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Arshell Dennis, 19-year old journalism student, was gunned down on the steps of his mother's home in what police are saying was an arbitrary killing. Dennis reportedly was there to surprise his sick mother on her birthday. (Reuters)
Arshell “Trey” Dennis, the third of his name, moved to New York to escape the home he loved.
He grew up in the South Side of Chicago, a city that employs his father as a police officer but has also profiled the 19-year-old because of the color of his skin. It’s a city seemingly constantly in turmoil — bleeding each weekend from dozens of gun-related killings — and an environment Dennis said he felt thankful to leave.
“I do appreciate that I am where I am,” he told his college roommate in a video interview last year. “A lot of people where I’m from don’t make it out.”
The teen had plans: to graduate from St. John’s University in New York City and become a writer, to channel what he’d learned about poetry and struggle into words that might make something shift. He couldn’t change the world — he said for that he’d need two lifetimes — but Dennis felt his path, where he came from and what he knew, might be able to “influence.”
“If you don’t know me,” he said in the video, “you gonna know me.”
19-year-old killed in Chicago once thought he'd escaped the city's cycle of violence: https://t.co/iBqMBqN9nn pic.twitter.com/C1P1Ng0Rrb — CBS News (@CBSNews) August 15, 2016
Just weeks from entering his junior year at St. John’s, the aspiring journalist and past NAACP student chapter vice president flew back home to Chicago for the weekend, WGN TV reported, a surprise for his sick mother’s birthday.
He sat on the porch of his family’s home Saturday night, talking with a hometown friend, when gunfire split the stillness of his ordinarily quiet Wrightwood neighborhood.
Both were shot.
The friend, 20 years old, was hospitalized.
Dennis died.
His mother’s screams echoed down the block.
“You do not want to hear a mother’s cry for her son,” a neighbor, who would only identify herself as Brenda, told the Chicago Tribune.
Arshell 'Trey' Dennis III, CPD officer's son, killed in front of family home in Wrightwood. https://t.co/4QdpqdayYc pic.twitter.com/1qyZIYoUEM — Chicago Homicide (@ChicagoHomicide) August 14, 2016
As of late Monday night, there had been no arrest, and authorities said the investigation was still open and active.
In a news conference Monday afternoon, Chicago Police Department Superintendent Eddie Johnson said authorities were treating the shooting as a case of “mistaken identity.”
“Arshell was a good kid, making his parents proud and studying for a promising future,” Johnson said in a statement.
The superintendent, who worked with Dennis’s father, Officer Arshell “Chico” Dennis, in the 1990s, visited the family Sunday and said in the statement he was “at a loss for words for the amount of grief” they are experiencing.
Though it’s well known in the neighborhood that the elder Dennis, a Drug Enforcement Administration task force officer, worked for the Chicago Police Department, the superintendent said there is “absolutely no credibility” to the theory that Arshell was targeted because of his father’s occupation.
Superintendent says Arshell Dennis, son of CPD officer was not targeted bc his Dad was a police officer. — Anthony Guglielmi (@AJGuglielmi) August 15, 2016
The two young men had no criminal records or personal histories of gang involvement, a police spokesman told the Chicago Tribune, but the shooting could still be gang-related. Some gangs have been conducting initiations, a police official told the Chicago Sun-Times, where recruits are instructed to shoot and kill whomever they find.
“That’s a rite of passage for them,” Johnson told CBS News. “Now how bizarre is that?”
On Sunday, the day Dennis was to return to New York, his loved ones scrubbed his blood from their sidewalk instead.
“The loss of our son is stunning and painful,” the Dennis family said in a statement to the Sun-Times. “Tragically, we were going to take him to the airport today at 3 p.m. to return to school. Now because of this senseless violence, we will be grieving and planning his funeral. Trey was smart, funny, and the light of our lives.”
Dennis graduated from Urban Prep Academy in 2014, where he ran cross country, played chess and participated in the Louder Than a Bomb poetry competition, according to his LinkedIn page. He also belonged to a preparatory program called Upward Bound. It was from a student in the program that director Gerald Smith heard the tragic news.
“I got the phone call, and my heart just fell to my stomach,” Smith told the Tribune. “So, so unexpected. … I’m still in disbelief.”
Last summer, Dennis returned to Chicago to work as an Upward Bound ambassador, Smith said.
“He was one of my better students, he really was,” Smith said. “Arshell was a fun time. He was real easygoing, real quiet, laid-back, mild-mannered — he wasn’t a problem at all. It’s a tragic loss.”
One of my former students was murdered this weekend in #Chicago gun violence. I'm horrified, saddened, and sickened. #ArshellDennis — (((brad keil))) (@clompthestrong) August 15, 2016
Terri Bachstrom, a neighbor and lunchroom attendant in Chicago Public Schools, told the Sun-Times Dennis was a well-mannered, quiet kid.
“He wasn’t in a gang. He wasn’t affiliated with any of the nonsense that’s going on in Chicago,” Bachstrom said. “He wasn’t one of those kids.”
Johnson said at the news conference Monday that to date in 2016, 85 percent of gunshot victims have had prior contact with police. Dennis and his friend were the exception, and yet this weekend, the two became part of the city’s growing violence statistics. In the same weekend Dennis died, nine people were killed and 31 more wounded in shootings across Chicago.
Since Jan. 1, 2,607 people have been shot in the city, according to a Chicago Tribune analysis, on pace to far exceed the number of shootings last year, which totaled 2,988.
It’s the kind of violence that Dennis used to discuss at St. John’s with his freshman-year roommate, 20-year-old Kyle DePina of Boston, reported the Sun-Times.
“It’s crazy,” DePina told the newspaper. “You never think it will happen to someone you’re close to until it happens.”
It was DePina who recorded Dennis in the 8-minute interview posted to YouTube in April 2015. They talk about police brutality and racial stereotypes. DePina asks his friend about his goals, what he wants to do, who he wants to be.
“I do think that I’ll be able to influence a lot the way people think,” Dennis said. “And give them an outlook on the things I’ve been through, and things that people where I come from go through, and just help them get through the struggles that they go through.”
That potential was universally mourned over the weekend.
“He was a promising child,” Brenda, the neighbor, told the Sun-Times. “He was going somewhere.” ||||| The 19-year-old son of a Chicago police officer was shot and killed Sunday morning, hours before he was due to return to college in New York, police and family members said.
The shooting took place in the Wrightwood neighborhood on the Southwest Side just after midnight, according to police.
Neighbors in the 2900 block of West 82nd Street reported hearing several gunshots. Police arrived to find 19-year-old Arshell Dennis and another man, age 20, wounded by gunfire.
Dennis and a hometown friend were hanging out on the front porch of a residence when a gunman approached, possibly from a vehicle, and opened fire, police officials said.
Dennis was hit in the chest and taken to Little Company of Mary Hospital in Evergreen Park, where he was pronounced dead less than an hour after he was shot, according to the Cook County medical examiner's office.
The 20-year-old man was shot in the arm and side. He was taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn in serious condition.
College student Arshell Dennis III, 19, a junior at St. John's University in New York, came home for a visit and was fatally shot early on Aug. 14, 2016, in the 2900 block of West 82nd Street. Dennis was the son of a Chicago police officer.
Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi confirmed that Dennis' father is a Chicago police officer. Officer Arshell "Chico" Dennis and Superintendent Eddie Johnson once worked together as patrol officers in the Gresham District, Guglielmi said.
"Officer Dennis dedicated his life to make this city safer, and his son Arshell was a good kid, making his parents proud and studying for a promising future as a journalist," Johnson said in a statement. "As always, the men and women of the CPD will stop at nothing to find who was responsible and bring a sense of closure and justice to Officer Dennis and all families affected by violence.
"But in order to address the root of this violence, we must change the way the criminal justice system treats the reckless, repeat gun offenders who are causing this violence and send a clear message that when you are involved in gun crimes you will be held accountable."
Dennis’ slaying added to the mounting violence this year. As of Thursday, 436 people had been slain in the city and 2,534 had been wounded by gunfire, according to a Tribune analysis.
The younger Dennis, whom relatives called "Trey," was a student at St. John's University in New York City, according to his grandfather.
The teenager was about to start his junior year as a journalism major at St. John's, relatives said. He arrived in town Thursday to see his mother before starting the school year and was planning to leave for New York on Sunday afternoon.
"He was a beautiful young man, full of laughs and always teasing us," said his grandfather, also named Arshell Dennis. "It's a deep loss, and it hurts. I wish this senseless killing would stop."
Dennis' death is being investigated as a case of mistaken identity, based on what detectives know about Dennis' family, about that block and about the neighborhood, according to Guglielmi.
Family photo Arshell Dennis III, 19, of Chicago. Dennis, a junior at St. John's University in New York and the son of a Chicago police officer, was fatally shot Aug. 14, 2016, along the 2900 block of West 82nd Street. Arshell Dennis III, 19, of Chicago. Dennis, a junior at St. John's University in New York and the son of a Chicago police officer, was fatally shot Aug. 14, 2016, along the 2900 block of West 82nd Street. (Family photo) (Family photo)
"There was nothing in the victim's history that would suggest he is involved or associated in gangs, and he had no criminal record. Neither of the victims have criminal history or gang history or history with the CPD," Guglielmi said.
Additionally, Dennis' father was known to everyone on the block as a Chicago police officer. A motive or any idea of who the assailant was trying to target remained unclear, Guglielmi said, adding that there was nothing to suggest anyone else was with Dennis and his friend when the shooting happened. It was not known if Officer Dennis was at work or home at the time of the incident.
Detectives are canvassing the area, looking for video surveillance that could have captured the shooting. There is no description yet on the gunman, but authorities will be speaking to the 20-year-old friend who remains hospitalized. No arrests have been made.
"Hopefully within the next few hours there will be leads in the case," Guglielmi said Sunday afternoon.
About a half-mile away, Denzell Mickel was shot multiple times Aug. 8 while driving a Lexus near 83rd Place and Kedzie Avenue before running off the road into a nearby yard. Guglielmi said it was too soon to say if Mickel's death had any connection to Dennis' slaying.
As a high school student, Dennis belonged to a college preparatory program called Upward Bound, according to director Gerald Smith. Last summer, he came back to work for Upward Bound as an ambassador.
A look at the scenes of violence in Chicago on the weekend of Aug. 13-14, 2016.
"He was one of my better students, he really was," Smith said. "Arshell was a fun time. He was real easygoing, real quiet, laid back, mild-mannered — he wasn't a problem at all. It's a tragic loss."
Smith said it was Upward Bound students who reached out to him Sunday morning to tell him about Dennis' death.
"I got the phone call, and my heart just fell to my stomach," he said. "So, so unexpected. … I'm still in disbelief."
Neighbors, whether they've lived on the block for decades or only a few years, said they were shocked by the violence.
Gloria Samaniego said the neighborhood has escaped violence for the 38 years she has lived in her home. Sunday morning she was returning from her shift at Rush University Medical Center, where she had spent the day watching the aftermath of gun violence unfold.
"I thought, 'Oh, my God, another shooting,'" she said. "Then I came home ... and someone had died two doors down."
Pat Williams, who also lives on the same block as the Dennis family, said she had specifically chosen the neighborhood for its safety and community. She said she heard six shots from her gangway, then watched as dozens of officers and first responders swarmed the sidewalks and front yards of her neighborhood.
"The reason we moved here was to get away from the hustle and bustle and the violence," Williams said. "I'm just confused. I'm hoping it's an isolated thing. I hope there's not more other violence."
Carol, who lives at the end of the block and asked to be identified only by her first name, said she heard eight or nine gunshots.
When she called 911, she was told that 10 or 20 others had reported the gunfire.
"They had gotten an enormous amount of calls," she said.
She looked out her window to see blue flashing lights and someone lying on the ground.
The neighborhood is tight-knit, she said. The lawns are kept neat, and the block club is active. Carol heard the bad news from the person above her on the neighborhood phone tree: The son of their neighbor, just home from college, had been shot dead, she was told.
"I'm so tired of this," she said. "I'm so tired of hearing about our kids getting killed, shot."
Another neighbor, who would only identify herself as Brenda, said she also heard the shots, followed by the sound of Dennis' mother. ||||| Was Chicago cop’s son killed as part of gang initiation?
The investigation into the shooting of two men, including the son of a Chicago Police officer, continued Sunday afternoon. | Jacob Wittich/Sun-Times
Chicago Police are investigating whether an officer’s 19-year-old son was shot and killed over the weekend as part of a gang initiation.
Some gangs were doing initiations in which members are instructed to go around and kill whoever they could, a police official said Monday.
During a news conference, Supt. Eddie Johnson said Monday it is clear that the victim, Arshell Dennis III, was not targeted because his father is a cop. He suggested it could be “a case of mistaken identity.”
“Detectives are working really hard,” Johnson added. “Any shooting victim that’s in Chicago is unacceptable, but this one hits close to home.”
The city’s bloody 2016 crossed another tragic line this weekend when Dennis was gunned down in front of his family’s home in Chicago’s Wrightwood neighborhood.
Dennis was supposed to return Sunday afternoon to St. John’s University in New York, where he studied journalism. Instead, his family spent the day planning his funeral, fending off reporters and meeting privately with Johnson.
Meanwhile, Chicago wrote another violent chapter in a year already full of anguish.
“The loss of our son is stunning and painful,” Dennis’ family said in a statement.
Dennis is the son of Officer Arshell “Chico” Dennis, who once served with Johnson as a patrol officer in the 6th District. Johnson spent about 20 minutes visiting the officer’s family in the light-brick home where the shooting took place, entering and exiting through the back door. The home is tucked into a generally quiet pocket of the Southwest Side.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel also called to express his condolences.
Johnson “shared with them that the police department is all one family, and they are grieving with them, and that if there is anything they can do for them, the police department will be there,” a family friend told the Chicago Sun-Times.
Family members referred to Dennis in their statement as “Trey.” They called him “smart, funny and the light of our lives.” He was a junior at St. John’s. His freshman-year roommate, 20-year-old Kyle DePina of Boston, said they used to discuss the violence in their respective cities.
“It’s crazy,” DePina said. “You never think it will happen to someone you’re close to until it happens.”
DePina published a videotaped interview of Dennis online. In it, Dennis discusses music, Chicago’s segregated neighborhoods and even police brutality.
“I couldn’t change the world,” Dennis said on the video as he discussed music’s influence on society. “For me to be able to change the world, that would take, maybe, I think it would take two lifetimes to change the world.”
Neighbor Terri Bachstrom described Dennis as a quiet and well-mannered kid and said, “He wasn’t in a gang. He wasn’t affiliated with any of the nonsense that’s going on in Chicago.”
But now Area South detectives are trying to figure out why he was shot to death while sitting with a 20-year-old man outside the home in the 2900 block of West 82nd Street. Dennis was shot in the chest and pronounced dead at Little Company of Mary Hospital at 12:45 a.m., authorities said. The 20-year-old was shot in the arm and chest and taken to Christ Medical Center in serious condition, police said.
CPD spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said investigators “are not ruling anything out.” But based on what they know about the victims, the neighborhood and the local gangs, a leading theory is that Sunday’s shooting was “a case of mistaken identity.” Neither victim had a criminal record, gang affiliation or history with CPD, he said.
“Officer Dennis dedicated his life to make this city safer, and his son Arshell was a good kid, making his parents proud and studying for a promising future as a journalist,” Johnson said in a statement. “As always, the men and women of the CPD will stop at nothing to find who was responsible and bring a sense of closure and justice to Officer Dennis and all of the families affected by violence.”
Johnson has led CPD through four tumultuous months that have featured escalating tension between police and the neighborhoods they serve. The unease reflects national discord, but it is fueled by local strife. Just last week, CPD alerted its members that leaders from three West Side gang factions met to discuss plans to shoot Chicago police.
That plan was an apparent response to the fatal police shooting of Paul O’Neal, who police chased into the South Shore neighborhood after he allegedly stole a Jaguar from west suburban Bolingbrook. O’Neal was unarmed, and the body camera worn by the officer who fired the deadly shot wasn’t working.
The city recently marked its highest single-day toll of shooting deaths in years when nine people were killed on Aug. 8, while sexual assaults, robberies and aggravated batteries are on the rise compared to year-to-date totals for the same period in 2015.
The Justice Department launched a pattern or practice investigation of CPD eight months ago, in the days after the release of video depicting the fatal police shooting of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald.
CPD Officer Jason Van Dyke, who shot Laquan, is being prosecuted for murder.
Wrightwood residents said the kind of violence that ended in Dennis’ death Sunday is not common in their community. Pat Williams, who lives three doors down from Dennis’ family, said she left Bronzeville in search of a “peaceful” place.
But that peace was shattered early Sunday. Another neighbor, Brenda, who declined to give her last name, said she found herself crawling to the back of her house after hearing the gunshots. Eventually, she returned to her living room. And that’s when she heard a woman crying outside.
Brenda said, “I think it was the mother.”
“And she was crying so hard, I went to the back of the house to not hear it.” ||||| Published on Apr 30, 2015
This is a 5 minute interview with my roommate Arshell. He is from Chicago and loves rap and hip hop he also is very involved being the VP of St.John’s student NAACP. Arshell also writes and performs in poetry competitions. I choose to interview him because I feel like he has a unique perspective on society, life and music. I want to share a piece of his mind to somebody who doesn’t know him. ||||| Please enable Javascript to watch this video
CHICAGO -- A young man was shot and killed in the Wrightwood neighborhood just after midnight Sunday. Family members identified him as the son of a Chicago police officer and a future journalist.
Family, friends and Chicago fellow police officers scrubbed the blood from the sidewalk in front of the family home where 19-year-old Arshell Dennis III, also known as Trey, was killed.
It was just after midnight in the 2900 block of West 82nd Street where Edwards and some friends had just come back from a block party and where sitting on the front porch, when a gunman came from down the street and started shooting.
Dennis, a journalism major at St. John’s University in New York and 2010 graduate of Urban Prep Academy, was hit in the chest and was pronounced dead at the hospital. A 20-year-old man was shot in the arm and side of the chest. He was last listed in serious condition. Dennis had just come home on Thursday to surprise his mother for her birthday. He was scheduled to leave this afternoon to go back.
Arshell Edward Dennis III, son of #CPD officer shot and killed in shooting in front of own Wrightwood home @WGNNews pic.twitter.com/OoU0GahFXS — Tonya Francisco (@TonyaFrancisco) August 14, 2016
And to make matters worse, his mother heard the shots but she couldn’t do anything to save him because she is recovering from a debilitating illness.
Police say they have no one in custody and no description of the gunman to release. A police officer is now stationed in front of the family’s home keep watch on the house.
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– Arshell Dennis III was due to fly back to New York on Sunday after a surprise visit home to Chicago for his sick mother's birthday, reports the Washington Post. Instead, the son of a Chicago police officer was shot dead. Police say Dennis, 19, was sitting on his family’s front porch, chatting with a friend after a block party, when an unknown assailant opened fire, reports WGN. Dennis—NAACP student chapter vice president at St. John's University, where he was studying journalism—was killed by a bullet to the chest, while his friend was taken to a hospital in serious condition with wounds to his arm and side. No arrests have been made but the shooting may have been a case of “mistaken identity” or part of a gang initiation, police tell the Chicago Sun-Times. There is "absolutely no credibility" to the idea that Dennis' death was linked to his father's role as a DEA task force officer, says Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson. "Any shooting victim that's in Chicago is unacceptable," he adds, "but this one hits close to home." Neither victim was involved in gangs or had a criminal history, says Johnson. Dennis—seen discussing police brutality in this YouTube video—"was a beautiful young man, full of laughs and always teasing us," his grandfather tells the Chicago Tribune. "It's a deep loss, and it hurts. I wish this senseless killing would stop." Nine people were killed over the weekend in Chicago, which had tallied 436 deaths from gun violence in 2016 as of Thursday. (In all, more than 2,000 people have been shot in the city this year.)
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Suspects in Topeka domestic violence cases are leaving jail without being charged, and advocates for abuse survivors say victims are growing more scared amid a public squabble over who should pay to prosecute the crimes.
Ashley Barnes, front, the president of the Lawrence, Kan., chapter of the National Organization for Women, watches the Topeka City Council discuss repealing the Kansas capital's ordinance against domestic... (Associated Press)
Topeka City Councilman Richard Harmon, left, discusses repealing the city's ordinance against domestic violence as fellow Councilman Andrew Gray, right, listens, Tuesday, Oct. 11, 2011, in Topeka, Kan.... (Associated Press)
Protesters gather outside the Shawnee County Courthouse over a decision by District Attorney Chad Taylor to stop pursuing domestic violence and other misdemeanor cases, Tuesday, Oct. 11, 2011, in Topeka,... (Associated Press)
The mayor and council of Kansas' capital city made a dramatic move Tuesday night in their ongoing clash with county officials by voting to repeal the city's ordinance against domestic violence.
The intent is to force the county's district attorney to back away from a budget-driven decision to stop prosecuting misdemeanors committed inside the city limits _ including domestic assault and battery not involving a weapon.
Advocates for victims of abuse slammed all sides of the debate. They're angry with the district attorney over his decision, furious with the mayor and City Council for repealing the ordinance and frustrated that officials can't resolve the budget dispute.
It's been a month since new prosecutions of domestic violence stopped in Topeka.
"It's a slam in our face," Claudine Dombrowski, an abuse survivor from Topeka, told the council. She showed her frustration by throwing dice down on the podium as she spoke, saying, "Roll the dice _ that's what we're playing here."
Shawnee County District Attorney Chad Taylor contends the county commission forced his decision to cut the budget by 10 percent in 2012, with his office still swamped by felony cases. The city's leaders argue that it can't afford to create the services for domestic abuse victims and rent jail space from the county for suspects.
Also Tuesday night, the City Council authorized Dan Stanley, the interim city manager, to negotiate with county officials over the prosecution of domestic violence cases. He advocated repealing the ordinance, arguing it will help the city in talks with the county.
"I think it draws a line in the sand," he said. "It says we will remove all ambiguity from this question, and we will negotiate from a position of strength."
Taylor's spokesman, Dakota Loomis, called the city's decision "drastic and unprecedented" but said Taylor would re-evaluate his position.
"It just means there is a new dynamic in play," Loomis said.
Topeka has had at least 35 reported incidents of domestic battery or assault since early September. With those cases not being pursued, as of Friday, 18 people jailed have been released without facing charges, according to Topeka police.
Prosecutors and police have refused to discuss details of the cases out of concern for victims' privacy, making it difficult to assess in what situations suspects aren't being prosecuted. The use of a weapon in an assault or battery makes a crime a felony, which would be handled in state court.
"I absolutely do not understand it," Rita Smith, executive director of the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, said after the vote. "It's really outrageous that they're playing with family safety to see who blinks first. People could die while they're waiting to straighten this out."
It also didn't help that the repeal came during National Domestic Violence Awareness Month. City and county officials reported receiving hundreds of emails in just days from people upset over the situation.
"Just the fact that it was on our agenda gave us a black eye," said City Councilwoman Denise Everhart, one of the three votes against repealing the ordinance.
Taylor has said he knew his decision would upset people but added that the cuts his office faces will force him to lay off 11 of his 63 employees. He said he considered employee furloughs and "every angle" before making his announcement in early September.
In a memo issued just days before the county commission finalized his budget for next year, Taylor's office said the cuts would force it to drop its prosecution of misdemeanors occurring within Topeka's city limits and "of greatest concern are domestic violence cases."
Topeka officials feared the city's ordinance against domestic violence could have forced the city to take over prosecuting cases and file them in its municipal court. Local officials said Topeka couldn't handle the $74-a-day cost per inmate of renting space from the county to jail several hundred suspected abusers or hiring additional staff to handle prosecutions.
The city already handled misdemeanor cases of simple assault and battery, and incidents of assault or battery against its police officers. Domestic assault or battery involves a person in the same household, and victims often need additional services or shelter.
For years, the city and county agreed that the district attorney's office would handle domestic violence prosecutions in the better-funded state courts. City officials also note that municipal court convictions can be appealed to state courts, anyway.
About two dozen protesters gathered outside the Shawnee County Courthouse to protest Taylor's decision Tuesday. Then, many of them went to the City Council meeting to show their opposition to its actions.
"Everyone's just saying, `Oh, it's not us you need to be talking to. It's this other person,'" said Hannah Rucker, a University of Kansas student among the protesters. "And it's just going in this circle of, `It's not my fault.'" ||||| Several victims of domestic violence spoke against the proposal at the meeting, questioning whether it would succeed in forcing the district attorney to resume prosecutions. “It is your responsibility to protect these people, and you’re failing,” said Matthew Agnew, 24, one such victim.
Eighteen people have been arrested on domestic violence charges since September and released without charges because no agency is accepting new cases. That has raised concerns among advocates for victims of domestic violence, some of whom gathered Tuesday outside government buildings to express outrage over the gamesmanship.
“To have public officials pointing fingers while victims of domestic violence are trying to figure out who will protect them is just stunning,” said Joyce Grover, executive director of the Kansas Coalition Against Sexual and Domestic Violence.
Though Kansas and its capital city have fared better than much of the country in this struggling economy, they are not immune to fiscal strains. The district attorney’s budget of $3.5 million was cut by 10 percent, which would force about a dozen layoffs. Meanwhile the office is dealing with what Mr. Taylor describes as a “recent uptick in violent crime,” which he attributed to increased gang activity.
“At the end of the day, I feel like my office and public safety are a priority,” Mr. Taylor said.
But the decision by Mr. Taylor to respond to the budget cut by immediately refusing to prosecute misdemeanors in Topeka — though the cuts do not go into effect until next year — caught people off guard, especially given that he had written that the city “does not have the staff or infrastructure to provide victims of domestic violence with the level of service they have come to expect.”
But Mr. Taylor said the county “forced my hand.”
Shelly Buhler, chairwoman of the Shawnee County Commission, said she did not expect Mr. Taylor to actually go through with his threat to stop prosecuting domestic violence.
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She said that all departments were asked to propose 10 percent cuts and that he asked for an increase. “We had hoped that he would not put that group of victims at risk, that he would find some other way to absorb the cuts,” she said.
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Scott Burns, executive director of the National District Attorneys Association, said that around the country, prosecutors are being forced to prioritize certain types of cases, but that these decisions are rarely discussed in public.
“Usually no one comes out and says that starting today I’m not going to prosecute that crime, which sends a message of failure and tells the community you’re free to commit that crime,” he said.
The city, which had already completed its budget, would have to spend $1 million more to pay for the additional prosecutions, said Dan Stanley, the interim city manager. “Its wholly inappropriate for him to lay it at the lap of the county,” he said.
Under the current arrangement, the district attorney is still responsible for prosecuting misdemeanors in the rest of the county as well as all felony domestic violence cases. Almost half of the misdemeanors that were prosecuted last year — 423 cases — are domestic battery cases, and most of the rest are shoplifting, drugs and assault.
Some critics pointed out that even as local governments are cutting deeper into important services, Gov. Sam Brownback, a Republican, is preparing a sweeping tax cut plan.
Becky Dickinson, a program director with the Y.W.C.A., which is the primary provider of services for victims of domestic violence in the county, said there was concern that the lack of charges for those being arrested for misdemeanor domestic violence — which could include verbal threats, pushing or slapping — would encourage retaliation.
“Our biggest concern is the safety of the victims,” she said. “We need to get this resolved as soon as possible.”
Even those who agreed that the district attorney’s office was better positioned to handle such cases worried about the symbolism of a city that decided to decriminalize domestic violence, if only symbolically, rather than prosecuting the offenders.
Michelle Moorman, 21, a college student at the nearby University of Kansas who showed up to protest the cuts with her roommates, said she was surprised and embarrassed by the standoff.
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“Budget cuts are totally understandable, especially today,” she said. “What’s upsetting is this game of chicken between the city and the county.”
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– Domestic abuse suspects are walking free in northeast Kansas because different arms of government can't agree on who should pay for their prosecution. Last night, Topeka's city council took the startling step of repealing the local law that makes domestic violence a crime, the New York Times reports. The move is aimed at making sure the city isn't stuck with the bill for domestic violence cases, which councilors say the county will now have to prosecute under state law—but the county DA, citing budget shortfalls, stopped pursuing domestic assault and other misdemeanor cases a month ago. “We had hoped that he would not put that group of victims at risk, that he would find some other way to absorb the cuts,” said a county official. "I absolutely do not understand it," the director of the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence said after the vote. "It's really outrageous that they're playing with family safety to see who blinks first. People could die while they're waiting to straighten this out." Since early September, there have been at least 35 reported incidents of domestic battery or assault and 18 suspects have been freed without charge because the cases against them were not pursued, the AP finds.
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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. ||||| LOS ANGELES – The former deputy city treasurer for the City of Compton was arrested today on federal charges related to the theft of more than $3.7 million of city funds.
Salvador Galvan, 47, of La Mirada, was arrested this morning by special agents with the FBI pursuant to a criminal complaint that charges him with theft concerning programs receiving federal funds.
Galvan faces federal charges stemming from allegations that he stole $3,721,924 from May 2010 through December 2016
Galvan, who worked in the Compton Treasurer’s Office for more than 20 years, was responsible for tallying the cash received by the city as payment for parking tickets, business licenses and other fees. After the cash was counted, Galvan prepared the money for deposit into a city bank account.
According to the criminal complaint filed late yesterday in United States District Court, Galvan skimmed cash from the daily receipts on numerous occasions. An audit of the city’s cash deposits “identified discrepancies which vary from approximately $200 to $8,000 per day,” according to the affidavit in support of the complaint.
The FBI interviewed Galvan’s supervisor, who “reflected about Galvan’s time in the office, his unexplained affluence, and his generosity,” according to the affidavit. The supervisor told investigators that Galvan went from driving an “old Toyota” to increasingly luxurious vehicles, including a black Audi sedan. That affidavit states that Galvan told his supervisor that he purchased a residence in La Mirada and demolished the house so he could rebuild it – all on an annual salary of approximately $60,000.
“The people of Compton deserved better,” said Acting United States Attorney Sandra R. Brown. “This defendant stole millions of dollars intended to help residents, placing his own greed over their interests.”
Galvan was arrested late last year by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department in relation to the theft of city funds. The federal case that led to Galvan’s arrest this morning resulted from further investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
“Defendant Galvan violated the trust of the public he served by stealing money designated for the betterment of the Compton community,” said Deirdre Fike, the Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office. “By operating a scheme whereby he skimmed Compton city coffers to live beyond his means, Mr. Galvan faces significant federal charges and time behind bars.”
Galvan is scheduled to make his initial court appearance this afternoon in United States District Court.
If he is convicted of the embezzlement charge, Galvan would face a statutory maximum sentence of five years in federal prison.
A criminal complaint contains allegations that a defendant has committed a crime. Every defendant is presumed to be innocent until proven guilty in court.
The case against Galvan is being investigated by the FBI, which is receiving assistance from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.
This matter is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Daniel O’Brien of the Public Corruption and Civil Rights Section
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– On any given day on the job as Compton's deputy treasurer, Salvador Galvan quietly lopped between $200 and $8,000 off the top of municipal fees he collected for the California city, prosecutors say, per the Los Angeles Times. He wasn't busted until December, after a co-worker saw something amiss in a ledger, and after Galvan had accrued more than $3.7 million, they add. The 47-year-old—who'd worked for the city treasurer's office for more than 20 years, taking in cash payments from locals paying utility bills, parking tickets, and other fees—started out small and grew his take exponentially over the next six years, the criminal complaint lays out: An audit shows his first alleged skim in 2010 brought him just $1,400, but in 2012 he netted nearly $400,000 by year's end, with that figure jumping to almost $720,000 for 2013. In 2015, a staggering $879,536 vanished, court records show. Galvan's now-ex-colleagues were often puzzled by what a DOJ release describes as "unexplained affluence" on his $60,000-per-year salary, including driving a fancy Audi sedan and splurging on office parties. He allegedly would write out correct receipts for the cash he collected, but then fudge the numbers on deposit slips; a co-worker noticed a $7,000 mismatch late last year, and Galvan was arrested in December by the LA County Sheriff's Department. He was freed on bond, but FBI agents arrested him again Wednesday on federal theft charges. The case has demoralized some residents hard at work trying to keep Compton's history of crime and corruption in the past. One local activist says he's "disappointed," asking what processes have been implemented to make sure something like this doesn't happen again. (A Canadian mint worker smuggled lots of gold out—in his butt.)
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Story highlights Santorum wins 33 delegates in Kansas
Romney camp says it added more delegates to its total this weekend
Romney touts wins in three territories and updated Wyoming figures
Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum cruised to victory in Saturday's Kansas caucuses, gathering momentum for two upcoming Southern primaries. But top rival Mitt Romney's campaign said the candidate won more delegates over the weekend, with the help of three other races and updated results in one state.
Santorum's victory in Kansas -- which his top rivals essentially ceded -- came on the heels of his three victories on Super Tuesday. His campaign said tea party loyalists and conservatives continue to rally around him.
Santorum received 51% of the votes, according to a Kansas Republican Party initial count. Romney was second with 21%, followed by Newt Gingrich at 14% and Ron Paul at 13%.
Santorum picked up 33 delegates in the Jayhawk State; Romney won seven.
Campaigning in Springfield, Missouri, on Saturday afternoon, Santorum went after President Barack Obama. He criticized the president's stance on energy, health care, Iran and the debt. The Republican candidate also talked about entitlement programs.
"In the eyes of the president, America is a great country because government redistributes wealth," Santorum said.
JUST WATCHED Paul: We will win future primaries Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Paul: We will win future primaries 03:06
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Romney and Gingrich abandoned plans to campaign in Kansas and instead focused on Tuesday primaries in Mississippi and Alabama. Paul campaigned in Kansas on Friday and Saturday.
According to a CNN estimate Saturday, Romney had 458 delegates, compared with 203 for Santorum, 118 for Gingrich and 66 for Paul. A candidate needs 1,144 delegates at the Republican convention this summer to secure the nomination to face Obama in November.
The Romney camp said it won more delegates than Santorum did, counting caucus gains in the Virgin Islands, Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands, plus a handful of delegates selected in Wyoming that CNN had estimated in February.
"In what was hyped as a big opportunity for Rick Santorum, he again fell short of making a dent in Mitt Romney's already large delegate lead," Romney press secretary Andrea Saul said in a statement.
Romney won the Northern Mariana Islands caucuses early Saturday, picking up nine delegates. He garnered 87% of the vote.
Romney received seven delegates in the Virgin Islands. Paul got one. Final results were not reported.
Late Friday, Romney won Guam's nine delegates in its caucuses there.
"I am grateful to have won all nine delegates in Guam," Romney said in a statement after the vote. "The people of Guam have always stood bravely for America and the values we hold dear."
JUST WATCHED How will Romney fare in the South? Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH How will Romney fare in the South? 02:54
JUST WATCHED Santorum: Economic news not good enough Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Santorum: Economic news not good enough 03:46
With question marks hovering over Santorum's chances in the two upcoming Southern primaries, any bragging rights he may claim from his Kansas win may be short-lived.
A fresh poll out in Mississippi showed Santorum running behind Gingrich and Romney. Alabama will be an equally important test of Santorum's appeal in the South.
Gingrich campaigned Saturday in Alabama, reiterating criticism of Obama over his energy policies.
The candidate and other Republicans complain the president is bowing to foreign oil suppliers such as Saudi Arabia and the environmental lobby by not fully exploiting U.S. oil reserves.
"The answer is energy independence for America," Gingrich said in Dothan.
Romney substantially increased his delegate lead on Super Tuesday but failed by most accounts to deliver a knockout blow. He squeezed out a razor-thin popular vote win in the bellwether state of Ohio while carrying his home state of Massachusetts, plus Idaho, Vermont, Virginia and Alaska.
Santorum won North Dakota, Oklahoma and Tennessee, while Gingrich cruised to victory in his home state of Georgia. ||||| Rick Santorum won the Kansas caucuses in a rout on Saturday and Republican presidential front-runner Mitt Romney countered in Wyoming, a weekend prelude to suddenly pivotal Southern primary showdowns in the week ahead.
Republican presidential candidate and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, center, campaigns outside Mama Lou's restaurant in Robertsdale, Ala., Saturday March 10, 2012. (AP Photo/ John David Mercer) (Associated Press)
Republican presidential candidate and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich campaigns outside Mama Lou's restaurant in Robertsdale, Ala., Saturday March 10, 2012. (AP Photo/ John David Mercer) (Associated Press)
Republican presidential candidate and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum talks to supporters gathered at a Springfield, Mo., rally Saturday, March 10, 2012, after winning the Kansas caucuses in a... (Associated Press)
Republican presidential candidate, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, talks to supporters during a rally Saturday, March 10, 2012, in Springfield, Mo., after winning the Republican presidential... (Associated Press)
Republican presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, autographs a poster at a caucus site at Shawnee Mission Northwest High School Saturday, March 10, 2012, in Shawnee, Kan. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel) (Associated Press)
Republican presidential candidate and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich campaigns outside Mama Lou's restaurant in Robertsdale, Ala., Saturday March 10, 2012. (AP Photo/ John David Mercer) (Associated Press)
Republican presidential candidate and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum talks to supporters gathered at a Springfield, Mo., rally Saturday, March 10, 2012, after winning the Kansas caucuses in a... (Associated Press)
FILE - In this March 8, 2012, file photo Republican presidential candidate, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, talks with the media prior to a 2012 presidential candidate forum in Mobile, Alabama.... (Associated Press)
"Things have an amazing way of working out," Santorum told supporters in Missouri, where he traced his campaign through a series of highs and lows. He called his showing in Kansas a "comfortable win" that would give him the vast majority of the 40 delegates at stake.
Final returns in Kansas showed Santorum with 51 percent support, far outpacing Romney, who had 21 percent. Newt Gingrich had 14 percent and Ron Paul trailed with 13 percent.
Santorum picked up 33 of the state's 40 delegates at stake, cutting slightly into Romney's overwhelming's advantage.
In Wyoming, Romney won at least six of the 12 delegates at stake, Santorum three, Paul one. Uncommitted won one, and a final delegate remained to be allocated.
The day's events unfolded as the candidates pointed toward Tuesday's primaries in Alabama and Mississippi that loom as unexpectedly important in the race to pick an opponent to President Barack Obama in the fall.
Polls show a close race in both states, particularly Alabama, where Romney, Gingrich and Santorum all added to their television advertising overnight for the race's final days.
Gingrich, struggling for survival in the race, can ill afford a loss in either Mississippi or Alabama. Romney is seeking a Southern breakthrough to demonstrate an ability to win the support of evangelical voters.
For his part, Santorum hopes to knock Gingrich out of the race and finally emerge as Romney's sole challenger from the right.
The contests in Kansas and Wyoming left Romney with 453 delegates in the AP's count, more than all his rivals combined. Santorum had 217, while Gingrich had 107 and Paul had 47.
Romney's totals included 22 that he picked up in the Virgin Islands, Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands.
A candidate must win 1,144 to clinch the Republican presidential nomination at the national convention in Tampa next August.
Kansas and Wyoming caucuses had little in common except a shared date on the campaign calendar.
Romney made a stop in sparsely populated Wyoming last summer.
Kansas drew more attention from the White House hopefuls, but not much more, given its position midway between Super Tuesday and potentially pivotal primaries next Tuesday in Mississippi and Alabama.
Romney left Kansas to his rivals, while Gingrich scrubbed a scheduled campaign trip to concentrate on the South.
Paul and Santorum both campaigned in the state on Friday, and Gov. Sam Brownback appeared with each, without making an endorsement.
In Topeka, Paul told an audience of about 500 that Kansas should be a "fertile field" for his libertarian-leaning views but declined to say how many delegates he hoped to gain.
Santorum, who hopes to drive Gingrich from the race in the coming week, lashed out at Obama and Romney simultaneously in remarks in the Kansas capital city.
"We already have one president who doesn't tell the truth to the American people. We don't need another," he said.
The former Pennsylvania senator told reporters he was confident "that we can win Kansas on Saturday and come into Alabama and Mississippi, and this race should come down to two people."
An aide to Gingrich said earlier in the week that the former House speaker must win both Southern primaries to justify continuing in the campaign.
But Gingrich strongly suggested otherwise on Friday as polls showed a tight three-way contest in Alabama.
"I think there's a fair chance we'll win," he told The Associated Press about the contests in Alabama and Mississippi. "But I just want to set this to rest once and for all. We're going to Tampa."
Romney had no campaign appearances Saturday. The former Massachusetts governor won six of 10 Super Tuesday states earlier in the week, and hopes for a Southern breakthrough in Alabama on Tuesday after earlier losing South Carolina and Georgia to Gingrich.
___
Associated Press reporters Stephen Ohlemacher in Washington, Thomas Beaumont in Alabama and Phil Elliott, John Hanna and John Milburn in Kansas, and David Lieb in Missouri contributed to this report.
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– Rick Santorum whalloped Mitt Romney in the Kansas caucuses today, but Mitt struck back with a smaller victory in Wyoming. In Kansas, Santorum won 52% of the votes, Romney 21%, Newt Gingrich 14%, and Ron Paul 13%, CNN reports. "This is ... further evidence that conservatives and tea party loyalists are uniting behind Rick as the true, consistent conservative in this race," said a Santorum spokesperson. Romney and Gingrich didn't even campaign in Kansas, where evangelicals like Santorum's take on issues such as abortion rights and same-sex marriage. But because the state divvies up its 40 delegates proportionally, Santorum won only 33 and Romney took seven. In Wyoming, Romney picked up seven of 12 delegates, Santorum took three, Paul one, and one was uncommitted, the AP reports. Romney snagged an additional seven delegates and Paul one more in the Virgin Islands. By AP's count, Romney now has 454 delegates, Santorum 217, Gingrich 107, and Paul 47. A candidate needs 1,144 to clinch the Republican nomination. Next up for the GOP: key southern primaries in Alabama and Mississippi.
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Animal control officials issued alerts about rabid raccoons. One attacked a family’s pet dog and was killed by the dog’s owner in Huntersville. A dog killed the other crazed critter in the Steele Creek area. ||||| 'The Worst I've Ever Seen'; Fires Sweep Through Southeastern U.S.
Enlarge this image toggle caption NOAA/NASA NOAA/NASA
"No one can remember a wildfire as peculiar as the monster gnawing through the gorge above the village of Chimney Rock," began an article Monday in the Charlotte Observer.
The blaze in question is one of dozens of partially contained wildfires, some of them suspected cases of arson, burning across the Southeast. In Alabama alone, there are currently 20 fires burning, and more than 1,500 blazes have burned there since October 1, according to the Alabama Forestry Commission.
People are being evacuated in North Carolina, Georgia and Tennessee, including in and around Chimney Rock, N.C., where the erratic fire described in the Observer has enveloped some 3,000 acres since Saturday, according to the U.S. Forest Service.
As of Monday afternoon, that blaze was only 15 percent contained.
"This fire has the characteristics of western fires, of California fires," Richard Barnwell, the 74-year-old fire chief for the town of Bat Cave, N.C., told the Observer. "This is the worst I've ever seen."
Even the mountain coyotes are spooked. "We've had sightings of them from several people," Carrie Harmon of the N.C. Forest Service told the paper.
Like many fires in the region, the cause of the Bat Cave/Chimney Rock blaze is still under investigation. Just over the state line in northern Georgia, authorities think someone started a 4,000-acre fire, according to the U.S. Forest Service. Starting fires is banned in the entire Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forest, where this fire is burning.
In northeast Georgia, the Rabun County Sheriff's Office said on Facebook that it was was looking for "a dark blue SUV driven by a person of interest" in connection with fires that forced parts of that county to be evacuated.
In Tennessee, police arrested a man suspected of setting fires in the eastern part of the state. Andrew Scott Lewis is charged with three counts of setting fire to personal property or land and "vandalism over $250,000," according to the Chattanooga Times Free Press.
On Friday, Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley announced the state would pay a $5,000 reward to anyone with information about who set the fires burning in that state. In a statement, Bentley reminded residents that a severe, months-long drought increased the risk of fires, and posed "a real danger to Alabama wildland and property."
As we have reported, nearly 40 percent of the Southeast is suffering moderate to exceptional drought conditions, according to the most recent analysis by the Southeast Regional Climate Center.
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– "This fire has the characteristics of western fires, of California fires," a North Carolina fire chief tells the Charlotte Observer as dozens of major wildfires blaze in the drought-ravaged South. "This is the worst I've ever seen." The Tennessee Division of Forestry is currently fighting 67 wildfires over about 16,000 acres. Fire officials say the largest active wildfire in the region has now burned more than 19,000 acres in the north Georgia mountains, an area larger than New York's Manhattan. All told, wildfires have burned more than 80,000 acres of forest and blanketed large areas of the south in dangerous haze. A section of the Appalachian Trail several miles long has been closed as a result of fires in Georgia and North Carolina, and NPR reports people are being evacuated in those states as well as Tennessee. With no sign of coming rain, the Tennessee Valley Authority has issued a burn ban on its public lands in seven states, the AP reports. The TVA on Tuesday said the ban applies to anything that might produce an open flame, from campfires to smoking cigarettes. It's even prohibited to park a car off-road where a hot tailpipe might light up dry grass or leaves. The rules apply across Tennessee and in parts of Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, and Virginia. Meanwhile, Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam has banned outdoor burning in more than half the state's counties through Dec. 15.
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Scientists say that as ice sheets and glaciers melt, the weight that's removed from the Earth's crust changes the stresses upon volcanoes. That unloading effect can trigger eruptions. What Warming Means For 4 Of Summer’s Worst Pests
Coffee flavor depends upon really narrow conditions of temperature and moisture, and climate change is going to wreak havoc with that. Worse yet, as coffee growing regions become warmer, pests that couldn't survive in the past will ravage the crops. This is already being seen in Costa Rica, India and Ethiopia, which have experienced sharp declines in crop yields. California Drought by the Numbers
Wine grape harvests are being hurt. Regions that have historically supplied the world’s best wine will no longer be hospitable climates to grow wine grapes, according to research by the Environmental Defense Fund and others.
Warmer temperatures mean there will be more water vapor trapped in the atmosphere, leading to more lightning. A University of California-Berkeley study predicts that lightning strikes will increase by about 12 percent for every degree Celsius gained. Sierra Nevada Snowpack Worst In Five Centuries
Bark beetles are eating old growth forests, because the winters aren't cold enough to kill them off. So more trees like this American Elm will die. VIDEO: Global Warming And Climate Change: What's The Diff?
Rising sea levels are wiping out beaches all over the world already. Importing fresh sand and building them up again is only a temporary solution. To make matters worse, there's currently a sand shortage, due to demand from fracking, glass and cement making.
A recent Nature article reported that male Australian central bearded dragons have been growing female genitalia because of rising temperatures, a phenomenon that had not previously been observed in that species. 10 Signs Climate Change Is Already Happening
By altering the wild environment, climate change makes it easier for newly mutated microbes to jump between species, and it's likely that as a result, diseases will emerge and spread across the globe even more rapidly.
Thanks to climate change, jumbo-sized ragweed plants will spew out more pollen for a longer, more miserable allergy season. Here Are 10 Striking Images Of Future Sea Levels
You've heard a lot about how human-driven climate change will lead to hotter temperatures, cause sea levels to rise and make storms more intense. But it's projected to have plenty of other unpleasant and even disastrous effects as well. Here are 10 of them. Scientists believe that rising temperatures will lead to increased evaporation of the Great Lakes' water, and precipitation won't make up the difference. That means we're likely to see declines in water levels over the next century, and one study predicts they may drop as much as 8 feet. Earth Shots: Must See Planet Pics (Sept. 21)
Record ocean temperatures are putting coral reefs at risk, causing a third-ever global coral bleaching effect, NOAA reported this week. The effects of global warming, which are heightened by the current El Nino effect, have exposed about 95 percent of U.S. coral reefs to conditions that cause coral bleaching, which can lead the coral to die off.
The effect has been visible across a wide area of the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, NOAA reported.
Global Warming Blamed For Pacific Coral Bleaching
“The coral bleaching and disease ... are the largest and most pervasive threats to coral reefs around the world,” said Mark Eakin, NOAA’s Coral Reef Watch coordinator.
“As a result, we are losing huge areas of coral across the U.S., as well as internationally. What really has us concerned is this event has been going on for more than a year and our preliminary model projections indicate it’s likely to last well into 2016.”
Coral bleaching happens when high temperatures cause the coral to expel symbiotic algae, which gives the coral its color. Short-term bleaching events occur naturally and the coral can recover.
VIDEO: The Ocean Is In Danger!
Long-term events, like the one NOAA scientists are observing, cause coral to lose its primary food source and expose it to disease.
The current event follows bleaching in 2014 that widely affected reefs in the main Hawaiian Islands.
“Last year’s bleaching at Lisianski Atoll was the worst our scientists have seen,” said Randy Kosaki, NOAA’s deputy superintendent for the monument. “Almost one and a half square miles of reef bleached last year and are now completely dead.”
Global bleaching first occurred in 1998, during a record El Nino, and a second bleaching event happend in 2010. |||||
A before and after image of the bleaching in American Samoa. The first image was taken in December 2014. The second image was taken in February 2015 when the XL Catlin Seaview Survey responded to a NOAA coral bleaching alert. (Credit: XL Catlin Seaview Survey)
For just the third time on record, scientists say they are now watching the unfolding of a massive worldwide coral bleaching event, spanning the globe from Hawaii to the Indian Ocean. And they fear that thanks to warm sea temperatures, the ultimate result could be the loss of more than 12,000 square kilometers, or over 4,500 square miles, of coral this year — with particularly strong impacts in Hawaii and other U.S. tropical regions, and potentially continuing into 2016.
The event is being brought on by a combination of global warming, a very strong El Nino event, and the so-called warm “blob” in the Pacific Ocean, say the researchers, part of a consortium including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration as well as XL Catlin Seaview Survey, The University of Queensland in Australia, and Reef Check.
“This is only the third time we’ve seen what we would refer to as a global bleaching event, an event that causes mass bleaching in the Indian Ocean, the Pacific Ocean, and the Atlantic-Caribbean basin,” said Mark Eakin, who heads NOAA’s Coral Reef Watch. The prior events, Eakin continues, “were in 1998 and 2010, and those were pretty much one year events. We’re looking at a similar spatial scale of bleaching across the globe, but spanning across at least 2 years. So that means a lot of these corals are being put under really prolonged stress, or are being hit 2 years in a row.”
The total loss could amount to 5 percent of the world’s corals in 2015, according to Eakin. That’s not as bad as the loss in 1998, but there’s a fear that if the event continues into 2016, the losses would grow.
“We’ve been hearing worrying reports of bleaching from various places, and now the bad news is officially here, with worse news likely yet to come with the strengthening El Nino,” says Nancy Knowlton, an expert on coral reefs with the Smithsonian Institution, of the news. “No reefs that experience unusually warm waters are likely to escape unscathed, but reefs already suffering from overfishing and pollution may have a particularly rough time recovering, based on what we have learned from past bleaching events.”
[The Pacific Ocean may have entered a new warm phase — and the consequences could be dramatic]
Coral bleaching occurs when warm ocean waters — considerably warmer than corals evolved to live with for an extended period of time — leave the organisms stressed and cause them to banish the symbiotic algae that provide corals with both their color and also nutrients. Without them, corals turn white, and become very vulnerable — thus, following bleaching, coral die-off can occur. How much coral death happens depends on how much temperature stress the corals actually experience, and how prolonged it is.
In this video from NOAA's National Ocean Service, scientists explain the pressures on corals caused by climate change, and what we can do about it. (National Ocean Service/NOAA)
The current bleaching event began in 2014, where it was observed in Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands. These areas experienced “the highest thermal stress we’ve ever seen,” said Eakin. Then it spread across the Pacific to Hawaii, which is at particular risk right now, along with many areas in the Caribbean. Major bleaching has also been observed in the Indian Ocean.
[A mysterious illness is turning starfish into goo]
According to NOAA, 95 percent of all U.S. coral reefs are expected to see ocean temperatures that can lead to bleaching sometime this year. Of those areas, says Eakin, 60 percent are expected to be “hit with severe thermal stress and we’re going to see a lot of corals dying.”
NOAA models predicted the global bleaching event during the summer — further confirmation came from observations in the field by organizations like the XL Catlin Seaview Survey, which organizes expeditions around the world to observe the state of corals, and Reef Check, which coordinates and crowd-sources citizen scientist reports from reef areas.
Alice Lawrence, a marine biologist, assesses the bleaching at Airport Reef in American Samoa. (Credit: XL Catlin Seaview Survey)
The first globally observed coral bleaching event occurred in 1998, during the last very strong El Nino event — when it happened, scientists had never seen anything like it.
“This 1998 event caught us all by surprise,” says Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, who directs the Global Change Institute at the University of Queensland and is also chief scientist at the XL Catlin Seaview Survey. At the same time, though, the event “really proved that the ability to measure temperature from space could predict where and when bleaching was going to occur, and as we found out later on, how intense it was going to be.” That’s because the phenomenon of coral bleaching is so closely connected to temperature.
Indeed, because of this relationship, scientists can now use computer models to predict coral bleaching events ahead of time. “If you’re 1 degree [Celsius] warmer than your long term summer temperature for about 4 to 6 weeks, you’ll find the first sign of bleaching,” says Hoegh-Guldberg.
Coral reefs comprise less than .1 percent of the ocean’s total area. But they’re vitally important both to ecosystems and to people who depend on them. “One in every four species of fish live on a coral reef, there are over a million species that live on coral reefs, at least two-thirds of them are pretty unknown to science,” says Hoegh-Guldberg. “Coral reefs provide food and livelihood to 500 million people.”
[Before we damage the oceans any further, it would be nice to know what actually lives there]
“Coral reefs are the underwater equivalent of rainforests, and by removing the corals, you remove the trees of that underwater world,” adds Richard Vevers, head of the XL Catlin Seaview Survey.
A long-nose file fish struggling to find coral polys to eat. File fish are iconic reef fish that are totally reliant on healthy corals for food. (Credit: XL Catlin Seaview Survey)
Unfortunately, as the planet’s oceans continue to absorb the bulk of the extra heat that is being contributed by global warming, the outlook for corals isn’t good. Already half of the world’s reefs have already been lost due to causes ranging from bleaching to pollution in the last 50 years, according to Eakin.
And a staccato of scientific studies have predicted continual decline of corals as warming ticks upward, one of them led by Hoegh-Guldberg in 2007. That report found that over the course of this century, as warming continues, “corals becoming increasingly rare on reef systems.”
And once corals die, the consequences are not easily reversible. “At best, you’re talking about a recovery time of 10 to 20 years,” says NOAA’s Eakin. “And most of these places are getting hit once every 5 years.” Some of the corals killed off can be several hundred years old.
One estimate valued the U.S.’s coral reefs alone at $ 2.4 billion per year, when taking into account the tourism and other economic benefits they provide.
“Local protection coupled with more serious efforts to reduce carbon dioxide emissions are needed if we want coral reefs to be part of our future,” says the Smithsonian’s Knowlton.
Also in Energy & Environment:
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Scientists declare an ‘urgent’ mission — study West Antarctica, and fast
For more, you can sign up for our weekly newsletter here, and follow us on Twitter here. ||||| Scientists have confirmed the third-ever global bleaching of coral reefs is under way and warned it could see the biggest coral die-off in history.
Since 2014, a massive underwater heatwave, driven by climate change, has caused corals to lose their brilliance and die in every ocean. By the end of this year 38% of the world’s reefs will have been affected. About 5% will have died forever.
But with a very strong El Niño driving record global temperatures and a huge patch of hot water, known as “the Blob”, hanging obstinately in the north-western Pacific, things look far worse again for 2016.
Coral reefs worth four times as much as UK economy, 'Earth Index' finds Read more
For coral scientists such as Dr Mark Eakin, the coordinator of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Coral Reef Watch programme, this is the cataclysm that has been feared since the first global bleaching occurred in 1998 .
“The fact that 2016’s bleaching will be added on top of the bleaching that has occurred since June 2014 makes me really worried about what the cumulative impact may be. It very well may be the worst period of coral bleaching we’ve seen,” he told the Guardian.
The only two previous such global events were in 1998 and 2010, when every major ocean basin experienced bleaching.
Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, director of the Global Change Institute at the University of Queensland, Australia, said the ocean was now primed for “the worst coral bleaching event in history”.
“The development of conditions in the Pacific looks exactly like what happened in 1997. And of course following 1997 we had this extremely warm year, with damage occurring in 50 countries at least and 16% of corals dying by the end of it,” he said. “Many of us think this will exceed the damage that was done in 1998.”
The global bleaching event sea surface temperature anomaly, April 2014 to October 2015. Last two slides are prediction for Oct-Jan 2016 and Feb-May 2016. via GIPHY
After widespread devastation was confirmed in the Caribbean this month, a worldwide consortium of coral scientists joined on Thursday to sombrely announce the third-ever global bleaching event – and warn of a tenuous future for the precious habitat unless sharp cuts were made to carbon emissions.
Since the early 1980s the world has lost roughly a fifth of its coral reefs. Hoegh-Guldberg said the current event was directly in line with predictions he made in 1999 that continued global temperature rise would lead to the complete loss of coral reefs by the middle of this century.
“It’s certainly on that road to a point about 2030 when every year is a bleaching year … So unfortunately I got it right,” he said.
Hoegh-Guldberg said he had personally observed the first signs of bleaching on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef in the past fortnight, months before the warm season begins. He said the warming pattern indicated bleaching this summer would likely affect 50% of the reef, leaving 5-10% of corals dead. Eakin said seeing bleaching on the reef at this time of year was “disturbing”.
“We are going to have to double our efforts to reduce the other threats to the reef,” said Hoegh-Guldberg of the icon that Unesco has considered listing as World Heritage in Danger, due to the threats of a mooted coal port expansion, agricultural run-off and climate change. “It’s like a hospital patient. If you’ve got a chronic disease then you are more sensitive to a lot of other things and if you want a recovery then you need to take all those other stresses off.”
The difference between this bleaching event and others before it is not just the extremity of sea temperatures, but how long they have persisted for. Corals can recover from bleaching if the temperature relents. But after a month or more the organisms that build these brilliantly coloured underwater cities die.
“This is not only a big event, but it’s more persistent than any of our past ones, including 1998,” said Eakin. In many areas the bleaching has now lasted far longer than the threshold month and in Hawaii, Guam, Kiribati and Florida there has been back-to-back bleaching events across the past two years.
The progression of bleaching from healthy to dead on a reef in American Samoa this year. Courtesy of : XL Catlin Seaview Survey
Like rainforests on land, coral reefs are home to a riot of biodiversity. On just 0.1% of the ocean’s floor they nurture 25% of the world’s marine species. The impact of losing this would be devastating for the 500 million people who rely on coral ecosystems for their food and livelihood. These effects would not be felt immediately, but over the coming years as fish species move on or die off.
“It really does affect things like tourism and fishing,” said Hoegh-Guldberg. However, he said there was still hope, if governments acted immediately to relieve both global and local pressures on reefs.
“If we were to take strong action on the emission issue and we were to take strong action on the non-climate issues such as overfishing and pollution, reefs would rebound by mid to late century,” he said.
Note: The article was changed to say that one fifth of the world’s reefs had been lost. The original said one half.
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– A coral bleaching event is hitting the globe for just the third time on record, scientists say, and could lead to the biggest coral die-off in history, reports the Guardian. We could lose about 5% of the planet's corals (or 4,500 square miles) this year, while 38% may be affected. Similar events in 1998 and 2010 each lasted a year, but this event—caused by warming oceans as a result of global warming, El Nino, and a warm "blob" in the Pacific Ocean—started last year and is likely to last into 2016, putting corals "under really prolonged stress," says NOAA researcher Mark Eakin, per the Washington Post and Discovery News. When stressed, corals lose the symbiotic algae that provide color and thus turn white. They can recover, but death often follows long-term events. About 95% of US coral reefs will encounter temperatures that can cause bleaching this year, while 60% are likely to be "hit with severe thermal stress," says Eakin. "We've been hearing worrying reports of bleaching from various places … with worse news likely yet to come with the strengthening El Nino," a coral expert from the Smithsonian Institution tells the Post. A University of Queensland scientist expects a bleaching event to occur every year by 2030. "Coral reefs are the underwater equivalent of rainforests, and by removing the corals, you remove the trees of that underwater world," adds another expert. About 500 million people rely on reefs for food or their livelihood. (In better news, researchers found a massive new reef in Australia.)
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“How do you combat gossip and rumor?” he said. “And it’s just on crack and steroids now.”
He was under no illusions about the scrutiny the couple would face. Early on, his friend Jason Bateman told him: “‘There will be this other “you” born, this other character. And this person is insane. If you follow this person, or you pay attention to this person, it will make you insane too,’” he said. “So I learned early on, obviously, not to participate, not to spend time dwelling on it.”
Now that the relationship is over, Mr. Theroux does not feel like he owes the public an explanation.
“The good news is that was probably the most — I’m choosing my words really carefully — it was kind of the most gentle separation, in that there was no animosity,” he said, neither defensive nor bitter. “In a weird way, just sort of navigating the inevitable perception of it is the exhausting part.”
“These are actually in reality small events that take place,” he continued. “But everything can feel like 10 on the Richter scale if you make the headline big enough and salacious enough.”
He took a breath and tried to elucidate the curious nature of a Hollywood marriage. Because acting is “kind of a carny lifestyle,” he said, with frequent separations a part of the job description, the split “doesn’t have that seismic shift of an ordinary couple, where everything is, like, you have to tear a baby in half.”
Far from meta, he sounded earnest. “Again, neither one of us is dead, neither one of us is looking to throw hatchets at each other,” he said. “It’s more like, it’s amicable. It’s boring, but, you know, we respected each other enough that it was as painless as it could be.” ||||| CLOSE Actors Jennifer Aniston and Justin Theroux are separating after more than two years of marriage. USA TODAY
Aniston and Theroux in 2012. (Photo: Kevin Winter, Getty Images for DGA)
Justin Theroux is breaking his silence on his February split from Jennifer Aniston.
In a New York Times interview Saturday, the actor, 47, described the divorce as "heartbreaking" but "gentle."
"The good news is that was probably the most — I’m choosing my words really carefully — it was kind of the most gentle separation, in that there was no animosity,” he said.
He continued, "Again, neither one of us is dead, neither one of us is looking to throw hatchets at each other. It’s more like, it’s amicable. It’s boring, but, you know, we respected each other enough that it was as painless as it could be.”
Theroux explained the separation didn't happen without difficulties though.
"It was heartbreaking, only in the sense that the friendship would not be the same, as far as just the day to day,” Theroux said. “But the friendship is shifting and changing, you know, so that part is something that we’re both very proud of.”
When the former couple announced their separation in Feb., they described it as "mutual" and "lovingly made."
"We are two best friends who have decided to part ways as a couple, but look forward to continuing our cherished friendship," they said in a statement at the time.
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Read or Share this story: https://usat.ly/2ptz6Ur ||||| Justin Theroux has spoken out for the first time since his split from Jennifer Aniston.
In a new interview with The New York Times published Saturday, the actor, 47, broke his silence about their divorce — revealing that the two went their separate ways without any hostility.
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“The good news is that was probably the most — I’m choosing my words really carefully — it was kind of the most gentle separation, in that there was no animosity,” he explained.
“Again, neither one of us is dead, neither one of us is looking to throw hatchets at each other,” he added. “It’s more like, it’s amicable. It’s boring, but, you know, we respected each other enough that it was as painless as it could be.”
That doesn’t mean there wasn’t sadness for Theroux and Aniston, 49.
“It was heartbreaking, only in the sense that the friendship would not be the same, as far as just the day to day,” Theroux said. “But the friendship is shifting and changing, you know, so that part is something that we’re both very proud of.”
Jennifer Aniston and Jusitn Theroux Kevin Winter/Getty
Theroux and Aniston announced their split in February after more than two years of marriage and nearly seven years together.
“In an effort to reduce any further speculation, we have decided to announce our separation,” they said in a statement through their rep at the time. “This decision was mutual and lovingly made at the end of last year. We are two best friends who have decided to part ways as a couple, but look forward to continuing our cherished friendship.”
Part of the reason it all went so well, according to Theroux, was because both he and Aniston are actors who are used to attaching and detaching from projects.
“[It’s] kind of a carny lifestyle,” Theroux told the Times of life in Hollywood. “[A split] doesn’t have that seismic shift of an ordinary couple, where everything is, like, you have to tear a baby in half.”
Justin Theroux and Jennifer Aniston David Crotty/Patrick McMullan/Getty
One of his biggest post-split challenges has been navigating the media. “How do you combat gossip and rumor? And it’s just on crack and steroids now. In a weird way, just sort of navigating the inevitable perception of it is the exhausting part,” said the actor, who appears in Netflix’s new series Maniac with friend Emma Stone and Jonah Hill.
“These are actually in reality small events that take place,” Theroux shared. “But everything can feel like 10 on the Richter scale if you make the headline big enough and salacious enough.”
To keep it all in perspective, Theroux remembered good advice he received from pal Jason Bateman early on in his relationship with Aniston.
“[He said,] ‘There will be this other you born, this other character. And this person is insane. If you follow this person, or you pay attention to this person, it will make you insane too,’ ” Theroux recalled to the Times. “So I learned early on, obviously, not to participate, not to spend time dwelling on it.”
As for whether he’s dating someone new, Theroux told the Times with a laugh, “Is this the part where I coyly raise an eyebrow and not answer the question?”
RELATED VIDEO: What Went Wrong? Inside Jennifer Aniston & Justin Theroux’s Split “They Couldn’t Find Common Ground”
Aniston also talked about the challenges of navigating the media back in August.
“It’s pretty crazy,” the Friends alum said in a wide-ranging chat with pal Molly McNearney — Jimmy Kimmel‘s wife — for InStyle‘s September issue. “The misconceptions are ‘Jen can’t keep a man,’ and ‘Jen refuses to have a baby because she’s selfish and committed to her career.’ Or that I’m sad and heartbroken,” she said.
“First, with all due respect, I’m not heartbroken,” she continued in the InStyle cover story. “And second, those are reckless assumptions. No one knows what’s going on behind closed doors. No one considers how sensitive that might be for my partner and me. They don’t know what I’ve been through medically or emotionally. There is a pressure on women to be mothers, and if they are not, then they’re deemed damaged goods. Maybe my purpose on this planet isn’t to procreate. Maybe I have other things I’m supposed to do?”
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– Justin Theroux has publicly discussed his split from Jennifer Aniston for the first time. In a sit-down with the New York Times, the actor called his divorce with the Friends star "heartbreaking" but "gentle," per USA Today. According to People, the 47-year-old star of the newly released Netflix series Maniac called it "the most gentle separation, in that there was no animosity." Prior to his interview, which appeared in the Times on Saturday, Theroux had been completely tight-lipped following the split, which they announced in February after two years of marriage and seven years as a couple. While the separation reportedly happened in late 2017, it wasn't publicized until early 2018. "This decision was mutual and lovingly made at the end of last year," they said in a statement at the time. "We are two best friends who have decided to part ways as a couple."
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TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — The Democratic mayor of a town severely flooded by Superstorm Sandy has ratcheted up her allegation that Republican Gov. Chris Christie's administration tied recovery funds to her support for a prime real estate project and said that she turned over documents to a federal prosecutor investigating his staff.
FILE - In this Saturday, Aug. 8, 2009 file photograph, Hoboken Mayor, Dawn Zimmer speaks to the media as she stands near the Hudson River in Hoboken, N.J. Zimmer, mayor of a New Jersey city that sustained... (Associated Press)
While a spokesman for Christie called Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer's claims "categorically false," Zimmer said she met with federal prosecutors in Newark for several hours Sunday at their request and turned over a journal and other documents.
On Saturday, Zimmer said Christie's lieutenant governor, Kim Guadagno, and a top community development official separately told her that recovery funds would flow to her city if she expedited the commercial development project by the New York-based Rockefeller Group.
On Sunday, she went a step further and said on CNN's "State of the Union with Candy Crowley" that Guadagno told her that the request "was a direct message from the governor."
"The lieutenant governor pulled me aside and said, essentially, 'You've got to move forward with the Rockefeller project. This project is really important to the governor.' And she said that she had been with him on Friday night and that this was a direct message from the governor," Zimmer recalled Guadagno saying.
Christie spokesman Colin Reed issued a statement Sunday saying, "Mayor Zimmer's categorization about her conversation in Hoboken is categorically false."
Zimmer said in a statement Sunday night that she will "provide any requested information and testify under oath about the facts of what happened when the Lieutenant Governor came to Hoboken and told me that Sandy aid would be contingent on moving forward with a private development project."
Hoboken, a low-lying city of 50,000 across from Manhattan, was nearly swallowed by the Hudson River during Sandy, with three of its electrical substations and most of its firehouses flooded, businesses and homes submerged, the train station inundated with water, and people trapped in high-rises because elevators didn't work and lobbies were underwater. Zimmer has proposed a comprehensive flood mitigation plan and has applied for $100 million in grants to help make it happen.
Zimmer said she didn't reveal the conversation with Guadagno until now because she feared no one would believe her. But, with Hoboken having received just $342,000 out of $1.8 billion in Sandy recovery aid from the state in the first funding round, she said, she is speaking out in hopes her city won't be shut out in a second funding wave, when the state is due to disperse $1.4 billion. Hoboken has also received millions in federal aid.
Christie, meanwhile, is embroiled in another scandal that threatens to undercut his second term and future presidential ambitions. The U.S. attorney's office and a state legislative panel are investigating allegations that Christie aides engineered traffic jams in Fort Lee by closing lanes to the George Washington Bridge, possibly as payback against the town's Democratic mayor, who didn't endorse Christie for re-election.
Democratic Assemblyman John Wisniewski, the legislator leading the state investigation, told NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday that his committee would look into Zimmer's political payback allegation as well.
"I think we have to give the allegations serious thought," he said, "because this is a pattern we've heard time and time again throughout New Jersey."
Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, a Republican, told "Meet the Press" that Wisniewski is part of a "partisan witch hunt" and should step down.
Wisniewski countered that his committee of eight Democrats and four Republicans is bipartisan and would continue its investigation.
The committee issued 20 new subpoenas Friday as the traffic jam plot reached deep into Christie's administration; the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which runs the bridge; and Christie's re-election campaign.
Zimmer said another member of Christie's administration, Community Affairs Commissioner Richard Constable, approached her later in May to reiterate what the lieutenant governor had said. According to Zimmer, he told her Sandy aid "would start flowing" to Hoboken if she backed the development project.
Lisa Ryan, a spokesman for Constable, said Zimmer's claim was false and questioned why she waited eight months to come forward. Ryan also asked why Zimmer didn't take her concern to authorities "if she was so distraught."
David Samson, whom Christie picked to chair the Port Authority, is among those subpoenaed. He is a founding partner of the law firm representing the Rockefeller Group, the New York City developer seeking to build commercial space in Hoboken. A lobbyist for the group, Lori Grifa, was a member of Christie's administration before leaving to work for a law firm. Calls to the firm went unreturned over the weekend.
Wisniewski said he has no plans to subpoena the governor, and there is no evidence Christie knew about any lane closing scheme in advance.
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Associated Press writer Katie Zezima contributed to this report. ||||| Story highlights New Jersey Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno says accusations by Hoboken Mayor are "false"
Guadagno says she did not deliver an ultimatum on behalf of Gov. Chris Christie
Her remarks will be the first time a senior Christie official has addressed the charges
Hoboken's Mayor says Guadagno told her that Sandy relief funds hinged on her backing real estate venture
New Jersey Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno is expected to "categorically deny" allegations Monday that she gave Hoboken's Mayor an ultimatum regarding Superstorm Sandy recovery aid.
Guadagno's denial flies in the face of claims made by Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer, who said Sunday that Guadagno told her to support a redevelopment project backed by Christie or lose Sandy recovery funds.
Zimmer also connected Christie to the threat, saying that Guadagno told her the message was coming directly from Christie.
Appearing on CNN's "State of the Union," Zimmer said, "She said that to me -- is that this is a direct message from the Governor," Zimmer said, referring to Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno, who Zimmer said approached her in a parking lot in May to deliver the message.
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Photos: Who's who in Christie bridge scandal Photos: Who's who in Christie bridge scandal Who's who in Christie bridge scandal – New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie was not indicted as part of the Bridgegate scandal. But one of his appointees pled guilty and 2 former staffers face criminal charges. Hide Caption 1 of 21 Photos: Who's who in Christie bridge scandal Who's who in Christie bridge scandal – David Wildstein, a former top Christie appointee at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey pleaded guilty to one charge of conspiracy to commit fraud on federally funded property and one civil rights violation. Hide Caption 2 of 21 Photos: Who's who in Christie bridge scandal Who's who in Christie bridge scandal – Bridget Anne Kelly, Gov. Chris Christie deputy chief of staff, was fired when her e-mail about it being time for "traffic in Fort Lee" became the center of the scandal. She has been charged with nine criminal counts, including conspiracy and fraud. Hide Caption 3 of 21 Photos: Who's who in Christie bridge scandal Who's who in Christie bridge scandal – Bill Baroni was executive deputy director of the Port Authority until he resigned amid the scandal in December 2014. He has been charged them with nine criminal counts, including conspiracy and fraud. Hide Caption 4 of 21 Photos: Who's who in Christie bridge scandal Who's who in Christie bridge scandal – Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer claims New Jersey Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno approached her in a parking lot last May and told her that Sandy recovery aid for her town depended on her support of a redevelopment project backed by the governor. Hide Caption 5 of 21 Photos: Who's who in Christie bridge scandal Who's who in the Christie controversies – Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno denies telling Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer that her town's Superstorm Sandy relief money depended on her support for a redevelopment project proposed by a company with ties to Gov. Chris Christie that he had backed. Hide Caption 6 of 21 Photos: Who's who in Christie bridge scandal Who's who in the Christie controversies – Maria Comella, a deputy chief of staff in Christie's office, had been monitoring the media reaction weeks after the George Washington Bridge traffic fiasco. She has been subpoenaed as part of the state legislative investigation. Hide Caption 7 of 21 Photos: Who's who in Christie bridge scandal Who's who in Christie controversies – Randy Mastro, a former assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York and a former deputy mayor of New York, will head the legal team representing the Christie administration in various investigations relating to the George Washington Bridge political scandal. He once a the federal racketeering lawsuit that forced the International Brotherhood of Teamsters to hold democratic elections and undergo court supervision. Hide Caption 8 of 21 Photos: Who's who in Christie bridge scandal Who's who in Christie bridge scandal – Reid Schar, a key figure in the federal prosecution of former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, will assist the special state Assembly committee investigating the bridge scandal that has engulfed current and former aides of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. Hide Caption 9 of 21 Photos: Who's who in Christie bridge scandal Who's who in Christie bridge scandal – U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone of New Jersey, a Democrat, said he was concerned about the bidding process for using $25 million in Superstorm Sandy relief funds for a marketing campaign to promote tourism at the Jersey Shore. Hide Caption 10 of 21 Photos: Who's who in Christie bridge scandal Who's who in Christie bridge scandal – E-mails suggest that Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich was the apparent target of an alleged political payback scheme involving traffic jams around the George Washington Bridge. He met with Chris Christie in early January to discuss the matter, and said the governor was "gracious and apologetic." Hide Caption 11 of 21 Photos: Who's who in Christie bridge scandal Who's who in Christie bridge scandal – New Jersey Democratic Assemblyman John Wisniewski is chairman of the special state Assembly committee investigating the George Washington Bridge scandal. The panel has subpoenaed current and former top Christie aides as well members of his political organization, seeking documents and other materials. Chris Christie has not been subpoenaed but his office has. Hide Caption 12 of 21 Photos: Who's who in Christie bridge scandal Who's who in Christie bridge scandal – Michael Drewniak, Christie's chief spokesman, has been subpoenaed by a special state Assembly committee investigating the George Washington Bridge scandal. It is seeking documents and other materials. Although there is nothing to suggest Drewniak was involved in the scandal, e-mails released by investigators show he met with a key figure, David Wildstein, two days before Wildstein resigned from his job as a top Christie appointee at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. Hide Caption 13 of 21 Photos: Who's who in Christie bridge scandal Who's who in Christie bridge scandal – David Samson, Port Authority chairman, said its board had no knowledge of the George Washington Bridge traffic jam mess until five days after the fact. He has been subpoenaed by the state assembly committee and is also a partner and founding member of Wolff & Samson, the law firm that represented the Rockefeller Group in the Hoboken redevelopment plan. Hide Caption 14 of 21 Photos: Who's who in Christie bridge scandal Who's who in Christie bridge scandal – Patrick Foye, the executive director of the Port Authority, said access lane closures that resulted in the George Washington Bridge traffic mess didn't follow proper agency protocols. He ordered the lanes reopened and has been subpoenaed by the state Assembly committee as part of its investigation into the bridge scandal. Hide Caption 15 of 21 Photos: Who's who in Christie bridge scandal Who's who in Christie bridge scandal – Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop, a Democrat who also didn't endorse Christie, has raised his own suspicions about his cooled relationship with the administration. Hide Caption 16 of 21 Photos: Who's who in Christie bridge scandal Who's who in Christie bridge scandal – New Jersey Senate Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg, a Democrat, has been pressing for information about the scandal. Hide Caption 17 of 21 Photos: Who's who in Christie bridge scandal Who's who in Christie bridge scandal – Democrat Barbara Buono is a New Jersey state senator who challenged Chris Christie this past November and lost in a landslide. She derided Christie during the campaign as representing "the worst combination of bully and bossism," and she brought up the George Washington Bridge traffic mess as an example. Hide Caption 18 of 21 Photos: Who's who in Christie bridge scandal Who's who in Christie bridge scandal – Bill Stepien managed Chris Christie's two successful campaigns for govenor. E-mails suggest he was aware of the bridge lane closures, and Christie has asked him to give up his political role. He, too, has been subpoenaed by the state committee investigating the matter. Hide Caption 19 of 21 Photos: Who's who in Christie bridge scandal Who's who in Christie bridge scandal – Scott Rechler, vice chairman of the Port Authority's board of commissioners, e-mailed other representatives of the agency saying he was disturbed that traffic was snarled "without regard to this being the Jewish high holiday weekend" last September. Rechler was appointed by New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Hide Caption 20 of 21 Photos: Who's who in Christie bridge scandal Who's who in Christie bridge scandal – E-mails suggest Regina Egea, then a senior staffer and the governor's point person to the Port Authority and other agencies, was aware of concerns the George Washington Bridge lane closures were not part of an ongoing traffic study as the Christie administration initially claimed. She's now Christie's incoming chief of staff and has also been subpoenaed by the state Assembly committee. Hide Caption 21 of 21
The alleged incident happened last May after Guadagno toured a grocery store that had reopened after suffering $10 million in flooding damage from Sandy.
The lieutenant governor recalls having a conversation with Zimmer that day, but says she remembers Zimmer arguing that Sandy recovery aid and redevelopment were the same issue, according to the source close to Guadagno, who was not authorized to speak publicly.
"Kim remembers in their conversation that she was talking about redevelopment and making investments in Hoboken. She remembers Zimmer pressing Kim for money for Sandy. Kim remembers saying you can't tie the two together," the source said. "And she remembers Zimmer continuing to press and showing her a map of the city and pressing for aid for Sandy."
Guadagno remembers it as a "friendly conversation," the source said. "Zimmer was laser-focused on getting Hoboken money for Sandy recovery and that is not the role Kim Guadagno plays in the administration," the source said.
She remembers telling Zimmer that the administration would like to do more to redevelop Hoboken, but she doesn't recall talking to her specifically about The Rockefeller Group project. But the source said Guadagno, a veteran prosecutor and former county sheriff, is still going through her records, preparing for a possible subpoena.
In remarks Monday morning -- at a volunteer event in Union Beach, New Jersey honoring the Martin Luther King Jr. National Day of Service -- Guadagno is expected to make the point that, "My job in the governor's office is to oversee redevelopment and reinvestment in New Jersey," the source said.
In fact, a governor's directive prevents Guadagno from working on the Sandy recovery efforts because she was personally affected by the superstorm -- her home in Monmouth Beach was damaged by the storm, the source said. She was at the Hoboken grocery store in her role as an advocate for the state's business community.
"Kim can't talk about Sandy," the source said. "She can't do it."
And Guadagno twice returned to Hoboken after that May visit -- once spending more than two hours touring farmers' markets with Zimmer -- and the Hoboken mayor never brought up the May conversation or indicated that it had upset her, the source said.
Zimmer's comments Saturday and Sunday are a change from what she told CNN on January 11. She said then that while she wondered whether Sandy aid funds were being withheld because she didn't endorse the governor's re-election, she concluded that "I don't think that's the case."
"I don't think it was retaliation and I don't have any reason to think it's retaliation, but I'm not satisfied with the amount of money I've gotten so far," Zimmer told CNN then. She did not mention her concerns about the redevelopment project.
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– New Jersey Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno has "wholeheartedly" denied a mayor's claim that Chris Christie's team demanded a quid pro quo to release Sandy relief funds, CNN reports. Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer's "version of our conversation in May of 2013 is not only false but is illogical and does not withstand scrutiny when all of the facts are examined. Any suggestion that Sandy funds were tied to the approval of any project in New Jersey is completely false," Guadagno said today. "Hoboken has in no way trailed similarly situated communities in the receipt of rebuilding funds," state officials say, per the New York Times. In fact, they argue, the city has actually received far more than some others. The Times notes that it's difficult to tell exactly how money was distributed because the system is so complicated. Meanwhile, Zimmer is adding to her accusation, the AP reports. She told CNN's State of the Union yesterday that Guadagno called the alleged threat "a direct message from the governor." Yesterday afternoon, Zimmer says, she met with prosecutors from the US attorney's office in Newark as they investigate her claims, the Times reports.
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Presley Ann/Patrick McMullan/Getty
Gretchen Carlson, who serves as the chairwoman of the Miss America board of directors and won the crown herself in 1989, says she was “incredibly sad and heartbroken” when she read current Miss America Cara Mund’s public letter Friday morning stating Carlson had “silenced,” “marginalized” and “bullied” her.
“I want to be clear that as a proponent of women my entire life, I have never bullied Cara Mund,” Carlson tells PEOPLE exclusively. “We have supported Cara for her entire year and we will continue to support her. It’s just disappointing that she chose to air her grievance publicly and not privately.”
In Mund’s letter, posted three weeks before the scheduled Miss America telecast in Atlantic City on Sept. 9, Mund, who hails from North Dakota, accused Carlson and Regina Hopper, the organization’s CEO, of “disrespect, passive-aggressive behavior, belittlement, and outright exclusion.”
Donald Kravitz/Getty
Carlson joined the board of directors in December after the then-CEO reportedly used sexist and fat-shaming language in internal emails that led to several executives and board members resigning. She says she took on the volunteer role in January in hopes of making it more inclusive, relevant and empowering to women. “I have been putting all of my energy and countless hours into moving this organization forward,” she says. In 2017, Carlson wrote the book, Be Fierce: Stop Harassment and Take Your Power Back inspired by the many women who reached out to her after she reached a $20 million settlement in her sexual harassment lawsuit against former Fox News chairman Roger Ailes in 2016.
One of the new initiatives put forward by Carlson is the elimination of the famous swimsuit competition in an attempt to downplay the importance of physical appearance alone. Mund states that during a recent Good Morning America appearance discussing the changes, she was told that “GMA only wanted Gretchen on the segment,” adding, “I served as my own advocate and asked if I could attend” despite not getting any airtime.
But Carlson, 52, says this was not the case. “We brought her to New York the day before and provided her with media training. We asked Cara to come to the studio because we thought by chance, even at the last minute, they would maybe include her.” Ultimately, ABC decided to go with a singular interview with Carlson. “There were so many interview requests that day,” says Carlson. “Cara did all the entertainment shows and a lot of radio and print interviews.”
Carlson, who says she plans to reach out to Mund shortly, says she can sympathize with Mund’s comments about this being a challenging year.
“It’s the toughest job you will ever have,” Carlson says of being Miss America. “Every Miss America could tell you if they wanted to about the ups and downs of their year. I could. But you realize as more time passes what an amazing opportunity you have been given to serve as a role model and an ambassador for our country and to make a difference.” ||||| Newly crowned Miss America 2018 (Miss North Dakota 2017) Cara Mund celebrates during the 2018 Miss America Competition Show on Sept. 10, 2017 in Atlantic City, New Jersey. (Photo: Photo by Donald Kravitz/Getty Images)
In a twist of irony, the most recent Miss America winner is accusing the Miss America Organization – one that's recently taken public steps in the name of female-empowerment – of bullying and silencing her.
In a five-page letter addressed to "Miss America Sisters" and obtained by USA TODAY on Friday, Cara Mund, Miss America 2018, calls out Miss America CEO Regina Hopper and chair Gretchen Carlson for having "silenced me, reduced me, marginalized me, and essentially erased me in my role as Miss America in subtle and not-so-subtle ways on a daily basis." Mund hinted at trouble with the organization earlier this month in an interview with The Press of Atlantic City.
Mund says she was forced to stick to specific talking points, was "not important enough" to do big interviews – those were reserved for Carlson, and she was told that it was Mund's fault sponsors dropped the Miss America Organization.
More: Gretchen Carlson takes on the 'shocking epidemic' of sexual harassment
Earlier: Miss America axes swimsuit competition
The Miss America Organization released a statement Friday afternoon in response to Mund's letter.
"It is disappointing that she chose to air her grievances publicly not privately. Her letter contains mischaracterizations and many unfounded accusations. We are reaching out to her privately to address her concerns," says the statement. "The Miss America Organization supports Cara.”
Miss America chair Gretchen Carlson (Photo: Getty Images)
Carlson released a lengthy statement Sunday evening on Twitter, which conveyed she was "surprised and saddened beyond words" by Mund's letter.
"I also want to be clear that I have never bullied or silenced you," the statement read. "In fact, I have acknowledged to you and your parents many times that the organization understands the frustrations of serving during such a change-filled and stressful year... We've acknowledged your grievances, and taken many steps to try to make your experience a good one."
Carlson continued: "Actions have consequences. Friday, as an organization, we learned that $75,000 in scholarships which would have been the first scholarship increase in years, is no longer on the table as a direct result of the explosive allegations in your letter. The impact won't stop there – we are already seeing a negative ripple effect across the entire organization, and I am so concerned that it will the dilute the experience for the next woman selected to wear the crown."
USA TODAY has reached out to representatives for Carlson for a statement.
There are examples in Mund's letter that are reminiscent of the "Mean Girls" movie: Gretchen Carlson and Regina Hopper, like the Gretchen and Regina in the film, criticized Mund's clothes, mispronounced her name and spread misinformation about her, Mund says.
"The rhetoric about empowering women, and openness and transparency, is great; however, the reality is quite different. I am living that difference," writes Mund, who adds that her treatment in the organization, which crowned her in Atlantic City, fits the New Jersey definition of "workplace bullying."
Mund says, "Let me be blunt: I strongly believe that my voice is not heard nor wanted by our current leadership; nor do they have any interest in knowing who I am and how my experiences relate to positioning the organization for the future. I truly felt more valued, respected, and viewed as a real collaborator within my first three months rather than these last eight months. The differences in treatment are stark."
In the past year, Carlson, a former Miss America winner and Fox News host, has been vocal about the fact that Miss America is no longer a pageant with a swimsuit portion. She has also been promoting her book about stopping harassment, called "Be Fierce."
The 2019 Miss America Competition will broadcast live on Sept. 9 on ABC.
Earlier: Miss America made a welcome change. But let's not pretend pageants are the root of the problem.
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– Gretchen Carlson was installed as chair of the Miss America Organization's board of directors earlier this year in the wake of a scandal that forced out the organization's CEO and other executives after "unacceptable" emails were revealed about past winners. Now, drama of her own for Carlson and Miss America CEO Regina Hopper. They've been pilloried in a letter written by Miss America 2018 Cara Mund, who alleges she was bullied. USA Today obtained a copy of the five-page letter, which accuses the women of having "silenced me, reduced me, marginalized me, and essentially erased me in my role as Miss America in subtle and not-so-subtle ways on a daily basis." Some of her grievances revolve around interviews: She alleges the plum ones were handed to Carlson, as she was "not important enough" to do them, and that she was made to stick to three talking points, one of which related to Carlson's Stanford education. She also claims she was told her poor social media skills caused certain sponsors to sever ties with the Miss America Organization, that she was given grief over her clothes ("During a photo shoot this year, Regina looked at the Karl Lagerfeld dress I was wearing and said 'Yuck. You should burn that. Don’t ever wear that again,'" she wrote), and that Hopper referred to her as "Kira." "The rhetoric about empowering women, and openness and transparency, is great; however, the reality is quite different. I am living that difference," wrote Mund, who says things were better in the first three months of her tenure before the leadership was shaken up. Carlson had this to say to People: "I want to be clear that as a proponent of women my entire life, I have never bullied Cara Mund. We have supported Cara for her entire year and we will continue to support her. It’s just disappointing that she chose to air her grievance publicly and not privately."
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A spokesperson for Fox News has released a statement in response to Scottie Nell Hughes‘ allegations that Charles Payne raped her, and the network blacklisted her when she tried to report her complaints.
Mediaite received this statement from a Fox News spokesperson:
“The latest publicity stunt of a lawsuit filed by Doug Wigdor has absolutely no merit and is downright shameful. We will vigorously defend this. It’s worth noting that Doug is Ms. Hughes’ third representative in the last six months to raise some variation of these claims which concern events from four years ago, since it apparently took some time to find someone willing to file this bogus case.”
Ms. Hughes is not and has never been a Fox News or Fox Business employee, according to a source with knowledge of the situation who claims “the allegations were first raised by Hughes’ agent after CNN ended its contract with her and her lawyer began asking for a “business solution” to the allegations – demanding that Fox News hire Hughes as a contributor.”
The source added “when Fox News refused to do so, knowing that the two had a consensual affair, Hughes shopped a draft complaint along with her story to the LA Times. Payne was suspended and reinstated after the evidence showed that he and Hughes had a consensual affair.” Hughes declined several requests to participate in an investigation by Fox News’s counsel (Paul Weiss), refusing to turn over all her emails, let alone to be interviewed.
Hughes contributed on Fox frequently from 2013-2016, and her lawsuit claims it was during this time when the Fox Business host pressured her into a sexual relationship despite her protests. Payne recently returned to the network after he was suspended months ago when his alleged sexual misconduct was first reported.
[Image via screengrab]
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Have a tip we should know? [email protected] ||||| Charles Payne, the Fox Business Network host who was recently reinstated after facing allegations of sexual harassment, now faces even stronger accusations, as the woman who made the claims filed suit against him as well as Fox News now alleges she was raped and subsequently defamed.
Scottie Nell Hughes may be best known as a Trump surrogate who regularly appeared on Time Warner’s CNN during the run-up to the 2016 presidential election. But she has also been a familiar face on Fox News Channel. In a complaint filed Monday in United States District Court in the Southern District of New York, Hughes claims Payne raped her in 2013 and alleges she was retaliated against after she came forward with charges a few years after the initial incident is said to have occurred.
An attorney for Payne, Jonathan Halpern, said his client would prevail against “outrageous” charges. Payne “vehemently denies any wrongdoing and will defend himself vigorously against this baseless complaint. We are confident that when the evidence is presented in this case, Mr. Payne will be fully vindicated and these outrageous accusations against him will be confirmed as completely false.”
Payne, who was suspended from his program “Making Money” in July after it was made known that harassment allegations had been levied against him by a former frequent Fox guest, was reinstated earlier this month. He denied the previous charges, in which Hughes, who has now admitted to being the accuser, alleged she was banned from Fox after ending an extramarital affair she had with the anchor in 2015. The analyst also alleged her Fox appearances were reduced after she terminated the relationship.
“On behalf of Scottie Nell Hughes, today we filed an action against Fox to hold it accountable for yet another case involving sexual harassment and retaliation inflicted by Fox executives in order to protect male, on-air talent,” said attorneys Douglas H. Wigdor and Jeanne M. Christensen, in a prepared statement. “We intend to aggressively litigate Ms. Hughes’s claims and hold Fox accountable to the fullest extent under the law.” Wigdor has several clients involved with legal actions against Fox News Channel.
“The latest publicity stunt of a lawsuit filed by Doug Wigdor has absolutely no merit and is downright shameful,” Fox News said in a statement. “We will vigorously defend this. It’s worth noting that Doug is Ms. Hughes’ third representative in the last six months to raise some variation of these claims which concern events from four years ago, since it apparently took some time to find someone willing to file this bogus case.”
The suit alleges Hughes brought her allegations in confidence to Fox News in June of this year. In the filing, Hughes alleges Payne sexually assaulted and raped her in July of 2013, then increased invitations to her to appear on his Fox Business program. The suit suggested Fox News might cite emails that describe a consensual relationship, but then alleged any link between the two was the result of Payne using “his position of power to pressure Ms. Hughes into submission.”
A bevy of allegations suggesting harassment and/or discrimination have been levied at Fox News Channel since its former leader, Roger Ailes, was ousted last year. Ailes had been accused of harassment by former anchor Gretchen Carlson. He denied the allegations and died earlier this year. In the interim, the various allegations, some of them sordid, have forced Fox News to part ways with Bill O’Reilly, Eric Bolling, and Bill Shine, among others.
The network’s parent company, 21st Century Fox, has been under scrutiny as it strives to acquire the remaining shares in European broadcaster Sky PLC that it does not own and its bid is examined by British government regulators. Critics have pointed to the allegations and lawsuits against Fox News as reason for not letting the transaction proceed. 21st Century Fox executives have said they expect the deal to close in 2018. ||||| The suit also names Dianne Brandi, the executive vice president of legal and business affairs at Fox News, and Irena Briganti, the network’s executive vice president of corporate communications. In the suit, Ms. Hughes says that Ms. Brandi and Ms. Briganti “knowingly and maliciously aided and abetted the unlawful employment practices, discrimination and retaliation” against her. The lawsuit claims that Ms. Brandi and Ms. Briganti “issued a false narrative to The National Enquirer that Ms. Hughes was a participant in an affair with Payne” and “revealed Ms. Hughes’s identity to The National Enquirer.”
Fox News said the lawsuit was “bogus” and “downright shameful.”
“We will vigorously defend this,” the network said in a statement. Fox News also said that the case was a “publicity stunt of a lawsuit” by Ms. Hughes’s lawyer, Douglas H. Wigdor.
Mr. Wigdor, who is representing several current and former Fox News employees in harassment and discrimination cases against the network, said Fox was victim-blaming. “Fox cannot spin its way out of this crisis – especially when only Fox is to blame for what happened,” he said in a statement.
The charges in Ms. Hughes’s lawsuit echo accusations made by several other current and former Fox News employees after the sexual harassment scandal at the network burst into public view last year, exposing a culture where women said they had faced harassment and feared reporting inappropriate behavior. The initial scandal led to the resignation of the network’s chairman, Roger Ailes, and subsequent allegations prompted the network to force out its most popular figure, Bill O’Reilly, among other personalities. Fox News’s parent company, 21st Century Fox, has attempted to clean up its workplace and move past the crisis, yet new allegations and litigation have continued to roil the network in recent months.
Ms. Hughes, 37, has been a familiar face on cable news in recent years. A vocal Trump supporter, she worked as a paid contributor at CNN during the 2016 presidential election. Her contract with CNN ended this past January.
According to the lawsuit, Ms. Hughes experienced a sudden decline in bookings across cable news networks in early 2017 and was told by a booking agent that Fox had blacklisted her because she “had an affair with someone at Fox.” As a result, Ms. Hughes said, she was taken out of consideration for positions in the Trump administration.
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– A political commentator who says she was raped by Fox Business Network host Charles Payne is suing the host and the network, alleging that she was pressured into having a extramarital relationship with him—and that Fox blacklisted her when it ended. Scottie Nell Hughes, a frequent Fox guest between 2013 and 2016, alleges that Payne raped her in 2013 and then forced her into a sexual relationship, Variety reports. The lawsuit says that while emails might suggest the relationship was consensual, Payne used "his position of power to pressure Ms. Hughes into submission." The host was suspended in July while sexual harassment allegations were investigated and reinstated earlier this month. Hughes says she was promised a paid contributor role that never materialized. She says the network not only blacklisted her, it leaked stories about an affair to the press after she made her allegations. "In July of 2013, I was raped by Charles Payne," Hughes tells the New York Times. "In July of 2017, I was raped again by Fox News. Since then, I have been living an absolute hell." The lawsuit was filed by attorney Doug Wigdor, who has several clients that are suing Fox. In a statement, a Fox spokesperson called the lawsuit a "publicity stunt" from Wigdor that "has absolutely no merit and is downright shameful," Mediaite reports.
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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 ||||| Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s opening statement today, a fiery, scorched-earth speech that may well have salvaged his bid for the Supreme Court, was not only aimed at the Senate Judiciary Committee. It carried an even bigger goal: to keep President Donald Trump from losing faith in his nomination.
Kavanaugh was being urged by some — including old friends from Bush world — to take a softer approach today. But in the end, he tuned out the advice, and sat down to write a speech with a sole aide. An overarching goal: please Trump and, in turn, circle the conservative wagons behind him, an official close to the process said.
Two White House officials said that while the President never seriously considered asking Kavanaugh to withdraw, he did discuss the idea — publicly and privately — that he would quickly announce another nominee and use the rejection of Kavanaugh to rally conservatives in the mid-term elections.
It didn’t come to that, but there were “incredibly tense moments” in the White House after Christine Blasey Ford finished her testimony. A White House official said the president found Ford “compelling” and “very credible” and had serious questions about how Kavanaugh would perform.
“He didn’t disappoint. He exceeded every expectation,” a White House official said.
The President was publicly silent throughout the day, but his hand was guiding nearly every pivotal move – from Sen. Lindsey Graham’s boisterous speech to the decision to shut down the Republican-selected special prosecutor. ||||| 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
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– Brett Kavanaugh got emotional multiple times during his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday, and one of those moments came during his opening statement when he addressed the allegation that there is a sexual boast about a friend included on his high school yearbook page. Kavanaugh's page refers to him as a "Renate Alumnus," which was reportedly meant as a brag about a sexual conquest. The "Renate" in question, Renate Schroeder Dolphin, said that such an "insinuation is horrible, hurtful, and simply untrue." During his opening statement, Kavanaugh teared up when he described Schroeder Dolphin as a good friend, clarified they never slept together, and insisted the yearbook mention didn't mean what was reported. "As high school students, we sometimes did goofy or stupid things. I doubt we're alone in looking back at high school and cringing at some things. For one thing, our yearbook was a disaster," he said, per CNN. "One of our good female friends, who we would admire and went to dances with, had her name used on the yearbook page with the term alumnus. That yearbook reference was clumsily intended to show affection and that she was one of us. But in this circus, the media has interpreted the term was related to sex. It was not related to sex." He went on to apologize to Schroeder Dolphin, though his explanation of the yearbook reference was decried as unlikely by some. Kavanaugh was later made to discuss the yearbook again under questioning by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse. Among other things, he told Whitehouse one word used in the yearbook "refers to flatulence. We were 16." He also had to explain a drinking game referred to in the yearbook and talk a lot about his "weak stomach." BuzzFeed, which calls the line of questions and answers "really something," has video here.
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Scott Sommerdorf | The Salt Lake Tribune Former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney stands for the pledge of allegi... Scott Sommerdorf | The Salt Lake Tribune Former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney speaks at the 2018 Utah County ... Scott Sommerdorf | The Salt Lake Tribune Former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney speaks at the 2018 Utah County ... Scott Sommerdorf | The Salt Lake Tribune Former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney speaks at the 2018 Utah County ... Scott Sommerdorf | The Salt Lake Tribune Former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney speaks at the 2018 Utah County ... Scott Sommerdorf | The Salt Lake Tribune Former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney speaks at the 2018 Utah County ... Scott Sommerdorf | The Salt Lake Tribune Former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney speaks at the 2018 Utah County ... Scott Sommerdorf | The Salt Lake Tribune Former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney speaks at the 2018 Utah County ... Scott Sommerdorf | The Salt Lake Tribune Senator Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, spoke to the 2018 Utah County Republican Party Lincoln ... Scott Sommerdorf | The Salt Lake Tribune Senator Mike Lee, R-Utah, speaks at the 2018 Utah County Republican Party Lincoln Da... Scott Sommerdorf | The Salt Lake Tribune Representative John Curtis, R-Utah, speaks at the 2018 Utah County Republican Party ... Scott Sommerdorf | The Salt Lake Tribune Utah Representative Mia Love, R-Utah, speaks at the 2018 Utah County Republican Part... ||||| Salt Lake City (CNN) Mitt Romney said in a video announcement Friday that he will run for the US Senate from Utah, setting out on a glide path to Washington where he will likely play a central role driving the direction of the fractious Republican Party.
"I have decided to run for United States Senate because I believe I can help bring Utah's values and Utah's lessons to Washington," he says in the clip.
I am running for United States Senate to serve the people of Utah and bring Utah's values to Washington. pic.twitter.com/TDkas6gD2p
Until relatively recently, this would have been an unlikely path for Romney, who retreated from the national spotlight after losing the 2012 presidential election to then-President Barack Obama. But Romney has re-emerged on the political scene as a powerful voice calling out the inflammatory statements and conduct of President Donald Trump.
Romney's fiery rebukes of Trump's crude comments on topics ranging from the character of Mexican immigrants to sexual harassment made him a hero of the #NeverTrump movement and a set of Democratic admirers. His criticism of Trump has been especially notable considering the President once considered him as a candidate for secretary of state, a courtship that many friends of Romney later viewed as a token gesture by Trump to generate publicity.
Romney avoided direct broadsides at the President Friday, though he did say Utah "welcomes legal immigrants from around the world -- Washington sends immigrants a message of exclusion. And on Utah's Capitol Hill, people treat one another with respect."
Romney is running to replace retiring GOP Sen. Orrin Hatch. In the video, he focused on the challenges and opportunities facing Utah, a state where he established his permanent residency in 2014.
The 2012 presidential nominee said he was seeking the new role because he hoped to replicate some of Utah's policy and economic successes at the national level -- from curbing government spending to enhancing bipartisan collaboration on legislation in Washington.
"Utah is a better model for Washington than Washington is for Utah," he says in the video.
Easy race expected
Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, is expected to have an easy race because of his enormous popularity in Utah, where he attended college at Brigham Young University and has long owned a home in Park City. Beyond his deep connections to the Mormon church, he drew broad admiration from Utahns after helping to turn around the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympic games.
During conversations with several dozen Utah voters when Romney was mulling a run in December, many mentioned his leadership of the games, which were mired in a bribery scandal when he left his business to take them over in 1999, as a key asset in his quest for the Senate post.
"Utah became associated with bribery, which was completely against anything Utah stands for -- it stands for ethics and doing the right things -- so this was really hurtful to the people of Utah to be tainted with that serious issue," said Fraser Bullock, who worked closely with Romney as the chief operating officer and chief financial officer of the 2002 games.
"You needed an inspirational leader, and Mitt became that," Bullock said. "He became the face of the games -- that there was hope to get out of this dark place. And little by little, month by month, people could see the progress that he was making; that he was completely transparent, that he was engaging and sunny -- and all in to make this work."
Utahns became acquainted with Romney over the three-year run up to the games, which ultimately generated a $100 million profit. The success of the 2002 Olympics games solidified his profile, which was only heightened by his presidential run.
"He was right in the center of the sweet spot for Utah politically when he ran for president," said former Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt, who advised Romney during that campaign. "He has a center-right philosophy that's quite consistent with the main stream of Utah."
Romney's popularity far outpaces that of Trump, whose approval rating in Utah ranks far below that of other Republican presidents. Romney beat Obama in the state in 2012, 73% to 25%.
By contrast in a three-way race in 2016, Trump won Utah with 45.5% to Hillary Clinton's 27.5%. Independent Evan McMullin, a Utah native who positioned himself as a voice of the #NeverTrump movement, won 21.5% of the vote.
Still, his likely Democratic opponent, Jenny Wilson, slammed Romney before he even announced his run, painting him as someone who doesn't understand the state.
"Utah needs an independent voice for our communities that are struggling, not a hand-picked candidate of the Washington establishment," said Wilson, a member of the Salt Lake County Council. "Utah families deserve a Utahn as their senator, not a Massachusetts governor who thinks of our state as his vacation home."
Some Republicans object
There has been disquiet among some Republican Party activists about Romney's bid for the Senate seat, because his wealth and power boxed out other local contenders.
"In many respects, Mitt Romney is being coronated instead of elected," said Don Guymon, a member of the Utah Republican Party Executive Committee.
Guymon said changes to Utah's election system -- allowing potential candidates to collect voter signatures to qualify for the ballot as an alternative to competing in the party's unpredictable caucus convention -- has "made it so some people just presume that Romney is going to be the nominee from the party."
Guymon said his own concerns about Romney date back to his unsuccessful 1994 Senate run against Ted Kennedy in Massachusetts. In that race, Romney staked out far more liberal positions on issues like abortion than he would as governor of Massachusetts or as a presidential candidate.
"Mitt's had various positions over the years, so what are we getting? Which Mitt are we getting?" Guymon said. "He's never held a town hall and answered questions from Utah citizens yet."
In another rebuke to Romney this week, Rob Anderson, the chairman of the Utah Republican Party, bluntly told the Salt Lake Tribune that he believed Romney's entry was preventing candidates who would be a better fit for Utah from entering the race. He also compared Romney's bid to that of Hillary Clinton's run for Senate in New York.
"Let's face it, Mitt Romney doesn't live here, his kids weren't born here, he doesn't shop here," Anderson told the Salt Lake Tribune in an interview published Wednesday. "I have two questions for Mitt. First of all, why? And how do you expect to represent Utah when you don't live here?"
Anderson backtracked on those comments in a Facebook post Wednesday afternoon where he said Romney had reached out to him directly about his concerns, and had accepted his apology "without hesitation."
In his post, Anderson said he regretted that his comments "came across as disparaging or unsupportive."
"That was never my intent. While my method of speaking tends to be very matter of fact, it is also true that tone and tenor do not come across well in print," Anderson said. "I've no doubt that Mitt Romney satisfies all qualifications to run for Senate, and as Chairman of the Utah Republican Party, I will treat all candidates equally to ensure their path to the Party nomination is honest and fair."
One Republican who welcomed Romney's bid: House Speaker Paul Ryan, who was Romney's running mate in 2012.
"Our party and our country are always better off when Mitt is engaged, and I know that he will put his unparalleled experience, conservative leadership, and lifetime of service to work for Utah in the US Senate," Ryan said in a statement.
Steps to nomination
In stark contrast with Romney's 2012 presidential primary campaign -- where he tailored his message to the ideologically pure voters who control the early state contests -- he has more recently touched on controversial issues like global warming and expanding legal immigration that are important to the more pragmatic voters of Utah.
Romney now has a choice between two potential paths to the nomination. He can make the risky choice to participate in the state Republican Party nominating convention in April, where staunchly conservative delegates have spurned favored GOP candidates in the past. Alternatively, Romney can collect the 28,000 signatures required to qualify for Utah's primary ballot. For weeks, he has contemplated doing both, according to associates.
The sometimes contrarian views of the GOP delegates at the nominating convention could create a challenge for a candidate with mainstream appeal. In 2016, popular Utah Gov. Gary Herbert was defeated by libertarian Jonathan Johnson, the Overstock.com chairman, at the convention. Herbert ultimately won re-election with 66.7% of the vote in November 2016.
Romney's agenda
So far, Romney's interest in Hatch's seat appears to have essentially cleared the Republican field. Steve Bannon, Trump's former chief strategist, initially showed interest in the race, but a source familiar with his plans said he does not see a viable candidate to compete with Romney at this point. Bannon's political star, meanwhile, has faded in the aftermath of comments attributed to him in a bombshell book published in January.
While building his team, Romney has spent the past few weeks "listening and learning" in conversations with Utah voters, as one aide put it. His team has been conscious of trying to craft a very Utah-centric message about the state's future -- without dwelling on his experience during the Olympics or his past presidential ambitions.
Friends and former advisers also say they don't want to predict what kind of profile he would cut in Washington -- or try to guess what issues he will focus on.
"I think few people fully appreciate the education process that running for president is," said Leavitt, who led Romney's transition team in 2012. "You have to understand geopolitical issues. You have to understand regional issues. You have to understand issues across every sector of the economy, and human services. He's very well grounded in all of those as a result of the years he spent preparing to be a presidential candidate."
"That's unusual," Leavitt said. "Most people who run for the Senate for the first time have not had that experience, nor does their voice start out as confident and well-grounded as he will. So I expect he will be Mitt Romney -- and that he'll speak with confidence. And there will be times when he aligns with the mainstream, and times that he doesn't."
Romney's close friend John Miller, who was a national co-chair of Romney's 2012 campaign, said he doesn't expect Romney to be a forceful Trump critic during this run because there would be no point in alienating Utah voters who support the President.
Miller laughed when thinking about Romney transitioning from the role of a former CEO to becoming one of 100 senators: "I think he'll find that quite challenging, actually."
But he said Romney was clearly not done with politics and felt compelled to run in Utah because of his father, George Romney, who instilled a strong sense of service and volunteerism in his children.
"I think he'll find it invigorating, because he needs to have a voice," said Miller, a Utah native. "He's young enough; he's agile physically and mentally, and he wants to do something. I think he's kind of tired of sitting around on the sidelines." ||||| poster="http://v.politico.com/images/1155968404/201802/3198/1155968404_5735245626001_5735207691001-vs.jpg?pubId=1155968404" true elections Why Romney plans to lay off Trump The GOP heavyweight wants to avoid looking like he’s just using Utah’s Senate seat as a platform for himself.
Mitt Romney is poised to launch his political comeback — but don’t expect him to talk much about his onetime nemesis, President Donald Trump.
The 2012 GOP nominee had planned to announce his campaign for Utah Senate with a Thursday web video, bringing to an end months of speculation about his intentions and instantly becoming the highest-profile Republican on the ballot this year. On late Wednesday, Romney postponed the rollout in light of the deadly school shooting in South Florida.
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When he goes forward, Romney intends to carefully skirt questions about how he’ll deal with the president and what could be in store for his future, amid speculation that he’s already plotting a role in leadership or even another campaign for the White House.
Instead, Romney plans to keep it hyperlocal, presenting himself as someone who will tend to the state’s needs even though his election is essentially a foregone conclusion, according to several people who’ve spoken to him in recent weeks. It’s an approach other big-name figures who’ve run for Senate have employed, such as Hillary Clinton and Al Franken: Don’t appear to be taking anything for granted or coasting on celebrity.
Think more meet-and-greets with voters, a largely Utah-based campaign team, fewer TV commercials, and less give-and-take with national reporters.
In short, the 2018 Romney Senate campaign will look nothing like his 2012 presidential bid.
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“I think you’ll see him spending his time and building a dialogue with the people of Utah and earning their support,” said Spencer Zwick, a longtime top Romney adviser. “It doesn’t mean through a bunch of TV ads. I think people will be surprised, and it will be refreshing how accessible Mitt is to the people of Utah.”
To that end, Romney has tapped Kelsey Berg and MJ Henshaw, veterans of Utah politics who formerly worked for ex-Rep. Jason Chaffetz, to help run his campaign. He has hired a Salt Lake City-based pollster, Y2 Analytics. And he has assembled an informal kitchen cabinet of local advisers that includes former Utah Jazz basketball executive Greg Miller.
Romney, already known virtually universally, is shunning a high-octane campaign launch in favor of a web video and a Friday evening speech at a Utah County Lincoln Day Dinner, though it is unclear how the delay will affect his schedule. After that, Romney, who during his presidential bid was sometimes derided as aloof and out of touch, had planned to hit the road and meet individually with activists and voters. He has turned to allies like Chaffetz to help introduce him to local Republicans whose support he’ll need.
The blueprint, outlined by several Romney advisers for this story, underscores the challenge confronting the former GOP nominee. While he is unlikely to face serious opposition, Romney is trying to convince voters that he’s not simply using the seat as a steppingstone to something bigger.
Already, tensions are emerging. In a Wednesday interview, Utah Republican Party Chairman Rob Anderson accused Romney of carpetbagging and said he’d done little so far to reach out to people in the state. Anderson said he’d repeatedly tried to contact Romney, but that he hadn’t heard from him.
“This is not a personal attack, but I find it offensive and a little arrogant that he hasn’t reached out to the party chairman,” said Anderson, who first raised his complaints with The Salt Lake Tribune.
“I think a lot of Utahns see him as a carpetbagger,” added Anderson, noting that he’d like to see Romney face a primary opponent. “He doesn’t buy his groceries here, he hasn’t raised his kids here.”
Later in the evening, Anderson released a statement saying that Romney reached out to him on Wednesday and that Anderson offered him an apology for his remarks, which Romney accepted.
Who that primary rival would be remains an open question. Some Republicans point to state Auditor John Dougall, an outspoken fiscal conservative, as a possibility, though he has yet to commit to a bid.
Romney, a Michigan-born former Massachusetts governor who now resides in Holladay, Utah, is likely to respond to any accusations of carpetbagging by highlighting his deep connections to the state. He played a central role in rescuing the troubled 2002 Salt Lake City Olympic Games and is heavily involved in the Mormon Church.
Romney’s desire for a low-key campaign in part reflects his personal circumstances. Boyd Matheson, a Deseret News opinion editor who met with Romney about a month ago to discuss policy issues, said that while the 70-year-old former governor was eager to run, he wanted a lower-intensity campaign than the one he waged six years ago.
“He doesn’t want the big entourage; it’s just counter to where he is in his life,” said Matheson, who himself briefly considered a bid for the seat. “He doesn’t want all the trappings.”
In the short term, Romney must decide whether he’d rather qualify for the GOP primary ballot by going through an April state party convention, where he could face opposition from conservative activists, or by gathering 28,000 signatures. Utah’s primary is slated for June 26.
The biggest question, though, may be why Romney is eager to leave political retirement to join a dysfunctional Senate. Some of those who’ve spoken with the former governor say they remain uncertain why he wants to re-enter the political arena.
Zwick said Romney would use the web video to outline his reasons for running. He insisted they have nothing to do with his feelings toward Trump.
“In my opinion, Mitt Romney would be running for Senate if Donald Trump was president or if Hillary Clinton was president,” Zwick said. “His rationale for running for Senate doesn’t have anything do with who the president is.”
But it’s highly unlikely Romney will be able to avoid questions about his relationship with the president. During the 2016 campaign, Romney emerged as an outspoken Trump critic. The two later had a rapprochement when Trump considered Romney to be his secretary of state.
But tensions remain: The president repeatedly urged longtime Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch to seek reelection in order to block Romney from running for the seat.
Those close to Romney predict that he’ll strike a balance. Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake, who met with Romney before Hatch’s retirement and has been in touch with him since, said Romney wouldn’t be reflexively anti-Trump but wouldn’t be afraid to speak out against the president.
“I think you’ll hear him say ‘I’ll agree with the president when he’s right, and disagree with him when he’s wrong,’” said Flake, himself an outspoken Trump critic. “I know he’ll be an independent voice.”
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– There's a good chance Mitt Romney will be adding "Senator" to the front of his name in the near future. The former governor and presidential candidate formally announced that he's running for the seat being vacated by Orrin Hatch, and the move makes him the "instant front-runner" given his popularity in the state, reports the Salt Lake Tribune. A poll conducted by the newspaper in January suggested that he would win easily. Romney announced with a video, saying he wanted to "bring Utah's values and Utah's lessons to Washington." Romney has previously been a vocal critic of President Trump, but CNN notes that he did not go after the president in the video. He did, however say that Utah "welcomes legal immigrants" while "Washington sends immigrants a message of exclusion." Romney added that, "on Utah's Capitol Hill, people treat one another with respect." Still, Politico expects that Romney will avoid running as an anti-Trump candidate and will instead keep the campaign "hyperlocal." The state's GOP chief hit Romney on that general topic earlier this week, asserting that "a lot of Utahns see him as a carpetbagger" and adding, "He doesn’t buy his groceries here, he hasn’t raised his kids here." However, Rob Anderson later apologized for the remarks, and Romney has the support of the state's top leaders, including GOP Gov. Gary Herbert. (A Romney victory could change the Senate math if he joins with Democrats to vote against the Trump agenda on certain issues.)
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Bird flu 190,000 ducks destroyed at six Dutch farms after bird flu outbreak Officials check for avian flu at farms surrounding original site as outbreaks of disease reported in Denmark, Finland, Germany and Sweden Ducks on a farm in France. Ducks were culled at six farms in the Netherlands following reports of bird flu. Photograph: Iroz Gaizka/AFP/Getty Images
Some 190,000 ducks were destroyed on Saturday at six farms in the Netherlands following an avian flu outbreak, the country’s first cull in response to an epidemic sweeping northern Europe.
Outbreaks of avian flu, primarily the highly pathogenic H5N8 strain, have been reported in Denmark, Finland, Germany and Sweden over the past week.
Dutch authorities did not say what strain of the virus had been discovered at a poultry farm in the village of Biddinghuizen, 70km (43 miles) east of Amsterdam.
The cull was implemented at four other sites owned by the same company and at a sixth farm less than a kilometre from the site of the confirmed outbreak.
Officials said they were checking for bird flu at farms within three kilometres of the original site and imposed a ban on transporting poultry products within a 10km radius.
The world’s second largest agricultural exporter, the Netherlands has more than 100 million hens, pigs, cows and sheep on high-intensity farms. The density makes the animals more vulnerable to disease outbreaks.
Since 1997, 40 million hens, cows, goats, pigs and sheep have been slaughtered to contain outbreaks including swine flu, foot-and-mouth disease and BSE. ||||| Image copyright EPA Image caption Poultry farmers have been advised to take measures to prevent the disease spreading
About 190,000 ducks have been culled in the Netherlands as the authorities try to prevent the spread of bird flu across northern European countries.
The slaughter involved six farms, following the discovery of a virus in the village of Biddinghuizen, some 70km (43 miles) east of Amsterdam.
Outbreaks of the highly contagious H5N8 strain have been reported in Denmark, Sweden, Germany and Finland.
The Dutch authorities have not said which strain is involved.
Officials said they were checking for bird flu at farms within three kilometres of the original site and imposed a ban on transporting poultry products within a 10km (six mile) radius.
What is bird flu?
Avian influenza - bird flu - is an infectious disease of poultry and wild birds.
The H5N8 strain first appeared in South Korea in early 2014.
The virus later spread to Japan, North America and Europe, causing outbreaks at poultry farms between autumn 2014 and spring 2015.
How is it spread?
Last month, scientists said that monitoring birds on their long distance migrations could provide early warning of bird flu outbreaks.
Researchers said bird flu was carried by migrating birds from Asia to Europe and North America via the Arctic.
Contact with infected wild birds or materials contaminated with their droppings was the most likely route of transmission.
Should we worry?
Most avian influenza viruses do not infect humans.
However, hundreds have been killed by the H5N1 virus, mostly as a result of direct or indirect contact with infected live or dead poultry.
There is no evidence that the disease can be spread to people through properly cooked food.
So far, no human cases of H5N8 infection have been detected.
The World Health Organization (WHO) says that human infection with the H5N8 virus cannot be excluded, although the likelihood is low, based on the "limited information" at its disposal.
How should we do?
The WHO advises:
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– Six farms in the Netherlands on Saturday were the wrong places at the wrong time for some 190,000 ducks who were slaughtered as avian flu sweeps Europe, reports Reuters, with outbreaks now reported in Denmark, Finland, Germany, and Sweden. The outbreaks have largely been on the H5N8 strain, though Dutch officials didn't specify which strain was found at the farm in the village of Biddinghuizen, some 40 miles from Amsterdam. The cull was enacted at four other farms owned by the same company, as well as another located less than a mile from the first site. Authorities have banned the transportation of poultry within six miles, notes the BBC, which also has a primer on avian flu.
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Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Tarik Jasarevic, from the WHO, said there were safety and ethical issues surrounding experimental Ebola drugs
Global health experts at the World Health Organization (WHO) are meeting to discuss new measures to tackle the Ebola outbreak.
The meeting is expected to last two days and will decide whether to declare a global health emergency.
On Wednesday, a man suspected to have contracted Ebola died in Saudi Arabia. If confirmed, this will be the first Ebola-related death outside of Africa.
The virus has killed nearly 900 people since February in West Africa.
The outbreak began in February in Guinea, and has since spread to Liberia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria.
On Wednesday a nurse became the second person to die from Ebola in Nigeria.
Nigeria's health minister said five other cases of Ebola were being treated in isolation in Lagos, sub-Saharan Africa's largest city.
It comes as leading infectious disease experts have called for experimental treatments to be offered more widely.
Two US aid workers who contracted Ebola in Liberia appear to be improving after receiving an unapproved medicine ahead of their evacuation back to the US.
But it is not clear if the ZMapp drug, which has only been tested on monkeys, can be credited with their improvement.
Prof Peter Piot, who co-discovered Ebola in 1976, Prof David Heymann, the head of the Centre on Global Health Security, and Wellcome Trust director Prof Jeremy Farrar said there were several drugs and vaccines being studied for possible use against Ebola.
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Prof Peter Piot says experimental drugs should be more widely used in Ebola cases
"African governments should be allowed to make informed decisions about whether or not to use these products - for example to protect and treat healthcare workers who run especially high risks of infection," they wrote in a joint statement.
The WHO, "the only body with the necessary international authority" to allow such experimental treatments, "must take on this greater leadership role", they said.
The meeting of the WHO's emergency committee in Geneva is focusing solely on how to respond to the Ebola outbreak.
If a public health emergency is declared it could also involve detailed plans and efforts to identify, isolate and treat cases.
It could involve imposing travel restrictions on affected areas.
A WHO spokesman said: "We can't speculate in advance what the committee members are going to decide in advance."
Meanwhile, the World Bank is allocating $200m (£120m) in emergency assistance for countries battling to contain Ebola.
It is the world's deadliest outbreak to date and has centred on Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. Eight people are currently in quarantine in Nigeria, Africa's most populous country, and two have died there.
The Saudi man died after showing Ebola symptoms when he returned from a business trip to Sierra Leone, the Saudi health ministry said.
He died in an isolation ward at a hospital in Jeddah, it added.
Officials in Liberia said a Spanish priest and two Spanish nuns had been infected in the capital, Monrovia.
The Spanish government said it would send a plane to repatriate its citizens.
British Airways has temporarily suspended flights to and from Liberia and Sierra Leone until 31 August because of the health crisis, the airline said in a statement. It follows a similar suspension by two regional airlines last week.
The virus spreads by contact with infected blood and bodily fluids. The current outbreak is killing between 50% and 60% of people infected.
There is no cure or vaccine for Ebola - but patients have a better chance of survival if they receive early treatment.
Ebola has initial flu-like symptoms that can lead to external haemorrhaging from areas like eyes and gums, and internal bleeding which can lead to organ failure.
Ebola virus disease (EVD)
Image copyright Science Photo Library
Symptoms include high fever, bleeding and central nervous system damage
Fatality rate can reach 90% - but the current outbreak is about 55%
Incubation period is two to 21 days
There is no vaccine or cure
Supportive care such as rehydrating patients who have diarrhoea and vomiting can help recovery
Fruit bats are considered to be virus' natural host
Ebola: Experimental treatments
Why Ebola is so dangerous ||||| RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) — A Saudi national, who fell ill after returning from Sierra Leone, died early Wednesday in his hospital isolation ward where he was being tested for the Ebola virus, said the Saudi Health Ministry.
The 40-year-old returned on Sunday from Sierra Leone, where there has been an Ebola outbreak, and was then hospitalized in Jiddah after showing symptoms of the viral hemorrhagic fever.
The patient's samples are being tested in an international reference lab on the advice of the World Health Organization. He had already tested negative for dengue fever.
Different types of viral hemorrhagic fevers have been found in the kingdom, but the ministry statement said no case of Ebola has ever been detected there.
Ebola, which has no proven vaccine or treatment, has killed more than 900 people this year in four countries in West Africa.
Saudi Arabia announced in April that it was not issuing visas this year to Muslim pilgrims from Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea as a precaution to avoid the spread during the hajj pilgrimage, which sees massive crowds of people from around the world gather in Mecca.
Saudi Ambassador in Guinea Amjad Bedaiwi was quoted in the Saudi Arab News Wednesday saying the decision affects a total of 7,400 pilgrims from those three countries. ||||| MADRID (AP) — Spain has sent a medically-equipped jet to Liberia to bring home a Spanish missionary priest who has tested positive for the Ebola virus, officials said Wednesday.
The priest, Miguel Pajares, will be treated at a hospital in Madrid after he arrives but public health general director Mercedes Vinuesa did not tell reporters which one.
Parajes was helping to treat people infected with Ebola and is one of three who tested positive at the San Jose de Monrovia Hospital in Liberia.
All work for the San Juan de Dios hospital order, a Catholic humanitarian group that runs hospitals around the world.
The other two infected aid workers were identified as Chantal Pascaline Mutwamene of Congo and Paciencia Melgar from Equatorial Guinea. Three other missionaries working at the hospital tested negative.
Vinuesa said the Defense Ministry Airbus 310 that will transport Pajares has medical equipment on board to treat more people if needed.
It's the first time that someone infected with Ebola will be treated in Spain. Vinuesa downplayed possible public health risk concerns during a press conference.
"The (safety) protocols we will use guarantee minimum risk," she said. ||||| ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) — A Nigerian nurse who treated a man with Ebola is now dead and five others are sick with one of the world's most virulent diseases, authorities said Wednesday as the death toll rose to at least 932 people in four West African countries.
