variant with 340PS (the Q8 '55 TFSI') is also being made available and Audi is also developing a top RS Q8 flagship version. We'll focus on the '50 TDI' 286PS derivative because most customers will. This puts out a hefty 600Nm of pulling power and accelerates this large SUV from 0 to 62mph in 6.3 seconds on its way to a top speed of 144mph. Your transmission will be an 8-speed Tiptronic auto. And of course there's standard quattro 4WD, which divides torque front-to-rear in a 40:60-split. When required, it transfers the majority of power to the axle with the better traction. Adaptive air suspension with controlled damping is a standard feature, with a sport set-up. This further improvers the supple ride you can expect from the aluminium five-link front and rear suspension. It can be adjusted to four modes with the Audi drive select dynamic handling system, varying the ride height of the body by up to 90mm. Q8 buyers also get standard 'progressive steering' which becomes increasingly direct as the steering angle increases.
Design and Build
Audi's understandably keen to point out the differences between this Q8 and the more conservative, family-oriented Q7 model it's mechanically based upon. Its coupe-style roof line makes it appear much lower than that sister model and it's 66mm shorter and 27mm wider. Plus there's a more distinctive front end, a shorter rear overhang and a mighty set of 21-inch wheels. Thanks to the frameless doors, the coupe-type roof line stretches low across the vehicle body visually, ending in the a long roof spoiler. The roof line arches slightly towards the flat sloping, strong D-pillars, which are supported by wide, muscular contours. Inside, the cabin delivers the latest touch-sensitive piano black-trimmed interior we've lately seen in the brand's rejuvenated A7 and A8 models. With the dashboard's black-panel look, the main controls almost dissolve into the fascia's large, black surface when switched off. Of course, this coupe-style model doesn't provide the Q7's third row of seating, but Audi insists that there's ample room for five people, pointing out that the interior space exceeds that of the direct competitors in almost all relevant dimensions. The luggage compartment holds 605-litres, which increases to 1,755-litres with the rear backrests folded down. Two golf bags can easily fit in diagonally.
Market and Model
Expect pricing to start at around the £65,000 for the 50 TDI 3.0-littre diesel variant that most buyers will choose. That's very competitive with this model's two main rivals, the BMW X6 and the Mercedes GLE Coupe. Standard equipment is, as you'd imagine, is very comprehensive. Like all top Audis, this one gets the brand's 'MMI navigation plus' infotainment system, which uses the latest LTE Advanced standard for data transfer. The navigation system offers intelligent destination suggestions based on previous journeys. Luxury is of the highest order but many owners will want to embellish the standard kit list with niceties like the optional 23-speaker Bang & Olufsen sound system. As is usual nowadays, there's autonomous driving tech too, most of it included in the optional 'Tour assist' package which gives you adaptive cruise assist (a feature that provides longitudinal and lateral control in all speed ranges) and 'efficiency assist' (which uses sat nav data to automatically adjust your Q8's speed to the current speed limit and automatically reduces your speed before corners, during turning and on roundabouts to lower fuel consumption. Plus there's 'Emergency assist' which takes control of the car if you're taken ill and safely stops it automatically.
Cost of Ownership
The Q8's primary 50 TDI 3.0-litre diesel engine uses mild hybrid technology, integrating a lithium-ion battery and a belt alternator starter into a 48-volt primary electrical system for greater efficiency. The rechargeable battery is located underneath the luggage compartment floor and stores 10 Ah of electrical capacity. That allows this Audi to coast between 34 and 99mph with the engine switched off; when you brush the throttle, the belt alternator starter restarts the engine quickly and during deceleration can recover up to 12kW of energy. The start-stop range starts as low as 13mph. What else? Well bear in mind that all versions of this car will be subject to the government's tax levy for models costing over £40,000. That stands at £450 a year for the first five years of ownership. And of course, as with all modern diesel cars, the TDI versions of this one use an AdBlue fuel additive, stored in a separate rear tank that'll need to be topped up as part of regular servicing. Talking of maintenance, servicing your Q8 should be no more taxing than is the case with one of the company's smaller cars. As usual with Audi models, there's a choice of either a 'Fixed' or a 'Flexible' servicing regime, the choice between the two depending on the extent of your likely annual mileage.