Nigerian health officials wait to screen passengers at the arrival hall of Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos, Nigeria, Monday, Aug. 4, 2014. Nigerian authorities on Monday confirmed a second... (Associated Press)
Nigeria health official display a leaflet explaining Ebola Virus Disease at the arrival hall of Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos, Nigeria, Monday, Aug. 4, 2014. Nigerian authorities on... (Associated Press)
Nigerian health officials wait to screen passengers at the arrivals hall of Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos, Nigeria, Monday, Aug. 4, 2014. Nigerian authorities on Monday confirmed a second... (Associated Press)
Passengers queue for their passport document check by immigration officers at the arrivals hall of Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos, Nigeria, Monday, Aug. 4, 2014. Nigerian authorities... (Associated Press)
A Nigerian health official wearing a protective suit waits to screen passengers at the arrivals hall of Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos, Nigeria, Monday, Aug. 4, 2014. Nigerian authorities... (Associated Press)
Passengers are seen at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos, Nigeria, Monday, Aug. 4, 2014. Nigerian authorities on Monday confirmed a second case of Ebola in Africa's most populous country,... (Associated Press)
The growing number of cases in Lagos, a megacity of some 21 million people, comes as authorities acknowledge they did not treat Patrick Sawyer as an Ebola patient and isolate him for the first 24 hours after his arrival in Nigeria last month. Sawyer, a 40-year-old American of Liberian descent with a wife and three young daughters in Minnesota, was traveling on a business flight to Nigeria when he fell ill.
The death of the unidentified nurse marks the second Ebola death in Nigeria, and this worries health experts as it is the Africa's most populous country and Lagos, where the deaths occurred, one of its biggest cities.
Ben Webster, a Red Cross disaster response manager in London, said it is "critically important" that people displaying symptoms are identified quickly.
"It's impossible to say whether this specific situation could have been avoided, but there is certainly more likelihood of travelers coming from an Ebola-affected country in the region and authorities need to be aware, even if the infrastructure and situation is challenging."
In Saudi Arabia officials say a man who was being tested for the Ebola virus has died. The 40-year-old returned on Sunday from Sierra Leone, where at least 286 people have died from Ebola, and was then hospitalized in Jiddah after showing symptoms of the viral hemorrhagic fever.
Spain's Defense Ministry, meanwhile, said a medically-equipped Airbus 310 is ready to fly to Liberia to repatriate a Spanish missionary priest who has Ebola. The ministry said Wednesday that preparations for the flight are being finalized but it is not yet known what time the plane will take off.
The priest, Miguel Pajares, is one of three missionaries being kept in isolation at the San Jose de Monrovia Hospital in Liberia who have tested positive for the virus, Spain's San Juan de Dios hospital order, a Catholic humanitarian group that runs hospitals around the world, said Tuesday.
There have now been at least 1,711 cases of Ebola this year, which has no proven vaccine or treatment, according to new figures released Wednesday by the World Health Organization. More than 932 people have died in Sierra Leone, Guinea, Liberia and Nigeria as of Aug. 4, WHO said. In announcing the new deaths, WHO noted in particular that "community resistance remains high" in Liberia. Many fearful family members are refusing to bring sick relatives to isolation centers, preferring to treat them at home and pray for their survival as no proven cure or treatment exists for Ebola.
The difficulties in quarantining sick people are complicating efforts to stop Ebola's spread.
In Nigeria, the five people now infected from Sawyer would not have been contagious to their neighbors or family members until they started showing symptoms of their own, health experts say. The delay in enforcing infection control measures, though, is another setback in the battle to stamp out the worst Ebola outbreak in history.
The specter of the virus spreading through Nigeria is particularly alarming, said Stephen Morse, an epidemiology professor at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health.
"It makes you nervous when so many people are potentially at risk," he said.
Lagos is a bewildering combination of wealth and abject poverty, awash in luxury SUVs and decrepit buses alike that carry passengers through hours of crowded traffic on the bridges linking the city's islands to the mainland.
Ebola can only be transmitted through direct contact with the bodily fluids of someone who is sick — blood, semen, saliva, urine, feces or sweat. Millions live in cramped conditions without access to flushable toilets, and signs posted across the megacity tell people not to urinate in public.
Authorities in Liberia said Sawyer's sister had recently died of Ebola, though Sawyer said he had not had close contact with her while she was ill.
In announcing his death, Health Minister Onyebuchi Chukwu maintained that Nigerian officials had been vigilant.
"It was right there (at the airport) that the problem was noticed because we have maintained our surveillance," he told reporters. "And immediately, he went into the custody of the port health services of the federal ministry of health so there was no time for him to mingle in Lagos. He has not been in touch with any other person again since we took him from the airport."
On Tuesday, the Lagos state health commissioner said, however, that they did not suspect Ebola immediately and it was only after about 24 hours in the hospital that they identified him as a possible Ebola case.
"They went back to the history and they were like 'Oh, this is Liberia,' and that's why he was put into isolation," Lagos state health commissioner Jide Idris told reporters. "So even in that window period it was possible that some of these people got infected."
Nigeria was among the countries present at a regional meeting of health officials in Ghana at the beginning of July where they agreed to step up surveillance of potential Ebola cases and quickly share information with the World Health Organization.
Sawyer, who had a fever and was vomiting on the plane, was coming from the infected country of Liberia but had a layover in Togo. As a result, officials may not have initially known his original point of departure and it was unclear whether he was traveling on a Liberian or American passport.
Experts say people infected with Ebola can spread the disease only through their bodily fluids and after they show symptoms. Since the incubation period can last up to three weeks, some of the Nigerians who treated Sawyer are only now showing signs of illness that can mimic many common tropical illnesses — fever, muscle aches and vomiting.
The national health minister on Wednesday said special tents would be used to speed up the establishment of isolation wards in all of Nigeria's states. Authorities are setting up an emergency center in Lagos to deal with Ebola that will be "fully functional" by Thursday, he said.
"We are embarking on recruiting additional health personnel to strengthen the team who are currently managing the situation in Lagos," said his statement.
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Larson reported from Dakar, Senegal. Associated Press Medical Writers Maria Cheng in London and Mike Stobbe in New York contributed to this report.
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– The death toll from the Ebola outbreak in West Africa has risen to 932, the World Health Organization says. Most of the new deaths are coming from Liberia and Sierra Leone. The outbreak emerged in March in Guinea and shows no sign of slowing down. Among the latest news: Nigeria today confirmed the death of a nurse, the country's second death from the illness, the AP reports. Saudi Arabia announced one death of a man with Ebola-like symptoms; it could be the first death outside Africa from the illness. Spain has sent a medically-equipped jet to Liberia to bring home a Spanish missionary priest who has tested positive for the Ebola virus, officials say. The World Health Organization has kicked off two days of meetings to discuss how to address the crisis, the BBC notes.
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Pharmaceutical firm Mylan is dramatically expanding a nationwide recall of some blood pressure medications after detecting trace amounts of a chemical linked to cancer. The recalled products all contain Valsartan, which is used to treat high blood pressure and heart failure.
Mylan said in an announcement posted on the the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's website that the drugs -- which were sold in the U.S. between March 2017 and November 2018 -- show trace amounts of the chemical N-nitrosodiethylamine (NDEA). The International Agency for Research on Cancer classifies NDEA as a probable human carcinogen. Research shows the chemical is found in certain pesticides and in tobacco smoke, as well as in water used in industrial processes.
People who take the recalled drugs -- which all have Valsartan in their name -- should contact their pharmacist or physician about alternative treatments, but continue taking them in the meantime due to to he risks of abruptly stopping, Mylan said.
Mylan on Nov. 20 said it was recalling a total of 15 lots of tablets containing Valsartan. The expanded recall adds another 104 lots, including Amlodipine and Valsartan Tablets, Valsartan Tablets and Valsartan and Hydrochlorothiazide Tablets, with varying strengths. All have expiration dates in 2019 and 2020 (see full list here or check images below.)
Mylan did not immediately respond to requests for information on how many bottles might be on consumers' shelves.
Consumers who have the recalled product and have questions can call 1-888-406-9305 (Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Eastern time).
In July, the FDA also recalled certain batches of Valsartan made by Zhejiang Huahai Pharmaceuticals in China. Those drugs were found to contain the chemical N-nitrosodimethylamine (NDMA), which has been shown to increase the occurrence of cancer in animals.
Products being recalled:
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Mylan ||||| Mylan N.V. (NASDAQ: MYL) today announced that its U.S. based Mylan Pharmaceuticals business is expanding its consumer-level voluntary nationwide recall to include all lots of Valsartan-containing products within expiry. The 104 additional lots include 26 lots of Amlodipine and Valsartan Tablets, USP (including the 5mg/160mg, 10mg/160mg, 5mg/320mg and 10mg/320mg strengths), 51 lots of Valsartan Tablets, USP (including 40 mg, 80 mg, 160 mg and 320 mg strengths), and 27 lots of Valsartan and Hydrochlorothiazide Tablets, USP (80mg/12.5mg, 160mg/12.5mg, 160mg/25mg, 320mg/12.5mg and 320mg/25mg strengths).
Out of an abundance of caution, these products are being recalled due to detected trace amounts of an impurity, N-nitrosodiethylamine (NDEA) contained in the API Valsartan, USP, manufactured by Mylan Laboratories Limited. NDEA is a substance that occurs naturally in certain foods, drinking water, air pollution, and industrial processes, and has been classified as a probable human carcinogen according to the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC).
The finished products are manufactured by Mylan Pharmaceuticals Inc. and Mylan Laboratories Limited. These batches were distributed in the U.S. between March 2017 and November 2018. The expanded recalled batches are as follows:
NDC Name and Strength Size Lot No Expiry 0378-1721-93 Amlodipine and Valsartan Tablets, USP 5/160 mg Bottles of 30 3064084 1/2019 0378-1721-93 Amlodipine and Valsartan Tablets, USP 5/160 mg Bottles of 30 3069629 5/2019 0378-1721-93 Amlodipine and Valsartan Tablets, USP 5/160 mg Bottles of 30 3073148 8/2019 0378-1721-93 Amlodipine and Valsartan Tablets, USP 5/160 mg Bottles of 30 3073149 8/2019 0378-1721-93 Amlodipine and Valsartan Tablets, USP 5/160 mg Bottles of 30 3076093 10/2019 0378-1721-93 Amlodipine and Valsartan Tablets, USP 5/160 mg Bottles of 30 3077772 11/2019 0378-1722-93 Amlodipine and Valsartan Tablets, USP 10/160 mg Bottles of 30 3064085 1/2019 0378-1722-93 Amlodipine and Valsartan Tablets, USP 10/160 mg Bottles of 30 3066063 3/2019 0378-1722-93 Amlodipine and Valsartan Tablets, USP 10/160 mg Bottles of 30 3069638 5/2019 0378-1722-93 Amlodipine and Valsartan Tablets, USP 10/160 mg Bottles of 30 3069639 6/2019 0378-1723-93 Amlodipine and Valsartan Tablets, USP 5/320 mg Bottles of 30 3064086 1/2019 0378-1723-93 Amlodipine and Valsartan Tablets, USP 5/320 mg Bottles of 30 3066061 3/2019 0378-1723-93 Amlodipine and Valsartan Tablets, USP 5/320 mg Bottles of 30 3066062 3/2019 0378-1723-93 Amlodipine and Valsartan Tablets, USP 5/320 mg Bottles of 30 3073145 9/2019 0378-1723-93 Amlodipine and Valsartan Tablets, USP 5/320 mg Bottles of 30 3073146 9/2019 0378-1723-93 Amlodipine and Valsartan Tablets, USP 5/320 mg Bottles of 30 3073147 9/2019 0378-1723-93 Amlodipine and Valsartan Tablets, USP 5/320 mg Bottles of 30 3076091 11/2019 0378-1723-93 Amlodipine and Valsartan Tablets, USP 5/320 mg Bottles of 30 3077619 11/2019 0378-1723-93 Amlodipine and Valsartan Tablets, USP 5/320 mg Bottles of 30 3082432 3/2020 0378-1724-93 Amlodipine and Valsartan Tablets, USP 10/320 mg Bottles of 30 3066064 3/2019 0378-1724-93 Amlodipine and Valsartan Tablets, USP 10/320 mg Bottles of 30 3069645 6/2019 0378-1724-93 Amlodipine and Valsartan Tablets, USP 10/320 mg Bottles of 30 3069646 6/2019 0378-1724-93 Amlodipine and Valsartan Tablets, USP 10/320 mg Bottles of 30 3073142 9/2019 0378-1724-93 Amlodipine and Valsartan Tablets, USP 10/320 mg Bottles of 30 3073143 9/2019 0378-1724-93 Amlodipine and Valsartan Tablets, USP 10/320 mg Bottles of 30 3073144 9/2019 0378-1724-93 Amlodipine and Valsartan Tablets, USP 10/320 mg Bottles of 30 3077617 11/2019
NDC Name and Strength Size Lot No Expiry 0378-5807-93 Valsartan Tablets, USP 40 mg Bottles of 30 3063780 1/2019 0378-5807-93 Valsartan Tablets, USP 40 mg Bottles of 30 3074879 10/2019 0378-5807-93 Valsartan Tablets, USP 40 mg Bottles of 30 3086684 6/2020 0378-5807-93 Valsartan Tablets, USP 40 mg Bottles of 30 3086687 6/2020 0378-5813-77 Valsartan Tablets, USP 80 mg Bottles of 90 3065445 2/2019 0378-5813-77 Valsartan Tablets, USP 80 mg Bottles of 90 3074880 10/2019 0378-5813-77 Valsartan Tablets, USP 80 mg Bottles of 90 3074883 10/2019 0378-5813-77 Valsartan Tablets, USP 80 mg Bottles of 90 3086688 6/2020 0378-5813-77 Valsartan Tablets, USP 80 mg Bottles of 90 3086689 6/2020 0378-5813-77 Valsartan Tablets, USP 80 mg Bottles of 90 3086710 6/2020 0378-5814-77 Valsartan Tablets, USP 160 mg Bottles of 90 3069019 5/2019 0378-5814-77 Valsartan Tablets, USP 160 mg Bottles of 90 3069020 5/2019 0378-5814-77 Valsartan Tablets, USP 160 mg Bottles of 90 3069021 5/2019 0378-5814-77 Valsartan Tablets, USP 160 mg Bottles of 90 3069022 5/2019 0378-5814-77 Valsartan Tablets, USP 160 mg Bottles of 90 3071354 7/2019 0378-5814-77 Valsartan Tablets, USP 160 mg Bottles of 90 3071355 7/2019 0378-5814-77 Valsartan Tablets, USP 160 mg Bottles of 90 3071357 7/2019 0378-5814-77 Valsartan Tablets, USP 160 mg Bottles of 90 3079023 1/2020 0378-5814-77 Valsartan Tablets, USP 160 mg Bottles of 90 3079027 1/2020 0378-5814-77 Valsartan Tablets, USP 160 mg Bottles of 90 3079028 1/2020 0378-5814-77 Valsartan Tablets, USP 160 mg Bottles of 90 3079029 1/2020 0378-5814-77 Valsartan Tablets, USP 160 mg Bottles of 90 3079996 2/2020 0378-5814-77 Valsartan Tablets, USP 160 mg Bottles of 90 3079997 2/2020 0378-5814-77 Valsartan Tablets, USP 160 mg Bottles of 90 3079998 2/2020 0378-5814-77 Valsartan Tablets, USP 160 mg Bottles of 90 3083635 4/2020 0378-5814-77 Valsartan Tablets, USP 160 mg Bottles of 90 3086715 6/2020 0378-5814-77 Valsartan Tablets, USP 160 mg Bottles of 90 3086716 7/2020 0378-5814-77 Valsartan Tablets, USP 160 mg Bottles of 90 3086717 7/2020 0378-5814-77 Valsartan Tablets, USP 160 mg Bottles of 90 3088623 8/2020 0378-5815-77 Valsartan Tablets, USP 320 mg Bottles of 90 3063783 1/2019 0378-5815-77 Valsartan Tablets, USP 320 mg Bottles of 90 3063784 1/2019 0378-5815-77 Valsartan Tablets, USP 320 mg Bottles of 90 3063785 1/2019 0378-5815-77 Valsartan Tablets, USP 320 mg Bottles of 90 3064092 1/2019 0378-5815-77 Valsartan Tablets, USP 320 mg Bottles of 90 3064093 1/2019 0378-5815-77 Valsartan Tablets, USP 320 mg Bottles of 90 3064094 1/2019 0378-5815-77 Valsartan Tablets, USP 320 mg Bottles of 90 3070349 6/2019 0378-5815-77 Valsartan Tablets, USP 320 mg Bottles of 90 3070350 6/2019 0378-5815-77 Valsartan Tablets, USP 320 mg Bottles of 90 3070351 6/2019 0378-5815-77 Valsartan Tablets, USP 320 mg Bottles of 90 3070352 6/2019 0378-5815-77 Valsartan Tablets, USP 320 mg Bottles of 90 3070353 6/2019 0378-5815-77 Valsartan Tablets, USP 320 mg Bottles of 90 3070354 6/2019 0378-5815-77 Valsartan Tablets, USP 320 mg Bottles of 90 3079030 1/2020 0378-5815-77 Valsartan Tablets, USP 320 mg Bottles of 90 3079031 1/2020 0378-5815-77 Valsartan Tablets, USP 320 mg Bottles of 90 3079032 1/2020 0378-5815-77 Valsartan Tablets, USP 320 mg Bottles of 90 3079033 1/2020 0378-5815-77 Valsartan Tablets, USP 320 mg Bottles of 90 3080011 2/2020 0378-5815-77 Valsartan Tablets, USP 320 mg Bottles of 90 3080224 2/2020 0378-5815-77 Valsartan Tablets, USP 320 mg Bottles of 90 3081498 3/2020 0378-5815-77 Valsartan Tablets, USP 320 mg Bottles of 90 3081500 3/2020 0378-5815-77 Valsartan Tablets, USP 320 mg Bottles of 90 3087126 7/2020 0378-5815-77 Valsartan Tablets, USP 320 mg Bottles of 90 3088476 8/2020
NDC Name and Strength Size Lot No Expiry 0378-6321-77 Valsartan and Hydrochlorothiazide Tablets, USP 80/12.5 mg Bottles of 90 3084363 2/2019 0378-6321-77 Valsartan and Hydrochlorothiazide Tablets, USP 80/12.5 mg Bottles of 90 3084364 2/2019 0378-6321-77 Valsartan and Hydrochlorothiazide Tablets, USP 80/12.5 mg Bottles of 90 3093800 12/2019 0378-6321-05 Valsartan and Hydrochlorothiazide Tablets, USP 80/12.5 mg Bottles of 500 3084363 2/2019 0378-6321-05 Valsartan and Hydrochlorothiazide Tablets, USP 80/12.5 mg Bottles of 500 3093800 12/2019 0378-6322-77 Valsartan and Hydrochlorothiazide Tablets, USP 160/12.5 mg Bottles of 90 2008880 8/2020 0378-6322-77 Valsartan and Hydrochlorothiazide Tablets, USP 160/12.5 mg Bottles of 90 3084358 2/2019 0378-6322-77 Valsartan and Hydrochlorothiazide Tablets, USP 160/12.5 mg Bottles of 90 3084359 2/2019 0378-6322-77 Valsartan and Hydrochlorothiazide Tablets, USP 160/12.5 mg Bottles of 90 3093801 12/2019 0378-6322-05 Valsartan and Hydrochlorothiazide Tablets, USP 160/12.5 mg Bottles of 500 3084359 2/2019 0378-6322-05 Valsartan and Hydrochlorothiazide Tablets, USP 160/12.5 mg Bottles of 500 3084361 2/2019 0378-6322-05 Valsartan and Hydrochlorothiazide Tablets, USP 160/12.5 mg Bottles of 500 3093801 12/2019 0378-6323-77 Valsartan and Hydrochlorothiazide Tablets, USP 160/25 mg Bottles of 90 3084887 2/2019 0378-6323-77 Valsartan and Hydrochlorothiazide Tablets, USP 160/25 mg Bottles of 90 3093802 12/2019 0378-6323-05 Valsartan and Hydrochlorothiazide Tablets, USP 160/25 mg Bottles of 500 3084887 2/2019 0378-6323-05 Valsartan and Hydrochlorothiazide Tablets, USP 160/25 mg Bottles of 500 3084888 2/2019 0378-6323-05 Valsartan and Hydrochlorothiazide Tablets, USP 160/25 mg Bottles of 500 3093802 12/2019 0378-6324-77 Valsartan and Hydrochlorothiazide Tablets, USP 320/12.5 mg Bottles of 90 3084889 2/2019 0378-6324-77 Valsartan and Hydrochlorothiazide Tablets, USP 320/12.5 mg Bottles of 90 3093803 12/2019 0378-6324-05 Valsartan and Hydrochlorothiazide Tablets, USP 320/12.5 mg Bottles of 500 3084890 2/2019 0378-6324-05 Valsartan and Hydrochlorothiazide Tablets, USP 320/12.5 mg Bottles of 500 3093803 12/2019 0378-6325-77 Valsartan and Hydrochlorothiazide Tablets, USP 320/25 mg Bottles of 90 3084860 2/2019 0378-6325-77 Valsartan and Hydrochlorothiazide Tablets, USP 320/25 mg Bottles of 90 3084861 2/2019 0378-6325-77 Valsartan and Hydrochlorothiazide Tablets, USP 320/25 mg Bottles of 90 3084862 2/2019 0378-6325-77 Valsartan and Hydrochlorothiazide Tablets, USP 320/25 mg Bottles of 90 3093804 12/2019 0378-6325-05 Valsartan and Hydrochlorothiazide Tablets, USP 320/25 mg Bottles of 500 3084862 2/2019 0378-6325-05 Valsartan and Hydrochlorothiazide Tablets, USP 320/25 mg Bottles of 500 3084863 2/2019
Valsartan is used for the treatment of high blood pressure for the treatment of heart failure, and to reduce cardiovascular mortality following myocardial infarction. Valsartan in combination with amlodipine or hydrochlorothiazide is used for the treatment of high blood pressure. Patients should contact their pharmacist or physician who can advise them about an alternative treatment prior to returning their medication. Patients who are on valsartan should continue taking their medication, as the risk of harm to the patient’s health may be higher if the treatment is stopped immediately without any alternative treatment.
Mylan is notifying its distributors and customers by letter and is arranging for return of all recalled products. Wholesalers, retailers and consumers that are in possession of recalled product should contact Stericycle at 1-888-406-9305 for the return of the recalled product. Normal business hours are Monday through Friday 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. EST.
Consumers should contact their physician or healthcare provider if they have experienced any problems that may be related to using these drug products.
Adverse reactions or quality problems experienced with the use of this product may be reported to the FDA's MedWatch Adverse Event Reporting program either online, by regular mail or by fax. Complete and submit the report Online: www.fda.gov/medwatch/report.htm
Regular Mail or Fax: Download form www.fda.gov/MedWatch/getforms.htm or call 1-800-332-1088 to request a reporting form, then complete and return to the address on the pre-addressed form or submit by fax to 1-800-FDA-0178.
This recall is being conducted with the knowledge of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Initial Press Release
###
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– The recall of heart medications containing the drug valsartan has expanded, with generic drug maker Mylan this week recalling 104 lots of three medicines. These include valsartan tablets, valsartan and amlodipine combination tablets, and hydrochlorothiazide, HealthDay reports. This latest move follows similar recalls in recent months after drug makers have detected trace amounts of the chemical N- nitrosodiethylamine, or NDEA, which is a probable human carcinogen, according to an FDA statement. CBS reports that NDEA is present in some pesticides, tobacco smoke, and water used in industrial processes. The contamination has been linked to factories in China and India. Find the FDA’s list of recalled valsartan medications here. (Three letters led to recall of hundreds of license plates.)
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(Reuters Health) - Infant deaths attributed to crib bumpers may be increasing despite media coverage of the risks and industry regulation, according to a new analysis.
Three times as many children died in crib bumper-related deaths between 2006 and 2012 as in the three previous seven-year time periods, researchers report in The Journal of Pediatrics.
"I don’t know if it's that people are more aware and they're reporting more, but it could be an actual increase," said senior author Dr. Bradley Thach, of Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri.
Crib bumpers are pillow-like walls installed around the inside of cribs to protect babies from bumping into hard bars or getting limbs caught. However, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) says there is no proof that bumpers work, but they do pose a risk of suffocation, strangulation or entrapment.
For the new study, Thach and his colleagues analyzed data from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) on bumper-related deaths, injuries and accidents.
They identified 48 deaths by suffocation related to crib bumpers between 1985 and 2012. On average, infants were about five months old when they died, but ages ranged from one to 22 months.
"They get their face pressed into the bumper and then they don’t get adequate oxygen," Thach said.
About 67 percent of the deaths were caused by the bumpers. The other deaths were caused by infants being wedged between bumpers and other objects, like pillows and other children.
There were an average of eight deaths for each seven year-period starting in 1985, but that increased to 23 deaths between 2006 and 2012.
The researchers can't say why deaths increased. It could be that states and doctors are reporting more of the deaths, or more infants are dying, they write.
It's possible that even more deaths are related to crib bumpers. When the researchers included crib-bumper data from the National Center for the Review and Prevention of Child Deaths covering 2008-2011, they counted a total of 77 deaths, instead of their original 48.
The researchers also found 146 injuries and accidents related to crib bumpers between 1990 and 2012, including at least 11 that were life-threatening.
Some babies could swallow the ties of the bumper, Thach said. He added that older babies can use bumpers to climb out of the crib and fall, too.
Thach and his colleagues point out that the AAP has been advising against crib bumpers since 2008, and doctors, media articles, publications for parents, and injury lawyers have also recommended against them. "Despite this nationwide publicity. . . deaths have not decreased, likely because bumpers remain widely available in the marketplace, media articles commonly show cribs with bumpers, and parents often believe bumpers are necessary for comfort and safety," they write.
In a statement to Reuters Health, the Juvenile Products Manufacturers Association (JPMA) said traditional crib bumpers can help address parents' concerns about crib-related injuries when used according to instructions.
"In 2013 an independent research firm evaluated all available information, including incident reports and allegations and found that at no time has the crib bumper been cited as the sole cause of an infant’s death," said the statement.
The JPMA also said consumers who want bumpers for the care of their baby should buy products that comply with the guidelines set by the standards organization ASTM International.
Thach and colleagues warn that self-regulation and following safe sleeping practices won't stop children from suffocating if their faces get covered by crib bumpers.
"We recommend that CPSC ban traditional crib bumpers for sale in
the U.S. quickly," they add.
SOURCE: bit.ly/1Ie9v2u The Journal of Pediatrics, online November 24, 2015. ||||| Padded bumpers offered as safety features in baby cribs are to blame for a rising number of infant deaths, according to findings reported Tuesday in the Journal of Pediatrics.
“When a baby’s nose and mouth are covered by a bumper, they can suffocate from their airway being blocked or from breathing oxygen-depleted air,” said the report’s lead author, NJ Scheers. Now retired, Scheers is the former manager of the Infant Suffocation Project at the federal Consumer Products Safety Commission (CPSC).
Various groups, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Canadian Pediatric Society, and the National Institutes of Health, have recommended against the use of bumpers since a 2007 study highlighted the risks.
But pediatricians’ warnings don’t appear to be diminishing the products’ usage. Scheers and colleagues analyzed bumper-related deaths in CPSC databases and found that from 2006-2012, crib bumpers were responsible for 23 deaths, nearly as many as were seen over the two decades prior to 2006.
Scheers said she hopes the research will lead to a CPSC ban. Currently the action is voluntary: Some Ikea and Target stores have stopped selling the bumpers in recent years. The city of Chicago and the state of Maryland have also banned the sale of crib bumpers. But, said Nancy Cowles, executive director of consumer advocacy group Kids in Danger, “until we get them off of all the store shelves, we’re going to keep seeing these deaths.”
Leah Samuel can be reached at [email protected]
Follow Leah on Twitter @leah_samuel
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– Despite warnings from groups like the American Academy of Pediatrics and the National Institute of Health, infant deaths related to padded crib bumpers may have tripled in recent years, Stat reports. A study published Tuesday in the Journal of Pediatrics used data from the Consumer Product Safety Commission to identify 23 bumper-related deaths between 2006 and 2012. That's up from an average of eight during every previous seven-year period starting in 1985, according to Reuters. And it could still be a massive underreporting. "Despite this nationwide publicity…deaths have not decreased, likely because bumpers remain widely available in the marketplace, media articles commonly show cribs with bumpers, and parents often believe bumpers are necessary for comfort and safety," Reuters quotes the study. Stat reports the padded crib bumpers intended to keep babies safe can actually cover their noses and mouths, leading to suffocation. And Reuters notes the American Academy of Pediatrics has found no proof they actually work. According to the study, it's not clear whether bumper-related deaths are actually increasing or just being reported more. Regardless, the study's authors hope their research will lead to a bumper ban. “Until we get them off of all the store shelves, we’re going to keep seeing these deaths," a child-safety advocate tells Stat. Bumpers are currently banned in Maryland and Chicago, and some Target and Ikea stores have stopped selling them. Bumper manufacturers maintain their product is safe as long as instructions are followed.
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SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — A man who originally pleaded not guilty to starting a massive fire two years ago has now admitted he ignited the blaze that burned 80 structures in Northern California.
Thirty-nine-year-old Wayne Allen Huntsman pleaded guilty Friday to three counts of felony arson in the September 2014 King Fire.
El Dorado County Superior Court Judge Daniel Proud sentenced Huntsman to 20 years in prison and ordered him to pay $60 million in restitution.
The King Fire burned 12 homes, 68 other structures and more than 150 square miles of land in the north-central Sierra Nevada mountains. It took 300 firefighters and personnel about a month to control.
Huntsman made a video of himself during the fire that District Attorney Vern Pierson says was an attempt to portray himself as a hero. ||||| The interactive transcript could not be loaded.
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This feature is not available right now. Please try again later. ||||| Man pleads guilty to setting King Fire after selfie video emerges
A 37-year-old man was sentenced to 20 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to starting the 2014 King Fire, which burned a dozen homes and nearly 100,000 acres east of Placerville in the central Sierra.
The case against Wayne Allen Huntsman of Pollock Pines (El Dorado County) was nailed down in part because of a selfie video that Huntsman made at the fire’s origin, the El Dorado County district attorney’s office said Friday.
In the video, recorded Sept. 13, 2014, Huntsman is standing in a forested area between two separately lit blazes, which prosecutors construed as a sign that the fire was intentionally set. Although Huntsman says on his video, “I’m stuck in the middle,” he smiles and does not appear to be fearing for his safety.
A retired firefighter picked up Huntsman after the blaze began. He saw Huntsman’s selfie and recorded it on his own phone, then turned over his video to law enforcement officials, who arrested Huntsman four days later.
Huntsman was also caught on surveillance video, after starting the fire, stealing liquor from a local grocery store, prosecutors said.
The fast-moving inferno burned for nearly a month across 97,717 acres of mostly mountainous terrain along Highway 50 in the El Dorado National Forest. Thousands were forced to evacuate. Damages were estimated in the tens of millions.
Huntsman is originally from the Santa Cruz area, but he moved to Pollock Pines in June 2013 for work, family members told The Chronicle. He was doing odd jobs, mostly home remodeling and landscaping, and living with his girlfriend.
Huntsman has a criminal record that includes convictions for assault with a deadly weapon and grand theft in Santa Cruz County in 1997, public records show. None of his earlier crimes related to arson.
Superior Court Judge Daniel Proud sentenced Huntsman to the maximum allowed for three counts of arson with multiple enhancements for causing injury to firefighters and destroying structures, according to the district attorney’s office.
Huntsman was also ordered to pay $60 million in restitution.
Kurtis Alexander is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: [email protected] Twitter: @kurtisalexander
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– A man who took a video of himself after starting a fire that would go on to burn more than 150 square miles of land was sentenced to 20 years in prison and a $60 million fine, the AP reports. According to Reuters, Wayne Huntsman pleaded guilty to three counts of arson Friday for starting the 2014 King Fire in Northern California that took hundreds of firefighters a month to get under control. His sentence was increased because a number of firefighters were injured and 12 homes and dozens of other structures were destroyed. Thousands of residents were displaced by the fire. Huntsman originally pleaded not guilty to the charges. In September 2014, a retired firefighter picked Huntsman up escaping the area of the blaze, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. Huntsman showed the man a video of himself standing between two fires. "Listen, I got fire all around me," Huntsman says in the video. "I'm stuck in the middle, babe." The man made a recording of the video and turned it over to the authorities, who arrested Huntsman within days. The DA says Huntsman was trying to look like a hero in the video, but it appeared the fires were purposefully set because there were two of them and Huntsman seemed to be enjoying himself. Meanwhile, Huntsman's sister is accused of killing two young children, whose bodies were found in a storage locker in Redding, California, according to SFist.
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LA HABRA, Calif. (KTLA) -- ' Octomom ' Nadya Suleman's La Habra home is now owned by the bank, after no one bid on it in a foreclosure auction Tuesday morning.The opening bid on the three-bedroom, four-bathroom house on Madonna Lane was $355,643, but there were no takers.The house had been on the auction block several times since April, but the sale was put off each time.Suleman, 36, has lived there with her brood of 14 children, including her octuplets, since 2009.She was supposed to pay the owner of the home, Amer Haddadin, a monthly payment to go toward the mortgage.Haddadin couldn't afford to cover the mortgage himself, so he lost the property.The bank will now have to initiate proceedings to evict Suleman and her children.Meantime, Suleman is reportedly being threatened with a lawsuit by a strip club in West Palm Beach , Florida where she was supposed to dance topless.She was scheduled to perform two shows a night for four days at T's Lounge starting July 11.But Suleman canceled earlier this month because of comments club staffers made about her, according to her rep, Gina Rodriguez.A bartender from the club said in a local news interview that Suleman had "a lot of mouths too feed, so it was only a matter of time" before she started stripping, Rodriguez said.The bartender also reportedly said, "She must be a little crazy, normal people don't have that many children."The stripping gig was supposed to help promote Suleman's upcoming solo porn video, 'Octomom: Home Alone,' due out on June 20.Suleman previously made headlines at the end of March, when she was featured in a nude photo spread for Closer Magazine.She reportedly earned $10,000 for the shoot, but that wasn't enough to keep her family afloat.Suleman filed for bankruptcy on April 30, just one month after going on welfare to support herself and her kids.In court documents, Suleman said she had $50,000 in assets and up to $1 million in debts.The bankruptcy case was later tossed out after she failed to complete the necessary paperwork showing she couldn't pay off her debts.That paved the way for creditors to resume their collections and for foreclosure proceedings to move forward on her La Habra home.Suleman is currently on welfare and receiving $2,000 a month in food stamps.She gained nationwide attention in 2009 when she gave birth to octuplets.She garnered the name "Octomom" and became a symbol of the excesses of assisted reproduction. ||||| Octomom's House A Picture of Squalor
'Octomom' Nadya Suleman's House -- A Picture of Squalor
EXCLUSIVE
TMZ has obtained pictures of's home that have triggered a police and child services investigation into allegations that her 14 kids are living in horrendous conditions and are being grossly neglected.TMZ broke the story, Octo's hairstylist, Stephanie, went to La Habra cops Tuesday afternoon and filed a formal complaint. A La Habra cop and 3 reps from the Orange County Department of Children and Family Services went to Octo's house Tuesday night to investigate.One picture shows two children pooping in a portable training toilet in the backyard. We're told the plumbing in the house is shot, and only one toilet is operational.Another photo shows Octo just after she got her hair done. What's shocking is that she locked her kids in the bedroom by propping a chair against the door so they couldn't get out.Yet another pic shows the children's bedroom, with 2 cribs and a mattress. Stephanie told cops some of the kids are forced to sleep on the floor.And there's more ... a pic shows some of the kids in the backyard, barefoot, dirty and wearing no pants.
Stephanie tells TMZ, "The kids are in desperate need of help, and I tried to help and she's not open to anyone helping her." She says the boys are wearing girl's clothes, they are neglected and Nadya is just incapable of caring for them.Authorities stayed at Octo's home Tuesday night for an hour-and-a-half, and determined the kids were not in danger. There will, however, be follow-up with Children's Services.
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– Social workers visited Nadya Suleman's home last night after an official complaint—by the Octomom's own hairstylist—that her 14 children are living in "general neglect." TMZ has the pictures that triggered the investigation, and while some of the allegations are less than hard-hitting (the kids are barefoot outside?! Horrors!), others are admittedly gross (children pooping in an outdoor training potty because only one indoor toilet works) and/or disturbing (Suleman allegedly locked the kids in a bedroom, blocking the door with a chair). Police officers and social service workers did not find the kids to be in danger during last night's visit, KTLA reports, but the inquiry will continue.
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President Donald Trump’s right-hand man Steven Bannon can check off letting the public know what he’s really doing in the White House — that ship has sailed, thanks to Rabbi Shmuley Boteach.
“America’s Rabbi,” as Boteach calls himself, exposed what the Trump strategist has apparently been working on when they posed for a photo with Bannon’s whiteboard — containing his hand-written to-do list — in the background.
With @SteveBannon in the White House on #israelindependenceday. Steve is a great, stalwart friend of the Jewish State pic.twitter.com/PFxSCK7blc — Rabbi Shmuley (@RabbiShmuley) May 2, 2017
Then Boteach, who was at the White House for an Israel Independence Day celebration, tweeted the photo on Tuesday for all to see.
But as soon as it went viral, the public quickly zeroed-in on the scribble in the background, not so much on the smiling fellows in front.
One of the hand-written goals on the whiteboard is no secret to anybody who has followed the Trump campaign. “Build the border wall and eventually make Mexico pay for it,” it says.
And there is no check mark beside it to indicate mission accomplished.
But, for reasons unclear, there are check marks beside two other Trump goals that have been blocked by federal courts, namely “Suspend immigration from terror prone regions” and “Suspend the Syrian refugee Program.”
Under the heading “Pledges on Immigration,” there’s a line that says “Cancel all federal funding to sanctuary cities.”
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That has a check mark beside it even though a federal judge blocked that executive order too. And it appears to contradict the Trump Administration's official position that they only intend to withhold discretionary funding to sanctuary cities.
Notably, there is also no check mark beside the top item on the white board, “Repeal and replace Obamacare.” Currently, the White House is desperately trying to get the GOP-controlled Congress to do just that. Their first attempt failed spectacularly.
There appear to be several dozen more goals scribbled on the board, including other unfulfilled promises like "Eliminate the estate tax" and "Hire 5,000 more Border Patrol agents."
Boteach, 50, is a contributor to Breitbart News, which is Bannon’s former outfit before he joined team Trump.
Before that, the enterprising and outspoken Orthodox Jewish rabbi carved himself out a career as a TV host, public speaker, and author of several dozen books, including the best-selling “Kosher Sex: A Recipe for Passion and Intimacy.”
For a time, the right-wing rabbi was also an unofficial spiritual adviser to the late Michael Jackson and he made a failed bid to win a congressional seat in New Jersey as a Republican. ||||| BTW
If you’re going to have your picture taken, it’s probably a good idea to check what’s in the background—especially if you’re standing in the White House.
Steve Bannon, President Donald Trump‘s chief strategist, discovered this little trick about photography this week after Rabbi Shmuley Boteach shared photos of his visit to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. on Israel Independence Day that showed portions of his giant list of “pledges” written on a whiteboard.
With @SteveBannon in the White House on #israelindependenceday. Steve is a great, stalwart friend of the Jewish State pic.twitter.com/PFxSCK7blc — Rabbi Shmuley (@RabbiShmuley) May 2, 2017
With Steve Bannon and Debbie at the White House on #IsraelIndependenceDay2017. Thank u Steve for your love of Israel pic.twitter.com/xrU4nLUyYU — Rabbi Shmuley (@RabbiShmuley) May 2, 2017
The internet, of course, began scouring the list for clues about what the Trump administration plans to do next. Alas, most of the items on the lists are either common knowledge or entirely unsurprising. (For example, supporting the “Davis-Oliver bill,” a piece of immigration enforcement legislation, aligns with the administration’s hard line on illegal immigration.) Others have already been accomplished and, thus, their existence known—but there are a few that are cut off and leave room for interpretation. “Build the border wall and eventually make Mexico…” could end a number of ways, but “pay for it” is the most obvious option.
There is one item, however, that may prove consequential: The first item on the “Pledges on Immigration” list —“Cancel all federal funding to sanctuary cities”—could potentially impact ongoing litigation against a Trump executive order that seeks to deprive cities that refuse to enforce U.S. immigration law of federal funds.
In a federal lawsuit over the sanctuary cities executive order filed by the city of San Francisco and county of Santa Clara against the Department of Justice, DOJ attorneys argued that the federal government is only attempting to deprive sanctuary cities of only limited funds. Bannon listing the goal to “cancel all federal fund to sanctuary cities,” then, could undermine that argument. ||||| 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 ||||| Washington (CNN) Here it is: our first visual glimpse at the hive mind where Trump's chief strategist, Steven Bannon, is plotting the "deconstruction" of the administrative state .
We've heard descriptions of Bannon's office before.
Here's how CNN's Maeve Reston, pulling reporting from the network's White House reporters like Jeff Zeleny, described the room in a recent piece for CNN's new online magazine, "State."
When he moved into the White House, Trump's chief strategist removed the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and sofa from his office and positioned his desk in the corner to make room for giant whiteboards that are lined up in four columns beneath the campaign theme: Make. America. Great. Again. In the final hours of the first 100 days, the promises kept were marked with a red X, including abandoning a massive Pacific trade deal. The column without a single red X: Legislative accomplishments.
Now, thanks to some innocently tweeted photographs from Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, the Orthodox rabbi, author and TV personality, we can see the priorities that form Bannon's to-do list.
With Steve Bannon and Debbie at the White House on #IsraelIndependenceDay2017. Thank u Steve for your love of Israel pic.twitter.com/xrU4nLUyYU — Rabbi Shmuley (@RabbiShmuley) May 2, 2017
Shmuley was making the rounds in Washington for Israel Independence Day this week and innocently posted photos of himself with notable Republicans.
Here's another look:
With @SteveBannon in the White House on #israelindependenceday. Steve is a great, stalwart friend of the Jewish State pic.twitter.com/PFxSCK7blc — Rabbi Shmuley (@RabbiShmuley) May 2, 2017
And a close-up:
There's been an effort on social media to decipher the visible portions of the whiteboards (there are others in the office not visible in Shmuley's photos).
The ones we can see list columns for "Pledges on Obamacare," Pledges on Tax Reform," "Pledges on Infrastructure" and "Pledges on Immigration."
A check mark is thought to mean pledge fulfilled.
The most-noticed pledge is the one that reads:
Build the border wall and eventually make Mexico...
So obviously, the administration still has designs on somehow making Mexico pay for the border wall it wants to build even as it sets about trying ( in vain so far ) to get Congress to pay for it first.
There are check marks next to these items:
Suspend the Syrian refugee program
(That suspension, issued as part of an executive action, has been stymied by the courts , however)
End "catch-and-release"
(Yep, the Department of Justice is hard at work stepping up deportations and prosecutions
Hire 5,000 more Border Patrol agents and
Triple the number of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents
(That's in the works, but has encountered some hurdles , as CNNMoney has reported)
Restore the Secure Communities program
Achieved as part of an initial raft of executive orders, this is aimed at making local law enforcement share biometric data with the feds.
Other bullets under immigration may have check marks too, but they're not visible.
Some of the bullets are targeted at legislation, like the tax reform and Obamacare sections, neither of which has any check marks.
Others are targeted at specific bills, like the Davis-Oliver bill, which would give local law enforcement more responsibility to detain the undocumented. There's mention of "Kate's Law," which would send foreigners who re-enter the country illegally after being deported, to jail for at least five years.
There's also mention, mostly obscured, of the Iran nuclear deal and moving the Israeli embassy to Jerusalem. Under what must be "Pledges on Trade," it mentions withdrawing from something, negotiating something else and renegotiating a third thing.
In short, Bannon's whiteboard doesn't include anything the President and the White House haven't talked about publicly. But it is fascinating to see it scrawled out so carefully in his West Wing office.
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– When Steve Bannon moved into his office in the White House, he moved out bookshelves and a couch to make room for a bunch of big whiteboards, CNN reports. Thanks to "America's rabbi," we now know what's on at least one of those whiteboards. According to the Daily Dot, Rabbi Shmuley Boteach visited the White House for Israel Independence Day and posed for photos with Bannon, which he shared on Twitter. A whiteboard full of "pledges" is visible in the background. NBC News describes the whiteboard as Bannon's "hand-written to-do list." Topics on the whiteboard include "Pledges on Obamacare," "Pledges on Tax Reform," and "Pledges on Infrastructure." Despite the internet scouring Bannon's whiteboard for secret plans, there isn't anything on there the Trump administration hasn't talked about publicly. Items include "Eliminate the estate tax," "Hire 5,000 more Border Patrol agents," and "Suspend the Syrian refugee program." There is one interesting item, however: "Cancel all federal funding to sanctuary cities." President Trump's executive order to withhold funding from sanctuary cities is currently being argued in federal court, with Justice Department lawyers arguing the order would only really keep a small amount of funding from sanctuary cities. But Bannon's use of "all federal funds" on his whiteboard may hurt that argument.
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A large Australian study of more than 200,000 people has provided independent confirmation that up to two in every three smokers will die from their habit if they continue to smoke.
The research, published today in the international journal BMC Medicine, is the first evidence from a broad cross-section of the population to show the smoking-related death toll is as high as two thirds.
"We knew smoking was bad but we now have direct independent evidence that confirms the disturbing findings that have been emerging internationally, said lead author Professor Emily Banks, Scientific Director of the Sax Institute's 45 and Up Study and a researcher at the Australian National University.
"Even with the very low rates of smoking that we have in Australia we found that smokers have around three-fold the risk of premature death of those who have never smoked. We also found smokers will die an estimated 10 years earlier than non-smokers."
Until relatively recently it was thought that about half of smokers would die of a smoking-related illness, but newer studies in UK women, British doctors and Amercian Cancer Society volunteers have put the figure much higher, at up to 67%.
"We have been able to show exactly the same result in a very large population-wide sample," Professor Banks said.
The research is the result of a four-year analysis of health outcomes from more than 200,000 men and women participating in the Sax Institute's 45 and Up Study ? the largest longitudinal study of healthy ageing in the Southern Hemisphere.
Australia has one of the lowest smoking rates in the world - at 13% of the population ? and is an international leader on plain cigarette packaging. "But our findings are an important reminder that the war on tobacco is not yet won, and tobacco control efforts must go on," Professor Banks said.
The research was supported by the National Heart Foundation of Australia in collaboration with major 45 and Up Study partner Cancer Council NSW and was conducted by a national and international team. It also found that compared with non-smokers, smoking just 10 cigarettes a day doubles the risk of dying and smoking a pack a day increases the risk four- to five-fold.
The NSW Heart Foundation's CEO, Kerry Doyle, said the Australian Government was on the right path in driving down smoking rates through initiatives like tax increases and plain packaging.
"Higher tobacco prices have been shown to be the most effective intervention available to governments to reduce demand for tobacco. With smoking being a major cause of cardiovascular disease, including heart attack, stroke and peripheral vascular disease the more deterrents people have between them and smoking, the better," Ms Doyle said.
Scott Walsberger, Tobacco Control Manager at Cancer Council NSW, said the research results highlighted an important message for smokers: "It's never too late to quit ? no matter what your age, or how much you smoke."
### ||||| TUESDAY, Feb. 24, 2015 (HealthDay News) -- Two-thirds of smokers will die early from their habit if they don't quit, a new study suggests.
The findings indicate that it's never too late to quit smoking, one expert said.
Researchers analyzed data from more than 200,000 people taking part in a study conducted by the Sax Institute in Australia. The study is a long-term investigation of healthy aging.
"We knew smoking was bad, but we now have direct independent evidence that confirms the disturbing findings that have been emerging internationally," Emily Banks, scientific director of the Sax study and a researcher at the Australian National University, said in an institute news release.
"Even with the very low rates of smoking that we have in Australia, we found that smokers have around threefold the risk of premature death of those who have never smoked. We also found smokers will die an estimated 10 years earlier than nonsmokers," she added.
Compared with not smoking, having just 10 cigarettes a day doubles the risk of dying early. And smoking a pack a day increases the risk four- to fivefold, according to the study published Feb. 24 in the journal BMC Medicine.
It was long thought that smoking-related diseases would kill about half of smokers early, but newer research has put the figure as high as 67 percent. This study gives further credence to that larger death toll, the study authors noted in the news release.
The findings offer an important message to smokers, according to Scott Walsberger, tobacco control manager at the Cancer Council NSW in Australia.
"It's never too late to quit, no matter what your age or how much you smoke," Walsberger said.
More information
The American Cancer Society offers a guide to quitting smoking.
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– In case you weren't convinced of the dangers of smoking, a new study offers a stark figure: Up to two-thirds of those who continue smoking will die as a result, researchers say in a press release. The Australian study was a big one, based on assessments of the health of 200,000 people over four years; the men and women are part of the southern hemisphere's biggest longitudinal study on aging, the release notes. "We found that smokers have around threefold the risk of premature death of those who have never smoked," says researcher Emily Banks. "We also found smokers will die an estimated 10 years earlier than non-smokers." That was true for both men and women, Banks says, as the Sydney Morning Herald reports. The two-thirds figure supports similar results from the UK and US. The average smoker in the study kept up the habit for 38.5 years, and the majority smoked at least 15 cigarettes daily. That's particularly worrying given that mortality rates were about twice as high "in those smoking around 10 cigarettes per day." A pack a day means death rates fourfold or fivefold what a nonsmoker experiences, the study finds. "Our findings are an important reminder that the war on tobacco is not yet won, and tobacco control efforts must go on," Banks notes. Looking on the bright side, the study shows "it's never too late to quit, no matter what your age or how much you smoke," says another expert, as HealthDay News reports. (Another recent study finds that smoking kills more people than we thought.)
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JERUSALEM — Dealing a blow to the Obama administration’s efforts to restart Middle East peace talks, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton failed Saturday to persuade the Palestinian leader to accept an Israeli proposal that would slow but not stop the construction of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
The Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas, insisted that Israel must halt all construction of housing units before broader negotiations could begin. He rebuffed an Israeli proposal — developed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and relayed by Mrs. Clinton — to complete about 3,000 units and temporarily freeze other construction, the chief Palestinian negotiator, Saeb Erekat, said after the meeting.
“This is a nonstarter,” Mr. Erekat said. “Mr. Netanyahu has a choice, settlements or peace, and he has chosen settlements.”
Mrs. Clinton’s meetings, which came after a three-day trip to Pakistan, followed on President Obama’s pledge last month to redouble American efforts to revive the peace process. But on a marathon day of diplomacy that took her from the Persian Gulf emirate of Abu Dhabi to Israel and then on to Morocco, she discovered that if anything, the hurdles to a peace negotiation have grown larger.
Photo
American officials insist Mrs. Clinton did not push Mr. Abbas to accept the Israeli proposal in her two-hour meeting with him, which was hastily arranged and took place in Abu Dhabi,. But she made clear later she was eager to narrow the gap between the two sides.
“We know that negotiations often take positions that then have to be worked through, once the actual process starts,” she said at a news conference in Jerusalem, where she met with Mr. Netanyahu.
She also markedly softened her tone on whether Israel should cease all settlement construction, something she and Mr. Obama have demanded since early in the administration. While Mrs. Clinton said the administration’s desire to see a complete freeze had not changed, she characterized Mr. Netanyahu’s offer of “restraint” on settlements as “unprecedented.”
And she conspicuously avoided criticizing the demolition of Palestinians’ houses in East Jerusalem, though she said her opposition to it had not changed. In March, on her first visit to the Middle East as secretary of state, Mrs. Clinton strongly condemned the demolitions, which Palestinians say are aimed at squeezing them out and would hamper the creation of a Palestinian state.
In recent days, the municipal authorities in Jerusalem have ordered the demolition of more houses.
For his part, Mr. Netanyahu accused the Palestinians of using settlements as a pretext to avoid negotiations.
“We think we should sit around that negotiating table right away,” he said. “I think what we should do on the path to peace is to simply is get on it, and get with it.”
The administration’s efforts to revive peace negotiations have been unsuccessful, largely for reasons having to do both with its own ambitious goals and with unfavorable regional politics.
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In addition to the settlement freeze, Mr. Obama has tried to extract a series of reciprocal confidence-building gestures from Israel’s Arab neighbors — for example, opening Israeli trade offices in those countries, or allowing Israeli passenger planes to fly over Arab territory.
Saudi Arabia rebuffed these requests, which made it less likely that other Arab countries would follow with such gestures. In Israel, the election of a right-wing government under Mr. Netanyahu dimmed the prospects for a settlement freeze, given the pressures from his coalition.
Mr. Netanyahu has offered a moratorium on the construction of new settlements in the West Bank, but not in East Jerusalem. He would also allow additional construction in the West Bank to support the growing families of settlers — a provision known as “natural growth.”
The publication of a United Nations report alleging war crimes in Gaza last winter greatly complicated the calculus. Mr. Netanyahu said that if the report, which accuses both sides of war crimes, were advanced in the United Nations, it would kill off talks before they started.
The United States pressed the Palestinian Authority to bottle up the report in the United Nations Human Rights Council, which it agreed to do. But that set off a political conflagration at home, and Mr. Abbas reversed himself, voting to forward the report to the Security Council.
With his credibility damaged and with elections looming in January, Mr. Abbas has been reluctant to enter talks. And he is citing Mr. Obama’s tough line on settlements as a reason to hold out.
“Secretary Clinton told us,” Mr. Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, said, “that the United States considers settlements to be illegitimate and does not accept the annexation of East Jerusalem.” ||||| JERUSALEM -- Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's hope to kick-start Arab-Israeli peace talks took a blow Saturday, after Palestinian leaders ruled out returning to negotiations without a complete freeze on Israeli settlement activity.
Mrs. Clinton and other senior U.S. officials met Saturday in the United Arab Emirates with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in a high-level push for an immediate resumption of talks between the Palestinians and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government.
View Full Image Getty Images U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Mrs. Clinton then traveled to Israel where she met Mr. Netanyahu and other senior Israeli officials. She was accompanied by the Obama administration's special envoy to the Middle East, former U.S. Senator George Mitchell.
Senior Palestinian officials, however, speaking after Mr. Abbas's meeting with Mrs. Clinton, restated their position that negotiations couldn't resume without Israel halting all building activity in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
The Palestinians said Mrs. Clinton conveyed to Mr. Abbas an Israeli proposal to freeze most building in the disputed territories as a precursor to formal talks. But the halt would not include East Jerusalem or thousands of units already being constructed in the West Bank.
Mr. Abbas and members of his government said Saturday this wasn't acceptable.
"When Israel will continue the already approved housing units, they will be doing the average apartment building of the last five years, which is not a settlement freeze by any means," said Ghassan Khatib, a Palestinian Authority official briefed on Mr. Abbas's meeting. "This is not good enough for the Palestinians."
Mr. Abbas, at a press conference in Abu Dhabi, attacked Israel for not agreeing to the settlement freeze.
The continued settlement activity, and recent unrest in Jerusalem, are "pouring oil into the bonfire [of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict], crossing red lines and preparing the ground for further acts of violence."
Mr. Netanyahu and Mrs. Clinton, speaking ahead of their bilateral meeting in Jerusalem, downplayed the need for a total settlement freeze as a precursor for negotiations to start.
"We are prepared to begin negotiations immediately," Mr. Netanyahu said. "There's not been in the last 16 years...any demand ever put on any restrictions on settlement activity as a precursor for negotiations."
Mrs. Clinton backed the Israeli leader's position. "What the prime minister is saying is historically accurate," the secretary of state said. "What the prime minister has offered...is unprecedented in the context of prior to negotiations."
U.S. officials traveling with Mrs. Clinton said they didn't press Mr. Abbas to accept any specific offer from Mr. Netanyahu, but rather were seeking to help narrow differences between the two sides.
"From the secretary's standpoint, we're using the time to constructively engage here in the region and to see what we can do to move the process forward," said State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley, who traveled with Mrs. Clinton to Israel Saturday. The Obama administration had initially attempted to set the stage for direct Israeli-Palestinian talks by calling for concessions from both Israel and the Arabs. Mr. Mitchell had specifically been seeking to get Mr. Netanyahu to agree to a complete settlement freeze in exchange for leading Arab states taking steps towards normalizing their relations with Israel, such as establishing trade and telecommunications links.
Neither the Israelis nor the Arab governments completely backed Washington's initiative. And in recent weeks, Mr. Mitchell and other senior U.S. officials have downplayed their focus on this negotiating strategy, calling instead for immediate talks without "preconditions."
Mrs. Clinton will travel to Morocco Saturday night to meet with Arab foreign ministers attending a regional economic-development conference. U.S. officials said they'd use the venue to seek to strengthen Mr. Abbas's position in the region and to gain greater Arab support for the peace process.
Mr. Abbas is seen as in a weakened position politically inside the Palestinian territories. Elections are slated for next year there, and the militant Palestinian organization, Hamas, is expected to compete strongly against Mr. Abbas's Fatah party.
Mr. Abbas has also been condemned across the Arab world for initially agreeing to a U.S. request not to support a recently completed United Nations report that charges Israel with engaging in war crimes during its military campaign against Hamas last year in the Gaza Strip. Mr. Abbas later changed his position, but the political damage had already been done in the Palestinian territories.
U.S. and Israeli officials say the U.N. report was biased and undercut efforts to restart the process.
Iran's nuclear program has also been a major topic of conversation for Mrs. Clinton as she's made her swing through the Middle East, according to U.S. officials.
The U.S. and other U.N. Security Council members are currently awaiting a response from Tehran to their offer to more closely scrutinize Iran's stockpile of low-enriched uranium. The deal would see Iran ship the majority of it fissile material to Russia for reprocessing in exchange for Moscow and France sending back the material in a form usable in Tehran's research reactor.
The Obama administration sees the deal as ensuring Iran won't have enough fissile material to produce an atomic weapon in the near-term. It's also seen as buying Washington more time to forge a comprehensive agreement to contain Iran's nuclear ambitions.
Mr. Netanyahu has suggested Israel might take military action against Iran if diplomacy doesn't succeed in ending Tehran's nuclear activities.
In recent days, Iran has indicated it would reject the deal. Mrs. Clinton said the U.S. still hoped for the agreement, but added that the international community couldn't wait indefinitely.
"We are willing to work toward creative outcomes," Mrs. Clinton said. "But we're not going to wait forever."?
Write to Jay Solomon at [email protected]
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– Hillary Clinton's day of diplomacy in the Mideast yielded little progress. She met separately with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu but did not secure a deal to restart peace talks. The main sticking point: Abbas rebuffed an offer from Netanyahu—and relayed by Clinton—to slow but not stop new settlements. Clinton called the offer "unprecedented," but Abbas called it a "non-starter," reports the New York Times. “Mr. Netanyahu has a choice, settlements or peace, and he has chosen settlements," said Abbas. Netanyahu said no such restrictions on settlements have ever been a condition for talks, notes the Wall Street Journal. Clinton agreed: "What the prime minister is saying is historically accurate," she said. "What the prime minister has offered ... is unprecedented in the context of prior to negotiations."
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HARRISBURG Pa. (Reuters) - Young people in rural Pennsylvania can buy heroin more easily than a bottle of wine and getting high with the opiate can be cheaper than buying a six pack of beer, according to an investigative report released on Tuesday.
Overdose deaths have climbed steadily since 1990, when drug deaths in rural areas of the state were at one per 100,000 population. As of 2011, that figure stood at 13 deaths per 100,000, the Center for Rural Pennsylvania said in the report.
"Heroin is cheaper and easier for young people to obtain than alcohol,” said State Senator Gene Yaw, the Republican chairman of the center, a joint legislative state agency.
Pennsylvania is not alone in its heroin problem. In rural Vermont, Governor Peter Shumlin said his state was experiencing a "full-blown heroin crisis," while the overdose rate in New York City has surged as well, especially in the wealthiest neighborhoods.
In Pennsylvania, Yaw said a small packet of heroin costs between $5 and $10 and delivers a high lasting four to five hours.
The report, based on evidence submitted in hearings across the state this summer, listed Cambria County in central Pennsylvania as having the highest overdose death rate outside of Philadelphia, 22.6 deaths per 100,000 population. That is equal to Philadelphia’s drug death rate, the report said.
Yaw suggested Cambria County’s drug death rate was not caused by any special factors, but state Representative Bryan Barbin, a Democrat, was not so sure.
Barbin said Johnstown is easily accessible from heroin distribution centers like Baltimore. Dealing heroin is an attractive career option for those with few economic prospects, he said, especially those with drug crime records.
The report called for a number of legislative actions, including making it easier to prosecute dealers whose customers die of overdoses, and a "Good Samaritan" law assuring that people who seek help for overdose victims will not face criminal charges.
Putting more addicts in jail will not solve the problem, the report said.
State Representative Richard Marabito, a Democrat, said Pennsylvania has about 760,000 residents with addiction problems, but that only about 52,000 are receiving treatment. Only one in eight addicts can be helped with existing state resources, the report said.
(Writing By Frank McGurty) ||||| Heroin is cheaper and easier to get than beer in Pennsylvania, and the people selling it use sophisticated methods on par with the biggest retailers.
Those are among the conclusions of a state agency which complied a report and recommendations based on a series of informational hearings held around the state this summer.
Heroin addiction was long associated with inner cities.
But the Center for Rural Pennsylvania concluded there is a current "epidemic" that crosses all geographic, economic and racial boundaries, with scores of people becoming addicted and dying in suburban and rural communities. All parts of the state, including its most rural counties, are affected.
The center's report, called "Heroin: Combating this Growing Epidemic in Pennsylvania," says 80 percent of people using heroin first became addicted to a prescription opioid painkiller such as OxyContin or Vicodin. It said nearly 3,000 Pennsylvania residents have died over the past five years because of abuse of heroin or other opioids. A packet of heroin capable of producing a high lasting about five hours costs $10 or less, said a speaker at an event held to release the report on Tuesday morning.
State Sen. Scott Wagner, R-York County, who spoke at the event, said York County has been hard hit by the epidemic, with 31 confirmed and six suspected heroin overdose deaths so far this year, up from 17 in all of 2013.
A group of legislators at the event cited the need for an aggressive and far-reaching effort to combat the problem. This must include local communities, churches, schools, police and state lawmakers.
The legislators called for immediate approval of several pending bills that would: create a statewide prescription drug database to flag people who might be addicted to prescription opioids or obtaining them for illegal uses; passing a "Good Samaritan law" to allow drug users to summon help for overdose victims without fear of arrest; and making nalaxone, which can reverse an overdose, available to people such as ambulance crews and possibly to families of addicts.
One lawmaker stressed we "cannot arrest our way out of the problem."
Another stressed that more intensive and effective treatment must be made available to addicts. He noted that someone who undergoes a 30-day treatment stay with no other supports is highly likely to quickly relapse. And while providing the necessary treatment will be expensive, it's far less expensive than keeping addicts in jail, the lawmaker said.
The report says 70 percent of people in jail in Pennsylvania have substance abuse problems.
Heroin and opioid addiction are being blamed for a wave of petty crimes as addicts steal in order to feed their addition.
State Sen. John Wozniak, D-Cambria County, said people who are addicted to heroin and other opioids don't want to be addicted, and need compassion and help. He said there must be a major effort within schools to educate young people about the dangers of opioids, and local communities must rise up against the problem.
"We want to get the dealers out of our neighborhoods and we want to heal the people who are addicted," he said.
Another lawmaker argued that much of the problem can be traced back to the decision, more than a decade ago, to permit drug makers to market directly to consumers. He said this created an idea, especially among young people who have grown up seeing the ads, that there is a prescription drug remedy for every type of physical pain or mental discomfort. He said that notion must be addressed and dispelled.
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– Heroin addiction isn't just an urban problem in Pennsylvania, where a small packet of the drug is cheaper and easier for young people in rural areas to obtain than a six-pack of beer, a new report warns. The Center for Rural Pennsylvania's report found that an "epidemic" of heroin use is affecting all parts of the state, with rural Cambria County having an overdose death rate the same as Philadelphia's, reports Reuters. The center's chairman, state Sen. Gene Yaw, says a bag of the drug capable of producing a high lasting more than four hours can be bought for $5 to $10. The report found that nearly 3,000 people in the state have fatally overdosed on heroin or other opioids in the last five years, and most heroin addicts were first addicted to prescription painkillers. Lawmakers called for an aggressive and wide-ranging response to the crisis at an event yesterday where the report was released, PennLive notes. Speakers echoed the report's recommendations by calling for moves including a statewide prescription drug database, a "Good Samaritan" law to ensure people who seek help for overdose victims won't be prosecuted, and tougher penalties for dealers whose customers die of overdoses. But lawmakers also stressed that we "cannot arrest our way out of the problem" and called for compassion and improved treatment options for addicts.
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Kate Middleton leaves post at Party Pieces as 'secrets' of the wedding are revealed
25 JANUARY 2011
Princess-to-be Kate Middleton has left her job at her family's online business to prepare for her wedding day.
With less than 100 days to go until she marries Prince William, the 29-year-old has decided to give up her position at Party Pieces in order to oversee all the intricate details of the April 29 ceremony.
Kate is said to be at the helm when it comes to organising the wedding, spending hours with William at their rented farmhouse in Anglesey making plans.
"They've worked really hard, doing it their way, and they're nearly there," a member of the royal household tells HELLO! magazine this week. "They know exactly what they want. In the end it will be a traditional Anglican wedding. Don't, for example, expect a rock band to be performing inside the Abbey."
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"She is really throwing herself into it with gusto and energy and is an absolute pleasure to work with," a friend said of Kate, who has worked for her parents' business since she gave up her job as an accessories buyer for Jigsaw in 2007."It is a steep learning curve and at the same time she is learning a lot about the royal family and what the future holds."The couple are said to have already made most of the key decisions – Kate has chosen her all-important dress designer – but are determined to keep some details under wraps, including the bride's gown, the rings and the words of the vows."They don’t want the world to be sick of their wedding before they become husband and wife," the insider added.But some details have emerged about the big event. It has been revealed that three different invitations will be sent out in mid-February; the largest group will be some 1,700 people invited to witness the wedding ceremony.After the marriage, the Queen will be hosting 600 to 700 people for a finger food lunch party at Buckingham Palace, and in the evening a select gathering of the couple's closest friends will be invited to a dinner-dance at the palace.It has also been revealed that while Kate will reportedly leave for the wedding from the Goring hotel , William will make his way from St James's Palace – the residence many insiders believe will be the couple's base after their marriage.Read the full story in this week's copy of, issue number 1159. ||||| Kate Middleton quits job at parents' party firm to focus on wedding plans Jonathan Prynn, Consumer Business Editor
24 Jan 2011 24 Jan 2011
Kate Middleton has quit her job at her parents' online party supplies business to throw herself full time into planning her wedding.
The future Queen stepped down from her role at Party Pieces just before Christmas, royal aides confirmed today. One said: "She has handed over her work to colleagues and is now preparing for her future life."
She and Prince William are now spending all their free time together at their cottage on Anglesey, close to the RAF Valley base where he works at a helicopter pilot.
According to one friend, Kate, who helped organise parties in her former guise, has taken on the planning role with "gusto and energy".
The friend, who was quoted in Hello! magazine, said: "Catherine is a naturally creative individual and has spent her professional life in the creative industries having worked at Jigsaw, then as a website designer, photographer, marketer and events organiser. Skills she has built up in her working life translate naturally to organising a wedding."
Royal insiders say that while most of the big decisions have been taken, the couple will hold back on publicising some key details to keep them as surprises for April 29. These include the identity of the dress designer, the design of their wedding rings and the words of their vows.
The insider said: "They don't want the world to be sick of their wedding before they become husband and wife. To them it is very important for people on the day to feel they are a part of something which is fresh and new."
However, some key decisions have still to be made. It is not clear whether Prince William will wear his RAF uniform on the day of the wedding, following the example of his father Prince Charles and uncle Prince Andrew in opting for military dress.
There is also uncertainty about where the couple will live after the prince finishes his training on Anglesey in 2013. Some expect their London base to be St James's Palace but insiders says Buckingham Palace and Kensington Palace have not been ruled out.
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– As, one assumes, part of her preparation for becoming royalty, Kate Middleton has quit her day job, the Evening Standard reports. The future Mrs. Prince William "handed over her work" at her parents' online party supply store before Christmas, "and is now preparing for her future life," royal aides say. Specifically, she's planning her royal wedding—with "gusto and energy," a friend tells Hello! Amusingly, the friend adds, some of the big decisions (the dress designer, their vows) will be kept secret, because Wills and Kate "don’t want the world to be sick of their wedding before they become husband and wife." If you've somehow managed not to become sick of it yet, click for more on the royal wedding.
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As we now move into the official Political Aftermath period of the Boston bombing -- the period that will determine the long-term legislative fallout of the atrocity -- the dynamics of privilege will undoubtedly influence the nation's collective reaction to the attacks. That's because privilege tends to determine: 1) which groups are -- and are not -- collectively denigrated or targeted for the unlawful actions of individuals; and 2) how big and politically game-changing the overall reaction ends up being.
This has been most obvious in the context of recent mass shootings. In those awful episodes, a religious or ethnic minority group lacking such privilege would likely be collectively slandered and/or targeted with surveillance or profiling (or worse) if some of its individuals comprised most of the mass shooters. However, white male privilege means white men are not collectively denigrated/targeted for those shootings -- even though most come at the hands of white dudes.
Likewise, in the context of terrorist attacks, such privilege means white non-Islamic terrorists are typically portrayed not as representative of whole groups or ideologies, but as "lone wolf" threats to be dealt with as isolated law enforcement matters. Meanwhile, non-white or developing-world terrorism suspects are often reflexively portrayed as representative of larger conspiracies, ideologies and religions that must be dealt with as systemic threats -- the kind potentially requiring everything from law enforcement action to military operations to civil liberties legislation to foreign policy shifts.
"White privilege is knowing that even if the bomber turns out to be white, no one will call for your group to be profiled as terrorists as a result, subjected to special screening or threatened with deportation," writes author Tim Wise. "White privilege is knowing that if this bomber turns out to be white, the United States government will not bomb whatever corn field or mountain town or stale suburb from which said bomber came, just to ensure that others like him or her don’t get any ideas. And if he turns out to be a member of the Irish Republican Army we won’t bomb Dublin. And if he’s an Italian-American Catholic we won’t bomb the Vatican."
Because of these undeniable and pervasive double standards, the specific identity of the Boston Marathon bomber (or bombers) is not some minor detail -- it will almost certainly dictate what kind of governmental, political and societal response we see in the coming weeks. That means regardless of your particular party affiliation, if you care about everything from stopping war to reducing the defense budget to protecting civil liberties to passing immigration reform, you should hope the bomber was a white domestic terrorist. Why? Because only in that case will privilege work to prevent the Boston attack from potentially undermining progress on those other issues. ||||| Interesting enough. But Sears also included a long exegesis of what it meant that Tamerlan Tsarnaev had the name of the bloody 15th century central Asian-Muslim warlord Tamerlane, which he said was akin "to naming an American child 'Stalin-Mao-Hitler." Which seemed to indicate he considered the Tsarnaevs more Asian, or maybe "Cock-Asian," than good old-fashioned American white.
We still know comparatively little about the Tsarnaev brothers, but they seem to have more in common with other American mass murderers than with al-Qaida terrorists of any race and ethnicity. No less an expert than former CIA Deputy Director Philip Mudd said on Fox News Sunday that they have more in common with the Columbine killers than with hardened al-Qaida terrorists. Likewise, Columbine expert Dave Cullen compares the “dyad” of apparent mastermind Tamerlan and follower-younger brother Dzhokhar to the Columbine pair of disturbed plot architect Eric Harris and follower Dylan Klebold.
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– Conservatives jumped all over a Salon columnist who wrote a piece last week headlined, "Let's Hope the Boston Marathon Bomber Is a White American"—and when the suspects were revealed, conservatives gloated that they were not, in fact, white Americans. But the Tsarnaev brothers "are quite literally Caucasian, as in from the Caucuses," writes Joan Walsh on Salon. Plus, the US Census Bureau considers Americans of Chechen or Russian descent to be white, and one of the brothers was a naturalized American citizen. So why don't right-wingers consider them to be white? Walsh considers a few possibilities: America has a history of "sorting white from non-white." Many European immigrants "became" white as time went on, society became more accepting, and decidedly "non-white" people started arriving. "Embracing racism and xenophobia, sadly, could be a shortcut to white status for previously non-white European immigrants." Of course, it could boil down to the simple fact that the Tsarnaevs are Muslim, immigrants, or simply that "they’re 'bad,' and whiteness must be surrendered when white people are bad," Walsh writes. But, Walsh points out, the brothers actually have more in common with other mass murderers than they do with al-Qaeda terrorists. By insisting they're not white, conservatives are simply proving the original Salon columnist's point: White American murderers basically escape scapegoating and racial profiling, but with the Tsarnaevs being viewed as non-white, you can expect "a destructive new wave of ... anti-Muslim agitation [and] generalized xenophobia." Click for Walsh's full column.
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Summary: China has banned Windows 8 from being installed on new computers. Microsoft tells ZDNet it was surprised by the decision.
In a major blow to Microsoft, China has mysteriously announced it will exclude Windows 8 from newly-procured government computers.
In a brief statement on the Central Government Procurement Centre's website about a particular class of energy-saving products, the agency noted that new government computers are forbidden from having Windows 8 installed.
The motivations for the ban are somewhat mysterious, with no explanation for why Windows 8 has been excluded from public sector machines.
However, China's official news bureau Xinhua claims the move is the Chinese government's response to Microsoft's recent end to support and security updates for Windows XP, which still runs most government computers.
According to Xinhua, the government has "moved to avoid the awkwardness of being confronted with a similar situation again in future if it continues to purchase computers with [a] foreign OS".
While Microsoft has stopped providing updates to the general public for Windows XP, it is offering extended support to enterprise customers, such as the Netherlands government and the UK government, which have signed multi-million dollar contracts with Microsoft to provide support for remaining XP computers.
As Reuters notes, it's not clear how the ban on Windows 8 is related to the use of energy-savings products.
Xinhua also notes the Chinese government's ambitions to develop and use its own Linux-based OS, similar to its efforts launch a homegrown mobile OS.
China launched the Linux-based China Operating System (COS) for smartphones in January. However, the UI quickly drew comparisons to HTC's Android Sense interface. Other locally made OSes include Ubuntu-based Kylin and StartOS, but Xinhua notes these haven't gained much traction with local buyers yet.
Qi Xiangdong, president of Chinese antivirus and software vendor Qihoo 360, told Xinhua the first step to supporting a homegrown OS is to promote the use of Chinese-designed OS among official users, while civilians would be free to choose their OS.
According to the latest figures from Net Market Share, Windows XP machines account for more than 37 percent of desktops in use in China.
Update at 12:50pm ET: In a statement to ZDNet Microsoft said it was "surprised" by the decision to exclude Windows 8 from bidding but that it would continue to provide Windows 7 to agencies.
"This morning, the China Central Government Procurement Center posted a notification titled 'Bidding Process for Government Purchasing Energy-efficient IT Products.' The notification indicates that the Windows 8 operating system is excluded in the bidding," the company said in a statement.
"We were surprised to learn about the reference to Windows 8 in this notice. Microsoft has been working proactively with the Central Government Procurement Center and other government agencies through the evaluation process to ensure that our products and services meet all government procurement requirements. We have been and will continue to provide Windows 7 to government customers. At the same time, we are working on the Window 8 evaluation with relevant government agencies."
Read more on Windows XP ||||| A Microsoft Surface tablet is seen during the launch of Microsoft Windows 8 operating system in Hong Kong October 26, 2012.
BEIJING China has banned government use of Windows 8, Microsoft Corp's latest operating system, a blow to a U.S. technology company that has long struggled with sales in the country.
The Central Government Procurement Center issued the ban on installing Windows 8 on Chinese government computers as part of a notice on the use of energy-saving products, posted on its website last week.
The official Xinhua news agency said the ban was to ensure computer security after Microsoft ended support for its Windows XP operating system, which was widely used in China.
"We were surprised to learn about the reference to Windows 8 in this notice," the company said in a statement. "Microsoft has been working proactively with the Central Government Procurement Center and other government agencies through the evaluation process to ensure that our products and services meet all government procurement requirements."
"We have been and will continue to provide Windows 7 to government customers. At the same time we are working on the Window 8 evaluation with relevant government agencies," Microsoft said.
Neither the government nor Xinhua elaborated on how the ban supported the use of energy-saving products or how it ensured security.
China has long been a troublesome market for Microsoft. Former CEO Steve Ballmer reportedly told employees in 2011 that, because of piracy, Microsoft earned less revenue in China than in the Netherlands even though computer sales matched those of the United States.
Last month, Microsoft ended support for the 13-year-old Windows XP to encourage the adoption of newer, more secure versions of Windows. This has potentially left XP users vulnerable to viruses and hacking.
"China's decision to ban Windows 8 from public procurement hampers Microsoft's push of the OS to replace XP, which makes up 50 percent of China's desktop market," said data firm Canalys.
(Reporting by Paul Carsten and Beijing Newsroom; editing by G Crosse and Christopher Cushing) ||||| BEIJING, May 20 (Xinhua) -- China has announced that it will forbid the use of the Windows 8 operating system (OS) in new government computers, a move to ensure computer security after the shutdown of Windows XP.
All desktops, laptops and tablet PCs to be purchased by central state organs must be installed with OS other than Windows 8, according to an online statement by the Central Government Procurement Center.
The measure only targets computers used by government offices, while the personal computer market is expected to stay unaffected.
Currently, most government computers run Windows XP, which has a 70-percent market share in China. But Microsoft ended support for this 13-year-old system on April 8, arousing safety concerns and appeals for domestically designed OS.
Despite major Chinese software security companies having promised to provide technical assistance to guard against risks, Windows XP users have remained fearful about potential dangers such as hacker attacks.
And the Chinese government obviously cannot ignore the risks of running OS without guaranteed technical support. It has moved to avoid the awkwardness of being confronted with a similar situation again in future if it continues to purchase computers with foreign OS.
Apart from purchase restrictions for central government offices, China will focus on the development of its own OS based on Linux, a move which An Yang, a security expert with Qihoo 360 Technology, said was a necessity although progress has been disappointing.
Qi Xiangdong, president of Qihoo 360, said this is a great opportunity for Chinese IT companies to nurture their own OS.
There are several Linux-based OS developed by Chinese companies, such as KylinOS and StartOS, but they have not proved popular.
An said the first step is to promote the use of Chinese-designed OS among official users, while their popularity among civilian users will be subject to market forces.
(To stay up to date with the latest China news, follow XHNews on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/XHNews and Xinhua News Agency on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/XinhuaNewsAgency.)
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– If you work for the Chinese government, you'd better not get caught installing Windows 8. Beijing has banned the use Microsoft's newest operating system on new government computers after Microsoft stopped supporting Windows XP, which is widely used in China, last month, Reuters reports. The Windows 8 ban is a security measure following Microsoft's move, according to the official state news bureau. The government's goal is "to avoid the awkwardness" of a "similar situation" in the future, Xinhua says, via ZDNet. The ban was announced amid a call for the use of greener products. But officials haven't explained how the new rule boosts security or reduces energy use, Reuters notes. The ban creates another hurdle for Microsoft in a country where its products have seen sales struggles. It also comes as China is working on building its own operating system, ZDNet reports.
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NEW DELHI (AP) — The Mizoram Football Association says a 23-year-old Indian soccer player has died after injuring his spine while celebrating a goal with somersaults.
Peter Biaksangzuala landed on his back while doing flips last Tuesday in the northeastern state of Mizoram. He died Sunday.
Biaksangzuala scored in the 62nd minute. After his celebration went bad, he was stretchered off the field to a local hospital.
Mizoram Football Association general secretary Lalnghinglova Hmar called Biaksangzuala "a very good and disciplined footballer" who hoped to play in the national I-League.
The football association is planning to organize a match in his memory. ||||| Use your ← → (arrow) keys to browse the slideshow
Winning is fun. Celebrating a huge win is even more fun.
Unless the end result is a trip to the disabled list.
Most players who enter the post-home run celebration man pile behind home plate come out unscathed, but every so often, things go awry and someone comes out of the party with a torn ligament or a concussion.
Most players who celebrate a game-saving interception or a pick-six come out the other end just fine, but there are the select few who celebrate so hard, their ACLs give out.
Kind of makes you think twice before you fist-pump and jump like there's no tomorrow, doesn't it?
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– A 23-year-old Indian soccer player excited over a goal he had just scored died after he did a celebratory flip in the air, landed badly, and suffered a spinal injury, the AP reports. "A CT Scan was done right after he was taken to the hospital, and the result showed that the injury inflicted on the spinal cord was quite serious," the Mizoram Premier League posted on its Facebook page regarding Peter Biaksangzuala's fatal injury. "The doctors did their best to help him fight for his life." Biaksangzuala scored the game-tying goal for his Bethlehem Vengthlang FC team in the 62nd minute of Tuesday's game, Deadspin reports. He then "cartwheeled into a backflip," landed wrong, and stopped moving. He was in ICU for five days and died yesterday. He's not the first athlete to get hurt or killed while celebrating a score, as Bleacher Report notes, but that doesn't take away the shock or pain his team feels. "Peter was a lad with good manner who always maintained his discipline on and off the [field]," his coach says in the Facebook post. "I don't think there are many like him." The post adds that "Peter had a good heart. He donated his eyes for a suffering blind person and he had that desire to help him or her see the world and lead and enjoy a normal life." (A new concern for soccer players: whether artificial turf causes cancer.)
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A tunnel containing radioactive waste caved in at the Hanford nuclear reservation in Richland on Tuesday morning, forcing nearly 4,800 workers to take cover indoors.
Thousands of workers at the Hanford nuclear reservation in Richland were forced to take cover indoors after a tunnel containing radioactive waste collapsed Tuesday morning, government officials said.
Nearly 4,800 workers at the nuclear site were told to shelter indoors, an Energy Department spokeswoman said. At around noon Tuesday, workers outside of the facility where the cave-in occurred were cleared and sent home early.
At around 1:35 p.m., five hours after the incident was declared an emergency, remaining workers were allowed to go home. About 3,000 workers had been sheltering in a facility near the collapse in the 200 East Area, which houses an old plutonium-processing facility.
Nonessential swing-shift workers were told to stay home Tuesday evening. On Wednesday morning, nonessential workers who report north of the site’s Wye Barricade were told to stay home.
There was no indication of a radiation release, but crews were continuing to survey for contamination, the department said. Crews were hand-surveying outer areas around the tunnels, but closer to the breach were using a remote-controlled device that can do radiological monitoring and take video.
“The Department of Energy informed us this morning that a tunnel was breached that was used to bury radioactive waste from the production of plutonium at the Hanford nuclear reservation,” Gov. Jay Inslee said. “This is a serious situation and ensuring the safety of the workers and the community is the top priority.”
Inslee said the White House had reached out to his office.
“Our understanding is that the site went into immediate lockdown in which workers were told to seek shelter and all access to the area has been closed,” Inslee said.
Emergency officials restricted flights from passing over the Hanford nuclear reservation, a 580-square-mile area bordering the Columbia River.
Beginning in 1943 and lasting for more than 40 years, Hanford made plutonium for nuclear weapons, including for the bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki. About 8,000 people are currently working on a massive cleanup that is expected to cost more than $100 billion and last through 2060.
“This is sort of a forgotten legacy of the nuclear age,” said Paul Carroll, who is the director of programs for the nuclear-nonproliferation group Ploughshares Fund and previously worked on nuclear cleanup programs for the Department of Energy. “We don’t know how to deal with this stuff.”
On Tuesday morning, about six Hanford employees, on routine rounds, noticed that an area of soil over one of the tunnels had sunk, Destry Henderson, an Energy Department spokesman, said.
“At that point after noticing the soil had sunk over one of the tunnels there was an emergency declared,” Henderson said. “Upon an additional investigation, crews noticed a portion of that tunnel had fallen, the roof had caved in about a 20-foot section of that tunnel which is more than 100 feet long.”
Railcars filled with radioactive waste are buried in the wood and concrete tunnels, which are covered by about 8 feet of soil.
A 20-by-20-foot area of soil above the tunnels “subsided,” the Department of Energy said Tuesday, significantly upgrading the scale of the breach from its previous estimate. Earlier, the department had estimated the size of the breached roof area at about 4 feet by 4 feet.
The Department of Energy opened an emergency operations center at the site just before 8:30 a.m.
The incident was initially declared an “alert emergency,” the lowest level of emergency classification at the site, but was later upgraded to a “site area emergency.” A site-area emergency is limited to the boundaries of the Hanford site but could affect staff beyond the immediate facility.
“No action is required for residents of Benton and Franklin counties,” the department said. Nearly 275,000 people live in the two counties that border the site.
The 200 East Area where the incident occurred is located in the center of the reservation. It is home to the Plutonium Uranium Extraction Plant, also known as PUREX, a massive facility more than three football fields in length that was used to recover plutonium from irradiated uranium fuel rods.
The building, which extends 40 feet below ground and is more than six stories tall, has been vacant for nearly 20 years but remains highly contaminated.
The PUREX facility is about 19 miles from north Richland and seven miles from the Columbia River.
In 2016, in an advisory letter to Department of Energy officials, the Hanford Advisory Board asked officials to “expeditiously investigate whether the PUREX tunnels pose a high risk and, if so, to then negotiate milestones to begin planning for their remediation.”
Tom Carpenter, executive director of Hanford Challenge, a nonprofit that works to hold the Department of Energy accountable on its cleanup efforts, called Tuesday’s cave-in a “wake-up call.”
“They’ve got 177 underground nuclear-waste tanks, most of them were built in the 1940s,” Carpenter said. “If this were a tank that had collapsed that would be much, much worse than anything you hear right now. They need to get on top of their risks.” ||||| HANFORD – Thousands of Hanford workers streamed out of the Washington nuclear reservation Tuesday while operators huddled to find a fix for a gaping hole in the roof of a tunnel that entombs rail cars full of radioactive equipment.
State and federal officials sought to ease fears of a leak of radioactive material, saying monitoring at the site shows no evidence of a release.
“The incident is moving from the emergency phase towards the recovery phase,” the Department of Energy said Tuesday evening. “The workforce has safely left the site, other than personnel essential to the recovery plan.”
Energy Secretary Rick Perry received briefings on the situation throughout Tuesday, his office said. After extensive testing at the site, “there has been no indication of worker exposure or an airborne radiological release,” Perry’s office said.
Workers discovered the hole in the tunnel next to a closed facility known as the PUREX plant, short for Plutonium Uranium Extraction, near the center of Hanford. The radioactive waste contained in the tunnel is a byproduct of the nation’s effort to develop enough plutonium to fuel nuclear weapons from World War II through the Cold War.
“Emergency responders are out there to make sure the site remains secure,” said Destry Henderson, spokesman for the Hanford Site Emergency Operation Center. “Folks are meeting to develop a recovery plan.”
But exactly how the hole, estimated at 400 square feet, will be plugged or covered – and how long that will take – remained unclear Tuesday. Officials said they are exploring placing a barrier between the contaminated equipment inside and the outside air without causing the hole to grow bigger.
“Certainly the cleanup includes technical challenges and hazards,” Henderson said. “Sometimes you run into unexpected situations like this and our employees are figuring out a path forward to deal with it.”
No workers were injured Tuesday, said Randy Bradbury, a spokesman for the Washington state Department of Ecology. As a precaution, nearby employees were evacuated and private pilots told not to fly over the sprawling reservation, which is half the size of Rhode Island and located 124 miles southwest of Spokane.
Workers near PUREX noticed the cave-in during routine monitoring, and the Hanford emergency center was activated at 8:26 a.m. There were no workers inside the tunnel when it collapsed. But nearby workers were evacuated as a precaution, the Department of Energy said.
Employees close to the PUREX plant were first advised to take shelter indoors, and that was expanded to cover several thousand employees within Hanford’s security boundary. By noon most workers were told to leave work early as a precaution.
By early afternoon cars were streaming out along the two-lane highway leading away from Hanford’s Vitrification Plant, a facility under construction that will turn liquid radioactive waste into glass chunks.
Hanford Patrol officers, who barred any filming of their officers or car under penalty of arrest, stopped vehicles from approaching at least five miles from the site of the tunnel collapse well within the 580-square mile reservation.
One contractor, who said he could not give his name, said he was forced to park and wait more than three hours after the emergency was declared. He eventually was allowed to pass through a checkpoint at 2:45 p.m.
Several other vans containing Radiological Control officers passed the same checkpoint. Those employees used hand-held detection devices which showed no contamination had been released from the tunnel, Henderson said. Closer to the collapse site, crews used a remote-operated device to monitor for possible radiological releases and take video footage of the hole.
“The fundamental goal is employee safety,” Henderson said. Hanford has more than 9,000 employees. “We need to find out what happened, why it happened and mitigate the problem. Today our response was a precaution as we were determining the extent of the potential hazard.”
Around 1:35 p.m. the last of the employees in the vicinity of the tunnel was released from work early. Non-essential employees were released from work early or told not to report to work for swing shifts Tuesday night.
Workers considered essential for site operations were told to avoid the emergency area, which is 19 miles from North Richland and about 7 miles from the Columbia River.
The cave-in occurred where two tunnels – one about 360 feet long and the other about 1,700 feet long – join together east of the PUREX plant. They were built during the Cold War to store contaminated equipment from plutonium production operations at the plant.
An unnamed source told NBC affiliate KING that crews doing road work may have created a vibration that caused part of the tunnel to collapse. Henderson said he was not able to confirm that.
“A serious situation’
Gov. Jay Inslee was notified about the tunnel breach by the Energy Department and the White House on Tuesday morning. Inslee called the event “a serious situation.”
“Federal, state and local officials are coordinating closely on the response,” Inslee said, with the state Ecology Department in close communication with the Energy Department.
There were no plans for Inslee, who made several previously planned stops in Skamania County on Tuesday, to go to Hanford, his staff said.
Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell said they were monitoring the situation closely and that safety should be the top priority.
“The initial reports are no one has been hurt but we are watching this very closely,” Murray said.
Cantwell said the Energy Department and its contractors need to find out whether the subsidence in the tunnels has resulted in an environmental contamination.
Hanford’s nuclear legacy Hanford played a key role in the top-secret Manhattan Project, the race by the United States and its allies during World War II to produce an atomic bomb before the Germans. Here’s a look at key locations at Hanford, including locations where efforts have been underway for years to clean up the 586-square-mile site’s radioactive and chemical wastes. | MAP »
“My thoughts are with the first responders who are working to assess the situation on the ground, monitor any environmental impacts and design next steps for securing the area,” she said.
The state and the federal government have been locked in years of litigation over cleanup of nuclear waste at Hanford that is a legacy of the nation’s weapons programs from World War II and the Cold War.
State Rep. Gerry Pollet, a Seattle Democrat who serves as director for Hanford cleanup watchdog group Heart of America Northwest, said the fact that a tunnel collapse or other radiation leak from the PUREX site hasn’t happened sooner is “just luck.”
“This disaster was predicted and shows the federal Energy Department’s utter recklessness in seeking decades of delay for Hanford Cleanup, and Washington State’s and EPA’s dereliction in agreeing to those delays,” Pollet said in a press release.
Walls held up by timbers
Hanford was built during World War II and made the plutonium for most of the U.S. nuclear arsenal, including the bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, at the end of the war.
The closed PUREX plant was used to chemically process irradiated fuel rods to remove plutonium for weapons. It was built in the 1950s and operated from 1956 to 1972 and again from 1983 to 1990.
PUREX plant dumping ground For decades during the Cold War arms race, nuclear waste was dumped at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation’s sprawling 200 East and 200 West areas. The PUREX plant, a massive concrete bunker the length of three football fields that chemically extracted plutonium from nuclear fuel rods, is in the 200 East area. It was built in 1955 and closed in 1990. | READ MORE »
Henderson said the tunnel in question was about 360 feet long and contained eight flatbed rail cars built in the 1950s and 1960s full of highly contaminated materials and equipment from the plant were backed into the waste disposal tunnels at the plant and left there as a disposal method.
The flatbed train cars “were built to hold contaminated material that were large pieces of former plutonium processing equipment that were too large to be stored elsewhere,” Henderson said.
Last year, a new legal deadline was set requiring the Department of Energy to start some work toward assessing the waste disposal tunnels by September 2017.
But Henderson said he checked and found no active plans to deal with the tunnels. “The focus of the facility was to just monitor in place,” he said.
Hanford has the nation’s largest depository of radioactive defense waste needing clean up. The site contains about 56 million gallons of radioactive waste, most of it in 177 underground tanks.
Although the Trump administration has vowed to slash the budgets of most Energy Department programs, the administration does not plan to skimp on the department’s program charged with the Hanford cleanup and with other nuclear sites. It has requested $6.5 billion for agency’s environmental management program for 2018.
This report contains information from Spokesman-Review reporters Thomas Clouse, Jim Camden and Becky Kramer, as well as The Tri-City Herald and Washington Post. ||||| FILE - In this July 9, 2014 file photo, a sign informs visitors of prohibited items on the Hanford Nuclear Reservation near Richland, Wash. An emergency has been declared Tuesday, May 9, 2017, at the... (Associated Press)
FILE - In this July 9, 2014 file photo, a sign informs visitors of prohibited items on the Hanford Nuclear Reservation near Richland, Wash. An emergency has been declared Tuesday, May 9, 2017, at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation after a portion of a tunnel that contained rail cars full of nuclear waste... (Associated Press)
RICHLAND, Wash. (AP) — The collapse of an underground tunnel containing radioactive waste that forced workers at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation to shelter in place is the latest incident to raise safety concerns at the sprawling site that made plutonium for nuclear bombs for decades after World War II.
Officials detected no release of radiation Tuesday and no workers were injured, said Randy Bradbury, a spokesman for the Washington state Department of Ecology.
No workers were inside the tunnel when it collapsed, causing soil on the surface above to sink 2 to 4 feet (half to 1.2 meters) over a 400 square foot (37 square meters) area, officials said.
The tunnels are hundreds of feet long, with about 8 feet (2.4 meters) of soil covering them, the U.S. Department of Energy said.
The anti-nuclear group Beyond Nuclear said the incident helped show "radioactive waste management is out of control."
Democratic U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington said worker safety must be the priority.
"My thoughts are with the first responders who are working to assess the situation on the ground," she said.
Worker safety has long been a concern at Hanford, which is located about 200 miles (322 kilometers) southeast of Seattle.
Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson filed a lawsuit last fall against the Energy Department and its contractor, Washington River Protection Solutions, contending vapors released from underground nuclear waste tanks posed a serious risk to workers.
Ferguson said that since the early 1980s, hundreds of workers have been exposed to vapors escaping from the tanks and that those breathing the vapors developed nosebleeds, chest and lung pain, headaches, coughing, sore throats, irritated eyes and difficulty breathing.
Lawyers for the Energy Department have said no evidence has been provided showing workers have been harmed by vapors.
The cause of the collapse was not immediately known. It was discovered Tuesday as part of a routine inspection and occurred during a massive cleanup that has been underway since the 1980s and costs more than $2 billion a year. The work is expected to take until 2060 and cost more than $100 billion.
Hanford officials said they were studying the area of the collapse to determine how to create a barrier between the contaminated equipment in the tunnel and the outside air.
Workers near the site were evacuated and hundreds of others farther away were told to remain indoors for several hours, the federal agency said.
Non-essential workers among the labor force of 9,000 at the site were sent home early along a safe route.
"No action is currently required for residents of Benton and Franklin counties," the Energy Department said, referring to the nearly 300,000 residents near the site about 200 miles southeast of Seattle. "There is no indication of a release of contamination at this point."
U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry was briefed on the incident that Washington Gov. Jay Inslee called a serious situation.
"Ensuring the safety of the workers and the community is the top priority," said Inslee, a Democrat who previously represented the Hanford region in Congress.
The accident occurred at a plant known as the Plutonium Uranium Extraction Facility, or PUREX, located in the middle of the 500-square-mile (1,295-square-kilometer) Hanford site — half the size of Rhode Island.
The PUREX building is the length of three football fields and was used to recover plutonium from irradiated fuel rods.
Hanford for decades made plutonium for nuclear weapons and is now the nation's largest depository of radioactive defense waste, with about 56 million gallons of waste, most of it in 177 underground tanks.
As part of the huge, ongoing cleanup, rail cars full of radioactive waste were often driven into tunnels and buried.
The senior Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee said he is requesting that the Energy Department brief the committee on the root cause of the collapse.
New Jersey Rep. Frank Pallone said the incident underscores the need for the department to take all necessary precautions to ensure the safety and security of workers.
The committee oversees the department's management of the cleanup efforts.
The Hanford site was built during World War II and made plutonium for most of the U.S. nuclear arsenal, including the bomb dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, at the end of the war.
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Geranios reported from Spokane, Washington. Associated Press writer Matthew Daly in Washington, D.C., contributed to this story.
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– A tunnel collapse was discovered at the Hanford nuclear site Tuesday, months after experts called the Washington state facility "the most toxic place in America" and a "Chernobyl waiting to happen." Some 4,800 workers at the site were told to shelter indoors Tuesday morning after crews discovered the roof of a tunnel housing rail cars filled with radioactive waste had caved in, the Seattle Times reports. Nonessential workers out of a workforce of more than 9,000 were later told to go home early. Emergency officials told flights not to pass over the 580-square-mile Columbia River site, which produced plutonium for tens of thousands of nuclear weapons during the Cold War. By Tuesday evening the incident was "moving from the emergency phase towards the recovery phase," with no workers injured or any sign of a release of radiation, the Department of Energy said. It's not clear, however, how the facility plans to deal with the 400-square-foot hole in the tunnel roof, reports the Spokesman-Review. "Sometimes you run into unexpected situations like this and our employees are figuring out a path forward to deal with it," an Emergency Operation Center spokesman says. The AP reports that the collapse has added to calls for improved worker safety at the site, which is undergoing a 50-year, $110 billion cleanup not expected to finish until 2060.
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The cheering and clapping started as Matt Ficarra, paralyzed from the chest down since 2011, walked into the hotel ballroom through a side door to await his bride for their wedding.
Family and friends of Ficarra and Jordan Basile, his soon-to-be wife, applauded as he walked alongside his father and then stood at the front of the room in the Doubletree Hotel in DeWitt.
Ficarra beamed as he waited for the bridal party, and let out an audible "wow" when he spotted his bride to be.
After Judge Ted Limpert pronounced Ficarra and Basile husband and wife in a 15-minute ceremony, Ficarra achieved his dream: He walked down the aisle alongside his new bride.
Stevie Wonder's "Signed, Sealed, Delivered, I'm Yours" played as the couple made their way down the aisle.
Many guests wiped away tears as they smiled broadly, snapping photos and cheering as the couple made their way down the aisle past the rows of seats. The five bridesmaids - dressed in off-the-shoulder gowns with bouquets of white flowers - also dabbed at their eyes.
Ficarra was able to stand walk during the ceremony thanks to a robotic-like device called an Ekso. The battery-powered Ekso is portable and straps onto Ficarra, allowing him to walk with a normal gait. Two therapists walked behind him just in case, but he walked the whole way himself.
"It feels great to be married,'' pronounced Ficarra, 30, who broke his neck in a freak boating accident in 2011. "And I am so happy to have met my goal of walking at my wedding."
Ficarra has been driving seven hours to Good Shepherd Rehabilitation Network in Allentown, Pa. weekly since April in order to practice walking with the apparatus. Since his engagement in December, he's vowed he would not roll down the aisle in a wheelchair.
Matt Ficarra: Paralyzed man practices how he will "walk" his wedding with the help of an exoskeleton at the Good Shepherd Rehabilitation Center in Allentown, PA.
To watch him walk again was an unimaginable moment, Ficarra's family members said.
"It's spectacular,'' said Frank Ficarra, Matt's father who also served as one of his three best men. "I am so proud of him. He's determined and he accomplishes what he sets out to do.
"He doesn't give up on anything,'' Frank Ficarra said. "He's a gem."
The couple wrote their own vows for the ceremony. Matt Ficarra pledged to always take care of Basile, who he called his best friend. Basile, who described Ficarra as her "soulmate, companion and true best friend," said her love for him is indescribable. She told him she will always love him "whether he is sitting or standing."
The portable bionic exoskeleton helps patients whose legs are paralyzed stand and walk. Ficarra said it feels incredibly natural to walk with the device, and loves being able to stand his full 6-foot height.
The couple will leave Monday morning for a honeymoon in Jamaica.
To help Ficarra buy an Ekso for himself, go to his You Caring site. ||||| Saturday, July 30, 2011 was the day that forever changed Matt Ficarra's life. After an injury sustained from slipping while jumping off a boat into shallow water, he was left paralyzed from the chest down.
Matt hasn't ever let that slow him down. Since, has become able to drive, work, live on his own, and even fall in love and get married.
After Matt became engaged, he was informed of a device called an exoskeleton that would make it possible for him to stand and walk. He immediately made a personal goal to be able to walk his future bride down the aisle. His doctor informed him there was one at the VA hospital in Syracuse but he'd be unable to use it because of his civilian status.
Matt did not take no for an answer. He found out the next closest place that had the device was located in Allentown, Pennsylvania.
He's been driving 7 hours/week since March just to walk for less than an hour, determined to reach his goal of walking down the aisle.
Until the summer of 2015, these devices are strictly for rehab facilty use. However, in the summer of 2015, there is an exoskeleton specifically designed for at home use that will regain Matt's ability to walk on a daily basis.
Daily use of this device has been known to retrain the brain, spinal cord, and muscles to reconnect and improve ones function. The human body is meant to be standing and walking, not sitting sedentary for 14-16 hours per day. If one stands and walks for even an hour, it has phenominal benefits to one's muscle spacticity, digestion, circulation, bone density, pressure relief, etc.
Besides the endless medical benefits, daily use will provide Matt with the utmost confidence and freedom to live his life as if he was never paralyzed in the first place. Please help us make this happen for Matt as he continues to thrive despite every day challenges he is faced with.
We sincerely thank you from the bottom of our heart for any contribution you could make! ||||| DEWITT — A man who was paralyzed from the chest down after an accident three years ago walked down the aisle at his wedding this weekend.
Matt Ficarra was able to walk and then stand as he exchanged vows with Jordan Basile in this Syracuse suburb Saturday with the help of a battery-powered robotic exoskeleton called an Ekso. He told the Syracuse Post-Standard he’s been practicing weekly since April to walk with the apparatus.
Ficarra has been paralyzed since he broke his neck in a boating accident in 2011. The couple leaves Monday for a honeymoon in Jamaica.
Sign up for BREAKING NEWS Emails privacy policy Thanks for subscribing! ||||| FirstStep™
A physical therapist actuates steps with a button push. The user progresses from sit to stand and using a walker to walking with crutches, often in their first session.
ActiveStep™
User take control of actuating their steps via buttons on the crutches or walker.
ProStep™
The user achieves the next step by moving their hips forward and shifting them laterally. The Ekso device recognizes that the user is in the correct position and steps.
NEW ProStep Plus™
Steps are triggered by the user’s weight shift PLUS the initiation of forward leg movement.
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– There weren't many dry eyes when Matt Ficarra walked down the aisle with his new wife, Jordan Basile—and not just because the occasion was his wedding. The Syracuse, NY, man has been paralyzed from his chest down since he broke his neck in a boating accident in 2011. He's been driving seven hours a week to a rehabilitation facility in Allentown, Pa., since April so that he could learn to use a robotic suit called Ekso, which bills itself as "a means for people with as much as complete paralysis, and minimal forearm strength, to stand and walk." His one goal: to walk down the aisle on his wedding day. And he did. Ficarra stood at his full 6-foot height throughout the 15-minute ceremony using the Ekso with two physical therapists behind him, as Basile said she would love him "whether he is sitting or standing," reports the Syracuse Post-Standard. Ficarra's father and best man added, "He doesn't give up on anything. He's a gem." The newlyweds leave for their honeymoon in Jamaica today, adds the New York Daily News, and friends have set up a donation site at YouCaring.com to help raise the funds necessary to get Ficarra an Ekso of his own. (Meanwhile, a bride paralyzed in a freak accident at her own bachelorette party can now become a mother.)
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LIMA, Peru — Among the answers to a crossword puzzle that ran in a Venezuelan newspaper on Wednesday were A-D-A-N, the first name of President Hugo Chávez ’s brother; R-A-F-A-G-A-S, which can refer to a burst of machine-gun fire but also a gust of wind; and A-S-E-S-I-N-E-N, which in Spanish is the plural of the imperative form of the verb to kill.
In the polarized world of Venezuelan politics, where the president’s backers and critics are at each other’s throats over the smallest of matters, the puzzle was interpreted by some as not only a political attack on Mr. Chávez but an out-and-out death threat on his kin.
“This is a message,” declared Miguel Pérez Pirela, the host of a show on state television and a vehement backer of Mr. Chávez who interpreted the answers as a not-so-secret code against the president’s brother, who is the governor of Barinas State.
On his show, Mr. Pérez, according to Reuters, used as examples the secret messages that the French resistance leader Charles de Gaulle sent to fighters during World War II, and said he had assembled a group of mathematicians and other experts who agreed with his interpretation.
But Neptalí Segovia, the longtime puzzle writer for the newspaper, Últimas Noticias, dismissed that sinister view and said his puzzle had no political motive. His newspaper reported Friday that Mr. Segovia had voluntarily visited the National Intelligence Service on Thursday night to offer his version of events. That followed a visit to the newspaper by a team of intelligence agents seeking information on Mr. Segovia. “I went because I am the first one interested in clearing this up,” the newspaper quoted Mr. Segovia as saying. “I have nothing to hide.”
Mr. Segovia, who has been writing crosswords for the paper for more than 17 years, said the accusations against him were ridiculous. He blamed “irresponsible people who are seeking to generate a controversy in an election season.”
That election, in October, pits Mr. Chávez, who has held office since 1999, against Henrique Capriles Radonski. Adding to the tension is the uncertainty over the health of Mr. Chávez, who has been undergoing treatment in Cuba for an undisclosed form of cancer. ||||| This handout image shows a crossword puzzled published May 9, 2012 in Venezuelan newspaper Ultimas Noticias in Caracas. A veteran Venezuelan crossword-writer has been accused of hiding on May 11, 2012 a coded message to assassinate President Hugo Chavez's brother in the...
This handout image shows a crossword puzzled published May 9, 2012 in Venezuelan newspaper Ultimas Noticias in Caracas. A veteran Venezuelan crossword-writer has been accused of hiding on May 11, 2012 a coded message to assassinate President Hugo Chavez's brother in the...
CARACAS A veteran Venezuelan crossword-writer has been accused of hiding a coded message to assassinate President Hugo Chavez's brother in the latest surreal twist to election year politics in the South American nation.
Neptali Segovia was interviewed by intelligence agents, his newspaper said on Friday, after a state TV pundit said he had disguised a message to gun down Chavez's brother, Adan, in the answers to various clues in a crossword this week.
"These sorts of messages were used a lot in World War Two," the pundit, Perez Pirela, said earlier in the week in a dramatic denouncement of Ultimas Noticias newspaper on live television.
Segovia has denied any subversive intentions.
While causing laughter in some circles, the case also shows the dangerously polarized environment in Venezuela, where the socialist Chavez has been accusing opposition leaders of planning violence in the run-up to an October presidential vote.
Mystery over cancer-stricken Chavez's condition has only heightened the nervous atmosphere in Venezuela.
The pugnacious Pirela, who uses an early evening TV show to lay into Chavez opponents, said a group of mathematicians, psychologists and others had studied the Spanish-language crossword and concluded it was a coded assassination plot.
Answers to clues included "Adan", "asesinen" (meaning "kill") and "rafaga" (which can mean either a burst of gunfire, or a gust of wind).
LIKE DE GAULLE?
"It's a message ... I'm speaking in the name of truth," Pirela added, noting how French leader Charles de Gaulle used to broadcast coded messages from London to Resistance fighters in France during World War Two.
Police were not available for comment.
But Ultimas Noticias said six officers from Venezuela's intelligence service had visited the newspaper's editorial offices on Thursday asking for information about Segovia.
After that, he went voluntarily to the intelligence service's headquarters to give a statement, it said.
"I am the first to want to clarify this. I have nothing to hide because the work I have been doing for the last 17 years has only a cultural and education intention, and is transparent," Segovia was quoted as saying.
"I was treated respectfully. They took down my comments and made a routine summary. Then they took me home."
Another newspaper, the militantly pro-opposition Tal Cual, lampooned the Chavez government on Friday with a front-page crossword highlighting the nation's ills.
Clues included: "What officials do when they misuse public funds" (Corruption); Perhaps the most abused law? (Constitution); and "Name of supreme leader who governs our destiny? Bearded." (Fidel Castro).
(Additional reporting by Marianna Parraga; Editing by Anthony Boadle)
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– It makes American politics look sane: Venezuela's intelligence service grilled a crossword puzzle maker this week because some think he called for the assassination of Hugo Chavez's brother in code. As Reuters explains, answers to one newspaper puzzle included the words "adan" (the first name of the president's brother), "rafaga" (which can mean gunfire), and "asesinen" (kill). A prominent Chavez backer called it a death threat on national TV, arguing, "These sorts of messages were used a lot in World War II." The puzzle writer denies it and says his work over 17 years has "only a cultural and education intention." He blamed "irresponsible people who are seeking to generate a controversy in an election season," notes the New York Times. Chavez, who is battling cancer, is up for re-election in October.
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(CNN) Studies have suggested that cat ownership could be linked to certain mental disorders, such as schizophrenia, but researchers at University College London say they found no link between cat ownership and the development of psychotic symptoms.
Published in the medical journal Psychological Medicine , the new study is the first to prospectively look at childhood cat ownership and the infection of the parasite Toxoplasma gondii as a risk factor for psychosis.
House cats are known to be the primary host of T. gondii, which infects various warm-blooded animals (including humans) and causes a disease called toxoplasmosis
According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 60 million people in the United States may be infected with the parasite. However, most individuals who develop toxoplasmosis experience few symptoms because their immune systems keep the parasite from causing illness.
But in pregnant women and those with compromised immune systems, the disease could cause serious health problems, including damage to the brain, eyes and other organs. Infants who are born to women infected with T. gondii during or just before their pregnancy are most at risk for developing severe toxoplasmosis.
Toxoplasmosis can be contracted through undercooked meat and contaminated water, but it can also be contracted through contact with feces containing the parasite.
Previous research into cat ownership and the development of mental health disorders has been limited, according to Francesca Solmi, the lead author of the study and a research associate in the Division of Psychiatry at University College London.
"Because cats are the primary host of Toxoplasma gondii, it had been suggested that they might put people at increased risk of mental illness, including schizophrenia, by exposing them to T. gondii infection," she said. "However, some of the studies that have looked at this association had methodologically limitations."
These limitations included studies in which researchers asked people with and without mental health problems to remember details about their childhood, which could have led to errors in recall.
The new study looked at nearly 5,000 people in the United Kingdom who were born between 1991 and 1992 and followed them until the age of 18. The researchers used birth information to determine whether households had cats when the mothers were pregnant and when the children were growing up. At ages 13 and 18 years, the children were brought into clinics to be evaluated for psychotic-like symptoms.
After controlling for potential confounding factors, the study concluded that cat ownership in pregnancy and childhood did not play a role in developing psychotic symptoms during adolescence.
"The message for cat owners is clear: there is no evidence that cats pose a risk to children's mental health," Solmi said in a news release. "In our study, initial unadjusted analyses suggested a small link between cat ownership and psychotic symptoms at age 13, but this turned out to be due to other factors."
She added, "Once we controlled for factors such as household over-crowding and socioeconomic status, the data showed that cats were not to blame. Previous studies reporting links between cat ownership and psychosis simply failed to adequately control for other possible explanations."
Although the study did not measure T. gondii exposure directly, the results do suggest that if the parasite causes psychiatric problems, cat ownership does not significantly increase exposure.
However, other experts believe that adjusting for other possible explanations may eliminate the cause of the exposure itself. "By itself, household crowding is a risk factor that has been associated with schizophrenia, and if the crowding leads to greater contact with the household cats, then adjusting for household crowding statistically may eliminate the legitimate association between cat exposure and, in this case, unusual thoughts," said Dr. E. Fuller Torrey, an associate director of research at the Stanley Medical Institute who has also conducted research in cat ownership and toxoplasmosis.
The researchers continue to recommend that pregnant women handle cat litter with caution.
"There is good evidence that T. Gondii exposure during pregnancy can lead to serious birth defects and other health problems in children. As such, we recommend that pregnant women should continue to follow advice not to handle soiled cat litter in case it contains T. Gondii," senior study author James Kirkbride of University College London said in a news release.
Soiled litter boxes are not the only places to contract the parasite. "You don't have to own a cat to be exposed to contaminated feces," Fuller said. "For example, cats love sandboxes because of the loose soil." He warns that any loose soil can easily be contaminated by neighborhood cats.
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Solmi says she is relieved at the results of her study. "Many people own cats, and it's reassuring that our findings suggest that cat ownership is not associated with an increased risk of mental illness, as previously suggested."
She suggests that future studies look at replicating this research study to add more evidence. ||||| Over the past few years, cats have increasingly attracted media attention due to a number of scientific studies reporting that a Toxoplasma Gondii (T. Gondii) infection is linked with mental health issues, including schizophrenia, suicide and intermittent rage disorder. Since domestic cats are the primary hosts of T. Gondii – that is, they provide an environment within which this parasite can reproduce – it is often speculated that cat ownership may put people at increased risk of mental illness, by exposing them to it.
However, only a handful of small studies have found evidence to support a link between owning a cat and psychotic disorders, such as schizophrenia. And most of these investigations have serious limitations. For instance, they relied on small samples, did not specify how participants were selected, and did not appropriately account for the presence of missing data and alternative explanations. This can often lead to results that are born out of chance or are biased.
To tackle these limitations, we conducted a study using data from approximately 5,000 children who took part in the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children between 1991 and 1992. Since then, these children and their families have been followed up to gather information on their health, as well as on their demographic, social and economic circumstances.
So, unlike previous studies, we were able to follow people over time, from birth to late adolescence, and address a number of the limitations of previous research, including controlling for alternative explanations (such as income, occupation, ethnicity, other pet ownership and over-crowding) and taking into account missing data.
We studied whether mothers who owned a cat while pregnant; when the child was four years old; and 10 years old, were more likely to have children who reported psychotic symptoms, such as paranoia or hallucinations, at age 13 and 18 years of age. Although most people who experience psychotic symptoms in adolescence will not develop psychotic disorders later in life, these symptoms often indicate an increased risk for such disorders and other mental illnesses, including depression.
So are cats bad for your mental health? Probably, not.
We found that children who were born and raised in households that included cats at any time period – that is, pregnancy, early and late childhood – were not at a higher risk of having psychotic symptoms when they were 13 or 18 years old. This finding in a large, representative sample did not change when we used statistical techniques to account for missing data and alternative explanations. This means that it is unlikely that our results are explained by chance or are biased.
While this finding is reassuring, there is evidence linking exposure to T. Gondii in pregnancy to a risk of miscarriage and stillbirth, or health problems in the baby. In our study, we could not directly measure exposure to T. Gondii, so we recommend that pregnant women should continue to avoid handling soiled cat litter and other sources of T. Gondii infection, such as raw or undercooked meats, or unwashed fruit and vegetables. That said, data from our study suggests that owning a cat during pregnancy or in early childhood does not pose a direct risk for offspring having psychotic symptoms later in life. ||||| Angold , A , Costello , EJ , Messer , SC , Pickles , A , Winder , F , Silver , D ( 1995 ). Development of a short questionnaire for use in epidemiological studies of depression in children and adolescents . International Journal of Methods in Psychiatric Research 5 , 237 – 249 .
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Torrey , EF , Rawlings , R , Yolken , RH ( 2000 ). The antecedents of psychoses: a case-control study of selected risk factors . Schizophrenia Research 46 , 17 – 23 .
Torrey , EF , Simmons , W , Yolken , RH ( 2015 ). Is childhood cat ownership a risk factor for schizophrenia later in life? Schizophrenia Research 165 , 1 – 2 .
Torrey , EF , Yolken , RH ( 1995 ). Could schizophrenia be a viral zoonosis transmitted from house cats? Schizophrenia Bulletin 21 , 167 – 171 .
Webster , JP , Kaushik , M , Bristow , GC , McConkey , GA ( 2013 ). Toxoplasma gondii infection, from predation to schizophrenia: can animal behaviour help us understand human behaviour? Journal of Experimental Biology 216 , 99 – 112 .
Werner , S , Malaspina , D , Rabinowitz , J ( 2007 ). Socioeconomic status at birth is associated with risk of Schizophrenia: population-based multilevel study . Schizophrenia Bulletin 33 , 1373 – 1378 .
Westgarth , C , Heron , J , Ness , AR , Bundred , P , Gaskell , RM , Coyne , KP , German , AJ , McCune , S , Dawson , S ( 2010 ). Family pet ownership during childhood: findings from a UK birth cohort and implications for public health research . International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 7 , 3704 – 3729 .
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Wolf , PJ , Hamilton , FE ( 2015 ). Flawed analyses undermine proposed relationship between childhood cat ownership and schizophrenia . Schizophrenia Research 168 , 596 .
Yuksel , P , Alpay , N , Babur , C , Bayar , R , Saribas , S , Karakose , AR , Aksoy , C , Asian , M , Mehmetali , S , Kilic , S , Balcioglu , I , Hamanca , O , Dirican , A , Kucukbasmaci , O , Oner , A , Torun , MM , Kocazeybek , B ( 2010 ). The role of latent toxoplasmosis in the aetiopathogenesis of schizophrenia – the risk factor or an indication of a contact with cat? Folia Parasitologica 57 , 121 – 128 .
Zammit , S , Horwood , J , Thompson , A , Thomas , K , Menezes , P , Gunnell , D , Hollis , C , Wolke , D , Lewis , G , Harrison , G ( 2008 ). Investigating if psychosis-like symptoms (PLIKS) are associated with family history of schizophrenia or paternal age in the ALSPAC birth cohort . Schizophrenia Research 104 , 279 – 286 . ||||| New UCL research has found no link between cat ownership and psychotic symptoms, casting doubt on previous suggestions that people who grew up with cats are at higher risk of mental illness
New UCL research has found no link between cat ownership and psychotic symptoms, casting doubt on previous suggestions that people who grew up with cats are at higher risk of mental illness.
Recent research has suggested that cat ownership might contribute to some mental disorders, because cats are the primary host of the common parasite Toxoplasma Gondii (T. Gondii), itself linked to mental health problems such as schizophrenia. However, the new study, published in Psychological Medicine, suggests that cat ownership in pregnancy and childhood does not play a role in developing psychotic symptoms during adolescence. The study looked at nearly 5000 people born in 1991 or 1992 who were followed-up until the age of 18. The researchers had data on whether the household had cats while the mother was pregnant and when the children were growing up.
"The message for cat owners is clear: there is no evidence that cats pose a risk to children's mental health," says lead author Dr Francesca Solmi (UCL Psychiatry). "In our study, initial unadjusted analyses suggested a small link between cat ownership and psychotic symptoms at age 13, but this turned out to be due to other factors. Once we controlled for factors such as household over-crowding and socioeconomic status, the data showed that cats were not to blame. Previous studies reporting links between cat ownership and psychosis simply failed to adequately control for other possible explanations."
The new study was significantly more reliable than previous research in this area since the team looked at families who were followed up regularly for almost 20 years. This is much more reliable than methods used in previous studies, which asked people with and without mental health problems to remember details about their childhood. Such accounts are more vulnerable to errors in recall which can lead to spurious findings.
Previous studies were also relatively small and had significant gaps in the data, whereas the new study looked at a large population and was able to account for missing data. The new study was not able to measure T. Gondii exposure directly, but the results suggest that if the parasite does cause psychiatric problems then cat ownership does not significantly increase exposure.
"Our study suggests that cat ownership during pregnancy or in early childhood does not pose a direct risk for later psychotic symptoms," explains senior author Dr James Kirkbride (UCL Psychiatry). "However, there is good evidence that T. Gondii exposure during pregnancy can lead to serious birth defects and other health problems in children. As such, we recommend that pregnant women should continue to follow advice not to handle soiled cat litter in case it contains T. Gondii."
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– New research is sure to get cat owners purring: Despite suggestions that cats may boost one's risk of psychiatric disorders and other mental illnesses, a new study finds people who grow up in a house with cats are no more likely to suffer from mental illness than those who steer clear of cats. "The message for cat owners is clear: There is no evidence that cats pose a risk to children's mental health," the lead author says in a release. While it doesn't dispute the link between mental illness and a parasite carried in cat feces, known as Toxoplasma gondii, the Psychological Medicine study does suggest previous studies linking cat ownership and psychosis failed to consider factors like household over-crowding and socioeconomic status. Researchers followed 5,000 children from birth to age 18, gathering health data as well as information on whether they grew up with a cat or even whether their mother lived with a cat while pregnant, per the Conversation. Though they couldn't measure T. Gondii exposure directly, they found cat ownership in pregnancy and childhood did not increase one's risk of psychiatric problems, per CNN. Researchers did find "a small link between cat ownership and psychotic symptoms at age 13, but this turned out to be due to other factors," the author says. Researchers maintain, however, that T. Gondii exposure during pregnancy can lead to miscarriage, stillbirth, and other health problems for the baby so pregnant women shouldn't handle soiled cat litter. (This study shows how to cheer a grumpy cat.)
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Story highlights Podesta has made his interest in the possibility of alien life well known
"The American people can handle the truth," Podesta said
Washington (CNN) There has long been an air of conspiracy surrounding theories of alien life, and the head of Hillary Clinton's campaign said Thursday it's time to do away with the secrecy.
CNN's Jake Tapper pulled aside Clinton campaign chair John Podesta, who was a guest on "The Lead," to talk aliens.
"The U.S. government could do a much better job in answering the quite legitimate questions that people have about what's going on with unidentified aerial phenomena," Podesta said.
Podesta has made his interest in the possibility of alien life and conspiratorial leanings toward Area 51 well known. During his time serving in the Obama administration, Podesta tweeted, "Finally, my biggest failure of 2014: Once again not securing the #disclosure of the UFO files. #thetruthisstilloutthere cc: @NYTimesDowd."
1. Finally, my biggest failure of 2014: Once again not securing the #disclosure of the UFO files. #thetruthisstilloutthere cc: @NYTimesDowd — Brian Deese (@Deese44) February 13, 2015
Clinton herself pledged in January to "get to the bottom" of whether rumors of U.S. contact with extraterrestrial life were true.
Read More ||||| Clinton campaign chairman: Americans 'can handle the truth' about UFOs
John D. Podesta is seen in this 2012 photo. (Photo: Massoud Hossaini, AP)
John Podesta, Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, says it’s time for the U.S. government to release any evidence it has about the existence of alien forms of life in outer space.
Podesta, who was also a chief of staff to President Bill Clinton, told CNN that if Hillary Clinton is elected, she’ll ask for as many records about Area 51 in Nevada as the U.S. government has to be declassified.
“I think that's a commitment that she intends to keep and that I intend to hold her to," Podesta told CNN.
Area 51 is a remote Air Force test and training range that’s been the subject of conspiracy theories, including UFO sightings.
"The U.S. government could do a much better job in answering the quite legitimate questions that people have about what's going on with unidentified aerial phenomena," said Podesta.
Asked if the government is holding proof of alien life, Podesta said: “That’s for the public to judge once they’ve seen all the evidence that the U.S. government has.”
Asked about his own beliefs, Podesta simply said: “There are a lot of planets out there,” adding “the American people can handle the truth.”
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– With The X-Files off the air—again—we need somebody to step into Fox Mulder's shoes. It looks like that somebody is going to be Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman, John Podesta. USA Today reports Podesta, who was also chief of staff for President Clinton and a member of President Obama's administration, wants the government to release any evidence it has on the existence of aliens and says Clinton, if elected, will request the declassification of records related to Area 51. “I think that's a commitment that she intends to keep and that I intend to hold her to," Podesta tells CNN. Podesta's desire to get to the bottom of this whole aliens thing goes back more than a decade, according to Jezebel. In 2002, he said scientists need those sealed records in order to solve UFO phenomena. "The US government could do a much better job in answering the quite legitimate questions that people have about what's going on with unidentified aerial phenomena," Podesta tells CNN. While working for the Obama administration, Podesta described his biggest failure of 2014 as "once again not securing the disclosure of the UFO files." Podesta wouldn't say whether he believes in aliens or if the government has proof of their existence. He says that's for the public to decide after they've seen the files: "The American people can handle the truth.” Jezebel thinks he might be right: "A lot of other things—abortion, the death penalty, race relations, the yawning wealth gap, and the disappearance of the middle class—we’re not doing so great coming to a consensus on, but I’m confident we could all, as a group, calmly handle the truth about aliens."
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PANOLA COUNTY, Miss. --WREG has just confirmed an indictment has been returned in the Jessica Chambers case.
WREG's Jessica Gertler spoke with Chambers' father who confirmed he was aware of the indictment.
The suspect, Quinton Tellis, is in custody in Louisiana.
A source close to Jessica told WREG she and Tellis dated on and off again.
He was arrested there after he was caught with the ATM card of another murder victim.
The victim was reportedly a University of Louisiana Monroe exchange student.
Sources told WREG he is considered a suspect in that Louisiana murder case.
On Wednesday, the District Attorney and Panola County Investigators will be holding a news conference on Wednesday to update the public.
The news conference is set to begin at 10:30 a.m. and we will bring you the latest information once we learn more.
Chambers was doused in gasoline and set on fire on a rural road in Panola County.
Around 98% of her body was burned.
She later died from her injuries.
District Attorney John Champion said investigators have determined Chambers was mostly at home up until about 5 p.m. the day of the murder.
He said she left home and headed to a gas station in Courtland shortly before 6 p.m. after she received a phone call from a friend.
The teen was captured on surveillance video at a gas station filling up her car.
Authorities were able to determine Chambers was then in the area of Highway 6's first set of stop lights, coming into Batesville, a town about five miles away, and was there for 10 to 15 minutes.
The D.A. said he cannot elaborate further about where she was specifically.
Chambers was back in Courtland around 6:30 p.m., he said.
What happened during the next hour or so is unclear.
A passing motorist found the 19-year-old on the side of the road, lying near her burning Kia Rio sedan just before 8:15 p.m. that night.
Champion said investigators believe Chambers was at the murder scene as early as 7:31 p.m.
The teen was still alive when rescue workers responded.
Champion has said Chambers spoke to rescue workers, but what she said has not been revealed. ||||| Surveillance video from a gas station on Highway 51 in Courtland, MS shows Jessica Chambers walking toward the gas station before being called away by someone out of the camera's view.
Surveillance video from a gas station on Highway 51 in Courtland, MS shows Jessica Chambers walking toward the gas station before being called away by someone out of the camera's view.
Thousands of people around the world have been touched by Jessica Chambers' story.
Thousands of people around the world have been touched by Jessica Chambers' story.
Sources confirm a man named Quinton Tellis will be publicly identified as a suspect in the murder of Jessica Chambers during Wednesday's press conference. It's the break the Chambers family and investigators have been waiting for in the case.
Tellis is a Panola County man currently in jail in Louisiana for an unrelated credit card and drug charge in that state.
"Words can't describe how excited I am. God knows I've been waiting a long time for this," Ben Chambers, Jessica's father, said. "I cried. I cried."
District Attorney John Champion and other Panola County investigators will hold a press conference Wednesday at 10:30 a.m. They said the press conference is related to the Jessica Chambers case, but did not say specifically what they plan to release at the press conference.
Sources tell WMC Action News 5 the press conference will announce that a grand jury indicted Tellis in Chambers' murder.
In November, Tellis was identified as the person who used the debit cards of a killed University of Louisiana-Monroe exchange student. Meing-Chen Hsiao was stabbed to death in August last year, but Tellis has not been charged with her murder. Investigators said Tellis used Hsiao's debit card three times. During that investigation, he was identified as possibly being connected to a murder in Mississippi.
Wednesday's press conference will start at 10:30 a.m. at the Panola County Sheriff's Department. WMC Action News 5 will be there to carry the announcement live on air and on WMCActionNews5.com.
Chambers was burned alive along a rural road in Courtland, Mississippi on December 6, 2014. Surveillance cameras at a nearby gas station recorded Chambers moments before her death.
Tellis, originally from Courtland, was released from prison on burglary convictions in October 2014. In December of that same year, Chambers was found near her car with burns over most of her body. Sources said Chambers had recently met Tellis before her death.
"All these months we've wondered, did you do it? Did you do it? Did you do it?" Ben said. "It's just been turmoil."
Jessica's grandmother said it's been awful since her death.
"It's been tough. It's been tough."
"Nothing will bring Jessica back, but at least I'll know he will never do this to somebody else's daughter. It will bring closure," Ben Chambers said. "At least we will know who did it."
In December, Panola County Sheriff Dennis Darby said his department had some 'promising' leads in the case. Now, Tellis is expected to officially be identified as the person who may have been responsible for her horrific burning and death almost 14 months ago during Wednesday's press conference.
Copyright 2016 WMC Action News 5. All rights reserved.
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– More than 14 months and 150 police interviews after the horrific murder of Jessica Chambers, authorities believe they have found her killer. Quinton Tellis, a 27-year-old man in jail in Louisiana in connection with another murder, has been indicted on capital murder charges in the death of the 19-year-old, who was burned alive on a country road near Courtland, Miss., on Dec. 6, 2014, the Clarion-Ledger reports. Chambers, who had been doused in gasoline, was still alive when rescue workers found her and was able to speak a few words, but she died in a hospital within hours. Tellis went to high school with Chambers and sources tell WREG that he had an on-and-off relationship with her. Tellis—who has served time in prison for burglary and finished his most recent sentence in October 2014—is in the Ouachita Parish Jail in Monroe, La., on charges related to the killing of Meing-Chen Hsiao, an exchange student from Taiwan, in August. Police say he used an ATM card belonging to the 34-year-old, who was stabbed to death in her apartment. He hasn't been charged with murder in that case, though sources say he is a suspect. "God knows I've been waiting a long time for this," Jessica's father, Ben Chambers, tells WTVM. "Nothing will bring Jessica back, but at least I'll know he will never do this to somebody else's daughter. It will bring closure. At least we will know who did it."
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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 ||||| Story highlights Peggy Whitson has set the US record for most cumulative days in space
She surpassed astronaut Jeff Williams' record of 534 days
(CNN) President Donald Trump congratulated NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson from the Oval Office on Monday on her record-breaking stay aboard the International Space Station.
Early Monday morning, Whitson officially set the US record for most cumulative days in space, surpassing astronaut Jeff Williams' record of 534 days, according to NASA.
At 1:27 a.m. ET on April 24, @AstroPeggy has officially broken @Astro_Jeff's record of 534 days in space. Wish her well with #CongratsPeggy! pic.twitter.com/ylZtOwt4lA — Intl. Space Station (@Space_Station) April 24, 2017
Whitson arrived at the space station for her current stint on November 19, 2016, and is due to return to Earth in September.
Speaking from the Oval Office, Trump, alongside his daughter, Ivanka, and NASA astronaut Kate Rubins, spoke via video with Whitson and fellow astronaut Jack Fischer.
"This is a very special day in the glorious history of American spaceflight," Trump said. "You have broken the record for the most total time spent in space by an American astronaut. That's an incredible record to break."
Read More ||||| Peggy Whitson has broken the record for most days in space by a US astronaut.
Dr Whitson already holds records for the most spacewalks carried out by a woman astronaut and is the first woman to command the International Space Station (ISS) twice.
Now she's beaten the record previously set by Jeff Williams, who had a total of 534 days in space.
President Donald Trump and his daughter Ivanka have called Dr Whitson to congratulate her.
During their video chat between the White House and the International Space Station, President Trump started by telling Peggy Whitson that her achievement was a "glorious day in the history of space flight".
"Today Commander Whitson, you have broken the record for the most total time spent in space by an American astronaut - 534 days and counting," he said.
"That's an incredible record to break and on behalf of our nation, and frankly on behalf of the world, I'd like to congratulate you. That is really something."
Donald Trump then asked Dr Whitson what she thought of her achievement.
She replied: "It's actually a huge honour to break a record like this but it's an honour for me to be representing all the folks at Nasa who make the space flight possible, who make me setting this record feasible.
"It's a very exciting time to be at Nasa. We're excited about the missions to Mars in the 2030s. We actually have hardware on the ground being built for the SLS rocket for the test flights, which will eventually take us there.
"I'm so proud of the team."
Replying to a question from President Trump on what they're learning from being in orbit around Earth, Dr Whitson said they were studying the effects of deep space travel on the human body for the planned Mars missions and said water was a particular challenge.
"Right now we're taking solar power, which we collect and are using it to break apart water into oxygen and hydrogen. The oxygen we breath. We use the hydrogen, combine it back with the CO2 that we take out of the air and make more water.
"But water is such a precious resource up here that we are also cleaning up our urine and making it drinkable - and it's really not as bad as it sounds."
Mr Trump replied: "That's good. I'm glad to hear that. Better you than me."
Earlier this month, Nasa astronaut Shane Kimbrough turned command of the ISS over to Dr Whitson.
"She will set another record at this moment," he said at the time.
"She now becomes the first two-time female commander of the International Space Station.
"The Space Station is in great hands with Peggy."
At 57, she is also the oldest woman to have gone to space.
Dr Whitson already holds the record for longest time spent in space by a woman.
Born in Iowa, she has an advanced degree in biochemistry and worked for Nasa in several prominent medical science and research positions, before being selected as an astronaut candidate in 1996.
She first went into space in 2002 and became the first woman to command the ISS in 2007.
The oldest person to go into space is John Glenn, who was also the first American to orbit Earth in 1962. He went back into space in 1998 aged 77.
He died last year at the age of 95.
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– Another day, another milestone for US astronaut Peggy Whitson: On Monday, she set the record for cumulative days in space by American. NASA tweeted that Whitson, currently on her third mission, surpassed Jeff Williams' record of 534 days. "It's actually a huge honor to break a record like this," Whitson told President Trump, who called her Monday morning to offer congratulations. "It's an honor for me to be representing all the folks at NASA who make space travel possible and make me setting this record feasible." The 57-year-old first went into space in 2002, and she became the first woman to command the International Space Station five years later, notes the BBC. In March, she went on her eighth spacewalk, the most by a female astronaut, adds CNN. "On behalf of our nation and, frankly, on behalf of our world, I'd like to thank you," Trump told the astronaut. The president, accompanied by daughter Ivanka on the linkup, also asked Whitson about a potential visit to Mars, and she responded that it will take time, money, and international cooperation but will be well worth the effort. "We want to do that during my first term or, at worst, my second," Trump joked. "We'll have to speed that up a little, OK?" Whitson returns to Earth in September.
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Two "faithless electors" from Texas refused to vote for President-elect Donald Trump Donald John TrumpArizona GOP Senate candidate defends bus tour with far-right activist Alyssa Milano protests Kavanaugh in 'Handmaid's Tale' costume Bomb in deadly Yemen school bus attack was manufactured by US firm: report MORE on Monday, leaving his official Electoral College vote two shy of what he earned on Election Night.
Despite a concerted push from liberals to convince Republican electors to go rogue, all remained united around their party's nominee until Texas, the final Republican state to report results.
All but two of Texas' 38 electors followed suit. One elector, Dallas's Christopher Suprun, had already declared his intent to vote for Ohio Republican Gov. John Kasich, who briefly emerged as a compromise pick for anti-Trump electors before rejecting their support. Suprun followed through on that pledge.
But a second elector chose to back former Texas Republican Rep. Ron Paul instead of Trump.
ADVERTISEMENT That brings Trump's Electoral College vote total to 304, two shy of the 306 he would have won without the defections.
Texas conducts its electoral votes by a secret ballot, so the identity of the second defector will be unknown unless he or she comes forward. The defections bothered Texas Gov. Greg Abbott. He tweeted moments after the vote that he will push the legislature to pass a bill to bind electors to the state's popular vote winner during the next legislative session, which begins in January.
Three Washington state electors chose to vote for former Secretary of State Colin Powell, presumably in response to the push for Democrats to unite around a compromise Republican that wasn't Trump. And one additional Washington elector voted for Faith Spotted Eagle, a Native American activist.
Three other Democrats—one in Maine, Colorado and Minnesota—had attempted to vote for another candidate. Two were replaced based on state laws that bind electors to the popular vote result, while one changed his mind. ||||| Democratic elector Robert Satiacum stands to speak during a meeting of Washington state's Electoral College on Dec. 19, in Olympia, Wash. | AP Photo Electoral College sees record-breaking defections
The seven so-called “faithless” votes cast by members of the Electoral College on Monday may go down as a noisy footnote to an otherwise chaotic 2016 election. But they also represent a historic breach between electors and the candidates they were expected to vote for.
The number of faithless votes has now become the most-ever cast in a single presidential election. The record was set in 1808, when six Democratic-Republican electors opposed James Madison. It’s also the first time since 1832 in which more than a single elector cast a faithless vote.
Story Continued Below
The bulk of the votes came from Washington state, where three Democratic electors bucked Hillary Clinton and cast votes for Colin Powell, a retired general, an African-American — and a Republican. These Democrats were supporting a failed effort meant to block the election of Donald Trump and unite behind an alternative Republican candidate. Powell turned out to be their choice.
A fourth Washington state elector — Robert Satiacum — cast his ballot for Native American activist Faith Spotted Eagle. And a fifth vote against Clinton came late Monday in Hawaii, where one elector voted for Bernie Sanders.
The only two anti-Trump votes occurred in Texas. One, cast by elector Chris Suprun for Ohio Gov. John Kasich, was expected. But a second, cast by an unknown elector for libertarian former Rep. Ron Paul, was a surprise.
As remarkable as the level of faithless voting turned out to be, the numbers could have been even higher. Three additional Democratic electors — one each in Maine, Minnesota and Colorado — attempted to buck Clinton as well but they were denied the chance to do so by state election officials.
Maine’s David Bright initially cast his vote for Sanders, Clinton’s primary rival. But after he was told his vote was improper, based on a state law, he changed his mind and supported Clinton. Minnesota elector Muhammad Abdurrahman also attempted to back Sanders but he was quickly replaced under a similar Minnesota law with an elector who voted for Clinton.
In Colorado, elector Micheal Baca — a leader of the anti-Trump Electoral College effort — was removed as he attempted to cast a vote for Kasich. He says he intends to fight his removal and cast the vote as he intended.
Monday marked the first time any state laws that bind electors have been enforced. Though many have been on the books for decades, electors have nearly unanimously backed their party’s candidate throughout history — when there have been single stray votes in recent history, they’ve typically gone unchallenged and unenforced.
Only 157 faithless votes have ever been recorded in total, and most came before the turn of the 20th century.
The last faithless electoral vote occurred in Minnesota in 2004, when an unknown elector cast a ballot for John Kerry’s running mate, John Edwards. ||||| Amid protests and intense media coverage, Texas members of the Electoral College mostly stuck to the script Monday, casting the votes that gave Donald Trump a majority and officially elected him president.
Gathered in the state House chamber as a small group of protesters shouted, “Save our democracy,” from outside the Capitol, the Texas electors cast 36 votes for Donald Trump, one for former U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, R-Surfside, and one for Ohio Gov. John Kasich.
The Electoral College, typically a footnote in the process of choosing a president, received unusual attention this year as opponents of Trump on both sides of the aisle grappled with his unexpected victory. Members from Texas played a central role in the uncertainty over whether electors would decline en masse to vote in accordance with their states’ election results.
In the end, only a handful of electors pledged to Trump or Democrat Hillary Clinton broke with their states’ voters.
Texas elector Bill Greene voted for Paul, and the Kasich vote came from Christopher Suprun, who made national headlines in the run-up to Monday’s vote after announcing he would be a so-called faithless elector in an opinion article in The New York Times.
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After Monday’s vote, Suprun said the effort to get electors to join him in voting against Trump was an “uphill battle” but he doesn’t regret it.
“I consider Mr. Trump still to be a demagogue. He continues to divide us based on whether or not you’re male or female, and if you’re a female, are you a 4 or a 10; where you worship; the color of your skin, ” said Suprun, who supported U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz in the primaries but now objects to the Texas senator over his September endorsement of Trump.
Another Texan, Art Sisneros of Dayton, also opposed Trump but resigned rather than vote for him or break a pledge he made at the Republican Party of Texas convention to vote for the candidate who wins the popular vote of the state.
Elector Mary Lou Erben of New Braunfels said she also voted for Cruz in the primary but likes Trump and believes electors should follow the wishes of their states’ voters.
Trump won by 9 percentage points in Texas.
“I agreed to vote for our nominee,” Erben said after the vote. “I started out with Cruz, but I support both.”
For vice president, 37 Texans chose Trump’s running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, and Suprun chose Austin native Carly Fiorina, whose presidential candidacy never gained traction. In the waning days of his campaign, Cruz announced Fiorina would be his running mate if he secured the nomination.
Trump lost the national popular vote by about 2.9 million votes but won a majority of enough states to give him a 306-232 advantage in the Electoral College, if all of those states’ electors had voted unanimously for the winner of the state’s popular vote.
Twenty-nine states have laws requiring their electors to do so. The others, including Texas, do not. There is debate over whether laws that bind electors would survive legal challenges because the Constitution does not require members of the Electoral College to vote a certain way.
Gov. Greg Abbott on Monday said he will support a bill that would bind Texas electors to their states’ election result. “I look forward to signing it and ending this circus,” Abbott wrote on Twitter.
Texas’ 38 electors were chosen at the state GOP convention in July. They were greeted outside the Capitol on Monday by several hundred demonstrators chanting, “Dump Trump,” and before the proceedings began they were met by Abbott; Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick; and U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas.
Daniel Brezenoff, the creator of a national online petition calling on the electors to pick Clinton that gained 4.9 million signatures, came to the Capitol on Monday morning to deliver the names of 265,000 Texans who had signed.
Four of the electors who were appointed at the Texas GOP convention were absent Monday, including Sisneros. The other three discovered they were ineligible because they either have a federal job or hold an elected office, said Alicia Pierce, spokeswoman for the secretary of state’s office. Their vacancies were filled on the floor by a vote of the other electors. ||||| Electoral vote 46th out of 58 elections Trump 57% Popular vote margin 47th in the last 49 elections Trump –2.1% The popular vote was not officially reported before the 1824 election.
Mr. Trump won 30 states, gathering 306 of 538 electoral votes. There have been 45 presidential elections in which the winning candidate won a larger share of the electoral vote.
Percent of electoral vote won
1. George Washington (1789) George Washington (1792) 3. Franklin D. Roosevelt (1936) 4. James Monroe (1820) 5. Ronald Reagan (1984) 6. Richard Nixon (1972) 7. Thomas Jefferson (1804) 8. Abraham Lincoln (1864) 9. Ronald Reagan (1980) 10. Lyndon B. Johnson (1964) 11. Franklin D. Roosevelt (1932) 12. Dwight Eisenhower (1956) 13. Franklin Pierce (1852) 14. Franklin D. Roosevelt (1940) 15. James Monroe (1816) 16. Herbert Hoover (1928) 17. Dwight Eisenhower (1952) 18. Woodrow Wilson (1912) 19. Franklin D. Roosevelt (1944) 20. Ulysses Grant (1872) 21. William H. Harrison (1840) 22. George Bush (1988) 23. Warren G. Harding (1920) 24. Andrew Jackson (1832) 25. Ulysses Grant (1868) 26. Calvin Coolidge (1924) 27. Theodore Roosevelt (1904) 28. Bill Clinton (1996) 29. James Madison (1808) 30. Bill Clinton (1992) 31. Andrew Jackson (1828) 32. Barack Obama (2008) 33. William Taft (1908) 34. William McKinley (1900) 35. Grover Cleveland (1892) 36. James K. Polk (1844) 37. Barack Obama (2012) 38. William McKinley (1896) 39. Abraham Lincoln (1860) 40. James Madison (1812) 41. James Buchanan (1856) 42. Benjamin Harrison (1888) 43. James Garfield (1880) 44. Martin Van Buren (1836) 45. Harry Truman (1948) 46. Donald J. Trump (2016) 47. John F. Kennedy (1960) 48. Zachary Taylor (1848) 49. Richard Nixon (1968) 50. Jimmy Carter (1976) 51. Grover Cleveland (1884) 52. George W. Bush (2004) 53. Thomas Jefferson (1800) 54. Woodrow Wilson (1916) 55. John Adams (1796) 56. George W. Bush (2000) 57. Rutherford B. Hayes (1876) 58. John Quincy Adams (1824)* 100% 100% 98.5% 98.3% 97.6% 96.7% 92.0% 91.0% 90.9% 90.3% 88.9% 86.1% 85.8% 84.6% 84.3% 83.6% 83.2% 81.9% 81.4% 81.3% 79.6% 79.2% 76.1% 76.0% 72.8% 71.9% 70.6% 70.4% 69.7% 68.8% 68.2% 67.8% 66.5% 65.3% 62.4% 61.8% 61.7% 60.6% 59.4% 59.0% 58.8% 58.1% 58.0% 57.8% 57.1% 56.9% 56.4% 56.2% 55.9% 55.2% 54.6% 53.2% 52.9% 52.2% 51.4% 50.4% 50.1% 32.2% 1. G. Washington (1789) G. Washington (1792) 3. F. D. Roosevelt (1936) 4. J. Monroe (1820) 5. R. Reagan (1984) 6. R. Nixon (1972) 7. T. Jefferson (1804) 8. A. Lincoln (1864) 9. R. Reagan (1980) 10. L. Johnson (1964) 11. F. D. Roosevelt (1932) 12. D. Eisenhower (1956) 13. F. Pierce (1852) 14. F. D. Roosevelt (1940) 15. J. Monroe (1816) 16. H. Hoover (1928) 17. D. Eisenhower (1952) 18. W. Wilson (1912) 19. F. D. Roosevelt (1944) 20. U. Grant (1872) 21. W. H. Harrison (1840) 22. G. Bush (1988) 23. W. Harding (1920) 24. A. Jackson (1832) 25. U. Grant (1868) 26. C. Coolidge (1924) 27. T. Roosevelt (1904) 28. B. Clinton (1996) 29. J. Madison (1808) 30. B. Clinton (1992) 31. A. Jackson (1828) 32. B. Obama (2008) 33. W. Taft (1908) 34. W McKinley (1900) 35. G. Cleveland (1892) 36. J. K. Polk (1844) 37. B. Obama (2012) 38. W. McKinley (1896) 39. A. Lincoln (1860) 40. J. Madison (1812) 41. J. Buchanan (1856) 42. B Harrison (1888) 43. J. Garfield (1880) 44. M. V. Buren (1836) 45. H. Truman (1948) 46. D. J. Trump (2016) 47. J. F. Kennedy (1960) 48. Z. Taylor (1848) 49. R. Nixon (1968) 50. J. Carter (1976) 51. G. Cleveland (1884) 52. G. W. Bush (2004) 53. T. Jefferson (1800) 54. W. Wilson (1916) 55. J. Adams (1796) 56. G. W. Bush (2000) 57. R. Hayes (1876) 58. J. Q. Adams (1824) 100% 100% 98.5% 98.3% 97.6% 96.7% 92.0% 91.0% 90.9% 90.3% 88.9% 86.1% 85.8% 84.6% 84.3% 83.6% 83.2% 81.9% 81.4% 81.3% 79.6% 79.2% 76.1% 76.0% 72.8% 71.9% 70.6% 70.4% 69.7% 68.8% 68.2% 67.8% 66.5% 65.3% 62.4% 61.8% 61.7% 60.6% 59.4% 59.0% 58.8% 58.1% 58.0% 57.8% 57.1% 56.9% 56.4% 56.2% 55.9% 55.2% 54.6% 53.2% 52.9% 52.2% 51.4% 50.4% 50.1% 32.2%
Mr. Trump trails in the popular vote by over 2.5 million votes as states continue to report final results. His deficit gives him the third-worst vote margin among winning candidates since 1824.
Popular vote margin
1. Warren G. Harding (1920) 2. Calvin Coolidge (1924) 3. Franklin D. Roosevelt (1936) 4. Richard Nixon (1972) 5. Lyndon B. Johnson (1964) 6. Theodore Roosevelt (1904) 7. Ronald Reagan (1984) 8. Andrew Jackson (1832) 9. Franklin D. Roosevelt (1932) 10. Herbert Hoover (1928) 11. Dwight Eisenhower (1956) 12. Woodrow Wilson (1912) 13. Martin Van Buren (1836) 14. Andrew Jackson (1828) 15. James Buchanan (1856) 16. Ulysses Grant (1872) 17. Dwight Eisenhower (1952) 18. Abraham Lincoln (1860) 19. Abraham Lincoln (1864) 20. Franklin D. Roosevelt (1940) 21. Ronald Reagan (1980) 22. William Taft (1908) 23. Bill Clinton (1996) 24. George H.W. Bush (1988) 25. Franklin D. Roosevelt (1944) 26. Barack Obama (2008) 27. Franklin Pierce (1852) 28. William McKinley (1900) 29. William H. Harrison (1840) 30. Bill Clinton (1992) 31. Ulysses Grant (1868) 32. Zachary Taylor (1848) 33. Harry Truman (1948) 34. William McKinley (1896) 35. Barack Obama (2012) 36. Woodrow Wilson (1916) 37. Grover Cleveland (1892) 38. George W. Bush (2004) 39. Jimmy Carter (1976) 40. James K. Polk (1844) 41. Richard Nixon (1968) 42. Grover Cleveland (1884) 43. John F. Kennedy (1960) 44. James Garfield (1880) 45. George W. Bush (2000) 46. Benjamin Harrison (1888) 47. Donald J. Trump (2016) 48. Rutherford B. Hayes (1876) 49. John Quincy Adams (1824)* +26.2% +25.2% +24.3% +23.1% +22.6% +18.8% +18.2% +17.8% +17.8% +17.4% +15.4% +14.4% +14.2% +12.3% +12.2% +11.8% +10.9% +10.1% +10.1% +9.9% +9.7% +8.5% +8.5% +7.7% +7.5% +7.3% +6.9% +6.2% +6.0% +5.6% +5.3% +4.8% +4.5% +4.3% +3.9% +3.1% +3.0% +2.5% +2.1% +1.5% +0.7% +0.6% +0.2% +0.1% -0.5% -0.8% -2.1% -3.0% -10.4% 1. J. Q. Adams (1824) 2. R. Hayes (1876) 3. D. J. Trump (2016) 4. B Harrison (1888) 5. G. W. Bush (2000) 6. J. Garfield (1880) 7. J. F. Kennedy (1960) 8. G. Cleveland (1884) 9. R. Nixon (1968) 10. J. K. Polk (1844) 11. J. Carter (1976) 12. G. W. Bush (2004) 13. G. Cleveland (1892) 14. W. Wilson (1916) 15. B. Obama (2012) 16. W. McKinley (1896) 17. H. Truman (1948) 18. Z. Taylor (1848) 19. U. Grant (1868) 20. B. Clinton (1992) 21. W. H. Harrison (1840) 22. W McKinley (1900) 23. F. Pierce (1852) 24. B. Obama (2008) 25. F. D. Roosevelt (1944) 26. G. Bush (1988) 27. B. Clinton (1996) 28. W. Taft (1908) 29. R. Reagan (1980) 30. F. D. Roosevelt (1940) 31. A. Lincoln (1864) 32. A. Lincoln (1860) 33. D. Eisenhower (1952) 34. U. Grant (1872) 35. J. Buchanan (1856) 36. A. Jackson (1828) 37. M. V. Buren (1836) 38. W. Wilson (1912) 39. D. Eisenhower (1956) 40. H. Hoover (1928) 41. F. D. Roosevelt (1932) 42. A. Jackson (1832) 43. R. Reagan (1984) 44. T. Roosevelt (1904) 45. L. Johnson (1964) 46. R. Nixon (1972) 47. F. D. Roosevelt (1936) 48. C. Coolidge (1924) 49. W. Harding (1920) -10.4% -3.0% -2.1% -0.8% -0.5% +0.1% +0.2% +0.6% +0.7% +1.5% +2.1% +2.5% +3.0% +3.1% +3.9% +4.3% +4.5% +4.8% +5.3% +5.6% +6.0% +6.2% +6.9% +7.3% +7.5% +7.7% +8.5% +8.5% +9.7% +9.9% +10.1% +10.1% +10.9% +11.8% +12.2% +12.3% +14.2% +14.4% +15.4% +17.4% +17.8% +17.8% +18.2% +18.8% +22.6% +23.1% +24.3% +25.2% +26.2%
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– Only two Republican electors voted against Donald Trump in the Electoral College Monday—but that was two too many for leading Republicans in Texas, where both of the "faithless" GOP electors hail from. The Hill reports that moments after the vote, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott tweeted that he was looking forward to signing a bill that would require electors to follow the state's popular votes. "This charade is over," he said. "A bill is already filed to make these commitments binding." One "faithless" Texas elector, Bill Greene, voted for Ron Paul, while the other, Christopher Suprun, voted for John Kasich. Trump's final margin was 304 to 227 for Hillary Clinton. The New York Times reports that his electoral college win ranks 46th out of 58 electoral college margins in US history. "I consider Mr. Trump still to be a demagogue. He continues to divide us based on whether or not you're male or female, and if you're a female, are you a 4 or a 10; where you worship; the color of your skin," Suprun tells the Austin American-Statesman. A total of five Democratic electors, four in Washington state and one in Hawaii, voted against Hillary Clinton, bringing the total number of faithless electors to a record seven, Politico reports. Three of the Washington electors backed Colin Powell and the fourth chose Faith Spotted Eagle, a Native American activist. The Hawaiian elector voted for Bernie Sanders. The previous record was set in 1808, with six faithless electors. There could have been even more this time around, but election officials blocked electors in several states when they attempted to buck their party's nominee.
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SANTA FE, N.M. — A marathon runner from Los Alamos played dead after getting mauled by a mother bear protecting one of her cubs Saturday in the Valles Caldera National Preserve.
“I have a fractured right orbit from the mean left hook,” victim Karen Williams wrote in a Facebook post late Sunday night. “I’m missing parts of (my) eyelid and eyebrow, injury to the belly of my left bicep and a lot of punctures and lacerations. But I am alive.”
The attack occurred in the mid-afternoon as Williams crossed Redondo Meadow about 23.5 miles into the marathon portion of the Valles Caldera Runs, she wrote.
She was “coming up a little rise just before that terrible off-trail uphill,” Williams wrote. “There was some sort of seep or pond or mucky area at the top of that little hill and when I topped it a bear was charging me.”
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The bear was too close to do much of anything, she wrote.
“She was about 15 (feet) away,” Williams wrote. “I raised my arms and yelled ‘NO!,’ then saw the cub. Then I was on my ass and being raked with claws and bitten. I cried out in pain and Mama bear did not like that so she hit me with a left hook and bit my neck and started to try to shake me. I rolled into a ball and played dead.”
The cub had scampered up a tree, and the bear went to check its offspring.
The bear “stopped at the base of a tree and huffed at her cub that was up about 30 feet,” Williams wrote. “The cub cried a bit while trying to get down the tree. Mama bear kept glancing my way to make sure that I was still ‘dead.’ I was at that point afraid I might die. I didn’t know what the wound on my neck was like because I did not move for fear she would come wail (sic) on me some more.”
It took a half-hour before another runner came by, and he and several other nearby runners began rescue efforts, Williams said.
Members of La Cueva District Volunteer Fire Department provided initial stabilization treatment at the site of the attack, which was about a mile from the nearest gate to the meadow area, then Williams was flown by helicopter to University of New Mexico Hospital, said Lee Taylor, district fire chief.
Although the wounds were not life threatening, “because of the significance of the injuries, we called for the helicopter to transport immediately,” he said.
She was treated at UNMH for about 14 hours before being released, Williams wrote.
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The adult bear was captured Sunday and, according to state law requiring any wild animal that bites a human to be put down, was euthanized to check it for rabies, said Lance Cherry, spokesman for the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish. Results were not back yet, he said, nor did he know how long it would take to get those results.
Game and Fish officials were still searching for the mother’s three cubs Sunday afternoon, he said. Once captured, officials plan to turn them over to the New Mexico Wildlife Center in Española, he said.
Williams in her Facebook post acknowledged the bear’s death and the effort to rescue her cubs.
“I am really sorry that the mama bear died. She was just being a bear,” she said in response to comments on her post.
This was the 10th running of the race, which also includes a half-marathon and a 10-K. The U.S. National Park Service, which now manages the preserve, gave race organizers a permit for a maximum of 350 entrants, although in the past it has had more than 600. The race has been organized and managed by the private High Altitude Sports for the past several years.
It was originally scheduled for April 23, but it was postponed because of poor weather in the week prior, which made the roads into the aid station areas impassable.
The attack was the first of the year in the Jemez Mountains area, Taylor said, adding, “There have been a lot of bears seen in this part of the Jemez this year. I don’t know why but there have been a lot of bear sightings this year.” ||||| VALLES CALDERA NATIONAL PRESERVE, N.M. (AP) — Wildlife officials say a bear attacked a woman running a marathon in a national preserve in northern New Mexico.
The woman suffered several bites and scratches and had injuries to her head, neck and upper body that weren't life-threatening.
The New Mexico Department of Game and Fish says the woman was racing Saturday afternoon when a female black bear confronted her in the Valles Caldera National Preserve. Officers say the victim surprised the bear after her cub had run up a nearby tree.
Other joggers helped her until emergency crews arrived. She was airlifted to an Albuquerque hospital.
Game and Fish and the National Park Service are warning people to stay away from the area. Officials are trying to find the bear to euthanize it and test it for rabies.
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– A woman was running a marathon in a national preserve in northern New Mexico Saturday when she was attacked by a bear, wildlife officials say. The New Mexico Department of Game and Fish says Karen Williams—who suffered several bites and scratches and had injuries to her head, neck, and upper body that weren't life-threatening—surprised the female black bear after her cub had run up a tree in the Valles Caldera National Preserve, the AP reports. Williams says she played dead for around half an hour until other runners arrived. They called emergency crews and she was airlifted to an Albuquerque hospital. In a Facebook post, Williams says she had only had time to raise her arms and shout "No!" when she came to the top of a rise and the bear charged her, the Albuquerque Journal reports. "Then I was on my ass and being raked with claws and bitten," she writes. "I cried out in pain and Mama bear did not like that so she hit me with a left hook and bit my neck and started to try to shake me. I rolled into a ball and played dead." Officials say the bear was captured and euthanized to check for rabies, as state law requires. When her three cubs are found, they will be turned over to a wildlife center. "I am really sorry that the mama bear died," Williams says. "She was just being a bear." (After an attack on a hiker in Tennessee, authorities euthanized the wrong bear.)
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EMBED More News Videos An FBI official spoke to reporters about the investigation into the deadly mass shooting at Borderline Bar & Grill in Thousand Oaks.
EMBED More News Videos A Camarillo father identified his son as one of 12 people slain in the mass shooting at a Thousand Oaks nightclub.
EMBED More News Videos Ventura County Sheriff Geoff Dean talks about Sgt. Ron Helus, who was killed in the shooting.
EMBED More News Videos A man helped rescue possibly as many as 30 people after shots were fired at a bar in Thousand Oaks late Wednesday night.
....Great bravery shown by police. California Highway Patrol was on scene within 3 minutes, with first officer to enter shot numerous times. That Sheriff’s Sergeant died in the hospital. God bless all of the victims and families of the victims. Thank you to Law Enforcement. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 8, 2018
Statement from @pepperdine regarding reported mass shooting at #Borderline in #ThousandOaks. Confirms several #Pepperdine students were there tonight along with students from colleges and community colleges all over the area. Pepp‘s my alma mater. Just awful. @ABC7 pic.twitter.com/ilcQx7WHu1 — Greg Lee (@abc7greg) November 8, 2018
An Emergency Information Hotline to assist locating people that may have been involved in the #BorderLineShooting incident has been established by @Venturaoes: at 805-465-6650 — Ventura Co. Sheriff (@VENTURASHERIFF) November 8, 2018
Using a smoke bomb and a handgun, a hooded Marine combat veteran dressed all in black opened fire during college night at a country music bar in Thousand Oaks, killing a sheriff's sergeant and 11 other people before apparently taking his own life, authorities said Thursday.The shooting happened around 11:20 p.m. Wednesday at Borderline Bar & Grill at 99 Rolling Oaks Drive. Ventura County sheriff's officials said deputies initially responded to multiple reports of shots fired at the popular establishment.One survivor was wounded by gunfire, and as many as 15 others suffered minor injuries from jumping out windows or diving under tables, authorities said.Sheriff Geoff Dean said the gunman immediately shot a security guard after entering the bar, turned to the right and shot several other security officials, employees and patrons.Witness John Hedge, of Moorpark, said he saw the suspect throwing smoke bombs into the front of the restaurant, located off Moorpark Road near the 101 Freeway. He also said he saw one security guard get shot."I was at the front door and I was talking to my stepdad. I just started hearing these big pops. Pop, pop, pop. There was probably three or four, I hit the ground. I look up, the security guard is dead. Well, I don't want to say he was dead, but he was shot."He was down. The gunman was throwing smoke grenades all over the place. I saw him point to the back of the cash register...and he just kept firing. I ran out the front door," he said.Hedge added that there may have been about 12 shots by the time he got out of the door. He described the gunman as having a beard and wearing a hat, black jacket and possibly glasses."I thought it was a joke when the shots started firing. I know people there. I hope everybody's O.K. I don't know how I didn't get shot," the man said.Tim, Hedge's stepfather, who was in tears, said he was next to the entrance about to leave after playing pool when smoke came into the room."He fired the first shot. I knew it was live. I knew it was real. My son thought it was a joke so I pulled him down and got some cover. I looked up and he was moving to the right. He shot the front doorman, who was just a young man. Then he shot the cashier, just a young girl."Then he started moving to the right. He wasn't looking at us. Then he went into the office, where all the cash and stuff is. He didn't say anything at all. He just started shooting," he said.Multiple law enforcement agencies, including Simi Valley and Oxnard police, arrived to help sheriff's deputies and SWAT officers. FBI agents also descended on the scene.Authorities identified the suspected shooter as 28-year-old Ian David Long, a former machine gunner and decorated combat veteran of the U.S. Marines, according to sheriff's officials. They added that they believe Long fatally shot himself after the massacre. He was found inside an office near the entrance of the venue.The motive for the shooting is unknown.Long's gun, which appears to be a . 45-caliber handgun , was purchased legally, according to ABC News. AP reports that he also deployed a smoke device.Long lived in the 800 block of Newbury Park with his mother, about 5 miles from the shooting scene. Deputies responded last April to the home over a call of a family disturbance. Mental health specialists talked to the suspect that day and cleared him, Dean said. Law enforcement officials were at the Newbury Park home as part of the ongoing investigation.Ventura County sheriff's Sgt. Eric Buschow, as well as Sheriff Geoff Dean, said they did not want to count the suspect among the 12 victims.In an emotional press conference, a Camarillo man confirmed his son, 22-year-old Cody Coffman, was one of the victims killed in the tragedy."This was my first-born son. I am speechless and heartbroken," his father said, as tears ran down his face. "My life has changed forever.""Sister Sister" actress Tamera Mowry-Housley and her husband released a statement confirming that their niece, Alaina Housley, was among those killed.The couple had been frantically searching for Alaina since the early morning hours in the wake of the deadly shooting.Justin Meek, 23, was also confirmed to be among the victims, according to his alma mater California Lutheran University.During a 3 a.m. press briefing, Dean identified the sergeant as Ron Helus, a 29-year veteran of the department who considered retiring within the next year. At points he choked up, but said Helus "died a hero."Helus was the first officer inside the door, Dean said."Ron was a hardworking, dedicated sheriff's sergeant. He was totally committed. He gave his all and tonight, as I told his wife, he died a hero because he went in to save lives, to save other people," he said.Helus was immediately hit with multiple gunshots, Dean said. The highway patrolman pulled Helus out, then waited as a SWAT team and scores more officers arrived. Helus died early Thursday at a hospital.By the time officers entered the bar again, the gunfire had stopped, according to the sheriff.Dean also said in his 41 years in law enforcement, he'd never experienced a mass shooting. He described the scene as "blood everywhere." He later revealed the massacre happened on his last day serving as sheriff."I never thought I would see the things around the country that would happen, but I've learned it doesn't matter what community you're in, it doesn't matter how safe your community is, it can happen anywhere," he said.Helus was transported at 10 a.m. via motorcade from Los Robles Hospital to the Ventura County Medical Examiner's Office in the city of Ventura. Firefighters honored Helus with a giant U.S. flag raised by two ladder trucks over the route. People lined the streets as the hearse went by.President Donald Trump tweeted that he was "fully briefed on the terrible shooting." He praised law enforcement, saying "Great bravery shown by police" and said "God bless all of the victims and families of the victims."The website for Borderline showed that Wednesday nights are College Country Nights that last from 9 p.m. until 2 a.m. Colleges near the club are California Lutheran University and California State University, Channel Islands, as well as Moorpark, Ventura and Oxnard College."Unfortunately our young people, people at nightclubs, have learned that this may happen, and they think about that," the sheriff said. "Fortunately it helped save a lot of lives that they fled the scene so rapidly."Students from Pepperdine University in Malibu also often attend College Country Nights. The school later confirmed that at least 16 of its students were in the venue at the time of the incident. They said only one of those students was unaccounted for -- until it was learned victim Alaina Housley, who was a freshman at the campus, was killed.Aside from victim Justin Meek, it's unclear how many other students from California Lutheran University were at the bar during the shooting. The campus sent an alert to students that all classes are canceled for the day.A family unification center was set up at 1375 E. Janss Road, where several devastated families waited to hear news about their loved ones.An emergency hotline has been established at (805) 465-6650.Multiple blood drives are being held to help the victims of the shooting. To learn more on how to help those affected, ||||| He rushed to the bar and called a friend who works there, who was also at the Route 91 Harvest music festival in Las Vegas last year when a gunman opened fire, killing 58 people and wounding hundreds. His friend told him that some type of tear gas was thrown into the bar. She saw smoke and heard gunshots and ran out the back toward nearby apartments. ||||| 3 p.m. This article was updated with additional details about the investigation into the gunman, and a description of video footage taken during the shooting.
10:40 a.m.: This article was updated with additional details about the gunman and the scene from the shooting.
8 a.m.: This article was updated with information about the gunman.
6:05 a.m.: This article was updated with additional details and witness accounts.
5:15 a.m. This article was updated throughout with additional details and background.
4:30 a.m.: This story was updated with details about the shooter and additional witness accounts.
2:45 a.m.: This story was updated with additional details from the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department.
2 a.m.: This story was updated with more details and fatalities.
1:25 a.m.: This story was updated to raise the number of wounded from seven to 11.
1:05 a.m.: This story was updated with comments from the scene and the number of people shot.
This story was first published at midnight.
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– At least 13 people are dead after a gunman opened fire inside a crowded dance bar in Thousand Oaks, California, Wednesday night, says Ventura County Sheriff Geoff Dean, per the AP. The fatalities include one deputy; the gunman also is among the dead. A witness tells the Los Angeles Times that at least 30 shots were fired after a gunman entered the Borderline Bar & Grill, a country-themed bar that was holding a college night, around 11:20pm. Ventura County Sheriff's Office Capt. Garo Kuredjian told reporters that the gunman was still firing when police arrived at the bar. Witnesses say the gunman fired shots from a handgun after entering the crowded bar, threw some smoke grenades, then started firing again. Witness John Hedge says he saw a security guard get shot. "The gunman was throwing smoke grenades all over the place," he tells KABC. "I saw him point to the back of the cash register ... and he just kept firing. I ran out the front door," he says. The Los Angeles Times reports that friends of those who were inside the venue say the crowd included survivors of last year's Las Vegas mass shooting.
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Goldman Sachs Group Inc. doubled its lobbying expenses as it focused on proposed financial regulations and faced U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission charges that it misled investors.
New York-based Goldman, which paid $550 million last week to settle the SEC suit, spent $2.7 million to lobby during the first six months of 2010, more than double the $1.3 million it spent during the same period a year earlier, according to new congressional filings.
Several other financial institutions also increased their lobbying this year before congressional approval of the biggest overhaul of financial regulation since the Great Depression. The measure was signed into law today by President Barack Obama.
Among the top 10 U.S. banks ranked by assets, six reported increases in lobbying spending between January and June compared with the same period in 2009.
Bank of America Corp. spent $2 million, up 33 percent from $1.5 million spent during the first six months of 2009. Wells Fargo & Co.’s spending rose to $2.3 million from $1.4 million in 2009. Morgan Stanley spent $1.6 million, compared with $1.4 million a year earlier, though its second-quarter lobbying expenses were lower than a year ago.
The banks’ trade group, the Washington-based American Bankers Association, spent $4.2 million, up from $3.9 million.
“The increase in our lobbying expenses reflects the additional analysis and legal support devoted to regulatory reform and related legislation as it evolved over the last several months,” said Shirley Norton, a spokeswoman for Charlotte, North Carolina-based Bank of America, the largest U.S. bank by assets.
Higher Costs
Mary Eshet, a spokeswoman for San Francisco-based Wells Fargo, said the higher lobbying costs reflected the company’s growth following its acquisition of Wachovia Corp.
“It’s important to stay in tune with the conversations and decisions that occur in Washington, D.C., because so many of them impact our four most important stakeholders: our customers, our shareholders, our team members and our communities,” she said.
Melissa Daly, a spokeswoman for Goldman Sachs, and Mark Lake, a spokesman for New York-based Morgan Stanley, declined to comment.
As the banks’ lobbying expenses grew, their contributions to lawmakers decreased. Bank of America’s political action committee made $496,500 in donations between Jan. 1, 2009, and June 30, 2010, down from $716,822 during the same 18-month period in 2007-08. Morgan Stanley’s PAC gave $303,500, down from $663,300 two years ago. New York-based Citigroup Inc.’s PAC contributions fell to $499,000 from $756,600.
Legislation Passed
Lawmakers reluctant to take money from banks blamed for causing the economic meltdown don’t have to worry about it now that Obama has signed the financial regulation bill into law, said Rogan Kersh, associate dean at New York University’s Wagner School of Public Service.
“Once the bill has passed, it’s much harder for their opponents or good-government advocates to claim that their vote was unduly influenced by campaign cash,” Kersh said.
To contact the reporter on this story: Jonathan D. Salant in Washington at [email protected]. ||||| By Matt Taibbi
This article originally appeared in RS 1082-1083 from July 9-23, 2009. This issue and the rest of the Rolling Stone archives are available via All Access, Rolling Stone's premium subscription plan. If you are already a subscriber, you can click here to see the full story. Not a member? Click here to learn more about All Access.
The first thing you need to know about Goldman Sachs is that it's everywhere. The world's most powerful investment bank is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money. In fact, the history of the recent financial crisis, which doubles as a history of the rapid decline and fall of the suddenly swindled dry American empire, reads like a Who's Who of Goldman Sachs graduates.
By now, most of us know the major players. As George Bush's last Treasury secretary, former Goldman CEO Henry Paulson was the architect of the bailout, a suspiciously self-serving plan to funnel trillions of Your Dollars to a handful of his old friends on Wall Street. Robert Rubin, Bill Clinton's former Treasury secretary, spent 26 years at Goldman before becoming chairman of Citigroup — which in turn got a $300 billion taxpayer bailout from Paulson. There's John Thain, the asshole chief of Merrill Lynch who bought an $87,000 area rug for his office as his company was imploding; a former Goldman banker, Thain enjoyed a multi-billion-dollar handout from Paulson, who used billions in taxpayer funds to help Bank of America rescue Thain's sorry company. And Robert Steel, the former Goldmanite head of Wachovia, scored himself and his fellow executives $225 million in golden-parachute payments as his bank was self-destructing. There's Joshua Bolten, Bush's chief of staff during the bailout, and Mark Patterson, the current Treasury chief of staff, who was a Goldman lobbyist just a year ago, and Ed Liddy, the former Goldman director whom Paulson put in charge of bailed-out insurance giant AIG, which forked over $13 billion to Goldman after Liddy came on board. The heads of the Canadian and Italian national banks are Goldman alums, as is the head of the World Bank, the head of the New York Stock Exchange, the last two heads of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York — which, incidentally, is now in charge of overseeing Goldman — not to mention …
But then, any attempt to construct a narrative around all the former Goldmanites in influential positions quickly becomes an absurd and pointless exercise, like trying to make a list of everything. What you need to know is the big picture: If America is circling the drain, Goldman Sachs has found a way to be that drain — an extremely unfortunate loophole in the system of Western democratic capitalism, which never foresaw that in a society governed passively by free markets and free elections, organized greed always defeats disorganized democracy.
The bank's unprecedented reach and power have enabled it to turn all of America into a giant pump-and-dump scam, manipulating whole economic sectors for years at a time, moving the dice game as this or that market collapses, and all the time gorging itself on the unseen costs that are breaking families everywhere — high gas prices, rising consumer credit rates, half-eaten pension funds, mass layoffs, future taxes to pay off bailouts. All that money that you're losing, it's going somewhere, and in both a literal and a figurative sense, Goldman Sachs is where it's going: The bank is a huge, highly sophisticated engine for converting the useful, deployed wealth of society into the least useful, most wasteful and insoluble substance on Earth — pure profit for rich individuals.
They achieve this using the same playbook over and over again. The formula is relatively simple: Goldman positions itself in the middle of a speculative bubble, selling investments they know are crap. Then they hoover up vast sums from the middle and lower floors of society with the aid of a crippled and corrupt state that allows it to rewrite the rules in exchange for the relative pennies the bank throws at political patronage. Finally, when it all goes bust, leaving millions of ordinary citizens broke and starving, they begin the entire process over again, riding in to rescue us all by lending us back our own money at interest, selling themselves as men above greed, just a bunch of really smart guys keeping the wheels greased. They've been pulling this same stunt over and over since the 1920s — and now they're preparing to do it again, creating what may be the biggest and most audacious bubble yet.
If you want to understand how we got into this financial crisis, you have to first understand where all the money went — and in order to understand that, you need to understand what Goldman has already gotten away with. It is a history exactly five bubbles long — including last year's strange and seemingly inexplicable spike in the price of oil. There were a lot of losers in each of those bubbles, and in the bailout that followed. But Goldman wasn't one of them.
BUBBLE #1 The Great Depression
Goldman wasn't always a too-big-to-fail Wall Street behemoth, the ruthless face of kill-or-be-killed capitalism on steroids —just almost always. The bank was actually founded in 1869 by a German immigrant named Marcus Goldman, who built it up with his son-in-law Samuel Sachs. They were pioneers in the use of commercial paper, which is just a fancy way of saying they made money lending out short-term IOUs to smalltime vendors in downtown Manhattan.
You can probably guess the basic plotline of Goldman's first 100 years in business: plucky, immigrant-led investment bank beats the odds, pulls itself up by its bootstraps, makes shitloads of money. In that ancient history there's really only one episode that bears scrutiny now, in light of more recent events: Goldman’s disastrous foray into the speculative mania of pre-crash Wall Street in the late 1920s.
This great Hindenburg of financial history has a few features that might sound familiar. Back then, the main financial tool used to bilk investors was called an "investment trust." Similar to modern mutual funds, the trusts took the cash of investors large and small and (theoretically, at least) invested it in a smorgasbord of Wall Street securities, though the securities and amounts were often kept hidden from the public. So a regular guy could invest $10 or $100 in a trust and feel like he was a big player. Much as in the 1990s, when new vehicles like day trading and e-trading attracted reams of new suckers from the sticks who wanted to feel like big shots, investment trusts roped a new generation of regular-guy investors into the speculation game.
Beginning a pattern that would repeat itself over and over again, Goldman got into the investmenttrust game late, then jumped in with both feet and went hogwild. The first effort was the Goldman Sachs Trading Corporation; the bank issued a million shares at $100 apiece, bought all those shares with its own money and then sold 90 percent of them to the hungry public at $104. The trading corporation then relentlessly bought shares in itself, bidding the price up further and further. Eventually it dumped part of its holdings and sponsored a new trust, the Shenandoah Corporation, issuing millions more in shares in that fund — which in turn sponsored yet another trust called the Blue Ridge Corporation. In this way, each investment trust served as a front for an endless investment pyramid: Goldman hiding behind Goldman hiding behind Goldman. Of the 7,250,000 initial shares of Blue Ridge, 6,250,000 were actually owned by Shenandoah — which, of course, was in large part owned by Goldman Trading.
The end result (ask yourself if this sounds familiar) was a daisy chain of borrowed money, one exquisitely vulnerable to a decline in performance anywhere along the line. The basic idea isn't hard to follow. You take a dollar and borrow nine against it; then you take that $10 fund and borrow $90; then you take your $100 fund and, so long as the public is still lending, borrow and invest $900. If the last fund in the line starts to lose value, you no longer have the money to pay back your investors, and everyone gets massacred.
In a chapter from The Great Crash, 1929 titled "In Goldman Sachs We Trust," the famed economist John Kenneth Galbraith held up the Blue Ridge and Shenandoah trusts as classic examples of the insanity of leveragebased investment. The trusts, he wrote, were a major cause of the market's historic crash; in today's dollars, the losses the bank suffered totaled $475 billion. "It is difficult not to marvel at the imagination which was implicit in this gargantuan insanity," Galbraith observed, sounding like Keith Olbermann in an ascot. "If there must be madness, something may be said for having it on a heroic scale."
BUBBLE #2 Tech Stocks [asset]
Fast-forward about 65 years. Goldman not only survived the crash that wiped out so many of the investors it duped, it went on to become the chief underwriter to the country's wealthiest and most powerful corporations. Thanks to Sidney Weinberg, who rose from the rank of janitor's assistant to head the firm, Goldman became the pioneer of the initial public offering, one of the principal and most lucrative means by which companies raise money. During the 1970s and 1980s, Goldman may not have been the planet-eating Death Star of political influence it is today, but it was a top-drawer firm that had a reputation for attracting the very smartest talent on the Street.
It also, oddly enough, had a reputation for relatively solid ethics and a patient approach to investment that shunned the fast buck; its executives were trained to adopt the firm's mantra, "long-term greedy." One former Goldman banker who left the firm in the early Nineties recalls seeing his superiors give up a very profitable deal on the grounds that it was a long-term loser. "We gave back money to 'grownup' corporate clients who had made bad deals with us," he says. "Everything we did was legal and fair — but 'long-term greedy' said we didn't want to make such a profit at the clients' collective expense that we spoiled the marketplace."
But then, something happened. It's hard to say what it was exactly; it might have been the fact that Goldman's cochairman in the early Nineties, Robert Rubin, followed Bill Clinton to the White House, where he directed the National Economic Council and eventually became Treasury secretary. While the American media fell in love with the story line of a pair of baby-boomer, Sixties-child, Fleetwood Mac yuppies nesting in the White House, it also nursed an undisguised crush on Rubin, who was hyped as without a doubt the smartest person ever to walk the face of the Earth, with Newton, Einstein, Mozart and Kant running far behind.
Rubin was the prototypical Goldman banker. He was probably born in a $4,000 suit, he had a face that seemed permanently frozen just short of an apology for being so much smarter than you, and he exuded a Spock-like, emotion-neutral exterior; the only human feeling you could imagine him experiencing was a nightmare about being forced to fly coach. It became almost a national clichè that whatever Rubin thought was best for the economy — a phenomenon that reached its apex in 1999, when Rubin appeared on the cover of Time with his Treasury deputy, Larry Summers, and Fed chief Alan Greenspan under the headline The Committee To Save The World. And "what Rubin thought," mostly, was that the American economy, and in particular the financial markets, were over-regulated and needed to be set free. During his tenure at Treasury, the Clinton White House made a series of moves that would have drastic consequences for the global economy — beginning with Rubin's complete and total failure to regulate his
old firm during its first mad dash for obscene short-term profits.
The basic scam in the Internet Age is pretty easy even for the financially illiterate to grasp. Companies that weren't much more than potfueled ideas scrawled on napkins by uptoolate bongsmokers were taken public via IPOs, hyped in the media and sold to the public for mega-millions. It was as if banks like Goldman were wrapping ribbons around watermelons, tossing them out 50-story windows and opening the phones for bids. In this game you were a winner only if you took your money out before the melon hit the pavement.
It sounds obvious now, but what the average investor didn't know at the time was that the banks had changed the rules of the game, making the deals look better than they actually were. They did this by setting up what was, in reality, a two-tiered investment system — one for the insiders who knew the real numbers, and another for the lay investor who was invited to chase soaring prices the banks themselves knew were irrational. While Goldman's later pattern would be to capitalize on changes in the regulatory environment, its key innovation in the Internet years was to abandon its own industry's standards of quality control.
"Since the Depression, there were strict underwriting guidelines that Wall Street adhered to when taking a company public," says one prominent hedge-fund manager. "The company had to be in business for a minimum of five years, and it had to show profitability for three consecutive years. But Wall Street took these guidelines and threw them in the trash." Goldman completed the snow job by pumping up the sham stocks: "Their analysts were out there saying Bullshit.com is worth $100 a share."
The problem was, nobody told investors that the rules had changed. "Everyone on the inside knew," the manager says. "Bob Rubin sure as hell knew what the underwriting standards were. They'd been intact since the 1930s."
Jay Ritter, a professor of finance at the University of Florida who specializes in IPOs, says banks like Goldman knew full well that many of the public offerings they were touting would never make a dime. "In the early Eighties, the major underwriters insisted on three years of profitability. Then it was one year, then it was a quarter. By the time of the Internet bubble, they were not even requiring profitability in the foreseeable future."
Goldman has denied that it changed its underwriting standards during the Internet years, but its own statistics belie the claim. Just as it did with the investment trust in the 1920s, Goldman started slow and finished crazy in the Internet years. After it took a little-known company with weak financials called Yahoo! public in 1996, once the tech boom had already begun, Goldman quickly became the IPO king of the Internet era. Of the 24 companies it took public in 1997, a third were losing money at the time of the IPO. In 1999, at the height of the boom, it took 47 companies public, including stillborns like Webvan and eToys, investment offerings that were in many ways the modern equivalents of Blue Ridge and Shenandoah. The following year, it underwrote 18 companies in the first four months, 14 of which were money losers at the time. As a leading underwriter of Internet stocks during the boom, Goldman provided profits far more volatile than those of its competitors: In 1999, the average Goldman IPO leapt 281 percent above its offering price, compared to the Wall Street average of 181 percent.
How did Goldman achieve such extraordinary results? One answer is that they used a practice called "laddering," which is just a fancy way of saying they manipulated the share price of new offerings. Here's how it works: Say you're Goldman Sachs, and Bullshit.com comes to you and asks you to take their company public. You agree on the usual terms: You'll price the stock, determine how many shares should be released and take the Bullshit.com CEO on a "road show" to schmooze investors, all in exchange for a substantial fee (typically six to seven percent of the amount raised). You then promise your best clients the right to buy big chunks of the IPO at the low offering price — let's say Bullshit.com's starting share price is $15 — in exchange for a promise that they will buy more shares later on the open market. That seemingly simple demand gives you inside knowledge of the IPO's future, knowledge that wasn't disclosed to the day trader schmucks who only had the prospectus to go by: You know that certain of your clients who bought X amount of shares at $15 are also going to buy Y more shares at $20 or $25, virtually guaranteeing that the price is going to go to $25 and beyond. In this way, Goldman could artificially jack up the new company's price, which of course was to the bank's benefit — a six percent fee of a $500 million IPO is serious money.
Goldman was repeatedly sued by shareholders for engaging in laddering in a variety of Internet IPOs, including Webvan and NetZero. The deceptive practices also caught the attention of Nicholas Maier, the syndicate manager of Cramer & Co., the hedge fund run at the time by the now-famous chattering television asshole Jim Cramer, himself a Goldman alum. Maier told the SEC that while working for Cramer between 1996 and 1998, he was repeatedly forced to engage in laddering practices during IPO deals with Goldman.
"Goldman, from what I witnessed, they were the worst perpetrator," Maier said. "They totally fueled the bubble. And it's specifically that kind of behavior that has caused the market crash. They built these stocks upon an illegal foundation — manipulated up — and ultimately, it really was the small person who ended up buying in." In 2005, Goldman agreed to pay $40 million for its laddering violations — a puny penalty relative to the enormous profits it made. (Goldman, which has denied wrongdoing in all of the cases it has settled, refused to respond to questions for this story.)
Another practice Goldman engaged in during the Internet boom was "spinning," better known as bribery. Here the investment bank would offer the executives of the newly public company shares at extra-low prices, in exchange for future underwriting business. Banks that engaged in spinning would then undervalue the initial offering price — ensuring that those "hot" opening-price shares it had handed out to insiders would be more likely to rise quickly, supplying bigger first-day rewards for the chosen few. So instead of Bullshit.com opening at $20, the bank would approach the Bullshit.com CEO and offer him a million shares of his own company at $18 in exchange for future business — effectively robbing all of Bullshit's new shareholders by diverting cash that should have gone to the company's bottom line into the private bank account of the company's CEO.
In one case, Goldman allegedly gave a multimillion-dollar special offering to eBay CEO Meg Whitman, who later joined Goldman's board, in exchange for future i-banking business. According to a report by the House Financial Services Committee in 2002, Goldman gave special stock offerings to executives in 21 companies that it took public, including Yahoo! cofounder Jerry Yang and two of the great slithering villains of the financial-scandal age — Tyco's Dennis Kozlowski and Enron's Ken Lay. Goldman angrily denounced the report as "an egregious distortion of the facts" — shortly before paying $110 million to settle an investigation into spinning and other manipulations launched by New York state regulators. "The spinning of hot IPO shares was not a harmless corporate perk," then-attorney general Eliot Spitzer said at the time. "Instead, it was an integral part of a fraudulent scheme to win new investment-banking business."
Such practices conspired to turn the Internet bubble into one of the greatest financial disasters in world history: Some $5 trillion of wealth was wiped out on the NASDAQ alone. But the real problem wasn't the money that was lost by shareholders, it was the money gained by investment bankers, who received hefty bonuses for tampering with the market. Instead of teaching Wall Street a lesson that bubbles always deflate, the Internet years demonstrated to bankers that in the age of freely flowing capital and publicly owned financial companies, bubbles are incredibly easy to inflate, and individual bonuses are actually bigger when the mania and the irrationality are greater.
Nowhere was this truer than at Goldman. Between 1999 and 2002, the firm paid out $28.5 billion in compensation and benefits — an average of roughly $350,000 a year per employee. Those numbers are important because the key legacy of the Internet boom is that the economy is now driven in large part by the pursuit of the enormous salaries and bonuses that such bubbles make possible. Goldman's mantra of "long-term greedy" vanished into thin air as the game became about getting your check before the melon hit the pavement.
The market was no longer a rationally managed place to grow real, profitable businesses: It was a huge ocean of Someone Else's Money where bankers hauled in vast sums through whatever means necessary and tried to convert that money into bonuses and payouts as quickly as possible. If you laddered and spun 50 Internet IPOs that went bust within a year, so what? By the time the Securities and Exchange Commission got around to fining your firm $110 million, the yacht you bought with your IPO bonuses was already six years old. Besides, you were probably out of Goldman by then, running the U.S. Treasury or maybe the state of New Jersey. (One of the truly comic moments in the history of America's recent financial collapse came when Gov. Jon Corzine of New Jersey, who ran Goldman from 1994 to 1999 and left with $320 million in IPO-fattened stock, insisted in 2002 that "I've never even heard the term 'laddering' before.")
For a bank that paid out $7 billion a year in salaries, $110 million fines issued half a decade late were something far less than a deterrent —they were a joke. Once the Internet bubble burst, Goldman had no incentive to reassess its new, profit-driven strategy; it just searched around for another bubble to inflate. As it turns out, it had one ready, thanks in large part to Rubin.
BUBBLE #3 The Housing Craze [asset]
Goldman's role in the sweeping global disaster that was the housing bubble is not hard to trace. Here again, the basic trick was a decline in underwriting standards, although in this case the standards weren't in IPOs but in mortgages. By now almost everyone knows that for decades mortgage dealers insisted that home buyers be able to produce a down payment of 10 percent or more, show a steady income and good credit rating, and possess a real first and last name. Then, at the dawn of the new millennium, they suddenly threw all that shit out the window and started writing mortgages on the backs of napkins to cocktail waitresses and ex-cons carrying five bucks and a Snickers bar.
None of that would have been possible without investment bankers like Goldman, who created vehicles to package those shitty mortgages and sell them en masse to unsuspecting insurance companies and pension funds. This created a mass market for toxic debt that would never have existed before; in the old days, no bank would have wanted to keep some addict ex-con's mortgage on its books, knowing how likely it was to fail. You can't write these mortgages, in other words, unless you can sell them to someone who doesn't know what they are.
Goldman used two methods to hide the mess they were selling. First, they bundled hundreds of different mortgages into instruments called Collateralized Debt Obligations. Then they sold investors on the idea that, because a bunch of those mortgages would turn out to be OK, there was no reason to worry so much about the shitty ones: The CDO, as a whole, was sound. Thus, junk-rated mortgages were turned into AAA-rated investments. Second, to hedge its own bets, Goldman got companies like AIG to provide insurance — known as credit default swaps — on the CDOs. The swaps were essentially a racetrack bet between AIG and Goldman: Goldman is betting the ex-cons will default, AIG is betting they won't.
There was only one problem with the deals: All of the wheeling and dealing represented exactly the kind of dangerous speculation that federal regulators are supposed to rein in. Derivatives like CDOs and credit swaps had already caused a series of serious financial calamities: Procter & Gamble and Gibson Greetings both lost fortunes, and Orange County, California, was forced to default in 1994. A report that year by the Government Accountability Office recommended that such financial instruments be tightly regulated — and in 1998, the head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, a woman named Brooksley Born, agreed. That May, she circulated a letter to business leaders and the Clinton administration suggesting that banks be required to provide greater disclosure in derivatives trades, and maintain reserves to cushion against losses.
More regulation wasn’t exactly what Goldman had in mind. “The banks go crazy — they want it stopped,” says Michael Greenberger, who worked for Born as director of trading and markets at the CFTC and is now a law professor at the University of Maryland. “Greenspan, Summers, Rubin and [SEC chief Arthur] Levitt want it stopped.”
Clinton's reigning economic foursome — “especially Rubin,” according to Greenberger — called Born in for a meeting and pleaded their case. She refused to back down, however, and continued to push for more regulation of the derivatives. Then, in June 1998, Rubin went public to denounce her move, eventually recommending that Congress strip the CFTC of its regulatory authority. In 2000, on its last day in session, Congress passed the now-notorious Commodity Futures Modernization Act, which had been inserted into an 11,000-page spending bill at the last minute, with almost no debate on the floor of the Senate. Banks were now free to trade default swaps with impunity.
But the story didn't end there. AIG, a major purveyor of default swaps, approached the New York State Insurance Department in 2000 and asked whether default swaps would be regulated as insurance. At the time, the office was run by one Neil Levin, a former Goldman vice president, who decided against regulating the swaps. Now freed to underwrite as many housing-based securities and buy as much credit-default protection as it wanted, Goldman went berserk with lending lust. By the peak of the housing boom in 2006, Goldman was underwriting $76.5 billion worth of mortgage-backed securities — a third of which were sub-prime — much of it to institutional investors like pensions and insurance companies. And in these massive issues of real estate were vast swamps of crap.
Take one $494 million issue that year, GSAMP Trust 2006S3. Many of the mortgages belonged to second-mortgage borrowers, and the average equity they had in their homes was 0.71 percent. Moreover, 58 percent of the loans included little or no documentation — no names of the borrowers, no addresses of the homes, just zip codes. Yet both of the major ratings agencies, Moody's and Standard & Poor's, rated 93 percent of the issue as investment grade. Moody's projected that less than 10 percent of the loans would default. In reality, 18 percent of the mortgages were in default within 18 months.
Not that Goldman was personally at any risk. The bank might be taking all these hideous, completely irresponsible mortgages from beneath-gangster-status firms like Countrywide and selling them off to municipalities and pensioners — old people, for God's sake — pretending the whole time that it wasn't grade D horseshit. But even as it was doing so, it was taking short positions in the same market, in essence betting against the same crap it was selling. Even worse, Goldman bragged about it in public. "The mortgage sector continues to be challenged," David Viniar, the bank's chief financial officer, boasted in 2007. "As a result, we took significant markdowns on our long inventory positions … However, our risk bias in that market was to be short, and that net short position was profitable." In other words, the mortgages it was selling were for chumps. The real money was in betting against those same mortgages.
"That's how audacious these assholes are," says one hedge fund manager. "At least with other banks, you could say that they were just dumb — they believed what they were selling, and it blew them up. Goldman knew what it was doing."
I ask the manager how it could be that selling something to customers that you're actually betting against — particularly when you know more about the weaknesses of those products than the customer — doesn't amount to securities fraud.
"It's exactly securities fraud," he says. "It's the heart of securities fraud."
Eventually, lots of aggrieved investors agreed. In a virtual repeat of the Internet IPO craze, Goldman was hit with a wave of lawsuits after the collapse of the housing bubble, many of which accused the bank of withholding pertinent information about the quality of the mortgages it issued. New York state regulators are suing Goldman and 25 other underwriters for selling bundles of crappy Countrywide mortgages to city and state pension funds, which lost as much as $100 million in the investments. Massachusetts also investigated Goldman for similar misdeeds, acting on behalf of 714 mortgage holders who got stuck holding predatory loans. But once again, Goldman got off virtually scot-free, staving off prosecution by agreeing to pay a paltry $60 million — about what the bank's CDO division made in a day and a half during the real estate boom.
The effects of the housing bubble are well known — it led more or less directly to the collapse of Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers and AIG, whose toxic portfolio of credit swaps was in significant part composed of the insurance that banks like Goldman bought against their own housing portfolios. In fact, at least $13 billion of the taxpayer money given to AIG in the bailout ultimately went to Goldman, meaning that the bank made out on the housing bubble twice: It fucked the investors who bought their horseshit CDOs by betting against its own crappy product, then it turned around and fucked the taxpayer by making him pay off those same bets.
And once again, while the world was crashing down all around the bank, Goldman made sure it was doing just fine in the compensation department. In 2006, the firm's payroll jumped to $16.5 billion — an average of $622,000 per employee. As a Goldman spokesman explained, "We work very hard here."
But the best was yet to come. While the collapse of the housing bubble sent most of the financial world fleeing for the exits, or to jail, Goldman boldly doubled down — and almost single-handedly created yet another bubble, one the world still barely knows the firm had anything to do with.
BUBBLE #4 $4 a Gallon [asset]
By the beginning of 2008, the financial world was in turmoil. Wall Street had spent the past two and a half decades producing one scandal after another, which didn't leave much to sell that wasn't tainted. The terms junk bond, IPO, sub-prime mortgage and other once-hot financial fare were now firmly associated in the public's mind with scams; the terms credit swaps and CDOs were about to join them. The credit markets were in crisis, and the mantra that had sustained the fantasy economy throughout the Bush years — the notion that housing prices never go down — was now a fully exploded myth, leaving the Street clamoring for a new bullshit paradigm to sling.
Where to go? With the public reluctant to put money in anything that felt like a paper investment, the Street quietly moved the casino to the physical-commodities market — stuff you could touch: corn, coffee, cocoa, wheat and, above all, energy commodities, especially oil. In conjunction with a decline in the dollar, the credit crunch and the housing crash caused a "flight to commodities." Oil futures in particular skyrocketed, as the price of a single barrel went from around $60 in the middle of 2007 to a high of $147 in the summer of 2008.
That summer, as the presidential campaign heated up, the accepted explanation for why gasoline had hit $4.11 a gallon was that there was a problem with the world oil supply. In a classic example of how Republicans and Democrats respond to crises by engaging in fierce exchanges of moronic irrelevancies, John McCain insisted that ending the moratorium on offshore drilling would be "very helpful in the short term," while Barack Obama in typical liberal-arts yuppie style argued that federal investment in hybrid cars was the way out.
But it was all a lie. While the global supply of oil will eventually dry up, the short-term flow has actually been increasing. In the six months before prices spiked, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the world oil supply rose from 85.24 million barrels a day to 85.72 million. Over the same period, world oil demand dropped from 86.82 million barrels a day to 86.07 million. Not only was the short-term supply of oil rising, the demand for it was falling — which, in classic economic terms, should have brought prices at the pump down.
So what caused the huge spike in oil prices? Take a wild guess. Obviously Goldman had help — there were other players in the physical commodities market — but the root cause had almost everything to do with the behavior of a few powerful actors determined to turn the once-solid market into a speculative casino. Goldman did it by persuading pension funds and other large institutional investors to invest in oil futures — agreeing to buy oil at a certain price on a fixed date. The push transformed oil from a physical commodity, rigidly subject to supply and demand, into something to bet on, like a stock. Between 2003 and 2008, the amount of speculative money in commodities grew from $13 billion to $317 billion, an increase of 2,300 percent. By 2008, a barrel of oil was traded 27 times, on average, before it was actually delivered and consumed.
As is so often the case, there had been a Depression-era law in place designed specifically to prevent this sort of thing. The commodities market was designed in large part to help farmers: A grower concerned about future price drops could enter into a contract to sell his corn at a certain price for delivery later on, which made him worry less about building up stores of his crop. When no one was buying corn, the farmer could sell to a middleman known as a "traditional speculator," who would store the grain and sell it later, when demand returned. That way, someone was always there to buy from the farmer, even when the market temporarily had no need for his crops.
In 1936, however, Congress recognized that there should never be more speculators in the market than real producers and consumers. If that happened, prices would be affected by something other than supply and demand, and price manipulations would ensue. A new law empowered the Commodity Futures Trading Commission — the very same body that would later try and fail to regulate credit swaps — to place limits on speculative trades in commodities. As a result of the CFTC's oversight, peace and harmony reigned in the commodities markets for more than 50 years.
All that changed in 1991 when, unbeknownst to almost everyone in the world, a Goldman-owned commodities-trading subsidiary called J. Aron wrote to the CFTC and made an unusual argument. Farmers with big stores of corn, Goldman argued, weren't the only ones who needed to hedge their risk against future price drops — Wall Street dealers who made big bets on oil prices also needed to hedge their risk, because, well, they stood to lose a lot too.
This was complete and utter crap — the 1936 law, remember, was specifically designed to maintain distinctions between people who were buying and selling real tangible stuff and people who were trading in paper alone. But the CFTC, amazingly, bought Goldman's argument. It issued the bank a free pass, called the "Bona Fide Hedging" exemption, allowing Goldman's subsidiary to call itself a physical hedger and escape virtually all limits placed on speculators. In the years that followed, the commission would quietly issue 14 similar exemptions to other companies.
Now Goldman and other banks were free to drive more investors into the commodities markets, enabling speculators to place increasingly big bets. That 1991 letter from Goldman more or less directly led to the oil bubble in 2008, when the number of speculators in the market — driven there by fear of the falling dollar and the housing crash — finally overwhelmed the real physical suppliers and consumers. By 2008, at least three quarters of the activity on the commodity exchanges was speculative, according to a congressional staffer who studied the numbers — and that's likely a conservative estimate. By the middle of last summer, despite rising supply and a drop in demand, we were paying $4 a gallon every time we pulled up to the pump.
What is even more amazing is that the letter to Goldman, along with most of the other trading exemptions, was handed out more or less in secret. "I was the head of the division of trading and markets, and Brooksley Born was the chair of the CFTC," says Greenberger, "and neither of us knew this letter was out there." In fact, the letters only came to light by accident. Last year, a staffer for the House Energy and Commerce Committee just happened to be at a briefing when officials from the CFTC made an offhand reference to the exemptions.
"I had been invited to a briefing the commission was holding on energy," the staffer recounts. "And suddenly in the middle of it, they start saying, 'Yeah, we've been issuing these letters for years now.' I raised my hand and said, 'Really? You issued a letter? Can I see it?' And they were like, 'Duh, duh.' So we went back and forth, and finally they said, 'We have to clear it with Goldman Sachs.' I'm like, 'What do you mean, you have to clear it with Goldman Sachs?'"
The CFTC cited a rule that prohibited it from releasing any information about a company's current position in the market. But the staffer's request was about a letter that had been issued 17 years earlier. It no longer had anything to do with Goldman's current position. What's more, Section 7 of the 1936 commodities law gives Congress the right to any information it wants from the commission. Still, in a classic example of how complete Goldman's capture of government is, the CFTC waited until it got clearance from the bank before it turned the letter over.
Armed with the semi-secret government exemption, Goldman had become the chief designer of a giant commodities betting parlor. Its Goldman Sachs Commodities Index — which tracks the prices of 24 major commodities but is overwhelmingly weighted toward oil — became the place where pension funds and insurance companies and other institutional investors could make massive long-term bets on commodity prices. Which was all well and good, except for a couple of things. One was that index speculators are mostly "long only" bettors, who seldom if ever take short positions — meaning they only bet on prices to rise. While this kind of behavior is good for a stock market, it's terrible for commodities, because it continually forces prices upward. "If index speculators took short positions as well as long ones, you'd see them pushing prices both up and down," says Michael Masters, a hedge fund manager who has helped expose the role of investment banks in the manipulation of oil prices. "But they only push prices in one direction: up."
Complicating matters even further was the fact that Goldman itself was cheerleading with all its might for an increase in oil prices. In the beginning of 2008, Arjun Murti, a Goldman analyst, hailed as an "oracle of oil" by The New York Times, predicted a "super spike" in oil prices, forecasting a rise to $200 a barrel. At the time Goldman was heavily invested in oil through its commodities trading subsidiary, J. Aron; it also owned a stake in a major oil refinery in Kansas, where it warehoused the crude it bought and sold. Even though the supply of oil was keeping pace with demand, Murti continually warned of disruptions to the world oil supply, going so far as to broadcast the fact that he owned two hybrid cars. High prices, the bank insisted, were somehow the fault of the piggish American consumer; in 2005, Goldman analysts insisted that we wouldn't know when oil prices would fall until we knew "when American consumers will stop buying gas-guzzling sport utility vehicles and instead seek fuel-efficient alternatives."
But it wasn't the consumption of real oil that was driving up prices — it was the trade in paper oil. By the summer of 2008, in fact, commodities speculators had bought and stockpiled enough oil futures to fill 1.1 billion barrels of crude, which meant that speculators owned more future oil on paper than there was real, physical oil stored in all of the country's commercial storage tanks and the Strategic Petroleum Reserve combined. It was a repeat of both the Internet craze and the housing bubble, when Wall Street jacked up present-day profits by selling suckers shares of a fictional fantasy future of endlessly rising prices.
In what was by now a painfully familiar pattern, the oil-commodities melon hit the pavement hard in the summer of 2008, causing a massive loss of wealth; crude prices plunged from $147 to $33. Once again the big losers were ordinary people. The pensioners whose funds invested in this crap got massacred: CalPERS, the California Public Employees' Retirement System, had $1.1 billion in commodities when the crash came. And the damage didn't just come from oil. Soaring food prices driven by the commodities bubble led to catastrophes across the planet, forcing an estimated 100 million people into hunger and sparking food riots throughout the Third World.
Now oil prices are rising again: They shot up 20 percent in the month of May and have nearly doubled so far this year. Once again, the problem is not supply or demand. "The highest supply of oil in the last 20 years is now," says Rep. Bart Stupak, a Democrat from Michigan who serves on the House energy committee. "Demand is at a 10-year low. And yet prices are up."
Asked why politicians continue to harp on things like drilling or hybrid cars, when supply and demand have nothing to do with the high prices, Stupak shakes his head. "I think they just don't understand the problem very well," he says. "You can't explain it in 30 seconds, so politicians ignore it."
BUBBLE #5 Rigging the Bailout
After the oil bubble collapsed last fall, there was no new bubble to keep things humming — this time, the money seems to be really gone, like worldwide-depression gone. So the financial safari has moved elsewhere, and the big game in the hunt has become the only remaining pool of dumb, unguarded capital left to feed upon: taxpayer money. Here, in the biggest bailout in history, is where Goldman Sachs really started to flex its muscle.
It began in September of last year, when then-Treasury secretary Paulson made a momentous series of decisions. Although he had already engineered a rescue of Bear Stearns a few months before and helped bail out quasi-private lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Paulson elected to let Lehman Brothers — one of Goldman's last real competitors — collapse without intervention. ("Goldman's superhero status was left intact," says market analyst Eric Salzman, "and an investment banking competitor, Lehman, goes away.") The very next day, Paulson green-lighted a massive, $85 billion bailout of AIG, which promptly turned around and repaid $13 billion it owed to Goldman. Thanks to the rescue effort, the bank ended up getting paid in full for its bad bets: By contrast, retired auto workers awaiting the Chrysler bailout will be lucky to receive 50 cents for every dollar they are owed.
Immediately after the AIG bailout, Paulson announced his federal bailout for the financial industry, a $700 billion plan called the Troubled Asset Relief Program, and put a heretofore unknown 35-year-old Goldman banker named Neel Kashkari in charge of administering the funds. In order to qualify for bailout monies, Goldman announced that it would convert from an investment bank to a bank holding company, a move that allows it access not only to $10 billion in TARP funds, but to a whole galaxy of less conspicuous, publicly backed funding — most notably, lending from the discount window of the Federal Reserve. By the end of March, the Fed will have lent or guaranteed at least $8.7 trillion under a series of new bailout programs — and thanks to an obscure law allowing the Fed to block most congressional audits, both the amounts and the recipients of the monies remain almost entirely secret.
Converting to a bank-holding company has other benefits as well: Goldman's primary supervisor is now the New York Fed, whose chairman at the time of its announcement was Stephen Friedman, a former co-chairman of Goldman Sachs. Friedman was technically in violation of Federal Reserve policy by remaining on the board of Goldman even as he was supposedly regulating the bank; in order to rectify the problem, he applied for, and got, a conflict of interest waiver from the government. Friedman was also supposed to divest himself of his Goldman stock after Goldman became a bank holding company, but thanks to the waiver, he was allowed to go out and buy 52,000 additional shares in his old bank, leaving him $3 million richer. Friedman stepped down in May, but the man now in charge of supervising Goldman — New York Fed president William Dudley — is yet another former Goldmanite.
The collective message of all this — the AIG bailout, the swift approval for its bank holding conversion, the TARP funds — is that when it comes to Goldman Sachs, there isn't a free market at all. The government might let other players on the market die, but it simply will not allow Goldman to fail under any circumstances. Its edge in the market has suddenly become an open declaration of supreme privilege. "In the past it was an implicit advantage," says Simon Johnson, an economics professor at MIT and former official at the International Monetary Fund, who compares the bailout to the crony capitalism he has seen in Third World countries. "Now it's more of an explicit advantage."
Once the bailouts were in place, Goldman went right back to business as usual, dreaming up impossibly convoluted schemes to pick the American carcass clean of its loose capital. One of its first moves in the post-bailout era was to quietly push forward the calendar it uses to report its earnings, essentially wiping December 2008 — with its $1.3 billion in pretax losses — off the books. At the same time, the bank announced a highly suspicious $1.8 billion profit for the first quarter of 2009 — which apparently included a large chunk of money funneled to it by taxpayers via the AIG bailout. "They cooked those first quarter results six ways from Sunday," says one hedge fund manager. "They hid the losses in the orphan month and called the bailout money profit."
Two more numbers stand out from that stunning first-quarter turnaround. The bank paid out an astonishing $4.7 billion in bonuses and compensation in the first three months of this year, an 18 percent increase over the first quarter of 2008. It also raised $5 billion by issuing new shares almost immediately after releasing its first quarter results. Taken together, the numbers show that Goldman essentially borrowed a $5 billion salary payout for its executives in the middle of the global economic crisis it helped cause, using half-baked accounting to reel in investors, just months after receiving billions in a taxpayer bailout.
Even more amazing, Goldman did it all right before the government announced the results of its new "stress test" for banks seeking to repay TARP money — suggesting that Goldman knew exactly what was coming. The government was trying to carefully orchestrate the repayments in an effort to prevent further trouble at banks that couldn't pay back the money right away. But Goldman blew off those concerns, brazenly flaunting its insider status. "They seemed to know everything that they needed to do before the stress test came out, unlike everyone else, who had to wait until after," says Michael Hecht, a managing director of JMP Securities. "The government came out and said, 'To pay back TARP, you have to issue debt of at least five years that is not insured by FDIC — which Goldman Sachs had already done, a week or two before."
And here's the real punch line. After playing an intimate role in four historic bubble catastrophes, after helping $5 trillion in wealth disappear from the NASDAQ, after pawning off thousands of toxic mortgages on pensioners and cities, after helping to drive the price of gas up to $4 a gallon and to push 100 million people around the world into hunger, after securing tens of billions of taxpayer dollars through a series of bailouts overseen by its former CEO, what did Goldman Sachs give back to the people of the United States in 2008?
Fourteen million dollars.
That is what the firm paid in taxes in 2008, an effective tax rate of exactly one, read it, one percent. The bank paid out $10 billion in compensation and benefits that same year and made a profit of more than $2 billion — yet it paid the Treasury less than a third of what it forked over to CEO Lloyd Blankfein, who made $42.9 million last year.
How is this possible? According to Goldman's annual report, the low taxes are due in large part to changes in the bank's "geographic earnings mix." In other words, the bank moved its money around so that most of its earnings took place in foreign countries with low tax rates. Thanks to our completely fucked corporate tax system, companies like Goldman can ship their revenues offshore and defer taxes on those revenues indefinitely, even while they claim deductions upfront on that same untaxed income. This is why any corporation with an at least occasionally sober accountant can usually find a way to zero out its taxes. A GAO report, in fact, found that between 1998 and 2005, roughly two-thirds of all corporations operating in the U.S. paid no taxes at all.
This should be a pitchfork-level outrage — but somehow, when Goldman released its post-bailout tax profile, hardly anyone said a word. One of the few to remark on the obscenity was Rep. Lloyd Doggett, a Democrat from Texas who serves on the House Ways and Means Committee. "With the right hand out begging for bailout money," he said, "the left is hiding it offshore."
BUBBLE #6 Global Warming
Fast-forward to today. It's early June in Washington, D.C. Barack Obama, a popular young politician whose leading private campaign donor was an investment bank called Goldman Sachs — its employees paid some $981,000 to his campaign — sits in the White House. Having seamlessly navigated the political minefield of the bailout era, Goldman is once again back to its old business, scouting out loopholes in a new government-created market with the aid of a new set of alumni occupying key government jobs.
Gone are Hank Paulson and Neel Kashkari; in their place are Treasury chief of staff Mark Patterson and CFTC chief Gary Gensler, both former Goldmanites. (Gensler was the firm's co-head of finance.) And instead of credit derivatives or oil futures or mortgage-backed CDOs, the new game in town, the next bubble, is in carbon credits — a booming trillion dollar market that barely even exists yet, but will if the Democratic Party that it gave $4,452,585 to in the last election manages to push into existence a groundbreaking new commodities bubble, disguised as an "environmental plan," called cap-and-trade.
The new carbon credit market is a virtual repeat of the commodities-market casino that's been kind to Goldman, except it has one delicious new wrinkle: If the plan goes forward as expected, the rise in prices will be government-mandated. Goldman won't even have to rig the game. It will be rigged in advance.
Here's how it works: If the bill passes, there will be limits for coal plants, utilities, natural-gas distributors and numerous other industries on the amount of carbon emissions (a.k.a. greenhouse gases) they can produce per year. If the companies go over their allotment, they will be able to buy "allocations" or credits from other companies that have managed to produce fewer emissions. President Obama conservatively estimates that about $646 billion worth of carbon credits will be auctioned in the first seven years; one of his top economic aides speculates that the real number might be twice or even three times that amount.
The feature of this plan that has special appeal to speculators is that the "cap" on carbon will be continually lowered by the government, which means that carbon credits will become more and more scarce with each passing year. Which means that this is a brand new commodities market where the main commodity to be traded is guaranteed to rise in price over time. The volume of this new market will be upwards of a trillion dollars annually; for comparison's sake, the annual combined revenues of all electricity suppliers in the U.S. total $320 billion.
Goldman wants this bill. The plan is (1) to get in on the ground floor of paradigm-shifting legislation, (2) make sure that they're the profit-making slice of that paradigm and (3) make sure the slice is a big slice. Goldman started pushing hard for cap-and-trade long ago, but things really ramped up last year when the firm spent $3.5 million to lobby climate issues. (One of their lobbyists at the time was none other than Patterson, now Treasury chief of staff.) Back in 2005, when Hank Paulson was chief of Goldman, he personally helped author the bank's environmental policy, a document that contains some surprising elements for a firm that in all other areas has been consistently opposed to any sort of government regulation. Paulson's report argued that "voluntary action alone cannot solve the climate change problem." A few years later, the bank's carbon chief, Ken Newcombe, insisted that cap-and-trade alone won't be enough to fix the climate problem and called for further public investments in research and development. Which is convenient, considering that Goldman made early investments in wind power (it bought a subsidiary called Horizon Wind Energy), renewable diesel (it is an investor in a firm called Changing World Technologies) and solar power (it partnered with BP Solar), exactly the kind of deals that will prosper if the government forces energy producers to use cleaner energy. As Paulson said at the time, "We're not making those investments to lose money."
The bank owns a 10 percent stake in the Chicago Climate Exchange, where the carbon credits will be traded. Moreover, Goldman owns a minority stake in Blue Source LLC, a Utah-based firm that sells carbon credits of the type that will be in great demand if the bill passes. Nobel Prize winner Al Gore, who is intimately involved with the planning of cap-and-trade, started up a company called Generation Investment Management with three former bigwigs from Goldman Sachs Asset Management, David Blood, Mark Ferguson and Peter Harris. Their business? Investing in carbon offsets. There's also a $500 million Green Growth Fund set up by a Goldmanite to invest in green-tech … the list goes on and on. Goldman is ahead of the headlines again, just waiting for someone to make it rain in the right spot. Will this market be bigger than the energy futures market?
"Oh, it'll dwarf it," says a former staffer on the House energy committee.
Well, you might say, who cares? If cap-and-trade succeeds, won't we all be saved from the catastrophe of global warming? Maybe — but cap-and-trade, as envisioned by Goldman, is really just a carbon tax structured so that private interests collect the revenues. Instead of simply imposing a fixed government levy on carbon pollution and forcing unclean energy producers to pay for the mess they make, cap-and-trade will allow a small tribe of greedy-as-hell Wall Street swine to turn yet another commodities market into a private tax collection scheme. This is worse than the bailout: It allows the bank to seize taxpayer money before it's even collected.
"If it's going to be a tax, I would prefer that Washington set the tax and collect it," says Michael Masters, the hedge fund director who spoke out against oil futures speculation. "But we're saying that Wall Street can set the tax, and Wall Street can collect the tax. That's the last thing in the world I want. It's just asinine."
Cap-and-trade is going to happen. Or, if it doesn't, something like it will. The moral is the same as for all the other bubbles that Goldman helped create, from 1929 to 2009. In almost every case, the very same bank that behaved recklessly for years, weighing down the system with toxic loans and predatory debt, and accomplishing nothing but massive bonuses for a few bosses, has been rewarded with mountains of virtually free money and government guarantees — while the actual victims in this mess, ordinary taxpayers, are the ones paying for it.
It's not always easy to accept the reality of what we now routinely allow these people to get away with; there's a kind of collective denial that kicks in when a country goes through what America has gone through lately, when a people lose as much prestige and status as we have in the past few years. You can't really register the fact that you're no longer a citizen of a thriving first-world democracy, that you're no longer above getting robbed in broad daylight, because like an amputee, you can still sort of feel things that are no longer there.
But this is it. This is the world we live in now. And in this world, some of us have to play by the rules, while others get a note from the principal excusing them from homework till the end of time, plus 10 billion free dollars in a paper bag to buy lunch. It's a gangster state, running on gangster economics, and even prices can't be trusted anymore; there are hidden taxes in every buck you pay. And maybe we can't stop it, but we should at least know where it's all going.
This article originally appeared in RS 1082-1083 from July 9-23, 2009. This issue and the rest of the Rolling Stone archives are available via All Access, Rolling Stone's premium subscription plan. If you are already a subscriber, you can click here to see the full story. Not a member? Click here to learn more about All Access.
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– Goldman Sachs is spending more and more in Washington—The bank upped its lobbying spending by nearly 40% in the second quarter and has already spent almost as much in the first half of this year as it did in all of 2009, notes the Huffington Post. The company is concerned about derivatives regulation, bank tax, and a host of other issues at stake in the overhaul of America's financial sector. The vampire squid isn't the only bank working the Beltway. Six of the country's biggest banks (by assets) upped their spending between January and June, finds Bloomberg. The American Bankers Association, meanwhile, spent $4.2 million, up from $3.9 million the year before. "It’s important to stay in tune with the conversations and decisions that occur in Washington," a bank rep says.
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STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- An image of a Staten Island Home Depot worker wearing an anti-Trump hat went viral on the Internet Wednesday, leading to threats against her life.
Krystal Lake, 22, of St. George, was spotted wearing the controversial hat during her Sunday morning shift at Home Depot, located on Forest Avenue in Mariners Harbor.
The hat reads: "AMERICA WAS NEVER GREAT."
The phrasing, Lake said, was inspired by presidential candidate Donald Trump's slogan, "Make America Great Again."
"The point of the hat was to say America needs changing and improvement," Lake told the Advance. "I don't think it's a positive message to say, "Let's look to the past.'"
Lake said she awoke Wednesday morning to a barrage of text messages, tweets and phone calls from friends and co-workers asking her if she had been checking her social media accounts.
"Everyone kept asking me if I was on Facebook or Twitter, which I hadn't been," she said, "and then I saw how many people were sharing [the picture] and that it was going viral.
"I was honestly shocked -- I didn't expect any of this to happen."
Lake, a lifelong Staten Islander and student at the College of Staten Island, said this was the first and only time she had worn the hat to work, and that she was not reprimanded by any manager for the decision to wear it.
When reached by the Advance on Wednesday afternoon, Home Depot spokesman Stephan Holmes said Lake's message on her hat does not reflect the opinions of Home Depot.
"We appreciate and understand the concerns of our loyal customers," he said. "In terms of the message, our associates are not permitted to wear items that reflect political statements.
"Unfortunately, no one on our management team saw her wearing the hat -- otherwise, they would have had her remove it immediately."
Lake, a Bernie Sanders supporter, said she has seen other employees wearing pro-Trump pins and pendants on their uniforms -- yet no one has ever told them not to wear them.
"For the past two months, there have been a few people I work with wearing 'Vote for Trump' pins on their uniforms," she said. "But no one ever says anything to them."
The spokesman added that leadership of the Forest Avenue store will be "following up with the matter to ensure that it will not happen again."
Holmes did not comment on whether Lake's job was in jeopardy.
When asked whether she intends to wear the hat again, Lake said, "Definitely."
"I feel it offended a lot of people because a lot of Trump supporters live in Staten Island," she said. "Trump is very rash and in your face, but when someone else has a message against him, his supporters can't take the criticisms."
Lake said she has received dozens of death threats on her social media accounts.
"People have been saying really racist things to me and that they're going to come and find me," she said, "and that what I said is disgraceful and I hate America -- but I don't hate America.
"I know there are a lot of opportunities here," Lake added. "I just wish we would worry about making America better -- not 'great again.'" ||||| STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. - This epic presidential election cycle has already been plenty turbulent, as Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton head toward what will no doubt be an incendiary November showdown.
But the flight is only going to get bumpier between now and then, and today it's Staten Island's turn in the 2016 culture-war spotlight.
All because of a hat.
Staten Islander Krystal Lake works at the Home Depot on Forest Avenue in Mariners Harbor. Recently, a photograph of the 22-year-old Bernie Sanders supporter wearing a hat that says "America Was Never Great" has set social media afire. Lake was at work when the photo was taken.
The hat, of course, is a riff on Donald Trump's campaign slogan, "Make America Great Again."
Lake said that she's been receiving threats ever since the photo went viral. She told the Advance that her life has been threatened on social media, with people saying racist things and saying that they will come and find her.
People have also lit up Home Depot's Facebook page, with one person calling Lake a "disgusting piece of garbage." Another called her racist, while more than one said she should be fired.
Let's take a breath.
Do we disagree with what the hat says? Of course. We don't agree with everything that America has been responsible for over the centuries, but there are plenty of moments of greatness there if Lake or anybody else cares to look. The way we came together as a nation after 9/11, for instance. Or how we won two world wars and saved the world from tyranny. Stuff like that.
The very fact that Lake has the constitutional right to express her political views is another one of those things that makes this country great. She should try that on for size.
Just not in the workplace.
If we were to express our sentiments, we would wear a hat that says, "America Is STILL Great." Or words to that effect. Because we do think America is a pretty special place to live, warts and all. We don't need Trump or anybody else to make us great again.
Still, it's Lake's right to express her opinion. And the rest of us have the right to disagree. Strenuously. But not violently. Some of the comments that Lake reports are just over the top. So were some of those found on Home Depot's Facebook page. If there's one thing Americans have learned to do is the social media age, it's to go from zero to 60 in record time.
The company, meanwhile, says that store workers are not allowed to wear items that reflect political sentiments. It said that the hat doesn't reflect Home Depot's views and that had members of management see Lake wear it, they would have had her remove it immediately.
But according to Lake, other store workers have been wearing pro-Trump pins and pendants on their uniforms. So now we're into he-said-she-said territory. As so often happens.
And despite Home Depot's comments, some damage already seems to have been done. Plenty of folks, including veterans, have already slammed the company on its Facebook page, saying they will no longer shop at the home improvement store. It's a threat that no company takes lightly.
And Lake says that she "definitely" plans on wearing the hat again. So buckle up. The saga could just be beginning. ||||| STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. – This epic presidential election cycle has already been plenty turbulent, as Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton head toward what will no doubt be an incendiary November showdown.
But the flight is only going to get bumpier between now and then, and today it's Staten Island's turn in the 2016 culture-war spotlight.
All because of a hat.
Staten Islander Krystal Lake works at the Home Depot on Forest Avenue in Mariners Harbor. Recently, a photograph of the 22-year-old Bernie Sanders supporter wearing a hat that says "America Was Never Great" has set social media afire. Lake was at work when the photo was taken.
The hat, of course, is a riff on Donald Trump's campaign slogan, "Make America Great Again."
Lake said that she's been receiving threats ever since the photo went viral. She told the Advance that her life has been threatened on social media, with people saying racist things and saying that they will come and find her.
People have also lit up Home Depot's Facebook page, with one person calling Lake a "disgusting piece of garbage." Another called her racist, while more than one said she should be fired.
Let's take a breath.
Do we disagree with what the hat says? Of course. We don't agree with everything that America has been responsible for over the centuries, but there are plenty of moments of greatness there if Lake or anybody else cares to look. The way we came together as a nation after 9/11, for instance. Or how we won two world wars and saved the world from tyranny. Stuff like that.
The very fact that Lake has the constitutional right to express her political views is another one of those things that makes this country great. She should try that on for size.
Just not in the workplace.
If we were to express our sentiments, we would wear a hat that says, "America Is STILL Great." Or words to that effect. Because we do think America is a pretty special place to live, warts and all. We don't need Trump or anybody else to make us great again.
Still, it's Lake's right to express her opinion. And the rest of us have the right to disagree. Strenuously. But not violently. Some of the comments that Lake reports are just over the top. So were some of those found on Home Depot's Facebook page. If there's one thing Americans have learned to do is the social media age, it's to go from zero to 60 in record time.
The company, meanwhile, says that store workers are not allowed to wear items that reflect political sentiments. It said that the hat doesn't reflect Home Depot's views and that had members of management see Lake wear it, they would have had her remove it immediately.
But according to Lake, other store workers have been wearing pro-Trump pins and pendants on their uniforms. So now we're into he-said-she-said territory. As so often happens.
And despite Home Depot's comments, some damage already seems to have been done. Plenty of folks, including veterans, have already slammed the company on its Facebook page, saying they will no longer shop at the home improvement store. It's a threat that no company takes lightly.
And Lake says that she "definitely" plans on wearing the hat again. So buckle up. The saga could just be beginning.
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– A Staten Island college student says she's had racist statements and even death threats hurled at her online since she wore an anti-Trump hat to her job at Home Depot over the weekend, the Staten Island Advance reports. Krystal Lake, 22, donned the cap, which read "America Was Never Great," during her Sunday morning shift, a riff on the Trump slogan "Make America Great Again." "The point of the hat was to say America needs changing and improvement," Lake says. "I don't think it's a positive message to say, 'Let's look to the past.'" She also notes that she's sure she rubbed a lot of Staten Islanders the wrong way because the area is such a Trump stronghold. "Trump is very rash and in your face, but when someone else has a message against him, his supporters can't take the criticisms," says Lake, a media studies major at the College of Staten Island. Regarding the controversy swirling around Lake, who says she had no idea her headwear would go viral, a Home Depot spokesman says that employees aren't allowed to wear items with a political message but that no managers saw it. "Otherwise, they would have had her remove it immediately." But Lake, a Bernie Sanders fan, says she sees co-workers wearing Trump flair, including pins and pendants, without reprimand or reprisal. Lake says she's been bombarded with hate messages, including being called "the N-word left and right" and told "America was great when your people weren't here." She adds she "definitely" intends to wear the hat to work again and balks at suggestions she hates America. "I just wish we would worry about making America better—not 'great again,'" she says. (An Advance columnist's commentary.)
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AP Photo The 21 Hillary Clinton emails you must read From the hPad's arrival to Sid Blumenthal's rant on Boehner, these are the gems in the latest batch of Hillary's emails.
The State Department's largest release to date of Hillary Clinton's emails provided a deeper look into the former secretary of state's thinking on major political events, revealed the extent to which longtime confidant Sidney Blumenthal had her ear, and offered a range of lighter insights, from her take on snow days ("this is getting silly") to her amusement at a robber carrying out a heist with a Hillary mask.
Here are the must-read emails, from the more than 7,000 pages of messages released on Monday night:
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Hillary and the help desk
In late February 2010, Clinton received a message to her personal email from an inquisitive help desk analyst with the State Department, informing the owner of the account that one of the department's "customers" was receiving "permanent fatal errors" from the address. Clinton then forwarded the email to aide Huma Abedin, who explained that the help desk "had no idea it was YOU, just some random address."
"But regardless, means ur email must be back! R u getting other messages?" Abedin asked. Clinton responded: "I've gotten some messages from yesterday — how about you?"
The hPad arrives
Philippe Reines emailed Clinton in June 2010 letting her know that her iPad — or as he put it in the subject line, the "hPad" — had arrived.
"That is exciting news — do you think you can teach me to use it on the flight to Kyev next week?" Clinton said.
Blumenthal emails on "vast right wing conspiracy"
With the subject line "H: Yes, there is a vast right wing conspiracy," Blumenthal forwarded an article from The New Yorker's Jane Mayer exploring how the Koch brothers had funded the tea party movement and right wing of the Republican Party.
"Ah, a little lite vacation reading!" Clinton responded in the August 2010 exchange.
Blumenthal emails on "post-midterms strategy"
On Election Day 2010, Blumenthal gave Clinton his take on the state of play after the midterms, in which Republicans would retake control of the House and John Boehner would ascend to the speakership.
"Boehner is despised by the younger, more conservative members of the House Republican Conference. They are repelled by his personal behavior," Blumenthal wrote, in part. "He is louche, alcoholic, lazy, and without any commitment to any principle. Boehner has already tried to buy the members with campaign contributions and committee assignments, which he has already promised to potentially difficult members."
Blumenthal on the tea party
In an August 2010 memo titled "Some paragraphs on the tea party," Blumenthal characterized the Republican Party as "captive to the swamp fevers of the extreme right" and being "purged of moderates, responsible conservatives, anyone who has a thought they don't like."
"Not useless" advice
In another Blumenthal email titled "an idea, perhaps useless, but nonetheless...," he ponders with regard to Clinton's Israeli strategy, "This may be worthless meandering on my part, but if the US unveils its own position in the new negotiations, inevitable if they are not to collapse, perhaps that position should incorporate at its heart what the Israeli government has already agreed to in the final status negotiations at Camp David, along, of course, with certain adjustments arid amendments to account for the past ten years in terms of boundaries, etc." This, he wrote, would make the U.S. look more reasonable.
"Not useless — thx," Clinton responded. "Don't operate from blank slate or allow Bibi to set the terms. There are already terms," Blumenthal wrote back.
Clarence Thomas impeachment
Blumenthal shared amemofrom David Brock in which Brock outlines the case for the impeachment of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas on the grounds of revelations from recent reports in The New York Times, The Washington Post and Washington's ABC affiliate.
"Brock memo here, have many more ideas on this. S.," reads the subject line.
Clinton on Citizens United
"FYI: Any foreign nation or leader with a front company becomes a 'person' under US law," Blumenthal wrote in the subject line of his email sent in the days after the Supreme Court decidedCitizens United v. FEC.
"This is unbelievable. Or maybe totally so given the forces at work," Clinton wrote in response to an article shared in the email. Blumenthal suggested the possibility of a legislative fix, something about which Clinton seemed skeptical.
"Not sure there is a legislative fix. Haven't read the opinion yet. May require constitutional amendment," she responded.
"Our friend, Martin"
Clinton had warm words for a future Democratic primary opponent in an email with Maryland Sen. Barbara Mikulski, thanking the senator for her support and declaring that Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley "should be reelected by acclamation for steering the ship of state so well."
"Pls give him my best wishes," she wrote.
Elena Kagan's cell
Clinton attempted to call the then-Supreme Court nominee on her cellphone in May 2010 but was apparently unsuccessful.
"The cell # for her belongs to someone else according to the vm. Can you get the right cell #?" Clinton wrote to aide Lauren Jiloty, who said it was likely for one of Kagan's own aides.
Nearly 100 hours without sleep
The secretary made sure to thank an aide who was up "for almost 100 hours" to finish a speech, according to adviser Lissa Muscatine.
"I did once before speech and will do again. Thx to all," she wrote.
Chelsea writes "Mom, Dad" on Haiti
Chelsea Clinton addressed a memo on Haiti to "Mom, Dad" in an assessment of the efficacy of agencies responding to the 2010 Haiti earthquake disaster after spending four days in the country with Partners in Health.
"Diane Reynolds" a.k.a. Chelsea on Iran
"I've always wanted to go to Qom, and Iran too admittedly, as you know, more for the far history than recent I confess," Chelsea wrote to Coco Reynolds in an email chain later forwarded on to her mother, the secretary. "I can't sort out whether I want to go more or less now though because of recent turmoil/promise/discontent; maybe want and sense are merely opposing forces!"
Chelsea's website complaint
In a partially redacted message, Chelsea, writing again as Reynolds, complained to her "favorite secretary of state" about State's website.
"I i cant see video of your talks or q&a sessions — only the text! i think there should be links to the news' versions if there is not state-created footage," Chelsea wrote, which the secretary then forwarded to Reines and Abedin, asking them to check on it "for us."
Lanny Davis favor
Longtime Clinton friend Lanny Davis emailed Clinton in September 2010 asking the secretary if she could speak with a reporter from The American Lawyer about their professional relationship, and if not, if she would have Reines or Cheryl Mills do so on her behalf.
"Please please please * note there are *three please*: *Do not be bashful or concerned about saying no to my request. As you can see, I have a number of people who have talked to the reporter or, in the case of President Clinton and President Bush, who may be giving written statements," Davis wrote.
Clinton forwarded the email to those aides, asking for advice. Their responses are heavily redacted.
Gallup poll
Abedin and Mills each forwarded a Gallup/USA Today poll in late December 2010 that found Clinton ranking as the "most-admired" woman for the ninth year in a row.
TV shows for the New Year
Clinton opened 2010 by asking aide Monica Hanley to, among other things, give her the times of two TV shows — "Parks and Recreation" and "The Good Wife" — which she recentlynamedas one of her favorite shows.
The case of the robber's Hillary mask
The secretary of state commented on an article reporting on a man in Virginia who robbed a bank wearing a Hillary Clinton Halloween mask in late December 2010.
"She does, uh, have an alibi, I presume?" lawyer David Kendall deadpanned in the email chain.
Clinton's response: "Should I be flattered? Even a little bit? And, as for my alibi, well, let's just say it depends on the snow and the secret service. So, subject to cross for sure. Do you think there could be copycats? Do you think the guy chose that mask or just picked up the nearest one? Please keep me informed as the case unfolds."
No more snow days?
"I can't believe the govt is closed again. I guess I will work from home again but think this is silly," Clinton wrote of the federal government's decision to close its doors for another day on the night of Feb. 8, 2010. The next day, the storm dumped approximately 10 inches on Washington, in addition to massive totals from the previous week's "Snowmageddon" event.
"Pls don't forward my last email"
Clinton instructed aide Mills and USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah not to forward her emails for reasons that are unclear because the email is redacted.
"Cheryl and Raj — I sent you emails [redacted] forward to anyone and delete after reading. Thx. before removing their email info so pls do not," Clinton wrote.
"Gefilte fish"
Clinton's March 5, 2010, email to two State Department officials simply asked, "Where are we on this?" It wouldappear to bein reference to Clinton's attempts to facilitate the importing of a blocked shipment of American carp into Israel.
Authors: ||||| Hillary Rodham Clinton fretted about gefilte fish, Henry Kissinger and how to use an iPad in some 7,000 pages of email newly disclosed by the State Department late Monday.
What she did not appear to do was write any explosive messages that will give her opponents new fodder for attack in the presidential campaign.
And so it goes with the Clinton emails. The process the former secretary of State used to send and receive the messages while the nation's top diplomat have created an enduring political headache for Clinton. But the messages themselves -- a new tranche disclosed monthly under orders from a judge -- have yet to leave additional political scars.
Of course, not all the messages she sent and received on her now-notorious home server are being revealed. Clinton had already deleted all the messages she deemed personal, a move rivals say is suspicious. And some 125 of the latest batch of Clinton emails released by the State Department were withheld from the public; government reviewers ruled they contained information that was retroactively classified.
Still, the messages did offer rare insight into the daily happenings in Clintonworld. In one particularly amusing exchange, it is revealed that even the Help Desk at the State Department was confused by Clinton's emailing ways. "They had no idea it was YOU," Clinton aide Huma Abedin wrote of the perplexed tech staff who were trying to figure out who owned one of the email addresses that belonged to Clinton.
Some other notable exchanges:
> In an email titled "Gefilte Fish," Clinton messaged top aides: "Where are we on this?" It apparently involved a more complex discussion than what was going on Clinton's Seder table.
> Another message reveals that Clinton is a fan of "Parks and Recreation." (Also "The Good Wife," but that is old news.)
> Clinton seemed particularly excited about the arrival of her iPad, arranging for her top communications aide, Philippe Reines, to provide a tutorial on an upcoming flight to Kiev. Subject line: hPad.
> An email with the subject line "Loretta Sanchez," as in the congresswoman from Garden Grove, is redacted entirely.
> Then-U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice, now President Obama's national security advisor, is given Clinton's personal email address with the offer from Clinton to use it anytime, "whatever my current address may be!"
> Reines praises Clinton in May 2010 for calling out the "ogrish males" at the State Department for their "eye rolls" on women's issues.
> Chelsea Clinton makes an appearance, writing a long, impassioned memo to both of her parents on the recovery effort in Haiti from the 2010 earthquake, insisting that immediate action is needed to save the lives of tens of thousands children who are at risk of contracting deadly diseases.
>And a clutch of emails from a longtime Clinton confidante, Sidney Blumenthal, who was blocked by the White House from working for Clinton at the State Department: Without "tough love, any support for Israel will lack credibility," he writes in one that he himself marked confidential. In another, he refers to House Majority Leader John Boehner as: "a louche, alcoholic, lazy, and without any commitment to any principle."
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– Gefilte fish and a "louche alcoholic" in the House: In its latest Hillary Clinton email dump, the State Department released 4,368 documents adding up to more than 7,000 pages last night, and while they may not provide much ammunition for her 2016 rivals, there are plenty of insights into her time at the department. Around 150 emails were censored in preparation for the release. Some highlights, per the New York Times, Politico, and the Los Angeles Times: The "hPad." In a June 2010 email with the subject line "hPad," Clinton tells communications aide Philippe Reines she's excited that her new iPad has arrived and asks if he can teach her to use it on their flight to Kiev. Bank robber. After being told somebody in a Hillary Clinton mask had robbed a bank, she wondered: "Should I be flattered? Even a little bit?" and added, "As for my alibi, well, let's just say it depends on the snow and the secret service." Lazy alcoholic. In an Election Day 2010 exchange with Sidney Blumenthal, the longtime adviser had some harsh words to say about John Boehner. "Boehner is despised by the younger, more conservative members of the House Republican Conference. They are repelled by his personal behavior," Blumenthal wrote. "He is louche, alcoholic, lazy, and without any commitment to any principle." Chelsea Clinton. "The incompetence is mind numbing," Clinton's daughter wrote from Haiti after the 2010 earthquake, warning that tens of thousands of children could die if the organization of relief efforts wasn't improved. She describes herself as an "invisible soldier" for her parents, the New York Times notes. Gefilte fish. "Where are we on this?" Clinton asked aides in February 2010 in an email with that title, apparently referring to containers of carp held up in Illinois because of a customs dispute with Israel. Ogrish males. "I for one loved that you finally called out the ogrish males on your staff who roll their eyes at womens issues and events," Reines wrote to Clinton in May 2010, giving the name of one eye-roller, whose name is redacted. Email confusion. Top aide Huma Abedin wrote to Clinton in early 2010, telling her somebody had been having trouble emailing one of her addresses and when she contacted a department help desk, "They had no idea it was YOU." TV choices. In early 2010, Clinton asked an aide to find out the times of Parks and Recreation and The Good Wife.
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Trying to put last weekend’s ambiguous online miniscandal behind him, Rep. Anthony Weiner told reporters outside his office Tuesday that he’s “not going to talk about this anymore.”
But Weiner, a veteran and champion of New York City’s media scrum, may be the single worst-placed congressman to hunker down and wait for a flap to fade.
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reset VIDEO: Weiner's media tour ECHO CHAMBER: Weiner-gate VIDEO: Reporters grill Weiner
The Queens congressman is a combative MSNBC star with a corresponding conservative target on his back. He is also viewed as the front-runner in what is already shaping up as an intensely competitive Democratic primary for the 2013 election to replace Mayor Michael Bloomberg. He’s a media favorite, a source par excellence and a magnet for cable news cameras — on full display in two interviews broadcast by CNN on Tuesday.
“It ain’t done. We don’t know what the facts are,” said Hank Sheinkopf, a veteran New York Democratic consultant. “There are too many reporters asking too many questions to avoid any of this.”
After a long weekend’s fuss over a photograph of a man’s crotch, sent over his Twitter account, Weiner appears to have decided not to pursue an investigation that would conclusively settle how the image made its way online. He also refused repeatedly to answer direct questions about whether he’d taken or sent the photograph.
On Wednesday, Weiner said he “can’t say with certitude” that the photo sent using his Twitter account isn’t of him. “I didn’t send that picture out,” Weiner said in a Wednesday afternoon interview with NBC News.
Technical data could settle the question of whether he sent it. The photograph was uploaded to the site yfrog.com, which is integrated with Twitter, and either Twitter, yfrog, or both almost definitely have logs indicating the unique digital address of the computer or device that sent the image. (Twitter declined to comment on a specific customer; Imageshack, which owns yfrog, didn’t respond to a request for comment.) But Weiner told reporters, in a pair of impromptu and increasingly testy interviews outside his office on Capitol Hill, that he didn’t think asking the companies for that information or turning to law enforcement would end the story.
“I’m not convinced that there’s any value of anymore of me talking about it,” he said.
Weiner’s flat refusal to engage may or may not serve him well in Washington’s totally partisan environment, in which Democrats will defend him, and Republicans attack him, as usual. Back in New York, meanwhile, allies of his rivals - former comptroller William Thompson, Public Advocate Bill DeBlasio, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, Democrats all - are licking their chops.
“This is New York - he’s in deep doo-doo when it comes to future aspirations,” said a pleased adviser to one of his rivals. “You’ve got every enemy of his, and interested political reporters, all digging, because there’s something too weird about this.”
Stuart Applebaum, the president of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union and a Weiner ally, said Weiner was right to play the matter as a “distraction” and to suggest that he was targeted for the sort of outspoken, combative liberalism that is a selling point in New York. ||||| weinergate Anthony Weiner Is Not Doing Himself Any Favors
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We won't pretend to know the truth behind Weinergate whether Weiner was the victim of a hacker or prankster or conservative conspiracy, or whether he was personally responsible for sending a college girl a photo of a man's bulge over Twitter. But what's clear is that Weiner is only inviting more suspicion on himself by the way he's handling the attention. During an encounter with reporters earlier today, Weiner refused to answer any questions about the incident, including whether that was his own package in the photo, why he contacted a lawyer instead of law enforcement, and why he was following the college student on Twitter in the first place. Instead, he pointed reporters to his previous statements (which don't actually address those questions) and expressed his desire to move on to more important business.
If Weiner is truly innocent of Internet hanky-panky, such questions would indeed be irritating and tiresome. And on conservative blogs like the Daily Caller, where the angle of Weiner's penis at rest is being closely scrutinized, the treatment of the controversy is becoming absurd, and frankly, gross. But dodging easily answerable questions is definitely not the way to make it all go away. For example, something like, "No, that was not my penis. I know this because I didn't take a photo of my penis," would have been a perfectly fine response. The mainstream press, at least, would be satisfied.
Evading questions, however, is a strategy most often utilized by people with something to hide, and will only further pique the media's interest. Weiner either has something to hide, or he has no idea how the media operates.
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– Dan Amira at New York's Daily Intel blog doesn't pretend to know whether Anthony Weiner is innocent or guilty in the Twitter photo flap. "But what's clear is that Weiner is only inviting more suspicion on himself by the way he's handling the attention," writes Amira. His combative go-rounds with reporters yesterday, in which he refused to answer the most basic questions about the controversy, did not help his case. "For example, something like, 'No, that was not my penis. I know this because I didn't take a photo of my penis,' would have been a perfectly fine response," writes Amira. That kind of response may not satisfy his gleeful right-wing enemies, but the mainstream press at least likely would go away. "Weiner either has something to hide, or he has no idea how the media operates." Click for more, including video of Weiner getting testy with reporters. Or click here to read the take of Ben Smith at Politico, who notes that because Weiner is a feisty cable star seen as a frontrunner in the 2013 Democratic primary for New York City mayor, he "may be the single worst-placed congressman to hunker down and wait for a flap to fade."
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Story highlights Three enter not guilty pleas; Office decides not to prosecute fourth
A candlelight vigil is held for Hoffman in New York
Determination of cause and manner of his death is pending further study
Source: Police recover 350 bags of what is believed to be heroin
Four people believed to be connected to the drugs found in Philip Seymour Hoffman's apartment were arrested late Tuesday night, law enforcement officials told CNN.
During the raid that led to the arrest of the three men and one woman, police recovered 350 small plastic bags of what is believed to be heroin, the officials said. The bags of alleged heroin were branded "black list" and "red bull" -- not the same brands found in Hoffman's apartment, the sources said.
Apartments at 302 Mott Street in Manhattan, where the four were arrested, are part of the investigation into Hoffman's death, according to a police source.
The source identified the suspects being investigated in connection with drugs sold to Hoffman as Juliana Luchkiw, 22; Max Rosenblum, 22; Robert Vineberg, 57; and Thomas Cushman, 48.
Luchkiw and Rosenblum were charged with criminal possession of a controlled substance in the seventh degree, misdemeanors, while Vineberg was charged with criminal possession of a controlled substance in the third degree, a felony.
Through their attorneys, all three entered pleas of not guilty Wednesday.
The Manhattan District Attorney's Office declined to prosecute Cushman because there was no evidence he had any control over the drugs.
Vineberg was found to have the actor's phone number stored in his cell phone, a law enforcement official told CNN. Police discovered the largest amount of what is believed to be heroin in his apartment, the source said.
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Vineberg was described by a former neighbor as a talented musician who used the stage name Robert Aaron and once toured with Wyclef Jean. Vineberg had a wife and daughter, said the neighbor, who lived in the building a number of years ago.
"He used to practice at night," said the former neighbor, recounting that Vineberg played keyboards. "Honestly, he seemed like a nice guy, always playing music. Nothing sinister."
Vineberg's attorney, Edward Kratt, said that he hopes prosecutors will not use his client as a scapegoat.
"These charges have absolutely nothing to do with Philip Seymour Hoffman's unfortunate death," Kratt said.
Luchkiw's attorney, Stephan Turano, similarly said she had no connection to Hoffman, other than seeing his movies, and that Luchkiw was simply in the "wrong place at (the) wrong time."
A spokeswoman for the New York medical examiner's office said Wednesday that a determination of the cause and manner of Hoffman's death is pending further study, including toxicology reports.
When police were called to Hoffman's fourth-floor Manhattan apartment Sunday, they found the actor lying on the bathroom floor with a syringe in his left arm. He was wearing shorts and a T-shirt, his eyeglasses still resting on his head, according to law enforcement sources familiar with the inquiry.
Investigators discovered close to 50 envelopes of what they believed was heroin in the apartment, the law enforcement sources said. They also found used syringes, prescription drugs and empty plastic bags of a type commonly used to hold drugs, the sources said.
Also found in Hoffman's apartment was his personal journal, resting on a living room TV stand, two law enforcement sources said.
Hoffman's final hours
No fentanyl found
Preliminary tests Tuesday showed the heroin recovered from Hoffman's apartment did not contain fentanyl, a law enforcement official told CNN. More testing will be done.
Fentanyl is a powerful narcotic used to treat cancer patients' pain.
Last week, Maryland officials said heroin tainted with fentanyl had claimed at least 37 lives since September. And last month, at least 22 people in western Pennsylvania died after using heroin mixed with fentanyl.
While results of an autopsy will definitively reveal exactly how Hoffman, 46, died, the role that heroin may or may not have played is a key part of the investigation.
Final hours
Police are trying to piece together the actor's movements last weekend as they look for anyone who might be linked to the drugs that apparently killed him.
On Tuesday, a law enforcement source told CNN that the night before Hoffman died, he withdrew $1,200 from a grocery store ATM near his apartment.
Hoffman got the money in six transactions Saturday night, according to the source.
A witness told investigators he saw the Oscar-winning actor talking to two men wearing messenger bags about 8 p.m.
Police are also reviewing surveillance video, including video of a restaurant where Hoffman had brunch Saturday morning with two people.
How heroin kills you
'I'm a heroin addict'
In a 2011 interview with "60 Minutes," Hoffman discussed his past struggles with drug and alcohol addiction.
"Anything I could get my hands on, I liked it all," he said.
Fear, Hoffman said, made him sober up.
"You get panicked. ... I was 22 and I got panicked for my life. It really was, it was just that," he said. "And I always think, 'God, I have so much empathy for these young actors that are 19 and all of a sudden are beautiful and famous and rich.' I'm like, 'Oh my God. I'd be dead.'"
But last year, Hoffman said he'd fallen off the wagon, started taking prescription pills and slipped into snorting heroin, according to TMZ.
Magazine writer John Arundel said he met the actor at the Sundance Film Festival in Utah two weeks before his death.
"I said, 'What do you do?' And at that point, he took off his hat and he said, 'I'm a heroin addict,'" Arundel said.
"Didn't look like he was (joking). Seemed like he was having one of those 'coming to God' moments -- where it just struck him as, 'this is the revelatory moment.'"
But actor George Clooney said he had dinner with Hoffman a few months ago, and he seemed fine.
"I have to say he seemed in pretty good shape," Clooney said. "I mean, there's no way to explain it."
Filmmaker Chris Barrett interviewed Hoffman January 17 at the Sundance Film Festival. "He didn't look well at Sundance. His skin color was very pale, but he wasn't disheveled as some media was reporting," Barrett told CNN.
Dimming the lights
Family and close friends of the actor will hold a private funeral service in New York. Plans are also under way for a memorial service later this month. No information on the dates was available.
On Wednesday night, the famed Broadway theater district will dim its marquees for one minute at 7:45 p.m. in Hoffman's memory.
He appeared on Broadway three times.
Hoffman stayed active on stage even as his star rose in Hollywood. He starred in a Broadway production of "Death of a Salesman" in 2012 and was co-artistic director of the Labyrinth Theater Company in New York.
That company hosted a candlelight vigil Wednesday night.
"I just was really profoundly affected by his death and felt like it was important for me to be here," said Leslie Kritzer, a fellow actor. "I also just think it's important to be here to remind people to have compassion and love for people that are struggling with the disease of addiction."
Kritzer said she had long admired Hoffman from afar.
"He could do the movies, and he did them brilliantly -- better than anyone else -- but he always came back to his roots and he was a hero for all of us that could only dream of doing what he accomplished," she said. ||||| Cops raided a Manhattan drug den Tuesday night and arrested suspected dealers who may have been the ones who sold heroin to actor Philip Seymour Hoffman, sources said.
Authorities entered the Mott Street building and at around 7:30 p.m. and nabbed four people after getting a tip that the “Capote” star was sold heroin there a couple of months ago.
The cops found about 350 glassine envelopes with what appeared to be heroin inside in three apartments in the building, according to law enforcement sources.
The bags found in the apartments did not have the “Ace of Spades” stamp, which were on the bags found in Hoffman’s apartment, sources said.
Cops were acting on a tip and obtained a search warrant for the raid, sources said.
Police arrested Robert Vineberg, 57, Thomas Kushman 48, and charged them with felony drug possession.
Two younger people, Max Rosenblum and Juliana Luchkiw, both 22, were arrested and charged with misdemeanor drug possession.
Luchkiw, a student at The New School, was camera shy at the 9th Precinct Station House in Manhattan Wednesday morning.
“Stop taking pictures, stop taking pictures,” she yelled at a photographer.
Her colleague Rosenblum tried to console her.
“This has nothing to do with you, babe,” he said.
When asked if he sold Hoffman heroin Vineberg, a musician who goes by the name Robert Aaron and has played with stars like Wyclef Jean and Tom Jones, denied it.
“No, I did not,” he said sheepishly.
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– Have police found the dealers who sold the heroin believed to have killed Philip Seymour Hoffman? Four suspected dealers were busted in New York City after a tip-off last night, but it's not clear whether they were the actor's direct suppliers or part of a larger ring, police sources tell the New York Daily News. Around 350 bags of heroin were seized inside three apartments. Two men, ages 57 and 48, have been charged with felony drug possession, and a man and a woman, both 22, have been charged with misdemeanor drug possession, according to the New York Post. Police raided the three apartments after a tip from a heroin user who uses the same dealer and claimed to have seen Hoffman in his apartment, a source tells TMZ. But none of the seized bags of heroin had "Ace of Hearts" or "Ace of Spades" stamps similar to those found in Hoffman's apartment after his death, sources say. Tests on the heroin found in the actor's home had no trace of fentanyl, a powerful narcotic sometimes used to cut the drug, a law enforcement official tells CNN. Heroin tainted with fentanyl killed at least 22 people in Maryland last month.
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And, just like that, the seemingly endless series of Republican presidential debates may finally be grinding to a halt.
On Thursday, Mitt Romney‘s campaign announced that they had no plans to participate in a March 1 debate in Atlanta, sponsored by CNN and the Georgia Republican Party. The news was first reported by CBS News/National Journal.