You can see why Audi felt it had to build this car, though it's a little hard to understand why it took the brand so long to bring it to market. We had half-hoped that this delay might have enabled Ingolstadt to bring something radically new to the fashionable formula undergirded this sort of car. That hasn't happened here, but even so, the Q8 does manage to bring buyers seduced by this class-conscious category something a bit different. Turn up to a business meeting in an X6 or a Mercedes GLE Coupe and some might dismiss you as a showy extrovert. Arrive in a Q8 and the impact would be a touch more subtle. For some, that will be important, particularly as this Audi is - in its own way - just as stylish and avant garde as its two main Teutonic arch-rivals. If you want one of these, then probably nothing else will do. Which is exactly as it should be when it comes to this class of car.
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Civilized human cohabitation requires us to respect elementary social norms. We guarantee compliance with these norms with our willingness to punish norm violations – often even at our own expense. This behavior goes against our own economic self-interest and requires us to control our egoistic impulses.
Innovative combination of methods
In collaboration with Professor Ernst Fehr, Dr. Thomas Baumgartner and Professor Daria Knoch reveal the neuronal networks behind self-control in an article recently published in «Nature Neuroscience». For the purposes of their study, they combined the transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) method with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).
Interaction between two frontal brain regions
The results of the study show that people only punish norm violations at their own expense if the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex – an important area for control located at the front of the brain – is activated. This control entity must also interact with another frontal region, the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, for punishment to occur.
The communication between these two frontal regions of the brain is also interesting in light of earlier fMRI studies, which showed that the ventromedial prefrontal cortex encodes the subjective value of consumer goods and normative behavior. As neuroscientist Thomas Baumgartner explains, it seems plausible that this brain region might also encode the subjective value of a sanction. This value increases through the communication with the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. «Using brain stimulation, we were able to demonstrate that the communication between the two brain regions becomes more difficult if the activity in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex is reduced. This in turn makes punishing norm violations at your own expense significantly more difficult.»
Therapeutic benefits
The results could be important in the therapeutic use of the non-invasive brain-stimulation method in psychiatric and forensic patients. Patients who exhibit strong anti-social behavior also frequently display reduced activity in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex. This region of the brain, however, is not directly accessible for non-invasive brain stimulation, as its location is too deep inside the brain. The results of the current study suggest that the activity in this region of the brain could be increased if the activity in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex were increased with the aid of brain stimulation. «This indirectly induced increase in the activity of the frontal brain regions could help improve prosocial and fair behavior in these patients,» concludes Daria Knoch.
Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)
TMS reduces the excitability of an area of the brain temporarily and painlessly. The researchers used this short-term impairment of an area of the brain to examine subjects' behavior when they had to decide whether to punish a partner's unfair behavior in a negotiation experiment. TMS enables causal conclusions as to whether a particular area of the brain plays a decisive role in behavior, including whether sanctions will occur. Brain areas often work in a network, however, and rarely in isolation during such a complex process. While fMRI can be used to measure the activity of these networks, the method does not allow any causal conclusions to be drawn. Only a combination of the two methods thus permits the determination of the neuronal networks that play a causal role in sanctioning at one's own expense.
Thomas Baumgartner, Daria Knoch, Philine Hotz, Christoph Eisenegger und Ernst Fehr: Dorsolateral and ventromedial prefrontal cortex orchestrate normative choice, in: Nature Neuroscience, 2 October 2011, DOI: 10.1038/nn.2933
Dr. Thomas Baumgartner
Department of Psychology
Social and Affective Neuroscience
University of Basel
Tel.: +41 61 267 02 88
Email: email@example.com
Professor Daria Knoch
Department of Psychology
Social and Affective Neuroscience
University of Basel
Tel.: +41 61 267 02 18
Email: email@example.com
Professor Ernst Fehr
Department of Economics
Laboratory for Social and Neural Systems Research
University of Zurich
Tel.: +41 44 634 37 01
Email: email@example.com
Beat Müller
Media Relations
University of Zurich
Tel.: +41 44 634 44 32
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text:
It's a Web 2.0 world, and Flock 2.0 () has established itself as the browser of choice for people who actively participate in the increasingly social Net.
Based on the same code used for Firefox 3—and sporting that browser's security and performance features—Flock is specialized for social networking. It has tabs for logging into Web 2.0 mainstays such as MySpace, Twitter, and Facebook, with easy links for poking, messaging, and sharing links with your friends. A built-in Photo Uploader tool supports image-sharing sites including Flickr and Photobucket. Bloggers can set up Flock with login information for their LiveJournal, TypePad, WordPress, or Blogger accounts, and then write and post entries directly from the browser. Throw in an elegantly designed RSS reader for tracking all your feeds, and you have a one-stop app for staying connected with your online world.
Read our review of an earlier version of Flock (free; Flock).
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