In an e-mail, the Romney campaign said that they were unable to make the debate because of scheduling demands before the series of primaries and caucuses on March 6, known as Super Tuesday.
“Governor Romney will be spending a lot of time campaigning in Georgia and Ohio ahead of Super Tuesday,” wrote Andrea Saul, a campaign spokeswoman. “With eight other states voting on March 6, we will be campaigning in other parts of the country and unable to schedule the CNN Georgia debate. We have participated in 20 debates, including eight from CNN.”
Mr. Romney does, however, still intend to participate in next Wednesday night’s CNN debate in Arizona.
Mr. Romney is not the only candidate sitting out the March 1 debate. A spokesman for Rick Santorum told a CBS News/National Journal reporter that he had “no plans of doing it right now.” And CNN said that Representative Ron Paul of Texas told the network on Thursday that he also did not plan to attend.
Upon being told that Mr. Romney would skip the March 1 debate, Newt Gingrich, campaigning in Los Angeles, said he expected to participate, then offered a reason why Mr. Romney would want to avoid confrontation.
“The Romney model is to go to Wall Street and raise huge amounts of money to run negative ads,” Mr. Gingrich said, “and you can understand why having to defend that strategy is probably not something he’s very happy with.”
CNN, in a statement, said that “without full participation of all four candidates,” it would not hold a Super Tuesday debate.
That means next Wednesday’s debate in Mesa, Ariz., will be the 21st of the race so far, and the candidates and their staff members — particularly Mr. Romney’s — have grumbled about their frequency. But now, the primary season of debates may finally be coming to an end.
Trip Gabriel contributed reporting. ||||| CNN canceled its March 1 Republican presidential debate on Thursday after three of four candidates declined to participate, citing busy campaign schedules leading to Super Tuesday on March 6.
"Mitt Romney and Ron Paul told the Georgia Republican Party, Ohio Republican Party, and CNN Thursday that they will not participate in the March 1 Republican presidential primary debate," CNN said in a statement. "Without full participation of all four candidates, CNN will not move forward with the Super Tuesday debate."
Former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum also said he would not participate, leaving only former House Speaker Newt Gingrich committed to attending.
Still scheduled is a Feb. 22 debate sponsored by CNN and the Arizona Republican Party in Mesa, Ariz. It will be moderated by CNN's John King.
From National Journal:
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Andrea Saul, a spokeswoman for former Massachusetts Gov. Romney, said, "With eight other states voting on March 6, we will be campaigning in other parts of the country and unable to schedule the CNN Georgia debate. We have participated in 20 debates, including eight from CNN."
Santorum "has no plans of doing it right now," spokesman Hogan Gidley said of the March 1 debate.
Gingrich, whose home state is Georgia, had planned to take part. "The Romney model is to go to Wall Street and raise huge amounts of money to run negative ads," he said. "And you can understand why having to defend that strategy is probably not something he's very happy with."
Correction: An earlier version of this story erroneously referred to a March 5 debate.
Lindsey Boerma, Ethan Klapper and Sarah Huisenga contributed contributed to this article.
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– Newt Gingrich would probably love to fill an hour or more of debate time all by his lonesome, but CNN would rather he not. The network canceled a debate scheduled for March 1 after Mitt Romney, Ron Paul, and Rick Santorum bowed out, reports the National Journal. The trio cited hectic campaign schedules ahead of Super Tuesday on March 6. A CNN debate scheduled for Feb. 22 is still on, however. When informed earlier in the day that Romney was out, Gingrich still seemed game to participate, and he turned it into a political jab: "The Romney model is to go to Wall Street and raise huge amounts of money to run negative ads," he said. "And you can understand why having to defend that strategy is probably not something he's very happy with." The New York Times thinks the cancellation is a sign that the seemingly endless debates (20 so far) are finally coming to an end.
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Image copyright Uriminzokkiri Image caption In the North's propaganda video the woman says she returned voluntarily
South Korean intelligence officials are investigating whether a prominent defector from the North has been kidnapped back to Pyongyang.
The woman, known as Lim Ji-hyun, fled to South Korea in 2014, where she became a popular TV personality.
However, a woman resembling her appeared in a propaganda video in the North's capital on Sunday - prompting speculation she may have been abducted.
In the video, she says she was lured away and forced to slander the North.
She says that she voluntarily returned across the border.
Ms Lim had been a popular face on South Korean television, appearing on both talk shows and reality TV programmes.
The authorities have not yet confirmed if the woman in the propaganda video is Ms Lim. However, they believe Ms Lim is back in North Korea.
The propaganda video was released on Youtube by the North Korean Uriminzokkiri website on Sunday.
In the video, the woman introduces herself by another name, Jeon Hye-Sung.
She is shown in conversation with an interviewer and Kim Man-bok, another former defector who also returned to the North.
She says she was lured to the South by the "fantasy" that she could "eat well and make lots of money" and claims that she was forced into slandering her own country.
Image copyright Uriminzokkiri Image caption In the video, she appears alongside another former defector
She describes how in the South everything was judged by money, how she was struggling to make ends meet and was asked to discredit the North on several TV shows.
She said she was now living back with her parents again after returning to the North last month.
"I felt really lonely in South Korea and I missed my parents," she said in the video.
JoongAng Ilbo newspaper reports that the defector had thanked her fans as recently as April for a birthday party, calling it "possibly the happiest birthday of my life".
Her fan club announced on Sunday it would shut.
Intelligence officials are investigating how Ms Lim might have re-entered North Korea.
Some North Korean defectors have speculated that she may have been abducted on the China-North Korean border while attempting to smuggle out family members, the Korea Times reports.
The BBC's Karen Allen in Seoul says that fake propaganda videos do circulate in North Korea but the authorities in Seoul have confirmed they are taking this seriously and are investigating her case.
Over the past decade, tens of thousands of North Koreans have defected from the authoritarian state into South Korea.
The unification ministry in Seoul told the BBC that since 2012 only 25 returned.
Some North Korean defectors have described difficulties in adapting to life in the South - many miss their families in the North, or struggle to find suitable jobs. ||||| South Korean officials agree that some of the North Koreans may have returned out of desperation after failing to adjust to life in the South. But they also suspect that some were abducted back to the North after they were lured to China. North Korean agents have tried to blackmail defectors in the South, using their relatives in the North as hostages, they said.
The returning defectors are a propaganda boon for Mr. Kim.
His government has organized news conferences in Pyongyang, where the returnees claimed that human smugglers or South Korean spy agents cheated or kidnapped them to the South. They invariably thanked Mr. Kim for giving traitors like them a second chance. The United Nations has long criticized North Korea as one of the world’s worst human rights violators.
Under Mr. Kim, the North has tightened control along the border with China, the main escape route for defectors. The number of North Korean refugees arriving in the South dropped to 1,418 last year from 2,706 in 2011, according to the Unification Ministry. It has also intensified the crackdown on South Korean movies and TV dramas smuggled from China through which North Korean defectors said they learned of life in the South.
“In the South, where money ruled, there was only physical and psychological pain waiting for people like me who had betrayed their fatherland and fled,” Ms. Lim said in an apparent warning to North Koreans who might be dreaming of leaving for the South.
Ms. Lim arrived in South Korea in 2014.
From December, she had been among scores of mostly young female North Korean defectors who have tried to build careers on cable TV talk or reality shows. They often appear in North Korean dresses and sing North Korean songs.
Speaking in their unmistakable North Korean accents, these women share often funny or tearful episodes of life in the famine-struck Stalinist state or their dangerous journeys for freedom. A show called “Love of South and North” matches North Korean women with South Korean men, placing them in a romantic situation.
These entertainment-driven programs, which often advertise “beauties from the North,” are accused of airing sensational yet unconfirmed allegations from the defectors. But they are also credited with helping South Koreans understand the lives of ordinary people in the North, a neighbor that has seldom generated interest among South Koreans despite its growing nuclear and missile threats. ||||| 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
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– A defector from North Korea who became a well-known TV personality in South Korea has reappeared in the North—and not everyone is convinced that her claims to be happy there after a hellish existence in the South are genuine. In a propaganda video released by Pyongyang on Sunday, Lim Ji Hyun says she was lured away from her homeland by visions of making money and returned to the North voluntarily, the BBC reports. "Every single day of my life in the South was a hell," the 26-year-old, who defected in 2014, says in the video. "When I was alone in a dark, cold room, I was heartbroken and I wept every day." Lim disappeared in April and this is the first that has been heard from her since. Lim, like dozens of other young defectors, had achieved modest success on TV, where she sometimes discussed life in the North, the New York Times reports. It's not clear how she returned to the North. South Korean officials—as well as many of her fans—suspect she might have been kidnapped by North Korea, possibly after having been lured to the country's border with China. In the video, she says she had been coerced into criticizing the North on South Korean TV—and issues a warning to people in the North thinking of defecting. "In the South, where money ruled, there was only physical and psychological pain waiting for people like me who had betrayed their fatherland and fled," she says.
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NEW YORK (Reuters) - The widow of Glenn Frey on Tuesday filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan over its treatment of the former co-lead singer and guitarist for The Eagles before he died in January 2016 at age 67.
FILE PHOTO: Singer/guitarist Glenn Frey of the Eagles, with singer/drummer Don Henley in the background, performs in Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S., August 9, 2003. REUTERS/Ethan Miller/File Photo
Cindy Frey accused the hospital and gastroenterologist Steven Itzkowitz of negligence for failing to properly treat her late husband’s ulcerative colitis, diagnose and treat infection, and advise of the risks and side effects from treatment.
As a result, “Glenn Frey was rendered sick, sore, lame and disabled,” and suffered pain and mental anguish prior to his Jan. 18, 2016 death, according to the complaint filed in a New York state court in Manhattan.
Frey had been under Itzkowitz’s care from Oct. 19, 2015 to November 2015, the complaint said.
FILE PHOTO: Guitarist Glenn Frey (L) performs with the Eagles at the opening night of the Nokia Theatre L.A. Live in Los Angeles, California, U.S., October 18, 2007. REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni/File Photo
He died of complications from acute ulcerative colitis, pneumonia and rheumatoid arthritis, The Eagles have said.
Mount Sinai spokeswoman Lucia Lee said the hospital does not comment on pending litigation. Eric Turkewitz, a lawyer for Cindy Frey, declined to elaborate on the lawsuit’s substance.
FILE PHOTO - Glenn Frey of the rock group 'The Eagles' performs at a concert in honour of Monaco's Prince Albert II and his fiancee Charlene Wittstock at the Stade Louis II stadium in Monaco June 30, 2011. REUTERS/Benoit Tessier
The complaint seeks unspecified damages for Cindy Frey, who had three children with her late husband and oversees his estate.
It was filed shortly before the expiration of New York’s two-year statute of limitations for wrongful death cases.
State law requires lawyers to consult with doctors in medical malpractice actions before suing, to determine whether cases have merit.
It also permits lawsuits such as Frey’s to be filed when lawyers cannot reasonably obtain such consultations before the two-year deadline expires.
Glenn Frey was a co-founder of The Eagles in 1971 and collaborated with drummer Don Henley on many of its biggest hits, with Frey taking lead vocals on such songs as “Take It Easy,” “Lyin’ Eyes” and “Heartache Tonight.”
In the 1980s, Frey had solo success with such songs as “The Heat Is On,” recorded for the movie “Beverly Hills Cop.” ||||| Glenn Frey of the Eagles performs at Philips Arena on Feb. 24, 2014 in Atlanta.
Cindy Frey is accusing Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan and gastroenterologist Steven Itzkowitz of negligence.
Eagles co-founder Glenn Frey's widow has filed a lawsuit against Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan over its treatment of the musician before his death in 2016 at the age of 67.
As Reuters reports, Cindy Frey is accusing the hospital and gastroenterologist Steven Itzkowitz of negligence that rendered him "sick, sore, lame and disabled," causing him pain and mental anguish leading up to his death. In the suit, she claims the hospital and Itzkowitz failed to properly treat her husband's ulcerative colitis, diagnose and treat infection and advise of the risks and side effects from treatment.
According to the complaint, Glenn Frey was under Itzkowitz's care from Oct. 19. 2015, to November 2015.
Glenn Frey died on Jan. 18, 2016, due to complications from acute ulcerative colitis, pneumonia and rheumatoid arthritis. Following Glenn Frey's death, Eagles manager Irving Azoff said that Frey's illnesses were partly caused by the medication he was taking for his rheumatoid arthritis.
"The colitis and pneumonia were side effects from all the meds," Azoff said in an interview with The Wrap. "He died from complications of ulcer and colitis after being treated with drugs for his rheumatoid arthritis which he had for over 15 years."
Cindy Frey's lawsuit seeks unspecified damages. She had three children with her late husband and oversees his estate. ||||| The widow of Eagles co-founder Glenn Frey, Cindy Frey, has filed a wrongful death suit against Mount Sinai Hospital and the musician's gastroenterologist.
Related Glenn Frey: An Oral History Bob Seger, J.D. Souther, Eagles members and others retrace the life and career of the late, great Eagles singer/songwriter
The suit accuses Mount Sinai and physician Steven Itzkowitz of negligence and failing to properly treat and diagnose the musician. Frey died in January 2016 from complications from rheumatoid arthritis, acute ulcerative colitis – an inflammatory bowel disease – and pneumonia. Cindy Frey is seeking unspecified damages for pain and suffering, wrongful death and the loss of services of a spouse.
A representative for the Eagles declined to comment on the lawsuit, as did Cindy Frey's lawyer. A representative for Mount Sinai did not immediately respond to Rolling Stone's request for comment.
According to the complaint, Frey was in Itzkowitz's care from October 19th, 2015 to November 2015. It alleges that Mount Sinai and Itzkowitz failed to "promptly and properly treat [Frey's] ulcerative colitis and associated symptoms and diseases of the bowel." It also claims Mount Sinai and Itzkowitz did not properly assess Frey for respiratory issues, ignored and did not treat an infection and did not promptly hospitalize him.
The suit reads: "As a result of the foregoing acts of negligence, Glenn Frey was rendered sick, lame and disabled, suffered injuries, pain, mental anguish, was compelled to seek medical care and attention, incurred expenses thereof, and was permanently injured and disabled until the time of his death."
In the years since Frey's death, the Eagles have reformed with members Don Henley, Joe Walsh and Timothy B. Schmit teaming with Vince Gill and Frey's son, Deacon. The group will embark on a North American tour this spring, starting March 12th in Indianapolis.
||||| New light is being shed on the medical conditions that contributed to Eagles co-founder Glenn Frey’s death, with a medical expert telling TheWrap that the medications prescribed for Frey’s conditions can lead to “disaster.”
Frey died Monday at age 67. According to the band’s website, the singer and songwriter “succumbed to complications from rheumatoid arthritis, acute ulcerative colitis and pneumonia.”
The group’s manager, Irving Azoff, told TheWrap that Frey’s medications played a part in his death
Also Read: Glenn Frey's Death: Hollywood Remembers Eagles Legend
“The colitis and pneumonia were side effects from all the meds,” Azoff said. “He died from complications of ulcer and colitis after being treated with drugs for his rheumatoid arthritis which he had for over 15 years.”
While Azoff declined to state which medications Frey was taking, Dr. Marc I. Leavey, an internal medicine specialist at Mercy Medical Center in Baltimore (who did not treat Frey), told TheWrap that medications for rheumatoid arthritis or ulcerative colitis can compromise the immune system’s ability to fight off pneumonia.
“The medications used for rheumatoid arthritis or ulcerative colitis can interfere with the normal immune response needed to fight an infective agent, such as a pneumonia, again leading to disaster,” Leavey said.
Even the disease can lead to life-threatening conditions,Leavey cautioned.
Also Read: Glenn Frey's Medication Contributed to His Death, Manager Says (Exclusive)
“Rheumatoid arthritis, itself, can produce a condition which can allow ulcerative colitis, pneumonia, or both to become serious enough to threaten a life,” Leavey noted.
“Whether due to the disease or the medications used to treat them, the combination of rheumatoid arthritis, ulcerative colitis and pneumonia is one which would likely require maximal medical effort to fight,” he added.
Also Read: Eagles Manager Irving Azoff Mourns Glenn Frey: 'He's Gone Way Too Soon'
LaRita Jacobs, a rheumatoid arthritis advocate and Platinum Ambassador with the Arthritis Foundation, explained that rheumatoid arthritis and its treatment can work hand-in-hand to make sufferers more susceptible to other ailments. Unlike other forms of arthritis, it is an autoimmune disease, meaning that your immune system attacks healthy cells. And “by far” the most common treatments for the illness involve chemotherapy, which tends to weaken the immune system.
“You’re kind of getting a one-two punch there; you’re getting both the punch from the disease itself, which plays havoc with you and causes other problems,” Jacobs said. “And then on top of that, you’re trying to manage all of that with drugs that can have some very serious side-effects.”
Compounding matters, Jacobs notes, is that people can take chemotherapy treatment for rheumatoid arthritis for years, longer than they typically do for cancer.
See video: 11 Memorable Glenn Frey Musical Performances
Pneumonia, Jacobs said, is “absolutely” a common danger under those conditions, though it’s also not uncommon for patients to die of an infection, “because you can’t fight it … everything is more dangerous to you.”
Another, overarching danger attached to rheumatoid arthritis, Jacobs said, is a lack of awareness in the general population as the disease is rarely listed as a cause of death.
“Nobody knows how many people die of complications from things like rheumatoid arthritis,” Jacobs said. “It’s under the radar.”
Despite having grappled with such a debilitating disease for so many years, Jacobs said Frey could very well have had his functional periods, such as tours, interviews and television shows, without the public being aware.
“It does wax and wane, and there can be times when you’re faking it pretty well, and nobody knows,” she explained.
However, she noted, that activity would probably have come at a price.
“It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if, after he finished whatever he did, he collapsed for three, four days a week,” Jacobs said.
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– The world was shocked to lose Glenn Frey at the relatively young age of 67 two years ago, and his widow is now saying his passing never should have happened. Rolling Stone reports Cindy Frey has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against NYC's Mount Sinai Hospital and Dr. Steven Itzkowitz, the gastroenterologist who was treating the former Eagles frontman for his acute ulcerative colitis and other conditions before his death in January 2016. The complaint claims that for two months in late 2015, the hospital and Itzkowitz didn't diagnose and treat Frey properly for his stomach problems, as well as for other issues (his death was brought on by complications from the colitis, rheumatoid arthritis, and pneumonia), and didn't get him to the hospital in a timely manner. The lawsuit asserts that all of this "negligence" led to Frey being "rendered sick, lame, and disabled," caused him "pain [and] mental anguish," and eventually led to his death. Per Billboard, Frey's manager gave an interview to the Wrap shortly after Frey's death and indicated Frey's colitis and pneumonia were partly brought on by the meds he'd been taking for more than a decade for his arthritis. Reuters notes the suit was filed just under the wire: New York state has a two-year statute of limitations on wrongful death complaints. The suit seeks unlisted damages for wrongful death, pain and suffering, and the loss of services of a spouse.
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Published on May 10, 2017
James recaps President Donald Trump's decision to fire FBI Director James Comey and looks at what Trump-themed soap operas would be titled.
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Each week night, THE LATE LATE SHOW with JAMES CORDEN throws the ultimate late night after party with a mix of celebrity guests, edgy musical acts, games and sketches. Corden differentiates his show by offering viewers a peek behind-the-scenes into the green room, bringing all of his guests out at once and lending his musical and acting talents to various sketches. Additionally, bandleader Reggie Watts and the house band provide original, improvised music throughout the show. Since Corden took the reigns as host in March 2015, he has quickly become known for generating buzzworthy viral videos, such as Carpool Karaoke." ||||| Published on May 9, 2017
President Donald Trump fired FBI Director James Comey today and Jimmy had some things to say about it.
Jimmy Kimmel on Response to Emotional Monologue About Baby & Health Care Debate https://youtu.be/SToeM55KMzU
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Jimmy Kimmel serves as host and executive producer of Emmy-winning "Jimmy Kimmel Live," ABC's late-night talk show.
"Jimmy Kimmel Live" is well known for its huge viral video successes with 2.5 billion views on YouTube alone.
Some of Kimmel's most popular comedy bits include - Mean Tweets, Lie Witness News, Jimmy's Twerk Fail Prank, Unnecessary Censorship, YouTube Challenge, The Baby Bachelor, Movie: The Movie, Handsome Men's Club, Jimmy Kimmel Lie Detective and music videos like "I (Wanna) Channing All Over Your Tatum" and a Blurred Lines parody with Robin Thicke, Pharrell, Jimmy and his security guard Guillermo.
Now in its fifteenth season, Kimmel's guests have included: Johnny Depp, Meryl Streep, Tom Cruise, Halle Berry, Harrison Ford, Jennifer Aniston, Will Ferrell, Katy Perry, Tom Hanks, Scarlett Johansson, Channing Tatum, George Clooney, Larry David, Charlize Theron, Mark Wahlberg, Kobe Bryant, Steve Carell, Hugh Jackman, Kristen Wiig, Jeff Bridges, Jennifer Garner, Ryan Gosling, Bryan Cranston, Jamie Foxx, Amy Poehler, Ben Affleck, Robert Downey Jr., Jake Gyllenhaal, Oprah, and unfortunately Matt Damon.
Jimmy Kimmel on James Comey Firing
https://youtu.be/8X9QGqbE3gs ||||| It was announced on Tuesday afternoon that FBI Director James Comey was officially fired by President Trump. His firing raised the eyebrows of those interested in the investigations into Russian interference in the election and possible collusion between the Trump administration and the Russian government.
CNN’s Anderson Cooper, host of “Anderson Cooper 360°,” raised such concerns to senior adviser Kellyanne Conway some hours after the decision.
RELATED: CNN’s Jeffrey Toobin calls President Trump’s firing of James Comey “a grotesque abuse of power”
When asked what she would say to those wondering about the timing of the move, Conway cited the FBI’s reputation and credibility.
Cooper asked his question again. He wondered why the administration worried over Comey’s handling of an investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s email server when they praised him for it on the campaign trail.
“This man is the President of the United States, he acted decisively today,” Conway said after accusing Cooper of “going back to the campaign.”
“He said one thing as a candidate and now he’s concerned as president?” Cooper later asked in clarification.
As Cooper attempted to explain the various concerns that even Republican senators shared, including Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), he asked what the administration’s response was to allegations such as Sen. Chuck Schumer’s (R-N.Y.) that the firing was a “cover-up.”
RELATED: John McCain isn’t pleased with President Trump’s firing of James Comey
“It’s not a cover-up,” Conway asserted. She went on to say that Comey had even assured the president that he was not under investigation, a statement found in Comey’s firing letter. When asked the circumstances why Comey would need to make such an assurance, Conway said that it was “between the President of the United States and Director Comey.”
“You don’t think it looks odd at all that the President of the United States is firing the guy who’s leading the investigation into the president’s White House and the people around the president?” Cooper inquired. Conway again pointed to the words in the firing letter where Trump thanked Comey for assuring him that he was not under investigation. ||||| President Donald Trump’s shock firing of FBI director James Comey was the hot topic on late-night television Tuesday.
Jimmy Kimmel summarized the situation in his opening monologue telling his audience, “Trump fired James Comey for making him president,” alluding to the fact that one reason for Comey’s firing was likely his handling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails in the final days of the U.S. election race in 2016, which Democrats believe harmed her campaign and helped Trump win.
At the time of his firing, Comey was leading an FBI investigation into potential collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government to help sway the presidential election in his favor.
“We’ve seen a lot of unusual stuff,” said Kimmel. “But this is outrageous.”
The comedian then joked that he would be selling “Comey is my homey” T-shirts in solidarity with the former FBI director.
Comedy Central’s Trevor Noah had a pretty valid question upon hearing the news. “If [Comey’s] gone, who’s going to investigate Russia’s ties to… ohhh,” he said on Tuesday’s The Daily Show.
See all of the best photos of the week in these slideshows
Noah called Trump’s excuse for firing Comey a “masterstroke,” adding: “This is insane. Trump is basically saying he’s doing this because of what Comey did to Hillary.”
Related: Jimmy Kimmel Slams Critics, Talks Health Care
The Late Show host Stephen Colbert was shocked by the news, which broke as he recorded Tuesday’s show. He joked, “We’ll have more on this [on Wednesday] when they scramble to cover the whole thing up.”
Colbert joked that Trump somehow managed to make his letter firing Comey all about him. In his letter to Comey, Trump wrote that he appreciated Comey “informing me, on three separate occasions, I am not under investigation.”
“Does everything have to be about him?” said Colbert.
Over on Colbert’s sister show, The Late Late Show , James Corden nervously laughed as he observed: “Remember two years ago when we all made jokes about if Trump ever became president he’d be like, ‘You’re fired. You’re fired. You’re fired.’ They were good times”
Corden then quipped, “I’m worried this puts Trump in a real bind—he doesn’t have enough kids to fill the vacancy.”
“Comey’s being fired because Donald Trump is crazy,” he added. ||||| Late night comedy hosts found themselves surprised by the news that President Trump fired FBI Director James Comey on Tuesday.
Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel, and Trevor Noah had to swiftly respond to the breaking news.
For Colbert and "The Late Show," the news broke during the afternoon taping of the CBS broadcast.
"That shows no gratitude at all," Colbert said of the firing in his opening monologue. "Did Trump forget about the Hillary emails that Comey talked about?"
Then, in his best Trump voice, Colbert said, "Thanks for the presidency, Jimmy," and added, "Don't let the door hit 'ya where the Electoral College split 'ya."
Tonight! Stephen reacts to the day's big surprise: the firing of James Comey by President Trump. #LSSC pic.twitter.com/axuUmFLtSd — The Late Show (@colbertlateshow) May 10, 2017
Related: Stephen Colbert nabs big ratings win amid '#FireColbert' backlash
On "The Daily Show," Trevor Noah expressed a mixture of shock and confusion over the dismissal of Comey, the man who was responsible for the FBI's investigation into whether members of Trump's campaign colluded with Russia in last year's election.
"Wow, Trump fired the FBI director! Like, you can't just fire the FBI director," Noah said. "I mean if he's gone, who's going to investigate Russia's ties to -- Ohhhhhhhhhhh."
As for Kimmel, he opened his ABC show, "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" trying to figure out the reasoning behind the firing.
"He fired James Comey, the director of the FBI, which is kind of like O.J. [Simpson] firing Judge Ito halfway through the trial," Kimmel said at the top of the show Tuesday night.
Kimmel continued with his disbelief, but then jokingly came up with a possible explanation.
"This is the kind of thing reality TV hosts do. They fire someone every week. Maybe that's what happened. He thinks he's still on 'The Celebrity Apprentice,'" the host said. "It was between James Comey and Meatloaf, and well, the Loaf won again."
Related: Jimmy Kimmel returns to talk health care, his son and reaction to his speech
Kimmel also told his audience that he would now start selling "Comey Is My Homey" t-shirts to fight back against Trump's decision.
"If you are one of the millions of Americans who are angry about this shameful and disgraceful move, send me $29.99 and I will use some of that money to send a very nasty letter directly to the Oval Office," he said.
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– It was no joke that President Trump fired James Comey as FBI director on Tuesday, but there were plenty of them on late-night TV in response to the news, mixed with shock and disbelief. What some of the hosts had to say, via CNN and Newsweek: Stephen Colbert: "That shows no gratitude at all. I mean, did Trump forget about the Hillary emails that Comey talked about?" (See his clip here.) Colbert: "We'll have more on this tomorrow, when they scramble to cover the whole thing up." James Corden: "Remember two years ago when we all made jokes about if Trump ever became the president, he'd be like, 'You're fired. You're fired. You're fired.' They were good times." (See his clip here.) Corden: "I'm worried this puts Trump in a real bind—he doesn't have enough kids to fill the vacancy." Trevor Noah: "Like, you can't just fire the FBI director. I mean, if he's gone, who's going to investigate Russia's ties to—ohhhhhhhhhhh." (See his clip here.) Noah: "We said Trump was an African dictator. But right now, even Africans are watching this and going, 'Yo … Donald Trump does not f--- around.'" Jimmy Kimmel: "He fired James Comey, the director of the FBI, which is kind of like OJ [Simpson] firing Judge Ito halfway through the trial." (See his clip here.) Kimmel: "Maybe … he thinks he's still on The Celebrity Apprentice. It was between [firing] James Comey and Meat Loaf, and well, the Loaf won again." (Kellyanne Conway spoke to Anderson Cooper about Comey's firing Tuesday night.)
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Video
Should a condom be sent into space? It's the burning question some Swedes have posed. Photo: Fredrik Sandberg/TT & Craig Rubadoux/AP
The Local · 27 Sep 2016, 16:29
Published: 27 Sep 2016 16:29 GMT+02:00
Swedes have a reputation for being sexually liberated types, but now some of them want to venture into a final frontier that even the Scandinavian nation hasn't reached by sending a condom into space.
Why? It’s all part of a campaign from the Swedish Association for Sexuality Education (RFSU), which aims to promote the use of a contraceptive they hail as one of “the most important inventions of all time” by asking Nasa to propel one skywards. The condom in question has been dubbed the "Swedish Space Condom", naturally.
The RFSU has even put together a promotional video to aid their cause, complete with a shaky Swedish attempt at a Hollywood-style voice-over, which points out that “though we can’t be sure what alien sex organs look like, a condom might be handy if they decide to visit earth and find some hot earthlings”. Quite.
If all of that sounds a touch odd, it’s worth noting that Swedes seem to have a particular love of sending objects into space.
In 2015, The Local spoke to two Swedish brothers who used a weather balloon to launch a donut 32 kilometres above the surface of the earth for no real reason other than because nobody else had bothered to do it before.
Story continues below…
As for the condom, we’re not sure how much use it would actually be in space, but that’s for the aliens to find out. ||||| Published on Sep 25, 2016
SIGN THE PETITION TO GET NASA TO LAUNCH A SPACE CONDOM: http://www.rfsu.se/spacepetition
The condom is one of the most important inventions for people on earth. This small little latex thingy might look simple, but it is extremely important in letting every human decide about their own bodies and their own lives.
This is why RFSU, the Swedish Association for Sexuality Education, is trying to convince NASA to send the first condom into space: The Swedish Space Condom.
RFSU made this film as an open letter to NASA to explain why sending a condom into space is such a great idea. Read more at www.rfsu.se/swedishspacecondom
RFSU är Riksförbundet för sexuell upplysning / The Swedish association for sexuality education.
Hemsida: http://www.rfsu.se
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rfsu.se
Twitter: https://twitter.com/RFSU
Instagram: https://instagram.com/rfsu
Creative Direction: Arvid Wennel
Direction, Design and Animation: Johan Toorell
Sound Design: Fredrik Sundberg, Plop
Executive producer: Emma Güntner
Denna produktion har finansierats av Sida, Styrelsen för internationellt utvecklinssamarbete. Sida delar inte nödvändigtvis de åsikter som här framförs. Ansvaret för innehållet är uteslutande producentens.
This production has been financed by Sida, the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency. Responsibility for the content rests entirely with the creator. Sida does not necessarily share the expressed views and interpretations. ||||| This is a collection of web page captures from links added to, or changed on, Wikipedia pages. The idea is to bring a reliability to Wikipedia outlinks so that if the pages referenced by Wikipedia articles are changed, or go away, a reader can permanently find what was originally referred to.This is part of the Internet Archive's attempt to rid the web of broken links
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.
This website is an important part of the WCD campaign and is packed full of useful information about contraception and sexual health. The site also contains a whole host of resources for teachers, parents and healthcare providers to spread the word about safe sex and contraception.
World Contraception Day is supported by a coalition of 16 international Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), governmental organizations and scientific and medical societies with an interest in sexual and reproductive health and is sponsored by Bayer AG. The Partners involved are:
With so many birth control options available, choosing a most suitable form can be discouraging for many teens. We support youth worldwide to answer initial questions: Which method protects against STIs? What about convenience of use? How effective are they? Our social media channels covering infographics, images and charts show it all at a glance. Take a look at this exemplary Pinterest gallery; encouraging teens to get the contraception facts and asking their healthcare provider which options are best for them.
World Contraception Day takes place on September 26th every year. The annual worldwide campaign centers around a vision where every pregnancy is wanted. Launched in 2007, WCD’s mission is to improve awareness of contraception and to enable young people to make informed choices on their sexual and reproductive health.
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On September 26 th , or World Contraception Day as we prefer to call it, it is our mission to spread the word and raise awareness about contraception and safe sex. Our aim is to help each new generation of adults make informed decisions until every pregnancy in the world is a planned one.
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– Sweden wants everyone talking about contraceptives. So in a voice-over video message to NASA, the Swedish Association for Sexuality Education (RFSU) points out that the US has a long history of sending objects into outer space, and then proposes that NASA get to work on launching, well, a condom. The campaign coincides with World Contraception Day, which was last Monday, and should not be a surprising choice given the Scandinavian country's reputation for sexual liberty and, as the Local reports, advocating for objects to be sent into space. (Last year, Swedish brothers launched a doughnut 20 miles high just because no one had ever done it before.) The RFSU points out that the condom is one of civilization's greatest inventions. In the RFSU's pitch to NASA, which the group posted to YouTube, it points out that a condom could prove quite useful if aliens visit our planet and "find some hot Earthlings." But even more vital, the group says, the condom is "so important in letting every human decide about their own body and their own lives." In an interview with Vice, Emma Günter at RFSU says they chose this campaign because humor and surprise are some of the most effective ways to communicate important things. "That's what we want—for contraceptives to be prioritized, politically." She goes on to say that she believes in some kind of extraterrestrial life, and while she has "no idea what it might look like," she'd "love it if they got hold of a condom." (A Swedish sex toy company is also trying to revolutionize the condom.)
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The military was mourning two soldiers Tuesday who were fatally shot while trying to protect a woman from a gun-toting man in a South Carolina bar.
Staff Sgt. Charles Allen Judge Jr., 40, and Sgt. First Class Jonathan Michael Prins, 29, “were acting as good Samaritans when they were shot,” said Capt. Adam Myrick of the Lexington County Sheriff’s Department.
Joseph Elijah Mills, 25, is charged with two counts of murder in Lexington County, South Carolina. Lexington County Sheriff's Office
And they paid for their bravery with their lives.
"We are shocked and saddened by the loss of Staff Sgt. Judge," said his commanding officer at the McCrady Training Center, Col. Renita Berry. "He was an outstanding instructor who served with great dedication and enthusiasm and demonstrated unwavering commitment to his peers, his students and this organization every day. He will be missed tremendously.”
U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Van McCarty said he served with Judge in Iraq in 2004 and called him a “soldier’s soldier.”
Prins was a drill sergeant at Fort Jackson who had served in Afghanistan and in Iraq.
"The way SFC Prins was taken from us, is a testament to his bravery and his selfless service," fellow Fort Jackson drill sergeant Brandonn Baldwin posted.
Joseph Elijah Mills, 25, was arrested shortly after Sunday’s double killing and charged with two counts of murder.
“I’m very sorry about what happened,” Mills said at his arraignment Monday, The State newspaper reported. “I never meant for it to happen like that. I was being lynched by eight people because I was chasing a girl who grabbed drugs off the seat and took off running.”
Sgt. First Class Jonathan Michael Prins, 29, was fatally shot while trying to protect a woman in a South Carolina bar. SFC Jonathon Prins' GoFund Me
Judge and Prins were at the Frayed Knot Bar & Grill in Lake Murray, west of Columbia, when Mills “physically assaulted a female companion and was physically separated from her by several bar patrons,” according to arrest warrants obtained by NBC News.
Among those who stepped in to help the woman were Judge and Prins, the warrants state.
“Mills then presented a handgun” and allegedly fired the fatal shots.
Judge was hit twice and Prins three times, according to the Lexington County Coroner’s Office.
Mills, who lives in Little Mountain, north of Lake Murray, was arrested a short time later.
The warrants did not identify the woman Mills allegedly slammed into a railing or divulge her condition.
Judge was the father of a son and daughter, Lt. Col. Cindi King, a spokeswoman for the South Carolina National Guard, told NBC News.
Prins was married with three children ages 3 to 9, The State newspaper reported. ||||| The man charged with killing two soldiers, who officials say were trying to protect a woman at a remote Lake Murray bar, said in court Monday that he was chasing a girl who grabbed drugs and took off running.
Joseph Elijah Mills, 25, of Little Mountain, is charged with two counts of murder, and a judge on Monday would not let him out of the Lexington County jail. Mills told the judge he was sorry for what happened, but he thought he was “being lynched” by people who interceded.
The victims are Charles Allen Judge Jr., 40, and Jonathon Michael Prins, 29, according to Lexington County Coroner Margaret Fisher.
Judge was shot twice in the left torso, Fisher said. Prins was shot three times in the left torso and neck.
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A U.S. Army spokesman would not name the soldiers but said that one was a Guardsman assigned to Camp McCrady on Fort Jackson and the other was an Army active duty soldier.
Lt. Col. Cindi King, spokeswoman for the S.C. National Guard, said Judge joined the Guard in 1994. He was a staff sergeant, and is survived by a son and a daughter, the spokeswoman said.
Judge deployed to support Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2004-05, King said. He was an engineer instructor at the McCrady Training Center in the 218th Regiment Leadership Command, S.C. Army National Guard.
Judge’s commander at the training center, Col. Renita Berry, said his fellow soldiers were shocked and saddened at Judge’s death. “He was an outstanding instructor who served with great dedication and enthusiasm and demonstrated unwavering commitment to his peers, his students and this organization every day,” Berry said. “He will be missed tremendously.”
Brig. Gen. Van McCarty deployed with Judge in 2004, and described him as a “soldier’s soldier.”
Prins, a sergeant first class, is survived by a wife and three children between 3 and 9 years old, the coroner said.
The soldiers “were acting as good Samaritans when they were shot,” said Capt. Adam Myrick, spokesman for the Lexington County Sheriff’s Department. The Facebook page for the club, Frayed Knot Bar & Grill, had posted that the two men were trying to help a woman who fled into the business. The bar is in northern tip of Lexington County near the Newberry County line.
The arrest warrants state that Mills physically assaulted a woman and that several bar patrons – including the soldiers – separated him from her. He then shot them with a handgun, according to the warrants.
The woman wasn’t seriously injured, said Myrick.
Myrick said officers are interviewing dozens of witnesses. “We continue to look into what role, if any, a few persons of interest had in the incident,” Myrick said. “ But we are not actively searching for other suspects after the arrest of Joseph Mills.”
The incident was captured on video surveillance, warrants say. The State has submitted a request for the footage but has not yet received it. Officials declined to say if the shooting happened inside or outside the bar.
Judge Arthur Myers, a Lexington County magistrate, denied bond for Mills at a hearing Monday afternoon. When asked if he understood the charges against him, Mills said, “Not really.” He also said he had not spoken to a lawyer by the time of the hearing.
Mills tried to tell his story to the judge, who reminded him multiple times of his right to remain silent.
“I’m very sorry about what happened,” Mills said. “I never meant for it to happen like that. I was being lynched by eight people because I was chasing a girl who grabbed drugs off the seat and took off running.”
The Frayed Knot closed Sunday after the incident. According to its Facebook post, it will reopen Wednesday morning.
Mills is scheduled to appear in court Nov. 9. ||||| “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” -John 15:13
SFC Jonathon Prins and SSG Charles Allen Judge, Jr. were not in uniform Saturday night. They were not on duty, and no one ordered them to risk their lives. They simply acted to do what they knew was right, moving without hesitation to risk their lives for a stranger. They died, but she lived. Those who knew them say they wouldn’t have had it any other way.
“He was a great man and knowing him, if he knew what the outcome was going to be, he would have done the same thing,” Judge’s brother-in-law, Jon Adams, said Sunday. A soldier who served beside Prins offered almost the same words about him.
Prins and Judge were at the Frayed Knot Bar & Grill in Chapin just before midnight Saturday. Joseph Elijah Mills, 25, of Little Mountain, allegedly began arguing with a woman and another man outside the bar. Multiple witnesses said Mills assaulted the woman, slamming her into a stair railing, then pulled out a gun.
Prins and Judge moved without hesitation when they saw the woman assaulted, according to witnesses. As they moved, Mills allegedly fired into the air, and the two men attempted to get to him and disarm him. Mills shot both Prins and Judge, killing them, again according to witnesses, then ran away from the scene.
Prins was a soldier, currently posted as a drill sergeant at Fort Jackson, training other soldiers. He was deployed twice to Afghanistan and once to Iraq. His brother in arms, Sgt. Brandon Baldwin, spoke Sunday night about his fallen comrade.
“SFC Prins was a warrior built and forged to his solid state through war. He and I served 8 years together in the 2/327th Infantry Battalion. Both currently Drill Sergeants out of Fort Jackson, we have deployed three different times: once to Iraq, twice to Afghanistan. 2/327 is named the No Slack BN. The No Slack Battalion has seen the fiercest fighting Afghanistan has ever seen. There is actually a movie out about the BNs deployment called The Hornets Nest. SFC Prins was apart of the Strong Eagle 3 mission that the movie is filmed from. SFC Prins had the instinct to protect the weak instilled into him over the last 10 years of service. The way SFC Prins was taken from us, is a testament to his bravery and his selfless service. The No Slack family is still in a state of disbelief. Just yesterday his wife Roxanne was just at our baby shower. Still doesn’t feel real. I knew SFC Prins would go out a hero.”
Judge was also a soldier and a teacher, an engineer instructor with the South Carolina National Guard at the McCrady Training Center in Eastover and an Iraq veteran. The 218TH Leadership Regiment 1ST BN Engineers posted a photo of him on Facebook Sunday night, writing “It is with a heavy heart we say goodbye to SSG Charles A Judge JR. You will be truly missed by so many!! RIP Judge, see you on the other side brother!”
His Commander at the 218th Regiment Leadership Command at the McCrady Training Center, U.S. Army Col. Renita Berry, commander 218th Regiment (Leadership), shared the following statement. “On behalf of the Soldiers, staff and families of the 218th Regiment, we are shocked and saddened by the loss of Staff. Sgt Judge. He was an outstanding instructor who served with great dedication and enthusiasm and demonstrated unwavering commitment to his peers, his students and this organization every day. He will be missed tremendously.”
A friend and comrade who asked not to be named offered more memories of Judge. “He served as a combat engineer in Iraq. Left behind a son and daughter. He volunteered countless hours to helping homeless veterans through Operation Stand Down. He cared about people and did whatever he could to help out whenever he could. Even with the long hours that we work as instructors, Judge would leave McCrady to head to the Upstate for a meeting with the volunteers or spend time with his children. He will be sorely missed around the community.”
Frequent customers described the Frayed Knot as a locally owned and community friendly place. It sits on the edge of Lake Murray near Dreher Island, and Prins and Judge certainly did not go there expecting to run into trouble, or expecting to be asked to give their lives. When the moment came, however, they moved. The life of a stranger was more important to them than their own lives.
Prins and Judge leave behind five children between them. The Frayed Knot joined with family and friends of the heroes Friday for a boat parade and fundraiser. Another fundraiser is being planned in their honor, and Midlands Anchor will supply details as soon as they are finalized. Charles Judge was 40 years old. Jonathon Prins was 29. The woman they gave their lives to save was not seriously injured. They died as they lived, as heroes and as victors.
Lexington County Sheriff’s deputies arrested Mills Sunday afternoon. He is charged with two counts of murder.
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– Witnesses say two soldiers were only trying to protect a woman from her attacker when they were fatally shot at a South Carolina bar shortly before midnight on Saturday. Friends and family say they wouldn't have had it any other way. Charles Judge Jr. and Jonathon Prins intervened after seeing a man with a gun "kicking and hitting" a woman outside Chapin's Frayed Knot Bar & Grill, the owner tells the Army Times. Judge and Prins had "their hands up trying to talk to him" when they were shot "in cold blood," he adds. Judge, a father of two, was shot twice in the torso. Prins, a father of three, was shot three times in the torso and neck, reports the State. The shooter then fled the scene, leaving the woman uninjured, witnesses say. Joseph Mills, 25, was arrested Sunday and charged with two counts of murder. But "knowing [Judge], if he knew what the outcome was going to be, he would have done the same thing," his brother-in-law says of the 40-year-old Iraq war veteran and engineering instructor with the SC National Guard. "He'd do it 100 times again," adds his supervisor. "He's a hero." Prins likewise "had the instinct to protect the weak instilled into him over the last 10 years of service," a colleague says of the 29-year-old drill sergeant at Fort Jackson, who'd been on two tours in Afghanistan and one in Iraq, per the Midlands Anchor. His death "is a testament to his bravery and his selfless service." In court on Monday, Mills said he was "very sorry about what happened," per NBC News. "I never meant for it to happen like that. I was being lynched by eight people because I was chasing a girl who grabbed drugs off the seat and took off running."
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Justin Bieber's lawyers have agreed to a plea deal in his Miami DUI case from January.
The singer, 20, who was booked seven months ago on charges of driving under the influence, driving with an expired license and resisting arrest without violence, must attend 12 hours of anger management classes, pay a $500 fine, complete a YouImpact program in which he'll meet people whose lives were changed by drunk drivers, and pay court costs.
In return, his lawyers agreed he'd plead guilty to resisting arrest without violence. The DUI charge was reduced to "careless driving," to which Bieber also pleaded guilty. His charge of driving with an expired license was dropped, and he now has a valid driver's license.
"The strengths and weaknesses of the case motivated everyone to seek this appropriate resolution. The ultimate purpose of the Miami Beach Police Department’s initial traffic stop was to end some rash, juvenile-type conduct before a tragedy occurred," said Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle. "The intervention and counseling parts of the plea should provide a pathway toward adult responsibility."
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Bieber did not attend the hearing.
Because he is a Canadian citizen, the plea agreement stipulated that Bieber's lawyers must discuss with him "the possible immigration consequences of accepting this agreement ... [and] the Immigration and Naturalization Service will consider this conviction in any deportation decision."
Bieber reached another plea deal last month in his misdemeanor vandalism case stemming from an egging incident back in January. According to that plea deal, Bieber was ordered to serve two years probation, perform five days of community service and pay more than $80,000 in fines.
He also has to take a separate anger-management course. ||||| Pop singer Justin Bieber pleaded guilty Wednesday to misdemeanor charges of careless driving and resisting arrest seven months after his arrest in Miami Beach following what police initially called an illegal street drag race.
The 20-year-old pop star’s plea deal with prosecutors, detailed at a court hearing, includes a 12-hour anger management course, a $50,000 charitable contribution and fines. The deal allows Bieber to avoid a driving under the influence conviction.
Bieber was not present at the hearing before Miami-Dade County Judge William Altfield. Defense attorney Mark Shapiro said Bieber had already given the $50,000 to a local children’s charity.
Bieber was arrested early Jan. 23 in Miami Beach after what police described as an illegal street race betweenBieber’s rented Lamborghini and a Ferrari driven by R&B singer Khalil Amir Sharieff. Neither was charged with drag racing and there was little evidence they were even exceeding posted speed limits.
Alcohol breath tests found Bieber’s level below the 0.02 limit for underage drivers, but urine tests showed the presence of marijuana and the anti-anxiety drug Xanax in his system. Bieber was also charged with resisting arrest after a profanity-laced tirade against police officers, as well as driving on an expired license.
The urine test itself became a battle between media companies, including The Associated Press, that sought access to video of the test and Bieber’s lawyers arguing it was an invasion of privacy. Ultimately, Altfield ordered the video released with sensitive portions blacked out. Other police video depicted Bieber walking unsteadily during a sobriety test.
In July, Bieber resolved another criminal case by pleading no contest to a misdemeanor vandalism charge for throwing eggs at a neighbor’s house in Los Angeles. In that case, Bieber agreed to pay more than $80,000 in damages and meet a number of other conditions.
Bieber is also charged in Toronto with assaulting a limousine driver in late December. His lawyers have said he is not guilty in that case.
Also in Miami, Bieber is being sued by a photographer who says he was roughed up while snapping pictures of the singer outside a recording studio.
The Canadian-born Bieber shot to stardom at age 15, with his career overseen by two music industry heavyweights, singer Usher and manager Scooter Braun, after initially gaining notice through YouTube videos. He was nominated for two Grammy Awards for his 2010 full-length album debut “My World 2.0.”
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– What's Justin Bieber's punishment for his DUI arrest back in January? Anger management classes, apparently. The singer pleaded guilty to resisting arrest and careless driving, rather than to the initial DUI charge. In exchange, he'll sit through 12 hours of anger management classes, donate $50,000 to a children's charity, and meet with people whose lives were affected by drunk driving, the Guardian and ABC News report. Oh, and "the Immigration and Naturalization Service will consider this conviction in any deportation decision," the agreement states. The state attorney called Bieber's behavior "some rash, juvenile-type conduct" and said (somewhat optimistically, in our opinion) that the consequences "should provide a pathway toward adult responsibility."
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1/20 Nasa releases stunning images of Jupiter's great red spot The storm bigger than the Earth, has been swhirling for 350 years. The image's colours have been enhanced after it was sent back to Earth. Pictures by: Tom Momary
2/20 A 3D reconstruction of an African grey parrot post euthanasia Included in Wellcome Image Awards, this 3D image of an African grey parrot shows the highly intricate system of blood vessels. Scott Birch. Wellcome Images
3/20 Baby Hawaiian bobtail squid Another Wellcome Images Award winner, this time of baby Hawaiian bobtail squid. The black ink sac and light organ in the centre of the squid’s mantle cavity can be clearly seen. Macroscopic Solutions. Wellcome Images
4/20 Skeletons of 5,000-year-old Chinese ‘giants’ discovered by archaeologists The people are thought to have been unusually tall and strong. The tallest of the skeletons uncovered measured at 1.9m YouTube
5/20 Nasa discovers 75,000 mile-wide hole in the Sun Sunspots are caused by interactions with the Sun’s magnetic field and are cooler areas on the star’s surface. Nasa
6/20 View(active tab) Apple News Breaking news email Edit Revisions Workflow Clear Cache NewsScience 132 million-year-old dinosaur fossil found at factory in Surrey Paleontologists Sarah Moore and Jamie Jordan believe they have discovered a Iguanodon dinosaur, a herbivore that was around three metres tall and 10 metres long Cambridge Photographers/Wienerberger
7/20 Discovering life on Mars is less likely as researchers find toxic chemicals on its surface The Echus Chasma, one of the largest water source regions on Mars Getty Images
8/20 The Grand Prismatic Spring, the largest in the United States and third largest in the world, is seen in Yellowstone National Park. The park is famous for its geothermal activity – which includes its spectacular, flowing springs as well as the famous "Old Faithful" geyser that sprays water out every hour or so. REUTERS/Jim Urquhart
9/20 An iris clip fitted onto the eye This images is apart of the Wellcome Images Awards and shows how an artificial intraocular lens is fitted onto the eye. Used for conditions such as myopia and cataracts. Cambridge University Hospitals NHS FT. Wellcome Images
10/20 The Syrian civil war has caused the first ever withdrawal from the 'doomsday bank' Researchers in the Middle East have asked for seeds including those of wheat, barley and grasses, all of which are chosen because especially resistant to dry conditions. It is the first withdrawal from the bank, which was built in 2008. Those researchers would normally request the seeds from a bank in Aleppo. But that centre has been damaged by the war — while some of its functions continue, and its cold storage still works, it has been unable to provide the seeds that are needed by the rest of the Middle East, as it once did.
11/20 Scientists find exactly what human corpses smell like New research has become the first to isolate the particular scent of human death, describing the various chemicals that are emitted by corpses in an attempt to help find them in the future. The researchers hope that the findings are the first step towards working on a synthetic smell that could train cadaver dogs to be able to more accurately find human bodies, or to eventually developing electronic devices that can look for the scent themselves.
12/20 Black hole captured eating a star then vomiting it back out Astronomers have captured a black hole eating a star and then sicking a bit of it back up for the first time ever. The scientists tracked a star about as big as our sun as it was pulled from its normal path and into that of a supermassive black hole before being eaten up. They then saw a high-speed flare get thrust out, escaping from the rim of the black hole. Scientists have seen black holes killing and swallowing stars. And the jets have been seen before.But a new study shows the first time that they have captured the hot flare that comes out just afterwards. And the flare and then swallowed star have not been linked together before
13/20 Dog-sized horned dinosaur fossil found shows east-west evolutionary divide in North America A British scientist has uncovered the fossil of a dog-sized horned dinosaur that roamed eastern North America up to 100 million years ago. The fragment of jaw bone provides evidence of an east-west divide in the evolution of dinosaurs on the North American continent. During the Late Cretaceous period, 66 to 100 million years ago, the land mass was split into two continents by a shallow sea. This sea, the Western Interior Seaway, ran from the Gulf of Mexico to the Arctic Ocean. Dinosaurs living in the western continent, called Laramidia, were similar to those found in Asia
14/20 'Male and female brains' aren't real Brains cannot be categorised into female and male, according to the first study to look at sex differences in the whole brain. Specific parts of the brain do show sex differences, but individual brains rarely have all “male” traits or all “female” traits. Some characteristics are more common in women, while some are more common in men, and some are common in both men and women, according to the study
15/20 Life on Earth appeared hundreds of millions of years earlier than previously thought Life may have come to earth 4.1 billion years ago, hundreds of millions of years earlier than we knew. The discovery, made using graphite that was trapped in ancient crystals, could mean that life began "almost instantaneously" after the Earth was formed. The researchers behind it have described the discovery as “a potentially transformational scientific advance”. Previously, life on Earth was understood to have begun when the inner solar system was hit by a massive bombardment from space, which also formed the moon's craters
16/20 Nasa confirms Mars water discovery Nasa has announced that it has found evidence of flowing water on Mars. Scientists have long speculated that Recurring Slope Lineae — or dark patches — on Mars were made up of briny water but the new findings prove that those patches are caused by liquid water, which it has established by finding hydrated salts.
17/20 Earth could be at risk of meteor impacts Earth could be in danger as our galaxy throws out comets that could hurtle towards us and wipe us out, scientists have warned. Scientists have previously presumed that we are in a relatively safe period for meteor impacts, which are linked with the journey of our sun and its planets, including Earth, through the Milky Way. But some orbits might be more upset than we know, and there is evidence of recent activity, which could mean that we are passing through another meteor shower. Showers of meteors periodically pass through the area where the Earth is, as gravitational disturbances upset the Oort Cloud, which is a shell of icy objects on the edge of the solar system. They happen on a 26-million year cycle, scientists have said, which coincide with mass extinctions over the last 260-million years
18/20 Genetically-engineered, extra-muscular dogs Chinese scientists have created genetically-engineered, extra-muscular dogs, after editing the genes of the animals for the first time. The scientists create beagles that have double the amount of muscle mass by deleting a certain gene, reports the MIT Technology Review. The mutant dogs have “more muscles and are expected to have stronger running ability, which is good for hunting, police (military) applications”, Liangxue Lai, one of the researchers on the project. Now the team hope to go on to create other modified dogs, including those that are engineered to have human diseases like muscular dystrophy or Parkinson’s. Since dogs’ anatomy is similar to those of humans’, intentionally creating dogs with certain human genetic traits could allow scientists to further understand how they occur
19/20 Researchers discover 'lost world' of arctic dinosaurs Scientists say that the new dinosaur, known as Ugrunaaluk kuukpikensis, “challenges everything we thought about a dinosaur’s physiology”. Florida State University professor of biological science Greg Erickson said: “It creates this natural question. How did they survive up here?” ||||| STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - The Swedish government has dismissed the board of the Karolinska Institute after an investigation showed it was negligent when hiring surgeon Paolo Macchiarini and letting him operate on patients.
The medical scandal that includes numerous accusations of scientific fraud and the death of patients is a severe blow to the reputation of the institution that awards the Nobel Prize for Medicine.
The hiring of Italian surgeon Macchiarini had already led to the resignation of the secretary of the Nobel Committee at the Institute as well as the then chancellor in February and to the Institute chairman last week.
Macchiarini was fired in March when Karolinska said he had supplied false information on his resume and was guilty of scientific negligence after two of his patients died.
Swedish prosecutors are investigating Macchiarini on suspicion of gross criminal negligence leading to another person’s death. He has denied any wrongdoing.
“Scandal is the right word,” Minister for Higher Education and Research Helene Hellmark Knutsson told a news conference.
“People have been harmed because of the acting of the Karolinska Institute and also the Karolinska University Hospital,” she said.
The government announced the firings after an external investigation commissioned by the Institute was presented on Monday. The investigator said that the management had showed “a stunning indifference” toward a vast amount of very negative references when hiring Macchiarini.
Hellmark Knutsson said the investigation showed that the Institute had broken laws and regulations and that it had showed disrespect toward laws, ethics and morale.
She said that as soon as a new board had been recruited, the board members that had not already quit after the Macchiarini scandal would be replaced.
The country’s University Chancellor Harriet Wallberg, who was heading the Karolinska Institute when Macchiarini was hired, would also have to leave her position, Hellmark Knutsson said.
Bo Risberg, former head of the ethics committee at Karolinska, has called for the Nobel Prize for Medecine to be put on ice for two years and for prize money to be used to compensate the relatives of the patients Macchiarini operated on.
Macchiarini was employed as a researcher into stem cell biology at the Karolinska Institute and consultant at Karolinska University Hospital in 2010.
Another investigation that was presented last week centered on three operations conducted at the Karolinska University Hospital between 2011 and 2012 in which Macchiarini transplanted synthetic tracheas coated with stem cells into patients.
That investigation showed he performed the operations before sufficient study had been done on the procedure and that the operations could not be justified on the grounds of being life-saving.
Two of the patients have since died while the third remains hospitalized. |||||
Paolo Macchiarini speaks at a news conference in Florence in July 2010. (Lorenzo Galassi/AP)
Two high profile members of the Nobel Assembly were asked to resign as part of the fallout from the scientific scandal centered on Paolo Macchiarini — a scandal that left two people dead and tarnished the reputation of the Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine.
Macchiarini was the first surgeon to perform a transplant of a biosynthetic trachea, but two of three patients to receive such a transplant have died. Swedish prosecutors are investigating Macchiarini on potential charges of involuntary manslaughter — charges which the surgeon has previously disputed, according to the Associated Press.
On Tuesday, the Nobel Assembly, which is in charge of choosing the recipient of the institution’s prize for physiology or medicine, asked Harriet Wallberg-Henriksson and Anders Hamsten, two of its 50 judges, to resign. Both are former vice chancellors of the Karolinska Institute, the Swedish medical university associated with the Karolinska University Hospital that employed Macchiarini.
In addition, Swedish Minister of Higher Education and Research Helene Hellmark Knutsson said publicly that she has dismissed Wallberg-Henriksson from her position as Sweden’s chancellor of all public universities.
Knutsson has also called for all Karolinska Institute board members who were active while Macchiarini was employed by the institution to step down. Any who choose not to resign will be replaced, Reuters reported.
The Karolinska Institute fired Macchiarini in March.
This week’s firings came after a pair of reports criticizing both Macchiarini and the institute were made public.
“Scandal is the right word,” Knutsson told the BBC. “People have been harmed because of the actions of the Karolinska Institute and also the Karolinska University Hospital.”
When Macchiarini first came to the institute, he was praised by the media as a super-scientist, a sort of wunderkind.
Macchiarini captured headlines in 2011, a year after he had been recruited by the institute, for his work in regenerative medicine. That year he implanted a “bioartificial” trachea, one made from plastic and the patient’s own stem cells, into a man named Andemariam Beyene.
It seemed groundbreaking, at the time.
“I almost refused,” Beyene told the New York Times. It had only been done in pigs. But [Macchiarini] convinced me in a very scientific way.”
Thomson Reuters BioWorld likened his work to “science fiction” and the New York Times called it “a first.”
But in January 2014, as the Iceland Review noted, the trachea Macchiarini had implanted became loose, killing Beyene.
He wasn’t the only patient of Macchiarini to die.
Including Beyene’s, Macchiarini performed three of these transplant surgeries at Karolinska University Hospital.
Two of the three died, and one has been in intensive care since the surgery in 2012, Science reported.
Macchiarini made headlines again in 2015 when an independent review found that he overstated his work — in shocking ways.
As The Washington Post’s Sarah Kaplan wrote at the time:
The investigator who examined his studies said that Macchiarini was guilty of scientific misconduct by omitting or fabricating information about his patients’ postoperative status to make the procedure seem more successful than it really was.
Macchiarini’s reported misdeeds were later found to run even deeper, when a report last week found that only one of the three patients signed a consent form. All were capable of doing so.
Even that one signed form “would not have been approved” since the patient wasn’t afforded the option of discussing the procedure with an independent medical expert, the report said.
The report pointed out that a different synthetic material was used in each transplant, which hinted at a lack of research into which one actually worked and suggested an unreadiness for usage in human beings.
“Too little was known about the material in order for it to be able to begin to be used in patients,” it stated.
[How scientists built the world’s first lab-grown limbs]
Finally, it stated that growth-stimulating drugs were used in at least two of the surgeries without the necessary permit from the Swedish Medical Products Agency.
Another report, this one led by former president of Sweden’s Supreme Administrative Court Sten Heckscher and released Monday, was also highly critical of the renowned institution itself, claiming that Karolinska “has a certain responsibility for the transplantation.”
The English version of the report stated:
There are many instances of KI employees being involved in the discussions preceding and following up surgery. KI has also, in several contexts, cited the transplantations as part of its own activities. For example, they have been quoted as research successes in KI’s evaluations of how research funding has been utilized.
This report opined that KI never should have hired Macchiarini in the first place, considering the references the institution received concerning the surgeon.
“KI received remarkably negative references, including information that Macchiarini had been blocked from a professorship in Italy, that there were doubts surrounding his research and that his CV contained falsehoods,” it stated.
Lastly, the report found the hospital extended Macchiarini’s contract twice — once in 2013 and one in 2015 — with “no real evaluation or assessment of Macchiarini’s work.”
“Instead, the department management asked Macchiarini to describe his work himself,” it stated. The description was translated and used in the proposal to extend his contract that was submitted to the Recruitment Committee.”
Bo Risberg, a professor emeritus of surgery at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, told Science that asking Hamsten and Wallberg-Henriksson to resign from the Nobel Assembly was the proper decision.
“The Nobel Prize and the Karolinska are intimately related, particularly to observers outside Sweden,” Risberg said, calling the situation “the biggest scandal we have ever had in Swedish medicine.”
Currently, prosecutors are investigating Macchiarini on potential charges of involuntary manslaughter relating to the two patients who died after receiving the transplants.
Macchiarini has not commented on the new reports, but has previously disputed all charges, according to the Associated Press.
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‘In reference to the personalized license plate KUMQUAT ….’ ||||| The panel that hands out the Nobel Prize for Medicine has demanded the resignation of two of its judges for allegedly mishandling a scandal over a disgraced Italian surgeon who specialised in stem cell therapy.
Anders Hamsten and Harriet Wallberg have been asked to resign for failing to heed warnings in their roles at Sweden's Karolinksa Institute of misconduct by Dr Paolo Macchiarini, who in the past has falsely claimed to be Pope Francis’s personal doctor.
Earlier this year, the 57-year-old surgeon, once regarded as a brilliant pioneer in the field of windpipe transplants, was fired from his job at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm – home of the Nobel Prize for Medicine - after being accused of negligence, scientific fraud and falsifying his CV.
He is being investigated by prosecutors for involuntary manslaughter and gross criminal negligence in connection with two patients who died.
The scandal has already cost Mr Hamsten his job as vice-chancellor of the prestigious Karolinska Insitute. Ms Wallberg, who headed the institute when Macchiarini was hired, was fired from her current job as head of the Swedish Higher Education Authority on Monday.
They will have to resign from the 50-member panel before it awards the next Nobel Prize for Medicine in October.
Dr Macchiarini was employed as a researcher into stem cell biology at the Karolinska Institute and a consultant at Karolinska University Hospital in 2010.
But he lost his job in March after a documentary by Swedish broadcaster SVT alleged that he had used his patients as guinea pigs for untested techniques that involved the transplant of tracheas coated with stem cells. Out of eight patients who received the synthetic windpipe transplants, six died.
A spokesman for the institute said at the time: “He has acted in a way that has had very tragic consequences for the people affected and their families.”
Dr Macchiarini denies any wrongdoing. In March he said he “did not accept of the findings” of the institute’s disciplinary board and vowed to “take immediate steps to restore my reputation.”
"Scandal is the right word," said Helene Hellmark Knutsson, the higher education minister. "People have been harmed because of the actions of the Karolinska Institute and also the Karolinska University Hospital."
Bo Risberg, a former head of the ethics committee at the institute, has called for the Nobel Prize for Medicine to be shelved for the next two years and for the prize money to be used to compensate the relatives of the patients that Dr Macchiarini operated on. ||||| Crawl of outlinks from wikipedia.org started March, 2016. These files are currently not publicly accessible. Properties of this collection. It has been several years since the last time we did this. For this collection, several things were done: 1. Turned off duplicate detection. This collection will be complete, as there is a good chance we will share the data, and sharing data with pointers to random other collections, is a complex problem. 2. For the first time, did all the different wikis. The original runs were just against the enwiki. This one, the seed list was built from all 865 collections. ||||| “B—P 4 EVER” Then NBC television producer Benita Alexander and Dr. Paolo Macchiarini glide toward the Doge’s Palace, on the left, and the Bridge of Sighs (visible beyond the pedestrian walkway), Venice, 2013. They met during the making of an NBC News special about the doctor’s work.
He’s the doctor who does the seemingly impossible, going where no other has yet dared.
—Meredith Vieira I. A Most Interesting Man The first meeting between Benita Alexander, an award-winning producer for NBC News, and Dr. Paolo Macchiarini, the famous transplant surgeon, took place at the bar at Boston’s Mandarin Oriental hotel. It was February 2013, shortly before Macchiarini would have his initial interview with Meredith Vieira for a two-hour NBC special called A Leap of Faith. Macchiarini, 57, is a magnet for superlatives. He is commonly referred to as “world-renowned” and a “super-surgeon.” He is credited with medical miracles, including the world’s first synthetic organ transplant, which involved fashioning a trachea, or windpipe, out of plastic and then coating it with a patient’s own stem cells. That feat, in 2011, appeared to solve two of medicine’s more intractable problems—organ rejection and the lack of donor organs—and brought with it major media exposure for Macchiarini and his employer, Stockholm’s Karolinska Institute, home of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Macchiarini was now planning another first: a synthetic-trachea transplant on a child, a two-year-old Korean-Canadian girl named Hannah Warren, who had spent her entire life in a Seoul hospital. Macchiarini had come to Vieira’s attention in September 2012, when she read a front-page New York Times story about the doctor. She turned to Alexander, one of her most seasoned and levelheaded producers, to look into a regenerative-medicine story for television. With blue eyes and raven hair, Alexander seems younger than her 49 years. Though she brims with confidence, friends say she bears the scars of a turbulent childhood in Huntington Woods, Michigan. In her own telling, just shy of her 16th birthday, she returned home from a sleepover to discover that her mother had left the family. Two years later, her father, who by then had married a neighbor, asked her to pack up and leave. Alexander overcame her upbringing and in 1987 graduated magna cum laude from Wayne State University with a degree in journalism. She spent the early 1990s working at a string of local television stations and briefly taught journalism at her alma mater. After she met and married fellow reporter John Noel, the two moved to New York City, where she joined NBC’s Dateline. In 2003, Alexander gave birth to a daughter, Jessina. Alexander and Noel divorced in 2009, and in 2012 she married a ballroom dance instructor named Edson Jeune. Over the years, Alexander has worked with NBC’s top talent—Tom Brokaw, Matt Lauer, and Ann Curry, as well as with Vieira—and earned many accolades, including two Emmys as well as the Edward R. Murrow Award, the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award, and the Society of Professional Journalists’ Sigma Delta Chi Award. Now Alexander sat across from Macchiarini at Bar Boulud, in the Mandarin Oriental. At the time, Alexander’s first husband, Noel, was hospitalized with glioblastoma, an aggressive form of brain cancer, and she would in time begin sharing details about his condition—as well as about her dissatisfaction with her second marriage. “Having worked with so many patients who are terminally ill, Paolo was immensely helpful as far as helping me navigate my complicated emotions,” she explained when I spoke with her this fall. He also suggested ways to talk about the matter with her daughter. “He was an amazing friend to me during that time, and a solid, reliable pillar of strength. He spent hours listening to me talk about it all and offering gentle advice.” (Disclosure: I worked as a producer at NBC News from 2004 to 2009. I did not meet Alexander until I contacted her in 2015.) Photograph by Gina LeVay. When Alexander and Macchiarini found themselves together in Illinois for a period of weeks in the spring of 2013—brought there by the NBC special—they met frequently for quiet dinners. The trachea transplant on Hannah Warren, the Korean-Canadian girl, was being performed at Children’s Hospital of Illinois, in Peoria, and the procedure was fraught with risks, not least because Macchiarini’s technique was still a work in progress even for adults. (Christopher Lyles, an American who became the second person to receive an artificial trachea, died less than four months after his surgery at Karolinska.) “He’s a brilliant scientist and a great technical surgeon,” said Dr. Richard Pearl, who operated alongside Macchiarini in Illinois. Like others, Pearl described his Italian colleague as a Renaissance man, fluent in half a dozen languages. Another person, who would get to know him through Alexander, compared Macchiarini to “the Most Interesting Man in the World,” the character made famous in Dos Equis beer commercials. In Peoria, Macchiarini’s medical magic appeared to have its limitations. Hannah Warren died from post-surgical complications less than three months after the transplant. Her anatomy “was much more challenging than we realized,” Pearl recounted. “Scientifically, the operation itself worked. It was just a shame what happened. When you’re doing something for the first time, you don’t have a textbook. It was the hardest operation I’ve ever scrubbed on.” II. Crossing the Line
The personal relationship between Alexander and Macchiarini continued to blossom. In June 2013, they flew to Venice for what Alexander called “an incredibly romantic weekend.” Macchiarini bought her red roses and Venetian-glass earrings and took her on a gondola ride under the Bridge of Sighs. Like a pair of teenagers, they attached love locks to the Ponte dell’Accademia bridge, one of them bearing the inscription “B—P 23/6/13, 4 Ever.” Alexander told me that, “when he took me to Venice, we were still shooting the story … He always paid for everything … gifts, expensive dinners, flowers—the works. When it came to money, he was incredibly generous.” It is a bedrock principle at NBC and every other news organization that journalists must avoid conflicts of interest, real or apparent. Alexander was not oblivious to this. “I knew that I was crossing the line in the sense that it’s a basic and well-understood rule of journalism that you don’t become involved with one of the subjects of your story, because your objectivity could clearly become compromised,” she told me. “I never once thought about him paying for the trip as him ‘buying’ me in some fashion, or potentially using money to influence me, because, from my perspective anyway … that just wasn’t the case. We were just crazy about each other, and I was falling in love.” While Alexander insists that she tried to put the relationship on hold after Venice, she flew to see Macchiarini in Stockholm two weeks later. “Our nights were always spent together, and always romantic in one way or another,” she said. Macchiarini was in Stockholm to attend to Yesim Cetir, a 25-year-old Turkish woman whose artificial trachea had failed. As Swedish television later reported, “It has taken nearly 100 surgeries to support the cell tissue around the airpipes. Her breathing is bad, and to avoid suffocation, her respiratory tract must be cleansed from mucus every fourth hour. She has now been lying in the hospital for nearly 1,000 days.” NBC’s special would come to include skeptical commentary from Dr. Joseph Vacanti, who questioned the sufficiency of Macchiarini’s research, but Cetir’s post-operative complications were not mentioned. By October 2013, when Macchiarini and Alexander flew to Europe for another romantic getaway, she had in her own mind reconciled her personal and professional behavior. “The story was basically done by the time we went to London. It was all little tweaking after that, nothing significant, and so I totally separated Paolo and work in my head,” she explained. “I was in love and because I had made a very personal decision to take a leap of faith for love, I never looked back.” Should she have informed her friend and mentor, Meredith Vieira? “I knew I was crossing the line at work,” Alexander said, “and I made a very conscious decision not to tell anybody else at work what I was doing.” III. Breakthrough in Spain
Paolo Macchiarini was born in Switzerland to Italian parents and has spoken of having had a difficult childhood in Basel, where by his own account he felt like a perpetual outsider in school. He attended the University of Pisa, where he would earn a medical degree with a specialization in surgery. During his studies, Alexander recalled Macchiarini telling her, he had received a call from his father, who complained of feeling unwell. The aspiring doctor examined his father but could find nothing wrong and returned to the university. His father died shortly thereafter. It was a moment, Alexander said, that has forever haunted him. In 1986, Macchiarini started a family of his own, marrying an Italian woman, Emanuela Pecchia, with whom he had a daughter and a son. From the collection of Benita Alexander. Over time, Macchiarini developed a certain skepticism about his homeland. “After I had graduated and specialised in thoracic surgery,” he was quoted saying in The Irish Times, in 2008, “I wanted to enter university to continue my studies in that field. I was blocked, I was told not to apply for the job because the result, even before the interviews, had already been decided. There were the usual raccomandati [those with pull] in the queue in front of me.” The Italian system, he told the British medical journal The Lancet in 2012, “favours people who are linked to the politics or are sons of sons but not the merits. I knew that in other countries this was not the fact. So I left.” In 1990 he traded Italy for America, where, according to his curriculum vitae, he did a fellowship in thoracic surgery at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Macchiarini’s peripatetic studies continued in Besançon, France, where, according to his C.V., he earned a master’s of science and a Ph.D. in organ and tissue transplantation. According to another C.V., he earned a master’s in biostatistics in Alabama and a Ph.D. in life and health science in Besançon. All told, he had a distinguished medical pedigree. He then plunged headlong into academia, starting in France, where according to his C.V.’s he joined the University of Paris—Sud with an “accreditation to Full Professor.” A full professor in Europe is comparable to what Americans call a tenured professor, meaning the individual in question has obtained the highest academic rank at a given institution and has been accorded the job protection and other benefits that go with it. But as Macchiarini told The Lancet in 2012, he was restless: “I think if you stay in a single place for your entire life you restrict your capacity…. In 10 years it came to a point where I was adult, and I needed to go away to express my creativity.” So in 2000 or 2001—depending on which C.V. one consults—he became a full professor at Hannover Medical School, in Germany. Even Germany seemed too confining for Macchiarini, and he moved to Spain, where in 2005, according to one C.V., he became a professore ordinario, a full professor, and where he would continue to maintain a residence. Macchiarini’s wide-ranging academic appointments seemed to prepare him well for his star turn. In June 2008, he performed a trachea transplant using a donor organ seeded with stem cells. The operation in Barcelona on a 30-year-old mother of two, Claudia Lorena Castillo Sanchez, was heralded in the press as the “dawn of the stem-cell revolution.” By replacing cadaverous cells with autologous stem cells (that is, those harvested from the patient’s bone marrow), the technique held out the promise of minimizing organ rejection and reliance on powerful immunosuppressive drugs. Macchiarini himself called the operation “a major achievement in the history of medicine.” From the collection of Benita Alexander. The breakthrough in Spain caught the eye of officials back in Italy, who, concerned that the country was experiencing a brain drain, sought his return. A headline in La Repubblica summarized the turn of events neatly: ROSSI PHONES MACCHIARINI: “COME AND OPERATE WITH US”—referring to Enrico Rossi, then Tuscany’s top health official, who would later become the region’s president. Rossi lured Macchiarini back with a large and prestigious package: a state-sponsored laboratory, the chance to showcase his innovative surgical techniques at Florence’s Careggi Hospital, and a full professorship at the university to which it is connected. Italian law, however, required proof of equivalency: in order to appoint a full professor without an open competition, the university had to show that the candidate had held an equivalent post—that is, a full professorship—at a comparable institution, whether in Italy or abroad. Given his fame, his political connections, and his ample academic credentials, the star surgeon was regarded as a shoo-in, and in late 2009, Dr. Gian Franco Gensini, the dean of the faculty of medicine, assembled a special commission to, in the words of one participant, “rubber-stamp” Macchiarini’s appointment. But in the end, Macchiarini never got the full professorship. He operated at Careggi for a few years and then moved on to posts at the Karolinska Institute and Kuban State Medical University in Russia. IV. Paolo, Putin, and the Pope
Macchiarini proposed to Benita Alexander on Christmas Day 2013, Alexander said. In the months leading up to the airing of A Leap of Faith, in June 2014, Macchiarini and Alexander went on trips to the Bahamas, Turkey, Mexico, Greece, and Italy. They went on shopping sprees and ate their way through Michelin-starred restaurants. Macchiarini even took Alexander and her daughter to meet his mother at her home, in Lucca. “She cooked homemade gnocchi,” Alexander recalled. Macchiarini’s mother shared pictures from the family photo album while her son translated. Emanuela Pecchia, the woman whom Macchiarini had married years earlier, lived only a short distance away. When Macchiarini informed Alexander, during a dinner cruise later that summer, that his divorce had finally come through, she recounted, he gave her an engagement ring. Macchiarini could be secretive at times. After his Christmas proposal, he told Alexander that he could not stick around for New Year’s because he was on call for what, she said, he termed an “emergency V.I.P. surgery.” When she pressed him for details, he swore her to silence before telling her, as she recalled, that he was part of a “highly classified group of doctors from around the world who cater to the world’s V.I.P.’s.” She said Macchiarini over time revealed that he had operated on Bill and Hillary Clinton, Emperor Akihito of Japan, and President Obama. People who spent time with the couple said they heard Macchiarini talk about his high-level connections. An NBC colleague, Alisha Cowan-Vieira (no relation to Meredith Vieira), recalled, “I saw a lot of text messages between Benita and Paolo, and she would say, ‘OMG, look what he just told me.’ The texts would say, ‘I just left a meeting with PF [Pope Francis]’ or with Bill Clinton or the Obamas.” Shortly after NBC aired A Leap of Faith, Alexander met Meredith Vieira for lunch at the Modern, an airy restaurant at the Museum of Modern Art. In the dining room overlooking the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden, with its works by Miró, Matisse, and Picasso, Alexander said, she told her boss for the first time about her relationship with Paolo and that it had begun while the story was still in production. She said that, while she preferred to keep their conversation private, Vieira was taken aback. “I perfectly understand her reaction,” Alexander said. “There’s no two ways about it. I crossed the line.” A source close to Vieira confirmed that Alexander disclosed the relationship at this lunch but, by this account, had assured Vieira that it began only after production wrapped. In the months that followed, the doctor and his fiancée began planning their wedding in earnest. They set a date for July 11, 2015, in Rome. But their desire to marry in the Catholic Church was complicated by the fact that she is Episcopalian and divorced. Divorce would have been an issue for Macchiarini as well. However, Alexander said, Macchiarini insisted that he would fix things by visiting his friend and patient in the Vatican. In October 2014, Alexander recalled, Macchiarini told her that he had met with Pope Francis for four hours and that the Pontiff consented to the couple’s marriage and, in yet another sign of his progressive tenure, vowed to officiate. Alexander said Macchiarini referred to himself as Pope Francis’s “personal doctor” and maintained that in subsequent meetings his patient offered to host the wedding at his summer residence, the Apostolic Palace of Castel Gandolfo. A recommendation letter written by Dr. Mark Holterman—who, along with Dr. Pearl, operated on Hannah Warren in Peoria—suggests that Macchiarini’s Vatican connections were well known: When Pope John Paul II was dying and having trouble breathing from advanced Parkinson’s Disease, Professor Macchiarini was called in to provide an urgent consultation for the pontiff. The decision to not perform an urgent tracheostomy was jointly made between the doctor and his Holy patient. When Professor Macchiarini renders an opinion on all things involving the diseased airway, people listen. He remains among the world’s elite airway surgeons. Over lunch in New York at the restaurant Print, in Hell’s Kitchen, on February 13, 2015, Macchiarini spoke in depth about the wedding plans with Matthew Christopher, a designer who has dressed everyone from Broadway and television star Kristin Chenoweth to World Cup darling Carli Lloyd. He was already hard at work on Benita Alexander’s elaborate wedding gown and three additional dresses for the various functions that were planned. Macchiarini “was totally polished. Very much Mr. Big,” Christopher recalled, referring to the larger-than-life Sex and the City character. According to David Marchi, Christopher’s husband and P.R. chief, who was also at the lunch, “He told us the wedding would take place at the Pope’s summer residence and because of the enormous security—with the Pope and all these heads of state—that the planning between Matthew and Benita had to be precise. The Pope was going to let Benita use his special carriage. We discussed how to get Benita’s dress into this carriage with enough time so that Matthew can get her in, run to the church, and get in the one door before things were locked for security.”
Among the V.I.P.’s who Macchiarini said were planning to attend the wedding were Russia’s Vladimir Putin, President and Mrs. Obama, Bill and Hillary Clinton, and France’s Nicolas Sarkozy. Macchiarini also told people that Andrea Bocelli would sing during the service. As for food, Macchiarini was apparently not sparing any expense: Florence’s Enoteca Pinchiorri, with its three Michelin stars, was catering the affair. Toward the end of their February lunch, Macchiarini asked Alexander to leave the table so he could speak privately with Christopher and Marchi. In a hushed tone, the doctor told them that Pope Francis wanted them to participate more fully in the wedding ceremony. “I almost fell off my chair,” recounted Marchi, whose Catholic parents came to the U.S. from Italy. “Growing up, I was always looking for this transformative moment. So when we were told we would take confession and Communion from the Pope as two gay married men, that was it. For me it was almost as if God said, ‘You’ve been waiting for this moment—here it is.’ It was very emotional. Matthew and I started crying.” Alexander and Macchiarini returned from the lunch to her apartment in Brooklyn to find that the wedding invitations had arrived. Sheathed in lambskin and engraved with the initials B&P, the invitations were addressed to, among others, the Obamas, the Clintons, the Putins, the Sarkozys, Andrea Bocelli, Kofi Annan, Russell Crowe, Elton John, John Legend, Kenny Rogers, Meredith Vieira, and His Holiness Pope Francis. By this time, Alexander had met with David Corvo, who as NBC’s senior executive producer for prime-time news was ultimately responsible for A Leap of Faith. Over lunch at Michael’s, Alexander, by her own account, revealed that she and Macchiarini had been together while the story was in production. Alexander recalled that she gave Corvo details about the wedding, including the Pope’s participation. He sent her an e-mail a few weeks later. “Congrats that this is all coming together,” he wrote. “With invitations going out, I need to tell [NBC News president] Deborah Turness. Is everything remaining confidential? She’ll of course want to discuss coverage soonest. (And exclusivity, as you would expect.) Again, congrats.” Alexander says that she and Corvo met again on March 16 and that they discussed how NBC could best cover the wedding. A source close to Corvo confirmed that Alexander told him about the relationship during the lunch at Michael’s but, according to the source, had assured Corvo that it had begun only after the reporting and production were finished. The source added that Corvo was always skeptical about the Pope’s involvement, made no plans to cover the wedding, and did not tell Deborah Turness about the possibility. By May, when according to Alexander her superiors were aware that she, as the producer of A Leap of Faith, had been and continued to be romantically involved with the story’s subject, NBC had submitted the program for an Emmy Award. Sources close to NBC say that Vieira and Corvo were not aware of how early the relationship began until approached by Vanity Fair. NBC News says that, if any new information reported in this story is relevant to its production of A Leap of Faith, it will update it accordingly online, in keeping with its standards practices. In anticipation of a move to Europe, Alexander on May 13 left her job at NBC and notified her daughter’s school that she would not be coming back. She received a glowing video tribute from Vieira: I first met Benita nine years ago. We were asked to cover a story—a heartbreaking story—about a beautiful high-school student who had lost her life in Colorado. And you learn a lot about someone when you’re in the trenches with them doing that kind of story. I learned that Benita is a fabulous producer. I learned that she is a brilliant writer. But most importantly, I learned that she is an incredibly sensitive and wonderful human being who understands others and wants to connect with them in a very deep and profound way. And ever since that story, every time I was asked, “Is there a particular producer you want?,” I would say, “Please, please let me work with Benita.” I love her tremendously. Not just as a professional but also as a dear friend. And anybody given the opportunity to work with her would be crazy to say no. Run to Benita. Don’t walk. Run to Benita. I wish her the best and I know she that she will do extremely well in her new life in Barcelona. From the collection of Benita Alexander. V. The Reckoning
The very next day, May 14, Alexander received an e-mail from a friend. The subject line read simply: “The Pope.” It included a link to an article detailing Vatican plans for Pope Francis to visit South America in July—at the very time when he was supposed to be officiating at her wedding. In that instant, the bottom fell out. A few weeks later, Alexander would send an e-mail to invited guests in 17 countries, canceling the wedding. Many had already purchased flights, booked hotels, and bought new clothes for what everyone expected to be a wedding for the ages. Alexander recalled that Macchiarini tried to blame the scheduling mix-up on Vatican politics and claimed that he was on his way to Rome to straighten things out. He maintained that her fears were unfounded—that he was acting in good faith and that everything would work out as planned. He said the Pope would be cutting his trip short and returning early. Alexander was unconvinced. She confronted a painful reality. “I just didn’t want to put two and two together,” she said. “I didn’t want Paolo to not be the man I believed him to be. I didn’t want the fairy tale to end.” After canceling the wedding, she e-mailed Macchiarini: “I believed you were exactly who you presented yourself to be, to me, to my friends and family, to the world. Congratulations. You charmed me, and all of us, into la la land. I will never, ever understand how you could have done this to me, or to Jessie. Who the hell are you and what the hell is wrong with you?” As Alexander would discover with the help of a private investigator named Frank Murphy, virtually every detail Macchiarini provided about the wedding was false. A review of public records in Italy would also seem to indicate that Macchiarini remains married to Emanuela Pecchia, his wife of nearly 30 years. Murphy, who spent 15 years as a Pennsylvania State Police detective, told me, “I’ve never in my experience witnessed a fraud like this, with this level of international flair…. The fact that he could keep all the details straight and compartmentalize these different lives and lies is really amazing.” Alexander produced e-mails and WhatsApp chats to support her account of Macchiarini’s claims of a relationship with the Pope.In a statement to Vanity Fair, Father Federico Lombardi, director of the Holy See’s press office, was adamant: “There is no ‘personal doctor’ of the Pope with [the] name ‘Macchiarini.’ The Pope has surely never promised to officiate a wedding of ‘Macchiarini’ and does not know someone with such [a] name. On 11th July the Pope was travelling in Latin America and this was on his agenda long time before July … This is enough.” Dr. Mark Holterman, who had written the recommendation letter citing Macchiarini’s treatment of Pope John Paul II, acknowledged to Vanity Fair that “this was a vignette related to me by Prof. Macchiarini,” adding that he had relied “solely on [Macchiarini’s] word.” Andrea Bocelli’s wife and manager, Veronica Berti, laughed when asked if her husband had agreed to serenade the couple: “He was not booked to sing at a wedding. He doesn’t sing at people’s weddings. Castel Gandolfo? Absolutely not!” Annie Féolde, Enoteca Pinchiorri’s flamboyant co-owner, told me that they were never contacted about, much less contracted for, a wedding on July 11, and that they had never heard of Paolo Macchiarini. To understand why someone of considerable stature could construct such elaborate tales and how he could seemingly make others believe them, I turned to Dr. Ronald Schouten, a Harvard professor who directs the Law and Psychiatry Service at Massachusetts General Hospital. “We’re taught from an early age that when something is too good to be true, it’s not true,” he said. “And yet we ignore the signals. People’s critical judgment gets suspended. In this case, that happened at both the personal and institutional level.” Though he will not diagnose from a distance, Schouten, who is one of the nation’s foremost authorities on psychopathy, observed, “Macchiarini is the extreme form of a con man. He’s clearly bright and has accomplishments, but he can’t contain himself. There’s a void in his personality that he seems to want to fill by conning more and more people.” When I asked how Macchiarini stacks up to, say, Bernie Madoff, he laughed and said, “Madoff was an ordinary con man with a Ponzi scheme. He never claimed to be the chairman of the Federal Reserve. He didn’t suggest he was part of a secret international society of bankers. This guy is really good.” Photograph by Gina LeVay. VI. Behind the Résumé
There had been warning signs. In 2012, Macchiarini was charged in Italy with attempted aggravated fraud related to alleged efforts to persuade very ill patients to undergo radical surgery at facilities where Macchiarini had privileges—and where he presumably had a more favorable financial arrangement than at Careggi Hospital. The case is still in the courts, though some of the more serious charges have been dropped. Moreover, in the medical community, it remains a matter of vigorous debate—with claims and counterclaims over the sufficiency and quality of research—as to how well his synthetic tracheas actually work. And then there was the matter of the post which Macchiarini had been offered in Florence, but which for some reason he was never given. What had that been about? During a recent visit to Florence, I spoke with several members of the special commission convened by Careggi Hospital to review Macchiarini’s appointment. The findings had not been made public. They said that things got off to a bad start when one of their colleagues, who had attended the University of Pisa at the same time as Macchiarini, called him out for claiming to have been an associate professor at Pisa when, in fact, he had not been a professor there at all. However, since the “false statement” did not bear on the central question of whether Macchiarini had ever been a full professor—at Pisa or somewhere else—Macchiarini was allowed to submit a corrected C.V. Chaired by a respected general surgeon, the Careggi commission—which included a cardiovascular-and-thoracic surgeon, a pharmacologist, and a stem-cell researcher—tried to verify Macchiarini’s odyssey through academia, scouring his new C.V. and contacting their counterparts in France, Germany, and Spain. While acknowledging that Macchiarini seemed to enjoy a solid reputation as a surgeon and a researcher, one commissioner, Dr. Pietro Tonelli, concluded, “Before coming to Careggi, he had never been a full professor.” Said another commissioner, Dr. Clemente Crisci, “Not only had he never been an ordinary [full] professor in the Italian sense of the term, he had never even been an associate professor in the Italian sense of the term.” When I asked whether this was a matter of semantics, another commissioner with whom I met in Florence said unequivocally, “Absolutely not. He was living in these places for several years. He knew exactly what the titles meant.” Continuing, he told me, “Look at Spain and Italy: ‘professore ordinario’ means ‘full professor.’ ‘Professore associato’ means ‘associate professor.’ This wasn’t a language issue. Same with the other countries. He knew what ‘P.D.’ and ‘H.D.R.’ meant,” referring to Privatdozent and habilitation à diriger la recherche, which one of Macchiarini’s C.V.’s erroneously defines as “accreditation to Full Professor” in German and French, respectively. Vanity Fair contacted many of the schools at which Macchiarini claimed to have either earned a degree or held an academic post. While the University of Pisa confirmed that he indeed received an M.D. and had specialized in surgery, the University of Alabama at Birmingham denied that Macchiarini earned a master’s in biostatistics or that he participated in a two-year fellowship in thoracic surgery. In fact, according to U.A.B. spokesman Bob Shepard, the only record the school has for Macchiarini indicates that he did a six-month non-surgical fellowship in hematology/oncology—which according to the current Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education guidelines is 30 months shy of what is required for a clinical fellowship in that field. The University of Paris—Sud never responded to repeated requests for comment, but Hannover Medical School wrote to say that Macchiarini had been neither a full nor an associate professor there, merely an adjunct. The Careggi commission’s January 2010 conclusion that Macchiarini had misrepresented his professional history put Dean Gensini in a tight spot. Faced with the choice between antagonizing a political master (Rossi) or violating Italian administrative law, commissioners tell me, he chose a middle course. Macchiarini would not receive a professorship and the commission’s full findings would not be released. As a result, over the years, Macchiarini’s stature only grew. (Gensini did not respond to requests for comment.) VII. The Other Shoe ||||| The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
Awarded to 214 Nobel Laureates since 1901
"The said interest shall be divided into five equal parts, which shall be apportioned as follows: /- - -/ one part to the person who shall have made the most important discovery within the domain of physiology or medicine ..." (Excerpt from the will of Alfred Nobel)
Alfred Nobel had an active interest in medical research. Through Karolinska Institutet, he came into contact with Swedish physiologist Jöns Johansson around 1890. Johansson worked in Nobel's laboratory in Sevran, France during a brief period the same year. Physiology or medicine was the third prize area Nobel mentioned in his will.
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine is awarded by the Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden. ||||| Two members of the group that awards the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine at Sweden’s Karolinska Institute have been asked to resign over their involvement in a scandal over the work of an Italian transplant surgeon. Board members at the Karolinska Institute who have not yet quit will be fired, according to Reuters.
The red flags were there from the beginning
The doctor at the center of the scandal is an Italian surgeon named Paolo Macchiarini, who developed and transplanted bioengineered windpipes grown from patients’ own stem cells. Two of his patients died, and Macchiarini has been accused of scientific misconduct. He continues to deny these allegations.
The two scientists who have been asked to resign, Anders Hamsten and Harriet Wallberg, were thought to have ignored warnings about Macchiarini. The red flags were there from the beginning, according to a report from the Karolinska Institute. Not only did he have incorrect information on his curriculum vitae — like a resume, but with more science — his publications contained "questionable" data, and he didn’t cooperate well with other researchers.
Hamsten was vice chancellor of the Karolinska Institute during the investigations that acquitted Macchiarini of misconduct, and Wallberg was president of the university during his recruitment. "This is a case in which a long chain of poor and absent decisions enabled a visiting professor to contravene the rules and ethical principles," said Karin Dahlman-Wright, acting vice chancellor of the Karolinska Institute, in a news release.
An external investigation released last week revealed that the three patients Macchiarini performed experimental trachea transplants on at the Karolinska University Hospital weren’t sick enough for the experimental surgeries to be ethical. What’s more, according to the report, the science was too shaky to be performing these surgeries on humans and there "were clear weaknesses in how the informed consent was obtained."
"A long chain of poor and absent decisions"
A second case summary released this week and presented in a news conference on Monday revealed that the Karolinska Institute hired the now-disgraced surgeon Macchiarini despite red flags. His contracts were renewed twice "without any evaluation of his activities," and there were serious problems with the way the misconduct investigations were handled.
The scandal is serious enough that Bo Risberg, a former head of ethics at Karolinska, says that no Nobel prize should be awarded in medicine for at least two years, according to The Telegraph. Instead, the money that would have gone to a scientist should be paid to the families of the patients Macchiarini experimented on, Risberg says. ||||| STOCKHOLM (AP) — The panel that awards the Nobel Prize in medicine is dismissing two judges for their roles in a scandal over a disgraced stem cell scientist at Stockholm's Karolinska Institute.
Nobel Assembly secretary Thomas Perlmann told Swedish news agency TT on Tuesday that Harriet Wallberg and Anders Hamsten would be asked to leave the 50-member group, which will announce the annual award next month.
Wallberg and Hamsten have already left high-ranking jobs at Karolinska amid scathing criticism of how the institute handled allegations of scientific misconduct against stem-cell scientist Dr. Paolo Macchiarini.
Once considered a pioneer in windpipe transplants, Macchiarini was fired after being accused of falsifying his resume and misrepresenting his work.
Prosecutors are investigating him for involuntary manslaughter in connection with two patients who died. He disputes all charges.
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– The medical university that awards the Nobel Prize for Medicine was rocked this week after an investigation presented Monday showed negligence in the hiring and handling of a now-disgraced stem-cell surgeon, Reuters and the Independent report. Dr. Paolo Macchiarini was fired from the Karolinska Institute in March after it emerged his résumé was falsified, he misrepresented his work, and six "guinea pig" patients had died under his charge, per the Telegraph (prosecutors are looking into involuntary manslaughter charges for two of those cases). Among those now told to pack it in: the institute's entire board, which was dismissed by the Swedish government, and Nobel judges Harriet Wallberg and Anders Hamsten, per the AP. "Scandal is the right word," Sweden's education minister said, noting "people have been harmed because of the actions of the Karolinska Institute." The Verge reports that an external probe and case study presented over the last two weeks show that experimental trachea transplants Macchiarini performed had major ethical issues, including a methodology that hadn't been adequately tested and patients who weren't sick enough to qualify for the procedure. Plus, investigators say Macchiarini should have never made it past the 2009 recruitment process, with the institute's management showing a "stunning" indifference to bad references and "questionable" data in some of his publications. The former head of Karolinska's ethics committee, who calls this "the biggest scandal we have ever had in Swedish medicine," per the Washington Post, says the Nobel panel shouldn't award the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in October for two years and instead give the money to the families of Macchiarini's patients. (Vanity Fair says Macchiarini used "love, money, and the pope" to scam a news producer.)
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The men and women on our annual Celebrity 100 list--the most powerful people in the entertainment business this year--earned $4.5 billion over the last 12 months by starring in films, playing basketball, walking the catwalk and more. But they also rose to the top by garnering influence.
These days that means mastering social media. Lady Gaga topples Oprah Winfrey from her No.1 spot on our list, which she's given up for only the third time in seven years. Gaga is there not just because of the $90 million she earned with a monster tour, but also because of her 32 million Facebook fans and 10 million Twitter followers--aka Little Monsters--who helped move 1 million digital downloads of her recent single "Born This Way" in only five days. They're also happy to buy the MAC makeup, Monster headphones and Virgin Mobile phones she features in her videos.
Complete Coverage: The Celebrity 100
Slide Show: The Celebrity 100 In Pictures
Oprah doesn't fall far though. The daytime talk maven, who earned $290 million last year, comes in second. Winfrey's earnings sank $25 million partially due to a reduced payday at SiriusXM. She still earns big from her syndicated show and from the stars she's spawned, including Dr. Phil (No. 18) Rachael Ray and Dr. Oz. Winfrey's earning power will take a bigger hit next year, when her syndicated show ends and she concentrates all her efforts on the struggling OWN network.
Maybe it would help if Oprah took a lesson from No. 3 Justin Bieber. The Biebs debuts on our list at the tender young age of 17, with $53 million earned over the last 12 months thanks to concerts, music sales and a 3-D documentary movie that grossed $100 million at the global box office. If this were 10 years ago Bieber would still be paying his dues in small clubs and schools, but thanks to the Internet, he's a sensation. His first hit song, "Baby," has been viewed 500 million times, a YouTube record.
Reality TV it girl Bethenny Frankel is another newbie worth noting. Famous for her newest hit show, Bethenny Ever After, she's used the small-screen platform to promote her Skinnygirl brand, helping her earn $55 million this year. She joins our list in 42nd place. Her entrepreneurial prowess--she sold her Skinnygirl Cocktails to Fortune Brands and nabbed a $100 million cut of the deal paid out over multiple years--also put her on the cover of our magazine this week.
The Celebrity 100, which includes film and television actors, TV personalities, models, athletes, authors, musicians and comedians, is a measure of entertainment-related earnings and media visibility (exposure in print, television, radio and online). We also measure social media power by looking at each celebrity's presence on Facebook and Twitter. The earnings consist of pretax income between May 1, 2010, and May 1, 2011. Management, agent and attorney fees are not deducted. Forbes has been publishing the list annually since 1999.
Despite problems on and off the golf course, Tiger Woods still makes the top 10, ranking sixth with $75 million in annual earnings. Woods hasn't won a tournament since the revelation of his marital infidelities in 2009, and he recently withdrew from The Players Championship. But he still commands $3 million a pop for overseas appearances, and collects money from his remaining sponsors, Nike and Electronic Arts .
Having a much better year: Leonardo DiCaprio. The star makes the biggest leap on our list this year, rising from 71st place to 15th, thanks to two huge movies: Shutter Island and Inception. The latter earned $825 million at the global box office, making it the sixth-highest-earning film of 2010. That went a long way toward helping DiCaprio earn $77 million over the last 12 months.
Will Smith returns to our list this year thanks to the upcoming Men in Black III, in which he'll reprise his role as Agent J. Smith had fallen off of our list in 2010 because he took time off to nurture the budding careers of his children, Jaden and Willow. Jaden starred in a remake of The Karate Kid (which Smith produced); the film earned $360 million. Smith helped Willow with her hit song "Whip My Hair." The video for the song has been viewed 11 million times.
Notable drop-offs include Britney Spears, who ranked sixth in 2010 but stumbled this year because she didn't tour. With the Harry Potter franchise coming to an end, Daniel Radcliffe (who ranked 82nd last year) also failed to make the cut.
Complete Coverage: The Celebrity 100
Slide Show: The Celebrity 100 In Pictures ||||| It's official. It's Lady Gaga's world, and we're simply living in it. She's bigger than Madonna, greater than Angelina. Heck, she's more powerful than Oprah! [Beware of incoming lightning bolt!]
Forbes placed the singer at the top of its Celebrity 100 list, which ranks the most powerful people in the entertainment business.
Let’s not quibble too much with Forbes‘ methodology, which credits celebs with the strongest web presence. In this case, they might be confusing simple popularity and crass self-promotion with real power, but let’s move on. Oprah, who earned $290 million in the last 12 months, ranked second, and Justin Bieber debuted on the list in the third spot. No one had a better year than the Biebs in some respects, but he only has to look at the example of Britney Spears, who went from No. 6 in 2010 to completely off this year’s list, to appreciate that people expect greatness every year.
For the record, Charlie Sheen (28) is winning, at least in his personal grudge match with Two and a Half Men producer Chuck Lorre (77). Angelina Jolie (11) is more powerful than her husband, Brad Pitt (45), and his ex, Jennifer Aniston (21). NFL quarterback Tom Brady (55) edged his wife, Gisele Bundchen (60); and Alex Rodriguez (49) has earned the right to be hand-fed popcorn from his girlfriend, Cameron Diaz (81).
Overall, it’s an interesting list that will inspire some debate. (Just because she’s done with the Potter series, is there any doubt that J.K. Rowling should have a lifetime pass on this list?) What did you find most surprising? Who belongs on the list, and who’s just a flash in the Celebrity 100 pan?
Read more:
Hollywood’s highest-grossing actors of 2010
Jay-Z tops Forbes list of richest rappers
Forbes 400: Oprah only 130th richest person in America ||||| The men and women on our annual Celebrity 100 list--the most powerful people in the entertainment business this year--earned $4.5 billion over the last 12 months by starring in films, playing basketball, walking the catwalk and more. But they also rose to the top by garnering influence. Continue
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– Sorry, Oprah, the lady has you beat. Gaga has ousted Winfrey from the No. 1 spot in the annual Forbes list of the 100 most powerful celebrities. (Her 32 million Facebook followers and 10 million Twitter fans helped.) Justin Bieber debuts at an impressive No. 3. Other notables: Britney Spears fell off entirely after being No. 6 last year; Angelina Jolie (11) outranked Brad Pitt (45); and Charlie Sheen is at 28, notes Entertainment Weekly. The top 10: Lady Gaga Oprah Winfrey Justin Bieber U2 Elton John Tiger Woods Taylor Swift Bon Jovi Simon Cowell LeBron James Click for the full list.
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Thought you were done with the U.S. Supreme Court and health care? Think again. The court has agreed to review the question of whether the federally created health insurance exchanges violate the law’s expectation that the exchanges be created by a state. Reading the tea leaves can only tell you so much about what the court is going to do. But from the standpoint of the Barack Obama administration, there is reason to be curiously concerned that the president’s signature legislative accomplishment is in jeopardy once again.
The legal arguments are a bit arcane, and I laid them out in a column this summer. To give you the bare minimum, the case involves the public exchanges that the Affordable Care Act anticipated would be set up by the states and therefore described as “established by the state” in the law. Only 14 states plus the District of Columbia have created such exchanges. As a result, the federal government established exchanges on the states’ behalf. Clever lawyers seeking to block operation of the ACA argued that the exchanges are illegal because they were not established by states. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit rejected the argument in King v. Burwell. A divided panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit accepted the argument in Halbig v. Burwell by a 2-1 vote.
Here’s where things get technical -- and interesting. The Obama administration had to make a strategic decision of whether they would appeal the D.C. Circuit decision against them. Or, instead, ask the D.C. Circuit to review the case itself through the mechanism of all its members sitting together as a single panel, en banc.
Somewhat controversially, the administration decided to ask for en banc review. It’s reasoning presumably was that it wanted to avoid the Supreme Court if possible. While the D.C. Circuit was considering whether to accept the case en banc, the administration could argue to the Supreme Court to hold off any appeals by the challengers who lost in the Fourth Circuit. If the D.C. Circuit were to reverse the panel, then the Obama administration could then have asked the Supreme Court not to accept an appeal by the challengers who lost in the Fourth Circuit.
This strategy was plausible -- but it didn’t pay off. Without waiting for the D.C. Circuit to rehear the case, the Supreme Court agreed to hear the appeal from the Fourth Circuit brought by the law’s challengers.
What does this decision reveal, if anything? It takes four votes of Supreme Court justices to agree to take a case, so there is no guarantee that a decision to grant a review will dictate a particular outcome. Nevertheless, in this situation, it seems probable that the four liberal justices would have strongly preferred to wait for the D.C. Circuit in the hopes of avoiding the issue, as the Obama administration must also have wished. It seems safe to assume that none of those four justices would have agreed to hear the case at this stage.
The same cannot be said of Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Anthony Kennedy. These justices all voted to strike down the individual mandate, which would have gutted the ACA. Presumably their hostility to Obamacare’s legality is unabated. It seems highly probable that those four would have cast votes to hear the case at this stage. By doing so, they avoided a scenario in which the D.C. Circuit reversed its panel, leaving no dispute among the appellate courts on the legality of the federally created exchanges. For them, a vote to take the case now is a strong signal that they would like to block the exchanges and sink Obamacare with this second legal torpedo.
The $64,000 question is: What about Chief Justice John Roberts? In 2012, Roberts split the baby. He voted to uphold the individual mandate and thus avoided banner headlines screaming that the Roberts court had struck down Obamacare. At the same time, Roberts blocked the element of Obamacare that would have essentially forced states to expand Medicaid. This part of the decision drastically reduced the scope of coverage under the law and therefore the law’s impact.
What will Roberts do now? He took substantial heat from conservative critics who were astonished and horrified to see the lifetime conservative betray the cause at its moment of potential judicial triumph. One possible interruption is that, scarred by this experience, Roberts would now go along with the conservative tide. The continuing unpopularity of Obamacare in opinion polls combined with the obvious weakness of President Obama after the midterm elections would provide some support for this possibility.
The other possibility is that Roberts will not deviate from his judicial restraint centrism. To strike down Obamacare now, having upheld it before, might look like opportunism or wishy-washy-ness. Given how weak the law increasingly appears, it would be a high price for Roberts to pay before the judgment of history if he now struck it down. Indeed, such a decision would vitiate his earlier restraints.
What seems almost certain is that the other conservative justices have decided to put Roberts to the test. They will not let him get away without standing up and being counted on Obamacare once again. They have nothing to lose in any case by taking the gamble. For better or worse, the rest of us will be along for the ride. Stand by for a long six months of speculation while this case gets briefed and argued. A decision will come by the end of June. Its déjà vu all over again.
To contact the author on this story:
Noah Feldman at [email protected]
To contact the editor on this story:
Stacey Shick at [email protected] ||||| Will five Supreme Court justices eliminate essential health care subsidies for more than four million lower-income Americans, based on a contorted reading of four words?
It sounds inconceivable, but that would be the effect of a ruling in favor of the latest legal challenge to the Affordable Care Act. On Friday, the justices announced that they would hear that case, King v. Burwell, a dispute over the meaning of a single phrase — “established by the State” — in the 900-page health-care reform law.
The law, which has been under constant assault since its 2010 passage, has made health-care coverage newly available for between 8 and 11 million people this year alone.
This unprecedented achievement in social policy has improved, and surely saved, many lives. But, to the law’s implacable opponents, it represents nothing more than an oppressive big-government program that must be stomped out.
The opponents lost before the Supreme Court in 2012 in an effort to kill the law on constitutional grounds. Now they are taking aim at the tax-credit subsidies that are central to the success of health reform.
Because one subsection of the law says these subsidies are available on an exchange “established by the State,” the plaintiffs claim there can be no subsidies for anyone living in the 36 states where the federal government established a health exchange after state officials did not.
It is a superficially simple argument, which most federal judges who have considered the claim have rejected. That is because it runs counter to the explicit purpose and structure of the Affordable Care Act. As everyone involved in the law’s creation understood at the time, its success depends on making coverage both required and available to as many people as possible. As a Senate staff member told Vox.com recently, “We certainly wanted every individual in every state, regardless of their federal or state exchange status, to receive the same subsidies.”
In cases where there is a dispute over statutory wording, a well-established legal principle requires courts to defer to a government agency’s reasonable interpretation of the language at issue. In fact, the plaintiffs concede that their strained reading of the law could render several other provisions nonsensical.
The Supreme Court itself has said repeatedly that when construing laws, “we must not be guided by a single sentence or member of a sentence, but look to the provisions of the whole law, and to its object and policy.”
The Affordable Care Act’s challengers have taken the opposite approach and spent years scouring each sentence of the law for any and all possible lines of attack. Their persistence is impressive, but it does not make them right.
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– ObamaCare survived a 2012 Supreme Court challenge, but the fight isn't over: Now, justices have agreed to hear an attack on another section of the law. This time, the whole thing hinges on four words, the New York Times editorial board writes. In a subsection, the law says that health care subsidies should come from an exchange "established by the State." But 36 states didn't set up exchanges, prompting the federal government to do so instead. The legal challenge holds that thanks to those four words, people in those 36 states can't receive subsidies. This is a superficial tactic, the Times notes. The Supreme Court has previously said that it "must not be guided by a single sentence or member of a sentence, but look to the provisions of the whole law, and to its object and policy." The case could come down, once again, to John Roberts, writes Noah Feldman at BloombergView. After fellow conservatives slammed his support for the law's individual mandate in 2012, was he "scarred" enough to follow their lead this time? Or will he reject the challenge and avoid accusations of "wishy-washiness"? It'll be a "long six months of speculation" before we know for sure. Click for the Times' full piece; Feldman's is here.
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I agree to the BuzzFeed User Agreement ||||| Whitney Houston Taking Xanax
Whitney Houston Taking Xanax
was taking Xanax ... evidence she may have fallen asleep in the bathtub where she died ... TMZ has learned.Family members of Whitney tell us the singer had a prescription for the drug, which is commonly used to treat anxiety and depression.We told you yesterday ... the night before Whitney died, she had been drinking a lot . Xanax mixed with alcohol can cause severe sedation, which could cause someone to fall asleep in a bathtub.As TMZ first reported, Whitney was found in the bathtub and removed before EMTs arrived. The L.A. County Coroner will perform an autopsy -- possibly today -- to determine if Whitney died from drowning, and OD or other causes.As we previously reported, Beverly Hills cops obtained a search warrant and found various prescription bottles -- but, as far as we know, no illicit drugs. ||||| Whitney Houston Dead at 48
Whitney Houston -- Dead at 48
died this afternoon ... a rep for the singer announced. She was 48.Our sources tell us a member of Whitney's entourage found her in her 4th-floor room at the Beverly Hilton hotel ... and called hotel security -- who then dialed 911. When paramedics arrived Houston was found unresponsive.We're told police arrived to the scene within minutes and fire was already there on an unrelated call. According to our sources, paramedics performed CPR but it did not work and she was pronounced dead at 3:55 PM.Our sources say there were no obvious signs of foul play, but BH PD detectives have begun a full investigation. We're told she was ID'ed by family and friends.L.A. County Coroner Ed Winter told our photog at 7:09 PM that it is too early in the investigation to tell what happened (see below).The singer famously battled drug addiction for years (see related links below).Houston was seen out in Hollywood Thursday night for a Grammy party ... and she did not look well (below). She even briefly took the mic and performed a song while she was there -- what would become her last performance. See the video here Houston won two Emmy Awards, six Grammy Awards, 30 Billboard Music Awards, 22 American Music Awards during her record-breaking career. Her album "Whitney" was the first female album to ever debut at #1 on the Billboard Charts. She has sold 200 million albums worldwide.Houston had one child, Bobbi Kristina, with husband Bobby Brown. Houston and Brown were married from 1992-2007.Sources tell TMZ, Whitney Houston " partied heavily " last night at the Beverly HIlton hotel where she was staying, drinking and chatting loudly with friends in the bar -- but Cissy Houston and Dionne Warwick claim the singer sounded fine just hours before her death.We're told Bobby Brown is distraught over Whitney's death -- going "in and out of crying fits." His band New Edition tells us, they are " shocked and saddened ."Clive Davis' pre-Grammy party -- which Whitney was supposed to open --this evening, though Clive will not be in attendance.Law enforcement sources tell TMZ, police are currently seeking a search warrant to investigate the hotel room where Whitney was found dead. One item they'll be looking out for -- drugs. |||||
Whitney Houston, who found fame as one of pop’s biggest voices, has died. She was 48.
Houston died Saturday afternoon, a representative for the singer told the Associated Press. Houston’s death comes on the eve of the Grammys and on the night of Clive Davis’ annual pre-Grammy gala, at which she performed last year and was expected to attend this year.
No cause of death has been announced and law enforcement sources said the singer was found in a hotel room at the Beverly Hilton, where emergency medical personnel were called sometime Saturday.
PHOTOS: Whitney Houston | 1963-2012
The Hilton is the scene for Davis’ annual gala. On Thursday, Houston dropped by the rehearsals to offer vocal tips for Brandy and Monica, who were slated to be one of the evening’s headliners.
Press, including The Times, were in attendance for a junket with the reunited R&B divas and Davis. Though Houston greeted people with a warm smile, she appeared disheveled in mismatched clothes and hair that was dripping wet with either sweat or water.
The visibly bloated singer displayed erratic behavior throughout the afternoon -- flailing her hands frenetically as she spoke to Brandy and Monica, skipping around the ballroom in a child-like fashion and wandering aimlessly about the lobby. It was mentioned by a Grammy staffer that security personnel received calls of the singer doing handstands by the pool.
After leaving rehearsals, Houston returned to the ballroom -- with her teenage daughter Bobbi Kristina in tow -- as camera crews set up for interviews. The singer smelled of alcohol and cigarettes. A Grammy staffer said that during the interviews with Brandy, Monica and Clive, Houston was dancing just off camera to make the singers and Davis laugh. Grammy personnel expressed concern that she'd be caught on camera, and that reporters would write about her behavior.
Finally her daughter pulled Houston out of the room, and the singer skipped off. In our post of the event, we called Houston's behavior "loose and lively."
FULL COVERAGE: Whitney Houston dead at 48
“She really loves and supports us both. For me, I went through a lot of very tumultuous moments and she would show up, not just with a phone call but physically when I needed,” Monica said when we asked about Houston coaching them. “That's something that I've carried with me, especially with all that she's been going through over the years herself. She's never turned her back on the people she cared about.”
Later that evening Houston appeared at Hollywood nightclub Tru, for fellow R&B singer Kelly Price’s pre-Grammy party. "Kelly Price & Friends Unplugged: For the Love of R&B" served as both a celebration and a jam session to preserve that genre, which was scaled back from eight categories to four this year.
Houston was billed as one of the evening’s special invited guests but after her appearance earlier it was shocking to see the singer arrive. More put together in her appearance, Houston briefly sang a duet with Price. In what has become her final performance, clips of the two singing a gospel hymn made the rounds because of the singer’s unsteady vocals.
RELATED:
Body moved to morgue
Autopsy planned in next 24 hours
Determining cause of death to take time
Obituary: Troubled pop titan dead at 48
TIMELINE: Whitney Houston highs and lows
Medics performed CPR for about 20 minutes
Whitney Houston had large entourage with her
VIDEO: Watch Houston's earliest TV appearances
PHOTOS: Stars, friends react to the stunning news
'The Bodyguard' and beyond; Houston's career in film
Appreciation: A voice for the ages tarnished by addictions
--Gerrick D. Kennedy
Photo: Whitney Houston. Credit: Associated Press ||||| Bobbi Kristina Denied Access to See Whitney's Body
Whitney Houston -- Bobbi Kristina Denied Access to See Whitney's Body
's daughtergot into an angry shouting match with police officers outside the hotel room where her mother was found dead ... TMZ has learned.According to law enforcement sources ... Bobbi Kristina showed up on the 4th floor of the Beverly Hilton several hours after Whitney's death. We're told when officers informed her no one was allowed to see the body -- BK screamed, cursed and demanded to see her mother.Ultimately, she was not allowed into the room and left. We're told Whitney's cousinalso showed up later. She too was turned away by officers.As we reported earlier ... other family members and friends -- who were in the room when authorities arrived -- identified Whitney's body ||||| Story highlights Paul Shaffer: "Here is music's happiest night combined with such a sad note"
Clive Davis' annual pre-Grammy party takes place at the same hotel Houston was found
Houston was scheduled to attend the party
A tribute is expected at Sunday night's Grammy Awards
Two loud booms jolted awake the music industry executive in her fifth-floor room of the Beverly Hilton hotel.
The time was 3:30 p.m. Saturday. The thuds seemed to be coming from the room below. The voice of a man, loud and urgent, followed.
It was only later that she learned the news: Whitney Houston, a guest in the room below hers, had died.
Cause of death: Unclear.
Time pronounced: 3:55 p.m., February 11, 2012.
Age: A mere 48.
The shock and grief from fans worldwide was immediate: Houston's pipes and presence, her grit and glamour had made her an icon.
Fans: Whitney Houston's music spanned an era
For a decade and a half, she ruled the charts: 170 million albums sold, including seven back-to-back multi-platinum ones.
Whitney and Friends 18 photos Whitney and Friends 18 photos Whitney and Friends – Whitney Houston stands with pop legend Michael Jackson in March 1988 in New York as Jackson receives an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from the United Negro College Fund. Houston's sudden death at age 48 shocked fans and musicians all over the world. Hide Caption 1 of 18 Whitney and Friends 18 photos Whitney and Friends – Houston and comedian/actor Eddie Murphy attend the United Negro College Fund's 10th annual Lou Rawls Parade of Stars telethon kickoff party in November 1989 in Beverly Hills, California. Hide Caption 2 of 18 Whitney and Friends 18 photos Whitney and Friends – Houston and singer Patti LaBelle attend the fourth annual Essence Awards in October 1990 in New York. Hide Caption 3 of 18 Whitney and Friends 18 photos Whitney and Friends – Bobby Brown, left, looks on as his wife, Whitney Houston, congratulates Clive Davis, president of Arista Records, at a 1995 benefit dinner for Davis. Hide Caption 4 of 18 Whitney and Friends 18 photos Whitney and Friends – Singer-actress Brandy poses with Houston at the premiere of their made-for-television movie "Cinderella" in October 1997 in Hollywood. Hide Caption 5 of 18 Whitney and Friends 18 photos Whitney and Friends – Chaka Khan, left, and Houston perform during the VH1broadcast concert "Divas Live 99" at New York's Beacon Theater in 1999. The benefit concert supported VH1's "Save the Music" program that funds music education in public schools around the country. Hide Caption 6 of 18 Whitney and Friends 18 photos Whitney and Friends – Sting and Whitney Houston appear at the 1999 Grammy Awards in Los Angeles. Hide Caption 7 of 18 Whitney and Friends 18 photos Whitney and Friends – Basketball legend Magic Johnson and Houston dance during the taping of the 1998 premier of Johnson's television show, "The Magic Hour," in Los Angeles. Hide Caption 8 of 18 Whitney and Friends 18 photos Whitney and Friends – Kenneth "Babyface" Edmonds, left, Houston and Wyclef Jean pose for photographers after performing at the 26th annual American Music Awards in January 1999 in Los Angeles. Hide Caption 9 of 18 Whitney and Friends 18 photos Whitney and Friends – Singer Luther Vandross and Houston pose for photographers in March 1999. Hide Caption 10 of 18 Whitney and Friends 18 photos Whitney and Friends – Elton John and Houston embrace during the Academy Awards show in Los Angeles in March 2001. Hide Caption 11 of 18 Whitney and Friends 18 photos Whitney and Friends – Stevie Wonder and Whitney Houston meet backstage during "The VH1 Divas Duets" concert to benefit the VH1 Save the Music Foundation in Las Vegas in May 2005. Hide Caption 12 of 18 Whitney and Friends 18 photos Whitney and Friends – South African President Nelson Mandela hugs Houston in November 1994. Hide Caption 13 of 18 Whitney and Friends 18 photos Whitney and Friends – Houston pays tribute to Muhammad Ali onstage at Ali's Celebrity Fight Night XIV in April 2008 in Scottsdale, Arizona. Hide Caption 14 of 18 Whitney and Friends 18 photos Whitney and Friends – Houston and rapper Ray-J sit ringside for the Joe Calzaghe-Bernard Hopkins light heavyweight bout in April 2008 in Las Vegas. Hide Caption 15 of 18 Whitney and Friends 18 photos Whitney and Friends – Houston reacts to receiving the International Artist of the Year award while actor Samuel L. Jackson presents the award at the 2009 American Music Awards in Los Angeles. Hide Caption 16 of 18 Whitney and Friends 18 photos Whitney and Friends – Houston and singer Kelly Price share the stage at the Kelly Price & Friends Unplugged: For The Love Of R&B Grammy party on Thursday, February 9, in Hollywood. Hide Caption 17 of 18 Whitney and Friends 18 photos Whitney and Friends – Mariah Carey, left, and Houston record the song "When You Believe," for the soundtrack of Dreamworks' drama "The Prince Of Egypt" in November 1998. Hide Caption 18 of 18 EXPAND GALLERY
JUST WATCHED Davis: I'm devastated by loss of Whitney Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Davis: I'm devastated by loss of Whitney 02:14 PLAY VIDEO
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Numerous No. 1 hits, including the biggest-selling U.S. single of all time, "I Will Always Love You."
Emmys, Grammys, Billboard Music awards. Dozens of them.
While her luster dimmed in recent years as she battled drug addiction, Houston was in the midst of a comeback. A few shows here and there, mostly abroad, and a movie in the works.
She had appeared healthy and beautiful in recent days, said the music executive -- who did not want to be identified because she didn't want reporters hounding her.
Just days before, the exec had seen Houston swimming in the hotel pool with daughter Bobbi Kristina. They looked happy, she said.
What exactly happened Saturday afternoon now awaits a coroner's examination.
Police and fire officials were called to Houston's room at 3:43 p.m., after Houston's bodyguard found her unconscious body.
Medics tried reviving her, but failed.
There were "no obvious signs of criminal intent," said Beverly Hills Police Lt. Mark Rosen.
Medics removed her body from the hotel room early Sunday morning and an autopsy has been scheduled.
But the county coroner's office could not say when.
"I just can't talk about it now. It's so stunning and unbelievable," said singer Aretha Franklin on hearing the news. "I couldn't believe what I was reading coming across the TV screen."
JUST WATCHED Clive Davis on Whitney Houston Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Clive Davis on Whitney Houston 02:04 PLAY VIDEO
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Saturday night, fans mourned Houston's death in different ways inside and outside the Beverly Hilton.
Grief flows at hotel where Houston died
Outside, grieving fans laid roses and flickering candles on the front and back entrances of the sprawling complex.
Some sang songs. Others played her music videos on their smartphone.
"Everyone has their own demons, and some overcome them and some never do," said Tya Conerly, referring to Houston's history of drug abuse. "Sometimes life gets the best of us."
Inside the hotel, music industry's biggest names gathered in elegant attire for an annual pre-Grammy party that had been long planned by Houston's mentor, Clive Davis.
"I do have a heavy heart, and I am personally devastated by someone so close to me for so many years," Davis told the gathering of artists and entertainers, that included Tony Bennett, Gladys Knight and Britney Spears.
"My heart goes out to her daughter Bobbi Kristina and her mother, Cissy."
He then asked for a moment of silence.
"We dedicate this evening to her," he said.
Stunned celebrities mourn Whitney Houston
Houston had been scheduled to attend the festivities. She had performed as late as Thursday night at a pre-Grammy event in the area, a raspy rendition "Jesus Loves Me" with singer Kelly Price.
The organizers of Sunday's Grammy Awards said they have retooled the show to pay respect to Houston, with the help of singer Jennifer Hudson.
"It's going to be something respectful," said Ken Ehrlich, executive producer of the show. "It's not going to be a full-blown tribute. That's too early and it's too fresh at this moment. It's going to be something respectful to Whitney's memory."
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But musician Paul Shaffer said he thinks the whole show will double as a tribute to Houston.
"Here is music's happiest night combined with such a sad note," he said. "You got to be some kind of philosopher to make some kind of sense out of this. I certainly can't."
Sorrow at church where Houston got her start
Houston was born in Newark, New Jersey, on August 9, 1963, the daughter of gospel singer Cissy Houston.
Her cousin was Dionne Warwick; her godmother Aretha Franklin.
"You couldn't find a more auspicious template for great expectations," said music critic Gene Seymour.
In the mid-1980s, Davis spotted Houston in a New York nightclub and signed her on the spot.
For the next quarter century, he steered her career and served as her mentor.
"I saw a depth and a range and soul ... that rarely ranks at the top level," he said Thursday. "And that's why we've been working together ever since."
Houston's career: A regal rise, a tragic fall
Her string of Billboard No. 1 hits included "Saving All My Love for You," "How Will I Know," "The Greatest Love of All," "Where Do Broken Hearts Go," and "I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me)."
In 1991, Houston's commanding performance of "The Star-Spangled Banner" at the Super Bowl, just days into the first Persian Gulf War, electrified audiences and became the gold standard for performing the national anthem, according to many music critics.
The next year, she released the soundtrack to her movie "The Bodyguard," one of the top 10 biggest-selling albums of all time.
Her cover of Dolly Parton's "I Will Always Love You" for the soundtrack has been interpreted by many but rarely duplicated.
TIME.com: Houston's ten most memorable songs
She appeared in several more films in the 1990s, including "Waiting to Exhale."
In 2000, Houston earned her sixth Grammy for best female R&B performance and, a month later, she was named female artist of the decade at the "Soul Train" Music Awards.
But by then, her battle with drugs -- cocaine and marijuana -- and her tumultuous marriage to singer Bobby Brown were taking their toll.
The couple appeared together in the mid-2000s on the reality show "Being Bobby Brown," and had one child together, Bobbi Kristina.
HLNtv.com: What about Bobbi Kristina Brown?
They divorced in 2007. Brown performed at a "New Edition" concert Saturday night in South Haven, Mississippi.
"The atmosphere felt bittersweet," said iReporter Moshiu Knox, who attended the concert with his wife. "Bobby was crying during his performance and at one point had to walk off stage. ... The crowd was emotional and tears were flowing all over the arena."
Video of the concert show Brown asking the audience to pray for the couple's daughter. "If you find the time, can you say a prayer for me because I'm going to need it," he says.
In a 2009 interview with Oprah Winfrey, Houston recalled how her mother arrived one day at her doorstep with sheriff's officers and a court order in a drug intervention.
"(My mother) says, 'I have a court (injunction) here,'" Houston said. "Either you do it my way, or we're just not going to do this at all. We are both going to go on TV, and you're going to retire.'"
She entered rehab and took a long hiatus. Her 2009 release, "I Look To You," was her first in seven years.
"I just took a break, which sometimes you have to," Houston said. "You have to know when to slow that train down and kind of just sit back and relax for a minute."
TIME.com: Houston's life in photos
She recently returned to a movie set for "Sparkle," a remake of the 1976 hit that was loosely based on the story of The Supremes.
It is scheduled to be released nationwide in August, her first movie role since 1996's "The Preacher's Wife."
Music mogul Simon Cowell said Houston's death is one of those events where you remember what you were doing when you heard the news.
"It's that significant," he said. "I'm so sad for her. She was undoubtedly one of the greatest superstars of all time, one of the greatest voices in our lifetime we're likely ever to hear." ||||| Whitney Houston Prescriptions Found Possible Drowning
Whitney Houston -- Prescription Drugs Found ... Possible Drowning [Exclusive Photo Update]
No illegal drugs have been found in the hotel room wheredied -- at least not yet -- but prescription drugs were present, and it's possible the singer drowned in the bathtub ... TMZ has learned.Sources tell us ... when EMTs arrived Whitney's body was already removed from the bathtub so it will take an autopsy to determine if she OD'd, drowned or died from some other cause.Informed sources tell us ... Beverly Hills cops -- who were still searching the room at the time this story was posted -- found various pill bottles. There was no evidence that Whitney was drinking alcohol in the room.Whitney's body was just removed from the room on a gurney. It will go to the morgue for an autopsy to determine cause of death. ||||| Beverly Hills paramedics found singer Whitney Houston unresponsive at a room at the Beverly Hilton hotel and declared her dead after performing CPR on her for about 20 minutes, officials said.
The Beverly Hills Fire Department said they were called to the hotel around 3:30 p.m. and she was pronounced dead around 4 p.m.
Her cause of death was unknown.
PHOTOS: Whitney Houston, 1963-2012
Houston, 48, was in the Los Angeles area for a musical tribute for music executive Clive Davis and had performed earlier this week.
Houston was planning to attend Davis’ annual pre-Grammy party Saturday at the Beverly Hilton hotel.
Earlier this week, the 79-year-old Davis perused page after page of guest lists in a bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel, where he conducts business when he’s in the Los Angeles area. Among those Houston was expected to rub elbows with: Quincy Jones, Tony Bennett, Akon, Cee Lo Green, Miley Cyrus, Sean "Puffy" Combs, Jennifer Hudson, Jackson Browne, Elvis Costello and Diana Krall.
“It’s a great time where everybody can set down their swords, so to speak,” Davis said, seated on an overstuffed divan next to a coffee table cluttered with papers, CDs and videos. “I was grateful that, inviting them to my home, that they would feel comfortable and just keep coming back, and they've kept coming back every year to where it's expanded to be this incredible haven for musicians.”
Houston had drug and alcohol problems for years, and in May her spokeswoman said she was going back to rehab.
Publicist Kristen Foster told the Associated Press on Saturday that Houston had died but did not provide further details.
Houston was kown for such hits as “How Will I Know,” “Saving All My Love for You” and “I Will Always Love You.” She also starred in movies such as “The Bodyguard.”
RELATED:
Body moved to morgue
Determining cause to take time
Autopsy planned in next 24 hours
Obituary: Troubled pop titan is dead at 48
TIMELINE: Whitney Houston highs and lows
VIDEO: Six legendary Houston performances
Medics performed CPR for about 20 minutes
Hotel guest describes scene at Beverly Hilton
VIDEO: Watch Houston's earliest TV appearances
PHOTOS: Stars, friends react to the stunning news
Whitney Houston spotted displaying erratic behavior
Appreciation: A voice for the ages tarnished by addictions
-- Andrew Blankstein and Randy Lewis
Photo: A Los Angeles police crime lab truck sits in the driveway of the Beverly Hilton Hotel a few hours before the scheduled Clive Davis And The Recording Academy's 2012 Pre-Grammy Gala And Salute To Industry Icons in Beverly Hills Saturday. Credit: Mladen Antonov/AFP/Getty Images
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– Specifics are still sketchy in yesterday's sudden death of Whitney Houston. But here's what's beginning to trickle in: Houston was found by a member of her entourage on the floor of her Beverly Hills hotel room around 3:30pm, reports the LA Times. Paramedics were called at 3:43pm, and tried CPR for 20 minutes, but were unable to revive her, and she was pronounced dead at 3:55pm. No illegal drugs have been found in the room, but TMZ reports that Houston was taking Xanax, and it is possible that she drowned in her bathtub. Combined with alcohol, Xanax can cause extreme sleepiness; the gossip site speculates that Houston fell asleep in the tub. Houston was out partying the night before and did not look good, says TMZ. She was allegedly at the hotel bar with friends and the group was very "boisterous." Reports conflict about Houston's condition before her death, with the LA Times saying she was "visibly bloated" and behaving "erratically," while CNN cites a music executive describing her as "healthy" and "happy." Houston's daughter, Bobbi Kristina Brown, got into a shouting match with police officers outside her mother's hotel room several hours after her death when they would not allow her in to see her mother's body, reports TMZ. Buzzfeed notes that a "belligerent" Houston was photographed on Thursday leaving a Hollywood club; she appeared to have a cut on her wrist and blood dripping down her leg. Click for photos.
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A newlywed couple from the U.K. is celebrating after learning that an experimental treatment they took a chance on has erased all signs of cancer in the husband.
Mike Brandon was found to have leukemia one month after proposing to Kate Brandon in 2014. A bone marrow transplant put Brandon in remission but last year the now newlywed couple were devastated to find that the cancer had returned, according to their online fundraising site.
Kate and Mike Brandon came to the U.S. in order to take part in an experimental cancer treatment aimed at reviving the immune system to fight cancer through modifying the body's own T-cells to attack cancer cells. The couple began the cancer-fighting treatments soon after they were married.
"When my [leukemia] relapsed in March, we were told that it was time to plan our last days together, but Kate point blank refused," Mike Brandon wrote on the couple's GoFundMe page. "We would fight on, and we have."
In an effort to find a new kind of treatment they started raising funds and eventually raised more than 450,000 British pounds or nearly $600,000 to go to the Abramson Cancer Center at the University of Pennsylvania Health System, which confirmed Brandon was a patient there.
In an online update Kate Brandon said that her husband had suffered severe side effects from the experimental t-cell treatment.
"Mikes has been in intensive care for over a week but I am pleased to say he is finally now back on the wonderful Oncology Unit," she said. "We were told that paradoxically the sicker that people become during this treatment, the more likely they are to have a good outcome."
After the severe illness, the couple updated with positive news: new tests showed no sign of cancer.
"Mike's initial bone marrow biopsy test has come back clear! Prior to starting the therapy Mike’s bone marrow was almost completely made up of [leukemia] cells," the couple wrote on their page. "28 days later there were none."
The couple thanked those that helped them get treatment, but said there is still much to be done before Mike Brandon is out of the woods.
"This is a great first step showing that the T-Cell therapy is doing exactly what we hoped it would," they wrote. "We still have quite some distance to go in our journey, but we are currently filled with huge relief to have cleared such an enormous hurdle." ||||| “Prior to starting the therapy Mike’s bone marrow was almost completely made up of leukaemia cells,” said Kate. “28 days later there were none.”
She recently shared her husband’s progress on their ‘Donate4Mike’ Facebook page , writing that Mike’s initial bone marrow biopsy test had come back clear.
Earlier this year Kate Brandon, 33, from Bristol, crowdfunded a staggering £400,000 in less than a week so her husband Mike, 31, could travel to the US for CAR T-Cell therapy.
A woman who raised £400,000 to send her husband for lifesaving leukaemia treatment in the US has shared some “wonderful news” after an “agonising” three months.
Mike was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia in 2014, just one month after he proposed to Kate.
Due to it being a rare type of leukaemia, Mike required a stem cell transplant to stand any chance of surviving, so he turned to The Anthony Nolan Trust for help.
His wife Kate launched the #Shake4Mike campaign encouraging members of the public to register as stem cell donors with The Anthony Nolan Trust.
Through the campaign Mike was able to find a stem cell match and on his 30th birthday, he received a lifesaving transplant.
Following the treatment, Mike underwent more than 20 grueling bone marrow biopsies, contracted pneumonia and had five further infusions of stem cells and lymphocyte cells from his donor.
All seemed to be going well until tragedy struck in February this year when Mike’s white blood cell count plummeted and he began to suffer tightness and pains in his chest.
In March, the couple received the devastating news that Mike’s leukaemia had returned - and it was worse than ever.
Kate explained that this time, Mike had very little hope for a full recovery and, as such, she issued a heartfelt plea for strangers to help her raise £400,000 on crowdfunding platform GoFundMe so they could seek treatment abroad.
“His only chance is to access this new research trial based in America which is CAR T-Cell therapy,” she said at the time.
After kind strangers rallied together to help raise money for the couple, Mike secured a place on a medical trial for CAR T-Cell Therapy at the University of Pennsylvania’s Abramson Cancer Centre, USA.
“CAR T-cell therapy has really high response rates of complete remission,” said Kate. “To me it seems like more of a cure. We can’t go down without a fight.”
In a recent update on the ‘Donate4Mike’ Facebook page, Kate said that her husband’s progress was “a great first step” showing that the T-Cell therapy is doing exactly what they hoped it would.
Speaking to The Huffington Post UK, Kate said: “We are still in Philly while Mike is recovering from the aftermath of the T-Cell therapy, it has been a completely exhausting six weeks.
“I am obviously elated at his first biopsy results but know that we have many more biopsy hurdles to pass before I can believe we are truly out the other side of this.
“We are completely overwhelmed by everything, this has by far been our toughest battle yet. I cannot wait to get our boy home!”
Kelsea Little, spokesperson for GoFundMe.com, said she is “delighted” to hear that Mike is making good progress with his treatment.
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– A British couple have received what may be the best wedding gift imaginable: a cancer-free diagnosis. ABC News reports Mike Brandon was diagnosed with leukemia in 2014, only a month after proposing to his wife Kate. A bone marrow transplant sent the leukemia into remission, but it came back last year. Mike's acute lymphoblastic leukemia required experimental CAR T-Cell therapy, according to the Huffington Post. The treatment modifies a person's T-cells to target the cancer cells. The couple raised nearly $600,000 to travel to the US for treatment, which Mike started at the University of Pennsylvania Health System shortly after marrying Kate. “We were told that it was time to plan our last days together, but Kate point blank refused,” Mike says on their fundraising Facebook page. The experimental treatment wasn't easy. Mike suffered what ABC calls "severe side effects." He got pneumonia and required 20 bone marrow biopsies and half a dozen infusions of stem cells. But it appears to have been worth it. “Prior to starting the therapy, Mike’s bone marrow was almost completely made up of leukemia cells,” Kate writes on Facebook. “Twenty-eight days later there were none.” Kate calls it a "huge relief" but says she knows "we still have quite some distance to go in our journey." (A family decided to let their toddler die of leukemia; it saved him.)
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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. ||||| It's the December issue everyone's talking about and we have exclusive behind the scenes access to our Gwyneth Paltrow cover shoot.
From the fashion and jewellery, to the dreamy location house in London's Notting Hill, we reveal what goes on behind a December cover shoot.
Read the full Gwyneth Paltrow interview in the December issue and join goop week on Red Online from 11th November.
Follow up on Red's Gwyneth Paltrow December cover
Ever since we set eyes on our editor-in-chief, Sarah Bailey's interview with Gwyneth Paltrow it's had us talking. While at the time of writing we had no idea Vanity Fair was planning such a 'take down' story, our December cover star's attitude to the press and her critics is refreshing.
From the Daily Mail, Independent and Telegraph's coverage about being a working mother, to the Metro's story about how she's already planning her escape back to Britain, her response 'I don't give a s**t what anyone else thinks' has made headlines around the UK. Not to mention why she views her move back to Hollywood as an experiment in The Mirror.
But it's not just in the UK that we've been talking about her kickass interview answers. Watch our behind the scenes Gwyneth Paltrow video on US favourite Enews alongside a cover of our December issue. In the words of our editor - go Gwyneth...
What do you think of our Gwyneth Paltrow interview in Red's December issue? Tweet us your thoughts @RedMagDaily using #DecemberRed ||||| With a scathing Vanity Fair take-down piece in the works on Gwyneth Paltrow, the two are going head to head in a war that has turned nuclear!
RadarOnline.com has exclusively learned the Iron Man 3 actress wants to “destroy” the coveted magazine’s reputation before they can publish the expose on her.
The forthcoming article — which some had thought might have been scratched when it failed to materialize in the latest issue— is rumored to expose her possible infidelities with Miami hotelier Jeff Soffer (Paltrow has said it’s “one big lie”) among many other salacious items about the star.
“It’s still going to run and it could possibly break online in the next two-three weeks,” an insider told Radar.
“Too many resources have been plowed into it and too many bridges have been brined for it to be killed.”
REVEALED: The Top 30 Secrets & Scandals Gwyneth Paltrow Doesn’t Want You — Or ‘Vanity Fair’ To Know About
When the article failed to make it into the magazine’s latest issue, Paltrow’s efforts “notably stepped up,” the source said.
They said: “She wants the magazine’s reputation destroyed before they can even publish anything on her.”
PHOTOS: Gwyneth Paltrow Goes Braless In Chicago
As Radar previously reported, a mass email Paltrow sent to her friends begging them not to participate in the magazine’s expose was revealed stating: “If you are asked for quotes or comments, please decline. Also, I recommend you all never do this magazine again.”
PHOTOS: Gwyneth Paltrow’s Star Style Evolution
Paltrow, 41, has supposedly convinced George Clooney to withdraw from appearing on the magazine’s Hollywood Issue cover, but had trouble with Julia Roberts who is apparently close to the magazine’s editor-in-chief, Graydon Carter.
“[Julia] is ignoring Gwyneth, has no problem with Graydon and is happily still committed to appear on the cover of that issue,” the source revealed, noting that the refusal to bend to Paltrow’s wishes “has probably ended any chance of a friendship between the two of them.”
PHOTOS: Gywneth Paltrow Looks Flawless At Forty At The Golden Heart Gala
Do you think Paltrow’s efforts to squash the Vanity Fair piece is an effort to keep a skeleton in her closet? Sound off in the comments below…
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– The war between Gwyneth Paltrow and Vanity Fair rages on: With the magazine still planning to publish what's said to be an "epic takedown" of the actress, Gwyneth is fighting back, sources tell Radar. "She wants the magazine’s reputation destroyed before they can even publish anything on her," says one insider, who adds that the anti-Gwyneth article could be out in the next two or three weeks. Paltrow reportedly managed to convince George Clooney to back out of a planned appearance on an upcoming VF cover, but couldn't persuade Julia Roberts to do the same. "[Julia] is ignoring Gwyneth, has no problem with Graydon [Carter, the editor-in-chief], and is happily still committed to appear on the cover of that issue," the source says, adding that the incident "has probably ended any chance of a friendship between" Gwyneth and Julia. Paltrow certainly has seemed to be on the warpath lately: In a cover interview with UK magazine Red last week, she had this to say about her critics, People reports: "The older I get, I realize it doesn't matter what people who don't know you think. ... It's like, if your partner comes to you—or your best friend—and says, 'Listen, I want to talk about something you did that hurt me, or I think you could improve,' sit down and listen to what they have to say. But some friend of so-and-so's—it's like, who gives a s---?" (For more, click for 30 possible Gwyneth scandals VF could be delving into.)
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The New Year got off to a deadly start in southeast Houston after a man was killed while watching fireworks with his wife in the front yard of their house.
Javier Rivera, left, was struck and killed by a stray bullet on New Year's Eve. (Photo: FAMILY PHOTO)
HOUSTON – The New Year got off to a deadly start in southeast Houston after a man was killed while watching fireworks with his family in the front yard of their house.
Detectives say a stray bullet struck 43-year-old Javier Rivera in the head just after midnight Thursday. He was standing next to his wife when he suddenly fell to the ground.
The victim's wife said she never heard the gunshot.
"I never could have imagined this would happen," Erica Rivera said. "He was standing right next to me and he fell."
"All of a sudden, my grandkids saw him falling backwards and he fell down and then he didn't move," said Gloria Patterson, a neighbor. "So my grandson, who is certified to CPR, went over and started CPR and stayed with him until the ambulance came. And he never regained any movement or anything."
Rivera, a father of three, died on the sidewalk in front of his family.
"I feel pretty angry about that because its pretty unsafe for everybody," said Charles Cain, a relative.
The New Year was off to a deadly start in southeast Houston after police say a man was killed while watching fireworks with his wife in the front yard of their house Wednesday night. (Photo: Metro)
Erica Rivera described the victim as a good husband and father who was always happy.
"He was smiling and laughing, you know, a nice person, just a hardworking man," said Cain. "Now we're gonna have to bury somebody this year, you know. Through God's help, that's how we are gonna get through it."
The bullet may have come from someone firing a gun to celebrate the New Year, according to the Houston Police Department.
"Just came out to watch the fireworks. So simple you know?" said Patterson. "I just feel so sorry for the family. My condolences to all the family. I'm so sorry it happened."
Police are hoping witnesses will come forward who saw people firing guns in the area.
"If people would just remember don't shoot guns. You know once it comes up, it's got to come down. I hope that this will be something that will help other people that will not do this in the future," Patterson said.
If you know anything, please call the Houston police.
Read or Share this story: http://www.khou.com/story/news/crime/2015/01/01/man-dies-after-being-hit-by-stray-bullet-in-the-head/21144655/ ||||| A man dropped dead while standing outside his southeast Houston home with his wife watching fireworks overnight.Police were called to the home on Eastlake Drive at Theta Street just after midnight. Officers were told someone had been shot by a stray bullet, but no one had any idea from where where it had come.When police arrived, they found a Hispanic male, identified by family as Javier Rivera, dead in the driveway. He had been shot in the head. Family told police they weren't firing any fireworks or weapons when it happened.Erika Rivera says her husband was standing right next to her on their driveway when he suddenly collapsed. It wasn't until she saw blood that she realized a stray bullet had struck him-instantly killing the father of 3."They'd come out from their home where they'd had a family gathering to see fireworks that were taking place further south of us here when she reported that her husband just fell to the ground," said Ramon Cervantes with the Houston Police Department. "She goes inside and calls for help and they find him dead here.""My grandson, who's certified in CPR, went over and started CPR and stayed with him until the ambulance came and he never regained any kind of movement or anything," neighbor Gloria Patterson said.Police say they will check reports and the surrounding area to see if there were any calls for service for people discharging firearms, Meanwhile, if you were in the area and heard shots being fired in the air at midnight, contact HPD.Rivera, 43, was the kind of guy everyone wanted to be around, his family says.Charles Cain, his brother-in-law, said, "(He was) just a nice person, just a hardworking man."If you would like to help the Rivera family with their funeral expenses, they have set up a GoFundMe page where you can send contributions.Family say they couldn't tell the difference between fireworks and bullets. It's a problem Houston Police have repeatedly warned the public about.HPD's Cervantes said, "Discharging a firearam. What goes up, must come down. It has to go somewhere it has to travel somewhere."Police say there is no telling where that stray bullet came from. The family just wants people to realize shooting guns into the air is no way to celebrate.
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– A Houston man was standing outside his home watching New Year's fireworks just after midnight when he fell to the ground at his wife's side, dead of a bullet wound to the head, KTRK reports. "They'd come out from their home where they'd had a family gathering to see fireworks ... when she reported that her husband just fell to the ground," says a police rep. Police say the man may have been hit by a stray bullet from someone celebrating the New Year, KHOU reports; the family told police they weren't setting off fireworks or weapons at the time, and no one knows where the bullet might have come from. "If people would just remember don't shoot guns," says a local. "You know once it comes up, it's got to come down."
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LOS ANGELES (AP) — Three of eight people who contracted bacterial meningitis this year have died, and all three had sex with other men, Los Angeles County health officials said Thursday.
The confirmation came a day after the Department of Public Health urged gay men who had HIV or multiple partners to be vaccinated against invasive meningococcal disease.
However, the department said the three men who died didn't have any direct contact with each other. The disease still is considered rare and sporadic and the department is shying away from declaring any outbreak in the gay community, authorities said.
Four of the eight people who came down with the illness had sex with other men and three were HIV positive. The three who died in February and March were 27 or 28 years old and two were HIV positive, according to the department.
Of the other five people who fell ill, four are out of the hospital and one is hospitalized but recovering.
The agency was "insensitive" for failing to announce the deaths earlier, Michael Weinstein, executive director for the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, told the Los Angeles Daily News (http://bit.ly/1kwlf53).
"We're the largest HIV/AIDS medical care provider in the nation, and they didn't tell us," said Weinstein, a critic who has called the health department a "bloated bureaucracy."
About a third of the 32 bacterial meningitis cases reported in the county since October 2012 involved men who had sex with men, the Daily News reported.
That population is most at risk right now, said Dr. Robert Bolan, medical director for the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center.
However, the county health department is "paying attention" and acting "in a timely manner" by urging vaccinations for members of the gay community, he told the newspaper.
Bacterial meningitis infected 22 gay men, killing seven, in New York City between 2010 and last year. However, Los Angeles County health officials have said the local cases aren't related.
Invasive meningococcal disease is relatively uncommon and is less contagious than the flu.
However, it can be spread through close contact with saliva or mucus — such as sneezing, coughing, kissing or sharing drinks or cigarettes.
The disease can be treated with antibiotics if caught early but if the infection spreads it can lead to brain damage, hearing loss or death.
The health department is offering free vaccinations are being offered to those without health insurance. ||||| Three gay men sickened from meningitis in L.A. County have died, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health said Thursday.
The department announced earlier this week that there have been eight cases of invasive meningococcal disease in the county so far this year. Four cases occurred in men who have sex with men. On Thursday, officials said three of them had died, officials said. The victims were 27 or 28.
Some of those sickened lived or socialized in West Hollywood and North Hollywood, officials said.
The county will provide free vaccinations for patients without health insurance, starting Thursday. Those interested can call 211 or visit the department's website to get a listing of provider clinics.
Invasive meningococcal disease stems from a rare bacterial infection that can spread to the blood, brain or spinal cord and can affect the entire body -- sometimes causing death.
It is spread by close exposure to sneezing or coughing or direct contact with saliva or nose mucus -- though it's less contagious than influenza, the health department said.
Activities associated with risk for the illness include smoking, close contact with an infected person such as kissing or sharing beverages or cigarettes, and living in group settings for prolonged periods.
Symptoms of the illness usually strike within five days of exposure to the bacteria, and may include a high fever, stiff neck, aversion to bright light and aches.
The bacterial strain most common in Los Angeles is covered by the current meningitis vaccine. After occurrences in recent months, students at Princeton University in New Jersey and UC Santa Barbara were offered access to another vaccine, not yet approved for use in the U.S., to prevent a different form of the disease.
[Updated 8:50 p.m. April 3: Robert Bolan, the medical director at the L.A. Gay & Lesbian Center, said there is cause for concern in the gay community because the infection rate is higher in men who have sex with men and especially higher in those who are HIV positive.
Bolan said it is unclear why the disease seems to affect gay men specifically, though the weakened immune systems of people who are HIV positive might make them more susceptible.
Of the four L.A. County cases reported among gay men, three involved men who were HIV positive, county health officials said.
“I think the important thing to understand is this is not an epidemic,” Bolan said. “But there’s a pretty strong signal that men who have sex with men, at least those who are HIV positive, are at increased risk for invasive meningococcal disease.”
The deaths come less than a year after L.A. gay’s community grappled with another meningitis scare.
Brett Shaad, a 33-year-old West Hollywood resident and attorney, contracted meningitis in April 2013 after attending a gathering of gay men in Palm Springs. He died days later.
The AIDS Healthcare Foundation responded by offering free meningitis vaccines. County health officials eventually offered the vaccine for low-income and uninsured residents.
West Hollywood Councilman John Duran said he hopes more specifics about the three deaths emerge. The men died at least a week ago, and Duran said he’d like to know why the county didn’t announce it sooner.
“Three deaths in three months, it's a lot in one community,” said Duran, who is running for L.A. County supervisor. “It's disproportionate to the numbers of gay men that are in the general population. It's a bigger tragedy that they're all young men in their 20s... It’s like a bad dream, like a bad deja vu.”]
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– Three gay men in their late 20s have died from a bacterial meningitis in the Los Angeles area so far this year, with another five people having come down with the illness. Four of the cases involved gay men and three were HIV positive, the Los Angeles Times reports; two of those who died were HIV positive. None of the deceased, who died in February or March, had been in direct contact with each other, the AP notes. "I think the important thing to understand is this is not an epidemic," the medical director of the LA Gay and Lesbian Center says. "But there's a pretty strong signal that men who have sex with men, at least those who are HIV positive, are at increased risk for invasive meningococcal disease." Yesterday's news of the deaths comes almost exactly a year after meningitis—a disease spread by contact with saliva or nose mucus—killed another LA man, and a day after the Department of Public Health urged gay men who are HIV positive, or have multiple partners, to get vaccinated. The county is now offering free vaccinations for those without health insurance. "It's like a bad dream, like a bad deja vu," said a councilman. "Three deaths in three months, it's a lot in one community ... It's a bigger tragedy that they're all young men in their 20s." Of the other five cases, all but one are out of the hospital.
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In the past we've highlighted a number of credulous reporters in the Chinese media taking satirical articles on face value and generally making fools out of themselves. So it was with no small amount of trepidation that I approached this story about an alleged craze among Japanese teens of licking each other's eyeballs. On the one hand, this is the kind of insane, WTF news that blogs are built upon. On the other, it has to be fake right? Right?!
After eye patches suddenly took off among middle school students in Japan, teachers were confused but ultimately decided it was just another weird fashion craze. However, a post by a middle school teacher, originally shared on Naver Matome and translated by Japan Crush, describes the disturbing trend behind the patches:
After class one day, I went into the equipment store in the gymnasium to tidy up. The door had been left open, and when I looked inside, a male pupil and a female pupil had their faces close together and were kind of fumbling around. Could it be bullying? I wondered, but when I had a good look, the boy was licking the girl’s eye! Surprised, a shouted “What are you doing? Stop it at once!” and the two of them were so shocked they jumped apart. The girl burst into tears, and the boy just went bright red and was shaken up. At any rate, to try to calm them down I took them to the janitor’s room and listened to their story.
On questioning, the two students revealed that eyeball licking is basically like second base - what you graduate to after Frenching.
Mr. Y immediately told the school staff the story. A classroom assembly for the year 6 students was held, and when each homeroom teacher questioned the students, it was revealed that a surprising one third of the kids had done “eyeball licking”, or had had their eyeballs licked.
Lest you think this is just cod moralising from a squicked out adult, eyeball licking is a great way of spreading trachoma (eye chlamydia) and conjunctivitis/pink-eye.
One potential inspiration for the eyeball licking trend is this video from Japanese band Born, in which the lead singer gets his eyeball licked by a knife-wielding woman (around 3:35, warning video contains terrible emo rock):
Don't lick each other's eyeballs kids. ||||| Doctors worry that oculolinctus could damage eyesight. (Dimitri Vervitsiotis/Getty Images)
A new trend among Japanese teenagers called oculolinctus, also known as "eyeball licking," or "worming," is currently sweeping across the internet in videos and photos.
The bizarre trend has started popping up on Youtube, Tumblr and Twitter. The practice, in which teens show affection by licking their partner's eyeballs, may have started with a scene in a music video released last year from the Japanese band Born, which features a dramatic slow-motion scene of oculolinctus.
But experts are concerned that even if oculolinctius is done sparingly or on a dare, it could have very real consequences. Dr. Robert Cykiert, an associate professor in the department of ophthalmology at the New York University Langone Medical Center, said the surface of a healthy eye is normal mostly sterile, while the mouth is filled with bacteria and food particles.
"When you get licked on the eye, you're transferring dangerous bacteria to the eye," said Cykiert. "It's a very dangerous trend, to say the least."
Cykiert said transferring bacteria to the eye leaves people with a higher risk of contracting conjunctivitis or, more seriously, a corneal ulcer.
"[People] may have scarring of the cornea that can be permanent depending on the bacteria in germs … it may cause a perforation or hole to develop," said Cykiert, who has had to give some patients with corneal ulcers a cornea transplant.
While Cykiert said he hasn't seen evidence of "eyeball licking" in the U.S., he warns that teens should be wary of trying out the trend to prove their adoration as they can permanently damage their sight.
Instead, Cykiert suggests, "sticking with hand holding and kissing, stuff that's been around for millions of years."
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– The hot new thing amongst Japanese teens? Licking each others' eyeballs. Also known as "oculolinctus" and "worming," it's a sexual thing, and was probably inspired by a music video clip (it's at 3:30; you know you want to look), reports ABC News. Apparently, an increasing number of Japanese middle schoolers were showing up at school wearing eye patches, and no one knew why—until a teacher finally caught two young lovers in the act. After the school quizzed the entire sixth grade, he learned a third had participated in eyeball licking, and he shared the news on a Japanese social media site, Shanghaiist reports. The reason for the eye-patches? Eyeball licking is a great way to get pinkeye. "When you get licked on the eye, you’re transferring dangerous bacteria to the eye," an ophthalmologist tells ABC. "It’s a very dangerous trend, to say the least."
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HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — Connecticut's General Assembly voted Saturday to join a group of states that want to pool their Electoral College votes for the presidential candidate who wins the popular vote, the first state legislature to do so since President Donald Trump's 2016 election.
If Democratic Gov. Dannel P. Malloy signs the legislation into law, as expected, Connecticut will be the 12th jurisdiction — a combination of 11 states and the District of Columbia — to enter the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.
"People are very excited. It really helps," said Barry Fadem, president of the California-based National Popular Vote organization. After lobbying Connecticut lawmakers to join the group for 11 years, Fadem said he hopes other states will now be encouraged to join.
The bill passed the state Senate on a 21-14 vote, with three Republicans joining 18 Democrats. It previously passed the House of Representatives 73-71.
Under the compact, participating states require their Electoral College voters to cast ballots for the national popular vote winner. In theory it would take effect once it involves states representing at least 270 electoral votes, the threshold to win the presidency. With the expected addition of Connecticut's seven electoral votes, the group now has 172.
When people vote for president, they really are choosing electors from the political parties. The college is made up of 538 electors, which corresponds to the number of seats held by states in the U.S. Senate and House, plus the three votes allotted to Washington, D.C. In the case of Trump, the Republican won the Electoral College but not the popular vote. Democrat Hillary Clinton won Connecticut in 2016.
Democratic State Rep. Matthew Lesser has been working on the issue in Connecticut since 2009 and believes Trump's electoral victory gave the issue "some renewed momentum," especially among activists who pushed for the legislation this session.
"My hope is, as other states take a look at it, that it won't simply be an effort to re-litigate the 2016 election," he said. Rather, he hopes states reflect on how two recent presidents, Trump and former Republican President George W. Bush in 2000, lost the popular vote but still won the election.
"That's a real problem," Lesser said. "That undercuts their ability to get things done."
Opponents, however, argue that Connecticut's influence in the presidential election will be hurt by the national popular vote. Republican Sen. Michael McLachlan predicted that candidates will only focus on large population centers, ignoring rural areas and small states like Connecticut.
"If you live in New York City, they may as well send limousines to get people to the polls," said McLachlan, who also predicted "a legal train wreck" if the compact ultimately gets enough states to vote in unison for the popular vote winner.
But supporters contend the legislation will re-energize disappointed voters who believe their votes don't count.
"Every person in the United States has the right to an equal voice in how our country is governed, and enacting a national popular vote ensures that right is upheld," said Democratic Sen. Mae Flexer.
Those jurisdictions that that have joined the pact include California, Hawaii, Illinois, Massachusetts, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington and the District of Columbia — all where Clinton defeated Trump. Connecticut would be the first state to sign on since 2014, when New York joined. ||||| Connecticut OKs Bill Pledging Electoral Votes To National Popular-Vote Winner
Enlarge this image toggle caption Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call Inc. Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call Inc.
Connecticut is poised to commit its electoral votes to whichever U.S. presidential candidate wins the nation's popular vote — regardless of who wins the state.
By embracing the plan, Connecticut's General Assembly gave new momentum to a push to change the way Americans elect their president.
Ten states and the District of Columbia are already in a compact to pool their electoral votes and pledge them to the popular-vote winner. With Connecticut added, the compact's voting power would rise to 172 — fewer than 100 electoral votes away from the 270-vote majority that decides the presidential contest.
Connecticut's Senate gave final approval to the bill over the weekend, using a 21-14 vote to send the legislation to Gov. Dannel Malloy — who responded by saying, "I applaud the General Assembly for passing this commonsense legislation."
"With the exception of the presidency, every elected office in the country, from city council, to United States senator, to governor, is awarded the candidate who receives the most votes," Malloy said in a statement. "The vote of every American citizen should count equally, yet under the current system, voters from sparsely populated states are awarded significantly more power than those from states like Connecticut. This is fundamentally unfair."
The bill adopts an interstate compact that's officially called "The Agreement Among the States to Elect the President by National Popular Vote."
The agreement won't kick in unless it's backed by enough states and other voting areas to claim a majority of Electoral College votes.
In addition to Connecticut, the other jurisdictions in the pact are California, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington state, along with Washington, D.C.
"If the Electoral College is abolished, the compact terminates," according to the Connecticut legislation.
Criticism of the Electoral College system has increased in recent years, after two presidential candidates — Democrats Al Gore in 2000 and Hillary Clinton in 2016 — won the popular vote but lost the electoral vote.
As NPR noted in 2016, it's mathematically possible for a candidate to win the U.S. presidency with less than 25 percent of the national popular vote.
All of the states that have so far committed to the pact are also states whose electoral votes went to Clinton in 2016.
Democrats have led the recent push to change the way the Electoral College works. But the National Popular Vote organization, which supports the move nationwide, says there is also bipartisan support for the bill.
The group cites the recent passage of popular-vote measures in three Republican-controlled legislative chambers: the Arizona House, the Oklahoma Senate and the New York Senate. In Connecticut's General Assembly, four Republican lawmakers voted in favor.
President Trump also seems to have endorsed the concept, saying last month, "The Electoral College is different. I would rather have the popular vote, because it's — to me, it's much easier to win."
Those remarks echoed what Trump said weeks after his victory. In both instances, he added that the strategy and rules are very different for winning electoral and popular votes.
On its website, National Popular Vote says its goal is to fix "shortcomings of the current system," in which winner-take-all rules have resulted in dozens of states being ignored during presidential campaigns.
That system, the group says, means that "presidential candidates have no reason to pay attention to the issues of concern to voters in states where the statewide outcome is a foregone conclusion."
As proof, NPV points to data showing that in the 2012 general election, two-thirds of the campaign events were held in just four states: Ohio, Florida, Virginia and Iowa. Some 38 states "were ignored," the group said.
Five U.S. presidents have won office despite losing the popular vote nationwide.
In addition to Trump and George W. Bush, those presidents are John Quincy Adams (1824 — with an asterisk), Rutherford Hayes (1876) and Benjamin Harrison (1888).
On the federal level, Congress hasn't substantially changed the Electoral College system since the process was remade by the 12th Amendment in 1804.
In the late 1960s, the U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved a resolution for an amendment establishing the direct election of America's president and vice president. The measure failed in the Senate.
Backers of that proposal included President Richard Nixon, who said after the House approval that "the need for electoral reform was 'urgent and should be our controlling consideration,' " as CQ Almanac reported in 1969.
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– A newly passed Connecticut law places the Nutmeg State among a growing group of US states that aim to change the way America chooses its president. Per NPR, the state's legislature voted over the weekend to send a bill to Gov. Dannel Malloy that ensures Connecticut's seven electoral votes go to the candidate who wins the popular vote nationwide. Malloy applauded the legislature's move in a statement on Saturday. "With the exception of the presidency, every elected office in the country, from city council, to United States senator, to governor, is awarded the candidate who receives the most votes," said the Democrat. "The vote of every American citizen should count equally." Connecticut joins a compact of 10 other states plus Washington, DC, all of which have made the same pledge. "People are very excited. It really helps," Barry Fadem, president of the California-based National Popular Vote organization, told the AP. After lobbying Connecticut lawmakers to join the group for 11 years, Fadem said he hopes other states will now be encouraged to join. With the expected addition of Connecticut's seven electoral votes, the group now has 172. Opponents argue that Connecticut's influence in the presidential election will be hurt by the national popular vote. Republican Sen. Michael McLachlan predicted that candidates will only focus on large population centers, ignoring rural areas and small states like Connecticut. "If you live in New York City, they may as well send limousines to get people to the polls," said McLachlan, who also predicted "a legal train wreck" if the compact ultimately gets enough states to vote in unison for the popular vote winner.
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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 ||||| Construction continues on the presidential reviewing stand on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, Friday, Nov. 25, 2016, looking toward the White House and the Washington Monument. The reviewing stand... (Associated Press)
Construction continues on the presidential reviewing stand on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, Friday, Nov. 25, 2016, looking toward the White House and the Washington Monument. The reviewing stand is where then President Donald Trump will view the inaugural parade on Jan. 20, 2017. (AP Photo/Alex... (Associated Press)
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Latest on President-elect Donald Trump (all times EST):
12:20 p.m.
President-elect Donald Trump is threatening to end the detente with Cuba initiated by the Obama administration.
Trump tweeted Monday he "will terminate" President Barack Obama's reestablishment of diplomatic ties and normalization of relations if "Cuba is unwilling to make a better deal for the Cuban people, the Cuban/American people and the U.S. as a whole."
But Trump's warning could face opposition from some Republicans on Capitol Hill and corporate leaders who see continued engagement with Havana as good for American businesses and the best way to force the Cuban government to change.
Arizona Republican Sen. Jeff Flake said this past weekend a "get tough" policy that isolates Havana and restricts travel and commerce will hurt the Cuban people and make the U.S. government "a convenient scapegoat for failed socialist policies."
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11:55 a.m.
The Green Party says it will ask a Pennsylvania court to order a statewide recount of the state's Nov. 8 presidential election result.
But it's unclear if the courts would have authority to do so.
A lawyer for Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein wouldn't discuss what would be alleged in the expected lawsuit Monday.
Republican President-elect Donald Trump edged Democrat Hillary Clinton by about 71,000 votes, or about 1 percent, in Pennsylvania.
Democratic Secretary of State Pedro Cortes says there's no evidence of voting irregularities or cyberattacks on Pennsylvania's voting machines, 96 percent of which record votes electronically and leave no paper trail.
A GOP lawyer says the courts lack authority to order a statewide recount. Cortes says he's also unaware of the courts having authority to do so
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11:50 a.m.
A Republican member of the Electoral College from Texas says he's resigning so he won't cast one of the state's 38 electoral votes for Donald Trump.
Art Sisneros previously told The Associated Press that he was wavering on supporting Trump because the Republican "is not biblically qualified for office."
In a lengthy weekend blog post, Sisneros updated that, saying "the best option I see at this time is to resign my position as an elector."
Texas doesn't require its presidential electors to vote in accordance with the state's presidential election results. Trump won Texas by around 9 percentage points and captured 290 overall electoral votes to Hillary Clinton's 232.
Texas electors meet in Austin next month to vote for president. By state law, they can vote then on a replacement for Sisneros.
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10 a.m.
President-elect Donald Trump is claiming, without evidence, that millions of people voted illegally in the election he won, issuing the baseless claim as part of his angry response to a recount effort led by the Green Party and joined by Hillary Clinton's campaign.
Trump tweeted on Sunday that he won the popular vote "if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally." He later alleged "serious voter fraud in Virginia, New Hampshire and California."
Trump's transition team did not provide any evidence to back up the president-elect's assertions of fraud in the November election. They pointed only to past charges of irregularities in voter registration.
There has been no evidence of widespread tampering or hacking that would change the results of the presidential contest between Trump and Clinton.
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– President-elect Donald Trump is threatening to end the detente with Cuba initiated by the Obama administration. In a tweet a bit longer than the one he wrote to mark Fidel Castro's death, Trump tweeted Monday he "will terminate" President Obama's reestablishment of diplomatic ties and normalization of relations if "Cuba is unwilling to make a better deal for the Cuban people, the Cuban/American people and the US as a whole." But Trump's warning could face opposition from some Republicans on Capitol Hill and corporate leaders who see continued engagement with Havana as good for American businesses and the best way to force the Cuban government to change, reports the AP. Arizona Republican Sen. Jeff Flake said this past weekend a "get tough" policy that isolates Havana and restricts travel and commerce will hurt the Cuban people and make the US government "a convenient scapegoat for failed socialist policies."
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YEREVAN, AUGUST 24, ARMENPRESS. An official source at the Foreign and Expatriates Ministry of Syria said that Turkish tanks and armored vehicles on Wednesday morning crossed the Syrian-Turkish borders towards Jarablos city under cover of the Us-led alliance’s air forces, “Armenpress” reports, citing Sana.
The source said Syria asserts that fighting terrorism on Syrian territory by any side must be conducted by coordinating with the Syrian government and the Syrian Arab Army which has been fighting terrorism for over five years.
The source stressed that Syria condemns this blatant violation of its sovereignty and affirms that fighting terrorism isn’t done by ousting ISIS and replacing it with other terrorist organizations backed directly by Turkey.
“What is happening in Jarablos now isn’t fighting terrorism as Turkey claims; rather it is replacing one type of terrorism with another,” the source said, adding that Syria requests putting an end to this aggression and calls on the United Nations to implement its resolutions, in addition to stressing the need for the Turkish side and the US-led alliance to respect international resolutions, particularly those related to closing borders and drying up the sources of terrorism. ||||| ANKARA, Turkey—Vice President Joe Biden struck a conciliatory tone during a daylong visit to Turkey, as the Obama administration tries to smooth over thorny relations after last month’s failed coup.
Mr. Biden, the first senior White House official to meet with the Turkish leadership since the takeover attempt, apologized to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for not visiting the country sooner after last month’s failed coup, scolded U.S.-backed Kurds and avoided publicly raising concerns about the government’s recent widespread... ||||| Vice President Joe Biden and Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim hold a joint press conference following their meeting Wednesday at the Cankaya Palace in Ankara. Biden said Washington had made clear that pro-Kurdish forces in Syria must not to cross west of the Euphrates River, a prospect alarming for Turkey. His comments come after Turkish troops launched an operation inside Syria to cleanse the key town of Jarabulus from Islamic State jihadists. (Photo: ADEM ALTAN, AFP/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — Vice President Biden told Turkish officials in Ankara Wednesday that it would be "an impeachable offense" for President Obama to turn over a cult leader living in Pennsylvania who Turkey suspects is behind the attempted coup last month.
"Under American law no president of the United States has authority to extradite anyone on his own power. Only an American court can do that," Biden said after meeting with Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım. "We have no, no, no, no interest whatsoever in protecting anyone who has done harm to an ally, but we need to meet legal standard requirement under our law."
The extradition of Fethullah Gülen, who has been living in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania since 1999, has long been a point of friction between the United States and Turkey, a strategically important NATO ally whose help is crucial to the fight against the Islamic State. But those tensions flared up after an coup attempt on July 15, which Turkey blames on the cleric and opposition leader.
"This heinous coup attempt was in our opinion orchestrated and instructed by Fethullah Gülen, and as per the treaties we have, the necessary steps should be taken with a view to his extradition," Yıldırım told Biden. He said a team of lawyers dispatched from Washington to review the case "is clear sign from your side that you’re taking this seriously and attaching great importance to it."
Biden also reassured Turkish leaders that the United States had no advance knowledge or "Let me be clear. I want to ease any speculation, some of which I have heard, as to whether or not the U.S. had some advance warning, some foreknowledge or complicity," he said. "The people of the United States of America abhor what happened, and under no circumstances would support anything remotely approaching the cowardly act of the treasonous members of military."
Biden's arrival in the Turkish capital came just hours after a joint operation by coalition forces — including the U.S. and Turkey — launched an offensive to to capture an Islamic State stronghold across the border in Syria.
But that operation, too, required delicate diplomacy by Biden. The U.S. is coordinating its efforts with a Kurdish militia force known as the YPG. Turkey considers it a terrorist group supporting Kurdish separatists inside Turkey. Yıldırım acknowledged that the Islamic State is the "greater threat," but insisted that YPG forces remain east of the Euphrates River.
"They must move back across the river," Biden agreed. "They cannot — will not — under any circumstance get American support if they do not keep that commitment."
Biden and Yıldırım spoke at a news conference following a meeting that also discussed human rights issues in Turkey. Earlier, Biden also toured the parliament building, which was damaged in the coup attempt.
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/2bnjhHu ||||| Story highlights Syrian rebels have captured key border town from ISIS, Turkish media say
Turkish President says operation also aimed at Syrian Kurdish fighters
Istanbul, Turkey (CNN) Turkish tanks entered northern Syria on Wednesday to help Syrian rebels clear ISIS from a border town, Turkish state media reported -- a move that follows recent attacks that the republic blames on terror groups.
By Wednesday evening, the Ankara-backed Free Syrian Army had captured the town, Jarablus, which is less than a kilometer from Turkey and the last major community ISIS had held on the Syrian-Turkish border, Turkey's semiofficial Anadolu agency reported.
Turkish tanks and allied Syrian rebels move along the border Wednesday.
Turkey's incursion into Syrian territory is part of a larger effort to battle not only ISIS, but also Kurdish fighters in northern Syria that Ankara opposes, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said.
"(Wednesday's operation) started in the north of Syria against terror groups which constantly threaten our country, like (ISIS) and the PYD," Erdogan said, referring to a Syrian Kurdish opposition political party.
Pictures distributed by Agence France-Presse showed tanks rolling near the border Wednesday west of Jarablus. Turkish special forces units also were operating along the border, CNN Turk reported.
Read More ||||| Major campaign – coordinated with Syria rebels – aims to seize Isis-held town of Jarablus and contain expansion of Kurdish militias in area
Turkey has launched a major military intervention in Syria, sending tanks and warplanes across the border in a coordinated campaign with Syrian opposition fighters, who seized an Islamic State-held village in the area in the first hours of fighting.
The operation, called Euphrates Shield, has a dual purpose: to dislodge Isis from Jarablus, its last major redoubt on the 500-mile border, and to contain the expansion of Kurdish militias in northern Syria.
Turkish tanks crossed the Syrian border as artillery and fighter jets pounded the militants in an operation backed by the US-led coalition. The incursion also opened corridors for Syrian opposition fighters backed by Turkey, who mounted an assault in the area.
Syrian rebels clashing with Isis fighters seized Kaklijah, Turkish military sources said. There were no immediate details about casualty figures.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring group, said violent clashes were taking place between Turkish-backed opposition fighters and Isis in the area surrounding Jarablus.
“We are determined to clear Daesh [Isis] from the border,” said the foreign minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, at a press conference on Wednesday.
The operation marks the first time Ankara’s ground forces have ventured into Syria, with the exception of a brief operation early last year to rescue the tomb of an ancestor of the founder of the Ottoman empire.
Turkey said it had hit 81 targets in northern Syria with F-16 warplanes and had also shelled Isis positions.
Turkey tells border town to evacuate due to skirmish with Isis Read more
“At 4am this morning, operations started in the north of Syria against terror groups which constantly threaten our country,” Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, said in a speech in Ankara, adding that the operation would target both Isis and Kurdish militants.
The government in Ankara said the operation was an act of self-defence, in response to Isis shelling of Turkish border towns and suicide bombings and attacks targeting Turkish nationals. The bombing of a wedding in Gaziantep over the weekend killed more than 50 people, many of them children, and Isis-linked militants have carried out attacks in Ankara and Istanbul, including one at Atatürk airport.
It also billed it as an operation that would stem the flow of foreign fighters, who make up a significant contingent of Isis, to Syria, and the flight of refugees from the war-torn country.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Turkish tanks and members of the Free Syrian Army pass the Syrian border. Photograph: Sedat Suna/EPA
“The operation comes in response to terrorist attacks on Turkish soil and artillery fire by Daesh militants in Syria on targets inside Turkey,” the state-run Anadolu news agency said. “The operation is in line with the country’s rights to self-defence borne out of international treaties and a mandate given to the armed forces by the Turkish parliament.”
The interior minister, Efkan Ala, said the response was Turkey’s “most legitimate right” and that his country could not be a “mere spectator” amid the intensifying threat by Isis.
The airstrikes were the first by Turkey, a Nato member, in Syria since November, when its fighter jets shot down a Russian warplane that had strayed into Turkish airspace, leading to a collapse of relations with Moscow that lasted until a rapprochement in July. Last week, the Turkish prime minister, Binali Yıldırım, said his country would take a more “active” role in the war in Syria, which has driven more than 2 million refugees into Turkey.
The US vice-president, Joe Biden, was due to arrive in Ankara on Wednesday morning, hours after the launch of the operation. Relations between the two allies have been strained since an attempted coup last month that aimed to overthrow Erdoğan, who accuses a US-based cleric, Fethullah Gülen, of masterminding the plot and is seek ing his extradition.
Relations have also deteriorated over American backing of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), which has expanded its sphere of influence in northern Syria as it conquered vast tracks of land from Isis with the backing of American air power. Ankara considers the YPG as the Syrian arm of the Kurdistan Workers party (PKK), which is fighting an insurgency against the government and is a designated terrorist group, and considers Kurdish expansionism on its border a threat to national security.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest A Turkish armoured vehicle patrols near the Turkish-Syria border. Photograph: Sedat Suna/EPA
If rebel forces backed by Turkey take control of Jarablus, they would limit the westward expansion of the Kurdish autonomous zone, which Ankara also says poses a threat to Syria’s territorial integrity.
Turkey’s latest campaign is a development that underscores both the complexity and the stakes involved in Syria’s war, which has drawn in the region’s powers, laid much of the country to waste and forced a reshifting of longstanding alliances. While defeating Isis has long been the paramount American obsession in Syria, Turkey sees the departure of its president, Bashar al-Assad, as a necessary condition for peace talks, and rejects the idea of a Kurdish statelet on its borders.
• This article was amended on 25 August 2016. An earlier version of the caption on the third picture referred to “Turkish tanks”.
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– If you needed further proof of just how convoluted the situation in Syria is these days, look no further than Wednesday's visit by Joe Biden to Turkey. The main point of his trip didn't directly involve Syria—he was there to try to ease tensions with Ankara, which blames the US for playing a role in a failed coup attempt last month. But the visit coincided with a US-backed Turkish military offensive into Syria against the Islamic State, and that's where things get complicated. Coverage of the two developments: At a press conference, Biden insisted that the US "had no knowledge beforehand of what was to befall you on July 15,” referring to the coup attempt. "Turkey has the United States' unwavering support," he added. The Wall Street Journal. But that support does not involve quickly extraditing the man Turks blame for the coup, Fethullah Gulen, a cleric living in Pennsylvania. "We have no, no, no, no interest whatsoever in protecting anyone who has done harm to an ally, but we need to meet legal standard requirement under our law," said Biden, per USA Today. He urged patience; lawyers from the Justice Department are working with Turkish lawyers on the extradition request. Hours earlier, Turkish tanks rolled across the border into Syria in a bid to oust ISIS militants from the border town of Jarablus, a key site in that it's last big town held by ISIS on the Syria-Turkey border. The Guardian. US airstrikes backed the mission, given that the US and Turkey share the goal of defeating ISIS. But Turkey had a dual purpose: to knock back ISIS and Syrian Kurds who were threatening to take over the town. Those Kurds are US allies in the ISIS fight, but Turkey considers them a threat because a Kurd-controlled border town could inflame Turkey's own Kurdish population. The New York Times. In the end, Turkey-backed militants, not the Kurds, appeared to have taken control of the town, reports CNN. (Biden had publicly warned the Syrian Kurds to hold back or risk losing US support elsewhere, notes the Times.) Syria, meanwhile, is also fighting ISIS, but it objected to the invasion as a breach of its sovereignty. It views the Turkey-backed militants as terrorists as well. ArmenPress.am.
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Sallie Mae has long drawn the ire of student loan borrowers struggling to pay back their debt.
But as it turns out, they might have had a real reason to complain.
On Wednesday, the federal government and the Washington state Attorney General sued Navient, formerly part of Sallie Mae, for allegedly cheating borrowers out of their repayment rights. Another lawsuit filed by the Illinois Attorneys General named both Navient and Sallie Mae.
The two companies handle student loan payments from millions of borrowers.
"At every stage of repayment, Navient chose to shortcut and deceive consumers to save on operating costs," said Richard Cordray, the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which brought the federal suit.
Navient, which spun off from Sallie Mae in 2014, is currently the biggest student loan servicer in the country, handling more than 12 million accounts. About half of those borrowers have federal loans and the other half are private.
About one in four student loan borrowers have Navient as their loan servicer, according to the CFPB. That means Navient is where they're sending their monthly checks to pay off their loans.
The CFPB's allegations go back as far as 2010. It claims that Navient steered struggling borrowers toward paying more than they had to, and misallocated borrowers' payments when made across multiple loans, for example. It also alleges that in some cases, Navient erroneously reported borrowers had defaulted on their loans, damaging their credit score.
Related: Students are graduating with $30,000 in debt
In a statement, Navient said these allegations are unfounded and that "the timing of this lawsuit -- midnight action filed on the eve of a new administration -- reflects their political motivations."
"The suit improperly seeks to impose penalties on Navient based on new servicing standards applied retroactively and applied only against one servicer," the company said.
Navient is one of nine companies that are contracted by the government to service federal student loans.
The government also claims Navient (NAVI) made it harder for borrowers to enroll in an income-driven repayment plan, which can be used to lower their monthly payment if they're struggling to pay. The suit says that Navient instead encouraged borrowers to enter forbearance (temporarily stopping payments altogether) because it required less paperwork and fewer staff resources. Meanwhile, these borrowers racked up additional unpaid interest.
But Navient says that this assertion ignores the fact that almost half of the federal loans it services are enrolled in income-driven plans.
Related: Don't be fooled by student debt relief scams
The Attorneys General suits not only allege problems with the loan servicing, but also with loan origination, claiming that problems started as early as 2000.
Sallie Mae put student borrowers into "expensive subprime loans that it knew were going to fail," said Illinois AG Lisa Madigan.
She said her office reviewed thousands of consumer complaints and hundreds of phone calls.
The state lawsuits are seeking debt relief for those borrowers who took out these "subprime" loans. The states, and the CFPB, are also seeking money for borrowers who may have been hurt by the companies' servicing practices, as well as civil penalties.
Anyone who borrowed a private loan from Sallie Mae prior to 2010 or currently has their loan serviced by Navient could be impacted, said Washington AG Bob Ferguson.
Sallie Mae (SLM), which was named only in the Illinois suit, said on Wednesday that Navient would accept responsibility for all costs arising from this matter as per an earlier agreement. The two have operated as independent companies since 2014.
Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that Sallie Mae was also named in the Washington AG's lawsuit. ||||| Federal regulators have sued Navient, accusing the biggest U.S. student loan company of making it harder for borrowers to repay loans by giving them bad information, processing payments incorrectly and failing to act on complaints.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau filed the federal lawsuit against Navient Corp. and two subsidiaries on Wednesday, seeking restitution for affected borrowers and money penalties.
The agency said the company also cheated struggling borrowers out of their rights to lower their payments "through shortcuts and deception."
The company's illegal practices made it harder and more costly for some borrowers to repay their student loans, the agency said.
"For years, Navient failed consumers who counted on the company to help give them a fair chance to pay back their student loans," Cordray said in a statement. "At every stage of repayment, Navient chose to shortcut and deceive consumers to save on operating costs."
Among the allegations: that Navient failed to correctly apply borrowers' payments to their accounts; steered struggling borrowers into paying more than they had to; and hurt the credit of disabled borrowers, including injured veterans, by misreporting to the credit-reporting agencies the status of their loans.
In May 2015, the Justice Department announced that nearly 78,000 members of the U.S. military would be reimbursed under a $60 million consent decree with Navient, because they had been charged excess interest on student loans.
The CFPB said that since July 2011, when it began operations, tens of thousands of borrowers have filed complaints with Navient, the agency and other government agencies about the obstacles they faced in repaying federal and private student loans serviced by Navient.
Navient disputed the allegations, calling the suit a politically motivated "midnight action" two days before the Trump administration takes office.
"We will vigorously defend against these false allegations," the company said in a statement.
Navient, formerly part of Sallie Mae, manages and collects payments on more than $300 billion in federal and private-market student loans, according to the CFPB. The company services loans held by more than 12 million borrowers, including over 6 million loan accounts under its contract with the Education Department.
The New York Times pointed out that Navient does not make the loans.
Republicans have opposed the CFPB, which was created by the financial overhaul law enacted following the 2008 crisis. Some Republican lawmakers want President-elect Donald Trump to fire the agency's director, Richard Cordray, after he assumes office.
The consumer watchdog agency has been enmeshed in partisan politics since its creation in 2010. And in October, a federal appeals court ruled that its structure is unconstitutional because it gives too much power to a single agency director.
The court ruled that the way the CFPB is organized violates the Constitution's separation of powers by limiting the president's ability to remove the director.
Washington state and Illinois filed their own suits against Navient on Wednesday, lodging accusations of unfair and deceptive practices. The company also disputed the state actions.
Student loan debt became a leading issue in the presidential election campaign. Regulators across the government have been scrutinizing Navient and other major companies in the $1.2 trillion student debt market, such as Great Lakes, PHEAA and Nelnet.
Navient, based in Wilmington, Delaware, said the CFPB's suit "improperly seeks to impose penalties on Navient based on new (loan) servicing standards applied retroactively and applied only against one servicer."
Navient said the standards being applied by the CFPB don't track with the Education Department's regulations and that they will harm student loan borrowers and increase defaults.
The Associated Press contributed to this report ||||| WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is suing the nation’s largest servicer of both federal and private student loans for systematically and illegally failing borrowers at every stage of repayment. For years, Navient, formerly part of Sallie Mae, created obstacles to repayment by providing bad information, processing payments incorrectly, and failing to act when borrowers complained. Through shortcuts and deception, the company also illegally cheated many struggling borrowers out of their rights to lower repayments, which caused them to pay much more than they had to for their loans. The Bureau seeks to recover significant relief for the borrowers harmed by these illegal servicing failures.
"For years, Navient failed consumers who counted on the company to help give them a fair chance to pay back their student loans," said CFPB Director Richard Cordray. "At every stage of repayment, Navient chose to shortcut and deceive consumers to save on operating costs. Too many borrowers paid more for their loans because Navient illegally cheated them and today's action seeks to hold them accountable."
Formerly part of Sallie Mae, Inc., Navient is the largest student loan servicer in the United States. It services the loans of more than 12 million borrowers, including more than 6 million accounts under its contract with the Department of Education. Altogether, it services more than $300 billion in federal and private student loans. Named in today’s lawsuit are Navient Corporation and two of its subsidiaries: Navient Solutions is a division responsible for loan servicing operations; Pioneer Credit Recovery specializes in the collection of defaulted student loans.
Servicers are a critical link between borrowers and lenders. They manage borrowers’ accounts, process monthly payments, and communicate directly with borrowers. When facing unemployment or other financial hardship, borrowers rely on their student loan servicer to help them enroll in alternative repayment plans or request a modification of loan terms. A servicer is often different from the lender, and borrowers typically have no control over which company is assigned to service their loans.
Starting in 2009, the vast majority of federal student loan borrowers gained a right to make payments based on how much money they earn by enrolling in repayment arrangements known as income-driven repayment plans. These plans are part of the federal government’s effort to make student loans more affordable. For borrowers who meet certain income and family-size criteria, these plans can offer monthly payments as low as zero dollars. Another important benefit of income-driven repayment plans is that for the first three years after enrollment, many consumers are entitled to have the federal government pay part of the interest charges if they can’t keep up. All federal student loan borrowers enrolled in these plans may be eligible for loan forgiveness after 20 or 25 years of monthly payments.
In today’s action, the Bureau alleges that Navient has failed to provide the most basic functions of adequate student loan servicing at every stage of repayment for both private and federal loans. Navient provided bad information in writing and over the phone, processed payments incorrectly, and failed to act when borrowers complained about problems. Critically, it systematically made it harder for borrowers to obtain the important right to pay according to what they can afford. These illegal practices made paying back student loans more difficult and costly for certain borrowers. Specifically, among the allegations in today’s lawsuit, the Bureau charges that Navient:
Fails to correctly apply or allocate borrower payments to their accounts: As soon as a borrower begins to pay back their loans, student loan servicers are supposed to take a borrower’s payment and follow instructions from the borrower about how to apply it across their multiple loans. Navient repeatedly misapplies or misallocates payments — often making the same error multiple times over many months. The company all too often fails to correct its errors unless a consumer discovers the problem and contacts the company.
As soon as a borrower begins to pay back their loans, student loan servicers are supposed to take a borrower’s payment and follow instructions from the borrower about how to apply it across their multiple loans. Navient repeatedly misapplies or misallocates payments — often making the same error multiple times over many months. The company all too often fails to correct its errors unless a consumer discovers the problem and contacts the company. Steers struggling borrowers toward paying more than they have to on loans: When borrowers run into trouble repaying their federal student loans, they have a right under federal law to apply for repayment plans that allow for a lower monthly payment. But the Bureau believes that Navient steers many borrowers into forbearance, an option designed to let borrowers take a short break from making payments. But interest continues to add up during forbearance. Certain consumers with subsidized loans end up paying a heavy price because they could have potentially avoided those interest charges. From January 2010 to March 2015, the company added up to $4 billion in interest charges to the principal balances of borrowers who were enrolled in multiple, consecutive forbearances. The Bureau believes that a large portion of these charges could have been avoided had Navient followed the law.
When borrowers run into trouble repaying their federal student loans, they have a right under federal law to apply for repayment plans that allow for a lower monthly payment. But the Bureau believes that Navient steers many borrowers into forbearance, an option designed to let borrowers take a short break from making payments. But interest continues to add up during forbearance. Certain consumers with subsidized loans end up paying a heavy price because they could have potentially avoided those interest charges. From January 2010 to March 2015, the company added up to $4 billion in interest charges to the principal balances of borrowers who were enrolled in multiple, consecutive forbearances. The Bureau believes that a large portion of these charges could have been avoided had Navient followed the law. Obscured information consumers needed to maintain their lower payments: Borrowers who successfully enroll in an income-driven repayment plan need to recertify their income and family size annually. But Navient’s emails and annual renewal notice sent to borrowers failed to adequately inform them of critical deadlines or the consequences if they failed to act. Navient also obscured its renewal notices in emails sent to borrowers that did not adequately alert them about the need to renew. Many borrowers did not renew their enrollment on time and they lost their affordable monthly payments, which could have caused their monthly payments to jump by hundreds or even thousands of dollars. When that happens, accrued interest is added to the borrower’s principal balance, and these borrowers may have lost other protections, including interest subsidies and progress toward loan forgiveness.
Borrowers who successfully enroll in an income-driven repayment plan need to recertify their income and family size annually. But Navient’s emails and annual renewal notice sent to borrowers failed to adequately inform them of critical deadlines or the consequences if they failed to act. Navient also obscured its renewal notices in emails sent to borrowers that did not adequately alert them about the need to renew. Many borrowers did not renew their enrollment on time and they lost their affordable monthly payments, which could have caused their monthly payments to jump by hundreds or even thousands of dollars. When that happens, accrued interest is added to the borrower’s principal balance, and these borrowers may have lost other protections, including interest subsidies and progress toward loan forgiveness. Deceived private student loan borrowers about requirements to release their co-signer from the loan: Navient told borrowers that they could apply for co-signer release if they made a certain number of consecutive, on-time payments. Even though it permits borrowers to prepay monthly installments in advance and tells customers who do prepay that they can skip upcoming payments, when borrowers did so, Navient reset the counter on the number of consecutive payments they made to zero. So borrowers who tried to get ahead of their loans and prepay would have been denied co-signer release and had to start over.
Navient told borrowers that they could apply for co-signer release if they made a certain number of consecutive, on-time payments. Even though it permits borrowers to prepay monthly installments in advance and tells customers who do prepay that they can skip upcoming payments, when borrowers did so, Navient reset the counter on the number of consecutive payments they made to zero. So borrowers who tried to get ahead of their loans and prepay would have been denied co-signer release and had to start over. Harmed the credit of disabled borrowers, including severely injured veterans: Student loan payments are reported to credit reporting companies. Severely and permanently disabled borrowers with federal student loans, including veterans whose disability is connected to their military service, have a right to seek loan forgiveness under the federal Total and Permanent Disability discharge program. Navient misreported to the credit reporting companies that borrowers who had their loans discharged under this program had defaulted on their loans when they had not. This potentially caused damage to their credit reports.
The Bureau also alleges that Navient, through its subsidiary Pioneer, made illegal misrepresentations relating to the federal loan rehabilitation program available to defaulted borrowers. Pioneer misrepresented the effect of completing the federal loan rehabilitation program by falsely stating or implying that doing so would remove all adverse information about the defaulted loan from the borrower’s credit report. Pioneer also misrepresented the collection fees that would be forgiven upon completion of the program.
Today’s lawsuit alleges that Navient has been in violation of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, the Fair Credit Reporting Act, and the Fair Debt Collections Practices Act. The suit seeks redress for consumers harmed by Navient’s illegal practices. The CFPB is also seeking to keep Navient from continuing the illegal conduct described in the complaint, and to prevent new borrowers from being harmed.
The complaint against Navient Corporation, Navient Solutions, and Pioneer Credit Recovery is available at: http://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/documents/201701_cfpb_Navient-Pioneer-Credit-Recovery-complaint.pdf
This action comes as the Bureau takes steps to ensure that all student loan borrowers have access to adequate student loan servicing. In 2015, the Bureau released a report outlining widespread servicing failures reported by both federal and private student loan borrowers and also published a framework for student loan servicing reforms. As part of this work, the Bureau has continually raised concerns around illegal student loan servicing practices. The Bureau has called for market-wide reforms and prioritized taking action against companies that engage in illegal servicing practices.
Student loans make up the nation’s second largest consumer debt market. Today there are more than 44 million federal and private student loan borrowers and collectively these consumers owe roughly $1.4 trillion. In a study last year, the CFPB found that more than 8 million borrowers are in default on more than $130 billion in student loans, a problem that may be driven by breakdowns in student loan servicing. Students and their families can find help on how to tackle their student debt on the CFPB’s website. Student loan borrowers experiencing problems related to repaying student loans or debt collection can also submit a complaint to the CFPB.
More information is available at consumerfinance.gov/students.
The Bureau’s complaint is not a finding or ruling that the defendant has actually violated the law.
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The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is a 21st century agency that helps consumer finance markets work by making rules more effective, by consistently and fairly enforcing those rules, and by empowering consumers to take more control over their economic lives. For more information, visit consumerfinance.gov.
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– Nearly 25% of those who've borrowed money for school deal with Navient, the nation's largest servicer of both private and federal loans, and now two lawsuits against the company claim those 12 million or so borrowers have been cheated, the New York Times reports. Damages sought by the suits—filed separately by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the state attorneys general of Illinois and Washington, who also sued Sallie Mae, per CNNMoney—could amount to billions of dollars and affect every customer, says Illinois AG Lisa Madigan. Allegations against the company, which doesn't actually make the loans but collects the payments on them for various banks and other lenders, include mismanaged loan payments, a lack of full transparency in loan documents, and other errors and mishandlings that may have illegally increased loan repayments. The CFPB says the company, which used to be part of Sallie Mae until 2014, "chose to shortcut and deceive consumers" to save money, including by purposely driving consumers away from income-based repayment plans that would be better for them but not as profitable for Navient. Another group the CFPB says Navient took advantage of: injured military veterans, whose credit reports were said to be damaged by misreported defaults. The bureau says tens of thousands of consumers have filed complaints against Navient since the CFPB began in 2011, per Fox News. Navient is crying partisan foul, claiming the move is a "midnight action filed on the eve of a new administration." Republicans have long gone after the CFPB, as well as the bank-regulating Dodd-Frank Act that created it. Navient defends itself in a statement on StreetInsider.com. (How unpaid student debt affects seniors.)
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Andy Weinberg’s feet looked like they were dunked in lava. His toes were ashen black and blue with frostbite. The pictures of his feet on his phone didn’t seem real. But with Weinberg, one of the founders of the Endurance Society and former co-founder and partner in the Spartan empire, this wasn’t a joke. An injury like that was bound to happen. What’s remarkable is it took this long.
Weinberg got frostbite during a weekend in the Adirondack Mountains with a crew of 15 people he led on a 48-hour hike through snow- and ice-covered trails in sub-zero temperatures for fun. It was the Endurance Society’s annual Extremus event, a weekend-long hike in the middle of the winter over some of the Northeast’s toughest and tallest peaks.
The Extremus event. Andy Weinberg
At one point during this year’s version, Weinberg had to stand out in the open, no longer under the cover of trees that blocked the life-threatening wind chill, and directed people over cliffs along the Great Range. The team hiked 20-plus miles over eight peaks. It was one of the coldest weekends of the year and, according to Weinberg, no one except him and a friend, also named Andy, got injured. The frostbite looked horrible, but Weinberg laughed it off when he showed me the photos. He gets to keep his toes and the experience was worth the pain and injury, even if his wife Sloan, and people like me, don’t understand it.
“I was stuck out there,” Weinberg says. “[Sloan] doesn’t understand the whole backstory or why you'd risk these things. We were very prepared. I didn't plan on getting frostbite; shit happens.”
Weinberg’s frostbitten toes. Andy Weinberg
Weinberg grew up an adrenaline junkie. Raised in Peoria, Illinois, he’d ride his bike as far from home as he could and test the limits of his ability to get back in time. He’s ridden on a solo bike ride from Illinois to Vermont and has hiked countless mountains, favoring more hostile winter conditions.
“I don't surf the big waves, but I get it. I understand why those guys do it,” Weinberg says. “I don't ride a motorcycle around a track, but I totally understand that adrenaline junkie has that fix. Mine is more of an endurance and adventure fix.”
"I didn't plan on getting frostbite; shit happens."
Growing up, Weinberg struggled with attention deficit disorder (ADD). To combat his energy, his mother signed him up for swimming. The pool — the exercise and the routine of training — kept him focused, for the most part. He joined a club team and earned a college scholarship to Missouri State University in southwest Missouri. There, Weinberg met Sloan and started hiking the Ozark Mountains instead of going home during school breaks. The wilderness and the exercise had the same effect as swimming.
After college, Weinberg moved to his hometown and became a high school gym teacher and swim coach. He started racing in Iron Man and other endurance events. Weinberg eventually got tired of traveling to bigger cities and out of state to race, so he started his own in central Illinois. His first race as organizer was the McNaughton 50 mile run in Pekin, Illinois. That seemed fine, if not repetitive, until he met Joe De Sena.
Andy Weinberg. Andy Weinberg
The pair met at a race and discussed how endurance races were predictable. The limits and distances were set, and the only thing that changed was the scenery. They devised the famed Death Race, which challenged racers mentally as much as it did physically. No one knew when the race was over, or what was coming next. You might have to find your clothes in a snowbank after a bikram yoga session or solve a puzzle or work with your fellow racers to build a set of stairs up a mountain.
The Death Race morphed into the Spartan obstacle race empire. In 2007, Weinberg took a job coaching swim at Middlebury College and uprooted his family to Pittsfield, Vermont, where De Sena lived, and where they planned to host the Death Race (the rest of the family moved to Vermont officially in 2008). Before moving, Weinberg decided to ride his bike from Peoria to Middlebury, with a detour through Canada and the Adirondack Mountains for an extra challenge.
Weinberg and his family. Andy Weinberg
“We were having a barbecue at our house with a bunch of friends — drinking, hanging out — and they go, ‘Are you stupid? You can't ride to Vermont.’ So there was this doubt in this room and I thought, I can. I ride my bike all the time anyway,” Weinberg says. “I had just finished training for a double Iron Man, you know the Iron Man triathlon, I had just done a double Ironman, so I was in pretty good shape.”
Weinberg made it to Vermont in eight days. He spent a few nights sleeping on the side of the road and was nearly arrested in upstate New York. He cried riding up the Adirondacks, the weight of his bike and the sudden drop in productivity causing him to rethink his plan. In the end, he made it to Vermont with time to spare and a story to tell.
Weinberg and his family. Andy Weinberg
Weinberg and DeSena’s relationship eventually disintegrated, and Weinberg left Spartan after a lengthy legal battle. After, Weinberg and his friend Jack Carey, whom he met through the Death Race, started the Endurance Society with the hope of creating more intimate and challenging events. Their first event was a hike over two of Vermont’s tallest peaks, Mount Mansfield and Camel’s Hump. The weather was brutal and the hike was called off after 36 hours, miles short of their final destination. It didn’t deter the pair. Instead, they created more elaborate events: a series of snowshoe races; a ski race up a mountain; and the ultra-secretive and private Sine Nomine event, where participants are sworn to secrecy and nothing save mandatory gear, food, and drinks are allowed.
The Endurance Society has grown in the four years since it launched, bringing on corporate sponsorships like Gatorade and Rockstar Energy Drinks. Weinberg, who now teaches at Castleton College and lives under the shadow of Killington Mountain, is at a crossroads. He has a burgeoning company that keeps him busy with logistics, safety, marketing, and running events across Vermont and into Canada (Carey is no longer involved). He's also teaching, volunteering with the Special Olympics, and raising two daughters, Grace and Jade, with his wife. Weinberg knows there’s more potential for the Endurance Society, but he fears the corporate element creeping in. He saw how Spartan went from a small, friends-and-family-oriented company to a global juggernaut with investors and a network television show.
Weiberg snowshoeing. Andy Weinberg
Weinberg stood in the living room of his new home in Mendon, Vermont, and tells me to look out the large windows towards one of Vermont’s many beautiful mountain ranges. A few year ago, this spot was nothing but trees. There wasn’t a road, never mind a house. He did this with Sloan, and now he’s doing it with me now. He saw something here, a vision of a future.
In October, the house was finished. It’s powered by solar power and heated almost entirely by wood in the stove that Weinberg and a friend installed in the living room. But, like anything with Weinberg, a challenge was involved. The difficulties of building a home on an uninhabited side of a mountain wasn’t enough. No, he felt compelled to chop and split the more than 15 cords of hardwood logs left behind after construction finished. He needed to finish before winter, something the contractors told him couldn’t be done. So, he spent days and nights, sometimes with the help of friends, splitting wood, one log at a time until he’d done the impossible. ||||| "Spartan athletes are among the most skilled on the planet, and the sport of OCR continues to grow, so it's only natural we would find a home with ESPN, the leader in sports entertainment," said Spartan founder and CEO Joe De Sena. "'Spartan: The Championship Series' will introduce Spartan to ESPN's passionate audience of sports fans who will be drawn to the intense drama that unfolds on the race course as competitors push their minds and bodies to the limit."
The five-episode series will showcase Spartan's most demanding events including the North American Championship presented by Yokohama; The Mountain Series presented by U.S. Airforce in Killington, Vt. and Vernon N.J.; the inaugural Para-Spartan adaptive race hosted in Laughlin, Nev.; and the World Championship and Team World Championship Powered by Rakuten, hosted in North Lake Tahoe on the rugged mountains of Squaw Valley | Alpine Meadows - home of the 1960 Winter Olympics.
In addition to the race action, episodes provide an in-depth look at the athletes who have shaped the sport of OCR with behind-the-scenes footage and interviews. Feature content will include profiles of Spartan's elite female competitors, adaptive athletes and World Championship contenders. The series will also cover the origin story of Spartan, which has attracted more than 5 million competitors to-date.
Spartan events focus on sport and athleticism, pushing the bodies and minds of competitors to the limit across miles of unforgiving terrain while they conquer signature obstacles such as the Spear Throw, Inverted Wall, Monkey Bars and Barbed Wire Crawl. The unique action and growing popularity of OCR has recently garnered global attention that has spurred talk of the sport reaching the Olympic stage in the coming years.
For more information about Spartan: The Championship Series, visit Spartan.com.
ABOUT SPARTAN
With more than 200 events across more than 40 countries on six continents, Spartan is the world's largest obstacle race (OCR) and endurance brand. Providing transformation through sport, Spartan attracts more than one million annual participants across all fitness levels, from beginners to elite. More than five million participants have finished Spartan events, creating a lifestyle that extends beyond races including health and wellness products, training and nutrition programs, and popular media content, which has made OCR one of the fastest growing sports in the world. Spartan's Global Championship series feature three race formats including the 3+Mile/20+ Obstacle "Sprint," 8+ Mile/25+ Obstacle "Super" and 12+ Mile/30+ Obstacle "Beast," which lead to the Spartan World Championship powered by Rakuten in North Lake Tahoe, CA. Visit spartan.com for more information and registration.
SOURCE Spartan
Related Links
https://www.spartan.com/en
|
– More than 1 million people clamor their way through a Spartan obstacle race each year. Andy Weinberg has moved on to a more extreme kind of challenge. He's the co-founder of Spartan but no longer a part of it following a legal battle between him and co-founder Joe De Sena. What drives a man to create the "world's largest endurance brand"? And what does he do next? Kevin Koczwara answers those questions in a Men's Health profile. He recounts how a young Weinberg battled ADD by swimming, a practice that ultimately landed him a scholarship to Missouri State University. After college, he grew weary of the travel involved in trekking to Iron Man and other races, so he launched his own in central Illinois. He met De Sena, and the two were of the same mind: Endurance races were light on surprises. So the two came up with the Death Race, which was the polar opposite. "You might have to find your clothes in a snowbank after a bikram yoga session ... or work with your fellow racers to build a set of stairs up a mountain," writes Koczwara. That evolved into the Spartan brand, and after Weinberg split from it, he created the now-4-year-old and even more challenging Endurance Society. The events are in some cases secretive and in most cases not for the faint of heart. Witness Koczwara's opening anecdote of seeing almost unbelievable photos of Weinberg's frostbitten toes (which "looked like they were dunked in lava"), the result of a 48-hour subzero 20-plus-mile hike over eight Adirondack peaks. Read the full story here.
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Image copyright Reuters Image caption People listening to the speech held up portraits of Mr Trump (centre right) and Polish President Andrzej Duda
US President Donald Trump has argued that the future of Western civilisation is at stake in a keynote speech in the Polish capital Warsaw.
Holding up Poland as an example of a country ready to defend Western freedoms, he warned against the threats of "terrorism and extremism".
Criticising Russia, Mr Trump urged Moscow to "join the community of responsible nations".
Mr Trump is in Poland ahead of a G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany.
In Warsaw, he addressed a large, cheering crowd from the monument to the 1944 Uprising in the city, on Krasinski Square.
Poland's conservative government shares Mr Trump's hostile view of immigration and strong sense of sovereignty.
What did Trump say exactly?
"As the Polish experience reminds us, the defence of the West ultimately rests not only on means but also on the will of its people to prevail," Mr Trump said.
"The fundamental question of our time is whether the West has the will to survive."
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption President Trump said North Korea faced consequences for its "very, very bad behaviour"
He called on Russia to "cease its destabilising activities in Ukraine and elsewhere and its support for hostile regimes including Syria and Iran".
Instead, he said, Russia should "join the community of responsible nations in our fight against common enemies and in defence of civilisation itself".
The US leader is to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin for the first time in Hamburg.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the Russian presidency did not accept that Russia had been destabilising the region.
"This is exactly why we are waiting for the first meeting of the two presidents," he added.
Giving a news conference hours before the speech, Mr Trump:
called on countries to demonstrate to North Korea that there were consequences for its "very bad behaviour" and said "something will have to be done about it"
said America's "strong alliance with Poland and Nato" remained "critical to deterring conflict"
said in reference to Syria that "any nation which values human life can never tolerate the use of chemical weapons"
said CNN had taken "too seriously" a mock video he tweeted in which he wrestles a person with the broadcaster's logo for a head
American gas for Europe?
Mr Trump also said talks he had attended in Warsaw of 12 nations with interests in the Baltic, the Adriatic and the Black Sea - the "Three Seas" summit - had been "incredibly successful".
The Polish government is trying to become less energy-dependent on Russia, and last month the first ever US liquefied natural gas (LNG) shipment arrived.
Commending American LNG, Mr Trump told the news conference: "You can never be held hostage to a single supplier."
Image copyright Reuters Image caption The first US shipment of liquefied natural gas arrived in Poland in June
A global glut in supply, however, has depressed prices and made it difficult for LNG exporters to turn a profit, Adam Sieminski, an energy analyst with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, was quoted as saying by Reuters news agency.
Warsaw and three Baltic states have spoken against the construction of an offshore Russian gas pipeline to Germany, known as Nord Stream 2.
Why did Trump single out Poland?
US leaders are almost always guaranteed a warm welcome in Poland, which will contrast with the protests being planned for the G20 summit in Hamburg.
Mr Trump talked of "the triumph of the Polish spirit over centuries of hardship" as an inspiration "for a future in which good conquers evil, and peace achieves victory over war".
Image copyright EPA Image caption Melania Trump (L) was entertained by Polish First Lady Agata Kornauser-Duda
Sandwiched between Germany and Russia, Poland suffered centuries of partition and occupation and emerged from the Cold War a staunch ally of America, ready to commit troops to the US-led coalitions in Iraq and Afghanistan.
By choosing to speak at the monument to the Warsaw Uprising, which was a desperate action ultimately crushed by the Nazis, Mr Trump appealed to fierce national pride.
Poland's current government has been at odds with some other EU states over its refusal to accept refugees under a 2015 solidarity plan.
Mr Trump's visit is seen as mutually beneficial by both Mr Trump and the Polish government, the BBC's Adam Easton reports from Warsaw.
Image copyright Reuters Image caption Greenpeace activists illuminate the Palace of Culture and Science with words "No Trump Yes Paris"
However, the Polish branch of Greenpeace is using Mr Trump's visit to Warsaw to protest against his decision to pull the US out of the Paris climate agreement.
The words "No Trump Yes Paris" were projected in huge green letters on the city's Palace of Culture and Science on Wednesday.
Will the G20 go smoothly?
Later on Thursday, the US leader will travel to Hamburg for what could be a potentially fractious summit.
Image copyright AFP Image caption UK Prime Minister Theresa May and US President Donald Trump were being mocked by anti-capitalist protesters in Hamburg on Thursday
He has fallen out with some EU nations over climate change and trade. UK Prime Minister Theresa May will challenge him over climate change, saying an international agreement on the issue should not be renegotiated.
Aid organisations are expected to hold demonstrations in Hamburg urging the heads of government to do more to tackle inequality.
"It's important because you have the biggest meeting of all of the leading rulers of the main countries in the world - the G20 - and I don't like some of the politics that they're doing, especially that of [Recep Tayyip] Erdogan, of Putin and of Trump," one protester told the BBC.
Image copyright Reuters Image caption "No G20": Demonstrators arrive by train in Hamburg on Thursday
Security in Hamburg has been tightened, with police warning of potentially violent clashes. They have already confiscated a number of homemade weapons.
Which trade deal does not involve Trump?
EU leaders signed an agreement in principle with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Brussels on Thursday for a landmark free trade deal.
It is estimated that 99% of trade between Japan and the EU will be liberalised, while an accompanying strategic partnership deal will see them co-operate in other areas, from climate change to tackling terrorism.
Both want to show they are committed to a world order built on open trade and international co-operation, in contrast to Mr Trump's America that is turning inward, BBC Europe correspondent Damian Grammaticas reports.
EU-Japan trade talks had stalled after four years but when Mr Trump took office and scrapped his own possible Pacific trade partnership this year, it spurred them into action, and they resolved most of their differences in a matter of weeks. ||||| U.S. President Donald Trump is greeted by Polish President Andrzej Duda as he visits Poland during the Three Seas Initiative Summit in Warsaw, Poland July 6, 2017. REUTERS/Carlos Barria
WARSAW (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday is slated to condemn “the steady creep of government bureaucracy” and praise the sovereignty of nations in a speech taking veiled at the European Union, according to excerpts released by the White House.
“The West became great not because of paperwork and regulations but because people were allowed to chase their dreams and pursue their destinies,” he will say later on Thursday in Warsaw, according to the White House.
“We must work together to counter forces, whether they come from inside or out, from the South or the East, that threaten over time to undermine these values and to erase the bonds of culture, faith and tradition that make us who we are,” Trump will say.
“The fundamental question of our time is whether the West has the will to survive.”
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– President Trump is in Poland, where he gave his first press conference of the trip Thursday alongside Polish President Andrzej Duda, covering a wide range of topics including natural gas, Russian election meddling, North Korea—and "fake news." Asked about interference in the 2016 election, Trump declined to give a yes-or-no answer on whether he thought other countries were involved, reports the New York Times. "I think it was Russia, and it could have been other people in other countries," he said. "Nobody really knows," he added, noting that US intelligence agencies have been wrong before, including before the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Speaking at Warsaw Castle, Trump also said North Korea will face consequences for its "very bad behavior," the BBC reports. "I have some pretty severe things that we're thinking about," he said. He also praised the strong alliance between the US and Poland. Duda, who has had his own problems with the media, nodded as Trump denounced "fake news" in response to a question about CNN. "NBC is nearly as bad, despite the fact that I made them a lot of money on The Apprentice," Trump said. Reuters reports that Trump is due to deliver a speech in Warsaw later Thursday in which he will condemn "the steady creep of government bureaucracy," according to excerpts released by the White House.
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Larry Nassar's defense attorney, Shannon Smith, expresses doubts about the number of women who have claimed they were victimized by Nassar. (3:40)
The defense attorney for convicted sexual predator Larry Nassar said she does not believe her client was capable of sexually assaulting the number of women who have accused him of doing so.
In an interview with WWJ Newsradio on Thursday morning, Shannon Smith said "there is a huge part of me that does not believe that every one of those girls was victimized by him.
"I believe that what happened, while there may be some that were victimized -- and certainly [as] a part of the plea agreement -- there are others who have come to believe they were victimized because of the way the case spun, in a way, out of control."
Smith clarified in a follow-up phone call with ESPN that she was not denying that Nassar is guilty of assaulting some women, but that the number who have come forward is "really extreme."
Shannon Smith says she doesn't believe Larry Nassar is capable of assaulting all of the girls and young women who have accused him of doing so. Jeff Kowalsky/AFP/Getty Images
"There was no way there could have been so much," she said. "Larry would have to have been doing this all day, every day, with no one catching on. This is a guy who put child pornography in a trash can. He's not a savvy guy."
Judge Janice Cunningham started Friday's hearing by addressing Smith's comments. Cunningham said it was unfortunate that Smith made those comments during the course of the sentencing hearing. She said Nassar "disavowed" Smith's comments, and that those comments weren't relevant to the hearing.
"What is relevant is for the court to hear each individual story," Cunningham said. "... I believe what each individual has and will tell me. It is their individual stories that are relevant to the proceedings."
Nassar, a former Michigan State University sports doctor and USA Gymnastics medical coordinator, pleaded guilty to 10 counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct in November. The Michigan attorney general's office said Wednesday that 256 girls and young women (the number had appeared incorrectly in earlier reports as 265) have filed complaints to law enforcement saying that Nassar assaulted them. More than half of those complaints have come since Nassar's guilty plea, as awareness about the case has grown.
In a statement released Thursday afternoon, Nassar said he wasn't aware Smith was going to make these statements and he didn't authorize them.
"During a visit today with one of my lawyers, I was informed of multiple news articles that attributed quotes to Shannon Smith about her personal feelings regarding my cases. I was not aware that these statements were going to be made nor did I authorize them. As I have repeatedly said under oath, the plea agreements are accurate and I have, through my lawyers, asked that the court follow them. I have heard each and every impact statement made by the victims in my cases.
"Their words have been meaningful, they have pierced my soul and I will carry their words with me for the rest of my life. I am sorry about this distraction at a time when the attention should be on the statements of these victims," he said.
Some of the women who have provided statements say they believe the total number of girls and women who were abused by Nassar could actually be much higher that 256. Accusations against Nassar begin in the early 1990s and the in-demand doctor saw patients after regular business hours in several locations, including his office, local gymnasiums and in the basement of his home with nearly no interruptions for nearly a quarter century.
Former gymnast Madison Bonofiglio told the court Wednesday that she knows of "at least 10" other friends who have chosen not to file reports despite being abused by Nassar. She said some decided it wasn't a good time for them to do so, and others "didn't think it had happened to them enough."
"It really makes me sad that some of my best friends think that because they were only assaulted by Larry five or 10 times that wasn't enough to matter," Bonofiglio said. "I think this really matters."
Nassar was sentenced to up to 175 years in state prison for seven of those 10 counts last week. He was also sentenced in December to 60 years in federal prison on child pornography charges. Police searched Nassar's home in 2016 and discovered hard drives in his curbside trash cans that contained more than 37,000 illegal images.
Many of the women who provided impact statements during Nassar's sentencing hearings have said that they didn't realize what Nassar was doing to them was sexual in nature until they learned about his child pornography stash. Several others have said they dealt with depression, post-traumatic stress disorder or other health issues for years before realizing that their appointments with Nassar were the source of those problems when they read or heard media reports about his criminal case in the past year and a half.
Smith said she believes that many of Nassar's former patients received legitimate medical treatments that included the since-decertified doctor using his hands to manipulate sensitive areas of their bodies.
"I think Larry Nassar comes off as a really great person. There is no doubt he did a lot of good for a lot of his patients," she told WWJ.
The women who say they were assaulted by Nassar cite the fact that he did not wear gloves, didn't allow other trained doctors in the room during these treatments and did not explain what he was doing as evidence that Nassar was touching them for his own sexual gratification and not in an attempt to heal. Smith called these decisions "poor judgment" by Nassar but said she doesn't believe that they indicate sexual motives.
"They may not have been as sinister as some people believe them to be," Smith told ESPN.
Despite his guilty plea, Nassar said in a letter he wrote to Judge Rosemarie Aquilina during his sentencing hearing in Ingham County earlier this month that he believes he was "a good doctor" and what he was doing was a legitimate medical procedure.
The six-page, handwritten letter was not released to the public, but Aquilina read parts of it before sentencing Nassar. In the letter, he told the judge that media reports had sensationalized his case. He said he was not sure that he was mentally equipped to sit through what ended up being seven days of victim impact statements.
Smith told ESPN that she and her co-counsel, Matthew Newburg, were not aware that Nassar was writing that letter before he sent it to the judge.
"That was a surprise to me," Smith said. "It was as much of a surprise for us as everyone else. He wrote it at a time when he was feeling particularly bad. I'm not sure that he was writing it to really profess his innocence or just to say how bad he was feeling."
Smith did not attend the final days of Nassar's hearing in Ingham County for medical reasons. She also does not plan to attend any of her client's sentencing hearing in nearby Eaton County, which started Wednesday and will likely continue until early next week.
Smith told WWJ that she imagines there will be appeals filed in Nassar's case, but she and Newburg do not intend to represent Nassar in those appeals. ||||| DETROIT (WWJ) – One of the defense attorneys for Larry Nassar is questioning whether some of the 265 women who say they were molested by the former sports doctor were actually assaulted.
Speaking exclusively to WWJ Newsradio 950, Attorney Shannon Smith said a “huge part” of her does not believe all the women and girls who have come forward were abused by Nassar.
“There were girls who had perfectly normal lives that never questioned the medical treatment done by Larry Nassar — and there is a legitimate medical treatment that involves touching sensitive areas and even penetrations,” Smith told WWJ Legal Analyst Charlie Langton. “Some of those girls, to be quite frank, they didn’t even know what to think because they never felt victimized. He was never inappropriate to them. And because of everything they’ve seen, they just feel like they must have been victimized. And I think that’s really unfortunate.”
Smith, who has been with Nassar since the beginning, believes some accusers were influenced by the way the case “spun out of control” in the media. During some statements, which were televised and widely broadcast online, victims discussed the psychological scars from Nassar’s abuse — depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts, trouble being around male teachers and other men and fractured relationships with family.
“I have a very hard time believing that my client could have even possibly assaulted that many people day in and day out in front of their parents, and that every single one of those things was a crime, but he was such a manipulator he got away with it. I just can’t imagine that’s true,” she said. “As much as they were allowed to speak at sentencing, and that was something we agreed to, even during the sentencing, more and more people were coming forward thinking ‘I was fine my whole life and now all of a sudden I have realized I was a survivor.’ I think that’s really sad.”
Nassar, 54, worked at Michigan State University and USA Gymnastics, the governing body that also trains Olympians. He was sentenced last week to 40 to 175 years in prison following a seven-day hearing where more than 150 victim impact statements were given. He was also sentenced in December to 60 years in federal prison for possessing thousands of images of child pornography. Right now, he’s in the midst of a third sentencing hearing for molesting three gymnasts at an elite club run by an Olympic coach.
Despite pleading guilty to assaulting girls and women under the guise of medical treatment — penetrating them with his ungloved hands when he was supposed to be treating them for injuries — Nassar is still a good person in Smith’s eyes.
“I think Larry Nassar comes off as a really great person. There is no doubt he did a lot of good for a lot of his patients,” she said. “While people are criticizing the techniques he used, there is undeniably proof that those techniques would take a girl who came into his office unable to walk and fix her in a way that she was able to compete the next day. So, I see good in Larry Nassar.”
Although she believes Nassar was performing legitimate medical treatments, Smith said it was ultimately Nassar’s decision to accept a plea agreement.
“We had some issues in the case,” she said. “And there was also a lot of child pornography that could not be refuted. There’s facts and information that I would never share with the public, nor could I share with the public, and so at the end of the day it was really his decision.”
Smith said it was not only easy for her to represent Nassar, but an important duty as an American citizen.
“My job is absolutely not to question my clients’ behaviors or things that have happened. My job is to make sure the process is fair and to make sure they’re getting a defense. Everyone is entitled to a defense under the constitution,” she said. “I have no problem representing somebody like Larry Nassar. I actually feel like I get energized from the fact that other people don’t understand and don’t appreciate what our constitution is about.”
Smith has actually received multiple death threats, with an untold number of ugly phone calls and hate mail by the bushel. She understands the resentment, given the heinous crimes, but she’s only doing her job to provide legal representation.
“At first I’m terrified but then when I realize the people are actually far away, it’s very obvious they have no education and I can’t imaging the resources to come to Michigan to get me, but it’s certainly been scary,” she said. “I look into each one and I have taken some of them over to police.”
It’s easy for the public to judge Nassar and how they handled the case, Smith said, but those opinions mean nothing to her.
“When you are not a lawyer on the case seeing the evidence, it’s really easy to Monday morning quarterback,” she said. “When I see the opinions coming in on Nassar’s criminal case, I almost laugh sometimes and wonder if they were in the same courtroom as me. And it’s because there is so much evidence that the general public does not have access to.”
At the end of the day, Smith said the case should serve as an important warning for doctors to think seriously about protecting themselves, because they could one day be in Nassar’s shoes.
“All doctors, while it is not illegal to see a patient without a chaperone in the room, should have a chaperone in the room. I have learned that while it is not illegal to touch someone with an ungloved hand, patients expect gloves and if you’re not going to use gloves you need to explain that,” she said. “I would encourage them to write the techniques down on paper and have clients sign explicit forms that they were advised of what the treatment would be like, they were advised of how they would be touched and that they understood it and consented to it. … By doing that, I believe it would protect patients from being victimized and also protect doctors from false allegations.” ||||| Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings.
/ Updated By Tracy Connor
Disgraced gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar is disavowing comments from one of his attorneys, who said "a huge part" of her does not believe everyone who testified against him was molested.
In an interview with a Detroit radio station that is sure to stir outrage, defense attorney Shannon Smith suggested that some of 150-plus girls and women who gave impact statements against Nassar actually received legitimate medical treatment.
"There is a huge part of me that does not believe that every one of those girls was victimized by him," Smith told WWJ950 radio.
"While there may be some that were victimized ... there are others that have come to believe they were victimized because of the way the case, in a way, spun out of control," she added.
Her comments are already drawing ire from some of Nassar's accusers and their attorney, John Manly, who told NBC News that Smith "is a vile human being for saying that."
And even Nassar himself distanced himself, saying he did not authorize them, stands by his guilty pleas and has been deeply affected by the victim statements.
"I have heard each and every impact statement made by the victims in my cases," he said in a statement released by another attorney. "Their words have been meaningful, they have pierced my soul and I will carry their words with me for the rest of my life. I am sorry about this distraction at a time when the attention should be on the statements of these victims."
After Nassar was first publicly accused of penetrating female patients with ungloved hands, his attorneys said it was part of a recognized medical technique used by osteopathic physicians. Many who knew him as a respected sports medicine specialist at Michigan State University and the team doctor for USA Gymnastics defended him.
Then the FBI found child pornography — tens of thousands of images — on computers Nassar tried to trash. He pleaded guilty to possession of them and then pleaded guilty in two Michigan counties to sexually abusing 10 girls, nine of them under the guise of medical treatment.
The procedure used on the victims in the cases where Nassar pleaded guilty has been described identically by the other accusers, who cases stretch back over two decades.
Over the course of the 16-month scandal, the number of accusers has swelled from two to 265, with some saying they were in denial that they had been molested until they heard other women describe what Nassar had done to them.
In the interview, Smith seized on that.
"There were girls who had perfectly normal lives that never questioned the medical treatment done by Larry Nassar — and there is a legitimate medical treatment that involves touching sensitive areas and even penetrations," she said.
"Some of those girls, to be quite frank, they didn’t even know what to think because they never felt victimized. He was never inappropriate to them. And because of everything they’ve seen, they just feel like they must have been victimized. And I think that’s really unfortunate."
Larry Nassar speaks to his attorney Shannon Smith during his sentencing hearing in Lansing, Michigan, on Jan. 18. Brendan McDermid / Reuters
"I have a very hard time believing that my client could have even possibly assaulted that many people day in and day out in front of their parents, and that every single one of those things was a crime, but he was such a manipulator he got away with it," she added. "I just can’t imagine that’s true."
Some of the girls' parents have said Nassar positioned himself in such a way that they could not see he was penetrating them. Other girls have said that Nassar repeatedly gave them his "treatment" without a parent or another medical professional in the room.
Manly, the victims' lawyer, said Smith's spin was a belated attempt to minimize the damage done by Nassar after the public statements by his former patients — including Olympic gymnasts — captured the nation's attention.
"When people like this speak, I'm always gratified because it shows how evil they truly are," Manly said. "The awful thing is it revictimizes these women and their families and I think that’s what it was meant to do."
He said that while Nassar was entitled to a robust defense, if Smith believes he isn't guilty she should have taken the case to trial.
As part of his plea agreements, Nassar agreed to let any accuser give a victim impact statement, though he then complained to one judge that it was too difficult for him.
And before his statement reacting to Smith's comments, he had written in a letter to the judge that his contact with the accusers was medical and not sexual and that the pornography could have been downloaded by someone else.
He was sentenced last week in Ingham County to 40 to 175 years and faces a similar sentence when victims are done giving statements in Eaton County.
Smith said she has received death threats for defending Nassar but has no regrets.
"I have no problem representing someone like Larry Nassar," she said.
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– The dozens of victims who spoke at Larry Nassar's sentencing hearing earlier this month served up scathing rebukes against the ex-USA Gymnastics doctor, who received up to 175 years in prison for his crimes. One person not as moved by their testimony: a Nassar defense attorney, who said during a Thursday radio interview that his case had "spun out of control" in the media. "There were girls who had perfectly normal lives that never questioned the medical treatment done by Larry Nassar—and there is a legitimate medical treatment that involves touching sensitive areas and even penetrations," Shannon Smith said to WWJ Newsradio 950. Smith added that girls who'd never been previously victimized may have picked up on reporting about Nassar and felt they, too, had been victimized. She also praised Nassar's medical skills and said he "comes off as a really great person" and that "I see good" in him for helping athletes get back to competing. "I have a very hard time believing that my client could have even possibly assaulted that many people day in and day out in front of their parents," she said, adding it's "really sad" when accusers were "fine" their whole lives and suddenly "realized" they'd been abused. An attorney for some of the victims calls Smith's statements "vile," and even Nassar himself "distanced himself" from them, per NBC News. "I am sorry about this distraction at a time when the attention should be on the statements of these victims," he said in a statement issued by another attorney. In a call later Thursday, Smith told ESPN she doesn't deny Nassar's guilt in some cases, but that the number of accusers was "really extreme." She says she's received death threats for representing Nassar as his lawyer and added "chaperones" should be in the room when doctors see patients to protect both parties.
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Questions Surround Del. Senate Hopeful O'Donnell
Enlarge this image toggle caption Rob Carr/AP Rob Carr/AP
In the latest and perhaps most surprising win for the anti-establishment Tea Party, Delaware's Christine O'Donnell beat long-term Rep. Mike Castle, a moderate, for the Republican Party’s Senate nomination.
The outcome rocked the GOP and led many to ask: Who is Christine O'Donnell?
By all accounts, she is sharp, charming and energetic. With her Sarah Palin looks -- and endorsement -- plus the backing of Tea Party groups, she motivated many Republicans to reject the establishment guy.
The questions come when you start delving into O'Donnell's background.
She is 41 and this is her third run for the Senate. Delaware's biggest daily newspaper, The News Journal of Wilmington, has been running stories on her problems for years.
Early in her career, she was fired from a respected Republican think tank, which she then sued for discrimination.
In 2008, her house fell into foreclosure and was scheduled for auction, until a friend and campaign worker bought it from her. She was then audited by the IRS. In an interview with NPR in August, she suggested that the audit was politically motivated.
"I ran against Joe Biden and I was audited," she said. "My mother's business was audited, and many other members of my family were audited." Asked why she thought she was audited, she said, "Who knows? It could be thug politics. It could be intimidation tactics. Either way, it didn't stop me."
At the end of the audit, she says, the IRS slapped a tax lien on the house, which had already been sold.
"See, that's the other thing ... what makes it really funny," she said. "Because it's an $11,000 tax lien on a home that I sold in 2008, so I didn’t even own the home when they put a tax lien on it."
O'Donnell calls the lien a computer error. She says it's been cleared up, but it's still on her credit report. She earns very little money now and pays half of her rent with campaign donations. She says that's justified because she's running her campaign out of her house.
And it recently came to light that her alma mater, Fairleigh Dickinson University, didn't issue her a degree in 1993 because she still owed it money.
All of this, O'Donnell says, is actually good for her: It shows that she's not a millionaire.
But O'Donnell has sent the GOP reeling like nothing in recent history. In an extraordinary bout of cyberwhiplash, e-mails from the National Republican Senatorial Committee went from asserting one day that O'Donnell was paranoid to fully endorsing her the next.
The party spent Wednesday trying to recover from Karl Rove's appearance on Fox News on election night. The Republican guru came right out and said what others had been whispering for weeks.
"And again, these serious questions about how does she make a living?" Rove said. "Why did she mislead voters about her college education? Why did it take her nearly two decades to pay her college bill so she could get her college degree?"
On Fox, Sean Hannity tried to defend O'Donnell. Rove went on:
"Did you ask her about the people who are following her home to her headquarters and how she's checked each night in the bushes? I mean there's just a lot of nutty things she's been saying that just simply don't add up."
So while Republicans are trying to look unified in their support of O'Donnell's general election bid, Rove's words are very likely ringing in their ears. "This is not a race we're going to be able to win," he said. ||||| Christine O'Donnell shocked the GOP establishment with Tuesday night's upset primary win over Rep. Mike Castle, whom early polls had pegged as the odds-on favorite to capture the Senate seat vacated by Vice President Joe Biden. And as the insurgent tea party nominee gains a greater national profile, she'll also be drawing greater scrutiny -- particularly for her offbeat political biography and her strongly held conservative cultural values.
While O'Donnell is an establishment outsider, she's no stranger to statewide political campaigning. This marks her third run for a U.S. Senate seat. She ran initially in 2006, seeking the GOP nomination to challenge Democratic incumbent Thomas R. Carper. She finished third in that GOP primary, but refused to give up her bid, mounting a failed write-in campaign against Carper in the November general election. In 2008, she got the GOP nod (having run unopposed), but lost badly in November to the longtime incumbent.
[Related: Will surprise tea party victory drastically change the GOP?]
Now O'Donnell's victory is one of the strongest signs of how drastically Republican politics are in upheaval this election cycle. And her 2010 general election campaign will serve as a litmus test for how far the tea party can carry an unconventional candidate toward a full rejection of politics-as-usual in the November balloting.
She's been a Delaware resident since 2003, moving to Wilmington to work for the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, a conservative think tank and book publisher. That experience seems to have cemented O'Donnell's reputation as a firebrand in conservative circles: She ended up suing that (now-former) employer for $6.9 million, alleging gender discrimination. In 2008, she dropped the suit, citing the burden of legal fees.
More recently, O'Donnell has worked as a marketing and media consultant. She counts her work for Mel Gibson's controversial 2003 film "Passion of the Christ" as one of best-known campaigns.
Like Gibson, O'Donnell was raised as a Catholic -- though she's variously indicated that she now attends Catholic and Protestant services. Before attaining renown as an office-seeker, she'd been best known for aggressively promoting conservative sexual morality, particularly for young women. O'Donnell began her public quest to promote chastity shortly after completing her education at Fairleigh Dickinson University in New Jersey. (O'Donnell attended FDU's cap-and-gown ceremony in 1993, but only received her diploma this month -- her staff told news outlets that she just recently met a final course requirement, though O'Donnell had previously stated her diploma was withheld due to outstanding tuition debt.)
As she explained to the Wilmington News Journal in 2004, she did "things she regrets" in college, such as drinking to excess and becoming somewhat sexually promiscuous. Those regrets spurred her to promote chaste values, and to seek out a national forum to advance related policy aims such as abstinence education.
After college, O'Donnell moved to Washington, D.C., first working for an anti-pornography group, then taking jobs with the Republican National Committee and with Concerned Women for America, an anti-feminist group. She also founded a nonprofit group called the Savior's Alliance for Lifting the Truth, to promote "righteous" values and sexual morality. It was in connection with her work for the group that O'Donnell was featured in a 1996 MTV documentary, "Sex in the '90s," to tout abstinence and speak out against masturbation. That clip of the young O'Donnell has already attracted a large viral audience online, after the liberal MSNBC commentator Rachel Maddow aired it on her show Tuesday night.
Critics have seized on some past statements and actions O'Donnell has made to cast her as too conservative to win in November. Other O'Donnell detractors paint her as unstable, dishonest or radical. The Weekly Standard reported that O'Donnell misrepresented her education credentials in her gender discrimination suit. Reports indicate that O'Donnell did not win two of three counties in her 2008 race, and she backtracked her comments to that effect. Her recent accusation that her opponents are "hiding in the bushes" at her home raised eyebrows -- she says she's never reported those incidents. And in addition to her MTV clip, she's also now being dogged by footage of a 1998 appearance on Bill Maher's "Politically Incorrect" in which she insisted that lying is always wrong, even for European families harboring Jews in their home during World War II as Nazis came to their door.
[Related: See O'Donnell, conservatives fire back at Rove]
The state Republican Party firmly backed Castle in the race, and National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman Jon Cornyn has raised his doubts that O'Donnell can win against Democratic nominee Chris Coons this fall -- even though his committee has since pledged to kick in financial support for her general election campaign. A longstanding battle between O'Donnell supporters and former George W. Bush adviser Karl Rove has also highlighting emerging rifts between the Republican establishment figures and the tea party insurgency.
As O'Donnell noted in her victory speech Tuesday night, she's well aware of Washington's opinion of her campaign. But this time, she notes, she's already proved Washington wrong.
"Don't ever underestimate the power of we the people," O'Donnell said. "We the people will have our voice heard in Washington, D.C., once again."
[Related: See a look at the tea party movement]
(Photo: AP/Rob Carr)
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Stop it with all those "41-year-old virgin" jokes, OK? Delaware Senate candidate and anti-masturbation activist Christine O'Donnell has totally had sex. She admitted it in 2004, to the Wilmington News Journal, in a piece about her lawsuit against the Intercollegiate Studies Institute for gender discrimination:
And while people who recognize her from TV may think she's always been a Christian leader and activist, that wasn't so. Her family was Catholic, but her parents weren't strict. It was in college at Fairleigh Dickinson University in New Jersey that O'Donnell did things she regrets -- drinking too much and having sex with guys with whom there wasn't a strong emotional connection. But it was also during college that she found her faith again and chose to live a life of chastity.
And I guess it was those terrible experiences that led her to spend her life telling girls never to feel lust, which is a sensible and realistic thing to recommend.
Despite her post-collegiate ban on lustful thinking and gross touching, O'Donnell has gone on dates. Earlier today, we learned that O'Donnell isn't married yet because she is too much like Eowyn, shieldmaiden and White Lady of Rohan.
[via Wonkette] ||||| Wonkette commenter ph7 pointed out this Yahoo news thing that FLIES IN THE FACE OF EVERYTHING WE’VE BELIEVED IN:
As she explained to the Wilmington News Journal in 2004, she did “things she regrets” in college, such as drinking to excess and becoming somewhat sexually promiscuous. Those regrets spurred her to promote chaste values, and to seek out a national forum to advance related policy aims such as abstinence education.
Where is the Wilmington News Journal article proving this beyond a reasonable doubt, as the Founding Fathers intended? We have searched the evil “Delaware Online” to no avail.
Wait, So Christine O’Donnell Was “Sexually Promiscuous”?
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– Christine O'Donnell is (or, at least, was) famously anti-masturbation, and she's never been married—so she must still be a virgin, right? Maybe not, at least according to a Yahoo! News report. It offers up a look at O'Donnell's past, including a $6.9 million gender discrimination lawsuit she filed and then dropped against a former employer, and the diploma she was supposed to have earned in 1993, but didn't receive (for either tuition-related or coursework-related reasons, it's unclear) until this month. But the most interesting news is yet to come. O'Donnell apparently told the Wilmington News Journal in 2004 that she did "things she regrets" in college, including drinking a lot and becoming sexually promiscuous. (Wonkette tried to find the original article and couldn't. Click here for the full quote, which declares O'Donnell actually did have sex.) In other news, NPR delves into her 2008 home foreclosure, IRS audit, and tax lien; Yahoo! News points to another controversial video clip from 1998 in which she says lying is wrong—even to protect someone (watch clip in the gallery); and AOL News notes that she appears to claim she studied at Oxford in her LinkedIn profile—but did she really? For more on that, click here.
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Ryan Chesley was knocked down and Mike Tyson helped him get back up.
As if getting into a serious motorcycle accident wasn’t scary enough, suddenly the former heavyweight champion of the world was approaching him, but Mike was there to help.
While traveling onto the on-ramp on I-15 North off Flamingo Road in Las Vegas Tuesday night, Chesley was involved in a nasty motorcycle crash after a cab cut him off from the left lane, his attorney Stephen Stubbs told the Daily News.
The victim was sent flying off his bike and suffered several injuries including a paralyzed big toe, broken ankle and torn muscles and ligaments, Stubbs said. Chesley will also need surgery, he said.
But when he was lying on the roadway, he looked up and saw Mike Tyson with three friends offering their help. The group blocked off traffic, and “Iron Mike” sat with Chesley and spoke with him in a soft voice to keep him from going into shock, Stubbs said.
“He looked up and saw Mike Tyson,” Stubbs said. “He was saying ‘don’t worry, don’t worry,’ people are coming.’”
Ryan Chesley sent this fruit basket to Mike Tyson for helping Chesley get back up after a motorcycle accident in Las Vegas. (Courtesy of Stephen Stubbs)
Chesley does not know how long they were there, but he thought he might be hallucinating, his attorney said. He grabbed his camera with his uninjured hand and took a picture, he said.
“He didn’t know what was happening,” Stubbs said. “(Mike) just stood by him and talked to him. When he was done with the good deed, he just took off.”
Tyson is known for his bizarre behavior — including biting off a chunk of Evander Holyfield's ear in 1997 — but he appears to have acted quickly and responsibly in this instance.
Chesley was so grateful for Mike’s help, he reached out to his representatives to send a thank-you note and fruit basket.
"It has to be the most reassuring thing in the world to have Mike Tyson telling people not to touch me," Chesley wrote.
Grateful motorcyclist Ryan Chesley also sent this thank-you letter, along with a fruit basket, to Mike Tyson after the former boxer came to his aid after the accident. (Handout)
“”He wanted to say thank you,” Stubbs said. “We asked if we could send chocolates but his rep said ‘no, he’s a health nut.’ We sent him a fruit basket because he is into antioxidants.”
A representative for the eccentric boxer who grew up in Brooklyn confirmed the note and fruit basket were sent over. Tyson was not available Monday for a statement, the representative said.
“Iron Mike” has recently been performing a one-man show about his life, and the 48-year-old continues to make headlines.
He recently used vulgar language in front of a TV news reporter during a live interview in Canada. The journalist had asked Mike about his rape conviction in 1992.
[email protected] Follow on Twitter @joelzlandau ||||| Mike Tyson Comes to Rescue of Motorcycle Crash Victim
Mike Tyson -- Comes to Rescue of Motorcycle Crash Victim
EXCLUSIVE
When you need a calm, soothing voice to get you through a traumatic event, you don't think of... but that's exactly what happened to a motorcycle crash victim.Ryan Chesley tells TMZ ... he was on his way to Las Vegas this week when a cab cut him off on the freeway ... sending him flying off his chopper.Chesley says Tyson saw the whole thing ... slammed on his brakes and stopped traffic. Chesley says Tyson -- mindful the victim might be in shock -- kept him calm until paramedics arrived.Chesley -- who has broken bones, muscles, ligaments, nerve damage and needs shoulder surgery -- tells TMZ he's sending Tyson a thank you note and a fruit basket.Mike Tyson ... he can hurt you bad, and help you good. ||||| LAS VEGAS (AP) — Retired boxer Mike Tyson may be famous for his aggressiveness, but he showed his compassionate side last week when he came to the rescue of an injured motorcyclist who had crashed on a Las Vegas interstate.
This Monday, Sept. 22, 2014 photo released by Steve Lott, Executive Assistant to Mike Tyson, shows a letter sent to the former boxer by Ryan Chesley, an injured motorcycle crash victim, after Tyson came... (Associated Press)
This Sept. 16, 2014 photo released by attorney Stephen Stubbs, shows Mike Tyson as photographed by injured motorcycle crash victim, Ryan Chesley, in Las Vegas, Tuesday, Sept. 16, 2014. Stubbs said his... (Associated Press)
This Sunday, Sept. 21, 2014 photo released by Steve Lott, Executive Assistant to Mike Tyson, shows a gift fruit basket sent to former boxer Mike Tyson, by injured motorcycle crash victim, Ryan Chesley,... (Associated Press)
Attorney Stephen Stubbs said his client, 29-year-old Ryan Chesley, was on Interstate 15 in Las Vegas at about 9:30 p.m. Tuesday when a taxi cut him off and he went down.
Stubbs said Chesley was lying on the ground when he looked up and recognized Tyson, who was yelling at people not to touch Chesley.
"He thought he was hallucinating," Stubbs said. "He thought he was in some other world."
Chesley, who had broken bones and torn ligaments, could still use his right hand and snapped a cellphone picture of the heavyweight boxer. As soon as paramedics arrived, Tyson "just left, like some kind of superhero," Stubbs said.
Mike Tyson's assistant, Steve Lott, said the fighter received a fruit basket a handwritten thank-you note from Chesley on Friday.
"Thank you so much for looking over me after my accident," said the note, which Lott provided to The Associated Press. "It has to be the most reassuring thing in the world to have Mike Tyson telling people not to touch me."
Half the fruit in the basket had been consumed by Monday, Lott said, and the pistachios were a particularly popular item.
Chesley will need surgery but has since been released from the hospital, Stubbs said.
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– A Las Vegas man injured in a motorcycle crash last week had to take a photo to make sure he wasn't hallucinating the person who came to his aid: Mike Tyson. Ryan Chesley tells TMZ that after a taxi cut him off on a freeway, sending him flying off his motorcycle, the boxer and three friends blocked off traffic, ordered bystanders not to touch him, and sat with him until paramedics arrived. The boxer spoke to the injured man softly to keep him from going into shock, Chesley's lawyer says, and when paramedics arrived, he "just left, like some kind of superhero." Chesley, who suffered injuries including broken bones, torn ligaments, and nerve damage, sent the boxer a note and a fruit basket to thank him, reports the AP. "It has to be the most reassuring thing in the world to have Mike Tyson telling people not to touch me," he wrote. "We asked if we could send chocolates, but his rep said no, he's a health nut," Chesley's lawyer tells the New York Daily News. "We sent him a fruit basket because he is into antioxidants." A rep for the boxer—who was last in the news for using vulgar language during an interview in Toronto earlier this month—confirmed that the thank-you note and basket had been received, and says Tyson especially enjoyed the pistachios.
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An alleged “Russian” spy who was beheaded in a video released by Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) was an orphan pressured into spying after being arrested with drugs, it has been reported.
Magomed Khasiev, 23, was beheaded by one of his own countrymen in a brutal execution video released by the extremist group late on Wednesday.
The video shows Mr Khasiev, seated and wearing an orange jump suit, explaining in detail how he was recruited by the Federal Security Service (FSB), the main successor agency to the KGB, and infiltrated into Isil before the group’s internal ‘security service’ allegedly unmasked him.
It then cuts to a stony beach, where a Russian-speaking Isil member issues a direct challenge to Vladimir Putin and the Russian people before cutting Mr Khasiev’s head off with a knife .
While the filmed “confession” must be open to doubt, details of Mr Khasiev’s life have been confirmed by Russian journalists.
Born in Chelyabinsk, in Russia’s Ural Mountains, Mr Khasiev was orphaned at the age of nine and brought up by adoptive parents in Chechnya, Radio Svoboda reported on Thursday.
He later studied at a college in Maikop, the capital of the North Caucasus republic of Adygea, which neighbours Chechnya.
In 2013, he wrote on the Instagram page of Ramzan Kadyrov, the hardline president of Chechnya, asking for help moving to the republic.
According to Radio Svoboda’s investigation, he was recruited by the FSB after being caught transporting illegal drugs in February 2014.
In his confession video, Khasiev says he was recruited in July last year after police stopped and searched a bus he was travelling on. In the account in the video, he says the FSB officer interrogating him mentioned both drugs and his connections with Chechen citizens already in Syria.
After agreeing to infiltrate Isil, he says he was trained in Chechnya before flying to Istanbul in August 2014, where he linked up with a people-smuggler who got him across the border into Isil territory in Iraq.
Operating within the terrorist group, he sent information back to his handler “five times", providing information on about “six brothers”, including a group at a medical institute.
Russian media have speculated that he may have been referring to two students from Stavropol who were arrested in November last year.
Mr Khasiev’s executioner has not been identified, but he speaks native-level Russian without an accent, and in the video wears a paramilitary uniform apparently carefully chosen to distinguish him as a Russian or former Soviet citizen.
Addressing Mr Putin directly, the bearded man warned that the terror group would take revenge for Russia’s entry into the Syrian war.
Photo: AP
”O people of Russia, you will once again dragged into an unwinnable war. You will not be safe,” the killer says.
“We will kill your children for each dead child here, and we will destroy your houses for each destroyed house here. Oh, mothers of Russia, hold on to your sons, otherwise they will face the same fate,” he continued, before murdering Mr Khasiev.
The killer’s camouflage fatigues are widely produced in Russia and were standard issue for separatists fighting in Ukraine, while the white and blue-stripe vest he wears is an iconic part of the uniform of Russian marines and paratroopers.
Both items are easy to acquire, and there is no suggestion that the man is a veteran of the Russian armed forces.
Photo: Getty Images
Russian security sources have cast doubt on the Isil video’s claims, saying if Mr Khasiev was really an intelligence asset, the group would have used him as a bargaining chip, instead of murdering him.
“If the militants had really found a spy, they undoubtedly would have used him as a negotiating pawn,” an unnamed security source told Interfax. “Most probably he had nothing to do with our intelligence.”
Mr Kadyrov confirmed that the victim was a Chechen and promised revenge.
"The Chechen people will remember this," he said, adding that the killers would be given "one way tickets to a better world". ||||| A prisoner who identified himself as Magomed Khasiev, a Russian national who grew up in the Chechnya region, speaks in this still image taken from an undated video in an unknown location. REUTERS/Social media via Reuters TV
(L-R) Minkail Temiev, Viktor Zyzin and Magomed Khasiev, pose for a picture in a park in the southern city of Maykop, Russia in this handout photo provided to Reuters by Viktor Zyzin. REUTERS/Viktor Zyzin/Handout via Reuters
MAYKOP/GVARDEYSKOYE, Russia In the video, a man in an orange jump suit kneels beside a lake in Syria and confesses in Russian to spying on Islamic State militants. Another Russian speaker, this one in camouflage fatigues, then uses a hunting knife to hack off the kneeling man's head.
When Islamic State posted this footage online on Dec. 2, it brought the distant Syria conflict home to ordinary Russians. Here, in high-definition video, appeared to be one young Russian killing another for reasons few people could understand.
It also opened up another mystery.
The prisoner and alleged spy in the video said his name was Magomed Khasiev, that he was from Russia's mainly Muslim region of Chechnya, and that he worked for Russian intelligence.
Pro-Kremlin Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov quickly denied Khasiev was a spy.
But interviews with more than a dozen people who knew Khasiev in Russia suggest the 23-year-old man had connections to both Muslim groups and Russian security and seemed to live a double life.
An ethnic Russian born to a non-Muslim family in Russia's industrial heartland, Khasiev spent his teenage years among Chechens who knew him as a devout Muslim and a fluent Chechen speaker. Some of his Chechen friends went off to fight for Islamist militants in the Middle East, and encouraged him to join them.
In his other life he associated with non-Muslims, had a friend in the police, and had a license from the Interior Ministry to work as a security guard, according to a former teacher, a friend, and staff of several security companies. For some purposes, including his work, Khasiev used the name he was given at birth: Yevgeny Yudin.
If his testimony on the video is to be believed, Khasiev ended up caught in the murky world between official Russian involvement in the conflict in Syria and the jihad that several thousand citizens of Russia and other former Soviet republics have joined.
Neither Russia's Federal Security Service – the intelligence agency Khasiev claimed he was working for – or Russia's Interior Ministry responded to requests for comment on the case.
ORPHANAGE
According to his file at an orphanage in Chechnya, Khasiev was raised for the first decade of his life by his mother, an ethnic Russian. When he was 10, she handed him to the orphanage for reasons the file does not make clear. Soon after, the documents show, his mother died of tuberculosis.
In the orphanage, Khasiev, or Yudin at that time, learned Chechen, gave himself the Muslim first name Magomed and converted to Islam.
The former head of the orphanage, Ruslan Yusupov, remembers Khasiev playing with his own children and grandchildren. "He was soft as a kitten. He loved attention and care so much."
After three years, Khasiev was adopted by a Chechen family and took the last name of his adoptive mother Markha Khasieva. But she returned him to the orphanage a year later because of tensions between her and other relatives. Khasieva told Reuters she had nevertheless stayed in touch with the boy and cared for him.
In 2008, Russia's then Interior Minister, Rashid Nurgaliev, visited the orphanage to talk to potential new recruits for the Suvorov academy, an new elite military school.
According to orphanage staff, Khasiev, then 16, was keen to enroll but was rejected as too old. His best friend at the orphanage, Minkail Temiev, did qualify.
TRUE CHECHEN?
Khasiev was sent to a college in Maykop, capital of the predominantly Muslim Russian region of Adygeya, some 500 km (310 miles) from the Chechen capital Grozny.
There, according to friends and family, Khasiev moved in two sets of social circles.
In one, he maintained his Chechen identity and stayed in touch with his adoptive family and old friends, including Temiev. According to orphanage staff, Temiev in fact followed Khasiev to Maykop.
At college, Khasiev was registered by his Russian name. But he told teachers he wanted to be called Magomed. "At first, he corrected his teachers," his supervisor Tatiana Maystrevskaya recalled. "I told him: Once you change your documents, I will call you Magomed. He didn't object to that."
Acquaintances outside college, many of them Chechens, always knew him as Magomed. "He wasn't any different from us, he spoke pure Chechen. Many people didn't even know he was Russian," said one of Khasiev's Chechen friends.
Khasiev eventually changed his name officially to Magomed Khasiev by applying for a new passport, according to Viktor Zyzin, a close friend and an ethnic Russian.
But despite his insistence on using a Muslim name, Khasiev did not appear to be a Chechen nationalist or radical, Zyzin said. A 2011 posting on Khasiev's account on Vkontakte, the Russian version of Facebook, shows him posing next to a poster of Chechen strongman Ramzan Kadyrov. The Chechen leader helped the Kremlin defeat a Muslim insurgency in the North Caucasus and is considered by Muslim militants to be an infidel.
And Khasiev had plenty of non-Muslim friends, including Zyzin and an ethnic Armenian called Grant.
In the video of his beheading, Khasiev describes Grant as an old acquaintance and the conduit to Russian special services through which he passed the intelligence he collected on Islamic State militants.
A Chechen friend of Khasiev told Reuters Grant served in the police. Two other people who knew Khasiev, including Zyzin, said they had met Grant but did not know where he worked.
Reuters has not been able to establish Grant's family name or other details about him. Officers in the regional police department of Adygea and the city police of Maykop said nobody of that name worked for them. The Interior Ministry in Moscow did not reply to a request for comment.
RADICAL FRIEND?
At the end of 2013, Khasiev was hired by Sherif M, a security company in Maykop. According to Anzor Takhumov, head of a local security guard school, Khasiev had applied for an Interior Ministry license to work as a guard a few years earlier using the name Yudin. That was also the name he used to get his job.
Just a few months after he began working, Zyzin said, Khasiev sold an apartment he had bought under a Russian government scheme designed to help orphans.
It is not clear how he ended up in Islamic State territory in Syria, but members of Khasiev's adoptive family in Chechnya suspect his old friend Temiev may have played a role.
They believe Temiev had become radicalized. Markha Khasieva said her adoptive son had told her that Temiev had tried to recruit him to join Islamist fighters, but that Khasiev had rejected the offer. She remembers Temiev showing up at a funeral wearing a long beard, a style often associated with followers of hardline Islam. Family members joked that he looked like Karl Marx.
According to people who knew him, Khasiev enjoyed drinking and dating girls and showed no sign of Islamist sympathies. "He did not have any extremist views," said Ruslan, Markha Khasieva's nephew.
Nevertheless, Khasiev left Russia at some point last year. His adoptive family in Chechnya had little idea where he had gone. "We thought he was off working somewhere," said Malika Khasieva, his adoptive aunt.
Khasiev did keep in touch with his Russian friend Viktor Zyzin, sending him messages from the outskirts of Kobani, a Syrian town near the border with Turkey that was the center of a battle between Islamic State and Kurdish forces.
Zyzin said he believed his friend went there to follow Temiev. But he quickly discovered that Temiev had been killed, Zyzin said, citing messages Khasiev had sent him.
In his messages, Khasiev referred to his fellow fighters as "brothers" and started using common Islamic expressions more and more often. Zyzin said his friend told him "he simply collected dead bodies ... He told me he was tired of picking up pieces."
The last message from Khasiev was in February. Zyzin had asked his friend to come home.
"He said that he may come to visit. But at the end he wrote that he got tired. He sent voice messages. Back then I realized already, that he would not come back. There is simply no way back from there."
(Edited by Christian Lowe and Simon Robinson)
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– In the minutes before his execution by an ISIS militant in Syria, Chechen Magomed Khasiev confessed to being a spy recruited by Russian intelligence agency Federal Security Service—something Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov quickly denied. But many people who knew the 23-year-old say he "seemed to live a double life," per Reuters, with connections to Muslim groups as well as Russian security. Born Yevgeny Yudin to a non-Muslim family in Chechnya, Khasiev lived for a time in an orphanage. "He was soft as a kitten," a former orphanage head says. He was later adopted by a Chechen family and took the family name, becoming Magomed Khasiev (he had earlier given himself the Muslim first name). Sources say he was friends with a cop, associated with non-Muslims, and did not appear to be a radical. Others, however, say Khasiev was a devout Muslim whose best friend at the orphanage, Minkail Temiev, tried to convince him to fight for Islamist militants. When Temiev left the orphanage to enroll at an elite military school, friends say Khasiev kept in touch. In 2014, Khasiev sold his apartment and traveled to the Syrian town of Kobani on the border with Turkey. One report suggested he was caught with illegal drugs in February 2014 and then pressured into spying by the FSS, per the Telegraph. But a friend who received messages from Khasiev says he went to Syria to find Temiev, who Khasiev's adoptive family believed had become radicalized. Khasiev told the friend he found Temiev was dead, so he "simply collected dead bodies" with other fighters, whom he called "brothers." In his execution video posted Dec. 2, Khasiev says he passed intelligence on ISIS to Russian authorities through an old acquaintance, an ethnic Armenian named Grant. A friend of Khasiev's says Grant worked for the police. Little else about him is known.
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It’s safe to say Chris Matthews has lost that tingly feeling down his thigh. It took only seconds after President Obama concluded his Oval Office address for Matthews and co-host Keith Olbermann to rip into the President for what they perceived as a lack of leadership and direction, and, especially in Matthews’ case, and over-reliance on meritocracy.
Before President Barack Obama took to the airwaves to reassure Americans, most would have probably guessed that this kind of outrage was to be reserved for, well, the folks at Fox News. And, yes, Sarah Palin got to be the first to respond to his message over there. But her disagreement paled in comparison to the outrage over at MSNBC, where Matthews went issue by issue in the speech knocking the president’s broad propositions down. First bashing him for failing to explain what his executive powers can do in this situation, he later attacked his renewed interest in a cap and trade bill (which Matthews claims could have been passed if Obama himself had not changed the subject to immigration) and renewable energy (“that’s the hardest thing in the world to do!… that broke Jimmy Carter“).
Olbermann, meanwhile, was not impressed by the rhetoric, and especially confused by the World War II reference. “It’s nice,” he commented, “but again, how? Where was the how in this speech when Americans are crying out for how?”
Matthews also turned his ire towards Energy Secretary Steven Chu and his Nobel Prize in Physics. “This meritocracy has gone too far,” Matthews railed, angered that the President insisted on noting the Secretary’s achievements so often. This point sort of taints the validity of the rest of his argument. It’s unclear what, if not merit, Matthews would want to see used to assemble a team of scientists to put together a response to the biggest environmental disaster in American history, and it’s unclear why the fact that Dr. Chu has a Nobel Prize gives him so much pause. The only thing “bad” about the prize was that he received it for his work in the field of physics, doing light experiments that help little with cleaning up an oil spill.
It was a fairly shocking display of disapproval from two of Obama’s biggest supporters in the media in the past. If the speech had Chris Matthews enraged and demanding executive leadership, it’s not hard to imagine what Michael Steele and company are drafting in response.
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Have a tip we should know? [email protected] ||||| Science says lasting relationships come down to—you guessed it—kindness and generosity.
Every day in June, the most popular wedding month of the year, about 13,000 American couples will say “I do,” committing to a lifelong relationship that will be full of friendship, joy, and love that will carry them forward to their final days on this earth.
Except, of course, it doesn’t work out that way for most people. The majority of marriages fail, either ending in divorce and separation or devolving into bitterness and dysfunction. Of all the people who get married, only three in ten remain in healthy, happy marriages, as psychologist Ty Tashiro points out in his book The Science of Happily Ever After, which was published earlier this year.
Social scientists first started studying marriages by observing them in action in the 1970s in response to a crisis: Married couples were divorcing at unprecedented rates. Worried about the impact these divorces would have on the children of the broken marriages, psychologists decided to cast their scientific net on couples, bringing them into the lab to observe them and determine what the ingredients of a healthy, lasting relationship were. Was each unhappy family unhappy in its own way, as Tolstoy claimed, or did the miserable marriages all share something toxic in common?
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– President Obama's Oval Office address last night drew tepid-to-furious reviews, especially on the push for clean energy: Keith Olbermann, Chris Matthews, MSNBC: The two onetime Obama fans ripped into the president almost immediately for "what they perceived as a lack of leadership and direction, and, especially in Matthews’ case, and over-reliance on meritocracy," writes Frances Martel at Mediaite. "Where was the how in this speech when Americans are crying out for how?” asked Olbermann. Marc Ambinder, Atlantic: "On the small-medium-big scale, Obama went medium. Leaving out an explicit call for cap-and-trade was a deliberate choice, obviously. But Obama wants action on climate change, and the only way to wean our dependence off fossil fuels is to put a price on carbon. He did not make that explicit. ... He did not call upon Congress to make the political sacrifices necessary, and it may be difficult to reconcile his words, laced with an urgent tone, with the actions he is willing to put his weight behind." Ezra Klein, Washington Post: "The optimistic take, at least for environmentalists, is that this is the language and approach Obama uses when he really means to legislate. The pessimistic take is that Obama shied away from clearly describing the problem, did not endorse specific legislation, did not set benchmarks, and chose poll-tested language rather than a sharper case that might persuade skeptics."
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Skip in Skip x Embed x Share CLOSE Toshiba reported a huge loss, and the future of the once industrial giant is unclear. Elizabeth Keatinge (@elizkeatinge) has more. Buzz60
The logo of Toshiba Corp., with cherry blossoms in full bloom at its headquarters in Tokyo, Japan, April 11, 2017. (Photo: KIMIMASA MAYAMA, EPA)
Toshiba Corp. projected a $9.2 billion loss for its fiscal year and warned it may not be able to continue as a "going concern."
The Japanese electronics giant released unaudited results Tuesday, reporting steep losses related to the bankruptcy filing of its U.S. nuclear unit Westinghouse Electric Co. last month. For the first nine months of the year, which ends in March, it lost $4.8 billion.
The maker of computer chips and household appliances said expenses related to nuclear power construction by Westinghouse will "significantly" impact its liquidity.
"There are material events and conditions that raise the substantial doubt about the Company’s ability to continue as a going concern," the company said in its twice-delayed financial report.
Toshiba released the unaudited results, an unusual move, because it said its auditor couldn't reach a conclusion due to uncertainties related to the acquisition of U.S. nuclear construction company CB&I Stone and Webster.
One of Japan's most renowned electronics manufacturers, Toshiba has been roiled by soaring costs that followed the March 2011 nuclear disaster in Fukushima, which also hurt its public sentiment toward nuclear energy. It still must decommission the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant, which suffered repeat meltdowns after the 2011 tsunami in northeastern Japan.
Contributing: Associated Press.
Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/2omqcXh ||||| Toshiba may not survive its deepening crisis.
The Japanese conglomerate said Tuesday that there is "substantial doubt" about its ability to continue as a going concern after it reported huge losses.
Toshiba has been hammered by the collapse of its American nuclear business, Westinghouse Electric, which filed for bankruptcy protection in the U.S. last month.
After twice missing deadlines, Toshiba (TOSBF) reported a net loss of 648 billion yen ($5.9 billion) for the quarter ended in December. But in an unprecedented move for a major Japanese company, Toshiba filed the report without the approval of its auditors.
Japanese regulators must now decide whether to accept Toshiba's earnings report. If not, shares in the ailing company could be delisted from the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
Here's where things stand:
Delayed earnings and delisting threat
The refusal by auditor PwC Aarata to give its seal of approval is another embarrassing blow for Toshiba as it tries to persuade investors that it can find a way out of its crisis.
Westinghouse suffered billions of dollars in losses due to cost overruns and construction delays at nuclear plant projects in Georgia and South Carolina.
The unit's bankruptcy means Toshiba will eventually be able to remove it from its accounts. But dumping Westinghouse could drag Toshiba to a net loss of 1 trillion yen ($9 billion) for the fiscal year that ended in March.
Related: Westinghouse Electric is filing for bankruptcy
PwC refused to sign off on the earnings report because it is still studying the results of investigations into Westinghouse's takeover of nuclear construction company CB&I Stone & Webster in 2015, Toshiba said Tuesday.
But the company says it has no reason to believe that losses tied to Westinghouse will have any financial impact beyond fiscal year 2016. Toshiba CEO Satoshi Tsunakawa said he considers the investigation to be over.
Regulators in Japan will have to decide if the disarray means Toshiba, one of the country's best known multinational corporations, should suffer the humiliation of having its shares taken off the stock exchange.
Selling off the crown jewels
To try to repair its balance sheet, Toshiba is now selling a majority stake in its prized computer chip business. Tsunakawa has said he expects the unit to fetch at least 2 trillion yen ($18 billion).
Taiwan-based Foxconn, one of Apple (AAPL, Tech30)'s biggest suppliers, has offered as much as 3 trillion yen ($27 billion), according to The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg. Toshiba declined to comment on the reports, and Foxconn didn't respond to a request for comment.
Related: Toshiba chairman steps down as company takes $6.3B hit from nuclear business
But the Japanese government is keen to keep the memory chip business in the country, according to local media, and has called on Japanese companies to club together to buy a stake.
Toshiba said Tuesday that the sale of the chip business and other assets would enable it to stay financially sound.
What happens to Westinghouse?
Westinghouse's bankruptcy filing has raised questions about what will happen to the storied U.S. company.
Toshiba's majority stake in Westinghouse will be sold. That will happen under the supervision of the bankruptcy court "and we will not be involved in that," Tsunakawa told reporters last month.
The sale process could fuel concerns in the U.S. government, which reportedly wants to ensure domestic nuclear capabilities don't end up being bought by a Chinese firm.
Westinghouse is already building reactors in China. Buying the struggling American company could provide China with technology it needs to become a leading player in nuclear power.
-- Yoko Wakatsuki in Tokyo contributed to this article.
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– Toshiba says it has "substantial doubts" about its continued existence, USA Today reports. That will happen when your company is projecting it will lose $9.2 billion in the current fiscal year. The Japanese company has been struggling since the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster but suffered a major blow when Westinghouse Electric, its US nuclear unit, filed for bankruptcy last month. According to CNN, Toshiba is trying to recover by selling a majority stake in its computer chip business. The financial report that was released Tuesday had been delayed twice and was only finally released without approval from Toshiba's auditors. If the report isn't accepted, Toshiba could be dropped from the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
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On Sunday, a 79-year-old woman in Australia died after rolling her Hyundai Elantra.
“She was coming to visit me and spend the week with me,” her sister said.
In Missouri in 2012, a single mother was killed when a schoolteacher lost control of her car.
“She had just improved her career and was really getting her act together as a single mom,” a friend said.
The cause of these fatal car accidents? The sneeze.
“Sneezing can be very violent, causing the sufferer to close their eyes temporarily, especially with a severe cold,” Steve Rounds, a British police official, told the Daily Mail last year. “Driving a car with such symptoms would certainly be irresponsible and could be held as an aggravating factor in any accident that led to a death or serious injury, laying the driver open to a charge of causing death by dangerous driving.”
While the National Safety Council estimated in 2010 that 1.6 million car accidents per year are caused by drivers using cellphones or texting, few such studies have investigated the sneeze’s effect on highway safety.
One undertaken by Halfords Autocentres, a British car repair company, found that “2.6 million drivers on Britain’s roads admitted to taking their eyes off the road due to a cold or flu,” according to the Daily Mail.
The result? According to Halfords,”2,500 accidents a week in winter,”
If this study seems dubious — accidents caused specifically by sneezes were not analyzed separately — consider this frighteningly detailed dissection of distracted driving from the Centers for Disease Control:
There are three main types of distraction:
Visual: taking your eyes off the road;
Manual: taking your hands off the wheel; and
Cognitive: taking your mind off of driving.
An ill-timed achoo seems to fall within all of these categories. Halfords estimated that those who sneeze while driving at 60 mph may travel 50 feet with their eyes closed — and the CDC said that nine people per day are killed by distracted driving in the United States. In fact, one died after a sneeze in Salisbury, Md., in 2011.
Other examples of non-fatal crashes allegedly caused by sneezes abound. A car that veered off the road in New Hartford, N.Y. A woman who rearended a Massachusetts State Police cruiser. A truck driver who smashed into 10 cars in San Leandro, Calif.
As the number of distractions tempting drivers grows — smart phones, GPS, Google Glass — it’s hard to remember that nature’s call can also prove deadly.
So pull over to sneeze, if possible. ||||| INDIANAPOLIS (May 16, 2014) – A sneeze backed up traffic on the northeast side of Indianapolis Friday.
According to the Indianapolis Fire Department, a semi truck crashed before 1 p.m. Friday after the driver–52-year-old William Hosier–said he took his eyes off the road when he sneezed and reached for a tissue. His truck veered into the interstate’s retaining wall, splitting the fuel tank open. Fuel caught fire as the truck careened out of control; the cab hit an abutment and also burst into flames with Hosier and his passenger, 58-year-old Cynthia Hosier–inside.
Jason Tibbetts and Katie Warrick–two on-duty EMTs–witnessed the crash, IFD said. They broke the driver’s side window, unlocked the door and pulled William Hosier to safety. They then helped Cynthia Hosier–described by IFD as the man’s ex-wife–out of the cab as well. She had been in the sleeping compartment, and was taken to IU Health Methodist Hospital in good condition. Both complained of pain, according to Indiana State Police.
The resulting fire sent plumes of smoke into the sky and forced emergency responders to shut down all lanes of I-465 southbound near East 56th Street and North Shadeland Avenue. IFD crews had the fire under control in about 15 minutes, and Indiana State Police began redirecting traffic, which came to a standstill before it began trickling through again.
About 200 gallons of diesel fuel and oil spilled from the truck’s tanks into interstate drains and Fall Creek below. Firefighters used absorbent booms and pillows to limit the spread. A spill recovery team later arrived, using dozens of 50-pound bags of kitty litter to contain the spill.
Hosier’s truck was carrying Nissan car parts for Carter Express out of Anderson, Ind. IFD said the company assumed liability for the spill recovery and cleanup costs.
Traffic in the area was still slow as of 4 p.m.
Semi crash with fire on 465 SB at 56th injures 1 and sends diesel fuel into Fall Creek. Crews work together to stop. pic.twitter.com/VjheFhZ1JR — IFD NEWS (@IFD_NEWS) May 16, 2014
https://twitter.com/IFD_NEWS/status/467368428861657088 ||||| WDAF A Missouri mother died in a car accident Wednesday after another driver had a sneezing fit and lost control of her car.
A Missouri mother died in a car accident police say was caused by another driver’s violent sneezing attack.
Laura McClendon, 30, wasn’t wearing a seatbelt when her car collided with Kathleen Brady’s minivan on a Smithville, Mo., highway Wednesday, The Kansas City Star reported.
Brady, a local schoolteacher, started “sneezing violently” just before she hit the single mother’s car head-on.
Missouri Highway Patrol cited Brady for careless and imprudent driving, as well as failing to have insurance.
McClendon’s 1-year-old son was also in the car during the accident. He remains in serious condition at Children’s Mercy Hospital.
WDAF
McClendon’s friends, meanwhile, said they were shocked by the news.
“We are pretty much in shock and just having a hard time wrapping our heads around the whole thing,” Cheryl Krecker told the newspaper, adding that McClendon has just started a new job this summer.
“She had just improved her career and was really getting her act together as a single mom.”
This is not the first time a bout of sneezing had led to a fatal accident.
Last year, a driver lost control of his vehicle and slammed it into a tree in Salisbury, Md., when he had a sneezing fit. His passenger died.
WDAF
Highway Patrol Sgt. Collin Stosberg said the tragic crash could have been avoided.
“Sometimes you can’t control whether or not you are going to sneeze,” Stosberg told a local Fox affiliate. “But you still have to be traveling at a speed slow enough where you don’t have a crash or lose control.”
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WATCH: NO SEATBELT AND SNEEZING CAUSES FATAL ACCIDENT ||||| advertisement
A Homestead man was struck and killed by a passing driver after the driver reportedly sneezed and crashed into him, police said.
Victor Aguiar, 56, was pushing a disabled car on the side of Haverhill Road in Lake Worth early Saturday morning, when another car, driven by Shawn Gruber, 27, crashed into him, said a report from the Palm Beach Sheriff's Office.
Aguiar was pushing the disabled car north on Haverhill Road with Oscar Cristo Gomez, 28, while Michael Gomez Rodriguez, 16, helped steer it. The car did not have lights or reflective markers, according to the report.
Gruber told police he sneezed as he was driving, and when he opened his eyes, he saw the disabled car. He swerved to the left, but hit the disabled car from behind, pinning Aguiar and Gomez between the two cars, police said.
Aguiar was pronounced dead on the scene, while Gomez was transported to Delray Medical Center where he remains in critical condition, the report said.
More Local Stories: ||||| A sneeze led to a 79-year-old widow crashing her car on Waterfall Way near Armidale on Sunday, her sister claims.
A sneeze led to a 79-year-old widow crashing her car on Waterfall Way near Armidale on Sunday, her sister claims.
Edna Hickson, of Smithtown, was driving to her sister Betty Sheelah's Armidale home when she apparently sneezed about 10.45am, 18km east of Armidale.
Police reported she failed to negotiate a bend and left the road, rolling her Hyundai Elantra a number of times.
"She was coming to visit me and spend the week with me," Ms Sheelah said.
The family was preparing a huge party for Ms Hickson's 80th birthday in early October, "this accident is just such a shock", Ms Sheelah said.
"She was quite alert after the crash, apparently," Ms Sheelah said.
"When they arrived, she told the paramedics she had sneezed and that was what led to the accident."
Ms Sheelah claimed her sister was taken to Armidale Hospital where she died from internal injuries.
A report is being compiled into the tragic accident for the coroner.
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– A 79-year-old woman died Sunday, and her sister says a sneeze was to blame. Australian police say Edna Hickson's Hyundai Elantra rolled a number of times as she rounded a bend, causing internal injuries that ultimately killed her. But sister Betty Sheelah says Hickson, who was driving to Sheelah's home in northern New South Wales for a week's stay, didn't die on the scene. She "was quite alert after the crash. When they arrived, she told the paramedics she had sneezed and that was what led to the accident." Hickson was taken to the hospital, where she later died, reports the Armidale Express. So how common are sneeze-related accidents? Anecdotally, they're certainly not unheard of: A semi-truck driver who said he sneezed and reached for a tissue in May caused a fiery crash and traffic back-up, but no deaths, in Indianapolis; in April 2013, a man pushing a disabled car along a Florida road was struck and killed by a driver who sneezed; and in November 2012, a single mother in Missouri was killed when her car was hit head-on by a driver who started "sneezing violently." The Washington Post points to a British car repair company's estimate that a sneeze that happens while one is driving 60mph can translate into the driver traveling 50 feet with his eyes closed. (At the root of another car crash: A man holding his breath.)
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President Barack Obama should have been clearer about what health care plans would be discontinued as part of the Affordable Care Act implementation, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand said Sunday.
Appearing on ABC's "This Week," the New York Democrat offered a stirring defense of the law, if not the administration’s implementation efforts.
“He should have just been more specific,” Gillibrand said. “The point is, if you are being offered a terrible health care plan that the minute you get sick you have to go into bankruptcy, those plans should never be offered, he should have just been specific.”
(Understanding Obamacare: POLITICO’s guide to the ACA)
Yet when asked why 39 House Democrats voted with Republicans to force a legislative fix to legalize existing health care plans, Gillibrand said: “They’re just responding to the worries of their constituents.”
Read more about: Kirsten Gillibrand, Obamacare ||||| Wyoming Senate candidate Liz Cheney says she won’t change her position against gay marriage just because her sister Mary is married to a woman.
“I love Mary very much, I love her family very much,” Liz Cheney said on “Fox News Sunday. “This is just an issue on which we disagree.”
Liz Cheney, the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, is mounting a primary challenge to Republican Sen. Mike Enzi. She said that she remains opposed to a constitutional amendment forbidding gay marriage and that people should not be discriminated against on the basis of their sexual orientation. Yet marriage, she said, should be for heterosexual couples.
(PHOTOS: 10 fiery quotes from Liz Cheney)
“I believe in the traditional definition of marriage,” she said.
Read more about: Liz Cheney, Gay Marriage, Wyoming ||||| Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker says Republicans must pick a governor or a former governor as its presidential nominee in 2016 to maintain a proper outsider ethos.
“I think its got to be an outsider, I think both the presidential and vice presidential nomination needs to be a former or current governor, people who have done successful things in their states, taken on big reforms, who are ready to move America forward,” Walker said during an interview aired Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.”
Asked if that disqualifies Republican Sens. Ted Cruz, Rand Paul and Marco Rubio, Walker, who is up for re-election in 2014, said yes.
(VIDEO: Sunday shows in 90 seconds)
“All good guys, but it’s got be somebody who is viewed as being exceptionally removed from Washington,” Walker said.
Read more about: GOP, Elections, Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, Scott Walker, Ted Cruz, 2016 Elections ||||| Photo
WASHINGTON — They were the towheaded sisters who tagged along on campaigns, polite and smiling, as their father rose through Wyoming and then Washington politics to become one of the most powerful men in the country.
“We were as close as sisters can be,” recalled Mary Cheney of her relationship with her older sister, Liz.
But now, a feud between the two has spilled into public view, involving social media, an angry same-sex spouse, a high-profile election and a father who feels uncomfortably caught between his two children.
The situation has deteriorated so much that the two sisters have not spoken since the summer, and the quarrel threatens to get in the way of something former Vice President Dick Cheney desperately wants — a United States Senate seat for Liz.
Things erupted on Sunday when Mary Cheney, a lesbian, and her wife were at home watching “Fox News Sunday” — their usual weekend ritual. Liz Cheney appeared on the show and said that she opposed same-sex marriage, describing it as “just an area where we disagree,” referring to her sister. Taken aback and hurt, Mary Cheney took to her Facebook page to blast back: “Liz — this isn’t just an issue on which we disagree you’re just wrong — and on the wrong side of history.”
Watch the latest video at video.foxnews.com
But then Mary Cheney’s wife, Heather Poe, went further, touching on Liz Cheney’s relocation from Northern Virginia to Wyoming to seek office. (Liz Cheney is already battling accusations of carpetbagging in the race.)
“I can’t help but wonder how Liz would feel if as she moved from state to state, she discovered that her family was protected in one but not the other,” Ms. Poe wrote on her Facebook page. “Yes, Liz,” she added, “in fifteen states and the District of Columbia you are my sister-in-law.”
The feud reveals tensions not just within the family but in the Republican Party more broadly as it seeks to respond to both a changing America and an energized, fervently conservative base.
Indeed, while Liz Cheney seeks to make clear her opposition to same-sex marriage, her father more than a decade ago was able to embrace fairly moderate views on the subject, breaking publicly with President George W. Bush over Mr. Bush’s support for a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage. He has gone further still since then, telling Barbara Walters in 2011, “I certainly don’t have any problem with” same-sex marriage.
But Ms. Cheney, in her bid to defeat Republican Senator Michael B. Enzi of Wyoming, is running to his right and seeking to capture conservatives and Tea Party enthusiasts.
Photo
Liz Cheney on Sunday declined to directly address the remarks from her sister and sister-in-law, but said in an email: “I love my sister and her family and have always tried to be compassionate towards them. I believe that is the Christian way to behave.”
People who have spoken to Liz Cheney say she is irritated that her sister is making their dispute public and believes it is hypocritical for Mary Cheney to take such a hard line now, given that she worked for the re-election of President Bush, an opponent of same-sex marriage.
The relationship between the two sisters used to be quite different. The daughters drew especially close when their father ran as Mr. Bush’s running mate in 2000 and eventually became a figure of great controversy and enormous power as vice president. After Mr. Cheney left office in 2009, politically bruised and physically ailing, the sisters, who lived 15 minutes apart in Washington’s tony Northern Virginia suburbs, would join their parents for a standing Sunday dinner at Liz’s house in McLean each week, along with their families, including Ms. Poe.
Mary Cheney, 44, said in a phone interview Sunday that she presumed her sister shared her father’s views on marriage, and that view was reinforced because Liz Cheney “was always very supportive” of her relationship with Ms. Poe and the couple’s two children. She learned otherwise in August when Liz Cheney declared, shortly after announcing her Senate candidacy, that she was opposed to same-sex marriage rights. Mary Cheney said it is now “impossible” for the sisters to reconcile as long as Liz Cheney maintains that position.
“What amazes me is that she says she’s running to be a new generation of leader,” Mary Cheney said, citing her 47-year-old sister’s slogan in her campaign against Mr. Enzi, 69. “I’m not sure how sticking to the positions of the last 20 or 30 years is the best way to do that.”
Mary Cheney said it was her wife’s idea for the couple to take to Facebook to respond to Liz’s televised remarks. Ms. Poe seemed especially hurt that her sister-in-law had acted so embracing toward them in private, and then took this public position.
“Liz has been a guest in our home, has spent time and shared holidays with our children, and when Mary and I got married in 2012 — she didn’t hesitate to tell us how happy she was for us,” Ms. Poe wrote. “To have her say she doesn’t support our right to marry is offensive to say the least.”
In the interview, Mary Cheney, who is a longtime political consultant, said she would continue to raise the matter. Reminded by a reporter that such criticism could complicate her sister’s Senate campaign, Mary Cheney offered a clipped answer reminiscent of her father’s terse style. “O.K.,” she said, before letting silence fill the air.
It is not the substance of the issue that could hurt Liz Cheney in Wyoming — her opponent also opposes same-sex marriage. But the ugly family drama and questions about what Liz Cheney truly believes could reinforce questions about her authenticity in a place where many voters have met their politicians in person and are already skeptical of an outsider like Ms. Cheney, who has lived elsewhere for much of her life. Ms. Cheney’s first ad, which she released last week, was devoted entirely to emphasizing her family’s Wyoming roots.
Wyoming, a sprawling but sparsely populated state, has rarely seen such high-profile primaries, and this one has already featured an ugly Cheney family episode: After former Wyoming Senator Alan Simpson, a longtime friend of the family who served with Mr. Cheney in the state’s congressional delegation, fretted to The New York Times this summer about how Liz Cheney’s challenge of Mr. Enzi would be divisive among the state’s Republicans, Lynne Cheney, the sisters’ mother and Mr. Cheney’s wife, confronted him at a charity event and told him to “just shut up” — three times, Mr. Simpson claimed. When Lynne Cheney later said that the exchange never happened, Mr. Simpson called her denial “a damn baldfaced lie.”
The former vice president is active and visible in his daughter’s Senate bid and this Wednesday, he will join her in Denver for a fund-raiser to benefit her campaign. Early polls show Liz Cheney trailing Mr. Enzi, but her fund-raising since declaring her candidacy has been robust.
As for Mary Cheney, she said that when she gets together with her parents these days, they know which subjects not to bring up. “They come over for dinner and we don’t talk about Liz or the race,” she said. “There is so much more to talk about.”
The Cheneys have tried to be “as neutral as they can,” added Mary Cheney, who just returned from a pheasant hunting trip with her father in South Dakota. “My parents are stuck in an awful position.”
As for the coming holidays, Mary Cheney said that her parents will come to her and Ms. Poe’s Northern Virginia home for Thanksgiving and that she assumed her older sister would be in Wyoming.
At Christmas, the whole Cheney clan will head to the Jackson Hole area in Wyoming, where Liz Cheney now lives. But Mary Cheney said of her sister, “I will not be seeing her.” ||||| House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said Sunday the grandfathering clause in the Affordable Care Act only applied to people who had plans in 2010, before President Barack Obama signed the law.
“If you had your plan before the enactment of the law in 2010, there is nothing in the law” that can remove it,” the California Democrat said on NBC's "Meet the Press." “You could (keep your plan), if you had your plan before the enactment of the law in 2010. Grandfathering is for those before” 2010.”
Pelosi, a chief architect of the law in the House, said Obama was correct to take responsibility for the troubled Obamacare rollout, but insisted there's nothing that needs to be fixed about the law.
“He is gracious and he is taking responsibility, but that doesn’t mean that there was anything in the law that said if you like what you had before 2010 you couldn’t keep it,” she said. “He took responsibility for the big picture… because that’s what people see.”
Read more about: Nancy Pelosi, Obamacare ||||| Luci Baines Johnson, daughter of the late President Lyndon Johnson, recalled on in an interview Sunday her family’s struggle moving into the White House after John F. Kennedy’s assassination in 1963.
“One night I heard my mother and father actually have raised voices. That was just not in their temperament,” she told host Bob Schieffer on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “My mother was saying, ‘No, Lyndon, we can’t. We just can’t.’ And my father was saying empathetically but firmly, ‘Bird, we have to… We have to move on Dec. 7 because that’s the date that’s convenient to Mrs. Kennedy and to the Secret Service.”
Johnson said at that point she didn’t realize the significance of that date in American history. “I didn’t understand that Dec. 7 was a date that would live in infamy for their generation. Nov. 22 had become that day for me.”
Read more about: John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, JFK, Luci Baines Johnson ||||| Most House Democrats who voted for the Obamacare fix bill last week were “insulating themselves against sound bites,” Assistant Democratic Leader Rep. James Clyburn said Sunday.
(VIDEO: Sunday shows in 90 seconds)
Thirty-nine House Democrats joined Republicans on Friday to pass a bill that allows insurance companies to continue selling plans that have been canceled under Obamacare. And the South Carolina congressman said that while many of them have “real concerns,” about 30 of them voted for the bill to protect themselves from the rhetoric surrounding the troubled rollout of the Affordable Care Act.
Many people saw the bill simply as a vote to allow people to keep their insurance plans, Clyburn said, and many lawmakers would land in hot water for voting against that. “The fact of the matter is, if you look at the second part of that bill, it allows insurance companies to continue selling what we know to be substandard” plans, he said.
(Understanding Obamacare: POLITICO’s guide to the ACA)
“I don’t blame anybody for insulating themselves against these sound bites," Clyburn said, "because that’s the world that we live in.”
Read more about: Jim Clyburn, House Democrats, Obamacare ||||| House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi says House Democrats running in 2014 will embrace the Affordable Care Act in their re-election campaigns.
Appearing Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” the California Democrat declined to say whether the issue would help Democrats win a House majority but said there'll be no abandoning health care as a campaign issue.
“I don’t think you can tell what will happen next year, but I will tell you this, Democrats stand tall in support of the Affordable Care Act,” she said. “We have great candidates who are running who are concerned bout our economy, are concerned about government shutdown.”
Pelosi said the economy will be the primary focus of next year’s campaign.
Of health care, she said: “This is an issue that has to be dealt with, but it doesn’t mean, ‘Oh, it’s a political issue so were going to run away from it.’ It’s too valuable for the American people. What is important about it is that the American people are well served, not who gets re-elected.”
Read more about: Nancy Pelosi, Obamacare ||||| President Barack Obama’s mishandling of the Affordable Care Act rollout has been incompetent, Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward said, but it doesn’t rise to past president-dooming scandals.
“What this is, it’s a mess, clearly, but what it isn’t, and I think you have to look at the question of motive. And the president’s motive here, even though there were deep problems with the implementation, he wants to do something good for 30 million people and get them health insurance,” Woodward said on “Fox News Sunday.” “So this isn’t Watergate, this isn’t [Bill] Clinton and Monica Lewinsky.”
Asked by Fox host Chris Wallace if the Obamacare implementation revealed “rank incompetence,” Woodward agreed.
(Understanding Obamacare: POLITICO’s guide to the ACA)
“There’s no question about that,” he said. “But you see all of these stories and this frenzy out there, the game over, the presidency is over some people are saying, and I think that’s not the case.”
But Woodward did say the ACA rollout is a harbinger of bad things to come for Obama’s White House.
(VIDEO: Sunday shows in 90 seconds)
“When you go down the road, it’s going to get worse,” he said. “It’s going to blow a hole in the budget when you go two or three months from now… All of a sudden this is going to come on the table and people are going to say, ‘My God it’s going to cost much more money than we thought before. How you disentangle this is now on Obama’s head.”
Read more about: Bob Woodward, Monica Lewinsky, Obamacare, Watergate
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– Top Democrats circled the wagons today around the Affordable Care Act, with Kirsten Gillibrand offering what Politico calls "a stirring defense of the law." "The point is, if you are being offered a terrible health care plan that the minute you get sick you have to go into bankruptcy, those plans should never be offered," she said. President Obama "should have just been specific," when he said Americans could keep their plans. She dismissed 39 Democrats who voted with the GOP on a fix as "just responding to the worries of their constituents." (James Clyburn said they were "insulating themselves against soundbytes.") Nancy Pelosi, meanwhile, said "Democrats stand tall in support of the Affordable Care Act. This is an issue that has to be dealt with, but it doesn’t mean, 'Oh, it’s a political issue so we're going to run away from it.’ It’s too valuable for the American people." Of the president's comments Thursday, she said, "He is gracious and he is taking responsibility." Elsewhere, on your Sunday dial: Bob Woodward on the fumbled ObamaCare rollout: "What this is, it’s a mess, clearly, but what it isn’t, and I think you have to look at the question of motive. And the president’s motive here, even though there were deep problems with the implementation, he wants to do something good for 30 million people and get them health insurance. So this isn’t Watergate, this isn’t [Bill] Clinton and Monica Lewinsky." LBJ daughter Luci Baines Johnson on moving into the White House: "One night I heard my mother and father actually have raised voices. That was just not in their temperament. My mother was saying, 'No, Lyndon, we can’t. We just can’t.' And my father was saying ... firmly, 'Bird, we have to… We have to move on Dec. 7 because that’s the date that’s convenient to Mrs. Kennedy and to the Secret Service.' I didn’t understand that Dec. 7 was a date that would live in infamy for their generation. Nov. 22 had become that day for me." Kathleen Kennedy Townsend on whether Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone: "I don’t know, I don’t know. I’m not going to solve that problem and what I’m going to do is focus on things to make a difference. That was a really terrible time in our country’s legacy." Liz Cheney on gay marriage: "I love (openly gay sister) Mary very much, I love her family very much. This is just an issue on which we disagree. I believe in the traditional definition of marriage." The New York Times notes that Mary Cheney's wife has responded, calling Liz Cheney's comments "offensive to say the least," and warning that she's "on the wrong side of history." Scott Walker has seen the GOP's 2016 nominee, and ... "I think it's got to be an outsider, I think both the presidential and vice presidential nomination needs to be a former or current governor, people who have done successful things in their states, taken on big reforms, who are ready to move America forward." As for Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, and Marco Rubio, "All good guys, but it’s got be somebody who is viewed as being exceptionally removed from Washington."
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Image reveals Kabou calmly pushing her 15-month-old daughter to the beach where the toddler died
A mum who placed her toddler trapped in her pushchair in front of a rising tide to drown said being a mother was 'incompatible' with her love life.
Fabienne Kabou, a 39-year-old Frenchwoman, told a court: "I put an end to her life because it was easier that way".
She now faces life in prison for the premeditated murder of 15-month-old Adelaide on a beach in northern France.
The little girl’s lifeless body was still tied into her pushchair when she was discovered by prawn fishermen the next day.
After a ten day search, police using DNA from the pram eventually traced Kabou to the home in Paris she shared with a 63-year-old boyfriend Michel Lafon, where she was arrested.
Kabou, a philosophy student, told police she took the drastic move after deciding motherhood was 'incompatible' with her love life with Mr Lafon, a sculptor.
Getty Fabienne Kabou told a court she killed her child to 'make life easier' (court sketch)
The killing in the northern resort town of Berck-sur-Mer on November 19 2013 sparked outrage as hundreds took to the streets in a so-called ‘White March’ demonstration against child cruelty.
Kabou told a court, St-Omer Assizes, today: "I put an end to her life because it was easier that way.
"Everything went perfectly. It was as if I felt carried along, I just couldn't say stop."
Read more: Pictured: Mother calmly pushing daughter to beach where she left her to drown in rising tide
Her defence barrister, Fabienne Roy-Nansion, meanwhile insisted that Kabou "sees her act as we all see it, that is to say, something utterly horrible, and she considers herself indefensible".
Getty Fabienne Kabou admitted to police that having a child was 'incompatible' with her love life (court sketch)
Kabou, who is of Senegalese origin, is from a prosperous Catholic family and of "remarkable intelligence", said Ms Roy-Nansion.
Ms Roy-Nansion read out a psychological report saying: "Her psychological status is largely influenced by cultural references and an individual history linked to Senegalese witchcraft that radically altered her view of the world."
Paul Bensussan, a court psychiatrist, said: "Infanticide committed by the mother is often underpinned by a psychiatric pathology.
Getty The headstone placed on the grave of Adelaide has been covered with toy animals by well-wishers
"In most cases the mother is deeply depressed and sees her act as a kind of 'altruistic suicide', saving her child from suffering."
Adelaide was born in the couple's home and was never registered. No one close to the couple, not even Kabou's mother, knew of her existence.
Ms Roy-Nansion said the pregnancy "was a happy surprise for her, not necessarily for the father. I think she felt deeply alone".
Getty The beach in northern France where little Adelaide drowned
Kabou has told investigators she chose the vast, windswept beach at Berck-sur-Mer to kill Adelaide because it sounded like a ‘sad place’.
Michel Lafon meanwhile said Fabienne Kabou had been 'a magnificent' mother to her child.
The case continues. ||||| A French woman who left her baby daughter to drown on a beach blamed “witchcraft” when she went on trial for murder on Monday.
Fabienne Kabou, 39, who was described as having “remarkable intelligence … but subject to irrational beliefs”, travelled to Berck-sur-Mer with her only child, Adélaïde, in November 2013.
Kabou checked into a hotel and asked locals about the tides before reportedly breastfeeding the child on the beach that night and leaving her as the sea came in and temperatures dropped to below freezing. The girl’s body was discovered by a prawn fisherman the following day.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest A court artist’s sketch of Fabienne Kabou on the first day of her trial. Photograph: Benoit Peyrucq/AFP/Getty Images
Kabou told police she had chosen the town, on France’s Channel coast between Calais and Dieppe, because “even the name sounded sad”. Berck sounds like “yuck” in French.
According to French press reports, Kabou told investigators she walked on to the beach in the moonlight. “I stopped at one point. She gave a small jump as if she’d just woken up. She was looking for my breast, I gave it to her. I remained standing and I clutched her against me and then, I don’t know, I said: ‘No, no, no.’ I couldn’t stop saying ‘no’, I don’t know why. I cried. It was as if I was saying to someone: ‘I can’t do something like that,’ but I did it.”
She continued: “I saw the spray and I must have left Ada at five metres, perhaps two. In any case, she would have drowned straight away. I don’t know how fast the tide came in but it was very close. I put her down, I spoke to her, I told her I was sorry. She was fine, I think. She didn’t feel in danger, I was next to her, on my knees. I gave her a long hug … she wasn’t exactly asleep but she was calm … I don’t know how long I stayed there, saying I was sorry, talking to her. Then I turned on my heels and I ran.” The next day Kabou returned to Paris by train.
Kabou, of Senegalese origin, told the court of her well-off childhood in Dakar. She was described as a brilliant student. She is said to have an IQ of 130, well above average. She moved to France in 1995, where she abandoned an architecture course after two years and embarked on a philosophy degree. She also fell in love with a painter and sculptor 30 years her senior, Michel Lafon.
She terminated two pregnancies before giving birth to Adélaïde alone at the art studio she shared with Lafon. She had not consulted a doctor during the pregnancy and neither parent registered the birth with the authorities, so there was no official record of Adélaïde, who was named after her grandmother.
Kabou told detectives she heard voices persecuting her and evil forces that drove her to kill her daughter.
“In 2011 I fell pregnant with Adélaïde, she was born in August and I ended up killing her 15 months after her birth,” she told the court in the north-eastern town of Saint-Omer.
“Witchcraft. That’s my default explanation because I have no other.”
Kabou said she had spent around €40,000 consulting “witchdoctors and healers” before leaving the child to die on the beach.
“Nothing makes sense in this story. What interest could I have I have in tormenting myself, lying, killing my daughter? I spoke of sorcery and I’m not joking. Even a stupid person would not do what I did.”
Kabou’s lawyer Fabienne Roy-Nansion asked her to explain the evil forces she felt had driven her to kill.
“For many years I struggled to wake up in the morning. My feet were paralysed. I had hallucinations, like seeing the walls that wouldn’t stop shaking,” Kabou said.
Court psychiatrist Paul Bensussan said her act was possibly triggered to post natal depression. The father took no interest in the child, according to court documents.
Kabou is on trial for premeditated murder and faces life in prison if convicted. The trial in Saint-Omer is expected to last a week. ||||| A French woman has gone on trial for premeditated murder after leaving her 15-month old daughter to die on a beach in Northern France.
Fabienne Kabou, 39, admitted leaving her only child – named Adélaïde after her grandmother - in freezing conditions on the Berck-sur-Mer beach as the tide came in during a hearing following the incident in November 2013.
Ms Kabou is said to have taken a train from Paris to the Channel coast, and on arrival had allegedly asked locals about tide times, Le Monde reported.
On the same evening she is accused of taking the girl to the beach – which she allegedly told detectives she chose because “even the name sounded sad” – and returning without her. A fisherman discovered the child's body the following morning.
Although Ms Kabou admitted to leaving the girl shortly after she was arrested, subsequent psychiatric analysis said the defendant had "severely impaired judgement due to paranoid delusions", Le Figaro reported.
However, psychiatrists found the woman was not clinically insane, so a trial is being held to decide the woman's guilt.
During a hearing at the Boulogne-sur-Mer court on 23 December 2013, Ms Kabou described how she had felt driven by a relentless force, according to Le Parisien.
She explained: “I'm still standing, I hold her against me and then I say ‘no, no, no’, I keep saying no, I do not know why. I cried. It’s as if I was telling someone I could not do a thing like that, but I did.”
Ms Kabou was previously living in a Paris workshop with sculptor Michael Lafon, who was 30 years her senior and the father to her child.
She had become pregnant twice before – both times suffering miscarriages – and gave birth to the third child alone in the workshop.
Mental Health Awareness: Facts and figures
10 show all Mental Health Awareness: Facts and figures
1/10 Mental Health Foundation: Living With Anxiety report 30 per cent of people deal with anxiety by talking to a friend or relative, or by going for a walk. Getty
2/10 Mental Health Foundation: Living With Anxiety report Almost one in five people feel anxious all or a lot of the time. PA
3/10 Mental Health Foundation: Living With Anxiety report 22 per cent of women feel anxious a lot or all of the time, compared to 15 per cent of men. Roman Levin/Flickr Creative Commons
4/10 Mental Health Foundation: Living With Anxiety report 45 per cent of people who feel anxious in everyday life cite financial issues as their biggest cause of worry. Getty
5/10 Mental Health Foundation: Living With Anxiety report And 26 per cent of people who feel anxious say fearing for the welfare of their children and loved ones leaves them burdened with worry. And 26 per cent of people say fearing for the welfare of their children and loved ones leaves them burdened with anxiety.
6/10 Mental Health Foundation: Living With Anxiety report 27 per cent of people who suffer from anxiety say work issues, such as long hours, are the source of the problem. Getty
7/10 Mental Health Foundation: Living With Anxiety report But 16 per cent use alcohol to cope, while 10 per cent turn to cigarettes in the face of anxiety. Unemployed people are more likely to resort to these harmful strategies: 27 per cent use alcohol and 23 per cent use cigarettes. AFP/Getty
8/10 Mental Health Foundation: Living With Anxiety report Only seven per cent of people who say they suffer from anxiety seek help from their GP. Getty
9/10 Mental Health Foundation: Living With Anxiety report People are thought to be more anxious than they were five years ago. Alessandra/Flickr Creative Commons
10/10 Mental Health Foundation: Living With Anxiety report The stresses of modern life are thought to have created "The Age of Anxiety". Getty
The pair had never registered the birth of the girl, so officially she did not exist. According to three experts on the case this was because the woman believed her daughter to be in great danger.
Drs Daniel Zagury, Roland Coutanceau and Mourassis Wilquin examined the woman – who was born to a wealthy Catholic family in Dakar, Senegal - and found she had “great intelligence” and “an IQ well above average”.
However, they were also said to be struck by the faith she placed in irrational beliefs such as witchcraft, according to Le Monde.
Ms Kabou reportedly felt ill and often had hallucinations, which she had documented in a journal. She also wrote how she could hear the voices of dead relatives who she believed intended to harm her, the newspaper said.
The trial is expected to take a week and, if found guilty, Ms Kabou could recieve a life sentence.
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– In November 2013, Fabienne Kabou traveled to the French coastal town of Berck-sur-Mer with her 15-month-old daughter and checked into a hotel. She reportedly asked locals about the tides, breastfed Adélaïde on the beach, and then, allegedly, left the little girl there as the tide came in. The next day, Kabou returned to Paris via train and a fisherman found Adélaïde's body—still strapped into her stroller, according to the Mirror, though the Irish Times says Kabou had taken her out of the pram first. Kabou, now 39, is on trial this week for her daughter's murder, the Guardian reports. She has confessed, saying she chose the town because "even the name sounded sad," and that evil forces and voices pushed her to kill the little girl. While psychiatric analysis noted "paranoid delusions," the Independent reports Kabou was deemed able to stand trial. On Monday, she reportedly told the court she killed her daughter because it was "easier that way." Per French media, Kabou has described the moments leading up to her daughter's alleged abandonment: "She was looking for my breast, I gave it to her. ... I clutched her against me" and cried. Then, "I must have left Ada at five meters, perhaps two. In any case, she would have drowned straight away. I don’t know how fast the tide came in but it was very close." She says she chose to leave the girl by the water because it was "like amniotic fluid." Kabou insists the girl was "calm" and "didn't feel in danger" as she hugged her, apologized, then "turned on my heels and ... ran." Kabou's lawyer says Adélaïde's father was not happy about the surprise pregnancy, leaving Kabou feeling depressed and "deeply alone," and that Kabou felt she was saving her daughter from an unhappy life. (In the US, this woman killed six of her own newborns.)
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1 of 4. Boys gather near the wreckage of a car destroyed in 2012 by a U.S. drone air strike targeting suspected al Qaeda militants in Azan, in the southeastern Yemeni province of Shabwa, in this February 3, 2013 file photo.
SANAA (Reuters) - On January 23, science teacher Ali Nasser al-Qawli had finished supervising school exams in the Yemeni village of Khawlan and was enjoying an afternoon with friends when he encountered the strangers.
They wanted a lift in a taxi Qawli and his nephew were in. A while later, locals say, an American aircraft fired missiles at the vehicle.
"All of us in the village heard a large explosion," said Qawli's brother, Mohamed, who rushed to the scene. "We picked up the burned body parts. They were all over. We picked them up and put them in plastic bags, and took them to the hospital so we could bury them the next day," he said. "My brother was completely charred. We identified him by his teeth. It's as if they killed animals."
A copy of the Khalid bin al-Walid school attendance register shows Qawli's signature for the first four days of that week. Under Thursday it says: "Martyred on January 23, 2013."
At the time local sources told Reuters the strike killed at least six suspected al Qaeda militants.
The Yemeni government now says Qawli, who had three children, and his nephew were not militants but innocent civilians. In a statement, it concluded: "We can confirm the following: Ali al-Qawli ... did not know or communicate with the individuals who rented the mentioned car and their death was a matter of fate."
It was just one instance in which Yemeni civilians have perished in U.S. drone strikes, which are Washington's favored method of combating al Qaeda in Yemen.
On Thursday, 15 people on their way to a wedding were killed when an air strike missed its intended target of suspected militants, Yemeni officials said. It was not clear whether a drone or a Yemeni aircraft was responsible for the attack.
The United States says its drone program has been successful in eliminating members of al Qaeda in various countries. Some Yemenis say had it not been for such strikes, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) could have seized more territory across Yemen.
Yemeni foreign minister Abu Bakr al-Qirbi told Reuters in September that the drone strikes were a "necessary evil" and a "very limited affair" that happens in coordination with the Yemeni government.
Other Yemenis, and some U.S. politicians, say the strikes and civilian casualties are increasing sympathy for AQAP and resentment against America. AQAP, which has scattered across the country, is now targeting local police and security officials, who have only tenuous control in Yemen.
There are near daily suicide attacks on Yemeni police and security forces, which Yemeni officials blame on suspected AQAP militants. On December 5 more than 50 people died when an estimated 12 militants attacked the Yemeni defense ministry compound in Sanaa.
The threat is more than local: Yemen borders oil producer Saudi Arabia and is next to major shipping routes.
Mohamed, brother of the dead Qawli, told Reuters: "These (drone) strikes create more terrorism. In our area there was never anyone linked to al Qaeda. After the strike, everyone in the area started listening to al Qaeda types, exchanging videos on mobile phones."
He said that many houses in his area now fly a black flag carrying an Islamic expression of faith - a symbol al Qaeda often uses.
U.S. Congressman Alan Grayson, a Democrat representative in Florida, told Reuters that according to one U.S. official who served in Yemen, "every drone death yields 50 to 60 new recruits for Al Qaeda." Grayson, who recently participated in a Congressional briefing that included relatives of victims of drone strikes, described the drone policy as "ineffective."
The Yemeni government, struggling to assert control over vast swathes of territory where rebels and secessionists sometimes hold sway, tolerates the attacks and does not usually comment on the U.S. role in specific incidents. But Rajeh Badi, the media advisor to Yemen's prime minister, told Reuters: "The strikes have caused, in some instances, the joining of some individuals with AQAP with the motive of revenge, especially when the strikes target innocents."
Asked about the drone program and civilian casualties, a U.S. State Department official referred to President Barack Obama's comments in May in which Obama said that before any strike is made "there must be near-certainty that no civilians will be killed or injured."
The official added: "Yemen and the United States are robust partners in the fight against al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. We support the efforts of the Yemeni government and its security forces in combating AQAP."
SPREAD OF AQAP
Formed in 2009, AQAP has a reputation as one of al Qaeda's most formidable regional wings, conducting suicide attacks on tourists and diplomats, and operations against neighboring Saudi Arabia and U.S. targets abroad.
In 2011 al Qaeda militants charged into the south Yemen towns of Zinjibar, Jaar and Shuqra in Abyan province and set up Islamic "emirates" when the country was in the midst of an uprising that eventually ousted veteran President Ali Abdullah Saleh. To broaden their appeal, the militants renamed themselves Ansar al-Sharia (Partisans of Islamic Law), appointed spokesmen to deal with the media and put up signposts and flags.
Abyan's governor, Jamal al-Aqel, faced a big challenge to drive out the militants, who enjoyed some local support, when he took up his post in April 2012. "We were running the province and running the fighting from nine square kilometers," Aqel, who wears a small pistol on his belt, told Reuters. "Al Qaeda does not move except within the confines of an environment that helps it to move. I consider that the environment that used to help is now missing."
Yemeni security forces managed to drive the militants out in June 2012 after more than a year of political turmoil that had taken Yemen to the brink of civil war.
U.S. officials credit the drone strategy for the fact that AQAP is no longer able to control territory in Yemen as it did in 2011. Drone attacks killed several suspected AQAP figures, including Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S.-born Islamist militant who orchestrated plots to bomb a Detroit-bound airliner in 2009 and U.S. cargo planes in 2010. Awlaki was killed in September 2011.
BACKLASH
Despite the toll taken on militants, residents in various parts of Yemen told Reuters they worry that the drone program is counter-productive. In the capital Sanaa, Abdulrazzaq al-Jamal, a journalist who has interviewed several members of AQAP, acknowledged the group has taken some hits from the drones, but said the strikes have also brought it followers.
"The drones have limited their movements but it makes their ideology more attractive to people. When a Yemeni is killed, it doesn't matter whether or not he's al Qaeda," said Jamal, who was wearing the dagger common among Yemeni men.
He said some Salafists - followers of a strict form of Sunni Islam - are angry the strikes are hitting Sunnis, who form the majority in Yemen, rather than Shi'ite Houthi rebels, who have been fighting the government for years.
"Going after al Qaeda has made a lot of Salafists closer to them. Why don't those drones go after armed Shi'ites who call for ‘Death to America, Death to Israel'," said Jamal, referring to the refrain many hardline Shi'ites use in Yemen and elsewhere.
"Hundreds of families are seeking revenge from the U.S. so they deal with that by joining al Qaeda."
In Jaar, a decrepit village in Abyan province where the smell of fresh fish at the outdoor market hangs in the air, sympathy for the militants was still evident.
Jaar has seen several attacks, though it is unclear whether by U.S. drones or by the Yemeni airforce. Burned shells of cars destroyed in a strike two years ago still sit near mounds of rubble where one-storey brick homes once stood.
Villagers' accounts differ on whether some of the victims were members of al Qaeda, but all those Reuters spoke to said some of the victims had been civilians.
Just off a poorly paved road where motorbikes and donkey carts vied for space, Hozam, a butcher who stood outside his home, described a strike that destroyed the house near him where six men had moved in.
"I grabbed the children and took them away as we breathed in gunpowder and smoke. I saw people bring out severed heads and torn body parts," he said of the strike which took place in mid-2012.
His wife, Umm Abdallah, said that when militants had controlled the area, people had had more access to electricity and water. Yemeni officials say such views are misguided and exaggerated.
Tribal leaders, who have a lot of influence within Yemen's complex social structure, warn of rising sympathy for al Qaeda. Awad Ahmed Mohsen from Majallah, a southern village hit by a drone strike that killed dozens in 2009, told Reuters that America had brought hatred with its drones.
Asked if more people joined al Qaeda in the wake of attacks that killed civilians, Mohsen said: "Definitely. And even those who don't join, now sympathize with al Qaeda because of these strikes, these violations. Any American they see, they exact revenge, even if it's a civilian."
NO SILVER BULLET
The strikes have forced the militants to travel in smaller numbers to avoid detection; but in some ways that makes it harder for Yemen's security forces to target them.
"What you've got now is a more dispersed AQAP that focuses on guerrilla tactics and asymmetrical attacks against Yemeni forces," said Barbara Leaf, the U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for the Arabian Peninsula, at a Congressional sub-committee hearing in November. "I wish there were a silver bullet approach to this. There isn't, we know it, the Yemenis know it."
At the same hearing Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Republican representative in Florida, said: "Al Qaeda has not been decimated, it is not on the run, it is resurgent throughout the region and Yemen is no different."
Several drone strikes were launched against suspected militants in August after authorities detected a plot against U.S. embassies, but the pace has slowed since then.
Leaf said that continued U.S. support for Yemen's security was "critical" and acknowledged that while the Yemeni government had the will to counter AQAP, "it does not have the capacity at this time to extend security throughout all parts of this country."
Facing a backlash from international rights groups, and an American public wary of getting involved in more regional conflicts, the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee approved a plan to provide greater oversight of drone strikes, including an annual public accounting of casualties. But in late November, the House of Representatives voted against such a move.
Others believe the only long-term answer to militants in the region is diplomacy. Hamoud Hitar, a former religious endowments minister in Yemen who headed a rehabilitation program for jailed militants in the early 2000s, said the way to deal with militants was through changing their ideology.
Dressed in a crisp white thawb and trim turban at his home in Sanaa, Hitar said: "Using force only reinforces the ideology of force. We have to work on (changing) the ideological roots, otherwise terrorism will continue."
(Additional reporting by Mohamed Ghobari in Sanaa; Writing by Yara Bayoumy; Editing by Richard Woods and Simon Robinson) ||||| Missiles fired by a U.S. drone slammed into a convoy of vehicles traveling to a wedding party in central Yemen on Thursday, killing at least 13 people, Yemeni security officials said.
The officials said the attack took place in the city of Radda, the capital of Bayda province, and left charred bodies and burnt out cars on the road. The city, a stronghold of al-Qaida militants, witnessed deadly clashes early last year between armed tribesmen backed by the military and al-Qaida gunmen in an attempt to drive them out of the city.
There were no immediate details on who was killed in the strike, and there were conflicting reports about whether there were militants traveling with the wedding convoy.
A military official said initial information indicated the drone mistook the wedding party for an al-Qaida convoy. He said tribesmen known to the villagers were among the dead.
One of the three security officials, however, said al-Qaida militants were suspected to have been traveling with the wedding convoy.
While the U.S. acknowledges its drone program in Yemen, it does not usually talk about individual strikes.
If further investigations determine that the victims were all civilians, the attack could fuel an outburst of anger against the United States and the government in Sanaa among a Yemeni public already opposed to the U.S. drone strikes.
Civilian deaths have bred resentments on a local level, sometimes undermining U.S. efforts to turn the public against the militants. The backlash in Yemen is still not as large as in Pakistan, where there is heavy pressure on the government to force limits on strikes _ but public calls for a halt to strikes are starting to emerge.
In October, two U.N. human rights investigators called for more transparency from the United States and other countries about their drone programs, saying their secrecy is the biggest obstacle to determining the civilian toll of such strikes.
The missile attacks in Yemen are part of a joint U.S.-Yemeni campaign against al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, which Washington has called the most dangerous branch of the global terrorist network.
Thursday's drone strike is the second since a massive car bombing and coordinated assault on Yemen's military headquarters killed 56 people, including foreigners. Al-Qaida claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it was retaliation for U.S. drone strikes that have killed dozens of the group's leaders.
Security forces in the Yemeni capital boosted their presence Thursday, setting up checkpoints across the city and sealing off the road to the president's residence, in response to what the Interior Ministry called threats of "terrorist plots" targeting vital institutions and government buildings.
Meanwhile, in the Yemen's restive northern, ultraconservative Sunni Muslim militants and rebels belonging to a branch of Shiite Islam battled each other with artillery and machine guns in clashes that killed more than 40 people, security officials said.
The violence between Islamic Salafi fighters and Hawthi rebels has raged for weeks in Yemen's northern province of Saada, but the latest sectarian clashes marked an expansion of the fighting to the neighboring province of Hagga. The government brokered a cease-fire last month to try to end the violence, but both sides have repeatedly broken the truce.
Officials said clashes began when ultraconservative Salafis took over a Hawthi stronghold in a mountainous area near the border with Saudi Arabia. The officials say that most of the casualties were on the Hawthi side.
The officials said that Salafis, however, accused Hawthis of trying to infiltrate their strongholds in the town of Fagga.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to discuss the fighting publicly.
Hawthi launched in insurgency in 2004 against autocratic President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who stepped down in 2012 after a popular uprising against his rule. Over the course of the Hawthi rebellion, hundreds of people were killed and an estimated 125,000 people uprooted until the rebels and the government struck a fragile cease-fire in 2010.
But the north remained restive despite the truce, and fighting flared along another fault line in November after Hawthis accused the Salafis of trying to gain a foothold in their territory by spreading their brand of Islam.
The rebels say their community of Shiite Muslims suffers discrimination and neglect and that the government has allowed ultraconservative Sunni extremists too strong a voice in the country. Hard-line Sunnis consider Shiites heretics. ||||| SANAA Fifteen people on their way to a wedding in Yemen were killed in an air strike after their party was mistaken for an al Qaeda convoy, local security officials said on Thursday.
The officials did not identify the plane in the strike in central al-Bayda province, but tribal and local media sources said that it was a drone.
"An air strike missed its target and hit a wedding car convoy, ten people were killed immediately and another five who were injured died after being admitted to the hospital," one security official said.
Five more people were injured, the officials said.
The United States has stepped up drone strikes as part of a campaign against Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), regarded by Washington as the most active wing of the militant network.
Yemen, AQAP's main stronghold, is among a handful of countries where the United States acknowledges using drones, although it does not comment on the practice.
Human Rights Watch said in a detailed report in August that U.S. missile strikes, including armed drone attacks, have killed dozens of civilians in Yemen.
Stabilizing the country, which is also struggling with southern separatists and northern rebels, is an international priority due to fears of disorder in a state that flanks top oil producer Saudi Arabia and major shipping lanes.
On Monday, missiles fired from a U.S. drone killed at least three people travelling in a car in eastern Yemen.
(Reporting by Mohammed Ghobari; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall)
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– Apparently wedding parties look a lot like al-Qaeda convoys from the air? In what local media is calling a drone attack, at least 13 people were killed on their way to a wedding in Yemen yesterday; another 5 were injured, the AP reports. Reuters puts the death toll at 15. Local officials say the group was wrongly identified as an al-Qaeda convoy, but one official tells the AP that al-Qaeda fighters were suspected of being among the party. Also unclear: Yemeni officials say a US drone fired the missiles, but Reuters reports that it's not known whether a Yemeni aircraft was responsible for the attack, which left charred bodies and burnt cars on the road. If it's the former, Reuters notes in a separate report that the attack may have been counter-productive. "These (drone) strikes create more terrorism," says one man whose brother, an innocent civilian according to the Yemeni government, was killed in a strike earlier this year after unknowingly riding in a car with suspected al-Qaeda members. "In our area there was never anyone linked to al-Qaeda. After the strike, everyone in the area started listening to al-Qaeda types, exchanging videos on mobile phones." Says a US official who served in Yemen: "Every drone death yields 50 to 60 new recruits for al-Qaeda."
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Breaking News Emails Get breaking news alerts and special reports. The news and stories that matter, delivered weekday mornings.
/ Updated By Nick Bogert and Tracy Connor
Former House Speaker Dennis Hastert could get up to six months in prison after pleading guilty Wednesday in his hush-money case.
The once-powerful Republican admitted making illegal bank withdrawals for payoffs, which sources say were used to quash allegations of sexual misconduct with a student when he was a high-school teacher and coach decades ago.
Hastert did not plead guilty to a second charge that he lied about the transactions, but admitted he misled investigators.
"I didn't want them to know how I intended to spend the money," he said.
The reason for the payoffs was not detailed in court. It was referred to only as "past misconduct." The identity of the former student — called Individual A in court papers — also was not disclosed and may remain secret.
Prosecutors told the court that Hastert agreed to pay Individual A $3.5 million and illegally structured $952,000 in withdrawals to avoid triggering red flags.
"Guilty, sir," Hastert said when asked his plea.
U.S. District Judge Thomas Durkin asked him if he knew what he was doing was wrong.
"Yes, sir," he replied.
Hastert, 73, will be sentenced Feb. 29. Prosecutors are recommending up to six months behind bars, but the judge could impose a stiffer sentence. ||||| Former House speaker J. Dennis Hastert pleaded guilty in federal court here Wednesday to violating federal banking laws in a deal with prosecutors that allows him to avoid, at least for now, a thorough public reckoning of the sexual allegations that generated the case.
Hunched before a federal judge, Hastert spoke only when prompted and steered clear of specifics. He admitted that he withdrew money from banks in increments low enough to avoid mandatory reporting requirements and that he paid someone to keep decades-old misconduct a secret.
“I didn’t want them to know how I intended to spend the money,” Hastert said when asked to describe his misdeeds.
[Hastert’s plea agreement]
He did not address a more lurid allegation that the cash was meant to buy the silence of a former student he had molested years ago.
Former House Speaker Dennis Hastert was expected to plead guilty in a Chicago court on Oct. 28, 2015, in a hush-money case stemming from allegations of sexual misconduct. (Reuters)
The plea marks a personal nadir for a man who served as House speaker for longer than any Republican in history. Friends and former colleagues said Wednesday that the case will undeniably tarnish Hastert’s reputation, and they were still trying to reconcile how the respected leader could have done what authorities allege.
“We’re all dismayed about the whole thing,” said Dallas Ingemunson, a former local GOP official in Illinois and longtime friend of Hastert’s.
Federal sentencing guidelines call for Hastert, 73, to face zero to six months in prison, although U.S. District Judge Thomas M. Durkin said Wednesday that he could deviate from that range. The maximum possible sentence for the charge is five years in prison. Experts said they expect Hastert to face only probation.
Hastert was charged in July with breaking federal banking laws and lying to investigators — ostensibly dull counts that prosecutors alleged stemmed from an intriguing plot. According to an indictment, Hastert, who was a teacher and wrestling coach in Yorkville, Ill., before he got into politics in the early 1980s, agreed to pay someone $3.5 million to cover up “past misconduct” against the person.
A federal law enforcement official has said the person was a former male student of Hastert’s who alleged that Hastert molested him years ago. The indictment says Hastert paid the person about $1.7 million from 2010 to 2014.
[Official: Hush money paid to student who claims Hastert molested him]
The molestation allegation never came up at Hastert's plea hearing Wednesday. Assistant U.S. Attorney Steven Block said Hastert paid a person who confronted him about past misconduct in an attempt to “compensate for and keep confidential” what he had done. Block said the misconduct had occurred decades ago and was “against” the person whom Hastert paid, but he did not name the person or say what the misconduct entailed.
Hastert acknowledged that after the bank asked about his large cash withdrawals — and he found out that they had to be reported — he started withdrawing smaller amounts to avoid scrutiny.
Former congressman Tom Davis (R-Va.), who worked with Hastert, said that although his friend and former colleague’s reputation might be sullied, he hopes his political legacy will not be. Hastert, who served as speaker from 1999 to 2006, brought the Republican Party together at a time when unity was sorely needed, Davis said.
“You may ban him from the hall of fame, but he was a great player,” he said.
Ingemunson said that he was happy the case was drawing near a close and that he still has “a hard time believing a lot of it.” Ingemunson, who said he had talked with Hastert since the indictment but not about the allegations, said he is particularly skeptical that Hastert sexually abused anyone.
“I don’t believe that,” Ingemunson said. “There’s no evidence of that. There’s no charges of that.”
Mostly reporters filled Durkin’s 14th-floor courtroom to watch Hastert’s plea, taking copious notes as he answered a series of mostly procedural questions. Hastert initially spoke softly — so much so that Durkin advised him to raise his voice — but he seemed to gain confidence as the hearing progressed.
Asked whether he is in good physical condition, Hastert joked, “Considering [I’m] 73 years old, yes.”
Although it is possible that more details about the case could be revealed at Hastert’s sentencing, scheduled for Feb. 29, experts said he was admitting wrongdoing probably in part to avoid an in-court airing of his past actions.
“I think that the detailed allegations that interest the public the most likely will never come to light,” said Jacob Frenkel, a white-collar criminal defense lawyer with the Shulman Rogers firm.
[The full indictment of J. Dennis Hastert]
As a part of his written plea agreement, Hastert acknowledged that the U.S. attorney’s office at his sentencing would “fully apprise the District Court and the Probation Office of the nature, scope, and extent of defendant’s conduct regarding the charges against him, and related matters. The government will make known all matters in aggravation and mitigation relevant to sentencing.”
Block said prosecutors are still mulling over whether to call witnesses at the sentencing; defense attorneys said they would have none. The U.S. attorney’s office issued a statement after the plea, saying prosecutors would “provide the Court with relevant information about the defendant’s background and the charged offenses” at sentencing.
Hastert and his attorneys walked by a row of reporters without answering questions after the hearing.
David B. Smith, a white-collar criminal defense lawyer with the Smith & Zimmerman firm, said that though federal sentencing guidelines might call for a prison term, he doubted a judge would impose one.
“Unless the judge is just trying to punish him for the sexual offense that just couldn’t be prosecuted, I don’t see him getting any jail time, and I don’t think he should get any jail time,” Smith said.
[Indictment of Hastert stirs deeper mystery]
Prosecutors’ view of the person Hastert paid remains unclear; he was referred to in documents and in court only as “Individual A.” Davis said he and others were curious to know more about him because the Hastert he knew did not seem capable of such egregious misconduct.
“I never saw anything in the speaker’s life when he was in Congress that was remotely contemptible or remotely at issue,” he said.
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– As expected, Dennis Hastert pleaded guilty Wednesday in a convoluted case that involves allegations he sexually abused a student as a high school wrestling coach. What he pleaded to was lying to the FBI about shady bank transfers made in recent years. Prosecutors say Hastert was shuffling money around illegally to make payments to an unidentified person, with sources saying they were blackmail payments related to the sex-abuse allegations. The Washington Post notes the brief hearing neither revealed why Hastert agreed to pay $3.5 million to "Individual A" nor who Individual A is. As part of the plea deal, federal prosecutors are recommending a prison sentence of up to six months. Hastert will be sentenced Feb. 29; the judge has the ability to hand him up to five years. When the judge asked him to describe his wrongdoing in his own words, Hastert read from a brief written statement that—like his indictment—focused on how he technically broke banking laws. He told the court that he had been withdrawing cash $50,000 at a time. After banking officials questioned him, he began taking out less than $10,000 to avoid reporting requirements. NBC News reports Hastert "illegally structured" $952,000 in total withdrawals; $1.7 million in payments were made to Individual A, per the indictment. Speaking in a halting voice and losing his place in the text at one point, he described why he lied to the FBI: "I didn't want them to know how I intended to spend the money." The judge asked Hastert, "Did you know that what you were doing was wrong?" He responded, "Yes, sir."
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With her divorce from Ben Affleck finally proceeding, Jennifer Garner is happy, healing and looking forward to a bright future. Subscribe now for an inside look at her new life — only in PEOPLE.
Jennifer Garner is settling into her new life as a single mom.
The actress, who filed for divorce from Ben Affleck on April 13, is “doing okay,” an insider tells PEOPLE in this week’s cover story. “This has really been the most difficult decision for her. But it’s time to focus on the future.”
Garner, 45, and Affleck, 44, who each asked for joint custody of their three kids, Violet, 11, Seraphina, 8, and Samuel, 5, continue to effectively co-parent together, according to sources.
While Affleck lived in the guest house on the couple’s L.A. property since he and Garner announced their split in June 2015 after 10 years of marriage, the actor has now moved to a nearby home to remain close to his family.
“They want to be sure the kids are comfortable,” says a source close to both. “It’s all in step with what they’ve always said was the most important thing: their children.”
For more behind Jennifer Garner’s decision to move on, pick up this week’s issue of PEOPLE on newsstands Friday
David Fisher/Rex USA
Between her family and career — Garner has three upcoming films, Wakefield; The Tribes of Palos Verdes, which she stars in and executive-produced; and Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda — the actress hasn’t begun to think about dating again just yet.
“She will eventually, but it will be a while before she does,” says the insider. “She’s certainly not jumping up and down and screaming, ‘I’m single!’ and planning dates. She still says Ben was the love of her life.”
From PEN: Christina El Moussa: I Leaned on My Kids and Friends Through the Divorce
For now, Garner is most content to be with her kids and looking forward to their life together.
“She seems happy to be single and able to move forward,” adds the insider. “She has a very positive attitude about the future.”
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– Jennifer Garner appears on this week's cover of People magazine and she is not happy about it. The story, headlined "Life After Heartbreak," quotes an "insider" who describes Garner's focus as being on her kids—and not on dating—after her split from Ben Affleck. Garner says the story "appear[s] to be coming from me." In a Facebook post, the actress clarifies that she didn't "participate in or authorize this article," nor did she pose for the cover. She also references and bats down rumors that she's pregnant with twins. In response, a People rep tells the AP that the article "is fair and truthful," free of rumors, "and does not say she's pregnant."
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The man suspected of shooting and killing two television journalists in Roanoke, Va. Wednesday morning shot himself about five hours later during a police chase and was later pronounced dead at a hospital.
Authorities said the suspected gunman, Vester L. Flanagan, worked at WDBJ under the on-air name of Bryce Williams and was described by several people as a disgruntled employee at the station.
Dan Dennison, senior communications director for the Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources, was the news director of the station from 2011 to 2013 and also hired and fired Flanagan during his tenure. In a live interview on Hawaii News Now Sunrise, he said Flanagan, who was hired in 2012, was terminated in 2013, largely for performance issues.
“He had a level of a long series of complaints against coworkers nearly from the beginning of employment at the TV station,” Dennison said. “That really had nothing to do with his termination, and after a lot of investigation both internally and externally, all of these allegations were deemed to be unfounded. And they were largely under along racial lines, and we did a thorough investigation and could find no evidence that anyone had racially discriminated against this man.”
Although Dennison said he couldn’t share complete details about the incident, he added that Flanagan’s termination was one of the toughest he’s ever been involved in, so much so that police had to escort Flanagan out of the building because he wouldn’t leave on his own free will.
The two victims -- reporter Alison Parker, 24, and photographer Adam Ward, 27 – died after being shot at around 6:45 a.m. ET while conducting a live interview near Roanoke.
"They were both really just great young people and it’s such a tragic circumstance," Dennison said. "You just never know, when you’re going to work, how a potentially unhinged or unsettled person might impact your life in such a tragic way as we saw in Roanoke this morning."
Copyright 2015 Hawaii News Now. All rights reserved. ||||| The Guardian has obtained internal memos from 2012 sent to gunman that outline ‘aggressive’ behaviour making colleagues feel ‘threatened’
Vester Flanagan, the gunman who killed two journalists in Virginia, was told by his bosses to seek medical help after colleagues at the television station where he worked with his victims repeatedly complained about him, according to memos obtained by the Guardian.
Several flare-ups were detailed in internal messages from Dan Dennison, then the news director of WDBJ7, that were sent to Flanagan and copied to senior colleagues. Flanagan on Wednesday morning shot dead reporter Alison Parker and cameraman Adam Ward.
Flanagan, who died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound later on Wednesday, was reprimanded for “lashing out” at a colleague and for his “harsh language” and “aggressive body language” while working as a reporter.
He was told to contact employee assistance professionals at the company Health Advocate. “This is a mandatory referral requiring your compliance,” Dennison told Flanagan on 30 July 2012. “Failure to comply will result in termination of employment.”
On Christmas Eve that year, Dennison emailed colleagues to say he had just warned Flanagan that he had one final chance to save his job. “I’m not entirely sure where his head is at,” said Dennison. Flanagan was fired three months later.
As he sued the station over his dismissal, Flanagan blamed everyone but himself. “My entire life was disrupted after moving clear across the country for a job only to have my dream turn into a nightmare,” he said, in a letter to a judge.
Flanagan’s rapid downfall at WDBJ7 is detailed in a series of candid memos obtained by the Guardian. Dennison, his boss, began sending internal messages about Flanagan’s behavior in May 2012, just two months after Flanagan began working at the station in southern Virginia. He appeared on screen under the name Bryce Williams.
“On three separate occasions in the past month and a half you have behaved in a manner that has resulted in one or more of your co-workers feeling threatened or uncomfortable,” Dennison told Flanagan.
The memo, addressed to Bryce Williams, said he had “used verbal and body language that left co-workers feeling both threatened and extremely uncomfortable” during a heated argument inside a live station truck.
The other instances involved Flanagan pressuring his accompanying photographer to record an interview in a certain way, forcefully repeating his demands in a way that made both the photographer and the interviewee uncomfortable.
“I’m not trying to be an asshole but the shaky video isn’t going to work,” he purportedly told the photographer before demanding that they redo the interview.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest WDBJ7 looks back at the careers of Alison Parker, 24, and Adam Ward, 27. Link to video
In the second memo, sent 30 July 2012, Dennison told him: “You have been the common denominator in these and other incidents outlined previously … It seems that you are taking the actions of many of the photographers quite personally and misinterpreting their actions or works.”
In a July performance review, a boss rated his ability to work with his co-workers as “unacceptable”. “The area where Bryce must make immediate improvement is with photographers. The issue is well-documented and has been discussed.”
In November, however, Flanagan was reprimanded once again – this time for wearing a sticker of President Obama while standing in line to vote in that year’s general election. Dennison told him he had clearly breached not just company regulations but also “standard journalistic ethics”. The news director wrote that they were “fast reaching the point” where Flanagan’s violations of policy “could mean termination”.
By December, Flanagan had a meeting with his bosses in which he said “maybe it’s time for me to go”. Dennison said that was his decision but they were willing to give him one more try, according to the email.
Virginia TV shooter Vester Lee Flanagan was a 'disturbed' and 'unhappy man' Read more
Yet Flanagan was fired in February 2013 due to “unsatisfactory job performance and inability to work as a team member”, according to his notice of termination.
His last day at work was recorded in exhaustive detail in another series of memos. Flanagan met with Dennison and another boss in his office. There Flanagan was informed he would be terminated. When he was presented with the severance package, Flanagan reportedly became angry and called it “bullshit”.
A second memo detailing his termination records Flanagan as yelling: “I’m not leaving, you’re going to have to call the f###ing police [sic],” Flanagan reportedly said, according to the memo. “Call the police. I’m not leaving. I’m going to make a stink and it’s going to be in the headlines.”
Flanagan then stormed out of the room and slammed the door, at which point Dennison decided to call the police.
When police arrived to escort him out of the building, Flanagan refused. The officers approached Flanagan and tried to remove the desk phone from his hand, repeatedly asking him to leave.
Flanagan then threw a hat and a small wooden cross at Dennison, reportedly saying: “You need this.”
As police escorted him out of the newsroom, he told an officer, according to the memo: “ You know what they did? They had a watermelon back there for a week and basically called me a n----- [sic].”
The memos were filed to a court in Roanoke, Virginia, as part of a civil lawsuit filed by Flanagan against the station in March 2014. He alleged racial and sexual discrimination, which the station denied. The case was dismissed later that year.
In May, Flanagan had sent a letter to Roanoke city general district court judge Francis Burkhart in which he claimed to be the victim of a “carefully orchestrated” attempt by the photography staff to have him “ousted” from the station.
He said he was upset that a staff photographer had reported him to the office’s human resources department after working with him only once. On Twitter earlier this month, Flanagan named Ward as the photographer whom he believed had reported him to HR.
Flanagan also claimed “racial harassment”, citing an incident in which he believed members of the newsroom deliberately placed a watermelon in his view. He said employees would make the fruit appear in different places around the newsroom.
“This was not an innocent incident,” Flanagan wrote. “The watermelon was placed in a strategic location where it would be visible to newsroom employees.
“What I encountered while employed at WDBJ-7 was nothing short of vile disgusting and inexcusable,” Flanagan wrote in the filing to Burkhart, which requested a trial by jury that he said should be entirely composed of African American women.
“Your Honor, I am not the monster here,” he said. “I get along with my current co-workers … [T]hat sure doesn’t sound like the monster I was painted to be.” ||||| HOTHEAD HISTORY
The cold-blooded Roanoke killer kept getting fired, kept threatening co-workers, and kept claiming he was the real victim.
Vester Lee Flanagan claimed in a suicide note Wednesday that June’s massacre of black parishioners at a South Carolina church was “the tipping point” that sent him on the path to murdering two journalists on live television Wednesday.
But in court papers and interviews with The Daily Beast, former colleagues describe Flanagan as a problematic employee, who was repeatedly reprimanded for his harsh treatment of coworkers, and complained that racism was behind harsh evaluations of his work.
“He just had a history of playing the race card,” former WTWC anchor Dave Leval told The Daily Beast. “I know he did that in Tallahassee a couple of times…”
The day Flanagan was fired from a Virginia TV station in 2013, his bosses called 911 because of his volatile behavior—an incident captured on camera by Adam Ward, a man who would later become one of his victims.
At a February 2013 meeting, managers at WDBJ7 in Roanoke told Flanagan he wasn’t a good fit and would be terminated. Flanagan became “agitated” before issuing a threat, one boss recalled in court papers.
“I’m not leaving,” fumed Flanagan, who went by “Bryce Williams” on air. “You’re going to have to call the fucking police. Call the police, I’m not leaving. I’m going to make a stink and it’s going to be in the headlines.”
One former manager, Dan Dennison, said Flanagan terrified employees so much they took shelter in a locked office.
“He repeated… his feeling that firing him would lead to negative consequences for me personally and for the station,” Dennison said, according to a statement in a racial discrimination lawsuit Flanagan filed in 2014, which was dismissed.
The disgruntled newsman handed Dennison a small wooden cross and warned him, “You’ll need this.”
But no one could guess that two years after he was fired, Flanagan would shoot two other journalists at his former TV station.
Shortly after 7 a.m., Flanagan approached Ward and reporter Alison Parker from behind at a local park while they were interviewing Vicki Gardner of the local chamber of commerce. Dressed in black, Flanagan drew a camera phone and a gun, and started shooting.
Ward was hit first, but managed to raise his camera for a final look at Flanagan before dying. Parker tried to run but was shot dead. Gardner was shot but survived and is now in stable condition.
via Facebook
Flanagan fled in a rental car and sparked an hours-long manhunt, during which he tweeted perceived slights from the victims.
Then Flanagan made the final, and surely most-watched broadcast of his career, sending out snuff films online.
Minutes later, authorities caught up with him. Flanagan apparently shot himself and crashed his car. He was transported to a hospital, where he later died.
WDBJ’s station manager Jeff Marks painted a picture of Flanagan’s erratic behavior at a news conference Wednesday.
“Vester was an unhappy man,” Marks said, adding, “when he was hired here, he quickly gathered a reputation as someone who was difficult to work with. He was sort of looking out for people to say things that he could take offense to.”
Flanagan also filed an employment discrimination suit against a Tallahassee, Florida, station where he worked from 1999 to 2000. (That case was settled out of court.)
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According to one news report, Flanagan said he and another black employee were called “monkeys” and claimed a supervisor once said, “Blacks are lazy and do not take advantage of free money” for scholarships and other opportunities.
Don Shafer, Flanagan’s former boss at WTWC in Tallahassee, called Flanagan a “pretty good reporter” but said “things started getting a little strange with him.”
“We ended up having to terminate his contract and let him go for bizarre behavior and fighting with other employees,” Shafer said on San Diego 6, where he now serves as news director.
“He threatened to punch people out, and he was kind of running fairly roughshod over other people in the newsroom,” Shafer added.
Former colleagues told The Daily Beast that Flanagan blew up at two female coworkers in Florida—and that one woman’s husband considered coming to work to defend her.
“In one case, the husband of one of the women came this close to coming into the station and pounding the hell out of him,” Leval said.
“When he left WTWC in Tallahassee, I don’t think anybody shed a tear,” Leval added.
Leval said photographers repeatedly tried to get out of assignments with Flanagan, who was difficult and acted like a “diva.”
Former news producer Greg Sextro said Flanagan was “the biggest dork I’d ever met in my entire life, but he was a really nice guy. A horrible reporter, but really nice.”
Sextro, who was called to a deposition in the Florida discrimination suit, said the budding journalist was treated well at the station and that colleagues tried to help him with his writing.
“The fact that he kept his job was because he was an African-American gay man. That’s pretty hard to say no to,” Sextro told The Daily Beast.
“He was just a goofy guy,” Sexro added. “I cannot see him doing this ever. He had to have been pushed to the limit to do something like that.”
Meanwhile ABC News reported Wednesday it received a suicide note via fax from “Bryce Williams” about two hours after the shooting. Flanagan claimed he purchased his gun two days after nine black parishioners were killed in Charleston in June—and that he was fighting back in the race war Dylann Roof supposedly wanted to start.
“The church shooting was the tipping point… but my anger has been building steadily,” Flanagan wrote. “I’ve been a human powder keg for a while… just waiting to go BOOM!!!!”
Flanagan also claimed he was attacked for being a gay black man, and that he suffered bullying, sexual harassment, and racial discrimination at work, ABC News reported.
Court papers in Flanagan’s 2013 discrimination case also reveal an apparent preoccupation with perceived racism against him.
“I am hereby requesting a trial which will be heard by a jury of my peers,” he wrote in a letter to the judge. “I would like my jury to be comprised of African-American women.”
Flanagan also mentioned a frequently appearing watermelon as evidence of racial harassment at the Roanoke TV station and claimed he had photos of it.
“This was not an innocent incident,” Flanagan claimed. “It appeared after a meeting during which ‘watermelon’ comments were discussed.”
He also claimed head photographer Lynn Eller was the mastermind of a “carefully orchestrated effort by the photography staff to oust me,” court documents show.
“Why did one of the photographers go to HR on me after working with me ONLY ONCE,” Flanagan wrote, in an apparent reference to victim Adam Ward. “There was nothing to report! That, Your honor, is just plain wrong.”
In further documents, he alleges that two station employees behaved in an inappropriate and threatening manner to him—with one of them “holding a sharp object (a pen) which could have been used as a weapon.”
Personnel records from May 2012 and filed in the case show Flanagan made colleagues feel “threatened or uncomfortable.”
He allegedly told one cameraman shooting b-roll from his shoulder, “I’m not trying to be an asshole, but the shaky video isn’t going to work.” Flanagan then allegedly turned to an interview subject and said, “I’m sorry, sir, the footage he just shot is completely unusable.”
A July 2012 document warned that Flanagan “must make improvements immediately” or “face termination of employment.”
In a performance review one month later, Flanagan scored a 1 out of 5 in the category of “works well together with photographer, producer and assignment editor;” he scored 3s on evaluations about delivering news “in an understandable manner” and “covering beat and enterprising stories.”
Bosses reprimanded Flanagan that November for wearing an Obama sticker when he voted, a violation of the nonpartisan conditions of his contract.
“While this is the first incident of this nature, and we trust the last, you need to quickly and diligently move from the category of an employee who commits misstep after misstep to the kind of problem-free employee we hope you can become,” Dennison wrote in a letter to Flanagan.
One of the final memos before his termination included a harsh suggestion:
“Avoid being merely a human tape recorder” and report the real news.
Among the missteps that led to this admonition was his decision to cover a local creamery over the governor’s comments on gun control after the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre.
Despite some coworkers’ warnings about Flanagan, friends struggled to understand what could make him crack.
Larrell Dean, a friend from college, told The Daily Beast the alleged killer “was a good soul and a bright spirit” when he knew him.
“This is very emotional for me,” said Dean, who choked up on the phone. “He was a nice person, always a good guy.” ||||| Even after gunning down a TV news reporter and cameraman during a live interview, Vester Lee Flanagan II continued to rage. But after a volatile career that had seen him fired at least twice for clashing with co-workers who recall him as an off-kilter loner, this would be the former broadcaster's last, brutal sign-off.
This undated photo provided by WDBJ-TV, shows Vester Lee Flanagan II, who killed WDBJ reporter Alison Parker and cameraman Adam Ward in Moneta, Va., Wednesday, Aug. 26, 2015. Flanagan was a former employee... (Associated Press)
"I've been a human powder keg for a while...just waiting to go BOOM!!!" Flanagan wrote in a rambling 23-page note faxed to ABC News soon after the shooting.
Hours after he shot his former co-workers and then posted video of the attack to his Facebook page, Flanagan crashed a vehicle and shot himself. He died at a hospital later Wednesday, authorities said.
In the note, Flanagan — who had appeared on air using the name Bryce Williams — said he'd been discriminated against both for being black and gay. He listed grievances dating to the 2007 mass shooting at Virginia Tech and the more recent massacre of worshippers at a historic black church in Charleston, South Carolina.
When Flanagan was fired from Roanoke, Virginia, station WDBJ in 2013, he had to be escorted from the building by police "because he was not going to leave willingly or under his own free will," the station's former news director, Dan Dennison, said in an interview with a Hawaii station, Hawaii News Now (KHNL/KGMB).
Flanagan, 41, had "a long series of complaints against co-workers nearly from the beginning of employment at the TV station," said Dennison, now an official with the Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources. "All of these allegations were deemed to be unfounded." Though the claims were along racial lines, he said, "we did a thorough investigation and could find no evidence that anyone had racially discriminated against this man."
The victims of Wednesday's shooting — reporter Alison Parker, 24, and cameraman Adam Ward, 27 — were white; Flanagan was black.
The conflict described by Dennison in many ways echoed another, in 2000, when Flanagan was fired from a Tallahassee, Florida, television station after threatening fellow employees, a former supervisor said.
Flanagan "was a good on-air performer, a pretty good reporter and then things started getting a little strange with him," Don Shafer, the former news director of Florida's WTWC-TV, said Wednesday. He spoke in an interview broadcast by Shafer's current employer, San Diego 6 The CW.
Shafer said managers at the Florida station fired Flanagan because of his "bizarre behavior."
"He threatened to punch people out and he was kind of running fairly roughshod over other people in the newsroom," said Shafer, who did not immediately return a call from The Associated Press for comment.
Kimberly Moore Wilmoth, who worked with Flanagan at the Florida station, recalled him as "off-kilter" and someone who "never really made himself part of the team."
Recalling one of a number of incidents, Wilmoth said co-workers meant to tease Flanagan for a story he did on a spelling bee that made it sound as if the winner would get a case of Girl Scouts, rather than cookies sold by the group.
"The next day, somebody had a Girl Scout emblem on their desk and we made some copies of it and taped them to his computer," she said. "If he had only laughed, we would have all been friends forever. But he didn't laugh ... he got mad. And that was when I realized he wasn't part of the collegiality that exists in a newsroom and he removed himself from it."
In 2000, Flanagan sued the Florida station over allegations of race discrimination, claiming that a producer called him a "monkey" in 1999 and that other black employees had been called the same by other workers. Flanagan also claimed that an unnamed white supervisor at the station said black people were lazy because they did not take advantage of scholarships to attend college. The parties later reached a settlement.
Flanagan grew up in Oakland, California, and graduated from San Francisco State University.
Virgil Barker, who grew up on the same tree-lined street in the Oakland hills, recalled his childhood friend Wednesday with fondness.
"I know you want to hear that he was a monster, but he was the complete opposite," Barker said. "He was very, very loving."
Barker said he had lost touch with Flanagan over the years but remained close to Flanagan's sister, who still lives in the family's home across the street.
No one answered the door Wednesday morning at the white stucco house, with fruit trees in the front yard overlooking San Francisco Bay.
Before and after his work in Florida, Flanagan worked at a series of stations around the country.
They included a stint in 1996 at KPIX, a San Francisco station, where a spokeswoman confirmed he worked as a freelance production assistant. From 1997 to 1999, he worked as a general assignment reporter at WTOC-TV in Savannah, Georgia. From 2002 to 2004, he worked as a reporter and anchor at WNCT-TV in Greenville, North Carolina, general manager and vice president John Lewis said.
A former co-worker at the California station, Barbara Rodgers, recalled him only vaguely as "a young, eager kid out of journalism school," who "just wanted to be on TV and to do a good job."
Working in Georgia years ago, Flanagan was "tall, good looking and seemed to be really nice, personable and funny," said a former fellow reporter, Angela Williams-Gebhardt, who now lives in Ohio. The station's former news director, Michael Sullivan, said Flanagan was relatively inexperienced, but did a decent job, without any apparent problems.
But at Roanoke's WDBJ, Flanagan "got in lots of arguments with people," said LaRell Reynolds, a former production worker at the station. "I don't think anyone liked the guy."
After managers fired Flanagan, he worked as a call center representative for UnitedHealthcare in Roanoke from late 2013 to November 2014, the company said.
But in the days before the shootings, Flanagan assembled photos of himself on Twitter and Facebook, as if preparing to introduce himself to a wider audience. The postings continued after the shooting, when he tweeted that Parker had "made racist comments" and Ward had complained to human resources about him. Then, Flanagan posted video of the shooting online, showing him repeatedly firing at a screaming Parker as she tried to flee.
As word of the killings spread, friends from Oakland who knew Flanagan as a sociable kid who mixed easily in a high school with few racial tensions, struggled to connect those memories with the shooter shown on video.
"I don't remember anything bad about him," said Sasha Dansky, a high school classmate, recalling Flanagan's frequent appearance at parties. "He was just a nice, affable guy."
___
Geller wrote from New York. Associated Press writers Gary Fineout in Tallahassee, Florida; Garance Burke in Oakland, California; Holbrook Mohr in Jackson, Mississippi; Russ Bynum in Savannah, Georgia; Kristin Bender in San Francisco and John Raby in Roanoke, Virginia, contributed to this story.
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– The Virginia gunman who killed two former colleagues during a live news broadcast yesterday morning had a long and troubling history of clashing with co-workers during his broadcasting career. At WDBJ in Roanoke, where he worked with victims Adam Ward and Alison Parker, Vester Lee Flanagan was ordered to get medical help after racking up complaints from colleagues, according to documents seen by the Guardian. "This is a mandatory referral requiring your compliance," then-news director Dan Dennison told him in July 2012, ordering him to speak to employee assistance professionals. "Failure to comply will result in termination of employment." The station gave him a final warning just before Christmas that year and he was fired three months later. Dennison, who hired Flanagan in 2011, tells Hawaii News Now that when Flanagan was fired, he refused to leave the building and they had to call police to escort him out. In court papers from a lawsuit Flanagan filed against the station, alleging racial discrimination and sexual harassment for being gay, Dennison says that as officers took Flanagan from the newsroom, he threw a hat and a wooden cross at him and said, "You'll need this." As part of the lawsuit, Flanagan accused colleagues of placing a watermelon in a "strategic location" and requested a jury made up of African-American women. According to internal memos, when police escorted Flanagan from the station, Ward videotaped it, reports the Huffington Post. The memos state that Flanagan gave Ward the finger and told him to lose his "big gut." Dennison says Flanagan had many complaints about colleagues, "largely ... along racial lines, and we did a thorough investigation and could find no evidence that anyone had racially discriminated against this man." In 2000, Flanagan was fired from Florida's WTWC-TV for what the station's former news director says was "bizarre behavior," including threatening colleagues, the AP reports. "He just had a history of playing the race card," a former WTWC anchor tells the Daily Beast. (Flanagan, who died two hours after shooting himself yesterday, left a 23-page suicide note describing the Charleston church shootings as a tipping point.)
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"If you’re going to play [tackle] football, put it off until the body matures completely, until the body size has caught up with head size, until the muscles are coordinated," McKee said.
Cassandra Keck took some comfort in hearing the diagnosis. The man she met and married had been smart, kind and industrious. But then he started to change; his memory deteriorated and he became violent and abusive.
Keck had maintained a 3.8 GPA at Harrisonville High in Missouri and was able to keep his grades high in his freshman year at the University of Missouri. That all changed after he transferred to Missouri State University and sustained his second college concussion playing linebacker.
Michael took a year off football to recover. When he tried to start working out with the team again, his headaches would flare and his vision would fade to black. Though his vision would return eventually, it was frightening and Keck told his coaches he couldn’t come back.
“He couldn’t read his books," Cassandra said. "The words would get all scrambled. He’d get angry and punch the book and throw it across the room. He couldn’t read, so he couldn’t study. He felt like he was failing. He just wanted to graduate from college.”
About a year before he died, he had to stop working. “Having to be somewhere on time was very stressful,” Cassandra said. “I’d have to put his shoes and socks and hat by the door so he knew where everything was. I’d have to get his shirt and pants ready.”
Head hits and later symptoms
There still isn’t enough evidence to suggest that youngsters need to give up tackle football, experts told NBC News. It's unknown how many people end up with permanent debilitating symptoms as a result of hits on the field, said David Hovda, a professor of neurosurgery and director of the Brain Injury Research Center at the University of California, Los Angeles, who is unaffiliated with the new study.
Even if it’s a small percentage, “we still need to do something about it,” Hovda said. “Every person is important. But we have to be cautious about changes that affect everybody.”
If the percentage is much larger, say one-third of players, then “we have a real problem that needs to be fixed," Hovda said.
Another question is whether head hits among some youngsters can be linked to CTE symptoms later in life.
“Certainly we have known that CTE changes in the brain can be found in younger players," said Dr. Julian Bailes, medical director of Pop Warner football, who is unaffiliated with the new study. “But I don’t think that any research, and not the [new] case report, necessarily correlates with football participation at a young age. In my opinion, it is more likely that the exposure that he got in high school or college, or even doing other activities, led to the accrual of CTE changes.”
Related: Will Soccer's New Header Rules Make Kids Safer
Bailes, clinical professor of neurosurgery at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine and the chairman of the department of neurosurgery at the NorthShore University HealthSystem reported on the 2009 death of Chris Henry, the only active NFL player to die and have CTE at age 26, with forensic pathologist Dr. Bennet Omalu.
Watch: Bengals mourn the death of receiver Chris Henry
The hits little kids sustain playing tackle football rarely lead to concussions, Bailes said.
“For instance, in Pop Warner football, we think that currently the concussion rate is only 1 percent annually for players, while they are receiving about 100 cranial impacts per season, almost all of low velocity,” he added. “However, high school players hit at high velocity (high g-forces) and at about 600-800/year, and college approximately 1000/year. “
Taught to play through pain
For her part, Cassandra hopes that in telling Michael’s story, people will better understand the dangers of concussions. ||||| Also Meets CME requirements for:
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– Before he died of a heart condition at age 25, Michael Keck told his wife that he wanted to donate his brain to Boston University. The former football player thought he had chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), NBC News reports, the degenerative brain disorder caused by repeated blows to the head that has made headlines in recent years for affecting NFL players. Doctors, performing an autopsy on Keck's brain, confirmed his self-diagnosis in a case study published Monday in JAMA Neurology. "It was the worst CTE I've seen in an individual this young," study coauthor Dr. Ann McKee says. Keck's 16-year football career began when he was 6 years old, the study notes. During that time, he sustained more than 10 concussions, the first when he was 8. "That's a lengthy exposure," says McKee. "Brain injury is cumulative." As a freshman playing for Missouri State, Keck momentarily lost consciousness after a hard hit. That was followed by symptoms, such as blurry vision, headaches, and forgetfulness, which forced him to quit playing football his junior year. Previously having a 3.8 GPA, the study notes, Keck "left school with a GPA of 1.9, 12 credits short of earning his bachelor degree." Symptoms, including "feelings of worthlessness" and "suicidal ideations," persisted until his 2013 death of an unrelated congenital heart defect. Some, including the doctor who first identified CTE, have called for an end of high-impact sports for kids. Others, though, say the concern is overblown. The medical director for Pop Warner football tells NBC that the Keck study doesn't indicate the brain trauma was the result of childhood injuries. "It is more likely that the exposure that he got in high school or college, or even doing other activities, led to the accrual of CTE changes," he says. (Researchers recently found CTE in 96% of 91 deceased NFL players.)
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Image caption The UN team spoke to witnesses and survivors in Muadhamiya
Russia and China have stepped up their warnings against military intervention in Syria, with Moscow saying any such action would have "catastrophic consequences" for the region.
The US and its allies are considering launching strikes on Syria in response to deadly attacks last week.
The US said there was "undeniable" proof of a chemical attack, on Monday.
UN chemical weapons inspectors are due to start a second day of investigations in the suburbs of Damascus.
The UN team came under sniper fire as they tried to visit an area west of the city on Monday.
A spokesman for UK Prime Minister David Cameron says the UK is making contingency plans for military action in Syria.
Mr Cameron has cut short his holiday and returned to London to deal with the Syrian crisis.
The administration has deliberately left itself almost no room for manoeuvre - its credibility would now be zero if it failed to take some form of military action How Syria conflict affects neighbours
Russian foreign ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich has called on the international community to show "prudence" over the crisis and observe international law.
"Attempts to bypass the Security Council, once again to create artificial groundless excuses for a military intervention in the region are fraught with new suffering in Syria and catastrophic consequences for other countries of the Middle East and North Africa," he said in a statement.
Late on Monday, the US said it was postponing a meeting on Syria with Russian diplomats, citing "ongoing consultations" about alleged use of chemical weapons in Syria.
Hours later, Russia expressed regret about the decision. The two sides had been due to meet in The Hague on Wednesday to discuss setting up an international conference on finding a political solution to the crisis.
The Russian deputy defence minister, Gennady Gatilov said working out the political parameters for a resolution on Syria would be especially useful, with the threat of force hanging over the country.
Image caption UN chemical weapons inspectors spent nearly three hours in the suburb of Muadhamiya in western Damascus on Monday. Image caption The inspectors visited two hospitals and interviewed survivors, eyewitnesses and doctors over last week's suspected chemical attack near the Syrian capital. Image caption Amateur video was posted online apparently showing a UN inspector measuring and photographing a canister. previous slide next slide
On Monday, Mr Cameron spoke to Russian President Vladimir Putin who said there was no evidence yet that Syria had used chemical weapons against rebels, Mr Cameron's office said.
The official Chinese news agency, Xinhua, said Western powers were rushing to conclusions about who may have used chemical weapons in Syria before UN inspectors had completed their investigation.
UN visit
Both the Syrian government and rebels have blamed each other for last Wednesday's attacks.
Medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres said three hospitals it supported in the Damascus area had treated about 3,600 patients with "neurotoxic symptoms", of whom 355 had died.
Models for possible intervention Iraq 1991: US-led global military coalition, anchored in international law; explicit mandate from UN Security Council to evict Iraqi forces from Kuwait
US-led global military coalition, anchored in international law; explicit mandate from UN Security Council to evict Iraqi forces from Kuwait Balkans 1990s: US arms supplied to anti-Serb resistance in Croatia and Bosnia in defiance of UN-mandated embargo; later US-led air campaign against Serb paramilitaries. In 1999, US jets provided bulk of 38,000 Nato sorties against Serbia to prevent massacres in Kosovo - legally controversial with UN Security Council resolutions linked to "enforcement measures"
US arms supplied to anti-Serb resistance in Croatia and Bosnia in defiance of UN-mandated embargo; later US-led air campaign against Serb paramilitaries. In 1999, US jets provided bulk of 38,000 Nato sorties against Serbia to prevent massacres in Kosovo - legally controversial with UN Security Council resolutions linked to "enforcement measures" Somalia 1992-93: UN Security Council authorised creation of international force with aim of facilitating humanitarian supplies as Somali state failed. Gradual US military involvement without clear objective culminated in Black Hawk Down disaster in 1993. US troops pulled out
UN Security Council authorised creation of international force with aim of facilitating humanitarian supplies as Somali state failed. Gradual US military involvement without clear objective culminated in Black Hawk Down disaster in 1993. US troops pulled out Libya 2011: France and UK sought UN Security Council authorisation for humanitarian operation in Benghazi in 2011. Russia and China abstained but did not veto resolution. Air offensive continued until fall of Gaddafi Models for possible intervention
US officials said there was "little doubt" that President Bashar al-Assad's government was to blame.
UN inspectors spent nearly three hours in the western district of Muadhamiya on Monday where they visited two hospitals and interviewed survivors, eyewitnesses and doctors.
A UN spokesman said they had collected some samples.
Earlier in the day, the UN convoy came under fire from unidentified snipers and was forced to turn back before resuming its journey.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon condemned the shooting and asked the UN team in Syria to register a complaint.
'Accountability'
In the most forceful US reaction yet, US Secretary of State John Kerry on Monday described the recent attacks in the Damascus area as a "moral obscenity".
He said the delay in allowing UN inspectors to the sites was a sign the Syrian government had something to hide.
He said Washington had additional information about the attacks that it would make public in the days ahead.
"What we saw in Syria last week should shock the conscience of the world. It defies any code of morality," Mr Kerry said at a news conference on Monday.
"Make no mistake, President Obama believes there must be accountability for those who would use the world's most heinous weapons against the world's most vulnerable people."
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption John Kerry: "There is a clear reason that the world has banned entirely the use of chemical weapons"
Washington has recently bolstered its naval presence in the eastern Mediterranean and military leaders from the US, UK and their allies have convened a meeting in Jordan.
Analysts believe the most likely US action would be sea-launched cruise missiles targeting Syrian military installations.
But Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters on Monday the West had not produced any proof that President Assad's forces had used chemical weapons.
He was responding to suggestions from some Western countries that military action against the Syrian government could be taken without a UN mandate.
Mr Lavrov said the use of force without Security Council backing would be "a crude violation of international law".
Earlier, UK Foreign Secretary William Hague told the BBC an international military response to the suspected use of chemical weapons would be possible without the backing of the UN.
The UN Security Council is divided, with Russia and China opposing military intervention and the UK and France warning that the UN could be bypassed if there was "great humanitarian need".
In a column in The Times newspaper, former UK PM Tony Blair has written that if the West does not intervene to support freedom and democracy in Egypt and Syria, the Middle East will face catastrophe
The UN says more than 100,000 people have been killed since the uprising against President Assad began more than two years ago. The conflict has produced more than 1.7 million registered refugees. ||||| In October 1983, the United States led a military invasion of Grenada, a tiny Caribbean island nation, after a bloody coup ousted the government of Prime Minister Maurice Bishop, who was assassinated. President Ronald Reagan was said to have been concerned about a 10,000-foot-long airstrip that the communist country's military was building, which he thought would enable planes loaded with arms from Cuba to reach insurgents in Central America. The administration was also concerned about the safety of 800 American medical students studying in Grenada.
Grenada: Unilateral U.S. military action In October 1983, the United States led a military invasion of Grenada, a tiny Caribbean island nation, after a bloody coup ousted the government of Prime Minister Maurice Bishop, who was assassinated. President Ronald Reagan was said to have been concerned about a 10,000-foot-long airstrip that the communist country's military was building, which he thought would enable planes loaded with arms from Cuba to reach insurgents in Central America. The administration was also concerned about the safety of 800 American medical students studying in Grenada. AP
Since the Vietnam War, the United States has engaged in several military interventions. As the West looks ready to act against Syria, accused of using chemical weapons against its own citizens, here are 10 instances when America has intervened, sometimes without authorization from the United Nations. Produced by Anup Kaphle.
President Obama is weighing a military strike against Syria that would be of limited scope and duration, designed to serve as punishment for Syria’s use of chemical weapons and as a deterrent, while keeping the United States out of deeper involvement in that country’s civil war, according to senior administration officials.
The timing of such an attack, which would probably last no more than two days and involve sea-launched cruise missiles — or, possibly, long-range bombers — striking military targets not directly related to Syria’s chemical weapons arsenal, would be dependent on three factors: completion of an intelligence report assessing Syrian government culpability in last week’s alleged chemical attack; ongoing consultation with allies and Congress; and determination of a justification under international law.
“We’re actively looking at the various legal angles that would inform a decision,” said an official who spoke about the presidential deliberations on the condition of anonymity. Missile-armed U.S. warships are already positioned in the Mediterranean.
As the administration moved rapidly toward a decision, Secretary of State John F. Kerry said the use of chemical weapons in an attack Wednesday against opposition strongholds on the outskirts of Damascus is now “undeniable.”
Evidence being gathered by United Nations experts in Syria was important, Kerry said, but not necessary to prove what is already “grounded in facts, informed by conscience and guided by common sense.”
The team of U.N. weapons investigators on Monday visited one of three rebel-held suburbs where the alleged attack took place, after first being forced to withdraw when their vehicles came under sniper fire. The Syrian government, which along with Russia has suggested that the rebels were responsible for the chemical attack, agreed to the U.N. inspection over the weekend.
Videos and statements by witnesses and relief organizations such as Doctors Without Borders have proved that an attack occurred, Kerry said. The U.S. intelligence report is to be released this week.
Among the factors, officials said, are that only the government is known to possess chemical weapons and the rockets to deliver them, and its continuing control of chemical stocks has been closely monitored by U.S. intelligence.
Kerry said Syrian forces had engaged in a “cynical attempt to cover up” their actions, not only by delaying the arrival of the U.N. team but by shelling the affected area continually. Any U.S. strike would probably await the departure of the U.N. inspectors from Syria.
Kerry’s statement, which he read to reporters in the State Department briefing room without taking questions, was part of an escalating administration drumbeat, which is likely to include a public statement by Obama in coming days. Officials said the public warnings are designed partly to wring any possible cooperation out of Russia — or an unlikely admission from the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad — before Obama makes his decision.
The administration decided to postpone a meeting with the Russians this week in The Hague to discuss a negotiated solution to the Syrian war, “given our ongoing consultations about the appropriate response to the chemical weapons attack in Syria on August 21,” a State Department official said.
At the State Department, Kerry said, “Make no mistake: President Obama believes there must be accountability for those who would use the world’s most heinous weapons against the world’s most vulnerable people. Nothing today is more serious, and nothing is receiving more serious scrutiny.”
He and other officials drew a sharp distinction between U.S. action related to a violation of international law by what they called Assad’s “massive” use of chemical weapons and any direct military involvement in the Syrian conflict, which is in its third year.
“What we are talking about here is a potential response . . . to this specific violation of international norms,” White House press secretary Jay Carney said. “While it is part of this ongoing Syrian conflict in which we have an interest and in which we have a clearly stated position, it is distinct in that regard.”
Obama and other officials have said repeatedly that no U.S. troops would be sent to Syria. But despite Obama’s year-old threat of an unspecified U.S. response if Assad crossed a “red line” by using chemical weapons, even a limited military engagement seemed unlikely before Wednesday’s attack near Damascus.
“This international norm cannot be violated without consequences,” Kerry said.
The options under consideration are neither new nor open-ended, officials said. The use of “limited stand-off strikes” has long been among the options the Pentagon has provided Obama. “Potential targets include high-value regime air defense, air, ground, missile, and naval forces as well as the supporting military facilities and command nodes,” Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in a June letter to Congress. “Stand-off air and missile systems could be used to strike hundreds of targets at a tempo of our choosing.”
Although Dempsey, who has questioned the wisdom of direct military involvement in Syria, said that such an operation would require “hundreds” of ships and aircraft and potentially cost “in the billions,” the action that is being contemplated would be far smaller and designed more to send a message than to cripple Assad’s military and change the balance of forces on the ground. Syrian chemical weapons storage areas, which are numerous and widely dispersed, are seen as unlikely targets.
The language of international criminality has clearly resonated among U.S. allies and lawmakers.
“We will have to act,” said Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.), a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence who has long opposed any U.S. intervention, including the administration’s decision this summer to send light arms to Syrian opposition forces. “I don’t think we can allow repeated use of chemical weapons now, an escalated use of chemical weapons, to stand.”
Sen. Bob Corker (Tenn.), the senior Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, emphasized that a U.S. strike should not be directed at altering the dynamic of Syria’s larger civil war.
“I think it should be surgical. It should be proportional. It should be in response to what’s happened with the chemicals,” Corker said in an NBC interview. “But the fact is, I don’t want us to get involved in such a way that we change that dynamic on the ground.” The senator said he thought the administration’s response to the attack was “imminent.”
House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) said he had been in touch with the White House. In a statement, Boehner echoed concerns expressed by lawmakers from both parties that the administration further consult Congress before taking action.
The administration has said that it will follow international law in shaping its response. Authorization for the use of force against another nation normally comes only from the U.N. Security Council — where Russia and China have vetoed previous resolutions against Assad — or in a NATO operation similar to the one launched in the former Yugoslavia in 1999, without a U.N. mandate.
But much of international law is untested, and administration lawyers are also examining possible legal justifications based on a violation of international prohibitions on chemical weapons use, or on an appeal for assistance from a neighboring nation such as Turkey.
Britain, France and Turkey have said that they would support action if the use of chemical weapons was confirmed, but a clear-cut case is also likely to make approval easier for allies such as Germany, which disagreed with NATO’s 2011 operation in Libya despite the existence of a U.N. resolution.
“The use of chemical weapons would be a crime against civilization,” German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said Monday. “The international community must act should the use of such weapons be confirmed.”
Consultations on Syria have been ongoing at the ambassadorial level at NATO headquarters in Brussels, where a meeting is scheduled for Wednesday. The Arab League, which approved the Libya operation, is also due to meet this week to discuss Syria.
Ed O’Keefe contributed to this report. ||||| MC1(AW) Nathanael Miller / U.S. Navy The destroyer USS Barry, currently steaming in the Mediterranean Sea awaiting possible orders to attack Syria with Tomahawk cruise missiles, launches one against Libya on Mar. 19, 2011.
Taking out Syria’s chemical-weapons stockpile isn’t easy – and is fraught with perils, including creating plumes of deadly vapors that could kill civilians downwind of such attacks.
That’s why Pentagon officials suggest that any U.S. and allied military strike against Syria will tilt toward military, and command and control, targets —including artillery and missile units that could be used to launch chemical weapons — instead of the bunkers believed to contain them.
Secretary of State John Kerry made clear Monday that military action is all but inevitable in the coming days. “We know that the Syrian regime maintains custody of these chemical weapons. We know that the Syrian regime has the capacity to do this with rockets,” he said. “President Obama believes there must be accountability for those who would use the world’s most heinous weapons against the world’s most vulnerable people.”
But targeting the weapons themselves may not make the most military sense.
For starters, neither the U.S. nor its allies know where Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad is keeping his cache of hundreds of tons of sarin, mustard gas and other chemical agents. That means that any military strike to take them out will surely leave some untouched.
(MORE: The Two Big Reasons Obama Might Strike Syria)
After more than two years of civil war, the Syrian military has distributed many of its chemical arms beyond the original 15 or so major storage sites where Western intelligence agencies believe they were housed when the conflict began. “Dispersing the stuff would make [attacking it] more difficult,” says Eliot Cohen, a former Pentagon official now at the Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies in Washington. Blowing up storage sites, he warns, also could “leave the facilities so shattered that people can come in and pick the stuff up that you don’t want them to pick up.”
Secondly, the Obama Administration and its allies aren’t considering deploying troops to seize and secure such weapons. The Pentagon has estimated that mission could take 75,000 troops.
Last month, Army General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, detailed for Senator Carl Levin, the Michigan Democrat who chairs the armed services committee, the difficulties associated with using military force to seize control of Syria’s chemical stockpile.
“We do this by destroying portions of Syria’s massive stockpile, interdicting its movement and delivery, or by seizing and securing program components,” he said in his July 19 letter assessing U.S. military options in Syria. “At a minimum, this option would call for a no-fly zone as well as air and missile strikes involving hundreds of aircraft, ships, submarines, and other enablers. Thousands of special operations forces and other ground forces would be needed to assault and secure critical sites.”
Neither the nation—nor President Obama—has any desire for U.S. combat boots on Syrian soil. So U.S. defense officials are weighing air strikes to punish Assad’s government for their suspected use of chemical weapons. But because the Pentagon doesn’t want to put primarily U.S. pilots at risk of being shot down and held hostage by Damascus, it’s leaning toward the use of Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles—TLAMs—against Syrian targets.
(MORE: Assad Taunts U.S. Over Iraq, Vietnam)
Unfortunately for U.S. war planners, Tomahawk cruise missiles pack a relatively puny 1,000-pound warhead. That’s unlikely to punch through buried chemical-weapons bunkers and generate the intense, sustained heat needed to incinerate sarin or other chemical weapons inside.
“Doing this with Tomahawks is going to be a challenge,” says Amy Smithson, a chemical-weapons expert at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Washington. “You may get half of them with Tomahawks, but I have plume concerns—anybody in the neighborhood is going to be in big, bad trouble” if the poisonous agents drift their way.
Bulk chemicals not already loaded into individual shells are especially vulnerable to being spread by bombing. That’s why Smithson believes that Western governments should provide those near targeted chemical-storage sites with protective gear before launching any attacks. “Syrian civilians and rebel forces,” she says, “could benefit greatly from gas masks.”
Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, sketched out a likely U.S. military response to Syria’s use of chemical weapons in that July letter to Levin. He termed it Conduct Limited Stand-off Strikes:
This option uses lethal force to strike targets that enable the regime to conduct military operations, proliferate advanced weapons, and defend itself. Potential targets include high-value regime air defense, air, ground, missile, and naval forces as well as the supporting military facilities and command nodes. Stand-off air and missile systems could be used to strike hundreds of targets at a tempo of our choosing.
Cohen is leery of a tit-for-tat strike that he fears the Obama Administration is considering. The apparent indiscriminate use of deadly agents against civilians, he argues, requires a disproportionate response by the U.S. to convince other states from doing the same.
“You want people to understand that, if you do this, you lose your war,” Cohen says. The Obama Administration should consider destroying Syria’s air force, its air defenses, and many of its airfields to retaliate if Syria’s use of chemical weapons is confirmed. “The objective,” he argues, “should be crippling the regime.”
MORE: Obama Can Strike Syria Unilaterally ||||| Obama orders release of report justifying Syria strike
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(CBS News) President Barack Obama called his national security team together Saturday to talk about the next move in Syria. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper led off the three-hour White House meeting with detailed analysis of the evidence about the chemical weapons attack, the disposition of victims and what the administration now believes is a near air-tight circumstantial case that the Syrian regime was behind it.
Obama ordered a declassified report be prepared for public release before any military strike commences. That report, top advisers tell CBS News, is due to be released in a day or two.
There was no debate at the Saturday meeting that a military response is necessary. Obama ordered up legal justifications for a military strike, should he order one, outside of the United Nations Security Council. That process is well underway, and particular emphasis is being placed on alleged violations of the Geneva Convention and the Chemical Weapons Convention.
Watch: Kerry says Syria's chemical weapons "should shock the conscience of the world."
Secretary of State John Kerry said Monday the evidence "is screaming at us" that chemical weapons were used in Syria, and he said President Obama believes "there must be accountability" -- the latest sign that the administration is getting ready for a possible military strike against the Assad regime.
Kerry said he had looked again at the pictures we all saw last week of the victims of the attack -- many of them children -- and can't get them out of his head.
"What we saw in Syria last week should shock the conscience of the world," Kerry said. "It defies any code of morality. Let me be clear: The indiscriminate slaughter of civilians, the killing of women and children and innocent bystanders by chemical weapons is a moral obscenity. By any standard, it is inexcusable and -- despite the excuses and equivocations that some have manufactured -- it is undeniable."
The words Kerry used and the force with which he delivered them left little doubt the U.S. will soon strike Syria.
"President Obama believes there must be accountability for those who used the world's most heinous weapons against the world's most vulnerable people," he said.
Four U.S. Navy warships are already in position in the eastern Mediterranean, ready to launch cruise missiles within hours of receiving the order from Obama. A British submarine is also reported to be in position.
Watch: Kerry leaves little doubt U.S. will strike Syria, David Martin reports.
They would almost certainly fire their weapons in the middle of the night, the time when the U.S. military prefers to strike and when most civilians would be off the streets and less likely to be injured.
An attack limited to cruise missiles would fall well short of the shock and awe campaign on the opening night of the Iraq War, but officials said it would be large enough to damage the Syrian military's ability to launch future chemical weapons attacks.
The U.S. has huge military advantage, so there is little doubt cruise missiles could destroy targets ranging from command centers to launchers used to fire chemical weapons.
Obama wants to send a message about the consequences of using chemical weapons, but the Syrian regime is playing for much bigger stakes: it is fighting for its life. ||||| Damascus, Syria (CNN) -- Saying "there is no doubt who is responsible for this heinous use of chemical weapons attack in Syria: the Syrian regime," Vice President Joe Biden signaled Tuesday that the United States -- with its allies -- was ready to act.
"Those who use chemical weapons against defenseless men, women and children should and must be held accountable," Biden said in a speech to the American Legion.
The vice president's remarks echo those made by other U.S. officials in recent days, as well as many of the nation's foremost allies.
French President Francois Hollande said his administration was "ready to punish those who made the decision to gas these innocent people," adding that "everything leads us to believe" that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces are responsible.
British Prime Minister David Cameron -- who talked Tuesday with U.S. President Barack Obama -- called lawmakers back from their summer vacations to consider a response to Syria, as the UK military prepares contingency plans.
And U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel told the BBC on Tuesday that U.S. forces are "ready to go" if ordered to strike Syria by President Barack Obama.
"The options are there. The United States Department of Defense is ready to carry out those options," Hagel said.
Western leaders were reacting to a growing consensus that the Syrian regime was responsible for an August 21 attack that killed more than 1,300 people, most of them dying from exposure to toxic gases, according to rebel officials. The opposition -- which has said it's been targeted by chemical weapons attacks in the past as well -- backed up its latest allegations with gruesome video of rows of dead bodies, including women and children, with no visible wounds.
Opinion: For U.S., Syria is truly a problem from hell
Syrian officials, though, have steadfastly denied using chemical weapons in this or other cases.
Foreign Minister Walid Moallem said Tuesday that his government would never use such munitions against its own people, daring those who disagree to present evidence publicly.
He said rebel forces were to blame for security concerns near the suspected chemical sites, arguing that Western leaders are using the claims as an excuse to go after al-Assad's regime.
"We all hear the drums of war," Moallem said. "They want to attack Syria. I believe to use chemical weapons as a pretext is not a right."
And if foreign powers do strike the Middle Eastern nation, its foreign minister said the government and its forces will fight back.
"Syria is not easy to swallow," said Moallem. "We have the materials to defend ourselves. We will surprise others."
U.N. inspectors in Syria, but what will they find?
The United Nations has sent inspectors to Syria to try to get to the bottom of the wildly conflicting accounts of chemical warfare.
The opposition says chemical payloads were among the ordnance fired into the rebel stronghold of Ghouta. The government, via state TV reports, claims that its forces came into contact with toxic gas Saturday in Jobar, on the edge of Damascus -- blaming this on "terrorists," the term it commonly uses for rebel fighters.
CNN could not independently confirm either account, including videos purported to show the aftermath of each.
Missile strikes on Syria likely response to chemical attack
On Monday, U.N. inspectors visited the town of Moadamiyet al-Sham, despite a close call with snipers that left one of their vehicles damaged and an explosion nearby.
The inspectors had been expected Tuesday to head to Ghouta, but that trip was pushed back a day "in order to improve preparedness and safety for the team."
Moallem blamed rebel forces for failing to guarantee the U.N. group's safety and denying that its forces have delayed inspections by continually shelling Ghouta.
Video posted Tuesday to YouTube purported to show the area being shelled, though CNN could not verify this video's authenticity.
Yet Biden reiterated the claim that Syrian forces were shelling the suspected chemical attack site. And U.S. State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said it may be too late for a valid inspection of what happened -- saying "too much time has passed" and accusing al-Assad's government of using the U.N. investigation "as a stalling tactic or a charade to hide behind."
The United States, meanwhile, is conducting its own investigation: An intelligence report detailing evidence of the alleged attack could be released as early as Tuesday, a U.S. official told CNN. The report will include forensic evidence and intercepted communications among Syrian military commanders, according to the official.
The vice president said that beyond whatever inspectors do or do not find, common sense and the recent past point to one culprit.
"The Syrian regime are the only ones who have the weapons, have used chemical weapons multiple times in the past, have the means of delivering those weapons, have been determined to wipe out exactly the places that were attacked by chemical weapons," he said Tuesday.
Russia leads international charge against strikes
The calls for a military response were not without opposition.
Russia is leading the charge internationally, with Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov having said there is no proof yet Syria's government is behind last week's chemical attack. His office compares the Western allegations against Syria to claims Iraq was hoarding weapons of mass destruction before the U.S. invasion in 2003 -- allegations that fell apart once American troops began searching for them.
Intervening in Middle East turmoil: Mission impossible?
And Tuesday, Russia's foreign ministry accused Washington of trying to "create artificial groundless excuses for military intervention."
Moscow bemoaned the U.S. postponement of a meeting that was scheduled for Wednesday in The Hague, where top diplomats from both countries had planned to discuss the war in Syria.
And Russia criticized the United States for, in its view, trying to bypass the U.N. Security Council to take action on the reported chemical attack.
Should anything be moved through the U.N. council, Russia -- which has a permanent seat on it -- could block it.
Still, that's what former British Foreign Secretary David Owen urged world leaders to do before unleashing missiles or warplanes on Syrian targets.
Omran al-Zoubi, Syria's information minister, on Tuesday challenged the United States to "present this proof to the rest of the world" -- claiming that they are asking for trouble if they do not.
"If they don't have proof or evidence, then how are they going to stand up to the American public opinion and to the world public opinion and explain why they are attacking Syria?" al-Zoubi told CNN from Damascus.
Some worldwide have expressed concern that intervening in Syria may provoke broader conflict in the Middle East or ensnare Western powers in another bloody conflict after years of warfare in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Cameron said that he understands those concerns, vowing that any action would have to be "proportionate, ... legal (and) would have to be specifically about deterring the use of chemical weapons."
Still, he said it's critically important that action be taken to show the international taboo against chemical weapons will not be tolerated.
"This is not about wars in the Middle East; this is not even about the Syrian conflict," he said. "It's about use of chemical weapons and making sure, as a world, we deter their use and we deter the appalling scenes we've all seen on our television screens.
Syria diplomacy: Why Jordan wants military meeting to be hush-hush
CNN's Fred Pleitgen reported from Syria. CNN's Hamdi Alkhshali reported from Atlanta and Jomana Karadsheh from Jordan. Michael Pearson wrote and reported from Atlanta. CNN's Greg Botelho, Ben Brumfield, Boriana Milanova, Chris Lawrence, Jim Acosta, Josh Levs, Joe Sterling, Elise Labott, Jill Dougherty and Saskya Vandoorne also contributed to this report. ||||| Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption In a BBC interview, US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel says the military is "ready to go" in responding to Syria
American forces are "ready" to launch strikes on Syria if President Barack Obama chooses to order an attack, US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel says.
"We have moved assets in place to be able to fulfil and comply with whatever option the president wishes to take," Mr Hagel told the BBC.
The White House said the US would release intelligence on last week's suspected attack in the next few days.
The UK Parliament is to be recalled on Thursday to discuss possible responses.
Prime Minister David Cameron said the world could "not stand idly by" after seeing "appalling scenes of death and suffering" caused by suspected chemical weapons attacks.
At the scene A good number of Syrians, in particular those supporting the regime, believe the visit of the UN chemical weapons investigation team is nothing but a move to justify a military attack on Syria. The opposition, however, thinks that these visits will lead to some evidence being unearthed, proving that chemical weapons have been used against civilians by the Syrian regime. Above all, fear and discomfort are palpable among those living in the capital. People are haunted by the possibility of a Western military strike on Syria, discussion of which is dominating the headlines of satellite channels. "I don't want Syria to become another Iraq... Enough bloodshed," cried one Syrian woman. "We, and thousands like us across Syria, will face any country that tries to attack us," threatened a young man, pointing at his weapon, which he uses to protect his neighbourhood. "These are Syria's problems and it is up to us, Syrians, to solve them."
The crisis follows last Wednesday's suspected chemical attack near the Syrian capital, Damascus, which reportedly killed more than 300 people.
US Vice President Joe Biden said there was "no doubt who was responsible for this heinous use of chemical weapons in Syria: The Syrian regime".
In a speech to a veterans' group in Houston, Mr Biden said that "those who use chemical weapons against defenceless men, women, and children... must be held accountable".
French President Francois Hollande said France was "ready to punish" whoever was behind the attack, and had decided to increase military support for Syria's main opposition.
BBC diplomatic correspondent James Robbins says the US, UK and France will now have the larger task of building as wide a coalition as possible to support limited military action.
Meanwhile the Arab League said it held Syrian President Bashar al-Assad responsible for the attacks and called for UN action.
Syrian opposition sources have said they have been told to expect a Western intervention in the conflict imminently.
"There is no precise timing... but one can speak of an imminent international intervention against the regime. It's a question of days and not weeks," AFP news agency quoted Syrian National Coalition official Ahmad Ramadan as saying.
"There have been meetings between the Coalition, the [rebel] Free Syrian Army and allied countries during which possible targets have been discussed."
Mr Kerry is of course right that most people will think as he does, simply from watching the TV pictures. Some, however, will demand much stronger proof, particularly in the wake of the faulty intelligence that was used as a reason to go to war against Iraq
Russia and China, allies of the Syrian government, have stepped up their warnings against military intervention, with Moscow saying any such action would have "catastrophic consequences" for the region.
Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem has said he rejects "utterly and completely" claims that Syrian forces used chemical weapons, and his government has blamed rebel fighters.
On Monday, United Nations weapons inspectors were fired on while investigating one of the five alleged chemical weapons attack sites around Damascus.
'We are prepared'
Mr Hagel said the US Department of Defense had provided President Obama with "all options for all contingencies".
Image caption The head of the UN chemical inspectors team, Ake Sellstrom, and the UN's disarmament chief, Angela Kane, left their hotel in Damascus on Tuesday. Image caption UN chemical weapons inspectors spent nearly three hours in the suburb of Muadhamiya in western Damascus on Monday. Image caption The inspectors visited two hospitals and interviewed survivors, eyewitnesses and doctors over last week's suspected chemical attack near the Syrian capital. Image caption The inspectors were seen speaking to residents of Muadhamiya. previous slide next slide
"He has seen them, we are prepared," he told the BBC's Jon Sopel, adding: "We are ready to go."
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Jay Carney says the US is weighing an "appropriate response" to the alleged use of chemical weapons in Syria
Mr Hagel said that intelligence currently being gathered by the UN inspectors would confirm that the Syrian government was responsible for the chemical attack last week.
"I think it's pretty clear that chemical weapons were used against people in Syria," he said.
Our correspondent says Mr Hagel left little doubt that he believed the Assad government was responsible, and was ready to execute the orders of his commander-in-chief.
Models for possible intervention Iraq 1991: US-led global military coalition, anchored in international law; explicit mandate from UN Security Council to evict Iraqi forces from Kuwait
US-led global military coalition, anchored in international law; explicit mandate from UN Security Council to evict Iraqi forces from Kuwait Balkans 1990s: US arms supplied to anti-Serb resistance in Croatia and Bosnia in defiance of UN-mandated embargo; later US-led air campaign against Serb paramilitaries. In 1999, US jets provided bulk of 38,000 Nato sorties against Serbia to prevent massacres in Kosovo - legally controversial with UN Security Council resolutions linked to "enforcement measures"
US arms supplied to anti-Serb resistance in Croatia and Bosnia in defiance of UN-mandated embargo; later US-led air campaign against Serb paramilitaries. In 1999, US jets provided bulk of 38,000 Nato sorties against Serbia to prevent massacres in Kosovo - legally controversial with UN Security Council resolutions linked to "enforcement measures" Somalia 1992-93: UN Security Council authorised creation of international force with aim of facilitating humanitarian supplies as Somali state failed. Gradual US military involvement without clear objective culminated in Black Hawk Down disaster in 1993. US troops pulled out
UN Security Council authorised creation of international force with aim of facilitating humanitarian supplies as Somali state failed. Gradual US military involvement without clear objective culminated in Black Hawk Down disaster in 1993. US troops pulled out Libya 2011: France and UK sought UN Security Council authorisation for humanitarian operation in Benghazi in 2011. Russia and China abstained but did not veto resolution. Air offensive continued until fall of Gaddafi Syria crisis: Western military options Models for possible intervention Press apprehension as Syria tension builds Syria crisis: Where key countries stand
White House spokesman Jay Carney later said that a separate report on chemical weapons use being compiled by the US intelligence community would be published this week.
Mr Carney said that Mr Obama had a variety of options and was not limited to the use of force, adding that it was not Washington's intention to remove Mr Assad.
"The options we are considering are not about regime change," he said.
Meanwhile, warnings have been issued on sites linked to Islamist militants fighting for the rebels in Syria, saying that their leaders and training camps might also be targeted by a possible US-led attack, says BBC Arab affairs editor Sebastian Usher.
Several online sites linked to the Nusra Front and similar groups have advised militants not to hold meetings or gather in large numbers, and to change routines and locations, he says.
Western powers have made clear their distrust and dislike of groups like the Nusra Front, which have spearheaded rebel victories, although there has been no indication from the US or anyone else that jihadists would be targeted, he adds.
The UN says more than 100,000 people have been killed since the uprising against President Assad began more than two years ago. The conflict has produced more than 1.7 million registered refugees.
Image caption Syrian and Russian media said a cargo plane arrived in Latakia to evacuate Russian citizens
Earlier on Tuesday, a Russian transport plane landed in the Syrian city of Latakia with a cargo of humanitarian aid.
The aircraft later left with dozens of Russian citizens on board, an official spokeswoman for the Russian Emergencies Ministry, Irina Rossius, told Russian news agencies.
The flight was intended to evacuate Russians who wanted to leave Syria, she added.
|
– With John Kerry blasting the "screaming" evidence of a chemical weapons attack in Syria, the Obama administration is moving closer to launching a military strike on the country. On Saturday, President Obama held a three-hour meeting with his national security team on the issue, and CBS News last night shared three notable details by way of sources: There was absolutely no questioning the use of force, Obama wants the public to see a declassified report backing a potential military move before that force is used (CBS says it could be out today or tomorrow), and the president has ordered the presentation of legal justifications for a strike. Chuck Hagel, for his part, tells the BBC that the military is "ready to go" and prepped to "comply with whatever option the president wishes to take." A US strike would likely last two days at the most; Washington would likely use cruise missiles or long-range bombers aimed at military targets—though not ones directly linked to chemical weapons, the Washington Post reports. (Time reports that US officials have suggested they'll likely aim for artillery, missile launchers, and other weapons with the potential to launch chemical agents.) Four warships, as well as a British submarine, are said to be at the ready in the Mediterranean, CBS notes, adding that an attack would probably occur at night, minimizing civilian casualties. Meanwhile: The regime says claims it used chemical weapons are "utterly and completely" off the mark, and is calling on the US to reveal evidence to the contrary, the Guardian notes in a liveblog. "There is no country in the world that uses a weapon of ultimate destruction against its own people," says Syria's foreign minister, per the BBC. The UK is also considering possible military action, and British lawmakers have been called back from vacation to address the situation, CNN notes. Tweets David Cameron: "Speaker agrees my request to recall Parliament on Thurs. There'll be a clear Govt motion & vote on UK response to chemical weapons attacks." Russia and China are warning against any military strike by the US and allies, the BBC reports. Such a move would bring "new suffering in Syria and catastrophic consequences for other countries of the Middle East and North Africa," says a rep for Moscow's foreign ministry.
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Michael Kirby (L), chairman of the United Nations Commission of Inquiry on North Korea, poses a question to Shin Dong-hyuk (R), a former North Korean defector, during a public hearing at Yonsei university in Seoul August 20, 2013.
SEOUL Public executions and torture are daily occurrences in North Korea's prisons, according to dramatic testimony from former inmates at a U.N. Commission of Inquiry that opened in South Korea's capital on Tuesday.
This is the first time that the North's human rights record has been examined by an expert panel, although the North, now ruled by a third generation of the founding Kim family, denies that it abuses human rights. It refuses to recognize the commission and has denied access to investigators.
Harrowing accounts from defectors now living in South Korea related how guards chopped off a man's finger, forced inmates to eat frogs and a mother to kill her own baby.
"I had no idea at all ... I thought my whole hand was going to be cut off at the wrist, so I felt thankful and grateful that only my finger was cut off," said Shin Dong-hyuk, punished for dropping a sewing machine.
Born in a prison called Camp 14 and forced to watch the execution of his mother and brother whom he turned in for his own survival, Shin is North Korea's best-known defector and camp survivor. He said he believed the U.N. panel was the only way to improve human rights in the isolated and impoverished state.
"Because the North Korean people cannot stand up with guns like Libya and Syria ... I personally think this is the first and last hope left," Shin said. "There is a lot for them to cover up, even though they don't admit to anything."
There are a 150,000-200,000 people in North Korean prison camps, according to independent estimates, and defectors say many inmates are malnourished or worked to death.
After more than a year and a half ruling North Korea, Kim Jong Un, 30, has shown few signs of changing the rigid rule of his father, Kim Jong Il, and grandfather, state founder Kim Il Sung. Neither have there been signs of a thaw or loss of control inside the tightly controlled state.
Jee Heon-a, 34, told the Commission that from the first day of her incarceration in 1999, she discovered that salted frogs were one of the few things to eat.
"Everyone's eyes were sunken. They all looked like animals. Frogs were hung from the buttons of their clothes, put in a plastic bag and their skins peeled off," she said. "They ate salted frogs and so did I."
Speaking softly, she took a deep breath when describing in detail how a mother was forced to kill her own baby.
"It was the first time I had seen a newborn baby and I felt happy. But suddenly there were footsteps and a security guard came in and told the mother to turn the baby upside down into a bowl of water," she said.
"The mother begged the guard to spare her, but he kept beating her. So the mother, her hands shaking, put the baby face down in the water. The crying stopped and a bubble rose up as it died. A grandmother who had delivered the baby quietly took it out."
"TOUGH NUT"
Few experts expect the commission to have an immediate impact on the rights situation, although it will serve to publicize a campaign that has little visibility globally.
"The U.N. has tried various ways to pressure North Korea over the years in the field of human rights, and this is a way to raise the pressure a bit," said Bill Schabas, professor of international law at Middlesex University in Britain.
"But it's obvious that North Korea is a tough nut to crack and the U.N.'s means are limited. There would need to be profound political changes in North Korea to make headway in the field of human rights."
But there appeared to be little interest in the issue in Seoul. Only a few dozen people, including journalists, attended the public hearing at a city center university.
Defectors are largely shunned or ignored in South Korea and eke out an existence in menial jobs, if they have them at all, according to official data.
Kim Jong Un stepped up the nuclear weapons and rocket programs launched by his father with a third nuclear test and two rocket launches and emphasizes the military in his speeches.
This year, he threatened the United States, South Korea and Japan with nuclear attack and although the country's bellicose moves were dismissed as empty rhetoric, Kim succeeded in driving tension on the divided Korean peninsula sharply higher.
The hope of many activists would be for the Kim dynasty to fall and for leaders in Pyongyang to be put on trial at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, although the U.N. commission says this is not possible for the moment.
On its website, the Commission said it was "not appropriate" to comment on any ICC jurisdiction over potential crimes against humanity as North Korea had not signed the statutes that would enable the court to prosecute.
But activists said word of the commission would seep into the North via unofficial contacts maintained by families.
"People living their daily lives here don't realize how important this is. It will have a tremendously powerful impact across North Korea," said Kim Sang-hun, chairman of Database Center for North Korean Human Rights, a South Korean group.
(Additional reporting by Thomas Escritt in AMSTERDAM and Stephanie Nebehay in GENEVA; Editing by David Chance and Ron Popeski) ||||| SEOUL, South Korea — Shin Dong-hyuk said his earliest memory of life in a North Korean prison camp was the public execution that inmates were forced to watch when he was 5 years old. Inmates, he told a hushed audience here in Seoul on Tuesday, were so hungry that they devoured live rats and the raw hooves of a goat that prison guards had thrown away after slaughtering the animal.
One 7-year-old girl was clubbed to death for stealing a few grains of wheat, Mr. Shin said. He said he felt lucky when a warden ordered the tip of his finger chopped off, rather than having him executed, for damaging a piece of sewing equipment.
“We toiled as bid and ate what they gave us, we took their beating and starved when they didn’t give us anything,” said Mr. Shin, 31, who escaped the camp in 2005. “We were expendables they were keeping as beasts of labor, to get the most out of us before we die.”
Mr. Shin’s account on Tuesday was dramatic, but not particularly new; over the years, defectors from North Korea, including a handful of survivors of its prison camps like Mr. Shin, have told similar stories in interviews, at human rights conferences and in documentaries and memoirs. What made the accounts given by Mr. Shin and another defector unusual was their audience: the first United Nations panel established to investigate allegations of human rights violations by the North Korean government.
The three-member Commission of Inquiry was started by the United Nations Human Rights Council in March with a one-year mandate to investigate what the council called allegations of “systematic, widespread and grave violations of human rights,” including possible crimes against humanity, by the North Korean authorities.
The panel began five days of public hearings on Tuesday at Yonsei University in Seoul. It hoped to interview 30 North Korean defectors, including some who fled the country only recently. Later this month, another round of hearings is scheduled for Japan, where the fate of Japanese citizens abducted and taken to North Korea decades ago remains a keen concern.
“The panel decided to take public testimony to help raise international awareness of conditions in the country and because of a lack of response so far by the Pyongyang government” to repeated requests to visit North Korea, said Michael Donald Kirby, chairman of the commission. North Korea also has not responded to an invitation to attend the hearings, Mr. Kirby said.
The panel’s work is the international community’s most direct challenge to the young North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, over his country’s human rights record, which rights groups describe as appalling. It also represents a victory for North Korean defectors, many of whom, like Mr. Shin, have become vocal campaigners for human rights in the North, arguing that international preoccupation with the North’s missile and nuclear weapons programs should not divert attention from the people living under one of the most repressive systems in the world.
North Korea denies violating human rights and has rejected United Nations resolutions calling for better treatment of its people as a “political plot” to destabilize its government.
In a joint letter delivered to the panel on Tuesday, groups of North Korean defectors, including one called Free the NK Gulag, said they hoped that the inquiry would lead to the indictment of “Kim Jong-un and his clique” in the International Criminal Court.
“We ourselves or our family members were dragged into prisons without trial, we suffered unspeakable torture and humiliation when we were caught while trying to flee North Korea, and we had to witness neighbors and relatives dying while waiting for food rations,” their statement said. “We were forced to witness almost monthly public executions. Because of our grandfathers’ background, many of us were deprived of an opportunity to join the party or get jobs.”
Jee Heon-a, 34, the other defector who testified on Tuesday, said that during a famine in the late 1990s, North Korean women were sold to traffickers in China. Those later caught by the Chinese police were repatriated to the North. Many suffered forced miscarriages through beatings and other forms of torture from North Korean guards at detention facilities, and one woman who gave birth was forced to drown her baby, she said.
Mr. Kirby said his panel would “seek to determine whether crimes against humanity have occurred and who bears responsibility.” But he cautioned, “It is not possible at this moment to envisage the level of detail that the commission will be able to achieve in establishing lines of responsibility, if any.”
There was poignancy in the fact that Tuesday’s hearing was being held in South Korea. Here, North Korean human rights concerns have never elicited the kind of fervent activism seen in the days when South Koreans fought for their own rights under military dictatorships. Until recently, the authorities here feared that without an effective means of pressuring North Korea, openly challenging the North on human rights would only make it more repressive and less willing to engage in international efforts to denuclearize the country.
Mr. Shin, whose stories of his life in the North Korean labor camp — including watching his mother and brother be executed — are chronicled in the book “Escape from Camp 14” by Blaine Harden, said Tuesday that he had met people who questioned the veracity of his testimonies. He said he had no evidence except his accounts and the scars that he suffered from torture and from an electrified fence that he crossed to escape the camp.
“I want to speak for those children who were born and live in prison camps as I did, and for people who don’t even know what human rights are,” he said. “I hope that they can say they are hungry when they are hungry and say it’s painful if someone hurts them.”
The commission has identified nine suspected patterns of human rights violations to investigate, including denial of food, arbitrary detention and torture.
In its 2013 white paper on human rights in North Korea, the government-run Korea Institute for National Unification in Seoul said between 80,000 and 120,000 political prisoners were held in five prison camps. Inside, “many inmates end up losing their life,” the paper said, because of “forced labor, torture, degrading mistreatment, poor nutrition and lack of medical care.” North Korea denies that such camps exist.
Also on Tuesday, the president of the international Red Cross, Peter Maurer, arrived in Pyongyang, North Korea, for the start of a visit to both countries, the organization said. Among the issues he will address in meetings with government officials will be the reunification of families who remain separated by the Korean War.
North Korea on Sunday accepted a South Korean proposal to discuss the reunion of elderly relatives.
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– What's new are not the stories but the audience: Two North Korean defectors yesterday shared wrenching stories with the first UN panel assembled for the purpose of looking into human-rights violations in the country, reports the New York Times. The Commission of Inquiry's three members will spend a year looking into the allegations, and yesterday's testimony in Seoul marked the first of five days of such hearings, during which some 30 defectors are expected to speak. Among the first stories to be heard, per the Times and Reuters: The story getting the most press comes from Jee Heon-a, 34, who described a mother forced to kill her baby: "It was the first time I had seen a newborn baby and I felt happy. But ... a security guard came in and told the mother to turn the baby upside down into a bowl of water. The mother begged the guard to spare her, but he kept beating her. So the mother, her hands shaking, put the baby face down in the water. The crying stopped and a bubble rose up as it died." She also reported that North Korean women were sold to Chinese traffickers in the '90s. In her telling, one of the few available foods was salted frogs. Shin Dong-hyuk, 31, who broke out of a prison camp in 2005, witnessed "almost monthly public executions." A 7-year-old girl's punishment for stealing a bit of wheat? She was clubbed to death. Shin's punishment for dropping a sewing machine? The tip of his finger was severed; he describes himself as "grateful": "I thought my whole hand was going to be cut off at the wrist." Click for more from Shin.
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BRUSSELS—International efforts to tighten pressure on Syria intensified Monday, with the European Union placing new sanctions on Damascus while foreign ministers predicted President Bashar al-Assad was starting to lose his grip on power.
The EU confirmed it was placing an asset freeze and travel ban on 26 people—mainly army, security and intelligence officials. The EU also tightened its arms embargo and targeted three companies including Syria's flagship airline. All three companies are "closely linked to the Assad family," U.K. Foreign Secretary William Hague said.
The EU "strongly condemns the ever-increasing use of force by the regime, including use of heavy ... ||||| BEIRUT (Reuters) - Western states expressed alarm after Syria acknowledged for the first time that it has chemical and biological weapons and said it could use them if foreign countries intervene.
A week of unprecedented fighting inside the capital Damascus, including a bomb attack that killed four of President Bashar al-Assad's closest advisers, has transformed the 16-month uprising and dramatically escalated international pressure on Assad.
Damascus residents said the capital was relatively quiet in the early hours of Tuesday after a day of fighting that saw government troops storm a neighborhood.
Defying Arab foreign ministers who on Sunday offered Assad a "safe exit" if he stepped down, the Syrian leader has launched fierce counter-offensives, reflecting his determination to keep power as the uprising enters its most violent phase.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Jihad Makdissi said the army would not use chemical weapons to crush rebels but could use them against forces from outside the country.
"Any chemical or bacterial weapons will never be used ... during the crisis in Syria regardless of the developments," Makdissi said. "These weapons are stored and secured by Syrian military forces and under its direct supervision and will never be used unless Syria faces external aggression."
Damascus has not signed a 1992 international convention that bans the use, production or stockpiling of chemical weapons, but officials in the past had denied it had any stockpiles. Washington and other Western capitals rushed to warn Syria against making any threats to use such weapons.
"Given the escalation of violence in Syria, and the regime's increasing attacks on their people, we remain very concerned about these weapons," White House spokesman Tommy Vietor said.
A U.S. State Department spokeswoman said warnings against using chemical weapons extended not only to the Syrian government but to rebels and any militants who might try to obtain them.
"The warnings that we have given with regard to safeguarding this kind of absolutely horrific and dangerous weapon have been made to regime, to opposition, to anybody who might get their hands on them," she said.
Britain, Germany and other countries also said it was unacceptable for Syria to say it might use chemical arms. U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said he was very concerned Syria may be tempted to use unconventional weapons.
Western countries and Israel have expressed fears chemical weapons could fall into the hands of militant groups as Assad's authority erodes. Israel has publicly discussed military action to prevent Syrian chemical weapons or missiles from reaching Assad's Lebanese Shi'ite militant allies Hezbollah.
The Global Security website, which collects published intelligence reports and other data, says there are four suspected chemical weapons sites in Syria: north of Damascus, near Homs, in Hama and near the Mediterranean port of Latakia. Weapons it produces include the nerve agents VX, sarin and tabun, it said, without citing its sources.
Abdelbasset Seida, head of the Syrian National Council opposition group, said: "A regime that massacres children and rapes women could use these types of weapons.
"The technical infrastructure may not be suitable, but as I said, such a step could be expected from this murderous regime. The international community must prevent this," he told reporters after meeting Turkey's foreign minister in Ankara.
Arab League ministers meeting in Doha urged the opposition and the rebel Free Syrian Army to form a transitional government, Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani told a news conference.
Makdissi rejected the call for Assad to step down as a "flagrant intervention" in Syria's internal affairs. "We regret that the Arab League stooped to this immoral level," he said.
On Monday the army shelled rebel forces in the northern city of Aleppo and stormed the southern Damascus neighborhood of Nahr Aisha, breaking into shops and houses and burning some of them, activists said.
Video showed dozens of men in green army fatigues massing in the neighborhood, which looked completely abandoned. Men carrying machineguns and rocket-propelled grenade launchers knocked and then kicked down doors and climbed through windows.
Assad's forces have reasserted control over several Damascus areas since they seized back the central Midan district on Friday, 48 hours after a bomb attack killed four of Assad's closest security officials.
"The regime strategy is to continue to confront the opposition, this time with much broader military response," said Ayham Kamel, Middle East analyst at Eurasia Group consultancy.
"The expectation that the regime is out of firepower or collapsing right now is misplaced."
But Assad's forces have lost ground outside cities, ceding control of four border posts on the Turkish and Iraqi borders.
Sky Television footage from the town of Azaz close to the border with Turkey showed rebel fighters parading through streets firing triumphantly after a prolonged battle with government forces.
In Aleppo, activists said thousands of residents fled the rebel-held districts of Al-Haideriya, Hanano and Sakhour after army shelling and clashes between rebels and government forces in which activists said three government tanks were destroyed.
A video posted by activists showed families crammed into taxis, vans and the back of trucks trying to flee. Dozens of other families set out on foot, carrying plastic bags with their belongings.
"This is a large scale hit-and-run battle. The whole point is to bleed the regime dry. It is a very long fight, and it will be especially long in Aleppo," said a spokesman from the Islamist rebel group the Battalions for the Free Men of Syria.
DAMASCUS FIGHTING
The fighting in Damascus, Aleppo and the eastern city of Deir al-Zor has been some of the fiercest yet and showed Assad's determination to avenge last Wednesday's bomb attack, the most spectacular blow of the uprising.
Activists reported clashes on Monday in the Damascus districts of Qadam and Kafr Sousseh. Rebel sources say the guerrilla fighters in the capital may lack the supply lines to remain there for long and may have to make tactical withdrawals.
In the northeast district of Qaboun, where Assad's forces pushed fighters back in recent days, most streets were empty, said a resident reached by telephone who visited the area from another part of Damascus. A few people were returning to check on homes, some of which were destroyed.
"I came just to pick up some of my family's belongings, I am not returning for now," one woman told the visitor at her empty-looking four-storey building.
Groups of men were removing bodies from underneath the rubble of one building. "We have removed 25 bodies so far from this area, we are burying them quickly," one said.
An activist said 24 bodies had been found outside the capital in the Daraya district of the countryside on Monday, and said they appeared to be fighters who had been executed.
The accounts could not be verified independently; Syria restricts access by journalists.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which compiles reports from anti-Assad activists, said 1,261 people had been killed across Syria since last Sunday when fighting escalated in Damascus, making it by far the bloodiest week in an uprising activists say has claimed at least 18,000 lives.
(Additional reporting by Suleiman al-Khalidi in Antakya; Writing by Dominic Evans; Editing by Peter Graff and Michael Roddy)
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– Despite recent reports that Syria may be preparing to use its chemical weapons, a foreign ministry spokesperson today tried to assure the world that they will not be used on the Syrian people—officially acknowledging for the first time that the country actually has such weapons, reports Reuters. "Any chemical or biological weapons will never be used ... in the Syrian crisis, no matter what the internal developments are," he said. But they could still be used: "These weapons are stored and secured by Syrian military forces and under its direct supervision and will never be used unless Syria faces external aggression." Meanwhile, though rebels were encouraged by the assassination attack last week that killed four regime officials in Damascus, Syrian troops have now driven rebels out of the city's Mezzeh district, yesterday executing at least 20 unarmed men there, Reuters reports. Violence is also raging in Aleppo, Syria's biggest city, and Deir al-Zor. The EU issued new sanctions against Syria today, the Wall Street Journal adds; those include an asset freeze and travel ban on select Syrians, and a tighter arms embargo. The Arab League promised President Bashar al-Assad a "safe exit" if he steps down now.
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WASHINGTON—The Justice Department said Friday its prosecutors won't pursue criminal charges against their boss, Attorney General Eric Holder, over his refusal to turn over documents sought by House Republicans.
The move was an expected response to a vote in the Republican-controlled House Thursday citing Mr. Holder with contempt of Congress. Under the law, it is the responsibility of the U.S. attorney for ... ||||| In this file photo, Attorney General Eric Holder speaks to reporters following his meeting on Capitol Hill in Washington on June 19, 2012. (Susan Walsh/AP)
The Justice Department has told House leaders that Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.’s decision to withhold certain documents about a flawed gun operation from Congress is not a crime and he will not be prosecuted for contempt of Congress.
Deputy Attorney General James M. Cole explained the decision, which was expected, in a letter to House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio). The letter was released publicly Friday, just over a week after President Obama invoked executive privilege to withhold the documents.
In his letter, Cole said the decision not to prosecute Holder conforms to long-standing Justice Department practice in both Democratic and Republican administrations.
In May 1984, Theodore B. Olson, then assistant attorney general, wrote that U.S. attorneys are not required to refer congressional contempt charges to a grand jury or prosecute an executive branch official “who carries out the President’s instruction to invoke the President’s claim of executive privilege before a committee.”
In July 2007 and February 2008, Attorney General Michael Mukasey cited the Olson analysis in letters to House Democratic leaders, informing them that Justice would decline to press charges against White House chief of staff Joshua Bolten and White House counsel Harriet E. Miers, who were held in contempt after failing to appear before the House Judiciary Committee.
“Consistent with this uniform position and practice, the Department has determined that the Attorney General’s response to this subpoena issued by the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform does not constitute a crime, and therefore the Department will not bring the congressional contempt citation before a grand jury or take any other action to prosecute the Attorney General,” Cole wrote.
On Thursday, Holder became the first attorney general to be held in contempt of Congress after he withheld internal deliberative documents that Republican lawmakers demanded as part of an investigation into the “Fast and Furious” gunrunning operation.
The Justice Department’s decision concerns only criminal action, so the House can still pursue civil litigation against Holder. On Thursday, the House voted to authorize civil action, which paves the way for a federal court challenge to Obama’s decision to invoke executive privilege.
Republicans dismissed Cole’s decision and said the U.S. attorney for the District — who technically has the authority to prosecute Holder — should be able to do so, noting that he is already leading an investigation into the possible leak of classified information by Obama administration officials to reporters.
“If he’s neutral enough to independently look for leaks from the administration and not be conflicted, then he has to be equally independent in weighing the statute” approved by the House, said House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), who is leading the “Fast and Furious” investigation.
Staff writer Ed O’Keefe contributed to this report. ||||| The Justice Department declared Friday that Attorney General Eric Holder's decision to withhold information about a bungled gun-tracking operation from Congress does not constitute a crime and he won't be prosecuted for contempt of Congress.
House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer of Md., flanked by House Assistant Minority Leader James Clyburn of S.C., left, and Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., speaks to reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday,... (Associated Press)
Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., center, holds hands with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of Calif., next to Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill., right, as House Democrats leave the Capitol in protest of a House vote to... (Associated Press)
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of Calif. speaks on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, June 28, 2012, after members of Congress walked off the House floor in protest of a contempt of Congress vote... (Associated Press)
FILE - In this June 12, 2012 file photo, Attorney General Eric Holder testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington. In email exchanges with subordinates in February and March 2011, Attorney General Eric Holder... (Associated Press)
From left, House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer of Md., Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., Rep. Charles Rangel, D-NY, and Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney, D-NY, walk out of the Capitol, arm-in-arm, as members of the Congressional... (Associated Press)
From left, House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer of Md., Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., Rep, Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of Calif., right, and many... (Associated Press)
The House voted Thursday afternoon to find Holder in criminal and civil contempt for refusing to turn over the documents. President Barack Obama invoked his executive privilege authority and ordered Holder not to turn over materials about executive branch deliberations and internal recommendations.
In a letter to House Speaker John Boehner, the department said that it will not bring the congressional contempt citation against Holder to a federal grand jury and that it will take no other action to prosecute the attorney general. Dated Thursday, the letter was released Friday.
Deputy Attorney General James Cole said the decision is in line with long-standing Justice Department practice across administrations of both political parties.
"We will not prosecute an executive branch official under the contempt of Congress statute for withholding subpoenaed documents pursuant to a presidential assertion of executive privilege," Cole wrote.
In its letter, the department relied in large part on a Justice Department legal opinion crafted during Republican Ronald Reagan's presidency.
Frederick Hill, the spokesman for Rep. Darrell Issa, said it is regrettable that "the political leadership of the Justice Department" is taking that position. Issa, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee chairman, is leading the effort to get the material related to Operation Fast and Furious.
Although the House voted Thursday to find Holder in criminal and civil contempt, Republicans probably are still a long way from obtaining documents they want for their inquiry into Operation Fast and Furious, a flawed gun-tracking investigation focused on Phoenix-area gun shops by Justice's Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
The criminal path is now closed and the civil route through the courts would not be resolved anytime soon.
"This is pure politics," White House spokesman Jay Carney said.
"Remarkably the chairman of the committee involved here has asserted that he has no evidence that the attorney general knew of Operation Fast and Furious or did anything but take the right action when he learned of it.
"No evidence, so if you have no evidence as he has stated now about the White House and the attorney general, what else could this be but politics?"
More than 100 Democrats walked out of the House chamber to boycott the first of two contempt votes, saying Republicans were more interested in shameful election-year politics than documents.
Republicans demanded the documents for an ongoing investigation, but their arguments focused more on the need for closure for the family of slain Border Patrol agent Brian Terry. Two guns identified by the Fast and Furious tracking operation were found near his body after a shootout in Arizona.
Democrats promised closure as well, but said a less-partisan Republican investigation was the only way to get it.
Adding to the emotion of the day, the family of the slain agent issued a statement backing the Republicans.
"The Terry family takes no pleasure in the contempt vote against Attorney General Eric Holder. Such a vote should not have been necessary. The Justice Department should have released the documents related to Fast and Furious months ago," the statement said.
The contempt votes happened on the day that Obama's health care law survived in the Supreme Court, prompting some Democrats to speculate that the votes were scheduled to be overwhelmed by news stories about the ruling.
About five hours after the court ruled, with news sites flooded with information about the health care ruling, the House voted 255-67 to declare Holder in criminal contempt.
A second vote of 258-95 held Holder in civil contempt and authorized the House to file a lawsuit.
In past cases, courts have been reluctant to settle disputes between the executive and legislative branches of government.
The issue became more complicated when Obama invoked a broad form of executive privilege, a legal doctrine designed to keep private certain communications of executive branch agencies.
Issa's committee will consult with the House counsel's office about a court challenge to the administration's decision not to cooperate, spokesman Frederick Hill said.
The documents were written after Fast and Furious was shut down. The subpoena covered a 10-month period from February 2011, as the Justice Department expressed growing concern that the Fast and Furious operation had employed a risky investigative tactic known as "gun-walking." In early December 2011, the department finally acknowledged that the initial denial of gun-walking was in error.
Republicans said the contempt citations were necessary because Holder refused to hand over documents that could explain why the Obama administration took 10 months to acknowledge the gun-walking.
In Fast and Furious, ATF agents abandoned the agency's usual practice of intercepting all weapons they believed to be illicitly purchased, often as soon as they were taken out of gun shops. Instead, the goal of the tactic known as "gun-walking" was to track such weapons to high-level arms traffickers, who had long eluded prosecution, and to dismantle their networks.
Gun-walking long has been barred by Justice Department policy, but federal agents in Arizona experimented with it in at least two investigations during the George W. Bush administration before Operation Fast and Furious. These experiments came as the department was under widespread criticism that the old policy of arresting every suspected low-level "straw purchaser" was failing to stop tens of thousands of guns from reaching Mexico, more than 68,000 in the last five years. A straw purchaser conceals that he is buying guns for others.
Fast and Furious identified more than 2,000 weapons suspected of being illicitly purchased. But agents lost track of many of the guns. Some 1,400 of them have yet to be recovered. ||||| AP Photo Close
White House press secretary Jay Carney said Friday that there is a longstanding precedent against prosecuting Attorney General Eric Holder for contempt — despite a recommendation from Congress.
"It is an established principle, dating back to the administration of President Ronald Reagan, that the Justice Department does not pursue prosecution in a contempt case when the President has asserted executive privilege," Carney told reporters.
"The assertion of executive privilege makes the contempt matter moot, if you will. I mean, I’m not a lawyer, so I’m probably not using quite the precise language. But it is my understanding, and I would refer you to the Justice Department, that dating back to the administration of President Reagan that prosecutions will not take place under this -- in this circumstance," Carney said.
The Republican-controlled House cited Holder for contempt Thursday for failure to turn over documents related to a gunrunning operation within the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The White House declared the same documents protected under the doctrine of executive privilege earlier this month. Seventeen Democrats crossed the aisle to vote with the GOP, in the first instance of a sitting cabinet member being handed a contempt citation.
That citation is now in the hands of U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Ronald Machen — a Justice Department employee appointed by President Obama who answers to Holder.
"Let’s just be clear, as I know all of you recognize, that this is pure politics -- pure politics," Carney said, referring to what he called extensive cooperation between the DOJ and Republicans on Capitol Hill.
UPDATE: In a letter to House Speaker John Boehner's office, the Department of Justice confirms they will not prosecute.
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– The House may think Eric Holder is criminally contempt, but the Justice Department thinks the House can go fly a kite. The department informed John Boehner today that it won't prosecute its boss on the contempt charges, reports the Washington Post. The letter was drafted yesterday, the same day the House voted against Holder. The attorney general is in the clear, the letter asserts, because President Obama invoked executive privilege in the spat over documents related to the Fast and Furious case. The matter isn't over, though. The Justice Department action closes the criminal contempt case, but the House also cited Holder for civil contempt, notes AP. That means Darrell Issa and his committee can still go to court to try to get the documents they want, a legal fight that could take years to resolve, notes the Wall Street Journal.
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Libya unrest: Evacuation of Tripoli migrants planned
Rebels have almost completely surrounded Tripoli
The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) says it is organising an evacuation of thousands of foreign workers from Libya's capital, Tripoli.
An IOM spokeswoman said thousands of people wanted to leave as fighting approaches the city.
Rebels have said that at least 30 fighters have died and 120 have been injured as they attempt to take control of Zlitan, east of the capital.
They have sought to take control of the strategic coastal town since August.
"Battles began in the early hours of today and the rebels have liberated most of Zlitan," rebel spokesman Gemal Salem told Reuters.
Major obstacle
It is not possible for the BBC to independently verify these claims however government troops have been fighting rebels in the area for months.
The town, some 93 miles (150km) east of the capital, represents a major obstacle in the path from the nearby city of Misrata to Tripoli.
Meanwhile, there have also been clashes to the west, south and east of Tripoli as rebels push back government forces.
Nato, enforcing a UN-mandated no-fly zone to protect civilians since March, controls sea access to Tripoli.
An IOM spokeswoman said an operation to rescue stranded foreign workers - many of them Egyptians - would begin in the coming days.
"We have a very limited window of opportunity to carry out this operation because of the fighting," said Jemini Pandya.
"We are looking at all options available, but it will probably have to be by sea," she added during a news conference in Geneva.
Such a move would almost certainly require the co-operation of all sides in the fighting to ensure evacuees made it safely onto boats, says the BBC's Geneva correspondent, Imogen Foulkes.
Land route closed
Since the conflict in Libya began in February, an estimated 600,000 migrant workers have fled the country, many with the help of the IOM, says our correspondent.
But many foreign workers still remain in Tripoli.
The last land escape route - the road west from Tripoli to Tunisia - has now been closed by fighting after rebel forces moved into the town of Zawiya, just 50km (30 miles) from the capital.
On Thursday, rebel forces captured an oil refinery outside the town.
Although much of the fuel used by the Libyan army is smuggled across the border from Tunisia and Algeria, the refinery provides supplies for the capital, Tripoli, the BBC's Matthew Price reports from Tripoli.
Rebel forces have also recently advanced to the south of Tripoli, capturing the town of Gharyan.
Libya's conflict broke out in February, inspired by uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt which toppled the presidents of those countries.
Rebels quickly consolidated gains in the east of the country, but until recently Col Gaddafi's forces held much of the west. ||||| ZAWIYAH, Libya Libyan rebels fought fierce battles in two coastal cities on either side of the capital Tripoli on Friday in a drive to topple Muammar Gaddafi, but met stiff resistance from forces loyal to the long-time leader.
Sustained blasts from rocket-propelled grenades, mortars and anti-aircraft guns rang out in the center of Zawiyah, a city on the coastal highway 50 km (30 miles) west of Tripoli that the rebels entered this week, in a clash that killed at least two.
As they pushed to consolidate control of the city and its strategic oil refinery, rebels in Zawiyah's central square exchanged heavy fire with Gaddafi forces holed up inside a nearby hospital before driving them out, Reuters witnesses said.
East of Tripoli, opposition forces fought bloody street battles in the city of Zlitan but suffered heavy casualties, a Reuters reporter there said. A rebel spokesman said 32 rebel fighters were killed, with 150 wounded.
Rebel advances have cut off Tripoli from its main supply routes, putting Gaddafi's four-decade rule under heavy pressure.
But Gaddafi's information minister, Moussa Ibrahim, said late on Friday the government's military retained the upper hand and scorned what he described as 'bands of insurgents'.
With rebels pushing on the ground, NATO has pressed on with its campaign from the air and its warplanes pounded targets in the capital overnight.
Gaddafi's government has blamed NATO bombings for scores of civilian deaths and said 27 people were killed in the most recent raids on Tripoli. NATO accuses Gaddafi forces of housing military assets near civilians.
MIGRANT WORKERS
In another sign the fighting is hitting closer to Gaddafi's inner circle, the brother of the spokesman who has served as the Tripoli government's public face was reported killed in a front line city. The government blamed NATO attack helicopters.
Libyan officials separately brought journalists to a residential district where a compound of several large buildings was blasted to pieces. Neighbors said it belonged to Abdullah al-Senussi, Gaddafi's brother-in-law and head of intelligence.
NBC News reported Gaddafi was making preparations to leave Libya with his family for possible exile in Tunisia, but that it was unclear if he would follow through. NBC said the information came from U.S. officials who cited intelligence reports.
A spokeswoman for the International Organization for Migration (IOM), Jemini Pandya, said the operation to rescue thousands of Egyptians and other foreigners trapped in Tripoli by the latest fighting would begin within days.
"We are looking at all options available, but it will probably have to be by sea," she told a Geneva news conference.
More than 600,000 of up to 2.5 million foreigners, mostly Asian and African migrant workers, have fled Libya in six months of fighting. But thousands remained in Tripoli, which until this week was calm and a safe two-hour drive from Tunisia.
The route has been cut since the rebels entered Zawiyah, which lies on the coastal highway, six days ago. In Zawiyah, medics at another local hospital said two dead and three wounded had been taken there from the recent fighting.
On Thursday they took the neighboring town of Sabratha, and on Friday they seized the nearby town of Surman.
Several hundred rebels and their supporters gathered on the streets of Surman, just off the highway, to celebrate the victory, flying the rebel green, red and black flag.
"SENUSSI HOUSE" HIT
In Tripoli, Omar Masood, an oil engineer who lives across the street from the compound that was destroyed, said it had been struck before dawn and belonged to Senussi, one of the most senior figures in Gaddafi's leadership.
A large building had been reduced to rubble. The grounds appeared to be grand, with a fountain and children's swing set and a garden with a live gazelle standing amid the ruins. Officials could not say if it was Senussi's house or whether he was present at the time.
Senussi, who is married to Gaddafi's sister, is one of three figures along with Gaddafi and his son Saif al-Islam wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes. The court's prosecutor blames him for killing civilians.
A government official said the brother of Moussa Ibrahim -- the spokesman whose briefings have been broadcast worldwide throughout the six-month-old uprising -- was killed by a NATO helicopter gunship in the central square of Zawiyah.
A Reuters reporter at the front east of Tripoli said rebels had launched an assault on Gaddafi's forces in Zlitan, the closest front line east of the capital. Many wounded were being brought to the rebels' field hospital.
"Battles began in the early hours of today and the rebels have liberated most of Zlitan," rebel spokesman Gemal Salem said by telephone. "Now the fighting is in the west of Zlitan."
(Additional reporting by Missy Ryan in Tripoli; Robert Birsel in Benghazi, Libya; Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva; Ulf Laessing in Garyan, Libya; Mariam Karouny in Beirut; William Maclean in London; and Souhail Karam in Rabat; Tarek Amara in Tunis; Writing by Richard Valdmanis and Peter Graff; Editing by Maria Golovnina)
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– Another sign that rebels are tightening their grip on Moammar Gadhafi: An international agency says it plans to evacuate thousands of foreign workers from Tripoli, reports Reuters. The foreigners are mostly Egyptians who have no easy way out now that rebels have closed in on the capital and shut highways. The International Organization for Migration is trying to organize a rescue effort in the next few days, probably by sea. "We have a very limited window of opportunity to carry out this operation because of the fighting," says a spokeswoman. The tricky part, notes the BBC, is that such an evacuation would probably require the cooperation of the rebels, NATO, and the Libyan government. Rumors are swirling, meanwhile, that Gadhafi himself is planning to flee the country.
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Ouch! Billy Bush ended up in an L.A. hospital on Monday, November 27, after being hit in the head by a golf ball.
The former Today show cohost, shared three pictures on Instagram as he lay in a hospital bed at Cedars-Sinai Hospital.
“FORE!! Thanks nurse Katrina, jovi, Jenn, Mercy @cedarssinai for the bed, the care, the ice,” Bush captioned the pics. “I think I dodged a bullet…but sadly not a golf ball. Scan is clear, let the jokes begin #putmedownforpar.”
Bush’s accident comes two days after a report surfaced in The New York Times that Donald Trump is telling people that the infamous 2005 Access Hollywood tape featuring his vulgar conversation with Bush is fake.
In the story published on Saturday, November 25, the Times reported that the president “allegedly suggested to a senator earlier this year that [the tape] was not authentic, and repeated that claim to an adviser more recently.”
This is despite the 71-year-old publicly acknowledging that it was his voice on the tape and apologizing for his derogatory comments about women after the audio surfaced just before the presidential election in October 2016.
As previously reported, the former Apprentice host could be heard bragging to then Access Hollywood host Bush about sexually assaulting women, insinuating he could use his fame to force himself on them.
“I don’t even wait,” Trump said on the tape as Bush could be heard laughing. “And when you’re a star they let you do it. You can do anything … grab them by the p–sy. You can do anything.”
“Obviously I’m embarrassed and ashamed,” Bush told Us in a statement immediately after the tape was released. “It’s no excuse, but this happened 11 years ago — I was younger, less mature and acted foolishly in playing along. I’m very sorry.”
The TV host, who was a new member of the Today team at the time, was initially suspended by NBC and then exited the show shortly afterward, after reaching a settlement with the network.
Bush split with wife Sydney Davis in September this year after almost two decades of marriage but a source told Us at the time that it had “nothing to do” with the Trump scandal.
Sign up now for the Us Weekly newsletter to get breaking celebrity news, hot pics and more delivered straight to your inbox!
Want stories like these delivered straight to your phone? Download the Us Weekly iPhone app now! ||||| Billy Bush is recovering after suffering a hard hit.
The former Today show co-host, 46, shared multiple photos Monday from a hospital bed at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles, including a snap of himself laying down and another of him posing with a medical staff member.
“FORE!! Thanks nurse Katrina, jovi, Jenn, Mercy @cedarssinai for the bed, the care, the ice,” Bush wrote in the caption. “I think I dodged a bullet…but sadly not a golf ball. Scan is clear, let the jokes begin #putmedownforpar.”
Billy Bush/Instagram
Billy Bush and Cedars-Sinai Hospital employee Billy Bush/Instagram
Bush’s accident comes more than two months after he announced in September that he and his wife of almost 20 years, Sydney Davis, were separating.
The father of three’s lawyer confirmed to PEOPLE in a statement that the couple were “on a short-term break,” while his rep told PEOPLE, “After almost 20 years of marriage, they have separated for the moment to evaluate their life together.”
“They love each other and their children deeply and are committed to a bright future,” the rep continued.
WATCH: Billy Bush and Wife Sydney Davis Separating After Nearly 20 Years of Marriage
Bush and Davis share three daughters: Josie, 19, Mary, 16, and Lillie, 12.
Their split came nearly a year after Bush parted ways with the Today show in the wake of his controversial, leaked 2005 conversation with Donald Trump, which came to light in a Washington Post article published in October 2016.
In his first televised interview since the tape was leaked back in October, Bush told ABC News’ Robin Roberts in May that the conversation brought his 16-year-old daughter to tears.
“She was really upset, and I said, ‘Mary, it’s, it’s, going to be OK. You know, don’t worry,’ ” said Bush, who was fired from Today several days after the tape’s release. “And she said, ‘No. Why were you laughing at the things that he was saying on that bus? Why were you playing along with it, Dad? It wasn’t funny.’ ”
“I said, ‘Mary, I am sorry. And there is no good answer for that,’ ” Bush said.
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– Monday wasn't a great day for Billy Bush, but the former Today co-host kept his sense of humor: "FORE! ... I think I dodged a bullet... but sadly not a golf ball," he said in an Instagram post from Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles. "Let the jokes begin," he added, thanking nurses and other hospital staff. Bush, who was hospitalized after being hit in the head by a golf ball, said the scan was clear, Us Weekly reports. The accident comes around a year after Bush parted ways with NBC over the infamous Trump Access Hollywood tape, and two months after he announced he was separating from wife Sydney Davis after almost 20 years of marriage, People reports.
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It was not to be — and this failure will have devastating consequences, inside and outside Egypt. Islamist ire has been fed and the perception of Western hypocrisy reinforced at the very moment when ways out of this impasse appeared possible.
Photo
In fact the violent splits nurtured over decades under Mubarak — Westernized liberals against backward Islamists — proved insurmountable. By last month, just a year after the nation’s first free election brought the Brotherhood’s Mohamed Morsi to power with 51.7 percent of the vote, millions of decent Egyptian liberals were roaring in the streets for the military to oust him. The army obliged in the July 3 coup that will not speak its name.
Now the Saudi-backed Gen. Abdul-Fattah el-Sisi, Egypt’s military leader, rails against “the terrorists” who (he insists) constitute the Brotherhood, and has his newly subservient media echo the refrain. More than 1,000 Egyptians are dead. There is talk of banning the Brotherhood; certainly its participation in any future election is impossible to imagine. In its absence no vote will be meaningful. Egyptian democracy was stillborn.
Far from overcoming the divisions of the society where close to 25 percent of the world’s Arabs live, the developments of the past two-and-a-half years have sharpened them. Egypt’s polarizing spiral, evident in Islamist attacks on Coptic Christian churches and the killing of at least two dozen police officers in Sinai, seems unstoppable.
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For the United States and Europe , this amounts to a colossal strategic failure. Nothing — and certainly not the outcome in Afghanistan or Iraq — was more important than getting Egypt right. President Obama , who began his presidency with an attempt to build bridges to the Arab and Muslim world through a speech in Cairo , has seen his greatest failure in that very city. Post-Tahrir Egypt stands now as a monument to America’s declining influence in the world, even in a nation receiving $1.5 billion in annual aid.
All that American money translated into no ability to restrain a largely American-trained military (including General Sisi). It translated into little ability to persuade Morsi to reach out beyond the Brotherhood and refrain from railroading through a divisive constitution.
The Obama administration has appeared hesitant and wavering, zigzagging from support for Morsi to acceptance of his ouster. The critical moment came before the July 3 coup (“a violent or illegal change in government” according to the Oxford English Dictionary). A military intervention was almost certain to end badly. It was a terrible precedent. But Secretary of State John Kerry offered the view that the army was “restoring democracy.”
Just as bad, Obama said this: “While Mohamed Morsi was elected president in a democratic election, his government was not inclusive and did not respect the views of all Egyptians.” Those are dangerous words from an American president. They seem to relegate the importance of a free and fair vote. ||||| Article Excerpt
On the subject of Egypt: Is it the U.S. government's purpose merely to cop an attitude? Or does it also intend to have a policy?
An attitude "deplores the violence" and postpones a military exercise, as President Obama did from Martha's Vineyard the other day. An attitude sternly informs the Egyptian military, as Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) did, that it is "taking Egypt down a dark path, one that the United States cannot and should not travel with them." An attitude calls for the suspension of U.S. aid to Egypt, as everyone from Rand Paul (R., Ky.) to Patrick ...
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– What's happening in Egypt represents President Obama's "greatest failure," writes Roger Cohen in the New York Times. Obama's much-ballyhooed speech in Cairo in 2009, intended to begin healing rifts with the Muslim world, "stands now as a monument to America’s declining influence in the world," he writes. The president has been wishy-washy in his response to the military coup that ousted Mohamed Morsi, and it turns out that all our money gave us little sway over either the military or the Muslim Brotherhood while it held power. Nothing "was more important than getting Egypt right," writes Cohen, but we got it exactly wrong. What to do? At the Wall Street Journal, Bret Stephens writes that it's time to move beyond finger-wagging and actually establish a policy. "If the US wants influence, it needs to hold its nose and take a side," he writes. And that side is clear: The US should support the military leaders, and hope they win this fight as quickly as possible. The generals "may not need shiny new F-16s, but riot gear, tear gas, rubber bullets, and Taser guns could help, especially to prevent the kind of bloodbaths the world witnessed last week." It's not pretty, but it's the best path to restoring normalcy to the Egypt. Click for Stephens' full column. Or for Cohen's full column.
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Published: April 2012 The Titanic
By Hampton Sides
Photograph by Walden Media
The wreck sleeps in darkness, a puzzlement of corroded steel strewn across a thousand acres of the North Atlantic seabed. Fungi feed on it. Weird colorless life-forms, unfazed by the crushing pressure, prowl its jagged ramparts. From time to time, beginning with the discovery of the wreck in 1985 by Explorer-in-Residence Robert Ballard and Jean-Louis Michel, a robot or a manned submersible has swept over Titanic’s gloomy facets, pinged a sonar beam in its direction, taken some images—and left.
In recent years explorers like James Cameron and Paul-Henry Nargeolet have brought back increasingly vivid pictures of the wreck. Yet we’ve mainly glimpsed the site as though through a keyhole, our view limited by the dreck suspended in the water and the ambit of a submersible’s lights. Never have we been able to grasp the relationships between all the disparate pieces of wreckage. Never have we taken the full measure of what’s down there.
Until now. In a tricked-out trailer on a back lot of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), William Lange stands over a blown-up sonar survey map of the Titanic site—a meticulously stitched-together mosaic that has taken months to construct. At first look the ghostly image resembles the surface of the moon, with innumerable striations in the seabed, as well as craters caused by boulders dropped over millennia from melting icebergs.
On closer inspection, though, the site appears to be littered with man-made detritus—a Jackson Pollock-like scattering of lines and spheres, scraps and shards. Lange turns to his computer and points to a portion of the map that has been brought to life by layering optical data onto the sonar image. He zooms in, and in, and in again. Now we can see the Titanic’s bow in gritty clarity, a gaping black hole where its forward funnel once sprouted, an ejected hatch cover resting in the mud a few hundred feet to the north. The image is rich in detail: In one frame we can even make out a white crab clawing at a railing.
Here, in the sweep of a computer mouse, is the entire wreck of the Titanic—every bollard, every davit, every boiler. What was once a largely indecipherable mess has become a high-resolution crash scene photograph, with clear patterns emerging from the murk. “Now we know where everything is,” Lange says. “After a hundred years, the lights are finally on.”
Bill Lange is the head of WHOI’s Advanced Imaging and Visualization Laboratory, a kind of high-tech photographic studio of the deep. A few blocks from Woods Hole’s picturesque harbor, on the southwestern elbow of Cape Cod, the laboratory is an acoustic-tiled cave crammed with high-definition television monitors and banks of humming computers. Lange was part of the original Ballard expedition that found the wreck, and he’s been training ever more sophisticated cameras on the site ever since.
This imagery, the result of an ambitious multi-million-dollar expedition undertaken in August-September 2010, was captured by three state-of-the-art robotic vehicles that flew at various altitudes above the abyssal plain in long, preprogrammed swaths. Bristling with side-scan and multibeam sonar as well as high-definition optical cameras snapping hundreds of images a second, the robots systematically “mowed the lawn,” as the technique is called, working back and forth across a three-by-five-mile target area of the ocean floor. These ribbons of data have now been digitally stitched together to assemble a massive high-definition picture in which everything has been precisely gridded and geo-referenced.
“This is a game-changer,” says National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) archaeologist James Delgado, the expedition’s chief scientist. “In the past, trying to understand Titanic was like trying to understand Manhattan at midnight in a rainstorm—with a flashlight. Now we have a site that can be understood and measured, with definite things to tell us. In years to come this historic map may give voice to those people who were silenced, seemingly forever, when the cold water closed over them.”
What is it about the wreck of the R.M.S. Titanic? Why, a century later, do people still lavish so much brainpower and technological ingenuity upon this graveyard of metal more than two miles beneath the ocean surface? Why, like Pearl Harbor, ground zero, and only a few other hallowed disaster zones, does it exert such a magnetic pull on our imagination?
For some the sheer extravagance of Titanic’s demise lies at the heart of its attraction. This has always been a story of superlatives: A ship so strong and so grand, sinking in water so cold and so deep. For others the Titanic’s fascination begins and ends with the people on board. It took two hours and 40 minutes for the Titanic to sink, just long enough for 2,208 tragic-epic performances to unfold, with the ship’s lights blazing. One coward is said to have made for the lifeboats dressed in women’s clothing, but most people were honorable, many heroic. The captain stayed at the bridge, the band played on, the Marconi wireless radio operators continued sending their distress signals until the very end. The passengers, for the most part, kept to their Edwardian stations. How they lived their final moments is the stuff of universal interest, a danse macabre that never ends.
But something else, beyond human lives, went down with the Titanic: An illusion of orderliness, a faith in technological progress, a yearning for the future that, as Europe drifted toward full-scale war, was soon replaced by fears and dreads all too familiar to our modern world. “The Titanic disaster was the bursting of a bubble,” James Cameron told me. “There was such a sense of bounty in the first decade of the 20th century. Elevators! Automobiles! Airplanes! Wireless radio! Everything seemed so wondrous, on an endless upward spiral. Then it all came crashing down.”
The mother of all shipwrecks has many homes—literal, legal, and metaphorical—but none more surreal than the Las Vegas Strip. At the Luxor Hotel, in an upstairs entertainment court situated next to a striptease show and a production of Menopause the Musical, is a semipermanent exhibition of Titanic artifacts brought up from the ocean depths by RMS Titanic, Inc., the wreck’s legal salvager since 1994. More than 25 million people have seen this exhibit and similar RMST shows that have been staged in 20 countries around the world.
I spent a day at the Luxor in mid-October, wandering among the Titanic relics: A chef’s toque, a razor, lumps of coal, a set of perfectly preserved serving dishes, innumerable pairs of shoes, bottles of perfume, a leather gladstone bag, a champagne bottle with the cork still in it. They are mostly ordinary objects made extraordinary for the long, terrible journey that brought them to these clean Plexiglas cases.
I passed through a darkened chamber kept as cold as a meat locker, with a Freon-fed “iceberg” that visitors can go up to and touch. Piped-in sighs and groans of rending metal contributed to the sensation of being trapped in the belly of a fatally wounded beast. The exhibit’s centerpiece, however, was a gargantuan slab of Titanic’s hull, known as the “big piece,” that weighs 15 tons and was, after several mishaps, hoisted by crane from the seabed in 1998. Studded with rivets, ribbed with steel, this monstrosity of black metal reminded me of a T. rex at a natural history museum: impossibly huge, pinned and braced at great expense—an extinct species hauled back from a lost world.
The RMST exhibit is well-done, but over the years many marine archaeologists have had harsh words for the company and its executives, calling them grave robbers, treasure hunters, carnival barkers—and worse. Robert Ballard, who has long argued that the wreck and all its contents should be preserved in situ, has been particularly caustic in his criticism of RMST’s methodologies. “You don’t go to the Louvre and stick your finger on the Mona Lisa,” Ballard told me. “You don’t visit Gettysburg with a shovel. These guys are driven by greed—just look at their sordid history.”
In recent years, however, RMST has come under new management and has taken a different course, shifting its focus away from pure salvage toward a long-term plan for approaching the wreck as an archaeological site—while working in concert with scientific and governmental organizations most concerned with the Titanic. In fact, the 2010 expedition that captured the first view of the entire wreck site was organized, led, and paid for by RMST. In a reversal from years past, the company now supports calls for legislation creating a protected Titanic maritime memorial. Late in 2011 RMST announced plans to auction off its entire $189 million collection of artifacts and related intellectual property in time for the disaster’s hundredth anniversary—but only if it can find a bidder willing to abide by the stringent conditions imposed by a federal court, including that the collection be kept intact.
I met RMST’s president, Chris Davino, at the company’s artifacts warehouse, tucked next to a dog grooming parlor in a nondescript block on the edge of Atlanta’s Buckhead district. Deep inside the climate-controlled brick building, a forklift trundled down the long aisles of industrial shelving stacked with meticulously labeled crates containing relics—dishes, clothing, letters, bottles, plumbing pieces, portholes—that were retrieved from the site over the past three decades. Here Davino, a dapper, Jersey shore-raised “turnaround professional” who has led RMST since 2009, explained the company’s new tack. “For years, the only thing that all the voices in the Titanic community could agree on was their disdain of us,” he said. “So it was time to reassess everything. We had to do something beyond artifact recovery. We had to stop fighting with the experts and start collaborating with them.”
Which is exactly what’s happened. Government agencies such as NOAA that were formerly embroiled in lawsuits against RMST and its parent company, Premier Exhibitions, Inc., are now working directly with RMST on various long-range scientific projects as part of a new consortium dedicated to protecting the wreck site. “It’s not easy to thread the needle between preservation and profit,” says Dave Conlin, chief marine archaeologist at the National Park Service, another agency that had been vehemently critical of the company. “RMST deserved the flak they got in years past, but they also deserve credit for taking this new leap of faith.”
Scholars praise RMST for recently hiring one of the world’s preeminent Titanic experts to analyze the 2010 images and begin to identify the many unsorted puzzle pieces on the ocean floor. Bill Sauder is a gnome-like man with thick glasses and a great shaggy beard that flexes and snags on itself when he laughs. His business card identifies him as a “director of Titanic research,” but that doesn’t begin to hint at his encyclopedic mastery of the Titanic’s class of ocean liners. (Sauder himself prefers to say that he is RMST’s “keeper of odd knowledge.”)
When I met him in Atlanta, he was parked at his computer, attempting to make head or tail of a heap of rubbish photographed in 2010 near the Titanic’s stern. Most Titanic expeditions have focused on the more photogenic bow section, which lies over a third of a mile to the north of most of the wreckage, but Sauder thinks that the area in the vicinity of the stern is where the real action will likely be concentrated in years to come—especially with the new RMST images providing a clearer guide. “The bow’s very sexy, but we’ve been to it hundreds of times,” Sauder said. “All this wreckage here to the south is what I’m interested in.”
In essence Sauder was hunting for anything recognizable, any pattern amid the chaos around the stern. “We like to picture shipwrecks as Greek temples on a hill—you know, very picturesque,” he told me. “But they’re not. They’re ruined industrial sites: piles of plates and rivets and stiffeners. If you’re going to interpret this stuff, you gotta love Picasso.”
Sauder zoomed in on the image at hand, and within a few minutes had solved at least a small part of the mystery near the stern: Lying atop the wreckage was the crumpled brass frame of a revolving door, probably from a first-class lounge. It is the kind of painstaking work that only someone who knows every inch of the ship could perform—a tiny part of an enormous Where’s Waldo? sleuthing project that could keep Bill Sauder busy for years. ||||| Unseen Titanic
At 2:20 a.m. on April 15, 1912, the “unsinkable” R.M.S. Titanic disappeared beneath the waves, taking with her 1,500 souls. One hundred years later, new technologies have revealed the most complete—and most intimate—images of the famous wreck.
(These images cannot be used by third parties without permission from National Geographic and may not be shown on television.)
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– The view of the entire sunken Titanic is revealed for the first time in newly published photos. The pictures, unveiled in the April edition of National Geographic 100 years after the great ship sank, show the mammoth vessel still and broken, but recognizable with several portholes, decks, and railings intact. The photos are the result of a several-million-dollar expedition by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, which used state-of-the-art robotic vehicles to sweep the area surrounding the wreckage, snapping more than 100,000 high-resolution photos. The project is a “game-changer,” for the first time giving wide-screen, complete views of the famous ship, according to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration archeologist James Delgado. “In the past, trying to understand the Titanic was like trying to understand Manhattan at midnight in a rainstorm—with a flashlight," he tells the magazine. “Now we have a site that can be understood and measured. This historic map may give voice to those people who were silenced, seemingly forever, when the cold water closed over them.” See the stunning shots.
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April 1976 Apple is founded by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne.
June 1977 The Apple II computer is released.
December 1980 Apple goes public and its stock beings trading on the Nasdaq.
April 1983 Former PepsiCo executive John Sculley becomes Apple's CEO after being recruited by Steve Jobs.
January 1984 Jobs unveils the Macintosh, the first mass-market personal computer to feature a mouse and a graphical interface on the display screen.
September 1985 Jobs leaves Apple's board after company's directors side with CEO John Sculley in a dispute between the two men.
June 1993 Longtime Apple employee Michael Spindler becomes CEO, replacing Sculley, who remains the company's chairman.
August 1993 Apple releases the Newton, a touch-screen device that was supposed to work like a digital notepad.
October 1993 Sculley steps down as Apple's chairman after a disappointing earnings report.
February 1996 Apple hires turnaround specialist Gil Amelio as its CEO after Spindler's efforts to sell the company to Sun Microsystems or IBM unravel.
December 1996 Apple buys Next Software, a company started by Jobs, for about $400 million. Jobs agrees to return to Apple as an adviser.
August 1997 Apple announces it's getting a $150 million infusion from archrival Microsoft to help keep the company afloat.
September 1997 Apple announces Jobs will serve as its interim CEO.
May 1998 Jobs unveils a new line of personal computers called the iMac.
January 2000 Apple drops the "interim" preface from Jobs' CEO title.
May 2001 Apple opens its first retail stores in Virginia and California.
October 2001 Jobs unveils a digital music player called the iPod.
April 2003 Jobs unveils iTunes, a digital music store that initially only could be accessed on Apple devices. A version that worked on personal computers powered by Windows software came out six months later to broaden the market.
August 2004 Jobs discloses he had surgery for a rare form of pancreatic cancer.
October 2005 Tim Cook is promoted to chief operating officer.
January 2007 Jobs unveils the iPhone.
March 2008 Jobs announces an app store for the iPhone.
January 2009 Jobs takes a six-month leave of absence to tend to his health, temporarily turning the reins over to Cook.
January 2010 Jobs unveils a tablet computer called the iPad.
January 2011 Jobs takes an indefinite leave of absence, leaving Cook in charge once again.
August 2011 Jobs resigns as CEO and Cook succeeds him.
October 2011 Jobs dies.
March 2012 Apple announces it is restoring a quarterly dividend for the first time since 1995.
September 2014 Apple announces the Apple Watch, its first new product since Jobs' death.
March 2015 Apple becomes one of the 30 companies comprising the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
June 2015 Apple launches its music-streaming service.
June 2017 Apple announces its first internet-connected speaker, the HomePod.
September 2017 Apple unveils its first $1,000 phone, the iPhone X, in celebration of the product line's 10th anniversary.
August 2018: Apple becomes the first publicly traded company valued at $1 trillion. ||||| FILE - In this April 28, 2003 file photo, Apple Computer Inc. chief executive Steve Jobs gestures during Apple's launch of their new online "Music Store" and new iPod in San Francisco. Apple has become... (Associated Press)
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Apple has become the world's first publicly traded company to be valued at $1 trillion.
The milestone marks the triumph of stylish technology that has redefined what we expect from our gadgets ever since two mavericks named Steve started the company 42 years ago.
The peak reached Thursday seemed unimaginable in 1997 when Apple teetered on the edge of bankruptcy, with its stock trading for less than $1.
To survive, Apple brought back its once-exiled co-founder, Steve Jobs, as interim CEO and turned to its archrival Microsoft for a $150 million cash infusion to help pay its bills.
Jobs eventually introduced popular products such as the iPod and iPhone that subsequently drove Apple's rise. The stock has been surging this week as anticipation mounts for the next generation of iPhone, expected to be released in September.
Apple hit the $1 trillion mark when its shares reached an all-time high of $207.05 around midday in New York. The shares are up 22 percent so far this year.
Jobs' vision, showmanship and sense of style propelled Apple's comeback. But it might not have happened if he hadn't evolved into a more mature leader after his exit from the company in 1985. His ignominious departure came after losing a power struggle with John Sculley, a former Pepsico executive who he recruited to become Apple's CEO in 1983 — seven years after he and his geeky friend Steve Wozniak teamed up to start the company with the administrative help of Ronald Wayne.
Jobs remained mercurial when he returned to Apple, but he had also become more thoughtful and adept at spotting talent that would help him create a revolutionary innovation factory. One of his biggest coups came in 1998 when he lured a soft-spoken Southerner, Tim Cook, away from Compaq Computer at a time when Apple's survival remained in doubt.
Cook's hiring may have been one of the best things Jobs did for Apple. In addition, that is, to shepherding a decade-long succession of iconic products that transformed Apple from a technological boutique to a cultural phenomenon and moneymaking machine.
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– Apple has become the world's first publicly traded company to be valued at $1 trillion. Apple shares rose 2.7% to an all-time high of $207.05 around midday, though the Washington Post reports they subsequently dropped "amid fast-moving trade," putting the company below the $1 trillion cap. Shares are up 22% so far this year. The milestone marks the financial fruit of stylish technology that has redefined society since two mavericks named Steve started the company 42 years ago. The peak reached Thursday seemed unimaginable in 1997 when Apple teetered on the edge of bankruptcy, with its stock trading for less than $1, reports the AP. Apple's stock has been surging this week as anticipation mounts for the next generation of iPhone, expected to be released in September. A finance professor at the University of Maryland gives Thursday's news context: "Apple’s $1 trillion cap is equal to about 5% of the total gross domestic product of the United States in 2018." And the Post gives context to how far the company has come: If you sank $10,000 into its December 1980 IPO, when shares were worth $22, and reinvested your dividends, your stake would be worth roughly $6.3 million The AP has a detailed list of milestones on Apple's path to $1 trillion here.
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"While I admit I did have fun with our back and forth, after some thought, I realize that the level of vitriol from all sides (mine and me included) does nothing good for anyone and, in fact, is harmful to our country," he wrote, citing that he and his family had been receiving death threats from angry Hannity fans. ||||| Sean Hannity agreed to a truce with Jimmy Kimmel on Monday night after the ABC comedian called for a ceasefire after last week’s explosive Twitter fight.
As Hannity reviewed Kimmel’s public apology, he remarked that it felt like “a forced, Disney corporate apology.” However, Hannity said he assumes Kimmel’s statement was “sincere” and that he would accept the funnyman’s apology.
“This was never about Hannity vs. Jimmy Kimmel, it’s a lot bigger than that for me,” Hannity said. “Attacking the first lady for her accent is just one small example, but its a line in the sand for me…Those cheap shots need to end.”
After Hannity took shots at the “corrupt media industrial complex” and defended himself from critics who brought up his negative past statements about Michelle Obama, the Fox host insisted he wasn’t trying to be the “thought police” in his feud with Kimmel. From there, Hannity extended an invitation to have Kimmel on his show.
“You want to come on this show? I’ll promise no name calling, no anger, no rehashing of the Twitter fight. You wanna have a serious discussion? We can talk about the president, policies, health care, comedy, political correctness…My bet is you will agree with me on a lot more issues than you think, but for my point of view, it’s over with Jimmy Kimmel.”
Hannity left things off on an ominous note, however, saying he compiled more clips of Kimmel that “don’t make you look too good,” even though he won’t air them for now.
Watch above, via Fox News.
[Image via screengrab]
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>> Follow Ken Meyer (@KenMeyer91) on Twitter
Have a tip we should know? [email protected]
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– They'll probably never be on each other's Christmas cards lists, but the feud between Jimmy Kimmel and Sean Hannity appears to be over. On his Fox show Monday night, Hannity grudgingly accepted what he called a "forced, corporate, Disney apology" from Kimmel, Mediaite reports. "From my perspective, I really do enjoy a good fight and I do agree with Jimmy in the sense it's time to move on," said Hannity, who went on to slam the "utter hypocrisy" of the "corrupt media industrial complex" and demand an end to "cheap shots" like Kimmel's jokes about Melania Trump's accent. "This was never about Hannity vs. Jimmy Kimmel, it’s a lot bigger than that for me," he said. Kimmel—who said he and his family had been receiving death threats—was invited to appear on Hannity's show. "I'll promise no name calling, no anger, no rehashing of the Twitter fight," the host said. "You wanna have a serious discussion? We can talk about the president, policies, health care, comedy, political correctness." But Hannity, who dubbed Kimmel "Harvey Weinstein Jr." after airing racy clips from the ABC host's old Comedy Central show, warned that he would roll out more damaging clips if Kimmel resumed hostilities, the New York Daily News reports. "I promise I will punch back even harder and my producer spent all weekend compiling a lot of your highlights, or lowlights, in your career," he said. "They don't make you look too good."
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Word of the Year 2018: shortlist
Big Dick Energy (BDE)
An attitude of understated and casual confidence
Big Dick Energy – or BDE, for short – fast became the 2018 descriptor du jour after an exchange on Twitter toward the end of June captured the online community’s imagination.
In a now-deleted tweet, pop icon Ariana Grande appeared to comment on the physical endowment of her then fiancé, comedian Pete Davidson. Amid the flurry of responses, Twitter user @babyvietcong used the phrase ‘exudes big dick energy’ in a joking character analysis of Davidson and the tweet promptly went viral.
Pete davidson is 6’3 with dark circles, exudes big dick energy, looks evil but apparently is an angel, and loves his girl publicly the only thing wrong w him is that he’s a scorpio but anyway.....id married him within a month too — tina⚔️ (@babyvietcong) June 23, 2018
The term itself appears to have been coined by another Twitter user, @imbobswaget, who published a tweet eulogizing the irreverently brilliant celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain, identifying him as a possessor of ‘big dick energy’. In doing so, @imbobswaget put a name to this phenomenon and, together with @babyvietcong, inspired a host of commentary speculating as to who, truly, exudes BDE.
Though the term has its roots in the perceived confidence of the well-endowed, BDE is by no means exclusive to those with male genitalia; many women, such as Rihanna, Serena Williams, and Cate Blanchett, are among those identified as having this low-key, self-assured poise.
Consequentially, BDE has evolved from teasing entertainment to the subject of much discussion around gender in 2018. Brigid Delaney, writing for The Guardian, called it ‘in some ways … the opposite of toxic masculinity’, while Alex Abad-Santos and Constance Grady summed up the BDE hype for Vox, saying: ‘as we sort various members of society into those who have BDE and those who don’t, it ultimately says a lot about us and what we value.’
Cakeism
Primarily a word used in the UK, cakeism is the belief that it is possible to enjoy or take advantage of both of two desirable but mutually exclusive alternatives at once.
A new, highly politicized layer has been added to the British’s well-known love of cake, as over the past two years ‘cake’ has become the enduring metaphor for discussion of the terms under which Great Britain will leave the European Union. 2018 has seen the neologism Cakeism come into its own.
Riffing off the proverb ‘you can’t have your cake and eat it (too)’, the idea that Britain could both have its cake and eat it – namely, retain all the perks of EU membership with none of the drawbacks of leaving – became something of a rallying cry for the pro-Brexit faction of the British government after the EU referendum in June 2016. However, it soon drew considerable public ire when a Conservative MP’s aide was photographed leaving Downing Street in November 2016 with notes reading: ‘What’s the model? Have cake & eat it.’
The metaphor endured, though it increasingly became more a vehicle for criticism than the initial optimistic grandstanding. The subsequent ‘ism’-ing of this philosophy solidified its place in the Brexit lexicon.
While earlier, one-off examples of the word can be found, the first known use of Cakeism in this context is claimed by Bonnie Greer, a writer for The New European, whose article entitled ‘The delusions of Cakeism’ was published on 15 September 2017. Since then, Cakeism has become the go-to critique for Britain’s negotiating position, with one senior EU official calling Theresa May’s 2 March 2018 landmark speech on Britain’s future economic partnership with the EU ‘still in the world of Cakeism’.
Carrying over the connotations but changing the context, this year we are beginning to see examples of the word Cakeism used in other industries, one being ‘climate cakeism’ in the insurance industry – the desire to tackle climate risks while continuing to invest in carbon intensive assets.
Gammon
Typically used in the UK as a derogatory term for an older middle-class white man whose face becomes flushed due to anger when expressing political (typically right-wing) opinions.
Gammon, the traditional British pub grub served with pineapple or a fried egg (or both, if you’re lucky) has had something of a renaissance in 2018 – though not due to any sudden food fads. Thanks to parallels drawn between the fleshy, pink meat and the visages of older, white men flushed in anger, gammon has become a derogatory term in political circles.
This usage can be traced back to the night of the UK general election in 2017, when children’s author Ben Davis jokingly tweeted a photoset of nine men from the audience of BBC panel show Question Time – in which politicians and other guests answer topical questions posed by the public – calling it ‘this Great Wall of gammon’.
Whatever happens, hopefully politicians will start listening to young ppl after this. This Great Wall of gammon has had its way long enough. pic.twitter.com/N0ZWI3wMuM — Ben Davis (@bendavis_86) June 8, 2017
The term was later picked up by left-wing activists and weaponized, with many viewing gammon as an answer to insults hurled by right-wing opponents, such as ‘snowflake’ and ‘remoaner’. In May 2018, gammon rapidly gathered steam, with Davis' relatively old tweet gaining thousands of retweets, propelling the insult into the mainstream consciousness and gaining widespread media coverage. Subsequently, debate arose as to whether gammon could be considered a racist term because of its basis on skin colour, and what was once said in jest became a political hot potato.
Linguistically, the development of gammon has been of particular interest over the last year for its use as a countable form, i.e. ‘a gammon’, which is unusual to see in the original, literal meaning of an emerging sense.
Gaslighting verb
The action of manipulating someone by psychological means into accepting a false depiction of reality or doubting their own sanity.
In 2018, the term gaslighting emerged from the psychotherapist’s notebook to feature widely in discussions across the public realm, aided in part by growing public sensitivity to the importance of mental health and wellbeing.
Gaslighting is not a new word, but comes from the 1938 play Gas Light by Patrick Hamilton – made famous by the subsequent Oscar -winning 1944 film of the same title starring Ingrid Bergman – in which a man manipulates his wife into believing that she is going insane. The title, from which the concept takes its name, is a reference to the husband’s insistence that the woman is imagining the gas lights brightening and dimming, when in reality this is part of his machinations.
In June 2018, gaslighting hit UK headlines when domestic abuse charity Women’s Aid said a contestant on the reality television show Love Island exhibited ‘clear warning signs’ for this pattern of emotional abuse, with other commentators describing the behaviour as ‘textbook gaslighting’. The word surfaced again in media circles during the year’s Strictly Come Dancing scandal, with one contestant’s then partner accusing him of engaging in gaslighting behaviour ‘countless times’ in an open letter published on Twitter.
The concept has also been applied to political contexts this year, with the term used extensively of President Donald Trump; his frequent assertions that the media are spreading 'fake news', and implications that his administration is the sole arbiter of truth, have led to Trump's presidency of the United States being compared to an abusive relationship. The term has also been applied to the Conservative government's treatment of the issue of Brexit with the UK public, and has even taken root in India, becoming part of the lexicon in the wake of the country’s own #MeToo movement, notably in discussions of campus culture at universities.
However, some psychologists are not encouraged by this increased international awareness of the dangers of gaslighting, warning that overuse of the term could dilute its potency and downplay the serious health consequences – like PTSD and depression – of such abuse.
Incel noun
An incel is a member of an online community of young men who consider themselves unable to attract women sexually. Typically, they hold views that are hostile towards men and women who are sexually active.
Incel, short for ‘involuntary celibate’, is used as a self-descriptor by members of an online subculture who deem themselves chronically unable to attract romantic or sexual partners.
Brought together on internet forums such as Reddit, these men hold that it is women who are to blame for their forced celibacy by ‘withholding’ sex. The online spaces where incels communicate – such as the /r/Incels subreddit, which had reached 40,000 members when the forum banned it in November 2017 – have consequently become hotbeds for the incitement of violent misogyny.
The term itself was originally coined over twenty years ago by a woman named Alana – in fact, Alana first proposed ‘invcel’ before shifting to the more easily pronounceable incel – who started a website for lonely men and women struggling to find love: Alana’s Involuntary Celibacy Project. Of course, in founding this innocent lonely hearts’ club, Alana could have no idea that the word would go on to be co-opted by a decidedly darker set and virulently radicalized online.
While such hate groups have existed online for years, it was in April 2018 that incel made front-page news worldwide; a man named Alek Minassian deliberately drove a van into pedestrians on a crowded Toronto street, killing 10 people and wounding 14 others. It was discovered that shortly before the horrific attack, Minassian had shared ‘The Incel Rebellion has already begun!’ in a now-deleted Facebook post, and namechecked Elliot Rodger, the perpetrator of the 2014 Isla Vista killings. Rodger, who has since been idolized by incel groups, described his own killing spree as a ‘Day of Retribution’ in a lengthy manifesto detailing his loathing of women and the society that ‘denied’ him.
Orbiting
Orbiting is the action of abruptly withdrawing from direct communication with someone while still monitoring, and sometimes responding to, their activity on social media.
The new dating buzzword for 2018, orbiting was coined by Anna Iovine in an article for the Man Repeller blog in which she described a burgeoning relationship that abruptly ended due to an all but complete withdrawal by her would-be suitor – who nevertheless persisted in engaging with Iovine’s social media profiles.
Iovine dubbed the experience orbiting after a colleague ‘poetically described this phenomenon as a former suitor '‘keeping you in their orbit” – close enough to see each other; far enough never to talk.’ The phenomenon’s ubiquity ensured the term’s rapid spread on social media, striking a chord with many twenty-first-century daters.
Unlike ‘ghosting’, in which one party in the relationship disappears without a trace, orbiting is unique to the social media age as the so-called orbiters ‘like’ and comment on posts, watch ‘stories’ on apps such as Instagram and Snapchat, or generally maintain an online presence in the subject’s life without any promise of meaningful interaction.
The naming of the practice this year has opened up debate as to whether orbiting can be considered a consciously manipulative power play or is merely symptomatic of the fast-paced, public-facing, keep-your-options-open world of modern dating.
Overtourism
An excessive number of tourist visits to a popular destination or attraction, resulting in damage to the local environment and historical sites and in poorer quality of life for residents.
A booming tourist trade has long been considered a highly valuable asset, however, for many, this outlook reached its limit in 2018.
Overtourism has become a heavy burden for numerous ‘must-see’ locations in recent years, with a sharp rise in international holidaymakers fuelled by budget airlines and the widespread popularity of rental platforms, like AirBnB. The resultant overcrowding has caused environmental, infrastructural, and cultural damage to a number of destinations, and directly impacted local residents’ lives as they are priced out of their homes to accommodate the tourist demand.
According to our data, use of overtourism shot up over the course of 2017, thanks in part to mass protests across Europe demanding action against the overtourism pandemic, and has subsequently emerged in 2018 as the go-to term, surpassing both ‘anti-tourism’ and ‘tourism-phobia’, which have been used to similar effect.
This year, local authorities have put increasingly stringent measures in place to regulate tourism, including rental restrictions on tourist lets in Madrid, fines for sitting in undesignated spots (along with many other offences) in Venice, and capping the number of cruise ships permitted to dock in Dubrovnik.
Meanwhile, in June, Thailand’s Maya Bay was closed to the public 18 years after it was made famous by the 2000 film The Beach due to the damage excessive numbers of tourists had inflicted on the local ecosystem. Though the closure was only intended to last four months, Songtham Sukswang, director of Thailand’s Office of National Parks, has suggested that the bay will need ‘at least’ one year to recover from the effects of overtourism.
Techlash
A strong and widespread negative reaction to the growing power and influence of large technology companies, particularly those based in Silicon Valley.
Once hailed as society’s heroes, the tech giants we know and (used to) love have been braced for the oncoming techlash for several years now, but in 2018 the storm truly hit.
A portmanteau comprising ‘technology’ and ‘backlash’, the term techlash seems to have originated in the title of an article published by The Economist in November 2013, although – as often seen in the initial blending of words – the word appears hyphenated here, only later settling into its one-word state.
From the very beginning of the year, the top tier of tech has taken a battering as philanthropist George Soros attacked the monopolistic ‘menace’ of Facebook and Google at the World Economic Forum in January, and, along with Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, called for increased regulation of tech products – Benioff even likening tech to tobacco, saying ‘technology has addictive qualities we have to address’.
Data privacy – or rather, the lack thereof – has taken a central role in this techlash as the Cambridge Analytica scandal, which saw millions of people’s data harvested from Facebook and utilized by paying political campaigns to influence voters on both sides of the Atlantic, fundamentally undermined the public’s confidence in the tech industry’s ethics and ability to govern its creations.
Neither Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s testimony before the United States Senate, nor the stringent, Europe-wide General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) laws coming into force in May, managed to quell concerns over data privacy and the long-reaching implications for our democracy, and instead arguably served to further the public’s distaste for all things ‘data’.
This attitude has seen action taken in 2018’s growing trend of young people giving up social media – either taking a temporary break or making a more permanent cut – as such concerns over their data privacy, along with its impact on mental health, supersede the desire to be online.
Whether fears over data privacy, disinformation, anti-competitive practices, and tech’s impact on mental health can be abated by measures like Apple’s new Screen Time software or regulations like GDPR remains to be seen, but the widespread adoption of the word techlash this year indicates that the issue is at the forefront of public consciousness.
The Oxford Word of the Year 2018 is... ||||| 'Toxic' Is Oxford Dictionaries' Word Of 2018
Enlarge this image toggle caption Jae C. Hong/AP Jae C. Hong/AP
We've used a lot of words in 2018, so it's no surprise that there is more than one "word of the year." Oxford Dictionaries' judgment is that "toxic" illuminates something about this year.
Oxford Dictionaries says it found a 45 percent increase in look-ups of toxic and it was used in so many situations that "the sheer scope of its application, as found by our research, made toxic the stand-out choice for the Word of the Year title."
Here at NPR, we've reported on the Internet's toxic content, the ill effects of toxic stress and, of course, the dangers of toxic chemicals.
Word experts at Collins Dictionary selected "single-use" as their word of the year, as we reported last week. ||||| Word of the Year 2018 is...
The Oxford Word of the Year 2018 is… toxic.
The adjective toxic is defined as ‘poisonous’ and first appeared in English in the mid-seventeenth century from the medieval Latin toxicus, meaning ‘poisoned’ or ‘imbued with poison’.
But the word’s deadly history doesn’t start there. The medieval Latin term was in turn borrowed from the Latin toxicum, meaning ‘poison’, which has its origins in the Greek toxikon pharmakon – lethal poison used by the ancient Greeks for smearing on the points of their arrows. Interestingly, it is not pharmakon, the word for poison, that made the leap into Latin here, but toxikon, which comes from the Greek word for ‘bow’, toxon.
Why was toxic chosen as Word of the Year?
The Oxford Word of the Year is a word or expression that is judged to reflect the ethos, mood, or preoccupations of the passing year, and have lasting potential as a term of cultural significance.
In 2018, toxic added many strings to its poisoned bow becoming an intoxicating descriptor for the year’s most talked about topics. It is the sheer scope of its application, as found by our research, that made toxic the stand-out choice for the Word of the Year title.
Our data shows that, along with a 45% rise in the number of times it has been looked up on oxforddictionaries.com, over the last year the word toxic has been used in an array of contexts, both in its literal and more metaphorical senses.
Drawn from our corpus, the top 10 toxic collocates for the year – that is, words habitually used alongside toxic – are indicative of this.
Top 10 ‘toxic’ collocates in 2018
by absolute frequency
Chemical Masculinity Substance Gas Environment Relationship Culture Waste Algae Air
Sourced from the Oxford corpus
Beyond the more usual substance warnings, this year toxic chemical has had particular significance as the nerve agent poisoning of a former Russian intelligence officer and his daughter in Britain sent shockwaves around the globe. Ongoing international attention to the case, including rising concern over who has access to the world’s toxic chemical stockpiles, ensured that ‘chemical’ topped the list of words most frequently seen alongside toxic in 2018.
Similarly literal and deadly are toxic substance, toxic gas, and toxic waste, with the latter especially becoming a focal point as the US seeks to combat the spread of toxic waste in the wake of hurricanes and people speak out against businesses burning toxic waste, notably in India.
This burning of toxic waste, resulting in the release of toxic gases, has been identified as one of a number of causes of toxic air. Air pollution has rapidly become a prime public health concern, and global attention reached a high in October 2018 when the World Health Organization published its report into the quality of air breathed by children worldwide. The report described this pollution as toxic air, plainly and potently signifying its poisonous nature, and with the aid of international media coverage, served to consolidate the association of toxicity and poor air quality in our lexicon.
Such pollutants are not only dangerous to our health, but to the health of our environment, and one of the many environmental issues discussed this year has been the toxic algae disaster in Florida, US. Thanks to a central role in the state’s Senate mid-terms race, toxic algae garnered so much commentary that ‘algae’ featured as the ninth-most frequently seen toxic collocate for 2018.
The term toxic environment itself, however, has been more frequently used in reference to harmful workplace environments and the toll this takes on the workforce’s mental health. From overly demanding workloads to outright sexual harassment, many companies have been exposed as crucibles for such toxic culture this year, which has seen mass walkouts at Google, the fashion mogul Philip Green disgraced, and the Speaker of the House of Commons accused of misusing his official powers to cover up allegations of bullying in Westminster.
Toxic relationships are not exclusive to the workplace, however, and whether its partners, parents, or even politicians, this year has seen so much discussion of ‘poisonous’ relationships across our society that ‘relationship’ is the sixth most-seen toxic topic for 2018. One reoccurring element in such discussions has been toxic masculinity.
Our corpus data shows that, after ‘chemical’, ‘masculinity’ is the most-used word in conjunction with toxic this year. With the #MeToo movement putting a cross-industry spotlight on toxic masculinity, and watershed political events like the Brett Kavanaugh Senate judiciary committee hearing sparking international debate, the term toxic masculinity has well and truly taken root in the public consciousness and got people talking in 2018.
And the runners-up are…
Find out why these eight words made our Word of the Year 2018 shortlist.
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– Oxford Dictionaries has revealed 2018's Word of the Year, and it's not an uplifting one: "toxic." Oxford says it found a 45% increase in searches for that word on oxforddictionaries.com, and also explained that the word is increasingly being used both literally and figuratively. NPR expands on that, noting that it has covered (literally) toxic chemicals this year as well as (figuratively) toxic internet content. The top 10 words used alongside "toxic" this year, Oxford says, were chemical, masculinity, substance, gas, environment, relationship, culture, waste, algae, and air. The other eight words that made the Word of the Year shortlist: gaslighting, incel, techlash, gammon, big dick energy, cakeism, overtourism, orbiting. More on those here. Collins Dictionary chose its word of the year last week: "single-use." It noted a four-fold increase in the use of the term since 2013, and notes that it "encompasses a global movement to kick our addiction to disposable products. From plastic bags, bottles and straws to washable nappies, we have become more conscious of how our habits and behaviours can impact the environment." (Last year, Collins chose President Trump's favorite phrase as its word of the year.)
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KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — The Malaysian military has radar data showing the missing Boeing 777 jetliner changed course and made it to the Malacca Strait, hundreds of kilometers (miles) from the last position recorded by civilian authorities, according to a senior military official.
Over a dozen microphones are propped on a table as Malaysian police chief Khalid Abu Bakar answers questions from members of the media, raising their hands waiting their turn as seen in the shadows cast... (Associated Press)
An Indonesian Navy crew member scans the water bordering Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand during a search operation for the missing Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777 near the Malacca straits on Monday, March... (Associated Press)
This screengrab from flightradar24.com shows the last reported position of Malaysian Airlines flight MH370, Friday night March 7, 2014. The Boeing 777-200 carrying 239 people lost contact over the South... (Associated Press)
Airport staff move a white board plastered with messages of hope and encouragement to all involved with the missing Malaysia Airlines jet, MH370, at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport, Tuesday, March... (Associated Press)
Pictures of the two men, a 19-year old Iranian, identified by Malaysian police as Pouria Nour Mohammad Mehrdad, left, and the man on the right, his identity still not released, who boarded the now missing... (Associated Press)
CORRECTS SOURCE TO MALAYSIAN POLICE INSTEAD OF INTERPOL - This combination of images released by Malaysian police during a news conference in Sepang, Malaysia, on Tuesday, March 11, 2014, shows an Iranian... (Associated Press)
Relatives of Chinese passengers aboard missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 watch a TV news program about the missing flight as they wait for official updates from Malaysia Airlines at a hotel ballroom... (Associated Press)
A Chinese relative of passengers aboard a missing Malaysia Airlines plane is surrounded by media as she answers questions about how families are being compensated outside a hotel room set aside for relatives... (Associated Press)
The development injects more mystery into the investigation of the disappearance of Saturday's flight, and raises questions about why the aircraft was not transmitting signals detectable by civilian radar.
Local newspaper Berita Harian quoted Malaysian air force chief Gen. Rodzali Daud as saying radar at a military base had detected the airliner at 2:40 a.m. near Pulau Perak at the northern approach to the strait, a busy waterway that separates the western coast of Malaysia and Indonesia's Sumatra island.
"After that, the signal from the plane was lost," he was quoted as saying.
A high-ranking military official involved in the investigation confirmed the report and also said the plane was believed to be flying low. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information.
Authorities had earlier said the plane, which took off from Kuala Lumpur on the western coast of Malaysia at 12:40 a.m. Saturday en route to Beijing, may have attempted to turn back, but they expressed surprise that it would do so without informing ground control.
The search for the plane was initially focused on waters between the eastern coast of Malaysia and Vietnam, the position where aviation authorities last tracked it. No trace of the plane, which was carrying 239 people, has been found by than 40 planes and ships from at least 10 nations searching the area.
Earlier Tuesday, Malaysia Airlines said in a statement that search and rescue teams had expanded their scope to the Malacca Strait. An earlier statement said the western coast of Malaysia was "now the focus," but the airline subsequently said that phrase was an oversight. It didn't elaborate. Civil aviation chief Azharuddin Abdul Rahman said the search remained "on both sides" of the country.
Also Tuesday, authorities said two people who boarded the flight using stolen passports were Iranians who had purchased tickets to Europe. Their use of stolen documents had raised speculation of a possible terrorist link.
Malaysian police chief Khalid Abu Bakar said investigators had determined one was a 19-year-old Iranian, Pouria Nourmohammadi Mehrdad, and that it seemed likely he was planning to migrate to Germany.
"We believe he is not likely to be a member of any terrorist group," Khalid said.
Interpol identified the second man as Seyed Mohammed Reza Delavar, a 29-year-old Iranian, and released an image of the two boarding a plane at the same time. Interpol Secretary General Ronald K. Noble said the two men traveled to Malaysia on their Iranian passports, then apparently switched to their stolen Austrian and Italian documents.
He said speculation of terrorism appeared to be dying down "as the belief becomes more certain that these two individuals were probably not terrorists." He appealed to the public for more information about them.
Noble said neither of the men had a criminal record.
Malaysia Airlines, meanwhile, said it is investigating an Australian television report that the co-pilot on the missing plane had invited two women into the cockpit during a flight two years ago.
Jonti Roos described the encounter on Australia's "A Current Affair." The airline said it wouldn't comment until its investigation is complete.
Roos said she and her friend were allowed to stay in the cockpit during the entire one-hour flight on Dec. 14, 2011, from Phuket, Thailand, to Kuala Lumpur. She said the arrangement did not seem unusual to the plane's crew.
"Throughout the entire flight, they were talking to us and they were actually smoking throughout the flight," Roos said.
Roos didn't immediately reply to a message sent to her via Facebook.
___
Associated Press writers Chris Brummitt and Jim Gomez in Kuala Lumpur contributed to this report. ||||| KUALA LUMPUR Malaysia's military believes a jetliner missing for almost four days turned and flew hundreds of kilometers to the west after it last made contact with civilian air traffic control off the country's east coast, a senior officer told Reuters on Tuesday.
In one of the most baffling mysteries in recent aviation history, a massive search operation for the Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777-200ER has so far found no trace of the aircraft or the 239 passengers and crew.
Malaysian authorities have said previously that Flight MH370 disappeared about an hour after it took off early Saturday from Kuala Lumpur bound for the Chinese capital, Beijing.
But a senior military officer who has been briefed on investigations told Reuters the aircraft had made a detour to the west after communications with civilian authorities ended.
"It changed course after Kota Bharu and took a lower altitude. It made it into the Malacca Strait," the officer said.
The Strait of Malacca, one of the world's busiest shipping channels, runs along Malaysia's west coast, while Kota Bharu is on the northeast coast.
Such a detour would appear to undermine the theory that the aircraft suffered a sudden, catastrophic mechanical failure, as it would mean the plane flew at least 500 km (350 miles) after its last contact with air traffic control.
The plane's transponder and other tracking systems were either shut off or not functioning around the time that communications with air traffic control ended. That would have prevented so-called secondary radar used by civilian authorities from identifying it, but not primary radar used by the military.
After the comments from the officer, a non-military source familiar with the investigations said the reported detour was one of several theories and was being checked.
But a spokesman for the Malaysian prime minister's office said in an interview with the New York Times that senior military officials told him there was no evidence the plane recrossed the Malaysian peninsula, only that it may have tried to turn back.
"As far as they know, except for the air turn-back, there is no new development," said the spokesman, Tengku Sariffuddin Tengku Ahmad.
LOST CONTACT
At the time it lost contact with civilian air traffic control, the plane was roughly midway between Kota Bharu, to the northeast of Kuala Lumpur, and the southern tip of Vietnam, flying at 35,000 feet.
Malaysia's Berita Harian newspaper quoted Air Force chief Rodzali Daud as saying the plane was last detected at 2:40 a.m. by military radar near the island of Pulau Perak at the northern end of the Strait of Malacca. It was flying about 1,000 meters (3,280 feet) lower than its previous altitude, he was quoted as saying.
There was no word on what happened to the plane thereafter.
A huge international search operation has been mostly focused on the shallow waters of the Gulf of Thailand off Malaysia's east coast, although the Strait of Malacca has been included since Sunday.
Navy ships, military aircraft, helicopters, coast guard and civilian vessels from 10 nations have criss-crossed the seas off both coasts of Malaysia without success.
In the absence of any concrete evidence to explain the plane's disappearance, authorities have not ruled out anything. Police have said they were investigating whether any passengers or crew on the plane had personal or psychological problems that might shed light on the mystery, along with the possibility of a hijacking, sabotage or mechanical failure.
"Maybe somebody on the flight has bought a huge sum of insurance, who wants family to gain from it or somebody who has owed somebody so much money, you know, we are looking at all possibilities," Malaysian police chief Khalid Abu Bakar said at a news conference.
"We are looking very closely at the video footage taken at the KLIA (Kuala Lumpur International Airport), we are studying the behavioral pattern of all the passengers."
The airline said it was taking seriously a report by a South African woman who said the co-pilot of the missing plane had invited her and a female travelling companion to sit in the cockpit during a flight two years ago, in an apparent breach of security.
"Malaysia Airlines has become aware of the allegations being made against First Officer Fariq Ab Hamid which we take very seriously. We are shocked by these allegations. We have not been able to confirm the validity of the pictures and videos of the alleged incident," the airline said in a statement.
The woman, Jonti Roos, said in an interview with Australia's Channel Nine TV that she and her friend were invited to fly in the cockpit by Hamid and the pilot between Phuket, Thailand, and Kuala Lumpur in December 2011. The TV channel showed pictures of the four apparently in a plane's cockpit.
STOLEN PASSPORTS
The fact that at least two passengers on board the missing flight had used stolen passports has raised suspicions of foul play. But Southeast Asia is known as a hub for false documents that are also used by smugglers, illegal migrants and asylum seekers.
Interpol Secretary General Ronald Noble named the two men as Iranians, aged 18 and 29, who had entered Malaysia using their real passports before using the stolen European documents to board the Beijing-bound flight.
"The more information we get, the more we are inclined to conclude it is not a terrorist incident," Noble said.
The Malaysian police chief, Khalid, said the younger man, who he said was 19, appeared to be an illegal immigrant. His mother was waiting for him in Frankfurt and had been in contact with authorities, he said.
"We believe he is not likely to be a member of any terrorist group, and we believe he was trying to migrate to Germany," Khalid said, though he said he could eliminate the possibility of a hijacking until the investigations were completed.
In Washington, the director of the CIA in Washington said intelligence officials could not rule out terrorism as a factor. "You cannot discount any theory," CIA Director John Brennan said.
INTERNATIONAL ASSISTANCE
About two-thirds of the 227 passengers and 12 crew now presumed to have died aboard the plane were Chinese. Other nationalities included 38 Malaysians, seven Indonesians, six Australians, five Indians, four French and three Americans.
China has deployed 10 satellites using high-resolution earth imaging capabilities, visible light imaging and other technologies to "support and assist in the search and rescue operations", the People's Liberation Army Daily said.
U.S. government officials from the National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration have arrived in the region to provide "any necessary assistance" with the investigation, White House spokesman Jay Carney said in Washington.
Underlining the breadth of the search effort, an international body set up to detect possible breaches of a ban on nuclear tests said it was analyzing infrasound data "for possible clues" on the missing flight.
The Vienna-based Preparatory Commission of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organisation, which has a global network of monitoring stations, said standard reports from its International Data Centre "did not reveal anything that could aid in the search for the missing MH370 plane".
The Boeing 777 has one of the best safety records of any commercial aircraft in service. Its only previous fatal crash came on July 6 last year when Asiana Airlines Flight 214 struck a seawall on landing in San Francisco, killing three people.
U.S. planemaker Boeing has declined to comment beyond a brief statement saying it was monitoring the situation.
(Additional reporting by Siva Govindasamy, Stuart Grudgings, Raju Gopalakrishnan and Yantoultra Ngui in Kuala Lumpur; Ben Blanchard, Megha Rajagopalan and Adam Rose in Beijing; Nguyen Phuong Linh on Phu Quoc Island, Mai Nguyen and Martin Petty in Hanoi; Robert Birsel and Amy Sawitta Lefevre in Bangkok; Alwyn Scott in New York; Tim Hepher in Paris; Brian Leonal in Singapore; Mark Hosenball and Ian Simpson in Washington, Johnny Cotton in Lyon, France and Fredrik Dahl in Vienna; Writing by Raju Gopalakrishnan; Editing by Alex Richardson) ||||| SEPANG, Malaysia — Malaysian authorities now believe that a jetliner missing since Saturday may have radically changed course around the time that it lost contact with ground controllers, news that added to the air of confusion and disarray surrounding the investigation and search operation. But they gave conflicting accounts of the apparent course change and of what may have happened afterward.
As criticism mounted of the Malaysian authorities’ inability to find any trace of the jet, the officials have repeatedly insisted that they were doing their best to solve the mystery of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, with scarce data and almost no precedent. Yet the government and the airline have also released imprecise, incomplete and sometimes inaccurate information, with civilian officials sometimes contradicting military leaders.
On Tuesday, three days after the plane disappeared while on an overnight flight to Beijing, the country’s air force chief, Gen. Rodzali Daud, was quoted in a Malaysian newspaper as saying the military received signals on Saturday that after the aircraft stopped communicating with ground controllers, it turned from heading northeast to heading west, lowered its altitude and flew hundreds of miles across Peninsular Malaysia and out over the Strait of Malacca before the tracking went blank.
The air force chief did not say what kind of signals the military had tracked. But his remarks raised questions about whether the military had noticed the plane as it flew across the country, and about when it informed civilian authorities.
According to the general’s account, the aircraft was near Pulau Perak, an island more than 100 miles off the western shore of the Malaysian peninsula, when the last sign of it was recorded at 2:40 a.m. Saturday.
As anger and confusion mounted, General Rodzali issued a statement late Tuesday denying some details of the newspaper account, but he also said that the Air Force was analyzing possibilities of the missing jet’s flight path and that “it would not be appropriate” to reach conclusions.
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Continue reading the main story The Search Andaman Sea Gulf of Thailand Vietnam Cambodia Phu Quoc Island Approx. 750 miles Paths from six recent flights of the same flight number. Search AREA Expanded Search AREA Thailand 100 ft. 250 ft. water depth 5,000 ft. Approx. position of plane when the crew stopped communicating with controllers, around 1:30 a.m. Saturday. 200 miles 1,000 ft. Pulau Perak Banda Aceh Penang Strait of Malacca South China Sea Indonesia Malaysia Medan Kuala Lumpur Subang Kuala Lumpur International Airport Indian Ocean Search bases Expanded search area Malaysian authorities announced Monday that they were expanding the search zone, including areas in the Strait of Malacca. Last radar signal On Wednesday, a military official said the last radar signal, which may have been from the missing plane, was 200 miles northwest of Penang at 2:15 a.m. Pulau Perak island A Malaysian military official was quoted in a local newspaper on Tuesday saying the military had received signals from the plane near this island at 2:40 a.m. Saturday. Subang airport Malaysia Airlines said authorities were “looking at a possibility” that the plane was headed to Subang, an airport that handles mainly domestic flights. Andaman Sea Gulf of Thailand Vietnam Cambodia Phu Quoc Island Approx. 750 miles Paths from six recent flights of the same flight number. Expanded Search AREA Search AREA Thailand 1o0 ft. 250 ft. water depth 5,000 ft. 200 miles Approx. position of plane when the crew stopped communicating with controllers, around 1:30 a.m. Saturday. 1,000 ft. Pulau Perak Banda Aceh Penang Strait of Malacca Indonesia Malaysia Kuala Lumpur Medan South China Sea Subang Kuala Lumpur International Airport Search bases Expanded search area Malaysian authorities announced Monday that they were expanding the search zone, including areas in the Strait of Malacca. Last radar signal On Wednesday, a military official said the last radar signal, which may have been from the missing plane, was 200 miles northwest of Penang at 2:15 a.m. Pulau Perak island Malaysia’s air force chief was quoted in a local newspaper on Tuesday saying the military had received signals from the plane near this island at 2:40 a.m. Saturday. Subang airport Malaysia Airlines said authorities were “looking at a possibility” that the plane was headed to Subang, an airport that handles mainly domestic flights. Approx. position of plane when the crew stopped communicating with controllers, around 1:30 a.m. Saturday. Approx. 750 miles Viet. Thailand Search AREA Penang Malaysia Kuala Lumpur Subang International Airport Indian Ocean Indonesia
The assertion that the plane might have flown into the Strait of Malacca stunned aviation experts as well as people in China, who had been told again and again that the authorities lost contact with the plane more than an hour earlier, when it was on course over the Gulf of Thailand, east of the peninsula. But the new account seemed to fit with the decision on Monday, previously unexplained, to expand the search area to include waters west of the peninsula.
Most of the aircraft’s 227 passengers were Chinese, and the new account prompted an outpouring of anger on Chinese social media sites. “Malaysia, how could you hide something this big until now?” said one posting on Sina.com Weibo, a service similar to Twitter.
On Wednesday, The Global Times, a widely read Chinese tabloid, said that “information issued publicly from Malaysia had been extraordinarily chaotic.”
David Learmount, operations and safety editor at Flightglobal, a news and data service for the aviation sector, said the Malaysian government seemed evasive and confused, and he questioned why, if the remarks attributed to General Daud were true, the government took so long to reveal evidence about a westward flight path.
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“The relatives of the people who’ve gone missing are being deprived of information about what’s happened to the airplane — that for me is the issue,” he said. “If somebody knows something and isn’t telling, that’s not nice under the circumstances.”
Adding to the confusion, Tengku Sariffuddin Tengku Ahmad, spokesman for the prime minister’s office, said in a telephone interview that he had checked with senior military officials, who told him there was no evidence that the plane had recrossed the Malaysian peninsula, only that it may have attempted to turn back.
“As far as they know, except for the air turn-back, there is no new development,” Mr. Tengku Sariffuddin, adding that the reported remarks by the air force chief were “not true.”
Malaysia Airlines, meanwhile, offered a third account. In a statement, the airline said authorities were “looking at a possibility” that the plane had turned around to head for Subang, an airport outside Kuala Lumpur that handles mainly domestic flights.
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So far only the basic facts of the first 40 minutes of Flight 370 are well established. The plane, a Boeing 777, left Kuala Lumpur’s main international airport about 12:40 a.m. local time with 239 people aboard, bound for Beijing. By 1:21 it was about midway between the Malaysian peninsula and the southern coast of Vietnam, cruising at 35,000 feet in good weather under a moonless sky, when the transponder on the plane stopped transmitting data to Flightradar24, a global tracking system for commercial aircraft. Malaysia Airlines has said that ground controllers had their last radio communication with the pilots about 1:30 a.m., but it has not given a precise time.
Without specifying why, the Malaysian authorities vastly expanded the search area to the west on Monday, implying that they believed there was a strong chance the plane had traveled there. No similar expansion was made to the east or the south.
If the flight traveled west over Peninsular Malaysia, as the air force chief was quoted saying, it would have flown very close to one of Flightradar’s beacons in the city of Kota Bharu. But Mikael Robertsson, the co-founder of Flightradar24, said the jet never sent a signal to that receiver, which means that if the plane did fly that way, its transponder had either been knocked out of service by damage or had been shut down.
“We see every aircraft that flies over there, even if it’s very, very low, so if it flew over there, the transponder was off,” he said.
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A pilot can turn off the transponder, Mr. Robertsson said, and the fact that the last contact from the transponder and the last radio contact with the pilots came at roughly the same time suggests that that is what happened. “I guess to me it sounds like they were turned off deliberately,” he said.
Mr. Robertsson said that since the plane had been fully fueled for a trip to Beijing, it could have traveled a great distance beyond its last reported position. “The aircraft could have continued another five or six hours out into the ocean,” he said. “It could have gone to India.”
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Malaysian officials said they have not ruled out any possible explanation for the airplane’s disappearance — not mechanical failure, pilot error, crew malfeasance, hijacking, terrorism or anything else. The absence of physical evidence from the aircraft or even knowledge of its location left plenty of scope for speculation, including questions about two men who boarded the plane using stolen passports and one-way tickets bought in Thailand. Interpol officials said on Tuesday that it appeared most likely that the two men were illegal migrants with no link to terrorism.
In Washington, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, John O. Brennan, said on Tuesday that the C.I.A., the F.B.I. and the Transportation Security Administration were all trying to learn more about the plane’s disappearance.
“Our Malaysian counterparts are doing everything they can to try to put together the pieces here, but clearly there’s still a mystery, which is very disturbing,” Mr. Brennan said in remarks at the Council on Foreign Relations. Asked about terrorism as a potential cause, he said: “I wouldn’t rule it out. Not at all.”
The Malaysian government’s inconsistencies in the handling of the crisis were further highlighted Tuesday when the country’s chief of police said there had been no baggage removed from the aircraft before takeoff, contradicting what officials had said for the past three days.
Khalid Abu Bakar, the inspector general of the Malaysian police, said previous reports by Malaysian officials that five passengers had failed to board the flight and that their baggage had been removed were false. “Everybody that booked the flight boarded the plane,” he said.
But Malaysia Airlines later issued a clarification, saying that there were four passengers who booked tickets on the flight but failed to check in at the airport or check any bags for the flight. ||||| Story highlights Japan to join 8 other nations in search, ministry says
Plane's transponder had stopped, Malaysian Air Force official says
Missing flight was way off course, heading in wrong direction, official says
Experts unsure on what caused transponder to go off, what it means for plane
It was 1:30 a.m. when Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 lost all communications, including important transponder signals that send data on altitude, direction and speed. Still, it showed up on radar for about 1 hour, 10 minutes longer -- until it vanished, having apparently moved away from its intended destination, hundreds of miles off course.
Those details -- told to CNN by a senior Malaysian air force official, who declined to be named because he is not authorized to speak to the media -- seemingly shed more light on what happened to the aircraft that mysteriously went missing early Saturday.
But if these assertions are true -- and other reports, citing a different Malaysian official, cast doubt on them -- many big questions remain. Why were the communications lost? Why was the Boeing 777 going the direction it was? And where did it end up?
"Something happened to that airplane, that was obviously out of the norm, that caused it to depart from its normal flight path," said Mark Weiss, a former 777 pilot now with the Washington-based Spectrum Group consulting firm. "... It's difficult not to speculate."
Peter Goelz, former managing director of the National Transportation Safety Board, thinks all this information -- if correct -- ominously suggests that someone purposefully cut off the transponder and steered the plane from its intended destination.
"This kind of deviation in course is simply inexplicable," said Goelz.
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Other experts aren't convinced that there were bad actors -- be they hijackers or an ill-intentioned crew member. They say there could have been some sort of sudden catastrophic electronic failure or more that spurred the crew to try to turn around, with no luck.
"Perhaps there was a power problem," said veteran pilot Kit Darby, former president of Aviation Information Resources, adding that backup power systems would only last about an hour. "(It is) natural for the pilot, in my view, to return to where he knows the airports."
Still, while they have theories, even those who have piloted massive commercial airliners like this one admit that they can't conclude anything until the plane is found. For now, the massive multinational search has yielded no breakthrough -- which has only added to the heartache for the friends and family of the 239 passengers and crew on board.
The Malaysian air force official's revelations may provide more direction, though clarity and closure are still elusive.
"There are still as many possibilities out there, maybe more, now that we know about the transponders being off and the length of time that plane flew in the air without them," said CNN law enforcement analyst Tom Fuentes. "It still leaves mechanical, terrorism (and) other issues as much in the air as they were before."
Intentional or catastrophic mechanical failure?
According to the Malaysian air force official, the plane's transponder apparently stopped working at about the time flight controllers lost contact with it, near the coast of Vietnam.
The air force eventually and totally lost track of the plane over Pulau Perak, a tiny island in the Strait of Malacca -- many hundreds of miles from the usual flight path for aircraft traveling between Kuala Lumpur and Beijing, the official said.
If the data cited by the source is correct, the aircraft was flying away from Beijing and on the opposite side of the Malay Peninsula from its scheduled route.
Why would the transponder -- an electrical instrument in commercial airline cockpits that continuously transmits information such as altitude, location, direction and speed -- have gone off?
Goelz, the former NTSB managing director, and others point out the only reason for someone to intentionally turn off the transponder is to conceal the plane's location and direction. Someone with nefarious intentions of taking over an aircraft and steering it to where it wasn't supposed to be -- or perhaps planning on crashing it -- might do just that.
"You have to have a very deliberate process to turn the transponder off," he said. "... There might still be mechanical explanations on what was going on, but those mechanical explanations are narrowing quickly."
Anthony Roman, a trained pilot and consultant, said that a fast-moving fire might have moved through the cockpit and rendered everything, including the crew, effectively powerless to do much more than turn the plane around.
"Fires are insidious," Roman told CNN's Wolf Blitzer. "They can happen quickly and knock out multiple systems quickly."
Darby, for one, believes purely mechanical issues remain the most valid possibility now. His main point is: "Everything is electrical." In other words, if there's some sort of "catastrophic failure" for whatever reason, that could knock out systems like the transponder.
If that would happen, the plane could fly for some time without electricity but not indefinitely. Any attempts to steer it would be harder in the dark without functioning flight instruments said Darby, a retired United captain.
Whether the air force official's account is true, that possibility and others make the mystery more and more confounding.
Photos: The search for MH370 Photos: The search for MH370 In late February 2016, American tourist Blaine Gibson found a piece of plane debris off Mozambique, a discovery that renewed hope of solving the mystery of missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. The piece measures 35 inches by 22 inches. A U.S. official said it was likely the wreckage came from a Boeing 777, like MH370. Others were more skeptical. Hide Caption 1 of 41 Photos: The search for MH370 On July 29, police carry a piece of debris on Reunion Island , a French territory in the Indian Ocean. A week later, authorities confirmed that the debris was from MH370, which disappeared on March 8, 2014. Hide Caption 2 of 41 Photos: The search for MH370 Relatives of the flight's passengers console each other outside the Malaysia Airlines office in Subang, Malaysia, on February 12, 2015. Protesters had demanded that the airline withdraw the statement that all 239 people aboard the plane were dead. Hide Caption 3 of 41 Photos: The search for MH370 A police officer watches a couple cry outside the airline's office building in Beijing after officials refused to meet with them on June 11, 2014. The couple's son was on the plane. Hide Caption 4 of 41 Photos: The search for MH370 Members of the media scramble to speak with Azharuddin Abdul Rahman, director general of Malaysia's Civil Aviation Department, at a hotel in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on May 27, 2014. Data from communications between satellites and the missing flight was released the day before, more than two months after relatives of passengers said they requested it be made public. Hide Caption 5 of 41 Photos: The search for MH370 Operators aboard the Australian ship Ocean Shield move Bluefin-21, the U.S. Navy's autonomous underwater vehicle, into position to search for the jet on April 14, 2014. Hide Caption 6 of 41 Photos: The search for MH370 A member of the Royal New Zealand Air Force looks out of a window while searching for debris off the coast of western Australia on April 13, 2014. Hide Caption 7 of 41 Photos: The search for MH370 The HMS Echo, a vessel with the British Roya; Navy, moves through the waters of the southern Indian Ocean on April 12, 2014. Hide Caption 8 of 41 Photos: The search for MH370 A Royal Australian Air Force AP-3C Orion, on a mission to drop sonar buoys to assist in the search, flies past the Australian vessel Ocean Shield on April 9, 2014. Hide Caption 9 of 41 Photos: The search for MH370 A relative of a missing passenger cries at a vigil in Beijing on April 8, 2014. Hide Caption 10 of 41 Photos: The search for MH370 Australian Defense Force divers scan the water for debris in the southern Indian Ocean on April 7, 2014. Hide Caption 11 of 41 Photos: The search for MH370 A towed pinger locator is readied to be deployed off the deck of the Australian vessel Ocean Shield on April 7, 2014. Hide Caption 12 of 41 Photos: The search for MH370 A member of the Royal New Zealand Air Force looks at a flare in the Indian Ocean during search operations on April 4, 2014. Hide Caption 13 of 41 Photos: The search for MH370 On March 30, 2014, a woman in Kuala Lumpur prepares for an event in honor of those aboard Flight 370. Hide Caption 14 of 41 Photos: The search for MH370 The sole representative for the families of Flight 370 passengers leaves a conference at a Beijing hotel on March 28, 2014, after other relatives left en masse to protest the Malaysian government's response to their questions. Hide Caption 15 of 41 Photos: The search for MH370 A member of the Royal Australian Air Force is silhouetted against the southern Indian Ocean during the search for the missing jet on March 27, 2014. Hide Caption 16 of 41 Photos: The search for MH370 Flight Lt. Jayson Nichols looks at a map aboard a Royal Australian Air Force aircraft during a search on March 27, 2014. Hide Caption 17 of 41 Photos: The search for MH370 People in Kuala Lumpur light candles during a ceremony held for the missing flight's passengers on March 27, 2014. Hide Caption 18 of 41 Photos: The search for MH370 Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, center, delivers a statement about the flight on March 24, 2014. Razak's announcement came after the airline sent a text message to relatives saying it "deeply regrets that we have to assume beyond any reasonable doubt that MH 370 has been lost and that none of those onboard survived." Hide Caption 19 of 41 Photos: The search for MH370 Grieving relatives of missing passengers leave a hotel in Beijing on March 24, 2014. Hide Caption 20 of 41 Photos: The search for MH370 A passenger views a weather map in the departures terminal of Kuala Lumpur International Airport on March 22, 2014. Hide Caption 21 of 41 Photos: The search for MH370 A Chinese satellite captured this image, released on March 22, 2014, of a floating object in the Indian Ocean, according to China's State Administration of Science. It was a possible lead in the search for the missing plane. Surveillance planes were looking for two objects spotted by satellite imagery in remote, treacherous waters more than 1,400 miles from the west coast of Australia. Hide Caption 22 of 41 Photos: The search for MH370 Satellite imagery provided by the Australian Maritime Safety Authority on March 20, 2014, showed debris in the southern Indian Ocean that could have been from Flight 370. The announcement by Australian officials raised hopes of a breakthrough in the frustrating search. Hide Caption 23 of 41 Photos: The search for MH370 Another satellite shot provided by the Australian Maritime Safety Authority shows possible debris from the flight. Hide Caption 24 of 41 Photos: The search for MH370 A distraught relative of a missing passenger breaks down while talking to reporters at Kuala Lumpur International Airport on March 19, 2014. Hide Caption 25 of 41 Photos: The search for MH370 On March 18, 2014, a relative of a missing passenger tells reporters in Beijing about a hunger strike to protest authorities' handling of information about the missing jet. Hide Caption 26 of 41 Photos: The search for MH370 U.S. Navy crew members assist in search-and-rescue operations in the Indian Ocean on March 16, 2014. Hide Caption 27 of 41 Photos: The search for MH370 Members of the Chinese navy continue search operations on March 13, 2014. After starting in the sea between Malaysia and Vietnam, the plane's last confirmed location, search efforts expanded west into the Indian Ocean. Hide Caption 28 of 41 Photos: The search for MH370 A Vietnamese military official looks out an aircraft window during search operations March 13, 2014. Hide Caption 29 of 41 Photos: The search for MH370 Malaysian air force members look for debris near Kuala Lumpur on March 13, 2014. Hide Caption 30 of 41 Photos: The search for MH370 Relatives of missing passengers wait for the latest news at a hotel in Beijing on March 12, 2014. Hide Caption 31 of 41 Photos: The search for MH370 A member of the Vietnamese air force checks a map while searching for the missing plane on March 11, 2014. Hide Caption 32 of 41 Photos: The search for MH370 A Vietnamese air force plane found traces of oil that authorities had suspected to be from the missing Malaysia Airlines plane, the Vietnamese government online newspaper reported on March 8, 2014. However, a sample from the slick showed it was bunker oil, typically used to power large cargo ships, Malaysia's state news agency, Bernama, reported on March 10, 2014. Hide Caption 33 of 41 Photos: The search for MH370 A U.S. Navy Seahawk helicopter lands aboard the USS Pinckney to change crews on March 9, 2014, before returning to search for the missing plane in the Gulf of Thailand. Hide Caption 34 of 41 Photos: The search for MH370 Buddhist monks at Kuala Lumpur International Airport offer a special prayer for the missing passengers on March 9, 2014. Hide Caption 35 of 41 Photos: The search for MH370 Members of a Chinese emergency response team board a rescue vessel at the port of Sanya in China's Hainan province on March 9, 2014. Hide Caption 36 of 41 Photos: The search for MH370 The rescue vessel sets out from Sanya in the South China Sea on March 9, 2014. Hide Caption 37 of 41 Photos: The search for MH370 Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, center, arrives to meet family members of missing passengers at the reception center at Kuala Lumpur International Airport on March 8, 2014. Hide Caption 38 of 41 Photos: The search for MH370 A relative of two missing passengers reacts at their home in Kuala Lumpur on March 8, 2014. Hide Caption 39 of 41 Photos: The search for MH370 Chinese police at the Beijing airport stand beside the arrival board showing delayed Flight 370 in red on March 8, 2014. Hide Caption 40 of 41 Photos: The search for MH370 Malaysia Airlines Group CEO Ahmad Juahari Yahya, front, speaks during a news conference at a hotel in Sepang on March 8, 2014. "We deeply regret that we have lost all contacts" with the jet, he said. Hide Caption 41 of 41
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"You couldn't make this story up," said Michael Goldfarb, a former official with the Federal Aviation Administration.
Terrorism a possibility
Authorities have said they're looking at all possibilities to explain what happened to the Malaysia Airlines aircraft.
Earlier Tuesday, the head of the international police organization Interpol said that his agency increasingly believed the incident was not related to terrorism.
"The more information we get, the more we're inclined to conclude that it was not a terrorist incident," Interpol Secretary General Ronald Noble said at a news conference in Lyon, France.
Yet -- speaking Tuesday about what he called a "very disturbing mystery" -- CIA Director John Brennan insisted terrorism remains a possibility.
"I don't know (what happened)," he said. "But I don't think people should, at this point, rule out any of these lines of inquiry."
The two passengers who have dominated headlines the last two days entered Malaysia using valid Iranian passports, Noble said. But they used stolen Austrian and Italian passports to board the missing Malaysian plane, he said.
Noble gave their names and ages as Pouri Nourmohammadi, 18, and Delavar Seyed Mohammad Reza, 29.
Malaysian police had earlier identified Nourmohammadi, using a slightly different name and age, and said they believed he was trying to migrate to Germany.
Inspector General Khalid Abu Bakar of the Royal Malaysian Police said it doesn't appear the younger Iranian posed a threat.
"We have been checking his background," Khalid said, noting "other police organizations" have been consulted. "And we believe that he is not likely to be a member of any terrorist group," Khalid said.
After he failed to arrive in Frankfurt, the final destination of his ticket, his mother contacted authorities, Khalid said. According to ticketing records, the ticket to Frankfurt was booked under the stolen Austrian passport.
Extensive search for plane
No one knows where these two men and the other 237 people on the plane ended up. Every lead that has raised hopes of tracing the commercial jet has so far petered out.
Over the past few days, search teams have been scouring tens of thousands of square miles of sea between the northeast coast of Malaysia and southwest Vietnam. They have also been searching off the west coast of the Malay Peninsula, in the Strait of Malacca, and north into the Andaman Sea.
The search also encompasses the land in between the two areas of sea.
But it could be days, weeks or even months before the searchers find anything that begins to explain what happened to the plane, which disappeared early Saturday en route to Beijing.
In the case of Air France Flight 447, which disappeared over the Atlantic in 2009, it took five days just to find the first floating wreckage.
And it was nearly two years before investigators found the bulk of the French plane's wreckage and the majority of the bodies of the 228 people on board, about 12,000 feet below the surface of the ocean.
The Gulf of Thailand, the area where the missing Malaysian plane was last detected, is much shallower, with a maximum depth of only 260 feet and an average depth of about 150 feet.
Still, they have to find it first. The newly disclosed revelation about the plane's direction doesn't help, as it means less certainty and more time for currents to move the wreckage around.
"Crucial time is passing," David Gallo, with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, told CNN's Wolf Blitzer on Monday. "That search area -- that haystack -- is getting bigger and bigger and bigger."
Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, Australia, the United States, China and Malaysia are all taking part in the search, White House spokesman Jay Carney said. Japan has also dispatched a team to the area, with Japanese military and coast guard crews likely to follow, its foreign ministry announced Wednesday.
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That helps takes all forms, such as many as 10 Chinese satellites monitoring the area to the helicopters ready-to-dispatch off of U.S. warships.
CNN aviation correspondent Richard Quest described the search as "extremely painstaking work," suggesting a grid would have been drawn over the ocean for teams to comb, bit by bit.
Quest said that the expanding search area shows how little idea rescue officials have of where the plane might be. But he's still confident they'll find it eventually.
"It's not hopeless, by any means. They will find it," he said. "They have to. They have to know what happened."
Until they do, patience is growing thin for friends and family members of those aboard Flight 370.
As a middle-aged man -- the father of one such passenger -- shouted Tuesday at an airline agent in Beijing: "Time is passing by."
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– This would at least explain why the search for the missing Malaysian jet has expanded to the west of late: An anonymous air force official from that nation says the plane may have ended up hundreds of miles from its expected flight path, reports CNN. Specifically, the report puts the jet's last known location in the Straits of Malacca above a small island called Pulau Perak. If true, it suggests the plane turned west about an hour after takeoff instead of heading northeast toward Vietnam. (Earlier reports speculated that the plane might have tried to turn back.) The AP has a similar account, adding that another air force official thinks the plane was flying low over Pulau Perak. But there "were conflicting accounts of the course change and what may have happened afterward, adding to the air of confusion and disarray surrounding the investigation and search operation," observes the New York Times. If the plane did indeed fly over the Straits of Malacca, its transponder likely had been damaged or deliberately shut off by that point, because no signal was detected. Reuters quotes a non-military official as saying the new report is just one of several theories being investigated. Click to read about others.
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MUSKEGON, MI - A 55-year-old mother of a rape suspect is accused of threatening one of her son's alleged victims.
Lynette Sue Humphrey, the mother of Joshua Matthew-Rolling Humphrey, allegedly threatened in a voice mail message to "beat up" one of her son's alleged victims. Joshua Humphrey, along with Larry Donell Stiff, has been charged in the "date-rape drug"-related rapes of two women in the Muskegon area.
Lynette Humphrey, of 613 Taffy Lane, was charged last week with witness intimidation as a third-time habitual offender and is lodged in the Muskegon County Jail on a $20,000 bond. She faces up to 20 years in prison.
Joshua Humphrey, 34, and Stiff, 31, have been charged with third degree criminal sexual conduct involving a Feb. 7, 2016 incident with one woman, and as first-degree criminal sexual conduct accomplices in an incident involving another woman in 2013. They were charged in March for the 2016 case, and on July 8 for the 2013 case.
2 men now charged with drugging, raping 2 women are being investigated for many more
'I couldn't move,' woman testifies against suspect in two drugged rape cases ||||| MUSKEGON, MI -- Two women testified in court to losing consciousness and part of their memory after accepting a drink from men they had just met, later waking up naked and sore on a bed in a Muskegon basement.
Larry Donell Stiff, 31, appeared on Tuesday, July 26, for a 60th District Court preliminary hearing on charges of first-degree criminal sexual conduct accomplices. Stiff and Joshua Matthew-Rolling Humphrey, 34, were charged on July 8 for an incident in 2013.
The men are charged in the "date-rape drug"-related rapes of two women in the Muskegon area and prosecutors believe there may be many more victims. In March, Stiff and Humphrey were also charged with third degree criminal sexual conduct involving a Feb. 7, 2016 incident with another woman.
Senior Assistant Prosecutor Robert F. Hedges called his first witness, a 24-year-old Grand Rapids woman referred in search warrant affidavits as "Woman A," who said she met Humprey on a dating website. After communicating on the Internet and texting for a few weeks, they agreed to meet in person for dinner in Muskegon.
The woman said she drove alone to Humphrey's home at 1143 Oaklea St. on Oct. 30, 2013. She was nervous, and said she spoke to him while inside her car for a few minutes.
Humphrey changed their plans, and the woman agreed to drive in his "crappy Ford pickup truck" to the now-closed Cancun Connections bar at 2411 Hall Road. On their way there, she testified that Humphrey stopped at an apartment while she waited in the car.
The woman said she left her car at Humphrey's home.
At the bar, the woman said they met Stiff, who she recognized from the same Internet dating website, and another woman. The second woman was referred to in police records as "Woman B."
The two women learned they shared mutual friends and spent the majority of their time at the bar together with Stiff and Humphrey. Neither had met the men before.
"I was concerned that something bad was going to happen," the first woman said. She texted her best friend, an older sister and a boyfriend while the two women stepped outside for a cigarette.
When they returned to the bar, Humphrey offered them a shot of clear liquor, which the women accepted. Both testified that he walked up with each drink in hand and did not see him order them from a bartender.
Before that point, Woman A said she had consumed less than one beer, but within 15 to 20 minutes began to feel strange. The second woman testified consuming marijuana and "one or two beers and two shots" that night. Both testified the strange feeling they had was not from alcohol.
"I went to the bathroom and felt kind of tired, drowsy and out of it," she said. "My friend tried to get ahold of me. I answered the phone and didn't know where I was. I said I would call her back and that's where I lost everything. I don't remember much of anything after that."
The woman remembers asking Humphrey to leave the bar and then entering a stranger's house with Stiff and the other woman.
"We went downstairs from the garage of a home into the basement," she said. "I remember cement walls and it was very dirty. We went to a room on the right; inside was a bed on the floor and a couch."
She said she remembers sitting on the couch with Humphrey and the other woman before she passed out. Her first clear memory was of waking up the next day, lying naked next to Woman B, who was also naked and asleep on the bed.
The second woman remembers a bit more.
"I couldn't really move off the couch," she said while choking back tears. "Then I remember lying on the bed not being able to move. I blacked out again then there was man on top of me."
"I couldn't move," she said, adding that he could feel he had penetrated her.
Neither testified to giving Still or Humphrey permission for sex. The first woman said she and Humphrey had already agreed to meet as friends only.
"I was sore, that's when I knew something had happened," she said. "I told (Woman B) I needed to get her out of there; she was freaking out and pretty out of it. I was too, but I knew what I needed to do to get out of there safely in the most calm way possible."
The second woman testified that she had an argument with Stiff about the location of her cell phone, then left on foot and in the rain at 4 a.m. Meanwhile, Humphrey drove the first woman back to her car and she left, still without her phone, to her sister's home, arriving 6 a.m. the next day.
The first woman called the Wyoming Police Department that morning, who referred her to Muskegon police. She had a rape test and was later contacted by Muskegon Police Department Detective Steve Irvine.
State police crime lab rape test swab reports found DNA that matches Stiff, evidence showed. A toxicology report also found Amitriptyline in the woman's system, an odorless, soluble compound used as a prescription antidepressant.
The second woman did not report the incident to police but was contacted by Muskegon detectives less than a week later. She was able to point out the home where they spent the night, but could not remember the address in court.
Kostrzewa granted Hedges' request to adjourn Stiff's preliminary examination until 11 a.m. on Aug. 9, to allow both detectives in charge of the investigation to return from vacation.
Hedges said he will likely ask the court add an additional count of first-degree criminal sexual conduct for the second woman. Both Stiff, who was represented by Public Defender Adam Masserang, and Humphrey are charged as second time habitual offenders and face a potential life felony with first-degree criminal sexual conduct.
Muskegon police ask anyone with information about Joshua Humphrey and Larry Stiff or who believes they have been a victim is asked to call the detectives at (231) 724-6750 or Silent Observer, (231) 72-CRIME. ||||| MUSKEGON, MI - Two men have been charged in the "date-rape drug"-related rapes of two women in the Muskegon area and prosecutors believe there may be many more victims.
Joshua Matthew-Rolling Humphrey, 34, and Larry Donell Stiff, 31, have been charged with third degree criminal sexual conduct involving a Feb. 7, 2016 incident with one woman, and as first-degree criminal sexual conduct accomplices in an incident involving another woman in 2013. They were charged in March for the 2016 case, and on July 8 for the 2013 case.
In the 2013 case, there is possibly another female victim, and charges may come for that, Muskegon County Chief Assistant Prosecutor Timothy Maat said.
The men drugged the women before raping them, Maat said. The prosecutor's office is reviewing other cases involving "at least a dozen victims," he said.
Maat urged other possible victims to step forward and for the public's help in obtaining additional information against Humphrey and Stiff.
Sworn search warrant affidavits indicate that Humphrey told police he has herpes.
A search warrant was obtained for Humphrey's medical records after police learned that Humphrey had been prescribed Tramadol HCL.
Police say it had been refilled 22 times in six months, between July 2015 and January 2016. Tramadol is restricted to five refills in six months because it is a Schedule IV controlled substance.
Police said the effects of Tramadol are very similar to those described by the alleged rape victims. Tramadol is an addictive narcotic pain reliever that can cause nausea, dizziness and drowsiness, especially when taken with alcohol, according to the Mayo Clinic's web site.
Mother, 55, threatened to beat up, intimidate her son's rape victim, police say
Messages were left seeking comment from Humphrey's and Stiff's attorneys.
Here are details, culled from search warrant affidavits, of the cases Stiff and Humphrey are accused of:
Oct. 31, 2013: A woman referred to here as "Woman A" told police she met Humphrey on an Internet dating web site and after communicating a couple weeks they decided to meet in person. She went to his home at 1143 Oaklea St. and he drove them to the now-closed Cancun Connections bar at 2411 Hall Road.
There they met up with Stiff and a woman referred to here as "Woman B." At one point, the men give the women shots of a dark liquid. The group left and ended up at Stiff's house. Woman A told police on Nov. 4 she last remembered sitting on a couch before she passed out, later waking up naked and lying next to Woman B whose pants and underwear had been pulled down. Woman A goes to the hospital and a rape test is performed, later turning up DNA of two men, one of them Stiff's. Police received a search warrant to do DNA testing on Humphrey.
Woman B tells police that "everything began to blur" when they left the bar and that she too remembered sitting on a couch and then blacked out, though she groggily came to a couple times and noticed a man was on top of her and the other was on top of Woman A. She also sensed being sexually penetrated. "She could not move or talk," the detective swore in the affidavit.
A few weeks later, Woman A tells police that Humphrey was sending her text messages, including one warning her about making a false police report, that she should be careful of committing slander and that "everything u did that night is on camera so whatever u are trying to pull won't stand."
The Muskegon County Prosecutor's Office received on July 8, 2016 from the Muskegon Police Department the complaint seeking criminal sexual conduct charges in the 2013 incident. Both Stiff and Humphrey were charged that same day with first degree CSC, a potential life felony. Both are charged as second time habitual offenders. Maat said another CSC charge could be added for the assault on Woman B.
Muskegon Police Chief Jeffrey Lewis declined to comment on the case, including why it took police nearly 3 years to bring the 2013 complaint to the prosecutor's office.
"This is an open case proceeding through the judicial system," Lewis said. "It would be inappropriate to comment at this time."
Feb. 6, 2016: "Woman C" meets up with Humphrey, whom she knows, and another man she doesn't know at the Marine Tap Room, 1983 Lakeshore Dr. Woman C brings two friends with her because she had heard negative things about Humphrey, including that he was "rapey" and "creepy," according to court documents.
'I couldn't move,' woman testifies against suspect in two drugged rape cases
She ate pizza and drank beer with her friends and Humphrey bought her one beer. She didn't remember anything after that until she woke up in her own home wearing surgical scrub pants, no underwear and her bra and top askew. She said she didn't own scrubs and had never before seen the ones she woke up wearing.
One of Woman C's friends told police Woman C met Humphrey on the Tinder dating web site and he later tracked her down on Facebook.
The prosecutor's office on March 18 filed third degree criminal sexual conduct charges against Humphrey and Stiff in the assault of Woman C. That charge is punishable by up to 15 years in prison.
In another case in which charges have not been brought, "Woman D" told police she met Humphrey on Facebook and agreed to see him in person at "Mike (cq) Bar," according to a court affidavit. There Humphrey told her about a local guy putting the date rape drug in women's drinks and how easy it was to make with common household items.
On a later night, Woman D met up with Humphrey and his friend "Larry" at 22 Below, 22 S. Harbor Dr. in Grand Haven, according to the affidavit. Humphrey kept asking to smell her drink and within minutes of taking a drink she "began to feel very sedated," the detective swore on the affidavit. She called a friend to take her home and needed help walking. Woman D had no memory for part of the night and later learned that Humphrey had come to her house but was told by others to leave. The next day she was very sick and vomiting and felt that she had been drugged, according to the court document.
Woman D was interviewed in March 2016, but it is not clear when the incident occurred.
Muskegon police ask anyone with information about Joshua Humphrey and Larry Stiff or who believes they have been a victim is asked to call the detectives at (231) 724-6750 or Silent Observer, (231) 72-CRIME.
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– Joshua Humphrey faces life in prison for allegedly drugging and date-raping two women; his 55-year-old mother's alleged response could earn her up to 20 years in prison as well. MLive reports Lynette Sue Humphrey was last week charged with witness intimidation as a third-time habitual offender. The Muskegon, Mich., woman allegedly called one of the two women at the heart of her son's case and left her an intimidating voicemail about beating her up. Muskegon County Chief Assistant Prosecutor Timothy Maat has accused Joshua Humphrey, 34, and Larry Donell Stiff, 31, of drugging and then raping two women, one in 2013 and one in February 2016. "At least a dozen" women's cases are being reviewed to see if there's a connection, reports MLive. MLive reports "Woman A" and "Woman B" testified in court this week about their Oct. 30, 2013, encounter with Humphrey and Stiff. Woman A, a 24-year-old Grand Rapids woman, said that after meeting Humphrey online, the two went to a bar and met Stiff and Woman B there. Both women testified that they accepted a clear shot from Humphreys and felt strange soon after, though Woman A hadn't yet finished a full beer. They ended up at a home, and Woman B said, "I remember lying on the bed not being able to move. I blacked out again then there was man on top of me." Woman A's rape test returned Stiff's DNA and the prescription drug Amitriptyline. Woman B was contacted by police a week later; prosecutors want charges brought in connection with her alleged rape. The 2016 case involves "Woman C." It's unclear which woman Lynette Humphrey allegedly called.
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Updated Dec. 24, 1:10 p.m. ET
Sen. Michael Crapo, R.-Idaho, was arrested in Virginia early Sunday morning and charged with driving under the influence, Alexandria, Va., police say.
Police spokesman Craig T. Fifer said an officer was on routine patrol when he saw Crapo's vehicle run a red light. It was stopped at Hume Avenue and Mount Vernon at 12:45 a.m. and he was alone at the time.
Sen. Michael Crapo, R-Idaho, following his arrest for DUI, December 23, 2012 / Alexandria Police Department
Crapo then underwent several field sobriety tests, which he failed, Fifer said in a statement. He was then taken into custody without incident. According to the Alexandria police, his blood alcohol level was 0.11; 0.08 is the legal limit in Virginia.
Police took Crapo to the Alexandria jail and he was released on $1,000 bond at about 5 a.m., Crapo's office said. He has a January 4 court date.
"I am deeply sorry for the actions that resulted in this circumstance," Crapo said Sunday night. "I made a mistake for which I apologize to my family, my Idaho constituents and any others who have put their trust in me. I accept total responsibility and will deal with whatever penalty comes my way in this matter. I will also undertake measures to ensure that this circumstance is never repeated."
Crapo, a Mormon who has been a bishop in the church for decades, has said before in interviews that he doesn't drink alcohol, consistent with his church's doctrine. ||||| Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) issued a public apology after being arrested for drunken driving in Alexandria, Va., early Sunday morning.
Jody Donaldson, a spokesperson for the Alexandria Police Department, said in an e-mail that Crapo was arrested at 12:45 a.m. Sunday. An Alexandria police officer noticed Crapo’s vehicle run through a red traffic light, and after the vehicle was stopped, the officer conducted field sobriety tests, which Crapo failed, Donaldson said. Crapo was arrested for driving under the influence, and taken into custody without incident, Donaldson said.
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In a statement, Crapo apologized for his actions.
“I am deeply sorry for the actions that resulted in this circumstance,” Crapo said. “I made a mistake for which I apologize to my family, my Idaho constituents and any others who have put their trust in me. I accept total responsibility and will deal with whatever penalty comes my way in this matter.
“I will also undertake measures to ensure that this circumstance is never repeated.”
Police said the senator’s blood-alcohol level was .110. In Virginia, drivers at .08 or higher are considered intoxicated.
He was released on $1,000 bond, and has a court date scheduled for Jan. 4.
The 61-year-old Republican is serving his third term in the U.S. Senate. Crapo is Mormon, and has said publicly that he abstains from alcohol.
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– A conservative Utah senator has apologized to "my family, my Idaho constituents, and any others who have put their trust in me," after being arrested in Virginia in the wee hours of yesterday morning with a blood-alcohol level of .11, reports Politico. Mike Crapo was arrested after police spotted his car run a red light around 12:45am. CBS News reports that the senator, a member of the "Gang of Six," failed "several" field sobriety tests. In his statement, the 61-year-old professed, "I am deeply sorry ... I made a mistake. I accept total responsibility and will deal with whatever penalty comes my way in this matter." That penalty may become more clear following his Jan. 4 court date. A first-time DUI conviction in the state carries a mandatory minimum $250 fine and license revocation for one year. The AP adds that Crapo has explained in past interviews that, as a Mormon, he does not drink.
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Below is President Donald Trump's full letter to James Comey terminating him from the position of FBI director, dated May, 9, 2017.
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Dear Director Comey:
I have received the attached letters from the Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General of the United States recommending your dismissal as the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. I have accepted their recommendation and you are hereby terminated and removed from office, effective immediately.
While I greatly appreciate you informing me, on three separate occasions, that I am not under investigation, I nevertheless concur with the judgment of the Department of Justice that you are not able to effectively lead the Bureau. It is essential that we find new leadership for the FBI that restores the public trust and confidence in its vital law enforcement mission.
I wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors. Donald J. Trump
Preview all documents released by the White House relating to Comey's firing below: ||||| President Trump fired FBI Director James Comey on Tuesday, saying he'd lost confidence in his ability to manage the bureau. This capped a difficult year for Comey, whose handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation drew scrutiny from both sides of the aisle.
Shortly after the news broke, CNN reported that it learned of federal subpoenas seeking business records related to Michael Flynn in the hours before Comey's firing, in an apparent expansion of the FBI's investigation into ties between Trump associates and Russia.
White House officials are denying that Comey's firing had anything to do with the probe — deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders has said it's time to move on from the Russia investigation entirely. Meanwhile, Trump has gone after Chuck Schumer. He will meet Wednesday in the Oval Office with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
Full coverage: How the White House is spinning it, concerns in the Clinton camp, GOP senators raise questions, comparisons to Nixon, full reaction roundup, timeline of how we got here, the pattern of who Trump has fired, GOP congressman wants independent probe, the letters that got Comey fired, news orgs prepare for leaks
Key questions and answers on Comey's firing:
What happened? Trump informed Comey in a letter that he was terminated "effective immediately." CNN reports Trump's private security guard may have delivered the letter to the FBI, but Comey was in Los Angeles. Per NYT's Michael Schmidt, he was addressing FBI employees there when news of his firing flashed on T.V. screens in the background, and he originally thought it was a prank. What did Trump say? He appreciated Comey informing him "on three separate occasions that I am not under investigation" but "you are not able to effectively lead the bureau." Was it really so sudden? Per Schmidt, "WH and DOJ had been working on firing Comey since at least last week. Sessions had been working to come up with reasons." What happens next? Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe will serve as acting director until a permanent replacement is nominated. The position requires Senate confirmation. How are Democrats reacting? Many are drawing comparisons to Watergate, and Chuck Schumer is calling for an independent Russia probe How are Republicans reacting? Most are lining up behind Trump but Senate Intelligence chairman Richard Burr said he was "troubled by the timing and reasoning of Director Comey's termination," and John McCain has renewed his call for an independent Russia investigation. What did Obama and Clinton say? "No comment," via their spokespeople.
Perspectives and analysis:
Peter Baker, NYT
"The appointment of a successor to Mr. Comey could touch off a furious fight since anyone he would choose would automatically come under suspicion. A confirmation fight could easily distract Mr. Trump's White House at a time when it wants the Senate to focus on passing legislation to repeal former President Barack Obama's health care law."
Evan Osnos, the New Yorker
"Serious question: Where are Comey's files right now? Who controls them? After Nixon fired special prosecutor, office was sealed. Important."
Benjamin Wittes and Susan Hennessey, Lawfare blog
"The FBI Director serves a ten-year term precisely in order to insulate against the whims of a President who does not like what—or whom—the FBI is investigating. While the President has legal authority to fire an FBI director, the fact that Trump has done so under circumstances of an active FBI investigation of the President's own campaign violates profoundly important norms of an independent, non-political FBI."
Amanda Carpenter, former GOP strategist
"If Trump thinks he had problems w/leaks before, just wait. He abruptly fired the leader to whom many FBI folks are loyal. Blowback is coming."
The full statement from the White House:
Today, President Donald J. Trump informed FBI Director James Comey that he has been terminated and removed from office. President Trump acted based on the clear recommendations of both Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and Attorney General Jeff Sessions. "The FBI is one of our Nation's most cherished and respected institutions and today will mark a new beginning for our crown jewel of law enforcement," said President Trump. A search for a new permanent FBI Director will begin immediately.
From Trump's letter to Comey:
"... you are hereby terminated and removed from office, effective immediately. While I greatly appreciate you informing me, on three separate occasions, that I am not under investigation, I nevertheless concur with the judgement of the Department of Justice that you are not able to effectively lead the bureau."
From Sessions' recommendation:
"As Attorney General I am committed to a high level of discipline, integrity, and the rule of law to the department of justice- an institution that I deeply respect. Based on my evaluation, and for the reasons expressed by the deputy attorney general in the attached memorandum, I have concluded that a fresh start is needed at the leadership of the FBI."
From Rosenstein's recommendation:
"Over the past year, however, the FBI's reputation and credibility have suffered substantial damage, and it has affected the entire department of justice...."As you and I have discussed, however, I cannot defend the director's handling of the conclusion of the investigation of secretary Clinton's emails, and I do not understand his refusal to accept the nearly-universal judgement that he was mistaken. Almost everyone agrees that the Director made serious mistakes; it is one of the few issues that unites people of diverse perspective." ||||| WASHINGTON—President Donald Trump’s decision to fire the head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the midst of the bureau’s probe into his campaign associates’ possible links to Russia added impetus to calls for a special counsel to handle the case.
The sudden move by Mr. Trump on Tuesday galvanized Democrats, who said James Comey’s dismissal would sap ongoing federal investigations of any credibility and underscored the need for an independent person to oversee the probe and any subsequent prosecution. Many compared the firing to Richard Nixon’s Justice Department dismissals during the Watergate scandal.
“This is Nixonian,” Sen. Bob Casey (D., Pa.) said in a statement, in which he called for an independent investigation into possible Trump-Russia ties.
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Republicans, meanwhile, acknowledged the timing and circumstances of Mr. Comey’s firing looked bad, though many stopped short of calling for a special counsel.
Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr, the North Carolina Republican leading the Senate investigation, said the FBI director’s dismissal “further confuses an already difficult investigation by the committee.”
Without a special counsel, a new FBI director appointed by Mr. Trump would oversee the probe, and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, appointed by Mr. Trump earlier this year, would decide whether to move forward with any charges or prosecution.
President Trump dropped a political bombshell on Tuesday when he fired FBI Director James Comey. WSJ's Gerald F. Seib examines how Comey's exit affects the investigations into possible ties between the Trump campaign and Russia. Photo: Getty
Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself from the case in March, after meetings he held with the Russian ambassador during the presidential campaign became public.
Both Mr. Sessions and Mr. Rosenstein were involved in making the recommendation to the White House that Mr. Comey be fired, according to statements and letters the White House released Tuesday.
The cloud over the Russia probe is likely to challenge Mr. Trump when he seeks Senate confirmation for his choice to replace Mr. Comey. Democrats are all but certain to oppose his nominee without the appointment of a special counsel.
With 52 seats in the Senate, Republicans can still confirm the nominee on their own along partisan lines. But Republicans who have expressed concerns about Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential campaign could choose to resist.
The FBI’s investigation of Trump associates’ potential ties to Russia has been continuing apace, and in recent weeks Mr. Comey had been receiving regular updates on its progress, according to people familiar with the matter.
In closed-door meetings with congressional intelligence committee members, Mr. Comey had provided updates on the probe’s progress. Some had expressed frustration that the director wasn’t more forthcoming with information.
At the same time, congressional investigators from the House and Senate Intelligence Committees have also been intensifying their own probes.
Lawmakers are considering issuing subpoenas of witnesses, who were directed to hand over documents and records of their own contacts with Russian officials, according to people familiar with the matter.
Senate Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman Mark Warner (D., Va.) called Mr. Trump’s decision shocking and said it was “deeply troubling” during an active counterintelligence investigation into improper contacts between Trump campaign associates and Russia.
“The only way this administration can begin to demonstrate a commitment to the rule of law, which has so far been sorely lacking, is to cooperate fully with the ongoing congressional investigations and to support the appointment of an independent special counsel,” Mr. Warner said.
Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona said he was disappointed in Mr. Trump’s decision and reiterated his calls for a special congressional committee, apart from the Senate and House Intelligence Committees already conducting probes, to investigate Russia’s interference in the 2016 election.
President Donald Trump was asked about the sudden firing of FBI Director James Comey during a photo session with former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. On Capitol Hill, Vice President Mike Pence took tough questions about Comey's ouster. Photo: Getty
“The president’s decision to remove the FBI director only confirms the need and the urgency of such a committee,” Mr. McCain said. He didn’t mention the possibility of appointing a special counsel.
Most other Republicans in Congress stopped short of calling for a special counsel, setting up the issue as a potentially rancorous source of conflict between the two parties for weeks to come.
Sen. Marco Rubio said it was for others to decide whether a special prosecutor was merited. The Florida Republican, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the panel’s investigation into the election would continue unaffected.
Sen. Bob Corker (R., Tenn.) accepted the case for Mr. Comey’s removal as “thorough” but said the timing would raise questions.
“It is essential that ongoing investigations are fulsome and free of political interference until their completion, and it is imperative that President Trump nominate a well-respected and qualified individual to lead the bureau at this critical time,” Mr. Corker said.
Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican from Maine, said she didn’t expect the dismissal of Mr. Comey to affect the FBI’s investigation.
“The president didn’t fire the entire FBI. He fired the director of the FBI,” Ms. Collins said in an interview on PBS. “I have every confidence that the FBI will continue pursuing its investigation into the Russian attempts to influence the elections last fall.”
Democrats in Congress, meanwhile, made increasingly vociferous calls for a special counsel, decrying Mr. Trump’s behavior as alarming, threatening and Nixonian.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.), called on Mr. Trump’s deputy attorney general to appoint a special counsel. Otherwise, he said, Americans will “rightly suspect” the firing is a coverup.
“Mr. Rosenstein, America depends on you to restore faith in our criminal justice system, which is going to be badly shattered after the administration’s actions today,” Mr. Schumer said at a press conference.
“This investigation must be run as far away as possible from this White House and as far away as possible from anyone that President Trump has appointed,” Mr. Schumer added.
Rep. Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said Mr. Trump’s decision to dismiss Mr. Comey without addressing the profound conflict of interest regarding the Russia investigation resembled a “similarly tainted decision by Richard Nixon.”
“The same president who has called the investigation into the Russian hacking of our democracy and the potential complicity of his campaign a ‘fake’ cannot pretend to have made such a decision uninfluenced by his concerns over Comey’s continued involvement in the investigation,” Mr. Schiff said.
—Janet Hook and Byron Tau contributed to this article.
Write to Paul Sonne at [email protected], Shane Harris at [email protected] and Carol E. Lee at [email protected] ||||| As the news broke late this afternoon, the politicos of Washington stared into their smartphones, stunned, struggling with what to make of it. TV networks cut into their regularly scheduled programming. Chyrons promising “breaking news” actually delivered it: President Donald Trump had fired FBI Director James Comey.
Though the story is still developing and our understanding of it is evolving, we know a few basic facts. We know that Trump cited Comey’s handling of the inquiry into Hillary Clinton’s emails as a reason for his firing. We know that Comey’s FBI had been investigating whether members of the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to influence the outcome of the 2016 election. What we don’t know is where all this ends.
Story Continued Below
Is this a constitutional crisis? If not, what is it, and how dangerous? Politico Magazine asked an all-star panel of legal minds to offer their insights and tell us just what to make of it.
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It’s either ‘comforting’ or ‘alarming’
Cass Sunstein is professor at Harvard Law School. From 2009 to 2012, he was administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.
There are two ways to understand President Trump's firing of James Comey, and neither is unreasonable. The first is that in light of the multiple controversies that came to surround Comey, he was rightly fired. The FBI director needs to be widely trusted by the American people. Comey is not widely trusted. For the FBI, a fresh start is a good idea.
The second is that Trump does not want an independent FBI director; he wants someone who is fully subservient to him. Everyone should agree that Comey is not a subservient type. Like him or not, he is no one's lackey. When Comey is in charge of an investigation, he goes where the facts take him (by his own lights). He insists on exercising his own judgment.
The first understanding is comforting; the second is alarming. Whether one or the other is right (or both), it is the responsibility of the Senate to ensure that the new FBI director is a person of unimpeachable professionalism, nonpartisanship and integrity. At this point in our history, the United States is struggling with unusually high levels of polarization and distrust, and the FBI is engaged in investigations that involve the White House itself. The Senate's responsibility has never been more solemn.
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‘The rule of law will disintegrate’
Robert Post is a professor at Yale Law School and a member of the American Philosophical Society and the American Law Institute.
Faith in the integrity of government institutions is a precious social resource. No society can run without it. That integrity depends upon trust, and trust is as much a matter of appearance as it is of reality. No one can know the inner workings of the president’s mind. But we can know that he consistently acts in ways that flout the creation of trust. The firing of FBI Director Comey, at a moment when Comey was investigating the president, is simply the latest and most egregious example of Trump’s disregard for appearances.
If the president continues to act in this way, we shall rapidly descend into a terrifying state of social dissolution. The rule of law will disintegrate. That will endanger everyone who cares about this country. If ever there was a time for politicians to put the interests of the nation above those of partisan self-interest, it is now.
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‘Trump’s actions were entirely constitutional’
Josh Blackman is a constitutional law professor at the South Texas College of Law in Houston, an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute, and the author of Unraveled: Obamacare, Religious Liberty, and Executive Power.
Under the Constitution, the president has the absolute power to fire principal officers, such as Director Comey, at will. In that sense, Trump’s actions were entirely constitutional. Indeed, the termination was accompanied by a fairly elaborate set of reasons by the deputy attorney general.
As for whether there is a crisis, we must keep in mind that Comey’s replacement must be approved and confirmed by the Senate. Both Republicans and Democrats will have a say in who heads the agency going forward. At bottom, this is a political question, which ultimately the electorate can decide.
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'Trump made the only legally correct call'
Elizabeth Price Foley is a professor of law at Florida International University.
The FBI director, like all other officers of the executive branch, is an at will employee, which means he can be fired at any time, at the sole discretion of the president. When the deputy attorney general concluded that Director Comey usurped the role of the Department of Justice in his decision not to recommend prosecution of Hillary Clinton, President Trump made the only legally correct call, to fire the director. The country deserves an FBI director who respects his limited role as an investigator, and whose reputation is not sullied by inappropriately political behavior. If there is any ongoing FBI investigation into any of Trump's associates, this investigation can and will continue unabated. This is far from a constitutional crisis--it is a confirmation that the Constitution is working exactly as it should.
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‘It’s a deeply unsettling moment’
Michael Waldman, president of the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law, is the author of The Fight to Vote and The Second Amendment: A Biography.
It’s a deeply unsettling moment.
This has every appearance of a brazen cover-up, a possible act of obstruction of justice, just as much as Richard Nixon firing the Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox in October 1973. That’s the only comparable historical precedent. That led to a constitutional crisis and a public outpouring of anger. Will this?
Trump's rationale is transparently, laughably absurd. Does anyone actually believe that Donald Trump fired Comey because Comey was unfair to Hillary Clinton during the campaign?
Let's be very clear what happened here. For all his flaws and mistakes, Comey is leading an investigation of extraordinary gravity: possible collusion between Trump, his campaign and administration, and a hostile foreign power. Remember, Jeff Sessions recused himself from the investigation because he himself lied to Congress about conversations with Russia. So he did the next best thing, recommending that the person leading the investigation--Comey--be fired.
It comes a day after the former Acting Attorney General clearly implied there was an ongoing FBI investigation of Michael Flynn. It comes before Comey was due to testify again.
Comey made many errors. But does anyone trust Trump to nominate his successor, the person who will effectively lead the investigation? How can Americans have trust in their government without even the pretense of independence for key investigations?
This is an extraordinary test of our democracy and its institutions. Will the Republicans in Congress stand up for the rule of law and independent investigations, at a time when a hostile foreign power has tried to interfere in our democracy? Will they stand up for country or party?
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‘We are not at crisis yet’
Robert Chesney is a professor at the University of Texas School of Law, cofounder of the Lawfare Blog, and senior editor for the Journal of National Security Law & Policy.
Trump was clever here in two respects. First, the timing. He chose a moment of sharply renewed anger on the left regarding Comey's role in the election, and took pains to frame his justification in part in those exact terms. Most of us understand that this is not at all why he fired Comey, of course, but the fact remains that this somewhat wrong-footed his critics. Second, note the critical role played by issuing the memo from Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein alongside the firing letter. Rosenstein is a respected law-and-order figure, with far more credibility than Attorney General Jeff Sessions acting alone.
All that said, we are not at crisis yet. What matters is who comes next and what happens with the Russia and Flynn investigations. If the Trump team is smart, they will have an established law enforcement professional to nominate. At any rate, it will all come to a head in the Senate Judiciary Committee at that point. Paging Chairman Grassley: The Republic will be looking to you!
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‘It's a constitutional crisis’
David Cole is the National Legal Director of the ACLU and the Honorable George J. Mitchell Professor in Law and Public Policy at the Georgetown University Law Center.
Anytime a sitting president fires the person responsible for investigating his campaign's potential criminal activities, it is a matter of grave public concern. When that criminal investigation involves collaboration with Russia to undermine the U.S. democratic process, it's a constitutional crisis. And when the president offers the most blatant pretext for his action, it is a challenge to the credulity of the American people. Does anybody really believe that he fired the FBI director over his part in resuscitating Trump's campaign? This is the dénouement of the cover-up. But the truth will out, and democracy will prevail, if we insist upon it.
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‘James Comey needed to be ousted’
Saikrishna Prakash is a professor of law at the University of Virginia and a senior fellow at the Miller Center.
James Comey needed to be ousted, whoever was in the White House. His mishandling of the Clinton investigation and his usurpation of prosecutorial decisions reflected poor judgment and something of a messianic complex. President Trump must be faulted for failing to come to this conclusion months ago. Count on more controversial firings.
Whether the ouster was related to the investigation of Russian hacking is unclear. But the new FBI Director will have to make all sorts of pledges to conduct an independent investigation in order to secure the Senate's consent. Even as there are profound disagreements about the effects of the hacking and leaks on the election, I believe that there is a firm bipartisan consensus to determine what Russia did during the election and to take steps to ensure it does not happen again. The numerous investigations will continue, albeit without James Comey.
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‘We should reserve judgment’
Jamal Greene is Dwight professor of law at Columbia Law School.
Allusions to the Saturday Night Massacre are irresistible but premature. President Trump’s firing of James Comey is not a constitutional crisis—yet. We don’t have all the facts, and there is much Congress could do to learn them.
Given the FBI's ongoing investigation into contacts between Trump campaign personnel and agents of the Russian government, it is crucial that responsible members of Congress from both sides of the aisle are fully briefed—including by Comey himself—on the status of that investigation and how it will be handled going forward.
We should reserve judgment until that happens—or doesn't.
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‘We won’t really know … until we know whom Trump nominates’
Dan Farber is the Sho Sato Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley.
It’s premature but understandable that some people are calling James Comey’s firing a constitutional crisis. Comey violated clear Justice Department norms by his conduct while investigating Hillary Clinton’s emails. He compounded the offense by making false statements to Congress about Huma Abedin’s allegedly massive forwarding of sensitive emails to her husband, Anthony Weiner. If another president had fired another FBI director for such conduct in a high-profile case, few questions would be raised.
But this is not just any president or any high-profile case. The real concern here is that Trump has abused the power of his office to protect his political associates from criminal investigation. It’s not paranoia to think that Comey’s conduct concerning the Clinton investigation is merely a pretext for firing him, given that Trump applauded much of that conduct at the time. But we also have no proof that the justifications were pretextual.
We won’t really know how to interpret the Comey firing until we know whom Trump nominates to replace him. If Trump nominates an independent, respected figure to replace Comey, well and good. If he nominates someone who is compromised by associations with Trump or who lacks credibility as an objective investigator, then it will be fair to start making comparisons to Richard Nixon. That would be the point to start worrying in earnest about a constitutional crisis.
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‘Not a constitutional crisis’ but it ‘might turn into a major political crisis’
Sanford V. Levinson is a professor of government at the University of Texas and a member of the American Law Institute.
No, this is not (yet) a constitutional crisis, since there’s no doubt about his authority to fire Comey. It would be far closer to a constitutional crisis if Sessions overtly intervened in the investigation or tried to shut it down.
It might (and I hope will) turn into a major political crisis, which is different. The political crisis arises if and when several major Republicans express significant concern and, among other things, indicate they’ll vote to subpoena Trump’s tax returns. One must assume that most Republicans would in fact prefer Mike Pence as president. He is definitely not “impeachment insurance” in this context.
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It may not be a constitutional crisis yet, ‘but it probably will be soon’
John Culhane is H. Albert Young Fellow in constitutional law and co-director of the Family Health Law & Policy Institute at Delaware Law School (Widener University).
Trump’s firing of James Comey isn’t a constitutional crisis yet, but it probably will be soon. That’s because the Republican majority in the U.S. Congress seems to have abandoned any sense of their constitutional responsibility, and are operating solely in service of temporal, political goals. For distressing evidence of this tendency, look back no further than yesterday’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing: Republicans did their best to deflect attention from the administration’s failure to fire National Security Adviser Mike Flynn immediately after former acting Attorney General Sally Yates told the White House counsel that Flynn could be blackmailed by Russia. Nothing, it seems, will compel the GOP to look at the swelling evidence of possible corruption staring them in the face.
Whatever Comey’s mistakes might have been in the handling of Hillary Clinton’s email investigation, it’s crazy to think that issue had anything to do with firing him. A few Republicans, like Arizona Senator Jeff Flake, seem to have had enough. Flake tweeted that he can’t find “an acceptable rationale for the timing of Comey’s firing.” So I have some hope that the party’s officeholders might finally buckle under the weight of public opinion—and their constitutional duties—and demand a truly independent investigation of the Trump’s campaign’s possible ties to Russia. That’s our only chance of avoiding a crisis in which the law succumbs to this president, rather than the other way around.
***
‘I nominate Merrick Garland’
Geoffrey R. Stone is the Edward H. Levi Distinguished Service Professor of Law at the University of Chicago.
With Donald Trump’s firing of James Comey, the nation faces a crisis—but the severity of that crisis depends on who the president appoints in his place now. The director of the FBI is a critical figure in American government. The director needs to be an individual of integrity, honesty, experience and sound judgment. The last thing we need is another J. Edgar Hoover. The names tossed around at the moment—Chris Christie and Rudy Giuliani—are political cronies of Trump who cannot be trusted at all.
What we need is someone who graduated summa cum laude as valedictorian from Harvard College and magna cum laude from Harvard Law School. Someone who served as a law clerk to a justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, who served as a United States attorney, who prosecuted the Oklahoma City bombers, who has served as a federal judge and as chief judge of the most important federal court of appeals in the nation. An individual of impeccable credentials, an individual who can restore trust in the FBI, an individual who will once again bring distinction, independence and character to this critical nation office.
I nominate Merrick Garland to be the next director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
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‘The real cause for concern is not so much Comey’s departure as his potential successor’
Ilya Somin is Professor of Law at George Mason University, and author of Democracy and Political Ignorance: Why Smaller Government is Smarter.
The ultimate impact of the firing of FBI Director James Comey is yet to be determined. We do not yet know whether and to what extent this action has damaged our constitutional system. The real cause for concern is not so much Comey’s departure as his potential successor.
Comey’s firing comes at a time when he was investigating President Trump’s campaign for possible collusion with Russian intelligence agents. Even some Republican leaders are troubled by that timing. Whether or not that investigation was the cause of Comey’s dismissal, Trump may be tempted to appoint a successor who will go easy on the president and his associates. Libertarian-leaning GOP Rep. Justin Amash has proposed turning the Russia investigation over to an independent commission. In any case, the Senate must categorically refuse to confirm anyone who might not conduct an independent and impartial Russia investigation.
The potential implications for civil liberties are also significant. During the campaign, Trump showed disdain for freedom of speech, expressed admiration for authoritarian rulers, and threatened to use the powers of government to go after his critics. The FBI wields extensive law enforcement and surveillance authority. Earlier in its history, the agency compiled a sordid record of harassing and intimidating dissenters, most notably Martin Luther King. An FBI director who returns to such tactics would be a serious threat to vital constitutional rights.
The Senate must rigorously scrutinize whoever Trump nominates as the new FBI director. Otherwise, we might yet come to miss James Comey.
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‘There is good news and bad news’
Asha Rangappa is an associate dean at Yale Law and a former special agent in the FBI’s counter-intelligence division in New York
A central question in the firing of James Comey is whether it will impact the ongoing investigation into Russian election interference and any ties between Russia and associates of the Trump administration. On this front, there is good news and bad news.
The good news is that a new director would not be able to “stop” the investigation. Ten months in, that train has left the station: The investigation has likely generated thousands of documents with intelligence gleaned from human and electronic sources. The FBI will have integrated those documents into its database and shared them with other intelligence agencies, and federal judges have seen and approved the FISA courts orders which detail significant parts of the investigation. In addition, the New York Office, which is most probably the office of origin for this investigation, is the most independent field office in the FBI (which includes a very active squad investigating Russia). The New York office typically runs its cases the way it wants, often over objections of FBI Headquarters. Reining in the investigation at this stage would be difficult to do, even for the agency’s top official.
The bad news is that this is (for now) a foreign intelligence investigation and will likely go on for several years. This means it is highly classified, and unless Congress appoints a special prosecutor to oversee the investigation and report on its progress, it will be entirely reliant on the new director to be forthcoming in providing details on the magnitude and nature of the threat(s) we face. For all his public relations shortcomings, Comey proved that he was willing to call the facts as he saw them without regard for partisan politics. The potential danger in choosing a new director who lacks political independence is that they will impede the flow of information from the FBI to Congress, or take into account political considerations in choosing how to present and frame the threat. This would severely undercut Congress’ role in providing meaningful oversight and transparency into the FBI’s investigations, which would be a very troubling shift in the traditional balance of power that has been established between the executive and legislative branches over the last several decades on intelligence issues.ʭ�,�� ||||| In response, Mr. Comey laughed, saying he thought it was a fairly funny prank.
Then his staff started scurrying around in the background and told Mr. Comey that he should step into a nearby office.
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Mr. Comey stopped addressing the group. He proceeded to shake hands with the employees he had been speaking to. Then he stepped into a side office, where he confirmed that he had been fired. At that point, he had not heard from the White House.
Shortly thereafter, a letter from Mr. Trump was delivered to the F.B.I.’s headquarters, just seven blocks from the White House.
Mr. Comey’s day had begun in Florida, where he spoke to a group of police officers. He then flew to Los Angeles, where he was also scheduled to speak at a diversity meeting.
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— Michael S. Schmidt
Subpoenas are issued in Flynn case
In a sign of the F.B.I.’s intense interest in Mr. Trump’s advisers, a grand jury in Virginia recently issued subpoenas for records related to the former White House national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, according to an official familiar with the case.
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Mr. Flynn is being investigated for his financial ties to Russia and Turkey.
Grand jury subpoenas are a routine part of federal investigations and are not a sign that charges are imminent. And it was not clear whether the subpoenas, first reported by CNN, were related to Mr. Comey’s firing.
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— Matt Apuzzo
McCabe is acting director
At 7:57 p.m., F.B.I. employees received an email from Attorney General Jeff Sessions officially announcing their new boss. “The president of the United States has exercised his lawful authority to remove James B. Comey Jr. as the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation,” the email read.
“By operation of law and effective immediately, deputy director Andrew McCabe assumed the position of acting director of the F.B.I. As you well know, the F.B.I. is an exceptional law enforcement and intelligence agency. It is made so by you, the devoted men and women who work tirelessly to keep our country safe. Thank you for your steadfast dedication and commitment during this time of transition.”
— Rebecca R. Ruiz
‘Why now?’
Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, said Mr. Trump had called him earlier on Tuesday to inform him of the firing.
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“I simply said to him, ‘Mr. President, in all due respect, you’re making a very big mistake,’” Mr. Schumer recalled at a hastily arranged news conference Tuesday evening. “And he didn’t really answer.”
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Mr. Schumer said the first question the administration must answer was, “Why now?”
“This investigation must be run as far away as possible from this White House and as far away as possible from anyone President Trump has appointed,” he said of the inquiry into ties between Mr. Trump’s associates and Russia.
He called for a special prosecutor to investigate those ties and said that firing Mr. Comey continued a “deeply troubling pattern” from the administration, citing the removals of Sally Q. Yates as acting attorney general and Preet Bharara as United States attorney in Manhattan.
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— Matt Flegenheimer
Building a case
Senior White House and Justice Department officials had been working on building a case against Mr. Comey since at least last week, according to administration officials. Mr. Sessions had been charged with coming up with reasons to fire him, the officials said.
— Michael S. Schmidt
Calls mount for a special counsel
Reaction to Mr. Comey’s surprising firing was swift, and Mr. Trump’s critics said it showed the need for an independent investigation.
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Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, said in a Twitter post that Mr. Comey “should be immediately called to testify in an opening hearing about the status of Russia/Trump investigation at the time he was fired.”
‘This is Nixonian’
Senator Bob Casey, a Democrat who is up for re-election next year in Pennsylvania, a state Mr. Trump won, said, “This is Nixonian.”
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He called for the deputy attorney general, Rod Rosenstein, to “immediately appoint a special counsel to continue the Trump/Russia investigation.”
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Mr. Casey drew a direct link between Mr. Comey’s dismissal and the F.B.I.’s investigation into Russian involvement in the election.
“On March 20, Director Comey said, ‘I have been authorized by the Department of Justice to confirm that the F.B.I., as part of our counterintelligence mission, is investigating the Russian government’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election, and that includes investigating the nature of any links between individuals associated with the Trump campaign and the Russian government, and whether there was any coordination between the campaign and Russia’s efforts,’” Mr. Casey said.
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“This investigation must be independent and thorough in order to uphold our nation’s system of justice.”
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— Matt Flegenheimer
Or maybe not?
The Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum used Twitter to issue a not-so-subtle rebuke to the idea that Mr. Comey’s firing was “Nixonian.” Despite Nixon’s firing of the Watergate special prosecutor in October 1973 and the resignations of the attorney general and deputy attorney general in the “Saturday Night Massacre,” he never fired the F.B.I. director, the library said:
Support from one top Senate Republican …
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Some of the reaction to the firing broke down along party lines. Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa and chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said Mr. Comey’s handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation was:
... a clear example of how Comey’s decisions have called into question the trust and political independence of the F.B.I. In my efforts to get answers, the F.B.I., under Comey’s leadership, has been slow or failed to provide information that Comey himself pledged to provide. The effectiveness of the F.B.I. depends upon the public trust and confidence. Unfortunately, this has clearly been lost.
— Matt Flegenheimer
… but concern from others
Senator Richard M. Burr, a North Carolina Republican and chairman of the Intelligence Committee, which is investigating Russia’s role in the election, was among the few Republicans to openly criticize Mr. Comey’s firing. His voice is important because his committee’s inquiry has been the party’s principal justification for resisting calls for a special prosecutor.
And Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona expressed concern about the timing.
Senator sees ‘grave constitutional issues’
Speaking on the Senate floor, Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois raised concerns about the firing and how it would affect the investigation into Russian election meddling.
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“Any attempt to stop or undermine this F.B.I. investigation would raise grave constitutional issues,” he said. “We await clarification by the White House as soon as possible as to whether this investigation will continue and whether it will have a credible lead so that we know that it’ll have a just outcome.”
— Matt Flegenheimer
Rubio expects no effect on Senate inquiry
“I don’t think it will have an impact, certainly not on the Intelligence Committee’s work,” said Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, a Republican on the committee. Asked whether Mr. Comey’s firing would fuel calls for a special prosecutor, Mr. Rubio demurred, saying, “That’s somebody else’s decision to make.”
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— Emmarie Huetteman
Trump didn’t ‘fire the entire F.B.I.’
In an interview on Fox News, Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine and a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, noted that Mr. Trump did not “fire the entire F.B.I.”
“He fired the director of the F.B.I.,” she said. “And any suggestion that this is somehow going to stop the F.B.I.’s investigation of the attempts by the Russians to influence the elections last fall is really patently absurd.”
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— Thomas Kaplan
Trump points to Russia investigations
In a letter to Mr. Comey dated Tuesday, Mr. Trump said:
While I greatly appreciate you informing me, on three separate occasions, that I am not under investigation, I nevertheless concur with the judgment of the Department of Justice that you are not able to effectively lead the bureau. It is essential that we find new leadership for the F.B.I. that restores public trust and confidence in its vital law enforcement mission.
Trump aides take to TV
Facing a maelstrom of criticism, the White House took its case to President Trump’s favorite arena: prime-time television.
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Kellyanne Conway, whose recent absence from the airwaves was mocked on last weekend’s “Saturday Night Live,” jousted with Anderson Cooper of CNN in an extended and sometimes awkward interview, at one point saying repeatedly, “It’s not a cover-up.”
On Fox News, the deputy White House press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, was asked by Tucker Carlson why the White House had not waited to announce Mr. Comey’s firing until Mr. Comey himself had been notified. “Why sit on it?” Ms. Sanders replied.
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Cable news coverage was dominated by helicopter footage of Mr. Comey’s motorcade on a freeway in Los Angeles, where he was headed to the airport. The footage — standard in Los Angeles-area local news — offered a strange echo of the memorable low-speed chase involving O. J. Simpson in 1994.
— Michael M. Grynbaum
Surprise in the briefing room
Reporters at the White House were taken by surprise when Mr. Spicer, the press secretary, poked his head into the briefing room and, after a bit of prodding, read a one-sentence statement about the firing.
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The news quickly spread to other reporters in the building, who had begun preparing for the end of the day. A few minutes earlier, the White House press office had declared “a lid,” indicating that the president would not be traveling or appearing for the rest of the day.
Within minutes, dozens of reporters had descended on the small office where the press assistants for the White House sit. The assistants indicated that Mr. Spicer might come out to talk to reporters later in the evening.
— Michael D. Shear
Trump and Sessions once backed Comey
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In the final days of the presidential campaign, while Democrats were criticizing Mr. Comey for publicly reopening the Clinton investigation, Mr. Trump had his back. He said that what Mr. Comey had done “took guts.” Those actions are now at the heart of Mr. Comey’s firing.
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In an Oct. 28 interview with Lou Dobbs, Mr. Sessions, then a senator from Alabama, said he supported Mr. Comey’s decision to send a letter to Congress just days before the election about newly discovered emails related to the Clinton investigation.
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Mr. Sessions said Mr. Comey “had an absolute duty, in my opinion, 11 days or not, to come forward with the new information that he has and let the American people know that, too. So she is under criminal investigation.”
— Matt Apuzzo and Adam Goldman
More coverage from The Times
■ The firing raised the specter of political interference by a sitting president in an existing investigation by the nation’s leading law enforcement agency, and it immediately ignited Democratic calls for an independent prosecutor to lead the Russia inquiry.
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■ Mr. Trump’s decision drew instant comparisons to President Richard M. Nixon’s firing of the special prosecutor looking into the Watergate burglary that would eventually bring him down.
■ Mr. Comey’s ouster was the culmination of a slowly unfolding and toxic dynamic between him and the president.
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■ A memo recommending the dismissal, written by Rod Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, focused on the continuing fallout from Mr. Comey’s handling of an F.B.I. inquiry into Mrs. Clinton’s use of a private email server as secretary of state.
■ Investigations into the Clinton campaign’s emails and possible Trump campaign ties to Russia dominated much of Mr. Comey’s time at the F.B.I.
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■ In the F.B.I.’s 109-year history, only one director had been fired — until Tuesday. In July 1993, President Bill Clinton fired William S. Sessions, who had been nominated to the post by President Ronald Reagan in 1987.
■ Shortly before Mr. Comey was fired, the F.B.I. sent a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee clarifying testimony he had delivered last week about how classified information ended up on the laptop of the disgraced former congressman Anthony D. Weiner.
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■ Finally, read our investigation, published in April, of Mr. Comey’s involvement in the two investigations tied to last year’s election. ||||| We've detected that JavaScript is disabled in your browser. Would you like to proceed to legacy Twitter?
Yes ||||| FILE - In this Dec. 9, 2015 file photo, FBI Director James Comey prepares to testify on Capitol Hill in Washington. President Donald Trump abruptly fired Comey May 9, 2017, dramatically ousting the nation's... (Associated Press)
FILE - In this Dec. 9, 2015 file photo, FBI Director James Comey prepares to testify on Capitol Hill in Washington. President Donald Trump abruptly fired Comey May 9, 2017, dramatically ousting the nation's top law enforcement official in the midst of an FBI investigation into whether Trump's campaign... (Associated Press)
FILE - In this Dec. 9, 2015 file photo, FBI Director James Comey prepares to testify on Capitol Hill in Washington. President Donald Trump abruptly fired Comey May 9, 2017, dramatically ousting the nation's top law enforcement official in the midst of an FBI investigation into whether Trump's campaign... (Associated Press) FILE - In this Dec. 9, 2015 file photo, FBI Director James Comey prepares to testify on Capitol Hill in Washington. President Donald Trump abruptly fired Comey May 9, 2017, dramatically ousting the nation's... (Associated Press)
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump abruptly fired James Comey as director of the FBI in the midst of the law enforcement agency's investigation into whether Trump's presidential campaign was connected to Russian meddling in the election. In a letter to Comey, Trump said the dismissal was necessary to restore the public's trust and confidence.
Often lauded for his independence, Comey had come under intense scrutiny in recent months for his role in the agency's investigation into the email practices of Trump's opponent, Democrat Hillary Clinton, including a pair of letters he sent to Congress on the matter in the final days of last November's election.
A look at key moments in Comey's tenure and the lead-up to Trump's decision to fire him.
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Sept. 4, 2013: Comey is sworn in to office as the seventh director of the FBI. He was nominated for the post by President Barack Obama and confirmed by the Senate.
July 5, 2016: Holds news conference to announce that "no reasonable prosecutor" would bring criminal charges against Hillary Clinton, the Democratic presidential candidate, over her email practices as secretary of state, but criticizes Clinton and her staff for being "extremely careless" in their handling of classified material.
July 5, 2016: Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump calls the FBI's decision not to bring criminal charges against Clinton the greatest example yet that the system is "rigged."
July 7, 2016: Comey vigorously defends the decision not to prosecute Clinton over her use of a private email server as secretary of state. Under an onslaught of Republican criticism, Comey says that to charge Clinton would have been unwarranted and mere "celebrity hunting."
Oct. 28, 2016: Days before the election, Comey informs Congress by letter that he was reopening the investigation into Clinton's email practices based on new evidence, citing the discovery of emails on a laptop used by a top Clinton aide. Justice Department officials warned Comey against sending the letter, saying that doing so would be inconsistent with department policy meant to avoid the appearance of prosecutorial interference or meddling in elections.
Oct. 28, 2016: Trump reacts to FBI's decision to investigate new messages related to Clinton's emails, telling a campaign rally that he has "great respect for the FBI for righting this wrong."
Nov. 6, 2016: Comey tells Congress in a follow-up letter that a review of newly discovered Clinton emails has "not changed our conclusions" that she should not face criminal charges.
Nov. 6: Trump criticizes Comey's second letter to Congress, saying Clinton was being protected by a "rigged system" and pronouncing her "guilty," despite the FBI's conclusion that criminal charges were unwarranted.
Nov. 8, 2016: Trump is elected president.
Nov. 12, 2016: During a telephone call with top campaign donors, Clinton blames Comey for her defeat by Trump. Clinton said her campaign was on track to win the election until Comey sent the letter to Congress on Oct. 28.
Nov. 13, 2016: In a CBS "60 Minutes" broadcast after the election, Trump said he hadn't decided whether to keep Comey.
Jan. 6, 2017: Comey is among a group of four top U.S. intelligence officials who briefed then-President-elect Donald Trump on their conclusions that Russia meddled in the presidential election on his behalf. Trump told The Associated Press by telephone after the meeting that he "learned a lot" but declined to say whether he accepted their conclusion about Russia.
Jan. 22, 2017: Two days after taking office, Trump appears to single out Comey at a White House reception to thank law enforcement officers and others that helped during the inauguration. Trump called Comey over to where he was standing in the Blue Room to offer a handshake and a partial hug, then commented that Comey has "become more famous than me."
March 8, 2017: During a cybersecurity conference at Boston College, Comey said he planned to serve his entire 10-year term, quipping, "You're stuck with me for another 6½ years."
March 20, 2017: Comey testifies to Congress that the FBI has been investigating possible links between Trump associates and Russian officials since July, the same month he held an unusual news conference to discuss the investigation into Clinton. Comey had previously refused to acknowledge the parallel Trump investigation, and his disclosure enrages Democrats who already blamed Comey for costing Clinton the presidency.
March 20, 2017: Comey testifies at the same hearing that the FBI and Justice Department have no information to substantiate Trump's unsubstantiated claim on Twitter that former President Barack Obama wiretapped him before the election.
May 2, 2017: Clinton again lays part of the blame for losing the election on Comey's Oct. 28 letter. "If the election were on Oct. 27, I would have been your president," she tells a women's luncheon in New York.
May 3, 2017: Testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Comey insists that he was consistent in his handling of the separate investigations into Clinton and Trump. Comey also said it made him feel "mildly nauseous" to think his actions in October might have influenced the election outcome. But he told senators: "I can't consider for a second whose political futures will be affected and in what way. We have to ask ourselves what is the right thing to do and then do it."
May 9, 2017: Comey sends Congress a letter correcting his prior sworn testimony regarding emails handled by longtime Clinton associate Huma Abedin. Comey had told Congress that Abedin had sent "hundreds and thousands" of emails to her husband's laptop, including some with classified information. The two-page, follow-up letter said that, in fact, only "a small number" of the thousands of emails found on the laptop had been forwarded there while most had simply been backed up from electronic devices.
May 9, 2017: Trump abruptly fires Comey. "It is essential that we find new leadership for the FBI that restores public trust and confidence in its vital law enforcement mission," Trump states in a letter addressed to Comey.
___
This story corrects Clinton's comment at New York luncheon to May 2, not May 3. With BC-US--Trump-Comey. ||||| Story highlights President Donald Trump fired FBI Director James Comey on Tuesday
The announcement of Comey's firing caused shock and surprise across Washington
Washington (CNN) Many people on Tuesday began likening President Donald Trump's firing of FBI Director Jim Comey to President Richard Nixon's "Saturday Night Massacre," during which the former president ordered the firing of Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox.
But the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum -- located in Yorba Linda, California -- doesn't agree with that comparison.
The library's social media account weighed in on the chatter.
FUN FACT: President Nixon never fired the Director of the FBI #FBIDirector #notNixonian pic.twitter.com/PatArKOZlk — RichardNixonLibrary (@NixonLibrary) May 9, 2017
"FUN FACT: President Nixon never fired the Director of the FBI #FBIDirector #notNixonian," the Richard Nixon Library account said in a tweet.
Still, the comparisons continue.
Read More ||||| Image caption Deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein penned the memo recommending Comey's dismissal
President Donald Trump followed the recommendation of his deputy attorney general when he fired FBI boss James Comey. What did Rod Rosenstein say? This is his letter in full.
Memorandum for the Attorney General
FROM: Rod J Rosenstein
SUBJECT: Restoring public confidence in the FBI
The Federal Bureau of Investigation has long been regarded as our nation's premier federal investigative agency. Over the past year, however, the FBI's reputation and credibility have suffered substantial damage, and it has affected the entire Department of Justice. That is deeply troubling to many Department employees and veterans, legislators and citizens.
The current FBI Director is an articulate and persuasive speaker about leadership and the immutable principles of the Department of Justice. He deserves our appreciation for his public service. As you and I have discussed, however, I cannot defend the Director's handling of the conclusion of the investigation of Secretary Clinton's emails, and I do not understand his refusal to accept the nearly universal judgment that he was mistaken. Almost everyone agrees that the Director made serious mistakes; it is one of the few issues that unites people of diverse perspectives.
The director was wrong to usurp the Attorney General's authority on July 5, 2016, and announce his conclusion that the case should be closed without prosecution. It is not the function of the Director to make such an announcement. At most, the Director should have said the FBI had completed its investigation and presented its findings to federal prosecutors. The Director now defends his decision by asserting that he believed attorney General Loretta Lynch had a conflict. But the FBI Director is never empowered to supplant federal prosecutors and assume command of the Justice Department. There is a well-established process for other officials to step in when a conflict requires the recusal of the Attorney General. On July 5, however, the Director announced his own conclusions about the nation's most sensitive criminal investigation, without the authorization of duly appointed Justice Department leaders.
Compounding the error, the Director ignored another longstanding principle: we do not hold press conferences to release derogatory information about the subject of a declined criminal investigation. Derogatory information sometimes is disclosed in the course of criminal investigations and prosecutions, but we never release it gratuitously. The Director laid out his version of the facts for the news media as if it were a closing argument, but without a trial. It is a textbook example of what federal prosecutors and agents are taught not to do.
In response to skeptical question at a congressional hearing, the Director defended his remarks by saying that his "goal was to say what is true. What did we do, what did we find, what do we think about it." But the goal of a federal criminal investigation is not to announce our thoughts at a press conference. The goal is to determine whether there is sufficient evidence to justify a federal criminal prosecution, then allow a federal prosecutor who exercises authority delegated by the Attorney General to make a prosecutorial decision, and then - if prosecution is warranted - let the judge and jury determine the facts. We sometimes release information about closed investigations in appropriate ways, but the FBI does not do it sua sponte.
Concerning his letter to the Congress on October 28, 2016, the Director cast his decision as a choice between whether he would "speak" about the FBI's decision to investigate the newly-discovered email messages or "conceal" it. "Conceal" is a loaded term that misstates the issue. When federal agents and prosecutors quietly open a criminal investigation, we are not concealing anything; we are simply following the longstanding policy that we refrain from publicizing non-public information. In that context, silence is not concealment.
My perspective on these issues is shared by former Attorneys General and Deputy Attorneys General from different eras and both political parties. Judge Laurence Silberman, who served as Deputy Attorneys General under President Ford, wrote that "it is not the bureau's responsibility to opine on whether a matter should be prosecuted." Silberman believes that the Director's "Performance was so inappropriate for an FBI director that [he] doubt[s] the bureau will ever completely recover." Jamie Gorelick, Deputy Attorney General under President George W. Bush, to opine that the Director had "chosen personally to restrike the balance between transparency and fairness, department from the department's traditions." They concluded that the Director violated his obligation to "preserve, protect and defend" the traditions of the Department and the FBI.
Former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, who served under President George W Bush, observed the Director "stepped way outside his job in disclosing the recommendation in that fashion" because the FBI director "doesn't make that decision". Alberto Gonzales, who also served as Attorneys General under President George W Bush, called the decision "an error in judgement." Eric Holder, who served as Deputy Attorneys General under President Clinton and Attorneys General under President Obama, said that the Director's decision "was incorrect. It violated long-standing Justice Department policies and traditions. And it ran counter to guidance that I put in place four years ago laying out the proper way to conduct investigations during an election season." Holder concluded that the Director "broke with these fundamental principles" and "negatively affected public trust in both the Justice Department and the FBI".
Former Deputy Attorneys General Gorelick and Thompson described the unusual event as "real-time, raw-take transparency taken to its illogical limit, a kind of reality TV of federal criminal investigation," that is "antithetical to the interests of justice".
Donald Ayer, who served as Deputy Attorneys General under President HW Bush, along with former Justice Department officials, was "astonished and perplexed" by the decision to "break[] with longstanding practices followed by officials of both parties during past elections." Ayer's letter noted, "Perhaps most troubling… is the precedent set by this departure from the Department's widely-respected, non-partisan traditions."
We should reject the departure and return to the traditions.
Although the President has the power to remove an FBI director, the decision should not be taken lightly. I agree with the nearly unanimous opinions of former Department officials. The way the Director handled the conclusion of the email investigation was wrong. As a result, the FBI is unlikely to regain public and congressional trust until it has a Director who understands the gravity of the mistakes and pledges never to repeat them. Having refused to admit his errors, the Director cannot be expected to implement the necessary corrective actions.
More on this story
Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Trump's love-hate relationship with Comey over a tumultuous year
Did Trump fire Comey as part of a cover-up?
James Comey: From 'brave' to fired
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– President Trump's firing of James Comey was so unexpected that the FBI director initially thought it was a joke, sources tell the New York Times. Comey was addressing FBI employees in Los Angeles when news of his firing flashed on a TV screen, insiders say. He said he thought it was a pretty funny prank—but aides then ushered him into another room. Comey, who flew to Washington, DC, Tuesday night instead of attending an FBI recruiting event in Hollywood as scheduled, "was caught flat-footed," a source tells the Los Angeles Times. In other developments: The abrupt firing puts the future of the FBI's investigation of the Trump campaign's alleged links to Russia in doubt, with Democrats calling for a special prosecutor to continue the probe, the Wall Street Journal reports. Most Republicans didn't go that far, though Sen. John McCain called for the creation of a special congressional committee. The BBC looks at the letter from Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein recommending Comey's firing. Rosenstein cites Comey's handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation, especially his "usurpation" of authority in announcing that the probe would be closed without charges. ABC has Trump's letter firing Comey in full. "While I greatly appreciate you informing me, on three separate occasions, that I am not under investigation, I nevertheless concur with the judgment of the Department of Justice that you are not able to effectively lead the Bureau," the president writes. Politico spoke to a wide variety of experts about the constitutionality of the move, and received a wide range of answers, with some declaring a constitutional crisis and others saying Trump made a completely correct call. Comey's "mishandling of the Clinton investigation and his usurpation of prosecutorial decisions" would have been enough to get him fired under any administration, according to University of Virginia law professor Saikrishna Prakash. Aaron Blake looks at comments Trump has made about Comey and the Clinton investigation in recent weeks and concludes that the president was looking for an excuse to fire the FBI director. By misstating facts about the Clinton investigation at a Senate hearing, Comey gave Trump the excuse he needed, Blake writes at the Washington Post. The AP looks at key moments leading up to Comey's firing, including his letter to Congress Tuesday correcting earlier testimony. Axios answers seven questions about the firing, including what happens next: Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe will take charge until the Senate confirms a replacement. Democratic Sen. Bob Casey was among those calling the firing "Nixonian," though the Richard Nixon Library begged to differ, reports CNN. Nixon "never fired the director of the FBI," the library tweeted.
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On January 6th reports of Symantec (makers of Norton Anitvirus) being hacked surfaced. The group of hackers behind the attack behind the attack were from India. In a statement issued by a member from the Lords of Dharamraja group (badass name!), the guys said:
As of now we start sharing with all our brothers and followers information from the Indian Militaty (sic) Intelligence servers, so far we have discovered within the Indian Spy Programme (sic) source codes of a dozen software companies which have signed agreements with Indian TANCS programme (sic) and CBI
Ignoring the typing error, gaining access to Indian Military’s Intelligence servers is pretty damning for the agency. The hack got covered since the hackers claimed to have acces to Norton’s source code. Earlier today I came across scans of a set of documents that are internal communications between the Indian Military. The documents claim the existence of a system known as RINOA SUR. While I did not find what SUR stands for but RINOA is RIM, NOkia and Apple. And this is where things start to get very interesting, according to the set of documents, the RINOA SUR platform was used to spy on the USCC—the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission. Let’s take a moment for that to digest. Here’s an image from the documents underlining the relevant part:
The documents contain snippets of emails sent by members of the USCC. Apparently, RINOA SUR platform has been declared a success and the Indian Navy has shown interest in the same. The leaked military documents suggest, RINOA were arm twisted into providing backdoor access in exchange for operating in India:
While the Indian government recently gave the nation’s premiere spy agency—RAW—permission to access any citizen’s electronic communication, the Department of Telecommunications has reached out to the Interpol for help in decrypting communication via services like RIM’s BlackBerry. The set of leaked images:
Hat tip @csoghoian ||||| U.S.-CHINA ECONOMIC AND SECURITY REVIEW COMMISSION – FACT SHEET
Establishment:The Commission was created on October 30, 2000 by the Floyd D. Spence National Defense Authorization Act for 2001§ 1238, P.L. 106-398, 114 STAT. 1654A-334 (2000) (codified at 22 U.S.C.§ 7002 (2001), as amended by the Treasury and General Government Appropriations Act for 2002 § 645 (regarding employment status of staff) & § 648 (regarding changing annual report due date from March to June), P.L. 107-67, 115 STAT. 514 (Nov. 12, 2001); as amended by Division P of the "Consolidated Appropriations Resolution, 2003," P.L. 108-7 (Feb. 20, 2003) (regarding Commission name change, terms of Commissioners, and responsibilities of Commission); as amended by P.L. 109-108 (H.R. 2862) (Nov. 22, 2005) (regarding responsibilities of Commission and applicability of FACA).
Purpose: To monitor, investigate, and submit to Congress an annual report on the national security implications of the bilateral trade and economic relationship between the United States and the People’s Republic of China, and to provide recommendations, where appropriate, to Congress for legislative and administrative action. Public Law 109-108 directs the Commission to focus its work and study on the following eight areas: proliferation practices, economic transfers, energy, U.S. capital markets, regional economic and security impacts, U.S.-China bilateral programs, WTO compliance, and the implications of restrictions on speech and access to information in the People’s Republic of China.
Composition: The Commission is composed of 12 members, three of whom are selected by each of the Majority and Minority Leaders of the Senate, and the Speaker and the Minority Leader of the House. The Commissioners serve two-year terms.
Staff: The commissioners are supported by policy and administrative staff with extensive backgrounds in trade, economics, weapons proliferation, foreign policy, and U.S.-PRC relations. Some are fluent or proficient in Chinese (Mandarin), and most have significant prior working and traveling experience in China and Taiwan. ||||| Previously a group of Indian hackers called The Lords of Dharmaraja had posted documents that were pillaged during the hack of an Indian military network. That Pastebin post was removed, but can be viewed via Google cache.
More of the story continues to be unveiled such as when Slashdot reported:
The memo suggests that, "in exchange for the Indian market presence" mobile device manufacturers, including RIM, Nokia, and Apple (collectively defined in the document as "RINOA") have agreed to provide backdoor access on their devices. The Indian government then "utilized backdoors provided by RINOA" to intercept internal emails of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, a U.S. government body with a mandate to monitor, investigate and report to Congress on 'the national security implications of the bilateral trade and economic relationship' between the U.S. and China.
Here's the really interesting parts numbered 3 and 4:
Although security and privacy researcher Christopher Soghoian tweeted about a possible "intercept backdoor" that Apple has provided to governments, (as seen in paragraphs 3 and 4 above), there were additional interesting insights found while reviewing other @csoghoian tweets. One said, "Instead of worrying about hackers getting access to 5+ year old Norton code we should worry about what NSA/US Military does with recent code." In another, Soghoian tweeted,
Apparently it's not just Apple, or even RINOA (RIM, Nokia, and Apple) according to this Twitter conversation between Soghoian and Morten Kaasa. Kaasa asked, "Who is less 'evil'? Microsoft or Google? I suppose Apple is out..." to which Soghoian replied, "Microsoft has access to your data when you use Skydrive. Microsoft is quite open about it. Not real crypto."
The 'backstory' of the hack, so to speech, was posted on Pastebin on December 21, claiming [precise quote typos and all]: "Our Pastebin account was locked and permanently deleted by unknown GVMNT losers. Well we know the reason Y - first of all We do not think Indian Intel is so braniac, It all comes down to USA LE fagots, since they do not want people know about their Secret Negotiations with Corporations and Governments what concerns CHINESE." It included a Imgur link to documents called "the preview of the INDIAN MI spy prgramme called RINOA which they utilize to spy on USCC and so on."
On Facebook, security software firm Symantec confirmed "that a segment of its source code used in two of our older enterprise products has been accessed, one of which has been discontinued. The code involved is four and five years old. This does not affect Symantec's Norton products for our consumer customers." Symantec said the source code was not stolen from its network, but from an unconfirmed third party. The Lords of Dharmaraja claimed to have snatched the files from Indian military intelligence servers.
Meanwhile cybersecurity guru Bruce Schneier agreed that exposed source code is not a big deal, but "Bad press is certainly Symantec's biggest worry right now." According to The Atlantic Wire, Schneier said, "The source code might have huge smoking guns." And some of those smoking guns allegedly point to former CIA, U.S. law enforcement and Intelligence, at least according to an interview on InfoSec Island with Yama Tough who was one of the hackers allegedly involved in the breach. In discussing the timeline to release the Norton source code, Tough wrote [another direct quote not rewritten for typos]:
As soon as we r over with the blockade we experience from Indian and US LE and Intel, since the issue not really in Symantec but In fact that India is spying on USCHINA ECON SEC commission (example William Reinsch Larry Wartzel, Dan Slane, Michael Dannis etc emails) we think since they are former CIA US and India block our mirrors and we have many of our brothers now under search and ceizure warrants pending Symantec is not a big deal they just happened to sign an agreement with Indian MI thats all the deal is what kind of stuff we;ve owneed by owneeing MEA servers...we expect to publish by 10th -16th this month.
Another document on Imgur is from the Embassy of Russian Federation complimenting the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, etc. It's doubtful we've heard the last of The Lords of Dharmaraja AntiSec hack as details about big companies and government conspiring for backdoors and more surveillance will surely be dumped in due time.
Sometimes it seems like all the big players are surveillance bullies, so it's no surprise that some hackers mean to expose it. Borrowing from Shinedown's Bully lyrics, some hackers may be feeling like, "We don't have to take this, back against the wall, we don't have to take this, we can end it all." ||||| Leaked memo suggests India sought backdoor access from mobile device firms to spy on U.S.
By Muriel Kane
Sunday, January 8, 2012 17:31 EDT
An internal memo from India’s Military Intelligence that hackers have posted online suggests that manufacturers of mobile devices have provided “backdoor” access to the Indian government in exchange for access to the Indian market. The manufacturers, referred to collectively in the memo as “RINOA,” include RIM, Nokia, and Apple.
Indian blogger Manan Kakkar, who may have been the first to realize the implications of the memo, wrote late on Friday, “Earlier today I came across scans of a set of documents that are internal communications between the Indian Military. The documents claim the existence of a system known as RINOA SUR. While I did not find what SUR stands for but RINOA is RIM, NOkia and Apple. And this is where things start to get very interesting, according to the set of documents, the RINOA SUR platform was used to spy on the USCC—the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission.”
Scans of the memo can be viewed here.
According to its website, “The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission was created by the United States Congress in October 2000 with the legislative mandate to monitor, investigate, and submit to Congress an annual report on the national security implications of the bilateral trade and economic relationship between the United States and the People’s Republic of China, and to provide recommendations, where appropriate, to Congress for legislative and administrative action.”
The USCC has taken a particular interest in cybersecurity threats emanating from China, which may explain the Indian government’s interest in its deliberations. A story published by the India Times in October, for example, noted that “the bipartisan commission typically goes much further in publicly outlining perceived cyber threats to national security from Beijing than have U.S. administrations, which must deal with other issues on which China’s cooperation is critical.”
Kakkar also suggested a connection between the leaked memo and earlier reports of an attack on Symantec — the makers of Norton Antivirus — by a group of Indian hackers calling itself the Lords of Dharamraja.
A member of the group, known as Yama Tough, boasted at Google+ and Pastebin, “As of now we start sharing with all our brothers and followers information from the Indian Militaty (sic) Intelligence servers, so far we have discovered within the Indian Spy Programme (sic) source codes of a dozen software companies which have signed agreements with Indian TANCS programme and CBI.”
Photo by Research In Motion Limited (RIM) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
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– An internal memo from India’s Military Intelligence posted online by hackers contains some disturbing allegations: It claims RIM, Nokia, and Apple provided the Indian government with backdoor access to their mobile devices in exchange for "Indian market presence." The story was initially picked up by Manan Kakkar, an Indian blogger for ZDNet, and cybersecurity researcher Christopher Soghoian. The document can be viewed here. According to the Raw Story and Slashdot, the Indian government then allegedly used those backdoors to intercept emails from the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, a group created by Congress to monitor and investigate the national security implications of the US-China economic relationship. Raw Story notes that the USCC has dug into Chinese cybersecurity threats, an investigation it says India may want to be privy to. Kakkar thinks there may be a connection between the info revealed in the memo and an earlier hack of Symantec by Indian hacker collective the Lords of Dharamraja. More at Computer World.
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Published on Sep 26, 2017
Using creativity to forge a better tomorrow, it is our values that make a #SUPERSTAR.
Arvida Byström (@arvidabystrom) is an artist, photographer, model and cyber sensation. Known for her photography, which questions femininity and gender standards using so-called “girly” aesthetics. The #SUPERSTAR Bold Women's is in stores now.
Find us online at:
Instagram: http://instagram.com/adidasoriginals
SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/adidasoriginals
Facebook: http://facebook.com/adidasoriginals
Twitter: http://twitter.com/adidasoriginals
Tumblr: http://adidasoriginals.tumblr.com ||||| A Swedish model says she has received rape threats for posing in an advertisement with unshaved legs.
Arvida Byström, who is also a photographer and digital artist, appears in a video and photograph promoting Adidas Originals’ Superstar range. Byström, who has described the norm for women to shave as “fucked”, has hairy legs in the images and says she has faced a vicious backlash as a result.
She wrote on Instagram: “Me being such an abled, white, cis body with its only nonconforming feature being a lil leg hair. Literally I’ve been getting rape threats in my DM inbox. I can’t even begin to imagine what it’s like to not possess all these privileges and try to exist in the world. Sending love and try to remember that not everybody has the same experiences being a person.”
Many people posted abusive comments under the video on YouTube. One said: “Is this what some woman have become? No thanks.” Another wrote: “Stop brushing your teeth and wiping your ass too fucking feminazi retarded”.
But she has also received significant support, with many taking aim at those posting abuse. Among the positive comments were: “It is something absurd to say in 2017 but she is so brave to show natural legs, you go girl!” Another commenter wrote: “Thank you Adidas for showing a woman how she really is and what femininity really implies.”
Byström, 26, is renowned for challenging perceptions of femininity. She regularly poses with her body hair on show and has also posted pictures showing her cellulite. She uses hot pink in a feminist context as a backdrop to pieces that double as modernist, online commentary. With her fellow digital artist Molly Soda, Byström curated Pics Or It Didn’t Happen, a book containing 270 images that were censored by Instagram. The photos were mainly of female nipples, vaginal secretions and body hair.
In the Adidas video, Byström says: “I think femininity is usually created from our culture so I think everybody can do feminine things, can be feminine. I feel like in today’s society we are very scared of that.”
Adidas described her as “an artist, photographer, model and cyber sensation, known for her photography, which questions femininity and gender standards using so-called ‘girly’ aesthetics”.
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– A Swedish model says she's faced an onslaught of online harassment after daring to pose for an Adidas advertising campaign with unshaved legs, the BBC reports. "Literally I've been getting rape threats in my DM inbox," 26-year-old Arvida Byström writes on Instagram. The ad for sneakers was posted Sept. 26 on YouTube. “Is this what some woman have become? No thanks," the Guardian quotes one of the nicer comments on the video as reading. Byström says she's getting harassed despite having "an abled, white, cis body with its only nonconforming feature being a lil leg hair." She adds: "I can't even begin to imagine what it's like to not posses all these privileges and try to exist in the world." It hasn't all been negative. “It is something absurd to say in 2017 but she is so brave to show natural legs, you go girl!” one commenter writes. And Adidas says it's honored to work with the model, who "questions femininity and gender standards using so-called 'girly' aesthetics." In the past, Byström has called the default of women shaving their bodies "f---ed." She's known for posing for photos displaying her body hair and cellulite and has published a book of 270 images censored by Instagram because they showed female body hair, nipples, vaginal secretions, and more.
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It's hard to believe that some of author Beverly Cleary's beloved characters are nearly 50 years old. Little Ramona, who got in trouble for pulling one of nemesis Susan's curls, middle-aged? Henry Huggins, owner of beloved dog Ribsy, ready for AARP? Could Ramona's big-sister Beezus actually be old enough to be Grandma Beezus?
But it's true, and Cleary herself will turn 100 on April 12. Asked by TODAY's Jenna Bush Hager about her upcoming birthday, Cleary responded with true Ramona spirit, saying, "Well, I didn't do it on purpose!"
William Morrow Publisher Ramona Quimby is one of author Beverly Cleary's favorite characters.
She'd never assumed she'd make it to the century mark, Cleary said. "I remember a very earnest conversation my best friend and I had when we were, I guess, freshmen in high school, about how long we wanted to live," the author recalled. "And we decided that 80 was the cut-off date."
What are your favorite children's books — and why? Tell the TODAY Parenting Team
Two decades after that cut-off, it's not the awards or critical reviews that please Cleary the most, but how much her work delighted its young audience. She's proudest, she told TODAY, simply of "the fact that children love my books."
Growing up in rural Oregon, she herself came to books slowly, and didn't begin reading until second grade. She found children's books of the time uninteresting.
RELATED: Mom of cancer patient thanks J.K. Rowling for building ‘Hogwarts as a home’
"Books in those days, back in the 1920s, had been published in England, and the children had nannies and pony carts and they seemed like a bunch of sissies to me," she told TODAY.
William Morrow Publisher Generations of readers have grown up with Cleary's beloved and memorable characters, including Ralph S. Mouse.
Cleary's books have no pony carts or nannies. They burst with lively characters living in a real, recognizable world, tackling the experiences and emotions of actual American children. From getting stuck in new boots in a muddy parking lot to drawing up posters to convince a father to stop smoking, Ramona and her pals were as recognizable as a mirror.
She inspired other authors as well. "Beverly.. you were my inspiration when I started to write all those years ago," said legendary writer Judy Blume, author of "Are You There, God, It's Me, Margaret?" and many other young-adult novels. "You remain my inspiration today."
RELATED: See Judy Blume fangirl between Dr. Seuss, Maurice Sendak in throwback pic
Newbery Medal-winning children's author Kate DiCamillo agreed. "(Cleary's) books are so wonderful when you're a kid ... and when you're 51 years old, they still matter to you," she said. "I write books for kids.. I wanna write like Beverly Cleary."
With more than 40 books to her credit and the love of countless fans, Cleary has much to look back on, but she's keeping a little mystery about what lies ahead. When asked by Jenna Bush Hager what she's looking forward to, she replied "At my age? Well, I'll leave that up to you. ||||| 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.
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– Beloved children's book author Beverly Cleary turns 100 on April 12, and in advance of the milestone, the author of the Ramona and Henry Huggins series (among many, many others) spoke to Today. Asked if she was excited to turn a century old, Cleary remarked, "Well, I didn't do it on purpose." Cleary, who didn't learn to read until second grade, was inspired to write children's books because she couldn't relate to the characters in the books that were around when she was young: "The children had nannies and pony carts, and they seemed like a bunch of sissies to me," she says.
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Collins, who lives in Switzerland, insists he is happy to be "written out of the script entirely" now that he has dodgy hearing and his hands are no longer able to grip a pair of drumsticks.
The singer and drummer no longer wants to be a pop star, play gigs or even be Phil Collins. "I don't think anyone's going to miss me," he told FHM Magazine. "I'm much happier just to write myself out of the script entirely..."
Last autumn he released a collection of faithfully re-recorded Motown standards called Going Back. He added: "I know that when I did interviews it came across like I could do everything, but I've never actually felt like that. I went through all my own VHS stuff recently and found mountains of old interviews with me and it was very, very hard to watch. I barely recognised the person I saw from that time.
"I'm a very different person now. I saw some of this show of mine from 1985 and I was on-stage and I never stopped running, never stopped talking. The fact that people got so sick of me wasn't really my fault. Yes there was a lot of me to dish out - there was me, me and Earth, Wind & Fire's Phil Bailey, me and Genesis, me and that movie I was in, Buster - there was a lot of stuff. But I only made those records once."
Asked when he became 'the pop star that nobody likes', Phil replied: "Around the time that the music was being played so incessantly people wanted to strangle me. It's hardly surprising that people grew to hate me. I'm sorry that it was all so successful. I honestly didn't mean it to happen like that!"
He added: "I look at the MTV Music Awards and I think, "I can't be in the same business as this." I don't really belong to that world and I don't think anyone's going to miss me. I'm much happier just to write myself out of the script entirely. I'll go on a mysterious biking holiday... And never return. That would be a great way to end the story, wouldn't it?"
Speaking about Noel Gallagher's famous criticism of his music, Phil said: "He definitely seems to consider me the Anti-Christ of music. There's nothing I can do to change that impression of me. I have, at times, been very down about it."
Asked if he had ever felt suicidal about his critics, Collins added: "Tony Hancock's suicide note read, 'Too many things went wrong too often...' That's something I find hard to forget."
The hearing in his left ear is ruined; he has a dislocated vertebra in his neck and nerve damage in his hands. He said: "I think of it like Air Miles - it's all part of the job. I'm not worried about not being able to play the drums again, I'm more worried about being able to cut a loaf of bread safely or building things for my kids. My doctors tell me it's a work in progress, that it'll take about a year for me to recover. They're not strong enough to play the drums. I don't think I'll ever be able to do that again."
Asked if he is officially, an ex-rock star now, Phil replied: "It feels like a good time to stop for a while. David Letterman wanted me to go on his show on a Monday night recently but I said, "No. Can't do it. I have the kids on a Monday." And my label said, "But this is Letterman!" And I was like, "Guess what? I. Don't. Give. A. F---!"
The full interview appears in this month's FHM Magazine, on sale now. ||||| Phil Collins Quits Music Due to Health Problems
Email This Phil Collins has decided to bow out from the business that made him. The British singer has reportedly
The 'Sussudio' entertainer revealed that years of sitting hunched behind his drum kit have left him with an array of medical issues. Collins' ailments range from hearing loss to a dislocated vertebra and nerve damage in the same hands he uses to hold drumsticks, making performing for fans an otherwise painful experience.
Collins apologizes that his choice to retire may upset fans, considering the more than positive run he's had throughout his career. "I'm sorry that it was all so successful," he stated. "I honestly didn't mean it to happen like that. It's hardly surprising that people grew to hate me." Phil Collins has decided to bow out from the business that made him. The British singer has reportedly told FHM that he is leaving the music industry due to health problems he's experienced for several years.The 'Sussudio' entertainer revealed that years of sitting hunched behind his drum kit have left him with an array of medical issues. Collins' ailments range from hearing loss to a dislocated vertebra and nerve damage in the same hands he uses to hold drumsticks, making performing for fans an otherwise painful experience.Collins apologizes that his choice to retire may upset fans, considering the more than positive run he's had throughout his career. "I'm sorry that it was all so successful," he stated. "I honestly didn't mean it to happen like that. It's hardly surprising that people grew to hate me."
Playing Phil Out with 'Sussudio'
http://xml.channel.aol.com/xmlpublisher/fetch.v2.xml?option=expand_relative_urls&dataUrlNodes=uiConfig,feedConfig,entry&id=691977&pid=691976&uts=1273167996 http://www.popeater.com/mm_track/popeater/music/?s_channel=us.musicpop&s_account=aolpopeater,aolsvc&omni=1&ke=1 http://cdn.channel.aol.com/cs_feed_v1_6/csfeedwrapper.swf PopScene: Week's Hottest Pics Gabourey Sidibe attends The American Cancer Society's Choose You luncheon on May 5th in New York City. Amy Sussman, Getty Images Amy Sussman, Getty Images PopScene: Weeks Hottest Pics
Despite his lack of producing new songs as of late, the 60-year-old Genesis drummer holds 13 hit singles, seven Grammys and an Academy Award for Best Original Song in 1999 for his work on Disney's 'Tarzan.'While loyal supporters will have to get their Phil Collins fix by relying on his past catalog of tunes, the performer has a somewhat different view of how he's perceived in the music business. "I don't really belong to that world and I don't think anyone's going to miss me," Collins said. "I'm much happier just to write myself out of the script entirely."
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– Phil Collins is quitting music—and he basically thinks the planet's reaction will be good riddance. "I don't think anyone's going to miss me," the former Genesis drummer told FHM magazine, via the Telegraph. Highlights from the interview: Health is a big issue: Among his ailments: ruined hearing in his left ear, a dislocated vertebra in his neck, nerve damage in his hands. He said: "I think of it like air miles—it's all part of the job. I'm not worried about not being able to play the drums again, I'm more worried about being able to cut a loaf of bread safely or building things for my kids." On being "the pop star that nobody likes": The hatred started "around the time that the music was being played so incessantly people wanted to strangle me. It's hardly surprising that people grew to hate me. I'm sorry that it was all so successful." On kids these days: "I look at the MTV Music Awards and I think, "I can't be in the same business as this. I don't really belong to that world." On bowing out: "It feels like a good time to stop for a while. David Letterman wanted me to go on his show on a Monday night recently but I said, "No. Can't do it. I have the kids on a Monday." And my label said, "But this is Letterman!" And I was like, "Guess what? I. Don't. Give. A. F***!" Click for more on Collins.
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The Vibrant vibrating capsule is being tested for treatment of constipation that hasn't responded to normal medications. (Photo11: Vibrant)
Millions of people suffer from constipation — sometimes so bad it can go on for months or years. Medications are effective, but as many as half of all those with chronic constipation get little relief or suffer significant side effects, studies show.
Now an Israeli company, Vibrant, is testing a capsule that would vibrate in the colon, rather than deliver medications.
Adding movements inside the lower intestine mimics peristalsis, the biological process that pushes waves of waste through the bowel. The researchers hope it will break up clumps of waste and encourage the system to work more normally.
They have only just begun to test the multivitamin-sized pill, releasing results Saturday showing it was safely tested in 26 patients who have bowel movements just twice a week on average.
Much bigger, longer trials are needed to show whether the pill will be effective, said Yishai Ron, the research leader and a gastroenterologist at the Tel-Aviv Sourasky Medical Center. But early tests showed promising results, said Ron, who treats a handful of the patients and presented his results Saturday at Digestive Disease Week, an international gathering of experts, being held in Chicago.
"Some of them did stop medication. Some of them really resolved constipation," he said. "In some of them the constipation returned, but they were able to not use those medications anymore."
Eamonn Quigley, chief of gastroenterology at Houston Methodist Hospital in Texas, said he's never heard of any other device-based approach to treating constipation.
"It's completely novel," said Quigley, who's been hired by Vibrant to design its next research trial, comparing the effectiveness of the vibrating pill against a placebo that does nothing. "I think it's an intriguing technology, which deserves some further study," he said.
The idea of using a pill to mimic the normal movements of the bowel makes biological sense, said Douglas Drossman, founder of the Center for Functional GI and Motility Disorders at the University of North Carolina and a gastroenterologist in private practice in Chapel Hill. Drossman, who is not involved in the work, said he was impressed with their early results.
"This is enough information to say they really should study it further and identify a target group who might benefit," he said.
Constipation is a common problem, affecting 10% to 15% of people, particularly women, and increasing with age.
The patients' quality of life can be poor, Drossman said. "They may not travel because they're fearful of needing to know where the bathroom is. They feel bloated, uncomfortable."
Patients taking laxatives generally need an increasingly large dose over time, potentially leading to serious side effects, Ron said. It's too early to know whether the capsule will have long-term side effects.
Ron said the capsule is designed to pulsate three times a minute, roughly the same pace the colon contracts to move waste products through. It starts vibrating 6-8 hours after being swallowed — roughly the time it takes for food to reach the lower part of the digestive system — so the vibrations are not perceptible, he said.
Patients in the trial took the capsules twice a week for two weeks. It is too early to know how much the pills will cost or how long a patient would need to take the single-use capsules to clear up constipation. ||||| 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. ||||| People who can’t get relief from laxatives may have a drug-free alternative — a vibrating capsule that kick-starts the bowels with a little massage from the inside.
The pill’s still experimental and not approved yet, so it's not available. A team of Israeli researchers, with U.S. federal funding, has been testing the device in volunteers with chronic constipation or irritable bowel syndrome.
The capsule nearly doubled the number of bowel movements from two to four a week, Yishai Ron of the Tel-Aviv Sourasky Medical Center and colleagues told the Digestive Disease Week meeting.
“The capsule was activated and started vibrating six hours after administration in a special mode developed by Vibrant Ltd,” the researchers wrote in a summary of their findings. “Each patient received two capsules per week and filled a daily bowel movement and laxative use questionnaire. On each follow-up visit, expelled capsules were collected and side effects were recorded.”
All the patients were healthy and had been screened for colon cancer.
“Two patients had minor complaints of abdominal pain during the study period which resolved spontaneously during the study, two patients complained about diarrhea, one about flatulence and one of sensation abdominal wall twitches. No other related side effects were reported," Ron's team wrote.
Up to half of patients with chronic constipation are unhappy with the results they get from laxatives, the researchers reported. ||||| Chicago, IL (May 3, 2014) -- An oral capsule that vibrates as it moves through the digestive tract has shown notable promise as a non-pharmacological treatment for constipation, according to new research presented today at Digestive Disease Week® (DDW). In the pilot study, the vibrating capsule was found to nearly double the weekly bowel movements of patients suffering from chronic idiopathic constipation (CIC) and constipation predominant irritable bowel syndrome (C-IBS).
"Despite the widespread use of medication to treat constipation, nearly 50 percent of patients are unsatisfied with the treatment either because of side effects, safety concerns about long-term use, or the fact that it simply doesn't work," said Yishai Ron, MD, lead researcher for the study and director of Neurogastroenterology and Motility at Tel-Aviv Sourasky Medical Center's Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology.
Twenty-six patients took the vibrating capsule twice per week and responded to a daily bowel movement and laxative use questionnaire. All patients initially underwent a two-week preliminary period without the use of laxatives. Patients reported an increase in spontaneous bowel movements from two to four times per week, as well as a decrease in constipation symptoms, including reduced difficulty in passing stools and incomplete evacuation. The study also found minimal side effects from the capsule use.
The capsule, which houses a small engine inside, is programmed to begin vibrating six to eight hours after swallowing. The vibrations (mechanical stimulations) cause contractions in the intestine, which help move stool through the digestive tract.
Chronic constipation is a highly prevalent disorder that affects approximately 15 percent of the U.S. population. Symptoms can be burdensome, leading to a reduction in patients' quality of life.
"Sometimes, drug therapies bring more issues than relief for these patients," Dr. Ron said. "The results of this study point to the potential for an alternative treatment that avoids the typical drug side effects, such as bloating and electrolyte imbalance, by imitating the body's natural physiology."
Dr. Ron said he and his team plan to initiate a controlled, double blind study to expand on these findings and further explore the capsule's potential.
Dr. Ron will present data from the study "Vibrating Capsule for the Treatment of Chronic Idiopathic Constipation (CIC) and Constipation Predominant Irritable Bowel Syndrome (C-IBS) - Safety and Efficacy," abstract Sa2023, on Saturday, May 3, at 8:30 a.m. CT in the South Hall of McCormick Place. For more information about featured studies, as well as a schedule of availability for featured researchers, please visit http://www. ddw. org/ press .
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Digestive Disease Week® (DDW) is the largest international gathering of physicians, researchers and academics in the fields of gastroenterology, hepatology, endoscopy and gastrointestinal surgery. Jointly sponsored by the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD), the American Gastroenterological Association (AGA) Institute, the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy (ASGE) and the Society for Surgery of the Alimentary Tract (SSAT), DDW takes place May 3-6, 2014, at McCormick Place, Chicago. The meeting showcases more than 5,000 abstracts and hundreds of lectures on the latest advances in GI research, medicine and technology. More information can be found at http://www. ddw. org .
Follow us on Twitter @DDWMeeting; hashtag #DDW14. Become a fan of DDW on Facebook.
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– Here's a novel idea that could literally shake up the way that millions of people treat constipation: a pill that vibrates when swallowed, rather than delivering medication. The capsule, which is being developed by the Israeli company Vibrant, is the size of a multivitamin and works by mimicking the peristalsis process that pushes waste through the lower intestine, USA Today reports. Researcher Yishai Ron says it increased the number of weekly bowel movements from two to four in 26 test subjects who took it twice a week for two weeks, NBC News reports. That's good news for chronic constipation sufferers (which an estimated 15% of Americans are), as many as 50% of whom who don't get much relief from laxatives, says Ron. Six to eight hours after being swallowed—about the time food would reach the lower part of the digestive system—the Vibrant pill begins pulsating three times a minute. The action is controlled by an external base unit but isn't noticeable to the patient; the capsule is eventually expelled in a bowel movement. The pill could be a superior alternative to laxatives, researchers say, because only a few minor side effects were noted—whereas research has shown that laxatives can have serious side effects, particularly if the dose is increased over time, which is often necessary. The brief study doesn't speak to potential long-term effects, though; more extensive trials are planned. (Weird sidebar: Elvis' longtime doctor claims the King died of chronic constipation.)
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The seed for this crawl was a list of every host in the Wayback Machine
This crawl was run at a level 1 (URLs including their embeds, plus the URLs of all outbound links including their embeds)
The WARC files associated with this crawl are not currently available to the general public. ||||| Clippers owner Donald Sterling, right, and V. Stiviano watch the Clippers play the Lakers in a 2010 preseason game. What possible steps could the NBA take if it chooses to punish Sterling for racist comments he allegedly made? (Danny Moloshok / Associated Press / )
Gabe Feldman, director of the Sports Law Program at Tulane University, said potential discipline for Clippers owner Donald Sterling in the wake of racist remarks Sterling purportedly made would be limited to a suspension and a fine of up to $1 million.
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver is expected to announce a decision on Sterling's punishment Tuesday morning in New York, hours before the Clippers play the Golden State Warriors in Game 5 of their first-round playoff series at Staples Center.
Though provisions exist in NBA bylaws allowing owners to expel one of their members, Feldman said, they are limited to a financial inability to run a team, gambling on a team or game fixing.
Full coverage: The Donald Sterling controversy
The National Basketball Players Assn. has already asked the NBA to keep Sterling away from remaining playoff games this season, which would amount to a de facto suspension for the remainder of the postseason. A formal suspension also seems likely, though there is no precedent to establish its length.
“This is uncharted territory with a new commissioner with a very complicated issue where we have private statements that became public,” Feldman said. “This is not a question about whether the comments are acceptable. I think we all agree they are unacceptable and abhorrent, but the issue becomes stickier because they were not made publicly. That does not excuse the comments, but it does raise the issue of whether owners have empowered the commissioner to punish an owner for comments made in private.”
Sports law expert Michael McCann, the founding director of the Sports and Entertainment Law Institute at the University of New Hampshire School of Law, said the most effective way for the NBA to extract Sterling from ownership might be to impose a one- or two-year suspension while working with him to sell the team.
More severe punishment such as a lifetime suspension, McCann said, would be likely to trigger a burdensome lawsuit from the notoriously litigious owner.
“I think there’s a distinction between what Adam Silver could do as a maximum penalty versus what is the maximum penalty that would lead to the optimal outcome,” McCann said.
McCann said it was unlikely the league would try to extricate Sterling under a provision of its constitution that allows for termination of franchise ownership when an owner “fails to fulfill” a “contractual obligation” in “such a way as to affect the [NBA] or its members adversely.
“He would absolutely sue over that,” McCann said of Sterling. “That is vague enough.”
The NBA would have a better case for ridding itself of Sterling, McCann said, if sponsors severed ties with the Clippers and the league, hurting the league’s finances.
Feldman said the best recourse for owners to oust Sterling may be to exert pressure on him to sell the team, which could be done in part by continuing to speak out against his alleged remarks through social and traditional media.
“It’s certainly possible with pressure from players, the players association and sponsors that that may be enough incentive for Donald Sterling to sell to the right buyer,” Feldman said.
Feldman said there is no clause in the NBA’s collective bargaining agreement that would allow Clippers players to void their contracts and leave the team based on statements made by an owner.
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Floyd Mayweather Jr. prevails in close fight with Marcos Maidana ||||| NBA commissioner Adam Silver has scheduled a news conference for Tuesday in New York City, at which point he may announce his punishment for Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling, who purportedly made racist remarks about African Americans during a private conversation revealed by TMZ. Silver, who replaced longtime NBA chief David Stern in February, promised on Saturday to move "extraordinarily quickly" on the Sterling manner. "There are broad powers in place under the NBA's constitution and bylaws that include a range of sanctions, and all of those will be considered depending on the findings of our investigation," Silver said.
Turns out that in his first major decision as NBA commissioner — President Barack Obama even referenced Silver by name during his comments on the matter from Malaysia, so no pressure — Silver will indeed have pretty broad leeway to dole out what, in his view, is just punishment. The first, and probably least effective, option is a straight fine. NBA owners have been subject to fines before: Mark Cuban, for example, got slapped with a $500,000 penalty in 2002 for criticizing referees. Stern fined Sterling $6 million back in 1984, after Sterling moved the Clippers from San Diego to Los Angeles without the league's approval.
Silver doesn't need the other owners to approve a fine. But Sterling is worth $1.9 billion, according to Forbes . Even some recording-breaking fine — say, in the range of $10 million or so — will be a pittance for Sterling, who has a documented history of loutish behavior.
Silver can also suspend Sterling, again, without a formal vote from the owners. Player suspensions are fairly straightforward: you can't practice or play. But can an owner, who has paid millions for the asset, be kept out of his office by a third party, in this case, the commissioner? Yes. In 2000, for example, Stern suspended Minnesota Timberwolves owner Glen Taylor from October 2000 through August 2001 because of a secret deal the team concocted with forward Joe Smith that circumvented the league's salary-cap rules. During that time, Taylor could not go to games, negotiate deals or talk to reporters (ironically enough, Taylor is now interim chairman of the NBA's board of governors).
Essentially, the owner still holds on to the asset, but can't be involved in day-to-day operations. In baseball, then commissioner Fay Vincent banned George Steinbrenner for life in 1990 for paying a gambler to dig up dirt on outfielder Dave Winfield. Vincent later allowed Steinbrenner to return for the 1993 season.
Slapping an indefinite suspension on Sterling would probably be Silver's best tactic to force Sterling to sell the Clippers. Not that Sterling doesn't already clear economic incentive to unload the team. He purchased the franchise for $12 million back in 1981. According to Forbes , the Clips are now worth $575 million, but even that figure is probably conservative: the small-market Milwaukee Bucks, sans stars like Blake Griffin and Chris Paul, just sold for $550 million. In the open market, the Clippers would surely fetch much more. As SI.com's Michael McCann reports :
The NBA's constitution, which is confidential, reportedly contains language permitting owners to authorize the league to sell a team without an owner's consent. The language, SI.com is told, only covers very limited circumstances and these circumstances concern league finances — namely, when an owner can't pay his bills. There is reportedly no language authorizing the NBA to sell a team because of an owner's hurtful remarks or embarrassing behavior. Even if conditional language could be construed to authorize a forced sale of the Clippers, NBA owners would likely be reluctant to do so given the precedent it would set.
Sterling could appeal any kind of punishment and drag this mess out even further. The fact that the recording between Sterling and his ex-girlfriend could be illegal — in California, both parties to a conversation must consent a conversation being taped — may empower Sterling to put up a fight. The NBA's best hope is that an angel investor — hey, like this guy ! — swoops in and makes Sterling an offer too good to refuse, and that Sterling comes to a common-sense conclusion: his days as an NBA owner appear numbered. ||||| Eighty-five days.
That's the extent of the grace period before Adam Silver -- the NBA's rookie commissioner, who started Feb. 1 -- was plunged into his first crisis.
The scope and furor of the scandal brought on by the racist comments made allegedly by Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling is such that Silver is already facing what's being described as a defining moment for both his own tenure and the league.
What happens next?
Once an investigation into the authenticity of the tapes implicating Sterling is completed, Silver says he'll use his "broad powers" to assess a "range of sanctions" against Sterling. After conversations with high-level league sources possessing knowledge of the issues Silver is considering, ESPN.com offers the following Q&A;, examining where things stand as the Clippers return to Los Angeles for Tuesday's Game 5 of their first-round playoff series with the Golden State Warriors.
Q: What are Silver's specific and immediate options for sanctioning Sterling?
A: The NBA is not going to try to snatch Sterling's team away from him before Game 5. Not that quickly.
The league might never have the gumption to try that step, thanks to the various legal hurdles that stand in the way of the course that seething Clippers players and coaches are hoping for.
A lengthy suspension for Sterling is believed to be the ceiling on Silver's authority in the short term, and only when the NBA's official investigation is complete. That includes the complicated process of confirming that the male voice on the recordings obtained and distributed by TMZ is indeed Sterling's.
The NBA's bylaws are not made public, but sources with knowledge of the secret constitution say Silver does possess the equivalent of a "best interests of the game" clause he can invoke to suspend owners for detrimental conduct even though they theoretically employ him. Two NBA owners held in much higher regard than Sterling -- Minnesota's Glen Taylor (under-the-table contract with former No. 1 overall pick Joe Smith) and the Los Angeles Lakers' Jerry Buss (charged with driving under the influence) -- were suspended when David Stern was in charge.
Most insiders, as the weekend unfolded, thus expected Silver to pursue an indefinite suspension of Sterling from league activity that would also include a substantial fine of up to $1 million, with the corresponding hope that the pressure on and outrage toward Sterling that's piling up daily as a result of this scandal will ultimately convince him that selling the team is the only sensible recourse.
Of course, since there's no telling how long it might take the famously stubborn Sterling to reach that point, Silver has little alternative but to focus on the league's initial aim of removing the 80-year-old from the day-to-day operations of the Clippers. It's also believed any suspension would include Sterling's removal from the NBA's Board of Governors, ensuring that he has no say in league matters during such a ban.
Yet a suspension of any length is bound to be blasted as insufficient in numerous corners, given the widespread, rising anger at Sterling's alleged comments, with the Clippers' locker room serving as the epicenter of the fury.
Another primary goal, as conveyed Sunday by National Basketball Players Association adviser (and Sacramento mayor) Kevin Johnson at a halftime news conference in Oakland during Game 4, is taking the strongest possible action as quickly as possible in hopes of shifting the media's focus back toward the ongoing playoffs.
Q: Sterling has had ample time since the story first broke to come out and tell the world that it's not his voice on the tape. Isn't that all the confirmation the NBA needs?
A: No. Far from it.
Silver made it clear in his Saturday night remarks to the media in Memphis that Sterling, like anyone in the NBA family, must receive the full benefits of "due process" before Silver can issue any ruling.
Step 1 on that front, both in fairness to Sterling and to insulate the league against future lawsuits, is determining whether the tapes are authentic recordings of Sterling or if they were doctored in a way to change the context of the racist statements made. Step 2 would be to interview Sterling to ask him to explain himself.
It's believed that the NBA would also like to interview the woman heard in the recordings, identified as V. Stiviano. The woman's attorney, Mac Nehoray, did not directly respond to an inquiry from ESPN about whether his client was cooperating with the NBA.
But Nehoray said in a statement on Sunday that the audio tapes released Friday night by TMZ are "in fact legitimate" and come from a 15-minute segment of an approximately one-hour audio recording of Sterling and Stiviano. He asserts that Stiviano did not release the tape to any news media.
Nehoray also said Sunday that, because of the recent civil litigation brought by Sterling's wife, Rochelle Sterling, against his client, she would have no further comments on the matter. In addition to liability in the civil case, Stiviano also could be subject to legal action for recording Sterling without his knowledge, which is illegal in the state of California, although it is not yet known who made the recordings or how these unknowns will affect the NBA's investigation. (Some legal experts maintain that because of California law, basing any punishment on the recordings could prove problematic if Sterling retaliates with legal action.)
How the NBA goes about determining the authenticity of the tapes, as well as the context in which they were made, could likewise prove difficult without the cooperation of Stiviano, or an admission from Sterling, because the original recordings are in TMZ's hands. A statement from Clippers president Andy Roeser released Saturday implied that Sterling might have been set up to make such comments, or that the tapes might have been doctored. The statement did not directly dispute that it was Sterling's voice on the recordings, except to say that "what is reflected on that recording is not consistent with, nor does it reflect his views, beliefs or feelings."
Yet one league insider insisted to ESPN.com that Sterling is indeed "on his way out if the tape is legit," despite all of the tricky variables to consider.
"Maybe he will be managed out over time, but it could be abrupt," the source said. "The alleged statements are indefensible from the standpoint of the commissioner, players, owners and many fans. Sterling may seek to negotiate, but he has little or no leverage because he will become a pariah.
"Some people are arguing that his statements were private and that he was set up by his girlfriend. This may be true, but it misses the point that the NBA can't and won't associate with a known racist."
That would be the same NBA, of course, that has always championed its own diversity, and in February welcomed back Brooklyn's Jason Collins, the first active openly gay player in the history of North America's four major team sports.
Not up for argument is the fact the league office regards the investigation as absolutely key, because any punishment Silver delivers could later become an element of a legal or civil case involving the league. It could also wind up as part of the civil case alleging that Stiviano embezzled more than $1.8 million.
Q: If Sterling is suspended, who runs the Clippers?
A: The Clippers' plan in the event of Sterling's death, according to sources with knowledge of the situation, has been for Sterling's wife, Rochelle, to take over as majority owner.
Rochelle -- or Shelly, as she's more commonly known -- is a regular at Clippers games and well-known and liked among other owners. She even accompanied her husband to the April 17 Board of Governors meeting in New York, according to sources.
Donald Sterling's son-in-law, Eric Miller, meanwhile, has been working in the team's front offices for the past few years and, as ESPN.com reported early last season, is being groomed to be the franchise's day-to-day voice on ownership matters. An accountant by trade, Miller currently holds the title of Clippers director of basketball administration, and he works closely with team vice president of basketball operations Gary Sacks.
The problem with all of the above is that coach Doc Rivers and his players, sources close to the situation say, want and expect more drastic change than that. Such is the anger within the Clippers' locker room, according to sources, that the response to Sterling maintaining ownership for any length of time -- even from a distance -- is sure to be negative, to put it charitably.
Will players start asking out of the team? Would Rivers, who's finishing up his maiden season as the Clippers' coach and team president at an annual salary of $7 million, consent to come back next season under those conditions?
"Don't know yet," Rivers told reporters Sunday. "I'm just going to leave it at that."
Rochelle Sterling sat courtside at the Clippers-Warriors game Sunday in Oakland, Calif., and declined to be interviewed on camera. She told ESPN/ABC sideline reporter Lisa Salters that she does not believe in or condone the comments heard on the recordings, but it must be noted that Rochelle Sterling was also named in the housing discrimination lawsuit that Donald Sterling ultimately settled with the Department of Justice for nearly $3 million in 2009.
Q. Why do we keep hearing that the NBA can't force Sterling to sell the team like it did with Cleveland's Ted Stepien in the 1980s?
A: This is a different time. Franchise values have skyrocketed to levels they didn't dare dream of in Stepien's time.
And the Clippers, like it or not, are Sterling's private property, prompting numerous sources to say this week that mandating a sale would be virtually impossible.
Sterling's status as Clippers owner is similar to that of a franchisee in that he has the right to use NBA logos and be a part of the league. But it's considered highly unlikely Silver and his fellow owners would be willing to attempt to revoke his rights as a franchise owner because of the legal ramifications of such a bold decision.
There are other owners and league officials, sources stressed to ESPN.com throughout the weekend, who have wanted Sterling out of the league for years in the wake of all of the off-court allegations he's faced during the past decade. But Sterling's famously litigious history suggests that they could bank on a costly lawsuit in reply. One example: A theoretical antitrust suit from Sterling against the NBA could conceivably allege that he is being forced to sell the Clippers at less-than-market value, because prospective buyers know Sterling has no choice but to sell, with the commissioner and Sterling's ownership rivals trying to push him out.
The league insider who earlier asserted that Sterling will eventually be managed out of the NBA, Marge Schott-style, if the tapes are authenticated, said: "But there's less than 1 in a 100 million odds they attempt to make him sell."
Sources say that the only two known violations that would allow the NBA to force an owner to sell his team are gambling-related offenses or the sort of deep financial problems witnessed in New Orleans with George Shinn.
In Schott's case, she was repeatedly fined and suspended for making racist comments against both African-Americans and Jews. But she stepped down as majority owner of the Cincinnati Reds only when the Reds' limited owners were poised to vote her out.
Angelenos will recall former Dodgers owner Frank McCourt, who was effectively managed out of control of the team by Major League Baseball. MLB commissioner Bud Selig, however, would appear to have a much more favorable path than Silver has now.
McCourt consistently threatened baseball with legal action if it attempted to force him out, but he was ultimately forced to sell when he became insolvent and no longer had the means to operate the team. The NBA assumed operating control of the New Orleans Hornets under similar circumstances in December 2010, when Shinn could no longer meet payroll, but the Clippers are a booming franchise that would quite possibly command in excess of $1 billion on the open market if Sterling -- whose lifelong mantra is that he never sells anything -- put the team up for bidding.
McCourt ultimately argued that he would have been able to operate the Dodgers if MLB had not blocked a lucrative television-rights deal with Fox. The threat of legal action against MLB led to an unprecedented private sale of the team through the financial services firm Blackstone Advisory Partners in which McCourt -- not the league or McCourt's fellow owners -- had final approval over what turned out to be a record sale of $2.15 billion to a group led by Magic Johnson.
Yet the only apparent play available to the NBA would seem to be suspending Sterling and then trying to wear him down to the point he gives in and agrees to sell the Clippers for a massive windfall. Sterling purchased the franchise in 1981 for a reported $12.5 million, but this is a league in which the small-market Milwaukee Bucks, in desperate need of a new, modern arena, were just sold for $550 million.
Q: What do Sterling's fellow owners really think about this mess?
A: They're under fire, too. The league's owners are facing the same questions, along with the retired Stern, posed by Johnson on behalf of the union Sunday: Why wasn't Sterling punished for any of his previous transgressions?
Stern's well-chronicled and longstanding commitment to social justice makes it difficult to believe he didn't want to do more. The working assumption in league circles has been that Sterling repeatedly dodged serious discipline because sordid accusations, court wrangles with former coaches and employees over money, and other assorted out-of-court settlements don't equate to convictions, and because Sterling didn't otherwise overtly break any league rules.
But now Sterling's peers want action. A handful of them, in the wake of what suddenly ranks as Sterling's most public scandal, have already taken the unusual step of publicly expressing their dismay with the league's senior owner, from old-guard veterans such as San Antonio's Peter Holt and Miami's Micky Arison to relative newcomers such as Sacramento's Vivek Ranadive.
"If @TMZ recording is true," Ranadive tweeted Saturday night, "we must have zero tolerance. Fully support commish Silver @NBA."
Then Ranadive added Sunday: "I was shocked. Those are shameful, reprehensible words. And if they are authenticated then I believe we should have zero tolerance, and I have full faith that the commissioner will do the right thing."
Charlotte's Michael Jordan on Sunday issued the lengthiest statement from any rival owner to date, which caused quite a stir given his historical reluctance to speak out on such issues when he was winning six championships as the league's on-court king.
"I look at this from two different perspectives -- as a current owner and former player," Jordan wrote. "As an owner, I'm obviously disgusted that a fellow team owner could hold such sickening and offensive views. I'm confident that Adam Silver will make a full investigation and take appropriate action quickly. As a former player, I'm completely outraged. There is no room in the NBA -- or anywhere else -- for the kind of racism and hatred that Mr. Sterling allegedly expressed. I am appalled that this type of ignorance still exists within our country and at the highest levels of our sport. In a league where the majority of players are African-American, we cannot and must not tolerate discrimination at any level."
Behind the scenes, sources say, there is even louder dismay from Sterling's peers, especially from the new-school owners who are paying such increasingly high prices for franchises -- and are worrying how much damage this is doing to the league's brand.
The owners are also aware of how upset and indignant players throughout the league are. Any show of support for Sterling by an owner or the league, any shred of leniency, will be noticed by every player in the league, not just the fuming Clippers.
"I'm sure the NBA will come down hard on [Sterling]," one source close to the situation said. "It wouldn't surprise me if we never see him again [at an NBA game]." ||||| Donald Sterling NBA Lawyer Authenticates Audio
Donald Sterling Recording Is REAL -- NBA Lawyer Authenticates Racist Audio
EXCLUSIVE
Two NBA lawyers left the law firm representingMonday ... and sources familiar with the situation tell TMZ Sports ... the lawyers are now convinced -- the racist audio ofis REAL.NBA lawyerand another NBA lawyer went to the law office ofMonday afternoon. Stiviano was also there for the purpose of authenticating the audio We're told there was NO doubt by anyone the recording is the real deal. The NBA lawyers heard the 15 minutes that have been made public, but not the remaining 45. And we're told ... based on conversations along with analysis ... they're satisfied about authenticity.
Neither Stiviano nor Anders had comments for our photog as they left the building.TMZ Sports has also learned ... people who have heard the entire recording say there is "NO DOUBT" Donald Sterling KNEW he was being recorded.Anders will report back to NBA Commissioner Adam Silver.
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– Not even Donald Sterling's own daughter or son-in-law is on his side. Both have made statements to TMZ: Joanna Sterling Miller calls her father's alleged racist comments "cruel and insensitive," and her husband Eric Miller—who also happens to work for Sterling's LA Clippers as director of basketball administration—says, "I find the statements and representations made by the Clippers' team owner to be deplorable and disgusting. There is no room in sports or society in general, for racism." He goes on to say that if he ends up getting fired for speaking out, that will be "a small price to pay." Sterling's wife also recently told ESPN she does not "condone" the remarks, the New York Times reports, and the Los Angeles Times notes that more than a dozen sponsors have also ditched the team. Miller also says he's sure NBA Commissioner Adam Silver "will deal with this matter swiftly and severely," and Silver's decision on punishment for Sterling is expected today, the LA Times reports. But one sports law expert says that punishment could be limited to a suspension and a fine, though that fine could hit $1 million. NBA owners can be expelled, but generally only if they gamble on a team, fix a game, or can no longer afford to run their team. Another sports law expert suggests the NBA could suspend Sterling for as long as two years while pressuring him to sell the Clippers. The New York Times agrees that type of pressure, particularly from the "new guard" of NBA owners, could work. One owner has suggested Silver make all of the Clippers players free agents. (As it stands now, Clippers players would not be allowed to void their contracts in order to exit the team.) A host of other "what happens now?" stories from sources including NPR, ESPN, and Time agree that Sterling is likely facing suspension, not expulsion. But first the tape of Sterling's alleged rant must be verified, and according to TMZ's sources, NBA lawyers are convinced the audio is legitimate.
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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. ||||| Related Belvedere demolition
Editorial: Spending $4.2 million in Belvedere to improve a view
The five-bedroom, five-and-a-half bathroom house at 333 Belvedere Ave. featured views of the bay, San Francisco skyline and Golden Gate Bridge. But after paying $4.2 million for the property earlier this year, the couple next door is tearing it down and replacing it with bushes and trees.
Clark and Sharon Winslow purchased the house next door in 2008 for $19 million. The 11,200-square-foot house includes a "resort-style health club" with a 60-foot pool and 5,000 square feet of stone terraces, according to a real estate listing. However, the house lacked a large yard or garden, and its view was partly blocked by its neighbor.
A solution to both problems emerged about two years ago when the owners of the house
Workmen use a garden hose to minimize dust Tuesday during the demolition of a house at 333 Belvedere Ave. in Belvedere. (IJ photo/Alan Dep)
next door fell behind on their mortgage and eventually abandoned the house. The house, which sold in 2004 for $7 million, was repossessed by Bank of America and the Winslows purchased it at an auction for $4.2 million.
They could not be reached for comment.
The demolition, which has been underway for several weeks, appears to be popular with neighbors. Several residents voiced their support at a Planning Commission meeting to consider a demolition permit.
Olivia Hsu Decker of Decker Bullock Sotheby's International Realty, who has sold many high-end homes in Belvedere and lives across the street, said the project will improve the neighborhood and increase her own view.
"The house was pretty beat up anyway," she said.
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"The people hadn't lived there in the last two years."
Contact Will Jason via email at [email protected] or via Twitter at http://twitter.com/willjason
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– A California couple bought and demolished a home that was standing between their $19 million home and spectacular views of the San Francisco skyline and the Golden Gate Bridge. Money manager Clark Winslow and his wife, who bought their Marin County home in 2008, purchased the neighboring home at auction for $4.2 million after its owners, who paid $7 million for it in 2004, fell behind on their mortgage and abandoned the home, CBS reports. The Winslows are replacing the five-bedroom home with bushes and trees, giving their 11,200-square-foot home the big yard it had been lacking. Residents of Belvedere—which has the highest per-capita income of any town in the US with a population of more than a thousand—support the demolition. "The house was pretty beat up anyway," a neighbor tells the Marin County Independent Journal. "The people hadn't lived there in the last two years."
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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. ||||| CHICAGO (Reuters) - A U.S. judge sentenced futures trader Michael Coscia to three years in prison on Wednesday, a lighter punishment than prosecutors had sought for the first person criminally convicted of the manipulative trading practice of spoofing.
Coscia also was sentenced to two years of supervised release from jail, in a case that was closely watched by traders who want to avoid similar charges and market regulators.
Spoofing involves placing bids to buy or offers to sell futures contracts with the intent to cancel them before execution. By creating an illusion of demand, spoofers can influence prices to benefit their market positions.
Prosecutors had asked U.S. Judge Harry Leinenweber to lock up Coscia, owner of New Jersey-based Panther Energy Trading, for as long as seven years and three months after he was convicted last year of spoofing and commodities fraud.
Leinenweber told a packed courtroom in Chicago that Coscia’s typical earnings of about $150,000 per month tripled while he was spoofing markets in 2011.
“It’s hard to see why he was doing that other than greed,” the judge said.
Coscia, who had denied wrongdoing during his trial, said in short prepared remarks at the sentencing: “I stand here convicted and shamed because of my actions.”
Stephen Senderowitz, one of Coscia’s attorneys, said he would appeal the conviction, partly because the government did not sufficiently show that other traders lost money as a result Coscia’s actions.
The trader embraced more than a dozen family members and friends after the sentencing. He must report to prison by Sept. 30.
Prosecutors and regulators hope Coscia’s prison term will discourage other traders from trying to spoof markets. His prosecution was the first under an anti-spoofing provision of the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform.
Coscia was accused of using computer algorithms to quickly place large orders that he never intended to execute into markets run by CME Group and Intercontinental Exchange.
“Initially, there was skepticism that the government could pull this off. I don’t think that skepticism is around anymore,” said Renato Mariotti, a former assistant U.S. attorney who prosecuted Coscia last year.
Mariotti, now a partner at the law firm Thompson Coburn, added that more spoofing indictments were likely soon.
Last year, the U.S. Justice Department and U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission also brought criminal and civil spoofing charges against Navinder Sarao, a London-based trader accused of market manipulation that contributed to the May 2010 “flash crash” in which the Dow Jones Industrial Average briefly plunged more than 1,000 points. Sarao has denied the allegations.
Coscia’s case is U.S. v. Coscia, 14-cr-00551, U.S. District Court, Northern District of Illinois. ||||| The first U.S. trader to be convicted of using a bluffing tactic called “spoofing” after it was made illegal by the Dodd-Frank law was sentenced Wednesday to three years in prison.
Prosecutors had sought a sentence of at least five years and 10 months, while lawyers for the trader, 54-year-old Michael Coscia, had asked for probation. In November, a Chicago jury found him guilty of manipulating commodity futures prices in a scheme...
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– Futures trader Michael Coscia has earned himself a footnote in books about financial crime and a cell in a federal prison for three years after becoming the first person ever convicted of "spoofing" in the US. Coscia, the 54-year-old chief of the Panther Energy Trading firm, was the first to end up in court after the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial overhaul banned spoofing, which involves using algorithms to place orders the trader has no intention of executing, the Wall Street Journal reports. The tactic is used to shift prices in the trader's favor, and prosecutors say it tripled Coscia's earnings of $150,000 a month in 2011, reports Reuters. Prosecutors explained how Coscia manipulated prices in such markets as soybean meal, British pounds, and coppers, using an algorithm for high-frequency trading, Bloomberg reports. "It's hard to see why he was doing that other than greed," said US District Judge Harry Leinenweber in Chicago, who sentenced Coscia to two years less than prosecutors had sought. The trader plans to appeal the conviction but may still have to report to federal prison by Sept. 30. He has already paid a $3 million fine. Former prosecutor Renato Mariotti says that when the case first surfaced, many people thought the government wouldn't be able to prove its case. "I think that skepticism is gone," he says. "I think any trader who hears this sentence has to be thinking, 'I don't want to go to jail.'" (The SEC is trying to rein in high-frequency trading.)
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